A Wisconsin businessman named Cory Tomczyk has tried to sue The Wasau Pilot & Review for defamation after the news website reported that he had called a 13-year-old boy the f-slur. Although the case was initially tossed out of court, Tomczyk has filed an appeal.
Pilot & Review wrote the article not as a smear piece but about the county board meeting in Wasau, Wisconsin on August 12, 2021. Acting off of a tip from a reader, they reported that roughly 12 minutes in, Cory Tomczyk used the slur. Tomczyk demanded that they retract the article. When he did not get his way, he sued.
Tomczyk, who owns a paper shredding and recycling company and is a Republican senator, admitted during his deposition that he had used the slur multiple times in the past. Amid other reports from three witnesses, his credibility in court was quickly crumbled to nothing.
We are all aware that freedom of speech does not equate to freedom of consequences for using such speech. This case goes a little further beyond a senator not understanding such a principle. Pilot & Review is not a large company and is one of a few local news sources in Wasau, Wisconsin. Lawyers are not cheap, and Shereen Siewert, owner of Pilot & Review, has said that she is unsure as to how she will be able to pay both her lawyers and staff of four.
Siewert has gained anxiety about opening her own mail from just how expensive the whole suit was, stating, “Every time I open the mail, I want to throw up.”
People in positions of wealth and power have recently been using defamation suits to squash any who oppose them. The slightest hint of disdain towards a businessman with a fragile ego and cracked complex could end in bankruptcy from legal fees. This is simply another case of someone abusing their power and wealth to step on something that they deem smaller than themselves.
