Judge Allows N.Y. Law Firm’s Defamation Suit Against Lawyer
A lawyer accused of defaming a Long Island law firm during his defense of its bookkeeper has failed to win dismissal of the lawsuit against him.
Judge Daniel Palmieri refused to dismiss the suit against lawyer Thomas Liotti, the New York Law Journal reports. Galasso, Langione, Catterson & LoFrumento sued Liotti for remarks he made about the law firm’s practices while defending Anthony Galasso, who was accused of embezzling from the firm.
Palmieri ruled that the law firm does not need to prove actual malice under New York Times v. Sullivan since the law firm is not a public figure, the story says.
The suit claims Liotti defamed the law firm in remarks made to Newsday. He reportedly said: “Anthony didn’t do anything that he was not instructed to do by his superiors. Whatever he did, he did with their full knowledge and consent. Dipping into company accounts was a common practice among attorneys there. Is the Galasso firm going to say they never went to a concert or a sporting event using this money? I think that’s something that should be addressed.”
Galasso was sentenced in June to 2½ to 7½ years in prison for embezzling $4.3 million from the firm.
In his ruling allowing the suit, Palmieri said Galasso had submitted new affidavits about alleged questionable practices at the law firm, but they do not state that other law firm employees participated in Galasso’s theft of funds.
Liotti told the New York Law Journal that even if he did make the statements in Newsday, they were harmless in the overall context of the case. “I simply raised a question, which is ‘did Anthony act alone, or did he have help?’ ” he wrote in court papers. “This is the job of a criminal defense attorney—to raise reasonable doubt.”
