Lehigh County controller adds former commissioner to libel lawsuit
ALLENTOWN, Pa. — A former Lehigh County commissioner and repeat candidate for higher office is joining some of his fellow Republicans as a defendant in a high-profile libel lawsuit.
Dean Browning was sued Thursday by County Controller Mark Pinsley, who alleges Browning and the Lehigh County Republican Committee harmed his reputation by claiming he supports Hamas, the ruling group in Gaza that the U.S. has designated as a terrorist organization for decades.
Pinsely and his lawyer, Matthew Mobilio, filed the lawsuit in November, days after the Republican Committee distributed a mailer that said Pinsley's attendance at a pro-Palestinian rally in Allentown showed his "pro-Hamas" stance.
"STOP Left-Wing Radical Mark Pinsley Marched in a pro-Hamas rally in Allentown last week," the mailer stated next to a picture of Pinsley.
The mailer also says Pinsley "called for defunding the police in Lehigh County."
Pinsley said the rally was not pro-Hamas; it was pro-Palestinians, and that he wanted to audit a third-party vendor contract, not defund the police.
His lawsuit names as defendants every member of the executive leadership of the committee, including Chairman Joe Vichot, Vice Chairwoman Linda Swankoski, Secretary Jacqueline Rivera, Assistant Secretary Pam Roth and Treasurer Ray Leister.
The county controller is accusing the defendants of libel as a public official rather than a public citizen. That means he must prove committee members acted with actual malice; Mobilio said he thinks he can prove that.
Mobilio is seeking more than $1 million in punitive damages for "extreme emotional distress, humiliation, depression, embarrassment, anguish and anxiety" felt by Pinsely and "a physical manifestation of said distress" that continues.
Pinsley said the rally was not pro-Hamas; it was pro-Palestinians, and that he wanted to audit a third-party vendor contract, not defund the police.
Pinsley's "standing in the Jewish community ... has been tarnished," Mobilio said in the filing naming Browning as a defendant.
Pinsley in November called the mailer "anti-Semitic," saying it portrayed him as a "self-hating Jew."
"I stand with the people of Palestine, not with Hamas," Pinsley said. "I stand with the people of Israel, not with [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu."
