02/28/2011  

On February 28, 2007, the plaintiffs Jean Hubert Laforest, Michael Youte, Lucien Pierre and the Organization for the Development of Gonaives Haiti, Inc (ODGH) alleged that journalist Jacques Dady Jean and his wife, Karrie Ann Jean, were the authors of several articles about their promiscuous homosexual life published in several websites. The plaintiffs sought a judgment and damages for public humiliation, mental anguish and emotional distress they endured as a result of the articles.  

Noting that all the plaintiffs are members of a small Haitian radical right wing conservative group.

Under the Massachusetts laws a  plaintiff in a defamation case must prove that the statement was false and that the defendant, in fact, made the statement.

Up until the trial that was scheduled to begin on February 24, 2011, the plaintiffs Jean Hubert Laforest, Michael Youte and Lucien Pierre could not present any evidence to support their allegations. In addition, the court found their witnesses were incompetent to testify in that case; as a result Middlesex Superior Court Justice Jane Haggerty dismissed the plaintiff’s case.  

Attorney Kerby Roberson, who ran a smear campaign against gay marriage during a Massachusetts special legislative election in 2005, was the lead counsel for the plaintiffs.  The defendants, who represented themselves pro se, always maintained that they never authored any article against the Plaintiffs. The defendants, Jacques Dady Jean and Karrie Ann Jean, insist that this frivolous case was filed in retaliation for their decision in May of 2006 to discontinue advertising with the plaintiffs radio program, Radio Express International, hosted on WUNR, 1600 AM, and withdraw financial support to their organization after the hosts began behaving unprofessionally during their show.

For more information about this case, the docket can be obtained from the Middlesex Superior Court, case # is 07-0768.

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