PITTSBURGH – A state court judge has granted motions to learn more about the identities of two individuals who were said to have provided a series of text messages between a Pittsburgh man and a young rowing club student painting him as an illicit sexual predator, and causing him to lose a job opportunity.
Florin Curuea of Pittsburgh first filed suit in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas on Nov. 6 versus two John Doe defendants.
“On or about Sept. 2, 2020, plaintiff, was informed that John Doe #1 had recently emailed a number of text messages bearing dates starting in August and ending in September 2011 to the Steel City Rowing Club. Those text messages were between plaintiff and a female who was 17 years old at the time. Plaintiff was 29 years old at the time. The female was one of plaintiff’s rowing students,” the suit said.
“The text messages dealt with, among other things, a possible private meeting taking place between them, the need for secrecy if a meeting did take place, and the final decision they jointly made that a meeting should not take place. As a result of receiving the text messages, the Club revisited the issue of hiring plaintiff and withdrew its offer of employment to him. By themselves, without more, the text messages created the impression that plaintiff was soliciting a sexual relationship with the female.”
According to Curuea, that impression was both wrong and misleading.
“John Doe #1 failed to provide to the Club the police report concerning the text messages which concluded that plaintiff’s conduct, though ‘inappropriate conduct for a coach,’ were ‘not explicit or direct in soliciting any type of sexual relationship,’ ‘were not sexual in nature,’ and were ‘not illegal’ and that the female’s father fully concurred with the police report,” the suit stated.
Though it hired Curuea in the summer, he said the Club withdrew his employment offer after it received the text messages in question.
“Plaintiff is a private figure, not a public figure. A public school coach has been held to be a public figure, in contrast to a coach in a private club. Because plaintiff is a private figure, the burden of proving that the representations without the police report and letter were true and not false and misleading is on John Doe #1 and John Doe #2. If, for the sake of argument, plaintiff is a public figure, the publications made by John Doe #1 and John Doe #2 were made with actual malice – with knowledge that the statements were false or with reckless disregard of its falsity,” according to the lawsuit.
“Alternatively, John Doe #1 and John Doe #2 acted negligently or intentionally (but without actual malice) in defaming plaintiff, a non-public figure. The publications by John Doe #1 and John Doe #2 did not merely embarrass or annoy plaintiff. On the contrary they grievously fractured his standing in the community of respectable society and lowered him in the esteem of his peers and exposed him to their contempt.”
UPDATE
On Jan. 12, the plaintiff filed motion for leave for two subpoenas as to permit John Doe discovery (production of documents), connected to the identity of the two individuals who provided the text messages.
“Based on his conversations with the president of the rowing club, plaintiff’s counsel has inferred that, conspicuous by their absence from the materials provided by the John Does to the club, were (a) the police report clearing the coach of any unlawful conduct, ending all investigation of him, and confirming that the female’s father had concurred that no action was warranted against plaintiff, as well as (b) a letter from a person close to the situation at that time in 2011, Zachary Petronic, reaffirming the accuracy of the police report,” the motion stated.
“Plaintiff and his counsel then received information from another person who believes, based on what he has heard, that the John Does are Zachary Petronic and A.J. Smith. This information is regarded by plaintiff and his counsel as hearsay. The subpoenas now requested are directed to Messrs. Petronic and Smith.”
The plaintiff is requesting limited discovery of documents, specifically: All paper and electronic documents (such as emails) which were sent or received between June 1, 2020 and October 1, 2020 that had attached or enclosed any text messages between the plaintiff rowing coach and one of his female students during August and September 2011. The attachments and enclosures must also be produced.
The very same day, Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas Judge Philip A. Ignelzi granted the motion.
For counts of defamation, defamation per se, intentional interference with prospective contractual relations and civil conspiracy, the plaintiff is seeking damages in excess of the compulsory judicial arbitration limit in this Court, plus loss of income, reputational damage, punitive damages and such other damages and remedies that the Court determines are just and proper, in addition to a trial by jury.
The plaintiff is represented by Vincent J. Restauri Jr. in Cranberry Township.
The defendants have not yet secured legal counsel.
Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas case GD-20-011551
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com