Hoboken blogger trial continues, highlighting Hudson city’s political rifts
JERSEY CITY – A defamation case involving Hoboken political bloggers continued before jurors in Hudson County Superior Court on Monday, underscoring freedom of speech issues and the general nastiness of political discourse in Hoboken, Hudson’s real estate boom town.
The trial, which began last week, is rooted in a lawsuit filed by Hoboken resident Lane Bajardi and wife Kimberly Cardinal Bajardi in July 2012 in Hudson County Superior Court seeking $2 million in damages. The Hoboken-based bloggers Roman Brice and Nancy Pincus are named as defendants, as well as 10 other unnamed individuals – listed in the court documents by their on-line screen names – for allegedly posting remarks in 2011 and 2012 that allegedly injured the careers and future employment of the Bajardis. Lane Bajardi is a WINS 1010 radio reporter. (Bonamo/PolitickerNJ)
Blog owner appears to be pro-Hoboken city government. The gravamen of the complaint appears to be that the defendant, generally appearing to be anti-Hoboken government, was slandered as a means to an end, to wit: to get the defendant to stop speaking out against the government.
Correction: the gravamen of the complaint is that the outspoken critic of the Hoboken government (as the plaintiff in the lawsuit) was strategically lied about (slandered) by the pro-government blogger and like-minded commenters (as the defendants) who were trying to fend off or discourage justified criticism of poorly behaving elected representatives and their government cronies.