A screenshot of several of the images posted on “swampmemes.com” whose anonymous owner is being sued by the images’ target, Clark County Republican Party Chair David Gellatly, along with the owner of two other websites, a Facebook page attacking Gellatly and one Republican Precinct Committee Officer for defamation.
The chair of the Clark County Republican Party has filed a defamation suit against a precinct committee officer and other anonymous parties over claims made in public about the party head.
A complaint of defamation and libel was filed Oct. 6 by Clark County Republican Party Chair David Gellatly in Clark County Superior Court. The complaint alleges that since Gellatly’s appointment in December 2016 he has endured “a withering stream of hurtful and damaging accusations which were false.”
The alleged defamation occurred both online and out in the public, the suit stated, mentioning billboards attacking Gellatly that had appeared in Clark County in September. Claims were made that some of the signs were illegally removed per a state law pertaining to political signage. Those claims are what Gellatly took issue with in the suit, among other alleged attacks on him.
The suit names several websites and a Facebook page in its allegations, including removegellatly.com, dilldave.com and swampmemes.com. All three sites feature content attacking Gellatly, ranging from a list of alleged violations as chair on removegellatly.com to a collection of dozens of images in the popular meme format at swampmemes.com.
According to WHOIS data, which lists information about domain names, all three of the sites’ domains were created within days of each other in September, and all three have the owner listed as some sort of out-of-state domains-by-proxy website, effectively hiding who the real owner of the domains are.
The one named party, Richard Colwell, was targeted in the suit due to allegations he sent an email to another party leader in which he said “as clear as the sun shines upon the earth, he lied, and then embezzled funds,” noting that embezzlement is a crime and claiming the allegations to be false.
Gellatly seeks punitive damages from both Colwell and the anonymous parties owning the websites, as well as attorney fees and any other damages deemed appropriate by the court.
Following the service of the suit, Colwell had set up a crowdfunding webpage to help pay for attorney fees. As of Friday morning the campaign had received more than $900 in pledges and nearly 100 shares on Facebook.
