Defense attorneys Arthur Cantu and Harry Damkar dropped a
defamation lawsuit against Matthew Sarsfield, the brother of
District Attorney John Sarsfield, because they believe the media
exposure indicating that it was Matthew Sarsfield who wrote a
biting letter to the editor of the Free Lance under the pseudonym
Sara M. Jones has sufficiently reversed any damage it did to their
reputations.
Hollister – Defense attorneys Arthur Cantu and Harry Damkar dropped a defamation lawsuit against Matthew Sarsfield, the brother of District Attorney John Sarsfield, because they believe the media exposure indicating that it was Matthew Sarsfield who wrote a biting letter to the editor of the Free Lance under the pseudonym Sara M. Jones has sufficiently reversed any damage it did to their reputations.
The lawyers decided to drop the lawsuit, which was made official last week, because they believed the suit had succeeded in righting the wrong Matthew Sarsfield accomplished when he wrote the disparaging letter about them.
“Will the real Sara Jones please stand up was the whole mantra behind the case,” Cantu said. “Once her skirt was removed, I thought that was sufficient to repair my reputation. It’s over, and we’re moving onto bigger and better fights in the future.”
But John Sarsfield, who has continually denied any involvement in writing the letter, believes the motivating factors behind the lawsuit were money and spite.
“They had made several demands for monetary settlements along the way. But I suspect it was simply this weird vendetta, and in my opinion sick obsession, they’ve got against me and my family,” the district attorney said. “The whole thing was just stupid from the beginning.”
Matthew Sarsfield did not return phone calls Thursday, but has referred all comments to his attorney, Daniel Pyne.
Pyne said he and his client are pleased with the result, but believe the suit was without merit from the start and that by writing the letter the police sergeant was simply exercising his right of free speech.
“Mr. Sarsfield wished the whole thing wouldn’t have happened. He doesn’t believe he did anything wrong,” Pyne said.
But Cantu said the letter doesn’t fall into the free speech category because it isn’t free speech – it’s false speech. Pyne filed a motion to dismiss the case under the First Amendment last June, but a judge ruled the motion to be “frivolous and without merit” and awarded Cantu more than $1,000 in attorney’s fees, he said.
“I’ve had my just rewards and paying me attorney’s fees of filing a frivolous motion and getting media exposure is sufficient to balance the initial Sara Jones matter,” Cantu said. “I think we’ve done what we needed.”
Cantu filed the defamation suit after discovering that Matthew Sarsfield, a sergeant with the Livermore Police Department, e-mailed a letter to the Free Lance in November of 2003 using the name Sara M. Jones and claiming to be a former office assistant of Damkar’s while he was the San Benito County District Attorney. Cantu tracked Matthew Sarsfield down by first subpoenaing Internet provider (IP) addresses from Microsoft Hotmail and then tracking them back to Internet service provider SBC. He then subpoenaed the SBC records for the name and address of where the computer that sent the e-mail was located.
Damkar joined the suit after Cantu unmasked Matthew Sarsfield as the letter’s author because he wanted to see if any other people were involved in its creation, he said. Robert Orabuena, the defendant in a highly publicized vehicular manslaughter trial that same year, also joined the suit.
The letter accused Cantu of playing the “race card” in the Orabuena case and said it was difficult for employees under Damkar to “do our jobs because our former boss knew he would be shortly working with the opposing side,” according to the letter. It also thanked John Sarsfield for taking control of the district attorney’s office.
Pyne said Matthew Sarsfield was distraught about being dragged through the lawsuit, but didn’t know if his client regretted writing the letter in the first place.
“I don’t know the answer to that,” he said. “I never asked him that question.”
Damkar originally believed the letter’s disparaging contents threatened the success of his practice. But the suit was ultimately taking his attention away from his work and his clients, so he agreed to drop it.
While no money changed hands, the fact that Matthew Sarsfield was designated as the elusive and fallacious Jones was enough for him. However, he conceded that a court of appeals recently ruled a Web site posted by Hollister resident Joe Felice, who listed the “Top Ten Dumb Asses” of San Benito County several years ago, was protected by free speech.
“But the court of appeals ruled that was opinion, and this was not just an opinion, it was outright defamation,” Damkar said. “This case would have been a winner had it gone to trial. It had nothing to do with money – it had everything to do with seeking justice. I’m tired of people throwing my name in the mud.”
Sarsfield and Cantu, who lost to the prosecutor in the 2002 district attorney election, have had a contentious relationship from the race’s inception. And Sarsfield has continually bashed Damkar’s previous administration, which reined for nearly 20 years before Sarsfield was elected.
Although Cantu was awarded attorney’s fees months ago, he said he didn’t decide to drop the lawsuit until now because the case was tied up in motions made by each side and he was waiting for the proceedings to run their course.
But Pyne said the lawyers could have dropped the suit at any time but chose now because Pyne was planning on filing a motion to dismiss the suit next month.
“I believe there was a good chance it would get dismissed with the next motion,” he said. “The only thing you get in a lawsuit if you’re successful is money. When they came to realize they wouldn’t, they decided to walk away.”
Erin Musgrave covers public safety for the Free Lance. Reach her at 637-5566, ext. 336 or [email protected]
