RIVERHEAD – A lawyer who lost last year’s fiery Republican primary for Riverhead town supervisor has now also met with defeat in Supreme Court, where her libel claims against a political fundraising group and a weekly newspaper, both accused of sandbagging her campaign, have been dismissed. A similar claim against the election winner, two-term supervisor Robert F. Kozakiewicz, survives.
Though Acting Justice Edward D. Burke found some inaccuracies in the Community Journal’s editorial on Judith W. Pitsiokos’ candidacy, he found even those inaccurate statements passed the test for “substantial truth” established by Jung Hee Lee Han v. New York, 186 AD2d 536. Under the same case, he noted, “proof of the truth of the defamatory words constitutes a complete defense.”
