Bill Baxley
According to a report at Alabama Political Reporter (APR), Republican operative Jessica Medeiros Garrison has filed a lawsuit against me, claiming that my reports on her extramarital affair with Attorney General Luther Strange are false and defamatory. APR reports that Birmingham attorney Bill Baxley filed a complaint on Garrison's behalf, and I have reported here on two threatening letters I've received from Baxley.I haven't seen the alleged complaint, and I haven't been served with a copy, so I don't know if APR has its facts straight or not. But I do know this: If Jessica Garrison has filed a lawsuit against me, with Bill Baxley's assistance, it probably has nothing to do with my reporting on the Luther Strange affair.
What's the real reason that Jessica Garrison is threatening and/or taking legal action against me? Here are three distinct possibilities:
(1) I have been investigating the curious circumstances under which she purchased a foreclosed property in Mountain Brook, which had been appraised at almost $440,000, and she wants to stop that;
(2) I have reported on, and I continue to investigate, her business relationship with a man named Erik Davis Harp, who was indicted in 2009 as a kingpin in an illegal sports-betting operation that had servers in Panama and generated $20 million a month. Leaders of the gambling ring reportedly had ties to the Gambino and Genovese crime families, and Garrison wants to stop my reporting on that;
(3) I have been investigating massive corruption in central Alabama courts, and my reporting at the moment focuses on a prominent judicial figure in Jefferson County. This married judicial figure reportedly has what might be called an "unconventional relationship" with an executive at an "old money" Birmingham investment firm, one that has operated in these parts for more than a century. I interviewed the investment executive on August 15 about his relationship with the judicial figure. Two days later, I received a threatening letter from Bill Baxley.
What does all of this mean? Well, let's focus first on what we know: We've already shown that I contacted Garrison via e-mail on July 12, requesting an interview about her relationship with Luther Strange. I gave Garrison five days to respond, and when she didn't, I proceeded to write my first post on the matter, dated July 17. From that date until August 13, I wrote six posts about the Luther Strange affair--and I never heard a word from Jessica Garrison.
Jessica Medeiros Garrison
What does that tell you about Ms. Garrison and her lawyer, Bill Baxley? It tells me that they know my reporting on the Luther Strange affair is true, and they didn't want to kick a hornet's nest by threatening a bogus lawsuit against me.That strategy apparently changed on August 14, when I sent a second e-mail to Jessica Garrison, raising the issues noted in Nos. 1 and 2 above. Two days later, I heard from Ms. Garrison for the first time, via a threatening letter from Bill Baxley.
So, what do we have here? I wrote six posts about the Luther Strange affair, over a roughly one-month period of time, and never heard a peep from Jessica Garrison. I asked a few questions about her house transaction and her business ties to Erik Davis Harp and . . . presto, Bill Baxley is sending nasty missives to me, on Ms. Garrison's behalf.
What about item No. 3? Well, that is the most interesting possibility of all, the one to which I am paying the most attention. And get this: It doesn't involve Jessica Medeiros Garrison at all.
It does, however, involve Bill Baxley. Someone at the old-money investment firm noted earlier is very close to Mr. Baxley. And I have electronic documents suggesting that someone (or several someones) at the firm was extremely distressed about my interview with the executive. My electronic records show these individuals conducted extensive research on my major posts at the time, especially on reports about the Jessica Garrison/Luther Strange affair.
This all suggests that Bill Baxley is using Jessica Garrison as a "straw man" in an effort to stop my reporting on a corrupt Jefferson County judicial figure and an executive at a local investment firm. This further suggests that any lawsuit filed on Jessica Garrison's behalf probably has nothing to do with Ms. Garrison.
I will be sharing my electronic documents shortly. They suggest that Bill Baxley is conducting an elaborate legal hoax, apparently with Jessica Garrison's support and permission. It's the kind of scam that probably should get both of them disbarred.
We also soon will be learning much more about the investment executive and his close relationship with a major judicial figure in Jefferson County.
(To be continued)
