Patriot Conservatives account garnished to pay sanctions

Eight months after Fourth Judicial Court Judge William Edelman dismissed a libel lawsuit filed by the Patriot Conservatives of Johnson County PAC against the Buffalo Bulletin, the case has finally concluded after the PAC’s bank account was garnished to pay court-ordered sanctions.

Chris Wages, attorney for the defendants, said that ordering a plaintiff to pay sanctions is a “pretty extraordinary measure.” The PAC was represented by attorney Nick Beduhn.

“The initiation of the legal action in the first place was flawed and I made a concerted effort to bring that to the attention of the attorney of the Patriot Conservatives,” Wages said. “Aside from the fact that I didn’t believe the substance of the suit was a strong cause of action, they sued parties that could have nothing to do with the case, which I thought was irresponsible and poor legal practice. I notified the plaintiff’s attorney, and given the opportunity to fix it, they did nothing. So innocent parties were required to spend time, energy and money defending a frivolous lawsuit. The judge recognized all those factors and made an award in favor of the defendants that were erroneously sued.” 

While Edelman ordered the sanctions in December, the PAC had failed to pay their debt. Ultimately, the Bulletin asked the court to garnish the PAC’s bank account to collect the debt.

“While I am happy that this case has finally come to an end, I find it really sad that in addition to fighting a frivolous lawsuit, that we had to go to extreme measures just to collect the court-ordered sanctions,” said Robb Hicks, publisher of the Buffalo Bulletin.

Last August, the Patriot Conservatives of Johnson County — recently renamed the Patriot Conservatives of Wyoming — filed a libel suit against defendants Eclipse Media, Inc., the Weiser Signal American Inc., the Buffalo Bulletin Inc., Pronghorn Publishing Inc., and Frontier Newspapers Inc. claiming the PAC was defamed by the Buffalo Bulletin newspaper. 

In November, Edelman dismissed the complaint against defendants Weiser Signal American Inc., the Buffalo Bulletin Inc., Pronghorn Publishing Inc., and Frontier Newspapers Inc. because either the entities no longer exist or there is connection between any actions taken by the defendants and any injury alleged by the plaintiff. Eclipse Media, Inc. is the publisher of the Buffalo Bulletin. 

In December, Edelman ruled that the PAC had failed to “allege or identify any oral communication made by Eclipse Media, Inc., which is required for a claim of slander.”Edelman ruled that even if the allegations in the complaint are true, the plaintiff has no cause for action for defamation because the PAC is considered a public figure that inserted itself into a public controversy and they failed to make any credible claim for economic damages.

Edelman also ordered the PAC to pay $8,942 in sanctions to the defendants and defense counsel for failure to dismiss charges against uninvolved parties after attorney Beduhn was made aware that those parties were not involved. 

However, the Patriot Conservatives never paid the court-ordered sanctions.

“These people are not conservative,” Hicks said. “They are just bullies with a podcast and a sign. It is not a conservative value to file frivolous lawsuits. It is not a conservative value to not pay your bills. It is not a conservative value to disregard the rule of law. The fact that we were forced to garnish their bank account is demonstrative of these people’s lack of character. At any point, David Iverson (the PAC’s chairman) or John DeMatteis (the PAC’s listed treasurer through June 2022) or Roger Bronnenberg (the PAC’s current treasurer) could have penned a check to pay their court-ordered sanctions. Instead they forced us to play a game to find out where they had their money hidden. At that point, the court garnished their account to pay their debt.”