McDonald ups the ante in civil litigation with county supervisor

A photo Tom Sayre had taken of himself with Jennifer McDonald on June 18, 2018 celebrating the ITFederal groundbreaking behind EDA headquarters. Social Media File Photo

The civil case legal battle between sitting Warren County Supervisor Tom Sayre and former Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority Executive Director Jennifer McDonald became a little less civil on February 19.

That is the day McDonald attorney Lee Berlik filed a $600,000 defamation suit against Sayre in Warren County Circuit Court – $250,000 for injury to reputation, humiliation, insult and embarrassment; and $350,000 in punitive damages. Ironically perhaps, considering there appears to be little love lost between this litigating couple, Berlik’s paperwork to the court on the suit is dated February 14, Valentine’s Day.

Five months earlier, on September 21, 2018, Sayre attorneys filed a $25,000 defamation suit against McDonald in Warren County General District Court. Both lawsuits revolve around allegations about alleged actions of the respective defendants related to a reported rock-throwing vandalism at McDonald’s home on June 15, 2017.

While Sayre’s suit focuses on the presence of his phone number and the name “Tom” on a note discovered at the scene of the June 15 vandalism; McDonald’s suit’s focus is Sayre’s alleged reaction to public disclosure of that note and its contents. That disclosure came as part of evidence submitted in a criminal misdemeanor filing of a false police report case by Virginia State Police against McDonald on June 13, 2018.

On October 31, 2018, McDonald was acquitted of the false police report misdemeanor after Judge W. Dale Houff granted a defense motion to dismiss. In making his ruling, Judge Houff observed that the prosecution had presented no evidence as to motive that would lead the defendant to create a false criminal narrative or presented enough evidence to convict.

McDonald subsequently resigned from the EDA executive director’s position that she had held for a decade on December 20, 2018. Her job performance had been under closed session scrutiny by the EDA board in the wake of the Town of Front Royal’s discovery of eight years of debt service over-payments to the EDA totaling about $291,000.

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As it was in the misdemeanor trial, the accuracy of Royal Examiner reporter Roger Bianchini’s memory of when he was told about the vandalism by McDonald is likely to be a part of both civil defamation cases.

However, the issue of Sayre’s statements to others regarding the presence of his office phone number, as well as the name “Tom” on the note instructing a “terrorizing” of McDonald pointed out to investigators on the ground at the site of the stone-throwing vandalism at her front door in June 2017 is the pivotal issue of McDonald’s defamation case.

Tom Sayre at October 2018 county board work session – Royal Examiner File Photo

The Complaint notes, “To date, the person who vandalized Ms. McDonald’s home has not been identified or charged with any crime.”

“Mr. Sayre, however, has taken it upon himself to proclaim to anyone who will listen that the whole incident was ‘staged’; that Ms. McDonald herself is the person who vandalized her house; and that Ms. McDonald wrote the note herself to defraud the police and the public, and to frame him for a crime he didn’t commit.”

The Complaint further alleges, “All of these statements are false, and Mr. Sayre knows they are false and knew they were false at the time he made them” and that unnamed third parties who heard these allegations “understood the remarks as referring to Ms. McDonald in a defamatory sense.”

A second phone number on the note reflecting an apparent conspiracy to terrorize McDonald was found to belong to former Front Royal Town Manager Michael Graham. Both Graham and Sayre testified at the misdemeanor trial that they had no knowledge of the note or any conspiracy against McDonald or her property. In fact, it was reported that while dismissing the false police report charge against McDonald, Judge Houff commented that there was something terribly wrong about the note.

Things were a little chillier between McDonald, blue dress seated in upper left, and Sayre, far right, during that early October 2017 board of supervisors work session 11 days after Sayre’s defamation suit was filed; little doubt they are yet chillier now. Royal Examiner File Photo

A June 21 date has been set for an estimated four-hour trial in the Sayre defamation suit against McDonald. Substitute Winchester Judge Ian Williams will hear that General District Court case. Sayre’s $25,000 defamation suit states that he “lost significant sleep, suffered acute anxiety, could not focus at work, sought counseling from his Priest, spent countless hours seeking to clear his name and repair damage to his reputation.”

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As it is likely to also be a topic of testimony in both civil cases, at this point Royal Examiner will leave details of reporter Bianchini’s memory of when he was told about the McDonald home vandalism and potential corroborating or un-corroborating testimony about his memory for future discussion – or testimony.

We will note, however, that McDonald’s civil defamation filing does point to his misdemeanor trial testimony of having “been drinking the night before he spoke to police” (two or three light beers with pizza was the testimony) and that “he has a tendency to conflate dates” (at some distance like the 16 months between June 2017 and the October 2018 trial, if “not an hour later” as he told Judge Houff of the time-frame between an alleged EDA calendar-notated June 16, 2017, 9:30 a.m. meeting with McDonald and his meeting with FRPD about the May 2017 EDA office break-in an hour later); and finally that “his train of thought derails frequently” (what were we talking about?) …

(Roger Bianchini contributed to this story – as if you couldn’t figure that out.)