Press "Enter" to skip to content

Court Swami Close: Judge Skeptical of Lederman Lawsuit, Doesn’t Dismiss Yet

I was close! On Sunday, court swami said a judge would toss Sen. Dan Lederman's lawsuit against Daniel Willard and other as yet unidentified robocallers. Today, Second Circuit Court Judge Stuart Tiede didn't toss the suit... but he "peppered Lederman’s attorney Joel Arends with skeptical questions":

...Tiede said it seemed only the secretary of state or prosecutors could use the courts to enforce election law.

“This is not the attorney general bringing an action on behalf of the secretary of state to enforce campaign finance laws,” Tiede said of Lederman’s lawsuit. “This is a private individual, essentially becoming a private attorney general to enforce campaign finance laws” [David Montgomery, "Judge Skeptical of Lederman Lawsuit, But Grants Delay," Political Smokeout, 2013.04 29].

Judge Tiede also said the affadavit filed by Lederman's lawyer Joel Arends last week smells like "inadmissable hearsay"... which is just what the state rep Lederman and Arends sought to smear, Stace Nelson, said about their stunt.

Mr. Montgomery reports that Judge Tiede gave Lederman and Arends more time to offer evidence, but he is keeping Willard's motion to dismiss the case before him. That's not a loss for Lederman, but it sure doesn't read like a good day in court.

3 Comments

  1. Roger Elgersma 2013.04.30

    I have heard of citizens arrests when the cops did not see something. If the states attorneys miss something or have a special interest, it seems it would be good if someone could point out in court that the law was not followed.
    In this case we have people slandering others and not getting caught. The government has computers that can get at anyones business and seems not to be able to find out what or who did this in a red state that has closed door meetings to do government.

  2. caheidelberger Post author | 2013.04.30

    Here's some rank speculation, Roger: is it possible Lederman and Arends are acting in concert with the Attorney General for purely political purposes?

    And be careful with that word "slander": I didn't hear or read any slander in those anonymous attacks, just discussions of voting records. Plus, since we're talking about public officials, we have to jump a higher bar to establish slander.

  3. grudznick 2013.04.30

    Why is young Mr. Lederman in the news as much as Mr. Gant used to be?

Comments are closed.