Wisconsin Blogger Sued for Defamation

No… not me.

A subdivision developer filed a defamation lawsuit Wednesday against a Brookfield resident contending that she defamed the builder and his venture “The Shire,” both in her role as a city alderman and in her Internet blog.

Joseph C. Niebler Sr., as president of NFI Properties LLC, contends that Cynthia Kilkenny continually made untrue and malicious statements about the Shire development, a name drawn from J.R.R. Tolkien’s’ “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. Kilkenny, Niebler says, called him “the Dark Lord,” and described the development as “icky,” “a flop” and contaminated by an adjacent, closed landfill, the lawsuit says.

Kilkenny, who is no longer a Brookfield alderman, said Wednesday that she had not yet seen the lawsuit.

“I’m not terribly worried about it,” she said.

Niebler contends that Kilkenny made statements about him and the development that she knew were untrue and with malice while she was an alderman, during her tenure as a blogger for BrookfieldNow.com, and in her most recent blog, fairlyconservative.com, the lawsuit says. BrookfieldNow is produced by Journal Interactive, a division of Journal Communications

Boy, I can’t wait to read the suit.  If it seriously hinges on the plaintiff being called “The Dark Lord” and his project “icky,” then it shouldn’t go anywhere.  In any case, as a blogger, I will be following this closely.