MONTICELLO, NY — On Thursday, September 21, Sullivan County Legislator Luis Alvarez won his defamation case against colleague and county legislative chair Robert Doherty. The jury unanimously found Doherty defamed Alvarez when he made public statements that Alvarez called a female employee an epithet and then said the statement was “founded.”

For now, this verdict concludes a three-year saga that began with an October 2020 ethics board hearing. The hearing determined that Alvarez had conducted himself in a belligerent manner toward Stephanie Brown, the then-Sullivan County Health and Human Services commissioner and director of the county-run Care Center at Sunset Lake, where Alvarez’s wife was a resident. Alvarez was expressing concern about her care.

The statement that became the subject of the defamation case was posted on the Sullivan County official website by Doherty on January 22, 2021 following the conclusion of the ethics board determination. The statement accused Alverez of calling a female county employee the “c” expletive. Doherty repeated this claim on Facebook.

In response, Alveraz expressed his disagreement with the ethics board’s determination that he acted in an unprofessional manner toward Brown and requested to take the matter before the legislature.

Ethics board proceedings are intended to be confidential.

During the county legislature’s public discussion of the ethics board findings, no action was taken on the ethics board’s findings or the recommendation for Alvarez to seek counseling for anger management.

Doherty did not provide details to his claim nor did he retract it.

On February 4, less than two weeks after the public post by Doherty and the public discussion of the ethics committee findings, Brown resigned from her position as commissioner, ending her six years of working for the county.

The River Reporter attempted to contact Brown without success.

In the defamation case

According to the court defamation documents, when Brown was questioned in her unemployment hearing on May 13, 2021 about her decision to resign, she referred to her disappointment in the legislature taking no action on the ethics charge. “I felt like there were no consequences for the behavior. And—and it was very upsetting to me.”

She continued, “And in fact, not only would there be no consequences, but these discussions would happen publicly, and my reputation would continue to be placed in question.”

The court papers reflect that Brown, in the ethics board hearing, did not mention that Alvarez referred to her with any specific epithets. She did answer “yes” in her unemployment hearing when asked by county attorney Michael McGuire if she was called the specific epithet, held three months after Alvarez filed his lawsuit. While the result of the unemployment hearing found grounds for awarding Brown her unemployment, the defamation case ruling affirmed no evidence or insubstantial evidence that Alvarez referred to Brown using the derogatory term Doherty posted on the county page. With that, Doherty was found to have defamed Alvarez.
Following the ruling, Doherty sent a letter to the editor, sharing his disappointment with the verdict and standing by his defense of a female employee. See here.

In answer to a question inquiring how his own post on the Sullivan County website, making public Brown’s treatment, might have affected her, Doherty said: “I don’t think it affected her at all. The fact that the legislature did not support her and recommended no discipline is why she handed in her resignation. It’s all in the court documents. I’m not lying; it’s all in the court documents.”

In a press release from Alvarez’s lawyer Michael Sussman, Alvarez said, “All the money in this world is not as meaningful as a jury of our peers finding that Mr. Doherty defamed me in two ways. He recklessly accused me of a despicable act, damaging my well-earned reputation. He then had the gall to claim that this baseless allegation was ‘founded,’ when he knew full well that my accuser had failed to ever even raise any such claim when speaking about my conduct to either the director of human resources or the ethics board. The claim was never founded by anyone. I feel vindicated and appreciate the hard work of this jury and of presiding Judge Bryant.”

Alveraz and Doherty are both running for reelection in November.