LAWRENCE COUNTY Official sues over letters to paper

The commissioner contends the letters damaged his reputation.
NEW CASTLE, Pa. -- A Lawrence County commissioner is seeking damages from two newspaper letter writers.
Commissioner Brian Burick filed a lawsuit in Lawrence County Common Pleas Court against Norman DeGidio of New Castle and Howard Turner of Neshannock Township.
Letters authored by the two appeared in the New Castle News in August.
Burick declined to comment on the lawsuit when contacted Tuesday.
His suit contends that in the letters the "defendants' allegations were politically manipulated, made with reckless disregard for the truth and knowledge of their falsity to negatively impact the plaintiff in the minds of voters of Lawrence County."
Seeking third term
Burick, a Democrat, is seeking a third term in office in November.
DeGidio, Lawrence County Republican Party chairman, said he had not seen the lawsuit on Tuesday.
He did not identify himself as the party chairman in his letter appearing Aug. 20. DeGidio said he did not want to include his political party affiliation in the letter because he did not want to get the party involved.
Turner also had not seen the court papers on Tuesday, said his wife, Elizabeth. He has hearing difficulties and could not speak on the telephone, his wife said.
"It's just common opinion that we thought had to be said. It's just what a number of people were saying and we just had to put it into a letter," said Elizabeth Turner, who is the mother-in-law of county Commissioner Ed Fosnaught.
Fosnaught, a Republican, is also seeking re-election this fall.
The lawsuit states that the letters say Burick had "authorized or participated in the improper or illegal use of Lawrence County monetary funds." Burick's lawsuit says those statements are false.
Both letters were written in response to the newspaper's editorial about the county nursing home, Hill View Manor.
Burick's lawsuit adds that the allegations in the letters damaged his "stellar reputation as a commissioner of integrity and honesty in a respectable segment of the community."
The commissioner is seeking damages in excess of $20,000.