BELFAST — A mother and daughter have filed a civil suit against eight Waldo County community members, including two sitting Belfast City Council members.

The plaintiffs, R.M. Woodford and her daughter, April Walker, filed the complaint with Waldo County Superior Court May 10. Both Walker and Woodford live in the James P. White House, on Church Street. 

Named in the lawsuit are Belfast City Councilors Michael Hurley and Neal Harkness, in addition to six area residents; all are accused of posting disparaging remarks about the mother and daughter on social media. 

Both women are being represented by the F. David Walker, of the law firm Rudman Winchell. 

The timeline in the complaint began with the Fall 2015 purchase of the James P. White House in Belfast, by Walker and her husband. When Walker’s mother, Woodford, visited the residence, she reportedly “fell in love” with both the house and the community. Woodford moved into the home in 2019. 

It is alleged in the complaint that shortly after Woodford moved into the home that “trouble began.”   

The mother and daughter claim their family’s peace was disturbed and “ultimately shattered by what became a hateful and vicious campaign initiated to harass, torment, and intimidate Ms. Woodford and Ms. Walker,” according to the complaint.

The alleged perpetrators of the harassment were, “apparently angered over perceived meddling in local politics, the Defendants and their followers took to the internet and spreading false and outrageous rumors about [the plaintiffs].”  

The eight individuals named in the lawsuit are alleged to have stated that the home is a “brothel, bordello, or center for human sex trafficking.” It is alleged that one Defendant has accused [the plaintiffs] of being pedophiles, among a number of other allegations made in the suit.  

Submitted as evidence are photocopies of screenshots of social media posts allegedly made by the eight defendants, who have denied the allegations, calling them “fabrications,” on a Facebook post regarding the lawsuit. 

Woodford and Walker assert that the: “Defendants’ attacks are not random acts of malice. The defamatory attacks are retribution for [the plaintiffs] involvement in community politics. Defendants’ defamatory campaign seeks to punish [the plaintiffs] for weighing in on a local Belfast matter and to intimidate them from doing so in the future,” according to court documents.

The issue that is alleged to have prompted the reported harassment was a 2019 and 2020 discussion about whether or not the long-defunct Peirce School, located on Church Street, should be converted into apartments. The proposal would have required rezoning two properties, including the former Pierce School and the James P. Whithouse, where the plaintiffs reside.  Woodford and Walker reported that their sole contribution to the debate consisted of expressing an opinion [to the City Council], through a representative, regarding the process by which [Belfast] was deciding the issue.  

Ultimately, the renovation project didn’t move forward; something Woodford and Walker feel the defendants blame them for. It is after this development that the harassment is alleged to have begun. 

Woodford and Walker allege that the defendants publically accused them of “filing frivolous lawsuits to stop the project or make it look expensive.” 

Specific allegations are made in court documents toward each of the defendants, with their alleged contribution to the reported bullying listed beneath the respective name. 

Harkness is accused of publicly stating that Woodford and Walker host “Hollywood prostitutes,” and referred to their home as a “whorehouse,” according to court documents, which note that the alleged accusations are false. 

When reached for comment, Harkness denied the accusations. 

“The claims made in the lawsuit are false,” he said via email, before referring any further inquiry to his attorney. 

City Councilor Michael Hurley, who also created and administrates a popular Facebook page, called You Know You Love Belfast If…., is alleged to have accused Woodford and Walker of owning/operating a brothel. The Facebook page is where the reported comments were allegedly made. In addition to Hurley, the YKYLBI page has five additional administrators and over 3,000 group members. 

Hurley is accused of encouraging the alleged harassment on the YKYLBI page, reportedly writing: “People like the Walkers ruin Belfast. That woman walks her dog and ignores everyone with her nose high in the air and if they don’t like it here go back to New York and take the brothel with them,” according to the lawsuit.

As a consequence of the alleged harassment, Walker and Woodford claim to have “suffered damage to their reputations as well as mental anguish.”  

There are four counts listed in the civil suit, including defamation, false light, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and punitive damages. 

“Defamation is a statement that injures a third party's reputation. The tort of defamation includes both libel (written statements) and slander (spoken statements),” according to Cornell Law School.

Though similar to defamation, “the key difference of the tort of false light from defamation is that under the tort of false light, a plaintiff can receive damages for the emotional harm that he or she suffered by the spread of the falsehood.”

When reached for comment, Hurley denied all of the allegations made in the suit, saying none of the alleged posts or discussions ever happened.  

“[The eight people named in the lawsuit] were served on May 10 and 11, I think everybody got their papers. Many of us have never even met each other, some people don’t know anybody, but here is something that we all have in common: not one of us ever said anything that they are alleging we said. There was never a FB posting of anything like what they are alleging we said…. There was never a FB discussion with any of the content they’ve said,” Hurley said.

Regarding the alleged evidence included in the suit, Hurley said: “all of the posts that they have provided as evidence, at least all of us that have seen ours, every one of them is a fabrication, every one of them is saying, sort of crude… I don’t even call them photoshopping. If someone had been photoshopping it, they would have done a better job,” he said, adding, “these things we [allegedly] said, not one of them has a timestamp; that’s because not one of them is real… Nobody ever said anything like this, nobody had any discussion like this. I certainly didn’t.” 

According to Hurley, “the first [he] ever heard of a brothel or Hollywood prostitutes, or Jeffrey Epstein in regards to these people is when they claimed it.”

Now that the lawsuit has been filed, attorneys for each of the defendants will be charged with filing a response. 

Erica Thoms can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com