SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Convicted felon turned activist, Vernado Malone, is attempting to get a defamation lawsuit tossed from court by filing an illiterate Motion to Dismiss. Malone, who has been to federal prison for fraud multiple times, is being sued by a local woman because he falsely called her a prostitute, criminal and adulterer. Malone has used his city-funded non-profit, Justice for Michiana, to carry out the defamatory comments.
Malone, who is representing himself in the case, filed the motion in court last week. The motion is barely readable and potentially opens up several other people to litigation.
Malone doesn’t even spell his own name correctly in the error-ridden court document. below is the opening paragraph where he forgets to capitalized his own first name, claims he is approaching the court prose (should be pro se), writes base instead of based, writes prove instead of proved, randomly capitalizes “Profit” and claims that his non-profit is now a media organization.
“Now comes vernado Malone by prose,hereby ask this court to dismiss the plaintiff claims base on the fact that the plaintiff has not prove any of the allegation(s) and the defendant Justice for Michiana is a non-Profit organization that does news media and has a right to write stories and use speeches under the 1st Amendment.” The opening paragraph reads.
Malone has made many of the defamatory comments on his non-profit’s Facebook page and his argument for dismissal of the case may have opened up everyone involved in his organization to personal liability.
“(The victim) claims (sic) it is (sic) wrong that the FaceBook page is run by Vernado
Malone ,Justice for Michiana is run by Tiffany Story and all members have access to log
on and post under the founder name Vernado Malone 24 hours a day for media posting
or community news.” Malone states.
If it is true that others involved in the organization have participated in the defamatory behavior, they too can be held liable for their actions.
Malone goes on to say clearly unprotected speech is protected by the first amendment, including his accusations of adultery, prostitution and criminal behavior.
You can read about the 9 types of unprotected speech in a great article by Freedom Forum Institute. The third type of unprotected speech on the list is defamation. However, Malone may have broken obscenity laws as well and could have potentially perjured himself with lying in official court documents.
RNM is not naming the victim of Malone’s attacks. You can attempt to read Malone’s motion below.
Malone is a career criminal who has been taking advantage of grieving families in the area for several years now. REAL News Michiana uncovered a disturbing scheme in which he was taking and sharing full-body nude pictures of the recently deceased at a local funeral home. Multiple families recently filed lawsuits against Malone and Alford’s Mortuary in that case. The Indiana Attorney General’s office also opened up an investigation into the nude picture scheme.
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