Ga. family sues store clerk for defamation

Woman also files lawsuit, calling on ANTI-SLAPP statute.

From her Washington hotel on Jan. 6, Katheryn Cagle asked for prayers and assured friends and family via Facebook that she and her mother were safe. “Yes, Mama and I are in Washington, D.C.,” Cagle allegedly posted the day a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol.

Cagle’s followers reacted with thumbs-up and heart emojis, but not everyone was feeling the love.

“I thought Kate Cagle (was) on the planning committee, I hope she doesn’t plan to make a career out of planning riots,” Rayven Goolsby later wrote on Facebook. In a separate post, she addressed Cagle’s mother, Thelma Cagle. “Didn’t you attend the insurrection? I am pretty sure you did.”

In late February, the exchange jumped from social media to a Pickens County Superior Court when the Cagles sued Goolsby for defamation and libel. Goolsby’s attorney, Andrew Fleischman, characterized the Cagles’ suit as an example of a prominent family active in local politics using the heft of the courts to intimidate his client, who works at a local grocery store, into silence.

The social media posts at the heart of the dispute, including deleted ones referring to the Jan. 6 riot, are preserved as screenshots in legal filings. None of the parties deny making the remarks cited in dueling lawsuits.

Goolsby’s remarks focused on Katheryn and Thelma Cagle for their alleged “central roles” in organizing busloads of attendees through the “Women For America First” tour; they also touched on William Cagle, husband of Thelma and father to Katheryn, calling him a homophobic “loser.”

Goolsby’s remarks, made in various community Facebook groups, were in reference to William Cagle musing on Facebook when the county was mulling separate bathrooms for transgender people that he did “not appreciate his tax dollars being spent on supporting indecency and a couple of FREAKS that can’t make up their mind where to take a leak.”

SLAPP suit alleged

Fleischman said the defamation suit against Goolsby is a way of making it expensive to criticize the Cagles — “even if the criticism is true.”

“We shouldn’t be afraid that criticizing an important person in our community could cost us thousands of dollars,” Fleischman said. He argued Goolsby has truth and public interest on her side.

On Friday, Goolsby filed a suit under a Georgia law that grants protection from what’s known as strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPP suits.

Harassment claimed

Katheryn, William and Thelma Cagle are named as plaintiffs in the initial suit. They allege in their filing that, since January, Goolsby has “disparaged and defamed” the family with repeated and unprovoked online harassment that harms their reputations and unfairly associates them with “patently criminal conduct.”

An attorney for the Cagles said his clients aren’t interested in media attention or making their complaint into a political issue but that they are turning to the court for relief from ongoing harm.

“Our Clients are aggrieved and that is the reason for the suit. It is our Firm and the Cagle’s desire that we can hopefully resolve this in a mutually beneficial and amicable fashion,” David Mcdonald told The Post via email. He declined to discuss details of the suit, citing pending litigation.

The Cagles are public figures to varying degrees, Goolsby’s suit argues. William Cagle recently served on the Pickens County Planning Commission until his term ended in December, while Katheryn Cagle is the former chairwoman of the Pickens County Georgia Republican Party. Thelma Cagle sang the national anthem at rallies in support of Donald

Trump. Both women are credited in a third-party post as part of the “core team” that organized busloads of Georgians headed for Washington on Jan. 6.

Digital records

In the suit, Fleischman argues while the Cagles’ roles and actions qualify them as people of public interest, Goolsby’s statements fall into protected categories of speech, including opinion, hyperbole and sarcasm.

He echoed the hope expressed by the Cagles’ attorney that the matter can be resolved amicably, but suggested that suing his client may give the plaintiffs more than they bargained for.

The ANTI-SLAPP suit notes Katheryn Cagle deleted all of her social media history pertaining to Jan. 6. If the matter goes into discovery, both sides could be compelled to produce troves of personal data like GPS location history and message logs.

Fleischman offered a bit of free legal advice to a general audience: “You should not file defamation suits if you’re worried about criminal liability.”