Ex-oil regulator sues blogger over affair post
A former Texas oil and gas regulator has accused a blogger of helping derail his 2020 re-election campaign by falsely claiming he had an extramarital affair.
In a lawsuit filed last month in Galveston, Ryan Sitton said the blogger, Joshua Matthew Pierce, had claimed in two online posts that Sitton sought to engage in “racial fantasies” with an unnamed Jamaican woman. The piece also included a supposed picture of them together, though the photo was later shown to be a generic, unrelated image used on several websites, according to the suit.
The second post alleged that Sitton had referred to fellow Texas Railroad Commissioner Christi Craddick with an ethnic slur. Both were published during early voting in the 2020 primary, which Sitton lost in a huge upset to fellow Republican Jim Wright.
“He published a hit piece, containing salacious lies about an upstanding businessman and public official,” the lawsuit says. “Unfortunately, his silly and false story gained some traction, and influenced an election.”
The complaint also suggests
Pierce may have been working for Wright’s campaign at the time, though it does not present any clear evidence.
Pierce responded to the lawsuit in a series of tweets, saying, “And to think that little old blogger down here in #Corpuschristi, #Texas could influence an election.”
“Lets get this right out of the way—you can deny, deny but the proof of the ‘infactual basis’ is on plaintiff,” he wrote.
Sitton, who was elected to the three-person commission in 2014, had the support of top state leaders including Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and both of the state’s Republican U.S. senators. He also had a staggering cash advantage over Wright, who owns an oil field waste services company.
Wright did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
But Sitton, who lost the primary election by nearly 200,000 votes, also had a tense relationship with fellow commissioners, and was slighted in 2019 by Craddick when she nominated Wayne Christian to succeed her as chair, even though he had less tenure.
Sitton is seeking $10 million in damages.