Sitton sues for defamation

A new defamation lawsuit mixes politics with the internet. Driving the news: A former elected oil and gas regulator has filed the lawsuit against a man who published explosive claims that the state official engaged in an extramarital affair. Ryan Sitton lost the 2020 Republican primary in his reelection attempt to remain on the three-member Texas Railroad Commission. The Austin-based state agency regulates the oil, gas and pipeline industries. For the record: The commission has long had nothing to do with railroads. The suit, filed by Sitton in late December in Galveston County, seeks at least $10 million in damages from Joshua Matthew Pierce, who allegedly published the claims under an alias, Matthew Briscoe, on a website called the South Texas Journal.

The claims were published in mid-February 2020 as early voting was set to start. An engineer by training, Sitton clashed with his fellow, arguably more conservative commissioners on some regulatory and personnel matters. But in an upset, Sitton, a well-funded incumbent who held endorsements from key Republicans, lost the primary to Jim Wright, owner of a South Texas oilfield waste services company. Details: The suit says Pierce contended "that Plaintiff attempted to act out 'racial fantasies' with said female, referred to her as a 'slave girl,' and sought to simulate nonconsensual sexual acts on her in the Governor's Mansion that would be 'part of black history.'" "The entirety of the posts is completely false," the lawsuit says. "An image used for one of Defendant's articles depicts a man that bears a slight resemblance to Plaintiff, romantically embracing a woman. ... Defendant described the image as being provided by a Jamaican 'victim' to prove that she had had relations with the Plaintiff," says the suit. "A basic [G]oogle search of the image used in Defendant's false article reveals that the image did not depict the Plaintiff, but was instead a stock image of a married couple living in California that it is used on dozens of websites," the suit says.