A 139-year-old Massachusetts paper was slated to publish its last editition Wednesday, after it agreed to a $1.1 million settlement in a defamation case filed by the mayor of the city of Everett, who accused the publication of falsifying quotes as part of a brutal smear campaign.
“What the Everett Leader Herald, its owner, and its publisher and editor did to my family and me — publishing article after article, accusation after accusation about me that they knew were false, that they knew they had no basis for, for the avowed purpose of destroying my reputation to serve their own personal financial interest — wasn’t just dishonest. It was corrupt,” Everett Mayor Carlo DeMaria said at a press conference after the settlement.
