Published: July 06, 2008 01:06 am      

LEW-PORT: Legal defense cut off

CHANGE: New school board overturns previous decision

to fight Ed Lilly’s suits.

By Caitlin Murray

murrayc@gnnewspaper.com

The third time was a charm for Ed Lilly this week in his quest to get even with former colleagues.

After the previous Lewiston-Porter Board of Education twice voted to provide legal defense to the former members Lilly is suing, the newly appointed board voted the other way Tuesday.

The motion, proposed by Lilly, will end district-backed legal defense for David Schaubert and Louis Palmeri, who both served with Lilly through 2006. Lilly sued Schaubert for $655 in costs Lilly incurred appealing his removal from the school board last year. Both Schaubert and Palmeri are being named in a libel and slander suit where Lilly alleges they falsely accused him of illegal activity at board meetings and in a newspaper editorial.

Both suits have been dismissed and Lilly is appealing.

In the slander and libel suit, Judge Ralph Boniello ruled that Schaubert and Palmeri’s remarks “arose and/or took place during a school board meeting while they were acting in their official capacity” as elected officials and were “privileged.”

Edward Waller — one of the two new members who overturned the previous board’s decision — disagreed. The whole board would’ve had to authorize Schaubert and Palmeri to make the accusations against Lilly, Waller said.

“The things Schaubert said at the meeting last year — it was ridiculous,” Waller told the Gazette. “In my mind, it was nothing short of a personal attack by Schaubert just to make Ed look bad and I can’t believe what he did was an act of the Board of Education of Lewiston-Porter.”

Michael Gentile said the judge’s remarks in the ruling make it clear the court believes their actions were as board members and the pair is entitled to indemnification.

“People have said it’s a gray area,” Gentile said. “Once you have the court’s decision, it’s not gray anymore.”

Gentile is a current board member but is also named in the libel and slander suit. He was never entitled to district-backed indemnification because he was not yet serving on the board when he made the accusations against Lilly.

Gentile also said he believed only a board member who previously voted for indemnification could make a motion to rescind it. Waller said he believed the board did not “rescind,” but chose not to reapprove the indemnification.

Tuesday was not the first time Lilly has tried to prevent Schaubert and Palmeri from receiving district-sponsored defense in his cases.

In March, while Lilly was temporarily removed from the board, he publicly urged the sitting board to vote against indemnifying Schaubert and Palmeri. That night, the board voted to provide defense for the pair. Scott Stepien voted against both measures.

The following month, Lilly was reinstated to the board and pushed for a revote. Again, the majority voted in favor of the indemnification, with only Lilly and Stepien voting against both motions. F. Warren Kahn, then district attorney, told Lilly he believed it was illegal for Lilly to vote on resolutions in which he had a personal vested interest.

The next month, Lilly tried to bring the matter to a revote again, but was told the motion would be “out of order” since the board had already approved it twice.

James Mezhir and Robert Laub had both voted for the indemnification but Laub opted not to seek re-election this May and Mezhir lost his seat. Waller and Robert Weller were sworn in Tuesday to replace them and both voted against Schaubert and Palmeri’s indemnification.

Weller did not return repeated calls seeking comment this week.

Lilly said the school district has spent $27,000 defending Schaubert and Palmeri in the cases he filed again them. Though the libel and slander suit, which seeks up to $350,000 in damages, has been dismissed and the $655 suit against Schaubert has been dismissed twice, Lilly has told the Gazette he will continue to appeal until “justice is done.”

“What they did was malicious and against the taxpayers,” Lilly said. “What I’m doing is protecting the taxpayers from board members who use public funds to further their private malicious actions.”

Contact reporter Caitlin Murray

at 282-2311, ext. 2251