BENTONVILLE - A Benton County circuit judge ordered a former nursing student at Northwest Arkansas Community College to remove defamatory statements about a college official from her online blog.
Judge John Scott presided over a hearing Thursday afternoon in Steven Gates’ lawsuit against Francesca Cataldo.
Gates, senior vice president for learning and provost at the college, filed the lawsuit against Cataldo in February 2013.
Gates’ lawsuit lists several examples of what he described as defamatory statements on nwacccorruption.blogspot.com. The lawsuit states that on May 26, 2012, Cataldo posted Gates was “a bully” and had been fired from Crowder College in Neosho, Mo., for sexual harassment. The posting also claimed Gates had been unemployed for several years and questioned why someone with “his tainted history” was hired by the college, according to court documents.
The complaint also lists an Aug. 7, 2012, post describing Gates as a “bully” and “the Don Corleone of this mob mentality.”
Cataldo accused Gates of cyber stalking her in an Aug. 13, 2012, Internet post, according to court documents.
Rogers attorney Jim Lingle, representing Gates, told Scott the allegations weren’t true. Lingle said it’s the “undisputed” truth Gates never was fired from a previous job, but that allegation was put on the Internet.
“Those are clearly inflammatory,” Lingle said of the statements.
Cataldo, representing herself, told Scott she was provided false information by another person and that the allegations about Gates had been removed from the blog. She described herself as the victim of what she termed an “academic mobbing.”
Cataldo’s counterclaim against Gates also was dismissed Thursday.
Lingle told Scott that Gates only wanted a finding that the allegations against him were false, and he wanted Cataldo to remove them from her blog. Gates didn’t attend Thursday’s hearing.
Arkansas, Pages 14 on 02/16/2014