Mesquite police chief, ex-reporter settle defamation case
Mesquite’s chief of police filed a defamation lawsuit against a former reporter after she wrote an article publicizing allegations that he had inappropriate contact with underage girls.
Police Chief Maquade Chesley, who also sued the city of Mesquite and a former city manager, later asked to dismiss the former reporter, Barbara Ellestad, from the case. The chief and Ellestad since have reached a settlement for an undisclosed amount, according to court records filed Monday.
“From everything we now know about this case, it’s clear the police chief’s lawsuit was completely unwarranted and may have been designed to retaliate against a journalist for reporting facts,” said Richard Karpel, the executive director of the Nevada Press Association.
The federal lawsuit stemmed from an article Ellestad published in April on her website, the Mesquite Citizen Journal, regarding the investigation into claims that Chesley had exchanged inappropriate messages and photos with underage girls when he was a police captain years prior.
Chesley, who alleged defamation and religious- and sex-based discrimination in the October suit, alleged in court documents that former Mesquite City Manager Aaron Baker was the source of a complaint that prompted the investigation by the attorney general’s office.
The chief said that Ellestad received information for her article from Baker and “knowingly published false and clearly injurious statements.”
Ellestad previously told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that she shut down her news site the month after the article’s publication because she had received anonymous threats in retaliation.
‘Nothing more to say’
Karpel said defamation by a journalist is “difficult to prove, for good reason.” He said Chesley’s lawyers needed to prove that Ellestad published false information and knew that it was false, which would show a “reckless disregard for the truth.”
“Barbara basically just reported on an investigation that ultimately turned out to be an actual investigation,” he said.
In a letter dated May 18 — nine days after Ellestad’s article — Attorney General Aaron Ford said his office had conducted a criminal investigation but found no evidence of wrongdoing.
Chesley previously has denied inappropriate involvement with underage girls. His lawyer, Philip Trenchak, declined to comment on the lawsuit on Wednesday.
In December, Ellestad filed what is known as an anti-SLAPP motion, which is designed to stop frivolous speech-chilling claims. She asked a judge to award her $10,000 and to dismiss the complaint against her “with prejudice,” meaning Chesley would not be able to sue her again.
“His reasoning for suing this journalist for truthfully reporting on this investigation is to punish her for informing Mesquite citizens about actual allegations of sexual misconduct by their chief of police,” Ellestad’s lawyer wrote in the motion.
Chesley’s lawyers filed their own motion to dismiss Ellestad less than a week later, but they wanted her to be dismissed “without prejudice.” Instead, the two reached a settlement.
“The case has been resolved, with Barbara being dismissed from the case with prejudice, meaning the case is over with respect to her, and can never be re-filed,” according to an emailed statement Ellestad sent the Review-Journal on Wednesday. “Both parties take the position that there was no wrongdoing, on either party’s part. Both parties have nothing more to say about this matter.”
Chesley also said that he faced discrimination and retaliation from city officials based on his religion and sex. In court records, Chesley said that a former city attorney spread rumors at their church and throughout the city’s government about his alleged involvement with underage girls and that Baker failed to “take any actions to stop the offensive behavior.”
No ‘adverse effect’
Marcus Lee and Inku Nam, lawyers representing Baker and the city, wrote in court documents that Chesley has continued to be employed by the city “without any adverse effect.” The lawyers argued that the alleged rumors spread at Chesley’s church did not relate to his religion, and they said he did not have a valid claim of sex-based discrimination.
“Plaintiff does not allege that these rumors of a sexual nature were asserted against Plaintiff because he is male,” Baker’s lawyers wrote.
Lee and Nam did not reply to a request for comment.
Chesley’s lawsuit did not name the city attorney accused of spreading rumors, but court documents authored by Lee and Nam identified him as Bob Sweetin.
When contacted on Thursday, Sweetin said he received information about the allegations against Chesley while he was city attorney.
“Whatever information was received was subject to attorney-client privilege,” he told the Review-Journal.
He declined to comment further.
Sweetin was “removed from his position” as city attorney in November 2020, according to Chesley’s lawsuit. The former city attorney ran against longtime Mesquite Mayor Allen Litman during a 2020 election that was the subject of a controversy surrounding political mailers.
The mailers, which urged Litman’s re-election, included details of an alleged sexual assault against a then-16-year-old girl, ultimately identified in the community as Kylee Tobler. In the mailers, police union officials outlined the case involving Tobler, which they believed Sweetin had wrongly prosecuted years earlier.
Metropolitan Police Department detectives who investigate public corruption questioned witnesses in the city about the mailers, but witnesses told the Review-Journal in October that the investigation had “stalled.”
Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.