JOHNS CREEK, Ga. — Ashwin Ramaswami, the state senate Democratic candidate who challenged Shawn Still for the Johns Creek district, is suing his former opponent alleging defamation in campaign documents.
According to the federal lawsuit, filed by attorneys on behalf of Ramaswami last Friday, Still and Landmark Communications, Inc. paid for and sent out defamatory mailers during the campaign cycle, which “implies that Ashwin was calling young children to solicit sex.”
In the federal lawsuit, photographs of campaign mailers that say Ramaswami “solicited” children and students at schools in the North Fulton and Forsyth communities are submitted as evidence.
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Ramaswami‘s lawsuit accuses Still and Landmark Communications of harming his reputation by using campaign flyers to imply he was a pedophile.
As a result of these alleged harms, Ramaswami is seeking a jury trial against both Still and Landmark Communications, seeking damages “in excess of $75,000,” in addition to punitive damages, litigation expenses and attorneys fees.
Channel 2 Action News reached out to Ramaswami’s attorneys, Landmark Communications and state Sen. Shawn Still.
Ramaswami’s legal counsel and Landmark declined to comment. Channel 2 Action News has not received a response from Still, as of the time of writing this report.
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The court filing also says some of the flyers “contain at least five false statements” while others say Ramaswami “was caught soliciting children in local schools.”
Ramaswami’s attorneys assert in the filing that all of the claims are false.
“Whether someone is attempting to solicit sex from school-aged children is not a matter of opinion, but of verifiable fact or falsity,” Ramaswami’s lawsuit says.
The lawsuit also says the “statements that Ashwin was ‘caught soliciting children in local schools’ and ‘tried to solicit students in North Fulton and Forsyth Schools’ are false in numerous ways. First, no one ‘caught’ Ashwin doing anything. He made a publicly available open records request in his own name. Second, the open records request did not in any way solicit children. Third, the common usage and understanding of ‘soliciting children’ is seeking to have sex with children, which Ashwin was not attempting.”
Ramaswami’s lawsuit also says that statements on the mailers in question saying that the candidate had made “an open records request, asking for the names and numbers of all students enrolled in high schools” is false as he did not request student contact information.
The lawsuit says “the false aspect of this statement is intentionally designed to lend itself to the ‘gist and sting’ that Ashwin was attempting to solicit children for sex.”
More materials cited in the lawsuit say Ramaswami’s campaign tried to “bypass principals in schools” on “private social media,” which attorneys say is also false, noting that the social media in question was a publicly accessible Discord server for his campaign and supporters.
Ramaswami’s lawsuit also accuses Still and Landmark of making a variety of statements in the flyers and online that were meant to harm his reputation, including some that were made to not appear as campaign advertisements.
Citing state statutes, the lawsuit also claims that because the campaign materials didn’t have any groups claiming responsibility, they must have been produced and sent out by Still.
“The flyers do not identify who paid for them,” the lawsuit says. “Under Georgia law, if an independent or leadership committee pays for a campaign flyer, the flyer itself must identify the committee who paid for it. No similar requirement applies to campaign flyers paid for by candidates themselves.”
Ramaswami’s attorneys wrote in the lawsuit that since the flyers do not identify who paid for them, it demonstrates they were not paid for by a committee or independent “but instead by Still.”
Additionally, “Still was asked why he was sending the flyers and responded that it was because Ashwin was attacking him so much that Ashwin deserves it,” the lawsuit reads.
Ramaswami’s opponent also “persistently refused to disavow the flyers,” according to the court filing.
Ramaswami, through the lawsuit, accuses both Still and Landmark of acting with actual malice, “kn[owing] that the statements and impressions they left were false” and that “Still knew that Ashwin had not been attempting to solicit children for sex.”
The lawsuit says the actions of Still and Landmark caused reputational damage to Ramaswami, saying he’d been called a “pedo,” a slang version of pedophile, and other variants with more aggressive language throughout the campaign cycle after the mailers were sent out.
A survey conducted by Ramaswami’s team, which asked what voters recall about hearing or seeing or reading about the candidate, said they’d seen that he was “creepy trying to get kids’ school info” and “his opponent called him a pedophile,” among others. The lawsuit says this was confirmation of the reputational damage done by the flyers to Ramaswami.
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