By Joe Pinchot
Herald Staff Writer
HERMITAGE
November 18, 2008 09:04 pm
—
Delahunty Middle School Principal Eric W. Trosch has discontinued his defamation suit against three of the four former students who allegedly created unflattering Web profiles about him.
The discontinuance filed Oct. 24 removed Thomas Cooper Jr. and brothers Christopher and Brenden Gebhart from the suit.
Whether the suit was discontinued because of a settlement or other reason is unclear. Trosch spoke of the “matters” with Cooper and the Gebharts as being “resolved.” Michael L. Magulick, attorney for Cooper, responded that “everything’s confidential.” An attorney for the Gebharts did not return a message.
“He’s happy it’s behind him,” Magulick said of Cooper.
The action leaves one defendant, Justin Layshock, whose federal civil rights suit against Trosch, Hermitage School District, Hickory High School Principal Chris Gill and Superintendent Karen A. Ionta is pending before an appeals court.
Layshock has admitted creating a profile on myspace.com that was made to look like Trosch created it. Brenden Gebhart admitted creating a Myspace profile, and creating an e-mail account in Trosch’s name, which he used to register for membership with Myspace.
Cooper denied creating a profile and Christopher Gebhart said he did not help his brother create one.
Magulick said he could not say if Cooper still is maintaining that he did not create the profile because of the confidentiality agreement.
Hermitage police identified the Gebharts and Cooper as profile authors, Trosch’s attorney has said.
Layshock claims his profile was a parody and did not contain any defamatory or false statements. He said he was only trying to be funny.
Trosch has called the profiles “demeaning” and “demoralizing.”
In a written statement, Trosch said he filed the suit because he believed he had no choice.
“It was the only recourse that I had to clear my good name, and the good name of my family,” he said. “I absolutely did not pursue these actions for monetary purposes.”
Trosch said Cooper, the Gebharts and Layshock forged his name to create profiles; stole his identity; tarnished his reputation and his standing with students by making it seem like he had used drugs, had sex with students, committed crimes and, in one case, issued a threat that led to increased police security at the 2006 graduation ceremony.
“Principals are private persons, not public officials, and I understand that dislike and ridicule come with the territory,” Trosch said. “However, jeopardizing a person’s career by forging vulgar and obscene website accounts in their name, and posting those accounts on the worldwide web, cannot be dismissed as dislike, ridicule, or a prank, and cannot be viewed as a ‘parody’ to be shielded by our revered right to the Freedom of Speech.”
Trosch said Cooper used Trosch’s school e-mail account to sign the Myspace terms of agreement contract and privacy policy, and sent e-mails and “friends requests” to Hickory students using Trosch’s e-mail address.
“As a result, in my school district e-mail account, I received auto-generated acceptance e-mails from several students who accepted the impersonator’s invitation,” Trosch said. “Myspace e-mailed me at school to welcome me to the Myspace community and to provide me with the password, KKK, to my new account.”
Cooper also impersonated Trosch to engage in private chat sessions with another student, Trosch said. The private chat log “references” a violent rap song, and the author said everyone will find out who the impersonator is on June 2, the day of graduation. Trosch said.
“The reference to that rap song, coupled with statements in the forged profile ‘TwinTower101’ and ‘the harder you hit me the harder I fall,’ were viewed as imminent threats,” Trosch said.
Gebhart created a fictitious Hotmail account that included Trosch’s name to create his profile, which used sexually vulgar language, Trosch said.
Layshock created a fictitious Yahoo e-mail address that included Trosch’s name to create his profile.
“A number of persons, including Hickory High School students, responded to mailed ‘friends requests’ sent to them by Layshock while he was impersonating me through the forged account,” Trosch said.
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