A judge said this week she was inclined to dismiss on First Amendment grounds part of a defamation suit by former Rep. Katie Hill concerning a reporter who co-authored a story featuring nude photos of Hill with a female campaign staff member and holding a bong appearing to contain marijuana.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Yolanda Orozco said she will instead wait until April 8 to hear a motion filed late Tuesday by Hill’s attorneys to reopen discovery and conduct a short deposition of reporter Jennifer Van Laar to determine the identities of the parties with whom she shared the images.
Hill’s lawyers, including Carrie Goldberg, maintain that Van Laar had no First Amendment protection in distributing the photos, especially the one involving the bong.
Lawyers for Van Laar maintain the limited discovery will not turn up any relevant new information.
In her tentative ruling, the judge said the identities of the parties to whom Van Laar had shown the photos was a matter of legitimate interest involving a public official.
“(Van Laar) has established that the images are a matter of public concern, as they speak to (Hill’s) character and qualifications for her position, allegedly depicting an extramarital sexual relationship with a paid campaign staff member and the use of illegal drugs by a sitting congresswoman,” Orozco wrote.
Hill’s argument that the images are not a matter of public concern because Van Laar could have simply described the images rather than publishing them is “unpersuasive,” according to the judge, because the fact that information to be gleaned from an image may be disseminated in an alternative manner “does not equate to a finding that the image itself is not a matter of public concern.”
According to media reports, Van Laar was a campaign advisor to former Rep. Steve Knight (R-Palmdale) who was unseated by Hill in 2018. A story co-written by Van Laar that appeared in the Daily Mail in October 2019 featuring nude photos of Hill with the female campaign staffer followed a series of reports published on RedState.com, a conservative political site that lists Van Laar as its deputy managing editor.
Hilll’s lawsuit was filed Dec. 22 and also targets her ex-husband, Kenneth Heslep, the Daily Mail and RedState.com. She alleges in her court papers that she lived in fear that if she ever tried to leave, Heslep would kill them both and their animals.
