Pedophilia is nothing to take lightly. And calling someone one, or “one step away from being one,” can get you in trouble if there is no evidence that she is.
The mother of an East Hartford High School swimmer is going to have to pay her daughter's former swim team coach $88,000 because of a "malicious, outrageous, and evil" e-mail campaign during which, she repeatedly used the word "pedophile."
Laurie Lima admitted she had no evidence that the former coach of the high school girls swim team was a pedophile, Hartford Superior Court Judge Julia Aurigemma said. Aurigemma decided those little communications were libelous.
Lima's campaign against Mary Anne Bojko, which began in November 2007, was "malicious, outrageous, and evil," the judge wrote.
Bojko sued. In April, a two-day trial was held. Bojko said she did nothing wrong.
Lima wrote in one e-mail that Bojko was "one step away" from being a pedophile because the coach had told the girls to keep swim team matters secret.
