In a stingingly blow to the legion of Pro Se litigants inspired by such legal heavyweights as Kevin “The Angry Vet” Soper and Jose “Chille” DeCastro, SeanPaul “Long Island Audit” Reyes had his defamation lawsuit against Melbourne, Florida Mayor Paul Alfrey was dismissed with prejudice on Tuesday.
The lawsuit stemmed from Reyes visiting Melbourne last fall in order to “investigate” Mayor Alfrey after being contacted by the mayor’s former sister-in-law. Alfrey’s brother had recently died and his sister in law made allegations that Alfrey was mismanaging the roofing business he ran with his brother and improperly using funds from the business.
Reyes attended a Melbourne city council meeting and directly confronted the mayor during the public comment portion of the meeting. Unfortunately for Reyes, the meeting was scheduled to feature a debate over renaming a city street in honor of then recently slain activist Charlie Kirk.
Reyes’s comments fell on deaf ears and he was shouted down by the combined crowd as he was escorted out of the chambers by police and while vocally complaining about his rights being violated.
The next day, Mayor Alfrey made vague comments about a New York based auditor whose followers sent him death threats on his official Facebook page. At no time did he name Reyes or Long Island Audits.
Reyes sued for defamation and launched a serious of well publicized trips back to Melbourne in order to conduct investigations and fund raise off of the mayor. Observers credited Reyes as, unlike other incidents, Reyes did not directly open a dedicated GoFundMe to the incident as he needed to show he was harmed by the Facebook posts.
The YouTuber also faced a problem: he signed into the meeting as Long Island Audit. He used the name Long Island Audit in his videos about the mayor. The mayor claimed that he was vaguely referring to Long Island Audit in his comments, not SeanPaul Reyes.
According to Alfrey’s motion to dismiss:
A foreign corporation transacting business in Florida “may not prosecute or maintain an action or proceeding in this state until it has obtained a certificate of authority to transact business in this state”.
Further, because Plaintiff is to be considered a corporation, Plaintiff has failed to establish standing for bring a cause of action as to all knowledge of the Defendant and as of the date of filing this Motion to Dismiss, Plaintiff is not a registered Florida Corporation and therefore lacks the ability to bring forward suit in Florida.
Alfrey also questioned Reyes’s filing of the suit against him in his individual capacity and not in his role as mayor:
For purposes of motions to dismiss, courts do not accept legal conclusions as true, even when they are presented as factual allegations. Point Conversions, LLC v. Omkar Hotels, Inc., 321 So.3d 326, 328 (2021 ).
Here, Plaintiff has only made legal and factual conclusions alleging damage without showing any proof otherwise, and in fact, Plaintiff has gained followers, donations, notoriety, and posted several videos of which have made money all directly because of Plaintiff’s interactions with Defendant.
Furthermore, Plaintiff has named the wrong party as the Defendant in this case. As based on the four corners of the Complaint, it is clear that the post to social media was on Defendant’s official Mayoral account, and done so by Defendant in his capacity and scope as Mayor.
Plaintiff fails in alleging a prima facia cause of action against Defendant, individually. In his official capacity as Mayor, Defendant has absolute immunity for statements made while carrying out his mayoral duties.
According to Reyes, the court sided with Alfrey, dismissing the original case with prejudice and allowing for Reyes to refile the lawsuit on behalf of Long Island Audit Inc. at a later time.
Reyes has vowed to appeal the decision.
Court documents of the verdict were not available as of press time. We will provide updates on this story once they are obtained.
This is a breaking news story.
