* Patti Blagojevich is suing her former employer the Chicago Christian Industrial League for defamation. You can read the lawsuit by clicking here.
Blagojevich claims in her suit that a top official at the CCIL accused her of “stealing” the group’s donor list. Blagojevich has said in the past that CCIL didn’t have an e-mail donor list, so she used her own e-mail list when she was hired…
In her post as director of development with the charity last year, she created a list for outreach and fund-raising, she said.
There was no such database before she arrived, Illinois’ former first lady said, so, starting from scratch, she placed 600 of personal contacts she had accumulated over the years into the index.
“The galling thing about this is before I got to CCIL — there was no e-mail list. They had no e-mail outreach at all,” she said. “I dumped all my contacts of all my friends. . . . Their list is my list.”
The controversy came to light when Michael Sneed reported that the CCIL was upset that Blagojevich was using the donor list to promote her husband’s book. That Sneed column is no longer online, but here’s the money quote…
“Patti is using the list to e-mail and mail letters to people suggesting they buy her husband’s book, and it’s very, very bad form and unethical,” [Rick Roberts, director of strategy for CCIL] said.
I don’t believe Roberts ever used the words “steal” or “stole” or “stealing,” so I’m not sure whether this suit has any merit because right up front she claims that Roberts outright said one of those words…
Roberts has falsely accused the former First Lady of stealing CCIL’s donor list - something Roberts claims is proprietary - upon her termination from CCIL.
Whatever. Expect yet another media frenzy.
Tribune…
“What we want Mr. Roberts to do right now is retract the statement and offer an apology,” Blagojevich’s attorney Jay Edelson said. “If he’s willing to do that, we’re 80 percent there.”
Roberts could not be reached for immediate comment.
One can only wonder what that other 20 percent might be.