By Tracy Dingmann I traveled to Mesquite, N.M. yesterday to attend the Environmental Improvement Board’s hearing on Helena Chemical Company’s request that they be allowed to operate their fertilizer blending plant without an air quality permit. I didn’t get to write about the hearing the way I wanted to – with tweets and frequent posts [...]
By Tracy Dingmann A Las Cruces judge today reduced the punitive damages in the defamation suit against Helena organizer Arturo Uribe from $75,000 to $10,000. Helena Chemical, which originally won a jury judgment of $75,000 in April, now has seven days to decide whether to accept the judgment or ask for a new trial. “I [...]
Continue reading about Judge Reduces Damage Award in Arturo Uribe Defamation Case
By Tracy Dingmann Last night a Las Cruces jury ruled against Mesquite community activist Arturo Uribe, ordering him to pay Helena Chemical Co. $75,000 for saying his children were made ill by the fertilizer company’s warehouse located across the street from his family home. This afternoon I got this statement from Arturo Uribe: “I wasn’t [...]
Continue reading about Update: Statement From Arturo Uribe On Helena Defamation Verdict
By Tracy Dingmann In a stunning blow against free speech, a Las Cruces jury late Wednesday ruled against a community activist who made public statements blaming his children’s health problems on a chemical company warehouse located across the street from his family home in Mesquite, N.M. The jury ruled for Helena Chemical Co. and against [...]
Continue reading about “They Sent A Clear Message That They Wanted To Destroy Him”
Today a Las Cruces jury is expected to deliver a verdict in Helena Chemical Company’s $600,000 defamation suit against community activist Arturo Uribe of Mesquite, N.M. Helena’s lopsided suit against Uribe is what First Amendment guardians like to call a “slapp” suit – or “strategic lawsuit against public participation.” All too often, wealthy corporations who [...]
There’s a wickedly lopsided battle brewing in a Las Cruces courthouse this week – and the verdict has the potential to chill free speech for all of us. Helena Chemical Co., a huge multinational fertilizer company, is suing Mesquite, N.M. community activist Arturo Uribe for libel and slander and seeking damages of $300,000 (see note [...]
Continue reading about The Helena Defamation Verdict Could Have Implications For Us All
Arturo Uribe of Mesquite, N.M. didn’t just wake up one day and decide to be a community organizer. But the man who thought of himself as “just a college student, father and husband” effectively became one after he began to suspect that emissions from the Helena Chemical Co. plant next to his family’s longtime home [...]
