Former Police Commissioner Charles Gardner Fed Blogger Hezi Aris Some of the Written “Fake News”
By Dan Murphy
Yonkers blogger Hezi Aris has settled a defamation lawsuit filed against him by three Yonkers Police officers by admitting that the many columns he penned about Yonkers PBA President Det. Keith Olson, former Yonkers Police Commissioner John Mueller and retired YPD Det. Sgt. Brian Moran were fabrication, lies and fake news.
The full retraction and personal apology from the self-proclaimed “acid-tongue blogger” Hezi Aris and his Yonkers Tribune website, (Yonkerstribune.com), are another embarrassment for the blogger who used to keep Yonkers elected officials and city employees in fear through his posts, and the negative and blasphemous posts he allowed below his stories.
As a condition of the settlement, Mr. Aris has agreed to prominently publish his public retraction and apology on the front page of his Yonkers Tribune website for at least thirty days. As further conditions of the agreement, Aris must permanently purge all the defamatory articles from the website, delete all defamatory and inappropriate comments from the anonymous comments sections which followed the articles, and make a donation in an undisclosed amount to a Yonkers-based charity.
From 2013 to 2019, Hezi Aris published a series of articles ironically entitled “The Blue Truth.” The articles focused almost entirely on false allegations of criminal and unethical acts allegedly committed by Olson, Moran and then-YPD Deputy Chief Mueller. In early 2019, the three plaintiffs filed a multi-count defamation lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court, seeking to hold Aris and the Yonkers Tribune accountable for the libelous publications. Almost immediately, attorneys for Mr. Aris, led by noted attorney Michael Sussman, filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, claiming among other things that it was a “SLAPP” lawsuit. That motion was swiftly denied.
In June of 2021, in another victory for the plaintiffs, Supreme Court Justice Joan Lefkowitz ruled that Hezi Aris was not a journalist entitled to the protection of the so-called journalist “shield law”, and therefore was required to reveal the identities of his claimed “sources” for the Blue Truth articles. When forced to reveal his sources for these false and defamatory stories, Aris identified long-time source YPD Det. Raymond Montero, Yonkers Police Commissioner Charles Gardner and others. All sources named by Aris had a long and established history of personal and professional animosity toward plaintiffs.
This week, one week before a scheduled August 16 trial date, Aris agreed to the plaintiffs’ settlement demands, which require a wholesale retraction of every false allegation published by Aris, as well as an apology to the family and friends of the three plaintiffs for the pain caused by the reckless publication of these untrue criminal allegations.
“This is an important and groundbreaking victory, not only for John Mueller, Brian Moran and I, but for anyone else who’s fallen victim to unscrupulous and irresponsible bloggers disguised as journalists. Far too many of these internet bullies feel it is safe to make false, baseless, defamatory claims against people without fear of repercussions. This victory shows that the truth matters and that lies have consequences. This is also a signal to the cowards with personal vendettas who feel safe feeding false accusations to these bloggers thinking they are shielded by anonymity. You are not. The truth always prevails.”- Det. Keith Olson.
The retraction by Hezi reads, “I personally and publicly apologize to Mr. Olson, Mr. Mueller, and Mr. Moran and especially to their family and friends for the pain and humiliation they may have endured from these wrongful accusations. I regret that their reputations may have suffered because of the cited statements.
“I have come to learn that much of the content in these Blue Truth articles was false, inaccurate, misleading, and defamatory
“I now also recognize that I improperly managed the section of my website which allowed readers to anonymously post comments. At times, the comment sections of the Blue Truth articles devolved into a haven for vile, racist, and homophobic comments. Writers directed some of these comments at Olson, Mueller, Moran and their friends and family. I never intended the comment section to be used for such a purpose and should have intervened to disallow this from happening. I regret not doing so, “writes Hezi.
We do not agree with the part of Hezi’s admission which reads “I never intended the comment section to be used for vile comments.” In our view, that is exactly what Hezi intended to do; inflict fear, intimidation and pain on his adversaries.
This reporter also fell victim to Hezi’s trash pseudo-journalism. While he was the Editor of the now defunct Westchester Guardian, Hezi posted the headline, Dan Murphy is a Journalistic Fraud, on the front page. Many other individuals in Yonkers and Westchester county had their professional and personal lives ruined by Hezi Aris.
So while I am grateful that Olson, Mueller and Moran stood up and took Hezi to court, I would ask on those whose lives were forever wounded, How do they get their reputations back?
I would also add that the second most shocking part of this lawsuit is how former Police Commissioner Charles Gardner fed Hezi some of the lies that he printed against Olson, Mueller and Moran. For the top law enforcement officer of the third largest city in New York State to be handing a blogger lies about his fellow officers, is just as bad, or worse, than the publication of these same lies.
How Gardner can look all of his fellow Yonkers Police officers in the eye is beyond comprehension. Shame on you Commissioner Gardner and shame on Hezi, for putting Yonkers through this difficult period of social media negativity.
Hezi no longer holds the sway and power that he once had in Yonkers, in part because of this lawsuit but also because most of his former readers grew tired of the negativity and nonsense. We do concur with Olson in that we hope that this is a warning to the Yonkers bloggers who have now replaced Hezi is the negative world of shock fake news that they can be next to get sued, humiliated and embarrassed.
And congratulations to Olson, Mueller and Moran for standing up for truth and for setting the record straight.
The plaintiffs would like to publicly thank their attorneys, Andrew Quinn and Marykate Acquisto of the Quinn Law Firm and Lisa Fantino, Esq. of Harrison, on their brilliant work in achieving this important victory.
