Exclusive: Read the Lisa DiBello v. Charlestown lawsuit

What Council member's lawsuit against the town actually says

By Will Collette

Council member Lisa DiBello, as previously reported, filed a civil lawsuit against the Town of Charlestown and nine present and former town officials on January 23. As of today, DiBello has still not served the complaint on the Town or the persons named in the suit.

But nonetheless, the Westerly Sun ran a front page story about her lawsuit last Thursday.

I went to the RI Superior Court in Wakefield to get a copy of DiBello's filing. You can read the complaint in its entirety by clicking here.

The general outline of DiBello's case against the Town she supposedly serves as a member of the Town Council will look familiar to regular Progressive Charlestown readers. There's a reason for that.

DiBello's lawsuit is identical in content to her complaint to the RI Human Rights Commission which she filed last March.

It is also almost identical in wording. The most common changes involve using the term "Plaintiff" in the lawsuit rather than "I" when referring to DiBello.

As I sat with the paper copies of her Human Rights Commission complaint and her Superior Court complaint, I found the two documents track, item after item. The numbering of paragraphs is out of synch because the court requires more statements at the beginning, but once you get into the meat of the complaint, the two complaints are virtually identical.

DiBello still begins her story by relating how she overheard a raunchy conversation between former Town Administrator Richard Sartor and Tax Assessor Ken Swain. She relates how she tried to anonymously report this eavesdropped conversation and how that triggered a five-year retaliatory conspiracy against her that led to her firing by the Town Council in May 2010.

She still makes the incredible claim that Sartor went to Hopkinton to secretly conspire with present Town Administrator William DiLibero. According to paragraphs 63-65, Sartor promised DiLibero the better-paying Charlestown job in return for DiLibero's promise to get rid of DiBello. 

I did find one interesting word change in DiBello's account of the alleged Sartor-DiLibero conspiracy. In the Human Rights Commission complaint, DiBello alleges that Sartor "induced" DiLibero to come to work for Charlestown (paragraph 55). In the lawsuit, paragraph 63, Sartor "encouraged" DiLibero. With virtually everything else transferred word-for-word, I just found it interesting that DiBello softened the language on this key point. She is still going to have to prove it, though.

I am eagerly anticipating DiBello's evidence that this actually happened, especially because this act is crucial to her whole conspiracy theory. She will be compelled to disclose what she has during the "discovery" phase of the litigation. Members of the town's 15-member Search Committee tell me that even if this alleged conspirators' meeting took place, there is no way Sartor could have delivered the job to DiLibero.

As in the Human Rights Commission complaint, DiBello alleges certain conversations took place and provides some verbatim accounts. See especially the long verbatim account in paragraph 72 of a conversation she allegedly had with former Council member Forrester Safford, and ask yourself if it's possible to capture so much verbatim conversation without a wiretap. I guess the same goes for the alleged conspirators' meetings that she claims took place in Hopkinton Town Hall.

I remain mystified at DiBello's selection of whom she sued and whom she left out. For example, why is she suing Marge Frank who is barely mentioned in her complaint except for one time when DiBello says Marge gave town employee Lyndsay Shader a ride? 

By contrast, DiBello does not include Tax Assessor Ken Swain among the defendants, even though he allegedly did mean things to her from 2005 until DiBello was fired in May 2010. See paragraphs 33, 38, 39, 40, 53, 62, 78a, and 80a for all of Swain's alleged affronts to DiBello. 

Many other people not named in DiBello's suit allegedly did bad things to her. They include former Town Council President Deb Carney, former Town Clerk Jodi LaCroix, former Building Official John Matuza, former Town Council President Kate Waterman and DiBello's former assistant Lyndsay Shader. Not that I'm wishing trouble for any of these people (several of whom are my friends).

It's just odd how DiBello did her targeting. 

Police Chief Jack Shippee was named in the original complaint and is named again as a defendant in this lawsuit. See paragraph 87 where DiBello alleges that Chief Shippee conspired with Administrator DiLibero to make up evidence that allowed DiLibero to add a sixth reason why DiBello should be fired. Oddly, that sixth reason is never described, leaving it to readers' imaginations to fill in the blanks.

At the end of the 34-page document is the Prayer for Relief where DiBello tells the Court what she wants which is:

1. vindication
2. elimination of the effects of her termination in such a way that it will not affect her future employment prospects
3. restoration to her old job as if she never left - i.e. with accrued pension credits, seniority, etc.
4. unspecified compensatory damages
5. unspecified punitive damages
6. attorney's fees
7. interest

She is also requesting a jury trial.

And so begins the next stage in Charlestown's great adventure with Lisa DiBello.