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Defamation suit offers early test of Ohio's new anti-SLAPP statute • Ohio Capital Journal [1]
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Date: 2025-07-08
In Cambridge, Ohio attorneys have filed what may be the state’s first anti-SLAPP motion. The newly established legal procedure gives defendants a tool to dismiss frivolous lawsuits filed suppress their protected speech.
According to the Institute for Free Speech, 38 states have now passed laws protecting against strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPP.
The lawsuit concerns a divorced couple. The ex-wife, Maegin George, works as a nurse while the ex-husband, Jonathan George, is president of Conn’s Potato Chips.
Jonathan George filed a defamation suit alleging that after he began a new relationship, Maegin George falsely accused him of pedophilia, incest, and attempting to pay for sex.
Maegin George argues she has not said many of the things her ex-husband claims, and what she has said is not defamatory and protected by the First Amendment.
She’s asking the court to conduct an anti-SLAPP review and dismiss the case.
Ohio’s law
State lawmakers approved Ohio’s anti-SLAPP statute, Senate Bill 237, in the final days of the last legislative session. In both chambers, the measure passed without a single ‘no’ vote.
The bill’s co-sponsors, state Sens. Nathan Manning, R-North Ridgeville, and Theresa Gavarone, R-Bowling Green, explained SLAPP suits can take several different forms, including defamation or nuisance lawsuits. What holds them together, though, is their aim — to “silence or intimidate an individual for exercising their rights to free speech.”
“Such lawsuits,” Gavarone explained in committee, “send a message to potential critics that those who speak out will face stress, time commitments, and expensive legal bills over a period of months or even years that many defendants cannot endure.”
The proposal had the backing of a wide array of interest groups, from the ACLU and news organizations to domestic violence groups and the state bar. Ohio’s measure adopts language drafted by the Uniform Law Commission, a non-partisan group of lawyers, judges and professors who develop draft legislation that states can adopt.
The law establishes a fast-track review process, where defendants can argue the lawsuit is frivolous or related to their protected speech. Filing that motion halts other proceedings like discovery, which limits costs and so-called fishing expedition tactics. Both parties have opportunities to appeal along the way, but if the judge determines the lawsuit is meant to stifle speech, it gets dismissed.
The engine driving SLAPP suits, ACLU chief lobbyist Gary Daniels explained, is a power or financial imbalance between the two parties.
“A well-known scenario is grassroots activists speaking out about environmental, safety, or other concerns only to be sued or countersued for their advocacy,” Daniels said. The person filing a SLAPP suit against them doesn’t care if they win or lose in court. “Instead, they know the massive costs of litigation and legal defense act as a barrier against those without adequate financial resources to fight back and defend themselves.”
Monica Nieporte from the Ohio News Media Association explained news outlets are a frequent target of the SLAPP playbook.
“Newspapers in Ohio have been sued for defamation simply for running an article, editorial, or even a political cartoon,” she told state lawmakers. “The goal of these suits is not to prevail and receive damages, but to stifle and suppress protected expression.”
More troubling, Bridget Mahoney explained, without anti-SLAPP legislation on the books, abusers can turn the court system against their victims. Mahoney is the former board chair of the Ohio Domestic Violence Network. Divorcing her abusive ex-husband started a 20-year court battle. When Mahoney and her daughter began advocating for other survivors, Mahoney’s ex-husband filed a defamation case. She described depositions and discovery stretching on for years, forcing her to relive some of her worst experiences and costing her more than $100,000.
“Anyone in Ohio who comes forward to tell their story or report a sexual assault are vulnerable to the same debilitating frivolous lawsuit that we endured,” Mahoney said. She stressed that the law wouldn’t limit her ex-husband or anyone else’s right to sue. “What it will do is give us and others like us a tool so that we are safer to exercise our freedom of speech.”
The case in Cambridge
Maegin George sees something similar in the case Jonathan George filed against her. She filed sworn statements from the people referenced in ex-husband’s complaint stating she never alleged he “committed any sexual misconduct, incest, or pedophilia.” She acknowledged telling one individual that he was friends with a minor on Snapchat but made no accusation of incest.
She goes on to argue her “communications, to the extent they occurred, addressed issues of public concern — particularly the safety and propriety of Mr. George’s interactions with minors — and thus are shielded by the First Amendment.”
That point is key to the new anti-SLAPP case analysis. The process plays out in three steps. First, the judge must determine if the allegations arise from protected speech. Next, the court has to weigh whether those initial allegations are legitimate on their face. Finally, the judge considers if the underlying case is legally viable.
In short, the process asks the court to take a long hard look at what’s being alleged before submitting both parties to a potentially arduous and costly ordeal.
Maegin George’s attorney Austin Warehime argues the case against her is often vague and poorly supported by the evidence.
“Ohio finally has a powerful shield for everyday people who speak out,” he argued, noting the case is one of the first anti-SLAPP motions in the state. “We’re asking the court to apply that shield exactly as the legislature intended — swiftly and decisively.”
Sam Shamansky, the attorney representing Jonathan George dismissed those claims out of hand.
“The notion that our client is trying to suppress protected free speech is literally nonsensical,” he said.
Shamansky called the contention that George is a public figure because he heads up a prominent local business “utter bulls—.”
“Does that mean anybody that owns a business is a public figure? It’s absurd,” he said, adding they’re looking forward to their day in court.
Follow Ohio Capital Journal Reporter Nick Evans on X or on Bluesky.
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