This Thursday, the Illinois Supreme Court approved a defamation case against the Chicago Sun-Times for its 20202 coverage of a Republican state agency chief who allegedly lobbied for politically motivated property tax advantages on the Trump International Hotel & Tower.
Mauro Glorioso, the former executive director of the Illinois Property Tax Appeal Board, filed the lawsuit in 2021, claiming the Sun-Times misreported Glorioso’s role in President-elect Donald Trump’s successful appeal attempt to reduce his 2011 Trump Tower property taxes by $1 million. According to state officials, Glorioso was the target of an anonymous complaint alleging that his decision-making was unlawfully influenced by political motivations.
According to the Sun-Times reporting, which is referenced and quoted in Glorioso’s defamation lawsuit, Glorioso, a Republican lawyer from Westchester, Illinois, who was appointed to the tax appeal board in 2019, allegedly pushed his staff to rule in the president’s favor and reject the staff’s decision to deny Trump any [tax] refund. The Sun-Times reported that Glorioso allegedly made repeated attempts to add Trump’s tax appeal push to the board’s agenda as part of the accusations.
Glorioso’s lawsuit cites prior decisions by the Illinois Office of Executive Inspector General and lower courts to support its claim that the defendants’ front-page publications claiming that Glorioso ordered the agency to approve the $1 million payout for Trump, rejecting a staff report that found no valid reason to support the refund on the tax bill for [Trump Tower], are material fabrications and the antithesis of fair reports and substantial truth.
The lawsuit claims that the defendants ignore the fact that their articles did not request favorable government relief. They falsely exaggerated a baseless anonymous OEIG complaint, aggressively defamed Glorioso through fabrications posing as news, and then claimed that Glorioso had committed the alleged offenses, including unethical behavior not even included in the complaint.
According to the Sun-Times, OEIG investigators looked into the allegations against Glorioso and found them to be false. However, they also found that Glorioso had violated state law and policy by erasing emails and data related to Trump’s tax appeal, which finally resulted in his termination in October 2020.
In April 2023, Trump prevailed in his property tax challenge after an appeals court determined that Cook County officials had overvalued Trump Tower in 2011. According to the Sun-Times, the appeal victory would result in a $540,000 reduction in revenue for Chicago Public Schools.
After the Sun-Times failed to demonstrate that Glorioso’s lawsuit was a baseless and vindictive Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation attempt, or SLAPP, the Illinois Supreme Court unanimously decided on Thursday to allow Glorioso’s legal campaign to continue. Citing the state’s Citizen Participation Act, which aims to end lawsuits where plaintiffs are intimidating, harassing, or punishing citizens for participating in public affairs, the newspaper filed for dismissal in September.
Justice David Overstreet wrote in the court’s decision, which supported the lower court’s decision to approve Glorioso’s lawsuit, “This issue concerns whether the plaintiff’s goal in filing the lawsuit was to seek damages for the harm caused to his reputation and character or whether the sole intent was to chill defendants’ rights of petition and speech related to participation in government.”
According to Overstreet, the court cited prior decisions that indicated two elements taken into consideration in this case: the lawsuit’s timing and the connection between the injuries and the desired damages. In evaluating these factors, the appellate court concluded that defendants failed to show plaintiff s lawsuit is retaliatory. Because it found in favor of plaintiff on both elements constituting defendants initial burden to show the lawsuit is a SLAPP, the appellate court affirmed the circuit court s judgment.
In May 2023, a Georgia appellate court permitted Glorioso’s lawsuit to proceed, which prompted the Sun-Times dismissal effort. According to his suit, the court found that in looking at the OEIG Complaint, it is clear that the Defendants reporting on the related investigation is not consistent with the gist or sting of the allegations therein.
The Sun-Times was also found to have conveyed an erroneous impression to the ordinary reader regarding the allegations against Glorioso and investigation into the OEIG Complaint, according to Glorioso s suit.
This is not to minimize or understate the importance of the press and other news media in our democracy, Overstreet explained about the Illinois Supreme Court s decision. Our jurisprudence is replete with privileges and other protections designed to protect these concerns, many of which remain at issue in this lawsuit. We are simply holding that the [Citizen Participation Act] specifically protects government participation and does not encompass all media reports on matters of public concern as advocated by defendants.
In response to the decision, Sun-Times lawyer Damon Dunnreleased a statementon Thursday saying the paper was disappointed by the state s Supreme Court vote.
“It is disappointing that the court declined to revisit its prior opinion and protect speech on matters of public concern under our Illinois statute at a time when the First Amendment is under siege,” Dunn said, adding that other states recently took action to ensure their SLAPP laws protect news reports on the conduct of government officials. The newspaper looks forward to proving this case is meritless under the constitutional protections for the press that the Court recognizes are still at issue and getting to the bottom of why the Trump Tower tax appeal was handled the way it was.
Back when Glorioso first filed his suit, the Sun-Times interim editor-in-chief at the time, Steve Warmbir, said the paper stands by the accuracy of the stories about him.
Glorioso s lawyer, Phillip Zisook, told Law&Crime on Friday that he wasn t surprised by the latest legal development, saying: The Illinois Supreme Court thoroughly analyzed, not only the Illinois Citizen Participation Act but the defendant s motions to dismiss under the act as well as the facts of the case and correctly determined that the Sun-Times in its articles did not seek favorable government relief or take any action with respect to the anonymous complaint they purported to be reporting on.
According to Zisook, the Sun-Times articles fell outside of the scope of the Citizen Participation Act because they were not genuinely aimed at procuring government relief, which is required. Although the Sun-Times argues that its articles were matters of public concern, the Illinois Citizen Participation Act only protects speech or conduct that is genuinely aimed at procuring government relief, Zisook says. They were outside the scope of the act.
Glorioso s suit now awaits a mandate from the Illinois Supreme Court to officially return the case to the circuit court, where it is expected to be sent by December 2026, per Zisook.
Then it s up to the circuit court to schedule a date, he said.
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