Crime & Law

Jury Awards $1.5M to City Council Candidate Who Said She Was Defamed During Campaign

A Cook County jury on Wednesday ordered Hyde Park Ald. Lamont Robinson’s campaign and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s 4th Ward Democratic Organization to pay $1.475 million to a former Chicago City Council candidate who said she was defamed by mailers and text messages the two organizations sent during the 2023 aldermanic campaign.

Ebony Lucas, an attorney and real estate investor, finished third in the February 2023 contest to replace former Ald. Sophia King, who ran unsuccessfully for mayor. Robinson defeated Prentice Butler, King’s former chief of staff, in the April 2023 runoff to win the seat.

Lucas sued Robinson’s campaign and the 4th Ward Democratic Organization, which backed Robinson, for launching what she called a “coordinated smear campaign” in the days leading up to the Feb. 28 vote by falsely claiming in three mailers and text messages that she had not paid business liens and fines and had violated the city’s landlord tenant ordinance.

“This verdict is bigger than me,” Lucas said in a statement. “It is a stand for truth in our elections and a message that lies and defamation will not be tolerated in our democracy. I ran on a platform of transparency, service, and economic empowerment.”

The jury awarded Lucas $150,000 to compensate her for damage to her reputation, $75,000 for emotional distress and $1.25 million in punitive damages. The jury found Robinson’s campaign committee liable for half of the damages and the 4th Ward Democratic Organization liable for the other half, according to the verdict form.

Representatives of Robinson and Preckwinkle vowed to appeal the verdict.

Robinson called the lawsuit “politically motivated.”

“Residents of the 4th Ward voted for me because they knew I would fight for them, and that’s exactly where my focus remains,” Robinson said, vowing to combat cuts to services ordered by President Donald Trump that he said would hurt students in his ward and compromise public safety. “My priority is addressing the real challenges we face, not engaging in political theater.”

A spokesperson for the 4th Ward Democratic Organization said the mailers did not defame Lucas.

“We strongly disagree with the verdict and believe it reflects an unprecedented misapplication of the law,” the organization’s spokesperson said in a statement. “Importantly, the jury made no finding that we knowingly or intentionally made any false statements—the threshold required for a defamation claim. We believe this type of verdict for a good faith reliance upon publicly available and published information is in error, unsupported by law, and will be reversed.”

The mailers claimed Lucas was a “bad landlord,” who “can’t manage her own business” and “doesn’t care about doing the right thing.”

One of the liens cited by the mailers was caused by an error that was corrected in 2021, and Lucas “never” incurred court fines for violating city laws, according to the lawsuit filed by Lucas.

The mailers also claimed that Lucas had been accused of “falsely (obtaining) access” to a condominium association’s bank account. That complaint, the subject of a 2017 article by the Chicago Tribune, was dismissed, records show. Lucas is licensed to practice law in Illinois, records show.

Lucas ran unsuccessfully to represent the 4th Ward on the City Council three times, losing twice to King in 2017 and 2019 and then to Robinson and Butler in 2023.

Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]

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