Fresno City Council President Nelson Esparza announced Monday that he is dropping his defamation suit against fellow Councilman Garry Bredefeld, who has accused Esparza of attempting to extort the city attorney.
Esparza said he was withdrawing from the lawsuit to save the city the cost of defending Bredefeld and the cost of damages that Esparza said he would receive with a successful lawsuit.
“I love our city and will not sue the City of Fresno over my colleague’s defamatory remarks,” Esparza said in a news release. “His antics have already cost enough taxpayer dollars. For this reason, I am making the responsible decision to withdraw my suit so that we as a body can heal and move forward.”
Bredefeld did not have an immediate response but scheduled a 2 p.m. news conference at City Hall. At the news conference, he said Esparza’s stated goal to drop the defamation suit to save taxpayers’ dollars was “a joke and pathetic.”
If Esparza was interested in protecting taxpayers’ dollars, Bredefeld said, he wouldn’t have voted to approve a $55,000 pay raise for himself and other councilmembers; he wouldn’t have filed the defamation lawsuit; he wouldn’t have attempted to extort then-City Attorney Doug Sloan, requiring the city to embark on an expensive search for a new city attorney when Sloan quit to take a new job; and he wouldn’t have put more than $100,000 in charges on his city credit card for items that included a new council president logo and catered reception for the council president ($4,000 and $2,300), $1,700 for Grizzlies suite food catering, and $1,728 for a Tyler Maxwell mailer — in itself a possible violation of campaign finance rules.
Bredefeld said he plans to file a motion in court asking a judge to require Esparza to personally repay the legal costs incurred by the city for his defamation lawsuit. Bredefeld estimated those costs could total as much as $20,000.
As for whether Esparza could face criminal charges, Bredefeld said he and Councilman Mike Karbassi have talked to the Fresno County District Attorney’s Office, and he has spoken with the FBI.
“Let me just say that I believe there’s an active investigation going on, but I can’t comment any more than that,” he said.
Extortion Alleged
During a May 13 news conference, Bredefeld accused Esparza of attempting to extort Sloan in a meeting on April 22. During the meeting, Esparza allegedly told Sloan that he was to work for the council majority and that Esparza was “standing between you and you losing your job.”
Sloan, who now works for the city of Santa Monica, confirmed the conversation in an email to local news media later that night.
In a subsequent court filing in his defamation suit, Esparza provided an alternate version of the meeting he had with Sloan, which followed a council discussion over whether the City Attorney’s office was being “weaponized” by Bredefeld for partisan purposes. He said in the court filing that he had never suggested that Sloan only work for the council majority or to the exclusion of certain councilmembers.
Bredefeld later filed an anti-SLAPP motion to dismiss a lawsuit by claiming free speech protection. A hearing on that motion had been scheduled for Wednesday.
Nancy Price is a multimedia journalist for GV Wire. A longtime reporter and editor who has worked for newspapers in California, Florida, Alaska, Illinois and Kansas, Nancy joined GV Wire in July 2019. She previously worked as an assistant metro editor for 13 years at The Fresno Bee. Nancy earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in journalism at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. Her hobbies include singing with the Fresno Master Chorale and volunteering with Fresno Filmworks. You can reach Nancy at 559-492-4087 or Send an Email
