The head of the Transport Workers union sued Google today in hopes of unmasking a very pesky blogger.
TWU Local 100’s John Samuelsen complains in his suit that anonymous bloggers — writing for a Google-hosted blog titled “Inside Local 100”– have posted defamatory and false entries accusing him of pocketing tens of thousands of dollars in union money slated for Haiti earthquake relief.
“Word is that Saumelsen… [is] trying to worm out of actually paying the pledge of money they made to Haiti relief,” the secret hecklers posted at one point.
“First they pocketed the 50K that members contributed to go to help Haiti,” reads another post. “And now they don’t even want to pay the money they pledged.”
Two sources said the author of the blog is former TWU Treasurer Israel “Izzy” Rivera, who was recently fired from his post on accusations of steering union business to his lover.
Rivera, reached by phone today, said, “It’s not me.”
After Rivera was removed from his job, he handed a slew of documents to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, which is now investigating the union and Samuelsen for its use of political money.
Samuelsen in turn gave the U.S. Dept. of Labor documents on Rivera, and said that agency is not investigating the former official.
“These statements are untrue and accuse Samuelsen of both being a criminal and incompetent in the performance of his duties,” the union big says in his lawsuit, which seeks
“I absolutely did not steal the money, or convert the money for my own personal use, or do anything with the money other than oversee its donation to the Haitian relief effort,” Samuelsen protests in an affidavit attached to the suit.
The suit seeks to force a judge to compel Google to turn over the name or names of whomever authored the blog. It cites a 2009 case in which Google was successfully forced to unmask a vicious blogger who referred to a former model as a “skank” and a “whore.”
Lawyers for both sides were not immediately available for comment.