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Mr. Levant claimed that, as a result, he “has been lowered in the estimation of right-thinking members of society generally, and has been seriously injured in his credit, character and reputation and has been brought into public scandal, odium and contempt, and has suffered damages,” including damage to his “reputation as an entrepreneur.”

After considerable due diligence, we have come to believe that many facts in the letter were inaccurate and some clarification is necessary

Faced with Mr. Levant’s lawsuit, Mr. Terlesky, who had been fired as an ad salesman from theWestern Standard, said he settled the matter by paying Mr. Levant $5000.

Both Mr. Terlesky and Fast Forward acknowledged under oath that they had no basis for the allegation that Mr. Levant had spent company money on trips. There was no evidence that the allegations were true, vindicating Mr. Levant. Fast Forward issued a correction, in which the editor Ian Doig, also named in the suit, wrote: “After considerable due diligence, we have come to believe that many facts in the letter were inaccurate and some clarification is necessary. In particular, we recognize that as a publisher Mr. Levant would have gone to all efforts to promote and improve the Western Standard, locally, nationally and internationally, including ensuring that any use of company funds was appropriate. Any suggestion to the contrary was based on the opinion of the author of the letter [Mr. Terlesky] and Fast Forward Weekly does not share those views.”

In an interview Thursday, Mr. Doig said he did not feel the libel suit violated his free speech, but he did feel “burned.”

“Just because you can sue, doesn’t mean you ought to,” he said. “When you rely on the media to spread your message, it’s not wise to go suing the media willy nilly.”

Mr. Levant said a key difference between the two libel suits is that Mr. Terlesky made “a false, factual claim.” The libel suit in response was not political, as he claims Mr. Awan’s is. “It wasn’t an attempt to stop him from doing what he does as a living or a sideline. It was to correct a potentially devastating, bizarrely specific allegation of fraud on my part,” Mr. Levant said.

National Post

jbrean@nationalpost.com