The girlfriend of Philando Castile initiated a defamation lawsuit this week against a Rice County Sheriff’s deputy who tweeted that a settlement she received would be “gone in 6 months on crack cocaine.”

Previously, the cities of St. Anthony and Roseville agreed to $800,000 in settlements to Diamond Reynolds, who live-streamed the immediate aftermath of the fatal shooting of Castile in Falcon Heights by a St. Anthony police officer in 2016.

After the settlements were publicized in November 2017, Tom McBroom wrote on Twitter, “She needs to come off County and State Aid now that she has some cash” and followed up with the comment about cocaine, according to the lawsuit Reynolds served on McBroom Tuesday.

In addition to being a deputy, McBroom is the mayor of Elysian, east of Mankato. Neither McBroom nor his attorney, who represented him in his appeal of his demotion from sergeant, could be reached for comment Friday.

When Officer Jeronimo Yanez shot Castile, 32, Reynolds was in the car’s passenger seat and her 4-year-old daughter was in the backseat. A Ramsey County jury found Yanez not guilty of manslaughter.

Reynolds is pursuing a lawsuit against McBroom because she wants to protect her reputation and show her daughter that she stood up for herself, said Mike Padden, Reynolds’ attorney.

“For this man to do this was horribly egregious,” Padden said Friday. “… She’s very angry about this situation, but overall she’s doing fine.”

Reynolds recently had another child and still lives in the Twin Cities, Padden said. She told Padden that any compensation she receives from the lawsuit would go into a fund for her daughter.

LAWSUIT: ALLEGATIONS ARE FALSE, DEFAMATORY

Padden wrote in the lawsuit that McBroom’s allegations saying Reynolds was “an abuser of serious drugs, has an addiction that causes her financial stress, and is someone who bases her entire existence in terms of her costs of daily living on support from municipalities and other state of Minnesota entities” are false and therefore defamatory.

McBroom “would have easy access to criminal history data for Minnesotans, and could have easily ascertained that (Reynolds) had never been charged or convicted for cocaine use,” Padden wrote, adding that Reynolds “has never used or abused cocaine at any time in her life.”

Padden also wrote in the lawsuit that McBroom’s statements were racially motivated.

McBroom told City Pages in 2017 that his comment didn’t have anything to do with race.

Reynolds’ lawsuit alleges defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligence, and seeks more than $50,000 in damages. It has not been filed in state court, and Padden said he will see if they can reach a settlement with McBroom before doing so.

McBroom was a Rice County Sheriff’s deputy sergeant and was demoted to deputy after the incident, according to a decision by an arbitrator, who upheld the decision. McBroom appealed in state court and a judge affirmed the arbitrator’s decision last month. He has worked for the sheriff’s office for 12 years and served in the military.

“His comments are not the comments or opinions or beliefs of the Rice County Sheriff’s Office,” Sheriff Troy Dunn said Friday.