ORLAND PARK PUBLIC LIBRARY (ECWd) –
This statement was released by both parties on 3/25/16.
On 3/15/16 at a mediation conference, a federal judge reviewed the July 8th video of Bittman’s behavior and it was clear that she should not have done what she did and had no business coming at Fox and DuJan.
The First Amendment right to post the video of Bittman’s behavior was upheld and the video remains on YouTube for everyone to see, forever.
The video speaks for itself. Bittman filed what was clearly a SLAPP (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation) because she was upset that her bad behavior was caught on video and posted for everyone to see. Bittman’s meritless lawsuit has collapsed in flames and has been completely withdrawn. This can be seen as nothing else but a total and complete defeat and disaster for Bittman.
With Bittman admitting on the record that Fox had her children with her at the Orland Park Library, it is clear that Bittman lied to the media in the past when she said that Fox did not have her youngsters with her. Fox is vindicated with Bittman finally admitting the truth. It appears likely that the lies told to the media about Fox by Bittman could be the reason Bittman no longer holds the cushy position of OPPL “public information coordinator,” since the information she was coordinating was not accurate or truthful when it came to Fox.
Bittman filed a SLAPP lawsuit to try to silence the First Amendment rights of people who criticized a public body for covering up child pornography access and other sexual crimes happening in a public library, along with waste and corruption involving elected officials taking gold and fancy meals from taxpayers. Bittman wanted to chill, censor, and silence protected speech and scare away activists and reporters who uncovered wrongdoing at the public body in which she worked.
This SLAPP lawsuit was an unmitigated disaster for Bittman. All her complaints and allegations were dismissed. She claims to have taken out a $10,000 home equity loan and has begged on GoFundMe to pay for this lawsuit. She didn’t like the fact that she and the public body she worked for were criticized and their bad behavior were exposed and so she filed a meritless lawsuit to shutdown criticism and shut up her critics. This is a total and complete loss for her.
Bridget Bittman is a cautionary tale that hopefully other public officials will heed: you cannot successfully sue your critics to silence and censor them and you cannot stifle future speech of people who are critical of you by thinking you can scare them away with a bogus lawsuit.
Bittman is no longer employed by the Orland Park Public Library. She had a very cushy job there, but once she filed her SLAPP lawsuit and was countersued by Megan Fox (for Bittman telling lies to the media in an effort to discredit and malign Fox as the Library’s principal critic) Bittman suddenly left the OPPL (at approximately the same time that the Library’s insurance indemnified Bittman and hired the law firm Gordon Rees to represent her in Fox’s counterclaim).
It would seem this was no coincidence, Bittman leaving a very high-paying and cushy job right about the time that her actions against Fox resulted in that counterclaim. If not for Bittman filing her SLAPP lawsuit, that counterclaim would have never happened and it’s likely that Bittman would still have her $100,000+/year cushy job with all its platinum-plated benefits.
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8 Comments
Jeanne
Posted at 20:45h, 27 MarchLeave Bridget alone. Her grandmother Dorothy Comiskey owned the White Sox. You should treat Bridget with more respect and not mock her. The Comiskeys are very important to Chicago. Bridget is entitled to your respect and who are you to mock her? You are the one who should be mocked because you are nothing and nobody.
Kirk Allen
Posted at 20:57h, 27 MarchJeanne, you are what is wrong with this country. Anyone that believes a person is privileged just because they came from a certain family should go read history and learn why our Founding Fathers formed this great nation. You represent a very sad day in this country!
Jeanne
Posted at 20:40h, 28 MarchYou don’t know nothing. Bridget posted today that she won the lawsuit. I would sooner believe a member of the Comiskey family than I would believe you nobodies. She said she won the lawsuit and it was successful. You are just jealous of her because she won and the derp squad LOST.
jmkraft
Posted at 21:12h, 28 MarchWhat she posted on her gofundme page says nothing about her “winning” or anyone “losing”. Even though she says she gained what she sought, that statement goes contrary to her lawsuit and what she ask for in it. I think you need to grow up and think before your type.
It is clear from your statements that you believe her solely because her grandparents used to own a baseball team. What a way to go thru life…on the backs of people you are related to.
If you believe her simply because of who her grandmother was, then you probably believe O.J. is innocent and Bill “did not have sexual relations with that woman” when he was president.
It is my understanding that the “Public Statement” was agreed to by all parties involved, and is included in the article. Are you saying there was more to this than what is in the statement? If so, please let us know.
ted
Posted at 01:13h, 26 MarchIt seems more like a draw.
lawyerlyone
Posted at 08:21h, 26 MarchHow do you figure? Buttman sued to have the video taken down…it’s still up. She also wanted restriction on future speech (which is laughable). What did this lawsuit get her? She is walking away with nothing and had to publicly admit she lied. Seems like a loss to me
Sharon
Posted at 17:38h, 25 MarchI am glad to see this blew up in Bridget’s face. This news is a nice surprize from the easter bunny come early. I feel bad for anyone who loses a job because jobs are hard to come by, especially ones that pay a lot and have perks but not a whole lot of work. But she clearly lied about Meagan and it was not her job to lie on the publics dime. Bridget got carried away it looks like or was in over her head. Someone more mature above her should have stepped in and taken the mike from her and told her to stop talking to reporters. She told lies and got sued over it and lost her job is what it looks like. Hopefully other Bridgets in the world like her will see that they cant sue people because they dont like being criticized for doing a bad job. No public employee has a right to use lawsuits as a weapon to scare people into not talking about them. She seems to have ruined her own life with this lawsuit and I hope she thinks long and hard about how stupid she was to do this. One wonders why her lawyers are not also held to count for filing this for her when it had no merit. Seems to me she had bad lawyers who just wanted a fat retainer and they should have told her this would not end well for her from the beginning.
SafeLibraries
Posted at 16:02h, 25 MarchWow. A key to the effort to attack the child porn whistleblowers was to claim Fox didn’t have her kids with her so Fox was just making things up and looking to cause trouble. I even saw a recording of the American Library Association’s leader of the “Office for Intellectual Freedom” giving a public speech besmirching Fox in this same manner. It appears evident it is the exact opposite, namely the library spokesperson was making things up and the ALA leader was gladly/knowingly using the lies to cover up its own pro childporn policies that OPPL had implemented.
How many false police reports might have been based on those made up cover stories? What might be the consequences?
But let me ask this. What is the source of that public statement? It is not evident on the document unless I missed it. How do we know it comes from both parties?
I understand that Orland Park Public Library still allows child porn to be viewed on Internet computers, still covers up for child porn viewing, still adheres to legal advice from Klein, Thorpe & Jenkins to ignore child porn viewing as that would violate the child porn viewers privacy rights, still adheres to American Library Association policy that librarians are not judges and cannot determine what is child porn so they may not assist police in such matters, and still deletes the Internet records police need to investigate child porn crimes.
I understand OPPL still utilizes the services of an admitted homophobe as one of its library trustees and that absolutely no consequences have resulted from the raw homophobia people can see recorded on that videotape so you can’t miss it.