Senator Daylin Leach sued the Philadelphia Inquirer yesterday, and Angela Couloumbis, a writer for the Inquirer. Leach’s complaint focuses on two articles that Couloumbis wrote that the Inquirer Published on January 24 and January 25 of 2019. Those articles appear as Exhibit A and Exhibit B in the complaint.
The complaint alleges that, “Couloumbis and her associates at the Inquirer thereafter embarked on a months-long investigation into [Cara]Taylor’s allegations of sexual misconduct against Senator Leach. During the course of the investigation, Couloumbis and the Inquirer determined that while some of Taylor’s accusations merely strained credulity, others were just plain false. As a result of these determinations and other discoveries, including Taylor’s prior perjury conviction in 1993, inconsistencies over the years between her various accounts of contact with Senator Leach, and the physical and temporal impossibilities of some of her claims, Couloumbis’ editors refused to print Taylor’s account, because knowingly or recklessly disregarding the lies and other false facts uncovered in the investigation that established the falsity of Taylor’s entire story would rightfully have exposed the paper to liability for defamation.”
Shortly after Taylor’s allegations against him appeared in the Inquirer, Leach sued Cara Taylor.
Sara Atkins, who is among Leach’s challengers in upcoming Democratic Primary (April 28, 2020), wasted no time responding to his lawsuit against the Inquirer, and particularly against Angela Couloumbis. She sent an email to supporters expressing support for Couloumbis and Taylor, and also made an appeal for contributions to her campaign.
In its coverage of the story last night, Gabriel Escobar, editor and vice president of The Inquirer, is quoted saying, “We completely stand by our reporting and will not comment any further on this pending litigation.”