Can Journalists Be Sued for Reporting Evidence

By Milton Allimadi —

The First Amendment was never intended to protect the powerful from public scrutiny. It was written to protect the public’s right to know.

That principle is now being tested in a defamation lawsuit pending against me, Black Star News, and Cassandra Fameux, the former wife of Dr. Paul Gregory St. Claire, a former anesthesiologist at the University of Michigan Health Sparrow.

The trial is scheduled to start July 20, 2026 with Judge Morgan Cole presiding in Ingham County’s 30th Judicial Circuit Court, in Lansing, MI. Dr. St. Claire is seeking $500,000 and the removal of all my articles and postings involving the allegations against him by Ms. Fameux.

The question before the court ultimately extends far beyond the parties involved in this litigation. It is whether a journalist who reports allegations supported by medical records, court filings, sworn testimony, documentary evidence, and an official police investigation can nevertheless be punished through years of expensive litigation simply because those reports are damaging to a prominent professional’s reputation and that of his former employer.

If the answer is yes, investigative journalism itself becomes far more dangerous.

Every investigative reporter understands that stories involving allegations of abuse, corruption, or misconduct require extraordinary care. The higher the stakes, the greater the responsibility to verify information, distinguish allegations from established facts, seek responses from those accused, and accurately present competing evidence.

That is precisely how I approached Black Star News’ reporting into Ms. Fameux’s allegations concerning Dr. St. Claire beginning nearly three-years ago. My reporting never asked readers simply to accept Ms. Fameux’s account. Instead, it examined what contemporaneous medical records showed, what witnesses said under oath, what court documents revealed, and what law enforcement uncovered during its own investigation.

Among the records I reviewed were medical records from December 16, 2014 prepared by Dr. John Maino at the same hospital. Those records diagnosed Ms. Fameux with conditions including anorexia, anxiety, depression, anxiety attacks, insomnia, and microcytic hypochronic anemia. They did not diagnose schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, as Dr. Dominic Barberio did shortly thereafter.

That fact became significant because Ms. Fameux later alleged that she was subjected for years to powerful antipsychotic medications—including Invega Sustenna injections—even though she maintained she never suffered from schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. My reporting also relied upon the opinions of two psychiatrists Dr. Sharon Hobbs and Dr. Rita Aouad who independently concluded that Ms. Fameux did not have schizophrenia. Dr. Aouad testified during the couple’s divorce proceedings in 2025 that she had severe PTSD from the marriage.

Those opinions did not establish that Ms. Fameux’s allegations were true. They did establish that her claims could not fairly be dismissed as inherently incredible. They made the allegations unquestionably newsworthy and deserving of careful investigation.

University of Michigan Health Sparrow records I reviewed identified psychiatrist Dr. Barberio as the physician who administered monthly Invega Sustenna injections over several years to Ms. Fameux, from 2017 to 2021.

Yet during sworn testimony in the divorce proceedings, Dr. St. Claire acknowledged that he personally administered injections to his wife. Although he testified his involvement as only “occasionally”, when Dr. Barberio was deposed he testified that Dr. St. Claire administered approximately ninety percent of the injections while nurses administered the remainder.

Those differing accounts were themselves matters of legitimate public interest including to those seeking medical care from the University of Michigan Health Sparrow and they were reported accordingly. I also reported Dr. St. Claire’s divorce court testimony that it was his wife who asked him, in the presence of Dr. Barberio, to inject her because, as an anesthesiologist it wouldn’t “hurt” as much. Dr. Barberio later denied ever hearing such a request by Ms. Fameux when he was interviewed by police.

Ms. Fameux also provided police investigators with an audio recording she secretly made of a September 2023 conversation with Dr. Barberio. In that conversation, according to my reporting—since I also heard the audio—he agreed that she was not schizophrenic. Dr. Barberio later testified that he made those statements merely to “placate” Ms. Fameux. Again, my reporting presented both accounts.

I also reported Ms. Fameux’s claim to the police that the only times Dr. Barberio ever injected her was when Dr. St. Claire was angry at her and phoned Dr. Barberio who came and injected her at home as “punishment.” Dr. Barberio told police he only made one home visit because Ms. Fameux had missed her shots due to the Covid pandemic and he denied the injection was as “punishment.”

When he was deposed on February 7, 2025 Dr. Barberio said the home visit was in June 2020 and that he injected Ms. Fameux; he told police it was in May 2020 and that Dr. St. Claire injected his wife in his presence.

These contradictory statements are also newsworthy.

Journalism is not a courtroom. Reporters are not judges or juries. Our responsibility is not to determine guilt or innocence. It is to investigate matters of legitimate public concern, gather evidence from multiple sources, present competing explanations fairly, and allow the public to understand why the allegations deserve attention.

That responsibility became even more compelling after law enforcement became involved in this case.

On September 10, 2024, accompanied by Linda Wenzel, a social worker from Lansing, MI-based Community Mental Health (CMH) Ms. Fameux filed a detailed complaint with the Meridian Township Police Department, in Okemos, MI. Officer Nathan Wicks documented her allegations and noted that she presented medical records which she said supported her claims concerning serious medical complications that she attributed to years of antipsychotic medication including a brain tumor, a heart condition—she has a loop monitor inserted in her chest—diabetes, and reported infertility after surgery to stop heavy bleeding during her monthly cycles.

The police did not simply take the complaint and close the file. Detective Ian Mandernack conducted an investigation that lasted approximately six months. As part of that investigation, he attempted to interview Dr. St. Claire. Rather than submit to an interview, Dr. St. Claire declined and responded through his attorney Jessica Larson who sent an e-mail message raising questions about Ms. Fameux’s mental stability, which I also duly reported.

Although Dr. St. Claire refused to be interviewed, when he was first reached by phone on March 10, 2025, Det. Mandernack later wrote in his notes that Dr. St. Claire “advised to me that LARA had already concluded their investigation of the incident, and cleared him of any wrongdoing or malpractice.”

This is contradicted by notes written by CMH social worker Ms. Wenzel in Ms. Fameux’s records: “In July 2024 LARA contacted this writer and reported that [Fameux’s] estranged husband did in fact access and modify [her] reports and that this was criminal in natural (sic) and recommended that [Fameux] file a police report and to get a ppo in place.” (PPO refers to personal protective order).

Ms. Fameux told police some of the Invega Sustenna drugs she was injected with were retrieved from Dr. Barberio’s storage cabinet without any prescriptions being written. Barberio provided Det. Mandernack a print out of prescription for November 6, 2020. There is no mention of printouts for 2017, 2018, or 2019 in the police report, as I reported.

At the conclusion of the investigation, the Meridian Township Police Department recommended that prosecutors authorize a domestic assault charge against Dr. St. Claire. The prosecutor ultimately declined to bring charges. Prosecutors decline cases every day for reasons having nothing to do with whether misconduct occurred, including evidentiary concerns and the extraordinarily high burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

For journalists, the question is whether credible evidence exists to justify reporting allegations that concern the public interest. In this case, there were medical records, sworn testimony, documentary evidence, police reports, witness interviews, and a lengthy law enforcement investigation. The police report is appended at the end of my article reporting the recommendation that Dr. St. Claire be charged.

Those are precisely the kinds of materials responsible investigative journalists are expected to examine. Equally important, I always sought

comment from public officials including the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Michigan—Ms. Fameux filed an affidavit of criminal complaint dated October 30, 2023 against Dr. St. Claire and Dr. Barberio to that office—from Dr. St. Claire’s attorney Ms. Jessica Larson at Mallory Lapka Scott & Selin, PLLC, and from the University of Michigan Health Sparrow.

At one time, after Ms. Larson told me any more e-mailed questions from me would be considered harassment and not to contact her or her firm, I still e-mailed her anyway to give her an opportunity to respond. I made sure to copy Richard Grillo, the Meridian Township Police Chief, so that I would have evidence to show that my questions were not harassment.

Seeking more information, on October 15, 2025, I also filed a FOIA request seeking more information and even though I paid the $15 fee requested by the University of Michigan up to day I have not yet received any materials. The university has missed six dates that it provided me for delivering the information and has violated them on each occasion. The next date—the seventh one—provided by Matthew Riggs, a FOIA compliance specialist is July 13, 2026.

One example illustrates the inconsistency in the lawsuit. Dr. St. Claire alleges that my reporting falsely stated that he engaged in an affair with a married nurse at the hospital. Yet during sworn divorce testimony, he acknowledged that he did engage in the extramarital relationship. Ms. Fameux also obtained surveillance video from a private investigator that I reviewed showing Dr. St. Claire and the woman entering the back seat of his car for what appears to be some intimate time.

A defamation lawsuit should not proceed on the theory that truthful reporting—or reporting grounded in sworn testimony and documentary evidence—is actionable simply because it is embarrassing. Truth has long been recognized as an absolute defense to defamation.

That principle is not merely a protection for journalists. It is a protection for every member of the public who depends upon independent reporting to understand how powerful institutions and influential individuals conduct themselves when no one believes they are being watched.

One of the most significant facts reported by Black Star News came directly from Dr. St. Claire himself. During sworn divorce testimony, he testified that his employment at the University of Michigan Health Sparrow ended after hospital officials alleged that he had accessed and altered Ms. Fameux’s medical records. The hospital and Dr. St. Claire later entered into a nondisclosure agreement concerning his departure and he received severance. I reported that testimony because it was newsworthy. The fact that he gave that testimony under oath is itself a matter of public record and one that journalists are fully entitled to report.

On November 30, 2025 I also wrote and published an article concerning the couple’s divorce proceedings, specifically a 2018 Judgment of Separate Maintenance (JOSM) signed by Ms. Fameux that transferred all marital assets to Dr. St. Claire. The JOSM also named Dr. Barberio as the psychiatrist who would determine Ms. Fameux’s mental fitness for co-parenting the couple’s then minor three children.

My reporting questioned whether legally required protections for an individual who had previously been adjudicated incapacitated had been properly observed. According to Michigan law, the court was required to have appointed a Guardian Ad Litem (GAL) for Ms. Fameux, which records show never happened. Instead, as I reported, Judge Carol N. Koenig, who presided over the divorce case in Ingham County’s 30th Judicial Circuit Court, together with Dr. St. Claire and Ms. Larson apparently fabricated the existence of a GAL.

The process apparently started on December 20, 2017 when Judge Janelle A. Lawless, who previously presided over the case, allowed Ms. Larson to call Dr. St. Claire on the stand and ask him about purported conversations he’d had with Ms. Fameux’s GAL—even though none had been appointed—according to court documents.

Neither Ms. Fameux nor her lawyer Robin Omer was in court that day. My reporting also revealed that in 2003, Omer—hired and paid by Dr. St. Claire—was the law partner of Jane Radner who, that year, was Dr. St. Claire’s lawyer during his divorce from his second wife, the late Dr. Marcy Street, whom he’d also accused of having mental illness.

Judge Koenig’s role in this apparent GAL fabrication now raises questions about her decision to deny an October 22, 2024 motion filed on behalf of Ms. Fameux by Timothy Young, her attorney at the time, to set aside the JOSM on account that she was under the influence of the Invega Sustenna and didn’t know what she was signing.

In addition to the article, I reported this apparent misconduct by Judge Keonig, Dr. St. Claire, Ms. Larson and Judge Lawless to: Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, State Attorney General Dana Nessel, the Ingham Chief Circuit and Probate Judge Shauna Dunnings, the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI.

On May 12, 2026 I reported that Ms. Larson had apparently parted ways with the Mallory firm; on May 23, 2026 I reported that the entire firm itself had apparently shut down.

All of this was newsworthy.

There is also a recent development of serious concern. While preparing discovery responses for Chris Newberg, Dr. St. Claire’s defamation attorney, for the upcoming July 20, 2026 defamation trial, I discovered that years of email communications had disappeared from my Gmail account. Among the missing emails were communications exchanged with Ms. Larson, Dr. St. Claire’s former divorce attorney, as well as emails exchanged with Newberg.

One missing communication was particularly significant. On May 4, 2024, I emailed Mr. Newberg inviting Dr. St. Claire to be interviewed so that he could respond fully to concerns raised in my reporting. That invitation reflected exactly what responsible journalism requires: giving the subject of an investigation every reasonable opportunity to present his side of the story. Newberg never responded to that offer, which, earlier had also been extended to Ms. Larson.

When I discovered that these and other emails had disappeared through possible criminal breach shortly before trial, I reported the matter to federal law enforcement on June 22, 2026 and on June 29, 2026 notified New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch in a detailed letter sent by e-mail.

I have been told by people with more tech skills than I have—but have not verified this—that Google can recover e-mail messages and possibly identify parties involved in deletions. This requires court or law enforcement notification. I have asked my lawyer at the Butzel Long firm to notify Judge Cole about the breach.

I do not know who is responsible. It would be inappropriate to speculate. But if those materials can disappear shortly before trial, every investigative reporter should recognize the potential consequences.

The First Amendment does allow journalists to investigate matters of public concern without fearing financial ruin simply because the subjects of their reporting are influential, well-funded, or dissatisfied with what has been published. History is filled with reporting that powerful people initially denounced as false, unfair, or defamatory, only for later events to demonstrate why the reporting mattered.

But a very different question is presented by this lawsuit. Can journalists be punished simply for reporting allegations supported by medical records, court filings, sworn testimony, documentary evidence, and the findings of an official police investigation?

If the answer becomes yes, the consequences will extend far beyond this case.

First Amendment to the United States Constitution engraved on the facade of the Newseum in Washington, D.C., USA. (Wikimedia Commons)