Suing Bloomberg

A court in South Carolina has allowed a lawsuit against New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to proceed. The owner of a pawnshop in Summerville, South Carolina is suing Bloomberg for slandering him personally in the wake of Bloomberg's "stings" of gun shop owners.

COLUMBIA, S.C. - A Summerville pawn shop owner's lawsuit accusing New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg of slandering him after investigators bought guns from his store a year ago can move forward, a state court judge ruled Monday.

Larry Mickalis sued the mayor, the city and two firms of private investigators last year after Bloomberg had the city file a civil lawsuit against his pawn shop and 14 other stores accused of selling firearms illegally to undercover investigators.

After filing the lawsuit, Bloomberg called the gun shop owners "the worst of the worst" and said they "have New Yorkers' blood on their hands," according to Mickalis' suit.

"Those statements made by the mayor and other defendants are defamatory," Mickalis' lawyer Justin Kahn told The Associated Press by phone Monday night.

Circuit Judge Roger M. Young rejected Bloomberg's motions to throw out Mickalis' suit because the filing didn't follow New York procedures and that the mayor was not acting in an official capacity.

I think that is probably the biggest display of chutzpah yet by Bloomberg. Trying to throw a South Carolina lawsuit out for not following New York procedures? Yeesh. But this is not all that Bloomberg has done here. He also flouted Federal laws with his much publicized "stings":

In the suit, Mickalis said there was nothing improper about the sale because the woman filling out the papers had to sign a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives declaration saying she was the buyer and not buying for someone else.

Federal investigators have told New York officials there is not enough evidence to file criminal charges against any of the gun shop owners, according to court papers.

The city has been warned that its sting could leave it legally liable, according to a letter from the U.S. Department of Justice that Kahn provided to the AP.

I pointed this out once before: Knowingly making a false statement on a BATF form is a felony. What Bloomberg did was wrong and I suspect that Larry Mickalis is going to thump Bloomberg pretty solidly under South Carolina laws.