Longtime Donald Trump adviser Roger Stone — who’s entangled in the probe of ties between Russia and the president’s campaign — is scheduled to testify in Manhattan court this week about claims that he falsely portrayed a political opponent as a child molester.
Stone, the self-anointed “dirty trickster” behind Trump’s rise, ran the Manhattan madam Kirstin Davis’ failed 2010 gubernatorial campaign.
He told an Albany newspaper that he urged a group called “People for a Safer New York” to send a controversial flier calling Libertarian candidate Warren Redlich a “predator.”
The mailer, which printed Redlich’s photo and home address, directed readers to call the police if they saw him.
“This man, Warren Redlich,…defends sex with children,” it reads. The mailer also calls him a “sick twisted pervert.”
The flyer provides a link to a blog post Redlich wrote about sexually active teens where he notes that Juliet in the Shakespearean tragedy was just 13. It was sent to 150,000 homes including to Redlich’s mother.
One of his former neighbors actually called the cops on Redlich, 51, a semi-retired attorney.
“I don’t think it’s really a question that calling someone a sex predator is defamatory,” said Redlich, who’s seeking a multimillion-dollar jury award.
Stone insists he wasn’t behind the creation of the mailer, but told the Albany Times-Union, “I urged them to do this,” in an October 2010 article.
Two more Trump supporters are defendants in the case– another 2010 gubernatorial candidate, Carl Paladino, and the conservative talk radio host Michael Caputo, who ran his campaign.
Redlich believes Stone and Caputo, who are close friends, conspired to publish the mailer to sink the Libertarian’s candidacy.
Redlich accused Paladino and Davis of approving the tactic, but a judge dismissed the Davis from the case last year.
Paladino and Caputo say they were not involved in the mailing.
The jury trial opens Wednesday and is scheduled to close on Friday.
Redlich is not worried about getting an impartial jury, even though Stone has been in the headlines recently. Earlier this month members of the House Intelligence Committee asked F.B.I. director James B. Comey for information about Stone, who seemed to predict on Twitter that Wikileaks would release emails damaging to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
He doesn’t plan to mention the issue or the defendants’ ties to Trump.
“I’m not going to bring it up, I don’t think it’s relevant to my case,” Redlich said.
Attorneys for the defendants did not immediately return calls for comment.