SAN ANGELO, TX — The Cactus Crusader was gut-punched in state district court last month for slander, libel, and defamation. San Angelo businessman Lee Pfluger sued the Crusader, Zane White, for defamation. When White did not respond to the court as requested, the judge ruled in Pfluger’s favor. On June 26, Judge Carmen Dusek ordered White to pay Pfluger $3,127,250 in damages. Those damages will be forever increasing at a rate of 5 percent per annum until paid in full.
The judge’s ruling incorporated $1,023,000 in actual damages, enhanced with an additional $2,000,000 in punitive damages plus interest of $104,000 since Pfluger filed the lawsuit on August 22, 2022.
The court agreed that Pfluger was harmed by the public utterances and social media postings by White. Judge Dusek wrote, “Defendant (White) published defamatory statements with actual malice after the Court admitted Plaintiff’s (Pfluger’s) clear and convincing evidence of same.” Even White seemed to agree with the judge’s assessment when in a pro se filing on his behalf, he wrote his claims about Pfluger were, admittedly, “unflattering.”
Still, White failed to answer Pfluger’s lawsuit petition and by mid-November 2022, the court moved to a default judgement against White. The next step was a hearing to determine the damages. Pfluger’s attorneys asked for damages amounting to $1,000 per person who heard or read White’s remarks defaming Pfluger.
At issue is White’s one-man crusade to complain about the disrepair of...
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