Orange County property appraiser suffered ‘character assassination’ during election, lawsuit claims

Rick Singh demands jury trial, compensatory damages

Attorneys for Orange County Property Appraiser Rick Singh claim this mailer is one of several that damaged his reputation. (Courtesy)

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – Orange County property appraiser Rick Singh has filed a libel lawsuit against a political action committee that created and distributed ads that he says assassinated his character and damaged his reputation.

The lawsuit, which was filed Monday, names the Florida Public Corruption Task Force as the defendant and includes images of the ads and mailers in question that circulated leading up to the August primary.

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Singh lost re-election for a third term to fellow Democratic candidate Amy Mercado.

According to the lawsuit, the ads falsely claimed that Singh altered documents related to taxpayer money, manipulated reports to cover up unethical activity, created a hostile environment that included racial and sexual harassment and that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement recommended that he should face criminal charges.

The FDLE did investigate Singh during his time in office after he was accused of altering Orange County Property Appraiser’s records that were submitted to the comptroller’s office during a 2015-2016 audit that focused on fuel and travel expenses.

The findings of the two-year FDLE investigation were forwarded to the state attorney’s office in July, which ultimately decided not to pursue charges. Prosecutors said they believed Singh submitted altered documents for the audit but that his behavior didn’t reach a criminal threshold.

Attorneys for the outgoing property appraiser said that the Florida Public Corruption Task Force used that case to create mailers that “were false, misleading and made for the purpose of harming Singh’s 2020 property appraiser campaign and Singh’s reputation generally.”

The lawsuit also says that funding for the ads came from “at least one major tourist attraction which had a history of conflicts with Singh over property valuations.”

The document doesn’t name the tourist attraction but Singh was involved in a lawsuit in 2018 with Walt Disney World over the value of The Yacht and Beach Club at the Walt Disney World Resort. A judge ruled in Disney’s favor, saying that the court appraised the 65-acre property at $209 million and the theme park should be refunded $1.2 million.

Attorneys claim that “Singh has suffered damages in the amount of at least $1 million” due to the information in the flyers and the subsequent reputation damage and loss of income from not being re-elected. The lawsuit alleges that the defendant committed defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and invasion of privacy.

A jury trial is being sought.

Singh teamed up with Morgan & Morgan to file a similar libel lawsuit in 2017 claiming that political action committees and other unnamed parties spent $3.4 million on mailers, television ads and other materials to spread falsehoods about him.

Court records show that case was dismissed in July 2019.