Connecticut Judge Tosses GOP Candidate's Defamation Suit Over 'Murderer' Label Despite 2022 Pardon

A Connecticut Superior Court judge has thrown out a defamation lawsuit filed by Republican congressional candidate Jonathan De Barros against four members of his own party, ruling that calling someone a murderer during a political campaign is protected speech even if that person was later pardoned.

Judge John Cordani dismissed the case on September 4, 2026, under Connecticut's anti-SLAPP statute, which allows quick dismissal of meritless lawsuits targeting speech about public figures on matters of public concern, according to court documents cited by CT Mirror and Reason.

What Happened in 1996

De Barros shot and killed Jermaine Lewis and shot and wounded Scott Nash outside a recreation center in Waterbury on October 13, 1996, according to the court's account. He was tried and convicted of murder, attempted murder, and first-degree assault with a firearm, and sentenced to life in prison.

The Connecticut Appellate Court overturned that conviction in July 2000 and ordered a new trial, finding the original judge wrongly excluded evidence supporting De Barros's self-defense claim, per CT Mirror. The second trial ended in a hung jury.

De Barros then pleaded guilty to manslaughter under the Alford Doctrine, which lets a defendant accept a conviction while maintaining innocence, and served a reduced sentence totaling 19 years. He was pardoned in 2022.

The Campaign and the Lawsuit

De Barros ran in the Republican primary for Connecticut's 5th Congressional District this year. He lost that primary last month to Chris Shea, who now faces Democratic incumbent Rep. Jahana Hayes in the general election, according to CT Mirror.

During the campaign, De Barros says GOP convention delegate Pam Salamone called him a murderer in conversations with other delegates. Delegate Jeff Weiss wrote on Facebook and Twitter that De Barros "claimed to be a victim in 1996 while murdering a man in cold blood." Former Waterbury police officer Steve Pedbereznak and podcast host Dawn Maiorano, a Republican nominee for Waterbury mayor, allegedly said on Maiorano's podcast that De Barros "committed the act and the crime of murder."

De Barros sued all four for defamation, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. He sought monetary damages and a gag order barring the defendants from further discussing his criminal record, according to CT Mirror.

De Barros argued in his lawsuit that the label was false and damaging: his original murder conviction was overturned by an appellate court, he was never convicted of murder in a final judgment, he pleaded only to manslaughter, and a governor's pardon in 2022 wiped his record clean under state law. He contended that calling a pardoned man a "murderer" crossed a legal line.

Judge Cordani saw it differently. He ruled De Barros is a public figure, the statements were political speech tied directly to his fitness for Congress, and under that standard he had to prove the defendants acted with actual malice, meaning they knew the statements were false or recklessly disregarded the truth. He found De Barros couldn't clear that bar.

On the word "murderer" itself, Cordani found the term, even applied loosely to someone who pleaded to manslaughter, was not defamatory given the underlying facts. On the phrase "cold blood," the judge concluded it meant the killing was intentional and without an effective legal defense, and noted "there is no doubt the plaintiff shot and killed one man and shot and seriously injured another."

The judge's central line, quoted by both Reason and CT Mirror, cuts to the core of the ruling: "although a pardon can wipe away an official criminal record, it cannot wipe clean the public consciousness of what actually happened."

Cordani also framed the stakes in free-speech terms, writing that "political speech of this nature is at the very heart of our right to freedom of speech since it bears upon the public's ability to make informed decisions on the operation of our republic and on their choice of representative."

What's Unresolved

De Barros declined to comment to CT Mirror after the ruling. It's not yet known whether he intends to appeal Cordani's dismissal to the Connecticut Appellate Court, the same court that once overturned his original murder conviction.

The case leaves a legal marker for future candidates with pardoned or reversed convictions: a pardon changes your record, not the historical record of what a jury, or in this case two juries and a plea, established happened. That distinction now has a written opinion behind it in Connecticut, and it applies whether the candidate calling foul is a Republican, a Democrat, or anyone else running for office.

Sources

Reason, CT Mirror, and court filings in DeBarros v. Pedbereznak were used in reporting this story.