Willie Perkins Sr. is suing fellow Greenwood attorney James K. Littleton III for unspecified damages, alleging that Littleton defamed him in a radio advertisement and on social media leading up to a judicial election that Littleton lost last year.
In the lawsuit, Perkins claims that Littleton falsely accused Perkins of conspiring with Littleton’s family members to go public prior to a District 4 Circuit Court election with their dispute over the estate of Littleton’s late father.
Littleton has been accused in a Bolivar County lawsuit by his mother, Bonnie Littleton, and his sister, Melaney Littleton Phillips, of forging their signatures on land records relating to the estate. James Littleton has denied his relatives’ allegation and most recently has cited a court-ordered handwriting expert’s analysis that the attorney claims exonerates him. That lawsuit, originally filed in 2013, is ongoing.
In the 2014 circuit judge’s race, Littleton finished third to Carol White-Richard, the eventual winner, and Perkins’ daughter, Takiyah Perkins.
In Willie Perkins’ four-page lawsuit, filed Sept. 22 in Leflore County Circuit Court, he claims that Littleton, prior to that election, ran advertising on Greenwood radio stations WGNL and WGRM that included “slanderous and defaming statements” about Perkins.
Perkins quoted a portion of the ad on which the defamation lawsuit is based. “I have known about a conspiracy and meeting between my family and the father of one of my opponents for several months where they conspired to go public with this family dispute to derail my campaign,” Littleton is alleged to have said.
An article about the forgery allegation was published in the Commonwealth on Sept. 21, 2014.
Since White-Richard’s father was deceased, Perkins argues, he was the sole target of the campaign ad. Furthermore, Perkins said in his filing that Littleton “knew that plaintiff didn’t know his mother or sister; that plaintiff had never met them or spoke to them and certainly had not conspired with them regarding defendant’s campaign.”
Perkins said the ad ran on Sept. 23 and 24, 2014. He said that Littleton’s conduct in airing the ad “was wilfully, deliberately, intentional, malicious, slanderous, libelous, false with actual malice and with the designed purpose to defame the plaintiff’s good name, character, reputation and standing in the community and to create a hardship to plaintiff’s legal practice.”
Perkins, who is also a Democratic state lawmaker, sent a cease-and-desist letter on Sept. 24, 2014, to Littleton but claimed it was to no avail.
Littleton has not yet filed a legal response to Perkins’ complaint.
In prepared remarks he issued Friday, however, Littleton said that three or four months before the ad aired, he had been advised that his family had met with “the father of one of my opponents.”
He said that he was not aware that only one of his opponents had a father who was living until receiving the cease-and-desist letter from Perkins and that he then instructed both radio stations to stop running the ad.
Littleton said that even though Perkins’ lawsuit was filed on Sept. 22, he was not served with it until Nov. 4, the day after Littleton won a fourth term as a justice court judge for Leflore County. He called the lawsuit “frivolous” and said he intends to seek sanctions and attorneys’ fees’ against Perkins.
Perkins did not return phone calls placed to him on Friday and Saturday seeking further comment.
•Contact Bob Darden at 581-7239 or bdarden@gwcommonwealth.com.
Defamation lawsuit filed on Sept. 22, 2015, by Willie J. Perkins Sr. against fellow attorney James K. Littleton.
