An Atlanta-based home lender says congressional candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene is spreading misinformation about why Melissa Rolfe, whose stepson was involved in a police shooting that became a national touchstone, was fired.
An attorney for Greene and Rolfe questioned the timing of the release of a letter from the firm’s lawyers, alleging that it was intended to sway voters against Greene in Tuesday’s GOP runoff in the 14th Congressional District. He added that the candidate’s comments on Twitter are protected speech.
Equity Prime Mortgage said Rolfe’s termination had nothing to do with her stepson, Garrett Rolfe, a former Atlanta police officer who faces felony murder charges after the June 12 death of Rayshard Brooks. Instead, the company’s lawyer says, Melissa Rolfe was fired after employees complained that she had made sexist and racist comments during her short tenure.
The investigation of her conduct started well before Brooks’ death, the company says, including a key meeting between Rolfe and Equity’s CEO the day before.
“Notably, when Rolfe was informed that she was being terminated, she did not ask why; she knew that she had engaged in grossly unprofessional and hostile misconduct,” attorneys wrote in a letter sent to Greene last week. “Yet, the two of you apparently saw an opportunity to exploit Rayshard Brooks’ tragic death for your own personal gain, by launching a vicious smear campaign in which you repeatedly misrepresented why EPM had fired Rolfe.”
Attorneys representing Equity Prime Mortgage have demanded that Greene stop saying that Melissa Rolfe was fired as a result of the Brooks shooting, and they have suggested the company may sue her for libel if she does not correct the record. They also demanded a public apology.
Attorney Lin Wood, who is representing both Greene and Rolfe, said the letter from the Clare Locke Law Firm is itself defamatory and amounts to election tampering because it surfaced the day before the GOP congressional runoff between Greene and John Cowan. He said Greene’s statements about Rolfe’s firing from Equity are protected by the First Amendment.
“The characterizations published by Marjorie Taylor Greene are clearly protected opinion; they are not actionable,” Wood said.
He said the letter included a “laundry list of accusations” against Rolfe because the goal was to leak the letter and try to influence the outcome. He said he plans to sue Cowan, Clare Locke, Equity and anyone else he believes is responsible.
Wood would not say who is paying him to represent Greene and Rolfe.
Brian Robinson, a spokesman for Cowan, said the dispute between Equity and Rolfe “has nothing to do with John Cowan or his campaign.”
“But these allegations fit a pattern that proves Marjorie Taylor Greene is either a pathological liar or utterly detached from reality,” Robinson said.
In the attorneys’ letter, Equity claims that Greene’s posts about Rolfe’s termination are libelous. Those posts can still be found on her social media accounts.
“First her stepson (who was acting in self-defense) lost his job & was charged with murder!” she wrote on Twitter on June 30. “Then Melissa’s employer caved to the mob and wrongfully fired her!”
Greene received the most votes in the June Republican primary for the 14th District seat being vacated by retiring U.S. Rep. Tom Graves. The winner between her and Cowan after Tuesday will be the favorite to win in the November general election against Democrat Kevin Van Ausdal because the district is heavily conservative.
Although Greene faced criticism from party leaders after repeating QAnon conspiracy theories and making racist and xenophobic remarks, her large social media following and personal spending in the race have kept her competitive.
Greene and Rolfe say they are friends, and in the weeks after Brooks’ death she became a focus of Greene’s campaign. By that time, however, Rolfe was already on thin ice at work, according to the attorneys for the company.
The letter from attorneys Megan Meier and Daniel Watkins said Rolfe was hired on March 19 and reprimanded several times in the following weeks after various employees accused her of making racist and demeaning comments. She referred to workers as “savages” and commented on the size of one woman’s breasts, the letter said in recounting the complaints.
“I don’t see color, but some people are just idiots,” she reportedly told company CEO Eddy Perez during a meeting to discuss her behavior that was held June 11, the day before Brooks was shot.
Rolfe later asked for time off to deal with the fallout of the shooting; the company gave her eight weeks of leave but continued its investigation. Additional complaints surfaced, according to the attorneys, and Rolfe was ultimately fired.
The letter includes as exhibits screenshots of Greene’s social media posts and a letter Rolfe wrote that was printed and mailed to voters in Paulding County. It also references Rolfe’s appearance on Fox News where she described her firing from Equity as a political move; the company accuses Greene of facilitating the interview.
“By planting the false story on Tucker Carlson Tonight and the Glenn Beck Program and misrepresenting the facts on social media, you launched a media firestorm and boycott against our clients by peddling the falsehood that Rolfe had done nothing to warrant termination and that EPM had fired her for fighting for her stepson,” the letter said.
The attorney demanded that Greene retract her statements, saying they are libelous and put the company at risk of losing millions of dollars. Perez also received threats and hired personal security, the company said.
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