HUNTINGTON – A non-profit community outreach ministry and its founders have filed a defamation lawsuit against administrators of two Facebook pages focused on the City of Huntington.
Grace Communities Outreach Ministries Inc., doing business as Grace Food Pantry, Connie’s Kids Club, Connie Miller and Paul Miller filed their complaint July 21 in Cabell Circuit Court against Kris Allfrey and Norm Miller. Allfrey is the administrator of a Facebook page called Real Huntington, and Norm Miller (no relation to the plaintiffs) has the same title for a page called Huntington City Watch.
According to the complaint, Connie and Paul Miller started the non-profit Grace Food Pantry in 2013 to assist and feed people in need. That evolved to include a backpack program called Connie’s Kid’s Club to feed children on weekends when there was no school and provide them with other items.
From its base in the Guyandotte section of Huntington, the organization soon included food services, backpack programs, veterans outreach and elderly care. It currently feeds 147 children a week. In April, it fed about 3,000 people in need.
In January 2018, Norm Miller posted on the Huntington City Watch page on Facebook seeking a meeting place for his group. Connie Miller responded and offered the Guyandotte United Methodist Church as the meeting place. He accepted the offer.
Connie Miller says she provided snacks and drinks to the group for its meetings and never requested money for that. A few months later, Norm Miller asked if his group could hold a food drive for Grace Food Pantry. He also told her he was going to have an auction for a police scanner and would donate the proceeds to the food pantry as well. He also told her he planned to sell t-shirts as a fundraiser and would donate a portion of the proceeds, too.
Connie Miller says she and her ministry has not received a donation from Norm Miller or his group.
“In fact, Mrs. Milller learned some time after that defendant Miller started a Go Fund Me account claiming it was on behalf of Grace Food Pantry and collected money to help feed kids,” the complaint states. “However, Mrs. Miller did not know he was ever doing such, and she and Grace Community Outreach Ministries or any part of her non-profit never received a single dollar or donation from defendant or any part of his group.”
She says they communicated on Facebook messenger, and she says those conversations will be produced in discovery. She says Norm Miller told her he hoped to present her with about $1,000 in donations.
“I am a man of my word and I’ve promised you I’d get you something,” Norm Miller allegedly wrote. He also apparently told people he was raising money to donate computers to the children of the outreach.
As people began asking her about the donations and questioning Norm Miller’s motives, Connie Miller says she made a Facebook post to address the issue.
“She simply indicated that she had not received any funds from any such fundraisers,” the complaint states. “In the post, Mrs. Miller never stated anyone’s name. She did not identify defendant Miller. She responded to public inquiries – especially from those who donated l—whether she received anything from defendant Miller.”
As for Allfrey and Real Huntington, Connie Miller says the page posted an alleged complaint against her and Grace Community Outreach Ministries claiming she was being investigated her for alleged fraud, alleged drug use and alleged tax evasion. The civil complaint does say the West Virginia Secretary of State’s office had dismissed a complaint against her and the ministry.
Then, she says Norm Miller posted on Facebook a podcast where he made similar allegations against Connie Miller in an “extremely unusual rant” claiming donors to the GoFundMe had contacted him and told him not to give the money to her because “she cannot be trusted and she is a drug addict.”
“As I checked all that, I checked her licensing in the West Virginia Secretary of State’s office, and I had seen that she was not licensed through the State of West Virginia until she had not filed tax returns,” Norm Miller said in the podcast. Connie Miller says all of these claims are knowingly false, adding that the podcast coincided with a Facebook post by Allfrey on the Real Huntington page.
Connie Miller says she contacted the Secretary of State’s office, which confirmed there was no such investigation.
Following these posts, Connie Miller said leaders of other non-profits contacted her concerned about the non-existent investigation.
“These individuals informed her that their respective organizations could not do business with someone who was being investigated,” the complaint states. “These allegations and claimed ‘investigation’ are completely false and were made knowing they were false.”
The plaintiffs accuse the defendants of negligent defamation (slander/disparagement) and defamation per se. They say Allfrey and Norm Miller have made defamatory statements, non-privileged communications to a third party (Facebook followers and others in the community) that were false about the plaintiffs that were negligent and resulted in injury to the plaintiffs.
They also accuse the defendants of tortious interference of a business and contractual relationship, business expectancy and interference with and diversion of opportunities as well as false light invasion of privacy and outrage/intentional infliction of emotional distress.
The plaintiffs seek general and special damages, including consequential damages and punitive damages. They also seek pre- and post-judgment interest, attorney fees, court costs and other relief.
They are being represented by Abraham J. Saad of Saad Dixon Law Offices in Huntington. The case has been assigned to Circuit Judge Chris Chiles.
Cabell Circuit Court case number 20-C-225
