Former Commissioner West Splits Defamation Lawsuit to Pursue Critics Separately
Former Commissioner John West is pursuing separate cases against Jay Meredith and Jonian "JJ" Scofield respectively.
The Daily Courier reports West sued Meredith, one of the leaders of the campaign that engineered West's recall from office, and Scofield, former head of Josephine County's Human Resources department. He accused the pair of defamation and abuse of process.
After briefly dropping Scofield from the complaint, West last week filed a new defamation complaint against Scofield concerning a social media post and is asking for $2 million.
In his initial complaint, West accused Meredith of authoring a "dossier" in support of the recall petition that West says included false claims. He accused Meredith and Scofield of "conspiring" with others to file an extensive series of frivolous complaints against him with the Oregon Government Ethics Commission to "manufacture claims against West that he was a serial lawbreaker" for the recall.
West said both men had personal, ulterior reasons for wanting to recall him from office.
Posted on 1/22/26 1:31PM by Alex Bauer
