Santa Monica resident Patricia Anglano has lost her third lawsuit against the Daily Press for its coverage of the City’s complaints against her.
Anglano has now lost three identical lawsuits against the paper. In the most recent ruling, Anglano’s case for defamation was dismissed and the judge advised her to move on from her vendetta against the paper.
Anglano, who stated in court she is also known as Tricia Anglano, first filed a small claims suit against the Santa Monica Daily Press, the Santa Monica Lookout and the Canyon News back in 2021 over coverage of a settlement related to tenant harassment.
The City filed its case against Anglano alleging an elaborate scam against more than ten people who responded to online ads to rent a room in her Santa Monica apartment. According to the City’s complaint, Anglano first extracted money from applicants for the room, and then, once their checks were deposited, subjected them to bizarre and harassing behavior designed to make them flee the apartment‚ or never move in at all.
She claimed that publication of a 2018 news story about the settlement in that case defamed her and sought $10,000 from each publication. The court rejected her case in July 2022. Her second suit against the paper was dismissed when she failed to appear in court.
Anglano also failed to appear during the initial hearing for her third attempt but in an effort to end the legal harassment, the Daily Press pursued an in-person ruling.
During the scheduled May 23, 2024, hearing inside the Small Claims Court, Anglano insisted she had never received the cross complaint documentation despite evidence provided by Ross Furukawa, Publisher of the Daily Press, that it had been sent to the address filed in Anglano’s initial complaint.
In an attempt to prevent this case from going on any longer and since both parties were actually present in court, Judge Pro Tem Danny Lewis opted to give Anglano about an hour or so to review and familiarize herself with the cross complaint documentation.
A few minutes after Anglano left the courtroom, Daily Press reporter Scott Snowden, who was also in attendance, ventured outside to offer Anglano the opportunity to comment or make any kind of statement if she so wished.
After identifying himself as a reporter for the newspaper, Anglano became agitated and uncooperative.
"The guy’s completely unkempt. He looks like he just is getting out of bed and he looks obviously very crazy. So I’m going to stop this conversation with you and just tell you guys bullshit," Anglano said, adding, "You better go home. Take a shower. Okay and wash your mouth … You know, you can put that in writing. Go home, take a shower, talk to mama. Okay. And then you know what? Shave okay? Because you look ridiculous," she said as she recorded the exchange on her phone.
Once the court was back in session and the case resumed, Anglano claimed both Snowden and Furukawa had harassed her and announced that she would be seeking a restraining order against both. She repeated lies that the Daily Press had paid for the original 2018 story to rank higher on Google searches, that the paper was stalking her online and that the original story was false. She also broached new falsehoods that Furukawa had a criminal record, which he does not.
"I’ve never been involved in a rental scam. I’m a victim of identity theft in 2018," Anglano told the Judge.
That original press release is still live on the City of Santa Monica’s website and Furukawa said all the paper had done was report the news.
"Our job as a local newspaper is to inform our readership of stuff that they need to protect themselves," Furukawa said.
Anglano repeatedly interrupted Furukawa even after she’d had a chance to speak. Judge Lewis told her, "I think your life would be better if you just ignored them and went your separate ways."
Anglano said she couldn’t and that she would appeal a loss. She also said she would continue to make online posts targeting the company.
Anglano presented no evidence to support any of her claims but her behavior prompted the court to end the hearing without making a final ruling and ask Daily Press employees to wait until Anglano had cleared the area before departing to prevent any additional outbursts.
The ruling dismissing her case was then mailed to both parties.
Anglano has a robust history with the courts, both real and fictional. She has a litany of failed lawsuits against individuals that she accuses of stealing her dog, an LA animal shelter employee she accuses of refusing to return the dog to her, pro-bono lawyers she believes were in a conspiracy against her and individuals she believes defamed her in a custody fight.
She has also appeared on the TV show Judge Faith where a tenant accused her of harassment. Anglano lost the TV case as well with the judge saying her behavior was so aberrant that she should be paying tenants to live with her, not the other way around.
It is the policy of the Daily Press to run a story on any attempt by anyone to take legal action against it.
"We have a procedure for when somebody attempts to sue us, we’ll write about it so we’re always transparent," Furukawa said.
Regarding the counterclaim, the court did not award damages to the Daily Press for legal, reputation damage and time.
matt@smdp.com
