BLYTHEWOOD – The Voice newspaper and its publisher, Barbara Ball; Blythewood Town Councilman Donald Brock; and the Town’s Marketing Director Jordan Langland received demand letters on Monday, Dec. 15, threatening legal action if certain demands were not met.

California entertainment attorney Imene Meziane sent the letter on behalf of Blythewood resident Edward Straiter and his business, UniversalCMG World Entertainment.

The issue concerns a $20,000 award to UniversalCMG last spring from Blythewood’s hospitality tax tourism revenue for the purpose of producing a Juneteenth celebration in Blythewood. That event and other nighttime events in the town were subsequently temporarily cancelled by a town council vote due to public safety concerns.

“This correspondence serves as a formal demand regarding false, defamatory, and damaging statements published by The Voice of Blythewood & Fairfield County on Dec. 4, 2025, and written by Barbara [Ball regarding] statements made by Councilman Donald Brock and Jordan Langland,” Meziane wrote.

The letter, demanding ”retraction, correction, apology and monetary damages arising from defamatory publications concerning Edward Straiter and UniversalCMG World Entertainment,” addressed a story titled, ‘Blythewood Town Council looking for $20K paid out for cancelled event,’ published in The Voice on Dec. 4, 2025.

The story quoted Brock as saying in a public session of town council, “$20,000 walked away, and it can’t be accounted for.”

Meziane wrote that Brock’s statement, “was patently false and defamatory,” and that “Barbara Ball, in republishing and amplifying this false allegation in The Voice of Blythewood & Fairfield County, acted with reckless disregard for the truth by failing to verify key facts… Her article falsely suggested unlawful or unethical appropriation of public funds and thus conveyed an accusation of misappropriation amounting to libel per se under South Carolina law.”

Meziane added that “Mrs. Ball relied upon incomplete, inaccurate, and misleading information supplied by Jordan Langland, the Town’s Marketing Director, who failed to disclose material obligatory terms, the non-refundable nature of the expenditures, the Town-initiated cancellation, and UniversalCMG’s subsequent successful relocation of the event.”

Meziane included a list of non-refundable deposits amounting to $19,130 that she said UniversalCMG paid out for the 2025 Juneteenth event before the town “unilaterally cancelled the Juneteenth Celebration, citing public-safety concerns.”

“Under South Carolina law, libel—the written publication of false and defamatory material—is actionable where it harms a person’s reputation in the community or deters third parties from associating or doing business with them,” Meziane wrote.

Meziane claimed that Ball’s statements are “actionable as libel per se, imputing criminal conduct and professional unfitness in violation of South Carolina law.”

For that, Meziane’s letter demands immediate retraction and correction, a public apology, $500,000 for compensatory damages, punitive damages, and preservation of evidence.

Media Attorney Jay Bender, who represents The Voice of Blythewood and Fairfield County and Barbara Ball, responded to Meziane’s demand, citing several South Carolina laws. 

“There is a fair report privilege available under the common law and the First and Fourteenth Amendments that protects from liability one who publishes a substantially accurate report on statements made by public officials in a meeting and for reporting the contents of public records,” Bender wrote.

“I have reviewed the news report referenced in your letter and note that the statements to which you and your client take exception quote directly public officials and public records.  In other words, the news report was privileged,” he stated.

Bender cautioned Meziane against pursuing a legal action, stating that a court in South Carolina recently awarded a newspaper and its reporter more than $76,000 as sanctions against a lawyer and his client for initiating and maintaining a libel action based on the privileged reporting of public records.