A criminal case against a Sweet Home man ended with a mixed verdict last October. Local news coverage that covered the trial is now the subject of a second lawsuit naming the Corvallis Gazette-Times, the Albany Democrat-Herald, their corporate owner (Lee Enterprises), one journalist, and one former journalist (more on that below).
Ryan Carbon, whose criminal case involved allegations of threats of mass violence, was found guilty of unlawful firearm possession and driving under the influence, but acquitted of unlawful use of a weapon, according to The New Era’s account of his October 8, 2025 sentencing. A Sweet Home publication.
Kevin Preusse, who says he alerted authorities to statements by Carbon indicating potential threats of mass shootings and later testified in the criminal proceeding, has now legally challenged how the Democrat-Herald and Gazette-Times portrayed his involvement. In short, it’s a defamation case.
His dispute centers on an article also written on October 8th, but this article wasn’t New Era’s, it was a Gazette-Times article, reported by Cody Mann, titled “Accused of plotting mass shootings, Sweet Home man handed mixed verdict.”
Preusse filed his original lawsuit in Linn County Circuit Court on December 23rd, 2025. The defendants (Lee Enterprises, Inc., Albany Democrat-Herald, Corvallis Gazette-Times, Penny Rosenberg, Cody Mann) sought dismissal through Oregon’s anti-SLAPP procedure, and the court dismissed the case without prejudice in a judgment entered March 5, 2026.
But wait, there is more…
(Photo: Linn County Circuit Court/Oregon Secretary of State)
Legal terms are not so fun, but Oregon’s anti-SLAPP law allows defendants to seek early dismissal of lawsuits arising from certain speech or petitioning activities.
“Dismissed without prejudice” means the court closed the case without permanently barring the plaintiff from filing the claims again. It basically is a pause or end to the current legal action, without destroying the underlying legal claim.
The plaintiff not only appealed the original case decision but also refiled the claim… in a separate case, this time with additional information that came to light during the first case.
On August 28th, Preusse filed the second lawsuit, case number 26CV46440, against Lee Enterprises, the two newspapers, Mann, and former regional editor Penny Rosenberg. He is seeking at least $500,000 in compensatory damages and a jury trial on claims of libel, defamation by implication, and false light.
Congrats if you made it this far. Backstory. Setup. Done.
Preusse describes the second case as a “protective refiling intended to preserve his claims” while the appeal on the first case proceeds.
For representing himself without counsel, the plaintiff sure does seem to understand the inner workings of the legal system.
The second case concerns the same defendants and underlying events, but Preusse says it includes additional factual detail and more fully developed theories based on evidence from the earlier litigation.
Ok, now it starts getting good.
At the center of the lawsuit is a passage in the article published by the Gazette-Times and Democrat-Herald that, according to Preusse’s complaint, portrayed him as a “confidential informant” who supplied false or misleading information, possibly to “score points with the FBI” or to obtain dismissal of another case involving his brother.
Preusse argues, or maybe we should use the word “alleges”, that the article combined separate subjects into a materially misleading portrayal of him as a secret government informant manipulating investigators for personal advantage.
Preusse cites testimony by Sweet Home Police Detective Sean Potter as evidence supporting his position. The complaint quotes Potter answering “Absolutely not” when asked whether Preusse worked for him as an informant after Carbon’s arrest, and “Never, nope” when asked whether Preusse was ever an agent.
He also points to Cody Mann’s February 2024 reporting about the investigation, which he says described the source as Carbon’s “associate.” According to the complaint, the underlying probable-cause affidavit did not designate him as a confidential informant.
The complaint also challenges the suggested connection to Preusse’s brother. It says Carbon was arrested in January 2024, 79 days before his brother’s March 23 arrest. Preusse says his initial report could not have been motivated by obtaining dismissal of a case that did not yet even exist.
The complaint raises questions about what information Mann had when he wrote the article, questions that will be decided by a judge, or in court if another dismissal is not in the cards.
Preusse alleges that Cody Mann attended only the second day of the trial, on October 8th. He says the defendants later used transcripts from both days to defend the article, but those transcripts were not prepared until January 2026, months after the article’s publication.
He is not arguing that later transcripts cannot establish what happened in court. He is arguing that they do not, by themselves, establish what the reporter knew before publication. He seeks information about contemporaneous notes, recordings, source materials, and editorial communications.
The complaint also describes an October 21st, 2025 exchange with Penny Rosenberg, the former editor of The Gazette-Times, after Preusse demanded a correction and retraction. It attributes this response to her, “Libel must NAME the person being libeled. We did not name you; thus, there is no cause of action.”
The complaint further quotes Rosenberg as saying, “There will be no retraction. This closes this matter.” After Preusse challenged her response, she allegedly added, “My lawyer is on speed dial. We’re a newspaper and a large corporation, after all.”
Preusse is presenting those statements as evidence of Rosenberg’s personal involvement in rejecting his correction request. The underlying correspondence was not attached to the supplied complaint, so the quotations are presented here as statements attributed to her in his filing.
In another allegation, and we should reiterate the word “allegation,” Preusse contends that Rosenberg’s handling of the dispute contributed to her departure from regional editorial positions around July 2026.
The timeline on that allegation and Rosenberg’s departure from the newspaper…it does line up, but it is still just an allegation made by the plaintiff.
However…
Preusse says witnesses have connected her departure to the controversy, but he lacks Lee’s internal employment records. He seeks limited discovery into the circumstances and expressly states that her departure alone does not prove falsity or liability. The alleged connection between the lawsuit dispute and her departure has not been independently verified.
There are two sides to every story. That was Kevin Preusse’s (the plaintiff’s) side. The defendants also have a side.
The defendants’ position is that the reporting accurately summarized the court proceedings and was substantially true. And unlike Preusse, they have a lawyer, one who was allegedly on speed dial.
The complaint states that Lee Enterprise’s legal counsel responded on November 7th, 2025, and their response said the article accurately conveyed the judge’s verdict and reasoning, characterizing it as “indisputably fair.” It says the news outlet declined to issue a correction but offered an update linking readers to a transcript of the judge’s ruling.
So the newspaper, in this sense, was backing up its reporting through transparency by posting a link to the ruling, which it felt supported its story. It’d be unusual for a publication to offer to post a link that doesn’t back up their story. So there is a sense of confidence there.
According to the plaintiff’s account of the earlier defense arguments, the defendants maintained that “confidential informant” fairly described someone who supplied “information confidentially.” It’s hard to argue with that statement when the two phrases appear interchangeable.
For now, Preusse remains self-represented. He alleges reputational injury, emotional distress, safety concerns, and professional or economic harm. The $500,000 figure is his requested compensation, not a court award.
The latest court summary lists no trial date and no substantive ruling in the second lawsuit, or on the appeal of the first lawsuit.
Our lawyer is not on speed dial. We are not a large corporation after all. We don’t even know how to set speed dial up on the iPhone. If we did, it would probably be used for family, friends, work, or the vet.
Editor’s note: We aimed to report this case fairly and neutrally. We reviewed 12 files received from the Linn County Circuit Court, totaling 97 pages. Much of the substantive material came from the plaintiff’s complaint. These are allegations, not established facts. That imbalance limits our account of the defendants’ position, and we have distinguished their documented statements from the plaintiff’s descriptions of their arguments.
This article was written by Brian Lindensmith, a contributor to The Corvallis Inquirer. Feel free to sue us, or send us your stories to publish at: editor@corvallisnow.com
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I have no horse in this case, but Cody Mann is a good reporter, even though both you and he apparently don't have much interest in why a high ranking OSU Police officer was "quietly" removed with a nice tidy "parting gift". But Cody Mann is a repeatable guy