Two years ago, during a Marathon County Board meeting in Wausau, Wisconsin, a resolution regarding diversity and inclusion was brought up. Things escalated quickly and a local buisinessman, Cory Tomczyk, called a 13 year old boy a "f*g."

Acting on a tip, the Wausau Pilot & Review followed up on the story and, after interviewing some witnesses and following up on some social media accounts, felt confident enough to run with story.

Tomczyk, who is now a Republican state senator, denied saying the slur and demanded a retraction from the paper. The paper stood their ground and Tomczyk sued them.

During the trial, witnesses came forward to share the same story and Tomczyk himself admitted that this wouldn't have been an isolated incident:

After the contentious meeting, as word of the incident lit up the social media feeds of people in and around Wausau, Ms. Siewert worked to verify what had happened. As part of her reporting, she obtained a Facebook message from the 13-year-old boy’s mother, who had attended to support her son. The mother wrote to a friend that she’d heard a man she didn’t know utter the slur.

“I am in tears and livid,” her message said. The mother’s friend responded: “His name is Cory Tomczyk,” court documents show. That message, and a follow-up conversation Ms. Siewert had with the mother, gave her the confidence that she had the story “100 percent” accurate, according to court documents. And she published the article.

Mr. Tomczyk has acknowledged using the word before. Court filings submitted by The Pilot & Review’s lawyer, Brian Spahn, quote Mr. Tomczyk as saying in a deposition, “I have a brother who is a gay guy, and I’ve certainly out of joking and out of spite called him a ‘faggot’ more than once.”

Earlier this year, a court ruled in favor of the newspaper. However, Tomczyk is appealing the decision.

The Pilot & Review is a very small paper and has only four staff members. The legal bills to defend itself from Tomczyk's retaliation and bullying has already run up to $150,000. It's pretty apparent that Tomczyk's goal is to bankrupt the paper so that he doesn't have to be held accountable for his bigotry and hate and whatever other crap he is up to.

And given that the Republicans have a supermajority in the state senate due to their gerrymandering, it is unlikely that Tomczyk will face any consequences for his behaviors there either.