What court documents are available in Phil Godlewski’s 2010 corrupting-a-minor case and the later defamation suit?
Executive summary
Public reporting and court dockets show two overlapping sets of records: the 2009–2010 criminal file in which Phil (Philip) Godlewski pleaded guilty to “corruption of a minor” and received a short house‑arrest sentence, and the later civil defamation litigation spawned by his suit against a Pennsylvania paper that pulled much of those older materials back into court-driven disclosure; journalists and lawyers cite indictments, guilty-plea records, police reports, a victim affidavit identified as “B.D.,” extensive text-message exhibits, and multiple memoranda and orders from the defamation docket [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. Criminal-case core documents that reporting says exist
Contemporary press accounts report that the 2010 criminal docket includes an indictment and plea paperwork showing Godlewski ultimately pleading guilty to a reduced charge of corruption of a minor and receiving three months of house arrest [5] [1] [3] [2]. Journalists also cite police reports and victim testimony that formed the basis of the original charges, including allegations that the relationship began when the complainant identified in records as “B.D.” was about 15 and that investigators collected extensive text-message evidence and other communications [1] [2] [6]. Those criminal records are the kernel of what reporters say was previously public in county files and later re‑examined in civil discovery [6] [2].
2. Civil-defamation docket items made public during Godlewski’s lawsuit
Coverage of the defamation suit against the Scranton Times and related filings shows the civil docket produced multiple new public filings: motions and oppositions from the newspaper alleging Godlewski failed to disclose relevant materials in discovery, the paper’s memorandum seeking fees and sanctions, and court orders and memoranda from judges presiding over the suit [6] [4]. News outlets and secondary archives report memoranda and orders filed in January and April 2024 in “Phil Godlewski v. Scranton Times” and related case entries; bloggers and legal collection sites list searchable PDFs of joint stipulations, memoranda and orders from that civil case [4]. The Daily Beast, Raw Story, Rolling Stone and others report that exhibits produced or referenced in that civil litigation include the victim’s affidavit, hundreds of text messages, police reports, and—by their account—highly explicit media items that the paper’s lawyers say corroborate the 2010 allegations [2] [6] [1].
3. Specific evidentiary items repeatedly cited by reporters
Multiple outlets quote the same evidentiary themes from the civil record: the complainant’s sworn affidavit (filed in the civil proceedings and identified as “B.D.” in reporting), text-message chains between Godlewski and the complainant (including allegations of large volumes of messages and solicitations), parents’ letters cited in filings, and prosecutors’ or police reports summarized in briefs [2] [1] [6]. Some stories assert that sexually explicit material was produced during discovery and reviewed by defendants’ counsel and reporters, with outlets describing “lurid text messages” and other multimedia evidence as part of the civil record referenced in motions [2] [5].
4. How these documents became visible — and the incentives shaping disclosure
Reporting uniformly frames the defamation suit as the practical mechanism that reopened and centralized disparate materials: Godlewski sued over prior coverage, the newspaper countered and pressed discovery, and that adversarial process generated filings and exhibits that made earlier criminal allegations and attendant evidence newly accessible to journalists and third parties [6] [1] [2]. That adversarial dynamic creates motivations on both sides—defendants seeking to justify reporting and the plaintiff seeking to suppress or rebut it—so the selection of what has been emphasized in public filings reflects litigation strategy as much as neutral archival completeness [6] [4].
5. What remains unclear or unverified from available reporting
Public reporting and secondary docket aggregators catalog many of the above filings, but the exact inventory of every document, the full text of the 2010 court file, and the complete set of discovery exhibits are not reproduced in the sources provided here; articles summarize or quote filings and list docket entries (including memoranda and orders) but do not publish every underlying PDF in full for independent review in these sources [2] [4] [1]. Therefore, while indictment/plea records, police reports, a victim affidavit, text-message exhibits, and multiple civil memoranda and orders are repeatedly cited in the press as being available through county court files and the defamation docket, verification of any specific exhibit beyond those summaries would require direct retrieval of the county criminal file or the civil-court docket PDFs referenced on the Lackawanna County or state court portal [4] [6].