Michelle MacDonald, Michael Brodkorb square off in court.

Byline: Kevin Featherly

The lawyer for Supreme Court candidate Michelle MacDonald, who is suing a blogger for defamation, apparently misinformed a judge in open court by claiming no one besides Michael Brodkorb has ever published MacDonald's 2013 booking photo.

Ramsey County District Court Judge Richard H. Kyle, Jr., heard MacDonald's motion for default judgment against Brodkorb on Nov. 1. He heard Brodkorb's motion for summary judgment the same day and took both matters under advisement.

Just before the hearing ended, plaintiff's attorney Karlowba R. Adams Powell offered Kyle input that, at best, seemed debatable.

"To my knowledge, to my client's knowledge, no other media outlet has published this photo," attorney Karlowba R. Adams Powell told the judge. "Only Mr. Brodkorb."

On Aug. 29, Powell and MacDonald requested that Minnesota Lawyer remove the same photo from its website, indicating she was aware the newspaper had published it. The imageobtained from the Dakota County jailaccompanied an Aug. 24 story about her suit. It remains on the site.

Minnesota Lawyer is not even the only mainstream news organization to publish the photo, according to MacDonald's court filings. In her amended complaint, filed July 24, she asserts that the St. Paul Pioneer Press also published the photo. But she said it was released online only "for a few minutes," then removed at her request.

The image is at issue because MacDonald asserts Brodkorb has falsely labeled it a "booking photo" as part of an online harassment campaign she says he has waged against her. Its veracity is among several material facts MacDonald and her lawyer contend are in dispute.

Asked later about her representation to Judge Kyle, Powell said she only meant to communicate that Brodkorb's website, MissingInMinnesota.com, was the lone outlet publishing the photo "as it relates to the basis of this lawsuit."

"Brodkorb's was the only media outlet that was publishing it at that time which gave rise to this lawsuit," Powell said. "Let's just get this in context."

Brodkorb, a former state GOP deputy chair, later expressed exasperation with what he'd heard in court.

"The truth of the matter is that what was just discussed in that courtroom is void of any reality, based on the vastness of Michelle MacDonald's mind," Brodkorb said. "She is someone who creates controversy and alternative universes."

Public figure?

The statement about the photo came during a larger debate over MacDonald's status as...