KENDALL COUNTY, Texas – A Kendall County woman, who created a meme calling one of the candidates in the county judge runoff a “wifebeater” and “child support dodger,” said she will not be intimidated by a cease-and-desist letter sent by the candidate’s attorney.
Challenger Ricky Gleason’s past has become a flashpoint in the bruising May 26 Republican runoff against incumbent Kendall County Judge Shane Stolarczyk.
Toni Lott created the meme this spring after court records circulated in the community described Gleason’s 2006 arrest for misdemeanor family violence in Bexar County and a five-figure child support judgment issued against him by a district judge in the Texas Panhandle several years ago.
Lott said she altered a political ad for Gleason by changing the information contained in its bullet points and adding the name of a made up political action committee: Citizens Against Grifters.
Lott messaged the meme to three people, who shared it with other people before it eventually made its way to Gleason.
In late March, Lott and one of the original recipients of the meme received cease-and-desist letters from an attorney representing Gleason.
The letter accuses Lott and the meme recipients of defaming Gleason and publishing materially false information about a public figure.
“It was pretty obvious to me that he was trying to intimidate me,” said Lott, who claims she never posted the meme publicly.
The author of the cease-and-desist letter, attorney Dennis Postiglione, told TheTXLoop Investigates in a phone interview that publication is defined as anything communicated to a third party.
The letter formally demands that Lott and the other resident retract, correct and clarify the graphic.
“It feels like power and control versus what he’s running on, which is character and being open and honest, transparent,” said Lott.
“It’s a line too far,” Gleason told TheTXLoop during a recent sit-down interview. “Cease and desist letters — that’s not slapping down your First Amendment right for speech. That’s trying to let someone know, ‘Hey, what you’re saying is materially wrong, and we’d like you to stop.’”
Gleason pointed out the meme was recently included in a mailer sent to some Kendall County voters that also contained court records showing his oldest son’s unredacted medical information.
Lott said she was not part of the mailer and does not know who mailed out the materials.
Gleason calls allegations of family violence from both ex-wives false accusations
In a candidate questionnaire released to Kendall County voters last month, Gleason addressed his previous family violence arrest and claimed that he was found not guilty.
Bexar County court records obtained by TheTXLoop Investigates through a public records request show a different outcome in court.
In January 2006, Gleason was arrested in San Antonio for misdemeanor family assault causing bodily injury, more than a year after his first wife told police Gleason struck her, grabbed her and pushed her during a dispute at their Northwest Side apartment.
The case did not go to trial and did not end in a verdict. Instead, court records show it was dismissed in September 2006 after Gleason completed classes.
Gleason said anger management was a good description of the classes he took but that those classes had occurred a long time ago.
“This thing is so far in my past. It’s behind me,” said Gleason. “There was no conviction in this at all. This was just something we went to court for. It was a false accusation and the judge allowed for a dismissal.”
When reached for comment, Gleason’s first ex-wife told TheTXLoop Investigates there were other incidents in which Gleason physically assaulted her. She only followed through with one report to police.
Allegations of family violence against Gleason were also included in publicly available records filed in early 2013 while he was in the midst of a divorce from his second wife.
In a January 2013 request for a protective order that was granted by a Bexar County judge, Gleason’s second ex-wife wrote that Gleason “engaged in conduct that constitutes family violence.”
The order includes a publicly available two-page affidavit written by the woman that details specific acts of violence.
In September 2011, the woman wrote Gleason showed “physical aggression” toward her for the first time by pushing her over a bed footboard and bruising her upper thigh. She wrote that Gleason then pushed her into their master closet during the same incident.
Less than a year later, in August 2012, the affidavit accuses Gleason of putting his hands on her mouth and using his body weight to hold her down on a bed. Additional records obtained by TheTXLoop state that the woman escaped from the couple’s home in Boerne that night only partially clothed and drove one of the couple’s vehicles to her mother’s home.
Months later, in December 2012, the affidavit states Gleason pushed his second wife into a garage shelving unit, which left a large bump on her head.
The affidavit also claims Gleason had thrown both of the couple’s dogs across the room on separate occasions during the marriage.
Gleason’s divorce from his second ex-wife was finalized in September 2013.
Gleason, after TheTXLoop recited portions of his second ex-wife’s affidavit, denied assaulting the woman and said he never threw the couple’s dogs.
“These accusations — they stem from broken relationships,” Gleason said. “And I have regrets that those relationships were broken, but they’re just not true.”
Gleason’s second ex-wife agreed to speak with TheTXLoop Investigates for this story on the condition her name would not be used and her face would not be shown.
“I absolutely believed that he was capable of killing me,” the woman told TheTXLoop.
She described Gleason as being physically, emotionally and financially abusive during their two-year marriage. In all, they were in a relationship for five years.
“It changed the trajectory of my life, and my life has not been the same since,” the woman said. “I think I’ve had enough distance and enough healing and growth that I feel strong enough to say something.”
The woman recalled the August 2012 incident when she fled their Boerne home partially clothed.
“He was capable of hurting me and he could have killed me if he wanted to. He put the weight of his body on my body and his legs on my legs and then he pinned both of my arms down on the mattress. And I couldn’t move,” the woman told TheTXLoop Investigates. “And I remember crying and begging him to get off of me and he was just yelling at me and cussing at me and he was spitting on my face, and I couldn’t move. And then he put his hand over my mouth and my nose, and I couldn’t breathe. And it was in that moment that there was this wave of like primal fear that just overcame my body.”
She told TheTXLoop that Gleason eventually got up and went to another room. At that point, she grabbed the first car keys she could find and ran out of the house wearing only what she had worn to bed.
The woman, who described the incident as the “scariest night of my life,” told TheTXLoop she returned home a few days later.
TheTXLoop asked her why her only report to law enforcement about Gleason was a January 2013 complaint accusing him of violating the protective order by changing the locks on their home.
“He instilled a lot of fear that, if I talked, it would be a very scary environment for me,” the woman told TheTXLoop.
She told TheTXLoop she entered the relationship debt-free. Due to Gleason’s financial issues, the woman was saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in debt after the divorce.
“I’ve worked very hard to get my financials back on track. I had a kid when I was 20 years old and have paid child support most of my adult life,” Gleason said. “And so, yeah, money was tight.
Gleason has never been arrested or criminally charged in connection to allegations made by his second ex-wife.
‘Snake-bitten’ child support order hangs over Gleason
Publicly available records show Gleason and his first ex-wife have been in and out of court in Moore County, which is located north of Amarillo, for much of the last decade as part of a drawn-out custody and child support dispute over their son, Kaiden, 21.
In 2019, Kaiden’s mother successfully petitioned the court to allow Kaiden to resume living with her after he had temporarily lived with Gleason in Boerne.
The petition included a sworn affidavit from the woman claiming that Kaiden had been physically and emotionally abused by Gleason and his third wife while living with them.
The affidavit included a photo of Kaiden with a large bruise on his upper arm.
Kaiden flew in from the Texas Panhandle to speak with TheTXLoop for this story.
Kaiden said he has never been abused by Gleason or his stepmother. The court records filed while he was a teenager nearly seven years ago represented the opposite of what was happening in his home life.
Kaiden claimed he moved in with Gleason in 2018 to get away from an unhealthy living situation in the panhandle, but he later decided to move back to Moore County.
“I just missed all my friends up there (in the Texas Panhandle),” Kaiden Gleason said. “I needed a break from everything. Get in a better head space and figure out where I was going to go from there.”
TheTXLoop could find no record that Kaiden’s living environment in Moore County created immediate danger to his physical health or safety.
Kaiden said the bruising shown in the photo included with the court affidavit was caused by him sucking on his own arm.
Neither Gleason or his current wife have been arrested or charged in connection to the allegations in the filings.
There has been no finding that the court records filed by Gleason’s first ex-wife contained any false statements.
Court records from the same Moore County case show that Gleason in the summer of 2023 was ordered to pay his first ex-wife more than $22,000 plus interest in child support as well as to pay back $9,965 in overpayments garnished from her tax returns.
More than a year later, in November 2024, the attorney for Gleason’s first ex-wife filed paperwork to enter the order since Gleason’s attorney had still not signed it.
Reached for comment by TheTXLoop, the ex’s attorney, Stacy Grant, estimated that the amount owed by Gleason has ballooned to $37,568.
Grant said a recent push to get Gleason to pay on the child support order has nothing to do with him running for political office.
“If him running for judge is causing him to finally take this seriously, then good,” Grant told TheTXLoop.
“It stems a 17-year period. A lot of bad blood went through that,” said Gleason, when asked about the child support case.
Gleason and his attorney, Kurt Rudkin, claim that even though they both attended the 2023 hearing via Zoom — in which the child support judgment was awarded to Gleason’s ex — they were unaware the final order was on file with the court because a clerk sent it to an incorrect email address for Rudkin.
In a letter written by Rudkin late last month, the attorney said Gleason “never received a penny” of the overpayments garnished from the ex’s tax returns and that the funds are likely still with the Texas Attorney General’s Office.
During an April 30 hearing in the case, Rudkin referred to the child support matter as “probably one of the most snake-bitten cases I’ve had in a long, long time.”
During the same hearing, Grant confirmed both sides have unsuccessfully attempted to locate the funds at the AG’s office.
In late April, Grant filed a motion to enforce the child support order. A hearing on the issue is expected to take place later this year.
Gleason does not regret entering the race
Gleason’s opponent, Judge Shane Stolarczyk, was reached via telephone by TheTXLoop, but he declined to address specific issues from his opponent’s past.
TheTXLoop asked Stolarczyk about the cease-and-desist letters sent by an attorney for Gleason.
“When I heard about the cease-and-desist letters, I was very disappointed,” Stolarczyk told TheTXLoop Investigates. “It is imperative for our citizens to hear the truth about their candidates.”
Gleason told TheTXLoop he does not regret entering the race for Kendall County Judge.
“It’s obviously taken a toll, right?” Gleason said. “And we expected some of that with walking into the political arena that there would be some mudslinging and everything.”
If he is elected, Gleason said he will bring back a culture of “good service” for all parts of the growing Kendall County community.
“Our administration will be about the future of this county, and we have a bright future in this county,” Gleason said.
Read more reporting on the TheTXLoop Investigates page.
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