QAnon leader Phil Godlewski, when he was a 25-year-old high school baseball coach, repeatedly had sex with a 15-year-old high school girl. In 2008, Godlewski had wormed his way into the girl’s (identified as B.D.) affections by consoling her as she grieved for her boyfriend, who had killed himself.
In 2010, the authorities arrested and charged him with various crimes stemming from his predatory behavior. After negotiating a plea bargain, Godlewski pled guilty to the corruption of a minor and the court sentenced him to three months of house arrest. (If that seems light, the reason will become apparent.)
In the years afterward, Godlewski discovered QAnon and its adherents. He soon realized he could roll those gullible rubes for profit. He started promoting the QAnon conspiracy with lengthy, live-stream, rambling videos that were nectar to his deluded fans.
He accumulated more than 600,000 followers on the social media app Telegram and 156,000 subscribers on the alternative video platform Rumble. Then, when he had hooked the gullible, Godlewski convinced them to sign up for financial ‘opportunities’ like a multilevel marketing scheme selling silver. By 2022, Godlewski had finagled enough cash to buy a $1.7 million house.
Godlewski’s arrest disappeared from public view until 2021 when a reporter at the Scranton Times-Tribune wrote a profile on the upstart QAnon promoter. In it, he mentioned Godlewski's conviction. And his online critics seized on his criminal history to suggest he was not the upstanding QAnon believer (oxymoron?) he claims to be.
Godlewski decided to fight back against the newspaper with a defamation lawsuit. It was a monumental error. Had Godlewski consulted a crisis management firm, they would have undoubtedly advised him to say something like, “I have made mistakes I deeply regret. But my relationship with God has saved me. I owe it all to Jesus.” His sales would have doubled.
Instead, he pursued the Trumpian approach of fighting back. He sued the paper, assuring his followers that the reporter had “taken the bait.” In live-stream videos, Godlewski insisted there was nothing to the investigation, claiming B.D.’s mother was behind the criminal case because she wanted his money and calling his victim a “conniving” schemer who faked the texts he sent. He raised more than $26,000 in a crowdfunding campaign to pay for his lawsuit.
However, because he was now party to a lawsuit claiming the paper had damaged his reputation, the Times-Tribune was legally entitled to see the evidence and police reports from his 2010 case. And now they are a matter of public record.
Included are dirty texts and a video of his erection. And more information from the police. This revealed that Godlewski had showered B.D. with gifts, including a $2,800 pair of diamond earrings — confirmed by a letter from her parents filed into the defamation record.
Then there are tons of texts — including 300 in one day alone. Here is a sampling,
Godlewski wrote that they would only “ever be sexually satisfied if we did it like 4-5 times a day.”
He said the teenager, “looked so good and [was] giving incredible head” while lamenting his own sexual performance.
And “Realized that you’re only 15, but quickly stopped caring,”
And “Why are we so compatible? I’m 10 years older than you.”
Godlewski’s lawyer Timothy M. Kolman did his best by claiming that “any sexual relationship occurred when the couple were of age.” Nice try. But texts are dated.
Adding to the evidence against him is a recent affidavit from B.D. in which she claims that Godlewski contacted her before his 2010 trial and begged her to recant her claims against him, threatening to kill himself if she didn’t. Believing him, she stopped cooperating with law enforcement in the case. Which, in all likelihood, is why his sentence was so light.
For some reason, Godlewski persisted in his story that he had never had sex with B.D. — even when she was an adult. But, of course, there are more texts. Including one in 2021, in which he expressed his condolences on her grandfather’s death—and alluded to their sexual relationship. “I had no idea your Popa died. I’m so sorry. I think we had sex in their bed though.”
In a reply that will disturb home sellers, she texted, “We’ve probably had sex in like 40% of the homes in northeastern Pennsylvania,” an allusion to Godlewski’s use of his second job as a real estate agent to use for-sale houses for their liaisons.
Then Godlewski sent the woman a picture of his erect penis and claimed it had “got bigger.”
Godlewski compounded his problems when he reacted to discovery requests by claiming he had no texts. The newspaper’s attorney rebutted his lie in a November 2021 motion “These text messages did not slip [Godlewski’s] mind. He intentionally failed to disclose them in discovery for this lawsuit.”
Caught lying, Godlewski changed his tune. In a November 26 video for his fans, he admitted messaging the woman, saying he was also drunkenly text-flirting with at least a dozen other women simultaneously. Godlewski also claimed his marriage fell apart after the Times-Tribune article — I wonder why?
In the video, while seated in front of a woodcut model of the QAnon motto “Where we go one, we go all” he claimed he was so drunk during these flirting sessions he would fall down intoxicated and urinate on himself. Adding,
“I was flirting with every girl that ever knew me,” Godlewski said. “Some of y’all watching may have been a part of that.”
That is his defense? I have nothing.
Godleski’s lawyer tried some victim blaming by claiming the woman’s damaging affidavit had a “troubling and coercive background.” I do not even know what that means.
And if this cake needed icing, Godleski added it. In May 2022, during the defamation case. Godlewski again texted B.D. to once again attempt to pervert justice. He alluded to a “financial windfall” that he could not discuss in person, which would require them to work together. “I think it might be fair to say that here is a very, very large, and very, very unique financial opportunity that exists in front of you,” Godlewski wrote, according to text message records entered into the court record.
The paper’s lawyers referred to this witness tampering “Not only did Philip Godlewski commit a sex crime against a 15-year-old girl in 2009-2010, he has now solicited this same person to commit perjury in a Court proceeding so he can enrich himself.”
Being a rabid right-winger, Godlewski also texted, “I don’t trust those motherfuckers and I am literally foaming at the mouth to take them down once and for all.” I think Godlewski has lost touch with reality.