Craig Kent, former chief executive officer of U.Va. Health, filed a defamation lawsuit Feb. 23 seeking more than $34 million in damages against the law firm and individual attorneys whose report to the University Board of Visitors preceded his resignation last year. The same attorneys sued Kent in federal court Oct. 3 over allegations of patient harm and financial fraud.
The 50-page complaint, filed in Albemarle County Circuit Court, names Jones Swanson Huddell LLC and its attorneys Gladstone Jones and Lynn Swanson, as well as Charlottesville-based attorney Les Bowers, as defendants. It accuses them of waging a “defamatory campaign” to force Kent out of his position and then leveraging his departure to build a federal lawsuit against him.
"The purpose of Defendants' campaign was to remove Dr. Kent as the apex leader of U.Va. Health and then capitalize monetarily on his removal, by filing a federal lawsuit that echoes many of the same defamatory accusations and uses Dr. Kent's ouster to validate them,” the complaint reads.
Kent is represented by lead counsel Paul Vickrey of Vitale, Vickrey, Niro, Solon & Gasey LLP — a Chicago-based firm — alongside counsel Evan Mayo and Payal Sampat of Mayo Law Group PLLC in Charlottesville.
"Our client looks forward to clearing his name," Mayo said in a statement to The Cavalier Daily.
Kent led U.Va. Health from February 2020 until his resignation February 25, 2025, following a no-confidence letter signed by 128 anonymous physicians and employees. After receiving the letter, the Board retained Williams & Connolly — a Washington D.C. based law firm — to conduct an independent investigation into its claims.
On Feb. 24, 2025 — the day before Williams & Connolly was set to brief the Board on their findings in an oral presentation — Jones Swanson Huddell, who represents the physicians, emailed its own 26-page “Letter Report” directly to Board members. Drawing on interviews with 36 doctors and one U.Va. Physicians Group board member, the report made sweeping accusations against Kent, including that Kent had hired surgeons over the unanimous objection of his own search committees, prolonged emergency room wait times in order to keep beds available for higher-revenue elective surgeries and retaliated against physicians who raised patient safety concerns. The report also alleged his financial mismanagement caused patients to lose their sight and suffer strokes.
Kent resigned the following day Feb. 25, 2025. Jones Swanson Huddell and Bowers filed a separate 105-page federal RICO lawsuit months later — a federal racketeering statute typically used to prosecute organized crime — against Kent and other former U.Va. Health leaders on behalf of two widows of patients who died and several physicians, alleging Kent and other leaders' conduct contributed to the deaths of two patients.
Kent’s complaint filed Feb. 23 characterized the Jones Swanson Huddell report as a calculated effort to manufacture his removal and not a legitimate investigation. The suit alleges the defendants “designed the Letter Report to appear as if it were the result of an official, objective investigation by U.Va.,” despite never having been commissioned by the University.
“The Jones Law Firm Defendants timed, structured and phrased their Letter Report in such a way as to lead recipients to believe it was U.Va.'s official report [i.e., a result of the Williams & Connolly investigation], or a collaboration with Williams & Connolly,” the complaint states.
The complaint goes further, alleging the timing was deliberate. According to the suit, Jones Swanson Huddell had learned in January 2025 that Williams & Connolly had found no evidence of financial malfeasance and would deliver only an oral briefing, not a written report, to the Board. According to the suit, faced with the possibility that the official investigation would not result in Kent’s immediate firing, Jones Swanson Huddell published their own report the day before the Feb. 25, 2025 briefing, sending it to 23 recipients, most of whom were Board of Visitors members.
Within 24 hours of the Letter Report’s delivery, the complaint says, a Board member warned colleagues and former University President Jim Ryan that Kent had until 6 p.m. on Feb. 25, 2025 — the day of the Board meeting — to resign, or the report would be sent to The Washington Post.
The suit also challenges specific statements Jones and Bowers — the lead attorneys in the federal lawsuit against Kent — made to the press following the federal lawsuit’s filing. The complaint cites an Oct. 19, 2025 media report in which Bowers allegedly described Kent’s administration as engaged in “illegal and unethical practices.” Jones went further, the complaint says, claiming Kent and other U.Va. Health leaders “were directly involved in the development of the strategy that included these illegal acts,” — meaning Jones alleged Kent and his leadership team knowingly devised a plan that resulted in the illegal billing practices at the center of the federal suit. Kent’s attorneys argue those statements were made outside the protection afforded to judicial proceedings and were made with “actual malice.”
The complaint also alleges a personal connection between the physicians and the firm representing them, stating that one of the disgruntled physicians involved in organizing the no-confidence effort was the stepbrother of Defendant Jones.
Jones Swanson Huddell disputed Kent’s characterization of a coordinated defamatory campaign in a statement that was published Feb. 26 in a 29News article.
“Dr. Kent is wrong about the circumstances of his departure from the University of Virginia and its Physicians Group,” Jones Swanson Huddell LLC said. “U.Va.’s Board of Visitors and [former] President Jim Ryan demanded the resignation of Dr. Kent, not the law firm of Jones Swanson Huddell LLC.”
Jones Swanson Huddell LLC pointed to a letter Ryan sent to the U.Va. Health community acknowledging that concerns about Kent's leadership and trust in his position ultimately led to his stepping down.
Thomas Scully, a former member of the U.Va. Health System Board, who resigned in protest one week after Kent’s departure, offered a different perspective in a statement to The Cavalier Daily. Scully said he resigned in March 2025 and sent a six-page letter to University officials writing that Kent’s treatment by the Board was “irrational and unfair” and blaming “toxic forces” and "silly partisan politics” for his ouster.
In his statement to The Cavalier Daily, Scully said he has spoken with other former Health System Board members and believes they are united in their support of Kent’s defamation suit.
“I was on the U.Va. Health Board for 3.5 years before resigning last March in protest of the outrageous [Board] actions that led to Dr. Craig Kent’s resignation without any process or consultation with the Health System Board,” Scully said. “I have spoken to the other Health System Board Members and I know that all my colleagues on the [Health System Board] at the time support Craig in his defamation suit. The accusations against him were outrageous and unfounded. He did a great job as CEO and we all support him in this effort.”
The suit brings two counts — defamation per se and tortious interference with his employment contract, which Kent’s attorney argued was terminated five years before its scheduled expiration. Defamation per se refers to statements so inherently harmful that damages are presumed, while tortious interference refers to a third party intentionally disrupting an existing contractual relationship, which in this case was Kent’s employment contract.
Kent is seeking $32 million against Jones Swanson Huddell LLC, Jones and Swanson jointly for the Letter Report, $1 million each against Jones and Bowers for their press statements, $7.3 million for tortious interference and $350,000 in punitive damages — damages intended to punish the defendants beyond simple compensation. Because the counts are not cumulative — meaning the damages from the defamation and tortious interference claims cannot be stacked on top of one another — the total amount Kent is seeking across both claims is $34 million. He has also demanded a jury trial.
The defamation case is separate from the ongoing federal RICO lawsuit filed by Jones Swanson Huddell LLC against Kent. A hearing on motions to dismiss in that case is scheduled for May 6. As for the defamation case, the defendants must first respond to the complaint before the case can proceed toward discovery and a potential trial date.
Read More
Spring 2026 Student Council presidential election sees highest turnout in recent history
By Naren Senthilkumar | YesterdayThe University’s Spring 2026 student elections drew the largest voter turnout for the Student Council presidential race in recent years.
Miller Center panelists discuss conflict with Iran, effects on U.S. foreign policy
By Isabela Delgado and Luca Bailey | 2 days agoFollowing the United States’ recent series of military strikes against Iran Feb. 28, the University’s Miller Center hosted a pop-up event on Zoom Wednesday.
Board of Visitors charges Audit Committee with presidential search process review
By Grace Little | 3 days agoThe full Board of Visitors met Thursday afternoon for the first time since the appointment of Rector Carlos Brown, Vice Rector Victoria Harker and eight other new Board members by Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D).
