Tony Botello issues apology and retraction of Tony’s Kansas City posts about Louie Wright

A year ago, Louie Wright, former president of Local 42 of the International Association of Fire Fighters, filed a defamation lawsuit against popular and controversial local blogger Tony Botello. Wright claimed that the Tony’s Kansas City writer defamed him in blog posts written on August 22, 2009, and May 13, 2011. In the posts, Botello wrote that “tipsters” told him Wright received kickbacks from donations that firefighters made to the United Way. On Monday, Botello apologized for the posts, issued a retraction and scrubbed them from his archive to settle the suit.