May 5, 2026

Order, Supreme Court, New York County (David B. Cohen, J.), entered on or about May 15, 2025, which granted the separate motions of defendants Malcolm A. Punter and Harlem Congregations for Community Improvement, Inc., and defendants Aarian Punter and Rucker Park Prep Foundation, for summary judgment dismissing the complaint as against them, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

Plaintiff's defamation and libel per se claims were properly dismissed on the ground that the allegedly defamatory statements describing plaintiff as acting "aggressively" and being "disrespectful" and "unprofessional" were nonactionable expressions of opinion based on disclosed facts (see Davis v Boeheim, 24 NY3d 262, 269 [2014]; O'Neill v New York Univ., 97 AD3d 199, 207 [1st Dept 2012]). Defendants' correspondence to plaintiff's supervisor set forth the underlying facts describing plaintiff's specific conduct while he performed his duties managing a public park, which facts plaintiff does not meaningfully dispute.

In any event, qualified privilege applied to defendants' allegedly defamatory statements. Defendants had a legitimate interest in reporting plaintiff's conduct at a public charity event to those individuals with a corresponding interest in the conduct, since plaintiff was acting in his capacity as a government employee (Herlihy v Metropolitan Museum of Art, 214 AD2d 250, 258 [1st Dept 1995]), and, on this record, plaintiff failed to show that the allegedly defamatory statements were made with actual malice (see Liberman v Gelstein, 80 NY2d 429, 437-438 [1992]).

We have considered plaintiff's remaining arguments and find them unavailing. Concur—Manzanet-Daniels, J.P., Kapnick, Rodriguez, Pitt-Burke, O'Neill Levy, JJ.