Wendy Gordon, a D.C. area publicist, filed a libel lawsuit yesterday against the media gossip blog FishbowlDC and two of its writers, Betsy Rothstein and Peter Ogburn. Gordon, who has been the subject of a weekly series of posts on Fishbowl titled “Wendy Wednesday” featuring photos taken from her Facebook page and other sources, is seeking $2 million in compensatory and punitive damages.

The suit, which was filed in D.C. Superior Court yesterday, alleges that Rothstein and Ogburn have waged an “unprovoked, online smear campaign” against Gordon that has cost her a considerable amount of business. Gordon, her complaint argues, “is not a public figure and, at least prior to the defendants’ commencement of the Wendy Wednesday series, was not generally known to readers of the FishbowlDC website.” The suit continues, saying Rothstein and Ogburn’s posts “caused injury to her reputation and business interests, and caused her to suffer emotional distress and humiliation.”

News of Gordon’s suit against FishbowlDC was first reported by the National Law Journal.

FishbowlDC’s parent company, New York-based WebMediaBrands Inc., is also named as a co-defendant. The Wendy Wednesday posts appear to have been removed from the site, but many of them featured photos of Gordon out and about in her social life along with descriptions that often crossed lurid boundaries, many of which are described in the lawsuit in graphic detail.

The responses to a Wendy Wednesday post last August 22 are particularly direct. In that entry, which accompanied a photo of Gordon dancing at a party, Ogburn wrote:

The sultry look on her face says it all. Wendy is DTF and on the prowl. So, give yourself an extra blast of AXE body spray, maybe think about double bagging it and say hello to Cougar Wendy!

In response, Gordon’s complaint reads:

• “Contrary to Defendants’ statement, Ms. Gordon does not post ‘insane pictures’ of herself on the Internet.
• “Contrary to Defendants’ statement, Ms. Gordon was not ‘DTF’ (i.e., ‘down to fuck’ or looking to have sex) or ‘on the prowl’ at this charity event, and to falsely claim otherwise is defamatory per se and grossly impugns her character.
• “Defendants also stated that anyone seeking to have sexual relations with Ms. Gordon would want to wear two condoms (i.e., ‘double bagging’), falsely implying that Ms. Gordon has some loathsome disease.
• “Defendants also falsely claimed that Ms. Gordon is a ‘cougar,’ which is a derogatory term for an older woman who is aggressively pursuing sexual relationships with much younger men, including men young enough to be the cougar’s son.
• “For some time now, and including in August 2012, Ms. Gordon has been involved with a relationship with a man her own age.”

Elsewhere in the complaint, Gordon’s attorneys at the Potomac, Md. firm of Shulman, Rogers, Gandal, Pordy & Ecker L.P. hit back at post that featured a photograph of Gordon posing with a wax statue of Councilmember Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) in which Ogburn wrote, “It’s a shot of Wendy wishing she was working the waxy wang of one-time Washington Mayor, Hizzoner Marion Barry.”

The suit replies: “Contrary to defendants’ false statement, Ms. Gordon was not ‘wishing she was working the waxy wang’ of Mayor [Barry], or anything of the sorty, and to suggest otherwise is not only false and defamatory, but disgusting and in extremely poor taste.”

The complaint also includes a series of responses to another Ogburn-penned post featuring a photo of Gordon posing with a wax statue of Tiger Woods, as well as several other Wendy Wednesday items. It also states that one of the posts was published the day the same day Gordon’s mother died.

According to the suit, Gordon asked FishbowlDC to remove the series last October and to issue a retraction and apology, along with compensating Gordon for her legal fees. Though most of the Wendy Wednesday items disappeared from the site, the retraction and apology were never issued. The suit argues that rejecting Gordon’s request for a public statement regretting the series was proof that Rothstein and Ogburn “acted with an evil motive or callous indifference to Ms. Gordon’s rights and interests.”

Gordon is hardly the only target of FishbowlDC, which under Rothstein has garnered a reputation as something of a media industry bully. In a post last February, Rothstein criticized the Twitter avatars of three young female reporters that featured their subjects in poses she deemed a “sexpot look.” That article earned Rothstein widespread criticism. (Disclosure: Rothstein has also antagonized me on occasion.)

Rothstein and Ogburn both declined requests for comment. In an email statement, Mitchell Eisenberg, the executive vice president and general counsel of WebMediaBrands, said the company plans to fight the charges. “While we cannot comment on the specifics of pending litigation, we do not believe that there is any merit to the claims and plan to defend against them vigorously,” he said.

The suit is scheduled to be heard April 19 in D.C. Superior Court.