Minister sues aide to mayor of St. Louis

ST. LOUIS -- The Rev. Larry Rice has filed a libel lawsuit against a spokesman for Mayor Francis Slay, accusing him of making malicious statements about the New Life Evangelistic Center after a fire last week.

Slay spokesman Ed Rhode called Rice's downtown homeless shelter a "firetrap," and said "there's not a single working smoke detector."

Rice's lawsuit, filed Friday afternoon in St. Louis Circuit Court, names Rhode as the only defendant. The television minister and head of New Life said false statements by city officials damage the reputation of the center.

"For Ed Rhode to say that there is not a single working smoke detector and that the building is a firetrap is an outright lie," Rice said.

Firefighters said someone, about 2 a.m. Thursday, apparently started the fire outside a basement window at the center. The fire damaged a basement storage room. About 130 homeless men were asleep in the six-story building, but they were evacuated safely.

Rice said the building had working smoke detectors and a fully functional sprinkler system that had been tested the day before the fire.

Jeff Rainford, Slay's chief of staff, disputed Rice's claim that the sprinkler system and smoke detectors were working on the morning of the fire.