A judge has refused to pull political ads that suggest a candidate for mayor in a Chicago-area city would allow drugs to be sold from City Hall.

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Joe Faso and David Gonzalez are running for mayor of Chicago Heights, Ill., a city of about 30,000 south of Chicago. Gonzalez filed a lawsuit last week seeking a temporary restraining order against Faso, the SouthtownStar reported.

Cook County Circuit Judge Carolyn Quinn said Faso's ads, which include mailings to voters and a YouTube video, are protected by the First Amendment. They said Gonzalez's brother was sentenced to probation in 2005 for selling a small quantity of cocaine from an address next door to his brother's accounting firm and suggested he would be doing the same thing at City Hall if his brother becomes mayor.

"I knew it was a frivolous lawsuit to begin with," Faso said. "It was propaganda on their part, and they knew what they tried to accuse us of wasn't true. The best defense for a slander is the truth, and that's what we expected the outcome to be."