Ex-aide to Mihos sues to be paid

The suit brought by Joseph Manzoli adds to a series of legal and financial woes dogging Mihos’s insurgent bid for the Republican nomination against the party favorite, Charles D. Baker Jr., former chief executive of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care.

Margaret M. Melican, a Worcester attorney who filed the suit on behalf of Manzoli, said she will ask the court next Thursday to place a $50,000 lien on Mihos’s 5,851-square-foot oceanfront home in the gated community of Great Island in West Yarmouth.

The lawsuit puts the home’s value at $6.7 million.

Manzoli quit Mihos’s campaign earlier this month, becoming the fifth former political aide to say that Mihos had failed to pay him. Four vendors have also sued Mihos for payment since late 2008.

Manzoli’s suit contends that Mihos attempted to change the terms of his contract when he demanded payment. Manzoli also alleges that Mihos “invented false excuses to withhold payments’’ and “made intentionally false statements regarding liability and resources.’’

Mihos declined to comment on the lawsuit.

“I haven’t seen it,’’ he said yesterday. “I haven’t been served. I don’t know what the allegations are. And until we do see it, it’s pointless to comment.’’

Mihos’s campaign account, on March 15, contained $4,061, and Manzoli says in the lawsuit that placing a lien on Mihos’s home “is the only real security I will ever have’’ to ensure that he will be paid for his work.

“My situation is very simple, and that is I love Christy, I love his message, and all that good stuff, but sometimes you have to have tough love,’’ Manzoli said in an interview. “And that’s really what it comes down to. I wish him well in the campaign, and I feel terrible it had to come to this.’’

Michael Levenson can be reached at mlevenson@globe.com.