Defamation

Attorneys for the Louisiana woman suing Watergate figure G. Gordon Liddy say they will not call former White House counsel John W. Dean III to testify in the $5.1 million defamation case, which resumes today in Baltimore. "I've now decided it would be a terrible distraction and just take the case off on a whole other tangent," said David M. Dorsen, an attorney representing Ida "Maxie" Wells. U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz suggested Thursday that attorneys representing Wells put Dean on the witness stand, saying jurors deserved to hear from him. "If John Dean takes the stand, it will turn into Dean vs. Liddy, and that is something I really want to avoid," Dorsen said Friday.

A federal judge refused to dismiss a $5.1 million lawsuit against Watergate conspirator G. Gordon Liddy yesterday, saying a jury should decide whether Liddy's revisionist theory of the infamous 1972 burglary defamed a former Democratic National Committee secretary. Defense lawyers argued that Ida "Maxie" Wells, the Louisiana woman suing Liddy, had failed to prove as false Liddy's suggestion that the burglars in the break-in at DNC headquarters were looking for photos of call girls kept in her desk to protect the reputation of the fiancee of then-White House counsel John W. Dean III. U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz said that question should go to the jury.

Attorneys went back and forth over witness lists filled with Watergate figures and historians yesterday as a nearly four-year-old defamation lawsuit against G. Gordon Liddy proceeds to trial next week in Baltimore's federal courthouse. In April 1997, a former Democratic National Committee secretary sued Liddy, now a radio talk-show host and lecturer, saying he repeatedly told audiences that she had procured prostitutes for Democratic officials during the early 1970s. Ida Maxwell "Maxie" Wells contends that Liddy damaged her reputation by promoting the untrue theory that the Watergate burglars in June 1972 were looking for photographs of White House lawyer John W. Dean's fiancee among call-girl pictures kept in Wells' desk.

A prominent Baltimore funeral home has filed a $41 million defamation lawsuit against WJZ, claiming that an investigative report wrongly accused the firm of mishandling a veteran's burial, and was largely based on the widow's dreams. The suit also claims that WJZ reporter Suzanne Collins refused to grant officials at March Funeral Homes West Inc. enough time to refute the contentions of Enid Costley before the Oct. 11, 1999 broadcast, despite repeated pleas. The suit, filed last Friday by Baltimore lawyer Walter Nathan Malloy Jr., charges that WJZ "published an irresponsible piece of sensational journalism that was wretched with false statements."

Barnes & Noble and the Anti-Defamation League have joined to create the "Close the Book on Hate" initiative, an educational program designed to help eradicate prejudice by teaching children diversity through books. The Ellicott City Barnes & Noble participates by sponsoring a "Hate Hurts" story time. Today, readers at the bookstore will use two books as tools to illustrate how differences in people benefit us all: "The Sneetches" by Dr. Seuss and "The Crayon Box That Talked" by Shane DeRolf.

An Anne Arundel County couple who lost two children in a house fire last year sued Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. yesterday, alleging the company lied in subsequent press statements about their efforts to resolve a utility bill. The Odenton-area home of Charles and Dawn Feick caught fire last September after BGE had cut off its electricity for nonpayment - a blaze ignited when one of their four children knocked over a candle he was using to read, the couple said. The defamation suit filed in Baltimore Circuit Court - seeking $12 million in punitive and compensatory damages - alleges that BGE defamed the family through false public comments that the company had not heard from the Feicks about the bill until two days after the power had been terminated.

Can a political candidate be too religious? Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman's selection as the first Jewish vice presidential nominee was greeted by the Jewish community with pride that one of their own had broken a major barrier. Here was a man who is religiously observant and comfortable with the language of faith. Even the religious right said that this was a candidate it could relate to. Lieberman has used that faith language prominently in his stump speeches. In his appearance at a Detroit church, he called for the creation of a role for religion in public life.

A federal judge has dismissed a $1 million defamation lawsuit brought by a former Baltimore County police officer who said he was wrongly arrested and committed to a psychiatric hospital after his wife told his supervisors he was threatening suicide. County police arrested Officer Kevin M. Ransom outside his home Oct. 4, 1997, charging him with assault and committing him to Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital for six days for psychiatric evaluation. In a lawsuit filed last year, Ransom - who later returned to work with back pay and had the criminal charge against him dropped - claimed his arrest was improper and malicious.

THE WAY IT played out Monday in Baltimore County Circuit Court, the case of Richard N. Foltz III brings us irresistibly to a page of legal and literary lore marked, "Wilde, Oscar; defamation." A century apart, the Irish wit Wilde and the Reisterstown attorney Foltz pursued the same path, charging defamation of character over claims of sexual offense. But instead of the satisfaction of vindication, Wilde and Foltz found condemnation at the end of their legal travels. Wilde, the acerbic playwright and poet of 19th-century England, might have been forgiven for his dramatic zeal in the defense of his name.