Judith Regan Files $100 Million Defamation Lawsuit
Posted on November 14, 2007
Judith Regan is mad as hell and she's not going to take it anymore. She's suing Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., HarperCollins and HC CEO Jane Friedman for $100 million in a blockbuster defamation suit based on her firing from HarperCollins. Regan -- who claims she has shocking audiotapes that prove her claims -- says that she was asked to lie about her affair with Bernie Kerik to protect the presidential dreams of Rudy Guiliani, which she refused to do. She says that's the real reason she was fired.
In a $100 million defamation suit filed in New York Tuesday, the firebrand former publisher sues, censures or cites Rudy Giuliani, Rupert Murdoch, Mickey Mantle, Bill O'Reilly, O.J. Simpson, Roger Ailes and Bernard Kerik. Regan accuses her former employer, News Corp., of engineering a campaign of dirty tricks against her that allegedly involved leaking lies that she was openly anti-Semitic, disgracing and embarrassing her when she tried to publish O.J. Simpson's fictionalized account of the murder of his wife and her friend, and suggesting she lie about her affair with a married New York City police commissioner to protect former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's presidential dreams.You can read the entire lawsuit here. Or you can just wait for what are sure to be some vastly entertaining depositions.In a 72-page complaint, Regan's attorneys claim that she was the victim of a "deliberate smear campaign orchestrated by one of the world's largest media conglomerates for the sole purpose of destroying her credibility and reputation. "This smear campaign was necessary to advance News Corp.'s political agenda, which has long centered on protecting Rudy Giuliani's presidential ambitions," read the court filing.
The complaint charges that one unnamed senior News Corp. executive "counseled Regan to lie and withhold information from investigators" about her acknowledged affair with former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik. Another unnamed News Corp. executive "advised Regan not to produce clearly relevant documents in connection with a governmental investigation of Kerik," according to the complaint.