Talk:Matt Labash

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[edit] Sued for libel by Deepak Chopra

I wrote this section after another editor had added some information on the case. The only problem with it (I think) is that it's too long, adding undue weight to it in such a short article. I'm chopping it down for that reason in the article, but perhaps it can be added back if the article later grows. Noroton 00:34, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Here's the long version:

Labash was sued by new age guru, author, and spiritual-advisor-to-celebreties Deepak Chopra, after Labash wrote an article in the July 1, 1996 issue of the Standard exposing alleged inconsistencies between the healthy moral lifestyle advocated by Chopra and his real-life daliances. Included in the expose were accounts from call girls, substantiated by credit card receipts, etc., allegedly showing Chopra had paid for their services.^[1]

Labash cited to portions of a Chopra book which had been allegedly lifted from previous' authors' works. The article also said Chopra sold mail-order herbal remedies that contained high amounts of rodent hairs. Eventually there was a settlement involving an undisclosed amount of money paid to Chopra and a complete retraction published by The Weekly Standard on June 1, 1997. According to an article in The Columbia Journalism Review (CJR), the Standard went to "unusual lengths" to document the accusations against Chopra, going so far as to obtain "receipts from her escort service bearing Chopra's American Express card imprint and signature. The Standard also had a copy of the bill from the hotel where three trysts allegedly occurred in 1991. One of Chopra's lawyers, Michael Flynn, had offered to meet with Labash's editors and the magazine's lawyer to show them a passport allegedly showing Chopra was speaking in India during part of the time when the prostitute claimed he was paying for her services. But Flynn had refused to give Labash a copy of the passport. Labash had repeatedly and fruitlessly asked for documentation from Chopra that would back up Chopra's denials.^[1]

About six months into the litigation, the prostitute recanted her story and was dropped as a defendant in the case. Some court records brought out the fact that Labash had tape recorded some interviewees without telling them, sometimes from his home in Maryland, where surreptitious taping is a felony. In a court brief, one of Chopra's lawyers, William Bradford Reynolds, a Reagan administration Justice Department official, described Labash as a "brash young 25-year-old cub reporter, admittedly untrained and untutored in the ethics or etiquette of his profession." Libel experts said the information revealed in court records indicated that it would be difficult to prove the Standard had acted with "actual malice" but that juries were unpredictable.^[1] The Standard was and continues to be owned by billionaire Rupert Murdoch and his News Corp.