Detroit Reporter Skips Deposition About Unnamed Sources

By: Ed White A Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter did not appear at a deposition in Detroit to answer questions about unnamed sources used in a 2004 story about a terrorism prosecutor.

A lawyer for Richard Convertino, the former federal prosecutor in Detroit, says reporter David Ashenfelter was obligated to appear Thursday. Stephen Kohn says he'll likely ask a judge to hold the Detroit Free Press reporter in contempt.

Convertino wants to know who in the U.S. Justice Department supplied information to the newspaper about an ethics investigation. A judge in August said Ashenfelter could not cite a reporter's privilege to avoid the deposition.

But Ashenfelter's lawyer, Herschel Fink, says the other side knew he would not appear. Fink this week asked two judges to intervene in the case, but there have been no rulings so far.

Convertino handled the first major terrorism trial after 9/11, only to have the convictions thrown out at the government's request because evidence was withheld. He resigned in 2005.