'Herald' Wants Libel Suit Tossed, Says Judge Made Threats

By: (AP) The Boston Herald asked that a jury's $2.1 million libel award for a state judge be thrown out, saying the judge has written threatening and intimidating letters demanding more money.

A motion to vacate the jury's verdict was filed Tuesday in Suffolk Superior Court, said Herald attorney Bruce W. Sanford.

"In my 30 years of practicing law, I've never seen a judge write letters like these," Sanford said at a news conference Tuesday night during which he passed out copies of the letters.

A jury in February found that the newspaper libeled Superior Court Judge Ernest B. Murphy in articles that portrayed him as lenient toward defendants and quoted him making insensitive comments about a 14-year-old rape victim.

Sanford said on Tuesday that Murphy had been on a "continued campaign to coerce and intimidate the paper out of its constitutional right to appeal."

It could not be independently verified that Murphy wrote the letters provided by the Herald. Murphy's lawyer did not immediately return calls from The Associated Press left at his office after business hours on Tuesday.

The first handwritten note on court letterhead asks for a private meeting with the Herald's publisher, Patrick J. Purcell.

"You will bring to that meeting a cashiers check, payable to me, in the sum of $3,260,000," says the letter, dated three days after the jury awarded the judge $2.1 million. "No check, no meeting."

A separate, single page post script, dated a day earlier, warns Purcell that telling anyone about the letter would be, "a BIG mistake."

Murphy has maintained that Herald reporter David Wedge misquoted him as telling lawyers involved in the case about the teenage rape victim: "Tell her to get over it."

The story cited anonymous sources. The source later turned out to be one person in the district attorney's office. Murphy denied ever making the statement.

The quote was included in a 2002 series of Herald articles that said Murphy had been criticized by prosecutors for lenient sentences.

Murphy sued the Herald and its writers, claiming his comments about the girl were misquoted and taken out of context.

After the first letter to the paper, the Herald appealed the jury's verdict. Purcell received a second handwritten letter dated March 18.

The second note -- which is not on letterhead -- is littered with words that have been capitalized and underlined.

"You have ZERO chance of reversing my jury verdict," the letter says. "You are lucky that the jury came back at 2 million. I was betting on 5."

After the second letter was received, Murphy filed a motion to attach the newspaper's assets, an argument that claims the company may not be able to pay the jury's award, Sanford said.

That motion was also a part of an intimidation campaign by Murphy, Sanford said.