By: E&P Staff Federal prosecutors asked a U.S. district judge to postpone the sentencing of seven people involved in the Newsday and Hoy circulation scandals scheduled for Friday.
Newsday's Robert Kessler reports prosecutors requested that U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein consider a delay so that newly appointed U.S. Attorney Benton Campbell can have the "opportunity to decide a number of issues that bear on the instant investigation and prosecution, including [the pre-trial hearing]," the attorneys wrote to Weinstein.
Six former Newsday employees and one distributor pleaded guilty in the Newsday and Hoy circulation scandals.
If Weinstein grants the delay, it would also postpone Friday's pre-sentence hearing where the judge would determine if other high-level executives at Newsday, Hoy, and Tribune were involved in papers' circulation fraud.
Weinstein wrote, "The court is troubled by the lack of clarity respecting the relative culpability, if it exists, of those prosecuted compared to those of higher authority at the institutions themselves."
Tribune Vice President of Communications Gary Weitman told Kessler: "These are issues related to the government's resolution of its criminal investigation of certain individuals who no longer work at Newsday. Newsday, Hoy, and Tribune have fully cooperated with the government during its investigation and continue to have good dialogue with the U.S. attorney's office. We will be represented at Friday's hearing assuming it goes forward as scheduled."
The seven defendants are former Newsday and Hoy executives Louis Sito, Robert Brennan, Ed Smith, Richard Czark, Robert Garcia, Dot McKillop, and Acosta News distributor Gustavo Acosta.
In the summer of 2004, it was disclosed that both Newsday and Hoy had inflated circulation by hundreds of thousands of copies. Tribune set aside $90 million to reimburse advertisers at Newsday and Hoy.
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