By: E&P Staff The Chicago Sun-Times is donating $4.8 million to 10 local charities as part of a legal settlement for its circulation fraud scandal.
To compensate advertisers who paid for inflated circulation, the Sun-Times has paid out most of the $24.5 million in cash and $7.3 million in free or discounted ads. The $4.8 million going to the charities is unclaimed money from the reserve. Another $1 million will remain in reserve for possible future claims.
Cook County (Ill.) Circuit Judge Bernetta Bush approved the settlement Wednesday. The settlement was reported in the Sun-Times Thursday in an article by business reporter David Roeder.
According to the account, the charitable donation is believed to the be largest ever resulting from a class action lawsuit in Cook County. "I salute the Sun-Times," the newspaper quoted Bush as saying during the hearing. "Something that could have been a real zoo has been a real pleasure."
Under the agreement, $2 million donations will be made to the Chicago Bar Foundation, which financially assists law school graduates who work in legal aid programs, and the Abraham Lincoln Marovitz Lend-a-Hand Program, which is a youth mentoring program.
Others receiving grants ranging from $50,000 to $250,000 each include legal programs conducted by DePaul and Loyola Universities; research at Children's Memorial Hospital; and the Teach For America program.
When a separate financial scandal at the Sun-Times corporate owner forced the resignation of Publisher F. David Radler, his predecessor, John Cruickshank discovered a scheme that had falsely inflated reported circulation by as much as 50,000 copies a day.
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