Illinois Official Wins $1 Million for Libel; Newspaper to Appeal

A judge on Monday awarded more than $1 million in damages to a St. Clair (Ill.) County Board member after finding that a newspaper and one of its former editorial writers libeled the official when they called him a liar.

Writer Richard Hargraves and Darwin Wile, publisher of the Belleville News-Democrat, said that they would appeal County Associate Judge Roger Scrivner’s verdict in a non-jury trial of the lawsuit filed by County Board Chairman Jerry Costello.

The judge, who accused the paper of “cavalier” reporting, ordered Hargraves and Capital Cities Communications Inc., owner of the morning daily, to pay $450,000 in actual damages and $600,000 in punitive damages.

The case attracted national attention last July when Hargraves, who now works for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, was jailed briefly for refusing to reveal his sources.

Costello filed suit in January, 1981, against Hargraves and Capital Cities, charging he was defamed by a Dec. 31, 1980, editorial that accused him of lying and breaking a campaign promise to oppose new taxes unless voters first approved them.

At issue was a Dec. 29, 1980, board decision to create a transit district with the authority to tax. Hargraves’ editorial said that Costello “sat on his gavel” and did nothing to table the vote.

Costello contended that the criticism was libelous because he had no vote in the decision and had worked behind the scenes to delay the vote.

“The court is shocked by the cavalier lack of care and effort of the defendants in their investigative procedures,” Scrivner said.