Source of Contract Murder Story Sues ABC News, CIA

The source for a controversial ABC News story alleging that the CIA plotted to murder an American citizen has filed a $145-million federal suit against the network and the intelligence agency charging that they conspired to discredit him.

Scott T. Barnes and the Southern California chapter of the Americans for Democratic Action, a liberal political association, filed suit in federal district court in Los Angeles Monday. The suit charges that ABC bowed to CIA pressure to retract a story that Barnes had related on ABC’s “World News Tonight” last year, and that ABC and the CIA libeled and defamed Barnes, denied him his constitutional right to free speech and interfered with his capacity to find employment.

Last September Barnes said on the ABC broadcast that he had been hired by the CIA to kill Ronald R. Rewald, a Honolulu businessman. Rewald claims that he operated a massive CIA covert operation through a now defunct investment banking firm. His 100-count federal trial for fraud, tax evasion and perjury is scheduled to open next week in Honolulu.

Barnes, who lives in Kern County, Calif., told the network he was recruited for the killing while working as a guard in the prison where Rewald was held while awaiting trial.

‘Clarification’ Broadcast

After repeated CIA denials, ABC broadcast a “clarification” that said, in part, that Barnes refused to take a lie-detector test to substantiate his charge and that ABC had “no reason to doubt the CIA’s denial.”

ABC broadcast the clarification on the same day that the CIA filed the federal government’s first ever Federal Communications Commission fairness doctrine complaint against a broadcaster over the program. Two weeks ago, the FCC denied the CIA petition.

Barnes’ suit denies that he refused ABC’s request for a lie-detector test. Neither ABC nor the CIA commented on the suit Monday.