Van Deerlin Drug Story Not Libel, Judge Rules

A U.S. District Court judge has ruled that columnist Jack Anderson did not libel former San Diego Representative Lionel Van Deerlin when he wrote that Van Deerlin had been named as a potential drug user by informants.

Van Deerlin, 71, who now writes a column for the San Diego Tribune, had filed a $5.25-million lawsuit after Anderson wrote in an April, 1983, column that Van Deerlin had been named by informants as one of nine congressmen and senators who had used cocaine and bought drugs from a Capitol Hill cocaine ring. In July, 1982, Anderson had written that 15 congressmen were customers of the cocaine ring, but he did not name them.

The 1983 column did not say that Van Deerlin used cocaine, but that he had been named by three informants as a potential buyer and user of the drug. After a three-day trial in July, U.S. District Judge Leland Nielsen said he was convinced that Van Deerlin had never used drugs.

But in a two-paragraph ruling mailed last week to the attorneys in the case, Nielsen said that Van Deerlin had failed to prove that Anderson had acted with malice.

“Although some factual matters were false . . . there was no clear and convincing proof of actual malice,” Nielsen wrote.

Van Deerlin was implicated in a handwritten police memo that listed nine congressmen and senators, including Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), whom several sources identified as cocaine users. Charges were never pressed against Van Deerlin nor against any of the others.

Michael Aguirre, Van Deerlin’s attorney, had charged that Anderson and two of his reporters instigated the story by feeding unsubstantiated reports about Van Deerlin to police and to Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove), who wrote reports based on the information. During the trial, Anderson testified that two of his reporters worked with Dornan and a Washington detective to arrange a “sting” operation to catch drug pushers and users on Capitol Hill.

Jerome Eggers, Anderson’s San Diego attorney, said that Anderson has been sued numerous times for libel but has never lost a case.

“Anderson has never lost a libel suit and has never paid a dime in a libel suit by settling a case out of court,” Eggers said.

Aguirre said that Van Deerlin declined to comment about the decision except to say that he was “very disappointed.” Aguirre said he is not sure whether Van Deerlin will appeal Nielsen’s ruling.

Van Deerlin, a Democrat, served 18 years in Congress until he was upset by Republican Duncan Hunter in 1980.