Newton Defamation Case Goes to Jury

A federal jury began deliberations Wednesday in entertainer Wayne Newton’s multimillion-dollar defamation lawsuit against NBC after Newton’s attorney accused the network of a “total absence of institutional conscience.”

The jury deliberations began eight weeks after a panel of six jurors and four alternates was chosen to weigh Newton’s claim that his reputation was damaged by NBC reports in 1980 and 1981 linking him to organized crime figures.

In 12 hours of closing arguments, which ended Wednesday morning, Newton’s attorney accused the network of maligning the integrity of his client, and NBC attorneys said the entertainer’s problem was of his own doing.

“There was a total absence of institutional conscience as far as Wayne Newton was concerned,” Newton attorney Morton Galane said of the network in closing arguments Wednesday. “They never dreamed they’d have to face this jury. They never thought they’d have to answer for their motives or their conduct.”

NBC attorney Floyd Abrams, in closing arguments Monday and Tuesday, said Newton had created his own problems by turning to mob figures Guido Penosi and Frank Piccolo for help in halting death threats against his family.

In addition to NBC, reporter Brian Ross, producer Ira Silverman and executive producer Paul Greenberg are named as defendants in the case.