Freedom Newspapers Trial Gets Down to Family Mudslinging

Freedom Newspapers heir Harry M. Hoiles called his relatives thieves and accused them of blackmail Thursday as defense lawyers chipped away at key elements of his lawsuit to dissolve the family-held media chain.

The mudslinging was the first sign of the bitter, behind-the-scenes feud that the Hoiles family feared would be publicly aired during a trial.

And the name-calling went both ways.

Attorneys for the defendants--Freedom Newspapers and the families of Hoiles’ sister and late brother--introduced letters from Hoiles’ son-in-law, Ricky C. Oncken, in which Oncken called his father-in-law a “twisted, power hungry tyrant” who was “wrong to pursue” his campaign to head the company.

The normally staid trial--now in its fifth week--stems from a long-running family dispute over control of the Freedom media empire, which operates the Orange County Register, 28 other dailies and 5 television stations. Harry Hoiles, whose branch of the family owns about a third of the chain, has sued to break up the $1-billion company so he can claim a third of its assets.

The internal fighting erupted seven years ago after Hoiles lost his battle to become chief executive officer of Freedom Newspapers.

Through his Orange County Superior Court suit, Hoiles is trying to prove that his relatives treated him with persistent unfairness or abused their authority.

In Thursday’s testimony, Hoiles told Robert E. Currie, lead counsel for Freedom Newspapers, that he viewed the majority families’ September, 1981, offer to buy him out for $74.1 million as “an attempt to steal. . . . I prefer not to associate with thieves.”

Currie also asked Hoiles about his refusal to sign a stock restriction giving family members the first chance to buy each other’s interests. “They said if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be elected to the executive committee,” Hoiles testified. “I refused to submit to blackmail.”

But Currie introduced out-of-court sworn statements from Hoiles’ daughters, Pamela J. Hoiles Bryan and Pennelope Oncken, and his son, Timothy, that suggested that they had doubts about their father’s ability to lead Freedom. The three are plaintiffs with their father in the suit.

“The family consensus was that Harry was not qualified to be CEO,” Leonard A. Hampel, attorney for the majority shareholders, said in an out-of-court interview.

In his cross-examination, Currie suggested that Hoiles, who approached Los Angeles Times officials in 1981 about buying his interest in Freedom Newspapers, did so as a bluff to intimidate the majority shareholders into making him chief executive or giving him a better price for his family’s shares.

Hoiles is scheduled to continue testifying today.