Fired Phone Workers Lose Wiretap Case

A jury concluded Tuesday that two former Cincinnati Bell Telephone Co. installers defamed the company and two managers by claiming that they had them perform hundreds of illegal wiretaps in the 1970s and 1980s.

The jury indicated by its verdict that it did not believe the wiretapping claims of former Bell employees Leonard Gates and Robert Draise, who said they performed 1,200 illegal telephone taps for police and the telephone company.

The eight-member Hamilton County Common Pleas jury awarded the company and managers more than $100,000 in compensatory damages from the two former phone installers. Judge Fred J. Cartolano can add punitive damages to the total.

After the verdict, the judge said he also thought Draise and Gates had lied.

“I am convinced that you and Mr. Gates have lied profusely,” Cartolano told Draise. “I am going to give the transcript to the county prosecutor to decide whether to charge you with perjury.”

The company has denied any involvement in any illegal wiretaps and filed the defamation lawsuit against Draise and Gates after they made their claims that they performed 1,200 wiretaps on various community leaders, reporters, criminal suspects, a federal judge and President Gerald Ford during a 1975 visit.

Phone company lawyers contended that the two men were seeking revenge because Cincinnati Bell fired Draise in 1979 and Gates in 1986.

A federal grand jury also studied the wiretap claims last year but concluded there was no evidence of lawbreaking within the five-year statute of limitations.

Cincinnati Bell President Dwight Hibbard said the company is satisfied with the verdict and plans no further action on the case.

“We’ve cleared our name. We’ve cleared the names of the employees involved,” he said at a news conference.

Gates was reported to be sick at home when the verdict was read Tuesday. Draise declined to answer reporters’ questions as he left the courtroom, saying only: “You heard what I said on the stand.”

The jury awarded the company $10,000 from each of the two former employees; a total of $80,000 to company supervisor Peter Gabor and $10,000 to another manager, James West.

After the verdict, Gabor hugged his mother and both wept. Gabor had missed the final days of testimony after his wife died last week.

“I’m gratified that it went the way it went,” Gabor said. “I just wish my wife could have lived long enough to see this.”