CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS / ATTORNEY GENERAL : Businessman Files $10-Million Libel Suit Against Lungren

Republican state attorney general candidate Dan Lungren was sued Thursday for $10 million by a San Francisco businessman who claims he was libeled in a recent Lungren TV campaign ad.

The ad, which aired on TV and radio stations across the state, criticized Lungren’s Democratic foe, San Francisco Dist. Atty. Arlo Smith, for accepting a plea bargain from onetime campaign contributor Donald Werby. Werby was indicted last year by a San Francisco grand jury on 22 felony drug, sex and bribery charges involving teen-age prostitutes.

In exchange for no jail time, Werby, a multimillionaire partner in the Four Seasons Clift Hotel and Gray Lines bus tours, recently pleaded guilty to four misdemeanor counts of statutory rape and contributing to the delinquency of minors. Smith returned contributions of $7,500 from Werby, his brother and their businesses long before the plea bargain was accepted.

Lungren’s 30-second TV ad included visual images of Lungren outside a courtroom and stated some of the initial counts against Werby, which included sexually molesting 13-year-old girls and providing crack cocaine to youngsters. The ad, which Lungren modified slightly after its initial airings, does not detail the misdemeanor counts to which Werby eventually pleaded guilty.

In a written statement released Thursday, Werby said: “I have proof that I wasn’t guilty of the (initial) charges. I showed my evidence to the prosecution and that’s why they dropped those charges. . . . I begged Lungren to withdraw the ads, and offered to show him the same proof that convinced the prosecution, but he wouldn’t even look at it. He left me no choice but to file this action.”

Lungren said Thursday that he “stand(s) by every fact in the commercial.”

The former congressman added that his staff studied all public records available on the case while preparing the ad.