Suit Says Ex-Publisher Libeled Man Who Ousted Him

Former newspaper publisher Robert E. Page was accused in a lawsuit Wednesday of defaming the man who ousted him two weeks ago from the company that owns the Orange Coast Daily Pilot and the Glendale News-Press.

The lawsuit, filed in Orange County Superior Court on behalf of New York investor Elliot Stein Jr., seeks $6 million in general damages and an unspecified amount in punitive damages.

Stein contends in the suit that Page and one of his lawyers, Franklin J. Lunding Jr. of Monterey, slandered him in a conversation with another investor in the company and libeled him in a letter delivered to directors and investors in Page Group Publishing Inc., the owner of the newspapers and other publications.

Their actions, Stein alleged, also interfered with his business relationships with the investors.

Page, former publisher of the Chicago Sun-Times and the Boston Herald, declined to comment because he didn’t know that the suit was filed and hadn’t seen a copy of it.

Stein’s vehicle for owning a majority stake in Page Group is a limited partnership called Commonwealth Capital Partners Ltd., a New York firm with powerful but passive investors, including former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Other Page group investors include Hollywood producers Peter Guber and Jon Peters and Chicago industrialist Lester Crown.

On May 13, Stein, chairman of Page Group, ousted Page in an ugly scene at corporate headquarters in the Daily Pilot building. Stein had called police to help him evict Page, but Page left voluntarily after making photocopies of certain documents.

Stein also used the Page Group to sue Page and another executive who was fired. That suit asserted that Page was not competent to handle the company’s financial matters.

Page had earlier accused Stein of reacting to demands Page had been making for six months for access to documents involved in Page Group’s acquisition of Tu Mundo, a Spanish-language newspaper in Los Angeles.

Stein, Guber and Peters were part of a four-member partnership that had owned Tu Mundo and sold it to Page Group.

On May 14, Stein sent a letter to Page apparently explaining his dismissal. Page replied on May 24 with a letter that accused Stein of not being honest with him about the Tu Mundo deal. Page has said publicly that he was told to stay out of the negotiations and that the newspaper was a break-even operation at worst.

Instead, according to Page’s letter, which was attached to Stein’s lawsuit Wednesday, Page Group paid $1.666 million “for an insolvent business with annual gross revenues no greater than $850,000 . . . and with a loss of no less than $300,000 each year and with a negative net worth.”

Stein’s defamation suit alleges that Page’s statements weren’t true and that the letter was sent to investors “for the sole and specific purpose of discrediting (Stein), undermining the investors’ confidence in (Stein) and jeopardizing their existing and future relationships.”