Antonovich, Ex-Supervisor Ward Battle in Court Over Files : Lawsuits: The action accuses the current officeholder of defaming his rival, costing him his 1988 comeback bid.

Twelve years after Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich defeated incumbent Baxter Ward in a bitter campaign, and four years after Ward failed in his expensive comeback bid to oust Antonovich, the two longtime combatants have taken their battle to the courtroom.

Wednesday was the first day of testimony in a civil suit in which Ward accuses Antonovich of defaming him in their 1988 campaign by alleging that Ward destroyed public files before leaving office in 1980--a felony criminal offense.

Ward, who denied the accusation and has never been charged with any such crime, maintains that the attack on his character cost him the 1988 election. Ward, a former TV anchorman who is acting as his own attorney, is seeking unspecified monetary damages.

Meanwhile, Antonovich, who easily won reelection to a fourth term this year, calls the lawsuit sour grapes.

“Baxter Ward is trying to do in the courtroom what he couldn’t do at the ballot box,” Antonovich said Wednesday outside San Fernando Superior Court, where the trial is expected to last 10 days.

Antonovich and Ward spent a record $2.8 million in the 1988 race to represent the 5th Supervisorial District, which at the time extended from the Santa Monica Mountains through the San Fernando, Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys into the San Gabriel Valley.

At one point in the campaign, Ward attacked Antonovich’s opposition to providing drug addicts with sterile needles as a way to fight the spread of AIDS. Ward suggested that as a bachelor, Antonovich fell into the high-risk category for AIDS himself.

Antonovich, who portrayed himself as a staunch Republican and Ward as an eccentric, turned the charge around in a television commercial in which he showed a drug addict shooting up and focusing on a tray full of needles. The voice-over message said that while Ward wanted to give drug addicts free needles, Antonovich wanted to arrest drug dealers and teach children to say no to drugs.

The issue that brought on the lawsuit, which was filed in 1989, focused on an allegation by Antonovich that when he took over Ward’s office in December, 1980, many of the file cabinets in the office were empty.

At least six times during their second campaign between Sept. 16, 1988, and Nov. 7, 1988, Antonovich repeated his allegation, including one during a television debate in which Antonovich said “Mr. Ward had such contempt for constituents that he shredded and destroyed all of the files the day we came into office.”

Ward maintains that he was never aware that files were missing until Antonovich made his allegations in the campaign. Ward contends that Antonovich had plenty of opportunities during the campaign to investigate the matter, and could have easily found that the charge was not true.

On Wednesday, Kathleen Crow, who served as Antonovich’s chief deputy from 1980 to 1987 and then as a campaign consultant for the 1988 race, testified that she is 100% certain that Ward must have been responsible for the removal of any files. She said she is not aware of anyone seeing Ward or anyone else removing files, but reached her conclusion because only Ward and his staff members had access to the office prior to the new staff taking over.

However, she also testified that she did not consider the removal of the files a criminal act, and never contacted anyone on Ward’s staff to ask about the missing files.

Two campaign consultants to Antonovich also testified Wednesday that the issue of the missing files was interjected into the campaign because they were assured that it was true by other Antonovich staffers, and they felt it was a legitimate campaign issue.

Joan Vitale, who worked for Ward during his two terms in office from 1972 to 1980, testified in his behalf that when she left the office, all files were in place, and that only one other staff member, Gilbert Eisner, remained behind.

Ward, who is expected to testify on his own behalf late today or when the trial resumes Nov. 30, said he is not using an attorney because he feels he can adequately represent himself.

Ward also represented himself in a lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles in 1990 after a lawyer he hired wanted to delay the trial because he was busy with other cases. Ward won that case, giving him confidence to represent himself in his suit against Antonovich, he said.