Facing Big Fine, CNN Admits Error in Defying Judge’s Order

Threatened with a large fine, CNN admitted on television Monday that it wrongfully disobeyed a judge’s order in broadcasting former Panamanian strongman Manuel E. Noriega’s jailhouse phone conversations.

“CNN realizes that it was in error in defying the order of the court and publishing the Noriega tape while appealing the court’s order,” CNN said, reading a statement approved by U.S. District Judge William M. Hoeveler.

Hoeveler had given CNN a choice: Pay a substantial fine of any amount he chose plus the $85,000 it cost to prosecute the case against the network, or broadcast the admission of error and pay only the prosecution cost. The law places no limit on the fine a judge can impose in a criminal contempt case.

Hoeveler, who presided over Noriega’s drug-trafficking trial, had convicted CNN of contempt for broadcasting leaked tapes of telephone conversations between the deposed Panamanian and his lawyers in 1990.

CNN aired excerpts from the Noriega tapes 11 times, and CNN Headline News reported 43 times that the network was defying Hoeveler’s gag order.

The acknowledgment of error was to run three times Monday night on CNN. It will also run through this afternoon on Headline News.

Today is the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Panama, which brought Noriega to Miami for his drug trial. He was convicted and is serving a 40-year sentence.