Judge Delays Deposition of Whistle-Blower in Tobacco Case

Outraged by whistle-blower Jeffrey Wigand’s emergence as an antismoking hero, tobacco lawyers were relishing the prospect of tearing into Wigand on Monday at his scheduled deposition in a lawsuit filed against him by Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., his former employer.

But the company will have to wait for its crack at Wigand, as his lawyers, with help from Justice Department prosecutors, convinced a local judge to delay the examination of Wigand until July 15.

Brown & Williamson, the third-largest U.S. cigarette maker, is so intent on discrediting Wigand--and apparently so confident it can--that it set aside a special amphitheater-like room on the 14th floor of the Brown & Williamson Tower here and invited the media to view the deposition by taped delay.

Frustrated by the postponement, Brown & Williamson lawyers were forced to vie with Wigand’s attorneys in a game of dueling news conferences that accentuated the strategic importance of public opinion in the escalating tobacco wars.

Putting the best face on the day’s events, Brown & Williamson lawyer Gordon A. Smith said the company will finally get Wigand under oath in two months’ time.

Wigand, 53, Brown & Williamson’s former vice president for research and development, is the highest-ranking defector in the history of the tobacco industry. His decision to go public last year with claims that the industry has lied to the public about the risks of smoking has prompted other former insiders to step forward.

Wigand has appeared on “60 Minutes,” and a long profile about him in Vanity Fair has been optioned by Walt Disney Co. for a movie. He has also met with Justice Department prosecutors involved in a far-reaching probe of the industry.

Among Wigand’s allegations, vigorously denied by Brown & Williamson, is that former company President Thomas Sandefur lied to Congress in April 1994 when he testified that he believed nicotine is not addictive.

Wigand has also received various accolades, ranging from an award from the Ethical Culture Society to the admiration of his students at Louisville’s DuPont Manual High School, where Wigand teaches science and Japanese for about a tenth his former salary of $300,000.

But Brown & Williamson lawyers, who have called Wigand an inveterate liar, complained Monday that he is continuing to resist legitimate efforts to examine him under oath, as one put it, “issue by issue, fact by fact.”

However, in seeking the delay, Wigand attorney John Aldock, of the Washington firm of Shea & Gardner, told Jefferson County Circuit Judge Steve Mershon that he had been retained only last week and had not had time to prepare for the deposition. Aldock also cited the approach of final exams and Wigand’s need to be available to students as a reason to delay the proceedings until summer.

Although retained by Wigand, Aldock acknowledged that his legal fees are being paid by CBS, under an agreement between Wigand and the network that was a precondition for his appearance on “60 Minutes.”

Two trial attorneys in the fraud section of the Justice Department, who are both involved in an investigation of the industry by five separate federal grand juries, also appeared and filed under seal a brief supporting the postponement. They declined to speak to reporters.

Wigand was fired by Brown & Williamson in 1993 under disputed circumstances. Both before and after leaving the company, he signed confidentiality agreements in which he pledged not to disclose information he obtained at Brown & Williamson.

Citing those agreements, Brown & Williamson sued Wigand last fall for fraud, theft and breach of contract, claiming he had offered himself as a paid expert witness to anti-tobacco lawyers and had leaked internal documents to the press.

Wigand has claimed the purported contract was invalid because it would have required him to conceal illegal acts and crucial public health information.

He has also countersued Brown & Williamson, claiming the company violated his privacy by distributing a dossier purporting to show, among other things, that he had once physically assaulted his wife and lied about his prowess as a judo black belt in a role-playing exercise with an employment consultant who was preparing him for job interviews.