Ex-Candidate Wins $110,000 in 6-Year-Old Slander Case

Victor Reichman lost a contentious race for an Antelope Valley judgeship in 1994. Now, six years later, he has won a cash consolation prize.

Reichman, a veteran court commissioner, received a $110,000 settlement last week in an unusual lawsuit that pitted him against a radio talk show host who in the heat of a judicial election campaign accused Reichman of releasing rapists from jail early.

He believes those remarks, broadcast from a small AM radio station throughout the June-to-November 1994 campaign, were slanderous and cost him the election. The radio host he sued, Herb Nero, supported Reichman’s opponent in the race, Pamela Rogers, who won with 62% of the vote.

The out-of-court settlement is unusual, legal experts say, because slander lawsuits are difficult to prove, especially when they involve a candidate embroiled in a political campaign.

“It is a rare occurrence for such a case to end successfully,” said Rodney Smolla, a constitutional law professor at the University of Richmond Law School in Virginia, “because of the very many legal obstacles that a political candidate has when they sue for statements made in a campaign.”

Despite ending a six-year legal battle, the settlement has only fueled a bitter feud between Reichman and Nero, who also is declaring victory because he did not admit any wrongdoing.

Both men now say they wish they had continued their legal struggle until the bitter end so a jury could have declared a single winner. Each says he would have won at trial.

Reichman, a Los Angeles County Superior Court commissioner since 1977, said he was confident that he could get past the legal obstacles when in 1995 he sued Nero and Nero’s former employer--Eric Chandler Communications of Antelope Valley Inc., which then owned KHJJ-AM--after losing the election.

He said he sued Nero because the talk show host’s remarks upset his three children, now ages 19, 17 and 13.

“I thought that this was so untrue and so flagrant,” Reichman said. “I knew that [U.S. Supreme Court standards set in the case of] New York Times vs. Sullivan would be upheld.”

Under those standards, Reichman had to prove that Nero acted maliciously or with reckless disregard for the truth, a major legal hurdle. But a state appellate court in August ruled that Reichman’s case was “sufficient to raise a clear and convincing inference of malice.”

The radio station’s lawyer, David Clark, declined to comment on the settlement. But Nero and his lawyer, R. Rex Parris, said they believe Nero would have won at trial.

“Do I honestly believe he likes rapists? Of course not,” Nero said, explaining that as a talk show host he was playing “the devil’s advocate.” He said his remarks were satirical.

Nero said he agreed to settle the lawsuit only after being paid $10,000 from the radio station’s insurer to put an end to the lingering litigation.

Otherwise, Parris said, Nero was ready to sue Reichman for malicious prosecution.

“I didn’t want to settle this,” Nero said, “because I’m still a true believer that we would have won.”

Parris dismissed the appellate court’s decision as “totally nonsensical.”

He also rejected Reichman’s claim that Nero’s remarks cost Reichman the election.

“I don’t think Herb Nero’s radio show had anything to do with Reichman’s losing the election,” Parris said. “I don’t think there were 100 people listening.”

Reichman’s attorney, Leonard Chaitin, defended the court’s decision.

“The Court of Appeal decision merely states that people in the media, just like any other business, have to exercise at least some responsibility,” Chaitin said.

And 1st Amendment experts agreed. “If you are going to make an accusation, you had better back it up,” warned Michael Shapiro, a constitutional law professor at the USC Law Center.

Shapiro believes these kinds of unfair attacks on candidates in the name of free speech hurt the political process by discouraging qualified people from running for public office.

“This is a case where there is a nontrivial chance that they would have collected a lot of money,” Shapiro said.

Parris, however, said the settlement could have serious repercussions for free speech.

“I think it certainly has a chilling effect,” Parris said. “People will be afraid” to criticize candidates.

“The day we can’t call a politician a liar, we should close up the tent,” Parris said. “You should be able to express any opinion you want.”

But Nero said the settlement hasn’t chilled his speech. He now hosts a nightly talk show on KPAL in Lancaster and continues to try to provoke thought with outrageous commentary.

“I’m still well-hated by everybody,” he said.

In 1994, Reichman, who had spent nearly 20 years on the bench in the Antelope Valley, and Rogers, a prosecutor whose husband, Randy Rogers, is a judge, ran with three other candidates for an open seat on the Antelope Municipal Court.

During that campaign, Nero repeatedly told his radio listeners that Reichman releases rapists from prison early--a charge the appellate court said was “demonstrably and indisputably false, and highly damaging to a judicial candidate.”

Judges and court commissioners can sentence rapists and other criminals to prison but cannot have them released early.

After the election, Reichman sued Nero and his radio station. After nearly six years of litigation, settlement talks began earlier this year, prompted by the strongly worded appellate court decision that favored Reichman.

Nero’s remarks were based on a single case, Reichman said, in which he signed off on a plea bargain that put an 18-year-old rapist in prison for nine years, the mid-range for a first-time offender. The maximum sentence was 11 years.

The rapist, Reichman said, was a first-time adult offender who pleaded guilty, a step that often results in a lesser sentence. The plea bargain, he said, had been approved earlier by another judge.

Reichman’s belated legal victory closes a chapter of his life that he described as “a nightmare.” He said he’s glad it’s over but, like Nero, he now wishes he had continued to fight because in the settlement neither Nero nor the radio station admitted they were wrong.

“If I had to do it again, I would have fully litigated it,” Reichman said, predicting, as his adversary has, that he could have persuaded a jury to give him a decisive win.