Gov. Can Be Queried in Libel Suit

A judge ruled Monday that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and a campaign aide could be questioned under oath about why the staffer had sent an e-mail suggesting reporters check the criminal background of a woman who accused Schwarzenegger last fall of sexual assault.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Robert L. Hess denied a request by attorneys for Rhonda Miller to immediately question the governor in a formal deposition, but allowed Schwarzenegger to be questioned in writing about the e-mail that implied the 53-year-old stuntwoman had a criminal record.

Hess also ruled that Miller’s attorneys could depose Sean Walsh, who served as Schwarzenegger’s campaign spokesman and sent the e-mail only hours after Miller had accused the governor of twice accosting her on movie sets -- an accusation Schwarzenegger has denied.

Miller’s attorneys will have access to an array of campaign documents, including any that relate to Miller’s background or show that Schwarzenegger and his aides had a strategy for responding to politically explosive accusations such as those raised by Miller, Hess ruled.

Miller has denied the claim, and has asked for damages for defamation in a lawsuit that names Schwarzenegger, his campaign and its principal spokesman.

“We consider this a victory,” Miller’s attorney Michael D. Seplow said after the hourlong hearing. “The judge is taking this very methodically.”

“We at least have a start.... We are going to be able to ask [Schwarzenegger] questions,” said co-counsel Gloria Allred.

But attorneys for the governor and Walsh claimed partial victory because Hess blocked -- at least for now -- deposition of the governor, who has already filed a declaration insisting that he knew nothing of the e-mail until it had been released. Additionally, they applauded Hess for denying requests for depositions from other campaign staffers, and for rejecting a much broader request by Miller’s attorneys for documents from the campaign.

“We think the governor should never have been sued,” said Martin Singer, Schwarzenegger’s attorney.

With attorneys for the governor and campaign still seeking a dismissal of the libel suit, the issue Monday was a request by Miller’s attorneys to obtain evidence showing that the case should move forward. Key to that request were depositions of the governor and others as well as documents that Miller’s attorneys say could show the campaign knowingly defamed Miller by carelessly insinuating that she had a criminal background.

That suggestion came in an e-mail Walsh sent to reporters only hours after Miller publicly accused the governor of assaulting her during the 1991 filming of “Terminator 2” and again in 1994 during the filming of “True Lies.”

In the e-mail, Walsh told reporters how they could check Miller’s name against an Internet database of Los Angeles criminal court records. He also took a swipe at Allred in the e-mail, telling reporters, “We have to believe that as a lawyer Gloria would have thoroughly checked the facts and background of the individual she presented today at a news conference.”

Shortly after the e-mail was released, Schwarzenegger’s supporters took aim at Miller on TV broadcasts and talk radio, saying she was a convicted criminal who could not be trusted.

Seplow discounted the notion that any slight against Miller was unintentional and occurred only because the governor and his staff were caught off-guard by the woman’s accusations.

“By all accounts, the campaign knew women were coming forward to make these allegations, and it’s pretty clear the campaign developed a strategy to deal with them,” Seplow said.

Attorneys for Schwarzenegger countered that campaign officials were in a race against time to answer Miller’s accusations.

“They were trying to find out whatever they could about Ms. Miller,” said Singer, who denied the suggestion that the campaign was determined to tarnish the woman.

Neil Shapiro, Walsh’s attorney, insisted that the decision to send out the e-mail was made by his client in the frantic hours after Miller’s accusation was made, and not part of a long-standing campaign policy.

But Hess ruled there was reason to believe the campaign would have been prepared to answer new accusations against Schwarzenegger, particularly after a barrage of preelection news stories about alleged assaults.

“It strikes me that there might have been a strategy crafted [of] ‘OK, how are we going to deal with this?’ ” Hess told the attorneys. “I don’t know if such a strategy was crafted, by whom or what it was. But it strikes me as possible.”

Hess granted the request by Miller’s attorneys to obtain any documents from the campaign that would indicate a strategy or policy for dealing with claims of unwanted sexual advances by the governor. Her attorneys also won access to any research by the campaign into Miller’s background in an effort to determine whether they had any reason to know she did not have a criminal background or were negligent in examining that possibility.

And although Hess did not allow Miller’s attorneys to depose Schwarzenegger, he did not foreclose that possibility, depending on the written responses to questions that will be forwarded over the next several weeks.