1 Boring Old Man

Ex-Publisher’s Suit Plays a Giuliani-Kerik Angle

Judith Regan, the former book publisher, says in a lawsuit filed yesterday protesting her dismissal by the News Corporation, the media conglomerate, that a senior executive there encouraged her to lie to federal investigators about her past affair with Bernard B. Kerik after he had been nominated to become homeland security secretary in late 2004.

The lawsuit asserts that the News Corporation executive wanted to protect the presidential aspirations of Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Kerik’s mentor, who had appointed him New York City police commissioner and had recommended him for the federal post.

Ms. Regan makes the charge at the start of a 70-page filing that seeks $100 million in damages for what she says was a campaign to smear and discredit her by her bosses at HarperCollins and its parent company, News Corporation, after her project to publish a book with O. J. Simpson was abandoned amid a storm of protest.

In the civil complaint filed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Ms. Regan says the company has long sought to promote Mr. Giuliani’s ambitions. But the lawsuit does not elaborate on that charge, identify the executive who she says pressured her to mislead investigators, or offer details to support her claim.

In fact, the allegation about the executive makes up a small part of a much broader array of claims about what she says was her improper removal from a job atop one of the more commercially successful book publishing operations.

…

At the time, Rupert Murdoch, the head of News Corporation, called the Simpson book “ill considered.” Ms. Regan was fired and her imprint shut down after a HarperCollins lawyer, Mark Jackson, claimed she had used an anti-Semitic remark in describing the internal campaign to fire her as a “Jewish cabal.”

…

Ms. Regan asserts in her lawsuit that she never used the term “Jewish cabal” and that both the Mantle book and the Simpson project were approved by a range of HarperCollins executives.

Mr. Murdoch himself, the suit says, signed off on the Simpson book during a dinner with Ms. Regan on Feb. 14, 2006…

There probably is a point in this story, but it’s not about the law. It’s more about entitlement, and about celebrity. O.J. Simpson, once the darling of the NFL and T.V. was acquitted for the murder of his wife and a friend [murders most of us think he was guilty of committing]. Since then, he’s become a snarling swaggering figure now about to go to jail for something like armed robbery. After the murder trial, the former smiling hero turned into a bitter, professional victim who hasn’t handled his fall from grace very well. Bernard Kerik, something of a petty criminal, rose to the level of New York Corrections official and was nominated by President George W. Bush to be Homeland Security director. His affair with Judith Regan was only one of the stories that led to his fall from grace. Rudy Giuliani burst into the media spotlight during 911 and is trying to parlay his moment in the sun into a Presidential bid. Publisher Judith Regan became a celebrity by publishing expose’ books about other celebrities, and had an affair with married man Kerik. Rupert Murdoch, owner of Ms. Regan’s book company started the News Network that was a force in electing our current crooked Administration. These are all people who achieved celebrity in questionable circumstances. Having achieved the public spotlight, they feel entitled to stay in its warm glow.