Angelina Jolie's stunt double is suing News Corporation for hacking into her phone while she was living in Los Angeles in 2004 and 2005. If her allegations prove true, this will be the first known instance of News Corp. phone hacking in the United States. The London newspaper, The Independent, reports that this is the first of what will be six U.S. suits against the media empire.
The Independent reports:
The allegations, contained in a lengthy document lodged in a Californian district court, claim that Ms Huthart’s mobile phone messages were eavesdropped to obtain stories published in both The Sun and The News of the World. She was living and working alongside Ms Jolie in Los Angeles when the alleged hacking took place between 2004 and 2005.
...
Her claim states that Ms Huthart was told by Scotland Yard that her phone was hacked while she back home in Britain, before adding: “[Ms Huthart’s] cellular phone was also surreptitiously hacked... when she lived and worked in Los Angeles in 2004 and 2005, at which times she did not receive voicemail messages from, among others, her daughter, her husband and Ms Jolie. She was unaware of these illegal activities and had no reasonable opportunity to become aware of them.”
This and the five U.S. claims to follow have the potential to pack a wallop against News Corp. For one thing, it is easier in the U.S. to collect punitive damages than it is in the U.K. where the previous cases occurred. Murdoch has already paid claims in the U.K. worth about $340 million, according to the Independent. Plus, this case the potential to open up all the bad publicity that Murdoch has been working assiduously to put behind him.
Then, there's the question of how the U.S. DOJ might respond. Michael Wolff reports in The Guardian that News Corporation has been negotiating with the DOJ to settle claims that it violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act via its activities abroad (though the company publicly denies this). Wolff says:
From the company's point of view, the most favorable timetable for a settlement will occur after 28 June, when News Corp will be split into two distinct entities, a smaller newspaper-focused group, which will retain the name News Corp, and a much larger group, which will retain all of the present company's entertainment assets, to be called 21st Century Fox. But the company would also prefer that a settlement come before the September trial date of several of its once high-ranking executives, including its former chief Rebekah Brooks, the executive who is allegedly tied to the police payments.
...Murdoch himself has been telling intimates for many months of his worry about the Justice Department's beefed-up FCPA staffing and its aggressive efforts to bring ever-more cases. In recent weeks, faced with revelations of a secret Justice Department investigation of Fox reporter James Rosen on charges of receiving a leak, the company has seemed to go out of its way to accommodate the DOJ, rather than fight it.
So this has the potential to be bad news for News Corporation, indeed.
Use this gem to post on social media.
News Corporation, Parent Company of Fox News, Cooperating With Justice Department
Post it on all conservative websites. Include the part of the hackings and arrests of those associated with News Corporation. Tell friends, neighbors, co-workers, family members, and strangers on the street about this hideous midManhattan skyscraper.
Call all talk radio stations and tell the masses of what’s happening with Ruthless’ little company.
NOTE TO RUPY
Old fool, we are going to talk about your numerous scandals to every person we come in contact.
I cleared it with my Asian neighbors! Or is something else “not cool”?
That said, my only surprise in all this is that I thougth for certain James Rosen would be the one who got them caught. In fact, it’s really saying something about Ailes’ pull with the GOP that it went away so fast.