Evergreen Couple Portrayed As Anti-Semites Keeps $10 Million Judgment

The Denver Channel (ABC) ^

[per loin]

Evergreen Couple Portrayed As Anti-Semites Keeps $10 Million Judgment

Quigleys Sue Anti-Defamation League After Fight With Their Jewish Neighbors

POSTED: 6:23 am MST March 2,

2004
UPDATED: 9:51 am MST March 2,

2004
DENVER -- A jury award of more than $10 million to a former Evergreen couple portrayed as anti-Semites by the Anti-Defamation League will stand, after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review it.

The decision on Monday means "this is the end of the case," said Bruce DeBoskey, director of the ADL's Mountain States Region.

The victors in the case are William and Dorothy "Dee" Quigley, whose lawyer, Jay Horowitz, described them as "extraordinarily delighted" with the news.

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision came without explanation, and DeBoskey said it was a disappointment.

"But through the entire process we have continued to serve the community," he said. "We do remain committed to our fight against hatred and racism and bigotry and extremism and anti-Semitism."

The fight was between the Quigleys and their Jewish neighbors, Mitchell and Candice Aronson.

The Aronsons sought help from the ADL in 1994 after overhearing the Quigleys' comments on a cordless telephone, a signal that was picked up by the Aronson's police scanner.

They said they heard the Quigleys discuss a campaign to drive them from the upscale Evergreen neighborhood with Nazi scare tactics, including tossing lampshades and soap on their lawn and putting pictures of Holocaust ovens on their house.

Based on recordings of those calls, they sued the Quigleys in federal court, Jefferson County prosecutors charged the Quigleys with hate crimes and Saul Rosenthal, then the ADL's regional director, denounced the Quigleys as anti-Semites in a press conference.

But later authorities discovered the recordings became illegal just five days after they began when President Bill Clinton signed a new wiretap restriction into federal law.

The hate charges were dropped, Jefferson County paid the Quigleys $75,000 and two lawyers on the ADL's volunteer board paid the Quigleys $350,000 to settle a lawsuit.

Neither family paid the other anything, the Aronsons divorced and the Quigleys moved to another state.

Then in 2000 a federal jury concluded a four-week trial before Denver U.S. District Judge Edward Nottingham with a decision the Anti-Defamation League had defamed the Quigleys.

The jury awarded them $10.5 million, which is now estimated at $12.5 million including interest.

DeBoskey said the ADL had set aside funds to pay the judgment if necessary.
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[per loin]

The only thing that saved the Quigley's is that the ADL's evidence was inadmissible in court. In other words, the Quigley's ARE anti-Semitic and skated on a technicality.

You are leaping to conclusions, rather than checking to see what the facts are. According to the Jewish News of Greater Phoenix, the ADL did not even listen to the tapes before publicly attacking the Quigleys. But the jury did hear the tapes before giving their verdict. From the above source:

The jury decided the alleged threats sounded more like private venting. Thanks to the tapes, though, the ADL was also found guilty of violating the Quigleys' privacy.

[wita]

Bingo! Hate speech, not found in Constitution. Hate crimes, not found in Constitution. Only freedom of speech found in Constitution. So if we make a law regulating hate crimes, including speech, that trumps the Constitution. Just one more nail in the coffin, move along, folks nothing to see here, except don't expect the Supreme Court to back you up just yet. Hate crimes law is so off the map I don't know where to begin.

I question why anyone would seek such a law in the first place, unless there is an underlying agenda, and that is where I am stuck. How can someone be punished worse for a hate murder than a regular murder? The victim is dead, the perpetrator did it, and I'm supposed to feel better that we have discovered a motive involving hate, and that is punishable by death under the hate crimes law, and that death is far worse than the other death?

[wita]

The Quigley's are anti-semitic.

Quite a conclusion based on available evidence.

[Boot Hill]

longtermmemmory:   "they who?"

Ask The Rocky Mountain News, as indicated in my post, that's a quote from their article.

I took it too mean that "the recordings became illegal just five days after they [the Aronson's] began [recording them]."

--Boot Hill

[Bonaparte]

"...taking quite a kick in the keisters."

From which they've learned nothing, as witness their accusations of anti-Semitism against Mel Gibson.

[per loin]

From which they've learned nothing, as witness their accusations of anti-Semitism against Mel Gibson.

They have learned how to make the cry of "anti-semitism" as hollow as when Jesse Jackson cries "racism".

[longtermmemmory]

on a lighter note, the motto of the Boot Hill saloon in Daytona Beach which is across the street form boot hill.

Pull up a seat
and have a drink.
You are better off here,
than across the street.

[Boot Hill]

per loin:   "You are leaping to conclusions, rather than checking to see what the facts are."

No, as I said in my first post to you:

"I'm no fan of the ADL, but unless there is something more to the story that we're not hearing about from these articles, it looks like the ADL was the good guys in this matter."

--Boot Hill

[Boot Hill]

"From the above source:"

If you put a source or link in that reply, it didn't show up when posted.

--Boot Hill

[Bonaparte]

Question: Do you believe any American has the right to publicly say, "I hate Jews"?

(Please notice that I'm not asking whether you personally approve of the statement in question.)

[per loin]

You jumped to the conclusion that the tapes were not admitted into court. (See your post 17) But they were; the jury listened to them before concluding against the ADL.

BTW, that Rosenthal bozo from the ADL did not just call the Quigleys anti-semitic. According to the Jerusalem Post, despite never even having heard the tapes:

He accused the Quigleys of waging "a vicious antisemitic campaign." Later, in a radio appearance, Rosenthal described the feud as the worst case of antisemitism in Denver since the 1984 murder of radio talk-show host Alan Berg by neo-Nazis.

[Boot Hill]

"Quite a conclusion based on available evidence."

So you think that...

"...the Quigleys discuss[ing] a campaign to drive them from the neighborhood with Nazi scare tactics, including tossing lampshades and soap on their lawn, putting pictures of Holocaust ovens on their house and dousing one of their children with flammable liquid..."

is not anti-Semitic? Even if you believe that the Quigley's said those things in jest, do you really believe that when the Quigley's chose to focus on the Jewishness of there neighbors as something to attack, that was not reflecting a heart of darkness and anti-Semitism?

--Boot Hill

[per loin]

If you put a source or link in that reply, it didn't show up when posted.

The source is clearly identified as:

...Jewish News of Greater Phoenix...

[Boot Hill]

"Do you believe any American has the right to publicly say, 'I hate Jews'?"

Yes, but the person making such a statement had best be prepared to be publicly labeled anti-Semitic.

--Boot Hill

[VaGunGuy]

Why? Substitute any other group (homosexuals, crack dealers, whatever) than being jewish, apply the same facts, and you get an absurd result.

[Proud_texan]

But of course citizen, thinking thoughts not approved by the state is a serious crime, it must be stopped at all costs. (/scarcasm).

[Boot Hill]

"You jumped to the conclusion that the tapes were not admitted into court."

OMG, beat me with a wet noodle!

--Boot Hill

[VaGunGuy]

There's a slight difference between inadmissable in court and being obtained criminally. Hearsay is generally inadmissable in court, but isn't criminal. Wiretapping in violation of the statute IS criminal.

[VaGunGuy]

The courts unanimously disagree with you....

[GodBlessRonaldReagan]

Thoughtcrime doubleplus ungood.