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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[Adder]

Maybe...except "anti semitic" comments aren't a crime, nor should they be.
The ADL thought they could say anything they wanted about this couple who may not have liked their situation but never actually did anything against the Aronsons.
Sorta like venting here.

[Boot Hill]

"Google is your friend. Learn to use it."

Then since you're the one making the claim about your source, you should have no trouble posting the link....that is if your source is real.

(My billing rate is $200 per hour, if you insist on me doing your research for you.)

--Boot Hill

[FLAUSA]

Ya gotta love hate speech laws. It's ok to say bad thing about Christians but not about Jews. Why is that? Are we still guilt ridden about WWII? Why should Jews get a free pass when they say something hateful? They shouldn't and maybe because of the anti-Christian bigotry displayed by Jews toward Mel Gibson's film, just maybe, America won't cringe in fear everytime some Jew cries "anti-semite." I can only hope.

[Bonaparte]

"Not relevant to the question of defamation."

I said nothing about relevance to defamation. The ADL was also accused of other things...

In their lawsuit against the ADL and its local director, the Quigleys charged not only that the ADL had defamed them, but that the Jewish group was supportive of the illegal invasion of their privacy through its use of the improperly recorded telephone conversations.

That is what my question to you refers to -- the illegal invasion of privacy.

[per loin]

And we know this is an error, how? Do you really expect us to just take your word for it, considering your continued refusal to post any link to your "source"?

We? Us?

If you doubt the accuracy of my quotes, go to Google.com. Google is a search engine. A search engine is a tool for finding info on the net. When Google comes up on your screen, you will see a data entry box. A data entry box is where you enter data. In that data entry box enter the last (also called family) names of the two feuding families. (Those names are in the articles above) Within a second or so you will be presented with multiple articles on the case.

[Boot Hill]

American_Centurion:   "I say so what if they are [anti-Semitic]. Being anti-semitic isn't grounds to bring charges or sue someone anymore than wearing pink shirts is."

And if I were arguing such, you might have a point. But since I haven't argued that, your point is irrelevant to what I've been posting regarding the reasonableness of the charge of defamation by the Quigley's against the ADL.

--Boot Hill

[nathanbedford]

Did the Quigleys actually DO anything?

[Boot Hill]

"Let me put it this way, BH: Do you engage in marital conversation with the expectation that you and your wife are being bugged or wiretapped?"

Questions like the above are irrelevant to what I've been posting regarding the reasonableness of the charge of defamation by the Quigley's against the ADL.

--Boot Hill

[per loin]

Yes. An oddity of our culture is that "victims" are accorded an allocation of "moral capital". But as is often the case when people are working with unearned capital of any sort, it gets frittered away. Once that capital is gone, the supposed victim status no longer collects interest. "Anti-semitism" has now been as thoroughly squandered as "racism" or "homophobia".

[Alberta's Child]

The one thing here that makes me wonder about the facts of the case is that the county and the ADL board paid the Quigleys more than $400,000 to settle previous lawsuits that didn't even involve the defamation allegation. There may be more to this story that we don't know about.

[Boot Hill]

"Maybe...except "anti semitic" comments aren't a crime, nor should they be."

Agreed, but since the Quigley's sued the ADL over defamation, and apparently not about hate crimes, why do raise that issue with me? My posts only have only been about the reasonableness of the charge of defamation by the Quigley's against the ADL.

--Boot Hill

[per loin]

Did the Quigleys actually DO anything?

Are you asking if they committed any overt anti-semitic acts, other than private phone chats? I've not seen that they did.

[Alberta's Child]

There's also an interesting angle to the "admissability" of a recorded phone conversation that we seem to have forgotten about:

A recorded phone conversation could be admitted in court even if the recording were illegal -- as long as the police or prosecutor were not involved in the illegal recording. This was exactly what happened in the Lewinsky case -- the fact that one of the parties to the conversation may have recorded a conversation illegally did not preclude the use of that recording by a "disinterested" prosecutor who had nothing to do with obtaining the recording.

[docmcb]

The Aaronsons clearly didn't just happen to overhear their neighbors' phone conversation and happen to have a tape recorder handy. They presumably were listening a LOT to their neighbors' conversations and were prepared to tape what they heard. Legal or not, I find that at least as offensive as what the Quigley's said, and I'll bet the jury did also.

[FLAUSA]

All true but what is sad is that in the future when there is a real threat of anti-semitism, no one may listen. It's the old story of the boy who cried wolf too often.

[Boot Hill]

"Ya gotta love hate speech laws. It's ok to say bad thing about Christians but not about Jews."

The double standard you site is wrong and shouldn't be tolerated.

--Boot Hill

[Boot Hill]

"I said nothing about relevance to defamation."

Hence, my response to you. The issue of defamation is the only one I've raised in my posts. You want to discuss the invasion of privacy aspects of this case, while I'm only interested in discussing the defamation aspects.

--Boot Hill

[American_Centurion]

You claimed that the Quigleys "skated on a technicality". That implies that you believe that they should have been publicly proclaimed anti-semitic, and sued and maybe charged with a hate crime.

I have read later posts where you explained "hate crime laws suck", so I understand that you weren't implying they should have been charged. Still that doesn't reconcile your anti-freedom statement that "the Quigleys are anti-semitic and skated on a technicality".

They can say any darn thing they want in private (phone conversations have a reasonable expectation of privacy) and there isn't a think anyone can do about it.

IMO the taping of the conversations doesn't bother me one way or the other (regarding the timing of the law), even if the tapes were admissible the Quigleys didn't do anything that makes them civilly or criminally liable.

[per loin]

With most scanners that I've used, one has to input frequencies, or at least ranges of frequencies to scan. I agree that it sounds unlikely that the Aronsons just stumbled across the Quigley's conversations.

[Boot Hill]

"If you doubt the accuracy of my quotes"

Post the links to your quotations or go fly a kite, your choice.

--Boot Hill