Herald to Pay More Than $900K in Defamation Lawsuit
The Boston Herald will pay more than $900,000 to a woman it once reported engaged in “sexual acts’’ with a convicted murderer incarcerated at a Bridgewater prison.
The Associated Press reports that a former reporter for the paper wrote in 2009 that Joanna Marinova got help from State Rep. Gloria Fox to bypass normal security protocols and gain entry to the Old Colony Correctional Center. The article added that Marinova was “written up’’ by officials for “engaging in ‘sexual acts’ with a killer con’’ during that visit, though the encounter was denied by Marinova.
The Department of Corrections later said Marinova was in fact cleared to visit the prison and that no disciplinary action was taken against her, the Boston Globe reports.
After deliberating for 15 hours last March, a jury found that three parts of the story were false and that two of them defamed Marinova. While the Herald appealed the decision and predicted it would “ultimately prevail’’ at the time, a spokesperson told the AP that the paper decided to forgo that effort.
Marinova, an activist who works for better prison conditions, will receive $877,000 for emotional distress as well as $26,000 in damages and court costs.
Last year, a judge threw out another defamation suit filed against the Herald by Boston band leader Tom Scholz, who said the paper defamed him when in an article written on the 2007 suicide of singer Brad Delp.
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