Judge in Herald libel case hoped letters would end family's trauma
Superior Court Judge Ernest B. Murphy testified yesterday that he hoped the Boston Herald's publisher would "wake up and smell the coffee" when he sent him two letters in 2005 demanding that the newspaper drop its appeal of a libel verdict and hand him a check for $3.26 million.
"I was trying to get my family out of this thing," said Murphy, defending himself before a hearing officer who will recommend whether the judge violated ethics rules by sending the letters.
Murphy apologized for writing the letters on court stationery, but defended the contents as truthful and proper. He said he had been demonized and his family traumatized by a series of stories the Herald ran in 2002.
The stories, quoting anonymous sources, asserted that Murphy had instructed lawyers during a conference in his chambers to tell a 14-year-old rape victim to "get over it." Murphy, who testified that he had actually said they would have to help the victim get over the rape, penned the first of two letters to Herald publisher Patrick Purcell on the same day a jury ordered the newspaper to pay him $2 million in damages.
"I couldn't believe I was getting this from a judge; to me it looked like a ransom note," said Purcell, one of three witnesses to testify in the proceedings as testimony wrapped up yesterday. "It was very strange."
The two letters, sent in February and March 2005, urged Purcell to meet Murphy without telling the lawyers who represented the Herald in the libel case.
"You will bring to that meeting a cashier's check, payable to me, in the sum of $3,260,000," Murphy wrote in one letter. "No check no meeting. You will give me that check, and I shall put it in my pocket."
In the other letter, Murphy warned that it would be a "BIG mistake" for Purcell to show the letter to anyone. The Herald published excerpts from both letters in December 2005 about the same time Murphy launched an unsuccessful effort to have the newspaper's assets frozen until his case was resolved. Earlier this year, after the Supreme Judicial Court upheld the libel verdict, the Herald paid Murphy $3.41 million, which included the award plus interest that accrued since the verdict.
Peter W. Kilborn, a retired state judge and the hearing officer who presided yesterday, will hear closing arguments in the case today. He will report his recommendation to the Judicial Conduct Commission, which will refer the matter to the state's highest court for the decision on whether Murphy should be disciplined.
Purcell said he believed that Murphy's letters were meant as threats to intimidate the Herald into dropping its right to appeal.
During questioning by Murphy's lawyer, Michael E. Mone, Purcell said he did not respond to the letters and never apologized to Murphy for the newspaper's stories deemed libelous by a jury.
"I have believed all along that we did our job and that we had the story correct," Purcell said. "I have continued to have faith in our reporters and our coverage of this story, and I stand by it today."
But Murphy, who is collecting full pay while out on medical leave, accused the newspaper of launching a campaign to defame him. He cited a front-page story in the Herald last month, with accompanying photographs, of Murphy and his wife on a two-day "gambling getaway" at Saratoga Springs, N.Y., racetrack.
"It never ends," Murphy testified. "I know the Boston Herald will never leave me alone."
John R. Ellement of the Globe staff contributed to this report. 