It’s Howard Cooper versus the Boston Herald, round two.
Cooper, you may recall, is the Boston lawyer who represented then-judge Ernest Murphy in his libel suit against the Herald, which had portrayed him as someone who had “heartlessly” demeaned a teenage rape victim. Murphy won a $2 million-plus verdict against the Herald in 2005. I don’t think Murphy was libeled, but Cooper was able to convince a jury otherwise. Here is more than you’ll ever want to know about that case.
Now Cooper is suing the Herald on behalf of Tom Scholz of the band Boston, claiming that Inside Track reporters Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa fabricated quotes attributed to Micki Delp, ex-wife of Boston lead singer Brad Delp, as well as from unnamed “insiders,” to make it appear that Delp had blamed Scholz for her husband’s suicide.
Courthouse News Service has a detailed account of the suit, though there’s a mistake in the lede — Delp committed suicide in 2007, not 1997. The story is accompanied by a copy of the complaint (pdf). I have not had a chance to do more than skim it, so I’m staying away from any detailed analysis. I do see that Cooper cites Boston magazine’s 2006 story “Gals Gone Wild,” by John Gonzalez, as example of what Cooper calls Fee and Raposa’s “unprofessional, irresponsible and reckless tactics and methods.” For good measure, Cooper calls them “so-called ‘reporters.'”
The Herald has not yet filed a response. Herald spokeswoman Gwen Gage tells the Boston Globe, “We’re aware of the complaint and we will review it. Beyond that, we have no further comment.”
In 2006 Mark Jurkowitz wrote an in-depth profile of Cooper for the Boston Phoenix (via Romenesko). The headline: “The media’s worst nightmare?” At One Herald Square, the answer to that question would be a decided “yes.”