Judge Axes Most of Defamation Suit Filed By Former Phila. News Anchor Alycia Lane Against TV Station
A state court judge in Philadelphia has dismissed all claims made by former KYW-TV news anchor Alycia Lane against the station and CBS in a defamation suit.
However, some claims against her former co-anchor, Larry Mendte, remain, CBS reports. The Associated Press and the Daily Mail also have stories.
Lane, who now works as a weekend news anchor in Los Angeles, sued over information that became public around the time of the station’s termination of her contract in 2008. Among other claims, she contended that station management should have done more to investigate her complaints that her email was being hacked.
Mendte eventually admitted he was the culprit and also was fired by the station. He pleaded guilty in August 2008 to a federal felony charge concerning the email hacking and was sentenced to six months of house arrest, as the Philadlephia Inquirer reported at the time. In addition to hacking into Lane’s email account, he also reportedly sent damaging messages to others from her email account.
Because the email messages were important to the defamation claims, records from Lane’s computer were important to the case. The Daily Mail reports that the judge dismissed the Court of Common Pleas case against all but Mendte after CBS lawyers obtained evidence that Lane had Apple store employees clear the hard drive of her laptop in 2008, after she filed the defamation suit.
Related coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Ex-News Anchor Pleads in E-Mail Snooping Case”
ABAJournal.com: “Another Philadelphia TV News Anchor Spat Hits the Courts”
ABAJournal.com: “Did News Anchors Have a Steamy Relationship, or Was One a ‘Sociopathic Narcissist’? Jury Will Decide”
Philadelphia Magazine: “The Very Public Self-Destruction of Alycia Lane”
