-Caveat Lector- http://foxnews.com/story/0,2933,29250,00.html Libel Judgment Against Anti-Clinton Filmmaker Rejected by Appeals Court Tuesday, July 10, 2001 LITTLE ROCK - A federal appeals court Tuesday threw out a defamation judgment against an anti-Clinton filmmaker, saying that while one of his conspiracy-laden videos blurred the line between fact and fiction, two sheriff's deputies mentioned in the film had no standing to sue. While dismissing a $598,750 judgment against Patrick Matrisciana, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis wrote that it was not saying he was ethical or fair in his documentary about the railroad track deaths of two Saline County teen-agers. "The record in this case reads like a John Grisham novel," the court wrote. "However, unlike The Pelican Brief or The Firm," here the lines between fact and fiction are blurred." The video, Obstruction of Justice: the Mena Connection, focused on the unsolved deaths of Kevin Ives and Don Henry. In the documentary, Pulaski County sheriff's Lts. Jay Campbell and Kirk Lane were listed among six law enforcement officers that alleged eyewitnesses said could be implicated "in the murders and the subsequent cover-up." The 8th Circuit said the sheriff's lieutenants were public figures and had to prove Matrisciana knew the information was false or that he was reckless in weighing information presented in the film. The judges said their ruling was not a condemnation of the officers or their job performance. Matrisciana, who also produced The Clinton Chronicles, which took a highly critical view of then-President Clinton, said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles that justice had been served despite the fight over the Mena documentary. "Our right to criticize public officials has been upheld," Matrisciana said. "If we had lost, it would have been very dangerous for the media. "I think the good part of this was payback for the sins that I committed against the president," Matrisciana said. Ives and Henry were found dead in 1987 after being hit by a train while laying on the tracks. Their deaths were initially ruled accidental due to marijuana intoxication, but after a second autopsy and a lawsuit filed by Ives' parents, the deaths were ruled homicides. "As the theory goes, they were first killed and their bodies then laid on the tracks to make their deaths appear accidental," the court wrote. Matrisciana's defense at his trial centered on his right to freedom of expression. He said that, according to his research, the boys were walking down the train tracks about 4 a.m. on Aug. 23, 1987, when they came upon a small plane dropping a cargo of illegal drugs as it flew without lights 100 feet from the ground. A witness reported seeing the boys seized by two men, and their bodies were found after they had been run over by a train. Various conspiracy theories floated during the Clinton administration suggested that illegal drugs were routinely flown into the airport at Mena in western Arkansas during the 1980s and that Clinton, then Arkansas' governor, knew about it but did nothing to combat it. The 8th Circuit said Tuesday that Clinton ... "as near as we can tell, was tossed into the video that is the subject of this appeal just for flavor." U.S. District Judge Warren K. Urbom of Lincoln, Neb., who presided at the trial at Little Rock in 1999, had ruled the deputies proved that Matrisciana had serious doubts about a statement connecting the pair to the boys' deaths. After Tuesday's ruling, Matrisciana said he stood by the film's content. "Justice has not prevailed in Arkansas in the death of these two boys," he said. The jurors had awarded $200,000 each in punitive damages to Campbell and Lane, $109,750 in compensatory damages to Campbell and $89,000 in compensatory damages to Lane. The initial ruling went against Matrisciana and companies of which he is listed as chairman and president: Citizens for an Honest Government, doing business as Integrity Films; and Jeremiah Films Inc. ======================================================= Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT FROM THE DESK OF: *Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends ======================================================= <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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