Judith Regan may have published a book with a dull last chapter. It doesn’t make for good reading, but it would seem worth her while.
Regan’s sensation-filled lawsuit against News Corp. and HarperCollins has been settled for an undisclosed amount, Regan and her adversaries announced Friday.
Both sides aren’t saying much, and lots of questions raised by the lawsuit, a document that read like a novel with a heroine (Regan) and quite a few villains, remain unanswered.
Regan, who had published hundreds of authors and made millions in the process, had sued the companies in November for $100 million. (Story continues below interactive map.)
She had alleged that she had been wrongly terminated in December 2006. She also claimed that she had been made to seem anti-Semitic and that she had been forced to withhold information about Rudy Giuliani that might damage his presidential campaign.
When the lawsuit was filed, a News Corp. spokesman dismissed Regan’s claims as “preposterous.”
On Friday, News Corp. issued what amounted to an apology.
“After carefully considering the matter, we accept Ms. Regan’s position that she did not say anything that was anti-Semitic in nature, and further believe that Ms. Regan is not anti-Semitic,” it said in a statement.
Regan, too, issued a statement.
“I am grateful for the opportunity to have worked with so many gifted people and am looking forward to my next venture,” she said.
And that was that. The other allegations in the lawsuit aren’t addressed.
No mention was made of the Regan’s claim that she was told not to disclose damaging information about Giuliani that she had learned while dating Bernard Kerik, a Giuliani associate and former New York City police commissioner who is now under indictment.
Unmentioned, too, is Regan’s charge that she was unfairly made the scapegoat for the bad publicity generated by her project with O.J. Simpson.
Regan had planned on publishing the former football’s star’s “hypothetical” account of how he would have murdered his wife if he had murdered his wife.
In the face of adverse publicity, HarperCollins canceled the publication. Regan alleged that the company had supported the project and then abandoned her when the going got tough.
“As a result of this corporate shirking of responsibility, false representations and defamation, Regan was unfairly attacked worldwide for her involvement in the O.J. project,” the lawsuit claimed. “She received death threats, hate mail and was shunned, humiliated and caused great harm.”
Other questions remain unanswered:
Did her bosses at HarperCollins neglect to take care of Regan’s office? It reportedly had no air conditioning in the summer and too much heat in the winter.
Did those same bosses fail to investigate “serious security breaches” which led to a light fixture crashing onto Regan’s desk?
Did those bosses do nothing when Regan complained that people within the company were attributing her rise in the company to sexual activities?
Followers of this real-life legal drama may never know.
One of her lawyers suggested to The Wall Street Journal that Regan doesn’t want to look back.
“It is better for her to get on with her life,” said Bert Fields.
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