Libel

BALCO founder Victor Conte on Tuesday said former world champion boxer Shane Mosley knew "exactly and precisely what he was doing" when he engaged in a doping program before his 2003 victory over Oscar De La Hoya. Mosley last week sued Conte for slander and libel after Conte said he was planning a new book that would "set the record straight" on Mosley's knowledge about using the designer steroids known as "the clear" and "the cream," and the blood-doping drug EPO.

Locked in a visitation dispute with his former girlfriend over their young daughter, J.P. Weichel wanted to vent, court records say. Weichel, 40, allegedly posted comments about the woman on the Craigslist "rants and raves" forum, accusing her of child abuse and welfare fraud and making crude comments about her sex life. The woman said the postings were defamatory.

Cameron Diaz accepted "substantial" damages from American Media Inc., publisher of the National Enquirer, on Friday for alleging that she had an affair with a married man, her lawyer said. Simon Smith, a partner with the London law firm Schillings, told London's High Court that the article alleged that Diaz had a "smooching session" with a married producer who worked on her MTV show, "Trippin'." The article was posted to the magazine's website in May 2005.

An employee of a gourmet coffee company is guilty of libel for hijacking a rival roaster's website and linking it to pages displaying pornography and foul language, a jury has found. Tim Dominick, roasting director of Sacred Grounds in Arcata, was found guilty Thursday of two counts of libel and one count of intentional infliction of emotional distress against the owners of Bayside Roasters.

Boskovich Farms Inc., the Oxnard green onion grower linked and then cleared in Taco Bell's \o7E. coli \f7outbreak in December, is firing back at the fast-food chain. The grower contended in a lawsuit last week that the Irvine-based chain's actions libeled the farming concern and destroyed much of its business.

Novelist Terry McMillan is suing her former husband for $40 million, alleging that he tried to smear her reputation during their highly publicized 2005 divorce. McMillan, 55, filed the complaint Wednesday in Contra Costa County (Calif.) Superior Court against Jonathan Plummer, 32, who inspired her bestselling 1996 novel, "How Stella Got Her Groove Back."

Singer-actress Jennifer Lopez and her salsa star husband Marc Anthony launched a chain of European libel actions on Tuesday against the National Enquirer over drug scandal allegations. Belfast-based lawyer Paul Tweed, who specializes in fighting U.S. libel cases in European courts, said he had filed a lawsuit with the Belfast High Court on Tuesday and would be doing the same in other jurisdictions.

The former executive editor of the Santa Barbara News-Press on Monday formally demanded a retraction of a front-page story that linked him to a workplace computer that contained pornography. The Sunday article stated that Jerry Roberts worked on a computer that was later found to hold more than 15,000 images of child and adult pornography. Roberts denied any connection to the pornography and said the computer had been used by at least two other editors before he joined the newspaper in May 2002.

Bestselling crime writer Patricia Cornwell has filed a libel lawsuit in Richmond, Va., against another author and is asking a federal judge to bar him from posting defamatory messages about her on the Internet. Cornwell wants the court to enforce an injunction issued in 2000 against Leslie R. Sachs and seeks a broader ban to prevent Sachs from further writing negatively about Cornwell on websites or allowing such statements to remain on those sites.