OPRA - Courier - Courier News receives $75K reimbursement over Williams 911 tape

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Published in the Courier News, Thursday, June 1, 2006

Courier News receives legal fees reimbursement over Williams 911 tape

By CHRISTA SEGALINI
Staff Writer

Hunterdon County has reimbursed the Courier News almost $75,000 in legal fees it spent battling for the Jayson Williams 911 tape -- $31,000 to win the tape's release and another $44,000 as the county appealed a series of court orders to pay the original amount.

Williams was convicted of four charges stemming from a failed attempt to cover up the Feb. 14, 2002, shooting of limousine driver Costas "Gus" Christofi as Williams was giving friends and Christofi a tour of his Alexandria estate. The former NBA star was displaying a 12-gauge shotgun and snapped it closed, according to trial testimony. It fired, hitting Christofi, 55, who died within minutes.

Williams' brother made a call to 911, a recording of which the newspaper requested under the state's Open Public Records Act.

The Hunterdon County Prosecutor's Office refused, and the newspaper subsequently sued, winning the tape's release in March 2003. The Open Public Records Act, also called OPRA, allows plaintiffs who are illegally denied public records to collect legal costs pursuing the records -- a provision designed to give teeth to the law.

At that point, the newspaper had spent $31,100, said John C. Connell, a partner in the Cherry Hill law firm of Archer & Greiner, who represented the Courier News in the case. Over the next three years, as the county appealed both the amount of the bill and whether the state of New Jersey was also liable, the newspaper's cost rose to almost $75,000.

"This was a terrible waste of taxpayer money. It was quickly apparent that Hunterdon officials had not followed the state's Open Public Records Act," said Charles Nutt, the newspaper's president and publisher.

"If they had simply followed the law -- or even quickly acknowledged their mistake -- this lengthy court battle would never have taken place," Nutt said.

Hunterdon County Counsel Guy DeSapio said the court award to the Courier News was excessive.

"This is typical of what's wrong with the legal profession -- that attorneys overreach and they get exorbitant awards of money from taxpayers that are not warranted in the real world," DeSapio said. "The Courier News, their attorneys and the New Jersey court system should be ashamed of themselves."

Although Hunterdon County argued in court that the fees were unreasonable, Superior Court Judge Thomas Dilts in 2004 chastised the prosecutor's office for vigorously opposing the newspaper's reimbursement request, which he characterized as "(e)fforts to create additional impediments to collecting reasonable counsel fees."

Dilts said the Courier News was entitled to the full amount charged by its law firm, a ruling upheld by the Appellate Division of Superior Court.

DeSapio also said the Hunterdon County Prosecutor's Office withheld the tape because its release to the public would "prejudice the rights of the criminal defendant in the court case."

However, in ordering the release of the tape in 2003, a three-judge Appellate Division panel rejected prosecution arguments, including that the tape was part of a continuing criminal investigation.

"Acceptance of defendant's argument would seal every government record associated with a criminal investigation until the trial has been completed and all potential appeals have been exhausted," wrote Judges Michael P. King, Joseph F. Lisa and Jose L. Fuentes. "Such a prospect would directly contravene the citizen's right of access to government records embodied in OPRA."

Of the prosecutor's argument that the tape's release would taint the prospective jury pool, the judges said there are other means of balancing the media's right to coverage with the right to a fair trial, including changing the trial's venue or bringing in jurors from another county.

"The fact that media coverage may make it more difficult to select a fair and impartial jury is not a basis to deny access to government records under OPRA," the judges wrote.

In total, the Courier News received $74,968.60 for the full value of attorney's fees and costs awarded for the trial- and appellate-court proceedings related to getting the 911 tape.

"We take neither pleasure nor profit from this experience," Nutt said. "It has taken four years to settle an issue that should never have come up. The entire payment from Hunterdon County is reimbursement for the legal fees the Courier News paid to the law firm of Archer & Greiner and the related court costs."

"The case did serve to reinforce the point that officials cannot arbitrarily withhold public records and get away with it," Nutt said. "The courts at every level in this case supported the principle that a government agency that improperly withholds public records will be forced to pay the legal fees incurred by the party seeking the records."

"In this case, the party seeking the records was a newspaper," Nutt said. "But it could just as easily have been a civic group or even a private citizen. The law applies just the same."

Williams has remained free on bail since his April 30, 2004, conviction on the four cover-up charges. He is awaiting retrial on a charge of reckless manslaughter.

http://www.c-n.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060601/NEWS/606010307

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