Government and News Organizations Settle with Wen Ho Lee; Reporters Kept Out of Jail

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June 02, 2006 4:02 PM

Convicted scientist Wen Ho Lee reached an out-of-court settlement with the Department of Justice and five media organizations that keeps reporters from being sent to jail for refusing to disclose their sources in a privacy lawsuit Lee had brought against the government. The total settlement was in the amount of $1.645 million with the news organizations paying $750,000 of that to Lee.

The settlement ends the prospect that reporters, including Pierre Thomas of ABC News, could be sent to jail for protecting their sources.

Although the news media organizations were not named in Lee's lawsuit, the five organizations issued a joint statement.

"To facilitate the resolution of the case, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Associated Press, The Washington Post, and ABC agreed to pay a total of $750,000 to Wen Ho Lee," the statement said. "We did so to protect our confidential sources, to protect our journalists from further sanction and possible imprisonment and to protect our news organizations from potential exposure."

CNN, where Thomas worked when he did stories on Lee, refused to be part of the settlement.

Lee alleged the government violated his privacy right by giving reporters information about an espionage investigation of him. Lee was never charged with espionage and later pleaded guilty to one count of improperly downloading classified information.

Lee's lawsuit did not target news organizations, but reporters were being held in contempt by the judge and faced jail because they had refused to divulge sources who provided information about a federal investigation of Lee.