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Ex-scientist Lee settles privacy suit

The government and five news organizations will pay Wen Ho Lee $1.6-million over claims he was a spy.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published June 3, 2006

WASHINGTON - Wen Ho Lee, the former nuclear weapons scientist once suspected of being a spy, settled his privacy lawsuit Friday and will receive $1.6-million from the government and five news organizations in a case that turned into a fight over reporters' confidential sources.

Lee will receive $895,000 from the government for legal fees and associated taxes in the 6½-year-old lawsuit in which he accused the Energy and Justice departments of violating his privacy rights by leaking information that he was under investigation as a spy for China.

The Associated Press and four other news organizations have agreed to pay Lee $750,000 as part of the settlement, which ends contempt of court proceedings against five reporters who refused to disclose the sources of their stories about the espionage investigation.

Lee said of the settlement: "We are hopeful that the agreements reached today will send the strong message that government officials and journalists must and should act responsibly in discharging their duties and be sensitive to the privacy interests afforded to every citizen of this country."

The payment by AP, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and ABC is the only one of its kind in recent memory, and perhaps ever, legal and media experts said.

The companies said they agreed to the sum to forestall jail sentences for their reporters, even larger payments in the form of fines and the prospect of revealing confidential sources.

Lee was fired from his job at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, but he was never charged with espionage. He was held in solitary confinement for nine months, then released in 2000 after pleading guilty to mishandling computer files. A judge apologized for Lee's treatment.

Two federal judges held the reporters in contempt for refusing to reveal their sources to Lee. The journalists had argued that he could obtain the information elsewhere.

[Last modified June 3, 2006, 06:28:33]