FW: Daily Mail
Dear Ghislaine
Thank you for your good-humoured patience with us and the legal team today, during what is, understandably, a testing time.
To confirm:
I spoke to Dilenschneider in NYC at length tonight and shared strategy and role definition.
we sent agreed statement to Dan Mangan ay NYPost - he's on deadline for a piece on Charlie Sheen/Rob Lowe and seems to have moved on - for the moment.
we will release statement via Press Association and PR Newswire @11.00GMT tmrw and follow up with calls to those journalists who have written pieces.
We will create call log/matrix and advise feedback and sentiment as appropriate tmrw. Please don't hesitate to call if you have any additional concerns.
Best regards
Ross
We should think about a letter to the editor today. 'School' can mean university. Age of consent in Florida is complex — see below:
If you are 16-yrs-old, a sexual relationship with someone 18-24 is legal in Florida. The two persons involved must be between 16 and 24.
Florida Statute 794.05
A person 24 years of age or older who engages in sexual activity with a person 16 or 17 years of age commits a felony of the second degree.
So as soon as you turn 16 you are able to have sexual relations. And you can have sexual relations with a minor (under 18) until your 24th birthday.
Mail have published phone logs
Maz is the most devious and cunning of the bunch. However, Editors can pay for people, stories and documents. They can even pay criminals if it is in the public interest.
Maz can pay who he wants for info but the Yorkshire Ripper for instance, as a convicted criminal, can't sell his story...unless in public interest cos there was say, a bent detective.
Below is from PCC Code for Editors. It is not well drafted.
15 Witness payments in criminal trials
0 No payment or offer of payment to a witness - or any person who may reasonably be expected to be called as a witness - should be made
in any case once proceedings are active as defined by the Contempt of Court Act 1981.
This prohibition lasts until the suspect has been freed unconditionally by police without charge or bail or the proceedings are otherwise discontinued; or has entered a guilty plea to the court; or, in the event of a not guilty plea, the court has announced its verdict.
•ii) Where proceedings are not yet active but are likely and foreseeable, editors must not make or offer payment to any person who may reasonably be expected to be called as a witness, unless the information concerned ought demonstrably to be published in the public interest and there is an over-riding need to make or promise payment for this to be done; and all reasonable steps have been taken to ensure no financial dealings influence the evidence those witnesses give. In no circumstances should such payment be conditional on the outcome of a trial.
•iii) Any payment or offer of payment made to a person later cited to give evidence in proceedings must be disclosed to the prosecution and defence. The witness must be advised of this requirement.
16
*Payment to criminals
i) Payment or offers of payment for stories, pictures or information, which seek to exploit a particular crime or to glorify or glamorise crime in general, must not be made directly or via agents to convicted or confessed criminals or to their associates — who may include family, friends and colleagues.
ii) Editors invoking the public interest to justify payment or offers would need to demonstrate that there was good reason to believe the public interest would be served. If, despite payment, no public interest emerged, then the material should not be published.
Forwarded Message
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Reply-To:
Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2011 16:40:11 -0500
To: NY Max
Subject: Fw: Daily Mail
Please see below. My take: A) voluntary rules are meaningless in terms of arranging for a cessation of crap articles/stories etc/3) doesn't offer redress (financial or in terms of publicity. Law here definitely provides more protection and redress if individual(s) involved in approaches from newspapers are employees or have any form of contractual relationship with target. Let's talk. Kevinx