Entertainment
Winfrey due in Philly for 2-week defamation trial
By MARYCLAIRE DALE
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Media mogul Oprah Winfrey
is expected to spend two weeks
defending herself at trial in a
defamation case linked to the
sex-abuse scandal at her girls
school in South Africa.
A federal judge this week
refused to dismiss the suit filed
by Winfrey's ex-headmistress,
paving the way for a March 29
trial in Philadelphia.
The billionaire talk show host,
as a named defendant, must be
in court and has rearranged
her TV production schedule
to do so, her lawyers said in
a recent court filing. She also
appears likely to be called as a
witness.
After the abuse complaints
surfaced in 2007, Winfrey
said she had "lost confidence"
in headmistress Nomvuyo
Mzamane and was "cleaning
house from top to bottom."
A dorm matron who worked
under Mzamane was later
charged in South Africa with
abusing six students.
The judge found that Winfrey
made both Mzamane and the
dorm parents appear "culpable"
by telling parents, "I'm going to
find a new head of the academy
for the school. ... Dorm parents
are gone, (Mzamane) is gone."
The statement suggests
Mzamane had a role in the
mistreatment of the students,
"which clearly would tend to
`blacken' plaintiff's reputation
or injure her in her profession,"
U.S. District Judge Eduardo
Robreno wrote in a 128-page
opinion issued Monday.
Winfrey was in South Africa
on Tuesday visiting the Oprah
Winfrey Leadership Academy
for Girls, near Johannesburg,
according to her production
company, Harpo Productions.
She opened the $4O million
school for impoverished girls
amid great fanfare in January
2007 and recruited Mzamane, a
Lesotho native, from a private
school in Philadelphia.
Winfrey's lawyers sought to
dismiss the suit on grounds the
remarks she made at an Oct.
20, 2007 meeting with parents
and at a Nov. 5, 2007 press
March 17 2010
conference reflected only her
opinions.
But Robreno said a listener
could infer she based the
comments on facts gleaned
from the school's internal
investigation.
THE CAPITAL TIMES
Winfrey herself acknowledged
the power of her words when
she said in a deposition that
she thought only two people
President Barack Obama
and his wife Michelle wield
more influence in the media,
Mzatnane's lawyers said in a
brief.
"Oprah and Harpo await the
opportunity to present the case
in court," her lawyer, Chip
Babcock of Houston, said
Tuesday in a statement issued
through Harpo, which is also a
named defendant.
In a brief filed Friday, Winfrey's
lawyers wrote that any damage
Mzamane suffered was by
her own conduct, "including
presiding over a school where
serious allegations of child
abuse were made against the
dorm parents."
Babcock successfully
defended Winfrey in a 1998
libel trial in Texas, when
cattle ranchers sued her and a
vegetarian activist over a talk
show segment on mad cow
disease. A disgusted Winfrey
famously swore off hamburgers
in the episode.
She spent six weeks inAmarillo
for the trial, sometimes filming
her daily show from the Texas
Panhandle.
Winfrey's lawyers tried to
move the pending defamation
trial to Chicago, where her show
is based, but Robreno said it
could be tried in Pennsylvania,
where Mzamane lived when
she filed suit in 2008 and where
her reputation is perhaps most
relevant. Mzamane is seeking
more than $250,000.
"Winfrey indicted Ms.
Mzamane for creating an
atmosphere where the students'
voices were silenced,"
Mzamane's lawyers , said in
their brief. "Simply put, the
only reasonable inference
to be drawn from the press
conference was that Ms.
Mzamane was let go because, at
best, she disregarded claims of
sexual abuse at (the school)."
Mzamane previously worked
at the Germantown Friends
School in Philadelphia and
returned to the area when
Winfrey declined to renew her
$150,000-a-year contract in
December 2007. She said she
could not find work afterward,
but apparently took a job at
another school in South Africa
in September 2008, according
to court documents.
Her lawyer ? Timothy
McGowan, said he was ready
for trial but otherwise declined
comment.
Winfrey's school now has
about 330 students.
Forbes iwpi.zine listed
Winfrey's nef Wath last year
at $2.7 billion.