THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, February 11, 1997 TAG: 9702110215
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARC DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 113 lines
Shock-jocks Henry ``The Bull'' Del Toro and Perry Stone said it was a joke.
Rival disc jockey Tommy Griffiths - Del Toro's former radio sidekick - wasn't laughing. He sued.
Now Del Toro, Stone and their radio station have agreed to pay Griffiths $80,000 to settle a year-old defamation lawsuit.
Del Toro, Stone and their station, WROX 96X-FM, also agreed to broadcast a three-paragraph statement saying they did not really mean Griffiths was a drug addict, even though they implied it repeatedly in broadcasts in late 1995.
The statement says that Del Toro, Stone, WROX and general manager Robert L. Sinclair ``regret that any listener may have drawn such a conclusion from the broadcasts. None of them intended to cause any pain to Mr. Griffiths' family.''
It is not exactly an apology - the words ``sorry'' or ``we apologize'' do not appear anywhere in the three paragraphs - but Griffiths interprets it as a retraction.
WROX aired the statement once Monday between 6:15 and 6:30 a.m. and will air it once again Friday between 9:15 and 10 a.m.
Among the unusual terms of the settlement: Del Toro, Stone and WROX cannot ridicule, lampoon, belittle or make light of the statement on the air.
``I feel fully vindicated,'' Griffiths said Monday. ``If it went to trial, there could have been a huge jury award, but a jury could not force them to make a statement, to make a retraction.''
The lawsuit has been pending since last March. It was filed by Griffiths' attorneys, Robert L. Samuel Jr. and Stephen C. Swain. The trial was scheduled to start in two weeks.
Del Toro declined to comment Monday. Stone and Sinclair could not be reached for comment. The attorney for all three, Jay Ward Brown of Washington, confirmed the settlement, but declined to say why his clients agreed to it. The settlement will be paid by the station's insurance, Samuel said.
Brown said the agreed-to statement is not an apology. ``It's an explanation. That would be a fair way of putting it,'' he said.
From 1990 to 1995, Griffiths and Del Toro - better known as Tommy and The Bull - were the most popular morning drive-time team in Hampton Roads. Their show on WNOR-FM 99 was wild and unpredictable.
On April Fools' Day 1992, for example, the duo told listeners that Mount Trashmore in Virginia Beach was about to explode. Listeners flooded police with calls. Griffiths and Del Toro were suspended for two weeks and the Federal Communications Commission slapped the station with a letter of reprimand.
In 1985, before Griffiths' arrival, Del Toro made a prank wake-up call to a North Carolina woman, convincing her that she was about to be fined or jailed for yelling at a judge. The woman sued Del Toro. A jury in 1993 awarded her $45,000.
Del Toro left WNOR in June 1995. The trouble with Griffiths began soon after.
With his new partner, Perry Stone, Del Toro began making fun of Griffiths on the air at WROX. At least 39 times from August to December 1995, Stone and Del Toro made on-air references to Griffiths as ``coke head,'' ``whiff king,'' ``snort boy,'' ``cokey boy,'' ``Mr. Toot,'' ``whiff man'' and ``Frosty the Snowman,'' according to the lawsuit.
Griffiths said he ignored it until it started affecting his family.
One day, Griffiths said, he and his 5-year-old son were at a Kmart store when a man he had never met approached him and asked, ``Hey, man, got any cocaine?'' Griffiths said no and the man replied, ``Want to buy some?''
Griffiths said he also was worried about his wife, who is active in community and charity work. ``I just hated her going out and people thinking, `Oh well, she's the wife of that drug addict radio guy,' '' Griffiths said.
Griffiths sued Del Toro, Stone, Robert Sinclair and Sinclair Telecable, Inc., which owns WROX, seeking $800,000 in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages.
In June the defendants asked a judge to throw out the lawsuit, arguing that the broadcasts were in jest. ``No reasonable person could take these statements seriously,'' their attorney argued.
Judge Kenneth N. Whitehurst Jr., however, ruled that the remarks, even in jest, could be defamatory. He noted that the remarks ``went on for months'' and said a jury would have to decide if they were slanderous.
Now that this case is over, Del Toro, Stone and Sinclair Telecable face more slander lawsuit over on-air remarks. It was filed last month by former 96X disc jockey Marjorie N. Gewirz, known on-air as Nik at Night. It seeks $5 million.
Gewirz claims that Stone and Del Toro falsely announced on the air in January 1996 that Gewirz had been suspended from the station after being caught in sexual acts in the broadcast booth. She also says she was subject to sexual harassment and was fired in July 1996. The case is pending in Norfolk's federal court. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Griffiths and Del Toro back when the were on-air partners.
Graphic
This is the statement WROX-FM agreed to read on the air:
As has been reported in the Hampton Roads press, WNOR's Tommy
Griffiths filed a lawsuit last year against WROX's Perry Stone,
Henry ``The Bull'' Del Toro, Robert L. Sinclair and Sinclair
Telecable Inc., arising out of a series of broadcasts on WROX in
August-December of 1995. In the broadcasts at issue, Henry Del Toro
and Perry Stone made a number of remarks concerning Tommy Griffiths
that Mr. Griffiths found offensive, including remarks that Mr.
Griffiths believes could have been interpreted by the listening
public to suggest that he is a user of cocaine or that he was a
cocaine addict.
Mr. Del Toro and Mr. Stone both intended their remarks about Mr.
Griffiths to be humorous. Neither Mr. Del Toro nor Mr. Stone
intended to suggest to the public that Mr. Griffiths actually uses
cocaine or that he was addicted to cocaine or any illegal drug. Mr.
Del Toro, Mr. Stone, Mr. Sinclair and Sinclair Telecable, Inc.,
regret that any listener may have drawn such a conclusion from their
broadcasts. None of them intended to cause any pain to Mr.
Griffiths' family.
WROX is pleased that the matter has been resolved, and that all
parties may now concentrate their energies on bringing rock music
and morning entertainment to the Hampton Roads community.
KEYWORDS: LAWSUIT SETTLEMENT DEFAMATION