Appeals Court to Journo: Pay No Fines! For Now

[WSJ_law_blog]

Just hours before massive fines were going to begin accruing against Tony Loci — the former USA Today reporter who’d been ordered by district judge Reggie Walton to pay contempt fines out of her own pocket — the D.C. Court of Appeals rang the bell.

This afternoon, the appeals court ordered that Locy, who’s refusing to reveal her FBI and DOJ sources for stories she wrote implicating Dr. Steven Hatfill in the 2001 anthrax attacks, will not have to pay the fines while her lawyers fight Walton’s contempt ruling. Click here for the AP story, and here, here and here for past LB coverage.

Starting at midnight tonight, Locy was to have paid out of her own funds $500 a day for seven days, $1,000 a day for the next seven days and $5,000 a day thereafter until she was to have appeared in court April 3. At that time, the judge could have ordered further fines or directed that she be sent to jail if she continued to defy him.

“I am relieved and thankful that the court of appeals has found that my legal arguments are worthy of consideration,” Locy, now a journalism professor, reportedly said.