Hughes ordered to pay Maheu

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33712, 9 December 1974, Page 28

Hughes ordered to pay Maheu

(N.Z.P.A. -Reuter—Copyripht)

LOS ANGELES.

The American reclue tycoon, Mr Howard Hughes, has been ordered to pay SUS2.Bm in damages to the former manager of his Nevada gambling empire for publicly accusing him of “stealing me blind.”

A Federal District Court jury ordered Mr Hughes to pay the money to Mr Robert Maheu, who was dismissed in 1970 from his post as head of Mr Hughes’s SUS2OOm Nevada casino, real estate and mining empire. A spokesman for Mr Hughes's Summa Corporation said later that it was not known if Mr Hughes, now in the Bahamas, would appeal.

It was the largest court damages order against Mr Hughes since he was ordered to pay SUSI37.6m to Transworld Airlines in 1968 for alleged mismanagement of the company when he owned it. That judgment was eventually quashed by the Supreme Court. As in all other cases in which he has been involved in the last two decades, Mr Hughes refused to appear in the latest, or to give depositions.

After five days of deliberation, the jury awarded Mr Maheu $U52,823,333.30. Mr Hughes’s lawyers had counter-claimed that Mr Maheu had misappropriated SUS4,4m of Mr Hughes’s

money, and asked for it back. The jury awarded Mr Hughes $U547,733.63.

The case was based on a telephone press conference which Mr Hughes called in 1972 to denounce his “autobiography” by Clifford Irving as a hoax.

Speaking from the Bahamas, Mr Hughes told reporters gathered around a telephone hook-up in Los Angeles: “Maheu’s a no-good dishonest son of a bitch, and he stole me blind. I don’t suppose I ought to be saying that at a news conference, but I just don’t know any other way to answer it.”

Mr Maheu sought a total of SUSII.Im in damages; SUSIm for humiliation, mental anguish and suffering; and SUSlO.im for loss of earning capacity.

Queen’s Counsel.—Mr J. H. Wallace, an Auckland barrister, has been appionted a Queen’s Counsel. The appointment was announced yesterday by the AttomeyGeneral (Dr Finlay).—(P.A.)