From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1998:

AMARILLO––A federal jury in
Amarillo, Texas, on February 26 ruled that
TV talk show host Oprah Winfrey did not
libel beef when she exclaimed she would
stop eating hamburgers while interviewing
vegetarian activist Howard Lyman about
“mad cow disease” in April 1996.
The core of the case failed on
February 17, when Federal District Judge
Mary Lou Robinson held that the plaintiffs
hadn’t proved the food libel charge during
four weeks of testimony. The case continued
on a claim of common-law business disparagement,
which required the ranchers to
prove Winfrey intended malice.

Read more

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1998:

WASHINGTON, D.C.––Former Humane
Society of the U.S. vice president of investigations
David Wills not only allegedly misappropriated as
much as $211,000 from HSUS but is also a deadbeat
dad and, in effect, a horsethief, charges an
objection to Wills’ application for Chapter 13
bankruptcy filed on January 30, 1998 by HSUS
counsel Robert Plotkin.
Wills, wrote Plotkin, “admitted that a paternity
judgement was obtained against him by the
State of Washington on behalf of a child Wills
fathered with a woman who was not his wife…In
calculating his personal expense obligations,” to
shelter assets and income under the bankruptcy filing,

Read more