Murdoch execs ‘tried to smear publisher’

Feisty American publisher Judith Regan, who was fired last December by Rupert Murdoch over the publication of the controversial OJ Simpson book If I Did It, is suing her former employers HarperCollins for $100m damages, claiming she is the victim of a "deliberate smear campaign". In a suit filed yesterday in New York, Regan claims that her firing had less to do with the controversy over the Simpson book than with the fallout in 2004 from her love affair with New York police commissioner Bernard Kerik.

She claims executives at News Corp - parent company of HarperCollins - advised her to lie to investigators vetting Kerik for the position of Homeland Security Secretary. This, she said, was because Kerik had been appointed by Mayor Rudy Giuliani and News Corp did not want the former mayor's campaign for the Presidency to be harmed.

"The smear campaign was necessary to advance News Corp's political agenda, which has long centered on protecting Rudy Giuliani's presidential ambitions," Regan said in the complaint. The lawsuit does not elaborate on the smear campaign, nor identify the executive who she says pressured her to mislead investigators. Nor is it clear whether Regan was ever interviewed by investigators about Kerik.

In the event, the White House's plan to make Kerik Homeland Security Secretary was ruined by revelations that he had employed an undocumented immigrant as a nanny. And Giuliani has not escaped the repercussions of his association with Kerik. Last week Kerik was indicted on federal tax fraud and other charges.

Regan also claims in her lawsuit that she was scapegoated over the OJ Simpson book controversy. Murdoch called the book "ill-considered" when he fired her in December. But she claims Murdoch himself had signed off on the project in February that year. A spokesman for News Corp said yesterday that Regan's claims were "preposterous". ·