Democrat Gets Caught Defaming Republican, Forced to Pay Big Fine and Publicly Apologize

North Carolina Democrat Roy Cooper’s first statewide campaign ended with a false attack ad that followed him through the courts for nearly 14 years. Cooper was sued for defamation after accusing his Republican opponent of charging an outrageous hourly legal fee that the opponent never collected. With a public trial approaching, Cooper agreed to a $75,000 settlement, mediator expenses, and a written apology. The controversy has resurfaced as the former governor campaigns for the U.S. Senate.

Cooper had served in the North Carolina General Assembly since 1987 when he entered the 2000 race for attorney general. His Republican opponent, Dan Boyce, was a former federal prosecutor whose father, Gene Boyce, had successfully challenged unconstitutional state taxes. Both candidates were relatively unknown statewide, and polling reportedly showed a close contest. One campaign email said Cooper’s team needed to “hit Boyce and hit him soon.”

Cooper’s campaign eventually spent more than $1.2 million on advertising attacking Boyce. During a deposition, Cooper acknowledged personally changing the language in a proposed commercial so that it accused Boyce of having “charged $28,000 per hour.” The statewide ad compared the supposed hourly fee to what a police officer earned in an entire year. Boyce’s campaign demanded that Cooper stop broadcasting the commercial, but it continued running through the closing days of the election.

As Breitbart News reported, Dan Boyce hadn’t handled the lawsuit cited in the commercial. The case involved his father, Gene Boyce, and the $28,000 figure was a judge’s calculation of an effective hourly rate based on a proposed contingency fee. Gene Boyce was awarded only a fraction of the amount under discussion. The disputed fee had also arisen from successful litigation that returned a substantial amount of money to North Carolina taxpayers.

Cooper defeated Dan Boyce with approximately 51% of the vote to Boyce’s 46%. Boyce, his father, his sister Laura Isley, and his brother-in-law Phillip Isley filed a libel lawsuit against Cooper and his campaign shortly after the election. The case moved between state and federal courts for more than a decade and produced numerous appeals. Cooper’s attorneys also asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in part of the dispute, but the justices declined to hear the matter.

The lawsuit was finally scheduled to go before a jury in April 2014. Rather than proceed with the trial, the two sides reached a settlement. The agreement required a $75,000 payment toward the Boyce family’s legal costs, payment of the mediator’s fees, and a written apology signed by Cooper and campaign aide Julia White. The $75,000 was a civil settlement payment rather than a court-imposed fine.

Morgan Jackson, a Cooper strategist, said at the time that the campaign advertisement had been based on court documents and materials published by the Boyces’ firm. Jackson described the agreement as resolving a misunderstanding, although the apology acknowledged that the campaign had been wrong. Breitbart reported that Jackson is again working with Cooper as he seeks another statewide victory. Cooper is now running for the U.S. Senate against Republican Michael Whatley.

The settlement statement specifically defended the reputations of Gene Boyce, Dan Boyce, Laura Isley, and Phillip Isley. Cooper and White described them as “excellent and ethical lawyers and honorable people.” Addressing what the 2000 commercial had suggested about the family, the statement concluded: “We were wrong and apologize.”

Featured image credit: unknown, official Flickr account for Governor Roy Cooper, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons