Media suits and settlements

A veteran who lost both arms in the war in Iraq is suing filmmaker Michael Moore for $85 million, alleging that Moore used snippets of a television interview without his permission to falsely portray him as anti-war in “Fahrenheit 9/11.” Sgt. Peter Damon, a National Guardsman, is asking for damages because of “loss of reputation, emotional distress, embarrassment, and personal humiliation,” according to the lawsuit filed in Suffolk Superior Court in Boston.

‘The Sopranos’ diet drug
The actor who played a gay mobster on HBO-TV’s “The Sopranos” is being sued by the manufacturer of a diet drug. The maker of Stacker 2 filed suit against Joseph Gannascoli, claiming he hasn’t been doing enough to promote the product after being paid about $316,000 over the last two and one-half years. Gannascoli disputed the company’s claim.

Privacy payments
Five news organizations have agreed to pay a former nuclear weapons scientist $750,000 as part of a settlement of his privacy lawsuit. Wen Ho Lee, once suspected of being a spy, ended his six and one-half-year-old lawsuit against the Energy and Justice Departments. Lee had accused federal officials of smearing him by leaking information that he was under investigation as a spy for China. Federal judges held five reporters in contempt of court for refusing to disclose the sources of their stories about the government’s investigation of Lee. The payment by The Associated Press, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and ABC is the first of its kind in recent memory, legal and media experts said. The companies bluntly said they agreed to the sum to forestall jail sentences for their reporters, even larger payments in the form of fines and the prospect of revealing confidential sources.