Defendants: NYP Holdings, doing business as New York Post; K. Rupert Murdoch; Joseph Vincent; Lloyd Vasquez
Accusation: It’s a lovefest at the New York Post this week, but, as always happens, someone is trying to ruin the party. In a lawsuit filed October 25 in Bronx Supreme Court, Rupert Murdoch and his Posties are accused of launching an aggressive campaign of intimidation to squeeze out the Pressman’s Union.
A worker was assaulted on the job by his foreman, says union honcho Christopher Capanelli, and after Capanelli didn’t stop the worker from filing criminal charges, the manager of the Post’s Port Morris Print Center in the Bronx threatened a “jihad” and vowed to turn the press floor “into a concentration camp.” Soon thereafter, Capanelli says, bosses started breathing down his and everyone else’s neck, itching to find terminable offenses and clean house.
The paper installed security cameras in the locker room, the lawsuit claims, and allegedly caught Capanelli engaging in “criminal mischief and vandalism.” (The complaint doesn’t specify what that means exactly, and no word back yet from Capanelli’s attorney, Mark Kressner.) Capanelli was eventually fired, and the Post filed criminal charges against him, forcing him to wrangle with the courts for two years before he was eventually found not guilty.
“The case is totally without merit,” said Post spokeswoman Suzi Halpin, not really saying anything. “Our relationship with the Pressman’s Union is excellent.”
Disposition: The Post will seek to have the case dismissed.
— Nick Divito
