Gerald Posner, the author of "Miami Babylon" and Daily Beast reporter who has recently been plagued by plagiarism claims, has hired attorney Mark Lane to prepare litigation against the Miami New Times, according to PR Newswire.
The New Times has been all over the Posner plagiarism windfall, beginning with Posner's resignation from the Beast after admitting he had ripped off several passages from the Miami Herald.
Shortly after, the New Times began diving into "Babylon" - and not because they needed a good beach read. The alt weekly uncovered example after example of lifted text, and reported that a nasty confrontation took place between the author and Frank Owen, who wrote Miami Beach tell-all "Clubland" and was one of the writers Posner supposedly ripped off.
PR Newswire said the two met several years ago at a Kennedy assassination debate: Lane wrote several books on the assassination and is critical of the "lone gunman" theory, while Posner's "Case Closed" supported Oswald's conviction.
"Although I'm convinced Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President Kennedy, I've always believed that had Mark Lane represented Oswald, he would have won an acquittal," Posner told PRNewswire. "That's why Mark Lane was the obvious choice as my own attorney."
As for Posner's beef the New Times, Lane sent a letter to New Times Editor Chuck Strouse, accusing the paper of launching a "well financed campaign" to review other books Posner has written and suggesting publishers pull his books "even before Mr. Posner was given the opportunity to make called-for revisions."
Lane goes onto write that, although apologies don't absolve writers of wrongdoing, "the goal of responsible journalists cannot be the destruction of a career. And long drawn out death by a thousand cuts is inappropriate and, in my view, unsupportable."
Strouse responded to the letter on the New Times website:
"We're delighted to have Mr. Lane, an 83-year-old Jonestown survivor, involved. We clearly have nothing against Mr. Posner, though we despise his admitted serial plagiarism. New details on this egregious literary theft -- which is crystal clear -- will be published soon."
