Crime writer files libel action against author

BESTSELLING crime writer Patricia Cornwell has filed a libel action against another author and is asking a judge to bar him from posting defamatory messages about her on the internet.

Ms Cornwell wants the court to enforce an injunction issued in 2000 against Leslie Sachs and seeks a broader ban to prevent Mr Sachs from further writing negatively about Ms Cornwell on websites or allowing such statements to remain on those sites.

She also seeks unspecified financial compensation for defamatory postings since August 14, 2000.

In a response to Ms Cornwell’s lawyers, Mr Sachs called the lawsuit “hilarious”. Mr Sachs, whose last known US residence is listed in court documents as Woodbridge, Virginia, called himself a “political refugee” who moved to Europe in 2004 to escape Ms Cornwell’s legal actions. A hearing in the case is scheduled for May 22 in the US.

The injunction in 2000 stemmed from Mr Sachs’s book, The Virginia Ghost Murders, a mystery published in 1998 about a modern-day sleuth who becomes involved in solving a Civil War-era murder. Claiming that Ms Cornwell was about to publish a novel ripping off the plotline from his book, Mr Sachs placed on the cover of his book: “The MUST-READ gothic mystery that preceded PATRICIA CORNWELL’S newest bestseller!”

Ms Cornwell’s complaint claims that Mr Sachs refused several requests to remove the Ms Cornwell reference on his book.

Mr Sachs also published claims on two websites that the plot of Ms Cornwell’s 2000 book, The Last Precinct, mimics that of his book.

Ms Cornwell has denied all of Mr Sachs’s allegations.