Rupert Murdoch Facing Possible U.S. Prosecution Over Jude Law Hacking Claim: Report

A claim by Jude Law could bring Rupert Murdoch a whole new American headache.

The actor is alleging that the News of the World--the now-shuttered tabloid whose industrial-scale hacking operation has plunged Murdoch's News Corp into its deepest-ever crisis--illegally listened to his voicemails while he was in the United States, according to a report in the Daily Mail.

Scores of celebrities and high-profile figures have allegedly had their phones hacked by the paper, and at least one--Sienna Miller--has received a formal apology and a six-figure settlement. But Law is the first to claim that he was hacked on American soil--something that, as the Mail writes, could open Murdoch to a U.S. prosecution.

The scandal has become so dire, however, that it is just one of several potential legal threats Murdoch faces in the U.S. The FBI is investigating claims that News of the World reporters tried to hack into the phones of 9/11 victims. There is also speculation that the company could be found liable under U.S. foreign anti-corruption laws if it is found to have bribed British citizens to keep them quiet about phone-hacking.

Law alleges that the News of the World hacked into his phones while he was staying in New York on his way to film "I Heart Huckabees" in 2003, and produced extremely detailed stories based on his voicemails.

The actor is also suing The Sun, another Murdoch paper. The Sun is vigorously contesting the charges.

Comments

[AN2009]

05:39 PM on 07/20/2011

As this scandal progresses, it makes you wonder if it ever occurred to Rupert Murdoch that he should have been more ethical in his business practices. There's no way that celebrity gossip was worth the collapse of his $12 billion BSkyB deal. Talk about being shortsighted.

[crunchie]

04:42 PM on 07/20/2011

Roger Ailes, chairman of Fox, should be next to be prosecuted. The tentacles run deep into our corporate /political system.
Fox News has the ‘brain room’–-that requires special security clearance to gain access. ‘The brain room is where Willie Horton comes from,’ says Cooper, who helped design its specs. `It’s where the evil resides.’ ”

“If that sounds paranoid,” Dickinson adds, “consider the man Roger Ailes brought in to run the brain room: Scott Ehrlich.” Ehrlich “had taken over the lead on Big Tobacco’s campaign to crush health care reform when Ailes signed on with CNBC.”

[listentome]

11:11 AM on 07/20/2011

Hey Jude, don't let me down.........

Stick it to him!

[WHEELS221]

02:42 PM on 07/19/2011

" GET THE ROPE" !!!!!

[cabrobst]

12:30 PM on 07/19/2011

Take back Murdoch's citizenship and control of Fox.

[gawain3]

11:30 AM on 07/19/2011

Gosh, I hope Jude Law takes them to the cleaners for everything they will have left when this whole hacking scandal is over!

[fisher65]

07:33 AM on 07/20/2011

lets hope they all sue!

[shrn]

11:03 AM on 07/19/2011

I'm watching the hearing in the UK right now. Is that Ruperts wife behind him? James' step mummy? She's very pretty.

[gawain3]

11:29 AM on 07/19/2011

Money can buy anything, huh?

[chocolate cherries]

11:46 AM on 07/20/2011

SIck...she looks lilke his grandaughter. She must be some bigtime moneygrubber. Lots of money for sexual favors...can we say prostitute?

[dax49]

10:22 AM on 07/19/2011

fox will now commence to crucify Jude Law!

[docketeer09]

01:31 AM on 07/19/2011

Go, Jude!

[DavidBlackburn]

12:00 AM on 07/19/2011

Can he really sue here because he was on American soil? It seems his voice mail would still have been in the U.K.

[shrn]

11:01 AM on 07/19/2011

If the conversations took place on American soil then it seems to me he can. And his phone was on american soil.

[situationcritical]

04:56 PM on 07/19/2011

He was hacked on his American cell phone.

[Sandee McHale Delano]

09:47 PM on 07/18/2011

Karma.

[Gavin Saunders]

09:05 AM on 07/19/2011

If this sends to his aged mother to her grave, I wonder if Muckmurdoch will mind if her deathbed photos were splashed all over his rags or if he'll re-do his final NotW issue to include them as he proudly did Michael Jackson's

[gypsysailor]

09:08 PM on 07/18/2011

This couldn't happen to a nicer group of people. After all the years filled with lies and deceit that has our country on the brink of ruin I can only hope Murdoch crashes and burns and he takes his beloved Fox with him.

[Ron in NYC]

01:40 PM on 07/19/2011

You are SO fanned!

[Ascoli]

07:21 PM on 07/19/2011

X2

[MosesDidItBest]

09:02 PM on 07/18/2011

It would not surprise me to discover that they "hacked" people in the US.

Scotland Yard has a bag with 10,000 hand written notes pertaining to the hacking and a list of 4,000 names, from celebrities, politicians, dead soldiers families, royalty and on and on. A bag only recently disclosed after claiming there were only two people involved and that's that as they say. Where's Sherlock Holmes when you need him?

If it was that pervasive in the UK, there's is nothing to suggest that the practice of spying on others was limited to the UK.

Although, given the close ties Murdoac/Fox/WSJ have to the GOP/TP and others this will be buried along with the complete and utter lack of prosecution of the wall street and banker white collar criminals.

Australia is also investigating Murdoch, it will be interesting to compare findings between the US, UK and Australia. I'm waiting for the eventual white wash here in the US because no other "news" organization has helped, sponsored and shilled for the GOP and the Tea Party like Fox.

We have become as corrupt a nation as many of the 3rd world banana republics we so much enjoy deriding. It's worse for us because we were supposed to be that shining beacon of "freedom" until 9/11 and the Bush/Cheney/GOP paranoia took over and created a semi-ploice state. It continues, this is not the America I grew up in.

[Trogenhorse]

08:53 PM on 07/18/2011

They had better start shredding the materials over to FOX news

[cabrobst]

12:32 PM on 07/19/2011

Lock down Fox before they start destroying evidence, FBI!

[MrMadScience]

08:52 PM on 07/18/2011

Pretty soon Rupert will be screaming: "A horse, a horse!...My kingdom for a horse!"