Roger Ailes to Be Indicted?

Unsubstantiated report says it could come this week
By Polly Davis Doig,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 27, 2011 10:37 AM CST
Updated Feb 28, 2011 8:30 AM CST
Roger Ailes Indictment? Obstruction of Justice Charges Could Come This Week: Sources
Roger Ailes.   (Getty Images)

Fox News boss Roger Ailes could be indicted "this week, maybe even Monday," an anonymous source told TV economist Barry Ritholtz yesterday, presumably on obstruction of justice charges stemming from allegations that Ailes told Judith Regan to lie to federal investigators in order to protect Rudy Giuliani. The report was breathlessly repeated by Henry Blodget of Business Insider, who wrote that,"If the scuttlebutt is true, THIS will be the trial of the century."

But don't get your hopes up too high, Court TV fans. It turns out Ritholtz's "anonymous source" was some guy he met in a Barbados airport. While waiting for a flight, Ritholtz struck up a conversation with a man who was organizing an event that Ailes was to appear at, he tells Justin Elliott of Salon. Ailes had just canceled, the man said, because he was about to be indicted. Ritholtz doesn't seem terribly confident in the story though; he says he was just "passing along what an informed person had said. If it's true, we'll find out. If it's not, no big deal." (More Roger Ailes stories.)

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