Not defamatory. The Second Circuit has held that a news report that a prisoner planned to cooperate with prosecutors was not defematory. Cooperating with law enforcement is not a bad thing.

The deciison in Michtavi v. New York Daily News can be found here.

Lynne Stewart is screwed. Lynne Stewart, attorney for radicals and terrorists (allegedly), is now in deep trouble. The Second Circuit has affirmed her conviction and has even suggested that the District Court may have been too lenient. It probably didn't help that she stated that she could do the two-and-a-half-year sentence "standing on her head." For a smart lawyer, she sure didn't handle herself well post-conviction. In my view, she might have expressed her gratitude to the District Court for its lenient sentence (the prosecution had asked for thirty years) and done in her time. If she had done so, she would have completed her sentence by now and could be working on getting reinstated to the bar. That' s not going to happen now.

The Second Circuit's decision in United States v. Stewart can be found here.