NYTimes reporter won't testify in drug company case

The New York Sun is reporting that New York Times reporter Alex Berenson will not testify in a case involving internal drug company documents he obtained and wrote stories about.

Joseph Goldstein wrote, “The judge, Jack Weinstein of U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, had asked the reporter, Alex Berenson, to testify voluntarily about how he obtained the documents, which reportedly discuss health risks connected to the Eli Lilly drug Zyprexa. In the invitation to Mr. Berenson, Judge Weinstein suggests that the reporter engaged in ‘a conspiracy to obtain and publish’ the Zyprexa documents.

“Judge Weinstein, who is overseeing several lawsuits against Eli Lilly by users of the drug, had placed the documents under a protective order.

“In a letter dated Monday, a Times attorney, George Freeman, told Judge Weinstein that Mr. Berenson would not be appearing in his courtroom today.

“‘As a matter of long-held principle, we believe that it would be inappropriate for any of our journalists voluntarily to testify about news gathering methods at the Times,’ Mr. Freeman wrote.

“Mr. Berenson received the Eli Lilly documents from an attorney in Alaska who had subpoenaed them from an expert witness for the plaintiffs in the Zyprexa lawsuits.”

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