A former marketing executive for United Artists Theatre Circuit who was accused of anti-semitism has been paid $425,000 to settle claims related to the case, his lawyer said Wednesday.
William Quigley and his wife, Dee, were sued in December 1994 for allegedly threatening and harassing their neighbors in Evergreen, Colo., because they were Jewish.
The neighbors, Mitchell and Candice Aronson, claimed the Quigleys made anti-semitic remarks in phone calls picked up by the Aronsons' scanner and that William Quigley put Candice Aronson in fear for her life when he drove a car toward her.
At the same time, Jefferson County District Attorney David Thomas filed criminal charges against the Quigleys and a friend, Joy Mudd, based on the phone conversations, which the Aronsons taped.
The Quigleys countersued in January 1995, accusing the Aronsons of slander, illegal eavesdropping and mounting a "campaign of hate" against them.
Criminal charges dismissed
All criminal charges were eventually dismissed. Settlement of civil actions between the two couples stipulated that the Aronsons' attorneys, Stuart Krizer and Gary Lozow, pay $350,000 to the Quigleys, who agreed to drop their lawsuit against the Aronsons and another against Krizer.
The payment was in addition to a $75,000 settlement paid to the Quigleys by the District Attorney's Office after Thomas apologized to them and acknowledged there was no evidence that proved ethnic intimidation.
"It's a good development," Jay Horowitz, William Quigley's lawyer, said from his office in Denver. "He's $425,000 to the good at this point. He'd been painted as a real snake and a bad guy, and that wasn't the case."
Horowitz said the comments that sparked the dispute were made by Dee Quigley in "one or two" of the recorded phone conversations.
In 1994, Horowitz told Daily Variety "the worst that these people may have done was to have made some pretty shocking statements in personal phone calls."
Working as consultant
William Quigley, who was senior VP of marketing at the Colorado-based UATC, is no longer with the company and is working as a consultant. Prior to joining UATC in April 1993, he was VP of Fair Lanes Entertainment and had been president of Vestron Pictures.
He and his wife remain in litigation in Denver Federal Court with the Anti-Defamation League and its regional director in Colorado, Saul Rosenthal.
The Quigleys claim that Rosenthal and the ADL slandered and libeled them in public statements that described the couple as guilty of anti-semitic conduct. A trial date has not been set.
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