Hesperia Resorter publisher Ray Pryke files for bankruptcy
Some big news about the other Hesperia paper:
Weeklies’ publisher seeks bankruptcy protection amid lawsuit
RIVERSIDE – The publisher of the Hesperia Resorter newspaper and other high desert-area weeklies has filed for bankruptcy protection to try to shelter his assets should a court order him to pay damages in a $4 million defamation lawsuit.
Raymond Pryke, 82, said Thursday he opted to seek bankruptcy protection because he fears the court might issue a judgment against him that would be too large for him to make bond on pending an appeal, tying up his holdings.
Advertisement He listed assets of between $10 million and $50 million in his filing to the California Bankruptcy Court in Riverside on Friday.
The lawsuit against the Hesperia Resorter was filed in June 2000 by Nancy Bohl, wife of San Bernardino County Sheriff Gary Penrod.
In the complaint, Bohl accused the newspaper of publishing falsehoods about her and her psychological counseling firm in three stories published in 1999 and 2000.
The stories alleged that Bohl, who was a counselor for the sheriff’s department and married Penrod in May 2000, divulged private information about deputies she had counseled and that her firm received preferential treatment in San Bernardino County’s bidding process.
The allegations were attributed to anonymous sources. Pryke said a judge issued a default judgment against the newspaper after the publisher refused to have his reporter reveal the sources.
“I never knew who the sources were because I didn’t want to know,” Pryke said.
In addition to the Hesperia Resorter, Pryke is also publisher for the Antelope Valley Journal in Palmdale and five high desert weeklies: Adelanto Bulletin, County Legal Reporter, Apple Valley News, Victorville Post-Express and Lucerne Valley Post.
Although the papers have different mastheads, from what I can tell, the contents of his Valley-Wide papers are identical.
Ray Pryke upsets a lot of people with his coverage and how his paper goes about it. (An amazing number of people I know have been fired by Pryke over the years, and they’re eager to share their opinions.) To me, though, there’s something wonderfully American about the British-born Pryke and his paper: Only in America (or practically) can a pissed-off old man with money publish a newspaper to “get” the people he thinks need getting. In a way, this is what the First Amendment is all about.
1 Comment »
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>
Well you are at least partialy correct. He does piss off a lot of people who should be, every day when they look in the mirror – due to thier own wicked illegal actions. San Bernardino County stinks from the top down! When mark G, worked for him, more corruption was exposed in this corrupt county by his “throw away paper” than by ALL other media sources combined. I’ve heard it said many times that he does use the paper to “get his way” on things like sub-divisions – I guess life realy IS about compromise… If anyone feals like the’ve been screwed by county personnel contact me an enjoin in a RICO criminal action against these Anti American bastard officials; Larry Henson 760-949-9841
Comment by Larry — May 2, 2008 @ 11:47