Irv Rubin, the national chairman of the Jewish Defense League, has won a $100,000 judgment against an American Nazi who publicly asserted that Rubin had AIDS.
Judge Joseph Kalin of the Glendale Superior Court handed down the sentence against Stanley Witek, a leader of the National Socialist American Workers Party.
Kalin ordered Witek to pay Rubin $10,000 in damages for slander and an additional $90,000 in punitive damages.
During a confrontation last November at a Glendale hotel, where the Nazi group was conducting a “Crusade Against Corruption,” Witek pointed to Rubin in front of television cameras and yelled, “Mr. Rubin has AIDS. Can’t you see the sores on his face?”
After sentencing, Witek claimed that he had no income to pay the $100,000 and that he was dependent for his living expenses on a “super-secret group, the American Aryan Committee.”
The JDL leader in turn promised that “I’ll be vigorous in collecting the judgment. I’ll haul him into court every week if I have to.”
As an outgrowth of the same Glendale melee, Rubin himself faces a court date next month on charges of rioting and unlawful assembly.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
