Bohl: Libel lawsuit filed by San Bernardino Sheriff's wife gets trial date

A multi-million dollar libel lawsuit filed by the wife of Sheriff Gary Penrod against a High Desert newspaper publisher is scheduled to go to trial next month.

Judge Kenneth Barr denied motions filed by a lawyer for Nancy K. Bohl seeking more information from Raymond Pryke, publisher of Valley Wide Newspapers, during proceedings earlier this week in San Bernardino Superior Court.

The move may have set the stage for an estimated four-week trial, which is scheduled to start Oct. 14, according to court records. A readiness hearing is set for Oct. 9.
"We're good to go," said E. Thomas Barham, one of two lawyers who represent Pryke, via telephone today.

Bohl filed a libel suit against Valley Wide Newspapers, a collection of newspapers owned by Pryke that includes the Hesperia Resorter, in June 2000.

In various articles, the papers accused Bohl, who operates a counseling firm, of using her relationship with Penrod to win Sheriff's Department counseling contracts and leaking deputies' confidential psychiatric information to the sheriff.

Bohl has denied the allegations while Pryke, in an earlier statement, has called the articles "factually accurate."

Bohl's attorney, John Rowell, could not be reached for comment.

In court documents filed for last Monday's hearing, each side lobbed allegations against the other in the latest phase of the contentious dispute.

Barham wrote that Rowell had not made a good enough effort to resolve the request for the additional details from Pryke.

"Rowell's one and a half page letter and his offer to conduct a meet and confer on the same day that his client was being deposed is hardly evidence of a good-faith effort to resolve the discovery dispute," Barham wrote.

But Rowell, in his response to Barham's opposition to the motion, said Pryke repeatedly defied orders to provide the information.

"This is not the first time that Pryke has refused to respond to discovery. It is not the second time. It is not the third time," Rowell wrote in a response to Pryke's opposition.

"This motion, if granted, would represent the ninth time that Mr. Pryke has been ordered to provide responses and/or sanctioned for failing to comply with this court's discovery orders," continued Rowell.

While the judge denied Rowell's two motions, he did sanction Pryke $2,625 at the hearing, court records indicate.

mike.cruz@inlandnewspapers.com