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Journalism of Courage
Media giant News Corp has suffered setback in its battle to contain the fall out from the British press phone hacking scandal Tuesday,with the revelation of the first known US law suit.
British national Eunice Huthart,US actress Angelina Jolies Hollywood stunt double,filed a suit on June 13 in Los Angeles accusing the companys now defunct News of the World of intercepting her voice mail messages.
Rupert Murdochs newspaper empire is already mired in a series of civil and criminal cases in relating to phone hacking in Britain,but Hutharts case is thought to be the first to cross the Atlantic.
It comes at a delicate time for the US-based company,which is undergoing a split to divide its publishing and newspaper arm from its more profitable film and television brands.
According to her suit,Huthart believes her phone was hacked as a means to get information about Ms Jolie.
The complaint,filed in a federal US court seeks maximum statutory actual damages and punitive damages against News Corp,its News International and News Group Newspapers subsidiaries and other unidentified individuals.
It said Huthart,who is the godmother of Jolies first biological child,lost numerous phone messages in 2004 and 2005,including from Jolie,while working on films including Mr & Mrs Smith.
