Sex Suit Against Columnist Dropped

BURBANK — Former Burbank City Councilwoman Susan Spanos has dropped a lawsuit against newspaper columnist Will Rogers alleging sexual assault.

As part of an out-of-court settlement, Spanos agreed to ask the court to dismiss the suit in exchange for a pledge from Rogers not to countersue, said Rogers’ attorney Michael Wade.

“That was the only concession made on Rogers’ side,” said Wade. “He decided, I think generously, to give up that right to put this unfortunate event behind himself and the city of Burbank.”

In a handwritten statement issued Friday, Spanos said she had agreed to the suit’s dismissal on the advice of her attorneys out of concern for her health. She did so with mixed emotions, she wrote.

“The suffering I have endured is enormous. My health continues to be of paramount concern to me,” the statement said. Spanos added that she has been recovering from pneumonia and is receiving treatment for symptoms of trauma.

Rogers, who repeatedly has denied an assault ever took place, paid no money to Spanos, Wade said.

Attorneys for Spanos initially asked for a clause in the settlement barring public comments on the case but gave up the demand to reach an agreement, Wade added.

Spanos complained to Burbank police in April 1996 that Rogers had assaulted her in her car after a council meeting the previous January.

After investigating, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office declined to press charges. Spanos then filed a civil suit against Rogers, a columnist for the Burbank Leader, last July, Wade said.

The Burbank Leader is part of a group of community newspapers owned by Times Mirror Co., which also owns the Los Angeles Times. The newspapers operate independently.

Wade claimed that Spanos’ allegations against Rogers were probably motivated by a desire for retribution against the columnist, who had written of her critically.

Spanos and her supporters had claimed that Rogers used his column to discredit Spanos and thus throw suspicion upon her claims, said City Councilman Ted McConkey, a friend of Spanos’.

At the time she made her allegations against Rogers, “It was quite a big deal because everyone chose sides,” McConkey said.

Rogers, 39, said Spanos’ allegations against him amounted to “a thousand cuts.”

“I have not gone a day in 400 days without hearing some reference to this,” he said.

He said he plans to write in detail about the experience, but “It will take a while,” he said. “If I wrote it right now, I would tend to overwrite.”

Spanos did not run for reelection and left the council at the end of her term in May.