Legal Inquiry

Ralph Cipriano was there the first time Brian Tierney made a scene at the Inquirer.

by Mike Newall

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Published: Jan 21, 2009

Michael T. Regan CARDINAL OFFENDER: Cipriano has written a new book about attorney Jim Beasley, who helped him sue the Inquirer.

historical ironies

In 1996, Ralph Cipriano was a pit-bull Inquirer reporter with archdiocesan sources feeding him documents on Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua's lavish spending. He had a straightforward story, he thought. While the archdiocese was shuttering parishes and schools in poor neighborhoods, his Eminence was spending $5 million redecorating church offices, his Main Line mansion and a Jersey shore retirement home.

The Archdiocese, which argued that the closings were justified and the renovations necessary, unleashed its PR man, Brian Tierney. That's the same Brian Tierney who's now chief executive of the company that owns the Inky and Daily News. Tierney raised a ruckus, and the story the Inky eventually ran was short and omitted some of Cipriano's reporting. When Cipriano published that work in another newspaper, Inky editor Robert Rosenthal told The Washington Post that Cipriano had been less than truthful.

Angry and with a damaged reputation, Cipriano sought the help of Philadelphia courtroom brawler Jim Beasley, a Hemingway-like character who wore cowboy boots and leather vests, enjoyed big-game hunting in Africa and took associates for joyrides on WWII-era fighter planes. Beasley was a fearless trial lawyer who won millions in settlements against hippie/murderer Ira Einhorn, and boxing shyster Don King. (Plus, there was the $24 million libel award against the Inky on behalf of another local powerhouse attorney, Dick Sprague.) With Beasley's help, Cipriano, the first reporter ever to sue his own paper for libel, won an undisclosed sum of money.

In the process, the ball-busting reporter and fearless attorney became friends and agreed to co-write a book on Beasley's most-famous cases. In 2004, Beasley died of cancer at the age of 78. But Lawrence Teacher Books recently published Courtroom Cowboy, Cipriano's portrait of Beasley the man and lawyer. It includes a detailed account of Cipriano's case.

City Paper: Besides his kicking the butts of your former employers, why did Beasley appeal to you as a character?

Ralph Cipriano: He was the smallest guy on the football team with the biggest heart; a Brian Westbrook type of character. Plus, just the distance he covered as a man. He was a high school dropout driving a Greyhound bus past Temple University and he says, "Jeez, I wonder what it would be like to be a student here?" The guy winds up being a big-time lawyer making a $20 million donation to Temple, and it doesn't even dent his checkbook. That's a pretty big mountain to climb.

CP: You seem to relish in his tough-guy courtroom antics.

RC: Jim Beasley was a street fighter. If he were in an alley and there was a bottle, he'd use it. And this is a town where the little guy matters. The guy was like an ax on anyone who was arrogant, whether it was some hotshot doctor or bigwig editor, he would take the freaking hacksaw to the guy and cut him down to size.

CP: What was it like going up against Brian Tierney when he represented the archdiocese?

RC: He was just a blustery character who was used to the sound of his own voice, and he liked to rail and rant, and in that way, I guess, he was a very formidable adversary.

CP: Ten years after the fact, your case reads like a harbinger of things to come with corporate-dominated journalism.

RC: Yeah, it was right before the roof caved in. The Inky still had the furniture in place. They were fresh off the Gene Roberts era where they won 17 Pulitzers in 18 years. And they hadn't strip-mined the talent yet. But there was a sense that the sun was setting. Circulation numbers were sliding, and there were too many money-minded people being brought in to run things. A few years earlier, and my battle with the archdiocese would've been handled in one meeting. Tierney would've been heard out and then told, "We're running the story and you're going to have live with it." But instead it was handled with so much fear and that was symptomatic of the decline of newspaper journalism.

CP: The Inky ran a review of your book saying they liked the pictures best.

RC: (Laughs) Yeah, that wasn't too surprising, but everyone's entitled to their own opinion.

CP: Any opinion on Tierney's leadership of the papers? He's been accused of meddling with the Inky's presidential endorsement.

RC: Brian's the same old guy who's used to getting his way. I don't know how he can be anything but who he is. He has a strong point of view, and he's there to bend you to his strong point of view. That's what he does.

CP: After years of staffing cuts, how has Philly journalism changed since you first arrived here as a reporter in 1987?

RC: The Inky still does some good stuff, but they have a very short list of safe targets of investigation — Vince Fumo, the police, DHS and that's about it. I don't get the sense that they're interested in taking on the sacred cows of the world. A newspaper that's taking on sacred cows is going to cause a lot more sparks, smoke and heat than the Inquirer. But I've been gone for 10 years, so what do I know?

CP: The Inky hit you hard for writing about your own case. Said you were out to settle a score.

RC: The book was originally supposed to be published by Temple University Press. At some point, they came to my boss and asked him to take out the chapter on my case. I said, "Fine, I'd rather not write about myself." But I was overruled by Jim's son who said this was precisely the kind of story his father wanted to tell. And Beasley himself told me before he died this was one of the cases he wanted in the book.

And this case was my entrée into Beasley's life. I was sitting there in his office, worried like hell about my life when the old newshound in me kicked up and I realized this guy's a hell of a story, and nobody's ever told it.

(mike.newall@citypaper.net)

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