Spitzer hit with $60 million libel lawsuit

There are more troubles in store for Client No. 9.

Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer is facing a libel lawsuit by a former Marsh & McLennan exec for a whopping $60 million over a column he penned for Slate.com last August.

William Gilman, who worked for the insurance company from 1976 to 2004, said Spitzer wrote with “actual malice” and the article was “patently false and defamatory,” according to court documents. Spitzer and Slate should have known the accusations weren’t true, the complaint states.

In the column, titled “They still don’t get it,” Spitzer wrote that many of the company’s employees were “convicted and sentenced to jail terms” for “price-fixing, bid-rigging, and kickbacks.”

While Marsh & McLennan agreed to pay $850 million in a civil settlement when Spitzer was the state’s attorney general, and while Gilman was later found guilty of a felony antitrust charge, the conviction was eventually thrown out and other executives were also either acquitted or had their cases tossed.

Though the article does not mention Gilman by name, “it is clear from the context that Mr. Spitzer is referring to Mr. Gilman,” according to the criminal complaint.

Spitzer and Slate did not return messages for comment, but Spitzer told Bloomberg News he hadn’t seen the suit.

The disgraced politician turned news commentator has had a rough summer: Just last month, CNN canceled his prime time show, “In the Arena."

(with Reuters)