Mexico City – A court on Tuesday ordered an Argentine journalist and a Mexican news magazine to pay first lady Marta Sahagun a total of US$178,000 after determining that an article about the annulment of Sahagun’s first marriage caused her moral damage.
Judge Carlos Miguel Jimenez found that journalist Olga Wornot’s article in the February 2005 edition of Proceso magazine invaded Sahagun’s privacy and sought to personally damage her because it revealed intimate details of the marriage.
The article was accompanied by a copy of the annulment, whose publication “constitutes a legitimate intrusion into the intimate life of the complainant,” Jimenez said.
The ruling did not find fault with Wornat’s facts.
Jimenez made the decision April 28, but it wasn’t released publicly until Tuesday evening in a statement by Sahagun’s lawyers.
It was not clear how much of the fine applied to each party.
In a statement late Tuesday night, Proceso said the case is far from closed.
“This is a first resolution and still has to be revised by higher courts,” the magazine said.
Wornot and her lawyers could not be reached for comment.
Sahagun has maintained that Wornat and Proceso published the annulment document for the sole purpose of attacking her personal reputation.
Fox took office in December 2000. His term expires in December.
Sahagun, whose sons are from a previous marriage, married Fox in 2001 and they have no children.
Weeks after the article on the marriage annulment appeared, Proceso began publishing excerpts of Wornot’s unfavorable book about Sahagun, titled “Cronicas Malditas,” or “Accursed Chronicles,” which was officially released in April 2005.
The book alleges that two of Sahagun’s three sons had used their connections to get preferential treatment on federal government work contracts during Fox’s administration.
Tuesday’s ruling comes more than a month after a separate civil judge ordered Wornat to remove from the book references to wrongdoing by one of the sons.
Fox has repeatedly defended his wife and her sons. Last year, he publicly lauded her for having the gumption to go after Wornat and Proceso in civil court.
Wornat first made a name for herself in Mexico in 2003 when she published “La Jefa,” or “The Boss,” an unauthorized biography of Sahagun that heavily criticized the first lady and her sons.
