Widow Claims Lyndon LaRouche Defamed Her

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (CN) - A widow claims that Lyndon LaRouche and his media outlets continue to defame her, blaming her for the suicide of her husband, a LaRouche supporter, and for LaRouche's criminal fraud and tax evasion convictions.

Molly Kronberg's federal complaint against LaRouche, Barbara Boyd, EIR News Service and the Lyndon LaRouche Political Action Committee supplements a nearly identical complaint she filed in Federal Court in August 2009.

Kronberg says that LaRouche believes it was her testimony in his 1988 trial that led to his conviction for "fraud against elderly citizens who had loaned millions of dollars to the LaRouche organization under false and fraudulent pretenses."

LaRouche, a polarizing political figure and eight-time presidential candidate, served 5 years of a 15-year sentence in federal prison.

Kronberg says LaRouche and his supporters began a public campaign around 2006 to criticize and "punish" her in retaliation for her testimony.

Part of that campaign, she says, involved LaRouche criticizing PMR, his printing company, but mostly Ken Kronberg, Molly's husband and another longtime LaRouche supporter, who ran PMR.

According to Kronberg, "LaRouche told those running PMR that they should consider suicide because of their failings."

Kronberg says her husband committed suicide on the day LaRouche sent the message: April 11, 2007.

A few days later, Kronberg says, LaRouche sent another e-mail to his supporters, blaming her for her husband's suicide. That email claimed that "Ken had felt betrayed because Molly Kronberg had given financial support to President George Bush in the 2004 Presidential election," according to the complaint.

In another "daily briefing caused to be written and published by LaRouche, and sent out to his followers and placed on the public Internet," LaRouche was quoted as saying, "Molly Kronberg was a fraudulent witness and that her beloved husband Ken 'had committed suicide because his wife was on the other side, and he [Ken] thought the situation was hopeless,'" according to the complaint. (Brackets in complaint.)

Through his PAC's website, LaRouche claims that Kronberg set him up.

"Neither he nor any of his co-defendants would have gone to prison if it had not been for the fact that the FBI used the crime committed by Molly Kronberg to blackmail her into giving false testimony," his PAC claimed in a 2009 statement.

LaRouche was sentenced in Alexandria to 15 years in prison for scheming to defraud federal tax collectors and deliberately failing to repay $30 million in loans from his political supports. He was released on parole after 5 years.

Kronberg demands punitive damages for conspiracy to injure a witness and libel. She is represented by James DelSordo with Argus Legal of Manassas.

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Email *

Submit