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health & sports
Danton takes legal action against newspapers
Hockey player pleads guilty for murder, but doesn’t want to be labeled gay
Published Thursday, 20-Jan-2005 in issue 891
Former NHL hockey player Mike Danton, who’s serving a seven-year jail sentence for conspiring to commit murder, has filed a notice of libel against two Canadian newspapers.
The notice, which preserves Danton’s right to sue, alleges the Ottawa Sun and Toronto Sun were “false, defamatory and malicious” in their coverage of his April 2004 arrest.
Danton took exception to the front-page headline: “NHLer Charged in Gay Hit Plot”.
Danton pled guilty on July 16 after admitting that he sought to have his agent, David Frost, murdered. Initial reports suggested Danton’s target was his lover.
In an interview with the Ottawa Citizen, a lawyer for Sun Media admitted it was “incorrect” to characterize the murder plot as a lover’s spat gone bad.
Alan Shanoff also suggested some of the blame should fall at the feet of the wire service that supplied the initial story.
“The Ottawa and Toronto Sun, just like many newspapers across North America, covered the wire service interpretation,” he said.
Danton’s murder plan unraveled when a would-be hit man turned out to be a police informant.
Frost, who was never harmed, has frequently denied he was the target. 
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