Game room owners sue Penn for libel

The owners of a local video arcade and coin-operated laundry have sued the University and its chief spokesperson, Ken Wildes, for libel and slander over comments Wildes made in the weekly University City Review in May. The owners of University Pinball and University Laundry at 4006-4008 Spruce Street had already sued Penn and the city in federal court in April, accusing them of illegally shutting down the businesses. The libel suit was filed in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court on May 23, about two weeks after the local newspaper printed the comments in a story about the first lawsuit. In the libel case, William Schoepe and his sons William Jr. and Robert argue that Wildes "made numerous false and defamatory statements concerning the Schoepes" in the Review, including the following one quoted in the suit: "I think it's obvious to everyone that [University Pinball] has been a safe harbor in attracting criminal elements," Wildes told the Review. "Students have been beaten up and criminals found there either before or after they commit crimes. We just can't be supportive of any business whose customers are felons or potential felons." The quote, and others from Wildes, appeared in a May 8 article headlined "University Pinball files suit against Penn, City." The libel suit seeks more than $50,000 in damages in addition to punitive damages. University attorneys, in their request to dismiss the libel suit, don't dispute that Wildes made the comments. Instead, they sought unsuccessfully to have the suit dismissed because the statements are "pure opinion" and refer to the customers of the businesses -- not to the Schoepes. Many of the game room's customers are not Penn students, and when discussing the establishment, University officials have suggested the non-student customers pose a security threat to students in the area. In their suits, the Schoepes have disputed those claims and charged that the University has no basis to assume game room customers will commit crimes. In his comments in the Review, Wildes was referring to a February incident in which two men assaulted a student in the arcade, giving him a concussion, and a March incident in which University Police arrested a robbery suspect inside University Pinball. The male suspect was carrying 16 packets of cocaine. The Schoepes claim that Wildes' statements damaged their reputation and "brought [them] into disgrace and disrepute among their customers, neighbors and diverse other persons." The family owns numerous properties on the 4000 block of Spruce Street, some of which it rents to students. The University's Office of Off-Campus Living rated the Schoepes as one of the best landlords in the area, and they've "established good names? in the community" over the past 44 years, the complaint states. Wildes declined to comment on the suit, and University attorney Roger Cox wasn't available for comment last night. Schoepe attorney Ron Shaffer also declined to comment on the lawsuits. Wildes, formerly Northwestern University's vice president for community relations, has been Penn's director of University communications since July 1996. University attorneys recently filed a counterclaim in the federal suit charging the Schoepe family with bringing criminal activity to the area. A trial date has not yet been set in the libel case. The federal suit, which alleges that the University and city violated the owners' due-process rights by not giving them notice or a hearing before closing the establishments, will not get a trial date until November 3. The game room and laundry reopened on April 25, one week after it was shut down by the city.

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