Arts/Culture, Law & Justice, Media

Peru’s TV scandal queen ordered to serve four months community service for defamation

The host of Peru’s most popular tabloid TV scandal show has been ordered to serve four months of community service and pay a fine of 5,000 soles, or about $1,778, in civil reparation for defaming a producer from a rival television station.

“I will sweep the streets like Naomi Campbell, or perhaps go to Santa Monica prison to wash the inmates’ clothes,” Magaly Medina told reporters. “The one who has lost here is Betito (Efraín Aguilar), because they only convicted me of one of the three allegations that he accused me of. In spite of that, I am going to exhaust every avenue of appeal to walk away clean from this case.”

Medina was found guilty Tuesday of defamation against Aguilar for saying on her TV show that he used his influence as a municipal councilman to obtain a commercial license to operate a theater in violation of local zoning codes. She was acquitted, however, of criminal libel and slander for allegedly saying on-air that Aguilar was “the master of drug consumption and trafficking” and that he “induced his actors to consume drugs.”

Medina’s program, Magaly TeVe (Magaly Sees You), is a campy extravaganza of nightly gossip and paparazzi that strikes fear and loathing into the hearts of Peruvian TV personalities, sports stars and show girls, whose intimate comings and goings she reveals, usually via hidden camera.

What kind of community service Magaly will complete has yet to be determined by the judge, said her lawyer Cesar Nagazaki, “but Magaly is known for her charitable work and will enjoy the situation.”

Aguilar, calling in Wednesday to the Channel 4 morning news program Primera Edicion, said Magaly is getting off too light and that he plans to appeal.

“In this country anyone can say anything in the name of free press and be absolved,” Aguilar said. “I am disappointed that justice was not favorable for me at this stage, but I believe that it will be in the Supreme Court. I am not a person that makes fun of judicial resolutions. I respect the rule of law.”

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