Star Trib pays $3.8 million legal fees for Pioneer Press

The St. Paul Pioneer Press and its corporate parent MediaNews Group Inc. paid $3.8 million last summer to sue the Star Tribune, a tab that the Minneapolis paper eventually paid after losing the case, according to financial reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The fight began shortly after former Pioneer Press publisher Par Ridder skipped across the river in March of last year to head the Star Tribune, taking a laptop computer full of confidential data that he later shared with at least two high ranking Star Tribune executives, both of whom have since left the paper.

A Ramsey County District Court judge ruled in September in favor of the Pioneer Press, saying Ridder could not be trusted to refrain from using the St. Paul data to hurt the paper's business. Ridder resigned shortly after the ruling. The Star Tribune paid its competitors' legal fees in December, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission by MediaNews Group of Denver.

The company reported a revenue drop of 7.9 percent in the second quarter ended Dec. 31 compared to the same period a year earlier, but profits rose 34 percent on the sale of land and a building in Salt Lake City.

Click on the headline to read Matt McKinney's story in the Star Trbibune and check out comments with the story.