Post DistpatchNov. 6, 2013
Larry Conners will be back in the courtroom Thursday — or at least his lawyers will be — to continue his fight to return to television.
Conners' attorney, Merle Silverstein, will appear at 11 a.m. before St. Louis County Circuit Judge Christine Allen Kerr. Silverstein said he will ask Kerr to amend her recent ruling that Conners can work for a radio station, but not on-air at a television station.
On Oct. 4, Kerr stripped the word "radio" from a no-compete clause in Conners’ contract with KMOV (Channel 4), but preserved the rest of the clause that bars him from working for another television station in the St. Louis market for one year after his firing from KMOV, which was May 23.
At the time of the ruling, Kerr said she was not convinced KMOV would risk losing viewers or ratings from radio competition. However, she said KMOV’s "interests in protecting its television viewer base, ratings and advertising revenue are legitimate."
Conners described that ruling as "splitting the baby, trying to make both sides happy."
Conners was fired 10 days after he posted comments to a Facebook page implying the Internal Revenue Service was pressuring him after a 2012 interview with President Barack Obama. The Post-Dispatch reported Conners was the subject of an IRS lien for back taxes before the Obama interview.
