INEZ, Ky. — Three employees of an eastern Kentucky newspaper were each fined $500 by a judge for defying his order against publishing the Mountain Citizen while the rights to the name were in dispute.

        Judge Daniel Sparks said he was forced to add the sanction to his contempt of court citation to protect the integrity of the judiciary. Judge Sparks said owner Lisa Stayton, publisher Roger Smith and editor Gary Ball knew of his order and defied it.

        Judge Sparks said the ruling does not infringe on press freedoms because they could have published their newspaper under a different name.

        “To condone the actions of the defendants would be tantamount to promoting and fostering the disrespect and distrust of the judicial system,” Judge Sparks said in his ruling filed Thursday.

        Attorney David Fleenor said he did not know what his clients would do about the fines.

        Judge Sparks had ordered the Mountain Citizen, a weekly newspaper in the heart of the Appalachian coalfields, to stop using its name after Inez attorney John R. Triplett claimed its corporate identity.

        Mr. Triplett, former chairman of the Martin County Water Board, took the paper's name after Ms. Stayton inadvertently allowed incorporation papers to lapse.

        Kentucky corporations are required to submit annual reports to the secretary of state's office. Those that don't are presumed inactive and are dissolved. The Mountain Citizen hadn't filed an annual report in two years, making that name — along with two others held by parent company New Wave Communications — fair game.

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