Hustler Magazine’s Flynt Is Hospitalized

Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt was reported in serious condition Sunday after being admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for treatment of an undisclosed illness.

Hospital spokesman Ron Wise said Flynt, 43, who was paralyzed and permanently confined to a wheelchair by the bullet of a would-be assassin in 1978, was unconscious when he was brought to the hospital’s emergency ward by ambulance Sunday afternoon.

“He was admitted about 3 p.m.,” Wise said. “He was unresponsive at that time, but recovered consciousness between 5:30 and 6 p.m., and now appears to be fully responsive. He was moved to the intensive-care unit at about 5:15 p.m., where his condition can be constantly monitored.”

He said Flynt did not appear to have suffered a heart attack or to have been in an accident, and declined to answer further questions concerning the nature of the publisher’s ailment. He said he did not know whether Flynt had become ill at his Bel-Air home.

Two court decisions adverse to Flynt and his magazine were announced during the past week.

In the first, a federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., upheld a $200,000 award that television evangelist Jerry Falwell won from Hustler magazine for “intentional infliction of emotional distress” by a satire that portrayed the minister in an unfavorable light.

In the second, a jury in Concord, N.H., decided that the magazine and Flynt had libeled Kathy Keeton, vice chairman of rival Penthouse magazine, and awarded her $2 million in damages.