Under pressure from Fox lawyers, the husband-and-wife team rewrote the story more than 80 times. After threats of dismissal and offers of six-figure sums to drop their ethical objections and keep quiet, they were fired in December 1997.
In 1998, Akre won a suit against Fox for violating Florida’s Whistleblower Law, which makes it illegal to retaliate against a worker who threatens to reveal employer misconduct. However, they were forced to defend the $425,000 awarded to Akre through the appeals process.
Meanwhile, with their assets drained, neither Akre nor Wilson was able to work full-time in television news. Instead they formed a production company to expose environmental and health news that is increasingly ignored by mainstream media.