[Always Right]

If you carefully hold the book under a 60 watt bulb and stare intently at its cover, you can see a secret message printed just below the title. It reads -- "A Novel" -- which, when run through the "Webster's Special Edition Da Vinci Code Decoder Book," translates to -- "a work of fiction."

If I wrote a novel about a real person and portrayed that person as a pedophile (which he was not), and covered my slander up under the guise of my story was just fiction, would that be OK?

[atlaw]

Slander? No. Libel? Depends.

Is the subject an historical person, or a presently extant person?

In the latter case, there may be a viable claim for libel, although the notoriety of the subject may negate the claim. In the former case, not a chance. (Although I will note that pedophilia, as wonderfully inflammatory as it is, has anything to do with the book under discussion.)

I know, I know. Jesus is a presently extant real person, as you and I both believe, but in the eyes of the law, that is a religious inclination that cannot be imposed on others or enforced by means of sanction. Properly so, in my view.

[maine-iac7]

If I wrote a novel about a real person and portrayed that person as a pedophile (which he was not), and covered my slander up under the guise of my story was just fiction, would that be OK?

obfuscation: to make something obscure or unclear, especially by making it unnecessarily complicated - or - about as convoluted as any post here