Hughes never paid Maheu a dime as a result of the lawsuit. The wikipedia site you posted also omitted that Summa was awarded a counterclaim judgement from Maheu for a "much larger amount".
Maheu thought he could pull one over on Hughes because Hughes was a recluse, but Hughes fought back with an appeal and the judgement Maheu won was overturned. Also notice the appeal makes a note of Maheu claiming statements by Hughes that only Hughes and Maheu would be privy to, suggesting that Maheu's evidence is only hearsay. Leaving open the possibility that Maheu could have made the whole conversation up.
5 Third, the defamatory statement was, in essence, that Maheu had "stolen" money from Hughes. Summa counterclaimed for numerous amounts of money including unpaid loans and moneys that it claimed that Maheu had wrongfully obtained. The jury returned a large verdict for Maheu, and so must have found that the defamatory statement was false, but it also awarded Summa part of the moneys that it claimed. Moreover, the court awarded Summa a judgment against Maheu for a very much larger amount. From that judgment Maheu does not appeal. Both the verdict and the court's judgment included some of the moneys wrongfully obtained.
6 Fourth, Hughes had become an eccentric, who had totally withdrawn from direct contact with the outside world. He would not appear in any court; he would not give depositions. Thus there is no testimony by him in the case. Maheu knew that Hughes would not testify, and he took full advantage of this, to him, happy situation. Much of the crucial testimony in the case is Maheu's recital of telephone conversations with Hughes to which no one else was a party, and of which no contemporaneous record was made.
To establish that Irving's book was not authentic, Hughes arranged a telephonic news conference on January 7, 1972, with Hughes speaking from Paradise Island in the Bahamas to newsmen assembled in the Sheraton Universal Hotel in Los Angeles. During that telephonic news conference, the following colloquy occurred:
13 Q. (by Mr. Neal of NBC) Was Maheu fired on your orders and because of
A. (Answer not audible.)
14 MR. NEAL: Would you ask him to repeat that, please.
15 Q. Would you repeat that, please.
16 A. Specifically.
17 Q. Why?
18 A. Because he's a no-good, dishonest son-of-a-bitch, and he stole me blind.
19 Q. Thank you. Mr. Hughes, this is your first news conference in how long?
20 A. I don't suppose I ought to be saying that at a news conference, but I just don't know any other way to answer it. If you, if you would even you wouldn't think it could be possible with modern methods of bookkeeping and accounting and so forth for a thing like the Maheu theft to have occurred, but believe me it did, because the money's gone and he's got it.
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