A stunning admission today in the News Corp. hacking scandal; as Rupert Murdoch’s company settled with some of the phone hacking victims, lawyers for the victims announced that senior News Corp. employees and directors had admitted to knowing about the illegal operations, deceiving investigators, and destroying evidence: Murdoch Company Settles With 36 Hacking Victims.

LONDON — The actor Jude Law, the soccer star Ashley Cole, and Lord Prescott, a former British deputy prime minister, were named Thursday on a list of 36 victims of phone hacking who have reached settlements totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars with Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.

A statement by lawyers representing hacking victims said that Mr. Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers, which published the now-defunct News of the World tabloid, had agreed to pay substantial damages on the basis “that senior employees and directors” of the company “knew about the wrongdoing and sought to conceal it by deliberately deceiving investigators and destroying evidence.”

This isn’t a media corporation — it’s an organized crime ring.