As their paychecks shrink, I'm betting the folks in the Strib's business section took some rueful pleasure in publishing this: data storage for the 2007 Par Ridder fiasco cost the paper $854,068 — and the provider is now suing for another $775,000.

The good news for the bankrupt Minneapolis daily is that it's not the defendant; the Pioneer Press' law firm is.

Huh?

It goes like this: Ridder, then the PiPress publisher, swiped a hard drive full of documents on his way to a similar Strib gig. The PiPress sued for damages and won. The Strib agreed to repay $3.8 million in PiPress legal costs, though the Minneapolis paper likely spent millions more.

The data provider — who stored 62 terabytes of Strib info needed for the case — got paid through the trial, but claims he deserves dough for another six months of storage. Apparently, the Strib-PiPress settlement had an end date, so the Minneapolis paper is off the hook. The provider's only recourse is to go after the Leonard Street firm, which probably has more dough than the Strib these days anyway.

While the Minneapolis paper would still be cutting even if owner Avista Capital Partners had never laid eyes on Par, Stribbers still lament how the Ridder case took millions that might otherwise keep the operation — not to mention their family finances — afloat. Leonard Street is the latest to learn that purloining publishers can cause pain long after they've left the building.