NBC Settles Predator Lawsuit
NBC News, sister of man who shot himself during To Catch a Predator sting resolve $105 million lawsuit.
By Marisa Guthrie -- Broadcasting & Cable, 6/25/2008 9:58:00 AM
NBC News and the sister of a man who shot himself during one of the network’s To Catch a Predator stings resolved a $105 million lawsuit, according to NBC.
“The matter has been amicably resolved to the satisfaction of both parties,” the network said in a statement.
Patricia Conradt filed suit last year in New York court claiming that the show, which was working with a civilian watchdog group called Perverted Justice, and authorities in Murphy, Texas, where the sting took place in November 2006, failed to adequately protect her brother, Louis William Conradt Jr.
Louis Conradt was a former Texas prosecutor who allegedly engaged in an explicit e-mail exchange with someone whom he believed to be a 13-year-old boy. But when Conradt failed to show up at the Predator sting location, Dateline correspondent Chris Hanson, with cameras in tow, went to his house with Murphy police officers. Conradt shot himself as officers were breaking down his door.
NBC has consistently maintained that Patricia Conradt’s suit had no merit, asserting that there was no way Louis Conradt could have known that Dateline cameras were outside of his home. But in February, a judge ruled that the case could go forward.
NBC News aired one-dozen Predator hours. The last one came and went late last year. And while Steve Capus, president of NBC News, wouldn’t say that the franchise is definitively dead, he conceded that it is unlikely to return.
“It’s probably played itself out,” he said during a recent interview with B&C. “I’m not sure we can go in and do the same sort of things effectively going forward.”
But Capus professed his admiration for Hanson and the show’s producers, calling Predator a “public service.”
“I think they’ve done a great job of exposing an issue that was pretty staggering," he added. "Everywhere they went results were similar. As a parent, I found it incredibly compelling and chilling.”
Nevertheless, Predator -- which enjoyed healthy ratings for much of its run -- came under fire for blurring the line between media and law enforcement. The district attorney declined to prosecute the 23 men arrested in the Murphy sting, saying any evidence was tainted by the Dateline investigation. Murphy Police Chief Billy Myrick resigned earlier this year.
The events in Murphy were the subject of critical investigations by WFAA-TV, the ABC affiliate in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, as well as ABC News.
The WFAA report, “Television Justice,” was one of several investigations that garnered the station a Peabody Award, as well as an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University award.
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The show was voyeuristic, exploitative and repetitive, and never explored issues such as entrapment and whether the civilian organization might have had some questionable individuals in its ranks. (Even "Law and Order" did that one.) Shows like this serve to validify a growing incidence of vigilante justice that allows private citizens and complicit media to join "gang stalking"/"community stalking" brigades who assume the role of judge, jury and executioner. All people of good character deplore despicable acts, but the media portrayal here assumed guilt, not innocence until proven guilty. Law enforcement should not depend on untrained civilian glory-seekers to do their screening and investigating.
Perhaps the financial penalty will cause big media to re-evaluate how it tackles these important subjects.
And when will Steve Capus order his news staff to expose the resurgence of officially tolerated vigilantism, harassment, intimidation and harassment of persons never charged with a crime, or falsely targeted for reasons of politics or ethnic bias, under the guise of town watches and volunteer community patrols? KKK-style vigilantism is back in force and big media misses the forest for the trees.
The Ghost of Ed Murrow - 6/28/2008 3:12:00 AM EDT -
Completely unjust. I appluaded the show for exposing these perverts for who they are. Brandt may not be able to deal with the truth, but no amount of money awarded will buy her brother a clean name. I only wish that R. Kelly showed up to this house. These selfish disgusting scum bags don't realize the effect they have on a child when they're strippd of their innocence. I'm sorry for the results of the people who put the hearts into the capture of these jerks.
Annonymus - 6/26/2008 1:59:00 PM EDT -
Myrick did not resign earlier this year...he was fired.
Susan - 6/26/2008 8:47:00 AM EDT
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