Legal News

NBC Settles Suit Over Suicide of Alleged Pedophile Prosecutor

By Dan Slater

The producers of “To Catch a Predator” — the sensational TV journalism series that led, tragically, to a sensational lawsuit — will not go to trial. For an undisclosed amount, NBC, which runs the “Predator” series as part of its “Dateline NBC” newsmagazine series, has settled with the family of a Texas prosecutor, Louis William Conradt Jr., who shot and killed himself when the NBC production crew, accompanied by a SWAT team, went to Conradt’s house last November to arrest him. News of the settlement was first reported by the L.A. Times.

Since 2004, the TV program, produced by investigative reporter Chris Hansen (pictured), has worked with local police departments and an online watchdog group called Perverted Justice that provides “decoys” — adults who pose as teenage boys — to lure suspected pedophiles to so-called sting houses. Conradt, a five-term district attorney, had been an assistant prosecutor when he allegedly contacted a decoy who’d been posing as a 13 year-old boy. Using this info, police obtained search and arrest warrants for Conradt, and went to his home, with Hansen and camera crew in tow. Members of the SWAT team barged into the house and reportedly saw Conradt step into a room and say, “I’m not going to hurt anyone.” He then shot himself with a handgun. On camera, a police officer reported this to Hansen, and then allegedly said, “That’ll make good TV.”

Condradt’s sister sued NBC in the SDNY for $100 million, claiming, among other things, intentional infliction of emotional distress. NBC argued that it owed no duty to protect Conradt from killing himself and that its alleged conduct was not “extreme and dangerous” so as to meet the standard under Texas law for IIED. But in February, Judge Denny Chin rejected NBC’s motion to dismiss. He wrote that, if the allegations are proved true, a jury could find that “NBC crossed the line from responsible journalism to irresponsible and reckless intrusion into law enforcement.” (Here’s Chin’s denial of the 12(b)(6))

The Conradt family was rep’d by Bruce Baron, of Baron Associates in Brooklyn. NBC was rep’d by NBC in-house media lawyer Hillary Lane (formerly of counsel at Kaye Scholer and Clifford Chance); and Amanda Leith and Lee Levine of Levine Sullivan Koch & Schulz.

Photo: AP

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on June 26, 2008 (boomark / email).