Sister of child predator sues NBC over suicide. Wants 105 million dollars.

The sister of a Rockwall County prosecutor who committed suicide after police busted into his home during a sex predator sting filed a $105 million federal lawsuit against NBC on Monday, according to court records.

The lawsuit said the circumstances around Mr. Conradt's arrest and his status in the legal community made his suicide "reasonably foreseeable." During his attempted arrest, his street was blocked off, cameras were outside the house, and officers were carrying cameras.

Jenny Tartikoff, a Dateline spokeswoman, said the network has not yet received the lawsuit, which was filed late Monday in the U.S. Southern District Court of New York, where the network's offices are based.

Ms. Tartikoff said she could not comment about details due to the pending litigation, but the network plans to defend itself "vigorously as we believe the claims in the suit to be completely without merit."



http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/072407dnmetdatelinesting.2a043ba.html

a rather prominent citizen in our town, who happened to live two doors down, also committed suicide but did it before the expected arrest and inevitable publicity for the same crime. To say I feel terrible about it would be to lie, but I do feel... conflicted.

I do, and yet there is something vaguely disturbing about this show. While it may not meet the legal definition of "entrapment" there is something a bit creepy about a TV network getting involved in law enforcement for what appears to be simply pandering.

I wonder also about the conviction rate resulting from the arrests made on the show. It seems to me that it would be very simple for a defense attorney to get one of these cases thrown out of court.

I also wonder what would have happened if the suspect in this case would have trained his weapon on Chris Hansen and the MSNBC camer crew coming to film him.

The whole concept seems sorta sensationalistic. Iquit watching awhile back

The show reeks of sensationalism and voyerism. I tried once and it made me feel queasy inside. It is disturbing and NBC has probably made a ton of money off it.

When I see "saviors" setting up stings like this, I can't help but think that many of the stingers are closeted or not so closeted predators themselves.
Sort of like the Family Values Republicans who turn out to be adulterers, clients of prostitutes, and child/adolescent predators themselves.
I believe pychologists call it projection.

I would like to see the transcripts to find out what the decoys said and how persistent they had to be before their targets agreed to a meeting; and would like to know if the media and the stingers are actually hoping to profit from suicides ---especially since one of the media execs said the sister was disgustingly trying to profit from her brother's suicide by filing the lawsuit. Maybe that is what the media exec is trying to do-trying to profit from suicides.

I would think that if the decoys were not persistently pressuring their targets to set up a meeting, they may be preventing crimes; but if they have to apply inordinate pressure they may be creating crimes. It reminds me a little of the movie, Network.

It's easy for people to say they despise predators or despise serial killers; it's a lot harder to actually figure out how to successfully prevent these crimes. I don't think that the show producers even try to measure whether they are preventing crimes, for example, by scaring certain viewers into not acting on criminal impulses.

I've thought more about the serial killer issue than these other crimes, and I know that many of these murders are truly hideous. Yet I have never seen any evidence of serious ongoing attempts to prevent them.

The media and the public seem to be fascinated by them, deplore them, call the killers monsters, and cheers their executions,,,,,,,,and then forget about serial killers until the next particularly sensational case-which might capture the attention of the media- happens.

Aargh, it is all so depressing.

I certainly have little mercy for child molesters, but I agree, it's nothing but a cheap ratings grab for a show that's way long in the tooth.

It was an old, old "adult western" run for my social studies class in the late 60's. A bunch of cowboys have no trouble lynching a guy - until he turned out to be innocent.

In this case, of course, it wasn't the law lynching this man, or driving him to suicide. It was an "investigative reporter" who, in the tradition of Geraldo and Jenny Jones, wanted to embarass and humiliate this guy on national television. It doesn't matter if it was conducted with the cooperation of police. Being arrested is shameful, and being arrested on TV is worse.

I realize that child abuse is a hot-button topic, and that anyone found guilty of the crime deserves imprisonment and maybe treatment. But does that mean to some of the posters here that lynching is okay if you're convinced the sumbitch was guilty? That sounds like a particulary Cheneyish way to uphold the law.

ON EDIT: Yes, it would be much more "sensationalistic" if the suspect panicked, pulled a weapon and blew away this bubbleheaded bleached-blonde reporter on the scene. I've seen a local reporter getting a bucket of "water" dumped on him when he tried to harangue someone in legal trouble at his front door. At least the reporter claimed the liquid he was soaked with was water. And although the news organization that buries its reporter will moan and complain, why should they, when they're insisting on being unauthorized public enforcers of morality?

Unless an offender has committed an act so violent that he/she is sentenced to life without parole, these folks are going to be right back in the community in time. So why "maybe" treatment?

It seems to me that science-based treatment should be a must and not a maybe.

I like this show. As someone who was victimized, it's very empowering to see someone
stand up to these men. They need help. If the legal system is the only way to force
the issue, then so be it.

The sister is doing it for the money.

...men who's desires are perfectly normal and biologically legitimate.

The crime of wanting to have sex with a teen, is very much a social creation of only the past few decades.

The behaviour might not be desired/socially acceptable, but there is absolutely nothing biologically or mentally abnormal about it.

Biologically men are programmed to find girls in their teens through to their early 20's to be the most sexually attractive. And conversely girls/women are programmed to find men of an age to have proven themselves successful (and therefore a likely good provider) roughly 30 (and even into middle age, a sign of a really good survivor in a preindustrial society) sexually attractive.

The problem is that "biological imperatives" which make a great deal of sense in a hunter gatherer or even agrarian society can be counterproductive in a post-industrial one. However, while social attitudes/values have changes, there has been not nearly enough time for those changes to reflect themselves in our genetic heritage.


There is no arguing that the behaviour of the people targeted by these programs is acceptable/allowable. But for the most part the men targeted are not the figures of ineffable evil they are painted to be. Opportunistic self serving prick - definitely; Manipulative bastard - sometimes; and general, all round sad git - quite probably; Propensity to violence and uncontrollable behaviour - much the same as anyone else. Pick the right "appetite" and offer an opportunity to "feed" it and most people can be "persuaded" to go for it.

I'd lay fair odds that most of the men caught by these stings would never have proven harmful if they hadn't been offered "victims" who "wanted" to be "convinced". I'd say in the normal course of things the response to a lot of their advances is "'eff off you old perv!" and in most of the remaining cases there's a lot of giggling going on that the bloke is totally unaware of.

Yes there are real predators out there, predators who pose a serious threat to their targets. However, I suspect that most of these are a great deal more cagey in their online behaviour, and sadly they are far more likely to be caught after the fact, than by any sting operation.


The primary goal of programs like this are nothing but ratings, attention grabbing material to wrap around lucrative ad spots. The major effects are to educate the ones we really have to worry about on how to better cover their arses and destroy the lives, mostly of people who otherwise would have led seedy, but essentially benign, alter-lives in an online fantasy world.

Ultimately these programs do little towards making our kids safer and arguably compromise safety in at least some instances.

... but I think it is useful.

First of all, yes, NBC is making a bucket of money off of these semi-professional/professional stings, but I am not opposed to corp making money. Sometimes I think that is the main reason people loathe this show. If Michael Moore had done something like this he would be praised for his journalism at DU.

The Perverted Justice format is no where near entrapment. The men contact the ostensible young girls and engage them in conversation. The ostensible young girls declare their ages, often 13 - 15, and do not initiate sexual topics. If it doesn't turn sexual, then nothing happens.

The thing I like about the show is that it shows a large number and a wide variety of people who boldly enter houses to make proximate contact with minors after setting a meeting. We often criticize mainstream media for only showing poor persons of color getting busted for crimes, but this show shows professional white men as well as others getting caught. It surprises and shocks people that such "average, normal" people are the ones online setting up illicit sexual meetings with minors. For the savvy, its not news, but for many they need to see it on TV to believe.

One responder to this thread said its normal attraction, and I won't argue with that, but then again they are not getting busted for feelings. Anger is a feeling, desperation or envy are feelings, but conspiring to hurt someone or steal from someone can still be a legitimate crime.