NBC’s ‘Predator’ Is Sued Over Man Who Shot Himself

In the “Dateline NBC: To Catch A Predator” show, men accused of having explicit online chats with adults playing underage girls go to a house to meet them, where TV cameras, host Chris Hansen, and police await.Louis William Contradt Jr., of Terrell, Texas, a Dallas suburb, was one of those men. Except he didn’t show up to the house. But that didn’t stop the TV producers and police from showing up at his; as officers knocked on his door and a camera crew waited in the street, Conradt shot himself.His sister, Patricia Conradt, sued NBC Universal Inc. in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Monday for $105 million, accusing it of taking over police duties and then failing to protect her brother.In the lawsuit, Patricia Conradt accused NBC Universal of engaging in a pattern of racketeering activity by bribing police across the country to let it film encounters with suspects whom they lures to a home where it has set up cameras.She said in the lawsuit NBC “steam-rolled” police to arrest her brother, also known as Bill, after telling police he failed to show up at a sting operation 35 miles away. She said her brother was unable to defend himself when police, NBC employees, and associates swarmed his yard, creating a relationship between NBC and her brother similar to the relationship a prison has with an inmate.“The suicide was reasonably foreseeable,” her lawsuit said. “At this time, the defendant wore the robe of a state official, and Bill wore the shackles of a detainee. Having trespassed and invaded upon Bill’s property to broadcast a spectacle to millions, the defendant took no more steps toward protecting him than are received by a gladiator or bull.”The lawsuit said Conradt Jr., an assistant prosecutor for Rockwall County, shot himself after he was accused of engaging in a sexually explicit online chat with an adult posing as a 13-year-old boy. It said a police officer at the scene of the shooting told a “Dateline” producer: “That’ll make good TV.”Conradt Jr. became a target in a program that combined with the activist group Perverted Justice to set up shop for four days last November in a two-story home in neighboring Collin County, where 24 men were arrested after being accused of arranging to meet boys or girls there.Conradt Jr., 57, was among several people who were accused of contacting Perverted Justice decoys online but never showed up at the house.A spokeswoman for NBC Universal, Jenny Tartikoff, said: “We have not yet received the lawsuit, but we plan to defend ourselves vigorously as we believe the claims in the suit to be completely without merit.”In the lawsuit, Patricia Conradt said her brother was a “nice, quiet, soft-spoken, hardworking, methodical, thorough, and intelligent individual” who had worked for 20 years as Kaufman County’s district attorney before giving up the job five years ago.

NBC’s ‘Predator’ Is Sued Over Man Who Shot Himself

NBC’s ‘Predator’ Is Sued Over Man Who Shot Himself

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