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The family of Louis Conradt Jr. filed a $105 million lawsuit last year against NBC, which ran the “Predator” episode as part of its “Dateline NBC” news magazine series. The network agreed to pay the family an undisclosed amount…
Conradt, an assistant district attorney in Rockwall County, Texas, had reportedly sent sexually explicit messages to a person he believed was underage. It turned out that the other person was a volunteer for Perverted Justice, an activist group that helps set up stings to catch child sexual predators. The group was a paid consultant for NBC in the “Predator” series.
The volunteer posing as a child arranged to meet with Conradt in November 2006, as part of a four-day sting in Texas facilitated by a local police department. The sting led to 25 arrests, but Conradt did not show up at the bait house, so the local police, encouraged by NBC (according to the lawsuit), decided to arrest him at his home. As police officers and camera crews entered the home, Conradt shot himself in the head.Last winter, when the ABC news magazine “20/20″ investigated the “Predator” sting, Walter Weiss, a former detective with the police department that partnered with “Dateline,” said: “I understand he took his own life, but I have a feeling that he took his own life when he looked out the door and saw there was a bunch of television cameras outside.”
There has always been an element of entrapment about these stings. Often the case. When the sting expands to include “public interest” groups and TV crews – questioning of such tactics should be heightened, not ignored.
OK—-“an element of entrapment”===what would that be exactly?
Your point, once made will likely be no more entrapment than is keeping money in a bank.
In the main, the problem can be that entrapment does in fact happen on facts 99% identical to when entrapment does not happen.
Its a matter of degree sometimes when making a crime possible becomes “overcoming the natural will of a person” to commit the crime. Most often, the arrest for attempted whatever does not come anywhere near entrapment.
I’m not saying that pedophilia and the like is acceptable, but I think it’s completely wrong that they get these people and make a national TV show over it.
I’ve seen this show a time or two. I think that if you actually show up to the bait house, then you were there with intent. My jury is still out on how I feel about showing up at house of the man with television cameras and and police to arrest him for an action he may have never made. I think the media oversteps their bounds of privacy in the name of free speech constantly, as such is this incident.
To argue the entrapment case, the actual chat records would need to be reviewed. The frequency of requests for a real life meeting would allow investigators to determine if entrapment was used.
NBC should be ashamed for making a show and spectacle out of this. There are more civil ways of profitably entertaining the public. I don’t care what crime the trap is for.
When you’re through pontificating, #1 – have you ever checked out the show – or examined this case where the dude didn’t take the bait?
Entrapment. HA.
I have seen several of those episodes. The “predators” were so exuberant at the thought of underage sex that some would do about anything asked of them. Men would show up bringing alcohol and rubbers and some even strip at the door. In some cases guys were driving several hours for the expected tryst.
These men initiated the contacts and put forth the effort to make the meetings happen. The only traps these men fell into were there own created by their own bad thinking and a screwed-up morality.
When these adults are caught some profess innocence and many express regret over there actions. HAH. It is not like this was some impulse buy at the supermarket. They had time to think about there actions and then acted. Many of them had even considered that they might be stepping into a trap. Along with the expressed regret/sorry over their actions clearly implies that they knew what they were doing and that it was considered by society as wrong not to mention illegal. Yet they did it anyway. There morality is obviously not within societies accepted norms. I think these “predators” got what they deserved.
On the other hand I can agree that sting operations should be questioned and examined. We do not want to arrest those have been enticed to commit violations of the law but those who willingly and actively violate the law. Law enforcement can only act when the law has been broken.
This implies that law enforcement is only reactive not proactive. Of course how many of use have seen or heard in association with law enforcement “To Protect and serve”. How can they can they provide protection if all they can do is react to crimes? They need therefore to be proactive. And a sting is a proactive measure to capture those who would otherwise commit a crime but might not get caught.
That said, from what was seen on the “Predator” sting series these predators were clearly taking a very active participation in the the sting operations. They initiated the contacts as well as suggesting the sexual activity. The activist group were given and operated within clear boundaries. Essential they participated in a conversation but were not to initiate or illicit any illegal activities. From what they showed on tv these guys were they initiators of the sexually illicit activities. After that they were asked to perform some task like buy alcohol or strip naked at the door. These follow-up acts proved that they had the intent to act on their desires. In other words they were willing to do just about anything including violate the law in order to violate a minor.
As for the Conradt, first to his family let express my condolences.
Being an attorney he could have fought the arrest and even argued entrapment. But instead he choose to end his life. We can only infer by these actions that he either felt he was innocent and would be unjustly persecuted or that he knew he was guilty and felt his life was over. A truly innocent person would have fought for his innocence even at the cost of his reputation, job, etc.
#5–Moss==a fair question as at least Conradt didn’t drive to the girls house. But just read #6 for a better response than I could have given. The police went to Conradt’s house because he committed several other crimes while stopping short of the one he did not commit.
Conradt had his devils obviously. I feel sympathy for him as I do for anyone that can’t make sense of their lives which is all of us from time to time? When Napster was going strong I met a young girl on-line while downloading “Rubber Ducky” by the Muppets. She was 12 and liked my taste in music. She put me on her “friends” list. She asked one day why I never started conversations with her. I said it was not proper as I was too old for her but I liked her taste in music, and thought it proper to respond but never initiated. That “relationship” ended with Napster. Somehow I never got around to describing what sex acts I enjoyed and I never did send her that picture of my penis I keep over the fireplace.
Do child rapists vary in degree of culpability? Yes indeedy. Are they “innocents” who should not be stung? No way. If you have a proclivity to commit a crime, and take steps towards it, you deserved to be caught and stopped. Innocence needs to be protected and by that I mean the kiddies along with their families and friends.
Maybe I’ve been a geek too long; but, the “stunt” we’re discussing – not the crime – isn’t anything more than legalized phishing.
Y’all obviously presume anyone snookered must be guilty of something – no different than the cretins who dismiss all civil liberties on grounds of fighting terrorism. “If you’re not plotting you shouldn’t worry about eavesdropping.
The second part of your self-delusion is that the cops are always in the right. A department that joins with a civilian group that may or may not be vigilantes – that first and foremost latches onto TV coverage of their heroism – doesn’t impress as considering civilian rights as prime.
I think Eid offered the tactic up for discussion as after the fact of NBC rolling over on a case their legal beagles thought they couldn’t win in court. On the topic, I still am just as suspicious of any police raid that includes a media component.
Looking for love?
http://www.Hot_twelve_yearoldgirl.gov
Tee hee.
#6, Jay,
Being an attorney he could have fought the arrest and even argued entrapment. …
Wrong.
Once a professional such as a lawyer is charged criminally with a child sex crime, he has no life. Yes, he could have fought. He wouldn’t have had a job to support himself with though.
Even if he won his case, the court wouldn’t have found him innocent. They can only find him Not Guilty. That doesn’t mean he didn’t do anything, it only means there isn’t enough evidence to fry him. Small minds would continue to persecute him for the rest of his life. Example: O.J. Simpson was also found Not Guilty.
The Prosecutor wouldn’t hire him back. Who running for election wants it to be known they have a child molester on staff? What law firm is going to hire a child molester? Who would hire an attorney privately with a reputation like that.
The guy’s life was over the minute he looked out the window and saw the cameras.
What makes this case entrapment, is that the intended victim is the one coercing the suspected criminal to commit the crime. If the victim were really under the age of majority or the age of consent (14 where I am, how old are the girls supposed to be on this show?) that would of course still be a crime. If a third party had tried to convince the person to go rape a minor, that of course is a crime. But an adult posing as a teenager and not just chatting, but actually trying to get the suspect to come hither… I don’t know. I think that it is wrong to entrap people in that manner. Perhaps there is enough evidence to put the alleged paedophiles on trial, but I think the people who make this show should be charged as well.
#6- Testify my friend! Children are NOT to be seen as sexual beings! The perp did everyone a favor.
Another typical American reality show serving up crap.. can’t believe people even watch this stuff.. pure sensationalism.. a money maker for the networks is all it is.. If they really cared, instead of having the guy arrested, why not offer up some free counseling etc?
@ rustynail
COUNSELING!?! WTF? Pedophiles are fucking sick. Not the kind of sick a shrink can fix. They are repeat offenders who harm children EVERY time they offend.
Counseling should be extended to their victims.
Chemical castration barely works. IMO, the only way to stop ’em (short of killing them) is to cut off their dick. Death is barely good enough punishment.
Signed,
the father of 4 girls (who would kill the bastard before he ever made it to court)
Damn reality television.
The only thing surprising is that more people haven’t killed themselves or others.
Remember this murder after some cruel show on the Jenny Jones show?
http://tinyurl.com/4gl2tk
These reality TV show producers are scum.
He didn’t take the bait. Doesn’t matter if he was innocent or not in a legal sense his life was ruined as well as the life of his family. Bang was the easy way out.
To CountSmackula: If your kid is the kind of girl that agrees to met some guy she met on line for the purpose of having sex she is most likely past purberty and way, way past the time she needed a lot of counseling. You’ve already lost the war. If it isn’t one guy it’s going to be another. If you cared about the kid your life is bleep.
Let me put it this way. The only case like this I got to watch on the tube there is no way in hades a _nice_ girl was going to talk to this guy for six seconds. He could not have been clearer about what he was. If she did and still showed up she may have been under age but she was hot to trot and looking for a good time.
I’m all for protecting the innocent and reported one case of what I think was an on line preditor flying under false colors but trying to keep the sick perverts sorted out by age and toeing the line is no longer high on my list of things to do. Young and old they simply see you as getting in the way of their fun.
You see a sick adult trying to have sex with a teen, guilty.
The teens that will show up to meet some of these guys are trying to trade sex for booze, cash, drugs and a good time. They are the same kind of people. Warehouse them if it makes you feel good. You aren’t going to make them see the world through your eyes.
Let me put it this way many Americans don’t think they descended from apes and I agree. Their behavior is more consistant with them being apes.
You have fun now and may God bless and keep you.
“Reality” ???
None of these shows have any reality in them.
They are all as staged and choreographed as a Broadway musical, as unreal as sugar-plum fairies in the garden and as unnatural as Kraft-Ebbing’s Psychopathia Sexualis (which I think is the inspiration/bible for many, if not most, TV writers today).
These “predator sting” shows in particular seem to have some kind of weird prurient edge to them. Something about them is deeply disturbing. I hate it when I even accidentally watch a few seconds of them.
Technically the people on the show aren’t pedophiles, they are hebephiles, or people who are attracted to adolescent early teens.
Pedophiles like preteens and if you have ever watched the show, that trap girl is hardly a preteen.
My wife is a hotty, when she saw this she felt bad for most of the geeky guys trying to get laid… from her perspective it looked kind of shitty.
if your 16 year old is aranging a stranger to come to the house and fuck… your daughter is a “fucking whore” what are you going to do about it?
Anyhow, this is my favorite episope of the whole sortid mess… enjoy
http://preview.tinyurl.com/43vsn3
#20, Motoman,
I don’t really disagree with you, BUT, if a 16 y/o girl is a whore for following her hormonal urges, what does that make a 16 y/o boy also following his hormonal urges? Or 18 y/os? Or 14 y/os?
If it is wrong for a female to have sex, why isn’t it also wrong for a male to have sex?