Teacher Smackdown

Louis William Conradt Jr.’s shot and killed himself when TV producers from NBC’s Predator show and police showed up at his door. Conradt Jr., 57, an assistant county prosecutor, had been engaging in a sexually explicit online chat with an adult posing as a 13-year-old boy.

Now his sister, Patricia Conradt, is suing NBC Universal Inc. for $105 million.

In the lawsuit, Patricia accusing NBC of taking over police duties and then failing to protect her brother. She also claims that NBC engages in a pattern of racketeering activity by bribing police across the country to let it film encounters with suspects.

The lawsuit claims that NBC also offered bribes to officials in Greenville, Ohio; Fort Myers and Flagler Beach, Fla.; and Riverside County, Petaluma, and Long Beach, Calif. In exchange, the lawsuit contended, officials kept the busts secret from city officials. The officials in most of these areas denied receiving anything for letting NBC film the busts.

Even more interesting is what happened to the other men who were caught during the Predator sting in Texas. Two dozen were arrested, but the DA didn’t prosecute saying that the cases were tainted by the involvement of amateurs - the folks from Perverted Justice.

The Texas DA claims to lack jurisdiction because neither the suspects nor decoys were in his county during the online chats, and neither police nor NBC could guarantee the chat logs were authentic and complete.

Also, the city manager was fired for approving the arrangement without telling the mayor or the city council. However, in most places it’s up to the police chief and the sherrif to make the final decision. Tom Freeman, the Riverside County sheriff’s chief of media information said:

“I felt this is something that would be a benefit to our community … in the sense that it would send a strong message to people viewing the program that Riverside, California, is very, very proactive … in the pursuit of sex offenders.”

I can only imagine the pain of someone who loses a sibling to suicide. But to blame NBC and law enforcement for his death - and asking for that much money? Sorry, no way. Louis Conradt knew what he was doing was wrong. As a prosecutor, he knew how illegal it was. But he did it anyway. And he probably did it before to real kids.

If her brother had been caught alive, I doubt he would have paid one penny to any of his victims either.

Click here for Perverted-Justice.com’s take on the lawsuit and the predator.

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Perverted-Justice.com, internet sex predators, To Catch a Predator, NBC Dateline, Louis William Conradt Jr.