The sister of a Rockwall County, Texas, 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, reports the Dallas Morning News. Patricia Conradt, whose brother had been a Kaufman County district attorney, says that Dateline NBC sought to trap government officials using decoys to troll the Internet pretending to be minors. The decoys, members of the Internet watchdog group Perverted Justice, looked for men willing to meet children for sex and partnered with local police agencies to make arrests.
The action is aired on the Dateline NBC show To Catch a Predator. Conradt said the show host and producers are more interested in “sensationalizing and dramatizing the Predator series for profit than in news reporting,” court records said. The local district attorney has declined to prosecute more than 20 cases that were part of a four-day sting last year that drew men to a house in Murphy, where police and cameras were waiting. Louis “Bill” Conradt Jr., who did not go to the Murphy sting house, shot himself in the head after police and other North Texas officers forced their way into his Terrell home in November. NBC was outside with cameras. The lawsuit alleges that after Conradt shot himself, a police officer said to a Dateline producer, “That’ll make good TV.”