NBC to Catch a Settlement

Peacock settles suit brought by family of Texas prosecutor who killed himself in Dateline: Predator sting

The Peacock blinked.

NBC has settled a lawsuit brought by the family of a Texas prosecutor who took his own life after he became the target of a Dateline: To Catch a Predator investigation, an NBC rep confirmed.

"The matter has been amicably resolved to the satisfaction of both parties," network spokeswoman Jenny Tartikoff said in a statement.

Financial details of the settlement were not disclosed. The network has removed several show clips from its website.

The sister of Louis W. Conradt Jr. filed a $105 million suit last year against the network, alleging Dateline producers goaded the government attorney into committing suicide after an episode of its popular Predator series accused him of soliciting sex with a 13-year-old boy over the Internet.

When confronted by police and a Dateline video crew outside his suburban Dallas home in November 2006, Conradt shot himself rather than become the latest "catch" of the highly rated program, which sets up online sting operations and then confronts alleged perps.

The suit raised questions about the candid-camera style methods employed by Predator's producers, its no-nonsense correspondent Chris Hansen and Internet watchdog group Perverted Justice.

The complaint alleged that NBC "steamrolled" local law enforcement to take the 56-year-old assistant county prosecutor into custody after producers failed to lure him to a decoy house in a suburb 35 miles away, where cameras were waiting for him.

It was the ninth such sweep initiated by the newsmagazine, which has accounted for more than two dozen arrests.

Things weren't looking so good for the broadcaster after a federal judge ruled in February that the lawsuit could proceed to trial on claims of intentional infliction of emotional distress and violation of civil rights.

U.S. District Judge Denny Chin wrote in his opinion that NBC had "crossed the line" by putting itself "squarely in the middle of a police operation, pushing the police to engage in tactics that were unnecessary and unwise, solely to generate more dramatic footage for a television show."

In doing so, he said, the network "created a substantial risk of suicide or other harm."

At the time, NBC maintained the suit had no merit.