Louisiana news anchor falsely accused of preying on minor girl sues competitor
A Louisiana news anchor who resigned shortly before a competitor reported that he had been busted for compromising texts by 'vigilantes targeting men seeking to prey on underage girls' is pursuing a defamation lawsuit after police determined he had actually arranged to meet someone he believed was a young adult woman – then was violently robbed.
Bill Lunn's lawsuit asserts that he and his employers at Shreveport's KTBS news station were in direct competition with their counterparts at KTAL when the latter outlet published a June 2024 report that unduly 'ended his career in broadcast journalism' and provided 'a rare example of actionable … character assassination'.
As the suit puts it, the Emmy-winning Lunn, 59, was single and had logged on to the Tinder dating app 'used by millions of adult Americans' when he received 'interest' from someone who purported to be a 19-year-old woman.
The user 'initiated a sexually explicit exchange' with Lunn over text messages before inviting him to a home – he went over and, after being allowed in by a woman, 'was beaten and robbed of his belongings' by three men identified as Antonio Coleman, Kautario Grigsby and Kameron Kennon, according to the suit filed in Louisiana's state court system.
Lunn says he subsequently fled the home, called police with a neighbor's help, told responding officers what had happened, and allowed them to take his cellphone to aid their investigation. At that point, his suit says, Lunn realized a text message from the woman with whom he thought he was speaking had been edited to read that she was aged 16 – which, if true, would have made his correspondence illegal because she would be a minor.
After investigators took Lunn's statement and allowed him to leave without charging him 'with any crime,' KTAL journalist Dan Jovic asked police whether the KTBS journalist had been caught with a 14-year-old girl and ran from the cops, an officer said in an affidavit cited by the suit. Police told Jovic that an investigation was ongoing, but Lunn had not run from authorities, and there had been no arrests.
Jovic nonetheless interviewed Coleman, Kennon and Grigsby, who claimed that they were collectively 'pretending to be' a 15-year-old girl on the MeetMe app as 'part of their mission to catch men' trying to sexually abuse minors. Jovic and KTAL posted a story about the men and their alleged 'vigilante efforts' using MeetMe, whose minimum age requirement is 13.
Lunn, aware the report was coming and worried it would embarrass his superiors, resigned from KTBS shortly before the piece came out but hoped to return 'once the facts cleared his name', the lawsuit added.
Coleman and Grigsby were later arrested on suspicion of using dating apps to lure 'rich dudes' other than Lunn before beating and robbing the victims, according to the lawsuit and reporting from KTBS. KTBS also reported that Shreveport police had 'cleared Lunn of any wrongdoing, … no charges were filed', and the allegations against him were debunked when investigators found 'altered text messages to make it appear' falsely as if he had done something illegal.
Lunn sued Jovic as well as KTAL's owner Nexstar Media days ahead of the first anniversary of his resignation, demanding damages for what he maintained was defamation, invasion of privacy and infliction of emotional distress, among other grounds. Jovic's wife and co-anchor Jacquelyn Jovic is also named as a defendant after she helped introduce KTAL's interview of Coleman and Grigsby, as the lawsuit notes.
In his lawsuit, Lunn says he 'believes strongly in the newsgathering protections afforded [to] journalists in the United States' whether through the US constitution or in rulings issued by federal and state courts. Yet Lunn's lawsuit says being publicly presented as 'a child predator' when he was 'nothing more than a decent man caught up in a criminal scheme and completely innocent' had prompted him to take KTAL to court, especially after the station refused to correct, retract or clarify the record.
Lunn 'has sustained severe reputational damage', his legal team says in his lawsuit. 'It will take years, if not decades, to rehabilitate his personal and professional reputation, if ever.'
Neither Nexstar nor the Jovics had comment Monday about Lunn's lawsuit.
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