Garden Grove : Woman Sues BBC, Says She Was Blackmailed
A Garden Grove women filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the British Broadcasting Co. Friday, claiming two reporters blackmailed her into saying on television that she had lied on a witness stand.
Anne Fitzpatrick, 31, alleged in the suit filed in Orange County Superior Court that the two BBC reporters threatened to embarrass her by exposing a lesbian relationship and getting authorities of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service to deport her if she did not cooperate.
Reporters Peter Hill and Martin Young worked for the widely acclaimed “Rough Justice” television series, which exposed miscarriages of justice.
Each was suspended by the BBC in January for using “unjustified threats” to obtain the interview with Fitzpatrick.
The case caused a scandal in England. There, Fitzpatrick had testified against a man who had burglarized her apartment. He had gone to prison. Then, she alleges, the BBC reporters told her to say in their taping that she had lied on the stand and had sent an innocent man to prison. If she refused, the suit alleges, they threatened to make public her homosexuality.
A spokesman at BBC offices in New York could not be reached for comment.
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