Ex-teen prostitute sues CBS over ‘48 Hours’ segments

Sunday, Jan. 10, 1999 | 4:41 a.m.

In her Clark District Court lawsuit, the 15-year-old local girl claims the show manipulated her into telling her story and did virtually nothing to shield her identity.

The girl "has been humiliated, embarrassed, and subjected to rumors, innuendo, statements, remarks, obscenities and other such trauma" as a result, the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit names CBS, a "48 Hours" producer and Las Vegas police detective Michael Maines as defendants. The girl is only identified in the lawsuit as "Jane Roe."

CBS officials refused to comment because they had not yet been served with the lawsuit.

The girl was the focus of a December 1997 "Innocence Lost" segment, which described how Las Vegas police and social service providers fight teen prostitution.

Appearing under the assumed name of "Susan," she described how she could earn $800 a night and how her pimp promised her an apartment of her own.

At the request of police, with camera crews in tow, she called her pimp and asked him to meet her. Police arrested him when he showed up.

The teen's face was blurred above the mouth in most shots, but her whole face was shown in profile and her voice was not noticeably disguised.

The girl and her mother were promised her identity would be protected, according to the lawsuit.

A follow-up story aired in July 1998, and "this time '48 Hours' went so far as to add that Miss Roe was a student at Green Valley High School," the lawsuit says.

The girl initially didn't want to be interviewed, but was talked into it by Maines after she was temporarily allowed out of juvenile hall and plied with candy bars, the lawsuit adds.

Maines could not be reached for comment.

The girl was 14 when she was arrested in October 1997 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on a prostitution charge. The charge was later dismissed, her attorney said.