FCC Sets Formal Hearing Over KROQ Hoax

The Federal Communications Commission has subpoenaed several employees at KROQ-FM (106.7) to testify this month at a hearing into a murder confession hoax concocted by three deejays.

The regulatory agency issued a formal hearing order Wednesday, explaining that the information collected thus far in an informal investigation “raises substantial questions of fact” about station owner Infinity Broadcasting Corp.’s “activities and control as they relate to the broadcast, the response and the licensee’s exercise of control over KROQ-FM’s operations.”

The administrative hearing, which will be held on July 30 in Los Angeles, is similar to a grand jury proceeding and not open to the public, said Charles Kelley, chief of the FCC’s enforcement division. The commission began an informal investigation of the hoax in April, shortly after the scam was disclosed. The decision to conduct a formal inquiry--which will involve testimony under oath and the submission of papers, correspondence, memoranda and other records as evidence--was reached this week in an effort to explore thoroughly whether KROQ management was involved in the hoax or learned of it afterward and didn’t tell authorities, he said.

“All this is is a way of getting evidence under oath from people and being able to compel it, as opposed to just getting what they’re willing to say to us over a telephone,” Kelley said.

The commission is investigating how three deejays--Kevin Ryder, Gene (Bean) Baxter and Doug (the Slug) Roberts--teamed up in June, 1990, to broadcast a call on Ryder and Baxter’s morning show from a man who purportedly confessed to killing his girlfriend. The “anonymous” caller was Roberts, then a deejay in Mesa, Ariz., who now works at KROQ.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Dept. spent 10 months investigating the confession, which was broadcast nationally on the “Unsolved Mysteries” television show and generated some 400 telephone “leads” to the crime. Acting on a tip, a sheriff’s detective finally determined that it had been a hoax.

When the truth was disclosed publicly last April, the deejays apologized on the air, as did station general manager Trip Reeb. The three deejays were suspended for five days without pay and Infinity Broadcasting Corp. ordered them to reimburse the Sheriff’s Department for the $12,170 spent on the investigation and to perform 149 hours of community service.

“Infinity conducted a thorough investigation and concluded there was no management involvement in the murder hoax,” Dennis Corbett, an attorney for the company, said Wednesday. “The FCC wants to conduct its own investigation and Infinity has every reason to believe the results will be consistent with what we found.”

Possible penalties resulting from the FCC probe include issuing an admonition, a fine of up to $25,000 and revoking the station’s license.