OKLAHOMA CITY: AFTER THE BOMB : Blast Survivors Warned About TV Movie Deals : Tragedy: Oklahoma officials urge victims’ families to get legal advice before signing away their rights. Solicitation scams probed by state.

Oklahoma Atty. Gen. Drew Edmondson is cautioning survivors of the April 19 federal building bombing and victims’ families to beware of entertainment industry representatives who have come here to solicit legal rights to their stories for movies and books.

“We are warning people to seek legal advice before signing book or movie contracts,” Gerald Adams, a spokesman for Edmondson, said Monday.

The warning comes amid reports that phony telemarketing relief organizations are preying on would-be good Samaritans by seeking financial donations. Edmondson’s office has opened a criminal investigation of such schemes.

“People have legal rights, which I think should be carefully guarded, especially right now when their lives have been turned upside down,” Edmondson said.

Efforts to develop movies based on the Oklahoma City bombing should come as no surprise. Films ripped from the headlines and rushed into production have long been a staple of the broadcast TV networks because they generally get high ratings.

Edmondson and Marvin C. Emerson, executive director of the Oklahoma State Bar Assn., said that more than 200 attorneys are volunteering to provide free advice on a wide range of matters to those whose lives have been disrupted by the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, the worst domestic terrorist attack in U.S. history.

In one poignant manifestation of the tragedy’s magnitude, many seekers of legal advice are those needing help with probate and child guardianship matters, Emerson said Monday. Many of the survivors are children who have lost parents in the blast.

“We will take care of the demand, whatever it is,” Emerson said. The state bar association has about 10,500 practicing members.

Referring to the spate of solicitations now being reported by Oklahoma City residents, Edmondson said: “It is unspeakable that anyone would try to capitalize on this tragedy, but some apparently are. Oklahomans are especially vulnerable right now to pleas for help and, in one sense, that speaks well of our people.

“But we need to make sure that our contributions are going to legitimate agencies and not to the con artists who are trying to use this disaster to line their own pockets.”

Edmondson’s concern about entertainment industry representatives who may be wooing people for their personal stories is based on several complaints from victims’ families. Such Hollywood interest in mass tragedies is consistent with past industry practices.

NBC began developing a film based on the Waco, Tex., incident two years ago while members of the Branch Davidian cult were still holed up inside their compound. And NBC broadcast “Terror in the Towers,” a TV movie based on the World Trade Center bombing in New York City, just three months after the incident.

But on Friday, officials at ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox reported no plans for TV movie based on the Oklahoma City bombing.

A source at CBS, however, confirmed that the network was receiving pitches from TV producers.

Lionel Chetwynd, who wrote “The Heroes of Desert Storm,” a docudrama based on the Gulf War that ABC broadcast three months after the conflict ended, said he also has received queries.

But Chetwynd said that he does not believe one will be made.

Chen reported from Oklahoma City, Cerone from Los Angeles.