Irvine Attendant on Simpson Flight Sues ABC Over Privacy

An American Airlines flight attendant who was on the jetliner that O.J. Simpson took to Chicago the night his former wife and her friend were slain sued ABC on Monday, contending a TV producer invaded her privacy by secretly videotaping her at her Irvine home.

Beverly DeTeresa contends she never gave “Day One” producer Anthony Radziwell permission to make a video or audio tape of their conversation when he went to her condominium last June 19 to ask her to appear on the next day’s show.

Radziwell had wanted DeTeresa to discuss Simpson’s conduct on his June 12 flight to Chicago, according to a suit filed in Los Angeles federal court.

According to the suit, DeTeresa told Radziwell she would think about appearing, but was essentially uninterested because “she had no desire to be on TV, that it was nobody’s business, that [her opinion] was irrelevant to what happened, that she did not want the case to be tried in the media if she was going to be a witness, and that she was worried about repercussions with her job.”

American Airlines bars its attendants from talking about its passengers.

The following day, Radziwell called her, disclosed the taping and said that, although “Day One” probably could not use the audio, it intended to use the video with subtitles, unless she appeared, according to the suit.

“DeTeresa declined and was stunned to have learned that her privacy had so been invaded,” the suit says.

Portions of the video, but not the audio, were used on the June 20 edition of the news magazine show, according to the suit.

“It was journalistic extortion,” said DeTeresa’s Los Angeles attorney, Neville Johnson. “This is what happens in a media frenzy. Some journalists go overboard.”

No one at the American Broadcasting Co. was available for comment. DeTeresa declined comment about the lawsuit.

DeTeresa is seeking unspecified damages, a public apology from ABC on “Day One” or a similar program, and an injunction against the network to prevent it from using hidden cameras in the state without warning people who are to be taped.

“Otherwise, citizens of California are going to have to fear that they are being taped by a hidden camera every time they hereafter open their front door,” the suit says.