Prosecutors To Subpoena 'Sun-Times' Reporters

By: Allan Wolper Prosecutors plan to subpoena the two Chicago Sun-Times reporters who gave police a 26 minute-39 second videotape allegedly showing R&B recording star R. Kelly having sex in his Chicago home with an underage girl.

"They [the reporters] can count on it," said Lt. Robert J. Hargesheimer, commander of the special investigations unit in the Chicago police department. "It's important to know who sent the tape. It establishes a chain of evidence."

The decision by the Sun-Times to turn the video over to the police without receiving a subpoena has been controversial. Some journalists (editor's note: including this writer) accused the newspaper of acting like police agents, while others praised them for behaving like concerned citizens.

The Cook County State's Attorney's office, which obtained a 21-count indictment against Kelly based on evidence that alleged was on the video, will decide whether the reporters would be called before a grand jury or asked to testify at Kelly's trial. But they won't talk about it.

"It's an ongoing investigation," said John Gorman, a spokesman for the state's attorney's office. "We don't comment on ongoing investigations."

Jim DeRogatis, the Sun-Times reporter who received a telephone call at his home from a man ordering him to go to his mailbox, has said he does not know who sent him the video. "There was no envelope or note," DeRogatis said previously. "Just a tape."

DeRogatis and Abdon M. Pallasch, employing extensive use of anonymous sources, published on Dec. 21, 2000 a riveting account of Kelly's alleged trysts with underage women. They also used unnamed sources in several other articles about R. Kelly.

Police want the reporters to reveal the names of their sources to see whether any of them had anything to do with producing the video or distributing it. The video, according to police sources, was in circulation two to three months before it was given last Feb. 1 to DeRogatis.

Stephanie "Sparkle" Edwards, the aunt of the young woman that police say was on the video with Kelly, told the two reporters that two men showed her the tape two weeks before it was given to DeRogatis. Police said they would charge anyone involved in the production or distribution of the tape with child pornography.

Both reporters have said they would rather go to jail than identify any of the sources they used to investigate Kelly's alleged sexual activity with juveniles.

Under normal circumstances, the reporters would be able to invoke the protection of the Illinois shield law to protect their sources. But because the Sun-Times voluntarily gave the police the tape, say some lawyers, they may run afoul of the courts.

"Judges in most jurisdictions would say that the reporters had waived their privileges because they cooperated with the police," said Lucy Dahlglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. "The state would say they have a strong argument to make them comply."

Floyd Abrams, the noted First Amendment attorney, said a New Jersey judge once jailed a New York Times reporter for allegedly refusing to cooperate with the courts after voluntarily providing some information to authorities. "I certainly didn't agree with the decision," Abrams recalled of the two-decade-old case that forced M. A. Farber to spend 40 days in a Bergen County jail.

Editor's note: The author of this story previously wrote an opinion piece on the topic for E&P. To read that column, click here:http://www.editorandpublisher.com/editorandpublisher/headlines/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1541598.