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Lawsuit claims CNN's Nancy Grace deceived missing boy's mother

The suit says the TV host misrepresented Melinda Duckett.

ORLANDO - CNN's Nancy Grace used deceit to lure a missing boy's mother into an interview, then publicly humiliated her and drove her to suicide, claims a lawsuit filed Tuesday.

Relatives of Melinda Duckett, mother of the still-missing 2-year-old Trenton Duckett, filed the wrongful-death suit against the talk show host and her network.

Melinda Duckett committed suicide on Sept. 8, a day after taping a segment on Grace's CNN Headline News show in which Grace aggressively questioned Duckett about her whereabouts on Aug. 27 - the day Trenton was reported missing. The network aired the segment after Melinda Duckett's death.

Authorities said last week they think Trenton is still alive and Melinda Duckett is the prime suspect in his disappearance.

Jay Paul Deratany, the attorney representing Melinda Duckett's estate, said Tuesday that Grace encouraged her to appear on her show by saying the goal was to draw public attention to help find Trenton.

"It's not just about the questioning, it's about the misrepresentation with the knowledge that she was emotionally distraught," Deratany said. The attorney said Grace improperly took on the role of a law enforcement officer, and interfered with the police investigation by humiliating the case's primary witness to the point that she killed herself.

CNN Headline News declined to comment on the lawsuit directly. But it issued a statement saying, "We stand by Nancy Grace and fully support her, as we have from the beginning of this matter."

A spokeswoman said Grace has never been sued in a similar situation before.

Deratany said Melinda Duckett's family waited for over two months to file the lawsuit, hoping to get an apology from CNN that hasn't been offered. The continued playing of the show segment, "misrepresentation of Melinda's character," and the distress caused to the family led it to file the suit in Lake County Circuit Court for unspecified damages, Deratany said.

Last week, authorities said an account from an employee at a Wendy's restaurant in Marion County had led them to investigate the case assuming that Trenton was still alive.

Authorities said they believed there was a conspiracy between Melinda and another party in which Melinda handed off Trenton to keep the boy away from his father, Josh Duckett. Josh Duckett has said from the beginning he believes his son his alive.

[Last modified November 22, 2006, 00:04:33]