To Catch A Predator Host Chris Hansen Has A Warrant Out For His Arrest
Chris Hansen is a wanted man.
This article is more than 2 years old
Chris Hansen, best known for the reality television series To Catch A Predator, has built his status as a TV journalist investigating crimes and cases throughout his career. But he has had his own brushes with the law which now includes a recently issued court warrant for his arrest after he failed to appear in court in Michigan on Thursday.
As reported by NBC 25, authorities have shared that the warrant was issued on Thursday in Michigan as Chris Hansen ignored a subpoena and failed to appear in a Shiawassee County courtroom to testify about a sting operation that was conducted in October 2020. He had assisted the police in the sting operation that resulted in the arrest of three men who were allegedly seeking underage girls for sex.
Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson had shared that the police department worked with Chris Hansen to “reignite the awareness” around such crimes around the nation. Shiawassee County Sheriff Brian BeGole had disclosed that the police officials pretended to be underage girls online to trick predators and catch them. They communicated with more than 170 people, of which three took the conversation forward and attempted to fix meetings. These men, aged 18, 32, and 45, arrived at the Owosso Hotel in Detroit in hopes of meeting and having sex with minor girls but found themselves arrested for their crime.
Shiawassee County Prosecuting Attorney Scott Koerner has shared that as Chris Hansen had helped the authorities in setting up the sting operation, he was supposed to testify and present records about it. And as he failed to appear in the court, a bench warrant has been issued for his arrest.
In an Instagram post, on the day he was supposed to testify, Chris Hansen explained that it is all a misunderstanding. The defense lawyers for one of the accused, Michael Lott, had asked for a video from the investigation. Though there was a “miscommunication about a hearing,” he has assured that the problem is being sorted out.
This is not the first time that Chris Hansen has been on the wrong side of the law. As reported by TMZ, in 2019, Hansen found himself charged with larceny for allegedly bouncing checks for about $13,000 worth of promotional materials. He was soon arrested after he turned himself in to the police on January 14, 2019,
Chris Hansen has worked with NBC from 1981 to 2013, with the Dateline NBC segment, To Catch A Predator, being the most prominent and popular show he has hosted to date. The show revolved around catching sex predators online by staging a sting operation where adult women posed as minors to trap them and to eventually get them arrested. Hansen has also hosted other crime investigation oriented shows like Killer Instinct on Investigation Discovery, Crime Watch Daily, Have a Set With Chris Hansen, etc and is also on board as the executive producer for the upcoming Discovery+ show, Unseamly: The Investigation of Peter Nygard, based on famous fashion executive Peter Nygard‘s downfall after his arrest in 2020.
