Suit against KHOU reporter dismissed

A Texas Appeals Court dismissed a lawsuit against Belo-owned KHOU-TV Houston and reporter Dan Lauck, which contended that Lauck helped keep a child he'd interviewed with her mother in 1997 from her father during a custody dispute.

The court found that although he did not notify authorities of the girl's whereabouts, he had in no way aided in the abduction. Lauck told Broadcasting & Cable that while the interview, for a story on custody fights, was conditional on his silence as to their whereabouts, "if I thought the child was in any way being abused, it would have been a completely different ballgame. I have a daughter the same age." - Dan Trigoboff