Journalist Writes About Death Threat Against Her, Why She Quit

Nick Kangadis | November 28, 2016
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When does investigative journalism stop being about journalism and more about ratings?

It stops when your boss wants to follow up on a story after your life has already been legitimately threatened by the subject of an investigative piece.

The story of former investigative journalist Heidi Hemmat fits such a description, and she recently told her story in a blog titled, “Why I Left KDVR and TV News.”

Hemmat was a journalist for Fox 31 [KDVR] in Denver, Colo. She was actually quite an accomplished investigative journalist as she had won six Emmy Awards for her work, and Hemmat had been with KDVR for 15 years.

Hemmat was doing a multiple-part investigative piece on a man who ran an electronics store and was being accused of charging people for repairs they didn’t need and for improperly destroying receipts with customers credit card information on them.

Muhammed Murib was the owner of AAAA TV Electronics Repair and Vacuum in Denver, and Hemmat was investigating Murib’s questionable business practices. Hemmat uncovered that Murib was in fact not properly destroying records with customers’ information on them, and after the report aired Hemmat got a peculiar phone call.

Hemmat wrote:

Shortly after he learned about the charges against him, that were a direct result of me, I got a call from his psychiatrist. She told me he was “homicidal” and was planning to kill me. The psychiatrist thought the threat was so credible, she broke HPPA laws (the laws that protect medical records of psychos, such as the theater shooter–James Holmes) to warn me.

The threat was so credible that a therapist risked her career by breaking an oath of confidentiality. Hemmat even received a few days of paid security watch by KDVR, but according to Hemmat, when the weekend arrived, the security was removed by KDVR because her boss noted the cost of the security to the station and that “if he was going to kill you, he would have done it by now.”

The ironic part was that this was not Murib’s first encounter with the law.

According to a report by Hemmat when she was still with KDVR in February of 2015:

We obtained a 22-year-old mug shot of Murib after a viewer tip led us to a 1993 case filed by the Denver District Attorney.

At the time, Murib owned, “American Vacuum, Sewing and Typewriter.” He was charged with 18 counts of consumer fraud, bait advertising, theft by deception and theft from the elderly and the handicapped for allegedly charging people for parts that were not replaced, just to name a few.

He was also charged with disposing of his customers' property if they refused to pay for unauthorized charges.

Hemmat noted how her station would want her specifically to follow up on the story every time something happened during Murib’s court case.

Hemmat remembered the interaction with her boss:

I finally went to her and said “we solved this problem, he is no longer in business, he’s facing millions of dollars in penalties and nobody will ever be ripped off again, can’t we just stop following this story? I feel my life is in danger every time we do.” Her response, I’ll never forget, “Heidi, we’re journalists, we are not going to stop doing stories just because he had a temper tantrum.” A “temper tantrum,” his psychiatrist certainly didn’t see it that way. And we had dropped stories before–for much less…

At the end of her blog, Hemmat thanked God that she was through with the situation that caused her and her family so much pain, and said she is now is focusing on her career through her own production company.

While the media certainly does push its own narrative for sometimes nefarious purposes, some journalists risk their lives at times in the pursuit of truth. 

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