 As a producer for the Factor, I cover about two dozen stories a month, and some of them are so shocking that the story behind them is worth telling.
This is one of those times.
Wednesday morning, along with the rest of the Factor team, I listened to our senior producer list the segments we'd be doing. Rarely knowing what I'll be producing each morning, I like the spontaneity and surprise of the assignment.
"A judge in Illinois threatened to throw a woman in jail because she refused to watch a videotape of her own alleged gang-rape," the senior producer said. "Bill wants to book Judge Napolitano (FNC Senior Judicial Analyst) and Lis Wiehl (FNC legal analyst) to discuss the trial and the controversy."
I got the assignment. I skimmed The Chicago Tribune and an article in The Chicago Sun-Times and discovered the judge, Kerry Kennedy, was ruling in just a few hours on whether he'd toss the woman in jail. Forcing a woman to watch herself be raped seemed severe, but threatening to incarcerate her for refusing to watch absolutely stunned me. The more I read, the more disturbed I became.
The case
On December 7, 2002, 17-year-old Adrian Missbrenner threw a party at his parents' home in suburban Burr Ridge, Illinois. The alleged victim, who was 16 at the time, showed up at the party and began playing drinking games, apparently "chugging" vodka straight from the bottle until she vomited. She claims she passed out and woke up the next morning naked from the waist down, with obscenities scrawled in marker all over her legs and stomach, with no memory of what happened. She asked an acquaintance, who told her several guys had sex with her while one videotaped it. She was also told that others spit and scrawled derogatory words after the sex. She went to police to file a report and the videotape was recovered.
The initial findings
The man who videotaped the incident, Sonny Smith, now 21, pled guilty to child porn charges, and was sentenced to four months in boot camp.
One of the men who had sex with the woman, Christopher Robbins, now 21, was never taped. He argued the sex was consensual, and was acquitted by a jury last year.
Burim Berezi, now 20, was captured on camera having sex with the woman and fled to Albania shortly after he was charged. He remains at large.
The footage also showed another person at the party, Adrian Missbrenner, now 20, having sex with her. He fled to Serbia for eight months while free on bail but returned stateside to face the charges after Robbins was found not guilty.
So Missbrenner began his trial last week on aggravated criminal sexual assault and child porn charges. He faced six to thirty years in prison if convicted.
The videotape
According to reports I was reading that morning, Missbrenner's defense attorney, Patrick Campanelli, argued the sex was consensual and wanted to play that tape for the 20-year-old woman, and cross-examine her about it. The newspapers wrote that she had become visibly upset and told Judge Kennedy she wouldn't watch it.
Prosecutor Michael Deno argued that the woman hadn't given her consent and didn't remember anything after blacking out. While I was initially researching the story for The Factor, the judge in Chicago was hearing arguments from both sides.
Our Fox News Chicago bureau producer was in the courtroom and relayed the ruling to New York just as soon as it came down. Our company has an internal web file, the "urgent queue," that reporters and editors log with breaking news updates throughout the day. I checked the queue just as the Chicago producer wrote that Judge Kennedy backed off from his threat to send the woman to jail for refusing to view the videotape. I was surprised because, from what I had read, the judge had seemed so adamant before.
Due to the change in the decision, I wondered if Bill still wanted to do the story, so I called up to the studio where he was doing The Radio Factor and asked our Executive Producer if he would find out during the next commercial break. Bill was still interested in reporting the story that night.
Getting ready for the show
Each guest booked for the show is "pre-interviewed" by a producer. When a segment is what we call "un-booked" on the day-of-air (no specific guest is slated for the segment yet), the producer calls potential guests and asks them questions, gauging their energy level and line of argumentation. After we elicit and review their responses, we decide which guest best fits the show's needs. In this particular case, Bill had already decided on Judge Napolitano and Lis Wiehl, so I made two calls, alerted them to the latest developments in the case, and typed up their thoughts and analysis. Bill had all the research and information on his desk by 3pm.
The Factor segment
Judge Napolitano began. "The defense counsel is entitled to test (the girl's) memory and test the consistency with the tape . . . In the defense's view, there was behavior on the tape which was inconsistent with her testimony that she did not consent."
Lis Wiehl countered that the tape was "irrelevant" because the girl already said she didn't remember anything. According to Wiehl, the defense could always call the guy who made the videotape and question him instead. The girl shouldn't be "dragged through the mud."
O'Reilly agreed with Wiehl, and said making her watch would be "cruel . . . because the jury obviously can decide whether it's consensual or not by what's on the tape." He added, "I don't care what a woman says who doesn't remember anything. You can't prove it one way or the other."
The decision
Late Friday afternoon, the jury acquitted Adrian Missbrenner of all charges. The six-man, six-woman jury deliberated for over four hours and determined the sex was consensual.
On Wednesday, the woman's family began blasting the state, saying only during closing arguments did they learn about a statement on the tape where prosecutors claim Missbrenner said, "Good drugs are paying off" while the woman's limbs allegedly begin to go limp.
The parents wondered why the state never explained to the jury the "downward spiral of consciousness" seen on the videotape. "She is barely talking in the beginning; by the 8-minute mark, has no ability to move her limbs and, by 20 minutes, so comatose that she doesn't even flinch," they said in the statement. They also revealed the prosecution rejected a plea deal that would have guaranteed prison time for Missbrenner.
The prosecution stated, "We thought the tape spoke for itself . . . they treated her worse than you'd treat a dead dog in the street." The state admitted they rejected a plea deal and said they had "no second thoughts" about how they proceeded, adding there was "no evidence" a date-rape drug was used.
Missbrenner went public too. Walter Jacobson, a local Fox anchor, landed an interview with the young man and O'Reilly decided to do a follow-up segment that night. In the interview with Jacobson, Missbrenner denied drugging the woman and claimed he's actually gone through more than she has due to the heat he's taken in the press.
Missbrenner was not "contrite," according to Jacobson, who said the recently acquitted man appeared "arrogant" and "cocky." On the The Factor, Jacobson discussed the interview with the young man and the strong community reaction against him. Neither he nor Bill thought the interview would help his cause.
The aftermath
The press has reported that the woman dropped out of high school after the incident and was home-schooled. She is now working and saving to go to college. A civil case the alleged victim has filed against Missbrenner is pending.
The case itself raises a number of questions about the definition of "consent." It also has sparked a move by Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich to draft legislation barring rape victims from having to view videotapes of the crime.
The Factor will continue its reporting.
 Jesse Watters has been a producer for The OReilly Factor since 2003. Before joining Fox News, Watters worked on political campaigns and in finance. He received a B.A. in History from Trinity College (Hartford, CT) in 2001. Watters was born and raised in Philadelphia and moved to New York in 1995.
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