A television reporter who attended the University of Utah was set up by police, their informant and overzealous prosecutors in the months before she was indicted on charges of dogfighting and perjury, her lawyer told a jury Tuesday.
Wendy Bergen, who worked for KCNC-TV in Denver, was manipulated and ridiculed by "extraordinarily unscrupulous people who thought it was amusing to see a big-shot TV reporter fall," Lee Foreman said in opening remarks in Jefferson County District Court.Bergen was a theater major at the University of Utah in the late 1970s.
In picturing Bergen as an easy mark betrayed by a man she trusted, Foreman for the first time offered Bergen's version of events leading to the indictment.
He admitted that Bergen paid $50 for the name of a pit-bull breeder and $30 for muzzles that were used on two pit bulls that were videotaped.
Wednesday, witnesses will begin presenting the prosecutors' version - that Bergen staged pit-bull fights for her "Blood Sport" series in the spring of 1990, orchestrated a cover-up and lied to the grand jury. She resigned from the station Sept. 6.
Arranging dogfights for profit or entertainment is illegal in Colorado.
If convicted on all counts, the reporter could get 32 years in prison and be fined $1.4 million.
"You will probably dislike some of the witnesses, and rightfully so. We take them as we find them," prosecutor Ray Sharpe said.
A key witness against Bergen will be Mark Labriola, who is accused of helping her arrange the dogfights, before turning informant.
Sharpe told jurors they'll hear a tape recording of a "very damaging conversation" in which Bergen urged Labriola to join her and two KCNC cameramen in a cover-up of how the series was prepared.
But Foreman portrayed Labriola as "a convincing liar" who told police and prosecutors what they wanted to hear.
"Wendy Bergen was easy for Mark Labriola," Foreman said. "She played completely into his hands."
In acknowledging that Bergen paid for the name of pit-bull breeder Guy Phillip Walker, Foreman said, "It was money which she shouldn't have paid."
But he said Labriola lied when he told police that he paid Walker $200, with Bergen's knowledge, to conduct a dog fight.
Labriola said that Bergen had promised to reimburse him by buying him shirts and ties.
"Evidence will show," Foreman said, "that no money was exchanged prior to the fight."