NEW YORK (AP) – A man who filmed both planes hitting the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 sued a New York television station Friday for airing the videotape without his approval.
Pavel Hlava’s federal lawsuit seeks unspecified damages against the cable news station New York 1, part of AOL Time Warner, and Michael Cohen, Hlava’s boss, who the station said gave it a copy of the tape for free.
Cohen was driving from Brooklyn to Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001, as Hlava made his videotape from a passenger seat. The tape is the only known footage showing both strikes, and one of just two tapes showing the first crash.
Cohen told New York 1 that he considered anything Hlava received for the footage as “blood money.”
“It is profiting from someone else’s tragedy, and my morals did not let me do it. Period,” he told the station.
In the lawsuit, Hlava said he licensed the video to ABC News to be broadcast for the first time on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Thursday, the two-year anniversary of the attacks.
The lawsuit said New York 1’s distribution of the tape was likely to damage Hlava’s reputation and the value of the exclusive licenses Hlava enters into with others.
New York 1 aired the videotape Wednesday, but pulled it from the air after learning there were issues regarding ownership, station spokesman Ed Pachetti said.
A message left with Cohen was not immediately returned.
ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider declined comment on the lawsuit. He did say ABC News was honoring the deal it had struck with Hlava, an immigrant construction worker. He would not divulge the terms of the deal.
The existence of the tapes was first reported by The New York Times over the weekend.
AP-ES-09-12-03 1924EDT
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