How Did TruTV Get Jail Access for 'Hot Blond Tina' Video?

LAS VEGAS (Dec. 4) -- At first blush, it seems like a trivial matter, a lawsuit by a buxom blonde from Sin City who is outraged that a cable TV show broadcast footage of her flirting and trying to flash people while being booked on a drunken-driving charge.

Yet the peculiar situation of "Hot Blond Tina," as YouTube users have dubbed her, raises an important question at a time when many believe reality television has gotten all too real: How do those cameras get access to such sensitive spaces in the first place?

In the case of footage of 32-year-old Tina Vlijter filmed for TruTV's "Inside American Jail," Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Sheriff Douglas Gillespie and Langley Productions owner John Langley declined to say. But many, including Vlijter's attorney, question whether a longstanding relationship between big-time reality-TV producer Langley and various law enforcement officials explains why so much of their police-related material emerges from Las Vegas.

Gillespie, for instance, received at least $35,000 from Langley, his company and his associates in campaign contributions during the sheriff's recent successful re-election bid, campaign disclosure forms show.

Langley also gave $5,000 to Clark County District Attorney David Roger, who, while not responsible for access to the Clark County Detention Center, told AOL News that he called Langley for a campaign donation because he knew Langley had given to the county's previous sheriff, Bill Young.

Langley Productions, based in Santa Monica, Calif., produces several shows, including "Cops," the long-running Fox show in which videographers film arrests by accompanying police on ride-alongs.

Late last month, Vlijter sued Langley Productions and TruTV parent company Turner Broadcasting System, for at least $30,000 in compensation and unspecified damages for misrepresenting Vlijter and using the footage without a properly obtained consent. Vlijter said she was so drunk when arrested she doesn't recall signing a waiver, and her attorney said Langley has ignored repeated requests to produce whatever consent form it might have. A TBS spokeswoman declined to comment for this report.

"Why is a corporation incorporated outside of the state coming into our jurisdiction and giving money to our sheriff and our DA?" asked Vlijter attorney Easton Harris, who is considering adding the sheriff to the lawsuit's list of defendants. "I don't want to say that's how they got in, but it's definitely odd."

Vlijter doesn't deny she was seriously sloshed when she was found in July 2008 asleep at a stoplight with her head resting on the steering wheel of her Mercedes Benz as her 2-year-old sat in the back. She doesn't even deny that she may have behaved inappropriately in the booking area where she had to be told twice to button up her shirt so as to not show so much cleavage. She was also filmed carrying on about the jailhouse menu.

But she insisted in an exclusive interview with AOL News that she can't recall signing any releases allowing her image to be used and remembers "just a lot of commotion."

"There's a point in time where reality TV is going to far, and this is too far," said Vlijter, a divorced mother of two who said she works as an investment adviser. "This could be anybody who comes to Vegas and makes a huge mistake -- you know, anybody that comes here and goes out on the Strip, gets drunk, gets thrown in jail. You know they say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but what happens in Vegas shouldn't be publicized all over the national TV for everyone to view."

Vlijter pleaded no contest to misdemeanor drunken driving in February 2009, paying a fine and attending mandatory classes on the hazards of DUI. As part of her plea deal, a charge of child endangerment was dropped.

In June 2010, after the video first aired on "Inside American Jail," she was recognized by a food server at a Taco Bell in Las Vegas from being on the show. Soon thereafter, friends and relatives began calling her, too.

She was horrified, she said. What made it worse was that TruTV posted the video not just with the "Inside American Jail" show but also in an unrelated section of its website under a heading of "Naughty Girls." That has since been removed and Langley Productions has, in the past week, moved to remove versions of the video that have proliferated on YouTube.

Vlijter, who moved to Las Vegas from Florida in 2002 with her now-ex-husband, said the drunken-driving incident occurred at a particularly low point in her life when she was depressed over her pending divorce and was mired in a bitter custody dispute. She's primarily been a stay-at-home mother to her two daughters since the move, although she acknowledged she worked as a stripper for three months early in her Vegas life.

She said not only is she recognized often now but that people have written lewd messages on her MySpace page and on YouTube. In one incident, she said, she was waiting with her kids for her car at a valet at a mall on the Strip when a Range Rover full of young men pulled up and told her they'd seen her on the show.

"Now that it's hitting the news, when I'm dropping my daughter off at school, I'm afraid the moms are going to be looking at me," she said. "I wear hoodies during the day. I thought of buying a wig, but my hair guy said he's worked really hard on my hair and wouldn't allow it."

Harris is not the only one baffled by the access to the jail provided to Langley.

Robert Stoldal, the news director at Vegas' NBC affiliate KSNV, doubts local journalists would ever be permitted to hang out in the booking area talking to suspects the way Langley's crews did. Even when the station gets access to a specific inmate for a specific story, Stoldal said, "They don't give us free run. There are clearly some signs that this is right and this is wrong, these are the limitations."

Gillespie would not explain for this report either how he chooses which cameras are permitted where or the nature of his relationship with Langley, which gave him almost double the contributions of the world's largest casino company, Caesars Entertainment. But Metro spokesman Sgt. John Sheahan responded via email late Friday: "As for your assertion that Langley Productions has received extraordinary access to filming in our facilities, this would be incorrect. Our agency currently provides the same access to multiple production companies such as Discovery Channel, NBC (Dateline), and CBS (48 Hours) to name just a few." Follow-up questions went unanswered.

District Attorney Roger said that despite the $5,000 contribution, he recently turned down Langley's request for access to his prosecutors for a different series. Under his stewardship TV shows from "Dateline NBC" to Sundance's "Sin City Law" to Court TV's "Las Vegas Law" have done intensive, behind-the-scenes reports. But Roger said he has now decided against participating in reality shows because, "In the past, it hasn't been good for us."

The Vlijter case is not the first time that Langley's access has been at issue. A pending complaint with the Nevada Commission on Ethics against Gillespie, filed by a detective who ran against him this year, alleges that several detectives were ordered by the sheriff to attend a meeting in May at which they were instructed to participate with Langley producers on ride-alongs for "Cops."

The accuser, Gordon Martines, claims in the complaint that a Langley producer stated that the intent of the show was to help with his re-election campaign.

The executive director of the Nevada Commission on Ethics wrote to Martines on Oct. 25 to confirm that the panel would investigate the complaint, according to a document obtained by AOL News.

Another failed sheriff candidate, Officer Laurie Bisch, agreed that the access Langley has is unusual.

"A lot of normal, good people get put into the jail every day because they do things that they normally wouldn't do," Bisch said. "The last thing you expect is to get it filmed and then, next thing you know, you're watching it on TV with all your friends. You have to question what they're doing."

Langley repeatedly declined to comment about any aspect of this story. Gillespie did not return numerous phone calls to his office. E-mails to the police information officer also were not returned.

But Vlijter's lawsuit has one surprising government supporter, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman. Goodman, a former defense attorney, doubted Vlijter could have been sober enough to provide her consent. When asked how the cameras got in the jail, he replied: "If the sheriff wants to let them in, he lets them in. It's as simple as that."