Reporter Accused of Threatening His Old Boss
/This is not the way to land a job in TV News.
San Antonio television news manager Hollis Grizzard and his wife Marise McDermott, were the victims of a campaign of stalking, harassment, and threats earlier this year, mounted by a man Grizzard fired from his job at a Corpus Christi TV station, according to recently unsealed federal court documents obtained by News Radio 1200 WOAI.
Gabriel Robert Caggiano was a Reporter at KZTV, until he was fired in 2008.
He is is charged with the federal crime of stalking, and faces up to 5 years in prison if convicted in a trial which is set to get underway next month.
According to a sworn affidavit from FBI Special Agent James Thompson, Caggiano began 'repeatedly harassing Grizzard and McDermott through phone calls, voice mails, text messages, and social media to retaliate against Grizzard.
The voice mails began in March of this year, according to Thompson's affidavit, when Caggiano called Grizzard and left a voice mail in which he claimed that Grizzard 'will die.'
In the phone calls and other communications, Caggiano repeatedly threatens to try to damage McDermott's reputation with her job and threatened to 'inflict the most pain to you as humanly possible, I want you in agony.
After leaving KSAT-TV, Grizzard has been a 'News Doctor' and newsroom manager.
According to Caggiano's publicly posted resume, after leaving Corpus Christi, he took a job with a TV station in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, but he no longer appears in the bio section of that station's web site.
The FBI says while in Michigan, Caggiano stalked another woman, who was forced to obtain a protective order against him. Federal officials say he is now living in the Los Angeles area, where court document show that he is in custody awaiting trial.
We're guessing he won't be working at another TV station anytime soon, but then again, this is TV and you never know.
H/T WOAI