$25 Million Award In `Jenny Jones' Case

PONTIAC, Mich. - A jury decided today that "The Jenny Jones Show" was negligent in the slaying of a gay man who was a guest on the show and ordered the producers to pay more than $25 million in damages.

Jonathan Schmitz killed Scott Amedure a few days after Amedure declared on the show that he had a crush on Schmitz. The show was never broadcast.

Amedure's family had argued that Schmitz was lured onto the talk show in 1995 during a segment on "secret crushes," believing he would meet a woman, and was humiliated into murder when his secret admirer turned out to be Amedure. Schmitz, who admitted shooting Amedure, has said he is heterosexual.

Lawyers for Warner Bros., the show's owner, argued Schmitz was told that his secret admirer could be a man or woman, and the show played no role in Amedure's death.

Besides funeral expenses, jurors awarded $5 million in damages for Amedure's suffering before he was killed, $10 million to the family for the loss of companionship and $10 million for the loss of money Amedure would have earned.

Defense attorney James Feeney said the defense would appeal. Feeney said it was wrong to blame the show, "because there's only one person to blame . . ."

Ven Johnson, an attorney for the Amedure family, said the jury "was 100 percent correct."

Yesterday, jurors watched the taped show, in which Amedure talks about a sexual fantasy involving Schmitz, and Schmitz's reaction when the tape of Amedure's comments is shown to him - he buries his face in his hands.

Authorities said Schmitz shot Amedure, 32, twice in the chest three days after the taping.

Schmitz, now 28, was found guilty of murder in 1996, but his conviction was thrown out on appeal. His retrial is set for Aug. 19. His lawyers admitted he killed Amedure but contended that the show humiliated Schmitz and that he was fighting alcoholism, depression and a thyroid condition.

Jones was not a defendant.