'Dr. Phil' lawyer denies charges in lawsuit over Natalee Holloway segment

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Two brothers who sued the ``Dr. Phil'' show for airing a segment about their roles as former suspects in the disappearance of an Alabama teen in Aruba should not be entitled

Tuesday, January 30th 2007, 7:16 am

By: News On 6

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Two brothers who sued the ``Dr. Phil'' show for airing a segment about their roles as former suspects in the disappearance of an Alabama teen in Aruba should not be entitled to punitive damages, an attorney for the show said.

Deepak and Satish Kalpoe of Aruba filed the defamation suit in December seeking unspecified damages against talk show host Phillip McGraw, CBS Television Distribution Group and private investigator Jamie Skeeters.

The lawsuit alleges the show altered portions of a secretly recorded conversation between Deepak Kalpoe and Skeeters to ``create false, incriminating, and defamatory statements that the plaintiffs engaged in criminal activity against Natalee Holloway.''

William Haggerty, an attorney for McGraw and CBS, said in court papers filed Friday in Los Angeles that widespread news reports of the brothers' arrest ``mitigate any damages allegedly suffered by them and bars or reduces their right to recover any damages.''

Haggerty also denied his clients intentionally misrepresented any fact to the brothers or acted with malicious intent.

An after-hours telephone message left Monday for the attorney representing the brothers was not immediately returned.

Holloway was 18 when she disappeared May 30, 2005, while on a trip to Aruba with classmates from her Alabama high school. She was last seen getting into a car with the brothers and their friend, Joran van der Sloot.

Police spent months searching for the missing teen, but the case did not lead to a criminal trial in Aruba. The brothers have not been charged.

A similar lawsuit filed by Holloway's family against van der Sloot was thrown out this summer.