60 Minutes with Ed Bradley
“Marcia Clark’s special on this doesn’t make him look like he is safe for our society.”
Amy Meredith on Facebook
April 18, 2024
By Jamie (Joe’s wife)
It’s important to be cautious of sensationalized media portrayals, such as the one presented by Marcia Clark in Joe Hunt’s case. As a former prosecutor turned television personality, her perspective may not always prioritize truth over entertainment value. To form a balanced view, it’s advisable to consider multiple perspectives and seek factual information beyond what is presented in media productions. I can’t even watch any of those shows. They aren’t portraying Joe accurately, but rather the picture the prosecutors and BBC members painted of him. Often, the only ‘research’ they do is to read and watch other media accounts. They make Joe seem like some bug-eyed Svengali who is socially awkward. This portrayal of him couldn’t be further from the truth.
For example, did you know that years before the BBC, Joe was president of one of the main fraternities at USC? Yet, if you watch the 2018 movie, he is portrayed as socially awkward. Another example: it’s well known that Judd Nelson was doing line after line of coke in between sets while filming the 1987 miniseries The Billionaire Boys Club. The wild, psycho, look he brought to the portrayal of Joe is what most think of when they think of who Joe is. However, Joe never got into drugs and didn’t even like alcohol. If you see footage of him in court or from interviews, he comes across as a well-adjusted guy.
And regarding the reliability of the media accounts: consider the 60 Minutes special with Ed Bradley. They show Joe saying some things, then cut away to footage from 3 people contradicting Joe: Mr. Troelstrup of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Jerome Eisenberg, a lawyer who worked at the BBC, and Carol Levin, Ron Levin’s mother. Troelstrup seemingly contradicts Joe’s statement that he was not charged with or found guilty of misappropriation when he was trading at the CME. However, the records of the exchange corroborate Joe, not Troelstrup. Regarding Eisenberg, did you know he was disbarred after the 60 Minutes interview and went to prison for fraud? And that Joe’s 1992 jury rejected Eisenberg’s testimony finding that his account of events within the BBC was perjured?
And, when it comes to Carol Levin, did you know that her assertion that if Ron were alive, he would have remained in contact with her because they “were always close” was shown to be a lie? It turns out she sent Ron to live at military academies and group homes and even had him admitted to Camarillo State Mental Hospital during his formative years. Did you know that hard proof came out in Joe’s 1992 trial showing that Ron was scamming and callously exploiting her right up to the moment he disappeared? Did you know that Dr. Gretchen White, a clinical psychologist, reviewed all the records from the group homes, military academies, shrinks, and Camarillo, together with Carol Levin’s testimony and the relevant financial records, and determined that Levin had no natural feeling for his Mother, as he utterly failed to bond with her as a child?
So beware of thinking you can learn about the case by watching documentaries.