TV reporter quits after learning of murder plot against her

(Screen capture)

Heidi Hemmat, an award-winning investigative reporter, has quit her job after learning that a businessman she was investigating was planning to murder her.

Hemmat, who was KDVR’s consumer and business fraud reporter before she quit, penned an open letter on her website called “Why I left KDVR and TV news,” which was published on Thursday.

In the letter, she described the credible death threats she had received from AAAA TV Electronics Repair and Vacuum owner Muhammed Murib.

“Shortly after he learned about the charges against him, that were a direct result of me, I got a call from his psychiatrist. She told me he was ‘homicidal’ and was planning to kill me. The psychiatrist thought the threat was so credible, she broke HPPA laws (the laws that protect medical records of psychos, such as the theater shooter–James Holmes) to warn me,” she wrote.

In her report on Murib, Hemmat found that Murib was cheating customers by charging them for unnecessary repairs and holding their items hostage if customers refused to pay. What’s more, Murib was throwing out receipts with customers’ credit card and other information without shredding them or properly taking steps to ensure their information could not be stolen.

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Then, in July of 2015, Hemmet was contacted by Murib’s psychiatrist.

“She informed me he was on a ’72 hour mental hold’ but because it was 4th of July weekend, (2015) he would likely be released before then. She then asked me if I had somewhere else I could go because he knew where I lived and of course, where I worked. I remember the chill than ran from the top of my head to the soles of my feet. Of course I had nowhere to go! I have 2 children, then 1 and 3, I couldn’t just leave on a whim –where would I go? And when would I return? Would it ever be safe?” Hemmet wrote.

According to Hemmet, her boss didn’t take the threat seriously, either.

“(M)y boss didn’t see it that way, she did pay for a few days of security at my home, undercover Denver police officers, but when the weekend came, she expressed concern about how much it was costing and downplayed the threat. ‘He’s not going to do anything to you,’ she said, ‘if he was going to kill you he would have done it by now.’”

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Then, one day, Hemmet found out that Murib had tampered with his ankle tracking bracelet.

“I was informed by the victim advocate that he had broke it and the county could not track him. I promptly put my kids in the car and started driving, where? I don’t know. But as they babbled in their little toddler way in the back seat, all I could do was hide my fear, never letting on that their mommy could be taken from them–worse — they could be injured in the crossfire,” Hemmet said.

And that was when she quit her job to go independent.

“All the bosses were happy, but I knew I couldn’t keep ambushing people who did bad things to other people. Society has changed. People have changed. My physical and mental health were unraveling.”