Someone in the New York District Attorney's Office must be an avid GP reader...
Last week, in response to a public tongue-lashing handed out by Congress to the ESRB and FTC, GamePolitics ran an editorial calling on the House to subpoena Take-Two Interactive and Rockstar directly, since they were the companies at the center of the Hot Coffee fiasco.
A short time ago Reuters reported that Take-Two Interactive received grand jury subpoenas, not from Congress, but from New York's D.A. for documents relating to the Hot Coffee incident, as well as other financial information dating back to October, 2001. The subpoenas were served on the publisher on June 19th.
Specifically, the grand jury is seeking documents related to "company officers' and directors' knowledge about the creation and inclusion" of the Hot Coffee sex mini-game, as well as information about the submission of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas to the ESRB for rating.
Take-Two has not been advised whether this subpoena is part of an investigation targeting the game publisher directly, or is part of some larger probe. Take-Two claims it is cooperating fully, and said that it has provided the requested documents to the D.A.'s office.
CM: While this isn't the first time Take-Two has been investigated, it is the first time whodunnit documents have been publicly requested. Other lawsuits to date have primarily sought financial information.
Hopefully the grand jury will be able to shed some light on who knew what and when they knew it during last summer's Hot Coffee scandal. It will be interesting to learn whether corporate higher-ups were aware of the mini-game, or whether it was simply mischief created by a low-level programmer.
I guess we'll have to wait for the N.Y. grand jury to complete it's investigation.
-Reporting from Canada, GP Correspondent Colin "Jabrwock" McInnes
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