Former WPRI Anchor Vince DeMentri Fired from WICS in Illinois

Former WPRI-TV anchor and reporter Vince DeMentri has been fired from his current job as evening anchor at WICS-TV ABC 20 in Springfield, IL.

DeMentri was allegedly involved in a physical altercation at a Hooters in Springfield hours after a local election last Tuesday.

The fight allegedly involved DeMentri and Garrett Brnger, a reporter for the WICS.

Neither of the men have appeared on the air at WICS since Tuesday, and both of their bios have been removed from www.wics.com.

“Vince DeMentri and Garrett Brnger are no longer with the station.” General Manager Rick Lipps said in a Facebook post. “We do not comment on personnel issues.”

Neither DeMentri or Brnger could be reached for comment.

Springfield police were called to Hooters on Horizon Drive shortly after 12:30 a.m. Wednesday to respond to a fight between two people. One person was bleeding from the nose, according to 911 dispatch reports. The two combatants drove away while officers were en route, one in a black BMW, the other in a black Jeep. The vehicle descriptions match vehicles driven by DeMentri and Brnger.

Police stopped a black Jeep that contained a person reportedly involved in the incident at the intersection of Ash Street and Dirksen Parkway, according to Dan Mounce, deputy chief of the Springfield Police Department, and 911 dispatch records. The deputy chief said that the person told officers that he had fallen from a stool.

The incident is the latest in a series of controversies involving DeMentri, who was fired in 2008 from a Philadelphia's WCAU-TV NBC 10, where he was suspected of keying a co-anchor’s car after their romance ended. In a 2012 interview with the State Journal-Register, DeMentri said that the station ultimately gave him a monetary settlement and a positive statement about his journalistic abilities.

“I don’t think you can judge anybody’s character by an incident or two in life,” DeMentri told the State Journal-Register in 2012, when he was hired as an anchor at WICS.

DeMentri was also arrested, but not charged with a crime, two days after 9/11 for allegedly impersonating a federal officer in an attempt to gain access to Ground Zero, according to the New York Daily News. In 2010, he was fired as a reporter from WPIX-TV CW 11 in New York City after he was charged with slapping a chauffeur during a dispute over a parking space.
He was later acquitted and tried to get his old job back.

“I’m the victim and I’m not the villain and guess what — I need a job,” he said at the time.

DeMentri has had two stints at WPRI-TV, the first in the 1990's as a reporter, he left in 1993 for a job at WCBS-TV CBS 2 in New York City. In 2003, he left WCBS for WCAU in his native Philadelphia, and was fired in 2008. In 2009, DeMentri was hired as the morning anchor at WPRI alongside Elizabeth Hopkins. He left in 2010 for the job at WPIX, and was fired that same year. It took him two years to land at WICS in Illinois.

The Springfield station knew all about DeMentri’s past before hiring him, but the veteran reporter convinced them he was the victim in his series of run-ins, and gave him a chance.

He probably won't be as lucky next time.

 

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