Murphy's police chief said Wednesday night that 23 men arrested during a sex-predator sting filmed by Dateline NBC still could see courtrooms.

The Collin County district attorney's office cited a lack of evidence when it announced June 1 that it would not prosecute the cases investigated by Murphy police and the Internet watchdog group Perverted Justice. But since then, Police Chief Billy Myrick said, prosecutors have indicated they would review the cases again if police gather crucial evidence.

"We're still working, we're still fighting, we're still trying to do something with them because we don't want a bunch of child predators to walk free on the street and not be able to prosecute them," Chief Myrick said.

Among the evidence prosecutors still need is footage from NBC, he said, and investigators are working to obtain it.

His department also plans to submit cases to federal prosecutors and to state prosecutors in other jurisdictions, Chief Myrick said. Although the suspects were lured to a home inside Collin County, the actual Internet chats in many cases happened on computers outside the county. Officials have cited this jurisdictional snag as one of the problems in prosecuting the cases.

"We're not through, by any means," Chief Myrick said.

He made his comments Wednesday night at City Hall while council members in a closed session heard advice from the city attorney about recent discussions with the Collin County district attorney's office on the prosecutions.

Another item the council members were to discuss privately Wednesday night was the employment of their city manager. Mayor Bret Baldwin, with whom City Manager Craig Sherwood has clashed, said this week that he hoped the meeting would end with a settlement on the city manager's departure. By late Wednesday, the council members had not emerged from their secret session.

Talk of the city manager's dismissal followed a high-profile dustup last week over the sting's prosecution, which appeared to have fallen apart. Prosecutors said Perverted Justice's volunteers would not turn over information and refused to testify. Perverted Justice said prosecutors were lying.

Even before that flap, the decision to lure sexual predators was one that divided the community. Mr. Baldwin has said he and others were angry because Mr. Sherwood and Chief Myrick did not tell anyone ahead of time about the sting.

In 2005, soon after it hired Mr. Sherwood, the council approved a contract that essentially guaranteed his salary through July 5, 2010. If he is fired without cause, the contract says. the city must pay him off in one lump sum. He makes $121,000 a year.

Mr. Sherwood's predecessor, Roger Carlisle, was fired in 2004 along with other city officials amid allegations of financial mismanagement.