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CNN Live At Daybreak

Interview with Kendall Coffey

Aired June 24, 2002 - 06:32   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Now we want to take a look at what's going on in some of our courtrooms this week, not the least of which is a defamation lawsuit against Watergate conspirator and now radio talk show host G. Gordon Liddy. Also, a preliminary hearing is scheduled for the Reverend Mark Roberts. He is a former priest accused of hitting, fondling and photographing teenage boys he was counseling.

For expert insight, we turn to Kendall Coffey, former U.S. attorney. He is joining me live from Atlanta -- good morning.

KENDALL COFFEY, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: Let's talk with the priest case. You are in Miami, right?

COFFEY: Yes, we are here in Miami.

COSTELLO: OK -- sorry. I think I misspoke there. I am thinking about these cases though, because they are so very interesting. Let's start with the Nevada case with the priest going on trial there. How difficult will it be to seat a jury?

COFFEY: Well, it's getting easier and easier for prosecutors to prove cases against juries -- to juries against priests. A year ago, the concern was that especially if you had, effectively, a swearing contest between a priest and the accuser, you couldn't get all of the members of the jury to think that a Catholic priest was guilty of such things beyond a reasonable doubt. Obviously that has changed.

So increasingly, we are going to see more and more criminal prosecutions, and it's no longer going to be a news event, when a priest steps forward in a court proceeding to face criminal charges.

COSTELLO: You know, it's kind of strange, when you see these priests going on trial and even those who claim innocence, they don't wear their collars into the courtroom.

COFFEY: No. And there is going to be a whole new evolution of the way those cases are tried. Right now, we are seeing the priests themselves charged, but there are also reports that some grand juries around the country are looking at higher-ups. For example, are there senior people in the clergy that were involved in cover-ups and ignoring allegations of abuse. So this is not the end. This is just the beginning of the phenomenon of criminal prosecution of Catholic clergy.

COSTELLO: Yes, I know. I heard about a prominent sex abuse attorney in Florida. He has filed a racketeering lawsuit against the Vatican and some archdiocese. I mean, does that kind of case have a prayer of succeeding in court?

COFFEY: That's a stretch right now, but I think what we are going to see is just a floodgate of cases that are going to have to be sorted out over the next couple of years, and the allegations will get more serious. And frankly, attorneys don't mind picking the most creative, aggressive allegations they can. Among other things, sometimes it gets settlement results, and it certainly gets headlines.

COSTELLO: It certainly does. Let's talk about Congressman James Traficant now, because later this week, he will be sentenced. He was convicted on ten counts of bribery, fraud. He could get 63 years in prison, but it's really all up to a judge. Will a judge really impose that kind of sentence against the congressman?

COFFEY: He is not realistically facing 63 years. These things are determined by the sentencing guidelines. So there will be a range of a sentence that is recommended by a pre-sentence investigation report. It will be a lot less than 63 years.

But think about this: Until he is removed by a two-thirds vote of the Congress, he remains a U.S. -- a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. It is possible that at the sentencing hearing Thursday the judge could consider actually sending him right into prison, and you could have a sitting congressman reporting as, I suppose, a guest of the federal taxpayers.

COSTELLO: That would be very strange, because he is refusing to resign. Might Congress kick him out and not give him the choice, though, of serving while in prison?

COFFEY: Well, it's -- they are obviously moving on it as quickly as possible. They are hoping he will step out quietly, but he hasn't done very much quietly so far.

COSTELLO: No. No, and that has to enter into what the judge gives him as a sentence too. He has been very disrespectful in court. Would that hurt him, when the judge finally does impose that sentence?

COFFEY: Heck, yes! You want to be penitent. You want to be -- atonement is the theme of the day, and he doesn't seem capable of anything but attack, attack, blame, blame, and usually that gets you hammered in a sentencing proceeding.

COSTELLO: Let's talk a little bit about G. Gordon Liddy, because there is -- what -- a defamation suit against him. It was thrown -- no, they appealed it. It was thrown out. They appealed it, and now he is going through it all over again.

And he is claiming that a secretary at Watergate, in the Watergate offices, actually set up dates for visiting firemen, and she had pictures of call girls in her desk while working as a secretary for the Democratic National Committee. And that's really why they broke in to the headquarters there at Watergate. It was about sex, not politics.

COFFEY: Well, it's...

COSTELLO: So what happens now? Go ahead.

COFFEY: It's a bizarre conspiracy theory, although I suppose an escort service is a whole lot more interesting than pure politics. But the problem from his standpoint is that it's one thing to attack public figures, but he also brought into it a secretary.

If you want to say what you will about Gary Condit, you can probably get away with it without a whole lot of liability in terms of the laws of defamation, but once you start going at people who are not public figures, beware. For that reason, Liddy has been in litigation for years.

In March, the appeals court sent it back for a new trial. So he is, indeed, 25 years almost, I guess, to the week of the anniversary of the Watergate break-in. The case is still making law. And the moral of the story is, if you're going to pick on somebody, leave the little people alone.

COSTELLO: Yes, but he has a talk radio show, and they say all kinds of things on those shows and get away with it.

COFFEY: But you've got to be careful. You've got almost free rein, when you are dealing with public figures. But sometimes people forget about the fact that private figures, whose names get tossed into these alleged scandals and bizarre conspiracy theories, they are not the same kind of sitting ducks for loose talk that public figures are. That's why you've got to be careful. And here, a jury is going to decide whether he made a very big mistake, when he threw the name of a secretary into his rather bizarre conspiracy theory.

COSTELLO: Thank you very much, Kendall Coffey, for joining us live this morning. We sure appreciate it.

COFFEY: Thank you.

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