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CNN CONNIE CHUNG TONIGHT
Detroit Woman Claiming Police Brutality Speaks Out; Reality Show Lawsuits
Aired January 9, 2003 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CONNIE CHUNG, HOST: Good evening. I'm Connie Chung.
Tonight: If chopping off a woman's finger isn't police brutality, what is?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JONI GULLAS, LOST FINGER IN POLICE SCUFFLE: It was like something out of a horror movie.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Shocking claims of police brutality: Why would a cop chop off a woman's finger?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GARY BROWN, DETROIT DEPUTY POLICE CHIEF: The department has no policies and procedures that would cause an officer to use a knife to make an arrest.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Tonight: In her first nationally-televised interview, she tells her story to Connie.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GULLAS: No matter what you touch it hurts. I can feel right where it's cut off.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Captured.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHARPE JAMES, MAYOR OF NEWARK: Ms. Sherry Murphy was arrested this morning at 1:45 a.m. by Newark police.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: The woman suspected of leaving three boys to die in a squalid basement now faces charges in an unimaginable crime. How could a system supposed to protect kids have gone so wrong?
Outrageous stunts, embarrassing moments.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How did my sister's underwear just get mixed up in mine?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Unwitting participants? Reality shows. And now come the lawsuits.
On a diet? Which would you choose, one scone or 14 slices of raisin bread with fruit bread? The answer will surprise you. Your choice could be a lifesaver.
And our "Person of the Day" has got the picture.
This is CONNIE CHUNG TONIGHT. Live from the CNN Broadcast Center in New York: Connie Chung.
CHUNG: Good evening.
Tonight, You're about to meet a woman who is joining us exclusively to tell of her grisly, unthinkable loss.
Imagine someone confronting you, struggling with you, and then slicing off your finger. Now imagine that your attacker was a police officer. That's what Joni Gullas says happened to her in Detroit.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GULLAS: First I thought I was getting carjacked, but it was a psycho cop instead.
CHUNG (voice-over): Joni Gullas was sitting in her van waiting for some friends to join her for a snack when a plainclothes police officer approached her car. Officer Anthony Johnson was investigating a string of burglaries in the area. He asked Gullas to get out of the car. She refused.
GULLAS: It was like something out of a horror movie. He just clocked me right in the face. And then I just looked down and saw my hand full of blood. And before I could think of anything, he was dragging me out of the car and he threw me on the ground.
CHUNG: Joni lost half of her ring finger in the struggle. Two days later, Detroit police officials gave their version of what happened when Joni Gullas was stopped.
GARY BROWN, DETROIT DEPUTY POLICE CHIEF: As a result of that stop, one officer struggled with the lady and cut her index -- not her index, but her middle ring finger, a digit of that off. It is my understanding that he was attempting to cut her sleeve off of her coat, so that he could get to her left hand and place it into a handcuff.
CHUNG: But police concede Johnson was using a personal knife and that use of a knife to make an arrest is not standard operating procedure.
BROWN: The department has no policies and procedures that would cause an officer to use a knife to make an arrest. We don't issue the knives. We don't conduct any training that would involve a knife.
CHUNG: Gullas' left arm is now in a cast and she's unable to use her left hand. She's hired an attorney and plans to sue the city of Detroit.
GULLAS: No matter what you touch it hurts, you know? Then just multiply it by 100. I can feel right where it's cut off.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHUNG: The officer has been suspended with pay while the local prosecutor decides whether to file charges against him.
Joni Gullas and her attorney, Geoffrey Fieger, join us tonight from Detroit.
Thank you for being with us.
GEOFFREY FIEGER, ATTORNEY FOR JONI GULLAS: Thanks, Connie.
CHUNG: Joni, how are you doing? I know you went through such an unbelievable ordeal. How are you?
GULLAS: I'm all right today. A little better.
CHUNG: Take me back to that night. It was 2:45 in the morning. What happened?
GULLAS: Well, I was just sitting there waiting for friends.
CHUNG: You were in a van, right?
GULLAS: Yes. Uh-huh.
And the lights came towards me and a man rushed up and a spotlight went on. And I couldn't see anything but a silhouette. And he was demanding my I.D. And so I demanded his.
CHUNG: Was he wearing a police officer's uniform?
GULLAS: No. He was plainclothes, plain car, spotlight.
And I couldn't see anything. And I just asked him to see his I.D. And he flipped his coat open and I saw silver. But I said, "That didn't mean anything to me." So, I just simply said to him, "Listen, I think I'm going to take off now." And he just punched me right in the face.
CHUNG: Well, he says what he did was, he reached in to turn off your ignition, because you had the motor running, right?
GULLAS: After he punched me in the face, he was inside, reaching in my car, to drag me out of the car by my head.
CHUNG: Oh, my goodness. What happened to your head there, Joni?
GULLAS: Well, that's where he pulled me out at.
CHUNG: He pulled you by your hair?
GULLAS: Yes.
FIEGER: He pulled her hair, Connie, out of her head. She has a large bald spot right here in the middle of her head.
CHUNG: Oh, my word.
FIEGER: And you can see it right here.
CHUNG: All right, so, he dragged you out of the car by your hair.
GULLAS: Right.
And I was on the ground. And then he jumped in my van to do whatever he was doing. And while I was trying to turn over to get back into a sitting position, he came over and jumped out and put a handcuff on this hand and then dragged me up by it. And while he was -- I assumed he was going to get the other one, but he just reached out and pulled my coat out and sliced and put me back in the handcuffs. And that's where I sat.
I didn't see anybody. There was nobody there. I just looked around and seen my hair and blood everywhere and didn't know what was going on.
CHUNG: Oh, my gosh.
GULLAS: Then, a minute later, fast after that, a uniformed car showed up. And they're the ones that told him to take the handcuffs off, because I was bleeding. I didn't even know my finger was gone until they said that.
CHUNG: And then you were taken to the hospital.
FIEGER: What's more egregious -- let me explain. And Joni might not explain this. She was kept shackled after her finger was amputated for the next 12 hours.
CHUNG: You mean in the hospital?
FIEGER: In the ambulance and in the hospital and in the police station, she was kept shackled for another, literally, Connie, almost another day.
CHUNG: You mean handcuffed and also her feet shackled? Is that what you're saying?
FIEGER: Shackled to a stretcher, shackled to the wall, shackled to the bed.
CHUNG: Oh, my goodness.
What do you hope to accomplish, Geoffrey, with this lawsuit?
FIEGER: Well, first of all, I hope to accomplish what we're doing here, alerting that -- the intolerable, barbaric, almost medieval behavior of the Detroit Police Department, which, by the way, is the No. 1 killer of private citizens of all the police departments in the United States.
There has got to be reform, Connie, within the Detroit Police department. The Detroit Police Department is virtually nonresponsive to these type of brutality incidents that have gone on for years. The prosecutions, if they ever occur, are lackadaisical. So, the only time that any justice is ever done is through the civil courts.
And, in this case, we'll bring a federal civil rights cause of action in the federal courts to adjudicate her rights.
CHUNG: Joni, what you discovered later, of course, was that your ring finger was actually severed, correct?
GULLAS: Yes.
CHUNG: And your middle finger also was injured?
GULLAS: Yes. It was cut, but they sewed -- but it wasn't -- they sewed -- stitched it up and it's there.
CHUNG: Joni, the officer, in his report, claimed that you were legally drunk and you weren't cooperating. Is there anything that you did, do you think, would have justified what he did?
GULLAS: Well, no, because, actually, the more he demanded, I think the more submissive I became, because I was terrified. I thought I was getting carjacked.
FIEGER: And that's absurd. He didn't test her. He didn't pull her over. There was no field sobriety test. There was nothing.
He came and attacked her from the very beginning, Connie. To suggest to justify amputating people's hands that subsequently, apparently, they claim they got a blood alcohol at the hospital and it was over the legal limit is nonsense. This man attacked her and then cut off her hand -- finger.
CHUNG: Absolutely.
Joni, one more question, because others might be asking this. When the officer came up to you -- and, certainly he was wearing plainclothes -- and the other officers who were with him also were wearing plainclothes. GULLAS: I never saw any other officers. There was nobody else there that I ever saw.
CHUNG: I see. When he asked you to get out of the car, tell us why you didn't get out of the car.
GULLAS: Well, because I thought he was going to steal my car and carjack me and shoot me.
FIEGER: This was 2:00 in the morning on 8 Mile Road in Detroit, made famous by the recent Eminem movie. It's not an area where somebody who comes up in plainclothes and demands you get out of a car, you're likely to get out of the car safely. Personally, I think most people would tend to want to drive away at that point.
CHUNG: All right, thank you so much, Joni and Geoffrey. We so appreciate your being with us. We are going to talk to the police chief now. So, thank you, again, for being with us.
FIEGER: Thank you.
CHUNG: Joining me now from Detroit, police headquarters, is Chief Jerry Oliver.
Chief Oliver, thank you so much for joining us now.
JERRY OLIVER, DETROIT POLICE CHIEF: Thank you, Connie, for the opportunity.
CHUNG: All right.
What did Officer Johnson tell you and your investigators happened?
OLIVER: Well, essentially, the facts, perhaps, about some of the drama was essentially the same as was just described.
CHUNG: Well...
OLIVER: Let me hasten to say...
CHUNG: Yes, go ahead.
OLIVER: I want to quickly say that there are no policies -- I want to repeat this -- there are no policies, no procedures, no practices, no training that's given to Detroit police officers that support the conduct of this police officer in severing Mrs. Gullas' finger or cutting her sleeve.
So, this entire incident, as far as we're concerned, as the Detroit Police Department is an embarrassing situation that we have to deal with. And we are dealing with it. Unlike what was just said -- it was said that the Detroit Police Department has been unresponsive -- that is certainly not true. We have responded. Our professional accountability unit has responded. We are investigating this circumstance. We have submitted the case to the Wayne County prosecutor for any criminal charges that might be brought against this officer. And we have suspended this officer without pay from the Detroit Police Department. So, we are responsive to this circumstance. And I don't think that this is representative of the large number of men and women, the majority of the men and women of the Detroit Police Department that really go out every day and do a very, very good job in this city and, many times, in very adverse circumstances.
CHUNG: Chief Oliver, I appreciate...
OLIVER: This is a situation that is unfortunate.
CHUNG: Yes.
OLIVER: Go ahead, please.
CHUNG: Chief Oliver, I'm glad that you clarified that he was suspended without pay. We were told that he was suspended with pay.
Now, have you ever heard of anything like this before? It's really quite extraordinary that an officer is trying to cuff someone and cuts off a finger. Were you shocked yourself?
OLIVER: Well, absolutely.
I think all of us were shocked that a police officer would make that kind of decision under these circumstances as has been described. And it's not something that we train. It's not a procedural issue. And so we're left with the shock of it and the realization that we've got to deal with this issue within the organization and to rectify it.
CHUNG: Chief Oliver, this man is a nine-year veteran. And, as I understand it, there was another questionable act -- although he was cleared. And that was in '98, when he shot and killed a 79-year-old disabled woman. Are there any other incidents that you know of involving Officer Johnson?
OLIVER: Well, first of all, let me say that I joined the Detroit Police Department in February of last year with a mandate from the mayor, Mayor Kilpatrick, to help reform and to change the practices and the conduct of the Detroit Police Department.
I wasn't aware of the circumstances that happened. I've read about some of those circumstances that this particular officer were involved in. And I read about the disposition of those cases. I wasn't around to participate in those decisions. But I am here to participate in this particular decision as to how we will resolve this issue, how we will dispose of this issue.
And we will dispose of it in an attempt to regain the confidence and the respect of the Detroit citizenry and of the Detroit police officers, who work so hard to provide services every day.
CHUNG: Yes, sir.
Chief Oliver, when did you say you came on board?
OLIVER: In February of last year, the previous year, 2002.
CHUNG: I see.
So, when the Justice Department began investigating Detroit's practices, use of force, a couple of years ago, it had already begun before you got there.
OLIVER: That's correct.
CHUNG: Do you think you have a problem in a problem in your department now?
OLIVER: Well, we have, I believe, some issues that we've got to deal with.
We've identified approximately 150 areas -- let me go back and just say that the reason why the Department of Justice was asked to come into the city of Detroit by the previous mayor, Mayor Archer, Dennis Archer, was because it was clear to the community and clear to that administration that the Detroit Police Department needed reform.
I was brought in as police chief last February to do just that, with a mandate from the current mayor to do just that. There are about 150 areas having to do with use-of-force issues, the way in which we go about arresting individuals, issues having to do with prisoner housing, prisoner health, prisoner maintenance while they're in jail, issues of pursuits.
All of those issues are issues that we're dealing with within the department and we've had problems in the past. We are quickly putting those issues -- addressing those issues proactively and implementing the best practices.
CHUNG: Thank you so much. Thank you. Chief Jerry Oliver, thank you for being with us.
Still ahead: Who was watching the children? An arrest in the case of the starved Newark brothers, but questions remain about how it could have happened.
Stay with us.
ANNOUNCER: Still ahead: one man adrift in high seas for 20 hours without a life jacket, how the U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort helped make a miraculous rescue -- when CONNIE CHUNG TONIGHT continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHUNG: The awful case of three young Newark boys abused, neglected and, for one boy, starved to the point of death continues to raise new questions.
Tonight, the woman who was supposed to take care of them has been caught and was hospitalized after apparently becoming sick during questioning.
As CNN's Jamie Colby reports, officials are piecing together exactly what happened and what should have happened.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAMIE COLBY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Three young brothers, now there are only two. Their mother's cousin, Sherry Murphy, arrested Thursday, after 7-year-old Raheem Williams and his 4- year-old brother Tyrone were found this weekend locked and starving in Murphy's basement. The body of their missing brother, Faheem, discovered the next day, stuffed in a plastic bin.
ROBERT RANKIN, DIRECTOR, NEWARK POLICE: A great deal of what we're looking at is still under investigation.
COLBY: After a nationwide manhunt, New Jersey police and the FBI found Ms. Murphy virtually under their nose, in the Newark area.
JAMES: Newark police were notified of her whereabouts by a person identified as Jean Claude Dessources.
COLBY: Monday, Dessources saw Murphy weeping at a pay phone. She tearfully told him her mother had died and she had nowhere to go. He took her in, then saw the news.
JEAN CLAUDE DESSOURCES, CAB DRIVER: When it hit me, when I saw her face, that person looked exactly, just like her, just like her. So that's when I confronted her. I said, look: "This is you. What is going on?"
She said: "Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh."
COLBY: Dessources was convinced it was Murphy and led authorities to his home.
(on camera): While being questioned by Essex County prosecutors homicide squad and Newark police, Ms. Murphy complained she felt faint and was suffering from high blood pressure. They transported her to University Hospital in Newark, the same hospital where the two boys, Raheem and Tyrone, are recovering.
JAMES: She's expected to be arraigned in Essex County Superior Court on the outstanding charges of three counts of child endangerment and one count of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.
COLBY: Additional charges are pending now that Faheem's death has been ruled a homicide. Mayor Sharpe James, who has visited the boys, is asking where the brothers will go now that one of the boy's fathers wants him in Vermont.
JAMES: They've been so abused, but they've been together. When they tried to separate them at the hospital, they began to cry. So, what we ended up doing was putting two beds in one room. The one person that they each trust is their brother. COLBY: That will be up to the Division of Youth and Family Services, or DYFS, the same department that failed to protect the boys while their mother was in prison for child abuse.
Jamie Colby, CNN, Newark, New Jersey.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHUNG: Because of her hospitalization, Sherry Murphy's arraignment has been postponed and she's been unable to retain an attorney.
Meanwhile, some of the people asking questions tonight are Newark Mayor Sharpe James and Cecilia Zalkind, executive director of the Association for Children of New Jersey.
Thank you both for being with us.
Mayor, can you tell us, how are the boys?
JAMES: Well, they're still fine.
I think I have to get up there. I purchased the blue car he wanted and I have that with me tonight. So, even if I have to get locked up as the mayor of the city, I'm going to take this blue truck up to the young man.
CHUNG: Mr. Mayor, I know that Sherry Murphy had said that she had become ill. But was she able to reveal any information about the boys? Did she admit to abusing them, to starving them?
JAMES: There are all kinds of rumors coming out. And the stories are getting worse. The more suspects we apprehend, the more stories come out and the more contradictory story.
(CROSSTALK)
CHUNG: What I'm asking is, your officers are obviously questioning her. And the question is whether or not she admitted to anything.
JAMES: Well, actually, the statement is that she's done nothing wrong and accusations are being pointed at the mother. And that's my point, that what we might have is both the mother and the cousin living together with the children, both abusing the children.
We might have a situation where the cousin is there and the mother's in the basement. So, all kinds of accusations are coming out, because now we have two suspects making statements. And, quite frankly, they do not agree. Both are -- put it this way. We're saying that maybe the whole story will be that both were present at the same time, both abusing the children, and it was never a case of not being able to find your children and certainly not being able to find your cousin.
So, the story gets worse, and even the case of boyfriends coming in and abusing the children as well. This is a horror story that we do not even read or find in the movies.
CHUNG: I see. You're saying that there's a possibility that the mother, in fact, was involved and did know where her children were when she got out of jail.
JAMES: That is correct, that she might have been present at the same site and might have been there. And then there is also the accusation that maybe the child was killed elsewhere and brought to the city of Newark.
CHUNG: Now, the mother apparently had -- there were complaints against her as early as 1992. And over that period of time, from 1992 until now, there were about a dozen complaints against her regarding abuse of the children. You're aware of that?
JAMES: I think we are. We are aware of the fact that, when she was sentenced in 2002 of March, she was sentenced with child endangerment, which occurred as far back as 1996. And that's why we find it somewhat unfortunate that here was a parent who went to jail for child abuse.
The children were never seen by the Division of Youth and Family Services, never interviewed, and then the case was closed. And I think it's commendable that Governor Jim McGreevey wants all of those answers right now. A mother, clearly, who would abuse the children, now going to jail, no whereabouts of those children were monitored, the household the children were going to were monitored, and at no time were these children seen by the Division of Youth and Family Services.
So, again, it's a tragedy for everyone.
CHUNG: Absolutely.
Cecilia Zalkind, what do you think happened here? It's obviously an egregious failure on the part of the Family Services Division. However, could there have been a logical explanation? Could caseworkers have been terribly overloaded? Even if they were, it can't really be justified, can it?
CECILIA ZALKIND, ASSN. FOR CHILDREN OF NEW JERSEY: No, I don't think that justifies what happened in this case.
And I think there are two issues. One is what happened to these children. And certainly the investigation into this case is critically important in terms of what went wrong in this investigation. The track record of the division is somewhat sketchy around its response to child abuse allegations of these children.
I think the broader issue is, what does it say about this child protection system and whether it can really protect children entrusted to its care.
CHUNG: Well, obviously, in this case, it did not and these children should have been monitored when the mother went off to prison. The department actually had closed the case. ZALKIND: Yes, that's correct. And, certainly, the information that's been released by the department suggests a level of investigation that was inappropriate and inadequate. The last allegation apparently was investigated without the children being seen. That's outrageous.
CHUNG: Mr. Mayor, Newark actually doesn't have a very good reputation in terms of national surveys of raising children. It's considered the -- a national survey said it was the third worst city in America to raise a child. What can be done in Newark -- aside from this state agency, that needs, obviously, revamping, what can be done in Newark?
JAMES: Well, I think the whole thing is that it's a holistic approach. I think we've heard the statement it takes a whole village to raise a child. I'm not only pointing the finger at DYFS. I think the biological mothers have a responsibility. We have to make sure that those who bring a child into the world accept that responsibility. I think surrogate parents have a role. I think the school has a role.
Here we have a 7-year-old who had never been in school.
(CROSSTALK)
CHUNG: How about the city of Newark?
JAMES: We have to make sure that we monitor households as well, to make sure that we don't have children who, shall we say, are imprisoned in their own household and certainly in their basement, locked up.
CHUNG: Absolutely.
JAMES: I think our Department of Health and Welfare can do more.
CHUNG: All right, if you do go visit those boys, would you give them a hug for us?
Mayor James, thank you so much for being with us. And Cecilia Zalkind, thank you as well.
And, as we see in tonight's look in "The World in: 60," there are unanswered questions across the globe tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over): Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix says Iraq's declaration of its weapons program leaves many questions unanswered. But he admits the inspectors have not found any so-called smoking gun. Blix briefed the Security Council today on the progress of the inspections in Iraq.
According to a British newspaper, Britain is urging the U.S. to delay war against Iraq for several months, possibly until autumn, to give U.N. inspectors more time to provide evidence of weapons violations.
U.S. and South Korean special commandos have held joint military exercises north of Seoul, against the backdrop of the simmering nuclear standoff between the U.S. and North Korea.
In New Delhi, India, three workers are dead after a 109-foot statue of the Hindu God Lord Krishna toppled on Monday. The statue, under construction for six years, was near completion.
Thirty-nine pilot whales that were beached on an island off Southern New Zealand are safely out to sea, but 120 whales have died after washing ashore earlier this week.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHUNG: Next: What happens when reality TV intrudes on your reality? We'll give you a hint. It involves lawyers.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHUNG: Reality TV is starting to bump interest a harsh reality about America: lawyers. Shows such as "Fear Factor" that bring physical risks to their participants get them to sign waivers.
But a lot of other shows that incorporate real people, knowingly or otherwise, are drawing lawsuits, as in the case against a suit against Comedy Central's "The Man Show." The issue isn't always physical injury. It can be humiliation or embarrassment.
Now, Comedy Central is partly owned by CNN's parent company, AOL Time Warner. But they and "The Man Show" production company, Stone Stanley, declined our request for comment.
Joining us now, though, is the plaintiff in that case, Patrick Finnegan, and his attorney, Gloria Allred. And we have Jill Mouser, who is suing CBS and Rocket Science Laboratories, producers of a reality TV pilot called "Culture Shock" for injuries she says she received during a taping, along with her lawyer, Brian Grossman. And of course, we've brought in our own lawyer, our legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin.
Thank you all for being with us.
All right, let us start with Patrick Finnegan.
You and a friend of yours were on a beach in California. This was in June of 2001. And a little boy comes along. He's about 11 or 12 years old. And you were taped in this conversation.
We're going to show a clip and then we'll talk about it, all right? Here's our clip.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE MAN SHOW")
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Excuse me, Miss, can you blow up my raft for me?
PATRICK FINNEGAN, SUING "THE MAN SHOW": I'd love that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, not you, sir.
FINNEGAN: You want her to do it?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
FINNEGAN: Well, I don't know. How do you feel about that?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sure, I'd love to help you blow up your raft.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, yes, that's right. You look like you've had some experience.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're absolutely right.
FINNEGAN: You can blow up the rest of it, OK?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But she was doing it so well. Your girl keeps giving me the eye. Are you keeping her happy at home?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHUNG: All right. So, that was on Comedy Central's "The Man Show."
Tell me, Patrick, why have you brought this lawsuit up against them?
FINNEGAN: What you saw on that show is a distortion of actually what happened. I don't know that many viewers would notice it, but there was a boat going by in the background that suddenly disappears.
What's cut out in the middle of that, when that young boy approached us, my immediate response to him when he said something lewd and suggestive to both of us was: "Son, that's really inappropriate. I don't want you speaking like that. We'll help you blow up your toy, but I don't want you speaking like that." And when he repeated yet another statement that again was sexually suggestive, I immediately said: "Son, we're going to give it back to you. You need to be on your way."
Following that, two women come running up to us, my friend and I, and asked us to sign waivers, releases, so that they could air this on national television.
CHUNG: And did you?
FINNEGAN: I refused. I refused. Absolutely. And so did she.
CHUNG: You signed nothing?
FINNEGAN: Absolutely didn't. On top of that, I work as an assistant director in the industry. I know what that waiver means. And I informed them no.
CHUNG: Sure.
(CROSSTALK)
CHUNG: Go ahead. Did you have one more thing to say, because I want to switch over to Gloria about the lawsuit?
FINNEGAN: Go ahead.
CHUNG: All right.
Gloria, why and what are you claiming in this lawsuit?
GLORIA ALLRED, ATTORNEY FOR PATRICK FINNEGAN: Well, Connie, that it's a misappropriation of his likeness for financial gain.
He did not consent. In fact, he objected to the use of his likeness. But, in addition, we're alleging that it's an unfair business practice to do what was done. Patrick would never have engaged in a sexual conversation with a child. He has children of his own. And he just doesn't think that's appropriate.
CHUNG: So what are you seeking, Gloria?
ALLRED: And this was edited. It was out of context. And it portrays him in a false light. We are seeking damages, according to proof at trial, compensatory, punitive damages. And we think we have a very strong case. They have aired this a number of times. And they should never have aired it without his consent.
CHUNG: Jeffrey, do they have a case?
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, the question I have is the same First Amendment applies to entertainment programs as it does to news programs. News programs don't have to get waivers from people. News programs -- you can't sue CNN if you don't like the way you're edited.
CHUNG: Isn't this different? He didn't sign a release. He was asked to sign a release. He didn't sign it.
TOOBIN: But nobody signs releases when they -- most people who are on TV don't sign releases. And if you create a system where everybody who is broadcast on any television program can decide for themselves whether they want to be on, I think that -- even though this is obviously silly, this program, that would create a precedent that would be terrible for television.
(CROSSTALK)
CHUNG: Let's hear from Patrick.
Gloria, I'm sorry. ALLRED: OK.
FINNEGAN: Jeffrey, correct me if I'm wrong, but this moment on the beach with my friend, who is very close to me, is nothing of historical significance. It is not news in that sense. And not only that. It was a created scenario that distorted what was going to. It was not news gathering. It was actually distortion. And it was purposely distorting myself and my friend.
(CROSSTALK)
ALLRED: And what's more, the defendants tried to throw the case out and they were not successful. They tried to throw it out on free speech grounds. We opposed it and we prevailed. And we are being permitted to proceed to trial.
TOOBIN: That's because you always win, Gloria. I know you.
(LAUGHTER)
TOOBIN: Go ahead, Connie.
CHUNG: All right, I'm going to move on to the other case.
And this is Jill Mouser.
Tell us. You had entered this pilot. You were going to shoot a television pilot. You agreed to be a contestant, along with a friend.
JILL MOUSER, SUING "CULTURE SHOCK": Correct.
CHUNG: What did you agree to do? This was sort of a contest so that -- what was it? Five couples entered. And if you won, you would win $75,000. So, what were you told you had to do in this contest?
MOUSER: We were competing for $75,000. There were five couples. And it was an athletic competition. So, we were told that everything that we were going to do was an athletic competition. And it was basically left at that.
CHUNG: All right. So you won the first three competitions.
MOUSER: Correct.
CHUNG: And then the next one came along and it was called the harness of pain. What was that?
MOUSER: It was a device that was supposed to be an imitation of an old Indian ritual where they basically hung you from your belt. You're like an upside-down U in the air and -- to see who could stand the most pain.
CHUNG: And that's what you had around your waist. How long did you stay up there?
MOUSER: Approximately 40 minutes. CHUNG: And what was the result of that experience?
MOUSER: I ended up hurting my back while I was hung in the air about 6 feet off the ground. And I got taken to the hospital, spent the night there, was injected with morphine, had back problems, still have back problems.
CHUNG: Brian, she did sign a release. Jill did sign a release. I know you say that it's very fine print. It's 20 pages long. But you didn't fax it to us, so we couldn't examine to see if in fact there were clauses in there that suggested that's exactly what she was going to be doing when she signed it.
BRIAN GROSSMAN, ATTORNEY FOR JILL MOUSER: There are not clauses in there, Connie, which explain the detail that she is going to go through in these events.
And it's important to point out that releases, no matter how broad and no matter how detailed, are not enforceable against injuries that are either intentionally or recklessly caused. In this case, we have both. The event that we're talking about, the harness of pain, was an event designed in particular to cause injury to the woman who was being suspended and emotional stress to the man who had to hold her up.
Also, there was recklessness in this case, Connie, because the harness that they put Jill in was different than the other harness used by the other couple. The production company knew that. And they went ahead and they did the event anyway, because they were running out of daylight. Their location permit was about to expire. And the host of the show's contract was about to be up.
CHUNG: All right, Jeffrey, what do you think?
TOOBIN: A sad fact about my life is that I am a big "Survivor" fan. I know about reality television. That's what all these shows are. What did you expect? That's what goes on in these programs.
Did you think this was going to be the masterpiece theater of reality television? This is what these programs are. You took your chances. Isn't that really what this comes down to?
GROSSMAN: There's a difference between athletic events, where you have to assume the chance that you might get injured in competing, and an event that is specifically designed to hurt you and to cause you physical pain and emotional stress.
TOOBIN: Would you call "Fear Factor" an athletic event? It was the same producers as your program. I mean, come on, this is a -- pardon my expression -- a freak show. All these shows are people degrading themselves in various ways, taking risks, looking like jerks, risking injury. Isn't the story here just tough luck?
GROSSMAN: Well, then the question becomes whether we as a society should permit releases to occur in situations like that. We could also pay two indigent people $100 to go beat the tar out of each other and they would take the money and they would do it.
TOOBIN: There's a Web site just like that.
GROSSMAN: That doesn't make it right.
CHUNG: I wish we could continue talking about this.
Jeffrey, my gosh, you have an opinion about this, don't you?
TOOBIN: What can I say?
CHUNG: You're not going to make me many friends out there.
(LAUGHTER)
CHUNG: Jill and Brian and Patrick and Gloria, thank you so much for being with us. If you want to come again, you can come without Jeffrey being here.
(LAUGHTER)
TOOBIN: I won't be invited back.
CHUNG: Thank you all so much for being with us.
A reminder: The networks and the production companies being sued declined to comment.
Still ahead: tossed into the ocean, 20 hours clinging to a plywood without a life jacket. How did he survive?
ANNOUNCER: Next: a visual approach to diet. What's more fattening, a fat-free, sugar-free muffin or all this fruit and bread? We'll show you why a picture's worth 1,000 calories -- when CONNIE CHUNG TONIGHT returns.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHUNG: If a picture is worth 1,000 words, is a picture of food worth 1,000 calories?
A new diet book uses pictures of food to drive home some lessons that could save dieters thousands of calories. For instance, look at this. Would you believe a single scone has as many calories as 14 -- 14 -- pieces of raisin bread with low-sugar fruit spread. Pretty unbelievable, don't you think?
The book is "Dr. Shapiro's Picture Perfect Weight Loss." The book may not offer much startling new information, but author, Dr. Howard Shapiro, presents familiar foods in ways that may change the way you think about food.
How can this kind of information help you lose weight? Well, Dr. Shapiro is here to explain.
Thank you so much for being with us. HOWARD SHAPIRO, AUTHOR, "DR. SHAPIRO'S PICTURE PERFECT WEIGHT LOSS": It's my pleasure. How are you?
CHUNG: It's one of the things that I had always thought was just terribly difficult is counting calories. You go to a chart and all of this and it just doesn't work.
So, let's go to these scones again. How could it possibly be 14 slices of raisin bread and a scone...
SHAPIRO: First of all, you make a good point. The list of foods don't make any sense, but a picture you don't forget. And you will never forget the scone vs. all this toast.
CHUNG: That's right.
SHAPIRO: So, the point is that the scone has fat. The scone is very dense. The scone is about 90 calories per ounce. It is 9 ounces. So, it comes to 960 calories, 930 calories for the scone with the butter. And you could have 14 slices of raisin toast and jam.
The point being, are you going to have 14 slices? I hope not, maybe two or three. And you are going to be that many hundreds of calories ahead of the game. And that's the point of these photographs.
CHUNG: All right. Let's talk about lunch, all right? A Caesar salad, that sounds great.
SHAPIRO: It sounds like a diet food, doesn't it?
CHUNG: Absolutely.
SHAPIRO: Chicken Caesar salad, that's my diet lunch, merely 560 calories for a small portion.
CHUNG: Yes. So, that means nothing to me, 560 calories.
SHAPIRO: But, if you're on a program where you're trying to lose weight, you want to have somewhere between 1,000 and 1,300, 1,400 calories. So, 560 calories.
There's croutons. Nobody thinks about the calories in the croutons, 130 calories. The chicken has about 150, 160 calories. But the real key is in the dressing. The dressing is about 90 calories a tablespoon.
CHUNG: You're doing all of this calorie stuff. See, I don't get it. What should I eat instead?
SHAPIRO: You could have a whole meal in place of it. You could have a salad. You could have black bean soup, which has a lot of fiber. It's very thick. It's very healthy. You could end up, in addition to that, having fruit, which has a lot of fiber, and chocolate sorbet. So, it's not a depriving type meal. You could have all of that and a dinner roll for 150 calories less than the Caesar salad. So, take a look and have some soup and some fruit and sorbet and you're ahead of the game.
CHUNG: And there's no dressing on that salad?
SHAPIRO: There's none on that salad. If you put a light dressing, it is going to be another 50 calories.
CHUNG: Pretend it's Sunday night. We are going to have Chinese food, OK? Or maybe it's every night at my house, right?
SHAPIRO: OK.
CHUNG: And it's great. I think Chinese food, no problem.
SHAPIRO: Right.
Somebody goes into a restaurant, fried noodles are on the table. They eat fried noodles without eating looking at the menu yet. One cup fried noodle: 400 calories.
(CROSSTALK)
CHUNG: Don't do that calorie thing with me. I don't know what it means.
SHAPIRO: OK. Just use it for a minute. Two or three spare ribs: 400. One egg role: 400 calories. Any one of those items equals an entire meal, OK? And the meal that it would equal would be rice, shrimp and vegetables. And also you have in addition to that the salad and a soup. The soup is a soup with Chinese vegetables.
The whole point is, you don't have to count calories. You don't have to know the numbers. And that's why we have it in the picture form. You look at the picture and you say, I eat egg roll all the time. And I have two or three and then I have some fried noodles. I'm not going to do that anymore. Look at all the calories of that vs. this. I could really eat three meals, if I had all three of those appetizers.
CHUNG: Quickly, we'll do two more deserts. Ice cream sundae?
SHAPIRO: Ice cream sundae. A regular ice cream sundae: 1,380 calories. Or four ice cream sundaes with sorbet -- I'm sorry, with frozen yogurt instead of ice cream. Instead of nuts, you use fruit. You use chocolate on all of them and you use whipped cream on all of them.
CHUNG: Really?
SHAPIRO: So, you could have four for one. Nobody is going to know the difference between frozen yogurt. When you have chocolate syrup and whipped cream and fruit in there, you don't know the difference.
CHUNG: That's amazing.
SHAPIRO: If you had one of them, you saved yourself 75 percent of the calories.
CHUNG: You have something here.
SHAPIRO: It's not about the calories. It's about having different choices. And, if you look at the pictures, that's really what it's about.
CHUNG: Right. And that one's really good, yogurt instead of ice cream.
SHAPIRO: I brought you a chocolate mousse, because chocolate's not forbidden on my program. This is one of the recipes from the new book, which is "Picture Perfect Weight Loss Cookbook." This is 190 calories for the serving vs. regular chocolate mousse, which would be about 450. This is 8 grams of fat. And it tastes good or I wouldn't let you have it.
CHUNG: Are you sure?
SHAPIRO: I'll put my reputation on it. And it is made with real chocolate.
CHUNG: Yes. It's good. It's good.
SHAPIRO: It's made with real chocolate. It has a little bit of -- it has tofu, egg whites and it's made with real chocolate. It takes about five or 10 minutes to whip it up. You have to chill it. This is not chilled. You didn't get the benefit of it being cold.
CHUNG: It would taste better if it were cold?
SHAPIRO: It would be. Sure it would.
CHUNG: I think it's pretty good.
SHAPIRO: It's pretty good and it's very filling and it's very low calorie. And it has very few grams of fat. The whole point of these pictures is not to know calories. You see things. You compare them.
CHUNG: Got it.
SHAPIRO: You don't forget them. And then you can make the choice. It's simple.
CHUNG: That's excellent.
Thank you.
SHAPIRO: My pleasure.
CHUNG: Howard Shapiro, good doctor. All right, appreciate your being with us.
When we come back: If you think dieting is hard, try surviving 20 hours in the open seas without a life jacket. We'll meet the man who lived to tell the harrowing story.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHUNG: There are dramatic new pictures from the Navy today, a story of survival and rescue. That orange blob that you see -- can you see it? -- in the surging open seas is a life raft. On it is a Bermudan fisherman, Robert Lambe, who spent 20 hours, 20 hours, floating in the Atlantic, clinging to a piece of plywood without a life jacket after his fishing boat turned over in high seas Tuesday night.
The Navy pulled him out of the water yesterday after a Coast Guard search plane spotted him and dropped him the life raft. Coast Guard Lieutenant Commander Mike Callahan piloted the search plane that spotted Lambe and joins us now from Elizabeth City, North Carolina. And, as for Lambe, we've got him on a ship-to-shore phone from the U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort.
Thank you both for being with us.
LT. CMDR. MIKE CALLAHAN, COAST GUARD: My pleasure.
CHUNG: Mr. Lambe, I know that this is really difficult for you, because you were with two other people and they were not found. But tell me, how are you?
ROBERT LAMBE, FISHERMAN: I'm doing just fine. I'm all warmed up. I'm doing very well.
CHUNG: Good. Do you have any injuries?
LAMBE: No. I just got minor cuts on my hands and on my feet. But otherwise than that, I'm OK.
CHUNG: Twenty hours with no life preserver, with no warm clothing, with nothing. How did you do it?
LAMBE: I just hung on for dear life on top of the piece of wood that I was on and just trying to relax and stay calm as much as possible.
CHUNG: And the weather wasn't in your favor either, was it? Tell us.
LAMBE: No. The weather was very bad.
CHUNG: When you say very bad, what do you mean?
LAMBE: We had anywhere from 35 to 40 knots of breeze, and occasional gusts, I would say, up to 50 knots.
CHUNG: Oh, dear.
So, were there times when you thought to yourself, oh my God, this is more than I can really bear?
LAMBE: No. I got rolled a few times hanging on to the piece of wood through the water, maybe 18, 20 times during the night. And the only thing I was thinking of, the only thing I had to hang onto was that piece of wood. So, I kind of hung onto it. I kind of left my imprint in the piece of wood, actually.
CHUNG: Well, you had to be tired.
LAMBE: I was a little tired, but not that bad. I kind of keep fairly in physical good condition. So, mostly, I just tried to relax and stay calm. That's what I mainly tried to do.
CHUNG: Lieutenant Commander Callahan, tell us, you really had a job in front of you. You had to find Mr. Lambe in the middle of the ocean. How did you do it?
CALLAHAN: Well, it was the luck of being in the right place at the right time. We were the secondary aircraft on scene, so we knew the general area. And, as we arrived, my observer in the back of the airplane called person in the water, person in the water. And we marked that position electronically and with a smoke signal and repeatedly came back.
CHUNG: So, statistically, what were the chances of beating the odds? Do you have any idea?
CALLAHAN: I don't know the exact figures, but I know Mr. Lambe was -- was a lucky day for him, as he can attest to. I think the survivability charts put it at about 11 hours in those conditions. And he beat that by almost twice.
CHUNG: My goodness.
Mr. Lambe, when the life raft was dropped to you, what was going through your mind?
LAMBE: I couldn't believe it. I turned around. I saw the rope. And I had to swim maybe 10, 12 feet for it. And I just swam across, got it, it came back and they threw the raft to me and then crawled into the raft. At that time, I kind of just laid back and took a deep breath and said, OK, I think everything is going to be all right now.
CHUNG: All right, well, I thank you both for being with us. We so appreciate it, Lieutenant Commander Callahan.
And, Mr. Lambe, get better soon. And send us a postcard when you reach fort in the Indian Ocean. Will you do that?
LAMBE: I can do that, yes.
CHUNG: OK.
Right now, tonight's "Snapshot" raises the question: Is it a publicity stunt or proof that money can buy you love?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over): In the market for a family? Log on to eBay, where a family of four is up for auction. Starting bid for their services: $5 million.
The patriarch of MTV's hit show "The Osbournes" tackles talk. Sharon Osbourne has landed her own talk show to kick off, reportedly, in September.
Those hip-huggers, made popular by the likes of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, may be hazardous. A Canadian doctor says those hip-hugging jeans can squeeze a sensory nerve under the hip bone and cause a thigh-burning condition.
The virtues of a vampire: Researchers say the saliva from a vampire bat helps heal, packing a potent clog-busting substance that combats stroke.
HBO is losing its Sunday night sizzle. Hit signature show "Sex and the City" plans its final season. It will exit with a bang: 20 new spicy episodes.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHUNG: By the way, we'll have that family that is selling itself on eBay right here tomorrow night. And they're going to tell us why -- back in a moment.
ANNOUNCER: Still ahead: Who will be our "Person of the Day"?
CONNIE CHUNG TONIGHT will continue in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHUNG: Tonight, a man who has loomed large in America's consciousness since September 11 is making a small gesture that got our attention and our designation as today's "Person of the Day."
As mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani was at the heart of the chaos on September 11, evacuating his emergency bunker at the World Trade Center, losing people close to him, and helping the city and nation confront what had happened, mourn the dead and face the future. Now, out of office and less often in the spotlight, he hasn't stopped helping out.
He's donated a picture he once took to an auction benefiting his Twin Towers Fund. Here's the picture. The image appears in this month's issue of "Popular Photography and Imaging." The gesture makes Rudy Giuliani, for continuing to do his part, our "Person of the Day."
And tomorrow: Remember Jack Kevorkian? Well, now, is there a new Dr. Deaths in town? He's come from here from Australia. But is America ready for a new euthanasia machine?
And coming up next on "LARRY KING LIVE": Jermaine Jackson on his brother Michael and growing up Jackson. You know the chocolate mousse that I tasted? It tasted fine in the beginning, but it's got a horrible aftertaste.
Thank you for joining us. And for all of us at CNN, good night and see you tomorrow.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
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