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CNN Live At Daybreak

Coffey Talk: Martha Stewart, Kobe Bryant Cases

Aired February 04, 2004 - 06:43   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: Well the bombshell is expected to explode into the public arena today in the Martha Stewart trial. The prosecution's star witness will take the stand again. And in Eagle, Colorado, Kobe Bryant awaits a decision.
Time for some 'Coffey Talk' now. Live to Miami and our legal analyst Kendall Coffey.

Good morning -- Kendall.

KENDALL COFFEY, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Good morning -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, let's start with Kobe Bryant. His attorneys want to throw out a taped police interview. Also, they want to throw out the results of a physical exam and a bloodstained T- shirt. I want to talk a little bit about the physical exam. Bryant's attorneys say it was illegally done because it happened in the predawn hours. What difference does that make?

COFFEY: Well the Colorado rules require that it be done during daylight hours. But the problem for the defense is the rules don't say that if police mess up, and apparently they did, that the evidence is going to be excluded. So it's going to be uphill.

A lot of times, Carol, police make mistakes, but it doesn't mean the evidence gets tossed out. And in this case, it is expected that while the police look a little bad, they didn't know what the rules were, the evidence is probably going to be allowed in with respect to the hospital exam.

COSTELLO: How important is that that it be kept in?

COFFEY: Well it's pretty important in terms of the blood match, because that's the one really sizzling bit of evidence that came out during a preliminary hearing that the blood on the alleged victim matched the blood on Kobe Bryant's T-shirt. The prosecution really needs to keep that evidence.

COSTELLO: Interesting. OK, let's move on to Martha Stewart now. Doug Faneuil takes the stand again. He has already testified that his boss, this broker that's also on trial with Martha Stewart, told him to call Stewart to tell her the ImClone founder was dumping his stock. What more will he say today?

COFFEY: Well he is going to directly incriminate Martha Stewart today. He is going to talk about the details of his conversation with her, which are basically going to, if believed, establish that she lied when she later told investigators that it wasn't because of any information she had about Sam Waxal but that the reason she sold her stock was a preexisting stop loss arrangement with Bacanovic to sell whenever the stock went down to 60 shares -- $60 a share.

COSTELLO: And apparently Faneuil asked Bacanovic if he could tell Martha Stewart that Sam Waksal was dumping his stock.

COFFEY: And the other thing that was developing yesterday is Faneuil is coming off not so far as a lying rascal who is selling out his former boss and his former client in order to get a sweetheart deal with the government, but kind of almost a guy next door, almost a sympathetic gopher who was caught between two mega manipulators, didn't know what to do for a while and eventually decided to come clean and do the right thing with the government. So far he's playing pretty well in front of that jury. We'll see what happens when cross- examination begins.

COSTELLO: Exactly. I was just going to say that, he hasn't been cross-examined yet.

Thank you very much. Kendall Coffey live from Miami this morning.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired February 4, 2004 - 06:43   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Well the bombshell is expected to explode into the public arena today in the Martha Stewart trial. The prosecution's star witness will take the stand again. And in Eagle, Colorado, Kobe Bryant awaits a decision.
Time for some 'Coffey Talk' now. Live to Miami and our legal analyst Kendall Coffey.

Good morning -- Kendall.

KENDALL COFFEY, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Good morning -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, let's start with Kobe Bryant. His attorneys want to throw out a taped police interview. Also, they want to throw out the results of a physical exam and a bloodstained T- shirt. I want to talk a little bit about the physical exam. Bryant's attorneys say it was illegally done because it happened in the predawn hours. What difference does that make?

COFFEY: Well the Colorado rules require that it be done during daylight hours. But the problem for the defense is the rules don't say that if police mess up, and apparently they did, that the evidence is going to be excluded. So it's going to be uphill.

A lot of times, Carol, police make mistakes, but it doesn't mean the evidence gets tossed out. And in this case, it is expected that while the police look a little bad, they didn't know what the rules were, the evidence is probably going to be allowed in with respect to the hospital exam.

COSTELLO: How important is that that it be kept in?

COFFEY: Well it's pretty important in terms of the blood match, because that's the one really sizzling bit of evidence that came out during a preliminary hearing that the blood on the alleged victim matched the blood on Kobe Bryant's T-shirt. The prosecution really needs to keep that evidence.

COSTELLO: Interesting. OK, let's move on to Martha Stewart now. Doug Faneuil takes the stand again. He has already testified that his boss, this broker that's also on trial with Martha Stewart, told him to call Stewart to tell her the ImClone founder was dumping his stock. What more will he say today?

COFFEY: Well he is going to directly incriminate Martha Stewart today. He is going to talk about the details of his conversation with her, which are basically going to, if believed, establish that she lied when she later told investigators that it wasn't because of any information she had about Sam Waxal but that the reason she sold her stock was a preexisting stop loss arrangement with Bacanovic to sell whenever the stock went down to 60 shares -- $60 a share.

COSTELLO: And apparently Faneuil asked Bacanovic if he could tell Martha Stewart that Sam Waksal was dumping his stock.

COFFEY: And the other thing that was developing yesterday is Faneuil is coming off not so far as a lying rascal who is selling out his former boss and his former client in order to get a sweetheart deal with the government, but kind of almost a guy next door, almost a sympathetic gopher who was caught between two mega manipulators, didn't know what to do for a while and eventually decided to come clean and do the right thing with the government. So far he's playing pretty well in front of that jury. We'll see what happens when cross- examination begins.

COSTELLO: Exactly. I was just going to say that, he hasn't been cross-examined yet.

Thank you very much. Kendall Coffey live from Miami this morning.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com