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CNN Live Sunday
Piracy on High Seas in Somalia; Hikers Rescue in Utah; Mining Safety Issues; Homophobia in Black Churches
Aired January 22, 2006 - 17:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to CNN LIVE SUNDAY, I'm Fredricka Whitfield. All that and more after this check of the headlines. Set to resume in Baghdad, the trial of Saddam Hussein. Some of Hussein's former lieutenants may be called to testify and a western officials tells CNN they may include a former official now in U.S. custody.
Israel confirms it fired a series of missiles at armed Palestinian gunmen trying to infiltrate Israel from Gaza. Palestinian officials say one man was killed in the air strike and two were wounded.
And a U.S. government medical team toured a hospital in eastern Turkey today where bird flu cases are being treated. The leader of the mission praised Turkey's response to the outbreak. Then the team set ought for Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia. Without naming names, Turkey last week accused several of its neighbors of concealing cases of bird flu.
We begin with today's CNN security watch and piracy on the high seas. The horn of Africa is recognized as among the most dangerous shipping lanes in the world. Today a U.S. Navy war ship in the region seized what appears to have been a pirate boat menacing commercial vessels off of Somalia. CNN's Carol Lin has details.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CAROL LIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Fifty miles off the coast of Somalia, the USS Winston Churchill closes in on its target, a small vessel suspected of piracy.
CAPT. MARTY ALLARD: We tried verbally over the radio and our acoustic device again in five languages, many, many, many times and so as we stepped through what I thought we needed to do at the time --
LIN: Unable to establish communications with the boat, the Churchill launched a boarding team and then fired warning shots. The boat stopped and its crew came on deck. The U.S. Navy fifth fleet says some were detained and small arms were recovered.
ALLARD: I'm very confident in my own mind that this vessel was involved in an attack on the merchant vessel we responded in distress to. I believe their intention, obviously, with piracy, and what we are seeing over here, is that they want to take those vessels and then hold them for ransom. LIN: Piracy has become all too common off the coast of Somalia. In November, a cruise liner with 150 passengers was attacked. One crewman was injured by shrapnel, but the liner, "The Seaboard Spirit" outran its assailants. That was just one of about 30 recorded attacks off Somalia in 2005. The country remains in a state of near-anarchy with no government, desperate hunger and a heavily-armed militia. The United States believes Somalia has become a haven for terrorists and a training ground for al Qaeda.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: And in fact, more on that, the U.S. military officials say al Qaeda is exploiting the longstanding lawlessness and anarchy that's plagued Somalia since 1991. The military has taken CNN to Somalia for a firsthand look at the what the U.S. believes is a major al Qaeda recruiting effort in eastern Africa. Somalia has been a political vacuum for the past 15 years, largely controlled by rival bands of thugs. Watch Barbara Starr's exclusive report on how al Qaeda is exploiting the situation tomorrow on "CNN American Morning." And stay tuned to CNN day and night for the most reliable information about your security.
In Pakistan, more anti-American demonstrations following the CIA air strike against a target in a remote mountain village. The Pakistani government is furious that it was not consulted before the air strike in violation of an agreement between the U.S. and Pakistan. The U.S. said the January 13th strike was aimed at bin Laden's top lieutenant Amin al Zawahiri. Earlier today on CNN, Pakistan's prime minister said that U.S. planes and any al Qaeda members being at the site were quote, bizarre.
Still no sign of an aid helicopter used by the international Red Cross. Officials with the aid agency said the Russian-made chopper with a crew of seven disappeared yesterday after entering Afghan airspace. The helicopter had just completed a mission to aid the quake recovery effort in Pakistan. It was en route to Kabul for refueling before returning to its base in Turkmenistan. Officials say there is no indication the chopper was shot down.
A U.S. Army interrogator could spend three years in prison after being convicted of negligent homicide in the death of an Iraqi prisoner. Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer Jr. was accused of putting a sleeping bag over the head of a detained Iraqi general, sitting on his chest and then covering the man's mouth with his hand during interrogation. The military jury rejected a murder charge against Welshofer and acquitted him of assault.
Iraq in 2006 remains as volatile and dangerous as ever, despite well over two years of intense U.S. military activity aimed at establishing a stable democracy. For the latest, CNN's Michael Holmes reports from Baghdad.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After something of (INAUDIBLE) more violence around Iraq, police found the bullet- riddled bodies of 23 men on Sunday who had been kidnapped north of Baghdad last week after being rejected entry into a police training academy. The men were among 50 returning on a bus from Baghdad to their homes in Samara when they were stopped at a fake police roadblock. All of them were kidnapped. Now at least 36 of those 50 have been found dead. Nine people meanwhile, including four children and four Iraqi police officers, were killed early Sunday in two separate incidents in the volatile Diyala province, according to local officials. Now the children died in an early morning rocket attack on the home of an Iraqi police officer. Now the police officer wasn't home, his family was. The four policemen were killed and nine wounded in a pre-dawn roadside bomb blast that targeted their patrol in Baqubah.
Meanwhile, no news on the captive American journalist Jill Carroll. However the kidnapped son of a former Iraqi official appeared on Saturday in a video televised on Arabic language television saying his captors have threatened to kill him unless Iraqi security forces stop cooperating with the Americans. Michael Holmes, CNN, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: Back here in the U.S., an outing on Utah's steep and snowy Mt. Olympus takes a frightening turn. A group of hikers, several of them injured, were stranded just before dark yesterday with no way down. CNN's Tim Lister has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TIM LISTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Clinging to life on the face of a mountain, four trekkers, members of a local Korean climbing club, trapped just below the summit of Mt. Olympus. The temperature on the mountainside about four degrees Fahrenheit. A group of seven hikers set out on Saturday, but on the way down from the peak left the trail. They were not roped together. One of the women hikers slipped, knocking over two others who fell 60 feet. The whole group ended up on the shear mountainside with darkness closing in. When they failed to return, family members alerted authorities. Rescuers were able to locate the group and bring three uninjured hikers off the mountain overnight. But three others had suffered fractures and lifting them off by helicopter before daybreak was too risky.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The area they were in was very technical and very dangerous and unstable area.
LISTER: A mountain rescue team stayed with the injured hikers overnight. At daybreak, the operation began to bring them down.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They were not hysterical. They were fairly well-contained. They understood their situation. They were relaxed and they let us do their work. They weren't jumping up and down trying to take control of what we wanted to do.
LISTER: The first to be brought off the mountain, a woman with serious back injuries. One of the hikers acknowledged they had a lucky escape.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Without the rescue team's excellent job, maybe we really have really big problems, so they did a really great job.
LISTER: But when ask why the group left the trail he said...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a mountain area, it's challenging.
LISTER: In this case, somewhat too challenging. Tim Lister, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: Now to challenges in West Virginia, where the search for those two missing coal miners came to a sad ending yesterday. The discovery of the miners' bodies marked the second mining tragedy in less than three weeks in that state. Now West Virginia lawmakers are promising to do whatever it takes to make mining safer. Here's CNN's Chris Huntington.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRIS HUNTINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): All is quiet around the Aracoma mine now. The rescue teams have pulled out. There were no services Sunday at the Bright Star Free Will Baptist Church, which for days had been the sanctuary for the miners' families, their hopes and their prayers, just silent remembrance for Don Bragg and Elvis Hatfield, two veteran miners who could not escape a conveyor belt fire. But the quiet in Melville may be the quiet before a storm, a storm the governor of West Virginia is unleashing to overhaul mine safety.
GOV. JOE MANCHIN, WEST VIRGINIA: These two men that perished in this mine, the 12 men that perished -- the 12 men that perished in the Sago mine, I can only say to each one of their families that they have not died in vain. They're going to look back and one day say because of my dad or because of my uncle or my brother or my cousin, we have laws now that other people will be safe.
HUNTINGTON: Manchin is demanding more rapid response to mine disasters, electronic tracking for underground miners, and mandatory reserve oxygen stations in the mines.
MANCHIN: We are doing and will do everything humanly possible to make sure they're able to return home every night to their family and loved ones.
HUNTINGTON: Manchin has the power to push that through in West Virginia. He's counting on his state's congressional delegation to make it Federal law as well.
The technology to make coal mining safer is readily available. But critics of the coal companies point out that they are often reluctant to spend what is really needed to substantially update safety procedures. That's why Governor Manchin and other West Virginia lawmakers say it's time to force the coal companies to invest in new safety equipment.
REP. NICK RAHALL, WEST VIRGINIA: It's unfortunate that every coal mine health and safety law on the books today is written with the blood of coal miners. It takes a tragedy unfortunately to toughen these laws and to pass them in the first place.
SEN. JAY ROCKEFELLER, WEST VIRGINIA: Coal mining has to be done. It needs to be done. It's in America's interest that it be done and it has to be done safely and responsibly and it shall be.
HUNTINGTON: But too late for the men who died in the Sago and Aracoma mines. Chris Huntington, CNN, Melville, West Virginia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: Eavesdropping on Americans here at home without a warrant, legal or not? President Bush is going public in a big way with his support of the NSA eavesdropping program. We'll have a live report from the White House.
And a renowned civil rights activist speaks up about the lack of acceptance for gay men and women in black churches. We'll talk to him. You're watching CNN LIVE SUNDAY.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
The Bush administration is launching an all-out defense of its counter terrorism program that snoops on phone calls without judicial warrants. Congressional hearings are to begin next month. The president praised the program in a speech last week, and White House aide Karl Rove did the same. Next week, President Bush gets involved. With the story from the White House, CNN's Elaine Quijano. Elaine.
ELAINE QUIJANO Hello to you Fredricka: That's right, ahead of those congressional hearings set to begin in early February, the White House is launching an aggressive campaign, pushing back at critics of the controversial domestic surveillance program. The purpose really is to try to get President Bush's message about this program out to the American people ahead of those hearings. This week the president will visit the headquarters of the National Security Agency or NSA, which carries out the monitoring. The president argues that to disrupt terrorist plots, he has the constitutional authority to order the monitoring of Americans' international communication. But on the weekend talk shows, Democrats said President Bush overstepped his authority by ordering the wiretaps without court warrants. Democratic Senator John Kerry said he backed Al Gore's call for a special counsel.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN KERRY (D) MASSACHUSETTS: I agree that we ought to have a special counsel investigate. I'd agree that we ought to have an independent commission, because this Congress has proven itself unwilling to do what's necessary to perform its responsibilities.
(END VIDEO CLIP) QUIJANO: Yes, Senator Kerry stopped short of calling for an end to the program. Meantime, the president's supporters echo one of the administration's main argument about why the program is necessary. Republican Senator Pat Roberts says obtaining warrants from a court created under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is not practical when going after terrorist suspects.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. PAT ROBERTS (R) INTELLIGENCE CHAIRMAN: Under the FISA court you're backed up in regards to all of the paperwork that you have to do. The key is agility to respond to a possible terrorist attack. And I might add that all the people who are worried about civil liberties, you don't have any when you're dead.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUIJANO: Now as part of the White House's stepped-up efforts, we're also going to see some other top Bush administration officials talking about this in the coming week. They include the Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. He'll be making some remarks on the program on Tuesday and then Fredricka, tomorrow General Michael Hagen, perhaps not a familiar name to viewers, but he was the head of the NSA when President Bush first authorized this controversial program back in the weeks after 9/11, 2001. Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: All right, Elaine Quijano, thank you from the White House.
Other headlines from across America. Now a Florida woman who became a quadruple amputee after contracting a bacterial infection at an Orlando hospital is suing the facility. Doctors amputated the woman's arms and legs after she developed gangrene from an infection. Now she wants a judge to order the hospital to release records of any similar incidents related to the bacteria.
Thirty three years ago today, the Supreme Court legalized abortion in the U.S. with its historic and controversial ruling in Roe v. Wade. Supporters and opponents of the decision marked the anniversary yesterday in San Francisco, carrying signs reading "peace begins in the womb." Abortion opponents were met on the streets by pro-choice demonstrators shouting "bigots go home."
And America's best-known white bread is turning over a wheat (ph) new leaf. Wonder Bread is unveiling two whole wheat versions they say will look, taste and feel just like the spongy original. The company will use white whole wheat flour, which it says offers the same nutritional value as traditional wheat, but with a milder taste, texture and color.
The Reverend Al Sharpton is challenging African-American churches to confront homophobia. On Friday Reverend Sharpton spoke in Atlanta to the National Black Justice Coalition, a gay rights group and he spoke of having a relative who suffered discrimination because of her race and gender, only to struggle against prejudice within her church because of her sexual orientation. Reverend Al Sharpton, welcome. REV. AL SHARPTON, CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST: Thank you.
WHITFIELD: Good to see you.
SHARPTON: Good to see you.
WHITFIELD: You have been quoted as saying churches have an obligation to help and the quote/unquote, poisoned atmosphere surrounding the acceptance of gay men and lesbians. Is it strictly the family member incident that provoked this new campaign of yours or is this something that you've been wanting to launch for a while now?
SHARPTON: No, it was not just the family member. I lived with that all my life. It was what I see in the African-American communities around the country, almost an epidemic level of HIV and AIDS and a lot of reasons that many in the church community have not aggressively fought for members in our congregations. Most of our families have someone in their families -- is because of homophobia, we don't want to deal with the issue that we feel brings about dealing with gays and lesbian questions. I said, we can't sit by and allow people to die because we have a bias or we don't make an adjustment to people that may life differently than us. We make adjustments with all kinds of people that live differently than church dogma. Why are we making an exception in case of gays and lesbians, that even if we don't condone it based on dogma, we clearly must reach out and have a way of relating and dealing with the issues.
Secondly Fredricka, we should not allow this to become a political weapon of the right wing, to have us accept some policies that are contrary to the interests of our community only because they say they are against same-sex marriage. I think that is a cheap way to try and gain some black votes.
WHITFIELD: Your emphasis yesterday was in predominantly black churches, are you finding that this is a problem, a silent problem perhaps, in many congregations that are not specific to black churches, but to a good number of churches overall in this country?
SHARPTON: As I do. I mean this particular group that called this national conference, its emphasis was on the black church, so I was addressing that because that was who I was asked to speak to. But I find that throughout the faith community, I think that last year in the national elections, many in the faith community overlooked an unjust war, overlooked 50 million Americans with no healthcare, overlooked poverty, any number of things that would disturb us, in the name of we've got to support Mr. Bush because of same-sex marriage, which is ludicrous, since the president has nothing to do with same- sex marriage. It' was like they knew to push a button and we'd ignore the rest and it's against our interests to do that.
WHITFIELD: So you don't necessarily think that a wider acceptance in churches to embrace gay and lesbian members won't necessarily help set the stage for more states beginning to embrace same-sex marriages?
SHARPTON: No, I think tolerance and working along with people. We all know there are gays in our churches, but to be tolerant. WHITFIELD: Will it help in that fight though?
SHARPTON: Absolutely not. First of all, we deal with people in churches every day that do things against church dogma. It doesn't mean we condone it. We adjust for people that commit adultery. We forgive ministers that have been scandalized. Why do we ostracize, run out and allow political scapegoats to be made of gays and lesbians other than people are appealing to a homophobic instinct that's wrong and biased. I think that we cannot adjust -- we can't have one level of reaction to something that is against church dogma at another level and act like that's a fair and reasonable reaction even for people in the church.
WHITFIELD: Reverend Al Sharpton, thanks so much for being with us this Sunday.
SHARPTON: Thank you, Fredricka.
And in just a moment, a story you may not want your little ones to see. It centers on allegations that, if proven, would be a horrible breach of faith. Was a long-time church pastor involved in sexual misconduct for years?
And a clinic in California claims to have thought -- or rather taught dogs how to sniff cancer in humans. Is it true or is it just a hoax? You'll find out.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: Each week at this time we like to bring you some of the very best reporting by CNN's correspondents over the past week. Today we have a two-parter by CNN's David Mattingly, a story you may not want your small children to see. It's about a powerful and charismatic minister, a beautiful and impressionable young woman and salacious allegations of salvation through sex. You saw it first on CNN's "Paula Zahn Now."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MONA BREWER, FORMER CHURCH MEMBER: She died when she was 18 in a car accident suddenly. I really had a -- had a real experience with God at that time.
DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Twenty years ago and just a teenager, a young Mona Brewer was reeling from the death of her sister and turned to God. She found comfort in the welcoming arms of the Chapel Hill harvester church near Atlanta. At the time it was one of the nation's growing charismatic mega-churches with thousands of members led by the influential Bishop Earl Paulk.
BREWER: He had a fresh word from God every time he came to the pulpit which was several times a week. And it was amazing that God spoke to him on such frequency and we were taught that spiritual authority was -- your level of spiritual authority was, according to your revelation from God or the things that God revealed to a person and we were taught he was a prophet and an apostle in the church. MATTINGLY: Mona says she came to view Paulk, a married father and grandfather, as a holy messenger of the Lord, selected by God to speak for the almighty. Over time Bishop Paulk's church became her life. Mona became a teacher in the church school, a soloist in the church choir and at age 27, she even married an associate church pastor, a union blessed by Paulk himself, a man she believed so close to God that his words could never be questioned.
BREWER: There were signs on the walls of the church. They didn't put scriptures on the wall. They put his sayings, his quotations and one of them was "the kingdom of God is built in trust" and we were taught that we were to trust our spiritual authority and we were taught not to question it.
MATTINGLY: And so it went for years, Mona says, until one day Paulk asked for a meeting with her. It was a request that left her both elated and curious.
BREWER: I was just overwhelmed, because that was such a great opportunity. Nobody got to do that. I mean he was awesome. I mean, everybody wanted to talk to him and he just invited me to his office to talk to him for a few minutes. That was really incredible.
MATTINGLY: She says this man she respected so much, it turns out, had been moved by her singing and wanted to take her to a higher level of ministry.
BREWER: At the end of the chat, he said, well, what is it you want from me? I thought to myself at the time, well, I didn't ask to come here. You asked me to come up. I couldn't say that, because that would sound (INAUDIBLE) so I couldn't say that. So I just said, well, I guess I need a father, because that's what everybody said, and I did. I thought, you know, that's a good thing to say.
MATTINGLY: But Mona was about to get something she never expected. She says in her next few meetings with Paulk, his plans for her became shockingly clear.
BREWER: He said well, I guess you'll just have to take your clothes off, because I'm going to have to love you. And I thought, oh God, I didn't want to do it, but what choice did I have? I had been taught for all these years not to question him and I had this word from God. I mean God obviously wanted me to do this and it was so foreign to me, but I didn't know what else to do. I was on the spot, so I took off my clothes and we did it.
MATTINGLY: The tryst she says went against all she had been taught about marriage, sin and adultery. Then, age 29 and a member of Paulk's church for 10 years, she was left confused, conflicted and questioning what she knew about her faith. And according to Mona Brewer, it was just the beginning. The liaisons continued. She says it became frequent. She says that Paulk used the scriptures to justify the seemingly unholy behavior, claiming that God had elevated him above the sin of adultery.
BREWER: Because he said, you know, the adultery issue was for the little ones. It was for the people, you know, commoners. It wasn't for people who God elevated and trusted with special things like this, relationships like this. That's the way he explained it to me.
MATTINGLY: And now you were elevated as well?
BREWER: Oh, yes, God trusted me with this relationship, and that was major.
MATTINGLY: And how long did this go on?
BREWER: Fourteen years.
MATTINGLY: Fourteen years of alleged silence, secrets and sin, now spelled out in a stack of legal documents in a lawsuit filed in 2005 by Mona Brewer and her husband Bobby, against Paulk, other church leaders and the church itself. The couple accuses Paulk of abusing his confidential relationship with Mona as his spiritual adviser, and through manipulation, coercion, and deception caused her to believe that her only route to salvation was to engage in sexual acts at the request of Bishop Earl Paulk.
But Paulk responded, denying all allegations. Including that he coerce or manipulated Mona into having sex. Paulk and the others field a countersuit seeking damages for libel and slander.
Mona claims, however, that Paulk's request didn't involved just having sex with him. She claims that Paulk arranged for her to have sex with a member of his family and once with visiting minister.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Paulk brought him into Atlanta, had him stay in his own home, in the basement bedroom, where we always had sex. And he wanted me to go downstairs and have sex with him and then come upstairs and have sex with himself and tell him all about it.
MATTINGLY: The list of the alleged encounters would not end here. Mona Brewer claims that there were times that, unknown to her, Paulk had others watching while they had sex. Still for years, she never denied him. All the while, she says, thinking her salvation depended on it, but eventually she says there was one Paulk perversion that even God couldn't make her do.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The whole time I'm laying there, just praying, I'm praying, God, I will do anything for you. You know, I've proven that, but please don't make me do that. I don't want to do that.
WHITFIELD: Well, what does Mona Brewer say her pastor wanted? And what do other women at the church have to say. David Mattingly's report continues in a moment.
Also, rescue dogs, drug dogs, and now cancer dogs? Can dogs really be trained to sniff cancer in humans?
And after Hurricane Katrina swept them from their homes, the Gulfport Eight seem to have found a new place to stay. We'll show you where. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: A look now at our top stories. The crew of the Navy's U.S.S. Churchill has captured a group of suspected pirates in the Indian Ocean. The Churchill fired warning shots in an effort to stop the ship. The suspects were captured about 54 miles off the coast of Somalia.
All eyes are on automaker Ford. The auto giant is expected to announce sweeping job cuts tomorrow. Ford Motor Company is due to release details of a restructuring plan, which Ford's chairman admits will be painful.
Now back to our "best of" segment and David Mattingly's story. It's about sex, trust and betrayal involving a big-city church, its respected leader, and a woman who turned to both for comfort after a crisis. You may not want your young children in the room for this report, which was first seen on "CNN's Paula Zahn Now".
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MATTINGLY: From the outside, the Chapel Hill Harvester appears much more than a church. A campus of rolling hills gives way to schools, and offices, and a massive multi-million dollar cathedral.
All of it built under the charismatic leadership of Bishop Earl Paulk, who now named in a lawsuit by a devout former church employee, Mona Brewer, alleging acts of sexual coercion.
BREWER: I mean, it certainly wasn't consensual in the way that you would say you're in a office working with someone and you were attracted to each other, even though you had spouses and then you just went ahead and -- that's consensual to me. This situation, I was brainwashed and I was taught that he was infallible, and I had to do whatever he said, not knowing it would lead to something like that.
MATTINGLY: What it led to was an alleged 14-year sexual relationship between Paulk and Brewer, in which Paulk is accused of also manipulating her to having sex with a member of his family and a visiting leader of another church, believing all the while, she says, that she was acting in the service of God.
Mona, however, reached a critical moment when she says Paulk had the idea for her to pick up strangers in bars, have sex with them, then return and tell him all about it.
BREWER: The whole time I'm laying there, just praying, I'm praying, God, you know, I will do anything for you. You know, I've proven that, but please don't make me do that. I don't want to do that.
MATTINGLY: Fortunately, Mona says, Paulk never asked her to go through with it, and eventually she says she found the strength to break away, reject what Paulk was telling her and leave the church that had become her entire life. (On camera): People are going to see this interview and hear how you were doing this and talked into doing and how you were manipulated. Sure, I can believe it once, OK, maybe twice, but for years?
BREWER: Well, that's how much I believed it. But anyone who's ever been in a cult, or known someone in a cult will immediately recognize it and understand, but if you've never been in anything like that or related to it in any way, it does seem so bizarre, doesn't it?
MATTINGLY: Brewer's reference to a cult is her way to describe the pressure she felt to comply with Paulk's wishes and her lawsuit does not allege that the church itself is a cult. Paulk's attorney describes the Chapel Hill Harvester as a nondenominational, full- gospel, charismatic church.
And in a statement to CNN he writes it would be interesting to see what percentage of viewers would buy into this beautiful 40-year- old woman's preposterous sex fantasy. The attorney claims it was Mona who seduced Paulk, and only on one or two occasions. He says Paulk has openly confessed this to his congregation. And he suggests that the Brewer's lawsuit is driven by money.
Now, almost 80 years old, Paulk, according to his attorney, is recovering from recent cancer surgery and remains in very poor health. He is not commented publicly outside of church about the lawsuit. And Mona Brewer is not alone in her accusations.
(On camera): Mona was talking about there was a time when someone was watching. That was you?
CINDY HALL, FORMER CHURCH MEMBER: Yes.
MATTINGLY: Did she know it at the time?
HALL: No, no. She did not know it at the time.
MATTINGLY: What did he get out of it? Did he have you come talk about what you saw?
HALL: Yes, well, he was turned on by the fact that I was watching while he was having sex with another woman.
MATTINGLY: And when she would leave, would it then be your turn?
HALL: Yes.
MATTINGLY (voice over): Cindy Hall is also a married former member of the Chapel Hill Harvester Church, who claims to have also been manipulated by Paulk for 10 years into performing sometimes twice daily sexual acts with him, and occasionally other men and women.
Now a friend of Mona Brewer, Hall has provided a deposition for the lawsuit. Like Mona, she says she was made to believe she was serving God, and was compelled by her faith to obey.
MATTINGLY (on camera): After these episodes, did he ever pray with you?
HALL: Oh, yeah, there were several occasions that he prayed with me.
MATTINGLY: Right there in the bedroom?
HALL: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
MATTINGLY: What would he say?
HALL: He would pray with me during sex, sometimes. He would pray for me and during sex, yeah.
MATTINGLY: Pray for you?
HALL: Pray for the relationship, pray for -- huh, yeah, he'd pray sometimes during sex, yeah. When I say pray over me, it's kind of hard to describe.
MATTINGLY (voice over): And hard to believe according to Paulk's attorney who writes, Cindy Hall's story is even more ludicrous an unbelievable than Mona's, all of it categorically denied by the Bishop Paulk.
PAULK: Those who accuse this church were to meet me --
MATTINGLY: But through the years there have been other lawsuits and accusations. In 2001 there was another one claiming that Paulk had molested her as a child. That case ended with a confidential settlement.
In 1992, seven women held a press conference to publicly accuse church members of sexual misconduct, one of those women accused Earl Paulk. They were sued by the church for libel and slander, but that libel case was later dropped.
(On camera): By coming forward, what do you hope to accomplish.
HALL: My goal is to help stop it, and whatever I can do to expose this type of behavior, I'm willing to do that. And I'm willing to come forward and talk about my situation. Maybe somebody that sees this, that has been through a similar situation, maybe it will help them.
MATTINGLY: Cindy Hall says she is now in counseling. She and her husband left the church and have stayed together, but the experience with Bishop Earl Paulk, she says, has shaken her faith. For a time, Mona Brewer says, she was suicidal.
BREWER: I thought of ways to do it, and every time I would think, what if the kids think it's their fault? And I couldn't deal with that. So that kept me, you know, going every day, just putting one foot in front of the other.
MATTINGLY: For Mona Brewer, the final break came in March of 2004, she told her husband Bobby of the 14-year affair and the couple invited Paulk and his brother Don to their home. These photograph reveal the results. The meeting ended when Bobby punched both of them in the face.
Mona says because her husband has stayed by her side, it's given her the strength to pursue their lawsuit. She also thankful that her faith in God remains intact.
BREWER: I know there's a God up there that loves me, in spite of everything and he know he forgives mistakes and will vindicate the righteous.
MATTINGLY: David Mattingly, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: Paulk and the church deny all of Brewer's allegations and are counter suing claiming libel and slander. The church meanwhile continues to hold regular services.
The latest cancer-detection device on the market -- a dog? Is it really possible to train dogs to detect cancer and other diseases in humans? If so, how does it work?
Plus it was a long journey for the Gulfport Eight, but now the dolphins finally seem to be in luck and in for the long haul at a new location.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: University of Pennsylvania professor Dr. Larry Rome has designed a back pack that generates electricity by using human movement.
DR. LARRY ROME, UNIV. OF PENNSYLVANIA: When people walk, they put down their front leg and pole vault over that leg. What we've been able to do is use the mechanical energy of this up and down movement, and capture and convert it into electricity.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rome says the electricity can be used as it is generated, or stored in rechargeable batteries used to operate cell phones and global positioning systems. Soldiers or first-responders, he says, could eliminate heavy battery packs and still stay in touch with command posts in areas without electricity. Rome is also working on another use for the backpacks.
ROME: We're also putting a lot of our effort in ergonomic backpacks, where they have the same sort of mechanism where the load is suspended from the frame.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A suspended load means the person wearing the backpack no longer has to lift the weight of the contents with each step.
ROME: We plan to translate this into kids' back packs all the way to adult backpacks. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rome hopes to test the backpacks in the field, soon and make them available to consumers within the next two years.
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WHITFIELD: Well, everyone knows that dogs have remarkable noses, and they can be trained to sniff out all kinds of things, but can they smell cancer of all things? A small clinic in Northern California, says it has trained five dogs to detect lung cancer on a patient's breath.
Dr. Bill Lloyd is a professor at University of California Davis Medical Center and he's here to explain whether there's any truth to all of this.
We know about dogs being able to sniff out drugs, and find unusual things, bombs -- making materials in packages, but it is hard to believe, cancer?
BILL LLOYD, UC DAVIS MEDICAL CENTER: It's extraordinarily hard to believe, Fredricka, but I'm a dog lover and I want to believe it's true, even though I'm of the belief that man's best friend is really a good oncologist, especially if you have cancer.
They train these dogs to smell very low levels of specific chemicals that we believe are produced by cancer cells in greater proportion compared to healthy people. So then they bring in a bunch of people, and they put their breath in little containers, let the dogs sniff. They train the dog to respond if they smell low levels of those chemicals.
And lo and behold, the numbers come out and the data shows that when the dogs smelled the tube with the breath of cancer patients or patients who eventually developed cancer, they were right, and when they smelled the breath of normal people, the dogs didn't respond. They were right again.
WHITFIELD: Wow, so if this were going to be used in any kind of universal setting, how would you see it being played out? Dogs being brought into the hospital setting or to the doctor's offices and being able to do their thing?
LLOYD: They've been doing this in England since 1989. I had a chance to go back and look at some of the medical literature. In fact, the application of dogs to smell cancer is not very novel at all. And 17 years ago they had dogs that were able to detect bladder in cancer in people by getting up-close and smelling them because of residual molecules after urination. Can you imagine that?
WHITFIELD: No.
LLOYD: It probably would be, breathe into this tube, and we'll have the dog smell it, and then we'll call you back or send you a postcard and tell you what the dog found. It's January, I think it's too early to declare this the 2006 breakthrough healthcare story of the year.
WHITFIELD: We are talking about five dogs, you mentioned that have been trained. That I mentioned, underscore that have been trained. Do you see this kind of research will be taken seriously, that more dogs might be trained to be used in this country?
LLOYD: They have to overcome an awful lot of skepticism, Fredricka. The study that is going to be published in the literature now next month wasn't really one of these peer-reviewed studies. In fact, one of the dogs belongs to one of the lead researchers. So there's some issues of bias and objectivity.
And people who reviewed the article, say, hey, you know, people who have lung cancer, they're smokers, so the dogs are probably smelling some old chemicals in that lungs. Even though they may have stopped smoking. Now, the authors say, not true, we have just as many smokers who are healthy in this study as the number of smokers that got cancer, but they are going to have to get past way beyond these developmental issues to develop a very successful clinical protocol to show this actually works, before they introduce it into clinical medicine.
Dogs have also been used to examine the skin to look at skin tumors, as well. So I think we'll find a use for it someday down the road.
WHITFIELD: Wow, all right. That's a mouthful. Dr. Bill Lloyd, thanks very much.
LLOYD: We'll talk again soon.
WHITFIELD: Man's best friend taken to another level.
Carol Lin, do you have pets?
LIN: I have a cat. I'm sure my cat can do other things, but smelling cancer is not one of them.
WHITFIELD: Well, it's interesting.
LIN: Coming up at 6 o'clock. You think that getting, you know, building wealth is funding your 401(k), buying a house, building up equity. I'll be talking with a millionaire maker that says, no, no, you should be acting like the rich people act, OK? Different clues to how to become a millionaire, that's what she does for a living.
WHITFIELD: I'm going to listen to that.
LIN: At 7 o'clock, a very good friend of mine is a documentary producer. She has gone into several mines to shoot different films. She went back into a mine in 1997, that the miners and the company told her was absolutely safe. A few years later, two major gas explosions, 13 miners were killed. The company had a $3,000 fine. We're going to see some of her amazing footage of where these miners actually work, the conditions and also talk with an mine safety expert to join in on the conversation. WHITFIELD: We'll look forward to that. Thanks so much, Carol. And we'll be right back with more.
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WHITFIELD: Separated from family and friends by Hurricane Katrina, their lives were in imminent danger, but now the Gulfport eight, and more of their ilk, are reunited. It feels so great for them. Gary Tuchman has this dolphin safe update.
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GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): What you're witnessing here is a happy reunion; 16 dolphins swept from their home by Hurricane Katrina at last have a new home. This one's in paradise, on Paradise Island to be precise.
TERRI CORBET, ATLANTIS RESORT: A day in the life of a dolphin hopefully will be fun. Our theory of working and working with the animals is nothing but having fun.
TUCHMAN: But the future didn't always appear so bright for these bottle-nosed dolphins. With Katrina bearing down on the Gulf Coast, some were moved from the Marine Life Oceanarium in Gulf Port, Mississippi, to a nearby hotel swimming pool. Eight of them, though, were left behind and swept to sea on August 29th when the storm moved in and the oceanarium was destroyed.
Their trainers were afraid the mammals, trained to do tricks for tourists, but not to fend for themselves in the wild, would starve.
(On camera): Are these like your children?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, yes. Yes, they're our babies.
TUCHMAN: Finally on September 10th they were spotted in the Gulf. And we were there when the dramatic rescue work began. Trainers blew whistles and banged on buckets to attract the dolphins attention, and it worked. The dolphins did flips so their trainers could see them.
And within days they were rounded up, and on the road to recovery. For a while they were placed in the same hotel pool as their mates, and already up for a game of catch.
(On camera): It's late at night, and these dolphins are still quite active. We asked the trainer -- nice toss. I'm all soaking wet.
We asked the trainer, if these dolphins, Beck and Tony -- nice throw.
Soon, though, the dolphins were again separated, sent to temporary shelters in Mississippi, Florida, Maryland and New Jersey.
But not anymore, 16 of the 17 dolphins saved from the storm have a new home, one of these, Tessie, has an infection that's keeping her in Florida, but she's set to join her friends when she's feeling better.
PAM GOVETT, VETERINARIAN: Since arriving to Atlantis, the dolphins are in stable condition and appear to be doing well. They began to eat immediately. They also have been very interactive and playful. We're encouraged by this behavior.
TUCHMAN: For 17 orphans of Katrina's wrath, a new life and a happy ending. Gary Tuchman, CNN, New Orleans.
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WHITFIELD: Still much more ahead on CNN. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. Carol Lin will have more of CNN LIVE SUNDAY right after this.
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