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Nancy Grace
Interview With Yvette Cade
Aired July 20, 2006 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
NANCY GRACE, HOST: Tonight, a primetime exclusive. She went before a trial judge and begged for help, begged for protection. He refused to hear her pleas for help. And then her nightmare came true. Her estranged husband came to her office and set her on fire. But against all odds, she lived, and tonight she wants justice. And PS, to the judge that sentenced her to being burned alive, Maryland judge Richard Palumbo, you are in contempt!
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The way he was talking to my sister is inexcusable.
YVETTE CADE, HUSBAND CONVICTED OF ATTEMPTED MURDER AFTER SETTING HER ON FIRE: I want an immediate, absolute divorce.
JUDGE RICHARD PALUMBO: Well, I`d like to be 6-foot-5, but that`s not what we do here. You have to go to the divorce court for that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: With us tonight here in our Manhattan studios, the woman who beat the odds, who survived burns all over her body, the survivor, Yvette Cade. Thank you for being with us.
CADE: Thank you.
GRACE: Yvette, when you think back on that day, what is your most vivid memory?
CADE: Arching my back as he threw the matches on me and set me on fire.
GRACE: You are seeing video that is very disturbing. This is video of Yvette. She is at her office there at Verizon. We have pixelated Yvette on fire.
CADE: It`s T-Mobile.
GRACE: After -- excuse me, T-Mobile. After the judge refused to hear her pleas for help, her husband came to her office there at T-Mobile, in plain view of all of her co-workers, setting her on fire.
To Court TV`s Jean Casarez, who has managed to obtain some documents relating to this case, including a letter from the defendant. What happened that day, Jean?
JEAN CASAREZ, COURT TV: Well, you know, Nancy, this all started when Yvette separated from her husband. She was scared. She was afraid that he would be violent toward her. So she went to a judge in July of 2005, and she asked for protection. She wanted a protective order. And she was given that final order of protection.
Well, the next month, her husband wrote a letter to Judge Palumbo saying, you know, Let`s modify this order, if we can. And the judge set a hearing in September of 2005. He didn`t show up. Yvette did. And she tried to explain to the judge. But according to the Commission of Judicial Disabilities, at the end of that hearing, the entire case was dismissed by the judge, including the protective order. Three weeks later, her husband set her on fire.
GRACE: Well, I`ve got all the court documents right here, and it states very clearly Judge Palumbo dismisses protective order. That`s not why you went to court.
CADE: Correct.
GRACE: What happened in court?
CADE: My ex-husband, Ray, he went and filed a petition for us to go to marriage counseling, and so that`s when this second court date came up. And he was granted another court date, and I was there and he was not. Ray was not present.
GRACE: So essentially, the judge had a protective order in place.
CADE: Yes.
GRACE: And your husband wanted you to go into counseling.
CADE: Yes.
GRACE: Did you try to tell the judge he had violated the protective order? Did you want to tell him what your husband had been doing?
CADE: Yes, I did. I tried to show him physical pictures of the abuse.
GRACE: What abuse?
CADE: Roger, whenever he would hit me and I would be left with bruises, I took it upon myself to take pictures of myself, one with a hammer and a knife, where he taunted me. It showed my lip busted, black eye, marks on my leg and other various parts of my body.
GRACE: Let me see your arms. Rosie (ph), if you could let me show our viewers what has happened to Yvette, after a judge turned away from her begging for help. Your little arms are burned all the way up and down. What were your injuries that day at T-Mobile?
CADE: The flames covered my face entirely. so I was just like a great, big ball of fire. From a little below my waist, part on my right leg on up was completely engulfed in flames. So I have burn on my right leg, my behind, stomach, chest area, my back, both arms and my face. From the fire, I have -- I felt my skin, my flesh dripping. And so I`ve lost parts of my ears, and my chin was actually melted. My lip was actually melted to my chin. So there was a lot of damage.
GRACE: When -- can you feel me touching you?
CADE: It`s just a thin layer that`s numb because of the skin grafts, which the skin was taken from my legs where there were no burns. And they call it skin grafting, or cadaver skin.
GRACE: Now, what are these gloves? What do they do?
CADE: Actually, I`m supposed to wear a body suit to cover the top, upper part of my body. It`s just extremely painful trying to take them on and off, and sometimes trying to move my hands. But it is supposed to -- if you can see how the skin is bumpy.
GRACE: Yes.
CADE: And you see how this is flat.
GRACE: Right.
CADE: The skin raised up. This is what they`re trying to prevent. They`re trying to make the skin go back into its regular form, like your skin here.
GRACE: You were in the hospital that time for 92 days.
CADE: Yes.
GRACE: As you were laying there, not able to speak, what were you thinking?
CADE: Recovering so I could get home to my daughter, Champagne (ph), get home to my family. I had just purchased a new condominium. I was beautifying, renovating my home -- and just trying to fight for my life.
GRACE: Now, what -- why do you have to wear this? What is that on your arm?
CADE: Itching means healing, and basically, I scratch really bad. If you get a mosquito bite and it`s raised up, and you know how you scratch, scratch, scratch? Well, it`s especially hard for me because the itching is internal. It`s just not on the top layer of the skin.
GRACE: So you can`t scratch it.
CADE: Right. So I -- I`d like to not scratch, but sometimes it`s impossible for me.
GRACE: Do you have more surgeries you have to go through?
CADE: They were projecting 40, and I have done -- I`ve had 18.
GRACE: You took a break from surgeries. Why?
CADE: I got out of the hospital in three months, and when I came home -- like I said, I was renovating my home. And I`m very meticulous, particular of my surroundings. And in the beginning -- well, I was going for therapy three times a week, exercising my fingers, hands, arms and -- just so I wouldn`t lose the range of motion. But you know, you have to pay bills. I still pay bills like everyone else. My sister, Shireen Jackson (ph), had been paying my bills for me, writing the checks. I couldn`t write, at one point. So just trying to get my life back and...
GRACE: You needed a break.
CADE: Where I could do it myself. I had clothes -- I`ve grown from a size 3, 4 to a size 10.
GRACE: You`re such a tiny -- how tall are you?
CADE: I`m 4-11.
GRACE: And you weighed, what, 100 pounds at the time of the attack?
CADE: I weighed 103. And now I weigh 134.
GRACE: Well, to most of us, that`s still pretty tiny. Why did you marry him? What did you see in him? Was he charming and wonderful?
CADE: Yes.
GRACE: What?
CADE: He was very considerate.
GRACE: In what way?
CADE: He would -- if I had any complaint about anything, he would -- he would do nice things. Like, I lived in Ohio and he`s from Maryland...
GRACE: Right.
CADE: ... so we began becoming friends through letters. I saw him one time. He told a cousin he was interested. And I was in college, so I told him that, you know, I wasn`t ready for any relationship.
GRACE: What were you studying in college?
CADE: Computer science is my major, and I have a business administrative associate`s degree from Southern Ohio College and...
GRACE: But what, did you fall for him the first time you met him, or was it love at first sight?
CADE: No, I was not interested. I thought he looked like a nerd, and I was just not interested.
GRACE: But you married him.
CADE: We have similar likes and dislikes. We were single parents, raising our child -- children. I have a daughter and he has a son. His son`s mother is like a holiday parent. She`s not in his life, so...
GRACE: Are you taking up for him?
CADE: Just trying to explain that he was in computers, and I had -- we had a lot of similarities, a lot of the same problems.
GRACE: When did you first realize he was not the guy you fell in love with?
CADE: I saw signs of him being jealous, but I thought it was just he was doing things because he cared about me.
GRACE: Like what things?
CADE: I didn`t have my own cell phone when I moved here in Maryland, and he put me on his account and got me a cell phone, and I just...
GRACE: So you were dialing and he was calling you?
CADE: Later, I found that I felt like it was some sort of tracking device.
GRACE: And you can see on a cell phone what numbers are dialed or what numbers come back in.
CADE: Yes.
GRACE: Did he abuse you during the marriage? Did he ever hit you?
CADE: Yes.
GRACE: Were those the pictures you were trying to show the judge?
CADE: Yes.
GRACE: Rosie, who`s our caller? OK. Let`s go to Kayla in Florida. Hi, Kayla.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Nancy.
GRACE: Hi, dear. What`s your question?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My question is, what kind of legal action can be taken against this judge for not protecting her?
GRACE: That`s such a good question. Hey, Rosie, do you have any of the audio of this judge in court? Wait until you hear this, Kayla. I hope you`re sitting down. And Judge Palumbo, I hope you`re watching today. Rosie, tell me when you`ve got it ready and we`ll go to that.
In my hand, Kayla, I have the Commission on Judicial Disabilities -- it`s about a quarter of an inch thick -- where this judge is accused, a Maryland trial judge is accused of trying to fix a ticket, a traffic ticket. Then he got in a car accident, and he tried to get the woman not to call the police. There are multiple examples in this, if they`re true, where he would pooh-pooh women that came before him. He would compare women to buses.
Rosie, do we have that yet? OK. Let me know when we have it.
But yes, there are actions being taken against this judge as we speak. Ellie (ph), when is the hearing?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: August 28.
GRACE: August 28, Kayla. So it`s not over yet for the judge. And you know what? When we get back from the commercial break, I`ll play that for you, Kayla.
Everyone, with us tonight, Yvette Cade, a woman who beat the odds and lived after her husband set her on fire. And tonight, we want justice.
Let`s go to "Case Alert." Evacuations continue for 25,00 Americans trapped in Lebanon. Tonight, Marines join the rescue, helping evacuees escape. Meantime, the first airplane to land back home in the U.S. carrying American evacuees gets a big welcome. So far, 2,000 Americans rescued from Lebanon.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CADE: I wake up, and it`s most important that I take my medication in the morning. I take up to sometimes eight pills -- vitamins, Anorax (ph) for itching, and several others that will prevent me from having panic attacks during the day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Judge Palumbo, you are in contempt! This woman came to you begging for help, begging for protection. And I don`t know what you now say you meant to do, but I have the documents right in front of me from court that says petitioner appears before Judge Palumbo, dismisses protective order. And according to the Commission on Judicial Disabilities, they allege the same thing. Shortly after that unfortunate court date, Yvette Cade`s husband, her estranged husband, came to her office at T-Mobile and set her on fire.
When you saw him coming in that day to T-Mobile, what did you think?
CADE: I was agitated because I had told him to stay away from me.
GRACE: What happened when he came up to you?
CADE: When he first walked into this door, I was actually a little ways from behind him. I was picking up paper off the printer. I went and sat down, and it -- I didn`t have time to think anything because he was pouring some sort of liquid on me.
GRACE: He just came up to you with what, a Sprite bottle?
CADE: A Sprite bottle.
GRACE: With liquid. So how should you know what it was?
CADE: Right. I was sitting in a chair, like so. And he began pouring something. I didn`t...
GRACE: Just throwing, dousing. And then what? Did it smell like gasoline?
CADE: I can`t recall. It just -- I was just so amazed that he would come in my job...
GRACE: He would spy on you.
(CROSSTALK)
CADE: ... period, on my job, in front of people.
GRACE: And then what happened?
CADE: I threw my hands in the air, trying to protect my face. And I got up and ran to the back of the store. He chased me. I don`t recall, but I felt him chasing me, so I ran out the back door, this door. He caught me. He stepped on my foot.
GRACE: He crushed all the bones in your foot.
CADE: Yes. I fell to my knees...
GRACE: So you couldn`t move. And you fell.
CADE: Yes. And that`s when I felt this intense heat on my back, and I knew at that point, I was on fire. Yes. I got up, ran back into the store as fast as I could. I got to the sink. And I took the sprayer off the sink and began spraying my face. A gentleman, his name is Douglas, had -- he was at the bank across the parking lot, and he saw what had happened. And so it just happened that he had a towel on the back seat of his car, in his car. And he said he did, like, a 50-yard dash to T-Mobile. He knows CPR. And he doused...
GRACE: He patted you with the towel to put out...
CADE: Yes. Yes. And another gentleman...
GRACE: Did you go unconscious?
CADE: I was conscious. I was still conscious, at that point. When I was running, I couldn`t see, like, flames out in front of my face, but I felt it. Mr. Douglas and another man, Michael...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CADE: The itching for me is internal. So a lot of times, it`s really hard for me to wear this as much as I should. I should have it on at least 23 hours a day, but it`s so unbearable, where sometimes I wear it for a few hours and that`s all I can do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was exactly what Yvette Cade feared. Her family says her husband, Roger Hargrave, had physically abused her and continued to harass her. She got this court order barring him from contacting her. He took her to court to challenge it. And Cade`s family says the actions of the judge who heard the case were unconscionable. Palumbo said he would reject Hargrave`s request to lift the restraining order, but he granted it. Nearly a month later, Hargrave found his ex-wife working at a T-Mobile store. He doused her with gasoline and set her on fire.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The way he was talking to my sister is inexcusable.
CADE: I want an immediate, absolute divorce.
PALUMBO: I`d like to be 6-foot-5, but that`s not what we do here. You have to go to divorce court for that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: He would not look at the photos she tried to show him, according to our sources, photos of where she had been abused throughout her marriage. And if you take a look at this court document, he dismissed her claims.
When I was reading your story, Yvette, I read that when you were being airlifted, you kept saying, He can`t take my joy. He can`t take my joy.
CADE: Yes.
GRACE: What did you mean by that?
CADE: It had to mean one of two things. Ray was not going to steal my joy, or the devil, because I know the devil is a liar.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Three weeks before this horrible scene played out and Yvette Cade was set on fire, Cade went to court to make sure her estranged husband, Roger Hargrave, would leave her alone. She begged for protection and a divorce. In this audiotape, you can hear how Judge Richard Palumbo blew her off.
CADE: I want an immediate, absolute divorce.
PALUMBO: I`d like to be six-foot-five, but that`s not what we do here. You have to go to divorce court for that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With that, Palumbo rescinded the protective order.
OPRAH WINFREY, TALK SHOW HOST: I think that`s awful, don`t you?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Even Cade herself didn`t say much about Palumbo during her appearance on the "Oprah Winfrey Show" today.
CADE: I thought I was leaving, and later it remained the same.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: This little lady, Yvette Cade, she`s not even five feet tall, lived. Most of her body is burned. She lived amazingly and was telling me in the break, when they were airlifting you, trying to save your life, you kept saying, "He can`t take my joy." Were you talking about the ex?
CADE: I just said he could not steal my joy, so rather it be Ray or the devil, I knew he was -- the devil is a liar. And I didn`t believe that he would take my life, that I would fight every day to be here.
GRACE: Well, we can count on one thing: The devil is busy tonight, as always.
CADE: He is.
GRACE: Let`s take a listen to what this judge has had to say. Rosie, do we have that sound ready? Thank you, dear. Would you roll that?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CADE: He`s contacting my family. He`s still contacting me. He`s intimidating my daughter, and he`s vandalizing other people`s property. I want an immediate, absolute divorce.
PALUMBO: Well, I`d like to be six-foot-five, but that`s not what we do here. You have to go to divorce court for that.
CADE: He was trying to force me to go to marriage counseling.
PALUMBO: Might not be a bad idea, if you want to save the marriage.
CADE: I don`t want to because...
PALUMBO: Well, then you`re in the wrong place. Get a lawyer, and go to divorce court. This petition is denied or dismissed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Well, he said it right there, "dismissed," telling her to go get marriage counseling when the woman, four-foot-nine, is trying to show him pictures of a bloody lip and a black eye, beaten over and over again.
Let`s go to the star chamber, Rosie. Joining us tonight, three veteran trial judges, and they are no stranger to aggravated assault cases. Out to Margaret Finerty from the New York bench, now off the bench.
Judge, what say you about this behavior from the bench?
JUDGE MARGARET FINERTY, FORMER CRIMINAL COURT JUDGE: I think it`s unbelievable, Nancy. Basically, Ms. Cade was telling the judge that her husband had violated a court order. He was still harassing her, still harassing her daughter. In effect, he had committed a crime.
And what did the judge do? He dismissed the case. He dismissed the protective order. What he should have done is immediately contacted whatever official was necessary to go out and arrest her husband, because he had violated a court order, but that`s not what he did.
GRACE: To Congressman Ted Poe, a veteran trial judge off the bench, Judge, I wish you could be here in the studio with me with this little, tiny lady. Her little-bitty hands are -- she is a frail, little thing. And here she is going to a judge, with photos of her face mangled, and he doesn`t want to see them and sends her out, and now says it was a clerical error that he did not dismiss this protective order? It`s here in black and white, Judge.
JUDGE TED POE, FORMER JUDGE, TEXAS: Well, Nancy, you know I believe that judges need to be accountable for their actions just like we make criminals accountable. And this judge, whether it`s a mistake or incompetence on his part, he needs to leave the bench. He needs to back his toothbrush and leave the bench, go do something else.
It`s a travesty. In these type of cases, we know that abusers do not change. And a judge in his position ought to know that, and he ought to have quickly granted the wishes of the victim in this case. But he obviously, in his arrogance, didn`t want to mess with this particular case. And that`s just terrible.
GRACE: And to Carl Fox, senior resident superior court judge in the North Carolina jurisdiction, now, of course, this Judge Palumbo denies all this and says we`ve got the facts all wrong. And we tried to get him to come on tonight to respond; he didn`t want to.
But this isn`t the first time he`s had a problem, according to this judicial commission allegation. He had tried to get one trooper, one sheriff, to fix a ticket, allegedly. Then he was in a car accident and tried to get the woman not to call the police, and now this.
Judge Fox, this is what makes regular people like me dislike judges up on the bench.
JUDGE CARL FOX, SENIOR RESIDENT, SUPERIOR COURT JUDGE: It`s true. And if you read the petition, he makes some interesting points about why his ticket was dismissed. He says that he had nothing to do with it. The officer approached him and asked for the copy. He says that he was misunderstood, that he really was just dismissing the petition.
But the real question is: Why wasn`t someone issuing paperwork to hold him in contempt or to bring him to court to stand charges for violating the protective order?
GRACE: No offense, all you men out there, but here`s another man just misunderstood.
Let me go back to you, Jean Casarez. Jean Casarez from Court TV got her hands on a letter written by Yvette`s ex-husband to the judge. Explain, Jean.
CASAREZ: Well, that`s right. After Yvette got the protective order in July of 2005, that very next month in August, her husband wrote a letter to the judge. And in the letter, he says, "I still love my wife very much. I know that she`s gotten a final protective order, but I think it should be modified, because I want to be with my family. And I think, if we got counseling, all of our problems could be solved, so I would like a modification hearing."
Well, that`s what happened the next month in September, but he didn`t show up. He called and he said that he couldn`t get there. He didn`t have any transportation. Yvette was right there, just as you describe, Nancy, talking about how he`s violated the protective order. And at the end of that hearing, everything that we`ve heard transacted and the judge then allegedly dismissed the entire case, which ended up being the dismissal of that protective order.
GRACE: Incredible. I think this is what`s best. What is best is him behind bars. That`s what`s best, Jean Casarez.
Jean, I thank you for this letter. It`s incredible to me that the judge had this letter and, instead of listening to her asking for help, he dismissed the entire thing.
Rosie, do we have that 911 call? Would you play that, dear?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CALLER: Lay down, lay down! She`s on fire! She`s on fire! Lay down, lay down! She`s on fire.
DISPATCHER: What?
CALLER: She`s on fire. She`s on fire.
DISPATCHER: They set her on fire?
CALLER: They set her on fire!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Joining us now is the lady that made that 911 call, a call that may have helped save the life of Yvette Cade. Joining us is Sharon Smith.
Sharon, thank you for being with us.
SHARON SMITH, CALLED 911 AFTER YVETTE WAS ATTACKED: Thank you, and hello, Yvette.
CADE: Hello.
GRACE: In your recollection, what happened that day, Sharon?
SMITH: Well, my husband and I just came in to talk about a cell phone. In the process of doing that, I noticed and my husband noticed that this gentleman came in the store and began pouring something on her head. It was out of a Sprite soda bottle.
And then they began to proceed on to the back of the store. And my husband asked, well, is this gentleman playing? Do you all allow playing in the store like that? And the clerk responded that that was her husband, and they weren`t playing. And the clerk began to call this T-Mobile manager. And my response to her was, no, hang up and call 911.
GRACE: And you did?
SMITH: And she hung up and called 911. However, I went outside to get the description of what was taking place. As you can hear, when she tells them that she`s on fire, at that time she was back in the store. My husband decided to go to the back with Yvette, because she was by herself.
I went to the door to tell the clerk what to say to 911 so that they can get the description. However, she was so overwhelmed that I took over the call to continue to give them the description of him, what he was doing, the tags, what he had on, what direction he was going...
GRACE: Sharon Smith, God bless you! With us is the voice you just heard on that 911 call.
Out to Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst, Bethany, explain to us the cycle of domestic violence.
BETHANY MARSHALL, PSYCHOANALYST: Well, I think the cycle of domestic violence was in operation when he wrote the letter to the judge, saying he wanted to go to marital counseling, because what happens is initially there`s pathological jealousy, threats, intimidation, harassment. It`s interesting that Yvette mentioned that he was so jealous from the beginning of the relationship.
Eventually, the guy goes too far. He realizes he`s pushed the woman. She attempts to leave. That`s when the woman is at greatest risk for abuse and homicide. In fact, 65 percent of women who are victims of domestic homicide are murdered after they`ve left their spouse.
OK, so when you go back to the whole cycle, the guy goes through a honeymoon syndrome, where he says, "We`ll work it out. We`ll go to counseling. I`ve come to see the light." And then it`s only a matter of time until the whole syndrome builds right back up again.
But Yvette was very brave because she did leave, she did go before the judge. Unfortunately, the judge was a bully, too.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CADE: This is a small portion of the skin has rejuvenated itself. You see how -- this scar. It used to be like charcoal, like charcoal. But as my skin tries to take on its own characteristics, it gets light. And eventually, I believe that my skin will be returned to its old form.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: I wish you could be here in the studio with me. Yvette Cade is so beautiful. If you could be here with me and see the beauty coming out of her eyes and the way she speaks, the beauty just shines out.
Do you think you will ever love again? Do you think you`ll ever date again?
CADE: Yes. I believe, because I`m a good person, that someone will treat me like a queen.
GRACE: I keep thinking of alternatives -- out to Eleanor Dixon, a veteran prosecutor -- of what she can do. She`s got over $800,000 of medical bills, and she still has over 20 surgeries left to go, Eleanor, when she can get her mind straight to go back into the hospital for more surgery. Her range of motion with her skin, she has so far to go, but she can`t sue a judge. Why not?
ELEANOR DIXON, PROSECUTOR: Well, judges usually have immunity from such things, so that`s unfortunate that she won`t be able to do it. However, it looks like there may be some proper punishment for him with the complaint that`s been filed against him. And that`s the best way to go for her at this point in time, because he seems to be treating several women in his courtroom in a very poor manner.
GRACE: You`re not kidding about that.
To Renee Rockwell, Renee, why is it -- and you and I have both seen it in court -- why are domestic violence cases treated so shabbily, just discounted?
RENEE ROCKWELL, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Nancy, most of the time, victims -- and I`m not saying in this case -- but a lot of times victims don`t comply with these orders, either. Sometimes they`ll file the order, and then they`ll let the guy back in, which is unfortunate.
In this case, unfortunately, since that protective order was gone, the day before when he started calling her -- I think 14 times within an hour - - she had no vehicle at this point to call the cops. You know, Nancy, if there`s a protective order, you can`t even think about that person that`s protected. They call, anybody calls, comes near you, whatever, they`re going to jail, and that`s what should have happened to this individual.
I`m sorry I just can`t be a defense attorney here. He should have been taken immediately to jail. She just didn`t have the protection.
GRACE: She did not have the protection. And that is what is so disturbing, so many things disturbing. She did everything right. She moved out. She left him. She got a protective order. She did not tell him where she was living. She did everything right.
Rosie, let`s go to the lines. Let`s go out to Beverly in Maryland. Hi, Beverly.
CALLER: Hi, Nancy. Thank you. Thank you for taking my call. And God bless you for this story. And, Yvette, we agree with you that you will be healed. My question is, where is this monster now?
GRACE: Oh, that`s a good question. Jean Casarez, tell them the good part.
CASAREZ: ... the trial just this last April, and he was convicted of first-degree attempted murder, second-degree attempted murder, so those two charges merged, and assault. And in the state of Maryland, with an intent to commit murder, attempted murder, you can actually serve the maximum as if you had committed the crime itself of murder. So he was sentenced by the judge to the maximum, currently serving life in prison.
GRACE: Not Judge Palumbo.
CASAREZ: No, the trial judge.
GRACE: Yes, I guess not. And the problem is, though, Jean, won`t he come up for parole in about 15 years?
CASAREZ: He is. It is life in prison with the possibility of parole; 15 years will be his first chance before that parole board. I will bet you money Yvette will be there.
GRACE: Let`s go to Kate in Arizona. Hi, Hate.
CALLER: Hi, Nancy. Thank you so much for taking my call. And, Yvette, I`m so sorry. Your spirit shines really brightly. We get what you`re saying, Nancy.
And I just know -- I`ve worked in domestic relations. I don`t understand how the judge -- he dismissed her before she even spoke -- how he cannot be held accountable for what he has allowed to have happen to this poor woman. This woman is brutally changed forever, and he has allowed this to happen.
And how judges aren`t held accountable for this stuff, how can that change in this country? We`re being terrorized, women, who don`t have a voice, who won`t be listened to, domestic relations. It`s full of it. I worked in Chicago and thought every day, why aren`t judges in this country held accountable? And why do they not...
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: Well, you know, the other thing, Kate, I wish -- Rosie, let me know when you get that sound for me -- I wish you could hear the way he talked to other people that came before him. It`s not just this instance, according to the documents. They`re all allegations. The judge denies it all.
But there are several cases that are outlined in these papers where he would threaten indigents to make them pay. Oh, you`ve got it ready, Rosie? Let`s roll that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PALUMBO: Madam, I can`t read your lips.
STRANGULATION VICTIM: He broke my voice box.
PALUMBO: Didn`t I have the same problem with you last week? Did you see me last week?
STRANGULATION VICTIM: Yes.
PALUMBO: You couldn`t talk then. You`re getting worse instead of better? Do I make your nervous?
STRANGULATION VICTIM: No.
PALUMBO: No?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Her voice box had been crushed, and the judge apparently was reprimanding her for not speaking up.
With us tonight, a survivor, Yvette Cade. Her husband set her on fire, and she lived. And she wants justice.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PALUMBO: What is your name and address, sir? What is your name?
VICTIM: Ah. Ah.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He`s got speech impairment.
PALUMBO: All right, well, that`s why she is here, isn`t it? You`re not just sitting here just to look pretty. You`re here to tell me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know. I thought he was trying to pronounce his name. His name is...
PALUMBO: Yes, OK. Try it, it might be good exercise for you. Let me hear you say your name.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: That is a transcript of Judge Palumbo in Maryland. Judge, you are in contempt.
With me tonight, Yvette Cade. She asked the judge for protection; she didn`t get it. Her husband came into her job at T-Mobile and set her on fire. She lived.
If you could speak out to other victims tonight, what would you tell them, Yvette?
CADE: You`re not alone. You have a friend in Jesus. If you don`t feel that you can tell someone, you have to get it out. Read your Bible. It`s like you want some answers. Well, Jesus is the comforter. And pray.
GRACE: What would you tell them about going to court?
CADE: When these events begin to happen, I know sometimes you just blow things over. I had problems. I called the police, so the police had been out to my home several times. But, you know, you can`t play with anybody`s heart. If you`re going to jump back and forth, then you`re going to have problems. But if you feel that your life is threatened, that he may hold a gun to your head or...
GRACE: Do you think...
CADE: ... strangle you...
GRACE: ... they should still call police or go to court? Do you still have any faith in the system?
CADE: I do. Hopefully, my situation will bring about change, and it will help the judicial system...
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: We are signing off, but I wanted to thank you.
CADE: Thank you.
GRACE: And thank you for being with us. Yvette Cade, an inspiration. Good night, friend.
END
