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NAACP Claiming Mortgage Discrimination; Mexican Drug Cartels Hire U.S. Kids; Madoff's Life in Prison; Lost in Bounce House
Aired March 13, 2009 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: President Barack Obama putting his mouth where your money is. His message becomes more upbeat. The markets less grim. Are better days ahead?
Certainly not for Bernard Madoff.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I see someone down the line bribing somebody and taking Bernie out. The only way he's leaving the prison is in a pine box and that's it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Whoa. This morning the onetime Wall Street wizard wakes up in a jail cell and in a whole new world of uncertainty.
Death of a centerfold. New charges, new tawdry details in a suicidal tailspin of Anna Nicole Smith. At the center her boyfriend, two doctors and thousands of prescription drugs.
Good morning, everybody. I'm Heidi Collins. Today is Friday, March 13th, and you are in the CNN NEWSROOM.
President pep talk on the economy. Barack Obama strikes a more optimistic tone. Is Wall Street listening? This hour it opens on its biggest three-day winning streak since November.
Let's go ahead and begin now with CNN White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux.
So, Suzanne, what is the thought or at least the strategy at the White House now behind the president's gradually more optimistic tone? I guess we knew that this would be coming, right?
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It's not surprising at all when you think about it. There are a lot of people who were quite worried that he was too dour or too dire in his predictions about the economy.
And one of the things that they're really trying to focus on is a concerted united message from all of the officials from the top down from the president on down, trying to tell the markets and tell the American people to be confident and to be patient.
That's why we saw yesterday, the president with business leaders on the same page talking about health care, talking about taxes, all kinds of things.
COLLINS: Yes.
MALVEAUX: We also saw this kind of good cop/bad cop routine from the president and Joe Biden talking to state officials saying, look, we believe that you guys can do this. You've got projects but they have to be worthy and we're going to be watching you to make sure that you're not wasteful, that you are accountable.
So it is -- it's not surprising at all, Heidi, that they're looking at the numbers, but they're also projecting what they want to see happen, which is, obviously, an increase in the confidence.
COLLINS: Well, I know that the economy is obviously the big topic again today. There are some meetings that are taking place, right?
MALVEAUX: Absolutely. Paul Volcker, as you know, he is a former Fed chair. He is the head of a group, an independent group that advises the president on economic matters. They've been doing this since the transition even before he became officially the president.
Obviously, they're going to be talking about a lot of these things. The economic stimulus package, how quickly is that working, how are businesses getting on board. That's going to happen at noon and then about 12:45 or so, we are going to hear remarks from the president as well with his economic team.
Once again, we expect he is going to go ahead and project a sense of optimism here. They believe that this is working.
COLLINS: All right. Well, we will be watching closely all of those meetings today. Suzanne Malveaux at the White House for us this morning.
And it is day 53 of the Obama administration, so here's a look at the president's full day planned ahead.
Minutes from now, he received that economic daily briefing. Then at noon, as we heard Suzanne say, President Obama meets with Paul Volcker, the chairman of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board, and after that private meeting, the president is expected to deliver brief remarks.
I'm sure we'll carry those for you here.
Another member of the Obama Cabinet is being sworn in this hour, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis taking the oath of office from Vice President Joe Biden as the Labor Department. Solis is a former Democratic congresswoman from California.
Unions which contributed heavily to the Obama campaign expect her to be an advocate for them and for workers. Solis is the daughter of Mexican and Nicaraguan immigrants.
A cash infusion for Amtrak. The rail company getting a piece of the Economic Recovery Package pie. It's being served up today by Vice President Joe Biden. The federal government is giving Amtrak $1.3 billion. The railway lost $1 billion last year.
Amtrak is a major commuter carrier especially along the northeast corridor. Their top three destinations are New York, Washington, and Philadelphia. Other commuter rail lines also use Amtrak infrastructure. Overall, nearly 30 million people rode their trains last year, that's an average of about 78,000 every day.
The economy, it is "ISSUE #1" for you and for us. Next week, make sure you check this out. We're going to be focusing CNN's vast resources on the "ROAD TO RESCUE, A CNN SURVIVAL GUIDE." What do all of the numbers really mean and where are the jobs? It's all beginning next week on Monday.
Thousands of prescription pills. Anna Nicole Smith's former boyfriend is out on bail this morning. He's one of three people charged with providing her too many drugs. The charges come two years after her death.
CNN's Ted Rowlands is joining us from Los Angeles this morning with more on this story.
Good morning to you, Ted.
TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.
COLLINS: Was this a surprise really that this is what we are learning now?
ROWLANDS: Yes. Well, yes and no. Right after Anna Nicole Smith died in February of 2007, the attorney general here in California came out and said, we're going to investigate this, we're going to look at the doctors who prescribed all of these pills.
COLLINS: Right.
ROWLANDS: There was 600 pills in the room in Florida where she was picked up or where she died. But then we didn't hear anything. So there was a lot of speculation that maybe there wasn't -- they couldn't prosecute, but sure enough, last night, Howard K. Stern, this is the lawyer and friend of Anna Nicole, the person that you always saw her with and the one that tried to get custody of the baby...
COLLINS: Yes.
ROWLANDS: ... was taken into custody. He turned himself in and is out on bail this morning, along with one of two doctors. That's Dr. Sandeep Kapoor. He's one of the doctors. There's another doctor who is turning herself in reportedly on Monday. That's according to the AG's office. She is a psychiatrist, Khristine Eroshevich.
And the bottom line here is that the -- the attorney general of California says these three manipulated the system. They prescribed medication that she did not need. She was an addict and Howard Stern used a fake name, the doctors used a fake name, to prescribe these pills. Michelle Chase was the name.
And they're saying that they're going after them and the AG is very strong on this, holding a press conference later today. This is something that's going to be watched very closely around the country. A lot of...
COLLINS: Yes.
ROWLANDS: This is an epidemic, prescription medication abuse. And doctors are doing this. So California is going after these folks and Howard K. Stern is sort of an enabler. But it's going to be a tough case to prove.
COLLINS: Yes, I do understand that one of the doctors is speaking out through an attorney. What is he saying?
ROWLANDS: Well, this is the female psychiatrist and she is saying that basically that when Anna Nicole Smith lost her son in the Bahamas...
COLLINS: Yes.
ROWLANDS: ... she was very depressed. As a psychiatrist, she was prescribing medication to her client, doing, quote, "the very best she could." As for the fake name, she said they did that for privacy reasons. This was a celebrity and that was all that there was to it.
COLLINS: Hmm. All right, well, Ted, we'll be watching this story, obviously, today. Thanks so much. We appreciate it.
California's attorney general Jerry Brown will be talking more about the case and the charges later on today. You can see his comments during the 1:00 p.m. Eastern hour of CNN NEWSROOM.
The skies are clearing and that will help rescuers looking for anyone in the icy waters off New Finland, Canada. 16 people are still missing after their helicopter crashed in the North Atlantic yesterday.
One person was rescued. He is recovering in a St. John's hospital. The body of another person has also been recovered. The helicopter was faring a crew to an offshore oil platform when the pilot issued a mayday.
Fire breaks out in a crowded mall in Bangladesh this morning killing at least one person, injuring 20 others, sending shoppers running for their lives. The blaze started on upper floor of the nearly 20-story mall in the capital of Dhaka. Some fire units reportedly had trouble reaching the blaze because their ladders didn't go past the 13th floor.
Two people were evacuated by helicopters. The search is under way for those who might still be trapped. We still don't know the cause of this fire.
A Comedy Central smack down. A big-time financial analyst on TV goes from Wall Street to road kill.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JON STEWART, HOST, "THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART": I understand you want to make finance entertaining, but it's not a (EXPLETIVE DELETED) game.
JIM CRAMER, FINANCIAL ANALYST: I'm trying, I'm trying.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Ouch! Things get raw when it comes to money.
ANNOUNCER: "First 100 Days" is sponsored by...
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Comedy Central called it "Brawl Street" but comedian Jon Stewart wasn't playing for laughs. After days of jabs and jeers, he finally came face-to-face with financial analyst Jim Cramer, a man he has accused of playing loose and fast with other people's money.
CNN's Christine Romans has the blow-by-blow.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Welcome to "Brawl Street."
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): It was the showdown TV viewers had been waiting for, Jon Stewart versus Jim Cramer.
STEWART: It's go time.
ROMANS: And "The Daily Show" host didn't pull any punches.
STEWART: I understand you want to make finance entertaining, but it's not a (EXPLETIVE DELETED) game. And I -- when I watch that, I get -- I can't tell you how angry that makes me.
ROMANS: But despite days of heated exchanges, the meeting was less mano-a-mano, and more mea culpa.
CRAMER: I got a lot of things wrong because I think it was kind of one in a million shot but I don't think anyone should be spared in this environment.
Absolutely we could be better. Absolutely. There's shenanigans and we should call them out. Everyone should. I should do a better job at it. I'm trying. I'm trying.
STEWART: I can see that.
CRAMER: Am I succeeding? I'm trying.
ROMANS: Stewart did try to find some common ground with his cable nemesis.
STEWART: Look, we're both snake oil salesmen to a certain extent.
CRAMER: I'm not just...
STEWART: But we do label the show as snake oil here. Isn't there a problem selling snake oil as vitamin tonic and saying that it cures impetigo, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera?
CRAMER: There are people who come out and they make good calls and bad calls and they're financial professionals and then there's the people who say they only make good calls and they're liars. I try really hard to make as many good calls as I can.
ROMANS: And Stewart made clear that his problem wasn't with the frenetic host of "Mad Money" but with the network he works for.
STEWART: CNBC could be an incredibly powerful tool of illumination.
ROMANS: But Cramer hit back when Stewart accused financial news networks of being soft on banks and businesses.
STEWART: It is this idea that the financial news industry is not just guilty of a sin of omission, but a sin of co-mission, that they are actually in bed with this idea...
CRAMER: No, we're not in bed with them. No, I don't think that's fair. Honestly. I think that we try to report the news.
ROMANS: The meeting may finally end the feud between the two hosts, but there has been one clear winner, Comedy Central's ratings. Viewership for "The Daily Show" is up 20 percent since Stewart's first rant against CNBC, while ratings for Jim Cramer's show are down 24 percent since Stewart went on the warpath.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: And CNN's Christine Romans joining me now, part of our money team.
So, listen, I mean, for me, Christine, they are calls. I mean, when we talk about making stock calls. You know, is Jim Cramer responsible for advising people what to buy and what not buy? I mean there's even a disclaimer before his show, right? It says these are not the views of this particular network, CNBC.
ROMANS: Absolutely. And CNBC, of course, is a -- they have an audience, a particular audience who when they're viewing Jim Cramer they know that they're getting advice from Jim Cramer and that sometimes it's going to be right and sometimes it's going to be wrong.
He hopes -- anybody who's giving stock calls on television, clearly, would hope that, I think, that they're making more right calls than wrong calls. Remember Jim Cramer, also last year, famously went on the "Today" show and said the money that need over the next five years, you should take it out of the market. And some people criticized him at the time for that, saying, what, are you telling people to bail out? Well, anybody who took that advice at that time clearly would be a little richer today.
COLLINS: Yes. Well, they would. But it's opinion, right? I mean I guess...
ROMANS: It is opinion. He says that he is a commentator. You know? He used to be a hedge fund manager. You know, I'm not defending Jim Cramer.
COLLINS: Yes.
ROMANS: I'm just saying that...
COLLINS: Me either.
ROMANS: You know, he does what he does. These men are two entertainers.
COLLINS: Exactly.
ROMANS: Each of them -- one is a comedian who has a fake television news show, you know, and the other one is a former hedge fund manager who has a television entertainment show about money.
COLLINS: Yes. I mean he's a hedge fund guy.
ROMANS: Right. Exactly. And one thing that Jim -- that Jon Stewart, rather, said last night is we're both -- he's heard in the piece -- we're both snake oil salesmen. But Stewart said at least I say I'm a snake oil salesman.
So there was some interesting points in there, too, as well, where, you know, Stewart was going to clips. I mean he had a lot of clips of Jim Cramer talking about what it's like to be a hedge fund and how -- a hedge fund manager, how to manipulate the market, and he just kind of kept hitting him again and again with those clips, essentially accusing him and his colleagues, frankly, of being, with a couple of exceptions there, of being cheerleaders during this whole thing and not been critical enough.
COLLINS: Yes. I don't know about the ratings. It's hard to attribute anything to it but it certainly has generated publicity because...
ROMANS: Right.
COLLINS: ... we're both talking about it right now.
ROMANS: The publicity is priceless, Heidi.
COLLINS: Yes.
ROMANS: Frankly, I mean the cable TV feud of the century or the past five days. You know? I mean it was a feud that has generated a lot of, you know, water cooler interest. And what I'm hearing around the water cooler and seeing on, you know, the blogs and stuff on what people are saying about this, is that the Cramer fans, which Cramer had come out harder, and the Stewart fans think Stewart won hands- down.
So, you know, we'll see. We'll see if it really ends here.
COLLINS: Yes. All right. Well, we'll be watching or not. It depends on, you know, your personal interest level, obviously.
Christine Romans, sure do appreciate it. Thank you.
All right, Reynolds Wolf is standing by now in the Severe Weather Center to give us an idea there. I like that salute there, Reynolds. Soggy weekend for some people across this country, yes?
(WEATHER REPORT)
WOLF: We'll have more on that coming up very soon.
Heidi, let's send it back to you. There you go.
COLLINS: All right. Very good. Reynolds, thanks.
It affects millions of people every year and it can lead to death. But, surprisingly, a lot of people don't know very much about the condition. Get the 411 on DVT, blood clots, right here in the NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Want to get to some important health news now. You may have symptoms of a potential killer and not even know it. I'm talking about complications from Deep Vein Thrombosis, DVT, blood clots. What is it and who's at risk?
CNN's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta joining me now with some answers.
Because, you know what? You hear DVT and we're learning a little bit more about it but I don't think everybody knows, a, what it stands for, which we just said, big, long word.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right.
COLLINS: Deep Vein Thrombosis, but that it's blood clots and, you know, it can happen to perfectly healthy people.
GUPTA: Well, and that's the thing. A lot of people have heard this term but don't understand just how common it is, who's most at risk for it and what can be the potentially worst complications of this. What exactly happens.
So we decided to take a closer look just so we can sort of explain it. Take a look. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA (on camera): Many Americans don't even know they have it. The symptoms, often silent. Deep Vein Thrombosis or DVT. It's most common form of blood clot. It will happen to two million Americans this year alone.
DR. SEAN O'DONNELL, VASCULAR SURGEON: It's a huge problem in this country, probably more people die from thrombolic (ph) or blood clots than they do from car accidents yearly.
GUPTA: DVT is essentially a blood clot that builds up in a vein in your leg. In some cases that clot begins to flake apart and travel to the circulatory system and it can end up in your lungs. No everyone will have symptoms so it's critical to know the red flag. Unusual leg cramps, swelling, redness and skin warm to the touch.
DVT commonly shows up after routine operations, during pregnancy, in smokers, but it can happen to anyone.
Take 16-year-old Margaret Smith, for example. Her parents and doctors say she's been healthy her entire life. But she recently noticed a sharp pain in her leg after sitting for four hours during a school exam. Her parents thought it was a past soccer injury but doctors discovered a blood clot. She had DVT.
Regardless of age, people who sit still for long periods of time, most commonly during air travel, are at risk. Experts say it's a lack of movement combined with being in a cramped position that makes you vulnerable.
O'DONNELL: The reasonable prudent thing to do when you're on a long trip, about every two hours is to get up and walk around, exercise your legs.
GUPTA: And drink plenty of water. Dehydration can cause your blood vessels to narrow, your blood to thicken. Wearing compression stockings and taking a blood thinner can also be useful to be prevent those clots from forming.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: All right. So Sanjay is joining us now to talk a little bit more about this because this is really important to let people know, you know, how this happens, because, you know, it did happen to me. And I had absolutely no warning. I'm not a person who is inactive, who smokes or who was pregnant at the time.
GUPTA: Right.
COLLINS: Or -- and probably too much information on birth control at the time. Those are some major or at least the most obvious, right, causes of having something like this happen?
GUPTA: Yes, and you just met this young gal, you know, so she was young, healthy, who had been sitting for a pretty long time. And that may have been the cause or sort of the stimulation for this clot to form. You know, it is more common in certain groups of people. There's no question on that. The birth control pills that you referred to, because they make your blood a little bit thicker, as does smoking, sitting on top of that, being dehydrated.
COLLINS: Yes, and we see warnings all the time about that in commercials and so forth for those different products.
GUPTA: That's right. And, you know, and simple advice like when you, say, get up on planes, you try and walk around and do that as much as possible. But this can happen. This can happen. And sometimes the warning signs can be pretty subtle. They can be pretty vague. A little pain in the calf, would you worry much about that?
COLLINS: That's what happened to me.
GUPTA: Right.
COLLINS: No. I thought I had pulled a muscle.
GUPTA: And then in your case, I mean, they actually had to give a medication to try and bust up the clot, right?
COLLINS: Yes, they gave all kinds of medication and unfortunately it kept propagating up my leg, all kinds of blood thinners. A lot of people have heard of Coumadin and heparin and all of that stuff. And then they did this (INAUDIBLE) which is what they did for her, right?
GUPTA: That's right. And so, (INAUDIBLE) is a type of medication that just busts up clots and it can work pretty well but it has to be given at the right time and you've got to make it so you're not busting up the clot just enough to let it flake off and travel.
COLLINS: Pulmonary embolism.
GUPTA: Pulmonary embolism. So it gets up into the lungs. And make no mistake this can be a big killer. It can be a big killer of people who are bedridden because they are not moving around but also in healthy people as well. Pulmonary embolism is one of the first things we think about when we hear a sort of sudden death that was otherwise unexplained.
COLLINS: And whenever you say that, I always like to grab you because I had one of those, too. And I'm often, you know, thankful just to be here.
GUPTA: I know.
COLLINS: And I love that you've done this because also, Sanjay, as you know, we are going to be talking a little bit further about it today.
GUPTA: Yes.
COLLINS: You may remember former NBC correspondent David Bloom who died of Deep Vein Thrombosis while covering the war in Iraq.
Next hour, stick around, because we're going to be talking with his wife, Melanie Bloom. She is now a spokeswoman for the Coalition to Prevent Deep Vein Thrombosis. And this month -- Sanjay, I know you know this, March is DVT Awareness Month that she basically created so really trying hard here to bring about awareness.
GUPTA: Yes, and that's key. With DVT We can take but it all the time. It has a big name and people don't remember it but watching a segment like this, keep this in mind. If you're having a problem like this, it's worth getting checked out. It's not that hard to do.
COLLINS: Yes. Absolutely. All right. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you.
GUPTA: Thanks, Heidi.
COLLINS: Appreciate it.
GUPTA: Sure.
COLLINS: An omnibus warning for Bernie Madoff.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I see someone down the line bribing somebody and taking Bernie out. The only way he is leaving the prison is in a pine box and that's it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: A former prisoner describes what lies ahead for the disgraced financier.
And a surprise delivery in Akron, Ohio. Police there picking up a pizza and some suspects, too.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: Live in the CNN NEWSROOM, Heidi Collins.
COLLINS: On Wall Street, stocks coming off a rare, yes, rare three-day rally. Will today, Friday the 13th, I guess I shouldn't have brought that up, be another lucky day for investors? Everybody is hoping so.
Susan Lisovicz at the New York Stock Exchange now with a preview of what lies ahead.
Yes, I don't know. I probably shouldn't have said that it's Friday the 13th, huh?
SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm wearing my lucky green on this Friday the 13th, Heidi.
COLLINS: You're not Irish, are you? LISOVICZ: I am.
COLLINS: I knew it.
LISOVICZ: My mother's maiden name is Anne Marie Reed. So I'm breaking it out. I had a St. Patrick's Day.
COLLINS: Reed. That's a good name.
All right, Susan. What are we going to see today?
LISOVICZ: Easier than Lisovicz. Well, we're looking for number four. Not 13. That's the number we're focusing on. Investors hopeful about extending the market rally to a fourth straight day.
You know we saw that we had some lift in Asia and Europe, encouragement that China's premier and Japan's prime minister calling for new economic stimulus measures there.
Here at home, hope that many of the nation's largest corporations are doing better than expected. Bank of America's CEO says the company was profitable in January and February and may not need any more government money.
And Citigroup's chairman tells Reuters that his bank won't need any more from Uncle Sam either. Earlier this week, you may recall Citi says it, too, was profitable in the first two months of the year.
We're still not out of the woods. Amusement park operator six flags hiring bankruptcy counsel and financial advisers. The company is trying to avoid Chapter 11, but it's being bogged down by mounting debt and a big cash payment it will owe shareholders this summer.
Meanwhile, just one day after GE lost its AAA credit rating, Berkshire Hathaway has been downgraded. This time by the ratings agency Fitch. That is Warren Buffett's company losing its perfect credit rating.
And what we are seeing in the first minute of trading, Miss Collins, is something that's moving higher. We have a little bit of lift for the Dow. Right now up 19 points, 0.25 percent. The NASDAQ is flat.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: OK.
LISOVICZ: S&P up two points. The last time we saw four straight days of gains for the three major averages was in late November, late November just after stocks hit what was then the bear market low. And we hit fresh 12-year lows on Monday. So, you know, we're maybe, maybe, maybe.
COLLINS: Good point. Yes, I know. I know. And it's Friday, too. So, never mind the date. We're just going to cling on this and in the week well, all right?
LISOVICZ: And I'll be back with you. COLLINS: OK. Susan Lisovicz, thank you.
So what is it going to be like in prison for Bernard Madoff?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: The NAACP is taking two major banks to court claiming they discriminated against black home buyers. The civil rights group says Wells Fargo and HSBC forced African-Americans into subprime mortgages while giving whites with identical qualifications, lower rates. The NAACP is filing class action lawsuits now against the banks. That will happen today. The group is seeking bank reform, including increased transparency in the process.
Bernie Madoff begins his first full day behind bars. The disgraced financier was hauled off to jail yesterday after pleading guilty to cheating thousands of investors out of billions of dollars. Many of his victims went to the hearing and listened as Madoff admitted to the massive Ponzi scheme and apologized for his crimes. Others couldn't make it, but had a strong opinion about the outcome.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What he did has already affected me. You know? The going to jail part, that doesn't change what I'm doing. You know? I still have to make a living here. How can the guy have a conscience? You know? I just -- I just don't see it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think he should rot in hell. He is evil. He is evil.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is a sick man. And his going to jail, I don't even think that's really just punishment.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It just sickens me. The whole thing sickens me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He is way up there with all the evil people in the world.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To me, Bernie Madoff is a sociopath. He's a man with no morals, no standards, no set of values, whatsoever.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Don't attribute any sincerity or honesty to anything he said.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not enough just to say, OK, I'm guilty, put me away. What about all the other people involved? What about his family? I want to know. What about the money?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Ever since Madoff's arrest in December, he has been holed up in his posh $7 million Manhattan penthouse. A far cry from where he finds himself this morning. A tiny cell like this one in New York's Metropolitan Correction Center, 7.5 feet x 8 feet as a walking closet. He'll stay there until he is sentenced June 16th. Madoff faces up to 150 years in prison.
A large pizza with everything, including handcuffs. A few would- be teenage thieves got a surprise with their order. Bob Jones of affiliate EWWS has more now from Akron, Ohio, of a different kind of pizza delivery.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MATTHEW GILLESPIE, DOMINO'S MANAGER: Dominos, may I help you.
BOB JONES, EWWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The red flags went up when Domino's manager Matthew Gillespie took a suspicious pizza order around 10:00 Wednesday night.
GILLESPIE: Definitely nervous. Nervous. And stuttering. Hesitating.
JONES: Plus, the delivery was in a neighborhood where several other recent robberies took place. Matthew called police. Officers quickly put a clever sting operation in motion.
Have you ever posed as a pizza delivery man before?
VOICE OF DET. MIKE SCHMIDT, AKRON POLICE: I have not.
JONES: Undercover detective Mike Schmidt grabbed some pizza bags and put a Domino's placard on his unmarked van. He had plenty of backup.
GILLESPIE: We saw a (INAUDIBLE) headed off by Domino's delivery driver per se.
JONES: Detective Schmidt arrived at the delivery location on Lover's lane, and spotted three suspicious teenagers across the street.
SCHMIDT: I got up to the door, knocked on the door as I was delivering the pizza. I then turned around, and saw them kind of fanning out.
JONES: Sergeant Mike Youie (ph) who was hiding in the back of the van jumped out and several other officers converged. Two 16-year- old boys and a 15-year-old boy were arrested.
What was their reaction do you think?
UNIDENTIFIED POLICE: Well, I think they were surprised. They intended this to turn out a little differently.
JONES: Police say one of the teens was carrying this gun. It looks real. It's actually a BB gun. Today at the pizza shop, plenty of praise for police.
GILLESPIE: The police just did an outstanding job.
JONES: And all in 30 minutes or less. SCHMIDT: Hopefully this incident will make people think twice before they try to rob, you know, somebody because they don't know who they are going to deal with.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: The teens are charged with aggravated robbery. Police are now trying to determine if they are also responsible for other robberies in the area.
Teenage hit men living in the U.S., waiting for their orders from Mexico. Could they hit in your neighborhood?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Police say they are sleeper cells just waiting for the phone call to strike. But these are not Islamic terrorist. They're American teenagers hired as hit man for the Mexican drug cartels. Their targets could be living in your neighborhood. CNN's Ed Lavandera has this remarkable story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Moises Garcia had just finished a family lunch in Laredo, Texas. Garcia helped his pregnant wife and 3-year-old boy into their white Lexus.
LORI GARCIA, MOTHER OF MURDER VICTIM: This guy just came out of his car and just started shooting.
LAVANDERA: Garcia was a wanted man. He had a $10,000 bounty on his head. Garcia's wife was shot in the chest. She and her son survived. But Moises was dead.
L. GARCIA: It happened so fast. He didn't have a chance of anything.
LAVANDERA: Garcia's murder at first looked like an isolated gangland-style killing. But there were more, seven murders in a year- long stretch. And there was something more sinister brewing.
Then Nole Flores (ph) was killed, an innocent victim in a case of mistaken identity. Investigators found fingerprints on this cigarette box in the shooter's get away car. The chilling truth unraveled. The clue led police to Gabriel Cardona and Rosalio Reta, American teenagers working as Mexican drug cartel hitmen in the United States.
ROBERT GARCIA, LAREDO POLICE DEPARTMENT: They were very good at what they did. They were professional at what they did.
LAVANDERA: Assassins is what they were.
How Gabriel Cardona and Rosalio Reta evolved from average teenagers into hitmen laid out in court records and these police interrogation videos obtained by CNN.
In this tape, Reta happily details how he carried out his first cartel assassination at the age of 13.
"I loved doing it, killing that first person, I loved it. I thought I was superman," said Reta. Detective Robert Garcia is the man sitting across the table from Reta.
R. GARCIA: That's one thing that you wonder all the time, what made them be this way?
LAVANDERA (on camera): Like many Americans, these teenagers started hitting the cantinas and bars just across the border in Mexico. And that's where investigators say the cartel was waiting to recruit them.
(voice-over): These kids were easy targets for the cartel. The two started living the high life. They got tattoos honoring Santa Muerte, the grim reaper-like saint honored by drug traffickers. Cardona had eyeballs tattooed on his eyelids. And markings covered Reta's face.
(on camera): Cardona and Reta should have been in school here. But instead investigators say they dropped out and joined the cartel's payroll. They drove around town in a $70,000 Mercedes, they were paid $500 a week as a retainer to sit and wait for the call to kill. Then they could make up to $50,000 for a hit.
(voice-over): Prosecutors say Cardona and Reta were hitmen for the Zetas, a group of former Mexican special military forces that do the dirty work for the notorious Gulf Cartel.
URIEL DRUKER, ASSISTANT WEBB COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: They actually enjoy it and laugh about it. They compete, you know, discussing their exploits about conducting these activities.
R. GARCIA: They just told us that they're already here. They're sleeper cells. They're already here in the U.S. Not just in Laredo, I mean, they're all throughout the U.S.
LAVANDERA: In Cardona's interrogation, he tells detectives, the Zetas are moving their operations deeper into the U.S. Cardona says he knows of hits carried out in Houston and Dallas.
Cardona and Reta are in prison now serving long terms for murder. But before they were arrested, federal authorities recorded a phone call between the two young men. Cardona brags about killing 14-year old Inez Villareal, the innocent cousin of a Cardona enemy who's also murdered.
Cardona laughs about torturing both, making "guiso" or stew out of their bodies in large metal drums. Villareal and his cousin have never been found. Before the call ends, Cardona says, "There are three left to kill. There are three left."
It's a reminder the cartel's work never ends as they recruit the next generation of killers.
Ed Lavandera, CNN, Laredo. (END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: First in line and thrilled with her prize.
(VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: The first of many tickets sold as Jacko-mania hits London.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How are you feeling?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Happy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Let's head over to the severe weather center where Reynolds Wolf is standing by.
Hey, Reynolds, good weekend to stay inside pretty much for a lot of people, unfortunately.
(WEATHER REPORT)
COLLINS: Yes, all right. Well, yes, I guess that we need the rain. But listen, you are mentioning basketball?
REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Oh, yes.
COLLINS: A lot of people probably missed the end to that unbelievable Syracuse-Connecticut college basketball game last night, because it didn't end until after 1:00 in the morning. The two teams played a marathon. Six overtimes. Look at that.
WOLF: Unbelievable.
COLLINS: Syracuse won, as you probably know, Reynolds. The big east tournament game, 127-117. Making it the highest scoring game in league history, too.
WOLF: I heard Jim Boeheim was the head coach of Syracuse men. This is far and away the most exciting game he has ever seen. We're talking about a coach who has coached the Syracuse Orangemen International Championship.
COLLINS: Yes.
WOLF: And still, considers that game to be the high point.
COLLINS: Absolutely. In fact, it's also the second longest game in college baseball history, the longest, you know this already, too?
WOLF: Bring it on. Bring it on. COLLINS: With seven overtimes between Cincinnati and Bradley. But that was way back in 1981. So a lot of people probably, unfortunately, may not remember that, unless you're playing in it.
(CROSSTALK)
WOLF: Well, you know, this is a sign of the season, though. Seeing Syracuse beat UConn. Kind of used to seeing that this time of the year.
COLLINS: Yes. Well, I'll tell you, what. Maryland Terrapins is not the bad either, beat N.C. State.
WOLF: Exactly. There you go.
COLLINS: But, you know -- you know, it's Terrapins, don't you.
WOLF: Got to love the Terrapins, got to love Maryland. You betcha.
COLLINS: Yes, you do. Good point, Reynolds.
WOLF: Good times. (INAUDIBLE).
COLLINS: We'll check back later on. Thank you, Reynolds.
WOLF: You bet.
COLLINS: Forget about the recession. Well, hundreds of people spent the night in line so they could fork over 105 bucks for a chance to see Michael Jackson. No surprise. It didn't take long to sell all the tickets. Really? Kind of surprising. The woman who grabbed the first one also grabbed the spotlight.
(VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: The king of pop had planned ten final concerts in London starting in July, but the demand has been so high, he's added another 40. And she's happy about it.
Hulk Hogan's on going divorce drama has taken another nasty turn. Yesterday, the celebrity wrestler went to court asking a judge to release his assets that were frozen while the divorce was being settled. Well, that hearing went off without a hitch, but after it was over, fireworks flew between Hogan who's real Terry Bollea and his wife's attorney.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RAYMOND RAFOOL, WIFE'S ATTORNEY: Hey, hey, listen to me, Mr. Bollea. Mr. Bollea, Mr. Bollea, are you going to wrestle with me here? Are you going to come across the cameras? Then be quiet. Be quiet. Be quite. Be quite. You had your time to talk. You're done. You're done. No, it's not a free world. This is called professionalism. This is called ethics.
TERRY BOLLEA, A.K.A. HULK HOGAN: (INAUDIBLE)
RAFOOL: Ok, you know what, you're an actor, you're acting now. If you had morals, why did you set up all these companies to try to ditch it? What's immoral about that? Let me tell you something. You are the person that has caused this issue.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: OK. I'm not sure who was more aware of cameras there, Hulk Hogan or the attorney. But the confrontation got so heated, bailiffs and other attorneys eventually had to step in.
One minute your child is bouncing around in an inflatable house and the next minute, he's nowhere to be found. One family's nightmare and their warning to you.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: E-cigs. Heard of them? Electronic cigarettes that look and taste like the real thing. Well, they're supposed to help you quit smoking, but just how safe are they?
CNN's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta weighs in on this high-tech tool coming up in the next hour of NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: After Bernard Madoff's sentence, he will be sent to a federal prison. Larry Levine is a former federal inmate who consults now future inmates on prison life. Last night he talked to CNN's Anderson Cooper about what Madoff can expect from fellow inmates and prison guards.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LARRY LEVINE, WALL STREET PRISON CONSULTANTS: He's not going to have any friends. No one's going to want to have anything to do with him, because the inmates who are in custody with him, their friends, their family members, they're all going to be suffering from the recession, losing jobs, losing their retirement plans.
And they're going to be blaming Bernie, whether he be directly responsible for it or not. He's going to be an outcast. He's going to be viewed kind of like maybe child molesters are or people who are in there for kiddie porn. No one's going to want to have anything to do with him.
ANDERSON COOPER, HOST, AC360: Well, what about...
LEVINE: And that's not just the inmates. It's the correctional officers also, because their...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Well, I was going to say, what about the guards, because everybody is suffering from the recession? LEVINE: Well, he's also -- he's going to be lonely, because they're going to have what's called a town hall meeting, the correctional staff, and tell people, Bernie is off-limits; leave Bernie alone.
No one's going to want to have anything to do with him. He's going to be radioactive. And he's going to have a real lonely time. Where most people have an out date -- that's what you're looking at -- you're looking at getting out -- he has nothing really to live or to look forward to.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Madoff's lawyers are trying to get him out of jail right now. They filed an appeal in federal court challenging the judge's decision to revoke bail.
Inflatable bounce houses, kids love them and they give adults a bit of a break. One family warns, though, keep an eye on your children. Otherwise, you could face what they did. Here's Steve Pickett with our Dallas affiliate KXTA reporting from Flower Mound, Texas.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
STEVE PICKETT, KXTA CORRESPONDENT: Three-year-old Matthew Thurman has the scars on his forehead, but they don't tell the entire story.
TONIA THURMAN, MATTHEW'S GRANDMOTHER: I'm not seeing him, where is Matt?
PICKETT: The little boy and his grandparents came to this Flower Mound children play center, Boomerangs. It was on Sunday. It was a nightmare. Matt played on an inflatable bounce house similar to this one. Then disappeared. No one could find the child, until the bounce house was deflated. Matt had been lodged in the crevice for over an hour.
T. THURMAN: It never occurred to me in a million years that my grandson could get trapped in a bounce house.
DAVID THURMAN, MATTHEW'S GRANDFATHER: No less than about at least five, maybe six or more people had walked right by him looking for him and was not able to find him.
PICKETT: The child's mother believes her son became victim to a defect in the bounce house, or simply improper installation.
KIM THURMAN, MATTHEW'S MOTHER: You think you're going into bounce house, you're OK, you're safe, and you're not necessarily safe. And if it can happen, it was a completely freak accident, but if it can happen, it did happen -- it will happen again.
WESS GRIFFIN, FLOWER MOUND, TEXAS POLICE: Where the fire department felt it would in the best interests to request the owner to discontinue the use of it and the owner cooperated with that request and is no longer using that particular inflatable.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: In a statement, the owner said he was glad the little boy is OK, adding, quote, "Boomerang prides itself on providing a safe, clean, fun environment for children. We look forward to continuing to serve both this family and all the families in our community."
