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Jane Velez-Mitchell
Girl, 4, Killed by Alcohol; Did Ex-Girlfriend Hear Michael Jackson Die?
Aired February 03, 2011 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, HOST (voice-over): Tonight, escalating outrage over an absolutely appalling death. Cops say a dad and aunt fed a 4-year- old girl obscene amounts of booze until she collapsed and died, her blood alcohol level more than three times the legal limit for an adult. You won`t believe what the suspects` relatives are claiming now.
And an explosive twist in the manslaughter trial of Michael Jackson`s daughter. The doc`s ex-girlfriend believes she was on the phone with Conrad Murray at the very moment Jackson may have been dying. What did she overhear?
Plus, a hotel manager arrested after cops say he paid someone to bring a 13-year-old boy to his suite to perform sex acts on videotape. Was he using the hotel to lure in more innocent victims?
Then, is Lindsay Lohan a thief? A law-enforcement source claims a one-of-a-kind necklace was reported missing from a jewelry store shortly after LiLo visited. Then the troubled star was allegedly pictured wearing it. So what`s Lindsay`s excuse this time? I`ll tell you, and we`ll take your calls on LiLo live.
ISSUES starts now.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JENNIFER HOWARD, ALPHARETTA POLICE SPOKESWOMAN: We received a medical call last night; and you know, we came to the scene, and the child was transported. It`s never fun to investigate the death of a child.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Breaking news tonight. Sickening new details emerging about the senseless, horrific death of a precious 4-year-old girl.
This little Shakira -- little Shakira we`re calling her -- well, her dad and her aunt are charged with murder. The girl died at their Georgia home from extreme alcohol toxicity. These photos of little Shakira are from affiliate WGCL.
New court documents reveal this beautiful little girl`s blood alcohol content was 0.272. That is more than three times the legal limit for an adult driver of a vehicle.
The aunt told police that her niece may have gotten her hands on some rum and that she couldn`t wake up. The officers say the aunt waited nearly three hours to call them for help.
This tragedy could have escalated even further. Police found several liquor bottles around the house. In addition to -- are you ready, are you sitting down for this -- five, count them five, other children in the house with all these booze bottles strewn everywhere.
So these two murder suspects were supposed to be caring for six children? What in the hell was going on in this home? How could this happen? What are your theories? Call me 1-877-JVM-SAYS. That`s 1-877- 586-7297.
Straight out to Mark Eiglarsh, a criminal defense attorney. Six kids, bottles of liquor everywhere, and one child keeled over with extreme alcohol poisoning, now dead.
MARK EIGLARSH, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Jane, there`s no words to describe how abhorrent this is. Without question, they should be facing murder charges.
Yes, I`m a criminal defense attorney, but the child clearly did not take the alcohol by the child`s self. Someone had to administer the alcohol. They have already allegedly confessed to their involvement. This one is just a question of how many decades they`re going to serve.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, Jameson Monroe, founder and CEO of the Newport Academy, and I know you`re an addiction specialist. I have to say this, and this is embarrassing and shameful for me to admit, but as a child I did grab alcohol and drink the ends of drinks.
Here`s my question. They`re claiming, oh, the child got a hold of some booze and was drinking it. I could see a sip or two, but to have a 0.272, which is three times the legal limit for an adult, is it possible, just to put that aside that a 4-year-old child, a toddler, could chug-a-lug alcohol to that extent on their own?
JAMESON MONROE, FOUNDER AND CEO, NEWPORT ACADEMY: Ninety-nine percent of the time, no way, Jane. I mean, this is atrocious. It really makes me sick.
You know, normally I`m a fan of treatment over punishment, but when people die, when kids die, severe punishment is in order.
I`d like to draw attention to reporting/ This household should have been reported a long time ago. I`m willing to wager that a lot of people - - at least a few people knew that this situation was going on. They did not report it. And when you don`t report something and you don`t get involved, in turn, you`re really enabling it, and in this case it caused the death of a 4-year-old girl. Terrible.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes. Absolutely. There`s one thing we could learn from this, and we want to be in the solution, is if you or a friend or a neighbor of somebody who has young children in the house and you see that the adult is leaving alcohol around, well, please know that that`s like leaving a loaded firearm around. It`s like leaving prescription pills scattered on the coffee table in the living room. You don`t do it.
Now here`s my big issue. These people are claiming, oh, it was accidental. But that`s not what police believe. So where did this negligence begin? Were they perhaps partying and drinking themselves and paying zero attention to what this little girl, this little Shakira was doing?
The aunt told police the girl got into rum on her own. Yes, right. OK, again, if alcohol is left around, a kid might take a sip or two, but a 4-year-old just swigging hard liquor until she blacks out and dies from alcohol poisoning? I don`t buy it.
So here is the question, Casey Jordan -- you-re the criminologist -- how did investigators determine that the suspects were, in their words, feeding alcohol to her and, if so, why? Why on earth would you feed alcohol to a 4-year-old?
CASEY JORDAN, CRIMINOLOGIST: Oh, Jane, I`ve seen it happen. In the internships in graduate schools, I would go into households where families would sometimes take a baby bottle nipple and duct tape it to the top of a beer bottle, and this was used to make a child go to sleep at night.
So very often some families will actually get their children calmed down and get them to sleep by feeding them alcohol. If you ever saw the movie "Freedomland," it was about a mother who actually fed her little girl cough syrup to make her sleep all the time.
So there are families so dysfunctional they will use alcohol to actually -- as a behavioral modifier for their children to get them to calm down and sleep. And it works, as you can imagine. This little girl probably passed out before she died.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: I don`t understand, though. OK? A little bit of alcohol, a little tiny bit of alcohol...
JORDAN: It`s inexcusable.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: ... to make a child drowsy. But this puts it in perspective. Shakira`s blood alcohol content was 0.272. We all know 0.08 is the legal limit for driving, right?
Now I wonder what that number would have been, had her aunt not waited three hours before calling 911. OK?
EIGLARSH: Exactly.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Think about this: 0.272 is the equivalent to a 170- pound adult downing one dozen shots of liquor. A dozen shots of liquor. That`s outrageous. We all know children are much more susceptible to the effects of alcohol, because they`re smaller and under developed.
Dr. Dale Archer, I don`t even know how they managed to get this down this child`s throat without her regurgitating it.
DR. DALE ARCHER, CLINICAL PSYCHIATRIST: Well, I agree with Casey on this. I think that that`s a very plausible explanation, is that the parents were partying. The child was probably crying. They didn`t want the child to get in the way of their partying, and so they gave her alcohol to put her to sleep. And they ended up giving her too much.
But you know, this just brings up the thing that I harp on. We put more emphasis on who can drive a car than on who can be a parent. And I think there ought to be mandatory parenting classes starting in high school, and you should have to have a license to be able to be a parent to explain that you don`t give alcohol to kids.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Here`s my call to action. Everybody -- I believe this because so many of the stories we cover here on ISSUES, at the end of the day they end up being about addiction, which is why I just wrote this book "Addict Nation." I wrote this book because three-quarters of the dysfunctionality we cover on this show ends up being about somebody who is an addict or a drunk who`s doing something irresponsible. OK?
And that`s why I say everyone who is arrested should be tested for drugs and alcohol when they`re arrested. If a suspect is drunk or high, it speaks directly to their level of responsibility.
So I want to know whether Shakira`s father and aunt were drunk themselves. Isn`t that a vital piece of evidence, Mark Eiglarsh, and is that perhaps the reason why they waited three hours, so that they could sober up?
EIGLARSH: God, I hope that they were drunk. I mean, think about if they weren`t. In other words, their right frame of mind is to either leave alcohol around so that a 4-year-old cannot just have a sip of it. You see, if my 4-year-old ever approached the liquor cabinet, we would know, stay away, because we`ve got our eye on them. But to drink that much means that, in their right frame of mind, they`re completely irresponsible.
I hope that something caused them to impair their judgment so we have something to say these people are not the monsters they appear to be.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. We don`t know whether the suspects are alcoholics or not, but the truth is alcohol, again, at the heart of another tragedy. And, as I mentioned, this is the theme of my new book "Addict Nation."
All addiction causes wreckage. With alcohol, the wreckage can be very extreme. Nearly 11,000 people die in alcohol-related crashes every year. That`s one death every 50 minutes. You would think everybody would know the dangers by now, but alcoholism is back as a huge problem in this country right now.
And I`ve got to wonder, Jameson Monroe, did it ever really go away? I know you are the founder and CEO of the Newport Academy, and you deal with kids all the time. Are we still suffering as a culture from this wild, out-of-control drinking?
MONROE: Yes, for sure. And it`s only getting worse. As kids have more and more access to alcohol at a younger age, it gets worse and worse. And the thing is, as soon as someone drinks, the worse it`s going to be. If someone ingests alcohol before the age of 15, 14 or younger, they`re 90 percent likely to develop an alcohol abuse problem later on in life.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes, sure. These poor kids, these other kids who were taken out of the home of five kids, they should test their blood to see if they`ve got alcohol in their system.
Mary in Wisconsin, your question or thought, ma`am?
CALLER: Hi, I`m calling in about the little child that died from alcohol poisoning?
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes, yes. That`s what we`re talking about.
CALLER: We had -- we had a New Year`s Eve party, and my mom and dad had the whole thing like a bar thing.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes, a bar. OK.
CALLER: And my nephew somehow got into the bar with the beer. He kept sneaking little drinks. My sister and myself, we don`t drink. Her husband was drinking down there. But it was supervised.
And all of a sudden he started acting funny. My sister smelled his breath. We rushed him to the hospital, and he was indeed drunk. And they kept him there. And after -- because they were concerned. We couldn`t understand what was going on with him.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: And you`re saying you, yourself, Mary, don`t drink?
CALLER: Well, my mom and dad did. We closed the bar down.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes, well, that`s a good idea. OK.
Dr. Dale Archer, when kids -- briefly because we -- OK, think about this on the other side of the break: how do we keep alcohol away from kids in the household? Because this little girl is dead tonight. It didn`t have to happen.
And we`re taking more of your calls on this sickening child murder. They`re stacking up. We`ll get to you on the other side of the break.
Plus, is a phone call the very key to the manslaughter trial of Michael Jackson`s doctor? Dr. Conrad Murray`s ex- believes he may have called her at the very moment that Jackson was dying. You will not believe what she heard when he dropped the phone.
And much more on this 4-year-old girl`s alcohol-induced death.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JENNIFER HOWARD, ALPHARETTA POLICE SPOKESWOMAN: We received a medical call last night; and you know, we came to the scene, and the child was transported. It`s never fun to investigate the death of a child.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would say that something unseemly probably happened last night.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s a shame. It`s a shame. They were nice kids.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: A houseful of six children and booze, a recipe for disaster. In this case, a recipe for murder, say cops. A 4-year-old girl died from severe alcohol poisoning. Her dad and aunt are charged with murder tonight.
Carmen, Georgia, your question or thought, ma`am?
CALLER: Yes, my thought is I totally do not believe this. First of all, my brother is in law enforcement up in Atlanta, and I have got a son. He is going on 4 years old. I have trouble with him even eating vegetables. If anything tastes bitter, he will spit it out. This was forced on this child.
Obviously, if there was alcohol all around this house, looking at this couple they were obviously partying, and they wanted to shut this child up, so they force fed this child alcohol, because they were selfish enough to want to party themselves. So...
VELEZ-MITCHELL: You`re making a very good case, Carmen. I think you`re -- I think you`re right on the money.
Now both suspects in this case are Haitian nationals. Shakira`s mother is still back in Haiti, a country obviously that`s still reeling from last year`s devastating earthquake.
So, Mark Eiglarsh, what`s going to happen to the other five children who were taken out of this dangerous home? This is Haiti. The mother is off in Haiti. She can`t be with the child, the children, the five children. What`s going to happen to these kids?
EIGLARSH: Well, Child Protective Services will come in and, hopefully, give them a temporary place to stay. If there`s other relatives in the United States, perhaps they`re going to come forward to claim them.
Regarding what happened in the home, the good news is, since they`ve already started talking, we`re going to find out from them what happened. At least one of them will be offered a deal to flip against the other. My -- my feeling very strongly is we`re going to know from one exactly what happened inside that home.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: I want to show you some videotape, and this is from a horrific case that we`ve been covering here on ISSUES of a woman who is accused of executing both of her teenaged children at gunpoint. This woman, the shaker.
Now I would like to know when they arrested this woman if they tested her for drugs, because she had had a car accident a few months earlier, and the cops had noticed her eyes were dilated. She was slurring her words, but they didn`t test her for drugs.
OK, now, they did find drugs in the home. Medications is what they called them. Undisclosed medications in the home when they went in and found her passed out by the swimming pool after having gunned down her two kids.
So, Dr. Dale Archer, my opinion, again, my call to action here, test everyone you arrest for drugs because nine times out of ten the answer to the horrific dysfunction is drug or alcohol abuse.
ARCHER: Well, I think certainly in that case, looking at that woman, it looks like classic withdrawal symptoms from either benzodiazepine or alcohol.
So I agree with you, Jane. I think that this is a classic case where these folks almost certainly were drinking themselves. Their judgment was impaired, and that`s why they did what they did.
And, actually, the No. 1 predictor of criminal activity in America, alcohol and drug abuse.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Absolutely. Jameson, do you agree? Should we call for when you arrest somebody on anything above a misdemeanor test them for drugs and alcohol?
MONROE: I couldn`t agree more, Jane. I mean, all you have to do is look at our prison system. Ninety percent of the people in prison are there for drug- or alcohol-related offenses. Makes sense to me.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Let`s find out why people are really doing it, not just the motive of who, what, when, where, why and how: the deeper motive so we can stop this horrific violence against children.
Thank you, fantastic panel.
A hotel big shot accused of paying somebody to bring a 13-year-old boy to his suite to perform sex acts on video. Cops say they spanked a 13- year-old boy. We`ll have it next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He`s pumping his chest, but he`s not responding to anything, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did anybody witness what happened?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, just the doctor, sir. The doctor`s been the only one here.
SADE ANDING, DR. MURRAY`S FORMER GIRLFRIEND: I feel like it was my fault. I really felt like, if he wouldn`t have called me, maybe all that stuff that happened wouldn`t have happened.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Tonight, shocking claims from a devastated woman who says she was on the phone with Michael Jackson`s personal physician at the very moment Michael Jackson was dying.
Sade Anding told ABC`s "Good Morning America" about a bizarre call she got from Dr. Conrad Murray, who she says had been pursuing her romantically. The call came in June 25, 2009.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDING: I`m like, "Hey, what are you doing? What`s up?"
He just said, "Well," and then he took forever. And that`s when I realized he wasn`t even on the phone.
I`m like, "Hello? Hello?" It sounded like maybe it was in his pocket or something, because there was noise like (HISSING). And I heard like coughing and like (COUGHS) and like mumbling of voices. He never got back on the phone. And then I hung up. And I kept calling and calling, and I kept texting him, and then I never heard from him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Phone records show Dr. Murray`s call to Sade was at 11:51 a.m. that day. The call to 911 placed at 12:21. So did Sade actually hear the horrifying sound of Michael Jackson gasping his final breaths and, if so, why the delay between what she heard and the 911 call?
Straight out to Brian Oxman, attorney for Michael Jackson`s father, Joe.
Brian, so great to have you on ISSUES. What do you make of this jaw dropper?
BRIAN OXMAN, ATTORNEY FOR JOE JACKSON: It`s almost what you don`t hear her say, Jane, that seems be to be the most exciting and the most devastating. She didn`t hear any screaming. She didn`t hear any, "Michael! Michael, start breathing!" She heard no commotion. A little bit of coughing.
Oh, my goodness, Jane. It`s as if, oh, well, he`s not breathing, OK. It`s what she didn`t hear which is so devastating.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: How do you think this is going to impact?
OXMAN: I think that this business of Conrad Murray making Whoopi with his girlfriend on the telephone is going to really upset the jury. Here he is, he`s supposed to be taking care of Michael Jackson and, instead, while the man is dying, he`s there talking to his girlfriend, making all kinds of innuendoes to her about how he`s going to take her here and going to take her there. I`m sorry. It`s just grossly negligent. It`s reckless.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Sade Anding`s interview on ABC`s "Good Morning America" turned out to be a shocker to her, too. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He told you he had two kids?
ANDING: He told me he only had two kids.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He had seven.
ANDING: He had seven?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He told you he was divorced, and he wasn`t.
ANDING: So he was still married? So he`s -- wow. See, he told me he was divorced.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So you don`t even know now that he`s still married?
ANDING: No. No.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is that a shock?
ANDING: Yes! That is a big shock.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: So you lie about one thing, you think that`s going to hurt him, too, that he was allegedly lying to her?
OXMAN: You betcha. No question about it. He`s telling every story under the sun.
But here`s an interesting point, Jane. It`s she`s a double-edged sword. Here Conrad Murray is telling this woman, "Oh, I`m going to take you to see Michael Jackson." He obviously was so excited about showing all of his friends and girlfriends, lying to them about his marriage, so he could take them to see Michael Jackson. That goes to his intent. He had no intention of harming Michael, and the defense is going to make a big deal of it.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Brian, love seeing you. Thank you so much for coming on. See you soon.
"NANCY GRACE" now airing from 8 to 10 p.m. Eastern Monday through Sunday, and she is going to find some missing people.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: A hotel manager arrested after cops say he paid someone to bring a 13-year-old boy to his suite to perform sex acts on videotape. Was he using the hotel to lure in more innocent victims?
Then, is Lindsay Lohan a thief? A law enforcement source claims a one of a kind necklace was reported missing from a jewelry store shortly after Lilo visited. Then the troubled star was allegedly pictured wearing it. So what`s Lindsay`s excuse this time? I`ll tell you and we`ll take your calls on Lilo live.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHIEF MICHAEL CHITWOOD, DAYTONA BEACH POLICE: What I know now is disgusting and despicable what I know about what transpired with the 13- year-old.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Tonight disgusting allegations leveled against a Daytona Beach hotel manager. Cops say he used the hotel as a front to produce child porn. Police charge he paid another hotel worker, an underling, to bring an underage boy to the hotel and then took naked pictures of the boy and videotaped him as the child was spanked naked and forced to watch lewd acts. Guess what? That`s called pedophilia.
Cops say they found dozens of graphic, incriminating videotapes and photos in the ceiling tiles over manager Dennis Devlin`s hotel suite. Devlin actually lived -- I don`t know if this is Dennis, he looks too young. There`s Dennis I think on the left, the older guy. This is the underling who went to do his bidding allegedly and brought the boy in. Ok.
Now the older guy, this guy, this is Devlin. He actually lives at the Desert Inn Hotel which his mom owns. Another worker 20-year-old Michael Ehmen, and that`s the youngster there, is accused of recruiting the 13- year-old boy to come to the hotel to, quote, "make some money".
Now both men are charged with promoting sexual activity with the child and lewd and lascivious acts. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHITWOOD: There`s be evidence that`s going to be recovered out of there that`s going to lead the investigation and the FBI and hopefully the U.S. attorney into other possible victims that are in there. He preys on people who are weak.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Cops say this is just the tip of the iceberg. This Dennis Devlin character has been arrested numerous times for the same sick crimes. But most of the charges were dropped. Why?
His family even banned him from coming near the hotel at one point. So then what happened? Why in the world was he back running the place with unlimited access to underage children?
Give me a call, 1-877-JVM-SAYS.
Straight out to attorney, Lisa Bloom; Lisa thanks for joining us. This guy was first arrested on child sex crimes two decades ago. Cops think he`s been at this sort of thing for years. So why did it take law enforcements so long to finally snare him?
LISA BLOOM, ATTORNEY, THEBLOOMFIRM.COM: I don`t know, Jane, and that`s a very disturbing story. You know, I`ve often thought we just don`t take these crimes seriously enough. I`ve represented a lot of child sexual abuse victims who say they have gone to the police, the police didn`t take it seriously. They have to get a civil attorney on their own nickel to go after these guys. I mean when are we as a society going to start taking this stuff seriously?
VELEZ-MITCHELL: I agree. I mean this time around cops say they plan to make these charges stick against this sicko. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHITWOOD: I know he skated on this before. But hopefully with the evidence that`s coming out here now, that`s not going to happen again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Skated is right. The "Daytona Beach News Journal" reports Devlin was arrested six times between 1991 and `96 -- six times. But he was acquitted of 22 counts related to illegal activities with boys. He was finally, finally convicted of lewd and lascivious assault on a child in 1995 but, guess what, the conviction was overturned when the boy recanted.
In 1991 -- listen to this -- he actually told the state attorney`s office that, quote, "I can`t help it. It`s like an alcoholic who drinks at night and feels terrible about it in the morning."
Now I have to go to Linda Smith here, the founder of Shared Hope International. This is a chronic offender. He admitted it and yet for two decades this guy was free to roam and allegedly prey on boys and we can`t even find any record that he did any hard time. Is that an outrage? Linda.
LINDA SMITH, FOUNDER, SHARED HOPE INTERNATIONAL: It`s an absolute outrage -- absolute outrage. I think the issue that I see here in front of us is this is a trafficker and a man buying a trafficked victim. Under the federal law this man is a trafficker. He will get or should get 15 years minimum per count. And he`s also a pornographer so he is most likely, because he is taking these pictures under several state and federal laws. Now he should have the book thrown at him and he shouldn`t even get bail.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes, but guess what, he`s not charged with child pornography is my understanding. I don`t understand why he`s not charged with child porn.
(CROSSTALK)
SMITH: Well, I think they need to be really careful and do that.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: What?
SMITH: Well, I think his biggest charge would be trafficking. Under the federal act the minimum penalty is 15 years to begin with for the age of that child.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: I don`t think he`s charged with all that stuff. And this is part of the problem.
SMITH: They should call for it.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: They don`t throw the book at him, Lisa Bloom.
BLOOM: Here is the other part of the problem that I see a lot is that it`s hard to get convictions against child molesters, possessors of child porn and that`s because a lot of people don`t want the kids to testify. And so charges get filed but eventually they get dropped or if the case even goes to trial there can be an acquittal because these cases are very hard to prove.
I think we as a society have to get over the idea that it`s a terrible thing for a child to go in court and testify against a child molester. I actually think it`s a very healthy thing for kids to go in there. They`re prepared. They face up to what happened. They accuse the wrongdoer and the wrongdoer gets put away.
I think that sends a very good message to children that they can be empowered and that they can fight back.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Let me jump in.
BLOOM: But a lot lawyers disagree with me and they talk the victim out of testifying.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: He was charged with two counts of promotion of sexual performance by a child and one count of lewd and lascivious conduct. Where are all these charges that Linda Smith is talking about? The trafficking, the child porn; why are those charges not added on? They got it on videotape. They found -- cops say they found all this stuff, photos and videotapes hidden in the ceiling of this hotel. I think this would be an open and shut case, Lisa.
BLOOM: I absolutely agree with you, Jane. And you`re tearing your hair out about the same kind of thing that I`m faced with day in and day out in my practice representing victims which is trying to get law enforcement to take it seriously. Look, there`s a lot of good cops out there, a lot of good prosecutors; but somehow we as a culture still don`t have the political will to go after these guys and get serious. And as a result they`re heavy recidivists which means they repeat over and over again. Kids get victimized and it`s got to stop.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Now this is a very, very bizarre aspect of this case. This is the second black eye for this particular hotel in recent months. The travel Web site tripadvioer.com ranked it number three on its dirtiest hotels list. And reports are the hotel is going through foreclosure.
Now the suspect, Dennis Devlin, actually went on camera with a local TV station defending his hotel and threatening to sue the Web site for being put on this list. He told them, quote, "When they put someone on a list you`d think they`d at least do an on-site inspection to verify what they`re saying is true," end quote.
I have to ask you, Casey Jordan, cops have now done an inspection and said they found all this graphic child porn hidden in the ceiling. Isn`t it brazen of him to have asked for an inspection when cops say he was using this place to spank a naked boy?
CASEY JORDAN, CRIMINOLOGIST: I think it`s just a red herring thing. It`s something he`s saying because he doesn`t want to lose business, you know, have an on-site inspection. I think those photos, even if they were taken by guests at the hotel kind of prove what a filthy place it was.
But the key is he did have all of this stuff up in the ceiling panels. They always hide up in the ceiling panels. You asked a moment ago where all the additional charges? Where is your risk of injury to a minor? Where is the trafficking? I think it could come.
I want to have faith in the police that they`re going through the mountain of evidence. This man has a 20-year track record of this. Just because charges didn`t stick in the past, let`s have hope that they have evidence of other crimes and maybe we`re going to see a mountain of charges against Devlin very soon.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Let`s hope.
Angelina, Arizona, your question or thought, ma`am?
ANGELINA, ARIZONA (via telephone): I would like to know how come if there are so many 13-year-old boys going in and out of the hotel no one noticed this and knew that the manager possibly may have suspected this but did not tell the employees that he works with?
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, Linda Smith, he was the manager and his mother owns the hotel. Maybe that`s -- I don`t -- what are your thoughts on that?
SMITH: Well, I think something is happening that`s really good in Florida where this happened is you have groups actually training activists and law enforcement in how to identify these cases and to actually be the eyes and ears. I think right now, we are a society in denial when it comes to being responsible for this. So, I think there`s some good things.
You have a great U.S. attorney there. You have some deputy attorneys. I believe that federal charges will be brought. But I also think that Florida is waking up. We did an evaluation, an assessment of Florida over the last few years and it`s amazing --
VELEZ-MITCHELL: I want to jump in really quick because I have a quick question. Cops believe there are other victims. How will they track them down? And if they have explicit photos of minors will they be allowed to release those photos because they`re minors, or will that complicate the picture? Because they`re trying to identify these people, Linda?
SMITH: The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has a huge database and connects throughout the United States that runs both the faces and the bodies of these children. And there are 12 women every day, 24 hours a day, that are looking at these images trying to identify the children. So I do believe they`ll identify them and no, I don`t think we have to re-victimize them by releasing them.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. Thank you so much, fantastic panel. We`re going to stay on top of that.
Meantime, was Lindsay Lohan caught red-handed? Shocking new claims -- you won`t believe this -- involving a necklace that they say she put on at a jewelry store and that the necklace then vanished soon afterwards. And then they claim she was spotted wearing it somewhere.
Now we`ll tell what you Lindsay said about this. You won`t believe her explanation. And I want your take 1-877-JVM SAYS. Call me, 1-877-586- 7297. Weigh in on Lilo.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: We can`t consume our way to being better people. Happiness is an inside job and we have to start pushing back against those false messages. My new book "Addict Nation" is in stores right now.
Have you battled an addiction? I want to hear your story. Send them in at cnn.com/Jane.
Our first winner, Mary from Baltimore: Mary says losing custody of her kids led her to start using coke and drinking. After more than a year of using Mary walked into her old church and said, "I need help". She has now turned her life around. She`s been clean for more than two years.
Mary, bravo, you have won a signed copy of my new book, "Addict Nation".
Everyone else, send me your stories about overcoming addiction. You could be our next winner for getting clean and sober and showing us how to do it. We want to hear your story. You could win this book so get cracking.
See you in a second.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LINDSAY LOHAN, ACTRESS: I know that I was ordered to go once a week and it wasn`t -- you know, I wasn`t missing the classes just to hang out and do anything like that. I was working mostly and the Morocco trip I was working with children. It wasn`t a vacation. It wasn`t some sort of a joke.
And I respect you. I have been taking it seriously.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: When I look at that I think she is a great actress, indeed.
Tonight Lilo has a new nickname. Lindsay Klepto-hands? Ok, she is fresh out of rehab and Lindsay is already back in hot water. This time it`s not about booze or drugs or shoving matches. It`s about expensive, stolen jewelry. Does the starlet have sticky fingers?
A hot L.A. boutique claims Lohan brazenly stole a uniquely designed $2,500 necklace and then had the nerve to allegedly get photographed walking around the streets of Hollywood wearing the stolen jewels.
Take a look at this photo. This is allegedly Lindsay wearing the gold choker with green stones and, wow, look at those wayfarers. Look at that tiny thing. Did Lindsay risk grand theft charges for that?
Prosecutors are still trying to decide whether to charge her or not and we have to ask. Is Lindsay, who just left rehab for substance abuse now swapping one vice for another? Is she addicted to stuff?
It was just last year "The Insider" staged this over consumption intervention on Lindsay. Take a look at this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is Lindsay a secret celebrity hoarder?
NIECY NASH, HOST, "CLEAN HOUSE": Tell me what you need?
LOHAN: I just need to get rid of stuff.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A bedroom turned into a shoe closet. Her living room filled with clutter.
LOHAN: That`s personal stuff that I have to, you know, work on.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tomorrow on "The Insider".
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: With all of that stuff, what does Lindsay need another measly necklace for? And if she wants it so bad, she can buy it. She can certainly afford a necklace.
Addiction to stuff is the subject, by the way of my new book "Addict Nation". People who have a void inside try to fill it with whatever they can. And they can be addicted to several things at once. Addictions jump from one substance to another.
Lindsay`s dad says this is all one big misunderstanding. Maybe so. But could Lindsay now have to go back to jail for theft?
Straight out to radio personality on Hot 97 Morning Show, K Foxx; K Foxx, what do you make of another Lindsay dramarama? I was rooting for her. But already she`s just been out of rehab a short time and now this.
K FOXX, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Well, don`t count her out just yet. You probably have to send her a copy of your book. Congratulations on your new book, by the way.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Thank you.
FOXX: You`re so welcome. I`m actually going for team Lindsay on this one. I don`t think that she`s going to risk all of her rehab, all of the time she spent in jail for that measly necklace. She has the money. She`s been acting since she was a child and she can definitely pay for that.
Like she said, her stylist actually returned it a little late. They wanted her to wear it. And they have it. I don`t think that she stole that necklace.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: By the way, speaking of styling, you look fabulous in your jewelry. That I know you got yourself. It looks great.
FOXX: Thank you.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Lindsay says the store let her borrow the necklace. And that her stylist simply failed to return it in a timely manner. Lindsay says the surveillance video of her wearing the necklace in the store shortly before it vanished proves absolutely nothing. Because there is no audio on that tape and she claims they told her she could take it.
So, listen to this, Lisa Bloom because I want to get both sides and be fair here. The store is firing back, they say no way. They say when we loan out jewelry, there`s a whole bunch of paperwork, insurance, credit card information, everything that`s got to be filled out and exchanged and that none of that happened.
Lisa Bloom you`ve been talking with her dad, Michael, who`s a friend of the show. And we want to be fair here. What is team Lindsay saying about all this?
BLOOM: They are saying that this was a loan, and possibly a gift. If she was photographed wearing the necklace, then the store could say, our necklace has been worn by Lindsay Lohan. And she could keep it. This is a very common arrangement for celebrities.
They also claim, Jane, that there are two witnesses to this verbal agreement that it would be a loan or a gift. And that is Lindsay`s assistant and the stylist. And finally, why did the store wait five days when they knew from their own cameras that Lindsay was the one who was wearing it in the store, who wore it out of the and why didn`t they just ask her for it back? Why did they go right to the police?
As soon as she became aware that there was any issue about it, she had her reps return it right to the police. So there would be no misunderstanding. Because frankly, all trust is now lost with this jewelry store on the part of Lindsay Lohan.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, you know, my thought is, why was she able to return it after police got a warrant? Did somebody tip her off, hey, cops have gotten a warrant? And they`re about to come over to your house and look for this thing? You have your final chance to return it.
BLOOM: Well, I think -- I don`t know the answer to that definitively, but I think it was already in the media at that point. She somehow -- the first that she became aware that the store claimed that they didn`t give it to her, they didn`t loan it to her, she said, I don`t want it. I`m giving it back to the police.
Come on, Lindsay is comped (ph) items like this of significantly higher value all the time. All the stores in L.A. would die to say Lindsay Lohan`s wearing my stuff. As to all of her hoarding, by the way, I`m going to disagree with you on that, because she`s in the fashion business. Don`t forget she designs jewelry, she designs clothing and handbags. And so yes, she`s got to have that stuff.
(CROSSTALK)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: She actually said she had a problem in that clip, Lisa.
BLOOM: She really doesn`t. What?
VELEZ-MITCHELL: She said she had a problem in the clip.
BLOOM: Yes. But she`s got a lot of stuff that`s maybe a little disorganized. But she`s in the fashion business so it`s understandable.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: I`m not trying to give her a hard time. I just think justice has to be equitable. If people are going to be locked and there are people behind bars now doing time for stealing much less than a $2,500 necklace, then we have to prosecute it across the board, that`s all I`m saying.
Back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LOHAN: Thank you. I`m (INAUDIBLE) to announce the movie. We`re having a dinner. And I`m very excited. So it`s going to work. I`ve been working a lot. But I like it. I just finished some more traffic school, so I`ve been in compliance, which is really good. My court date is coming up this week.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Nice shades, Lindsay. She is at the center of yet another controversy. Some say, hey, are you daring the judge to crack down on you? An accusation that she may have taken this necklace -- she says no way. It was loaned to me and I just was late in returning it.
Let`s go to this lady. Take a look at this lady. We`re going to show you -- there she is -- this lady. Arrested, put in stripes, stuck in a jail cell because she was trying to get her kids into a better school. All right?
Now, Lindsay, as we all know, has a history of doing, well, a high- speed chase down Pacific Coast Highway. She chased a woman into a police station who was terrified at the time. She had cocaine on her. She didn`t do very much time behind bars.
All I`m talking about is, whatever we do, it has to be fair. We cannot have a two-tiered justice system. And I want K Foxx to weigh in on this because I don`t want to beat up on Lindsay. I love her dad Michael. I want to see her stay sober. But I also don`t think, if they have a hard case against her, that they should not prosecute her because she`s Lindsay Lohan when they`re prosecuting a woman trying to get her kids into a better school.
FOXX: I totally understand what you`re saying. But is it possible that this jewelry store may just be trying to find free press through Lindsay Lohan? Everybody`s looking for a come-up these days. Not saying that what that woman has to go through is fair. But we have to think of Lindsay Lohan`s celebrity, and what she`s been through, and what they can gain off of charging Lindsay Lohan for that necklace.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Jaycee, New York, your question or thought?
JAYCEE, NEW YORK (via telephone): Yes hi. First of all, I want to say that my husband and myself watch your show every day and we love it.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Thank you so much. I hope you keep watching.
JAYCEE: Oh, we will. Second of all, this is my opinion of Lindsay Lohan. I personally think that she should be prosecuted for it. I believe that she went in there. She took it. She put it on with intention. We know she has a drug addiction problem.
She probably took the necklace and gave it to someone. Maybe she`s back on the stuff again. And she`s hiding it. And when the warrant came out, she got a little nervous. And she`s always getting off. And it seems like because she`s Lindsay Lohan, she gets away with everything. I think personally she should be prosecuted.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. Jamison Monroe, you`re an addiction specialist. Here`s a caller saying well, maybe this is a bad sign that all this drama again -- what are your thoughts?
JAMISON MONROE, ADDICTION SPECIALIST: Yes, Jane. A lot of people are going to say where there`s smoke there`s fire. I realize Lindsay`s made some strides in her recovery and she has an opportunity to not only save her own life, but a lot of other people. But as I said, where there`s smoke there`s fire.
What Lindsay needs to do is realize that every move she makes is going to be highly scrutinized. And before she does anything that could be misperceived, she should probably either, A, not do it; or B, have her people get a signed affidavit that everything`s above board. And every time she does something it`s going to be misperceived --
BLOOM: Jane --
VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. Lisa Bloom, last word.
MONROE: And that may be extreme but prison`s --
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Lisa, last word.
BLOOM: The most important principle of fairness here is innocent until proven guilty.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: That`s true.
BLOOM: For Lindsay Lohan and for everybody else. We`ve got to hear both sides of the story.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: And you know what, I wish her well. I hope that she is successful in recovery.
Thank you panel.
Nancy Grace, up next.
END
