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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Tropical Storm Arthur; Target and Guns; Clashes in Jerusalem; At-Home Plastic Surgery Has Horrendous Consequences

Aired July 02, 2014 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, that's it for us AT THIS HOUR. Thanks so much for joining us. I'm Michaela Pereira.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm John Berman. "Legal View" with Ashleigh Banfield starts right now.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: The red flags are flying in Florida. The entire East Coast is now on alert. The season's first named storm is threatening to wash out your Fourth of July. We are tracking the tropical storm, Arthur, this hour on CNN.

Plus, fresh off a huge win at the Supreme Court, Hobby Lobby now facing some new questions about its religious convictions. Those same contraceptives the company refused to cover just so happened to be OK for its 401(k) program. How does that work?

And sham plastic surgery products ravaging bodies and destroying lives.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God, I'm going to lose my hands. I'm going to lose my hands.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: What would you risk for beauty? The full story coming ahead.

Hello, everyone, I'm Ashleigh Banfield. It is Wednesday, July the 2nd and welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

We begin here with Tropical Storm Arthur gaining more strength. And by tomorrow, it's expected to morph into a cat one hurricane. So that means the red flags are flying. Surfers might like that site, but you know something, it's not safe. The question many of you probably posing, what does it mean for the Fourth of July celebrations? Because the barbecues are all set up. The fireworks are all gearing up. And it sure does look mean out there.

Here is a view that astronaut Reid Wiseman posted from space via Twitter. May look pretty from up there, but it's not fun to be in that. CNN meteorologist Chad Myers is live from the CNN Severe Weather Center in Atlanta. I did not expect you and I were going to have this conversation just

two days before the big holiday, but we are.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: We are.

BANFIELD: So, lay it on me.

MYERS: The good news is, by the holiday weekend, it's all over.

BANFIELD: Nice (ph).

MYERS: It's in Halifax. It's affecting Nova Scotia, Atlantic (ph) Canada. It's not going to affect the U.S. by then. But it's the next couple of day we have to worry about. Florida, today. South Carolina, North Carolina tomorrow. And then an impact, if we do get a landfall, right near Cape Hatteras.

There is the storm, Ashleigh, getting more and more bright colors. Even a few bright colors in the Gulf of Mexico. We're getting more moisture, we're getting warmer water with this. It's in the Gulf Stream. Here's the three dimensional radar right now. I'm going to flatten it out. You can see how bumpy this storm gets. There's the center of the circulation. I can't quite call it an eye yet, but it's certainly very close to an eye.

When the storm gets to an eye, it starts to breathe on its own. It inhales and it exhales. It inhale at the surface and it exhales aloft (ph), and that's what gets the storm bigger and bigger. So for tonight, we're about 70 miles per hour. Right now, 60. It's going up. I just saw an recon -- airplane recon through it, said about 70 right now. So still getting stronger. By the time it gets very close to Nags Head, maybe Morehead City, maybe all the way over to Wilmington, you're still in the cone, that's when it gets to be its strongest, 80 to 85 miles per hour.

Now, I know it doesn't hurt New Jersey. It doesn't hit Atlantic Canada (ph). It doesn't hit anywhere here, at least for a while. But there's so much water getting poured up onto the shore right now that these rip currents are going to be the problem. There's no reason for anyone to lose a life in this storm unless you're stupid and you go in the water without a life jacket because that's - that's the truth of this storm.

BANFIELD: That is always the case. It's like always the case.

MYERS: I know. I know.

BANFIELD: Oh, if I had a dollar.

Just quickly -

MYERS: I have one dollar, but that's not enough.

BANFIELD: Yes. The fireworks show on the National Mall, you know, is there any risk at this point? Of course, the fireworks displays all along the East Coast, but the big national one is the big deal. MYERS: There is a risk of a passing shower. It will be one of those

outer arms, one of those outer band that could go by. The good news is, those bands last about 15 or 20 minutes. So, yes, people could have to scatter for a while, but I tell you what, I think the national fireworks will go off just fine.

BANFIELD: Going to hold you to it.

MYERS: All right.

BANFIELD: Happy fourth.

MYERS: Same to you.

BANFIELD: But I'll probably be talking to you tomorrow as well, my guess is, as we continue to track this. Thanks, Chad.

MYERS: You're welcome.

BANFIELD: Always good to see you.

We've got big news coming from Target. Target has made a massive announcement. It's asking customers, guests as Targets calls them, to leave your guns at home and do not bring them into our stores. Today's announcement comes in the wake of a whole bunch of pictures that have surfaced. It began last month. Men from a pro-gun group called Open Carry Texas toting rifles in a store in a Dallas area. Well, that set off another kind of protest. A gun control group called Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, they chimed in to protest as well. Both of them tugging at the strings of companies trying to convince a lot of major American corporations, including Target, to take a stand and make it public. CNN Money correspondent Cristina Alesci joins me now live with this.

This is a huge announcement. Target is no small company to come out and say, all right, we're doing it. We're taking a stand. And here it is.

CRISTINA ALESCI, CNN MONEY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and that's exactly what it is, it's a PR stand, right, because it's really hard for these companies to actually enforce this kind of a policy. There is no policy. They're just asking customers not to do this.

And to your point, they're responding to potentially these groups out there like Moms Demand Action that are appalled by these pictures of customers with large firearms in Target and --

BANFIELD: So the weird thing is you say PR, but there's a huge segment of society that would say that's not PR, that's bad PR. I mean I guess they have to take a stand, but bad PR for the store?

ALESCI: Well, this means -

BANFIELD: Well, if you are a gun activist and you want your, you know, Second Amendment respected, you might be real angry at what Target's done right now. What does this mean for their bottom line? Are they not concerned about losing that customer base?

ALESCI: That is very interesting question. Fortunately for target, it does not sell any firearms or ammunition, unlike somebody like Wal- Mart. So you have that, you know, going in Target's favor, right?

BANFIELD: Sure.

ALESCI: It's not going to directly impact them on that front. As to whether or not it will impact them, look, other companies have done this. You're talking about Chipotle, Chilis, Starbucks, they have openly asked customers not to bring firearms into the store and --

BANFIELD: And it's not because - they had the same pressure that was being put on them as well by these competing groups?

ALESCI: It - well, in Starbucks' case, it was a reaction to a group that formed after the Sandy Hook massacre, and that was in direct response to those parents and that group kind of calling for major retailers to do something about this. But to you question about the bottom line, we haven't really seen sales impacted in those cases. So maybe Targets looking at that and saying, you know, how could this potentially -- how much could this potentially hurt us at the end of the day?

BANFIELD: Right, bottom line. And I love the fact that you brought that up. This is effectively a request. It is not a ban. They can't do that. It's a request.

ALESCI: No, and -

BANFIELD: Respect what we're asking and, you know, don't come to the store with a gun. It's what we want.

ALESCI: It's complicated because there are specific open carry laws in each state.

BANFIELD: Sure.

ALESCI: So if someone were to challenge those, it can't even be like a national challenge, because you have to go into each state and challenge them.

BANFIELD: Each state, yes.

ALESCI: Think about how hard it would be for a company to do that. So --

BANFIELD: It makes big headlines though, you are right about that. Again, PR, just not so sure if it's the PR they want, you know, from everybody who comes into the store.

Thank you, Cristina. Nice to see you.

ALESCI: Of course.

BANFIELD: Welcome to CNN. ALESCI: Thank you.

BANFIELD: Violence attacks, possibly revenge attacks as police try to keep order in Jerusalem.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Things are very tense here at the moment. In fact, I'm going to spin the camera around very briefly here. Oh, excuse me. There's a lot of police trying to disperse --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Tensions rising after a Palestinian teenager is kidnapped and found dead. That following the grim discovery of the bodies of three Israeli teenagers who were kidnapped and found dead. We're going to take you live to Jerusalem to find out what is going on there and if it's escalating.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Anger in the Middle East began smoldering again this week and then something today made it erupt.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Camera around very briefly here. Oh, excuse me. There's a lot of police trying to disperse --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: That's our Atika Shubert out there trying to do her job. Israeli police, though, not playing around in Jerusalem, using a flash grenade to scatter all reporters and neighbors and anyone who is gathering in groups out there. Palestinians and Israelis have been fighting on the streets again today. Rocks and tear gas flying back and forth. And all of it comes after a Palestinian teenager, 17 years old, found murdered. Witnesses say they saw him before that being forced into a car. And you'll remember, just two days ago, the bodies of three Israeli teenagers were found in the West Bank, again, after a kidnapping. The police are now looking into whether those deaths are linked. Our Ben Wedeman is in Jerusalem, which is not a calm city today.

Anything yet from the police yet on what the reason is for the Palestinian kidnapping, whether this is truly as a result of what happened to the young teenaged Israelis, or whether this is simply a crime?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ashleigh, the Israeli police say they are still investigating that. But just a few minutes ago, we spoke to the father of Mohammed Abu Khdeir (ph), the boy whose kidnapped at 4:00 a.m. in the morning and whose body was found in West Jerusalem in a forest. He insisted there's no clan conflict involved. That it is basically a case of kidnapping. They insist it was by Israeli settlers who drove up in an Israeli car. They say they -- the kidnapers even wore kippas (ph) when this happened. So at least from the family's point of view, there is no doubt about the motivations for the killing of their son.

Now, we are right across the street from the mosque where the family says he was abducted. He was going to the mosque for morning prayers at 4:00 a.m. And just across the street from there is the family house, as well as the store that the father works in, an electronics store. So the situation here has calmed down somewhat. As you can see on the ground, it's just - it's strewn with rocks. These -- the clashes have been going on for about 12 hours at this point. But at the moment, it is fairly calm.

Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: And you said fairly, Ben, but I see you looking up to your right and I'm just curious, as we look at the detrudus (ph) from what we used to call skirmishes, you know, in the West Bank and Gaza, is there still propensity for violence to erupt and what are you looking at? Is your position OK?

WEDEMAN: No, somebody, I think, is just clearing away broken glass.

BANFIELD: OK.

WEDEMAN: I'm sorry, clearing away broken glass. So that's OK. The propensity for more violence is extremely high because I can tell you when this boy has a funeral, there are going to be hundreds, perhaps thousands of angry Palestinians attending that funeral. The body is still being - undergoing forensic testing. So when it's released, you can bet on it, there will be problems.

In fact, just up the street, there are small clashes between Israeli police armed with rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades, and a group of Palestinian youth throwing rocks at them. But at the moment, at this spot, which was where Atika was earlier in the day, it is, thankfully, calm right now.

BANFIELD: Yes. And do give our best to Atika. She, you know, took the concussion of a stun grenade live on the air while she was reporting this morning. Ben, be careful yourself and keep us updated, especially when, as you said, the propensity for violence during a funeral is just - I mean we've seen it all too often. Ben Wedeman doing an excellent job for us today in east Jerusalem. We'll continue to follow that story.

In the meantime, back here at home, millions of Americans use products to enhance their beauty, but there is a big word of warning that we're sending out right now. If you don't already know it, many of the products are fake. And this is the effect they can have. Looks like the result of war and it's not. It's a disastrous consequence of trying to just do a simple beauty procedure. This woman wanted to be more shapely and in the end she now has no hands and no feet. She injected what she thought was medical silicone. Her story straight ahead on LEGAL VIEW.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BANFIELD: Here's a question for you. Would you risk your life for better looks? Because people do it all the time and many times, the result is catastrophic, even after seeing startling images like these.

Take a close look at the screen. This is a transgender woman who is the victim of black market plastic surgery. Her cheek implants, breast implants, and butt injections reportedly turned out to be a toxic combination of -- get this -- Fix-A-Flat, SuperGlue, and mineral oil.

Probably not surprising that material hardened like concrete, and it took months of treatment to reverse the effects of what you're seeing on the screen.

And, worse yet, women who are determined to take this risk and try do- it-yourself injections or other procedures can find these products real easy. They're online, and they are cheap. The trouble is, you can really pay dearly for them later.

Our national correspondent Kyung Lah has looked into this and has one woman's incredible story. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

APRYL BROWN, SURVIVOR: Twenty-four hours at the best, she's not going to make it.

KYUNG LAH, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Not live another day, Apryl Brown remembers that moment, June, 2010, dying in a hospital bed, a staph infection, she says, eating her body away.

BROWN: I really wanted to live. I just really wanted to live.

LAH: The one-time cosmetologist was seeking beauty. Silicone butt injections. An acquaintance was offering injections at her house at a cheaper price than a doctor's office. The real cost would come later.

BROWN: I was in pain. My butt was hard and I was itching.

LAH: When they removed the silicone, did they test?

BROWN: Yes.

LAH: What was it?

BROWN: It was bathroom caulk sealant.

LAH: The stuff you buy from Home Depot?

BROWN: Yes, absolutely.

LAH: It would take 27 surgeries.

BROWN: My hands just kind of popped out with this, you know, pink nail polish, and I'm like, oh, my god, I'm going to lose my hands.

LAH: And her feet. A horror story, and not the only one.

DR. RICHARD GLOGAU, CLINICAL PROFESSOR OF DERMATOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO: This is a close-up of her right cheek that shows the swollen, red, angry nodules.

LAH: Dr. Richard Glogau at the University of California, San Francisco, shows us what's happening with a patient's face.

This is something growing underneath her skin?

GLOGAU: Yes, right, within a week to ten days of that picture being taken, it looked like this. The body's reaction to the material.

LAH: The patient thought she was buying an injectable filler to smooth wrinkles and injected it with the help of a nurse. She purchased it off a Web site, PMMA.com. It claims to sell fillers direct to customers.

A similar injection with a doctor sells for $800. The website sells it for $100. The FDA says only licensed medical professionals can make these purchases.

GLOGAU: Glass or fiberglass, so this was material that contained material that, you know, the body's not prepared to accept.

LAH: She injected glass or plastic in her face?

GLOGAU: Probably.

LAH: Dr. Glogau doesn't blame the patients. He says in a world where Botox and fillers are now commonplace and where the Web offers fast and easy accession to the inaccessible --

GLOGAU: People assume it's just as easy as getting your hair colored. At the end of the day, it's a medical procedure.

LAH: As far as Apryl Brown, she's learned to walk with prosthetics and even how to write, but her most powerful skill now is teaching others about her mistake.

BROWN: All I can ask them to do is, when they have that first thought, make sure they have a second thought about it and do a little research, and they won't be blindsided, and they won't be saying, oh, my god, I had no idea a simple procedure like that could leave me with no hands, no feet, and no butt cheeks.

LAH: CNN did reach out to PMMA.com for a comment. No one ever answered the phone number listed on the Web site, and the only e-mail response we got was this statement. "It's not about product. It is about procedure."

But when we went back to check the Web site a few days later, it had been completely scrubbed. It no longer exists.

Kyung Lah, CNN, Los Angeles. (END VIDEOTAPE)

BANFIELD: Great work, Kyung, thank you for that.

So what is the fallout from this? Do these people end up going to jail? Do they get shut down? Do they get sued? Who are they? Who's selling the stuff over the Internet?

I want to ask my legal team a few of these questions. Joining me now live, legal analyst Joey Jackson and CNN legal analyst Paul Callan.

All right, so, my first question would be, if these people are selling this product on the Internet and they're based here in the United States, they're in big trouble, you would think, Joey, are they not?

JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAL ANALYST: Absolutely, and you hit the nail right on the head, because what was your question? If they're here in the United States.

And just to segue a little bit, Ashleigh, a lot of questions arise because it's the world wide web, right? And the United States can only regulate that which it has jurisdiction other.

And so, certainly, having products that are false or misleading or that are deceptive and that can harm people, it's problematic, and those people could be charged and of course they could be prosecuted.

The larger issue are those products that emanate from elsewhere that we don't have jurisdiction over, and that's the major issue that's involved here, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: And if that is the issue, effectively, this young woman, I think her product might have come from Brazil. I think the postmark --

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It was postmarked Brazil, yes.

BANFIELD: Postmarked Brazil, no recourse, no civil action that she can launch that she can never collect upon anyway.

And, criminally speaking, what's America going to do about this?

CALLAN: She really has no remedy at all. This is the most horrific and tragic case.

But, you know, a staph infection supposedly caused her problem, which means her friend --

BANFIELD: As opposed to the --

CALLAN: To the substance --

BANFIELD: -- the fiberglass that they sent her saying it was filler.

CALLAN: The fiberglass was bad enough, but the infection caused by a non-doctor and an unsupervised person administering it --

BANFIELD: The friend, is she liable?

CALLAN: She's definitely liable, but she's not going to have any insurance covering this. This is her whole life that's destroyed.

JACKSON: So is the issue of collecting, and when you're judgment- proof, Ashleigh, Paul, as you know, you can sue, you can get a million dollar judgment, good luck collecting it.

(CROSSTALK)

JACKSON: Exactly.

BANFIELD: -- on collecting --

CALLAN: And go to the doctor. Don't have your friend do it.

BANFIELD: Seriously, when it's your body, be careful. Joey Jackson, Paul Callan, last word?

JACKSON: And you know what? Just cutting costs and going overseas, it sounds so, you know, tempting. Let me just go to another country and I'll get it done, half the cost.

But what is the cost in the long run, Ashleigh? Is that worth it? Not at all.

BANFIELD: Who cares about the money at that point? Look at this poor woman, she's lost half her body. It's remarkable.

Stick around, I've got more work for you two, something very fascinating coming up, the cannibal cop story. Please, I know you have a lot to say about that.

Also, there is this story. The retail chain Hobby Lobby certainly did win that legal fight against covering the costs of certain forms birth control for its employees when it took it all the way to the Supreme Court.

The store's owners had argued that federal law went against their strong religious beliefs against options like abortion pill, like Plan B, the morning-after pill.

So this is weird, because it appeared that the company, Hobby Lobby, may not apply those very strong beliefs to the millions of dollars that is invests in its employee retirement plans.

You will not believe the companies that Hobby Lobby invests in. Here's a tease. Plan B. I'm not kidding, more on that in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Welcome back to LEGAL VIEW. I'm Ashleigh Banfield.

Hobby Lobby says it stands by its biblical principles, taking it all the way to the Supreme Court and winning that argument. Now questions being raised about how that company's religious beliefs apply to the investments it makes in its employee retirement funds.

The 401(k )plan invests in pharmaceutical companies, pharmaceutical companies that make the very same birth control drugs the company finds so offensive, including the so-called "morning-after drug," Plan B.

Mother Jones broke this story of Hobby Lobby's controversial investment, a couple months ago, back in April. That's months before the Supreme Court made its ruling this week.

The critics are calling Hobby Lobby's 401(k) investments hypocrisy at its finest. So CNN called them. We reached out to Hobby Lobby for comment, and that company has yet to respond to us. We've given them plenty of time too.