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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Latest on Chokehold Death Protests; Cosby Accusations Examined; Cleveland Toy Gun Shooting Detailed

Aired December 05, 2014 - 12:30   ET

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

ANDREA STEWART-COUSINS, NEW YORK STATE SENATOR: So, I mean, the reality is that it's not about necessarily my children or the mayor's children. It is about a system that used to create respect and equal justice for everyone.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Is this the case, because you talk about it, you know, there are so many cases that had been -- we've been talking about here in the news and then everyone is like let's have a conversation, let's talk about it, let's do, and then nothing...

COUSINS: Why don't...

LEMON: Is this the one that when you see so many people out on the streets of so many different ethnicities, you know, the mayor, I think the mayor is not tone deaf.

COUSINS: That's right.

LEMON: So (inaudible) upset with him? But he understands what's happening in the city. Is this the case?

COUSINS: This is the case. It's the case where conjecture is not so much there. It's a case where the video shows a confrontation that begins with what looks like a conversation and ends with a man who looks lifeless on the ground. And people don't understand, A, how that type of confrontation or that discussion led to his death, and how the grand jury came to a conclusion that seems to defy what it is we've all seen.

LEMON: And that's what you want to try...

COUSINS: And that's what we want to try and change.

LEMON: New York State Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins.

COUSINS: It's so nice to be here.

LEMON: It's because your mom named you Andrea, not Andrea, right?

COUSINS: That's exactly right.

LEMON: Thank you.

COUSINS: Thank you so much.

LEMON: I appreciate you coming here.

COUSINS: Thank you.

LEMON: A stunning investigation into Cleveland police, they found pattern of trouble, they found a pattern of trouble, including officer shooting at people who didn't pose a threat. That as the city deals with the killing of a 12-year-old boy who was holding a pellet gun. Details right after this.

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LEMON: Protest sweeping the nation, are about more than the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown. People are angry about what they see as widespread in justice and excessive force by police.

Yesterday, Attorney General Eric Holder announced scathing findings from a review of Cleveland's Police Department going back years. Now that department is under fire again, after an officer killed a 12- year-old holding a pellet gun, an officer who may have been unfit for duty. CNN's Kyung Lah reports.

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The surveillance video shows a boy walking near a playground. He is 12-year-old Tamir Rice, and he's playing with a toy, an air soft gun that from a distance can look like a real gun. A bystander calls 911.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a guy in there with a pistol, you know, it's probably fake but he's like pointing it at everybody.

LAH: Less than two seconds after police drive up, the 12-year-old again, carrying a toy is shot and killed at close range. The 26-year- old police officer, who shot him, Timothy Loehmann, had only recently been hired by the Cleveland Police. At his previous job at the Independence Police Department, Officer Loehmann's personnel records show he was in the process of being fired. His supervisor describing an emotional meltdown and behavior that shows a pattern of a lack of maturity, indiscretion, and not following instructions, but the Cleveland Police never asked to Loehmann's personnel records. The policy that the department says has now changed.

Tamir Rice's death, the backdrop at the Department of Justice laid out a stinging report on the Cleveland Police Department.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The investigation concluded that there is a reasonable cause to believe that the Cleveland Police engaging a pattern in practice of unreasonable force and violation of the Fourth Amendment.

LAH: The investigation took two years, fighting Cleveland police officers use unnecessary and unreasonable force at a significant rate, including officers who shoot at people who do not pose an imminent threat of serious bodily harm to officers, that they hit people in the head with their guns where use of deadly force is not justified, and that there are systemic deficiencies, failures by hire ups (ph) to investigate officer involve shootings. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We found frankly that sometimes a rubber stamp mentality or approach exist to these kinds of incidents of excessive force. And when accountability falters, trust also falters.

WAH: A federal court will now keep tabs on the Cleveland Police as part of a legal agreement, while the announcement was set in Cleveland, the attorney general says, as seen in Ferguson and in New York, the problem is not contained by city limits.

ERIC HOLDER, ATTORNEY GENERAL: The tragic losses of these and far too many other Americans have really raised urgent national questions. And sparked an important conversation about the sense of trust that must exist between law enforcement and the communities they serve and protect.

LEMON: All right. Thank you very much. Young actor criticism, police in St. Louis County removed an online comment of basically telling parents not to let kids play with realistic toy guns outside. Department says, victim blaming was not their intent.

Yet another woman has stepped forward claiming Bill Cosby raped her and she had these strong words about the comedian.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He is a serial rapist, and he has fooled everybody in this country and around the world for years.

LEMON: She tells her story next.

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LEMON: US Navy, the latest institution has shown Bill Cosby sighting mounting allegations of sexual assault, the navy stripped Cosby of his honorary promotion to chief petty officer. The entertainer served as a navy hospital corpsman in the 1950s. And in Los Angeles yesterday, police Chief Charlie Beck said his department will investigate any claims against Cosby even if they exceed the statute of limitations.

Cosby camp is fighting a brand new law suit on those very grounds, the (inaudible) Judith Huth, says Cosby assaulted her when she was just 15 years old. Cosby's attorney says the claim is too old and a failed attempt at extortion. Any rate it was hot story that motivated Cosby's latest accuser to speak up. And P.J. Masten tells CNN's Alisyn Camerota, many more victims are out there.

P.J. MASTEN, COSBY ACCUSER: I can name of 12 right now that I know of, 12 former bunnies that I know of, that are ashamed to come forward, frightened to come forward, married with families don't want to come forward but they were also drugged and raped by Bill Cosby. Raped.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Twelve women that we've never seen before.

MASTEN: No.

CAMEROTA: They have not gone to media yet? MASTEN: No, no, no. We recently had a playboy bunny reunion. And we also have blogs and Facebook pages that are restricted to only former playboy bunnies. And when this hits the news there was a lot of dialog that went on, on our website with the lot of the girls. A couple of which private messaged me and said he did me too, it happened to me too.

UNINDENTIFIED FEMALE: P.J. Masten says she wasn't going to come forward with her story until she heard about Judy Huth's lawsuit. And the claim that she was sexually assaulted at just 15 years old. Cosby's attorneys have filed a motion to have that suit dismissed.

MASTEN: You don't do that to a child, a 15-year-old girl is a child, that's when I had to come forward. That was it for me. This man has to be held a cannibal. He's a serial rapist. He's been that way since the '60s.

UNINDENTIFIED FEMALE: In her 20s, P.J. was playboy bunny, working at club locations in New York, Chicago, and L.A. The clubs were glamorous places. And Bill Cosby, a friend of Hugh Hefner's was a popular fixture.

CAMEROTA: When you say that you were a bunny, I mean, that sort of a by gone, a bit of by gone era. What is a playboy bunny?

MASTEN: A playboy bunny is essentially a server. We were waitresses in three in (inaudible) and singed (ph) in little costumes with a tail.

CAMEROTA: How did you meet Bill Cosby?

MASTEN: Well, I started working for playboy in 1972 as a bunny in Great Gorge. Bill Cosby was a headliner there.

UNINDENTIFIED FEMALE: P.J. says Cosby invited her to lunch one afternoon in Chicago and took this photo with her.

MASTEN: He jumped behind the counter. He was flipping hotdogs and making hotdogs. He made me a hotdog. Everybody was in there laughing it's was a lot of fun. But the next day I got phone call from him. He says P.J., why don't you come out to dinner with me tomorrow night. And I said, OK I'll meet you. He said, well, meet at the Whitehall hotel.

CAMEROTA: And you're not suspicious that anything is going to be happen?

MASTEN: Not at all. Went upstairs and there were four men in the room besides Mr. Cosby. And they were watching sports, they were smoking cigars, there were liquor on the table and they were playing cards.

CAMEROTA: Did he tell you who these men were?

MASTEN: He mentioned their names. You know, it's been so long I don't recall who they were but these were his friends. So he asked me before we go after dinner would you like a cocktail. And I wasn't much of drinker. I said, well, we'll have a little bit of Grand Marnier.

He was behind me and he poured the Grand Marnier in the glass with some ice. And so, I took the glass and I drank it and the next thing I knew was 4:00 in the morning. I woke up in a bed naked, bruised. He was lying next to me. And I slivered out of the bed. My clothes are all over the floor, I grab my clothes. I got myself together. I went downstairs, I got in a cab and went home and took a shower.

CAMEROTA: And you don't remember anything from the point that you have the sip of Grand Marnier to the point were you woke up naked in the bed?

MASTEN: I remember hurting really bad.

CAMEROTA: Your body was hurting?

MASTEN: My body was hurting.

CAMEROTA: What did you think when you woke up -- Let me stop you there, when you woke up and you say bruised.

MASTEN: I know I was raped. I knew I was raped. There were bruise marks all over me. I know I was raped by him.

UNINDENTIFIED FEMALE: P.J. says a few days later, she told her supervisor at Playboy what had happened.

MASTEN: And she said to me, you know I'm Hef's best friend, right? I said, yes. She said, well, nobody is going to believe you. I suggest you keep you mouth shut.

UNINDENTIFIED FEMALE: P.J. says she's been in therapy for many years, trying to heal from her emotional wounds.

CAMEROTA: What do you want to have happen to Cosby now?

MASTEN: I want to see his career destroyed. I want to see him made out to be exactly what he is. He was a role model for children with Fat Albert and all his TV shows in the Huxtables made him out to look like such a wonderful dad. He is a serial rapist and he has fooled everybody in this country and around the world for years. He's a serial rapist.

LEMON: A powerful story now added to a list. We're getting a legal view on these allegations and the latest lawsuit right after this very quick break. You don't want to miss this.

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LEMON: I want to bring in our legal panel now to continue to discuss this Bill Cosby case. Joining me now, HLN Legal Analyst Joey Jackson and CNN Legal Analyst Paul Callan.

So first to start with, with the hot case because the Cosby camp is attacking this case, this suit, saying there's no merit, there's no credibility. Do you believe that?

JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAL ANALYST: They have a point, Don. They have a point. Now not weighing on any of the factual issues, I don't now what occurred. I was just...

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: ... how the law is it's how structured, how it set up, right?

JACKSON: Exactly, the way it set up. It's problematic. And what happened is that you have the statute of limitation. They keep in mind statute of limitations so they have four reasons why people's memories fade, they get foggy. And so as a result of that, you know, you want statute of limitation to preserve evidence and even physical evidence, certain cases are easier to prove with this physical evident.

So in California, because this involves potentially the abuse of a child, they've extended it, the legislature of the statute of limitations...

LEMON: OK.

JACKSON: ... to say that, "Listen, if you're 18, eight years after that when you're 26, you can file it then."

LEMON: All right.

JACKSON: Or three years when you discover that the abuse was related to, all right, what happened to you? And so, in this case we're talking 40 years. And the law says you can't do that, but if you're going to do it, Don, you need a certificate of merit from a psychologist that says that what you're saying is absolutely right and your lawyer needs a certificate of merit to say that there's merits to the case neither that was done in this case, that's problematic.

LEMON: And then also -- the thing that got me when I read this is that it says if you're going to file a suit like this that you can't name the person. Is that correct? It has to be John Doe? And so by saying I'm going to sue -- so is it out the door, is that legal...

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I don't, you know...

LEMON: By saying by naming Bill Cosby.

CALLAN: Well, they're in trouble for doing that but I don't...

LEMON: The lawyers are.

CALLAN: Yes, the lawyers are but the will the judge dismiss it on that basis, probably not. Usually they're allowed to amend the pleadings and they can do it properly if they have a case. But, you know, getting back to what Joey says, the real thing is they created this loophole so that people could bring these cases many years later and it's kind of strange loophole. I mean that I was raped all these years ago and only now, 40 years later, I realized that it's had bad effect on me. And then you have grounds to bring it. So, how do you prove that you didn't realize that for 30 years?

LEMON: OK. My question is that (inaudible) police chief, right, that saying he's still going to do it in Los Angeles. Does that make a difference that police -- the LAPD chief, yes.

CALLAN: I was surprised to hear him say it, because frankly, you know, cops arrest for criminal cases not civil cases.

LEMON: OK.

CALLAN: But he said he would help the victim for civil case.

JACKSON: And if these occur, they obviously would be criminality but it just so far long gone. And Don to be fair people do repress memories and have very bad sexual experiences that are not brought to the floor and that's why you have this.

LEMON: I got to run. We'll continue to follow. Thank you Paul, thank you Joey. Have a great weekend everyone.

Coming up on Monday night, we're going to take a special look at the allegations surrounding Bill Cosby. That special will air right before my show, CNN Tonight. I want you to listen to this moment from an interview with several alleged victims.

How many of you were lured by -- remember Bill Cosby giving you a pill of some sort?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How many of you were drugged? Allegedly all of you.

LEMON: Don't miss The Cosby Show, A Legend Under Fire, Monday, 9:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CCN.

I want to thanks for watching. Wolf starts right after quick break but first CNN is honoring the people who changed our world every single day. CNN Heroes All star Tribute, an All Star Tribute air Sunday night. Here's a sneak preview of the incredible show.

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