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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Actor Stephen Collins Confesses to Sexual Contact with Underage Girl; Details of the Cuban National Imprisoned for Aiding the CIA; Examining the Meteoric Stock Rally Yesterday; Uber Fights Critics

Aired December 19, 2014 - 12:30   ET

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

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN HOST: Well, actor Stephen Collins, the star of the popular television series, 7th Heaven, is confessing in an interview on camera to inappropriate sexual contact with an underage girl. The legal view will have that story coming up straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FEYERICK: Actor Stephen Collins from the T.V. show 7th Heaven is admitting to inappropriate sexual contact with three underage girls. In October, Collins' estranged wife, Faye Grant, said he admitted as much to her and TMZ posted an audio recording allegedly made during a private therapy session in November 2012. Well the misdeeds reportedly happen between 1973 and 1994, over a 20-year period.

In an interview with Yahoo's Katie Couric, Collins explains what he did.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATIE COURIC, YAHOO GLOBAL NEWS ANCHOR: Are you a pedophile?

STEPHEN COLLINS, ACTOR: I do not fit the, either clinical or dictionary definition of it. I am not -- a pedophile is someone who is mainly or wholly attracted to children. I'm not. I had a distortion in my thinking that where I acted out in those ways.

COURIC: Tell us what happened.

COLLINS: Well, in 1973, there were two occasions when I exposed myself to this young woman. And several months later, she came to visit and stay with us with my first wife and me. And my wife had gone to sleep and she and I were watching T.V. alone together and I took her hand and moved it in such a way that she was touching me inappropriately.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: Well, that is very difficult to hear. Collins also has released a statement to People Magazine saying in part, "40 years ago, I did something terribly wrong that I deeply regret. I've been working to atone for it ever since."

Let's bring in our legal experts in, legal analyst, Paul Callan and HLN's legal analyst Joey Jackson. First of all, Paul, do you believe that these young girls now, likely women, will come forward and seek some sort of a settlement?

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: They may, but bear in mind the statute of limitations, much we've talked about this in this Cosby case. But in these cases as well, these are 40-year-old incidence, probably the statute has expired.

He's publically outed himself here, so the embarrassment is gone. I mean he's admitted to it already so I don't think they'd have a lot of leverage to get a settlement.

JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes.

FEYERICK: And what about -- what about civil lawsuits, Joey? Do you think that somebody, one of these girls could perhaps say -- look, he's saying, "The guilt of what of I did has really lead to all the problems I've had in my life." Do you think one of these, now, young women could come forward and basically say, "Yes, well, it wasn't just you. It was me," and seek some sort of compensation?

JACKSON: Sure. It's always a problem, Deb. But I think just, you know, based upon what Paul was talking about, it's very difficult. You know, the statute of limitation is out there and the statute of limitations are out there for the expressed purpose of, you know, corroborating something, making sure that the evidence is not too stale. But here we have an admission, right? He's gone out and he's publically admitted. And this goes into a couple of other things briefly, Deb. And that's this, there's always a cross-section between with regards to public relations with what's right and with regard to what your lawyers will advise you from a legal perspective what is right.

But I think here they intercede. And the reason I say that is because I don't think he has any exposure criminally, nor do I think he has any exposure civilly just based upon the fact that the time has run. So what we're seeing here is an attempt to say, "Look, let me own this. Let me fess up to what I did, it was wrong...

FEYERICK: Right.

JACKSON: ... and try to move on from the public relation's perspective to preserve this career.

(CROSSTALK)

CALLAN: You know, I just want to throw one other thing because I find it to be very disturbing, I guess maybe because my kids love that show, 7th Heaven.

FEYERICK: Right.

JACKSON: Yes.

CALLAN: The definition of somebody who suffers from pedophilia is having a sustained sexual attraction to somebody under the age of 13. Now, we've heard reports of multiple children involved in his context. So, I'm not so sure that he doesn't fit the definition. So, I'm not letting him off the hook that easily.

FEYERICK: Well, so let's look at is statement, Joey. You see him, he looks so much older speaking to Katie Couric, than these sort of charismatic pictures that we're showing. Do you think this is a career ender? He's basically looking for, you know...

JACKSON: That's the problem, Deb. And the problem is is that, I think listen, the lawyers probably looked at it and they said, you know, what, "You're OK legally in terms of any criminal prosecution even though we know this investigations under way, but at the same time, this is about the preservation of your legacy and your future. And to the extent that you do own it and fess up with. Now, there's nothing to say that he's telling the truth, I don't know.

Maybe he is coming clean and he's really, you know, he wrote that essay also and he published the essay in People Magazine in which he pretty much confessed to his sins. But I think it's about, you know what, asking for public forgiveness and looking for redemption. And if that happens, the he's fine. If it doesn't happen and people can't get by the deplorable conduct, the he has...

CALLAN: I see you're a nice guy, Joey Jackson, because I think it's about him trying to avoid civil lawsuits for money damages, because he's going to say, "Go ahead, sue me. I've already admitted everything on Katie Couric. You can't embarrass me anymore," and the statute of limitations is gone on these suits, anyway, so...

JACKSON; Right. And that's the point.

CALLAN: ... he's outed himself.

JACKSON: And because of the fact that there is no statute, and I think the lawyers, I'm sure, vetted this, talked to him about what he was going to say before he publically said it.

FEYERICK: Right, right.

JACKSON: ... because just to draw the analogy very briefly, Paul and Deb, you know, you look a Cosby who's saying nothing. And I think that this parallels to that in as much as he may have exposure with any later victims that come forward, Cosby that is. But here we don't see that.

FEYERICK: Do you think that we'll see what we are seeing in the Cosby situation where these women came forward and completely destroyed Cosby saying that he drugged them, he had sexual relations with them. Cosby hasn't said anything about it. But do you think that these women will mount a similar kind of...

JACKSON: See that -- that's the wild card. And the wild card always is, you know, the person has their perspective and Collins is out there with his perspective who's to say that there are not other women that say, you know, either A, I'm coming forward and that's not what happened sir. Or B, there are additional women that what he's admitting to, saying, you know what, he's done something a little bit more. We don't know that...

(CROSSTALK)

CALLAN: I think there's a big difference in the cases though because Cosby us a cultural icon. He's huge. Collins I think is sort of a largely forgotten figure involved in an old T.V. show, so the likelihood of women coming out against Cosby is much greater than people bothering Mr. Collins. We never -- no.

FEYERICK: A predator is a predator. All right, gentlemen, Paul Callan, Joey Jackson, thank you so much.

JACKSON: Thank you, Deb.

CALLAN: Thank you.

FEYERICK: Appreciate you being on the show.

And in other news, American contractor Alan Gross was accused of being a spy and held prisoner in Cuba. This week, he's a free man. Now we're learning more about another man who did spy for the United States in Cuba, details on him coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FEYERICK: The face of this week's new deal between the U.S. and Cuba belongs to Alan Gross. He's the American contractor who was released from the Cuban prison after five years. There also free today another man, someone who works for the U.S. government as a spy in Cuba.

He was caught and thrown in prison 20 years ago. Today, after all this time, we know his name. Here is CNN's Joe Johns.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alan Gross released from jail after five years within the spotlight, but at the same time a high value U.S. spy, hold by some, an American treasure, also gained his freedom in the prisoner swap with Cuba, and has been brought to the is United States.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: One of the most important intelligence agents that the United States has ever had in Cuba. And who has been imprisoned for nearly two decades.

JOHNS: U.S. officials refused to release the spy's name but sources inside the government and out, tells CNN his name is Rolando Sarraff Trujillo. These are believed to be pictures of him.

Now, in his early 50's, the Cuban national worked on encrypted communications for Cuban intelligence assets. But he was secretly working for the CIA. He was discovered and convicted of espionage in Cuba in 1995. U.S. officials said his work was instrumental in identifying three Cuban spies. He was also said to have provided information to uncover the so-called Cuban Five, cases U.S. authorities made years after Trujillo went to prison.

CEDRIC LEIGHTON, FORMER USAF INTELLIGENCE OFFICER: From a counter intelligence perspective, what you want to do is you want to get as many of these spies or people that are working for them as possible. And that's why it can take a very long time even after their -- they spy was incarcerated initially by Cuba.

JOHNS: Human Rights activist said Trujillo was held at one point in the same lock up that housed Alan Gross, this maximum security Villa Marista Prison outside Havana. He had long been identified publically as a political prisoner in Cuba.

CHRIS SIMMONS, FORMER CIA SPECIALIST: Rolly was part of a three- member CIA operation. And in the mid-90s, something went wrong with the CIA mission, and one of the members was -- came under the attention of Cuban counter-intelligence. They tried to do an emergency exfiltration of all three members and for reasons I do not know, Rolly was unable to get out of country and was arrested.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: And that was CNN Joe Johns covering up part of the story in Washington for us.

Well, the stock market is having a great run this week, even as it takes a breather today and it's down just a bit right now. We'll see what's going on, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FEYERICK: Well, the stock markets are catching their breath today after the steepest one-day rise of the year. Cristina Alesci is watching the markets and our money today and we were looking at the stocks go up this morning, but now -- what, change of heart here? What's happening?

CRISTINA ALESCI, CNN MONEY BUSINESS CORRESPONDET: Not really a change of heart. Sort of just a calming down on Friday, you know, Fridays tend to be a little bit slower. But let's just put this into context, the last two days have erased all of December's losses. You remember from most of the month, we were actually down and this all has to do with the (inaudible) at the end of the day, keeping with that loose money flowing into the system, and that is giving Wall Street a lot of optimism that the Central Bank will still continue to look at the facts that the U.S. growth rate target has not been hit yet, right?

We're not at that 2 percent rate that the Central Bank wants to see. So that means that we could see low interest rates for a lot longer than most people anticipated.

FEYERICK: And it's interesting because the Fed doesn't want to do anything with the interest rates right now because there is a bit of sort of a propping up. And they don't want to pull out too fast or raise too quickly because once that happens, the results may not be what they want. ALESCI: Yes. And the big question is what happens when everyone gets to their -- get back to their desks in January, right? December has been in a historically good month for stocks so we could finish the year up, but at the same token, you got to look at what happens when people gets sobered up and come back to their desk on January, and reassess what's really going on.

You know, one of the -- one of the troubling spots for a few investors is oil, right?

FEYERICK: Right. Going...

ALESCI: The falling oil price could indicate that there isn't that much demand whether it'd be for business activity or for consumer consumption, it really raises questions about activity.

FEYERICK: OK. So ultimately, do you think that -- what is your prediction for January, since this is maybe the last time I'm speaking to you. What happens in January?

ALESCI: Well, in January, I think there's going to be a moment where everybody reassesses just what has happened, and whether or not the fundamentals really support the kind of movement that we've seen over the last couple of months.

FEYERICK: OK.

ALESCI: And look, anything can happen.

FEYERICK: Right.

ALESCI: But there are some economists ...

FEYERICK: And it usually is.

ALESCI: Yes. There are some economists out there that are saying, "Look, the fed is going to continue its easy money policy and consumer confidence is going to remain high. So we could continue to see the stocks go up."

FEYERICK: All right. Well, we know you'll be watching. Thank you so much Cristina Alesci.

And what started as little car company on the West Coast has turned into an industry changer in a very short time. You may know Uber as the taxi alternative that's fighting to keep its $40 billion value in the faces of very high profile problems. Here's CNN Dan Simon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: As thousands attempted to flee downtown Sydney during the deadly hostage crisis, Uber found itself in the headlines again and not for good reason.

As car demands surged, the service used in more than 250 cities around the world charged passengers four times the normal rate with Uber's controversial surge-pricing. The company soon apologized and began offering free rides, but the damage was done.

It's the latest in a string of high profile mishaps for Uber whose high speed growth from a few employees no-name company to an international juggernaut has led to a series of troubling issues, everything from price gouging and privacy invasion, to allegations of assault and rape.

In Boston, authorities just announced that an Uber driver has been charged with rape and kidnapping. Police say the victim was driven to a secluded location where the driver beat and sexually assaulted her. The company in a statement calling the crime despicable. "Uber has been working closely with law enforcement and will continue to do everything we can to assist their investigation."

And in New Delhi, a driver had also been accused of a similar crime, that as the company stresses that safety is its number one priority and that it is working on security enhancements.

But there had been other recent issues. In San Francisco, the company's hometown and in Los Angeles, a lawsuit filed by the D.A. accuses the company in part of misleading customers about driver background checks. In Portland, Madrid, and Bangkok, Uber has been ordered to cease operations amid allegations it wasn't complying with local laws. In Paris, a court has banned its lower cost service Uber pop after the taxi industry protested, all this for a company that just launched four years ago and is now valued at more than $40 billion.

As an entrepreneur, did you ever think that you'd be running a car service?

TRAVIS KALANICK, CEO & CO-FOUNDER, UBER: Absolutely not.

SIMON: That's Uber CEO Travis Kalanick back in the early days, explaining to me the original vision behind the company.

KALANICK: It was me, my cofounder and our 100 friends to be able to push a button and an S-class Mercedes rolls up, and that was it, right? But everybody wanted it. All of our friends wanted it and their friends wanted it, so we just opened it up.

SIMON: Uber doesn't actually employ its drivers. Instead, it serves as a technology middleman connecting them to passengers. Its evaluation has surpassed companies like Delta and Hertz but, of course, the press coverage hasn't always been so friendly.

SARAH LACY, SILICON VALLEY BLOGGER: It was terrifying.

SIMON: Just last month, a senior Uber executive said at a private dinner that Uber should pay a million dollars to hire opposition researchers that dig up dirt on journalists writing negative pieces.

Silicon Valley blogger, Sarah Lacy, one of the apparent targets of the scheme.

LACY: I've covered powerful tech companies for a long time and powerful moguls for a long time. And I've never heard a plan like that detailed before.

SIMON: Uber's Kalanick later tweeted that the executive's comments were terrible and do not represent the company.

Can these PR problems bring down the company?

THILO KOSLOWSKI, TRANSPORATION ANALYST, GARTNER: They could if they continue to get out of control and more of them and the company doesn't address them. So, this Robin Hood type value proposition might turn into a Darth Vader if they're not careful enough about how quickly these things get out of control.

SIMON: Uber has likened its struggles to a political campaign, which is why it hired David Plouffe who helped mastermind President Obama's election in 2008. Part of Plouffe's job, to get Uber in cities where the powerful taxi industry has been successful in keeping them out.

In a recent blog post, Uber CEO writes, "Acknowledging mistakes and learning from them are the first steps." Kalanick trying to save the image of a company born from a simple idea.

KALANICK: We just want to push button on our phone and get a ride. And that's an aspiration and a functionality that I think millions of people in cities across the country and around the world want.

SIMON: Dan Simons, CNN, San Francisco.

FEYERICK: And finally, this hour, American scientists say they've discovered one million mummies at a dig in Egypt. Egyptians aren't so sure we'll do some digging ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FEYERICK: A dispute over mummies (inaudible) archeologist from Utah against authorities in Egypt. Brigham Young University claims that its teams are unearthing one million mummies in Egyptian dessert. Well, Egypt says, "Huh, thousands, maybe". CNN's Amir Daftari, has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMIR DAFTARI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This ancient mummy, maybe one in a million, literally. Believed to be an 18-month-old, she was found in a burial ground in middle Egypt.

This according to the head excavator, an American professor from Brigham Young University, here, archeologists claims that there were an estimated one million mummies under the earth.

But Egypt's Ministry of Antiquities, refused the researchers prediction, telling CNN "There is indeed a site that contains many corpses and bodies and wrapped in a thick textile, but these number in the tens of thousands maximum." The college says nearly 2,000 corpses have been found so far at the Fag el-Gamous site. Many dating back to the Roman or Byzantine empires. Those buried there were ordinary people with no access to the formal mummification methods reserved for pharaohs. But the arid desert climate dried and preserved their bodies. Despite the lower social status of the dead, excavators found some items of value like linen, glass and even a child's tunic. This toddler appears to be buried with care. She wore two bracelets and an intricate necklace. This clustered burial maybe a family, two adults and two children. Possibly a million more mummies to uncover, and with them, a million more stories. Amir Daftari, CNN.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: An incredible story at that. Well, in half hour, President Obama is scheduled to host his year-end news conference (inaudible). Wolf Blitzer is going to be bringing that to you live. WOLF starts right now.