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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Journalists' Killer Had Rocky Work Past; Vesper Flanagan Tried To Sue For Racial Bias; GOP Frontrunner Trump Speaks In South Carolina; Jury Deliberating Prep School Rape Case. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired August 27, 2015 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:03] ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN HOST: It goes on to say, "You are required to contact health advocate by Friday. Failure to comply will result in termination of employment."

This isn't the only company where Flanagan had a lot of trouble, but it's the one connected to this shocking murder. What else have you found in his wake?

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: He was having trouble at the station from the very get-go. He couldn't get along with his employees. The employees felt threatened by him. His behavior was aggressive. He was also, apparently, a very, very poor journalist and reprimanded several times for poor reports, poor sourcing, just poor execution of his job.

And what you see in the record, and all the record, Ashleigh, comes from the lawsuit which he then filed against the company after he was fired. It shows a station that was really trying to help him. Memo after memo, advising him to get coaching, that we'll supply coaching, that you need to change your attitude.

Finally, the letter you cited, which referred him to the company's health advocate for some counseling, they tried over and over and over again to straighten out attitudes, straighten out working relationships, and strengthen his journalism. It didn't work and it all culminated into that day, February of 2013, when they had to call police after firing him and the police had to pull him up out of his chair and take him out of the newsroom physically as the sales staff literally locked itself in a safe room while that was happening.

BANFIELD: Just -- it's unbelievable. I just want to bring in something that's breaking right now, Drew, and I can get your reaction to it. A federal law enforcement source is confirming to CNN that he purchased those two Glock 19 pistols legally at the same gun store and at the same time. The source says it was 47 days ago in the Roanoke area.

So if we do the math very quickly, 47 days ago takes us to around July 9. I'm probably missing a day or two, but even if I'm missing a day or two, it is certainly not two days after June 17, which was when that massacre, the modern Emanuel Church happened in Charleston, South Carolina. And in his rambling letter to ABC, he said, "I bought those guns two days after that murder because I just lost it."

So clearly, he's lying in that and who knows what else he's lying about, but he certainly did file a lot of legal paperwork and other lawsuits.

GRIFFIN: He's filed a lot of things, all -- much of it blaming other people for his problems in life. Racial harassment is a claim that he made at this station. He even, you know, tweeted out in one of his tweets after killing Alison Parker that Alison made racial comments. It turns out that Alison was just an intern when this shooter worked at the station. And in paperwork, he refers to an intern named Allison Bailey, so I'm not even sure he knew her last name.

None of it was substantiated. He was asked to bring evidence of any of this to court. He never provided any evidence and that case was dismissed.

Ashleigh, I think we have -- I hate to make a huge judgment call. But obviously, we have an undiagnosed mental issue with this person.

BANFIELD: Yeah.

GRIFFIN: Like we have in so many of these types of shooters. But to purchase guns 47 days ago and then to wait, wait, wait, wait and think and stalk and stew until yesterday at 6:45 a.m., all the while, apparently, writing this rambling manifesto trying to explain yourself, I think it shows the level of depravity of this person's mind.

BANFIELD: And hey, not to mention, two and a half years since parting company with the people at WDBJ.

Drew griffin, great investigative work and thank you for bringing that. I don't know if it helps us but it is certainly answering a lot of questions that we all have.

We're going to keep an eye on Greenville, South Carolina, as well right now because even Donald Trump has mentioned the shooting on the campaign trail. And now, he is about to take to the podium at a very big event in South Carolina, about 1,400 people attending this event. And he's scheduled just minutes from now. I don't know whether this particular story will make it into his campaign speech or whether he will pivot away from it but we'll be there live right after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:37:56] BANFIELD: We're continuing to follow up politics. And right now, the biggest name in politics pulling in all of the numbers, all of the attention and the oxygen is Donald Trump live in Greenville, South Carolina. Let's listen in to his latest appearance.

(BEGIN LIVE SPEECH COVERAGE)

DONALD TRUMP, (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know, sometimes it works. I said to my folks, "Announce the size of the crowd," because, you know, you set the all-time record. They say 1,800 people. And I said how are the other candidates? They said, well, Bush had 320 and most of the others were in the hundreds. And we have 1,800. So give yourself nice applause. Wow. The largest crowd they've had here and it's just an honor.

You know, there is something going on that's been amazing. I've talked about the silent majority, a term that you haven't heard for a long time because we have not been heard for a long time, though we're being heard now, big league (ph), big league.

I wanted to show you something and it's sort of interesting because you wake up, you pick up the papers, you read the papers. And you know, I've been saying the press is very dishonest, right? Not all of it. There they are. Look, always live television. I've been repeating this all. Every time I go honest in live television, other guys go, "There's no television. They have a couple of reporters," and that's fine and they give a speech. They mostly read it or they use Teleprompters, in that way, you don't get yourself in trouble. There is something about it, right? And you know, I say you shouldn't be allowed to use Teleprompters because you have to test people's intelligence. If you need Teleprompters, do you know how easy it is? No, no. Do you know how easy it is? You stand there and you read a Teleprompter. I don't know. Someday I'm going to be doing that, I guess, you know? But the press -- and some of it's been terrific.

Some of the political coverage has been very honest, honorable people, and I've met some great journalists, but some are so dishonest. A big chunk of it, 50 percent, 60 percent, that's a pretty big chunk.

So I wake up this morning and the New York Times, and I love the New York Times. It's great. But I see a story on the front page. I'm on the front page. I'm always on the front page of the New York Times now. We're going to set a record for that, too, like almost every day.

[12:40:07] So, do you mind if I put on my glasses? Does anybody mind? You know, it's very -- the print get smaller and smaller and smaller as they lose more and more money. It's tough. It's true.

Remember how big -- do you remember how big those pages used to be? Now, it's supposed to be like a tabloid. You now read this one. But these things used to be massive. Now, they're not so big but it's still The New York Times, and we still love The New York Times. It's a different bent. Editorially, they kill us all, they don't agree with us, but that's okay.

So I pick up, "Trump gets earful in Spanish as Latino outlets air disdain." And I'm just saying, "What does that mean?" And they start off. Now think of this is in the front page and, you know, especially if you come from New York. When you're on the front page, that means like a lot to me. Of The New York Times, that's a lot.

So it talks about, you know, the whole thing I had with the Spanish journalist, if you call him a journalist, I don't. Actually, he's an advocate for lots of things.

So they say here -- there's a different person on the front page. Ricardo Sanchez known as "El Mandril" on his Spanish drive time radio show in Los Angeles has taken to calling Donald J Trump "El hombre del peluquin." In other words, "The man of the toupee." This is on the front page of The New York Times. I don't wear a toupee. It's my hair. I swear. Come here. Come here. Come here. Come here. I'm going to -- we're going to settle this. You know, Barbara Walters did it. Barbara Walters named me the most whatever it is of the year. Just come on up here. They're going to let you -- I just --you have to do an inspection. This is getting crazy. This is great. Just real quick. We don't want to mess it up too much because I do use hair spray that I just -- come, come. Is it my -- you look.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is.

TRUMP: It is.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm --

TRUMP: Say it, please.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I believe it is.

TRUMP: Thank you. And have I ever met you before? No.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, you haven't.

TRUMP: But you're very nice. Thank you. Nice to meet you. Somebody's got a very nice wife. I don't know who she is but she's very nice.

So, I'm on the front page of The New York Times. The first sentence says I wear a toupee and I don't. I swear to you I don't, OK.

Now, it goes on and it gets worse, by the way. It says that I was accusing Mexican immigrants, who I love. By the way, I love Mexican people. I have such a great relationship to -- I hire thousands people. The rich Mexicans, they're great people. Friends of mine, they buy my apartments. Just like I love the Chinese people. The problem -- it's true, they buy my apartments. They're friends of mine. They live in Trump Tower. They lived in many of my buildings. I love the Mexican people. They have tremendous spirit.

So here they have done here and they love me. And by the way, I think I'm going to win the Mexican vote because I'm going to bring --

(END LIVE SPEECH COVERAGE)

BANFIELD: We're going to just pop in here for a moment. And just so you know, this is not a campaign event. I know it's a very unusual thing to see a candidate have somebody come up and touch his hair. It is not a campaign event. It's a Chamber Of Commerce, then. He is technically a guest. It's not arranged by the campaign. So this is sort of one of those speeches where he's trying to entertain people but everything is a campaign event when you're in a campaign, and unusual way to start.

We'll continue to watch that. I believe we have a whole lot more on the agenda for today's newscast.

We'll be right back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [12:47:36] BANFIELD: Today, a community remains in this shock after one of its local T.V. news teams was murdered, shot dead during a live morning broadcast on the air, Roanoke, Virginia. These are the colleagues and close friends of WDBJ Reporter, Alison Parker, and her photographer, Adam Ward.

Today, the station's on air programming was briefly halted in a tribute to that pair.

The man who killed them, murdered them in cold blood, is a former employee at that station, who was led out by police when he was fired because of his threatening and unsettling behavior, that was back in February of 2013.

If you believe the long suicide letter that he sent to ABC news yesterday, he was angry at people he encountered throughout his career and at the years of treatment that he considered to be unfair to him.

Vester Lee Flanagan, as you've heard, had a history of suing his employers for alleged racial discrimination. They actually referred to one of those cases and his lawyer in that long and rambling suicide letter.

And I'm just going to read this for you. He said, quote, "I was able to sue WTWC T.V in Tallahassee with one of the best attorneys in the nation, hell, one of the best in the world." He is, in fact, referring to this woman, Marie Mattox, the attorney in Tallahassee who represented Flanagan back in that suit in 2000.

Ms. Mattox, thank you so much for being with me today.

You know, I often wonder about certain clients and their behavior and what they share in public and in private. And that I understand attorney-client privilege like anybody else would. But we are living in an entirely different world 24 hours after this horror unfolded. And I want to get your reflection on the person you represented, given all of the facts you now can see unfolding before you.

MARIE MATTOX, FORMER ATTORNEY FOR VESTER FLANAGAN: Ashleigh, he was not the same person that I think that I'm seeing in the news media now, and to hear what he's done today is absolutely appalling.

I represented a kind, nice -- I thought he was a thoughtful person. He had a lot of anger issues about what had happened to him at the T.V. station here, I knew that.

[12:50:00] I felt that maybe he could benefit from some counseling. But I knew that he was very angry about the prospect of losing a career in broadcasting, and so I know that he was angry about that.

BANFIELD: So I seize on the words that you just said, what he thought had happened to him at that Florida station where you were representing him in that law suit. Do you now believe what he told you? Do you believe that that station was out of line? And ultimately, that station settled. But do you believe this man who is capable of such horrors and who said such lies in his manifesto? Do you believe what he said to you was true?

MATTOX: I don't know that, and I can't comment on that. And my role, as a lawyer, is to accept what my client says to me and then try to find support for that. And this case settled fairly early on and so I can't comment. I'm troubled by what's happened in his life after I represented him. But I have not gone back to reflect to say, you know, was this true or was it not true? I accepted it. And I know that he was hurt badly by what he had represented to me. And you know, as a lawyer, you can't ever say that this is, you know, 100 percent true if you're relying upon what your client is telling you.

So I knew that he was troubled by something and he had represented that something to be racial statements that have been made to him and treatment in the work place.

BANFIELD: I mean racial, sexes. I mean he sort of run the gamut. He swings so wildly. It's hard to believe anything he said. We just that learned that, you know, he had -- he bought his guns two days after the massacre. The church in South Carolina, it was weeks upon weeks so that just a flat-out lie as well.

And, you know, I'm Looking at the patterns of the complaints about him, not only at the station that has suffered this horror, but also in the answers to the lawsuit that you were involved in with him. And there is a clear pattern that this person just thought everyone else was wrong and he was right. And just I wonder looking back if you can see now that, perhaps, he was the one who's wrong all along.

MATTOX: And he could have been, you know? And I'm not in a position to comment on that. I know that I felt that he was credible in his representations to me, and that was the reasons I had accepted the representation of him. But who knows what's also happened to him over the last 15 years. You know, there could have been a lot of things, a lot of opportunities lost, and that's what we don't know about.

BANFIELD: Ms. Mattox, I appreciate you coming on. I understand you were just doing your job and it's a tough job and this got to be hard news, I think, for you as well. Thanks again for your time.

MATTOX: It has been. Thank you very much.

BANFIELD: Coming up, another developing story, a rape trial that we've been following very closely. That prep school graduate who was accused of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old freshman girl. There he is swearing in on the stand and the jury has now retired to decide his fate. You're going to hear what Owen Labrie told them before they went away to decide.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:56:39] BANFIELD: The jury in New Hampshire, in the courtroom, has started deliberating in that trial of the elite prep school graduate who was accused of raping a female freshman. Owen Labrie took to stand to in his own defends, and there's the evident. He told the jury that he got a full right scholarship to a St. Paul's boarding school in Concord, a school that boast such big names in their alumni as a former director Robert Muller. After graduation, he was bound for Harvard, also on a full right. He said he wanted to go to the Divinity School and then enter the ministry, but all of those plans are obviously now on hold, indefinitely. And it's now up to the jury to decide what happens to him next.

Yesterday, Labrie took the stand and underwent a direct examination and a grilling cross examination about his intentions with the 15- year-old accuser. We are not naming her because she's a minor so her name in the following sound will be bleeped out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've heard a lot about the phrase, "Senior salute." Can you tell us what your understanding of senior salute is?

OWEN LABRIE, DEFENDANT: Yeah. My understanding of the senior salute was an invitation sent towards the end of the school year, either from an older student to a younger student or from younger student to an older student, asking to hang out before the older student graduated.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's been testimony in this trial that you gave a senior salute to -- Is that correct?

LABRIE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you give her a senior salute?

LABRIE: It was my understanding that senior salutes were between two students who serve and missed each other, they may not have a chance to connect, and that was the main reason but I saw this mine was a little different because I was friendly with -- Yes, calling it a senior salute is -- yes, that's accurate.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So you did send one to -- right?

LABRIE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And why did you send her a senior salute on the eve of you leaving the high school?

LABRIE: I wanted to ask her out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you want to get together with her?

LABRIE: Yeah.

BANFIELD: Jean Casarez joins us now covering this trial. And the lawyer herself, ask her out, hanging out. These are not the kind of terms that are synonymous with rape. Did they get to that and how did they get to that?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, on cross-examination. He's laying for thing. You wanted her. Showing the list of e-mails that he -- she had -- the name of -- her name was on a list month after month from the defendant that he wanted her.

BANFIELD: And still, at large, on some of these communications. CASAREZ: But he know that pretty well on cross-examination. You know,

somebody is lying here. Somebody's lying. Either he's lying or she's lying.

BANFIELD: And there's --

CASARREZ: She said, "No," and he didn't stop. He said, "It didn't get that far."

BANFIELD: Is this one of those trials where while they deliberate, it's anyone's guess? It doesn't feel like its gone one way or the other?

CASAREZ: The forensics are not there, I'll tell you that much. The forensics just show that there was sexual intercourse which is one of the elements of the crime. There must have been that.

BANFIELD: All right, we'll continue to watch. Effectively, we're on the jury watching the verdict. Watch at this time. And then I know you'll bring it to us as it happens. Jean Casarez, thank you for that. And thank you everyone for watching as well. I'm going to turn things over to my colleague, Wolf, who starts right now.

[13:00:00]