Return to Transcripts main page
Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Tracking Sexual Predators; Sex Investigation Nabs DHS Official; Watchdog Group Releases Congressional Pork Barrel Spending Report
Aired April 05, 2006 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Larry.
Tonight, a government official's confession to seeking sex with a minor online.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Along with it come questions, perhaps, about the guy right down the street from you.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JORGE GUZMAN, ASSISTANT SPECIAL AGENT, U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT: They're teachers, doctors, attorneys, police officers, firemen.
ANNOUNCER: They're sexual predators hiding in plain sight -- what you need to know to protect your children from them.
JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The e-mail was send at 1:58 a.m.
ANNOUNCER: A big-name campus rocked again -- the e-mail describing unspeakable acts against women, just minutes after student athletes allegedly did unspeakable things. But get this. One lawyer actually calls it a good alibi.
And government pork -- the sound of teapot museums and bridges to nowhere, and billions of your dollars going here. Don't these guys know there's a war going on? Haven't they been to New Orleans? We're "Keeping Them Honest."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Across the country and around the world, this is ANDERSON COOPER 360.
Live from the CNN studios in New York, tonight, filling in for Anderson, Heidi Collins and John Roberts.
COLLINS: We will be looking tonight at how to identify sexual predators and how to catch them. It's not always simple or easy.
We begin, though with new developments in a case that authorities are treating as a slam dunk. They say Brian Doyle, the Homeland Security official charged with trying to seduce a 14-year-old online, has confessed. And, today, his lawyers said depression, likely caused by the deaths of two siblings, may have led him to do it. More now from CNN's Jeanne Meserve.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Department of Homeland Security investigates child pornography. Now one of its own officials arrested on child porn charges.
Deputy Press Secretary Brian Doyle faces 23 felony counts, carrying a possible penalty of 115 years in prison. He was taken into custody Tuesday night at his Maryland home, as he talked online to what he thought was a 14-year-old girl, but was in fact an undercover Florida detective.
GRADY JUDD, POLK COUNTY, FLORIDA, SHERIFF: This is the chats, page after page, line after line of chat.
MESERVE: In what are described as hard-core conversations with the decoy, Doyle is alleged to have discussed specific sexual acts and to have sent pornographic video clips.
JERRY HILL, POLK COUNTY, FLORIDA, STATE ATTORNEY: The questions and the descriptions this individual gave of the conduct he wanted to engage in is -- is very graphic. And it is clearly not something that -- that I would repeat. It -- it is just -- it is just unimaginable that an adult male would discuss this type thing with a 14-year-old female.
MESERVE: Doyle gave the "girl" his real name and position, his office and government cell phone numbers, even a photo of himself wearing his DHS I.D.
DR. JOHN DEIRMENJIAN, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, UCLA: That was possibly his way of -- of trying to impress her or also trying to show her that he is someone of -- of authority, somebody of security that might lead a child to be more comfortable with him.
MESERVE: But prosecutors say, if Doyle was revealing his identity in other sexual chats, it could have exposed him to blackmail. They say the potential security threat is one reason they rushed the investigation.
Doyle appeared Wednesday in a Maryland courtroom via closed- circuit television. He has confessed and, for now, is being held without bond.
BARRY HELFAND, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: At some point, I would expect to come back in front of Judge Johnson (ph) to ask the judge to allow Mr. Doyle to be released on some minimal bond or personal bond, so that he himself can return to Florida.
MESERVE: Doyle, who worked for "TIME" magazine for 26 years before entering government, divorced in 1987. He has had more than one serious girlfriend since, friends say. He is known as a devoted uncle in a large family, a churchgoing man who is well-liked and well- regarded by friends and co-workers. They expressed utter shock at his arrest, but one described Doyle as "a kind of quirky guy."
DHS' embarrassment at this incident is compounded by the fact that the department itself hunts down Internet child predators.
JULIE MYERS, DIRECTOR, U.S. IMMIGRATION & CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT AGENCY: It is terrible if there are allegations against a public official. But, wherever they are, if they're doing this against children, we're going to find them. We're going to prosecute them.
MESERVE (on camera): Doyle has been suspended from his job without pay, his security clearance, employee badge and access to facilities suspended. But, right now, those are the least of his worries.
Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: So, here was an outwardly average person, quirky, perhaps, but nothing beyond the pale, the guy in the office down the hall, a buddy, a neighbor, not to put too fine a point on it.
It makes you wonder, though, and not just about this particular case. Just what kind of person does this sort of thing? Is there a profile? And does the Internet make it easier for predators, as Brian Doyle allegedly was, to be hiding in plain sight?
Here's CNN's Thelma Gutierrez.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They're accused of the most heinous crimes against children.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's shown lying on a bed with a young boy, approximately 14 years old.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's an image of him with his hands on the naked genitalia of a young boy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The reason he came to this park was to meet with a 15-year-old female.
GUTIERREZ: Their crimes paint a picture of a monster who lurks in dark places. But experts who track child sexual predators say the monster may not look like a monster at all, and, in fact, might be hiding in plain sight -- a relative, or a person next door, or the online friend who reaches out to your child on the Internet.
JORGE GUZMAN, ASSISTANT SPECIAL AGENT, U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT: You can't profile a predator. It's very difficult to profile them, because they come -- they come from all walks of life. They're teachers, doctors, attorneys, police officers, firemen.
GUTIERREZ: Case in point, 85-year-old John Seljan, a widower and grandfather, arrested on his way to the Philippines to have sex with girls as young as 9, now serving 20 years in prison for child sex tourism.
Popular Florida TV meteorologist Bill Kamal pled guilty to trying to seduce a 14-year-old boy over the Internet.
Fifty-year-old California Highway Patrol Lieutenant Stephen Deck charged with attempt lewd act on a child under 14. He is now awaiting arraignment.
And 61-year-old Edilberto Datan, an auditor for the state of California, convicted for having sex with Filipino boys and producing child pornography -- a list that just goes to show that child predators don't have one profile, but do have one thing in common, a dark desire for children.
GUZMAN: It's easier, probably, to profile the victim than it is the predator.
GUTIERREZ: That's what makes it so hard for investigators to find them, but what also makes it so critical that they do.
CAPTAIN SCOTT WARNER, REDWOOD CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT: A great deal of them have a compulsivity to commit the same acts again. And, so, the -- the issue for law enforcement is to work very hard proactively, so that we can do everything we can to deter them.
GUTIERREZ: The Internet has made it easier, faster and cheaper for predators to reach child victims. And, so, it has fueled an explosion of child pornography and child sex abuse.
In fact, there are even Web sites, chat rooms, and online discussion groups for people who have sexual interests in children.
RUPA GOSWAMI, ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY: If your interest is having sex with children, you can find cohorts and comrades for you to interact with, and you can share your interests with others. And that does increase the number of people playing this game.
GUTIERREZ: A sinister game with no borders, where players are able to exploit the young and vulnerable across the world.
Thelma Gutierrez, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: You heard a bit from Sheriff Judd in Jeanne Meserve's report just a moment ago.
But, earlier tonight, we spoke at length with the sheriff about this case and others like it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: Sheriff Judd, how do you track down sexual predators, when there really isn't any criminal profile to work from? GRADY JUDD, POLK COUNTY, FLORIDA, SHERIFF: Really, Heidi, what we do is go online, all the chat rooms, and we set up a profile. In this case, it was a 14-year-old girl. And we wait for them to come to us. And that's what -- that's exactly what happened with Brian Doyle.
COLLINS: How effective are law enforcement agencies across the nation in tracking down sexual predators? I mean, does everybody do it that way?
JUDD: You know, I would like to tell that you every law enforcement agency in the country has a computer crimes unit. They don't. But a lot of them do. And that's why we're as successful as we are.
I want to encourage all law enforcement agencies across the country to get involved, because, as we sit here and talk right now, there are not dozens, but there are hundreds, if not thousands, of predators looking for pedophilia activity online with our children. And it's very, very important that we catch them and stop their conduct.
COLLINS: Well, we certainly have seen a couple of cases, just over the past couple of days, where there has really been some attention put on this issue. What do you think it's going to take for law enforcement agencies across the country to go ahead and get one of these active units up and running?
JUDD: Well, I hope that there's a silver lining to this incident.
And the silver lining is that parents pay closer attention to what their children are doing online, that parents become actively involved, and that law enforcement agencies throughout the country join those of us who are already doing this, and recognize that we're dealing with an overwhelming number of predators and child pedophiles, who are trying, every hour of every day, to interact with, illegally, I might add, and sensually (ph), I might add, with our children around the country.
COLLINS: Talk to us a little bit about what you look for. When you look at some of these e-mails and some of this traffic that comes through on the computers, what -- what are you looking for that says to you, this is a sexual predator?
JUDD: Heidi, there's a pattern to it.
First, they want to communicate over the Internet or on the computer. And they start soft, and they build trust. They build rapport. They build friendships. But you will notice, pretty quickly, that they're trying to get on the telephone. They know that they can build that trust, that rapport, that friendship quicker on the telephone than they can over the computer.
They will want to exchange photographs. They will start with simple photographs of just the person, "So I can see what you're like." Then they will go to rougher photographs. They will try to use webcams. And, in this case, Brian Doyle was obsessed with this 14- year-old girl obtaining a webcam, so they could exchange nude photographs.
COLLINS: In fact, Doyle, it sounds like...
JUDD: And it progressed...
COLLINS: Sheriff, I'm sorry.
It sounds like Doyle was exactly the type of predator that you mentioned. He used his real name. He sent pictures of his government badge, gave all of his telephone numbers to the girl. Are -- are most predators really that brazen?
JUDD: Yes, they are. They're not all as forward as he was as quickly as he was.
But there's a pattern of activity. And, ultimately, what they want it to do is culminate in sexual activity with the child. We work cases like this time and again.
COLLINS: Sheriff Grady Judd out of Polk County, Florida, thank you.
JUDD: Thank you, Heidi.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: So, if there's a bottom line here, it's that the bad guys and women are out there. And many are using the Internet to extend their reach.
Fortunately, though, as Sheriff Judd mentioned, the Internet cuts both ways. And while there is a lot of bad people, there are a lot of good ones, too.
And, with that, there's CNN's Gary Tuchman.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): We tell our children to respect their teachers. In Delaware, though, police allege this teacher, Rachel Holt, had sex with a 13-year-old student 28 times during one week this past March. We tell our children to be courteous to adults. Carlie Brucia's trust may have cost her her life.
ANGELA LAKIN, AUNT OF CARLIE BRUCIA: It's hard to describe the pain that is felt without having to feel so much loss.
TUCHMAN: We tell our children the Internet is a wonderful teaching tool, but perhaps we aren't putting enough emphasis on this opinion.
JIM MURRAY, PEACHTREE CITY, GEORGIA, POLICE CHIEF: Internet was the best thing they enter invented for child molesters.
TUCHMAN: Jim Murray is the chief of the Peachtree City, Georgia, Police Department, which has started an aggressive Internet task force for predators. Don't talk to strangers is age-old advice in the real world, but it's the same advice in the cyberspace world.
MURRAY: By the time you say to your 13-year-old daughter, I'm going to go in and make you a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, and, by the time you bring it back, a pedophile could contact your child and steal their innocence away that quickly.
TUCHMAN: We watch the task force in action.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you want to chat?
TUCHMAN: Captain Rosanna Dove (ph) goes into a chat room and says she's a 14-year-old girl named Georgia Peach. Adult men swarm to the site, including a man who calls himself "hottguy" from Texas. He asks if she's single.
(on camera): You single? I mean, obviously, you're 14, right?
(voice-over): He keeps asking what she would like to do. And then he types this.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right. Here we go. He says he's going to lift my shirt.
TUCHMAN: The officer says play along. It's the only way to catch most of these people.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He says, rub yourself. And I'm going to say, oh, cool.
TUCHMAN: And with those comments, police say hottguy has committed a crime.
MURRAY: He could be arrested. He could get up to 10 years in the state penitentiary.
TUCHMAN: Every time she logs on to a new chat site as Georgia Peach, men are talking to her within seconds.
(on camera): This guy, who is 28 -- and you have said you're 14 -- tells you that he likes kinky, dominant girls.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Correct.
MURRAY: Oh, we have had as many as 15, 16, 17 hits at one time, trying to have a conversation with what they think is a 14-year-old child.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): Police arrest many of these people after face-to-face rendezvous are set up.
So, when it comes to the Internet, this advice: MURRAY: Put it in a room where it's in a family room, and only allow your children on that when you're there. Get blocking devices, so you can block places you don't want your children to go. And get tracking software, so you can go back and check every conversation your child has.
TUCHMAN: Tell your child never to give personal information over the Net and to stay out of chat rooms.
Banning the Internet is an option for some. But, for those who don't do that, the chief says, you should bluntly tell your children, the Internet is fertile ground for predators.
Gary Tuchman, CNN, Peachtree City, Georgia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: It's like hyenas to the little lamb, you know?
COLLINS: Yes. I can't believe how dumb they are, though, the predators. I mean, they just -- they have no idea who they're talking to.
ROBERTS: Nobody ever said they were smart.
COLLINS: They deserve to get caught, but they all do.
It's a sex scandal that has Duke University reeling. Members of the lacrosse team stand accused of raping a young woman, and now there's word of a sickening e-mail allegedly sent by a student. We will have the latest.
ROBERTS: Also tonight, it's the end of an era.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE TODAY SHOW")
KATIE COURIC, CO-HOST, "THE TODAY SHOW": I wanted to tell all of you out there who have watched the show for the past 15 years that, after listening to my heart and my gut, two things that have served me pretty well in the past, I have decided I will be leaving "Today" at the end of May.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Katie Couric is going to CBS, but is it the right move? We will take a closer look.
COLLINS: And government waste, pork-barrel spending, including millions for a summit on toilets. Yes, the potty.
(LAUGHTER)
COLLINS: All that and more when 360 continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) COLLINS: With April 15 just 10 days away, we thought you should know what you helped pay for last year. And, trust me, you won't be happy. Congress used your tax dollars to fund hundreds of programs and initiatives that simply defy logic and all common sense.
We're "Keeping Them Honest," though, tonight.
Here's CNN's Tom Foreman.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The number of pork projects dropped nearly a third over the past year. But the amount of tax dollars being spent on the pork that remains is higher than ever before.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Roll the barrel. That's it.
FOREMAN: That according to Citizens Against Government Waste.
TOM SCHATZ, PRESIDENT, CITIZENS AGAINST GOVERNMENT WASTE: Twenty-nine billion dollars, that's 6.2 percent higher than last year's total of $27.3 billion.
FOREMAN: Once again on top of the pig pile is Alaska. With Senator Ted Stevens' help, that state is pulling in $325 million for pet projects, including the Sea Otter Commission.
And other lawmakers pushed through their own spending plans. International Fund for Ireland got $13 million, some of it going for the World Toilet Summit, in which widespread toilet use is encouraged. One million additional dollars was approved for development of water- free toilets.
According to the report, Missouri got almost $6 million to relieve traffic in Joplin, a town of only 50,000 people. Oregon welcomed $400,000 for a museum about two Chinese immigrants. Iowa rounded up a quarter-million for its Cattle Congress. Nevada knocked down a cool $100,000 for a boxing club.
In North Carolina, a teapot museum got a half-million, all money that critics say could have been much better spent.
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: Money taken from defense appropriations is -- still remains the highest number and still the most outrageous, because it diverts money from our national definition and the men and women who are -- who are serving and fighting and risking their lives.
FOREMAN (on camera): Still, all of these projects have defenders, people who say this money will promote the local economy or encourage jobs. The simple truth is, almost no one calls it pork in his or her state.
(voice-over): For example, Louisiana is getting $100 million for energy and water projects. Critics say it has nothing to do with Katrina, but elected officials call it money well spent.
SEN. MARY LANDRIEU (D), LOUISIANA: Stop wasting money through FEMA. Start rebuilding the Gulf Coast, and give us money to restore our coast and build our levees, and then we can take care of the rest ourself.
FOREMAN: But, each year, the list goes on -- $50,000 for a Tito Puente memorial project in New York, $600,000 for Abe Lincoln's bicentennial birthday, for critics, all proof that, in the nation's capital, pork is still king.
Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERTS: Oh, that is hilarious, just hilarious.
COLLINS: Oh, that's good to know, isn't it?
ROBERTS: The worst-kept secret in television is finally out. Katie Couric is moving on, leaving "The Today Show" to anchor "The CBS Evening News," but will her morning-show viewers follow along?
COLLINS: And resignations and allegations of rape -- the latest on a sex scandal at one of the nation's most prestigious universities.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: From dawn to dusk -- Katie Couric is trading hours and jobs. But is she right for the part?
360 next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: At about 7:30 Eastern Time this morning, Katie Couric told viewers of "The Today Show" what they and many of us already knew: that she was saying goodbye to NBC and hello to CBS. The decision is a big gamble, and not just for her.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE TODAY SHOW")
COURIC: After listening to my heart and my gut, two things that have served me pretty well in the past, I have decided I will be leaving "Today" at the end of May.
ROBERTS: From her start at CNN as an assignment editor who never quite made it on the air, to her tenure as "The Today Show"'s longest serving anchor ever -- even those who think Katie Couric's a little too perky for the evening news acknowledge, her jump to CBS puts this 49-year-old television personality in a league of her own. HOWARD KURTZ, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: It's kind of amazing that it has taken, what, nearly 60 years of television history to have a woman be the solo anchor of a network evening newscast.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE TODAY SHOW")
COURIC: Sometimes, I think change is a good thing, although it may be terrifying to get out of your comfort zone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Couric's deal, reported at $13 million to $15 million a year, includes a managing editor title, as well as the opportunities to contribute to CBS's "60 Minutes." It's a clear departure from her routine of mixing it up in the morning.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE TODAY SHOW")
COURIC: Are you finding this relatively easy to make?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AV WESTIN, FORMER SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, ABC NEWS: Katie now faces a particular challenge of whether her personality and her skills will translate from the looser format of "The Today Show" to the very, very rigid format of "The Evening News."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE TODAY SHOW")
ANNOUNCER: This is "Today" with Katie Couric and Matt Lauer.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: On camera, at least, reaction has been a Couric love fest.
MATT LAUER, CO-HOST, "THE TODAY SHOW": She's probably the best who has ever done the job. And she has been my partner for 10 years. So, I mean, I'm going to miss her like crazy. But I'm proud of her. She has got a great opportunity.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Welcome, Katie.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And congratulations.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And thanks for giving us a break in the mornings.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "GOOD MORNING AMERICA")
DIANE SAWYER, CO-HOST, "GOOD MORNING AMERICA": We know as well as anyone what it takes to be as good as she is. (END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "LIVE WITH REGIS AND KELLY")
KELLY RIPA, CO-HOST, "LIVE WITH REGIS AND KELLY": I would like to see her do the morning show and the night show.
REGIS PHILBIN, CO-HOST, "LIVE WITH REGIS AND KELLY": Oh, yes. Yes. Well...
RIPA: Or a Katie Couric channel. Why not?
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Off camera, though insiders question whether the woman who jokes about her 172 hairstyles lacks the journalistic heft to carry on the tradition of Edward R. Murrow at CBS.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EDWARD R. MURROW, CBS NEWS: ... remains one of the most important developments of our time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: She has interviewed presidents, world leaders. She was on the air on during 9/11. This is a woman with a lot of hard-news experience.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE CBS EVENING NEWS")
ANNOUNCER: This is "The CBS Evening News."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: It's a gamble for CBS, which has been mired in third place in the news ratings for more than a decade. She replaces veteran Bob Schieffer, who has delivered the only ratings increase among the nightly network news shows since he took over for Dan Rather last year.
The question is, how many of the 6.1 million "Today Show" viewers will follow her to CBS?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE TODAY SHOW")
COURIC: It may sound kind of corny, but I really feel as if we have become friends through the years.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: And, of course, NBC's challenge, do "Today" viewers, who have turned it into the top-rated morning program, with $500 million a year in ad revenue, really want new friends? (END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: So, what you really want to know is, how does Katie Couric's 13- to 15-million-dollar-a-year salary compare with other prominent wage-earners?
Let's take a look at the raw data tonight. Brian Williams, who replaced Tom Brokaw as anchor of NBC's "Nightly News," makes $4 million a year. That's a whole lot more than President Bush. His yearly salary comes out at $400,000. For his part, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin receives a salary of $110,000.
And then, on the other end of the spectrum, is George David, the CEO of United Technologies. He reportedly made just under $90 million last year.
And then, of course, there's Howard Stern, who gets $100 million a year.
COLLINS: Yes. And I keep looking for us. And I just -- I don't see us anywhere on this list.
ROBERTS: We're somewhere in the Fortune 500,000.
(LAUGHTER)
COLLINS: Oh, the 500,000. Yes, you got it.
In North Carolina, a prominent university rocked by rape allegations -- and now some say the handling of the case has much to do with issues of class and race.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOSEPH CHESHIRE, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: It wasn't racially motivated. It wasn't a rape. It wasn't a gang rape.
HOUSTON BAKER JR., PROFESSOR, DUKE UNIVERSITY: There is a culture of white, elite, violent, drunken privilege.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Tonight, new developments in the case. We will have the very latest.
ROBERTS: Plus, New York City emergency medical technicians, their life-saving skills in demand on the other side of the globe -- their remarkable story ahead on 360.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: In Durham, North Carolina, where an exotic dancer is accusing three Duke University lacrosse players of rape, the shockwaves just keep on coming. Today, police revealed an e-mail allegedly sent by a student after the first reported incident that offers a graphic description of possible criminal intent. Duke says it has suspended the student. The disclosure was just one of several developments today. CNN's Jason Carroll has the latest.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Today Duke's lacrosse team, Mike Pressler, submitted his resignation effective immediately. This, after the court released information from a sealed warrant which graphically detailed a threatening e-mail allegedly sent by Ryan McFadyen, one of Pressler's players.
It was sent the same night of the alleged sexual assault. It reads, "Tomorrow night, after tonight's show, I've decided to have some strippers over to Edens 2c. All are welcome. However, there will be no nudity. I plan on killing the bitches as soon as they walk in and proceeding to cut their skin off while (blank) in my Duke-issue spandex."
The e-mail was sent as 1:58 a.m., just about a half-an-hour after the alleged victim in this case, an exotic dancer, called police saying three lacrosse players raped and shouted racial slurs at her during a party she was hired to perform at, at the team member's off- campus home.
The university's president, Richard Broadhead, called e-mail sickening and repulsive. Broadhead canceled the men's lacrosse season, and Ryan McFadyen, who is 19 years old, has been suspended.
No one answered the door at McFadyen parents' home in Mendham, New Jersey. His attorney released a statement saying, quote, "While the language of the e-mail is vile, the e-mail itself is perfectly consistent with the boy's unequivocal assertion that no sexual assault took place that evening."
The team does have a history of trouble. More than a dozen players have previous minor offenses, mostly for underage drinking.
The university's critics have been speaking out, saying, given the team's past, school administrators have not been tough enough on the team or the coaches in the wake of the rape allegations. In a recent interview, Duke's president asked for patience as the facts unfold.
RICHARD BROADHEAD, DUKE PRESIDENT: All the ingredients of humanity are present on campus. You know, a university can't hope to be a place that never has unpleasant, or stressful, or deeply troubling episodes. All it can hope is, if and when such things happen, which God forbid, that they be dealt with in a way that gives everybody some further element of education.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: Jason, I know you just came back from Durham. These allegations have really rocked the town. We saw some of that in your piece. Overall, what's the reaction tonight? CARROLL: You know, I think what has really happened here, Heidi, is that these allegations have really magnified a lot of the underlying tensions that exist in Durham between Durham university and the surrounding community, issues dealing with race, issues dealing with class, all of these things now coming to the surface because of this one particular case.
COLLINS: Jason Carroll, live from New York tonight, but just back from Durham. Thanks, Jason.
ROBERTS: For more on how this case has been handled at Duke University and by Duke University, we spoke earlier with Houston Baker, Jr. He's a professor there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: Professor Baker, you seem to have a bit of a disagreement with the provost of Duke University. You had written a letter stating, in terms of the punishment that was meted out to the lacrosse team, quote, "There can be no confidence in an administration that believes suspending a lacrosse season and removing pictures of Duke lacrosse players from a Web page is a dutifully moral response."
The provost shot back, "I can't tell you how disappointed, saddened and appalled I was to receive this letter from you." He called your letter, quote, "an act of prejudgment."
Were you prejudging this case?
HOUSTON BAKER, JR., PROFESSOR, DUKE UNIVERSITY: I hope I was not prejudging those matters that stand, as my colleagues who are more educated than I am say, subjudacy (ph).
What I was judging is a unit out of control, in terms of responsible citizenship on a campus that makes large claims for ethical and moral responsibility and suggests that its leaders, from coaches and athletics through people in the administration building, would be chagrinned and aghast if they heard racial slurs being hurled about, if they saw people publicly urinating on statues of James B. Duke on campus, if people were marauding through their offices in the evening...
ROBERTS: Well, let me just break in there, Professor.
BAKER: Yes, please, break in, yes.
ROBERTS: This particular episode aside, you know of other incidences of bad behavior on the part of this lacrosse team?
BAKER: Well, I received an e-mail from a former professor of Duke. I've gotten hundreds of e-mails, but one of them came from a man who said, "I was there for 15 years. It was work hard, play hard. Students showed up drunk on Friday. If I taught on Friday, they showed up in terrible shape on Monday."
"I thought the culture had changed, and I am deeply saddened that it hasn't. While I was at Duke, I made complaints to the athletic department."
And let me be clear: This is not just Duke. I mean, this is tier-one, traditionally all-white universities. I'm not exonerating HBCUs, historically black colleges and universities; behaviors such as this go on there, too.
What prompted and motivated my letter was the fact that an incident that had verbal racial assault, that had bad behavior on the 13th of March, out of a Duke University-owned home, by an identifiable group of guys who wear the uniform of Duke University, did not receive a press conference until the 28th of March, OK?
Students went home thinking they were in a safe space, a safe university. They came back -- the Student Life Office reports bicycles stolen. The students had no warning that they were coming back into a space where this had occurred.
ROBERTS: Professor, the lacrosse coach has resigned as of today. What else, in your estimation, needs to be done to address this case, other than the criminal proceeding that will take place?
BAKER: I think the lacrosse team should be disbanded. I think, until we can reconstruct, and reclaim, and create a culture that is one of safe space, and responsible citizenship and, most importantly, aggressive leadership that is public and that comes out of the building where the administrators are.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: Houston Baker, Jr., he's a professor at Duke University -- Heidi?
COLLINS: And what about Duke University's student body? How is it reacting to all of this? Seyward Darby is the editor of "Chronicle." It's Duke's student newspaper. We spoke with her earlier.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: Seyward, last week, Ryan McFadyen, the Duke lacrosse player whose e-mail was, in fact, released, he was the only player to go on record with your paper. Tell us what he had to say.
SEYWARD DARBY, EDITOR OF DUKE'S STUDENT NEWSPAPER: Ryan McFadyen was at an event on campus called "Take Back the Night," which was a part of sexual assault prevention week, which was not planned in response to this alleged incident. It was something that was already planned.
My reporter walked up to him, knowing that he was a lacrosse player, and asked if he would like to comment. And essentially, his comment was that he supported the event of the night. He supported the week, and he was troubled that the allegations against the team had fallen when they did.
And as far as we know, he's the only individual lacrosse player to go on the record with any media organization, and certainly the only one to go on the record with our paper.
COLLINS: Interesting. And then, when we move forward with this story, the e-mail that McFadyen allegedly wrote was incredibly disturbing, saying he wanted to kill and skin the strippers. What are students saying about it?
DARBY: Well, nobody's arguing that the language in the e-mail is very disturbing. It's quite brutal and quite graphic, gotten a lot of comments from people today about the nature of the language from students.
I talked to my mom. She was quite disturbed by the language.
COLLINS: Sure.
DARBY: Lots of different people on campus have been saying very troubling. But people have divided opinion about what it actually means. Some people are saying that it points to the fact that perhaps nothing occurred, except maybe an argument between the players and the two strippers who were at the house that night.
Other people are saying that the language might indicate that some of the players were capable of committing the crime that they're accused of.
COLLINS: Overall, how has the campus reacted, though? I mean, we move forward to the lacrosse season being canceled, the actual coach resigning, and so forth. I mean, it has grown and grown.
DARBY: Certainly. And student opinion is still as divided as it was a week ago, two weeks ago, when this all began. Some students are presuming the guilt of the players; other students are presuming innocence.
And a lot of students aren't making a judgment call right now, but they do take issue with certain facets of the situation, whether it be the way the administration has handled it, the fact that the lacrosse players are remaining very tight-lipped, have not come forward about their side of the story, or whether it is just the aspect of race, or the aspect of class, or the aspect of (INAUDIBLE) relations, all of which are involved in this.
COLLINS: Let's quickly talk about that for a minute. I mean, it is sort of a phenomenon that we see sometimes in college towns, if you will, sort of a divide between the college and the community. Which is it? I mean, we hear a lot about Duke doing a lot for the community, but then the community and the student relations, good, not so good? How do you characterize it?
DARBY: I think it's definitely a mix. There are some really excellent things about Duke and Durham's relationship. We have something called the Duke-Durham partnership that involves a variety of different community service and outreach projects.
There are health clinics in the city. There are tutoring projects. And a lot of students just venture out into the city, whether it be to eat, to shop, whatever.
But on an individual level, from student to neighbor, or student to community member, there is some tension. In the neighborhood where this specific alleged incident took place, there's a long history of tension between students and neighbors, loud parties...
COLLINS: Right.
DARBY: ... you know, noise violations, public urination, things that neighbors have complained about for a long time. So it's really a mix.
COLLINS: Well, hopefully those relations will be able to be resolved somehow, maybe not immediately, but hopefully soon. Seyward Darby, we appreciate your time here tonight. Thanks a lot.
DARBY: Absolutely. Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: And just a reminder now: No one has been charged in connection with the case. DNA test results are expected sometime next week. And in the meantime, Duke's president continues to urge anyone with information to please come forward.
ROBERTS: On the other side of the globe tonight, six months after a massive earthquake hits Pakistan, there is still a huge need for help.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PHIL SUAREZ, NYC MEDICS: The people, when you walked in there, were still hugging us. They were still, like, so grateful, so, so grateful that we had come, and we were Americans was even a bigger shocker to them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Coming up, see how some New York City paramedics have saved lives in the hard-hit region, answering the desperate call for help.
COLLINS: Also, the latest on the Homeland Security official accused of looking for sex with a minor on the Internet. Police say he confessed, but does he fit the profile of a sexual predator? What exactly is the profile? All that ahead on 360.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: A team of New York City emergency medical technicians have used their street smarts far away from home and in a much different environment. They have traveled halfway around the world to isolated towns in rugged terrain in earthquake-ravaged Pakistan.
In next week's issue of "People" magazine, you can read their amazing story. Tonight, in partnership with the magazine, here is a look at their critical mission to save lives.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS (voice-over): The world watched the heartbreaking pictures of the aftermath of the earthquake, the overwhelming death and destruction. A group of New York City emergency medical workers were watching, too, and they knew they had to act.
NICK LOBEL-WEISS, NYC MEDICS: When you arrive at a place and you see that there's a need for medical care, for people that need help, and our group, our team of people had the tools and the talent to provide that and to fulfill that need.
ROBERTS: The quake devastated towns in the shadows of the Himalaya Mountains. The numbers were staggering: 73,000 dead, 69,000 injured, 3.5 million homeless. When this band of paramedics arrived, they were stunned to find that many of the injured had never even been seen by a doctor.
PHIL SUAREZ, NYC MEDICS: It was incredible. This was about two weeks after the earthquake, and there were wounds that were never, ever had been tended to, except for local remedies of herbs, and mud, and stuff like that.
ROBERTS: Their mission of mercy was complicated by obstacles: a language barrier kept patients from accurately communicating their pain; the perilous terrain made moving between camps nearly impossible; shelter was almost nonexistent, so were medical supplies; and a punishing winter that would cover the mountains in snow was approaching fast.
But still, the injured and wounded kept coming to their makeshift E.R.
SUAREZ: Old men would be carrying these sick people over this rubble that I could barely walk on with a backpack. And the more we walked, the more we saw these dozens of people walking, trying to make it to us.
ROBERTS: For two weeks, the paramedics worked in the harshest conditions, for their very grateful patients doing what they could with what little they had available.
SUAREZ: When we walked in, they were still hugging us. They were still, like, so grateful, so, so grateful that we had come.
ROBERTS: When they returned home from Pakistan to their lives, their jobs, their families, they knew their work in the mountains was not yet done. In March, they made their way back.
But this time, they were armed with donations, supplies, even prefabricated shelters for some of those still displaced by the quake, but unwilling to come down from the mountain.
Six months had passed, and little had changed for people in some of the poor Pakistani villages crushed by the quake. But much has changed for these paramedics who responded to an emergency call a half a world away from home.
LOBEL-WEISS: It was shocking and amazing to everybody. It made an incredible impact, not just on the people that we treated, but on the entire valley.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: So many people desperate for medical help and the generosity of strangers making a huge impact.
Earlier, I talked more about the paramedics' special mission with Susan Schindehette, who traveled with them and wrote the article for "People" magazine.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: Susan, you spent 10 days in the Himalaya, in the area of what's known as Azad-Kashmir, with these paramedics, as they were helping out folks in the area, even six months after the earthquake. What was it that compelled them to want to go back?
SUSAN SCHINDEHETTE, "PEOPLE" MAGAZINE: I think that, when they saw the devastation that they did on the first trip, it was something otherworldly for them in a way. On the one hand, you know, these guys work the streets of New York City. They see things that people pay them so that they don't have to see. They're really used to some pretty horrific scenes.
And Phil Suarez told me, when he saw the televised images coming out of Pakistan, he thought to himself, "People are dying of trauma and infection, and these are things that paramedics know how to take care of. This is what we do."
ROBERTS: By and large, in that area of the world, they're very gentle people, they're very honest people, and they certainly needed a lot of help. Did these paramedics know that, between the time that they left, shortly after the earthquake, and the time that they came back in March that these people were likely not to see a doctor that entire time?
You know, you recount the story of this one paramedic who's cleaning off this one child's wounds, and what he's cleaning is actually a bone that's protruding through the skin.
SCHINDEHETTE: That's right. There's some pretty horrible things like that. And I think they were very well-aware of this, and that's why they wanted to go back.
When you see a country like that, that has so little to begin with, and then it's so incredibly damaged by a natural disaster like this, you really understand what it means when an infrastructure is gone, when hospitals and schools are just gone.
We took a little walk outside of the camp not far from the town of Garey Havevulah (ph), and I stood on the earth where a school had collapsed and killed 300 little girls. ROBERTS: Unbelievable. These are the stories that tend to change a journalist's life; did it change your life?
SCHINDEHETTE: Yes, I think it did. I don't think it made me a different person. I think it made me more of the same person that I already was.
It's kind of reinforced my notion that, for all of the awful things that we see as journalists and people who cover news, that there's a tremendous amount of good in this world. And it really was remarkable to connect with these people, when you had no language in common, no history in common, no ethnicity in common, just me, and a mother, and a sick baby. And it was pretty remarkable.
ROBERTS: Well, it's a great story you wrote following these paramedics back up to the Himalaya in Pakistan. Thanks for doing it.
SCHINDEHETTE: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: It is a touching and compelling story. And for more on it, pick up next week's issue of "People" magazine. It's on newsstands as of Friday.
COLLINS: For the first time in six months, Saddam Hussein is cross-examined by prosecutors. Ahead on 360, so what did he say in court? And which questions did he dodge?
ROBERTS: Also, could man's best friend also be cancer's worst enemy? Some researchers think so, and we'll explain why, coming up on 360.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Is it possible to profile a sexual predator? We'll get some answer to that question just ahead, but first we want to get to Erica Hill from Headline News who's joining us now with some of the other stories we are following tonight.
Hi, Erica.
ERICA HILL, CNN HEADLINE NEWS ANCHOR: Hi, Heidi.
And we begin tonight in Iraq, where Saddam Hussein today acknowledged approving death sentences for 148 Shiites in the 1980s. As he said, he believed they were involved in an assassination attempt against him. The admission came as prosecutors cross-examined the former Iraqi leader for the first time in his six-month trial.
In New York, the judge in the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui met behind closed doors with lawyers from both sides to finalize the emotional evidence that may be introduced at his death penalty trial. It resumes on Thursday.
CNN has learned former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is expected to testify for the government. And also that next week the cockpit voice recorder for United Flight 93 may be played publicly for the first time.
In Louisiana -- get a good look at this picture -- a major manhunt is under way for a convicted murderer. He escaped from a federal prison. Authorities describe 47-year-old Richard McNair as dangerous. As you can see from that photo, he has blue eyes, brown hair. He's 6 feet tall, 210 pounds. Also has identifying scars on his left wrist and both knees.
And finally here, maybe it's a little early for Easter. Meet Roberto and Amy, his bride. That's Father O'Hare, by the way, his real name. He married this lovely pair of rabbits in England yesterday, in Somerset, to be exact. And apparently they're quite a pair. They weigh in at a whopping 42 pounds each. That's a lot of rabbit.
Rings and vows were reportedly exchanged. Not really sure how that works, although I did read that, apparently, Amy tried to run off a few times, ripped the veil off, but they got her back up there. And Father O'Hare did the deed.
COLLINS: Julia Roberts, yes.
HILL: Kind of.
ROBERTS: That is a big bunny. Thanks, Erica.
And coming up tonight, a not-so-happy fate for some other cute creatures, puppies smuggled into the country. You want to take one home, but the story often ends in tears.
COLLINS: Also, the congresswoman and the cop and the confrontation. It sounds like a big misunderstanding, but a federal case? It is now. We'll explain.
ROBERTS: And the government official accused of being an Internet sex predator. Late details on a confession and, perhaps, a motive.
A break first. This is 360.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Well, good evening again. Anderson Cooper is off this week. I'm John Roberts.
COLLINS: And I'm Heidi Collins. Tonight, police say a homeland security official has confessed to being an Internet sex predator. We'll have the latest on that and on this.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
