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Deadly Train Crash in Spain; Pope Francis Visits Brazil; New Scandal for Weiner; Aaron Hernandez Back Behind Bars; Man Arrested on Murder Charges

Aired July 25, 2013 - 11:00   ET

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

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: And hello, everyone. It's so nice to have you along with us on this Thursday morning. I'm Pamela Brown in for Ashleigh Banfield.

And we start this morning with the deadliest train accident in Spain in years. This new incredible video right here shows a terrifying moment when a high-speed train jumped the tracks just before arriving at station in northwestern Spain. At least 80 people were killed and 178 were injured, including at least five Americans.

CNN's Karl Penhaul's joins us now from Spain where the incident happened. And, Karl, tell us, just looking at that video is incredible. We see that first car make it around the tight curve there and then the rest of the train just topples over.

Al Goodman, actually, is joining us now. Al, tell us what's happened with the crash. What are we learning?

AL GOODMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Pamela.

Well, that video that you're just referring to, from the railway, video, no sound on that video, we see the moment of impact with the lead locomotive coming past this area right behind me and basically going off the track as well as the first passenger car.

But something happened a little bit further back on the train, a little bit of sort of a puff or some sort of smoke. We're not sure what that is. Investigators clearly taking a look at that.

But you can see the impact now. This day, we have been here for hours. We've been watching them lifting up these damaged, destroyed cars that have blood in them, that the insulation is out, the seats are all a tumble.

The scene must have been horrific and a third of the people aboard that train have already died.

Pamela?

BROWN: Just horrific. And do we know anything more about the injured here? I'm assuming they've hopefully pulled all the passengers out of there, right?

GOODMAN: There are 90-plus people injured in hospital. We are learning from U.S. government embassy officials, five Americans are in hospital, one British ...

(AUDIO BREAK)

GOODMAN: ... haven't been told the nationalities of the deceased or the nationalities of ...

(AUDIO BREAK)

BROWN: I'm having some technical difficulties will with Al Goodman. We'll check back in with him soon to talk about that train crash there in Spain.

And now we want on move to Tampa, Florida. That's where a cargo train derailed overnight spilling ethanol into the streets there.

Joining us now to talk about this, Grayson Kamm, from CNN affiliate WTSP. Grayson nice to have you here with us. So where are we in the cleanup here?

GRAYSON KAMM, REPORTER, WTSP: Yeah, Pamela, firefighters have spent the morning basically trying to make sure that this train doesn't catch fire.

They've had ethanol spilled out from several of the cars in this and it sits right in the heart of one of the busiest ports in the Gulf of Mexico.

I'll step aside. You can kind of get a lay of the land. Even from right out here, outside main gate, you can see that black tanker you see is the last car on the train. And as we move to the left, you'll see the next car seems to be tilting towards you. That's because it has come off the rails.

And then as we go to the left, you'll see through the trees just low black tankers. Those are all tankers that carried ethanol on their side. They spilled from three of them and firefighters spent the might putting fire resistant foam on top of that ethanol to make sure it does not catch fire.

Of course, ethanol is what's mixed in with gasoline in a lot of states. It's very flammable. They try to contain it with that. And then they brought in contractors to actually stop the leaks in the tankers.

Now that's where they managed to do. That's the state we're in right now. They've stopped those leaks. They've contained the ethanol.

Their next big challenge is trying to get this train back on its rails to get it out of the way and get this port up and running fully again. They're bringing in equipment from Atlanta that's actually going to come down here and hoist all of this up.

As you can imagine when you're dealing with tankers full of ethanol, firefighters are going to be very wary as they go through that process. You do hear some trucks going behind me. About 9:00 this morning, the port was able to actually divert all these big trucks, around 10,000 a day, through side roads and detours to keep the port up and running.

It's the biggest economic engine in the entire western part of central Florida, so they want to keep these jobs ready, but, of course, they are mindful of the safety concern, all the highly flammable fuel sitting right behind me.

Pamela?

BROWN: Absolutely. A very precarious situation there, but good to hear that they've stopped the leaks and contained the ethanol and hope to learn more about what perhaps caused that crash.

Grayson Kamm, thank you so much, with our affiliate WTSP. We appreciate it.

Well, the leak of natural gas at that Gulf rig off of Louisiana is now out. And the fire on the rig which erupted Tuesday is also nearly out, we're told. The only contamination has been a light sheen on the water that quickly dissipated.

And in Brazil, Pope Francis is in a sea of some 1 million young Roman Catholics in Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana beach here. This is a picture right here of the pope as he continues his inaugural trip abroad as pontiff.

Francis, the first pope from Latin America, is also scheduled to meet with several thousand countrymen from Argentina.

And in Wisconsin, a very close call for a state police officer. Take a look. A tractor trailer rig sideswiped his cruiser after the officer had stopped a driver for speeding. It was all caught on his dash-cam as we see.

The truck driver was cited for inattention to driving and failure to move over to the other lane.

And the new Weiner under fire, unable to escape questions about his online issues, but now we're learning more about the other woman, his partner in the sexting affair. So just who is Sydney Leathers?

We are going to take a look right after this break. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: In the wake of the recent sexting revelation, Anthony Weiner says it's up to the voters to decide, and he took the message to the voters during an event for New York City mayoral candidates.

He got some cheers and some laughs and renewed calls from opponents to drop out, all this just one day after admitting that he continued to send lewd pictures of himself after his congressional resignation.

And this is what Weiner said after that event. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTHONY WEINER, NEW YORK CITY MAYORAL CANDIDATE: The facts have not changed. What I did was wrong. It dishonored my wife. I compounded it by being dishonest with members of the media. And that's the fact.

And there's also another fact, that this is now behind me, and I'm trying to look forward.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Inaudible).

WEINER: This has to be last question.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you expect that things -- more photos can come out?

WEINER: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: And during that event, the candidates were asked which social media outlets they used.

Well, as you can imagine, there was a lot of laughter to that question from the crowd. Weiner would only say that his campaign uses Twitter.

And at that event, Weiner said he can't control what anonymous people may blog or say about his online transgressions.

But the woman in the latest scandal is not anonymous, although she's also not talking about it.

Our Randi Kaye has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RANDI KAYE, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: The woman at the center of the latest Anthony Weiner sexting scandal is Sydney Leathers, who also identifies herself online as "Sydney Elaine XO."

We don't know much about her, but we do know that she's very comfortable in her own skin. These are just some of the pictures she posted of herself on Twitter that have since been removed.

So how did she meet Anthony Weiner? Lou Colagiovanni is a friend of Leathers.

LOU COLAGIOVANNI, ACQUAINTANCE OF SYDNEY LEATHERS: She initially contacted him through Twitter. She was a fan.

KAYE: Colagiovanni says the conversations quickly turned from politics to sex. This was the result, dozens and dozens of sexually explicit text messages and photographs, including images of his anatomy that are simply too explicit to show here.

Their online relationship continued for quite a while. COLAGIOVANNI: It's been around for eight or nine, maybe even possibly a year.

KAYE: We came here to Princeton, Indiana, hoping to talk with Sydney Leathers about her communication and relationship with Anthony Weiner.

This is where a friend of hers, who asked not to be identified, told me she lived with her father. Nobody answered the door when we went inside.

That same friend also told me that Sydney Leathers never mentioned Anthony Weiner by name, but did say that she had met a lot of people with strong political context online. Politics was her passion.

It seems long before Sydney Leathers first communicated with Anthony Weiner, she had her eye on him. One of her websites that's since has been removed listed him as one of her heroes.

Sydney Leathers is now 23. Her friend says she never slept with Anthony Weiner or took any money from him, but that he did offer to help her get an apartment in Chicago and suggested he visit her.

At one point she told the website TheDirty.com that Weiner asked her, quote, "Do me a solid, and hard delete all our chats."

Randi Kaye, CNN, Princeton, Indiana.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Now to the Aaron Hernandez case, as another grand jury investigates him, the Patriots' head coach talks about the former player and the tattoos under scrutiny.

Does the NFL have the right to weed out players because of their body art? We talked to one former player who is also an attorney, up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Aaron Hernandez is back behind bars this morning. Yesterday was not a good day for his defense team. The probable cause hearing for Hernandez was postponed and the request for bail denied.

Susan Candiotti has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The red-orange jail jumpsuit is gone. For his third court appearance, fallen football star Aaron Hernandez, again wearing street clothes, a blazer and open- collared shirt, his tattoos no longer quite so visible.

As expected, prosecutors want to delay for putting on more evidence relating to the murder charges against him while a grand jury considers indictments that would move his case to a higher court.

His defense team unhappy with the delays. CHARLES RANKIN, HERNANDEZ CO-COUNSEL: Given the facts of the case as we know them, we're confident that Aaron is going to be exonerated and that when witnesses have to testify, that a jury of Aaron's peers will find that he's not guilty and, in fact, had no part in the killing of Odin Lloyd.

SAMUEL SUTTER, BRISTOL COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: What do you expect them to say at this point?

CANDIOTTI: But that's not all. A separate grand jury in Boston is examining mounting evidence that may link the former football player to an unsolved double murder drive-by shooting last summer. A law enforcement source telling CNN grand jurors have been looking at the case for two weeks.

A key piece of evidence, this SUV with a layer of dust on it towed from the garage of Hernandez's uncle in Bristol, Connecticut, but being used by the football player. In court Tuesday, a judge agreed to keep secret what was found in the SUV because could it jeopardize the investigation.

On the eve of training camp, New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick took questions about Hernandez for the first time since his arrest and release from the team.

BILL BELICHICK, HEAD COACH, NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS: Having someone in your organization that's involved in a murder investigation is a terrible thing.

CANDIOTTI: The coach says he's hurt, disappointed and admits their vetting process is far from perfect.

BELICHICK: I think that we'll continue to try to look at ourselves in the mirror and see where we can do a better job.

CANDIOTTI: As victim Odin Lloyd's mother wiped tears from her eyes in court, former tight end Hernandez mouthed "I love you" to his fiancee.

(on camera): The Patriots moving on without him, a victim's family waiting for answers about the former player charged with murder.

Susan Candiotti, CNN, Attleboro, Massachusetts.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And when Aaron Hernandez was jailed, Bristol County officials took a close look at his multiple tattoos. At the time, authorities told "The Boston Herald" they needed to be vigilant about possible signs of gang ties. Well, the issue here isn't a new one. For several years, the NFL looked for gang evidence in players' touchdown celebrations and now CBS Sports is reporting some NFL teams may actually hire police experts to inspect the tattoos of NFL prospects.

Joining me now to discuss this -- Tim Green, attorney, author and former NFL player, defense attorney Mark Nejame, and attorney and talk show host, Mo Ivory. Nice for you all to be here with us today. Tim, I want to start with you here. You offer the unique perspective because you actually played in the NFL. You have a lot of sources in the NFL. What are they telling you about this? What are you hearing?

TIM GREEN, ATTORNEY: Well, some teams have already brought in consultants, gang consultants, the FBI, to examine players' past behaviors and to look at their tattoos. It's not a difficult thing for the league to do and I think after the Hernandez situation, it'll just be standard.

The reason why it's not difficult is because every player who enters the National Football League goes through the combine. Not everybody but almost all players go through the combine. And during that process, you're stripped down to your underwear. You're photographed and filmed. So it would be very easy for an expert in these matters to examine every player's tattoo coming into the league.

BROWN: I'm assuming, Tim, you actually went through that when you played for the NFL. Is that right?

GREEN: Yes. Yes. It was while ago but yes.

BROWN: We won't go that far back.

GREEN: Why are you laughing?

BROWN: I'm not laughing. What are you talking about?

All right, Mark, I want to go to you now. Do you think this is a knee jerk reaction in the wake of everything with Aaron Hernandez?

MARK NEJAME, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: As long as they don't go too far. But, yes, it could be a knee jerk reaction to the extent that, I mean, you are going to take a symbol on a -- of a tattoo and then suggest that you are going to take it to a committee or what does it mean? And how are you going to interpret it? And if somebody was young and dumb at 16 or 17 and got a tattoo?

I mean, you can understand what they mean by looking at them in large part. But if in fact it is keeping good people out, you've got to be very careful. Because now you are dealing with a subjective interpretation as to what something may mean and that could really destroy somebody's potential career. So as long as it is measured with some measure of moderation. But let's not go too far.

BROWN: Yes, because there are several players who don't have a sketchy background who have tattoos. And like you said, it is subjective.

Mo, I want to go to you now. Is this legal? Can teams really hope to weed out players with gang ties by studying body art?

MO IVORY, ATTORNEY: I think you have to be really careful about that. Obviously there are a lot of legal implications that can come from this -- First Amendment rights of privacy rights issues. And I think we have to really consider that over 67 percent of the players in the NFL are African-American. About 31 percent white. And the other, you know, makes up of a small minority.

But I'd have to make -- I would have to think we would have to consider who are these experts that would be looking over these tattoo and what kind of biases do they bring to the table? Are they aware of the concepts of racially profiling somebody for a tattoo that they might not necessarily be familiar with? Or that they may think is a gang sign that actually isn't? Or was -- something like you said earlier, something somebody did in their youth, you are holding somebody's entire economic future in your hands.

And I would think that you would be really careful about who you chose to make those decisions to make sure that they're not doing anything that could be discriminatory. And when I heard the word cops being used, as the people who might be making these decisions, it worried me.

BROWN: Yes, and Tim, on that note, you talked about how invasive it was perhaps when you played for the NFL. Do you think that there is a better method of research here than having cops come in and analyze body art?

GREEN: Well, I think that there are a lot of ways you can do background checks on players. The NFL does that. They'll probably do it more and more because the league's image is so valuable. They protect it. They guard it very -- judiciously. And they're going to do everything they can.

However, you know, a body art -- like the gang signals that players -- some players were doing after touchdowns, celebrations, part of that, it has no place in the National Football League. The National Football League does have the right to protect its image and to take steps to keep people who have a negative impact on the image out. I mean, if someone had a tattoo with a swastika on their arm, it would be the same way. The NFL wouldn't allow that out on the field.

IVORY: Sure, but sometimes those are not as obvious as swastikas. I think a swastika is a very obvious sign. But, for example, some signs that they were throwing up at the end of the games were signs for artists that they love and record labels that they love and people mistook those for gang signs.

So I think that there is definitely a gray area as to the knowledge of who's making those decisions, that one thing is gang related versus another being totally entertainment.

NEJAME: And I want to add one thing. We also have to be very careful of a cultural divide here. What is appropriate for one group or one culture or one background may be inappropriate for another. So we have to be very careful that we don't step on each other's cultural ideas and what we think is appropriate or not.

BROWN: Certainly a delicate, delicate situation at hand here. Mo Ivory, Mark Nejame, and Tim Green, we're going to have to end it here but I look forward to continuing this conversation offline. Thank you to all three of you. I appreciate you coming on the show and having you here. All right, let's move on to a much more uplifting story involving an NFL player. Jonathon Willard went from Tennessee Titans rookie to real-life hero. Willard was driving to training camp yesterday when he saw a car on fire. He then gestured for the woman driving the car to pull over. By that time, the car was fully engulfed in flames. But the former Clemson linebacker and another driver who had pulled over were able to get the woman, three children, and a dog out of the that car safely. Willard led Clemson in tackles last season. He signed with the Titans as a free agent after this year's NFL draft.

Well, deputies say a man confesses to killing a sex offender and that he had planned to target all those on the state registry. We are tracking this case. We will have the latest for you right after this break. Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Our next story sounds just like an episode out of the crime drama, "Dexter". A South Carolina man and his wife have been arrested for two murders. Officials say 30-year-old Jeremy Moody has confessed to the crime and allegedly said he killed Charles Parker and his wife because Parker was a registered sex offender.

Investigators say he even told them they arrested him just in time because he had planned to kill other sex offenders on the state registry. Those suspects are facing two counts of murder, but have not enter ad plea yet.

All right, let's bring in our legal panel once again. We have Mark Nejame with us and Mo Ivory. Good to see you both again. This is pretty scary stuff. Jeremy Moody allegedly confessed to this. Mo, what kind of plea do you think he can enter?

IVORY: Well, in South Carolina, there is the death penalty and we are not sure yet what they will charge him with. Will they ask for the death penalty or will they ask for life in prison? But obviously he is going to try to plea the deal down and ask for, say, manslaughter. But I don't think there is anything but first-degree murder here where he had the intent to kill somebody. He planned it. He went to their house, pretended to be somebody that he wasn't. Got access to the inside and then killed this, you know, sex offender and his wife.

And not that I don't think that people have a real vengeance for people that do this to children or even to other adults, but this is not Zimmerman vigilante justice in our new world. We cannot think that we can just decide now that we are the police and we will take care of anybody that we think is suspected of doing something or actually did something. So it's problematic we are starting to see this kind of behavior going on in our country and, you know, that people think it's OK.

BROWN: Yes and this certainly takes to it a new level. But Mo, what about his wife? Christine Moody, she didn't kill anybody but was present at that crime scene. She's being charged now with murder as well. How does that a work? IVORY: Well, she's a co-conspirator. She plans -- she doesn't have to be the one who pulled the trigger if she was in on it all along. So she will face the same charges that he did and I don't think that they will have hard time proving that she was completely a part of the plan. She executed with him. And they will prove all the elements they need to prove that she was part of the plan and she will suffer the same consequences as he does.

BROWN: OK, Mark, police say Moody also admitted to belonging to a white supremacist group and has tattoos on his head and neck. How do you think that could play into this case against him? Speaking of tattoos, by the way.

NEJAME: Yes, much like our last segment, I don't think there's going to be an issue as to what "skinhead" tattooed across your neck means. So I think that that's going to get into some of his background and such. But the reality of it is, it is premeditated murder from what the allegations are. And was just stated, it's no different than a bank robbery where somebody is a wheelman. If you're a participant with the primary offender, you're liable for that crime to the equal amount as the perpetrator.

BROWN: All right. Just quickly here, Mark. I think that this also begs the question about the sex offender registry. Not defending sex offenders here, but do you think there should be modifications made, considering the fact that some of these sex offenders could be the target of hate crimes and considering the context of why they're on the sex offender registry?

NEJAME: Well, absolutely. And it's very difficult because you've got politicians who are not going to go out there and bring a cause of saying we want to help sex offenders. But we have issues that need to be looked at and they're not being looked at. We 19-year-olds who were dating 16-year-olds in high school who are now on sex offender registries although they might be in the same grade or grade apart.

We have all sorts of issues. Everything from teenager looking on something on the Internet to somebody that's going out and is a pedophile and harming and destroying some of our children. Those are all different people that go on a different continuum. And we need to have a look at what's appropriate.

You know, in Florida, we had the Jimmy Rice Act. That means that people can be involuntary committed civilly for a long time if they are not cured. Don't we also need to possibly consider finding out if some people who might have had a minor violation are cured? Because once these people are stigmatized, not going to get jobs or really being kicked out of neighborhoods in a lot of ways. What are we doing with them? How are we going to keep them from committing crimes in the future if they can't find work or a place to live? We need to take a hard look at what our laws are and make sure we are applying them in a way that shows justice and fairness.

BROWN: Certainly, an interesting question and interesting debate.

Thank you so much, Mark Nejame and Mo Ivory. We will see new a few minutes.