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Ariel Castro Sentenced; U.S. May End Drone Strikes in Pakistan

Aired August 01, 2013 - 15:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: And hour two. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Top of the hour, a day of emotion, a day of anger and tears plus survival, today we watched as Ariel Castro was sentenced to life plus 1,000 years without parole. As we watched, we saw this young woman, a survivor, Michelle Knight. Here she is in the same courtroom, face to face with her captor of ten plus years, the man who kept her for really what has amounted to a third of her life.

She was the first to be captured. Michelle Knight spent a decade in this home on Cleveland, Seymour Avenue. And for the first time, we're seeing beyond the walls, inside, from Castro's sentencing hearing, showing just what it was like inside this prison, where Knight, Gina DeJesus and Amanda Berry were locked up, held in the upstairs bedroom using 99 feet of chain.

They were tortured. They were starved. They were physically abused. They were raped. This gun here used to intimidate these women, keep them living in fear. Moments ago at Castro's sentencing hearing, Michelle Knight, who was impregnated by Castro multiple times, was starved, beaten until she miscarried, she stood strong and addressed her captor for the first time since her escape. Here is her response in its entirety.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHELLE KNIGHT, VICTIM: My name is Michelle Knight.

And I would like to tell you what this was like for me. I missed my son every day. I wondered if I was ever going to see him again. He was only 2.5 years old when I was taken. I look inside my heart and I see my son. I cried every night. I was so alone.

I worried about what would happen to me and the other girls every day. Days never got shorter. Days turned into nights. Nights turned into days. The years turned into eternity. I knew nobody cared about me; he told me that my family didn't care even on holidays. Christmas was the most traumatic day because I never got to spend it with my son.

Nobody should ever have to go through what I went through or anybody else, not even the worst enemy. Gina was my teammate. She never let me fall. I never let her fall. She nursed me back to health when I was dying from his abuse. My friendship with her is the only thing that was good out of this situation.

We said we will some day make it out alive, and we did. Ariel Castro, I remember all the times that you came home talking about what everybody else did wrong and act like you wasn't doing the same thing. You said "At least I didn't kill you," for you took 11 years of my life away, and I have got it back.

I spent 11 years in hell, and now your hell is just beginning. I will overcome all of this that happened. You will face hell for eternity. From this moment on, I won't let you define me or affect who I am.

You will live -- I will live on. You will die a little every day as you think about the 11 years and atrocities you inflicted on us. What does God think of you hypocritically going to church every Sunday, coming home to torture us? Death penalty would be so much easier. You don't deserve that. You deserve to spend life in prison.

I can forgive you, but I will never forget. With the guidance of God, I will prevail and help others that suffered at the hands of others. Writing this statement gave me the strength to be a stronger woman and know that there is good. There is more good than evil.

I know that there is a lot of people going through hard times. But we need to reach out a hand and hold them and let them know that they're being heard. After 11 years, I am finally being heard and it is liberating.

Thank you, all. I love you. God bless you.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Pretty incredible moment there in the courtroom. You and I watched this play out on television. But you know who was sitting in there and watched this with his own eyes?

Our correspondent Martin Savidge, who has just stepped out of this courtroom.

Martin, what in the world was it like to be sitting there and witnessing it in person?

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. You know, I have to tell you, Brooke, that I think in a lot of ways we went into this courtroom thinking it was going to be the crimes of Castro that were going to be remembered most.

But the beauty of this horror that comes out is the fact that it is the words of his victims that anybody in that courtroom will remember more so, because what you saw was their ability to go from being victims to triumph over whatever Ariel Castro did. And now they truly are the victors in all of this, but they went through hell in the process. I knew a lot of the law enforcement in there. I used to work in this town, grew up in this town.

So, I know the attorneys, know all the law enforcement, many of whom are retired, and they came out of retirement just to be in this courtroom to watch what happened because they had tried to look for these girls for so many years. And so I have not often been moved to watch them being moved, but they were deeply moved. Very small in stature, but her presence, Michelle Knight, filled that courtroom with her courage.

BALDWIN: And, Martin, something else I noticed because I was glued to this all day long. Watching, you could see Ariel Castro as he was addressing the courtroom during his rambling address. At one point, did you notice he turned around? It looked like he was even addressing Michelle Knight, looking toward her, looking to the family spokespeople of Gina DeJesus and Amanda Berry. Did you notice that?

SAVIDGE: Yes. It was interesting. As you say, when Michelle Knight walked into the courtroom and everybody knew who she was and the moment she arrived. Even Ariel Castro, you could see he was like leaning over backwards. He was literally trying to do whatever he could to get a glimpse of her.

But he's also surrounded by some very big guards. They jumped up immediately and like linebackers set up a picket fence around him and blocked the view. you know what? She paid no attention to him. She would occasionally look in his direction. But you could tell that by the look in her eyes, that man meant nothing to her anymore. It was just as if he really wasn't there. She had incredible strength in the courtroom. And everybody felt it, I have to say.

BALDWIN: Like she said, his hell is just beginning. Martin Savidge, thank you so much for us in Cleveland.

Let's talk about this a little bit more. Jane Velez-Mitchell, host of HLN's "JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL," joins me, also Jeff Toobin, our CNN senior legal analyst, former federal prosecutor, and Danny Cevallos, criminal defense attorney.

My goodness, welcome to all of you. There's a lot to talk about. But, first I just want to go, Jeff Toobin, let's begin with you. Just quick visceral reaction to everything you witnessed today in court.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, you know, I had a different reaction than you did, Brooke. I could barely watch it. I found it really so unpleasant, so repulsive, particularly, of course, Castro's remarks, which went on and on and the self-pity and the narcissism and the just evil that came out of that guy. I really -- you know, this is my job. I had to sit here and listen.

But it was it was one of the more repellent things I have ever seen in a...

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Jane, what did you think?

JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, HEADLINE NEWS ANCHOR: I agree. It was stomach- churning and toxic. This is a case study. It's an opportunity to look at the criminal mind and see how the criminal mind operates.

And the hallmarks are defiance, denial, self-pity, rationalization, justification, lack of remorse and also blaming the victim. That's what we see time and time again. And that's what Ariel Castro tried to do today, turn around and blame these women for their own victimization and say the most outrageous thing. Well, they wanted sex. They asked me for sex.

That, I thought, was just -- it was obscene beyond comprehension.

BALDWIN: Yes. It made my skin crawl. It made my skin crawl.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: I'm not saying I enjoyed it. But I watched every bit of it maybe just because I covered it from when the whole thing broke in May.

Danny, your thoughts.

DANNY CEVALLOS, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, frankly, I have never even seen a sentencing involving this much time. To a lot of people, that may seem arbitrary, 1,000 years. But when you start adding up the mandatory minimums and just the regular guidelines for all of these counts, this is actually not that unbelievable a sentence.

I mean, he certainly agreed to take the death penalty off the table. But 1,000 years if you consecutive each of these sentences, in other words they don't run at the same time, is probably in the area of reason. That's how awful what he did was.

And it absolutely -- I want to echo what Jane said. It is surprising the level of self-pity and self-esteem that the criminal mind often has. You see it. You have a rare opportunity to see it in this sentencing hearing. In just the brief words, the one opportunity this man had, his words were of not remorse, but telling us about how these sex acts were consensual. Shocking.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: I think you all hit it, too, with the narcissism, because just watching him, I'm feverishly taking notes through this whole entire rambling address.

And it takes him Like eight minutes to even get to some semblance of AN apology. At first he goes through each of these young women. And finally he gets to Michelle Knight. That's when -- Martin and I were just talking. He actually sits there in his orange prison jumpsuit, turns around to her and says this. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARIEL CASTRO, DEFENDANT: She's happy. (OFF-MIKE) I haven't seen much of Michelle, because Michelle, since day one, no one missed her. (OFF-MIKE)

(END VIDEO CLIP) BALDWIN: Jane, I kept thinking when I heard that -- from day one, no one has missed you. He's shackled in court. This guy is still trying to manipulate this young woman.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: It's contempt. It's misogyny. It's contempt for women. And he also -- again, he's trying to blame her for what he did to her, and this as we're seeing the evidence of the chains. This guy reconfigured his house to turn it into a dungeon.

He kept these women in a dungeon, and tortured them, and impregnated her repeatedly and then forced miscarriages. And he's all in complete denial about this, having the nerve to say that they lived in harmony was the word he used.

BALDWIN: Danny, I'm just curious. With all the many a courtroom you have been in, many a defendant you have seen, when they get their chance to speak, is this typical behavior? The rambling, the defensive, the narcissistic, the looking around, is this typical or not?

CEVALLOS: There's one part that I thought you see fairly often in courtrooms. It was the moment where the judge asked if he's pleading guilty. And he wants to get in -- this, I see a lot. He wants to get in that angle where he says, well, I don't agree. I don't believe any of this happened. But I'm only pleading guilty to spare the victims the agony of a trial.

A lot of times you see in court defendants say, hey, I'm only pleading guilty, I don't agree to these facts. But the court must be mindful to get those facts on the record, because that's really not pleading guilty. The judge admonished him. He said, you pled guilty to this. This is what you pled to. There's no wiggling out of it now.

BALDWIN: Jeff Toobin, let me circle back to you because I know you say you found this whole thing repugnant. What is the point of such a long, lengthy hearing? We knew about the plea deal last week. We knew what the sentencing would be. What's the point of this?

TOOBIN: Well, you know, there really wasn't a legal need for this to go on for that long. Certainly, under Ohio law and most states, the victims are allowed to speak and the defendant is allowed to speak at a sentencing.

But the proof that the government put on wasn't entirely necessary. I think the government was in part just trying to show the world what really went on here, also establishing a factual basis so that if Castro down the line claims he wants to withdraw his plea, that would make it that much more difficult.

But if I can just raise one point that I know has come up a lot on Twitter, why isn't he being executed? Why are we paying to support him in prison? This deal...

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: This is cheaper, isn't it? TOOBIN: Much cheaper. Litigation would cost millions and millions of dollars. It would go on for a decade, 15 years at least. Now litigation is over. He will disappear into the prison system. The government saved millions of dollars by concluding this deal, spared the victims more testifying. I think this is a very good deal.

BALDWIN: No making money and no writing books for this main.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Go ahead, Jane, real quickly.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes, I just want to say I thought it was a very important process, because if anybody out there thinks they can commit a heinous crime and then simply plead guilty and they won't be humiliated before the world stage, this is proof that the crimes will be outlined.

They were outlined in detail. I thought that was very important, so that he couldn't maintain his dignity. He was humiliated before the world.

BALDWIN: And now for the rest of his life. HLN's Jane Velez- Mitchell, Jeff Toobin, Danny Cevallos, thank you all very much.

Much more to come on today's emotional, shocking hearing in Cleveland. The city absolutely torn apart by this horrendous crime, a monster living among them, and they had no idea what was happening beyond these walls on this home on Seymour Avenue. We have new video today as city workers take those final steps before tearing Castro's house down.

Coming up next, we will talk to a Cleveland city councilman about how the community can now finally move forward.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: I'm Brooke Baldwin. And we continue CNN's special coverage of Ariel Castro's sentencing today.

And a frantic 911 call kick-started this entire story. It really helped set these three abused were tortured women on the road to freedom. Let me take you back. Here is the voice of Amanda Berry.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

AMANDA BERRY, VICTIM: I have been kidnapped, and I have been missing for 10 years, and I'm here. I'm free now.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Amanda Berry had been missing for about 10 years. Today, a Cleveland police officer described these incredible moments when she realized Berry was not only the only victim here in this home. She found Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARBARA JOHNSON, CLEVELAND POLICE DEPARTMENT: Took me a second to really realize it was her. She was a lot thinner and pale compared to the pictures you have seen for the last 10 years of her, where she was a little heavier, had long hair. She had real short hair and she was real thin and pale.

But you could see the resemblance. You knew it was her. But it took just, you know, that extra second to get a look. Michelle is so tiny, I thought she was a little girl until I put her down and got a look at her and realized she was -- she was a grown woman.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: There were three grown women and a little girl in that house.

And here is Cleveland City Councilman Brian Cummins.

Brian, nice to see you again.

I was in Cleveland for the happy story, the freedom of these three young women in May. And I was struck by just how big this story, and how much it shook Cleveland clearly for years and years, how missing posters were still on telephone poles. Just talk to me about the significance of this day. How huge is this for your city?

BRIAN CUMMINS, CLEVELAND CITY COUNCIL: It's absolutely huge. As you mentioned, a decade of vigils and prayers and community efforts and efforts of law enforcement agencies, it's absolutely huge.

BALDWIN: Who have you been in contact with? I know, you know, hearing the impact statements from these family members representing these young women today, they're pleading for privacy, especially Amanda. She has this little girl. Her little girl has no idea the brevity of this story. Who have you been talking to and how is everyone?

CUMMINS: My role from May 6 onward has primarily been the community. We have done a lot of referrals to some of the witnesses on the street, et cetera, to mental health specialists.

But I have had primary contact with the attorneys for the survivors as well as the communications people and the cadre of professionals that have really put up pro bono services to ensure really their future. That's including the Courage Fund that we have established and really kind of in the background of making sure they're going to be taken care of for the future.

BALDWIN: And we're starting to see these pictures, the beginning of the end of this home on Seymour Avenue. You and I stood on the same street back in May. And to know part of this plea deal, this home is coming down, how will that help Cleveland? How will that help this neighborhood move forward?

CUMMINS: Well, we know from somewhat, not similar experiences, but some traumatic events in the past within the city that it's really important to really remove this horrible symbol of just abominable brutality, a decade-long.

For the people -- imagine people living on the street that actually own property on the street. This is so important to take down the structure and to really develop with the survivors' wishes taken into consideration and the community to really understand what it's going to take over the next several years to put this behind us. It's going to be difficult.

BALDWIN: Brian Cummins, Cleveland City Council, thank you so much for joining us again. We appreciate it.

BALDWIN: And we will have much more on today's sentencing hearing coming up in about 10 minutes. We will take a closer look at Michelle Knight's emotional moment in court as she confronted her abductor there, speaking to the judge. We will ask a psychologist about just the strength it took for her to do this today.

But, first, breaking news out of the Pentagon, a major announcement, in fact. The U.S. looking to end those controversial drone strikes in Pakistan. This is a huge deal in the fight against terror. Find out who said it and what the timeline would be coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Breaking news here on CNN. Drone strikes in Pakistan may soon be coming to an end.

Our Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr is live with more on this.

And, Barbara, this is a huge, huge deal. This is Pakistan-specific.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Very much so, Brooke. Very specific.

A fascinating piece of U.S. intelligence disclosed by Secretary of State John Kerry in an interview with Pakistani television a short time ago. According to the State Department, Kerry has now said that U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan will be coming to an end.

These U.S. drone strikes, Brooke, have been carried out for years by the CIA, not talked about by the CIA, but widely understood around the world to have been CIA drone strikes. Why are they coming to an end? Well, I mean, the fact is, all these years after 9/11, there are not a lot of al Qaeda targets left to strike in Pakistan.

Now, they haven't gotten the top leader, Ayman al-Zawahri. But they have by all accounts used these drone strikes to kill perhaps hundreds of al Qaeda operatives over the last many years. So if the CIA ends its drone strikes, which are a real bone of controversy with the Pakistani people, where does that leave things?

Not a lot of targets in Pakistan, but certainly al Qaeda on the rise in a number of other areas, in Yemen, across North Africa, al Qaeda affiliates in Libya after the strike at the U.S. compound in Benghazi, al Qaeda affiliates operating right now in Syria.

The al Qaeda threat very different than the original threat those drone strikes went after -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK. So, they're now working on the timeline to end the strikes in Pakistan.

STARR: Exactly.

BALDWIN: Barbara Starr, thank you very much.

Coming up, want to highlight a survivor, a woman who showed incredible strength today. Michelle Knight, we saw her stand up in this Cleveland courtroom. She was inspirational. She got emotional in the beginning. Quite powerful, the words that she shared. All the while, the man, the monster who tortured her for more than a decade was feet away.

Plus, just as Ariel Castro lured his victims, results of an undercover test that shows just how easy it can be for some predators to lure young children. Don't miss this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Bottom of the hour. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thanks for being with me today as you're watching CNN's special coverage of the Ariel Castro sentencing hearing in Cleveland.

And to a story that will shock parents out there. Pay close attention, because all of this relates to how this convicted kidnapper, this convicted rapist, Ariel Castro, ensnared one of these young victims, the survivor, really, who you're looking at now. This is Michelle.

Do you know what he did? He used the puppy trick on this young woman more than 10 years ago. He promised her a puppy to give to her son.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DET. ANDREW HARASIMCHUK, CLEVELAND POLICE DEPARTMENT: They began driving. And they arrived at Ariel Castro's home. He asked her if she wanted to come inside to get a puppy for her son.

BROOKE BALDWIN, ANCHOR, "CNN NEWSROOM": ... a puppy to give to her son.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DETECTIVE ANDREW HARASIMCHUK, CLEVELAND POLICE SEX CRIMES UNIT: They began driving. They arrived at Ariel Castro's home.

He asked her if she wanted to come inside to get a puppy for her son, so she agreed to go in to pick out a puppy for her son.

Once inside the home, she did not see a puppy. She did see a dog, but there were no puppies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)