Return to Transcripts main page
Live From...
Moussaoui Trial; An Animated Battle
Aired March 21, 2006 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Be careful what you tell your roommates. A former roommate of Zacarias Moussaoui says the admitted al Qaeda terrorist once declared holy war the only way to get to paradise. The roommate's videotaped deposition was played for jurors in Moussaoui's sentencing trial a day after a government witness painted a less-than-flattering portrait of the FBI.
CNN justice correspondent Kelli Arena has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The FBI agent who arrested and interrogated Zacarias Moussaoui three weeks before 9/11 blamed FBI headquarters for obstructing the investigation. Minneapolis agent Harry Samit told jurors he believed at the time Moussaoui was a terrorist intent on hijacking an airplane, but said, quote, "What I believed and what I could prove are two different things."
Samit said his supervisors repeatedly blocked his request to obtain warrants to search Zacarias Moussaoui's belongings. It was later discovered those belongings contained contact numbers for a key September 11th planner, as well as short-bladed knives.
DICK SAUBER, FMR. FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: This was just bureaucratic bungling, and there were people at headquarters at the FBI who just didn't want to take the trouble, didn't think Moussaoui was for real, and didn't want to take the trouble to treat it as a serious terrorism case.
ARENA: Samit's testimony is important, because the government argues Moussaoui's lies prevented the FBI from stopping the September 11th attacks. The defense counters that government bureaucracy would never have allowed a swift response to anything Moussaoui said.
The testimony follows a one-week delay after allegations that government lawyer Carla Martin improperly coached aviation witnesses who were supposed to testify. The judge barred those witnesses, but ultimately agreed to allow testimony from other aviation experts untainted by Martin.
SAUBER: Whoever comes forward at this point in the case is probably not going to be as well prepared as the seven witnesses who are now thrown out would be. They're going to be more opportunities for cross-examination.
ARENA: Martin is supposed to explain her actions before the judge at some point.
(on camera): Law enforcement officials tell CNN the Justice Department is preparing to launch a criminal investigation into Martin's activities.
Kelli Arena, CNN, Alexandria, Virginia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(NEWSBREAK)
A church with the glitz of Hollywood and a congregation to match. When LIVE FROM returns, star-studded Scientology and it's small-town critics from "South Park."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: An update now on "South Park," Scientology and chef. The caustic cartoon's new season starts tomorrow, and supposedly Chef will be back, even though its longtime voice and ultra-ego Isaac Hayes just quit. Hayes' exit is just part of the controversy slam of Scientology, and one of its leading advocates Tom Cruise. Did Cruise Slam back?
Our Brooke Anderson has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROOKE ANDERSON, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This episode of Comedy Central's "South Park" was set to re-air last week.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We want to reveal to Stan the great secret of life behind our church.
ANDERSON: It makes fun of Tom Cruise.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Come out of the closet Tom, you're not fooling anyone.
ANDERSON: And his belief in Scientology.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cult? Scientology isn't a cult, Kyle.
ANDERSON: But the repeat was abruptly pulled from the schedule.
ANNE THOMPSON, DEPUTY FILM EDITOR, HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: Well the firestorm is about whether or not Tom Cruise actually ordered that Comedy Central not air this particularly negative story.
ANDERSON: Tom Cruise does have leverage. News reports and entertainment blogs speculated he threatened not to promote his upcoming film "Mission Impossible III" if the episode re-aired. "M.I.3" is being released by Paramount, which is owned by Viacom, which also owns Comedy Central. But Cruise's publicist and Comedy Central say the actor had nothing to do with the change of plans. Neither Paramount nor Viacom returned CNN's calls for comment today.
But "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone issued this unusual statement anyway. "So, Scientology, you may have won this battle, but the million-year war for Earth was just begun. You have obstructed us for now, but your feeble bid to save humanity will fail."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello there, children.
ANDERSON: This comes on the heels of another "South Park" shocker. Isaac Hayes also a Scientologist, recently quit his job as the voice of the character Chef.
(on camera): Hayes said he left because of, quote, "inappropriate ridicule of religious communities." But it is this most recent controversy that's ignited the current questions about the power of Scientology in Hollywood.
TOM CRUISE, ACTOR/SCIENTOLOGIST: I think that there is a higher and better quality of life.
ANDERSON (voice-over): Cruise makes no secret of his religion as in this interview from the "Today Show" last June. Other famous supporters include Lisa Marie Presley, Jenna Elfman, Giovanni Ribisi, Kirstie Alley, Erika Christensen, Kelly Preston, and her husband John Travolta.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You better start figuring it out.
ANDERSON: Travolta even made "Battlefield Earth" based on his Scientology beliefs.
THOMPSON: It is based on a novel by L. Ron Hubbard, who was the founder of Scientology. John Travolta, who is an avid believer in Scientology, was willing to star in a movie that turned out to be rather foolish to help the cause of Scientology.
ANDERSON: And consider the celebrity advocates who recently turned out for the church-sponsored opening of a new museum that takes on one of Scientology's favorite targets. It is called "Psychiatry: an Industry of Death."
JENNA ELFMAN, ACTRESS/SCIENTOLOGIST: America needs to know this information.
ANDERSON: But box office expert Paul Dergarabedian says the movie industry tends to overlook religious controversies unless they start to affect the bottom line.
PAUL DERGARABEDIAN, PRESIDENT, EXHIBITOR RELATIONS: I think the fact that Tom Cruise is a Scientologist is not going to hurt the opening weekend of "Mission Impossible III" at all.
ANDERSON: Brooke Anderson, CNN, Hollywood.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: It's apparently no-go for Al Gore in 2008, but things could change after that. The former vice president was talking about global warming at Middle Tennessee University yesterday when, guess what, subject turn to politics. Gore told the audience that he doesn't plan to run for president in 2008 but he's not necessarily done with politics.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AL GORE, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT: I'm not planning on being a candidate. I haven't reached the stage in my life where I'm willing to say never in the future will I ever, ever consider something like that again, but I'm not saying that to be coy, I'm just saying it to be honest, that I haven't reached that point. But I do not expect to do it again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Well, of course, the last time gore was a candidate in 2000, he won the popular vote but lost the election to George W. Bush.
The doctor is real but his license is gone. The patients are real but the blood tests are fake.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: They believed they were being tested and they believed that they passed these tests when the appropriate test had not been conducted.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: The vaccinations are fake, too. By the doctor's own admission. The results of a CNN investigation straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Two more deaths spark a new warning for doctors who prescribe RU486, the so-called abortion pill. Feds say that two women have died after using RU486, but it hasn't been confirmed as the cause of death. There have been at least seven such deaths in the U.S. since 2000. In four of those cases, the cause was sepsis, infection of the bloodstream.
RU486 is approved for terminating pregnancies of 49 days or less.
Whom do you trust, your spouse, your best friend, your priest, rabbi, maybe your imam? Most of us, whether we realize it or not, trust our doctors more than anyone else in our lives. Usually that trust is well placed. Sometimes, in spite of every indication, it's not.
CNN's Ted Rowlands has an outrageous case in point. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Dr. Stephen Turner's troubles started in March of 1984, when, according to documents from the California Medical Board, he was accused of masturbating in front of two female minors at the USC Medical Center in Los Angeles. In 1992, he surrendered his medical license, after allegedly exposing himself to a woman in Northern California.
STEPHEN TURNER, DEFENDANT: I was in a desperate situation.
ROWLANDS: Despite losing his license, Stephen Turner says he kept practicing medicine.
TURNER: It's one of those things that just built up.
ROWLANDS: Turner's name was still on a government list of recommended doctors to do required medical testing for people applying for green cards. Turner says he took advantage of an opportunity.
TURNER: There was an office in San Francisco that I shared with an immigration attorney. And he -- he did the solicitations and got the patients to come over.
ROWLANDS: The lawyer has not been charged with anything. He denies any involvement. Turner's name is still on the directory at that office building in San Francisco's Mission District.
(on camera): People came to see Dr. Turner because, in order to get a green card, they needed to be tested for things like HIV and hepatitis, and they also needed vaccinations.
Well, when they got here, Turner would take their blood, but he never sent it for testing. And he would give them injections, but he wasn't giving them vaccinations.
TURNER: It was sterile saline injections.
ROWLANDS: Where did you get it?
TURNER: I got that from a surgical supply company.
ROWLANDS (voice-over): Saline, if sterile, is harmless, if injected into the bloodstream. Turner says the exams took about five minutes. He charged $200 per exam, giving each person a bogus shot, and then taking their blood. Everyone who saw Turner received documentation that they had been vaccinated and passed the medical tests.
KAMALA HARRIS, SAN FRANCISCO DISTRICT ATTORNEY: They believed they were being tested, and they believe -- and -- and they believed that they passed these tests, when, in fact, the appropriate tests had not been conducted.
ROWLANDS: What did Turner do with the blood?
TURNER: It was disposed of properly.
ROWLANDS: Prosecutors say it is unclear just how long he was giving these fake exams, but, in just three years, they say Turner took money from more than 1,400 immigrants, making more than $240,000.
HARRIS: You have a number of people who believed the system would work as it has been promised to work for them, and they followed the rules and did what they were supposed to do.
ROWLANDS: Turner, who is now in the San Francisco main jail, says he's sorry and claims he did it to support a wife and three children. He also maintains that nobody was hurt.
TURNER: Everything was clean. The syringes were clean. The needles were clean. All the supplies were clean, brand new, sterile.
ROWLANDS: Not according to Nino Kobakhidze, who went to see Turner with her sister. They noticed right away that the office was dirty, Nino says, and Turner didn't change his gloves between patients, even after her sister asked him to.
NINO KOBAKHIDZE, FORMER PATIENT: She started crying. She was like, he didn't change the gloves. Then, when I went in, I was like, can you please change your gloves?
ROWLANDS: She says Turner eventually changed his gloves before taking her blood, but what about other patients? Turner admitted to us in jail that some of his patients told him they had HIV. When asked what he did with that blood, he was reluctant to give any specific information.
(on camera): Shouldn't people be concerned about where that is right now? And how -- how did you dispose of it?
TURNER: Yes, that's -- they're right. It was disposed of properly.
ROWLANDS: Where is it now?
TURNER: It's -- it's incinerated.
HERMAN FRANCK, ATTORNEY FOR STEPHEN TURNER: I know there are issues about that. He thinks he did it in a proper way. I -- I don't know. I don't know about that. But, to our knowledge, nobody has had an infection or some problem.
ROWLANDS (voice-over): Turner was able to stay in business for years, in part because his name was on that federal list of doctors. Green card applications were approved for many people that saw Turner because he was on that list. No one from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services would talk to us on camera about how or if they update their list.
A statement released to CNN said, in part -- quote -- "We were not advised when Stephen Turner surrendered his license." (on camera): But a spokesperson from the California Medical Board says they did update a national database when Turner lost his license. Whether or not anyone from immigration checked that database is unclear.
(voice-over): San Francisco's district attorney, Kamala Harris, says Turner, who is facing 131 charges, is the one who is responsible and deserves to be punished.
HARRIS: The conduct that this defendant committed is, really, extremely egregious, and deserves serious consequences.
TURNER: This is the worst thing that ever happened. And I'm really, truly sorry. I want to apologize to each and every one. And I just feel awful. I just feel very, very bad about all of this.
ROWLANDS: Meanwhile there are more than a thousand people out there who think they have been vaccinated and tested by a real doctor.
Ted Rowlands, CNN, San Francisco.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: And for the record, Turner is no longer on the government's recommended list.
Tart cherries and sour grapes? Some say the former is full of helpful antioxidants, but the FDA is cracking down on companies over allegedly outlandish health claims. The Feds cite a Web site that claimed cherries prevent cancer. Cherry growers now say they'll pay for research into cherries' health benefits.
Better lay off the schnitzel next time you're in northern Germany. The owner of a three-star hotel is now charging guests by the pound, or kilo. The proprietor says that so many guests are really huge that he now pulls out the scales at check-in. He charges roughly 30 cents a pound, so if you show up at 150, you'll pay about $45 a night. Weigh in at 220, it goes up to $66. You get the picture. Juergen Heckrodt says that if you're lean and healthy, you'll live longer and can visit more often. We'll also point out that thinner guests probably put away less of the complimentary breakfast.
So what did you do last night? One New York artist painted this picture while he was sleeping. More adventures of Ambien when LIVE FROM continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Now more exploits from the annals of Ambien. For weeks, we've brought you eye-opening stories of people who walk, talk, cook, ate, even drove in their sleep after taking the nation's most popular prescription sleeping pill. Turns out that's just the beginning.
You can ask Ali Velshi for one, and also CNN's Jeanne Moos. BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You can bet the makers of Ambien are losing sleep. First came the stories of sleep driving, then came the stories of sleep eating. And now, sleep painting? This oil painting wasn't anywhere near done when "Itsi" Atkins went to sleep, only to awake in paint splattered sheets.
EDWIN "ITSI" ATKINS, SLEEP DISORDER PATIENT: I was a mess. Oil paint all over my shirt, all over my hands.
MOOS: In his sleep, he grabbed whatever he could get his hands on.
ATKINS: With a toothbrush, with my fingernails, and with a Q-tip and my hair brush.
MOOS: "Itsi" has a long history of sleep disorders. The door man at his Manhattan apartment building describes him sleepwalking to the corner in the middle of the night. He would often eat while sleeping.
ATKINS: You see, I'm licking the peanut butter off my hands.
MOOS: But peanut butter gave way to magic marker on 20 milligrams of Ambien.
ATKINS: I think I just rolled over and started drawing on the floor.
MOOS: It's an image of Incubus, a sex demon. And on the back of a movie poster, he scrawled what he calls an abstract Charles Manson. "Itsi"'s doctor at the Monte Fior (ph) Sleep Clinic says this can happen in a state that is half awake, half asleep.
(on camera): It is like your vision is gone and your head is working.
DR. MICHAEL THURPY, DIR. SLEEP-WAKE DISORDERS: That's exactly right. I mean, people can do quite complex things while in this state.
MOOS (voice-over): Like having uninhibited sex. On a message board, devoted to Ambien, a husband writes that his wife "did things she normally doesn't care to do. We had an incredible experience about which unfortunately she remembered nothing in the morning. Once a month or more we'll have an Ambien date."
THURPY: It is a much bigger thing, it's because it's something people don't talk about. And people have all sorts of sexual activities with other people in their sleep.
MOOS: It can be a thin line between dreaming and hallucinating on sleep medication. "I began to hallucinate and thought a house plant was talking to me, saying please water me."
"Itsi" the artist occasionally took drastic action.
ATKINS: I would put a rope around my ankle and tied it to the bed.
MOOS: Many describe Ambien as a Godsend.
ATKINS: This is like...
MOOS (on camera): Life saver.
ATKINS: Yes, a life saver.
MOOS (voice-over): Doctors and Ambien's maker emphasize that people with sleep disorders have a propensity to sleepwalk and sleep eat with or without sleep medication. That the number of people experiencing problems with Ambien is...
THURPY: Tiny. It is minuscule.
MOOS: As for the stories of having sex while asleep...
THURPY: There is a whole specialty in that called sexsomnia.
MOOS: It's enough to keep you up at night.
Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: Well, in the U.S., the name Katrina will forever be linked to images and memories of destruction and ruin. In Australia, they may feel the same about Larry. A look at the mess that tropical cyclone left behind.
The second hour of LIVE FROM starts now.
New and improved. The plan to rebuild New Orleans. The mayor has set out the welcome mat to one and all, but warns that some who choose to come home do so at their own risk.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR RAY NAGIN, NEW ORLEANS: I am more confident every day, from my briefings and inspections, that we will be safer this hurricane season.
However, I want to caution all residents that after much probing and questioning, the Army Corps of Engineers has warned me that some of our most -- our lowest-lying areas of New Orleans East in the Lower Ninth Ward will have some flooding from levees overtopping if another hurricane travels along the same path as Katrina, even with the restoration of higher, better fortified levees. This challenge is correctable, but it will not be fixed for probably another year or two.
(END VIDEO CLIP) TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
