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CNN Live Today

Life Goes On; Legal Woes of 2005

Aired December 29, 2005 - 11:32   ET

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

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Today's "Security Watch" focuses on the line between privacy and safety. You do not see gun-toting soldiers on American streets. Generally police can't search your car without probable cause. Our stores aren't wrapped tight by metal detectors. Would you put up with intrusions like these if it kept you safe? Well, Israel does.
Justice correspondent Kelli Arena continues her series on Israel's security.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Live in Israel and random car checks become part of the routine. But this is not a police officer. He's a civil patrol volunteer.

ARENA (on camera): Do you have the authority to take somebody in under arrest?

UNIDENTIFIED: If it's necessary, yes.

ARENA (voice-over): The civil force in Israel is 70,000 strong and a good illustration of the population's commitment to fighting terrorism. As they made their way through Jerusalem, these U.S. law enforcement officials got to feel what it's like to live with intense security measures. While in Israel, the terror threat is hard to ignore here. In the United States, law enforcement officials say it's easy to forget.

SHERIFF JEFF WILEY, ASCENSION PARISH, LOUISIANA: At some point, I think, in America, we'll react. We'd like to say we are going to proact, and certainly us being here on this trip is part of that proactivity.

ARENA: It would be jarring to see young soldiers on American streets with M-16s, but to many Israelis, it's a comfort, especially to those victimized by terror attacks before. Ronit Tubul was on this bus when it exploded. She survived. Her message to this group and to all Americans, the terror threat is real and it can destroy lives.

RONIT TUBUL, SUICIDE ATTACK VICTIM: They will see what there is behind the numbers and hear the human stories about families, about babies, about people, that losing their families, their children, and they can see how hard it is.

ARENA: The group met up with Ronit the next day at the mall, a place where many Israelis congregate without worrying. The Israelis that we spoke to actually welcome the security measures. They say they'd rather spend their day at the mall than downtown, for example, because they know that this environment is safe and secure. Not only for them, but for their families.

Officials say this mall spends a third of its budget on security, compared to less than 5 percent on average in the United States. Security officials in Israel don't see that changing unless Americans witness more devastation at the hands of terrorists.

GIDEON AVRAMI, JERUSALEM MALL SECURITY DIRECTOR: They're not ready yet. They did not make the connection between the terror threats and their ways of leaving. They're not willing to live with less privacy, with less freedom.

ARENA: The balance, of course, is difficult. And this group represents the front line in that struggle. They say they'll go home with a strong sense of obligation to make sure the U.S. doesn't lose its focus on the war on terror.

WILEY: There's countries out there, and there's religious leaders and political leaders that wake up every day trying to kill Americans and trying to kill Israelis, and others to be sure. So from that standpoint, you carry that passion (ph) and reality back home.

ARENA: Kelli Arena, CNN, Tel Aviv.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: CNN's Security Watch keeps you up to date on safety. Stay tuned for the most reliable news about security.

(NEWSBREAK)

KAGAN: So, 2005 was a bad year to go from the boardroom to the courtroom. Now some former CEOs are trading their pinstripes for prison stripes. Last hour, we looked at the legal highlights of the past year.

Now we're going to get in the gutter and look at the legal lows and woes of 2005. We're going to welcome back, Kendall Coffey, former U.S. attorney in Miami -- Kendall.

KENDALL COFFEY, FMR. U.S. ATTY.: Hey, Daryn.

KAGAN: Let's go for the ugly stuff. Roll up your sleeves, let's get dirty here. Let's start with the worst year for defendant CEOs.

COFFEY: Boy, have things changed, Daryn. Used to be if you were a CEO, you got caught with tax evasion, whatever, maybe a year or two, mostly at club fed. Now, look at Bernie Ebbers, former chair at WorldCom, 25 years, a virtual life sentence. Similar kind of situation for Adelphia's John Rigas, Tyco's Dennis Kozlowski. Apparently the hear no evil, see no evil defense is not working for CEOs, Daryn, something that Enron's Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling have got to be thinking about very, very hard over this holiday season, as they face trial in January. KAGAN: Let's head to the West Coast for the Coffey award for worst witness of the year.

COFFEY: Now I missed the prediction on the Michael Jackson trial. So I don't want you to think this is sour grapes, Daryn. But if anybody sunk that trial, it had to be the accuser's mom. She was blustering. It was theatrics. She seemed to want to be performing. The jury didn't buy a thing about it.

Most of us are wondering, why did the prosecution put her on the stand? Bottom line, Michael Jackson moon-danced out of that courtroom with a not guilty, and apparently, the mom is now facing welfare fraud charges, over $18,000 in phony claims.

KAGAN: And for a little drama here, or drama as we like to say here on CNN LIVE TODAY, for worst defendant, apparently we have a tie. Worst defendant here in the U.S.

COFFEY; Daryn, we all saw the BTK Killer, how cold-blooded, even self-satisfied he was as he was describing 10 different totally outrageous murders over a 10-year period.

The other homicidal maniac that we talked about this past year, Saddam Hussein, whose 20 years of reign of terror not only paint him as one of the worst tyrants whose ever been brought to trial, he's now in the courtroom with a completely bizarre series of antics. We normally expect ex-dictators to do the usual stuff. Prosecutors and judge, they'll claim, are U.S. lackeys. No one has jurisdiction. And by the way, they're still the legally elected president of the country.

But what's really been surreal is the way a guy who's responsible for the murder and torture of hundreds of thousands of people is accusing his jailers in the U.S. of terrorism because they're not letting him smoke, he's not getting enough showers, he's not getting changes of clothes. That is chutzpah in the most surreal, bizzare form possible.

KAGAN: In any language, it is chutzpah, indeed. Kendall, thanks for looking at the best and the worst.

COFFEY: Thanks, Daryn.

KAGAN: Happy New Year too.

COFFEY: Happy New Year.

KAGAN: Hope to see a lot of you in 2006. Thank you.

COFFEY: Hope so.

KAGAN: One tail, two years and just three legs. Yes, only three legs. That's all Henry the cat has, but he has countless stories to share with his adoring fans. I'll speak with the woman who's putting his thoughts down on paper and in e-mail for him, including a few comments about those of us on two legs. First, a look at your favorite entertainment stories of 2005. Let's check in with Richard Lui on the CNN.com desk.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICHARD LUI, CNN.COM CORRESPONDENT: 2005 was jam packed with entertainment stories to remember. CNN.com pulls out the rear-view mirror and checks out some of the top showbiz stories of the year.

Tom Cruise is jumping for joy and on Oprah's furniture, no less, over his love for Katie Holmes, and going toe-to-toe with journalist Matt Lauer over psychiatry.

Also filling the gossip pages was the Jolie factor in Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston's separation. Now, Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey hold the spot, with divorce papers drafted in the closing days of the year.

And do not forget Michael Jackson, who walked free after one of the year's most sensational court cases.

Harry Potter mania returned as well, with the sixth book setting a new record for first printing and the fourth movie becoming the second highest grossing movie of '05.

And those are just some of the Hollywood gems of 2005, all at CNN.com/showbiz.

I'm Richard Lui for the dot-com desk.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: All right, my favorite segment of the day. You'll figure out why in just a moment. A couple of cat tales for you.

First, the story of Lucky. Somebody -- some jerk -- put the kitty in a cage, weighted it with a rock and then tossed it over a bridge in the Montana River. Well, lucky for Lucky, the cage snagged on ice. After a few days, firefighters rescued her, took her to the firehouse, where a meal of leftover Christmas turkey waited. One of the firefighters took Lucky home to his daughter and she know sleeps curled up with the family's dog. Happy ending there.

Now, it's time to meet Henry. He is a cat who lost a leg a fire. He was rescued by an avowed dog person, Mom. That's what Henry calls her. Posted her cat's adventures on the Web and soon Henry's e-mail became a book. It's called "Henry's World: A Three-Legged Cat's View of Human Absurdity."

Henry's mom is Cathy Conheim and she joins me on the phone now from La Jolla, California. Cathy, good morning.

CATHY CONHEIM, HENRY'S OWNER: Good morning. KAGAN: How is Henry doing today?

CONHEIM: Well, Henry's doing great. He's just so grateful he didn't have to go in a car and his grandma told him that CNN -- he was going to be on CNN and he said Cats' National Networking?

KAGAN: Absolutely.

CONHEIM: That works. Oh, we think you have a great network if you're the Cats' National Network.

KAGAN: We are the Cats' National Network. How did you happen to meet Henry?

CONHEIM: Well, Henry came to Julian (ph) in a time of loss. The cedar fires were terrible. He was born actually about a year, year and a half later, but we were housing people on our land there. And somehow he was hurt -- he never told me quite how he got hurt. And his little leg was dangling. But we're dog-devoted people, so we never had a cat. So we rushed him to the vet and, off came his legs. And we didn't have anybody to adopt him so Henry became ours.

KAGAN: I am sure one of the questions you get all the time is how does he do with only three legs?

CONHEIM: He flies. He can jump six-and-half feet straight up in the air. I would not know that he only has three legs. I think his back legs have become enormously strong.

KAGAN: Kind of like a rabbit, perhaps.

CONHEIM: He is, indeed.

KAGAN: Now, I'm coming to find out there are a number of a three-legged cats out there. I have one of my own. We'll get to him in a second. But mine does not have a book.

CONHEIM: Yours probably doesn't have 4,000 e-mails either.

KAGAN: No, he doesn't. He does have his own e-mail address, but he does not have all those e-mails. How did he end up getting a book?

CONHEIM: Well, what happened is he started writing his adventures. I was dealing with some losses myself. And as a way of sort of distracting myself, I wrote to about 20 of my friends and they sent it to 20 of their friends and they sent it to 20 of their friends. And in a year now, he has over 4,000 e-mails.

And the only sense I make out of it is that Henry's become a symbol of beating the odds. He's the kitty that could. You know, he's that voice of innocence and trust and he's humorous and he's heartwarming.

KAGAN: That's Henry flying right there. We're showing the pictures.

CONHEIM: Oh, he's flying? That's his Baryshnicat (ph)! That's to show you that he's not very handicapped.

KAGAN: He does great. OK, my turn to share now. I want to put a picture of my three-legged cat. We'll put up the picture of Tripod. Do we have that ready to go? There's mine, Kathy.

CONHEIM: Well, will yours write mine?

KAGAN: Yes. And he, too, is missing a front leg. But mine's missing his right front and yours is missing right left -- front left.

CONHEIM: Right. Well I think they should -- with the two paws, they ought to have a very active correspondence.

KAGAN: Six paws between them, they should do great. And I've had mine 13 years. He has never told me how he lost the leg. He came to me that way.

CONHEIM: Well, you know, Henry hasn't told me. So if you've held out for 13 years, there's not much hope for me.

KAGAN: Yes. Maybe we can...

CONHEIM: One of the things, though, Henry really wanted to do was give back. Because he shouldn't be alive. And he wants to help. His book is really to help every animal that needs help. So all the profits of Henry's book go to animals in need, wild or domestic. He just wants people to know that. And if they visit him on henrysworld.org....

KAGAN: Yes, tell us about the Web site.

CONHEIM: His Web site is henrysworld.org. And he's not a very good speller, so take out the apostrophe for henrysworld.org. And you can read all about him. You can become his paw pal. And if you order his book, I want people to know that 100 percent of his profits will go to animals.

KAGAN: Well, it is Henry's world and we all just live here and enjoy knowing about him. So thank you...

CONHEIM: Thanks a lot.

KAGAN: ... for sharing with us. Cathy Conheim, joining us from La Jolla, California, on behalf of Henry. And we will have Tripod drop him a line. Thank you, Cathy.

We're going to check in on weather and business coming up next. And if you haven't tossed out your Christmas tree yet, stick around to hear how that pine could be put to use in the medical world.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: Turns out there just might be a better option for the old Christmas trees than tossing them into the landfill. Pine needles carry one of the key ingredients of Tamiflu, the best known treatment for Tamiflu. So a Canadian company now plans to recycle 500,000 trees from two cities, and that should be enough to produce enough Tamiflu for about five million people, which is a good thing since Tamiflu makers were running short of that ingredient from other sources. Fascinating stuff.

(MARKET REPORT)

KAGAN: We'll close out the year tomorrow with a big bang on CNN LIVE TODAY. We're going a look back at the year in politics through cartoons. Pulitzer Prize-winning artist Mike Lukovich will join me with some of his favorite cartoons of the year. And what's in store for 2006? We'll take a look into the future with the amazing Kreskin. He has some fearless predictions for the coming year. You'll want to stay tuned for that.

Meanwhile, and until then, I'm Daryn Kagan. International news is up next. Stay tuned for "YOUR WORLD TODAY." Jim Clancy and Colleen McEdwards will be with you after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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