Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Today

Moussaoui Trial; Preying On Predators; The Rep's Run-In; Immigration Battle; Enron Trial; Energy Saving Myths

Aired April 06, 2006 - 10:00   ET

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

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: And we'll get started.
In fact, someone famous in New York City is going to lead our first story, Mayor Rudy Giuliani. It's going to be an emotional turn and a powerful witness. We expect both today in the trial of confessed al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui. The focus will shift to the horrors of September 11th with testimony from the man who was on the front lines, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Jurors must decide whether Moussaoui should be executed. They'll hear from families of victims of 9/11. But first, Giuliani helped the government make its case.

Details from Justice Correspondent Kelli Arena.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (voice over): Rudy Giuliani, the mayor who led New York through the September 11th terrorist attacks, is expected to be among the first witnesses who the Zacarias Moussaoui trial resumes. Prosecutors want to show the jurors how the attacks disrupted the functions of New York's government and economy. Giuliani knew many of the firefighters and police officers killed while trying to save others. Among them, Terry Hatten (ph), a fire captain married to a long time Giuliani aide. The impact of nearly 3,000 deaths that day is the prosecution's prime evidence for the death penalty.

HANLEY: We can't open the windows unless we break them.

FDNY: OK. Just sit tight. Just sit tight. We're on the way.

HANLEY: All right. Please hurry.

ARENA: Panicked phone calls from victims to 911 emergency operators will be played for the jury. Several calls from passengers and flight attendants on the four hijacked planes and the cockpit voice recorder from Flight 93, which went down in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers tried to take back the plane.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We can't even get up to (INAUDIBLE) because nobody can breathe.

ARENA: Some 40 relatives of attack victims will testify over the next week. The jury has already decided Moussaoui's lies to federal agents who arrested him a month before 9/11 helped the terror plot succeed. To persuade jurors to impose death, prosecutors must show Moussaoui acted in a heinous, cruel and depraved manner with substantial planning and premeditation and that he shows no remorse.

The defense team plans to introduce evidence of Moussaoui's troubled past and witnesses to question his mental health. Psychiatrists were in the court carefully watching Moussaoui testify.

Kelli Arena, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: Severe weather is on our radar this hour on LIVE TODAY. Weather experts issuing warnings for much of the nation's heartland. So if you live in Missouri, Iowa, Illinois or Arkansas, be on alert.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANIEL MCCARTHY, NOAA STORM PREDICTION CENTER: Those are the areas where people need to prepare now. That means you need to know where to go in case of a tornado warning is issued for your county or the county to your west. You need to have bottled water in your safe place in your shelter, whether it's your basement or interior closet or something like that. A bicycle helmet is excellent to protect your head from flying debris or having a mattress ready so that if you need to take cover, you can protect yourself from harm and from fatality.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAGAN: Our severe storm expert Chad Myers will be with us in just a couple of minutes with the latest on that.

Meanwhile, though, other news. A multibillion-dollar international business. But it's dirty money earned at the expense of children. Now a new effort is targeting Internet child pornography. Part of the problem, in many countries, child porn, get this, is not a crime. According to a new study, 95 country have no legislation that specifically addresses child pornography. In 41 countries it is not illegal to poses kiddie porn, even if the person intends to distribute it. And 27 countries make no provision for Internet or computer- related offenses.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children helped with the study. Now the group is teaming up with the international center and with law enforcement. They've announced this morning they are setting up a global center to collect information and help countries adopt tougher laws against child porn.

The Internet erases national boundaries and often moral ones as well. Pedophiles prey on children who have no idea who is on the other end of their cyber chat. Thankfully the predators are blind to who's preying on them. Our Gary Tuchman explains this in a story you might have seen on last night's "Anderson Cooper 360."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN 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, CARLIE BRUCIA'S AUNT: 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.

CHIEF JIM MURRAY, PEACHTREE CITY, GA. POLICE: The Internet was the best thing they every 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 cyber space 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 watched the task force in action.

CAPTAIN ROSANNA DUBB (ph): Do you want to chat?

TUCHMAN: Captain Rosanna Dubb goes into a chat room and says she's a 14-year-old girl named "GA Peach." Adult men swarm to the site, including a man who calls himself "hotguy" from Texas. He asks if she's single.

Are you single? I mean, obviously, you're 14, right?

TUCHMAN: He keeps asking her what she would like to do and then he types this.

DUBB: All right. Here we go. He says he's going to lift my shirt.

TUCHMAN: The officer plays along. It's the only way to catch most of these people.

DUBB: He says rub yourself and I'm going to say oh, kewl.

TUCHMAN: And with those comments, police say "hotguy" 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 "GA Peach," men are talking to her within seconds.

This guy is 28 and you've said your 14, tells you that he likes kinky, dominate girls.

DUBB: Correct.

MURRAY: We've 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: 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 it when you are 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 that 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 predator.

Gary Tuchman, CNN, Peachtree City, Georgia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: Gary's story first aired last night on "Anderson Cooper 360." You can see that show week nights at 10:00 p.m. Eastern, 7:00 Pacific.

They have heard the shocking story from a child porn victim. This hour, lawmakers hear from federal officials about his case why it has led to so few arrests. Justin Berry says that he turned over the names of 1,500 suspected pedophiles, along with credit card numbers, but the information has report resulted in just one arrest. The Justice Department disagrees. A spokesman says prosecution of child porn cases has tripled over the past decade.

A homeland security official caught up in a child sex sting. A lot of questions about that on Capitol Hill this morning as Brian Doyle now faces 23 felony charges. He's accused of making online sexual advances to a detective who was posing as a 14-year-old girl, much like what we saw in Gary's piece. Doyle had an initial court appearance by way of closed-circuit television. The head of the House Homeland Security committee says Doyle's arrest raises questions about the department's hiring and security policies. No bail has been set for Doyle.

He said/she said. What will the grand jury say? It takes up the case of the congresswoman and the Capitol Hill cop. That's ahead on CNN LIVE TODAY.

And you think baby shower like there's balloons and rattles and booties come to mind. But what's an ambulance doing that this party? We'll fill you in, in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: If you live in the middle part of the country, today's a day you really want to pay attention to the weather forecast and Chad Myers has that for us.

Chad.

(WEATHER REPORT)

KAGAN: The missing in New Orleans, an update for you now. More than seven months after Hurricane Katrina hit, fewer than a thousand people remain on the missing list. That's down from more than 11,000 reported missing right after the storm.

A big mess in Florida. Hurricane season is only weeks away and 140,000 homeowners find out they are losing hurricane coverage. A large insurer announced this week that it won't renew their policies. Those residents who do have insurance have been hit with big hikes in their premiums. State lawmakers are trying to come up with the solution.

Cynthia McKinney, the Georgia congresswoman, she says it's much ado about a hairdo, but it might turn out to be criminal charges. We'll take a look at that just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: An update for you now on that high profile run-in on Capitol Hill. Today a grand jury will take up the case. It will decide whether Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney should be indicted in an altercation with a security officer. Our Senior Political Correspondent Candy Crowley has the story. Her report first aired on CNN's "Paula Zahn Now."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (voice over): Police say the story of the congresswoman and the cop is about law and order.

CHIEF TERRANCE GAINER, CAPITOL POLICE: Even if you're stopped, you're not supposed to hit a police officer. It's very simple.

CROWLEY: The congresswoman says the story is about race.

REP. CYNTHIA MCKINNEY, (D) GEORGIA: This whole incident was instigated by the inappropriate touching and stopping of me, a female black congresswoman.

CROWLEY: A week ago, Georgia Lawmaker Cynthia McKinney, with a relatively new hairdo and without the lapel pin designed to identify her as a member of Congress, walked into a House office building around security.

GAINER: Members don't have to go through the magnetometers but they need to be recognized. It was a busy door. The officer did not recognize the member. She was not wearing her pin. He reached out and grabbed her. She turned around and hit him.

CROWLEY: McKinney, who faces possible charges, won't say if she hit, shoved or poked anybody. During a round of appearances on the morning news shows, she rebuffed repeated attempts by CNN's Soledad O'Brien to find out what happened. She preferred, instead, to talk about why.

MCKINNEY: Let me say that this has become much ado about a hair do. And the real issue . . .

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Well, and I hear you, but I'm going to stop you there because -- let me . . .

MCKINNEY: You can't stop me, Soledad. The real issue is . . .

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Well, I want to get to what happened first, and then we'll get into the real issue because we need to establish what happened.

MCKINNEY: The real issue is face recognition and security around the Capitol complex.

CROWLEY: In essence, the congresswoman thinks she would not have been stopped if she were white, a point made repeatedly in two recent news conferences held by McKinney and company.

JAMES MYART, MCKINNEY ATTORNEY: I will say that Congresswoman McKinney, like many thousands of young, black men and women, like thousands of others who are abused, harassed and brutalized by white and other police officers.

CROWLEY: Some white lawmakers say they too have been stopped by Capitol Police and solved the problem by identifying themselves. Something police say would have avoided this entire mess.

GAINER: Even the high and the haughty should be able to stop and say, I'm a congressman and then everybody moves on.

CROWLEY: On Capitol Hill, McKinney's fellow Democrats are walking very, very carefully. Most of them in the other direction.

REP. NANCY PELOSI, HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: It would be hard to see any set of facts that would justify striking a police officer.

REP JAMES CLYBURN, (D) SOUTH CAROLINA: I was not there. I have no idea what took place. But I have faith and confidence in our system.

CROWLEY: Meantime, Republicans rustled up a generic resolution praising Capitol Hill Police and turned the incident into a story about security.

REP. DENNIS HASTERT, (R) HOUSE SPEAKER: This is not about personalities, it's not about somebody's ego, it's not about racial profiling, it's trying to make this place safer and working with the people that try to make it safer.

CROWLEY: In the end, this is a story about how a relatively minor incident infused with race and politics and security can quickly grow toxic.

Candy Crowley, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: You can see "Paula Zahn Now" week nights at 8:00 Eastern, 5:00 Pacific.

A baby show, this one gone bad. It might sound like reality TV, but it's reality all right. One shower guest was shot and the mom-to- be, she was beaten with a stick. Gunfire erupted after two men argued over a girlfriend. Springfield, Massachusetts, police arrested three people. The pregnant woman and the shooting victim are expected to be fine.

What happened to the old-fashioned just baby games? I guess that's passe.

Gerri.

GERRI WILLIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's crazy.

KAGAN: That's just crazy.

WILLIS: Holy cow. Goodness. Well, I have some good news for you . . .

KAGAN: Good. What do you have?

WILLIS: About your energy bill this summer. It's going to go down and we're going to show you how to make it go even lower. "Five Tips" is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: Let's check out the markets. They've been open about 51 minute. Things are turning around since the start of the week when we had a large rally on Wall Street. You can see the Dow is down 23 points. The Nasdaq is pretty much flat, up or down a point, but not a lot of movement there.

And live pictures from Charlotte, North Carolina, Air Force One just arriving. President Bush is onboard. He is going to speak today in just about a half hour. He's going to Central Piedmont Community College. He will be addressing an invited audience and answering their questions and you'll see that live here on CNN.

So speaking of a politicians, they are debating it on Capitol Hill. We're going to talk about the immigration issue, how it hits home for one teenager in Ohio. This political matter has become a very personal one for him. Mike Raymond of Ohio News Network has the story. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIKE RAYMOND, OHIO NEWS NETWORK: Manuel Bartsch is free to roam the halls of Pandora-Gilboa High School, but he wasn't so free three and a half months ago when he spent his winter break in jail for being an illegal alien.

MANUEL BARTSCH, HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT: Incarcerated for 16 days and, let me tell you, those were the longest 16 days of my life.

RAYMOND: Through a private relief bill headed by Ohio politicians, Manuel is trying to gain permanent U.S. residency, but we're told these types of bills are rarely approved, around 5 percent of the time, so the odds aren't good.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because this was a unique situation with this young man, it would grant him permanent residence. It would not grant him citizenship, but grant him permanent residency.

RAYMOND: But as of now, when Manuel walks out these doors in May, when he graduates, he'll only have two more months until he turns 19 and then officially he has to move back to Germany.

BARTSCH: I'd like to stay here. But if the government wants me to go back to Germany, then I'll go back to Germany.

RAYMOND: Despite his battles, Manuel has already been accepted to attend college near his hometown where he wants to study business and accounting.

BARTSCH: I've got family in Findlay. I have several uncles and aunts and, yeah, I have a girlfriend and -- I mean, I feel like, you know, this is where I belong. I mean, this is my hometown, you know. I mean if I'd go back over to Germany, I wouldn't know anybody and I don't think I'd nearly have the amount of family over there as I do here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Spent two weeks in jail, including over Christmas and here's somebody who did nothing wrong. And it was an incredible example of bureaucratic bumbling by our immigration officials.

RAYMOND: Still, Manuel says he's grateful to everyone who's trying to help him.

BARTSCH: And just, you know, the experience of having so many people care for you is -- but I'm hopefully going to be able to take from this experience, you know, and use it later on down the life to be as caring as these people who are that have help me out.

RAYMOND: In Pandora, Mike Raymond, the Ohio News Network.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: And with more on the deportation fight from the young man at the center of it all, Manuel Bartsch joins me on the phone right now from Pandora, Ohio.

Manuel, good morning.

MANUEL BARTSCH, FIGHTING DEPORTATION: Good morning. How you doing?

KAGAN: I'm doing great. How about you? What does it feel like to have your case argued in the U.S. Congress? That's pretty incredible.

BARTSCH: Yes, it's pretty amazing.

KAGAN: How hopeful are you at this point?

BARTSCH: I'm hopeful that it will work out. But, you know, but, like you said, I mean it's only a 5 percent chance that these bills go through.

KAGAN: You know, there's so much focus on illegal immigration right now. Do you ask yourself, why me? Why should I get this special treatment when there's millions of people who have that status tagged on to them?

BARTSCH: No, not really. I mean, these people look at it as a pretty unique case. I mean, the community has like been really supportive of me. And if you think about it, I really didn't do anything wrong. I mean it's not like I put myself on the plane to come over here. It's no wrongdoing of my own.

KAGAN: It goes back to when you were a kid.

So you're hopeful -- I mean, there's the 5 percent. If not, when do you think you'll have to go back?

BARTSCH: I would have to leave before my 19th birthday or else I would be barred from returning to the United States for 10 years.

KAGAN: All right. Well, good luck trying to spend that 19th birthday right here in the U.S. and in Ohio.

Manuel, thank you.

BARTSCH: Yep. Thank you.

KAGAN: Manuel Bartsch fighting to get to stay here in the U.S. instead of getting shipped back to Germany.

A star witness takes the stand in the Enron trial. Former CEO Jeffrey Skilling due to testify in his own defense today. Skilling's attorney says his client will answer all questions in the fraud trial. Our Chris Huntington is at the courthouse in Houston.

Chris, this could just be fireworks on the stand. Jeffrey Skilling has a history, shall we say, of speaking his mind. Some people call it a hot temper. CHRIS HUNTINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jeff Skilling is not a bashful man. He's been described as a brilliant man. If you ever had a chance to see any of his congressional testimony, you know he can be combative. Legal experts say he can't afford to do that on the witness stand and he's got to keep it under control. He's got to stay confident and consistent in his story. But, Daryn, obviously, he can't lose it. He can't become unhinged. He can't get angry. And he can't appear to be sort of the dictatorial CEO that he had the reputation for being at Enron.

Daryn.

KAGAN: Chris Huntington live from Houston, thank you. You'll be watching it and bring us the highlights. Thank you.

HUNTINGTON: Yes.

KAGAN: Finally, some good news about your energy bill. The Energy Department says costs are expected to increase only a little bit, making your air-conditioning bills a bit less painful this summer. In today's "Top Five Tips," we're going to show you how to cut your bills even more by debunking some common energy-saving myths.

GERRI WILLIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right.

KAGAN: Let's bust the myths. Gerri Willis is here for that.

WILLIS: I'm telling you, we've got some good ones here, Daryn. Good to see you.

You know, you can cut your bill even in the kitchen, I don't think a lot of people understand that, by sizing the kitchen appliances to the task at hand. So, you know what, you want to drag out that crock pot. You want to use, not the stove, but maybe the microwave if you're just heating up some lasagna. At the end of day, even with pots, you want to make sure you're using the right size pot for the right size task. And, let me tell you, you think, oh, how much could that save me? Not much. Thirty to 40 percent.

KAGAN: Wow.

WILLIS: Big dollars.

KAGAN: And then all around the house, the little things add up as well.

WILLIS: You know, we call these vampire devices. They're eating into your energy bill and it's, you know, it's your iPod, your digital clock, all this stuff is on in your house. Extra computers all over the place. And these devices cost consumers more than $8 billion a year. Check this out, how much money you're spending just to keep your computer monitor on, $18 a month.

KAGAN: Wow.

WILLIS: A night light, 50 cents a month. All of this stuff adds up at the end of day. You're really spend something dough.

KAGAN: And then there's the thermostat. How high, how low can you go?

WILLIS: That's right. You know, that can be a fight in any household. But, look, if you're tempted to really ratchet up or down that thermostat, depending on the time of the year, to get yourself comfortable, make yourself warm, make yourself cool, don't go there because you may forget to reset it and that's going to cost you a lot of dough. One good thing to do, make sure you set the temperature just a little lower. You can save $100 a year by just shaving a few degrees off of where you normally put it.

KAGAN: interesting. A change I've made in the laundry, all clothes washed in the cold cycle.

WILLIS: Right. You know why, because, at the end of the day, your detergent is actually killing all the germs and that's why people used hot water in the first place. Eighty to 85 percent of the energy used to wash clothes comes from just heating the water. So at the end of day you can save yourself money by just washing everything in cold.

KAGAN: What about those energy-efficient labels that are on appliances?

WILLIS: Well, there's a really interesting debate going on right now about the value of Energystar label. You know, I recommended it, a lot of people recommend it, but it's in the crosshairs right now. Some really interesting investigations are going on show that, look, at the end of day, instead of having 25 percent of the products out there carrying the Energystar label, which is how they started out, now 85 percent of the products out there carry it. What's more, the government doesn't actually do the testing of these products. The companies do it themselves to make sure that they're up to the levels they're supposed to be. So, at the end of day, if you're paying a lot more money for the Energystar label, look around, you may find another product also with the Energystar label that may be cheaper.

KAGAN: OK.

WILLIS: Keep in mind you need to be a little circumspect about the label.

KAGAN: You're talking about this, this weekend on "Open House"?

WILLIS: Yes. Well, we're going to have a lot of fun on "Open House." We're talking about second homes. An interesting study this week about how much of the market is actually second homes. It's a ton. We have a small space makeover, which is really cute. An apartment that's being completely made over for us. And I went to the Home Electronics Expo last week in Orlando, and we saw some really funny products, really entertaining. Walls that are actually speakers for your sound system.

KAGAN: Sounds great. We'll be tuned in. Gerri, thank you.

WILLIS: Thank you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com