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New Day

Greg Ozubko's Love of Hockey; Lawsuit Filed Against Cosby; Possible Charges for Brown's Stepfather; Mediterranean Diet May Extend Life

Aired December 03, 2014 - 08:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, here we go with the five things you need to know for your new day.

At number one, Michael Brown's stepfather under investigation for his explosive outburst after a grand jury decided not to indict Officer Darren Wilson. Officials want to know if he tried to incite a riot or if he was merely overcome with emotion as his lawyers claim.

A pair of deadly car bombings overseas. Al Shabaab has claimed responsibility for a blast near the Mogadishu International Airport in Somalia. Four were killed. The other happened in Yemen. Six people were killed outside the home of the Iranian ambassador, who was not injured.

Bill Cosby is now facing a lawsuit by a woman who says the comedian molested her. According to Radar Online, Judy Huth said it happened back in 1974 when she was just 15-year-old in a room in the Playboy mansion.

The NTSB now joining the investigation into this, a deadly crash involving two school buses in Knoxville, Tennessee. Three people, including two young children, were killed. At least 23 other children were sent to the hospital.

Today the Supreme Court will hear a case about pregnancy discrimination in the workplace. Peggy Young says that UPS refused to temporarily reassign her so that she could avoid heavy lifting when she became pregnant.

We do update those five things to know, so be sure to visit newdaycnn.com for the latest.

Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Mic.

So we have chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta and he's introducing us to a hockey goalie who had to bounce back from arthritis but is now taking to the ice to stop shots from players half his age. How? The answer in today's "Human Factor."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Watching goalie Greg Ozubko block shots during practice for the minor league Gwinnette Gladiators, you'd probably never guess he's 50 years old. You'd also never know that just 16 years ago he couldn't even move without severe pain.

GREG OZUBKO, GWINNETTE GLADIATORS PRACTICE GOALIE: Turning a doorknob was extremely difficult. Any movement, anything physical was very greatly restricted.

GUPTA: Lacing up skates was out of the question. Greg started playing hockey as a kid. He played through high school, and a little in college, but he knew he wasn't going to make the NHL, so he moved on in his life, started a business, got married, and settled down. Goaltending wasn't even a thought when he was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in 1998. He started taking medication and was feeling so great that being an NHL spectator motivated him to get back on the ice in 2002.

OZUBKO: One night it just flipped a switch and it just went, you know, I want to go do this again.

GUPTA: He caught the attention of some coaches who invited him to play with an elite group and then came an invitation to a training camp. That led to a spot as a backup goalie. He no longer dresses for games, but he still practices with the team when he's needed.

OZUBKO: I never would have believed that I would have had an opportunity like this.

GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, meanwhile, another accuser has come forward with disturbing allegations against Bill Cosby. The woman says she was abused when she was 15 years old. She has filed a lawsuit and we will examine that case with a prosecutor.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Another Bill Cosby accuser comes forward. She has filed a lawsuit against the comedian saying that he sexually assaulted her back in 1974. This is according to Radar Online. And the woman is named Judy Huth. She says she met Cosby when she was just 15 years old. She says she only recently realized the extent of the damage of the assault.

So what happens next with this lawsuit and how will Cosby respond? Let's bring in Rhonda Saunders. She is the Los Angeles deputy district attorney who works specifically with the sexual violent predators unit.

Ms. Saunders, thanks so much for being with us.

RHONDA SAUNDERS, LOS ANGELES PROSECUTOR: Thank you very much for having me here.

CAMEROTA: It sounds as though this new lawsuit that has just been filed is a civil case. But if this woman walked into your prosecutor's office and said that she had been sexually assaulted 40 years ago when she was 15 years old, how would your prosecutors have handled it?

SAUNDERS: Well, it would make it very difficult because we have a statute of limitations, first of all, which would prevent us from going forward with this case. We would look at the facts surrounding the accusations, comparing it to the other accusations that have been coming forward through I think a dozen or more women -

CAMEROTA: Yes.

SAUNDERS: Who are now first coming forward. It would be a very difficult case for us to prosecute criminally. In fact, it would be almost impossible.

CAMEROTA: And civilly, though, speaking, I mean -

SAUNDERS: So as a criminal prosecutor --

CAMEROTA: Sorry to interrupt, but civilly, how does that change? Because she says she's only just realized, as an adult, the extent of the damage. Does that change the equation?

SAUNDERS: I think she still may run into problems with the statute of limitations, even with civil cases, because there is such a long time that has gone by. It also affects a case in that when you wait 40 years, evidence disappears, witnesses disappear. There's no forensic evidence whatsoever. So I'm a criminal prosecutor. I don't do civil. It's sort of like asking a cardiologist to look at a broken leg. So I'm more focused on the criminal aspect of this possible situation.

CAMEROTA: OK, so let's talk about that because it's hard for many people to believe these allegations against this beloved father figure, Bill Cosby. So let's pretend it's a different person. Let's say this were just a regular man, a regular person, and 18 different women, that's the count this morning that we know of, came forward with some version of virtually the same story of sexual assault, and some drugging involved. Would you be inclined to believe those women, even if it was 40 years ago?

SAUNDERS: I probably would give it a little bit more credit or more credibility because you have so many women coming forward with the same what we call M.O., modus operandi. And this is something that we look at and would consider to be a date rape type of a situation where someone is at a club, someone is at a party, campuses across the country. This is something that happens on a daily basis across this country where a woman goes, is talking to someone, and then all of a sudden wakes up several hours later, doesn't know what happened, can't remember what happened. So this is something that's very, very prevalent. And the reason I call it date rape, it doesn't mean they have to be on a date, but it's someone that they're talking to, somebody that they might know. It's not the kind of rape where a woman is walking to her car, gets tackled and gets raped on the street by a complete stranger.

CAMEROTA: Right, so it's not --

SAUNDERS: So I think that this is an endemic problem.

CAMEROTA: Yes. And it's not a stranger rape, it is in a different category. But if this person were guilty, would you consider the man who did this a predator?

SAUNDERS: When you have 16, 18 women all coming forward, I think it's very predatory behavior, that it doesn't stop, because the person may get caught or may escape detection in one of these rapes, and yet comes back and does it again. So there's more than just sex to these incidents. Especially when you have someone, let's say it is a celebrity, and the celebrity at the top of his game. And these celebrities have fan clubs, you have hanger-ones. They have women who are willing to throw sex at them all the time. So why the additional element of having to drug a woman in order to have sex?

CAMEROTA: That's an excellent question.

SAUNDERS: So it may not all be about the sex.

CAMEROTA: Yes. And so many people have brought that up. So since you deal with this on, sadly, a daily basis, what is it about serial rapists? What are they doing?

SAUNDERS: Yes. There are different types of serial rapists. And with this type of a situation, it isn't the sex that excites them. What is exciting them is to render their victim unconscious so they're not able to fight back. So it's something more than just a rapist who is an opportunist rapist. Who, as I said, sees a woman walking by herself and says, mmm, sex, and goes after her. This is someone who basically gets more excited by the hunt, by slipping that drug into the woman's drink, by rendering her unconscious.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

SAUNDERS: By having a woman who can't fight back, who won't remember what happened. So it's a whole different phenomenon there.

CAMEROTA: It is a totally different profile and such a haunting one. Rhonda Saunders, thanks so much for your expertise. Great to talk to you this morning.

SAUNDERS: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Let's go over to Chris.

CUOMO: All right, we have some developing news for you this morning. Michael Brown's stepfather is now on the record about the controversial comments he made when Officer Darren Wilson was cleared by the grand jury. You'll remember that he yelled that "burn it down." Did he incite a riot when he did that? His words, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) CUOMO: As we have been telling you this morning, Michael Brown's stepfather is under investigation for his outburst after Darren Wilson was cleared by a grand jury. Don Lemon just heard exclusively from Louis Head, that's the stepfather's name. What do you have, Don?

DON LEMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I have a statement from Louis Head. I called him, wanted to do an interview with him after all of this, you know, talking about should he be charged and prosecuted for inciting a riot. Here's what he said, and this is from a source close to him. I spoke to him, the source gave me the statement, it said, "He said something came over me as I watched and listened to my wife, the mother of Michael Brown Jr., react to the gut-wrenching news that the cop who killed her son wouldn't be charged with a crime. My emotions admittedly got the best of me. This is my family. I was so angry and full of raw emotions, as so many others were, and granted, I screamed out words that I shouldn't have screamed in the heat of the moment. It was wrong and I humbly apologize to all of those who read my pain and anger as a true desire for what I want for our community, it wasn't." And then he goes on, there are a couple more paragraphs here, but he talks about, you know, the conditions of the community, the grand jury decision, and on, and on, and on. He says, "I plan to remain here and do my part in earnest and in truth. Louis Head."

CAMEROTA: Heartfelt words, I mean it's hard to argue with him explaining that he was overcome by raw emotion.

LEMON: Yes, and so many people have been reaching out to them, saying you need to say something, you have to show some type of remorse. As a matter of fact, I was on with Wolf Blitzer yesterday and he said has he apologized? Has he done anything? And you've heard from the mother's attorneys, right? That he was remorseful, but you hadn't heard from him. And so I think that he realized that he needed to say something about this because it was just snowballing.

PEREIRA: Interesting to see, when we watched Trayvon Martin's family how they dealt with finding out the verdict. They were able to get that news in private, they were able to have that grief and that moment to react in private. This family found out the information while cameras were live and in public.

CUOMO: Well, they knew before, but they were in the middle of that crowd.

PEREIRA: But they didn't get that - --do you know what I mean? That they didn't have that private time really - -

CAMEROTA: To process.

PEREIRA: To process it.

CUOMO: Right, right.

PEREIRA: And I think that's very telling

LEMON: And I think it's good that, you can't condone, he can't condone what he did. PEREIRA: No.

LEMON: There's no excuse for what he did.

CUOMO: Right, but whether they can make a case and whether they should make a case, I'd be very surprised to see it move forward.

LEMON: Why is that?

CUOMO: On the law and on the policy. I think that you'd have to show that that was his intention and that it led to actual rioting. A threat can be enough, but I think it would be hard to make the case, and the question would be why would you make the case?

LEMON: Why would you make the case? And we were there. There was so much going on. Can you draw a direct line from his words to the actual torching, burning, looting? I don't know. I'm not an attorney, but I just think to charge him right now and not charge the officer would really add fuel to a big fire already.

CUOMO: True. Appreciate it, Don. It's good to have you on the show.

LEMON: Thank you, thank you very much.

CUOMO: Alright, so, how about this question? You want to live longer? Be like my people. A new study finds the Mediterranean diet is --

PEREIRA: How about your people, Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: How about our people?

CUOMO: I don't know where she's from. Dr. Sanjay Gupta will tell us if this study is the real deal. I don't know what the Latinos eat.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: We all look for ways to live longer, healthier lives, right? Could a Mediterranean diet be the answer to both? A new study finds following a Mediterranean diet may actually lengthen your life. Chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta is at the CNN center breaking it all down for us. This is not new necessarily, right Sanjay?

GUPTA: Well, you know, we've known for some time that a Mediterranean diet can have a lot of advantages. By the way, here's what we're talking about a little bit in terms of the types of food. You get an idea of what a Mediterranean diet looks like.

PEREIRA: Catering there, look at that.

GUPTA: Yes, pretty nice, right? That's our breakfast this morning. But we've known for some time that it can help decrease the likelihood of heart disease, strokes, this like that. What was interesting about this study, Michaela, they looked at 4, 600 women, they were between the ages of 40 and 72, they were on this diet, they looked at specifically what they were eating ,and then they took a blood test where they measured something specifically known as telomeres. This is a word a lot of people have been hearing about lately.

But, telomeres are basically, sort of a prop here, Jolly Rancher candy. Not part of the Mediterranean diet but you see, there's the animation there. But let me show you, when you look at a piece of candy like this, if the candy is the chromosome, the telomeres are the ends of that chromosome.

PEREIRA: Okay.

GUPTA: As you age, those telomeres get shorter. And some people say it's a much better sort of reflection of your true age than chronological years. What they found was that people who were on the Mediterranean diet, more likely to have longer telomeres. And that's where this longevity question gets into. We know it's good for you heart, preventing stroke, things like that, but you could actually live longer because of your genetics is what the study is trying to show as well.

CUOMO: Do Mediterranean people live longer? Does it bear out empirically?

GUPTA: It does seem to bear out. So, people who live in that part of the world and eat these types of food regularly, they seem to live longer. And it also seems transferable, meaning people in other countries who eat a primarily Mediterranean diet get the benefit as well. Now, it is interesting, Michaela. I heard you mention it, but this was women only. We don't know if this would actually bear out in men. There's a lot of reason to suspect that it would. We also don't know if people who typically never ate a Mediterranean diet and suddenly start eating it later on in life if they're going to get the same benefits. We don't know that for sure.

CAMEROTA: And, Sanjay, just to put a finer point on the food that you're showing us, this is vegetables, fruits, nuts, beans, olive oil, fish. It doesn't mention anything about Jolly Ranchers sadly, but one of the best news is red wine.

PEREIRA: I didn't see red wine.

(CROSSTALK)

GUPTA: There was a long break in between the segments, and you know -- No, but you know, it's interesting. You have all those foods and there's some key words in there as well. You want, you can eat fat as part of the Mediterranean diet.

CUOMO: Good fat.

GUPTA: But you don't want saturated fat. You want unsaturated fat. So, just remember that.

PEREIRA: Olive oil.

GUPTA: You can eat grains. Olive oil. You can eat grains here, you know, oatmeal, this could be a good breakfast for example for somebody, but it's unrefined grains. It has the stuff on the outside of the grain still, the husk, if you will, on grains. That's often part of what makes these foods good. But you get an idea of what the Mediterranean diet sort of looks like, and again, the idea that it could actually lengthen those telomeres, it's a good visual I think for people when they think about longevity.

PEREIRA: Sure. But here's a question, Sanjay. What about stress? Because we know that that has a factor of how our body reacts to even a great diet. Does that play into the lengthening or shortening of telomeres? I guess you can't lengthen them, can you? You can only shorten them.

GUPTA: Well, know, there is some evidence that you can lengthen them. In fact, that's part of what this study is trying to show, that could you actually start to lengthen telomeres, reverse aging. I'm not sure what Cuomo just said, but I think he's shortening my telomeres right now.

CAMEROTA: He's stressing out my telomeres, too, doc.

PEREIRA: Okay, now, here's the only thing that I want to say.

GUPTA: You guys are going to live shorter lives because of Chris.

PEREIRA: So, is this one of these situations where we should say, okay, like throw out everything and we should just go full boar (ph), or are you hearing some other research that sort of says, let's pump the brakes a little bit on this?

GUPTA: No, as you pointed out, the data on Mediterranean diets has always been pretty good. If you said look, I'm worried about developing heart disease, I'm worried about developing stroke. I have some history of this in my family, a Mediterranean diet's a pretty good way to go. And Chris said earlier, you see some of the lowest rates of heart disease in those Mediterranean countries, including Italy by the way, but Spain, Macedonian, you know, you look into even Northern Africa. Those countries have some of the lowest rates of heart disease. They eat this type of diet pretty typically. So, stress - -

CUOMO: Do you eat it?

GUPTA: - - can obviously - - I eat a lot of these types of foods. You know, I have cheats every now and then, but my diet's pretty good.

PEREIRA: Jolly Ranchers.

GUPTA: But, you know, to the stress point, the whole buzzword is sort of oxidation. If you're creating oxidation in the body, that can actually increase your - - It ages you more quickly. It's kind of like rusting of the body. A diet like this is a lot of antioxidants, it's probably why it works.

PEREIRA: Sanjay Gupta.

CAMEROTA: No rust grows on you, Sanjay.

PEREIRA: No, not at all. Great to have you with us today.

GUPTA: That's the nicest thing you ever said to me.

PEREIRA: Enjoy your nuts, and fish, and beans.

CUOMO: he also went with the green apple Jolly Rancher, very uncommon flavor.

PEREIRA: Well, it's green, too.

GUPTA: No, sour apple is my favorite.

CUOMO: Sour apple is your favorite? I never met anyone who said that before.

GUPTA: You're a sour apple, Cuomo.

PEREIRA: And on that we end our segment.

CUOMO: He's off. Wipe the screen.

PEREIRA: Good to see you, Sanjay. Thanks so much.

CUOMO: Let's go to the "NEWSROOM" with Carol Costello. When you get insulted by Sanjay Gupta, you know you've arrived.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Actually, he's the nicest guy ever. You should be concerned about that, Chris Cuomo.

(LAUGHTER)

CUOMO: Yes, that was called sarcasm, Carol.

COSTELLO: You're not a sour apple.

CUOMO: We'll talk about it later.

COSTELLO: We will, have a great day.

"NEWSROOM" starts now.