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Nancy Grace
Love-Crazed Woman`s Interrogation Tapes. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired April 20, 2015 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
NANCY GRACE, HOST: Breaking news tonight, live, Highland Heights. Love- crazed or gun-crazed? Was Shayna Hubers a love-crazed woman who couldn`t let go of her boyfriend, or was Ryan Poston a gun-crazed lawyer who snaps
under the pressure of a high-powered job? Twenty-nine-year-old Poston found dead on the marble floor of the dinning room in his upscale home, six
bullet wounds to the face, arm, chest. Twenty-four-year-old Hubers says she shot in self-defense.
But police say she shoots in cold blood, that Ryan wanted out, to stop the sex and the dating with Hubers, but she wouldn`t take no for an answer.
Bombshell tonight. We obtain more secretly recorded interrogation video, where Hubers blurts out, Who`s going to marry me now when they find out I
shot my boyfriend?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A woman calls 911 saying she just shot her boyfriend in self-defense.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) coffee table.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ryan Poston dead on his dining room floor with six gunshot wounds.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ma`am, I have -- I haven`t -- oh! I killed my boyfriend in self-defense!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: And live, TV and movie star of the hit show, "Gossip Girl," has it all. She`s young, beautiful, wealthy, makes a ton of money. She`s famous.
But I guarantee you, even with all that, she`d give it all away to have the one thing that all of us moms and dads have tonight, her children.
TV superstar "Gossip Girl" Kelly Rutherford (ph) gives birth in the U.S. to two gorgeous children. Her husband goes back home to France. And now the
courts say she loses her U.S.-born children to a German national? If that`s the law, then the law is an ass!
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She`s best known for her roles in the hit shows "Gossip Girl" and "Melrose Place."
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can we have this conversation somewhere else? People are starting to stare.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Probably another one of those "Gossip Girl" stories about me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But Kelly Rutherford is far from living a Hollywood fantasy life. Rutherford is in a custody fight with her ex-husband, Daniel
Gearesh (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think everyone who just saw that piece (INAUDIBLE) imagine the hell that you`ve been living in. Let`s just -- right now, the
children are still in France?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, they`re in France. I last saw them about a week ago!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. And the judge, when you -- I mean, you`re (INAUDIBLE) a woman is (INAUDIBLE) judge.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) judge.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She gives the ruling. I mean, besides shock and anger, I don`t know how else you could describe what you were feeling.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. I mean, they were supposed to start school the next day. Originally, she took them out of school a month early to go to
France with an overturn (ph) date. We had to go in and ask that there was a return date from the summer. Oh, my God! So yes, so then she made the
other -- this is really gross. Sorry (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s OK.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us.
Bombshell tonight. Love-crazed or gun-crazed? Was Shayna Hubers a love- crazed woman who just couldn`t let her boyfriend go, or was Ryan Poston a gun-crazed lawyer who snaps under the pressures of a high-powered job?
Twenty-nine-year-old Ryan found dead on the marble floor of his dining room in his upscale home, six bullet wounds to the face, arm, chest.
Tonight, we obtain more secretly recorded interrogation video, where Shayna Hubers blurts out, Who`s going to marry me now when they find out I shot my
boyfriend? What? She has just shot her boyfriend dead in the face, and she`s worried about who`s going to marry her?
Take a listen to the surveillance we`ve just obtained.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHAYNA HUBERS, ACCUSED OF MURDER: I don`t know if anyone who will ever want to marry me if they had heard that I killed my boyfriend in self-
defense. It`s not funny.
He had thrown me around the room and hurt me. And he was screaming at me, telling me I was a (EXPLETIVE DELETED) hillbilly, that he (EXPLETIVE
DELETED) hates me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: That is played (ph) from (ph) the courtroom. That came from ABC`s "Nightline."
[20:05:00]Unleash the lawyers, Troy Slaten out of LA, Marla Chicotsky out of Miami. Let`s start with you, Troy Slaten. She`s just gunned down her
lover, all right? She says he was attacking her, but cops say she shot out of cold blood.
Enter Miss Ohio. Let`s take a look at Miss Ohio, please. Turns out, we learn over the weekend that he had a date that night, Troy and Marla, a
date with Miss Ohio. And let me tell you, she`s some looker. That date never happened.
We also know that Shayna Hubers used to sneak into Ryan`s Facebook and block -- as she says, block bitches that tried to talk to him. So she knew
all about this date. What about that, Troy?
TROY SLATEN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: That doesn`t make her a murderer. And all of her talk in the police station, that secretly recorded video -- look,
there`s no scientific literature that says how somebody is supposed to act when they`re -- when something horrible like this has happened. She was,
you know, probably nervously laughing, Nancy.
GRACE: Put him up. Put him up, please. You`re seeing NBC`s Miss USA.
Look, you know, the -- the specter of Miss Ohio going out with your boyfriend aside, what I`m telling you is that within moments after she guns
down her lover, she`s worried about who is going to marry her now.
OK, listen to this.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "She said she was going to plead insanity. Then she said she was too smart because she has an IQ of Einstein, and so she was
going to plead the wife-battered syndrome."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: To Melissa Neeley, anchor with WLW. We just played sound from the jail of a cellmate. The cellmate takes the stand to describe what Shayna
Hubers told her. Melissa Neeley, isn`t it true that the cellmate says that she first decided she was going to plead insanity, but then decided since
she had the IQ of Albert Einstein, she didn`t think the would work, Melissa?
MELISSA NEELEY, WLW (via telephone): Well, yes, that`s right. And she also told -- the jailmate also says that Shayna told her a totally
different story about how the murder all went down, and that actually, it was on purpose. And she said that Ryan smirked at her, and she shot him.
GRACE: You know what? Let`s take a listen to what else the inmate had to say on the stand. And Troy Slaten and Marla Chicotsky, please listen
carefully.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "Did she express any emotion when she would talk about this?"
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "I saw no remorse. She played the victim role. She asked me, wasn`t there any other worse crimes than murder? And she told me
that his family was not the only family that lost a child. Her family lost a child, too, because she`s here."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "You have no idea whether or not she`s guilty, do you."
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "I know what she told me."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "And then from that, you decided that she had no remorse, and therefore, she`s guilty. Am I right or am I wrong?"
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "yes. If somebody says they shot him in the face, they`re guilty."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "But what if someone`s coming at them and they did it to save their life?"
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "She didn`t say that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "She told me they were sitting at the kitchen table. He was sitting at the table, and he had sat his gun on the table. She told
me she picked up the gun and said, What would you do if I -- and he smirked, and she shot him."
(END AUDIO CLIP)
GRACE: To Dr. William Morrone, forensic toxicologist and pathologist. Dr. Morrone, thank you for being with us. What she said is extremely critical
to both the state and the prosecution because she says he was -- cue that up again for me, Liz, please -- he was sitting at the table, and she saw
him smirk at her and she shot him.
DR. WILLIAM MORRONE, FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST: That`s pretty straightforward. You also have to understand the percentage of shots to the head versus
shots to the body make the position most likely -- if you follow this, you`re going to shoot somebody to the body, you`re going to put more shots
in the body. If you`re going to shoot somebody to the head, that`s a sitting shot.
And these shots are going to be more fatal because when you go to the brain, the brain is like this inside the skull. It takes up so much room.
When the bullet gets in the brain, the brain expands. It explodes. But there`s not enough room in there. The brain expands. It has cavitation.
There`s a big hole inside from the pressure, from the 1,200-feet-per-second bullet causing it to explode.
[20:10:03]This bullet explodes the brain inside the head, and any other shots after that don`t really matter as much. If he`s shot to the head
first, that`s what`s fatal.
GRACE: Dr. Morrone, was the inflated glove that looked like a chicken head -- was that the brain?
MORRONE: Well, this is the brain before the shot, and this is the brain after the shot.
GRACE: OK. All right. Just wanted to clarify. The glove is the brain. All right, Dr. Morrone, I don`t know if you can see the monitor, but I want
you to look at these crime scene photos that we obtained.
For those of you just joining us, we`re talking about Shayna Hubers on trial for the murder of her lover. Don`t advance the photo, please. Just
one moment.
Dr. Morrone, you can see where he was sitting, there`s blood all over the table, Dr. Morrone, but nothing, pill bottles, glasses, nothing else is
disturbed at the table.
Let`s see a picture of the chair where he was sitting, please, the chair that is drenched in blood. That`s a shot for the viewers from the other
side of the table. Look at the back of the chair. Across the back top, that`s his blood. That`s where the exit wound was, where he bled all over
the chair.
Now we have one graphic crime scene photo, where his body is on the floor. Prepare yourselves. Let`s see that. Now, see where he is?
Dr. Morrone, his feet are still under the table. He never got up, based on what I`m telling you right now. He never got up and attacked her. She
found out he`s going out with Miss Ohio that night, and she shot him dead sitting at the table, Dr. Morrone. This is not self-defense!
MORRONE: No. And based on the amount of blood, if you look back, when the body is shot -- now, let`s pretend this body is sitting down, and we look
this way. The holes with the most blood around them are the first shots.
And that`s going to cause gravity and blood flow to make that big mess on the table and in the back of the chair. And higher shots, after these
shots, are not going to be as bloody because the blood is coming out down here, and you can`t fight gravity. So all that blood is coming out in the
lower bullet pattern.
GRACE: So you`re telling me that bullet one -- turn it back around, please, Dr. Morrone. You`re telling me that down at the bottom, one, you
believe, was the first shot, two going up, three and four.
MORRONE: Based on blood at the scene. Plus, what we tend to see, is as people fire a gun, the gun goes up. The pattern goes up. Bloodier bullet
conglomeration...
GRACE: You know what`s interesting, Dr. Morrone, is I think she was standing and he was sitting to the point where she stands up and shooting -
- he`s still sitting, hence the angle just above his belly button. And then the gun goes up like you`re saying.
Everybody, with me, Dr. Morrone. We`re also live at the courthouse. Gun- crazed or love-crazed? Because tonight, we find out motive for murder. We now obtain secret texts that she also sent her lover just before the
shooting.
But take a listen to the 911 call. What do we learn?
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
911 OPERATOR: You`re going to stay on the line with me, OK, because this is what we`re going to do. The officers still want me to stay on the line
with you. So when they get there, they`re going to want to know where that gun is. And we want you to get out safely, too, OK?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Are they going to arrest me?
911 OPERATOR: Ma`am, I don`t know what they`ll do. We`re going to send them out. I`m going to stay on the line with you, OK?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I mean, I`m not a murderer, ma`am! I just killed him in self-defense!
911 OPERATOR: Well, what happened exactly? What happened?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) he beat me and carried me out of the house! We got into a huge fight. he beat me and tried to carry me out of
the house, and I came back in to get my things! And was right in front of me and he reached down and grabbed a gun, and I grabbed it out of his hands
and pulled the trigger!
911 OPERATOR: OK. All right. Do you need an ambulance? Have you been injured?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`m not injured, ma`am. I was thrown into the side of the couch.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
[20:18:34]UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) turn around and shoot and kill him and play like it`s an accident.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... watching him die...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... die...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... die...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... die...
911 OPERATOR: Ma`am, this is what I want you to do. You`re sure he`s not...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE)
911 OPERATOR: Ma`am, you`re sure he`s not breathing at all?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE)
911 OPERATOR: No, that`s OK. They actually have someone who`s outside almost right now. But I`m going to stay on the line with you, OK? What
they tell me to -- what they tell me to, what I`m going to tell you to do is walk to the door with your hands up because we want you to come out
safely, OK? That`s why I`m staying on the line with you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE)
911 OPERATOR: Ma`am, I don`t -- I`m just the dispatcher. I`m nothing but a dispatcher, so I can`t tell you. My job is to keep you on the line, make
sure my officers get there safely and nothing happens to them OK?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Legal battle ranges on. For those of you just joining us, Shayna Hubers insists she shot in self-defense. The prosecution says she shot out
of cold blood. She cannot take no for an answer.
What is really eerie is that we hear from Ryan`s parents. His father says just before the shooting, he was talking to his son, and his son said, Dad,
I don`t know what to do. I don`t know what to do. I can`t make her leave. She`s like a ghost, that I look over at her in my place, and I`m, like, Why
is she here?
Liz, if you could cue up for me those texts that she sent that night.
[20:20:07]To Noam Laden, WABC news anchor. Noam, I find this extremely disturbing. That night -- now, come on, we know that she has gone into his
Facebook. She knows he`s got a date with Miss Ohio that night. So she says...
NOAM LADEN, WABC (via telephone): Yes, no doubt. I mean...
GRACE: She says something like...
LADEN: There was...
GRACE: Go ahead.
LADEN: You know, there was 50,000 texts between the two of these, 20,000 Facebook messages. This was one of the relationships -- everybody knows
one like this, where it`s dysfunctional, on and on, on and off, on and off, over and over again.
And this final night, like you aid, Ryan goes to his parents and he`s basically telling them, Shayna is cuckoo for cocoa puffs. I mean, she`s
crazy, and he`s worried about breaking up with her and he wants to go on this date with this woman, with Miss Ohio. And of course, it doesn`t end
well. She shows up at the house, and you know, six bullets later, he`s dead on the floor.
GRACE: Well, needless to say, he didn`t make it to the date with Miss Ohio. But this is what I found really eerie, Noam, and Melissa Neeley with
me from WLW. She texts him and says, OK, I need some time to myself. He`s probably, like, Great! Take it! I need -- I mean, I think I need time to
myself. I`ll be by later to get some bath items and head to the Marriott.
OK, hold, hold, hold, hold on! Unleash the lawyers, Marla Chicotsky, Troy Slaten. OK, Marla Chicotsky, that`s the oldest one in the book! When
you`re breaking up, OK, I`m coming by to get my things. What things? Some bath things? Some soap?
You know what, I would tell her to go get her shampoo, her Herbal Essence, down at the Dollar General, all right? Why does she have to go all the way
over there to pick up some soap, all right? That is a lie. She went back to kill him, Marla!
MARLA CHICOTSKY, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: There`s no proof that she went to go kill him. She wanted to get her things, and maybe he should have told her,
You shouldn`t come here. You`re not allowed here. So we really don`t know what transpired. She`s only...
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: ... like, on another planet because what you`re saying is not addressing what I just said. Hold on.
Let me go to you. Melissa Neeley, WLW, didn`t she say, I`m coming back to get my bath things? What bath things? What could she want, some shampoo?
And also, didn`t an inmate, Melissa Neeley, testify under oath that she even threw stuff against the walls before the shooting so the neighbors
would think they were having a fight? If that is not premeditation, what is?
NEELEY: Yes, you`re absolutely right. That is what they testified. But unfortunately for her, the neighbors say that they didn`t even hear
anything, except for her crying and him asking her if she was OK. And then they heard four shots -- or I mean six shots. I`m sorry.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He was twitching, and I knew he was going to day anyway! He was making funny noises! I shot him a couple more times just
to kill him because I knew he would have been...
911 OPERATOR: I`m sorry. You said you shot him a couple more times after that?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I (INAUDIBLE)
911 OPERATOR: How many times did you shoot him total?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don`t know!
911 OPERATOR: OK, because he was twitching and you knew he was going to die, so you shot him again?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) he was twitching so bad, I didn`t want him laying there like that!
911 OPERATOR: So you shot him instead of calling 911?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do what? Yes, I did because I knew he was going to die anyway!
911 OPERATOR: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He was pretty bad! He was, like -- he was just twitching. I mean, he was pretty much dead. And I shot him just so he`d
stop twitching.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[20:27:45]HUBERS: I killed my boyfriend in self-defense. I loved him, and it`s just really messed up that we had to get into a physical fight. He
reached down and grabbed the gun, and I grabbed it out of his hand and pulled the trigger.
(INAUDIBLE) he hit me. (INAUDIBLE) on the floor, hurting.
(INAUDIBLE) conversations we had that was good was that he wants (INAUDIBLE) he wants to get a nose job, just like that person. And I shot
him right here. I gave him his nose job he wanted. (INAUDIBLE) I think that`s why I shot him in the head.
I shot him probably six times, one in the head. He fell on the ground. He was laying like this. His glasses were still on. He was twitching some
more. I shot him a couple more times to make sure he was dead because I didn`t want to watch him die. (INAUDIBLE) He was already dead. I called
my mom, and I said, Mom, I killed Ryan!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: We also learn critical facts from Shayna Hubers`s own mother. Justin Freiman, what do we learn from her mother, who was -- should have
been a star defense witness, but it all went bad?
JUSTIN FREIMAN, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER (via telephone): That`s right, Nancy. Her mom was called by her about 3:00 o`clock in the morning. She seemed
upset. According to her mom, she was sick. She was in pain, fear in her voice. So she rushes over to the victim`s condo, and she`s there with her.
And she`s telling her, Maybe you should go to the emergency room. Instead, they go to sleep for a little while. And...
GRACE: OK, hold on. Wa-wait, wait, wait, wait! Hold on. So she`s in bed with the victim -- this is a couple of hours before she kills him later
that evening. This is 3:00 AM. She calls her mother. Am I correct that she`s at the murder victim`s home?
FREIMAN: That`s correct, Nancy.
GRACE: So she`s at her lover`s home. She calls her mother 3:00 AM. The mother comes over, and they -- she`s crying. He probably told her he had a
date with Miss Ohio.
[20:30:00] And then they don`t go to the hospital. She`s not beat up. Nothing has happened to her. And they fall asleep on the sofa, all right?
If I was afraid somebody was going to beat me to smithereens or kill me, I would not go to sleep on the sofa. All right? Go ahead.
FREIMAN: Okay. So you`re right about falling asleep on the sofa. And then when they finally got up, the mom said Shayna went to speak with the
victim in the back bedroom and gather some of her things. And after that, they went out to eat at Bob Evans, and they went to a mall.
GRACE: Wait, wait, stop, stop. So she`s in fear of her life. This is all self-defense? She`s all beside herself, she says she feels awful. They
don`t go to the hospital. They don`t go to the -- what, they go have the sausage special at Bob Evans and go to the mall?
FREIMAN: That`s right, Nancy. Guess where they go after that? Right back to the apartment, where her mother drops her off with some aspirins and
does note she also filled the tank of her car with gas.
GRACE: So there`s nothing wrong with her. There`s nothing wrong with her at all. She basically says, if you feel bad, take an aspirin. That`s it,
right?
FREIMAN: She told her to go to the emergency room if she began to feel worse.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:35:30]
GRACE: TV and movie star on the hit show, "Gossip Girl," has it all. Young, beautiful, wealthy, makes tons of money, famous. But I guarantee
you, even with all of that, she`d give it all away to have the one thing that all of us moms and dads have tonight. Her children. TV superstar
"Gossip Girl" Kelly Rutherford gives birth in the U.S. to two gorgeous children. Her husband goes back home to France. And now, the U.S. courts
say Kelly loses her U.S.-born children to a German national. If that is the law, then the law is an ass.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You don`t serve red when people are moving around. If they were to spill --
KELLY RUTHERFORD, ACTRESS: I trust my guests.
My little girl said, I want to come home, mama. I want to come back to New York. My son, who has been brainwashed, that where he is is so much
better, but he always says, mama, I love you so much. You`re in my heart. I love you, mama.
The concern is that, yes, France will now have jurisdiction.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think everyone who just saw that piece, first of all, can`t imagine the hell that you`ve been living in. Let`s just, right
now, the children are still in France?
RUTHERFORD: Yes, they`re in France. I last saw them about a week ago. Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Okay. The judge, when you -- a woman, female judge.
RUTHERFORD: Female judge.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She gives the ruling. I mean, besides shock and anger, I don`t know how else you can describe what you were feeling.
RUTHERFORD: No. They were supposed to start school the next day. Originally, she took them out of school a month early to go to France with
no return date. We had to go and ask that there was a return date for the summer. Oh, my God. So, yes, so then she made the other release is really
gross, sorry.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s okay.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: That video of "Gossip Girl," and ABC`s "The View," it`s almost unbelievable. Joining me, special guest tonight, Kelly Rutherford is with
us with her lawyer. The well-known lawyer, Wendy Murphy. Ms. Rutherford, first to you, thank you for being with us.
RUTHERFORD: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.
GRACE: Kelly, we have all admired you and watched you. I`m sure a lot of people, oh, if I could be like her, look like her, have a body like her, be
rich and beautiful like her, but what they don`t understand is the one thing you want the most, you don`t have. Everybody -- you`re seeing video
from "Gossip Girl" from CW. I thought when I first heard your story, Kelly, that I missed something. That I must have read it wrong. Tell me
what happened.
RUTHERFORD: Well, I feel like I`m missing something, too. I feel like there`s definitely something missing here. I`m born in this country. My
children were born in this country. I never thought in a million years this could happen. It`s our rights as U.S. citizens to be raised in our
own country. Yes, you go through a divorce and there`s a lot of he said/she said. But at the end of the day, from my understanding, our
citizenship rights trump any parental rights. I`ve never heard of a case like this where children were sent out of their own country, particularly
when there was a good parent in this country. It`s been, you know, hard for all of us to understand.
GRACE: Kelly, I`ve got to tell you something. I have thought about you, and actually brings me to tears, to think of you going home after working
as hard as you do, long, long hours to put on a TV show or a movie. I mean, you have to be there at 4:00 in the morning. You work until
midnight. And you go home, and your children are not there. Everything that you work for. Everything that you love. What you look forward to.
Guys, I have read every article there is to read on this. I`ve read court information. Kelly has not been deemed a bad mother. Not at all. She`s
an awesome mother. Wendy Murphy, please help me understand how this judge, Theresa, is it, Beaudet, can give Kelly Rutherford`s children to a husband
who lives in France, he`s a German national. I don`t understand. It feels like I`ve gone into some bad dream.
[20:40:10]
WENDY MURPHY, ATTORNEY: Yes, Nancy, that`s exactly how I felt. When Kelly first told me the story, I said, that`s not possible. You can`t be telling
me the truth. A state court judge has no constitutional authority to expatriate, deport, whatever word you want to use, American citizen
children. It`s not allowed. The Supreme Court said so in 1967. Very well-known case of Froyan (ph) versus Raskin (ph). It says, if you`re an
American citizen, under no circumstances, even if you commit mass murder, under no circumstances can you be shipped into exile and forced to live in
somebody else`s country. It`s the most fundamental of human citizenship rights.
GRACE: Wendy, Wendy, don`t you have like five children?
MURPHY: Yes.
GRACE: Can you imagine going home tonight, all of you mothers out there, hear what we`re saying. This is just a superior court judge, all right?
They hear trials. They hear robberies. They hear divorces. They`re regular people. There is Theresa Beaudet, appointed by Schwarzenegger.
She decides that Kelly Rutherford`s two children will be taken away from her and living in France with her German national ex-husband?
MURPHY: Nobody is French, Nancy.
GRACE: No, nobody is French.
MURPHY: What the hell are they doing in France? It`s an outrage. That`s why we`re in federal court in New York. I`m advancing the argument in
federal court in New York. We`ll take it all the way to the Supreme Court if we have to. There`s never been a case like this in the history of the
country.
GRACE: That`s why, Wendy, everyone, Wendy and I go way, way, way back. Wendy, when I heard you were on the case, I thought, I`m finally going to
get to the bottom of this thing. Because I thought, I had to have something wrong. But the thought, Kelly, of you, for instance, after our
show tonight, going home and your children are not there.
RUTHERFORD: I know. I just don`t think people understand. You know, you walk around and you try to keep it together. And present yourself in the
best possible way. At the end of the day, you go home, and you can`t make sense of it all. I`m always sort of, in my mind, you know, trying to make
sense of it. It doesn`t make sense. You go into a courtroom, and all of a sudden, they make these decisions that don`t add up. It`s very
challenging, and I feel very blessed to have Wendy representing me. Because she does make sense.
GRACE: Well, it seems, to me, that, Wendy, he had a visa, a work visa, for the U.S., all right, and it ran out. Didn`t the judge say, okay, we`re
going to revisit this when you renew your work visa? Now, he`s not renewed his work visa. That`s contempt of court.
MURPHY: It should be. Look, the judge said, this is going back several years, Kelly`s children were 2 and 5 years old when they were ripped from
her arms and shipped to live in a foreign country where they have no rights. Okay? The father was told, you have to reapply to get back into
this country. There are lots of ways to do that. You don`t need a work visa. You can get a visitor`s visa. Lots of fathers who are not allowed
to work here are allowed to visit in this country when their children are here. So the judge said, you`ve got to ask for permission to come back so
your children can be raised in their own damn country. He didn`t do it. He did nothing.
GRACE: Kelly, (inaudible), Kelly, when you`re sitting there in court and looking at the judge, and she`s saying all this, what did you do? What did
you think?
RUTHERFORD: Well, the part of it that`s hard to understand about the judge`s decision is she had alternatives. She could have said, look, these
children are U.S. citizens. This is a good mother. You know, whatever happened with your visa is your issue. You`re an adult. Let`s leave the
kids here, in their school, in their country with their primary caregiver, and I`m going to say that this mom has to bring these kids to see you.
You`re the father. She wants you to have a relationship with them. She`s offering to take the kids to help you, you know, every holiday, all summer,
any time you can go into Canada or Bermuda, any other place. She`s happy to facilitate. You have the opposite thing happening now, where they`ve
been sent to a foreign country with an order that is unenforceable in this country. Now, he`s taken over. Now he is saying they can`t come back to
the U.S. He`s going into court to try to take away all my rights. I`m saying, who is protecting me as an American citizen and my children as
American citizens from being totally alienated from our country? I mean, it`s -- I`m on a plane all the time. I`m trying to balance trying to make
a living with being in France. I`ve flown back and forth 70 times. To find the money to afford to fly back and forth. it`s -- these are small
children that are being raised in a country that neither one of us are from.
[20:45:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think everyone who just saw that peace can`t imagine the hell that you`ve been living in. Let`s just right now, the
children are still in France?
RUTHERFORD: Yes, they`re in France. I last saw them about a week ago.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Okay.
And a judge, a woman, a female judge.
RUTHERFORD: Female judge.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She gives the ruling. Besides shock and anger, I don`t know how else you can describe what you were feeling.
RUTHERFORD: They were supposed to start school the next day. Originally she took them out of school a month early to go to France without a return
date. We had to go in and ask that there was a return date from the summer. Oh my God. So she made the other rulings that are really gross.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She`s best known for her roles on the hit shows "Gossip Girl" and "Melrose Place."
RUTHERFORD: Mother, can we have this conversation somewhere else? People are starting to stare.
[20:50:08]
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Probably another one of those gossip girl stories about me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kelly Rutherford is far from living a Hollywood fantasy life.
Rutherford is in a custody fight with her ex-husband, Daniel Girish (ph).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: That is from CW`s the "Gossip Girl." Tonight, TV and movie star Kelly Rutherford in the fight of a lifetime as a superior court judge out
in L.A., Judge Theresa Beaudet, sends her two U.S. citizen children out of this country because their father, a German national, has not renewed his
U.S. work visa. OK. That`s his problem. Unleash the lawyers.
With me, international law attorney Michael Griffith, Marla Chukotsky, Troy Slaten, and fathers rights attorney Jeffrey Leving, author of "How to be a
Good Divorced Dad." To Natalie Trombetta, show business editor, Dailymail.com, explain to us what`s happening. A perfectly good and loving
mother who takes care of her children, has them in nice schools, they`re healthy, they are well loved. How has custody been taken away from the
mother like this?
NATALIE TROMBETTA, DAILYMAIL.COM SHOW BUSINESS EDITOR: It really is pretty astonishing. In 2012 they had shared custody but Giresh`s visa was
revoked. And at that point, a judge ruled that the kids would be best to live with the children and have Kelly fly backwards and forwards. Of
course that`s taken a huge emotional toll on Kelly and also a financial one, which has led her to declare bankruptcy.
GRACE: She`s actually -- you`re right, Natalie, she`s actually had to declare bankruptcy fighting for her children. Let`s go out to Jeffrey
Leving, author of "How to be a Good Divorced Dad." Explain to me why a German national should have custody over an American mom? These are U.S.
children.
JEFFREY LEVING, ATTORNEY: This is hopefully not turning into a real spin zone, but this is not a sole custody case. The father didn`t win sole
custody, and the mother isn`t struggling to find her children and have some contact.
I read the court`s decision in California. This is a joint custody case. Joint legal, joint physical, and the court ordered a lot of parenting time
in the United States and out of the United States, and also ordered the father to contribute to the cost of travel, putting money in a joint
account, with the mother able to withdraw funds from the joint account in certain amounts to fly to France for herself. So this is not what it
sounds like. We better all read the court decisions here.
GRACE: Sir, we have read the court`s decision.
LEVING: I`m listening -- no, you haven`t. This isn`t sole custody. This mother is a good--
GRACE: No one said --
LEVING: -- mother, the father is a good father, this is a joint custody case. This isn`t a kidnapping case where two children are --
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: Would you please cut him so we can respond?
Wendy Murphy, no one said this was a kidnapping or sole custody case. No one on the program tonight.
MURPHY: No.
GRACE: So I guess Mr. Leving is blurting out whatever suits his argument. Could you respond to that, please?
MURPHY: I thought he was on the wrong show. What he said makes no sense. Nobody is claiming this was a sole custody order, no one is saying this is
a kidnapping. What we`re seeing is the judge ordered American citizen children to live in a foreign country, which is unconstitutional. Not her
business, and she doesn`t have the power to do it, and we`re going to win.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:58:00]
GRACE: To Dr. Ramani Durvasula. I don`t understand a judge sitting on a bench totally disattached from what`s going on to take these children from
an American mother. Ramani, that`s like taking my children away, and having them go live in Germany, for Pete`s sake.
DURVASULA: It is such a complicated case. And Nancy, from my seat as a psychologist, my concern will always be for these children. I really
applaud Ms. Rutherford for going back and forth and doing the best she can.
GRACE: What it`s doing to the children, you`re right, Ramani. Let me take that thought, to Kelly Rutherford. Kelly, what toll is this taking on the
children? To basically be torn away from their mother?
RUTHERFORD: Well, I mean, a lot of what they say to me is, mommy, this isn`t fair. We don`t know who`s right, who`s saying what. They say,
mommy, are you still fighting for us? I say of course I`m still fighting for you. They cry on Skype. They say they wish they could come through
and see me and touch me. You know, I`m there, like I said, I`ve flown almost 70 times back and forth. I`m there as much as I can be there and
also try to make a living and be able to afford to be there. And I comfort them. I just comfort them.
GRACE: Let`s remember a different kind of American hero, South Carolina police officer`s brave rescue a woman threatening to kill herself by
jumping off a bridge. Sitting on the edge of the High bridge in Spartanburg, Deputy Michael Hubbard literally grabs her, fighting to save
her life, pulling her to safety. He saves her life. Deputy Michael Hubbard, American hero.
Drew up next. I`ll see you tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern. And until then, good night, friend.
END
