[0:02][Music] good afternoon i'm angela caspanos and this is the law and crime report where
[0:13]we are diving into true crime and all legal stories making headlines today first up new details from the jeffrey epstein investigation more than 10 years ago then u.s attorney
[0:24]alexander acosta resolved the sex crimes of epstein through a non-prosecutio deal without telling any of epstein's victims well now a justice department investigation
[0:35]re-looked into that and says that acosta showed poor judgment but did not find that acosta and other prosecutors involved committed professional misconduct
[0:46]senator tim kaine from virginia questioned acosta let's listen the opening that i read suggests that you decided as u.s attorney to cut a
[0:57]non-prosecution deal that part of the decision was that that non-prosecution deal be held private not appear in the public record and there's an allegation that i
[1:07]just read that you did not pursue a federal indictment even though your staff had advocated that you do so is that accurate um that is not accurate let me um
[1:19]let me address the um you know and the um you know one of the difficulties with matters before the department of justice is that the department of justice does not
[1:30]litigate in the public record or in the media and litigates in court um i let me set forth some facts
[1:41]this matter was originally a state case it was presented by the state attorney to the grand jury in palm beach county the grandeur in palm beach county
[1:51]recommended a single count of solicitation not involving minors i believe and that would have resulted in zero jail time
[2:03]zero registration as a sexual offender and zero restitution for the victims in this case um the matter
[2:12]um was uh then presented to the u.s attorney's office it is highly unusual and as i was speaking to some of your colleagues
[2:22]um that that have been involved in prosecutions they they mentioned that they don't know of any cases personally where a u.s attorney becomes involved in a matter
[2:32]after it has already gone to a grand jury at the state level in this case we deemed it necessary to become involved
[2:41]and we early on had discussions within the office okay that was tim kaine uh questioning acosta during this
[2:52]investigation with us today to break all of our topics down we have gene rossi formal federal prosecutor as well as legal analysts here on law and crime andy nadal another one of our legal analysts here on law and crime
[3:04]uh gene i'll come out to you first uh virginia guy along with tim kaine i'm sure you're familiar with him questioning acosta during this what do you what do you think about the findings here
[3:15]well first off tim kaine is a very good friend of mine i live in virginia he is one of my senators all i can say is this angelica mr acosta was not truthful under oath
[3:26]before senator kane in that committee it is a total fabrication that the line prosecutors did not want to go forward in his
[3:36]in his office that's falsehood number one falsehood number two is based on my experience on my wall i have a case involving a
[3:47]crooked pain doctor where the prince william stafford county virginia had indicted a doctor it was set for trial and i took over the case in the u.s
[3:58]attorney's office he is absolutely incorrect that the tail wags a dog a federal prosecutor can take over a case from the state
[4:08]at any time and it's done every day of the week so the third thing i want to say is he said that this was like a a harsh
[4:18]sentence there were 30 40 50 victims if they had gone federally epstein would have gotten life under the sentencing guidelines so i
[4:30]can't even watch his testimony because it's so disingenuous and and with this story this was obviously more than 10 years ago now brought back to light because of uh
[4:42]obviously how jeffrey epstein was arrested more presently in new york um when you have something like this that's being revisited multiple years old what's the challenges
[4:53]here for in this case the justice department oh for the job well here's the thing it's hard to be a money morning quarterback when you're reviewing the game
[5:05]not the next day but several years later to draw a football analogy here but but in reviewing this the office of professional responsibility
[5:16]it was challenging but i'm telling you this angelica this is this is a relatively straightforward case in the sense that you had a predator jeffrey epstein
[5:28]who was engaging in alleged sexual acts with underage women and and investigative techniques are very straightforward
[5:38]you talk to the witnesses you talk to the prosecutors even though it's been several years the investigation by the justice department was not that hard relatively because
[5:49]it's a lot of evidence that you would talk to witnesses and things like that it's not a fraud case or anything like that so to answer your question i think the department of justice officer for festival
[6:00]professional responsibility did a good job i don't think there was bar violations i do think they violated the victim rights statute
[6:10]by not consulting with the victims so that i guess would be a potential area of misconduct but in terms of making the decision not to take the case from the state level that's just bad
[6:22]judgment all right gene thanks dina dahl coming out to you what are your thoughts on you know the fact that there was no professional misconduct here yeah i agree with
[6:33]gene that this whole thing you know it i think that they should have actually charged him with misconduct i mean here we have epstein who
[6:43]is accused of child rights and sex trafficking these victims are the most vulnerable in our society and the prosecutor's job
[6:54]is to take these kind of cases to defend our victims right like the judge and jury is impartial the defense has his own attorney if the prosecutor
[7:04]does not stand up for victims and prosecute these kind of crimes those victims have literally no voice in our criminal justice system so you know it was interesting the um
[7:16]the justice department and their review of it said well you know since then there's been so many more victims and as if somehow that meant at the time he wasn't culpable
[7:27]we know there was plenty of victims back in 2008 but that statement to me just revealed how damning it was for acosta not to fully prosecute that case
[7:38]because there were so many more victims that epstein had afterwards that could have been prevented if he had done his job as he should have
[7:50]and fully prosecuted asking at the time all right and president trump also weighed in on this uh during the investigation let's listen
[7:58]to that and what he had to say made a deal that people were happy with and then 12 years later they're not happy with it you'll have to figure all of that out but the fact is
[8:10]he has been a fantastic secretary of labor and alex called me this morning and he wanted to see me and i i actually said well we have to press right out here so perhaps you just want
[8:21]to say it to the press but i just want to let you know this was him not me because i'm with him he was a he's a tremendous talent
[8:31]he's a hispanic man he went to harvard a great student and in so many ways i just hate what he's saying now because we're going to miss him
[8:43]but please alex i have seen coverage of this case that is over 12 years old that has input and vetting at multiple levels of department of justice
[8:54]and as i look forward i do not think it is right and fair for this administration's labor department to have epstein as the focus rather than the
[9:04]incredible economy that we have today and so i called the president this morning i told him that i thought the right thing was to step aside all right dina so
[9:15]there we have the president as well as acosta they're talking about this uh after this ruling was made um you know one of the things about this case is this is something that has come up for a
[9:26]while this incident was many years ago but of course new findings with ren and related to jeffrey epstein have really been coming up regularly if you will and even when he
[9:38]was arrested in new york and now that he is dead do you think that this is the last we're going to hear of all of this with epstein dina well definitely not because as we know
[9:49]uh maxwell his associate is being um prosecuted right now and a lot is going to be revealed during her criminal trial not only about her but also about jeffrey epstein and perhaps other people as well
[10:01]so this is not the end of it and you know it is too bad that we heard president trump talk about this because it just erodes the credibility of the prosecution's office and it's why
[10:11]some people you know anytime you politicize the justice system people lose credibility in it so not only are people questioning hey jeffrey epstein we know had a lot of money and a lot of power
[10:22]and how come he was treated like this when really almost any other person with this kind of crime would not have gotten such a sweetheart deal and then on top of it we hear the
[10:33]president of the united states weigh in an unfortunate thing with all of this as i said again is here these victims are the most vulnerable in our society and we need people to look at our
[10:44]justice system and not see it as only for the rich and powerful only if you're connected to a you know a high political office but that the justice system is going to work for you and anytime we see
[10:55]any politicizing of it it harms people's faith in our system absolutely and gene going off what dina said about you know how this changes people's opinion and credibility of these
[11:07]type of investigations when uh you know someone like epstein gets off like this well what this case shows me is the powerful and the rich
[11:18]are treated a lot differently and this whole thing about a non-prosecution agreement let me call it like it is it's immunity
[11:27]a non-prosecution agreement is immunity he didn't even get a slap on the wrist he was saying we're not going to deal with you i have never seen in my 27 years with
[11:38]the department of justice an alleged predator like jeffrey epstein preying on teenagers 13 and 14 years old for which they had a boatload of
[11:50]corroboration it just wasn't her allegations you had documents and diaries that corroborated what they say i am ashamed i am ashamed
[12:01]that this prosecution agreement non-prosecution agreement was approved by the department of justice and there is no way the line prosecutors agreed with that decision
[12:11]no way all right gene rossi dina dahl thank you both we're taking our first break right now during the long crime report we'll be back after this with plenty more of today's top stories
[12:21]stay with us chief schroeder is today initiating
[12:35]termination procedures against louisville metro police officer brett ankerson unfortunately due to a provision in state law that i very much would like to see changed both the chief and i
[12:47]are precluded from talking about what brought us to this moment or even the timing of this decision i know that you will have questions and i'm sorry that i cannot answer them
[12:58]because of the state law ars chapter 67 c .326 1 f all right welcome back that was louisville mayor greg fischer he was
[13:09]announcing the termination of one of the police officers involved in the fatal shooting of brianna taylor well that same police officer
[13:18]we now know that he is being charged and accused of sexual assault we're talking about brett hankinson and uh he's now being called a
[13:29]sexual predator he's being accused of assault and battery uh this story is really interesting because obviously this adds a second layer here to the whole
[13:39]brianna taylor murder uh case um an incident which is described in a lawsuit it says that hankinson volunteered to drive a woman
[13:49]he knew home from a bar and invited himself inside the woman allegedly says that he sexually assaulted her when she was unconscious and sleeping
[13:59]she woke up and he immediately left the lawsuit also states that there are claims from nine other women there are internal reports
[14:09]and it alleges somewhat of a cover-up by other officers who knew of his conduct but never reported it so gene rossi and dina dahl with us gene uh this is really interesting because as i
[14:20]said this is something that these officers are already kind of in hot water if you will because of brianna taylor's death and now this what's this all mean
[14:31]well this gets to an issue that i'm involved in in one of my cases that i can't disclose in the police departments they have internal affairs files
[14:40]and in those files and evidently a myth detective former detective hankinson had 50 50 internal reports
[14:49]involving his conduct 50 not 550 those internal affairs files those professional responsibility files they
[15:00]are usually kept sealed and that is what the mayor of louisville was talking about they are almost always sealed and you never know what happened and what bothers me about cases like this
[15:12]is i think it's a the plaintiff miss borders has now come forward on an allegation and is this something that's consistent that's that that is occurring in those 50 files
[15:23]that are sealed or is this just a you know one isolated incident if it's consistent with what happened in those 50 files they should be unsealed they should be
[15:34]made available to the public there should be transparency now the police are going to fight that as hard as heck because they want to protect the police
[15:44]but it always troubles me that there are internal affairs files with misconduct and then the police are promoted they're reassigned they're given slaps on the wrist
[15:56]and eventually you'll have a brianna taylor incident based on conduct of officers that probably should not be wearing a badge interesting and dina you know we have this now
[16:08]this lawsuit that's come out and then separate from this is the fact that there are a handful of officers charged in briana's taylor's death and we know that they're going to be tried together and that's again
[16:19]separate from this but how do these two things overlap and how is this going to lead to a fair trial ahead
[16:29]yeah there are so many lawsuits involved with this so quite a few cross complaints essentially with the police officer brianna keller's boyfriend and when i read about this case now
[16:41]i just see this as an example of why justice delayed is a bad thing because this happened we know brianna taylor was killed way back in the spring and it took
[16:53]months for any church to get filed and then there was all this uh mystery you know dispute around the grand jury proceeding and i think it it just it reflects the anger and
[17:04]frustration of the community and feeling like justice wasn't served and then there being a scrutiny on everybody involved and wanting to make sure
[17:14]that there was no other wrong that was left kind of unaddressed and so each kind of wrong is being addressed and turned here which makes everything
[17:23]so complicated not necessarily wrong but is what is keeping the national attention on these particular officers right and you know with this instance and a lot of these other
[17:35]um crimes that we talk about in the headlines sometimes you almost think that the the resolution of these is a statement on the dialogue surrounding them that's going on
[17:46]nationally and i think in this case um this is similar in that because you have a sexual assault charge here with uh someone who's already been labeled a
[17:56]bad guy and now it's almost like well we have to make this guy a bad guy too in this case because he's already associated with doing
[18:05]something else incorrect yeah and that is the harm right because he he could have been wrong in that night and in the shooting but not necessarily
[18:17]sexual predator or vice versa you know it is true kind of like gene said i mean this um claim you know when i first initially was reading about this claim you know you don't ever know there's like he said she said
[18:28]but it sounded like there were quite a few other claims of that he was exonerated about but other women did come forward and one instance he was claimed to have
[18:38]requested sexual favors in order to not criminally charge a woman i mean that's a very serious claim that some woman did come forward with he was exonerated of it but when you see multiple times women
[18:50]coming forward with these types of claims you start to believe that there is something behind them and that if there were so many claims even if he was exonerated why was he still on the force is there
[19:01]like that bigger conversation of maybe allowing too much misconduct within a police officer's file and allowing them to go forward and was that
[19:11]the case maybe he was not bad in that sense but maybe there isn't a strict enough kind of like ethical standard around police officers in general right right
[19:21]all right dina gene thank you i'm going to switch gears right now because we have another story we want to talk about following a settlement with several muslim women the new york police department will now allow religious head coverings
[19:33]in booking photos the policy stems from two separate lawsuits filed back in 2018 where four different muslim women claimed that their civil liberties were violated when they were forced by officers to
[19:44]take off their hijab in front of men during their booking pictures and hijab is a religious head scarf that's typically worn by muslim woman and it covers their head and their neck
[19:55]but not their face this is an interesting story here jean coming to you first what do you what do you think of that i want to compliment the new york police
[20:06]department and all parties here this is a phenomenally positive and productive resolution and i was just looking at the statistics uh the nypd
[20:17]is uh 47 percent white 29 hispanic 15 percent black 9 asian i'm sure it covers every religion you can think of
[20:27]and i think this is a this gives me a lot of hope because one of the complaints i have is that the police departments at all levels federal state
[20:36]local they don't have the sensitivity to the cultural and religious and and and and uh community needs uh that then they should have and this
[20:48]shows that they're raising their level of uh sensibilities and here's the punchline it's going to build trust between the police department and
[20:59]the community if they show more sensitivity to people who are arrested and just because you're arrested does not make you guilty
[21:10]and you should not be treated like you're guilty so this kind of draws that compromise there are a lot of exceptions a lot of exceptions if there's a tattoo or
[21:22]contraband that's hidden in the garments or anything that's worn they have a right to remove it but for just pure booking photo purposes i think this is fantastic absolutely and as
[21:33]as you said gene you know once you're charged that does not mean that you're found guilty uh you know dina the good thing about this piggy backing off what gene said is this so likely
[21:45]set a good example moving forward and the the nypd is extending this to other headwear related to other religions like yarmulkas
[21:54]turbines and wigs yeah i think it's also a great policy and it really makes a lot of practical sense like you said there's a lot of exceptions if they feel
[22:03]like they need to remove it to get a better investigation they can but the reason why it's not necessary it's because hair can change right i mean
[22:14]somebody could cut their hair somebody can color their hair we change our hair so hair in itself is not necessarily the most important identifying feature of somebody and it's the reason why
[22:25]u.s passports already allow people to cover their hair and why drivers license in a lot of states already allow it so i think this is a great policy because one it doesn't impede
[22:36]really the gathering of information that the new york police department needs and it sends a single signal that hey we hear that your civil rights are important and we are standing with them and i
[22:48]think that's great all right dina gene thank you both we're going to take a quick break after this more headlines of the day coming up stay
[22:56]with us
[23:09]all right welcome back to law and crime florida governor ron desantis has drafted new legislation that's a step closer to allowing citizens to shoot looters and rioters if they are
[23:21]targeting businesses the move comes as an expansion to the state's stand your ground law after months of protesting that led to rioting this summer in florida it is aimed to prevent violent and
[23:32]disorderly assemblies uh it's it's an interesting thing we have here we want to listen now to um oh actually i apologize we don't
[23:43]have sound on that we're going to discuss this with our guests uh gene rossi and dina dahl with me to talk about this this is uh out there right gene i know you wanted to talk about this over the break let me know what you think about this
[23:55]new move by desantis well i just looked up in google there were two movies uh death wish in 1974 and then the remake of death wish in 2018
[24:07]charles bronson and uh willis bruce willis and it's about a surgeon whose wife and daughter were brutally attacked
[24:16]they survived i guess and then the the surgeon took the law into his own hands and started killing the alleged perpetrators this this is this
[24:26]takes it a step further this allows business owners to take the law into their own hands become vigilantes if looters are destroying their property
[24:38]and i think it's a slippery slope that will be a luge because if you allow business owners to kill people to kill people and to shoot people
[24:49]if their property's being destroyed then that changes a lot of common law a lot of statutory law it's i think it's a bone i think it's a bone that governed governor desantis
[25:00]is throwing out there to win some political support that's my cynical view well you mentioned you know we mentioned the stand your ground law and this kind of takes that
[25:10]step further but where can we look into the law for the answer on how this could play out it's not a done deal yet obviously it's still in the beginning stages is this even possible legally to to come
[25:22]to fruition well i think you'd have maybe a constitutional problem you'd have a due process problem you can't pass a law that allows people to just kill people
[25:33]at will that's number one this is not at will but a business owner if their property gets looted they get protection by the law
[25:45]and they can kill somebody you're violating the due process rights of the person who will be killed as i read that law and and i've never seen a law proposed like this
[25:56]and i think it's just the treasure trove of problems for for the victims and the police and the community at large if you've got gunslingers and vigilantes
[26:08]who are trying to take the law into their own hands it's terrible and dina as gene touched on this is something that's not exactly cut and dry there there's a there's a gray line here that that could easily
[26:20]get blurred uh what are your thoughts on this florida florida move by desantis you know i was thinking that it constitutionally could not be upheld for a little bit of a different reason i
[26:31]mean the law specifically states that if there is an assembly nearby as an impairment of a business then the person could kind of like stand their ground and
[26:43]shoot somebody so it is tied to an assembly and in our constitution we have the right to assemble so i think that that actually impairs
[26:54]the person's right to and assembled because there is putting like um some sort of restriction on it because why should it matter i mean if he's gonna pass this law then maybe
[27:06]why not just say the business i can always always do this but instead this law specifically is called an anti-mob law it specifically says
[27:15]if there is an assembly within 500 feet then the person and i don't even know if it's just a business owner i think it could be anybody
[27:24]could then kind of um defend an impairment of a business but because it's tied to an assembly i think that is a really strong argument for it not
[27:34]being constitutional i i already keep an eye on that and oh go ahead gene oh no dina thank you you brought up i didn't even think about
[27:45]that she's taking it to another level like uh the uh was emel take it up a notch but but but you know i'm thinking what if you have
[27:55]500 people 500 feet away that are completely peaceful they're singing songs they're lighting candles and there's some yahoo unrelated to that assembly
[28:07]who says hey i'm going to take advantage of that and i'm going to break this glass window and get the jewelry okay dina's right it could impair the
[28:16]the first amendment right to assembly it has no relationship it could be over broad over broad yeah and it's interesting because in a lot of these instances you see a couple people kind of leading the charge
[28:28]but there's always these crowds around people there's journalists there there's there could be you know younger kids that are just kind of there to watch and see what's going on especially today we have so many people gathering uh
[28:40]during these times and it's unclear of who's doing what and where so it'll be interesting we'll be keeping our eye on that story for sure i want to switch gears right now because we have new developments in ahmad
[28:50]r berry's alleged murder our barry was jogging back in february when he was confronted by gregory and travis mcmichael arbory was fatally shot three times during this encounter
[29:01]more than two months later the father and the son duo were arrested as was a neighbor who filmed the death well the pair just appeared in front of a
[29:11]judge during a bond hearing on thursday the judge is considering their request for bail and they also asked the judge to toss out two of the counts against them
[29:21]one being malice murder they said that they were charged in a legally flawed indictment uh the the pair have been in jail since their arrest back in may we know that at the hearing the
[29:32]defendants um brought character witnesses forward we also heard from the victim's mom so let's listen now to greg mcmichael's
[29:42]wife ms mcmichael how did you feel when you discovered that your daughter had posted a picture of the scene on her facebook page
[29:52]horrified by disgusting it's it was a bad judgment call and she has been tormented and harassed ever
[30:05]since how did your husband greg mcmichael feel about what she did objective speculation had you and greg discussed
[30:14]how he felt about what his daughter did and what did he convey he was furious
[30:22]you were asked whether your husband was about to be fired from the district attorney's office will you let us know why that is not the case
[30:34]because we had planned retirement a year in advance he had a retirement date already set my husband did not have he did not you have arrest powers that
[30:45]last few months so what he did was he worked in the office between the police department and
[30:55]in camden and the da's office until he retired he never arrested anyone anyway in his duties
[31:04]do you do you know whether a d.a investigator either even has to be a post-certified officer i don't think so all right and so do you
[31:14]understand that this was an agreement that he and his boss reached for him to finish out the year that he wanted before he retired absolutely
[31:25]have you ever heard from his boss or from him or from anyone before mr evans the phrase instead of being fired i never heard that before
[31:37]he planned his retirement the neurologist tell us about the stroke as his wife and being intimately familiar with it and as a nurse
[31:48]what did that stroke do to him um he's got a little bit of memory loss um it's what part of his body did it
[31:59]initially it hit his there was really initially no signs but then he woke up and he could not see out of his
[32:08]i think it was his right eye part of it part he could see and is that what the neurologist told you where it was impacted it he had a stroke in the eye
[32:18]itself all right so that was allison michael the wife of one of the defendants as well as the mother of the other defendant here uh gene this is another
[32:28]uh you know interesting story here um listening to this and knowing what you know about this because this has been a big story since may um when they were
[32:39]arrested what do you think you think they're going to get their bail no uh here's why i think it's mr uh mr bryan
[32:48]did not get bail and he's the least he is the least culpable and the person against whom they have the least amount of evidence and if he didn't get bonded i doubt that
[32:59]travis and the father greg mcmichaels are are going to get bonded out either you know when you do a bond hearing there are two things you got to look for as a prosecutor is there a risk
[33:10]of flight you prove that by preponderance or danger to the community i don't think uh either one is going to be satisfied by the defense or defended against
[33:21]by the defense they committed an alleged murder and they both have reason to flee because they're facing serious charges i don't think they're going to get bonded and and what are the grounds do
[33:32]you think for them being able to deny that the judge um the na uh the things that a judge will look at at a bond hearing is the weight of the evidence the nature of the charges
[33:44]we have murder um is there a reason for them to flee you got a stiff sentence that they could possibly face i don't know if they're seeking a death penalty but but those are things that weigh
[33:55]against uh release and and a judge may set a high bond value that the defendants can't even meet even if he does agree or she agrees to
[34:06]bond uh the judge may set a high uh bond value so that the defendants can't possibly meet it all right gene and dina i want to get your opinion on this as well
[34:18]uh what do you think about this new uh info about this i agree that because the third party william bryan was denied bond then these two probably will not and it
[34:29]is true that it was possible that they could have all had bonham when you saw derek chauvin and the police officer with george floyd he received bond i mean a one million dollar bottom but he did receive bond so it wasn't
[34:41]impossible but the fact that the third party the least culpable person didn't receive it is a good indicator that none of them will and i know that they did argue that you
[34:52]know at least the father in particular has saved lives in the past with his a lifeguard i mean coast guard duty and some i believe it was military service so you
[35:03]know they are trying to argue that they are not such a threat to the community that uh and then they're the wife is probably it was being a character witness but because i i don't know if the prosecution
[35:15]they were planning on putting forth evidence of you know racial comments that they've made online and to show that they were a continuing threat to the community
[35:25]so between that and the fact that we know the third party didn't receive it i i think they'll remain in jail also angelica i have to get off all right dina thanks gene rossi
[35:36]have a great week yeah i was just gonna sign you off gene rossi thanks for joining us today always a great time back bye dina bye bye we're going to take a break we'll have plenty more coverage here on
[35:47]law and crime all right welcome back
[35:59]we're going to continue talking about the mick michaels as well as uh ahmad aarberry's mom his mother spoke at the hearing and uh she basically gave
[36:10]an emotional victim impact statement where she pleaded to keep her son's alleged murderers behind bars let's listen to what she
[36:20]said contacted my attorney the behalf of glenn county this past spring during the course
[36:31]of the gbi's secondary investigation they discovered what they believed to be one of amaz bone fragments near where he was
[36:43]murdered instantly shores they wanted to know what we wanted to do with those pieces of my son that they were still discovering in the streets
[36:54]i have said here and i've listened to the attorneys for both travis and gregory mcmichael they tried to explain that
[37:08]that their clients believed that my son was a trespasser on that bright sunday afternoon
[37:17]as he ran down the streets he was somehow engaged in a criminal enterprise their defense is summed up in an idea of
[37:30]grabbing their guns chasing boxing my son in with the vehicles pursuing him and eventually
[37:40]shooting him to death ripping his body into pieces and that was the right thing to do that if given the opportunity both men
[37:55]would do the same thing again these men are proud of what they've done and they want to go home because in the selfish minds
[38:07]they think that they're the good guys and i and my family is left literally to pick up the pieces
[38:14]as the court may imagine i have suffered i continue to suffer mentally and emotionally while i wait for justice for
[38:25]my son my daughter jasmine's older sister um jasmine amma's older sister
[38:33]his best friend just had her first baby i often think as she begins to journey motherhood will i have the words of wisdom
[38:47]to help her along the way mothers protect the children i wasn't given the opportunity to protect my son
[38:58]i'm here to ask this court to help me be a mother who protects my grandchildren and fight for justice for my son he ran this path
[39:12]many times and our home was just a light jog away but for him no matter how he maneuvered
[39:27]no matter how he how fast he ran no matter how fast he ran or how quickly
[39:37]he turned these men refused to let him go home they should not go home now to prepare for their defense
[39:48]to enjoy their children and grandchildren and to be embraced by the community these men are as dangerous today as they
[39:59]were on february 23rd of 2020. all right so that was the victim's mom there giving that powerful statement i mean dina this is really a good example of an effective victim
[40:11]impact statement uh i think it was really really not only emotional but really resonated well there absolutely i thought she did an excellent job of really being the voice for her thought which is
[40:22]her point i mean the pro the judge heard a lot of evidence from both sides and she's giving him a chance to really you know feel the impact that it had
[40:34]on his her family and her description of how much her son tried to run away and how much he was trapped by them i thought was excellent because it really went
[40:45]to how dangerous they were because you couldn't really argue that there was some self-defense on their part or even if they had suspected him of
[40:56]feeling something i mean it had to have been evident that there was nothing in his hand was they kept trapping him they got very close to him so i think that really showed like how
[41:08]callous how kind of horrific the killing was and i think that really lends to the fact that they should not be roaming the streets that
[41:18]they should be behind bars so i think she did an excellent job not only of showing the emotion and the loss of her but really how calculated the crime was
[41:28]in that moment by them and going forward um what's next in this case i mean this is obviously one of the steps here until this um does go to
[41:40]a trial likely right yes exactly this is going to go to a trial and we're gonna hear no we've already heard so much about this
[41:52]through the press but there could still be more details that are uncovered as as this goes on and again you know we just talked about the de santos florida law
[42:02]recently and this kind of came to mind because in essence this is what these people were doing right they thought that he was stealing something from their neighborhood took it in their
[42:13]own hands and decided to kill him because of it and we are sitting here i would think most of us horrified that somebody would kind of claim that mantle of authority to be able to kill
[42:24]somebody just because you're suspecting them a burglary and then here in another instance we have the governor of florida wanting to pass a law essentially
[42:35]saying that this is okay and so i hope that the fact that these stories we're actually talking about them so close together we can see like how dangerous that florida law is and what that would say about our
[42:47]society are we going to allow a killing like ahmad aubry to happen you know is that really going to become legal it's an interesting exhibition
[42:58]that we're talking about the two right now absolutely our stories here on lawn crime always intersect with each other dina thank you i want to just give you a quick update on monday we're going to be starting
[43:09]live coverage of a new trial this is a murder trial out of ohio erica stefanko is charged in connection with the murder of ashley
[43:18]biggs this is the ex-girlfriend of a man that she was married to at one point back in 2012 stefanko was accused of making a fake pizza delivery call
[43:29]that lured the victim to a business and then she was killed police said that the ex-husband chad cobb ambushed the woman killed her
[43:38]and strangled her this all happened again back in ohio we're going to be covering that trial starting on monday he has already pleaded guilty and sentenced to life in prison we'll have more of that
[43:50]stay with us [Music] [Music]
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