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Possible Break in Jackson Case; Disney Employee Arrested in Toontown Explosion; American Mother Accused of Drug Smuggling; Baby Rescued from Pipe Doing Well

Aired May 30, 2013 - 11:00   ET

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


ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield, and coming your way this hour, is this devout Mormon an mother of seven and grandmother really a drug dealer?

We're going to take you inside a Mexican prison to get her side of the story in a tearful and telling interview with an Arizona woman caught in an international legal nightmare.

Also, James Holmes, claims he's insane, but says he shouldn't have to answer to the doctors who want to prove that he isn't. Is the theater massacre suspect trying to ignore the rule of law avoid execution?

And how much more can Oklahoma and Kansas take? Tornado Alley in the crosshairs again today, we're going to tell you who else is facing the threat of severe weather. And we're going to go storm chasing with Chad Myers.

All that just ahead.

But first up this morning, after weeks of breaking news that has ricocheted between the Boston bombing, the Cleveland house of horrors and a deadlock death penalty case in Phoenix, a jury has been sitting by patiently, day after day in an L.A. courtroom listening to the lawyers battling over Michael Jackson and whether somebody needs to pay for his tragic death.

That somebody being blamed is the company that set up a blockbuster concert tour, a tour in which Jackson would never even grace the stage.

Jackson's family claims the that the King of Pop died because that tour company hired a doctor who did anything and everything to make him well enough to perform a breakneck schedule.

The company, AEG, says Jackson was the master of his own plan and the one who actually hired the doctor.

But CNN has just obtained an exclusive video that the jurors have now seen for the first time. It's the deposition of that CEO from back in December, and on the video, Paul Gongaware is repeatedly asked about an e-mail that he wrote, basically warning the concert organizers that Jackson's personal doctor better shape up.

And as John Berman reports, the CEO's answers or lack thereof were so profound the jury actually burst out laughing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A potential bombshell in the trial against AEG, the concert promoter managing Michael Jackson's "This Is It" comeback tour.

AEG has long contended that they did not hire Dr. Conrad Murray, the physician convicted of administering the lethal dose of the anesthetic Propofol to Jackson. Instead, AEG has maintained that it was the King of Pop that hired Murray.

But in an e-mail the Jackson family attorneys are calling the "smoking gun," co-CEO of AEG Live, Paul Gongaware, allegedly pressured Murray into having Jackson ready for rehearsals despite his ailing health.

Gongaware writes, quote, "We want to remind Murray that it is AEG, not M.J., who is paying his salary. We want to remind him what is expected of him."

Gongaware says he doesn't recall the message.

PAUL GONGAWARE, CO-CEO, AEG LIVE: I don't remember this e-mail.

BERMAN: CNN has exclusively obtained Gongaware's videotaped deposition that was shown to the jury.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Based on the assumptions that AEG is your company and M.J. is Michael Jackson, do you have an understanding of what that means?

GONGAWARE: No, I don't understand because we weren't paying his salary.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So why would you write that?

GONGAWARE: I have no idea.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Then let's go on to the next sentence. When you say "his salary" who were you talking about?

GONGAWARE: I don't know.

BERMAN: CNN digital reporter Alan Duke has been in the courtroom since the beginning of the trial.

ALAN DUKE, CNN DIGITAL REPORTER: To watch Paul Gongaware try to dance around it and explain this e-mail was very interesting in court. At times today, there was laughter because of his -- the perception of his evasiveness.

BERMAN: The Jackson family is suing AEG, stating they negligently hired and supervised Murray, who is serving time for involuntary manslaughter.

If AEG is found liable, it could cost the company billions of dollars. (END VIDEOTAPE)

BANFIELD: Again, our thanks to John Berman for that report.

Our CNN digital reporter who you just saw, Alan Duke, joins me live right now. He has been in the courtroom throughout the trial.

And also with me today is Lisa Bloom, who's a legal analyst for Avvo.com. She is kind enough to join me by Skype.

Hey, there, Lisa. All right, so Lisa's an attorney. She's admitted to practice in several states and (inaudible) court in California as well.

And, also, Alan, you are a reporter who is watching this firsthand. Alan, first to you, the jury was actually laughing.

DUKE (via telephone): Yes. Well the judge actually laughed, too, and made some jokes at the end of the day. The judge referring to the "I don't recall" answer says, we've had enough of those. She said that outside the presence of the jury.

It was somewhat comical. But this is a very serious subject because Michael Jackson died, and the family claims that it was Paul Gongaware and some of the other AEG Live execs who are liable in his death.

BANFIELD: Well, there are times when laughing does happen in courtrooms. And I know, Lisa will attest to that. We see moments of levity frequently, even in first-degree murder cases, but not when it comes to the way the evidence is actually unraveling in front of their eyes.

And I just want to play, once again, this one moment on the tape that seems fairly perplexing when it comes to the facts. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When you say "his salary," who were you talking about?

GONGAWARE: I don't know.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But how do you know you weren't paying his salary if you don't know who we're talking about?

GONGAWARE: I don't remember this e-mail.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Didn't you just testify that we weren't paying his salary?

GONGAWARE: AEG?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

GONGAWARE: No.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You just testified, "we weren't paying his salary." You just testified to that a few seconds ago, right?

GONGAWARE: I guess.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, whose salary were you referring to, Dr. Murray's?

GONGAWARE: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: OK. Lisa Bloom, you can get away with "I don't know" a lot, and "I don't remember" and that happens, and it's legitimate in a lot of cases, but when you don't know who he is after having just referred to who he is, that's pretty troublesome. And it's really not lost on the jury, is it?

LISA BLOOM, LEGAL ANALYST, AVVO.COM: So in my law practice I prepare witnesses for trial all the time, and this is a perfect example of what not to do.

And high-ranking people in the corporate world tend to behave this way. They're not going to answer any question. They don't remember anything about anything.

Jurors do not like that. And, Ashleigh, when I get a jury laughing along with me in the courtroom when I make a little joke or rolling my eyes at something the other side did, I know that I've got them. This looks very bad for AEG.

BANFIELD: And, Alan Duke, when this transpired, I just said to Lisa, it happens a lot in cases. There are thousands of questions asked, and busy executives handle thousands of e-mails. Frequently, people will say, you know, I don't recall that.

But how many times did this executive resort to the answer, "I don't remember" and "I don't recall?"

DUKE (via telephone): Yes, it could have been a record number. I've not gone o through the transcript and counted all of them over the last couple of days. I've thought about doing that, but some of the lawyers in there said that they've never heard it like this.

And frankly, I have been covering cases for more than 30 years and I've never heard anything like this.

Yeah, it's very, very noticeable that he is not really wanting to answer these questions.

BANFIELD: All right, well, I'm going to just hold it there for now because we are in the plaintiff's case, and things always look rough when the plaintiff's presents and then you get the defense as well.

So things are possibly going to change for them, but it will be interesting to see how they battle that one out.

Lisa Bloom, thank you. Alan Duke, joining us on the phone, thank you for your reporting as well.

Other news now, preliminary tests show that ricin was found in two letters sent to New York's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, just this past weekend.

Bloomberg says one of the letters talked about his anti-gun efforts. He's, of course, been outspoken about the current gun laws, calling for background checks on all gun sales.

He says that there was, quote, "a pink-orange, oily substance" inside the letters. The FBI told us that it's working to find out where the letters were sent from, and then, of course, who sent them as well.

A 22-year-old who sells sodas and waters at Disneyland is instead today behind bars on a $1 million bail. Police in Anaheim, California, say that he set off a dry ice bomb in a trash can in Mickey's Toontown section on Tuesday night.

Fortunately, nobody was hurt in all of this, but it did really scare a lot of people.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was loud. It startled us. You know, you kind of ducked, and looked up. I looked a little higher than the ground to see what was going on.

And just felt fortunate that it was something on a small scale and not something, you know, more sinister.

I'll still be going today, and I'll just ...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Back to Toontown?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Toontown's not my favorite, so I wasn't all that sad when they evacuated it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: There was also a separate incident at Disneyworld on Sunday, and this one just bizarre. A grandmother found a gun aboard the dinosaur ride at the Animal Kingdom.

A man told "The Orlando Sentinel" that it had fallen out of his pocket and that he had no idea Disney did not allow guns on that property.

A Mormon mother of seven, locked in a Mexican jail, accused of carrying marijuana.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

YANIRA MALDONADO, ACCUSED OF SMUGGLING POT: I'm not a criminal. I'm just here by mistake because people are not doing their work. This is not right.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BANFIELD: CNN goes one-on-one inside the jail to get her side of this story.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: For an American mother of seven and a devout Mormon, a trip to Mexico to attend the funeral of an aunt has turned into nothing less than a journey to hell.

Mexican officials are now accusing Yanira Maldonado of trying to smuggle 12 pounds of marijuana back into the United States when she was coming home.

The pot was allegedly found under her bus seat. Now Maldonado is sitting in a Mexican prison, and is adamantly denying she did anything wrong.

Her family is convinced that she was set up, framed for this. Even a Mexican state official, although anonymously, says he that agrees, that this was wrong.

In a tearful interview with CNN's Rafael Romo, Yanira Maldonado repeatedly insists that she is innocent and that her nightmare is all a big mistake.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN SENIOR LATIN AFFAIRS EDITOR: Yanira Maldonado was emotional from the moment she saw us, escorted into the prison administrator's office to be interviewed.

MALDONADO: I'm not a criminal. I'm just here by mistake because people are not doing their work. This is not right. I need to be back with my family. I need to be out of here. I need help.

ROMO: Maldonado and her husband were returning by bus from the funeral of her aunt when Mexican soldiers stopped the vehicle at this checkpoint. Passengers were taken off and the bus searched.

The soldiers said they found several packages of marijuana under her seat, 5.7 kilos, more than 12 pounds, and she says asked her to pay $5,000.

MALDONADO: It's a lie what they are saying. And they say they found something under my seat, but I never saw anything. They didn't show me anything. It was just amazing, all that -- what they did.

ROMO: Maldonado says authorities did not make it clear at first that she was a suspect, but she knew she was in trouble when federal agents started questioning her husband and her.

MALDONADO: I was in shock when they said that it was me they want, because first they said that it was my husband.

ROMO: Taken into Mexican federal custody, she was transferred to the state prison last Friday, where she is being held in a temporary cell away from other inmates.

Family members have been allowed brief visits.

ROMO: Now your husband Gary and your children are going to be listening to this and watching you. What do you want to tell them?

MALDONADO: That I love them very much and I'm going to -- they know I'm innocent.

ROMO: That belief is also held by a Mexican state official with extensive knowledge of the case who told CNN it would have been almost impossible for her to carry that much marijuana onto the bus without someone noticing.

MALDONADO: They have cameras on the terminal in the bus. And they haven't checked that. Why they don't check for fingerprints? I don't have -- my fingerprints are not in those pack only or the pack only or whatever they're saying that they found.

ROMO: Maldonado says she has not been mistreated but she is rethinking advice she used to friend about traveling to Mexico on vacation.

MALDONADO: I used to tell people, come to Mexico. It's not true what they're saying. I go every year to visit my family and look what's happening to me now.

ROMO: All this devout Mormon can do now, she says, is pray. Rafael Romo, CNN, Mexico.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BANFIELD: CNN's Casey Wian is covering this heart wrenching case from Arizona, where Ms. Maldonado normally lives. And he joins us from Goodyear, so Casey have you had a chance to talk to her family about this interview?

CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I have, Ashleigh. I spoke with three different family members this, mo. I can tell you, yesterday, when the family found out Yanira was interviewed by CNN some of them were very nervous that she could say something that could somehow jeopardize her release, anger Mexican officials perhaps. This is a very, very delicate, sensitive time in this case.

This morning, they're very happy with the way she came across in the interview. They say it's very obvious that she has been treated well. Obviously, she's upset. Some of those family members said they cried when they saw her on camera, but they are happy to see she is strong in her faith. They say this has just increased their resolve to try to do everything they can to get her home. They say she needs to be home with her family. They say they believe she is 100 percent innocent Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: What about just a diplomatic effort at this point, versus what's actually going on in the judicial system there? Are we had a standstill on the case? WIAN: Well, it's really strange. It almost seems that that's the way it is. First of all, Mexican military officials at that checkpoint where Yanira was apprehended last week were supposed to appear before this judge and give testimony yesterday. They, apparently, according to family, did not show up. Perhaps they will come in today sometime and give their testimony.

Obviously, that's very key to the resolution of this case. We are expecting more of a formal hearing tomorrow. On the diplomatic side, according to U.S. State Department as of yesterday, they are in close contact with Mexican consular officials but they say they haven't spoken to Yanira Maldonado since Friday of last week. They say they are trying to arrange another visit. They say they are monitoring the situation closely, but there is not a lot of movement that they can talk about right now, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Do you know, I'm not sure if anyone knows the answer to this, about her situation. Is she incarcerated in a safe environment? Is she in general population? What's the her setup?

WIAN: You know, I don't know specifically. I think Rafael Romo, my colleague, who got that interview would have more information. I know he's going across the border back into Nogales today. So we're going to have to wait a little bit more to get more specific information. But it does seem from all accounts that she has been well treated while in custody in Mexico, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: It is a difficult situation, no matter how you slice it. Casey Wian thank you for that, reporting live for us today.

This is a story that has a lot of people just, you know, really in amazement that that little baby is alive and well today after being cut out of a sewage pipe and the details that continue to emerge to how he got in that pipe are really fascinating. A little bit more about the mom, a little bit more about her parents, and what's next for that baby next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: He is the Chinese newborn baby who is lucky to be alive today. His dramatic rescue shown all over the world, cut out of a sewer pipe. These images made this little baby an international star. The doctors only able to free him with the help of the firefighters and all those tools and the filth inside just something to behold. That baby's mother says that how her baby ended up in the toilet in the first place was a terrible mistake. The baby is now out of the hospital doing really well and with his maternal grandparents. CNN's David McKenzie is in Jinhau, China.

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is where this extraordinary story unfolded, on the 4th floor of this building. The pictures have gone across the world, a mother who panicked, rushed to the toilet, calling police. She gave birth after she had complained from stomach aches.

The child got wedged between a sewage pipe. The images have become famous, hacking at the pipe, trying to get the child out. They then came here with the pipe, brought it onto the street, tried to get him out right here, this newborn, but it was impossible to reach in and physically pry him out. It was too narrow. So they took the pipe to a neighbor hospital and they pride it opened with pliers, surgeons and the firefighters. They called the child Baby 59 after the incubator it was placed in.

And the latest are this: apparently the mother's parents took the child away, the hospital and police saying it was sufficiently recovered.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With the assistance from our local police the baby's family came to the hospital and took away the baby . Baby's condition met the rules to be discharged from our hospital.

MCKENZIE:: Amazing when you consider the ordeal that it went through.

Neighbors say that this could have been all a case of a mother being ashamed at her situation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: After she became pregnant, she moved out of her parents' house. She says she couldn't explain to her parents how come she was carrying a baby when she was so young and single. She has no solution but staying at this place. Day after day, her belly was growing.

MCKENZIE: People in this area, and particularly people in the building where this happened are too afraid and ashamed to talk to us. And the family, both the mother and the parents, have asked that their privacy be respected. It might be hard to believe, be you the police are saying that this is really an accident. The investigations meet up with what the woman said about her ordeal. They say it could have been a case of someone who was very afraid and very ashamed. David McKenzie, CNN, Jinhao, China.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BANFIELD: It's amazing to see those pictures of that little baby seemingly doing so well after such an ordeal. We wish him well.

Coming up, the story out of Colorado an and the accused movie theater shooter. He wants the court to believe he is insane. He does not want the court to ask him about it. How on Earth do you get your way with that or will he? That story coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: We will catch up on a few other legal stories that we are tracking. The brutal murder that shocked Britain, the British soldier, the father of a two-year-old, hacked to death in broad daylight on a London street last week. A short while ago, one of his two alleged attackers appeared in court. No cameras there, just that drawing. He has been charged with killing the veteran of the Afghan war named Lee Rigby, that British soldier. The prosecutor says the case is going to be tried as a terrorist act. Not just a simple murder. Bail hearing has been set for next Monday. There were two alleged attackers, but other arrests, too. They were both shot by police, those two on the street. One still remains in hospital.

And hearing today in the case of the couple accused of kidnapping their own two kids. Joshua and Sharon Haiken face charges including kidnapping and burglary, battery, false imprisonment, all of this after investigators say they tied up Sharon's mom, and then took their two young boys back from her. The boys had been staying with that mother. In fact the court had awarded those boys to Sharon's mother, but these two are alleged to have stolen those boys back, jumped on a boat, and headed to Cuba. They are pleading not guilty in this case, and they will not be present at today's status hearing.

An update on George Zimmerman's case. His defense attorneys are saying they need at least $70,000 in addition -- they're not saying believe it or not. This is his website.