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AT THIS HOUR WITH BERMAN AND MICHAELA

Plane Crash Victim Out of Hospital, Plane Found; Video of Arrested Boston Terror Suspect; "The Cosby Show" Stars Believes Cosby Guilty; Photos of Pluto from Space Probe. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired July 15, 2015 - 11:30   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:3313:] KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: New this morning, the teenager who survived a plane crash then survived two days alone in the wilderness is now home from the hospital. She's 16-year-old Autumn Veatch. She arrived at her Bellingham, Washington, home late last night after a harrowing experience that she says claimed the lives of her grandparents.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Search crews believe they may have found the wreckage of the plane. And for the first time, we're now hearing the 911 call she made after the crash.

Our Sara Sidner joins us now with all the details.

Hey, Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John and Kate. This is an incredible story, almost unbelievable when you think about the circumstances. The area where this crash happened is considered to be the American Alps, it's rugged, difficult. And she managed to get out of there. According to the sheriff, though, she had lots of bruises and her hands were burned. Why were her hands burned? Because the sheriff says she tried to save her grandparents by pulling them out of the fiery wreckage.

Let's listen to the 911 call when she's asked if she's injured.

(BEGIN AUDIO FEED)

911 OPERATOR: Are you injured at all?

AUTUMN VEATCH, PLANE CRASH SURVIVOR; Yeah, I have a lot of burns on my hands and I'm, like, kind of covered in bruises and scratches and stuff.

(END AUDIO FEED)

SIDNER: She survived two days in the wilderness with those burns, with those bruises and scratches, but she made it finally to a hospital with the help of some good Samaritans. And her father is saying he's just so proud of her that she was able to get through this. A very strong young woman but she is recuperating in the apartment behind me with her father. She left the hospital yesterday and managed to get here last night -- John and Kate?

[11:35:00]BOLDUAN: And still trying to reach that wreckage. That's how far out it really is.

Sara, thank you so much for that.

Coming up for us, a father, a police captain in Boston, he turns his own son in to police, a son who's now accused of plotting an ISIS- inspired attack on college campuses. You're about to see the interrogation, this new video is just in.

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BERMAN: This morning we're hearing from a man for allegedly plotting mass murder in the name of ISIS. The FBI released its interrogation tape of 23-year-old Alexander Ciccolo.

BOLDUAN: He faces terrorism charges and during the FBI interrogation, Ciccolo expresses his support for ISIS. Listen to him here in his own words.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FBI AGENT: You know, ISIS this, ISIL that, all these things. What is your take on that? What do you feel about the group that calls themselves ISIS or ISIL?

Are they doing a good thing?

ALEXANDER CICCOLO, ARRESTED FOR ISIS-RELATED TERROR PLOT: Yeah. Yeah, they are. They're doing a good thing.

UNIDENTIFIED FBI AGENT: What part of what they're doing is good? What is -- this is education for us, too. So what is their ultimate goal? What are they doing -- what's good?

CICCOLO: They're implementing the Sharia. They're freeing people from oppression. Wherever they go, they're changing things. Finally, finally, establishing a caliphate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[11:20:03] Let's talk more about this. Alexandra Field is here with us, as well as CNN legal analyst, Danny Cevallos.

Alexandra, first to you.

You've been following this case. It's gotten a lot of attention, especially what he's saying in these tapes. The fact that his father is a veteran Boston Police Department officer.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's it. And this 23-year-old Massachusetts man arrested on felony weapons possession charges but the judge decided to hold him without bail after that video was played in open court. You hear him there. There are long pauses during this interview with the FBI agent. But you hear him talk about his feelings towards ISIS, express his support towards ISIS, which is the case the government was making, this is a man who had been plotting on ISIS-inspired attack. They had been monitoring his social media postings and recorded conversations that he had had with a witness cooperating with the joint terrorism task force. But they moved in. They made that arrest when they felt that he had obtained the weapons he needed to begin to enact the attack plans. Four firearms he received on July 4th. They then went into his apartment and found he had been working to construct Molotov cocktails. He had two machetes, a long knife. And he also purchased a pressure cooker. He makes it very clear that he was inspired by the Boston Marathon bombing attacks. We know that the explosives there were built with pressure cookers.

BERMAN: At the minimum, an affinity for ISIS.

Alexandra, before I move on, a key part of the story, this man does have a history of mental illness.

FIELD: That's right. And it was laid out in the court documents. He has a long history of mental illness. Acquaintances have said that this is somebody who has been treated in the past for mental illness. That's an important part of this case. While he expresses support for ISIS, it's certainly a factor that investigators are looking at and that the law has to take into account.

BOLDUAN: Danny, let's talk about these interrogation tapes that were released and what they mean for this case against him right now. They seem pretty damning on their face. But then his defense attorney came out to say, well, he's just expressing his beliefs. He's not advocating violence in what's been released so far.

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: What you are watching in that tape is a new era in federal law enforcement. It was only last year that the d. o. j. Issued a memorandum and started videotaping interviews like this. Until then, for decades, the format was two agents come in, one takes notes and the other one asks questions and at the end, they would type up an FBI 302 which really is the FBI agent's memory of the statement. And for years, defense attorneys argued, videotape it, record it. And the FBI resisted saying that doing so might reveal their interrogation techniques. But the irony here is when you look at that videotape, what defense attorneys had asked for, for so long, may be coming back to bite us because that's the example of a tape where you see a very unsympathetic defendant. A defendant who does not appear to be under any coercive environment, and saying some very damning things. So it may be that this -- the DOJ may be late to the game in videotaping interviews, but it may ultimately inure to their benefit, much to their surprise.

BERMAN: Nothing reflects more poorly on a defendant by saying you support ISIS or what ISIS does. But that's materially different than saying I'm plotting an ISIS attack. There may be other witnesses. But is anything he said in this tape against the law?

CEVALLOS: Not so fast. The way federal criminal statutes are written, anyone providing any kind of material support, which is -- the court's embattled over this. What does material support mean? May be guilty of a federal crime. And remember, he's also just being held right now on gun charges. Those interviews can and routinely do blossom into additional new investigations, so even those gun charges may mature into some other investigation and ultimately other charges.

BOLDUAN: Let's point out, it's just a small portion of the video that has been released. This was only the portion that was played in court. This could last an hour. It could last more. That part's not been made part of the public record. He could go on to say more.

His attorney has also pointed out the portion we see does not show him articulating or urging violence. It shows him responding to what his beliefs are.

BERMAN: Interesting case and an interesting bigger subject.

Danny Cevallos and Alexandra Field --

BOLDUAN: Thanks, guys.

BERMAN: -- thanks so much for being with us.

BOLDUAN: Coming up for us, an actor from "The Cosby Show" breaking his silence about the rape allegations against the star of the show, Bill Cosby. Why he thinks Bill Cosby is guilty. You're about to hear from him and his emotional story.

BERMAN: Plus, Pluto like you've never seen him, her, or it, before.

BOLDUAN: It.

(LAUGHTER)

BOLDUAN: History in the making. Take a good look at this. No one has ever seen this before. And now you have. And we have so much more to show you. The controversy over this planet coming up.

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[11:51:03] BOLDUAN: Marvet, this man has spoken, Judd Apatow has spoken, one of the celebrities speaking out so strongly about Bill Cosby. But you also have Whoopi Goldberg. She's an example of -- she for a long time on her show resisted kind of formulating an opinion. Just yesterday, coming out saying -- calling him a serial rapist. People in these circumstances want to know what celebrities think. What does a celebrity do about it? Other than Joseph C. Phillips, they know as much about this case as we do. What's your advice when you speak to them?

MARVET BRITTO, PRESIDENT & CEO, THE BRITTO AGENCY: I think celebrities know we're living in a day and age where anyone can say anything about you. At official part earns can be created. We're living in a culture of followers. If one person says it, another person says it. That doesn't mean it's the truth. We have to remember that we didn't hear the whole deposition. We didn't read the whole deposition. And I'm told there's aspects of the deposition where Bill Cosby didn't understand the line of questioning. So we have to be careful not to convict people. We went down the same path with Michael Jackson. There were allegations and he was acquitted and he -- his brand and the damage done to his brand, he never recovered from it. I think celebrities want to be careful because they know they can find themselves in the same situation.

We grew up with this man being the poster child for fatherhood so we all have this soft spot and the weakness for Bill Cosby, if you will, because we grew up adoring this man. So we find it difficult to believe this could be true. But I think at this point people like Whoopi Goldberg and other celebrities --

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: It makes it harder to believe it.

BRITTO: Yeah, definitely.

BOLDUAN: Marvet --

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: Marvet, thank you very much. It's great to see you.

BERMAN: Coming up from us, some planetary redemption. Pluto, the first pictures of this planet. Now that you've seen it --

BOLDUAN: Not a planet.

BERMAN: How could you possibly dis it? How could you continue to dis a planet that looks like this? And, yes, I'm calling it a planet. We will end the controversy with these historic pictures coming up next.

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[11:56:45] BERMAN: Pluto, I never doubted you for a second. Just a huge moment in galactic history. After a nine-year journey, the "New Horizon" spacecraft flew by Pluto and has sent the world just great pictures and sent scientists into a frenzy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Five, four, three, two, one!

(CHEERING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Looks like New Year's Eve for scientists.

It makes the U.S. the first nation to send a space probe to every planet. Though you all well know Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet.

BERMAN: Don't go dissing Pluto. BOLDUAN: It's not dissing. It's accuracy. I work in facts, John.

What can we learn from this?

Let's bring in Hakeem Oluseyl, an astrophysicist and host of "Outrageous Acts of Science" on the Science Channel.

Hakeem, I feel like this is an outrageous act of science. I was looking up the stats. This is a decade in the making and three billion miles in the making. It sounds like it's a big deal but why?

HAKEEM OLUSEYL, ASTROPHYSICIST & HOST, OUTRAGEOUS ACTS OF SCIENCE: It is such a big deal because, first off, we have completed or exploration of the classic solar system but what we may learn about planetary systems in general and even we might learn something about earth.

BERMAN: And Pluto's really far away. Pluto has been the most mysterious object I think in our solar system now for years. It hasn't been that long since we even knew that Pluto existed. So what do you hope to learn from this mission? Because we're going to get more great pictures in the next 24 hours.

BOLDUAN: There's a new photo right there.

OLUSEYL: That's right. So the best stuff is yet to come so we'll receive a deluge of more images from the closest approach to Pluto. One of the things we may learn is whether or not there is active geology this far out in the solar system. We see tantalizing evidence so far. Especially when we compare Pluto. Pluto has methane and nitrogen ice, Sharon has water ice. So I'm excited to see what's coming next.

BOLDUAN: I'm excited to talk about it being a dwarf planet. We have been fighting about this all morning because we didn't have anything else to fight about. Please, remind us why Pluto was classified as a dwarf planet. Is there any chance the new information that's coming out that will be coming out will change our understanding of Pluto once again?

OLUSEYL: Well, we're going to change our understanding of Pluto but it's going to remain dwarf planet. It's less than half the size of our moon. Second, our current perspective about the solar system is that is not just the sun and nine planets but rather it's the sun and various families of objects. The terrestrial planets are one family, the asteroids are a family, the Jovian planets are a family, the Kuiper Belt objects are a family, of which Pluto is the largest known member. There's another member is more as massive, Aries. Then we have the ort cloud. So we're just discovering the Kuiper Belt in detail. So this is a whole new world of study.

BOLDUAN: I feel smarter already.

BERMAN: I love seeing these pictures.

Hakeem Oluseyl, thank you so much for being here. Great to have you with us.

OLUSEYL: Thank you for having me. Thank you so much.

BOLDUAN: Thanks so much.

And thank you for joining us AT THIS HOUR.

BERMAN: "LEGAL VIEW" starts right now.