The Megyn Kelly Show - Diddy NOT Guilty on Most Serious Charges, and Bryan Kohberger Takes Plea Deal, with Aidala, Holloway, Blum, Murphy

00:00:00.600 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:12.160 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. I'm Megyn Kelly. We've had an extraordinary day of legal news,

00:00:18.060 probably the biggest day we've had in years. I don't know. The Trump stuff was pretty big,

00:00:22.160 and this is pretty big too. Not only did we get the Diddy verdict, but we did get a guilty plea

00:00:28.820 in the Brian Kohlberger homicide case out of Idaho. We have it covered. We covered it live today for

00:00:36.320 those of you who are with us on our live YouTube streams, which we did for both pieces of breaking

00:00:41.340 news. Thank you for those of you who missed it. We've got our live coverage here, plus some. So

00:00:46.360 you are going to hear not only live reaction to the Diddy verdict as it came in from Phil Holloway

00:00:50.700 and Arthur Idala and yours truly, but you are going to hear the Brian Kohlberger guilty plea from him

00:00:57.580 and our instant analysis thereafter. What a day. I've got so many mixed feelings about

00:01:05.460 everything we saw today. You'll hear them all in the following program. Thank you for listening.

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00:02:27.120 Good morning, everyone. There is breaking news out of a federal courthouse in New York where Sean Combs

00:02:33.260 has been found not guilty on the majority of counts against him and has been found guilty of only the

00:02:40.780 two least serious crimes that he was charged with. There is little question that this is a defeat for

00:02:47.960 the prosecution. The two counts on which he's been found guilty are transportation to engage in

00:02:53.860 prostitution. There were two counts of it with respect to Cassie Ventura and Jane, who testified under a

00:03:01.720 pseudonym, and he has been found not guilty on racketeering, not guilty on sex trafficking with

00:03:07.420 respect to Cassie Ventura and with respect to Jane. Both of those sex trafficking counts required

00:03:14.560 15 years minimum in prison. The RICO count that he's been found not guilty of was a sentence of 20

00:03:22.460 to life, though it didn't have a mandatory minimum. So the sex trafficking ones were extremely serious,

00:03:26.920 15 years minimum. And he's escaped liability on both of those. He's escaped criminal guilt on both

00:03:34.820 of those. It was a it was going to be a miracle. It was going to be an obvious jury nullification if

00:03:42.060 he escaped a guilty verdict on transportation to engage in prostitution. The evidence was overwhelming

00:03:48.420 that he did that. There were receipts. There was testimony by the escorts. It was very clear that

00:03:54.020 Sean Combs did pay these male escorts to cross state lines and to come into his various hotel rooms

00:04:00.200 and have sex with his girlfriends, Cassie and Jane. And they had him dead to rights on that. I mean,

00:04:07.480 he really should have pled guilty on those. And I've been saying all along, if they found him not guilty

00:04:11.900 on those, it would prove that this has been a total nullification of the jury. He was a famous man

00:04:17.760 and they didn't want to find him guilty because it's very clear he did those two. It is stunning

00:04:22.760 that he managed to escape a guilty verdict on Rico, less stunning on Rico, but on sex trafficking,

00:04:28.980 where the evidence was just overwhelming on the fact that he did threaten at least Cassie and Jane

00:04:37.980 over and over again. He beat both women when they would not comply with his demands. But clearly what

00:04:45.580 we're seeing here is the jury bought and believed the defense argument that these women had agency,

00:04:53.140 that these women were not forced to do anything. The defense got up there and argued that they were

00:05:00.380 swingers, that they were engaging in a swinger lifestyle, notwithstanding the beatings it took

00:05:08.600 to get them to comply in certain instances. The jury clearly bought that. There was testimony that

00:05:16.080 would be helpful for the defense. I don't mean to scoff at the conclusion entirely. There was

00:05:20.580 testimony to support a not guilty, including text messages from Cassie Ventura saying, I can't wait to

00:05:26.980 freak off. I love our freak offs when we both want them. And testimony that Cassie stayed in part

00:05:33.240 because she loved the lifestyle. She loved the trappings of life with Diddy and Jane is still

00:05:40.500 having her apartment paid for by Sean Combs to this moment. And, um, there definitely could be a

00:05:47.480 takeaway that Jane was in it because she wanted the apartment and she wanted to be connected with

00:05:53.220 somebody famous and rich and not because she had any fear for her life or otherwise, or retribution.

00:06:00.000 If she submitted, um, New York times reporting here, color from inside the courtroom, Sean Combs is

00:06:05.700 smiling. Um, as he shook one of his lawyer's hands and turned again to look at his family,

00:06:11.020 he put his hands together in prayer and mouth. Thank you. Thank you at the jury. That's the right

00:06:15.460 thing to say. Sean Combs, he pumped his right fist. Yep. This is exactly the right attitude for Sean

00:06:23.160 Combs who just got away with serious felonies. In my view, he's guilty as sin in my view. And this

00:06:30.740 jury just gave him a total pass. They bought Mark Agnifolo's argument. It appears the same one that

00:06:37.120 did not work for Agnifolo in the NXIVM sex cult case out of Albany, New York, in which he went in

00:06:42.880 there and said, these women, we don't do sex cults. Women are powerful. Women make their own

00:06:48.620 decisions. These women up in this other case chose to have themselves branded. No one made them with

00:06:53.680 his guy's initials. And he tried the same thing here, but with a much, much better result.

00:06:58.360 This, this is a win for Sean Diddy Combs. There's no question about it. The, um, minimum charge,

00:07:05.460 uh, or the charges likely on, um, this particular count are far less serious. It's, uh, it calls for

00:07:13.320 up to 10 years in prison. There's no way he's going to get 10 years in prison on these two,

00:07:18.100 unless you have a judge who's very, very angry for some reason. Um, we looked at the, the federal

00:07:24.940 sentencing guidelines, which are just recommendations. The judge doesn't have to follow them. Um, he can go

00:07:29.780 any place between zero and 10, but, um, we, we deduced that he has an offense level of about 26 points,

00:07:36.540 which calls for a sentence of 5.25 years to 6.5 years in prison. The, the base offense level for

00:07:45.460 this crime, we deduce to be about 14. This is all on a sliding scale. Plus you add another four levels

00:07:50.160 because the offense may have involved coercion anyway. Um, and then another four for causing

00:07:55.580 another person to engage in a sexual act. So if they believe that if this judge says that's what

00:08:00.220 happened, he could be facing five or six years in prison on each count, they would be likely to run

00:08:06.220 consecutive, although it's possible the judge could say they run, um, one after the other,

00:08:11.640 um, or, or together congruent. So we'll see, uh, likely to run at the same time is my, my view.

00:08:17.740 There's no way he's getting more than five years in prison. Uh, uh, but that won't, the sentencing

00:08:21.320 won't happen today. Um, that'll happen. I believe it another, at another hearing, I want to bring in

00:08:27.000 Phil Holloway. He's been watching this case. Uh, you know, him from our coverage of the Fannie Willis

00:08:32.000 matter. Uh, he's a trial attorney down in Atlanta, Georgia and Phil, you had been feeling and predicting

00:08:39.540 that we were headed for a likely NG. Um, I realize it's not a full, not guilty, but anybody who tells

00:08:45.640 you this isn't a win for Diddy is lying to you. This is an absolute win for him. And that's why he's

00:08:50.300 pumping his fist and smiling today. Your thoughts. Well, thanks for having me. It's always great to be

00:08:56.100 with you here, Megan. Look, um, this is about many things, but at the heart of this verdict, I think

00:09:03.080 is reasonable doubt. I mean, all it takes, uh, for a jury to find someone not guilty is one doubt

00:09:11.160 for which a reason can be attached. And if you have, um, statements made by victims, you, you've read some

00:09:19.760 of them, uh, in your opening just now where these alleged victims had expressed a willingness and a

00:09:26.780 desire to participate in some of these things. It is a very difficult thing for a prosecutor sometimes

00:09:33.900 to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that despite those statements and despite that evidence, they are

00:09:40.420 in fact victims. Okay. And so the jury is probably going to leave there thinking, you know what?

00:09:46.360 He's a slimy person. He's a terrible person. He's probably guilty of all of these things, but

00:09:51.980 the prosecution was just unable to prove to us beyond a reasonable doubt, all the elements of

00:09:57.960 the crimes as to the, uh, the rest of the counts. And look, whatever the judge does give him in terms

00:10:03.500 of sentencing, there's no parole speak of in the federal system. Um, and it's entirely possible that

00:10:09.940 these are not run consecutively or concurrently. They could in fact be stacked potentially. Um,

00:10:16.080 and there's no reason to think that the judge is going to stay necessarily within, uh, the

00:10:21.180 sentencing guidelines. It's very possible that the judge, uh, maxes out whatever is possible on,

00:10:27.520 on what he's been convicted of. So, um, for a man of his age, you know, even a five or six or seven

00:10:33.120 year prison sentence in the federal system is not insignificant at all. Now I do agree with you

00:10:39.600 on balance. This was a win. He's already been in custody for, um, you know, 10 months or so.

00:10:46.100 I think it is now, and he will get credit for that. So, uh, for Diddy and for his team, there is a

00:10:51.740 something of a light at the end of his tunnel, but it's not over yet. The sentencing could still be

00:10:57.800 relatively severe under the circumstances.

00:11:00.440 The, um, my team's informing me if there are no enhancements, no enhancements to the sent to the

00:11:07.140 bare minimum sentencing under the transportation to engage in prostitution charges. Um, one conviction

00:11:12.940 of, uh, on this charge would be 15 to 21 months. Um, two counts convicted under two counts, which is

00:11:20.220 what he has been is 21 to 27 months. So about two years, but we believe that there will be enhancements

00:11:27.260 given the level that he was accused of coercion and so on. Um, so we'll see. So we're looking at

00:11:32.900 probably two, I mean, it technically could be up to 10 years, but it's not going to be that because

00:11:36.780 he has a criminal record, but he did not. It's not so great that he served jail for more than 30,

00:11:42.440 uh, days or, or got to the point where this would be held against him. They, in other words,

00:11:46.620 they don't count his criminal history against him unless he was sentenced to more than a year of

00:11:50.560 probation or 30 days in jail on prior offenses. And he wasn't. So it's as if he had no, um, prior

00:11:56.720 offenses, New York times reporting that Mark Ignifolo, Sean Combs, his lead lawyer has asked

00:12:01.220 that his client be released ahead of sentencing. Now that he is no longer facing sex trafficking

00:12:06.540 and racketeering conspiracy charges, much more serious charges than the ones that he was convicted

00:12:11.160 on. He's saying Combs is not a flight risk because he does not have access to his passport or his plane.

00:12:17.780 This is his first conviction. He says, and it's a prostitution offense. And so he should be released

00:12:21.780 on appropriate conditions. Ignifolo said the lawyer is asking that Mr. Combs returned to his home in Miami,

00:12:26.300 in Miami beach, Florida. That's very interesting. And he's probably going to win that. I think we'll

00:12:31.020 see, um, bringing in now, Arthur Idala famed criminal defense attorney, but also has a history

00:12:36.840 as a prosecutor back when he was younger, uh, just got off of the Harvey Weinstein trial himself

00:12:41.420 and your reaction, Arthur, to the breaking news that Sean Combs basically won this case,

00:12:46.780 but for two prostitution counts. It's a tremendous, it's a tremendous victory. And here's why I'm

00:12:52.600 personally happy. The prosecutor who brought the case, Damien Williams, I don't think he was a good

00:13:00.020 guy. I don't think he was a good, uh, U S attorney in the Southern district. I think his personal

00:13:04.360 ambitions just clouded his judgment. I mean, he was going around telling people quietly that he was

00:13:10.880 positioning himself to run for president of the United States. And he wanted to bring down Combs.

00:13:16.420 He wanted to bring on the mayor of the city of New York. That was his ambition. And the conviction

00:13:21.580 rates are so high in the Southern district that once you get indicted, it's, it's over 90% when you

00:13:28.960 go to trial. So, um, this is a huge victory for, uh, for the, for the defense for Sean, because there's

00:13:37.660 no mandatory minimum. You know, you and I spoke yesterday, all these other counts, the judge,

00:13:42.020 if it was his uncle has to send him to prison, but that's not the case here. Um, however, I don't

00:13:48.460 think this judge is going to give him a walk in the park either. He's definitely giving him jail

00:13:53.180 time. The judge is allowed to take into consideration all of the factors he heard during

00:13:58.420 this trial, even the ones he was acquitted of. Uh, I was involved in the case where it was a murder

00:14:03.580 case in federal court. The guy was acquitted of the murder, but there was a drug aspect of it

00:14:08.980 that he was convicted of. He should have gotten three or four years. And the judge gave him the

00:14:13.020 maximum with all the enhancements and she's put on the record. I'm taking into account all the facts

00:14:19.440 I heard about the murder. So Sean Combs could be home in a very short amount of time, or you can,

00:14:25.140 you know, I think it's up to 10 years, uh, that he can be, he can, uh, be sentenced to. So if you're

00:14:30.680 the defense attorney though, Megan, you're, you're, you're very, uh, satisfied with the outcome of this

00:14:37.760 case. You're thrilled. You can't say thrilled because your client did get found guilty on two

00:14:42.880 counts, but you're thrilled. This guy was looking at life in prison, life in prison. If he got

00:14:50.660 convicted on the Rico count and those sex trafficking counts, two of them, one for Cassie,

00:14:55.040 one for Jane are no joke. 15 years minimum require the judge has no discretion. So, um, you know,

00:15:05.560 he, he managed to skate on both of those, this coming in now, uh, that the defense, again,

00:15:11.520 trying to argue for his freedom, pending sentencing, they suggested a $1 million bond.

00:15:16.260 Um, the judge had rejected that pending trial. They, they asked repeatedly to get Sean Combs out

00:15:21.080 on bail pending trial. And the judge repeatedly said, no, um, the government here vehemently opposing

00:15:26.600 Sean Combs is release. The lead prosecutor, Maureen Comey saying the defense is underplaying the

00:15:31.500 seriousness of the conviction and is urging the judge to keep him detained. What kind of factors

00:15:37.320 would go into that analysis? Guys, do you know, like what, when the judge, you got a conviction,

00:15:42.320 but it's two prostitution counts. I mean, they are felony counts, but I don't know. Would you

00:15:47.500 normally detain a guy like this? Megan, all I can say is this. If they put it forth, the same bail

00:15:53.240 package that they have put forth where he was going to have to stay in his house, pay for his own

00:15:58.500 security, obviously have ankle bondage on, have no electronic devices in his house, except like a

00:16:04.300 landline old school telephone to communicate with people, it would be so beyond the pale. It would be

00:16:11.440 such an injustice for this judge not to give him bail under those conditions based on this conviction.

00:16:19.640 If, if, if Sean Combs or anyone went in and pled guilty to this count, you would be looking at a,

00:16:26.240 probably a non-jail disposition. You'd probably be looking at some form of probation. I don't think

00:16:33.480 he's going to get probation because of the jail, the notoriety, who he is, but he absolutely, he's

00:16:38.520 not a danger to society under those bail conditions. He's not a flight risk under those bail conditions.

00:16:44.440 He's no longer facing mandatory jail time. So the judge definitely, definitely should be giving him

00:16:51.920 some sort of bail package. I don't see it that way. Right now, the New York Times reporting, the judge

00:16:56.060 said he needs time to consider the law before making a decision on whether Combs can walk out of the

00:17:01.500 courthouse today. He's been incarcerated since September of 2024. I mean, how much time can the

00:17:08.800 judge take here? He sends him back to prison. It's like, I don't know, how much time is he going to

00:17:13.380 take? If I can feel that one, I have a little bit different take on it, Megan. Look, he's, he no

00:17:19.640 longer has the presumption of innocence, right? At least with respect to the charges he was convicted

00:17:24.760 of. So there's no right to, to bail, like there might be arguably a right to bail in, in a pre-trial

00:17:31.960 situation, at least if you meet the criteria. In this case, the judge already knows whether or not

00:17:38.340 he's thinking about sending Combs to prison for some extended period of time. And if he's going

00:17:45.060 to send him to prison, there's no real, um, it doesn't really make sense to go ahead and release

00:17:51.040 him now. If he's going to be giving him some additional jail time, why let him out? Go ahead

00:17:56.080 and let him begin serving that now. Um, he's, he's, he's already convicted. The judge has heard all of

00:18:03.400 the evidence of all of the, uh, terrible things that, uh, Combs has done during his life. And

00:18:09.640 particularly with respect to some of these, uh, women, the, uh, domestic violence, the drugs,

00:18:15.200 all of it, he's heard all of this stuff. And so if he is thinking, look, look, look, if I'm the judge

00:18:20.600 and if I'm thinking, okay, I'm going to be sending him, let's just say it's going to be a three or four

00:18:24.300 year prison sentence. I'm going to say, no, you're not going to get out on bail. You're going to go ahead

00:18:28.420 and stay in custody. We'll sentence you next month. But that way this time is counting towards

00:18:34.040 the overall sentence. On the other hand, if the judge is thinking, okay, I'm going to let him out

00:18:38.600 on probation. Well, and he, and if he lets him out on bond, then that could be an indicator that the

00:18:43.420 judge is thinking about probation or some lower jail term. I don't think the judge is thinking

00:18:48.440 about a bare minimum jail term, maybe not the maximum, probably something in the middle. And in my

00:18:54.020 view that would weigh in favor of keeping him in custody, denying the bail package. It doesn't do

00:19:00.600 much good to let somebody go home to Miami beach just to order them back to prison a few months

00:19:05.840 later, at least in my view. No, no, that's a great, that actually is a great point. And I will tell

00:19:10.800 you from what my clients tell me, the hardest part about going to prison is going to prison is actually

00:19:16.340 those first days. And right now, believe it or not, Sean Combs has a routine. It may have been thrown

00:19:21.220 off for the trial, but you know, he knows all the people, he knows the guards, he knows the commissary,

00:19:26.140 he knows the work. So he's in a relatively comfort zone as opposed to him leaving and then going back,

00:19:33.000 which makes things more difficult. However, these charges in the world of federal criminal law

00:19:38.800 are pretty minute. There, I mean, it is a felony. It's not the same as like hiring a prostitute and

00:19:47.360 like getting caught in hotel room with her, right? Transportation to engage in prostitution

00:19:51.640 as a federal crime is a felony with real jail time attached to it. So this is not that petty,

00:19:57.780 Annie. It's not as small as it could be, but yeah, compared to the other charges he was facing,

00:20:02.160 here's one other bit of color for you. Um, New York times report reporting. This won't surprise you.

00:20:07.040 Combs's body language is totally different from yesterday when he seemed crestfallen and grim

00:20:12.100 after the jury said it had reached a verdict on four of the five counts. Now acquitted of the most

00:20:17.740 serious charges, Mr. Combs appears energetic and relieved. Can we just talk about, here's the

00:20:23.360 picture. Here's a sketch artists picture of Combs yesterday of the grimness. And, um, I'm sure we'll

00:20:29.700 get one today of him looking much more relieved. I I'm so confused about, um, here's a little bit more

00:20:36.520 New York times with a touch of levity. The judge said he assumed Combs would not want to return to the

00:20:41.280 Brooklyn jail where he had, he has been held. Combs shook his head vigorously and put his hands

00:20:46.960 together in prayer. Oh, it's all just so chummy inside the courtroom for this disgusting pervert

00:20:52.500 female abuser who I can't believe is about to roam our streets again. I'm sorry. I'm disgusted by this

00:20:59.940 verdict. This is fucking ridiculous. I just find it absolutely outrageous. The amount of crime that

00:21:05.300 this guy just got away with. I believe he committed arson. He definitely battered Cassie. He battered

00:21:10.600 Jane to the statute of limitations for battery in Los Angeles and California is one year,

00:21:16.680 one year. So if they didn't charge him for battery within one year and they couldn't because he bought

00:21:22.100 the tape and it remained hidden thanks to those security guards out there, then they could never

00:21:27.160 charge him with that again. There's no question. He dragged her back into that hotel room. Why wasn't

00:21:32.180 that kidnapping? They only talked about the kidnapping of, of, um, Capricorn Clark, who was his,

00:21:38.340 his sort of main assistant because she said he grabbed her and made her go with him over to kid

00:21:44.360 Cuddy's house. There's no question. He broke into kid Cuddy's house in my view, and that he opened up

00:21:49.200 the Christmas presents and locked the door in and made a threat. There's no question in my mind.

00:21:53.080 He was behind the arson of kid Cuddy's car. And there was proof, plenty of proof to prove that

00:21:58.420 no. Okay. There was female fingerprints. They found on that, um, the fire bomb that was left

00:22:03.340 there, the Molotov cocktail and the prosecution said, there's no question. He didn't do it himself,

00:22:07.600 but he said, I'm going to bomb kid Cuddy's car. It's in writing. Cassie Ventura emailed her mother

00:22:14.040 saying, Oh my God, he's threatening to bomb his car. And two weeks later it got bombed. Oh gee,

00:22:19.220 it was just some third party who also had, it's just, it's just like the proof was there,

00:22:22.680 the beatings, the threats that if they didn't go back into those room and get off with these

00:22:27.660 male escorts that they were going to get beaten. The testimony from that Daniel Phillip, who was

00:22:32.220 the male escort, who heard Combs abusing Cassie behind the door and she was screaming, I'm sorry,

00:22:39.100 I'm sorry. As he heard him slapping her, get back out there. She came back out. She was shaking.

00:22:43.640 She got back into the escort's lap, physically shaking. She was so scared to the point where that

00:22:48.520 guy couldn't perform sexually because this was so horrifying to him. What, what in the actual F

00:22:55.080 went on in there? So Megan, let me, wait, let me, let me just get Megan more pissed off if I may.

00:23:04.160 So if the judge gives him a reasonable sentence, let's say he sends it to five years. Okay. And

00:23:10.200 he's already got time in Atlanta with a halfway house. He's out in three. How quick is he going

00:23:15.300 to be accepted back into that Hollywood scene? Blah, blah, blah, blah. Or do you think people

00:23:21.620 will still keep him at arm's length? I mean, look, I will make it my personal mission to

00:23:27.900 maintain his humiliation in the minds of all Americans. There's no question. He, he, he's

00:23:34.280 fallen as this revered figure for a large portion of America, but he also has diehard fans who want to

00:23:41.380 pretend this is a Johnny Depp situation, you know, where, where he was wrongfully accused. That's,

00:23:46.660 that's my own view by somebody who was out to get him who played the victim when in fact she was

00:23:51.220 abusive. This is not that situation. This is not Cassandra Ventura was an extremely sympathetic

00:23:56.680 witness who was not some powerful, I'm going to play kid Cuddy against John Combs. She was

00:24:03.220 traumatized by this guy. She remains suicidal to this day, given all that was done to her.

00:24:08.920 Listen to this. I'm like, I almost don't even want to read these updates.

00:24:13.220 New York time. Sean Combs is now on his knees, his elbows on the chair where he was sitting,

00:24:19.020 his head buried. He appeared to be praying. He started, he started a round of applause,

00:24:26.700 which was echoed by his family who are jubilant. Yay. Yay. We're, we only have an abuser and a solicitor

00:24:33.760 of prostitutes in the family, not a sex trafficker. Sean Combs, his supporters and family are now

00:24:38.960 clapping and whistling for his legal team who are all embracing each other. They actually did get a

00:24:44.120 victory and that's different. I mean, they should be, they should be hugging. Go ahead, Phil.

00:24:48.260 The judge is allowing that kind of thing in the court.

00:24:50.160 Yeah. I'm surprised about that also.

00:24:52.020 Yeah. What's that about?

00:24:53.900 Or maybe the judge is all back. There's no place in the courtroom for this because look,

00:24:58.060 regardless of whether or not you agree or disagree with the verdict, there's a certain dignity and

00:25:04.780 decorum that's only appropriate, that's appropriate for courtrooms. And in federal courts, judges are

00:25:10.420 famous for enforcing it oftentimes much more so than at the state level. But look back to your whole

00:25:16.340 thing. Well, this is a Biden appointee. So who knows about the dignity required? Sorry, keep going.

00:25:22.060 Back to your dismay with the jury's verdict. Look, juries are always wild cards. You got 12

00:25:27.940 people in there that come from different backgrounds, different walks of life. They have different

00:25:32.140 political philosophies. They have different religious philosophies. They have their own

00:25:36.460 biases, whether they say they can leave them outside the courtroom or not. They bring them in there

00:25:40.880 and they analyze and they view things. And sometimes jurors are just stupid. Sometimes they're

00:25:46.000 just dumb. Sometimes they're not capable of understanding the law or following the judge's

00:25:50.740 instructions. So you factor all of that in there. And what you've got is a system where, guess what?

00:25:55.700 After doing this almost 40 years, I have come to the conclusion that you cannot trust jurors to ever

00:26:03.440 get it right, whether you're a prosecutor or whether you're a defense lawyer. Jurors and juries cannot

00:26:08.740 be trusted to get it right. They get it wrong a lot. And that is what usually brings people to the

00:26:16.260 bargaining table to come up with, you know, plea deals like we have seen maybe in the Koberger case

00:26:21.280 coming up today. But look, you just can't trust a jury ever to get to the right result. Sometimes they

00:26:28.900 do, but a lot of times, unfortunately, they don't. And that cuts both ways for the prosecution and the

00:26:33.920 defense.

00:26:35.100 I'm so confused on what the jury has done here. Like when you factor in the notes we got yesterday,

00:26:41.060 Arthur, we get a note saying they reached a verdict on counts two through five, but they couldn't agree on

00:26:47.280 count one, which was the racketeering conspiracy. Now we find out that at that time, we assume it

00:26:52.420 didn't change. They thought he was guilty of the prostitution stuff, but they did not think that he

00:26:56.880 was a sex trafficker who forced Cassie and Jane to perform sex acts under threat of coercion or fraud.

00:27:05.280 And yet they were, they were about to be a hung jury on the Rico count. Now I don't get it. And then

00:27:11.300 today, I guess the, the holdouts who said, I think he's guilty of Rico this morning, turned around and

00:27:16.020 said, all right, he's not, he's not because they, they acquitted him of that. I don't get it because

00:27:20.000 to prove to how, how was there a juror who said he didn't sex traffic, but he might be guilty of

00:27:28.000 Rico? I guess there, somebody was looking at the Rico statute saying maybe he did do the arson.

00:27:32.860 Maybe he did do the drug selling.

00:27:35.160 Right. The other predicate, right. There were other predicate acts that they didn't have to be the ones

00:27:40.360 he was charged with. They were ones outside of the charge crimes that they could have said,

00:27:46.020 those were predicate acts and therefore he's guilty of the racketeering. Look, I'm happy he

00:27:51.380 didn't, you know, look, I got enough. I'm with you about who Sean Combs is as a person, but as someone

00:27:57.820 who works in the system, this Rico law has really been abused as of late. And because from what it is,

00:28:05.080 an original intent was to what they're using it for now. So I'm happy that this didn't play out

00:28:10.880 or maybe they were confused on, well, even if he did do some of the other predicate acts is his

00:28:18.980 business, which is music and recording and taking care of other artists and clothing and alcohol and

00:28:25.400 all of this stuff. Is that really a criminal enterprise or is it a legitimate enterprise

00:28:29.620 that Mr. Combs individually did some criminality with? So it probably got a little confusing,

00:28:37.320 a little mixed up. I'm happy. Maybe this will have a chilling effect on prosecutors across the

00:28:42.900 country to just be throwing these Rico counts around where they are not really deserved. But

00:28:49.080 Megan, it also goes to, you'd never know what happens when a jury goes out overnight and they

00:28:55.340 go home and they go to sleep and they think about it. And let's face it, the Sean Combs stuff is popping

00:29:00.140 up all over everyone's phone in the back of the cab. So who knows what they heard? Who knows what

00:29:05.420 they absorbed and what changed, but something changed really quickly, right? It's not like

00:29:09.840 they were in there and it's three o'clock this afternoon. I mean, they came in, they must have

00:29:13.640 taken a new vote and it was over. No, and they were not sequestered. So they had access to their

00:29:18.900 friends and family and who knows how that went and whose input, if any, they took during that timeframe.

00:29:24.500 Want to say this, uh, this just happened inside the courtroom. Um, the court, the times reporting,

00:29:30.800 the court is adjourning for a few hours while the judge considers the arguments from Mr. Combs's

00:29:35.440 lawyers and prosecutors about whether he should be released, uh, inner city press, which is an

00:29:40.140 organization that's been reporting on this from the beginning says, yes. Okay. That, that proposal

00:29:44.700 wait a couple hours, give me a couple hours. That makes sense. Mr. Combs does not want to go back

00:29:48.820 to the detention center. He is shaking his head. So something about at 1 PM we'll convene and I'll let

00:29:56.200 the parties know. So I'm not sure exactly whether he gives the decision at one or they're just going

00:30:01.580 to reconvene. Megan, what's happening right now is a very young inexperienced judge is now going in

00:30:07.860 the Southern district of New York where there are literally judges there appointed. I think rolling

00:30:12.980 back to George HW Bush, there's definitely a bunch of Clinton employees, meaning people who have been

00:30:17.200 on the bench for 35, 40 years, and he's going to have his one or two mentors and he's going to their

00:30:23.420 chambers or picking their brain somehow or another and say, what do you think I should do? Uh, not to

00:30:28.600 embarrass myself because it always comes down to covering your own butt with these judges, in my

00:30:33.620 opinion. And then that, that's how he's going to make it. Cause he's not looking up any case law.

00:30:38.060 There's no case law on this. It's his discretion. You know what the case law is? It's totally in his

00:30:43.040 discretion. So he's going to go and ask judge Lewis Kaplan, who was the one who tried the Trump case.

00:30:48.880 He's going to go look at all, you know, all these, these famous, the guy who just did the Menendez case,

00:30:53.120 um, a judge Stein. He's, he was, those are both in Clinton appointees. They've been around for

00:30:58.180 decades and you know, he'll say, what do you think? What do you think? What do you think? And then

00:31:01.600 he'll do what, whatever he thinks is in his best interest. So what do you think before I toss?

00:31:06.840 Yeah, go ahead, Phil. Yeah, you go. I bet what, and he's, he's exactly correct. That's what the judge

00:31:11.480 is doing. He's just going back and asking another judge, what am I supposed to do under these

00:31:15.400 circumstances? And I bet the advice that he gets is something along the lines of, look, do you think you're

00:31:20.500 going to send him to prison for any length of time? If the answer is yes, maybe consider keeping him

00:31:26.020 in jail. Um, if you're not sure that you're going to send him to prison, um, maybe let him go on house

00:31:31.800 arrest until you figure that out. Or maybe you already know that you're not going to send him

00:31:35.780 to any significant prison. And in which case, you know, that would make sense to go ahead and let

00:31:40.240 him out. But I think the best advice that any other judge could give this newbie judge would be

00:31:46.480 look, keep him in jail. If you think you're going to send him back to prison, because once you let

00:31:53.200 him out, you're going to start getting all kinds of motions to delay report dates, to, to, to delay

00:31:58.780 this, to delay that. And it's just going to open up a big can of worms that maybe you don't want to

00:32:04.000 open. So if you're going to send him to prison, leave him be where he is right now.

00:32:08.440 And what about you guys, does this even factor in the safety of these women? What about the safety

00:32:17.000 of Cassie Ventura and Jane and Mia, who was another woman who testified against him under a

00:32:22.980 pseudonym, but he knows very well who she is and who all these women are. And I'm sorry, but this is

00:32:28.400 a man I believe blew up another man's car because he was dating Combs's girlfriend there. I still have

00:32:36.400 questions about how Combs's first wife died. I don't have evidence to show he killed her.

00:32:41.320 She died of pneumonia, but it was very suspicious. And if you believe the draft diary, the alleged

00:32:46.960 diary that hit YouTube, her friends, the, the, the dead wife's friends believe he had something to do

00:32:53.680 with it. He was involved in this, in shooting someone in the face in a nightclub. And that victim

00:32:59.560 says he did it even though another man went to prison for it. But that man is saying, did he paid

00:33:05.460 him off to take the rap? And we've heard weeks now, seven weeks of testimony about how he's beaten

00:33:11.960 these women to a pulp when he was allegedly in love with them, not when they were taking the stand

00:33:18.640 in a federal trial against him, trying to get him locked up for the rest of his life. Does the judge

00:33:23.800 consider that at all, Arthur, that he may be a danger if you let him out to these women?

00:33:28.560 It's the primary thing that he's going to consider. The two primary things are a danger to society

00:33:34.660 and risk of flight. It feels 100% correct. I mean, if the judge is thinking about keeping him and

00:33:42.560 like sentencing him to jail time, and I have, look, I've been wrong a lot of times and I've been right.

00:33:47.060 I'm going to be shocked if he sentences him to like time served and five years probation,

00:33:51.020 but you never know. But yes, dangerousness, absolutely. That's why I think if he does let

00:33:59.520 him out, I think he's going to, he should severely limit his ability to communicate outside of his

00:34:06.040 like lawyering and his immediate family with a landline phone that could be monitored. But, but

00:34:11.840 if human instinct or common sense is going to play a role, I think it's fair to say that Sean had the

00:34:19.440 life scared out of him, like literally the life scared out of him because this judge,

00:34:24.040 if he, if the prosecutor ran the table, I don't know if Sean Collins was ever going to see the

00:34:28.160 light of day. So, you know, if I'm his lawyer and I've been in this position where I've gotten

00:34:33.000 people cleared of major, major crimes. And I said, listen, the only way I'm going to come and hit

00:34:36.980 you in the head with a bat is if you ever get in trouble again, because don't tell me I put my

00:34:41.160 family aside. I put my life aside to save your backside. And you're going to do anything like this again.

00:34:46.040 I imagine there's going to be a long-term relationship between Mark Magnifolo and Sean

00:34:49.780 Combs and Mark is going to do everything he can to make sure that Sean at the very least doesn't

00:34:55.140 hurt anybody else. His power is about to end. He did, he's just a cog in the wheel of the Sean

00:35:01.480 Combs empire. He's nothing to Sean Combs. He'll, he'll be grateful to him. He's not going to have

00:35:05.580 ongoing control over Sean Combs. No one has control over Sean Combs. That's what we learned

00:35:10.540 in this case, Phil, that he's the whole alleged enterprise was set up to treat him like he was

00:35:17.400 God. There was testimony from, you know, the one, the one woman who worked for him that she was the

00:35:22.840 one, she had to be available 24 seven. She was not allowed to sleep with a lock on her door in his

00:35:27.480 home. Whereas all the male employees could, the security guards, they could, but her lock had to

00:35:33.260 stay undone and he would go in there. And she said, it sexually assault her. I've realized these things

00:35:39.800 are complicated. Was it, did she say no at the time? Was she overwhelmed that it was Sean Combs

00:35:44.480 and she didn't say anything? Is that fair to hold against him? If she didn't, well, all that's

00:35:48.040 complicated. My point is simply everybody was there to serve Sean Combs. And the reason he's behaved with

00:35:55.000 impunity for all this time is because everyone around him has let him that that hotel intercontinental

00:36:01.220 security guard took the money, the head of security blessed it. And he took 50 grand and he gave 50

00:36:09.760 grand to the underling who then split his 50 with another guy. There was only one honest guy of the

00:36:15.980 bunch who didn't take the money. The first guy on scene at the hotel didn't take the money, but did

00:36:21.680 take out his phone and videotaped the hotel surveillance cameras because I, he said he wanted to show it to

00:36:28.420 his wife, but I'm sure he had a little feeling someone else might take the money. That's the only

00:36:33.400 reason CNN years later got this tape and we, and these jurors saw who Sean Combs really is. So it's

00:36:43.180 just, I just don't think the lawyer's not going to have ongoing influence over this. Look at this guy,

00:36:49.460 this thug, he's going to be thrilled. He's out. And if anything, I feel like he's going to be,

00:36:54.160 be feeling empowered that he's Sean effing Diddy Combs and he got away again with felonies.

00:37:01.940 But the judge could have control over him. I mean, I don't want to speak at a turn, but the judge may

00:37:08.800 be able to sentence him to five years. I don't count consecutively or three years of probation.

00:37:15.300 He may be on probation for 10 years where, you know, federal probation could be pretty intensive.

00:37:21.760 You know, you, you have to report once a week. You have to, I mean, they could go to your house

00:37:26.400 anytime unannounced. They can give you a curfew, whether the judge gives you a curfew or not.

00:37:31.740 Some 28 year old probation officer can tell Sean Combs, I want you home every night at eight o'clock.

00:37:37.540 You can leave at eight o'clock in the morning. And I really only want you to do work events.

00:37:41.960 If you want to leave the jurisdiction of the Southern District of New York, which is basically the five

00:37:46.600 boroughs and a little bit upstate, but it's not even the five boroughs, but two of the five,

00:37:51.300 you know, you have to let me know. So there are ways to keep an eye on Sean Combs through the federal

00:37:57.580 system. Again, which is no joke. It's not like it's a walk in the park. It can be if you're a good guy

00:38:05.000 who's never been in trouble and obeys all the rules and it was a money kind of case. Yeah, they can be

00:38:10.240 very lenient on you. But if they want to keep their thumb on you, they have the ability to do so.

00:38:14.520 And those are the... I want to... Yeah, go ahead, Phil.

00:38:17.740 And that's exactly the argument I would be making to the judge if I were his lawyer trying to get

00:38:22.580 him released and sentenced to house arrest pending sentencing or, and then arguing for

00:38:27.840 probation. But look, unless a leopard can change its spots in the last nine or 10 months while he's

00:38:34.620 been in federal lockup, I think that for all of the reasons we've been talking about that video and

00:38:41.260 all of the testimony of how he has basically kept his thumb on these women and kept them oppressed

00:38:50.960 and subjugated them and used them to demonstrate how he was all powerful and lording over every aspect

00:38:58.740 of their lives. For those reasons, I think they are still at risk from him. Even if he is, even if he's

00:39:06.080 behind bars, they might be at some risk from him, in my opinion. And so I think that the better and

00:39:13.240 the safer course of action, if you're the judge, is to leave him in custody and then also to give

00:39:18.620 him the maximum sentence that you can, because the judge really should not...

00:39:21.720 Well, can you talk about that, Phil? What do you think it would likely be if the maximum you could

00:39:26.860 get for the transportation to engage in prostitution is up to 10 years in prison,

00:39:32.220 and he's been found guilty of two counts, but has no criminal history that the court would look at?

00:39:38.160 He does have a criminal history, but it doesn't, as I said at the beginning, arise to a certain level.

00:39:42.460 What would you expect the judge to sentence him to?

00:39:46.380 What would I expect or what would I do? Because if it were me, I would very seriously consider

00:39:52.100 giving him the max and maybe even stacking them for a total...

00:39:56.220 I would take into consideration all of the things that we've seen in this trial, whether it's something

00:40:01.840 that amounted to a conviction or not. The judge sat there and saw it, and if the judge believed that

00:40:06.580 that's the type of person he is, then the judge would be justified in believing that he is in

00:40:11.020 more need of rehabilitation than someone who had not done all those things, even if they're barred by

00:40:17.760 the statute of limitations in California. Now, what I expect the judge to do is to kind of maybe split

00:40:23.700 the difference, because a lot of times we see that with newbie judges. They want to split the baby

00:40:28.540 King Solomon type and say, look, all right, well, the defense wants him to go home in straight

00:40:33.140 probation. The prosecutor wants the max. I'm going to do something in the middle because I want to be

00:40:38.400 seen as being fair because I'm still making my bones here in the federal judiciary. So I think I

00:40:43.860 would expect the judge to do something probably in the middle.

00:40:47.480 I don't think that's out of the way. And Meg, I can just tell you this. We're talking about the

00:40:53.660 lawyering and all of that, and I'll make it a little personal, right? So the Weinstein case,

00:40:58.600 right? We beat the top charge, but he's still facing basically life in prison because he's 73

00:41:03.600 years old with cancer, heart disease, and diabetes, but he hasn't been sentenced yet. If he gets sentenced

00:41:08.600 to something where he can see the light at the end of the tunnel in two years and three years in New

00:41:13.240 York, then you know what? I did my job because I was handed a case that he was sentenced to 23 years,

00:41:19.000 which was, he was, it was the death penalty. And I gave him an opportunity. If he could stay healthy

00:41:23.560 in prison, he could get out. Of course, he's got to win the California appeal. The same thing holds

00:41:28.200 true here. Although we all agree, this is a huge victory for the defense attorneys. If the judge does

00:41:35.060 what Phil says and says, I think you're a pretty despicable, you're pissed in a woman's mouth until she

00:41:40.700 was gagging. Like, I'm sorry, sir. I can't get that out of my mind. So I'm sentencing you to 10 years

00:41:47.480 on one, 10 years on Cassie, because that's who you pissed in her mouth and five on the other. And

00:41:52.140 I'm running them consecutively, which means he's got to do like a dozen years. Then even though the

00:41:57.900 lawyers did the best they could, I don't think Sherlock Holmes is going to look at doing 12 years

00:42:01.240 in prison as a victory. So the, the, the book, the last chapter of this book has not been written yet.

00:42:07.580 When, when, I know you've got to run Arthur, but quickly, when you get sentenced in federal court,

00:42:11.980 do you have to serve the whole sentence?

00:42:14.360 85% I'm pretty, I'm pretty sure 85%. There's some stuff that's going to put in the first step back,

00:42:21.020 but it doesn't apply to sex crimes. A lot of the ways to get out of prison early,

00:42:25.560 we represent Ghislaine Maxwell. We're trying to at least get her into a nicer facility.

00:42:30.600 We're not even asking her to be released, just to get her out of a maximum facility.

00:42:34.300 But when you're, when you're convicted of a sex crime, a lot of the rules go out the window.

00:42:40.480 Okay. Thank you for your analysis. I know you've got to run. Thanks for doing this. All the best.

00:42:43.920 Thank you. No problem. Great. Great to have you. Phil, more coming in here. This is from the New

00:42:49.600 York times. What happened during the verdict as the not guilty verdicts for the sex trafficking

00:42:53.000 counts came on which he was found not guilty. Members of his family and his legal team began to cry

00:42:59.360 when the full verdict had been read. Mr. Combs turned to his family and mouthed,

00:43:03.320 I'm going home. And yeah, it may be. And then let me, let me give you another piece. CNN reports

00:43:09.600 that Cassie Ventura's lawyer, Douglas Wigdor, I know him well, um, that he gave the following

00:43:16.620 statement. This case proved that change is long overdue. Cassie Ventura paved the way for a jury to

00:43:23.540 find Sean Diddy Combs guilty on some of the counts against him. The entire criminal process,

00:43:28.540 this entire criminal process started when our client Cassie Ventura had the courage to file

00:43:32.320 her civil complaint in November, 2023. Although the jury did not find Combs guilty of sex trafficking

00:43:37.160 Cassie beyond a reasonable doubt. She paved the way for a jury to find him guilty of transportation

00:43:41.840 to engage in prostitution. He continued by coming forward with her experience. Cassie has left an

00:43:46.240 indelible mark on both the entertainment industry and the fight for justice. Her exemplary courage

00:43:51.300 throughout the trial, um, brought attention to the realities of powerful men in our orbit and the

00:43:56.440 misconduct that has persisted for decades without repercussions, repercussion. I've got to say the

00:44:00.560 only part of that, that strikes me as real as the last one where yes, if she hadn't come forward,

00:44:06.140 he wouldn't have been exposed. That is true, but it's, it's a sweet lawyer trying to spin her

00:44:12.960 courage in taking the stand as some sort of a win. And it just wasn't, it just wasn't a win.

00:44:18.860 They barely believed anything she said, or if they did, they just didn't think it was a legal

00:44:25.240 problem. They didn't think it rose to the level of criminality. They appear to have bought the

00:44:29.780 defense's argument on Cassie, not the prosecution's felt. Yeah. It seems that it seems that her words

00:44:36.500 that she has used that expressed, uh, and I'm just generalizing and putting, just putting it all

00:44:42.400 together. Her words that whether it was text messages or other that, that indicated that she was

00:44:47.780 something of a willing participant, in fact, eager to participate in some of this. Um, I can see,

00:44:54.160 I don't, this is not my belief, but I can see how a jury might see that might believe that this is a

00:45:00.280 little bit of buyer's remorse by her and that she sees things differently through the lens of hindsight

00:45:05.520 than it really was when all this was going on. And, and we spoke about reasonable doubt. And if you're

00:45:11.840 on the jury and the judge says, if you have a doubt for which a reason can be attached, it is your

00:45:16.540 duty to acquit. Then if the jurors are following those instructions, you know, that means a lot.

00:45:23.460 And if you're in the jury room and you say, look, well, I think he's a bad guy and he probably did,

00:45:27.740 you know, pressure her, but, but she, she made these statements that, and she expressed some

00:45:32.880 willingness to be there. So according to the judge, uh, this is a doubt in my brain. I've got a duty

00:45:38.660 to acquit on that charge. And I think that's really probably the best way to explain it. And it's also

00:45:44.500 true by the way, that had she not been willing to come forward and testify, we will, we wouldn't

00:45:48.880 have had this trial and we wouldn't have the convictions that we do have back to what you

00:45:54.300 were saying. I don't know who you said reported this, but somebody was reporting that he's waving

00:45:58.600 his fist saying I'm coming home. That might be a little bit premature. And I don't know if his

00:46:04.260 lawyers have maybe told him that, okay, if you, if it's just these counts, that's a time served thing.

00:46:10.440 Uh, if that, if that's the case, he might be prematurely celebrating, uh, his release. I'm

00:46:17.000 not so sure that's going to happen. Right. Cause we're going to find out, we think today around

00:46:22.340 1 PM, what the judge is going to do, at least in between now and sentencing, like how long does it

00:46:28.800 normally take between the guilty verdict and the sentencing? Is there any chance that we have to do

00:46:33.840 all the reports and all that? There's no way where he's getting sentenced today at one. It's just about

00:46:37.180 whether he stays in jail pending sentencing. No, in the state system, a lot of times you can move

00:46:42.220 straight into sentencing, but not, I don't expect that in this case, there will be a pre-sentence

00:46:46.580 investigation. Um, and it's entirely in the judge's discretion, but I'd say in roughly a month,

00:46:52.420 uh, give or take, they'll be back maybe two. Um, they'll be back for the sentencing after which time

00:46:58.320 the judge can take advantage of the, um, reports that have been generated by the probation department,

00:47:04.280 uh, looking in at, at not only the things that happened in the trial, but other things related

00:47:09.120 to his background. They really do a deep dive and present all of it to the judge. And they actually

00:47:14.940 might make a recommendation as well. It's not binding on the court. Um, and you better believe

00:47:20.420 that during the intervening time, the, both the prosecutor and the defense, they're going to be

00:47:27.560 asked to submit something called a, um, sentencing memorandum, which is where you, uh, lay out

00:47:34.200 your case to the judge in writing as to what sentence you're seeking and why, and why it factors

00:47:40.560 into the guidelines and is supported by law. And those things, um, I would imagine each side may

00:47:47.480 have already gotten a headstart, at least, uh, drafting it, or at least laying out the structure

00:47:51.840 of it. But, you know, that could be several pages long. Those documents can be, um, you know,

00:47:57.140 four or five or six pages, or it could be, you know, a little bit longer depending on the

00:48:00.860 circumstances, but those have to be prepared, submitted, reviewed. So all those things are

00:48:05.420 going to take several weeks to, to, to make it happen. Um, as, and as we've been talking about,

00:48:11.300 yeah, yeah, it's going to take a while. So I got to say this, um, today at one is going to be an

00:48:16.360 epic moment in legal news across the United States of America, because we may find out,

00:48:21.840 yes, this is interesting, whether he stays in jail pending the sentencing, uh, by this judge.

00:48:26.900 And we are also going to hear Brian Kohlberger, we believe say he is guilty of quadruple murder in

00:48:34.060 Idaho, which will be on camera and we will be showing it to the audience in full. So in our last

00:48:40.360 minute together, Phil, um, your thoughts on the Kohlberger plea. So I am in the camp that the Kohlberger

00:48:47.140 plea deal, uh, is preposterous. I think that unless you've got all of the families on board with it and

00:48:53.660 that you've, uh, you've counseled with the families and you've got all of their support and you've got

00:48:59.680 a rock solid case, the evidence against him is overwhelming. Uh, I think the only reason to take

00:49:06.780 the death penalty off the table and to take a plea deal is if the families were lobbying for it. I

00:49:12.600 understand that the families here were split. Some wanted it, some didn't. And, you know, I understand

00:49:17.700 the reasons for, for why they might or might not want the plea deal, but if you've got a rock solid

00:49:22.840 case and you don't have all of the families on board with it, I think the prosecutor should have

00:49:28.220 gone forward with the trial and sought the death penalty. So agree with every word you just said,

00:49:34.200 Bill, thank you. Thanks so much for doing this. Um, Arthur, goodbye. And thanks to him as well.

00:49:39.800 We want our audience to stay tuned because now we're going to turn to the Brian Kohlberger

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00:52:23.520 It was two and a half years ago, almost exactly, that Brian Kohlberger moved to Washington State

00:52:32.180 to pursue his PhD and to behave as a, act as a teacher's assistant in teaching other students

00:52:40.800 studying criminal justice. No one knew at that time, perhaps not even Brian Kohlberger, that he would

00:52:46.560 become the subject of the criminal justice system himself after committing four homicides in the course

00:52:53.180 of 12 minutes in November of 2022 on the neighboring University of Idaho campus. In moments, he's expected

00:53:01.680 to walk into an Idaho courthouse, the Ada County Courthouse in Boise, Idaho, and plead guilty to all four

00:53:09.060 of those murders, two 20-year-olds, two 21-year-olds, while some of them were sleeping in their beds and

00:53:15.880 others were about to go to sleep. We will have the live feed. We have it. We can see it now. Right now,

00:53:21.280 it's not showing anything. So as soon as it does, we're going there live. We're going to watch it

00:53:25.000 live together. We won't be talking. We'll be watching. And then we will have instant analysis

00:53:30.260 on the back end or where there's any pausing that allows it with Matt Murphy, lifetime prosecutor,

00:53:37.060 along with Howard Bloom, who's been, he's owned this story from the start and others as we get

00:53:43.540 started. So we're going to watch it. We'll tell you what's been happening outside of the courthouse

00:53:48.000 and an inn as we await. What's going to be, let's face it, a dramatic moment in legal history.

00:53:55.960 This guy's been telling us since he was arrested in December 2022, it wasn't me. It wasn't me.

00:54:02.860 I will be exonerated. Remember, he didn't just say found not guilty. I'm innocent. He said,

00:54:08.220 I'll be exonerated through his first lawyer. But he wouldn't actually speak. We haven't heard him

00:54:13.900 speak. When he entered his not guilty plea, he kept, he remained silent and the judge had to do

00:54:18.980 it for him. It's very rare. We hear him say anything, some things in passing at a couple

00:54:23.480 of court hearings. But today we are expected, we are expecting to hear him say guilty, guilty,

00:54:28.480 guilty. And to confirm the bare minimum details about the crimes. We do not believe that he's going

00:54:35.800 to have to offer any explanation or motive. It's possible this judge has done it. This court has

00:54:42.320 done it with other defendants, but there's no promises here and the odds are against it.

00:54:48.960 Nothing's written in the deal that would require it, which would suggest he's not going to do it,

00:54:52.880 but we'll see. We'll see. We might also hear from the families of the victims. We've had prosecutors

00:54:58.460 tell us that even at this stage, that would be something you would expect. We don't know how it's

00:55:04.220 going to work inside of this Idaho courtroom. The family of Kaylee Gonsalves, her dad, Steve,

00:55:12.040 is enraged. This is the family of Ethan Chapin that we'll show walking into the courthouse moments ago.

00:55:18.920 Ethan was just 20 years old when murdered. He, he was a triplet. Two of those pictured there,

00:55:24.680 clearly his brother and sister who are also at the university of Idaho. Can you imagine

00:55:29.080 having to go back to school with your triplet brother murdered? The family did release a statement

00:55:36.740 saying they support this plea bargain. They've been in, I don't know, for lack of a better word,

00:55:41.860 a gentler place about this. I think from the beginning, most of their statements from the

00:55:47.200 beginning have, have been, I don't know. They don't seem in the angry place as much as Steve is.

00:55:53.760 I say that not judgmentally at all. You guys know me. I'm fine with some anger. And I,

00:55:59.520 I just feel like what Steve Gonzalez is feeling, Gonsalves is feeling is, is what most parents would

00:56:05.760 feel. It must be very, very hard to take the high road and say, okay, we'll settle for life in prison.

00:56:16.340 I just feel like if I were Steve Gonsalves, I, if I were God forbid in his position, I'd be saying

00:56:22.040 what he's saying. He's outraged. He's furious with the prosecution for cutting this deal over

00:56:28.120 the family's objections. Not all of them, as I point out, the Chapins are for it. One parent of

00:56:34.360 Maddie Mogan, who was asleep and the best friend of Kaylee Gonsalves and also murdered. One parent

00:56:41.540 has said he has, he supports this too, this deal. We haven't heard from Zanna Kornodal's parents

00:56:47.680 and we haven't heard from Maddie Mogan's mother. We've heard from the father who said he's okay.

00:56:52.160 They're divorced, but we expect a statement from her mother, um, after today's proceedings. And

00:56:57.960 perhaps Zanna Kornodal has always been the most sort of elusive person in this story to get

00:57:03.660 information about her mom. Um, don't really know much about her and we don't know. I don't think

00:57:09.840 we'd even know her, her, her family if we saw them as they're walking in. It's 105. They're not

00:57:15.520 opening the feed yet, but just so you know, we, this court, they allow cameras in the courtrooms

00:57:20.720 in Idaho state court, which is where this is going down. There was quite a bit of bargaining over how

00:57:27.120 the camera would be positioned during the Kohlberger trial, which was set to start, um, jury

00:57:32.360 selection was going to begin the beginning of August. And they ultimately settled on one camera

00:57:37.140 at the back of the courthouse, like sort of focused on the witness stand. We don't know what to expect

00:57:40.660 for the plea, um, or how this will be positioned. I certainly hope that they're, uh, they're allowing

00:57:47.160 the camera to be positioned on the defendant as he speaks. Um, and we hear him take ownership of

00:57:55.900 this horrific act. Steve Gonsalves saying outside of court a moment ago, he's not going in. I don't

00:58:03.580 know who knows whether he'll change his mind. He still has some time. He was outside the courthouse

00:58:08.640 telling reporters that prosecutors made a deal with the devil, that he's not going in the courtroom

00:58:14.920 to watch that devil. And he also alluded to Kohlberger's family. We, we are assuming here

00:58:21.260 possibly being made aware of this plea deal ahead of the victim's families. Take a listen.

00:58:28.640 Do you have any message for Kohlberger's father? Yeah, what do you want? We know, we know

00:58:34.800 when you flew out here. We know, we know. We have your flight records. How are you preparing

00:58:40.340 to see him today? I'm not going to see him. When, when you say you know the flight records,

00:58:46.060 what do you mean, Steve? I know when his parents booked their flight. When, when his father did.

00:58:50.600 What does that mean? You, you, you, you, you'll find out. Would you like to say something

00:58:56.560 to them? No, I don't care about it. The rest of your family went inside. Is it important

00:59:04.940 for them to be in there today? Yeah, I'm sure. Where are you going? Are you not able to get

00:59:10.080 in? I'm just getting out of here. You're not staying in? No, I'm not going in there.

00:59:14.600 Who can second guess him? I mean, I'm sure it's going to be stomach turning for all of them to

00:59:24.620 even lay eyes on this monster. Court TV reporting that people were lining up at 4 a.m. outside of

00:59:32.220 the courthouse to try to get a seat inside. Um, it's one of those cases that has captured the

00:59:38.680 attention of the nation just because it's so horrific. I mean, my kids know about this one. You

00:59:44.200 know, my, your kids don't normally get into true crime, but like in my son's high school,

00:59:50.560 he's a freshman. Now he's going into sophomore, but they, they were talking about it. He wound up

00:59:54.240 doing a presentation on it because they were all so interested in this. And he was just willing to

00:59:59.420 do the, the work on, on getting the facts. And everyone was fascinating. It's because

01:00:04.180 I, it's just beyond it's, it's, it's sort of escapes the normal bounds of what you understand

01:00:11.460 the humans capable of. We know that there are murderers. We know that there are serial killers.

01:00:15.780 We know that there are horrible men out there who will torture people. I mean, it's sometimes

01:00:21.240 women, but let's face it, the vast majority are men. And, but we, we've never seen a crime where

01:00:26.640 in 12 minutes, four able-bodied, beautiful, everything in front of them, young people

01:00:33.560 were stabbed to death. And two surviving roommates didn't hear anything. Didn't,

01:00:39.040 didn't see anything. Didn't also get attacked. I mean, the whole thing was so bizarre and he was

01:00:45.140 well on his way toward having a successful life. His professor at his college in Pennsylvania,

01:00:53.960 Catherine Ramsland was set to take the stand in this case for the prosecution. And she's the one

01:01:02.640 who recommended him to Washington state for the PhD program with a glowing recommendation that he got

01:01:08.760 his master's at her college in Pennsylvania. And she's like one of the people when it comes to

01:01:15.840 criminal justice and these forensic examinations of crime scenes and criminals. And she sat down

01:01:24.180 with Brian Enten of news nation last night and was fascinating. The whole thing was fascinating,

01:01:31.500 including her talking about, well, let's just go through it as we wait for the live feed to come from

01:01:36.580 this Idaho courtroom. Uh, she starts off by saying what her initial impression of Kohlberger was.

01:01:44.780 Stop 42. What was your, um, perception of him? He seemed like, uh, eager to be in the classroom. He

01:01:55.540 was polite. He was respectful, um, intense and curious. And, um, there was no reason for me to think that he

01:02:05.040 was anything other than someone who was really interested in this potential career.

01:02:12.420 Okay. That's how she kicked it off. And then she got to what it was like when she found out he'd been

01:02:18.000 charged and whether she looks back now on what she taught him in a different way. I'm going to bring

01:02:25.040 in our panel as we wait. Now, again, it's Matt Murphy. Matt's a former homicide prosecutor lifetime.

01:02:30.540 Uh, that's how he spent his adult years putting terrible people in jail. So good on him and author

01:02:35.800 of the book, the book of murder and Howard bloom, who is the journalist to follow on this case since

01:02:42.280 the very beginning. He's also the author of the book. When the night comes falling a requiem for the

01:02:47.560 Idaho student murders, which is now out in paperback. Highly recommend if you have any interest in this

01:02:52.420 case, Matt Howard, welcome back. Thank you for being here. Um, let me just give you another

01:02:58.720 additional bit of color. Brian Anton reporting from news nation, uh, in Idaho, in the line outside

01:03:04.540 the courtroom waiting to go in, they have us up against the wall to make room for the victim's

01:03:09.260 families. As they walk by to enter, everyone is silent. I'm so sad for them. You can only imagine

01:03:16.760 the level of decorum you would try to offer these families as they walk into that courtroom. I mean,

01:03:24.500 the, the amount of sobriety you would try to bring to that moment as a, as an onlooker,

01:03:30.300 as a journalist, as a lawyer, Matt, you've been there, you've been the prosecutor in this exact

01:03:36.240 circumstance. Try to try to set the scene for us. Well, this is obviously a tremendously somber

01:03:43.060 moment. Um, the, the prosecution outlined some, uh, some good points on why you might offer a plea

01:03:50.660 for a case like this. Uh, the appellate process goes on forever. That's true. Um, the, the families

01:03:58.980 have to go through it and trial. Of course that's true, but that's the case in every single murder.

01:04:04.260 Um, they're all brutal. And if, uh, you know, you give the family a heads up as a prosecutor, but

01:04:09.020 having them, having them come in, one of the things that's disturbing to me about this case,

01:04:13.740 Megan, of course, is the disconnect that appears to have taken place between the prosecution and at

01:04:18.880 least the Gonsalves family. Um, and in, in, in a, in a word that really should never happen. Um,

01:04:26.400 sometimes it's unavoidable. It appears that certainly some of these family members are on board

01:04:30.900 with this plea. Again, there's good reasons for that, but every family, Megan is that you deal with

01:04:37.520 on a, in a murder case is somewhere on a spectrum, um, between profound sadness and profound anger.

01:04:44.800 And they, they all sort of wind up and they can, they evolve over time typically. Um, and Mr.

01:04:51.820 Gonsalves clearly, and I think for the entire penance of this case has been very much on the

01:04:56.540 anger side of the spectrum. Like you said, who can blame them? Um, but there, there are different

01:05:02.420 rules in Idaho than many other States that have what's called Marcy's law. And in California, for

01:05:08.160 example, the family has a constitutional right, the immediate family members to address the court,

01:05:13.920 to, um, to address the defendant and to talk about the impact that this had on their family.

01:05:20.640 And this is one of those things that plea or just, or just before sentencing at the pleading,

01:05:25.260 like the day that he cops the plea or at the sentencing.

01:05:27.980 Under Marcy's law, which is also known as the victim's bill of rights, they have a right to

01:05:32.680 address the court each and every time there is a significant event in a courtroom. So any,

01:05:37.340 Oh, wow.

01:05:38.740 Significant, uh, procedural event in a courtroom, the family has the right to address the judge

01:05:45.000 and to address the defendant if they're present. So, and it's a powerful thing. Idaho attempted to

01:05:51.540 adopt this in 2019 and they didn't for whatever reason. And, and you can, you can mark my words on this.

01:05:57.040 I predict after this case, uh, there's going to be a renewed push to adopt Marcy's law in the state

01:06:02.880 of Idaho. And we don't know exactly what to expect when it comes to the family. Howard,

01:06:07.860 your thoughts on this, we haven't gotten your opinion or just to talk to you since the news

01:06:11.640 broke that he's, I mean, I think the prosecution made a very pragmatic, but ultimately cynical decision.

01:06:21.160 I mean, all along in this case, we've seen the authorities in Idaho trying to move on.

01:06:27.000 Remember, uh, judge, judge, he couldn't wait to leave the case to get off of it.

01:06:31.980 Then when judge Hitler came in, the first thing he said his first day in the courtroom,

01:06:36.040 I'd like to say I'm happy to be here, but I'm not. And then the university of Idaho,

01:06:40.600 they wanted the whole town to forget about it. They, they insisted that the murder house should be torn down.

01:06:44.980 And then you had chief Fry who was running. Sorry to interrupt you. Howard is starting. Let's go there live.

01:06:50.980 Just FYI. We're seeing inside the courtroom. We can see the judge just shuffling papers at his desk.

01:06:55.900 And we are seeing. All right. This is a CR 0 1 2 4 3 1 6 6 5. Uh,

01:07:03.580 defendant is, uh, present, uh, in custody with council, miss, uh, Thompson's Jennings and, uh,

01:07:10.220 pardon me, miss, uh, Taylor, miss Massoff in, uh, miss Barlow, the state's present with, uh,

01:07:16.060 Mr. Thompson, Mr. Horowitz, Ms. Jennings.

01:07:22.700 And, um,

01:07:25.900 Mr. Nye is here as well. Am I missing anybody? I'm sorry.

01:07:31.980 Ms. Allen is here as well. Ms. Allen is here as well. Very well. Thank you.

01:07:36.300 All right. Uh, we are here, uh, today, uh, to entertain a change of plea. Before I start, I want to, uh,

01:07:45.340 address some issues, uh, uh, of concern, uh, and otherwise, uh, first, uh, I appreciate everybody, uh,

01:07:53.980 in attendance today being on their best behavior, please no outbursts or demonstrations.

01:08:00.220 Any such, uh, conduct will result in immediate removal and, uh, may result in an inability to

01:08:07.660 attend further court proceedings, uh, in this case. I want to point out that there have been calls by

01:08:14.780 some, uh, uh, for the public to contact me and my office in an attempt, uh, to influence my decision

01:08:21.660 making in this case. This has been extraordinarily disruptive for court staff and the ability for

01:08:29.580 them to get work done, not only in this case, but in other cases where defendants, uh, uh, are, uh,

01:08:36.940 entitled to, uh, uh, uh, have their cases processed. And, uh, frankly, uh, as important, if not more so,

01:08:45.340 for victims to have their cases, uh, processed in those cases, um, it's also highly inappropriate.

01:08:54.220 A court is not supposed to, and this court will never take into account public sentiment,

01:09:01.020 uh, in, uh, making an opinion regarding, uh, its judicial decisions in cases.

01:09:09.340 A court should, and I always will, make decisions based on where the facts and the law lead me.

01:09:17.660 Period. I have not read any of the numerous messages nor listened to any of the numerous

01:09:24.140 voicemails that have been sent to me and my staff. Those have all been forward to security and,

01:09:30.460 where appropriate, to law enforcement. Uh, I ask that you not continue, uh, to mount such campaigns

01:09:38.620 or to send me information, uh, like this because, again, it is not appropriate and, frankly,

01:09:43.820 not something I would take into account, uh, when deciding, uh, a matter in a case like this.

01:09:53.100 I also want people to understand some very basic concepts about the ideas of separation of powers,

01:09:59.180 what the court's duties are, and what the duties and the rights of the, uh, executive,

01:10:05.020 or, in this case, the prosecuting attorney is. Uh, the executive, the elected prosecutor,

01:10:13.980 is the sole authority in deciding what charges to pursue,

01:10:19.900 including whether, uh, as well as what penalties, uh, to ask for and what penalties to pursue,

01:10:27.100 including the death penalty. This court cannot require the prosecutor to seek the death penalty,

01:10:36.460 nor would it be appropriate for this court to attempt to do that. This court, uh, in considering,

01:10:43.980 uh, a plea agreement, uh, if it were to reject this plea agreement, cannot force the state to seek the

01:10:50.780 death penalty. My role and power in considering a plea agreement is extremely limited. My role is to

01:11:03.820 ensure that the defendant's plea is given freely, voluntarily, and intelligently. If those things are

01:11:12.060 met, I can only reject a plea, such as the one in this case, where I'm not being asked to agree to the sentence

01:11:18.380 in advance, uh, if, uh, I can only reject it, for example, if the defendant does not meet, uh, or admit

01:11:28.940 to all the elements of the crime. That is, I can ensure, I can ensure what is called a factual basis to the plea.

01:11:37.660 Finally, I want to, uh, uh, offer my, uh, apologies to, uh, all the families, uh, including the victim's

01:11:49.020 families, uh, the families of, uh, the defendant, uh, for the short notice for today's hearing, and I'm

01:11:55.020 sure what must have been the hurried, uh, uh, efforts to get here. Uh, I, like, uh, most everyone else,

01:12:02.220 learned of this plea agreement Monday afternoon and had no inkling of it beforehand.

01:12:12.220 Prior to that time, I was under the belief that this case was proceeding to trial as had been

01:12:16.860 indicated, and my staff and I were busy continuing to work on preparations to have potentially 10,000

01:12:24.220 citizens of Ada County come to jury duty starting in mid-July, uh, with the questionnaire process in mid-July.

01:12:36.860 It was, once I learned of the defendant's, uh, decision to change his plea in this case,

01:12:41.740 it was important that I take the plea as soon as possible, uh, because of the extraordinarily

01:12:47.340 administrative, extraordinary administrative efforts that were otherwise, uh, attendant to

01:12:52.940 the process of this, uh, getting this trial, uh, potentially underway on time, uh, and including

01:13:01.900 the significant process of bringing, again, potentially up to 10,000 jurors to come in and

01:13:07.420 fill out juror questionnaires, uh, prior to the beginning of the voir dire process.

01:13:16.700 And so it was important that we, uh, if we're going to go down this road,

01:13:22.620 do so, uh, uh, expeditiously so that we can avoid those, uh, costs and expenses, um, associated with

01:13:31.180 that, um, uh, otherwise, if it was not going to result in a plea or for some reason the plea were to

01:13:37.020 fall through today, that we could continue, uh, diligently towards trial at the time specified.

01:13:43.340 And so, uh, uh, that obviously required, uh, that we act, uh, quickly and so, uh, some folks may have

01:13:52.060 not had the amount of time that we would otherwise, uh, allow for, for them to travel here.

01:13:57.500 Um, and so, uh, again, I apologize for that.

01:14:03.180 I want to, uh, make people aware that during the hearing, if you are to leave, uh, the courtroom for

01:14:10.700 any reason you will not be readmitted, uh, during the hearing.

01:14:16.300 Also, when we finish the hearing this morning, I ask that the public and media wait in their seats

01:14:21.500 until the victim's families and the defendant's families, uh, and, uh, others, uh, are escorted out

01:14:27.820 of the courtroom, uh, before you, uh, start to leave.

01:14:34.300 Finally, I want to acknowledge the trial court administrator and her staff,

01:14:37.900 the Ada County Sheriff and Ada County, uh, 4th District Marshal Service for the huge lift

01:14:43.820 that they've accomplished in preparing for and orchestrating this hearing today, uh, as well as

01:14:49.100 to all the security attendant today, uh, that you see and some of whom you, many, many of whom you

01:14:54.620 don't see, uh, with less than 48 hours notice. And so I appreciate the hard work that they've been

01:15:00.140 doing. Um, frankly, some of them while they were on some vacation, uh, prior to the trial starting

01:15:06.780 and had to call that short. And so I appreciate very much their, uh, professionalism, uh, and dedication.

01:15:13.580 All right. That said, let's, uh, move to the business of today.

01:15:18.620 I understand, uh, the state and the defense have, uh, reached a plea agreement in this case.

01:15:25.660 Um, for the record, I have a written plea agreement, which indicates in sum,

01:15:37.260 the defendant will plead guilty to, uh, all, uh, five counts in the indictment, burglary, felony,

01:15:44.620 felony, and first degree murder, four counts. Uh, the state and the defendant stipulate, uh,

01:15:52.780 that is that the, uh, defense is not free to argue for a lesser sentence at sentencing to the

01:15:58.540 following. The defendant on the burglary charge will be sentenced to 10 years fixed. And that the

01:16:05.260 defendant on counts two through five, the four counts of first degree homicide on each count

01:16:10.940 would receive a fixed life sentence. All five of those counts to run consecutive to one another.

01:16:17.820 Defendant, uh, as part of the plea agreement waives his right to appeal, uh, as well as his

01:16:24.780 right to appeal the sentence and his right to seek, uh, leniency or reconsideration of the sentence

01:16:31.100 under Idaho criminal rule 35.

01:16:38.460 This is not a rule 11 agreement, meaning the court is not bound by the plea agreement and could, uh,

01:16:45.340 impose a different lawful sentence at sentencing. Uh, the stipulated agreement in the parties is the

01:16:51.580 maximum on each count. So theoretically, the only thing the court could do would be a lesser sentence

01:16:56.380 at, uh, sentencing. Uh, but the defendant is not free to ask the court to do so under the plea

01:17:02.300 agreement. Are there any other material terms of the plea agreement, uh, that the parties would like

01:17:07.340 to make, uh, obviously the plea agreement, the written plea agreement will speak for itself and be

01:17:11.500 part of the court record. Not from the state, Your Honor. Thank you. No, Your Honor. Thank you.

01:17:16.620 All right. Very well. All right. Uh, Miss, uh, um, Taylor, have you had sufficient time to discuss

01:17:31.500 this case and all of its ramifications with your client? I have, Your Honor. Have you discussed

01:17:36.300 fully with him his rights, defenses, and possible consequences to him of the guilty plea? Yes,

01:17:41.740 Your Honor. Have you been able to do all the discovery you feel necessary?

01:17:44.780 Yes, Your Honor. And have you, uh, informed your client of the importance of providing the court

01:17:51.420 truthful and accurate answers in taking this plea today? I have. Uh, have you apprised your client of

01:17:57.180 any and all offers and counter offers and answered his questions about those? Yes. Do you consent to

01:18:02.060 the entry of the plea today? I do. All right. Mr. Kohlberger, um, I need to ask you some questions this

01:18:07.740 afternoon, or I guess it's this morning still. Uh, I do this, uh, to ensure that you understand,

01:18:14.060 so that I am assured that you understand the nature of the charges to which I understand you're going

01:18:18.780 to plead guilty, as well as the possible consequences to you of your guilty pleas.

01:18:23.180 I want to make sure your plea is given voluntarily, um, and I want to make sure that you actually

01:18:28.700 committed the crimes to which you're pleading guilty, because I don't want you to plead guilty

01:18:31.900 to a crime you didn't commit. If you attempt to plead guilty today, but for some reason I don't

01:18:36.540 accept your plea, then it is, uh, uh, possible that, uh, your statements today could be used

01:18:42.140 against you later at trial. Do you understand that? Yes. All right. Thank you. And now while

01:18:47.660 you're standing, actually, why don't you, uh, take the oath from the clerk?

01:19:02.540 Yes. All right. And Mr. Kohlberger, just to make it easier, you don't need to stand when you speak to

01:19:07.340 me. I appreciate the, uh, uh, sign of respect, but, uh, for convenience, you can remain seated. All right.

01:19:13.740 Um, uh, uh, before I start asking questions today, have you, uh, consumed, uh, substance questions?

01:19:24.060 Let me ask you, have you consumed any alcohol drug or other intoxicating substance that would impair

01:19:28.380 your ability to understand or, uh, exercise, uh, reasonable judgment? No. You feel like you are

01:19:35.420 thinking clearly today? Yes. All right. I want you to understand what the possible penalties are, uh,

01:19:41.180 for each of the crimes, uh, to which, uh, I understand you're going to offer a guilty plea today.

01:19:45.500 Uh, they include on count one, the burglary, a fine of up to $50,000 and a period of incarceration

01:19:52.460 of up to 10 years in the state penitentiary. You may be required to pay restitution to any victims

01:19:57.500 of the crime. Um, count, uh, two, three, four, and five for first degree murder. Uh, the consequences,

01:20:06.460 uh, include a fine of up to $50,000, a period of incarceration of life imprisonment, which is a

01:20:15.340 requirement of a sentence that it be a life sentence, uh, um, with a mandatory minimum sentence

01:20:21.740 of at least 10 years, uh, on each of those counts. Um, in addition, uh, um, you would be, uh, potentially

01:20:30.700 responsible for a fine of up to $5,000 to each of the victims of, uh, your crime, um, to, uh, be enforced

01:20:39.020 in the form of a civil judgment, um, to operate as additional punishment. This, uh, is, uh, in excess

01:20:46.300 of any restitution or fines that the court could order. Um, and again, you may be required to pay

01:20:52.380 restitution to the victims of the crime. Um, you would, uh, be required to provide as to counts one,

01:20:58.540 two, three, four, and five, a DNA sample and a right thumb for an impression and potentially pay

01:21:04.060 for analysis of those samples. You would lose, uh, any right to possess, purchase, or carry a firearm,

01:21:09.340 the right to serve on jury duty, the right to hold public office, and the right to vote.

01:21:13.100 Do you understand the charges and all those possible consequences? Yes.

01:21:26.780 Um, you've heard the, uh, plea agreement that I talked about today. Do you agree with that plea

01:21:32.140 agreement? Yes. And do you understand the nature of the charges, uh, that are, uh, that you've been

01:21:40.060 charged with, uh, that I understand you're going to plead guilty today too? Yes.

01:21:49.340 As, uh, you indicate, uh, as I indicated, I'm not bound by the plea agreement, but the plea agreement

01:21:54.940 is for the maximum on each count. Do you understand that I'm not bound by the plea agreement? Yes.

01:22:01.020 Uh, has anyone, uh, promised you that I would be lenient or easy on you if you pled guilty? No.

01:22:06.860 Has anyone, uh, threatened you or anyone close to you to get you to plead guilty? No.

01:22:11.820 Is anyone, uh, other than the state's, uh, agreements, uh, with respect to the plea agreement,

01:22:17.580 has anyone promised you anything in exchange for your plea agreement? No.

01:22:21.180 No. Has anyone told you to be untruthful in answering my questions today? No.

01:22:30.300 Has anyone offered you a reward of any kind other than the plea agreement,

01:22:34.620 uh, in order to get you to plead guilty today? No.

01:22:43.980 Are you pleading guilty because you are guilty? Yes.

01:22:47.180 Yes. And counsel, obviously there have been a number of, uh, motions filed, uh, to suppress evidence

01:22:56.300 in this case. Um, uh, other than those filed, are there any other, uh, motions, uh, that, uh,

01:23:04.140 you felt, uh, uh, were available with respect to, uh, rule 12? No, your honor.

01:23:10.620 And Mr. Kohlberg, you understand that by entering the guilty plea in this case, you would be giving

01:23:16.780 up your right to appeal, uh, any, uh, uh, decision this court made, uh, as well as your sentence? Yes.

01:23:25.020 Have you had enough time to decide whether or not to plead guilty? Yes. Are you pleading guilty

01:23:42.460 freely and voluntarily? Yes. Given your choices, do you believe it's in your best interest to plead

01:23:47.500 guilty? Yes. Have you discussed fully the matter of pleading with your, pleading guilty with your

01:23:53.260 attorney? And are you satisfied with the advice you've received? Yes.

01:23:59.420 Has your attorney advised you to your satisfaction about what your rights are,

01:24:02.780 what your defenses may be, and what the possible consequences to you of your guilty plea are?

01:24:07.660 Yes. Has your attorney done everything you've asked them to do? Yes.

01:24:11.340 Are you satisfied with the representation of you? Yes.

01:24:20.860 I, uh, have received a written, um,

01:24:25.740 guilty plea advisory

01:24:30.700 questionnaire, uh, that is purported to be filled out by you. Did you fill that document out? Yes.

01:24:38.060 Did you understand the questions that you answered in this document? Yes. And are the answers that are

01:24:43.100 outlined in this document your answers? Yes. Are those answers, uh, truthful? Yes.

01:24:52.380 Did you sign the document? Yes.

01:24:54.300 And this, uh, uh, document outlines many of the rights that you have, uh, in this case, uh, um, should

01:25:08.300 you not plead guilty? Did you understand those rights? Yes. They include a right to a jury trial. Do you

01:25:13.740 understand that? Yes. They include a right to the, uh, presumption of innocence. Do you understand that?

01:25:18.460 Yes. You have the right to require the state to prove your guilt, uh, uh, as to each element beyond

01:25:24.220 a reasonable doubt. Do you understand that? Yes. They include a right to confront your accusers and

01:25:29.980 cross-examine, uh, uh, witnesses presented by the state, uh, including by utilizing the subpoena power

01:25:35.900 of the court to accomplish that. Do you understand that? Yes. You understand you would have a privilege

01:25:42.380 against self-incrimination and a right to remain silent, uh, meaning you would not be compelled to

01:25:47.580 testify if you did not wish to, had you not pled guilty? Yes. You understand you're giving up that

01:25:54.780 privilege, uh, and those rights that I've just outlined by pleading guilty. Yes.

01:26:01.660 All right. I want you to understand what the state would have had to have proven, uh, at trial had you,

01:26:06.380 uh, to the crimes that you're pleading guilty to had you, uh,

01:26:12.060 uh, if you, if you didn't plead guilty, let me find the document. Hang on a second here. All right.

01:26:34.780 So as to count one, Berkeley, the state would have to have proven that on or about November 13,

01:26:39.340 2022 in Latak County, Idaho, you unlawfully entered a residence located at 1122 King Road in Moscow,

01:26:46.940 Idaho with the intent to commit the felony crime of murder. As to count two,

01:26:54.380 the state would have had to have proven that on or about that same date in, uh, Latak County,

01:26:59.340 Idaho, you did willfully, unlawfully, deliberately with premeditation and malice of forethought,

01:27:05.580 kill and murder. And then the state would have had to have proven, uh, kill and murder Madison Mogan,

01:27:07.340 uh, kill and murder Madison Mogan, a human being by stabbing Madison Mogan from which she died.

01:27:11.660 As to count three, uh, the state would have had to have proven, uh, that on that same date in

01:27:16.940 Latak County at that same address, uh, you did, uh, willfully, unlawfully, deliberately with premeditation

01:27:23.740 and malice of forethought, kill and murder Kaylee Gonzalez, a human being by stabbing her from which she died.

01:27:29.980 As to count four, the state would have had to have proven, uh, that on or about that same date in

01:27:36.540 Latak County, Idaho, you did willfully, unlawfully, deliberately with premeditation and malice of

01:27:42.140 forethought, kill and murder Zanna Karnodel, a human being by stabbing her from which she died.

01:27:48.380 And then as to count five, uh, also murder in the first degree that on or about November 13th,

01:27:56.220 uh, 2022, 22, pardon me in Latak County, Idaho, you did willfully, unlawfully, deliberately with

01:28:03.660 premeditation and malice of forethought, kill and murder Ethan Chapin, a human being by stabbing

01:28:09.740 him from which she died. Do you understand those things the state would have had to have proven?

01:28:14.380 Yes. And do you understand that by pleading guilty, the state no longer has to

01:28:18.540 prove those things because you're admitting those things are true? Yes.

01:28:26.220 I want to also make, uh, for the record, uh, the defendant has, uh, provided with the guilty

01:28:43.740 plea advisory form, uh, a document entitled written factual basis. Um, the purports to have

01:28:51.020 the defendant's signature, uh, dated one July, 2025. Did you sign that document?

01:28:56.220 Yes. And did you agree with the written factual basis that is included there? Yes.

01:29:09.660 And then, uh, let me ask you, did you, uh, on November 13th, 2022,

01:29:16.700 enter the residence at 1122 King road, uh, in Moscow, Idaho, with the intent to commit the

01:29:22.300 felony crime of murder? Yes.

01:29:25.820 Did you on November 13th, 2022, uh, in Latak County state of Idaho, uh,

01:29:36.540 kill and murder Madison Mogan, a human being? Yes.

01:29:40.780 And did you do that willfully, unlawfully, deliberately, and with premeditation and malice

01:29:45.260 of forethought? Yes.

01:29:48.700 Did you honor about that same date in, uh, Moscow, Idaho, um, kill and murder Kaylee

01:29:54.860 Gonzalves, a human being? Yes.

01:29:57.820 And did you do that willfully, unlawfully, deliberately, and with premeditation and malice

01:30:02.780 of forethought? Yes.

01:30:04.140 And then on, uh, or about, uh, November 13th, 2022, uh, again, in Latak County, Idaho, did you, uh,

01:30:28.300 kill and murder Ethan Chapin, a human being? Yes. Did you do that willfully, unlawfully,

01:30:33.420 deliberately with premeditation and malice of forethought? Yes.

01:30:39.100 I would ask the state at this time to provide, uh, its recitation of its factual basis had this

01:30:45.260 case gone to trial. Thank you, Your Honor. Uh, Your Honor, the organization of the recitation

01:30:50.940 is different than what I think the court and the public may be familiar with from the probable

01:30:54.700 cause affidavit and other documents. Um, the state's evidence as an overview would show that

01:31:01.740 back in March of 2022, when the defendant was residing in his parents' residence or was residing

01:31:07.980 back in Pennsylvania, his home state, he purchased online a K-Bar knife and sheath with an Amazon gift

01:31:14.140 card that he had purchased shortly prior to the purchase of the knife, sheath, and sharpener.

01:31:19.900 Jumping ahead, the end of June of that year, uh, the defendant, Mr. Koberger, moved from Pennsylvania

01:31:27.420 to Pullman, Washington, which is right across the state line from Moscow, Idaho, for the purpose of

01:31:32.540 pursuing a PhD in criminal justice at Washington State University. The state's evidence would indicate

01:31:39.500 that beginning July 9th of 2022, Mr. Koberger's phone began connecting to a cell tower that serves the

01:31:48.700 area of the 1122 King Road residence in Moscow, Idaho. Now, I will acknowledge for the court and

01:31:55.340 all present that there are many residences in that area. It's a dense population of mostly college-related

01:32:01.580 occupants. Between July 9th of 2022 and November 7th, the defendant's phone connected to that particular

01:32:12.060 tower during late night, early morning hours, 10 PM to 4 AM on approximately 23 times. Now, I will

01:32:20.220 acknowledge also, we do not have evidence that the defendant had direct contact with 1122 or with

01:32:26.940 residents of 1122, but we can put his phone in that area on those times.

01:32:31.580 In the interim, on August 22nd of 2022, uh, Laetal County Sheriff's Deputy Darren Duke conducted a

01:32:39.820 traffic stop, um, in the early morning hour or late evening hours, about 11 PM, um, on the west side of

01:32:47.740 Moscow on the Moscow Pullman Road. This was the traffic stop of Mr. Koberger's car, which turned out to be a

01:32:55.020 2015 white Hyundai Elantra with Pennsylvania plates. During the course of the traffic stop, uh,

01:33:02.300 Deputy Duke was able to obtain, uh, Mr. Koberger's name, Brian Koberger, his phone number and his address,

01:33:09.340 which at that point was a apartment address in Pullman. We then moved to, um, the early morning hours of

01:33:18.860 November 13th, 2022. The state's evidence would show that early morning hours on that day, Mr. Koberger's

01:33:27.020 phone left his Pullman residence, which is an apartment in kind of the north central, northwest

01:33:33.100 part of Pullman. That phone was then subsequently turned off at approximately 2 54 AM and remained off

01:33:42.300 until approximately 4 48 AM on Sunday, the 13th of November. On Sunday, the state's evidence includes,

01:33:51.500 that would include a trial, uh, video surveillance of a business on the Moscow Pullman Highway just,

01:33:58.780 just across the state line from Moscow. It would show a vehicle matching the description of the

01:34:03.900 defendant's Hyundai Elantra, uh, entering Moscow at approximately 3 0 2 AM.

01:34:09.180 Compiled surveillance that the investigators put together from businesses and residents,

01:34:16.460 then show the defendant's car, the white Elantra, uh, as I've described, circling the 1122 King Road

01:34:24.620 area, that neighborhood, uh, starting around 3 30 or so in the morning, starting around comes into the

01:34:31.660 immediate area of, um, of 1122 King Road, which is actually on a dead end, uh, and then leaves several

01:34:38.220 times in approximately 4 0 5, several times. That morning, the defendant's car had entered that area,

01:34:44.780 was leaving, stopped at the intersection of King and Queen Road, did a U-turn, and the state's evidence

01:34:51.980 would show that defendant's car came back and parked behind and above the 1122 King Road residence.

01:35:00.220 The state believes that its evidence would then show that, um, the defendant entered the residence of

01:35:09.660 1122 through the kitchen sliding door on the back side of the residence, which is the side of the

01:35:14.700 residence that would, uh, face the area above where the defendant's car was parked.

01:35:19.660 The defendant entered the residence, went to the third floor, and with a knife killed Madison Mogan

01:35:29.100 and Kate Wiggins' office.

01:35:33.900 The defendant, as he left that room, for whatever reason, ended up leaving or the sheath for a K-Bar

01:35:41.180 knife was left on the bed next to Madison Mogan's body. And I can jump ahead. That sheath was tested by the

01:35:49.100 Idaho State Police Forensic Lab, and single-source male DNA was found on the snap of that sheath,

01:35:56.860 as well as blood from both Kaylee and Madison and other trace evidence. But it's important to note,

01:36:03.740 single-source male DNA was on the snap of that sheath. The state's evidence would show that Zanna

01:36:12.060 was still awake at this time. In fact, had taken a DoorDash order not long before this started.

01:36:17.260 Her room was not on the third floor. It was on the second floor on the west side.

01:36:23.820 As the defendant was either coming down the stairs or leaving, he encountered Zanna and he ended up

01:36:31.580 killing her also with a large knife. Ethan Chapin, Zanna's boyfriend, was asleep in their bedroom,

01:36:39.340 in her bedroom, and the defendant killed him as well with a large fixed bed line. Each victim

01:36:46.620 suffered multiple wounds. I will state for the record that there is no evidence there was any

01:36:51.420 sexual component or sexual assault on any of the victims. I want to make that clear so there's no

01:36:55.900 speculation.

01:36:56.620 There were two other roommates in the house, and they were already asleep.

01:37:03.180 During the course of this, one of those roommates awoke, looked out her door not knowing what was

01:37:09.100 going on, and saw the defendant who was dressed in black, with black belt cob on, holding some sort

01:37:15.660 of container in his hand. And she saw him leave the house through the direction of the kitchen where that

01:37:22.780 sliding door is that I mentioned before. At approximately 420 that morning,

01:37:33.100 so this would have been 15 minutes or so later,

01:37:37.020 Finn's car is seen on a surveillance camera for 1112 King Road, which is immediately next door to

01:37:44.540 the west of 1122, leaving the area at a high rate of speed. And if the court were to see that,

01:37:51.420 or anybody in this courtroom would see that, you can see the car almost loses control as it makes

01:37:57.100 the corner, heads north, and then turns to go south on Walenta, which is one of the only ways to

01:38:03.100 get out of that part of town.

01:38:07.740 The evidence would show that following that, the defendant in his Elantra drove south of Moscow.

01:38:15.260 We know that he drove on the back roads because there are surveillance cameras on the main highways,

01:38:20.220 highway 95, that would have picked up the defendant's car if he'd gone that route,

01:38:24.460 and they did not show the defendant's car on that route during the time. So we know that he went through

01:38:28.940 a variety of back roads, a very rural, isolated part of Lataw County. About 448 that morning,

01:38:36.700 the defendant's phone comes back on. And the evidence will show that that phone was located

01:38:45.900 south of Moscow, likely at a side road intersection with Highway 95. From there, the defendant's phone

01:38:54.380 activity tracks heading back north towards Pullman, Washington, where the defendant lived.

01:38:58.620 About 526, starting approximately 526, various surveillance cameras in Pullman,

01:39:06.860 Washington, pick up the defendant's vehicle as he enters Pullman from the south and heads north

01:39:13.660 and slightly west towards his apartment where he arrived at approximately 530 in the morning.

01:39:21.580 Later that morning, still this Sunday, the 13th of November of 2022,

01:39:28.620 Mr. Koberger's phone returned to the area of King Road. We don't know exactly what he did,

01:39:33.420 but it returned to that area. It's about nine o'clock in the morning.

01:39:38.220 He's there for about 10 minutes and then returned to his Pullman residence. About 930,

01:39:45.180 the state's evidence will show, evidence taken from the defendant's phone, that he took a selfie of

01:39:50.540 himself on his phone in what appears to be the bathroom of his Pullman apartment with a thumbs up.

01:39:58.620 The defendant's phone then went to the Lewiston-Quartzton Valley, approximately 30 miles south of Moscow and Pullman,

01:40:07.980 and the defendant is actually seen with his card various businesses down there. This area is the

01:40:14.220 confluence of the Clearwater River and the Snake River. Lewiston is Idaho's seaport, large bodies of

01:40:21.260 moving water down there. In addition to tracing the defendant's activities, as I've just outlined

01:40:28.700 on the 13th and leading up to the 13th, the state's evidence will show that following Sunday, November 13th,

01:40:35.660 2022, business records show that the defendant began searching for a K-Bar knife and K-Bar knife sheath,

01:40:45.020 as the state believes, to replace the one that was left at the scene of the murders. The evidence

01:40:53.260 also will suggest that there were at least attempts by the defendant to delete or alter his purchase

01:40:59.980 history on Amazon where all these transactions had occurred. Later that week, the state's evidence

01:41:06.700 showed that Mr. Koberger went to what we would call DMV, motor vehicle licensing here in Idaho,

01:41:13.020 in Pullman, to change his car registration from Pennsylvania to Washington. That's of note because

01:41:22.300 Pennsylvania cars do not require a front license plate. The vehicles seen on the surveillance cameras

01:41:29.340 of the defendant's car showed it didn't have a front license plate on it. At the time of the traffic

01:41:33.580 stopped by Deputy Duke in August, Pennsylvania plate, no front license plate.

01:41:38.940 Mr. Koberger proceeded to finish his semester of studies at Washington State University and returned

01:41:49.260 to Pennsylvania for the holidays. Law enforcement at this point were aware of Mr. Koberger had been

01:41:56.460 accessing information about him, were trying to find him. They located him in Pennsylvania and they

01:42:02.460 conducted what's called a trash poll. During the nighttime hours, agents of the FBI who assisted immensely

01:42:10.300 with this case, working with the sanitation department back in this neighborhood in Pennsylvania,

01:42:17.740 took trash that had been set out on the street for collection, sent the contents of that from the

01:42:24.540 Pennsylvania residents of the defendant's parents to the Idaho State Forensic Laboratory, where the lab experts

01:42:33.820 there were able to identify DNA on a q-tip as coming from the father of the person whose DNA was found on the

01:42:43.900 ninth sheath. It was next to Madison Logan's body and the bed. Subsequently, an arrest warrant was issued here in Idaho

01:42:53.500 and a search warrant was issued in the state of Pennsylvania with the assistance not only of the FBI but the Pennsylvania State Police.

01:43:01.340 Mr. Koberger was arrested at his parents home to return to Idaho. Upon his return to Idaho, a DNA sample was taken from him

01:43:10.300 and it matched the DNA found on the knife sheath next to Maddie's body at the crime scene.

01:43:16.700 I can tell the court and public the weapon itself, the knife, has not yet been recovered.

01:43:25.420 I can tell the court that the defendant's apartment in Pullman was searched as well as his office.

01:43:31.740 Spartan would be a kind characterization. There was virtually nothing there. Nothing of evidentiary value was found.

01:43:38.940 And of course, we are now talking six, eight weeks after the time of the killings.

01:43:44.300 In Pennsylvania, the defendant's car was seized and it was actually pretty much disassembled internally.

01:43:49.660 And it also had been cleaned. There was a bucket of cleaner right beside it.

01:43:56.220 I think we can all look to our own cars, you know, in those compartments in the doors.

01:44:00.300 You can try to keep them clean where you put stuff. There's always some degree of crud in there.

01:44:05.100 They were spotless. The defendant's car had been meticulously cleaned inside.

01:44:10.300 And the state would present to the jury that that was part of the defendant's plan in covering up this.

01:44:18.300 The defendant has studied crime. In fact, he did a detailed paper on crime scene processing

01:44:24.540 when he was working on his pre-doctorate degrees and he had that knowledge and skill.

01:44:29.660 So, Your Honor, at the end, the state submits that the evidence that I've given just a quick overview of

01:44:37.020 and that the presenting court would consume weeks, which the state is prepared to do and has been

01:44:41.740 prepared to do, would show that as the defendant has just admitted and pleaded guilty on November 13th, 2022,

01:44:49.100 Mr. Koberger entered the residence of 1122 King Road in Moscow, Idaho. He did that with the intent to kill.

01:45:02.940 We will not represent that he intended to commit all of the murders that he did that night, but we know

01:45:07.980 that that is what resulted and that he then killed intentionally, willfully, deliberately with

01:45:16.380 premeditation and with malice forethought. Manny Mogan, Kaylee Gonzalez, Ethan Chapin, and Santa Cruz.

01:45:26.780 Thank you, Your Honor. Thank you.

01:45:38.140 All right. Based on the state's proffer and, importantly, based upon defendant's

01:45:44.780 explicit admission to committing these crimes, the court finds there is a factual basis.

01:45:50.300 Therefore, with respect to count one, burglary felony, how do you plead Mr. Koberger, guilty or not guilty?

01:45:56.940 Guilty.

01:45:57.980 As to count two, murder in the first degree as it relates to the murder of Madison Mogan,

01:46:04.860 how do you plead guilty or not guilty? Guilty.

01:46:07.580 As to count three, as it relates to murder in the first degree for the murder of Kaylee Gonzalez,

01:46:12.300 how do you plead guilty or not guilty? Guilty.

01:46:15.180 As to count four, the first degree murder of Zana Kurnodil, pardon me, a human being,

01:46:22.140 how do you plead guilty or not guilty? Guilty.

01:46:24.380 As to count five, the first degree murder of Ethan Chapin, a human being, how do you plead? Guilty or not guilty?

01:46:31.580 Guilty.

01:46:32.220 All right.

01:46:33.420 The court will find that the defendant understands the nature of the charges

01:46:41.180 and each offense and the possible consequences to him of his guilty plea.

01:46:46.300 Court finds that there is a factual basis for the plea and finds the defendant believes the plea

01:46:50.380 to be in his best interest. I find that the plea was given freely voluntarily and was intelligently

01:46:55.660 made. I accept the plea. I direct that it be entered. I'll continue the matter for sentencing in

01:47:00.860 this case. I think it was mentioned on the call Monday afternoon. The defense wishes to waive a

01:47:07.420 pre-trial investigation. Is that accurate? Yes, Your Honor.

01:47:12.620 The state also? Yes, Your Honor. The state does not believe

01:47:16.540 the pre-sentence investigation is needed given the evidence that is available. We want to, though,

01:47:21.340 make sure that all of the victims have the opportunity to make statements to the court at

01:47:25.500 sentencing. Absolutely. And certainly both the state and the defense may present whatever

01:47:35.420 sentencing memorandum and other documents you wish me to consider. The victims will be given an

01:47:41.980 opportunity to provide the statements that they wish to at sentencing. Do we need more than one full

01:47:48.860 day for sentencing? I do not believe so, Your Honor. Obviously, we have numerous victims and we have

01:47:57.020 victims who share unique perspectives on this and we want to make sure that they all have time to

01:48:04.780 express their feelings to the court. But I believe that if we can start perhaps 8 30 or so in the morning

01:48:10.300 that we should be able to complete it all in one day. Defense agree with that in terms of the time

01:48:17.100 frame? Yes, Your Honor. All right. So as it happens, we have some time reserved in this case in July and August.

01:48:30.060 The week of July 22nd is available. I don't know if that's too soon for the parties or the next week,

01:48:37.500 the week of August 4 is available. Any preference? Your Honor, we're prepared as soon as the court wants to

01:48:45.260 schedule it. This date, I believe, would be here on the 22nd. We've told the victims' families that

01:48:50.940 we're looking at approximately those dates. All right. So because of the plan to bring in so many

01:48:57.900 jurors to fill out questionnaires, I had ordered that no other trials could take place in this

01:49:05.100 courthouse the week of July 22nd. And so we will use that in terms of the sentencing date because of

01:49:13.500 what I'm sure will be the significant interest of the media and the public and the logistics that

01:49:22.780 will be required to make that happen. Without trials going, it'll be a lot easier to do that.

01:49:29.100 So let's pick that week. Why don't we pick July 23rd with the idea that if for some reason we don't

01:49:36.780 finish, we could continue into the 24th. We'll start at nine in the morning.

01:49:44.780 Does that give your team enough time, Sandra? Nine in the morning? All right.

01:49:50.460 Any concerns with that date? No, Your Honor. Thank you. No, sir. All right.

01:49:54.620 Any reason why I should not rescind a non-dissemination order at this time?

01:50:05.100 You're right. I think that given the history of this case, it would be best if that remained in

01:50:10.060 place through sentencing. So we have time to make sure there's the ability to completely answer

01:50:18.060 questions. That would be the state's preference and recommendation. We'd have no objection for

01:50:25.020 the order to remain in place through sentencing. All right. I will at this point, the idea to keep it

01:50:30.140 until sentencing, which time it would be withdrawn in order to give the parties the space and time to

01:50:43.660 prepare to meet what I'm sure will be the deluge of media requests. That's at least my preliminary

01:50:52.620 decision at this point. We can always revisit if it seems to be. For some reason, I should. That said,

01:51:05.340 obviously, I don't think the defendant's bond was ever set for the defendant where it would be revoked.

01:51:12.460 The prior order allowing him to come in civilian clothes is revoked, given his plea and no longer

01:51:18.300 the presumption of innocence. And in fact, now the actual conviction for the crimes. He will continue

01:51:24.460 to be held at the jail pending sentencing. Is there anything else today? No, Your Honor. Thank you.

01:51:32.540 I assume that the trial date will be vacated. The trial is-

01:51:34.860 The trial will be vacated, and I'm sure that the jury commissioner will get a word to those that

01:51:45.980 receive their summons that they won't be required to attend. So that said, again, if you would all

01:51:51.820 please wait for the parties and the victims' families and others to leave the courtroom before

01:51:59.340 you do. I would appreciate it. And with that, we're adjourned.

01:52:02.540 Extraordinary day. Three years ago, Brian Kohlberger left the Poconos

01:52:14.380 for Washington state where he had everything in front of him. He had gotten into a prestigious PhD

01:52:21.500 program to study criminal justice. He could have had a life in law enforcement enforcing the law against

01:52:27.980 bad guys. And instead he chose to become one of them. And now three years later,

01:52:33.820 four innocent lives have been stolen by him as he ruined a fifth, his own along the way.

01:52:40.540 Extraordinary to watch him stand up and say, guilty. I did it. The actual guilty was said while seated,

01:52:47.980 but we saw him stand at the beginning and over and over again, just chilling. Did you murder Madison

01:52:54.860 Mogan, a human being? Yes. Did you murder Kaylee Gonsalves? Yes. And when they were doing the yes

01:53:03.020 part of it, before they got to the guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, when they're doing the yes, it was

01:53:07.500 almost kind of snippy the way, the way they were going through it. Here it is. Let me just replay it

01:53:13.340 and then our panel will come back in. Watch. Did you, uh, on November 13th, 2022,

01:53:19.340 uh, in Moscow, Idaho with the intent to commit the felony crime of murder? Yes. Did you

01:53:32.700 on November 13th, 2022, uh, in Latah County state of Idaho, uh, kill and murder Madison Mogan, a human

01:53:43.260 being? Yes. And did you do that willfully, unlawfully, deliberately, and with premeditation

01:53:49.020 and malice of forethought? Yes. Did you honor about that same date in, uh, Moscow, Idaho, um,

01:53:57.740 kill and murder Kaylee Gonsalves, a human being? Yes. And did you do that willfully, unlawfully,

01:54:04.300 deliberately, and with premeditation and malice of forethought? Yes. And did you on that same date

01:54:11.340 in Moscow, Idaho, kill and murder Zana Kornado, Kornado, pardon me, a human being? Yes. And did

01:54:18.140 you do that willfully, unlawfully, deliberately with premeditation and malice of forethought? Yes.

01:54:24.700 And then on, uh, we're about November 13th, 2022, uh, again, in Latah County, Idaho. Did you, uh,

01:54:32.540 kill and murder Ethan Chapin, a human being? Yes. Did you do that willfully, unlawfully,

01:54:37.660 deliberately with premeditation and malice of forethought? Yes.

01:54:44.060 Just awful. Yes, yes, yes. Like a student taking an oral exam and he's got all the answers

01:54:50.860 and he can comfort himself at having them for the rest of his life as he rots in prison,

01:54:56.220 which is a fate too good for Brian Kohlberger. Bringing back Matt, Matt Murphy and Howard Bloom.

01:55:01.360 Wow. Um, Matt, I'll start with you on it. It's not your first rodeo seeing something like that.

01:55:05.540 What did you make of what we just witnessed? Um, I'm kind of frustrated actually. Um,

01:55:13.940 I sat on our death penalty, uh, special circumstance committee for 15 years in Orange County.

01:55:19.540 And essentially what, what you do in a special stroke murder like this, special circumstances

01:55:24.340 murder is you go through the law piece by piece and you, you weigh the aggravating versus mitigating

01:55:31.300 circumstances. And you go through those very carefully. What are the factors in aggravation?

01:55:36.180 What are the factors in mitigation? And from that, we would make a recommendation to the elected DA,

01:55:41.140 who then makes a very somber decision whether or not to seek the death penalty or life without

01:55:46.420 possibility of parole. We only sought death in less over the course of those 15 years, less than 4% of the

01:55:52.900 cases. Megan, this case screams off for the death penalty. So my big question here is what changed?

01:56:00.420 Because it's unethical to file a death enhancement or to seek the death penalty with the idea that you

01:56:06.100 are extracting a plea. And I'm not saying this prosecutor did that, but when you hear the evidence

01:56:11.380 for me, listening to the fact that he got a K bar on Amazon before he moved out, I think that's a new

01:56:18.100 fact. I knew about the phones. I knew about the rest of it. This is an overwhelming case. So again,

01:56:23.780 what changed other than him deciding, other than Koberger asking to plead guilty, that changed the

01:56:29.300 assessment that this was a death penalty case. And, and it is at the end, and I don't like to,

01:56:37.060 being a prosecutor is a tough job. I acknowledge that I did it for 26 years. So I'm, I'm reluctant

01:56:42.420 to criticize, um, uh, you know, cause it is a tough position, but if he choked up at the end,

01:56:50.340 I think that we listened to the DA choke up at the end. He did talk about that. It's like, dude,

01:56:55.300 you gave this guy a break and we didn't hear one single thing that changed in your assessment

01:57:00.980 between the aggravating and the mitigating factors. We didn't hear anything. We didn't hear anything

01:57:05.220 about a new story of abuse, some piece of evidence that wasn't going to be admitted, nothing changed.

01:57:09.960 And one of those families is, is irate. And you don't, it's like the old saying,

01:57:16.880 there's no crying in baseball. There's no crying in, um, when you're in the prosecution business,

01:57:22.460 and you're talking about the slaughter of four innocent kids, when you're giving the defendant a

01:57:27.120 break, the big winner today, I hate to say it is Brian Koberger. And, um, I am, uh, I'm, I'm just,

01:57:33.440 I was frustrated listening to that. And I, I got no problem calling him out. Um, unless there was

01:57:39.620 something that changed behind the scenes that we didn't hear about today, I think, um, I think

01:57:44.280 that they should have proceeded with the death penalty.

01:57:46.480 Well said there, nothing changed, Howard, nothing changed other than Brian Koberger's

01:57:50.260 willingness to take the plea.

01:57:52.480 Uh, it is such a cynical decision on the part of the state to make this plea bargain. And during the

01:57:59.760 course of the recitation by, uh, Thompson, he kept on saying things, so many things we don't know.

01:58:06.740 He said, for whatever reason, we don't know exactly why he did this. Uh, the state, the evidence

01:58:12.400 suggests these are answers that we will never get at the families. More importantly, we'll never get.

01:58:18.520 I think they need to know this. Uh, it was a very dramatic moment and ultimately very disappointing

01:58:25.880 moment. Even the state's decision to keep the gag order in place. They're trying to keep this quiet

01:58:32.120 for as long as they can to get this over with and then move on, move on. That's been the, you know,

01:58:38.440 from the beginning of this case, they were in rush to tear down the house where the murders occurred.

01:58:44.040 The judge himself who took this case, Hitler said, I'm not happy to be here. I wish I could say I was,

01:58:49.520 but I'm not judge judge quickly got off of it. Uh, the original judge, the chief of police retired as soon

01:58:56.520 as he could. Uh, this is not a political coverup, but it's sort of a benign neglect. Let's, I move on,

01:59:04.500 but Idaho forget this. But the reality is the state, the town, the surviving families, they will never

01:59:10.980 forget this. And I think they've been done a real injustice by the state. Totally agree. They,

01:59:16.880 they deserved the trial that they were promised that they were entitled to. They deserve to see the

01:59:23.320 witnesses take the stand and have the actual evidence, the overwhelming evidence presented

01:59:28.720 against him so that there'd be zero doubt in anybody's mind. We deserved it. We deserve to

01:59:33.500 see him sentenced to death. If the death penalty is not appropriate for Brian Kohlberger, who is it

01:59:39.640 appropriate for? Four innocents, three of whom were asleep in their beds with zero chance of even

01:59:47.240 fighting back. He, he murdered them at the prime of their life with it all in front of them.

01:59:52.680 Who's the death penalty for Idaho has the death penalty. They believe in the death penalty because

01:59:57.600 of that prosecutor who wants us to feel that he does empathize with the victim's family with that

02:00:02.840 choking up at the very end part. It was in his hands, Matt. He could have said, no, the only thing

02:00:08.580 that changed, and I've been reading nonstop about it since we found out that there was a deal. The only

02:00:12.040 thing that changed was the circumstances on the defense side, none of the proof and Taylor's

02:00:17.460 attempt to get the death penalty off the table failed and Taylor's attempt. Howard and I've been

02:00:22.520 talking about this for two years now to get, um, the DNA evidence thrown out because there was some

02:00:28.140 like T's weren't perfectly crossed and eyes weren't perfectly dotted in finding that hit in the DNA

02:00:33.080 database. Her challenge to that failed and Taylor's attempt at the last minute to bring in four other

02:00:38.520 names as possible suspects failed when the judge said there's zero evidence. Those people did it.

02:00:43.200 And in fact, DNA and fingerprint tests have been done on them and that they have nothing to do with

02:00:47.160 this case. Only when Ann Taylor realized she didn't have a shot at disproving anything at really poking

02:00:54.040 holes in the prosecution's case. Did she go to them on Friday and say, make us an offer? And he did.

02:00:59.620 And what you're saying is a prosecutor who knows he has a good case would nine times out of 10 and has

02:01:07.460 the right to say, I will not make you a deal. The deal is he can plead guilty and be subjected to

02:01:13.400 the death penalty. Yeah. Not nine times out of time, Megan. Um, that's the only thing I've heard

02:01:18.140 between, between you and Howard that he disagree with. It's 900, 900 times out of a thousand on a death

02:01:23.680 case. The decision was already made. So why did we just go through all this? And I'll tell you another

02:01:28.360 thing I take issue with what's with the acknowledgement of there are many other houses

02:01:32.860 in the area. The guy's pleading guilty. We know he was there to go check out King's road. Like

02:01:38.820 why is he doing that? He's trying to imply, well, maybe I couldn't have won this case. I don't,

02:01:45.160 don't attack me because maybe my case wasn't that solid. He is going overboard to impugn his own case

02:01:51.380 publicly so he won't be criticized. Well, let me tell you another, another thing. Yeah. And another

02:01:56.440 thing. And I look, when he says there was no component, I wrote this down, no sexual component

02:02:02.420 or, um, sexual assault. He doesn't know that. How do we know what Brian Koberger's intent was,

02:02:08.420 which is exactly you're just talking about, Megan. What do we, why did he enter that house?

02:02:13.200 And he was obsessed with Ted Bundy. We know about that from some of the information. Actually,

02:02:17.140 I think I read about that from something that, that Howard wrote. We know that he was obsessed with

02:02:21.460 Ted Bundy, Ted Bundy sexually abused every single one of his victims. So like Mike Tyson says,

02:02:26.900 everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face, right? The great philosopher, Mike Tyson,

02:02:30.660 we don't know what Brian Koberger was thinking, but I can tell you this, the vast majority of,

02:02:35.740 of serial killers. And I, I prosecuted 13 of these guys. I'm about to write a second book on serial

02:02:41.840 killers. The vast majority of them, um, back in the 1880s, they were dubbed sadistic lust murderers.

02:02:48.720 That's what they used to say. He doesn't know this guy with his beard, sorry, does not know what

02:02:54.660 Brian Koberger was thinking when he went in there. And he cannot say there was not a sexual component

02:02:59.860 to it. And I'll tell you what, on behalf of sexual abuse victims everywhere, um, these victims can't

02:03:05.780 speak for themselves. That was a slap in the face to people that have survived horrific things like

02:03:10.960 this. He doesn't know. So he, maybe he meant to say there was no actual sexual assault, which is fine,

02:03:17.560 but he spoke to his intent. And that I think was inappropriate.

02:03:21.500 Also was incorrect. I mean, you cannot go into a house, target a young woman and without having a

02:03:29.800 sexual element in some way being part of the motivation. And the thing is, we'll never know

02:03:34.800 his real motivation. All these things that the, uh, Thompson said, uh, he admitted for whatever reason,

02:03:41.700 evidence suggests we'll never get those answers. Also interesting. This is a major victory really

02:03:47.260 for Ann Taylor. She accomplished what she could with the card she was dealt. She kept her client

02:03:53.200 from going to before a firing squad. And yet the only time there was, I thought a moment of perhaps

02:04:00.040 a disagreement when the judge asked her, did you get all the discovery you needed? And that's been a key,

02:04:06.100 uh, part for her. She's been protesting that time after time. She filed two separate motions

02:04:11.400 about not getting the discovery she needed. And yet here she paused, you know, pregnantly,

02:04:16.520 and then she conceded, yes, just to appease the judge, I think.

02:04:21.240 Yeah. Can I add something else, Megan? Um, you know, just having, uh, having done so many of these,

02:04:27.240 when you listen to that judge, that's a no nonsense judge. Uh, I know Howard's got some

02:04:33.660 criticism for him as a practicing lawyer. I don't, I don't, I, I can't offer any from what I just saw,

02:04:38.620 but look, that judge would have taken care of business. He would have made the right rulings.

02:04:43.460 He was sober as a, as a, a trial lawyer. That's the type of person that when you got the evidence,

02:04:49.680 when you have a judicial officer like that, who is smart and on the ball, like I think this judge

02:04:55.700 very much is, um, that that's the courtroom where you win your cases. So again, what has changed?

02:05:02.320 I mean, you gotta, you gotta solid judge. You have overwhelming evidence. Um, it, I've heard

02:05:07.440 nothing whatsoever in mitigation offered at any point by the defense. Um, that this is a really

02:05:14.100 good death penalty case and they're, they all get appealed and you know, you're, you're going to

02:05:20.560 face the highest level of appellate scrutiny through the ninth circuit, um, as death penalty cases should.

02:05:26.040 But again, the decision was made, the families geared up for it. I want to know what changed other

02:05:31.920 than him, him coming to the table and wanting to take a deal, which they always do. Um, let me just

02:05:36.940 want to know this, this other piece of it, because you mentioned this, uh, did he have sexual motive

02:05:41.120 in mind or was there any as a sexual element to this to, to back up what you said? You remember this

02:05:47.400 came out in that dateline special that happened like a month ago that led Ann Taylor to say,

02:05:52.260 we need a delay of the trial date. This thing is so damning to us. And clearly somebody on team

02:05:56.360 prosecution or cop participated or so it would seem because the, a lot of the evidence we heard

02:06:01.480 the prosecutor talking about there, we learned from that dateline special. And one of the things

02:06:05.580 was that in November, 2022, after I believe it was after the murders, uh, Brian Kohlberger

02:06:11.680 searched the internet for information about Ted Bundy and made a number of searches for pornography

02:06:16.800 with the keywords, drugged sleeping and passed out. Now you tell me why he insisted on going in there

02:06:25.620 at four in the morning when three out of his four victims had been asleep, were asleep. Ethan was

02:06:32.100 asleep. Zana was up and she got chased, but Maddie and Kaylee were asleep in their beds and he's

02:06:38.860 searching for porn relating to sleeping victims, Matt. And this prosecutor can say there was no sexual,

02:06:46.400 he doesn't know what Brian Kohlberger did. He didn't, he doesn't know whether he got off

02:06:50.220 as he's murdering those two girls or what element it brought up for him. Like, how dare he say that?

02:06:57.020 That's right. Yep. That's right. Totally, totally inappropriate for him to do that. I don't know

02:07:01.280 if he misspoke and just meant to say sexual, sexual assault, because of course that doesn't,

02:07:06.680 doesn't appear to have happened, but for him to say there's no sexual component, that's,

02:07:11.340 that offends me. Sorry. I don't think he misspoke. I think he said it deliberately because he wants to

02:07:16.080 put his plea deal in the best light. I also think it's interesting to look at Ann Taylor and her

02:07:22.100 team. She had filed many motions saying that Kohlberger, because of where he was on the autistic

02:07:28.280 spectrum, wasn't able to understand things. He couldn't cooperate with his lawyers. He couldn't

02:07:34.220 understand what was happening in the courtroom. He couldn't actually even make a plea. Now all of a

02:07:39.380 sudden, she is allowing him to make this plea. He's saying under oath that he understands everything.

02:07:46.940 And I know lawyers have a responsibility to defend their clients, whoever they are, to the best of

02:07:53.740 their abilities. But things were said in defense of Kohlberger by Ann and her team, Ms. Maseuth.

02:08:01.260 Ms. Maseuth put her arm around Kohlberger and said, it is an honor, an honor to defend him.

02:08:07.380 So, uh, these things I think need to be answered.

02:08:12.780 Yeah, there's a, you know, I'm a little more, um, here it is, here it is. Just, just to reiterate,

02:08:19.280 this is the full quote from the prosecutor. I will say for the record that there is no evidence there

02:08:24.200 was any sexual component or sexual assault on any of the victims. I want to make that clear. So there's

02:08:31.000 no speculation. There it is clear as day. There is no sexual, there was no sexual component,

02:08:38.320 um, that he is out of line. How can he possibly know in, in light of those searches, which by the

02:08:44.760 way, he didn't mention, he also didn't mention those searches when, when going back over his

02:08:50.080 evidence. I'm sure that was no accident, Matt,

02:08:51.840 which are 100% admissible, Megan, they would be, they would be admissible in court for,

02:08:58.200 for motive, even if it's an uncharged, um, act that that's coming in any judges letting that

02:09:03.720 and I guarantee that particular judge would let that into evidence. So yeah, that's, um, I think

02:09:08.280 maybe, let me, let me just say one other thing about judge. I, I see your point. I take your point

02:09:13.540 was winnable because the judge is no nonsense, but I will say shame on that judge for not understanding

02:09:18.500 how to pronounce Zanna Karnodal's name by this point in the proceedings. It was disrespectful.

02:09:22.980 And I can understand once you're nervous, the cameras are on, but it happened repeatedly.

02:09:27.860 And I'm sure it, it had like the shock effect on anyone who knew Zanna, including her family. Like,

02:09:34.540 I'm sorry, but study the names before you walk in there as the judge. I thought it was disrespectful.

02:09:39.240 And I Howard, I also dis, I thought it was disrespectful for him to open it up by chastising

02:09:45.080 Steve Gonsalves, which is really what he did with his whole, someone is telling people to call the

02:09:51.320 court. That was Steve in a desperate father whose daughter is murdered said, please, maybe if we call

02:09:58.740 the courthouse, we can stop this from getting approved. And instead of being like, you know,

02:10:04.620 gentle about it, please don't call the court because it's not going to change anything with

02:10:08.960 respect to the families. We understand this is agonizing. Instead, he was angry and his ire was

02:10:14.700 toward the dad of one of the four victims.

02:10:16.740 I mean, Steve is a tragic figure in this whole case. Early on, he made a statement. I was there

02:10:24.560 and he said, you send your daughter off to college and she comes back to you in a box. I mean, that's

02:10:30.740 heartbreaking. And after living through something like that, everything that he does, however seems

02:10:38.400 out of bounds, out of normal rules of conduct, of decorum, well, you have to cut him some slack.

02:10:44.140 You have to understand it. He's become, to my mind, as I wrote about him a great deal in my book and

02:10:50.860 elsewhere, an almost Captain Ahab figure who's, you know, refuses to surrender, who's going on

02:10:56.440 wherever it is, who's doing his own investigation, who's trying to connect the dots any way he can.

02:11:02.100 If he thinks I did something wrong, he's on my case. I understand that. If he thinks the police did

02:11:07.140 something wrong, he's on their case too. I mean, in many ways, he's a hero and yet he's also will

02:11:14.420 be a victim forever of this case. All those families, that's the real tragedy, are, there are

02:11:19.940 no survivors. They're only victims.

02:11:22.360 Yeah. I do want to give credit where credit is due, though.

02:11:24.640 Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead.

02:11:25.360 I'm sorry. Yeah. You know, one thing to keep in mind here that I do want to say that I think the

02:11:30.160 judge did do right is by continuing the sentencing hearing itself, under Idaho law, the court does

02:11:36.720 not have to give the victims an opportunity to address the court. Okay. So that's one thing that

02:11:42.060 the judge didn't have to do, that he did do, that is incredibly important for victims' families,

02:11:47.000 including hopefully on that day, Mr. Gonsalves himself, because he'll be able to express that

02:11:52.300 with Brian Koburger sitting in the room. And under, they have a Crime Victims Bill of Rights

02:11:57.340 that passed in 1994, but it is discretionary with the court. So I do want to say kudos to the

02:12:03.440 court for allowing the family to do that. I think that was very appropriate. And what he could have

02:12:07.820 done, again, is he could have imposed the sentence today. And so by putting that off, I do want to

02:12:13.960 give him credit on that one point, because that is one of those things, even though everybody is

02:12:18.740 going to know what the sentence is going to be. And I can tell you right now, he's not reducing any of

02:12:22.520 these, any of these counts. But when family members address the court, I've sat through a lot

02:12:28.620 of those. They are incredibly impactful, and it does give them something. At least they get their

02:12:33.960 moment in court where the defendant has to listen to them to talk about their grief. So I, you know,

02:12:39.880 once again, credit or credit is due on that.

02:12:41.620 We heard that the judge said it was going to be July 22nd. It's been moved to July 23rd. So it's

02:12:44.900 now going to be July 23rd. I will say this, you know, Steve Gonsalves was out there begging for

02:12:52.700 the court to listen to him because he was very upset about how this went down. And he was very

02:12:57.520 upset that he did learn about the fact that there was a plea deal via email. We talked about this a

02:13:03.860 bit yesterday, Matt, via email. And I just want you to remember that the audience to remember that as

02:13:08.700 we look back at this prosecutor, I'm just going to say it. I think working up tears in that

02:13:14.800 one moment. I think he, I think it was an affectation meant by him to show I, I'm connected

02:13:20.760 to this case. It's been very hard on me. I'm a feeling person. Don't believe that I, I disregarded

02:13:27.100 anybody's wishes and striking this deal because I really think we wouldn't be seeing

02:13:32.260 notification by email to the families that the guy's not going to be put to death and there's not

02:13:39.580 going to be a trial if he deeply cared as he clearly wants us to believe in this.

02:13:43.700 It might be tears of relief that he can move on. He's finally done.

02:13:48.380 If that is true, Megan, if that, watch, stand by.

02:13:53.380 So your honor, at the end, the state submits that the evidence that I've given just a quick

02:13:58.300 overview of, and that the presenting court would consume weeks, which the state is prepared

02:14:03.900 to do and has been prepared to do, would show that as the defendant has just admitted and pleaded

02:14:09.320 guilty on November 13th, 2022. Excuse me.

02:14:14.000 Mr. Koberger entered the residence of 1122 King Road in Moscow, Idaho. He did that with the intent

02:14:24.100 to kill. We will not represent that he intended to commit all of the murders that he did that night,

02:14:30.520 but we know that that is what resulted and that he then killed intentionally, willfully,

02:14:37.940 deliberately, deliberately, with premeditation and with malice forethought.

02:14:42.620 Manny Mogan, Kaylee Gonzalez, Ethan Chapin, and Santa Cruz. Thank you.

02:14:51.660 Thank you.

02:14:52.880 Go ahead, Howard.

02:14:53.920 Well, he's a very good performer, and this was his opportunity to have his final say and

02:15:02.360 then move on. I think it was a very contrived moment. I think he was milking it for all it

02:15:08.580 was worth. And he can also be very tough. During one of the motions, filings, he got the defense

02:15:17.320 witness to cry on the stand when he was coming at him so hard. Bill Thompson,

02:15:23.920 can be a very tough guy. And I think this was a moment to show that even though he's making this

02:15:28.940 deal, he cares. I think that's why he went over the defense.

02:15:32.800 It seemed orchestrated to me, I have to be honest. It seemed like the timing of it,

02:15:36.900 how it came just right at the last moment while he was closing. He's the Lataw County prosecutor,

02:15:41.420 Bill Thompson. I don't know. Matt, do you want to say something on it?

02:15:44.840 Well, look, when men cry in court, it is, among professional prosecutors, that's a trope.

02:15:52.460 We make fun of people doing that. It's not professional. It comes off, whether it's

02:15:58.500 legitimate or not, in this case, it comes off as totally performative. And it also, if that's

02:16:06.180 right, if Steve Gonsalves, and I think he's been accurate, obviously he's very angry. But if that's

02:16:12.320 true, that they were notified in an email, you don't get to cry in court when you talk about their

02:16:17.960 daughter. I'm sorry. I mean, I got to call him out on that. It's unprofessional. There are

02:16:22.580 prosecutors all across the country right now who just watched that, who rolled their eyes.

02:16:27.180 I guarantee it. And defense lawyers too. That was, the case is certainly tragic. It's not even

02:16:35.000 tragic. Tragedy is the wrong word. Murder is not, tragedy is what happens when somebody gets hit by a

02:16:39.820 bus. Okay. Murder is different. Murder is intended. So it is as awful as it is. You can cry behind

02:16:47.500 closed doors that you're going through the evidence. But to cry publicly when Steve Gonsalves refuses to

02:16:52.800 go inside, I just, I think people should have a problem with that. And this guy, look, he said he

02:16:58.120 was going for death. Nothing appears to have changed. And it looks like they blank. He had all the

02:17:03.220 evidence in the world. But I do want to say this. It is horrible for the families when death penalty

02:17:08.060 cases come back. I had to try cases that came back. My Rodney, I'll call it case. I did the

02:17:13.300 third trial of that. It's brutal on the families, but that's why you, you, you put on a good case and

02:17:20.140 you, you keep it streamlined and you do it right. And you remove those issues on appeal. And that's

02:17:25.560 the business of prosecution. I can't help but think of that. You know, in politics, the Democrats have

02:17:28.780 been trying to trying out that taco thing. This is before Trump dropped bombs on Iran. Trump always

02:17:33.660 chickens out. Thompson always chickens out. He's a taco. This guy, Thompson, he chickened out. That's

02:17:38.920 how it seems to me. It, it, it certainly appears. I agree with politics with you, Megan.

02:17:44.360 Everything goes back to politics. It's my life. Uh, but Howard, I wanted to ask you when you watch,

02:17:47.940 when you watch Kohlberger, cause you, I mean, you've written books about this guy. Now you,

02:17:51.260 you've gone deep into his writings when he was a teenager. Was it, what did you make of his snappy

02:17:56.820 little? I know the answer. Yes, yes, yes, yes, I did. I killed that human being. And that one.

02:18:04.360 He was in control. He was the best student. Uh, his legal team, you could see they, they showed

02:18:11.820 some emotion a little bit in their faces. He had a haircut. He didn't wear a suit jacket. He looked

02:18:17.460 like he'd been working out. His arms looked, uh, sort of pumped, uh, a little bit. Uh, you know,

02:18:24.080 made you think that, uh, you know, five, you know, five terms in prison, four terms in prison

02:18:29.620 rather is not going to be so hard for him. It's a travesty. It really is. I meant to add a little

02:18:35.240 bit to the audience. He was sitting there. He was clean cut. He didn't have any sort of facial hair.

02:18:39.160 His hair looked like it had been recently cut. It was closely cropped on the sides.

02:18:42.780 It looked a little lighter than I saw when he was first arrested. And we saw him in the jumpsuit.

02:18:47.100 It looked like a lighter Brown as opposed to, um, like the darker Brown, at least from the feet I was

02:18:52.780 watching, he was wearing a white button down for the listening audience. He's wearing a white

02:18:56.860 button down, like a man, a man's work shirt, um, that you'd wear to, you know, wall street and a,

02:19:01.760 a blue gray tie, but no jacket, which is interesting. And, um, he had one piece of paper in front of him

02:19:08.500 and one pen. He was next to Ann Taylor and another female attorney. He had broad shoulders. He looked

02:19:14.360 fit. He used to be morbidly obese and then got super into veganism and health and went on this tear

02:19:21.900 after his heroin addiction and got super thin, which, you know, became a new sort of religion

02:19:28.040 in his life from what we read. Um, want to bring, do we have Phil now? Phil Holloway's joining us.

02:19:33.040 He's also here. No, he's not here. Okay. He's going to be here in a minute. So he'll join us with

02:19:36.360 his thoughts on, on everything. Um, yeah, if I can just add to what you were saying, I'm sorry.

02:19:41.280 Yeah, go, go ahead. Yeah. No, from a tactical perspective, you look at that. And when you're,

02:19:46.860 when you get into the penalty phase and the defense starts calling experts to talk about his autism

02:19:51.040 or where he is on the spectrum and how he's not functional, what we saw is a guy who was sharp,

02:19:56.040 who understood the rules. He was attentive. He has all of that cuts the prosecution way in the

02:20:02.600 penalty phase. So that, that actually, in my eyes, it was very telling on, on the likelihood of this,

02:20:08.500 of the defense prevailing on any of those like mental health issues or any, any of that sort of

02:20:13.780 thing. Brian Kohlberger was, he was lucid. He understood everything that was going on. And that is

02:20:19.380 exactly why once again, this is the death penalty case at the very beginning. And it should still

02:20:24.320 be a death penalty case now. Yeah. But you had information yesterday that you sent me. I read

02:20:31.620 it to the audience, speculation about what may have led him to plead regarding his parents. And I,

02:20:36.920 let me just give you this bit of information from the courtroom about Kohlberger's parents. And then you

02:20:41.400 can fill things in Howard, uh, Brian Anton of news nations reporting as follows. Brian Kohlberger's

02:20:46.580 parents are not crying, but they do. They look sad. Unlike their son who looks stone cold. He admitted

02:20:54.720 it all. I'm sitting behind his parents. So the parents were there today. Maybe not his sisters

02:21:00.520 from the sound of it. I'm not sure, but his parents were there. And that leads me back to Steve

02:21:05.940 Gonsalves because outside the courthouse this morning, he had a couple of, of odd comments. I mean,

02:21:14.140 not, well, odd in that I didn't fully understand them about asking their news media to go check

02:21:20.320 out when Brian Kohlberger's father bought his plane tickets to come out. Do we have that sound bite?

02:21:26.820 You guys, we can play it. Uh, standby. Here it is. Do you have any message for Kohlberger's moment?

02:21:34.180 Yeah. What do you want? We know, we know when you flew out here. We know, we know we have your

02:21:39.740 flight records. How are you preparing to see him today? I'm not going to see him. When you say

02:21:45.700 you know the flight records, what do you mean, Steve? I know when his parents booked their flight.

02:21:50.520 When his father did. What does that mean? You, you, you, you'll find out. Would you like to say

02:21:57.400 something to them? No. The rest of your family went inside. Is it important for them to be in

02:22:06.780 their state? Yeah. Where are you going? Are you not able to get it? You're not staying in?

02:22:17.360 First of all, it's remarkable because he's usually very composed and you can see today was tough for

02:22:21.680 him. But what do you make of Kohlberger's family, their presence there? And what if any role they

02:22:27.760 had in his reversal? Because all along the word had been, he's not taking a plea. He wants to go to

02:22:34.520 trial. What I discovered in the course of my reporting that early on, Ann Taylor had a sense

02:22:41.240 that this is a case that they could, she would like to get a plea deal. Uh, she approached Kohlberger

02:22:48.060 and discussed it with him. Uh, this was before there was the alternate perpetrator ruling that

02:22:53.280 was ruled out. And he said, no, uh, because his mother was insisting that she, she did not want

02:22:59.640 her son, uh, to admit to guilt to these crimes. Uh, maybe she didn't believe he was guilty or whatever.

02:23:05.640 Then it seems, and this is what I've been told. Uh, this is what has been suggested to me that on,

02:23:11.780 it's a matter of record that on, after the murders on 6 AM, he called for an hour at the parents' home

02:23:19.700 in Pennsylvania at 6 AM. He spoke with his mother, not his father. It was suggested that the, now the

02:23:28.740 state was now going to call the mother to the stand and want to find out what was said during that phone

02:23:34.540 call. That caused Kohlberger, as it was reported to me, a great deal of distress. He did not want this

02:23:40.800 to become public. He also did not want, it was brought up to him that his father would have to

02:23:46.040 testify perhaps on the stand about what was said during their cross country trip that I write about

02:23:51.080 in great detail in my book and in the airmail articles. Uh, he wanted that to be kept secret

02:23:57.860 too. So part of the reason I've been told that he finally agreed to, okay, to tell his team, try to see

02:24:04.580 if we can get a plea deal was that he wanted to keep his parents from testifying. He didn't want

02:24:08.920 them to be put in a situation that might leave them in some sort of jeopardy, might impugn their

02:24:14.500 reputations in the community. He was trying to protect them. That led to him. Well, that's,

02:24:20.460 that's interesting what you just said, because I, I struggled with this yesterday asking how can a

02:24:26.660 sociopath who takes the eye, the life so easily of four innocents then have empathy for his parents?

02:24:32.240 Like, well, gee, I don't want that, but maybe it's not empathy. It's that I don't want them to be in

02:24:38.040 the position of like going to jail. I'm human being enough to say, I don't want them becoming

02:24:42.440 like the, the parents of, um, that guy down in Florida, Brian Landry, uh, who killed Gabby

02:24:48.820 Petito. And it was very clear. The parents knew what their son had done. They denied it, but they,

02:24:54.680 they've become the scourges of the nation because it was very clear that they let Gabby Petito's

02:24:59.500 parents suffer while they knew their son had done something terrible.

02:25:02.640 These are the only anchors he has for the rest of his life in jail. He wants to protect them. He,

02:25:09.660 he, he, if he can get out of this quickly, everyone wants to just get this over with and move on.

02:25:14.080 And that's why I also find so distressing that the judge allowed this gag order to stay in place

02:25:19.100 till after everything is done. Uh, so everything that you reporters might find out, uh, would become

02:25:26.180 ancient history by the time it gets out there. Well, I mean, they haven't been able to stop you,

02:25:30.660 Howard. It's been incredible. The scoops you've gotten that we've then watched come alive as the

02:25:35.540 case went on scoop after scoop would be verified later as the, I think in some of the cases,

02:25:42.780 law enforcement got more bold about releasing some of their things. And let me just ask you

02:25:45.960 to follow up on that, Howard, that on that Dateline special that had so many previously

02:25:49.680 unknown details. Do you think that was law enforcement cooperating with Dateline? Do you

02:25:54.140 think there was some disgruntled cop who was like, this thing's not going the way I want it to go.

02:25:59.740 And I got to make sure this stuff gets out there. I'm, I've, you know, participated in that,

02:26:05.500 uh, special, uh, uh, and, uh, I, I really don't want to comment on it and say, uh, about any of the

02:26:13.640 sourcing on it. I think it would be unfair to my involvement in there, uh, but just the producers

02:26:19.820 did a tremendous job. Uh, they really broke this case open.

02:26:24.100 Mm-hmm. Oh, that's interesting. I'm going to text you offline and then, and then I'll get back

02:26:28.720 to my audience in a way that's reportable. Okay. Phil Holloway joins us now. He just

02:26:33.060 beamed in, uh, we were on the air together not long ago talking about the Diddy trial. And I have

02:26:38.220 to say, Phil, you know, like what a bad day for justice. This is what a bad day, you know,

02:26:43.140 Diddy gets off on the main charges against him and Brian Kohlberger didn't get away with murder,

02:26:47.980 but his life is spared and he doesn't deserve it. Your thoughts. You know, I'm joining this

02:26:53.680 conversation with your other guests a little late and I'm not sure what their position may be on this,

02:26:58.180 but look, uh, as I said, uh, as we were heading out of our earlier, uh, Diddy discussion in the last

02:27:05.680 minute or so of that, I think this was a travesty. I think that they had a, they had a closed open and

02:27:12.040 closed case against Kohlberger. I think it was, um, an obvious conviction. And, uh, after hearing

02:27:18.380 this, um, presentation today and the change of plea hearing, uh, I'm even more, uh, settled in that

02:27:25.320 conviction. They, the only real reason that I can think of is when I was a prosecutor, you know,

02:27:30.980 we always were told that, um, victims get a say in these things that they don't get to drive the

02:27:36.860 train. And I understand that maybe some of the victims' families may have supported this,

02:27:41.760 but you, you needed more unanimous agreement. We, the, the victims' families needed to know the

02:27:48.880 why of all this, I think, to get enough closure. Now, I'm sure there's reasonable arguments on the

02:27:55.180 other side of that as well. You know, they don't have to live through the appeals process and, and

02:28:00.040 thinking about this for the next several decades. All those are valid points, but if you have the

02:28:05.920 victims that are not unanimously on board, then I don't see how, uh, they can go forward with a

02:28:13.580 prosecution, um, that does not include the death penalty. Can, can you, Matt, can you go to the,

02:28:20.060 to the defendant who's come to you saying, please make an offer and say, I'll consider, I'll consider

02:28:27.260 life without parole. If we get a full allocution from you, we, we want to know the details that the

02:28:33.780 families will not sign off on it. And I'm just not going to do this without their blessing unless

02:28:38.480 they have questions answered. And that's what we need. Can you do that? A hundred percent. You can

02:28:43.560 do that. One hundred percent that's available. And the only thing is to keep in mind here, Megan,

02:28:47.860 um, it's not life without possibility of parole. It is 50 to life is what we're talking about.

02:28:53.180 Consecutive sentences of burglary plus the four murders. And that's 50 to life right now,

02:28:58.120 mandatory minimum until like you observed yesterday, when we were talking about this,

02:29:01.900 until they changed the law in Idaho. Hopefully they don't, but in California, where I am,

02:29:06.220 our legislature changes the law to the benefit of defendants all the time. And 50 years is an

02:29:11.880 awful long time for that law to change. And especially when it comes to,

02:29:15.480 I don't know. Yeah, this, but this is a 10 year mandatory minimum. So that's 10 years to life,

02:29:23.140 essentially for each one in Idaho, stacking them consecutively means this is a determinant sentence.

02:29:29.040 I believe at sentencing day, unless there's some provision in Idaho law, I'm not aware of,

02:29:33.420 he's looking at 50 to life, which means if he survives long enough, he would have an opportunity

02:29:38.220 for a parole hearing. That's something that, that hasn't been discussed yet, but that's,

02:29:42.540 that's my reading of what I heard. Wait, how can that be? Because they said they'll run consecutively,

02:29:47.260 meaning one after the other. So it'd be 50 years potentially on, on each murder victim,

02:29:53.780 plus another 10 on the burglary. No, it's 10 years. It's a 10 year minimum stacked up. It's a 10

02:30:01.020 year minimum for each murder. So like in California for a second degree murder, how are you shaking

02:30:05.620 your head? Did I, did I do my mouth wrong? No, no, no, it's right. It's just, I'm shaking my head in

02:30:10.200 disgust. I mean, you know, we talk about politics being the art of the deal. Well, this was Thompson's

02:30:16.560 chance to make the deal. He had all the cards and he just blew it. And by the way, Philip,

02:30:21.900 just so you know, um, everything you said, I agree with you. You basically echoed everything

02:30:26.420 I said to as another former prosecutor. So you're telling me, Matt, just to back to your main point,

02:30:32.580 there actually is a chance under this deal that he could see the light of day again.

02:30:36.580 I think there's a, there's a, there's a good chance he'll get a parole hearing,

02:30:40.580 whether hopefully he's never given an opportunity and the, the parole boards in Idaho remain steady,

02:30:46.880 you know, but California, we've seen a huge shift to the left, um, and to, to people getting out and

02:30:53.540 the legislators, the legislature legislature has passed multiple laws that make it easier and easier

02:31:00.060 for lifers to get out. Life used to mean life in California. And over the last 15 years, it is

02:31:05.420 tacked very dramatically the opposite way. So who knows what's going to happen in Idaho, but that's

02:31:10.940 the thing. LWOP is not his sentence. He will get, he will have a mandatory minimum time, I believe,

02:31:17.160 based on this math of 50, and it might even be less than that. If burglary is less, he's going to,

02:31:22.580 he's agreeing to the 10, but, uh, you know, as I'm writing down the math and my mouth is usually

02:31:27.600 wrong, but, um, that's, uh, this is going to be, I believe a 50 year to life sentence where he will do

02:31:33.480 a mandatory minimum, um, of 50 less the burg potentially, but he's going to be eligible for

02:31:40.060 parole hearing based on what I heard today in court. Wow. He's only 30 years old. He's also

02:31:45.140 a young man. You know, he gets to, um, make friends in jail. He gets to, uh, talk to his family. He gets

02:31:52.720 to see people on video calls. He gets to write letters. He gets to read books. Uh, he gets to do

02:31:58.160 all of the things that, uh, the, the victims can't do. I mean, maybe he's in jail, but he gets to,

02:32:06.460 he gets to make something of a life himself, life for himself, even if it's in prison,

02:32:12.280 they don't get that. He deserves to spend the next several decades, uh, not just, uh, working out the,

02:32:19.860 the arts and crafts and the, whatever kind of things he's going to get lined up for in prison.

02:32:24.420 He needs to spend the next several decades worrying about that firing squad. Is it going to hurt the

02:32:30.280 needle? Are they going to aim right? Is it going to be quick or am I going to feel the firing squad?

02:32:36.860 That's the punishment. That's what he needs to be thinking about over the next 50 or so years,

02:32:42.440 not whether or not he gets to make his Skype calls every day.

02:32:46.980 And I think families need to have answers. They, they can't be left with for whatever reason,

02:32:53.580 or the evidence suggests, and the taxpayers at Idaho who funded this whole thing for two and a half

02:32:58.700 years, this needs to be taken to a conclusion, uh, to let's find out what happened.

02:33:04.880 Can I add to Philip's comment real quick, Megan?

02:33:08.360 Yeah.

02:33:09.040 When it comes to these types of deals, one of the things you hear in the death penalty debate

02:33:12.980 so often is, well, it gives them a long time to sit in their cell and essentially think about what

02:33:18.880 they did. That again, is humanizing the psychopath. Their brains don't work like that. They,

02:33:25.260 they, they, they don't think like the rest of us. They, otherwise they wouldn't have committed the

02:33:30.000 crime in the first place. They don't sit in their cell regretting what they did. There's no such

02:33:34.340 thing as regret in their mind. So Philip is exactly right. Phil really hit the nail on the head. He's,

02:33:40.540 he's going to go in the white shirt, the morning after the murders with the thumbs up,

02:33:45.440 looking like psycho in front of a shower. Keep going, Matt.

02:33:48.060 Does that guy look like somebody that's going to sit in a cell and regret anything that he did?

02:33:51.680 I mean, he, he, that guy probably still has some DNA at the moment he took that photo

02:33:56.580 of the victims on his body as he's given a thumbs up. So that's not somebody that is going to regret

02:34:02.060 anything in jail. And he looks like a vampire in that photo, by the way. I mean, that's,

02:34:05.940 that is, that guy is not going to jail. He's not going to sit in state prison and regret

02:34:11.040 one thing that he did. He's going to regret getting caught, but he will adjust. And just like,

02:34:16.200 just like Phil just pointed out, he's going to program and he's going to do the classes and he's going to

02:34:20.680 probably finish out his PhD and he's going to, he's going to talk to other inmates and he has

02:34:25.280 an opportunity to make friends and sit in a chow line and his family would get him a TV.

02:34:29.860 And it's, it is absolutely not the same thing as sitting on death row, especially someplace like

02:34:35.160 Idaho that really might execute him. Unlike California and some other States that have

02:34:40.400 death penalty on the books, but it's not actually carried out Idaho. He would actually face.

02:34:44.920 Yeah. Here's what Kaylee Gonsalves is 18 year old sister. Aubrey wrote in reaction to the news of

02:34:51.900 the deal. Brian Kohlberger facing a life in prison means he would still get to speak,

02:34:56.600 form relationships and engage with the world. Meanwhile, our loved ones have been silenced

02:35:01.320 forever. That reality stings more deeply when it feels like the system is protecting his future

02:35:06.480 more than honoring the victim's pasts. So well said by an 18 year old. And by the way,

02:35:11.760 again, to the point of like the judge couldn't even pronounce Zanna Karnodal's name. It's like,

02:35:16.480 yes, it felt disrespectful. Where were the victims there today? There wasn't really even a moment

02:35:21.000 where we learned who they really were or anything about them. There was absolutely no attempt to

02:35:26.820 humanize the victims today by the judge or the prosecutor for that matter. They were all but

02:35:32.200 forgotten in there, Howard. Totally. I mean, also to go back to the photograph we just showed of the

02:35:38.480 thumbs up. That photograph was taken approximately 20 minutes after he got off the hour phone call

02:35:44.760 with his mother. So that's sort of the timeline. Do you think he confessed to the mother, Howard?

02:35:50.780 Is that what you're intimating? It's a hypothesis. I think things were said to her that made her

02:35:56.500 perhaps realize something's not right. Just the same way that on the drive across the country,

02:36:03.740 his father realized, was beginning to realize, could my son be this monster? I mean, you're sitting

02:36:09.420 shoulder to shoulder in a white Hyundai. Every cop in the whole country is looking for a white Hyundai

02:36:14.560 Elantra. You know, your son has some problems. You put two and two together. But can they make that

02:36:20.720 And his sister too, right? Yes. The sister was the one who really articulated it. At some point,

02:36:25.620 she goes to the father and confronts him. And he, according to the reporting I've done,

02:36:29.660 he walks off. He doesn't make any comment. But slowly they are following this trail of footprints

02:36:35.460 and they realize where it's leading to them. And I think this phone call, what happened on that phone

02:36:41.220 call would have come up in the courtroom and it might have implicated them, might have put them

02:36:46.540 in perhaps legal jeopardy. And that picture you're showing now, he looks like an army recruit with his

02:36:52.780 shaved sides and looking in good shape. Oh, he's definitely been working out. I mean,

02:36:57.460 he's got like the broad shoulders now though, which he didn't have before, but the, that there is one

02:37:01.920 person who knew him almost as well as the family, arguably. And that was his college professor,

02:37:06.860 his, his master's degree professor, this Catherine Ramsland who hasn't spoken at all. She has given

02:37:13.580 no interviews because she was expected to be called as a witness by the prosecution. But since the case

02:37:18.660 has pled out, she feels free to speak. And she gave an interview to news nations, Brian Enten last

02:37:24.880 night. It was fascinating. I'm going to show you guys a couple of pieces of it. I showed one at the

02:37:29.820 top of our show today, but I'm going to get into the substance here. Okay. So he asked her all the

02:37:34.560 right questions like this one. Like, did you get the creepy vibe off of him is essentially what he's

02:37:41.280 asking when, when he was in your many classes. And here's that in stop 43.

02:37:44.660 Was there anything looking back now that was strange about him or that you, that you noticed?

02:37:54.300 When I look back, there really isn't anything that stood out to me. Um, I think when you're a teacher,

02:38:00.340 your, your instinct is to accept students at face value. You don't, you know, start with suspicions or,

02:38:08.140 you know, and there, there really weren't any red flags. He was always really quite respectful and,

02:38:14.500 uh, grateful. He would thank me for things. He was attentive. He would do the work. Um,

02:38:22.620 I didn't have any concerns. I just want the audience to, and you guys to hear, we, we worked

02:38:27.720 on this special with Howard in December, 2023, where we, for a week got into this case and we pulled

02:38:34.920 and Howard pulled Brian Kohlberger's old writings from his teenage years. And this is just to the

02:38:41.020 point that he, let me play for you how sick he is. We had our producer voice over his internet posts.

02:38:47.600 They were written. This is not Brian Kohlberger's voice. It's our producer's voice. But this guy who

02:38:52.400 you're about to hear had even Catherine Ramsland fooled about him being a good guy. He was just there

02:38:58.020 to study criminology earnestly. Um, we'll start with here. Um, stop 56.

02:39:09.140 July 4th, 2011. I've had this horrible depersonalization go on in my life for almost

02:39:15.420 two years. I feel like an organic sack of meat with no self-worth as I'm starting to do everything

02:39:22.100 as this. And then he goes on. Stop 55. Watch. May 12th, 2011. I always feel as if I am not there

02:39:33.260 completely depersonalized mentally. I experienced fog, lack of comprehension at some times feel like

02:39:41.220 my life is a movie depersonalization, depression, no interest in activity, constant thought of suicide,

02:39:49.860 crazy thoughts, delusions of grandeur, anxiety, poor self-image, poor social skills, no emotion.

02:39:59.380 I feel like nothing has a point to it. When I get home, I am mean to my family.

02:40:06.600 This started when VS or visual snow did. I felt no emotion. And along with the depersonalization,

02:40:13.180 I can say and do whatever I want with little remorse. Everyone hates me pretty much. I am an

02:40:21.260 asshole. I'm just going to give you one more Howard, because this one speaks to his relationship

02:40:26.900 with his family. Stop 57. As I hug my family, I look into their faces. I see nothing. It is like

02:40:36.460 I'm looking at a video game, but less. I feel less than mentally damaged. It is like I have severe

02:40:43.460 brain damage. I'm stuck in the depths of my mind. As I hug my family, I feel nothing. But he, that same

02:40:52.400 guy who would then go on to get addicted to heroin, but then get off of it, started straightening out

02:40:57.300 his life and wound up in front of one of the foremost criminal justice and forensic experts in the world

02:41:03.700 at this college in Pennsylvania. And she was totally fooled by him. That's what she told

02:41:09.860 Brian Enten last night. There wasn't an inkling, Howard, that she was dealing with her own serial

02:41:15.760 killer. That's what she says. What's also a matter of record is that several days after

02:41:22.340 Koberger was caught in Pennsylvania, she calls up the family. She offers to help. According to

02:41:29.640 Koberger's Pennsylvania attorney, the family wouldn't meet with him until they were cleared

02:41:34.860 by Dr. Ramsland. So she's been involved in this in the beginning. Brian Enten, who's a great reporter,

02:41:42.320 tenacious reporter, he's been far ahead in the story than just about anyone else. He got Dr. Ramsland

02:41:48.860 to say very shrewdly, do you intend to do a book? Would you like to see him? And she says, yeah, I would.

02:41:54.520 And I think that's what she's been trying to from the beginning. Well, I mean, everyone wants to read

02:41:59.720 that. I mean, you, cause you, we do want answers. So before I get to that piece of her interview,

02:42:03.360 he asked her, of course, the question about like, first, first he asked, what did you make of it

02:42:09.460 when you heard that your star student who you recommended for this PhD program in Washington state

02:42:14.660 had been arrested and charged with these murders? And here's her reaction to that in SOT 45.

02:42:21.060 What did you think when you first heard that Ryan Kohlberger, your former student, was arrested

02:42:28.980 for this? I was completely floored. I didn't believe it. And his demeanor that we saw on,

02:42:41.280 you know, on media was that he was confident that he was going to be able to prove his innocence.

02:42:45.960 So I wanted to wait and see. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. But as months go by and

02:42:54.420 he kept saying that he had an alibi and I wondered, well, why are you sitting in jail? Give us your

02:43:01.880 alibi, get out. And that wasn't happening. And then it was really when he said his alibi and it was

02:43:10.520 clearly not an alibi. And he would have known that certainly from all the classes that he had through

02:43:17.520 undergraduate and graduate work, he would have understood that wasn't really an alibi. I think

02:43:24.220 that was when I was really, you know, floored that this is my student who has done these things.

02:43:33.840 Yes. That is so telling because we all watch this and he said he had an alibi. We all waited as lawyers

02:43:41.000 like and as reporters, where what's the alibi? Great. Lay it on us. Let us test it. And it came

02:43:47.160 out that he was driving around at night stargazing. So even his mentor in the criminal justice field

02:43:54.080 heard that. And that's when she knew he did it. That was remarkable. Anybody want to take that one?

02:44:00.200 Well, you know, at that moment, Ann Taylor must have realized in the back of her mind,

02:44:04.900 my client is guilty. And she has to be thinking, how am I going to plea out of this? How can I

02:44:09.720 prevent him from going to a firing squad? I think that was the only two.

02:44:13.280 Ann Taylor, I'll give it to you in a second, Phil. But Ann Taylor, by the way, you're despicable.

02:44:16.580 You are despicable because you knew, you knew your client had done this and you, you, you did a fine

02:44:22.020 job representing him, but you were about to go into trial and try to blame four other people by name.

02:44:27.220 She was going to blame four guys. You guys, she and Brian Kohlberger were going to team up and go

02:44:33.420 point the finger at people they knew were innocent. And only this judge, Hitler, important to emphasize,

02:44:41.140 it's a P, not a T in the middle of that name, stop them. And that's what put him in this compromised

02:44:47.120 position. Go ahead, Phil. Yeah, you can't, you can't go and just willy nilly blame people without

02:44:52.960 one scintilla of evidence and judge absolutely made the right call. But speaking of the study

02:44:59.180 of criminology and criminal justice, my undergraduate degree is in criminal justice. And so I consider

02:45:05.260 myself sort of a lifelong student of crime and criminology. And so it occurs to me, you know,

02:45:11.520 this person has, he, he has this arrogance about him. Okay. It's what it, that's what comes across

02:45:17.880 to me when I see the selfies and, and all of that stuff that, where he's like proud of what he's done.

02:45:24.100 So think about moving forward for him. He's going to have criminologists and psychologists and

02:45:30.440 people in academia. They're going to be going to visit him in prison for as long as he's there.

02:45:39.260 And they're going to be studying him and he's going to enjoy it. It's going to feed into his

02:45:46.380 arrogance. And it's going to make him feel like he's done something now to finally put himself on

02:45:53.740 the map to be worth something in the world. And to me, that is why this plea deal is so tragic,

02:46:01.960 because he gets to spend his days having his ego stroked by academicians,

02:46:07.400 as opposed to sitting there worrying about whether or not the firing squad is going to hit the right

02:46:12.880 place. And I don't know that the prosecutor has given any of that one thought, uh, as far as

02:46:21.000 determining what is justice in this particular case, because I don't think we're, we're on pins and

02:46:26.220 needles to see if Catherine Ramsland is going to get the interview she wants. Here's that exchange in

02:46:31.300 Sop 48. Would you want to study Brian Koberger? Have you put any thought into that? Is that something

02:46:43.460 that you think could be possible? I've been thinking about that for two and a half years. Um,

02:46:49.280 I would, I mean, this is, this is my work. If he wanted to do that, I would, uh, I know that he's

02:46:57.580 got the intellectual capacity to do it, to be self-reflective, to help think through how his life

02:47:04.220 came to this. And so I would definitely do it if he were willing and, um, it would be hard. But I think

02:47:12.800 because I have so much material from him, I have questions for him that I think nobody else but me

02:47:19.800 could ask. Fair enough. Matt Murphy, that there's nothing to stop that from happening, right? She's

02:47:25.740 allowed to go do it. I was talking to Ashley Banfield yesterday on her podcast saying, we

02:47:30.040 watched this happen in the, um, in the Watts trial where the father who killed his wife and their two

02:47:35.700 baby girls and put them in the disgusting towers and let them anyway, it was awful. He started

02:47:42.660 talking when he got into jail, he got a girlfriend, he had law enforcement come visit him. And he

02:47:47.500 started singing like a canary once he got behind bars in a couple of years had passed and he no

02:47:51.900 longer cared. Well, one of the things that's really interesting about when we just listened to

02:47:56.820 Megan on the, the thing that he wrote, he hit on a, there's a thing called the hair psychopathy

02:48:03.000 checklist that has the, the essentially the character traits of the psychopath. And when he talks about

02:48:09.940 having no remorse and grandiosity, all of those are homework signs of the psychopath. And what I

02:48:16.860 think is really interesting about, um, Catherine Ramson is that it, it speaks like her, the fact

02:48:24.200 that she had no clue is one of the insidious things about serial killers and about psychopaths is that

02:48:31.480 they tend to be highly intelligent. They tend to be manipulative and charming, and they could be in

02:48:36.580 line in front of us at a Starbucks and we would never know. And that is one of the fascinating

02:48:41.600 things. And this, and one of the scary things about this personality type. And I think it's,

02:48:47.360 I think it's very, very interesting. That letter that we just, that, that we just listened to that

02:48:52.060 he wrote because he basically checks off a bunch of the hallmark things and saying that he's got no

02:48:58.140 remorse. And then, and then the one thing he absolutely got right that he was honest about is

02:49:02.000 when he called himself an asshole, because at the, at the bottom line, that's what these guys are.

02:49:06.520 It's, and not every psychopath turns into a murderer. In fact, most of them don't, but they're

02:49:11.600 always, they put themselves first. They're highly narcissistic. They tend to, you know, they, they

02:49:16.480 have no morals. They have no, um, there's nothing wrong with the moral compass. They know right from

02:49:21.400 wrong, but they choose to do the wrong thing when it benefits them. And sometimes it's just benefiting,

02:49:27.100 um, their sordid sexual desires. So I think that this case is interesting and look to the extent

02:49:33.200 that he would participate. Maybe she can learn something who knows. Um, but this, this case is,

02:49:38.960 is fascinating as tragic as it is today. It's fascinating. He, he, he asked her the $64,000

02:49:43.800 question, which is, it gets to what I think she was about to testify to. She is, as interesting as all

02:49:48.980 that was, it's not what she was going to testify to. The question is like, what did you see about him

02:49:53.280 and what did you teach in the class that might be relevant to this case? And here is that,

02:49:59.920 which is the most newsmaking piece of the interview in, uh, what is it? Yeah. 44, you guys got it.

02:50:08.460 Can you say Dr. Ramsland, what it was looking back now, um, that sort of raises your eyebrows

02:50:15.120 specifically in terms of things in the class?

02:50:18.060 Um, I think just the idea of wanting to study, um, offenders and what their thought process was,

02:50:28.420 how they felt about their crimes, um, wanting to study that and then finding out that this is a

02:50:38.080 person who, who then is now saying he's guilty of doing these things. I have to look at the framework

02:50:45.940 of what I taught and wonder, did I inspire him in some way? Did I, you know, but I can't,

02:50:53.500 I can't second guess that because I may have inspired somebody else to become an FBI agent.

02:51:00.880 And that's unfortunately in this field, you know, that's what we live with.

02:51:07.180 Hmm. I mean, I'll ask you, I'll give that one to you, Matt, because you're also on the side of,

02:51:11.780 you know, they say there's a fine line sometimes between the cop and the criminal.

02:51:14.340 Um, it was, she was an interesting person. She was, she sort of had a light affect throughout

02:51:19.840 the interview. She was smiling. I, when I think it's probably, I'm not judging her when you're

02:51:24.840 a reporter, even you get gallows humor, you know, I, you guys know that too. You reported on enough

02:51:29.820 cases, just as legal commentators and you as a journalist, Howard, sometimes you laugh in

02:51:34.320 inappropriate situations. And with your team, you know, you just have to, cause you deal so much

02:51:37.840 in darkness and that's her life. But I do wonder like, how do you, how do you go to sleep at night?

02:51:43.960 If you think you inspired Brian Kohlberger? Well, I, I, yeah, I think that this is almost

02:51:50.400 like family members and it's a chicken or egg thing. Um, I think that psychopaths are born for

02:51:56.800 far more often than they're actually made. Uh, and that's my personal opinion. And having dealt

02:52:00.700 with a bunch of them, including a bunch of them that represented themselves in court, which is

02:52:04.420 another hallmark of the psychopathic slash extreme narcissist personality, but this isn't her fault.

02:52:10.920 And it's not his family's fault. Um, I haven't heard one inkling of true abuse. Um, but you,

02:52:16.900 so often you don't, that's another big myth when it comes to serial killers, Megan, is that

02:52:21.100 what could possibly have made them do that. And we all hearken back to Buffalo Bill from

02:52:25.440 silence of the lambs. And we think about these tortured souls that were subject to horrific

02:52:30.180 abuse. The reality is most of these guys, the big, the big answer is why do they do it? It's

02:52:35.600 because they want to do it. They get off on it. They enjoy it. And for lack of a better

02:52:39.760 term, as disturbing as it is, it's fun for them. And that's, you know, and that's not

02:52:44.460 this woman's fault. I think it's the other way around. I think he was fascinated and he

02:52:47.480 was drawn to it. He went into this because of who he was to begin with. I don't think

02:52:52.380 she made him. Um, and as far as the gallows humor, um, yeah, she's removed from that.

02:52:57.260 I don't think she would, she meant to be, you know, uh, insensitive or insensitive to

02:53:02.080 the victims or their families. Um, you know, she's an academic, um, and it's, and at the

02:53:07.600 end of the day, just like, it's not, it's not her fault. It's usually not family members

02:53:11.860 fault. Usually, um, this, this, this lands on the shoulders of Brian Koberger himself and

02:53:16.980 the deal today, um, that is the responsibility of that prosecutor that, that cut him the break.

02:53:22.860 Here's, here's a defense for the prosecutor, Justin from the family of Maddie Mogan, Kaylee's

02:53:29.220 best friend. Um, this is via NBC news that her family saying it's, they support the plea

02:53:34.700 agreement. 100% in a statement read by their attorney outside of the courthouse. The family

02:53:39.840 members thanked late talk County prosecutor bill Thompson asked those who do not support

02:53:44.060 the agreement to quote, respect our belief that this is the best outcome possible for the

02:53:48.240 victims, their families in the state of Idaho. We lost our Maddie, our kind,

02:53:52.020 loving, vivacious and caring daughter full of purpose and promise. We are grateful for

02:53:56.560 the gift of her life. And we have grieved the loss of that life during each of these

02:54:00.280 962 days. God, that feels so real when you're, when you've lost somebody, especially to violent

02:54:07.600 crime, to be counting it in the number of days. I mean, that's, that sounds so real. And so

02:54:13.740 there is a split. I mean, does that change your opinion at all? A Phil Holloway about the

02:54:18.100 prosecution's decision. You've got Maddie's parents in support of it. You've got Ethan's

02:54:22.980 parents in support of it. You've got Steve Gonsalves against it. And we don't know about

02:54:26.780 Zana's parents. You know, it doesn't change my, my opinion on balance because I felt like unless

02:54:33.480 there was unanimity, uh, on the, uh, on the part of the victim's families, they needed to go forward

02:54:39.760 as planned. But now that being said, I do fully understand where this family is coming from,

02:54:45.280 because after all, they don't have to sit through this trial that would have lasted for weeks on

02:54:49.680 the end. They would have been there every day, no doubt. They don't have to, uh, worry every time

02:54:55.000 there's an appeals court that issues a ruling that might, uh, overturn something and require a second

02:55:01.160 trial. Uh, they don't have to worry, uh, for the next several decades, whether there's going to be

02:55:06.780 something that undoes this trial and they got to live through it all over again. And then they don't

02:55:10.880 have to relive it, uh, when that moment of execution were it ever to arrive. Um, all of these things

02:55:17.720 would have kept the memory of this horrible tragedy in their lives, um, at the front and center for the

02:55:25.160 rest of their lives. And at some point, I think we all as human beings know that families need to be

02:55:29.760 able to move on. They need a little bit of closure. And so I fully understand why certain families,

02:55:37.200 including that one, um, would support ending the proceedings in this way. However, I think that

02:55:44.120 there's also a broader societal interest in having this case tried to the public or in public so that

02:55:50.920 we could have seen behind the curtain and we could have learned the why of it all, because apparently

02:55:56.240 we're never going to learn why he did this. We can study it. We can speculate. Unless Catherine gets it out of

02:56:02.020 him. Maybe he'll talk to his former teacher. Maybe he's looking forward to being studied by her, Phil.

02:56:06.320 Maybe he will, but is he going to ever tell the truth? We don't know. We don't know. Can I

02:56:10.960 understand the victims who do want to get this behind them? And, and that, look, um, I just think

02:56:16.740 on balance, if I were the prosecutor, I would have wanted all of the families on board with this.

02:56:22.280 Can I add to that, Megan, real briefly, you get that information from the families before you

02:56:27.100 announce whether or not you're seeking for the death penalty. You, you, you factor that in California,

02:56:32.420 we call it a livesy hearing and it's a, it's a very important, sober, formal process that a DA goes

02:56:38.760 through. And you have all the time in the world to announce that there's no statute where, or time

02:56:44.200 limit on how long it takes to consider that. And a good DA will consider all those factors before they

02:56:49.960 make our announcement. And I don't see why that wasn't considered here ahead of time. Again, you make the

02:56:55.780 call based on the information you have. All those families were available to talk to him. And I offer

02:57:00.780 zero criticism to any of the family members in this, but my criticism is directed at the DA. He

02:57:06.820 should have learned all that before he announced he was seeking the death penalty. So you don't,

02:57:10.860 you don't go after it and then change your mind down the line. All of that was available at the

02:57:14.940 time. I mean, his behavior. I just want to add a little bit more color. His standby, Howard,

02:57:19.440 then you can take it via NBC inside the courtroom. Several family members seated in the gallery were

02:57:24.920 crying as the hearing went on. Christy Gonzalez, that's Kaylee's, uh, mom silently sobbed as the

02:57:32.080 judge read Kaylee's name and aunt of Kaylee's had her head down, holding her forehead. It was also

02:57:36.720 weeping. The aunt also sobbed when prosecutors spoke about blood on the murder weapon, which that was the

02:57:42.560 first time I'd heard that the girl's blood was on, um, was on the knife sheet that they found blood on

02:57:47.680 the knife sheath. In addition to Kohlberger's DNA, Madison Mogan's father, Ben looked agitated,

02:57:54.220 was breathing heavily, rubbing his eyes with a handkerchief. He did not look at Kohlberger while

02:57:58.760 he answered the judge's questions. I'm sure he couldn't even, I mean, think about it as a dad,

02:58:04.420 Madison Mogan's father, Ben and, and Kaylee's father, Steve couldn't even go in there. They, I mean,

02:58:10.360 he couldn't go in there and Ben couldn't look at him because of course it's a dad's job. Every dad

02:58:16.320 knows this and feels this to protect his daughter. And these girls were young. They were 21 years old

02:58:23.060 and their dads weren't there. And of course no one would have expected them to be there,

02:58:27.140 but that would be your feeling as you sat there or, or got the news about what had happened to them

02:58:34.180 that day. The human element here is just so jarring guys. Well, it was a moment of high drama and that

02:58:42.360 makes the beat the district attorney's behavior so capricious. I mean, it's just uncivilized and rude

02:58:48.800 not to have confronted them first and tell them exactly what's happening to guide them through this,

02:58:55.440 to try to make this entire horrible experience as easy as possible. It can be, it's going to be

02:59:01.140 an impossible experience. Anyway, your duty as a public servant and as a feeling human being is to help

02:59:08.220 them through this and not just give them emails telling them what's happening.

02:59:13.280 Yeah. And that's the real, that's the real, uh, I think that's almost the worst of it as a father,

02:59:18.360 uh, you know, uh, of a, of a daughter, um, and a son, but these, these college girls, um, they,

02:59:26.620 they, you know, they, they look like they, they could easily be any of our children. And, and,

02:59:31.140 and it's to, to think about, you're just going to get this information by an email. I mean, it's

02:59:37.480 just, um, you're searching, you're searching up like your random correspondence and then you learn

02:59:42.640 this. It's rude. It's just bad form. And I, you know, I hope the voters in Idaho remember how this

02:59:49.620 case was dealt with in the end, because, um, you know, whether or not they did a good job in their

02:59:56.120 legal presentations in court and argued the motions correctly and did all the right things,

03:00:01.040 the way they went about, um, informing these families of the conclusion of this is just,

03:00:07.900 in my view, unforgivable, utterly unforgivable. And by the way, to the point that we were discussing

03:00:13.720 earlier, and Matt said, this is totally possible. The thing that Steve Gonsalves said, first, he said,

03:00:19.280 it's not over till the plea is accepted. And he did want people to contact the courthouse to express

03:00:23.340 their thoughts, which he was chastised for. But secondly, he said at a bare minimum, I'm reading

03:00:27.840 here, please require a full confession, full accountability, location of the murder weapon

03:00:34.360 confirmation. The defendant acted alone and the true facts of what happened that night.

03:00:39.120 We deserve to know when the beginning of the end was, oh my God, that is so well put. And I can

03:00:47.780 understand a dad's need to know that when, when did my daughter come into your mind as the subject of

03:00:54.780 murder? And we do believe not Steve's daughter, but we believe that Maddie Mogan was the original

03:01:01.020 intended victim. Um, we'll put their pictures back up because we understand that Kaylee had already left

03:01:07.980 this. It's Ethan. Um, and then that's Maddie. And then, and then that's Kaylee. And then that's

03:01:14.340 Zana, the brunette. Okay. So we believe that Maddie who's next to Ethan in this photo was his intended

03:01:20.260 victim because she was the one. He went right up to the third floor. He didn't even stop at the

03:01:24.720 second floor. He clearly knew where she was and Kaylee's presence in the bed that night, or even in

03:01:29.000 the house was unexpected. She had moved out. She was only back for a night. So we, the speculation is

03:01:34.980 that he was surprised to find Kaylee again there in the sunglasses, um, that he was surprised to find

03:01:41.040 her in with Maddie. And, you know, you hear Maddie's parents just weeping at the mention of

03:01:46.200 her name and all these others whose children got swept into it because the psychopath entered an

03:01:50.980 unlocked house, which is true of virtually all college houses, at least before this, um, who wanted

03:01:56.660 to do a dastardly deed. I got to pause. I'm, and I'm going to say goodbye to you, Howard. And I'm just

03:02:02.940 going to hold the other guys over for a minute on Diddy. Thank you, Howard, for everything on this case,

03:02:07.420 your great reporting and commentary. It's, it's always a pleasure. You guys, I want to switch

03:02:12.100 all the best. I want to switch to Diddy before we, before we say goodbye, because they had to submit

03:02:17.920 their, um, their suggested, uh, program on whether Diddy would be released or would be in jail, uh,

03:02:26.060 pending sentencing. And they did that as far as we can see, uh, around one 30, we got, we got one of

03:02:32.640 the submissions. I'm assuming that we got the other one. Uh, let's see if inner city press was

03:02:36.980 reporting at 2 PM, uh, submission just now of the bail letters by Combs and the U S attorney's

03:02:43.540 office are in the judge will reconvene the parties at 5 PM. And I guess he'll make his decision

03:02:49.800 then, but it's pretty crazy. The reaction that we're getting now from the families,

03:02:57.600 the mother walked out of the courtroom, blowing kisses to the fans. Diddy's mother, who is a bizarre,

03:03:02.880 they have a bizarre relationship. I'm sorry. There's strange videos on the internet of them

03:03:06.220 calling each other, baby and kissing on the mouth. Like recently it's strange. Um, and now

03:03:12.940 we, let's see, here's his mother waving and kissing the crowd. Now the New York times reporting

03:03:19.360 a lawyer for Cassandra Ventura submitted a letter to the judge, urging him to deny Mr. Combs's request

03:03:24.640 for release on bond. That's Doug Wigdor. He wrote that Ms. Ventura believes Mr. Combs is likely to pose

03:03:29.280 a danger to the victims who testified in this case, including herself, as well as to the community.

03:03:33.160 Exactly. That's, that's what we were trying to say earlier, Phil, like, yes, agreed. So does the

03:03:39.460 judge take that into consideration now that we've heard directly from one of the witnesses and one

03:03:43.720 of his victims? You know, it's a no brainer. He's been convicted. He's, he's lost the presumption

03:03:48.980 of innocence, at least as to the counts he was convicted of. And so, you know, he's, he is,

03:03:54.840 somehow he's, it makes more sense to give him a bond now. No, what makes sense is to go ahead and

03:04:00.480 continue letting him serve his time now that, that I, if I were the judge know that I'm going

03:04:06.360 to be giving him when the sentencing occurs down the road in a few weeks. Look, he's going to be

03:04:11.300 a danger to others. These people know it, the Cassie and the other victims, they know it. They

03:04:17.880 know that their best hope for safety is if he is locked up and, and, and does not have that much

03:04:24.240 access to the outside world. Certainly sending him home to live at his home in Miami beach would

03:04:30.280 not give any great comfort to these victims. He, what this judge is doing, he's delaying. And we

03:04:35.280 talked about this some earlier because he's, he's consulting with his colleagues to determine whether

03:04:40.480 or not he needs to just act on this and say, look, we're going to keep him in jail or to release him

03:04:46.940 on bond. It ought to be automatic. He's been convicted. There's jail time. That's probably in his future.

03:04:53.120 He needs to just stay put. We don't need to be sitting here waiting until five o'clock on some

03:04:58.140 decision that should have just been automatic. It's entirely within the discretion of the judge.

03:05:02.680 He should have immediately said, nope, we're not even going to entertain that at this time.

03:05:07.700 Sentencing is going to be set for, you know, August 10th or whatever, and just move on, move on.

03:05:13.160 Just to keep it clear for the audience, this is because we're talking about judges. Now we switched,

03:05:16.180 we've moved, uh, to the East and to the North. And now we were in a different courtroom. This is

03:05:21.400 federal court in the Diddy case and judge Subramanian, a Biden appointee who's relatively new to the

03:05:26.820 bench and has to decide not the guilt or innocence of Sean Diddy Combs. That was decided earlier today,

03:05:32.980 guilty on two small counts, smaller and not guilty on the main charges against him for Rico and sex

03:05:40.400 trafficking. And now this judge has to set a date for sentencing and have recommendations on the

03:05:45.280 sentencing and decide whether Diddy will be free pending, uh, that sentencing hearing out on bail,

03:05:50.520 which he's not right now. Um, adding to what I just said, guys, New York times also reporting that

03:05:55.940 Deontay Nash, he was a witness in this case to stylist and friend of Cassie's. Uh, he wrote a

03:06:01.400 letter to the judge urging, urging him not to release Sean Combs in the wake of the mixed verdict.

03:06:05.540 Prosecutors filed the letter along with their own, asking the judge not to give him bail pending

03:06:09.120 sentencing. Uh, Nash, who testified that he had seen Combs beating Ms. Ventura cited quote,

03:06:14.360 a long, well-documented history of violent, coercive, and retaliatory behavior and argued

03:06:19.320 that Mr. Combs should stay in custody. Combs, Mr. Nash wrote, has repeatedly escaped meaningful

03:06:24.340 accountability right on Deontay Nash. And if released on Wednesday quote, I have no doubt he will see it

03:06:30.600 as yet another license to continue intimidating, threatening, and harming people who challenge

03:06:36.120 or expose him. Uh, what do you make of that, Matt? Do these witness, and they're not testimonials,

03:06:43.260 they're, they're, they're, they're begging him not to release this guy pending the serving of a

03:06:48.540 sentence. Will they have any sway with the judge? They could, um, the problem of course is he wasn't

03:06:54.860 convicted on any of the counts involving them really that he was convicted on the two man act

03:06:59.020 violations, which is a, it's a very old law that of course just deals with transporting prostitutes

03:07:05.800 over state lines, which, um, you know, a lot of lonely guys in New York city, uh, whenever they

03:07:11.600 get a, they get a hooker to come over one of those bridges from New Jersey, they are technically also

03:07:17.140 committing man act violations. So it's a, that's an old law back when, uh, morality was really, um,

03:07:23.920 uh, something that the federal government would attempt to enforce upon people. So it depends a

03:07:28.860 little bit on, on that, but look, um, remember Megan, when one of the reasons why all the previous

03:07:36.840 attempts at, at bail were rejected by this judge is that Diddy while in custody was borrowing other

03:07:43.200 inmates calling numbers. And the allegation from the prosecution was he was actually attempting

03:07:47.540 to intimidate witnesses from the jail. I think that could weigh in. I think it's also, um, if he is

03:07:54.100 going to give him time for man act violations, um, uh, you know, he'll probably keep them in,

03:08:01.120 but if he, if his intent is to give him credit time, sir, for that, because they really are the

03:08:06.100 least, um, you really think the least offensive and he thinks he was charged with, um, he, he could

03:08:12.820 potentially release them. I don't disagree with anything that Phil just said, but it's, um, it'll be

03:08:17.560 very telling. I think, um, if he releases them on bond, it means he's probably not intending on,

03:08:22.960 on sentencing him to any more time, which could be one of the outcomes here.

03:08:26.940 Yeah. And that was, can I ask you about that? Because there, there is also a theory that the

03:08:30.560 man act could get ruled invalid, that there could be an appeal on the, on that statute itself,

03:08:37.500 which, which was originally, I guess, passed to, to capture black men who were pimping out white

03:08:43.860 women and there's a racial element to it. And, you know, they did play the race card in this,

03:08:49.620 with this jury. You know, that's the first thing they said when they stood up there,

03:08:52.480 this is a black man. What has he ever done? They implicated during the course of the trial

03:08:57.240 that the prosecutors brought the charges for what reason, why him? And the judge tried to

03:09:02.100 shut that down, but that horse had already left the barn. So there's a real, you know,

03:09:05.860 there's a question about whether Diddy's lawyers are going to appeal that conviction saying it's a

03:09:10.800 racist statue. It's outdated. It should be overturned. I don't know. There's, do you think

03:09:15.940 they have a leg to stand on there, Matt? I mean, look, it's a sad state of our current world,

03:09:22.820 Megan. And I think you agree with me where race is injected to frigging everything. I think it is

03:09:28.160 an old law, but I don't think I really, it just makes my skin crawl when you're talking about

03:09:34.580 making a racial argument on that. I don't think it gets reversed on that. Mike, you know, the man act

03:09:41.940 it's the law. And I don't, I don't, I don't think that it's going to get reversed, um, because of

03:09:47.060 this case, but it, it is, uh, it's, it's, it's a moral law. It's, it is arguably outdated, but it

03:09:53.780 is still currently the law, but it's nothing like, I want to keep going on this because now I've had a

03:10:01.160 little time to think about what happened here. And I, I got a lot of thoughts. I mean, my, my friend

03:10:06.900 said, why? Like my friend was texting me. She's been watching like, well, why did this happen?

03:10:11.100 And I have to say, I do think there, there's a multitude of answers, but one of them is

03:10:16.980 celebrity, um, privilege, money, and the race element. They did play the race card and they,

03:10:28.040 there had, there had been criticism of like the prosecutors for being too white.

03:10:32.340 There was a, there was an analyst, a legal analyst and MSNBC who is raising this point.

03:10:37.660 We cut it. I'll play it. Watch.

03:10:40.900 Well, and also there are some racial dynamics here on that were at play. And I think both

03:10:44.840 the gender and the racial dynamics are worth talking about earlier this spring. I went to

03:10:49.680 cover an unrelated event down near the federal courthouses. And I was there on May 1st, when I

03:10:55.380 saw all six of the prosecutors on this team walk from their office, which is now at the court of

03:11:01.060 international trade to the courtroom itself. And they filed in a single file line and they are all

03:11:07.440 white women to a person, six of them. And they almost look like lawyer Barbies proceeding as they

03:11:14.180 were walking to the court. It's not lost on me that particularly given who the defendant was

03:11:20.000 and in a jury that not only was mixed by gender, but had from my count, at least seven people of

03:11:27.240 color on it, that that dynamic may not have gone over particularly well with them.

03:11:34.160 You can't say she's wrong. I mean, in, in New York city, the race of the defendant,

03:11:40.140 the race of all the prosecutors, I don't agree with any of that. I mean, I think it's outrageous.

03:11:44.120 You can have a white woman prosecute a black man. That's just fine. By the way, black men got the

03:11:49.960 right to vote before white women did. If we want to have a battle of oppression, which is what the

03:11:54.860 left wants to do. Um, in any event, maybe that was a factor because I, I just can't believe that if

03:12:01.980 you had Phil Holloway sitting there with all that proof against a Phil Holloway, this would have been

03:12:07.380 the result, Phil. Well, you know, over at MSNBC there and on the left in general, their obsession

03:12:14.000 with race and gender is, is quite frankly, very tiresome. Now it has been for some time. Uh, now

03:12:21.140 whether or not race or gender played a part in the jury's verdict, uh, maybe, and that's a question

03:12:28.420 that the jurors themselves might have to answer. You know, we heard some, I think truth come out of

03:12:33.800 some jurors after the OJ trial that decided, you know, look, we said we weren't going to convict a,

03:12:39.740 you know, a black man. So it race did bleed over into that high profile case. Maybe it had something

03:12:46.200 to do with this. Although this was a mixed verdict. Um, look, this whole thing, uh, about

03:12:53.320 Diddy and his, his danger to the community, all of that still exists. Uh, and this judge would be

03:13:02.420 well served to remember that he, the judge is entitled and should remember all of the testimony

03:13:08.620 and all of the evidence from the trial, even things that went to the charges for which he was

03:13:14.000 acquitted, because that should inform the judge's decision about what to do. That's okay.

03:13:18.760 By that, I mean, consider that. I'm sorry. My question is that's okay for the judge to consider

03:13:25.620 evidence that was introduced at trial, even if he wasn't convicted of those counts. Like if the judge,

03:13:30.740 you know, he heard evidence that he committed arson against kid Cuddy's car, but the jury,

03:13:36.360 they didn't really issue a direct finding on that. Cause they may have thought he did that,

03:13:39.980 but didn't do another thing that would have created a Rico charge. But can the judge factor

03:13:44.400 in all of the terrible evidence against him that appears to have been disregarded by the jury when

03:13:49.240 he imposes sentence, Matt? Well, as, as they say, the, the, the only entity more powerful on a federal

03:13:56.440 judge is God, right? In the United States. And that's, that's something that you hear in law

03:14:00.840 school. So judge can consider anything he wants, uh, what, what he makes a record of, um, gets a

03:14:05.820 little bit more dicey. But if I could just go back to that previous question, you know, I prosecuted a

03:14:10.500 lot of, uh, a lot of, uh, I mean, that sort of the United colors of Benetton over the course of my

03:14:16.120 career. I hope I don't offend anybody by saying that, but I mean, in Southern California, you have a very

03:14:21.660 diverse jury pool, uh, contrary to popular opinion, Orange County is very diverse. And, you know, the

03:14:29.060 idea MSNBC, I don't know who that woman was that was talking. I don't think that, um, she's ever

03:14:34.480 prosecuted a case. She certainly hasn't prosecuted a serious one that I'm aware of. And it, you know,

03:14:39.380 if her theory was right, Christopher Darden would have convicted OJ with all the evidence they had,

03:14:43.400 or Terry White would have convicted, uh, the, the police officers that, that, um, beat Rodney King.

03:14:49.020 Um, so it, it, I think that what really came in here, Megan was that you can't, when you were

03:14:56.280 talking about professorial, um, a presentation, and I thought they did a decent job of laying out

03:15:02.100 the law. You, you keep the personality and the skill and the talent of the actual trial lawyers

03:15:09.260 in a case like that does matter. And when you have one that's personable and cracking jokes that the

03:15:13.960 jury is relating to the defense lawyer here that gave the closing was also white. So I, I reject

03:15:19.000 for comments on that wholly. And I've had plenty of people of color. I've had people of color on

03:15:24.640 every jury I've ever done of the 133 jury trials I did. And that's just like, that's sort of your

03:15:29.720 typical MSNBC nonsense. By the way, most of the witnesses against Sean Combs were people of color

03:15:35.800 and the victims, they were Asian or both. And I mean, right. That's just that when you see everything

03:15:41.540 through the light of race, it doesn't surprise me that, that she's criticizing. And by the way,

03:15:45.720 calling them, um, calling those women saying they look like a bunch of Barbies is a pejorative

03:15:50.680 that a lot of women should be offended by those women, even though they, they didn't bring it home.

03:15:55.960 They got a, they got them, they got them on two counts. They, you know, to their credit,

03:16:00.000 they took a run at a very famous, very wealthy guy. Um, and you know, to throw them under the bus,

03:16:06.080 say, it's a bunch of Barbies. Um, I thought race was supposed to be bad. MSNBC. Um, not,

03:16:11.780 not so much. Well, you know, you know what the real sin is like, I, I don't actually know what

03:16:15.440 they look like, but if they were attractive, I can see why this woman making the comment didn't

03:16:19.040 like them. Uh, I'll leave it at that. The Diddy defense has proposed the following bail package,

03:16:23.600 a $1 million bond co-signed by Sean Combs, his mother, his sister, and the mother of his oldest

03:16:29.660 daughter. Mr. Combs's travel will be restricted, restricted to the Southern district of Florida,

03:16:34.540 central district of California, and the Southern district of New York to attend court,

03:16:37.940 as well as the Eastern district of New York and the district of New Jersey, only to the extent

03:16:41.900 his travel, uh, that his travel to and from New York involves an airport in those districts.

03:16:46.280 He's got to fly private. Let's not forget. Mr. Combs's passport will be surrendered.

03:16:50.740 Drug testing is ordered all other standard conditions of pretrial supervision. That's his

03:16:55.880 proposal. I just want you to know, as you consider that Phil Holloway, that, um, here's the sketch

03:17:01.480 artist rendering of Diddy after he had learned the verdict literally on his knees,

03:17:07.040 praying on his chair. This is what the judge allowed to happen in his courtroom. Um, praying

03:17:14.940 to God with whom I'm sure he has a really tight relationship. I'm sure he's super tight with God.

03:17:19.220 Just, you know, you brought the Bible in there every day just to remind us what a God fearing man he is

03:17:24.120 as his supporters are outside. Actually, we have a soft cut of it. There's one woman people are

03:17:31.740 chanting around her. It's not Rico. It's Freako. And here's the woman. Um, let's watch it and I'll

03:17:38.780 explain what we're seeing. She's jumping with very large breasts and spraying baby oil on herself and

03:17:52.340 others. She's wearing a bright blue wig. She took the wig off. She's wearing next to nothing.

03:17:59.340 She's shaking her breasts and pouring baby oil on herself. I'm sorry, but this is what the prosecutors

03:18:05.260 were up against. Well, I mean, if that's what's on the jury, no wonder they lost that. You know,

03:18:11.220 we don't, I don't know that that's on the jury. We, the jury's anonymous to us other than

03:18:14.960 random descriptions. I don't know. And that is juror number 25. That's, you know, we, we,

03:18:26.360 we can have another entire show discussing, um, how people should comport themselves in public or

03:18:33.280 certainly in courtrooms. And I don't know where things went wrong, but I know that, that that's

03:18:38.800 not it. Okay. That's not okay. Um, but the judge to allow some of the outbursts and things like that,

03:18:44.320 that we saw take place in the courtroom, uh, you know, that's a head scratcher. Um,

03:18:49.880 this is going on outside the courtroom. That's, you know, sadly, that's not so much of a head

03:18:55.880 scratcher for me. I can kind of, I'm not surprised at all one bit. Yeah. So it just shows you the power

03:19:02.380 of celebrity and money. And I don't think he's going to change one bit. In fact, this is one

03:19:09.080 comfort I have in the wake of Diddy's acquittal on the most serious charges. Here's my one comfort

03:19:15.160 much in the same way. I feel like the most serious counts against him were nullified by his fame and

03:19:20.200 his celebrity. They had to find him guilty on, on the transportation of prostitutes. It was so obvious.

03:19:24.500 It would have been so obvious that they had not found him guilty on those, that they were just in

03:19:28.300 the bag for him. So, but the reason I think he got off largely was I think they were dazzled. I do.

03:19:34.440 I think they were dazzled by his celebrity, his power, his money, just like he dazzled everybody who

03:19:40.140 took the witness stand. And they all talked about that, how he like cast a spell on them. He

03:19:45.020 was a godlike figure. And that's sadly how a lot of Americans are when it comes to super powerful,

03:19:50.080 super wealthy, super famous people. But the same was true of OJ Simpson. And I believe that just

03:19:57.300 like OJ Simpson, a man who's engaged in this many crimes for this long a time, like Sean Combs,

03:20:03.960 is not going to stop. He feels more emboldened and empowered to violate the law with impunity than

03:20:10.960 ever now. And I give him seven years at the outset before he gets arrested again on a charge that will

03:20:18.620 be a lot more difficult to weasel out of. And the next time he beats somebody up in the middle of a

03:20:24.600 hotel room, I think you're going to have a court, a hotel clerk who's a lot more reluctant to hide the

03:20:32.560 tape and not call the cops than those disgraced security guards at the hotel intercontinental

03:20:40.120 were. A place I don't even want to stay anymore, having learned that they took the payoff to hide

03:20:44.800 the tape. So I think Diddy is his own worst enemy. And he will make the bed that he will wind up lying

03:20:50.920 in for most of his adult life, I predict. And it will be in a prison cell, not even related to this

03:20:55.940 case. So we'll see. Guys, you've done more than your fair share of time on the MK show today.

03:21:02.080 Thank you both so much for your expertise. Thank you. I need to go bleach my eyes now after that last

03:21:07.320 video. She'll show up at the next party if she's invited, no doubt. Thank you, Megan. She'll be

03:21:13.140 there. She's ready to go. All she needs is ready to roll. Thank you. Wow. What a day. What a day for

03:21:20.900 all of you two. Thank you guys so much for being with us live on SiriusXM for some of these hours,

03:21:25.940 live on YouTube for three and a half now. And I'm really grateful that you guys make it possible

03:21:30.580 and would love to hear your reactions to these dueling results. What happened in Brian Kohlberger,

03:21:37.460 no death penalty, even though it was obviously going to be a conviction and the death. And then

03:21:42.780 with Diddy getting off in the most serious charges on his knees, thankful, mouthing, I'm going home as

03:21:49.060 the supporters douse themselves in baby oil, yelling, it's not Rico, it's Freako. Okay.

03:21:55.940 You can email me Megan at MeganKelley.com. Thanks for being with us and we will see you back

03:22:01.060 tomorrow. Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

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The Megyn Kelly Show - July 02, 2025

Diddy NOT Guilty on Most Serious Charges, and Bryan Kohberger Takes Plea Deal, with Aidala, Holloway, Blum, Murphy ｜ Ep. 1100

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