Martha Stewart Case Heads to Jury
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening. Welcome. I'm Paula Zahn. Thanks for joining us tonight. The world, the news, the names, the faces, and where we go from here on this Wednesday, March 3, 2004.</s>ZAHN (voice-over): "In Focus" tonight, this man made a career out of defending the Catholic Church from those who say they were abused, while he hid his own dark secret. Why? I'll ask him in an exclusive interview. The race for the White House gets a jump-start.</s>SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Bring it on!</s>ZAHN: The president is running ads. John Kerry is choosing a running mate. We'll have the inside look. And booze and the boardroom. A new study shows a very surprising picture of the hard-drinking executive. Who is it? We'll show you.</s>ZAHN: All that ahead tonight. Plus, I'll take you to the front lines of the gay marriage battle, the latest communities to allow same-sex marriage. And the report about Barry Bonds and steroids. I'll look at baseball's growing steroid scandal. First, though, here's what you need to know right now. The jury has the case in the Martha Stewart trial. The judge spent just about an hour and 40 minutes reading instructions to the jurors before letting them get to work. Senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin joins us now. Good to see you, Jeffrey.</s>JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SR. LEGAL ANALYST: It's all in the jury's hands now.</s>ZAHN: Well, let's try to read the tea leaves here.</s>ZAHN: They asked for some very specific lists of documents. Does that mean much to you at this stage in the deliberations?</s>TOOBIN: First, the thing they did was, the judge gave them the case right before lunch and said, sorry, the alternates have to go now. The jury came back right away and said, no, no, we want to have one lunch all together, the whole alternates and the regular jurors, sort of a bonding experience. It suggests to me that this is a jury that's going to want to avoid a hung jury. They've got team spirit now. We'll see how long it lasts. What can you tell us about the length of the judgment -- the judge's instructions and what that should indicate? That seems like a long period of time to me.</s>TOOBIN: It's a long time to sit there and listen. When I was a prosecutor, I always hated listening to it. They're very complicated, these jury instructions. It's not all that unusual, but it's a lot to digest, the elements of each crime against each defendant. It means that this jury has a lot of work to do. And I don't think they're going to do it quickly. And these notes that the jurors sent later in the afternoon, they asked for a lot of evidence. They asked for Douglas Faneuil's testimony. They asked for the agent's testimony. They asked for charts, exhibits. This is a jury that wants to proceed methodically. They have got a long way to go.</s>ZAHN: And isn't that the kind of jury that the prosecution wants?</s>ZAHN: This has got to be a little encouraging. No?</s>TOOBIN: Lawyers always talk about good notes for the defense or good notes for the prosecution. These were, I think, good notes for the prosecution, because they are not doing what Robert Morvillo said, which was say, this case is ridiculous, throw it out, not worthy of your belief. They're proceeding meticulously. They're going through the evidence. Now, I don't want to overstate how good the news is for the prosecution, but clearly these notes are better for the prosecution than they are for the defense.</s>ZAHN: When do you think we'll see a verdict?</s>TOOBIN: There's a rule of thumb that says for each week of trial, one day of deliberation. So this is a five-week trial, maybe five days of deliberation. That rule is always true, except for when it's not.</s>ZAHN: Looks like you might be working this weekend, Jeffrey.</s>TOOBIN: No, no, the judge said no deliberations over the weekend.</s>ZAHN: All right, thanks, Jeffrey.</s>TOOBIN: So Monday or Tuesday.</s>ZAHN: Appreciate it. "In Focus" tonight, of all the stories of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church that continue to make headlines, the one you're about to hear stands out. Robert Scamardo, a 44-year-old attorney, claims he abused by a priest when he was a teenager and abused again by a lay minister after he reported the initial abuse. Scamardo says he kept his bitter experience bottled up for years. But here's where the story seems almost incredible. Scamardo spent more than five years defending the Catholic Church against those who claim they were also sexual abuse victims. In an exclusive interview, I asked him how he lived with the secret for 27 years.</s>ROBERT SCAMARDO, FORMER DIOCESE ATTORNEY: It is not easily explained. But the phenomenon is, a survivor, myself, disassociates and denies the feelings, separates the feelings from the actual experience. And so, therefore, I was able to not have a conscious awareness of my own experience of being sexually assaulted as a child.</s>ZAHN: At what point did you break?</s>SCAMARDO: There was several events, one of which was an encounter with a female victim, who, in telling her story and sobbing deeply, told me, you just can't understand. And, in fact, my heart was breaking for her in that moment, because I understood exactly what she was experiencing and yet could not express to her my own pain.</s>ZAHN: Robert, you say you were abused when you were 15 years old by a priest. What happened?</s>SCAMARDO: I was elected as the president of the Catholic Youth Organization at 15. And the director, the priest, the director of the youth ministry for Central Texas in the Diocese of Austin, invited me to go with him to a conference in San Antonio and told me that he would make the hotel arrangements. And I remember being surprised when I walked into the hotel room and there was only one bed. But, as an innocent child, I did not think I was in any danger. And, in fact, I was in great danger, because I was awakened during the night with him sexually assaulting me.</s>ZAHN: Did you tell anybody about what had happened to you?</s>SCAMARDO: For several months, I did not. And yet there was a sense that this was wrong and that what this priest had done needed to be reported. But because of the shame and the fear, I didn't know who to tell, didn't know who to trust. And I turned to a lay youth minister who was working at a parish in Austin and confided in him. And he also betrayed my trust and sexually assaulted me. The phenomenon was then that I could not and chose not to tell anyone else about this dark secret because I feared that I might be sexually assaulted again.</s>ZAHN: But, by that point, I would have thought that you would have been completely turned off by the Catholic Church. Yet you went on to become a lawyer and represent that very Catholic Church that today is at the root of your problem. How did you do that?</s>SCAMARDO: Well, again, I think that what's important for your listeners to understand is that there's a complete disassociation of the feelings of shame and fear from the experience of having been abused. So when you understand that disassociation, then it's easier to understand that I was able to function in that manner, because I was not conscious of the feelings.</s>ZAHN: Do you have a sense of guilt about those victims you went up against in your defense of the Catholic Church?</s>SCAMARDO: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I have a tremendous amount of guilt about the men and women who were victims and who came forward during the time that I represented the church. There is a part of me that -- my heart breaks for them, that I wish I could be able to turn back the clock and have treated them differently. I was devastated last year to learn that one of those victims had, in fact, committed suicide, a victim who I never doubted his story. I knew he was telling the truth. I knew he was being honest about what had happened to him. And yet, we continued, I continued to treat him like other victims who had come forward and filed lawsuits, defending the church with the same tactics and attempting to minimize and limit what we might be able to do for him.</s>ZAHN: Well, Robert Scamardo, we really appreciate your sharing your very personal story with us tonight.</s>SCAMARDO: Thank you for having me on, Paula.</s>ZAHN: Our pleasure. Thank you.</s>ZAHN: We asked for response from the church. Bishop Gregory Aymond of the Diocese of Austin gave us this statement about the priest who allegedly abused Robert Scamardo: "Once again, I apologize if Robert Scamardo suffered sexual abuse through the church. When he came forward, we paid for counseling for him and his family, including three months of residential treatment. I have notified the police of the abuse. Realizing that money cannot heal, we continue to pray for him and his family daily. If there are other victims, I ask them to come forward so that they can receive care and support." Both the priest and lay minister accused by Robert Scamardo have not returned our calls. They are no longer with the church. The gay marriage revolt is spreading. The biggest county in Oregon joins in and more mayors say OK to same-sex marriage. I'll update the state of the gay union. And the Kerry campaign takes a victory lap after Super Tuesday, but the White House is already launching campaign ads. Who are the people behind Kerry and how well are they prepared for the long march to November? And drowning their sorrow or drowning their success? A new study says female executives, but not men, are more likely to become problem drinkers. We'll take a look at why.