Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Newlywed hires hitman to murder groom, CAUGHT ON VIDEO!

Transcript

Newlywed hires hitman to murder groom, CAUGHT ON VIDEO! · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:06
Speaker 1: A Florida beach beauty marries her dream man and the
0:12
Speaker 1: two set to live happily ever after until death do
0:16
Speaker 1: they part. But what the twenty six year old bride
0:20
Speaker 1: doesn't figure on is that the hintman she hires to
0:24
Speaker 1: murder her groom is actually a cop oops who stings
0:31
Speaker 1: the bride on video Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. I'm
0:49
Speaker 1: Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being
0:52
Speaker 1: with us here. Let's kick it off with our friends
0:55
Speaker 1: at Crime Watch Delhi. The Polito is a guy working
0:59
Speaker 1: hard to get his if in order. He's an ex
1:01
Speaker 1: con fresh at at present for running a phony investment scam,
1:05
Speaker 1: but after meeting Dahlia on an online dating site, he
1:08
Speaker 1: falls into a whirlwind romance. He called her up, made
1:12
Speaker 1: an arrangement, she showed up at his office. He liked
1:16
Speaker 1: what he saw. Within a short period of time, he
1:19
Speaker 1: divorced his wife and he found himself married to Dahlia.
1:24
Speaker 1: Reporter and crime writer Mark Ebner says Dahlia is a
1:27
Speaker 1: woman who knows where she wants to go in life
1:30
Speaker 1: and waste a very little time getting there. He claims,
1:33
Speaker 1: after the honeymoon, her next destination is Michael's bank account
1:37
Speaker 1: to the tune of two hundred and forty thousand dollars.
1:41
Speaker 1: She put her claws in him so fast in a
1:44
Speaker 1: six month time span, managed to take all of Michael
1:50
Speaker 1: Dippolito's money. She managed to get his home ded it
1:57
Speaker 1: over to her. But all that is not enough. She
2:00
Speaker 1: has everything she wants, but she reportedly wants it all
2:04
Speaker 1: to herself. Guys, what you're hearing is the plot laid
2:10
Speaker 1: out by friends of the groom. But what really happened?
2:15
Speaker 1: Joining me right now an all star panel. Brian Claypool,
2:20
Speaker 1: lawyer for Dahlia di Polito, Dr Bethany Marshall's psycho analysts,
2:24
Speaker 1: joining us out of Beverly Hills On and stuff at.
2:27
Speaker 1: Dr Bethany Marshall, James Shelnutt twenty seven years Metro major
2:31
Speaker 1: case swat now lawyer, and Ray Kiputo, lead news anchor
2:37
Speaker 1: Orlando News w DBO. Ray, what happened? Well, Nancy, these
2:42
Speaker 1: two it's a really good looking couple. You see pictures
2:45
Speaker 1: of them. Dahlia was a Catholic schoolgirl and and Mike
2:48
Speaker 1: was a you know, asquiring investor who had a little
2:51
Speaker 1: bit of trouble. But they hit it off quick and
2:54
Speaker 1: they were They were married in this whirlwind romance. This
2:56
Speaker 1: happened down in boytant Beach, ray by Palm be Suporton.
3:00
Speaker 1: You know these two, It's just they were like fire
3:02
Speaker 1: and ice, it seems, because everything wasn't as it appeared
3:05
Speaker 1: on the surface. Well you can say that again. Take
3:08
Speaker 1: a listen to our phrase At ABC twenty twenty. Terry Parker,
3:12
Speaker 1: investigative reporter for WPBF twenty five News, covered the story.
3:16
Speaker 1: So this guy, Mohammed walks into the Boyton Beach police
3:19
Speaker 1: station and he says, I know a woman who's trying
3:21
Speaker 1: to hire a hitman to kill her husband. She asked
3:24
Speaker 1: if iind of someone who can kill her husband for her.
3:26
Speaker 1: The man, Mohammed Shahati, was recorded as he talked to
3:29
Speaker 1: detectives about his one time lover, Dalia di Polito. He
3:33
Speaker 1: tells police he's speaking out to save the man's life.
3:37
Speaker 1: He's scared for the guy. Yes, because she's really I mean,
3:40
Speaker 1: that's serious on getting this done. It's quite a story
3:44
Speaker 1: if true. Because while he can describe Dahlia, she maybe
3:47
Speaker 1: five six five seven, dark, black, care should good looking girl,
3:52
Speaker 1: really good looking girl. Actually he can't even tell cops
3:55
Speaker 1: her last name or her address. By the time, we
3:58
Speaker 1: didn't know what to believe. We were kind of, you know,
4:00
Speaker 1: I'm sure what we had. They had the reservations. They
4:03
Speaker 1: had to say, let's see some proof. To get proof,
4:06
Speaker 1: the cops make Muhammed a confidential informant. He arranges to
4:10
Speaker 1: meet Dahlia at this gas station. Cops are staked out
4:13
Speaker 1: as their mystery woman arrives. So to you, Brian Claypool,
4:17
Speaker 1: renowned attorney joining me out of la the lawyer for
4:21
Speaker 1: Dahlia Dippolito, the so called black widow, Brian Claypool, I
4:27
Speaker 1: guess everybody is teaming up against your poor client, Dahlia Dippolito. Here,
4:32
Speaker 1: you've got a former boyfriend, and I'm sure I'm using
4:35
Speaker 1: that term ephemistically, but you've got a former boyfriend who
4:39
Speaker 1: walks into the cops station and says, hey, my lover,
4:43
Speaker 1: Dollia Dippolito is trying to kill her husband. What is
4:46
Speaker 1: he lying to or Nancy. One thing you're missing about
4:50
Speaker 1: Mohammed's first interaction with the law enforcement was that he
4:53
Speaker 1: also said that Dahlia conveyed to him that she was
4:58
Speaker 1: being domestically abused and that either she was going to
5:03
Speaker 1: die or either he was going to die. That's the
5:06
Speaker 1: exact first phone call he makes. And that's the point
5:09
Speaker 1: that we were making in the trials, which was, look,
5:12
Speaker 1: the police department did nothing to investigate domestic abuse, and
5:16
Speaker 1: they did everything to make good TV for the cops.
5:20
Speaker 1: Television or hold on just a moment. Did she call
5:22
Speaker 1: police and report domestic violence? Don't? I don't know whether
5:27
Speaker 1: she called to report. Then wait a minute, you know what.
5:33
Speaker 1: That's why you win so many cases, Roye Layton. You
5:36
Speaker 1: get people hook line and sinker because you just said, Jackie,
5:39
Speaker 1: did he just say that the police never investigated all
5:43
Speaker 1: the domestic abuse? But you're telling me you don't know
5:46
Speaker 1: if you're client, your client, and you've got a pretty
5:50
Speaker 1: good try record, choice Layton, and you don't know whether
5:53
Speaker 1: she ever called cops and said I just got hit,
5:56
Speaker 1: I'm being abused. Well, Nancy, this case was always about
6:00
Speaker 1: Dahlia's constitutional rights being violated. That's why I took the case.
6:05
Speaker 1: And everybody's seen that videotape where Dahlias says she's five
6:08
Speaker 1: thousand percent sure she wants her husband killed, but they
6:11
Speaker 1: don't see behind the scenes about the police Department, Blin
6:15
Speaker 1: Beach PD, pressuring Muhammed, Can I get back to you
6:19
Speaker 1: claiming that she was a domestic abuse victim? How long
6:24
Speaker 1: had she been married to her room she was? She
6:27
Speaker 1: did claim that she was domestically abused, and that's in
6:30
Speaker 1: the recording. How long were they married. I don't remember
6:34
Speaker 1: the exact amount of months they were married, but Nancy,
6:37
Speaker 1: you know, married a few months. I don't know how
6:41
Speaker 1: long they were married when it was reported, who jumped
6:45
Speaker 1: in and said five months? Is that Caputo? It's Ray
6:48
Speaker 1: Ray Capputo w DBO. So they're married five months? They
6:52
Speaker 1: renowned defense attorney. And I'm not I'm not saying that
6:58
Speaker 1: with a box assault because Troy, excuse me. Brian Claypool
7:02
Speaker 1: is a well known trial lawyer who represented Dalia di Polite,
7:05
Speaker 1: who's won a lot of cases. Just told me that
7:09
Speaker 1: police fail to investigate domestic abuse. But you cannot tell me,
7:13
Speaker 1: Brian Claypool, that she ever told police she was a
7:16
Speaker 1: victim of domestic abuse. Correct. When a woman is domestically abused,
7:23
Speaker 1: she tells her friends, Hey, if I go missing, it's
7:27
Speaker 1: my husband who did it. She never says, look either
7:31
Speaker 1: she's going to die or I'm going to die. In
7:33
Speaker 1: thirty years of private practice and working with domestic violence victims,
7:37
Speaker 1: I have never heard that line. Usually they're afraid for
7:41
Speaker 1: their own lives. They're not threatening the life of their spouse. Guys,
7:44
Speaker 1: hold on just a moment, let's take a listen to
7:48
Speaker 1: our friends at ABC twenty twenty. She gets into Muhammad
7:51
Speaker 1: silver Lexus. Well, you can't quite see them on the
7:54
Speaker 1: hidden camera cops had installed. You can sure hear them
7:57
Speaker 1: talking about a hitman whose guys. Once she gets in
8:01
Speaker 1: the car and she meets up with the informant, we
8:03
Speaker 1: realized that this guy was credible. I mean, but do
8:09
Speaker 1: you know what I'm telling nobody yet, nobody's going to
8:11
Speaker 1: be able to point a finger. I mean, she's just
8:14
Speaker 1: talking about it the way like she's ordering lunch. Randy
8:17
Speaker 1: Schultz is a columnist for the Sun Sentinel newspaper. You
8:20
Speaker 1: think this is just so cold, not really acting like
8:24
Speaker 1: the typical newlywedge shell we safe. Mohammad tells Dahlia the
8:27
Speaker 1: hitman wants twelve hundred dollars to buy a gun. She
8:31
Speaker 1: comes prepared. She has a wad of cash in her
8:33
Speaker 1: bag and counts it out and hands it over and
8:36
Speaker 1: shortly afterward gives him a photo of Mike White. My picture. Really,
8:43
Speaker 1: you're gonna give him a finger pen fall over And
8:45
Speaker 1: at that moment the detectives realized, Ah, we've got her.
8:48
Speaker 1: This is real. She just handed him twelve hundred dollars
8:52
Speaker 1: in a picture of the husband that she wants murdered.
9:08
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, we are talking about
9:14
Speaker 1: a gorgeous young beach beauty who marries the man of
9:17
Speaker 1: her dreams till death do they part. But the one
9:21
Speaker 1: thing she did not count on is that the hitman
9:25
Speaker 1: she hired to murder her groom was in fact an
9:29
Speaker 1: undercover cop. And with me special guest, the lawyer for
9:34
Speaker 1: Dahlia Dippolito, Brian Claypool, take a listen to our friend
9:40
Speaker 1: Amy roback. Dahlia never backs off. I don't want no
9:44
Speaker 1: police say. Dahlia thinks she is meeting an actual hitman
9:47
Speaker 1: and his cherry red convertible. He makes his plan crystal clear. Okay,
9:59
Speaker 1: a burglary gone wrong that leaves Mike dead. Maybe that works,
10:05
Speaker 1: not net work. Then he gets to an air the
10:07
Speaker 1: undercover detect if he really wants to nail Dollia make
10:10
Speaker 1: sure he's got it on tape and on camera that
10:12
Speaker 1: she is really going to pay him to kill her husband.
10:16
Speaker 1: And he says, are you sure, Dahlia, now what it's done?
10:21
Speaker 1: You know I have an objecent money of mine. No,
10:24
Speaker 1: that's not like anyone. I'm positive, Like, well, bride about
10:29
Speaker 1: them to Charlotte. There it is. The press would have
10:32
Speaker 1: a field day with this line. Listen again, she's five
10:35
Speaker 1: thousand percent sure. I'm positive, like, we'll bride about them
10:39
Speaker 1: tocent Charlotte. Well, when I'm gonna give them. No, she
10:41
Speaker 1: wasn't just one hundred percent sure. She was five thousand
10:45
Speaker 1: percent sure that she wanted her husband killed. Okay, you're right.
10:50
Speaker 1: Brian Claypool, the lawyer for Dohlia did Polido. You're right.
10:54
Speaker 1: She doesn't say one hundred percent sure or two hundred
10:57
Speaker 1: percent year, but five thousand percent sure. You brought it up,
11:01
Speaker 1: so I played it for you. Response. You know, in
11:04
Speaker 1: my response is that that she was pressured into having
11:09
Speaker 1: that meeting with the undercover police officer. Just prior to
11:14
Speaker 1: that she was she was she had a meeting with Muhammad,
11:17
Speaker 1: the undercover informant, where he was pressuring her and there
11:20
Speaker 1: were police officers all around this restaurant that that interaction
11:25
Speaker 1: was recorded by the police department and it was destroyed
11:28
Speaker 1: by the police department. So my argument in the case
11:31
Speaker 1: was that Dalia had a large she had a big bark,
11:35
Speaker 1: but a very small bite. In fact, she never even
11:38
Speaker 1: did you know, the stancy. In a second trial, I
11:40
Speaker 1: got the undercover hitman to admit that Dalia never even
11:45
Speaker 1: gave him a key to Mike's apartment, and she didn't
11:49
Speaker 1: give him a picture of Mike Toppolito, and he admitted
11:53
Speaker 1: that shows that she lacked the proper intent to have
11:56
Speaker 1: him killed. And that's why we almost won the second trial. Yeah,
12:00
Speaker 1: Key were there almost, But let me understand something. You're
12:03
Speaker 1: saying she didn't hand over a photo, but it's my understanding.
12:08
Speaker 1: She did hand over a photo twelve hundred dollars cash
12:12
Speaker 1: and a photo of Mike. She handed over a photo
12:17
Speaker 1: to her ex boyfriend Mohammed. Now, when it went to
12:21
Speaker 1: the undercover police officer, not the informant. When she's pressured
12:25
Speaker 1: into meeting the undercover pressure, who's pressure or the police
12:30
Speaker 1: department made probably over a hundred phone calls they were forcing,
12:34
Speaker 1: They were forcing Mohammed the informant to call her, call her,
12:39
Speaker 1: call her. Mohammed's like, look, dude, I don't want to
12:41
Speaker 1: be involved in this anymore. I don't want to be
12:43
Speaker 1: in the middle of this. They're like, yeah, you are
12:45
Speaker 1: going to be No, no, no, no, I'm not listening
12:48
Speaker 1: to what you're saying about Mohammed because he's not charged
12:50
Speaker 1: with Simpson murder. Who pressured your client Dahlia to polito
12:55
Speaker 1: to pay a hitman money the police to here's my argument,
13:01
Speaker 1: But for I thought you said this was a movie
13:04
Speaker 1: script one time, well no, let's focus on your question.
13:08
Speaker 1: But for the police department pressuring Mohammed to pressure Dahlia,
13:14
Speaker 1: Mohammed is the one that set up the meeting with
13:17
Speaker 1: the undercover hip man Dalia. Didn't this all happened within
13:21
Speaker 1: a seventy two hour window because that was the Cops
13:25
Speaker 1: TV show timeline to get this script done. In a
13:29
Speaker 1: Norton Dancer, you're aware of this. In a normal undercover operation,
13:33
Speaker 1: it could take a month or many months to get
13:35
Speaker 1: this accomplished. They were, they were, they were on an
13:38
Speaker 1: accelerated plan to get her on tape to try to
13:42
Speaker 1: kill her husband, and she would have never done. Paused,
13:46
Speaker 1: We're all I gotta cut through this and understand what
13:49
Speaker 1: you're saying with me is veteran trial lawyer Brian Claypool,
13:53
Speaker 1: who represented Dahia to Polito at trial. Now, there have
13:57
Speaker 1: been two trials. Now you're saying now now today that
14:01
Speaker 1: she Dhlia to Polito was pressured by her friend Mohammed
14:06
Speaker 1: via police, police pressure. Mohammed Mohammed pressures her to have
14:11
Speaker 1: a hitman with the meeting with a hitman. All right, coercion,
14:15
Speaker 1: But isn't it true? At another trial, the defense was
14:21
Speaker 1: that the entire thing was actually a script, that the
14:30
Speaker 1: script was basically a screenplay for a movie she wanted,
14:36
Speaker 1: a reality show she wanted to do and they were
14:38
Speaker 1: acting it out. Yeah, that was the first trial that
14:42
Speaker 1: I did not conduct, and I will concede to you
14:46
Speaker 1: that that argument was farcical, that that was a silly
14:51
Speaker 1: argument that Dahlia's attorney put forward to the jury. And
14:56
Speaker 1: we had an entirely different twist on the case. It
14:59
Speaker 1: was stunt due process violations carried out by the point
15:03
Speaker 1: in Beach PD. Let me go now to Ray Kaputo,
15:07
Speaker 1: the lead anchor for morning news WDBO. Ray, there have
15:13
Speaker 1: been a couple of trials for Dollia di Polto. At
15:16
Speaker 1: one trial, explained to me the script defense. Yeah, well,
15:22
Speaker 1: here's the thing. Mohammed the gentleman that she was talking to,
15:26
Speaker 1: and ic gentleman loosely, I don't know him. He was
15:28
Speaker 1: a part time actor, and Dahlia says that him and
15:32
Speaker 1: Mike were in on kind of doing a reality show
15:35
Speaker 1: based on an episode of birth. Did you say the
15:37
Speaker 1: husband was in on it? That's what Dahlia says. Now
15:41
Speaker 1: he enemic an episode of burn Notice that had a
15:44
Speaker 1: similar storyline, and they wanted to post it on YouTube
15:47
Speaker 1: and get famous, and this is you know. Brian said
15:49
Speaker 1: that it was farcical, and I agree because here's the thing, Nancy.
15:52
Speaker 1: The idea of getting famous on YouTube is really a
15:54
Speaker 1: modern thing. In two thousand and nine, it was still
15:57
Speaker 1: kind of evolving because they had that part program and
16:00
Speaker 1: that just launched it like the very end of two
16:02
Speaker 1: thousand and seven where people can start getting paid for
16:04
Speaker 1: their videos, so I keep getting paid on YouTube. Wasn't
16:08
Speaker 1: like this big idea that everybody now wants to do,
16:11
Speaker 1: like the loggers and people. So it just doesn't make
16:13
Speaker 1: sense then that somebody will be doing that. I hear
16:16
Speaker 1: what you're talking about, the intricacies of putting posting video
16:20
Speaker 1: online and getting paid for it or not getting paid
16:22
Speaker 1: for it. But I'm concerned about the trial and I'll
16:27
Speaker 1: tell you why because to James Shellnutt, twenty seven years
16:31
Speaker 1: Metro major case swat Now lawyer, here's the thing about
16:35
Speaker 1: multiple trials. Whatever you say at the first trial, there
16:39
Speaker 1: is a certified transcript of that. So if you have
16:42
Speaker 1: a completely different defense, such as I was forced by
16:46
Speaker 1: the cops to try to put a hit on my husband,
16:49
Speaker 1: everything you said the first trial can come in on
16:51
Speaker 1: cross examination. You can say, well, whoa whoa wall. Wait,
16:55
Speaker 1: now you're saying the cops and made you do this,
16:57
Speaker 1: But last trial you said this was all part of
16:59
Speaker 1: a script you made up as a reality series with
17:03
Speaker 1: you the hitman and to your husband that he was
17:07
Speaker 1: in on it. That's not true. Then you're stuck with
17:10
Speaker 1: what you said at that first trial. What about it, y'all?
17:13
Speaker 1: Nutt oh, I agree one hundred percent. I mean, the
17:15
Speaker 1: credibility is completely impeached at that point. I mean, you know,
17:19
Speaker 1: it's going to be hard to go back and retract that.
17:22
Speaker 1: You know, if you take a look at this, and
17:24
Speaker 1: you know, I'll due respect to Brian always got a
17:26
Speaker 1: client to defend. I get it. I've done criminal defense
17:28
Speaker 1: in the past. But you know, if you take a
17:30
Speaker 1: look at it, nothing is consistent with what this lady
17:33
Speaker 1: is claiming as being a domestic violence victim. You know,
17:36
Speaker 1: she was with this guy a very short period of time.
17:39
Speaker 1: They were traveling. Uh. You know, in addition to that,
17:42
Speaker 1: you know that this supposedly was going to occur. This
17:45
Speaker 1: hitman was supposed going to kill her husband. She's going
17:47
Speaker 1: to a gym she regularly went to. You know, if
17:50
Speaker 1: you take a look at the whole situation, nothing adds up.
17:52
Speaker 1: And you know, one of the things that was mentioned
17:54
Speaker 1: a minute ago is this thing happened quickly. You know,
17:57
Speaker 1: the police are going to have a concern that they
17:59
Speaker 1: need to move quickly. If this lady is really serious,
18:02
Speaker 1: or anyone's really serious about killing a spouse in a case,
18:06
Speaker 1: they may lose patience. They may want it done then.
18:08
Speaker 1: And if the person that she's dealing with, the undercover officer,
18:12
Speaker 1: doesn't do it, she's liable to hire somebody who actually
18:14
Speaker 1: isn't an undercover officer and who will do it and
18:17
Speaker 1: will do it before they can react. Crime stories with
18:32
Speaker 1: Nancy Grace, Guys, we are talking about a beach beauty
18:39
Speaker 1: who marries her dream man to live happily ever at
18:43
Speaker 1: her after, But what she didn't count on was a
18:45
Speaker 1: hitman she hired to murder her husband was actually an
18:49
Speaker 1: undercover cop with me. Were now to attorney Brian Claypool,
18:53
Speaker 1: who represented Dahlia Dippolito at one of her trials, and
18:57
Speaker 1: you got to think through what Claypool's up against. He's
19:00
Speaker 1: already had one trial that he had nothing to do
19:04
Speaker 1: with where the defense was actually this was part of
19:07
Speaker 1: a reality show's script and the husband was in on it.
19:11
Speaker 1: He stuck with that as he heads in to trial
19:14
Speaker 1: number two. Take a listen to ABC's Amy Roebok. Dahlia
19:19
Speaker 1: never backs off. I don't want no, I'm not gonna
19:21
Speaker 1: you know, I'm a lot precker than what I love
19:23
Speaker 1: and I working. He'm like, oh, what a cute little girl. Whatever,
19:26
Speaker 1: But I'm not thank you, but I I think for
19:32
Speaker 1: make sure everything's going to think about the not so
19:34
Speaker 1: cute little girl agrees to a plan. She will leave
19:37
Speaker 1: the house early Wednesday morning, six thirty morning. Sure enough,
19:44
Speaker 1: she's at this gym around six am Wednesday, leaving Mike
19:47
Speaker 1: de Bilito home alone in bed, still recovering from liposuction
19:52
Speaker 1: from two weeks before. At this point, the police have
19:54
Speaker 1: all the evidence they need. These are either experienced officers.
19:58
Speaker 1: You know that you have enough if you have a
20:00
Speaker 1: case done. End of story, but not end of television show.
20:05
Speaker 1: Television show for you. That's right. Turns out a reality
20:13
Speaker 1: show has come to Boyden Beach and the timing couldn't
20:17
Speaker 1: be better. They'll be able to film the last part
20:20
Speaker 1: of the police investigation. You're hearing our friend Amy Robot
20:24
Speaker 1: straight back out to Rate Caputo, lead news anchor Morning
20:29
Speaker 1: News w DBO. So what happens next. She's at the
20:34
Speaker 1: gym when the hit goes down, the supposed hit. Yeah, Nancy,
20:38
Speaker 1: and I'll tell you what. She wanted to be on
20:39
Speaker 1: reality TV. And she got on it all right, because
20:42
Speaker 1: the cops were filming an episode of that show. So
20:45
Speaker 1: they bring her back from the gym to this staged
20:48
Speaker 1: crime scene and they got this all on video, and
20:52
Speaker 1: they get her reaction when they tell her that Mike
20:55
Speaker 1: has been murdered, though of course he's still alive and
20:57
Speaker 1: this is all stage. But I'll tell you. She puts
21:00
Speaker 1: on a type of act that would have been great
21:02
Speaker 1: for reality TV. She starts walling. She she tremor starts,
21:07
Speaker 1: you know, kind of hunching over. But one thing you
21:09
Speaker 1: don't see is you see tears, you know. And this
21:12
Speaker 1: woman puts on quite an act thinking, you know, considering
21:16
Speaker 1: the videos that we saw before that she you know,
21:18
Speaker 1: was behind this. She puts on quite an act, trying
21:21
Speaker 1: to sell the fact that she was upset that Mike
21:23
Speaker 1: apparently was murdered. Okay, take a listen. The TV show
21:27
Speaker 1: cameras are rolling when police wake up Mike. That's officer
21:31
Speaker 1: and Moreno at the door. Your wife was tired of
21:33
Speaker 1: a person to kill you. Yeah. I was totally in
21:40
Speaker 1: shock that this was going on. I was very surprised.
21:43
Speaker 1: I was like, because then it hit me like, this
21:47
Speaker 1: is a this is a mess. They drive them away
21:49
Speaker 1: and transformed the street to make it up. Here they're
21:52
Speaker 1: really investigating Mike's murder. The TV show cops along with
21:56
Speaker 1: Boyton Beach Police, have cameras rolling. When a detective calls
22:00
Speaker 1: Dahlia at the gym, we're at your residence, man, can
22:03
Speaker 1: you come right back to your residence? Police she's back
22:06
Speaker 1: in a flash, and now watch carefully. You be the
22:09
Speaker 1: judge of what happens next. As your husband, Michael, Okay,
22:13
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to tell you man, he's been killing. We
22:22
Speaker 1: know the cops are acting. What about Dahlia Okay, Brian Claypool,
22:33
Speaker 1: you're stuck with that video and audio at trial number two?
22:38
Speaker 1: What do you make of it? Yeah, here, here's what
22:40
Speaker 1: we argued. Uh, you just heard Amy Roeback say, uh,
22:44
Speaker 1: the police officers were acting as well. What I argued
22:47
Speaker 1: in the second trial was that the fact that the
22:50
Speaker 1: police department went to such an extreme to set up
22:54
Speaker 1: a staged crime scene, and then Nancy after that, that
22:59
Speaker 1: the the media person at Point BEACHPD takes that video
23:03
Speaker 1: clip that you just played for your listeners and she
23:06
Speaker 1: posts that posts it online for the world to see,
23:11
Speaker 1: and it goes viral internationally within seven minutes. And fault
23:17
Speaker 1: is that that's Dahlia Dippolito's fault. She's the one out
23:21
Speaker 1: of the street crying. I mean, as I love to say,
23:24
Speaker 1: Meryl Street, don't worry, Okay, you're safe because but she
23:29
Speaker 1: certainly put on a performance. Well, look, I know that
23:32
Speaker 1: you're in love with that that that's her crying. Yeah,
23:36
Speaker 1: I am stage crime scene. I'm surprised you haven't brought
23:39
Speaker 1: up the shy latte to listen at the end, and
23:43
Speaker 1: Gradger said that I was just waiting for my any
23:46
Speaker 1: wished to poison him before she hired the hitman. That
23:50
Speaker 1: wasn't true at all. There's no evidence of that, no investigations.
23:54
Speaker 1: But let me make one more quick point. The whole
23:56
Speaker 1: the whole point in cross exam of the media director
23:59
Speaker 1: was that there is a pending criminal investigation ongoing. You
24:04
Speaker 1: don't jeopardize or contaminate an investigation by circulating this video worldwide.
24:11
Speaker 1: That was our argument. Her due process rights were violated. Well,
24:14
Speaker 1: if she had trying to kill her husband, hired a
24:16
Speaker 1: hit man and carried on doublish, she's physically doubling over
24:22
Speaker 1: in grief. She did that, not the copscy Nancy, You're
24:27
Speaker 1: one of the brightest people I've ever met. There's a
24:29
Speaker 1: legal doctrine called fruit of the poisonous tree. You've heard
24:33
Speaker 1: of that. Our argument was, did that stage videotape, that
24:38
Speaker 1: tape or Dahlia's five thousand percent short that is all
24:42
Speaker 1: toxic and contaminated and the result of unconstitutional violations by
24:49
Speaker 1: the Bloynton Beach Police Department. Okay, did they make Muhammed
24:53
Speaker 1: come in the friend Mohammed and say, hey, my ex
24:57
Speaker 1: lover is planning a hit? FYI? Nobody. The police didn't
25:02
Speaker 1: make that happen. What they did do was doing get
25:05
Speaker 1: an undercover cop to pose as a hitman, and that's
25:08
Speaker 1: absolutely constitutional. She didn't have to take that meeting. The
25:16
Speaker 1: ATM There was an audio tape. There was an audio
25:18
Speaker 1: tape of the police officers laughing at Muhammad when he
25:22
Speaker 1: went in because he couldn't remember her name. They weren't
25:24
Speaker 1: even taking this that's serious. And then Ray Ray, actually
25:28
Speaker 1: one of your other guests, made a good point that
25:30
Speaker 1: I actually made to help Dalia almost win the second trial.
25:34
Speaker 1: Ray just said, oh wait a minute, Dalia could have
25:37
Speaker 1: hired somebody else to go kill Mike. That's why they
25:40
Speaker 1: needed to expedite this investigation. When I argued what at
25:44
Speaker 1: trial was the police department never even called up Mike.
25:48
Speaker 1: They never even called this guy up and to say, hey,
25:51
Speaker 1: Dalia might kill you. You might want to get somebody
25:53
Speaker 1: to protect you or get a security guard. Because they
25:56
Speaker 1: never took it serious and all they were doing was setting.
26:00
Speaker 1: They were trying. Okay, doctor Bethany Marshall, there's something toxic,
26:08
Speaker 1: all right, but it's not the cops. I'm just listening
26:11
Speaker 1: to all these facts and trying to assess the mindset
26:16
Speaker 1: of Dippolito, and it seems to me that she's one
26:20
Speaker 1: of these rare female sociopaths who uses her sexuality and
26:25
Speaker 1: charm to preferentially relate to men so that she can
26:31
Speaker 1: get something from them, that this is her emo in
26:34
Speaker 1: the world. And she turns on that same kind of
26:37
Speaker 1: charm in this YouTube video. So when I looked at it,
26:42
Speaker 1: the cops says, you know your husband's dead. She burst
26:45
Speaker 1: into tears. And you and I both know that when
26:48
Speaker 1: you get bad news, the first stage is shocked, right,
26:51
Speaker 1: you can't believe it. You're trying to take in the information,
26:55
Speaker 1: you're rejecting it all at the same time, she is
26:58
Speaker 1: prepared for this. She starts crying big crocodile tears. But
27:02
Speaker 1: then she cozies up to the police officer who has
27:07
Speaker 1: just given her the so called bad news, kind of
27:10
Speaker 1: presses her body up against him a little bit. He
27:13
Speaker 1: has his arm around her waist. It's a very sexualized interaction.
27:18
Speaker 1: So here as she supposedly learns that her husband is dead,
27:22
Speaker 1: she becomes very sexualized in her relationship with the police officer.
27:26
Speaker 1: I don't know that that small fact just has stood
27:29
Speaker 1: out to me about this case about you know what
27:32
Speaker 1: you mentioned, you mentioned something that triggered what Brian Claypole
27:37
Speaker 1: just said about claims that Dollie de Polito had tried
27:42
Speaker 1: to poison the husband. This is after just six months
27:44
Speaker 1: of marriage. They're on the honeymoon phase. Reports that Dollie
27:49
Speaker 1: de Polito, the ex lover turn informant, testifies de Polito
27:54
Speaker 1: tried to poison her husband before she hired a hit
27:58
Speaker 1: man to kill him. Well, that's neither here nor there.
28:01
Speaker 1: That's background information for you. But then men are just
28:05
Speaker 1: wallets for her. Men are need satisfying objects. That's all
28:08
Speaker 1: they are. Royce. Excuse me, Brian Claypool, I've got a
28:12
Speaker 1: question for you. Your client, Dahlia de Polito, was she
28:17
Speaker 1: ever a hooker? Absolutely not. Her art her contention was
28:23
Speaker 1: that they mess at a Starbucks coffee shot. This is
28:29
Speaker 1: just this is just fantasy and that the media wanted
28:33
Speaker 1: to propagate to make this a sex to your story.
28:37
Speaker 1: But she was not as pretty sexy as it is.
28:52
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, guys were talking about Dahlia
28:57
Speaker 1: de Polito, who is now fighting the fight on appeal,
29:04
Speaker 1: has been fighting the fight on appeal and with me,
29:07
Speaker 1: a renowned trial lawyer that represented her at trial too.
29:11
Speaker 1: And I gotta tell you, I've never seen anybody fight
29:15
Speaker 1: as hard as Brian Claypool did at trial. But sadly
29:19
Speaker 1: for him, there are some hurdles you just can't get over.
29:23
Speaker 1: Listened to this. I'm sorry, d Ramsey. I'm not going
29:26
Speaker 1: to call you. Thank you for coming. I'm sorry to
29:28
Speaker 1: call you. Listen. We had to report of the disturbance
29:30
Speaker 1: at your house and there were shots fired as your husband,
29:33
Speaker 1: Michael Okay, I'm sorry to tell you man, he's been killed.
29:37
Speaker 1: He's been killed. Try to find up right now. We
29:46
Speaker 1: need to We need to get I can't look. We
29:51
Speaker 1: have to do our job. If you want to find
29:53
Speaker 1: his killer, we need you to calm down, need okay. Enemies,
30:00
Speaker 1: is there anyone that want to hurt Okay, who want
30:03
Speaker 1: to hurt him? Witness you said they saw a blackmail
30:06
Speaker 1: running from you. I can't let you see him them them.
30:09
Speaker 1: I cannot do this right now, I need you. I
30:14
Speaker 1: need you to take to the station. I can't go
30:17
Speaker 1: with these detectives if you want to help your husband, Okay,
30:19
Speaker 1: if you want to help your husband, you need to
30:21
Speaker 1: go through the station with these gentles and tell us
30:23
Speaker 1: everything you know about who he knows, who's connected to.
30:27
Speaker 1: Don't boy, We've already taken care of dogs without I'm
30:28
Speaker 1: a control for right now. Everything's under control. Okay, I'm
30:32
Speaker 1: just letting that soak in for just a moment um.
30:36
Speaker 1: You know, Brian Claypool, you have a lot to contend
30:41
Speaker 1: with at trial. But I know you're sitting down right now.
30:45
Speaker 1: Maybe you need to lay down for this. Listen. Is
30:49
Speaker 1: your husband, Michael, Okay, I'm sorry to tell you, man,
30:52
Speaker 1: he's been killed. Killed man, try to tell we know
31:01
Speaker 1: the comps are acting. What about Dahlia Midst All of
31:10
Speaker 1: that tremors and shaking of her body, There wasn't any
31:12
Speaker 1: real tears coming in the crying, the screaming, the bending
31:19
Speaker 1: over Meryl's Streep. Wherever you are tonight, don't worry, Okay,
31:24
Speaker 1: I play guilty to invoking Meryl Streep yet again. Doctor
31:29
Speaker 1: Bethany Marshall's Psychoanalans joining us from Beverly Hills. What do
31:32
Speaker 1: you make of all of that? In the midst of
31:34
Speaker 1: screaming about the death of her husband. This is a sting.
31:38
Speaker 1: The husband's alive, he's in on it. Did she actually
31:41
Speaker 1: ask about her dog? Oh? She did. She asked about
31:45
Speaker 1: the thought. I heard them say, yes, your dog's okays
31:47
Speaker 1: with animal control. Did I hear that? Oh? I did?
31:51
Speaker 1: Jackie Okay. That's a detail I had missed after watching
31:54
Speaker 1: this one hundred times. So Brian Claypool. She's in such
31:58
Speaker 1: grief and shock, she asked as the dog day and Nancy,
32:01
Speaker 1: all I can tell you is that what you just
32:04
Speaker 1: played actually almost helped me almost win that second trial.
32:10
Speaker 1: Just so we have a fair playing field, your listeners
32:12
Speaker 1: need to know. At the second trial we had a
32:14
Speaker 1: hung jury three to three and the two alternate jurors
32:17
Speaker 1: were also voting to equip five to three. Why because
32:21
Speaker 1: we argued and Ramsey, the guy you just played, Sergeant Ramsey,
32:25
Speaker 1: testified on cross examination when I asked him questions. I
32:28
Speaker 1: got him to admit that that was completely inappropriate what
32:32
Speaker 1: that police departner did, that that went beyond the bounds
32:36
Speaker 1: of fairness to go out and stage a fricking crime
32:39
Speaker 1: scene and then go spouted off on social media. Why
32:43
Speaker 1: aren't you addressing those issues because and properly posting something
32:47
Speaker 1: on social media only impacts a trial. If one of
32:51
Speaker 1: the jurars has seen not only seen the posting on
32:56
Speaker 1: social media prior to trial, but has been so effective,
32:59
Speaker 1: they can longer render a verdict that speaks the truth.
33:02
Speaker 1: That is the law. So you can carry on all
33:05
Speaker 1: you want to, Brian Claypool, but the law is what
33:08
Speaker 1: I just said. And on jury selection in Vodire, which
33:13
Speaker 1: coincidentally is French for to speak the truth, it was
33:16
Speaker 1: your duty, Brian Claypool, to ask the jurors one by
33:21
Speaker 1: one if they have been so affected by media by
33:24
Speaker 1: TV that they cannot render a true verdict. And I
33:27
Speaker 1: assume that you did do that because you're a good
33:30
Speaker 1: trial lawyer. And I assume because they made it onto
33:32
Speaker 1: the jury that they swore under oath they had not
33:36
Speaker 1: been affected by social media or news accounts, which means
33:40
Speaker 1: your argument can't carry the water. It's not worth a
33:44
Speaker 1: hill of beans as far as an appellate court is concerned.
33:47
Speaker 1: And I would like to point out that the appellate
33:50
Speaker 1: court heard your argument as well, but while we're going
33:56
Speaker 1: take a listen to this. They bring in Officer Witty Jean,
34:03
Speaker 1: the supposed hit man from the car. It's all weird.
34:08
Speaker 1: You know who this guy is? Come down, You've never
34:10
Speaker 1: seen him before. She just stared at him. Um. She
34:14
Speaker 1: says she didn't know him, and then call it a resurrection.
34:18
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Police have another surprise for Delia Dippolito.
34:23
Speaker 1: Please come here, you come here. She sees her husband
34:30
Speaker 1: and he's a love. The show Cops captures this moment
34:33
Speaker 1: as well, come here, good here, Why not come here? Please?
34:42
Speaker 1: What you're alive? I love that moment and I'm sure
34:46
Speaker 1: a jury will too. You're going to jail today, christalssitation
34:50
Speaker 1: from Rudder. You're under arrest. Did you hear what I
34:54
Speaker 1: just told you? You kept saying I didn't do anything, dude,
34:56
Speaker 1: I didn't do anything. Was that all you could think
34:59
Speaker 1: of to say? They were accusing me of trying fad Man.
35:02
Speaker 1: I's been called and no. So police have her in
35:07
Speaker 1: the station. They then bring in the hitman, the undercover
35:12
Speaker 1: cop and go, you know this guy? She goes no,
35:16
Speaker 1: she's on tape negotiating with the hitman. Then they bring
35:22
Speaker 1: in the husband and she learns for the first time
35:26
Speaker 1: that he's actually alive. It was all a sting. What
35:31
Speaker 1: can you imagine went through your client's mind at that
35:35
Speaker 1: moment with me? Veteran trial lawyer Brian Claypool, who represented
35:39
Speaker 1: Depolito at trial. Now, before you give Claypool too hard
35:43
Speaker 1: of a time, you gotta remember that this trial was
35:46
Speaker 1: tried one time before he got the case, so he
35:50
Speaker 1: stuck with that transcript where Dahlia Dippolito has taken the
35:54
Speaker 1: stand given all kinds of statements contrary to what he
35:59
Speaker 1: then must argue to a jury. So what's going through
36:02
Speaker 1: her mind, Brian? How did you put it to the
36:05
Speaker 1: jury when she sees the hit man come in and
36:08
Speaker 1: she says, no, I've never seen him in my life.
36:11
Speaker 1: When the cops have her on video and audio negotiating
36:16
Speaker 1: a hit with him, Yeah, he and answered before I
36:18
Speaker 1: answered that question, I wanted to recognize you made a
36:20
Speaker 1: great point, so did Ray about the first trial where
36:24
Speaker 1: she said it was for reality TV. So what we
36:27
Speaker 1: had to do in the second trial is we had
36:30
Speaker 1: to we couldn't call her as a witness because of
36:33
Speaker 1: what you said, and Ray said, we could not call
36:36
Speaker 1: her as a witness, because then the prosecutors would have
36:39
Speaker 1: taken that testimony under oath from the first trial and
36:43
Speaker 1: what have completely gutted the argument we were making in
36:45
Speaker 1: the second trial. It's the first point I wanted to make.
36:48
Speaker 1: Second point as to this video, when they're bringing in
36:50
Speaker 1: Witty Jean and they're bringing in Mike Teppolito, what I
36:54
Speaker 1: argued was I didn't go into the mind of Dally.
36:56
Speaker 1: I just said, look, this is completely inappropriate police practice.
37:00
Speaker 1: Is in fact, what is the Cops TV show doing
37:03
Speaker 1: in a police station when they're about to arrest a
37:05
Speaker 1: woman for alleged solicitation to commit murdered? Completely inappropriate, out
37:10
Speaker 1: of bounds and unconstitutional. Okay, can we now address your
37:16
Speaker 1: client in jail after hiring a hitman to kill her
37:21
Speaker 1: husband and she sees the hitman walk into the police
37:24
Speaker 1: station and then says, well, I don't know him. I
37:27
Speaker 1: mean the fact that she died, it looks that clearly.
37:32
Speaker 1: I agree with you, that's that's nonsensical. She should have
37:35
Speaker 1: said she knew who he was and she and she
37:37
Speaker 1: made a mistake on that. But with respect to Mike,
37:40
Speaker 1: I mean, what would you what would you expect her
37:42
Speaker 1: reaction to be when Mike walks in. She's been told
37:45
Speaker 1: that Mike has been killed, and now Mike walks in.
37:48
Speaker 1: So she was genuinely surprised at that. I bet she
37:52
Speaker 1: was regarding the hitman. You said she made a mistake.
37:59
Speaker 1: She outright lied because she couldn't say, yeah, I know him,
38:03
Speaker 1: I hired him to kill my husband. So she said, no,
38:06
Speaker 1: I've never seen him. She didn't hire him to kill
38:08
Speaker 1: her husband. Look, she was supposed to be fifteen thousand dollars.
38:12
Speaker 1: Who who? Who? Who goes on and tries to kill
38:14
Speaker 1: somebody on credit? Gave a lot of people would be
38:18
Speaker 1: so surprised at how many people, I'm telling you, you
38:22
Speaker 1: keep saying, please, please, please, many many people put a
38:26
Speaker 1: down payment on a hit. I mean you just saw
38:29
Speaker 1: it a Tiger kid. You put down payment on a hit. Yeah,
38:33
Speaker 1: you put a payment on a hit, and you pay
38:35
Speaker 1: the rest with the deed is done. As a matter
38:37
Speaker 1: of fact, that's pretty much soop. Maybe not that cheap,
38:40
Speaker 1: but she really didn't want it done. That's what I
38:42
Speaker 1: argued in this second case, almost why she didn't give
38:44
Speaker 1: any money. You know what, You know what, Brian Claypool,
38:48
Speaker 1: If I'm ever charged with murder. Get ready because you're
38:52
Speaker 1: still you're still you're going down swinging, You're still fighting
38:56
Speaker 1: for Dahlia di Polito. Guys, whether you agree with us,
38:59
Speaker 1: if defense attorneys are not, and I don't, you gotta
39:03
Speaker 1: respect somebody that never gives up, and that is Brian Claypole.
39:08
Speaker 1: I gotta say that. So bottom line right now to
39:12
Speaker 1: Ray Caputo, lead news anchor w DBA Morning News. Where
39:17
Speaker 1: does the case stand now? Bottom line? Bottom line? She
39:21
Speaker 1: is serving sixteen years in prison in a woman's prison
39:24
Speaker 1: in the o'calla and Marion County, and she's not getting
39:27
Speaker 1: out for a while, Nancy. But you know, in the
39:29
Speaker 1: grand scheme of things, some might think that that punishment
39:31
Speaker 1: isn't enough that this woman's going to be getting out
39:33
Speaker 1: of jil Now. One thing, Nancy, she was on house
39:35
Speaker 1: arrest for years between this happening and her finally getting convicted.
39:39
Speaker 1: She's not a mother. She's thirty six years old. She
39:42
Speaker 1: got pregnant while she's on house arrests. So this woman's
39:45
Speaker 1: wife is sort of continuing to go as all this
39:47
Speaker 1: has happened. Well, clearly the ankle monitor kept her from
39:51
Speaker 1: leaving home, but she apparently had to visit her long
39:55
Speaker 1: story short an appeal has gone up, that has been
39:59
Speaker 1: a dinner. Well, for some reason, I've got a feeling
40:04
Speaker 1: that we have not heard the last of Dahlia Depolito,
40:09
Speaker 1: Nancy Grace crime Story, signing off goodbye friend,