Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Young Nurse Among Hundreds Raped, Assaulted Taking Rideshares Uber and Lyft

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Young Nurse Among Hundreds Raped, Assaulted Taking Rideshares Uber and Lyft · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. How many times have you said, oh,
0:16
Speaker 1: I'll just call Uber, I'll just call a lift, no problem,
0:18
Speaker 1: I don't need to ride, and you've got your app,
0:21
Speaker 1: You're all set. How many times have I sent my
0:24
Speaker 1: mother to an appointment, say the hair salon here or there,
0:29
Speaker 1: in an Uber or lift? How many times I'll ride share?
0:35
Speaker 1: First of all, take a listen to this. This is
0:39
Speaker 1: our cut one mmahog KMOV four. It opened the back
0:44
Speaker 1: door and was on top of me. Christine Giangara recounts
0:48
Speaker 1: that horrific flashback from the night of June twenty second,
0:52
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen. The nurse was out at a bar downtown
0:55
Speaker 1: for a bachelorette party. Her nightmare unfolded after her friend
0:59
Speaker 1: called her a lift. I chose to use an app
1:02
Speaker 1: design to safely transport passengers, and ultimately I was punished
1:06
Speaker 1: for this decision. This is what we know. A nurse
1:09
Speaker 1: claims she was raped by a lift driver and files
1:12
Speaker 1: a lawsuit against the ride sharing company, saying they sent
1:18
Speaker 1: her a predator. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. You were
1:35
Speaker 1: just hearing the rape victim describe what happened. Is it
1:41
Speaker 1: the first time? According to her she was sent a
1:44
Speaker 1: predator to pick her up with no idea who was
1:49
Speaker 1: behind the wheel. I want you to hear the tone
1:53
Speaker 1: in her voice as she speaks, because you played that
1:56
Speaker 1: one more time. Plays Jackie hourcut one opened back dowor
2:00
Speaker 1: and was on top of me. Christine Giangara recounts that
2:04
Speaker 1: horrific flashback from the night of June twenty second, twenty nineteen.
2:08
Speaker 1: The nurse was out at a bar downtown for a
2:11
Speaker 1: bachelorette party. Her nightmare unfolded after her friend called her
2:15
Speaker 1: a lift. I shows to use an app design to
2:18
Speaker 1: safely transport passengers, and ultimately I was punished for this decision. Now, Jake,
2:23
Speaker 1: listen to our cut five. This is Claire kellett a
2:26
Speaker 1: k M A Z four Listen. Thirty year old Kristin
2:30
Speaker 1: Jiangara alleges she was kidnapped and raped by a lift
2:34
Speaker 1: driver in the backseat of his car in downtown Saint
2:36
Speaker 1: Louis in June of twenty nineteen. Today, her attorney said
2:40
Speaker 1: they amended the lawsuit because he says lift knew the
2:44
Speaker 1: driver was a convicted felon. Now Here's dead driver Larry
2:49
Speaker 1: Ward of Saint Peter's. It was in December that he
2:51
Speaker 1: was charged with raping and kidnapping Jiangara after she after
2:56
Speaker 1: he picked her up in his ride share car. Jangara's
2:59
Speaker 1: attorney says in twenty seventeen, Lyft denied Ward's application to
3:03
Speaker 1: become a driver because he didn't pass the background check
3:06
Speaker 1: because of a felony conviction. In twenty eighteen, her attorney says,
3:11
Speaker 1: Lyft changed background check companies to Checker, and when Ward
3:15
Speaker 1: reapplied to lift that year, Jeane Gary's attorney says he
3:19
Speaker 1: passed the background check and was cleared to drive, so
3:22
Speaker 1: they have also added Checker to their lawsuit. Let me
3:26
Speaker 1: understand this. Did the ride share company actually hire a
3:31
Speaker 1: convicted felon to go pick up a woman alone? Am
3:36
Speaker 1: I hearing this correctly? With me and all Star panel
3:39
Speaker 1: to make sense of what we're hearing? Isn't true? Is
3:41
Speaker 1: it false? James Shelnutt, twifty seven years Metro major case
3:46
Speaker 1: including swat now lawyer at shelnut Law from dot com,
3:50
Speaker 1: Karen start right now a psychologists joining us from Manhattan
3:54
Speaker 1: at Karen Psyche also at Karen dot com. Joseph Scott,
4:00
Speaker 1: Organ Professor Forensics, Jacksonville State University, author of Blood Beneath
4:03
Speaker 1: My Feet on Amazon and star of a brand new
4:07
Speaker 1: hit series on iHeart Body Bags. Dan Corsentino a former
4:11
Speaker 1: police chief, former sheriff, also US Homeland Security Senior Advisory
4:16
Speaker 1: Board at Dancorcentino dot com. Spencer Corson, Founder President of
4:22
Speaker 1: Course in Security Group. You can also find his book
4:25
Speaker 1: The Safety Trap online. Prefers to Emmy Award winning investigative
4:29
Speaker 1: reporter Christy Missouri, What happened? Christie? Thank you for being
4:34
Speaker 1: with us. The night that Giancara got a lift, as mentioned,
4:40
Speaker 1: she was out celebrating a bachelorette party and took the
4:43
Speaker 1: safe way home, or what she thought was going to
4:46
Speaker 1: be the safe way home. Larry Ward picks her up.
4:50
Speaker 1: She's just a little intoxicated and dozes off in the
4:53
Speaker 1: back seat during the ride. The next thing she knows
4:57
Speaker 1: he's on top of her. Now she goes further to
5:01
Speaker 1: state Larry Ward deviated from the route to her house,
5:06
Speaker 1: turned off his right share location software before he got
5:11
Speaker 1: into the vackseat and before he took her home. So
5:14
Speaker 1: prosecutors are saying she was intoxicated, unable to pay, sent
5:18
Speaker 1: to sex, but even more so about the atrocity. They
5:22
Speaker 1: do say that Lyft knew this man had an extensive
5:26
Speaker 1: criminal history based on the fact that when this woman
5:30
Speaker 1: went in for a check at an area hospital, they
5:34
Speaker 1: got a hit on Ward's DNA with the rape kit.
5:38
Speaker 1: What do you mean by that they got a hit
5:40
Speaker 1: on his DNA, Well, they did the rape kit and
5:43
Speaker 1: the DNA sample that was taken matched towards. They had
5:47
Speaker 1: his DNA on file because of a previous felony conviction.
5:51
Speaker 1: Do you know what the previous felony conviction was for?
5:54
Speaker 1: It was? It was for drug dealing an assault. He
5:57
Speaker 1: was sentenced to nine years. Guys, we are talking about
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Speaker 1: a young woman just thirty years old who takes a
6:03
Speaker 1: lift ride home and I want you to take a
6:06
Speaker 1: listen to what she says happened on that ride. Take
6:09
Speaker 1: a listen to hour cut two from our friends at
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Speaker 1: KMOV four. This lawsuit says the driver, fifty three year
6:16
Speaker 1: old Larry Ward, picked her up from tin roof at night.
6:19
Speaker 1: Jean Gara says she fell asleep in the back seat
6:22
Speaker 1: and woke up to Ward on top of her. The
6:24
Speaker 1: jumpsuit was althow on my waist and he was on
6:30
Speaker 1: top of me, and he smiled. What was supposed to
6:32
Speaker 1: be a seven minute ride turned into almost an hour.
6:36
Speaker 1: Cored documents say Ward turned the app off for thirty
6:39
Speaker 1: five minutes while he drove to a secluded street and
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Speaker 1: raped her. They were able to track his vehicle based
6:46
Speaker 1: on local cameras. Okay, what does that mean to you,
6:50
Speaker 1: Spencer Corson. They were able to track his location based
6:54
Speaker 1: on local cameras well. That could be a multiple thing.
6:57
Speaker 1: That could have been individual ring cameras, that could have
6:59
Speaker 1: been traffic cameras. It could have been anti crime cameras
7:03
Speaker 1: which may have been installed on street lights or light
7:06
Speaker 1: poles around the city. But clearly this man had an
7:09
Speaker 1: intend to do harm and was looking to subvert the
7:13
Speaker 1: authorities in those actions. Yeah, turning off his rice shirt location,
7:18
Speaker 1: changing the settings so no one would see where he
7:21
Speaker 1: was at the time, you know. To you, Dan Corcentino,
7:25
Speaker 1: former police chief joining us, it reminds me very much.
7:28
Speaker 1: I'm sure you're familiar with the missing Connecticut Mamma fied
7:31
Speaker 1: Jennifer Dulos, whose husband Photus Dulos, and his girlfriend His
7:38
Speaker 1: mistress went around the night of her disappearance all over town,
7:44
Speaker 1: throwing away bloody clothes, bloody rags, things from the crime
7:49
Speaker 1: scene where she was murdered. It was all caught on video,
7:52
Speaker 1: but that wasn't the end of it. They police used
7:57
Speaker 1: all sorts of cameras, ring cameras, red light cameras. Even
8:01
Speaker 1: this really impressed me, Dan Corsentino. When a public bus
8:06
Speaker 1: opened the doors, you see photus Dulo's driving. By I
8:11
Speaker 1: mean they retraced his entire route the night his wife
8:16
Speaker 1: was murdered, through all of these public cameras, and they
8:20
Speaker 1: traced him all the way to a detailing shop for
8:24
Speaker 1: he goes and gets the car that later revealed her
8:26
Speaker 1: blood and hair in it. Totally detailed Clint trying to
8:31
Speaker 1: get rid of evidence. So it was amazing the way
8:35
Speaker 1: they cobbled together all these bits and pieces from cameras
8:39
Speaker 1: and came up with the entire route of him trying
8:41
Speaker 1: to destroy evidence. What about that, Dan Corsentino, that's a
8:44
Speaker 1: pretty good police work. Well what's next one police work?
8:47
Speaker 1: First of all, you have a suspect that goes dark
8:50
Speaker 1: and he has with intense committed crime, which he did,
8:54
Speaker 1: there's no question about that. But the police work in
8:57
Speaker 1: the forensics that we're involved, not only with the cameras
9:02
Speaker 1: in the tracking system, but probably they were able to
9:06
Speaker 1: get into eventually the brains of the vehicle, the hard box,
9:11
Speaker 1: if you will, and they were able to extract the
9:14
Speaker 1: evidence of his route, which was the neil in the
9:18
Speaker 1: coffin in this case, so to speak. Time stories with
9:36
Speaker 1: Nancy Grace. Guys, we were talking about a young woman
9:40
Speaker 1: just thirty years old who takes a lift ride home.
9:44
Speaker 1: According to her, she was sent a predator to pick
9:49
Speaker 1: her up with no idea who was behind the wheel.
9:53
Speaker 1: Ain't know. James shell Nutt. Guys, shell nut not just
9:56
Speaker 1: a lawyer twenty seven years and swat in a major case.
10:01
Speaker 1: And swat James shell Nutt. You and I talked about
10:05
Speaker 1: a recent case where a beautiful young woman goes for
10:10
Speaker 1: a walk with her dog. Yes, so it was at night.
10:13
Speaker 1: Don't blame the victim, don't start with me. When she
10:16
Speaker 1: gets soft work. So she takes the doll for a
10:19
Speaker 1: walk in Piedmont part it's like Central Park in New York. Okay,
10:25
Speaker 1: that's that's what that is. And she ends up getting
10:30
Speaker 1: brutally murdered and her dog is murdered as well. And
10:35
Speaker 1: that's when we find out that all of these security
10:37
Speaker 1: cameras in Pedmont Park. Of all places, none of them
10:43
Speaker 1: have works. It's about twenty and eighteen, and the city
10:46
Speaker 1: knew they weren't working. The software was outmoded and it
10:50
Speaker 1: wouldn't work anymore. So the point is shell Nutt, We're
10:55
Speaker 1: never gonna get photographic evidence of that or video evidence
10:58
Speaker 1: of that, just like Sean Andrew Levy. That's when it
11:01
Speaker 1: came to my attention for the first time. Seandre Levy
11:04
Speaker 1: goes out, we think for a jog, but guess what.
11:07
Speaker 1: The building's video surveillance taped over every seventy two hours,
11:11
Speaker 1: So we don't know if she left with her killer,
11:14
Speaker 1: if she left with a group, if she was dressed
11:16
Speaker 1: in an evening dress, if she was dressed to go
11:18
Speaker 1: to work, if she was dragging a suitcase behind her,
11:21
Speaker 1: or was she dressed to go jogging, And it really
11:24
Speaker 1: stymied the investigation. That case went on sawt for years
11:28
Speaker 1: until somebody happened to stumble upon her bones at Rock
11:31
Speaker 1: Creek Park. My point is here they've managed to cobble
11:37
Speaker 1: together all of this. How important is it that cameras
11:42
Speaker 1: are in working order? It's critical. I mean, that's why
11:45
Speaker 1: that they're in the first place. There's a need for them.
11:47
Speaker 1: I mean, for them not to be working creates a
11:50
Speaker 1: danger in and of itself, and we see it over
11:53
Speaker 1: and over and over, and I think at some point
11:55
Speaker 1: you're going to start seeing lawsuits against municipalities and of
12:00
Speaker 1: that don't keep their camera their security cams working. I
12:04
Speaker 1: guarantee you it's going to happen. Guys, we are talking
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Speaker 1: about a really beautiful thirty year old woman who gets
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Speaker 1: a lift on the way home from a bacherette party
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Speaker 1: and says she was brutally rape And this is super creepy.
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Speaker 1: Karen Stark, did you hear what she says? She wakes
12:20
Speaker 1: kind of comes to she'd been asleep in the back seat.
12:24
Speaker 1: She wakes up, her jumpsuit was pulled below her waist.
12:28
Speaker 1: This guy was on top of her, raping her, and
12:31
Speaker 1: he smiled. What did he think he was having a date? Well,
12:34
Speaker 1: I think he smiled, Nancy, because he's sinister and was
12:38
Speaker 1: enjoying what he was doing. And if you think about
12:41
Speaker 1: what this experience was like for her, I mean, I've
12:44
Speaker 1: taken lift, haven't you. And she's in the car and she's,
12:49
Speaker 1: you know, needing to sleep, feeling a little intoxicated, but
12:54
Speaker 1: believing that she's safe. That's the key point here. She
12:57
Speaker 1: feels like she's safe. She assumes that this is a
13:00
Speaker 1: good person who's been checked out, and in stact, he's
13:04
Speaker 1: a criminal and she wakes up to this horror. Due you,
13:08
Speaker 1: Joseph Scott Morgan, Professor Forensics, Jacksonville State UNIVERSITYPS. I love
13:12
Speaker 1: your new podcast, Bodybags with Joe Scott Morgan. Joe Scott,
13:17
Speaker 1: let's talk about the rape kit because you heard Christie
13:20
Speaker 1: missourik accurately say they got a hit. Now, when I said,
13:25
Speaker 1: what do you mean by hit? She meant that the
13:29
Speaker 1: DNA taken from the rape kit from the victim, Kristen Jangara,
13:33
Speaker 1: matched to the defendant, the lift driver in this case,
13:39
Speaker 1: Larry Ward, I was thinking of another kind of hit,
13:43
Speaker 1: as in, you know, a hit on codus. Explain what
13:48
Speaker 1: I'm talking about and how you can find out from
13:50
Speaker 1: a rape kit somebody's criminal history. Yeah, if someone is
13:55
Speaker 1: a violent offender, and many times it has to do
13:58
Speaker 1: with an individual's clivity for say, sexual offenses where they're
14:02
Speaker 1: assaulting people. This sort of thing where they are identified
14:07
Speaker 1: as a risk and they are so convicted they will
14:11
Speaker 1: have to submit a sample to a system much like CODIS.
14:15
Speaker 1: As you mentioned, there's also status, which is a state
14:18
Speaker 1: to state and lettuce which goes in a local system
14:22
Speaker 1: as well. Right, you're saying the DNA goes in because
14:25
Speaker 1: you've got aphis for fingerprints, Right, you've got codas for DNA.
14:30
Speaker 1: There's even a data bank for ballistics. Say there's a shooting,
14:35
Speaker 1: I find a bullet on the scene, I take it.
14:38
Speaker 1: I enter the striation marks and the marks on the
14:41
Speaker 1: bullet that it obtains hurling down the gun. There's only
14:45
Speaker 1: one like it. It's like a fingerprint to us as
14:49
Speaker 1: it relates to a bullet. You put it into the
14:52
Speaker 1: bullet data bank and you get a match if that
14:56
Speaker 1: gun has been used in another crime. Yeah, you're absolutely right.
14:59
Speaker 1: The AT manages that system, and then the FBI actually
15:03
Speaker 1: manages the code of system. So you have these sexual
15:07
Speaker 1: offenders with very specific identifiers based upon their DNA fingerprint.
15:13
Speaker 1: If you will, remember, Nancy, we're talking about something that
15:16
Speaker 1: goes you know, when we think about say old forensic
15:19
Speaker 1: urology where we're looking at blood types. The most rare
15:22
Speaker 1: blood type, of course, was ABNAG and we're talking I
15:25
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe one in every two hundred forty nine
15:29
Speaker 1: people would have that. Now you take something out with
15:32
Speaker 1: DNA and you're talking about sometimes they talk about terms
15:36
Speaker 1: of billions and trillions and even quadrillions of the chances
15:41
Speaker 1: that this would be anybody other than the individual identified.
15:44
Speaker 1: This guy was actually in the system. So when they
15:47
Speaker 1: did the rape kit, which means they had to do
15:50
Speaker 1: swabs and pubic combings and all those sorts of things,
15:52
Speaker 1: they were tying a man at whoa wait a minute,
15:57
Speaker 1: everybody out there, especially you ladies, let's just did you
15:59
Speaker 1: hear what Jo Scott Morgan just said it? And he's right.
16:03
Speaker 1: A pubic combing. You want to explain what that is,
16:06
Speaker 1: what a rape victim has to go through, Joe Scott don't.
16:12
Speaker 1: I'm a j D not a DDS. I don't know.
16:16
Speaker 1: It's it's humiliating for the women. You think about the
16:20
Speaker 1: swabbings that go on where they actually take the fluid
16:24
Speaker 1: swabs to come out of the vagina and the anus,
16:27
Speaker 1: this sort of thing. But they also do calming right there,
16:33
Speaker 1: the swabbings that come from the vagina and the anus.
16:36
Speaker 1: In other words, they take a Q chip about that
16:39
Speaker 1: long and it is inserted into your vagina and your
16:43
Speaker 1: rear end. Okay, Now everybody in this set, now they're
16:47
Speaker 1: cringing when you said it. It didn't really bring it home.
16:51
Speaker 1: That's what that is. That's what a rape kid is.
16:54
Speaker 1: It's not fun. Then you have a pubic combing. Do
16:57
Speaker 1: I have to Q and A with myself, Joe Scott?
17:00
Speaker 1: Do you think? Oh? Absolutely, I was gonna tell you
17:02
Speaker 1: what a fine tooth comb was. And so these little
17:06
Speaker 1: tiny combs are used to extract hairs from the pubic area.
17:10
Speaker 1: And what will happen when you have this intimate contact
17:15
Speaker 1: that goes on in a rape and an assault like this.
17:18
Speaker 1: The pubic areas brush against one another and we slough hair.
17:21
Speaker 1: So the perpetrator commingles their hair with the poor victim.
17:25
Speaker 1: Here that hair is actually lifted with a combing kit,
17:29
Speaker 1: and that's submitted as well. Jasy. When you say it
17:32
Speaker 1: like that, I learned on my very first jewry trial,
17:36
Speaker 1: don't put perfume on the pig. They take a very
17:42
Speaker 1: fine toothed comb. You ever heard that, I'm going to
17:46
Speaker 1: go through it with a fine tooth comb. We've all
17:49
Speaker 1: heard that, right. That means the teeth of the comb
17:52
Speaker 1: are very so close to each other. And then they
17:56
Speaker 1: take that comb and they comb your whole pubic area
18:03
Speaker 1: everything to see if they can lift a hear from
18:08
Speaker 1: the defendant off of you. Now okay, now I'm seeing grimacing. Yeah,
18:13
Speaker 1: a lot of it. That's how you explained that, because
18:17
Speaker 1: that's where the victim has to go through crime stories
18:29
Speaker 1: with Nancy Grace. James shell Nutt, I assume that you've
18:35
Speaker 1: either defended or prosecuted a sex assault case, a child
18:38
Speaker 1: molestation or rape case. Have you ever? Okay, the first
18:43
Speaker 1: time I did that, I could hardly spit the words out.
18:47
Speaker 1: It was embarrassing. The victim was embarrassed to have it
18:50
Speaker 1: stated in court. The ladies on the jury were like, oh,
18:54
Speaker 1: I didn't want to say it out loud, but this
19:00
Speaker 1: is a harsh reality of crime. You have to deal
19:06
Speaker 1: with things you don't want to deal with. They're not nice,
19:09
Speaker 1: they're not pretty, they're horrible. But there's a goal and
19:14
Speaker 1: that is a true verdict. So this is what you
19:18
Speaker 1: have to do in order to explain it to a jury.
19:24
Speaker 1: James Shellnon, I'll never forget it. The first time I
19:26
Speaker 1: had to say the F word, the P word, the
19:28
Speaker 1: C word, the every word in front of a jury
19:31
Speaker 1: because I was reading a statement that the defendant had made,
19:36
Speaker 1: and under any other circumstances, I would have washed my
19:39
Speaker 1: own mouth out with soap. But I had to say
19:43
Speaker 1: what he said, and after that one jury trial, I
19:47
Speaker 1: didn't have any problem with it. After that, apparently just
19:49
Speaker 1: got Morgan has not gotten to that level yet. What
19:52
Speaker 1: about it, Shellnon. I don't know about justice Scott, but
19:56
Speaker 1: I will tell you this. I will tell you that
19:59
Speaker 1: the truth of what happens sometimes is extremely ugly. As
20:03
Speaker 1: you point it out, it's about to get uglier, shall not?
20:07
Speaker 1: It's about to get uglier? How many times, Christy Missourich,
20:14
Speaker 1: do we think Larry Ward has attacked women? It's alleged
20:20
Speaker 1: about a dozen some of the cases, and speaking with
20:25
Speaker 1: a susteemed panel, you try to do the right thing
20:28
Speaker 1: and bring justice. He planned out to some cases, and
20:33
Speaker 1: some cases were thrown out of court because the victims
20:37
Speaker 1: wouldn't testify. Did you hear that about twelve times? Nancy?
20:45
Speaker 1: It's also the Suspencer Courson. It's also important to remember
20:48
Speaker 1: that only thirty percent of sexual assaults are reported, so
20:51
Speaker 1: it's likely that numbers three times higher. Hey, Spencer, I
20:54
Speaker 1: want to follow up with you on that First of all,
20:56
Speaker 1: will you say that again, yes, ma'am. For every one
20:59
Speaker 1: thou and incidents of sexual assault, only three hundred are reported,
21:05
Speaker 1: which means about three times as many sexual assaults as
21:10
Speaker 1: we hear about are actually occurring. So if you have
21:14
Speaker 1: someone who is who is convictive of sexually assaulting five people,
21:17
Speaker 1: the reality is they probably sexually assaulted fifteen people throughout
21:21
Speaker 1: their history. And really, Karen Stark, do you blame the
21:26
Speaker 1: rape victims? Karen, start with me. Renowned psychologists joining used
21:30
Speaker 1: in Manhattan. I told you about this case. I helped
21:35
Speaker 1: on a case where the perp had kidnapped, raped, and
21:43
Speaker 1: murdered a young woman going on a jog in Atlanta.
21:49
Speaker 1: Her name is Julie Love. Is a huge, huge case
21:52
Speaker 1: at the time, years passed until finally the purp's girlfriend
21:57
Speaker 1: was a Friday, who's going to kill her? And she
22:00
Speaker 1: whole police. Her boyfriend was the long story short. We
22:04
Speaker 1: start working up similar transactions other attacks, and I had
22:08
Speaker 1: one lady who he had actually put in a car
22:12
Speaker 1: trunk and raped and driven all around town and raped
22:16
Speaker 1: her and raped her and raped her. Her husband came
22:19
Speaker 1: to the trial and when this similar transaction witness got
22:24
Speaker 1: up on the stand, Karen, she would not say she
22:28
Speaker 1: had been raped. She would not say she was raped
22:33
Speaker 1: in front of her husband. There's nothing we could do
22:37
Speaker 1: about it. We knew she had been raped. She told
22:39
Speaker 1: us she was raped, but she could not bring herself
22:42
Speaker 1: to say it with her husband in the courtroom. And
22:45
Speaker 1: in her culture it was a bad thing. It made
22:49
Speaker 1: the woman somehow demand. So there's so many reasons rape
22:53
Speaker 1: victims don't be poornt and they're all heartbreaking, most of them, Nancy,
23:00
Speaker 1: Just as you said, and I remember that story involves shame.
23:04
Speaker 1: I mean, here's the case where a victim is blaming
23:07
Speaker 1: themselves because they steel so ashamed that this happened to them.
23:12
Speaker 1: And they're only getting that because of society. We are
23:16
Speaker 1: in the past, not anymore, but it used to be,
23:19
Speaker 1: you know, you could be provoking someone if you'd dress
23:22
Speaker 1: the right way. And now we don't feel that way.
23:25
Speaker 1: But it lingers that whole belief that somehow you should
23:30
Speaker 1: not have had that happen, You should have been able
23:32
Speaker 1: to prevent it. Now, isn't this true? Christie Missourich that
23:38
Speaker 1: asked about lifts response within twenty four hours after the
23:41
Speaker 1: victim's report, their first response was it never happened. But
23:46
Speaker 1: then the next day they refunded her ninety three dollars
23:50
Speaker 1: and ninety nine cents, but they still charged her twelve
23:54
Speaker 1: dollars and eighty one cents so she could be kidnapped
23:57
Speaker 1: across state lines, right and traffic. That is true, and
24:03
Speaker 1: that is a woman by the name of Alison Turkos.
24:08
Speaker 1: She was held at gunpoint by her lift driver, driven
24:12
Speaker 1: from Brooklyn to New Jersey to a park where she
24:15
Speaker 1: was game raped by the driver and two of his
24:18
Speaker 1: friends before they took off. Take a listen to our
24:22
Speaker 1: cut ten our friend Nikki Battista at CBS. According to
24:26
Speaker 1: turkos recently filed lawsuit, a rape kit administered afterward confirmed
24:31
Speaker 1: evidence of seamen from two men on the clothing she
24:34
Speaker 1: wore that night. In the suit, she says she initially
24:37
Speaker 1: blocked out what happened and reported to Lift only that
24:41
Speaker 1: her driver had taken her outside of her route and
24:44
Speaker 1: across state lines. You call Lift within twenty four hours,
24:48
Speaker 1: and what's their response to your first report? Their first
24:52
Speaker 1: response is that this never happened. The next day they
24:57
Speaker 1: send me an email that says we've refunded the ninety
24:59
Speaker 1: three dollars ninety nine cents. We are still charging new
25:02
Speaker 1: twelve dollars and eighty one cents. So left charged me
25:05
Speaker 1: twelve dollars and eighty one cents to be kidnapped across
25:08
Speaker 1: state lines, gang raped and trafficked. Now. That is Alison
25:13
Speaker 1: Turko's thirty one year old rate victim. Take a listen
25:16
Speaker 1: to more about her case regarding a lift driver allegedly
25:20
Speaker 1: raping her. Our cut eleven cbs. Turkos says she filed
25:25
Speaker 1: a police report after she was allegedly raped. This week.
25:29
Speaker 1: The law firm representing her filed five lawsuits and says
25:32
Speaker 1: it currently represents around sixty eight women who claimed to
25:36
Speaker 1: have been sexually assaulted by lift drivers. Just two weeks ago,
25:40
Speaker 1: fourteen women filed suits against Lift, alleging it mishandled sexual
25:44
Speaker 1: assault complaints and in some cases allowed drivers to continue
25:49
Speaker 1: to work. The driver was able to make a new profile,
25:54
Speaker 1: update a new profile photo, and update a new name
25:58
Speaker 1: and was still driving for a lift. I want to
26:01
Speaker 1: talk about Alison Turkos and Kristen Giangara, both victims of
26:06
Speaker 1: alleged rapes, and take a listen to what Lift had
26:10
Speaker 1: to say about Giangara's lawsuit. It's sur cut seven and
26:14
Speaker 1: are from our friends at k S d K five.
26:17
Speaker 1: Last month, Lift file response to Giangara's lawsuit. It states
26:21
Speaker 1: Giangara failed to act as a reasonable and prudent person
26:25
Speaker 1: with regard to her own safety. I think it sends
26:28
Speaker 1: a message that that victims are have blame and in
26:36
Speaker 1: what happens to them, and it's so not true. A
26:40
Speaker 1: spokesman for a Lift tells me the language in this
26:42
Speaker 1: lawsuit is pretty standard for these types of cases and
26:45
Speaker 1: it never meant to upset the victim. The company says
26:49
Speaker 1: they plan to amend the filing. Giangara says that's not enough.
26:53
Speaker 1: I think it really shows that their priority is not
26:56
Speaker 1: the safety of their customers. Think here is jar your
27:00
Speaker 1: psychologists joining us from Manhattan. That goes to what you said, shame.
27:04
Speaker 1: Rapehs are made to feel ashamed, like it's their fault.
27:08
Speaker 1: And here you have left filing a response to a
27:11
Speaker 1: lawsuit saying she's the one that failed to act reasonably
27:15
Speaker 1: and prudently regarding your own safety. They're actually blaming her
27:19
Speaker 1: for getting a rape to the lift car. Are we surprised, Nancy?
27:22
Speaker 1: I think that's exactly what happened. Why people don't come forward.
27:27
Speaker 1: It's just outrageous because that's the kind of crime you
27:30
Speaker 1: would never see that happen in a regular crime. That
27:33
Speaker 1: when it comes to rap it's so often that the
27:36
Speaker 1: gston winds up being blamed charged. It's wild crime stories
27:54
Speaker 1: with Nancy Grace just kind of morgan. How can these
27:59
Speaker 1: case be linked? How are we ever going to find
28:02
Speaker 1: out how many people if there are more than the
28:06
Speaker 1: suspect's Larry Ward and I'll find so Alicon Nunez, how
28:11
Speaker 1: many rapes have they committed? How can we find that out? Well,
28:14
Speaker 1: it's going to be difficult. And going back to what
28:17
Speaker 1: had previously been said Nancy, and this is the real
28:19
Speaker 1: tragedy is the fact that many times these people, these
28:24
Speaker 1: victims are terrified to report, Nancy, and so when that happens,
28:30
Speaker 1: the chain is essentially broken. Relative to the evidence. You
28:33
Speaker 1: don't know how many people are out there. Remember there's
28:36
Speaker 1: probably half again as many people that haven't reported as
28:39
Speaker 1: have reported. And then you run into the problem of
28:44
Speaker 1: well are they collecting the evidence correctly and is it
28:47
Speaker 1: actually even being submitted. There's a national problem with rape
28:51
Speaker 1: kit submission in this country. So everything breaks down. Of course,
28:55
Speaker 1: the victim is the problem. You're right, oh, I can
29:00
Speaker 1: explaining the problem. The problem is apathy, I think, and
29:03
Speaker 1: laziness on the job. You have rape kits that sit
29:06
Speaker 1: in evidence rooms and this is biological sample Nancy, that
29:10
Speaker 1: are very very fragile, and they'll begin to break down
29:12
Speaker 1: if they're not submitted very soon. And you've been in
29:15
Speaker 1: evidence rooms you know they're horrible places and they're not
29:18
Speaker 1: correctly prepared to take care of these samples many times,
29:21
Speaker 1: so you have multiple places along the continuum where it
29:25
Speaker 1: breaks in. Of course, at the end of the day,
29:27
Speaker 1: the victim is the one. They don't just get victimized
29:31
Speaker 1: by the perpetrator. That's bad enough, but then the courts
29:36
Speaker 1: don't do their job, the police don't do their jobs,
29:38
Speaker 1: and now you've got a private company like Lift that's
29:42
Speaker 1: also going to attack them as well. Give me a break,
29:45
Speaker 1: So let me ask you if I could just add
29:47
Speaker 1: one thing on the go into that go ahead, I
29:49
Speaker 1: would just like to say that another big problem is
29:52
Speaker 1: that while it's very easy to say that you take
29:54
Speaker 1: the safety and security of your staff and your customer seriously,
29:58
Speaker 1: the reality is that secure and safety is typically like
30:01
Speaker 1: the last line item on a budget. So there's no
30:04
Speaker 1: real standard. There's no real standard for what actually constitutes
30:08
Speaker 1: a background check. You know, a twenty five dollars truth
30:11
Speaker 1: finder or a paid subscription model where you're doing these
30:14
Speaker 1: end mass at scale is not the same as a
30:17
Speaker 1: due diligence background check. And if a lot of times
30:21
Speaker 1: if you haven't been convicted, it won't show up. So
30:25
Speaker 1: it won't it may not say that you were arrested
30:27
Speaker 1: or charged with the sexual assault and those charges were
30:29
Speaker 1: actually dropped. So there really, in addition to everything else,
30:33
Speaker 1: the corporate responsibility needs to really take the initiative in
30:37
Speaker 1: trying to elevate the standard of care. I really believe
30:41
Speaker 1: that in these cases where you see that the company
30:44
Speaker 1: is allowing predators to pick up women or pick up anyone,
30:49
Speaker 1: that they should be held criminally liable as well. It
30:53
Speaker 1: can happen. If you're still kind of convinced, take a
30:56
Speaker 1: listen to our cut nine. This is Alice and Turka
31:00
Speaker 1: is describing what happened to her with a lift ride.
31:03
Speaker 1: The minute that the gun gets pulled and is so
31:08
Speaker 1: close to my face, the first thought that came to
31:14
Speaker 1: my mind was like, I'm not going to get home
31:16
Speaker 1: safe and I'm probably not going to get home alive.
31:18
Speaker 1: Alison Turkos says a lift ride she took in twenty
31:21
Speaker 1: seventeen was only supposed to last around fifteen minutes. Instead,
31:25
Speaker 1: she says, over the course of seventy nine minutes, she
31:29
Speaker 1: was kidnapped by her driver, driven from New York to
31:32
Speaker 1: New Jersey, and sexually assaulted by at least two men.
31:36
Speaker 1: What's the one word you would use to describe how
31:38
Speaker 1: lift has treated you? Callously? Apparently this is the tip
31:47
Speaker 1: of the iceberg. Listen to our cut fourteen from our
31:50
Speaker 1: priscy k r q E. The district attorney says eler
31:54
Speaker 1: kah Nunez was picking up riders that weren't his, driving
31:58
Speaker 1: those victims to their hull where he'd break in, raped them,
32:02
Speaker 1: and then steal their valuables. Aler con Nunez was a
32:05
Speaker 1: legit uber driver and had a valid driver's license, but
32:08
Speaker 1: he's not a legal US citizen. That mister aler Contunez
32:12
Speaker 1: is an undocumented undocumented immigrant here in the United States,
32:16
Speaker 1: a citizen of Mexico who was deported voluntarily in two
32:20
Speaker 1: thousand and five. Homeland Security says aler Con Nuniez was
32:24
Speaker 1: deported from New Mexico was contacted in New Mexico and
32:27
Speaker 1: was asked if he would if you would voluntarily go
32:31
Speaker 1: back to Mexico. Authorities say that didn't stop him, though,
32:35
Speaker 1: from coming back to the US and becoming an Uber
32:38
Speaker 1: driver in California. Guys, if I could only tell you
32:42
Speaker 1: how many examples we have, take a listen to our
32:45
Speaker 1: friends at CBSLA Our cut sixteen. An Uber driver in
32:50
Speaker 1: San Luis Obismo is accused of raping four passengers between
32:53
Speaker 1: mid December and last week. Please say. The driver would
32:56
Speaker 1: scout out parties or bars and then target young drunk women,
33:00
Speaker 1: but then trick and debrated victims who had ordered an
33:03
Speaker 1: Uber into thinking he was their driver. He then took
33:06
Speaker 1: the victims to his home, where he sexually assaulted them.
33:09
Speaker 1: He used Venmo as an alternative paying system to mask
33:11
Speaker 1: his identity and Uber records. His arrest prompted police to
33:15
Speaker 1: warn customers to only make payments through Uber and to
33:18
Speaker 1: always confirm the driver's identity through the Uber app before
33:21
Speaker 1: getting in. I mean, Dan Corcentina, in former police chief,
33:24
Speaker 1: not only does he rape them, but some of these
33:26
Speaker 1: guys go into your home where they drop you off
33:29
Speaker 1: and steal your stuff. Yeah. Absolutely not only are they
33:33
Speaker 1: perpetrators in the vehicle, but now they become stalkers of
33:37
Speaker 1: the victim, and who's to say that they're not going
33:39
Speaker 1: to repeat the crime and also get to know the neighborhood.
33:42
Speaker 1: You know, it kind of sounds like this needs legislative
33:46
Speaker 1: action at time for these transport companies for mandatory background
33:51
Speaker 1: checks across the board to try and reduce the victimization
33:55
Speaker 1: of people, because there's clearly an expectation of safety or
34:00
Speaker 1: any person that's going to get into a vehicle to
34:04
Speaker 1: be transported, and especially a woman, the elderly or young
34:10
Speaker 1: that is trying to get from point eight to point B.
34:13
Speaker 1: They're going back to your point, Nancy. Absolutely, these individuals
34:16
Speaker 1: now are not only committing a crime, but they're planning
34:21
Speaker 1: the next crime, and that is possibly the burglary and
34:24
Speaker 1: theft of residents. So Christy Missouri joining us any award
34:29
Speaker 1: winning investigative reporter, Aber and Lyft claim they're making changes.
34:35
Speaker 1: What changes, well just a few days ago, and you're
34:38
Speaker 1: going to be horrified when I tell you this. Ober
34:41
Speaker 1: and the Lift are good before the Illinois Supreme Court
34:46
Speaker 1: trying to double down and push back on all of
34:49
Speaker 1: these lawsuits that are flying at them. They're trying to
34:54
Speaker 1: argue that a specific prevision of state law, the Transportation
34:59
Speaker 1: Network Provid Writers Act stats that right share drivers are
35:03
Speaker 1: not common carriers, contract carriers, or motor carriers as divined
35:09
Speaker 1: by applicable state laws. So they're arguing that language differentiates
35:16
Speaker 1: them from other common carriers and means they're not subject
35:20
Speaker 1: to the same liability. They also further maintain that they
35:24
Speaker 1: just continuously monitor their drivers and driver applications. However, their
35:31
Speaker 1: statistics don't support that. There are thousands of reported assaults
35:37
Speaker 1: and rates coming in year after year. To EU Spiser
35:42
Speaker 1: course and founder present Course of Security Group and author
35:45
Speaker 1: of the Safety Trap Secrets for Staying Safe, Obviously, the
35:51
Speaker 1: right share companies are not going to protect us, So
35:55
Speaker 1: what should we do to protect ourselves? The best thing
35:59
Speaker 1: we can do is to have a healthy sense of
36:01
Speaker 1: skepticism and a moderate dose of vigilance, which is, of course,
36:06
Speaker 1: if you're inebriated and you're tired and you're passed out
36:09
Speaker 1: into the back of a car, there's that punch you're
36:10
Speaker 1: going to be able to do to be situational aware
36:13
Speaker 1: in that point. But if you are in an a ride,
36:16
Speaker 1: or if you are in a situation where you feel unsafe,
36:20
Speaker 1: the best thing to do is to get yourself out
36:22
Speaker 1: of that situation immediately, whether that's using the emergency application
36:27
Speaker 1: in the app, just simply saying to the driver you
36:30
Speaker 1: change your mind you want to get out, or drawing,
36:32
Speaker 1: even just picking up the phone call or picking up
36:35
Speaker 1: the phone and calling someone so that you can have
36:37
Speaker 1: someone else listening into what's going on. The more that
36:40
Speaker 1: you can promote your own protective posture, the better your
36:43
Speaker 1: chances of staying safe will be. Because, like with everything else,
36:47
Speaker 1: it's these these evildoers tend to not go after the
36:51
Speaker 1: strongest among us. They tend to go after the weakest. Nay,
36:53
Speaker 1: see this is James. You know two other things that
36:56
Speaker 1: are very important also armor with everything you just said,
36:59
Speaker 1: is there are multiple apps where you can share your
37:03
Speaker 1: locations with family, with loved ones, with friends, and they
37:06
Speaker 1: can monitor whether or not you get from point A
37:08
Speaker 1: to point B. And the other thing is it's very
37:11
Speaker 1: important to not travel by yourself if at all possible.
37:14
Speaker 1: They're safety in numbers. That's always been the case, always
37:17
Speaker 1: will be, Guys, it's so hard to think out ways
37:21
Speaker 1: for victims to stay safe in a situation like this,
37:27
Speaker 1: but we are trying. First of all, use the app
37:32
Speaker 1: information and verify you've got the right driver. Look at
37:36
Speaker 1: his name and his photo on his idea to make
37:39
Speaker 1: sure you've got the right one. Always try to let
37:42
Speaker 1: somebody know you're taking a ride chair. Let them know, Hey,
37:45
Speaker 1: I'm jumping in an uber. Hey I'm jumping in a lift,
37:49
Speaker 1: so someone knows where you are. Also tell that special
37:53
Speaker 1: person how long you think the ride will take, and
37:56
Speaker 1: problems to text or call when you get home. Not
37:59
Speaker 1: only that, I love doing this. The moment I get
38:02
Speaker 1: in a ride chair, I take the driver's picture right
38:05
Speaker 1: in front of him. He knows I've got his idea
38:08
Speaker 1: and his name and his photo. That way, he knows
38:12
Speaker 1: I'm onto him. In addition to taking the picture, when
38:16
Speaker 1: you open the door to the ride chair, look around inside.
38:20
Speaker 1: Make sure the child locks are not on. That's very important.
38:26
Speaker 1: Child locks not on. If you drink before you take
38:31
Speaker 1: the ride chair. Try not to ride alone. Sometimes you
38:34
Speaker 1: can't help it, but if you can ride in a
38:37
Speaker 1: group or at least with one other person. Of course,
38:40
Speaker 1: trust your instincts. If you feel something is off, don't
38:44
Speaker 1: get in or at any time if the driver is
38:47
Speaker 1: asking inappropriate questions, or you feel uncomfortable, call nine one
38:52
Speaker 1: one or contact nine one one through the app. They
38:56
Speaker 1: will immediately locate the driver's position. Not only that, always
39:02
Speaker 1: carry protection and I'm talking about a personal alarm, the
39:07
Speaker 1: screamer or pepper spray. When you need it, You'll be
39:11
Speaker 1: glad you did. Nancy Grace Crimes Story signing off, Goodbye friend,