Larry Mendte goes over the biggest news stories of the day including Tom Homan visiting New York and promising to bring ICE agents. Aaron Katersky speaks with Larry talking about a federal appeals court ruling in favor of Pedro Hernandez, a man convicted in 2017 of kidnapping and murder of 6-year old Etan Patz in 1979. Hernandez stands to be released or set for a re-trial. Jimmy Failla talks with Mendte in the Morning about self-driving taxis coming to NYC and his thoughts on his former profession being infiltrated by robots.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ah, good morning to you. Beautiful day to be driving
into work in the Big Three today. Look, New York
City is about to get a lot of visitors, a
whole lot of ice officers because borders are Tom Homan
was in town yesterday and man is he mad, And
(00:22):
he said, We're just gonna flood New York City with
ice officers because he blames the city policies for one
of the Border Patrol agents being in the hospital right
now with a gunshot wounded the face. Two criminals with
long rap sheets who never should have been in the
country are now in custody for the shooting of a
(00:44):
Customs and Border Patrol agent. And the borders are blasted
the New York City Council. You see the polls. Everybody
agrees we should be a resting public safety threat, illegal
aliens where you've got a city council here, The LACKTA
is out of Wreckers Island? Are you kidding me? Allen
in Riker's Island? We can't talk to it, we don't
have access to That makes the city unsafe. Like I said,
(01:06):
he's going to send as he said, He's going to
flood the zone and send in a whole lot of
ice officers. The man accused of killing Aton Pates, the
six year old Manhattan child whose disappearance spawned a national
missing child's movement, may now get a new trial or
(01:26):
just get released because a court is now saying a
confession that he made never should have been considered.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Oh, the jury determines that it's an involuntary confession, that
they can't consider it.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
The law has to be equal for everyone.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
The Manhattan DA's office is making the decision right now
whether there is going to be a new trial for
Bodego worker Pedro Hernandez, who was convicted of the nineteen
seventy nine killing of Aton Pates. In twenty seventeen, that's
how long it took to get him. It now must
be decided whether he stands a new trial or is
(02:04):
just released. We have Aaron Katirsky coming up to talk
about this. He's been covering the case. At nine oh five,
the disappearance of a nine year old girl at Lake
George and Upstate New York is now considered a murder,
and the father who reported the nine year old girl
missing has been arrested.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
The investigation has determined some time after Molina's phone call
with her mother, and before Monsieur Frattolan's NIH one call,
he allegedly murdered Molina and left her body in a
remote area where she's later discovered by law enforcement.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Well you want some good news, how about this. The
Trump administration is just six months old and has already
accomplished its two core promises, bringing down inflation and securing
the border.
Speaker 5 (02:47):
People who did not want to accept.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Sorry about that anyway, take my word for it. It was
a secure border in Lake a weekend and it was
down to two percent inflame nationally two point one percent.
And that was the Director of National Intelligence, Tolsey Gabbard,
And she has asked the Justice Department to investigate several
members of the Obama administration for treasonous conspiracy for manufacturing
(03:16):
the Russian collusion hoax to try and cripple Donald Trump's
first term in office back in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 5 (03:24):
People who did not want to accept the will of
the American people in electing Donald Trump in twenty sixteen
and therefore cooked up this treasonous conspiracy to again try
to effectively, and they did effectively launch a year's long
coup against the sitting president of the United.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
States, and an ethics complaint has been filed against New
York Congressman and Minardi leader Hakim Jeffries for attempting to
get a federal judge to remove New Jersey US Attorney
Alina Haba from office. The so called US Attorney from
New Jersey woefully unqualified and is a political pact. The
(04:04):
people of New Jersey deserve better. If I said it,
I meant it. Well, he's not backing down. Hoba as
the interim US Attorney must be confirmed by the Senate
by the end of July if she's going to keep
that job. And finally, it is so sad. Malcolm Jamal Warner,
who played the lovable Theo Huxtable and the number one
(04:25):
rated Cosby Show, has died. I've had such.
Speaker 6 (04:28):
An awesome life, you know. I mean, like I'm literally
you know, I've got my ups and downs and all
of that. But like, if I die tomorrow, I I
know I would go with the smile on my face.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
One or drowned on a family vacation in Costa Rica.
He was fifty four years old, far far too young.
That guy always had a smile on his face. He
was just he just seemed to be so much fun
to be around. You can go to the iHeartRadio app
right now and we just covered a lot of stuff
right there, and leave us a talk back. You could
(05:03):
win a limited edition MENTI in the Morning t shirt
which will be awarded every day to our favorite talkback
of the morning. And while you're on the free iHeartRadio app,
just go ahead and pre set it for seven to ten.
WOOR makes it a lot easier to find it the
next time you want to go on. Let's talk about
the Aton Pates. It is just a complete stunner, a stunner.
(05:28):
I came to New York when I worked at WABC
Eyewitness News back in nineteen eighty four. Aton Pates went
missing in nineteen seventy nine. It was still an enormous
story in this city. And I already knew about Aton
Pates because it became a national story. The search for
his killer was a national story. The reason there is
(05:53):
a big push to find missing children all across the
country is because of Aton Pates. The reason that there
were pictures on the back of milk cartons of missing
children was because of Aton Pates. There is now a
government organization to find missing children. That's because of Aton Pates.
(06:13):
That's how big this story is. If you're at a
certain age, you remember all of this. There are some
people that probably don't remember any of it. But when
I was here at eyewitness News through the eighties, they
never found them, but it was a story every single year.
The search was that intense, and they didn't really find
(06:38):
somebody till two thoy seventeen. Think about that, almost twenty
years later. They got this pedro Hernandez right, and he
worked at a bordego. He's mentally challenged. And after talking
(06:59):
to him for seven hours and pressuring him, been pressuring,
and these police officers were pressuring him, finally he said, yes,
he lured a Tom Pates away from a bus stop,
took him into the basement of the badego where he
killed him. He said it was not sexual at all.
(07:19):
We still don't really know what the motive could have been.
And then he put him in a trash bag and
threw him in the trash That's what he says happened.
And then so he after he gives that confession, they say, okay,
we got to get this on tape, and they read
him as Miranda and they start the confession. Well, at
(07:43):
the time of the of the legal proceeding, when the
jury went into the room to deliberate, they sent a
note to the judge saying, wait a second, this confession
came without a miranda. Can we even consider this? And
the judge sent back a note and said, yes, consider it.
(08:07):
And at the time the attorneys for ATM. Pate said,
I have a feeling we're coming back here. I got
a feeling this is going to happen again. And here
we are, here, we are this many years later, and
that has come back to haunt the investigators.
Speaker 7 (08:23):
And you wonder, why so many years after twenty seventeen,
why are we bringing this up. Why didn't they bring
this up in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
I'm sure they did. I'm sure they did. I'm sure
it went through a pellet process, and a pellet process
and a pellet process. This was the second US Court
of Appeals that overturned the conviction. And now what they're
saying is either you have to let him go or
you have to retry him. But he can't stay in prison.
Speaker 7 (08:50):
Just bringing up this story started me thinking, you know,
I grew up in Staten Island. I was relatively young
around his age when this happened, I wasn't in my
conscious I wasn't watching the news, but I remember as
a child hearing feeling the fear of kidnapping. And now
(09:11):
I as an adult, I'm looking back and I'm like,
that was happening in my backyard. This was probably what
my parents were fearing at the time, and I just
didn't know right.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
All these missing children. That the reason it's become such
a huge story across the country, and it should be.
I think, you know, in a strange way, he was
a martyr. I mean, I mean, he's the one that
made us care about missing children all across the country
to a national extent. It was, it was that big
(09:43):
of a story. And look at I feel for everybody
involved in this story. Whether he gave a confession that
was forced, I feel bad for him. I feel bad
for you know, the family of Aton Pates, who were
just they were horrified, and they went through through hell
trying to trying to find out what happened. And here
(10:03):
we go again. The whole thing is going to resurface
again for New York. But I just wanted to tell people,
in case you weren't old enough, how big of a
story this was and will be if we get another trial. Well,
on Sunday, Carnegie Hall featured the youngest piano player ever
to perform at Carnegie Hall. We'll tell you who he
(10:25):
is and how he did it next. And now let's
get to more on the Aton Paids case, because it
was kind of a shocking decision by an appellate court,
although the attorney for Aton Pats back in twenty seventeen
predicted this was going to happen because he said the
confession never should have been allowed. For more on this,
(10:46):
let's get to Aaron Katski, Chief investigative correspondent at ABC News. Aarin,
thanks so much for being with us this morning. Appreciate
your time. I never went through that fifty two page decision,
but I'm sure you have. What is what is in there?
What does it say? As they as they built to
(11:07):
this decision.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
So the Second Circuit, Larry has said that the trial
judge Max Wiley made an error when during jury deliberations,
jurors sent a note asking about Pedro Hernandez's confessions. Remember,
he confessed effectively twice. The first time he did it
before police read him. As Miranda Rights and that's a mistake,
(11:34):
and he should have been mirandized the second time. He
did it on video after his rights were read, and
the jury was wondering, if they don't believe the first
confession was proper, do they automatically have to disregard the
second confession? And Judge Wiley answered no, without any further explanation,
(12:01):
And the Federal Appeals Court said that that instruction was
clearly wrong and it was manifestly prejudicial. And so the
court has ordered Pedro Hernandez yet released or retried by
the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, which is now reviewing the decision.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Do we have any idea what they may do? We
have a whole new set of prosecutors now, do we
know which way from maybe past cases or what they've
talked about in this case, that they may decide?
Speaker 3 (12:31):
You know, the only I think comparable reversal may be
Harvey Weinstein, And in that case, Alvin Bragg opted to
retry Harvey Weinstein with a mixed result. Here, of course,
the circumstances are different. Pedro Hernandez has already served thirteen
years of a twenty five year to life sentence. The
(12:55):
Pates family stand Pais. He moved away to Hawaii, thinking
that justice had finally been served Larry, and so whether
he wants to go through what would be a third trial.
Remember the first trial ended with a hunjury, second one
ended with this conviction. That there's a lot for prosecutors
(13:16):
to consider, and of course they they opt for a
different route, which is to challenge the appellate court and
maybe take it, try to take it to the U. S.
Supreme Court.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
I remember at the time there were some questions about
the arrest too, because of the mental competency of that.
There was discussed at the time of Pedro Hernandez tell
us about that.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Well, remember how it all started, That the NYPD ended
up digging up a basement in Soho and at the
time prosecutors kind of thought that was a waste of time.
Didn't really end up finding anything, but it did have
an effect in that it kind of shook the trees
a little bit, and a relative of Pedro Hernandez and
someone in his church community ended up coming forward to
(14:01):
police to say, hey, this guy who had not been
on the radar ended up confessing to the crime and
said he did it. And when he was talking to
the authorities. He gave details that they believed at the
time only someone who actually committed the crime would have known.
(14:23):
And so they were quite excited about it because it
was a break in the case that had effectively gone dormant.
There was this other guy they'd been looking at. He
wasn't the guy, so there was some excitement. The Federal
Appeals Court did, however, that that Pedro Hernandez does have
a low IQ. There were questions about his competency, and
(14:43):
even jurors at the time said it was not an
open and shut case, but they believed the confession because
it was on video, and that was too much at
the time for Hernandez to overcome.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Right.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
I brought up the mental competency for this reason because
before they put it on video, Before they put that
confession on video, they spent seven hours with him. And
I guess there is this suspicion that they talked him
into this, that they spent so much time on him,
with him, and he and he, and he wasn't with
(15:18):
it enough to realize what was happening until they finally
convinced him he did it.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
So and and and that's one of the reasons I
think why the Federal Appeals Court said that the trial judge,
you know, made an error in his instruction. That it's
the tactic that the law is meant to correct. They
don't want police talking to a suspect before he's read
his rights and then you know, read him his rights
(15:44):
and lo and behold, look what happens. So so prosecutors
ended up coming into the interview and they I think
it's called attenuation where they have to wait a certain
number of hours before they can talk to a suspect
again to make sure the confession is proper. So this
(16:06):
went on like all day, all night, and they you know,
they fed him, they had to give a meals, they
had to step away from him, they had to let
him just be for a good while before they could
flip on the video camera and start asking him questions again. So,
in theory, the confession that was on video was legally proper,
(16:31):
but what preceded it is it was not. And you know,
the prosecutors knew that going in, and perhaps the judges
instructions should have been a little clearer to the jury.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Aaron Katerski, chief investigative correspondent at ABC News. You're always great.
Thanks so much erin appreciate your time.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
Thanks Larry for having me appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Well, now let's bring in the guy you see just
about everywhere. Man, every time you turn on the TV,
there's Jimmy Fela. Jimmy Fayla, wour host nine to midnight
Fox Across America with Jimmy Fayla and host of Fox
News Saturday Night with Jimmy Fayla on the Fox News Channel. Jimmy,
I see you during the week now a lot You're
(17:13):
on with a good friend of mine, Rich Zioli, and
the two of you seem to be a team mid
days on Fox as well. How often do you How
often do you make those appearances?
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Well, I do America's Newsroom every Monday. I'm supposed to
do Fox and Friends every Tuesday. They basically make me
dressed like an adult a couple days a week. And
then this is a real deal MENTI like, you have
the highest security clearance in the administration, so I wear
officially like state sanctioned clothing up until eight PM, and
(17:45):
then after eight I'm allowed to bust out my overweight
figure skater collection. So that's basically that's basically how it works.
I'm not kidding, like I'm about to go on Fox
and Friends here a little bit, and you'll see me
on the couch and a shirt and tie like I
look like I kind of work in television, you know.
And then a the clock rolls around and that other
(18:06):
thing happens where I'm in the Magic Mic spinoff called
Tragic Mic, and he's got a chubby mail stripper who
got fat during COVID and had to lower his rates.
I mean, that's what I am. I mean, let's you know,
we don't have to dress it up.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Well, do they give you your clothes at Fox?
Speaker 2 (18:22):
This is what happens. Yes, you get a wardrobe budget
for the things you'll see me wearing an hour from
now on Fox and Friends. They do not session or
finance anything with a rhymestone or heaven.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
For pretty bad.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Okay, Larry, it's a cry for help, pal, I'm looking
for help.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
No, you look good. I like the way they dress
you on on Fox News. You look good and and
by the way you do all that, and then you
come on and you're on here at w o R
nine to midnight. And I know for a fact, like
a lot of people might think, well, he works all
the time that A lot of that must be tapes,
it's not you do all that live. When do you sleep.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
When I'm driving usually that's the problem.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
You know, my best.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Sleep at eighty one miles an hour. Unfortunately I've got
a record to back it up. But no, you know,
I think in it's about intensity of sleep. A lot
of people. I don't know if you've ever discussed this.
You know, some people try to get their eight hours.
They're nine hours, but if you're rolling over all night,
you wake up three times, you didn't really get good sleep.
So it's really about intensity of sleep. Like you could
(19:31):
knock me out for five or six hours and I'm
clinically dead, and then I wake up pretty well. But
it's like my five or six is like somebody else's
eight or nine. That's the key.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
I will tell you this, and I believe in what
you're saying, and I know for a fact it's true.
One time I did a test and they kept me up.
They had a producer with me. When I was working
at NBC. They had a producer and they kept me
up with for a little bit over forty eight hours,
and I wasn't able to sleep, and then I had
to go. I went to a sleep lab in the
middle and they put all these things on me, you know,
(20:03):
all these monitors on me, and they put me in
a dark room and I fell right to sleep and
I was asleep and they woke me up and they
said how long. How long did you sleep? I said
a few hours, and they said, you slept for five minutes.
And it's because, yeah, it's because I went right into
a deep sleep. I was so sleep deprived, as you're
(20:25):
just mentioning right there, it is the intensity of the sleep.
I went right into that zone that rem sleep that
you're looking for, and that's really all you need. So
it was it was fascinating to me. So I know
exactly what you're talking about. If you can train yourself
to do that, it's perfect.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Yeah. But it's a wild similarity between us, though, because
I went to a sleep lab ones too. It was
called The View, and a girl I knew was the
warm up comic and she took me to watch your work. Well,
shut eye for me, keep talking.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Whoopee hey, listen to that.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
You know we're talking about. You said a second ago,
you're going to sleep while you drive. Pretty soon you'll
be able to there's a company called Waymo. They're coming
in to test self driving taxi cabs in New York City.
Would you trust that though?
Speaker 5 (21:19):
No?
Speaker 2 (21:19):
H And let me tell you an experience. I was
just in San Francisco. They are over fifty percent of
the cars on the road in San Francisco. They are everywhere.
You might have seen them in La too. They're not
as prevalent in LA as they are in Frisco. But
here's the thing. They argue that it's safer because it
could read the other vehicles, it's less inclined to make
human eraror Number one. I don't buy that because I'm
(21:41):
not sure the technology has been smoothed out between the
Weaymo vehicle and the non Weymo vehicle. But number two,
everybody's missing. The whole point of a cab driver is
Number one, it's to make you sit in the back
and feel better about your own life choice. And number two,
if you've got something to get off your chest, you
shouting at a Waimo about your axe on the way
(22:03):
back in the morning isn't gonna give you the catharsis.
It's yelling at a community polity graduate like me about
all the dumb things that Raymond did when you thought
he was the one. You know, you need these folks.
You're not gonna weig mow your way out of therapy.
That's the point. You still got to go to therapy.
(22:24):
If you yell at me, I was saving people money
on therapy, they were getting some downt What am I
doing that?
Speaker 1 (22:32):
I'll tell you what I mean. You must have a
lot of friends that this would affect, right, I'm sure
you're friendly with some of the guys that drove cabs,
so this is going to affect them horribly. I mean
they'll they'll have to find her the jobs.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Yeah, well, it already nuked the cost of the medallion.
You know, they did that with Uber and everything else.
So most of the guys I know already got that
beat down. But the thing about it is, and this
does matter, like cab drivers are so much more than
a ride. And that's what tee story on Saturday, somebody
gave birth of a taxi. That happens, you know, probably
(23:03):
a few times a year. Not that he delivered the baby.
I've never people acting it all the time, like if
you ever delivered a baby in your taxi? I'm like no,
But I've seen several get made, but there are things
we provide you. It's say you don't get from a computer.
(23:24):
And that's the point, man, the's direction stuff like that.
And somebody had mentioned this to me. It might have
been when I was filling in for you, Larry. Somebody
had said, you could revitalize the taxi industry by just
making it like niche tourism, where people, rather than hailing
a cab to go to a meeting, you actually hail
it for like the week. It's gonna be like your
(23:45):
family's you know, driver around New York City, maybe your
tour guide and stuff like that. And that might be
the future of human taxis because you're not gonna want
to do that with a waimo either, you know. So,
I don't you know, me being the optimist the glass
half full with.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Vodkas, I was trying over here, that's a great idea
that that would save the industry real quick. We should
talk about something that's in the news. What about Epstein?
He is tired of it?
Speaker 2 (24:10):
I mean no, I find the whole story fascinating and
I'm where I was a week ago. You know, the
whole idea that we should just shut up and stop
asking questions. Seems weird to Meislaine Maxwell says she wants
to talk, which also seems weird to me. She wants
a deal the history. Yeah, no question about that. But
(24:36):
I think they're trying to you know, I don't know
if this is intentional or not, but there's a lot
of red meat getting handed out to the angry, you know,
Republican Twitter base right now. Because to be clear, Trump
is polling as good as ever with his party, He's
just not polling well on Twitter, you know, and because
they were really hung up on the Epstein thing. So
(24:56):
now they're getting handed at Comy investigation and Obama invests
the gation. There's a lot of red meat for Twitter
right now. And I don't believe me. I don't think
Obama's going to jail. I mean, if if he was
going to jail, the fashion police would have got him
for that tan suit back in twenty fourteen. You know,
if they didn't get him, he's gonna be fun.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Jimmy fayl that's great. You can listen to Jimmy Fayle
at tonight, of course on WOR. He's going to be
on from nine to midnight. Thanks so much. Jimmy appreciate it.
Ah, good morning to you. Beautiful day to be driving
into work in the Big Three today. Look, New York
City is about to get a lot of visitors, a
whole lot of ice officers because borders are Tom Homan
was in town yesterday and man is he mad, And
(00:22):
he said, We're just gonna flood New York City with
ice officers because he blames the city policies for one
of the Border Patrol agents being in the hospital right
now with a gunshot wounded the face. Two criminals with
long rap sheets who never should have been in the
country are now in custody for the shooting of a
(00:44):
Customs and Border Patrol agent. And the borders are blasted
the New York City Council. You see the polls. Everybody
agrees we should be a resting public safety threat, illegal
aliens where you've got a city council here, The LACKTA
is out of Wreckers Island? Are you kidding me? Allen
in Riker's Island? We can't talk to it, we don't
have access to That makes the city unsafe. Like I said,
(01:06):
he's going to send as he said, He's going to
flood the zone and send in a whole lot of
ice officers. The man accused of killing Aton Pates, the
six year old Manhattan child whose disappearance spawned a national
missing child's movement, may now get a new trial or
(01:26):
just get released because a court is now saying a
confession that he made never should have been considered.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Oh, the jury determines that it's an involuntary confession, that
they can't consider it.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
The law has to be equal for everyone.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
The Manhattan DA's office is making the decision right now
whether there is going to be a new trial for
Bodego worker Pedro Hernandez, who was convicted of the nineteen
seventy nine killing of Aton Pates. In twenty seventeen, that's
how long it took to get him. It now must
be decided whether he stands a new trial or is
(02:04):
just released. We have Aaron Katirsky coming up to talk
about this. He's been covering the case. At nine oh five,
the disappearance of a nine year old girl at Lake
George and Upstate New York is now considered a murder,
and the father who reported the nine year old girl
missing has been arrested.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
The investigation has determined some time after Molina's phone call
with her mother, and before Monsieur Frattolan's NIH one call,
he allegedly murdered Molina and left her body in a
remote area where she's later discovered by law enforcement.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Well you want some good news, how about this. The
Trump administration is just six months old and has already
accomplished its two core promises, bringing down inflation and securing
the border.
Speaker 5 (02:47):
People who did not want to accept.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Sorry about that anyway, take my word for it. It was
a secure border in Lake a weekend and it was
down to two percent inflame nationally two point one percent.
And that was the Director of National Intelligence, Tolsey Gabbard,
And she has asked the Justice Department to investigate several
members of the Obama administration for treasonous conspiracy for manufacturing
(03:16):
the Russian collusion hoax to try and cripple Donald Trump's
first term in office back in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 5 (03:24):
People who did not want to accept the will of
the American people in electing Donald Trump in twenty sixteen
and therefore cooked up this treasonous conspiracy to again try
to effectively, and they did effectively launch a year's long
coup against the sitting president of the United.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
States, and an ethics complaint has been filed against New
York Congressman and Minardi leader Hakim Jeffries for attempting to
get a federal judge to remove New Jersey US Attorney
Alina Haba from office. The so called US Attorney from
New Jersey woefully unqualified and is a political pact. The
(04:04):
people of New Jersey deserve better. If I said it,
I meant it. Well, he's not backing down. Hoba as
the interim US Attorney must be confirmed by the Senate
by the end of July if she's going to keep
that job. And finally, it is so sad. Malcolm Jamal Warner,
who played the lovable Theo Huxtable and the number one
(04:25):
rated Cosby Show, has died. I've had such.
Speaker 6 (04:28):
An awesome life, you know. I mean, like I'm literally
you know, I've got my ups and downs and all
of that. But like, if I die tomorrow, I I
know I would go with the smile on my face.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
One or drowned on a family vacation in Costa Rica.
He was fifty four years old, far far too young.
That guy always had a smile on his face. He
was just he just seemed to be so much fun
to be around. You can go to the iHeartRadio app
right now and we just covered a lot of stuff
right there, and leave us a talk back. You could
(05:03):
win a limited edition MENTI in the Morning t shirt
which will be awarded every day to our favorite talkback
of the morning. And while you're on the free iHeartRadio app,
just go ahead and pre set it for seven to ten.
WOOR makes it a lot easier to find it the
next time you want to go on. Let's talk about
the Aton Pates. It is just a complete stunner, a stunner.
(05:28):
I came to New York when I worked at WABC
Eyewitness News back in nineteen eighty four. Aton Pates went
missing in nineteen seventy nine. It was still an enormous
story in this city. And I already knew about Aton
Pates because it became a national story. The search for
his killer was a national story. The reason there is
(05:53):
a big push to find missing children all across the
country is because of Aton Pates. The reason that there
were pictures on the back of milk cartons of missing
children was because of Aton Pates. There is now a
government organization to find missing children. That's because of Aton Pates.
(06:13):
That's how big this story is. If you're at a
certain age, you remember all of this. There are some
people that probably don't remember any of it. But when
I was here at eyewitness News through the eighties, they
never found them, but it was a story every single year.
The search was that intense, and they didn't really find
(06:38):
somebody till two thoy seventeen. Think about that, almost twenty
years later. They got this pedro Hernandez right, and he
worked at a bordego. He's mentally challenged. And after talking
(06:59):
to him for seven hours and pressuring him, been pressuring,
and these police officers were pressuring him, finally he said, yes,
he lured a Tom Pates away from a bus stop,
took him into the basement of the badego where he
killed him. He said it was not sexual at all.
(07:19):
We still don't really know what the motive could have been.
And then he put him in a trash bag and
threw him in the trash That's what he says happened.
And then so he after he gives that confession, they say, okay,
we got to get this on tape, and they read
him as Miranda and they start the confession. Well, at
(07:43):
the time of the of the legal proceeding, when the
jury went into the room to deliberate, they sent a
note to the judge saying, wait a second, this confession
came without a miranda. Can we even consider this? And
the judge sent back a note and said, yes, consider it.
(08:07):
And at the time the attorneys for ATM. Pate said,
I have a feeling we're coming back here. I got
a feeling this is going to happen again. And here
we are, here, we are this many years later, and
that has come back to haunt the investigators.
Speaker 7 (08:23):
And you wonder, why so many years after twenty seventeen,
why are we bringing this up. Why didn't they bring
this up in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
I'm sure they did. I'm sure they did. I'm sure
it went through a pellet process, and a pellet process
and a pellet process. This was the second US Court
of Appeals that overturned the conviction. And now what they're
saying is either you have to let him go or
you have to retry him. But he can't stay in prison.
Speaker 7 (08:50):
Just bringing up this story started me thinking, you know,
I grew up in Staten Island. I was relatively young
around his age when this happened, I wasn't in my
conscious I wasn't watching the news, but I remember as
a child hearing feeling the fear of kidnapping. And now
(09:11):
I as an adult, I'm looking back and I'm like,
that was happening in my backyard. This was probably what
my parents were fearing at the time, and I just
didn't know right.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
All these missing children. That the reason it's become such
a huge story across the country, and it should be.
I think, you know, in a strange way, he was
a martyr. I mean, I mean, he's the one that
made us care about missing children all across the country
to a national extent. It was, it was that big
(09:43):
of a story. And look at I feel for everybody
involved in this story. Whether he gave a confession that
was forced, I feel bad for him. I feel bad
for you know, the family of Aton Pates, who were
just they were horrified, and they went through through hell
trying to trying to find out what happened. And here
(10:03):
we go again. The whole thing is going to resurface
again for New York. But I just wanted to tell people,
in case you weren't old enough, how big of a
story this was and will be if we get another trial. Well,
on Sunday, Carnegie Hall featured the youngest piano player ever
to perform at Carnegie Hall. We'll tell you who he
(10:25):
is and how he did it next. And now let's
get to more on the Aton Paids case, because it
was kind of a shocking decision by an appellate court,
although the attorney for Aton Pats back in twenty seventeen
predicted this was going to happen because he said the
confession never should have been allowed. For more on this,
(10:46):
let's get to Aaron Katski, Chief investigative correspondent at ABC News. Aarin,
thanks so much for being with us this morning. Appreciate
your time. I never went through that fifty two page decision,
but I'm sure you have. What is what is in there?
What does it say? As they as they built to
(11:07):
this decision.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
So the Second Circuit, Larry has said that the trial
judge Max Wiley made an error when during jury deliberations,
jurors sent a note asking about Pedro Hernandez's confessions. Remember,
he confessed effectively twice. The first time he did it
before police read him. As Miranda Rights and that's a mistake,
(11:34):
and he should have been mirandized the second time. He
did it on video after his rights were read, and
the jury was wondering, if they don't believe the first
confession was proper, do they automatically have to disregard the
second confession? And Judge Wiley answered no, without any further explanation,
(12:01):
And the Federal Appeals Court said that that instruction was
clearly wrong and it was manifestly prejudicial. And so the
court has ordered Pedro Hernandez yet released or retried by
the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, which is now reviewing the decision.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Do we have any idea what they may do? We
have a whole new set of prosecutors now, do we
know which way from maybe past cases or what they've
talked about in this case, that they may decide?
Speaker 3 (12:31):
You know, the only I think comparable reversal may be
Harvey Weinstein, And in that case, Alvin Bragg opted to
retry Harvey Weinstein with a mixed result. Here, of course,
the circumstances are different. Pedro Hernandez has already served thirteen
years of a twenty five year to life sentence. The
(12:55):
Pates family stand Pais. He moved away to Hawaii, thinking
that justice had finally been served Larry, and so whether
he wants to go through what would be a third trial.
Remember the first trial ended with a hunjury, second one
ended with this conviction. That there's a lot for prosecutors
(13:16):
to consider, and of course they they opt for a
different route, which is to challenge the appellate court and
maybe take it, try to take it to the U. S.
Supreme Court.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
I remember at the time there were some questions about
the arrest too, because of the mental competency of that.
There was discussed at the time of Pedro Hernandez tell
us about that.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Well, remember how it all started, That the NYPD ended
up digging up a basement in Soho and at the
time prosecutors kind of thought that was a waste of time.
Didn't really end up finding anything, but it did have
an effect in that it kind of shook the trees
a little bit, and a relative of Pedro Hernandez and
someone in his church community ended up coming forward to
(14:01):
police to say, hey, this guy who had not been
on the radar ended up confessing to the crime and
said he did it. And when he was talking to
the authorities. He gave details that they believed at the
time only someone who actually committed the crime would have known.
(14:23):
And so they were quite excited about it because it
was a break in the case that had effectively gone dormant.
There was this other guy they'd been looking at. He
wasn't the guy, so there was some excitement. The Federal
Appeals Court did, however, that that Pedro Hernandez does have
a low IQ. There were questions about his competency, and
(14:43):
even jurors at the time said it was not an
open and shut case, but they believed the confession because
it was on video, and that was too much at
the time for Hernandez to overcome.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Right.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
I brought up the mental competency for this reason because
before they put it on video, Before they put that
confession on video, they spent seven hours with him. And
I guess there is this suspicion that they talked him
into this, that they spent so much time on him,
with him, and he and he, and he wasn't with
(15:18):
it enough to realize what was happening until they finally
convinced him he did it.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
So and and and that's one of the reasons I
think why the Federal Appeals Court said that the trial judge,
you know, made an error in his instruction. That it's
the tactic that the law is meant to correct. They
don't want police talking to a suspect before he's read
his rights and then you know, read him his rights
(15:44):
and lo and behold, look what happens. So so prosecutors
ended up coming into the interview and they I think
it's called attenuation where they have to wait a certain
number of hours before they can talk to a suspect
again to make sure the confession is proper. So this
(16:06):
went on like all day, all night, and they you know,
they fed him, they had to give a meals, they
had to step away from him, they had to let
him just be for a good while before they could
flip on the video camera and start asking him questions again. So,
in theory, the confession that was on video was legally proper,
(16:31):
but what preceded it is it was not. And you know,
the prosecutors knew that going in, and perhaps the judges
instructions should have been a little clearer to the jury.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Aaron Katerski, chief investigative correspondent at ABC News. You're always great.
Thanks so much erin appreciate your time.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
Thanks Larry for having me appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Well, now let's bring in the guy you see just
about everywhere. Man, every time you turn on the TV,
there's Jimmy Fela. Jimmy Fayla, wour host nine to midnight
Fox Across America with Jimmy Fayla and host of Fox
News Saturday Night with Jimmy Fayla on the Fox News Channel. Jimmy,
I see you during the week now a lot You're
(17:13):
on with a good friend of mine, Rich Zioli, and
the two of you seem to be a team mid
days on Fox as well. How often do you How
often do you make those appearances?
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Well, I do America's Newsroom every Monday. I'm supposed to
do Fox and Friends every Tuesday. They basically make me
dressed like an adult a couple days a week. And
then this is a real deal MENTI like, you have
the highest security clearance in the administration, so I wear
officially like state sanctioned clothing up until eight PM, and
(17:45):
then after eight I'm allowed to bust out my overweight
figure skater collection. So that's basically that's basically how it works.
I'm not kidding, like I'm about to go on Fox
and Friends here a little bit, and you'll see me
on the couch and a shirt and tie like I
look like I kind of work in television, you know.
And then a the clock rolls around and that other
(18:06):
thing happens where I'm in the Magic Mic spinoff called
Tragic Mic, and he's got a chubby mail stripper who
got fat during COVID and had to lower his rates.
I mean, that's what I am. I mean, let's you know,
we don't have to dress it up.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Well, do they give you your clothes at Fox?
Speaker 2 (18:22):
This is what happens. Yes, you get a wardrobe budget
for the things you'll see me wearing an hour from
now on Fox and Friends. They do not session or
finance anything with a rhymestone or heaven.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
For pretty bad.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Okay, Larry, it's a cry for help, pal, I'm looking
for help.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
No, you look good. I like the way they dress
you on on Fox News. You look good and and
by the way you do all that, and then you
come on and you're on here at w o R
nine to midnight. And I know for a fact, like
a lot of people might think, well, he works all
the time that A lot of that must be tapes,
it's not you do all that live. When do you sleep.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
When I'm driving usually that's the problem.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
You know, my best.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Sleep at eighty one miles an hour. Unfortunately I've got
a record to back it up. But no, you know,
I think in it's about intensity of sleep. A lot
of people. I don't know if you've ever discussed this.
You know, some people try to get their eight hours.
They're nine hours, but if you're rolling over all night,
you wake up three times, you didn't really get good sleep.
So it's really about intensity of sleep. Like you could
(19:31):
knock me out for five or six hours and I'm
clinically dead, and then I wake up pretty well. But
it's like my five or six is like somebody else's
eight or nine. That's the key.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
I will tell you this, and I believe in what
you're saying, and I know for a fact it's true.
One time I did a test and they kept me up.
They had a producer with me. When I was working
at NBC. They had a producer and they kept me
up with for a little bit over forty eight hours,
and I wasn't able to sleep, and then I had
to go. I went to a sleep lab in the
middle and they put all these things on me, you know,
(20:03):
all these monitors on me, and they put me in
a dark room and I fell right to sleep and
I was asleep and they woke me up and they
said how long. How long did you sleep? I said
a few hours, and they said, you slept for five minutes.
And it's because, yeah, it's because I went right into
a deep sleep. I was so sleep deprived, as you're
(20:25):
just mentioning right there, it is the intensity of the sleep.
I went right into that zone that rem sleep that
you're looking for, and that's really all you need. So
it was it was fascinating to me. So I know
exactly what you're talking about. If you can train yourself
to do that, it's perfect.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Yeah. But it's a wild similarity between us, though, because
I went to a sleep lab ones too. It was
called The View, and a girl I knew was the
warm up comic and she took me to watch your work. Well,
shut eye for me, keep talking.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Whoopee hey, listen to that.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
You know we're talking about. You said a second ago,
you're going to sleep while you drive. Pretty soon you'll
be able to there's a company called Waymo. They're coming
in to test self driving taxi cabs in New York City.
Would you trust that though?
Speaker 5 (21:19):
No?
Speaker 2 (21:19):
H And let me tell you an experience. I was
just in San Francisco. They are over fifty percent of
the cars on the road in San Francisco. They are everywhere.
You might have seen them in La too. They're not
as prevalent in LA as they are in Frisco. But
here's the thing. They argue that it's safer because it
could read the other vehicles, it's less inclined to make
human eraror Number one. I don't buy that because I'm
(21:41):
not sure the technology has been smoothed out between the
Weaymo vehicle and the non Weymo vehicle. But number two,
everybody's missing. The whole point of a cab driver is
Number one, it's to make you sit in the back
and feel better about your own life choice. And number two,
if you've got something to get off your chest, you
shouting at a Waimo about your axe on the way
(22:03):
back in the morning isn't gonna give you the catharsis.
It's yelling at a community polity graduate like me about
all the dumb things that Raymond did when you thought
he was the one. You know, you need these folks.
You're not gonna weig mow your way out of therapy.
That's the point. You still got to go to therapy.
(22:24):
If you yell at me, I was saving people money
on therapy, they were getting some downt What am I
doing that?
Speaker 1 (22:32):
I'll tell you what I mean. You must have a
lot of friends that this would affect, right, I'm sure
you're friendly with some of the guys that drove cabs,
so this is going to affect them horribly. I mean
they'll they'll have to find her the jobs.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Yeah, well, it already nuked the cost of the medallion.
You know, they did that with Uber and everything else.
So most of the guys I know already got that
beat down. But the thing about it is, and this
does matter, like cab drivers are so much more than
a ride. And that's what tee story on Saturday, somebody
gave birth of a taxi. That happens, you know, probably
(23:03):
a few times a year. Not that he delivered the baby.
I've never people acting it all the time, like if
you ever delivered a baby in your taxi? I'm like no,
But I've seen several get made, but there are things
we provide you. It's say you don't get from a computer.
(23:24):
And that's the point, man, the's direction stuff like that.
And somebody had mentioned this to me. It might have
been when I was filling in for you, Larry. Somebody
had said, you could revitalize the taxi industry by just
making it like niche tourism, where people, rather than hailing
a cab to go to a meeting, you actually hail
it for like the week. It's gonna be like your
(23:45):
family's you know, driver around New York City, maybe your
tour guide and stuff like that. And that might be
the future of human taxis because you're not gonna want
to do that with a waimo either, you know. So,
I don't you know, me being the optimist the glass
half full with.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Vodkas, I was trying over here, that's a great idea
that that would save the industry real quick. We should
talk about something that's in the news. What about Epstein?
He is tired of it?
Speaker 2 (24:10):
I mean no, I find the whole story fascinating and
I'm where I was a week ago. You know, the
whole idea that we should just shut up and stop
asking questions. Seems weird to Meislaine Maxwell says she wants
to talk, which also seems weird to me. She wants
a deal the history. Yeah, no question about that. But
(24:36):
I think they're trying to you know, I don't know
if this is intentional or not, but there's a lot
of red meat getting handed out to the angry, you know,
Republican Twitter base right now. Because to be clear, Trump
is polling as good as ever with his party, He's
just not polling well on Twitter, you know, and because
they were really hung up on the Epstein thing. So
(24:56):
now they're getting handed at Comy investigation and Obama invests
the gation. There's a lot of red meat for Twitter
right now. And I don't believe me. I don't think
Obama's going to jail. I mean, if if he was
going to jail, the fashion police would have got him
for that tan suit back in twenty fourteen. You know,
if they didn't get him, he's gonna be fun.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Jimmy fayl that's great. You can listen to Jimmy Fayle
at tonight, of course on WOR. He's going to be
on from nine to midnight. Thanks so much. Jimmy appreciate it.
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