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When a government creates a crime - The John DeLorean Case 1982 to 1984 — Transcript

by Alexx Michael · 3,051 words · 533 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00[Music]
0:03he actually didn't commit a crime
0:05period paragraph it was all set up for a
0:08host of reasons because i think the
0:10government
0:10when i say government i mean the
0:11prosecutors had one
0:14purpose or reason for doing what they
0:15did new jersey resident john delorean
0:18was awaiting arraignment on drug charges
0:20before a u.s magistrate in los angeles
0:23today
0:23the 57 year old producer of the delorean
0:26sports car
0:26was arrested yesterday and charged in
0:28connection with the purchase and resale
0:31of 220 pounds of cocaine
0:34he reportedly had hoped the 24 million
0:36drug deal would help save his company
0:38the arrest came just as the british
0:40government announced the closing of the
0:41delorean plant in northern ireland
0:43ireland
0:44where the cars are manufactured the
0:46british government helped delorean
0:48finance the plant when it was set up
0:49four years ago
0:50but yesterday they said it would
0:52probably end operations within 10 days
0:55because of severe financial losses
0:57delorean's company established a major
0:59distribution center for the cars in
1:01bridgewater
1:02he and his wife own a three and a half
1:04million dollar estate in bedminster
1:15[Music]
1:24hey
1:33there were two court actions involving
1:35well-known people today
1:36in los angeles a judge ordered the
1:38arrest of larry flint publisher of
1:40hustler magazine
1:41flint failed to obey a judge's order to
1:43surrender a recording
1:45in which according to flint a government
1:47agent threatens automaker john delorean
1:50delorean has been charged with
1:51conspiracy to distribute millions of
1:53dollars worth
1:54of cocaine he was arrested by government
1:56agents posing as drug dealers
1:58flint claims the tape shows a government
2:00agent threatening to harm delorean's
2:02daughter
2:03flint's lawyer said the publisher is
2:05afraid he will be killed if he leaves
2:06his heavily guarded house
2:08the judge gave him 24 hours to appear in
2:10court
2:11magazine publisher larry flint and a
2:14federal judge is over it ended this
2:16afternoon when a squad of 15
2:18federal marshals escorted flint out of
2:20his los angeles mansion
2:22flint had violated a court order to hand
2:24over a tape recording that may figure
2:26into the cocaine trial of automaker john
2:28delorean
2:29the tape barely audible allegedly
2:31includes threats made against the
2:33delorean family by a government informer
2:36flint was ordered to turn the tapes over
2:38to the delorean trial judge yesterday
2:40but refused
2:41saying he feared for his safety if he
2:43left his guarded mansion the publisher
2:45of pornographic magazines
2:47has been confined to a wheelchair since
2:49an assassination attempt in 1978
2:51although flint had threatened to shoot
2:53anyone who delivered an arrest warrant
2:55he went peacefully this afternoon when
2:57the marshals brought him out through a
2:58crowd of 100 reporters
3:02robin
3:04[Music]
3:05[Applause]
3:09[Music]
3:20after a 22-week trial the case of the
3:23united states versus john delorean is
3:25headed for a decision
3:26final arguments to the jury were made
3:28this afternoon in los angeles a defense
3:30lawyer calling the delorean prosecution
3:33something out of the nightmarish book
3:341984. a prosecutor saying delorean
3:38was willing to provide cocaine to all
3:39the junkies of america in exchange for
3:42quick cash delorean a former
3:44general motors executive and maker of
3:46his own cars is charged with conspiring
3:48to distribute cocaine worth 24 million
3:50dollars if convicted
3:52he could be sentenced to as many as 67
3:54years in prison
3:56and now it's the jury's turn in the john
3:58delorean trial in los angeles
4:00deliberations started today after the
4:02judge told the jurors to consider the
4:04law
4:04and their common sense in deciding if
4:06the former automaker
4:08is guilty of charges he dealt in cocaine
4:10in his instructions to the jury the
4:12judge said
4:13that if they find delorean did it but
4:15that he acted as a victim of government
4:17entrapment
4:18then they should find him not guilty in
4:21los angeles
4:22jurors in the john delorean trial were
4:24abruptly pulled from their deliberations
4:26today
4:26because of a bomb threat no bomb was
4:29found and an evacuation of the federal
4:31courthouse was called off
4:32after about an hour and a half the trial
4:35judge ordered the evacuation this
4:36morning
4:37after a courthouse clerk received a
4:39phone call from a man demanding
4:41legalization of marijuana and cocaine
5:00[Music]
5:09good evening the top story today is the
5:11verdict in the john delorean case the
5:13former carmaker was acquitted on all
5:15eight counts in a 24 million dollar
5:17cocaine conspiracy
5:19the day's biggest stories get most of
5:21our attention on the newshour
5:23on the delorean acquittal a journalist
5:25and legal expert
5:26joins us to try to explain why the
5:28verdict went the way it did
5:30john delorean once the golden boy of the
5:32automobile industry walked into a
5:34federal courthouse in los angeles this
5:36afternoon facing a possible
5:3767 years in jail he walked out a free
5:40man
5:41sobbing praise the lord after
5:43deliberating for 29 hours over six days
5:46the jury of six men and six women found
5:48delorean not guilty
5:50on all eight counts in a 24 million
5:52dollar cocaine conspiracy
5:54the prosecution claimed he entered the
5:56conspiracy with fbi undercover men
5:58posing as drug dealers to import the
6:01cocaine to finance his failing car
6:03company in northern ireland
6:04delorean's attorneys claimed he was set
6:06up by a government informant
6:08and entrapped by government agents this
6:11morning the jury notified judge robert
6:13taguci
6:14takasugi that they had a verdict and
6:16delorean arrived at the federal district
6:18courthouse shortly after noon to hear
6:20the result he put his arm around his
6:22wife
6:22christina ferrari as they walked up the
6:24steps through a crowd of reporters and
6:26photographers
6:27and approached the end of an ordeal that
6:29began when he was arrested more than a
6:30year and a half ago
6:32in october 1982. he had spent 11 days in
6:35jail before he was freed on a bale of 10
6:37million dollars
6:39the trial went on for four months and
6:41amassed 18 000 pages of testimony
6:43the jury heard testimony from 17
6:46witnesses
6:46saw 200 exhibits and reviewed six hours
6:49of video
6:50and audio tape which had been recorded
6:52secretly by fbi agents
6:54in one of them the jury saw delorean a
6:56few minutes before he was arrested
6:58looking at a suitcase said to be full of
7:00cocaine with fbi agents posing as drug
7:03dealers
7:04here is a part of that tape
7:08this is the other half that's going on
7:09here
7:11in suicide
7:14and uh
7:18between this and the other it'll
7:19generate uh
7:23about four and a half not less than four
7:26and a half million
7:28under gold
7:35when delorean was asked about the
7:36suitcase in a proceeding before the
7:38trial he said he was afraid he would not
7:40be allowed to leave the room
7:41alive implying that he was telling the
7:43agents what they wanted to hear
7:45delorean did not testify at the trial
7:47and so was not asked about the tape
7:49to discuss what delorean's total
7:51acquittal signifies for future
7:53government efforts of this kind we have
7:54stephen brill
7:55who's been following the case closely as
7:57editor and publisher of the american
7:59lawyer magazine
8:01mr brill in view of the evidence
8:03including that tape we just saw an
8:05excerpt of
8:06uh was the verdict a surprise to you it
8:08wasn't really a surprise to me at all i
8:10had
8:11i had thought that he would be
8:13unacquitted and especially after uh
8:15after the jury took so long it it just
8:18became clear of course this is a
8:19supposition
8:20it became clear to me that they were
8:22they were debating
8:23the government's tactics not debating
8:26what they'd seen on that film what they
8:27saw on that film is very clear
8:29but they were debating tactics you um
8:33in fact wrote a front page article in
8:35your magazine in january 1983 predicting
8:38that delorean would be acquitted what
8:39made you so certain that early
8:41well i make a lot of predictions and
8:43it's nice to be right once in a while
8:45i had read the indictment i had read the
8:47uh the papers involved with the case i
8:49had talked to some of
8:51the agents involved and it just seemed
8:54that what the government had done
8:55was create a crime that doesn't mean
8:58that john delorean
8:59should be up for an appointment to the
9:00supreme court or that he should want to
9:02show that film
9:03to his children or his grandchildren as
9:05one of the great moments of his life
9:07what it means is that they created
9:11this crime they created the drug dealer
9:13who was getting the drugs for him they
9:15created the banker
9:16who was going to finance the deal and if
9:18you and i were walking down the street
9:19and someone said to us
9:21how would you like to make 60 million
9:22dollars dealing cocaine
9:24the fact that we might say well i'd be
9:26interested in that
9:28is not something that makes us very good
9:30people but it is
9:31it is something that that should not in
9:33our country
9:35make us susceptible to going to jail and
9:37i think the jury decided that
9:39the issue being that at least the
9:42question being would there have been a
9:43crime
9:44if they hadn't created the circumstances
9:47well if you boil it down
9:48i think what you come to is you say if
9:51john delorean regardless of whether he's
9:53a terrific person whether we like him
9:54whether we don't like him
9:55if the government hadn't put the banker
9:57there to give him the money and hadn't
9:59put the drug dealer there to get him the
10:00drugs
10:01would john delorean have committed that
10:03crime looked at it that way
10:04a jury probably says to itself why can't
10:07the police go catch real criminals
10:09instead of creating criminals now where
10:12do you think the government's case
10:14fell down i mean they had all the
10:15evidence and uh
10:18before the jury may have made the
10:21supposition you just
10:22outlined where do you think what was a
10:24hole in the government well the
10:25what the jury sees are are fbi agents
10:29drug agents who are very eager to catch
10:30someone
10:31what they see are is an informant who in
10:34return for his testimony who has
10:36committed a crime in return for his
10:37testimony that's mr hoffman the sort of
10:39star
10:40prosecution witness who was a former
10:42drug dealer himself the only thing we
10:43know for sure about the characters in
10:45this case is that the person who nailed
10:46john delorean is a criminal
10:48so we know that and the jury knows that
10:50and they see that he's going to get off
10:52by
10:52saying that delorean approached him
10:54about a drug deal
10:55the entire case the entire question of
10:58whether john's luring goes to prison or
10:59not
11:00depends on whether we believe hoffman
11:02the delorean approached him or that
11:04hoffman approached delorean thinking
11:05this is a way i can get off and i think
11:08that on that standard a jury decides
11:11it takes its charge from the judge very
11:12seriously and decides in this country we
11:15don't send people to prison
11:16on that basis we do not have a
11:18government we don't think we have a
11:19government
11:20that does integrity tests of its
11:22citizens we have a government that when
11:24a crime is committed
11:25tries to catch the criminal but the
11:28government notoriously did
11:30integrity tests of a number of
11:32congressmen in the abscam cases with a
11:34lot of similarities here and they were
11:36convicted
11:36i think the the difference is that
11:39and i predicted that some of those
11:41people would be acquitted too i should
11:42disclose
11:43the difference is i was dead wrong the
11:45difference is that i think
11:47jurors will tolerate more even from an
11:51auto magnate
11:52than they will from a congressman if
11:55someone sees senator williams in a film
11:57like that
11:57they say this is terrible for a senator
11:59to be doing and i don't think they're as
12:00sensitive as they should be
12:02to how he got in the room to have that
12:04film take and i might add
12:06prejudice against politicians blinded to
12:08them
12:10to a much higher standard and if you
12:12looked at the summations to the jury in
12:14the abscam cases
12:15the the prosecutors talked a lot about
12:17the special public trust that
12:18politicians have
12:20which they do but that is a public trust
12:22having to do with whether we vote for
12:23them
12:24not whether we send them to prison if
12:25you look at that tape by the way
12:27all our viewers can i can notice one
12:30thing it's in black and white
12:31i don't know anyone else in the world
12:33who videotapes things in black and white
12:35except for the fbi and the reason is it
12:36just looks so much more seedy
12:38if it's in black and white they have the
12:40same capability that you have
12:42they could have done that in color yeah
12:43it's true that when you do things in
12:45color it's hard to make them look seedy
12:47do you know any videotapes that are in
12:48black and white uh
12:50i i don't know i'm not technically
12:52accomplished there let me ask you
12:53finally
12:54what is this going to do to future
12:56government
12:57resort to undercover efforts which the
12:59government
13:00says is a very important uh impart of
13:03law enforcement to get at the sort of
13:05people they wouldn't be otherwise
13:06able to get at those those undercover
13:08efforts are very important they're very
13:09important in going after organized crime
13:11people
13:11people who are known to be corrupt or
13:13thought to be engaging in ongoing
13:15criminal activity
13:16i don't think it will do anything to
13:18hamper those investigations
13:19it will probably make prosecutors think
13:21twice i hope it does
13:22about situations where they decide that
13:24someone's not a good guy
13:26let's test him and see if we're right
13:28yeah okay mr brill thank you for joining
13:30us
13:30judy meanwhile in an interview last
13:33night on abc
13:34television delorean said obviously we
13:37are extremely gratified that the truth
13:39has come out
13:40and that all this is behind us now but
13:42not all of delorean's problems are
13:45necessarily behind him yet
13:47there are still civil actions pending in
13:49this country
13:50and in great britain members of
13:52parliament are asking for his
13:53explanation of what happened to 17 and a
13:56half million dollars
13:57that is missing from the money britain
13:59invested to try to save his collapsing
14:02sports car factory in northern ireland
14:04the plant shut down in 1982 when
14:07delorean was arrested in the u.s on drug
14:09charges
14:10for mrs delorean there was one extra
14:13benefit to the verdict
14:14a los angeles tv station announced today
14:17that she will become co-host of a
14:18morning talk show
14:20she will use her professional name
14:22christina ferrari on the air
14:24the name she has used in the past as a
14:26fashion model and actress
14:27and as for the delorean automobile the
14:30man who bought the cars when delorean
14:32first got into legal trouble
14:34reports that demand for the gull winged
14:36autos is going through the roof
14:38back in this country john delorean won
14:41another acquittal today
14:42the former general motors executive and
14:44independent carmaker was found not
14:46guilty in detroit
14:48on 15 federal counts of embezzlement he
14:51had been accused of stealing 8.5 million
14:53dollars from the treasury
14:55of his ill-fated delorean auto company
14:57he had been found innocent of dealing in
14:59cocaine in a widely publicized trial two
15:02years ago
15:14fasting and fascinating about the
15:15delorean trial the arrest took place in
15:171982 when
15:19probably most of you your viewers
15:20weren't born the trial was in 1984.
15:24he actually didn't commit a crime period
15:26paragraph it was all
15:27set up for a host of reasons because i
15:30think the government when i say
15:31government i mean the prosecutors
15:33had one purpose or reason for doing what
15:36they did
15:36the agent's probably another reason
15:40it was just an extraordinary experience
15:42to see someone at that level
15:44get set up for lack of a better phrase
15:46and of course the story you're familiar
15:48with the story or at least most of the
15:49story
15:50is a pretty interesting story there was
15:52a videotape of
15:54john delorean standing in a room with
15:56suitcase full of cocaine and saying
15:58looking at it and saying it's better
15:59than gold and picking it up he
16:02he picked up the brick a kilo of cocaine
16:06and he said something about the weight
16:08and he said
16:09gold this is better than gold it weighs
16:12less than gold
16:13um and and put it down what the public
16:17still doesn't know today i get asked
16:18these questions all the time is the
16:20suitcase
16:20belonged to the government it was a
16:23suitcase of cocaine that they
16:25took possession of when they arrested a
16:26smuggler who brought the cocaine in from
16:29colombia
16:30what the public doesn't know is they set
16:32up a relationship with delorean and the
16:34smuggler
16:35in other words delorean the smuggler
16:36didn't meet on their own
16:38the government set it up and the
16:40government brought the cocaine into the
16:41room
16:42and on cross-examination of the fbi
16:46agent which i had the pleasure of doing
16:48i remember saying to him
16:50well the cocaine wasn't mr deloreans it
16:54belonged to the government didn't it
16:55and he said no and i said well wait
16:57didn't you get a couple of nights ago
16:58from a smuggler and
17:00take it in your possession yes then it
17:01belonged to you well
17:03you know we just wanted mr delorean to
17:05know that cocaine wasn't involved
17:07and i remember saying well you did it
17:09for the jury didn't you that's why you
17:11did it
17:11and you could see the case start to slip
17:13away
17:15from that point on that was the first
17:16witness now it was a long trial
17:18and it had a lot of twists and turns but
17:21it was really clear from the testimony
17:23to the jury
17:24that the government set up two and three
17:28different scenarios
17:29to draw delorean in and they never quite
17:31got him in
17:33he he really kind of outsmarted them he
17:36thought he was being targeted by mafia
17:38he thought he was being targeted by
17:40dangerous people and that's what that's
17:41what he told me originally
17:43and that's what turned out to be the
17:44truth and i i can't tell you i believed
17:46it 100
17:47when he told it to me way back when i
17:49first got involved with him

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