Law&Crime Sidebar - Rep. Lee Zeldin Attacked During Speech, MMA Fighter Who Shot at Alleged Pedophile Seeks Release

Episode Date: July 23, 2022

Congressman Lee Zeldin (R-NY1) fends off an attack by a man wielding a sharp object who now faces a criminal charge. Plus, MMA star Cain Velasquez is in jail accused of trying to kill a man he claims molested his son. His attorney has asked the California Court of Appeals to release him on bail over the objection of a judge. And the Parkland School Shooter’s sentencing trial began in Broward County, Florida this week. The survivors testified as chilling details come to light about the planned attack. GUESTS:Jack Rice, Former CIA, Criminal Defense Attorney: https://twitter.com/jackriceSteven Williams, MMA/BJJ Fighter: https://www.youtube.com/c/StevenStran...Matt Tympanick, Defense Attorney: https://twitter.com/TympanickLawLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Michael DeiningerGuest Booking - Alyssa FisherSocial Media Management - Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaCoptales and CocktailsSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. You're still here. And this is our last stand for New York. And there's only, there's only one option. A congressman running for governor is attacked on stage at a campaign event. Now a man is in custody for the attack. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy and welcome to this latest edition of Law and Crimes Sidebar Podcast. This happened in Thursday in Rochester, New York. Representative Lee Zeldin,

a member of Congress, is running for governor of New York. And a man attacked him on stage, coming at him with a sharp object. It's incredibly concerning. That man is now in custody. And joining us to talk about this is Jack Rice. He's a criminal defense attorney, but he also was a member of the CIA. He's a spook. He was a spy. I love being able to say that. Jack Rice, welcome to Sidebar.

We really appreciate you coming on. That's great to be with you. You know, with your background, Jack, working in the CIA and having some training and protecting dignitaries, what was your reaction when you heard about this attack? It's scary, isn't it? I mean, it's scary for a lot of reasons. But one of the problems that you have when you're, dealing with democracy is accessibility. You have politicians who are trying to reach into the

public. They want that connection. And so it's important. And at the same time, you have people who are part of a detail, or you might have part of a detail who's protecting you. And the idea is you're trying to keep those people away. So frequently, the biggest fight that you have on the front end before anything happens is with the very person, the package, if you will, the person who wants to make that contact and you are trying to keep that contact as far away. That is one of the struggles that you face. Of course, when this happens, it turns it into a completely and utterly different game. Yeah, most definitely. And, you know, I, it reminds me of, we were talking about this before we started. It reminds me of that baseball game, the congressional baseball game a few years back

of where that man who was a Bernie Sanders supporter and it has nothing to do with Bernie Sanders. I mean, it's just our politics have become toxic and we have so many men. ill people running around in this country, but he opened fire, wounding Steve Scalise. And thank goodness, Congressman Brad Wendstrip, who I know was there to help save him and the Capitol police were there. And then we were also talking about Gabby Giffords. Remember, she was shot in the head by somebody. So these are very scary things. Your thoughts on these types of things, we've had both Republican and Democratic members of Congress targeted. Well, you're absolutely right. And I really do appreciate that this isn't a question of left versus right because it actually isn't.

This is actually a question of something bigger than that. And I think what we've been seeing over the last few years is a deterioration in the climate, generally speaking, and we see these attacks and a willingness, a justification, if you will, for those who are willing to use violence, force in politics to get what it is that they think they want. However derange that is, We can apply this to the congressman Scalise. We can apply it to Giffords. We can apply it to January 6th. We can apply it over and over again.

But regardless, this is something that I think speaks to this broader question of our willingness or some people's willingness to use violence because they feel that they are justified. This highlights just how dangerous that can actually be for the individual who's actually in office or running for office, but also for the system. where we have to believe that it actually works and that we all buy into it. Many of these people are not buying into it anymore. And that is one of the scariest aspects of this entire story. And I feel like we could go on and on because I think there are a lot of people who are not learning how to solve problems or cope and they're dealing with it with violence. That's a whole other topic.

This man who is charged, his name is David Jacobonis. He is 43 years old and he was charged with second degree attempted to assault. arraigned, released on his own recognizance, which I find stunning. Zeldon, Representative Congressman Zeldin later tweeted his thanks to everybody who had reached out to him, and he wrote, someone tried to stab me on stage during this evening's rally, but fortunately, I was able to grab his wrist and stop him for a few moments until others tackled him. That guy was, Jackabonis was subdued and restrained with zip ties, and police arrived,

handcuffed him, took him into custody. terrifying, just terrifying that, I mean, if Congressman Zeldon hadn't had the presence of mind to defend himself and grab this guy or maybe had turned a different way, this could have ended much differently. Well, this is actually quite extraordinary because if you take a look at a lot of the police shootings that exist out there, they're dealing with a lot of people who are mentally ill. And one of the things that police officers, and they've been trained in this, are afraid of, and by the way, justifiably so, is somebody who comes at them with a knife because knives are something that can be so incredibly deadly and they're extraordinarily

difficult to defend against when they get close that's the problem in a case like this so you can deal with certain things because you keep distance but when you're talking about a knife if somebody is within five feet of you they can be on top of you literally in a not a second but a piece of a split second literally the fact that what we have right here is we actually have a congressman who is smart enough, lucky enough, to actually, actually grab this person's wrist. That is extraordinary. It most certainly is. It really is.

And, you know, I've covered officer-involved shootings in the past, Jack. And, you know, they say that they're trained. And I've horribly so. Some of these have been fatal. And I know I recall one specifically where a man was armed with a knife. it was dark, he was far away. But these police say that even from like 21 feet away, a knife can be wielded and hurt somebody. Quickly. That's the biggest one there. And I think when you contemplate what it is that a knife is capable of, this is honestly one of the most dangerous weapons in some

ways, even more than guns, even more than other kinds of weapons because of the speed with which they can injure. And they're very, very, very hard to defend against. Even when I was working in the intelligence community, this was many years ago, but in the Central Intelligence Agency, we actually studied this kind of assault. And the idea, if somebody is coming at you, what is it that you do? You're literally looking, are they left-handed? Are they right-handed? Are you turning away from that dominant hand? You want to see how their body is turning so you can get into the right position to get as far away from that is possible. And yet you take a look at the videotape, and there is videotape of this congressman who literally has this man on top of him, and you watch him reach in and grab him

by the wrist. And I got to be honest, I was very impressed from an intelligence officer perspective. You watch something like that happen. This was a very, very lucky man that he was able to make the decision that he did, and the rest of those people were right there around him to help support it. Very much so. And let's hope that he maybe has some other protection around him. Maybe New York State Police, Capitol Police, whomever, maybe are beefing up the security. And this is another opportunity for those people and that line of work to look at situations such as this one and say, you know, maybe we need some better safeguards in place. Jack Rice, thanks so much for coming on to talk about this. It's a

really important topic and we appreciate it. Always great to be with you. Kane Velasquez is a huge MMA fighter. He is a big deal, and right now he is in jail and has been since February 28th of this year on an attempted murder charge. He is accused of chasing down someone that he believed molested his child and then trying to kill that person. But his attorney, Mark Garrigas, the famed criminal defense attorney, has actually filed some paperwork. It's a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. with the Court of Appeals in California seeking Kane Velazquez's release. So joining us to talk about this as someone who knows a lot about mixed martial arts. He is Stephen Williams, and he even has a YouTube channel dedicated to it. So, Stephen, welcome to Sidebar. We appreciate you coming on. Thank you for having me.

Tell us about Kane Velasquez, first of all, for our listeners and viewers who may not know, to give us some background on who he is. Well, I mean, Kane is an incredible fighter. He's known as being one of the great heavyweight champions in UFC history, an accomplished amateur wrestler throughout college and high school. And by all accounts, just the guy who's really respected in the community as being a, you know, a top-tier martial artist, nothing but good things to say about him, all of his training partners, fans, even his employer, Dana White, has great things to say about the guy.

So when he was arrested in February, late February, on these charges, what was the reaction of the MMA community? I think the initial sort of impulse is to go, this is completely out of character. This isn't something you would have expected from Kane. He seemed like such a reserved person, soft-spoken, not the most boisterous personality in the MMA community. And there's plenty of those in MMA.

He wasn't one of them. So everyone was taken a little bit of back by it initially. But I think once sort of the details of the case started to come out, I think the MMA community started to go, you know, most of us would have did the same thing. That was sort of the sentiment that you got from most fans. The whole free cane movement happened where everyone was wearing the free cane, Balasquez T-shirts. So everyone's pretty much on his side for the most part.

And Mark Gerrigus has said he's offering basically a lot of alternatives for him being incarcerated. You know, I'm looking at the paperwork right now, and he is saying, look, you could let him out of jail, and you could set a $1 million bail amount. He could relocate out of state. He could be under 24-7 supervision, electronic monitoring, things of that nature in order to be released. So I'm assuming there's a lot of support for him in the MMA community as far as being released pending trial on these charges. Tremendously. I mean, do we really think that Kane Velazquez is a true threat? He's going to get out of prison. He's going to hunt Harry Goulart Jr. down. I don't think that that's the case. I don't think most M.MA fans think that that's the case. Kane probably realized, I mean, I'm obviously speculating a little bit, but I'm sure he realizes his mistakes. It wasn't the, you know, it was, it was reckless on a human level. It's reckless. Is he going to go out and. risk losing contact with his family forever and do something that's irrational if he's let off. I highly doubt it. I mean, obviously, this is speculation. We don't know what's really going through his head. I haven't talked to Kane, but it seems as if he may have learned from his

mistakes. Yeah, I think we can all agree that this isn't probably the best way to handle things and just a little bit more background for the listeners. He's accused of chasing down this vehicle, this truck that was carrying Harry Galart and firing at him. And Galart is actually accused of molesting, as I mentioned, Kane Velasquez's son. So what would you like people to know just about him and his career as this moves forward? He three times has been denied bail by the judge. This is why Mark Garragus is going to the Court of Appeals. But what would you like people to know about Kane Velasquez?

I mean, on all accounts, he's a family man. He's a guy who's married, has a family, has no prior criminal record. You know, they're going to bring up claims that CTE played a role in the case, which I understand because he did take head trauma. Anyone who does this sport takes a certain degree of head trauma. And, you know, temporary insanity. I mean, I think this is another thing that might be pulled up. But the truth of the matter is this is a man that is loved by the MMA community.

You can search yourself. not going to find anyone. And in the age of the internet, you can always find someone that has something bad to say about someone. But what King Velazquez, barring this one incident, you don't have, you know, anyone that's going to come forward, disgracing his name. So I think, you know, people should look into his career, how he lived his life. And I think most people will see that he's an honest, good man on all accounts. Well, we will see how this turns out. And we will be watching to see what happens at the Court of Appeals and whether or not Mark Garrigus's plea has been heard. And we know Mark. So we've reached out to him and his staff to see his people to see if they'd be

willing to talk with us. And we just haven't been able to arrange that just yet. So we'll wait and see if we can get him on to talk about this too. But Stephen Williams, thanks again so much for coming on to talk with us. And we want you to check out his YouTube channel. Stephen, give us the name of the YouTube channel really quickly? Yes, it's Stephen Strangles People. Oh, oh, goodness me. Okay. Well, to each his own, right? You're an MMA guy. I'm not going to hold it against you, but I just, I don't know how you guys do it. I can't watch it, but Stephen Strangles People. That is his YouTube channel, and he's Stephen Williams. He's a mixed martial artist, and thank you again, Stephen, for coming on. Thank you for having me. I'm going to speak to you.

about the unspeakable, about this defendant's goal-directed plan systematic murder, mass murder of 14 children, an athletic director, a teacher and a coach. These brutal murders occurred at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and it happened on fifth. February the 14th, 2018. That was State Attorney Michael Sats, beginning his opening statement in the sentencing trial of Parkland school shooter Nicholas Cruz. He's already pleaded guilty to murdering 17 students

and staff members at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School on Valentine's Day in 2018. Sats laid out in chilling detail how Nicholas Cruz planned this attack. Three days before. these brutal murder, this massacre, the defendant in this case made a cell phone video on his cell phone. And this is what the defendant said. Hello, my name is Nick. I'm going to be the next school shooter of 2018. My goal is at least 20 people with an AR-15 and some trace around.

It's going to be a big event. And when you see me on the news, you'll know who I am. You're all going to die. I yeah, I can't wait. I yeah, I can't wait. Cold, calculated, manipulative, and deadly. Those 17 students and staff members who were killed had families who loved them, 17 other people were wounded and the jury heard from most of those

survivors. I realized, you know, something's wrong, but I still didn't want to believe that it was, you know, a shooting or anything. So I was trying to stay calm. And then the people next to me were like, oh, are you okay, you know, are you, you know, do you feel like you're going to die or, you know, something like that? And then I was just, you know, I was just, you know, sitting there and then I looked straight ahead of me and I saw Alex Shackner passed away over his desk. So when I stood up, that's when I like really saw that I was hurt in my leg and because I saw like also that I had like a hole in my shirt so I wasn't sure what it was but I walked

outside they guided me through the like through the classroom and then as I walked outside there were, we walked over two bodies. I couldn't really see their faces, but we walked outside the hallway, and yeah, so they took me to an ambulance after that and I didn't have my phone in the classroom. It was in the back charging, so I couldn't call my parents while I was happening.

So yeah, as soon as I got into the ambulance, one of the nurses gave me your phone to call my parents. And that's when I called them and told them that I was going to the hospital. Joining us to talk about week one of the Nicholas Cruz sentencing trial is Matt Tampanek. He is a defense attorney in Florida and has been following the trial closely. Matt, thanks again for coming on to Sidebar. What do you make of what the defense has done so far? Really not questioning any witnesses.

We know the facts really are undisputed here. He's already pleaded guilty. This is strictly about sentencing. So what do you think of that move by the defense? I think it is a smart move. There's nothing you could ask any of these witnesses that doesn't backfire. What are you going to ask the teacher whose class got ambush? But did you see the person who shot?

No, he's already admitted he is, in fact, the shooter. Nothing you're going to ask them is going to be able to elicinate any information that's going to help for your mitigating circumstances. That's where we're at in this part of the case. This isn't whether Nicholas Cruz did it or not. it's about aggravating factors first mitigating circumstances. None of these witnesses are going to be able to provide Nicholas Cruz's defense team any mitigating circumstances. The best thing to do, allow them to ask the questions and move on. There's no good. There's no upside and asking them questions. They made a motion for a mistrial earlier in the week when one of the victim's family members, and I was sitting behind this woman when it happened, one of the videos played on the big screen by mistake. And she said, shut it off, shut it off, because the videos were only supposed to play for the jury and the audio for the audience. The mistrial motion was denied.

Was that the right move by Judge Scherer? Yes, I think it was. It was immaterial that the audience would actually see it. For this type of situation, you're going to definitely see defense make any and all objections throughout this phase of the proceedings. That's because the death penalty case. If Nicholas Cruz has the death penalty imposed, his cases automatically appealed to the Florida Supreme Court, and they have to make a ruling within two years or not. Anything and everything will be used to potentially get him to have his life spared, because right now, as we're seeing it, the evidence being put on by the prosecution is aggravating factor after aggravating factor. It is heartbreaking stuff.

and to be able to actually for him to it'd be right now a surprise for him to actually not have the death penalty imposed on him you know i've seen cases not in florida but here in ohio um i've seen cases where uh somebody who was a serial killer and it was it was not disputed that he was a serial killer had his sentencing phase uh vacated You know, the death sentence vacated and the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court, I guess, of the state ordered a new sentencing trial because of a remark the prosecutor made that they took issue with during that first sentencing phase. So do you see this possibly getting overturned for any reason? It seems like the Michael Satz is the, if the death penalty is imposed, Michael Sats is very matter of fact. He presents the case, the facts. but there are sometimes when something can be overturned on just one small issue.

And that's why I'm wondering about the woman standing up. I mean, I couldn't tell that the jury even saw her kind of raise her hands and say that. That's definitely something that's going to be appealed undoubtedly. Will it, I don't, I, my honest belief is that the Supreme Court or Supreme Court will find it immaterial that it's, that it didn't do enough to actually. affect the outcome they would look to the aggravating factors of the case so far i have seen three that it was done in a cold calculated premeditated fashion it was atrocious heinous and cruel and that he knowingly created a great risk of death i honestly think that it will be appealed but i think the aggravating factors the jury's the appellate court is going to be of the opinion that yes we

saw that and that may have affected but there's still so much evidence, so many aggravating factors, and I don't think, they're not going to think it affected it too much, in my opinion. Yeah, that's what I was wondering. Also, something that I found very interesting, that Nicholas Cruz had the swastikas on the gun and everything, and opened fire in a classroom where there was a history of the Holocaust class going on. He hadn't been a student there in a while, but you have to think that possibly there is a connection there. And I think, and my honest belief is that I think there is, but at the same time, the prosecution is not really introducing that. They are introducing, okay, that he walked it, he smashed the windows of this class during fourth period, and he ambushed the classrooms.

And they're allowing the jury to infer what they can. It's like, if you believe that he intentionally targeted that classroom teaching that subject, there's no greater aggravating factor, especially with the, ones I mentioned, that it's a atrocious, heinous, and cruel, and it's done based on people who are studying a subject as probably one of the greatest tragedies in world history. Yeah, it's terrible. Well, I was there. It was awful to sit in that courtroom, but I, you know, even more terrible for the family members of the victims in this case to have to sit through that. Matt Tampanek, thank you so much for coming on. We appreciate it. Thank you.

And that's it for this edition of Law and Crime Sidebar podcast. This podcast is produced by Michael Dininger and Sam Goldberg. Our YouTube manager is Bobby Zoki. Alyssa Fisher is our booking producer and Kiera Bronson handles our social media. You can find Sidebar on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your podcasts and of course you can watch it on YouTube. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy and thanks for joining us for Sidebar. We will see you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.