Natalee Holloway suspect facing extradition; Marine vet charged after subway chokehold — TCD Sidebar
In this episode of True Crime Daily The Sidebar Podcast
Dina Doll joins host Joshua Ritter to break down the biggest cases making headlines across the nation. They discuss the extradition of Joran van der Sloot in the Natalee Holloway case, a Marine Corps veteran facing manslaughter charges after a NYC subway incident, and a former sheriff’s deputy facing charges for allegedly failing to intervene in a deadly school shooting.
Tweet your questions for future episodes to Joshua Ritter using the hashtag #TCDSidebar.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:00:10]
Hello and welcome to The Sidebar, presented by True Crime Daily, taking you inside the courtrooms of high profile and notorious cases from across the country. I'm your host, Joshua Ritter. I'm a criminal defense lawyer based in Los Angeles and previously an LA County prosecutor for nearly a decade. You can find me on Instagram and Twitter at @JoshuaRitterESQ Or at Joshuaritter.com. We're recording this on Wednesday, May 24th, 2023.
In this week's episode, a marine veteran charged with second degree manslaughter after a homeless man allegedly died from a chokehold on a New York City subway. Also, a former police officer facing charges after allegedly failing to intervene in the fatal Parkland school shooting that left 17 dead. But first, we turn to the pending extradition of a suspect in the highly publicized disappearance of American high schooler Natalee Holloway.
Today, we are joined by Dina Doll, an attorney and mediator. Dina is also a legal analyst you can catch on Court TV and the Law and Crime Network, and a dear friend of the show. Dina, welcome.
Dina Doll:
[00:01:18]
Thanks for having me.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:01:19]
Thank you so much for coming on again. For listeners who have not heard you before on this show, could you just tell us a little bit about your practice?
Dina Doll:
[00:01:28]
Sure. Yeah. I mean, I started corporate law at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and then left to start my own boutique firm here in Los Angeles, still civil trials. And I love mediation. It's like a passion of mine because why should there be so much conflict? Why do you need to have lawyers? So I like the idea of like bringing people together and trying to resolve their conflict through mediation.
I was a journalism major undergrad, so the kind of development into legal analyst felt really natural to communicate about the law and again, kind of connect with people, even if it's kind of virtually so I've really been enjoying that lately as well.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:02:10]
Oh, fantastic. Well, it's the legal analyst part of your work that we're going to call upon today. So I know you've been following these cases closely. Let's jump right into them. First, we turn to both Peru and Birmingham, Alabama, where Joran Van Der Sloot, a key suspect in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, is expected to be extradited to the United States from Peru later next month.
Van Der Sloot faces charges of extortion and wire fraud with prosecutors alleging that Van Der Sloot solicited money from Natalee's mother, Beth Holloway, in exchange for information regarding the whereabouts of her missing daughter's body. Holloway was a teenager visiting Aruba on a senior class trip when she disappeared in 2005.
The teen was reportedly last seen leaving an Aruban nightclub with Van Der Sloot and brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe. The men were arrested twice in connection with Holloway's disappearance. However, they were released both times with judges citing a lack of direct evidence. Holloway's remains were never found, but she was declared dead by an Alabama judge in 2012.
According to an indictment, Van Der Sloot allegedly reached out to the victim's mother in 2010 seeking compensation in exchange for details on where the teen's remains could be found. Holloway's mother reportedly wired $15,000 to a Netherlands account owned by Van Der Sloot with an attorney for Holloway giving Van Der Sloot another $10,000 in person. The information given regarding her remains turned out to be false.
Van Der Sloot is currently serving a 28-year sentence for the murder of Stephany Flores Ramirez following a 2012 conviction. Peru has an extradition, pardon me, treaty with the US. However, before this time, Peruvian officials had only agreed on the extradition of Van Der Sloot after he served his murder sentence, making him eligible for extradition in 2038. While the details of his extradition have not been made public by state officials, it is likely that Van Der Sloot would be returned to Peru to finish his sentence following a US criminal proceeding.
Lot to unwind here, Dina. And it's just interesting how this case seemed to have kind of slipped into the backgrounds of all our minds, and all of a sudden now it's making a bunch of news. But that's, I guess, my first question. Why do you think now, why after all these years? And just for everybody listening, it's been 20 years since her disappearance and over 10 years, even since this alleged extortion. And now we're having an indictment and an extradition. You have any thoughts on that?
Dina Doll:
[00:04:57]
Well, I mean, talk about a cold case, like you said. I mean, the leads had been gone for a very long time. And obviously he opened it back up by reaching out to the mother and extorting the money from her. It looks like she actually paid it. And so some of this is coming from him, unfortunately.
I just feel like it's so tragic that the mother had to go through this and still doesn't know where her daughter is. You wish that if he were to have extorted her, at least she could have found the body. But obviously, she's not any closer to that.
I think that, like you said, basically what happened is Peru changed their mind. They decided to allow him to be extradited earlier. And that probably was from some pressure from the US government. Ultimately, that came from Beth Holloway herself. I imagine, we hear a lot sometimes from parents who have gone through really tragic crimes from their children, and they are just relentless in seeking either like social justice change or getting justice for their children. And I think she was probably relentless in urging the US government to put more pressure essentially on Peru to allow the extradition and justice here for her daughter.
And finally, there was some sort of a break for exactly how it happened, who knows? But I think it probably came from her like relentless urging of the government to do something more.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:06:32]
Yeah, I think you're right. I cannot imagine what that is like to live through. And it's so much worse if that's even the way to describe it, that she has no real closure as to where her body even is. They can't even have a proper funeral to kind of put this all, like I said, some closure on it. It's just so heartbreaking to imagine what they go through on a daily basis, the mother. So, yes, her unflappable, unextinguishable pursuit of this is completely understandable.
Also, let's just talk about what kind of a disgusting human being you have to be, that either you are the murderer and know where the body is, or you don't know where the body is but you're going to exploit this woman's pain for some money by saying that you know where the body is. Not going to get a lot of sympathy from jurors regardless of how that all plays out.
But I'm wondering, and this is pure speculation, is maybe this all just a way to get him onto US soil? Do you think there might be something more at play here? Just the whole thing seems so out of nowhere for me, and especially because this isn't about holding him responsible for her death. And that's important to understand. This indictment doesn't include anything regarding her death. It's just about the extortion, about information from the mother afterwards. What do you think?
Dina Doll:
[00:08:08]
Yeah, it's a really good question. And we don't always know, right, where prosecutors are kind of looking for this to go, whether or not they think maybe they could get a plea deal out of him and he will eventually give up that information. And like you said, having him here and having to go to trial here and the threat of him having to be in jail here gives them that kind of that power to have something over him.
Because obviously, like you said, he's not going to do it out of his own good nature because he doesn't have that. That was really despicable what he did. And there wasn't any leverage that we, the government here, had to kind of get him to talk. So this is leverage.
I imagine this case is probably fairly good. I imagine the mother probably kept -- I mean, he had to have reached out in some sort of electronic form. Right. He couldn't have met her in person. Did he make that phone call? Did he send her an email? Did he text?
I mean she would have kept records of every form of communication, and she actually wired him the money. This wasn't some sort of like sting operation where he could argue that somehow, he was being influenced by the government. None of that like she actually wired him the money. So there's probably a paper trail here that's fairly good. So having such a strong case against him, maybe they'll be able to get him to talk. And for her mother's sake, I really hope so.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:09:38]
Yeah. I'm going to go way out on a limb here as far as speculation, but I'm going to go ahead and do it anyways. I'm wondering if they get him here and on the table is the idea that if he gives them information leading to the discovery of her body or somehow leads them to believe that they can put closure to how she ended up dead, that that might mean that he serves time in a US federal prison rather than in a Peruvian prison where he's going to go back by the way.
Part of this whole extradition deal was you can put them on trial, but if you convict them, doesn't matter what you sentence them to, we want our time from him first. And he's serving 28, I think it is years in Peru for that. And maybe he doesn't want to return to that prison because I'm just going to guess. I've not spent time in either prison system, but I'm just going to guess that ours is probably better than theirs for him to serve that considerable amount of time.
Again, I'm not even asking you to agree with me. I'm just saying this is my kind of speculation on the whole thing because it just seems too convenient for this to all of a sudden be happening out of nowhere, but I don't know. We'll see. We'll keep track of the case still so early on, but we will continue to keep tabs on it.
Let's move to New York City, where Daniel Penny, a 24-year-old Marine veteran, has been charged with second degree manslaughter after according to a video of the incident, shows him holding a homeless man in a chokehold on a New York City subway. And we have some of that video that we can show to you now.
Female:
[00:11:20]
A passenger shot this cell phone video as a 24-year-old former US Marine puts Neely in a chokehold and keeps him there. Two other passengers try to restrain Neely's arm.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:11:30]
The victim, Jordan Neely, known as a Michael Jackson impersonator who was reportedly living on the street at the time of the incident. Neely was aboard a subway train when he reportedly began yelling at passengers that he was hungry and thirsty and shouted, I don't mind going to jail and getting life in prison, I'm ready to die.
According to reports, passengers on the plane, pardon me, on the train felt uncomfortable and threatened, with some opting to move to other parts of the car away from the yelling Neely. Penny reportedly approached the screaming man from behind, placing Neely in a chokehold and restraining the man on the floor of the train. Some witnesses have alleged that Penny held the man for as long as seven minutes.
When officers responded to the subway car, Neely was unconscious and taken to a hospital where he was later pronounced dead. Penny was ultimately charged with second degree manslaughter and released on $100,000 bond. While Penny has been arrested, he has yet to be formally arraigned.
All right, Dina. This case has been very polarizing in the media. And in an effort to avoid all of that, I just want to talk about, I guess in general, how difficult these self-defense cases can be as far as from a criminal perspective.
And the reason for that is, especially in a case like this, where there does not appear to be any clear intent to kill. I don't think anybody's going to argue that Daniel Penny did what he did because he wanted to kill Jordan Neely. What are your thoughts on just these self-defense cases and how difficult they can be?
Dina Doll:
[00:13:12]
Well, New York is not a stand your ground law. We've seen quite a bit of self-defense cases where there is a stand your ground law. So that's going to make a difference here. And you're right, he's not being charged with an intentional crime, but whether or not he was reckless. You know what I think when I hear this case is how like our constitutional right to have a jury of our peers is so important.
Because I think that a jury that regularly or often rides the subway is going to see this in a very different way than people who never ride the subway. Whether or not that means they'll say, hey, this happens all the time on my commute, it was unreasonable for him to feel so threatened or, hey, I have felt threatened and I'm glad somebody stepped in.
I think New Yorkers will have a very unique perspective on this. And I think it just reveals how important it is for people who have similar life experiences because they live in our community and they deal with similar ways of living, how important it is for them to judge us. And I think that nobody like a New Yorker who rides a subway is really going to be able to judge this case and they get to judge this case. And I think it will be interesting to see how other fellow subway New Yorkers decide whether or not his actions are criminal or not.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:14:34]
Yeah, excellent, excellent point. You're absolutely right, because part of all of this is going to be viewed under that grander question of reasonableness. That's what it really all comes down to. There's no bright line of this is self-defense and that is not self-defense. And here's where you draw the line. There's a huge amount of gray area, all depending on reasonableness, which is a large part in due to be judged by the surrounding circumstances, which is what you're talking about.
How can somebody understand the surrounding circumstances if they don't understand that city, and they've never rode the subway, and they don't understand what it's like to judge his actions? And again, not saying right or wrong, just saying to have an understanding of the reasonableness of his actions.
Neely's official cause of death was compression of the neck with a manor being ruled as "homicide". Now, many people have jumped on this and said, there you go, that means he was murdered. But could you explain for listeners how the determination of death is not really a determination of criminality? In other words, homicide doesn't necessarily mean murder for the purposes of the criminal justice system. Could you walk us through that?
Dina Doll:
[00:15:55]
Right. So basically, the medical examiner is examining the cause of death. How did this person die? Homicide means it was the person died at the hands of another person. So it was not self-inflicted or somehow accidental, but not involving another person. But just because it was done at the hands of another person doesn't necessarily make it unlawful because we do have justified killings such as self-defense.
So you, a prosecutor, cannot bring a charge if there's not a medical examiner saying homicide is involved, right, because otherwise there wouldn't be a person to charge. But that's just kind of like an initial evaluation of the cause of death. And then the legal culpability is on top of that.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:16:42]
Excellent. I couldn't have said it any better. And that, I think, is something that people get caught up on because we hear those words used so interchangeably that, oh, it was a homicide and everybody thinks, oh, that means it was a murder. No, what that really means is that person's death wasn't a suicide caused by themselves, wasn't accidental. It was caused by somebody else. But as you exactly put it, does that mean that that person committed some sort of crime to cause that person's death?
Last point on this. I'm sure we're going to be talking about this case for a while. But last point on this I wanted to discuss with you today is that this whole idea of it being "caught on video" and we watched some of that video here.
And that is, I think, a large reason as to why this case has caught so much attention in the media. Obviously, it's something that people can watch for themselves. And it's a dramatic video to watch, especially when you understand that that person later on died.
But what do you think effect that can have on a case where people are just seeing a slice of the events? And what I mean by that, to kind of lead you into this is that we don't see the the action of what led up to it. And we also don't see much of the aftermath. And how important can those two missing things be to the actual determination of what took place here?
Dina Doll:
[00:18:11]
Well, I think the video in a large part is why he was even charged, because we know he was not arrested right away. And there was an outcry after the video came out. So you can say right there it influenced that decision. I mean, he might have gotten charged anyway once they finished his investigation, but maybe not.
And then the hard part is that now in front of a jury, that slice of video, as you say, will just naturally have a more important impact than what witnesses say happened before or after. And that's going to be a problem for the defense because they're going to want the jury to see the entire picture and have the lead up be just as important as the moment where essentially, he's killing him, but that's hard to get around.
There's certain evidence that is really impactful to the jury, things like DNA, very scientific and things like photographs and videos where they feel like they were there. They could see from themselves even if maybe because it's an incomplete picture of the story, it could slightly be kind of influencing it in a wrong way. It's human nature. You're going to feel like, hey, I saw it with my own eyes, this is that. And it's really going to be an uphill battle for the defense to say, well, no, that actually wasn't everything. That's hard to do.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:19:35]
Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. I think it just goes back to that idea that there's no perfect evidence. I mean, even like you pointed out, eyewitnesses can observe things differently depending on their perspective, depending on their memory, depending on how they were affected by what they viewed. And the same goes for DNA and fingerprints and everything else, it doesn't necessarily mean only one thing. And I think the same is true for videotape here.
And again, not even trying to apply this directly to this case in particular, but just in any case, where you have videotape, just because you've caught a slice of the action may not mean that you captured the entire story of what took place. So, again, a very interesting case. It's a tragedy, no doubt, but it's a very interesting case to follow from a legal perspective, which is what we try to do on this show.
Finally, let's turn to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where former sheriff's deputy Scott Peterson is slated to begin trial this month on charges of child neglect and culpable negligence after allegedly failing to intervene in the deadly Parkland school shooting. Peterson was a deputy assigned to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School when Nikolas Cruz perpetrated the deadly shooting that left 17 dead and another 17 injured in February of 2018.
Peterson is not being charged in connection to the 11 killed and 13 wounded on the first floor of the high school, interestingly, where Cruz started the shooting rampage. However, Peterson will face charges for the injuries and fatalities that occurred on the third floor after Peterson responded to the high school.
According to reports, security video depicts Peterson leaving his office around 100 yards from the main school building just over 30 seconds after Cruz began firing. Peterson reportedly arrived at the door of the first-floor hallway with his weapon drawn as Cruz was firing on the other end of the floor. But Peterson did not enter the school. Instead, he allegedly sought cover in a neighboring building. Dazed after the shooting, Peterson told investigators that the sounds of gunfire seemed so loud and close he thought that the shooter was located outside the high school.
In order to gain a conviction, prosecutors will have to prove to a jury that Peterson had reasonable knowledge that the shots were coming from inside the building and that lives could have been saved had Peterson intervened. Nikolas Cruz ultimately pled guilty to all counts for those killed and injured in the shooting with a jury sparing Cruz the death penalty late last year. Peterson faces seven counts of child neglect, three counts of culpable negligence and one count of perjury, which could carry a maximum of over 96 years in prison if Peterson is convicted.
Dina, this case, again, based upon a tragedy. But it's also incredibly interesting to kind of talk about from a legal perspective. And I'm always troubled by cases where the alleged criminal conduct is a failure to act. In other words, so much of criminal justice has to do with actions taken. What did you do? You drank alcohol, then you got into a car, you grabbed a gun and then you shot someone. But rarely do we ever see it where it's based upon actions not taken by the defendant. How difficult of a theory is this for prosecutors to prove to a jury?
Dina Doll:
[00:23:10]
I think this is going to be very difficult because they have to prove, one, that it was, as you said, reasonable for him to know that the shots were from inside the building and that his actions could have helped. So there's a lot of speculation there and so many places where he can poke holes. I mean, he's already had said he thought the shots were coming from outside the building.
We're going to hear testimony from him. We're going to hear testimony from security guards saying, no, they thought it was from inside. Are you going to be able to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt? I mean, what we see a lot of the failure to act type cases is in the civil realm, right. That's very common. But your burden of proof is a lot less, then it's only preponderance of evidence. It's a lower burden. So even if it's a little bit more difficult to prove because the burden is lower, it makes it easier.
But to prove that he would have known reasonably that the shots were coming inside and that even if he knew the shots were coming inside, that he would have been able to take actions that would have helped. Could he have gone upstairs fast enough? Could he still have found him even if he went inside the building? I mean, how many doors is he going to check inside that building? That could have taken, you know, they're going to show the timeline. How many minutes would it have taken for him to go outside? He wouldn't have known exactly where that person was, even if he went inside the building.
So there's so many holes to poke through. But I think that what helps the prosecution is this, again, innate feeling that that was your job was to be the person protecting them. You didn't even go inside and check at all. Instead, you took cover outside the building. So that's a pretty strong, in itself kind of an argument.
Will it be enough? I don't know. I feel like his families have already had a hard time with the penalty phase and they didn't get the death penalty for Nicholas Cruz that they really wanted. And hearing those parents afterwards, they felt like retraumatized all over again.
So I think this is going to be a tough trial for those parents because I think they're still looking for justice for their children. I don't think this is going to be easy for the prosecution to get a conviction. And it will be hard if they don't. And they're kind of feel like, yet again maybe the justice system is failing them.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:25:31]
Yeah. Yeah. It does seem as though this is kind of a reactionary prosecution brought by kind of just frustration and anger with a larger problem and with the loss of life. And listen, I remember when the report started to come out about this deputy and how he didn't enter that building. And I remember my kind of visceral reaction to that was like, you coward, get in there. This is your job.
There was similar criticism. We had been discussing this before. We started recording about in Uvalde, Texas, where you see this video of these officers just kind of standing there and you're thinking lives are being lost. You can do something about it. And I think we all need to pause and realize how fluid and how panicked things can be in a moment and how no one knows where this person is located. Nobody knows if it's one person or several. There's so many unknowns and it's so dangerous.
And so I think it's going to be a difficult case. I agree with you in retrospect to go back and go, essentially they're saying you were a coward is what he's being prosecuted for. You should have intervened. That's your job. And by not intervening and taking, and listen, there's no way around this, taking risks with your own life. You should have put your own life into the way of danger to try to have saved lives.
But then you're absolutely right. There's that one step further. Would it have changed anything or would he have just ended up another dead person that same day? I mean, just the whole thing is so awful. But I think it all stems from our we just want these things to stop. We want to save lives. We don't want to see these tragedies anymore.
I don't know if there's a question even in what I've just said, but it just I can understand where it's coming from. I guess my question is just from a legal perspective, do you think this is the kind of thing that's worth pursuing for prosecutors or is this sort of the stuff that we need to be putting behind us and trying to find ways to stop this stuff in the future?
Dina Doll:
[00:28:01]
I actually think because of like the horrific nature of this crime of somebody shooting at children, that we're going to see more of this kind of creative prosecutions. And I do think that the Uvalde parents and prosecutor is probably really going to be watching very closely what's happening at this trial, because they have, I think, maybe even stronger facts about there being a neglect of duty in Texas because they knew exactly where the shooter was. The child kept on calling and telling them and they still did nothing.
So I think they're going to be watching closely and kind of like how we see in the Michigan high school shooter how they're prosecuting the parents there. Right. And how tenuous of a prosecution that is. They may not be successful, but I think there's this kind of like broadening of, you know, it's very hard to stop this by only holding the shooter accountable.
One, they either sometimes have died themselves, self-inflicted, or maybe they don't care. They want it to be famous. And who cares if they're famous in jail? And so you're broadening the prosecution to family, to law enforcement, to security. Is that right or not right? I mean, that's maybe like a moral, ethical question for us as a society.
But I think that the parents who have gone through this with their children are so irate and are so looking to their local DA's for help, like do something. That there are enough prosecutors out there that are willing to take cases that they might lose, but they feel like they want to do like more. They want to do something for these families. And so I actually think even if he doesn't prevail, we might see like more creative broadening prosecutions around these school shootings.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:29:52]
Yeah. No, I'm so glad that you brought that up about the Michigan parents who are being prosecuted. And that is a very interesting case because they're being prosecuted actually in responsibility for the deaths. It's not like some sort of thing, or you shouldn't have provided him with a gun or it was negligent parenting, but that the steps that you didn't take, in regards, to your son, an independent actor led to deaths. And you should be held responsible criminally for those deaths.
So I agree with you. It's a frustration that I think we're all seeing the same problem and everybody's trying to attack it from different angles. And some of that may be overzealous. And I wonder if this is pushing some of the boundaries in the prosecutor's world, because who knows where this leads after that, and what ramifications could this have on law enforcement after this?
Because I mean, now is that something that officers have to be, if this man is convicted, is that something officers have to be worried about if they get a call about a shooting, that, hey, if I don't run into this building, I might be ended up behind bars myself? Just awful kind of stuff. And again, no one is really to blame, I guess, in our shared exasperation with continuing to see these tragedies unfold. So that's my soapbox for today.
Thank you, Dina, so much for being a part of this program. Thank you again for coming on this week. Where can people find out more about you?
Dina Doll:
[00:31:35]
Okay. Thanks so much for having me. It was great talking to you, as always. They can find me on as Dina Doll across all platforms, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:31:44]
Fantastic. And I'm your host, Josh Ritter. You can find me on Instagram and Twitter at @JoshuaRitterESQ and at Joshuaritter.com. And you can find our Sidebar episodes wherever you get your podcasts. And we want to hear from you. If you've got questions or comments you'd like us to address, tweet us your questions with the hashtag #TCDSidebar. And thank you for joining us at the True Crime Daily Sidebar.
