Producer's Notebook

Producer's Notebook: Afghanistan

2007-12-04T20:44:00Z

The first thing I noticed about Kabul was the smell. It smelled like a city on fire but it wasn't. It took some time for us to realize that we had truly traveled from the 21st century back in time to a city that had no electric grid to speak of, no sewage system and only one major road leading out of town. So what we smelled was not a city burning but a combination of diesel-powered generators spewing smoke and fumes, burning trees and brush, the stench of sewage being burned and a miasma of sand and haze that hung over the parched, dry valley in which Kabul sat. And it didn't get much better as the time wore on.

First, we were hustled into two Ford excursions outfitted as best the military could to protect us from bullets and bombs. As we navigated the dark, dusty road from the airport to the US base in the center of town, our driver and the officer in the passenger seat looked warily around at passing bikes, trucks, cars and pedestrians. If a bike got too close, a chase car would appear at our side to block it from getting close to us. Why? "This area is called 'ambush alley,'" remarked the major in charge of the drive. Just six weeks earlier, he told us, an American solider was killed in a similar vehicle by a suicide bomber who rammed the car and shot it eighty feet in the air.

For us, though, the ride was uneventful but as we got closer, we had a strong hint of why the US was in Afghanistan to begin with. As we passed a walled compound adjacent to the street we were driving on, we could see metal bolts nailed into the wall. What were they, I asked. Our escort told us that these were places enemies of the Taliban were brought to be publicly flogged for violations, real or imagined, of Islamic law. It was sobering to consider that only NATO forces stood between the people of Afghanistan, trying to rebuild their lives, and the Taliban who still hid in the dark corners of the cities, towns and hills of Afghanistan.

Finally, sixteen hours after leaving New York and one hair-raising trip into town we were safe and sound at Camp Eggers, the US base in Kabul. We first sat down for dinner with a number of senior commanders not just from the US but from Canada and Poland. The Canadian general was particularly concerned that so little of the progress made in Afghanistan gets out to the public. "Look," he said, "we traveled up the river valley from the town of Jalalabad to where farmers were busy in the field and the road was safe. People going about their business is good news here, but no one knows about it in the outside world," complained the general. Indeed, time and again, the troops and their commanders wanted us to know that things are getting better and that the Afghan army and police are improving day by day. But the mainstream media refuses to acknowledge it.

After dinner, Bill headed over to "the Clamshell," a large enclosed area in the middle of the base to meet the troops, hand out some Factor gear and thank the troops for their service. The line snaked around the building, but by the end of the evening, everyone had a chance to meet Bill and talk to him about the work they do on our behalf.

But as positive as most of those we met sounded, clearly, serious obstacles remain. The next morning, we drove under heavy guard to the US embassy in Kabul and got a sobering assessment of the challenges our forces and those from our NATO allies face from the US ambassador to Afghanistan, William Woods. As he put it, it is hard to talk about "reconstruction" of the country when it presumes there was once "construction" here. In fact, it remains a land with few roads, grinding poverty, torn by tribal factionalism and trying to cope with a growing opium problem that is hard to contain.

We got some sense of the logistical issues our troops deal with every day when we were taken by Blackhawk helicopter from Kabul to Bagram Airbase, some fifteen minutes flying time away. The terrain is mountainous and barren; no trees, no grass, just some mud compounds scattered here and there across the brown landscape. Hunting for the enemy in such country and trying to build an infrastructure without roads, power, and basics we have come to expect in the west is a daunting task.

Landing at Bagram, we found a spartan facility that was a little bit of America in a very foreign land. While Bill was given a tour of the flight line by the two-star general in command of the facility, the rest of the team, including me, headed off to our sleeping quarters, a bare bones barracks that gave us all appreciation for the commitment of our troops to the mission. Yes, the mess halls are full of food familiar to any American and on top of that there are fast food restaurants and a state of the art gym as well. But make no mistake; you know you are far, far away from home.

The two days we spent at Bagram were a whirlwind of activity. Bill patiently spent hours meeting and greeting troops, visiting the doctors and nurses at the modern hospital on base (which, incidentally, was treating a number of Afghan children while we were there), and doing a one-hour radio broadcast for the Armed Services Radio Network. The weather cooperated with us with sunny skies and mild temperatures in the day but with cold evening temperatures-not great for running to the men's room a building away in the middle of the night! But it could have been much worse; our military guides pointed out that summer temperatures reach over 120 degrees but plunge to well below freezing with snow in the winter. Add to this mix a mile-high base surrounded by towering brown peaks and a nasty wind carrying sand through the valley and you get a sense of just how difficult the conditions under which our troops operate are.

Three days after we arrived in Afghanistan, it was time to head back to civilization. Even our takeoff, though, highlighted the ongoing struggle to put an end to the Taliban and their efforts to destabilize the country. Our capable pilot gunned the engines and headed straight up to reach an altitude safe from a potential missile launch before we headed out of Bagram air space. Once again, we flew over steep mountains that could be hiding the al-Qaeda leadership and certainly its Taliban allies, leaving behind thousands of committed troops from the Navy, the Air Force and the Army who understand the mission and what it takes to win.

Factor Postscript: Just two weeks after our visit on the very same day the Secretary of Defense was in Kabul, a suicide car bomber did in fact attack a convoy just outside the airport gates. Luckily, no American was killed but, unfortunately, two Afghans died and a dozen were injured in the blast. As the officer in charge of our safety wrote to me about this latest attack, "All in a day's work in a combat zone."

David Tabacoff is the executive producer of The O'Reilly Factor.

Producer's Notebook: Rosie O'Donnell

2007-11-01T22:50:00Z

Earlier this year while she was still a member of ABC's "The View," Rosie O'Donnell suggested 9/11 must have been an inside job ( watch video ). In an exchange with co-host Elizabeth Hasselbeck, Rosie said, "I do believe that it's the first time in history that fire has ever melted steel. I do believe that it defies physics that World Trade Center tower 7... fell without explosives being involved... It is physically impossible. To say that we don't know that it imploded, that it was an implosion and a demolition, is beyond ignorant." Further, when Hasselbeck asked if she thought the Bush administration was involved, Rosie said she didn't know.

The Factor reported on these comments extensively at the time and invited O'Donnell to appear on our broadcast. She continually refused to appear on the show or to explain her remarks. Because it is the Factor's philosophy to hold public people accountable for irresponsible statements, staff producer Joe Muto and I were dispatched with a camera to seek answers directly from Rosie who was appearing at a bookstore for a book signing.

On the scene
Joe and I arrived at The Book Revue in Huntington, Long Island on Friday night where Rosie was signing her new book Celebrity Detox. We waited in line, books in hand, with hundreds of Rosie fans for two hours. When Rosie walked into the store, the crowd erupted. Her obviously devoted fans chanted her name, snapped pictures, screamed, "There she is!" and lifted their children in the air so they could see better.

As the line moved forward and we got closer to Rosie, we realized her entourage was allowing her fans to get very close. At previous signings I've been to for Howard Dean, Barack Obama and Jane Fonda, the folks with books were only allowed to go up one at a time, without cameras, and were not allowed to make contact. But here, her followers were hugging Rosie, getting their pictures taken with her, going up to her in groups of three or four, and chatting for minutes at a time. It was a free-for-all that worked to our advantage because we wanted the same access.

Meeting Rosie
When we were next in line, Joe turned his small handheld video camera on and pointed it at Rosie, who was sitting down, signing books and joking around. When I approached her and introduced myself, she didn't seem to believe that I worked for the Factor. At first, our conversation was cordial, and we went back and forth in a friendly way about getting her on the show, with Rosie insisting the invite needed to come directly from Bill.

But when I asked her if she regretted suggesting 9/11 was an inside job, the mood changed. Members of her entourage immediately rushed our camera and tried to shut us down. Hands went up in front of the lens. But we managed to continue taping ( watch video ).

Eventually she'd had enough, stood up and said "Goodbye," and several members of her entourage grabbed at the camera and tried to physically escort Joe out of the area. Joe and I walked out of the store with two personalized copies of "Celebrity Detox" and a very angry Rosie on video tape.

After all was said and done, Ms. O'Donnell still had not addressed the question at hand: Did she regret implying 9/11 was a conspiracy? Instead, she did not agree to come on The Factor and she refused to engage in a reasoned dialogue at the bookstore.

Rosie has only done one interview since she left "The View." This was with Martha Stewart, well known as a "soft" venue, for a Halloween show-no tough questions. As Bill said in his Talking Points Memo, "Rosie is still welcome on [my] show any time." Unfortunately, after our encounter, I get the feeling that this won't happen, even though the invitation remains open.

Jesse Watters has been a producer for The OReilly Factor since 2003. Before joining Fox News, Watters worked on political campaigns and in finance. He received a B.A. in History from Trinity College (Hartford, CT) in 2001. Watters was born and raised in Philadelphia and moved to New York in 1995.

Producer's Notebook: Kos Gone Wild

2007-08-10T20:04:00Z

The Factor ventured into the belly of the beast of the secular-progressive movement in America so we could give you an up-close look at the YearlyKos Convention in Chicago last weekend. The convention is an annual get-together of left-wing bloggers, activists and radicals who aren't happy about much in the US these days, and they are big time power players in the Democratic Party. Bill wanted to monitor the situation, so he sent me to observe.

The Background
The Kos community went ballistic a couple weeks ago when O'Reilly took the airline JetBlue to task for sponsoring the convention-and the "Kossacks," as they call themselves, completely lost it when JetBlue took their logo off the sponsors list after feeling the heat from their customers. O'Reilly believes the Daily Kos is a hate website. Why? Because people on the site have called the Pope a "primate," hoped that Vice President Dick Cheney would have been assassinated in Afghanistan and wished White House spokesman Tony Snow would die (Snow has been fighting cancer). The list goes on.

O'Reilly suggested to Democratic Presidential candidates that they were getting in bed with the wrong bunch by associating with the Kos community and making an even bigger mistake by legitimizing the group by attending the conference last weekend.

The Convention
The candidates ignored O'Reilly's warnings, and every major Democratic Presidential candidate except Sen. Joe Biden participated in a forum on Saturday where they talked progressive politics—and they all threw red meat to the crowd. Several candidates jumped at the opportunity to lash out at O'Reilly ( Watch video ). Senator Clinton said that Bill O'Reilly was "up to his old tricks" for trying to tell people not to come to Chicago ( Watch video ), and that she was proud of her campaign for going into "the lion's den" with O'Reilly (her advisor Howard Wolfson had appeared on the Factor to defend the Daily Kos). And she praised the Kos community for what they were doing for the progressive movement. Chris Dodd and General Wesley Clark also sniped at Bill and Fox News, while Sen. Edwards swore off the money of Washington lobbyists (but wouldn't refuse to stop taking money from hedge funds). Sen. Obama devoted his efforts to rail against the Iraq war and promised to spend more money on government-funded social programs.

The weekend was filled with panels and speakers on every imaginable secular-progressive topic. You might expect a "progressive" gathering would be a rainbow of racial diversity, but not this conference. For the most part, the only African-Americans I saw were the servers putting out lunch for their predominantly white audience. At one event, someone billed as a "comedian" did make some tasteless "jokes" about blacks, Jews and Indians. She justified the jokes by saying she was imitating her Iranian mother and that Iranians are "racist." Another "comedian" lampooned conservative columnist Robert Novak for converting to Christianity, saying people know better when he does his "Jew walk" down the aisle after getting "schmutz" on his forehead on Ash Wednesday. The audience was in stitches.

A recurring theme throughout the weekend was how much the attendees loved and supported the troops, but opposed the war. But at a panel called "Progressives and the Military: Are They That Different?", one panelist shouted down a soldier in uniform who had been waiting in line to ask a question-and it appeared the Kos audio people cut the soldier's microphone ( Watch video ). Unfortunately for the Kos censors, the Factor camera was rolling and caught it all on tape. Sgt. David Aguina, who did two tours in Iraq, wanted to ask the panelists about why the number of deaths has declined since the surge started in Iraq. The panelist, John Soltz, who is in the military, cut Aguina off because supposedly he didn't want him making political comments while in uniform. He brought the soldier to a back room afterward, "got in his face" and was "threatening," according to Sgt. Aguina. The panel never did address the question.

As of this writing, Soltz hasn't apologized to the soldier. People on the Daily Kos website are wondering "whether or not this guy was just a civilian wingnut" while another was calling him "self-indulgent" and "self-righteous" for raising the question.

At another panel, ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero accused the U.S. government of torturing John Walker Lindh ( Watch video )—Lindh was the San Francisco native who converted to Islam and was aligned with the terrorists who were fighting and killing US forces in Afghanistan in 2001. Lindh was captured in Afghanistan and interrogated at a prison by CIA operative Mike Spann. Spann was killed later the same day by Lindh's comrades after an uprising at the prison where he questioned Lindh. The ACLU group didn't discuss that part of the story. Nor did they discuss or address any of the dangers posed by radical Islamic terrorists.

However, they are ready to crack down on one group—the Bush administration. They want the Bush team impeached at a minimum, and some were calling for them to be put behind bars. One questioner proposed a war crimes trial to Mr. Romero, but Romero preferred a domestic criminal option that could put Bush officials in jail after they have left office. "Impeach" stickers and "Bush/Cheney War Criminals" t-shirts were crowd favorites.

One thing from the weekend is clear—the Democratic Presidential candidates and the mainstream press have given enormous credibility to the Kos community by their coverage and attendance in Chicago. The Kos community is a potent and growing force, but are ordinary Americans really sympathetic to a worldview full of rage and hate? We will have to wait until 2008 to find out.

Porter Berry has been a producer for the O'Reilly Factor since 2005. Prior to joining Fox News, Berry was a fimmaker in Los Angeles for ten years. He received a B.A. in Economics from Texas Christian University in 1993. Berry was born and raised in Oklahoma City and now lives with his wife in New York City.

Producer's Notebook: Ambushed

2007-04-26T00:48:00Z

What separates The Factor from other shows is our ability to hold people accountable. When public figures make controversial decisions but refuse repeated interview requests or don't return our phone calls, Bill sends me (or another producer) "into the field" to get answers on camera.

"If they don't come to us, we'll go to them," Bill likes to say. Factor fans enjoy these segments on the show, so here's a sense of how I feel confronting some of them--prosecutors, judges, legislators, and mayors who have no idea I'm coming.

Ground rules
Before I go into the field, O'Reilly explains how he wants me to approach each interview. He always tells me to be polite, respectful and succinct. Sometimes he'll have very specific questions he wants asked and other times he'll give me parameters and allow me to formulate the questions. Before leaving I do two other things. One, I try determine a specific public place and time where the person is going to be so I can meet them there unannounced. Two, I speak with Fox News legal counsel and review what state laws I need to be aware of. No matter where I am, when someone asks me to leave private property, I am obligated to do so immediately.

Mike Nifong, Duke lacrosse prosecutor
A few months ago when the Duke case was clearly crumbling around the prosecutor, Bill sent me to Durham for the weekend to confront the "Group of 88," professors who were still siding with the stripper against their own students. The professors told the Duke community that "what happened to this young woman" was a "social disaster," caused by an atmosphere "that allows sexism, racism, and sexual violence to be so prevalent on campus."

"While you're down there, pay Nifong a visit," Bill said to me.

I'd played lacrosse in school and had been following the case against the players particularly closely. Nifong was a "big fish" and I wanted to catch him. The Durham DA had done our show the first week the story broke, but had been dodging us ever since, ignoring our questions and invitations. But since I spent Saturday knocking on professors' doors, I only had one day, Sunday, to find him--a lot of pressure.

Room service forgot to bring my breakfast Sunday morning so my personal fuel tank was low. The crew and I were parked outside of Nifong's home very early and I only had gas station coffee to go. I was also edgy because I didn't like how far I had to park my car from his house, and was worried about the distance I had to cover when the time came to approach him. After a few hours, that time came.

"That's him!" I said aloud. I always experience a jolt of energy at this kind of moment, whenever I spot the person I'm looking for. I saw Nifong moving around in front of his property with his dog. But timing was critical. We were pretty far away in the car and he was still close to his front door, so I made the decision to wait until Nifong wandered closer towards the street.

This was an intense moment. If I ran up to him too soon he could turn right back into his house and lock the door, but if I waited too long I might not get another shot at him. Finally, I took a deep breath to relax, and gave the "go" sign to the crew.

I opened the car door and jogged across the DA's front yard. "Jesse Watters, Fox News!" I yelled. "Are you going to apologize to the Duke players?" Nifong was scurrying back in his front door faster than I thought he could. I had a bad feeling as I turned around because I hadn't asked all of my questions and hadn't gotten him on camera long enough.

"He's coming back!" said my audio technician. As luck would have it, Nifong had forgotten his dog, and had to march back down his driveway. "Get off my property!" he shouted, walking towards the camera. As I said before, legally and ethically I had to leave his property once asked. But as I backed up I leveled another questions at him. "Do you feel bad about prosecuting these players?" Leaning down to grab his dog's collar, Nifong pointed his finger at me angrily and said, "I only discuss the Duke case in the courtroom!" I watched him lead his dog back up the driveway. It didn't register until then that I had gotten him on camera in his bathrobe and slippers. As serious as the legal circumstances were, I couldn't help but smile.

David Howard, Vermont district judge
Convicted felon Andrew James admitted to molesting a 4-year-old boy and Judge David Howard gave him probation. O'Reilly was outraged. The judge wouldn't come on the show, he wouldn't explain his sentence to our producers, and he refused to issue a written statement, so I drove up to Bennington, VT to confront him. I was parked outside his house on a Saturday morning. I even called his house, introduced myself and asked for an interview. The judge declined and hung up the phone.

An hour later I saw Howard pull out of his garage. The crew and I followed in our car. I felt great. It was an ideal situation. I don't like approaching people on their property because they can tell me to leave, slipping inside and closing the door. Then they know I'm in the neighborhood and the element of surprise is gone. So we kept a safe distance in the car--not too far to lose him, but not too close to tip him off. As we drove I practiced asking my questions out loud.

The judge's car pulled into a recycling dump. I waited in the car until I saw Howard leave his. I felt calm. The drive had given me time. The crew and I approached the judge. He was tossing his wine bottles into a bin below. The sound of breaking glass punctured the air. I came up right behind him. He never saw me. "Hey Judge, Jesse Watters, Fox News, can I talk to you about that sentence?" He turned around, looked at the cameras and shook his head. "No," he said, walking past me back to his car. I asked him questions about the sentence but he turned his back on me. I added, "Don't you believe in punishment?" He didn't even try to finish his recycling. He just shut the back hatch of his station wagon, got into the driver's seat, and drove off. I'm used to people not answering my questions, but it's always frustrating getting stonewalled.

Sheldon Silver, New York state legislator
Bill had labeled Sheldon Silver "the worst politician in America." The Speaker of the House in the NY State Assembly, Silver had blocked Jessica's Law and civil confinement legislation for sexually violent predators. Factor producers had invited him on the show for two straight years but he was always "busy." I'd been watching his schedule for 6 months and even waited outside his Manhattan apartment one morning. But I hadn't caught up with him yet.

In a reference to Moby Dick, my colleagues had teased me that Sheldon Silver was my "white whale." Then I discovered he'd be meeting with Governor Eliot Spitzer one morning before a budget press conference in Albany. "I'm not going to let Silver get away," I told myself.

I waited in the lobby of the capitol building. Bill had told me to press Silver hard so I'd been studying the legislative history of Jessica's Law the night before. There were three possible entrances that he could arise from. I kept swiveling my head around, looking for him. Then there he was.

I introduced myself. "Do you have a minute?" I started pressing him and he finally responded. "O'Reilly doesn't know what he's talking about. Colbert is right." (I assumed he was referring to Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert.) But I stayed with it and continued challenging him about blocking sex offender bills while citing statutory language.

When he couldn't stop me, he tried to lose me. At the last minute he darted down a maintenance hallway! I couldn't believe it. I hustled around and stayed with him, continuing to pepper him with questions. He began to just repeat the same thing over and over again. We came to an elevator. "Are your ties to trial lawyers influencing your votes, Mr. Silver?" He gave me a political answer about always protecting the interests of the people, not the powerful. The elevator "dinged." He stepped in but so did the crew and I.

It was at this point I realized the absurdity of what was happening. This was Silver's worst nightmare. After hiding from The Factor for years, he was now trapped alone in an elevator with their producer and a film crew. Since I'd prepared for this for so long, I didn't let up. I always try to be polite, but firm. It's a delicate balance. "Why don't you believe in stiff sentences for child rapists?" I asked. We got off the elevator and he walked down another hallway into his office. I followed him all the way in the lobby and thanked him for talking with me. I'd finally caught my white whale, and it was quite a catch.

Meyera Oberndorf, Mayor of Virginia Beach
Factor fans surely know about Mayor Oberndorf. Her city, Virginia Beach, is a "sanctuary city." Police are not allowed to ask aliens about their immigration status or report them to federal authorities, except under serious circumstances.

After a drunk illegal immigrant smashed his car into two teens, it was discovered he'd been arrested in the area three times in the last several months for various alcohol-related crimes and an identity theft charge. But no one had ever reported him to the feds. This was a highly emotional story, so I had a feeling I'd be traveling.

I'd personally called the Mayor before we reported the story and her office told me she wouldn't be talking to The Factor "until tomorrow." "She's still celebrating the holiday," I was told. Even the next day, when we invited her on the show, her office informed us that she wouldn't be coming on the show "that night... or anytime in the future." Bill dispatched me to Virginia Beach to confront the Mayor on Monday morning. He was doing the entire first segment of the show that night on sanctuary cities. Getting the Mayor on camera was crucial. I'd produced the story from the very beginning and knew every detail of the case. I was confident.

I didn't think I'd get access to Mrs. Oberndorf at City Hall, so I arrived at her house at 7:00am. At 7:30am, a silver Mustang pulled into her driveway. I hopped out of the car with the crew right behind me. Before the Mayor could even leave her car, I was right there alongside her. "Do you have anything you'd like to say to the families of the two teens killed by the drunk illegal alien?" She stayed in the passenger seat with the door ajar and answered the question. I asked her why Virginia Beach was a "sanctuary city," and she didn't seem to have any idea what that meant. She then said she wouldn't appear on The Factor because she didn't want to be attacked "like a wild animal." We went back and forth for a few minutes. My questions were strong. I was trying to elicit an emotional response from her but her answers were flat, even unresponsive.

While I'd been talking to her, I noticed her husband had exited the car and was hovering closer and closer to me.

I had ended the interview, thanked the Mayor and was leaving her property, when all of a sudden her husband got angry. "Give me a business card!" He demanded. "I don't have one on me," I replied, "I'll show you my ID in the car." Then, as I was walking out of the driveway, I felt something grab at my microphone. The Mayor's husband had come up behind me and was trying to wrestle the mic away from me. I swung around fast. "What's the problem, sir?" I asked. He started pointing and yelling, so I stuck the mic at him, but kept my distance. "O'Reilly is a liar! We're not a sanctuary city!" The guy was out of control. I didn't feel particularly threatened, but you never know what can happen.

I challenged him. Virginia Beach was a "sanctuary city." He kept yelling. "I'm calling the police!" As I got back into the car, I thought to myself that of all the times I'd confronted people on camera, this was the first time anyone had gotten physical. "This will be great TV," I said to my crew, and we drove off. I delivered the news to my producers back in New York.

Final thoughts
Field producing for O'Reilly is filled with emotions. The grind of waiting for someone in a car for hours, the balance between being polite yet aggressive, and the pressure of the interview... it's intense. Instinct, timing, and luck all play a major role, as does proper preparation. The window of opportunity is small in these situations. I've learned how to be decisive and logical. I've also learned how to be patient and pragmatic. I'm always nervous. I'm always alert. But I've learned how to be calm at the same time. This type of journalism is challenging, and the impact of these interviews can be big. Aggressive reporting is risky. But it's also rewarding.

Jesse Watters has been a producer for The OReilly Factor since 2003. Before joining Fox News, Watters worked on political campaigns and in finance. He received a B.A. in History from Trinity College (Hartford, CT) in 2001. Watters was born and raised in Philadelphia and moved to New York in 1995.

Confronting Judge Meyer

2006-12-05T02:22:00Z

The background
At a story meeting in November, a Factor producer pitched a story to Bill about a Missouri judge who sentenced a child rapist to probation. "How old was the girl?" asked Bill. The producer said she was 9-years-old, and Bill shook his head unhappily. "Alright... call the court clerk and get all the documents on this case. I want all the facts nailed down. Exactly how this girl was abused, if the perp had any priors, and what the judge could have given him. Call the judge for an explanation. If he doesn't give one, we'll send Watters to Missouri to confront him."

Calls to Missouri Associate Circuit Judge Larry Meyer (R) weren't returned, but the prosecutor on the case, Robert George, did speak to The Factor. The prosecutor said the victim was the step-granddaughter of the defendant; she was from a broken home, and was a cancer survivor. Her grandmother left her alone with her step-grandfather, Kenneth Slaght, 50, in summer in 2004, and Slaght had raped and sodomized her in his bedroom. The prosecutor recommended Slaght serve fifteen years in prison and told us he was "shocked and deeply disappointed" by the light sentence.

The Lawrence County clerk's office mailed The Factor court documents: the police affidavit, the case history, etc. The details of the crime, according to police, were graphic. In October 2004, the 9-year-old victim was hospitalized for treatment and told staff that her step-grandfather performed oral sex on her once and had sexual intercourse with her on two occasions in his bedroom in Aurora, MO that summer. She said it "hurt to have sex with grandpa," that he kissed her with his tongue, and that he had told her not to tell anyone or he would go to jail.

Going to Missouri
O'Reilly sent me to Missouri on Monday, November 6 to find out why Judge Meyer gave this convicted rapist probation.

I flew into Springfield, MO, rented a car and drove an hour southwest to the judge's jurisdiction. Lawrence County is a wooded rural area full of farms and small towns, and is a popular spot for hunting and fishing, as it borders on the Ozark Mountains. The back country roads spit me into the city of Monett, population 7,400. I checked into the Days Inn, and since the next day was Election Day, I planned on confronting the judge as he left his house to vote in the morning.

The camera crew and I met at 6:00 AM and piled into the car, heading east towards the judge's home in Aurora, 15 miles away. It was still dark and there was a thick fog. After a few wrong turns, we arrived at the address, parked the car, and waited in front of a stately brick home. But there was a problem. A large dumpster filed with debris sat directly in the middle of the driveway, completely blocking the garage, so there was no way anyone could enter, exit or park. Was anyone home? Did I even have the right house?

Suddenly, a neighbor pulled out of her driveway and I approached her car. "Is Judge Meyer home? I'm waiting for an interview." I told the woman. "He only comes by once in a while. A fire hit his house this summer. But he's staying over on —— Street." I thanked her and got back in my car, called Fox News in New York, and asked our staff to check on Judge Meyer's new address. Minutes later, I received directions on my Blackberry to the judge's new address, which was only 2 miles away.

We pulled up to the new location, a more modest one-story house, and waited while the fog cleared. It was trash day, and it wasn't much longer before Judge Meyer emerged from the garage with two bags and headed for the curb. The crew and I hustled out of the car.

"Hey judge, it's Jesse Watters with Fox News. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions? Why did you give that child rapist probation?" I asked.

"I can't talk to you fellas today, sorry," He said. "The judicial code precludes me from discussing the case." He seemed to expect me to accept this answer, and he turned around, but I'd researched the state code and knew it wasn't binding.

"But the prosecutor asked for 15 years," I exclaimed.

"Well, I gave him 15 years," he answered. Judge Meyer had sentenced Slaght to 15 years, but he had suspended the sentence and ordered him to 5 years probation. I mentioned this to Meyer and he said, "Thank you," and walked back towards his garage.

"But judge, he raped and sodomized a 9-year-old girl—don't you think he deserves any punishment?!" I called out as he turned away. "People are disgusted with this sentence! What do you have to say to the victim and her family?!" I continued pounding him with questions as he ducked into his car.

"Thank you," he again said dismissively. Then he put his car in reverse and left.

Back in New York
Days later, back in New York, a senior Factor producer and I were planning our segment on the case. We discussed possible guests. The prosecutor was originally booked, but he decided to back out for personal and professional reasons. The story had not been widely reported, and it took place in a remote part of Missouri, so it was difficult to book someone for the show. However, after several unsuccessful phone calls to local radio talk show hosts, state senators and child advocates, a call to the governor panned out. Governor Matt Blunt (R-MO) said he was alarmed by the light sentence, and agreed to appear on the program on November 27. Though there was a deadly arson-related fire at a Missouri nursing home that day, which the Governor had to tend to, he did make it to the studio just in time for his interview.

The Factor coverage
"This is really a great example of why we need to take discretion away from judges. In Missouri, that's what we've done," said Governor Blunt on the air. In June 2006, Missouri enacted its own version of Jessica's Law, which mandates a 30-year prison term for what Slaght did to his step-granddaughter, but it wasn't retroactive, so Judge Meyer was free to give him probation.

"What can the state do? Can they do anything? Is there any sanction you can bring?" Bill asked. Blunt explained Judge Meyer was elected, and it was up to the citizens to vote him out of office.
"This is a hardcore rape, from a 50-year-old man, a 9-year-old girl," Bill fumed. "I hope you have somebody watching this guy."
"We will," the Governor said. "The families of Missouri know he is a menace to society. They know to keep their children away from him."

The story didn't end there.

The next morning, The Factor received an email from the rape victim's mother, Deborah, who was living in the Midwest. She'd seen the segment and wanted to be on the show to speak to O'Reilly about the case—but on one condition: that she appear in silhouette and that we withhold her last name.

I called Deborah and conducted a "pre-interview" (this refers to a conversation that a producer will have with guests or potential guests that allows us to gauge their energy level, learn the details of their stories and ascertain their opinions). Deborah said she had divorced her husband, and it was then that her daughter had gone to live with her grandparents for a while. Deborah told me her daughter is 11 now, living with her cousins in Ohio, and is "emotionally broken." She said she feels incredibly guilty about what had happened to her little girl and that she's furious with Kenneth Slaght, as well as Judge Meyer.

Immediately after the pre-interview, I booked a studio in Deborah's hometown and arranged for a car service to take her there.

The mother
At the start of the interview that night, Bill asked Deborah how her daughter changed in the aftermath of the rape. "Her behavior changed, she got violent, she got angry. She would do different things for love and attention that she wouldn't do before," Deborah explained. (The parents of the Vermont girl who was raped by Mark Hulett—and given a 60-day sentence by Judge Cashman—told me the same thing about their child's reaction after being raped: that she became angry, would lash out and seek attention differently. Here's my Producer's Notebook about that case.

Bill asked Deborah, "When you heard the sentence of probation, no jail time, what was your reaction?"

"I broke down in tears," said Deborah. "I just can't believe that somebody could do something like this to a child, and let alone somebody you call your grandchild. And then just to walk away from it... I would like to have a chance to meet him face-to-face and ask him why he did what he did."

"I think the judge has got a lot of explaining to do," said Bill. "It's another inexplicable sentence. And we wish your daughter the very best, madam."

The Factor will monitor the recovery of this little girl and continue to track Judge Meyer in Missouri. We will also continue our state-by-state updates of Jessica's Law, which are available on BillOReilly.com.

Notebook Update: As promised here, The Factor continues to follow these stories. As you may know The Factor did a new segment on Vermont District Judge Edward Cashman last week, almost 9 months after our original report. In another case, the victim's mother in Alabama called me months after our segment and we spoke about how her family was doing. We stay as close to each story as possible and welcome help from Factor viewers who email Bill at oreilly@foxnews.com with any additional tips, updates, and articles.

Jesse Watters has been a producer for The OReilly Factor since 2003. Before joining Fox News, Watters worked on political campaigns and in finance. He received a B.A. in History from Trinity College (Hartford, CT) in 2001. Watters was born and raised in Philadelphia and moved to New York in 1995.

Confronting Dr. George Tiller

2006-11-22T20:04:00Z

The Factor has been investigating a late-term abortion clinic run by Dr. George Tiller in Wichita, Kansas. Dr. Tiller, known to his detractors as "Tiller the Baby Killer," stonewalled us when we asked over the last year if he'd performed illegal abortions and covered up child rape at his clinic. But recently the Factor learned that Tiller terminated late-term pregnancies by citing temporary "depression" on the part of the mother, and performed these abortions on girls as young as ten, never informing police these girls were victims of rape or incest.

Jumping on the story
O'Reilly laid out the details in his Talking Points Memo, on November 3rd.

"In the state of Kansas, there is a doctor, George Tiller, who will execute babies for $5,000 if the mother is depressed. And there are rapists impregnating 10-year-olds who are being protected by abortion clinics. It doesn't get worse than that. This is the absolute shame of America."

Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline (R), who'd suspected criminal activity at Tiller's clinic for some time, subpoenaed medical records of women who'd had abortions there. Kline came under fire for what some thought was an invasion of personal privacy, but he said he believed a child's privacy had already been violated if she'd been raped, and he shouldn't be prohibited from gathering evidence of the crime and seeking justice.

Kansas restricts abortions after 22 weeks of pregnancy when the fetus would be viable outside the womb, except when the pregnancy would endanger the life of the mother or severely impair a major bodily function. Kansas will also allow late-term abortions if the pregnancy would cause "substantial and irreversible impairment of a major mental function." Tiller has apparently interpreted this as meaning he can perform a late-term abortion if he diagnoses the mother as "depressed." O'Reilly decried this as "vague and undefined."

More details
The Factor has learned that Tiller was aborting babies of girls aged 10-15, including victims of forcible rape, "and those abortions were not reported to authorities as required by law," Bill said, "so the criminals who impregnated the girls have so far gotten away with it."

The guest on the Factor the night of November 3 was the aforementioned Kansas Attorney General Kline. "[In] every single instance, there was not a late-term abortion performed on a viable child to save the life of the mother," Kline asserted, "and in every single instance, there was not an abortion performed for a physical reason." So according to the records, Tiller was using "depression" (and that, Bill concluded, "could be anything") as an excuse to terminate these pregnancies.

"When you have a 10- or 11-year-old child who is pregnant, and gets an abortion, and no one calls the police, it's likely a family member that is abusing that child," said Kline. In Kansas, sexual intercourse with a child under 14 is defined as "rape" because the child is below the age of consent, which means any pregnant girl under 14 getting an abortion at Tiller's clinic is the victim of a crime and Tiller is required to inform authorities. AG Kline indicated Tiller is not reporting the rapes, a felony under Kansas law.

The politics
Kline (R), the incumbent Attorney General, was—at that time—locked in a tight election race against Paul Morrison (D), who signaled he might drop the Tiller investigation if elected. A Factor Followup segment revealed that Tiller was tied to groups spending big money to defeat Kline and end the investigation. Tiller founded an abortion rights political action committee (PAC), "Pro Kan Do," which received over $100,000 from Tiller over the last two years, according to the Associated Press. Pro Kan Do's website actively solicits donations to oust Kline from office. Pro Kan Do was also funneling thousands of dollars to less regulated non-profit groups like "Kansans for Consumer Privacy Protection," which was spending money on mass mailings critical of Phill Kline all over the state.

The night before the election, O'Reilly interviewed Megan Mosack, a Kansas radio talk show host, one of the only people reporting on this special interest money. Mosack said Tiller was "intent on buying the office of Attorney General." Tiller's PACs and non-profits were spending $1 million to elect Paul Morrison, she estimated, and were completely "distorting" Phill Kline's record. The negative campaign mailings sent out by these non-profits called Kline "Snoop Dog" for seeking women's medical records, but Bill pointed out that the women's names were blacked out so Kline couldn't know their identity.

The confrontation on the steps
I was on assignment in the Midwest at the time, so Bill told me to travel to Topeka, Kansas and confront Tiller's attorney about the controversy involving his client's abortion clinic.

The crew and I arrived at Pedro Irigonegary's office on the afternoon of November 7th. He happened to be outside just as our van pulled in... and we sprang out with the cameras rolling.

"Do you believe that late-term babies should be terminated in the womb for 'depression'?" I asked after introducing myself.

"Look," he said, staring down at me from atop a flight of stairs. "What's important in this issue is not whether Mr. O'Reilly thinks that he is an expert on depression or not. What's important is what medical people and a woman going through a difficult process decided what's her best interest. I don't care what Mr. O'Reilly thinks."

I continued to question him about Tiller's definition of "depression" and he became agitated.

"That's the kind of junk journalism that I see from O'Reilly on a daily basis!" he argued. I told him that O'Reilly wasn't the issue and he responded, "You're talking about something to get ratings, that's all you're doing!"

I countered that his client's practices were "of questionable legality, and ethics."

"You and Mr. O'Reilly and the entire Fox network are not the individuals who should be make determinations of what is or what is not a legal abortion."

We continued back and forth for a few more minutes until Irigonegaray called me "shameful" and went back into his office.

The aftermath
The next night we aired video of the confrontation and O'Reilly interviewed Mary Kay Culp, executive director of "Kansans For Life," a pro-life organization. Culp said her statistics showed that in every late-term abortion performed since 1998, not one was performed to save the life of the mother. Furthermore, Culp alleged that Tiller and another abortionist were the ones who were making the medical determination of "depression."

"How does he terminate a fetus?" asked Bill.

"His preferred procedure is to find the baby's heart on the sonogram, inject with a poison, kill the baby and then put the mother into labor," explained Culp. The Factor obtained an official office letter signed by Dr. Tiller that seems to confirm this procedure.

"Then does what?" asked Bill.

"Reportedly, he has a funeral-sized crematorium on the property. And people that stand outside and pray report that there are days when ashes actually fall on them... I've seen the pictures with the ashes on their coats." Bill said he didn't believe this was enough to prove the allegation. Culp further claimed that an Associated Press reporter had also witnessed it, but The Factor has yet to verify this.

By the time of the show that night, challenger Paul Morrison had defeated Phill Kline by 16 points, throwing the criminal investigation of Dr. George Tiller into uncertainty. But O'Reilly promised, "We're going to try to stop [Tiller]... we're not going to let up... believe me, we will stay on this story. This is horrendous."

Bill summarized in a heartfelt Talking Points Memo on Friday, November 10th: "If we as a society allow an undefined mental health exception in late-term abortions, then babies can be killed for almost any reason... This is the kind of stuff that happened in Mao's China and Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union... If we allow this, America will no longer be a noble nation... If we allow Dr. George Tiller and his acolytes to continue, we can no longer pass judgment on any behavior by anybody."

Keep watching. There will be more.

Jesse Watters has been a producer for The OReilly Factor since 2003. Before joining Fox News, Watters worked on political campaigns and in finance. He received a B.A. in History from Trinity College (Hartford, CT) in 2001. Watters was born and raised in Philadelphia and moved to New York in 1995.

Westbrook vs. Penley

2006-10-13T18:24:00Z

The Story
Two weeks ago, the Texas Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that is testing the line when the right to personal privacy and the expression of religious principles collide. A woman confessed to her pastor, who also happens to be a professionally licensed marriage counselor, that she'd had an affair with another man and would be getting a divorce. She considered this a private conversation with a secular therapist, but the pastor believed it was a religious confession—and in their church, which strictly interprets the Bible—they believe in Matthew 18, that Jesus commands them to tell the congregation when a member has sinned. She has sued the pastor for defamation and professional negligence, while he argues that the church's doctrines are protected under the First Amendment and the courts cannot interfere with internal church matters.

A Factor producer told O'Reilly about the story on the morning conference call and Bill decided to send me to Texas to confront the pastor. "Be polite," he told me, "because we want him to answer us. Ask him why he did this, but if he gives you any jazz, say 'Whoa! ...this woman confessed to you in confidence... don't you think you betrayed her trust?'"

The Case
CrossLand Community Bible Church is in Fort Worth, Texas, and holds Sunday services at 10 a.m., so I expected to find pastor C.L. "Buddy" Westbrook there. I punched up a satellite image of the church on Google Earth to familiarize myself with the layout of the area before I left, and on my flight to Texas I reviewed the case timeline. Peggy Lee Penley paid Westbrook for several professional marriage counseling sessions in 1998 before he'd become a pastor. In 2000, when he'd become pastor of the church, Westbrook held meetings at his home with Penley, her husband, church elders and other couples from the church having marriage difficulties. Westbrook insists these sessions were church-affiliated "bible studies," but Penley says she saw them as secular.

Penley's marriage was crumbling, though; she legally separated from her husband, and flew to Tennessee to visit another man. Her still-husband at the time informed Westbrook, who called Penley in Tennessee and urged her to return home to try to save the marriage. Penley flew back to Texas, her husband picked her up and drove to Westbrook's home where church elders were gathered, and Penley told the pastor about her affair and her impending divorce. Penley claimed she was speaking to Westbrook as her counselor, not as pastor. She resigned from the church, but Westbrook informed the congregation, in a letter, that Penley had been in a "biblically inappropriate relationship" with another man, and asked the members to "shun" her as a form of church discipline.

Texas
The crew and I arrived at the church early Sunday morning and parked our car down the street. 15 minutes later, two Fort Worth squad cars pulled up. We showed the officers our ID's, and they explained that neighborhood people had called them wondering about our vehicle. I explained that I was from Fox News in New York and was awaiting an interview with the pastor. Turning to the crew, one of the officers said, "You two better take care of this New Yorker while he's down here in case anything happens." I couldn't tell if he was joking or not. As the police drove off, the sound technician told me, "People don't really like strangers around here."

Pastor Westbrook
Since I had no idea what "Buddy" Westbrook looked like, I decided to go into the church to watch him during the service. The CrossLand Community Bible Church is a one-level, rectangular, flat, simple building sitting in a large lot with dry brownish grass, located just off the highway. I walked in and stepped into the back of a small nondescript room where about thirty people in casual clothes were standing and singing along with the church band. I edged into a row and joined in the singing because the lyrics were projected onto a screen.

Eventually, Pastor Westbrook addressed the congregation. He's a short, friendly looking man in his 50's with white hair and a closely cropped white beard. Since I now knew what he looked like, I turned to leave, but he started speaking about the lawsuit and I stopped.

"This is spiritual warfare," he said. "When I was in court this week, I could feel that God was on our side. This is a landmark case... God is testing us, and we must be ready and mobilize for spiritual warfare... I have no regrets about what has happened." He was calm and measured. He then told the congregation that two members had just resigned the night before, citing as a major reason that they weren't prepared for the press attention the church was getting. "They are young and immature," said Westbrook. "Satan is trying to divide us, and we won't let it happen."

I left and waited in the car for the pastor in the church parking lot. Westbrook walked out 20 minutes later, and the crew and I approached him.

"Pastor? Can I ask you a few questions about the case? We're from Fox News in New York," I said as I walked up to him.

"Well, I'm apprehensive," he said, but stood still.

I said, "All we wanted to know was why you told the congregation the details of your client's marriage." A member of his congregation told him not to speak to us.

"She didn't disclose anything to me. I found out about it from different sources. And as a pastor, my job is to go after sheep. And so I did what the Bible instructs me to do. And so what I did was go after someone I loved and still love a great deal to try to bring about restoration."

I told him that Peggy Penley said she felt "humiliated and heartbroken" right now. Westbrook said he still loved her and was "still praying for her." I asked him a few more questions, which he answered, and I thanked him and left.

Back in New York
The first thing I did when I returned to work Monday was to call the attorneys for both Penley and the pastor. Darrell Keith, Penley's attorney, said that she was in a "terrible, sexless, distant, dead, neglectful marriage." Keith told me that Penley had eventually married the man she'd gone to see in Tennessee and she was much happier now, despite feeling defamed. I invited Darrell Keith to be on the show, but he declined at the request of his client.

Pastor Westbrook was represented by Liberty Legal Institute, and I spoke with their attorney Hiram Sasser, who told me that Penley had never even paid Westbrook a fee for the group counseling sessions after he'd become the pastor. Sasser asserted that what Westbrook did by calling her home from Tennessee to confront her and then informing the congregation was just what Jesus prescribes in the Bible and just what their church practices. Sasser told me Penley was aware of the church doctrine, and that in fact, she was a co-founder of the church.

I asked him which "other sources" told Westbrook about her infidelity, and Sasser answered that Penley's then-husband told him she had gone off to see another man in Tennessee, and that constituted a "biblically inappropriate relationship" in and of itself, regardless of whether she'd actually slept with him. I reported back to O'Reilly, who told me to book Sasser for the show.

The show
On The Factor that night, O'Reilly said to Sasser, "My religion, Roman Catholicism, you go to confession. You tell a priest something, that's it. The priest can't tell anybody under pain of death. Now this pastor here... does he have the right to tell the entire congregation about this woman's marital difficulties, sir?"

"Well, not only does he have the legal right, but actually under Matthew 18, Jesus spoke specific words to this effect, and whether someone agrees with this theology or not is a matter of theological preference," replied Sasser. O'Reilly said he was "a good Catholic boy" but hadn't heard that before.

"It's Matthew 18, verses 15 through 17," said Sasser. "If you have a problem, a sinner within the church, then you're supposed to go to that person one-on-one. If they won't repent, then you've got to take a couple more people, Jesus said. And if they won't do that, finally you have to tell it to the church."

Bill shot back, "You're not quoting Matthew, because Matthew really didn't talk that way. I'm going to say that's bull. I'm going to say that that's the pastor's interpretation, that he has a right to tell his whole congregation about any sin that he becomes aware of in his church. That's insane. I don't know why anybody would go to a church like that. And I think you're going to lose the lawsuit, because I don't think in this country, with separation of church and state, that you can humiliate somebody like Westbrook humiliated this woman."

Sasser said courts shouldn't be the ones interpreting scripture and should steer clear of internal church disputes, but Bill said Penley was "defamed" by Westbrook and that pastors must "obey the law too." Bill said he'd follow the case and thanked Sasser for appearing.

The Texas Supreme Court is not expected to rule for several months, and when it does, it could be, as Pastor Westbrook described it, a "landmark" decision. And, of course, the Factor will be there to report what happens.

Jesse Watters has been a producer for The OReilly Factor since 2003. Before joining Fox News, Watters worked on political campaigns and in finance. He received a B.A. in History from Trinity College (Hartford, CT) in 2001. Watters was born and raised in Philadelphia and moved to New York in 1995.

Confronting Frazier

2006-08-24T22:58:00Z

A few weeks ago, an intern at The Factor noticed an article on the internet and passed it on to a producer who pitched it to O'Reilly at our Thursday staff meeting.

Arizona anti-war activist Dan Frazier was selling t-shirts on his website with the names of 1,700 Iraq War veterans killed in action... along with the phrase "Bush Lied-They Died." An Oklahoma mother, Judy Vincent, whose son Marine Cpl. Scott Vincent was killed by suicide bombers near Fallujah in 2004 (and whose name appears on the t-shirt) was, as she put it, "sickened" that someone would "profiteer" from her son's sacrifice, so she galvanized Oklahoma to pass a law restricting the commercial use of a deceased soldier's name without the family's consent. Advertising or selling these t-shirts became illegal in Oklahoma, and later in Louisiana, but despite pleas from families all over the country, Frazier refused to remove the names of fallen soldiers and continued to peddle them on his website.

The assignment
"Get me the mother for Monday, August 21st," Bill said. "And we may have to send Watters to Arizona to confront this t-shirt guy."

After the meeting, a Factor senior producer contacted the mother and "pre-interviewed" her. Mrs. Vincent acknowledged Dan Frazier had the right to express his opinion, but was disgusted he was making a profit from her son's name without her permission. She said she couldn't reach him, but heard he'd been "horrible" to other mothers who'd appealed to him over the phone. Our producer booked her and I began doing a background check on Frazier.

Dan Frazier
A simple search showed Frazier's Flagstaff, Arizona company, CarryABigSticker.com, sold far-left anti-Bush and anti-war bumper-stickers and other radical merchandise. He marketed his $18 "Bush Lied-They Died" t-shirts as his "most controversial item" and posted an "open letter to the friends and families of the fallen" on his website.

Frazier wrote:

"I have no plans to remove any names or discontinue any of these products, no matter how many requests I receive. Every name matters, and will be retained to help underscore the horrific loss of life that has been caused by President Bush's rush to war under false pretenses."

Flagstaff
Dan Frazier failed to return our calls so I flew to Flagstaff, Arizona on August 15th. The next morning, the crew and I waited outside of his home-office, and at 9:30 Frazier strolled out of his driveway onto the street.

"Jesse Watters with Fox News... how are you? Can I talk to you for a second about those t-shirts?" Frazier walked right by me. He wore dark sunglasses and a tattered tan t-shirt, shorts, sandals and a fishing hat.

"Don't you think it's shameful to be selling these t-shirts using names of dead soldiers without their family's permission? A lot of people think this is really disgusting-how do you react to that?" He just kept walking straight ahead in silence, while the crew and I kept pace. Realizing he was going to stonewall me, I peppered him, hoping to get a reaction.

"These people aren't political victims, [so] why are you trying to exploit their sacrifice? ... You're a creative guy, you don't think that you can figure out another way to personalize the war?" Still no reaction.

The camera moved to a tight close-up as I asked, "How much money have you made marketing death like this? Common decency says that when some family member asks you to take the name off a shirt that's what you do."

Frazier was walking faster now and pulling away, but I caught up and kept firing questions at him until he ducked into a neighboring property. The crew and I then headed back to our car, but while we were waiting on the corner we saw Frazier emerge back onto the street. I confronted him again.

"Don't you have anything to say to us? I think you owe everyone an explanation... some of the mothers and fathers... Do you feel bad about what you're doing at all? ... Any inclination of regret whatsoever?"

At this point, he raised his hand, and I turned to see a police car approaching. I realized Frazier must have called 911 from inside. "You called the police because you were afraid to answer the questions?" I asked him. He stood still arms crossed staring straight ahead.

The officer exited his vehicle. "We've got a report that you guys are harassing someone down here. What's that in reference to?" I told the officer we were just trying to get Frazier to answer some questions.

Frazier told the officer I was "following" him and had "no idea" I was "out there." It was the first time I'd heard his voice, and it was shaking. "I feel it's harassment," he said bluntly. The officer divided us, listened to my side of the story, checked it against Frazier's, and in the end told me I was within the law. He wrote up a report and asked me nicely if I'd call it a day, which I did since it was clear I'd gotten as much from Frazier as was possible.

Frazier's demands
I had a voicemail from Frazier when I returned to New York the next day. He called me "unprofessional" for confronting him on the street, and then rattled off a list of demands and conditions for Fox to fulfill to secure an interview with him: The interview had to be conducted at a place of his choosing, he wanted control of what type of video was shown during the segment, and wanted to prohibit Bill from discussing certain "business ventures" that he was involved in. What he was alluding to in this last point, I wasn't sure. We alerted O'Reilly and he dismissed Frazier's voicemail.

The Factor story
On Monday, August 21, I contacted the soldier's mother, Judy Vincent, and set her up to appear on the show from Tulsa, Oklahoma. She emailed me pictures of her son Scott in Iraq to better illustrate the segment, and I typed up a packet for Bill containing story background, laws, transcripts and Dan Frazier quotes. I went to an edit room and cut a sound bite of my confrontation with Frazier, along with other video of troops in Iraq. Then I assembled a photomontage and close ups of the infamous "Bush Lied-They Died" t-shirt.

During the interview that evening, Judy Vincent said Frazier is actually printing another batch of t-shirts and updating them with all 2,500+ names of American soldiers killed in Iraq. O'Reilly called him a "fanatic" and asked her what the feds were doing about it. Mrs. Vincent said that her Congressional representative, Congressman Dan Boren (D-OK), introduced legislation in the House entitled the "Soldiers Targeted by Offensive Profiteering Act" (STOP Act).

Bill asked Judy, "Do you think it's insulting to the memory of your son for him to do this?"

"I think it's very dishonest. He states, too, that it's a memorial. Well, I don't think it's much of a memorial, putting my son's name on an $18 t-shirt." Bill expressed sorrow for her loss, looked directly into the camera and shook his head in disgust.

The Factor will follow the anti-profiteering bill in Congress, and of course, continue to report on the Iraq War debate here at home.

Jesse Watters has been a producer for The OReilly Factor since 2003. Before joining Fox News, Watters worked on political campaigns and in finance. He received a B.A. in History from Trinity College (Hartford, CT) in 2001. Watters was born and raised in Philadelphia and moved to New York in 1995.

Confronting Judge Gallagher

2006-07-26T20:39:00Z

It was four weeks ago at a Factor story pitch meeting when a producer told O'Reilly about an Ohio judge who dismissed a child rape case only because the prosecutor was 30 minutes late for the trial. Bill was interested, and asked me to get the facts, investigate the judge and prepare a segment for air the next week.

The case
On June 12, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Eileen Gallagher had thrown out child rape charges against 22-year old Norman Craig, accused of raping his 9-year old neighbor in 1999. Craig was 16 at the time, and it was six years before the young girl reported the incident to a school guidance counselor. Shortly after, in 2005, a grand jury indicted Craig on charges that he had forcibly raped the then 9-year old, which carries a mandatory life sentence in Ohio.

But on the day of the trial, Assistant County Prosecutor Mark Schneider was 30 minutes late getting to court, so Judge Gallagher dismissed the case, which left Craig in legal limbo, and still free on bond.

Schneider claimed the judge had questioned the girl's credibility before even hearing the evidence, and stated he was late because he was preparing an emergency motion asking for Gallagher to remove herself from the case. But the judge said Schneider was treating her like a "punk," and called his tardiness "unprofessional" and "discourteous."

While the judge and prosecutor squabbled and the alleged child rapist remained free on bond, the girl's mother said her daughter was devastated.

Trip to Ohio
After calls to the judge went unreturned, O'Reilly told me to visit her in Cleveland.
The crew and I arrived at her residence at 6:15 in the morning. She lives in a small condo at the end of a cul-de-sac in a private community less than a mile from Lake Erie. After waiting patiently until 9am, I called her house and knocked on her door. No one answered, so I spoke to a neighbor who told me the judge spent some nights at a "friend's house."

I jumped back in our van and drove downtown to confront her at work.

Before leaving for Ohio, I'd uncovered the judge's car model and license plate number. After gaining access to the Courthouse parking garage, the crew and I split up and fanned out, looking for the vehicle. But, despite our best efforts, we couldn't locate her car anywhere in the lot.

After consultation with The Factor senior producer back in New York, we decided to simply tell the judge that we were in town. Miracle of miracles, given my past experiences with the judges we have pursued, it worked. Her assistant said the judge just stepped out and would be back in ten minutes. I decided to take the elevator upstairs to her chambers to greet her when she arrived.

Meeting the judge
Judge Gallagher's chambers are on the building's top floor where there are outstanding views of downtown Cleveland. I announced myself to her staff and waited in an area just outside the chambers.

The judge appeared almost immediately, walking down a short hallway.

"Uh oh... the media... what have I done now?" she asked disarmingly.

"Judge Gallagher... I'd like to ask you about the case..."

"No cameras." She cut me off and ducked into her side office door. "You can come in here alone without the cameras," she said to me. Legally, since I was in her office, I had to shut the cameras down and tell the crew to remain in the hallway.

I'd expected her to be more uncooperative since I'd shown up at her office unannounced and with a camera, but she politely asked me to have a seat.

Eileen Gallagher is over six feet tall, and was very imposing sitting across from me. She was smiling. After briefly explaining why I was there, the judge really surprised me. Without even receiving an invitation, she began considering aloud whether she'd agree to an interview with Bill. In three years since I've been with The Factor, no judge in this kind of situation I can remember has ever agreed to a studio interview.

In the beginning, Gallagher remained on the fence about appearing on The Factor, but she did let the crew come into her office, telling me she would answer a few questions on camera. She said the prosecuting attorney "failed the [girl] miserably by not being [in court] in a timely fashion," and that "it was his unprofessional behavior that created the situation."

She seemed pleased with the way the interview went, and afterward agreed to sit down live with O'Reilly. I thanked her, exchanged business cards, and promised to call her the next week to arrange the logistics.

Interview with Bill
On Tuesday, July 11, Judge Gallagher stepped into the "No Spin Zone." Bill began the interview by calling her a "stand up person" for coming on the show, and then read Fox News Channel judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano's opinion of the situation: "The rule is that when a lawyer breaks the rules, you never punish the client, especially one who was allegedly raped. The judge can sanction the prosecutor, fine him, or even say 'you can't handle the case.' [...] I've never heard of this in 30 years. The case will be reversed on appeal and the judge will be admonished."

Judge Gallagher responded. She challenged the prosecutor's honesty, and said he gave three different reasons for being late to the hearing. O'Reilly asked her why she didn't just sanction prosecutor Schneider, and Gallagher said, "I couldn't sanction someone I could not find." That jolted Bill. "Come on judge, it's the same town!" he said, and as I watched, I remembered that the courtroom, the judge's and the prosecutor's offices were not just in the same town, they were all in the same building, just an elevator ride away.

Bill asked if the judge was "comfortable" having this alleged rapist out on the street. Gallagher side-stepped the question, but said the case "should be re-filed, and [weeks later] it has not been." Bill agreed, saying, "We'll follow the case [...] and make sure they [re-file]." Bill thanked the judge for "stepping up" and concluded the interview.

Conclusion
As of this date, the case itself is being appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court. If that court denies the appeal, Prosecutor Mark Schneider says he will re-file at that time. When the Ohio Supreme Court rules, we expect an update from the prosecutor, and The Factor will continue its reporting.

Jesse Watters has been a producer for The OReilly Factor since 2003. Before joining Fox News, Watters worked on political campaigns and in finance. He received a B.A. in History from Trinity College (Hartford, CT) in 2001. Watters was born and raised in Philadelphia and moved to New York in 1995.

Producer's Notebook: Guantánamo Bay

2006-06-28T02:16:00Z

Through the hazy sun of a Cuban morning, we caught our first glimpse of Guantánamo Naval Base, once an obscure outpost of American military might, but now where the treatment of detainees held in the war on terrorism has put it in the eye of an international storm over human rights.

Bill O'Reilly and I, along with our three-person Fox News camera crew, crammed into a small charter plane that swept down onto what looked like a deserted landing strip jutting out on a scrub-covered peninsula. For such a center of attention, the naval station's first appearance was deceiving-a virtually deserted landing strip and empty hangars steaming under that tropical sun. We were the only aircraft in sight, and as we taxied to a stop, we were greeted by a slew of military men, including the man in charge of the joint task force that runs the detention center at Guantánamo, Admiral Harry Harris.

The background
Guantánamo sits about 400 air miles from where we took off in Miami, and is southeast of Havana. "Gitmo," as folks call it, is divided in two, with the airstrip across the bay from the main facilities and the detention camps. A short bus ride took us to a dock where we boarded a small boat for the 20-minute trip to the main base.

O'Reilly, Harris and I sat down with one Captain Leary, who is the actual man in charge of the naval facility (Adm. Harris, who met us at the airstrip, runs the joint task force). Leary explained a little about the history of Guantánamo, a little piece of the United States in Cuba, thanks to a 1903 treaty that grants the USA rights to the area "in perpetuity." Ironically, in recent years the naval station had become increasingly irrelevant to America's defense posture in the region. That changed after 9/11 when detainees from the Afghan war began to arrive there.

As Leary talked, I realized this was an ideal place to hold dangerous prisoners-a perimeter laced with mines placed by the Cubans, a dry, foreboding geography, and nothing around but the Caribbean Sea, even if you could escape land.

The scene at Gitmo
By the time we docked and began our slow drive to the main base, I had already gone through a couple of bottles of water, and my short-sleeved shirt was drenched in sweat. I marveled at the Marines, Army men and Naval officers who wore long-sleeve combat fatigues with undershirts. When asked about the heat, they just shrugged and said, "You get used to it, sir," and remarking that things are a lot hotter, in more ways than one, in Iraq.

There isn't just one camp for detainees, but several. Camp X-Ray, the site of those scenes of shackled, orange jump-suited prisoners being dragged around by American MPs, has long since been abandoned and sits overgrown some distance away from the current facilities. A number of officers remarked to me that they deeply resented many in the news media who still broadcast those images, even though they are now ancient history.

In fact, all of the men and women we met at Guantánamo seemed genuinely pleased to have us there, and were eager to tell their side of the story. Too often, they feel much of the press puts out a distorted picture of what is happening in Gitmo.

Before we sat down to a quick briefing from the Admiral on the situation at Guantánamo followed by the interviews we had scheduled with some of the interrogators, we had a chance to meet some of the troops as they had lunch at the commissary. The soldiers we met were a cross-section of America, north and south, east and west, and all seemed committed to the work they were doing in Guantánamo under very difficult circumstances. They were thrilled to meet Bill, and the head of the commissary even had a cake to welcome us. The mood was much more somber when we saw them at work as guards on patrol at two of the detention facilities.

The facilities
Through a series of fences and gates, we entered the center for what the military called the most "compliant" prisoners. They didn't have to be cooperative in interrogation to earn the right to stay in this area, just not be "troublemakers." Col. Mike Bumgarner, who, at the time, was in charge of the detention facilities, showed us around.

Just weeks earlier, many of the so-called "compliant" prisoners had attacked prison guards in a well-planned assault and, as a result, what had once been an inmate population of over 100 was now just a group of 30 or so. Their open barracks seemed clean and well ventilated, and the few detainees we saw were young, with beards and white outfits that would not seem out of place in the Middle East. They appeared healthy, though subdued.

Later, we were shown maximum-security facilities that looked a lot like maximum-security prisons in this country. The cells were small and bare with frosted windows and steel doors, and an arrow pointing towards Mecca under a thin mattress. This is what all of the least compliant detainees have to look forward to. But before anyone feels too sorry for them, Col. Bumgarner provided a sobering assessment of the detainees in custody: "They'd kill you in a heartbeat." This was a sentiment conveyed by the interrogators as well. Said one, "One detainee looked me in the eye and said that if he ever got out, he would hunt me down and kill me and my family."

Admiral Harris explained in his briefing to us that some of the men released from Gitmo have actually gone back to Afghanistan and Pakistan and rejoined Al Qaeda. Just one day after we left Gitmo, three detainees committed suicide. When we checked with him a few days after, Adm. Harris suggested the suicides were not out of despair, as some news reports and detainee lawyers claimed, but rather as part of a continuing effort to embarrass the United States government.

Leaving
By late that afternoon, our visit had concluded, so we packed our gear and began our trip back. This time, Admiral Harris arranged to have us taken back to the landing strip via two "Viper" boats-high-speed Coast Guard boats, each outfitted with three machine guns. It was fast and fascinating, and we soon found ourselves back at the dock and winding our way up a small hill to the landing strip where we quickly boarded our plane and headed back to Florida with a clearer and more focused sense of what takes place "behind the wire."

David Tabacoff is the executive producer of both The Radio Factor and The O'Reilly Factor.

The Worst Charity Ever?

2006-06-01T18:10:43Z

Every year, an independent watchdog organization called Charity Navigator compiles a list of what it considers the worst children's charities in America. Outrageous fundraising costs, whopping CEO salaries, "sound-alike" names and low program spending are cited as some of the reasons charities make the list.

Three weeks ago, a Factor senior producer found out about this year's list and pitched the story to O'Reilly. Bill said to narrow it down to the "worst of the worst," which is just what we did. The people at Charity Navigator told us that of the seventeen charities on their list, the Youth Development Fund (YDF) in Knoxville, Tennessee was the most egregious.

Working the story
The Factor went to work checking the charity's financial statements, browsing their website and researching their president, Rick Bowen. Latest available records showed YDF raised over $4 million dollars in 2003, but that an astounding 91% of the money went to fundraising and administrative expenses instead of the kids. Moreover, YDF's federal tax filing (990) showed that Bowen paid himself $426,412 in 2004.

Not surprisingly, a further search uncovered that Bowen had been sued by the state of Minnesota, probed by the state of Tennessee, graded an "F" by the American Institute of Philanthropy, and investigated by several journalists for the same kind of alleged financial shenanigans in the past. Bowen was even on the record to a local TV station admitting that he'd written off his car, which happened to be a 2002 Cadillac Escalade SUV, as a business expense.

On the go
At our story pitch meeting, The Factor senior producer updated O'Reilly on YDF. Bill turned to me and asked, "Are you ready to go to Knoxville this weekend, Watters?" I told him that I had hotel reservations and tickets to a ball game in Philadelphia on Saturday night. "Ok, so just fly from Philly to Knoxville on Sunday, see this Bowen guy, and fly back to New York on Monday. Knoxville's a nice little town. You'll like it. But when you talk to this guy, he might argue with you, so have a few things ready to come back at him with."

After the pitch meeting, I started prepping for the trip. I found out that Bowen's home address and business address were one and the same. And I already knew what he looked like from his picture in the paper, and that he drove that Cadillac Escalade, so I was pretty confident I'd find him. After I booked a crew, my car, my flights and my hotel, I was ready to go.

Knoxville
Sunday post-game, my flight landed in Knoxville at 4pm and I met the crew at my hotel an hour later. We gathered our gear together and drove to Bowen's condo. Immediately I knew he was home because his shiny white Cadillac was parked outside. I backed our car into a parking space directly across from his condo so I could spot him as soon as he opened his front door, which is what he did 2 hours later.

Bowen stepped outside in a white t-shirt and sweats, and the crew and I popped out of the car across the street. We were both walking towards each other as he headed to his SUV. "Rick Bowen!... Jesse Watters from Fox News! I just wanted to get your reaction to your charity being named the worst children's charity in the country!"

"I never heard of that before," said Bowen in a low sluggish voice. He appeared as if he'd just woken up. After I explained that a watchdog group had singled out his charity, he replied nonchalantly, "Well, they're entitled to their opinion."

I asked him how he justified paying himself over $400,000 when only 9 cents on every dollar raised actually went to help children. Bowen disputed that salary figure, claiming he made $150,000.

I moved to the next issue. "You said you donated money to Big Brothers/Big Sisters, but they say they never got any money from you." Bowen had once told a reporter he donated to a local Big Brothers/Big Sisters group, but the group said they'd never heard of him and asked Bowen to take their names off of YDF's website. Bowen told me he'd donated "Christmas presents."

He began getting into yet another Cadillac parked next to the Escalade.

I then asked him about how he'd claimed to have hosted a fundraiser with Boomer Esiason-an event that Boomer later told reporters he never attended. Bowen told me to "look it up in the Knoxville News Sentinel" and "see all the press about it." (The Factor later tried to find a story, but there was nothing.)

Bowen started the ignition and I asked if he "thought it was right" that he was taking in so much money in fundraising and administrative costs, but that the "kids weren't getting anything."

"The kids are getting quite a bit. Look up the tax returns," he said, and slammed the car door. "We have," I replied as Bowen took off.

Getting ready for the show
Back in New York we booked Trent Stamp, president of the watchdog group Charity Navigator, as the guest for a segment on Wednesday and we went over YDF's tax filing together. We found that YDF's activity was even worse than I had originally thought.

YDF raised $3,162,863 in 2004, but paid $2,644,913 to professional telemarketers and gave just $82,803 to children. That's only 2.6 cents of every dollar raised. Also, Bowen's salary was indeed $426,412. That's more than the CEO of the nationwide YMCA, an organization that raised over $73 million last year.

I compiled the statistics in a packet for Bill, along with background on the story and information on Rick Bowen's previous run-ins with state officials. I cut the sound-bite of Bowen, and brought Charity Navigator president Trent Stamp into the green room.

The show
Stamp led off the segment telling Bill that Bowen was obviously not telling the truth about his salary, and that only $82,000 out of $3.1 million was spent on children. "Is this illegal?" asked Bill.

Stamp replied, "It's a legal scam... unfortunately, it's a strange world when these fraudsters are more afraid of Bill O'Reilly than of the IRS."

The gigantic fees charities paid telemarketers became the focus, and O'Reilly said their telemarketer, Advanced Community Services, was just as disgraceful as YDF for charging so much. Bill wondered aloud if there were any "kickback schemes" going on.

Stamp said there must be, and suggested that because these businesses operate in the shadows, it's a ripe environment for hucksters. He recommended that no one donate to charity over the phone and hailed states such as Pennsylvania, New York and California, which have strict non-profit enforcement mechanisms.

Bill thanked Stamp for the work Charity Navigator is doing, and told his viewers to "shun" Rick Bowen and Advanced Community Services for "taking money from the kids."

The Factor will continue its reporting.

Jesse Watters has been a producer for The OReilly Factor since 2003. Before joining Fox News, Watters worked on political campaigns and in finance. He received a B.A. in History from Trinity College (Hartford, CT) in 2001. Watters was born and raised in Philadelphia and moved to New York in 1995.

The Worst Judge Ever?

2006-03-24T19:32:18Z

At our story pitch meeting two weeks ago, I told O'Reilly about a man who pled guilty to molesting two boys but was given no prison time. Ohio Common Pleas Judge John A. Connor had sentenced Andrew Selva, 46, to probation after he confessed to orally raping two boys, ages 5 and 12 over a three-year period.

It was just weeks ago that The O'Reilly Factor was reporting a similar miscarriage of justice in Vermont. This time, I was assigned to go to Ohio to try and interview the judge. "Be respectful," I was told. "But be firm."

Facts of the case...

Andrew Selva was a friend of the victims' parents and had helped bring the boys, and their families, to America from Sri Lanka. The molestation began almost immediately, starting at a "Welcome to America" party Selva threw for the families when they arrived.

Before making our announced visit with the judge, I was able to reach Connor by phone. He insisted he couldn't talk about a pending case because "the judicial code prevented [that]". But the judge sent me a letter explaining his decision about Selva. In it he wrote that "incarceration would be counterproductive to the defendant's prognosis."

Meanwhile, The Factor discovered reports that Judge Connor himself had been arrested at least six times for drunk driving. We were able to confirm he'd been convicted at least twice.

Trip to Ohio...
I flew from New York to Columbus, Ohio on Saturday morning, rented a car at the airport and drove downtown to the Hyatt Hotel. I checked into my room at 10:45AM.

At noon the crew, a cameraman and an audio technician, met me downstairs in a van and we drove to where I believed Judge Connor lived.

Saturday: The wait...
It was pouring rain when we left to speak to the judge. Finding an opportunity to speak to an unsuspecting judge on a weekend in a residential neighborhood is difficult, to say the least. It takes a combination of fortunate timing, good logistics and journalistic instinct. Luck plays a big part. Because of the rain it seemed likely that the judge would be holed up for a while.

After we circled the block in the van, I circled it again on foot, and came up with a plan. We parked in the lot across the street from Connor's house and angled the van towards his back door and driveway. Next, the cameraman called the house and talked with a woman who said he'd be home "this evening." Now I knew I'd see him when he came in, instead of on his way out. We discovered Connor drove a 2002 Cadillac Deville. Knowing this, whenever he came home, I could buy myself a few seconds when I saw his car turn down the block.

Whether or not Connor had gotten wind of our presence, he hadn't shown up by 10:00 that night. By then, ten hours in the van was enough, so I retired to the Hyatt for some sleep, hoping for better luck on Sunday.

Sunday: The chase...
Still raining. I was back at the Connor home at 6:45AM. Two hours later I spotted the judge exit his back door and head into the garage. "There he goes!" I yelled, and the cameraman threw the van into drive, circled out of the parking lot and positioned us at an adjacent intersection with the view of the driveway. Sure enough, the Cadillac Deville pulled out. We followed without any idea where he was going. I knew we had to play it by ear.

Connor moved quickly down the road and onto the highway. I lost sight of him for a second because the van was struggling to keep up and the rain fogged the windshield. Connor's car suddenly took an exit, and our van was barely able to make the turn. We followed him into the parking lot of a strip mall. Way ahead of me, I saw him stop and hustle into one of the stores.

The crew fired up our camera and we walked to where the judge had entered. It was a senior center. I smiled because I could see he'd have to leave through the door he entered, and his car was a good 75 yards away, leaving me with plenty of opportunity to try to talk to him.

The encounter...
Forty-five minutes later, he walked outside. "Judge Connor, Jesse Watters from the O'Reilly Factor at Fox News," I said while walking over to shake his hand. "I wanted to talk to you about the Selva sentence."

"Good morning Jesse. The Supreme Court says I can't talk about it," he replied.

"But can't you just tell me what the facts were before you at the hearing?"

"I can't talk about it," he reiterated.

"But the code says you can speak to us as long as your comments don't give one side a tactical advantage," I countered.

"Sorry Jesse. I can't talk." He was just going to stonewall.

"Why did you give the guy only probation"?

"I sent you the letter Jesse... hey, didn't you get some sleep last night?" he chuckled.

"I did, but the code says... "

Then I could see his whole mood change. He turned around and began stuttering and pointing at the camera.

"You're misquoting the code!" Connor exclaimed. "Just like you've been doing this whole time... you've misreported everything! So I'm not going to talk with you because you don't report the truth." Connor was right next to his car at this point.

I continued to question him. "Well, why don't you tell us the truth, so..."

"I've told you the truth!" He fired back.

"You gave him probation for molesting two kids, but you could have given him ten years."

Connor looked angry. He sped off in his car.

Despite Connor's refusal to comment, I still felt the long wait had paid off. I'd gotten the judge on camera and on the record.

On the air....
On Monday night's show, Bill ran the video of the encounter with the judge and discussed ways of removing him from the bench. The next night, The Factor featured mothers from Ohio whose children had been run over by a drunk driver--a drunk driver who Connor had released early from prison and then refused to jail again for violating parole. These women almost broke down while describing how the judge had affected their families.

On Wednesday afternoon, I received press releases from Ohio Governor Bob Taft (R) urging the state legislature to begin impeachment proceedings against Connor. Thirty minutes later, another press release came in from the Ohio Speaker of the House John Husted (R), which decried Connor's judgment and announced the beginnings of the impeachment process. Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro (R) joined Bill that evening and echoed these calls.

Two weeks later, it appears as if the effort to impeach Judge Connor has been stymied in the legislature. But a petition drive to remove him is gaining steam. Recently, O'Reilly interviewed the older victim of Andrew Selva. The boy appeared in shadow to hide his identity and described being forced to perform oral sex when he was twelve. "David" told O'Reilly he had this to say to the judge who wouldn't send his molester to prison: "I would just say that your decision was really, really disappointing to me, but not only to me, but to everyone else that this could happen to."

The fight to remove Judge Connor from the bench is by no means over and much of the controversy over the decision has shifted to the pages of local newspapers that have thrown their support to the judge. The Factor will continue its reporting.

Jesse Watters has been a producer for The OReilly Factor since 2003. Before joining Fox News, Watters worked on political campaigns and in finance. He received a B.A. in History from Trinity College (Hartford, CT) in 2001. Watters was born and raised in Philadelphia and moved to New York in 1995.

Videotape, rape and prosecution

2006-03-10T20:46:52Z

As a producer for the Factor, I cover about two dozen stories a month, and some of them are so shocking that the story behind them is worth telling.

This is one of those times.

Wednesday morning, along with the rest of the Factor team, I listened to our senior producer list the segments we'd be doing. Rarely knowing what I'll be producing each morning, I like the spontaneity and surprise of the assignment.

"A judge in Illinois threatened to throw a woman in jail because she refused to watch a videotape of her own alleged gang-rape," the senior producer said. "Bill wants to book Judge Napolitano (FNC Senior Judicial Analyst) and Lis Wiehl (FNC legal analyst) to discuss the trial and the controversy."

I got the assignment. I skimmed The Chicago Tribune and an article in The Chicago Sun-Times and discovered the judge, Kerry Kennedy, was ruling in just a few hours on whether he'd toss the woman in jail. Forcing a woman to watch herself be raped seemed severe, but threatening to incarcerate her for refusing to watch absolutely stunned me. The more I read, the more disturbed I became.

The case
On December 7, 2002, 17-year-old Adrian Missbrenner threw a party at his parents' home in suburban Burr Ridge, Illinois. The alleged victim, who was 16 at the time, showed up at the party and began playing drinking games, apparently "chugging" vodka straight from the bottle until she vomited. She claims she passed out and woke up the next morning naked from the waist down, with obscenities scrawled in marker all over her legs and stomach, with no memory of what happened. She asked an acquaintance, who told her several guys had sex with her while one videotaped it. She was also told that others spit and scrawled derogatory words after the sex. She went to police to file a report and the videotape was recovered.

The initial findings
The man who videotaped the incident, Sonny Smith, now 21, pled guilty to child porn charges, and was sentenced to four months in boot camp.

One of the men who had sex with the woman, Christopher Robbins, now 21, was never taped. He argued the sex was consensual, and was acquitted by a jury last year.

Burim Berezi, now 20, was captured on camera having sex with the woman and fled to Albania shortly after he was charged. He remains at large.

The footage also showed another person at the party, Adrian Missbrenner, now 20, having sex with her. He fled to Serbia for eight months while free on bail but returned stateside to face the charges after Robbins was found not guilty.

So Missbrenner began his trial last week on aggravated criminal sexual assault and child porn charges. He faced six to thirty years in prison if convicted.

The videotape
According to reports I was reading that morning, Missbrenner's defense attorney, Patrick Campanelli, argued the sex was consensual and wanted to play that tape for the 20-year-old woman, and cross-examine her about it. The newspapers wrote that she had become visibly upset and told Judge Kennedy she wouldn't watch it.

Prosecutor Michael Deno argued that the woman hadn't given her consent and didn't remember anything after blacking out. While I was initially researching the story for The Factor, the judge in Chicago was hearing arguments from both sides.

Our Fox News Chicago bureau producer was in the courtroom and relayed the ruling to New York just as soon as it came down. Our company has an internal web file, the "urgent queue," that reporters and editors log with breaking news updates throughout the day. I checked the queue just as the Chicago producer wrote that Judge Kennedy backed off from his threat to send the woman to jail for refusing to view the videotape. I was surprised because, from what I had read, the judge had seemed so adamant before.

Due to the change in the decision, I wondered if Bill still wanted to do the story, so I called up to the studio where he was doing The Radio Factor and asked our Executive Producer if he would find out during the next commercial break. Bill was still interested in reporting the story that night.

Getting ready for the show
Each guest booked for the show is "pre-interviewed" by a producer. When a segment is what we call "un-booked" on the day-of-air (no specific guest is slated for the segment yet), the producer calls potential guests and asks them questions, gauging their energy level and line of argumentation. After we elicit and review their responses, we decide which guest best fits the show's needs. In this particular case, Bill had already decided on Judge Napolitano and Lis Wiehl, so I made two calls, alerted them to the latest developments in the case, and typed up their thoughts and analysis. Bill had all the research and information on his desk by 3pm.

The Factor segment
Judge Napolitano began. "The defense counsel is entitled to test (the girl's) memory and test the consistency with the tape . . . In the defense's view, there was behavior on the tape which was inconsistent with her testimony that she did not consent."

Lis Wiehl countered that the tape was "irrelevant" because the girl already said she didn't remember anything. According to Wiehl, the defense could always call the guy who made the videotape and question him instead. The girl shouldn't be "dragged through the mud."

O'Reilly agreed with Wiehl, and said making her watch would be "cruel . . . because the jury obviously can decide whether it's consensual or not by what's on the tape." He added, "I don't care what a woman says who doesn't remember anything. You can't prove it one way or the other."

The decision
Late Friday afternoon, the jury acquitted Adrian Missbrenner of all charges. The six-man, six-woman jury deliberated for over four hours and determined the sex was consensual.

On Wednesday, the woman's family began blasting the state, saying only during closing arguments did they learn about a statement on the tape where prosecutors claim Missbrenner said, "Good drugs are paying off" while the woman's limbs allegedly begin to go limp.

The parents wondered why the state never explained to the jury the "downward spiral of consciousness" seen on the videotape. "She is barely talking in the beginning; by the 8-minute mark, has no ability to move her limbs and, by 20 minutes, so comatose that she doesn't even flinch," they said in the statement. They also revealed the prosecution rejected a plea deal that would have guaranteed prison time for Missbrenner.

The prosecution stated, "We thought the tape spoke for itself . . . they treated her worse than you'd treat a dead dog in the street." The state admitted they rejected a plea deal and said they had "no second thoughts" about how they proceeded, adding there was "no evidence" a date-rape drug was used.

Missbrenner went public too. Walter Jacobson, a local Fox anchor, landed an interview with the young man and O'Reilly decided to do a follow-up segment that night. In the interview with Jacobson, Missbrenner denied drugging the woman and claimed he's actually gone through more than she has due to the heat he's taken in the press.

Missbrenner was not "contrite," according to Jacobson, who said the recently acquitted man appeared "arrogant" and "cocky." On the The Factor, Jacobson discussed the interview with the young man and the strong community reaction against him. Neither he nor Bill thought the interview would help his cause.

The aftermath
The press has reported that the woman dropped out of high school after the incident and was home-schooled. She is now working and saving to go to college. A civil case the alleged victim has filed against Missbrenner is pending.

The case itself raises a number of questions about the definition of "consent." It also has sparked a move by Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich to draft legislation barring rape victims from having to view videotapes of the crime.

The Factor will continue its reporting.

Jesse Watters has been a producer for The OReilly Factor since 2003. Before joining Fox News, Watters worked on political campaigns and in finance. He received a B.A. in History from Trinity College (Hartford, CT) in 2001. Watters was born and raised in Philadelphia and moved to New York in 1995.

Producer's Notebook: The Story Behind the Story

2006-02-17T19:36:07Z

Introducing "Producer's Notebook," an exclusive, behind-the-scenes look at the stories that are making headlines from the unique perspective of a Factor producer. Check back in the coming weeks for more inside reports on Factor stories.

Every day, seven segment producers hustle to put out the #1 cable news show in the country, "The O'Reilly Factor." Each segment producer generally is responsible for one segment per day. O'Reilly holds a conference call every morning with his senior producers and decides what stories will make the program. The segment producers are given their assignment each morning at 11 and have about 6 hours to get the story, and get it right, before the television show is taped that evening. You can probably guess it's demanding work with tough deadlines, but at the end of the day you can watch what you've done and take pride in the results.

Here's how it goes down

Every Monday and Thursday at 2:30pm, the entire Factor staff meets with Bill and pitches him stories we think could make the program. Those "pitch meeting" stories selected, plus breaking news stories, comprise the content of the program. All 15 of us--TV producers, radio producers, website producers and executive producers--circle up around O'Reilly in our newsroom pod and take turns trying to "sell" him possible segments. Bill is completely honest and very busy, so it's crucial to pitch quality stories clearly and concisely. If you don't, the story gets dumped without ceremony.

Jessica Lunsford's father happened to call me last Monday morning before our pitch meeting. Mark Lunsford and I had first met in Florida a month after his daughter was found dead after being abused and buried alive. A man with a record of sexual abuse named John Couey was arrested and charged. I remember watching back on that afternoon as Lunsford pulled up on his Harley for our meeting, and I could immediately see the loss reflected on his face. While we were together that day, people would approach him and shake his hand, hug him and cry. He was a small-town guy whose tragedy had made him perhaps one of the best-known men there.

That night, we were supposed to scour trailer parks together for more information about Couey and possible accomplices, but Lunsford said he didn't "trust himself to stay out of trouble" and said I'd have to go alone. Plus, he'd just ducked away from his job hauling dumpsters, and he explained that his boss had threatened to fire him if he missed any more time. So Mark roared off on his motorcycle.

After that, he quit his job and now rides his Harley state to state lobbying legislators to crack down on sex offenders, arguing for passage of what has become known as "Jessica's Law." That Monday morning, before our pitch meeting, Mark called me from Kansas to say Jessica's Law was moving forward--but said there was a problem in Utah. He had been to nine states in the last few months and so far he thought Utah cared the least about his cause.

"Only one person showed up to the rally," he told me. "I felt like they didn't even want me there."

The preliminaries

Later at the pitch meeting, I mentioned Mark's call and Bill questioned why only one person came to the Jessica's Law rally. He was curious if Utah's large polygamist population or the state's high rate of under-age marriage had anything to do with it. Pointing to the board that shows every segment on upcoming Factor shows, Bill said, "D block--Wednesday." Just 2 days away! "We'll put Lunsford in there"--Bill gestured--"and get me someone in Utah who follows polygamy in that state. And let's call Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and see what's going on."

I scanned my Rolodex after the meeting to check my contacts in Utah. I'd previously produced a segment on Melissa Rowland, the Utah mother who delivered a stillborn baby because she refused to have a C-section, and I'd kept the number for Cliff Donovan, a Utah radio talk show host I'd spoken with. So I called Donovan on his cell phone, hoping he could help us out. Not only did he agree that there was something to this issue, but he also happened to host his show an hour outside the largest polygamist enclave in the US located in Hillsdale, Utah. He was the perfect guest. I put him and Lunsford on hold for Wednesday and told the senior producer we were booked.

Now the real work began. The segment still had to be researched, written and produced.

Show day

Wednesday morning at 11 am, O'Reilly said he needed Utah child sex crime statutes, sex offender statistics, underage marriage and polygamy statistics and several egregious examples of state judges letting child rapists off easy. The work needed to be completed in three hours and typed up cogently into a research packet.

Lunsford needed to be picked up in Homosassa, FL and driven to the WEDU studio in Tampa by 6pm. Donovan needed to be picked up in St. George, Utah and taken downtown to his studio at WCSD by 4pm Mountain time. I called our national car service and booked both cars.

Every guest must arrive at least 30 minutes before his or her interview. If a guest is late, it destroys the natural flow and seamlessness of the show because we then have to tape segments out of order. Because of that, Bill does not tolerate lateness, and we as producers are responsible for making sure our guests are there and ready to go when they are supposed to be--we call this deadline a "hit" time.

All of our reporting must be vigorously fact-checked, so I called the Utah Attorney General's office to confirm the criminal statutes. I spoke with Republican State Legislator Paul Ray to ask if Jessica's Law had been proposed. It had not. "Utah doesn't have a problem with sex offenders," said Ray. "We keep our sex offenders locked up."

I also had to confirm whether Utah's Governor Jon Huntsman (R) had been invited to the Lunsford rally. Citizen's Voice, the group that set up the event, said the Governor was invited twice, but never showed up.

Next, I called Senator Orrin Hatch's DC office to get its comment on this issue. His press secretary, Peter Carr, said it was "ludicrous" to suggest that the existence of some polygamist communities in Utah could have any influence on child sex crime legislation. Hours later, he fired off an email to my executive producers outlining the Senator's position on sex offenders, and I brought it to Bill's office for him to read.

After the research was written up and the packet was complete, I began to edit the tape inserts for the segment. (Producers are responsible for supervising the editing of any video that appears during their segment.) I checked out existing Factor tapes from our show library, screened them, and took them to a room where an editor and I cut the footage together. It took about 30 minutes to cut together video of Jessica Lunsford, polygamists, prisons, and Gov. Huntsman.

The segment

Lunsford led off, saying how "bad" he felt that "no one showed up." He said that "it was the only time it had ever happened" and "couldn't believe Utah was like that." Donovan followed, saying "there is a sense among some quarters that, because of polygamy, which has been outlawed by Utah's constitution since the latter part of the 19th Century, and which the Mormon Church has disavowed, at least on this mortal coil, that there may
be a polygamy influence involved in this."

O'Reilly added that polygamy may or may not be involved, but that one issue of concern is that "many, many girls get married very, very young in Utah." Bill expressed his concern that the Governor was seemingly not doing enough about his state's laws, which Bill considered "very lenient" and concluded Jessica's Law had "zero chance" of passing in Utah.

The segment wrapped up and, all in all, I was happy with the way things went. I called my guests to thank them, and Mark Lunsford told me he'd be going on to Michigan in March to press the case for Jessica's Law in that state.

The Factor will continue its reporting.

Jesse Watters has been a producer for The OReilly Factor since 2003. Before joining Fox News, Watters worked on political campaigns and in finance. He received a B.A. in History from Trinity College (Hartford, CT) in 2001. Watters was born and raised in Philadelphia and moved to New York in 1995.

Producer's Notebook: Showdown in Vermont

2006-02-01T23:01:00Z

Introducing "Producer's Notebook," an exclusive, behind-the-scenes look at the stories that are making headlines from the unique perspective of a Factor producer. Check back in the coming weeks for more inside reports on Factor stories.

Showdown time in Vermont: Judge Edward Cashman had agreed to reconsider his sentence of 60 days for convicted sex predator Mark Hulett. And I was there again for The Factor.

Even though it was six in the morning and the courthouse doors would not open until 8, I was there early in order to beat the expected crowd.

Only one other car was in the lot. Inside was a short, thin woman with curly hair in her early 40's. Her car engine was running. She opened the passenger-side door, said she was Jessica, an editor from the Burlington Free Press, and invited me in to sit with her and stay warm.

I told her I was from The O'Reilly Factor. "Why is Bill O'Reilly treating Vermont like he is?" she asked me in an argumentative manner. I decided not to debate her, since she was letting me keep warm in her car. A minute later, her paper's crime reporter, Adam Silverman, walked up. I got out and shook hands. Silverman was in his late 20's, and this was his first job after college. We went for a cup of coffee, and by the time we came back, more press people had arrived.

AP reporter Wilson Ring introduced himself. The AP had run up against The Factor ever since their Vermont bureau chief Christopher Graff wrote a sympathetic profile of Judge Cashman. O'Reilly had invited Graff and Ring on the show, but both had declined. Ring had a weathered look to him, wore a coat and tie, and appeared to be in his late 40's.

The courthouse doors opened at 8am. About a dozen local reporters and I flowed through the metal detectors and upstairs to the courtroom. But, as The Factor had noted since this story surfaced, no reporters from any network news or national cable news outlets were there.

The courtroom was new and clean, with grey carpet, white walls and eight rows of polished light wood benches for family members, witnesses and media. Several armed officers lined the room. I sat behind the first two rows, which were reserved for family members. Burlington Free Press reporter Sam Hemingway was sitting next to me and wanted to talk. He was a very tall, soft-spoken man with a mustache and a worn tweed blazer. Trying to nudge me into giving him a quote, he said people close to the case were "upset" with O'Reilly's aggressive reporting and "wanted to know what my response was." I told him to call Fox News in New York for a comment. He got up and changed seats.

The family of the little girl soon began to shuffle in and sit in the reserved rows. The victim's mother and grandmother sat in the first row behind the prosecution table. The mother didn't dress up for the hearing, wearing casual clothing instead with no makeup. Her husband, the victim's stepfather, was a man with dark and closely cropped hair in jeans and a black t-shirt--he didn't sit next to his wife. He took off his coat and sat in the row behind her instead. About ten friends, family and supporters surrounded them in the first two rows. No one else approached them.

Mark Hulett, the convicted sex offender, walked into the courtroom 40 minutes later. Head down and shoulders slumped, he sunk into his seat at the defense table. He wore a dark blue jail uniform and his hands were cuffed. His brown ponytail was pulled back tight and his pointed beard jutted out from his chin like a Hell's Angel. Strong and thick-set, Hulett turned and checked out who was seated in the courtroom behind him. I looked him in the eye and he looked away. The room was filled with about 70 people.

Judge Cashman entered the courtroom at 9:15am. He is bald, round and pale, with a short white beard and thick glasses. "All rise!" said the clerk. After some initial testimony from a staffer at the Department of Corrections, State Attorney Bob Simpson stood up and made his case that Cashman's initial 60-day sentence was "illegal." His voice was very soft, but he was very compelling and everyone in the room was completely attentive. "He stole her life," said Simpson. "This court is hostile to punishment," he charged, addressing the judge himself. Cashman looked at the family and back at the prosecutor, but kept his silence. Punishment that fits the crime "sends the message that certain things won't be tolerated in this society." Hulett seemed to feign disinterest and even stifled a yawn while Simpson spoke.

Defense attorney Mark Kaplan then spoke. While Kaplan was making his argument, Cashman took sips of water, his eyes wandered and he often looked at the victim's family. I noticed Hulett looking at the mother at one point, but couldn't see if she was looking back. Hulett's attorney said, "The court doesn't have an obligation to punish someone." The family shifted in their seats. They stretched and fidgeted, and the mother turned back to the stepfather; they just rolled their eyes and shook their heads.

When the defense rested, the prosecution asked the judge if they could respond briefly. Bob Simpson stood again and said "just desserts," "punishment" or "retribution" isn't just embraced by "the rabble." Punishment isn't "barbaric." It's "the core of our system, our tradition, and our constitution."

Judge Cashman then pulled out a sheet of paper and began to read a prepared statement. "The Department of Corrections has now offered a sentencing option in this case that includes sex offender treatment during imprisonment [] Mark Hulett shall serve a term of imprisonment [] of not less than three years and no more than ten years." He didn't address the storm of controversy his initial sentence had created and said nothing to the family in the courtroom.

The observers packing the courtroom started buzzing, and reporters began to run out to the hallway to make calls and file their stories. The defense asked for a recess so they could ask Hulett if he'd accept the sentence, or if he wanted to withdraw his guilty plea and go to trial. As people moved out, the parents looked dazed, and I don't think they completely understood what was happening. They and the prosecution team went into a private room. The defense and Hulett walked out a guarded side door. Other reporters and I talked out in the hallway about how Cashman appeared to have made up his mind before the hearing since he'd read from a prepared text. Even the tougher sentence imposed by Cashman would hardly send Hulett away for a long time. Adam Silverman from the Burlington Free Press explained to me that if Hulett stayed out of trouble and completed in-prison sex offender treatment, he'd probably be out in just three years. But would Hulett even accept the new sentence?

Fifteen minutes later, we were called back inside. Defense attorney Mark Kaplan said Hulett had agreed to the newly imposed jail term. I immediately Blackberried the news to Factor producers in New York. The victim's relatives hugged. The case was finally over.

The family left the courtroom first. They did not speak to the press and did not want to be on camera. The prosecution team came out next. State Attorney Bob Simpson said he was "satisfied" with the sentence, although he would have preferred at least eight years. Simpson said the victim's family was "pleased" with the decision. Defense attorney Mark Kaplan told the press that he thought the sentence was "fair." I invited him to be on The Factor, but he declined.

Over an hour later, I heard from Bill O'Reilly who had decided to follow up with Mark Kaplan. He told me to find him and get some more answers. I drove to his office three blocks away, parked outside and took the elevator up to his suite. His secretary asked if I had an appointment, and I said no. Kaplan was talking to a partner in an office within earshot. He walked over and told me to leave. But then he changed his mind and reluctantly agreed to sit down with me. "I'm not a big fan of your boss," he said as we entered an empty conference room. We sat down and I asked him if he was "proud" to have gotten a convicted child molester off with only three years. He said it was an "honor" for him to represent Hulett. "Do you feel guilty at all for what you did?" I questioned him. "Not at all," he said.

Next, another try at getting to Cashman. After talking to Kaplan, I drove to the judge's home and parked outside. About 45 minutes later, a car pulled towards the house with Cashman inside. I hustled out of the car, but Cashman was already headed towards the door. "Why did you give him only three years!?" I yelled. "It still seems pretty light!" He quickly ducked inside and slammed the door shut. The case may be over for Judge Cashman, but calls for his resignation continue to echo in the halls of the state house.

One final detail: Derek Kimball, the other man accused along with Hulett of molesting the little girl, has a hearing on February 17th.

The Factor will continue its reporting.

Jesse Watters has been a producer for The OReilly Factor since 2003. Before joining Fox News, Watters worked on political campaigns and in finance. He received a B.A. in History from Trinity College (Hartford, CT) in 2001. Watters was born and raised in Philadelphia and moved to New York in 1995.

Producer's Notebook: The Judge Cashman Story

2006-01-12T23:18:16Z

The story began with a tragic case of sexual abuse and seemingly ended with a guilty plea in a Vermont courtroom. Thirty-four-year old Mark Hulett pled guilty to aggravated sexual assault on his close friend's daughter. The attacks occurred from the time she was six years old until she turned ten. In front of Judge Edward Cashman, prosecutor Nicole Andreson asked that Hulett be sentenced to 8-20 years in prison, but on January 4th, Judge Cashman surprised everyone there by sentencing him to only 60 days in jail and ordered him to complete sex offender treatment after his release. At the hearing, Cashman explained, "...[punishment] accomplishes nothing of value... and it costs us a lot of money." Hulett will be out in 2 months.

The Factor called Cashman's office on January 5th, but the Judge declined to speak to us. Bill O'Reilly sent me to Burlington, VT on Sunday morning to try to talk to him in person. My crew and I parked outside of his house at 6:30am and waited for him to wake up. A police car pulled up an hour later and approached our van. "What are you guys doing?" the cop asked. I explained that we were from Fox News and we were waiting for an interview. It was obvious the officer already knew we were there to see the judge. "Some of the neighbors called and said a suspicious van was parked outside so I came to check it out. Are you local or national Fox News?" I said we were national and the officer smiled and drove away.

At about 9:00am, we saw Cashman peeking out of the 2nd floor window at us. A few minutes later, he opened his door to grab the paper; I announced I was from the O'Reilly Factor, there to discuss the case. He ducked back inside and slammed the door. "He won't talk to you?" a voice behind me said. I turned around and noticed the judge's neighbor standing on his porch. "He should be struck from the bench for letting that pervert loose," yelled the neighbor.

I knocked on Cashman's door for a few minutes, but he still wouldn't come out. I finally phoned him and explained I wasn't going away. He reconsidered, and stepped outside in his sweatsuit. In front of our cameras, he said he couldn't talk to the media about the case because "the case was still pending." "Do you want to come in for a cup of coffee?" he asked. I was surprised at the invitation but went in.

When I got into the judge's living room, his phone rang. When the judge didn't answer the phone, his answering machine went on and a message started playing out loud: "This message is for Judge Cashman. You've got to hope none of your daughters ever get hurt and I hope they never get a judge like you. Because it's unbelievable to let a rapist of children go. You're just a despicable man. May you rot in hell." Everyone in the room fell silent. Cashman and I just stared at each other. He then began to explain himself.

"Eight out of ten people that come into criminal court just did some stupid thing and got caught," he said. "They're embarrassed as hell and they just want to get out of there as quickly as possible. You know the type because you saw them in high school. They're into drugs, into alcohol, have multiple children from multiple relationships... but you need to have empathy. Reasonable people some times make irrational decisions. We all do it. It's not an 'us against them' mentality anymore. At one point in my career I was all about 'just desserts.' It may feel good to knock someone over the head with a 2x4 like John Wayne but it's not productive."

Cashman continued, "I don't mean to get biblical, but you can see it in their eyes. I've been a judge for a long time and you can tell who's scary and who just made a mistake. Locking everyone up is expensive. We're all in this together." I asked him if he agreed with Jessica's Law, a 25-year mandatory minimum sentence for first time felony sex crime convictions against minors, and he replied, "No... there are too many dimensions and gradations to molestation cases. It's a bad idea."

I thanked him for the coffee and left the house. Then I drove to downtown Burlington to talk to some local folks about the case. Eleven out of twelve people we asked thought the sentence was outrageous. "I'm pregnant and due in June. I honestly fear for my baby's life," said one woman. An angry man huffed, "A typical decision for Vermont." But one lady agreed with the judge's decision. "I thought his statement at the hearing was eloquent and progressive," she said. "He's right on."

We reviewed the facts Monday morning in the newsroom. I booked Vermont state Senator Wendy Wilton (R) and former sex crimes prosecutor Wendy Murphy to discuss the case with O'Reilly on The Factor. That night, we played something Judge Cashman said at the sentencing hearing: "...to encourage in victims of crime, retribution, as the only response, one, we're not following legislative directives, two, we're wasting state money, and three, we're not solving problems." The Factor called Cashman "the worst judge in America," said the judge's explanation was "unbelievable" and called for him to "step down" from the bench. State Senator Wendy Wilton agreed and said she hoped Cashman was impeached.

The next day, all hell broke loose in Vermont. State Rep. Kurt Wright (R) introduced a resolution that called for Cashman to resign, and other legislators called for the judge's impeachment. But on January 11th, House Speaker Gaye Symington (D) would not let the resignation resolution be voted on. She sent it to committee and it's unclear when, if ever, it'll be brought to a vote.

Vermont Governor Jim Douglas (R) stated, "A criminal court judge who no longer believes in punishment should consider a career change or retirement." But Judge Cashman filed an order with the court and stuck by his 60 day sentence. "...I am aware that the intensity of some public criticism may shorten my judicial career. To change my decision now, however, simply because of some negative sentiment, would be wrong. I owe it to the judiciary and to my own conscience to maintain a stand that I believe is the best possible option in a very difficult situation."

Under Vermont law, only repeat sex offenders, people who molest their own children or those with prior criminal records, can receive sex offender treatment while in prison. Since Mark Hulett didn't fall under these categories, he was deemed "low-risk" and wasn't eligible for in-prison treatment. Cashman said since Hulett wouldn't receive in-prison treatment, he should serve only 60 days. The judge wrote if Hulett spent a long time in prison without treatment, he'd eventually come out a "hardened, untreated sex offender" who would be "alienated from the fundamental social values we are trying to promote." Cashman said the 8 years sought by the prosecutor was "self-defeating." He believed giving Hulett only 60 days would allow him to begin treatment immediately upon release. This approach would "respect the dignity" of Hulett so he could "achieve [his] successful return" to the community. The judge wrote that his sentence "respects the individuality of the defendant," who "stands before the court as a human being, not as a stereotype." Cashman called his sentence "a fair and rational approach to provide Mr. Hulett with a meaningful opportunity to reform." Cashman also concluded that his sentence saves the state money: "If a well supervised probation scheme, with a much reduced cost, can protect us as well as close custody incarceration can, this option should be available."

The story doesn't end there. On January 11th, the state of Vermont offered to provide sex offender treatment in prison to Mark Hulett so that Judge Cashman would have no excuse not to impose a lengthier sentence. And while Cashman may or may not reconsider, he now faces calls for his resignation from the largest newspaper in the state. The prosecutor is asking the judge to reconsider his sentence this Friday.

The Factor will continue its reporting.

Jesse Watters has been a producer for The OReilly Factor since 2003. Before joining Fox News, Watters worked on political campaigns and in finance. He received a B.A. in History from Trinity College (Hartford, CT) in 2001. Watters was born and raised in Philadelphia and moved to New York in 1995.