Mistress Hires Hit Men from Jail; Father Charged with Murder for Saving Daughter; Bizarre Texas Murder-for-Hire Trial Developments
NANCY GRACE, HOST: Breaking news tonight, live, Texas. A gorgeous Houston socialite, mother of two, living the high life, including a million-dollar estate, a private plane, vacation home. But then she`s ambushed getting into her luxury car, shot point-blank in the stomach. Miracle, she survives. But tonight, we learn it`s not the first time, two previous attempts on the millionaire mom. Bombshell tonight. Police hone in on the murder suspect, all right. It`s Mommy`s high-powered lawyer husband`s mistress and her husband of 21 years. And now, a bizarre, a crazy twist. The mistress takes out another murder hit? Not on the millionaire mom, but the mistress`s lover, Mommy`s husband, the lawyer she cheated with. Come on, ladies! Is this guy really worth it all? And is the mistress caught on tape ordering yet another murder for hire?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Prominent Houston-area attorney accused of plotting to have his wife killed.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He asked his mistress to help kill his wife.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Michelle Gaiser.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That`s her husband`s mistress.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A shocking new twist in the murder-for-hire trial.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As his attorney read from a note he says the mistress wrote...</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Michelle Gaiser from her jail cell has plotted yet another murder.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The mistress is targeting him.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She has solicited an inmate to murder Jeffrey Stern for $20,000.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This case has been full of twists and turns, and now a bombshell.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It needs to look like a robbery gone bad.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Or a knife in the neck. Cut the carotid artery, and it`s over.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yvonne Stern is standing by her man.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Despite the fact that he`s accused of trying to have her killed more than once.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: First it was Yvonne Stern who was constantly watching her back, now it`s her husband.</s>GRACE: And tonight, Daddy catches a child sex predator sexually molesting his 5-year-old little girl, and he punches the perv to death! But now Daddy facing murder charges?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A shocking story out of Texas.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What started as a get-together turned deadly.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A father told authorities that a 47-year-old man...</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Took the girl out into some brush and attempted to molest her.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The father went to look for her and found her half-naked.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The father told police he heard his daughter scream.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She was screaming.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was a fight.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And in a fit of rage.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As the dad punched the man repeatedly in the head.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Beat a man to death.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: With his bare hands.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was trying to get her away from him</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The father has not been arrested.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have the right to protect your daughter and use force to do it.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would have done the same.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He got what he well deserved.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How could this happen? How could you beat a man to death with your bare hands?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The sheriff says a grand jury will decide if the father will be charged in this case.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you think this father should be charged?</s>GRACE: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us. Bombshell tonight, live. Texas police hone in on a murder suspect, all right, Mommy`s high-powered lawyer husband`s mistress and her own husband of 21 years. But now a bizarre twist. The mistress apparently takes out yet another hit, this time on the lover, the lawyer husband she cheated with. Is this guy really worth it all? We are taking your calls. Straight out to John DePetro, WPRO. John, thanks for being with us. I don`t get it. What does this guy have? I mean, I know he`s a high-powered lawyer. He makes a lot of money. There`s the mistress. Oh, yes, she`s crying now. But according to police, she wasn`t crying when she took out not one, not two, but three hits on her lover`s wife. Now, she says hubby helped her. But what can you tell me now, John, about the mistress taking out a hit from behind bars on the lawyer husband?</s>JOHN DEPETRO, WPRO RADIO: Nancy, as if this case couldn`t get any stranger, authorities are wondering, Was this a prison plot? Allegedly, she was trying to entice another inmate, the promise of $20,000, a four- page detailed letter, trying to have the inmate kill her lover and possibly make it seem like it was the wife that did it. This was a very detailed jailhouse letter. And Nancy, if it`s true, it was a prison plot. She will not relent on going after and trying to kill even from behind bars.</s>GRACE: OK, right there, right off the top, John, the facts are crazy and don`t make sense because if she`s trying to get another female inmate to perform a hit, why is she mailing her a letter? She could just yell it down the cellblock. She could meet her in the cafeteria. Why would she mail a letter to a female inmate? I don`t get it. And also, a lot of this is apparently -- this last hit she orders on the man she cheated with, the husband, the lawyer -- on the phone. But I mean, has nobody learned? Didn`t anybody watch the tot mom coverage? They`re taping your calls behind bars, John. Hello!</s>DEPETRO: Nancy, apparently, in the letter, it`s very detailed about his comings and goings, more details about his life. So she felt she need more information to provide to the alleged killer.</s>GRACE: OK, you know what? Let`s take it from the top. John, I`m usually on your side, but just then, you didn`t answer a single question I threw at you. I`m going to give Aaron Smith a chance, anchor, KTRH. All right, Aaron, why would the inmate, the female lover, who apparently is claiming this lawyer was into all kind of deviant sexual practices -- now, who would imagine that from a high-powered, well-respected lawyer? Me! Long story short, in addition to all these crazy deviant sex practices she`s claiming on Jeffrey Stern, she`s saying, A, that he helped organize all three hits on his wife. And now she wants him dead. But if she wanted a female inmate to kill him, why would she send her a letter, Aaron?</s>AARON SMITH, KTRH RADIO (via telephone): Nancy Grace, that`s an absolute wonderful question. You said it right. This guy is a very prominent lawyer in the city of Houston, on one of the richest sides of town, you know, already accused of trying to have his wife killed. Now this mistress turns the table on him, and of all people, she asked an inmate in the jail to try and have him killed. It`s absolutely unbelievable. This was a bombshell yesterday.</s>GRACE: Well, another thing, Aaron Smith, KTRH, he may be rich and high-powered, but according to this woman, he still wanted to play "Spank me, spank me," all right? That`s neither here nor there, but the jury will certainly enjoy hearing about that. I got a lot of questions, Ellie Jostad, about the mistress ordering yet another hit from behind bars. If it`s true, if this letter really exists, why doesn`t Stern, the lawyer`s lawyer, show us the letter? Why is he playing peek-a-boo with the letter? Did you see it? Hey, pull that up, Liz. I want everybody to see the lawyer, the husband`s lawyer. He waves the letter around, but he won`t show it to anybody. Why Ellie?</s>ELLIE JOSTAD, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Well, right, Nancy. And that`s the question we asked. That`s what the reporters who were at this news conference asked. We just get a little flash of the letter there, but they won`t let us see a copy of it. They claim that this inmate actually turned the letter over to authorities, but that the Harris County DA`s office declined to charge the mistress in this new alleged plot. So they say -- this is Stern`s defense team says that they then went to the DoJ, the Department of Justice, went to the FBI. They claim that the FBI has actually authenticated this letter, but the FBI, DA`s office, not commenting.</s>GRACE: OK, Ellie, for the viewers just joining us, this case has taken a bizarre twist. And have you noticed, Ellie, these bizarre twists always happen on the eve of trial, when the high-powered lawyer husband is about to go to trial. The mistress has already accepted a plea. She`s got to formalize it in court. But she`s behind bars, all right? He`s the only one still out, the lawyer husband that had this affair for years and years and years. So every time he`s about to go to trial, something new happens that delays his trial. Take it from the start, Ellie. What happened?</s>JOSTAD: Right. Well, Nancy, there were three attempts on Yvonne Stern`s light -- life, rather. And actually, it started first with someone just driving by and spraying the house with bullets while Yvonne Stern and the two children were sleeping in the house, Jeffrey Stern out of town. Second attempt, Yvonne Stern goes to the door to answer it. Her son is actually right behind her. And a gunman fires at her through the door, just barely missing her. Then that third attempt, she had moved into an apartment building for her own safety. She`s in her vehicle when a third gunman approached her, and this time succeeded in shooting her, but she survived. So there are four other co-defendants that have also been charged. These are gunmen, middlemen (ph), would-be hit men. The husband is charged. The mistress is also charged. But the husband was supposed to go to trial back in April, but then his defense got a delay. They claim they`d been -- just gotten new information about allegations against the mistress. They wanted a delay to examine those. So that`s why this has taken so long to finally go to trial very soon.</s>GRACE: And now that it`s going to trial again, once again, new allegations against the mistress behind bars. OK, put Ellie back up for me. Ellie, what can you tell me about these sexually deviant behavior allegations?</s>JOSTAD: Right. Well, Nancy, in interviews, the mistress`s attorneys claim that there was this four-year grooming process. That`s how they described it on "20/20." They say that Stern controlled everything in Michelle Gaiser, the mistress`s, life, told her what to ear, told her what to eat, that he always said to her, Obedience and subservience, that she was asked to do things that she didn`t feel comfortable with...</s>GRACE: Ellie, Ellie...</s>JOSTAD: Yes?</s>GRACE: ... Ellie, isn`t it true that she claims every morning, the first thing he said to her on the phone, this mistress, is, Obedience...</s>JOSTAD: Right.</s>GRACE: ... subservience?</s>JOSTAD: Exactly. Daily.</s>GRACE: Those were his first two words.</s>JOSTAD: According to her, right. Right. And she says that, you know, the middle of the night, he`d be texting her these elaborate sexual fantasies, that they became more and more sinister, including one where she finally -- and the way she described it to "Texas Monthly," she said that Jeffrey Stern wanted her, the mistress, to take a knife to the wife`s throat, to slit her throat, to cut her breasts, drown her in the pool, very disturbing fantasies. And she says, the mistress, that she thought these fantasies were odd, but she didn`t dare question him. And so then, when it finally escalated to, Go find somebody to hurt my wife, she had no choice but to obey.</s>GRACE: OK, let`s just hold it right there. Unleash lawyers, Ken Padowitz, former homicide prosecutor, Miami, Darryl Cohen, defense attorney, Parag Shah, defense attorney, author, as well, both joining me out of Atlanta. All right, Darryl Cohen -- please -- please put him up. Darryl...</s>DARRYL COHEN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Yes, Nancy?</s>GRACE: So your married boyfriend, this high-powered, high-paid lawyer, somebody kind of like you, starts telling you about his fantasy of you, the mistress, stabbing his wife in her breasts and then throwing her into the family pool to die, and you just go along with it? You want me to believe that? You, as her defense lawyer, want me to believe that? What have you got for me, Darryl?</s>COHEN: What I`ve got for you is, if she was so much under his control or under his power, then she had no choice but to go along with it or she`d lose him.</s>GRACE: You know what?</s>COHEN: I don`t believe that anybody did that. I think that`s part of his deal so can be acquitted, throw out some smoke to put her down. He doesn`t want to lose his wife, doesn`t want to lose his lifestyle. He wants to stay just the way he is. Make it happen.</s>GRACE: OK, Parag, what about it?</s>PARAG SHAH, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: She`s a crazy loon. I mean, you know, she is unstable and...</s>GRACE: That`s your defense?</s>SHAH: The last -- the lett...</s>GRACE: OK, you know what? Thanks, Parag. OK, Ken Padowitz, she`s not a candidate for the insanity defense. I don`t know where Parag came up with that. I think he made it up. What about it? Help me, Ken. What`s the defense?</s>KEN PADOWITZ, FORMER PROSECUTOR: She`s either a fantastic witness for the prosecution -- and the defense for her is that, He made me do all these things. I had to go ahead and do it. And you know, I`m not responsible because of his overpowering way that he handles me.