Today Show – NBC – 09/08/10
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Today Show – NBC – 09/07/10
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Joran van der Sloot interviewed on Dutch TV
Birmingham, Al (WIAT) Joran van der Sloot is still waiting to find out if a three judge panel will throw out his murder confession, but he’s been using some of that time to be interviewed by Dutch TV.
According to Radio Netherlands Worldwide, van der Sloot has been interviewed by a Dutch crime reporter, John van den Heuvel, at the infamous high security Miguel Castro Castro prison in the Peruvian capital Lima.
Click here to read entire article
Appeals panel considers van der Sloot’s confession
By the CNN Wire Staff
August 20, 2010 6:39 p.m. EDT
(CNN) — A panel of Peruvian judges is considering whether to uphold the confession of Joran van der Sloot, who is accused of killing a 21-year-old woman.
The three-judge appellate panel is expected to hand down a decision in about a week.
“We believe we did a good job demonstrating that there wasn’t an official translator and that his attorney (at the time of the confession) did not have a document accrediting her as his attorney,” van der Sloot’s attorney, Maximo Altez Navarro, told In
Session on Friday.
Van der Sloot is jailed pending trial on charges of first-degree murder and robbery in the May 30 death in of Stefany Flores, a 21-year-old student.
Joran van der Sloot: Crazy Like a Faux
August 3, 2010
It seems that Joran van der Sloot, having claimed, fruitlessly, that his detailed confession to the murder of Stefany Flores was a) coerced, b) improperly translated/misunderstood by his translator, is now going for c) an insanity defense.
It won’t work.
Maximo Altez, Joran’s lawyer, has stated that Joran is a sick fellow. Well, (more…)
Van der Sloot Update: Where is Stephany Flores’ Missing $11,000?
July 13, 2010
NEW YORK (CBS) Police sources in Peru have disclosed to CBS News that Stephany Flores, Joran van der Sloot’s alleged Peruvian murder victim, had won approximately $10,000 at casinos in the week leading up to her death and also had been given $1,000 from her father to purchase a laptop that she never got a chance to buy.
But police sources say that this money has never been found.
Flores reportedly kept her money in the glove compartment of her car. Police documents dated June 3 obtained by CBS News show the results of the search of Stephany Flores’ car: no money was found in it.
Did Joran van der Sloot take that money?
The sources say that this was the true motive for the brutal murder of Flores: van der Sloot was after her money. Police say this means that van der Sloot’s alleged murder of Flores was premeditated.
But in van der Sloot’s confession – which he subsequently recanted in a Dutch newspaper – police say he told them that he became enraged after Flores found information on his laptop about his links to the disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway.
According to Peruvian newspaper La Republica, van der Sloot told police, “I did not want to do it. The girl intruded into my private life. She had no right. I went to her and I hit her. She was scared. We argued and she tried to escape. I grabbed her by the neck and I hit her.”
Crimesider spoke with ex-FBI agent Paul Lindsay, who worked for many years investigating serial killers. Lindsay believes that if reports of van der Sloot’s confession are accurate, van der Sloot created the story of the e-mail and the confrontation as a way to justify his actions.
Police say he smashed in the face of Flores, the student he met playing poker before leading her back to his hotel room. According to police, van der Sloot then strangled her, threw her to the floor and emptied her wallet.
Stephany Flores’ death occurred exactly five years after Alabama teen Natalee Holloway disappeared in Aruba, a case which van der Sloot is the main suspect. The Dutchman faces charges of first-degree murder and robbery for the May 30 death of Stephany Flores.
Joran van der Sloot led high-stakes life in South America
Now under arrest for the murder of a woman in Peru, Joran van der Sloot — the prime suspect in the Natalee Holloway case — led a life of high stakes.
BY SIOBHAN MORRISSEY AND JIM WYSS
jwyss@MiamiHerald.com
Joran van der Sloot was a gambler.
Even as the young man was hounded by suspicions and cameras for his role in the disappearance of Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway five years ago, he could be found at poker tables on two continents.
As he sat in a Chilean jail Thursday on charges that he murdered a young woman in Lima, Peru earlier this week, those who know him describe van der Sloot as an athletic and arrogant young man with a yearning for women and risk that led him across the globe.
Van der Sloot met Holloway when he was just 17 at a card table in Aruba. It was one of the last times she would be seen alive. Van der Sloot remains the prime suspect in that case. Five years to the day — on Sunday — video cameras would show van der Sloot leaving a poker tournament in Lima with 21-year-old Stephany Flores.
On Tuesday, she was found with a broken neck and wrapped in a blanket at a Lima hotel just a few blocks from the casino. Two days later, van der Sloot’s luck ran out when police in Chile detained the 22-year-old fugitive as he traveled between the resort town of Viña del Mar and the capital, Santiago.
Dressed in a black-hooded sweat shirt and with his brown hair closely cropped, van der Sloot was seen walking calmly and uncuffed into a Chilean police station escorted by three officers.
Van der Sloot’s attorney in New York, Joe Tacopina, cautioned against rushing to judgment.
“Joran van der Sloot has been falsely accused of murder once before,” Tacopina told The Associated Press. “The fact is he wears a bull’s-eye on his back now and he’s a quote-unquote usual suspect when it comes to allegations of foul play.”
Also Thursday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Alabama received an arrest warrant against van der Sloot on wire fraud and extortion charges. Money was wired from a Birmingham institution in May to Joran van der Sloot after he requested $250,000 in exchange for the whereabouts of Holloway’s remains and the circumstances relating to her death, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorneys office.
The information he provided was false, the release said.
SEEN GAMBLING
Noah Acre was playing Texas hold ‘em in the Asia Pacific Poker Tour in Macau in 2009 when he saw van der Sloot sitting across the table.
Recognizing the tall Dutchman from the round-the-clock television coverage that the Holloway case generated, he recalls van der Sloot did not seem shy about his notoriety.
He wore a loud, multicolored jacket with the logo of L.A. Café — a seedy Manila bar and brothel — and was surrounded by an entourage of young men.
Acre asked van der Sloot why he kept dealing with the media after being burned by a Dutch journalist who released hidden-camera footage that seemed to show him confessing to disposing of Holloway’s body.
“Because they gave me money,” he responded.
“I am pretty good at sizing people up quickly,” Acre said of the man he spoke to several times during the week-long tournament. “He seemed like all he cared about was partying and getting girls. . . . The whole Natalee Holloway thing didn’t seem to weigh on him one bit.”
BIGGER PLANS
Things might have been different.
Van der Sloot, the eldest of three sons, had originally planned to attend university in Florida.
But after his arrest and subsequent release, he returned to his native Holland where he studied business. He didn’t stay out of the limelight for long. Hounded by tabloids and television cameras, he traveled to New York to give a televised account of his involvement with Holloway.
When Acre met him in Macau, van der Sloot claimed to live in Thailand. The same Dutch journalist who had taped him claims van der Sloot was in Bangkok selling Thai women into prostitution in the Netherlands.
As early as last summer, van der Sloot moved again.
“The last time I spoke to his mother, she said he was in South America,” Magda Frans, the secretary at the Aruba Racquet Club, told The Miami Herald.
Joran and his father, Paulus, played doubles tennis at the club, she said.
The night before he was arrested for the first time in Holloway’s disappearance, he played doubles tennis with his father in the Moet & Chandon Anniversary Cup tournament, Frans said.
“They lost,” she said.
The match took place at 7:30 p.m. June 8, 2005. Some 10 hours later, Aruban police arrested him. The day was supposed to be memorable for other reasons: He was to graduate with honors that evening from the International School of Aruba.
It was a double blow to his mother, Anita, who taught at the school.
When reached at her home, Anita van der Sloot sounded composed and tried to politely dismiss inquiries about her son.
She has two other sons, Valentijn and Sebastian. She is now a widow. Her husband died suddenly last February playing tennis.
“I don’t know anything,” Anita told The Miami Herald. “I haven’t been in contact with Joran for a long time, not since his dad died.”
Peruvian authorities say van der Sloot traveled to Argentina and Colombia before arriving in Lima on May 14 for the Latin American Poker Tour.
Stephany Flores’ father, Ricardo, said Thursday he hoped van der Sloot’s capture would bring solace to others beyond his family.
“This is not just about my daughter,” he told reporters in Lima. “There is also the case in Aruba that is pending and we don’t know how many more.”
On MySpace and Facebook pages that appear to have been created by van der Sloot, the young man seems to have the tastes of most men his age.
He is a fan of the South Park television show, scantily clad women, the late rapper Notorious B.I.G. and President Barack Obama.
He’s also a member of a Facebook page called “If I could turn back the time” where users share their biggest regrets. If van der Sloot had any, he didn’t show his cards there.
What makes van der Sloot tick?
Birmingham, Al (WIAT) What makes Joran van der Sloot tick? Perhaps more urgently, is he a crazed pyscho killer preying on young women?
Although two grieving families, one in Peru and one here in Alabama, would like answers of their own, a team of Peruvian psychologists will be grilling van der Sloot at Lima’s Castro Castro prison this week.
According to Peru.com, a team of experts were to visit the accused killer this week as part of the criminal proceedings unfolding against the Dutchman.
RadarOnLine.com says Van der Sloot’s Peruvian attorney said that the defense will submit their own psychological profiles on van der Sloot, dating back to his childhood.
As previously reported here on CBS42.com, van der Sloot’s own mother has questioned his sanity.
Van der Sloot is accused of murdering 21 year old Stephany Flores….found dead in van der Sloot’s Lima hotel room after spending time with him in a casino. Peruvian police have a ton of evidence including security camera video showing Flores going into the room but only van der Sloot coming back out. They also have a confession in which van der Sloot walked them through the murder scene. That’s a confession he is now trying to have thrown out claiming coercion and improper legal representation.
Van der Sloot is also the prime suspect in disappearance in Aruba of Mountain Brook teenager Natalee Holloway five years ago. The last person known to be with Natalee? Joran van der Sloot. He was questioned but never charged by Aruban authorities.
Today Show – NBC – 07/01/10
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Family and friends remember Peru murder victim
June 30, 2010
Lima, Peru – Today marks one month since the murder of 21-year old Stephany Flores. So much is happening on the legal front and personally with her close friends and family.
Ricardo Flores, the father of Stephany, is meeting with Judge Carlos Morales Cordova, to give his formal “declaration.” In the United States we would call this a sworn affidavit or statement , but what makes this all so unusual by American standards, is that in our courts the prosecution builds their case and investigates along with police who would also be interviewing potential witnesses.
Here in Peru, although the prosecution is still very much involved with the investigation, it is the judge who is the primary fact finder. Although the Peruvian penal code is gradually changing to give prosecutors more power, at this point it is Judge Cordova who personally takes those formal statements.
Mr. Flores, along with the rest of his family, were the ones who alerted police that Stephany had not come home on May 29, 2010, and aided law enforcement in the search for his daughter, whose body was ultimately found on June 2, 2010, in the hotel room registered to Joran van der Sloot.
The family will have a memorial service Wednesday night.
On the defense front, Maximo Altez, the attorney for van der Sloot filed his formal appeal today in the 20th “juzgado” court here in Lima. This is the same court that rejected his Writ of Habeas Corpus. If they do not rule in his favor this time, he has told us he will be going to the highest court in the country, Peru’s Supreme Court.
On a very personal note, I recently met with close girlfriends to Stephany Flores. They have never come forward to speak publicly, but wanted to share with me their thoughts and memories of their dear friend.
There were a lot of tears, some laughter and much anger that the life of Stephany was taken, when she had her entire future before her.
They told me she was so intelligent and had tremendous ambitions for great success in the business arena. She once wrote a list of 23 businesses that she wanted to succeed in, and then checked them off one by one as she decided “yes” I will pursue this one, or “no” I’m not interested in this.
They said she came from a very privileged family, but you wouldn’t know it by talking with her, and was extremely giving along with being so very humble about her family’s wealth.
Friends told me she was extremely anti-drug and when I told them (to their surprise) that official reports say amphetamines were found in Stephany’s system, they said Stephany wouldn’t associate with people who did drugs and was adamant about her feelings on the issue.
They said they still cannot believe she is gone and that the University of Lima is now missing one of its brightest scholars. They say this is one reason why they are so angry.
The last thing Stephany said to them was that she was the happiest she had ever been in her life. She had her new car, her goals, her adored family and her friends.
Her friends say they don’t understand why she went to the room with van der Sloot, but do not believe it was to play online poker. They wish they could turn back time and stop her from going… but they never thought something like this would happen to someone so dear. They do not believe she even had a chance to fight back that night.
When I asked them all, if convicted, how much time should van der Sloot serve? Their answer was a unanimous “life in prison.” They know, however, a life term is rare in Peru and are very concerned, if convicted, van der Sloot will actually serve even less than ten years behind bars in Peru.
–Jean Casarez, In Session on truTV
