Natalee Case Discussion #733 2/17 - 2/21/08

[klaasend]

[AZSunny]

Wow,  Dana is really brining in the big guns!  It will be a great show!

[Sue]

sounds like John Gibson will be covering case  5 pm eastern time

[Tamikosmom]

sounds like John Gibson will be covering case  5 pm eastern time

Thank you Sue.

John Gibson is one talk show host who has never wavered in his support of Natalee's family in their quest for answers.

It sure is a quiet day in the Monkey cage.  I wish there was more of an outrage expressed in the media from Americans to the judicial ruling regarding the Peter Devries' video record.

Anyways ... gorgeous day in British Columbia, Canada.  Hubby and I are off for a walk with friends around the sea wall of beautiful Stanley Park.  Late start ... maybe only time to cover 1/2 of the 6 mile walk before dark.

Later, Janet
2:00 PM

[bleachedblack]

“Break-in and Ransacked!”
Holiday Inn Sunspree Resort

andrea2008
toronto
Jan 24, 2008
17/18 found this review helpful

This was my family's fourth visit to Aruba, and our third visit to the Holiday Inn. For the second year in a row, we were among a group of twenty-six people.
On our last night of the trip my sister and I found ourselves being locked out of our own room – our key card, instead of letting us in , flashed in error red and green. Reception informed us that red and green flashing meant our key was broken, and said they would send maintenance up to help. After half-hour of waiting, security came up and informed us that this flashing actually meant our room was locked from the inside. But, how could this be? We are the only ones with keys to our own room, right? Wrong. Wouldn't the front desk know what red and green flashing lights mean? One would hope so. Security broke off the latch that was locked from the inside, for us to find all of our clothes, gifts, shoes, toiletries scattered all over the room. We were one of four rooms broken into that night, and the hotel was aware of this fact when we informed them we could not get into our room. They were aware of this fact while they made us wait half-hour to get in to our own room.
Over $4000 worth of items were stolen. My sister and I were very shaken up, and my parents were worried and upset.
Who ever got into our room had a key, and walked easily into our front door, and escaped from the balcony. Where would these burglars have gotten a key? I will leave that up to you readers to ponder.
We have written letters to the Holiday Inn Aruba, and Holiday Inn head office, only for them to tell us that they are not responsible for any of our items.
Aruba used to be a very safe place, maybe it still is, and maybe we were unlucky. After the ordeal, we were told that the Holiday Inn is the worst hotel on the island for security - they have none!
I'm glad that neither my sister nor I were in the room when it happened, and that we were lucky enough to have lost materials items only.It would have been nice to have been reimbursed for our belongings as well as the last night of our trip, since the last night was no trip.
It was scary to know that we had been contributing to the reputation (and revenue) of an island and hotel chain which, when something goes wrong, is anything but helpful. Furthermore, the values that the Holiday Inn stands for do not incorporate the safety or contentment of its guests.

[crazybabyborg]

Natalee Case coming up on The Big Story/FOX

[crazybabyborg]

Well...........They SAID it was coming up just before the last commercial! Actually the teaser was "Who do prosecutors say they want to talk to now in the Natalee Holloway case? And will Joran Van der Sloot be free from prosecution even if he never goes to trial?"

[Observer]

Thanks BB:

Thats unfortunate to hear about Andrea's trip. People should know that a convicted Fellon and Known Mobster owns that Hotel. He doesn't care about anything except money. Doesn't suprise me at all that the Holiday Inn Sun Spree has no security and if something did happen to you there,they will handle like Mobsters.

[bleachedblack]

Thanks BB:

Thats unfortunate to hear about Andrea's trip. People should know that a convicted Fellon and Known Mobster owns that Hotel. He doesn't care about anything except money. Doesn't suprise me at all that the Holiday Inn Sun Spree has no security and if something did happen to you there,they will handle like Mobsters.

Yep, "a sunny place for shady people.......".

[crazybabyborg]

Naturally, my phone rang as I was waiting for coverage on John Gibson's show and I couldn't watch for a few minutes!  Has he covered it yet?

[Observer]

Thanks BB:

Thats unfortunate to hear about Andrea's trip. People should know that a convicted Fellon and Known Mobster owns that Hotel. He doesn't care about anything except money. Doesn't suprise me at all that the Holiday Inn Sun Spree has no security and if something did happen to you there,they will handle like Mobsters.

Yep, "a sunny place for shady people.......".

  Did you ever get a chance to go to Brickel Bay at all when you visited Aruba? I heard it had a bunch of mob looking people running its daily operations.

[klaasend]

Posted by Heli at RU:

The Big Story
John Gibson
February 20, 2008

Guest: Geraldo Rivera

Heatehr:

Why the legal drama over Joran van der Sloot's videotaped confession is not over after all, plus what Natalee's mother Beth is planning to do to try to bring Joran to justice once and for all.

Fox's Geraldo Rivera will react next, on The Big Story.

New developments tonight in the Natalee Holloway case. Aruba has just summoned the man who got Joran van der Sloot to fess up about Holloway's disappearance for questioning as a possible witness in the case. Prosecutors say Patrick van der Eem who has already spoken to the media and now he must answer their questions. If he doesn't comply, they're threatening to arrest him but he says he has no problem telling investigators what he already know.

Gibson:

Van der Eem has apparently just signed a book deal to cash in some more on Joran's big mouth and it's reported that it's due out in September and will be called "Disposed".

Meanwhile, Natalee Holloway's mother Beth still wants van der Sloot re-arrested but she's now considering filing a civil suit against him to take all his money away from him.

With us now for more of these developments is Fox's At Large's host, Geraldo Rivera.

So, first of all, prosecutor wants to talk to this guy who essentially taped Joran. Why?

Geraldo:

Well assuming he wants to corroborate some of the information on the tapes. John, it's not unreasonable for him to ask. What I find ironic is his tough guy attitude towards this informant, towards Patrick van der Eem. He's saying that if he doesn't voluntarily go for, he's in Aruba right now, Patrick is, if he doesn't come to them and spill the beans, everything he knows, he could be arrested. So it's ironic that here's Aruba threatening to arrest the informant and they won't arrest Joran van der Sloot.

So to me it's just another kind of little niche example of a corrupt judicial system, one that has made up its mind that it's not going to vigorously pursue this case.

Heather:

Natalee Holloway's mom, now she's threatening to file a civil suit; they've done that before in the United States and the Judge tossed it out. Presumably this suit would be in The Netherlands, so what does Natalee Holloway's mom expect to get from this?

Geraldo:

It's a great question Heather. Two lawsuits, they sued the Kalpoe brothers in California, that lawsuit was dismissed. They sued Joran here in New York and that lawsuit was dismissed for basically the same reason. There's no jurisdiction, neither New York nor Los Angeles had anything to do with Natalee's disappearance which happened in Aruba.

Now, I don't believe this story. This is a lawyer named Bram Moskowicz, he's kind of a tv flashy lawyer in Europe. He had someone call Beth we think and said 'do you want us to sue the lawsuit?' She said 'sure' but I don't think there's any lawsuit.

The problem is twofold. Number 1: there's very limited discovery in Aruba and The Netherlands in a wrongful death suit of this sort, so that's why John Q Kelly, the real lawyer is waiting for the disposition of the criminal case to have a record. Second: in a wrongful death lawsuit there as opposed to here, they call it economic feasibility, there's real financial limitation in the amount of money you can recover. The best hope is still that Joran gets busted, that corroborating evidence is found to corroborate that confession and he's re-arrested but it's a very, very difficult burden.

Heather:

They're saying they hope to find him guilty of committing an unlawful act; is that different from wrongful death, is there a lower bar perhaps?

Geraldo:

No, no the problem Heather is in Aruba and The Netherlands there's no jury, it's a Judge, in this case a 3 Judge panel so there would be no emotional value, the Judges would look askance.

Remember Paulus van der Sloot was Judge in Aruba and in fact, after he was arrested for 4 days the son of a gun got $30,000.00 in damages from Aruba which shows you the prejudice and certainly the preference of the aruban judiciary towards the defendants not the plaintiffs.  (Geraldo is a bit behind here since this award was appealed and PVDS got zero)

Gibson:

Geraldo Rivera At Large, don't miss the show. Thanks very much

[martini]

Copied from the Today paper NA  Feb. 18th

This might be old news but I wanted to post it anyway~

No Custody for Van der Sloot~

Oranjestad- After the prosecutor appealed the decision of examing magistrate not to detain Joran van der Sloot, the Common Court of Justice of the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba announced last week that Joran van der sloot will not be arrested again in the Holloway-case. After having examined the possible slanderous image-and sound recording in secret by the editorial office of Dutch crime journalist Peter R.Vries, the court says that there is not enough material to charge him. The court can in any case not really answer the question whether based on that, the suspect must be taken into preventive custody. The court considered that Van der Sloot has made several inconsistent statements, "whereby it appeared more than once that they could not be objectively confirmed' Van der Sloot's statement that he made up everything he said in Devries' programme led to the court to believe that the suspect has a 'serious personality problem.'

Yes, it's old but worth a repost...thanks!

continued from Today Monday, February 18, 2008

No custody for Van der Sloot

The court questioned the verity of this statement, while we could have arrested him a third time, explained district attorney Dop Kruimel. Some of the things he (Joran) said were partly consistent with justice's own investigation. Others were not though, like the boat he mentioned; that has not been found yet. The OM has no statutory remedies left against the decision. The investigation in the Holloway case will continue with 25 detectives working on it and Van der Sloot remains the suspect. The OM will decide on further prosecution of Van der Sloot after it completes the investigation. According to his lawyer Bert De Rooij, Joran van der Sloot is not well off. He is in hiding and is constantly being threatened. Whether that is in the Netherlands or in Aruba, is not known. The lawyer said that he is not hiding from the police, but for the people's tribunal. He has serious reasons to believe that he won't make it across the street if we let him go free. Crime journalist Peter R. de Vries said that not arresting Joran equals a reward for undermining the police investigation. He also does not understand that the Court does not want to arrest him because it is under the impression that Joran is a consistent liar. "The fact that a person constantly lies in a case of life and death, is precisely a motive to keep him locked behind bars."

[bleachedblack]

Thanks BB:

Thats unfortunate to hear about Andrea's trip. People should know that a convicted Fellon and Known Mobster owns that Hotel. He doesn't care about anything except money. Doesn't suprise me at all that the Holiday Inn Sun Spree has no security and if something did happen to you there,they will handle like Mobsters.

Yep, "a sunny place for shady people.......".

  Did you ever get a chance to go to Brickel Bay at all when you visited Aruba? I heard it had a bunch of mob looking people running its daily operations.

Nope can't say that I have ever been to that hotel.

[Dayhiker]

Thanks BB:

Thats unfortunate to hear about Andrea's trip. People should know that a convicted Fellon and Known Mobster owns that Hotel. He doesn't care about anything except money. Doesn't suprise me at all that the Holiday Inn Sun Spree has no security and if something did happen to you there,they will handle like Mobsters.

I appreciate Andrea's post but I believe I would have been a hell of a lot madder than that. The words "Never going back to Aruba" and "Botcott Aruba" would have been spewing from my mouth if one of my siblings and I lost $4,000.00 worth of valuables and the hotel and law enforcement did nothing. In fact, they apparenetly knew she'd been broken into and didn't do shit.

[Dayhiker]

Posted by Heli at RU:

The Big Story
John Gibson
February 20, 2008

Guest: Geraldo Rivera

Heatehr:

Why the legal drama over Joran van der Sloot's videotaped confession is not over after all, plus what Natalee's mother Beth is planning to do to try to bring Joran to justice once and for all.

Fox's Geraldo Rivera will react next, on The Big Story.

New developments tonight in the Natalee Holloway case. Aruba has just summoned the man who got Joran van der Sloot to fess up about Holloway's disappearance for questioning as a possible witness in the case. Prosecutors say Patrick van der Eem who has already spoken to the media and now he must answer their questions. If he doesn't comply, they're threatening to arrest him but he says he has no problem telling investigators what he already know.

Gibson:

Van der Eem has apparently just signed a book deal to cash in some more on Joran's big mouth and it's reported that it's due out in September and will be called "Disposed".

Meanwhile, Natalee Holloway's mother Beth still wants van der Sloot re-arrested but she's now considering filing a civil suit against him to take all his money away from him.

With us now for more of these developments is Fox's At Large's host, Geraldo Rivera.

So, first of all, prosecutor wants to talk to this guy who essentially taped Joran. Why?

Geraldo:

Well assuming he wants to corroborate some of the information on the tapes. John, it's not unreasonable for him to ask. What I find ironic is his tough guy attitude towards this informant, towards Patrick van der Eem. He's saying that if he doesn't voluntarily go for, he's in Aruba right now, Patrick is, if he doesn't come to them and spill the beans, everything he knows, he could be arrested. So it's ironic that here's Aruba threatening to arrest the informant and they won't arrest Joran van der Sloot.

So to me it's just another kind of little niche example of a corrupt judicial system, one that has made up its mind that it's not going to vigorously pursue this case.

Heather:

Natalee Holloway's mom, now she's threatening to file a civil suit; they've done that before in the United States and the Judge tossed it out. Presumably this suit would be in The Netherlands, so what does Natalee Holloway's mom expect to get from this?

Geraldo:

It's a great question Heather. Two lawsuits, they sued the Kalpoe brothers in California, that lawsuit was dismissed. They sued Joran here in New York and that lawsuit was dismissed for basically the same reason. There's no jurisdiction, neither New York nor Los Angeles had anything to do with Natalee's disappearance which happened in Aruba.

Now, I don't believe this story. This is a lawyer named Bram Moskowicz, he's kind of a tv flashy lawyer in Europe. He had someone call Beth we think and said 'do you want us to sue the lawsuit?' She said 'sure' but I don't think there's any lawsuit.

The problem is twofold. Number 1: there's very limited discovery in Aruba and The Netherlands in a wrongful death suit of this sort, so that's why John Q Kelly, the real lawyer is waiting for the disposition of the criminal case to have a record. Second: in a wrongful death lawsuit there as opposed to here, they call it economic feasibility, there's real financial limitation in the amount of money you can recover. The best hope is still that Joran gets busted, that corroborating evidence is found to corroborate that confession and he's re-arrested but it's a very, very difficult burden.

Heather:

They're saying they hope to find him guilty of committing an unlawful act; is that different from wrongful death, is there a lower bar perhaps?

Geraldo:

No, no the problem Heather is in Aruba and The Netherlands there's no jury, it's a Judge, in this case a 3 Judge panel so there would be no emotional value, the Judges would look askance.

Remember Paulus van der Sloot was Judge in Aruba and in fact, after he was arrested for 4 days the son of a gun got $30,000.00 in damages from Aruba which shows you the prejudice and certainly the preference of the aruban judiciary towards the defendants not the plaintiffs.  (Geraldo is a bit behind here since this award was appealed and PVDS got zero)

Gibson:

Geraldo Rivera At Large, don't miss the show. Thanks very much

GLAD TO SEE GERALDO IS AFRAID TO SCREAM THE WORD "CORRUPTION" FROM THE RAFTERS!

[Destiny]

Hey Monks.

I will never go to Aruba...that place now scares me.  I had a *contact* in the KIA prison...the last time I called him, he let me know that it was not safe for us to talk, that the phone system in the KIA was being monitored.  Yep...even spying on their own. 

Destiny

[Tibrogargan]

snipped from post made by Bladerunner, on page 38 this thread, of an excerpt from Aruba Boycott :


    "Recent numbers show that tourism has consistently been down in Aruba and that Aruba has been making up some of the lost US tourism from other countries. Most telling are the reports we are getting from the cruise ship industry which reports lower demand to the Caribbean in general. Aruba has also reported less cruise ship ports of call visits and cruise ship visitors have reported that stores in Aruba are relatively empty compared to past years."

:end of snip:

Aruba not only will have lost the tourism from the USA and other safety conscious countries, but will bring upon themselves the wrath of all other Caribbean islands who are also feeling the drop in tourist numbers owing to the corruption in Aruba.  They will all be considered unsafe to visit - Aruba is truly the bad apple which will rot the rest of apples in that area by association.

[Destiny]

Thanks BB:

Thats unfortunate to hear about Andrea's trip. People should know that a convicted Fellon and Known Mobster owns that Hotel. He doesn't care about anything except money. Doesn't suprise me at all that the Holiday Inn Sun Spree has no security and if something did happen to you there,they will handle like Mobsters.

I appreciate Andrea's post but I believe I would have been a hell of a lot madder than that. The words "Never going back to Aruba" and "Botcott Aruba" would have been spewing from my mouth if one of my siblings and I lost $4,000.00 worth of valuables and the hotel and law enforcement did nothing. In fact, they apparenetly knew she'd been broken into and didn't do shit.

I think the *delay* of a half hour for them to get into their room, was to give the shits robbing the room, time to escape...one big crappy island!

[Tibrogargan]

“Break-in and Ransacked!”
Holiday Inn Sunspree Resort

andrea2008
toronto
Jan 24, 2008
17/18 found this review helpful

This was my family's fourth visit to Aruba, and our third visit to the Holiday Inn. For the second year in a row, we were among a group of twenty-six people.
On our last night of the trip my sister and I found ourselves being locked out of our own room – our key card, instead of letting us in , flashed in error red and green. Reception informed us that red and green flashing meant our key was broken, and said they would send maintenance up to help. After half-hour of waiting, security came up and informed us that this flashing actually meant our room was locked from the inside. But, how could this be? We are the only ones with keys to our own room, right? Wrong. Wouldn't the front desk know what red and green flashing lights mean? One would hope so. Security broke off the latch that was locked from the inside, for us to find all of our clothes, gifts, shoes, toiletries scattered all over the room. We were one of four rooms broken into that night, and the hotel was aware of this fact when we informed them we could not get into our room. They were aware of this fact while they made us wait half-hour to get in to our own room.
Over $4000 worth of items were stolen. My sister and I were very shaken up, and my parents were worried and upset.
Who ever got into our room had a key, and walked easily into our front door, and escaped from the balcony. Where would these burglars have gotten a key? I will leave that up to you readers to ponder.
We have written letters to the Holiday Inn Aruba, and Holiday Inn head office, only for them to tell us that they are not responsible for any of our items.
Aruba used to be a very safe place, maybe it still is, and maybe we were unlucky. After the ordeal, we were told that the Holiday Inn is the worst hotel on the island for security - they have none!
I'm glad that neither my sister nor I were in the room when it happened, and that we were lucky enough to have lost materials items only.It would have been nice to have been reimbursed for our belongings as well as the last night of our trip, since the last night was no trip.
It was scary to know that we had been contributing to the reputation (and revenue) of an island and hotel chain which, when something goes wrong, is anything but helpful. Furthermore, the values that the Holiday Inn stands for do not incorporate the safety or contentment of its guests.

My guess is the half hour delay was to allow the security to finish ransacking the rooms before they answered the call and accompanied the victims to inspect their own handiwork.