Heres how it came to be. In may of this year, may 22nd, the New York Times had a scoop that they probably only got because they are specifically the New York Times. They sent crack reporters to an otherwise sleepy courthouse in albany, new york, not a Federal Courthouse, a state court, because that day in that state court in new york, a longtime Business Partner of Michael Cohens, A Taxicab Mogul Named Gene Friedman Who everybody called the taxi king, he was in court. He had been facing really serious charges in new york, Tax Evasion Charges in new york more than 5 million and four criminal counts of tax fraud and facing a charge of grand larceny. A big stack of charges involving a large amount of money and potentially a large amount of jail time. The story they uncovered at the courthouse that day, for some reason, friedman had gotten this huge Criminal Liability he was facing winnowed down to almost
nothing. He was able to work out some sort of deal where all of that prison time and
Rachel Maddow takes a look at the days top political news stories. Charge of grand larceny, a big stack of charges involving a large amount of money and potentially a large amount of jail time. The story they uncovered at the courthouse that day, for some reason, friedman had gotten this huge Criminal Liability he was facing winnowed down to almost nothing. All the prison time and felonies evaporated. Instead of being tried for evading 5 million in taxes, prosecutors let him plead guilty to one count of evaluating 50,000 worth of taxes. Not 5 million, 50,000. Instead of decades in potential prison time the deal he cut with prosecutors got him zero prison time. People do plea deals all the time they offer their testimony for prosecutors letting them off the hook and going easier on
them. This was like the mother of all plea deals. The amount he offered must have been very very valuable to the government given how sweet the deal was he got from them in return. That happened in late may.
together, jean and jim got married in las vegas. and i was asked by jean if i would walk her down the aisle. was she happy? oh, yeah. all smiles. both of them were all smiles. but the smiles did not last long. in june 2002, jim huden returned here to washington state for the funeral of an old friend. and it was here that fate intervened. a tall red-haired beauty caught jim s eye. it was the beginning of a love triangle, one that would wreck the lives of a lot of people involved and some who were not. the woman in question was peggy thomas, a whi drdbey hairstylist who also dabbled in beauty pageants. in fact, she entered a las vegas
could concentrate on music. i kind of pushed him towards doing that because i knew that was his love and that s where he was most happy. were you in love with him? very much so. i loved that man very much. so much so that in december 2001, after six years of living together, jean and jim got married in las vegas. and i was asked by jean if i would walk her down the aisle. was she happy? oh, yeah. all smiles. both of them were all smiles. but the smiles did not last long. in june 2002 jim huden returned here to washington state for the funeral of an old friend, and it was here that fate intervened. a tall, red-haired beauty caught jim s eye. it was the beginning of a love triangle, one that would wreck the lives of all of the people who were involved, and some who were not. the woman in question was peggy
he was a neighbory pilot, getting ready to fly. we were told what our mission would be. the mission was to attack a radio station on the island. reporter: on a spectacularly sunny day on june, 2002, president bush returned to the place where he almost lost his life. a remote island 700 miles off the coast of japan. now, how do we thank all these people? very nice. thank you. today is a sleepy, natural