A 19-Year-Old Alleged Rapist Has Been Charged Again

This is a partial transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," July 19, 2004 that has been edited for clarity.

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BILL O'REILLY, HOST:  Nineteen-year-old Gregory Haidl (search), the son of a high-ranking Orange County, California sheriff's official has been charged with 24 felony counts in the alleged rape of a 16-year-old girl. Haidl and two other men are out on the street after a mistrial.

But listen to this. Last week, Haidl was again arrested, this time on suspicion of having sex with another minor. Joining us now from Los Angeles is Tony Rackauckas (search), the Orange County District Attorney, and from Irvine, Joseph Cavallo (search), who represented Haidl in his first trial.

Well, Counselor, I mean, this second arrest, apparently, he was arrested after an incident in a Santa Ana, Calif. home. The girl was supposedly younger than 17. This must open your eyes a little, does it not?

JOSEPH CAVALLO, GREGORY HAIDL'S FMR. ATTORNEY: Well, not necessarily. However, Greg is always held to a microscope, unlike any other kid. And it wasn't in Santa Ana. It was in San Clemente. And he was together with a...

O'REILLY: I'm sorry. He's held in bail in — you're correct. He's held in Santa Ana Central Jail. It happened in San Clemente. You're correct.

CAVALLO: He's not in custody. He's out. He bailed out. The bail was set at $100,000, which is extremely unusual for a case like this.

O'REILLY: Why would it be unusual, because the kid...

CAVALLO: Bill, because you get PR-ed on a case like this...

O'REILLY: Even when you have another sensational trial in the news? Come on.

CAVALLO: Absolutely. The cases are completely different. They're not related to one another at all. And I believe Mr. Rackauckas is going in to see Judge Briseno tomorrow to have that bail revoked.

O'REILLY: OK, well, Counselor, maybe that will be successful. But I'm very interested in your thought process here. You say it's not the same kind of case, yet it's alleged sex with a minor again. I don't think people are going to make that distinction, sir.

CAVALLO: Well, you have to make a distinction and I'll tell you how you make the distinction. One, on the first case, there were allegations of violence and force involved. In this case, there aren't any allegations of force and violence involved. In this particular case, you have two teenagers who have engaged in consensual sex together. My client had every reason to believe the girl was 18 years old.

He had just turned 19-year-old two weeks earlier. I believe she's 17 and not 16. If not, I'm mistaken.

O'REILLY: Well, it says: sex with a girl younger than 17. All right, but you weren't there, I wasn't there. I don't want to try the case.

CAVALLO: Well, I mean, but how many 19- and 17-year-olds across this country are having sex day in and day out?

O'REILLY: Listen, I don't know if the girl is 17 — I don't know how old she is and it hasn't been released yet.

CAVALLO: Well, regardless if she's 16 or 17 years old...

O'REILLY: But he's in trouble again in the same area. How do you see this, Mr. District Attorney?

CAVALLO: Yeah, but he's only in trouble to the extent that he was arrested and that's it. There really is no case...

O'REILLY: Well, I think that's pretty big trouble. Go ahead, Mr. District Attorney.

TONY RACKAUCKAS, ORANGE COUNTY DISTRICT ATTY.: Well, here's the way I see it. This young man is on $100,000 bail on a rape case, and you know, he should be on his absolute best behavior. And is he? No. He's out having sex with a 16-year-old, not 17. She's a 16-year-old girl — two years and 10 months younger than him.

Now, there are a lot of similarities between this case and the other case, and that is that it happened in a residence in our county, there's drinking involved, there's the use of marijuana involved, and it's a 16-year-old girl. And we know what Greg Haidl thinks of 16- year-old girls after he's had sex with them one day. He thinks he can do whatever he wants the next day, so...

O'REILLY: Is Mr. Cavallo, right, though, Mr. District Attorney — is that this kid is being under a microscope, followed around, they're watching every move he makes? Is that true?

RACKAUCKAS: Far from it. This was a call to the sheriff's department for a barking dog incident and the sheriff's department went out there to respond to this incident and they go start seeing what's going on and pretty soon, they realize that there's been some sexual conduct going on. And they find Greg Haidl and another person hiding out in the bushes in the backyard. It was completely coincidental that they would be called out there.

O'REILLY: How do you answer that, Counselor?

CAVALLO: Well, I agree with Mr. Rackauckas. It was coincidental that they showed up at the house. However, they did barge into the house. They did search the whole house. They had no reason to search the whole house. They held this girl in the home without her parents. She requested her parents on numerous occasions.

They held her from 12 o'clock midnight until 7 o'clock in the morning and basically bullied information out of her that she did not want to communicate to law enforcement. I believe that the district attorney's office is not running around trying to follow Greg Haidl. And Greg is under a microscope. And short of asking someone for their driver's license, he didn't do anything wrong.

O'REILLY: Well, wait a minute now, you don't know that, because you weren't there. You don't know what the girl's going to testify to on the stand. But if this was your son, Counselor, come on...

(CROSSTALK)

CAVALLO: We've done some investigation on this case...

O'REILLY: But let's get into a personal level.

CAVALLO: We've done investigation on the case. It's not personal.

O'REILLY: Well, no, that's what I want to make it, though. If it was your son or my son and they had just come off a sensational trial where there definitely was a gang rape, and maybe it was consensual and maybe it wasn't — we'll know in the next trial...

CAVALLO: First of all, it was no gang rape...

O'REILLY: ... and then the guy gets involved in another nefarious situation. Come on, the kid's troubled. He's got to be a troubled kid.

(CROSSTALK)

RACKAUCKAS: I'll tell you what else. If it was your daughter — if it was your daughter, you'd be very upset by this, knowing that now we've got a Jane Doe 2, and her entire life is going to be changed because of the conduct of this kid.

O'REILLY: Now, is this going to be...

(CROSSTALK)

Will this evidence be...

CAVALLO: ... spoken to the friends of the family. That's not true at all. In fact, I'm surprised that Mr. Rackauckas wants to call her Jane Doe 2, because there will never be a Jane Doe 2 in this case anyway. But regardless, this girl communicated to law enforcement — this girl and her family communicated to the district attorney's office they did not want to prosecute, they did not want this girl to be part...

O'REILLY: Well, then they can't get a conviction. If she doesn't testify, they can't get a conviction.

CAVALLO: The same thing that the other girl had told the district attorney's office, and the district attorney's office refused to adhere to her wishes. This is not about what this girl wants, because if it were, we wouldn't be sitting here talking about this case right now.

O'REILLY: Statutory rape, Counselor, has to be prosecuted by the state.

CAVALLO: That's not statutory rape. My client...

O'REILLY: Sixteen is.

CAVALLO: ... well, he's not my client, but Gregory, 16 is — but my client, Gregory Haidl, had every reason to believe that this girl was 18-years-old. She told him that. She was introduced as such. The only thing he probably should have done that he didn't do was ask for her driver's license. And if you think that that's reasonable, then I don't know what to tell you at this point.

RACKAUCKAS: Well, our evidence is to the contrary. Our evidence is that he did know how old she was. And this is not — Mr. O'Reilly, you're right. It's not about whether or not this girl wants to prosecute. This is about our duty to protect the public and to protect the public against other similar incidents.

And as long as Greg Haidl is out there and doing these kinds of things, we have a duty to make sure that it stops.

O'REILLY: Will this be introduced in the mistrial? Can you introduce this kind of behavior in the mistrial that's coming up?

RACKAUCKAS: The evidence code allows for it. Of course, it will be up to the judge.

O'REILLY: Right. OK, gentlemen. We'll follow the case. Obviously, something wrong with this kid. That's for sure, I believe.

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