Beauty Queen Busted: Kumari Fulbright's Attorney Defends Her Client

This is a rush transcript from "On the Record ," January 9, 2008. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, HOST: This law student beauty queen is in big trouble. She is not preparing for a pageant or law school exam—instead, possibly a criminal trial.

Twenty-five-year-old Kumari Fulbright has been arrested, charged with kidnapping and torturing her ex-boyfriend. Fulbright had competed for the Miss Arizona title in 2005 and 2006.

To make matters worse, Fulbright is also a law student and was a part- time law clerk for a federal judge.

Now the University of Arizona Law School has temporarily suspended her. Police say Fulbright, along with three other men, tied up Fulbright's ex-boyfriend. Fulbright then allegedly pointed a pistol at him, bit him, and put a butcher knife in ear. The alleged victim said Fulbright accused him of stealing her jewelry.

What's her side of the story? Marc Beginin, Kumari Fulbright's lawyer joins us live. Mark, I kept saying the word "allegedly" the whole time, and I'm certain that there is another side to this. So what's the other side to this story?

MARC BEGININ, KUMARI FULBRIGHT'S ATTORNEY: Well, the whole crux of the matter is that there is no allegation that Kumari Fulbright had any preexisting knowledge of what was going to happen, that she participated in the kidnapping.

What happened was the ex-boyfriend she dated for four years and had broken up with in the summer of last year had showed up at her house while she was in the shower. Boyfriend number two, the alleged victim, was there, and boyfriend number one abducted him and took him away for hours, as the police report suggests, and that she had no knowledge of that.

He admitted that he took her jewelry, he admitted he pawned her jewelry. He, the alleged victim, admitted that he showed up with a gun to her residence.

There's nothing really to support a charge of kidnapping. It was only later on in the incident where the other three gentlemen brought the alleged victim back to her house that she had any knowledge of this event even occurring.

VAN SUSTEREN: We should probably say the kidnapping can be ever so slight. You don't have to take someone and tie them up and put them in a truck and take them off to the hills, right?

BEGININ: Yes, absolutely, that's true. That's true. But, in this case, the allegations of this alleged victim just don't really hold water.

He said originally that he showed up at 12:30 in the afternoon in his first statement, which is where everybody gets this ten-hour time frame. In his second statement he says he showed up at 4:00 or 4:30.

He said in his first statement he didn't take any jewelry. In his second statement he is saying he did, he pawned it of. That's when he was confronted with the police that he actually did pawn the jewelry. They had figured that out.

VAN SUSTEREN: So was there any butcher knife to his ear? That's one of the allegations, that she put a butcher knife to his ear.

BEGININ: That's an allegation. But this guy is alleging a lot of things, and it doesn't really make a lot of sense.

VAN SUSTEREN: Did that happen?

BEGININ: To my knowledge, no, absolutely not. And the matter is still under investigation.

But, certainly, Kumari got caught up in this perfect storm between ex- boyfriends. The one ex-boyfriend confronted the new one, which is also an ex at that point too, to get the jewelry back.

Over the four years with the first gentleman he'd given her things on birthdays and Christmas, and the actual allegation is that this guy started to use drugs back in August. And that's why she broke up with him.

She got caught in the middle of a really bad situation.

VAN SUSTEREN: And boy is she in a bad situation, because this is a pretty heavy duty indictment. She's out on bail?

BEGININ: Yes, she's out on bail now. She's been out on bail for a while, and she's spending her time now defending this.

And I would like to say that the suspension is actually an administrative function, it doesn't go to the merits of this case. Automatically when somebody gets charged with something, the school does an administrative suspension and does an investigation.

VAN SUSTEREN: What's with the sexy picture with the gun?

BEGININ: On the side she does pageants, she's done modeling, things like that. She's involved in those activities, too.

She's a very busy person and very accomplished. She writes for the law journal. She actually didn't clerk for a federal judge. She's was training for a federal judge. She was having 17 credit hours—

VAN SUSTEREN: She's on law journal?

BEGININ: Yes, she writes for the law journal.

VAN SUSTEREN: Grade on or write on?

BEGININ: Honestly, I don't know which one it was. I don't know. However, she is on an academic scholarship as well.

She's is just way too busy—17 credits in law school, plus the additional three ghost(ph) credits for the law journal, she's too busy to plan a kidnapping. And this happened during finals.

VAN SUSTEREN: As you may know, we will follow it. Marc, thank you very much.

BEGININ: Thank you for having me.

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