Transcript: Inside Information on Holloway Lawsuit

This is a partial transcript from "On the Record," February 21, 2006, that has been edited for clarity.

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, HOST: It was a perfectly timed, highly coordinated mission, and tonight we have pictures taken the moment Joran van der Sloot and his father were served with a lawsuit. Joran was slapped with the suit the moment his plane touched down in New York. At about the same time, his father, Paulus, got his copy in a New York City hotel.

Former New York City homicide detective Bo Dietl served Joran with a copy of the lawsuit. He joins us live in New York, along with Holloway family attorney John Q. Kelly. Welcome to both of you.

Before we get to the actual service, though, John, I want to ask you: The media seems to be quite jazzed up tonight about something going on in Aruba. Is something going on, or is this the media simply getting each other all jazzed up?

JOHN Q. KELLY, HOLLOWAY FAMILY ATTORNEY: It's the latter, Greta, and for lack of better words, what's going on right now is both cruel and misleading. There's no new developments down there. I talked to Karin Janssen the last couple hours, and what we're seeing here, I think, is a certain network trying to recycle old information, represent it as new information, to promote a certain interview that's coming up in the next day or so. And it's incredibly cruel to do to the family. It's, you know, misleading. It's causing another roller-coaster ride for Beth and Dave, when it's not based on anything new or credible. And it's a shame that this goes on for, you know, these purposes.

VAN SUSTEREN: And I suppose I should give the back story to the viewers. For the last several hours, everybody in the media who's been following this story has been making calls down to Aruba, down to sources, because there was some sort of thought that someone knew where the body was buried. But apparently, this is an old story, but nonetheless, it's out there tonight behind the scenes in all the news markets.

KELLY: There's absolutely nothing to it, Greta, so...

VAN SUSTEREN: OK. Great. And it's an old one at that. Bo, all right, you served Joran van der Sloot at JFK airport. You were part of the second service. The first was on the plane. The second was when he had gone through customs. What happened?

BO DIETL, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR: Well, John contacted us. We've been involved with the investigation for a couple of months. Matter of fact, I had detectives over in Aruba on this case. We got information around Wednesday that the father was coming in and the son was coming. We were going to send one of our operatives to Amsterdam to fly in, but we couldn't get there in time, so we made a contact with one of our associates out of London. We put an operative on the plane.

What we had to do was, we had to serve them simultaneously because if the father got served first, he'd warn his son, or vice versa. So what happened is, when the plane really took off, we then got the papers. We got the index number on them. We had a surveillance on the family, on the father, when he arrived the night before. We followed him to the Lucerne Hotel. We got a room in the hotel. But we had to wait until we knew for sure that the son was on the plane.

Once we knew he was on the plane, then we gave the OK with the papers for it to be served. He was served around 1 o'clock, in the lobby, and that's the first pictures.

When the plane landed at Kennedy airport, the operative went up to him and served him his first time on the plane, the summons and complaint. At this time, we had to wait about two hours because he wasn't released right away. He was on some kind of a watch list. So when he comes out two hours later, I wanted to make personally sure to John and to the family that he was served, not that he says he never got served on the plane. So we had a video camera. We had still pictures. And I then go to serve him.

He walks out. I thought it was Darth Vader. Guy comes running over to him, throws a coat on top of him, over his head, and he comes walking out. And you can see me serving the papers there. I tell him I'm serving him with legal court papers, summons and complaint. He wouldn't take them. I stuffed the summons and complaint down his jacket.

What he did was, as he's walking, he took his jacket of. He crumpled the papers up and he threw them down on the floor. I then followed him again. I told him that he was legally served and we had a little conversation back and there was some person — I don't know if he was his bodyguard — gave me a kind of a shove and tried to get in between me and him being served. And I just kind of shoved him back out of the way. And then I followed him out to the cab and I told him, "Welcome to America."

I just didn't like the audacity of him coming out of there. If you don't do anything wrong — normal people come out of immigration with coats on their head. I mean, you can see what the pictures looked like. He looked like Darth Vader.

VAN SUSTEREN: Who put the coat on his head, Bo? Was it someone who was traveling with him? Was it someone from customs? I mean, any idea?

DIETL: Well, I think I have an idea. It was the same guy — he looked a little bit like Jimmy the Cricket. You know, he was, like, a little, slight guy, and he ran over and threw the coat on him. I believe it possibly was from another network there. And he was the one that was getting between us. This was a legal service. He was interfering with a legal service and I think that people have to not draw that line and come across that line.

VAN SUSTEREN: Was it at the curbside?

DIETL: No.

VAN SUSTEREN: Where was this?

DIETL: When you have the opening when they come out of customs, when they come right out, that the doors open up mechanically. That's when he walked up, so this little Gepetto-looking guy goes running over there, throws the coat on his head. And I went over to him and I told him, I have an official legal service of a summons and complaint. I named him by name. And then the guy pushed me out of the way. He wasn't going to push me too far.

And then I went back up and I shoved the papers in his jacket. I says, "You've been served." And as I'm following him, I said, "Why don't you take your jacket off your head?" I said, "If you did nothing wrong, why are you trying to hide your head?"

VAN SUSTEREN: All right, Bo, John, both please stand by. We're going to have much more in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VAN SUSTEREN: When Joran van der Sloot and his father came to New York for a television interview last week, they were surprised with a lawsuit filed by Natalee Holloway's family. Holloway family attorney John Q. Kelly joins us again in New York, along with Bo Dietl, the man who served Joran with the lawsuit.

John, after filing the lawsuit, it became very public. Did that have any impact on your relationship with the authorities, the prosecutor in Aruba?

KELLY: Yes, but it was a positive impact, Greta. One of the first calls I got Friday morning was from Karin Janssen. She congratulated us on what we were able to accomplish. And you know, it's a good relationship. She understood perfectly why I hadn't told her ahead of time what was going on. She appreciated that I walked her through everything that had gone on afterwards. And I've had several conversations with her since.

And you know, what was good about it, Greta, I think it sort of motivated them, too. The van der Sloots are calculating. They're smart people. And they've sort of had their way with the authorities down there and always managed to one-up, you know, the prosecution team and the investigators. And I think, finally, they saw that the, you know, van der Sloots can be beaten at their own game, if things are done right, and I think it's motivated them a little bit. It's pushing them a little bit, and I think they're that much more inspired to push ahead with this, now that this happened.

VAN SUSTEREN: You know, John, I think it's odd that the prosecutor would congratulate you. I mean, I think other lawyers might because you pulled off sort of what seemed like the impossible feat in terms of service, but I think it odd that the one who has had the obligation to investigate would call and congratulate you.

KELLY: Well, you know, that we're able to accomplish what we set out to do. You know, it has absolutely no bearing on the work they're doing there, you know, she just felt that we were able to do what we set out to do here and accomplished that. So you know, it's a good relationship. We're sharing information. There's an open line of communication. And you know, I'm happy about that, and I think we're going to be able to make progress. We can share information with her and accomplish things here that she can't do down there. And she's keeping us informed of the progress down there, so that's a good thing, Greta.

VAN SUSTEREN: John, Bo was talking about that it took a while for Joran van der Sloot to get through customs and suggesting he might be on some sort of watch list. He's free to travel anyplace in the world, right?

KELLY: Sure.

VAN SUSTEREN: Any idea why would he be on some sort of watch list? I mean, he's not a drug dealer. He's got no charges pending anyplace.

KELLY: That I don't know, Greta, other than maybe it's a name that shows up on different lists, whether it's coverage, whatever. Bo might be better able to answer that than me.

DIETL: You know, Greta, through our contacts, again, at the airport, and through the Immigration contacts that we have, we found out that he was on a watch list from someone — from the FBI. So possibly the FBI agents that investigated the case in Aruba put his name up there, if he was to surface in the United States, they possibly had an opportunity then to interview him again. So I think it came all about from that. And it would be nothing to put someone on a watch list. It's getting yourself off the watch list is the hard part.

VAN SUSTEREN: Indeed. Bo, I heard that there was a little bit of a scuffle at the airport. What happened?

DIETL: Well, when he first walked out, I said this one fellow come running over and he throws a coat on him, and I tell him, "Lookit, I'm serving official papers, court papers here, summons and complaint." I named him by name. And the guy got in between me and he pushed me. And I'm not a guy that's used to being pushed around, so I pushed him back, and he kind of, like, tumbled over a little bit. And then I followed the guy in there, and I get pushed again. I said, "Lookit, I'm not a pushy-type guy, but you don't push me around like this. I am serving papers here legally." And I expressed that to him. But there was no punches, nothing like that and nothing happened to Darth Vader there — Joran van der Sloot. Nothing happened to him.

VAN SUSTEREN: All right. So Joran didn't get brought into this pushing thing. It was you and someone else that were involved in that.

DIETL: It was a person that had nothing to do with it, as far as I was concerned, and he shouldn't have gotten in the middle of a legal service like that. And he was really interfering with a court document being served legally upon someone.

VAN SUSTEREN: Did Joran say anything to you, Bo?

DIETL: He looked at me with some devilish eyes, I tell you, very devil, like he wanted to do something to me. I did say to him, "Well, take a swing at me, Mr. Joran, like you did to Natalee." He didn't smile at me. He was very upset with me.

VAN SUSTEREN: All right. John, so do you know if they've retained counsel? What's the next step in this lawsuit?

KELLY: The next step is theirs to take, Greta. I was told that they have consulted with counsel here in New York. I don't know if they retained someone, and I certainly don't know what their intentions are with the lawsuit. We just have to wait and see now.

VAN SUSTEREN: All right. Now, obviously, they came to the United States to be interviewed by ABC. Do you intend to watch this interview, John?

KELLY: I'll catch it at some point. Maybe I'll TiVo it and catch it over the weekend or something.

(LAUGHTER)

KELLY: You know, I'll keep an eye on it.

VAN SUSTEREN: How about you, Bo? Do you have any interest in the interview?

DIETL: I really don't want to listen to the interview, and I think some of the news that you got tonight is perfectly directly involved with the interview, like John said. And as far as I'm concerned, if this young man has nothing to do with it, he doesn't have to keep changing his story and he can be more cooperative. If you have nothing to hide, come forward. If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember what you said, my father used to teach me.

VAN SUSTEREN: John, are you going back?

KELLY: To Aruba?

VAN SUSTEREN: Yes.

KELLY: Oh, absolutely. I'll be back there in the next couple weeks, meeting and poking my nose into a few things and keeping the line of communications open and working on some other things, too. I'll definitely be back down there soon.

VAN SUSTEREN: All right. Bo, John, thank you both.

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