This is a partial transcript from “Hannity & Colmes,” May 9, 2005, that has been edited for clarity.
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ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: The battle continues over the fate of Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman who died after her feeding tube was removed in March. Yesterday, I sat down for an exclusive interview with Michael Schiavo’s brother, Scott, to hear his family’s side of the story. Let’s look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COLMES: Why has your side of the family not done much media?
SCOTT SCHIAVO, MICHAEL SCHIAVO’S BROTHER: Because it’s always been a personal private family matter. It always been, you know, about keeping Terri a normal person and not, you know, a circus clown.
COLMES: There is a book coming out — Mark Fuhrman, we just discovered, has written a book, was spent a month in Florida. Did he make any attempt, as far as you know, to talk to you or any other members of the Schiavo family?
SCHIAVO: No, no. And you know, it bothers me to hear that, you know, your partner say that he’s not at liberty to say, you know, when you asked if we were asked. If anything, it’s going to be a one-sided book. And it’s going to basically beat the heck out of my brother. And you know, that’s if the book’s even being written. I mean, you know, we don’t know the first thing about it.
COLMES: The Schindlers accuse Michael of disobeying a court order. What’s your reaction to that?
SCHIAVO: Disobeying the court order of her — burying the ashes?
COLMES: Yes.
SCHIAVO: This is just a way to make, you know, Michael look like the bad guy. The ashes aren’t buried yet.
COLMES: Do they need to be informed of where they are?
SCHIAVO: They do. And Mike will let them know when he makes the decision. He’s not sure what he’s doing yet.
COLMES: So no court order has been disobeyed?
SCHIAVO: No, Mike hasn’t — you know, if anybody disobeyed any court order, that was the Schindlers.
COLMES: How so?
SCHIAVO: Well, all the videos that they have taken, they did that against a court order. And they also released them against court order.
COLMES: You made the allegation on my radio show that Mr. Schindler urged Mike to get on with his life, and date other women, and introduced him?
SCHIAVO: Oh, yes. Well, I tell you what. It was sitting — he made the first statement to a brother of mine, my brother, Brian, sitting in a restaurant lounge, that Mike needs to go out and get a piece of — a very derogatory word.
And my brother just looked at him like, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Here’s this man’s daughter laying up there fighting for her life. Mike is trying to fight to save her life. And he’s making accusations to his son- in-law’s brother that he should go out and do what he’s got to do.
COLMES: You know about the accusations that Michael abused Terri, that she’s an abuse victim.
SCHIAVO: She acquired these broken bones previous to this, OK? A broken pelvis, Terri would be in a wheel chair, broken kneecaps, broken ankles. I mean, you don’t walk around with broken ankles and broken kneecaps.
COLMES: They say there was a bone scan that they became aware of in 2002?
SCHIAVO: Well, that’s false. They knew about that bone scan way back when it was done. There was no — they knew all about it. There was nothing that — you know, this is the whole thing. They come out with these accusations, and it’s all smoke and mirrors for them.
COLMES: Why?
SCHIAVO: This is all about them. People that know Bob Schindler, they know who he is. And this is a profit-making proposition for him. This is all about them.
COLMES: When there was a settlement, and because of malpractice, a $1 million settlement, isn’t that when the trouble began between the Schindler family and the Schiavo family?
SCHIAVO: Yes.
COLMES: What happened?
SCHIAVO: Well, because the lawyer at the time, the lawyer had told Mike this was an open-and-shut case and there was going to be — you know, there was going to be a large settlement. And they had made plans on building a house that could accommodate Terri’s wheelchair.
Mike was talking about having, you know, around-the-clock help, physical therapy, and all of this good stuff for Terri. And he was also going to move the Schindlers in because they had no place to live. And when it came out there was only $1 million to take care of Terri for the rest of her life, there was not going to be money to do that.
And Bob Schindler was really ticked off about it. And he wanted the money. Here’s a guy that would show up to the nursing home once every two weeks and he would sit outside. Bob and Suzanne, they never showed up. When they started showing up was in the year 2000.
COLMES: You’re making the accusation that their motivation was money, that that’s what drove them, more than the health of their…
SCHIAVO: There is no doubt about it. If you really want to know about Terri Schiavo, if you want to know about Michael Schiavo, if you want to know anything about this case, all you have to go is go look at the records. It’s all public record. Nothing is hidden. That’s all you’ve got to do. Look it up.
I mean, you can find anything you want on the Internet. Go look it up. You can find it, and it’s very simple. Don’t take things that people hand you and say, “Oh, here’s depositions.” They had all of these depositions from these doctors that said they could save Terri. None of them examined her.
They say about how Mike’s doctors were paid to examine Terri and all their doctors were paid. They weren’t. They weren’t. I mean, the guardian ad litem was brought in by the governor of the state. And he came up with the same conclusion.
COLMES: One last thing, and then we’ve got to wrap. If the Schindlers, you said, didn’t care enough early on, why now?
SCHIAVO: Right now, the longer they keep this going, the more money they get from the right-to-life people. I mean, who is working in that family? I mean, Bobby Schindler is supposedly a school teacher. He’s been doing this for how long? Who is paying his bills? Who is paying Bob, Sr.’s, bills? I mean, who is paying all of their bills? The right-for- life people.
And the longer this goes, and they are going to keep pushing this and pushing this. It’s just going to keep more money coming in their pocket. And people need to follow the money trail, I’m telling you. If you follow the money trail, you would find out who Bob Schindler is.
COLMES: Scott, thank you very much. Appreciate it.
SCHIAVO: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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