Transcripts For CNNW CNN Presents 20110814

>> pop star david cassidy claims he was ripped off over a pop idol image. but first, a pizza delivery man robs a bank with a bomb around his neck. >> these suckers say you got 55 minutes, man. what are you going to do? >> and that's just the beginning of one of the most bizarre crimes ever. cnn's drew griffin unravels the twisted tale of the man known as the pizza bomber. >> 911. what is your emergency? >> yes. we've just been robbed. >> was anyone hurt? >> no. he just walked out the door. >> august 28, 2003, erie, pennsylvania. within minutes of robbing a bank brian wells is surrounded by police, cross legged on the ground and handcuffed. he told police he was a pizza delivery man and he delivered a pizza. the group he delivered it to captured him, he told police, put this bomb on his neck, and told him to rob a bank. >> can kaul my boss? >> yes. >> he asked police to call his boss. then to save his life. >> why is it nobody is trying to help? >> 25 minutes ticked by. then the device begins to beep. in an instant the bank robber is dead. the death of brian wells in this parking lot that day turned out to be only the beginning of the most elaborate, intricate, and some say still unsolved bank robbery case the fbi has ever had. >> at the end of it all, our system worked. our law enforcement partners solved the puzzle, and we achieved convictions and long sentences. >> the fbi, the local police, and the u.s. attorney's office simply want this case to be closed. but is it? tonight you decide. did the fbi catch all the suspects? did the fbi let one of them walk? and did the fbi make a mistake putting blame on a pizza delivery man whose secrets blew up in a parking lot? it was a hot thursday afternoon. jane hyde was expecting to see her brother at a party that night, but she had one errand to run -- a quick shopping trip on erie's peach street. but there was trouble. police had blocked the road. cops and cars everywhere. she turned around and went home. it was only later that night, watching the 10:00 news, she learned what that traffic was all about. >> my kids are sitting on the couch and then the story airs of bank robbery and a man came into the bank with a bomb on him. >> you are recognizing your brother. >> my brother sitting there with this bomb on him. i'm thinking okay. the police have him. they'll find out who did this to him. then as it goes on it's like, brian exploded. you know, the bomb went off. brian's dead. i'm like, i can't believe this. >> after the explosion, one of the first things the cops did was look inside his car. they found these. meticulous notes that amounted to a bizarre scavenger hunt. notes given to brian wells instructing him to follow a lengthy set of orders if he wanted to survive. >> laying out this puzzling, highly complex scavenger hunt directing him to go to specific places. >> rich shapiro is a journalist who's written extensively about the robbery for "wired" magazine. >> the notes suggested that at the very end of this if he completed it in the allotted time, which wasn't much, that he would be able to save his life. >> have you asked yourself why didn't my brother brian get in that car and drive straight to the police station? >> no. i have never asked that because brian was in survival mode. i truly believe that he was trying to save his life and others' lives. >> but the police had no idea what to think. was brian wells a victim? was he in on the robbery? what were those notes all about? who wrote them? why? there were no answers but money of agencies wanting to be involved in the biggest case erie had ever seen. >> we have formed a multiagency task force comprised of the pennsylvania state police, the atf, the erie police department, specifically their bomb squad, the united states attorney's office and the erie county district attorney's office. >> i wouldn't be surprised if some game warden from warren, p.a. was on the task force. >> jim fisher, a former fbi agent and criminologist studied the case from the beginning. >> so you have 50 people running around randomly conducting leads with very little coordination. no one really seemed to be in charge. >> from the outset, he believes the fbi, the erie police all the law enforcement agencies involved, were on the wrong track. this was not, he says, a bank robbery. >> you believe brian wells was murdered. >> well he was murdered and it was a first-degree murder. this was an intentional, premeditated, homicide. moreover, it was extremely cruel in the way the crime was executed. >> not just the crime, the actual bomb was a crude masterpiece of someone's twisted art. police would find intricate decoy cables, home made lock, all made into a bizarre puzzle wrapped around the neck of the victim. and whatever this was, a bank robbery, violent murder, the case was about to take another bizarre, almost unreal twist. >> there is a frozen body. it's in the freeze inner the garage. >> a second body. this one hidden in the freezer and a new suspect telling an even stranger tale. >> what came first, the body or the freezer? >> the body came in. >> just ahead, a man, a body, and an ever expanding cast of suspects., the rare, the hard . to those always searching for what's pure and what's real from we who believe we know just how you feel. haagen-dazs. and all we need to do is change the way we're thinking about them. a couple decades ago, we didn't even realize just how much natural gas was trapped in rocks thousands of feet below us. technology has made it possible to safely unlock this cleanly burning natural gas. this deposits can provide us with fuel for a hundred years, providing energy security and economic growth all across this country. it just takes somebody having the idea, and that's where the discovery comes from. 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[ male announcer ] we are insurance. ♪ we are farmers ♪ bum, ba-da-bum, bum, bum, bum ♪ as brian wells was on the ground in that half hour after he robbed the bank, another man was watching everything unfold from across the street. according to an fbi affidavit informants said a 63-year-old handyman named william rothstein was sitting in his car, eyes focused on brian wells. bill rothstein, officials later said, was the mastermind behind the entire scheme. >> i put a cut piece of green tarp down here to put his body on. >> okay. >> this is bill rothstein a few months after that bank robbery in a police evidence tape where he's explaining to a detective how he helped a former girlfriend marjorie armstrong dispose of a body. >> what came first, the body or the freezer? >> the body came in. i'll put it on a cart. the cart with the big wheels not the small wheels. yes, that one there. >> but what's really going on here? what did that body in the freezer and bill rothstein's confession have to do with the collar bomb explosion that killed brian wells? in a word, everything. bill rothstein told police he was just doing marjorie a favor. he claimed marjorie had killed her abusive ex-boyfriend named jim roden but the fbi's investigation tells another story. roden knew about the bank robbery plot and was about to go to police. rothstein made that messing away. >> he came to the house and helped. he took the body out, cleaned the walls, replaced floor boards, replaced everything. painted, got rid of everything that might have blood on it. >> after rothstein turned her into police for the murder of her ex-boyfriend, marjorie stunned investigators with another twist. she connected rothstein to erie's biggest bank robbery. >> i mean, to build the bomb and test the bomb and all the components he had to have already been building it and designing it. in doing that he also said, i need some money so marjorie just gave him like $75,000 worth of money that she also kept at the house so bill rothstein was left with two of the most important things to hold over marjorie diehl armstrong. number one all of her money and, number two, a dead body that would make her lose her liberty for the rest of her life. >> even though marjorie diehl armstrong had been talking with police, it took the fbi nearly four more years before it could tie up all the loose ends. everybody the fbi said was involved with the robbery. bill rothstein, marjorie diehl armstrong, even another suspect, a crack dealer named kenneth barnes and barnes claimed brian wells was in on the plot from the beginning. and that he was duped. >> wells was essentially told he would be robbing the bank with the device being put around his neck that would be fake so he would not be putting himself in harm's way. as it turns out, he was double crossed. >> criminologist jim fisher believes it was rothstein who wanted to pull off the perfect diabolical crime that would baffle investigators. the elaborate scavenger hunt would eventually send police to a dead end. the confusing yet meticulously crafted collar bomb. even the white t-shirt brian wells wore into the bank spray painted with the word "guess" to fisher all of it hatched in the mind of a mad man. >> the kind of motives we can't understand. like a standard bank robbery, someone needs the money. then we have a category of crime involving motives that a normal person can't really understand. >> you're describing bill rothstein. that would be bill rothstein in my mind. to me he fits to a "t" the profile of someone who would commit such a bizarre and pathological crime. >> but now four years after the original crime the government had to prove in court its theory was correct. and there were two big problems. rothstein, the alleged mastermind, died before even officially being linked to the crime. the other main suspect, marjorie diehl armstrong, had told so many lies she was showing evidence of mental problems and a personality disorder. >> the mental illness was a 30-year history. the personality disorders were a 30-year history. >> over many delays and many more years, the government finally obtained convictions on charges of bank robbery and murder. life plus 30 years for marjorie diehl armstrong. a lesser sentence her accomplice kenneth barnes because he testified on behalf of prosecutors. brian wells, who died with that bomb around his neck, well, the federal government said he, too, was in on the crime. >> brian delivered the pizza. he was accosted at gun point by a group of strangers who he did not know. they shot at him. when he tried to run away, they knocked them to the ground. >> the fbi version as you know is different. >> that's a lie. that's a lie. that's all their fabrication. >> the fbi did agree to sit down with cnn to explain their case and their prosecution. how it all went down. they just wanted to know the day we'd arrive here in erie and where the interview would take place. then the fbi began asking us questions. who else would be interviewed for this report? and suddenly, the interview with the fbi was off. jim fisher says the fbi and the u.s. attorney took the easy way out and never really solved the case. >> bill rothstein died about a year after the crime and he died with, in my opinion, all of the secrets, all of the answers. and to that extent, well, nobody literally dies laughing. he went to his grave knowing that he had out foxed everyone. >> neither the u.s. attorney's office nor the fbi would comment to cnn about fisher's assertions. and yet there is someone who is alive, who kenneth barnes says was at rothstein's house the day of the robbery, but was never charged in the crime. he is the convicted sex offender granted immunity in exchange for testimony he was never asked to give. next -- brian wells' family really wants to know about you, sir. >> could this man hold the answers that would finally solve the case? ♪ i may be mud, but i have standards. mops? please. some of them have bacteria. ♪ and they try to pick me up? ew. i'm really hard to get. uh! ♪ what about love?! 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[ female announcer ] yoplait greek. it is so good. it's pretty good! personal pricing now on brakes. tell us what you want to pay. we do our best to make that work. deal! my money. my choice. my meineke. . in her search for justice, jean heid says she spent years trying to learn the truth from the one man she believes now holds the key to her brother's innocence. his name is floyd a. stockton a convicted sex offender who authorities say was living with bill rothstein on the day of the bank robbery. he goes by the nickname jay. >> jay stockton is a convicted rapist, serial, sexual battery of his wife, and he's out there. he's out there, people. >> he is the only one left alive and sane enough to tell the truth she believes. yet the federal government has allowed him to go free. >> they know that my brother is innocent 100% and they know that bill rothstein, jay stockton, are the coconspirators in this crime that killed brian. >> according to this fbi affidavit investigators learned of stockton's knowledge when stockton talked about it in a monitored phone call from jay. stockton was released then given immunity to testify for the government in the pizza bomb case. investigators say they compared stockton's handwriting to this handwriting of those scavenger notes found in brian's car. it was a perfect match. >> the authorities blaefd there were at least two people who wrote the notes and jay stockton is definitely one of them. >> on camera is kenneth eugene barnes. >> there is also the testimony of this man, kenneth barnes. >> like i say, i'd never kill anybody. >> barnes pled guilty and is serving a 20-year sentence for his role in the case. but it's this fbi search warrant affidavit now obtained by cnn which raises even more questions about why jay stockton has been allowed to go free. according to the affidavit barnes and others involved in the case say floyd stockton was deeply involved in the plot. barnes even telling the fbi on the day of the crime it was stockton who went into the garage, got the collar bomb, and handed it to rothstein. when we asked then u.s. attorney for western pennsylvania mary beth buchanan why stockton never testified and was never charged she initially told us stockton was sick, suffered several strokes, and was unable to travel. after our initial phone call buchanan never talked to us again and at a news conference in erie the current u.s. attorney david hickton wasn't forthcoming either. >> what about mr. stockton? will he ever be prosecuted for this? >> we are not in a position to comment on mr. stockton. >> douglas shagru says there is good reason the u.s. attorney and fbi want to keep quiet about jay stockton. >> do you think he is the person who got away with this? >> oh, yes. he got immunity from the government absolutely free and clear. convicted sex offender, multitime. the government felt he was the least involved person and so they gave him immunity. >> they shouldn't have given him immunity. he didn't deserve immunity. he is the guilty one. he killed my brother and deserved to be brought to justice. >> stockton has been featured on the television show "america's most wanted." private investigators have tried to track him down but stockton has literally vanished. at least that is what he may have thought. until the day we found him. these are pictures of stockton today. two hours north of seattle dune side street in bellingham, washington we found stockton where he told our investigator he has been living in this duplex for the past six years but was soon to leave. a week later we spotted him leaving the duplex in the pickup truck. we followed. he was eying a large, recreational vehicle at an rv sales lot. it was perhaps the first time in years anyone mentioned his involvement in the pizza bomb case. >> how you doing, mr. stockton? right? drew griffin with cnn. how you doing? it's taken a long time for me to find you. i wanted to ask you some questions. no, sir. brian wells' family is really wanting to know about you, sir. please. >> as fast as he could, with his driver's side window lowered, jay stockton sped away, not saying a word. >> mr. stockton this is drew griffin again with cnn. brian wells' family is really just trying to get to the truth of the matter about particularly their brother. you're the only one alive and sane enough to tell the truth and that's what they're after. >> he has refused all of our phone calls, refused to respond to notes placed at his door. the assistant u.s. attorney who prosecuted the case insists to us jay stockton would tell us what the federal government has proven in court that brian wells was involved with the bank robbery. >> no one could have sat through this criminal trial without understanding the degree of evidence linking mr. wells to these particular participants. >> in fact, the same affidavit that implicates stockton repeatedly implicates jean heid's brother. suspects involved saying brian wells knew the plot all along was involved in the planning, was part of the ban of criminal misfits trying to rob a bank. jean heid will never believe that. she blaefs her government is lying. >> they let an innocent man, my brother, die while in their custody and didn't even lift a finger to help him. this case is going to be looked at for years to come. and they don't want it known that they screwed up. brian never would have done this. >> next on "cnn presents" -- >> there we go. >> coast guard rescue swimmers. embedding with those who save lives for a living. later -- >> are you fighting for more than money? >> i think fairness. >> the cast of "happy days" isn't so happy. the tv icons are demanding money for what they claim are mountains of merchandise cashing in on their image. to those always searching for what's pure and what's real from we who believe we know just how you feel. haagen-dazs. woman: day care can be we so to save some money, i found one that uses robots instead of real people. 'cuz robots work for free. robot 1:good morning... robot 1:...female child. sfx: modem dial-up noise woman: flaws? yeah, um, maybe. anncr: there's an easier way to save. anncr: get online. go to geico.com. get a quote. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance. any questions? no. you know... ♪ we're not magicians ♪ we can't read your mind ♪ ♪ read your mind ♪ we need your questions ♪ each and every kind ♪ every kind ♪ will this react with my other medicine? ♪ ♪ hey, what are all these tests even for? ♪ ♪ questions are the answer ♪ yeah ♪ oh in north carolina daniel todd is on his way to a job it took him a year to train for. to do something that most people would think is crazy. hovering above the river he jumps out of a perfectly good helicopter. because what might be terrifying to some people is pretty normal for a coast guard rescue swimmer. the coast guard has 42,000 personnel stationed from alaska to the caribbean. but only 350 of them are part of the elite cadre of rescue swimmers. today petty officer todd is hoisting cadets from the coast guard academy. they're awarded with candy before being lowered back into the water. before the excitement of doing this -- >> hurry up! hurry up! >> todd had to go through this. >> pick it up. pull up. >> this morning, 7:00 a.m. going to jump in with the rescue swimmer class to see what their physical training program is like. >> 18 weeks of aviation survival technician school in elizabeth city, north carolina. it's a test of physical, mental, and intellectual strength. as i look at the photos on the wall i see some pretty small class sizes. i mean, some of these -- two or three guys. >> you see some small classes. we take classes of 12. we may graduate 6. we may graduate 7. may graduate 3, 4, maybe two. >> senior chief george marico runs the school that's so selective that sometimes an entire class doesn't graduate. >> physically we don't usually have any problems on the pt grind or in the classroom but we get in the water the first three to four to five weeks we see some students do give up and they grab a side. there is no side of the pool in the ocean. that could mean the difference between living or dying and we won't have that. >> 14 students begin in the class training during the course of our visit. seven weeks in only three remain. and with one injured just two are training today. one of them is dave. >> if you make it through this school you can be called out to go out and save somebody's mom or dad or daughter or son and that alone is just enough for me to want to be here. and just make it through the school. >> how difficult is it. >> it is definitely difficult. this is something i've never -- i can only imagine when i was working my way to get here, but it's definitely more difficult than i thought it would be. >> students spent three days of each week in the pool where motivation from the instructors is ever present. this week students are practicing large scale rescues training for situations such as a burn and water rescues. what are we simulating? >> two surfers in distress on their board waiting for a rescue. >> simulating entering the water from a helicopter each student jumps in and gets to work. >> this is the first time that they've encountered this. >> the first multirescue scenario. they have three big obstacles. they need to determine how many people are in the water, whether everybody has flotation or what we call safe in the water, and does anybody have any injuries. >> first priority, make contact with the survivor. then take control. >> doing an under water approach, going to come up behind and take control. >> a survivor that might be panicking. >> as he is towing the first survivor he is learning that is his noncompliant survivor. the guy is real panicky and not cooperative. >> finally a lift to safety. spray meant to simulate the rote ar wash of a helicopter. there's only one rescue swimmer on scene without backup. >> is there aflower swimmer out there? >> no there's not. just you right? >> yes master sergeant. >> how long do we have to go? week seven. >> the pool is just part of the training. the work covers everything from survival rafts to maintaining pumps and they actually have an entire classroom devoted to sewing. you can see all the sewing stations here. you can see the parachute down at the end of the table. these guys actually sew their own gear. so if they're deploying a life raft or cargo out of a c-130 they know it's going to hold because they've sewn it themselves. but after all the swimming, jumping, and the sewing, students who graduate haven't yet earned their coveted rescue swimmer patches. for that they'll have to go to an active station and fly on real rescue missions. just like i'm about to do. >> they're looking for a potential victim in the water so at first light we're going to launch. you name it. i've tried it. but nothing's helped me beat my back pain. then i tried this. it's salonpas. this is the relief i've been looking for. salonpas has 2 powerful pain fighting ingredients that work for up to 12 hours. and my pharmacist told me it's the only otc pain patch approved for sale using the same rigorous clinical testing that's required for prescription pain medications. proven. powerful. safe. salonpas. i could not make working and going to school work. it was not until the university of phoenix that i was able to work full-time, be a mom, and go to school. the opportunits that i had at the university of phoenix, dealing wh profesonals teaching things that they were doing every day, got me to where i am today. i'm mayor cherie wood, i'm responsible for the largest urban renewal project in utah, and i am a phoenix. 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[pig oinking] [hissing] [oink] [oinking] [ding] announcer: cook foods to the right temperature using a food thermometer. 3,000 americans will die from food poisoning this year. keep your family safer. check your steps at foodsafety.gov. [oinking] it's the last stop on a coast guardsman's journey to become a rescue swimmer. putting their classroom learning to the test on real life missions and operational air station. the country's largest and busiest is here in clear water, florida. one of 24 across the united states. >> clear water, florida, which is the most active coast guard search and rescue station in the nation. we're going to embed with the coast guard for a few days to see how an active search-and-rescue station works. >> there is no better way to do that than in the air. >> going out on a search-and-rescue mission there is four personnel, the pilot, copilot, flight mechanic who generally sits right here. he operates and watches the visual and then there is the search-and-rescue swimmer who will be put down into the water to make the rescue. the air station has a variety of assets including c-130s, rescue helicopters, and crews on stand by 24 hours a day ready to answer a call from here. the coast guard st. petersburg command center responsible for the entire west coast of florida everything to do with search-and-rescue is dispatched and planned and coordinated from this command center from this office right here. >> what kind of calls do you see commonly here in clear water? give me a typical call. >> everything. we get everything in here. >> doing our time in clear water we'll see a lot of it in just one flight. first searching for a radio distress signal. we find it located on a boat. >> there we go. >> safely docked here in this sub division just as we find the beacon -- >> we've got a call and you are diverted. >> we're sent to a mystery mayday call. >> we searched up and down the river. >> it's never found. finally, low on fuel we get a report of people in the water near the bridge. >> about ten minutes to look at that and then we are low on fuel. arriving on scene -- >> we'll be looking. what is that over here at 3:00? >> okay. >> we find them being helped by local rescue units. >> under the bridge? >> yes, sir. >> a busy night. just getting started. >> calls can come any time day or night. all right. so 6:00 in the morning we're all sleeping soundly and our little bunks here and the aircraft commander popped in. our alarm just went off and there's a potential rescue so that's what being a stand by crew means. we're getting our gear ready. we're going to jump in the bird and go see what is going on. within minutes we're on our way to the helicopter. >> so just got a mini brief by the aircraft commander. he said that they're looking for a potential victim in the water so at first light we'll launch and begin to initiate a search pattern. >> the pilot, lieutenant commander paul russo, is in charge of this morning's mission. >> we got a 20-year-old -- 24-year-old female who just came off a rehab. she jumped off a bridge last night. we're likely looking for a body but there is a chance she could have survived and might be hiding in the woods. >> is there some kind of technology we're using? >> eyeballs. we're going to look for a person in the water. >> at any point the rescue swimmer is ready to hit the water and hoist his victim up to safety. something that i had experienced first hand at the coast guard's rescue swimmer school in north carolina. >> we have a helicopter to deploy the swimmers. i'm going to be one of the victims today for the search-and-rescue swimmers. they'll get some practice at what they do best. here we go. >> as the flight mechanic guides in the pilot. >> in the water now. easy now. easy now. >> it's a rush of water, wind, and noise. >> five feet of water. survivor 35 feet. >> first, rescue swimmer daniel todd uses the most common technique, a basket hoist. then we use just a harness. finally, a quick deployment hoist. two of us lifted and secured by just a strap. >> swimmer/survivor in the helicopter. >> back onboard the jay hawk in florida there is no need for any of those hoists. there is good news. >> she has been located. >> roger. >> the victim has been found. alive. we return to base. >> people often think that search-and-rescue is often about jumping out of helicopters and saving lives but there is also a lot of, you know, long flights, long searches, and that don't end up doing anything but that's why these guys do it. keep going out there until that one critical moment when they do actually have to jump in and get someone. >> we just want to be the guys that are there and when it gets bad and you, you know, somebody needs help they look at us and go that's the guy that's going to come and pick us up. >> it will be many months before the students back in north carolina are doing what mike zoellner has done for the last ten years. but they'll be doing it for the same reasons. >> that's why i joined the coast guard. everything was kind of about me you know and i realized that's not what i wanted. i wanted to see go what i could do to help other people. i mean, there are many ways to do that. saving someone's life, though, i mean, what more could you do? >> coming up -- >> i'm not sure these will fit. okay? >> pop star david cassidy is still singing the songs that made him a worldwide sensation. but he's also fighting mad. >> i don't want to shame and embarrass and humiliate them but i will if i have to. beneful healthy fiesta. made with wholesome grains, real chicken, even accents of tomato and avocado. yeah! come on! 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[ indistinct conversations ] [ hissing ] agents, what did we learn here today? that lint balls are extremely flammable! well, yeah. and that 15,000 dryer fires happen every year! that's why it's important to regularly clean and inspect your vents! correct. where did you get that?! i built it. [ male announcer ] we are insurance. ♪ we are farmers ♪ bum, ba-da-bum, bum, bum, bum ♪ ♪ i think i love you isn't that what life is made of ♪ >> it's 1970 and a 20-year-old named david cassidy is starring in the partridge family. ♪ screaming out the words i dread i think i love you ♪ >> not only do the show and sold out concerts go on to make him a star -- but the teen idol's success spawns an avalanche of merchandise. >> this is a dressed up set. remember these? oh, gosh. nice outfit, david. >> david cassidy is everywhere. how big of a star was david cassidy? >> well, i had the largest fan club in the history of the planet, bigger than elvis and the beatles. >> he was all over lunch boxes, board games, even dancing hams terse. >> which sings i think i love you. there we go. there we go. it's running out of gas. ♪ listen to it. it's running out of ga. ha ha. >> ladies and gentlemen, would you please put your hands together for the one and only david cassidy? >> the 61-year-old performer clearly isn't running out of gas. 37 years after the partridge family went off the air he is still performing and producing. and now he's on a personal mission to get paid for that merchandise from sony which owns the show. you say you've been robbed for the last few decades. >> how would you call it? if somebody does not pay you and you are entitled to a percentage of the profits and you know they're making profits is that stealing? >> cassidy isn't alone. the cast of "happy days" also wants to know where the money went. four stars of the iconic show, anson williams, dawn mose, marian ross, and erin moran as well as the widow of tom bosley are suing cbs for $10 million. they told cnn earlier this year they weren't paid what they're owed for "happy days" merchandise that sold around the world. cbs, which owns the show, agrees the actors are owed money but disputes the amount. after the suit was filed, cbs cut checks to the actors totaling about $43,000. largely for the use of their images on happy days slot machines. but the actors argue they're owed much more. >> are you fighting for more than money? >> i think fairness. you think of all the different shows that must be having the same argument about this. >> shows like "the partridge family." cassidy says according to his contract while the program was on the air he was entitled to 15% of net merchandising profits when his image was used. half that if he appeared with other cast members. were you paid for that? >> i was told by my manager i received a check for $5,000 and i never heard another word. i was never given another statement. >> but why is cassidy just coming forward now? decades after the partridge family ended? he says it wasn't until just a few years ago after a string of business managers and moves across the country that he found his old contract. >> my hands started to shake. i went, and there was the contract. >> as for the other cast members, brian force ter who played chris partridge, says he did get about $1100 for merchandising back in the '70s but the others we spoke with say they didn't have a merchandising deal or don't recall getting paid for any items. hours before a las vegas concert cassidy signed some of the items. >> it was at the time the largest selling lunch box in history. >> he showed us items with recent copyrights that he says were issued without his permission. sony did not reply to our question about this. >> the only way i can get a truthful accounting is by showing articles like this of which there are many others that are done in this last decade that they're obviously in breach. >> cassidy's lawyer sent this letter to sony requesting a prompt and full accounting and payment of proceeds for any merchandise sold using his name, likeness, voice, or other exercise of such merchandising rights. sony responded it could not locate any merchandising statements but found letters showing that mr. cassidy's representatives audited such statements. therefore, they must have been rendered to him. the company went on to say it was not aware of any new merchandising licenses with his name, voice, and likeness after the partridge family went off the air and said the statutes of limitation had run out on any claims. sony had no other comment to cnn. >> hello las vegas! >> on stage it's like cassidy's back in the '70s with fans who still throw their underwear. >> i'm not sure these will fit. >> how much do you think you're owed? >> until i get a proper sit down with them, i'm not going to demand a number. >> i mean, are you willing to settle with sony or do you want to see this go to trial? >> i don't want to shame and embarrass and humiliate them but i will if i have to. get real. be fair. you owe me a fortune. you want to go to trial? lay bets against david cassidy? go ahead. >> in his florida home, there are few remnants of cassidy's life as a pop superstar. but what made him famous will always be a part of who he is today. ♪ i think i love you ♪ so what am i so afraid of i'm afraid that i'm not sure ♪ ♪ i think i love you

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