00:00I'm Reuven Fenton. I've been a reporter for the New York Post since 2007.
00:04I've worked thousands of stories since I started working here.
00:07My top five, if not my number one, would be my interview with Joel Steinberg,
00:13the guy who, without a doubt, beat his adopted daughter to death.
00:18A grand jury today indicted attorney Joel Steinberg with murder, manslaughter,
00:23and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child.
00:26Elizabeth, or Lisa Steinberg, was found comatose and brain dead on Monday
00:30in the attorney's Greenwich Village apartment.
00:33It was a huge deal in 1987, 1988, and in 2017, I was able to sit down for an interview
00:40with this guy.
00:42It was an interview I was never even expecting to get in the first place, but somehow I did.
00:47My name is Irma Rivera. I'm a retired New York City police detective.
00:50Joel Steinberg, in my opinion, was a monster who was a woman beater, a child abuser.
00:56He was very arrogant. You know, you can tell he hated women. He hated me, that's for sure.
01:01I went to his house on West 123rd Street in Harlem when this guy showed up.
01:07His name was Wayne, and Wayne's like, listen, if you want to talk to Joel,
01:12I'm sure we can arrange something. I was like, really? I wasn't expecting that, but okay.
01:18And after a couple of days of waiting, Wayne got back to me and said,
01:23Joel would like to go out to dinner with you. And then he suggested Spark Steakhouse.
01:27It was surreal in a sense because, like, what am I doing at this nice restaurant with this guy?
01:32The setting seemed strange. It was too nice. It was too upscale.
01:37So what commenced was a seven-hour interview. Never in my life have I felt as trapped as I did
01:45with another person as I did that interview. Never in my life have I wanted to get out of an
01:50interview
01:50as badly as I did at that moment. Frankly, I haven't ever really spoken about this extensively until now
01:58because I just didn't know how to explain it. It was a unique experience that has no comparison,
02:04and that's what makes it arguably the most memorable story I ever worked on for the New York Post.
