Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #135 Jason Flom with Lamonte McIntyre

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#135 Jason Flom with Lamonte McIntyre · Wrongful Conviction

0:00
Speaker 1: We originally released our interview with Lamont McIntyre on September
0:03
Speaker 1: twenty fifth, twenty seventeen, but with all that has changed
0:07
Speaker 1: in this case and the world around us, we thought
0:09
Speaker 1: it a good time to release an updated version of
0:12
Speaker 1: this episode. On the afternoon of April fifteenth, nineteen ninety four,
0:19
Speaker 1: Donielle Quinn and Donald Ewing sat in a powder blue
0:22
Speaker 1: Cadillac when a man dressed in black pumped four shotgun
0:25
Speaker 1: rounds into the car, killing the two men. Within six
0:29
Speaker 1: hours of the crime, Kansas City, Kansas Police detective Roger
0:33
Speaker 1: Glubski began the process of framing Lamont McIntyre, who was
0:37
Speaker 1: seventeen at the time, for two counts of first degree murder.
0:42
Speaker 1: Why did he do this because Lamont's mother had refused
0:46
Speaker 1: Glubski's repeated sexual advances. But without any physical evidence whatsoever
0:52
Speaker 1: to link Lamont to the crime, Kolubski in the state,
0:55
Speaker 1: would rely on mistaken eyewitness identification to seal them's fate.
1:01
Speaker 1: And to make matters even worse, Lamont was represented at
1:04
Speaker 1: trial by a public defender who would later be disbarred
1:08
Speaker 1: for failing to diligently handle three other cases. All of
1:11
Speaker 1: this resulted in his wrongful conviction at being sentenced to
1:16
Speaker 1: two consecutive life prison terms. On this episode, I'll speak
1:20
Speaker 1: with Kansas City attorney Cheryl Pilot, who worked to exonerate
1:24
Speaker 1: Lamont McIntyre and was successful shortly after this story was released.
1:29
Speaker 1: She's joined by former FBI agent Al Jenerich, who spent
1:34
Speaker 1: much of his career investigating police corruption all over the country.
1:39
Speaker 1: And finally we spoke with Lamont while he was still
1:41
Speaker 1: behind bars, a victim of the systemic racism and police
1:45
Speaker 1: corruption that plagues our criminal legal system. This is Wrongful
1:50
Speaker 1: Conviction with Jason Flaub. Welcome back to Ronful Conviction with
2:06
Speaker 1: Jason Flumm. Today's episode will make your blood boil and
2:11
Speaker 1: it will blow your mind. So settle in because this
2:15
Speaker 1: is going to be a crazy ride.
2:17
Speaker 2: Guilty one word ceiling Lamont McIntyre's fate.
2:21
Speaker 3: Lamont McIntyre, aged seventeen in nineteen ninety four, has so
2:24
Speaker 3: far been imprisoned for twenty two years. Twenty two years ago,
2:27
Speaker 3: two young men, twenty one year old Donielle Quinn and
2:30
Speaker 3: his thirty four year old cousin Donald Ewing, were gunned
2:33
Speaker 3: down in a horrible double homicide.
2:36
Speaker 2: Six hours after the murder's police arrested McIntyre but never
2:40
Speaker 2: searched his house for evidence.
2:42
Speaker 3: Moreover, it was a trial which prosecutors offered no physical
2:45
Speaker 3: evidence tying McIntyre to the crime, no motive, no connection
2:49
Speaker 3: between him and the victims, no weapon, no fingerprints, nor
2:52
Speaker 3: did Kansas City, Kansas believe even request search warrants to
2:56
Speaker 3: find any of that material.
2:58
Speaker 2: A retired officer who reviewed the case caused the investigation
3:01
Speaker 2: grossly deficient.
3:02
Speaker 3: Most notable is that the family of the victims for
3:06
Speaker 3: twenty two years have steadfastly insisted that he is innocent.
3:11
Speaker 3: Other witnesses, also relatives of the victim, insisted as soon
3:14
Speaker 3: as they saw McIntyre sitting at the defense table, they
3:16
Speaker 3: knew he was not the shooter. They told the prosecutor,
3:19
Speaker 3: but were ignored. One family member has signed an affi
3:22
Speaker 3: David claiming that under pressure from police and the prosecutor,
3:25
Speaker 3: she lied at McIntyre's trial.
3:27
Speaker 2: For the first time, a jury is speaking publicly about
3:30
Speaker 2: the case, Greg Lauber says that he now believes that
3:33
Speaker 2: yan Dot County jury was wrong.
3:35
Speaker 4: They didn't care about anything.
3:37
Speaker 5: They just had their.
3:38
Speaker 2: Man and it was enough for the twelve person jury
3:41
Speaker 2: in deliberations, Lauber says he and another juror were holdouts,
3:44
Speaker 2: but it was late in the day and there was
3:46
Speaker 2: mounting pressure from others who wanted a verdict.
3:49
Speaker 3: Maybe I had an opportunity to, you know, do something
3:52
Speaker 3: good on that jury, but I sure didn't do it.
3:55
Speaker 5: I took a coward's way out.
3:57
Speaker 3: It is the speedy investigation and prosecution of that crime
4:00
Speaker 3: in this place that a team of exonerators now insist
4:03
Speaker 3: was also the focus of a terrible injustice. Lamont McIntyre,
4:07
Speaker 3: aged seventeen in nineteen ninety four, has so far been
4:10
Speaker 3: imprisoned for twenty two years, convicted, and given two consecutive
4:14
Speaker 3: life sentences for a crime they say he never committed.
4:18
Speaker 1: Well, I'm just going to say I'm really happy that
4:20
Speaker 1: today joining us to discuss the insane case of Lamont McIntyre,
4:26
Speaker 1: we have with us Lamont's attorney, Cheryl Pilot, as well
4:31
Speaker 1: as retired FBI special agent Al Jenerich. Cheryl and Al,
4:36
Speaker 1: thank you for being here.
4:37
Speaker 5: Thank you so much. We're glad to be here, happy
4:39
Speaker 5: to be.
4:39
Speaker 1: Here, and we will be hearing later on in the
4:42
Speaker 1: episode from Lamont, who will be calling in from president Kansas,
4:46
Speaker 1: where he has been incarcerated for approximately twenty four years
4:51
Speaker 1: now since he was a teenager for a crime that
4:54
Speaker 1: he did not commit. Now, let's go back to the beginning.
4:58
Speaker 1: On April fifteenth, nineteen ninety four, there were two men
5:01
Speaker 1: sitting in a Cadillac in Kansas City, Kansas, when they
5:05
Speaker 1: were approached by a man with a shotgun. These facts
5:07
Speaker 1: are not in dispute right correct, And what we know
5:10
Speaker 1: is that four shots were fired into the car, killing
5:13
Speaker 1: the passenger, Donielle Quinn instantly and the driver, Donald Ewing,
5:18
Speaker 1: who died later in the hospital. And amazingly, within six hours,
5:23
Speaker 1: they managed to find a guy who had nothing to
5:25
Speaker 1: do with the crime, Lamont McIntyre, who was seventeen at
5:28
Speaker 1: the time, and he was arrested and charged with two
5:32
Speaker 1: counts of first degree murder in spite of a total
5:36
Speaker 1: lack of any physical evidence connecting him to the crime.
5:40
Speaker 1: How did this happen? Cheryl and al jump in whenever
5:43
Speaker 1: you want.
5:44
Speaker 5: Lamont was arrested and prosecuted after police obtained three interviews
5:51
Speaker 5: from eyewitnesses, one of them never testified, but the taped
5:56
Speaker 5: interviews of these eyewitnesses in a very serious crime obviously,
6:01
Speaker 5: where someone can go to prison for the rest of
6:03
Speaker 5: their life. Amounted to a total of twenty taped minutes,
6:09
Speaker 5: and one of the eyewitnesses was only interviewed for four minutes.
6:13
Speaker 5: Is that an investigation?
6:15
Speaker 4: What is that?
6:16
Speaker 1: So? Al? You've done a lot of research and you
6:18
Speaker 1: were in the FBI for quite a while, Is that right?
6:22
Speaker 6: I was in the FBI for twenty five years. I
6:24
Speaker 6: was a special agent. I specialized in investigating police corruption.
6:30
Speaker 6: I worked in Chicago very successfully, and then in Kansas City, Kansas.
6:35
Speaker 5: Agent Generich was not involved with this murder case at
6:39
Speaker 5: all when it happened. I knew mister Generich through other cases,
6:44
Speaker 5: and after he retired a number of years after he retired,
6:48
Speaker 5: actually and I was working on trying to achieve Lamont's exoneration,
6:53
Speaker 5: I approached him to talk to him about the Kansas City,
6:57
Speaker 5: Kansas Police Department and things that I had a covered
7:00
Speaker 5: in my investigation. And it was at that point that
7:05
Speaker 5: Alan and I started talking about some of the things
7:08
Speaker 5: he had learned while working for the FBI, and they
7:14
Speaker 5: matched up with some of the things I had uncovered
7:16
Speaker 5: in my investigation. And it was because of that that
7:20
Speaker 5: he became a witness in this case that I hope
7:23
Speaker 5: to use at our hearing.
7:25
Speaker 1: So prior to Lamont's arrest, can we talk about what
7:31
Speaker 1: was happening with this particular cop, whose name was Roger Glubski.
7:36
Speaker 6: Sometime around nineteen eighty eight or so, I was able
7:40
Speaker 6: to open an investigation into police corruption in Kansas City, Kansas.
7:44
Speaker 6: And as the investigation went on over time, over many years,
7:49
Speaker 6: we developed maybe somewhere between twelve and fifteen police officers
7:53
Speaker 6: who were titled subjects of the investigation. Some of it
7:58
Speaker 6: involved civil rights like beating people up, stealing their shoes
8:01
Speaker 6: when they were walking down the street because the officer
8:04
Speaker 6: liked the shoes, or in the case of Kaulupski, you know,
8:07
Speaker 6: sexual extortion. But most of it involved corruption involving drugs,
8:12
Speaker 6: mostly cocaine.
8:13
Speaker 1: And in the.
8:14
Speaker 6: Course of this investigation, just by talking to people, which
8:17
Speaker 6: is what I'm pretty good at, over time, you know,
8:20
Speaker 6: a number of people told us about Gaulupski extorting sex
8:25
Speaker 6: from black women, and he liked black women. We never
8:28
Speaker 6: developed enough evidence on Gallupski to prosecute him. That's the
8:33
Speaker 6: extent of my knowledge about Gaulupski.
8:36
Speaker 1: I always believe that that police were good and the
8:39
Speaker 1: police were on our side and they're there to protect
8:41
Speaker 1: us all and so I always find these stories, even
8:45
Speaker 1: as long as I've been working on this issue, and
8:48
Speaker 1: I've got twenty five years now of experience, but I
8:51
Speaker 1: always find these stories so just depressing and shocking, and
8:56
Speaker 1: it flips everything upside down.
8:57
Speaker 6: Well, like you, I was very nice eve until I
9:01
Speaker 6: went to Chicago, and then I sought police corruption on
9:04
Speaker 6: the massive scale. But then when I got back to
9:07
Speaker 6: Kansas City in eighty six and probably got involved in
9:11
Speaker 6: Kansas City, Kansas in eighty eight, I saw the same activity.
9:15
Speaker 6: There wasn't on the grand scale.
9:18
Speaker 1: You know.
9:18
Speaker 6: It's that it's conducted in Chicago. It's basically police officers,
9:23
Speaker 6: most of whom are white, picking on minorities, most of
9:27
Speaker 6: whom are black, some of them are Hispanic. Because when
9:30
Speaker 6: you're a drug dealer, you know, you can't go to
9:33
Speaker 6: the police or the FBI and say, hey, these cops
9:35
Speaker 6: are stealing my drugs, these cops are stealing my drug money.
9:40
Speaker 6: You basically have to you have to suck it up.
9:42
Speaker 6: So that's what they do in Chicago, That's what they
9:44
Speaker 6: do everywhere.
9:45
Speaker 1: So Lamont his troubles really began when his mom was
9:52
Speaker 1: at a car with I guess was her boyfriend at
9:55
Speaker 1: the time, showl right. Glubski approached the car and told
9:59
Speaker 1: her to get out and threatened her with the rest
10:03
Speaker 1: or the rest of her boyfriend unless she agreed to
10:05
Speaker 1: come down to the police station. And then the problems
10:09
Speaker 1: really began when she refused to become one of his girls,
10:14
Speaker 1: so to speak, right, I mean, obviously, she was in
10:17
Speaker 1: a terrible situation where she's very vulnerable, not able to
10:22
Speaker 1: defend herself from a cop who's willing to go to
10:25
Speaker 1: almost any length to fulfill his desires. She had a
10:29
Speaker 1: tremendous problem, and she decided that she wanted to maintain
10:34
Speaker 1: her dignity, really right, And so what seems like happened
10:37
Speaker 1: is that as a consequence, Golubski decided that he would
10:41
Speaker 1: target and frame her son in something that is so
10:46
Speaker 1: evil that makes me want to quit the human race.
10:50
Speaker 5: There was an encounter that Lamon's mother had with the
10:54
Speaker 5: detective some years earlier. I mean it was years actually
10:58
Speaker 5: before the double homicide happened. And at the time of
11:02
Speaker 5: the double homicide, my client was inexplicably dragged into the case.
11:08
Speaker 5: One of the eyewitnesses told the police she thought the
11:11
Speaker 5: shooter looked like a Lamont dating her niece. Police never
11:15
Speaker 5: bothered to find out what Lamont that was. They don't
11:18
Speaker 5: go ask the niece what Lamont that was. They simply
11:22
Speaker 5: put another Lamont and it's undisputed, an entirely different Lamont
11:26
Speaker 5: my client into the case, and somehow obtain this identification.
11:33
Speaker 5: What's interesting about the lineup, and I've never seen anything
11:37
Speaker 5: like this before, is three of the five photos were
11:40
Speaker 5: of young male members of the McIntyre family.
11:44
Speaker 1: You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to say, well,
11:48
Speaker 1: that doesn't make a lot of sense. It's one perpetrator.
11:52
Speaker 1: It's not like somebody said there were three brothers that
11:54
Speaker 1: were involved. It's one perpetrator, you know. And then the
11:58
Speaker 1: justice system, we know, has a tendency to chew people
12:03
Speaker 1: up and spit them out when they are poor, particularly
12:07
Speaker 1: if they're minorities and underrepresented. It's really it's not a
12:12
Speaker 1: fair fight, is it.
12:13
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, this whole thing was an impossible battle
12:18
Speaker 5: for Lamont to begin with. I mean, first of all,
12:22
Speaker 5: the investigation itself, I don't think really qualified is a
12:27
Speaker 5: true investigation because so little was done, no evidence of
12:31
Speaker 5: motive was ever uncovered. There was no physical evidence that
12:35
Speaker 5: tied Lamont to the crime. There was not even any
12:37
Speaker 5: evidence that he knew the two victims. There are backgrounds
12:41
Speaker 5: of the two victims and who might have a motive
12:44
Speaker 5: to harm them that was never investigated. There was an
12:48
Speaker 5: eyewitness directly across the street who was never interviewed, whose
12:53
Speaker 5: mother said, you know, she knows who the suspect is.
12:56
Speaker 5: I mean, the failures and lapses and regularities in this
13:01
Speaker 5: case just go on and on. I mean, other than
13:04
Speaker 5: the twenty minutes of taped interviews from the eyewitnesses, there
13:08
Speaker 5: was very little else and the only evidence at trial
13:12
Speaker 5: against Lamont were two eyewitnesses. One of them has admitted
13:18
Speaker 5: that she lied, that she was coursed. The other eyewitness
13:22
Speaker 5: seems frankly, very perplexed by her testimony, and it's very
13:26
Speaker 5: clear that it's an eyewitness a misidentification based on manipulation.
13:33
Speaker 1: And we know also that had this trial taken place
13:37
Speaker 1: twenty years later or so, with everything that's known now
13:40
Speaker 1: about the unreliability of eyewitness identification, there's a very good
13:44
Speaker 1: chance that would have been discredited. Because there was no
13:46
Speaker 1: other evidence connecting him to the crime.
13:48
Speaker 5: You take a person who's traumatized, who has just witnessed
13:52
Speaker 5: a really horrific event, and they can be pretty easy
13:56
Speaker 5: to pressure or manipulate. And in factness provided in a
14:01
Speaker 5: tape statement my client's last name, a man she did
14:04
Speaker 5: not know and had never heard of, which raises the
14:07
Speaker 5: very interesting question of who gave her the name. It
14:10
Speaker 5: was undisputed at trial that she did not know my client,
14:15
Speaker 5: yet the fact that there was an original tape statement
14:18
Speaker 5: where she provided his name never came out. That was
14:22
Speaker 5: never admitted at trial. She also stated wrongly that my
14:26
Speaker 5: client was the Lamont who had dated her niece. At
14:29
Speaker 5: trial undisputed that that was not true. It was an
14:32
Speaker 5: entirely different Lamont who was in fact identified by his
14:36
Speaker 5: name to the jury, an entirely different person. So, I mean,
14:40
Speaker 5: the whole thing is troubling beginning to end, really a
14:44
Speaker 5: perfect storm of chaos and horror and misconduct, things being
14:51
Speaker 5: done improperly.
14:53
Speaker 1: So you have this cop and this department that is
14:58
Speaker 1: so corrupt isn't even the word, but that's engaged in
15:01
Speaker 1: so many illegal activities, And isn't it ironic and tragic
15:06
Speaker 1: that Lamont is in prison, living in hell after twenty
15:11
Speaker 1: four years, and this cop who was, from what I've read,
15:17
Speaker 1: raping people, robbing people, dealing drugs, protecting drug dealers, he's out.
15:23
Speaker 1: How is that? I mean that must not sit well
15:26
Speaker 1: with you with your whole background either.
15:28
Speaker 5: What I'm really hoping for, what our entire team is
15:32
Speaker 5: hoping for, and what we have sought for a long time,
15:35
Speaker 5: is a very full investigation into the activities of this detective.
15:41
Speaker 5: There needs to be an investigation by people who have
15:45
Speaker 5: the power to follow all the leads, develop information, compel
15:50
Speaker 5: the testimony of witnesses, and obtain other evidence.
15:55
Speaker 1: Ah, let me turn it to you for a second,
15:56
Speaker 1: because we have not had somebody with your background and
16:01
Speaker 1: experience on the show before. And I would adventure to
16:07
Speaker 1: say that you had a very very difficult and dangerous job, right,
16:10
Speaker 1: I mean, investigating cops, particularly when you're investigating cops who've
16:14
Speaker 1: got a lot to hide, makes you a very unpopular person,
16:18
Speaker 1: I would think so, looking back on it, how did
16:23
Speaker 1: this manage to go on for so long without somebody
16:29
Speaker 1: coming along and saying, you know, besides you, hey, hey,
16:34
Speaker 1: we're not going to tolerate this.
16:36
Speaker 6: They don't give a shit. At the time we were
16:38
Speaker 6: doing these investigations, the police chief of Kansas City, Kansas,
16:42
Speaker 6: a guy named Tom Daly. He had previously been indicted
16:46
Speaker 6: by the Federal Strike Force for extorting money at a
16:49
Speaker 6: whorehouses along the Kaw River in Kansas. He was doing
16:53
Speaker 6: that allegedly when it was a captain. He was acquitted
16:56
Speaker 6: because it was a real weak case, but after a
17:00
Speaker 6: quit it for extortion, the city wound up eventually making
17:04
Speaker 6: him the chief. Is that the actions, you know, over
17:06
Speaker 6: responsible a city administration or a police department. So he
17:11
Speaker 6: had the chief over here, Tom Dale, who had previously
17:13
Speaker 6: been indicted by the Feds. He despised the federal government,
17:16
Speaker 6: he hated the US Attorney's Office and the FBI. And
17:20
Speaker 6: he's the chief. He was part of it.
17:23
Speaker 1: So you have this guy Golubski who in that scenario
17:28
Speaker 1: is operating basically with impunity, right because he knows his
17:34
Speaker 1: chief doesn't give a shit, And with the chief having literally,
17:41
Speaker 1: well for what it sounds like, gotten away with that
17:43
Speaker 1: particular pattern of activity as well as I'm sure other
17:46
Speaker 1: things that he was doing, the people underneath him are
17:49
Speaker 1: probably thinking, hey, this is great. No one's going to
17:51
Speaker 1: touch us, and they're right, and nobody did. So how
17:54
Speaker 1: frustrating was that for you?
17:56
Speaker 5: There?
17:56
Speaker 1: You are really fighting an unwinnable war, right, They're trying
18:00
Speaker 1: to protect the public from the police force with they
18:04
Speaker 1: chief of police who not only doesn't give a fuck,
18:07
Speaker 1: but doesn't want that he wants you. He probably wants
18:10
Speaker 1: you the fuck out of his hair, so he could
18:11
Speaker 1: just you know, run the streets how he wants to.
18:13
Speaker 6: Right when I started working over there, you had a person,
18:17
Speaker 6: you know, some guy I knewed know a lot of
18:19
Speaker 6: people in the county jail, and they would say, he
18:21
Speaker 6: so and so confronted me and stole my money, stole
18:24
Speaker 6: my drugs. You go, what's the cops name? I don't
18:27
Speaker 6: know his name, you know what's he looked like, Well,
18:29
Speaker 6: you know he's some white guy. Well you go to
18:31
Speaker 6: the police. The police did not have photographs of their
18:35
Speaker 6: police officers, So if if a victim came in there
18:39
Speaker 6: alleging that so and so officer robbed from me, extorted me,
18:43
Speaker 6: they didn't even have photographs to show people so they
18:46
Speaker 6: could identify who the police officer was. So good luck,
18:50
Speaker 6: you know, through the US Attorney's office, through Julie Robinson,
18:54
Speaker 6: who was a prosecutor at the time. We subpoenaed photographs
18:58
Speaker 6: of every sworn officer in the Kansas City, Kansas Police Department,
19:02
Speaker 6: and there was hell to pay for that. I was
19:05
Speaker 6: almost removed from the investigation because of that.
19:09
Speaker 5: I think one of the problems is that other law
19:13
Speaker 5: enforcement officers don't want to investigate law enforcement, and as
19:17
Speaker 5: a general rule, I think they find it distasteful, something
19:21
Speaker 5: they would rather avoid, and there is a tendency to
19:25
Speaker 5: minimize misconduct. I found that really pretty shocking, not.
19:29
Speaker 1: In light of everything else we're talking about, but I
19:31
Speaker 1: could see how you would, and it really gets easier
19:35
Speaker 1: and easier to see how these wrongful convictions are so common.
19:41
Speaker 1: I mean, here, we have an interesting situation, right, We're
19:43
Speaker 1: talking to Al who's in there with his badge, working
19:47
Speaker 1: for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and basically being told
19:51
Speaker 1: go fuck himself. So what chance does a seventeen year
19:56
Speaker 1: old black kid from the poorer side of town. What
19:59
Speaker 1: chance do does he have against this blue wall, this
20:04
Speaker 1: blue monster that was out to get him. He had
20:07
Speaker 1: no chance. So now fast forward to twenty four years later,
20:15
Speaker 1: the monsets in a prison studying reading by all accounts,
20:20
Speaker 1: a model prisoner, somebody who maintains a positive outlook in
20:24
Speaker 1: spite of this what can only be described as the
20:27
Speaker 1: worst fate that can befall an individual, to be incarcerated
20:32
Speaker 1: with something he didn't do for the rest of your life.
20:34
Speaker 1: But now we have hope, right, I mean, he has
20:37
Speaker 1: hope thanks to you and the years of work that
20:39
Speaker 1: you've done in this case and al and other brave
20:41
Speaker 1: people who have devoted their time and in some cases
20:44
Speaker 1: probably even risk their own personal safety to try to
20:47
Speaker 1: get justice in this case. What does it look like now?
20:50
Speaker 1: What happens next? Tell us what's going on.
20:53
Speaker 5: We have a evidentiary hearing coming up in October, and
20:59
Speaker 5: we tend to present somewhere between forty and fifty witnesses
21:05
Speaker 5: who provide very powerful testimony on various aspects of the case.
21:10
Speaker 5: There was almost nothing really to support the conviction to
21:14
Speaker 5: begin with, nothing other than the testimony of the two
21:17
Speaker 5: eye witnesses, and I believe that has been thoroughly shredded
21:22
Speaker 5: at this point through recantations and admissions and the result
21:28
Speaker 5: of other investigation. And we are also focusing on the
21:33
Speaker 5: very troubling misconduct in the case. It is intimately connected
21:37
Speaker 5: to how the investigation was conducted, and we're going to
21:43
Speaker 5: bring all that out and show how we believe this
21:46
Speaker 5: went wrong, and we very much hope to be successful.
21:51
Speaker 1: What's the data of the hearing October twelfth, October twelfth,
21:55
Speaker 1: and is this in a federal court?
21:57
Speaker 5: We are in Windock County District Court is a state court.
22:01
Speaker 5: My client is litigating what's called a successive petition under
22:06
Speaker 5: sixty fifteen oh seven, and you have essentially a procedural
22:10
Speaker 5: barrier to get over before you can get back into court.
22:13
Speaker 5: But we do have this evidentiary hearing schedule that we
22:16
Speaker 5: are very very excited about. One of the most compelling
22:19
Speaker 5: things about the case we haven't mentioned this yet, is
22:22
Speaker 5: that the families of both victims have always known my
22:26
Speaker 5: client is innocent and are very much squarely supporting the
22:31
Speaker 5: quest to free him. They know that they did not
22:34
Speaker 5: get justice, Their families did not get justice.
22:37
Speaker 1: And that's Cheryl. In your experience, it's not a common thing, right.
22:41
Speaker 1: I mean, most of the cases I've seen, even in
22:44
Speaker 1: the face of what could be overwhelming evidence to the contrary,
22:47
Speaker 1: the victim's family sometimes stick with you. What they've been
22:50
Speaker 1: told all along, because they just can't They can't even
22:53
Speaker 1: process the idea that they may have been lied to
22:55
Speaker 1: and that the wrong person may have been serving time
22:56
Speaker 1: for the murder of their loved one. So in this case,
22:59
Speaker 1: this is a very very unusual scenario, isn't.
23:01
Speaker 5: It It is? And one of the eyewitnesses is related
23:06
Speaker 5: to both of the victims, and she her family and
23:12
Speaker 5: the family of the second victim to whom she's a
23:15
Speaker 5: bit more distantly related, have always told me that they
23:18
Speaker 5: have known from the beginning that the authorities got the
23:22
Speaker 5: wrong man. They have always known this. They've made periodic
23:26
Speaker 5: efforts to correct this, to address this, to try and
23:29
Speaker 5: get some justice, all without success.
23:31
Speaker 1: And if there wasn't already enough to chew on, this
23:36
Speaker 1: is the part that really just sets me off, his
23:40
Speaker 1: court pointed. Attorney Gary Long was on supervised probation at
23:45
Speaker 1: the time of the trial for failing to diligently handle
23:48
Speaker 1: three prior cases. He was suspended from the bar a
23:52
Speaker 1: couple years later for failure to adequately hand or a
23:54
Speaker 1: separate criminal case. And he was this bar in nineteen
23:57
Speaker 1: ninety eight. How is it even possible that, in all
24:00
Speaker 1: life or death situation that you take somebody and you say,
24:04
Speaker 1: you know what, we're going to give you a lawyer
24:07
Speaker 1: who's already messed up three times.
24:11
Speaker 6: Well, when I said nobody gives a shit, do you
24:13
Speaker 6: understand what I mean? Do you know that that you
24:17
Speaker 6: know that Tara Morehead Do you know she's now a
24:19
Speaker 6: federal prosecutor.
24:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Tara Moorehead was the prosecutor in this case.
24:24
Speaker 1: Obviously didn't see anything wrong with her prosecuting a case
24:30
Speaker 1: in which a young man's life was at stake in
24:33
Speaker 1: front of a judge with whom she had carried on
24:35
Speaker 1: an affair a few years earlier. I think most reasonable
24:40
Speaker 1: people would agree that one or the other should have
24:45
Speaker 1: been recused from this particular scenario because even if they
24:50
Speaker 1: were saints, and obviously they weren't. Because she's also the
24:54
Speaker 1: same woman from what I've read, who threatened a witness
24:58
Speaker 1: who tried to come forward with the truth with losing
25:01
Speaker 1: custody of her own children. But yes, so now she's
25:04
Speaker 1: moved up the ladder. Seems like all the bad guys
25:07
Speaker 1: have won here. Al what the fuck?
25:10
Speaker 6: Well, I think Sarah Morhait's currently married to a police officer.
25:13
Speaker 6: I think there's some other prosecutors over in the federal
25:16
Speaker 6: US Attorney's Office that are married to other police officers.
25:20
Speaker 6: So you're not going to expect them to investigate police corruption,
25:22
Speaker 6: are you.
25:24
Speaker 1: Well, I guess that would make it tricky, wouldn't it.
25:26
Speaker 6: They're not going to do it, and they don't.
25:28
Speaker 5: I mean, there is so much that it could be
25:32
Speaker 5: investigated that ought to be investigated. And you know, I
25:38
Speaker 5: should also point out that sexual misconduct among police officers
25:43
Speaker 5: is not unusual in some departments. When you have poor
25:47
Speaker 5: and vulnerable people encounter folks with ultimate authority over them,
25:53
Speaker 5: ultimate authority in that particular moment, you know, those things
25:57
Speaker 5: can happen all too easily, and they do happened frequently.
26:01
Speaker 6: You know, when I was an agent, I'm about six
26:03
Speaker 6: foot four. I had a gun, a badge, and a
26:06
Speaker 6: radio and everything. At nighttime, when I was on my
26:09
Speaker 6: way home or on the weekends, I would not drive
26:12
Speaker 6: through Kansas City, Kansas unless I was accompanied by another
26:15
Speaker 6: FBI agent.
26:16
Speaker 1: So because you thought they might have run you off
26:18
Speaker 1: the road or something else.
26:19
Speaker 6: They could do anything. They could pull me over and
26:22
Speaker 6: not saying they don't know who I was, and they
26:23
Speaker 6: could say I pulled a gun and they could shoot me.
26:26
Speaker 6: So I have all that power and authority. What does
26:28
Speaker 6: some little black kid on the street have.
26:31
Speaker 1: I hope that in exposing the story of Lamont and
26:35
Speaker 1: some of the things that you've shared out that people,
26:39
Speaker 1: you know, get their backs up and get get angry
26:43
Speaker 1: and get involved. These are just people, They're just regular people,
26:47
Speaker 1: and they're being so terribly abused and victimized by people
26:52
Speaker 1: who are supposed to protect them. I don't it makes
26:54
Speaker 1: me sick.
26:55
Speaker 5: I just say that the fear and the terror that
26:57
Speaker 5: some of the citizens experience cannot be overstated. I mean,
27:02
Speaker 5: you have someone with a badge with ultimate and really,
27:08
Speaker 5: as I said in that moment, unchecked authority, there's enormous
27:11
Speaker 5: fear of the police and enormous, sometimes unmovable resistance to
27:18
Speaker 5: getting involved in anything that has to do with the
27:21
Speaker 5: criminal justice system. I've spent some years, honestly, just earning
27:26
Speaker 5: the trust of some people in the community so that
27:30
Speaker 5: they will sit down and speak with me so that
27:33
Speaker 5: we can investigate the case. Nobody wants anything to do
27:37
Speaker 5: with a case you say, courthouse people walk the other way.
27:41
Speaker 5: They don't want anything to do with that. And ultimately
27:46
Speaker 5: we have been successful in securing some very good witnesses
27:50
Speaker 5: because they did want to help someone they viewed as innocent.
27:55
Speaker 5: And you know, I should point out here that all
27:58
Speaker 5: of the street talk have ever heard in the community
28:02
Speaker 5: is that Lamont is innocent, the guy who got wrongfully convicted.
28:05
Speaker 5: It's like everyone knows, the whole community knows, the victims'
28:10
Speaker 5: families know, everyone knows Lamont did not do this. Everyone knows.
28:28
Speaker 7: You have a prepaid call from the Boks an innate
28:33
Speaker 7: at Kansas Department of Corrections Lancing Correctional Facility. To accept
28:38
Speaker 7: this call, press or say five to refuse. This call
28:44
Speaker 7: will be recorded and subject to monitoring. At any time.
28:47
Speaker 7: You may begin speaking.
28:48
Speaker 1: Now, Lamont, Welcome to the show.
28:51
Speaker 4: Thank you.
28:54
Speaker 1: So, Lamont. I want to go back to the beginning,
28:56
Speaker 1: when you grew up and how this all started. I've
29:00
Speaker 1: seen photos of you with your family. It looked like
29:02
Speaker 1: you had not an easy but a happy childhood. Is
29:05
Speaker 1: that fair?
29:06
Speaker 4: Yeah? I did.
29:07
Speaker 1: Can you just describe what it was like. I've heard
29:09
Speaker 1: you talk about Christmas and stuff. Uh.
29:12
Speaker 4: Yeah, we was tight knit.
29:13
Speaker 5: You know.
29:13
Speaker 4: It's like my mother was just an only parent in
29:15
Speaker 4: the house and we was close. Me and my siblings,
29:18
Speaker 4: and we did everything together. We stayed in one house.
29:21
Speaker 4: You know, we took care of each other. So glowing
29:24
Speaker 4: up with me was my family was a big game.
29:27
Speaker 4: We didn't really fight about a lot of stuff.
29:29
Speaker 5: You know.
29:29
Speaker 4: It was me and my three brothers and my sister,
29:32
Speaker 4: my modest sister. My mother worked a lot, so my
29:36
Speaker 4: sister kind of watched after us a little bit. Some
29:39
Speaker 4: other family members. I used to go to my family
29:41
Speaker 4: member's house, my uncles, and be around them. Our mother
29:45
Speaker 4: was at work. I kind of still stayed around family
29:48
Speaker 4: outside my home. So real family.
29:50
Speaker 1: Oriented and where you grew up, you had no idea
29:54
Speaker 1: at this time that the police force was really as
29:58
Speaker 1: corrupt as any one could possibly imagine until this terrible
30:03
Speaker 1: incident occurred. And I want to go back to that.
30:08
Speaker 1: What happened. You were a seventeen year old kid going
30:12
Speaker 1: along with your life, trying to make it in a
30:15
Speaker 1: difficult place, and then one day out of the blue,
30:19
Speaker 1: you get arrested and don't even know what's going on
30:22
Speaker 1: or what happened.
30:24
Speaker 4: Uh, That's exactly what happened. And it was a typical day.
30:27
Speaker 4: It was like a Friday, typical day. I was in
30:30
Speaker 4: road in a downy commage program where it's all time
30:33
Speaker 4: to school where they would help you get your high
30:35
Speaker 4: school the phone wall, and then they gets you in college.
30:40
Speaker 4: So it was like a little degree program I was
30:42
Speaker 4: a part of. And it was just a Friday. I
30:46
Speaker 4: get a car phone call saying the police is over
30:49
Speaker 4: my grandmother's house looking for me. Call my mother. We
30:52
Speaker 4: go to the police station and they start talking about
30:55
Speaker 4: two murders and I had no answers for him because
30:58
Speaker 4: I didn't know what they were saying talking about. So
31:02
Speaker 4: from that moment, I was arrested, charge and ovously convicted
31:08
Speaker 4: of two murders that I had nothing to do with about.
31:12
Speaker 1: And we know now that they were deliberately targeting you
31:18
Speaker 1: because of this particular police officer who was up to
31:25
Speaker 1: all kinds of criminal activity himself. And that's the irony
31:28
Speaker 1: of this is that he belongs in jail. And I'm
31:30
Speaker 1: hoping that by the end of this that's exactly what's
31:33
Speaker 1: going to happen. But the idea that this system, this
31:38
Speaker 1: so called justice system, had made a decision that you
31:42
Speaker 1: were going to be their guy. There was this double
31:44
Speaker 1: murder right two guys sitting in a car. They were
31:47
Speaker 1: involved in drug activity. They were dealers. We now know
31:51
Speaker 1: also that one of them had been beaten by the
31:54
Speaker 1: guys he was working for in the drug business. Right.
31:57
Speaker 1: He was working as a doorman in a crack then,
32:00
Speaker 1: and he had feared for his life. And in fact
32:04
Speaker 1: he had good reason too, because I guess he had
32:06
Speaker 1: from what I've learned, he had been stealing from them.
32:09
Speaker 1: So that every reason to know that this was a
32:13
Speaker 1: drug hit. And you weren't involved in that game or
32:18
Speaker 1: that business. Did you know these guys.
32:21
Speaker 4: I didn't know the witnesses, I didn't know the victims,
32:24
Speaker 4: and I wouldn't connected to it at all. That's why
32:26
Speaker 4: so it so halted me to understand how something like
32:29
Speaker 4: that could happen, because and I was bored about everything.
32:32
Speaker 4: I didn't try to hide nothing, because I knew what
32:35
Speaker 4: they were talking about at that time. I had nothing
32:37
Speaker 4: to do with it, and I wasn't involved. I don't
32:39
Speaker 4: know what the police officer's motive was to plan it
32:43
Speaker 4: on me or I still don't know if this day
32:45
Speaker 4: what happened.
32:46
Speaker 1: Well, it does seem like now with everything we've learned
32:50
Speaker 1: that the officer involved, the first one who arrived on
32:54
Speaker 1: the scene was an officer named Golubski. It's a white
32:57
Speaker 1: guy who had a proclivity for women of color, and
33:01
Speaker 1: when he didn't get his way, he would exact revenge.
33:06
Speaker 1: And so what it seems like is that in this
33:08
Speaker 1: particular case, he targeted you because your mom wasn't having
33:12
Speaker 1: any part of that. And that's what makes this particularly
33:15
Speaker 1: sinister and sick. You end up going to trial, and
33:20
Speaker 1: I find it interesting, among all the other things in
33:23
Speaker 1: your case, that they offered you a plea bargain right
33:25
Speaker 1: and you didn't take it.
33:27
Speaker 4: I woman in the rest in the pleaborgan, I can't
33:29
Speaker 4: understand how was I sit in that situation, and I
33:34
Speaker 4: didn't know nothing about the crime itself, So plea borger
33:37
Speaker 4: was far from my mom would think about a plea bog.
33:39
Speaker 1: And why I find that and why I brought that up, Lamont.
33:41
Speaker 1: And I've seen the mugshot picture of you, and it
33:44
Speaker 1: really hurt my heart because I could see in your
33:47
Speaker 1: face just how confused you were and scared of a
33:52
Speaker 1: situation that you couldn't possibly imagine what's happening at that time.
33:57
Speaker 1: I also would think that if you were guilty and
34:00
Speaker 1: they're offering you a deal and you know your chances
34:03
Speaker 1: of winning in the court are going to be low
34:06
Speaker 1: because they have all these cops and everybody else that
34:08
Speaker 1: is going to testify this. You would have taken the
34:10
Speaker 1: plea bargain. Anybody with the right mind would take a
34:12
Speaker 1: plea bargain. You're not crazy, are you? I'm not right.
34:15
Speaker 1: It don't sound it don't sound crazy at all. So
34:18
Speaker 1: in the situations like this, I mean, we have in
34:20
Speaker 1: this country over ninety percent of cases end up in
34:22
Speaker 1: plea bargains. So had you been guilty, that would have
34:25
Speaker 1: been a very logical thing to do. But as an
34:27
Speaker 1: innocent person and probably somebody who still trusted in the system,
34:31
Speaker 1: you went forward with your right to a trial, and
34:34
Speaker 1: you were represented by a guy who they knew your
34:37
Speaker 1: court appointed lawyer. They knew this guy was incompetent because
34:41
Speaker 1: he had already been disciplined for three previous cases that
34:45
Speaker 1: he had completely botched. It almost sounds like they did
34:48
Speaker 1: it on purpose. They assigned a guy who didn't go
34:51
Speaker 1: and interview witnesses, who really didn't do anything he was
34:55
Speaker 1: supposed to do. And what was that like? Were you
34:58
Speaker 1: aware at that time that this guy I wasn't I mean,
35:01
Speaker 1: I don't even know if it was really on your side,
35:03
Speaker 1: But I mean, as you're watching these procedings, what were
35:05
Speaker 1: you thinking.
35:06
Speaker 4: He presented himself like a lawyer. He presented itself like
35:09
Speaker 4: a person in there on my behalf to take care
35:12
Speaker 4: of this business. And he's seeing real professional at first.
35:16
Speaker 4: So I didn't know what to expect because I've never
35:18
Speaker 4: been in that situation before anyway, So his first impression
35:22
Speaker 4: was for me, it was a good impression because I
35:24
Speaker 4: didn't know what a lawyer was supposed to do, or
35:27
Speaker 4: I was so ignorant to the law and how things worked.
35:30
Speaker 4: I just believed in the justice system at that time,
35:32
Speaker 4: I really did. I thought there was no possible way,
35:36
Speaker 4: being an innocent person or person that has nothing to
35:38
Speaker 4: do with that crime, that I would be found guilty.
35:40
Speaker 4: So I didn't really pay too much attention to the
35:43
Speaker 4: credibility of this lawyer. It didn't dont on me that
35:46
Speaker 4: I would be found guilty of the crime that I
35:48
Speaker 4: had nothing to do with, so I didn't really think
35:51
Speaker 4: about it in those times. I was just thinking, you
35:53
Speaker 4: can give me any lawyer, anybody from anywhere, and it'd
35:56
Speaker 4: be okay. Because once they realized they had the wrong
35:59
Speaker 4: person ironed out in trial. That's what I was thinking.
36:03
Speaker 4: But I didn't plan all. I think that people would
36:05
Speaker 4: get on the stand and line it was on fabricate
36:08
Speaker 4: and I didn't think that was gonna happen. I had
36:09
Speaker 4: no idea that they had already made up in their
36:13
Speaker 4: mind that I was going to be escaped goal for
36:14
Speaker 4: this particular crime, so being needed at all, and how
36:19
Speaker 4: they worked in the justice system. I believed in the
36:22
Speaker 4: justice system at that time. I really did.
36:24
Speaker 1: I think all of us do when we're kids, especially
36:26
Speaker 1: brought up in a good home like you were. You
36:28
Speaker 1: brought up to believe that people are good and that
36:31
Speaker 1: the system is going to work for you. And then
36:34
Speaker 1: you had a lawyer who, had he been competent, I
36:38
Speaker 1: still think would have won your case in spite of
36:41
Speaker 1: all this, because of the simple fact that it was
36:43
Speaker 1: an easy case. The witnesses were not credible at all.
36:48
Speaker 1: We now know that they also withheld exculpatory evidence, So
36:53
Speaker 1: you really didn't have a fair chance, especially not with
36:56
Speaker 1: a lawyer who was incompetent. And ultimately, let's not forget
37:00
Speaker 1: that this particular lawyer was disbarred not too long after
37:04
Speaker 1: your trial. And again for the listeners out there, think
37:07
Speaker 1: about that. This is a guy who had been disciplined
37:10
Speaker 1: in numerous cases prior to Lamont's and then ultimately gets
37:15
Speaker 1: disbarred when the extent of his gross incompetence is brought
37:21
Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court of Kansas the attention of the
37:23
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, and then he voluntarily gave up his license
37:27
Speaker 1: to practice law. And that wasn't the end of the nightmare.
37:30
Speaker 1: We now know too that your appellate lawyer was disbarred.
37:35
Speaker 1: I mean, you can't even make this stuff up. So
37:39
Speaker 1: what happened? Like now you're in the courtroom, the jury
37:42
Speaker 1: goes out, the arguments have been made. You saw these
37:46
Speaker 1: witnesses get up and lie. You saw these police officers
37:49
Speaker 1: get up and lie. Your defense made whatever arguments they made.
37:53
Speaker 1: Did you believe that they would come back and declare
37:55
Speaker 1: you innocent?
37:57
Speaker 4: I did. I did fire with my ben I did.
38:01
Speaker 4: I just didn't know that this is how the system worked.
38:05
Speaker 4: They found me guilty based on false evidence or the
38:08
Speaker 4: kind of evidence that was presented by a certain district attorney.
38:12
Speaker 4: They heard stuff about me that wasn't even about Lama mcnatize,
38:15
Speaker 4: and she just kind of made it stuff up, they
38:17
Speaker 4: told his story and the jury believed it. But at
38:20
Speaker 4: the time before they came back it was guilty verdict,
38:23
Speaker 4: I still didn't think I'll be found guilty because the
38:25
Speaker 4: whole time I'm sitting there and the whole time I'm
38:27
Speaker 4: going through the process of getting too trial, I still
38:30
Speaker 4: had no knowledge of the actual crime. So I'm thinking,
38:33
Speaker 4: with my young mind being naive, that there's no way
38:37
Speaker 4: a jury can find me guilty when I'm really not guilty,
38:39
Speaker 4: when I had nothing to do with it. I'm not
38:41
Speaker 4: tied to it at all. The witnesses, the victims, I'm
38:46
Speaker 4: not tied to it. I wasn't in the area when
38:49
Speaker 4: it happened. When they came in, I noticed that no
38:53
Speaker 4: jury's no one looked me in my face, no one
38:55
Speaker 4: looked looked up. Everyone came in looking down at the floor.
38:58
Speaker 4: So I kind of had an eerie feeling, but I
39:00
Speaker 4: still had hope that it would work out in the
39:02
Speaker 4: right way. So when they read the verdict and they
39:06
Speaker 4: said guilty, it's like I seen my whole life last
39:09
Speaker 4: before me and I and for that moment, I froze,
39:12
Speaker 4: and I was sitting there and I stood up, and
39:15
Speaker 4: I just remember saying something. I was screaming something, you know,
39:19
Speaker 4: to the effects of I'm not guilty, and you got
39:21
Speaker 4: the wrong person whatever, And I felt someone hold me
39:24
Speaker 4: or grab me from behind, and I was in shot,
39:27
Speaker 4: so I didn't really I was like a lost moment.
39:30
Speaker 4: But I turned around. I see my mother hold me, screaming,
39:32
Speaker 4: crying like don't take my baby away from me, don't
39:35
Speaker 4: take my baby. And I'm looking at her and I
39:38
Speaker 4: realized that this is a serious situation. Now I'm but
39:42
Speaker 4: it still didn't feel real. It was my life in
39:45
Speaker 4: my situation, but it didn't feel like my life or
39:47
Speaker 4: my situation. I felt like I was outside of myself
39:51
Speaker 4: looking at this event happened and I couldn't stop it.
39:53
Speaker 4: So I was in shot and that shot lasted for
39:56
Speaker 4: a few years after that. I was in shot.
39:58
Speaker 1: So, no, you're convicted of a double murder and sentence
40:02
Speaker 1: to life in prison. Where did they take you to?
40:05
Speaker 4: The process is like from the time you get convicted,
40:08
Speaker 4: stay in the county for about two months, then you
40:10
Speaker 4: go to a citizen. Now the sentaceen in Wanna County.
40:15
Speaker 4: It gave me two life sentences toront consecutive. Then after
40:18
Speaker 4: that they send me to a process and center which
40:21
Speaker 4: we call ARDU, where they see you to determine what
40:25
Speaker 4: classification you would be, what custody you would be in.
40:28
Speaker 4: I was considered max custody. So from there they send
40:31
Speaker 4: me to prison. I was in hunts That's a that's
40:34
Speaker 4: a prison in Kansas. They came Glady in the school,
40:38
Speaker 4: one of those tough prisons. You know with people. You know,
40:41
Speaker 4: it's a prison. It's like the work not there. You
40:44
Speaker 4: have a prison? Is that more? It's it's this dark negative,
40:50
Speaker 4: It's pension fields, hopelessness. It's a world that is all.
41:06
Speaker 1: As a seventeen year old. Did you have plans, did
41:10
Speaker 1: you have a career in mind? What was the outlook
41:12
Speaker 1: for the future. We were still just trying to figure
41:14
Speaker 1: it out.
41:14
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was seeing I wanted to do. It was
41:16
Speaker 4: just I was I was being guided the line, and
41:19
Speaker 4: I was just in a place where everybody around me
41:22
Speaker 4: was either dying or going to jail or I was
41:24
Speaker 4: just in the kind of environment. It didn't produce a
41:27
Speaker 4: lot of hope or didn't have I didn't have a
41:29
Speaker 4: lot of people to look up to or emulate, nothing
41:32
Speaker 4: like that. But I did enjoy taking care of my
41:35
Speaker 4: family so my life was just basically about trying to
41:39
Speaker 4: take care of my family the best way I knew that,
41:40
Speaker 4: or to look out for my loved ones. You know,
41:43
Speaker 4: I had skills and things I could do, Like I
41:45
Speaker 4: was a barber, I was cut here since I was twelve,
41:48
Speaker 4: or you know, I was comedian. You know, I had
41:51
Speaker 4: these in the back of my mind. I wanted to
41:53
Speaker 4: be a comedian. I had things I wanted to do.
41:56
Speaker 4: I just didn't know how to get to where I
41:57
Speaker 4: wanted to be. But I still didn't think that my
42:01
Speaker 4: life was just of being in prison or going to jail,
42:04
Speaker 4: being in this kind of situation.
42:06
Speaker 1: What is a typical day like for you on the inside,
42:10
Speaker 1: How do you get through it? What's the schedule?
42:14
Speaker 4: Typical day? Typical day is, I'll readjusted. It's like from
42:19
Speaker 4: one day to the nextus finding a way to get
42:23
Speaker 4: by for one day, learn something from my days, and
42:26
Speaker 4: then I just try to it just sucks. I gotta
42:29
Speaker 4: repeat it. Like if I have a bad day or
42:32
Speaker 4: I'm frustrated for one day, I go to sleep, wake
42:35
Speaker 4: up to repeat this day again. So I try to
42:37
Speaker 4: find the best I can or get the best I
42:39
Speaker 4: can out of a day. Because waking up and repeat
42:42
Speaker 4: it is the anxiety. That's why all that The worst
42:45
Speaker 4: stuff is knowing that for the last twenty three years,
42:48
Speaker 4: two hundred some months, eleven hundred weeks and eight thousand days,
42:52
Speaker 4: it's the same thing. It never changes. So I devote
42:56
Speaker 4: my time to reading and studying and write. I write music,
43:01
Speaker 4: I write poetry. I try to keep my mind free
43:04
Speaker 4: as possible. I try to stay out of prison mentally.
43:07
Speaker 4: I try not to. I'm not into prison politics. I'm
43:09
Speaker 4: not in prison mentally, but I'm here. I have to
43:12
Speaker 4: be my body here, but I try to keep my mind.
43:14
Speaker 4: It's far from as place as I can. So it's
43:17
Speaker 4: just a bunch of moments of readjusted every day. And
43:21
Speaker 4: I have a lot of love people that love me
43:23
Speaker 4: and care about me, so I focused on that. But
43:26
Speaker 4: it's bad. It used to be a lot worse than
43:28
Speaker 4: it is now. I'm starting to see I'm coming alive
43:30
Speaker 4: now because I can see a light and then it
43:32
Speaker 4: just dark. Toddle, I've been there for so long. Something
43:34
Speaker 4: better now, But yeah, it wasn't so good before. It's
43:39
Speaker 4: better now. But it was always sad to wake up.
43:41
Speaker 4: I had to repeat this same cycle over and over again.
43:44
Speaker 4: That stuff is another driving person crazy. There's a lot
43:47
Speaker 4: of moments while I'm feeling like it's the point, you know,
43:50
Speaker 4: to keep going to wake up every day to have
43:52
Speaker 4: to deal with the exact same nightmare you trying to
43:54
Speaker 4: stay something the night before. But I had my mother
43:57
Speaker 4: like she never gave up on me from day one.
44:00
Speaker 4: When the worst moments of my life, you know, I
44:02
Speaker 4: felt like I just couldn't do it no more, feel
44:05
Speaker 4: like I couldn't take another step, she would show up.
44:08
Speaker 4: And when she would grab me and hold me and
44:10
Speaker 4: look me my faith and tell me this is not
44:11
Speaker 4: my life I'm passing through, this is not my destination.
44:15
Speaker 4: And so I had a lot of support my family,
44:19
Speaker 4: and I gave my life to God and I pray
44:24
Speaker 4: a lot of meditated lot. So initially I was kind
44:28
Speaker 4: of in this dark place where I was just so
44:31
Speaker 4: hurt and sad and depressed, and so I kept people
44:37
Speaker 4: kept coming to my life. There was like becons of
44:39
Speaker 4: light and hope for me. And I thank God for
44:43
Speaker 4: all those people came into my life and supported me.
44:46
Speaker 4: They sure that, uh I always had something to look
44:48
Speaker 4: forward to. Because this is a dark place. It's a
44:52
Speaker 4: dark situation where if you don't have enough support for me,
44:55
Speaker 4: it was just support I had. Family is important. Then
44:58
Speaker 4: years later chryl and ministries in anything projects, they kept
45:02
Speaker 4: start coming into my life and they they breed a
45:05
Speaker 4: life into me. It's like a second win. And I'm
45:09
Speaker 4: grateful for those people, everybody who support me and everybody
45:12
Speaker 4: who put forth effort go out every day and do
45:17
Speaker 4: something to help me get my life back. I'm very
45:20
Speaker 4: grateful for those people.
45:21
Speaker 1: If you even allow yourself, if you allow your mind
45:24
Speaker 1: to go there, what are you dreaming about when you
45:28
Speaker 1: get out? Because I'm convinced you are going to come
45:30
Speaker 1: home and I'm going to be there fighting right alongside
45:33
Speaker 1: with everybody else. What's the first thing you want to do?
45:36
Speaker 1: And then how do you see the future?
45:40
Speaker 4: First day I'm gonna do with eat something. That's what
45:42
Speaker 4: I fantasize about. Mostly, I want to eat something that
45:45
Speaker 4: there from there, I want to have some type of
45:48
Speaker 4: impact or effect on young people making poor decisions that
45:52
Speaker 4: was eventually land them in a situation like this. You know,
45:56
Speaker 4: So I want to just raise any kind of wareness
45:58
Speaker 4: I can out decision making, because you know, had I
46:03
Speaker 4: been taught how to make better decisions for myself. I
46:05
Speaker 4: think even though I was eign to the law and
46:08
Speaker 4: this is something that had nothing to do with me
46:10
Speaker 4: and all that, I still could have been making better
46:12
Speaker 4: decisions for myself before this stuff even came about. So
46:15
Speaker 4: I didn't want to be able to be there for
46:17
Speaker 4: young people as much as I can. So I can,
46:21
Speaker 4: I can help them understand that even though you don't
46:23
Speaker 4: do something wrong, even though you don't commit a crime,
46:25
Speaker 4: you can be you still got to be accountable, and
46:28
Speaker 4: you still got to be mindful of the fact that
46:31
Speaker 4: you out there floating around and you can easily be
46:34
Speaker 4: put in a situation like that and if you're not
46:36
Speaker 4: being productive and doing something that's productive out there in life.
46:40
Speaker 4: So I don't want to be able to reach the
46:41
Speaker 4: young people as much as I can. And now that
46:43
Speaker 4: this said to be young, just anybody that doesn't want
46:46
Speaker 4: to be able to share my experience and hopefully it
46:49
Speaker 4: will help out in any kind of way.
46:51
Speaker 1: I'm sure that you will do that. And then you're
46:54
Speaker 1: going to have a very positive impact on a lot
46:56
Speaker 1: of people because you have a very rare combination of
47:00
Speaker 1: intelligence and a manner that is so positive and strong
47:04
Speaker 1: but still gentle that I believe that you'll be able
47:06
Speaker 1: to affect a lot of a lot of young people,
47:08
Speaker 1: and I'm looking forward to watching you do that. There's
47:11
Speaker 1: one other thing I wanted to raise. I'm always amazed
47:16
Speaker 1: when I speak to someone in your situation, and especially
47:19
Speaker 1: so with you, that you don't seem to be bitter
47:23
Speaker 1: after everything that's happened. And I know you talked about
47:26
Speaker 1: your faith and family and the strength that you get
47:30
Speaker 1: from them, But how is it possible that someone can
47:35
Speaker 1: go through this most unimaginable nightmare still be in it,
47:41
Speaker 1: and yet be as positive and strong as you are now?
47:46
Speaker 4: Well, I have my moment with anger, but you've always
47:49
Speaker 4: liked taken poison helping someone else die from it. I
47:51
Speaker 4: would only want to think about me being angry. No
47:54
Speaker 4: one else seemed to notice a pay attention to meet
47:56
Speaker 4: being angry, So how is just for ourn experience? Being
48:00
Speaker 4: angry doesn't help me? So I just wanted to help
48:03
Speaker 4: myself because I knew. I always knew I was gonna
48:05
Speaker 4: be here forever. I knew that eventually the truth was
48:08
Speaker 4: surface and I would have a life outside of the wall.
48:11
Speaker 4: So I devoted a lot of time and energy towards
48:14
Speaker 4: helping myself and not hurt myself. So being angry was
48:18
Speaker 4: something that was a hindrance to me, not a benefit.
48:20
Speaker 4: So I try to say positive because this place is
48:25
Speaker 4: you got to keep up with yourself and take care
48:27
Speaker 4: of yourself, and anger and stress and all those things
48:29
Speaker 4: is just shorten your life span. And I got life
48:32
Speaker 4: to live, so I just choose. I choose to be positive.
48:36
Speaker 4: I choose to not be angry and allow anger to
48:39
Speaker 4: kill me. I don't want to die in this place,
48:40
Speaker 4: and I don't want to have a short life. So
48:43
Speaker 4: I stick fine to what I believe in, and I
48:45
Speaker 4: believe in my favor and I believe in meditation, I
48:47
Speaker 4: believe in exercise. I believe in taking care of my
48:50
Speaker 4: mom body and soul, and that's what I devote my
48:53
Speaker 4: time to.
48:55
Speaker 1: Wow, all I can do is tell you that you
48:59
Speaker 1: have you have all my respect and support, and I
49:04
Speaker 1: have a saying, lamont you know. I've seen too many
49:06
Speaker 1: miracles to stop believing in miracles. So I'm excited to
49:11
Speaker 1: watch you be the next one or one of the
49:14
Speaker 1: next ones, and we'll never stop fighting for you and
49:18
Speaker 1: for other people in your situation. I'm looking forward to
49:21
Speaker 1: a positive outcome and to getting to know you on
49:25
Speaker 1: the outside. The min I'm just going to turn it
49:28
Speaker 1: over to you and say, is your microphone, what do
49:31
Speaker 1: you want to share with the audience.
49:33
Speaker 4: Well, these kind of cases having well more than they should,
49:38
Speaker 4: you know. So it's like a I always stay on
49:40
Speaker 4: TV or DAYLN twenty twenty we see innocent man so
49:44
Speaker 4: many years in prison and you get exonerated and you
49:46
Speaker 4: see this happened Tom and Tom again. But what you
49:49
Speaker 4: never ever see or hear or hear about is how
49:51
Speaker 4: much that stuff and impact the affected the families. For
49:54
Speaker 4: those people like I had a close knit family. We
49:57
Speaker 4: was close and it was a thing just like me
50:00
Speaker 4: being affected by it and invent that happened in my life.
50:03
Speaker 4: It hurts me to see how much how much it
50:06
Speaker 4: affected not only me but my family. And it's difficult
50:09
Speaker 4: because if a man has to go through a certain
50:11
Speaker 4: thing by himself, that's his life, that's his path and
50:16
Speaker 4: life he gotta go through that. I have to do
50:17
Speaker 4: what I have to do, no matter what. But when
50:19
Speaker 4: you see somebody you care about being affected by what
50:21
Speaker 4: you have to do or what you have to endure,
50:24
Speaker 4: it a different kind of feeling. And it's like people
50:27
Speaker 4: don't really pay attention to that or know about that.
50:29
Speaker 4: Like when district attorneys of being dishonest when they're trying
50:34
Speaker 4: to get convictions and all that, often they take that
50:36
Speaker 4: consideration how many people they are affected by just not
50:41
Speaker 4: going by the law, just not being truthful about certain things.
50:44
Speaker 4: It's not just me, whatever issue personal issues they may
50:47
Speaker 4: add about with me. My family is affected by that.
50:51
Speaker 4: My brothers, my brother's kids when all this happened, and
50:54
Speaker 4: they feel like they've lost a mother because my mother
50:56
Speaker 4: devoted so much time for trying to get me back
51:00
Speaker 4: out of the system that they felt like they was neglected.
51:03
Speaker 4: So they was affected by that. My older sister was affected,
51:05
Speaker 4: my brother was affected. I mean, everybody was.
51:08
Speaker 7: Affected one minute.
51:10
Speaker 4: And when you try to hold onto something good, even
51:12
Speaker 4: when you try to get something good this kind of situation,
51:15
Speaker 4: it's still nothing good comes from me. It's just always bad.
51:19
Speaker 4: It's always negative because always a challenge, it's always hurdles,
51:22
Speaker 4: it's always something. But for the person that's in the
51:26
Speaker 4: middle of it, that's just my experience. But on the
51:28
Speaker 4: outside of it, that's something people don't ever get a
51:30
Speaker 4: chance to see. That's just a harsh or harsh reality
51:35
Speaker 4: for the person that lives based on someone else being
51:37
Speaker 4: in competence when all this stuff basically could have been
51:40
Speaker 4: avoided by someone that's doing their job. But the job
51:42
Speaker 4: people was uh employed them to do, you know. So
51:47
Speaker 4: I think people should understand that and know that it's
51:50
Speaker 4: a lot of people to be affected by something like that.
51:54
Speaker 4: I think a lot of tasers should be brought to
51:56
Speaker 4: this moment and this kind of situation, so a lot
52:00
Speaker 4: of people will get up. If you ever find another
52:02
Speaker 4: person that situation, it can be more modeful of it.
52:05
Speaker 4: It's not to help in a different kind of way
52:07
Speaker 4: they could. It's not just about me, it's about everybody
52:10
Speaker 4: who here about me too.
52:13
Speaker 1: On October thirteenth, twenty seventeen, Wyandot County District Attorney Mark
52:18
Speaker 1: dupri moved to vacate the conviction and dismissed all charges
52:22
Speaker 1: against Lamont Magatyre. Hours later, Lamont walked free for the
52:28
Speaker 1: first time in over twenty three long, miserable years. He
52:33
Speaker 1: called me from the courthouse steps. It was one of
52:37
Speaker 1: the best calls I've ever gotten. And in that call,
52:40
Speaker 1: he said he thanked me, and he said that the
52:44
Speaker 1: exposure that his case had gotten from being on this
52:47
Speaker 1: podcast had helped, and even if it was a tiny bit,
52:50
Speaker 1: it had helped to lead to his exoneration. It was
52:54
Speaker 1: a really extraordinary feeling, and I'm excited to share that
53:00
Speaker 1: one has since won a one and a half million
53:02
Speaker 1: dollar judgment for his wrawful conviction, and he and his
53:06
Speaker 1: mother are currently suing Roger Klubski for all the damage
53:10
Speaker 1: he did to their lives and their family. After a
53:13
Speaker 1: thirty year reign of terror in the Kansas City, Kansas
53:16
Speaker 1: Police Department, disgraced officer Roderikklupski went to work in Edwardsville,
53:22
Speaker 1: Kansas in twenty ten. He has yet to face justice,
53:26
Speaker 1: and he retired in twenty sixteen. Don't forget to give
53:37
Speaker 1: us a fantastic review. Wherever you get your podcasts, it
53:40
Speaker 1: really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the Ennocence Project,
53:44
Speaker 1: and I really hope you'll join me in supporting this
53:46
Speaker 1: very important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions.
53:51
Speaker 1: Go to Innocenceproject dot org to learn how to donate
53:54
Speaker 1: and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team,
53:57
Speaker 1: Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show
54:00
Speaker 1: by three time Oscar nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure
54:03
Speaker 1: to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on
54:06
Speaker 1: Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm
54:11
Speaker 1: is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association
54:14
Speaker 1: with Signal Company Number one