Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #037 Jason Flom with Ryan Ferguson

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#037 Jason Flom with Ryan Ferguson · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: I fell into the hands of a corrupt detective.
0:07
Speaker 2: I was naive enough to believe that I would be
0:10
Speaker 2: able to just present all of my proof of actual innocence,
0:13
Speaker 2: that they would investigate adequately, and so that I wouldn't
0:15
Speaker 2: be going to prison because I was a good person.
0:17
Speaker 2: I hadn't do anything wrong.
0:19
Speaker 1: In the back of your mind, you say, well, when
0:21
Speaker 1: we go to a hearing or we go to court,
0:23
Speaker 1: the truth will come out. The prosecution from day one
0:26
Speaker 1: knew I was innocent and let forced testimony go uncorrected
0:30
Speaker 1: from the lower courts all the way up to the
0:33
Speaker 1: United States Supreme Court.
0:36
Speaker 2: You have someone with a badge with ultimate and really,
0:41
Speaker 2: in that moment, unchecked authority. Don't presume that people are
0:46
Speaker 2: guilty when you see them on TV, because it may
0:49
Speaker 2: just be a dirty da that is trying to rise upward.
0:57
Speaker 3: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with
1:16
Speaker 3: Jason Flamm. Today's guest is a friend of mine. He's
1:20
Speaker 3: a remarkable human and an inspiration to everybody who knows him.
1:25
Speaker 3: And I want to embarrass you, but without further ado,
1:28
Speaker 3: let me introduce you Ryan Ferguson. At just nineteen years old,
1:32
Speaker 3: Ryan Ferguson was wrongly convicted of murder. He served nearly
1:35
Speaker 3: a decade in prison.
1:37
Speaker 4: Ferguson was convicted for the brutal murder of beloved journalist
1:40
Speaker 4: Kent Heidholt in two thousand and one. The crime scene
1:43
Speaker 4: outside the newspaper where he worked littered with physical evidence
1:46
Speaker 4: bloody footprints, fingerprints, and even hair, but none of it
1:49
Speaker 4: matched Ryan. Again and again, he denied knowing anything about
1:54
Speaker 4: the murder. Charles Erickson, a childhood friend of Ryan's, came
1:57
Speaker 4: forward two years after the murder, claiming he had dreamlike
2:01
Speaker 4: visions that he and Ryan committed the crime together. When
2:04
Speaker 4: police led Ericson to believe Ferguson would testify against him,
2:07
Speaker 4: Erickson said he felt pressure to confess to the murder,
2:11
Speaker 4: thinking he'd otherwise face the death conalty, and a second witness,
2:14
Speaker 4: janitor Jerry Trump, identified Ferguson as one of two men
2:18
Speaker 4: he saw in the parking lot immediately after the murder.
2:21
Speaker 4: In the years after that two thousand and five conviction,
2:24
Speaker 4: both of those crucial prosecution witnesses recant in their testimony.
2:29
Speaker 3: On his last appeal attempt, Ryan's conviction was overturned.
2:33
Speaker 4: After a year and a half more behind Barns. Finally,
2:36
Speaker 4: and at Pellet Court overturned that ruling, finding quote newly
2:40
Speaker 4: discovered evidence clearly and convincingly establishes that he's actually innocent.
2:45
Speaker 4: And then the Missouri Attorney General's office announced it will
2:49
Speaker 4: not retry or pursue further action against Ryan Ferguson at
2:53
Speaker 4: this time, meaning Ryan Ferguson was a free man.
2:58
Speaker 5: Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. It's a
3:01
Speaker 5: pleasure to be on your podcast. I remember when you
3:03
Speaker 5: when you launched it the launch party. Man, just being
3:06
Speaker 5: there was amazing, And I want to say before we start,
3:09
Speaker 5: just thank you so much for what you do for everyone,
3:12
Speaker 5: including myself. You know, you were part of my case
3:15
Speaker 5: before I got out, and uh, and that gave me
3:17
Speaker 5: a lot of hope and I appreciate that. And then
3:19
Speaker 5: you've been very supportive to myself and everyone that I
3:22
Speaker 5: know in the innocence community since I've been out, and
3:24
Speaker 5: it's just amazing to see what you do for everyone.
3:26
Speaker 5: So thank you first and foremost, and let's get this
3:30
Speaker 5: thing started.
3:31
Speaker 3: Oh well, I don't know, I gotta take a breath
3:33
Speaker 3: after that, but thank you for saying so I uh,
3:36
Speaker 3: you know, I forget these things because you know, there's
3:38
Speaker 3: just so much to do every day. Because this is
3:41
Speaker 3: such a an epidemic in this country. You couldn't have
3:45
Speaker 3: seen this coming a million miles away. We'll talk about that, right.
3:49
Speaker 3: So you're you're from Missouri, right.
3:51
Speaker 5: Yep, from Missouri. I was born born in Australia, raised
3:54
Speaker 5: in Missouri.
3:55
Speaker 3: So you grew up in Missouri. And what was that like?
3:57
Speaker 3: I mean, you had you had a happy childhood.
3:58
Speaker 5: I had a great childhood. Grew up in Columbia is
4:01
Speaker 5: right in the middle of Missouri. University of Missouri, college town,
4:04
Speaker 5: great town, a lot of culture, education, a lot to do,
4:09
Speaker 5: and so for me, it was a town of opportunity.
4:12
Speaker 5: I had great education. My parents, they took me all
4:15
Speaker 5: over the world. They traveled with me constantly, and I
4:19
Speaker 5: got to learn a lot about people from being in
4:21
Speaker 5: that town and from traveling and everything else. So my
4:24
Speaker 5: childhood couldn't have been any better.
4:25
Speaker 3: You had a close family, very close family.
4:29
Speaker 5: We were all together my whole life, and you know,
4:31
Speaker 5: it was it was like the picture book family, right.
4:34
Speaker 5: You know, mom, dad's sister. We had a little dog,
4:37
Speaker 5: and you know, just a little middle class existence and
4:40
Speaker 5: everyone was happy, everything, Everything was going good. And I
4:44
Speaker 5: played sports in high school and had a lot of
4:46
Speaker 5: friends and everything, and then went to college, and at
4:50
Speaker 5: that point everything was still very normal.
4:53
Speaker 3: Everything was very normal until everything went completely haywire. And
4:58
Speaker 3: you hadn't had any experience with police or arrests or
5:02
Speaker 3: authority in any way to this point, right.
5:04
Speaker 5: Well, I had never been accused of any crimes, for
5:08
Speaker 5: sure when I was in high school. You know, it's
5:10
Speaker 5: a college town, so of course there's gonna be police
5:13
Speaker 5: that show up at parties, people get mips and things
5:15
Speaker 5: of that nature. No one that I knew had ever
5:17
Speaker 5: been arrested for anything that would have put them in jail.
5:20
Speaker 5: I had never met anyone that had spent the night
5:23
Speaker 5: in jail. You know, some kids got in trouble for
5:26
Speaker 5: small things like like in most towns, But the fact
5:29
Speaker 5: of being arrested for a real crime was it didn't
5:33
Speaker 5: even exist in my world.
5:35
Speaker 3: I was so moved and angry and just upset in general.
5:41
Speaker 3: After seeing the forty eight hours piece, which was the
5:43
Speaker 3: first exposure I ever had to your case, some of
5:46
Speaker 3: the things that stuck out from me about that piece
5:49
Speaker 3: were the idea that this was a cold case right.
5:52
Speaker 3: It was the murder of a sports reporter and he
5:56
Speaker 3: had been beaten to death outside of his car.
5:58
Speaker 5: I guess right, yeah, outside of his work.
6:02
Speaker 3: And two and a half years later, no leads, nothing
6:07
Speaker 3: going on. Right. One of the local TV stations ran
6:11
Speaker 3: one of those things that they run time to time
6:13
Speaker 3: where they had like a composite sketch. Right, did you
6:17
Speaker 3: even know about this murder when it happened? Was it
6:18
Speaker 3: big news in the area.
6:20
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a small town. There's about one hundred thousand people.
6:23
Speaker 5: I do recall hearing about it. You know, anything that
6:26
Speaker 5: happens in that town, like a murder, you hear about
6:29
Speaker 5: it was its big news because they don't happen that often.
6:32
Speaker 5: That was the extent of my knowledge on you know,
6:35
Speaker 5: I mean young in high school and it's like, whoa,
6:37
Speaker 5: somebody was murdered on howe any night. That's kind of creepy.
6:40
Speaker 3: So let's go back to that. Because the sports reporter,
6:43
Speaker 3: ken Heidholt was murdered in a very brutal manner. He
6:45
Speaker 3: was beaten to death with a tire iron or something
6:48
Speaker 3: like that. I don't even know if they even know
6:50
Speaker 3: to this day, but it was a heavy metal object.
6:53
Speaker 3: Of some sort. And when that Crimestoppers piece ran, Charles
6:58
Speaker 3: Rickson was affected by it in some way.
7:02
Speaker 5: Right.
7:02
Speaker 3: He saw this on TV. He was with his friends
7:04
Speaker 3: and he had some sort of a vision or something
7:08
Speaker 3: came over him which made him say to his friends, Hey,
7:12
Speaker 3: you know, I mean I kind of look like that guy.
7:14
Speaker 3: I wonder if it could have been if I could
7:16
Speaker 3: have been involved in so or some crazy thing like that.
7:20
Speaker 3: And then one of the friends called the cops.
7:22
Speaker 5: Right.
7:22
Speaker 3: And this is an interesting thing about your case, Ryan,
7:24
Speaker 3: because we've covered false confessions on this show, and false
7:27
Speaker 3: confessions are so terribly troubling. In your case, you were
7:32
Speaker 3: the victim of false confession, but you didn't confess. That's
7:34
Speaker 3: what's crazy about this, Right, You were implicated because somebody
7:38
Speaker 3: else who also didn't commit the crime, actually thought that
7:44
Speaker 3: maybe he did for some reason. And the brain is
7:47
Speaker 3: a strange thing. It's the memory. Who knows what came
7:50
Speaker 3: over him?
7:51
Speaker 5: Right. And one of the quotes that always stuck out
7:54
Speaker 5: to me is something that Charles ericson my co defendant,
7:57
Speaker 5: the person who had these images, who ultimately I testified
8:00
Speaker 5: against me. Something that he said, and this is verbatim.
8:04
Speaker 5: He says, if I did it, Ryan must have been
8:07
Speaker 5: with me. And based on that, I mean, that is
8:10
Speaker 5: what starts this whole thing. Based on that, I lost
8:12
Speaker 5: ten years of my life. I was put into prison
8:15
Speaker 5: for a crime I had nothing to do with.
8:16
Speaker 3: Was there any physical evidence of any kind connecting to
8:19
Speaker 3: this case.
8:20
Speaker 5: There was no physical evidence connecting me or Charles Erickson.
8:24
Speaker 5: But the important fact is there is a lot of
8:26
Speaker 5: physical evidence there. You know, there's a bloody footprint, there's
8:30
Speaker 5: a hair in the victim's hand, there's a paper with
8:34
Speaker 5: a palm print. There are things that, even to this day,
8:37
Speaker 5: could be tested to determine guilt of another individual. And
8:43
Speaker 5: the police have chosen not to look into those things.
8:46
Speaker 5: And here's what's really really frustrating is when I got out,
8:49
Speaker 5: the public was enraged. They were frustrated with what the
8:52
Speaker 5: police had done, and they said, we want to know
8:55
Speaker 5: what really happened in this case, because clearly it wasn't Ryan,
8:57
Speaker 5: it wasn't Ericson, the kid who is still to this
8:59
Speaker 5: day in prison. And so the police said, we're gonna
9:01
Speaker 5: we're gonna open this case. We're going to look back
9:03
Speaker 5: into it, We're going to see what happened here. Well,
9:05
Speaker 5: three months later, you know, in a very low key way.
9:09
Speaker 5: They're just kind of like, well, you know, we got
9:11
Speaker 5: somebody in prison for it right now, so we're not
9:13
Speaker 5: gonna we're not gonna investigate it. That's not gonna happen, right.
9:16
Speaker 3: So the net effect if you're a resident of Columbia
9:20
Speaker 3: or Missouri or the United States, because we don't know
9:22
Speaker 3: where this guy is, this guy who is a dangerous,
9:27
Speaker 3: violent killer is out there walking amongst us. I mean,
9:30
Speaker 3: it is an outrage that they have this evidence and
9:32
Speaker 3: they won't test it. It even for me, like, my head's going,
9:36
Speaker 3: what first of all, and let's talk about this right jail,
9:41
Speaker 3: because this is something that people don't focus on enough.
9:44
Speaker 3: You were in jail for a long time awaiting trial.
9:46
Speaker 3: He set bail at twenty million dollars, right.
9:49
Speaker 5: Twenty million dollar? Yeah, it was it was a you know,
9:51
Speaker 5: that is a in my mind, that's how publicity's the reality.
9:55
Speaker 5: The way our legal system works is if you're arrested
9:58
Speaker 5: for a very serious crime, like a murder, they can
10:01
Speaker 5: choose not to give you a bail and they do
10:03
Speaker 5: that often, or they can give you a million dollar
10:05
Speaker 5: bail whatever. Right bail is meant so that you should
10:09
Speaker 5: have the opportunity to raise those funds and get out
10:11
Speaker 5: so you can fight your case because you have not
10:14
Speaker 5: been proven guilty. At that point, I had no bail
10:16
Speaker 5: for eight months. I went into a bail hearing and
10:19
Speaker 5: the judge out of nowhere says twenty million dollars. And
10:23
Speaker 5: so that is a different thing than saying no bail.
10:26
Speaker 5: That is a political statement. That is her saying that
10:29
Speaker 5: I endorse this case as a judge, and they're supposed
10:33
Speaker 5: to be independent. I endorse this case. I'm with the prosecutor,
10:36
Speaker 5: and we're going to take this kid and put him
10:38
Speaker 5: in prison for the rest of his life. And that
10:39
Speaker 5: is not something a judge should do. Judge Ellen Roper
10:43
Speaker 5: made a huge mistake there. I think she should be
10:45
Speaker 5: health accountable for that. And that is the politics we
10:48
Speaker 5: see with our criminal legal system in these people's lives,
10:51
Speaker 5: you know, I mean, this is my life and that
10:54
Speaker 5: judge is playing a game with it. And that is
10:56
Speaker 5: incredibly scary to see, especially at the age of nineteen
10:59
Speaker 5: or twenty, and you're just like, how is this our
11:02
Speaker 5: legal system? How is this innocent until proven guilty?
11:04
Speaker 3: Because it's not so Yeah, and I hadn't even thought
11:07
Speaker 3: about that, because to my knowledge, your bail was the
11:10
Speaker 3: highest bail in the history of the state of Missouri.
11:13
Speaker 5: Oh, I think it's the highest in the history of
11:15
Speaker 5: the country in terms of the charge. Right, you have
11:18
Speaker 5: a charge of first agree murder, second degree robbery. There's
11:23
Speaker 5: no evidence I had never been arrested or convicted of
11:25
Speaker 5: any crime, and I'm getting a twenty million dollar bail.
11:29
Speaker 5: Here's a guy sitting next to me in the same pod,
11:32
Speaker 5: in the same county with a first agree murder charge
11:35
Speaker 5: and he is a repeat offender. In his bail for
11:39
Speaker 5: pretty much the same charge was five hundred thousand dollars.
11:43
Speaker 3: Wow. So yeah, and I hadn't even thought about it.
11:45
Speaker 3: But you're absolutely right. In fact, by setting that bail
11:49
Speaker 3: of twenty million and that going out in the press
11:53
Speaker 3: as it does, basically it's poisoning the jury pool because
11:57
Speaker 3: it's saying, Hey, you know what, we can say that
12:00
Speaker 3: are this guy to be extremely dangerous, so dangerous that
12:04
Speaker 3: we're going to set the bail so high that even
12:06
Speaker 3: if its family's rich and your family wasn't poor, but
12:09
Speaker 3: they weren't rich. So even if the family is one
12:14
Speaker 3: of the wealthiest families around they're still not gonna be
12:16
Speaker 3: able to post it.
12:17
Speaker 5: So it's a.
12:17
Speaker 3: Wink wink, like we're going to keep this guy around
12:20
Speaker 3: because we know he's guilty. And that's absolutely really it'sugh
12:27
Speaker 3: makes me sick. Okay, so you go to trial, you
12:31
Speaker 3: by now had been in jail for how long?
12:34
Speaker 5: Yeah, I've been in jail for about eighteen months at
12:37
Speaker 5: that point a year and a half. Trial was actually
12:40
Speaker 5: set and I don't think this is a coincidence. On
12:42
Speaker 5: my twenty first birthday, it was Monday through Friday, and
12:46
Speaker 5: my birthday for the twenty first birthday was Wednesday, So
12:49
Speaker 5: I'll never never forget that. And by the way, I
12:51
Speaker 5: want to mention county jail, and I think this is
12:53
Speaker 5: overlooked a lot. I think it's really interesting for people
12:55
Speaker 5: to hear. But when you're innocent until proven guilty and
12:58
Speaker 5: you're in the county jail, it is far worse than
13:01
Speaker 5: being in prison. Most guys I know, they're happy to
13:04
Speaker 5: go to prison after being in the country jet. It
13:06
Speaker 5: is a very very poor existence. My first year in
13:09
Speaker 5: the county jail, I went outside, literally outside two times,
13:13
Speaker 5: and that is innocent until proven Because I don't understand
13:17
Speaker 5: how that can be, and I went outside every time
13:19
Speaker 5: that I could. But you're literally sleep deprived. The lights
13:23
Speaker 5: never go off, you never go outside, you have no
13:26
Speaker 5: human contact with anyone outside of prison. So it's a
13:30
Speaker 5: horrible existence. So for those eighteen months before you go
13:33
Speaker 5: to trial, they're basically sucking the life out of you.
13:36
Speaker 5: And then what you're seeing in trial is a shell
13:39
Speaker 5: of a human being. So when you watch forty eight
13:41
Speaker 5: Hours or Dayline or any other show and you see
13:43
Speaker 5: these people sitting there on trial, I mean, they probably
13:47
Speaker 5: look emaciated, they probably look strange, they probably act weird,
13:49
Speaker 5: and that's because they've been in this horrific environment for
13:54
Speaker 5: so long that I mean, they have no emotions left,
13:57
Speaker 5: they've spent them all, and they haven't been eating riot
14:00
Speaker 5: they have no nutrition. So just take that into consideration
14:04
Speaker 5: when you're looking at somebody who's going through this situation.
14:07
Speaker 5: You know, you're sitting in a courtroom full of these
14:08
Speaker 5: people who are staring at you. You're in a fish
14:10
Speaker 5: bowl and you're the only fish, and people are going
14:12
Speaker 5: to do like this satanic fish or something. And not
14:16
Speaker 5: to mention in the way you were treated the last
14:18
Speaker 5: eighteen months.
14:18
Speaker 3: No, I'm glad you brought that up, Ryan, and when
14:20
Speaker 3: you described that to me, And it's not like you're
14:24
Speaker 3: comparing jail to a minimum security prison. You were in
14:26
Speaker 3: a maximum security prison, right, And jails are chaotic, I mean,
14:29
Speaker 3: among other things. And this is something that's really so
14:33
Speaker 3: horrible to think about. But they're never cleaned, right, They're
14:36
Speaker 3: always occupied and they're never cleaned. So you're in a
14:39
Speaker 3: extremely toxic, poisonous environment in so many different ways. And
14:45
Speaker 3: you're in a pressure cooker, right because you were going
14:47
Speaker 3: to sell with how many other guys.
14:48
Speaker 5: Eight guys, twenty four to seven and you know, yeah,
14:51
Speaker 5: you're right, it is a pressure cooker. I mean, you
14:53
Speaker 5: have these people. Every single one of those people's lives
14:56
Speaker 5: is on the line. They don't know what's going to
14:57
Speaker 5: happen next. They don't know if they're going to go
14:59
Speaker 5: to prison for the rest of the life. Some of
15:00
Speaker 5: them don't know they're gonna get the death penalty. Some
15:02
Speaker 5: might get out tomorrow. And so you have all these
15:04
Speaker 5: different thoughts and feelings and emotions going on. You know,
15:07
Speaker 5: people are losing their families or they can't see their kids,
15:09
Speaker 5: whatever it might be. And you have that on top
15:13
Speaker 5: of the fact that you can't eat right, you can't
15:15
Speaker 5: get any exercise. Really, you can't be with loved ones.
15:20
Speaker 5: There's no outlet, right, The only outlet is towards another person,
15:24
Speaker 5: and so people end up fighting and getting hurt. And
15:27
Speaker 5: you know, you don't want to be in that situation.
15:28
Speaker 5: You don't want to be forced to fight somebody for survival.
15:32
Speaker 5: But that's what they make you do. That's what they
15:34
Speaker 5: put you in a situation where there's no other options.
15:36
Speaker 5: And then when it happens, they want to charge you
15:38
Speaker 5: with another crime, like you did something wrong. Put me
15:41
Speaker 5: in the cell with my girlfriend for a year. We're gonna,
15:44
Speaker 5: you know, hate each other by the end of it, right,
15:46
Speaker 5: You can't do that, and they'd put you in there
15:48
Speaker 5: with these people who are violent criminals. You don't know
15:51
Speaker 5: each other, you don't care about each other. Yet you
15:54
Speaker 5: have to be there twenty four to seven with all
15:56
Speaker 5: that going on, all those emotions, all those feelings, and
15:59
Speaker 5: that loss of your liberty and privilege. So it is
16:03
Speaker 5: a frightening place.
16:05
Speaker 3: The claustrophobic element of it alone, right, because you're never
16:08
Speaker 3: getting out. You're not getting out of the cell, right,
16:11
Speaker 3: I mean, what you've got to get out for a shower.
16:12
Speaker 5: No, Well, the thing is it's like a pod and
16:15
Speaker 5: it's very small. It's smaller than a one story home,
16:19
Speaker 5: and the showers in there, and you have a TV
16:22
Speaker 5: in there on a phone, and eight other guys, and
16:25
Speaker 5: it is The claustrophobic feeling is so intense, because even
16:30
Speaker 5: if even if you've been there for three months and
16:31
Speaker 5: you start to feel like you know the guys and
16:33
Speaker 5: you don't feel like you're in danger, that day you'll
16:36
Speaker 5: wake up and you realize I can't get up and
16:38
Speaker 5: walk out of this thing today. I can't get up
16:40
Speaker 5: and walk out here tomorrow or next month or next year.
16:42
Speaker 5: Like I can't go anywhere but this little house. Like
16:45
Speaker 5: I can't even step foot outside see the sunlight. I
16:47
Speaker 5: can't look out a window because there are no windows,
16:50
Speaker 5: Like this is it. I can't do anything. I have
16:53
Speaker 5: no freedom, I have no choices, I have no responsibility
16:57
Speaker 5: because I can't even go work. If I want to work,
17:00
Speaker 5: I can't go grab a book, but I want to
17:01
Speaker 5: grab a But I can't do anything.
17:03
Speaker 3: There's no books in there.
17:04
Speaker 5: There are some books, but they don't come by very often. Fortunately,
17:09
Speaker 5: after a while I was able to get some books,
17:10
Speaker 5: my father was able to bring me some. But you know,
17:12
Speaker 5: they changed the policies and so for a while, they
17:15
Speaker 5: took out all the legal books. You know, I thought,
17:18
Speaker 5: at least if I got to sit here at twenty
17:19
Speaker 5: four seven, I'll be able to read legal books. It's
17:21
Speaker 5: my constitutional right to be able to defend myself. But
17:24
Speaker 5: they took out all the legal books. I couldn't even
17:25
Speaker 5: read that. And you know, I'm here, I'm nineteen years old.
17:28
Speaker 5: I want to prove my innocence and fight my case,
17:31
Speaker 5: and they don't even give you the resources to do that.
17:33
Speaker 3: And on top of everything else, you're going to the
17:34
Speaker 3: bathroom on top of each other. Where do you sleep
17:36
Speaker 3: and how do you change clothes? How does that even
17:38
Speaker 3: work well?
17:39
Speaker 5: And where I was at it was a violent felon tank,
17:42
Speaker 5: So it has its benefits and its down sides. Of course,
17:47
Speaker 5: in many tanks it's just an open bay, so everybody's
17:50
Speaker 5: out there together. And yeah, I mean, you just got
17:52
Speaker 5: to get naked in front of people or whatever. You
17:54
Speaker 5: poop in front of people, you pee in front of people, everything,
17:56
Speaker 5: and so that is one existence in a violent fell
18:00
Speaker 5: in tank. They put you in your own cell because
18:02
Speaker 5: they don't want people sleeping in an environment where there
18:05
Speaker 5: are people who are accused of murder, right, so you
18:08
Speaker 5: don't want to be asleep, and then some guy snaps
18:10
Speaker 5: out and comes over there and tries to murder you.
18:11
Speaker 5: Like that's a liability, I suppose, So they give you
18:14
Speaker 5: your own cell in the violent Fellon tank. That's why
18:17
Speaker 5: there's eight people. There's eight cells. So that is the one,
18:22
Speaker 5: I guess good thing about being in a violent Pealent tank.
18:24
Speaker 5: The bad thing is that they're violent felons, so it's
18:27
Speaker 5: a lot more dangerous when those doors are open. Those
18:30
Speaker 5: doors are open about eighteen hours a day.
18:32
Speaker 3: And you had reason to understand that the system was
18:36
Speaker 3: not designed to work for justice and that as an
18:40
Speaker 3: innocent man, you had a real chance of ending up
18:43
Speaker 3: in prison for a long long time. So you devised
18:47
Speaker 3: a workout program, right in order to be able to
18:50
Speaker 3: defend yourself. And if you can't obviously see him on
18:53
Speaker 3: the radio, but if you see Ryan now he is
18:57
Speaker 3: he looks like a bodybuilder. So how did you do
18:59
Speaker 3: that without any kind of access to gym equipment or
19:03
Speaker 3: weights or anything else? And how did that work for you?
19:06
Speaker 5: You know, it comes down to education, really That's what
19:08
Speaker 5: I love about fitness now, is I see a lot
19:11
Speaker 5: of people work out. I've been around, you know, I
19:13
Speaker 5: was in an incubator with guys for a decade and
19:16
Speaker 5: I could see what they were doing, and a lot
19:17
Speaker 5: of people work really hard, but they never educate themselves
19:20
Speaker 5: on what to do for themselves physically, and so, you know,
19:24
Speaker 5: that's why I developed this routine, is just understanding how
19:28
Speaker 5: the body works. What's what are the best workouts that
19:31
Speaker 5: are going to get you the largest gains in the
19:33
Speaker 5: smallest amount of time, and then what do you have
19:35
Speaker 5: to do nutritionally to supplement that? And so that's you know,
19:39
Speaker 5: I just started figuring it out reading books and everything.
19:41
Speaker 5: When you're in an environment like prison and you have
19:45
Speaker 5: only so many outlets, I mean, really, the only thing
19:47
Speaker 5: you possess are your mind in your body. Nothing else
19:50
Speaker 5: is yours. You don't have any other really choices or anything.
19:53
Speaker 5: So I educated myself daily and I worked out daily
19:56
Speaker 5: because all I had was myself, and I worked on
20:00
Speaker 5: myself every day, and I think that taught me a
20:03
Speaker 5: valuable lesson. I think we can all do that no
20:06
Speaker 5: matter where we're at in life. It's very important.
20:07
Speaker 3: Well, you had a very strong motivation, and you were
20:11
Speaker 3: really thinking ahead because of the fact that you knew
20:14
Speaker 3: that if you ended up in a maxim security prison,
20:17
Speaker 3: there were going to be times when you're going to
20:19
Speaker 3: have to defend yourself or even inside this jail. So
20:21
Speaker 3: you designed a program to make yourself strong for that eventuality.
20:27
Speaker 3: And I know you talked to me about punching the walls, like,
20:30
Speaker 3: how does that work?
20:32
Speaker 5: Right? So I did skip over the part about why
20:36
Speaker 5: why I was working on so hard, and it is
20:38
Speaker 5: it's my why was survival and that is a very
20:42
Speaker 5: strong motivator and that's why I would work out and
20:46
Speaker 5: eventually ended up punching walls. So the walls are concrete
20:51
Speaker 5: and you know, they don't move. They're not soft by
20:54
Speaker 5: any means. But I saw people fight, and I saw
20:57
Speaker 5: people break their fists, and if you break your fist,
20:58
Speaker 5: you're not gonna be able to fight. And you know,
21:00
Speaker 5: I did everything I could to ensure my existence because
21:05
Speaker 5: it is scary what you see with our legal system
21:07
Speaker 5: and the fact that if you're arrested, your life is
21:10
Speaker 5: pretty much over at that point, you have a very
21:12
Speaker 5: small chance of winning, regardless of the facts. I mean,
21:15
Speaker 5: everything stacked against you. So I didn't want to end
21:18
Speaker 5: up in a fight to save my own life, to
21:20
Speaker 5: protect myself and not be able to function. And so
21:23
Speaker 5: I realized, you know, you had to have strong hands.
21:25
Speaker 5: You have to be able to take a hit, and
21:27
Speaker 5: you have to be able to give a hit and
21:28
Speaker 5: not break down. And so I would start lightly hitting
21:32
Speaker 5: the walls, the concrete walls, and I would hit them
21:36
Speaker 5: until you know, my knuckles got bloody and everything, and
21:38
Speaker 5: then i'd stop for that day, and while they're still
21:41
Speaker 5: trying to heal, I would continue hitting the walls. And
21:44
Speaker 5: I ended up developing a very very strong fist that
21:47
Speaker 5: I feel I could probably last through anything. And the
21:50
Speaker 5: only reason I did that is because I didn't want
21:53
Speaker 5: to be victimized while I was in prison for a
21:56
Speaker 5: crime I didn't commit. And that's it, really, I mean,
21:59
Speaker 5: it's it's an odd feeling knowing that your whole being
22:04
Speaker 5: is built around not becoming a victim. But that's what
22:08
Speaker 5: it was, man, that's survival in prison. You gotta do
22:10
Speaker 5: what you gotta do to protect yourself and any and
22:13
Speaker 5: every way that you can find.
22:27
Speaker 3: So the trial comes Ryan and you've been caged for
22:32
Speaker 3: eighteen months, in the most extreme circumstances. You come to
22:36
Speaker 3: trial and then you're forced to watch your co defendant
22:40
Speaker 3: get up there, Charles Erickson, and tell a story that
22:46
Speaker 3: has no relationship to reality or the truth, and ultimately
22:52
Speaker 3: you're convicted. I can't even fathom what that moment must
22:57
Speaker 3: have been like. But it's not too painful to go
23:00
Speaker 3: back there.
23:02
Speaker 5: That is, without it out in my thirty three years
23:05
Speaker 5: of life, the worst week of my entire life, kind
23:09
Speaker 5: of Jael's horrible. Prison's bad, but when you're in trial,
23:13
Speaker 5: there's nothing worse. You're basically naked in front of the world. Right,
23:17
Speaker 5: I had no secrets, I have no Everything that I
23:20
Speaker 5: am is out in front of people. And then they
23:23
Speaker 5: take that and they add lies on top of it,
23:26
Speaker 5: and they're accusing you of something that you didn't do
23:28
Speaker 5: that you have no knowledge of, and you know, every
23:33
Speaker 5: media source that could have been there was there. And
23:36
Speaker 5: the courtroom is completely full, and these people are looking
23:39
Speaker 5: at you like you're some kind of animal, right, and
23:42
Speaker 5: you're trying to be respectful of the court. You're just
23:44
Speaker 5: trying to sit there and be quiet. And I remember
23:46
Speaker 5: I would turn around and, you know, wave to my
23:49
Speaker 5: mom during a recess, you know, and I would smile
23:51
Speaker 5: because I saw my mom, like, hey, how you doing, Mom,
23:53
Speaker 5: Like I'm glad you're doing okay, and smile because I'm
23:56
Speaker 5: doing okay. So let's, you know, get through this. And
23:59
Speaker 5: then me would go out and say, look at this
24:02
Speaker 5: cocky piece of shit. You know, he's just like you
24:04
Speaker 5: don't care about the Cordies and they're like smiling and
24:06
Speaker 5: way of being at his fans and stuff. It's like,
24:09
Speaker 5: you don't have fans. There's no such thing as a fan.
24:12
Speaker 5: You are being accused of a crime you didn't commit.
24:14
Speaker 5: You're fighting for your life, and you're saying hi to
24:16
Speaker 5: your family. And then even then the media takes liberty
24:20
Speaker 5: with that, and it's it's insane and it is horrific
24:24
Speaker 5: to deal with that component of it. But it's even
24:28
Speaker 5: worse knowing that the police know you're innocent, the prosecutor
24:31
Speaker 5: knows you're innocent, the judge knows you're innocent, and yet
24:34
Speaker 5: they're allowing this debacle to go on and allowing these
24:37
Speaker 5: people to get on the stand and tell what they
24:40
Speaker 5: know are lies. And I get why some of these
24:44
Speaker 5: people lied. It's self preservation, because you know, they get
24:48
Speaker 5: a person out of prison and they say, you know,
24:51
Speaker 5: you know, it'd be nice if you said these things,
24:53
Speaker 5: it would be really helpful. What's the implication is if
24:56
Speaker 5: you don't say these things, then we're going to help
24:57
Speaker 5: you get back into prison. Right, And so they're doing
25:00
Speaker 5: for their own existence. But there's no reason the police
25:02
Speaker 5: of the prosecutor should be doing these things to people, right,
25:05
Speaker 5: They're they're manipulating and taking advantage of these people and uh,
25:09
Speaker 5: and they're doing it to the end to take another
25:11
Speaker 5: human being's life. And so it's you lose all faith
25:15
Speaker 5: in humanity, you lose all hope and humanity. And I
25:19
Speaker 5: mean that was the turning point for me. I fundamentally
25:23
Speaker 5: hated people outside of my family. I pretty much just
25:26
Speaker 5: hated human existence to human race for a good three
25:30
Speaker 5: or four years.
25:31
Speaker 3: And I can understand that. I mean, like you said,
25:33
Speaker 3: the people that are supposed to be paid to help you,
25:35
Speaker 3: or the people are supposed to be there to help
25:37
Speaker 3: the victim and the family, the victim and society and
25:40
Speaker 3: all of them letting down everyone for their own selfish.
25:43
Speaker 5: Are the ones who are perpetuating this offense. And that's
25:45
Speaker 5: it is. You will never I still don't understand it.
25:49
Speaker 5: You know, people will look at my case and they're like,
25:51
Speaker 5: we didn't realize this can happen. Looking at you, realize
25:55
Speaker 5: that this could happen to us. And I think so
25:57
Speaker 5: many people want to compartmentalize that, right. They want to say, oh,
26:01
Speaker 5: this is happening, but that will never happen to me,
26:03
Speaker 5: that will never happen to my family or whatever. But
26:05
Speaker 5: the reality is that it doesn't matter what you look like,
26:08
Speaker 5: where you come from, how you act, this could happen
26:11
Speaker 5: to you. This is a subject. This is an issue
26:14
Speaker 5: that does affect us, all right. I mean it affects
26:18
Speaker 5: us economically, it affects our society, it affects everything. And
26:22
Speaker 5: it is happening disproportionately to young black men, poor people,
26:26
Speaker 5: even if you're poor and white, whatever might be. The
26:28
Speaker 5: fact is, though, that this is happening more to people
26:32
Speaker 5: who don't look like me. And it's sad that for
26:36
Speaker 5: a lot of our society to stand up and say, hey,
26:39
Speaker 5: this is wrong, it has to be a young white
26:41
Speaker 5: kid because the reality is this is happening to so
26:44
Speaker 5: many people that are going unnoticed, and I think that
26:46
Speaker 5: needs to be discussed and we need to talk about
26:48
Speaker 5: that there are a lot of issues with raising this
26:50
Speaker 5: country obviously, and so hopefully that will change. Hopefully, you know,
26:55
Speaker 5: wromful commisciers will stop in general, but will acknowledge the
26:58
Speaker 5: fact that, hey, I mean, this has happening all over
27:00
Speaker 5: the place, but primarily to these young black men, and
27:03
Speaker 5: that really has to stop, and it is really tearing
27:06
Speaker 5: apart communities.
27:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then there's all the effects are terrible. It's
27:12
Speaker 3: an issue, as you said, that affects everybody in so
27:15
Speaker 3: many different ways. And again you're right, it's a sensitive topic.
27:18
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's a sad commentary on our society. But
27:22
Speaker 3: it's a fact, and it's one of the reasons why
27:23
Speaker 3: I think it's so important that you've been out there
27:25
Speaker 3: doing what you've been doing to spread the word. So
27:29
Speaker 3: you were sentenced to what.
27:31
Speaker 5: I was sentenced to forty years. Yeah, so in trial
27:36
Speaker 5: you get to see that it's not going well. You
27:38
Speaker 5: have a person sitting there saying something that isn't true,
27:41
Speaker 5: being egged on and led by the prosecution, and so
27:45
Speaker 5: then you get convicted. And before I was sentenced, you
27:49
Speaker 5: have a sentencing hearing and you have the opportunity to speak.
27:52
Speaker 5: The first time I had the opportunity to speak. This
27:54
Speaker 5: whole entire time from March tenth, two thousand and four
27:58
Speaker 5: to two years later, had I never done anything. I
28:00
Speaker 5: was arrested, I never said anything that implicated me or anything.
28:05
Speaker 5: All the facts proved my innocence. I never had the
28:08
Speaker 5: opportunity to speak to the public or anything. So I'm
28:10
Speaker 5: basically just being like I jumped in the stream or
28:13
Speaker 5: I got pushed in the stream, basically, and then have
28:16
Speaker 5: been going down current this whole time. So two years later,
28:19
Speaker 5: I have the first opportunity to actually speak publicly, right,
28:22
Speaker 5: and I get to speak to the judge at the
28:25
Speaker 5: sentencing hearing after I've already been convicted. I'm and I'm
28:27
Speaker 5: telling her, I hope you can see the facts. I mean,
28:30
Speaker 5: the facts are blatantly clear. Please look at those. Please
28:35
Speaker 5: be unbiased. This is the same judge that gave me
28:36
Speaker 5: a twenty million dollars bail, and you know, give me
28:40
Speaker 5: a new trial at the very least, because I will
28:42
Speaker 5: prove my innocence. You'll see that I'm innocent or whatever.
28:45
Speaker 5: The whole time I'm talking, she didn't even look at me,
28:47
Speaker 5: didn't pay anytention, just like I wasn't even there and
28:49
Speaker 5: I'm like, this is my whole entire life, and I
28:52
Speaker 5: have one opportunity to speak and to be heard by
28:57
Speaker 5: this court. You know, I've respected the court and that
29:00
Speaker 5: you respect me the same. The one opportunity I had.
29:02
Speaker 5: She wouldn't even look at me. She didn't listen to
29:04
Speaker 5: a word I'm saying, and then she just did what
29:06
Speaker 5: she did forty years see you later. And it was
29:09
Speaker 5: just one of the most disgusting things that I've experienced
29:13
Speaker 5: in my whole entire life. And is by this judge
29:16
Speaker 5: who were supposed to, you know, hold in high respect
29:18
Speaker 5: and it's supposed to be a pillar of our community.
29:21
Speaker 5: Is a horrible person. It's a horrible person who has
29:25
Speaker 5: no motivation to do what's right for the society that
29:29
Speaker 5: she lives in. And it's disgusting. And even now, you
29:33
Speaker 5: know she she's still you know, she lives in like
29:35
Speaker 5: a million dollar house or something, and she's enjoying a
29:38
Speaker 5: great life and uh, and she's just this person who
29:40
Speaker 5: has destroyed lives. And there are many great judges, don't
29:43
Speaker 5: get me wrong, but the fact that that person can
29:46
Speaker 5: sit up there and be esteemed or they're not even
29:51
Speaker 5: doing their job, it is Ah, it's sickening.
29:55
Speaker 3: I'm u. The idea that she would be shuffling papers
30:03
Speaker 3: or doing whatever she felt was more important than forty
30:06
Speaker 3: years of your life at that particular time after everything
30:09
Speaker 3: you've been through is just yeah, that's hard to process.
30:15
Speaker 3: It just takes a person who's like just so completely
30:19
Speaker 3: fucking bankrupt, right, so morally devoid of anything, and I
30:24
Speaker 3: don't get it. Wow, So you end up going to
30:28
Speaker 3: maximum security prison and you could put in a SELLI
30:30
Speaker 3: have a sell mate.
30:31
Speaker 5: Right, So it's difficult not to go on and on
30:35
Speaker 5: because there are so many It's ten years of your life, right.
30:38
Speaker 5: So my first seally, when I go into prison, you know,
30:42
Speaker 5: I mean prison at a young age. I'm twenty one,
30:47
Speaker 5: I'm thinking, you know this is I'm going straight into hell.
30:51
Speaker 5: Like I'm basically just jumping feet first into hell. I
30:54
Speaker 5: got no no ifans or butts about it, no no choice,
30:58
Speaker 5: and so I'm scared. There's no doubt about it. I'm
31:01
Speaker 5: very afraid at this point. And I go into the
31:05
Speaker 5: room and he's not in there. Everybody's out at rec
31:07
Speaker 5: or whatever. And then an hour later, this huge guy
31:11
Speaker 5: comes in and he's completely covered in tattoos. But it's
31:14
Speaker 5: really interesting how the tattoos are laid out, like half
31:17
Speaker 5: of his body are demonic tattoos and the other half
31:22
Speaker 5: are angelic tattoos. And I'm like, what the hell is
31:25
Speaker 5: going on here? Right? And so he gets to talk
31:29
Speaker 5: and I realize his face is completely messed up and
31:32
Speaker 5: the demonic side had been shot with a shotgun and
31:35
Speaker 5: basically distorted his face and the upper part of his
31:39
Speaker 5: body's shoulder and whatnot. And so later on we get
31:42
Speaker 5: to talking and he's like, basically, you know, he was
31:44
Speaker 5: robbing a dope house and he got shot on the
31:47
Speaker 5: demonic side because that was like God telling him that
31:51
Speaker 5: he should be good or whatever. Well, it turns out
31:53
Speaker 5: this guy is essentially bipolar, and he definitely wasn't good
31:56
Speaker 5: at any point, and he was probably the most frightening
32:00
Speaker 5: individual I came across in prison, especially as a first selly.
32:04
Speaker 5: But it's like, there were these imaginary lines in the
32:07
Speaker 5: cell and imagine like you're in this little eight by
32:11
Speaker 5: eight foot box. Imagine being in your bathroom with somebody
32:14
Speaker 5: who's twice your size and insane, like literally insane, who's
32:19
Speaker 5: known to be violent, known to have been arrested multiple
32:21
Speaker 5: times and spend a lot of time in the hole,
32:24
Speaker 5: and he draws these imaginary line So if you put
32:28
Speaker 5: your toe over this line that you don't even know exist,
32:31
Speaker 5: then a fight would ensue. And if a fight ensues,
32:33
Speaker 5: there's nowhere to go. You can't run, you can't beat them,
32:36
Speaker 5: you can't call for help because they're in another room.
32:39
Speaker 5: So basically, I'm tiptoeing around for the first three months
32:44
Speaker 5: of my time in prison, and it's just like a
32:49
Speaker 5: ticking time mom. I know that if I'm there long enough,
32:52
Speaker 5: this guy will kill me. And that's how I had
32:55
Speaker 5: to live for the first three or four months of
32:58
Speaker 5: my prison experience. And it was very bad, and we
33:02
Speaker 5: got into it quite a few times, and you know,
33:04
Speaker 5: and you're just trying to be as quiet and peaceful
33:07
Speaker 5: as you can, but nothing you do is right. So, yeah,
33:12
Speaker 5: I wish I could bring you into the mental anguish
33:15
Speaker 5: that exists, because although I was able to avoid being
33:19
Speaker 5: stabbed or hit by this individual, the mental anguish that
33:22
Speaker 5: you experienced from knowing that that could happen at any
33:24
Speaker 5: second for any reason, is it'll aid you like two
33:28
Speaker 5: years in one month. It's insane, it's horrible.
33:31
Speaker 3: Did you have any dialogue with him. Did you have
33:33
Speaker 3: any light moments at all? Was there, you know, was
33:36
Speaker 3: there any kind of camaraderie with this There was, yeah, man, And.
33:41
Speaker 5: That's't so weird about it. Like you you're around these
33:43
Speaker 5: people and some of them are just horrible, horrible human beings,
33:47
Speaker 5: but you know, it's life and you get to know
33:50
Speaker 5: them or whatever. And so I didn't have a TV
33:52
Speaker 5: yet or I might have just gotten I can't remember,
33:54
Speaker 5: and the Notebook came on, and uh. And so we're
33:58
Speaker 5: watching the Notebook at the same time. And the Notebook
34:01
Speaker 5: comes to a conclusion and we're not really talking during
34:04
Speaker 5: it or anything like that. It ends, and I'm like,
34:06
Speaker 5: I'm basically about to cry, you know, I'm like trying
34:09
Speaker 5: to hold back tears. I'm like, oh my god, I'm
34:10
Speaker 5: in this cell with this maniac, and the freaking great
34:14
Speaker 5: movies got me, you know. It's like, you know, I
34:17
Speaker 5: miss society and females and everything. Of course, and then
34:21
Speaker 5: I can't talk. And then I realized this guy is
34:24
Speaker 5: sniffling up there. He's up there crying, and I'm like,
34:28
Speaker 5: what's up in and and he's like, man, that was
34:30
Speaker 5: a good movie, you know, And uh, and he's like
34:32
Speaker 5: I'm crying or whatever, and I'm like, I'm about to
34:34
Speaker 5: do And so that was just like this weird, very
34:38
Speaker 5: odd experience, and we like we were laughing about it
34:41
Speaker 5: or whatever, and we're surprised that impacted us both. But
34:44
Speaker 5: I mean it was very up and down. It was
34:46
Speaker 5: like that, you know. I mean, that was one good moment.
34:48
Speaker 5: There are a million bad moments. And then when I left,
34:51
Speaker 5: I went over to the yard, the guy gave me
34:52
Speaker 5: a hug. He's like, oh man, I'm gonna miss you.
34:55
Speaker 5: I'm not gonna miss you, dude. But all right, you know,
34:57
Speaker 5: it's just that's that's a lot of people in there.
35:01
Speaker 5: There are some really good people. I still talk to
35:02
Speaker 5: some people in prison, but there are some people that
35:04
Speaker 5: you'll just never understand that are insane. They'll hug you
35:08
Speaker 5: one minute and stab you the next. So it's just
35:11
Speaker 5: you gotta be on your p's and q's per se.
35:23
Speaker 3: So you were in there for nine and a half years.
35:26
Speaker 3: You had many many appeals denied. How many appeals did
35:30
Speaker 3: you have, I.
35:31
Speaker 5: Mean at least six or seven primary appeals, and then
35:36
Speaker 5: you know they they go up through the court, so
35:40
Speaker 5: you have like the initial court filing, and then you
35:43
Speaker 5: have the appellate court, and then it goes to the
35:44
Speaker 5: Supreme Court, which never hears it. And so it's just
35:47
Speaker 5: this like basic routine that you get in. You know,
35:49
Speaker 5: you file appeal and then it wait six months and
35:52
Speaker 5: then they'll hear it, and then they wait another six months,
35:54
Speaker 5: and then they deny it, and then wait another six
35:56
Speaker 5: months and it goes to another court and they'll hear it,
35:57
Speaker 5: and then they wait another six months. So it's like
35:59
Speaker 5: every appeal you file, you know, I was like, oh,
36:02
Speaker 5: it'll be another year, year and a half of my
36:04
Speaker 5: life because they're not going to listen to this. These
36:06
Speaker 5: courts that they're going to, you know which ones will
36:09
Speaker 5: will be biased and you know which ones won't. So
36:11
Speaker 5: an appeal is filed and you automatically know, well, the
36:14
Speaker 5: next year and a half of my life is not
36:16
Speaker 5: going to happen. So I'm just gonna sit back and
36:19
Speaker 5: hope you get out of that court and back into
36:21
Speaker 5: one that actually cares about justice.
36:23
Speaker 3: At some point, the only other witness against you besides
36:28
Speaker 3: your co defendant who falsely confessed and then falsely implicated
36:32
Speaker 3: you and told a story that didn't make any sense,
36:34
Speaker 3: and kept changing it and was obviously anything but incredible
36:37
Speaker 3: witness against you. The only other witness against you was
36:40
Speaker 3: a convicted child molester, right, who was an incentivized witness.
36:43
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, this individual, he was a custodian. He was
36:47
Speaker 5: at the crime scene when it happened, and he went
36:50
Speaker 5: outside when the two individuals were out by this car,
36:54
Speaker 5: who may or may not have committed the crime. In
36:56
Speaker 5: the police phone call the police were called minutes later,
36:59
Speaker 5: he says, I don't know what the people looked like.
37:01
Speaker 5: I couldn't even tell you what they were wearing. I
37:02
Speaker 5: didn't get that good of a look, right, And so
37:05
Speaker 5: he gives the phone to a female and she could
37:07
Speaker 5: tell the police what the guy's actually looked like and
37:10
Speaker 5: their build and everything, And so we have on the
37:13
Speaker 5: record this guy is saying to the police, I have
37:15
Speaker 5: no idea what these guys look like. I can't tell
37:17
Speaker 5: you what color the hair is anything. And then he
37:19
Speaker 5: gets out of jail child molestation. The prosecution obviously calls
37:23
Speaker 5: him in and ultimately he says, yep, that's the guy
37:26
Speaker 5: that I saw. So you have the you know, So
37:29
Speaker 5: that's that story in a nutshell.
37:32
Speaker 3: So in case there wasn't enough. That's troubling everybody about
37:34
Speaker 3: this case already. The fact that they would actually release
37:37
Speaker 3: a convicted child molester in exchange for perjured testimony against you.
37:42
Speaker 5: Well, I think his time was up, so I think
37:46
Speaker 5: more of what happened there ist he was gonna get out,
37:49
Speaker 5: and they basically insinuated, if you don't help us, then
37:53
Speaker 5: you're gonna go back in. So it's actually that would
37:56
Speaker 5: be the assumption, right that they helped get him out,
37:58
Speaker 5: But ultimately what they were doing is we're just not
38:00
Speaker 5: gonna help put you back in if you help us, right,
38:03
Speaker 5: But if you don't help us, then we're gonna make
38:05
Speaker 5: sure that you violate your probation and you spend another
38:07
Speaker 5: two or three years in prison as a child molester,
38:09
Speaker 5: which is very, very rough to me. There is nothing
38:12
Speaker 5: worse than a jail house snitch. I mean that is,
38:14
Speaker 5: if you are a prosecutor and you use a jailhouse snitch,
38:17
Speaker 5: you should go straight to hell because jail house snitches
38:21
Speaker 5: have zero credibility. They are always lying, they're always incentivized.
38:25
Speaker 5: It is literally the most discussing thing that I've ever seen,
38:28
Speaker 5: and you know, it impacts people's lives. I was in
38:33
Speaker 5: maximum security prison in jail for a decade, ten years
38:37
Speaker 5: of my life. My case really turned in two thousand
38:40
Speaker 5: and nine when Kathleen Zellner got involved. Here's one of
38:43
Speaker 5: the greatest attorneys in our nation. She has more exonerations
38:46
Speaker 5: than any other individual attorney in the whole entire country,
38:50
Speaker 5: and she was willing to take my case pro bono
38:53
Speaker 5: at that and that was just I mean, that was
38:56
Speaker 5: the biggest ray of hope that I had had at
38:58
Speaker 5: that point. And I'm so great that she's in my life,
39:01
Speaker 5: not only, you know, on the legal side, but just
39:03
Speaker 5: as as a friend and a confidant.
39:07
Speaker 3: But your biggest advocate through all those years was your father,
39:10
Speaker 3: who went to extraordinary lengths to fight for you, to
39:15
Speaker 3: make sure that you knew that he had your back,
39:17
Speaker 3: and to ultimately prevail, or you wouldn't be sitting here now.
39:21
Speaker 3: But there was another person who played an important role
39:24
Speaker 3: in this right and she was someone who had written
39:26
Speaker 3: to you as so many other people had, but they
39:29
Speaker 3: took on a whole new life.
39:30
Speaker 5: Absolutely. Micah my girlfriend, current girlfriend. Still we've been together,
39:35
Speaker 5: I think over five years at this point. I've been
39:36
Speaker 5: out less than four. You know, I've been very fortunate.
39:40
Speaker 5: Like I said, I you know, without my family, I
39:42
Speaker 5: wouldn't have survived. I would have been crazy. I wouldn't
39:45
Speaker 5: have given up, but I would have lost a lot
39:47
Speaker 5: of hope. So without them, I wouldn't be here. And
39:49
Speaker 5: then Micah came along somehow we just ended up writing
39:52
Speaker 5: and talking more and she became a big part of
39:56
Speaker 5: my life and really kind of initiated this whole social
39:59
Speaker 5: media movement which helped my case get so much attention,
40:02
Speaker 5: which was really incredible. So, you know, it is amazing
40:05
Speaker 5: what has happened with her in the social media movement.
40:08
Speaker 5: We have a friend from Facebook, Mike, who was just
40:11
Speaker 5: very helpful. I mean he helped us like design the
40:13
Speaker 5: Facebook page and get it up there, and another guy, Richard,
40:16
Speaker 5: and so with those three they ran the social media thing.
40:20
Speaker 5: And when our page got up to one hundred thousand
40:22
Speaker 5: people on Facebook and that was big. Then there was
40:24
Speaker 5: no Instagram really and that really helped push the case
40:28
Speaker 5: forward and really helped push what my father was doing
40:31
Speaker 5: out there and what my mother was doing. And like
40:33
Speaker 5: I said earlier, whenever my trial happened, I lost hope
40:36
Speaker 5: in humanity. I hated people. I just I couldn't stand.
40:40
Speaker 5: I couldn't understand them, and that's what was so frustrating
40:43
Speaker 5: about it. I couldn't understand how people could do these
40:45
Speaker 5: things to people. I still don't, But then so many
40:47
Speaker 5: beautiful people have been in my life, like my family
40:50
Speaker 5: and Mike and Richard and Mike and so many other
40:54
Speaker 5: incredible individuals from forty eight hours in Dayline and people
40:58
Speaker 5: who wrote and so well. So many great people have
41:03
Speaker 5: shown me that the goodness in humanity can overcome the negativity, right,
41:07
Speaker 5: And there's too many people the name of course I
41:09
Speaker 5: found I'm leaving people out of it, but it's just
41:11
Speaker 5: like thank you to them, thank you to everyone who
41:15
Speaker 5: supported me and supported other people in my situation, because
41:18
Speaker 5: without that support we would lose hope. And it's really
41:22
Speaker 5: given me the opportunity actually live my life now, right,
41:24
Speaker 5: because if I still had that mentality and I never
41:27
Speaker 5: saw the good side of people, then what would I
41:29
Speaker 5: be doing with my life now. I wouldn't want to
41:30
Speaker 5: help other people. I wouldn't I don't think i'd be
41:33
Speaker 5: happy in society. I wouldn't be happy in my life.
41:36
Speaker 5: So really they help save my life by giving me
41:41
Speaker 5: my life back, but they also help save my life
41:43
Speaker 5: a second time by showing me, you know, the real
41:46
Speaker 5: passion and real beauty of the human race.
41:49
Speaker 3: I get people asking me frequently what can I do
41:53
Speaker 3: to help? And aside from donating to Innocence Project and
41:58
Speaker 3: other organizations. It's interesting to hear you talk about it
42:02
Speaker 3: because so many people wrote to you and what that meant.
42:05
Speaker 3: What would you say to someone who's listening now in
42:08
Speaker 3: wherever they are.
42:09
Speaker 5: Well, that's a great question, and the reality is there's
42:12
Speaker 5: a lot you can do. It might not be as
42:14
Speaker 5: much as you want because you just want to reach
42:16
Speaker 5: in there and pull those people out like they're obviously innocent.
42:18
Speaker 5: You want to do everything you can, and so you
42:20
Speaker 5: just got to You got to be patient. You got
42:22
Speaker 5: to find the right ways. I mean, the number one
42:24
Speaker 5: thing I would say is to be active. Right, So,
42:27
Speaker 5: if you find a case that you believe in, number one,
42:31
Speaker 5: write that person right their family and let them know
42:33
Speaker 5: you support them. I mean that right there opens up
42:35
Speaker 5: a huge door and helps so much. But then if
42:39
Speaker 5: you initiate that contact, they might have other opportunities for
42:42
Speaker 5: to help, like riding the governor or putting together some
42:45
Speaker 5: kind of thing that would bring other people in and
42:48
Speaker 5: make them aware of it. So to me, it is
42:51
Speaker 5: it is being active and creating awareness. The best thing
42:55
Speaker 5: you can do. Write a family member, right the person
42:58
Speaker 5: that you support, and then get involved and start spreading
43:02
Speaker 5: awareness to your friends and family. Tell them about the case,
43:05
Speaker 5: have them read the case, and start talking to your
43:08
Speaker 5: local politicians. Write them letters, make phone calls. I mean
43:11
Speaker 5: even this day, every week or two weeks, I'm calling
43:15
Speaker 5: some governor. I never get a hold of the governor himself,
43:18
Speaker 5: but I am letting them know how I feel about
43:21
Speaker 5: a case. And I am writing them, and I'm sending
43:23
Speaker 5: them tweets, and I'm writing them emails, Like any way
43:27
Speaker 5: we can let them know, let the people in charge
43:31
Speaker 5: of these systems know that we are paying attention and
43:34
Speaker 5: that we demand accountability. I think that is what is
43:38
Speaker 5: going to help make change right. And so what I
43:41
Speaker 5: hear a lot is people say like, I don't feel
43:43
Speaker 5: like me as a person can do enough to bring
43:46
Speaker 5: about change. But that's how change is actually done right.
43:50
Speaker 5: It's not done by one person. It's done by groups
43:52
Speaker 5: of individuals, done by all of us together doing our
43:55
Speaker 5: own little part. Like I wish I could do more.
43:58
Speaker 5: I'm just one little guy. But you know, I do
44:00
Speaker 5: my little part, and I ask other people to do
44:02
Speaker 5: their little parts, And if we keep doing that individually,
44:05
Speaker 5: then I think we're gonna we're gonna see a big change.
44:07
Speaker 3: You know, we talked about the worst moment of your
44:09
Speaker 3: life and the worst week of your life. What about
44:11
Speaker 3: the best moment of your life?
44:14
Speaker 5: You know, I think as a human being, you focus
44:18
Speaker 5: on the negative so much that I don't know what
44:19
Speaker 5: the best of the I mean. The thing about living
44:25
Speaker 5: in prison for so long is that you kind of,
44:30
Speaker 5: I don't know, you see the world a different way,
44:32
Speaker 5: and you aren't able to have those high moments of happiness.
44:37
Speaker 5: I haven't really been able to find that in my
44:39
Speaker 5: life yet, which is someone unfortunate I've been. I've been
44:42
Speaker 5: able to do some incredible things. I mean, I've been
44:46
Speaker 5: to a lot of different countries and I've traveled the
44:48
Speaker 5: world since i've been out. I've been able to go
44:50
Speaker 5: to the Super Bowl. I've been able to with my father,
44:53
Speaker 5: which is really amazing, and spend that weekend with them there.
44:55
Speaker 5: And you know, I spend as much time as I
44:57
Speaker 5: can with my family doing whatever we can, whether there's
45:00
Speaker 5: dinner or traveling. I have my own TV show. I
45:02
Speaker 5: wrote my own book, which which was, you know, probably
45:05
Speaker 5: my greatest accomplishment personally. And throughout all these things, I've
45:10
Speaker 5: never had like this, this moment of intense joy. And
45:15
Speaker 5: and I didn't used to be that way, you know,
45:16
Speaker 5: when I was younger, when I was in high school,
45:18
Speaker 5: and you know, I mean I I just love life
45:21
Speaker 5: so much, like every day I had intense joy. And
45:24
Speaker 5: while I do drive some joy out of these things,
45:26
Speaker 5: of course, it's I can't. I can't get to that
45:29
Speaker 5: next level where I used to be. And I think
45:31
Speaker 5: that's kind of what prison does to people, you know.
45:33
Speaker 5: I mean, some people may be able to get out
45:35
Speaker 5: and resume a normal life. I think a lot of people,
45:40
Speaker 5: you know, put on a strong front after what's happened
45:42
Speaker 5: to them, and I certainly do. But the reality is that,
45:45
Speaker 5: you know, it affects you, and it impacts you. And
45:47
Speaker 5: that's one of the things that impacts me most. And
45:50
Speaker 5: the reality is, like I walk around with this rain
45:52
Speaker 5: cloud over my head, I feel like a lot of times,
45:55
Speaker 5: and I'm afraid of the lightning, you know, And so
45:57
Speaker 5: if it's raining and thundering outside and there's lightning every
45:59
Speaker 5: I'm not going to go out there because I don't
46:00
Speaker 5: want to get hit by it, right, But the way
46:03
Speaker 5: the legal system affects a human being in these situations,
46:06
Speaker 5: and you see how humans act and everything, you know,
46:08
Speaker 5: this can happen to you or somebody you love. It's
46:10
Speaker 5: like they could come right now and kick in the
46:13
Speaker 5: door and arrest you. They could do it to me,
46:15
Speaker 5: They could do it to anybody. And so I walk
46:16
Speaker 5: around with this this cloud over my head and you know,
46:21
Speaker 5: I could get hit by that lightning at any moment,
46:22
Speaker 5: and there's nothing I can do. I can't there is
46:24
Speaker 5: no indoors, right, I could be in another country, it
46:27
Speaker 5: could happen, So it is. It is frightening. So yeah,
46:29
Speaker 5: I mean your happy moment, it's hard to describe. I
46:34
Speaker 5: I love life and I enjoy life, but for me,
46:36
Speaker 5: my happiest moments are giving back because it makes me
46:41
Speaker 5: feel like I'm protecting myself in a way as well.
46:44
Speaker 5: And it gets rid of that cloud a bit because
46:46
Speaker 5: hopefully it's turning this thing around that impacts us all.
46:50
Speaker 3: What about the moment of exoneration.
46:53
Speaker 5: Yeah, I wish I could say that was amazing, you know,
46:56
Speaker 5: and that's you know, you really expect it would be
46:58
Speaker 5: and everything. But that was hell for me. I didn't
47:02
Speaker 5: know what was going on. I didn't know if I
47:04
Speaker 5: was actually gonna be let out. A lot of times
47:07
Speaker 5: they will take you back to the county jail and
47:09
Speaker 5: then just read you your rights and recharge you and
47:12
Speaker 5: then put you in the count of jail for another
47:13
Speaker 5: year and a half. I didn't know any of that
47:15
Speaker 5: what was going to happen until I watched my parents
47:19
Speaker 5: walk through the sally Port door. And I'm still sitting
47:21
Speaker 5: in the back of a van in a cage with
47:23
Speaker 5: shackles on, in a orange jumpsuit, and that's when I
47:26
Speaker 5: realized it was over. So, I mean, it felt good,
47:29
Speaker 5: but I still like, I don't know if these people
47:30
Speaker 5: are gonna come kick my door. In the next day.
47:32
Speaker 5: I was literally looking out my windows every time I
47:35
Speaker 5: thought I heard something for the next six months. And
47:37
Speaker 5: so that's that's the way these things impact people. And
47:41
Speaker 5: you know, I think, now, obviously there's enough facts to
47:44
Speaker 5: protect me, and I think I am safe, but I
47:48
Speaker 5: know that just happens to other people. So it's yeah, man,
47:52
Speaker 5: it's good that some people can enjoy it. But I've
47:54
Speaker 5: looked so much into our legal system and seen what's
47:56
Speaker 5: happened to so many other people like Brian Ferguson. You know,
48:00
Speaker 5: he was exonerating. They wanted to retry him and everything
48:03
Speaker 5: and basically forced him into taking an alpha plate. It's
48:06
Speaker 5: situations like that that really don't allow you to necessarily
48:11
Speaker 5: live your life to the fullest. And I think as
48:13
Speaker 5: time goes on, you get better. But here we are
48:14
Speaker 5: four years and I still have all these considerations.
48:16
Speaker 3: So let's talk about your book, all right, So tell
48:20
Speaker 3: us about the book, and then any other final thoughts
48:23
Speaker 3: that you have.
48:24
Speaker 5: Yeah, so my book Stronger, Faster, Smarter. I wrote it
48:27
Speaker 5: in my last five months in prison. It is one
48:30
Speaker 5: of my greatest achievements. I just wanted to see if
48:32
Speaker 5: I could write a book, and I saw so many
48:34
Speaker 5: people working out really hard, but they weren't getting where
48:38
Speaker 5: they wanted. They weren't accomplishing their goals. And I realized
48:41
Speaker 5: that they're not educating themselves on what to do in
48:43
Speaker 5: the fitness world. So I came up with this plan
48:46
Speaker 5: of doing like basically six main moves. You eat it right,
48:49
Speaker 5: eat a certain way, and then you educate yourself and
48:52
Speaker 5: you'll be able to accomplish whatever fitness goals you want.
48:55
Speaker 5: That's what the book is kind of about. But I
48:57
Speaker 5: tied it in with my experience in prison and how
48:59
Speaker 5: I I didn't know that ten years ago. You know,
49:01
Speaker 5: I didn't know how to get in shape. I had
49:03
Speaker 5: to figure it out to survive. And if I could
49:06
Speaker 5: do it in that environment, then certainly everyone can wherever
49:09
Speaker 5: they're at in the life. And so that's what it's about.
49:11
Speaker 2: Man.
49:11
Speaker 5: It's a hopeful book that has some good information I
49:14
Speaker 5: think that can help people achieve their goals.
49:16
Speaker 3: Get the book great, read, stronger, faster, or smarter. Get stronger, faster,
49:20
Speaker 3: and smarter than Ryan Ferguson way. He was able to
49:23
Speaker 3: do it in prison, so I guess the rest of
49:25
Speaker 3: us have no excuse. And Ryan, any final thoughts that
49:29
Speaker 3: you want to share, you.
49:30
Speaker 5: Know, my final thoughts are just be aware. As Jason
49:34
Speaker 5: was saying earlier, You know, when you look at these cases,
49:37
Speaker 5: always question what you're reading, Always question what you're watching.
49:41
Speaker 5: The best thing we can do is educate ourselves, right.
49:43
Speaker 5: Don't take anyone's word as the truth. Don't take it
49:47
Speaker 5: as gospel, whether it's your police or prosecutors, your local newspaper, whatever,
49:52
Speaker 5: Look into it yourself. These are really interesting cases. They're
49:56
Speaker 5: very important and they impact us all and I think
49:58
Speaker 5: that each one of us can do a lot to
50:02
Speaker 5: change the way our legal system operates. And it is
50:04
Speaker 5: for ourselves, it's for our youth, it's for everyone. So yeah,
50:09
Speaker 5: it's it's it's amazing. I think the more you look
50:11
Speaker 5: get into it, the more you're going to be intrigued
50:13
Speaker 5: and the more you're gonna want to want to get involved.
50:15
Speaker 3: You've been listening to a very special episode of Wrongful
50:20
Speaker 3: Conviction with a very special person, my friend Ryan Ferguson. Ryan,
50:26
Speaker 3: thank you for coming and sharing your thoughts and wisdom,
50:30
Speaker 3: and once again the book is stronger, faster, smarter.
50:33
Speaker 5: Great. Thanks Jason Man, thanks for all that you do. Seriously,
50:36
Speaker 5: like you lead by example and I appreciate that. What
50:38
Speaker 5: I just said is, you know, go out there and
50:41
Speaker 5: do what you can. That's what you've been doing. And
50:43
Speaker 5: uh and there's a lot you could do that you know,
50:45
Speaker 5: you could not care about any of this, and it's
50:46
Speaker 5: amazing to see what you do. Man. You give me
50:48
Speaker 5: a lot of hope. So thanks for having me. It
50:50
Speaker 5: was an honor.
50:51
Speaker 3: And uh, yeah, right on, don't forget to give us
50:59
Speaker 3: a fantastic review.
51:00
Speaker 5: Wherever you get your podcasts.
51:02
Speaker 3: It really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the
51:05
Speaker 3: Innocence Project and I really hope you'll join me in
51:08
Speaker 3: supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future
51:11
Speaker 3: wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot org to learn
51:15
Speaker 3: how to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank
51:18
Speaker 3: our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music
51:21
Speaker 3: in the show is by three time OSCAR nominated composer
51:24
Speaker 3: Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at
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Speaker 3: Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful
51:32
Speaker 3: Conviction with Jason Flamm is a production of Lava for
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