Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #419 Jason Flom with Matt Huang

Transcript

#419 Jason Flom with Matt Huang · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: In twenty twelve, an American civil engineer named Matt Huang
0:06
Speaker 1: was offered an intriguing opportunity to evaluate the wastewater and
0:10
Speaker 1: reuse systems in the Middle Eastern country of Qatar as
0:13
Speaker 1: they prepared to host the twenty twenty two World Cup.
0:17
Speaker 1: So Matt, his wife, and their three adopted children embarked
0:21
Speaker 1: on what seemed like an exciting new adventure. But on
0:24
Speaker 1: January fifteenth, twenty thirteen, tragedy struck. Their middle child, Gloria,
0:30
Speaker 1: had become mysteriously ill. She was rushed to the hospital
0:34
Speaker 1: where CPR was performed, but she passed away. It was
0:38
Speaker 1: reported that her death was caused by starvation and dehydration,
0:42
Speaker 1: and the Katari police knew exactly who to blame. But
0:46
Speaker 1: this is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrong Conviction. Today's
1:01
Speaker 1: episode is like a crazy mixture of Locked Up Abroad
1:07
Speaker 1: meets the Twilight Zone meets No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
1:11
Speaker 1: the Extreme Edition. Okay, and you'll understand as we go
1:16
Speaker 1: along what I mean by all those references. We're gonna
1:19
Speaker 1: be telling the story of Matt Huang, who is on
1:23
Speaker 1: the air with us right now. Matt, Welcome to the show.
1:26
Speaker 1: Thank you, And like I always say, I'm happy you're here,
1:29
Speaker 1: well I'm happier here because you're not there, But I'm
1:31
Speaker 1: sorry for what you had to go through to be
1:34
Speaker 1: here on the show today. But with us, we have
1:37
Speaker 1: somebody who everybody who listens to the show will recognize
1:40
Speaker 1: one of my personal heroes, the founder of the California
1:44
Speaker 1: Innocence Project, Professor Justin Brooks. So Justin, welcome back. Thank
1:48
Speaker 1: you so much. Now, most of the cases we've covered,
1:51
Speaker 1: they happen right here in the US, but Matt yours
1:54
Speaker 1: happened halfway across the world in the Middle East, in
1:57
Speaker 1: the nation of Qatar, to be exact. But before we
2:01
Speaker 1: get to all of that, let's hear a little bit
2:03
Speaker 1: about your life before all of this tragedy and insanity
2:08
Speaker 1: took place.
2:09
Speaker 2: I grew up in southern California in the LA area.
2:13
Speaker 2: I'm a Chinese American. My parents are immigrants, but I'm
2:16
Speaker 2: born and raised in the US. I have a bachelor's
2:19
Speaker 2: degree from University California, Irvine, and I have a master's
2:23
Speaker 2: degree in environmental engineering from Stanford University. I met and
2:28
Speaker 2: married my wife, Grace, and we adopted three children from Africa.
2:33
Speaker 2: My older son and my daughter Gloria are from Ghana.
2:38
Speaker 2: My younger son is from Uganda. Being Chinese ethnically, you know,
2:42
Speaker 2: everyone asked us, especially at that time, you know, why
2:45
Speaker 2: not adopt from China. At that point, China had the
2:47
Speaker 2: one child policy, and I just didn't feel like we
2:51
Speaker 2: wanted to support what they were doing there because most
2:53
Speaker 2: of their kids were available for adoption because the government
2:57
Speaker 2: forced them to be, and not because they didn't have
2:59
Speaker 2: parents love them. And we picked an adoption agency and
3:03
Speaker 2: I'm an only child. At some point in the process,
3:05
Speaker 2: we realized, oh, kind of having siblings might be kind
3:07
Speaker 2: of nice, And there were a bunch of siblings in
3:10
Speaker 2: the orphanage in Ghana thatot our adoption agency was working with,
3:14
Speaker 2: and so that was one of the reasons we end
3:16
Speaker 2: up going to Ghana for our first adoption.
3:18
Speaker 1: And so that's when you adopted the two older siblings,
3:21
Speaker 1: one of whom was your daughter Gloria. Now, at some
3:24
Speaker 1: point after you and your wife adopted your third child,
3:27
Speaker 1: you got what may have it must have sounded like
3:29
Speaker 1: a really exciting opportunity halfway across the world in guitar.
3:33
Speaker 2: At that point in time, Qatar had been awarded the
3:36
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two FIFA World Cup for soccer. They had
3:40
Speaker 2: tons of people who were there to you know, do construction,
3:44
Speaker 2: to do projects to get ready for that World Cup.
3:47
Speaker 2: My company that I was working for at the time
3:49
Speaker 2: transferred us there. I was working on a project looking
3:53
Speaker 2: at planning on their wastewater systems and their reuse.
3:57
Speaker 1: And so you and your family were living in the
4:00
Speaker 1: capital city of Doha. Can you give us a bit
4:03
Speaker 1: of europe first impression.
4:05
Speaker 2: There's basically one city for all intents and purposes. It's
4:08
Speaker 2: a pretty small country. It's probably a two hour drive,
4:12
Speaker 2: you know, on a freeway in one direction, about an
4:15
Speaker 2: hour drive in the other way. It's a monarchy. They're
4:18
Speaker 2: only neighboring country, Saudi Arabia. It's one of the richest
4:22
Speaker 2: countries in the world because of oil and natural gas.
4:24
Speaker 2: The citizens actually get paid, at least when we were there,
4:28
Speaker 2: it was something like about twenty six hundred dollars US
4:30
Speaker 2: a month a person, including children, from the government. And
4:34
Speaker 2: that's actually how the monarchy keeps power because they share
4:37
Speaker 2: the oil and natural gas revenues with the citizens. It's
4:41
Speaker 2: got about two million people in the country, but eighty
4:44
Speaker 2: five percent of the people are foreigners, which mean there
4:47
Speaker 2: are foreign workers that have been brought in. The majority
4:50
Speaker 2: of the people who get brought into work are in
4:53
Speaker 2: construction and those types of industries, and a lot of
4:58
Speaker 2: these workers are paid three hundre buxham up or less.
5:01
Speaker 3: It's sort of like a country of billionaires, so you
5:04
Speaker 3: have to import a working class. It is a huge
5:08
Speaker 3: amount of extraordinarily wealthy people and then this massive underclass.
5:13
Speaker 2: There is definitely a social hierarchy. So if you're a
5:17
Speaker 2: Gulf Arab, you're treated much better, and I would argue
5:21
Speaker 2: that there's probably five or six levels of that hierarchy.
5:24
Speaker 2: If you're a white person, you're looked on much more highly.
5:30
Speaker 2: And the fact that we are Asians put us lower
5:34
Speaker 2: down that hierarchy, not as low as say being black, right, which.
5:39
Speaker 1: Of course all three of your children were. And that
5:42
Speaker 1: ethnic disparity later played into the minds of these investigators
5:46
Speaker 1: who were they were accustomed to seeing human trafficking and
5:50
Speaker 1: to those types of injustices.
5:52
Speaker 3: I saw it just flying in and out of the airport.
5:55
Speaker 3: You would see these large groups of people coming in
5:58
Speaker 3: from India and Africa that were all coming to work
6:01
Speaker 3: on the World Cup Games, and it was well reported
6:05
Speaker 3: in the media that there is slave trading going on,
6:09
Speaker 3: that negotiations would happen with like town elders in Africa India,
6:14
Speaker 3: and then the next thing you know, two hundred guys
6:17
Speaker 3: get shipped over to work on construction the desert, building
6:21
Speaker 3: these buildings. I don't know if I ever talked to
6:22
Speaker 3: you about this.
6:23
Speaker 1: Matt.
6:23
Speaker 3: I had this driver there and when he first picked
6:27
Speaker 3: me up, I said, how do you like living here?
6:28
Speaker 3: Because he was from the Philippines and he'd been there
6:30
Speaker 3: like six months. He says, Oh, it's great, it's great,
6:32
Speaker 3: blah blah blah, blah blah. Then he sees you on
6:35
Speaker 3: the news and he knows about your case and he
6:38
Speaker 3: knows why I'm there, and then he says to me,
6:41
Speaker 3: this has been terrible. They took my passport when I
6:44
Speaker 3: got in the country. They told me I was going
6:46
Speaker 3: to make all this money, and they're not paying me anything.
6:48
Speaker 3: I'm grateful I get to be a driver because I
6:51
Speaker 3: see these guys dying every day in the desert who
6:53
Speaker 3: are construction workers, who are living in the same dormitory
6:57
Speaker 3: that I'm living in, And I'm just counting the days
7:00
Speaker 3: until they give me my passport back so I can
7:02
Speaker 3: leave the country.
7:03
Speaker 1: I'm rarely at a loss for words, but I don't
7:05
Speaker 1: have any words.
7:06
Speaker 3: This is what's going on there, a country that we
7:08
Speaker 3: gave the World Cup to. It's shocking there. You know,
7:11
Speaker 3: there is this veneer of success, but beneath it, there's
7:14
Speaker 3: this sort of repressive operation through the monarchy and the
7:17
Speaker 3: control of the government and the justice system. And Matt's
7:21
Speaker 3: story is sort of wrapped up in that.
7:23
Speaker 1: And so while Matt and his family had to navigate
7:26
Speaker 1: almost like a caste system as well as a language
7:28
Speaker 1: that they just didn't understand, something truly tragic happened to
7:33
Speaker 1: their adopted daughter from Ghana. I'm talking, of course about Gloria.
7:37
Speaker 3: Gloria came from an environment of extreme, you know, a
7:41
Speaker 3: kind of extremity that as Americans we can't even really comprehend.
7:45
Speaker 3: She developed an eating disorder because she ate when the
7:49
Speaker 3: food drops came, and so there were long periods of
7:52
Speaker 3: time that literally they didn't have food, and Matt and
7:56
Speaker 3: his wife were trying to develop good eating habits because
7:59
Speaker 3: she would go on they called food strikes and would
8:01
Speaker 3: neat for a few days. And so this had happened repeatedly.
8:06
Speaker 1: So Gloria had been really struggling with this eating disorder,
8:09
Speaker 1: and who knows what ramifications it was having on her
8:12
Speaker 1: little fragile eight year old body. And that brings us
8:16
Speaker 1: up to January fifteenth, twenty thirteen, just about six months
8:19
Speaker 1: into the Huang family stint in Qatar.
8:22
Speaker 2: I found my daughter Gloria in her room, sickly on
8:26
Speaker 2: the floor, and we had been there like six months,
8:28
Speaker 2: so I didn't think I even knew the number of emergency.
8:31
Speaker 2: So I put her in the car, drove her to
8:32
Speaker 2: the hospital and they worked on her CPR, and then
8:36
Speaker 2: they told me she had died. And you know, I
8:40
Speaker 2: was talking to my wife of course on the phone,
8:42
Speaker 2: but my sons had gone to bed, so we woke
8:44
Speaker 2: them up, told them what happened, drove them back from
8:46
Speaker 2: the hospital, and basically they give us like a couple
8:50
Speaker 2: minutes with Gloria, and then police started questioning us. They
8:53
Speaker 2: separated me from my wife and my sons brought me
8:57
Speaker 2: out to a vehicle in the hospital parking lot. There
9:00
Speaker 2: were like twenty guys surrounding me and started peppering me with.
9:03
Speaker 1: Questions in English.
9:05
Speaker 2: In English, basically, they're starting to accuse me of you're
9:08
Speaker 2: a bad father, you don't know what's going on with
9:11
Speaker 2: your kid, and so they were going after me for
9:14
Speaker 2: I don't know, an hour and a half or something,
9:17
Speaker 2: and so at some point they drive me to a
9:20
Speaker 2: police station, asked me a couple questions. At this point,
9:23
Speaker 2: I have no idea where my wife and kids are.
9:25
Speaker 2: And then they drove me to another police station where
9:28
Speaker 2: now there was a couple guys that start interrogating me
9:32
Speaker 2: and trying to make a written statement. That I speak
9:35
Speaker 2: zero Arabic and these two guys are English is horrendous.
9:39
Speaker 2: So they're typing this out in Arabic, you know, and
9:41
Speaker 2: asking me questions and how you do a statement without
9:44
Speaker 2: any translation is without me, and so then they print
9:47
Speaker 2: now asked me to sign it, which I'm like, well,
9:49
Speaker 2: tell me what you wrote. So he sat there and
9:51
Speaker 2: he translated everything for me. And then after that this
9:55
Speaker 2: other guy came in and he looked at it and
9:57
Speaker 2: asked them to make these like changes to my statement.
10:01
Speaker 2: Here far I signed it right, And so after they
10:03
Speaker 2: made these changes, I was like, okay, read this to me,
10:05
Speaker 2: tell me what's written, and they said, no, you just
10:08
Speaker 2: have to sign it. I was brought into this room
10:11
Speaker 2: where I found my wife and my sons. Now this
10:14
Speaker 2: is six in the morning, after they had just made
10:16
Speaker 2: me sign a statement where they made changes, and I
10:18
Speaker 2: had no idea what changes they made.
10:20
Speaker 1: So what was their theory? I mean, do we actually
10:23
Speaker 1: know what was wrong with Gloria?
10:25
Speaker 3: The hard answer is that we don't know, and we
10:28
Speaker 3: don't know because the autopsy that was done was a
10:31
Speaker 3: complete fabrication. When it was later looked into, you know,
10:35
Speaker 3: organs were still pristine. There wasn't the kind of examination
10:39
Speaker 3: that needed to be done in order to come to
10:41
Speaker 3: a conclusion. What we do know is that the child
10:44
Speaker 3: did not die of starvation, which is what the prosecution
10:47
Speaker 3: was pursuing. She developed eating disorder, which meant she would
10:52
Speaker 3: go on what they called food strikes and wouldn't eat
10:54
Speaker 3: for a few days. When they find out about that,
10:57
Speaker 3: that then becomes a foundation for a prosecut even though
11:01
Speaker 3: in reality, the mere fact that a child doesn't eat
11:04
Speaker 3: for a couple of days doesn't cause them to die,
11:07
Speaker 3: and she clearly did not die of starvation. It's just literally,
11:10
Speaker 3: scientifically medically impossible based on the evidence that that's how
11:14
Speaker 3: she died. But Sadly, like many of these cases, it
11:18
Speaker 3: started with an officer making assumptions and just rolling with them.
11:23
Speaker 3: And in Matt's case, the assumption was their daughters deceased.
11:27
Speaker 3: You see Asian parents, you see black children, and now, oh,
11:32
Speaker 3: they must be slave traders. They're not a couple from
11:36
Speaker 3: the United States who just went through a normal adoption
11:38
Speaker 3: process and a Stanford trained engineer. They must be slave traders.
11:43
Speaker 3: And they were being prosecuted for starving their daughter to
11:48
Speaker 3: death to harvest her organs.
11:51
Speaker 1: So Matt's engineering degree and work visa, there are American
11:54
Speaker 1: passports and adoption papers. None of this seemed to make
11:59
Speaker 1: a difference with the good police, and none of it
12:01
Speaker 1: made them rethink this theory. But rather just going on appearances,
12:06
Speaker 1: you know, with the cultural lens that they looked at
12:09
Speaker 1: it through from the Katari social hierarchy, they felt that
12:13
Speaker 1: it was plausible somehow that an Asian couple of a
12:16
Speaker 1: loving family with all this history might be harvesting and
12:21
Speaker 1: selling the internal organs of their African children.
12:24
Speaker 3: There was all kinds of racism as well, just within
12:27
Speaker 3: the evidence. As I recall one of the police reports,
12:29
Speaker 3: it literally said, why would anyone adopt black children, challenging
12:34
Speaker 3: the fact that they were adopted.
12:36
Speaker 2: The police report actually said black children were ugly.
12:39
Speaker 3: That's awful.
12:40
Speaker 2: My kids are not ugly.
12:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're saying out loud the stuff that people shouldn't
12:44
Speaker 3: even be thinking and writing it in a police report
12:46
Speaker 3: that's being introduced into evidence. And that's just an example
12:49
Speaker 3: how outrageous this whole thing was.
13:05
Speaker 1: You know, we see a time and again in this
13:07
Speaker 1: country as well, that when a child dies, it's just
13:10
Speaker 1: terrifying to people and it's so terribly difficult for them
13:14
Speaker 1: to grapple with the idea that this could happen to
13:19
Speaker 1: an innocent child. That's often too often someone is needless
13:22
Speaker 1: escapegoaded for that death, the death of a child. And
13:26
Speaker 1: this time it was two people, two loving parents who
13:30
Speaker 1: still don't forget they had two other children, two boys.
13:33
Speaker 2: So the first night they stayed with our friends, and
13:36
Speaker 2: then after that they were thrown into a country orphanage
13:40
Speaker 2: because the country government was concerned that we had trafficked
13:44
Speaker 2: to them, even though our kids had us passports and
13:48
Speaker 2: adoption documents.
13:49
Speaker 3: Which were used to get them visas and some of
13:52
Speaker 3: the photos that would put in evidence, which is insane
13:55
Speaker 3: that anyoneuld think they're trafficking. It's like, here's Matt and
13:58
Speaker 3: his family horseback ride. Here they are on a family
14:01
Speaker 3: vacation when they're saying, you know, Glory doesn't have access
14:05
Speaker 3: to water. Oh, here's our en sweet bathroom. Here's actual
14:08
Speaker 3: water bottles next to her bed. I mean, it just
14:12
Speaker 3: none of it could be put together to make any
14:15
Speaker 3: sense except for what the truth was, just an average
14:18
Speaker 3: American family with adopted kids and an overseas job.
14:23
Speaker 1: Poor kids were traumatized, I mean and retraumatized. Right, First
14:26
Speaker 1: they lose their their sibling, and then they lose their family,
14:29
Speaker 1: and then they're in an orphanage and then they're.
14:31
Speaker 2: Right, and you have to remember they're already orphaned once, right,
14:34
Speaker 2: so trauma.
14:35
Speaker 1: Right, So this is retraumatizing yet.
14:37
Speaker 3: And they also don't speak Arabic.
14:39
Speaker 1: So the two boys were once again without parents, now
14:43
Speaker 1: though in a strange land where they didn't even speak
14:45
Speaker 1: the language. I guess if there is a silver lion,
14:48
Speaker 1: the only one is that they had each other. So
14:51
Speaker 1: how long did this orphanage situation last?
14:54
Speaker 2: It took about four months to get the kids out
14:58
Speaker 2: of the cunty orphanage and then they had a travel
15:01
Speaker 2: ban on them, so my mother in law came to
15:04
Speaker 2: Qatar to come take care of them. After about four
15:07
Speaker 2: more months, they were permitted to leave the country.
15:10
Speaker 1: Right, which couldn't have happened soon enough. Meanwhile, you and
15:13
Speaker 1: your wife are stuck in a Katari jail where I'm
15:16
Speaker 1: going to imagine you felt terribly isolated, not understanding Arabic.
15:20
Speaker 2: Well, because you have people from everywhere. It's kind of
15:22
Speaker 2: broken English and broken Arabic are kind of the language
15:25
Speaker 2: in practice inside the jail. I ended up being in
15:29
Speaker 2: the jail for about ten months. I spent a lot
15:34
Speaker 2: of time praying, reading my Bible, just hanging out with guys,
15:39
Speaker 2: because honestly, it felt like a college dormitory at least
15:43
Speaker 2: in terms of the relationship with the other guys. Two
15:45
Speaker 2: thirds of the prison are people who feel like everyone
15:50
Speaker 2: you're going to run on the street, that were on
15:52
Speaker 2: trial for things that were so absurd.
15:56
Speaker 1: There are one that sticks out in your mind.
15:58
Speaker 2: There was one guy who was clearly scammed, and they
16:03
Speaker 2: arrested him for theft and convicted him of theft because
16:06
Speaker 2: they said, okay, fine, bring the scammer to court. Well,
16:08
Speaker 2: the scammer wasn't even in the country.
16:09
Speaker 3: During Matt's trial, your brother or brother in law.
16:13
Speaker 2: My brother in law.
16:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, your brother in law was arrested for taking a
16:16
Speaker 3: photograph of the courthouse because that is an illegal act
16:20
Speaker 3: and they had to sign confessions in order to be released.
16:23
Speaker 2: I think a third of the people in there are
16:25
Speaker 2: actually factually innocent, that's my best estimate. And another quarter
16:30
Speaker 2: are in there because of out of wedlock sex cases.
16:33
Speaker 1: Which wow, a quarter of them.
16:34
Speaker 3: Yeah.
16:35
Speaker 2: In general, out of wedlock sex is illegal in most
16:40
Speaker 2: of the Gulf Arab countries and typically they would get
16:43
Speaker 2: arrested if they were with a maid in usually a
16:48
Speaker 2: Katari home. A member of the household could file a
16:51
Speaker 2: case because there was a strange man in their house
16:55
Speaker 2: who had come to visit their maid, so they charged
16:58
Speaker 2: him with trespassing and without at locked sex, and they
17:01
Speaker 2: will almost always get a trespassing conviction even if they
17:03
Speaker 2: cannot demonstrate and out of wedlock sex conviction.
17:07
Speaker 3: Don't visit there.
17:08
Speaker 1: I mean, I think we've pretty much lost any chance
17:11
Speaker 1: we have of getting sponsored by the Katari Tourism Board.
17:13
Speaker 1: But that's the way it goes.
17:15
Speaker 2: And there's definitely uneven persecution because we know that the
17:18
Speaker 2: Katari employees were raping their maids, but they would never
17:22
Speaker 2: go after the Kataris for that.
17:23
Speaker 1: Whoao, So your Katari counterparts at work they were regularly
17:28
Speaker 1: raping their maids but weren't facing any consequences or being prosecuted.
17:33
Speaker 1: But people who were having consensual out of wedlock sex
17:37
Speaker 1: they're punished.
17:38
Speaker 3: That's the definition of irony.
17:40
Speaker 1: Again, I don't have any words. I mean, it's just
17:43
Speaker 1: too much. So what were the actual charges and when
17:47
Speaker 1: were you brought to court?
17:48
Speaker 2: The first three months we didn't even know why we
17:52
Speaker 2: were in prison. We didn't know what the charges were.
17:54
Speaker 2: They were quote unquote investigating, but there was nothing that
17:57
Speaker 2: was set up. We would show up for a year,
18:00
Speaker 2: maybe once a month. Three months in they gave us
18:04
Speaker 2: first degree murder with the death penalty was the charge.
18:07
Speaker 3: I've done death penalty cases in the United States and
18:10
Speaker 3: they are the hardest cases to do with the most
18:12
Speaker 3: amount of pressure. But still in the back of your head,
18:15
Speaker 3: you know there's going to be appeals, there's going to
18:18
Speaker 3: be time. Most people in the United States, actually on
18:21
Speaker 3: death rowt die of old age before they get executed.
18:24
Speaker 3: That is not true in the Middle East, and that
18:27
Speaker 3: is not what Matt was facing in this case.
18:30
Speaker 1: How did you even find out about that?
18:32
Speaker 3: So I was contacted by a guy named Eric Voltz,
18:35
Speaker 3: who has worked with a number of people who are
18:38
Speaker 3: locked up overseas, and I got involved in the case
18:41
Speaker 3: along with a team of lawyers. I got to actually
18:44
Speaker 3: fly out to Guitar to participate in proceedings and prepare
18:47
Speaker 3: witnesses for a trial, and it was the most surreal
18:52
Speaker 3: legal experience I've had in my career. When you're in
18:55
Speaker 3: a foreign environment, when you don't speak the language, there's
18:58
Speaker 3: a whole nother layer of oppression, confusion, disorienting. I mean,
19:06
Speaker 3: in Matt's case, I felt disoriented when you're sitting in
19:09
Speaker 3: the courtroom and the trial is in Arabic and his wife,
19:13
Speaker 3: by the way, had to be completely covered during trial
19:16
Speaker 3: and weren't allowed to communicate with her. When you call
19:19
Speaker 3: the witness first, the judge would yell at him for
19:22
Speaker 3: a little while, then the prosecutor would yell at him
19:24
Speaker 3: for a little while, and then you got to ask questions.
19:28
Speaker 3: There was no real court reporting. The judge would just
19:31
Speaker 3: yell to a guy in the corner whenever he wanted
19:33
Speaker 3: something written down. I mean it is a whole another
19:37
Speaker 3: level of you see how it goes so wrong, and
19:41
Speaker 3: on top of it, you have this whole political process
19:44
Speaker 3: going on. And it was interesting working on Matt's case
19:48
Speaker 3: because I'd worked on Jason Perrocal's case in Nicaragua, and
19:51
Speaker 3: the problem with Jason's case was we had no relationships
19:55
Speaker 3: with Nicaragua, so we went to Congress and no one
19:58
Speaker 3: would help us because we have such terrible relations The
20:02
Speaker 3: problem with Matt's case is we had too many relationships
20:05
Speaker 3: with Guitar. We're shipping troops through there to Afghanistan, we
20:09
Speaker 3: have a military base there, and so getting assistance from
20:12
Speaker 3: the US government was incredibly difficult. They just wanted to
20:16
Speaker 3: kind of monitor the process and see how things went,
20:20
Speaker 3: and so they'd show up in court, but they weren't interceding.
20:24
Speaker 1: So you're managing the legal battle the political angle. What
20:27
Speaker 1: about media? Is that helpful or hurtful in a place
20:30
Speaker 1: like Qatar.
20:31
Speaker 3: You know, I work a lot with people in Latin
20:33
Speaker 3: America and I literally advised them, don't make a big
20:37
Speaker 3: stink out of this case until we see if we
20:39
Speaker 3: can get you out of here without going through the
20:41
Speaker 3: political process or through the media process, because sometimes that
20:45
Speaker 3: media process actually locks in their position because now it's
20:50
Speaker 3: a global news story that these Americans are locked up.
20:54
Speaker 3: And that is what happened in this case. It became
20:57
Speaker 3: a global news story. In court, we had the BBC
21:00
Speaker 3: was there, La Monde was there. The New York Times
21:03
Speaker 3: wrote multiple articles about this case, and it became a
21:06
Speaker 3: political hot potato.
21:08
Speaker 1: So the Gatari's probably fell back in a corner and
21:11
Speaker 1: they forged ahead despite the gaping holes in their theory,
21:15
Speaker 1: and it took three long months to get the charges
21:17
Speaker 1: and then continued on from there. Now you had the
21:21
Speaker 1: legal team from the US, but you'd have to have
21:24
Speaker 1: some sort of local council assisting them, right, I can't
21:28
Speaker 1: even imagine what you spent on attorneys.
21:31
Speaker 3: No to ask me, I mean.
21:33
Speaker 2: But the other thing you have to remember is I
21:35
Speaker 2: never even spoke to my attorney other than like a
21:39
Speaker 2: minute or two before a court hearing, and none of
21:42
Speaker 2: the inmates in fact speak to their attorneys.
21:45
Speaker 3: Huh. And I'm going to choose my words carefully here
21:48
Speaker 3: to avoid a lawsuit. But I had some real concerns
21:51
Speaker 3: about the local representation the council that we were working with.
21:56
Speaker 3: Everybody there is under pressure from the government. The government
22:00
Speaker 3: has a lot of authority to make your life miserable,
22:04
Speaker 3: including if you're a lawyer. And we had some real
22:07
Speaker 3: challenges getting witnesses to come in and testify for fear
22:12
Speaker 3: of repercussions, including expert witnesses. We ended up having an
22:17
Speaker 3: expert witness testify telephonically from outside the country. And yeah,
22:22
Speaker 3: that's the thing I have not come across in the
22:25
Speaker 3: United States that I have expert witnesses afraid to come
22:28
Speaker 3: and testify in a case that's against the government. But
22:31
Speaker 3: that definitely was going on there.
22:33
Speaker 1: So, yeah, let's talk about the trial. It was kind
22:36
Speaker 1: of done piecemeal. It seems like over the course of
22:38
Speaker 1: about ten months. They had the alleged autopsy with pristine organs, right,
22:43
Speaker 1: so not an autopsy at all. Then there was this
22:46
Speaker 1: racist police report calling black children ugly. I can't with
22:51
Speaker 1: this shit. It called them ugly and went on to
22:54
Speaker 1: imply that they therefore couldn't be worthy of adoption. Now,
22:58
Speaker 1: this was an official report, which which was basically the
23:01
Speaker 1: disgusting motive behind the entire prosecution. And then, as we
23:05
Speaker 1: mentioned before, in defense, there were the actual adoption documents,
23:08
Speaker 1: the family photos including pictures of her clear access to water,
23:13
Speaker 1: when the theory was that Gloria was trafficked while being
23:17
Speaker 1: starved and dehydrated to death for her organs. I mean,
23:20
Speaker 1: this was the Katari's case against the lungs and their
23:24
Speaker 1: literal lives were on the line. So what else was presented?
23:28
Speaker 1: And was this a jury trial?
23:30
Speaker 2: There's no juris in this country, so you know it's
23:33
Speaker 2: a judge. First of all. Most of the time the
23:35
Speaker 2: translator was so bad. Whatever they said did not make
23:38
Speaker 2: any sense. Usually we got the last sheet of the
23:42
Speaker 2: notes from the court recorder given to us later in
23:45
Speaker 2: the day. The woman never had any of that. And
23:49
Speaker 2: in the jail there are enough inmates that speak both
23:52
Speaker 2: Arabic and English to help a lice look at it
23:55
Speaker 2: and say, oh, that's what happened.
23:57
Speaker 3: You know.
23:57
Speaker 2: I have read some of the proceedings and I've seen
24:01
Speaker 2: the case notes, and it seems like with a limited
24:04
Speaker 2: translation that I had that when they brought someone in
24:08
Speaker 2: for evidence, there would be some detective and they said,
24:12
Speaker 2: we heard some other person say this, but there's no
24:15
Speaker 2: opportunity cross examined. They won't even say who this person
24:18
Speaker 2: that they talked to is, So that's not evidence, and
24:22
Speaker 2: so after being there for about ten months and the
24:26
Speaker 2: prosecution rest of their case, we were able to present
24:28
Speaker 2: our case. We brought some of our friends up as witnesses.
24:31
Speaker 3: As we established in court and established through experts is
24:35
Speaker 3: it was factually impossible for her to have starved to death,
24:39
Speaker 3: because there were witnesses that saw her running around the
24:43
Speaker 3: days before she passed away. And when someone starves to death,
24:46
Speaker 3: they slowly slow down and then stop moving, and then
24:49
Speaker 3: they stay live for a long period of time and
24:51
Speaker 3: then they pass away. So it was not only a
24:54
Speaker 3: ridiculous theory on its face, it was a ridiculous theory
24:57
Speaker 3: based on the facts of the case and what it
25:00
Speaker 3: actually happened. One of the other crazy things in this
25:03
Speaker 3: case was kind of halfway through trial. I believe the
25:06
Speaker 3: judge started looking at this stuff and went like, WHOA,
25:09
Speaker 3: this guy didn't do anything. This couple did nothing, So
25:13
Speaker 3: they released them on their own recognissance in the middle
25:16
Speaker 3: of a death penalty trial. I believe they did that
25:19
Speaker 3: because I think everybody would have been happy if Matt
25:22
Speaker 3: and his wife had just fled the country and then
25:25
Speaker 3: the whole political problem goes away.
25:27
Speaker 1: But then you didn't flee the country. So were you
25:30
Speaker 1: ever actually convicted.
25:32
Speaker 2: We did not get our conviction till after we were
25:34
Speaker 2: already out on our recongnaissance.
25:37
Speaker 3: As I recall, there were about eight cases up for
25:40
Speaker 3: results that day. They went through all the other ones
25:43
Speaker 3: and the judge explained the verdict and in your case
25:46
Speaker 3: they just said three years and that was it. And
25:49
Speaker 3: there was no real ruling or explanation, because you know,
25:52
Speaker 3: how did a death penalty case become a three year case?
25:55
Speaker 3: And what's the foundation for that conviction?
25:58
Speaker 1: But they didn't say three years in English? So did
26:01
Speaker 1: you realize what had happened at the time that had happened?
26:04
Speaker 2: They were just going off and reading all these things
26:06
Speaker 2: in Arabic and I had no clue what was going on.
26:09
Speaker 2: At some point they excused everyone and our team pulled
26:12
Speaker 2: us out, and I said, okay, so what did they
26:14
Speaker 2: what happened? What did they say, like in the hallway
26:16
Speaker 2: or something they told us in the hallway.
26:18
Speaker 1: We told you were senden to three years.
26:20
Speaker 2: The first thing they said is we're not quite sure
26:22
Speaker 2: what happened.
26:28
Speaker 1: Uh, that's comforting. You're like maybe death, maybe life, maybe
26:34
Speaker 1: three years, maybe nothing, Maybe you're free.
26:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, And I said well, what did they
26:38
Speaker 2: convict us of? The manslaughter? They're like, uh, we don't know.
26:43
Speaker 3: I'm so glad you could laugh about this now, Matt.
26:45
Speaker 1: They just gave you three years without explaining what it was. Yeah.
26:48
Speaker 2: Oh, I was not in good shape at that point,
26:51
Speaker 2: and I mean I remember being just so frustrated and
26:54
Speaker 2: so angry and just feeling completely hopeless, you know, because
26:58
Speaker 2: it's like, Okay, what happens now? Are they spying on us?
27:02
Speaker 2: Are they gonna arrest me in a minute? You know,
27:06
Speaker 2: in many ways, I was reicidal, and I remembered like saying, Okay,
27:09
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna go jump on the golf and try
27:11
Speaker 2: to swim away. They convicted us with a sentence of
27:26
Speaker 2: three years, but they did not even tell us what
27:28
Speaker 2: we are convicted of. And in Qatar there is double jeopardy.
27:34
Speaker 2: So we appealed our conviction, and the prosecution appealed their conviction.
27:39
Speaker 1: So you end up with this three year says what
27:41
Speaker 1: does that look like? Did you end up having to
27:42
Speaker 1: serve the three years? What was what happens after that?
27:45
Speaker 1: Did they take you away in handcuffs?
27:48
Speaker 2: So basically, the attorney filed some paperwork requesting that we
27:51
Speaker 2: would not be reincarcerated at that point, So we went
27:55
Speaker 2: to appeals court or the equivalent of appeals court, and
27:58
Speaker 2: the prosecution again requested the death penalty, and we went
28:02
Speaker 2: through the whole thing again.
28:03
Speaker 3: At that point, as I recalled, the US government did
28:06
Speaker 3: get more involved. The Department of State issued a statement
28:10
Speaker 3: saying that they were extremely disappointed in the Qatari judicial
28:13
Speaker 3: system and this result, and I remember it's Secretary of
28:16
Speaker 3: State getting involved.
28:18
Speaker 1: And so you go back for the appeals and what
28:20
Speaker 1: happens in the second trial.
28:23
Speaker 2: So at the end we were acquitted, the prosecution having
28:27
Speaker 2: the option to appeal again to the Supreme Court.
28:30
Speaker 1: What do you attribute the acquittal too, because presumably they
28:33
Speaker 1: were presenting the same nonsense that they were presenting before.
28:36
Speaker 1: What do you think happened to change it? They were innocent,
28:39
Speaker 1: and yeah, that's intin a lot of people are. It
28:41
Speaker 1: doesn't but.
28:42
Speaker 3: Well, exactly a lot of people are innocent. I think
28:44
Speaker 3: this goes back to what I was saying earlier is
28:47
Speaker 3: what we do see in cases is sometimes a police
28:50
Speaker 3: officer jumps the gun, and in the United States, as
28:53
Speaker 3: you and I both know very well, sometimes that does
28:56
Speaker 3: lead in a wrongful conviction. But a lot of times
28:59
Speaker 3: what happens in the United States is one idiot cop
29:01
Speaker 3: does something stupid, but it goes to court and gets dismissed.
29:05
Speaker 3: There's lawyers that come in, everything's checked out. There's prosecutors
29:08
Speaker 3: that actually do dismiss cases in this country. And I
29:12
Speaker 3: think a lot of times overseas, and particularly what I
29:15
Speaker 3: believe happened in Matt's case is once they went down
29:17
Speaker 3: the pike on this case, it just keeps going, and
29:20
Speaker 3: I think that the politics get involved in it, and
29:23
Speaker 3: you're like, whoa, you arrested American couple and charge them
29:26
Speaker 3: with murder, Like what's going on here? And now it
29:29
Speaker 3: becomes sort of a cover up for all the bad
29:32
Speaker 3: stuff that's happened because I believe the judge believed they
29:35
Speaker 3: were innocent by releasing them on their own recognissance, and
29:38
Speaker 3: then the judge doesn't convictim of murder and sentenced them
29:41
Speaker 3: to death instead sentence them to three years. I'm talking
29:43
Speaker 3: about again, another little cover up of like we got
29:46
Speaker 3: a convict him of something, because we've gone through this
29:49
Speaker 3: whole charade, and now at some point that charade got
29:52
Speaker 3: broken through via I believe the political process involving the
29:56
Speaker 3: United States the Court of Appeal, but at some point
29:59
Speaker 3: the breaks got put on and they said, okay, let's
30:01
Speaker 3: just end this thing.
30:02
Speaker 1: So finally you're acquitted. Now, how much time has elapsed
30:05
Speaker 1: since this terrible incident where your daughter passed away?
30:09
Speaker 2: Twenty three months?
30:10
Speaker 1: Twenty three months and now you're acquitted, but they can
30:13
Speaker 1: still try you again. So did you leave the courtroom
30:16
Speaker 1: and go directly to the airport? That's what I would
30:18
Speaker 1: have done.
30:19
Speaker 2: Maybe we had the meal or something, but you know,
30:21
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, and we scanned our passports and they
30:24
Speaker 2: would not let us go through.
30:25
Speaker 1: Huh.
30:26
Speaker 2: I should mention that we had the US ambassador walking
30:29
Speaker 2: us through security.
30:31
Speaker 3: Well that's the point where the US government got involved
30:34
Speaker 3: to get them out of the country and they came home.
30:37
Speaker 3: There's actually a beautiful video I don't know if Matt
30:39
Speaker 3: knows this that's online to your reunion with your kids.
30:49
Speaker 3: They'd been apart from their kids for all that time.
30:51
Speaker 3: Really really super tragic. One thing that came full circle
30:55
Speaker 3: though this was ten years ago. Matt's son actually interned
30:58
Speaker 3: at the California Innocence Projects summer as a college student. Wow.
31:02
Speaker 3: That's fantastic. Yeah, just amazing kids. The sweetest kids. That
31:06
Speaker 3: to me was the most heartbreaking part of the case.
31:08
Speaker 1: Well, Matt, you must be very proud of and I'm
31:11
Speaker 1: sure this experience, it must have facted as a catalyst
31:14
Speaker 1: for the interest in reforming our criminal legal system as
31:16
Speaker 1: we have so many of our own problems in the US.
31:20
Speaker 1: Now at this point, is there anything that you'd like
31:22
Speaker 1: to ask of our audience or any hope to have
31:24
Speaker 1: for positive change in the world.
31:26
Speaker 2: I wish there were a way to expand this innocent
31:30
Speaker 2: movement to certain other places in the world because there
31:35
Speaker 2: is so much going on in other places. I am
31:39
Speaker 2: very grateful for all the folks in the US that
31:42
Speaker 2: do this, but it's needed not just here but everywhere
31:46
Speaker 2: else too.
31:47
Speaker 3: I certainly second that, my friend. That's what that's really
31:50
Speaker 3: where I've shifted my work is to Latin America.
31:53
Speaker 1: We now have.
31:54
Speaker 3: Thirty innocence organizations down there that I helped get started.
31:58
Speaker 3: And yeah, we're in the nineteen eighties. In Latin America,
32:01
Speaker 3: there hasn't been DNA testing, there's no preservation of evidence.
32:05
Speaker 3: There's much worse. Trained lawyers, trained judges. It has become
32:09
Speaker 3: a global movement, but it's still very Anglo We've got
32:12
Speaker 3: projects in the UK, we've got a handful in Europe,
32:16
Speaker 3: we've got a couple in Asia, We're in New Zealand, Australia, US, Canada.
32:21
Speaker 3: So it's still a very Anglo movement by and large,
32:24
Speaker 3: and so we have a lot of work to do.
32:25
Speaker 3: This should be truly a global, multi language, multicultural movement
32:30
Speaker 3: because there's no such thing as a perfect criminal legal system.
32:34
Speaker 3: They all need help.
32:35
Speaker 1: Amen to that. And you've written a book about your
32:37
Speaker 1: work and the very real danger that we all face.
32:40
Speaker 1: It's called you might go to prison even though you're innocent.
32:43
Speaker 1: I highly recommend it and we're going to have it
32:45
Speaker 1: linked in the BIOT. And now that brings us to
32:47
Speaker 1: closing arguments, where I first thank you both for sharing
32:50
Speaker 1: this very moving story, and then I'm just gonna turn
32:53
Speaker 1: off my microphone, kick back in my chair with my
32:56
Speaker 1: headphones on, and close my eyes and just listen to
32:59
Speaker 1: anything else that you feel is left to be said.
33:01
Speaker 1: So let's start with Justin and close it out with you, Matt.
33:04
Speaker 3: As you know, Jason, I've been lucky to be part
33:06
Speaker 3: of forty exonerations and this case has really stuck, and
33:10
Speaker 3: it's stuck with me so much that I've got a
33:12
Speaker 3: section of the book about this case. I think it
33:15
Speaker 3: is very powerful when you've spent your career working in
33:19
Speaker 3: one system to go into another system, and it really
33:23
Speaker 3: burns indelibly in my mind that experience and that, however
33:30
Speaker 3: many failings there are in our criminal legal system, and
33:34
Speaker 3: I know there are many, there still are worse systems
33:36
Speaker 3: in the world, and unfortunately Matt and his wife and
33:40
Speaker 3: his family stumbled into one when they just did what
33:44
Speaker 3: a lot of people would do in life. Get an
33:46
Speaker 3: opportunity to work overseas, have a great job, take your family,
33:52
Speaker 3: and it turned into this nightmare. So I think there's
33:54
Speaker 3: a lot to learn from this case, and I'm so
33:57
Speaker 3: glad that that, Matt, you had the courage today to
34:01
Speaker 3: talk about it. So thank you for that.
34:03
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me on the show. You know,
34:05
Speaker 2: it's been a while since I've had a chance to share,
34:07
Speaker 2: and it's just nice to be able to kind of
34:11
Speaker 2: reflect on the good things and the bad things, and
34:15
Speaker 2: you know, at this point we're doing well. Life has
34:18
Speaker 2: not been perfect. But one thing I've struggled with through
34:20
Speaker 2: this is some mental health struggles. Want to encourage people
34:24
Speaker 2: who have been in our shoes going through hard times,
34:27
Speaker 2: get help, reach out.
34:29
Speaker 3: You know.
34:29
Speaker 2: Our church of both in Qatar and in la and afterwards,
34:34
Speaker 2: have just been so wonderful. When we were in prison,
34:37
Speaker 2: I saw the way that they came around us to
34:41
Speaker 2: support us financially, taking care of physical needs, and we
34:46
Speaker 2: were just totally blessed by that, and I just wanted
34:49
Speaker 2: to say thank you to all those who have helped.
34:52
Speaker 2: And I would say I still have a desire to travel,
34:56
Speaker 2: but maybe not back to Qatar, you know, because I
34:59
Speaker 2: do reckon recognize that there is a lot to be
35:02
Speaker 2: learned from the world around us and how different people
35:06
Speaker 2: are and how different people live, because there are so
35:09
Speaker 2: many things that people do differently that can help encourage
35:13
Speaker 2: and improve our own lives. Unfortunately, I think we also
35:15
Speaker 2: see through our case the bad.
35:17
Speaker 1: Sides of that too.
35:19
Speaker 2: At the end, I'm just grateful to God and to
35:23
Speaker 2: those who have supported us that we were able to
35:25
Speaker 2: get through this and continue on.
35:34
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
35:37
Speaker 1: to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
35:39
Speaker 1: week early by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on
35:42
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team Connor Hall,
35:46
Speaker 1: Annie Chelsea, and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow
35:49
Speaker 1: executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wardis, and Jeff Cliburn. The
35:53
Speaker 1: music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR
35:55
Speaker 1: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across
35:59
Speaker 1: all social media plaslatforms at Lava for Good and at
36:02
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram at
36:05
Speaker 1: It's Jason Vlahm. Wrongful Conviction is the production of Lava
36:08
Speaker 1: for Good podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one