Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #007 Jason Flom with Richard Rosario
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: I came from a beautiful neighborhood. I had a beautiful life.
- 0:07Speaker 2: I went to sleep because September seventh was the first
- 0:09Speaker 2: day of my high school year.
- 0:11Speaker 1: I was going to be a senior. At twenty two,
- 0:13Speaker 1: I was set to start college. I woke up and
- 0:16Speaker 1: my life was never the same again.
- 0:19Speaker 3: Cops came out with guns drawn, and I never saw
- 0:22Speaker 3: freedom ever since after that.
- 0:24Speaker 1: It's like roach motan. Once you get in, you and
- 0:27Speaker 1: I can't now.
- 0:30Speaker 2: This is wrongful conviction with Jason Flommer. Today's guest is
- 0:56Speaker 2: Richard Rosario. Richard, welcome to the show.
- 0:58Speaker 1: Thank you for having me.
- 1:00Speaker 2: Richard was convicted of a murder that happened in the
- 1:03Speaker 2: Bronx while he was one thousand miles away in Florida,
- 1:06Speaker 2: with thirteen alibi witnesses and.
- 1:09Speaker 4: Various other types of evidence to back it up. But
- 1:11Speaker 4: let's go back. So you were born in Puerto Rico.
- 1:15Speaker 5: My parents were at the time just My mother was
- 1:19Speaker 5: a seamstress.
- 1:20Speaker 1: My father used to work labor.
- 1:22Speaker 5: And they were poor by definition, by today's definitions.
- 1:25Speaker 1: But we had a house. We had a little mango
- 1:29Speaker 1: tree in the front of the house. It was beautiful.
- 1:32Speaker 5: I mean, you didn't have all the luxuries that you
- 1:34Speaker 5: see in America, but you have what you need. You know,
- 1:37Speaker 5: you had the good weather, the sustenance, great weather, and
- 1:40Speaker 5: people that loved you. There wasn't a day that I
- 1:42Speaker 5: would go to sleep hungry or you know, have any
- 1:46Speaker 5: troubles in school or anything.
- 1:47Speaker 1: So it was beautiful.
- 1:48Speaker 4: When did you come here?
- 1:49Speaker 5: When I was five years old, immigrated to the United
- 1:52Speaker 5: States and we resided in the Bronx.
- 1:55Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty eighty one, we.
- 1:58Speaker 5: Started living in the Bronx, and it's an experience because
- 2:02Speaker 5: you're an immigrant. You don't know English, so you have
- 2:04Speaker 5: to acclimate to a whole new culture, right and the
- 2:07Speaker 5: culture in New York back then was hip hop and
- 2:10Speaker 5: you know, this whole drug phase happened in New York
- 2:13Speaker 5: at the time where there was a lot of crime
- 2:15Speaker 5: in the streets was riddled with that. So here I
- 2:18Speaker 5: am a young boy from Puerto Rico who wasn't never
- 2:21Speaker 5: exposed to that type of stuff, being exposed to this
- 2:25Speaker 5: different type of culture. Did you have, Yes, I had.
- 2:29Speaker 5: I have two brothers and five sisters. At that time,
- 2:33Speaker 5: my mom separated from my dad, and it was one
- 2:35Speaker 5: of the reasons why she relocated in the United States
- 2:38Speaker 5: to find new life. And you know, everybody that comes
- 2:42Speaker 5: in migrades to the United States to find a new life,
- 2:44Speaker 5: a better life. And she came here a single parent
- 2:48Speaker 5: and raised us on her own in the South Bronx.
- 2:51Speaker 5: New York was my main everything I knew, So Puerto
- 2:55Speaker 5: Rico wasn't appealable to me as a teenager, so I
- 2:58Speaker 5: stopped going at the age of them.
- 3:00Speaker 2: I mean, we know, New York was a little were
- 3:02Speaker 2: now in nineteen eighty eighty nine, eighty nine, so yeah,
- 3:07Speaker 2: that was kind of the height of the crime wave.
- 3:08Speaker 2: Things getting crazy, right, and then you got you had
- 3:11Speaker 2: a little altercation and when you were fifteen years old.
- 3:14Speaker 5: Yeah, I was a kid, and you know, once again
- 3:17Speaker 5: in Puerto Rico and never witnessed anything that that I've
- 3:21Speaker 5: witnessed in the United States and the Bromston particular at
- 3:24Speaker 5: this time. And for obvious reasons, the crime rate, the
- 3:27Speaker 5: drugs and everything that was happening in this era, it
- 3:30Speaker 5: was pretty tough. But you know, I began, you know,
- 3:35Speaker 5: my teenage life trying to follow the new trends, wanting
- 3:40Speaker 5: to have those sneakers. My family's poor, we can't afford
- 3:42Speaker 5: those sneakers, the lottos, the new fashion statements back then.
- 3:47Speaker 1: And so I started hanging out with the wrong crowd as.
- 3:50Speaker 5: Most teenagers and despite what type of environment they grow up.
- 3:55Speaker 5: When you meet your contemporaries at the time and you
- 3:59Speaker 5: start acting made into what they liked, well, you know,
- 4:01Speaker 5: the music, the style, and I living in the South Bronx,
- 4:06Speaker 5: it's that's the environment that I'm acclimating to, where it's crime,
- 4:09Speaker 5: it's drugs, it's closed, it's you have to go out
- 4:13Speaker 5: and get it.
- 4:14Speaker 1: And so I got with this bad crowd, and.
- 4:17Speaker 5: You know, the one thing that they used to do
- 4:19Speaker 5: is go out there and commit crimes to get what
- 4:22Speaker 5: they wanted a shirt, a pair of sneakers and stuff.
- 4:26Speaker 5: And unfortunately I knew it was wrong, but I followed
- 4:29Speaker 5: and I got caught. One day, my friends committed the
- 4:32Speaker 5: robbery as a kid, and they had the wallet. And
- 4:36Speaker 5: my friend was older than me at the time, he
- 4:38Speaker 5: was seventeen years old. His name is Danny and he
- 4:41Speaker 5: died since, but he passed me the wallet and I
- 4:45Speaker 5: took the wallet and I put it in my pocket.
- 4:48Speaker 5: Had the guy's credit cards, and that was my first
- 4:52Speaker 5: interaction with the criminal justice.
- 4:54Speaker 1: System. I was caught with credit cards in my pocket.
- 4:57Speaker 4: And got probation for that.
- 4:58Speaker 1: Yes, I got probation.
- 5:00Speaker 4: Fifteen years old.
- 5:00Speaker 2: And yeah, you weren't a violent guy, you know, I
- 5:03Speaker 2: was in No, we're going to go now from time
- 5:06Speaker 2: you're fifteen to the time you're twenty, and we're talking
- 5:08Speaker 2: about nineteen ninety six. Yes, right, in nineteen ninety six.
- 5:12Speaker 2: Let's let's paint a picture here. So you're in Florida, Yes, right,
- 5:16Speaker 2: And what were you doing in Florida at the time.
- 5:18Speaker 4: First of all, which part of Florida were you?
- 5:20Speaker 1: I was in Orlando.
- 5:21Speaker 5: And the reason why I went over there is, you know,
- 5:25Speaker 5: I was a quick learning in life, and you know,
- 5:27Speaker 5: I made the mistakes as a teenager. I got in trouble.
- 5:30Speaker 5: I had my daughter, and things started dawning on me
- 5:33Speaker 5: that I can't live life like this. I have children
- 5:36Speaker 5: that take care of I have, you know, a daughter
- 5:38Speaker 5: that's going to look up to a dad and a
- 5:40Speaker 5: son that's gonna need me there.
- 5:42Speaker 1: So I said it's time for me to change. My environment.
- 5:45Speaker 5: In New York was in the place the Bronx, especially
- 5:48Speaker 5: at the time, was in a place where I had
- 5:51Speaker 5: opportunities because I had messed up them opportunities as a child,
- 5:55Speaker 5: and I was known in the local precinct as you know,
- 5:57Speaker 5: one of these troubled teenagers. And so I wanted to
- 6:01Speaker 5: just leave that past and go to Florida and give
- 6:04Speaker 5: my family a new life. And you know that's why
- 6:07Speaker 5: my plans were.
- 6:08Speaker 2: So you went down to Florida to sort of scope
- 6:10Speaker 2: it out and try to figure out what kind of
- 6:11Speaker 2: opportunities were going to be there.
- 6:12Speaker 5: For you exactly, and it's basically you're twenty now, so
- 6:16Speaker 5: you're saying, well, I want to Yeah, I want a
- 6:20Speaker 5: piece of the American dream. What does that dream look
- 6:22Speaker 5: like to me? To me, it looked at like on Florida,
- 6:25Speaker 5: you know, Sunshine State, it's a slower speed. And I
- 6:30Speaker 5: want folks to understand that I was still young and
- 6:33Speaker 5: still immature, so you know, it wasn't beyond me smoking
- 6:37Speaker 5: a little marijuana or hanging out in a club. But
- 6:40Speaker 5: I wasn't out there, you know, hurting people. And I
- 6:43Speaker 5: remember I was in Florida and I was still you know,
- 6:45Speaker 5: My biggest issue, and I want people to understand, is
- 6:49Speaker 5: that I was dealing with individuals that were still into
- 6:53Speaker 5: that lifestyle.
- 6:54Speaker 1: So although I was into it.
- 6:55Speaker 5: These guys were still doing things that weren't good.
- 7:00Speaker 1: And I find out from my.
- 7:02Speaker 5: Mother, you know, I call my mother check up as
- 7:04Speaker 5: I usually do, my wife and the kids how they're doing.
- 7:07Speaker 5: And they're telling me the detectives are looking for you.
- 7:10Speaker 5: And I'm like, they were just here just a couple
- 7:13Speaker 5: months ago, you know, tell them I'm here, I'm in Florida.
- 7:16Speaker 1: They want me, they know where I'm at.
- 7:17Speaker 5: She said, well, I told them he was in Florida.
- 7:20Speaker 5: They're saying, they're looking for you for a murder. And
- 7:22Speaker 5: I'm like, I'm thinking at the time, my mother, she
- 7:25Speaker 5: she knows English, but she's Puerto Rican descent. Maybe she's confused,
- 7:29Speaker 5: she's maybe she's confused, right, But then my sister tells
- 7:33Speaker 5: me the same thing, and then my wife tells me
- 7:35Speaker 5: the same thing.
- 7:35Speaker 1: Detectives are looking for you for murder. And then they
- 7:38Speaker 1: tell me to day June nineteenth.
- 7:40Speaker 4: And you had been in Florida for how long? For
- 7:43Speaker 4: a couple of months.
- 7:44Speaker 5: I was there from May first that I arrived to
- 7:47Speaker 5: Florida all the way to the time that I came
- 7:50Speaker 5: back from Florida.
- 7:51Speaker 4: So you come back, you're here. They're looking for you, yes,
- 7:54Speaker 4: so you come back to New York.
- 7:56Speaker 1: June thirtieth.
- 7:56Speaker 5: I got on a Greyhound bus and arrived July first,
- 8:01Speaker 5: I at six in the morning, and I called my
- 8:03Speaker 5: wife and I told her I'm heading home right now.
- 8:06Speaker 1: And at this time, me and my wife lived separately.
- 8:09Speaker 5: I lived at my parents' house until we had enough
- 8:12Speaker 5: money to get on apartment. My wife is living at
- 8:14Speaker 5: her parents' house. She was working, so I'm going over
- 8:17Speaker 5: to my in law's house to see my kids, see
- 8:20Speaker 5: my wife before she went to work. Seven in the morning.
- 8:22Speaker 5: I get there and you know, I had to talk
- 8:25Speaker 5: with her and I told her, listen, I've never killed
- 8:27Speaker 5: no one in my life.
- 8:28Speaker 1: So I'm going to go to the Bronx.
- 8:30Speaker 5: I'll contact the priestsint and I should be home sometime
- 8:33Speaker 5: tonight and we'll talk more. And I spent that afternoon.
- 8:38Speaker 5: I made breakfast with my kids. I took them to
- 8:40Speaker 5: the park, and I told my daughter at the end
- 8:45Speaker 5: of the day, and that afternoon before I left to
- 8:47Speaker 5: the Bronx that you know, she was crying.
- 8:48Speaker 1: She wanted to go with daddy, and I told her
- 8:51Speaker 1: I'll be back. I'll be back later.
- 8:52Speaker 5: On and I left to go to the Bronx to
- 8:56Speaker 5: talk to the police, and I never came back for
- 8:58Speaker 5: twenty years.
- 9:00Speaker 2: I just got to digest that for a second, left
- 9:02Speaker 2: it and after saying goodbye, like any dad would, Yeah,
- 9:06Speaker 2: I gotta go take care of something. I'll see you later.
- 9:08Speaker 2: It's the same thing any dad. Anything that would react
- 9:10Speaker 2: a three year old girl. And so you go to
- 9:13Speaker 2: the police precinct and you go in there to clear
- 9:16Speaker 2: things up.
- 9:18Speaker 4: And what happens.
- 9:19Speaker 5: Well, first I got to the Bronx, I called the detectives.
- 9:23Speaker 5: Detective Charles Krueger picks up the phone. He's from the
- 9:27Speaker 5: Robbery Division. He has nothing to do with this homicide.
- 9:30Speaker 5: So Charles Krueger tells me listen, they want to talk
- 9:33Speaker 5: to you about some homicide that occurred, and one would
- 9:37Speaker 5: be the best time.
- 9:37Speaker 1: And I told Charles Kruger, well, i'll be in with
- 9:40Speaker 1: my lawyers tomorrow.
- 9:40Speaker 5: I'll get to the priests and with my lawyers. I
- 9:43Speaker 5: didn't commit a crime. I've been in Florida. And he
- 9:45Speaker 5: said all right, So I hung up the phone. A
- 9:47Speaker 5: half an hour later, the detectives come to my mother's house.
- 9:50Speaker 5: So I look at the peak hole and I see
- 9:53Speaker 5: the detectives.
- 9:53Speaker 1: I opened the door.
- 9:56Speaker 5: There's nothing for me to worry about, and I let
- 9:58Speaker 5: them in the house. They talked to my mother briefly,
- 10:01Speaker 5: and this was Charles Kruger was there, but the main
- 10:04Speaker 5: two homicide detectives were offso Martinez and Gary Whittaker where
- 10:11Speaker 5: the two detectives. So they come in. Martinez spoke to
- 10:15Speaker 5: my mother. Whittaker spoke to me and they said, listen,
- 10:17Speaker 5: we just want to ask you questions and relating to
- 10:20Speaker 5: this murder, and if you were in Florida, we're going
- 10:22Speaker 5: to find out and you're going to be good.
- 10:24Speaker 1: And I said, okay, so let's go.
- 10:26Speaker 5: And right before we left, they said, but we have
- 10:28Speaker 5: to cuff you because this procedure. And my heart like
- 10:32Speaker 5: skipped a little bit because I'm saying, wait a minute,
- 10:34Speaker 5: I'm leaving with you.
- 10:35Speaker 1: Why do you have to put can't cuffs on me.
- 10:38Speaker 5: I'm telling you I'm innocent, and I have evidence that
- 10:40Speaker 5: I'm leaving with you.
- 10:41Speaker 1: It's not like I'm running.
- 10:42Speaker 5: I opened the door for you, and when they put
- 10:45Speaker 5: them cuffs on me, it gave me a little chill
- 10:48Speaker 5: having them cuffs on me.
- 10:50Speaker 4: And don't understand that.
- 10:51Speaker 5: I mean, I went to the priest and then everything
- 10:53Speaker 5: changed in the priest and Detective Whittaker was very amicable.
- 10:57Speaker 5: He tried to persuade me telling them the truth, which
- 11:01Speaker 5: I was that I was in Florida, would be the
- 11:03Speaker 5: best thing. And then Martinez would come in after Whitker
- 11:06Speaker 5: would finish this interrogation start that lasted five hours.
- 11:10Speaker 1: And he'll tell me, we know you did it.
- 11:12Speaker 5: You know you're a murderer and you're going to spend
- 11:15Speaker 5: the rest of your life in jail, and if you
- 11:17Speaker 5: don't tell me about it, you will never see your daughter.
- 11:19Speaker 1: And he's given me this.
- 11:20Speaker 5: So after five hours, I said, all right, you want
- 11:23Speaker 5: me to write a statement, and he passes me a
- 11:26Speaker 5: piece of paper and a pen and I wrote on
- 11:29Speaker 5: it and then I passed it back and they were
- 11:31Speaker 5: really pissed off of what I wrote. I said, I've
- 11:33Speaker 5: never committed a crime. I've never taken someone's life, and
- 11:38Speaker 5: God knows this and it is God's will. And that
- 11:41Speaker 5: was my exact statement. And that was it. From that
- 11:44Speaker 5: moment on. They they they just processed me through the system.
- 11:50Speaker 5: I spoke to Detective Silverman, who was in part of
- 11:54Speaker 5: the case, which is still a mystery. He was the
- 11:56Speaker 5: one showing the witnesses pictures. He was in the homicide detectives.
- 12:01Speaker 5: He was not part of the case at all, and
- 12:04Speaker 5: he took the statement for me where I gave thirteen
- 12:06Speaker 5: alibi witnesses. In addition to that, I described where I was,
- 12:10Speaker 5: the homes, I mean detail from the staircase, the houses
- 12:14Speaker 5: to the right, the bedroom is here. I gave a
- 12:17Speaker 5: detailed description of where I was, the people I was with,
- 12:21Speaker 5: the phone numbers, phone records, job applications, everything, and they never,
- 12:28Speaker 5: not once, they didn't pick up the phone to find
- 12:30Speaker 5: out if I was saying the truth.
- 12:32Speaker 2: So you're presenting them with basically ironclad evidence, right, There's
- 12:37Speaker 2: really no other way to describe it. I mean, you
- 12:39Speaker 2: can't have a better alibi than there were a thousand
- 12:42Speaker 2: miles away. Right, It's not like I was at the
- 12:44Speaker 2: movies and my sister said she saw me and whatever
- 12:47Speaker 2: you know, I mean, which is still an alibi.
- 12:49Speaker 1: Right, it was impossible.
- 12:51Speaker 4: It's impossible. Here you are.
- 12:53Speaker 2: Now you're in the system. Now you're in lock up, right,
- 12:56Speaker 2: you're waiting for your trial.
- 12:57Speaker 4: You got a lawyer.
- 12:58Speaker 5: Yes, I'm thinking this will be over in a day.
- 13:01Speaker 5: You know, they're gonna find out I was in Florida.
- 13:03Speaker 1: Is done.
- 13:04Speaker 5: So first I talked to the detectives, went through that,
- 13:07Speaker 5: talked to the DA, went through that, went through the
- 13:09Speaker 5: lineup with a Lloyder named Rudy VELAs. I was picked
- 13:13Speaker 5: out of the lineup. They finally assigned me a lawyer
- 13:17Speaker 5: named Joyce Hartsfield. Then I poured out my heart tug
- 13:20Speaker 5: because it's been more than a week now and I'm saying, hey,
- 13:23Speaker 5: I don't belong here. You know, my witnesses are in Florida.
- 13:27Speaker 5: The evidence is there, everything is there for you. And
- 13:29Speaker 5: I reiterated most of the things I did to the detectives,
- 13:33Speaker 5: and Joyce Horsfield asked the judge for funds to send
- 13:37Speaker 5: an investigator. I'm indigent. I don't have no money for investigators,
- 13:40Speaker 5: and so the judge granted the motion.
- 13:43Speaker 4: Okay, so now you're good.
- 13:44Speaker 1: I'm supposed to be good.
- 13:45Speaker 5: It's supposed to work great, Right, you get the evidence,
- 13:49Speaker 5: you have the investigators going. What happened was that Joyce Harsfield,
- 13:54Speaker 5: after a year, I'm telling her, please, you know, find
- 13:56Speaker 5: these people. She would not answer my letters. She would
- 13:59Speaker 5: not and to my my please, and I'm desperate. It's
- 14:04Speaker 5: been Yeah, I've wrote the letters that we have records of.
- 14:08Speaker 5: You know, she was not being she was in contact
- 14:11Speaker 5: with me at all. And I'm desperate. I'm in prison.
- 14:14Speaker 5: I'm not seeing my children as much as I would
- 14:16Speaker 5: like to. I don't belong here, and yes, I know
- 14:19Speaker 5: it's a mistake. I'm dealing with these gang members and
- 14:22Speaker 5: police officers, and I'm really having a lot of trouble
- 14:24Speaker 5: because you know, I'm twenty years old and I don't
- 14:27Speaker 5: belong here, and you know, you have to deal with
- 14:30Speaker 5: this volatile environment that you don't belong and and she
- 14:33Speaker 5: would not answer me.
- 14:35Speaker 4: It's rikers, It's chaos.
- 14:36Speaker 5: It's chaos. It's completely chaos. I mean, from the correctional
- 14:40Speaker 5: officers to the inmates. The corruption is just so you know,
- 14:44Speaker 5: abhorrent that that you know, I can't even put into
- 14:47Speaker 5: the words what I was experiencing.
- 14:48Speaker 2: Now.
- 14:49Speaker 5: All I knew is that if I had to talk
- 14:52Speaker 5: to my lawyer and my wife, I had to be
- 14:54Speaker 5: at the mercy of gang bangers and you know, malicious
- 14:58Speaker 5: people that are actually in there for crimes they committed
- 15:01Speaker 5: and I'm nothing like these people.
- 15:03Speaker 1: Just to get to the phone, what do I do
- 15:04Speaker 1: to talk to my family?
- 15:06Speaker 5: And you know, unfortunately it led to a lot of
- 15:08Speaker 5: fights and tribulations and a lot of victimization. Because I
- 15:12Speaker 5: don't I don't want people to think that I glamorized that.
- 15:15Speaker 5: But I've been I've been slashed, I've been stabbed, I've
- 15:18Speaker 5: been jumped by inmates, and I've had to struggle and
- 15:22Speaker 5: fight and claw my way out that type of environment,
- 15:24Speaker 5: even correctional offices. I've been brutalized by then. And you know,
- 15:28Speaker 5: I've stood up because I was in the right. I
- 15:31Speaker 5: didn't belong there and I had to suffer that, and
- 15:34Speaker 5: you know, my family had to suffer it. But it's
- 15:37Speaker 5: it's chaos. It's completely chaos.
- 15:39Speaker 2: So your lawyer is not only doing nothing, but also
- 15:41Speaker 2: not even returning your calls. Yes, so now what happens?
- 15:44Speaker 2: Does she eventually come through, investigate through something?
- 15:49Speaker 4: What happens next? What leads Let's get up to the trial.
- 15:52Speaker 5: This is the amazing part that I saw of learning
- 15:55Speaker 5: the law, and I had to this.
- 15:57Speaker 1: Lady's not defending me.
- 15:58Speaker 5: So I put in emotion to have a taking off
- 16:01Speaker 5: my case and giving me another lawyer. The judge does this,
- 16:04Speaker 5: he gives me Stephen Kaiser and so Stephen Kaiser comes in.
- 16:08Speaker 5: He has no clue of what motion has been approved
- 16:12Speaker 5: and denied. He comes in under the belief that the
- 16:15Speaker 5: investigative funds were denied, no investigation.
- 16:19Speaker 4: And he never asked you.
- 16:21Speaker 5: I told him, I mean my witnesses. I mean, here's
- 16:24Speaker 5: a year later, and I'm I'm I'm livid. I'm talking
- 16:28Speaker 5: the same thing for years. I'm innocent. This is where
- 16:32Speaker 5: the evidence is at, these all the people. And he says, well,
- 16:35Speaker 5: the judge denied the funds for investigators, so I don't
- 16:38Speaker 5: know nothing.
- 16:39Speaker 2: So you think now that maybe the first one had
- 16:41Speaker 2: it wrong, yeah, or maybe the judge changed their mind,
- 16:44Speaker 2: or whatever it is. And now you're dealing with a lawyer,
- 16:46Speaker 2: who are dealing with two lawyers, both of whom are incompetent. Yes,
- 16:49Speaker 2: and so now so, somehow, amazingly in between the transition
- 16:56Speaker 2: from the first lawyer to the second lawyer, information, the
- 17:00Speaker 2: one thing that could have helped you gets lost and
- 17:03Speaker 2: get screwed up, which is the idea that there was
- 17:05Speaker 2: money for someone to go to Florida, confirm the alibis
- 17:09Speaker 2: and come back on a white horse and go very sorry.
- 17:13Speaker 4: It's all a big mistake. Go home. Let's go find
- 17:16Speaker 4: the real killer. That's what's supposed to happen.
- 17:18Speaker 1: That's what it's supposed to happen.
- 17:19Speaker 4: That's not what happened.
- 17:20Speaker 1: That's not what happened.
- 17:21Speaker 4: A right, So what happened now, so now you got
- 17:23Speaker 4: to go to trial.
- 17:24Speaker 5: Now I got to go to trial with a lawyer
- 17:26Speaker 5: that's ill prepared to defend me.
- 17:28Speaker 2: And they're balancing all these other things. They're going to court,
- 17:29Speaker 2: they're juggling all these.
- 17:30Speaker 1: Cases, hundreds cases.
- 17:32Speaker 5: And one thing that I want to add to that,
- 17:35Speaker 5: which is important. You know, I don't want to make
- 17:37Speaker 5: excuses for these lawyers that misrepresented me, and you know
- 17:41Speaker 5: it's completely appropriate to say that they.
- 17:43Speaker 1: Dropped the ball.
- 17:44Speaker 5: But before that, the DA gets the case, the police
- 17:48Speaker 5: get the case. So before a lawyer touches your case,
- 17:52Speaker 5: if anybody's going to know whether you're innocent or not,
- 17:54Speaker 5: it's going.
- 17:54Speaker 1: To be the district attorney and the police, if they
- 17:57Speaker 1: do the.
- 17:57Speaker 5: Investigative work and the work that they support supposed to
- 18:00Speaker 5: be doing to protect the citizens that they've been sworn
- 18:04Speaker 5: to protect and serve.
- 18:05Speaker 1: So the DA drops the ball.
- 18:07Speaker 5: Now they give it to these overworked, overstressed lawyers.
- 18:12Speaker 1: What do you think is going to happen.
- 18:25Speaker 2: You're in trial and the pressure is incredible. Now your
- 18:28Speaker 2: lawyer gets up. Are there any of the witnesses from
- 18:32Speaker 2: Florida that came up.
- 18:32Speaker 4: To testify on your behalf?
- 18:34Speaker 1: Yeah, Jeanie SAIDA.
- 18:35Speaker 5: And John Torres came and the DA said, well, they're
- 18:39Speaker 5: his friends.
- 18:39Speaker 1: They were life in him.
- 18:41Speaker 5: But what we know now is that the DA was
- 18:44Speaker 5: telling the jury a lie, that this crime that occur
- 18:47Speaker 5: was not premeditated, that it was coincidental.
- 18:50Speaker 2: So they testified on your behalf and they're saying, all
- 18:52Speaker 2: these are your friends and say whatever you want. In
- 18:54Speaker 2: the meantime, they came all the way up from Florida
- 18:56Speaker 2: just to lie for you, Okay, whatever. And there were
- 18:59Speaker 2: some eyewitnesses for the prosecution.
- 19:01Speaker 5: Yeah, it was George, George Calaso's best friend. And I
- 19:06Speaker 5: want to get into this because this is very telling
- 19:09Speaker 5: and important for the narrative. Michael Sanchez testified, guy never
- 19:13Speaker 5: met in his life, don't know him, never met him,
- 19:17Speaker 5: don't know his history, his background, We have no connection.
- 19:22Speaker 5: Robert Davis was the second witness. Don't know one, never
- 19:25Speaker 5: seen him in my life. Another independent witness picked my
- 19:29Speaker 5: picture out, picked me out in the lineup, and Jose Diaz,
- 19:33Speaker 5: another old man had the food truck at the time,
- 19:36Speaker 5: said that he witnessed the shooting. But it's amazing about
- 19:40Speaker 5: all these three witnesses is that they have all said
- 19:43Speaker 5: the same thing. At the time, Jose Diaz was deemed
- 19:48Speaker 5: uncredible because when he was asked, did you see the shooter?
- 19:51Speaker 5: They said, he said, yeah, I've seen the shooter. They said,
- 19:53Speaker 5: do you see him in the courtroom. He says, no,
- 19:56Speaker 5: I don't see him in the courtroom. And he says,
- 19:59Speaker 5: but I remember picture that I was shown, and he
- 20:02Speaker 5: said that two times, and that testimony was made obsolete
- 20:06Speaker 5: because now the DA has to shift and say, well,
- 20:10Speaker 5: you know, he initially said it was Richard or picked
- 20:13Speaker 5: out his picture.
- 20:14Speaker 1: Now he's not saying that.
- 20:15Speaker 5: And so these other two witnesses were allowed to testify
- 20:19Speaker 5: and perjure themselves because now we know both of the
- 20:22Speaker 5: witnesses are saying that why the police told them that
- 20:26Speaker 5: they had the right guy. That is how I went
- 20:30Speaker 5: to trial, based on police telling these people, you know,
- 20:34Speaker 5: they write these reports and said they looked at two
- 20:36Speaker 5: hundred pictures. We come to find out now that not
- 20:40Speaker 5: only these three witnesses are saying the police showed them
- 20:42Speaker 5: a pictures.
- 20:43Speaker 1: But there were several witnesses in.
- 20:44Speaker 5: My case that they did not allow us to see,
- 20:47Speaker 5: to interview or to testify my trial.
- 20:50Speaker 1: And these witnesses said the same thing.
- 20:52Speaker 5: The police came to them with a picture of one
- 20:54Speaker 5: man and they mentioned that he was somehow connected to Florida.
- 20:59Speaker 1: None of these witnesses ever testified.
- 21:02Speaker 4: Right, And we don't know. I mean, they may have
- 21:03Speaker 4: made some sort of a deal with them.
- 21:05Speaker 5: We don't know that, but we know for a fact
- 21:07Speaker 5: at least this is what we know now. According to
- 21:10Speaker 5: the witnesses, the police told them that's the right guy.
- 21:14Speaker 4: So I want to talk about this for a second.
- 21:16Speaker 4: This is very interesting to me.
- 21:18Speaker 2: While experts agree to eyewitness testimony is inherently flawed, Americans
- 21:22Speaker 2: and potential jurors continue to place a great deal of
- 21:25Speaker 2: weight in eyewitness testimony. In a two thousand and one
- 21:29Speaker 2: survey of adams the United States funded by the National
- 21:31Speaker 2: Institute of Health sixty three, they found the sixty three
- 21:34Speaker 2: percent of Americans believe that memory works like a video camera,
- 21:38Speaker 2: forty eight percent believe memory is permanent, and thirty seven
- 21:42Speaker 2: percent believe the testimony of a single confident eyewitness should
- 21:45Speaker 2: be enough to convict the criminal defendant. And it should
- 21:47Speaker 2: be noted that mistaken eyewitness identification was a factor in
- 21:51Speaker 2: over seventy five percent of the nation's DNA exigny.
- 21:54Speaker 1: It's amazing.
- 21:55Speaker 4: I hope that.
- 21:56Speaker 2: People will remember when they take away, they'll take away
- 21:58Speaker 2: from this podcast that the I was identification. It's something
- 22:01Speaker 2: that is very orful and it's something that you have
- 22:04Speaker 2: to analyze.
- 22:05Speaker 4: Was this person in a panic mode?
- 22:07Speaker 2: Was it dark, were they across the street, did they
- 22:10Speaker 2: have do they have a motive?
- 22:11Speaker 1: And this person's was there an interior motive?
- 22:16Speaker 5: Because now we're finding out that the main witness, Michael Sanchez,
- 22:22Speaker 5: was sleeping with the young lady that was slapped by
- 22:26Speaker 5: his best friend, George Colaso, two weeks from before the
- 22:29Speaker 5: murder happened. Now this is all speculation, but now we
- 22:32Speaker 5: know that someone came up to Michael Sanchez a week
- 22:35Speaker 5: before the murder and told them we're coming after your friend.
- 22:38Speaker 5: Now we know that the food truck guy saw the
- 22:43Speaker 5: shooter for more than several hours. Now we know that
- 22:47Speaker 5: another witness is coming and saying, well, this wasn't a
- 22:50Speaker 5: coincidental shooting.
- 22:51Speaker 1: This wasn't a shooting of two.
- 22:53Speaker 5: People that didn't know each other, because the shooter called
- 22:56Speaker 5: the victim by name.
- 22:57Speaker 1: We know this now, this.
- 23:00Speaker 5: Back then, so they presented to jury fraud and misrepresentation by.
- 23:04Speaker 1: Telling them, oh, they don't know each other. This was
- 23:07Speaker 1: a mistake. Now we know there was a getaway car.
- 23:09Speaker 5: But what they knew back then is that they could
- 23:12Speaker 5: not prove that all those facts fit me. There was
- 23:16Speaker 5: no connection with me. So they had to lie to
- 23:19Speaker 5: the jury. They had to concoct this story to get
- 23:22Speaker 5: a conviction.
- 23:23Speaker 2: And what we also know that the victim was carrying
- 23:26Speaker 2: a gun, yes, and that his sister has satisfied or
- 23:30Speaker 2: set on camera that he began carrying a gun because
- 23:33Speaker 2: he had been threatened, yes, And because he had slapped
- 23:36Speaker 2: the girl that you were talking about, and that her
- 23:38Speaker 2: friends or her family had threatened to get him. So again,
- 23:42Speaker 2: if you would follow that trail, you would say, well, maybe,
- 23:45Speaker 2: I mean, if it would seem to me if I was,
- 23:50Speaker 2: I would say, let me go, let me go check
- 23:51Speaker 2: that out. That sounds a little dicey to me, you know, like,
- 23:53Speaker 2: let's go see. But none of that, none of that happened.
- 23:56Speaker 1: The case ended with my picture again picked out.
- 23:58Speaker 4: That's it, the whole narrative. That's the criminal justice.
- 24:02Speaker 2: We've got to got somebody, they're poor, particularly a person
- 24:04Speaker 2: of color, and you are basically about to get ground
- 24:07Speaker 2: up by the gears.
- 24:08Speaker 4: And that's what happened here.
- 24:09Speaker 2: So you get convicted r Yes, serve twenty years of
- 24:12Speaker 2: a twenty five year life sentence.
- 24:14Speaker 4: Yes, let's talk about the prison experience.
- 24:17Speaker 5: It's a psychological and physical torture. You know, you don't
- 24:20Speaker 5: belong in this place. But now you have to face
- 24:23Speaker 5: the indignations of what being a prison is.
- 24:26Speaker 1: And with respect to the system.
- 24:29Speaker 5: You know, if you committed a crime, you have to
- 24:31Speaker 5: deal with these security measures. You have to get naked,
- 24:35Speaker 5: you have to show cavity, you know, your butt, you
- 24:37Speaker 5: have to go through cavity searches, you have to have
- 24:40Speaker 5: your family go through searches, and you know, a lot
- 24:43Speaker 5: of indignations. But if you committed a crime and this
- 24:45Speaker 5: is what the system is built for, then a right, fine.
- 24:48Speaker 5: You know, they have to keep the security of the
- 24:51Speaker 5: prison safe. Right, But here is a man that didn't
- 24:54Speaker 5: commit a crime and now I have to go through
- 24:56Speaker 5: the same indignities. I have to deal with users that
- 25:00Speaker 5: at me like a no good citizen, because most prisoners
- 25:03Speaker 5: are considered, you know, people that are not wanted in society,
- 25:09Speaker 5: people that have committed acts against society.
- 25:12Speaker 1: So here I am amongst these people.
- 25:14Speaker 5: I'm nothing like them, and I'm being treated as such,
- 25:17Speaker 5: being pushed as such, being.
- 25:19Speaker 1: Put in positions where it's.
- 25:21Speaker 5: Either I have to fight to be able to talk
- 25:24Speaker 5: to my family, to keep the little things that my
- 25:28Speaker 5: family get me, provide me, whether it's some money for commissary.
- 25:33Speaker 1: And here you have a real hard and.
- 25:35Speaker 5: Murderer and a criminal trying to take what's yours, or
- 25:38Speaker 5: correctional officer coming in his son because he feels that
- 25:41Speaker 5: you're not You're not you're subhuman, you're worthless. They destroy
- 25:47Speaker 5: your property. And now I'm going through these conflicts. I
- 25:50Speaker 5: don't belonging here. And now I'm lashing out. I'm standing up.
- 25:54Speaker 5: It's not even lashing out saying you don't have a
- 25:57Speaker 5: right to do this, you don't have a right to
- 25:59Speaker 5: abuse it me in mad or correctional officers. I stood up,
- 26:03Speaker 5: and you know I bear the scars of it, you know,
- 26:07Speaker 5: physically and internally I bear the scars.
- 26:10Speaker 2: Every little one of those things would seem on the
- 26:13Speaker 2: outside like a big problem, and there's just one of
- 26:15Speaker 2: one hundred problems.
- 26:16Speaker 5: One of a hundred, because you're starting with your personal safety, yeah,
- 26:19Speaker 5: your personal safety, and you think a correctional office is
- 26:24Speaker 5: going to protect you. And a lot of times the
- 26:26Speaker 5: correction of the officers the one that opens yourself so
- 26:29Speaker 5: that inmate.
- 26:30Speaker 1: Could get in there and rob your property or you have.
- 26:33Speaker 5: And I want to be upfront with this, not all
- 26:36Speaker 5: correctional officers. For the majority, most of these people are
- 26:40Speaker 5: just wanting to come in, do their job and provide
- 26:43Speaker 5: for their family.
- 26:44Speaker 1: So I don't want to seem like.
- 26:46Speaker 5: I'm anti corrections because I met some great correctional or
- 26:50Speaker 5: some great men in there that live every day to
- 26:53Speaker 5: just do the best to provide for their family and
- 26:56Speaker 5: do their job with some type of integrity.
- 26:58Speaker 1: But then you have those more numbers or ulcers that
- 27:02Speaker 1: you know, and.
- 27:03Speaker 5: Same thing with police officers, the same thing I could
- 27:05Speaker 5: be said about them. For the most part, great individuals.
- 27:08Speaker 5: They're here to protect our people in our communities. But
- 27:11Speaker 5: you have that small percentage that just you know, causes
- 27:16Speaker 5: adverse effect that everybody believes that all correctional ulcers are
- 27:20Speaker 5: like this, and.
- 27:21Speaker 4: I'm with you.
- 27:21Speaker 2: I mean, I don't want to sound like I'm against
- 27:23Speaker 2: the entire criminal justice system. I'm again, I'm in favor
- 27:26Speaker 2: of fixing the problems so we don't have to have
- 27:29Speaker 2: more stories like yours. So let's get to the part
- 27:45Speaker 2: of the exoneration and to the and to what life
- 27:48Speaker 2: has been like for the last four months on the outside.
- 27:51Speaker 2: So the day, well, what happened is that the new
- 27:56Speaker 2: DA came into the Bronx recently, right, and so she
- 28:01Speaker 2: came in and all of a sudden, your faith turned,
- 28:04Speaker 2: your your luck turn around, everything changed.
- 28:06Speaker 1: Because I wanted to make sure that people know these stats.
- 28:11Speaker 5: First, Robert Johnson, who was the DA in the Bronx
- 28:13Speaker 5: for twenty seven years and who is now amazingly a judge.
- 28:17Speaker 5: Under his tenor in office, he had the lowest conviction
- 28:21Speaker 5: rate in the Bronx, meaning that murderers land being allowed
- 28:26Speaker 5: to run.
- 28:27Speaker 1: The streets, Thieves, murderers.
- 28:28Speaker 5: Whatever you want to call criminals were allowed to run
- 28:31Speaker 5: the streets. The conviction rate in the Bronx was the
- 28:34Speaker 5: lowest in the city. But what's telling is the highest
- 28:37Speaker 5: rate of brawn for convictions were in the Bronx and
- 28:39Speaker 5: they didn't have a committee. So you know, in essence,
- 28:42Speaker 5: what this is telling you is that he was in
- 28:44Speaker 5: convicting criminals. He was convicting innocent people. And that's just
- 28:48Speaker 5: a horrible statistic. And now this man.
- 28:51Speaker 2: Is a judge, right, how do people you know, that's
- 28:55Speaker 2: like saying the food's bad and the portions are too small, right,
- 28:58Speaker 2: I mean you can't.
- 29:00Speaker 4: You're striking out on both sides. Absolutely, that's terrible.
- 29:03Speaker 5: So that's why it's happened with that, and those facts
- 29:07Speaker 5: speak for themselves. But here we are twenty years later,
- 29:10Speaker 5: no one has ever done the investigation in this new
- 29:13Speaker 5: DA says, well, you know what, I want to start
- 29:15Speaker 5: something new. She came into office under a cloud of suspicion.
- 29:19Speaker 5: She wasn't voted in. They pulled the political maneuver the
- 29:23Speaker 5: Democratic Party. Robert Johnson exited through retirement and they left
- 29:29Speaker 5: the voters out and put Darcell Clark in through the
- 29:32Speaker 5: Democratic Party of voting and vetting a person. So now
- 29:36Speaker 5: here she is, she has an opportunity to change these policies,
- 29:40Speaker 5: and she took a bold step and after investigating my
- 29:43Speaker 5: case for the first time in twenty years She sent
- 29:46Speaker 5: investigators to Florida on a Friday.
- 29:49Speaker 1: I was released on a Wednesday. This is amazing.
- 29:53Speaker 5: This woman investigated my case twenty years later and deemed
- 29:57Speaker 5: that there was enough evidence there innocence to release me.
- 30:01Speaker 2: So now you're walking out into the fresh air, into
- 30:04Speaker 2: the sunlight.
- 30:05Speaker 4: What happened then?
- 30:05Speaker 1: What I felt?
- 30:08Speaker 5: You know? One way, I felt relief be with my
- 30:10Speaker 5: family finally, and you know, in a sudden that you
- 30:14Speaker 5: know that I deserved, you know, and I'm happy.
- 30:17Speaker 1: I'm with my wife and my children, I'm with my ess.
- 30:21Speaker 1: Yes they were all there.
- 30:22Speaker 5: But my thing when I came out, I faught a
- 30:25Speaker 5: sense of anger because I you know, I was happy
- 30:28Speaker 5: to be with my family, but it was like I
- 30:31Speaker 5: was like just thrown out into society, and you know,
- 30:36Speaker 5: in a fashion where there was no empathy towards what
- 30:39Speaker 5: I went through other than people want to know what
- 30:42Speaker 5: I felt like.
- 30:43Speaker 1: But DA's office, no.
- 30:45Speaker 5: One other than my family and you know, individuals like yourself.
- 30:48Speaker 1: I don't have a job.
- 30:49Speaker 5: I don't you know, have any needs of providing for
- 30:53Speaker 5: my wife and my children. Twenty years later, so I'm
- 30:56Speaker 5: having a hard time reintegrating into a life of having
- 31:01Speaker 5: the work getting back into the workforce. But it's difficult
- 31:04Speaker 5: for me. The transition is still is, but I'm making
- 31:07Speaker 5: the best out of it.
- 31:11Speaker 2: What happened to Richard Rosaria was horrible. He spent twenty years,
- 31:14Speaker 2: the best years of his life behind bars. When the
- 31:17Speaker 2: criminal justice system makes a mistake, it's not just the
- 31:20Speaker 2: individual that gets hurt. It's families, friends, partners, and children.
- 31:25Speaker 2: Richard's children, Amanda and Richard Jr. Turned their stress and
- 31:28Speaker 2: creep into music, and I wanted to share this audio
- 31:31Speaker 2: note and song they made for their dad.
- 31:34Speaker 3: Good one today E fishsh Well, we.
- 31:42Speaker 6: Have to say all of my life I've been hearing
- 31:47Speaker 6: and he's coming home. He's coming home, And I had
- 31:49Speaker 6: so much hope.
- 31:51Speaker 1: One day it really had gotten to me.
- 31:53Speaker 6: I was right, really, really down, and I was sitting
- 31:55Speaker 6: in our living room and I heard my brother in
- 31:57Speaker 6: his closet playing the piano.
- 32:00Speaker 7: It was like a sad time in the house. So
- 32:03Speaker 7: I was just playing around with keys and I just
- 32:05Speaker 7: ended up coming up with this riff.
- 32:08Speaker 6: The song is about, you know, I wish he was
- 32:11Speaker 6: here for my dance recitles. I wish he was here
- 32:14Speaker 6: for this and for my brother's baseball games to cheer
- 32:17Speaker 6: us on. You know, we have collect calls and we
- 32:19Speaker 6: have letters and all those things, but I wanted to
- 32:23Speaker 6: I want to experience this world and everything that I'm
- 32:26Speaker 6: doing with you. I want you to be able to
- 32:29Speaker 6: enjoy it, not through pictures, but right here physically with Menelet.
- 32:35Speaker 3: Call letter advance. It's together, wish this And I wanted
- 32:47Speaker 3: to experience this world with you by my side, who
- 32:54Speaker 3: cheering for me from the side lines.
- 32:59Speaker 1: Home man, tell me it's gonna.
- 33:01Speaker 8: Be oh oh.
- 33:24Speaker 7: There's no words I can explain that feeling of just
- 33:27Speaker 7: hearing those words that he's coming home.
- 33:29Speaker 6: I was like, you know, don't get your hopes up.
- 33:32Speaker 6: This happens all the time. We think he's coming home.
- 33:34Speaker 6: And that was the craziest moment of my life.
- 33:38Speaker 7: And he's always showed love, and now that he's al,
- 33:41Speaker 7: he's done it to the high extent that every day
- 33:44Speaker 7: I went to wake up and to see his face
- 33:47Speaker 7: every day.
- 33:48Speaker 3: I think this is supposed too much. Click and letters,
- 34:03Speaker 3: short vines together, whish this would him?
- 34:09Speaker 9: Every collects let her short VISs together.
- 34:18Speaker 3: Wish this would and every night I wanted to experience
- 34:26Speaker 3: this world with.
- 34:28Speaker 9: You bumba side here.
- 34:31Speaker 3: You cheered for me from the sidelines, homie and tell
- 34:38Speaker 3: me it's gonna be oh ye oh, won't you place?
- 34:50Speaker 3: Come and night from me aunt Hommie time through the
- 34:56Speaker 3: dark see the light, won't you please God night?
- 35:01Speaker 1: Won't you please?
- 35:02Speaker 3: Home to night from me in your arms home meet time.
- 35:07Speaker 3: The more the darknessy the light you please. I wanted
- 35:13Speaker 3: to experience this world.
- 35:16Speaker 9: Whether you buy my side here, you t inform me
- 35:22Speaker 9: from the side line home me and tell me.
- 35:27Speaker 4: It's gonna be ah.
- 35:35Speaker 3: Ohnan to experience this world.
- 35:46Speaker 2: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review. Wherever you
- 35:48Speaker 2: get your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm a proud
- 35:52Speaker 2: donor to the Innocence Project and I really hope you'll
- 35:55Speaker 2: join me in supporting this very important cause and helping
- 35:58Speaker 2: to prevent future wrongs. Go to Innisonsproject dot org to
- 36:02Speaker 2: learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like to
- 36:05Speaker 2: thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The
- 36:08Speaker 2: music in the show is by three time OSCAR nominated
- 36:11Speaker 2: composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram
- 36:14Speaker 2: at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
- 36:19Speaker 2: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is a production of Lava
- 36:22Speaker 2: for Good podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one