Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #593 Jason Flom with Jeffrey Deskovic

Transcript

#593 Jason Flom with Jeffrey Deskovic · Wrongful Conviction

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I first covered Jeffrey Deskovic's story back in 2017, which
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: was the first year of this podcast. Jeff's story is
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: one that I've come back to over and over again
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: over the years, not only because of the 16 years
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: he spent in prison for a murder he had nothing
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: to do with, I mean nothing at all, but also
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: because of what he's chosen to do with his life
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: after his exoneration. It's a hero's journey. And Jeff's story has...
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: A powerful connection to the two cases that we recently
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: revisited on this show. I'm talking about Andrew Krivak and
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Anthony DiPippo. Because the same freaking polygraph operator who helped
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: extract the false confession from Jeff when he was just
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: 16 years old was later involved in the interrogation that
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: produced Andy Krivak's false confession. Yeah, these things, they happen
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: again and again. The same people are usually behind them. Anyway,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: years later, Jeff and the Deskovic Foundation not only helped
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: to free Andy, But Jeff even put up his own
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: house as collateral for Andy's bail. Yeah, you heard that correctly.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: That's the type of guy he is. So recently I
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: joined Jeffrey and filmmaker Gia Rizvi at the Sag Harbor
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Cinema for a special presentation followed by a talkback that
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: we did together of 16 years. The 16 years is
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Gia's amazing documentary about Jeff's wrongful conviction, his exoneration, and
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: all the work he's done since. I spoke there about
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Jeff's incredible journey from being a young teenage kid railroaded
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: by the system to an attorney and advocate who fights
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: for others day in and day out to make sure
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: it doesn't happen to them. If you've been listening to
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Bone Valley, The Devil's Quarry, which I hope you have,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: and if you haven't, today's a good day to start.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Jeff's story provides important context for the cases of Anthony
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: DePippo and Andy Krivak. And moreover, for how these wrongful
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: convictions happen in the first place. So now, check it out.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Here's Jeffrey's story. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Today's guest is someone fans of the show will recognize,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Jeff Deskovic.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Jeffrey Deskovic spent more than a decade in prison for
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: the rape and murder of a classmate. It was a
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: crime he did not commit.
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: A 16-year-old is arrested for rape and murder. He's grilled
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: by police and given a lie detector test, and eventually
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: the police talk him into a false confession, even though
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: DNA did not link him to the crime. He served
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: 16 years in prison before new testing shows another man
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: committed that crime.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: In January 2006, the Innocence Project convinced prosecutors to take
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: another look at DNA evidence. New testing technology cleared Deskovic
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: of the 1989 crime, identifying the real killer and releasing
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: Deskovic into a world he no longer knew. Today, Deskovic
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: is a free man.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Jeff, welcome back to Wrongful Conviction.
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: Thanks for having me, Jason. It's always a pleasure.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: And Jeff was here before with Amanda Knox and Jared
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Adams when we did a very special Wrongful Christmas, where
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: he spoke so eloquently about what it was like being
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: locked up in a maximum security prison on the holidays
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: when Everyone else is out celebrating and the world's going
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: on without you. But this time, I'm really glad to
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: have you here, Jeff, because your story is so important.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: And so I want to get right back into that.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: You grew up in White Plains?
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: No, I grew up in Peekskill in Westchester County. My
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: case happened in White Plains. That's the county court.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: People are going to scratch their heads or shake their
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: heads when I say this, right? In your case... DNA
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: evidence was presented at the trial that proved scientifically, with
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: no doubt, that you could not have been the perpetrator
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: of the beating, rape, and murder of the 15-year-old victim,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Angela Correa. There is no way on God's green earth
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: that you could have been the perpetrator, and yet you
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: were convicted anyway. And that's what makes, it's just, I'm
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: going to shake up the whole justice system and go, wait,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: that's not possible. It can't happen. And you were basically
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: a child when this happened.
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: I was. I was 16 years old when I was arrested.
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: And by the time the trial happened and I was
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: wrongfully convicted, I was 17. So, yes, I was a child.
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: And I had very small awareness of what was going on,
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: totally dependent on the lawyer who was inept in a
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: lot of ways. It's fair to say that I was
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: particularly vulnerable.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: It's such a tragic thing that happened to start with.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: And this was a young girl who was in your school.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Were you in 10th grade at the time?
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: I was.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: So you were in 10th grade. She was in 10th grade. Yeah.
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: She was in two of my classes as a freshman
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: and one as a sophomore. She was an immigrant from Colombia.
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: She'd been in the country for about a year and
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: a half. She lived a very, very sheltered life, as
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: I understand it, in which she never went outside unless
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: she was with her older sister or with her parents.
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: And this one particular day, she received a assignment in
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: her photography class to take some pictures of some foliage.
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: The teacher assigned male students with the female students, like
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: a buddy system for safety. And this male student who
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: was assigned to her played hooky on the assignment. And
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: so when Angela went to her house with her sister,
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: her sister went to the restroom. And when she came
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: back out, Angela decided to venture out on her own
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: that one day to take the pictures. And unfortunately, that
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: proved to be her last day.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: It's unbelievable. I mean, it's really an incredible story. The
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: one day this poor little girl decides to, you know,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: be brave, right?
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: So she ends up brutally beaten, raped, and strangled, right?
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: And this must have caused pandemonium in the community.
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: It absolutely did. There hadn't been a murder in Peekskill
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: for about 20 years.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: And the whole city virtually shut down. I mean, Parents
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: were coming right to the high school, dropping their kids
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: off and picking them up. There was repeated town hall meetings.
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: The mayor and police were attending and giving safety tips,
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: and people were vocalizing concerns.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, there was a monster on the loose.
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: Exactly right.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: A real monster.
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: There was.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: And so, yeah, as a parent, I would certainly be
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: doing the same thing. I wouldn't let my kid out
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: of my sight until this thing was resolved. So this creates,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: as we know, a lot of pressure. right? On law enforcement.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: They got to get this thing off their desks. Who
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: knows what could happen, right? There's going to be articles written.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: There's going to be TV. There's going to be all
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: that stuff, right? When you have a high profile case,
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: especially involving a child in a community where murder hasn't
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: happened in 20 years, it's a pressure cooker. So how
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: the hell did they end up picking on you? I
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: didn't know you when you were 16, but I can
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: imagine that you would be an extremely unlikely candidate for
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: a brutal crime like this one.
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I would agree with that. So, well, when I
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: was 16, I kind of lived a double life in
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: a sense, in the sense that in school, I was quiet.
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: I was to myself. I was a little bit withdrawn
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: because I wasn't really familiar with those kids, and I
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: didn't quite fit in with them. But after school, in
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: the apartment building where I lived at, which coincidentally was
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: right across the street from the high school, I was
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: kind of like the life of the party. So myself
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: and one other boy that lived there. I mean, there
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: was a big group of kids that lived in the
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: complex and in the areas around it. And pretty much
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: whatever I would suggest would mostly be what we would do.
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: I mean, we would swim, we would play basketball, ride bikes,
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: play Monopoly, video games, movies. We made up some games.
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: We made up a game that was like baseball, except
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: it was played with a tennis racket and a tennis
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: ball and the ball had to be thrown a certain way.
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: And I was a different person there. So the police
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: story is that in the course of interviewing students from
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: the high school, some of them told the police, hey,
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: you might want to talk to Jeff because he's quiet
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: and to himself. So originally, the police looked at the
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: victim's stepdad, who was married to the victim's mother. But
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: at some point, he realized that he was a suspect
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: and he hired a retired New York City detective to
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: investigate the crime. And so that persuaded them to move
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: off of him. Then they looked at another youth in
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: the high school and they started using interrogative tactics, which
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: they would use on me later on. But the difference
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: is that he had a stepfather in the home. And
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: so the stepfather went down to the police station and
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: broke up the interrogation. And they initially wouldn't let him
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: in the room, but He broke up the interrogation and
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: he got his stepson an attorney. And so that was
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: the end of that. I, on the other hand, didn't
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: have a stepfather in the home. So there wasn't anybody
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: to intervene for me.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: It was just you and your mother at the time?
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: Myself, my mother, and I lived with my grandmother. And
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: then I had a younger brother. So the police story
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: is that some of the kids in the school told
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: them that they might want to talk to me. And
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: their other theory as to why they focused in on me,
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: they said that my emotional reaction to the victim having
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: been murdered was disproportionate to what my actual relationship with
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: her was, which was to say there was no relationship.
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: I mean, I knew her name, she knew mine. We
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: weren't even on a high buy basis. So her being murdered,
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: it kind of struck me because that was really my
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: first encounter with death. I thought that was something that
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: happens to people at the end of life. I had
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: a chance to briefly get to know the family. I
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: went to the WIC and People were invited back to
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: their house, to the Correa house. to have coffee and
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: talk to the family. And there was cookies and stuff.
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: And so I guess you could say, you might say
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: I was kind of a sensitive, sentimental type of person.
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: And so it kind of touched me.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: A little bit. By the way, you might say you
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: were a normal type of person, right? And it always
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: boggles my mind how these authority figures suddenly become expert
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: psychiatrists or psychologists. And we see it over and over again.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: He acted too sad. He didn't act sad enough. He
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: was too upset and not upset enough. He ran into
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: the fire. There's all these cases where that becomes a
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: factor when it's ridiculous. Nobody knows how anyone is going
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: to react in times of trauma. And I would say,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: like I said, that your reaction sounds to me like
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: a sensitive person who is just experiencing something in their
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: own community with somebody that's an innocent young girl, of
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: course you're upset.
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree with you completely. And I want to
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: add that this really shook up the whole city to
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: the point that free mental health counseling was offered to
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: anybody in the city who wanted it. So this affected
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: many people emotionally.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: Had you ever been in trouble before?
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: No.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Never been in trouble. So the cops, at some point,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: they come and pick you up. But your interrogation is
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: really at the root of the entire problem. And it
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: is a perfect example of everything that's wrong with interrogation
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: techniques in this country, even today. It is.
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: There was a six-week run-up to that day. So I
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: had interaction with the police from the time they initially
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: intercepted me on my way to the high school. Up
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: until the day of the course, false confession, in which
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: half the time they would talk to me as if
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: I was a suspect. And then half the time they
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: would talk to me pretending like they needed my help
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: to solve the crime. They would say things like, the
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: kids won't talk freely around us, but they will around you.
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: Let us know if you hear any rumors. They made
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: me the center of attention. They would ask me opinion questions.
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: It's exciting, right?
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was.
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: Congratulate me, my opinions being correct. My fantasy childhood career
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: was actually to be a cop. So this unexpected early
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: opportunity to do this quasi-police work was part of how
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: they pulled the wool over my eyes, along with my age.
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: I was 16 then. They used to buy pizza. And listen,
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: I grew up in a single parent household, as we mentioned,
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: and that directly intersected with the good cop, bad cop routine.
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: And then I started looking up to the cop who
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: was pretending to be my friend.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: But as a father figure.
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: As a father figure. Yeah, exactly.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, again, you were 16. So, OK, so there's
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: sort of. Sort of spinning this web and seducing you
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: and trying to get you to say something that would
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: be incriminating. Now we know that's what they were doing, right? Yeah, exactly.
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: And so finally at the end, they told me that
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: they received some new tip that was in the police
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: file and they wanted to share that with me. But
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: to do that, I would first have to take and
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: pass a polygraph. So help us to help you to
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: help us, typologic was employed. So instead of going to
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: the school the next day, I instead went to the
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: police station where I thought the polygraph was going to
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: happen because through the rumor mill of the city, I
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: had heard that other people had been polygraphed at the
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: police station. But actually, they drove me from Peekskill, which
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: was in Westchester County, they drove me 40 minutes away
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: out of county to the town of Brewster, which is
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: in Putnam County. So they drove me to Brewster to
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: this polygraphist, former Putnam County Sheriff's investigator, Daniel Stevens. And
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: he was an officer, but he was dressed as a
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: civilian and he never identified himself as a cop. And
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: he never read me my Miranda warning. So I thought
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: that he was a civilian. So he gave me this
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: manual to look at about how the polygraph works. And
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: it had a lot of really big words in it
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: that were beyond my comprehension, but it I didn't care
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: because I was there to help the police. So who
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: cares what the thing says? Or so I thought. They
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: put me into a small room and the polygraphist, Stevens
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: became like a virtual coffee dispenser. I mean, I must
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: have drank six or seven cups and no sooner would
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: I put the cup down than the cup would be
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: halfway filled up. And, you know, he's giving me another one.
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: And it seems pretty clear in hindsight that the purpose
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: of that.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Was to make me nervous.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: Exactly right. So once he finished the coffee routine, then
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: he straps me into the polygraph machine, which was fairly heavy,
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: so now I'm kind of immobilized. It's a very small room,
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: and that's when he launches into his third-degree tactics. So
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: he invaded my personal space. He raised his voice at me.
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: He kept asking me the same questions over and over again.
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: And keep in mind that I'm not used to interacting
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: with adult males and the way he's conducting himself. And
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: he's kind of a mountain of a man. And I'm 16,
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: like maybe 140 pounds soaking wet. You know, so it's
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: really frightening. So each hour that goes by, my fear
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: is increasing in proportion to the time. So Stevens kept
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: that up for about six or seven hours. Towards the
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: end of the interrogation, that's when he said to me,
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: I guess by then he was just frustrated by not
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: having been able to get me to confess to that point.
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: He said, what do you mean you didn't do it?
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: You just told me through the polygraph test results that
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: you did. We just want you to verbally confirm it.
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: So when he said that to me, that really shot
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: my fear through the roof. And at that moment, the
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: officer who had been pretending to be my friend, he
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: came in the room and told me that the other
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: officers were going to harm me, that he was holding
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: them off, but he couldn't do so any longer, that
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: I had to help myself. And then he added that
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: if I did as they wanted, that not only would
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: they stop what they were doing, but that I could
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: go home afterwards, that I was not going to be arrested,
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: being young, naive, frightened, 16 years old, In fear of
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: my life, because the fact that I didn't know where
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: I was and that I knew that nobody else did either,
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: that loomed very large in my mind.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: It's incredible. I mean, it's total disorientation, right?
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, and it's, you know, it's diabolical. But if
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: what you want is a false confession, this would be
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: the textbook.
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: This is the way to do it. Yeah. And then
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: I was emotionally overwhelmed also. And then there's the push-pull dynamic.
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: You know, there's the... possibility of harm, but then he's
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: thrown me this false life preserver and I took the
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: out which he offered. I made up a story based
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: on information which they had given me that day and
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: in the six weeks run up to that day and
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: by the time it was all said and done, I
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: had collapsed on the floor, curled up into a fetal position,
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: crying uncontrollably. Obviously I was arrested.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the whole thing was a lie. It's
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: like a fucking charade, right? And it was easy for them.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, the miracle is that you didn't confess sooner, actually.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: And you know, it's interesting, Jeff, we know that false
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: confessions happen typically much later, like yours. And you were
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: among the most vulnerable people that's ever been put into
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: this position, being that you were alone, you had no
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: way out, you had no way to get home. You
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: were in 10th grade. I mean, 10th grade, you don't
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: know what the fuck you're doing when you're in 10th grade.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: You're You had very real concern that you were going
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: to be beaten up or worse.
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: You know, the fact that you were able to hang
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: on for, you know, almost nine hours in this situation
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: is a testament to your strength, even in this most
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: terrifying situation that you found yourself in. So now you're
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: expecting to go home because that's what they told you.
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: But they lied again.
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: And so you signed this piece of paper.
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: No, let me. There was no signed confession. I never
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: signed a confession. And there was no audio or video.
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: It was just the cop's word as to what happened.
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: And as a result of that, when we got to court,
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: they conveniently left out the threat and the false promise. Wow.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's actually strange, Jeff, that they wouldn't have
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: just put a piece of paper in front of you.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Because at this point, you would have signed anything. You
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: would have said that you stole the Mona Lisa, right?
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: If they asked you to.
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, sure. Yeah, of course.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, whatever.
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: For a penny and for a pound. Look, man, I
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: already decided I wanted to get the hell out of here.
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: Tell you what you want to say. Yeah, this is
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: the next thing you want me to say? Come on.
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: Get me out of here. Make good on your end. Yeah,
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: you want this extra thing? Come on. You got it.
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: Can you honor your word now?
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: So now you're arrested, and now the nightmare really begins, right?
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Because you're as unprepared for this situation as someone can be, right?
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: You have no experience with criminal justice. You're not a
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: big guy. You're not a tough guy. You're not emotionally developed.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: to a point that you could be in any way,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: you know, steal yourself for what's going on. You're not
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: educated enough to understand the proceedings. You don't have a
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: family that's able to hire, for lack of a better word,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: a dream team to help you. And so arrested in 1990.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: And now you're held in jail.
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: I am.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Awaiting trial.
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: I was in jail for like 35 days, and then
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: I got bailed out. I got bailed out. At the time,
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: my mother was dating a business person, Jack Ekesian, who
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: had a carpet store, Ekesian Carpets, and he was willing
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: to bail me out, which he was hammered in the
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: newspaper for just the fact of. bailing me out. And
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: he lost quite a bit of customers as a result
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: of doing that.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Wow. Innocent until proven guilty, right?
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: So they say.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: Not so much.
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: Not so much.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: So even he's tarred by this reputation that you have.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: And now you go home, you're not in school anymore. Right.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: You've been kicked out of school, I assume.
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, they would not allow me to go back to
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: school until the case was resolved. And, you know, I
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: naively thought, you know, when I got bailed out, I
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: was going to go back to my life. But there
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: was no going back to it ever.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: So what did you do? Just stay in the house?
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: I stayed in the house. Yeah. I mean, I was
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: afraid to go out, to be frank with you. That
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: was a pariah. And the parents of my former friends
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: would not allow them to play with me.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Of course.
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: And even if they had, I doubt very many of
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: them would have wanted to anyway, because they thought I
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: was guilty because that's what the headlines and everything else
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: was saying. And I couldn't go to school. I couldn't
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: do anything. So yeah, I just, I stayed in my house,
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: but that was only for a few weeks though. I
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: tried to kill myself. I felt my life was over
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: and I took an entire bottle of extra strength Tylenol
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: that had not been used. And I took every last pill,
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: and I went to sleep, and I intended to never
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: wake up again.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: Wow. I had to take a minute to think about that.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: I didn't know that part of your story. And Jeff
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: and I have spent a lot of time together, but
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: they've never shared those details with me. It's really hard
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: to deal with.
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: My point of mentioning that, though, is that that resulted
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: in my being involuntarily committed into a mental hospital for
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: six months. Wow.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: So now... The worst is still to come, but you've
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: now gone through this crazy, rapid decline from a happy-go-lucky,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: goofy kid, not a care in the world, except for
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: maybe a test coming up, right?
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Or maybe you have a date or maybe you don't
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: or whatever, you know, all the things you go through
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: in adolescence, to being locked in a terrible jail, then
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: basically being under house arrest, being ostracized by your friends
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: and the whole community. being pilloried in the newspapers and
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: the media, and now you're in a mental institution. And
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: then the trial comes.
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: And then the trial comes. And just before the trial,
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: the results of the DNA test comes back from the
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: FBI laboratory, which shows that the semen found in the
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: victim didn't match me.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Right, because remember, she was raped, right?
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: She was raped, yes. And by the way, the lieutenant
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: who oversaw everything In the letter that he penned to
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: the FBI asking them to expedite the testing, he wrote
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: in the letter that the DNA testing would either show
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: my guilt or it would exonerate me. But when it
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: came back and it didn't match me, my lawyer did
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: try to get the indictment dismissed against me based on that,
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: but the judge denied that motion.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: That alone seems so just incomprehensible to me. I mean...
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: That just doesn't make sense. The judge is impartial, right?
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: We know the prosecutor has an agenda, but the judge
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: is impartial. Yeah, I don't know. I don't understand. I mean,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: I know that back then DNA wasn't, it wasn't as...
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: It wasn't as well known.
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: But to be clear, I mean, DNA started being used
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: in the court system as early as 1987. And we're
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: on trial now in 1990. So it's been around for
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: three years. So while not in currency like now, it
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: is not exactly totally unknown.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: Right. And it's perfect.
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: Right. It's the gold standard.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So your DNA doesn't match. This is an inconvenient
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: truth for the authorities. And the judge allows this circus
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: to go on. So you go to trial.
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: And at the trial, was the DNA allowed to be introduced?
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: Yes, it was.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: So again, how does it end up that you get
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: convicted under these circumstances? Sure.
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: So firstly, as I mentioned, the cops left the threat
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: and false promise out of the story. So, I mean,
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: the story is still, there's enough red flags pertaining to
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: circumstances around the confession to call it into question, but
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: the threat and false promise weren't there. So that's one factor.
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: Another factor is there was prosecutorial misconduct and fraud by
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: the medical examiner. So in order to answer the DNA evidence,
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: the prosecutor got the medical examiner to commit fraud. So
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: when an autopsy is done, there's written and audio notes
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: which are taken contemporaneously as the findings are made. So
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: it was only six months after doing that initial autopsy,
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: and only after the DNA result didn't match me, that
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: this medical examiner for the first time suddenly claimed, he
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: suddenly remembers, right, six months later in and hundreds of
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: autopsies later, he suddenly remembers that he found medical evidence
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: to show that the victim had been sexually active, which
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: is what opened the door for the prosecutor to argue
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: that it didn't matter that the semen didn't come from me,
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: that that didn't mean I was innocent, that just meant
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: that she could have had consensual sex close enough to
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: the murder and rape so as to explain away the DNA.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: But that still wouldn't explain it away. It would just
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: explain that there would be a mixture, right?
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: Exactly right.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: So that doesn't make any sense. And also, let's just
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: reflect for a moment on the other victim in this case.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: And there are more, right?
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: Yes, there are.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: It's not just you and Angela.
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: No, it is not.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: Let's just reflect for a minute that the authorities were
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: willing to go so low. They had to know that
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: you were innocent.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: But they were so determined to convict an innocent boy,
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: because you're a boy. Yes. That they were willing... To
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: drag the reputation of a 15-year-old girl through the mud, right,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: and put her family through that when every indication is
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: she was a girl who was like as goody-two-shoes as
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: you could be.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: Wouldn't even leave the house by herself until that one
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: fateful day. I mean, it's so disgusting, right? This girl
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: who deserves at least to have her reputation protected is
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: dragged through the mud. It's just disgusting. Jeff, let me
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: ask you this, because you've become an expert in criminal justice.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: You've accomplished so much since you've been home in terms
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: of your education, in terms of your investigative skills, in
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: terms of your advocacy. You are one of the top
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: people in the state or tri-state or maybe even the
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: country now in terms of your breadth of knowledge of
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: how these things work, to your great credit. And there
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: was no physical evidence connecting you to this crime. Is
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: it possible for someone to beat, rape, and strangle someone
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: and not leave any physical evidence at the crime scene?
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: No.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: It's impossible?
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: It's very, very close to impossible. And just to delve
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: into this a little bit more, one of my statements,
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: I said that I hit the victim over the head
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: with a Gatorade bottle because Gatorade was made in glass bottles.
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: But if you look at the types of injuries that
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: the victim had on her head, a bottle would not
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: be capable of making that type of injury. And on
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: top of that, there was no broken glass at the
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: crime scene. There was no shards of glass in the body.
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: There's no relationship to the physical evidence and the statements
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: in the confession at all.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: Right. So there was no physical evidence. No. Your confession stunk.
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: Because you didn't know. Right. And there was DNA to
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: prove that you didn't do it. Now they conspire somehow
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: to drag this girl's reputation into the mud and in
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: order to protect this false narrative that they've created.
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: Right, but there's three other things that they did fighting
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: the DNA. So taking his lie a step further, the
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: prosecutor then named another youth by name that he claimed
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: probably had had sex with the victim. But he never
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: had a DNA test to prove that, and he didn't
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: even call him as a witness. He just made the
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: unsupported argument to the jury. And then another thing was
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: that I later learned through civil litigation that when the
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: DNA didn't match me, the police went back out into
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: the field, and they interviewed 17 witnesses who knew the
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: victim in one capacity or another. And all of them
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: told the police that there was no boyfriend, there was
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: no consensual sex. But the cops never documented any of
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: those interviews so that they didn't have to turn those
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: over to my lawyer. And the third thing was that
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: the police fabricated a statement and attributed it to me.
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: They claimed that I said to them, speaking in the
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: third person, they claimed that I said, well, I don't
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: know if the perpetrator ejaculated or not. So that word
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: was not in my vocabulary as a 16-year-old. And we
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: proved that in the police reports where they referenced that,
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: they only came up with that after the DNA didn't
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: match me. That was never in their early written reports
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: of the interrogation. So they fabricated that to help the
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: prosecutor against the DNA.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: You know what's bothering me greatly, aside from all of
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: this right now, Jeff, is the idea that there must
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: have been meetings, right, where they were like, uh-oh, like
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: at various different stages, uh-oh, the DNA doesn't match, uh-oh,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: the witnesses are not connecting any boyfriend, uh-oh, everything that
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: they had said was turning out to be not true, right?
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: All their theories were going up in smoke, and there
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: must have been at some point sit-downs where they got
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: with the medical exam, I don't know this, I can't
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: prove it, but I'm guessing... Well, a medical.
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: Examiner testified at that position in the lawsuit. He said
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: that the day after the DNA didn't match me, he
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: got a phone call from one of three people, and
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: he said that they told him that the DNA didn't
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: match me, and he had to come up with some
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: kind of a theory by which the case against me
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: could continue and a conviction could result.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: Unbelievable. I mean, it's unbelievable. I mean, I can't fathom it.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: So there you are at trial.
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: So that's on the prosecution end. But I want to,
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: the other part of how I got convicted was the
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: public defender who supposedly was the best lawyer in legal
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: aid of Westchester. He was terrible. He very rarely met
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: with me. Whenever I would try to explain to him
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: that I was innocent and what happened in the interrogation room,
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: he was always shutting me up. One time he told
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: me he didn't care if I was guilty or innocent.
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: He never explained to the jury the significance of the
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: DNA not matching me. He never used the DNA to
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: argue that this so-called confession was coerced and false. When
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: we hadn't decided if we were going to go with
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: a bench trial or a jury trial, he came to
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: me one day and told me that the trial judge
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: came to him off the record and told him to
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: pick a jury because he didn't want to be responsible
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: for acquitting me. So my lawyer was supposed to put
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: that on the record and ask the judge to recuse
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: himself because that's a prejudicial type of statement and also
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: suggest that the judge is feeling public pressure because again,
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: virtually all of the coverage is guilt presumptive oriented. So additionally,
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: my lawyer was not supposed to represent me because of
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: a conflict of interest in that this other youth that
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: the prosecution was falsely claiming had had sex with the victim,
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: was represented by another lawyer in legal aid, which meant
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: that the defense couldn't ask him to give a DNA sample.
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: The defense couldn't subpoena him in order to explode the
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: consensual sex theory.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: Because it was their other client.
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: Right. And then the best thing, or worst thing of all,
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: was when it was time to cross-examine the medical examiner,
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: whose fraud was so large in this case... He never
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: even bothered to cross-examine him. He stood up in open
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: court and with a big smile on his face, as
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: if him and the medical examiner were great friends from
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: back in the day, he said to him, you're going
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: to be pleased to know that I don't have a
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: single question for you. Wow. He never interviewed nor presented
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: as a witness my alibi. I was actually playing wiffle
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: ball when the crime happened. And... He wouldn't allow me
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: to testify at the pretrial hearing to put the threat
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: and false promise on the record. And when it was
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: time for the defense to try to put a case on,
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: he said to me that it wasn't his job to
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: prove that I was innocent. It's up to the prosecution
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: to prove that I was guilty. And he didn't think
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: that that had happened. So add it all up. I
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: was wrongfully convicted of murder and rape.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: It's unreal. I mean, this stuff goes on in America.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: It's just... it's just insane. So you end up getting
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: convicted and sentenced to?
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: 15 to life. At the sentencing hearing, I begged the
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: judge to overturn the verdict because I was innocent, and
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: I referenced the DNA to support my contention. And he
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: actually told me on the record, maybe you are innocent,
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: conceding that there is a doubt. But the DNA doesn't
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: match me. How could there not be a doubt? But
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: you might think that he would step up for justice
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: and overturn the conviction by reversing any number of rulings
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: that he made against me in the course of the trial.
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: But he didn't do that. He took the easy and
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: politically expedient way out, which was to sentence me to
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: a term of imprisonment of 15 to life.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: 15 years to life. Now, you're only 17 at this time.
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: Correct.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: So this is basically, it's an incomprehensible thing to face
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: for anybody, but least of all for a child. And
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: then you end up in some of the worst prisons
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: in America. And you go into these places unprepared in
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: every imaginable way. And you go in under the worst
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: possible circumstance, which is it's someone who's been convicted of
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: raping and murdering a child.
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: Exactly.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: How the fuck did you survive in there, Jeff? How
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: did you keep hope alive?
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: All right. So in terms of how I kept hope alive,
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: definitely belief in God was one thing. Another thing was
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: I didn't look at it like I was doing 15
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: to Life. I thought I was just doing a year
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: or two until the next appeal would be decided, which
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: I was sure I was going to win because I
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: knew I was innocent and I still naively believed in
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: the system. I found different things to throw myself into mentally.
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: I used to go to the law library and learn
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: about the law so I could feel a little bit empowered.
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: I used to read nonfiction books. I would cut pictures
• 35:08
  Speaker 4: of nature scenes out so I could look at them
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: and travel there. Mentally, when I would play sports like
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: ping pong or basketball or chess, I engaged in this
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: elaborate delusion like if I was a professional player and
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: so was the other person and the people on the
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: sidelines were the fans. But it was not like kids
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: fantasizing about being a professional athlete. This was more like
• 35:32
  Speaker 4: my mind couldn't deal with being there anymore and I
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: had to get out of the prison mentally for a
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: couple of hours by this elaborate delusion. sometimes I'd listen
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: to sports radio, but it wasn't listening to sports radio.
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: It was a connection to the outside. And I'm not
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: going to the prison assignment in the morning. I'm going
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: to work or I'm going to school. It's not the warden,
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: it's the superintendent. And you try to, it's normal that
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: if you're going to make a phone call, it's got
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: to be collect or a strip search as the price
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: for a visit. And you know, you try to normalize
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: the madness in your own mind. I had to fight
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: off feelings of hopelessness, helplessness, thoughts of giving up, suicidal ideation,
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: thoughts of suicide came into my mind at times. And
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: so this was as much a psychological thing as it
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: was physical. I mean, I didn't have the luxury of
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: losing my mind because I knew that especially when my
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: appeals were over and exhausted after I was in for
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: 11 years and they no longer give you a lawyer.
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: And the only way back into court is if you
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: can find something new that wasn't known previously. So I
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: started writing a countless number of letters trying to find
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: a lawyer and investigator to take my case for free
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: because I didn't have any money to hire one.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: Right. And I want to point out a cruel irony here, Jeff,
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: which is that for many of the clients of the
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: Innocence Projects or other innocence organizations, the DNA is the
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: silver bullet, right? And ultimately, when the DNA gets discovered,
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: they get a new trial because it's new evidence. But
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: you had already presented the DNA. You had actually shot
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: that arrow already, right? And so you're actually fucked because
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: of the fact that, you know.
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: The timing of it.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: It's so strange.
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: You know, that fact... See, I used to collect articles
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: on exonerations and That used to grate on me, though. Like,
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: all these people were going home because of the DNA.
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: And I'm like, well, why do I have to be
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: an exception? The DNA doesn't match me either. What does
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: it matter when the result was actually obtained? I mean,
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: it means the same thing.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: Meanwhile, let's spend a moment talking about the actual perpetrator. Yes.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: Because every time, and I sound like a broken record
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: when I say this, But every time that somebody like
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: you gets convicted wrongfully, the actual perpetrator, they stop looking
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: for him, right? The case is closed. And in this case,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: the consequences were very real, as they are in most
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: cases when these things happen, right? And I think that
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: the people that are responsible for your wrongful conviction, there's
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: an argument to say that they are responsible for another
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: tragedy that happened. Can you talk about that?
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: I can. Yes, schoolteacher Patricia Morrison, who also had a
• 38:26
  Speaker 4: couple of kids. She was from Peekskill. And she was
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: killed by the same perpetrator, Stephen Cunningham. She was killed
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: three and a half years later as a result of
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: Cunningham being left free on the street while I was
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: doing time for his crime.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: Now, you say the real perpetrator. How do we know that? Well, here.
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: Great. That's a great question. I'm so glad you asked
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: because the DNA matched him. because he got caught for
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: the second murder, which resulted in his being incarcerated and
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: having to give up a DNA sample, which was put
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: into the data bank. And so when I eventually got
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: the further testing with the Innocence Project's help, it matched him.
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: And then he subsequently confessed, not just to the authorities,
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: but also to a reporter on video camera, In the
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: prison visiting room, that video is available on the internet.
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: So just to be clear, there's no coerced false confession there.
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: And he pled guilty in court.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: When did this happen?
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: That happened... him being caught for the original crime. That
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: happened 12 and a half years after he killed a
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: second victim. So there was a point in time we
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: were both concurrently in the same prison system, although not
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: in the same prison.
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: So Patricia Morrison today would be probably a lot of
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: sitting around with her grandchildren, you know, probably be a
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: retired school teacher by now having a nice life. Her
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: children would have grown up as they deserve to, as
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: everyone deserves to with their mother. The rest of her
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: family wouldn't have gone through this horrendous loss. None of
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: it had to happen, you know, except for the fact
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: that they went on this crazy witch hunt to convict you,
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: Jeffrey Deskovic, of a crime that they knew you didn't commit. It's, um,
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: It's a tragic, tragic byproduct of this horrible malfeasance, coordinated
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: in this case, that resulted in you enduring a nightmare
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: that none of us who haven't been through it could
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: ever imagine. You somehow or other managed to find this
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: extra moment layer of strength and courage to persevere, to
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: not give up and to ultimately win, right? And to
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: be vindicated. Correct. We've talked about some of the darkest
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: moments that anyone could imagine. Is there a flip side
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: to it? Was there a moment of joy, ecstasy when
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: you were finally vindicated and freed?
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean, it was a surreal moment. I have
• 41:13
  Speaker 4: to say the luncheon afterwards was surreal. And after that
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: is where reality, you know, the reality hit the road,
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: the tires hit the road, however you want to phrase it.
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: It'd be great to say there was this great party,
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: this raucous party that lasted to the crack of dawn.
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: But in reality, who was there to socialize or party with?
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: I mean, I'd long since lost track with my connection
• 41:37
  Speaker 4: with my old friends and my extended family. And everybody
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: was virtual strangers, even my immediate family, very, very limited visiting.
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: So I couldn't relate to the people there, I felt
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: out of place and I couldn't really communicate with them.
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: And that's when a lot of my difficulties post-exoneration started happening.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: You talked very beautifully about your mindset of being able
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: to escape the walls by having these almost out-of-body experiences,
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: these mental exercises that you put yourself through to transport
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: yourself to a happier place. Were there any friendships that
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: you developed in prison?
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I would like to remember exoneree Frank Sterling, Mike Roberts,
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: and Sammy Swift. So those are the three people that
• 42:27
  Speaker 4: I want to give a shout out to.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, you came out into a world that had
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: changed a lot. You literally had spent half of your
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: life in prison. You were arrested when you were 16
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: and you were exonerated when you were 33. So all
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: those years when everybody else was developing their career, getting
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: their education, developing their social networks, their relationships, or even
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: starting families, you were stuck in hell, actually, right?
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, fair to say. Yeah, exactly right. As well as
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: everybody was, you know, incrementally adjusting as technology would come out.
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: When I came out, I never saw a cell phone, GPS,
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: the internet hadn't been invented, all these different ways of bankings.
• 43:08
  Speaker 4: Culture had changed. I was totally a fish out of water.
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: I didn't fit or belong anymore.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: You talked about the things that you did to survive
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: in prison and the friendships that you developed, the people
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: who were able to be a support system for you
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: and you for them. Is it as bad as everybody
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: thinks it is? I want to give people an idea
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: of what this experience is really like because we don't
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: do prison in America like they do in the rest
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: of the Western world. we focus so much on punishment
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: and basically, in a lot of ways, torture, where in
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: other Western countries, they focus on rehabilitation.
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so I think that the image that a lot
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: of people have in their mind, I think they over-dramatize
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: the gang thing, and they think that everyone just is
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: raping each other all day, every day, and I think
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: that some of it is, it's not as bad as
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: they make it seem, but then in other ways, it's
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: much worse than what people imagine. I mean, There was
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: three or four stabbings or cuttings every day in Elmira
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: where I was, and there was plenty of gang activity
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: and lots of violence that didn't involve weapons. The guards
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: were very disrespectful, and most of them, not all of them,
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: they were very disrespectful, and just, you know, the medical
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: care was terrible. The food was terrible as well. So
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: I would describe it as a nonstop obstacle course featuring
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: the guards, civilians, and inmates all as obstacles to the
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: main objective, which was to try to prove your innocence
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: and regain your freedom. It was every day a living hell,
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: without a doubt.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: And to stay alive.
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: And to stay alive. Yeah, every time I left my cell,
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: I never knew if I was going to make it back.
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: When I arrived in Elmira, the guards asked me, you
• 44:51
  Speaker 4: want to go into protective custody because of your charges
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: and how young you are, and this increases the likelihood
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: of you being a victim. And I asked them, well,
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: what's that? And they explained to me, well, you know,
• 45:02
  Speaker 4: you would be in your cell like 23 hours a
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: day and you know, you wouldn't go to programs, but
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: then again, nobody would be able to harm you. And
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: I quickly on the spot, I made a decision. Imagine
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: making this decision, going down this line of reasoning, right?
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: At 17 years old. I just thought to myself, you
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: know what? I'm already here. I'm not going to agree
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: to make my time even worse. So I'm not taking
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: this protective custody. I'm going to go to general population.
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: I'm going to take my chances. And you know what?
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: If somebody kills me, Well, I guess I don't have
• 45:33
  Speaker 4: to worry about doing this life sentence that I've been
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: given for a crime I didn't commit.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, it's unbelievable. So you come out, Jeff,
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: finally exonerated. You've proven what you've known all along. But
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: now you face a whole other set of obstacles. How
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: did you transform yourself? Because at one point you were
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: almost homeless.
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: Correct. Yes, exactly. I almost went to a homeless shelter.
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: I lost a temporary apartment that this religious community was
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: putting me up in. Nobody would take me in. Thank
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: God for Mercy College, which had given me a scholarship
• 46:10
  Speaker 4: to finish the bachelor's degree because I was 30 credits
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: short of that at the time that former Governor Pataki
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: had cut the funding for that. So that made its
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: way into the newspaper. And so Mercy College gave me
• 46:23
  Speaker 4: the scholarship and the meal plan. And when I lost
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: the housing, they allowed me to stay in the dorms.
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: I was never able to obtain gainful employment because I
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: didn't understand the technology. All the potential employers wanted somebody
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: who could hit the ground running rather than some little
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: bit of patience on the job training. I did get
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: a job as a weekly columnist, but the problem was
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: that it was a weekly newspaper, and so they only
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: wanted one article a week. I was making like $ 250
• 46:51
  Speaker 4: an article, which is really good, but that was the
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: only income I could count on per month. I started
• 46:57
  Speaker 4: doing speaking engagements, but that's almost like being an actor.
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: You only get paid if you get booked, and that
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: wasn't consistent. So it was very tight financially, and then
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: I had to deal with all the psychological after effects
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: of my experience, and then the technology, and then just
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: being just straight up lonely and depressed because there was
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: no social circle that I had, and I wasn't able
• 47:21
  Speaker 4: to make another one.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: You really were alone in the world in a lot
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: of ways. But somehow or other, you have transformed yourself literally, figuratively, physically, mentally, spiritually.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: And I think everybody can learn from that. I have.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, I've learned a lot from hanging out with you.
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: And we've had a lot of laughs over the last
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: several years. But you're doing so much good stuff now.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: And you're taking your experience and applying it. in the
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: real world in a way that's already having a very
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: positive impact. And talk a little bit, Jeff, about your
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: education and your goals and what you're doing now with
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: your foundation. You've been able to help exonerate other people.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: How incredible is that? I mean, that's got to be a.
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: It is a storybook.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: It is.
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: I'm beside myself about that. It's incredible.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: No, I can see how you're lighting up right now.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: Talk about it. I've seen you around those guys, and
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: it is the best feeling. It's why all of us
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: in this movement do what we do, because it's an
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: unbelievably great feeling to be able to see somebody like you,
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: thanks to the help of the Innocence Project and other
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: great organizations, be able to come out and get your
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: life back on track.
• 48:29
  Speaker 4: Sure. So from finishing the bachelor's at Mercy College, I
• 48:33
  Speaker 4: then graduated the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, got
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: the master's degree with my master's thesis on wrongful conviction
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: causes and other reforms. And I'm in my second year
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: now at the Elizabeth Hobbs School of Law at Pace University.
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 48:48
  Speaker 4: So in terms of my foundation, after being home for
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: five years, very difficult five years as we've went over,
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: I was able to receive some financial compensation and I
• 48:59
  Speaker 4: decided I wanted to go from being an individual advocate.
• 49:03
  Speaker 4: I mean, I used to, I was doing presentations and
• 49:05
  Speaker 4: doing media interviews and lobbying elected officials and going to
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: legislative hearings and It was part of the effort where
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: we fought off capital punishment reinstatement efforts in 2007 in
• 49:17
  Speaker 4: collaboration with New Yorkers Against the Dead. Penalty. And I
• 49:20
  Speaker 4: was involved in the successful campaign repealing the death penalty
• 49:24
  Speaker 4: in Connecticut. So doing all of that as an individual advocate,
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: and it wasn't enough. I wanted to get into the
• 49:32
  Speaker 4: exoneration game. You know, I was tired of helping out
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: on cases on the peripheral, and I wanted to be
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: more directly involved. So when I received some compensation, I
• 49:43
  Speaker 4: decided to take things to the next level, open a non-profit.
• 49:46
  Speaker 4: So I committed a million and a half dollars of
• 49:48
  Speaker 4: that compensation, and we opened the Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation for Justice.
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: And our goal is to exonerate innocent people, both in
• 49:56
  Speaker 4: DNA and non-DNA cases, with a policy change component to it.
• 50:02
  Speaker 4: Our first exoneree was William Lopez, who we helped exonerate
• 50:06
  Speaker 4: collaboratively along with his pre-existing attorneys, Richard Levitt and Yvonne Shivers.
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: We did the investigative work. It's kind of like a
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: building is built and it's missing a section, and we
• 50:15
  Speaker 4: helped put the section in. So Bill was in for
• 50:18
  Speaker 4: 23 and a half years in a wrongful conviction case
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: in Brooklyn, and so that was our first success. A
• 50:25
  Speaker 4: second exoneration was William Hawhey. That was totally in-house rather
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: than collaborative. So William Hawhey did eight years and four
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: months on an arson case in Putnam County. So that
• 50:36
  Speaker 4: place that they brought me to for the polygraph, I
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: was able to reach back there and exonerate somebody there.
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: So a little irony, a little extra satisfaction.
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: Full circle.
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: Full circle. Yeah, so he was in for eight years
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: and four months. We were able to get four other
• 50:49
  Speaker 4: innocent people out through other means, which turned out to
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: be less than exoneration. So Lorenzo Johnson, that was a
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: collaborative effort. We did some investigative work. We were able
• 50:59
  Speaker 4: to convince the parole board in three other cases that
• 51:02
  Speaker 4: our clients were innocent. So that's six people, and we
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: were part of the effort that we got the laws
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: changed in New York on interrogation and ID reform, although
• 51:12
  Speaker 4: they watered that down a bit. And we've been very
• 51:15
  Speaker 4: close the last three years working in collaboration with the
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: group It Can Happen to You, which is a coalition group,
• 51:20
  Speaker 4: which I'm an advisory board member of, trying to pass
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: a bill that would create a commission on prosecutor conduct
• 51:26
  Speaker 4: to an oversight board for prosecutors.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: So this is all amazing, amazing stuff. It is full
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: circle in so many ways. Like most of the other
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: exonerees I talked to, you have committed yourself selflessly and
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: tirelessly to helping other people avoid the same fate that
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: you went through when you could just as easily be
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: off doing whatever you want, and no one would blame you, right?
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: You could be off vacationing, right? But instead, you're channeling
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: all your energy and your money, your personal money into
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: helping others. And that's just a beautiful, amazing thing. And
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: it's one of the reasons why I love being around you,
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: because you're just like a, such a great positive influence
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: on everybody that you touch. So Jeff, we have a
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: tradition here at Wrongful Conviction, which is that at the
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: end of the episode, I like to turn the mic
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: over to you for closing thoughts, anything you want to share?
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: I have a dream. Imagine if there were 25,000 people
• 52:24
  Speaker 4: in the world who could afford $ 3 a month on
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: a recurring basis, who felt that it would be worth
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: it to sacrifice the $ 3 in order to play their
• 52:34
  Speaker 4: part in helping to free wrongfully convicted people. That's a
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: budget of close to a million dollars. If a person
• 52:41
  Speaker 4: goes to Google and types in Duskovic Foundation then Patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N.
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: A link will come up. If they click to that,
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: everything is laid out there exactly how the money would
• 52:54
  Speaker 4: go for lawyers, investigators, paralegals, other essential personnel to really
• 52:59
  Speaker 4: having a robust entity. If we could have these type
• 53:05
  Speaker 4: of results on basically a shoestring budget, imagine if we
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: really were armed for bear. I need people obviously who
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: will be willing to part with the $ 3, but we
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: also need people to help make the campaign go viral.
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: If we could somehow do, we need volunteers to help
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: do that. If we could somehow do that, I mean,
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: we could make a really big dent. I made the
• 53:31
  Speaker 4: big contribution to the organization to give us our running start.
• 53:35
  Speaker 4: We had paid staff and we got some good results.
• 53:38
  Speaker 4: Fundraising didn't go that well. And I had to convert
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: things to where we're a volunteer entity now. We have
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: maybe 14 volunteers, which is great, but you need people
• 53:48
  Speaker 4: to go full-time as opposed to people who are fitting
• 53:51
  Speaker 4: it in, in between their paid work, their personal life.
• 53:56
  Speaker 4: It's great to bring lawyers into cases and connect people
• 54:00
  Speaker 4: with that, like we did with Andy Krivak, and bring
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: lawyers in to do pro bono work after we've screened
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: the case and Yeah, that's nice. But in a lot
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: of the cases, work that could really be done in
• 54:12
  Speaker 4: the course of six months is being done in two
• 54:15
  Speaker 4: years because it's being done on the side as paid
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: cases are done. So I really would love to be
• 54:21
  Speaker 4: able to have a full-time paid staff again. You know,
• 54:25
  Speaker 4: my mission in life is to fight wrongful convictions. And
• 54:29
  Speaker 4: that's how I make sense out of what happened to me.
• 54:33
  Speaker 4: And with that, you know, I want to... Thank you
• 54:36
  Speaker 4: for having me here. And, you know, I think this
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: podcast is an awesome idea. And we need to continue
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: to raise awareness. And this is certainly one of the
• 54:46
  Speaker 4: methods of doing that. So kudos, Jason Flom.
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: Right back at you. Once again, I want to give
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: the website. It's deskovic.org. That's D-E-S-K-O-V-I-C dot org. And go
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: to the website. Learn about the mission. Get involved. You
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: can help. Everybody can make a difference. It starts right here.
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: So this has been an extraordinary experience for me. And
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: I want to thank our amazing guest, Jeff Duskovic, for
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: sharing his experience, strength, and wisdom.
• 55:23
  Speaker 5: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you
• 55:26
  Speaker 5: get your podcasts.
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: It really helps.
• 55:29
  Speaker 5: And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project, and
• 55:31
  Speaker 5: I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
• 55:34
  Speaker 5: important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go
• 55:38
  Speaker 5: to innocenceproject.org to learn how to donate and get involved.
• 55:43
  Speaker 5: I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and
• 55:45
  Speaker 5: Kevin Wardus. The music in the show is by three-time
• 55:48
  Speaker 5: Oscar-nominated composer, Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
• 55:52
  Speaker 5: Instagram at wrongfulconviction and on Facebook at wrongfulconvictionpodcast. Wrongful Conviction
• 55:57
  Speaker 5: with Jason Flom is a production of Lava for Good
• 56:00
  Speaker 5: Podcasts in association with Signal Company No. 1.