Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #014 Jason Flom with Jon-Adrian Velazquez

Transcript

#014 Jason Flom with Jon-Adrian Velazquez · Wrongful Conviction

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: With the police banging on the door, open up.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: The choice to be in that lineup was the last
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: choice I made as a free man. A year later,
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: I ended up writing the system.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be one of those people who everyone
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: in the world is going to think as a monster
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: or suspect as a monster for the rest of my life,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: and I'm just going to have to come to peace
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: with that.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Somebody was able to look at my picture in the
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: database and say that I was somewhere where I definitely wasn't.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: I overheard three of the jailers discussing what part they
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: might have to play in my hanging. They had been
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: told that two prison officers would have to participate in
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: my execution.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Now I walked back inside that prison for the last time. Man,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: all help broke loose.
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: But welcome to another edition of Wrongful Conviction. Today is
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: a very special day because this is the debut of
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: wrongful Conviction behind bars, and our guest today is my
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: dear friend, an innocent man stuck in a nightmare here
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: at Sing Sing Prison. John Adrian Velasquez, also known as JJ.
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: John Adrien Belasquez, convicted of killing a retired New York
• 1:18
  Speaker 4: City police officer during a botched robbery and Harlem, fifty
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: nine year old Albert Ward was killed. Velaskaz was found
• 1:24
  Speaker 4: guilty of second degree murder.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: JJ.
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: Velaskaz was thrown in a lineup and fingered for murdered
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: by a drug dealer who the police threatened with the.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: Rest with no physical evidence. Valaskaz was prosecuted for murder.
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: This sentence twenty five years to life.
• 1:38
  Speaker 5: Valaskaz remains in prison.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: JJ, welcome to the show.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: You're hearing a lot of background noise today, and there's
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: a very simple reason for that, which is that we
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: are inside of Singsing Correctional Facility and it is a
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: noisy place and there's really no getting away from it.
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: I apologize for any distractions that you're going to experience
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: during today's show. We've highlighted the cases of over a
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: dozen people so far who've been exonerated, and my hope
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: is that in bringing more exposure and light to your situation,
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: that this will be another part of the process of
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: getting you out. Because JJ is just as innocent as
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: any of the people who've been on the show, but
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: as of yet, he has not been able to win
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: his freedom. So that's what we're here to talk about today.
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: But before we even get into that, I want to
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: go back. Let's go back to how you grew up,
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: where you grew up. You know, we like to always
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: give a little context.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: Sure, I'm a native New Yorker, grew up in a
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: middle class family home. My mother was a healthcare worker
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: and eventually she went through training and became a union
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: organizer for eleven ninety nine. My father is a former
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: was a former US Army veteran who later became an
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Amtrak police officer. By the age of ten, things changed
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: in my household. I started to realize a lot of
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: arguments and fight to what happening between my parents, and
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: it was because my father was actually living a double life.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: He had two families. I found out for the first
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: time that I had a younger brother that was five
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: years younger than me, half brother from another mother. I
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: was kind of ecstatic to have a brother. At that time,
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: I was young and I was naive, and I didn't
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: really get to see what was about to happen. Because
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: everything changed. The dynamics of my household changed. My father
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: wasn't around as much anymore, and he made it his
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: business to remain present in my life. But it's impossible
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: to be two places at once. And eventually I started
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: to fill that void that I missed with my father
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: by spending more time in the Devil's playground. And for
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: those that are listening that may not understand what the
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: devil's playground is, the streets of New York are harsh,
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: and when you go out there and you start to
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: experience and be exposed to the streets, you start being
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: overwhelmed by certain environmental factors. In my particular neighborhood, there
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: was a lot of negative peer influence and that kind
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: of changed the dynamics of my thinking. It changed the
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: trajectory of my interests, where at one point all I
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: cared about was school, sports, and home. And then a
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: time came where I lost interest in home in school,
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: but I still had that interest in sports. I had
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: this dream because I was good. Baseball was really where
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: I was at a lot of people believed in my talent.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: I had gotten hit by a bus at the corner
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: of my school when I was sixteen days after my
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: sixteenth birthday, and when the doctors told me that I
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: would never be able to compete at the same level
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: that I was used to. That changed my life. That
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: was a crossroad at that point when school went out
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: the window, or when sports went out the window, rather,
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: school went out the window with it, and I started
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: cutting class, and before you knew it, I became so rebellious.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: There were so many arguments in my household with my
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: mom's and I would try to play my father against
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: my mother and my mother against my father. And eventually
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: I just got tired of it all and I ran
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: away from home and in search of my independence. In
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: pursuit of my independence, I found myself homeless. I've had
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: many nights where I went to sleep hungry, and I
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: know what it is to live off of a dollar
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: a salami and a dollar cheese and a stolen loaf
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: of bread. And that's basically where everything started for me
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: as a whole different aspect of living in New York.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: Because I was on my own and I didn't have
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: working papers, I didn't have an ID, I was a
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: high school drop out. I'm running from my mother and
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: my father, so I can't I got to stay away
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: from police. I got to stay away from anybody who
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: can officially report me to my family, and it was
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: a matter of pride, like I left and I didn't
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: want to go back. And then there was also a
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: matter of fear where it was like I'm going to
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: be judged when it gets scolded, you know, So there
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: was shame, There was a lot of different factors playing
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: in and it just made me go deeper and deeper,
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: and it was like, I've realized now that that was
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: the worst choice in my life, because all I did
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: from that point forward was continued to make worse choices
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: that dig the deeper grave.
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: You somehow or other, managed to survive very difficult circumstances,
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: a lot of disappointments, a lot of things that no
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: child should have to go through and end up on
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: the streets.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: But you turned it around.
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: To the extent that you met a great woman, right
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: and you had a couple of kids. Yeah, So how
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: did you go from a sixteen seventeen year old kid
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: on the streets to being a twenty two year old
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: man with a couple of kids and a wife and
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: more of a stable situation.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: So basically what happened is being in the street, I
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: met Vanessa. I met her at sixteen turning seventeen, Eventually
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: I started living with her and her family. He took
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: me in and I was still trying to survive and
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: I was moving too fast for my own good. Before
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: you knew it, I was a father, and that made
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: me start to take life a lot more seriously. And
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to figure out my way and say, all right, listen,
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: I need to do something, and I need to do
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: something to ensure that my family's going to be all right.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: Tried to look for jobs, but again my high school
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: drop out. At that point, I didn't know what skills
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: I may have had that were employable. I was a
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: child trying to find my way. Before you knew it,
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: I was a father with another child on the way,
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: and it was rough. I was basically living off of
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: Vanessa because she was getting welfare and it's all social service,
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: you know SSI. I mean, the rent was under one
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: hundred dollars, so it was affordable, you know. But at
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: the same token, they don't know I'm living there. And
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: it's crazy because yeah, I got arrested a few times,
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: no charges ever, you know, stuck. I've gotten arrested for loitering,
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: I've gotten arrested for all kinds of little nonsense that
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: happens in the neighborhood. They gave me a trespassing for
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: going to see a friend in the projects, because I
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: don't live in the projects. What people need to realize
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: in New York and all over the world is that
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: all it takes for you to be in my shoes
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: is to get arrested, for them to take a picture,
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: for them to take your name and put it in
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: a system, for them to take your fingerprints. That's what
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: starts everything. That's what started for me. Somebody was able
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: to look at my picture in a database and say
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: that I was somewhere where I definitely wasn't.
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: And I want to talk about that for a second, JJ,
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: because I'm very well aware of the fact that in
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: the poorest neighborhoods like the one that you were residing in,
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: they do these sweeps and they'll pick people up for
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: riding a bike on the sidewalk or like you said,
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: visiting a friend. I mean, I'm not sure how that's
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: a crime. You know, trespassing, you could call trespassing anything.
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: I mean, might as well arrest somebody for breathing. It's
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: you know, it's almost a fada compleet. That a young
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: person like yourself, especially a person of color, is going
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: to end up in the system in some form or
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: another for doing the same type of thing that other
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: people in other parts of the city or other parts
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: of the country.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Would not get arrested for.
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: As you said, that starts a chain of events that
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: can only have negative consequences and in your case, tragic consequences.
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: When I tell these stories to people, they go, but
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: that can be like, you can't convict somebody with no evidence,
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: but you can absolutely. So there you were, you have
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: your two kids, You're turning your life around, doing the
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: best you can.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: At the time, Yeah, I was actually a student at
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: TCI Technical Careers in trying to learn about computer programming,
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: trying to get a skill that would be employable.
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: And to your credit, it's interesting because I think for
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: some people, the responsibility of fatherhood, of having become a
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: father at such a young age, causes them to run.
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: But in your case, you took it seriously, and you
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: took it as it actually has an opportunity to turn
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: your life around.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, So one day everything changed.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: It's almost like a blink of an eye. I receive
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: a phone call. It was a Saturday morning, and it's
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: from my brother's mother, Carmen, who I also have a
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: very close relationship with. And basically my license, my driver's
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: license was addressed to my father's address and that's where
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: Carmen and my brother Jason lived. So they went to
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: that apartment at like four in the morning Friday night
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: going into Saturday morning, and they were looking for me.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: You have police officers looking for me, and they tried
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: to even grab up my little brother. Now, at the time,
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: I was twenty one years old, so my little brother
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: being five years younger than me, it's sixteen years old.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: The description was given of two male blacks from twenty
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: five to thirty years old. Why are you trying to
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: grab up this child? Clearly he looks like a child.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: Clearly he doesn't look like me either, and neither one
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: of us appear to be two black men, right, But
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: they're trying to grab him thinking that he's me for
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: whatever odd reason. And then you know, Carmen just makes
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: a big stink and says, do you understand that this
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: is the house of an officer who died within the
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: last ten months. Do you understand what you're doing? You're
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: violating the children of somebody who served this country, just
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: like you. And that's when they were like, they eased
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: up a little bit. They didn't have a warrant for arrest,
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: so they gave her a card and said, listen, you
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: get in touch with mister Velaskis. Please have him get
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: in touch with us. We're trying to help him. I
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: was living in the Bronx with Vanessa and I get
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: this call from Carmen and it's a startling call because
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: she's like, listen, you know, the cops are looking for you.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: They're saying something about you shot a police officer and
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: that you need to call them. They're making it seem
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: very serious. They came in here deep and I'm like, listen, Carmen,
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: what's going on? What are you talking about? I have
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: no idea what you're talking about. Slow down, and she's like, yo, listen,
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: all I know, here's a number they want you to call.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: I'm like, what precinct did they come from? You know,
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: where's this coming from? Listen, here's the name. His name
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: is Joseph latrent That here's his phone number. They told
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: me the precinct at the time, it was a twenty
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: eighth precinct I don't think I even registered that was.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: This four in the morning.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: She called me about nine in the morning. She waited
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: until a decent time I guess to call me. At
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: that point, I started to kind of like panic, and
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: I was frantic. And I have two children. One is
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: a child that's only a few weeks old. I have
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: Vanessa there. And Vanessa realized from the phone call that
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: something serious is going on. But she's like, what's going on?
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, yo, just wait a minute. I gotta
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: process this, like I really don't even know what's going on, Like,
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: let me call my mother. So I called my mother
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: and I'm like, yo, ma, you know they're saying the
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: police are looking for me. She started getting hysterical on
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: the phone what happened, And I'm like, listen, I don't
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: know what happened. I don't know what happened. This is
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: what I know. I know the police are looking for me.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: I know it's the weekend. I know it's not a
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: good time to get into contact with the police because
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: I can't see a judge or anybody else until maybe
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: one day. If they come for me. They're saying this
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: is serious. They're saying I shot a cop. I have
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: no idea what this is about, but I'm scared and
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: I need your help. What are we gonna do? So
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: she's like, stay there, I'm coming. My mother lives upstate
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: at the time, and she came and picked me up
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: and she took me to the church that we used
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: to attend together regularly on the weekend. It's called Love
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: Gospel Assembly. We went to the church and there were
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: a few people there and we started to tell what
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: was going on, but everything was so limited, like we
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: didn't have any real knowledge. And they're saying, listen, the
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: first thing you gotta do is get an attorney and
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: contact the precinct. So we try to figure out, you know,
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: who would be a good lawyer. So I try to
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: speak to a couple of my friends that I know
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: have been involved in the system. Do you know any
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: good lawyers? They tell me a name. His name is
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: Franklin Gould May rest in peace. At this point, I've
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: learned that he has passed away recently. So I'm trying
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: to get in touch with Franklin Gould. Bad part about
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: this again, it's the weekend. How do you get in
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: touch with a lawyer over the weekend? Right, and we
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: were waiting for Frank Gould to get back to us,
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: and in that time, the range of emotions that we
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: went through as a family picture us being in a
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: car driving around aimlessly. It's my mother, me, Vanessa, JJ,
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: which is my son, right, I don't want to confuse
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: nobody and Jacob, and JJ is three years old at
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: the time. Jacob is a few weeks He was born
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: December twentieth, and this is January maybe thirtieth, so he's
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: a little bit more than a month. And we're driving
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: around aimlessly and aimlessly, and every time I see a
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: police car, it's like I get this little chill and
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: I don't know what's going to happen here. Eventually we
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: get in touch with this lawyer. We were outside of
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: a restaurant and I remember I spoke to him briefly.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: I didn't have any information for him. I didn't know
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: what to tell him. He's asking me for information, like
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: I'm supposed to know certain things. I don't know nothing.
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: All you know is that the cops are looking for well, no.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: I didn't even know there was a murder at the time.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: At that point. All I was told was that a
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: cop was shot but I just want to address this
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: and get it over with because the longer I'm out here,
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: the more my life is in jeopardy.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: And he wants you to give him deep tell what
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: you would have to have them.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to tell him, I'm hiring you so you
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: can get the details, right, That's just why I'm calling you.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: So he said that he had contacted the precinct, but
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: that they weren't giving any information. They just wanted me
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: to turn myself in. But I left them on the
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: phone my mother, and when my mother came back, I
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: was so upset. I was scared, but I was so
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: upset that I decided there's no way I want to
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: deal with this guy. Because this lawyer told my mother
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: that if we were to get pulled over by police,
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: that I should put my head down in the ground
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: and that my mother should throw her body over me
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: to make sure that nothing happens to me because I
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: could get shot. And I didn't like that. You know,
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: if anything, he should have said that to me while
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: I was on the phone. You don't see that to
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: my mother had a frantic You know.
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: That's a strange thing for a lawyer to say. I mean,
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: I understand he was in a certain way trying to
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: prevent looking that's a little bit hysterical. Yeah, yeah, and
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: you're absolutely right. I mean he should have addressed that
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: directly with you, right, So you ended up not engage you.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: I didn't engage with him. We ended up dealing with
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: an attorney. I believe his name is Goldstein. I don't
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: know his first name. And he told us to go
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: to a hotel and we got a hotel. We called
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: him from the hotel, gave me the address, and everything
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: is crazy. At this point, Vanessa and my mother go
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: get the hotel room. I'm sneaking in through the back.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: I'm afraid, and I'm staying in the hotel room. I'm
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: waiting for this guy. So this the lawyer comes. He
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: comes to the hotel and he meets me, and he's like,
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: all right, how you doing? This is what's going to happen.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: I contacted the precinct. I told him that I'm arranging
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: to turn you in on Monday, right because it was Saturday. Still,
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: so he says, I'm going to turn you in on Monday.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: Until then, I want you to stay in this hotel room.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: I do not want you to leave this hotel room.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: I want you to shave your face. I want you
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: to be clean shaving. We're going to walk into that
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: precinct early in the morning on Monday, and we're going
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: to deal with this situation. I want a thousand dollars
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: right now. I want one thousand dollars the day that
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: you turn yourself in on Monday, and then you'll be
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: like and Friday you'll be going to an arraignment, and
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: at that point, I want five thousand dollars. And I'm like,
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: what are you not getting I didn't do anything. What
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: are you talking about that? I got to give you money?
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: Now give you money again, then give you money on Friday.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: And you're saying them, spend five days in jail. What
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: are you representing me for? And he's like, listen, I'm
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: just telling you. These are some serious charge. This was
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: going to happen. You want me to be real with
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: you or not? So I give him the money. I
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: gave him the first thousand dollars, and I'm just frantic.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: I don't know what's going to happen. This guy's telling
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: me now that I'm going to jail like it doesn't
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: matter what I did or didn't do I'm going to jail.
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: And let's go back for a second. I mean we're
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: talking twenty years ago. That was a lot of money.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: I mean there's a lot of money. Now, yeah, there's
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: a lot of money.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. He actually said that the case was going to
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: cost fifty thousand dollars before everything was said and done,
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: because I would be going to trial on this case.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: So he basically convicted me before we even got to
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: the precinct. So this is the mindset that I'm dealing with. Already,
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: two lowers have rubbed me the wrong way, and at
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: that time, I'm not measuring if maybe it's because of
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: the emotions that I have something inside of me, maybe
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: it's not them. I'm not thinking like that. I was
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: twenty one years old, and eventually, you know, I just
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: sitting there and I keep staring at my children. I'm
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: staring at for us, and I'm staring at my mother,
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: and I'm saying, this might be the last time I
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: get to see my children, This might be the last
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: time I get to see my mother. How did this happen?
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: It's literally everybody's worst nightmare. Everybody's out to get you.
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: You didn't do anything and it's the most terrible thing
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: that you could be accused of. The murder or the
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: shooting of a police officer is right at the top
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: of them to the list of things that you don't
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: want to be wrongly accused.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: And bear in mind you're talking to the son of
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: a police officer. I was raising a police officer's household, right,
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: I mean, what sense would it make for me to
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: go out on a rampage and shoot a police officer.
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: That's crazy, And you had no history of violence, and
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: none of it adds up. The nightmare is growing as
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: you are encountering these people who are supposed to be
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: on your side, people who are supposed to be helping you. Right,
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: your only chance is to get a lawyer that's gonna
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: represent you. Monday comes.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: Actually the step back just a second. Sunday I get
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: a call from Frank Gould and Frank Gould man is
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: something about this guy. He's a real smooth talker. He
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: made me feel comfortable, and he said, Yo, listen, don't
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: worry about that guy Goldsting. I'm gonna see if I
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: can get the thousand dollars from him. If not, don't
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: worry about it. We're not even talking about money. Right now,
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: You're in a serious dilemma. And guess what, I want
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: to meet you outside that precinct. We're gonna meet in
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: the morning time. I'm gonna walk in there with you.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: We're gonna see what's going on. You wait for my
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: phone call. After my phone call, you meet me in
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: front of the twenty eighth precinct and we'll deal with
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: this situation. Made me feel a thousand times better. I mean,
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: he knew how to talk to me. He's talking to
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: me like, all right, you're innocent. We're gonna see what's
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: going going on, and we're going to play this by ear.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: Not you're going to jail. You're gonna get shot. That's
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: not what somebody wants to hear. And I really respected that.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: And eventually Monday came and that's exactly what happened. We
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: had found out that the apartment in the Bronx thirteen
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: forty four University Avenue, the door to our apartment was
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: hanging off the hinges with a police lock on it,
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: which means that the police had gone into the building,
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: went into my apartment, knocked down the door. They've been
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: in it. They said it was trash. These were neighbors
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: that ended up calling. They got in touch with Vanessa,
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: I believe. So we sent Vanessa home and my mother
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: took me to the priests and to meet my attorneys.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: So now we get to the front and Frank Goule's
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: there with another attorney. Her name is Susan Walsh. We're
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: on the steps. My mother's like, you know you want
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: me to stay and wait for you out here. I said, listen,
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: I don't know what's going to happen. Just go home.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: If anything, I'll take a cab. Just go home. And
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: she's like, all right. I mean, that was the last
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: time I got to touch my mother as a free person.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: It's kind of crazy. And we walked into the precinct
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: and when we went in there, Frank said give me
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: a minute. He left me there with Susan. I remember
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: him coming back and saying, let's go. I said, what
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: you mean, let's go? He said, let's get out of here.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: They don't got no warran for your arrest. So we're
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: walking out and I'm like, listen, Frank, you really have
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: to make me understand what's going on. I've been frantic
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: for an entire weekend, running around with my family, staying
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: in hotels, being threatened by lawyers, and you're telling me
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: we could just walk away from this. And he's like,
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: they don't have a waran for your arrest. So I
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: want you to go home, I said, and then what
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: happens when I go home? I got a door hanging
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: off a hinge. What happens when I go home? Is
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: this over? He said, no, it's not over. I said,
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: what do you mean it's not over? He says, they
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: want to put you in a lineup. I'm not going
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: to let them put you in a lineup. I said,
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: what happens if I don't get picked in that lineup?
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: He says, then you're free. I said, so I'm going
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: in that lineup. He says, no, you're not. Let us
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: do our job. Let them do their job. Okay. I'm like, no,
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: it's not okay. I want to go in that lineup.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: You're telling me that the only way that this is
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: going to be over is if I go in that
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: lineup and I don't get picked. I'm telling you I
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: didn't do this crime. So I'm going in that lineup.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: He says. If you get picked in that lineup, your
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: life is going to change forever. You're going to jail,
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: I said, And what happens if I leave? What are
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: they go pick me up? Put something in my pocket?
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: Or do they shoot at me? Do you realize what
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: I've been through this weekend? I'm going in that lineup.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: And that's exactly what we did. We walked back in
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: that precinct and I volunteered for that lineup. I stood
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: in the bullpen, like the outside area of a bullpen,
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: sitting in a chair with Susan wallsh for a couple
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: of hours while they went and got some fellers.
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: And this is a bizarre part of the story too,
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: because at this point it's interesting and it's important that
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: you highlighted that you just spent the weekend like a
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: fugitive hiding out.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: It's exactly when we come.
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: To find out they don't even have a warn for
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: your arrest. Now you're volunteering for a lineup, which you
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: would be a little nuts if you were actually guilty
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: to go and do that. Absolutely that that doesn't add up,
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: And then you know, you don't have to be a
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: professor of criminology to understand that, right, And then on
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: top of that, you didn't know this at the time,
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: But the suspect they were looking for was a guy
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: named Mustafa.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Is any part of your name Mustafa?
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: Absolutely?
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: And the suspect they were looking for was a black
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: mail with dreads right, right? Have you ever been a
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: black mail or had dreads?
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: Maybe in another life?
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: Right, So it would be pretty much it would seem
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: like an open and shot situation. And there were numerous
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: witnesses who all agreed on this description. It wasn't like
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: it was one that said this and one that said that.
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: There were numerous witnesses who all said that the suspect
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: that the police were looking for was a guy whose street.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Name was Mustafa.
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: And I want to encourage people to watch the show
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: on jj coul Conviction, because in it you'll see the
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: actual police sketch, which it doesn't look any more like
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: you than it looks like me.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: It's a guy, It's a black guy with dreads.
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: Had you known that, it would have been perfectly logical
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: for you to go into the lineup. And I think
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: people can identify with the idea that you're going in
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: there and saying, well, I mean you grew up as
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: the son of a police officer. You're going to say
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: to yourself, well, the system is going to work.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: Absolutely right.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: I mean that was my belief, right, You're going to
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: go in there and there's no way that somebody's going
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: to pick you out of that lineup, even not knowing
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: what we just talked about, right, But had you known that,
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: you would have been one hundred percent sure that if
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: you go in there, they can't pick you out of
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: that lineup. So finally, now you're going into the lineup. Yes,
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: and got to be a surreal experience too. It was
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: like kind of right out of a movie, right, so
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: for this time, you're not watching, you're actually in it.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: Well, that was my second time ever being in a lineup.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: The first time I was a student at Martin Luther
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: King High School and they had this little bus coming
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: around and they were offering us five to appear in
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: the lineup. And I took it five hours, you know,
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: take that, and I went to a lineup. So it
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: wasn't the first time I was in a lineup, but
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: it was the first time I was in the lineup
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: as a suspect. And you know, I don't know what's
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: going on on the other side. If there's a mirror
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: there and I don't know what's going on the other side,
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: but I do know that Susan Walsh is on that side.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: So what happened was when Frank Goule finally realized that
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: I was determined to go into that priest and volunteer
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: for the lineup, he said, listen, if you're going in
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: for the lineup, you're going to stay here with Susan.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: I have to leave because it would be a conflicent
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: interest for me to be your witness and your attorney.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: So she's an attorney and she is your witness. And
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: that's basically where I still felt comfortable, because I was like,
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: she's there, and I'm going to be all right. And
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: sure enough, at some point told number three to stand
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: and approach the mirror, and then they told him to
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: sit down. Then they said number two, we need you
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: to stand up and approach the mirror. And I did
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: that and I sat back down. They said everybody said
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: thank you. Here it's like a speaker somewhere in the
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: room and he's like, thank you. Be there. Shortly somebody
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: comes and opens the door and says everybody can leave.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: I start to get up. He's like, no, you stay,
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: so I don't know if I have to fill out
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: some paperwork or something before I leave, but I said,
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: all right, I sit down. Eventually they take me around
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: back to the same room and Susan's there and she's like, Jay,
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry, but you're gonna be staying. I said, what
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: are you talking about. I'm gonna be staying. She said,
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: you know you were picked, but there's some serious problems
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: with your lineup. They made me wear a hat. I
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: don't know that that's a problem then, but they made
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: us all wear these black pullover hats, winter hats, ski hats.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: They had a problem with fillers. But at the end
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: of the day, there's an existing affidavit from Susan Walsh.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: She's admitting that my lineup was manipulated on that day,
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: and unbeknownst to me, what she's saying is that she
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: had an argument with the police officers about my position.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: She wanted me between number five and number six and
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: they said, nah, we're not doing that. Here he's sitting
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: right there, he's number two.
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: They didn't want you to be between five and six.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: They wanted you to be number two. What is the
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: significance to.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: That, Even towards trial. I really didn't understand the significance
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: of it. But now in all my studies, it's supposed
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: to be kind of a random process. And there's a
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: lot of studies going on now about sequential lineups and
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: double blind lineups. By putting me in a certain position,
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: it can be inferred that you have already told these
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: witnesses that an individual that committed the crime is going
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: to be sitting in a particular position, right, So that
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: would enable the identification.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: Of course, they could say up front, you know, take
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: a real close look at number two, right, they could say,
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: And that's why a double blind and for those of
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: you listening, a double blind means that the person conducting,
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: whether it's a police officer or anyone else conducting the lineup,
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: should not know cannot know who the suspect is, because
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: even if their intentions are pure, they subconsciously can steer
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: a witness absolutely to just sort of take another I mean,
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: you're doing good. I know this is very difficult for you,
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: but you know you got to really try hard. Because
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: we've seen it many times. A witness will say, I
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: don't know, I don't I don't think I see the
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: person in it. Go, well, listen, I mean, we really
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: need your help. You know, this is a brutal crime,
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: this is a we've got to get this guy off
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: the streets. What they should be saying is, we don't
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: know whether the actual killer, the actual perpetrator, is in
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: this lineup. Absolutely, but if you see them, then we
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: need your help. But they don't do that.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: They don't.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: Typically they they.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: And they may in many cases, and we don't know,
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: but in your because we don't know what was going
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: on in that room. But it's entirely possible that in
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: your case, that your suspicions are true. That they said,
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: we think we got the guy. We think it's number two.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Take a look. Let's see if you agree.
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: Anything like that, even something much more subtle than that,
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: can really terribly mess up the process and eliminate objectivity.
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: But even their memories far from perfect, because.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: That's what a lineup does. Who looks most like the individual,
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: it's not who looks most like the individual who did
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: it right. That's why we're here. And I was selected
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: by three individuals, Philip Jones, Robert Jones, who were both brothers,
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: and Augustus Brown. Later learning that Augustus Brown had actually
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: been the person who selected my photo which made me
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: a suspect, so there was really no need for him
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: to come and identify me again. So if you look
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: at it in a realistic manner, at the lineup, there
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: were only two people who really identified me because Augustus
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: Brown had already made me a suspect. But technically all
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: three of those individuals had of five individuals had identified me.
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: And we know that Augustus Brown had a very good
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: reason to want to identify you because Augustus Brown was
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: a heroin dealer. Yes he was so not somebody you
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: would consider to be a top notch witness or a
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: reliable witness necessarily, and he had a motivation which was
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: that when he was picked up, and correctly, if I'm wrong,
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: when he was picked up he was in possession of
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: ten bags of heroin, Yes he was, and the cops
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: weren't letting him leave until he identified somebody they wanted
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: this case soft.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Augustus Brown is an interesting character all to himself.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: He has a rap sheet that we can stick on
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: the wall and drop to the floor, but in reality
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: he was actively on probation at that time. We come
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: to find out a trial that he wasn't reporting, so
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: he had already abscounded from probation right this, which is
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: why he fled before any police would arrive. When he
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: gets picked up, because he didn't come to the priestint voluntarily,
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: they he was sent multiple messages to come to the precinct.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: He was arrested on a street corner that he sold
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: drugs on. He did get caught with ten bags of
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: heroin on him. He was brought to a precinct and
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: he spent hours in that precinct. He came about three
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: o'clock and he wasn't let go until about eleven o'clock
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: at night from a different precint. He has stated on
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: multiple occasions that he was wrong and that he was
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: forced to do what he did. And there's layers to this.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: So when he was at the precinct, they were trying
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: to time in as an accessory to murder. They told
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: him we got you in possession of drugs. It violated
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: your probation, and you fled the scene. And we have
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: witnesses who think that you were a part of the team.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: So you're going to be charged with accessory to murder
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: if you don't help us do something he looks at
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: thousands of photos. It's supposed to be eight photos per page,
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: and he looked at a total of one hundred and
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: fifty six pages. But if you look at the description
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: that he initially gave to the police, which was consistent
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: and unanimous in the descriptions provided by all witnesses, that
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: stated that two black males came into that place and
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: victimize these individuals. One was dog skin and one was
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: light skin. The light skin individual had dreads or braids.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: I don't know which one. Some of them said braids,
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: some of them said dreads.
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: By the way, it's also arguable that your picture shouldn't
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: have been in there in the first place, since you
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: were never convicted of any of it. Freedom Agenda is
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: a proud sponsor of this episode of wrongful conviction. Freedom
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: Agenda is led by people directly impacted by incarceration, and
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: they're organizing to get Mayor Eric Adams to follow the
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: law and shut down Rikers Island. Right now, thousands of
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: people are awaiting trial there in life threatening conditions. Freedom
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: Agenda is committed to creating a safer and more just
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: city by winning investments in long neglected communities, protecting the
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: rights of people involved in the criminal legal system, ending
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: the cycle of violence that rikers perpetuates. To learn more
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: about the Campaign to Close Rikers and to sign up
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: for Freedom Agenda's mailing list, go to Campaign to Close
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: Rikers dot org, slash, get involved, or follow at Freedom
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: Agenda and Why on social media. Back to where we
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: were at. You're now in this kafka esque and I
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: always say that, but it's true nightmare where you're ready
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: to leave the police station. You know they must have
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: identified somebody else or nobody because you didn't do anything
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: and you don't even know it. But you don't match
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: the description, not even close.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: But they tell you to day.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so they tell me to stay. Susan says, listen,
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: we'll see you in court tomorrow. You'll be arraigned, and
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: we'll take it day by day, take it one step
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: at a time. In the meantime, before I leave, I
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: want you just to be conscious of something. We told
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: these offices that we took pictures of you and your
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: underwe in a hotel, and that if they touch you
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: they will be losing their job. So you should feel safe.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: You should be all right. Do not speak to them
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: about anything. And from that point I was escorted into
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: this small cage that had a concrete slab and a
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: bunch of bars, and I stood theify I don't know
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: how long, and you know, it was real. It was
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: a real, surreal experience where it was just like, you
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: know what, you gotta realize at this point, you just
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: have to block everything out and deal with the situation,
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: you know what I mean. Don't talk to them, don't
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: ask them no more questions, don't provoke them, just deal
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: with it. And that's what I did. Eventually we got
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: to Central Booking, and Central Booking is like another zoo,
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: right they heard you from one place to another. You
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: shackled up on a chain gang. You got shackles on
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: your feet, and you go from one bullpen to another bullpen,
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: and it's twenty thirty of you moving. At the same time,
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: people are sitting on the floor. You have homeless people
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: in there. The smell is crazy. Some of these places.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: The plumbing is all messed up, so you might have
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: some feet season and toilet or some urine in the toilet,
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: might have urine on the floor because it might have
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: flowed out, you know, And it's just a bunch of
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: people around and you're lucky if you get a bench
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: to sit on or whatever. And they kept moving, moving
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: the chain, moving the chain, and eventually you get to
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: this place and they start taking your stuff out of
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: your pockets and they're searching you on the wall. And
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: that's when I had my first serious experience with corrections officer.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: Just out of nowhere, towering office, A big hits me
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: in the back and I never knew that you can
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: get your wind knocked out from getting hit in the back.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: Knocks me, knocks me down. I'm conscious, but I'm just
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: like blown away and he's just wailing at me, and
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: I'm just covering up officers that brought me in. They
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: were still around and they had stopped them. They say, oh, listen,
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: leave them alone. You can't do that. He's like, yeah,
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: but he killed a cop. He thinks he's a tough guy. Oh,
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: I'm a tough guy. And I'm like, yo, I don't
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: know what's going on. And what ended up happening at
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: that point was they moved me and I got separated
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: from the rest of the prisoners and I got put
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: in a bullpenp by myself. I can still see prisoners
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: in a bullpen adjacent from me right across it got
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: bullpens everywhere. But I'm by myself now, so I definitely
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: have all the room to stretch out and lay down
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: and do whatever on a bench. That wasn't the problem.
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: But I start to realize the fear of what that
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: lawyer was talking about that first time when he told
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: my mother that this is serious, and I'm wondering how
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: much more do I have to go through? And he
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: had before I'm able to get out. Fortunately for me,
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: I never had that problem again. But that's where I
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: first got a taste of reality. The next day came
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: and I go into another bullpen where they have these
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: windows that you can have attorneys come visit you, so
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: they call your name. So eventually my name gets called
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: and I go in there and it's another attorney. It's
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: not frankl it's not Susan Wallash, somebody never met in
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: my life. His name is Norman Rima. And Norman Riema
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: comes and he tells me, says, listen, mister Velasquez, we're
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: about to go in front of the judge and you're
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: going to be arrainged. But I just want to put
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: you on point to a few things that are important.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: You're being charged with capital murder. I said, what is that?
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: He says, you're facing the death penalty. I said, what
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: the death penalty? I mean, I don't understand what's going on.
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: And everything is spinning. The walls are spinning. Norman Reema
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: is talking. It's incoherent. I don't know what you're saying.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: I don't hear you. I block everything out, and I
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: just I don't know how I got to that point.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: And at that point, I don't even know how I
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: coped with that, How I dealt with that, I don't know.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: I went into some short sense of trauma and I
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: became numb. I do recall him saying, don't worry about
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: the death penalty, which was didn't do any good, right,
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: But he said, don't worry about the death penalty because
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: Robert Morgenthal has never pursued the death penalty in New York.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: So within six months they'll probably drop that and you'll
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: be facing natural life in prison. And I said, Norman,
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: I didn't commit this crime. Why are we talking about death?
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: Why are we talking about natural life? Why aren't we
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: talking about freedom? Why aren't we talking about restoring my status?
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: As a citizen, and he's like, listen, you just have
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: to stay strong. But you're not going nowhere. You're not
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: getting bail. You're gonna have to go through this process.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: I said, well, how long is this process going to take?
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: And he said anywhere from six months to a year,
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: maybe two years. There's no telling. You just gotta stay
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: strong and talk about a turning point in life. Everything
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: changed from there. I got sent to Rikers Island. Ryk
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: As Island is a war zone. You know, they call
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: that the school a hard knocks, but it's more like
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: Vietnam or going to Iraq because everywhere you go there's blood.
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: And that's all that happens is humans shedding other human's blood,
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: and you see it everywhere. There's no way around it
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: to fight after fight. I mean, I don't know how
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: is it able to navigate through a lot of that,
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: But I made it through. I have no scars, I'm
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: still safe, I'm in one piece, and I'm blessed. Eighteen
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: months I did on Rykers Island. Eighteen months. I was
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: able to navigate through the bull and eventually I went
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: to trial. And going to trial was the first time
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: I get to learn how everything unfolded and took place.
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: Because for all those months I still couldn't understand what's
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: going on. How did it happen, what took place? Why
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: am I here? Those questions weren't answered. They weren't answered
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: by my lawyers. They just stay strong, John, We're gonna
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: make it through and worry about it when we get
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: to trial. We mean, don't worry about it. Life continues,
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: It doesn't stop for anyone. My children are growing. I
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: watched Jacob's first steps. We're in a visiting room on
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: Rikers Island. For me, the first time I seen my
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: son come to me. He's daddy walking. He's smaller than
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: the table. I raised my children in prison. That wasn't easy,
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: and looking back at it now, I can't even take
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: credit for raising my children. Actually, So I go to trial,
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: and during the trial I start to learn things. I
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: learned that this cop tried to interfere with the robbery
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: that was taking place because he owned the establishment, and
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: I knew that relatively early, as a retired police officer
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: who owned the gambling place. He also owned the Basket
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: Robbins one hundred and twenty Fifth Street. He also owned
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: some print shop and another bar own a lot of
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: establishments for a police officer or a retired police officer rather,
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: and he had this legal gambling spot and somebody came in.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: They're saying to shoot him, this light skinned guy with
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: these braids or these dreads, and he came in. He
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: tried to place a bet. And this spot is one
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: hundred and twenty fifth Street between hundred twenty fifth and
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: one hundred twenty six and eighth Avenue. So this guy
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: comes in, it's broad daylight, somewhere around noon, and he
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: comes in, he places a bet. So when he comes
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: into place to bet, the guy's like, yo, listen, we
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: don't do that here. You're a stranger. To get out
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: of it. And he's like, I ain't no stranger, man,
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: I'm not a cop from the projects. He said, Yeah,
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: I'm from the projects. I played my number on the
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: east Side. Man, I'm not trying to go down there.
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: Let me just play my number. Say like all right here.
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: So he goes to fill out the betting slip. They
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: said he filled out the wrong slip. This is Robert
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: Jones testifying, right, because I learned everything through testimony. So
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: now Robert Jones says he filled out the wrong betting slip.
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: He takes it, throws it out, and fills out the
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: right slip for him. So then he leaves, he said.
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: Forty five minutes later to an hour later, this guy
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: comes back, knocks on the door. The numbers about to
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: come out. They're not taking more bets, they said, Yo,
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: let him in. Let him in. Worry about he was
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: here earlier. So he's like, yo, want to place another bet?
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: He said, Yo, be BET's a closed, but the numbers
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: about to come out. Just stick around. Next thing, you know,
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: another knock comes on the door, and then the doorman's
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: at the door and he's like, yo, there's another guy here, man.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: We can't keep betting these guys there. Next thing, you know,
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: they said, this light skinned guy pulls out a gun.
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: He's like, you know what it is? Let my man.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: The guy comes in. You know, they tell everybody get
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: on the ground, and I don't know what happened, but
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: there was an exchange of fire and eventually the officer
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: or the retired officer wound up dead on the ground.
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: So the pandemonium inside the bookie joint or the illegal
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: numbers joint is total.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: You've got people being tied up.
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: You've got people jumping over things, you've got gunshots ringing out,
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: you've got people fleeing, and in the process, a retired
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: police officers killed. So here you are at the trial
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: and you're being represented by Norman.
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: Reamer, Norman and Frank Goulden, and now you've.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: Been in the system for eighteen months.
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: At that time. Yes, to be precise, I turned myself
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: in February second, nineteen ninety eight. I walked into that precinct.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: The choice to be in that lineup was the last
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: choice I made as a freeman. I was on trial
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: in October of nineteen ninety nine.
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: Right, so over a year and a half in the
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: most dangerous prison in New York State, which is Rikers Island.
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: So the trial, at the trial, this is where I
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: get the revelation of what occurred. You have several witnesses
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: who come and they testified. What people need to realize
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: is that everybody that was at this illegal gambling spot
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: was engaging in criminal activity. So every single one of
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: those people could have been arrested and charged with a
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: crime where the murder of a retired police officer occurred.
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: So it was serious for all of them. They were
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: all under pressure, and then you have to think about
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: the response. You're talking about the center of Harlem in
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: broad daylight, a retired officer who worked that area, who
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: owned the basket Robbins in that area, was shot and killed.
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: There has to be a response so that the people
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: in that neighborhood, the residents of Harlem, understand that this
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: is not tolerable. There has to be a response for
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: that the people in the residence of Harlem can understand
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: that this is still a safe environment. And that's why
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: there's so much pressure to bring somebody to jail.
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: And you bring up another interesting point, which is that
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: everybody involved had a very strong motive. I want to
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: identify you because it takes the heat off of them.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's as straightforward as it could be.
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: I mean, these are all people who were engaged in
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: the various activities of various different degrees, and the situation
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: provided them a very convenient way to make this problem
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: go away.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: And that opportunity was sitting right in front of them.
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: All they had to do was point to you and
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: say that's the guy who did it. Now you go
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: through the trial, all the evidence has been presented, prosecutors
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: do their thing, the defense does its thing. As we know,
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: the defense did a very competent job in your case,
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: but they were hamstrung by the fact that they didn't
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: have the money to do the proper investigations leading up
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: to the trial. And the fact is that's where the
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: real stuff happens, right, That's where you You can't go
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: into a war with a toy pistol.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: In fact, that's kind of what happens in these cases
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: when you have a defense team that isn't given access
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: to the evidence, that isn't given the resources or the
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: time because they're so busy to properly investigate the situation.
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: And then they're going in there and they're they're doing
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: the best job that they can and presenting the best
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: arguments of the kimp but they don't have the information
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: that they need that Actually, in your case, had they
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: been able to do that, it's almost impossible to imagine
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: that a jury would have convicted you. But that's exactly
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: what happened, and that's why we're sitting here right now,
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: and let's talk about that. So the moment comes when
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: all the evidence has been presented, the jury goes out
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: and They didn't go out for a short time either.
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: They were out for a long time.
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: They started getting their instructions Monday, and they started deliberating Tuesday,
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: and from Tuesday from ten in the morning to ten
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: at night, Wednesday from ten in the morning to ten
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: at night, Thursday from ten in the morning to ten
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: at night, and to Friday, where the judges telling him
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: in the evening, if you do not come back with
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: a verdict, you will be sequested. That means that they
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: were going to be held and they weren't going to
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: be able to go home over the weekend. Probably about
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: another hour later, an hour and a half later, they
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: came back with a verdict and they found me not
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: guilty of murdering the first degree.
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: Right, that was the first ruling. Right, so you had
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: reason to be optimistic. Now all of a sudden, you're like, okay,
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: so not guilty.
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: Murder, not guilty in a first degree, and then guilty, guilty, guilty.
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: I just kept hearing it over and over again. For
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: every other charge. They were charges of robbery, charges of
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: attempt murder, another charge of murder for the same exact
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: crime that I was just acquitted of.
• 47:49
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: The only reason why it was murdering the first degree
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: was because of the occupation, the former occupation of the
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: person who got killed, right because he was a police officer.
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: I was facing the death penalty, but I wasn't facing
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: the death penalty at that particular phase. I was actually
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: facing the same charge one twenty five twenty seven murder
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: in the first degree, natural life in prison, no opportunity
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: for parole, never to be released again. And that's what
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: they acquitted me of. See, but the jury doesn't understand
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: what's going on. In fact, through investigations in another film
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: that's taking place now, I found out that several jurors
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: in that jury room, in that deliberation room, had an
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: impression that I might be able to go home in
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: two years as long as they acquitted me at the
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: top charge and found me guilty of the lesson, and
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: they figured that I was young enough to be able
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: to bounce back from that and continue with my life.
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: I have no idea where they got that impression, because
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: two decades have passed and I'm still in prison.
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: But that's extremely important because now with that information, you
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: can sort of see into the mind of some of
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: the jurors where they're sitting there and you have whatever
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: number of them, two, three are going the guy didn't
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: do it. The guy didn't do it, and the other
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: guys are going, I want to go home, and he's
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: only going to be in for two years. Just go
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: along with us. Maybe he did it, maybe he didn't.
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: We can't sit here all weekend. I got things to
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: do with my kids. I got to get back from
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: whatever the hell they're saying.
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: Right, absolutely, and it's obvious that this occurred because it
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: took four days to come back with a verdict, So
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: there was obviously some dissension in that room.
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, if it was a clear cut case, they would
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: have been out of there in an hour. They would
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: have stayed for lunch. So now you're found guilty on
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: all these charges, you end up in this unbelievable situation.
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: And here we are, right now inside the walls of
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: sing Sing, almost twenty years later. How did you manage
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: to cope? Where does that spirit come from?
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: It was an organic process, so it wasn't a methodical process.
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: It wasn't thought out. It just kind of occurred. Basically,
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: how I saw life was once I got out the fog,
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: Because it took me a few years to get out
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: the fog. What I realized is that life is about balance.
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: So I'm at a low, the lowest that could possibly
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: be to be alive on earth. I consider my circumstances
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: being buried alive. I say that a lot. I still
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: believe that, and I have this philosophy about time, and
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: I said, I've been sent to twenty five of life.
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: I wasn't even twenty five years old when that happened,
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: So I was looking at a portion of time that
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: I hadn't even lived yet under the circumstances that I
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: was in, and I couldn't see that. So I had
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: to start lying to myself. And I didn't realize they
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: were lies then. But twenty years lady, you look back
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: and you say, every year I told myself it would
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: be my last in prison. I did that for nineteen years,
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: and I'm still here. So I was lying to myself,
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: not knowing. But it was that sense of hope that
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: allowed me to rise from the ashes of oppression into
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: this resilient spirit that I've acquired. And the balance was
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: about how do I reach beyond the boundaries of prison
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: and become a person who's felt outside of those boundaries
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: how can I help others live? And that's where I
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: started to acquire a love for writing, because my letters
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: can reach outside the walls. My voice wasn't out yet,
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: but I utilize writing, and you can change your life
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: in prison. So instead of just taking time, the way
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: I look at it is this. My philosophy personally is
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: that life is precious, There's no doubt about that, and
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: time is priceless. And why is time priceless Because our
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: lives as humans are being measured by the time that
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: we spend a live on this earth. And if I'm
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: going to be spending all this time in prison, where
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: I don't have particular responsibilities to anything except for my
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: children and my mother, then I can utilize this time
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: to learn because I have access to read. So I
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: start reading, and I start listening, and I start watching,
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: and I start observing, and I start to realize that
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: there's an untapped pool of resources in prison that exist.
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: What I'm around is a compounded environment that's actually a
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: microcosm of society. And the majority of the individuals that
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: I'm around are the people who took the wrong path
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: in life. So by sitting down and speaking to them
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: and learning what caused them to come across this path.
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: I've found answers that we can utilize as preventative measures.
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: So now I've learned to take the tools that are
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: around me and utilize them to spread the word, become
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: a voice for the voiceless, and try to create healthy
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: communities from the inside out. And that's how these projects
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: started to take place. We have a project called Voices
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: from Within right now. Voices from Within are a group
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: of individuals or are using the power of their testimony,
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: guilty individuals that are using the power of their testimony
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: to reach out to the youth and tell them you
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: don't want to do this.
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: And I've seen the Voices from Within and I recommend
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: anybody check it out. It's so powerful because because there
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: are people who shot someone, killed someone, they've they've taken life,
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: and they have such an incredible sense of remorse and
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: responsibility for their actions, and they're channeling it into a
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: need to help others not make those same mistakes. There's
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: one that sticks in my mind. The guy who you
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: know was in the movie theater right and you know what,
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: think a rival gang or something like that started shooting
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: and he shot back in the dark and shot an
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: innocent person, and you know, you almost put yourself in
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: that situation, and it's so vivid when you see him
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: talk about it and the pain that he feels of
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: having taken away as he says, the son of somebody,
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: or the brother or the it's a very very powerful
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: thing and a very positive thing that's turning a negative
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: invitory positive. Aside from the voices from within, there's a
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: number of other things that you've accomplished in prison. Absolutely,
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: why don't you just run through some of the laundry
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: list of things?
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: For me, these weren't tasks. This was a lifestyle that
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: I've adopted. So in running through them, a lot of
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: them are vivid. But I never realized how much I've
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: actually accomplished until I was tasked with putting this together
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: for clemency. It all started with a think tank in
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: an inmate organization, and before you knew it, I became
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: the community organizer of the facility and I started getting
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: involved at anything that's positive or if anybody needed help
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: how to put something together. I had this tenacity that
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: was inherent to just be able to put things together,
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: and we started doing it. When I came to this facility,
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: there were a lot more options available. Sinsing is the
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: big house of New York. It's the prison right but
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: it has been redubbed into sing Sing University and a
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: documentary about Hudson Link that has been on HBO. So
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: I started to go to college, right. I started to
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: acquire a degree in behavioral science, and I started to
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: apply what I was learning between that and what I've
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: learned on my own and what was happening in organizations.
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: And then I found like minded individuals and we called
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: ourselves the Forgotten Voices, and we said, you know what,
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: we need to reach out to people who can make
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: and affect change. So it's teaching children, and we're working
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: with the children of incarcerated parents because they're the closest
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: ones to us, but we're trying to work with all children,
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: and we're trying to reach out through organizations to help
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: children choose better options in life and utilize the experiences
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: of those who have choosed bad options in life as
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: a platform of experience to learn from, saying you don't
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: have to come here to learn this, you can be better.
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: And it's so important because we know that number one
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: factor that determines whether a child will end up in
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: prison is not education or race or socioeconomic factors. It's
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: whether or not they've had a parent in prison. So
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: the idea that you're able to interfere and intervene, i
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: should say, and help to prevent that from happening, is
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: so critical in stopping that pipeline, because those kids deserve.
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: As much of a chance as anybody else.
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: I think what's important to discuss when we discuss the
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: projects and what I've accomplished with these projects, is to
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: talk about how it really came to where it is today. Right,
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: So what ended up really occurring was in two thousand
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: and two, an individual came into my life. His name
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: is Dan Slepian. He's a produci of NBC and he
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: did the documentary Conviction. He did the investigation that proves
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: that I am an innocent man. And February twenty twelve,
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: when that documentary aired, I was already heavily active in
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: positive endeavors in prison, but when it aired, so many
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: people reached out to me. And I'm talking about young people,
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: old people, all kinds of people all over the world,
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: but in particular, there were young people reaching out to
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: me and telling me that my story changed their lives.
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: Some of them were actively involved in the street life
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: and realized that if an innocent man can come to prison,
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: then I'm really getting there and I might be the
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: next one. And what that did was because in going
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: back again, we're going to go back and forth. In
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: two thousand and four, I was the captain of Youth
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: Assistance Program in green Haven and I used to deal
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: with youth and we give them tours of the prison
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: and we deal with them on a therapeutic manner. So
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: from seeing how film works and seeing that for years
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: I've been trying to get my voice outside the boundaries
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: of this wall to reach people, to enact change in
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: these communities and to change people lives, I realized that
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: the media is a tool to be able to get
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: us to them. Because the problem we had when I
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: was upstate in the Youth Assistance program was the resources
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: to get the children to the prison so that we
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: can speak to them. We were having an effect on them,
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: but if we only saw them one time, we would
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: never see them again because the resources to get them
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: up there that one time was hard enough. To get
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: them to come back and do a reinforcement project was
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: even harder. But I realized that we can bring the
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: youth Assistance program to them by doing this. And in
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: the same time, other individuals in prison were reaching out
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: to me and saying, I'm innocent too, I need help,
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: I need the type of help that you have. And
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: I started passing names on to Dan Slepian right, and
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: these individuals have gotten out of prison. Eric Glistens served
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: seventeen years for a crime he didn't commit. He was
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: featured on Dateline, a Bronx tale that was our work
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: Johnny Encopier. His case was just dismiss this last week
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: in Manhattan court. Another individual we have, Richard Rosario, a
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: very dear and personal friend of mine, as is Eric Glisten,
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: twenty years for a crime in commit shot him down
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: in the courts all the way through. Six months later,
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: the influence of media and a new prosecutor going into
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: the Bronx became the perfect storm. And now he's a
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: free man. And these are individuals I've been around. I've
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: been around so many individuals who have been released over
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: this time. This is like a whole nother life that
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: I've lived in here, the ability to affect change in others' lives,
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: and to see innocent men become free men based upon
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: work that we've done together, To see prisoners who have
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: taken lives trying to give back to life. To see
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: all of these things taking place in the most unlikeliest
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: place is amazing. And it's the driving force that keeps
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: me vigilant, that keeps me alive, and that keeps me
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: resilient to despite my circumstances, despite the devastation and the
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: trauma that we've had to go through. Just think about this.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: My children for the first ten years of my incarceration,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: remember one was just a month old, one was three
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: years old. They spent five days in school and one
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: day in prison because my mother brought them up religiously
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: every week. My mother worked hard as a union organizer,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: five days working, coming up one day bringing two young
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: children to prison. What kind of social life did they have?
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: They've experienced severe trauma. Vanessa, her and I were together.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: We were going to raise our children together. We're not
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: together anymore, but I don't blame her. I was facing
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: twenty five years in prison. We weren't twenty five years old.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: I left her with an unfair burden of having to
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: raise two children in a broken home, a home that
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: was broken by an egregious miscarriage of justice. The trauma
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: just continues to spread throughout the community. When an innocent
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: man is convicted, he's not the only person who experiences
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: the trauma. As a result, the entire community will be
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: affected because of the children, because of everything. You ask
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: me what the worst thing that I've experienced in prison.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: The worst thing that I've experienced in prison is that
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: my son became a victim to prison. My son came
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: to prison because I wasn't there to guide him. Okay,
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: he's not innocent, but he if he had me, he
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: would have had a different life. And in that sense,
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: he was innocent. Whatever he got charged for he did,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: but he shouldn't have had to be in a position
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: to be raised without a father and a role model
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: in his life to teach him what's right, to guide
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: them to see yo, listen, I see you going wrong.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: I'm not gonna let you do that to pull him up.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: I don't get that. I get two three hours of
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: his life on a visit every once in a while.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: You think he's given me what he's going through. Nah,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: I'm going on to visit he's telling me I'm fine. Meanwhile,
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: he has to go back and face those demons in
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: the Bronx. It's very unfair getting off the negative note
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: and going to some of the more positive things. Besides
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: the people that I've been able to touch. The thing
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: I'm most proud about throughout this entire ordeal is my mother.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: My mother. She's carried my weight in a devastating way.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: She's the strongest person I know. She's been a father
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: to my children. She's been amazing. I don't know anybody
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: who has the strength that she has and the driver
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: and the determination to carry the burden that was left
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: by this miscarriage of justice. My mother is old man.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: She was young, and she was vibrant. She deserves to
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: have me there taken care of. I'm a holy child,
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: not been in prison. She's been taking care of me
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: since I was born. That's not fair. Forty one years old.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: She deserves better, and she's been through way too much.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: Trauma is different for different people. And while I'm in
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: the experience, prison has taught me that in order to survive,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: you have to become numb. And I've become numb to
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: my environment and the circumstances in it so that I
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: can deal with it. But in some regard, I haven't
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: dealt with it yet, and I don't know what I'm
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: going to and I don't know what's going to happen
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: as a result. But I hope what has happened to
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: others won't happen to me. David Ranter served twenty four
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: years for a crime in commit and within a week
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: of his release he had a heart attack. Within that
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: same year, he had two more. Anthony Yarborough served twenty
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: two or twenty three years for a crime and commit
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: They said he killed his own sister and mother. DNA
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: exonerated him. He died within the year of his release.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: Willie Lopez, personal friend of mine, we worked together, got
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: out of prison after about twenty two twenty three years,
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: and he died within a year of his release. I'm
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: forty one years old. My father died at forty nine,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: and he wasn't killed. People need to understand how serious
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: rawful convictions are. I've been told that eleven million people
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: cycle through the American penal system angrily. Even if we
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: were to imagine a ninety nine percent success rate in
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: the accuracy of convictions. One percent of that eleven million
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: cycle through prison for crimes they don't commit. That's one
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: hundred and ten thousand people on an annual basis, And
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: if they come through for a serious offense, think about
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: the type of time that they have to face. Fernando
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: Bermuda is a personal friend of mine seventeen years. Jeffrey
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: Dskovic personal friend of mine sixteen years. David limis the
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: person who introduced me to Dan Slepian from the Palladium
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: murder fourteen years. Eric Glisson an individual I helped get
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: out seventeen years. Richard Rozario an individual I helped get
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: out twenty years. Johnny and Capier an individual helped get
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: out twenty five years. The list will continue to go
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: on the years go into the thousands.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: People are hearing this story. It's an outrageous miscarriage of justice.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: It's got to be fixed. I'm sure people are wondering
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: what can they do to help? What can they do
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: to help you? In particular? We've talked about things that
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 3: people can do in general on the show. Is there
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: anything they can do to help in this particular situation?
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: And as concise a manner as possible, is there something
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 3: that you would have people do to help, as you've
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 3: helped so many other people reverse their wrongful conviction.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: I always think that we can't make change, but we
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: have demonstrated that we can. And I believe in the
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: power of people. I think I need people, particularly the
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: listeners of this show, to believe in the power of themselves.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: There's a website being utilized to advocate for my freedom.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: It's called free John adriavealaskis dot org j O n
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: ADRII E l A z qu easy. If, however, many
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: people listen to this show with to go and get
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: ten people to sign that petition, we would have thousands.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: I'm a stamp away from anybody who cares. I'm sitting
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: in sing sing correctional facility. My number zero zero a
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: twenty three oh three reach out. I'll tell you how
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: you can help. Go to the website, they'll tell you
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: how you can help.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 3: I think that's the most important thing is go to
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: the website. It's free John adrewandlaskuz dot org. And again
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: that's j O N A d R I A n
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 3: V E l A z que z and then of
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 3: course dot org. So free John adrewandalaskaz dot org. Go there,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 3: learn how you can help. John has generously offered to
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: have people write to him, and like I said earlier,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 3: you should expect a letter back that you're going to
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: think ulmust have had help from a great novelist or
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 3: a professor of English at an Ivy League university.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: But he writes beautiful letters.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: You have already somehow reached society because over the time
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: of Decemble Christmas, I got a stack of mail about
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: this big I appreciate that. Thank you. I want everyone
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: to know how touched I am by their humanity and
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: their opportunity to say, you know what, somebody cares about you.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: And that's some of the energy that I utilize to
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: basically catalyze my drive. So I appreciate it. I want
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: people to be patient. I've been working on a petition
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: for clemency. I've been working on my appeal, but I
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: will try to get back to everyone, and upon my release,
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: I guarantee that I'll be available somewhere on social media
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: and we'll get to everyone.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll have a big party, but everybody's going to
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 3: have to sign some petitions to get in, that's for sure.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: JJ I want to thank you for being on the show.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: I want to thank Revolver Productions for having me. I
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: want to thank you Jason for having me and for
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: doing everything that you have. You're an amazing individual. Thank you.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 3: You've been listening to the first episode of Wrongful Conviction
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 3: Behind Bar, and it won't be the last. I think
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 3: it's very important that we bring these stories to light
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 3: from inside a maximum security prison, in this case Sing Sing.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 3: I want to thank the Superintendent Capra for allowing us
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 3: to film with JJ inside the prison walls. And again
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 3: our guest today, John Adrian Velasquez. John, I'm looking forward
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: to seeing you as I saw Felipe the other day
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 3: on the outside with your family, and it's going to
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 3: happen because we're not going to give up until it does.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 5: Thank you, don't forget to give us a fantastic review.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 5: Wherever you get your podcasts.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: It really helps.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 3: And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project and
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 3: important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 3: to Innocenceproject dot orgorg to learn how to donate and
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 3: get it I'd like to thank our production team, Connor
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 3: Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 3: by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 3: to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 3: Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 3: is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 3: with Signal Company Number one