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#039 Jason Flom with Kian Khatibi · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: I fell into the hands of a corrupt detective.
0:07
Speaker 2: I was naive enough to believe that I would be
0:10
Speaker 2: able to just present all of my proof of actual innocence,
0:13
Speaker 2: that they would investigate adequately, and so that I wouldn't
0:15
Speaker 2: be going to prison because I was a good person.
0:17
Speaker 2: I hadn't do anything wrong.
0:19
Speaker 1: In the back of your mind, you say, well, when
0:21
Speaker 1: we go to a hearing or we go to court,
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Speaker 1: the truth will come out. The prosecution from day one
0:26
Speaker 1: knew I was innocent and let forced testimony go uncorrected
0:30
Speaker 1: from the lower courts all the way up to the
0:33
Speaker 1: United States Supreme Court.
0:36
Speaker 3: You have someone with a badge with ultimate and really,
0:41
Speaker 3: in that moment, unchecked authority.
0:44
Speaker 2: Don't presume that people are guilty when you seem on TV,
0:48
Speaker 2: because it may just be a dirty da that is
0:51
Speaker 2: trying to rise upward.
0:57
Speaker 4: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with
1:18
Speaker 4: Jason Flamm. Today I have very special guests Keon Katibi,
1:23
Speaker 4: who's going to tell you a story that will well,
1:26
Speaker 4: it'll probably blow your mind because it blows mine. Ken,
1:29
Speaker 4: Welcome to the show.
1:30
Speaker 5: Thank you, good to be here.
1:32
Speaker 4: So Keon, ironically, I guess you could say, is from Pleasantville,
1:36
Speaker 4: New York, and you grew up in sort of a
1:38
Speaker 4: nuclear family, sort of a normal childhood pretty much.
1:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was five of us, all about a year
1:46
Speaker 3: year and a half apart, and I'm the number two.
1:49
Speaker 4: And the crux of your story all revolves around a
1:53
Speaker 4: tragic incident that happened in a bar in Pleasantville called
1:57
Speaker 4: lock Stock and Barrel eight.
2:01
Speaker 5: That's where it all started.
2:02
Speaker 4: Yes, that's where it all started. Two people were stabbed
2:05
Speaker 4: in a fight in this bar, and at the time
2:08
Speaker 4: that it happened, you were in the police station, which
2:11
Speaker 4: is just sort of like, I mean, you can't have
2:13
Speaker 4: much of a better alibi than that it was hidden.
2:16
Speaker 4: But there's video that exists that proves that you were
2:18
Speaker 4: in the police station at the time of the stabbing,
2:20
Speaker 4: and yet they managed to convict you. Anyway, So let's
2:22
Speaker 4: go back to that fateful day or that faithful night,
2:27
Speaker 4: I should say, when you were in that bar, What
2:29
Speaker 4: was going on? How did this fight happen? How did
2:31
Speaker 4: you end up going to the police state. I mean,
2:33
Speaker 4: it's all so nuts.
2:35
Speaker 3: Okay, Yeah, that's that's probably a good place to start. Well,
2:39
Speaker 3: I was inside of the bar Lockstock and barrel in
2:43
Speaker 3: the village of Pleusbonville, Westchester County, New York, and i'd
2:48
Speaker 3: just gotten there. I think I was there maybe under
2:51
Speaker 3: ten minutes.
2:52
Speaker 5: And there was a scuffle.
2:54
Speaker 3: There was a I guess a group of young folks
2:57
Speaker 3: and everybody in there was in their twenties, most likely
3:00
Speaker 3: college bar and there was a scuffle and I got
3:03
Speaker 3: pushed on the back and kind of like bumped, and
3:05
Speaker 3: I turned around and somebody grabbed me by the collar.
3:09
Speaker 3: A little shorter than me is stocky guy, and he
3:11
Speaker 3: grabbed me by the collar and starts lifting me up
3:14
Speaker 3: and I put my hand to push him away.
3:17
Speaker 5: He's assaulting me, harassing me at the very least.
3:20
Speaker 3: And at that time, the bouncer was standing at the
3:25
Speaker 3: door and he turned around he saw some kind of scuffle.
3:28
Speaker 3: I'm not sure exactly what was going on. I was
3:30
Speaker 3: just focusing on the guy who had his arm around
3:34
Speaker 3: my collar and squeezing my shirt.
3:36
Speaker 4: That's reasonable, you know.
3:38
Speaker 3: And the bouncer grab my shoulder and says, hey, you
3:41
Speaker 3: got to get out of here.
3:43
Speaker 5: So I left. You know, I obliged.
3:45
Speaker 3: I'm not going to sit there and argue, hey, I
3:47
Speaker 3: deserve to stay, you know, So I walk out, and
3:50
Speaker 3: the bouncer says, listen, I know you weren't involved, but
3:53
Speaker 3: you were the closest guy to me, and I just
3:55
Speaker 3: had to get a grip on the situation.
3:57
Speaker 5: So I left.
3:59
Speaker 3: I went to seven to eleven store to get some coffee,
4:02
Speaker 3: and you know, at this time, in my head, I'm thinking, well,
4:06
Speaker 3: all my friends are inside. I came with them. At
4:10
Speaker 3: this time, I was living in Yonkers, New York, although
4:14
Speaker 3: I'm from Pleasantville, and I was thinking, Wow, how do
4:18
Speaker 3: I get home? Do I go tell my friends? And
4:20
Speaker 3: you know, we're nineteen ninety eight. Everybody doesn't have a
4:23
Speaker 3: cell phone, er nothing like that. That's just not going on.
4:27
Speaker 3: So you know, maybe a few people at that time,
4:30
Speaker 3: if I recall correctly, had what they call pagers. Right, yeah,
4:35
Speaker 3: So I'm thinking what do I do? So I start
4:37
Speaker 3: walking back toward the bar and saying, maybe I can
4:40
Speaker 3: see someone outside, make sure everyone my friends knew at
4:43
Speaker 3: least I was kicked out and that I'm going home,
4:45
Speaker 3: or maybe they're leaving too soon.
4:47
Speaker 5: I'll get a ride, right, right.
4:49
Speaker 3: So I start walking back to the bar and there's
4:53
Speaker 3: a huge parking lot on one of the sides of
4:55
Speaker 3: the lock stock and barrel, bar or pub, whatever you
4:58
Speaker 3: call it. And then I see a group there. There's
5:01
Speaker 3: altercation and there's yelling and screaming. But I walk a
5:06
Speaker 3: little closer because I, you know, it didn't think it
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Speaker 3: involved me and didn't at that time.
5:12
Speaker 5: It's also the way back to the bar.
5:13
Speaker 3: That I have to go, so I get a little
5:15
Speaker 3: closer and seems these guys are just like arguing and
5:19
Speaker 3: screaming with each other some some dumb stuff. In my mind,
5:22
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, there's a couple of drunk folks out
5:24
Speaker 3: here arguing, you know, has nothing to do with me.
5:27
Speaker 3: And I go to walk past them and one of
5:29
Speaker 3: the guys points at me and says, hey, there's the
5:32
Speaker 3: guy from the bar. In my head, I'm just like,
5:36
Speaker 3: oh my god. And I'm thinking, is that one of
5:39
Speaker 3: the guys who had me by the collar or one
5:41
Speaker 3: of his friends. I'm like, jeez, it wasn't enough that
5:43
Speaker 3: I just got kicked out of the bar. Now they're like, hey,
5:47
Speaker 3: that's him. Like so I kind of steer around the
5:51
Speaker 3: group to get to the sidewalk because I don't want
5:53
Speaker 3: anything to do with that. And the guy's still yelling
5:56
Speaker 3: and it looks like he wanted to come after me
5:59
Speaker 3: or to hit the tone of his voice.
6:00
Speaker 5: So, you know, and I'm a small guy.
6:02
Speaker 3: You know, at that time, I think I weighed like
6:04
Speaker 3: one hundred and forty five pounds at you know, five nine,
6:07
Speaker 3: so that's probably as light as you can get. You know.
6:09
Speaker 3: I was like, you know, spaghetti my arms and legs
6:11
Speaker 3: and everything. And you know, these guys are some they
6:14
Speaker 3: were both actually football players. Oh so it's very intimidating
6:19
Speaker 3: for me.
6:19
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you've just been assaulted once already. It's like,
6:22
Speaker 4: this is not a great night so far. Yeah, exactly, exactly,
6:25
Speaker 4: but it's about to get a lot worse.
6:27
Speaker 3: It's about to get a lot worse. In fact, that
6:29
Speaker 3: was the beginning of the next ten years of downward spiral,
6:34
Speaker 3: you know, until the light, so till the hard fought
6:37
Speaker 3: light that is. So I managed to get past them
6:41
Speaker 3: and past them. Right across the street is the train station.
6:46
Speaker 5: I walked past them.
6:47
Speaker 3: I said, I'm out of here. I'm going to the
6:49
Speaker 3: train station. And it's this downstairs in Pleasantville. You walk downstairs,
6:53
Speaker 3: it's maybe like thirty steps, and you know, it's a
6:56
Speaker 3: big carve out and it's kind of like, you know,
6:58
Speaker 3: a dip in the ground, so it's like a big
6:59
Speaker 3: ex chamber right there, because there's you know, concrete walls
7:02
Speaker 3: all around here in this down in this pit in
7:05
Speaker 3: the middle of Pleasantville.
7:06
Speaker 5: And I start hearing all this.
7:08
Speaker 3: Yelling and screaming from the bar and it's just echoing
7:11
Speaker 3: down there, and I'm just thinking, what what is going
7:14
Speaker 3: on there? So I get I get nervous a little
7:18
Speaker 3: because one I was just kicked out of the bar.
7:21
Speaker 3: Two the guys were saying, hey, there's that guy. So
7:23
Speaker 3: I'm like, you know, I just didn't feel safe, Like
7:26
Speaker 3: what happens if one of them, in their drunken stupor says, hey,
7:29
Speaker 3: I saw that guy go down the train station steps.
7:32
Speaker 3: Let's go find them, you know, And this is what's
7:35
Speaker 3: going through my mind.
7:36
Speaker 4: At least, you know, logically, I think it was.
7:38
Speaker 5: I thought it was.
7:39
Speaker 3: Reasonable to feel a little scared. You know, I'm not
7:42
Speaker 3: a fighter. I'm I'm not wasn't that big a person.
7:47
Speaker 3: So I come back up the steps of the train
7:50
Speaker 3: station and I just kind of positioned myself right next
7:53
Speaker 3: to the police station door, which is on the other
7:55
Speaker 3: side of the train station. And when I hear the
7:59
Speaker 3: train coming I'll walk down and grab the train. So
8:03
Speaker 3: I'm I'm laughing, but it's like, actually.
8:06
Speaker 4: All of this sounds very rational to me. Actually, you know,
8:09
Speaker 4: you're I mean, that's you're going to go to the
8:11
Speaker 4: police station for protection.
8:13
Speaker 3: At the time I thought it was too but you know,
8:15
Speaker 3: in hindsight, I see that every step I made was apparently,
8:20
Speaker 3: you know, a step toward the fatal results which occurred.
8:25
Speaker 4: And you couldn't have predicted that. So you go to
8:27
Speaker 4: the police station. I was about, well, we actually know,
8:30
Speaker 4: because there's there's time stamps and stuff, right, we know
8:32
Speaker 4: you went to the police station at one twelve in
8:34
Speaker 4: the morning, right, and then and then what happened.
8:38
Speaker 3: I was outside waiting to listen to the train to
8:42
Speaker 3: go back down, just for safety reasons, also to hear
8:45
Speaker 3: tire screeching, and I'm like, what's that? And I'm thinking,
8:48
Speaker 3: is that related to the fight? Did the folks get
8:50
Speaker 3: into a car or whatever? Someone get beat up? Are
8:54
Speaker 3: they driving around looking for people? It's going to be
8:56
Speaker 3: one of those like a brawls between villages, you know,
9:00
Speaker 3: because there's rivalries in some of these towns, like football
9:03
Speaker 3: rivalries or whatever. Hawthorne, Westlake and I was thinking, oh,
9:08
Speaker 3: maybe something like that's going on. I'm outside and I
9:10
Speaker 3: hear these tire screeches, and all of a sudden, I
9:12
Speaker 3: hear these some it was women's voices, and it sounded
9:17
Speaker 3: like they were screaming, like a horror film or something
9:19
Speaker 3: like that. My heart just jumped out of me at
9:21
Speaker 3: that time, and I ran into the police station and
9:27
Speaker 3: there was a glass wall there in the desk. Officer
9:30
Speaker 3: and she's like, can I help you? And I was like, yeah, well, listen.
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Speaker 3: I was just coming from down the road from you know,
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Speaker 3: the seven to eleven, walking back past the lockstock and barrel,
9:41
Speaker 3: and there was some guys that were after me, and
9:45
Speaker 3: I'm a little intimidated to wait down here by the
9:49
Speaker 3: train station alone, and I just worried that they might
9:52
Speaker 3: come and find me, and I guess fight me.
9:54
Speaker 5: That's what's going through my mind. At least.
9:57
Speaker 3: I asked if I could get a ride to a
9:59
Speaker 3: police station next door, because in Westchester the train stations
10:03
Speaker 3: are probably like a mile apart, you know.
10:05
Speaker 5: And the officer said, yeah, come here, here's some water.
10:08
Speaker 3: Sure I can give your ride to the Hawthorn train station,
10:12
Speaker 3: no problem, give me a second, And so I sat down,
10:16
Speaker 3: I'm drinking the water, and now I feel safe. I
10:18
Speaker 3: feel like, you know, that's it. I did what I
10:21
Speaker 3: had to do to take care of myself at least
10:23
Speaker 3: for that moment. I'll be able to get a ride
10:25
Speaker 3: to the train station, go home, and that'll be that
10:30
Speaker 3: about it. I guess less than a minute around that
10:33
Speaker 3: time goes by and the officer comes back around to
10:37
Speaker 3: me and says, hey, listen, I can give you a ride,
10:39
Speaker 3: but I've got to go run and answer this call.
10:43
Speaker 3: And I don't know what time I'm coming back, so
10:45
Speaker 3: I can give your ride, but you have to wait
10:48
Speaker 3: and night. I have no idea when I'm coming back.
10:50
Speaker 3: So I said, okay, well thanks, and then he.
10:54
Speaker 5: Just like gunned it out the door.
10:56
Speaker 3: So I'm sitting there and I finished my water, and
10:58
Speaker 3: I'm like, okay, well, I guess there goes my ride
11:01
Speaker 3: and I do have to get home, So I get
11:04
Speaker 3: up and I leave, and you know, eventually I find
11:06
Speaker 3: my way home that night, and I thought that was the.
11:10
Speaker 5: End of it.
11:10
Speaker 4: Well when did you find out what actually happened that
11:13
Speaker 4: night at the bar, Because it turned out to be
11:16
Speaker 4: a lot more than what you thought. Right, A couple
11:18
Speaker 4: of people were stabbed.
11:20
Speaker 3: Well, Pleasantville is a small town. In Pleasantville, everybody's talking
11:23
Speaker 3: about it the next.
11:24
Speaker 4: Day, Okay, so yeah, so the word gets around. You
11:28
Speaker 4: find out that there were a couple of people stabbed
11:29
Speaker 4: in the bar. As it turns out, they were so
11:31
Speaker 4: drunk they didn't even realize they had been stabbed until
11:33
Speaker 4: they came out. But one guy was in the hospital
11:34
Speaker 4: for a couple of weeks. Yeah, so it was a
11:36
Speaker 4: pretty pretty serious wound. Nobody died, And meanwhile the cops
11:39
Speaker 4: are trying to figure out who did it right exactly,
11:42
Speaker 4: and how the hell did they land on you when
11:46
Speaker 4: you were in the police station at the time of
11:47
Speaker 4: the stabbing. Let's talk about this. How did you end
11:49
Speaker 4: up getting convicted because most of the witnesses said you
11:52
Speaker 4: weren't there.
11:54
Speaker 3: Well, I guess, you know, it's kind of torturous to
11:57
Speaker 3: explain how we got from A to B, but I'll
12:00
Speaker 3: give it my best shot.
12:02
Speaker 5: So there was about two weeks that went by.
12:06
Speaker 3: In the interim, I'm just getting all these rumors, you know,
12:09
Speaker 3: and friends are talking about folks getting stabbed this, and
12:12
Speaker 3: that the victims were found actually down the block in
12:16
Speaker 3: front of the Bank of New York and another bar,
12:19
Speaker 3: you know, but I kind of put some things together
12:22
Speaker 3: and say, oh, that probably had something to do with
12:24
Speaker 3: the altercation that was at lock Stock and Barrel. And
12:28
Speaker 3: on January twenty eighth, nineteen ninety eight, I'm in Pleasantville,
12:33
Speaker 3: down by the Piete Seria. You know, my mom still
12:35
Speaker 3: lived there at the time, as well as brothers and
12:37
Speaker 3: sisters and a detective, Detective Masie of the Pleasantville Police Department.
12:44
Speaker 3: I guess he catches wind that I'm there, you know,
12:47
Speaker 3: and I'm actually on the same block as the police department,
12:51
Speaker 3: and out of the blue, he approaches me. And you know,
12:54
Speaker 3: he's a real imposing guy. He probably weighed at least
12:58
Speaker 3: two hundred pounds and I think he's close to six feet.
13:01
Speaker 3: And he approaches me and he says, hey, hey, Keon,
13:03
Speaker 3: come here, you know. And I walk over to him
13:05
Speaker 3: and he says, you come with me right now. You
13:08
Speaker 3: talk to me what happened a couple weeks ago. And
13:12
Speaker 3: I said, well, tell me what you're talking about.
13:15
Speaker 5: I don't know.
13:15
Speaker 3: He goes on about Saturday night, this and that. I
13:18
Speaker 3: told him, well, listen, I'm not coming with you right now,
13:21
Speaker 3: but here's my card. If you want to, you know,
13:24
Speaker 3: calm down and we'll make an appointment. I'll come in
13:27
Speaker 3: and speak with you. But I have other things to
13:29
Speaker 3: do right now. You know, I have a job. I
13:31
Speaker 3: work evenings as a waiter. And he got so pissed off,
13:36
Speaker 3: Like the anger in his face it was, it was
13:38
Speaker 3: just ridiculous. And he turns red and he says, you
13:42
Speaker 3: don't want to talk to me? Then all right, a
13:46
Speaker 3: few and he jams his finger into my nose and
13:51
Speaker 3: it like stung me. And I'm just in shock right there,
13:54
Speaker 3: and I'm standing there, frozen, and I don't know what
13:57
Speaker 3: to do, Like what's next, you know, is he going
14:00
Speaker 3: to like drag me away? Is he going to like
14:02
Speaker 3: take me into a van?
14:03
Speaker 5: And I don't know all this stuff. I'm like, you know,
14:06
Speaker 5: I'm at a loss and I'm helpless, and he walks away.
14:11
Speaker 5: I stand there for a minute and then I walk away.
14:15
Speaker 3: When I go home, I go to work, My day
14:18
Speaker 3: goes on. I contemplate calling them and making an appointment,
14:23
Speaker 3: but I'm not sure. I don't want to go and
14:25
Speaker 3: face more of that hostility, that's for sure. Then I
14:30
Speaker 3: think about two weeks go by, and a couple of
14:33
Speaker 3: my friends call me up or tell me. I don't
14:36
Speaker 3: recall exactly when I but when I see them or
14:39
Speaker 3: hear from them, they say, hey, the police are out
14:41
Speaker 3: with a warrant for your arrest. And I said, are
14:44
Speaker 3: you kidding me? And they're like, yeah, yeah, they came.
14:47
Speaker 3: They showed me the warrant and they said they're looking
14:50
Speaker 3: for you.
14:50
Speaker 4: And I said, did you immediately think that it was
14:52
Speaker 4: for the stabbings or did you think, like, what the
14:55
Speaker 4: hell could they possibly be looking for me for?
14:57
Speaker 3: Well, that's the only thing I could put my finger on.
15:00
Speaker 3: It's not like I was out there doing all sorts
15:01
Speaker 3: of stuff where they.
15:02
Speaker 4: You weren't like a master criminal. No, okay, So okay,
15:07
Speaker 4: So now they've got this warrant for your arrest. Now
15:10
Speaker 4: what happens?
15:11
Speaker 3: Well, I call a lawyer and I tell them a story.
15:13
Speaker 3: I say, you know, my friend's telling me there's a
15:15
Speaker 3: warrant for my arrest. And the lawyer's like, well, did
15:17
Speaker 3: you see it? And I was like, well no, because
15:19
Speaker 3: you know then I probably would have been arrested by
15:21
Speaker 3: the time I saw it. But I'd like to know,
15:23
Speaker 3: how do we handle this? You know, do I turn
15:25
Speaker 3: myself in, do we call them, do they come.
15:27
Speaker 5: Pick me up?
15:27
Speaker 3: And so we arranged a date for me to turn
15:30
Speaker 3: myself in on the warrant. So that's what we did,
15:33
Speaker 3: and I think it was February fourth of nineteen ninety eight.
15:37
Speaker 3: I went and turned myself in. I was I was arrested.
15:41
Speaker 3: I was held in county jail for about a week
15:44
Speaker 3: without bail until I had a felony hearing in Pleasantville.
15:50
Speaker 3: I went to the felony hearing. There was two victims.
15:53
Speaker 3: One of the victims is testifying about how we thinks
15:57
Speaker 3: that I stabbed them this and that, and it was
16:00
Speaker 3: held over for indictment. I was indicted. I went to trial,
16:04
Speaker 3: and I was convicted. Of course, you know, there's a
16:07
Speaker 3: lot more in between to the story, but that's uh,
16:10
Speaker 3: that's the timeline there.
16:11
Speaker 4: But both of the victims was Duffy and Boyer, right, yes,
16:15
Speaker 4: And both Duffy and Boyer were heavily intoxicated at the
16:18
Speaker 4: time they were stad. They were so heavily intoxicated that
16:20
Speaker 4: they didn't even know they were stabbed until someone came
16:23
Speaker 4: along and lifted up their shirt and said, how come
16:25
Speaker 4: there's all this blood? Right? So, I mean, how drunk
16:26
Speaker 4: do you have to be to not know you were stabbed.
16:29
Speaker 3: Well, Boyer, according to his hospital record, he was His
16:34
Speaker 3: blood alcohol content BAC was greater than point three and
16:39
Speaker 3: that's all it registered on his blood test. And I
16:42
Speaker 3: think the way the hospital had it set up, if
16:44
Speaker 3: you're greater than point three, I mean that was that
16:46
Speaker 3: was all they showed. You know, they'll show point zero
16:49
Speaker 3: eight point one, but uh, greater than point three was
16:53
Speaker 3: was the max. They don't go higher and that and
16:55
Speaker 3: that's a state where you can, according to the consensus,
16:58
Speaker 3: like you can black out whose consciousness you potentially you
17:02
Speaker 3: could die from alcohol poisoning. Sure, at that level.
17:06
Speaker 4: Let's talk about that for a second. I think for
17:07
Speaker 4: drunk driving the limit is point zero eight, right, So
17:11
Speaker 4: when you're at point three, that means you're about four
17:15
Speaker 4: times the legal limit for driving, and you're getting to
17:18
Speaker 4: the point where, yes, you can have a cute alcohol
17:20
Speaker 4: poisoning and you can die. And it's interesting because at trial,
17:24
Speaker 4: neither one of them was able to identify you as
17:26
Speaker 4: the assailant, right.
17:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean nobody said that I had stabbed them
17:30
Speaker 3: or they saw me stab them, but they made conclusions
17:35
Speaker 3: that must have been me that stabbed them, and you know,
17:38
Speaker 3: and that the jury was allowed to hear that, and
17:41
Speaker 3: that they believed I stabbed them. That was a real
17:44
Speaker 3: shame because I didn't have the evidence to counter or.
17:47
Speaker 5: To show the jury.
17:48
Speaker 3: Why Why did these victims believe that I stabbed them
17:54
Speaker 3: when in fact I didn't.
17:56
Speaker 4: Well, we know now that there are a number of reasons.
17:59
Speaker 4: The interrogation was very suggestive in ways that we know
18:03
Speaker 4: lead to wrongful identifications in so many cases. Right, the
18:07
Speaker 4: police showed a photo lineup with you in it and
18:12
Speaker 4: showed it to the victims and told them that the
18:14
Speaker 4: actual perpetrator was probably at the scene. There's a number
18:19
Speaker 4: of things they did that are at a minimum bad
18:22
Speaker 4: police work. And I think that's one of the factors
18:24
Speaker 4: that happened in your case that led to you being
18:27
Speaker 4: identified as the sale even though you weren't even there.
18:30
Speaker 5: That's one of the main factors.
18:31
Speaker 4: Yes, so you're a trial. How long did it take
18:34
Speaker 4: you to get to trial?
18:35
Speaker 5: It took a little over one year.
18:38
Speaker 4: So you were in jail the whole time.
18:39
Speaker 5: I actually bailed out.
18:41
Speaker 3: I was out on five thousand dollars bail, So before trial,
18:44
Speaker 3: I was out on bail, and during trial, I was
18:46
Speaker 3: I guess, lucky enough to be out on bail.
18:50
Speaker 4: It's interesting that they set bail at five thousand dollars, right,
18:54
Speaker 4: That would indicate to me that the judge who set
18:56
Speaker 4: to bail was not very concerned that you were going
18:59
Speaker 4: to be around stabbing anybody, because if they were, they
19:02
Speaker 4: certainly wouldn't set bail at five thousand. I mean that's
19:04
Speaker 4: almost like a misdemeanor type of bail.
19:07
Speaker 5: Yeah.
19:07
Speaker 3: Well, when we went to the felony hearing, I think
19:10
Speaker 3: the judge saw that there was, you know, profound weaknesses
19:13
Speaker 3: in the case and set the bail at five thousand,
19:16
Speaker 3: and I was released. Unfortunately, you know, the felony hearing
19:21
Speaker 3: occurred in February of ninety eight, and the trial occurred
19:25
Speaker 3: in February of ninety nine, so there was a whole
19:28
Speaker 3: year there to prepare and you know, fix up the weaknesses.
19:31
Speaker 3: And I guess those are nice words to use, because
19:35
Speaker 3: the real words I should use is they had a
19:37
Speaker 3: whole year to destroy evidence, to suppress evidence, to fabricate evidence,
19:43
Speaker 3: and to coerce these witnesses to testify against me. So
19:49
Speaker 3: by the time I went to trial, you know, it
19:51
Speaker 3: was pretty much guaranteed lights out.
19:54
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's pretty incredible when you think about, Again,
19:58
Speaker 4: this is New York. You're a guy who's not the
20:00
Speaker 4: typical defendant. You know, you hadn't really had a lot
20:04
Speaker 4: of altercations with the police before, and yet they did
20:09
Speaker 4: things that are so beyond the pale, including not handing
20:14
Speaker 4: over a bloody shirt and hat that were found at
20:16
Speaker 4: the crime scene, right, I mean, and then eventually claiming
20:20
Speaker 4: that they were misplaced. I mean misplaced, that's a nice word.
20:24
Speaker 5: Yeah, that was just ridiculous.
20:27
Speaker 3: I mean, I have no words to explain their reasoning
20:30
Speaker 3: and doing that, or how they explain why they did that.
20:33
Speaker 5: It's just it's ridiculous.
20:35
Speaker 4: Not only did they withhold exculpatory evidence, including the videotape
20:41
Speaker 4: that they knew had a timestamp on it that would
20:42
Speaker 4: have placed you at the police station at the time
20:45
Speaker 4: that the crime was being committed, which is right there,
20:49
Speaker 4: case closed done. That means they knew that you didn't
20:53
Speaker 4: do it, that they withheld that. They intimidated your friend Eric, right,
20:58
Speaker 4: who was in the bar.
21:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I'd have to just say he was not
21:02
Speaker 3: my friend, but I didn't know who he was.
21:05
Speaker 5: Yeah, he was an associate.
21:07
Speaker 3: I mean, he would have been a friend if he
21:09
Speaker 3: was a nicer person, but I just wouldn't call him
21:14
Speaker 3: a friend.
21:14
Speaker 4: Okay, So they intimidated acquaintance of yours named Eric Freud,
21:19
Speaker 4: into implicating you. And we know from whether way the
21:22
Speaker 4: cop behaved towards you actually physically assaulting you, yeah, on
21:28
Speaker 4: the street in front of the pizza place. We know
21:31
Speaker 4: that there's a lot of credibility to that claim. And
21:33
Speaker 4: then they also threatened the bouncer if he didn't implicate you, right,
21:37
Speaker 4: so they I mean, I don't want to believe that
21:40
Speaker 4: police behave like that. I grew up and I still
21:43
Speaker 4: believe that. You know, Listen, most I think most police
21:45
Speaker 4: are good. I think as a society we need police.
21:48
Speaker 4: I'm not one of these people who's like an anarchist
21:49
Speaker 4: or something, and I always say I'm not soft on crime.
21:53
Speaker 4: I'm tough on injustice. Right. I believe we need to
21:55
Speaker 4: have a system of laws, We need to have people
21:57
Speaker 4: in place, police, prosecutors. Whole system has to function because
22:01
Speaker 4: it has to keep society safe. But when it's turned
22:04
Speaker 4: upside down, it's just it it's so deeply disturbing to
22:09
Speaker 4: see what they can do, how they can grind somebody
22:13
Speaker 4: like you up so ken now that you are a
22:16
Speaker 4: practicing attorney, and we're going to get to that in
22:17
Speaker 4: a few minutes because some of the stuff you're doing
22:19
Speaker 4: now is so fascinating. Looking back on your trial, do
22:23
Speaker 4: you feel that you were represented in an adequate manner?
22:27
Speaker 5: Well, I mean I don't.
22:29
Speaker 3: I don't and I hope I never represent someone myself
22:34
Speaker 3: as an attorney. Now, the way I was represented at
22:37
Speaker 3: trial by my attorney, then there was a lot of
22:40
Speaker 3: problems there with the defense. At the same time, I
22:44
Speaker 3: have to say to myself, well, how can a defense
22:48
Speaker 3: truly be effective if all the evidence is being withheld
22:55
Speaker 3: from the defense?
22:56
Speaker 4: It's really hard, you know. So yeah, I mean you
22:59
Speaker 4: didn't have much of a chance. You would have needed
23:02
Speaker 4: the Clarence Darrow or a modern day version be very
23:05
Speaker 4: shack representing you to give yourself a fighting chance. Absolutely,
23:09
Speaker 4: and that's clearly not what you had. You weren't a
23:10
Speaker 4: rich guy, right, or you couldn't afford the dream team.
23:13
Speaker 3: Oh, I was on financial aid going to community college
23:15
Speaker 3: at that time, right, I could hardly even afford, to.
23:18
Speaker 4: Put it politely, you were fucked, right, But well, then
23:20
Speaker 4: you got to trial. It was already It basically was
23:23
Speaker 4: a formality. They were they were gonna they had you,
23:27
Speaker 4: They were going to get you. And that's exactly what
23:30
Speaker 4: they did. You get convicted and sentenced to what seven
23:49
Speaker 4: to fourteen years In person, I'm trying to imagine what
23:53
Speaker 4: was going through your mind when that happened.
23:55
Speaker 3: Well, like you had just said a few minutes ago,
23:58
Speaker 3: in your America, this doesn't happen. This type of behavior
24:03
Speaker 3: from police officers doesn't happen.
24:05
Speaker 5: And that's what I was thinking too, even.
24:08
Speaker 3: After my arrest and during my trial, you know, and
24:12
Speaker 3: now all I keep thinking is, you know, there's no
24:15
Speaker 3: way that the jury would convict me or this judge
24:19
Speaker 3: will allow this even to get to a verdict based
24:23
Speaker 3: on this evidence. And I know I'm innocent, and I
24:27
Speaker 3: feel like, you know, that doesn't happen. You don't get
24:29
Speaker 3: convicted of things you didn't do. Not in my America, right,
24:34
Speaker 3: And the last thing I think in my mind is
24:37
Speaker 3: that everyone would simply jump on board and push my
24:42
Speaker 3: head under the water. That's the last thing I thought
24:45
Speaker 3: would happen. And the whole time I was in prison,
24:48
Speaker 3: I thought, surely someone would come with a helping hand
24:50
Speaker 3: and see the injustice that has occurred here. But you
24:54
Speaker 3: know that doesn't happen, you know, and you're stuck, always
24:59
Speaker 3: hoping for the next level.
25:00
Speaker 5: When you're in prison.
25:01
Speaker 3: At first it's oh, you know, you get arrested, I'll
25:05
Speaker 3: be released at the felony hearing. They'll see this was
25:07
Speaker 3: a mistake, you know. But that doesn't happen, and the
25:10
Speaker 3: jury will see and the judge will see, and maybe
25:12
Speaker 3: even the prosecutor will see that I'm innocent. You know,
25:14
Speaker 3: these are actually kind of naive thoughts.
25:18
Speaker 4: Looking back, they were naive thoughts. I mean, they're idealistic thoughts.
25:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, you really can't ignore that. Oftentimes police and prosecutors
25:26
Speaker 3: have a motive to get a conviction, which doesn't always
25:31
Speaker 3: equate with justice.
25:35
Speaker 4: No, and that's the reasonable doubt standard is something that
25:38
Speaker 4: needs to be reinforced into everyone's head. There you have
25:41
Speaker 4: to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. In your case,
25:44
Speaker 4: there was tons of reasonable doubt. Even though a huge
25:47
Speaker 4: percentage of the evidence, and the most important evidence was
25:50
Speaker 4: with hell, there was still reasonable doubt and you still
25:52
Speaker 4: had a story to tell that that should have at
25:55
Speaker 4: least put some one of two of the jurors in
25:58
Speaker 4: a position to say I can't reasonably convict this guy.
26:02
Speaker 4: Which prison did you get sent to?
26:04
Speaker 3: Well, initially, I'm in Westchester County Jail almost almost for
26:09
Speaker 3: like a year there. It turns out that they apparently
26:13
Speaker 3: they forgot me. That's what I was told. After I
26:16
Speaker 3: was convicted, my bells revoked. I go to Westchester County Jail,
26:20
Speaker 3: and everybody I see coming in after pleading guilty or convicted,
26:25
Speaker 3: they're upstate within two weeks, and there I am eight
26:28
Speaker 3: nine months later, and I didn't know what was going on.
26:30
Speaker 3: So I actually called my mom and I said, can
26:33
Speaker 3: you call the jail and find out what's going on.
26:37
Speaker 3: It's supposed to be out of here to go up state,
26:39
Speaker 3: Not like I was like, hey, let's go up state,
26:41
Speaker 3: but in the county. It's pretty rough conditions Westchester County Jail.
26:46
Speaker 3: I mean, basically don't get to see anybody or anything.
26:49
Speaker 3: It's no sunlight. It's pretty tough. So she called and
26:53
Speaker 3: she said, well, the state says they forgotcha, so they
26:56
Speaker 3: didn't know, you know, whatever paperwork era. So I think
27:00
Speaker 3: in July of ninety nine, I shipped upstate to Downstate
27:04
Speaker 3: Correctional Facility, which is in Fishkill, New York. After my
27:08
Speaker 3: mom called and I figured out that I was lingering
27:11
Speaker 3: over there in the county jail for a better half
27:13
Speaker 3: of a year.
27:13
Speaker 4: And that tells you something about just how bad jails are.
27:17
Speaker 4: And I think it's important for people to realize that
27:18
Speaker 4: you don't see the sunlight thinking about that. How insane
27:21
Speaker 4: is it that you, an innocent man, is actually asking
27:24
Speaker 4: can you please transfer me to it? Was that a
27:26
Speaker 4: maximum security prison? It was, Yeah, so you attract to
27:29
Speaker 4: transferred to a maximum security prison. So in prison, now
27:33
Speaker 4: you're in this it even it sounds it just sounds
27:36
Speaker 4: scary right downstate. It just sounds like.
27:41
Speaker 3: It was prison in general. It was very, very scary
27:45
Speaker 3: and intimidating.
27:47
Speaker 4: How did you survive in this environment?
27:50
Speaker 3: Well, the first thing I had to do was I guess,
27:54
Speaker 3: observe what's going on and find out what I want
27:58
Speaker 3: to be involved with. When I went upstate, or even
28:02
Speaker 3: it started in the county jail, I realized that there's
28:04
Speaker 3: a lot of folks there in prison, in jail in general,
28:08
Speaker 3: who had or have drug problems, you know, and there's
28:12
Speaker 3: no doubt that they continue to use drugs while in prison.
28:15
Speaker 3: And there's another large group which tends to gamble all
28:18
Speaker 3: the time. Some of them they'll talk to you with that,
28:23
Speaker 3: you know, without strangling. You are are rippings about jaboget, right,
28:27
Speaker 3: So you know, as a young, skinny, twenty two year
28:29
Speaker 3: old that I was, you know, and they say, they
28:32
Speaker 3: give some advice and they say, stay away from gambling
28:35
Speaker 3: and drugs and you're gonna increase your chances of not
28:39
Speaker 3: getting a shank in the back. And I thought, you know,
28:42
Speaker 3: that really made sense. So I'm really not a gambler
28:46
Speaker 3: to begin with, you know, And the most I ever
28:48
Speaker 3: did back in high school was smoke some pots.
28:50
Speaker 5: So I thought, hey, I'm good.
28:53
Speaker 3: You know. I wasn't the type of guy who had
28:56
Speaker 3: to prove myself. You know, that's not what I was
29:00
Speaker 3: there for. I wasn't there to earn my stripes in prison.
29:03
Speaker 4: You know.
29:03
Speaker 3: I was there because for things I didn't do.
29:07
Speaker 5: You know. It was not a big bad dude. And
29:11
Speaker 5: I think I.
29:14
Speaker 3: Have ability to make people laugh as well and feel
29:17
Speaker 3: comfortable around me. So a lot of folks, a lot
29:21
Speaker 3: of folks felt a closeness or ability to talk to me,
29:25
Speaker 3: and that includes you know, some of the gang leaders,
29:27
Speaker 3: some of the old timers. You know, these are big
29:29
Speaker 3: time dudes in jail. They head up the gangs, and
29:33
Speaker 3: you know, I would talk with them, and they seem
29:36
Speaker 3: to be more you know, in control and calm. I
29:39
Speaker 3: guess because of their you know, a long experience. They
29:42
Speaker 3: were no longer going out doing wild things. Those were
29:45
Speaker 3: the younger folks in the prison generally, who were like
29:49
Speaker 3: stabbing up people or doing crazy stuff for no reason.
29:53
Speaker 3: So I think I made I guess you could say,
29:55
Speaker 3: friends or whatever with a few of them, and they
29:58
Speaker 3: respected me.
29:59
Speaker 4: And you think they knew that you were innocent.
30:02
Speaker 3: No, to be honest with you, that's probably the last
30:05
Speaker 3: thing you want to do going upstate because there are
30:08
Speaker 3: folks there. They will pray, people prey on any whiff
30:13
Speaker 3: of weakness, any whiff of weakness, and it's really intense
30:18
Speaker 3: like that, and you just have to learn really quick
30:22
Speaker 3: what people interpret as weakness because you will instantly get
30:27
Speaker 3: preyed upon. Like, for example, I'm crossing my legs right here, right,
30:33
Speaker 3: No big deal.
30:35
Speaker 5: You look at it, You see anything I.
30:36
Speaker 4: Didn't notice until you've pointed it.
30:37
Speaker 3: Well, go up there as twenty two years old and
30:40
Speaker 3: you're crossing your legs and in prison. The environment is
30:44
Speaker 3: it's so homophobic, it's unreal. It's on real, but that's
30:51
Speaker 3: the standard and it's fully accepted. And that's just the
30:54
Speaker 3: machismo the male line there. It's so homophobic. You cross
30:58
Speaker 3: your legs or you do anything that's considered not macho,
31:03
Speaker 3: and you're instantly labeled as weak or soft and or gay,
31:08
Speaker 3: and then you're preyed upon as someone who can be
31:12
Speaker 3: made fun of or stolen from, or a chump or
31:15
Speaker 3: a punk or whatever. So you really have to watch
31:17
Speaker 3: out for anything like that in the outside world, which
31:21
Speaker 3: you just being yourself, you know, crossing my legs whatever.
31:25
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm not gay, but it wouldn't matter. I'm
31:28
Speaker 3: just saying any any indication. At the same time, you know,
31:32
Speaker 3: there's people that sniff out newcomers and they'll try to
31:36
Speaker 3: watch your body language, how you hold your shoulders, and
31:39
Speaker 3: if there's a piece of weakness, they'll come up and
31:41
Speaker 3: they'll try to be your friend or this or that.
31:44
Speaker 3: You know, it might not find out for weeks later
31:46
Speaker 3: that they're actually preying on you, praying on your weakness
31:50
Speaker 3: to find out so that they can basically wrap you
31:53
Speaker 3: up in a corner some place and demand your commissary.
31:57
Speaker 3: And I've seen this happen to so many people. It's
32:00
Speaker 3: rather sad. If that works out, then they go on
32:03
Speaker 3: to the next level of intimidation, and they'll have people
32:06
Speaker 3: call their family at home and say, hey, can you
32:08
Speaker 3: send me some pack of cigarettes? Can you send me
32:10
Speaker 3: some money? I'm in trouble here, and that money will
32:14
Speaker 3: go to, you know, an extort or someone else under
32:17
Speaker 3: threat of rape or or getting beat up, and then
32:20
Speaker 3: oftentimes you know it does lead to rape, but the
32:25
Speaker 3: person who you know who's victimizing there is just really
32:29
Speaker 3: a really intimidated person.
32:31
Speaker 4: It's all so terrifying, the whole idea of the eggshells
32:34
Speaker 4: you're walking on and having to learn a whole new,
32:36
Speaker 4: twisted culture and programming, and it's got to stop. I mean,
32:40
Speaker 4: being sent to prison shouldn't mean being tortured. There should
32:43
Speaker 4: be some some dignity in this process. And that is
32:47
Speaker 4: it's an affront to should be in front of everybody's
32:50
Speaker 4: sensibility and everybody's sense of fairness so great, So here's
32:55
Speaker 4: where things get really nuts. Kean on November seventheeenth, two
33:00
Speaker 4: thousand and seven, during a dinner at your family's home,
33:04
Speaker 4: your dad was talking about how much he missed you
33:07
Speaker 4: and wish you were there and everything else, and then
33:09
Speaker 4: a crazy, crazy thing happened. And I don't know how
33:12
Speaker 4: easy this is for you to even talk about, but
33:15
Speaker 4: I mean, do you want to tell what happened or
33:16
Speaker 4: you want me to do it?
33:18
Speaker 5: Go ahead and then I'll fill in the blanks.
33:20
Speaker 4: So, having read the story, it was at that time
33:24
Speaker 4: that your brother, I think his name is pronounced Kavon, correct, right,
33:28
Speaker 4: your brother Kavon began weeping at the dinner table and
33:32
Speaker 4: admitted that he, in fact was the culprit. And I'm
33:34
Speaker 4: getting the chills as I'm saying this, right, and I'm
33:37
Speaker 4: trying to picture what the hell was going through your parents'
33:39
Speaker 4: minds at this point in time, right, I mean, here
33:41
Speaker 4: they are talking about how much they miss you, as
33:44
Speaker 4: any parent would, and now learning not only that in fact,
33:48
Speaker 4: everything you've been saying all along was true, that you
33:50
Speaker 4: were innocent, but that the actual perpetrator is sitting at
33:53
Speaker 4: the dinner tab with him. It's your brother. Things start
33:56
Speaker 4: to progress from there, right, Tell me how that things
33:59
Speaker 4: start to move at that point, because a new hearing
34:01
Speaker 4: of ultimately is held at which he's brought to the stand.
34:05
Speaker 3: Well, just to give you, I guess an abbreviated step
34:08
Speaker 3: by step timeline there.
34:10
Speaker 5: So after that evening, you know, my father.
34:14
Speaker 3: And brother, sisters. Eventually they came and saw me and
34:19
Speaker 3: and told me what occurred, and I said, okay, well,
34:22
Speaker 3: this is what we should do now. Eventually it led
34:25
Speaker 3: to affidavits reciting his statements, the confession to stabbing the
34:31
Speaker 3: two individuals being included in emotion what they call a
34:36
Speaker 3: four forty motion in New York, which is what you
34:39
Speaker 3: do after direct appeal to get facts off the record
34:41
Speaker 3: in and that was filed and that resulted in a hearing.
34:45
Speaker 3: Following the hearing, my conviction was vacated and a new
34:49
Speaker 3: trial was ordered based on the confession of my brother,
34:53
Speaker 3: as well as some other evidence which developed during the hearing.
34:59
Speaker 4: But wait a minute before before we get to that. Yeah,
35:01
Speaker 4: I'm at a loss to imagine what that meeting was like.
35:07
Speaker 4: Was it both of your parents that came to the
35:08
Speaker 4: prison to tell you this news?
35:10
Speaker 3: No, my dad, Yeah, my mom was in Chicago at
35:12
Speaker 3: that time.
35:13
Speaker 4: So your dad comes to the prison and tells you that,
35:16
Speaker 4: in fact, your brother had admitted that it was he
35:21
Speaker 4: who had committed this crime for which you have now
35:25
Speaker 4: had eight years of your life stolen from you in
35:28
Speaker 4: the most terrible way. I mean, what was that like.
35:35
Speaker 3: Well, different people will have different reactions if they were
35:40
Speaker 3: in my position, But for me, I can tell you
35:43
Speaker 3: it was simply a feeling of relief.
35:47
Speaker 5: I just felt relieved.
35:49
Speaker 4: Because now you could see light at the end of
35:51
Speaker 4: the tunnel. Yes, well, that's logical. You didn't feel rage.
35:57
Speaker 3: It was relief for a while, did come. I mean
36:01
Speaker 3: I did throughout the years that followed up, you know,
36:06
Speaker 3: possibly up until just a few years ago. I don't
36:08
Speaker 3: talk to my brother right now for variety reasons. Obviously
36:12
Speaker 3: you know this is what happened here is one of them.
36:15
Speaker 3: But in the beginning, for at least a few months,
36:18
Speaker 3: it was just relief.
36:20
Speaker 5: It was just relief. You know.
36:23
Speaker 3: I was sitting there, stuck in prison, and I couldn't
36:27
Speaker 3: I just couldn't figure out why I'm there or how,
36:31
Speaker 3: you know, how the state could have so much power
36:33
Speaker 3: over an individual's liberty with without without providing enough circuit breakers,
36:39
Speaker 3: enough safety nets, you know, And I'm still.
36:41
Speaker 4: There, amazingly, as fate would have it. On September twenty third,
36:48
Speaker 4: two thousand and eight, which was your thirty third birthday, right, Yeah,
36:52
Speaker 4: you got the best birthday present you could imagine.
36:55
Speaker 3: I definitely did you want to talk about that? Well,
36:57
Speaker 3: I was upstate, you know where was I at this time?
37:00
Speaker 3: I think I was at a Sing Sing correctional facility,
37:03
Speaker 3: and they called me down to white planes and I
37:06
Speaker 3: walked out in front of the judge on September twenty three. Meanwhile,
37:10
Speaker 3: I had a retrial ordered by this time, but it
37:13
Speaker 3: was just a retrial, and I think the prosecutor stepped
37:16
Speaker 3: up and just said we would not oppose defendant's ro
37:21
Speaker 3: R release right now. And I heard that and I
37:26
Speaker 3: was just like, I don't know, I'm lucky at him
37:29
Speaker 3: lose consciousness at that time, just hearing those words.
37:33
Speaker 5: So the judge cut me loose, got me loose.
37:37
Speaker 3: Right then in the court room, and I was in
37:38
Speaker 3: this state issued clothing, and I'm still surrounded by these officers,
37:43
Speaker 3: you know, like a sergeant, you know, a couple of
37:46
Speaker 3: muscle bound officers all surrounding me with handcuffs. And I
37:50
Speaker 3: couldn't believe it.
37:52
Speaker 4: So what happened? Did they take the handcuffs off right
37:54
Speaker 4: then and there? But then you had to still change.
37:55
Speaker 4: It was like you walk out into the daylight wearing
37:57
Speaker 4: a correction of the uniform.
37:59
Speaker 3: Right at they gave me what's called a court uniform,
38:03
Speaker 3: which is like, I guess it's always tight jeans. They
38:06
Speaker 3: always give somebody two sizes too small. But so it
38:10
Speaker 3: was tight jeans like from the eighties.
38:12
Speaker 5: You know.
38:13
Speaker 4: So wait a minute, but you're in the courtroom, in
38:15
Speaker 4: the courtroom, but you were still dressed in the.
38:17
Speaker 5: State issued clothing.
38:18
Speaker 4: Yeah, at what point did you change into these two
38:21
Speaker 4: tight jeans?
38:21
Speaker 2: Oh?
38:22
Speaker 3: Oh, right before I got into court, they say, here's
38:24
Speaker 3: a beige sweatshirt and jeans. Here, you can put them
38:29
Speaker 3: on so you don't have to go in front of
38:31
Speaker 3: the judge in your prison greens.
38:33
Speaker 4: Okay, so at that moment you almost collapse, right, but
38:37
Speaker 4: you didn't, And then did the courtroom break out? That
38:40
Speaker 4: moment must be etched in your memory permanently.
38:42
Speaker 3: I mean, well, if you take it back about one
38:45
Speaker 3: minute before the judge said that, you have an officer
38:49
Speaker 3: sitting down on my right side, an officer sitting down
38:51
Speaker 3: on my left side, and an officer behind me.
38:53
Speaker 5: And as they walk you in, well.
38:56
Speaker 3: One guy you know who feels like he has like
38:58
Speaker 3: the hand of a gorilla strength, you know, always the
39:01
Speaker 3: case has a hand on your shoulder, and they're walking
39:05
Speaker 3: you to the chair. Sit down here, look forward, don't
39:07
Speaker 3: turn to the right, don't turn to the left. And
39:10
Speaker 3: to be honest with you, they they mean that, don't
39:12
Speaker 3: turn your head to the right. Don't turn your head
39:14
Speaker 3: to the left. And I've seen people upstate or in
39:16
Speaker 3: the prison facilities. You know, if you turn your head,
39:18
Speaker 3: you get taken down. And it's not a pretty sight.
39:22
Speaker 5: You know.
39:22
Speaker 3: They don't just take you down, you get a beat down.
39:25
Speaker 3: So I'm sitting in this chair and then have officer
39:28
Speaker 3: like you can feel the breath on the back of
39:30
Speaker 3: your neck of these officers just waiting to take down
39:35
Speaker 3: a convicted violent felon for even moving your head to
39:41
Speaker 3: the right. And that was how it was until the
39:44
Speaker 3: judge said ro rd And so I turned to my
39:49
Speaker 3: lawyer and I said, can I can I stand up?
39:53
Speaker 5: Can I'm free to go?
39:54
Speaker 3: And he says yes, and all the officers stand up,
39:58
Speaker 3: and I get up and I say, you're on or
40:01
Speaker 3: I can leave. She says yes, you can leave, and
40:04
Speaker 3: I turn the officers and I say I can go out.
40:06
Speaker 3: Those back doors. Yes, I had to ask the question,
40:09
Speaker 3: like I must have just kept repeating it to every
40:12
Speaker 3: single officer there before I even felt the courage to
40:15
Speaker 3: take a step, because you gotta understand, for ten years
40:19
Speaker 3: I had been under the gun, and if you make
40:23
Speaker 3: any move unauthorized in a situation like that, you are
40:28
Speaker 3: getting taken down and oftentimes you end up in the
40:33
Speaker 3: hospital and there's no recourse for that. You know, you
40:36
Speaker 3: turn your head when they say you didn't turn your head,
40:39
Speaker 3: you disrespect a direct order. And you know the way
40:41
Speaker 3: the law works as far as prisoners is concerned. Apparently
40:45
Speaker 3: there you can get taken down and knee in the
40:47
Speaker 3: back and you know, a foot on the face, I guess,
40:50
Speaker 3: but you know the it was hard to believe, and
40:53
Speaker 3: I really couldn't believe it. I asked, I think I
40:56
Speaker 3: just repeated so many times, can I.
40:58
Speaker 5: Go out that door? Can I go out that door?
40:59
Speaker 5: And I had to make sure.
41:00
Speaker 3: Because I felt I felt it was unreal.
41:05
Speaker 4: And your parents and family in the courtroom, yeah.
41:08
Speaker 5: They started crying.
41:09
Speaker 3: So I actually walked over back of them in the
41:11
Speaker 3: seat and I said, don't cry this, you know, this
41:13
Speaker 3: is a beautiful moment.
41:15
Speaker 5: Should be happy.
41:16
Speaker 3: And so I tried to be strong for them, and
41:18
Speaker 3: I tried myself not to cry, because you know, I
41:22
Speaker 3: didn't want it to turn into one big weeping fest,
41:24
Speaker 3: and you know, I wanted I wanted to see some
41:26
Speaker 3: smiles on their face. You know, care about Tom, I
41:28
Speaker 3: love them.
41:30
Speaker 5: And so.
41:32
Speaker 3: We got up and left, and I left with my
41:34
Speaker 3: sisters and they took me to immediately, they took me
41:38
Speaker 3: to the mall to get Bear jeans, and you know,
41:42
Speaker 3: that was that was a very interesting moment as well,
41:46
Speaker 3: because they're picking out jeans for me, you know, because
41:50
Speaker 3: my style is ten years outdated, and I'm trying these
41:53
Speaker 3: jeans on it and they're all tight, and I'm telling them,
41:56
Speaker 3: I think this is really tight on my you know,
41:58
Speaker 3: my butt, and they're like, listen, it should be a
42:02
Speaker 3: lot tighter.
42:03
Speaker 5: We're letting you go with that. That's the style now.
42:07
Speaker 3: And so I was like okay, and I tried them on.
42:10
Speaker 3: I walked out and took me a few weeks to
42:12
Speaker 3: realize that that was probably just ordinary geens right there,
42:16
Speaker 3: as opposed to nineteen ninety nine when everybody was wearing
42:19
Speaker 3: more loose stuff. And so I got used to it,
42:23
Speaker 3: still going ten years later.
42:29
Speaker 4: So you ultimately graduate college and go to law school,
42:33
Speaker 4: not just any law school, NYU law school.
42:35
Speaker 3: So let me correct you on that one. So I
42:37
Speaker 3: went to NYU underbred and I graduated with honors. For
42:41
Speaker 3: law school, I went to Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School,
42:44
Speaker 3: which is Yeshiva University's grad school. You know, that's also
42:47
Speaker 3: the home of the Innocent Project, of course, and that
42:50
Speaker 3: that's my that's my law school.
42:51
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you went to NYU. You went from Community College, Pleasantville,
42:56
Speaker 4: waiting Tables, maximum security prison, unbelievab ordeal and saga to NYU,
43:04
Speaker 4: one of the hardest schools in the world to get
43:07
Speaker 4: into and graduate with honors, and then to Cardozo Law School,
43:12
Speaker 4: which is the home of the Innis's Project, which is
43:14
Speaker 4: again a top top law school. And then you pass
43:17
Speaker 4: the bar, which is again I mean, that's an incredible
43:21
Speaker 4: accomplishment for anyone, much less someone who if your brain
43:24
Speaker 4: was spaghetti, nobody would it would be totally understandable. But
43:29
Speaker 4: you managed to find this extra gear, this focus, this determination,
43:33
Speaker 4: is drive, and accomplish these great things and pass the
43:36
Speaker 4: bar and now you're in practice as a criminal defense
43:39
Speaker 4: attorney in New York.
43:40
Speaker 5: That is correct.
43:40
Speaker 4: Yes, incredible. It's an incredible, incredible story. And you've won
43:45
Speaker 4: one lawsuit right already for yourself, for myself. Yeah, right,
43:49
Speaker 4: And now you're representing clients, including one whose story has
43:53
Speaker 4: kept me up at nights since you told me about it.
43:55
Speaker 4: And I don't know if you're at liberty to talk
43:57
Speaker 4: about that case. But what's really nuts to me is
44:02
Speaker 4: that Keon now finds himself representing a case that is
44:06
Speaker 4: eerily similar to his own.
44:08
Speaker 3: That is true, Absolutely, I see a lot of things
44:10
Speaker 3: in common with my case there. It's part of the
44:12
Speaker 3: reason which drives me to help this man out.
44:14
Speaker 4: Are you able to talk about that? I know it's
44:16
Speaker 4: an ongoing case, so.
44:17
Speaker 5: It's an ongoing case.
44:18
Speaker 3: I think the case you're talking about I'm wearing a
44:20
Speaker 3: T shirt right now, right, is that it?
44:22
Speaker 4: Yes, So it's free free Darwin, just like it sounds
44:26
Speaker 4: the ar Wyn broke r Oque dot com.
44:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, that has a little information about the case and
44:33
Speaker 3: what we're trying to do for Darwin.
44:35
Speaker 4: And so I mean, this case, it seems like, has
44:40
Speaker 4: a very eerie resemblance to your own, you know, with
44:43
Speaker 4: the difference being that in this case someone was it
44:45
Speaker 4: was a stabbing but it was actually someone who was killed.
44:48
Speaker 4: And Darwin has been in prison even longer than you were,
44:51
Speaker 4: and it's still fighting for his freedom.
44:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's going on quite a long time now, but
44:55
Speaker 3: you know he's a strong individual, so hopefully he can
44:58
Speaker 3: get through this and result will be something equitable and
45:02
Speaker 3: just for him at least to gain his freedom again.
45:05
Speaker 4: And it's an important part of your story too, So
45:07
Speaker 4: I want to talk about this because this is where
45:09
Speaker 4: it's so important that people like you exist and are
45:12
Speaker 4: able to spend the time and devote the brain power
45:16
Speaker 4: and the energy and the inspiration, draw on your own
45:19
Speaker 4: experience to help somebody who was wrongfully convicted and is
45:25
Speaker 4: now serving a terrible sentence in a terrible place. And
45:29
Speaker 4: this is a guy who was a young up and comer,
45:31
Speaker 4: right entrepreneur, entrepreneur running a pet store, write his own
45:36
Speaker 4: pet store at twenty four years old. I want to
45:39
Speaker 4: bring attention to his case and use your story to
45:42
Speaker 4: drive interest in Darwin's case and helpefully have him sitting
45:45
Speaker 4: here in your seat sometime soon.
45:48
Speaker 5: I would love nothing more than to see that.
45:50
Speaker 4: For the people listening, what can they do to help Darwin?
45:55
Speaker 3: To help Darwin? Well, you know, we have to hire
45:58
Speaker 3: a gang expert. It was exclusive to New York and
46:00
Speaker 3: investigators and all these things cost money. And when you
46:03
Speaker 3: go to overturn a wrongful conviction, it's like pushing a
46:06
Speaker 3: rock up a mountain. It requires so much effort because
46:10
Speaker 3: courts are really not receptive generally, so it requires a
46:15
Speaker 3: lot of effort and a lot of money. So on
46:18
Speaker 3: the website, if someone would like to donate, it's right there.
46:21
Speaker 3: None of it will go to me. I don't charge
46:23
Speaker 3: an hourly fee. I'm working pro bono and I will
46:26
Speaker 3: continue to do so until I see justice done in
46:29
Speaker 3: this case. But they can donate and it will go
46:32
Speaker 3: toward a forensic pathologist, a gang expert, other experts that
46:37
Speaker 3: are needed. Possibly paperwork that I acquire from the DA
46:42
Speaker 3: or police or litigation you know, costs court fees. It'll
46:45
Speaker 3: all go toward that. So that's one way that they
46:48
Speaker 3: can help and it will go a long way.
46:50
Speaker 4: So in a nutshell, people please go to free Darwinroque
46:55
Speaker 4: dot com and see how you can get involved and
46:58
Speaker 4: help Kion in this remarkable effort that he's putting forth
47:02
Speaker 4: on behalf of this innocent man who finds himself in
47:07
Speaker 4: these strangely Twilight Zone esque circumstances that you found yourself
47:12
Speaker 4: in twenty years ago or so. Ken, we have a
47:15
Speaker 4: tradition here on Ronfuel Conviction, which is that I like
47:20
Speaker 4: to turn the mic over to you, the star of
47:23
Speaker 4: our show today, for any closing thoughts.
47:26
Speaker 3: Well, if folks are out there listening, obviously they expressed
47:30
Speaker 3: an interest in the criminal justice system, are the injustice
47:34
Speaker 3: that's occurring within that system. If you feel to help out,
47:38
Speaker 3: there's always ways, and it doesn't always require giving money,
47:42
Speaker 3: although every little bit does help as well. Reach out
47:46
Speaker 3: to some folks and you know, if you're really interested
47:50
Speaker 3: in helping the movement, because there's plenty of folks still
47:53
Speaker 3: in jail for things they did not do. I think
47:56
Speaker 3: it's epidemic, if not pandemic, in this country. And also
48:00
Speaker 3: thing we're still trying to get a hold on how
48:03
Speaker 3: many people actually get convicted of things they didn't do,
48:06
Speaker 3: and I think it's I think it's much greater than
48:10
Speaker 3: your average person anticipates. So don't be afraid to reach out.
48:14
Speaker 3: Maybe volunteer some time. Hey, it could be a good thing.
48:17
Speaker 3: You can donate to certain charities and give it a shot.
48:22
Speaker 3: Might make it feel better.
48:28
Speaker 4: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review. Wherever you
48:31
Speaker 4: get your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm a proud
48:35
Speaker 4: donor to the Ennocence Project and I really hope you'll
48:38
Speaker 4: join me in supporting this very important cause and helping
48:41
Speaker 4: to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot
48:45
Speaker 4: org to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd
48:48
Speaker 4: like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis.
48:51
Speaker 4: The music in the show is by three time OSCAR
48:54
Speaker 4: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
48:57
Speaker 4: Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
49:02
Speaker 4: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is a production of Lava
49:05
Speaker 4: for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one