Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #583 Jason Flom with Carl Miller

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#583 Jason Flom with Carl Miller · Wrongful Conviction

0:04
Speaker 1: Hey, it's Connor Hall, senior producer for Wrongful Conviction, back
0:07
Speaker 1: with another case update and more behind.
0:10
Speaker 2: The scenes insights.
0:11
Speaker 1: And this story started just a few months after I
0:16
Speaker 1: was born in nineteen seventy nine. It's the murder of
0:20
Speaker 1: a prominent rabbi in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn.
0:24
Speaker 1: And it finally came to some sort of closure this
0:28
Speaker 1: spring twenty twenty six with the exoneration of Carl Miller.
0:33
Speaker 1: And this story probably begins before nineteen seventy nine, and
0:36
Speaker 1: I suppose it'll never really end, and not just because justice.
0:41
Speaker 2: Is not going to be served to the victim or
0:43
Speaker 2: their family.
0:44
Speaker 1: Well, let me explain. Even saying the phrase the Ground
0:48
Speaker 1: Heights section of Brooklyn, it makes me hear a news
0:52
Speaker 1: broadcaster voice in my head, not only because of the
0:56
Speaker 1: you know, if it leads, it leads style of American
0:58
Speaker 1: media that colored my childhood, along with the peak of
1:01
Speaker 1: our city's murder rate during that time, but also there
1:05
Speaker 1: was a race riot there in the summer of nineteen
1:07
Speaker 1: ninety one between the black and Hasidic populations that lived there,
1:12
Speaker 1: and I remember hearing about it on the news nightly.
1:14
Speaker 1: And once you hear this story you know, it kind
1:17
Speaker 1: of becomes hard to ignore that this tension that was
1:20
Speaker 1: released through this riot must have been boiling under the
1:24
Speaker 1: surface of this neighborhood before even this murder in nineteen
1:28
Speaker 1: seventy nine. Now I have you been paying attention to
1:31
Speaker 1: recent manufactured outrage over this immigrant enclave map of New
1:37
Speaker 1: York City. It was at one time strictly self segregated
1:41
Speaker 1: by ethnicity. Now it's just economics. But my people are
1:46
Speaker 1: at least ethnically Irish. When I was, you know, a teenager,
1:50
Speaker 1: I dated an Italian girl, a difference that now seems
1:53
Speaker 1: silly to even mention, But at the time there were
1:57
Speaker 1: older folks in our in both of our families that
2:00
Speaker 1: I definitely looked at it as some sort of interracial arrangement.
2:04
Speaker 1: So you can imagine that the religious and actual skin
2:07
Speaker 1: tone differences between the black folks and the Hasidam in
2:11
Speaker 1: Crown Heights that was probably even more difficult to overcome,
2:15
Speaker 1: even though both populations had something very deep and common
2:20
Speaker 1: as refugees of European style discrimination, the Jews escaping systematic
2:26
Speaker 1: annihilation in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Bloc, and then
2:30
Speaker 1: black folks escaping the Jim Crow South, only to come
2:34
Speaker 1: to places like New York, where even the Irish and
2:36
Speaker 1: Italians still hated each other, and many of whom climbed
2:40
Speaker 1: out of economic dire straits by joining the police forces
2:44
Speaker 1: that systematically tortured and wrongfully incarcerated people like Carl Miller,
2:49
Speaker 1: who became some sort of sacrificial lamb to kind of
2:52
Speaker 1: diffuse the tension that came from the murder of a
2:56
Speaker 1: prominent rabbi in nineteen seventy nine, attention that only would
3:00
Speaker 1: explode in nineteen ninety one, well, he had already been
3:03
Speaker 1: in prison for eleven years. Carl was later paroled after
3:08
Speaker 1: over thirty years in prison, just three years shy of
3:12
Speaker 1: the establishment of Brooklyn's Conviction Review Unit in twenty thirteen
3:16
Speaker 1: under Ken Thompson, which I believe may have started in
3:20
Speaker 1: earnest to correct some of the terrifying history of police
3:24
Speaker 1: violence and misconduct, but it appears to have morphed into
3:27
Speaker 1: some kind of scene washing apparatus that helps maintain the
3:31
Speaker 1: veneer of infallibility of our criminal legal system, which is
3:34
Speaker 1: operated by flawed human beings, just like everything else is.
3:38
Speaker 1: Despite the appearance of some higher calling in a commitment
3:42
Speaker 1: to public safety that is bastardized in stories like this one.
3:46
Speaker 1: And maybe you'll agree with my take when you hear
3:49
Speaker 1: Carl's story. The Brooklyn CRU accepted his case, turned over
3:54
Speaker 1: old investigative files, conducted an investigation, including interviews with witnesses
3:59
Speaker 1: that the jury never heard from, as well as those
4:01
Speaker 1: who testified, and after you hear this story, you're going
4:05
Speaker 1: to wonder why the hell they were ever believed, and
4:08
Speaker 1: all of it appears to support Carl's unwavering claim of innocence.
4:11
Speaker 1: But before actually doing what the CRU was established to do,
4:16
Speaker 1: the Brooklyn DA's office chose instead to meet Carl's team
4:20
Speaker 1: in court, proceeding to burn through over a decade of
4:23
Speaker 1: tax dollars in Carl's remaining years fighting his innocence claims
4:28
Speaker 1: until April first, twenty twenty six, when a judge finally
4:32
Speaker 1: agreed with Carl, overturning his conviction on the grounds of
4:35
Speaker 1: actual innocence. Meanwhile, when asked for comment, the Brooklyn DA's
4:40
Speaker 1: office said they're still reviewing the decision like they planned
4:45
Speaker 1: to appeal or some shit. So let's you know, just
4:48
Speaker 1: keep that in mind when you're listening to Carl's story
4:51
Speaker 1: and ask why this alleged progressive city agency spends tax
4:55
Speaker 1: dollars on fighting to maintain convictions like these. Do they
5:00
Speaker 1: kind of look insane for doing it?
5:04
Speaker 2: I mean, who.
5:04
Speaker 1: Benefits from from that? Rabbi Oknoff, the Hasidic community, the
5:11
Speaker 1: rest of us here in New York, anybody, anybody, And
5:16
Speaker 1: while we ponder that, for the first time in forty
5:18
Speaker 1: seven years, Carl Miller's name is finally free from the
5:23
Speaker 1: stain foisted upon him by police misconduct and violence. And
5:27
Speaker 1: maybe that sounds too harsh to call it violence, but
5:30
Speaker 1: what else is it when you kidnap someone for thirty
5:33
Speaker 1: one years, steal their youth, steal a father from his children,
5:40
Speaker 1: and then enslave him. And if that sounds like hyperbole,
5:44
Speaker 1: I mean we think differently when it happens to us. Well,
5:50
Speaker 1: Carl and our other guests don't have to wonder.
5:55
Speaker 3: On October twenty fifth, nineteen seventy nine, Rabbi David Akanov
5:59
Speaker 3: was walking with his prayer case in Crown Heights, Brooklyn,
6:02
Speaker 3: when an assailant approached, described as a young black man
6:06
Speaker 3: about five nine, one hundred and fifty pounds, he shot
6:10
Speaker 3: the prominent rabbi and stole the prayer case and read
6:13
Speaker 3: it to an apartment building. Eventually, NYPD found a young
6:17
Speaker 3: man named Daryl Brown, who gave several accounts alleging that
6:20
Speaker 3: a local amateur broxer named Carl Miller had made some
6:23
Speaker 3: incriminating statements. Carl had an open warrant for assault, was
6:28
Speaker 3: brought in for a lineup, but the eyewitnesses didn't identify him.
6:33
Speaker 3: After he was processed for the previous assault charge and released,
6:36
Speaker 3: Carl approached Darryl Brown in the street, but Brown was
6:40
Speaker 3: not deterred. At trial, Brown testified that he had seen
6:43
Speaker 3: the whole thing from start to finish, so the prosecutor
6:47
Speaker 3: no longer needed the other eyewitnesses who did not identify
6:50
Speaker 3: Carl in the lineup. But this is wrongful conviction. Welcome
7:05
Speaker 3: back to wrongful conviction, where we have a story born
7:07
Speaker 3: out of racial and religious tension in New York City
7:10
Speaker 3: that existed certainly before the crime came in the late seventies,
7:13
Speaker 3: but also through the nineties and even today in Crown Heights, Brooklyn,
7:16
Speaker 3: between the Black and Ascidic communities.
7:19
Speaker 2: That live there.
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Speaker 3: But before we get into how that relates to this story,
7:23
Speaker 3: I'm the man who lived at Carl Miller. I'd like
7:26
Speaker 3: to welcome back one of his attorneys, James Henning, to
7:29
Speaker 3: our show.
7:29
Speaker 4: Pleasure to be back, Jason.
7:31
Speaker 3: And this time you brought along another attorney who played
7:33
Speaker 3: a major role in this case, Carissa Cokin. Welcome, thank you,
7:37
Speaker 3: and now i'd like to introduce the man himself, Carl Miller.
7:41
Speaker 3: And as we record this right now, October twenty fifth,
7:44
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three, it's not only his birthday, but also
7:47
Speaker 3: the forty fourth anniversary of the crime at the center
7:51
Speaker 3: of his wrongful conviction. So Carl, I'm sure that colors
7:55
Speaker 3: how you see this day, but we hope that this
7:58
Speaker 3: one is a happy birthday. Thank you for choosing to
8:01
Speaker 3: spend some of it here with us, and you're welcome. Now, Carl,
8:05
Speaker 3: can you tell us a little bit about your childhood.
8:08
Speaker 5: I grew up in Crown Heights with my family. I
8:12
Speaker 5: went to public school to twenty one. From there went
8:15
Speaker 5: to James D. Lawrence, which is a six hundred school.
8:18
Speaker 5: My mother and my father moved out and I just
8:21
Speaker 5: hung around with some of the guys that I was
8:24
Speaker 5: associated with.
8:25
Speaker 4: Carl did not have his parents around for a while.
8:27
Speaker 4: He was expected to go out and handle his own business.
8:31
Speaker 3: And you were married, and you were a young father
8:33
Speaker 3: at the time.
8:34
Speaker 2: That wasn't married at the time, but I was a
8:36
Speaker 2: young father.
8:37
Speaker 3: I understand you were an amateur boxer.
8:40
Speaker 2: Yeah.
8:40
Speaker 5: I did box for Izzyzerland Youth and Recreation Center and
8:44
Speaker 5: Crown Heights, and I had a little reputation in the
8:47
Speaker 5: neighborhood as somebody that you didn't want to mess with.
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Speaker 4: And I think that, unfortunately worked against him when he
8:53
Speaker 4: was wrongfully accused.
8:55
Speaker 3: In the months leading up to the murdering question, Carl
8:57
Speaker 3: had been in a fight in which he was stabbed
8:59
Speaker 3: with a screwdriver and hospitalized with the collapse lung, resulting
9:02
Speaker 3: in an open arrestaurant for assault, which seems wrong for
9:06
Speaker 3: someone defending themselves against deadly force, But that kind of
9:09
Speaker 3: unfair application of the law was nothing new to Karl.
9:13
Speaker 5: I did have a confrontation with the seventy first Precinct
9:16
Speaker 5: because they used to come around and get guys to
9:19
Speaker 5: go in for lineups, and I started telling them, don't
9:22
Speaker 5: do that because you getting paid five dollars for a lineup,
9:26
Speaker 5: but they're not.
9:26
Speaker 2: Giving you back the picture.
9:28
Speaker 5: So this is my way of like trying to keep
9:30
Speaker 5: them out of the police way.
9:32
Speaker 3: Which is solid advice. We've seen misidentifications start just that
9:36
Speaker 3: way in so many wrongful conviction cases. So as a
9:39
Speaker 3: young man, Carl had already witnessed injustices to give him
9:42
Speaker 3: that perspective. While in contrast, there appeared to be preferential
9:46
Speaker 3: treatment for the Hasidic community in Crown Heights.
9:49
Speaker 4: It's a strong voting block. It's like, you're not going
9:51
Speaker 4: to get elected mayor if you don't have the Hasiatic community,
9:54
Speaker 4: because they will vote in droves for the candidate that
9:57
Speaker 4: the Rebbe tells them to vote for.
9:59
Speaker 3: The Hasidic community before and after World War Two settled
10:02
Speaker 3: in Crown Heights, which had been anointed by the leaders
10:04
Speaker 3: of what is known as the Jabad or Habbad Lubovich movement,
10:08
Speaker 3: many of whom had escaped persecution either at the hands
10:11
Speaker 3: of the Germans or those in the Soviet block. Before
10:13
Speaker 3: and after World War Two. Curiously, the city allowed one
10:16
Speaker 3: of its most powerful voting blocks to operate their own
10:19
Speaker 3: police force, the Jewish Defense League or JDL.
10:23
Speaker 4: The hard charge behind that JDL philosophy was never again,
10:28
Speaker 4: get yourself a gun, don't rely on the cops. People
10:31
Speaker 4: lived in an era where the cops were hurting you
10:33
Speaker 4: onto the trains to auschwitzen bergen Belsen and Triblinka and whatnot.
10:39
Speaker 4: It's that Mirkan slogan, never again, We're not going to
10:42
Speaker 4: be vulnerable. Imagine any other group in New York City
10:45
Speaker 4: having their own police force. There are two very distinct
10:49
Speaker 4: worlds there in the Crown Heights area. One that is
10:52
Speaker 4: set up with their own ambulance and emergency systems, and
10:56
Speaker 4: they've had a number of issues going up until recent days.
11:01
Speaker 4: With those two communities bordering on each other.
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Speaker 5: One of the one that really stands out is the
11:04
Speaker 5: Crown Heights Riot. But as I will say to people,
11:07
Speaker 5: prior to Crown Heights riots, you had like Victor Road.
11:10
Speaker 5: He was a guy that was a cost of about
11:12
Speaker 5: the JDL.
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Speaker 3: And of course you're talking about the awful incident on
11:16
Speaker 3: June sixteenth, nineteen seventy eight, when approximately twenty ascetic men
11:21
Speaker 3: beat a sixteen year old kid named Victor Roads into
11:24
Speaker 3: a coma that lasted for two months. And so obviously
11:27
Speaker 3: the tension was high in the area, so.
11:30
Speaker 5: It was always tension, but it wasn't the con attension
11:33
Speaker 5: that the Crown Heights Riot had bought.
11:36
Speaker 3: The Crown Heights riot took place in August nineteen ninety one,
11:39
Speaker 3: when a young Hasidic man drove through a red light,
11:42
Speaker 3: peered off the road to avoid now oncoming traffic, and
11:45
Speaker 3: pinned two seven year old black children under his car,
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Speaker 3: one of whom Gavin Cato, was killed, signetic a race riot.
11:53
Speaker 4: The story at the scene was the Shabbata ambulance showed
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Speaker 4: up and went straight for Hasidam while kids underneath the
12:03
Speaker 4: car and they're trying to lift it up.
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Speaker 3: The tension that was building for decades exploded. Jewish people
12:08
Speaker 3: and their businesses were attacked, and the violence played heavily
12:11
Speaker 3: into the nineteen ninety three mayoral election of Rudy Giuliani,
12:14
Speaker 3: who unseated New York City's first African American mayor, David Dinkins.
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Speaker 3: The unrest in Crown Heights was palpable in nineteen ninety three,
12:23
Speaker 3: and was certainly present when Victor Rhodes was attacked in
12:26
Speaker 3: June of seventy eight, as well as when Rabbi David
12:28
Speaker 3: Akanov was murdered in October seventy nine.
12:32
Speaker 4: Rabbi David Akanov, the victim in this case, was in
12:35
Speaker 4: his late sixties. He had been born in Ukraine in
12:39
Speaker 4: nineteen eleven studied the Torah under Communist rule there. Actually,
12:44
Speaker 4: after his bar mitzvah, he wanted to continue studying, but
12:47
Speaker 4: his parents wouldn't let him, so he went on a
12:48
Speaker 4: hunger strike until they gave up and led him. He
12:52
Speaker 4: ended up emigrating to the US after learning that the
12:56
Speaker 4: KGB was looking into him, and he made efforts in
13:00
Speaker 4: the Crown Heights community to help other Jews who were
13:03
Speaker 4: living under oppression in Russia. So Rabbi Akanov was by
13:07
Speaker 4: all accounts, a very pious and charitable man. He was
13:10
Speaker 4: not somebody who seemed to deal with a lot of trappings.
13:13
Speaker 4: But he did have a regular prayer case that he
13:16
Speaker 4: would bring with him to pray, and it contained and
13:20
Speaker 4: I'm going to butcher this terminology, his talis and his tapillon,
13:23
Speaker 4: which are religious implements used by Lubovich has seed him.
13:27
Speaker 4: So just before seven am on October twenty fifth, nineteen
13:31
Speaker 4: seventy nine, he's on his way to yeshiva when he shot.
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Speaker 6: This was a very high profile case.
13:37
Speaker 7: We've got a very prominent rabbi in the community who
13:42
Speaker 7: was shot with a thirty two caliber point blank in
13:45
Speaker 7: the face. There were two eyewitnesses to this shooting.
13:50
Speaker 4: Both of the eyewitnesses Louis Fazio, who was not a
13:53
Speaker 4: member of the seated community, and sixteen year old Schinini
13:56
Speaker 4: of Sperlin, who was. It's pretty evident that they saw
14:00
Speaker 4: the same person running from the scene with Rabbi Akinov's
14:03
Speaker 4: prayer case.
14:04
Speaker 3: Now, the descriptions were actually remarkably similar from the two witnesses.
14:08
Speaker 3: A man who was black, twenty one years old, ish right,
14:13
Speaker 3: about five nine, one hundred and fifty pounds, medium built,
14:16
Speaker 3: medium hair, possibly wearing a hat and a dark jacket. Carl,
14:20
Speaker 3: does that description match you or did it match you
14:22
Speaker 3: at that time?
14:23
Speaker 5: At that time, I was probably a five hundred and
14:26
Speaker 5: eighty pounds, weigh a little afro, and wear too many hats,
14:30
Speaker 5: very athletic, not slim, as they had described this person
14:34
Speaker 5: as being a slender person.
14:35
Speaker 2: That's not me.
14:36
Speaker 3: They're talking about a guy who's five nine one fifty.
14:39
Speaker 3: You're about six feet tall, right, Yeah, there's a significant difference.
14:42
Speaker 3: You were a boxer, right, so with a class of boxing.
14:45
Speaker 5: I was in a light heavy, light heavyweight, light heavyweight.
14:49
Speaker 3: So the descriptions didn't match, what about alibis and things
14:55
Speaker 3: like that.
14:55
Speaker 5: I was in Queens, New York, celebrating my birthday with
14:59
Speaker 5: my daughter's mother at the time, and I left the
15:01
Speaker 5: house came back to Brooklyn, and that's when I learned
15:04
Speaker 5: about the rabbi being murdered.
15:06
Speaker 3: Carl had spent the night in Queens, and even after
15:09
Speaker 3: lies and coercion, his daughter's mother, Joann Davis, maintained that
15:12
Speaker 3: he was there that morning and not in Crown Heights
15:15
Speaker 3: at seven am, murdering Rabbi Achanoff and running off with
15:18
Speaker 3: his prayer case into the apartment building at five sixty
15:21
Speaker 3: five Crown Street.
15:22
Speaker 7: And that is where they end up finding a suitcase
15:27
Speaker 7: that belonged to an individual named Darryl Brown.
15:32
Speaker 4: Rabbi Akanov's prayer case is never found, and in an
15:35
Speaker 4: abandoned apartment they find this suitcase belonging to Darryl Brown
15:39
Speaker 4: with his property in there, and two days later he
15:42
Speaker 4: shows up at the precinct because he heard that they
15:44
Speaker 4: were looking for them.
15:45
Speaker 7: Darryl Brown essentially ends up being the only person to
15:50
Speaker 7: ever implicate Carl Beller in this crime.
15:52
Speaker 3: Right, you don't have to be sure, Lock Holmes to
15:54
Speaker 3: figure out that's a misdirection play there, right.
15:57
Speaker 4: You've also got the fact that Daryl Brown is repeatedly
16:01
Speaker 4: lying to them. His statements evolved. His initial statement indicates
16:05
Speaker 4: that he didn't see anything.
16:07
Speaker 3: And then they received a second statement from Daryl Brown
16:09
Speaker 3: on November eight, nineteen seventy nine, while he was being
16:12
Speaker 3: treated at King's County Hospital for a gunshot wound to
16:15
Speaker 3: the hand. They never investigate the cause of the wound.
16:17
Speaker 4: When they come back to him, presumably with the ability
16:20
Speaker 4: to turn the screws a little bit when he's in
16:23
Speaker 4: the hospital with the gunshot wound. He now says that
16:26
Speaker 4: he and two other friends had seen a Jewish man
16:29
Speaker 4: with some money in a pizza falafel store and Carl
16:34
Speaker 4: supposedly said, oh, you should have ripped him off, and
16:37
Speaker 4: that he had heard the shot and saw Carl near
16:39
Speaker 4: the scene.
16:40
Speaker 3: Carl has always maintained that he was not present either
16:43
Speaker 3: for the murder or that day in the store. We
16:46
Speaker 3: only find out who that actually was much later then.
16:50
Speaker 4: Darryl Brown in his third documented statement and his first
16:54
Speaker 4: sworn statement the next day, on November ninth, he says
16:57
Speaker 4: that he had seen Carl near the scene and he
16:59
Speaker 4: tried to get into five point sixty five Crown where
17:02
Speaker 4: I was staying. I've seen him with a thirty two
17:05
Speaker 4: and I spoke to him the day before the crime
17:08
Speaker 4: about a jew with money in a blue bag. And
17:11
Speaker 4: that's a quote which is important because it departs from
17:13
Speaker 4: his testimony at trial.
17:15
Speaker 3: On the strength of Dall Brown's ever shifting word, Carl
17:18
Speaker 3: was eventually charged with the murder. However, with his open
17:21
Speaker 3: arrest warrant for assault, his reputation as a neighborhood tough guy,
17:25
Speaker 3: and previous interactions with the seventy first Precinct, they came
17:28
Speaker 3: looking for him way before Brown had ever made any statements.
17:32
Speaker 3: Just a few days after the rabbi's murder in late October.
17:36
Speaker 5: My sister tell me that the police was looking for
17:38
Speaker 5: me to talk to me. And I called him, said,
17:41
Speaker 5: what are you looking me for? Oh, we want to
17:43
Speaker 5: talk to you about the homicide. Come to the precinct.
17:45
Speaker 5: I'm like, nah, we can talk about not come to
17:46
Speaker 5: the precinct. I didn't go because I made it was
17:48
Speaker 5: going to arrest me, so I had an open case.
17:50
Speaker 4: I had a warrant, which is completely within his rights.
17:52
Speaker 5: And I think it was November fourteenth. They picked me
17:56
Speaker 5: up at my house, took me to the sixty ninth Precinct,
17:58
Speaker 5: questioned me about the homicide, but they arrested me for
18:01
Speaker 5: my warrant.
18:02
Speaker 4: When Carl does get brought to the precinct, he offers
18:06
Speaker 4: to take a polygraph and provide his fingerprints, and police
18:11
Speaker 4: don't take his prince, but they do take a polygraph,
18:14
Speaker 4: which they claim Carl failed. He then stands in two
18:18
Speaker 4: lineups without council and is viewed by Shanina Sperlin and
18:21
Speaker 4: Louis Fazio, the two undisputed eyewitnesses, neither of whom identify him.
18:26
Speaker 2: I was held on the warrant.
18:27
Speaker 5: They took me to Rockets Island, came back out and
18:31
Speaker 5: walking around the street, and people was telling me that
18:33
Speaker 5: this guy Brown was talking about me with the police,
18:37
Speaker 5: and I had a confrontation with him when I was accident.
18:39
Speaker 5: Why are you telling him talking to the police about
18:41
Speaker 5: me about this case? Oh, they want me to say
18:43
Speaker 5: and I'm not going to say nothing. I was just
18:45
Speaker 5: telling him leave my name out of it because I
18:47
Speaker 5: had nothing to do with that at all.
18:49
Speaker 2: This was around probably right after Thanksgiving.
18:52
Speaker 4: Darryl Brown on November twenty ninth is given a polygraph
18:55
Speaker 4: quote to test out his earlier statement end quote to
18:59
Speaker 4: the proctor and according to the police, Brown's polygraph shows
19:04
Speaker 4: that he was telling the truth about everything, but there
19:07
Speaker 4: was some question about his withholding evidence from the police.
19:10
Speaker 4: Now think about that statement, because we know number one,
19:13
Speaker 4: polygraphs aren't this nuance? Now they weren't this nuance? Then
19:18
Speaker 4: this was a tool for coercion.
19:20
Speaker 3: It usually is. Polygraphs aren't even admissible in court. And
19:25
Speaker 3: I need our audience to remember that police are allowed
19:28
Speaker 3: to lie to you about evidence, and they routinely lie
19:31
Speaker 3: about polygraph results in order to coerce confessions.
19:35
Speaker 5: When they arrested me on the fourteenth and I volunteered
19:38
Speaker 5: for the lineup, the guy has said that, oh, you
19:40
Speaker 5: was picked out in Alno, which we come to learn
19:43
Speaker 5: that was not true, that I was never identified in Lano.
19:46
Speaker 5: Then after I take the polygraph test, they said, oh
19:48
Speaker 5: you fail. So I'm like, okay, when I watched Perry
19:52
Speaker 5: Mason when I was a kid, So if I failed,
19:54
Speaker 5: allowed to take the test and I was picked out
19:56
Speaker 5: in a lineup, what more evidence than you need to
19:58
Speaker 5: arrest me? But I wasn't trust I was arrested in No.
20:02
Speaker 5: Thirtieth for this.
20:03
Speaker 4: Case, after Daryl Brown gives that polygraph statement where according
20:08
Speaker 4: to the police, he was truthful about everything. On the thirtieth,
20:13
Speaker 4: they put Daryl Brown in lineups. But what are you
20:16
Speaker 4: putting somebody in lineups for if they've told the truth
20:18
Speaker 4: about everything implicating another individual.
20:21
Speaker 3: That's a good question. If I'm following this correctly, then
20:24
Speaker 3: they must have suspected that he might have been the guy, right.
20:27
Speaker 4: It doesn't make sense to conclude otherwise. Either he's telling
20:32
Speaker 4: the truth about everything when he implicates Carl, and okay,
20:36
Speaker 4: authorize the arrest. Certainly, there's no basis the next day
20:39
Speaker 4: to put Darryl Brown in lineups unless you're saying maybe
20:43
Speaker 4: he's still not telling the truth about everything, and instead
20:46
Speaker 4: what they do is revert to tunnel vision and authorize
20:49
Speaker 4: and arrest for Karl based entirely. This is undisputed, entirely
20:55
Speaker 4: on the accusation of Daryl Brown, his second differing sworn statement,
20:59
Speaker 4: his fourth or fifth differing documented statement since the murder.
21:04
Speaker 4: It's just a travesty.
21:19
Speaker 5: When you coming off the street, you know you gotta
21:22
Speaker 5: fight within Rockets Island, because that's how it was so
21:25
Speaker 5: it can be really alled on the person that if
21:29
Speaker 5: you're not really up to it. And I was the
21:31
Speaker 5: type of person that I could defend myself, so I
21:33
Speaker 5: had no problem like that. You just waiting to go
21:36
Speaker 5: to trial and prove my innocence.
21:38
Speaker 3: So nine months later, September eighth, nineteen eighty, you go
21:41
Speaker 3: to trial. I'm assuming you were represented by a public defender.
21:45
Speaker 5: Yes, I was reaping presented by how it listwise. A
21:48
Speaker 5: guy come in tell me, oh, I never lost a
21:51
Speaker 5: murder case.
21:52
Speaker 2: I didn't know you didn't have one until you had minds.
21:55
Speaker 4: There were some very serious discovery issues here, whether you
21:59
Speaker 4: want to blame it on try council or whether you
22:01
Speaker 4: want to blame it on the prosecution. But two things
22:05
Speaker 4: that we now know happened just prior to trial. There's
22:09
Speaker 4: no indication that Carl knew at the time of trial.
22:12
Speaker 4: It's that Shanina Sperlin shows up at the Brooklyn DIA's
22:16
Speaker 4: office and tells Ada Barbara Newman, the trial prosecutor, that
22:21
Speaker 4: he recognized a possible perpetrator in one of the lineups
22:25
Speaker 4: he viewed. But it's not the Carl Miller lineup. It's
22:29
Speaker 4: the Daryl Brown lineup. The other thing that is potentially
22:32
Speaker 4: but we're not certain, disclosed on August twenty eighth, nineteen eighty,
22:36
Speaker 4: about a week or so before Carl's trial starts, is
22:39
Speaker 4: that Ada Newman discloses that an individual named Barry Lee
22:43
Speaker 4: Jackson had been identified from photographs on or before October
22:48
Speaker 4: twenty seventh, nineteen seventy nine, which is just two days
22:51
Speaker 4: after the murder, and in writing whether this was received
22:55
Speaker 4: by mister weis Wesser or not, or whether it was
22:58
Speaker 4: taken as legitimate or not, she tells him that if
23:01
Speaker 4: he lacked any further discovery, he should tell her so
23:05
Speaker 4: she could provide it. Now, that's kind of a catch
23:07
Speaker 4: twenty two, and it's not how discovery works. He can't
23:10
Speaker 4: tell her if he's lacking something that he doesn't know about,
23:13
Speaker 4: and you're now on the eve of trial.
23:16
Speaker 3: There were several other important Brady violations, including more alternate
23:22
Speaker 3: suspects like a man named Derek Peterson, as well as
23:25
Speaker 3: a guy named Willie Easterling who had been seen trying
23:27
Speaker 3: to sell religious artifacts in the area. Police reports did
23:31
Speaker 3: not demonstrate any follow up and were not shared with
23:35
Speaker 3: the defense either, and this conduct was only compounded by
23:38
Speaker 3: presenting the ever changing testimony of Daryl Brown, this time
23:42
Speaker 3: at trial. He said that he followed Carl that morning,
23:45
Speaker 3: saw him grab Achanoff, who screamed before he was shot,
23:48
Speaker 3: then saw him run off to five sixty five Crown
23:51
Speaker 3: Street with the prayer case, and Carl's attorney did lean
23:54
Speaker 3: heavily on the inconsistencies between Brown's version of events and
23:57
Speaker 3: undisputed facts of the crime, as well as hows testimony
24:00
Speaker 3: may have resulted from pressure from investigators.
24:04
Speaker 4: Detective Sorrentino, who's the assigned detective here, testifies that he
24:09
Speaker 4: never told Daryl Brown he was a suspect, which, as
24:12
Speaker 4: we noted earlier, if after the fact of him giving
24:16
Speaker 4: you a completely truthful statement, you're placing him in lineups,
24:19
Speaker 4: there's only one reason to play somebody in a lineup
24:21
Speaker 4: as the subject. Second, the court prohibited Carl's council from
24:25
Speaker 4: questioning Detective Sorrentino about whether he had ever put psychological
24:30
Speaker 4: pressure on a suspect. And there's one more thing. Darryl
24:33
Speaker 4: Brown's account of Rabbi Akanov's suitcase is not accurate. His
24:39
Speaker 4: prayer bag was a distinctive dark blue color and in
24:45
Speaker 4: the early unrecorded police statement that Daryl Brown gives describing
24:49
Speaker 4: this bag, it is a dark blue bag, but by
24:52
Speaker 4: the time he gets a trial, it's a clear bag
24:55
Speaker 4: that he can see into and actually tell the type
24:59
Speaker 4: of felt matis burial inside, and more concerning it indicates
25:04
Speaker 4: to me one of two possible conclusions. One Daryl Brown
25:09
Speaker 4: saw inside that bag or touched it. Two Daryl Brown
25:12
Speaker 4: was told how that bag looked after he gave independent statements.
25:17
Speaker 4: Neither of them tend to support the reliability of the
25:21
Speaker 4: verdict in this case.
25:22
Speaker 3: Darryl Brown also testified that Rabbi Achanov made no attempt
25:26
Speaker 3: to block the bullet with his hand, which was contradicted
25:29
Speaker 3: by the state's forensic pathologist, citing the black powder stain
25:32
Speaker 3: and stippling on the back of the rabbi's hand. So,
25:35
Speaker 3: while the defense seated doubt about the state's witness, the
25:38
Speaker 3: state attacked Carl's alibi witness, his daughter's mother, Joanne Davis.
25:43
Speaker 7: From everything in the transcript, everything on the record, all
25:46
Speaker 7: the materials we have, the only indication we can really
25:50
Speaker 7: come to is that Carl's alibi witness was really just
25:54
Speaker 7: spoken to in order to try and get impeachment material
25:57
Speaker 7: for her. And you know something else that we see
26:00
Speaker 7: as well too, is that false statements are attributed to
26:04
Speaker 7: Carl's alibi witness, which is something that we very frequently
26:08
Speaker 7: see in these cases as well. You have unindorsed statements,
26:12
Speaker 7: you have unsigned statements. Then at trial it's the detective's
26:16
Speaker 7: word against the witnesses word.
26:18
Speaker 3: In this case, the lead detective Sorrentino, testified that Miss
26:21
Speaker 3: Davis said that she saw Karl with the thirty two
26:24
Speaker 3: caliber pistol, the kind of gun used to kill Achanov,
26:28
Speaker 3: even though Miss Davis denied ever saying that, but rather
26:31
Speaker 3: that she'd only seen him with a toy gun. In addition,
26:34
Speaker 3: Sorrentino testified that Miss Davis's mother had said that Carl
26:37
Speaker 3: was not at her home the morning of the murder.
26:40
Speaker 4: To the credit of Joanne Davis, she's actually asked under
26:44
Speaker 4: oath if her mother is stupid. She's told that Carl
26:48
Speaker 4: supposedly failed to polygraph, She's told that he may never
26:51
Speaker 4: come home, and she doesn't change her account.
26:54
Speaker 3: The state referred to Miss Davis's story as concocted, and
26:58
Speaker 3: they told the jury to quote wonder about the sense
27:02
Speaker 3: of someone who gave birth at seventeen woo.
27:05
Speaker 7: Her credibility was unborn to being attacked by the police
27:09
Speaker 7: and prosecutors.
27:11
Speaker 3: The state made note that the main issue of the
27:12
Speaker 3: case was whether Daryl Brown had seen the shooting, calling
27:15
Speaker 3: the actual eyewitnesses nothing more than quote distractions unquote, and
27:20
Speaker 3: that eyewitness Louis Fazzio quote didn't add anything to the
27:24
Speaker 3: case unquote. They had to take this tact after all,
27:27
Speaker 3: because Fazio was no help to them.
27:29
Speaker 7: Fazio was initially subpoenaed by the people. Right, So he
27:34
Speaker 7: gets into the courtroom and he tells his wife that
27:39
Speaker 7: Carl is too broad to have been the man that
27:42
Speaker 7: he saw.
27:43
Speaker 4: As a result, Idia Newman doesn't call him, but the
27:46
Speaker 4: defense does.
27:48
Speaker 7: He reiterated that he made this remark that Carl was
27:51
Speaker 7: too broad to have been the person that he saw,
27:54
Speaker 7: and he also basically said that he was not able
27:58
Speaker 7: to identify the person who he saw in the courtroom,
28:02
Speaker 7: So meaning right, it's not Carl.
28:05
Speaker 4: But the fact that Ada Newman had subpoenaed him makes
28:07
Speaker 4: two things ridiculous. She asks him, mister Fozzio, were you
28:11
Speaker 4: wearing your glasses? As if this is supposed to impugne
28:14
Speaker 4: his account, even though she was going to call him
28:16
Speaker 4: as her witness previously when she thought maybe it wouldn't
28:20
Speaker 4: denigrate her case. But second of all, how you could
28:23
Speaker 4: get up in summation and say he couldn't add anything
28:25
Speaker 4: to the case when you were calling him in a
28:28
Speaker 4: case that did not have a ton of witnesses testifying.
28:31
Speaker 4: He's one of two people that indisputably saw the purp
28:35
Speaker 4: running from this crime scene.
28:37
Speaker 3: So Fasio was positive for the defense while Joeanne Davis
28:41
Speaker 3: was brutally attacked. But then Carl's lawyer does something absolutely
28:46
Speaker 3: insane at the end of the trial.
28:48
Speaker 4: It's absurd. It's in his own summation where the verdict
28:52
Speaker 4: is going to come down to a credibility contest between
28:55
Speaker 4: his civilian aliby witness and the sole witness for the prosecutor.
29:00
Speaker 4: And first the judge says, actually says on the record, well,
29:05
Speaker 4: it's probably improper for me to express an opinion, but
29:08
Speaker 4: I'm going to say it. I think the alibi has
29:10
Speaker 4: been pretty well discredited. And instead of mister Weiswasser standing
29:14
Speaker 4: up and advocating for his client, he says, quote, I
29:17
Speaker 4: wish I never heard the word alibi, and In his
29:21
Speaker 4: own summation, he points out supposed holes in miss Davis's testimony,
29:26
Speaker 4: denigrates her as a witness, while calling Detective Sorrentino an
29:30
Speaker 4: excellent officer. It's a complete abdication of his duty to
29:34
Speaker 4: his client.
29:35
Speaker 5: He didn't really do anything in defense of me. He
29:37
Speaker 5: really didn't. And a jurior or eleven whites and one black.
29:40
Speaker 5: It was over two hundred asiitics inside and outside the court.
29:45
Speaker 2: The deck was stacked against me.
29:47
Speaker 3: Predictably, the jury went out and they came back with
29:51
Speaker 3: guilty on all the accounts right felony, murder, robbery in
29:54
Speaker 3: the first degree, in criminal possession of a weapon in
29:56
Speaker 3: the second degree.
29:57
Speaker 5: When I was found guilty, it was like, wow, are
30:00
Speaker 5: you serious? But you're gonna believe this guy that I
30:03
Speaker 5: killed this man. A lot of things was running through
30:06
Speaker 5: my head. I'm not gonna be able to raise my son.
30:08
Speaker 5: I'm not gonna be able to raise my daughter, you know,
30:11
Speaker 5: my sisters, my family. So it's a whole lot going
30:14
Speaker 5: through a whole lot. I'm put on that bus to
30:31
Speaker 5: go up to Elmira. It's like the reality starts sitting there.
30:34
Speaker 2: What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do get.
30:36
Speaker 5: Caught up in a lot of negative stuff that goes
30:38
Speaker 5: on in prison, or you're gonna get yourself up out
30:41
Speaker 5: of there for time being. You get caught up in
30:44
Speaker 5: a little bit of the negativity stuff to stimulate yourself
30:46
Speaker 5: from the reality of being in prison. That's something that
30:49
Speaker 5: I did to a couple of old timers. Pulled me
30:51
Speaker 5: to the side and said, hey, look, we read about
30:54
Speaker 5: your case. It don't seem right. You need to get
30:57
Speaker 5: your butt in a little library while your indictment it
30:59
Speaker 5: can still fresh.
31:00
Speaker 2: I had a little pill of attorney.
31:02
Speaker 5: He put together some type of brief that was straight
31:05
Speaker 5: up BS and I wound up doing time, just trying
31:09
Speaker 5: to seek help from different people. Just keep pushing, went
31:12
Speaker 5: to school, got a ged legal research certificate, still trying
31:16
Speaker 5: to prove my innocence. Nobody was listening to pills, was
31:20
Speaker 5: denied time come for your first parole board. I go
31:24
Speaker 5: in there, continue to maintain my innocence. That was in
31:26
Speaker 5: two thousand and four, Go back in two thousand and six,
31:29
Speaker 5: come back in two thousand and eight, same thing, go
31:32
Speaker 5: back in twenty ten. And what was presented to the
31:36
Speaker 5: senior parole officer at the time is that Shanina Sperling
31:40
Speaker 5: and Louis Faizio did not identify me the senior parole officer.
31:44
Speaker 5: He said, Yo, you know they always sent up transcripts
31:47
Speaker 5: of the sentencing, but they never sent up stuff like this.
31:50
Speaker 5: And he said, wow, I never knew this. So he said,
31:53
Speaker 5: the next parole hearing come up, I think you got
31:55
Speaker 5: a good shot with this commission of someone set your
31:57
Speaker 5: paperwork in front. I just continue saying with you, saying,
32:00
Speaker 5: maintaining your innocent, don't change, and I didn't, and the
32:03
Speaker 5: lo and behold, I was parole.
32:05
Speaker 3: So you kind of glossed over a little bit over
32:08
Speaker 3: thirty years that you spent in prison. Right, was it
32:11
Speaker 3: that long? Thirty one thirty one years?
32:13
Speaker 2: Right?
32:14
Speaker 3: It's amazing that you survived, and that you seem to
32:17
Speaker 3: really have survived with your spirit intact. And it's also
32:20
Speaker 3: incredible that you were able to go to the parole
32:23
Speaker 3: board and do exactly opposite of what people are advised
32:26
Speaker 3: to do.
32:26
Speaker 2: Right.
32:27
Speaker 3: They want to hear remorse, they want to hear that
32:30
Speaker 3: sort of narrative. Right, So for them to be able
32:32
Speaker 3: to act the way that they did shows that they
32:35
Speaker 3: must have known what you had known all along and
32:38
Speaker 3: what everyone should have known all along, which is that
32:40
Speaker 3: you were actually innocent.
32:41
Speaker 5: Being released after thirty one years, it was surreal. It
32:45
Speaker 5: was wow, I'm walking the street. Oh man, what am
32:48
Speaker 5: I going to do? Okay, gotta go see parole. That's
32:51
Speaker 5: kind of frustrating because you're still on the supervision. Came out,
32:55
Speaker 5: got married, reconnected. What did I miss? I missed my
32:58
Speaker 5: daughter's first time walking. I missed my daughter's first grade.
33:02
Speaker 5: I missed my son's first grade. I missed my son's
33:05
Speaker 5: first baseball game. I miss so many things that you
33:08
Speaker 5: cannot get back. So when you come out, where do
33:11
Speaker 5: you pick up from my daughter? Because she was only
33:13
Speaker 5: a couple of months before I left. My son was two,
33:16
Speaker 5: So you look at the time. So you're saying thirty
33:18
Speaker 5: one and thirty three, these are young adults that have
33:21
Speaker 5: lived a life. So how could you interject as a
33:24
Speaker 5: father because this was taken away from me. So you
33:26
Speaker 5: do the best that you can. And that's all I've
33:29
Speaker 5: been doing since I've been out, was reconnecting with them,
33:31
Speaker 5: connected with other family members and things of that nature,
33:34
Speaker 5: and then got back into proving my innocence. And that's
33:37
Speaker 5: when I continue doing what I was doing, and I
33:39
Speaker 5: wrote to different people after Ken Thompson had set up
33:43
Speaker 5: the Wrongful Conviction Unit that he has in the Brooklyn
33:46
Speaker 5: District Attorney's office and I had contacted them. Then I
33:49
Speaker 5: contacted James, and this is where we're at now.
33:52
Speaker 4: So where we are right now is we had cooperated
33:57
Speaker 4: for a bit with the conviction Review Unit here in Brooklyn.
34:00
Speaker 4: We'd receive some materials we intend to use and support
34:03
Speaker 4: of emotion at some point. Ultimately, after they interviewed Carl
34:06
Speaker 4: and some of the witnesses in the case declined to
34:09
Speaker 4: be interviewed or could not be located, they closed out
34:13
Speaker 4: the case. But then this month they reached back out
34:16
Speaker 4: and said that there has been a recent and unexpected
34:19
Speaker 4: development in the investigation of Carl's case, and that they're
34:23
Speaker 4: going to reopen the investigation, which I don't believe I've
34:27
Speaker 4: heard of them doing in any other case.
34:29
Speaker 3: After we wrapped our first interview, we got a call
34:31
Speaker 3: from James and Carrissa asking us to hold on production
34:34
Speaker 3: until they could meet with the Brooklyn DA's office. It
34:37
Speaker 3: turns out that back in nineteen seventy nine, a guy
34:39
Speaker 3: named Robert Simms gave a statement to corroborate Brown about
34:42
Speaker 3: Carl's alleged statement at the falafel or pizza store. Now,
34:46
Speaker 3: in October twenty twenty three, some new evidence came to
34:49
Speaker 3: light about Robert Simms and his wife.
34:51
Speaker 4: Linda Simms, the broken cru in the course of their reinvestigation,
34:56
Speaker 4: had visited her house looking to speak with her husband,
35:00
Speaker 4: Robert Simms, and left the card there. And what we've
35:03
Speaker 4: been told is that Linda Simms, the wife, in January
35:07
Speaker 4: of twenty twenty three, reached out to her sister and
35:10
Speaker 4: sent a picture of the assistant's business card that had
35:14
Speaker 4: been left at the door. And when her sister asked, well,
35:17
Speaker 4: what is this about, she responded, well, google Rabbi Crown
35:21
Speaker 4: Heights nineteen seventy nine, and the sister, Teresa, found articles
35:26
Speaker 4: on Rabbi Akonov's murder. And she asked her sister, Linda, well,
35:29
Speaker 4: what did you do? And Linda responded that's what I did.
35:34
Speaker 4: And Teresa, caring about her sister, said well, what you
35:38
Speaker 4: need to do is get yourself an attorney and turn
35:40
Speaker 4: yourself in. And Linda, for many months did not heed
35:45
Speaker 4: that advice. So by September ish it seems to be
35:50
Speaker 4: Teresa this was weighing very heavily on her contacted the
35:53
Speaker 4: Brooklyn DIA's office and that's what spurred on the reopening
35:58
Speaker 4: of the investigation.
36:00
Speaker 3: The confession from Linda to her sister Teresa continued implicating
36:04
Speaker 3: Robert Simms.
36:05
Speaker 4: Linda said, I did that and then weave meaning her
36:08
Speaker 4: and Robert brought it up to our father. He was
36:12
Speaker 4: very pissed off and sent me down south. Now there's
36:14
Speaker 4: a fair inference that she was saying that both of
36:17
Speaker 4: us did this. And we now have additional evidence that
36:20
Speaker 4: Linda Simms's father, who was murdered in December nineteen eighty,
36:24
Speaker 4: shortly after Carl's trial, that at various points throughout nineteen
36:28
Speaker 4: seventy nine and nineteen eighty, both Linda and Robert Simms
36:32
Speaker 4: had possession of his handgun. And additional information that has
36:36
Speaker 4: come out about Robert has certainly changed our assessment of him. Specifically,
36:42
Speaker 4: when he was interviewed by the cru in relation to
36:45
Speaker 4: Carl's case, they did not know that in the early
36:48
Speaker 4: two thousands he was carrying on this relationship outside of
36:52
Speaker 4: his marriage with Linda. She was a twenty something meter beautician.
36:56
Speaker 4: They had a child together and she was found this
37:00
Speaker 4: disposed of in a very rough fashion in an abandoned building,
37:03
Speaker 4: and Robert was brought to trial in Brooklyn for the
37:07
Speaker 4: murder and somehow acquitted. Obviously, the file is sealed following
37:11
Speaker 4: the acquittal, but it sounds like the only reason for
37:14
Speaker 4: the acquittal was that Robert pointed the finger to friends
37:19
Speaker 4: who had helped him dispose of the body and claimed
37:22
Speaker 4: that one of them was the actual murderer.
37:24
Speaker 3: So what was the guy's name who took the fall?
37:26
Speaker 4: Meltrius Walker?
37:28
Speaker 3: Is he still serving time?
37:29
Speaker 4: He's out now? He essentially says he came over to
37:33
Speaker 4: the house. The woman had been shot four times, and
37:36
Speaker 4: Robert said, I need you to help me take care
37:38
Speaker 4: of this. Now. What's even more interesting here is before
37:41
Speaker 4: the Brooklyn DIA's office, the cru had learned through Theresa
37:45
Speaker 4: and his sister about Robert's prior charge that he was
37:49
Speaker 4: acquitted of. They interviewed him and he said he did
37:52
Speaker 4: not want to talk about his prior case, which he
37:55
Speaker 4: referred to as sort of a little incident, I believe,
38:00
Speaker 4: but he didn't want to get into the details. He
38:02
Speaker 4: said that he and Daryl Brown, the sole witness against
38:05
Speaker 4: Carl Miller, had been best friends for years up until
38:09
Speaker 4: that point, at which time they had a falling out
38:13
Speaker 4: because he asked Darryl Brown for some help with something
38:17
Speaker 4: and Daryl Brown's response was, who the f do you
38:21
Speaker 4: think you are? John Gotti or something? And they haven't
38:23
Speaker 4: really spoken since it sounds like Daryl was asked to
38:26
Speaker 4: do some dirty work for Robert.
38:28
Speaker 3: Now, it certainly plausible that Daryl Brown may have been
38:31
Speaker 3: responding to a request from Robert Simms for yet another
38:34
Speaker 3: big favor.
38:35
Speaker 4: Going back to the original investigation, the statement attributed to
38:39
Speaker 4: Robert by police was that Robert and Darryl Brown a
38:44
Speaker 4: day or a few days before Rabbi Akinov's murder had
38:47
Speaker 4: been in a pizza shop on Kingston Avenue and seeing
38:50
Speaker 4: a Jewish man with a prayer bag full of money.
38:54
Speaker 4: And according to the police report, Robert and Daryl were
38:59
Speaker 4: thinking of robbing this man but didn't And when they
39:02
Speaker 4: later saw Carl Miller, they said, here's what we saw,
39:05
Speaker 4: and according to the police report, Carl said, oh, you
39:08
Speaker 4: should have ripped him off. Now, Carl has always denied
39:11
Speaker 4: making that statement. We have nothing from Daryl Brown on
39:14
Speaker 4: that statement at trial. We have him in a police
39:16
Speaker 4: report giving a different version of that. What Robert Simms
39:19
Speaker 4: did admit to us and to the CRU was that
39:22
Speaker 4: he was looking to get one of those bags. He
39:24
Speaker 4: was interested in robbing somebody. He denies that they had
39:28
Speaker 4: any conversation where Carl Miller said, yeah, you should have
39:30
Speaker 4: taken this guy off, And as Carl has said repeatedly,
39:34
Speaker 4: his response to that would have been, are you crazy.
39:37
Speaker 4: You're right across the street from the JDL and you're
39:40
Speaker 4: going to rob a guy like this. That's ridiculous.
39:43
Speaker 3: So where does the case stand now?
39:45
Speaker 4: With the CRU, they have turned things over to us.
39:47
Speaker 4: We're gathering information and evidence to put a motion into court.
39:52
Speaker 4: We've had several people talk to us and give us
39:54
Speaker 4: additional evidence. We're feeling good that we can get ourselves
39:57
Speaker 4: a hearing where we can subpoena some of these people
39:59
Speaker 4: and get them in to give warn testimony so we
40:01
Speaker 4: can weed out the truth here.
40:04
Speaker 7: Absolutely, and now when we're working with the CiU, clearly
40:08
Speaker 7: there are ways and avenues for us to pursue.
40:12
Speaker 6: We just need people to speak up about it.
40:15
Speaker 4: Karl deserves it. Rabbi Akanov deserves to have the right
40:19
Speaker 4: person convicted of this crime. This is a case that
40:23
Speaker 4: is based on one person, Darryl Brown his word. We're
40:26
Speaker 4: not here to judge you. Somebody was already judged in
40:29
Speaker 4: this case, and we submit that it was wrongful. Reach
40:32
Speaker 4: out to us. We'll talk to you. This isn't a
40:35
Speaker 4: witch hunt or something. We just want the truth. We're
40:38
Speaker 4: at eighty six Livingston Street in Brooklyn. We want to
40:41
Speaker 4: get to the bottom of this.
40:42
Speaker 3: So we'll definitely have your contact info length in the
40:44
Speaker 3: episode description, and with that we're going to go to
40:46
Speaker 3: closing arguments, where first of all, I just want to
40:50
Speaker 3: thank you for joining us, and now I'm going to
40:54
Speaker 3: shut my microphone off, kick back of my chair with
40:57
Speaker 3: my headphones on, and just listen to anything else you
41:00
Speaker 3: feel is left to be said. So let's start with James,
41:03
Speaker 3: go to Carissa, and then gin a shit off with you.
41:06
Speaker 2: Carl.
41:07
Speaker 4: One thing that I think we didn't get into, something
41:10
Speaker 4: that we only learned after we started cooperating with the
41:13
Speaker 4: cru in this case, is that one of the people
41:16
Speaker 4: that we've seen pop up in a lot of these
41:18
Speaker 4: cases is a gentleman that your viewers are certainly familiar with,
41:22
Speaker 4: the detective Lewis Scarcella, and he it just so happens
41:27
Speaker 4: pops up in this case for reasons that have not
41:31
Speaker 4: been revealed to us. Two days after the murder, then
41:34
Speaker 4: anti crime officer Lewis Scarcella is interviewed by the assisting
41:41
Speaker 4: detective Viola, and we have no information about that, but
41:45
Speaker 4: we do have information that former detective Scarcella has been
41:48
Speaker 4: monitoring the progress of this case and the media accounts
41:52
Speaker 4: of this case. So again I'll say the same thing
41:55
Speaker 4: I said about Daryl Brown, Missus Scarcella, my phone is on.
42:00
Speaker 4: Information is information. We don't know how you factored into this. Again,
42:04
Speaker 4: I'll say, we're not going to stop. There will be
42:08
Speaker 4: a resolution here, whether it's through the cru whether it's
42:11
Speaker 4: filing something. When Carl came to me, I said, we're
42:13
Speaker 4: going to fight this case. When Carissa read this case,
42:16
Speaker 4: she said, we're going to fight this case together. That's
42:18
Speaker 4: what we do, and we're going to keep moving forward,
42:21
Speaker 4: reach out.
42:22
Speaker 7: I'm just really happy that we were able to touch
42:25
Speaker 7: on the fact that Carl was released on parole, notwithstanding
42:29
Speaker 7: him maintaining his innocence.
42:31
Speaker 6: I think that is huge.
42:33
Speaker 7: Anyone who's familiar with the criminal justice process knows that
42:36
Speaker 7: is huge, And I really think.
42:39
Speaker 6: It's no surprise that Fazio played.
42:41
Speaker 7: A role and that so as we're saying, if anyone
42:45
Speaker 7: has any more information similar to Fazzio, maybe they saw
42:49
Speaker 7: something just come forward.
42:51
Speaker 5: I would like to say thank you in the wrong
42:54
Speaker 5: for Fixing Podcasts giving us the opportunity to have this
42:58
Speaker 5: out there in the public so that people you can
43:00
Speaker 5: see not just me, but they had a whole bunch
43:02
Speaker 5: of wrongful convictions, and as James and Carissa as stated,
43:08
Speaker 5: it's people that know me. If you know something that
43:11
Speaker 5: need to be spoke on, speak on it. That's all
43:13
Speaker 5: I have to say.
43:20
Speaker 3: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
43:23
Speaker 3: to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
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Speaker 3: week early and ed free by subscribing to Lava for
43:28
Speaker 3: Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our
43:31
Speaker 3: production team Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as
43:34
Speaker 3: my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cliber.
43:38
Speaker 3: The music in this production was supplied by three time
43:40
Speaker 3: OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
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Speaker 3: across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and
43:46
Speaker 3: at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram
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Speaker 3: at it's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
43:52
Speaker 3: Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number One.
43:56
Speaker 1: We've worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in
43:59
Speaker 1: this show are the views and opinions expressed by the
44:01
Speaker 1: individuals featured in this show are their own and do
44:04
Speaker 1: not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good.