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#592 Jason Flom with Anthony DiPippo · Wrongful Conviction

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The episode you're about to hear was originally published in 2017,
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: the very first year of this podcast. It was episode
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: number 25. Now, this interview is near and dear to
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: my heart. Anthony DePippo courageously shared his story with me
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: shortly after he'd been released from prison and exonerated. Since then,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Anthony's done a lot of growing, reflecting on and healing
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: from the trauma of being wrongfully incarcerated for two decades.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: I couldn't be more proud of the man he's become.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: To hear a lot more of Anthony's story and where
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: he is now, check out Bone Valley Season 5, The
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Devil's Quarry. Host Paul Solitaroff deeply investigates Anthony's case and
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: the person who may have been implicated instead. A second
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: installment of The Devil's Quarry is coming soon. Paul's back
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: in the same small New York town reporting on a
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: crime with eerie similarities to the one Anthony was originally
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: convicted of. Look out for the first episode on September 30th.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Trust me, you won't want to miss it. And now,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: here is Anthony's story.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: I think we have the best legal system. It's just
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: the people that implement it. They get lost along the
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  Speaker 2: way and forget what their job really is.
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  Speaker 3: He just kept on trying to remind me that who
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: was in authority, who was in control, and how easy
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: it was for my body to be found in any
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  Speaker 3: alley of New York City.
• 1:33
  Speaker 4: It's a tough prison when you have the guards going
• 1:36
  Speaker 4: against you because they are the biggest gang in the prison.
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: They do that.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: They'll give a guy a life sentence and go home
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: and eat spaghetti like it was nothing.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: And anybody that would say, well, why would you confess
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: to something that you didn't do? My question to them
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: would be, why wouldn't you confess when somebody's threatening to
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: kill your life?
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: The judge, he said, how you feel?
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: I said, I'm okay.
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: He said, well, today is your lucky day.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: You're going home.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Jason Flom. Today's guest is a larger-than-life character in every way,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Anthony DePippo.
• 2:24
  Speaker 5: Anthony DePippo went behind bars as a 19-year-old troublemaker, but
• 2:28
  Speaker 5: insists he was never the killer they said he was.
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: After 20 years in prison for a crime the courts
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: now say he did not commit.
• 2:34
  Speaker 5: A jury in Putnam County found him not guilty in
• 2:37
  Speaker 5: the 1994 rape and murder of 12-year-old Josette Wright. This
• 2:41
  Speaker 5: was his third trial for the same crime. The previous
• 2:43
  Speaker 5: convictions were overturned, then on Tuesday, an acquittal. The main
• 2:47
  Speaker 5: witness against him was a former girlfriend who said she
• 2:50
  Speaker 5: witnessed the attack, but the jury didn't buy it.
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: What we learned at this trial is that the eyewitness
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: wasn't credible.
• 2:56
  Speaker 5: In the third trial, the defense was allowed to suggest
• 2:58
  Speaker 5: Howard Gombert is the real killer, seen with the victim
• 3:01
  Speaker 5: shortly before her disappearance and currently in a Connecticut prison
• 3:04
  Speaker 5: on sex assault charges. The Putnam County District Attorney, though,
• 3:07
  Speaker 5: isn't backing down. He insists not guilty is not the
• 3:10
  Speaker 5: same as innocent.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: He was freed six months ago. Anthony, welcome to the show.
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: Great to be on the show. Thank you for having me.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: So Anthony is a very interesting guy. I've gotten to
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: know him well over the last several months since he's
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: been out of prison. And when I say he's a
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: larger than life character, what are you, 6'5?
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: Almost 6'6.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, he looks like a gentle giant. So
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: just gregarious and funny and fun to be around. And
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: so it really belies the incredible saga that you've lived through.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: How you came out with your spirit so, so strong
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: and so positive. And it gives me a lot of
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: joy just hanging around with you. So I'm glad to
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: have you here.
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: Thank you. I try to live for the moment and
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: for the future and not in the past. I did
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  Speaker 4: 20 years wrongfully, falsely accused of crimes I didn't commit.
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: It's a privilege to be back in society. A lot
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: of people in my situation don't get to make it here.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. In fact, we'll get to it. The
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: guy who was wrongfully convicted with you, Is not here
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: because he's still locked up for the same crime, which
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: is crazy because you've been exonerated. And let's go back
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: to the time of the crime. I mean, you were
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: still a kid. Right. Which makes it extra tragic, right,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: because of the fact that you lost those years. So
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: you grew up where?
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  Speaker 4: In Carmel, New York.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Carmel, New York. Nice place. Pretty nice.
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: It's a nice place. It's picket fences and people are
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: just living life. It's one of the safest communities according
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: to the state. to live in.
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  Speaker 1: So you had a relatively happy childhood growing up in
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  Speaker 1: Carmel and things are going good. You play sports?
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: You know, I was involved in wrestling in school and
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: I wasn't involved with baseball, football, none of that. But,
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  Speaker 4: you know, I was doing a lot of stuff that
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: normal kids do. And I did come to an age where,
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: you know, I began experimenting with drugs and I kind
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: of went south on everything. And that kind of led
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: me down the path to how the police started to
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: focus in on me as a person of interest. Just
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: because of what I was doing. I mean, we weren't
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: out threatening people or robbing people or committing sexual assault crimes. But,
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: you know, we were using and selling drugs and we
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: were dressing up and we were playing a part. You know,
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: as the culture shows that, you know, when you're a kid,
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: you kind of go a certain way. You listen to
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: rap music, you're easily influenced. These influences affected me. And
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: I left school.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Sort of like a knock-around guy, but you weren't hurting anybody.
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: No, it wasn't my goal. I didn't wake up in
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: the morning and say, oh, I'm going to rape somebody
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: or I'm going to go rob somebody or I'm going
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: to hurt somebody. But at the same time, we were youths.
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: We were criminal thinkers. I mean, it happens. I'm not
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: a criminal thinker today. I like to think of myself
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: as a mature human being.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Many of us have had our transgressions at that age.
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  Speaker 1: So things are going along pretty well. You're having your
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: different issues, whatever, some of your teenage things that are
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: going on. You've got to get through a lot of people.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: And then a crazy thing happens in the community, which
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: is a 12-year-old girl was raped and murdered. Right. We're
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: talking 1994 now.
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  Speaker 4: Yes.
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  Speaker 1: Her name was Josette Wright.
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: Josette Wright.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: And this must have been big news in the community
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: like that.
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  Speaker 4: It was huge news. It was in the newspapers. Everybody
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: was talking about it. The entire police forces in the
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: community got together and they were trying to solve this crime.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: It took a long time to find her, right?
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: 13 months. She was last seen in October of 1994
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: and Her skeletal remains were found in November 1995. And
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: so they find this girl in the woods. A rope
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: is attached to her. Her hands were bound behind her back.
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: The right leg was pulled up and the rope went
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  Speaker 4: around the neck in sort of a half hogtied position.
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  Speaker 4: I don't want to be graphic, but the underwear was
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: inside of her mouth and the bra was tied around
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: her face. And she was found prone face down and
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: she decomposed in that position.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: And this is where things start to get really weird, right?
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  Speaker 1: Because now you have a really, I mean, I'm getting
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: the chills thinking about it, a really terrifying scenario, right?
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  Speaker 4: It's the most horrible you can imagine.
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  Speaker 1: Everybody's worst nightmare, a little girl, innocent, found and having
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: been tortured and killed. And now the pressure mounts, right?
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: The cops, they got to find out who did it,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: but for a lot of reasons.
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  Speaker 4: It was, you know, re-election year for the sheriff. And
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: so everybody wanted this case solved.
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  Speaker 5: So.
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  Speaker 4: They started looking at people, and one of the people
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  Speaker 4: they were looking at was a guy named Howard Gombert,
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  Speaker 4: who later had confessed that he committed this crime to
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: several individuals. She was last seen getting into his red
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: car with the Connecticut license plates. Now, the woman eyewitness
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: that had seen this identified his photo out of a
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: photo array as if anybody number two. He was number two.
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: I wasn't in the photo array, and I didn't drive
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  Speaker 4: a red car. Howard Gombert did drive a red car
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: with the Connecticut plates. So you have this girl getting
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  Speaker 4: in a red car 15 minutes after she walks out
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  Speaker 4: of her house for the last time, which is a
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  Speaker 4: stone's throw away from her home. Now she's not seen again.
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: The next time they find her, she's in the woods
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  Speaker 4: in this condition. When I went to trial, I didn't
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: know about this guy, Howard Gombert. My attorney had previously
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: represented him on a rape charge. So he received the
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: pretrial discovery material that implicated his former client, this guy,
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  Speaker 4: Howard Gombert.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Stop there for a second, right? This is where things
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: get really weird. The fact is, The attorney who was
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: representing you had previously represented the guy who was the
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: actual suspect.
• 8:28
  Speaker 4: Correct.
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  Speaker 1: Which is totally forbidden. I mean, unethical, not allowed, whatever
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: you want to call it. Any lawyer knows that they
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: can't do that. And in fact, he withheld information that
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: he had that would have implicated his former client and
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: ended up screwing. And I'm using a very nice word
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: for it, screwing you, his current client. It's so backwards
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: and so conflicted and so fucked up, honestly, that people
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: can't even imagine that this goes on, but it does.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: But let's go back to how this started, right? Because
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: it started with a guy named Gombert.
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: We're doing the week they found her remains. So they
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: got this eyewitness testimony that week. They also interviewed people
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: that Howard Gombert knew that they were saying he was
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: trying to entice her into a babysitting job and that
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: he was flirting with her and he was acting strange
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: around her. So the cops are focusing on this guy Gombert.
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: But now we're driving along to Jersey City. We go
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: to a rave. Like I said, we were using and
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: selling drugs. We were coming back from this rave and
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: we get pulled over. Now, while we were in the car,
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: present in the car was me, Dominic Neglia, who was
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: a later informant, and Andrew Krivak, who became my co-defendant.
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: We're in this car and we're talking just candidly about
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: they just found this girl in the woods. So when
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: we got arrested, Dominic Neglia told the police that we
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: might have information on that case. So they whisked him
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: away and they promised to treat him with some special
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: treatment to get him off his drug charges or whatever.
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: if he would further give information upon us about what
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: we were talking about.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: He was only 16, right?
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: He was 17. We were talking about basic newspaper knowledge.
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: We weren't talking about implied knowledge that we actually participated
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: in this crime. So then what happened from there was
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: that Dominic Negley was repeatedly pulled out of his school,
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: pulled out of his job until he got fired. He
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: worked at the Olive Garden until he was brought to
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: the police station for several hours of interrogation. And this
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: Detective Castallo, Patrick Castallo, and this other Detective William Quick
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: were telling him, They have to get information against me. Otherwise,
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: he's going to go to prison for his charges. And
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: they were paying him money and they were beating him
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: up at the same time. He said, I don't want
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: to do this anymore. It came to a point where
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: he says, everything I said was a fabrication. I don't
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: want to do this anymore. So Castaldo, who was later
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: indicted for dissimilar conduct, hit the guy in the head
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: with the handcuffs and spit on him and said, you
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: ain't got no other choice. So he said, fine. He
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: came back and said, all right, they wanted witnesses. I
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: got your witnesses. Adam Wilson, Denise Rose and Bill McGregor.
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: Supposedly this crime happened in a van and they were there.
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: So the cops took this information and went to Denise
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: Rose and threatened her with life in prison for three weeks.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Denise Rose was your girlfriend, right?
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we were seeing each other on and off. And
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: at the time, shortly prior to her giving a statement,
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: we were seeing each other. But then I broke up
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: with her, which, you know, is not the cause of
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: why she did this to me. But it probably contributed
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: because some women are scorned, you know, when they get
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: a certain feeling towards something. And so she became a
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: witness against me. Now, remember what I told you about
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: how the body was tied up. She said the girl
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: was gagged, her hands were tied in the front, and
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: the rope was tied to nothing else. With the forensic
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: evidence is contrary to that. What the police were mistaken
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: because the finger bones, not to be graphic here, but
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: the finger bones fell to the rib cage. So, they
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: wanted a mistaken impression. The girl's hands were tied in
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: the front. So, they spoon fed this to Denise Rose. So,
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: Denise Rose parrots this. So, she swears that the hands
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: were tied in the front. Now, if your hands are
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: tied in the front and you're gagged in the mouth
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: and you're being attacked or whatever, you're going to be
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: able to reach up to your mouth to pull the
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: gag out and breathe if the theory of death is asphyxiation. But-
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: We were later able to find out that this guy,
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: Howard Gombert, did this to 10 other girls with the
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: same type of bondage and stuff.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Why did the cops, in your opinion, when they had
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: the guy who turned out to be the right guy,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: this Gombert, the wrong guy, the right guy, however you
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: want to talk about it, they had the actual perpetrator, right?
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: How did they go so far wrong? They were interviewing him.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: They were interrogating him. Right. They had it right. All
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: they had to do was, I mean, this thing pretty
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: much came with instructions, right? You had the red car.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: You had the witnesses. And then ultimately it comes out
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: that he's this serial predator, right? I don't know if
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: they had that information at that time. But why did
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: they go off of him?
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: Like I said, Dominic Neglia. And then from Denise Rose,
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: it went on to Adam Wilson, who since recanted, and
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: then Bill McGregor, who since recanted. Supposedly the crime, the
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: theory of the crime was that we got so high
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: in a van, we played spin the bottle, and the
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: girl just wound up dead. That Andy attacked her, stuffed
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: her mouth with the underwear, tied her hands in front,
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: And he went first for a minute and a half.
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: And then supposedly I went first for a minute. And
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: then supposedly we were supposed to dump the body. Now,
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: this is all a fabrication to begin with. But the
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: people that were supposedly playing spin the bottle who were
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: falsely identified by Dominic Neglia had recanted. So Adam Wilson
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: says after a 12, 15-hour interrogation with Dan Stevens, the
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: same guy that coerced Jeffrey Deskovic using a lie detector test.
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: And we all know that Jeffrey Deskovic is innocent because...
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: DNA established, the real killer and the real kill confess,
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: gave the same type of lie detector test to my
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: friend Adam Wilson. And he signed the paper, but immediately recanted,
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: went to his probation officer the next day, said, the
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: story is untrue. I was not in a van. The
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: cops threatened me. They said I was going to be
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: charged as an accomplice on accessory to murder, and I
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: wouldn't be able to go home. So he signed a
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: statement and recanted the next day. Bill McGregor, he recanted.
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: It took him 10 years to recant, but he recanted,
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: gave us a sworn affidavit that cops threatened him with
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: accessory to or accomplice to murder unless he put me
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: in a van. And he said he never met Josette
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: Wright in his life. And he said he doesn't know
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: who Denise Rose was until 96, two years after the
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: crime when the police introduced Denise Rose to him and
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: they had Denise Rose try to spoon feed him the
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: story while he's in the police department because he only
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: said he fell asleep during the crime and woke up
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: at home.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: This is making my head hurt, right? So they have Gombert, right?
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: And then this terrible sequence of events happens where they
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: pull you guys over And then that turns into exactly
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: what we just talked about. But then at the same time,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: they must have said, all right, well, we're going to
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: let this guy Gombert go because we think we got
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: a different lead. Is that basically how you understand it?
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: Because it's so weird.
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: You asked a critical question. How did the focus shift
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: off Gombert to us? So Dominic Neglia, in my view,
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: was that shift. Is there anything more to it? Were
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: they protecting Gombert?
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: All I know is that guilt was shift to actually
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: innocent by the police who either did so maliciously or
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: by mistake, but it was done. And we wound up
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: spending the next 20 years and Andy's still in jail
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: for crimes we didn't commit. I don't know why the
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: cops wanted us so badly, but it just happened. It
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: was a 20 year struggle to get out of prison
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: and God bless us. I'm here and we're going to
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: get Andy out.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're going to get him out. The question is, Gombert,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: what happened to him?
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: So can I just tell the story about Howard Gombert
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: so people can understand?
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: Howard Gombert is incarcerated now for taking an eight-year-old girl
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: in the woods. threatening her with death. I'm not going
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: to name names because these people are, some of them
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: are still living. He threatens her with death. He sexually
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: assaults her. In the last 11 years of his freedom,
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: he was charged four times serious sex crimes. One girl
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: he was abusing from when she was eight to 18
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: would repeatedly tie her up and put the underwear in
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: her mouth and tie her hands behind her back with
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: various things, including the rope. He was 64 days prior
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: to the girl that went missing in my case, Joseph Wright.
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: And this is very critical right here. and this is
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: how I know Gomber's guilty, is that he abducted his
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: other babysitter, blonde hair, blue eyes, strikingly similar characteristics at
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: knife point. A knife was also found at the crime scene.
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: He jumps out of the trees and abducts her at
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: knife point, ties her hands behind her back, and repeatedly
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: sexually assaults her. I'm not going to identify no names here,
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: but he put the underwear in her mouth. He tied
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: something around her face. This is an identical modus operandi
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: with a babysitter and he was enticing Joseph to babysit.
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: She quit. She went to the police department, filed a
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: police report that night, documented all this down, documented this.
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: She didn't identify Howard Gombert in the police report because
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: later she said she was scared, but she did call us.
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: We didn't know she existed. She did call us and said,
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: this is what happened. Howard Gombert did this to me.
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: So she comes forward with this information. The modus operandi
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: is distinct and unique. This wasn't an accident. This wasn't
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: somebody who paraded the girl around a gas station for
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: two hours, like the prosecution said, for the entire views
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: and pleasure of the town of Carmel. This is somebody
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: that jumped out of the darkness and fled back off
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: into the night. Now, I just want to build a
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: little bit more on Howard Gombert. Howard Gombert was also
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: seen six months later with Robin Murphy, 17, who's still missing.
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: And Robin Murphy, they were seen at this laundromat. They
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: were together. Years later, they would find Robin Murphy's underwear
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: bearing her DNA, 8 billion to 1 odds that it
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: was her DNA, in a trophy suitcase maintained by Howard
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: Gombert with some underwear from his other rape victims. Her necklace,
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: what we believed to be her necklace, was hanging from
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: his rearview mirror. And when the cops arrested him for
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: the last charge, the 8-year-old, they found this material and
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: they tested it. Now, years go by after that. He's incarcerated.
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: serving time in the McDougal Walker Correctional Facility, where he
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: proceeds to tell a fellow jail inmate that he had
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: sex with Josette Wright when she went missing, and that
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: they'll never find Robin Murphy's remains, and that they have
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: material with Robin Murphy's DNA on it, and that he
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: was trying to entice Josette to babysit, and that he
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: got her in a car with the babysitting lure. Now,
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: all these statements or declarations against penal interest made by
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: Howard Gombert and the Connecticut Correctional Institution that are corroborated
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: by proof, independent of the statements themselves, to attest to
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: their trustworthiness and reliability, which culminated in my third reversal
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: because of the second trial the judge didn't allow any
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: of this in. You know, let the jury hear the
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: name Howard Gombert.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: So there's a number of things here that anybody who
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: has any shred of decency and cares about women, girls
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: in this case, right? The idea is so fucking outrageous
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: that this guy was allowed by the authorities to go
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: free And went on to commit these unspeakable crimes against
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: these young women over and over again. And it took
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: them so long to figure it out when none of
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: those things ever really needed to happen. If they would
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: have done it right the first time, forgetting for a
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: moment the fact that you were robbed of the best
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: years of your life, as was Krivak. But that's what
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: never ceases to blow me away about the idea that
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: these law enforcement people, whether it's prosecutors or cops in
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: some cases or whatever it is, That they can sleep
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: at night knowing that they're locking up the wrong guy.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: And especially in a case like this. And it's just
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: a tragedy that you sit here and go, it could
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: have been prevented. It didn't have to happen. None of
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: this had to happen. They had the guy. I mean,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: it wasn't like a big mystery. They had the guys.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, I know you must have had, well, you
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: had 20 years to think about this. But I mean,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: you know, it's just, it's so, I can't, I can't prosecute.
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: I look at it like this, right? I'm home now.
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: I was victimized by not only the police department, but
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: this guy, Howard Gombert. I had served his prison time.
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: Andy is serving his prison time collectively. It's 41 years
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: in prison that we're doing for this guy, this heinous individual.
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: Some of these girls that he did this to were
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: my friends. I don't know everybody that he did this to,
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: but some of them were my friends. So we knew
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: these girls growing up and to find out years later
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: that this is what he did. Even Josette, I was
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: friends with the sisters. I was friends with the family.
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: I'm at odds with the family because they were misled
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: for so many years. I have such sympathy for them,
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: but I feel horrible that they feel a certain sort
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: of way. But in certain cases, you know that some
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: families don't accept it as easily as others. And some
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: people want to know and some people don't.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: Well, because let's think about it too. Psychologically speaking, it's
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: another terrible shock to them to find out that the
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: person that they thought was the real perpetrator actually wasn't.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: And that all these years, the real guy had been
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: allowed to roam the streets and to prey on other people.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: So that's got to be another thing. to have already
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: gone through this unbelievably terrifying traumatic experience and then have
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: to process that, I could see where there could just
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: be a breakdown. But it's hard for them to, I mean, look,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: I can see, I can understand it intellectually. No one
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: that's ever not been through it could possibly really understand it.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Everything went wrong in your case. Typical of many wrongful convictions.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: You had an incompetent defense attorney. You had incentivized witnesses
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: who lied on the stand. Incentivized in a lot of ways, right?
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Because they were being literally given the carrot and the stick.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: They were either being paid off or beaten up or
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: threatened with being charged with murder. That's a pretty strong incentive, right?
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: So you got convicted in a separate trial from Krivak, right?
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: You both got convicted.
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: Krivak signed a nine-page false confession after he was given
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: a lie detector test by the same individual, Daniel Stevens,
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: that gave Jeffrey Desvik his lie detector test preceding his
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: false confession, which later was proven false because DNA proved established.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: And let me just say for the audience, in case
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: some people haven't heard Jeffrey's story on wrongful conviction, Jeffrey's
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: a guy who was wrongfully convicted at 16 years old
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: of raping and murdering a 15-year-old girl. and the DNA
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: proved from the outset that he hadn't done it. And
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: then on the back end, when he was finally released
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: 16 years later, the DNA actually identified the real killer
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: who confessed. And we know that the guy that you're
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: referring to now.
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: Is the detective that took his false confession, gave him
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: several cups of coffee, had him under the table in
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: a fetal position prior to giving his statement, gave my co-defendant,
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: Andrew Krivak, a lie detector test preceding his false confessions.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: The ironic thing about a lie detector test is that
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: the detective is allowed to lie about the lie detector test.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: We should be giving the fucking lie detector test to
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: the detective. I mean, it's funny, but it's not. It's
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: so weird to think that they can lie in the
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: process of trying to get you to confess to a crime.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: They can lie. They can say anything they want. They
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: could say, we got your fingerprints. They could say, we
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: have witnesses. They could say, we got blood or DNA
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: or this, or you lied or the lie detector test,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: you failed. They can say whatever you want. And we
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: know that in certain cases, they've even been able, especially
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: with a teenager, which you were, which Jeffrey was, they've
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: been able in certain cases to convince people that they
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: actually did do the crime that they didn't do.
• 23:33
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: And so false confessions are really common in these cases.
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: It's problematic though. I mean, 25% of those cases that
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: have been established, DNA proof, actually innocent, involve some sort
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: of confession. One out of every four people that goes
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: in a police department that says they did it, We
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: have to assume they didn't do it. We have to
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: look at it closer because with that kind of statistics,
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: that's demonstrating a tremendous flaw in the criminal justice system.
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: So there has to be some sort of way to
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: corroborate these things. These things should be taped from the
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: beginning to the end, not before the guy starts confessing.
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: But from the minute they bring in a suspect into
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: a police department for an interrogation, they should turn on
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: a camera. They should put a tape recorder there. And
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: if he's going to say anything... Everything that he says,
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: let be recorded. His denials, his omissions, everything. Let's just
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: not start the tape recorder when he starts confessing and
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: then shut it off when you got him to sign
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: the paper. Right.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: It's not okay to have this movie be edited by
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: the detectives who are conducting, which is basically what happens, right?
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: They get to choose and selectively show the parts that
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: they want to build their case. By the way, the
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: good news is that this week, New York State passed
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: the law that we've been fighting for at the Innocence
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Project and other organizations have been fighting for for so
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: many years. We're now videotaping of interrogations. It's not mandatory.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: And I think that we have to pay respect to
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: you and others who have gone through this because without
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: you being out there, as you have done on many occasions,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: telling your story, that probably wouldn't have gone through because
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: the human story is what really, I think in many cases,
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: gets the legislators to understand that that these are changes
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: that need to be made because these are things that
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: happen to real people, right? Real people like you. I
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: want to get to the prison experience because it's so
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: hard to even imagine what it would have been like
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: for you as a teenager to be thrown into the
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: situation where you're going to a maximum security prison as
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: a convicted rapist and murderer of a 12-year-old girl. Yeah,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: you're a big, strong, tough guy, but still you're in
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: a place that they eat people alive in there, especially
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: people who are convicted of these type of crimes. How
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: did you deal with this? I mean, how could anybody
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: deal with that? How are you here? I mean, it's amazing.
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: Survival is man's number one instinct. I got to prison.
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: I ain't going to lie. I was scared to death.
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: I didn't know what I was entering. So I arrive
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: at the Schwanger Correctional Facility. Which, serious things happen there,
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: but it is softer compared to most prisons. Except but
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: for the fact they sent me into B1, which was
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: housing for all the most dangerous people in the state
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: that they have to keep a close eye on. So
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: when I arrived to prison, I didn't readily admit what
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: I was in prison for. When guys asked me, I
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: just blew it off on robbery, murder, this, that, and
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: the other thing. And I just started to go with
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: the flow. When guys started to catch wind of what
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: I was in jail for, then problems started to happen.
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: So I'm in a fight or a death situation. What
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: am I going to do? There was pressure. I politicked mostly.
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: I tried to avoid violence whenever I could. And eventually
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: I got, you know, the attention of certain guys. They
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: saw my paperwork and they gave me a shot. And
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: so I started helping other guys out. And in prison, it's,
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: you know, there's bloods, there's God bodies, which is the
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: five percenters, there's Muslims, there's the Italians, Latin kings. There's
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: all different sorts of sects. So I found my way
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: in with everybody and I showed my paperwork and guys
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: started sticking up for me. And plus, I'm a big guy.
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: So guys didn't want to just straight out say, you know,
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: I had to pay money or this, that and the
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: other thing, as opposed to my co-defendant who was recently
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: cut two weeks ago. I mean, they cut him in
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: the face. The guards is pressing up on him. They're
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: waving a newspaper around. He lost a recent appeal and
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: they're telling all the inmates, you know, what he's in
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: jail for. I was able to politic my way through it.
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: Was it always a joy?
• 27:38
  Speaker 5: No.
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: I had trouble and there were certain places where the
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: guards were worse than the inmates.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: Because you were transferred around to different places? Yeah.
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: And certain guards have morals and ethics that they think
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: it's their ethical duty to see to it that we
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: do hard time. Right.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: And so obviously it is the hardest imaginable type of
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: time because in this country we have don't focus on
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: rehabilitation as other Western countries, do we focus on punishment,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: which I think is backwards too, except in maybe the
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: most extreme cases, we could have an intelligent discussion about that.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: And in fact, yours was an extreme case, except you
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: were innocent. But that being said, I don't believe that
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: sentencing somebody to 25 years of life in prison, okay,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: we can say maybe that's an appropriate sentence, maybe it
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: should be longer, maybe it should be shorter, but sentencing
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: them to be tortured, that's not what we do in America.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: That's not appropriate. And the fact is that the way
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: we treat people in our prison system effectively is torture.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: And I want to talk about Privak because his story
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: deserves to be heard and people need to get involved.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Maybe they could write to him if you tell people
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: if he's interested.
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I always advocate for people to write to him
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: from time to time. I put his address on the Internet.
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: I send him pictures. I try to visit him when
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: I can. It breaks my heart to see him. I
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: bring him in high spirits. He's got a great team.
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: Professor Adele Bernard, Jeffrey Deskovic is behind him. So he's
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: got the support of our community, the innocence community, and
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: we want to see him out. We got his case
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: into the appellate division now, and we're waiting for a
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: decision whether he can leave to appeal because I was acquitted.
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: So based on the same proof, which consists of some
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: new proof, he should be entitled to the same shot
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: that I was recently given.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: It's so strange, right? So you've been acquitted. The actual
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: perpetrator has been identified, arrested, convicted, right? So what possible
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: reason could they have to hold– and I don't know
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: as much about his case as I do about yours. Right.
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: Well, it's the same. It's pretty much the same except
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: he's got a confession. I do not. A false confession.
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: I do not. It's the political climate in the community. A,
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: they place their own interest above the interest of justice.
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: So if something happens, if their colleague does something wrong,
• 29:46
  Speaker 4: they cover up for it. B, they're worried about paying compensation.
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: The county was already sued by Jeff. They're being sued
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: by other people right now, two other cases. So the
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: local government wants to keep this swept under the rug
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: for as long as possible for however means they can.
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: So we're moving forward. And if they don't want to
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: accept it, if the Putnam DA's office don't want to
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: accept that Andy's actually innocent, notwithstanding my induction into the
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: National Registry of Exonerees, notwithstanding the fact that the wrongful
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: conviction community accepts me as being actually innocent, we're just
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: going to fight them tooth to nail. And if they
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: have to roll over and we just have to Just
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: keep on marching through. That's what's going to happen. Because
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: I'm not going to tolerate these people. All they want
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: to do is protect their own interests. This is unjust.
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: They should accept responsibility.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: They have their killer.
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: They have their killer.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: They know who it is.
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: There's DNA proof. There's a confession.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: So what is the possible theory now, Anthony? Are they
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: thinking now, well, maybe he had something to do with
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: it also? I mean, it doesn't make any sense. This
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: one is exactly a match. I mean- you don't have
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: to be a skilled sleuth or detective or Kojak or
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: whatever to figure this one out, right? I mean, everything
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: that you said leading up to this point about how
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: all the other crimes matched and the DNA and everything,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: it's like, obviously, it was this sick bastard Gombert, right?
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: Howard Gombert, yes. Who did it. And so, the fact
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: that your co-defendant is still rotting and being, you know,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: horribly abused and cut and everything else in prison, it
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: should keep everybody up at night until this guy is free.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: It doesn't make any logical sense.
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: And I agree with you. And I just want to
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: build a little bit more. We extended the olive branch
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: to the district attorney's office. The prior district attorney, Adam Levy,
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: he actually contacted the attorney general's office to reinvestigate our
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: case and was prepared to vacate my judgment in paperwork
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: that he and my attorneys had drafted together with the
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: attorney general involved based on proof that this guy could
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: stall local horse perjured testimony and based on proof that
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: Howard Gombert is the actual perpetrator. But he lost the
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: election to this new guy, Bob Tendi, who is in
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: bed with the Putnam County Sheriff that's the elected official
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: down there now. So instead of continuing to accept this
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: olive branch, we could work together. We could solve the crime.
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: You could be heroes by being accountable and responsible. And
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: we're not going to, forgive my language, shit on you
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: when you let us out. We're going to big you
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: up and we're going to try and help you look
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: good as long as you do the right thing for us.
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: He said to the attorney general, you could kick rocks.
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: I don't need another advocate for the defendant. And then
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: proceeded to go through the trial. Now, at this point,
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: I made bail. I made a million dollars bail. So
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: I'm free. But I'm on house arrest. I had an
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: ankle bracelet. And I'm sitting there and I'm still waiting
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: to find out if this guy really wants to take
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: a trial or not. And he's all in. So he
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: hires this guy, Larry Glasser, who worked on the Plaxico
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: Burris case, the football star. I'm not going to comment
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: on what I think of him. So he comes in,
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: he's all balls to the wall, hating us and saying
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: all the foulest things about us and that we definitely
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: did it and there's no possibility we're innocent and proceeds
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: to go to trial. And I go to a third trial.
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: This is the third time. I got two reversals. The
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: first time was the conflict of interest from the attorney
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: in 2011. 2016, the court of appeals granted me a
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: new trial based on proof that Howard Gombert did it,
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: was suppressed from the retrial judge. So I'm going to
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: trial and we pick a jury and they're being horrible
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: about it. And At the same time, we did all
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: from the olive branch. We go into the trial. At
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: the end of the trial, the Kuznets trial, I had
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: Mark Ignifilo, who works for Ben Brockman and Associates, and
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: Mark Baker, who also works for Ben Brockman. He did
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: appeal for John Gotti. Great attorneys, superior attorneys. They got
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: the best hearts. They came this summer, the whole summer
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: they were spending at my house. We were working on
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: a case. We did everything. So I'm waiting for the
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: jury verdict. Now, it's five hours. I'm waiting for the
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: jury verdict. And I think... Man, I'm not going to
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: win this because I was beaten down my whole life.
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: You know, I was a victim my whole life. So
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: I just think that this is another motion that I
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: have to go back to prison and come back, try
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: and get it back a fourth time. The jury comes
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: out with a not guilty verdict. So I'm having an
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: heart attack. Jeffrey Deskovic is in tears, gives me a
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: big hug. I'm sitting here, my heart's pounding. The lawyers
• 34:06
  Speaker 4: are in tears. My family's in tears. I knew the
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: moment that that was going to happen. The judge looked
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: when he said he was about to read the verdict.
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: He looked towards... the victim's family. And again, I have
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: great sympathy for him. And he said, there'll be no
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: outbursts in this court. And this is before the jury
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: guy stood up. And this was like two, three seconds
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: before I said, when he looked over there and didn't
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: look at us, I knew I was coming home and
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: I came home and it was the greatest day of
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: my life. I mean, I was, I lost bail during
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: the period of time. I went back to the jail
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: for whatever reason, but that day, that was the day
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: that I, uh, that I made it home. And I
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: was finally free of this, uh.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: You're finally free. It's bittersweet because you know as well
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: as anybody that this poor guy, Andrew Krivak, is as
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: innocent as you are. And I know you're not going
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: to really, because I know the type of person that
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: you are, you're not really going to be able to
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: experience the joy that you deserve until he's home as well.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: But what was that like after you spent more than
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: half your life in prison, right? 18 years old when
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: you went in.
• 35:16
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: 38, 39 when you came out? I was 40.
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: 40, right. 20 years.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: Right, because of the trial proceedings and everything else. By
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: the time you actually went to prison, you were 20. Right. Right,
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: arrested when you were 18. You spent more than half
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: your life in the system. And you come out, and
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: what is that like? You walk out. What does fresh
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: air smell like when you haven't had any? What does
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: freedom feel like? Where do you go? What was your
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: first instinct? Did you want a milkshake? What did you do?
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: I mean, I wanted what everybody else wanted, but I
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: really wanted to spend time with my family. It was
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: a lot of shock because prison is drab, you're bland colors,
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: and just everything. I went to bed and bath, and
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: I just looked at the wall of toothpaste. In commissary,
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: you got three choices of toothpaste. So I'm looking at
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: the toothpaste on a wall like, what am I doing?
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: How am I supposed to make choices? And so even
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: just going to a gas station and being able to
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: buy a soda, or seeing females walk around. Like in prison,
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: you're around men. I mean, they got some women guards,
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: but being able to talk to girls, to speak to
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: the opposite sex, to be able to not be wearing
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: state greens, not being barked at orders. But the first
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: most important thing that I found coming home was just
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: being able to be with my family and appreciate the
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: love and respect that they show me and give back
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: and have a good time, have a good meal. We
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: went to Red Lobster.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: What'd you have?
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: I had the ultimate feast. I just wanted everything. And
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: I've been having the ultimate feast since I've been home.
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: I'm on a diet now, no carbs at all. So
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: no more bread. I went from 240 to 275 in
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: like six months.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: Well, and I want to go back to that because
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: when we were together and we were hanging out in
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: Miami recently, coincidentally, we ended up in the same city.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: We were having some dinner and we're talking and among
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: all the other horrible things about being in prison. And
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: I know you were just talking about the food. And
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: I know you don't get a vegetable. You don't get
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: a fruit. You get basically slop in there, right? It is.
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: It really is.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, bland, just terrible food. Some of it's rotten.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, we know all those stories. But the other
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: thing that's unique to your case and makes me really
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: amazed that you're walking around upright is the idea that
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: you're so big and the beds are too small. Oh, yeah.
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: There's no bed that my feet didn't hang off on
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: or I had to crunch up somehow.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, I can't.
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: I had back problems until the day I came home.
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: When I came home, my back problems went straight away.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: Isn't that amazing?
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: I had disc up and down my back. And now
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: I haven't had one disc pain, one sharp pain since
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: I've been home. And I've been working out. In prison,
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: you live on a mat. Like, it's one inch thick.
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: And it's like you're living on a piece of steel.
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: And like you said, sometimes the walls don't fit a
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: guy 6'6. They fit a guy maybe 6 feet. So,
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: you have to crunch up and you have to, you know.
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: finding a way. I slept half the time.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you got to just wake up with
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: cramps in places that you don't even know you have places.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: I can't even imagine on top, as I talk about,
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, on top of the loneliness, the violence, the
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: lack of appropriate physical contact, all of it, it just
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: adds up to just such a total nightmare. But I
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: want to go back to prison for a second. Was
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: there a worst time and was there anything positive? Was
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: there one moment that you could think back? Was there
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: a connection you made with somebody on the inside? Was
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: there some moment of hope?
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: I mean, there was brotherhood. When I was in Attica,
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: we were living good. We were cooking. We had pans.
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: Everybody had TVs. There was a camaraderie in the cell
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: block where there was no problem. Everybody knew who I
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: was and everybody respected me. And there was a brotherhood
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: between us. But there was times where prison guards... would
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: come to my cell because they heard out about Anthony
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: DiPippo was in a jail and they decided to break
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: all my things and threaten me with that. And so
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: I experienced that in certain prisons like Sullivan. It's a
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: tough prison when you have the guards going against you
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: because they are the biggest gang in the prison. When
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: you have the guards going against you, you can't win.
• 39:15
  Speaker 4: So you have to walk on eggshells because anything you do,
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: if you decide one day I'm going to fight the
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: guards because I don't like the pressure that they're putting
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: on me, you're going to get more time. They're going
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: to send you to prison inside of prison. You're going
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: to go to the box and then you're going to
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: get one to three or seven more years. So I'm
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: thinking to myself and to these times that I was pressured.
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: that my family loves me. They invested $ 3 million since
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: I've been incarcerated, $ 3 million into my criminal defense. I
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: would not be respectful if I got caught up in
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: some other thing where they get me off, or I
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: won't say the word off, and they prove that I'm
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: actually innocent for this crime. And I do something else
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: stupid that I can't come home. So at certain times,
• 39:56
  Speaker 4: I stayed in my cell. I bit my fist and
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: I just said, I'm going to eat this. And luckily,
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: I didn't come across any situation where I had to
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: do more time. But there were times that I wanted
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: to come out myself and hurt something. I just made
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: sure those days were the days that I want to
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: lock in because I love my family. I love myself.
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: I want to go home.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: Is there a moment when you think back where you
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: experienced any type of... positive thing? I mean, I know
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: there were certain things.
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: There was a lot of ups in prison. You become bipolar.
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: So you would have severe depression, which even if you're
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: not bipolar as a person, you will experience some sort
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: of it. So there'll be great downs when you lose
• 40:35
  Speaker 4: your appeals. And I appealed more than 20 times. When
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: you lose your appeals and you have to go to
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: the next step, but then there's great hope. If you
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: know you're innocent and you're getting closer, you get this high,
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: this euphoric high, like I'm right there. And then when
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: you win, Even if you're still in prison, when you
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: just wouldn't leave to appeal, you don't even got the
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: right to appeal. That brings you up. When certain people
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: write you, like ex-girlfriends or loved ones, the girls want
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: to come see you and you've been down for so long,
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: there's ups in prison. You live in life. So you
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: just can't walk around for 20 years saying, this is
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: an awful experience. I'm going to hate myself. I'm going
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: to hate everything in it. You got to try to
• 41:13
  Speaker 4: make the most of what you got. And that's what
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: I did.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: That's a very spiritual approach, very evolved. And really, I
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: think For those of us who hear you speak, it's
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: absolutely remarkable. And I think that the exonerees as a
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: whole embody that attitude. And I've heard some of the
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: guys say and women say that for the people who
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: weren't able to get to that spiritual place, if you
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: want to call it that, they're still stuck in there
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: because they sort of gave up hope. And for you,
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: you kept fighting. In a certain sense, you were lucky.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, you can't call yourself lucky, but it was fortunate.
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: I fought for my mind. I had family with money,
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: and then I also put in work. So I was
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: in the trenches with them the whole way.
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: When you came out, I almost want to trace those steps.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: You come out, you're euphoric. You go into a car
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: with your family. Everyone's ecstatic, so happy to have you back.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: Because it's a burden on the family, too. When someone's
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: wrongfully convicted, it drags everybody down. Anybody who loves you,
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: of course, right? So then you drive away. Where'd you
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: go first? You went home first?
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: I really didn't have an idea what we wanted to do.
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: So Jeff was there. And so I wanted to go eat.
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: Nobody knew where we wanted to go eat. There was
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: about 20 of us that were there that day. Some
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: people didn't even think there was going to be a
• 42:27
  Speaker 4: verdict that day and went home. One of my attorneys
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: almost crashed on the side of the road. So they said,
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: you know, what do you want to do? So Jeff's like,
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: let's go to Red Lobster. I have waited to go
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: to Rev Lobster for so long. So I just went
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: on his suggestion and it was great. We went over there,
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: we had drinks. And then while I was there, this
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: was one of the remarkable things was one of the
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: guards that was taking me to trial during the first
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: trial in 97 was there. He's not a guard anymore.
• 42:51
  Speaker 4: A guy named Officer San Sanjaria. He came up to
• 42:54
  Speaker 4: me and he's like, I want to, you know, just
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: congratulate you. I didn't know who he was. And this is,
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: I'm just out a hot hour and a half and
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: he's shaking my, So I'm like, thank you. Oh, you
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: don't remember me? Yeah, no, I was taken into the
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: trial back then. I thought something was wrong back then.
• 43:08
  Speaker 4: Let me buy you a beer. So one of the guards,
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: one of the jailers that was taking me to my
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: original trial, who felt something was off, gave me a big,
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: tall blue moon with a little orange in it. And
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: I banged that back. And it was just an experience, man.
• 43:22
  Speaker 4: I'm very thankful for him.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to imagine how good lobster tastes after time.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: 20 years of terrible food. How good does beer taste
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: after 20 years of no beer? So, Anthony, there's a
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: rather bizarre aspect of your post-exaggeration life that really just
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: boggles my mind, in spite of all the other things
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: you've been through, which are so terrible. Now there's another
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: indignity that the state is throwing at you. And basically,
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: you can't get a driver's license. Is that right? Right.
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: So I go to the Department of Motor Vehicles and
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: they tell me, you got outstanding tickets. So I went
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: to the town courthouse to go pay the tickets off.
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: So they're telling me these tickets amount to 10 points
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: on my license. These are tickets from 95. I failed
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: the signal. I was speeding. And I'm not debating whether
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: I did these things or not. I was a dumb
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: thinker as a youth. But at this point now, I
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: come home 20 years. You figured it would be resolved.
• 44:15
  Speaker 4: And so now they're telling me that I may have
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: another additional year of suspended license. That's like, all right,
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: you were wrongfully convicted for 20 years. But here, matter
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: of fact, on top of that, I have an additional
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: year without a license to extend your sentence or whatever.
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's crazy. There's a statute of limitations on
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: almost all crimes except murder. I think rape is 10 years.
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: I don't think traffic violations got statute of limitations. It's unbelievable, right?
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: It's unbelievable. I mean, you're coming out and you're going, wait,
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: but I've been locked up for 20 days. They're like,
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: that's all right. It's like saying to you, I don't
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: care if the door is locked, you're still late, right?
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, what are you talking about? It's just, I mean,
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: at a certain point, the bureaucracy should grow a heart.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: And say, okay, you know what? We're going to make
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: a little exception here for this guy. But that's not
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: the case. So it must be an unbelievable feeling.
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: It's a lot of culture shock. So I'm eating. I'm
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: enjoying my life. At the same time, when I look
• 45:09
  Speaker 4: back on it, I feel guilty. Because there's so many
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: people that deserve that. That are still behind bars. That
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: haven't made it home. At the same time, I feel
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: happy and I enjoy the things that I'm enjoying now.
• 45:21
  Speaker 4: And I still got a lot more to go because
• 45:23
  Speaker 4: I'm still trying to reintegrate myself. I always look back
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: and I say, if I could just help one person,
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: one person achieve their freedom that don't deserve to be
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: in prison. In the back of my mind, I'm always
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: thinking about people. And I'm sure you get it too.
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: You know, everybody needs help. And I wish I could
• 45:40
  Speaker 4: help everybody. I just wish anybody that could be reached,
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: I could reach. You know, it's impractical to think that
• 45:45
  Speaker 4: you can do that. But if you can help one
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: person or two people, I think that benefits society as
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: a whole.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: And that's an incredible message. And certainly I try to
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: spend my days trying to figure out exactly that, right?
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: How can I get one more Anthony DePippo out? Because
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: it's just an incredible, incredible feeling to see that transformation,
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: to see justice served after all these years to see
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: somebody like you get their life back on track you
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: know i call it selfish altruism i do it because
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: it makes me feel good you got.
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: A great passion for it and you know it's very
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: admirable the point you are in your career you don't
• 46:26
  Speaker 4: need to be doing this but It's something that you
• 46:28
  Speaker 4: do out of love and respect and trying to give
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: back and find a solution to a problem. It's very admirable.
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: I think your dad was involved in this, right, with
• 46:37
  Speaker 4: the Innocence Project?
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: Well, my dad was a supporter of the Innocence Project.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: And my dad, who was my hero, he still is,
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: he really instilled in my brother and I a sense
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: of right and wrong and an idea that what you
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: do to make the world a better place defines you
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: as a person, not wrong. what you accomplish. He told us,
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: do whatever you want to do. Try to be the
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: best at it, but just make the world a better place.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: He goes, that's the meaning of success. And I wanted
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: to be a success in his eyes because I looked
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: up to him so much. I definitely credit him for
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: giving me this passion. And he was, his firm actually, Skadden,
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: is a huge supporter of the Innocence Project, donates thousands
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: of pro bono hours, has been involved in some very
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: important exonerations. And they're all important, but I mean, some
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: that have actually driven change systemically in And so it's
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: really full circle to be able to work in this field,
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: especially with his spirit hanging over and guiding. You know,
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: and it's funny you said I don't need to be
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: doing it. I do need to be doing it. I mean,
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: this is what I need to be doing. This is
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: what I'm here for. And I'm very lucky in a
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: lot of ways, but I'm very lucky to be in
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: a position to be able to help certain people. And
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: I want to help as many as I can. And
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: to get back to that, I know a lot of
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: people that are listening to you speak right now are
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: saying the same thing. They're saying, how can I help?
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: What can I do? And let's start with the case
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: of Andrew Krivak. I mean, what can people do?
• 48:00
  Speaker 5: All right.
• 48:00
  Speaker 4: So anybody wishing to contact Andrew Krivak may do so.
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: Andrew Krivak, please do write to him. I know he'd
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: love to hear from you. And it's number 97A4236, Wendy
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: Correctional Facility. That's W-E-N-D-E 3040 Wendy Road in Alden, New York, 1-400-4-1187.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: And we'll put this address on the website for Wrongful
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: Conviction Podcast.
• 48:28
  Speaker 4: So what can people do to help Andrew Krivak? Just
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: offer your support and become aware. And I'll help raise awareness.
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: And then when his case comes up and the opposite
• 48:39
  Speaker 4: side or the adversaries start making comments, then try to
• 48:42
  Speaker 4: make comments back. We have attorneys for him. He's being
• 48:46
  Speaker 4: represented pro bono. by Adele Bernard and Victor Cipos. So
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: he's got a great team. Jeffrey Deskovic, of course, we're
• 48:54
  Speaker 4: behind him. Offer moral support, anything he could do. I
• 48:57
  Speaker 4: think that will help us get us over to home.
• 48:59
  Speaker 4: Right now, the DA is being stubborn. Again, they're placing
• 49:03
  Speaker 4: their own interest above the interest of justice. The interest
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: of justice for not only Andrew Krivak and myself, but
• 49:08
  Speaker 4: for the victims in this matter. Josette Wright and the
• 49:12
  Speaker 4: other girl, Robin Murphy, who Howard Gombert also, in my view,
• 49:15
  Speaker 4: killed based on what I told you earlier. there are
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: ways you can help the actually innocent. Anyway, I mean,
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: there's some places you can donate, like to the Innocence Project,
• 49:26
  Speaker 4: to the Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation, but some people don't have
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: the money to donate. And when you don't have the
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: money to donate, you can always offer moral support and
• 49:33
  Speaker 4: always stay in somebody's corner.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: And you can go to the websites, go to the
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation and learn about their work, go to innocenceproject.org.
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: There's some instructions there of things you can do to
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: get involved. Before we close, Anthony, I always like to ask,
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: is there anything else that you want to share with
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: the audience from your experience?
• 49:54
  Speaker 4: Well, I'm trying to do my best to try to
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: help people and trying to give back to the criminal
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: justice system, to the wrongful conviction community. I'm currently working
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: with the Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation analyzing cases. I'm trying to
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: determine who we could help, who's reachable. There's a lot
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: of innocent people in there, but I'm trying to determine
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: who's reachable. At the same time, I'm going around, and
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: I encourage people to try to do the same thing.
• 50:22
  Speaker 4: I'm going around. I'm lobbying lawmakers. I'm with It Can
• 50:24
  Speaker 4: Happen to You. Professor Bennett Gershman, you may have heard
• 50:28
  Speaker 4: of him. We're trying to pass a piece of legislation
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: that creating the Commission on Prosecutorial Conduct, which would be
• 50:35
  Speaker 4: an additional grievance committee for prosecutors who commit misconduct as
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: a form of deterrence. So prosecutors won't withhold evidence if
• 50:45
  Speaker 4: they know that there's going to be a penalty aside
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: from the grievance committee, or they won't knowingly use perjured testimony.
• 50:51
  Speaker 4: They try to create some balance. You know, the system
• 50:54
  Speaker 4: works on checks and balances. And so, you know, I'm
• 50:57
  Speaker 4: out there, I'm trying to lobby, I'm trying to work.
• 50:59
  Speaker 4: If you can help any way, With the wrongful conviction movement,
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: whether it's donate, moral support, anything, it's greatly appreciated. And
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: there's other people that are in prison that deserve to
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: come home. If I could give my life to bring
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: 10 people home, I probably would do it. If God said,
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: just give me one more day, I'll go have some fun,
• 51:20
  Speaker 4: and then you could come for my soul and let
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: 10 other free people out that deserve to be in prison,
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: I would probably do that.
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: get your podcasts.
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: It really helps.
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project, and
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: to innocenceproject.org to learn how to donate and get involved.
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: Kevin Wardus. The music in the show is by three-time
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: Oscar-nominated composer, Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: Instagram at wrongfulconviction. and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom is a production of Lava
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company No. 1.