Latest / Wrongful Conviction Podcasts / 553: #553 Lauren Bright Pacheco with Jeff Smith
Transcript
- 00:00:02 Speaker 1: On July ninth, two thousand and six, a shooting ripped through a Waterloo, Iowa nightclub. Tanye Jackson was fatally shot. Panicked clubgoers flooded nine one one with calls, and in the chaos, one name came out, local rapper Jeff Smith. The problem Jeff didn't match the description, his car wasn't the getaway car. None of it lined up. Yet police produced statements that corroborated that initial identification and contradicted the facts they already had. This is wrongful conviction. The Fox Foundation is proud to support this episode of wrongful conviction and the work of After Innocence, a nonprofit that helps hundreds of people nationwide rebuild their lives after wrongful incarceration. Each year, innocent people are released after spending years behind bars for crimes they didn't commit. Nearly all of them leave prison with nothing more than the clothes on their backs, with no help or compensation from the state as they face the steep challenges of rebuilding their lives after wrongful imprisonment. After Innocence is changing that After Innocence helps exoneries get and make good use of essential services like health care, dental care, mental health support, legal aid, financial counseling, and more. Since twenty sixteen, they've brought. 00:01:32 Speaker 2: That help to more than eight hundred exoneries across forty six states, working tirelessly to ensure that no one released after wrongful incarceration is left behind. Learn more at after dash innocence dot org and join after Innocence to support exoneries as they. 00:01:50 Speaker 1: Rebuild their lives. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco. Today we're joined again by Tom Freerricks, who our audience might recall from our coverage of Jeff Bouprey, and during that coverage, Tom brought us another case, a man out of Waterloo, Iowa named Jeff Smith, who was just released in October twenty twenty five. We couldn't be happier for you to be home as the fight continues, and we're going to get into all of that right now. So Tom, welcome back, and Jeff welcome home. 00:02:33 Speaker 3: Thank you. 00:02:34 Speaker 1: So just tell me a little bit about you before all this happened. 00:02:40 Speaker 3: Growing up, I could say I was always one of the favorites by of my family because I always had the huge smile and full of joy, and it was like no money or anything mattered. It was just the love, you know, I mean, you give me a hug, and it was sincere than that meant more than meeting the new pair of shoes. I was staying in des Morning, Iowa with my mom and dad, my younger sister, my older sister, and I have two older brothers that were for me, and we were staying in these apartments called Oak Ridge, a very rough neighborhood, and my mom ended up catching a drug case. My grandmother came from km Mississippi and took back me, my youngest sister and my oldest sister, and we were staying in this apartment complex called Joe Preacher Homes Public Housing Authority. 00:03:32 Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm pretty notorious too. 00:03:34 Speaker 3: So growing up there it was rough, the lowest of the lows and the highest of the highest. But that was also a place where you also learned to appreciate what you did have minus what you didn't have. And I ended up taking a passion for music because it was an outlet. Like even growing up my grandmother when she was always cooking dinner, Sunday dinner or whatever, cooking and she would always just be humming. You know, you know what I mean, And it always just sounded soful to me, and I'm like I just cop see at the table and look at her and listen. I learned that through music I could tell my story and I was able to write. And then like ten eleven twelve, like a lot of my friends was like, yo, wrap that again. You know what I mean. You're good, You're great, and then I continue to push with the music. But growing up in Catton, it was rough for my project. So it was like I was nine years old and I was going to the school called MacNeil Elementary and at that time we were wearing the uniforms. It was kaki pants and white shirts. And I was nine years old, I remember this. So I was in third grade. So I was ironing my clothes and I was looking out my window. Now, my grandmother she sold pops candy stuff like that. She was a neighborhood Stuart, you know what I mean. And there was this guy named Etli and I saw him and he walked through and he was like, hey, give me one of them pops ready, And I'm talking through him through the window. So okay, all right, I got you. And it was like ten minutes later, it was just like the fourth of July and this guy gets shot like sixteen times. And seeing this at the age of nine was like, wow. 00:05:18 Speaker 4: Oh, I'm just thinking of you nine years old, Yes, ironing your clothing, trying to put your best foot forward and being exposed to that. 00:05:30 Speaker 3: Yeah. So growing up I had family in Waterloo, Isla. And it was like, you know what, I don't want to be around here that much longer because my neighborhood was just filled with drugs and game bangers. And the older you get, the more you're gonna get into the being a product of your environment. 00:05:52 Speaker 1: So Jeff took the initiative to improve his life, but unfortunately, a similar environment existed in Waterloo, Iowa, like rival gangs and drug trafficking, And while Jeff pursued his music career, he was not immune. 00:06:09 Speaker 3: You can dibble and dab in certain things because it was around you, and that doesn't make you a bad person. You're still at that age figuring out who you are as a person. 00:06:21 Speaker 1: But an officer named Bose had already decided what sort of person Jeff was. Yes, Officer bos, how many times had he pulled you over? Before all this happened? 00:06:33 Speaker 3: Woo oh. I gotta say it was like constant harassment, like I know you're out here doing this illegal. I know you're doing something and I'm gonna get you. 00:06:43 Speaker 1: But Jeff didn't have the criminal record of others in his social circle, like Jeff's fiance's cousin, the victim in this case, Kanye Jackson, who had just gotten out of prison, which brings us to July ninth, two thousand and six. Tanye had a minor argument with Jeff earlier in the day and then later that night, Tanye went to a club called Chrystyles Club. 00:07:09 Speaker 5: Chris Styles didn't have the greatest reputation. I think there were more than one shooting that had occurred, there, regular run ins with the police. I think they always kind of rode that razor's edge of getting shut down because of too much activity. As a result a particular, for two thousand and six, they put in one of the most spectacular systems of cameras pointing everywhere everywhere. There really was matt a square foot of that bar, and they did that at the pause of the Waterloo Police Department. Okay, there was an adult summer basketball league on a Sunday night that was finishing and Club Crys Styles was generally not open on a Sunday, and a gentleman butt the name of Bud Dunn called the owners and said, look open up on Sunday night. We'll get some people here, okay, So they opened up the bar. There were varying stories of fifteen twenty twenty five different people present at the bar, but the standard story of those who saw something say that a tall guy six foot one hundred and eighty pounds opened up the door of the bar, had a handgun with a laser sight on it, scanned the bar until they got to Tony A. Jackson Boom boom boom, put three bullets in him and then runs from the scene, gets into the passenger side of a purple Aurora and speeds up. 00:08:36 Speaker 1: Interestingly, during the shooting, bud dune sister Chilandra was on the phone with her boyfriend Marlon ERSII, who was in jail facing federal drug charges. So that call was recorded and there's audio of three shots, as well as Bud Dunn naming the shooter with Jeff's stage name Jay Rich. Then Bud Dunn called nine to one one, gave a fake name and named j Rich again. Then while leaving the club, he gave the same fake name but didn't identify j Rich. Pretty strange, but he did mention seeing the Purple Aurora. 00:09:17 Speaker 5: The police at the scene knew that there was some people that might potentially be the type of people that would be involved into shooting that were connected to a Purple Aurora. Some of the cops speed off to that house check the Purple aura sitting outside hot muffler. Good people bolt outdoors. They don't catch everybody. They eventually go into the house. They find drugs, ammunition, nine millimeter ammunition. Importantly, they don't do anything with that. 00:09:48 Speaker 1: Officer Bose was part of that mission to track down the Purple Aurora. 00:09:53 Speaker 4: A lead that curiously went. 00:09:55 Speaker 1: Cold as tunnel vision set in over the mention of j Rich on the call, and soon the Purple Aurora morphed into Jeff's blue Monte Carlo. In the police narrative. 00:10:08 Speaker 5: Jeff is well known to have a blue Monty Carlo. 00:10:10 Speaker 1: Right, and on the tenth the police ransacked your apartment. 00:10:14 Speaker 3: Actually it was people who ransacked at first and then the police, so it was like a burglary slash search. 00:10:23 Speaker 5: They find some drugs and a coat that's about four sizes too big for. 00:10:28 Speaker 1: Jeff, and by some drugs cocaine. Can we reiterate the amount we're talking about? 00:10:34 Speaker 3: Zero point three, not a gram, not an ounce, not a key, not none of this. It's not even a ram. It's zero point three. And all of this took place with not me knowing and me not being there. 00:10:49 Speaker 1: So, Jeff, a friend of yours is killed in a nightclub. Yes, tell me when you first heard what went down that night. 00:11:02 Speaker 3: When I got that news, it wasn't like they were saying, hey, one of your friends got killed. It was hey, people trying to say that you killed. 00:11:10 Speaker 1: Somebody, and you turned yourself. 00:11:12 Speaker 3: In because I know I didn't, So, Jeff, you. 00:11:15 Speaker 1: Thought that you could just walk in and clear it up. 00:11:18 Speaker 3: And clear it up, and that was not the case. I came in with the attorney and Robert Montgomery. They asked, do we have a warrant for me? And they say yes. And I looked at my lawyer and he said, don't talk to no one. Just sit tight. You're gonna be all right and get you out of here. And so at that time, they still didn't tell me what the warrant was for. And once I go to booking and I'm in there and then the officer comes in and he says, yeah, you're being charged with a tempt to deliver crack cocaine violation of the drug tax stamp. And I'm like, this isn't what I heard I was accused of. But now something's really fishy because I didn't have any drugs. 00:12:00 Speaker 1: The police allegedly found these drugs after the apartment had already been ransacked, in a coat that was four sizes too big for Jeff, and in Iowa, point three grams for a first possession offense is typically treated as a misdemeanor. 00:12:18 Speaker 3: The warrant was for attempt to deliver crack cocaine, and they hailed me on a one hundred and fifty thousand dollars bun so you would need fifteen thousand dollars to bun out. 00:12:32 Speaker 1: The possession arrest allowed them to hold Jeff while they built a case that was stronger than just hearing his stage name from Bud Dunn using a fake name on a nine to one one call. And at this time, Schilandra Dunn's boyfriend Marlon Ursie, who was facing federal drug charges, alerted investigators to his recorded jail phone call, which gave them the exact time of the shooting. They also subpoenaed Jeff's cell phone record and located Jeff was last on the phone with a girl named Tasha Alexander from nine to eight to nine ten PM, a few miles away from the scene, but in the official narrative, the time of the shooting became nine to seventeen PM, theoretically giving Jeff enough time to speed over to club Christiles, kill Tanye Jackson, and be identified by Bud Dunn, who they now have overheard naming Jay Rich on this jail phone recording, so they visit Bud and Chilandra remember neither had subsequently identified Jeff to police as they left the club that night. 00:13:40 Speaker 5: At the scene, nobody tells the police Jay Rich. Nobody tells the police anything. They didn't really get any stories from any of the people that supposedly identified Jeff Smith and tell about three days later when they basically were going yanking people off the streets and telling them that you need to tell your story you may face charges. 00:14:02 Speaker 1: Police spoke with Bud and Schilandra, as well as Lawanda Simpson, all of whom we're now willing to name Jeff as the shooter. But maybe the contradictory initial statements or what they individually stood to gain made them impeachable. So investigators turned to jel house snitches like Rayshawn mcclarity, who had just informed on his co defendants in an armed assault and robbery case. 00:14:30 Speaker 3: This guy, Rayshaw mcclarity tells them, I'm going to cooperate with you against my code defendants. Right, So it went from twenty five years with a seventeen and a half year mandatory to ten years with a seven year mandatory. So he got his case dropped it there till hey, you know what I want some even better. I'm going to testify against Jay Rich Jeff Smith. He says that we work together for one day at High V in the meat department, which we did. He did quit. He had worked there for one day, so no other hanging out with each other, know each other, calling each other. And he says, for this one day of working at the meat department, we went outside on lunch break and he said that I told him, hey, you want to see a gun. I don't know you, never even met you, just working with you for this one day, he says, I said, hey, you want to see a gun, and I showed him the same kind of gun that they said killed my friend. 00:15:26 Speaker 1: And it seems that placing a gun like the one used to kill Tanya on Jeff was enough to win his release. They also found another jailhouse informant named Jeffrey Grafton, who, during his recorded interview, was repeatedly prompted with the answers to investigators questions. But it appears that the dodgy statement gathering went far beyond jailhouse snitches. 00:15:52 Speaker 5: There's even claims from people who Jeff didn't know, saying they were telling people, look, if you got something to say, we might have something to pay. Officially, there was never any reward money. There's claims pet Jeff went to the house of a guy named Ira Harrington that people saw him with a gun. 00:16:10 Speaker 1: And those were the grandchildren of Harrington's neighbors, the outlaws, and the kids were brought in to give statements. 00:16:18 Speaker 3: When you go into the investigation room, there's a camera sitting in the corner. Most people don't know that, so when an investigator is in there with the grandfather and his granddaughter, he says, I need to take a break right quick. I'll be right back, And he left the grandfather and the granddaughter in there, and the grandfather says, hey, you gotta say you saw a blue car, not a green car, so your story can match your cousins. She said, Grandpa, I know what I saw. 00:16:45 Speaker 1: I saw. 00:16:46 Speaker 3: No, I told you, you have to say you saw a blue car the match up with your cousins. And she's quiet because it's their grandfather. And this investigator comes back in his room. Now don't forget that camera is still rolling, and he's is, oh, yeah, she would like to tell you that something else you want to clear up. And then the story changes. And even though this is recorded, and we take this to the judge, it just says, well, that's not up to me to decide. We'll leave that up to a jury to the side. 00:17:15 Speaker 1: But at least his attorney was privy to this exculpatory video evidence. Meanwhile, there should have been dashcam footage from the thirteen police cars that arrived on scene that night. 00:17:30 Speaker 5: Every police car that arrived at the scene arrived with the lights and sirens, and in fact, in two thousand and three, it was the official policy that the fact that the lights and sirens on, automatically turns on their cameras. 00:17:43 Speaker 1: And yet not a single dashboard cam is rolling when they pull up. 00:17:49 Speaker 5: And you can come up with a number of potential theories of why that might be okay, because as they're speeding to the scene, there might have been a purple aurora speeding away from the seat, okay. 00:18:01 Speaker 1: Or the dashcam footage just conflicted with their narrative in some other monumental way, which we'll discuss later. Now, also when available to the defense, there's surveillance footage from Club Chris Styles fancy news security system. So fast forward three years and Jeff was finally taken to trial in two thousand and nine, facing these poor manipulated children as well as the incentivized witnesses. 00:18:30 Speaker 3: Slandra Dunn looked at me and they said, you see the person who did the shooting, And then she looked at me and he was like, yeah, he's right there, And I'm like, how are you gonna put me somewhere? I was never there and I didn't understand it, and I just looked and I was just praying in my head, like wow, you know. 00:18:48 Speaker 1: Then there were the jailhouse snitches, like mclarity, who had walked Scott free from his violent crime. 00:18:56 Speaker 3: Went home free after shooting someone with a shaw offsotgod who had a bright future and crippling it. But all of that didn't matter as long as he was able to testify against me. 00:19:07 Speaker 1: A lot just wash the slate clean by setting you up. Yes, it so. Without a fuller investigation into the narrative that the state had built, the time of the shooting was accepted to be nine seventeen PM, neutering Jeff's alibi, the purple Aurora became the blue Monte Carlo, A shooter over six foot became five foot seven, and a well known local rapper who was not named by witnesses at the club that night was now identified from those same witnesses from the stand. 00:19:45 Speaker 3: The worst part about that whole thing, when they read that verdict, it was like I didn't hear nothing else in that courtroom except for my mom breaking down crying. I didn't hear the victim's family celebrating. I didn't hear my friend saying anything to me. The only thing that I heard was my mom breaking down crime. Everything else was silent. I couldn't even hold my mom. I couldn't even tell her it's okay. I couldn't kiss her on the forehead, and she just broke down and it was just all now, my baby, my baby, my baby. If you don't have faith, you better find it and you better hold on to it and never lose it. If it wasn't for my mom. And keep in mind, my mom had a drug addiction for almost my whole life. So when I caught this case and she came to Iowa, she came on a mission, as if God called her and say, you missed a lot of time in your son's life, but I need you to get on your job now. And she put her boots on and grabbed her shield and her armor, and man, she was there, and she said, pick your head up. Don't you be mad, don't be angry, don't be bitter. Pick your head up and smile that same smile that's so beautiful. You better smile. And I'll just be like I'm going through the most, you know, like I have a right to be angry. I didn't do nothing. They got me stuck here, and she just said, don't worry about that. Baby. God got you, And she said I talk to him every night. I know he got you, and I would just look at her and I said, Mom, sometimes it hurts the smile. And she said, if you acknowledge that pain, and you said, it hurts the smile. You letting them win. Your smile is the joy. And if you let somebody else take your joy away from you, what do you have left? 00:22:01 Speaker 1: But days turned to weeks, turned two months, turned to years, turned to two decades. 00:22:08 Speaker 3: I held on to knowing that I was innocent. Eventually someone's gonna see this. Eventually the right thing is gonna be done. And my mom always reassured me that I'm gonna stay on this journey with you because I believe in you too, and I too know that you didn't do this, and we're gonna get through this. 00:22:27 Speaker 1: But before he could even begin fighting the murder conviction, he still had to fight the possession of zero point three grams, for which they charged him with intent to sell, offering him a plea deal for ten years. 00:22:42 Speaker 3: Catherine Mahoney, she represented me on this drug case and we beat this drug case. And she was like, something is wrong, and she's seen the same thing that I said. If you did everything by the book, why would you be trying to give me more time when I have life without the possibility of parole, and she went through those records. 00:23:02 Speaker 5: She and the drug case hired a private investigator named Scott Gracious, and they then did the very difficult work that a lot of lawyers don't do and dove through every shred of paper in the case. There were a ton of search warrants for cell phone records at that time, but Jeff's was unlike the other warrants. Jeff's sought location information as well, the others didn't. 00:23:31 Speaker 1: Jeff was last on the phone from nine to eight to nine ten PM, a few miles away from the scene. 00:23:38 Speaker 5: And this is a really unique instance where there was a recording somebody in the jail talking to their girlfriend and you literally hear clearly the three shots. 00:23:51 Speaker 1: The state had claimed that the shooting and all the subsequent nine to one one calls happened from nine to seventeen to nine twenty one, but the recorded jail phone call began at nine oh one and thirty five seconds, and there were three gunshots heard six minutes and fifty eight seconds later, placing the crime at nine oh eight and thirty three seconds. 00:24:17 Speaker 3: Catherine bid Jeff, you were on the phone at that time, and I said, I knew I was on my phone, but I don't know what time the shooting was. She said, no, no, no, no, Jeff, you were on the phone at the time of the shooting and you were not over there. 00:24:31 Speaker 5: And I was like what She Kin's got to the simple math and said it might be difficult for him to be paying off a tower that's two towers away at the time of the murder. 00:24:42 Speaker 1: Did the prosecution know that? 00:24:45 Speaker 5: That's a tough question to answer directly, because we don't know what they knew. What we know is that it very easily could have been discovered and should have been discovered by the original defense team. But there are circumstantial facts that say, you're damn right they knew, and that's why they changed the time of the shooting to make it about ten minutes after, so that Jeff's cell phone records would not be relevant to the case and to distract the defense attorneys away from using that powerful evidence in their case. 00:25:20 Speaker 1: In cheap Jeff, you're sitting in prison and you find out in twenty twelve and this nightmare for you started in two thousand and six. Six years later, you're like, oh my gosh, this is it, and. 00:25:35 Speaker 3: You get your hopes up and you're thinking, this is that moment it's about to happen. I'm about to get home. I'm finally about to be there for my mom. No, okay, all right, And it doesn't work that way because, as you can see, I didn't get it until thirteen years later. 00:25:54 Speaker 5: For the longest period of time, they were arguing that, well, the jails call system and that's just not accurate because of the nine to one one calls. The jail phone call ends at nine point fifteen. The first official nine to one one call doesn't come in until nine seventeen nine one one call it nine nineteen nine one call nine twenty. 00:26:17 Speaker 1: So one of the systems had to be accurate, right, But the burden approving which one was fell to Jeff and his team. So at this time, jail calls were collect and they could not be received by cell phones. So Marlon Ersrie had set up his landline to accept the collect call and forward it to Chilandra Done. Cell phone actually had. 00:26:39 Speaker 5: A good system for the time, and so we compared the landline records with the jail phone call and the landlines there by federal law accurate to like a million of a second. Those can't be wrong. They will shut the tower down otherwise. So all of a sudden, that's stuff just started to cement. We had to factor in some other things that weren't initially factored in, such as the lag time for the phone from the jail to connect to the home phone and then forward to his girlfriend's phone. 00:27:16 Speaker 1: So even with the additional lag, the landline confirmed that the jail phone call time was correct and made Jeff's guilt impossible. Yet somehow the state continued to cling to the nine to one one calls that placed the crime almost ten minutes later. So Tom hired another expert to look into the metadata of the digital recordings of the nine one one calls, thee. 00:27:41 Speaker 5: IF nine recordings that we got on a compact disc back from two thousand and six. Even then, the metadata underlying those recordings has been scrubbed. 00:27:53 Speaker 3: Wipe them, wipe them. 00:27:56 Speaker 5: So there's a gap where the metadata is white, and that's the period of the shooting and one one calls. And then at about nine pm the metadata magically shows up again. 00:28:09 Speaker 3: And the prosecutor at that time was Kim Griffin, and she kept on continuing the situation and pushing it off, and finally the judge tells her that there's no more continuous to get him in here, and let's have this trial. And what was it to him, like two weeks before a trial? She says, well, I don't know how he's getting the trial, but I'm not taking him because I'm retiring. After she continued the case for eight or nine years. 00:28:54 Speaker 1: If you're wondering how a prosecutor could be so cold and glib to just deny, I deflect and delay while running out the clock on someone's life, you're not alone. And unfortunately Jeff is not alone in that experience. But just in case the new prosecutor was cut from the same cloth, Tom hired another expert, an audio engineer. 00:29:18 Speaker 5: We hired an audio engineer. Incredible guy that compared the jail tape, and you could see it, you know, as it crosses the screen and then underneath it and the nine one one calls. He's got a big screen. He'd lay them over the top of each other and he's showing these look these exact same audio signatures of different things. In the background, people yelling, screaming, please, radio traffic that kind of thing. 00:29:48 Speaker 3: Can be heard in the jail call. 00:29:51 Speaker 5: On a tape that ends at nine fifty, and the official nine one one time says they occurred at nine seventeen. 00:30:02 Speaker 3: All of this, but it's happening in the jail call. 00:30:05 Speaker 1: The expert revealed that the nine one one calls can be overheard on the recorded jail phone call and vice versa. So the nine one one calls happened during the jail call that placed the shooting at nine to eight and change, while the missing metadata allowed for the incorrect times to be assigned to the nine one one calls. Now did the police and prosecutors know that? I guess we can't know that. But then when you consider what else happened in this case, like the purple Aurora just morphing into Jeff's blue car, the manipulated statements from the outlaws grandkids, the jailhouse snitches, and what happened to all the video evidence, like the club's surveillance footage. They had photos of the club's camera system monitor. 00:30:52 Speaker 5: It showed right at the front door where the shooter stood, and it would have captured that shooter and would have also captured the shooter running away and what captured the people that were outside when the shooter ran away. 00:31:05 Speaker 3: But just like the dash cam videos that who was going. 00:31:09 Speaker 5: Too, there's no reason for that footage not to exist. 00:31:12 Speaker 1: What reason have you been given? 00:31:14 Speaker 5: The reason was that just simply wasn't operating, was monitoring at the time, but it wasn't recording. And that was an explanation, mind you, that was finally given officially in twoenty sixteen or seventeen. 00:31:28 Speaker 1: It took them over. 00:31:30 Speaker 5: Eleven years to document that the system wasn't working, and then it was documented by an officer who wasn't even at the crime scene. 00:31:39 Speaker 3: Well, if you ever heard your grandmother mom says, once you tell one lie, you have to tell another lie to cover up that lie. So many lies. You have the dashcam videos, you have the videos from the club, you have the nive on one calls, you have the actual phone call, the jail phone call. So it's one lie after another instead of saying stop this, let's go into our job. 00:32:05 Speaker 1: And they didn't, but Jeff's team did. They found additional witnesses who believe they know who the actual shooter was. 00:32:14 Speaker 5: We found one witness who has unfortunately now passed away. Channette Crispy. We found a guy named Willie mc kentton. We found a guy named Patrick Sallas that all pointed the finger at a different person as the shooter. Sannette Crispy, who said, I was outside hustling selling crack and I saw Bud Done. I saw the shooter run by Bud Done. I know who Jeff Smith is. It wasn't Jeff Smith. And they ran to a purple arm and she described somebody who fit the profile of the guy that we eventually landed on as our suspect. But anyway, she's talking to the police. The police are blowing her up. She knows the officery she talked to. That same officer testified even back in two thousand and seven, whenever her deposition was taken, even at trial. No, I didn't keep track of all the names the people that I talked to. No, I didn't keep track of all the witnesses that were there. I didn't write down any names. I didn't write down anything. 00:33:14 Speaker 1: So what happened to the suspect that you guys have settled on. 00:33:19 Speaker 5: Ultimately he has met his maker. He was murdered years later at another night glub Yeah, and we also found a gentleman who was no friend of Jess Smith, who had actually stole Jets cars, ripped his stereo up, and then left the car years ago. Right, this guy testified that, Hey, this person that you think did it, he confessed to me, told me that they buried the gun, which was never found. He described the gun, And eventually we found a witness who said that, look, I was with these guys when they planned the murder, and they discussed why the murder was going to happen, in the motive for the murder, and that guy had a motive to now want to help Jeff either. I mean, that guy when I first talked to him, said, you know he slept with my girlfriend. 00:34:10 Speaker 1: Right you know Jeff. 00:34:17 Speaker 5: Yeah, so they were pretty much enemies of each other. Budd He finally came forward. Supposedly, the victim and one of the guys in this other group were in a love try and go with a different woman and they both kept drugs and money out of her house, and Tanye came across the other dudes drugs and money and went mine. 00:34:40 Speaker 1: So not only did they prove Jeff's alibi, but they also offered an arguably more plausible suspect and theory, and they compiled the newly discovered evidence along with an ineffective assistance of Council claim and one Jeff a new trial in twenty twenty five. 00:34:58 Speaker 3: When I got that news, I was thinking that, okay, I'm about to go and hug my mom. I'm about to be therefore, because at this time she's in a nursing home and she suffered from the strokes, and it was like, I'm finally about to do this, and that didn't happen because first it was well, they're going to agree to Lord de bund to this, and then well, now they're saying that we're going to take it up extra hundred thousand. It's going to go to this, but it's still manageable, will be able to get you home. To us having a bun hearing and heeds arguing for a million dollar bond, We're thinking that, well, okay, we got a good argument. I haven't been in any trouble. And the judge still says seven hundred and fifty thousand. 00:35:40 Speaker 1: And Jeff didn't have seventy five thousand dollars plus real estate collateral to be released. And while great efforts were being made to raise that capital on his behalf, which was finally accomplished on October twentieth, twenty twenty five. His mother passed away just seven days earlier. 00:36:00 Speaker 3: It was the worst pain that her son could feel. Nothing measured up to them taking my freedom away from me. Then to know that my mom was no longer here, and there's no way you could prepare for it. I can see as she's just smiling down at me. 00:36:16 Speaker 5: Now they knew Jeff's mom situation. 00:36:20 Speaker 3: She was helping me fight you evil people. Now she's in heaven. She's gonna help with a bigger fight. And you have no idea. And a miracle happened. 00:36:29 Speaker 1: And it certainly presents like some kind of divine intervention. When total strangers raised the seventy five thousand dollars. 00:36:40 Speaker 5: You know, a group of I think mostly women that her Jeff's plight, and they were the Iowa representatives of the National Pail Fund. And this group of young moms, right little kids, throwing kids into the shoe bees and running around, and they went to the national organization and they got seventy five thousand dollars in cash raise to get jump out. 00:37:09 Speaker 1: Oh so Jeff in your mind, that miracle of those moms coming together to raise that bail money for you. They were being guided by your mom. At this point, the state is appealing the grant of his new trial to the Iowa Supreme Court, which, after what we've heard here today, I really hope they reconsider. In the meantime, I'm left wondering what we can do to help. 00:37:38 Speaker 5: I know they can start listening to Jeff's music. The same day he walked out of jail, he walked across the street to a recording studio and recorded a video and a song with some people that helped him. I was just blown away. 00:37:55 Speaker 6: Yes I am, Yes I can who that just beat up them charge spelling them to dead, no human them hall its ain't big X when they know them the Lord just sit on my exig the reflawless at getting. 00:38:08 Speaker 3: The hard it's pissed off. Who's gonna flex? 00:38:10 Speaker 6: And recardless hiding from movie how I'm talking? 00:38:12 Speaker 3: They telling nom who don't get me started? They The songs that I've put out after that first video that I put out were just songs that I found a way to record while in prison to deal with that frustration. So actually now I've already started recording new material. I hope that I get the ear of one of these major record companies to say let's put them to work. 00:38:34 Speaker 1: Where can I find your music? 00:38:36 Speaker 3: You can follow me on TikTok under ATP Richie, Facebook under ATP Richie, and Instagram under the Real Underscore ATP Richie. The ATP it comes from my mom. It's ambition to prosper. My mom used to always tell me her favorite scripture from the Bible. She said, no weapon formed against you shall prosper. And she says that after every visit, and one day she says, no weapons formed against you sell prosper. Because you got the ambition to prosper and she didn't even know it. Then I was like, she just gave me my new name, ambition to prosper, and it stuck with me ever since then. ATP, that's what it is. 00:39:20 Speaker 1: We're going to link to that video and your Instagram Instagram too. Yeah, I've got to ask you. You know this season where we know why wrongful convictions happen, but in terms of accountability, what would justice look like to you now? 00:39:35 Speaker 3: Going through this system for nineteen years and you see that every part of the justice system has a chain link that's connected to everything. You even see it. In the state of Iowa. You talk about IPI, the Iowa prison industries, who make billions of dollars off the parents and relatives of incarcerated individuals because this is the only place where we can shop and by a coming sari even everything from the phone calls. You give us thirty cent an hour for working in prison, but they used to charge us five dollars for a phone call to call our kids, moms or whoever else. So how do you keep this bankrolling the rich? How do you continue to prosper You continue to incarcerate people and give them no choice but to spend money with you. So off of that police officer who come and hunt us, I'm not gonna say lock up. I'm not gonna say do their job. They come and hunt us. A lot of families are getting fed. It's gonna pay for their college the next ones, and it's gonna continue to profit. 00:40:47 Speaker 1: The system protects the system because their profits off posits in prison. 00:40:52 Speaker 3: It does so if you don't destroy that system, you're never gonna get justice. And before I got wrongfully convicted, I probably looked at hurt this and said, Nah, you're just talking but going through it. No, No, this is absolutely right, it happens. 00:41:08 Speaker 1: What do you hope people listening take away from your story. 00:41:13 Speaker 3: I hope that they know that you never lose faith. And the Bible says the faith the size of a poppy seed can move a mountain. We live in proof of that. Growing up in prison, I've seen a lot of people lose that faith. I've seen people commit suicide. I've seen people go crazy. I've seen people get hooked on medication that wasn't meant for them. I've seen people get institutionalized. I see people just become something other than themselves that wasn't meant for them because they lost faith. And Tom tell you, even before then, I was talking about rapping and I'm home now and I'm rapping because I didn't lose faith. I had faith that God had something better for me in store. And it took my mom to talk to me to say don't be angry, because I had every reason to be angry, to hate and to be negative. I had every reason, but I also had every reason to be positive and keep a smile on my face and not hate. You can never let no one take your joy. Always keep that smile on your face, keep your head up, and just know, Okay, having a bad day, you're having a bad moment. It only lasts for a couple of minutes. That joy's gonna last forever. I would never let them take it from me. 00:42:29 Speaker 1: ME ask you Tom the same question. 00:42:31 Speaker 5: I hope they keep their minds open because there are people like Jos out there that don't have the ambition to prosper right. I mean, every wrongful conviction that I've been involved with that's been overturned, there's not one person responsible. There's a mountain of people. That's why this faith of a poppy sea usually involves the faith of a lot of people, and there are people that don't have that, and I hope that they reach out, they understand, and when they hear a story they go, I should at least pause and listen, because we know this stuff happens. We know that there are people in prison that shouldn't be there, and a lot of them don't have the resources. I mean, Kathy and I and Scott gracious, we took the case on pro bonum because we believe there aren't a lot of attorneys that can do that. They got to keep their doors open, they got to work, they got to do other things. Luckily, I've had some other successes that have allowed me to do that and then to throw myself into something like this for years at a time. There are not a lot of people out there. There's not a lot of attorneys out there that can do that, and there's only so many innocence projects, and there's only so many exoneration projects. I get letters every day, not even just from Iowa of people, and I know that when I write them back and say I'm sorry, there's only one of me and I don't the time, I know that I'm probably the last person that's going to ever listen to them. And it breaks my heart every time. But you can only do so much, and so I would ask people to keep their ears open so that if they hear a story from somebody out in the darkness, that they listen, and if they can contribute, then they start being part of the community behind that person that eventually pushes them through to their freedom, to where they need to be, to at least some semblance of justice. 00:44:40 Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to wrongful conviction. You can listen to this and all LoVa for Good podcasts one week early and add free by subscribing to LoVa for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as executive producers Jason Lahm, Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Clyburn. The music and the This production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram at Lauren Bright Pitchecko. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One. 00:45:18 Speaker 6: We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good.