Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #495 Jason Flom with Gary Benloss

Transcript

#495 Jason Flom with Gary Benloss · Wrongful Conviction

0:04
Speaker 1: Since we first covered the case of Gary ben Loss
0:07
Speaker 1: back in October of twenty twenty two, there have been
0:09
Speaker 1: some really exciting developments. Together with Gary's legal team and
0:14
Speaker 1: other advocates, we've been able to convince the Brooklyn DA's
0:17
Speaker 1: office to ask a judge to resence him from twenty
0:21
Speaker 1: five to life to twenty two to life, making him
0:24
Speaker 1: immediately eligible for parole. And they did this on the
0:28
Speaker 1: grounds of compassion, his amazing track record in prison, various
0:33
Speaker 1: advanced degrees, you know, being a leader in the Choices Program,
0:37
Speaker 1: Honor Block of literally an absolute star, and they acknowledged
0:42
Speaker 1: that Gary doesn't represent a threat to society. He never did.
0:47
Speaker 1: So the whole team remains committed to clearing his name.
0:52
Speaker 1: But in the meantime, Gary was released yesterday, November twentieth,
0:57
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, and it was beautiful, well.
1:03
Speaker 2: Damn blind luck.
1:08
Speaker 1: That feeling never gets old. So Gary, best of luck
1:12
Speaker 1: as you continue to fight to clear your name. And
1:15
Speaker 1: now please check out our original coverage of the insane
1:20
Speaker 1: case of Gary ben Loss. On April tenth, two thousand
1:26
Speaker 1: and two, on Linden Boulevard in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn,
1:29
Speaker 1: a man named Victor Vulcan was shot and killed in
1:31
Speaker 1: broad daylight just after school had let out. Fortunately, no
1:35
Speaker 1: one else was heard as people ran to their buildings
1:38
Speaker 1: for cover, including a young father named Gary ben Loss
1:41
Speaker 1: who had had prior run ins with the police. Nine
1:44
Speaker 1: one one callers and eyewitnesses described the shooter with short hair,
1:48
Speaker 1: dark skin, and a similar build to the victim, who
1:50
Speaker 1: was five ten and one hundred and sixty eight pounds. However,
1:54
Speaker 1: one alleged witness, Anthony Holder, who did not give a
1:56
Speaker 1: description of the shooter, set among other falsehoods, that the
2:00
Speaker 1: saleen's nickname was Chucky. Gary Benloss was known as Chucky,
2:04
Speaker 1: but he was over six three and two hundred and
2:06
Speaker 1: fifty pounds with a seven inch high afro. A photo
2:10
Speaker 1: of a much younger and slimmer Gary with short hair
2:13
Speaker 1: was put into a photo array, eliciting identification from Anthony
2:16
Speaker 1: Holder and one other witness. However, once that other witness
2:20
Speaker 1: saw Gary a trial, she too joined all the other
2:23
Speaker 1: witnesses in denying Gary's involvement. Holders pending charges for which
2:28
Speaker 1: it is believed that he received leniency in exchange for cooperation,
2:31
Speaker 1: were hidden by the state, and somehow the jury believed
2:35
Speaker 1: his bizarre testimony that included a non existent second victim,
2:38
Speaker 1: sending Gary away for twenty five to life. This is
2:43
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction. Welcome back to conviction. Today, we have a
3:01
Speaker 1: Brooklyn case dating back to two thousand and two in
3:04
Speaker 1: which several witnesses described a gunman that looked wildly different
3:08
Speaker 1: from our guest today, Gary Benlass, a guy that I
3:11
Speaker 1: came to know through my friendship with a previous guest
3:14
Speaker 1: on our show, John Adrian Velasquez. Now Gary is joining
3:18
Speaker 1: us from sing Sing and I'm glad you're here with us,
3:21
Speaker 1: even though I hate the reason why you're here. But Gary,
3:24
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Thank you, You're very welcome. And
3:28
Speaker 1: with him is a man whose voice she'll probably recognize
3:30
Speaker 1: from other appearances here with us where he's been advocating
3:32
Speaker 1: for Nelson Cruz, Marcus Wiggins, Vincent Simmons, and so many more.
3:36
Speaker 1: Justin bonus, welcome back.
3:38
Speaker 3: It's great to be back on the show. Appreciate it
3:40
Speaker 3: all right.
3:41
Speaker 1: So, Gary, before we get into the reason why we're
3:43
Speaker 1: here today, can you tell us a little bit about
3:46
Speaker 1: your life growing up.
3:47
Speaker 2: I was born July twenty sixth, nineteen eighty to a
3:50
Speaker 2: proud single mother, who migrated from the rural country area
3:55
Speaker 2: of Jamaica, West Indies, moved to America where she resided
4:01
Speaker 2: in Flatbush, Brooklyn.
4:02
Speaker 1: And your nickname was Chucky, right, how I mean, where
4:05
Speaker 1: does that come from?
4:06
Speaker 2: At the age of nine, I received the nickname Chuckles.
4:11
Speaker 2: Being poor no farther around at school, kids could be
4:16
Speaker 2: very cruel. So as a defense mechanism, I was one
4:21
Speaker 2: of those kids who used to always like to joke
4:24
Speaker 2: and laugh. That's how I got the moniker Chuckles. Always
4:28
Speaker 2: had people laughing, always.
4:30
Speaker 1: Joking, and that nickname ended up playing a part in
4:33
Speaker 1: your wrongful conviction. But before all of that, in the
4:36
Speaker 1: summer of nineteen ninety six, you had your first encounter
4:39
Speaker 1: with one of the detectives on this case, Robert Reedy.
4:42
Speaker 2: He knows me because on my fifteenth birthday I was
4:46
Speaker 2: jump assaulted and hospitalized. He was actually the detective on
4:51
Speaker 2: the case, and he wanted not just for me, you know,
4:55
Speaker 2: to snitch on the guys that hospitalized me, but he
4:59
Speaker 2: wanted me to become a neighborhood snatch. So the case
5:03
Speaker 2: against those who are sawed me never went to court,
5:07
Speaker 2: and I never became this snitch for a detective reading,
5:12
Speaker 2: I said, it's not happening.
5:14
Speaker 1: Right, So you refused to help Ready. And then the
5:17
Speaker 1: following spring you ran into some more trouble, but this
5:20
Speaker 1: time you were the assailant.
5:21
Speaker 2: At the age of sixteen March of nineteen ninety seven,
5:25
Speaker 2: I made a very foolish mistake, but I'm not proud.
5:29
Speaker 2: It was a lesson that I needed to learn. So,
5:32
Speaker 2: because of growing up being poor, I followed a friend
5:36
Speaker 2: of mine into a pizzeria to rob the pizzeria. I
5:41
Speaker 2: took full responsibility, and I cocked out to one to
5:46
Speaker 2: three years right. And I've been haunted by the NYPD
5:53
Speaker 2: ever since.
5:54
Speaker 1: And I'd like the audience to take note here when
5:56
Speaker 1: guilty people usually take plea deals it makes sense. I mean, hell,
6:01
Speaker 1: even innocent people take plea deals if it makes more sense,
6:04
Speaker 1: which it often does than fighting the charges, like our
6:06
Speaker 1: friend Deeter te Hata. So you did a few years
6:09
Speaker 1: as a juvenile in a men's prison, paid your debt
6:12
Speaker 1: to society, and after your release, you moved back in
6:15
Speaker 1: with your mother at two eighteen Linden Boulevard and Flat Push,
6:18
Speaker 1: where you remained on the NYPD's radar leading up to
6:22
Speaker 1: this crime. In two thousand and two. But before we
6:24
Speaker 1: get into all those details, justin we've seen this kind
6:28
Speaker 1: of thing before more than once, where the cops just
6:32
Speaker 1: crab a guy with a record, whether they did a
6:33
Speaker 1: crime or not. And as our listeners will surely recognize, Brooklyn,
6:39
Speaker 1: especially in the eighties, nineties and into the two thousands,
6:41
Speaker 1: was fraught with wrongful conviction cases and issues like I
6:44
Speaker 1: wouldn't submits identification, coerced and incentifized witnesses who made misidentifications,
6:50
Speaker 1: sometimes knowingly by the way, and of course crazily corrupted
6:54
Speaker 1: identification procedures. And in this case we have all the
7:00
Speaker 1: those factors. And at the helm of the investigation we
7:03
Speaker 1: had detectives Robert Reedy and John mcgerrin, as well as
7:07
Speaker 1: King's County assistant DA Kyle Reeves. And I feel like
7:10
Speaker 1: I've heard his name before, Kyle Reeves, right.
7:13
Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, Jabbar Washington. I believe Jabbar was exonerated in
7:17
Speaker 3: twenty eighteen. Kyle Reeves in that case had withheld Brady evidence,
7:22
Speaker 3: put witnesses on the stand that testified falsely. Then Reeves
7:27
Speaker 3: pushed forward with prosecuting someone for murder. I believe it
7:31
Speaker 3: was a fight of some sort, and it turned out
7:33
Speaker 3: that the mother of the victim actually sued the hospital
7:37
Speaker 3: for medical malpractice, wrongful death, that the hospital caused the death.
7:42
Speaker 3: I know that he had some issues. He left the
7:45
Speaker 3: DA's office in Brooklyn and he went to Staten Island,
7:48
Speaker 3: and I know he had some issues in Staten Island
7:51
Speaker 3: with witnesses and then left. And now he's in private practice.
7:54
Speaker 3: So he has a history of prosecuting cases that he
7:58
Speaker 3: shouldn't and two not turning over exculpatory material.
8:02
Speaker 1: I mean, I'd like to point out prior misconduct just
8:05
Speaker 1: to give the audience an idea of who we were
8:06
Speaker 1: dealing with. But to be fair, Reeves doesn't really sound
8:09
Speaker 1: like an outlier. Knowingly prosecuting innocent people and heidek exculpatory
8:14
Speaker 1: evidence to make it stick. Sounds like the usual playbook.
8:17
Speaker 2: In New York.
8:17
Speaker 3: It's a little different because it's a lot harder to
8:19
Speaker 3: catch them, and he's been caught. New York is different
8:24
Speaker 3: in that there's usually no forensic investigation, no paper right,
8:29
Speaker 3: no paper trail, whereas a lot of other places there's
8:31
Speaker 3: a lot of paper here. These are very short, choppy statements.
8:36
Speaker 3: The police don't write as much down and then prosecutors
8:39
Speaker 3: even when the case falls apart, they are able to
8:42
Speaker 3: hang their hat on somebody like Anthony Holder, who's the
8:46
Speaker 3: only witness that testified at trial, A Garribbin Lost committed
8:49
Speaker 3: this murder.
8:50
Speaker 1: And we're going to talk a lot more about this
8:52
Speaker 1: alleged eyewitness, Anthony Holder. And I say alleged because his
8:56
Speaker 1: description of the crime conflicted with both real and with
9:01
Speaker 1: every other eyewitness. All of them corroborated each other, and
9:05
Speaker 1: none of them described or ultimately identified Gary in person. Now,
9:10
Speaker 1: Anthony Holder was a building super right who were intended
9:13
Speaker 1: on Gary's block, and he's the guy who's credited with
9:16
Speaker 1: throwing Gary's nickname Chucky to the cops right into the
9:20
Speaker 1: mix after the crime. Gary, did you know this guy Holder?
9:23
Speaker 2: So, Anthony Holder is the super of I believe two
9:29
Speaker 2: of the buildings on land them Boulevard across the street
9:32
Speaker 2: from mine. So I didn't live there, but my friends did,
9:36
Speaker 2: so I'm visiting them. Anthony Holder never used to like
9:40
Speaker 2: when my friends and I will hang out on the stool,
9:43
Speaker 2: so in the courtyards of the building, it wasn't like
9:47
Speaker 2: we was causing any disruption being disrespectful.
9:51
Speaker 1: Okay, So he didn't like you, but he didn't have
9:54
Speaker 1: a real beef with you, but maybe he didn't care
9:57
Speaker 1: if he used you to stay at a prison. That's
10:00
Speaker 1: what it seems like to me. As it becomes clear
10:02
Speaker 1: much later, holder had some pending charges for which he
10:05
Speaker 1: likedly received leniency for his testimony in this case, but
10:09
Speaker 1: a trial. That deal was when you've heard this before,
10:12
Speaker 1: that deal was hidden by assistant DA Kyle Reeves. And
10:15
Speaker 1: now here we are, so let's get to the clime itself.
10:18
Speaker 1: This was April tenth, two thousand and two, a sunny
10:21
Speaker 1: spring day, on Linden Boulevard in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Now this
10:25
Speaker 1: is a broad street with an east and westbound side,
10:28
Speaker 1: a turning lane down the middle street, parking on either side,
10:31
Speaker 1: so about five lanes of cars wide if you can
10:34
Speaker 1: picture that. And there are apartment buildings on either side,
10:37
Speaker 1: so tons of people in the area. It's a bustling
10:40
Speaker 1: street scene. And the shooting happened in front of two
10:43
Speaker 1: oh one Linden Boulevard where you lived, across the street
10:46
Speaker 1: and down the block at number two eighteen.
10:49
Speaker 2: So it's about three and afternoon, the weather extremely nice,
10:54
Speaker 2: the blocks are extremely extremely busy, people are out enjoy
10:58
Speaker 2: the weather. School is Latin out. As I am approaching
11:02
Speaker 2: my building, the first blood shot right now, and that's
11:06
Speaker 2: when I started seeing everybody starting to run, and I
11:10
Speaker 2: ran right into my building.
11:12
Speaker 1: And according to corroborating eyewitness accounts, two men, the victim
11:16
Speaker 1: in this case, Victor Vulcan, and the shooter got into
11:18
Speaker 1: an argument. Welcome was shot four or five times, and
11:20
Speaker 1: then a mail carrier woman named Letim and Boten gave
11:23
Speaker 1: police a description, as did another woman named Paula Edgehill,
11:27
Speaker 1: who called nine one one and spoke to a dispatcher.
11:29
Speaker 3: So you had let him in Bolton, who's the mail carrier?
11:34
Speaker 3: And the nine one one callers, who described the shooter
11:37
Speaker 3: as a dark skin five foot eight, short hair let
11:40
Speaker 3: him in. Boden actually, in a statement to police, described
11:44
Speaker 3: the shooter as similarly built to the victim in the case.
11:49
Speaker 1: Now, the victim, Victor Vulcan, was one hundred and sixty
11:53
Speaker 1: eight pounds, so the nine one one caller and Boten's
11:55
Speaker 1: accounts corroborated each other. Now, Gary, what did you look
11:59
Speaker 1: like at this time?
12:01
Speaker 2: I was about six three, two forty years and I
12:05
Speaker 2: had a very large afro and I'm light skinned.
12:09
Speaker 3: No one describes the afro. That's the other major major issue.
12:13
Speaker 1: I mean, was this like a close cropped afro? How
12:16
Speaker 1: much volume are we talking about here?
12:18
Speaker 2: It would have to be roughly sixty seven inches.
12:23
Speaker 1: Okay, so that's a remarkable haird Like, I mean, people
12:26
Speaker 1: aren't going to miss a seven inch i afro. But unfortunately,
12:31
Speaker 1: this giant discrepancy didn't seem to matter to Anthony Holder
12:36
Speaker 1: or the detectives, and later didn't matter either to the
12:39
Speaker 1: prosecutor in the case. So what did Anthony Holder's statement
12:42
Speaker 1: to police say? This alternate version of events.
12:46
Speaker 3: And Anthony Holder says that Chucky is talking to some girls. Uh,
12:52
Speaker 3: they say, get at him, Chucky. Nobody else describes this,
12:56
Speaker 3: by the way. Then he says that Chucky began to
13:00
Speaker 3: argue with this guy and pulls a gun out of
13:02
Speaker 3: a bag and then shoots the guy. And Anthony Holder
13:06
Speaker 3: he doesn't describe Gary at all, and he never gives
13:09
Speaker 3: a description. So all he does, Anthony Holder is drop
13:12
Speaker 3: a nickname. And the police know the nickname because they're
13:15
Speaker 3: familiar with Gary.
13:17
Speaker 1: And we're not even sure who brought up the nickname first.
13:20
Speaker 1: Perhaps Anthony Holder decided to trade information false information. Let's
13:24
Speaker 1: call it what it is, about a neighborhood guy who
13:26
Speaker 1: he didn't really like in exchange for leniency and his
13:30
Speaker 1: pending charges, or the lead detectives who knew Gary from
13:34
Speaker 1: both previous incidents when he was an assault victim who
13:36
Speaker 1: refused to snitch and then the robbery. Now, of course
13:40
Speaker 1: i'm referring to detectives Robert Reedy and John mcgerrin.
13:43
Speaker 2: It was recently going over the DD fives I've come
13:47
Speaker 2: across John mcgurn's DD five. He says that he was
13:52
Speaker 2: at two eighteen Lyndon Boulevard when he receives information that
13:58
Speaker 2: the shooter is a god by the name of Chuckles.
14:03
Speaker 2: Only people that use the name Chuckles is people that
14:10
Speaker 2: went to elementary school with me. Anthony Holden never said Chuckles.
14:16
Speaker 2: Anthony holder says Chucky. So before John mcgarnan we see
14:22
Speaker 2: any information in regards to the shooter, he was already
14:26
Speaker 2: at two eighteen. The shooting happened at two o one
14:29
Speaker 2: lend Him Boulevard. We have nine to one one calls
14:33
Speaker 2: police reports that says the shooter ran into one eighty
14:38
Speaker 2: Lendon Boulevard. It was never a police call to respond
14:43
Speaker 2: to too eighteen. Why are you at two eighteen? Right?
14:49
Speaker 1: The nine one one call said one eighty Linden Boulevard.
14:51
Speaker 1: But McGurn went straight to your building and claimed to
14:54
Speaker 1: hear that the assailant was named Chuckles, your original nickname
14:58
Speaker 1: that had evolved into Chucky over time.
15:01
Speaker 2: Exactly. Mc gurn's already knew who I was the same
15:05
Speaker 2: way detective really already knew who I was.
15:09
Speaker 1: So this isn't definitive proof, but it certainly looks like
15:12
Speaker 1: they were immediately directing the investigation towards you without cause
15:17
Speaker 1: either way. Your nickname was now part of this investigation.
15:20
Speaker 3: And then they take this and they and they run
15:22
Speaker 3: with it, and they put a photo array together very
15:27
Speaker 3: soon after the shooting. And why the photo array was
15:31
Speaker 3: really important is because the picture of Gary is of
15:37
Speaker 3: when he was I believe eighteen years old. By the
15:40
Speaker 3: time he was twenty one, he was much heavier than
15:44
Speaker 3: he was when he was eighteen. He didn't even look
15:46
Speaker 3: like the same person, and he had short hair when
15:49
Speaker 3: he was eighteen.
15:50
Speaker 1: Oh right, So they showed this misleading photo array with
15:53
Speaker 1: an eighteen year old, slimmer looking Gary importantly with no
15:57
Speaker 1: afro but short hair instead. Right, as the witnesses that
16:02
Speaker 1: initially described the assailant, I mean it's so dirty, it's amazing.
16:08
Speaker 1: And the mail carrier let him in boten looking at
16:11
Speaker 1: this old photograph gave a tepid identification, right, and the
16:16
Speaker 1: incentivized alleged witness, Anthony Holder, gave an idea as well. Now,
16:21
Speaker 1: Anthony Holder also allegedly told him that the shooter had
16:25
Speaker 1: a black duffelback. No other witnesses reported seeing this, and
16:29
Speaker 1: in the continued effort to get to Gary, investigators put
16:32
Speaker 1: pressure on a guy from your building, a guy named
16:35
Speaker 1: Roger Isaac, who at about five eight, dark skinned with
16:39
Speaker 1: short hair, better match the description of the shooter, and
16:42
Speaker 1: so he was snatched up shortly after the shooting.
16:45
Speaker 2: Roger Isaac, I feel the phone, I really do. He's
16:48
Speaker 2: oblivious to what's going on. They jump out on him
16:52
Speaker 2: and say he's being arrested with the murder. They bring
16:56
Speaker 2: him down to the stage in his DD five. He
17:00
Speaker 2: saw me come into the building, throw a bag into
17:03
Speaker 2: department and come right back out.
17:06
Speaker 1: So now they have someone corroborating Holder about you and
17:09
Speaker 1: the alleged black bag. And then Roger Isaac allegedly described
17:13
Speaker 1: you as five foot eight two hundred pounds, but again,
17:17
Speaker 1: you're over six foot three and at least two hundred
17:20
Speaker 1: and forty at the time, and he said nothing about
17:23
Speaker 1: your impressive afro, which is very telling because the only
17:27
Speaker 1: picture that detectives McGurrin and Reedy had at that time
17:30
Speaker 1: was from when you were eighteen years old. It looks
17:33
Speaker 1: like they still thought that you were under two hundred
17:36
Speaker 1: pounds was short hair. So they brought Roger Isaac down
17:40
Speaker 1: to the precinct where he allegedly made this statement implicating
17:42
Speaker 1: you carrying this non existent black Duffel bag. And we're
17:46
Speaker 1: getting ahead of ourselves here, but at trial, this alleged
17:49
Speaker 1: statement from the D five unravels for the prosecution exactly.
17:54
Speaker 2: At trial, assistant this attorney, Kyle Reeves, is trying to
18:00
Speaker 2: have Roger Isaac testify that he saw me run into
18:05
Speaker 2: the building go back into the barment, so he gives
18:08
Speaker 2: them the DD five and that's when the cat is
18:10
Speaker 2: that at the bat he did the DD five. He said,
18:13
Speaker 2: I don't recall saying none of this. He says that
18:16
Speaker 2: he was in a cell and that the police roughed
18:19
Speaker 2: them up, assaulted mister Roger Isaac.
18:22
Speaker 1: It sounds like they might have just written that statement
18:24
Speaker 1: up just for him to sign.
18:26
Speaker 2: There was no signature. This is typed up, and then
18:29
Speaker 2: you have the officer's signature. So there's no Roger Isaac
18:33
Speaker 2: right in and saying I dually swear of this being authentic.
18:37
Speaker 2: There's none of that.
18:38
Speaker 1: So this sham statement in Roger Isaacs DD five blew
18:41
Speaker 1: up in Kyle reaves his face at trial. But in
18:44
Speaker 1: the immediate aftermath of the crime, this same DD five
18:48
Speaker 1: corroborated Anthony Holder. They had already tricked led him in
18:51
Speaker 1: voting into making the ID with that phony baloney photo array.
18:54
Speaker 1: So now they're closing in on you, but you didn't
18:56
Speaker 1: even know it. So let's go back to the immediate
18:59
Speaker 1: after youth shots rang out, you got to safety, and
19:03
Speaker 1: after things calmed down, you went out to handle a
19:05
Speaker 1: few errands before your three month old son and his
19:07
Speaker 1: mother arrived later on from Queen's. Now, at that time,
19:12
Speaker 1: you had gone to a friend's in Bushwick when a
19:14
Speaker 1: neighborhood friend paged you to tell you that the police
19:17
Speaker 1: had raided your apartment.
19:18
Speaker 2: He said, Yo, the police just went into your apartment.
19:22
Speaker 2: So I called my mother. When she goes home, the
19:25
Speaker 2: police are still there. They asked her to sign a
19:29
Speaker 2: consent form to search. They already searched her ready, so
19:33
Speaker 2: now they're using her consent to cover their eyes.
19:37
Speaker 1: So the police legally searched your apartment looking for this
19:40
Speaker 1: alleged black double bag, but they came up empty, and
19:44
Speaker 1: they got your mom to give consent to the search
19:47
Speaker 1: after the fact.
19:49
Speaker 2: So at this time, again, I'm not even aware that
19:53
Speaker 2: someone even died. It wasn't until they I speak to
19:56
Speaker 2: my mother, she says. Detective really gave her. Is called
20:01
Speaker 2: for me to call. He said a guy was shot
20:05
Speaker 2: and killed and they're looking to speak to me about it.
20:08
Speaker 2: I have nothing to hide, so I called him. He said,
20:12
Speaker 2: people are saying that you killed this guy. I said
20:17
Speaker 2: it to him, I don't know what you're talking about.
20:19
Speaker 2: I've just had a son. I have no reason to
20:23
Speaker 2: be out killing anybody. He said, well, you know, let's
20:27
Speaker 2: meet up somewhere. I said, that's not happening. I am
20:29
Speaker 2: not comfortable meeting you guys, and you talking about y'are
20:33
Speaker 2: looking for me because somebody got killed.
20:36
Speaker 1: He said, oh, you know, just n cally change in mind,
20:39
Speaker 1: and this is right. After nine to eleven. So the
20:41
Speaker 1: police had all these sweeping new powers from the Patriot Act,
20:46
Speaker 1: and they triangulated your position from the cell signal and
20:49
Speaker 1: found you over at your friends in Bushwick. But what's
20:53
Speaker 1: weird is that they're looking for the old version of you, right,
20:58
Speaker 1: They're looking for the eighteen year old, slimmer, short haired
21:02
Speaker 1: Gary from the photo array, not the fully grown out,
21:06
Speaker 1: much heavier, twenty one year old Gary with a seven
21:08
Speaker 1: inch high afro who looks nothing close to the Eyewinness descriptions.
21:14
Speaker 1: So both you and the police are confused. Now can
21:17
Speaker 1: you describe what happened during your arrest.
21:19
Speaker 2: It's like one of those scenes in almost like a
21:22
Speaker 2: die Hard movie. The whole block is just filled with,
21:26
Speaker 2: you know, squad cars and police officers and police officers
21:31
Speaker 2: on the rules and the helicopters. As they were going
21:35
Speaker 2: in to the building, I was coming out, right, I'm
21:40
Speaker 2: not knowing they're coming for me. All right, I'm going
21:44
Speaker 2: to the store and here all these police officers. I
21:48
Speaker 2: look at them, they look at me. I'll go and
21:51
Speaker 2: I walk to the store, not running. Walking. As I'm
21:55
Speaker 2: in the store, the door opened and then a head
21:58
Speaker 2: pokes in. He said, Hey, did you just come from
22:02
Speaker 2: and he recites to build a number, and I said yes.
22:05
Speaker 2: He asked me what my name is, and I tell
22:08
Speaker 2: him my name is Guy Bella. He said, please put
22:12
Speaker 2: your hands behind your back. So again I ain't say, Oh,
22:16
Speaker 2: my name is George Jeffrey Calvin. So I'm not evading
22:21
Speaker 2: being identified. Does this sound like the actions of a
22:25
Speaker 2: guilty man.
22:26
Speaker 1: Of course not. But it's crazy because you didn't think
22:29
Speaker 1: they were even there for you, and they thought they
22:32
Speaker 1: were looking for a guy who could potentially fit the description.
22:36
Speaker 1: But as we see here in your case, the description
22:39
Speaker 1: really didn't matter to them. They just move forward anyway.
22:43
Speaker 1: So you're arrested. Detective Ready questioned you. You told him
22:46
Speaker 1: what you're telling us here today, that you had absolutely
22:48
Speaker 1: nothing to do with it, and then they put you
22:51
Speaker 1: in a lineup.
22:52
Speaker 3: Then that lineup was was conducted by Robert Reedy, and
22:56
Speaker 3: Robert Reedy at least one time a couple of years
22:59
Speaker 3: after this case admitted to essentially taining a lineup in
23:04
Speaker 3: a photo right, and the case was thrown out on
23:07
Speaker 3: that basis. So Robert Reedy knew who Gary was, and
23:11
Speaker 3: he violated best practices. He shouldn't have been involved with
23:14
Speaker 3: the lineup at all, but he was.
23:16
Speaker 2: So they take me out of the cell and now
23:18
Speaker 2: I'm going to go for this lineup. They took the
23:22
Speaker 2: clothes I was wearing, gave something else to put on,
23:26
Speaker 2: and then they told me to put on a shower
23:29
Speaker 2: cap to hide my ear. And that's when I started O.
23:33
Speaker 2: I said, hell no, I said, oh, what's I doing?
23:36
Speaker 2: And I looked at Ready and I said, Rideo, you
23:39
Speaker 2: ain't right, and he just like held down his head.
23:42
Speaker 2: At that time, I already knew what they was doing,
23:46
Speaker 2: that they was dressing me up to fit the description
23:49
Speaker 2: of this person that they're looking for. They gave me
23:52
Speaker 2: a jacket. I'm not hold on, this is not my clothes. Oh,
23:57
Speaker 2: you gotta put it on. And then if it hiden
24:02
Speaker 2: my here, by what reason would you have to hide
24:06
Speaker 2: my him?
24:18
Speaker 1: This episode is underwritten by AIG, a leading global insurance company.
24:23
Speaker 1: AIG is committed to corporate social responsibility and is making
24:26
Speaker 1: a positive difference in the lives of its employees and
24:29
Speaker 1: in the communities where we work and live. In light
24:32
Speaker 1: of the compelling need for pro bono legal assistance, and
24:34
Speaker 1: in recognition of AIG's commitment to criminal and social justice reform.
24:39
Speaker 1: The AIG pro Bono program provides free legal services and
24:43
Speaker 1: other support to underrepresented communities and individuals. So they corrupted
24:54
Speaker 1: that lineup, and ultimately both Anthony Holder big surprise, and
24:58
Speaker 1: then the mail carrier let him in and identified you.
25:01
Speaker 1: So you spent eighteen long months awaiting trial at Rikers,
25:06
Speaker 1: away from your family and your baby son. Your lawyer,
25:10
Speaker 1: Daniel F. Lynch got discovery and the machinations of that
25:13
Speaker 1: lineup started to become even clearer, confirming what you had feared.
25:18
Speaker 2: And I said, I knew it. I knew this is
25:20
Speaker 2: why they wanted me to change my clothes. They wanted
25:23
Speaker 2: me to hide my head. These witnesses are saying X,
25:28
Speaker 2: Y and Z. If this witness says short here, they
25:32
Speaker 2: cannot put me in the lineup with this large afro,
25:37
Speaker 2: so they have me hide it. But now the particular
25:41
Speaker 2: witness let him in. Broughton, I'm gonna pick her first
25:46
Speaker 2: at the grand jury, and then's questioned and let him
25:49
Speaker 2: in brought and she stops for a second to say
25:52
Speaker 2: as if she wasn't sure she picked out the right guy.
25:56
Speaker 2: So fast forward to two thousand three. While I'm at trial,
26:01
Speaker 2: they asked her, did you see the shooter in the courtroom?
26:04
Speaker 2: Let Hi mcbiden unequivancies says no. So she says no
26:09
Speaker 2: at trial and at the grand jury she wasn't sure.
26:14
Speaker 2: But then at the time of when she's viewing the lineup,
26:18
Speaker 2: I am presented with the shallow cap that's hid in
26:23
Speaker 2: my ear and with some clothing that's close enough to
26:27
Speaker 2: what the shooter had on the day of the crime.
26:30
Speaker 2: Is there any reason why she wouldn't have picked me out?
26:33
Speaker 3: To witnesses identified Gary in a lineup, and of those
26:37
Speaker 3: two witnesses only one of them identify in the trial,
26:40
Speaker 3: which is Anthony Holder.
26:41
Speaker 1: So let him and Boten was supposed to be a
26:44
Speaker 1: prosecution witness but ended up working in favor of Gary's defense,
26:48
Speaker 1: just like Roger Isaac. So at that point, as this
26:51
Speaker 1: case was crumbling in front of their eyes, all they
26:53
Speaker 1: had left was Anthony Holder, who ended up being totally unreliable.
26:58
Speaker 1: And we're going to get to his testimony. But it
27:00
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like your attorney should have had to work
27:03
Speaker 1: very hard to discredit hold her with what was available
27:06
Speaker 1: to him.
27:07
Speaker 2: On assistant disc attorney Kyle Reeve's witness list, they had
27:12
Speaker 2: Paula Edschell that was the witness that I wanted my
27:15
Speaker 2: attorney to call on my behalf. Her phone call, the
27:20
Speaker 2: nine one one call, as well as her DD five
27:24
Speaker 2: and her Afford David at the sixty seventh precincts is
27:28
Speaker 2: very much as sculpatory and Crue's third party culpability. The
27:33
Speaker 2: description that she gave Paula Edgshell states that she looked
27:39
Speaker 2: through her window and she saw the shooter and the
27:43
Speaker 2: shooter was a medium height, dark skinned male, no afro.
27:50
Speaker 2: So that's not me right.
27:54
Speaker 1: But neither the prosecution nor your attorney called her as
27:56
Speaker 1: a witness. But even without Paula Edgshell, you still had
28:00
Speaker 1: let him in Voten and Roger Isaac blow up their
28:03
Speaker 1: part of the state's case. So all this left is
28:07
Speaker 1: Anthony Holder, who never actually described the shooter. He just
28:10
Speaker 1: used your nickname Chucky, saying that some girls were encouraging
28:14
Speaker 1: you to get after him, meaning Victor Vulcan. And none
28:17
Speaker 1: of those girls ever surfaced, nor did this alleged black
28:20
Speaker 1: duffel bag. What other holds should your defense have poked
28:24
Speaker 1: in Holder's testimony?
28:25
Speaker 3: The inconsistencies are abound with Anthony Holder he says, the
28:30
Speaker 3: guys shot with a thirty eight. Guy's not shot with
28:33
Speaker 3: the thirty eight. I believe the slugs were consistent with
28:36
Speaker 3: the twenty five. Forensically, the description that he gives does
28:40
Speaker 3: not match up to the wounds that the man suffers,
28:43
Speaker 3: And to be honest with you, I don't really think
28:45
Speaker 3: anybody gives a very consistent description of what actually happened
28:52
Speaker 3: because of how fast it happened. We don't know if
28:56
Speaker 3: Vulcan was standing upright when the first shots rang out right.
29:01
Speaker 3: But what we do know is that there was stippling
29:04
Speaker 3: on one of the shots on the chest, which would
29:07
Speaker 3: indicate that the shooter was very close, within twenty four inches.
29:12
Speaker 3: Anthony Holder says that the shooter was four feet away.
29:17
Speaker 1: So it would have been helpful if these wild inconsistencies
29:21
Speaker 1: were pointed out to impeach the one the only state's
29:25
Speaker 1: witness here was in fact their only piece of evidence,
29:29
Speaker 1: but your attorney was not prepared to do that. However,
29:32
Speaker 1: your attorney did present one very powerful witness, Augustin Hinkson,
29:37
Speaker 1: who had called nine to one one and corroborated led
29:40
Speaker 1: him in Voten and Paula Edgehill's descriptions and versions of events.
29:44
Speaker 2: Augustin Hinkshon states that the shooter and the victim is
29:49
Speaker 2: the same height. The medical examiner at trials stated that
29:55
Speaker 2: Victor Volcane sustained a gunshot wound to his chest and
29:59
Speaker 2: the no vertical for ponderance when asks what can cause
30:05
Speaker 2: that is that whoever shot him with the same height
30:08
Speaker 2: ass him. So Gustine Hinton is right on that. Now,
30:14
Speaker 2: another part of his testimony is he states that when
30:20
Speaker 2: the shooting was going on, that he was ushering some
30:24
Speaker 2: young children away from the crime. Now, when you get
30:29
Speaker 2: to Anthony Holder, Anthony Holder is a legend that he
30:35
Speaker 2: was the one that was ushering his young children away
30:39
Speaker 2: from the crime. But he goes on to also say
30:44
Speaker 2: that the shooter also is responsible for shooting one of
30:50
Speaker 2: those young children.
30:52
Speaker 3: What I think is important about Holder is there's nothing
30:55
Speaker 3: about his testimony that's true. The fact that he says
30:59
Speaker 3: a little girl was when there's absolutely no and YPD
31:04
Speaker 3: record of a small younger girl being shot at the scene.
31:09
Speaker 3: A little girl was not. This is like if a
31:12
Speaker 3: child was shot at the scene, Gary been lost to
31:15
Speaker 3: be doing a lot more than twenty five the life.
31:18
Speaker 2: That testimony had never surfaced at any time prior to trial.
31:25
Speaker 2: That false testimony only came about when assisted just the attorney,
31:33
Speaker 2: Kyle Reeves elicited that false and inflammatory testimony from Anthony
31:40
Speaker 2: Holder and then later turned around and vouched for the
31:45
Speaker 2: authenticity of that testimony. He also presented Anthony Holder as
31:50
Speaker 2: this super righteous citizen of society.
31:54
Speaker 1: I mean, not only should his shaky testimony have been
31:57
Speaker 1: seen through, but also they were hiding some thing, which
32:00
Speaker 1: was that this guy had a powerful incentive to lie
32:04
Speaker 1: or to say what the authorities wanted him to say,
32:07
Speaker 1: which is that he was facing pending charges himself. And
32:11
Speaker 1: we know that in a lot of these cases where
32:13
Speaker 1: these eyewitnesses suddenly are able to make an identification, those
32:18
Speaker 1: charges that they're facing magically go away and they're sort
32:21
Speaker 1: of making it deal with the devil. Is that what
32:23
Speaker 1: happened here?
32:23
Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, absolutely he had pending charges, and from our investigation,
32:31
Speaker 3: those charges are sealed, which means at some point they
32:33
Speaker 3: were dismissed, but they were pending while he testified. And
32:38
Speaker 3: interestingly enough, Kyle Reeves, when asked if the man had
32:44
Speaker 3: any pending charges, said that he'd never been arrested before.
32:47
Speaker 1: So that sounds carefully worded. And why would any prosecutor
32:51
Speaker 1: lie or mislead the jury about a witness's criminal history
32:54
Speaker 1: or pending charges if not to hide a potential deal
32:56
Speaker 1: for leniency. And when Holder's testimony is he only piece
33:00
Speaker 1: of evidence against you, stacked up against all of the
33:03
Speaker 1: independent witnesses whose testimony was in favor of Gary's innocence.
33:06
Speaker 1: Plus Anthony Holder made an unfounded charge that a little
33:10
Speaker 1: girl had been shot as well. If that's true, then
33:15
Speaker 1: why wasn't Gary charged with the attempted murder of a child.
33:18
Speaker 1: It's just it's just hard to see how the jury
33:22
Speaker 1: could get this so wrong. You had Roger Isaac let
33:25
Speaker 1: him in voting, and even without Paula Edgehill, you then
33:29
Speaker 1: had Augustin Hinkson. I mean, was the prosecution able to
33:33
Speaker 1: say that Hinkson was a friend of Gary's or something
33:36
Speaker 1: anything to impeach him.
33:38
Speaker 3: I think Augustin Hickson was the most reliable person that testified.
33:43
Speaker 3: Augustin Hinkson's relations to Gary's is just an acquaintance. Hainkson
33:46
Speaker 3: had no dog in the race, I believe. Actually Hankson
33:49
Speaker 3: is a nine to one one caller. That's how they
33:51
Speaker 3: get to Hankson. Hankson is a real world person that's
33:54
Speaker 3: there that they know is there from the gate that
33:58
Speaker 3: gives a statement to them. Hinkson is adamant that Gary
34:02
Speaker 3: was not there. I don't understand how Gary loses other
34:08
Speaker 3: than the fact that maybe the jury believed that he
34:11
Speaker 3: shot a little girl. I don't know. I mean that
34:14
Speaker 3: a little girl that definitely wasn't a shot.
34:16
Speaker 1: There's a miracle that no kids were shot, but the
34:18
Speaker 1: fact remains that no kid was shot. But they just
34:21
Speaker 1: made up this story, and it seems to me there's
34:24
Speaker 1: at least a good chance that they were doing that
34:26
Speaker 1: in order to cast this terrible light on Gary, so
34:31
Speaker 1: that if the jury saw through the nonsense that they
34:35
Speaker 1: were being fed, they would still say, well, this guy's
34:39
Speaker 1: a terrible guy because he shot a child. So even
34:43
Speaker 1: if the evidence is shaky as hell, we're still gonna
34:46
Speaker 1: go ahead and convict him. Am I am I off
34:48
Speaker 1: base here?
34:49
Speaker 3: No, No, not at all. No. I think you're one
34:52
Speaker 3: hundred percent right. Holder was a terrible witness, but he
34:56
Speaker 3: was enough, you know, he was enough to sink Gary. Unfortunately,
35:01
Speaker 3: and that's the problem with the American justice system is
35:04
Speaker 3: that a single witness like this could actually send a
35:09
Speaker 3: man in prison for twenty five the life.
35:11
Speaker 1: Gary was convicted of second agree murder on November twenty,
35:14
Speaker 1: two thousand and three. So Gary, take us inside the
35:18
Speaker 1: courtroom and inside your heart and soul.
35:21
Speaker 2: At that moment, it was unbelievable. It was heartbreaking, It
35:27
Speaker 2: was so shadowing. My life and my world came to
35:33
Speaker 2: a halt at that moment. The day I was sentenced,
35:38
Speaker 2: my family has also been sentenced to twenty five years
35:43
Speaker 2: to life. You're pretty much gift of everything I was given.
36:03
Speaker 2: You know, this new identity, the identity that the Department
36:07
Speaker 2: of Correction wished to know me by. They don't care
36:10
Speaker 2: to know who Gary Benlass is, and if Gary Benlass
36:14
Speaker 2: is wrongfully convicted, they don't care about that. I'm known
36:19
Speaker 2: to the Department of Corrections at zero three eight six
36:22
Speaker 2: four one five. But I'm here to tell everyone that's
36:27
Speaker 2: not who I am talking about, a young man who
36:31
Speaker 2: was stripped away from his family. There's a void in
36:35
Speaker 2: the lives of my mother, for my sister, the mother
36:38
Speaker 2: of my son, for my grandmother, my uncles, my aunts,
36:44
Speaker 2: my cousins. So I'm not carrying this sentence alone. There's
36:50
Speaker 2: a void that's in the life of my son who
36:54
Speaker 2: had to grow up without me there, that had dreams
36:59
Speaker 2: of his father coming home, but he would never see
37:03
Speaker 2: that because he had passed away before it actually happened.
37:11
Speaker 1: This tragedy, it's almost hard to even process this right,
37:17
Speaker 1: but I know when I was up visiting you, Gary,
37:20
Speaker 1: you showed me a letter you had gotten from your son,
37:22
Speaker 1: that your son grew up without his dad through no
37:24
Speaker 1: fault of yours, a no fault of his own, and
37:26
Speaker 1: yet you managed to be a good father, a great
37:30
Speaker 1: father from prison, as good as anyone could be, and
37:32
Speaker 1: he turned out to be a fantastic kid. I saw
37:35
Speaker 1: a letter that he wrote to you, that was a
37:39
Speaker 1: letter that any father would love to get from their child,
37:43
Speaker 1: where he basically said, I love you and I wish
37:46
Speaker 1: things were different, but we're going to make up for
37:48
Speaker 1: lost time when you come home. You're my inspiration, You're
37:50
Speaker 1: my hero. And that letter, which I could almost not
37:58
Speaker 1: read knowing what happened next, was just so beautiful and powerful.
38:03
Speaker 1: And the awful truth is that the day after that
38:07
Speaker 1: you received that letter, he was killed in a writing
38:10
Speaker 1: in an uber, just a passenger in an uber and
38:12
Speaker 1: a random hit and run accident. I think we should
38:16
Speaker 1: really dedicate this episode to his memory.
38:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, talking about a very very very dark moment,
38:25
Speaker 2: and I had to find first within me strength.
38:32
Speaker 1: It's a tremendous weight that I cannot imagine lifting, considering
38:36
Speaker 1: the weight you had already lifted. Perhaps it's the strength
38:39
Speaker 1: that you built over all that time leading up to
38:42
Speaker 1: this even heavier moment.
38:44
Speaker 2: And I had to find that light of redemption first
38:50
Speaker 2: within me to guide me through this perilous place so
38:57
Speaker 2: I can get to that platau where I can say, listen,
39:02
Speaker 2: I'm not going to let my time in here go
39:06
Speaker 2: to waste. I'm not going to allow my wrong for
39:09
Speaker 2: conviction to stop me from being the man that I'm
39:12
Speaker 2: supposed to be. I'm going to fight this, I'm going
39:17
Speaker 2: to win, and I'm also going to make sure that
39:21
Speaker 2: I'm in position where I can help uppers.
39:24
Speaker 1: And I've read a bit about some of the good
39:26
Speaker 1: things that you've done with your time on the inside.
39:28
Speaker 1: In fact, I've witnessed some of them in person. I mean,
39:31
Speaker 1: I've been up there and seen you doing your thing,
39:36
Speaker 1: making a difference. Can you tell us a little bit
39:38
Speaker 1: about your work?
39:39
Speaker 2: So in two thousand and six, I went and I
39:41
Speaker 2: actually attained my GED Now I'm helping other individuals to
39:46
Speaker 2: achieve their GEDs. I became a facilitator for a cultural
39:52
Speaker 2: awareness class due the CAAU organization, which is a Cabbean africmmunity.
39:58
Speaker 2: I've partaked in alternative violence program where you help to
40:02
Speaker 2: mentor people to find a way to allegate situations without
40:08
Speaker 2: the needs of violence. Twenty twelve, I was in the
40:12
Speaker 2: Electrical Trade program. I actually advanced and became it which
40:19
Speaker 2: is called inmate program assistant, so I was an assistant
40:23
Speaker 2: to the teacher. So I became a facilitator and through
40:27
Speaker 2: that also allowed me the opportunity to gain my apprenticeship
40:32
Speaker 2: through the NCCER course, where I was able to take
40:37
Speaker 2: the same type of tests and courses that a person
40:41
Speaker 2: on the outside would so they could become electrician. When
40:44
Speaker 2: I came to Sincin immediately signed up for the Mercy
40:47
Speaker 2: College Hustling program that they have here where I am
40:51
Speaker 2: actually going for my bachelor's in behavioral Science. I wasn't
40:56
Speaker 2: allowing my state of mind incarcervation to hold me back,
41:00
Speaker 2: and I was sitting down the stones for my future
41:03
Speaker 2: and I have a little better.
41:05
Speaker 1: No you have not, and you've brought that same proactive
41:08
Speaker 1: and incredibly positive spirit to the work that you've done
41:12
Speaker 1: inside with a group of guys called the AI Team,
41:15
Speaker 1: the Actual Innocence Team, good name. Longtime listeners of the
41:19
Speaker 1: show will remember other members of this New York based crew,
41:22
Speaker 1: two of whom are already out. I'm talking about Derek Hamilton,
41:26
Speaker 1: Shabaka Shakur and of course Nelson Cruz, Danny Rinkhon and
41:30
Speaker 1: yourself still remain inside. You also were friendly with another
41:36
Speaker 1: great friend of the show and great personal friend of mine,
41:39
Speaker 1: personal hero. I would say, I'm talking about JJ Velasquez,
41:42
Speaker 1: who is another just incredibly inspirational man.
41:45
Speaker 2: Being around these individuals also help to give me a
41:51
Speaker 2: sense of hope and courage because now you no longer
41:56
Speaker 2: feel alone. And we'll go to a law a lotbrries
41:59
Speaker 2: will reach cases and we'll see what we can find
42:03
Speaker 2: will be able to help us. Oh that right, there
42:06
Speaker 2: is a batching issue. Well that's a strictly versus Washington issue. Oh,
42:10
Speaker 2: that's the way issue. And that's how I started to
42:14
Speaker 2: learn the law. Interestingly, you know it's not supposed to happen,
42:18
Speaker 2: but now you can put legal theory to it. Now,
42:22
Speaker 2: it's more than just going into a court submitting a
42:26
Speaker 2: piece of paper and saying I didn't do it.
42:29
Speaker 1: So you fought your case for a while this way,
42:32
Speaker 1: and eventually Derek, Shabaka and JJ got out and slowly
42:35
Speaker 1: but surely you got your case in front of our
42:37
Speaker 1: friend Justin here. So justin, what has happened so far
42:40
Speaker 1: in Gary's post conviction fight and where does his case stand? Now?
42:44
Speaker 3: Okay? Well, Gary, you know, of course he filed the
42:48
Speaker 3: direct appeal. And what's very interesting about Gary's direct appeal
42:53
Speaker 3: is that he's we're saying the same thing that we're
42:55
Speaker 3: saying now, right, Gary has been consistent since day one.
42:59
Speaker 3: He filed a motion to vacate his conviction back in
43:02
Speaker 3: two thousand and two. One of the issues was the
43:05
Speaker 3: fact that Anthony Holder had a criminal charge that was
43:09
Speaker 3: pending during the trial that was never disclosed. Actually, Kyle Reeves,
43:14
Speaker 3: as per usual, I should say, Kyle Reeves, failed to
43:18
Speaker 3: turn that over and actually indicated that Anthony Holder had
43:21
Speaker 3: never been arrested before in his life, which was totally untrue.
43:25
Speaker 3: That just goes along with Kyle Reeves's theme. But as
43:28
Speaker 3: of right now, you know, we are really reinvestigating the
43:32
Speaker 3: forensics at the scene and pulling all the files from
43:35
Speaker 3: the NYPD and the District Attorney's office to prepare for
43:39
Speaker 3: another four point forty or to go to the conviction
43:43
Speaker 3: Review Unit, which I do think would be very interested
43:46
Speaker 3: in this case based upon how unreliable the evidence is
43:49
Speaker 3: here that convicted Gary and the evidence of innocence. You know, Jason,
43:54
Speaker 3: I think the biggest thing is what makes a case
43:57
Speaker 3: like Gary's very strong is the evidence that's in the
44:01
Speaker 3: possession of the prosecutor. And when you look at that,
44:05
Speaker 3: including Augustin Hinkson let him in Bolton and then a
44:09
Speaker 3: nine to one one caller, three people all say that
44:12
Speaker 3: Gary bin Loss is not the shooter here, He's not
44:15
Speaker 3: the person that killed Victor Vulcan. And I think that
44:18
Speaker 3: that's overwhelming evidence of innocence in comparison to Anthony Holder.
44:24
Speaker 3: And that's what we're working on right now is tying
44:26
Speaker 3: that all together, both forensically and through our investigation and
44:30
Speaker 3: to see if there's any more Brady evidence out there,
44:32
Speaker 3: because there was at least one witness that was interviewed
44:35
Speaker 3: that was friends with Victor Vulcan that stated that Victor
44:38
Speaker 3: Vulcan had beef with people from his own block. He
44:42
Speaker 3: was not from the block where he was found murdered
44:44
Speaker 3: at So we know we are investigating all these claims
44:47
Speaker 3: before we do anything, but we're evaluating whether we go
44:51
Speaker 3: forward with another motion to vacate or go to Brooklyn's
44:53
Speaker 3: Conviction Review Unit.
44:54
Speaker 1: Justin what can people do? And I'm sure people are listening,
44:58
Speaker 1: heartbroken and angry and motivating. So what can people do
45:02
Speaker 1: to help bring some semblance of justice for Gary?
45:06
Speaker 3: I would say start off by reaching out to Aer
45:08
Speaker 3: Gonzales Brooklyn DA's office, and also Gary has a change
45:12
Speaker 3: dot org page, and support the petition and continue to
45:16
Speaker 3: support people who are like Gary. I think that's the
45:20
Speaker 3: biggest problem. There needs to be more support from a
45:23
Speaker 3: broader base in the country, right. It has to be
45:27
Speaker 3: more than just the people that have been affected by
45:29
Speaker 3: wrongful convictions. It has to be people that are just regular,
45:33
Speaker 3: average American citizens because they need to understand that this
45:37
Speaker 3: could be you, because it could be you, It could
45:39
Speaker 3: be your son, it could be your daughter, it could
45:41
Speaker 3: it could be anybody. It could be you, and people
45:44
Speaker 3: need to stop acting like that that's not a fact.
45:48
Speaker 1: We will link in the bio to the petition and
45:52
Speaker 1: to other information about the case. Please do click on
45:54
Speaker 1: the link in the bio, sign the petition and get
45:58
Speaker 1: involved and will hopefully be able to publish an update
46:02
Speaker 1: to this episode sometime and then not to just in
46:05
Speaker 1: future where we get to speak with Gary from the outside.
46:07
Speaker 1: And now, of course it's time to turn to the
46:10
Speaker 1: closing of our show, which everyone knows is called closing arguments,
46:14
Speaker 1: and this is where I thank you guys again. I'm
46:18
Speaker 1: going to turn over to you first justin for your thoughts,
46:21
Speaker 1: any other thoughts you want to share, and then of
46:24
Speaker 1: course hand off to Gary and he'll take us off
46:26
Speaker 1: into the sunset.
46:28
Speaker 3: The first thing that we really need to consider in
46:31
Speaker 3: this case is because it happens over and over and
46:34
Speaker 3: over again in identification cases, is where there's a description
46:38
Speaker 3: that does not match the person that they end up arrestling. Obviously,
46:43
Speaker 3: common sense says that the suspect should match the description
46:49
Speaker 3: that the witnesses say was the perpetrator, and Gary's case
46:54
Speaker 3: is very typical, especially in a place like New York City,
46:58
Speaker 3: where the police don't care. They just don't care. They
47:01
Speaker 3: get a name, they focus on the name. They don't
47:04
Speaker 3: care that the person that is this name doesn't match
47:08
Speaker 3: the description of the perpetrator given by the witnesses. That
47:12
Speaker 3: just goes right out the window. People don't think that
47:14
Speaker 3: that's true. But Gary is evident to that. And I
47:17
Speaker 3: can tell you as an attorney that practices in New
47:19
Speaker 3: York City every day, that that happens all the time,
47:22
Speaker 3: and it still happens in twenty twenty two. And Gary
47:25
Speaker 3: is a he's a spot on case of where the
47:28
Speaker 3: police didn't care. And the police didn't care because they
47:31
Speaker 3: knew his name, they knew who he was. They focused
47:34
Speaker 3: in on him. They put him in a photo array
47:37
Speaker 3: with a photo that didn't match anything that looked like him.
47:40
Speaker 3: It matched more the description of what the witnesses said
47:44
Speaker 3: the perpetrator looked like. And what I mean by that
47:46
Speaker 3: is obviously a photo array. All you really have is
47:48
Speaker 3: the head. The person had short hair in the photo ray, right,
47:52
Speaker 3: so that at least matched more the description of the perpetrator.
47:56
Speaker 3: They went and they arrested Gary. Then they put him
47:58
Speaker 3: in a lineup where he looks nothing like he looked
48:01
Speaker 3: in the photo, all right, And Robert Reedy is the
48:03
Speaker 3: one that handles the identification and the witnesses somehow identify
48:08
Speaker 3: him in the lineup. The person that's running these procedures
48:12
Speaker 3: should not be involved with the investigation and they should
48:14
Speaker 3: not know who the subject is. And Robert Reedy has
48:18
Speaker 3: done this before. He's gotten called out, cases have been
48:21
Speaker 3: thrown out because he suggested and tainted identification procedures. And
48:26
Speaker 3: then who does Robert Reedy hand the case off to
48:29
Speaker 3: Kyle Reeves, who's framed numerous men, scumback of the highest order.
48:37
Speaker 3: And people need to understand what is the DA's job.
48:40
Speaker 3: The DA's job is to vet the police's investigation. Kyle
48:44
Speaker 3: Reeves doesn't vet an investigation. He takes the investigation and
48:48
Speaker 3: he fixes it. He does the opposite of what you're
48:51
Speaker 3: supposed to do. And even in the face of descriptions
48:56
Speaker 3: of a perpetrator that are eighty pounds lest yes, and
49:01
Speaker 3: half a foot shorter than gary ben Lost and having
49:05
Speaker 3: a haircut that doesn't match the afro that gary Ben Loss, says,
49:09
Speaker 3: there's nothing about the shooter in this case that matches
49:12
Speaker 3: the description of Gary ben Lost. Kyle Reeves still takes
49:15
Speaker 3: this to trial. He puts let him in Bolton on
49:18
Speaker 3: the stand. She stands up in courtiess and you see
49:22
Speaker 3: the guy that shot the victim, Victor Vulcan Here, she
49:26
Speaker 3: says no. She says no, her testimony matches her initial
49:32
Speaker 3: description of the shoe, which it was not gary Ben Lost.
49:35
Speaker 3: That's a non identification. He puts Anthony Holder on the
49:38
Speaker 3: witness stand. Anthony Holder gives a ridiculous testimony that is
49:42
Speaker 3: not consistent at all with the evidence at the scene,
49:45
Speaker 3: not consistent at all with the other witnesses at the scene.
49:48
Speaker 3: Says that a little girl was shot at the scene.
49:50
Speaker 3: There is no NYPD record of a little girl being shot.
49:53
Speaker 3: And let me tell you, if a little if a
49:55
Speaker 3: child was shot at the scene, Gary bin Loss to
49:58
Speaker 3: be doing a lot more than tw twenty five to life, Okay,
50:02
Speaker 3: he would be, and there would be absolutely police reports
50:06
Speaker 3: indicating that medical reports indicating there wasn't. Anthony Holder completely lies.
50:12
Speaker 3: There's not one shred of his testimony that is true.
50:18
Speaker 3: And then another witness comes in and says that it
50:21
Speaker 3: wasn't Gary Ben Lost. That the defense calls. But what
50:24
Speaker 3: the defense failed to do here, which they often do,
50:27
Speaker 3: is they failed to put on the nine to one
50:30
Speaker 3: one caller that described the shooter as five foot eight,
50:34
Speaker 3: dark skin with short hair. The defense failed to cross
50:39
Speaker 3: examine let him in Bolton, even though she said that
50:41
Speaker 3: Gary ben Lost wasn't the person that she saw firing
50:45
Speaker 3: the weapon that day. The jury never heard the description
50:49
Speaker 3: of let him in Bolten that the shooter matched the
50:52
Speaker 3: description and body type of the victim, who was five
50:56
Speaker 3: foot ten, one hundred and sixty eight pounds. That could
50:59
Speaker 3: have defiedly proved to the jury. It would have overridden
51:03
Speaker 3: the terrible testimony of Anthony Holder. I don't even really
51:07
Speaker 3: need to do a reinvestigation here. It's clear Gary is innocent.
51:11
Speaker 3: He's been in jail for over twenty years at this point.
51:16
Speaker 3: It's a travesty of justice. But it's all too often
51:20
Speaker 3: of a story, especially in a place like New York City.
51:24
Speaker 3: Eyewitness identification is a real problem in New York City.
51:27
Speaker 3: It's all too often of a story, and it is
51:29
Speaker 3: just tragic with Gary because he should have never been arrested,
51:32
Speaker 3: should have never been charged, and he was just railroaded.
51:39
Speaker 2: The traumatic and irreparable effects of wrongful conviction just don't
51:42
Speaker 2: affect those wrongfully convicted. It also impacts the lives of
51:48
Speaker 2: their families, their communities, and the fabric of our nation.
51:52
Speaker 2: Je Ed explain what I mean. I will let you
51:54
Speaker 2: share this letter with you all. It was written by
51:58
Speaker 2: my beloved son, Isaiah Bellos, who was seventeen years old
52:01
Speaker 2: at the time. It reads, Dear Sir Madam, I'm writing
52:07
Speaker 2: on behalf of my father, Gary Benross. When I was
52:11
Speaker 2: a baby, I never really got the chance to spend
52:13
Speaker 2: time and bond with my father until I got older.
52:17
Speaker 2: This situation really got to me while I was growing
52:20
Speaker 2: up without him. He wasn't there when I first picked
52:24
Speaker 2: up a basketball and when I first rode a bike. Also,
52:29
Speaker 2: he wasn't there when I graduated elementary and middle school.
52:33
Speaker 2: All I wish is for me and him to go
52:36
Speaker 2: out and bond with each other. Even though he wasn't
52:40
Speaker 2: there for my elementary and middle school years. I hope
52:44
Speaker 2: he can be there when I graduated from high school
52:46
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty. I hope whoever is reading this you
52:51
Speaker 2: find it in your heart to give my father early parole.
52:54
Speaker 2: Please thank you in advance, the Sili Isaiah Benloss. That
53:00
Speaker 2: was written in April twenty second of twenty nineteen. And
53:07
Speaker 2: as you see, I'm still in prison, so he never
53:10
Speaker 2: got that wish for me to be there for his
53:13
Speaker 2: graduation in June of twenty twenty. The month following his graduation,
53:21
Speaker 2: he sent me a card for my birthday and it reads,
53:25
Speaker 2: Happy Birthday to the real OG. I just want to
53:29
Speaker 2: say thank you for being real with me, believing in
53:32
Speaker 2: me when no one did, still being real and never
53:36
Speaker 2: switching up and sticking it through even in these hard times.
53:41
Speaker 2: I know you can't be out here with me and
53:43
Speaker 2: wishing things could have been different, But I always reminded
53:47
Speaker 2: myself and never regret what I have, because then I
53:51
Speaker 2: wouldn't have you and my amazing girlfriend and family that
53:54
Speaker 2: I love daily. I appreciate and love you that Hopefully
53:59
Speaker 2: when you get out we can make up for lost times.
54:02
Speaker 2: I love your pops to sell your son, Isaiah ben
54:06
Speaker 2: Laws again. Those wishes would never be manifested. But just
54:16
Speaker 2: a day after receiving this card from my son, he
54:20
Speaker 2: was in a tragic car accident that later claimed his life.
54:24
Speaker 2: So as I leave you all here with these final thoughts.
54:29
Speaker 2: As I studied before, the state of wrongful conviction doesn't
54:34
Speaker 2: just impact those wrongful convicted, it also affects the families.
54:42
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you for listening to Rafel Conviction. I'd
54:54
Speaker 1: like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Cliburn
54:57
Speaker 1: and Kevin Wardis with research by Lilah Robinson. The music
55:01
Speaker 1: in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
55:03
Speaker 1: composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram
55:07
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and
55:12
Speaker 1: on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava
55:15
Speaker 1: for Good. On all three platforms, you can also follow
55:18
Speaker 1: me on both TikTok and Instagram at it's Jason Flam.
55:22
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction is the production of Lava for Good podcast
55:25
Speaker 1: and association with Signal Company Number one