Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #098 Jason Flom with Raymond Santana

Transcript

#098 Jason Flom with Raymond Santana · Wrongful Conviction

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: I originally interviewed Raymond Santana on the very first episode
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: of Wrongful Conviction, which aired it seems like a long
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: time ago on October third of twenty sixteen. I'm so
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: excited to see what's happening for my friend Raymond. Not
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: only is he now an activist, a clothing designer, and
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: an accomplished and celebrated public speaker. He also launched a
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: clothing company called Park Madison, NYC in twenty eighteen. And
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Raymond is a course featured in the hit Netflix show
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: When They See Us, which prepared on May thirty one,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: twenty nineteen. And it's so great to see him out
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: and about in the spotlight, spreading a good word, beaming
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: out that positive energy that he has. I also encourage
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: you to watch Raymond and I did a speech together.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: If you google my name in Nantucket project, you'll see
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: it right away. Raymond, you deserve all the success and more.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: And now please listen to the first episode the premiere
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: of Wrongful Conviction with Raymond Santana.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: I came from a beautiful neighborhood. I had a beautiful life.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: I went to sleep because September seventh was the first
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: day of my high school year.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: I was going to be a senior. At twenty two,
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: I was set to start college.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: I woke up and my life was never the same again.
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: Cops came out with guns drawn, and I never saw
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: freedom ever since after that.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: It's like roach motw Once you get in, you're not
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: get mouthed.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: On April nineteenth, nineteen eighty nine, fourteen year old Raymond
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Santana was arrested and charged with one of the most
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: notorious crimes in the history of New York City, the
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: rape and brutal beating of a woman who became known
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: as the Central Park jogger.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Five youths were arrested at ninety sixth Street, four between
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: fourteen and fifteen years of age.
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: Police are still questioning some of them the young suspects.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: They believe were involved in last night's attack. Immediately following
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: the crime, New York City police picked up Raymond and
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: four other teenage boys. They were interrogated separately. They were
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: denied food, water, and access to lawyers, and they were
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: held for between fifteen and thirty hours until each of
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: them confessed to a crime they did not commit.
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: And he says, so where will you? And I said well,
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: I saw it from a distance. I was witnessing it,
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: and he said that's not good enough. He said, you
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: have to place yourself at the scene. You have to
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: be right there watching it.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: All five of them were convicted. This is wrongful conviction
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: with Jason Flomm.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: Its bad.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's so bad, Raymond. Welcome to the show.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Raymond. I want to go back and talk about your
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: crazy life story because I lived through it. I'm a
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: New Yorker. Yeah, and I remember very well seeing your
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: face on the front of every newspaper, and you were
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: one of the most hated people in New York City
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: at the times.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: That's fair to say, that's correct. You were like the
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: face of evil.
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: Yes, there is anger over this incident that seems to
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: have only grown in the day since the assault occurred.
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: I also wanted to take them after they get out
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: of Gail and put them in the Gorilla Cajun, the
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: Park Zoo, the New Zoo, see if they could survive it.
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: I think that's analogous to what they did to her.
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: The punishment has to fit the crime.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Castrate them. They can't only one problem. You didn't do it.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: That's a big problem. That's a big problem.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: But I want to go even further back than that.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: First of all, what's your where are you from? What's
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: your family from? Let's talk about your childhood before this
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: all came down.
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, originally I was born in Harlem, moved to the Bronx.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: My dad was from Puerto Rico.
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: Mother was born here, she's Puerto Rican and also, and
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: my childhood was like any other childhood, right, middle class family.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: Father works you know, at a hospital. He was there
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: for about forty four years old total. My mom's was
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: a housewife. It was me and my sister growing up.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: So you're growing up. I mean you were fourteen years
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: old when this happened, right, correct, Yeah, I mean and
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: when I think about how young that is, many of
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: the audience have kids, teenage kids. I mean fourteen, you're
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: a child. Yes, I mean at fifteen or sixteen, you're
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: starting to become moving towards adulthood, right, but at fourteen,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: you're a child. Let's face it.
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: At fourteen, you know, my dad wasn't even thinking about
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: all right, let me sit them down and fill out
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: an application, right, show him how to do that, you know,
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: show him how to take a girl on the date,
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: like that stuff wasn't even coming in yet.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: That maybe you shaved once by then maybe not even
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: you're not going on.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: Dates yet, You're like eighth grader pretty much. Yeah, I
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: was about yeah, about yeah, seven seventh day. Yeah.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: So let's go back to the night of this horrendous
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: crime and this terrible nightmare that you and the other four,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: the other four guys went through. First of all, you
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: didn't know those guys, did you.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: No, I did not.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: So the case, let's talk about the case a little bit.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: So the Central Park jeogra case. The fact is Central
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: Park jogger case. This was in the well, I guess
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: it was in the early nineties.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, nineteen eighty nine and eighty nine, right.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: So the crime in New York City was out of
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: control at that time. There was a lot of fear,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: a lot of panic, a lot of violence, and this
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: case hit all the trigger points because what happened was
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: there was a woman, a wealthy woman from the Upper
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: East Side, white woman, who was jogging in the park
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: at night and was attacked, dragged into the bushes and
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: raped and beaten almost to death. This became a huge
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: flash point, a lot of pressure on the cops to
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: figure this out real quick, right, I imagine the mayor
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: everybody must have been calling like get this figured out
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: right now. So let's go. Let's go to the night
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: of the of the crime. So where were you? What
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: were you doing?
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: Well, it started out because I lived originally, I lived
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: on one hundred and nineteenth Street and like between Lexington
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: and Park, right next to the twenty fifth precinct.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: So so ironically yeah right, And so as it turns out.
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: Some guys that I went to school with lived in
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: tap Houses, which is, you know, roughly about five six
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: blocks away, and that night we planned to go to
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: Shamberg because there was a party there.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: That's another housing project.
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's where Yusuf and Kevin and Corey they live
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: over there.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: So so I didn't know these guys.
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't know these guys, but there was mutual
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: friends within their group and there was mutual friends within
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: my group. And that's how we came to meet up
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: in front of Shamberg and talk to these guys.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: And then from the now, just so for people who
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: are let saying that I don't expect people to know this,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: but Central Park goes from fifty ninth Street to one
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: hundred and tenth Street in New York and it goes
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: from Fifth Avenue to Central Park West. Yes, this crime
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: happened in the northern section.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: Of the park around one hundred and second Street.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Right, So naturally the cops are up there looking and
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: they're looking for, you know, suspects in that area. Yeah,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: but you weren't. I mean, you were still a good
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: half a mile away at least from the crime scene
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: at this point. So it was at the Schaumberg houses.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: How did let's get to where? How did you get
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: picked up? Where'd you guys go from the Chamberg House?
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: Why did you happen to be standing somewhere that the
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: cops would happen to look at you and say, let's
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: grab this guy and the other guys.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So what happened was that we went into the park, right,
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: and so me.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Just looking at something that was yeah, because.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: We was out out there talking.
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: There was a bunch of guys, and then guys started
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: going into the park in that one hundred and tenth
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: street area, right there on the corner, because that's the
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: corner of the park.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: They live right across the street from me, and.
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: So that was something that they did all the time,
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: Like they always went into the park and hung out
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: in that corner area on one hundred tenth Street and fifth, Yes,
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: one hundred.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: Tenth and fifth.
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so to them that was like their backyard, you know,
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: the Shaanberg boys always was in the park. And so
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: we did go with the park with them, and then
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: from there we wound up traveling to the park. They
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: did walk into the park and they wound up traveling
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: going south into the park. Now, there was some things
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: that happened that night because it was a very large
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: group at this time. You know how many kids We're
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: talking over thirty kids and this group. I was with
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: the group, but I didn't know I didn't know majority
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: of them. I knew just the guys that I came with.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: And you were the youngest or one of the youngest.
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I was one of the youngest. And so there
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: were some guys in there who were rowdy, right, and
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: so one guy did get assaulted, who was a Hispanic man,
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: and then I think three people got sorted by the reservoir.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: When that happened is when we left the.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: Park.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's in the park. And so when that.
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: Last incident happened with those three people is when the
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: group left, like the guys who I came with, they
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: was like, we're leaving the park. And so as we
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: left the park, we was on Central Park West, like
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: on around one hundred and second Street, and that's where
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: the police came and I got picked up at And
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: so the guys who I came with, they had left,
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: and so I was there walking with a group of
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: people who I didn't know, and so a small group.
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: And so when the police did approach, that group scattered,
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: and so one of the officers grabbed me, and then
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: there was another kid who he grabbed by the name
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: of Steven Lopez, who I didn't even know.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: And now they grabbed you because you didn't run, Yeah,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: because I didn't run. And why didn't you run?
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: Because I didn't do anything, So there was no reason
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: to run. There's a good answer, right, Yeah, I didn't
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: do anything. And so and you trusted the cops at
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: this point, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: I never had no dealings with them, I never had
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: no bad experience with them, so you know, it was
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: no reason for me to run, right, And so you know,
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: I just I told himself, well, why are you stopping
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: me because I ain't doing anything, and he pulled he
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: had to walk, he talking, and he hit me over
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: the head with the water talkie. Right, he put me
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: on the wall. So I just did in the wall
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: and I ain't seen anything. And then he also grafts
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: Steve Lopez and put him on the wall. And by
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: this time the rest of the group that looked group
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: that he was with the scattered.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: Okay, so anyway, so they take so they arrest you.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Do you know why you're being arrested?
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: No, I just plant don't.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: Do you know anything about the Central Park Jograh situation.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: It hadn't even gotten.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: Out yet, No, no, nothing, because.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: We didn't have social media back then. Like that's not
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: like you were checking your phone and there's an alert
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: that comes in from seeing.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: It wasn't no phone. I didn't have no phone.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: Out, So okay, so now you're just you know what's
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: going on now?
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: I don't know what's going on now.
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: Now there was some instance that happened in the park
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: that I saw, but you know, I didn't have nothing
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: to do with that. So so to me, it was like,
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: you know, it's nothing to worry about at.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: Fourteen, I mean you're probably not in a great position
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: to attack anybody anyway, you probably do the one getting
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: attack for really.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: I didn't at that point.
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: I was, you know, ninety pounds, soaking ninety pounds, yeah,
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: you know, I was a small guy.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: So not nothing real scary about ninety pounds. So okay,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: So they take you to the precinct in the park. Right,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: So again for our audience, that precinct is in Central Park.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a Central Park precinct.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: That's what it's called. So they take you to the
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: precinct and what happens next, And so I'm there with
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: because me and Stephen Lopez we got picked up at
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: the same time.
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: There's another guy, well, Kevin Richardson gets picked up too,
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: right because Officer Powers goes into the park, he chases
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: Kevin Richard down. Richardson down, He hits him in the
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: face with the helmet, he tackles him, he arrests him.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: And so there's him, and then there's two other guys,
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: Lamart McCall and a kid by the name of Clarence.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: So this is the five of us that get picked up.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: And so we're sitting in the precinct together together.
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: So you know, you go through like the whole taking
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: to the pictures, you know, like the mugshot.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: And stuff like that, and.
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: Then they sit us in this room and they say,
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: all right, make your phone call and had your parents
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: come pick you up. Because originally what we were given
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: was disappearance tickets right to appear in family court.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: So so you know, the charges then were.
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: Like trespassing, ah, menacing, These are all like misdemeanor charges
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: that they gave us. And so then we just had
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: to sit and wait until our parents came.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: To pick us up.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: Right, So you called your mom, your dad. I called
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: my dad, right, and then you got him on the phone.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: I got him on at least.
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, because by that time it was like maybe
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: like ten or eleven o'clock at night.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: Right, and yeah, and again no cell phones back then.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: I want to take a picture here, right, So you know,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: if somebody's not home, they answer the phone.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I had to call about two or three time
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: because he.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: Was sleep Oh okay, okay, So he answered the phone.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: He must be freaking out.
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's pissed off, you know, And so I told
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: him I got to you know, you gotta come down
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: and pick me up and uh he speaks to the
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: officer off so telling me he got to come pick
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: me up. So he says, all right, he doesn't have
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: a car, so they sent they supposed to be sending
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: the car to pick him up, to come down and
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: pick me up.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: And so, uh so you're sitting there for hours and hours, yeah,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: and the time you're probably hungry.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, all of us is in the room a little
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: bit bigger than this.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Not in the cell.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: Though, not in the cell is so okay.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: So then so okay, so your dad comes eventually, right.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: Eventually, he don't take no or the parents show up.
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: My dad is the last one to come. He shows
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: over my grandmother. They get there like maybe three four
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: in the morning. So he asks what's going on, So
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: they tell him. They explain to him that it's just
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: a disappearance ticket. We have to pay a family court.
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: They're going to release us. So he goes, okay, So
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: he has to go to work. So he tells my grandmother.
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: He actually my grandmother to stay. So my grandma said,
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: all right, you know, he says he's gonna let him go,
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: take him home.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: I deal with him later. So he goes to work.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: My grandmother stays there, and then what happens is that
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: they move us out of the small room into the
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: waiting area with our parents, and they say like they
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: can't let us go because the detectives want to talk
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: to us, but they don't say why.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: Now it's three, four or five in the morning. Yeah,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: then you got picked up at at ten or eleven o'clock.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: So now we're talking like, yeah, it's a long night.
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: We're talking like five, six in the morning, maybe even seven,
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: and so, uh, you know, we don't know what's going on.
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: We're just sitting there waiting.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: Have you heard about this central part?
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: Jographer? Still don't know anything.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: But you're sure not going to ask a lot of
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: questions after you got hit in the head with the radio.
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right, that's right, that's right. That'll and especially
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: if you know that I'm gonna be released.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: So you're not gonna make any waves.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: No, you know.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: So we're sitting in this weighting room for hours, and
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: detectives come, they talk to Kevin, take Kevin in the room.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: And then he's in there for hours. So we don't
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: know what's going on.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: Right now, it's eight o'clock in the morning.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: It's No. By the time they've done with him, it's
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: maybe like one two o'clock and the.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: Afternoon, and you're still sitting there, and we're still sitting
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: They give you anything to eat, No, we're just sitting there,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: no water or anything.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: We're just sitting there, just sitting there, just sitting there for.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: A long time, to just sit there.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: And so after Kevin is I remember them taking Kevin
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: out of the room and they don't let him come
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: and sit with us.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: They you know, they take him.
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: Straight out straight at the awe the office, and he leaves,
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: he leaves the precinct, and so they called me in
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: next and so I'm sitting there with my grandmother.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: So the detective he know, he uh heuh.
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: He introduced himself as a detective from Bertha or Royal.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: He's in the room and and he says, you know, Raymond, uh,
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: we just want to sit down and talk to you
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: about some of the events that happened that night. And
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: so I go, okay, you know, you know, what do
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: you want to know? And so we go into the
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: whole lot of question of who I was with, who
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: I came with, what did I see, where was I at?
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: Stuff? Like that, what time did I leave? How did
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: I get picked up?
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: And so, you know, he doesn't he doesn't say anything
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: to me about the jagga for a while. He talks
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: about just what happened that night, what did I see
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: and who was I with?
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: And so I tell him that, yeah, I did see, uh,
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: these guys assault you know, the homeless man, and I
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: did see some of these guys throw at jaggas who
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: were running on the reservoir and and there was one
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: kid who did as salt one of the jaggas. And
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: and based on that assault is when I decided that
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: it was time for me to leave the park. And
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: so that line of question, it goes on for hours,
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: and then you know, he gets he he you know,
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: he says to me, well, what happened to the jaga?
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: And I said, well, what jogga? What are you talking about?
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: And he says the woman? And I say what woman?
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: I never saw a woman? And he said, so you
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: didn't see the woman jogging in the park And I
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: said no, and I said, the only woman I saw
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: was when we first entered the park, there was a
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: guy walking with his girlfriend and he walked through the
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: through the group and everybody moved out the way and
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: let him in her pass.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: And I said, that's the only woman I saw. There
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: was no other woman.
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: And so we went back and forth about that for
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: a little bit, right, because he kept trying to, you know,
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: you know, asking me the same questions. You didn't see
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: a woman, jaga, woman was raped And I'm like, no,
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: there was no woman raped that night. I didn't see
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: anything like that. And he said, yeah, of course there was.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: And I'm like, no, there wasn't. And so from there
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: that's when the line of questions starts to change. Now
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: things get a little more scary.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: Still, just the one detective and you in the room. Yeah,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: and your grandmother, yeah, and my grandmother. But but your
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: grandmother she didn't speak good English.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: She didn't speak She couldn't carry a conversation.
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: She knew curse words, right, she could sit there and
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: curse you out in English words, but she couldn't carry
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: a conversation.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: That's kind of funny about yeah.
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: It is, especially when she used to say it.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: It's interesting, right, I mean, your case was based on
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: a false confession. People. I've been working on innocent issues
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: for twenty years, and one of the things people always
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: ask you about how could anybody confess through crime they
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: didn't commit. Yeah, it seems crazy. Why would somebody do that?
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: You basically fucking yourself like totally yeah, right, And I
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: understand it. But to the audience, I think a lot
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: of people probably wanted the same thing. Why the hell
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: would anybody do that? I mean, you have to be
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: nuts to do that, right, but you're not nuts. That
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: will seem nuts at all from it. So the very
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: large percentage, well, first of all, the first two hundred
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: and fifty DNA exonerations, forty of them involved false confessions,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: So it's a very big number. And we know that
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: of those, a very large percentage of those involve teenagers
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: because we know that there's a thing called course compliant confessions, right,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: where you're basically being convinced that something good is going
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: to happen for you if you say what the detective
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: wants to hear, right, that you're going to get to
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: go home, or you're going to get better treatment, or
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: you're going to get something. And there's this thing called
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: the read method, right, which was developed in Chicago by
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: this guy named Reid and working with a psychologist I
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: think he was a detective where they basically talk you into,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: you know, in a very sort of smooth way. They
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: get you to tell a story that they want to hear,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: which may may have no relation to the truth, but
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: it makes their jobs easier exactly. And then there's a
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: lot of gray areas outside of that too that lead
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: to false confessions, including you know, force threats, other things.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: But so in your case, because it's you know, obviously,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: that's what it came down to. It's the most powerful
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: thing to a jury too, when you hear a false
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: confession and you're in a jury. And we've seen cases,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: many cases where it was DNA that proved that the
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: guy couldn't have been the guy that did it in
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: the first place, presented to the jury and the jury
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: was like, they, I don't know, the guy said he
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: did it, so there must be some crazy other explanation
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: because I'm gonna I'm not gonna look at the science.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to believe science. It's almost like that
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Chris rock line, right, he says, when you when you
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: if you walk in, if your girlfriend walks in on
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: you with another woman and it catches you in the act,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: you go, who are you gonna believe me or you're
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: lying eyes right, So it's almost like that. But anyway,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: so back to this, So, so you're so now you're
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: you're there. You've got to be getting feeling desperate by now.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: You've got to be exhausted, confused, tired, yes, definitely, definitely,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: and over and you're overmatched.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: They've got they've got the whole way to the New
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: York City Police Department behind him, right, and they've got detectives,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: experienced detectives. And you've got your grandmother who can only
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: speak English curse words. Yeah, right, and that's basically the team,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: that team Santana, right now, that's it, right, You're a
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: fourteen year old, ninety pounds kid. Yeah, and grandma, who
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: you know, may whip out a little English turets, but
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: other than that, she's speaking Spanish and this and then
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: this interrogation is not being conducted in Spanish. So okay,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: So so now it's you've been there for fourteen fifteen hours?
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and now how does it turn? How does
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: he get you into this? How do they convince you
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: to confess to this? Scribe?
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: All right, So what happens is that the line of
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: questions starts to become a little more forceful, right, you know,
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: he starts to get frustrated, He starts to get upset
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: at me. You know, he says that I'm not telling
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: him what it is that he wants to hear. He
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: says that I'm holding stuff back. You know, even when
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: my grandmother intervenes, he tells his Spanish and I'm not
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: telling him everything that he feels like I'm hiding things.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: And so, you know, you have to look at the
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: dynamics of the situation and understand that I was a kid,
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: I was fourteen.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: I never had no involvement with the law.
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: You know, He's a seasoned veteran detectives who do this
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: daily and so and he wants a confession, and he
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: wants a confession.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: By now, this case is on the front page of
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: the newspaper. Yeah, it's the number one thing in New
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: York City. And the press made you guilty. The whole
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: New York City was convinced that these were the guys.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: You saw their pictures everywhere. Of course, they took the
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: scariest pictures they could find of you, guys, right, make
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: you look like criminals, and plastered those everywhere, and so yeah,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: you were, you were public enemy number one at this point.
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: At this point, yeah, and so he knew that even
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: there was a pressure with them to get this confession.
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: And so so for me, what happened was that there's
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: a knock at the door. Right, So there comes a
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: knock at the door, and this detective comes in who
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: speaks Spanish, and he talks to my grandma mother and
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: he says, listen, can you step outside? Another guy and uh,
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: he asks my grandmother can she? Can she step outside?
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: And he's talking to her span he takes out in
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: the hallway and he closes the door, and at that
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: point the line of question becomes a little more harsher, right,
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: it becomes stop lying to me, You're gonna give me
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: what I want. And in that same instance, as she
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: goes out, another detective comes in, and so the third
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: one third third guy, right, real tall detective, slim guy.
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: And he comes in and he's making small talk with
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: a royal and I'm just sitting in a chair.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: I don't know what's going to happen.
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: And then he gives me this look and he says,
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: what the fuck are you looking at?
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: Right? And you know, there's an apartment that wants to say
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: who me? But I don't say shit. I just stay quiet.
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: And then and and then he makes like this step
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: towards me, right, and I go, oh shit, this guy's
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: about to kick my ass. Right, But at that moment,
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: there's the knock. Right the door opens, my grandmother walks in,
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: this detective walks out, and so my grandmother sits down,
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: and I'm like, woof, you know, I just got saved, right,
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: And so you know, a royal starts from the top. Okay,
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: who were you with? What did you do? What did
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: you see? What's going on? And I give him the
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: same story, you know, during this line of question. It
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: goes on for a couple of hours. Then it comes
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: another knock at the door. So now the same knock comes,
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: the same detective comes in talking Spanish, speaking Spanish to
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: my grandmother.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: So he says, is this is scumback? Who did it?
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: And Arroyo says yeah, But he's not giving us what
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: we want to hear.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: And so.
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: He pulls his chair really close up and he sits
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: down and he starts to talk in my ear, and
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: he's talking real forcefully, and he's not really loud, but
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: you know, I could just I could feel the pressure
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: on my ear from him talking. And he says, you
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: know you fucking did it, You know you did it.
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: You're going to jail, and that's he starts to talk.
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: Then a royal starts to yell at me. So I
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: got them coming from two different angles, right, and I
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: could just sit in the chair and freeze because I
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: don't know what to do, right, and so there is
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: nothing to do, and so he's yelling in my ear
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: and he says, you're going to jail, You're going to prison,
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: you fucking did it. And then Royo is yelling at me,
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: and that not comes right, and detective lets my grandmother
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: back in, and at that point I start to cry
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: a little bit, right, So now right, this guy gets up,
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: he walks right out. So my grandmother comes in. She
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: sits down, and now she looks at me, and she
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: can see like something is wrong, right, and she sees
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: the tears, but she don't know because she doesn't see
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: anything else happening. She just sees me, right, and then
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: she goes, well, what's going on? And the royal says, no,
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: you know, like I told you before, you know, we
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: just feel like he's not telling us everything.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: He's holding something.
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: And then he says, well, let's start from the top
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: once again, Raymond, tell me who were you with and
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: what did you see? And were going through the whole story.
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: And by this time I'm kind of beat down. I
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: haven't slept, I haven't ate nothing, and so I'm just
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: sitting there and I'm talking to him, and then comes
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: the knock one more time. Right, the same detective comes in.
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: He says, MS, Cologne, can you come out? And she
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: gets up right, She gets up and she walks out
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: and the door closes. He starts talking to me, and
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: then he gets frustrated. Right, Detective Royal gets frustrated. He
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: starts cursing at me. You're gonna fucking tell me what
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: I want. I'm tired of this shit, and he bangs
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: on the table, you know, really hard.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: And at this point he lunges at me, right, and
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: I go, shit, this is it. I'm gonna die, right,
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: And it's precinct.
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: And so when he lunges at me, somebody stops him, right,
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: So the whole time there was a detective behind who
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: I didn't see. He stops him, right. He says, what
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: the fuck are you doing? Starts cursing, Oh, what the
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: fuck is going on? You gotta give him a classic technique,
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: good cop.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: Bad fourteen years old. I don't know that everybody watches listening. Now,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: you don't know all You're scared. Ship is out of
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: your mind.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: See side, Lord Nord, I don't know this stuff. And
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: he kicks you. Get out the room, Get out the room.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: Get the fuck. Royal gets up, leaves out.
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: The guy closes the door, right, And at that moment,
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: I'm like, who, whoever this guy is? He just saved
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: my life, right, he's your friend, he's my friend, and
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: you know, and her hope I have Now I have
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: a little hope.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: He says, hey, you know, Raymond, you don't know me.
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: I'm detective hard again, right, and and I hear what's
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: going on, and you know it's a serious case, serious crime.
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: And he goes into like he pictures it so well
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: where he's like, you know, you're a good kid.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: You know, I know you ain't do this.
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: But these kids stay at these other precints and they're saying,
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: you did it.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: And I don't want you to go to jail. You know,
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: you got to help me. Here. I'm trying to help you.
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: You want to go home, right, he just saved you,
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: maybe just save your life and tell you a terrific guy.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: He's that's the proof. He just saved me from getting
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: killed in the priests. So I'm like, yeah, he has
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: my best interest at heart. Yep, you know.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: And he says, you know, I need you to help me.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: You got to give me this point. You're like, I
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: want to help this guy. Yeah, this guy's gonna get
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: me out of it.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: So what does he needs you to do?
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: So so he pulled out this picture of Kevin Richison
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: and he says, do you know this guy? And I
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: said no, And he said, well, this is Kevin and
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: you see the scratch on his face And I said yeah,
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: because he had a munk shot. You can see it,
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: you know, you can see it. And he says, well
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: that that scratch came from the job when she was
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: fighting them off. Now I know, we know he's going
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: to jail, right, you can't do nothing about that. But
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: I don't want you to go to jail. So you
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: got to give me something. You got to help me here, right,
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to help you. You got to help me, you
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: want to go home, right, you got to help me.
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: And then he just left the picture that he sat
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: back and he just waited, he just he just got quiet,
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: you know. And as a fourteen year old kid, I'm
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: sitting there saying, I don't even know this guy, right,
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: but I'm trying to get this pressure to stop, because
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: if this guy leaves the room, then I got to
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: deal with these detectives coming back in here again, and
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: this is all going to start all over again.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: It's never gonna end.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: And so you know, for me, you know, I'm a
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: fourteen year old kid, right, what do we do at fourteen?
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: We know how to lie to our parents, all right,
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: And so that's what.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: King to mind. My king of mind was lie, you know.
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: And so I said, well he did it, and so
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: I said, well he did it and he said he
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: did what? And I said, well he raped a woman?
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: And he said, all right, what else did he do?
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: What did you see him do?
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: Here's a clip of Raymond's confession which was used at
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: trial times. He was.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: Kept smacking.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: And so I actually sat there and fabricated the story
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: just involving Kevin Richardson, right, because in my mind, that's
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: the only picture you gave me, so he's the rapist.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: Well, and you're going home.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: And I'm going home and I'm lying.
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: But so what you figured ou out later on, So
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: what happened was that he said, okay, so what did
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: you see him do? So I said, I saw Kevin
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: struggling with this woman and he took it down and
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: he said, did you see him rape? And I said yeah.
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: And then he said, well, what about Antroon mccraig. And
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: I go, well, I don't know who Antroon McCrae is.
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: And he said, well, ray, you know he was there
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: and I said he was. He said yeah, he said,
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: you know, we know he was there and I said, okay,
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: well you know antrom was holding her arm.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: Now, by the way, what's crazy about all of this,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: on top of all the other stuff that's crazy about
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: all of this, which is everything, is that so we
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: of course find out later that the woman was that
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: was raped by one guy and one guy only, and
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: that they knew this. So here they are right. If
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: they got the right guy among the five of you,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: they still got four guys that they know that they
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: could not possibly have had anything to do with this.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: That's correct.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: But they have no problem with that.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: But they have no problem with that.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: They sleep at night, they go home their families, everything's fine.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: I never understand that. You don't understand that. So now
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: they got the two guys, they got you identifying the
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: two guys in.
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: There, and then the third with is Stephen Lopez. So
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: they say, well what about Steven. I go, wow, No,
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: I don't know Stephen. He said, well, he was there,
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: you know, he got to put him in there. He
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: was there.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: And so at this point, you're already deep into this
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: tale of lying through your teeth anyway, You're like, and
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: you're more and more tired and hungry and everything else.
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, well Steven Lopez. You know, I didn't know Steven.
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: Stephen was sitting out in the waiting area and I
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: didn't know who he was. And he said, well, we
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: know Steven did it. And he said, you know this woman,
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: you know, she lost a lot of blood and we
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: don't know she's going to be and we knew that
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: she had all these injuries on it, and it had
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: to come from somewhere. So he said it had to
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: come from either rock, a brick, or a pipe, right,
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: And so this is what he told me. So he
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: actually gave me options to choose which one and then
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: I said a brick And he said, well, who used
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: the brick? And I said Steven Lopez, And so that
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: became the brick that was introduced later on in the.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: Case, which we know there never even was a brick.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: Then, yeah, exactly, the prosecutor brought in the brick that
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: she said was used to bash the woman's head in
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: the job is headed into the trial, right, Yeah, that's
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: that's correct.
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: What happened is that she, uh, you know, because of
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: my statement said it was a brick that was used,
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: she brought the brick in during the trial and she
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: presented the brick and she says that this is the
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: brick that was used in the assault on the jograph.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: She held she held the brick up and powerful for jury.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: No, definitely, and the and the brick also the next
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: day it was on the front of the New York
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: news day. You know, a brick, A brick had his
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: own front page each cover on the news and said
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: this was the brick that was used in the Jagga case.
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: And so when they did the reinvestigation years later and
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: they test the brick.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: There was no blood on it. There was nothing on
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: the brick.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: So they just found a brick somewhere and just who
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: knows where they.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: Got it from.
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: That could have been on the way from the prosecutor's
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: office come to the courthouse.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: And he picked it up and said, this is it
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: right here.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she probably had it on her desk like a
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: paperweight for a while. She's so proud of it, right,
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: So ridiculous. It's so fucking ridiculous, the fact that she
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: would hold up a brick when there was no brick.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, we're in imagination land now, like deep into
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: like I mean, that's kind of psychotic. But yeah, I
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: just I mean, at that point, yeah, you're you're screwed.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: The jury scenes that and they're like, that's the that's
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: the brick.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: That's the brick.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: That poor woman, these scary kids, a poor woman with
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: a brick. Oh my god.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this fight was fixed from the beginning.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: This fight was fixed. Talk about a brick ship house.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: That's not a great analogy, but you know what I'm saying.
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And so afterwards, you know, he wrote everything down
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: and then he said, you know, all right, you did great.
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: Sign it and then I signed it, and then he said,
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: well I need two I needed two more things for
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: me and then and then you're good to go. And
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: I said, well what and he said, I usually give
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: it the same statement that you have here in front
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: of you, give this to another detective and then do
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: the video tape.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: And I said, all right.
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: It was fine because in my mind, you know, this
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: was the guy who saved me, right, and so he
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: was making sure that I was going to go home.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: Right. This is going to be evidence of you not
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: doing it right. Yeah, in your in your twisted mind
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: at this point, which has been jumbled up in twenty
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: different ways, you're thinking, oh great, this is going to
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: be more evidence that will prove that I didn't do it.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: So how did they even now? It seems like if
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: I'm listening to the podcast, I'm saying, well, okay, but
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: you didn't really say anything that you did it. So
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: where's the confession coming? Right? And so and this was
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: really one. When I heard you speak last time, I
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: was really it really hit me hard. I've been thinking
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: about it a lot. So how did they get you
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: to place yourself? I mean, you saw it, right, but
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: that's not a crime. Witnessing a crime.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: It's not a crime.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: You didn't go to prison for witnessing a crime. Now, okay, okay,
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: So so how's it now? It goes now, it goes
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: downhill fast?
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, what happens is that?
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: And even the way he did it, you know, he said, listen,
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: He said, okay, So, so you saw Kevin rape the woman.
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: You saw Steve Lopez hit her with the brick, and
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: you saw Arou McCray was holding her right, And he said,
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: so where were you? And I said, well, I saw
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: it from a distance. I was witnessing it. And he
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: said that's not good enough and I said, what do
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: you mean is not? He said, you know, you can't
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: sit there and witness it from a distance because it's questionable. Right,
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: it's nighttime. How did you see Kevin, you know, having
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: sex with this woman? He said, you have to place
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: yourself at the scene. You have to be right there
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: watching it, right, And I said okay, And he said
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: that's the only way it's going to be believable.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: Did he offer you anything to eat or drink it?
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: This time?
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: And even the nice guy didn't.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: Even nice guy didn't do that.
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: Nice guy came in and said, this is it right here,
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: and and and so, but.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: You can see now, you can see daylight. You're like,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: I'm going to.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: Get out of here.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: I'm almost done.
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: I'm almost done. I'm almost done, you know.
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: Like like Kevin said in the film, he said, at
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: this point, you just have to sell it. And so
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: he says, you have to place yourself right there. You
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: have to see everything in order to say that you
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: saw it.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: You know, where were you?
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: And I said, well, I was there and he said, okay,
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: where And I said I was on the side and
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: he said, what did you do? And then I said,
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: well I reached over and I grabbed the Jagger's breast
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: and he said that's all you did, right And I
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: said that's all I did.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: And he said, okay, all right, and so.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: And what what possessed you to say that? Because that
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: you kind of pulled that one out of the I
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: did what you told twenty lies already I did.
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: I did and and and it came from me, uh
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: wanted to be believed that I was at the scene,
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: and then me saying well, this was a lesser role, right,
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: like yeah, because I couldn't say that I held her
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: because I said Antron, did it.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: Have you even grabbed a woman's breast by this point
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: in your life, maybe.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: Maybe not a woman, a girl. So yeah, so you
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: made this up, right, just to add.
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: A little yeah, because I couldn't couldn't ability. I said,
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: Kevin raped that, and I already said Steve hit it
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: with the brick, and I race said, Atron held her.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: And you you know, I think a lot of people
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: don't realize that once you say that, you're just as
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: guilty as everybody else. Now it's you know, it's a
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: exactly part of the group. Even though you didn't play,
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: You didn't implicate yourself in in hitting her or raping
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: her or strangling her or doing anything like that. But
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: now you're guilty as everybody now, guilty everybody they got
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: you know, now they got me. So now what happens?
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: And so then he said, okay, you did good. You know,
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: you know, he tells me he wants me to go
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: to another pre stint. He wants me to tell the
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: same story to this other detective. And and then that's
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: what I do. So they picked me up. They take
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: me to another precinct where I sit in the in serogation.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: Room with the TV cameras now waiting for you and
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: things like that.
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well we come out when we go to the presst,
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: this camera's there.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: He says.
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: Look, just walk right in. Don't look at the cameras,
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: just keep walking right in. But I still don't know
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: what's going on.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because I'm trying to paint a picture for the ey.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: He's like, if you didn't live in New York back then,
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: you can't imagine. This was really one of the most
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: notorious crimes in New York history. That means, yeah, and
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: that's a lot of history there, but it was I mean,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: it crystallized, like I said, everybody's fears of these predators
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: roaming in the park, these scary minority kids who were
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: like super predators.
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: They that's where the term came from, super predators, right.
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: They are often the kinds of kids that are called
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: super predators. No conscience, no empathy. We can talk about
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: why they ended up that way, but first we have
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: to bring them to heal.
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: There is anger over this incident that seems to have
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: only grown in the days since the assault occurred.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: For a city that has been simmering for years over
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: the issue of race, This vicious.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: Crime with young black defendants and a white female victim.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: Brings the issue to the boiling point.
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: And these kids should be made examples for the rest
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: of the country that if you do a crime, you're
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: gonna get convicted. If you're guilty, you're either going to
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: jail or you're gonna hang.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: So this point, every cameras out everybody, but you still
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: don't know.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: You still don't know.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: You don't know, so you're like, okay, so you go
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: through the cameras.
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: So we go to another Priesson and I meet Detective
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: Mike Shean. Right, Mike Shean was part of Homicide North
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: detective squad, went on years of being movies and be
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: a reporter for several different news stations. And so are
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: going to meet him and we go in the room
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: and he says, look, you know you spoke the heart
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: again already and I said yeah. He says, so you
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: know what we're gonna do here, right, And I said yeah.
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: He said, all right, Well just tell me the same
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: thing you told hard again and I write it down
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: and tig and win so, you know, but because I'm
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: selling it, that first statement with Hardigain maybe two and
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: a half pages, right, this statement turns into like five, right.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: Because now you're embellishing the story.
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because now he's pulling details and stuff and he's
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: asking me stuff and I'm just making stuff up as
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: we go along.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: Well, at this point it's easy work for him. Yeah,
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: he could have said he could have said that you
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: that you could have kidnapped the Lindbergh baby.
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: And I could have been like, yeah, that was really yeah,
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: yeah that happened the same night.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah I did that, the Manton murders. Yeah I
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: was out there in California. Yeah yeah yeah, health skeleter
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: and all that stuff. That was you. He would have
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: been like, yeah, can I go home now?
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: And can I get a sandwich at least? So give
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: me a sandwich while I'm telling you this story.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: Right, So you would have confessed anything.
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: I would have confessed anything.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: And so at this point he's got you, now you
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: So let's just fast forward a little bit. Okay, So
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: now you're all of this is done, yeah right, and
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: you're taking away to jail yeah too, spot for the
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: detention center, right and so, and you have a sense
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: it's dangerous, definitely, and you're okay, so now how long
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: did it take to.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: Get to trial. It took us about a year, almost
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: almost about a year and a half.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: So you're in jail for a year and a half
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: way in for trial. Yeah, and were the other kids
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: in the same jail with you.
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: At this point everybody started to get bailed out, so
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: it was all of us that came in together and
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: we got split up. And then what happened was abody,
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: So Kevin got built out, YUSUF got built out, Steven
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: Lopez got built out, and Troum McCrae got built out,
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: and then I was the last one, and then Corey
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: was on regulars.
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: Island, so he got bailed out. I didn't get bailed out.
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: I mean the bail must have been high, No, it was.
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: It started about two or fifty thousand, and then as
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: the months went on it got lowered to one fifty,
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: then one hundred and fifty thousand, and then it finally
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: went down to twenty five thousand. And this was the
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: time when Al Sharpton was raising money to get everybody out, okay,
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: but I don't know what happened when it came to
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: me getting out.
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: The money wasn't raised, okay, So that's weird too. But
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: mm hmm.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: So so then you go to trial.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: So they're going to trial, do you think did you think.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: You were going to be uh convicted?
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: No, because at this point the DNA evidence is there.
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: Nothing matches, right. You know, they took handprints, footprints, they
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: took hair samples, they took blood samples.
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: It took all of our clothes.
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: And they sent it to the lab and nothing matches, right,
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: So so you know, there's the hope. All right, there's
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: no physical evidence to prove that we did anything.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: And so who's your lawyer?
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: I had a lawyer by the name of Peter Rovera
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: from the Bronx. He was originally handling my father's divorce
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: paperwork and then he became a lawyer.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: Right, so you got a divorce lawyer.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: I got a divorce lawyer, and fight for your life,
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: to fight for my life. And you know, let's just.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: Think about that for a second. Divorce lawyers aren't even
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: good at divorces exactly, know what I mean. I mean,
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: I don't know how many of you out there have
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: been through that, but I have. I don't want to
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: denigate that. By the way, A lot of good divorce
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: lawyers out there too, so I don't mean to, you know,
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: but the fact is that's that's crazy.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: So, but he was confident, you felt.
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: You know, you know, when I looked back at it,
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: there was a lot of things that I felt that
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: he could have did that he didn't do.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: He didn't fight enough, you know.
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: And when you tried together, I believe we were No
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: it was me Achoon, McCrae and used to Salam tried together.
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: And it's a media circus. Yeah, oh, definitely. By this
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: time the articles are being written. Within the first two weeks,
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: there were four hundred articles written about us, dissecting our lines.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: And again you got Trump saying you guys should be executed.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: He went out of his way. Then the ad came
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: out of it, took out an ad.
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he put eighty five thousand dollars on the ad,
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: and the major four made the newspapers calling for the
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: death penalty.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: You better believe that. I hate the people that took
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: this girl and raped her brutally. You better believe it
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: because he's a he's an expert on this stuff.
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah right, yeah, okay, so he.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: Would have executed all five of you guys anyway. I
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: don't think he would have lost any sleep over No.
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: I believe you know.
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: I mean even years later when we got exonerated and
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: we went through the lawsuit, he said, you know, it
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: was the biggest heights in New York City history, right,
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: you know you know?
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: So okay. So so you're now you're going through this
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: trial on the circus the whole thing. You've been in
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: jail for at this point a year and a half, yeah,
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: which is as a fifteen and a half year old kid, Yeah,
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: a pretty big percentage of your life. So now you're
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: there and you're still expecting the justice is going to
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: be done. That's right, because you didn't do anything.
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: That's right. And you got DNA and I got DNA
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: now so.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: You got all this forensic evidence. Yeah, and you're ready
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: to go home. Now it's going to be fixed. And
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: then the verdict comes in.
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: Then the vertic comes in. And the first trial, the
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: first charge was a hip murder and they said not guilty,
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: said okay, and then from there the rest of the
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: charges was all guilty.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the experience and and and you know,
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: the tension and just thinking about you in that courtroom
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: and waiting for that verdict. And the stomach and the
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: pain and the everything. I can't even That's why I
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: do this work that I do, because I can't imagine
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: what it's like to go through this. Nobody can if
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: you haven't been through it. I'm amazed you're here smiling, laughing.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: You know, got your Park Madison shirt. Yeah, yeah, fashion
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: line Park Madison, NYC. I want to put it a
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: plug for that. So now you're now you're off the prison,
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: and then the crazy thing happens. Right You're you're in
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: prison for seven years, you serve ye, you're a juvenile.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: Was the most they could give you, and then you
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: get out. Then I get out. Now you're out, and
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: you're thinking, Okay, now I can start my life. Got it.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: Associate's degree while you're in prison, that's correct. Right, So
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: you're like you do, bettering yourself, doing the best you
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: could while you're in there, that's correct. And then which
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: prison were you in?
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: They shipped me to go Secure Sensor and I served
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: five years there and then they shipped me the downstair
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: correction and then I got released from there.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, you say so casually the five years there
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: like five years? Imagine five years at the holiday inn
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: would be torture, right, I mean, and this is not
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: the holiday in this is we're talking violence, terrible food, loneliness,
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: all the stuff, noise, all the stuff that goes with it.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: So you get out and now you find out that
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: your prospects for getting employment are basically zero.
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: Like I filled out separate applications, nobody will hire me.
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: There's that question that says, how you have been convicted
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: of a crime, and you go yes and don't even
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: get a called back, and then somebody said, well, just
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: put we'll discuss upon interview. And then I said, all right,
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: let's try that, and so you will discuss the point interview.
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: And then they call you in and say, well you
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: went to jail and yeah for what?
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: Oh, now you know and you're a register registered sex offender.
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: And then if somebody does say, okay, well you know what,
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: you went to jail for rape, things happen, Well what happened?
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: And then you go to Centrapauk jagged.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: Cakes and they're like, okay, okay, well we're just closing
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: up for the day. We'll get back here as soon
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: as we can.
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because now you're a level three or level one
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: like you're like the highest level of a sex offender
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: there is.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: And so that's so there's nobody's hiring.
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: Nobody's hiring nobody.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: So you still got to feed yourself somehow.
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: So what happens is that at this point I just
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: for me because now it started to take a toll
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: on me, right that I was in society. I had
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: nine o'clock curfew, seven o'clock curfew. I couldn't get a job.
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: You know, these characteristics that are bring with me from
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: prison were starting the surface now, the pent up aggression,
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: not wanting to be around a lot of people in
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: the room, not want to be around kids, not want
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: to be around a woman by myself, right because people
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: start to look at that walking on the eighth shows
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: on a daily.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: Basis, all for your cop you gotta be yeah yeah, yeah.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: So so you got a lot of PTSD type syndrome
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: symptoms and then and then so you got mixed up
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: in drugs a little bit.
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, So for me, what happened was that, you know,
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: you know, these guys on the corner, they get a
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: lot of money.
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: I can see it every day.
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: They're sitting there and they're doing what they don't have
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: to do it, and and and in my mind they
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: was like, well, you know what, I don't have to
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: fill out an application for that, right, Oh you have
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: to go to a job interview.
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: I could just come out there doing it.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: Now. By the way, you have to understand, I believe
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: that drugs should be legal, and it should be decriminalizing, taxed,
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: and regulated. I've been working in that field for twenty
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: four years, even longer than this, so you're gonna find
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: me very sympathetic on this particular subject, you know. But
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: that being said, so you got arrested.
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, oh yeah, So I got arrested with UH and
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: I was charged with criminal possession with the intent to distribute.
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: And so you know, for me, you know, I had
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: a high bail, right, I had a parole hold, and
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: I knew I was guilty of this case. So it
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: wasn't you know, it wasn't about sitting there fighting the system.
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: It was just about give me something that I can
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: handle because I knew I was guilty.
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: And now you're an adult, and now you've been through
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: the system, and there's nothing they can sure you that
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: you haven't already seen. That's correct, right, not as scary.
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: Not as scary, right, And so you know, they gave
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: me a three and a half to seven year sentence
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: and I said, all right, I'll gladly take that because
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: I was guilty.
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: And this is where it gets really interesting. So you're
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: back in prison, this time for something you did do
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: and a crazy thing happens.
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, crazy guy named Athias Rays, guy named Tayus Rayes
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: who's serving the thirty three and a third to life
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: year sentenced for murder and several rapes. It's sitting in
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: prison with Cory Wires. You know, Corey Wi, one of
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: my cou defends who was at this point, he's in
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: his thirteen and a half year right, never been released,
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: you know, never, no programs, no nothing, he's just been
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: in prison. And he sees Corey in the yard walking around,
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: and he approaches Corey, right, And he doesn't tell Corey
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: that he's the person who committed the crime. But what
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: he does is he engages in the conversation with Corey
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: because back in nineteen nine they was on the same
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: housing unit, right, and they had a fight over the TV.
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: And so he comes to Corey and he says, hey,
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: you remember me.
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: Corey says, you know the looks out of him, says
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: we had a fight in eighty nine over the TV,
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: and Corey says, yeah, I remember you. And from there
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: he starts to tell Corey how his faith in religion
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: has changed and how he's trying to be better and
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: do better things in life, and they engage in a dialogue,
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: and based on that dialogue, he never told Corey he
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: was the person who committed the jogger case.
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: He didn't do that.
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: He just spoke to Corey and the conversation made him
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: feel a certain type of way that he felt he
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: had to do something.
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: And so that's where it started.
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: Where he actually went and he talked to the prison
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: chaplain and this was the first person that he told that,
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: you know, somebody's in this prison for a crime that
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: I know I did, and they've been here all this
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: time and they're innocent.
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: And then that's how the ball starts to roll.
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: This is the first time you've heard me shut up,
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: because I'm just sitting here trying to like process this right.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: And this guy, like, he didn't just tell the story once.
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: He told it over and over and over, even until
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: it got to Albany and they had to send an investigator.
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: DA's office had to send somebody to go talk to
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: him and he told them the story.
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: And so when he was the sole perpetrator, and he was.
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: The sole perpetrator, he was known as the East Side slasher.
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: All his crimes he committed by himself. All his victims
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: had the same kind of injuries.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: And he had been under investigation prior to the Central
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: Park geography.
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: That's correct, he committed a rape in Central Park. Two
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: days before the rape went the Jagga.
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: And they had some information that they were looking at
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: him as a aspect.
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: He had a scar on his chin. The lady who
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: he raped in Essential Park two is before I did
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: him as having a scar on the chin. So one
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: of the detectives who was looking for him, they went
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: to the hospital and they find out who was the
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: last person that has stitches and they foundmentaies rares And
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: so this information came to uh Linda Festin, who was
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: ahead of This information came to Lynda Feresti, who was
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: the head of the sex crimes unit. Around the same
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: time that the DNA evidence from our.
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: Case came back.
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: It was about six weeks and it came around the
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: same time that it came back that said that, uh,
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: there was no match, and so she had she had
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: the information on her desk, but she chose not to
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: either talk to us again. She chose not to entertain
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: an alternative theory or on an alternative suspect.
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: She just chose to go forward with this case.
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's what can't you even say about that? I mean,
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: it's like, I'm so angry about it, and I wasn't
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: the one who got victimized here, and there's a lot
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: of victims here, right, the woman who didn't get justice,
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: it's correct, the society who wasn't protected from this guy
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: who truly is evil, yes, and then the five of
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: you guys, and then your whole families. Yeah right. I
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: mean that's the thing, Like, I think people need to
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: understand that when we lock up the wrong guy, by definition,
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: we stopped looking for the right guy.
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: That's correct.
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: That guy is then free to go out and commit
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: more terrible acts against innocent people.
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: Wanted to commit a murder and I think four additional rapes.
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: Right, So a murder and four rapes, that's the scorecard
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: of If Ferristein would have done her job, which was
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: right in front of her. It wasn't tricky, wasn't right,
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: It wasn't like this one came with instructions right, And
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: all she had to do was look at it and say, yes,
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: I'm going to do my job, my sacred duty to
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: protect the public and the citizens of which you are one,
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: and I'm going to investigate the obvious lead that is
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: going to lead me to the right rapist in this
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: case and almost kill her. And she didn't do it
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: because it was inconvenient in some way, and she probably
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: liked all the press she was getting, I'm guessing, and
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: as a result, it's really I can't imagine how those
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: people must feel that were victims of Rais, knowing that
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: he could have been and should have been off the
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: street and they and their families never would have had that.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: I can't imagine if it was my daughter, or my sister,
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: or my mother or somebody else who he victimized. I
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: don't know. I can't. The amount of anger is really
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: it's hard to even put it into words.
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a there's a report.
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: There's a report that's that's done by the DA's office,
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: called it Nancy Ryan Report. It's about fifty two pages
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: long and it tells you why we're innocent, or the
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: evidence in the reinvestigation as to how we're innocent. Reyes
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: went on to even solve unsolved crimes.
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: Because they yeah, because they never bought it. Look into
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: other way. Even though he even though it was in
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: a neat pattern, like I said, this one was with it.
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: This one came with instructions. So now so okay, so
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: now as we're nearing the end of this this show,
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: so by some miracle, he ends up in the prison
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: with Corey. Yeah, and he has this moment of he
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: has this awakening and then he has this moment of
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: feeling guilty. He is a bad word in this particular case.
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: But and then he uh, he spills the beans.
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: He spills the being.
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: And now you're in prison and you get the word
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: how does this happen? You get the word that you've
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: been exonerated.
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: Well, you know what happened was they bring me back
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: down and they questioned me, right, they questioned me becau
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: because it's not that simple for them to just let
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: us go to them. Rayes is the sixth man, right
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: to them, we knew each other, We was in cohose
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: with each other, and so they have to try to
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: find a connection, and so they give me all these
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: photos to see if I know who he is.
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: But I don't know who he is, so I never
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: picked him out of a photo.
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: And so it's a year long investigation by the DA's
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: office before they actually exonerators.
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, so they yeah, so they just had to
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: string it out even a little bit longer. But then
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: you do get exagerate.
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: Then I do get it.
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: You're in prison.
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: So I'm in prison.
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: I get the word that I'm exonerating my dad. I'm
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: talking to my fault on the phone and he says,
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: you know, I said, you know, they keep questioning about
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: the old case. And he's like, yeah, because I got
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: something to tell you. And I go what, And he says,
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: because he's been watching the news and it's all over
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: the news and he sees it and this time he's
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: he's in touch with the lawyers and he goes, you know,
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: they found a guy who did it.
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: And and I'm like what and he says.
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they found them. You get me come home. And
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: I'm like, get the fuck out of here. Like I
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: was so institutionalized that I didn't even believe him. I
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: hung up the phone on them, and I said, you
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: know what, I don't even want to talk to you
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: no more. You just ruined my day and I hung
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: up the phone on them, right. And it wasn't until
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: I actually got the call from my attorneys that yeah,
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: you're going to be exonerated.
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: Well yeah, and then how long was it before you
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: got home?
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: We got exonerated December fifth, and then I was home.
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: My Lloyd said I'll get you home before Christmas, and
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, whatever, and he got me home
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: December twenty second.
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: And you when you did finally get that news that
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: you were exonerate, then when you actually believed it, Yeah,
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: what happened? Did you collapse? Did you like start crying, laughing, well, jumping?
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: I cried when I found out about rays, and but
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: I was still in disbelief. And it wasn't until I
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: actually got til I got released. They sent me to
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: Queensboro and then they released me from there, and then
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: for the first time I actually got to see the
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: magnitude of of how much cameras and lights, and because
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: I never really been in that situation, that was the
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: first time for me.
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: So it was really overwhelming, like it was like, wow,
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: Well, and now let's just talk for a minute about
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: what life is like. Now. I know you're doing a
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: lot of public speaking, raising awareness, definitely, I know you.
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: Everyone knows that there was a settlement. Yes you guys.
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: I don't think you could ever pay enough for what
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: you've been through. But but you're good now, right, and
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: you got some money in the bank.
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: Definitely.
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: I see you've got good style, right, you got your
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: you got your's. You can't see it on the radio,
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: but he's looking good and it got a great smile
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: and so so. And now now you have a family.
• 57:49
  Speaker 3: Yes, my daughter's twelve years old. I've been married now
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: two years.
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: So I'm trying to put the pieces together back slowly
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: but surely.
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: Sounds like you're doing a hell of a job. And
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you something, you know, just just being with
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: you and hearing that story and knowing that you've come
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: through this with an incredible spirit and with an incredible attitude,
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: it's it's really it's an inspiration to so many people.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: I don't think you even know. And now I'm hoping
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: that with this runflin Fiction podcast will reach a lot
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: more people, many of whom will have heard parts of
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: your story or seen the movie again, the Central Park
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: five incredible movie. Get a chance to see it, and
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: and I'm hoping that again that this will help to
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: make a difference in the lives of some other people.
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: And you know, I really just appreciate you coming in
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: and sharing your story and your strength and hope and
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: and and and wisdom, and you know, as a New Yorker,
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: I want to apologize to you from all of us
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: that you ever had to go through this, and having
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: lived through it, I couldn't have known, you know, it
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: was so one side of the pressed. I have no idea.
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: And now to be sitting here with you now, it's
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: really it's kind of a thrill for me, to be honest.
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: And yeah, I'm like I said, I just really want
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: to thank you for being here on the show.
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review. Wherever you
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: get your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm a proud
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: donor to the Innocence Project, and I really hope you'll
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: join me in supporting this very important cause and helping
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: org to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis.
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: The music in the show is by three time OSCAR
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: nominatede composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is a production of Lava
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Somebody Number One