Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #258 Maggie Freleng with Melvin Ortiz

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#258 Maggie Freleng with Melvin Ortiz · Wrongful Conviction

0:01
Speaker 1: So, Jason, I wanted to ask you about relationships in prison,
0:08
Speaker 1: like intimate relationships. I'm always so surprised when people are
0:13
Speaker 1: able to have an intimate romantic relationship and keep it
0:18
Speaker 1: for decades. Is that something that surprised you.
0:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd be surprised if I wasn't surprised. You know,
0:25
Speaker 2: it's it's a remarkable testament, I think, to the people
0:28
Speaker 2: on both ends of that equation, right, you know, and
0:31
Speaker 2: of course you know, anyone who's ever been in a
0:34
Speaker 2: long distance relationship probably knows how that can be tricky. Right,
0:38
Speaker 2: But you're always and now.
0:39
Speaker 1: You have people in your business all the time.
0:42
Speaker 2: It's the opposite of spontaneous and romantic, right, and yet
0:46
Speaker 2: true love finds away.
0:51
Speaker 3: When I saw it with that resentencing, he would only
0:54
Speaker 3: have fourteen years left, Maggie, I saw it to myself, well,
0:57
Speaker 3: I can wait fourteen years for him. That's what my
1:00
Speaker 3: gut on my heart was telling me.
1:06
Speaker 1: From Lava for Good. I'm Maggie Freeling, and this is
1:10
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling today, Melvin Ortiz. On the
1:22
Speaker 1: evening of December twenty third, nineteen ninety seven, two masked
1:27
Speaker 1: gunmen walked into Effie's Pizza Village in Reading, Pennsylvania to
1:31
Speaker 1: try and rob it, but things went awry and the
1:35
Speaker 1: restaurant's beloved owner, George Klausser, wound up dead.
1:39
Speaker 4: The family says that the response of the neighbors has
1:41
Speaker 4: been overwhelming, proving how much the young shop owner meant
1:45
Speaker 4: to the community that meant so much to him, and
1:49
Speaker 4: the family says that the pain is made even harder
1:51
Speaker 4: to bear because the men who killed twenty nine year
1:54
Speaker 4: old George Klausser are still out there.
1:57
Speaker 1: About a month later, the police placed a ten ten
2:00
Speaker 1: thousand dollars reward in the local paper to find those gunmen.
2:05
Speaker 1: A man came forward saying that seventeen year old Melvin
2:08
Speaker 1: Ortiz told him that he killed George Klausser. The man's
2:12
Speaker 1: girlfriend said she witnessed this confession. Melvin was swiftly arrested.
2:22
Speaker 1: He was charged with second degree murder, robbery, aggravated assault,
2:27
Speaker 1: reckless endangerment, possession of an instrument of a crime, and
2:31
Speaker 1: attempted theft by unlawful taking.
2:34
Speaker 4: Neighbors on Ortiz's block were just as shocked.
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Speaker 5: He's a very nice person and we didn't think he
2:39
Speaker 5: would do something like that.
2:41
Speaker 1: On June fifteenth, nineteen ninety nine, after a highly publicized trial,
2:46
Speaker 1: a jury convicted Melvin Ortiz of second degree murder and
2:50
Speaker 1: sentenced him to life without parole. However, Melvin had a
2:54
Speaker 1: solid alibi nineteen. Witnesses said he was at a birthday
2:59
Speaker 1: party and the man who claimed Melvin confessed to him
3:03
Speaker 1: had a much more sordid history than the prosecution and
3:07
Speaker 1: police presented.
3:09
Speaker 5: Like all this just came out years later after.
3:13
Speaker 6: I'm in calceration, like he was getting away with it
3:16
Speaker 6: because you know, he's working with the police stuff like that.
3:20
Speaker 6: They've made a lot of effort and put a lot
3:22
Speaker 6: of energy and effort into covering.
3:26
Speaker 5: Up for him. My name is Melvin Ortiz.
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Speaker 7: I've been carcerated for twenty four years for crime I
3:34
Speaker 7: did not commit.
3:36
Speaker 5: I am innocent.
3:46
Speaker 1: Melvin Ortiz was born on January fifth, nineteen eighty to
3:50
Speaker 1: Maria and Juan Ortiz.
3:52
Speaker 5: You know, I was born in Puerto Rico and No Macoal,
3:55
Speaker 5: Puerto Rico.
3:56
Speaker 1: He's the youngest of three brothers who loved to rough
3:59
Speaker 1: house and wrestle. When he was a kid, Melvin dreamed
4:02
Speaker 1: of being a boxer. Melvin's parents brought their kids to
4:05
Speaker 1: church every Sunday and taught their sons right from wrong
4:08
Speaker 1: at family dinners. Mom's cooking was a favorite. When Melvin
4:14
Speaker 1: was five, the family moved from Puerto Rico to New
4:17
Speaker 1: York in search of a better life.
4:19
Speaker 6: Well, having language burials has been hard on them. To
4:23
Speaker 6: get a good job and stuff like that.
4:25
Speaker 7: So you know, they did pretty much what they could,
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Speaker 7: you know, to raise us, raise us right, and you know,
4:33
Speaker 7: to me and my did a fantastic job doing that.
4:37
Speaker 1: Their first home was in the Bronx, New York. Melvin
4:40
Speaker 1: remembers this as an exciting time and.
4:42
Speaker 6: Singing snow for the first time, so it was fun.
4:45
Speaker 6: And then you know that whole experience, which is you know,
4:49
Speaker 6: as a child was great.
4:52
Speaker 1: So how old were you when you moved to Reading, Pennsylvania.
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Speaker 5: I was about I was very young.
5:00
Speaker 6: Was probably about the third grade, you know, I think
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Speaker 6: we said like nine years old something like that.
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Speaker 1: Melvin's parents said they moved to Reading because Redding had
5:11
Speaker 1: a large welfare program that assisted poor families like theirs.
5:17
Speaker 1: Reading Pennsylvania was quite different from the Bronx. They moved
5:21
Speaker 1: from a borough with one point two million people to
5:24
Speaker 1: a city with around seventy five thousand. If you look
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Speaker 1: at Reading on a map, it's between two bigger cities,
5:31
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania state capital, Harrisburg and Philadelphia, and there's a lot
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Speaker 1: of farmland in between. Reading was once a major transportation
5:44
Speaker 1: hub on the Reading Railroad. Yes, that Reading Railroad from monopoly,
5:49
Speaker 1: but after the decline of heavy industry and the railroads
5:52
Speaker 1: which helped Reading prosper, the city was on a decline.
5:56
Speaker 1: The population, which reached nearly one hundred and twenty three
6:00
Speaker 1: i was in at its peak in the nineteen thirties,
6:02
Speaker 1: had dropped in half by the eighties, and its economy crumbled.
6:06
Speaker 1: By twenty eleven, Reading, Pennsylvania was dubbed the poorest city
6:11
Speaker 1: in America, with forty one percent of the city living
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Speaker 1: in poverty. Around the time Melvin's family moved to Reading
6:20
Speaker 1: in the early nineties, other Latino families were also moving in. Today,
6:25
Speaker 1: sixty one percent of the population identifies as Hispanic or Latino,
6:30
Speaker 1: but back in the eighties and nineties, Latinos were still
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Speaker 1: a minority in Reading, and Melvin says that was scary.
6:37
Speaker 6: There was a park I forgot what the name was,
6:41
Speaker 6: but we often used to go there to jump in
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Speaker 6: the river and swim and stuff like that. So there
6:48
Speaker 6: was like a water plant right next to it. So
6:52
Speaker 6: a few times we went behind.
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Speaker 8: The water plant and we discovered that there was marking
7:01
Speaker 8: of the circle with the cross like the KKK things
7:04
Speaker 8: that used to go on and up the street where
7:07
Speaker 8: we used to live, like two blocks up.
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Speaker 5: There was like a Chapter day.
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Speaker 6: So yeah, like you see the Confederate flag and stuff
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Speaker 6: like that, So definitely that.
7:20
Speaker 5: Was there at that time. You know, I personally experienced
7:23
Speaker 5: been called a three times in.
7:25
Speaker 6: My life down there were all living down there, so
7:29
Speaker 6: seeing those type of things that just make you see
7:31
Speaker 6: things a little bit different than than other people, especially
7:36
Speaker 6: with the police and stuff like that.
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Speaker 1: Melvin wasn't a stranger to the police. In nineteen ninety four,
7:46
Speaker 1: when Melvin was fourteen, he was arrested for receiving stolen property,
7:50
Speaker 1: although his parents tried to raise their boys right. Local
7:53
Speaker 1: residents described Writing as a city that sucks you in
7:57
Speaker 1: into its system and into its crime. Other robberies had
8:01
Speaker 1: plagued the city in the weeks before the homicide at
8:04
Speaker 1: Evie's Pizza. In fact, Evie's Pizza was also robbed just
8:08
Speaker 1: twelve days before the night of the homicide.
8:12
Speaker 5: I really didn't feel comfortable in reading out. It feel
8:15
Speaker 5: like there was pretty much a future day.
8:19
Speaker 1: But Melvin's dad did believe in a future for his son.
8:23
Speaker 1: He found a job Core program that would help Melvin
8:25
Speaker 1: train for a trade like mechanics or electronics.
8:29
Speaker 6: When I got there, what caught my interest was like
8:32
Speaker 6: plumbing because it dealt a little bit with everything. So
8:35
Speaker 6: you know, I've seen the things that they build, and
8:37
Speaker 6: it was it was it just seemed real cool.
8:40
Speaker 1: The school was about two hours away in Red Rock, Pennsylvania,
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Speaker 1: and Melvin didn't have his own car, so he and
8:46
Speaker 1: his brother would take the bus and stay at a
8:48
Speaker 1: dorm during the week.
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Speaker 5: And you know, I just felt good about it, you
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Speaker 5: know what I mean.
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Speaker 6: I felt like I see myself, you know, doing good,
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Speaker 6: doing good in life, and just you know, I felt
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Speaker 6: like I was on my ticket out at a reading
9:02
Speaker 6: and to be away from.
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Speaker 5: All the stuff that was just going on there.
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Speaker 1: Melvin loved the job Corpse school. He loved meeting new people,
9:12
Speaker 1: and he made good friends in the dorm across the hall.
9:15
Speaker 1: He envisioned himself graduating from the program surrounded by the
9:18
Speaker 1: same love camaraderie and encouragement that he witnessed at one
9:22
Speaker 1: of the graduations, but mostly he saw himself making his
9:25
Speaker 1: parents proud. In the winter of nineteen ninety seven, Melvin
9:31
Speaker 1: came home to spend Christmas with his family. He was
9:34
Speaker 1: feeling great about life. Things were going smoothly, but on
9:38
Speaker 1: December twenty third, Melvin's life would change forever.
9:43
Speaker 6: That morning, I went downtown with my sister in law
9:49
Speaker 6: and hey, that's when I meant That's when I bumped
9:53
Speaker 6: into Isaac.
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Speaker 1: Isaac Figueroa was a close friend of Melvin and his brothers.
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Speaker 6: So Isi told me he was like, said Watson's birthday
10:02
Speaker 6: party tonight, and he gave me invitation. I said, sure,
10:05
Speaker 6: you know you're gonna have to pick me up, So
10:07
Speaker 6: he picked me up between six and six thirty.
10:11
Speaker 1: At the birthday party, there was no drinking or smoking
10:14
Speaker 1: aloud inside, so Melvin and his brother spent most of
10:17
Speaker 1: the night outside the door to the apartment, letting people
10:20
Speaker 1: in and out and talking with people through the window lasterday.
10:24
Speaker 5: Throughout the whole night, TI like.
10:27
Speaker 1: N That's when Isaac took Melvin home. Melvin had just
10:31
Speaker 1: spilled a drink on his pants and wanted to hurry
10:34
Speaker 1: up and change so he could get back to the party.
10:36
Speaker 1: He had been crushing on a girl there named Tracy,
10:39
Speaker 1: and he wanted to flirt with her, so he raced home.
10:42
Speaker 1: Quickly pulled off his khaki pants, threw on a pair
10:44
Speaker 1: of black ones, and headed back with Isaac. Around eleven PM,
10:49
Speaker 1: Melvin's longtime friend Cynthia Jacques called him a murder had
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Speaker 1: happened at Effie's, just a block away from her house.
10:57
Speaker 1: She was terrified and asked Melvin to come over and
11:00
Speaker 1: keep her company. At around seven thirty pm that same night,
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Speaker 1: two masked gunmen walked into Effie's and tried to rob it.
11:11
Speaker 1: They shot the owner, George Klausser, in the side while
11:14
Speaker 1: he was cleaning the grill. The gunman then struggled to
11:16
Speaker 1: open the register, but they ultimately gave up after a
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Speaker 1: few minutes and fled empty handed. George was airlifted to
11:23
Speaker 1: a nearby hospital, but by the time he arrived it
11:26
Speaker 1: was too late. The twenty nine year old, who had
11:29
Speaker 1: named his restaurant after his wife and lived above it
11:32
Speaker 1: with his family, was dead. Witnesses described the gunman as
11:39
Speaker 1: eighteen to twenty four years old. One was five foot
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Speaker 1: eight one hundred and eighty pounds, the other five foot
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Speaker 1: six with a thin build. The original police report from
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Speaker 1: a witness described the gunman as two Hispanic males with
11:54
Speaker 1: Spanish accents, both masked, one wearing white pants and a
11:58
Speaker 1: blue hoodie and one wearing black pants and a purple hoodie.
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Speaker 1: Melvin is a five foot seven Hispanic mail that evening
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Speaker 1: at the time of the shooting, he was wearing a
12:09
Speaker 1: black hoodie and khaki pants. Police wanted swift justice for
12:19
Speaker 1: the klausers, but after a few weeks they had nothing.
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Speaker 1: That's when police offered a ten thousand dollars reward, and
12:26
Speaker 1: right away a man came forward saying he knew one
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Speaker 1: of the gunmen, the man who pulled the trigger, and
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Speaker 1: his name was Melvin Ortiz. This episode is underwritten by AIG,
12:47
Speaker 1: a leading global insurance company. AIG is committed to corporate
12:51
Speaker 1: social responsibility and to making a positive difference in the
12:54
Speaker 1: lives of its employees and in the communities where we
12:58
Speaker 1: work and live. In light of the impelling need for
13:01
Speaker 1: pro bono legal assistance, and in recognition of AIG's commitment
13:05
Speaker 1: to criminal and social justice reform, the aig pro bono
13:09
Speaker 1: program provides free legal services and other support to underrepresented
13:14
Speaker 1: communities and individuals. The man who came forward to the
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Speaker 1: police and named Melvin Ortiz as the murderer was nineteen
13:26
Speaker 1: year old John kelty Jeron. He told them that Melvin
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Speaker 1: had approached him to ask for help robbing a business
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Speaker 1: in the area to make some quick money. Kelty Jeroon
13:35
Speaker 1: said that around midnight on the night of the crime,
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Speaker 1: Melvin called him and said, quote, things got messed up
13:41
Speaker 1: and the gun just went off.
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Speaker 6: So when I learned about this warrant that they had
13:48
Speaker 6: for me, I was pretty much a shock.
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Speaker 7: You know, when they told me, especially when they told
13:54
Speaker 7: me what it was for, and I was like, I
13:57
Speaker 7: was taking back.
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Speaker 1: I'm like, what the police send it onto the Orteze
14:01
Speaker 1: house looking for Melvin.
14:04
Speaker 5: I called home and I was like, yo, like what's
14:06
Speaker 5: going on.
14:07
Speaker 6: I was spoke to my father and he's like, YO, listen,
14:12
Speaker 6: you got to come over here.
14:13
Speaker 5: These people are here for you.
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Speaker 6: And I said, well, I'm not you know, I'm not
14:17
Speaker 6: going over there. I didn't physically tell him that, but
14:20
Speaker 6: I just told myself that, like, nah, I'm not going
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Speaker 6: to go over there.
14:25
Speaker 5: It's just the whole situation just felt wrong.
14:28
Speaker 1: But Melvin's mom was adamant that it would be easier
14:31
Speaker 1: if he just turned himself in.
14:33
Speaker 6: She said, listen, only the guilty runs, you know what
14:36
Speaker 6: I mean. And I'm like, well, I gave it, and
14:39
Speaker 6: I said, okay, we will go down there and fix
14:42
Speaker 6: the situation.
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Speaker 5: And and when.
14:47
Speaker 6: I found out the day that the crime happened, that's
14:50
Speaker 6: when Isaiah's party.
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Speaker 1: He knew he didn't commit the crime, but his mom's
14:55
Speaker 1: advice was also risky. So he was relieved he had
14:58
Speaker 1: a solid alibi the party, and he decided to go
15:02
Speaker 1: down to the station with his parents, his pastor, Isaac,
15:06
Speaker 1: and Isaac's wife Shannon.
15:08
Speaker 6: Shannon made a listen of the alibis that was there
15:11
Speaker 6: at the party, and we all went down there, and.
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Speaker 1: They confidently brought the list down to the station.
15:18
Speaker 5: You know.
15:18
Speaker 6: But what I didn't think about was that what these
15:22
Speaker 6: people were going to do, It didn't matter what I
15:25
Speaker 6: had to say, what type of evidence the alibis that
15:27
Speaker 6: I that I had to present, and it just it
15:32
Speaker 6: just it just didn't matter what they one.
15:34
Speaker 5: It was to get in an arrest.
15:39
Speaker 1: Melvin never left the police station that day in fact,
15:44
Speaker 1: it was the last time he was ever free.
15:53
Speaker 3: I knew him before he went to prison, but we
15:56
Speaker 3: really didn't get close until after he was indicted and
16:01
Speaker 3: had turned himself in.
16:03
Speaker 1: Victoria Blanco first met Melvin when they were both teenagers.
16:07
Speaker 1: She was in her last year of high school, and initially,
16:10
Speaker 1: she says, it was more of a friendship. Victoria says
16:13
Speaker 1: she started writing Melvin in jail because she thought he
16:15
Speaker 1: was cute.
16:19
Speaker 9: And at the same time, you know, I was still
16:22
Speaker 9: doing my thing as a teenager, you know, as far
16:25
Speaker 9: as love life is concerned. I would still go and date,
16:27
Speaker 9: still had other boyfriends, and I actually would go and
16:30
Speaker 9: tell him about dates and boyfriends and things that became
16:33
Speaker 9: serious as as I got older.
16:36
Speaker 1: Victoria and Melvin shared everything over the year he was
16:40
Speaker 1: in jail awaiting trial, and.
16:42
Speaker 3: Then he would also still be writing like one or
16:45
Speaker 3: two girls from inside, and we would see, we would
16:48
Speaker 3: totally devote, you know, secrets that the other people when
16:54
Speaker 3: were you know, speaking to or talking to, didn't realize
16:57
Speaker 3: that we were sharing, you know, sharing our lives together.
17:00
Speaker 1: But Melvin didn't tell Victoria he was in jail awaiting
17:04
Speaker 1: trial for murder. She thought this cute guy she was
17:07
Speaker 1: building a relationship with was in for something minor. It
17:11
Speaker 1: was only after a few letters that she found out
17:14
Speaker 1: the truth.
17:15
Speaker 3: I guess, as you can imagine. You know, I was
17:17
Speaker 3: still living at home with my parents, and they were
17:19
Speaker 3: infuriated by the fact that I was talking to Melvin
17:22
Speaker 3: because the newspapers portrayed him as this like whole blooded
17:27
Speaker 3: team killer and this horrible person, and my mom's telling me,
17:32
Speaker 3: here to be, you're going to become a murderer too.
17:35
Speaker 1: But Victoria believed in his innocence, and she wasn't alone
17:39
Speaker 1: because many people at the time did. Remember Melvin had
17:43
Speaker 1: nineteen alibi witnesses. So you start writing him while he's
17:49
Speaker 1: in jail before trial, and then he gets convicted. I mean,
17:52
Speaker 1: what was going through your head then?
17:56
Speaker 3: So I was in shock, and that was for me
18:02
Speaker 3: at the time was obviously extremely difficult. It was literally
18:05
Speaker 3: like time stood still, and I wish no teenager or
18:10
Speaker 3: anyone would ever have to go through that.
18:17
Speaker 1: The trial was chaos. There was so much publicity around
18:21
Speaker 1: the case that Melvin's court appointed lawyers all recused themselves
18:26
Speaker 1: due to their own various conflicts of interest, five of them,
18:30
Speaker 1: one after the other In a small town like reading,
18:33
Speaker 1: this happens often because the roster of public defenders isn't limited.
18:38
Speaker 1: If any of them have had anything to do with
18:41
Speaker 1: any person involved in the case, they must recuse themselves.
18:45
Speaker 1: And in one instance, the attorney just didn't want to
18:48
Speaker 1: represent Melvin. Melvin had been demonized in the local papers. Eventually,
18:53
Speaker 1: Attorney Bill Bespells took over. Although Bespells didn't have a
18:58
Speaker 1: conflict of interest, keme onto Melvin case late right before trial,
19:02
Speaker 1: and he only had a couple of weeks to prepare
19:06
Speaker 1: his first order of business. In an attempt to counter
19:10
Speaker 1: inevitable biased or in trial, Bispells requested a change of
19:13
Speaker 1: venue and a change of jury, but both requests were denied.
19:17
Speaker 1: On May twenty fourth, nineteen ninety nine, the trial officially started.
19:22
Speaker 1: The prosecutor Mark C. Baldwin went first. He called witnesses
19:26
Speaker 1: who were at Effie's the night of the murder. Rodney
19:29
Speaker 1: Delp testified that he knew Melvin, saw the robbers and
19:33
Speaker 1: that Melvin was not one of the robbers. Rodney was
19:37
Speaker 1: the one who described the gunman's clothing in the police report.
19:40
Speaker 1: Remember one was in white pants and a blue hoodie.
19:43
Speaker 1: And the other in black pants and a purple hoodie.
19:46
Speaker 1: That night, again, Melvin wore a black hoodie and khaki
19:50
Speaker 1: pants that was not what the shooters were described to
19:53
Speaker 1: be wearing, and later remember he changed into black pants
19:57
Speaker 1: after the time of the murder. The prosecut Cushin, suggested
20:01
Speaker 1: this was Melvin's attempt to avoid recognition. This was a
20:06
Speaker 1: blow to the prosecution, one of their own witnesses saying
20:10
Speaker 1: it wasn't Melvin and there was no DNA or any
20:13
Speaker 1: kind of evidence linking Melvin to the crime, But the
20:16
Speaker 1: prosecutions still had their star witness, John Celtideron under oath
20:22
Speaker 1: during trial. John said he was quote good friends with
20:25
Speaker 1: Melvin and that in December nineteen ninety seven, Melvin suggested
20:30
Speaker 1: to him that the two of them make quick money
20:32
Speaker 1: by robbing a local business in the area, like FIE's Pizza.
20:40
Speaker 1: So let's pause for a moment now. You might be
20:42
Speaker 1: wondering why John Keltigeroon's account of Melvin's quote confession held
20:47
Speaker 1: so much weight against nineteen alibi witnesses.
20:51
Speaker 5: Well.
20:51
Speaker 1: To start, all, nineteen alibi witnesses were not called to
20:55
Speaker 1: testify during the trial. Melvin's attorney Bespels only called four
21:01
Speaker 1: of them, and two of those four were friends of Melvin's,
21:04
Speaker 1: a jury might see them as willing to say anything
21:07
Speaker 1: to protect their friend. Second, John is the son of
21:11
Speaker 1: Thomas Keltagerone, a Democrat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.
21:16
Speaker 1: And on top of that, John's girlfriend, Tina Valentin, told
21:21
Speaker 1: police she also overheard the conversation with Melvin. They both
21:27
Speaker 1: testified that Melvin confessed to the murder. John and Tina
21:31
Speaker 1: were not the only witnesses to testify for the prosecution,
21:35
Speaker 1: but their testimonies held the most weight now for the defense.
21:43
Speaker 1: Although they didn't call all of the alibi witnesses, they
21:47
Speaker 1: did call Cynthia Jacques, the woman whose house Melvin went
21:50
Speaker 1: to near Effie's because she was scared when she heard
21:53
Speaker 1: about the murder. Cynthia's testimony was key. Cynthia testified that
21:58
Speaker 1: it wasn't Melvin who committed the botched robbery. What she
22:02
Speaker 1: said was that John had actually come to her with
22:05
Speaker 1: a plan to blame it on someone else and then
22:08
Speaker 1: collect the ten thousand dollars reward money so the two
22:12
Speaker 1: of them could run off to Mexico with it. Allegedly,
22:15
Speaker 1: Cynthia and John were having an affair. After four days
22:20
Speaker 1: of trial, it was time for the jury to decide.
22:23
Speaker 1: After only two and a half hours of deliberation, the
22:26
Speaker 1: jury had a decision.
22:28
Speaker 4: Nineteen year old Melvin Ortiz sat motionless in the courtroom,
22:31
Speaker 4: showing no emotion as the jury gave its verdict guilty
22:35
Speaker 4: of second degree murder.
22:36
Speaker 1: They ruled in favor of John and Tina's testimonies, and
22:40
Speaker 1: Melvin was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without
22:45
Speaker 1: the possibility of parole. It was a blow to everyone
22:54
Speaker 1: in Melvin's life, including Victoria. She sat through the trial
22:57
Speaker 1: for the cute boys she caught feelings for when originally
23:01
Speaker 1: she didn't even think his case would make it to trial,
23:05
Speaker 1: and she had to think realistically.
23:08
Speaker 3: I actually had made a decision to move on, you know,
23:11
Speaker 3: and stop stop talking or seeing Melvin, because I knew
23:15
Speaker 3: in my heart that our friendship was more than just
23:19
Speaker 3: a friendship. I will say to back when I then
23:23
Speaker 3: turned like eighteen or nineteen, I always knew I'm like,
23:26
Speaker 3: I'm like, I want to marry Melbourn's. He's like my
23:29
Speaker 3: best friend. We talk about everything. So it was around
23:32
Speaker 3: that time that I think I was about twenty. At
23:35
Speaker 3: the time I moved on, not only did I stop
23:39
Speaker 3: talking to him, but I actually just left the state
23:41
Speaker 3: of Pennsylvania.
23:45
Speaker 1: Melvin was now a convicted murderer, staring down the rest
23:48
Speaker 1: of his life behind bars. Was there ever a point
23:53
Speaker 1: that you might have lost hope and thought that you know,
23:55
Speaker 1: you'd be stuck in there.
23:56
Speaker 5: Forever lots of time.
23:59
Speaker 6: You know you're gonna have your your week moments, your
24:02
Speaker 6: your hard days, and when you're gonna feel it hopeless,
24:05
Speaker 6: you're gonna feel down, You're gonna feel like, man, I'm
24:08
Speaker 6: never gonna get out of here.
24:09
Speaker 1: You know, Melvin has petitioned for post conviction relief six
24:13
Speaker 1: times from twenty and one to twenty sixteen, and he's
24:17
Speaker 1: been denied every time.
24:20
Speaker 5: He's like, what can you do? You know, you keep
24:22
Speaker 5: getting shot down from the courts. You know. I was like, Okay,
24:28
Speaker 5: I'm appeal this, and you know I'm gonna win this
24:31
Speaker 5: on appeal.
24:33
Speaker 6: Man, Like I said, I was wrong, I was wrong
24:35
Speaker 6: about a lot of things.
24:36
Speaker 5: Twenty four years later, yeah, I am speaking to you.
24:42
Speaker 3: I had followed Melvin's case and followed his appeals, and
24:46
Speaker 3: you know it with heartbreaking each time I saw so
24:49
Speaker 3: on them get denied because they were time barred.
24:52
Speaker 1: In certain states, there's a limited amount of time you
24:55
Speaker 1: can bring new evidence to the courts. In Pennsylvania it's
24:58
Speaker 1: sixty days.
25:00
Speaker 3: I think once or twice I actually wrote him a
25:02
Speaker 3: letter like, you know, I wish you good luck on
25:04
Speaker 3: your appeal, and just that I want you to know
25:06
Speaker 3: I'm thinking about you. But in that gap of that
25:10
Speaker 3: time frame, we never had the type of conversation we
25:15
Speaker 3: had when we were, you know, younger, But I always
25:18
Speaker 3: always thought about him.
25:20
Speaker 1: Melvin thought about her too.
25:22
Speaker 6: Fucking describeatory one word, I would say, extraordinary, you know,
25:26
Speaker 6: I mean, she's just.
25:27
Speaker 5: A good person overall. She has a beautiful heart. She's beautiful.
25:31
Speaker 6: I love her, and throughout my bed I used to
25:34
Speaker 6: do I used to always use her as a conversation
25:37
Speaker 6: piece because you know, a lot of the guys they
25:40
Speaker 6: used to talk about with their friends.
25:42
Speaker 3: And and how.
25:43
Speaker 5: Things were and you know the messed up part. And
25:46
Speaker 5: I used to be like, well, I knew a good one.
25:50
Speaker 5: I had a good one.
25:52
Speaker 1: That Victoria moved on and by two thousand and five
25:55
Speaker 1: she was living in Florida.
25:57
Speaker 3: I you know, obviously was with in my life doing
25:59
Speaker 3: my thing, and I met my ex husband, and you know,
26:05
Speaker 3: we had decided to get married. And I think six
26:09
Speaker 3: weeks before I was about to get married, I had
26:12
Speaker 3: wrote Melvin this letter, right because you know, that's what
26:16
Speaker 3: we do. Anytime there's a big monumental thing going in,
26:20
Speaker 3: you know, going on in your life, you want to
26:22
Speaker 3: share it with the person that you care about. Vote.
26:25
Speaker 3: So I had wrote this, wrote Melvin this letter that
26:29
Speaker 3: you know, I'm getting married and this is this is
26:30
Speaker 3: basically what I'm going to do, and this is a
26:33
Speaker 3: little bit about what's going on with me. And I
26:37
Speaker 3: ended up not sending it. I had it all written
26:40
Speaker 3: out in the envelope ready to drop in the mailbox,
26:43
Speaker 3: and I just I didn't put it in the mailbox
26:46
Speaker 3: because I knew. I knew if he would have responded, I,
26:49
Speaker 3: for one, probably wouldn't have went to the altar.
26:53
Speaker 1: It wasn't until three years ago that everything changed for
26:58
Speaker 1: Melvin Victoria and their relationship. In twenty twelve, the United
27:08
Speaker 1: States Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional for juveniles
27:12
Speaker 1: to be mandatorily sentenced to life in prison without parole.
27:16
Speaker 10: A Supreme Court decision that said juveniles are constitutionally different
27:21
Speaker 10: from adults for the purposes of serviencing.
27:24
Speaker 1: So over the next few years, states started resentencing their
27:28
Speaker 1: juvenile lifers. Remember, Melvin was seventeen at the time of
27:32
Speaker 1: the murder, a juvenile, so in twenty eighteen he was resentenced.
27:37
Speaker 1: At this time, a lot of juvenile lifers were actually
27:40
Speaker 1: being resentenced to twenty five to life in prison, which
27:44
Speaker 1: for many would have been time they had already served.
27:47
Speaker 1: Melvin's attorney recommended he be resentenced to twenty years to life,
27:52
Speaker 1: which for him would also be time served, but instead
27:56
Speaker 1: a judge resentenced him to thirty five years to life.
28:00
Speaker 1: Although it wasn't the sentence he was hoping for, he
28:03
Speaker 1: figured any shot at freedom was better than none.
28:06
Speaker 3: Like I said, I would always follow his case. And
28:08
Speaker 3: it's just like when he was resentenced in June of
28:12
Speaker 3: twenty eighteen, it was I knew that the universe was
28:19
Speaker 3: aligning things.
28:20
Speaker 1: Victoria's marriage was on the outs at this point, she
28:23
Speaker 1: was getting divorced.
28:25
Speaker 3: And I knew that that was the right time to
28:28
Speaker 3: reach out to him. And instinctively, when I saw that
28:32
Speaker 3: with that resentencing, he would only have fourteen years left Maggie,
28:36
Speaker 3: I thought to myself at the time, I thought, well,
28:39
Speaker 3: I can wait fourteen years for him. That's what my gut,
28:42
Speaker 3: my heart was telling me.
28:44
Speaker 1: By that time, Victoria had thought a lot about wrongful
28:47
Speaker 1: convictions and being with someone in prison.
28:51
Speaker 3: I'll be honest, Back then and even up to a
28:53
Speaker 3: few years ago, I didn't realize what an epidemic wrongful
28:57
Speaker 3: convictions are. The people that are inside are are actually people.
29:04
Speaker 3: I think the media portrays, you know, people that are
29:06
Speaker 3: incarcerated as the horrible beings, but it's actually the majority
29:09
Speaker 3: of them are serving time for miscellaneous marijuana charges and
29:15
Speaker 3: wrongful convictions and crimes that have nothing to do with
29:19
Speaker 3: public safety. Now I'm finding out, as I'm older and
29:22
Speaker 3: there's more people that are wrongfully convicted coming home, I'm
29:25
Speaker 3: finding out that that's more common than I thought it
29:27
Speaker 3: was at the time.
29:29
Speaker 1: She figured she'd do it, she'd jump back in with
29:32
Speaker 1: Melvin and fight to exonerate him. So do you remember
29:46
Speaker 1: what it was about Melvin's case that kind of struck.
29:48
Speaker 10: You, Well, there are a number of features. I mean,
29:51
Speaker 10: one is the fact that he was a juvenile and
29:56
Speaker 10: such a clear victim in my view, in the words,
29:59
Speaker 10: zero evidence actual evidence against Melvin, and significant evidence that
30:04
Speaker 10: he was not there and it was impossible for him
30:07
Speaker 10: to have been there.
30:08
Speaker 1: This is Mark Howard, professor of Government and Law at
30:11
Speaker 1: Georgetown University. He co teaches a class called Making an
30:15
Speaker 1: Exonery with his childhood friend Marty Tankliff. Marty himself is
30:20
Speaker 1: an x hoonery. In the class, the Georgetown students investigate
30:23
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction cases and advocate for their innocence and exoneration. Victoria,
30:29
Speaker 1: now fully committed to Melvin and his exoneration, reached out
30:33
Speaker 1: to Mark's team for help, and after reviewing Mark's case
30:37
Speaker 1: the Making an Exonery class, decided to take it on
30:41
Speaker 1: to me.
30:41
Speaker 10: I mean, it's frank, A screaming case of a wrongful conviction.
30:46
Speaker 1: Melvin's case has a lot of the classic hallmarks, such
30:50
Speaker 1: as the lack of evidence, the rock solid alibi actually
30:54
Speaker 1: nineteen alibi witnesses, and especially.
30:57
Speaker 10: The shakiest of witnesses coming forward who have a motivation
31:02
Speaker 10: which is to collect reward money and then two to
31:06
Speaker 10: get the trail off of them.
31:09
Speaker 1: Mark is talking about John Kelter Jerone, the star witness
31:13
Speaker 1: and his girlfriend Tina Valentine. Now I mentioned that John
31:19
Speaker 1: is the son of a Pennsylvania politician, so jurors may
31:22
Speaker 1: have seen him during the trial as particularly credible. Well,
31:26
Speaker 1: it wasn't until after the trial that previously hidden information
31:31
Speaker 1: about John started to surface.
31:34
Speaker 10: So one, John had an extensive criminal record himself. His
31:37
Speaker 10: record was never admitted, it was later even expunged, and
31:42
Speaker 10: then none of it was disclosed to the jury, and
31:47
Speaker 10: he came forward as if he were a credible witness
31:50
Speaker 10: and upstanding citizen, which he's far from.
31:53
Speaker 1: Mark believes this has to do with who John's dad.
31:56
Speaker 10: Was, Thomas Heltera Jerone, who was a state rep Presentative
32:00
Speaker 10: in Pennsylvania and as head of the Judiciary Committee, he
32:03
Speaker 10: controlled the budget of the court system. And so you're
32:07
Speaker 10: talking about someone with huge influence over the court system,
32:12
Speaker 10: over the judge, over the prosecutor's office through his political role,
32:18
Speaker 10: and so that in a sense gave John cover. His
32:23
Speaker 10: record was never admitted. It's very, very suspicious, and when
32:27
Speaker 10: you add that to the fact that there's nothing else
32:30
Speaker 10: against Melbourne other than this testimony and then the kind
32:34
Speaker 10: of pressure testimony of his girlfriend, you think something is
32:38
Speaker 10: rotten here, and.
32:40
Speaker 1: Something may have been. Tina was only sixteen and pregnant
32:44
Speaker 1: with John's child at the time of the trial in
32:47
Speaker 1: two thousand and five, when she was twenty two years old,
32:50
Speaker 1: Tina came forward and admitted that John pressured her on
32:54
Speaker 1: what to say. She had lied about everything. She began
32:58
Speaker 1: speaking up about the truth after her son died, which
33:02
Speaker 1: she interpreted as karma from God for knowingly taking Melvin's
33:06
Speaker 1: life away, and her recantation. She says it was John
33:09
Speaker 1: who committed the murder, and remember at trial, Melvin's friend
33:13
Speaker 1: Cynthia said the same thing that John told her he
33:17
Speaker 1: wanted to run away with her for the ten thousand
33:19
Speaker 1: dollars reward money. One of the members of Melvin's team
33:23
Speaker 1: at Georgetown is now part of our team at Wrongful Conviction, Eastmuddy, Guadalama.
33:29
Speaker 1: Here's what Tina told Eastmuddy in an interview about what
33:32
Speaker 1: happened that night in December of nineteen ninety seven. Tina
33:39
Speaker 1: said she spent that day shopping and saw John as
33:42
Speaker 1: soon as he came home.
33:44
Speaker 11: John's beating past the house. Now he's supposed to be
33:47
Speaker 11: at work, but he's flying past the house and everything.
33:51
Speaker 11: And he came and he picked me up and told
33:55
Speaker 11: me to grab the bag behind the door, And I
33:58
Speaker 11: didn't know what it was, I'm like, what he's like
34:00
Speaker 11: the bag behind the door.
34:02
Speaker 1: According to Tina, the bag contained a mask, gloves, and
34:07
Speaker 1: a hoodie.
34:08
Speaker 11: And then that evening is when he sat down with
34:11
Speaker 11: me more and told me what supposedly had happened, that
34:15
Speaker 11: him and Melvin supposedly went in and robbed the pizza shop.
34:21
Speaker 11: I didn't believe it because one Melvin was at a
34:25
Speaker 11: birthday party. When that all was said and done, John
34:29
Speaker 11: started opening up a little bit more to me. He's like, look,
34:33
Speaker 11: you're gonna have to say this and say this and
34:36
Speaker 11: say this to get them off my ask. And they
34:40
Speaker 11: think it's Melvin that let them think that.
34:43
Speaker 1: So if she knew Melvin was innocent, why did Tina
34:47
Speaker 1: agree to testify on John's behalf.
34:50
Speaker 11: It's scared fear, not just from him, from his father
34:55
Speaker 11: and his father's pool and people that you knew. I
34:58
Speaker 11: had a bunch of people job trying to pressure me
35:02
Speaker 11: from the family.
35:04
Speaker 2: Did you ever experience any sort of guilt or stress
35:09
Speaker 2: at the time of the trial when you were.
35:11
Speaker 11: Sixteen, Yeah, that was a lot me sitting there one
35:19
Speaker 11: stand saying that it was Melvin, and I wholeheartedly knew
35:24
Speaker 11: that Melvin had nothing to do with any of this.
35:29
Speaker 1: Since two thousand and eight, Tina has been working with
35:31
Speaker 1: Melvin's family to present her testimony before a judge. Melvin
35:36
Speaker 1: has attempted to use Tina's recanted testimony an admission of
35:39
Speaker 1: perjury several times, but again, the courts keep denying it
35:45
Speaker 1: on the basis of the evidence being time barred. It
35:48
Speaker 1: took ten years for the courts to hear her recanted testimony.
35:54
Speaker 1: In twenty eighteen, when the judge finally did, he decided
35:58
Speaker 1: that although he believed her, it wouldn't have changed the
36:02
Speaker 1: trial's verdict. Here's Mark again.
36:05
Speaker 10: I think there's so many different features to the case. Now,
36:08
Speaker 10: talk to Melvin himself. He is a kind, intelligent, caring, loyal,
36:17
Speaker 10: just a person with integrity, and he's someone who presents
36:22
Speaker 10: zero and I mean zero threat to public safety. To
36:26
Speaker 10: think that Pennsylvania taxpayers are spending close to fifty thousand
36:31
Speaker 10: dollars a year to keep Melvin Ortiz in prison for
36:34
Speaker 10: something he didn't do since he was a child, and
36:37
Speaker 10: that we have elected officials who are trying to make
36:41
Speaker 10: that permanent for the rest of his life, it's just unacceptable.
36:45
Speaker 1: We should also note that Mark Baldwin, the district attorney
36:48
Speaker 1: who tried Melvin's case, was cited in another wrongful conviction case,
36:52
Speaker 1: that of Roddy Johnson. In that case, district Attorney Mark
36:56
Speaker 1: Baldwin was cited for egregious prosecutor real misconduct. Mister Johnson
37:02
Speaker 1: was exonerated in twenty twenty.
37:05
Speaker 10: And to me, that suggests that every case that prosecutor
37:08
Speaker 10: worked on should at least be looked at, and Melvin's
37:11
Speaker 10: case being one of them, and Melvin having many other
37:13
Speaker 10: hallmarks of a wrongful conviction, I think that adds even
37:16
Speaker 10: more power to his claim.
37:23
Speaker 1: Melvin says being incarcerated has definitely put a strain on
37:27
Speaker 1: his family and their relationship.
37:30
Speaker 6: You know, there are gaps between our relationship with my
37:33
Speaker 6: family and stuff like that.
37:34
Speaker 5: There are gaps, you know, don't get a.
37:36
Speaker 6: Messed up, but you know, we try to bridge those
37:39
Speaker 6: gaps because his family is important, you know, because especially
37:44
Speaker 6: on a situation like this, I guess one of the
37:47
Speaker 6: things that bring us together is my innocence.
37:50
Speaker 3: I mean, his family has spent probably close to one
37:52
Speaker 3: hundred thousand dollars in attorney's feed just trying to bring
37:57
Speaker 3: to life of the cross evidence they've had to move,
38:00
Speaker 3: they've had to downside, they've had to refinance, you know,
38:05
Speaker 3: their original house, all types of financial impacts as well
38:08
Speaker 3: as the emotional.
38:10
Speaker 1: Melvin's Dadjan is still working six days a week at
38:13
Speaker 1: the age of seventy eight, trying to pay off the
38:17
Speaker 1: family's debts.
38:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, two parents working two jobs to pay attorneys sees.
38:21
Speaker 3: And you also have you know, Melvin calling from the inside.
38:25
Speaker 3: And keep in mind, you know, when he went in
38:26
Speaker 3: he was eighteen and up until now, you know, the
38:31
Speaker 3: physical trauma, the physical abuse scenes. He's young, and he's
38:34
Speaker 3: surrounded by older persons who have been there much longer
38:38
Speaker 3: than him. It's extremely it's extremely stressful and oppressive.
38:50
Speaker 1: While in prison, Melvin spends his free time reading, exercising,
38:54
Speaker 1: playing chess, and talking to Victoria.
38:57
Speaker 5: What are your.
38:58
Speaker 1: Plans for the future when you get out?
39:00
Speaker 6: You know, my plan is to marry Victoria, see if
39:04
Speaker 6: we can build a family from there.
39:08
Speaker 5: I just wanting to take it one day at a time.
39:11
Speaker 5: I just want to find peace.
39:13
Speaker 6: I mean, after this experience, like the word piece is
39:18
Speaker 6: very strong for me.
39:20
Speaker 1: Okay, so my last question is is there any kind
39:23
Speaker 1: of like food or something that you're drying to have
39:26
Speaker 1: when you get out.
39:28
Speaker 6: Mom's cooking, you know something, just mom's cooking. I missed
39:35
Speaker 6: that the mont.
39:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, Melvin is currently appealing the twenty eighteen resentencing decision
39:45
Speaker 1: of thirty five years to life. As of right now,
39:48
Speaker 1: he's eligible for parole in twenty thirty two. The second
39:53
Speaker 1: perpetrator in the robbery and homicide of George Klausser has
39:57
Speaker 1: never been found. Next time on Wrongful Conviction with Maggie
40:08
Speaker 1: Freeling Mike Pohlee.
40:10
Speaker 12: When they were interrogating me, they asked me, you know,
40:12
Speaker 12: who do you think part of your mother? There's only
40:14
Speaker 12: one person that I know that hated her that much
40:17
Speaker 12: to do that to her, And what I've seen was
40:20
Speaker 12: evil hatred.
40:23
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
40:26
Speaker 1: Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
40:30
Speaker 1: links in our bio to see how you can help.
40:32
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason Flamm and
40:35
Speaker 1: Kevin Wurtis, as well as our senior producer Annie Chelsea,
40:39
Speaker 1: researcher Lila Robinson, story editor Sonya Paul, fact checking and
40:44
Speaker 1: additional reporting. Eastmany Guadarrama with additional production by Jeff Cliburn
40:49
Speaker 1: and Connor Hall. Special thanks go to Mark Howard and
40:52
Speaker 1: the making an ex Honery class at Georgetown University. The
40:56
Speaker 1: music in this production is by three time OSCAR nominated
40:59
Speaker 1: composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram
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41:10
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41:13
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41:17
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