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509: #509 Jason Flom with Manfred Younger · Wrongful Conviction Podcasts

• 00:00:02 Speaker 1: On June seventeenth, two thousand and seven, at around two thirty a m bars emptied out into the streets of Camden, New Jersey amid the crowd in the parking lot of the seventh and Cane Lounge. Gunshots struck twenty four year old Tierra Presley and thirty two year old Adrian Jackson, but only Jackson survived and he was unable to offer any leads. About six months later, Jackson was secretly recorded speculating about the identity of his assailants, narrowing his suspects to someone called Baby Jay and later another called Papa smurfh, which led police to Madford Younger and Anthony Parker, the latter of whom was acquitted, but two jail house informants claimed that Madford Younger had admitted to being one of the shooters, sending him away for a minimum of sixty six years. This is wrongful conviction. You're listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction, where we've got a New Jersey case. There haven't been many of those featured here, but that's about to change. And calling in to tell his story from a New Jersey correctional facility, Manfred Younger, Manfred, thanks for joining us. 00:01:41 Speaker 2: Thank you, man I appreciate it. 00:01:43 Speaker 1: And joining Manford to help him tell this insane story is a voice you're going to recognize. Justin Bonas, who's been spending a great deal of time in Manfred's hometown of Cambden, New Jersey, where he's uncovered quite a few cases in a town that has a history of poverty and corruption from law enforcement all the way up to mayors who had promised urban renewal and economic revitalization. 00:02:08 Speaker 3: Yeah, because there's no improvement ever in Camden. I think at one point they had four straight mayors that were federally indicted. And then there's a period from like nineteen ninety to twenty thirteen when the Camden County Police Department was so corrupt. Camden is basically taken over by the county in twenty twelve. Right before there was a takeover, there were like sixty homicides in a city that's only like seventy five eighty thousand people the most and they weren't solving them, and then the ones that they were solving. There's a lot of wrongful convictions, but there is a sweet spot that I'm working on from like ninety nine to like twenty eleven, and the show starts for real with Martin Devlin, him and his partner Chuck Bentham. I come to Camden from Phillya and what Devlin became a supervisor. There's a pattern of single photo identifications and jailhouse informants. 00:03:08 Speaker 1: Which is exactly what we're dealing with in this case. In our audience, you may recall Detective Martin Devlin from some Philly cases that we covered, Jimmy Dennis, Tony Wright, Walter Ogrod, Troy Coleman. And after playing his trade in Philadelphia for twenty five long years, he crossed over the bridge into one of the most impoverished cities in all of America, Camden, New Jersey, where he continued his career as an investigator in the Camden County Prosecutor's Office. While Manfred was growing up. 00:03:41 Speaker 2: Yeah, I grew up in the city of Canaden then with my mom and my sister and my father. My father named Manfred J. Younger Jenior. So my name Manfred J. Younger Junior. So I got the baby J after my father. I grew up playing community football and stuff that was good. But we grew up hard city of Canda and the poverty. It's messed up out there. We ain't have hot water. We had to heat the house up with the oven, boil hot water on the stove. You know, wear each other clothes where your friends clothed. When it rained, when it's a thunderstorm or snowstorm, it come through the ceiling. It was bad in Camden. Ninety five percent of the people is poor. Because of our population, it's only seventy thousand people. We get overlooked. The only reason why we get noticed is because the crime rate. Other than that, we don't have nothing. Your mom and them had to have money though, like growing up. If not, you had to go to the streets. It ain't excuse, but time get hard, desperation and that's when I went to the streets. 00:04:40 Speaker 1: By Manfred's perspective, dealing drugs and carrying a gun was necessary for survival in Camden, all of which made him vulnerable to prosecution as well as violence. Street violence and one of the victims in this case, Adrian Jackson, Well, he was in the same boat, although he wasn't exactly Anfred's contemporary. 00:05:01 Speaker 3: Adrian Jackson is significantly older than Manfred, younger by a lot. Everyone believed that Adrian Jackson was the target. He has issues with older people in the drug world and Camden, who Manfred had some type of affiliation with, But there was never any real connection here. 00:05:21 Speaker 2: I ain't never hang with him and not like that. All them god older than me. 00:05:25 Speaker 1: Adrian Jackson had also cooperated in a case in the late nineties, so there were motivated parties on the night that he was shot, none of whom were Manfred, and along with Jackson, an innocent young woman named Tiera Presley had also been shot. It was a Saturday night, June sixteenth into the early hours of June seventeenth, two thousand and seven, when both victims were out on the town with Tiera's cousin, Tia Hannah. 00:05:49 Speaker 3: They're at a place called Seventh and Caine and what they would consider the downtown area of Camden, New Jersey, at around two thirty in the morning is when they leave out of the bar. 00:05:59 Speaker 1: Last call is two am. In New Jersey, so everyone else was leaving with them, emptying out into this dirt parking lot next to the bar that was adjacent to the projects. Now it was a warm night where folks were already hanging out in front of their buildings as. 00:06:12 Speaker 3: Well, and Adrian Jackson is talking to Tierra and Tia, I guess walked off a little bit with another woman named Maisha Ronett Brown. It's not well lit, and two men came out of nowhere and fired a lot of shots. Presley was hit six seven times. Jackson was hit over ten times. The way he shot it, it's very difficult to determine whether he could have seen it because he's like shot in the side and then he's like spun around when. 00:06:41 Speaker 2: He shot Tia. 00:06:42 Speaker 1: Hannah and a man named John Freelan ushered Tiara into her car and drove it to the hospital curiously, though without Adrian Jackson. 00:06:50 Speaker 3: Yeah, Jackson stays at the scene and he's just standing there and people are like freaked out. His adrenaline had kicked in so much. And then at some point I think he sits down and passes out or something, and then he gets picked up an ambulance takes him to the hospital. 00:07:06 Speaker 1: So by the time police had arrived, the crowd had dispersed, including Maisha Runnett Brown and her boyfriend Richard Barge, who becomes important later, but for now, the police forego a vigorous canvas for eyewitnesses and instead they hope to speak with the victims as well as Tia Hannah. 00:07:26 Speaker 3: Jackson lived amazingly. Tierra dies. Unfortunately, this was an innocent girl that was killed. Everybody knew that this was a very big deal. These are not people that didn't want to cooperate. But Tia Hannah tells the Prosecutor's office investigator Diane Wilson, over and over again, I can't make an idea right and Jackson, I mean, it's only by the grace of God that Dismand's alive. I mean, he's spun around like a top. He was in the hospital for over a month before he became coherent to speak. And I mean, Adrian Jackson's a criminal. Okay, he has a terrible background, but let me be clear with you. Adrian Jackson cooperated before, so this is not a guy that's apprehensive to talk to the police. And Adrian Jackson tells them, look, I was drunk when I came out, I don't know who shot me, and he's like, you seem like you don't believe me. If I knew who it was, I would tell you. 00:08:21 Speaker 1: And so without any legitimate leads, the investigation kind of switched course. It changed tactics right around the same time that Manford was arrested for an unrelated matter on July fifteenth, two thousand and seven, possession of an illegal firearm. 00:08:35 Speaker 2: I'm from the city of Camden, so I got caught with a weapon. That's the only way you know how to protect yourself. I was in the corner store against something to eat, and then the cops ran in there because they were doing the search of like a drug area, and then they searched me, and I had a gun on me. I didn't have it legally. So anytime say a fahamicide happened or shooting happened, and you might get locked up with drugs or whatever. Being as duff you from that area where it happened, they would try to question you and get you to act like you know something. You see you know what I'm saying. And Diane Wilson, she comes in there, I don't know her she don't know me, so being a dawn young she probably figured like, oh, well, he might want to get out of this case. So she started asking me about crime around the area and not just this murder, several murders, and I'm like, man I don't know nothing. So that was my first running with her. So now that's where she was familiar with the name baby j But I had bailed out from that weapon Chuck. I came back home three days after I was home. I had another case out in another county, Gloucester County. I had drugs that time, and I plared guilty to probation in ninety days cent So I went to Gloucester County for like seventy two days. Then I came home September twenty four. 00:09:51 Speaker 1: And while Manford was still in Gloucester County jail on the drug charge, Diane Wilson interviewed Adrian Jackson again on September sixth, two thousand and seven. 00:10:00 Speaker 3: They press him again, okay, and I believe they actually dropped Manfred's name and nickname, which is baby j The important part about that nickname is there's five other Baby James in Camden. Jackson again tells them I don't know who shot me, okay, And the date of that second interview for Adrian Jackson is a very big deal. 00:10:21 Speaker 1: And we'll get to why in just a minute. But first, around three weeks later, Manford was released from Gloucester County and was picked up again three days after his release on September twenty seventh, with his friend Jeffrey Jones. 00:10:35 Speaker 2: Well, we got pulled over by Camden County Police. But we got to dispatch from the police station where that Cox said, I'm behind that vam with baby j and them in there. So obviously somebody had to tell him about who was in a vam. You give you know what I'm saying. He lied on a report and said we was driving sad basically like it was a regular traffic stop and I had a gun. And then I was convicted ready for the drug. Once you get a conviction, the state tuned to turn it over to the Fed. That's when the Federal could charge you. It's called possession of a whitness by previctor seventh and I got locked back up September twenty seventh, three days I was home, so I had a poll attorney. The first thing he said is they don't want you. They want your boy. Jones was my cole descendant. They believe that I know all this stuff, like I don't know that guy like that. So basically he was saying, like, yo, if you give up information on him, they'll let you go. So I'm just collateral damage. I took a flat rate play sixty months for the gun charge. All this was in two thousand and seven, and I've never seen the streets again. 00:11:41 Speaker 1: Five years in federal prison was able to eventually morph into a much longer state sentence, starting with a man named Troy Loan. 00:11:49 Speaker 2: Troy Loan got caught with a gun. He wanted the way out of prison, so he told detective Wilson that Adrian Jackson told him who did that to him? So Roy Long wore a tape recorder on Jackson. On a tape recorder, Jackson he ain't say he's seen nobody in that he was speculating and they was talking about all these other old murders and Jackson admitting to the drug game. He's also on wire tap saying that he lied in another murder trial and then placed itself at the scene of a murder and he wasn't even there. So he's already got a pattern of lion fabricating story, but. 00:12:25 Speaker 3: The prosecutor's officer doesn't care about that. And it's this is what's so outrageous about this surreptitious audio recording. He's going through in his mind who he thinks may or may not have done this. So Jackson starts talking about the fact that he has beef with these older gentlemen, and who is affiliated with these older gentlemen and now understand this, he knows a nickname, which is Baby j. He admits he doesn't know Baby Jack and in this conversation between him and Troy Loan, he said it couldn't have been this guy named Sean, so it had to be Baby J. And and he mentions that another guys a driver. Understand is there were multiple people that watched two shooters run from the scene and not get into a car. They just ran from a scene, right, So he's guessing and by the process of elimination, he says it's probably Baby j. 00:13:22 Speaker 1: As we know, Babyjy also happens to be Manfred's nickname, but he's not the only Baby Jay in Camden. The other nickname Jackson eventually mentioned was Papa Smurf aka Anthony Parker, who in turn became Manfred's co defendant. 00:13:36 Speaker 3: Interestingly, with Jackson in the audio to Troy Loan, he did not identify Papa Smurf initially Anthony Parker. And again this goes to show you that this guy Jackson is just guessing. 00:13:49 Speaker 1: And Jackson's unreliability was also made clear by something else that he said on this audio recording. 00:13:56 Speaker 3: Jackson specifically says that on September sixth of two thousand, thousand and seven, when he came out of the prosecutor's office after they're asking him about Manfreed Younger and he doesn't know who this is, that he sees baby jack driving and he wanted to kill him and doesn't do it because it's broad daylight. So there's a huge problem with that, which is that Manfred Younger is incarcerated at that point, So whoever he saw could not have been Baby J or at least a baby J that's Manfred Younger. It's impossible. 00:14:38 Speaker 1: This episode of Wrongful Conviction is proudly sponsored by Erase PTSD. Now every day, countless individuals face the invisible wounds of trauma and PTSD your support empowers us to provide life changing treatments like the Stelle Ganglon Block SGB, which inhibits nerve impulses and helps to restore hope, reclaim lives, and save lives after incurs Together, we can ensure that those wrongfully convicted receive the care they need to heal and reintegrate into society. Join us in this mission to erase PTSD and uplift our communities. Visit erase PTSD now dot org. That's erase PTSD now dot org for more information and ways to get involved. 00:15:27 Speaker 2: The name BABYJ came up. That's when Diane Wilson went full throttle. She called Jackson and said, we got new information. You know who did it to you? Jackson stated again, I told you I don't know who it was. But when she pushed play, he got scared for all the criminating statements he made about being a big time drug dealer having guns, and he gave the name BABYJ with no hairstyle, no nothing, no race, no nothing. So she went and got one picture of me and showed him. 00:15:58 Speaker 3: Diane Wilson shows him a photo on some this is the guy right? He says, yes. 00:16:02 Speaker 2: They went to him with one photo, not a photo or a one photo of me. 00:16:06 Speaker 3: That is the evidence that gets Manfred Younger arrested. 00:16:10 Speaker 1: At this point, it's summer two thousand and eight. Manfred was already in federal custody on the September twenty seventh the gun charge, and he was brought in for his arraignment. 00:16:19 Speaker 2: I go in the courtroom to get my bill, Diane Wilson, get Tia Hannah, and Tia Hannah own words. Diane Wilson get her to point me out at her arrangement here. 00:16:29 Speaker 3: She's very adamant that she couldn't make an identification until the arraignment. And I mean, come on, the guy's getting arraigned for the murder of your cousin, and she's with Diane Wilson, Tierra Presley's family, and then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, a year and a half later, you say, yay, he's the one. So Diane Wilson and the Camdens City Police know that they have a really weak case, and Devlin is supervising us, and we have a pattern here of the then go to the jail house informance, which is Jamie Channer and Jamal Gibbs. 00:17:01 Speaker 2: When you go to freederal prison. If you're from Jersey, you rolle with Jersey people. If you Muslim, you run with the Muslims. If whatever click you run with, that's your crew. So amongst your crew, you got people who's productive for the people of your crew. And you need help with your case, you go to the Muslim power leaguer Canner he was our paralleger. 00:17:22 Speaker 3: Jamie Channer was a jail house lawyer that helped manfreed with the allevi It's the extradition process for gun charge that is totally unrelated. So he sees the probable cause statement, the criminal complaint come through, so he knows the name of the deceased, and the guy who gets shot doesn't know anything other than that. 00:17:40 Speaker 2: He writes Camden County Prosecutor Office and bargain with them and say, I know information by the murder, but I want three years off. He didn't give the information an initial letter. You see what I'm saying. So Diane Wilson calls him. 00:17:55 Speaker 3: Jamie Channer says, hey, this guy admitted to this murder over and over and over against He's writing letters to Diane Wilson, and the information was basically wrong and develops overtime. 00:18:07 Speaker 2: She spoke to that guy five times. If I tell you I have a red Mustang today, five years later, I should tell you I have a red Mustang. And every time he talked to her, he'd come back with additional information. 00:18:20 Speaker 1: Even after five conversations, he still got the details wrong. In the statement that developed, Channer said that Jackson shielded himself behind Presley, which is contradicted by witnesses and the forensics. Then he gets the motive wrong as well. 00:18:35 Speaker 2: Channer said it was a gang initiated motive, a blood initiates. Diane Wilson stipulated that she know I wasn't blood and that wasn't even a motive, but she still allowed him to say that in front of a jority. 00:18:47 Speaker 1: Then in comes Jamal Gibbs. 00:18:50 Speaker 3: In October of two thousand and nine. They go get Jamal Gibbs, who's a serial cooperator. Now Jamal Gibbs's handler is Jim Pizzano, but Jamal Gibbs is very close friends with Martin Devlin. I have information from another case that Gibbs actually refers to Martin Devlin as Sarge doing an interview. The cops know exactly who he's talking about Devlin was supervising Manfred Younger's investigation, and Jamal Gibbs is an admitted killer. By this point, he's pled guilty. He's looking to get out of jail and says, presumably at the behest of Devlin, that baby Jay admitted the homicide to. 00:19:26 Speaker 2: Me when I was in the county, I was gonna protective cuss to be status. So it's no way we can interact, no way. 00:19:33 Speaker 3: The interesting thing about that is by this point Gibbs is cooperating against like ten people, So everybody in the Camden County jail knows that Jamal Gibbs us a cooperator. 00:19:44 Speaker 2: He was jumping in people cases like anytime your case is weak, Jamal Gibbs ended up inside the case to coroborate the motive or theory to strengthen the case. Like the whole jail knew, stay away from that guy because he a lie and fabrication information to get out his own murder. 00:20:03 Speaker 3: Why would Manfred Younger tell him he committed a murder. 00:20:06 Speaker 1: Never mind that he didn't even have an opportunity to do so. Thankfully, other guys came forward to Manfred's attorney took discredit Gibbs, which became part of trial strategy when Manfred and his co defendant Anthony Parker were tried in March twenty eleven, where the state had about five main witnesses, including Tia Hannah, who had previously id'd Manfred at his arrangement. 00:20:27 Speaker 3: She recance the idea trial. 00:20:29 Speaker 2: A prosecutor to try to get her to say with me. Tia said, I don't know. I didn't see the guy's face, but she's seen the description of brownskin guy with sure hair. So the prosecutor say, point to the brownskin guy. 00:20:42 Speaker 1: Point to the brownskin guy. 00:20:44 Speaker 2: My lawyer. He object. Even the judge said that that was wrong. It was petering over the line. 00:20:50 Speaker 3: And then she gives an affidavit recanting the ID and saying this is my cousin. They basically coerced me into making any identification in this case. 00:20:57 Speaker 1: John Frehlan also testified about trying Tierra Presley to the hospital and how Tia Hannah had said even then that she couldn't identify the shooter. 00:21:06 Speaker 3: Hannah's essentially eliminated, but again the jury sees her point Manfred out in the courtroom. 00:21:11 Speaker 1: The state also presented Troy Loan, who spoke about recording Jackson's speculation about his shooters naming Baby J. Then Adrian Jackson id'd Manfred as Baby J from the stand. 00:21:24 Speaker 3: What the jury never hears is that on September sixth of two thousand and seven, when Adrian Jackson says he's leaving the prosecutor's office and says that he sees manfre Younger and wanted to kill him, that could not have been man for Younger because Manfred Younger was incarcerated. It's my belief that the attorney did not present that information because he did not want to admit that his client had a criminal record in front of the jury. But that's a huge piece of evidence that Adrian Jackson did not know who Manfred Younger was and his identification is wholly unreliable. 00:21:57 Speaker 1: Then Adrian Jackson idd Anthony Parker as Papa Smurf. But the attorneys did cross examine Jackson about not being able to identify his assailants for his first three interviews. 00:22:08 Speaker 3: The evidence against Anthony Parker was strictly Adrian Jackson, and that's it. And look at who got acquitted and who got convicted. It's my belief that's why the jailhouse informants were so critical in this case. I mean they were mentioned in the opening statement, and then they were mentioned a lot in summation by the prosecutor. 00:22:28 Speaker 1: And the jailhouse informants were focused solely on Manfred. As we already said, Jamie Lee Channer's statement was unsupported by reality. Manfred was not a blood and was not ordered by the Bloods to kill Jackson. Diane Wilson stipulated to that. Additionally, Jackson had not used Presley as a human shield, there was no getaway driver, and he also said that Manfred did the shooting alone. 00:22:51 Speaker 2: It's just shocking that you a lie like that. Even the ballistics show two shooters, two different guns, two different shell cases. All the witnesses say two shooters, but he lie and say I did it myself. Like the physical evidence outweighed what he talking about. 00:23:08 Speaker 3: Jamie Lee Channer even admitted in his own trial testimony that after Manfred Younger left the federal facility that he was in, he was getting more information to give to the prosecutor. Are you kidding me? That means that he presumably was being fed information from the prosecutor's office. The whole purpose of a jail house informant is the person says out of their mouth that they committed this crime. Right, it's called this statement against penal interest. It goes against the defendant's interests to admit to committing a crime. So therefore it is assumed that those statements are reliable. The problem with that is when you have a witness that has a tremendous incentive to lie about what that person said. 00:23:55 Speaker 2: The prosecutor lied, said she didn't give them nothing. He lied and said he was coming ford protect the public, but all alone he got a favor. 00:24:03 Speaker 3: Right after Manfred Younger gets sentenced, the prosecutor in the case writes a letter to a federal judge saying he provided substantial assistance give him a time cut. But Jamie Channer says, I didn't get anything for my testimony. 00:24:16 Speaker 1: And without this an even more impeachment evidence that was discovered after trial, Channer's testimony appeared believable, as did Jamal Gibbs, who also claimed to have received nothing in return when he testified that he knew Presley from high school and press Gibbs about the senseless killing. 00:24:31 Speaker 2: They used the professional snitch Jamal Gibbs to come up with a theory and a motive to inflame the jury. 00:24:38 Speaker 1: The theory was that Jeffrey Jones, Manfred's co defended from the federal gun charge, ordered him to kill Jackson for some slight and that Jackson grabbed Presley again with the unsupported human shield narrative, and Gibbs alleged that when pressed further, Manford responded, and this is a quote, fucked that bitch. She all out there in the way, man, she got to get handled. Eighty crippling crazy. They can get it, man, it don't even matter. 00:25:04 Speaker 2: Man. 00:25:05 Speaker 1: Fuck her end quote, which is incredibly inflammatory, obviously, but Manfred's lawyer had seven rebuttal witnesses, including Milton Gardner and Brian Montinez. 00:25:15 Speaker 3: Milton Gardner testifies that Gibbs is lying what they call jumping on people's cases, that this is a practice of his of finding people's cases and getting on them from a time cut. And we have information that Gibbs was also getting discovery from the prosecutor's office, presumably Martin Devlin, to make his trial testimony more accurate, and that Gibbs was recruiting other people. Brian Montinez testified that he was approached by Jamal Gibbs that Gibbs was actively seeking cooperators and Montonez knew Martin devil because Gibbs. 00:25:52 Speaker 1: It's discovered later that even more witnesses had discredited Gibbs. That didn't make it into the defense trial strategy, but at least some damage was done. 00:26:00 Speaker 3: The prosecutor harped on the credibility of Jamie Lee Channer and Jamal Gibbs over and over again because the identification in the case was so weak. 00:26:11 Speaker 2: At the time. You believe like these guys ain't got no credibility. The jury didn't believe Jackson. I had to read backs on channering Gibbs. I trusted the process, thinking that the process was fair, but it obviously is not. Basically, they went with Channer and Gibbs. Then that's when they came back with the guilty verdict. I didn't even go in there. I was in a bullpen because something had happened with the sheriff's officers. So my lawyer basically came back and told me the news. 00:27:00 Speaker 1: Manfred received two consecutive census sixty years for the murder and eighteen years for the attempted murder a seventy eight year sentence with parole eligibility after sixty six years, and the sentence began while he was serving out his five year federal sentence. 00:27:20 Speaker 2: Most of my time I stayed in the county because I had the court situation with this case. So the time almost up anyway. You believe that the pill process take like a year eighteen months, but I had time anyway. 00:27:33 Speaker 3: So that's how I looked at it, like I'll be. 00:27:35 Speaker 2: Back on a pill. So then after that I came here from Camden County. I'm in New Jersey State Prison now MAXIM Secure facility and federal prison. You get to go out all day from six thirty am to nine pm. You out the room, but here you lock down all day. Basically you get yard every other day. You get to shower, you get to use the Kia is the size of a bathroom, smaller than the bathroom. For by success, I work out, listen to music, talk to my family, watch TV. For the first and most part followed the law. It's hard man. A lot of gods lose their mind down here. It's a rough spot. But you just got the only focus is to get out of jail. When I came here, my mind frame, like I said, you be thinking, you trust the process because you innocent, So you get a lawyer on direct to tell automatically God that don't know no better leave it up to the lawyer and they don't do no research. But I still was young, so I came down here playing basketball, running around. So my mind frame was let the lawyer do everything till then as I got older and start figuring her out. Now I helped myself help the lawyer. I cut my TV off and went through all my trial transcripts and stuff. That's when I started finding new evidence that wasn't presented that trial that basically shows and proved that I've been framed. 00:28:59 Speaker 1: That One major development was Richard Barge. Not only was he another Jamal Gibbs victim, but he also was an eyewitness who had come forward to Manfred's attorney pre trial. 00:29:10 Speaker 2: When we were in the county back in two thousand and nine. He was like, yo, man, tell you a lawyer to contact me. Man, you ain't do that shit. So I told my lawyer about it. So he went to see Richard Barge. 00:29:22 Speaker 3: And he tells them that he was out there that night with a woman who Tia Hannah says is at the scene. 00:29:28 Speaker 1: And that girlfriend was Maisha Brown, the person Tia Hannah was next to when the shots rang out. 00:29:34 Speaker 3: He says that man for Younger isn't one of the shooters, that he was actually standing in the general vicinity of where Adrienne Jackson and Tierra Presley were standing when the shots rang out, and he knows Manford Younger, and he says that Younger is not one of the shooters. Unfortunately, man for Younger's lawyer never calls Richard Barge. 00:29:52 Speaker 2: My lawyer was like, well, I believe he was there, but the jury might not believe him because both of y'all got Jamal gar. 00:30:00 Speaker 1: Gates, which seems like a colossal lapse in judgment considering what Jamal Gibbs testified to in Barge's trial. 00:30:08 Speaker 3: In Richard Barge's case, he actually testified that Richard Barge admitted to a homicide via sign language, but. 00:30:14 Speaker 1: When this ineffective council claim was presented at a post conviction hearing, Manford's attorney was also called to the stand, where he had trouble recalling his interaction with Richard Barge or with Manfred about using barge. 00:30:27 Speaker 2: Yeah, he was old already, he was eighty years old, so when he came to the PCR here he was even way like off track. 00:30:35 Speaker 1: Nevertheless, the judge decided to err on the side of defense council's murky recollection of his final trial after a thirty six year career. But this wasn't defense Council's only misstep. As we mentioned, counsel never raised the problem with Jackson's id illustrated by his alleged spotting of baby Jay on September sixth, two thousand and seven, while Manford was incarcerated in Gloucester County Jail. So Manfred's PCR motion was denied in twenty eighteen. But so much more has been discovered since then. 00:31:04 Speaker 3: Number One, that Jamie Lee Channer, who testified a trial, he did not receive a benefit, that he was doing this out of the kindness of his heart. He absolutely received a benefit. He received a time cut, He received support from the Camden County Prosecutor's office to get out of jail. Jamal Gibbs testified that he was not receiving anything for his testimony. Now, this guy played guilty to manslaughter. He's a killer. Jamal Gibbs. He pleads guilty to manslaughter. At sentencing, the judge is going to hear all the cooperation right and consider that in so his trial testimony that he's he already received his deal, that he expects to get five years. That's what he says. I expected a fighter. This guy gets five years for killing a person. It turns out he got money and housing for his testimony. 00:31:50 Speaker 1: So he got money, housing and the sweet deal of just five years for murder. 00:31:57 Speaker 3: Wow, and what was interesting this guy? As this His child's mother comes forward and says that he admitted to her that he was lying in cases to get out of jail. I forget. What he's saying is why do ten when you can lie on ten? 00:32:12 Speaker 2: All this? 00:32:13 Speaker 3: Why do ten when you can lie on a friend or something like that. That was his thing, and it's come out in the investigation. He did not like man for younger. But his baby mother comes forward, provides a sworn statement to an investigator, says that he admitted the lying in cases to her and that he shot up her house because he thought she was talking to the Camden County prosecutors. The second he gets out of jail, he shoots her house up. She goes to the Camden County Prosecutor's office and they bury it. They refuse to help her. 00:32:42 Speaker 1: So we've established that Channer and Gibbs were not telling the truth and were incentivized to lie. But now there are witnesses to corroborate Richard Barge's statement and Man for gennicence. 00:32:53 Speaker 3: There's a gentleman by the name of Antoine Stanley who was also out there that night, who said that he sees the shooters run up and that Man for Younger couldn't have been one of them. He knew Man for Younger couldn't be Man for Younger. Another witness, Darryl Debbie, Troy Loan's nephew by the way, who actually says that Troy Loan suggested to Adrian Jackson that baby Jay was the killer. 00:33:14 Speaker 1: And then, of course there's what has come out about Martin Devlin in Philadelphia, and it appears that his conduct only continued in Camden. The single photo identifications supported by incentivized jailhouse snitches. 00:33:27 Speaker 3: It's a pattern in that office that begins to really take shape in the nineties. And guess who arrived in the nineties Martin Devlin. I mean, they have a pattern of saying that if you live in Camden, then you know everybody in Camden. Therefore we can just show anyone a single photo and let them identify anybody. Everybody knows everybody in Camden. If you ask the Camden Police Department and the Prosecutor's office, everybody knows everybody. That's just not true, it's systemic, it's endemic. Man for Younger, from my investigation, is an innocent man that's been sitting in prison for fifteen years for crime he didn't commit. 00:34:02 Speaker 2: A murder. 00:34:03 Speaker 3: He didn't commit and this is something he's been fighting since day one. 00:34:07 Speaker 1: After Justin picked up Manfred's case at twenty twenty two, he shared the case with the New Jersey Attorney General's Conviction Review Unit, but they ran into trouble. 00:34:15 Speaker 3: It's actually quite heartbreaking because that cru and New Jersey they did not finish their investigation and essentially there's deadlines with evidence and it's within a year of me discovering the deal that Jamie Channer gets. I had to go to the court with that. So I had to essentially make a move for Manfred because I can't let a Brady claim as strong as what we have with Jamie Lee Channer sit that he received a deal when really his testimony was he was a saint, you know what I mean, like his mother Teresa or something. 00:34:50 Speaker 1: Just a concerned citizen. 00:34:52 Speaker 3: Out of the goodness of his heart. The guy's a liar. I couldn't do that. And I've discovered other evidence that with Gibbs. I mean, we knew that Gibbs had got money in housing. 00:35:01 Speaker 2: Jamal Gibbs got paid ten thousand dollars in a house, and he lied to other cases and they didn't turn that over. 00:35:08 Speaker 3: And now we have confirmation of that he cooperated in more. I think they mentioned four cases to defense counsel he cooperated in. He cooperated in over ten. And that's astounding in a place of smallest Camden. I mean, it's like, so everybody who committed a murder that was sitting in Camden County jail is telling you that they committed the murder and. 00:35:28 Speaker 2: Give He just recently recanted to the Attorney General Office saying I didn't tell him nothing. He admitted that I didn't confess to him. This is new, all this new. 00:35:37 Speaker 3: The plan is the file a PCR based upon actual innocence, significant Brady violations based upon what's called the fraud upon the court, which is that witnesses lied at trial and the prosecutor knew that they lied at trial by the prosecutor's own file. 00:35:53 Speaker 1: Is there anything that our audience could do to help besides sharing this episode obviously as at least the first step. 00:36:00 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I just want y'all to support you. Hear what's going on. Everything I'm saying is facts. It's not freestyle, and the facts is documented. Everything is on paper. 00:36:10 Speaker 3: Number One, they need to reach out to Matthew Plackin, who's the Attorney General about Camden County. Number two, they should write the governor. But number three, they need to really put pressure on the Camden County Prosecutor's office. 00:36:23 Speaker 2: You could go to my Instagram and check everything out free underscore Manfred, and you get to see what your own your own eyes. 00:36:31 Speaker 1: Well, we're going to have that length in the episode description, and with that we're going to go to closing arguments, where first of all, I thank both of you from the bottom of my heart for joining us. And now I'm just going to kick back in my chair with my microphone off and my headphones on and just listen to anything else you feel is left to be said. Justin You're gonna go first, Manfred, You'll take us off ato the sunset. 00:36:55 Speaker 3: Manfred is not the only case like this, okay. I represented a gentleman by the name of Tehran Hill who was exonerated in twenty twenty one, and Tehran Hill almost spot on with manfreed single photo, two jail house informants, and through the course of the Attorney General's Conviction Review Units investigation determined that the jailhouse informants were unreliable. One of them were candidate at trial, and then the identification of Tron Hill was unreliable because of the single photo. Same thing as man for younger and I have other cases in Camden County. This is systemic. What's going on here. They took this man and they threw him in the garbage camp. His mother is getting up in age. He does not want to die in prison. It's heartbreaking, and the Canden County Prosecutor's office thinks that people are just going to go away. I'm not going away. My name is Justin Bonus. Nice to meet you. 00:37:51 Speaker 2: It ain't just me, it's the same pattern with the same guy that pops up in everybody case. It's four guys down here with me. Now. They got one single photo jail house snitch. Richard Barrs one photo with the same jail house smich. Jamal gives in about fifteen cases murder cases just to save his own behind because he had his own murder trial. He got five years for his own case, murder at tempted murder, bank robbery, and ten thousand doles in the house. Just the fabricate stories on innocent people. It's the same pattern, same group of detectives. Diane Wilson, James Sossano, Martin Devlin, James Bruno. It's the same detectives, same pattern, same wrong doing in the city of Camden, New Jersey. All they care about is conviction, and the problem is being as though we come from a poor, young black community, we don't have the resources, or we don't have media attention, or they get away with it. And then the judges and the prosecutors, they took an oath to do the right thing, but they don't. They dirty, they do people wrong. All they care about is the conviction, and we don't have no body to help with We need all the help we can get, any exposure, any help at a city A can. 00:39:11 Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Kleiber. The music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram at It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One. We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good.