Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #023 Jason Flom with Johnny Hincapie

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#023 Jason Flom with Johnny Hincapie · Wrongful Conviction

0:04
Speaker 1: I think we have the best legal system.
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Speaker 2: It's just the people that implement it. They get lost
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Speaker 2: along the way and forget what their job really is.
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Speaker 2: He just kept on trying to remind me that who
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Speaker 2: was in authority, who was in control, and how easy
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Speaker 2: it was for my body to be found in any
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Speaker 2: alley of New York City.
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Speaker 3: It's a tough prison when you have the guards going
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Speaker 3: against you because they are the biggest gang in the prison.
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Speaker 2: They do that. They'll give a guy a life sentence
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Speaker 2: and go home in eat spaghetti like it was nothing.
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Speaker 2: And anybody that said, well, why would you confess to
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Speaker 2: something that you didn't do? My question to them will
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Speaker 2: be why wouldn't you confess when somebody's threatening to kill
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Speaker 2: your life?
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Speaker 4: The judge, he said, how you feel?
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Speaker 2: I said, I'm okay. He said, well, the days you're
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Speaker 2: lucky day you're going home.
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Speaker 4: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with
1:16
Speaker 4: Jason Flamm. Today, I have a very special guest, a
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Speaker 4: fellow New Yorker and someone who was wrongfully convicted of
1:24
Speaker 4: one of the most notorious crimes in the history of
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Speaker 4: New York, Johnny Incapier.
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Speaker 1: It was nineteen ninety one of the bloodiest years in
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Speaker 1: city history. The brutal murder of tourists Brian Watkins, killed
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Speaker 1: in the subway while defending his family from a pack
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Speaker 1: of teens, shook the city to its core.
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Speaker 5: Tourist Brian Watkins was in the subway on September third,
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Speaker 5: nineteen ninety when he was stabbed in the chest after
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Speaker 5: a struggle with at least six teenagers.
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Speaker 1: If you lived in New York back then, you'd probably
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Speaker 1: remember what it was like. The murder rate was astonishingly hi,
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Speaker 1: the police force a lot smaller than it is now,
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Speaker 1: and the long term solutions for those were just beginning
2:01
Speaker 1: to come into play.
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Speaker 3: People, though, were out of patience. A high profile crime
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Speaker 3: like this required quick action. Within twenty four hours, seventeens,
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Speaker 3: including of an eighteen year old Hincapier, confessed on tape
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Speaker 3: to taking part in the robbery. Hincapier would later say
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Speaker 3: that his confession was coerced by an abusive detective.
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Speaker 6: He says it was a combination of fear, false promises,
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Speaker 6: and youthful ignorance that led him to confess to a
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Speaker 6: crime that he did not commit.
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Speaker 5: He was convicted in nineteen ninety one. Three witnesses came
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Speaker 5: forward to say Hincapier was not on the subway platform
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Speaker 5: when the stabbing happened.
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Speaker 2: Conviction overturned.
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Speaker 6: Johnny Encopier is out of prison after serving twenty five
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Speaker 6: years in one of the city's most notorious murder cases.
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Speaker 5: Johnny Hincapier paid his one dollar bail and ran into
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Speaker 5: the arms of his parents.
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Speaker 2: Welcome, Thank you, Jason, thank you for having me.
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Speaker 4: So Johnny, let's go back. This is over twenty five
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Speaker 4: years ago.
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Speaker 2: It's going to be twenty seven in September.
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Speaker 4: Right, and you were in high school, correct, living in Queens. Yes,
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Speaker 4: that was life back then.
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Speaker 2: Life was beautiful for an immigrant family from Columbia, South America.
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Speaker 2: First saw being raised in Florida, then coming to New
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Speaker 2: York and being in a neighborhood like Bay Terrace, Queens.
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Speaker 2: For anybody that knows about that section of Queens back
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Speaker 2: in the eighties, especially when I was there, it was
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Speaker 2: predominantly all Jewish, Italian and Irish. It's a residential neighborhood.
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Speaker 2: You know, you're away from any type of problems in
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Speaker 2: any of the places in New York City, which the
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Speaker 2: crime rate was extremely high back then. So growing up
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Speaker 2: was definitely comfortable around a good group of friends and
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Speaker 2: family members.
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Speaker 4: Right and then one night, one horrible night, everything changed
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Speaker 4: in the worst possible way. There was a lot of
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Speaker 4: crime in New York City back then. Back then there
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Speaker 4: was borderline hysteria in terms of the fear that which
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Speaker 4: the media was really hyping up because it wasn't Mad Max,
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Speaker 4: but it was. You know, you had to be careful.
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Speaker 4: And a terrible, terrible crime occurred. A family from Utah
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Speaker 4: was visiting, took the train. They decided to take the
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Speaker 4: subway to the US Open to go see the tennis.
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Speaker 4: Can you take us through what happened and what you
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Speaker 4: were doing and how you came to be implicated wrongfully
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Speaker 4: in this terrible scenario.
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Speaker 2: Oh well, growing up in New York, like you, said Jason,
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Speaker 2: talking about a time in the eighties where breakdancing had
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Speaker 2: came out and with rap music, freestyle and house music,
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Speaker 2: which was like the hit type of music other than
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Speaker 2: pop music to listen to in the eighties, at least
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Speaker 2: in New York. But I grew up after being a dancer.
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Speaker 2: I went into becoming a DJ. As a teenager, I
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Speaker 2: went to my first club for teens and that kind
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Speaker 2: of opened up the door for me to work on
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Speaker 2: weekends at other clubs that were promoting teen nights, and
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Speaker 2: eventually I ended up working in another major clubs when
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Speaker 2: I got older, and even started on a minor level
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Speaker 2: promoting with other individuals those clubs. So I was a
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Speaker 2: pretty decent minor or pre popular type of guy amongst
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Speaker 2: the group of people that knew me. Back in September
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Speaker 2: of nineteen ninety, a good popular DJs was having a
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Speaker 2: birthday party that he was throwing at Roseline, and everybody
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Speaker 2: in New York City made plans to go out that night.
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Speaker 2: So the group of individuals that I had met along
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Speaker 2: the years and clubs and other parties invited me to
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Speaker 2: go out because they haven't seen me for a while,
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Speaker 2: And eventually they had friends that they invited, and their
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Speaker 2: friends invited other friends. So it was a lot of
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Speaker 2: people that didn't know each other that went out. But
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Speaker 2: there was a small fraction of individuals that didn't quite
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Speaker 2: have enough money to get inside the nightclub, so they
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Speaker 2: decided to commit a crime, and in the process of
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Speaker 2: committing that crime, someone died.
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Speaker 4: Some of these kids because you were kids, I mean,
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Speaker 4: you were still in high school at the time, went
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Speaker 4: down thinking I'm going to rob somebody and get some
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Speaker 4: money so I can go to the club. So they
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Speaker 4: went into the subway. That's when they encountered this family
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Speaker 4: from Utah and these were Hispanic kids, right, and the
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Speaker 4: family Hispanic and black kids.
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Speaker 2: Right.
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Speaker 4: This of course prayed on all the fears that were
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Speaker 4: in the media and the classic stereotypes of the time,
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Speaker 4: which unfortunately still persisted this day. But at that time
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Speaker 4: they were really peaking. And let's face the crime sales
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Speaker 4: newspapers too, so it was on the front page. I
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Speaker 4: remember the news and this case was on the front
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Speaker 4: page for a long time.
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Speaker 2: Yes, what it was to do was.
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Speaker 4: Major, bold faced headlines. What happened when they went down
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Speaker 4: to rob this family? Where were you and why did
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Speaker 4: they pick on you?
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Speaker 2: When I got out of the train station, I made
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Speaker 2: literally plans with one friend of mine that night. I
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Speaker 2: had my wallet and I gave it to a friend
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Speaker 2: of mine to hold for me because he was wearing
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Speaker 2: a Fannie pack. So apparently when we got outside to
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Speaker 2: the street, I didn't see him and ask people, you know,
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Speaker 2: basically where he was, and some individuals indicated that he
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Speaker 2: never came out of the train station. Saw on my
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Speaker 2: way going back inside the train station, I saw another
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Speaker 2: friend and we were talking, and at that moment when
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Speaker 2: I got there, he was flirting with some girls and
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Speaker 2: I asked him and he told me that he thought
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Speaker 2: that he was out of the platform. So I was
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Speaker 2: gonna go back upstairs, but I said, you know what,
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Speaker 2: let me check and let me go downstairs. And I
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Speaker 2: started going down the escalators, but I heard like a
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Speaker 2: big commotion of people screaming and saw people coming running
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Speaker 2: up towards the escalators towards me. So I never made
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Speaker 2: it downstairs to the platform, and I turned around with
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Speaker 2: everybody that was coming towards me, and I just went
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Speaker 2: out to the street. I decided to go to Roseland
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Speaker 2: and I got online where I saw other people that
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Speaker 2: I knew, and maybe like a couple of minutes later,
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Speaker 2: the group of individuals that was downstairs in the subway
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Speaker 2: platform that committed the crime came then and we all
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Speaker 2: went inside of Rosan after an individual decided to volunteer
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Speaker 2: to buy tickets for everyone. But at the end of
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Speaker 2: the day, with the news was reporting that these group
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Speaker 2: of individuals that I told you about that stood back
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Speaker 2: in the platform is that they didn't have enough money
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Speaker 2: to go inside a roseland and they decided to rob
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Speaker 2: a family, which they did not know. They were tourists.
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Speaker 2: They were visiting New York, they were planning to go
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Speaker 2: see the tennis tournament, and in the process of that
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Speaker 2: young twenty two year old man with the name of
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Speaker 2: Brian Watkins died behind a minor stab wound towards the
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Speaker 2: art of his heart.
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Speaker 4: Well, there was more to it than that as well, right,
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Speaker 4: because it started as a robbery, and as these things do,
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Speaker 4: it progressed from there, right because I think the kids
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Speaker 4: they attacked the mother, if I remember correctly, and then
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Speaker 4: the son, which was what really brought everybody's focus to
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Speaker 4: this case, because the son was sort of a heroic kid.
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Speaker 4: Brian Watkins was twenty two at the time, and he
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Speaker 4: came to the aid of his mother and he tried
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Speaker 4: to fight back and protect her from these predators. And
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Speaker 4: then one of them stabbed him and they ran out
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Speaker 4: of the subway, and he ran after them and collapsed
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Speaker 4: on the stairs and die like in a movie. Right,
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Speaker 4: just a horrible, horrible thing. And you know, I guess
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Speaker 4: it really triggered again everyone's emotions, especially because everyone would
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Speaker 4: hope that they would behave the way that this kid
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Speaker 4: did in trying to defend his family and his mother.
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Speaker 4: So it was just a real flashpoint. And we know
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Speaker 4: in these cases when that kind of stuff happens and
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Speaker 4: there's a lot of media attention, the cops they play
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Speaker 4: a little loose with the rules a lot of times. Right,
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Speaker 4: they become hyper focused on solving the crime. There may
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Speaker 4: be accolades for them, right if they do. There may
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Speaker 4: be promotions involved in any case. At a minimum, it'll
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Speaker 4: take away the pressure that they're feeling from their bosses
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Speaker 4: when when they get this case resolved. And in this case,
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Speaker 4: they knew they had a group of kids. It's got
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Speaker 4: to be tricky to solve a case like that. It's
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Speaker 4: hard enough to identify one individual in a single perpetrator crime,
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Speaker 4: but here you have a whole group of kids. So
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Speaker 4: you happen to have the misfortune, the terrible misfortune of
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Speaker 4: being inside the club with the kids who actually committed
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Speaker 4: this crime. But did you know at that time that
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Speaker 4: they had committed the crime?
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Speaker 2: No, not at all. No one had mentioned anything about
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Speaker 2: it before nor after the fact. And I got caught
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Speaker 2: up with it only because one of the individuals that
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Speaker 2: did commit the crime I knew from going to school
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Speaker 2: with him, and he was one of the individuals that
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Speaker 2: I hadn't seen in such a long time invited me
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Speaker 2: to go out that night, and because he knew my
10:21
Speaker 2: phone number. When the detectives asked him the list of
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Speaker 2: individuals or the names of individuals that they wanted from
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Speaker 2: him that went out to the colt, they never asked
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Speaker 2: him that participated in the crime with him, that committed
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Speaker 2: the crime, but they went out with him that night.
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Speaker 2: He listed me and a few other individuals that he
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Speaker 2: knew their phone numbers, and that's how they came to
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Speaker 2: my house and dragged me out and took me to
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Speaker 2: the precinct.
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Speaker 4: So you got dragged out? You were just home with
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Speaker 4: your parents? Was it daytime? Nighttime? What was the scenario?
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Speaker 2: It was already evening and I was at home and
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Speaker 2: the detectives came into my house after they rang the
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Speaker 2: bell and my mother opened the door and they just
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Speaker 2: barged in and they asked my mother if I was home,
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Speaker 2: and my mother was inquiring why did they were asking
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Speaker 2: about me? And they said that they wanted to ask
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Speaker 2: me questions about a stolen car. So she called me
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Speaker 2: and I came downstairs. They said they wanted to take
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Speaker 2: me to the precinct, and my mother wanted to come along.
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Speaker 2: And they asked my mother how old I was, and
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Speaker 2: she said that I just turned eighteen, and they said
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Speaker 2: there was no need for that, and she kept on
11:26
Speaker 2: inquiring why and the until they finally confessed that they
11:28
Speaker 2: wanted to question me about a homicide that took place
11:31
Speaker 2: in the subway station. And thereafter they just took me
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Speaker 2: outside and placed me in their police car.
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Speaker 4: And so she didn't go with you.
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Speaker 2: No, they told her that she couldn't come. She even
11:40
Speaker 2: attempted to call an attorney, but it was a holiday,
11:43
Speaker 2: was labor days, so she wasn't able to get in
11:45
Speaker 2: contact with anybody. And they took me all by myself
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Speaker 2: and the car with the rest of the detectives that
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Speaker 2: were outside and even another car that was escorting them
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Speaker 2: from a precinct from my neighborhood into Manhattan's North Precinct.
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Speaker 4: So you got to take it all the way across
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Speaker 4: the bridge into this city, and then you end up
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Speaker 4: in the North Precinct and then the town North to
12:04
Speaker 4: be exactly and did they begin interrogating you immediately or
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Speaker 4: did they keep you on the holding cell? What happened?
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Speaker 2: Well, when I got there, the detectives handcuffed me as
12:13
Speaker 2: soon as I came out of the car, and one
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Speaker 2: of the detectives told me that there was a lot
12:17
Speaker 2: of media outside the precinct, so he said that it
12:20
Speaker 2: was in my best interest that he wanted to cover
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Speaker 2: my face with his coat and handcuffed me. He did
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Speaker 2: that exactly. He took me inside. I couldn't see any
12:28
Speaker 2: of the media. I just heard the cameras flashing and
12:31
Speaker 2: people yelling things out, like asking questions or who was
12:35
Speaker 2: I Who was it that the detectives were bringing in.
12:38
Speaker 2: And they brought me inside and they were still guiding
12:40
Speaker 2: me until they got me. It was for them a
12:42
Speaker 2: secure place that the media wasn't able to see me
12:45
Speaker 2: in a corridor of the precinct. And then they took
12:48
Speaker 2: me upstairs to a room where I saw it was
12:51
Speaker 2: a double bunks beds and there was the detectives in
12:55
Speaker 2: a T shirt laying down smoking a cigarette, and they
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Speaker 2: uncuffed me and they some word that he wanted me
13:01
Speaker 2: to be placed, and he said place him in the
13:03
Speaker 2: back of the room where the tables at in the chair.
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Speaker 4: And then they began interrogating you soon after that.
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Speaker 2: Well interesting enough in my case, I came to find
13:13
Speaker 2: this out much later. The lead detective in my case
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Speaker 2: was Detective Carlos Gonzalez, the same detective that was in
13:24
Speaker 2: the investigation of the Central Park five and he had
13:27
Speaker 2: just been transferred a little less than a year to
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Speaker 2: Midtown North. So the detective that was in the room,
13:36
Speaker 2: he was discussing with Carlos Gonzalez. I don't know what,
13:40
Speaker 2: but throughout the whole entire interrogation, he kept on walking
13:43
Speaker 2: in and out of the room to just talk with
13:46
Speaker 2: Detective Gonzales. And when I was left alone in that
13:50
Speaker 2: room with Detective Casey, who was the detective that interrogated me,
13:55
Speaker 2: keep in mind that I'm still handcuffed in the chair.
13:59
Speaker 2: And when I was handcuffed, the detective asked me what
14:03
Speaker 2: happened that night, and I told him the truth. I
14:05
Speaker 2: told him exactly what I did from the moment I
14:07
Speaker 2: left to my house to go to Roseland and immediately,
14:12
Speaker 2: you know, he didn't believe me. He kept on saying
14:14
Speaker 2: that he didn't believe me. He kept on calling me
14:16
Speaker 2: a liar throughout this whole process until he went and
14:19
Speaker 2: bursted into a big rage and started blowing smoking my
14:24
Speaker 2: face from the cigarette that he was smoking. He just
14:26
Speaker 2: decided to really get belligerent with me until he finally
14:30
Speaker 2: started to beat me up. And when he beat me up,
14:33
Speaker 2: I was crying. There was like a moment of silence.
14:37
Speaker 2: There was a long pause, and he basically told me
14:40
Speaker 2: that I was never going to make it out alive
14:42
Speaker 2: from that precinct unless I decided to comply with him
14:47
Speaker 2: in memorizing a story Jesus Christ. He just kept on
14:51
Speaker 2: trying to remind me that who was in authority, who
14:54
Speaker 2: was in control, and how easy it was for my
14:58
Speaker 2: body to be found in any alley of New York
15:02
Speaker 2: City and nobody would care about it, because the police
15:05
Speaker 2: department in New York who he worked for, had it
15:09
Speaker 2: that simple in their power to do such a thing,
15:12
Speaker 2: and nobody would even point a finger to.
15:13
Speaker 4: Them, like a Central American dictatorship or something. This is
15:17
Speaker 4: supposed to be New York City, which is located in America,
15:20
Speaker 4: the United States, exactly. Yeah, that's supposed to be the
15:22
Speaker 4: way it is, obviously. I mean, so this is an
15:26
Speaker 4: unbelievably terrifying situation to find yourself and you're eighteen years old.
15:30
Speaker 4: We know that the brain doesn't fully develop until you're
15:33
Speaker 4: about twenty five, and we know that these confessions, these
15:36
Speaker 4: false confessions, happen so frequently with teenagers because you don't
15:41
Speaker 4: have enough life experience at that point to be able
15:43
Speaker 4: to draw on, to be able to rationalize and say, well,
15:48
Speaker 4: he can't really take me and kill me and dump
15:51
Speaker 4: my body, because the rational mind would say, well, that
15:54
Speaker 4: can't happen because my mom saw them come and take me.
15:57
Speaker 4: But then again, who knows how you would react. Anybody
16:00
Speaker 4: in that situation would be in a state of complete disorientation,
16:05
Speaker 4: which is exactly what they were after.
16:06
Speaker 2: Right.
16:07
Speaker 4: They were well aware that you couldn't withstand as a
16:10
Speaker 4: teenage boy with no experience probably with this type of
16:14
Speaker 4: violence or mental pressure, psychological pressure. They knew that they
16:20
Speaker 4: were going to be able to get you to say
16:22
Speaker 4: almost anything if they took these tactics. And what happened.
16:26
Speaker 4: Did they give you a piece of paper to sign?
16:28
Speaker 4: Is that what the next thing was? And how I mean,
16:31
Speaker 4: how long we were in there? At what point did you
16:32
Speaker 4: get a lawyer? Did they ever ask you if you
16:34
Speaker 4: wanted a lawyer.
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Speaker 2: Well, let me just say this, Jason, before I get
16:37
Speaker 2: to answering that part of your question. Everything that you
16:40
Speaker 2: just said is absolutely true. You hit it right on
16:43
Speaker 2: the head. New York had a technique that they call
16:46
Speaker 2: the read technique where detectives basically questioned an individual to
16:51
Speaker 2: find out whether he's telling the truth or he's lying,
16:53
Speaker 2: and if they believe that he's lying, then they start
16:55
Speaker 2: asking him questions as he's guilty, just to make him
16:59
Speaker 2: to confess because they don't believe. In my case, they
17:02
Speaker 2: didn't do any of that. This detective here, from the beginning,
17:05
Speaker 2: he just said that I was lying and then transition
17:08
Speaker 2: into beating me up, which he wasn't supposed to do
17:10
Speaker 2: yet he violated that. Now when I say that he
17:13
Speaker 2: was threatening to take my life, yeah, that's absolutely true.
17:16
Speaker 2: A teenager like myself at that time, at that age,
17:20
Speaker 2: eighteen years old, Yeah, my mind wasn't fully developed, right,
17:25
Speaker 2: But I truly believe that any individual who has been
17:28
Speaker 2: threatened with their lives being taken, I don't care how
17:31
Speaker 2: old you are, right, is scared for their life. That
17:34
Speaker 2: those individuals that are physically pounding on you are going
17:38
Speaker 2: to kill you because they say that's exactly what they're
17:40
Speaker 2: going to do, whether you're eighteen or fifty. And anybody
17:43
Speaker 2: that would say, well, why would you confess to something
17:45
Speaker 2: that you didn't do, my question to them will be
17:48
Speaker 2: why wouldn't you confess? It's exactly to what I just
17:51
Speaker 2: mentioned when somebody's threatening to kill your life.
17:53
Speaker 4: And not only that, but you add to it the
17:55
Speaker 4: fact that I imagine you grew up like I grew up,
17:58
Speaker 4: thinking that the police were there to protect you, right,
18:01
Speaker 4: and you respect the police right, and they respect you,
18:04
Speaker 4: and you know it says right on the side of
18:05
Speaker 4: the car, to protect and serve right. And I think
18:08
Speaker 4: most police that is the approach that they take. But
18:11
Speaker 4: then there's bad ones, and the bad ones like this
18:13
Speaker 4: guy Gonzalez, who we know was responsible for extracting the
18:17
Speaker 4: false confessions in the Central Park Geogra case, the notorious
18:20
Speaker 4: Central Park Jogra case. He's one of those guys who
18:23
Speaker 4: obviously just didn't give a fuck. It's really hard for
18:26
Speaker 4: us who are what do you want to call it,
18:29
Speaker 4: empathetic human beings. It's hard for us to really imagine
18:34
Speaker 4: what could cause somebody to go so far wrong to
18:38
Speaker 4: take somebody. They had no idea, they had no evidence.
18:41
Speaker 4: There was no evidence with you. There's nothing connecting you
18:44
Speaker 4: to this case. There wasn't even anybody at this point
18:46
Speaker 4: saying that you did it. I don't believe there was
18:48
Speaker 4: just this guy who said, I know this guy Johnny
18:51
Speaker 4: and Gtpia, I have his phone number in my phone
18:53
Speaker 4: whatever and not my phone right.
18:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, But by the time they took me to Precinct,
18:58
Speaker 2: they already had the fashion of the individual that stabbed
19:02
Speaker 2: Brian Watkins and killed him, so they knew who had
19:04
Speaker 2: killed him. But, like you said, aside from being over
19:08
Speaker 2: zealous or any other elements that you want to include,
19:11
Speaker 2: from racism and just being biased and whatsoever, this detective
19:16
Speaker 2: just wanted to move up the ladder and didn't care
19:19
Speaker 2: for him whether I was telling the truth or not.
19:22
Speaker 2: He just wanted to tag me along with everybody else,
19:25
Speaker 2: only because one individual knew me.
19:27
Speaker 4: Right, knew you. But to your knowledge at that point
19:30
Speaker 4: in time, had any of the other individuals implicated you
19:33
Speaker 4: in the crime. No, So that's just such a random
19:36
Speaker 4: and terrible twist of fate that they just decided because
19:40
Speaker 4: at some point somebody had to say, well, let's go
19:41
Speaker 4: pick him up. Well, well, let's not go pick that
19:43
Speaker 4: guy up. He we don't know anything about him. We
19:45
Speaker 4: go pick him up for it doesn't make any sense.
19:47
Speaker 4: So from that to beating this false confession out of you,
19:52
Speaker 4: literally beating it out of you, and we know, literally
19:54
Speaker 4: beating it into me, right, beating it into you, threatening
19:57
Speaker 4: you with death. Now all of a sudden, you're in
19:59
Speaker 4: the system, you've confessed, You're not going home, you're not
20:02
Speaker 4: going anywhere. You're going to trial. And that trial was
20:06
Speaker 4: a circus, let's face it, right, I mean, this was
20:09
Speaker 4: the biggest news in New York. And you were tried
20:12
Speaker 4: with some of the other kids together, right.
20:14
Speaker 2: Yes, there was two trials and I was tried in
20:18
Speaker 2: the first trial. Interesting before I was taken to the
20:22
Speaker 2: priest and there was one individual that participated in the
20:25
Speaker 2: crime and made a confession and said to them that
20:28
Speaker 2: I wasn't even there. So everybody that he knew that
20:31
Speaker 2: participated in the crime, he mentioned that. He said six
20:34
Speaker 2: people committed the crime, not and two people left. And
20:38
Speaker 2: those two people that left that went out with everybody
20:41
Speaker 2: else that got to that train station was Johnny and Kevin.
20:46
Speaker 2: So Johnny and Kevin had left. You had the district attorney.
20:49
Speaker 2: The ADA kept on trying to implicate me, and this
20:53
Speaker 2: individual kept on correcting the ADA, and he said, no,
20:55
Speaker 2: Johnny was not there. It was only six of us,
20:57
Speaker 2: not eight of us. They did it about practicing me
20:59
Speaker 2: around six times, and this individual was separated from trial
21:05
Speaker 2: then placed in the second trial because the ADA and
21:07
Speaker 2: the judge decided that they didn't want the jury to
21:11
Speaker 2: hear my exportory information from him to them, so they
21:17
Speaker 2: kept them away from me so the jury couldn't hear this.
21:20
Speaker 2: And they tried me along with other individuals. Where a
21:24
Speaker 2: jury looking at a group of guys say, you know,
21:26
Speaker 2: everybody's guilty.
21:27
Speaker 4: Right, because the jury, the psychology of a jury would
21:30
Speaker 4: seem to be that if there's four of you together
21:32
Speaker 4: and the other three guys, were the other three guys
21:35
Speaker 4: all guilty, guys, yeah on your side, right, So there
21:38
Speaker 4: was there was three in you, so you're guilty by association, literally,
21:42
Speaker 4: and the idea that they're going well justice, Most people
21:45
Speaker 4: think going into the jury box, the justice system works.
21:48
Speaker 4: If they got these guys here, they must be the guys.
21:50
Speaker 4: This is a terrible crime. Everybody can relate to this.
21:53
Speaker 4: Poor families ordeal. You're there must be a reason, right,
21:58
Speaker 4: must be a reason. So you are ultimately convicted and
22:14
Speaker 4: sentenced to twenty five.
22:16
Speaker 2: Years to life only due to a false confession, like
22:20
Speaker 2: you said, no weapon, no knowledge, no malice, harbored, no identification,
22:27
Speaker 2: no DNA, nothing but a false confession.
22:31
Speaker 4: Not one witness placed you at the scene, no one,
22:33
Speaker 4: not the family, no one, nobody.
22:36
Speaker 2: Amazing false confession and sentenced to the same exact sentence
22:40
Speaker 2: that everyone else in my case received, including the individual
22:44
Speaker 2: that killed the victim in this case.
22:46
Speaker 4: So you know, I'm getting the chills now thinking about this,
22:48
Speaker 4: and now you're here to share the truth that these
22:53
Speaker 4: false confessions are a plague that we have in our
22:56
Speaker 4: justice system, and you know, we're making great progress in
23:01
Speaker 4: terms of New York State just passed finally mandatory videotaping
23:05
Speaker 4: of interrogations.
23:06
Speaker 2: Kushell was a part of Proud to say.
23:09
Speaker 4: I know you were, and I'm glad you mentioned that,
23:11
Speaker 4: because nobody could deny you the right to do anything
23:14
Speaker 4: that you want after what you've been through, But instead
23:17
Speaker 4: you and almost every other wrongfully convicted person I know,
23:21
Speaker 4: spends a huge amount of your time and energy fighting
23:25
Speaker 4: to prevent future wrongful convictions for people that you don't
23:27
Speaker 4: even know, right, It's an amazing thing how you're able
23:32
Speaker 4: to channel that impossibly horrible experience into something so positive.
23:38
Speaker 4: And yeah, so my hat's off to you for helping
23:40
Speaker 4: with that effort, because just that simple change is going
23:44
Speaker 4: to make such a big difference. Do you think if
23:48
Speaker 4: your interrogation had been videotaped, is there any possibility of
23:53
Speaker 4: a jury could convict you?
23:54
Speaker 2: Absolutely not.
23:55
Speaker 4: Like, let's imagine this. Let's imagine that prosecutor goes up
23:58
Speaker 4: in the courtroom and is playing the video and here, oh,
24:01
Speaker 4: what did he hit him with? There? Was that a
24:02
Speaker 4: left or a right?
24:03
Speaker 2: Right?
24:04
Speaker 4: Oh, he's handcuffed a chair. Oh now he's just threatened
24:06
Speaker 4: to kill him. And the jury's gonna go, wait, what
24:11
Speaker 4: you can't do that. Everybody knows you can't do that,
24:14
Speaker 4: And of course you would confess. When I interviewed Raymond
24:16
Speaker 4: Santana on the show, and he explained, you know, going
24:19
Speaker 4: through a scenario different than yours, but similar. His was
24:23
Speaker 4: more psychological torture than anything else. But he was fourteen
24:27
Speaker 4: and his interrogation went on, I mean, with no sleep
24:29
Speaker 4: and no food and no nothing, and just for a long,
24:32
Speaker 4: long time, and they did threaten to kill him. I
24:35
Speaker 4: said to him, by the end of it, you would
24:36
Speaker 4: have confessed to kidnapping the Lindbergh baby. He says, absolutely
24:40
Speaker 4: anything to make it stop, right, And I imagine that's
24:42
Speaker 4: probably true for you too.
24:44
Speaker 2: You know. And that's interesting that you say that, because
24:46
Speaker 2: it only goes to show how powerful these techniques and
24:49
Speaker 2: tactics are when used in getting someone to make a
24:53
Speaker 2: false confession. Because most false confessions they have individuals there
24:58
Speaker 2: anywhere from five to ten to fifteen hours. With me,
25:03
Speaker 2: that wasn't even the case. I was there for four hours,
25:06
Speaker 2: and in those four hours I confessed immediately because they
25:10
Speaker 2: put their hands on me. This detective Casey physically beat
25:14
Speaker 2: me up. I was just eighteen for three months, no
25:19
Speaker 2: trouble with the law, had no criminal record whatsoever. This
25:23
Speaker 2: is my first time inside a police precinct and, like
25:28
Speaker 2: you said, looking up to police officers, being taught and
25:32
Speaker 2: raised by my parents to trust in them when anything
25:36
Speaker 2: goes wrong, if you had any questions, you stop a
25:38
Speaker 2: police officer in the middle of the street and ask
25:41
Speaker 2: him for help. And yet inside this precinct, I'm being
25:45
Speaker 2: beat up and threatened to die, of course exactly.
25:50
Speaker 4: You weren't a thug, you weren't a street kid, you
25:51
Speaker 4: weren't even a fighter. You're an artistic guy, right, You're
25:54
Speaker 4: a guy who was doing music. I know you got
25:56
Speaker 4: into theater and dancing and things like that. My mind
26:00
Speaker 4: is exploding just thinking about what you were going through.
26:03
Speaker 4: And it's so.
26:05
Speaker 2: And let me just give you a little interesting fact.
26:08
Speaker 2: If you would have saw a picture of me, like
26:11
Speaker 2: a week before or a couple of days before I
26:14
Speaker 2: was taken into that precinct, and then you look at
26:16
Speaker 2: the video tape confession. I had long hair back then,
26:20
Speaker 2: not very long, but long that I was growing, and
26:24
Speaker 2: it was pushed back, and on the side of my
26:26
Speaker 2: head you saw two ball spots from the way that
26:30
Speaker 2: the detective was pulling my hair out. And you would
26:34
Speaker 2: think that showing this video tape confession to a jury,
26:37
Speaker 2: they would see the truth and how this detective beat
26:41
Speaker 2: me up. But back then, nobody did not know anything
26:44
Speaker 2: about false confessions. So introducing a confession to a jury,
26:48
Speaker 2: they're believing it immediately and disregarding the physical abuse and
26:53
Speaker 2: signs on my head of what took place.
26:55
Speaker 4: Did your lawyer bring that up? Of course, he did,
26:58
Speaker 4: so you had a competent attorney.
27:01
Speaker 2: Well, I wouldn't say competent, but he brought it up
27:05
Speaker 2: to a minimal factor, you know, because he was really
27:08
Speaker 2: arguing another issue in my case more than this, because
27:11
Speaker 2: he believed that, no matter how much I wanted to
27:13
Speaker 2: take the stand, because I was eighteen and experience, that
27:19
Speaker 2: the DA having this false confession was going to walk
27:22
Speaker 2: all over me on that stand and prove to the
27:25
Speaker 2: jury that that confession was to be taken to its veracity.
27:29
Speaker 4: It probably would have to. I mean, I don't think
27:31
Speaker 4: there was any good answer to that situation. I think
27:33
Speaker 4: you were doomed before you walked into that courtroom. So
27:37
Speaker 4: you end up being convicted and sentenced to twenty five
27:41
Speaker 4: years to life. And what prison did they take you
27:44
Speaker 4: to at that point.
27:45
Speaker 2: Well, after I left Rikers Island, which, let me just say,
27:48
Speaker 2: Rykers Island back then was atrocious. It was a hell hole.
27:54
Speaker 2: I literally literally went through hell every single day in
27:59
Speaker 2: Rikers Island. From the moment that I got there, I
28:02
Speaker 2: was told that if I wanted to stay alive, I
28:05
Speaker 2: had it to fight. And the thing about it is
28:09
Speaker 2: that the first people that were attacking me in Rikers
28:13
Speaker 2: Island was the very CEOs, the very correction officers. So
28:17
Speaker 2: to fight a correction officer that has the power and
28:20
Speaker 2: already going through this transition of being beat up by
28:23
Speaker 2: a detective from the police department, I was afraid to
28:27
Speaker 2: fight back. I didn't know how to fight back.
28:30
Speaker 4: What are you supposed to do? I'm going to fight
28:32
Speaker 4: a correction officer that doesn't even make any sense. And
28:33
Speaker 4: you're not I mean you're not a small guy. You're
28:35
Speaker 4: not a big guy either. I mean you're not like.
28:37
Speaker 2: Back then, I weighed one hundred and fifty.
28:39
Speaker 4: Pounds exactly right. So what'd you do?
28:43
Speaker 2: I just took the beating. I took the beating. I
28:46
Speaker 2: cried all night behind it, and every single day I
28:49
Speaker 2: was harassed by correction officers no matter where I went
28:53
Speaker 2: because of the notoriety of my case, and it was
28:55
Speaker 2: all over the news for so long, and correction officers
28:59
Speaker 2: just kept on bringing it up against me until it
29:01
Speaker 2: got to the point where they got other inmates and
29:05
Speaker 2: Rikers Onland to attack me. And that's where I decided
29:09
Speaker 2: to put my hands up and fight back to the
29:12
Speaker 2: best of my ability. But at the end of the day,
29:15
Speaker 2: that placed there you know, a lot of people they
29:18
Speaker 2: were fighting with razors and knives, and I didn't know
29:21
Speaker 2: how to hold one, and I was afraid to even
29:24
Speaker 2: use one. So when they used to pull out their
29:27
Speaker 2: knives and their raisers, I used to just comply and
29:29
Speaker 2: tell them, what do you want? What are you asking
29:31
Speaker 2: here for? Or if they were slapping me or kicking me,
29:34
Speaker 2: or I just took it. I didn't want no cuts
29:36
Speaker 2: in my face. I didn't want to be stabbed. I
29:39
Speaker 2: was afraid. I was alone. I was eighteen, and I
29:42
Speaker 2: didn't know how to deal with it. So I dealt
29:44
Speaker 2: with with all the fear in the world that I
29:47
Speaker 2: was going through. And until I went upstate to the
29:50
Speaker 2: state prison, it was the same treatment because although the
29:54
Speaker 2: notoriety wasn't the same, but you know, you had now
29:59
Speaker 2: a record and a file that was created by the
30:02
Speaker 2: District Attorney's office and the New York City Department of
30:05
Speaker 2: Corrections that was following me upstate, and this file was
30:09
Speaker 2: like a red flag making me sound like I'm the
30:12
Speaker 2: worst of the worst. And you're keep in mind, I
30:14
Speaker 2: wasn't even in the individual that took this victim's life.
30:18
Speaker 2: They had me charged as an accomplice, Yet I'm being
30:23
Speaker 2: treated like if I was the perpetrator in this case.
30:26
Speaker 2: So even upstate, where there's even more bias and more racism,
30:32
Speaker 2: I still went through a lot of more horror. I
30:34
Speaker 2: was placed in segregation, I was set up with weapons.
30:39
Speaker 2: Just be shown how easily I could have been in
30:42
Speaker 2: segregation for years. They also had other inmates attempted to
30:47
Speaker 2: do things and ended up getting me into segregation again.
30:51
Speaker 2: So agony, my hell hole for so many years did
30:58
Speaker 2: not go away.
31:00
Speaker 4: How did you maintain I mean, it's a miracle you
31:04
Speaker 4: maintained your physical wellbeing. I mean, the fact that you're
31:07
Speaker 4: here is a miracle. How did you maintain your sanity?
31:11
Speaker 4: How did you maintain your hope? I mean, because somehow
31:14
Speaker 4: or other, you managed to get to this place where
31:16
Speaker 4: you are now an exonerated man. Everyone knows you're innocent.
31:20
Speaker 4: How do you do that? The scenario your painting is
31:24
Speaker 4: so so grim, so terribly dark, and like it's everybody's
31:30
Speaker 4: worst nightmare.
31:31
Speaker 2: Literally, when I was in there, I was very angry
31:35
Speaker 2: and very bitter, and I saw so many individuals doing
31:41
Speaker 2: what they were doing to me, doing to other individuals
31:44
Speaker 2: for other reasons. Jailhouse prison reasons, whether it dealt with jealousy, drugs,
31:50
Speaker 2: or hatred, envy, whatever it was. But the difference was
31:54
Speaker 2: that I saw a lot of these individuals that I
31:57
Speaker 2: was being told stories about them, or even seeing them
32:00
Speaker 2: with my own eyes, how they were turning into other
32:03
Speaker 2: beings that they were never to begin with in the
32:07
Speaker 2: first place. A lot of them were turning into animals
32:10
Speaker 2: or were turning into the darkest, worst criminals that they
32:15
Speaker 2: were becoming inside of a prison. And when I saw that,
32:19
Speaker 2: I said to myself that, no matter how much I'm
32:22
Speaker 2: trying to defend myself and fight for my life in
32:25
Speaker 2: prison from two different parties, the CEOs and the inmates,
32:31
Speaker 2: I'm not like that. That's not who my parents raised
32:34
Speaker 2: me to be, and I don't want to become that.
32:37
Speaker 2: And I just had like an awakening and a conscientious
32:41
Speaker 2: moment where I thought about my family. I thought about
32:45
Speaker 2: those simple words when they tell you I love you,
32:49
Speaker 2: we will always love you, we're your family, and we'll
32:52
Speaker 2: always be here for you. And those things used to
32:57
Speaker 2: bleed tears in my heart, just reminding me of who
33:02
Speaker 2: my family was and how did I end up in
33:04
Speaker 2: there in the first place. Why was I there, I
33:08
Speaker 2: asked God and everybody, and I couldnot get the answer
33:12
Speaker 2: for so many years, so I didn't know how to
33:15
Speaker 2: deal with that. But because of that moment, I decided,
33:19
Speaker 2: you know what, I'm just going to fight in a
33:22
Speaker 2: different way, and it's not gonna be with my fist.
33:25
Speaker 2: It's not gonna be with my fist because I got
33:28
Speaker 2: to focus on my innocence here and I turned into
33:32
Speaker 2: education and I did everything that I could, go to
33:35
Speaker 2: the law library and write numerous letters to so many
33:39
Speaker 2: different law firms and law professors and organizations and even
33:44
Speaker 2: clergy asking for all different types of help. And yet
33:48
Speaker 2: all of my letters were being rejected or nobody wanted
33:52
Speaker 2: to help me because I had no evidence at that
33:54
Speaker 2: time to prove my innocence, nor did I have the
33:56
Speaker 2: financial resources to hire anybody to help me. And education, yes,
34:03
Speaker 2: along with my family support, and yeah, a spiritual awakening
34:08
Speaker 2: as well. I mean, anybody in my opinion that would
34:11
Speaker 2: say that they never had a spiritual awakening in prison,
34:15
Speaker 2: I would say that's a bunch of bs. No matter
34:18
Speaker 2: what gangst the role or hardcore role they want to play.
34:21
Speaker 2: To anybody and tell them how much of a big
34:25
Speaker 2: mato man. They were. When you're locked inside a cell
34:29
Speaker 2: and that CEOs turn that key and turn off the lights,
34:33
Speaker 2: and you're thereby yourself in four walls in the dark
34:37
Speaker 2: and eight x ten cell doing twenty five to life,
34:40
Speaker 2: the only person you can turn to is God. So yes,
34:45
Speaker 2: I did have that awakening in all those different realms
34:50
Speaker 2: of life, and that was the only thing that I
34:53
Speaker 2: was hanging on to, the only thing that I was
34:56
Speaker 2: clinging on to that kept on giving me that hope
34:59
Speaker 2: and faith.
35:08
Speaker 4: What happened to eventually unravel this mess? I mean, because
35:13
Speaker 4: it's a very difficult thing. Your case was not a
35:17
Speaker 4: DNA case. I mean, all the cases are difficult, but
35:19
Speaker 4: at least if it was a DNA case where you
35:21
Speaker 4: could prove that you weren't there, right, because DNA, we
35:25
Speaker 4: know it's science, it's pure science. And in this case,
35:29
Speaker 4: you had a higher degree of difficulty even to prove
35:31
Speaker 4: it because you weren't convicted based on evidence. So you
35:33
Speaker 4: can't prove that the evidence is fault because there was
35:35
Speaker 4: no evidence in the first place. So and as you said,
35:38
Speaker 4: you weren't a wealthy guy. You couldn't hire a lawyer,
35:41
Speaker 4: you couldn't attract a lawyer because they look at the
35:43
Speaker 4: case and they go, well, so how did it break.
35:47
Speaker 2: Well, my parents and my child did hire an attorney,
35:50
Speaker 2: but after that they just can't afford what these attorneys
35:53
Speaker 2: wanted to take my case. They wanted to charge anywhere
35:56
Speaker 2: over six figures, and my parents basically sold the house
36:01
Speaker 2: that we lived in. They closed down the businesses that
36:04
Speaker 2: they had to take this money to hire the attorney
36:06
Speaker 2: that supposedly was representing me in the beginning, which all
36:10
Speaker 2: he did was just railroad me and take my family's money.
36:13
Speaker 2: So all these years of my family going to visit
36:15
Speaker 2: me in prison, the trips, the tolls, whatever food or
36:20
Speaker 2: packages they could bring me, this was a financial stretch
36:24
Speaker 2: for them else exactly. And this keep in mind that, yeah,
36:30
Speaker 2: I'm innocent. Here there was a victim in my case,
36:33
Speaker 2: a victim that did not deserve to die. He should
36:36
Speaker 2: have never died. This crime should have never taken the place.
36:40
Speaker 2: But the one thing that I can't get over is
36:43
Speaker 2: that I don't know how this sounds, but because of
36:48
Speaker 2: the actions of someone else, and because of Brian Walkins's death,
36:52
Speaker 2: I too became a victim. I became a victim where again,
36:56
Speaker 2: there was no evidence. Nobody wanted to help me, nobody
36:59
Speaker 2: wanted to believe me. So while I was in the
37:02
Speaker 2: theater program, there was a woman that approached me. I
37:06
Speaker 2: was casted as Tony for Westside Story and she was
37:10
Speaker 2: my music coach, my vocal coach, and she said, you know,
37:14
Speaker 2: what are you doing here? You don't look like you
37:15
Speaker 2: belong here. And I said, it's a long story. I'll
37:18
Speaker 2: tell you another day. And eventually I told her, But
37:20
Speaker 2: unbeknownst to me, she winded up contacting a good friend
37:23
Speaker 2: of her who was a retired police officer, and he
37:27
Speaker 2: told her, I said, this is a job for Bill Hughes.
37:31
Speaker 2: And Bill Hughes at the time was working for the
37:34
Speaker 2: Journal News up in Westchester County and he was like
37:37
Speaker 2: a man that exposed the corruption of judges, ada's and
37:42
Speaker 2: police officers. That was his forte. So he decided to
37:45
Speaker 2: visit me in one of the shows that I was
37:47
Speaker 2: in the theater and he started digging into my case
37:51
Speaker 2: and he told me in the beginning, he said, listen,
37:53
Speaker 2: because you had no evidence, I didn't really believe you.
37:55
Speaker 2: But the more I started digging into your case and
37:58
Speaker 2: I saw these flaws and loopoe, it started making me
38:01
Speaker 2: more interested. So he wrote an article that was printed
38:04
Speaker 2: in City Limits magazine here in Manhattan, in New York City,
38:09
Speaker 2: and because of that article, the ex commissioner of the
38:13
Speaker 2: New York State Division of Parole, Robert Dennison, decided to
38:18
Speaker 2: get involved with him, and between the both of them,
38:20
Speaker 2: they just started conducting their own investigation until they found
38:24
Speaker 2: evidence with witnesses and letters that actually proved my innocence.
38:31
Speaker 2: And that was the reason why New York State judged
38:34
Speaker 2: throughout my conviction.
38:35
Speaker 4: So they were like your angels pretty much right, yes,
38:38
Speaker 4: so in the way your prayers were answered, I suppose.
38:40
Speaker 2: Right, yes, they were answered. It took twenty five years.
38:45
Speaker 2: You know, I'm just glad that I didn't die in there,
38:49
Speaker 2: because I can't even tell you how many days I
38:55
Speaker 2: used to wake up in the morning and ask myself
38:58
Speaker 2: the same question over and over and over, you know,
39:01
Speaker 2: is this today? Do I want to live? Or do
39:04
Speaker 2: I want to die? And there was a moment when
39:07
Speaker 2: I was on my fifteenth year of being incarcerated, all
39:10
Speaker 2: my appeals were denied, nobody wanted to help me, and
39:13
Speaker 2: I just got down on my knees inside my cell
39:15
Speaker 2: and I started crying. Out to God and I told God,
39:18
Speaker 2: I said, listen, please take my life away, because I
39:20
Speaker 2: can't take this anymore. I can't do this time. I
39:25
Speaker 2: didn't do this, you know, I didn't do this, and
39:27
Speaker 2: I can't be here. I don't want to do this anymore.
39:30
Speaker 2: Who would, I said to him. All I wanted was
39:33
Speaker 2: just to wake up the next morning in heaven. I
39:37
Speaker 2: didn't have the guts to take my own life. I
39:40
Speaker 2: couldn't do the suicide, but I wanted him to do
39:42
Speaker 2: it for me. And the next morning, when I woke up,
39:47
Speaker 2: I saw those bars in front of me, and I
39:50
Speaker 2: was so mad at God. I was so pissed at
39:52
Speaker 2: him because I was still there. There was a miraculous
39:55
Speaker 2: turn that took place in my life because since then,
40:00
Speaker 2: every single door opened up. And that's when Bill Hughes
40:02
Speaker 2: and Robert Dennison got involved in my case and everything
40:06
Speaker 2: just went perfectly. I really couldn't believe it. It took
40:09
Speaker 2: again twenty five years, but everything worked out so smoothly.
40:12
Speaker 2: That led to my innocence.
40:14
Speaker 4: And I'm glad you brought that up to Johnny, because
40:17
Speaker 4: there are people listening who are in a position to
40:21
Speaker 4: make a difference like that. To take a call, to
40:23
Speaker 4: take a letter, to take a case like yours, and
40:27
Speaker 4: while at the outset they all look borderline hopeless. I
40:30
Speaker 4: have a saying that pertains to this, which is that
40:32
Speaker 4: I've seen too many miracles to stop believing in miracles.
40:36
Speaker 4: At the end of the day, it really comes down
40:37
Speaker 4: to one person. The impact that any of us can make,
40:43
Speaker 4: which these two individuals did in your case, it's really profound.
40:48
Speaker 4: I mean, how somebody can come along and really rescue
40:55
Speaker 4: somebody like you who needs help as badly as anyone
40:59
Speaker 4: can have or need help in this fight. It's hard
41:02
Speaker 4: to think of anybody who's more sort of alone and
41:06
Speaker 4: more desperately in need of somebody to come along and
41:10
Speaker 4: be that angel than somebody who's wrongfully convicted like yourself.
41:13
Speaker 4: And there's so many of you out there, right, there's
41:16
Speaker 4: so many people who've been wronged by this justice or
41:19
Speaker 4: injustice system, whatever you want to call it, that it
41:22
Speaker 4: hurts my soul. Now you're here, you ultimately were freed.
41:26
Speaker 4: What was that experience? Like this is the flip side now?
41:28
Speaker 2: Right?
41:29
Speaker 4: So when I mean I as much as you can't
41:32
Speaker 4: imagine how the desperation and the misery and the total
41:36
Speaker 4: shock of being wrongfully convicted. What's it like when that
41:40
Speaker 4: foot finally comes off your neck?
41:42
Speaker 2: For me? From my mother, from my family, all the
41:45
Speaker 2: reporters there. It was a very warm, yet subtle, loud moment,
41:54
Speaker 2: just seeing that embracing taking place after so long, knowing
41:58
Speaker 2: that I wasn't going to go back again, and seeing
42:02
Speaker 2: the two investigators there, which I finally said to myself,
42:08
Speaker 2: you know, like a realization popped in my head. Immediately said.
42:12
Speaker 2: The two people that I'm looking up to right now
42:15
Speaker 2: is these two investigators, Robert Dennison and Bill Hughes, and
42:20
Speaker 2: we need more people like that. When you ask my
42:24
Speaker 2: emotions of walking out, I felt valued again. I felt
42:31
Speaker 2: like I had worth again as a human being, something
42:35
Speaker 2: that was taken away from me from the moment that
42:38
Speaker 2: I was incarcerated. You can be rich, you can be intelligent,
42:42
Speaker 2: you could be nice and good looking, but if you
42:45
Speaker 2: don't have ethics in this world, you're never going to
42:48
Speaker 2: do the right thing. All those things are worth nothing,
42:52
Speaker 2: and we need people to do the right thing. We
42:54
Speaker 2: need people to have these ethics, to have this courage.
42:58
Speaker 2: Someone writes a letter like I did, they would want
43:02
Speaker 2: to respond, especially when I didn't receive any response and
43:06
Speaker 2: people were turning me down. We need these type of people.
43:10
Speaker 2: So yes, I felt like I had worth and I
43:13
Speaker 2: had value in my life again. Walking out of that courthouse,
43:17
Speaker 2: I was so overjoyed that I felt I don't know
43:22
Speaker 2: what words or emotions, but I just felt so happy
43:26
Speaker 2: that I think that all my worries of dying in
43:30
Speaker 2: prison were gone now. But nonetheless being out here and
43:37
Speaker 2: speaking constantly, protesting in city Hall and in New York
43:41
Speaker 2: State legislature, speaking against false confessions, asking for these cameras
43:46
Speaker 2: to be placed in in DC interrogations room, and even
43:49
Speaker 2: right now speaking about my story my release in the
43:53
Speaker 2: last eighteen months has been extremely hard for me. I
43:58
Speaker 2: constantly remind myself of what I went through every time
44:02
Speaker 2: I speak about this, and this is not easy. Why
44:06
Speaker 2: would an individual like myself that came home after twenty
44:10
Speaker 2: five years and there's nothing waiting for him, no job,
44:13
Speaker 2: there's nobody saying, okay, we're gonna help you here. Yet
44:16
Speaker 2: everybody that is a convicted felon, they have some form
44:20
Speaker 2: of transitional re entry process to go to, but there's
44:23
Speaker 2: nothing for an innocent individual to go to or nor
44:26
Speaker 2: source of help or assistance. This has been extremely crucial
44:31
Speaker 2: for me, extremely hard for me, difficult. I've had nightmares
44:35
Speaker 2: waking up about prison again, and no matter how hard
44:39
Speaker 2: I try to put this behind me, I still haven't
44:42
Speaker 2: found that piece, no matter how much love my family
44:45
Speaker 2: give me, because they don't know how to guide me
44:49
Speaker 2: through this process. They can give me all the hugs,
44:52
Speaker 2: kisses and affection in the world, but they don't know
44:54
Speaker 2: how to help me. And I don't know how long
44:58
Speaker 2: is it gonna take. I don't know how long is
45:00
Speaker 2: it going to take? Until you know, I continue fighting
45:04
Speaker 2: and fighting and getting more things accomplished with the help
45:07
Speaker 2: of the Innos Project and so many other networks of organizations.
45:11
Speaker 2: I don't know when I'm going to receive that sigh
45:14
Speaker 2: of happiness. But from the moment, you would think that
45:17
Speaker 2: freedom is nice. It is nice because I would rather
45:19
Speaker 2: be out here than in there. But it's hard. It's
45:23
Speaker 2: very hard.
45:25
Speaker 4: What are you doing now day to day? Like, aside
45:28
Speaker 4: from advocating and working for justice reform, what's your daily life?
45:34
Speaker 2: Like?
45:34
Speaker 4: You wake up and I was staying.
45:36
Speaker 2: With my parents in the beginning, and when I came home,
45:39
Speaker 2: you know, while I was in prison, just keep in mind,
45:42
Speaker 2: I did everything in my power when I said to
45:44
Speaker 2: educate myself. I facilitated classes, went through the theater program,
45:48
Speaker 2: and I even got myself a master's degree. I had
45:51
Speaker 2: high aspirations when I came home, and I wanted to
45:54
Speaker 2: get myself a good job. But nobody really cared with
45:57
Speaker 2: all the bias, you know, whether I was innocent or not.
46:00
Speaker 2: They just didn't want to formally incarcerated an individual working
46:04
Speaker 2: in their working environment. So it was difficult for me
46:07
Speaker 2: to find a job, and I winded up gaining employment
46:10
Speaker 2: and a bail bond agency doing bails. So look at this, ironically,
46:14
Speaker 2: I'm going to New York City jails every single night
46:17
Speaker 2: to bail somebody out, and that has been a turmoil
46:22
Speaker 2: in a nightmare as well. That was giving me some
46:25
Speaker 2: substance of financial income, but it just wasn't enough. And
46:29
Speaker 2: it's how New York City's expensive. Right now. You know,
46:32
Speaker 2: I have my own apartment now, the money that I
46:35
Speaker 2: saved up, I got an apartment right now. But it's
46:37
Speaker 2: still very difficult. And I left that job and I'm
46:40
Speaker 2: looking for another job now. You know, again, you would
46:43
Speaker 2: think that, you know, there would be some type of
46:45
Speaker 2: network organization or a system say Okay, you know what
46:48
Speaker 2: you did twenty five years for a crime you didn't commit.
46:51
Speaker 2: We're going to help you here get back on your feet.
46:54
Speaker 2: That doesn't exist for exoneries. It's just not out there,
46:58
Speaker 2: so it even makes it more difficult.
47:00
Speaker 4: We'll talk offline about that. I may have some ideas,
47:03
Speaker 4: but before we have to sign off, I always like
47:07
Speaker 4: to ask the featured guest, honored guest, if there's any
47:11
Speaker 4: last thoughts that you want to share with the audience,
47:14
Speaker 4: get off your chest, anything at all.
47:17
Speaker 2: You know. I would say that if there were cameras
47:21
Speaker 2: all over every Prieston in New York, inside every room,
47:25
Speaker 2: because that needs to be implemented. Cameras need to be
47:30
Speaker 2: placed in every room in the police precinct because it's
47:34
Speaker 2: so easy to take someone and put them in another
47:36
Speaker 2: room when there's not a camera and still beat them
47:39
Speaker 2: up and then bring him into the interrogation when where
47:42
Speaker 2: the cameras at so he can make that false confession. So,
47:46
Speaker 2: now that we have this law passed, anybody out there listening,
47:50
Speaker 2: anybody that wants to help this be prevented and has
47:55
Speaker 2: the power to do so, needs to put these politics
47:58
Speaker 2: to the side. They need to start thinking about human
48:01
Speaker 2: beings lives here, because if that camera was there twenty
48:05
Speaker 2: five years ago, I would have never spent twenty five
48:08
Speaker 2: years in prison. And don't stop believing, don't stop believing.
48:13
Speaker 2: I know there's a lot of people out there that
48:16
Speaker 2: are believers or call themselves believers, but I would say this.
48:19
Speaker 2: A believer to me is someone that when you know
48:24
Speaker 2: nothing is out there, there's no way you can prove
48:27
Speaker 2: your innocence, and you write so many letters and you're
48:30
Speaker 2: getting all the rejection letters like I was. You know,
48:34
Speaker 2: most people would just stop. Most people were just that's sick,
48:37
Speaker 2: give up. It takes somebody to wake up morning after
48:41
Speaker 2: morning and keep on going at it, to see it
48:44
Speaker 2: there when you don't even see it there, and then
48:48
Speaker 2: to finally receive your innocence. To me, that's a believer.
48:52
Speaker 2: So I just want to share that with everybody, say
48:54
Speaker 2: don't stop believing. And that's the believers that we need
48:57
Speaker 2: out there in society today to keep on encouraging and
49:00
Speaker 2: helping with this cause here of innocent people in prison
49:03
Speaker 2: that are still in there and with false confessions.
49:08
Speaker 4: I guess it's like I say, you've seen too many
49:10
Speaker 4: miracles to stop believing in miracles too, and you are
49:12
Speaker 4: a miracle. Last question, are you on any social media?
49:15
Speaker 2: You could go on my Facebook page it's Johnny Kopia
49:19
Speaker 2: joh n n y hi ncapie and on Instagram on
49:26
Speaker 2: Johnnyincopia Dot seventy two.
49:29
Speaker 4: Follow him, learn more, get involved. We need your help.
49:33
Speaker 4: Let's make sure we minimize the future wrongful convictions.
49:44
Speaker 7: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you
49:46
Speaker 7: get your podcasts.
49:47
Speaker 3: It really helps.
49:49
Speaker 7: And I'm a proud donor to the NISNS project and
49:52
Speaker 7: I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
49:54
Speaker 7: important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go
49:58
Speaker 7: to Innocence Project to learn how to donate and get involved.
50:03
Speaker 7: I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and
50:05
Speaker 7: Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is by three
50:08
Speaker 7: time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow
50:11
Speaker 7: us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at
50:15
Speaker 7: Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is a
50:19
Speaker 7: production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal
50:23
Speaker 7: Company Number one