Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #559 Jason Flom with Ryan Ferguson

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#559 Jason Flom with Ryan Ferguson · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: I fell into the hands of a corrupt detective.
0:07
Speaker 2: I was naive enough to believe that I would be
0:10
Speaker 2: able to just present all of my proof of actual innocence,
0:13
Speaker 2: that they would investigate adequately, and so that I wouldn't
0:15
Speaker 2: be going to prison because I was a good person.
0:17
Speaker 2: I hadn't do anything wrong.
0:19
Speaker 1: In the back of your mind, you say, well, when
0:21
Speaker 1: we go to a hearing or we go to court,
0:23
Speaker 1: the truth will come out. The prosecution from day one
0:26
Speaker 1: knew I was innocent and let forced testimony go uncorrected
0:30
Speaker 1: from the lower courts all the way up to the
0:33
Speaker 1: United States Supreme Court.
0:36
Speaker 3: You have someone with a badge with ultimate and really,
0:41
Speaker 3: in that moment, unchecked authority.
0:44
Speaker 2: Don't presume that people are guilty when you see them
0:47
Speaker 2: on TV, because it may just be a dirty da
0:50
Speaker 2: that is trying to rise upward.
0:57
Speaker 4: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with
1:16
Speaker 4: Jason Flamm. Today's guest is a friend of mine. He's
1:20
Speaker 4: a remarkable human and an inspiration to everybody who knows him.
1:25
Speaker 4: And I will embarrass you, but without further ado, let
1:29
Speaker 4: me introduce you Ryan Ferguson. At just nineteen years old,
1:32
Speaker 4: Ryan Ferguson was wrongly convicted of murder. He served nearly
1:35
Speaker 4: a decade in prison.
1:37
Speaker 5: Ferguson was convicted for the brutal murder of beloved journalist
1:40
Speaker 5: ken Heidholt in two thousand and one. The crime scene
1:43
Speaker 5: outside the newspaper where he worked littered with physical evidence
1:46
Speaker 5: bloody footprints, fingerprints, and even hair, but none of it
1:49
Speaker 5: matched Ryan. Again and again, he denied knowing anything about
1:54
Speaker 5: the murder. Charles Erickson, a childhood friend of Ryan's, came
1:57
Speaker 5: forward two years after the murder, claiming he had dreamlike
2:01
Speaker 5: visions that he and Ryan committed the crime together. When
2:04
Speaker 5: police led Ericson to believe Ferguson would testify against him,
2:07
Speaker 5: Erickson said he felt pressure to confess to the murder,
2:11
Speaker 5: thinking he'd otherwise face the death. Comedy and a second witness,
2:14
Speaker 5: janitor Jerry Trump, identified Ferguson as one of two men
2:18
Speaker 5: he saw in the parking lot immediately after the murder.
2:21
Speaker 5: In the years after that two thousand and five conviction,
2:24
Speaker 5: both of those crucial prosecution witnesses recant in their testimony.
2:29
Speaker 4: On his last appeal attempt, Ryan's conviction was overturned.
2:33
Speaker 5: After a year and a half more behind Barns. Finally,
2:36
Speaker 5: and at Pellet Court overturned that ruling, finding quote newly
2:40
Speaker 5: discovered evidence clearly and convincingly establishes that he's actually innocent.
2:45
Speaker 5: And then the Missouri Attorney General's office announced it will
2:49
Speaker 5: not retry or pursue further action against Ryan Ferguson at
2:52
Speaker 5: this time, meaning Ryan Ferguson was a free man.
2:58
Speaker 4: Welcome to the show.
3:00
Speaker 6: Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be on
3:02
Speaker 6: your podcast. I remember when you when you launched it
3:05
Speaker 6: the launch party.
3:05
Speaker 3: Man, just being there was amazing, And I want to
3:07
Speaker 3: say before we start, just thank you so much for
3:10
Speaker 3: what you do for everyone, including myself. You know, you
3:13
Speaker 3: were part of my case before I got out, and uh,
3:16
Speaker 3: and that gave me a lot of hope and I
3:18
Speaker 3: appreciate that. And then you've been very supportive to myself
3:21
Speaker 3: and everyone that I know in the innocence community since
3:23
Speaker 3: I've been out, and it's just amazing to see what
3:25
Speaker 3: you do for everyone. So thank you first and foremost,
3:29
Speaker 3: and let's get this thing started.
3:31
Speaker 4: Oh well, I don't know, I gotta take a breath
3:33
Speaker 4: after that, but thank you for saying so. I uh,
3:36
Speaker 4: you know, I forget these things because you know, there's
3:38
Speaker 4: just so much to do every day. Because this is
3:41
Speaker 4: such a an epidemic in this country. You couldn't have
3:45
Speaker 4: seen this coming a million miles away. We'll talk about that, right.
3:49
Speaker 4: So you're you're from Missouri, right.
3:51
Speaker 6: Yep, from Missouri. I was born born in Australia, raised
3:54
Speaker 6: in Missouri.
3:55
Speaker 4: So you grew up in Missouri. And what was that like?
3:57
Speaker 4: I mean, you had you had a happy childhood.
3:58
Speaker 3: I had a great childhood. Grew up in Columbia, is
4:01
Speaker 3: right in the middle of Missouri. University of Missouri, college town,
4:04
Speaker 3: great town, a lot of culture, education, a lot to do,
4:09
Speaker 3: and so for me, it was a town of opportunity.
4:12
Speaker 3: I had great education. My parents, they took me all
4:15
Speaker 3: over the world. They traveled with me constantly, and I
4:19
Speaker 3: got to learn a lot about people from being in
4:21
Speaker 3: that town and from traveling and everything else.
4:22
Speaker 6: So my childhood couldn't have been any better.
4:26
Speaker 4: A close family, very close family.
4:29
Speaker 3: We were all together my whole life, and you know,
4:31
Speaker 3: it was it was like the picture book.
4:34
Speaker 6: Family, right, you know, mom, dad's sister.
4:36
Speaker 3: We had a little dog, and you know, just a
4:38
Speaker 3: little middle class existence and everyone was happy.
4:41
Speaker 6: Everything Everything was going good.
4:43
Speaker 3: And I played sports in high school and had a
4:46
Speaker 3: lot of friends and everything, and then went to college,
4:49
Speaker 3: and at that point everything was still very normal.
4:53
Speaker 4: Everything was very normal until everything went completely haywire. And
4:58
Speaker 4: you hadn't had any experience with police or arrests or
5:02
Speaker 4: authority in any way to this point.
5:04
Speaker 3: Right, Well, I had never been accused of any crimes,
5:08
Speaker 3: for sure when I was in high school. You know,
5:10
Speaker 3: it's a college town, so of course there's going to
5:12
Speaker 3: be police that show up at parties. People get mips
5:15
Speaker 3: and things of that nature. No one that I knew
5:17
Speaker 3: had ever been arrested for anything that would have put
5:19
Speaker 3: them in jail. I had never met anyone that had
5:22
Speaker 3: spent the night in jail. You know, some kids got
5:25
Speaker 3: in trouble for small things like like in most towns,
5:28
Speaker 3: but the fact of being arrested for a real crime
5:32
Speaker 3: was it didn't even exist in my world.
5:35
Speaker 4: I was so moved and angry and just upset in general.
5:41
Speaker 4: After seeing the forty eight hours piece, which was the
5:43
Speaker 4: first exposure I ever had to your case. Some of
5:46
Speaker 4: the things that stuck out for me about that piece
5:49
Speaker 4: were the idea that this was a cold case. Right
5:52
Speaker 4: It was the murder of a sports reporter and he
5:56
Speaker 4: had been beaten to death outside of his car.
5:58
Speaker 6: I guess right, yeah, outside of his work.
6:02
Speaker 4: And two and a half years later, no leads, nothing
6:07
Speaker 4: going on, right, One of the local TV stations ran
6:11
Speaker 4: one of those things that they run time to time
6:13
Speaker 4: where they had like a composite sketch. Right, did you
6:17
Speaker 4: even know about this murder when it happened? Was it
6:18
Speaker 4: big news in the area.
6:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a small town. There's about one hundred thousand people.
6:23
Speaker 3: I do recall hearing about it. You know, anything that
6:26
Speaker 3: happens in that town, like a murder, you hear about
6:29
Speaker 3: it was its big news because they don't happen that often.
6:32
Speaker 3: That was the extent of my knowledge on you know,
6:35
Speaker 3: I mean young in high school and it's like, whoa,
6:37
Speaker 3: somebody was murdered on howe any night.
6:39
Speaker 6: That's kind of creepy.
6:40
Speaker 4: So let's go back to that. Because the sports reporter,
6:43
Speaker 4: ken Heidholt was murdered in a very brutal manner. He
6:45
Speaker 4: was beaten to death with a tire iron or something
6:48
Speaker 4: like that. I don't you know if they even know
6:50
Speaker 4: to this day, but it was a heavy metal object
6:53
Speaker 4: of some sort and when that Crimesoppers piece ran, Charles
6:58
Speaker 4: Rickson was affected by it in some way. Right. He
7:02
Speaker 4: saw this on TV. He was with his friends and
7:04
Speaker 4: he had some sort of a vision or something came
7:08
Speaker 4: over him which made him say to his friends, Hey,
7:12
Speaker 4: you know, I mean I kind of look like that guy.
7:14
Speaker 4: I wonder if it could have been, if I could
7:16
Speaker 4: have been involved in so or some crazy thing like that.
7:20
Speaker 4: And then one of the friends called the cops.
7:22
Speaker 6: Right.
7:22
Speaker 4: And this is an interesting thing about your case, Ryan,
7:24
Speaker 4: because we've covered false confessions on this show, and false
7:27
Speaker 4: confessions are so terribly troubling. In your case, you were
7:32
Speaker 4: the victim of false confession, but you didn't confess. That's
7:34
Speaker 4: what's crazy about this, Right, You were implicated because somebody
7:38
Speaker 4: else who also didn't commit the crime, actually thought that
7:44
Speaker 4: maybe he did for some reason. And the brain is
7:47
Speaker 4: a strange things to memory. Who knows what came over him, right.
7:51
Speaker 3: And one of the quotes that always stuck out to
7:54
Speaker 3: me is something that Charles ericson my co defendant, the
7:57
Speaker 3: person who had these images, who ultimately testified against me,
8:01
Speaker 3: something that he said, and this is verbatim. He says,
8:04
Speaker 3: if I did it, Ryan must have been with me.
8:08
Speaker 3: And based on that, I mean, that is what starts
8:10
Speaker 3: this whole thing. Based on that, I lost ten years
8:13
Speaker 3: of my life. I was put into prison for a
8:15
Speaker 3: crime I had nothing to do with.
8:16
Speaker 4: Was there any physical evidence of any kind connecting to
8:19
Speaker 4: this case.
8:20
Speaker 3: There was no physical evidence connecting me or Charles Erickson.
8:24
Speaker 3: But the important fact is there is a lot.
8:26
Speaker 6: Of physical evidence there.
8:28
Speaker 3: You know, there's a bloody footprint, there's a hair in
8:31
Speaker 3: the victim's hand, there's a paper with a palm print.
8:35
Speaker 6: There are things.
8:35
Speaker 3: That, even to this day, could be tested to determine
8:40
Speaker 3: guilt of another individual. And the police have chosen not
8:45
Speaker 3: to look into those things. And here's what's really really
8:47
Speaker 3: frustrating is when I got out, the public was enraged.
8:51
Speaker 3: They were frustrated with what the police had done, and
8:54
Speaker 3: they said, we want to know what really happened in
8:55
Speaker 3: this case, because clearly it wasn't Ryan, it wasn't Ericson,
8:58
Speaker 3: the kid who is still to this day in prison.
9:00
Speaker 3: And so the police said, we're gonna we're gonna open
9:01
Speaker 3: this case, We're going to look back into it, We're
9:03
Speaker 3: going to see what happened here. Well, three months later,
9:06
Speaker 3: you know, in a very low key way. They're just
9:09
Speaker 3: kind of like, well, you know, we got somebody in
9:11
Speaker 3: prison for it right now, so we're not gonna we're
9:14
Speaker 3: not gonna investigate it.
9:15
Speaker 6: That's not gonna happen.
9:16
Speaker 4: Right, So the net effect if you're a resident of
9:19
Speaker 4: Columbia or Missouri or the United States, because we don't
9:22
Speaker 4: know where this guy is. This guy who is a dangerous,
9:27
Speaker 4: violent killer is out there walking amongst us. I mean,
9:30
Speaker 4: it is an outrage that they have this evidence and
9:32
Speaker 4: they won't test it. It even for me, like, my head's going,
9:36
Speaker 4: what first of all, and let's talk about this right
9:40
Speaker 4: jail because this is something that people don't focus on enough.
9:44
Speaker 4: You were in jail for a long time awaiting trial.
9:46
Speaker 4: They set bail at twenty million dollars.
9:48
Speaker 6: Right, twenty million dollars. Yeah, it was it was a
9:50
Speaker 6: jo you know. That is a in my mind, that's
9:53
Speaker 6: how publicity's the reality.
9:55
Speaker 3: The way our legal system works is if you're arrested
9:58
Speaker 3: for a very serious crime, like a murder, they can
10:01
Speaker 3: choose not to give you a bail, and they do
10:03
Speaker 3: that often, or they can give you a million dollar
10:05
Speaker 3: bail whatever. Right bail is meant so that you should
10:09
Speaker 3: have the opportunity to raise those funds and get out
10:11
Speaker 3: so you can fight your case because you have not
10:14
Speaker 3: been proven guilty. At that point, I had no bail
10:16
Speaker 3: for eight months. I went into a bail hearing and
10:19
Speaker 3: the judge out of nowhere says twenty million dollars. And
10:23
Speaker 3: so that is a different thing than saying no bail.
10:26
Speaker 3: That is a political statement. That is her saying that
10:29
Speaker 3: I endorse this case as a judge, and they're supposed
10:33
Speaker 3: to be independent. I endorse this case. I'm with the prosecutor,
10:36
Speaker 3: and we're going to take this kid and put him
10:38
Speaker 3: in prison for the rest of his life. And that
10:39
Speaker 3: is not something a judge should do. Judge Ellen Roper
10:43
Speaker 3: made a huge mistake there. I think she should be
10:45
Speaker 3: health accountable for that. And that is the politics we
10:48
Speaker 3: see with our criminal legal system in these people's lives,
10:51
Speaker 3: you know, I mean, this is my life and that
10:54
Speaker 3: judge is playing a game with it. And that is
10:56
Speaker 3: incredibly scary to see, especially at the age of nineteen
10:59
Speaker 3: or twenty, and you're just like, how is this our
11:02
Speaker 3: legal system? How is this innocent until proven guilty?
11:04
Speaker 6: Because it's not.
11:05
Speaker 4: So Yeah, and I hadn't even thought about that, because
11:08
Speaker 4: to my knowledge, your bail was the highest bail in
11:11
Speaker 4: the history of the state of Missouri.
11:13
Speaker 3: Oh, I think it's the highest in the history of
11:15
Speaker 3: the country in terms of the charge. Right, you have
11:18
Speaker 3: a charge of first agree murder, second degree robbery. There's
11:23
Speaker 3: no evidence I had never been arrested or convicted of
11:25
Speaker 3: any crime, and I'm getting a twenty million dollar bail.
11:29
Speaker 3: Here's a guy sitting next to me in the same pod,
11:32
Speaker 3: in the same county with a first agree murder charge
11:35
Speaker 3: and he is a repeat offender. In his bail for
11:39
Speaker 3: pretty much the same charge was five hundred thousand dollars.
11:43
Speaker 4: Wow. So yeah, and I hadn't even thought about it.
11:45
Speaker 4: But you're absolutely right. In fact, by setting that bail
11:49
Speaker 4: of twenty million and that going out in the press
11:53
Speaker 4: as it does, basically it's poisoning the jury pool because
11:57
Speaker 4: it's saying, hey, you know what, we can say that
12:00
Speaker 4: or this guy to be extremely dangerous, so dangerous that
12:04
Speaker 4: we're going to set the bail so high that even
12:06
Speaker 4: if its family's rich, and your family wasn't poor, but
12:09
Speaker 4: they weren't rich, So even if the family is one
12:14
Speaker 4: of the wealthiest families around, they're still not gonna be
12:16
Speaker 4: able to post it. So it's a wink wink, like
12:19
Speaker 4: we're going to keep this guy around because we know
12:21
Speaker 4: he's guilty. And that's absolutely really it's.
12:27
Speaker 6: Makes me sick.
12:27
Speaker 4: Okay, so you go to trial, you by now had
12:32
Speaker 4: been in jail for how long?
12:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've been in jail for about eighteen months at
12:37
Speaker 3: that point a year and a half. Trial was actually
12:40
Speaker 3: set and I don't think this is a coincidence. On
12:42
Speaker 3: my twenty first birthday, it was Monday through Friday, and
12:46
Speaker 3: my birthday for the twenty first birthday was Wednesday, So
12:49
Speaker 3: I'll never never forget that. And by the way, I
12:51
Speaker 3: want to mention county jail, and I think this is
12:53
Speaker 3: overlooked a lot.
12:54
Speaker 6: I think it's really interesting for people to hear.
12:56
Speaker 3: But when you're innocent until proven guilty and you're in
12:58
Speaker 3: the county jail, it is far worse than being in prison.
13:02
Speaker 3: Most guys I know, they're happy to go to prison
13:04
Speaker 3: after being in the country jet. It is a very,
13:06
Speaker 3: very poor existence. My first year in the county jail,
13:10
Speaker 3: I went outside, literally outside two times. And that is
13:15
Speaker 3: innocent until proven because I don't understand how that can be.
13:18
Speaker 3: And I went outside every time that I could, but
13:20
Speaker 3: you're literally sleep deprived. The lights never go off, you
13:24
Speaker 3: never go outside, you have no human contact with anyone
13:27
Speaker 3: outside of prison. So it's a horrible existence. But for
13:32
Speaker 3: those eighteen months before you go to trial, they're basically
13:35
Speaker 3: sucking the life out of you. And then what you're
13:37
Speaker 3: seeing in trial is a shell of a human being.
13:40
Speaker 3: So when you watch forty eight Hours or Dayline or
13:41
Speaker 3: any other show and you see these people sitting there
13:44
Speaker 3: on trial, I mean, they probably look emaciated, they probably
13:48
Speaker 3: look strange, they probably act weird, and that's because they've
13:50
Speaker 3: been in this horrific environment for so long that I mean,
13:56
Speaker 3: they have no emotions left, they've spent them all, and
13:58
Speaker 3: they haven't been eating right, they have no nutrition. So
14:03
Speaker 3: just take that into consideration when you're looking at somebody
14:05
Speaker 3: who's going through this situation. You know, you're sitting in
14:07
Speaker 3: a courtroom full of these people who are staring at you.
14:09
Speaker 3: You're in a fish bowl and you're the only fish,
14:11
Speaker 3: and people are going to do like this satanic fish
14:14
Speaker 3: or something. And not to mention in the way you
14:17
Speaker 3: were treated the last eighteen months.
14:18
Speaker 4: No, I'm glad you brought that up, Ryan, and when
14:20
Speaker 4: you described that to me, and it's not like you're
14:24
Speaker 4: comparing jail to a minimum security prison. You were in
14:26
Speaker 4: a maximum security prison, right, And jails are chaotic, I mean,
14:29
Speaker 4: among other things. And this is something that's really so
14:33
Speaker 4: horrible to think about. But they're never cleaned, right, They're
14:36
Speaker 4: always occupied and they're never cleaned. So you're in a
14:39
Speaker 4: extremely toxic, poisonous environment in so many different ways. And
14:45
Speaker 4: you're in a pressure cooker, right because you were going
14:47
Speaker 4: to sell with how many other guys.
14:48
Speaker 3: Eight guys, twenty four to seven and you know, yeah,
14:51
Speaker 3: you're right, it is a pressure cooker.
14:53
Speaker 6: I mean, you have these people.
14:54
Speaker 3: Every single one of those people's lives is on the line.
14:56
Speaker 3: They don't know what's going to happen next. They don't
14:58
Speaker 3: know if they're going to go to prison for the
14:59
Speaker 3: rest of the life. Some of them don't know if
15:00
Speaker 3: they're gonna get the death penalty.
15:02
Speaker 6: Some might get out tomorrow.
15:04
Speaker 3: And so you have all these different thoughts and feelings
15:06
Speaker 3: and emotions going on. You know, people are losing their
15:08
Speaker 3: families or they can't see their kids.
15:09
Speaker 6: Whatever it might be.
15:11
Speaker 3: And you have that on top of the fact that
15:13
Speaker 3: you can't eat right. You can't get any exercise. Really,
15:17
Speaker 3: you can't be with loved ones. There's no outlet, right,
15:21
Speaker 3: The only outlet is towards another person, and so people
15:25
Speaker 3: end up fighting and getting hurt.
15:27
Speaker 6: And you know, you don't want to be in that situation.
15:28
Speaker 3: You don't want to be forced to fight somebody for survival.
15:32
Speaker 3: But that's what they make you do. That's what they
15:34
Speaker 3: put you in a situation where there's no other options.
15:36
Speaker 3: And then when it happens, they want to charge you
15:38
Speaker 3: with another crime, like you did something wrong.
15:40
Speaker 6: Put me in the cell with my girlfriend for a year.
15:43
Speaker 3: We're gonna, you know, hate each other by the end
15:45
Speaker 3: of it, right, You can't do that, and they'd put
15:47
Speaker 3: you in there with these people who are violent criminals.
15:51
Speaker 6: You don't know each other, you don't care about each other.
15:53
Speaker 3: Yet you have to be there twenty four to seven
15:56
Speaker 3: with all that going on, all those emotions, all those feelings,
15:59
Speaker 3: and that loss of your liberty and privilege. So it
16:02
Speaker 3: is a frightening place.
16:05
Speaker 4: The claustrophobic element of it alone, right, because you're never
16:08
Speaker 4: getting out. You're not getting out of cell, right, I mean,
16:11
Speaker 4: what you've got to get out for a shower, no.
16:13
Speaker 3: Well, the thing is it's like a pod and it's
16:16
Speaker 3: very small. It's smaller than a one story home, and
16:20
Speaker 3: the showers in there, and you have a TV in
16:22
Speaker 3: there on a phone, and eight other guys, and it
16:25
Speaker 3: is The claustrophobic feeling is so intense, because even if
16:30
Speaker 3: even if you've been there for three months and you
16:32
Speaker 3: start to feel like you know the guys and you
16:33
Speaker 3: don't feel like you're in danger, that day you'll wake
16:36
Speaker 3: up and you realize I can't get up and walk
16:38
Speaker 3: out of this thing today. I can't get up and
16:40
Speaker 3: walk out of here tomorrow or next month or next year.
16:42
Speaker 3: Like I can't go anywhere but this little house. Like
16:45
Speaker 3: I can't even step foot outside see the sunlight. I
16:47
Speaker 3: can't look out a window because there are no windows.
16:50
Speaker 6: Like this is it. I can't do anything.
16:53
Speaker 3: I have no freedom, I have no choices, I have nothing,
16:56
Speaker 3: no responsibility because I can't even go work if I
16:59
Speaker 3: want to work, I can't go grab a book if
17:01
Speaker 3: I want to grab a buck.
17:01
Speaker 6: I can't do anything.
17:03
Speaker 4: There's no books in there.
17:04
Speaker 3: There are some books, but they don't come by very often. Fortunately,
17:09
Speaker 3: after a while I was able to get some books.
17:10
Speaker 3: My father was able to bring me some, but you know,
17:12
Speaker 3: they change the policies, and so for a while, they
17:15
Speaker 3: took out all the legal books. You know, I thought,
17:18
Speaker 3: at least if I got to sit here at twenty
17:19
Speaker 3: four to seven, I'll be able to read legal books.
17:21
Speaker 3: It's my constitutional right to be able to defend myself.
17:23
Speaker 3: But they took out all the legal books, so I
17:25
Speaker 3: couldn't even read that. And you know, I'm here, I'm
17:27
Speaker 3: nineteen years old. I want to prove my innocence and
17:30
Speaker 3: fight my case, and they don't even give you the
17:32
Speaker 3: resources to do that.
17:33
Speaker 4: And I top of everything else, you're going to the
17:34
Speaker 4: bathroom on top of each other. Where do you sleep?
17:36
Speaker 4: And how do you change clothes? How does that even
17:38
Speaker 4: work well?
17:39
Speaker 3: And where I was at it was a violent felon tank,
17:42
Speaker 3: so it has its benefits and his down sides. Of course,
17:47
Speaker 3: in many tanks it's just an open bay, so everybody's
17:50
Speaker 3: out there together. And yeah, I mean, you just got
17:51
Speaker 3: to get naked in front of people or whatever. You
17:54
Speaker 3: poop in front of people, you pee in front of people, everything,
17:56
Speaker 3: and so that is one existence in a violent fell
18:00
Speaker 3: in tank. They put you in your own cell because
18:02
Speaker 3: they don't want people sleeping in an environment where there
18:05
Speaker 3: are people who are accused of murder, right, so you
18:08
Speaker 3: don't want to be asleep, and then some guy snaps
18:10
Speaker 3: out and comes over there and tries to murder you.
18:11
Speaker 3: Like that's a liability, I suppose, So they give you
18:14
Speaker 3: your own cell in the violent Fellon tank.
18:16
Speaker 6: That's why there's eight people. There's eight cells. So that
18:20
Speaker 6: is the.
18:20
Speaker 3: One, I guess good thing about being in a violent
18:23
Speaker 3: Pealent tank. The bad thing is that they're violent felons,
18:26
Speaker 3: so it's a lot more dangerous when those doors are open.
18:30
Speaker 6: Those doors are open about eighteen hours a day.
18:32
Speaker 4: And you had reason to understand that the system was
18:36
Speaker 4: not designed to work for justice and that as an
18:40
Speaker 4: innocent man, you had a real chance of ending up
18:43
Speaker 4: in prison for a long long time. So you devised
18:47
Speaker 4: a workout program, right in order to be able to
18:50
Speaker 4: defend yourself. And if you can't obviously see him on
18:53
Speaker 4: the radio, but if you see Ryan now he is
18:57
Speaker 4: he looks like a bodybuilder. So how did you do
18:59
Speaker 4: that without any kind of access to gym equipment or
19:03
Speaker 4: weights or anything else? And how did that work for you?
19:05
Speaker 3: You know, it comes down to education, really That's what
19:08
Speaker 3: I love about fitness now, is I see a lot
19:11
Speaker 3: of people work out. I've been around, you know, I
19:13
Speaker 3: was in an incubator with guys for a decade and
19:16
Speaker 3: I could see what they were doing, and a lot
19:17
Speaker 3: of people work really hard, but they never educate themselves
19:20
Speaker 3: on what to do for themselves physically, and so, you know,
19:24
Speaker 3: that's why I developed this routine, is just understanding how.
19:28
Speaker 6: The body works. What's what are the best workouts that.
19:31
Speaker 3: Are going to get you the largest gains in the
19:33
Speaker 3: smallest amount of time, and then what do you have
19:35
Speaker 3: to do nutritionally to supplement that? And so that's you know,
19:39
Speaker 3: I just started figuring it out reading books and everything.
19:41
Speaker 3: When you're in an environment like prison and you have
19:45
Speaker 3: only so many outlets, I mean, really, the only thing.
19:47
Speaker 6: You possess are your mind in your body. Nothing else
19:50
Speaker 6: is yours.
19:50
Speaker 3: You don't have any other really choices or anything. So
19:54
Speaker 3: I educated myself daily and I worked out daily because
19:57
Speaker 3: all I had was myself, and I worked on myself
20:00
Speaker 3: every day, and I think that taught me a valuable lesson.
20:04
Speaker 3: I think we can all do that no matter where
20:06
Speaker 3: we're at in life. It's very important.
20:07
Speaker 4: Well, you had a very strong motivation, and you were
20:11
Speaker 4: really thinking ahead because of the fact that you knew
20:14
Speaker 4: that if you ended up in a maxim security prison,
20:17
Speaker 4: there were going to be times when you're going to
20:19
Speaker 4: have to defend yourself or even inside this jail. So
20:21
Speaker 4: you designed a program to make yourself strong for that eventuality.
20:27
Speaker 4: And I know you talked to me about punching the walls, like,
20:30
Speaker 4: how does that work?
20:32
Speaker 6: Right?
20:32
Speaker 3: So I did skip over the part about why why
20:36
Speaker 3: I was working on so hard, and it is it's
20:39
Speaker 3: my why was survival and that is a very strong
20:43
Speaker 3: motivator and that's why I would work out and eventually
20:47
Speaker 3: ended up punching walls. So the walls are concrete and
20:52
Speaker 3: you know, they don't move. They're not soft by any means.
20:55
Speaker 3: But I saw people fight, and I saw people break
20:57
Speaker 3: their fists, and if you break your fist, you're not
20:59
Speaker 3: gonna be able to fight. And you know, I did
21:01
Speaker 3: everything I could to ensure my existence because it is
21:06
Speaker 3: scary what you see with our legal system and the
21:08
Speaker 3: fact that if you're arrested, your life is pretty much
21:11
Speaker 3: over at that point, you have a very small chance
21:13
Speaker 3: of winning, regardless of the facts. I mean, everything stacked
21:16
Speaker 3: against you. So I didn't want to end up in
21:19
Speaker 3: a fight to save my own life, to protect myself
21:21
Speaker 3: and not be able to function. And so I realized,
21:24
Speaker 3: you know, you had to have strong hands. You had
21:25
Speaker 3: to be able to take a hit, and you have
21:27
Speaker 3: to be able to give a hit and not break down.
21:30
Speaker 3: And so I would start lightly hitting the walls, the
21:33
Speaker 3: concrete walls, and I would hit them until you know,
21:36
Speaker 3: my knuckles got bloody and everything, and then i'd stop
21:39
Speaker 3: for that day, and while they're still trying to heal,
21:41
Speaker 3: I would continue hitting the walls. And I ended up
21:45
Speaker 3: building a very very strong fist that I feel I
21:47
Speaker 3: could probably last through anything. And the only reason I
21:51
Speaker 3: did that is because I didn't want to be victimized
21:55
Speaker 3: while I was in prison for a crime I didn't commit.
21:57
Speaker 6: And that's it, really, I.
21:58
Speaker 3: Mean, it's it's an odd feeling knowing that your whole
22:03
Speaker 3: being is built around not becoming a victim. But that's
22:08
Speaker 3: what it was, man, that's survival in prison. You gotta
22:10
Speaker 3: do what you gotta do to protect yourself and any
22:13
Speaker 3: and every way that you can find.
22:27
Speaker 4: So the trial comes Ryan, and you've been caged for
22:31
Speaker 4: eighteen months in the most extreme circumstances. You come to
22:36
Speaker 4: trial and then you're forced to watch your co defendant
22:40
Speaker 4: get up there, Charles Erickson, and tell a story that
22:46
Speaker 4: has no relationship to reality or the truth, and ultimately
22:52
Speaker 4: you're convicted. I can't even fathom what that moment must
22:57
Speaker 4: have been like. But it's not too painful to go
23:00
Speaker 4: back there.
23:02
Speaker 6: That is, without it out in my thirty three years
23:05
Speaker 6: of life. The worst week.
23:07
Speaker 3: Of my entire life kind of jels horrible. Prison's bad,
23:11
Speaker 3: but when you're in trial, there's nothing worse. You're basically
23:15
Speaker 3: naked in front of the world. Right, I had no secrets,
23:18
Speaker 3: I have no Everything that I am is out in
23:21
Speaker 3: front of people. And then they take that and they
23:24
Speaker 3: add lies on top of it, and they're accusing you
23:27
Speaker 3: of something that you didn't do that you have no
23:30
Speaker 3: knowledge of.
23:31
Speaker 6: And you know, every media source that could have been
23:34
Speaker 6: there was there.
23:35
Speaker 3: And the courtroom is completely full, and these people are
23:39
Speaker 3: looking at you like you're some kind of animal, right,
23:42
Speaker 3: and you're trying to be respectful of the court. You're
23:44
Speaker 3: just trying to sit there and be quiet. And I
23:45
Speaker 3: remember I would turn around and, you know, wave to
23:49
Speaker 3: my mom during a recess you know, and I would
23:51
Speaker 3: smile because I saw my mom, like, hey, how you doing, Mom,
23:53
Speaker 3: Like I'm glad you're doing okay, and smile because I'm
23:56
Speaker 3: doing okay.
23:57
Speaker 6: So let's, you know, get through this. And then me
24:00
Speaker 6: would go out and say, look at this cocky piece
24:02
Speaker 6: of shit.
24:03
Speaker 3: You know, he's just like you don't care about the
24:05
Speaker 3: Cordies and they're like smiling and way being at his
24:07
Speaker 3: fans and stuff. It's like, you don't have fans. There's
24:10
Speaker 3: no such thing as a fan. You are being accused
24:13
Speaker 3: of a crime you didn't commit. You're fighting for your life,
24:15
Speaker 3: and you're saying hi to your family. And then even
24:18
Speaker 3: then the media takes liberty with that, and it's it's
24:22
Speaker 3: insane and it is horrific to deal with that component
24:26
Speaker 3: of it. But it's even worse knowing that the police
24:30
Speaker 3: know you're innocent, the prosecutor knows you're innocent, the judge
24:32
Speaker 3: knows you're innocent, and yet they're allowing this tobacle to
24:36
Speaker 3: go on and allowing these people to get on the
24:38
Speaker 3: stand and tell what they know are lies.
24:41
Speaker 6: And I get why some of these people lied.
24:44
Speaker 3: It's self preservation, because you know, they get a person
24:48
Speaker 3: out of prison, and they say, you know, you know,
24:52
Speaker 3: it'd be nice if you said these things, it would
24:54
Speaker 3: be really helpful. What's the implication is if you don't
24:56
Speaker 3: say these things, then we're going.
24:57
Speaker 6: To help you get back into prison.
24:58
Speaker 3: Right, And so they're doing for their own existence. But
25:01
Speaker 3: there's no reason the police of the prosecutor should be
25:03
Speaker 3: doing these things to people, right, They're they're manipulating and
25:07
Speaker 3: taking advantage of these people and uh, and they're doing
25:10
Speaker 3: it to the end to take another human being's life.
25:13
Speaker 3: And so it's you lose all faith in humanity, you
25:16
Speaker 3: lose all hope and humanity. And I mean that was
25:20
Speaker 3: the turning point for me. I fundamentally hated people outside
25:25
Speaker 3: of my family. I pretty much just hated human existence
25:28
Speaker 3: to human race for a good three.
25:30
Speaker 6: Or four years.
25:31
Speaker 4: And I can understand that. I mean, like you said,
25:33
Speaker 4: the people that are supposed to be paid to help you,
25:35
Speaker 4: or the people are supposed to be there to help
25:37
Speaker 4: the victim and the family, the victim and society and
25:40
Speaker 4: all of them letting down everyone for their own selfish.
25:43
Speaker 6: Are ones who are perpetuating this offense. And that's it is.
25:46
Speaker 6: You will never I still don't understand it.
25:49
Speaker 3: You know, people will look at my case and they're like,
25:51
Speaker 3: we didn't realize this can happen. Looking at you, realize
25:55
Speaker 3: that this could happen to us. And I think so
25:57
Speaker 3: many people want to compartmentalize that, right. They want to say, oh,
26:01
Speaker 3: this is happening, but that will never happen to me,
26:03
Speaker 3: that will never happen to my family or whatever. But
26:05
Speaker 3: the reality is that it doesn't matter what you look like,
26:08
Speaker 3: where you come from, how you act, this could happen
26:11
Speaker 3: to you. This is a subject. This is an issue
26:14
Speaker 3: that does affect us, all right. I mean it affects
26:18
Speaker 3: us economically, it affects our society, it affects everything. And
26:22
Speaker 3: it is happening disproportionately to young black men, poor people,
26:26
Speaker 3: even if you're poor and white, whatever it might be.
26:28
Speaker 3: The fact is, though, that this is happening more to
26:32
Speaker 3: people who don't look like me. And it's sad that
26:36
Speaker 3: for a lot of our society to stand up and say, hey,
26:39
Speaker 3: this is wrong, it has to be a young white
26:41
Speaker 3: kid because the reality is this is happening to so
26:44
Speaker 3: many people that are going unnoticed, and I think that
26:46
Speaker 3: needs to be discussed and we need to talk about that.
26:48
Speaker 3: There are a lot of issues with raising this country obviously,
26:51
Speaker 3: and so hopefully that will change. Hopefully, you know, wonderful
26:55
Speaker 3: commissioners will stop in general, but will acknowledge the fact that, hey,
26:59
Speaker 3: I mean, this has happening all over the place, but
27:01
Speaker 3: primarily to these.
27:02
Speaker 6: Young black men, and.
27:03
Speaker 3: That really has to stop, and it's really tearing apart communities.
27:08
Speaker 4: Yeah, and then there's all the effects are terrible. It's
27:12
Speaker 4: an issue, as you said, that affects everybody in so
27:15
Speaker 4: many different ways. And again you're right, it's a sensitive topic.
27:18
Speaker 4: But yeah, it's a sad commentary on our society. But
27:22
Speaker 4: it's a fact, and it's one of the reasons why
27:23
Speaker 4: I think it's so important that you've been out there
27:25
Speaker 4: doing what you've been doing to spread the word. So
27:29
Speaker 4: you were sentenced to what I was.
27:31
Speaker 3: Sentenced to forty years. Yeah, so in trial you get
27:36
Speaker 3: to see that it's not going well. You have a
27:38
Speaker 3: person sitting there saying something that isn't true, being egged
27:42
Speaker 3: on and led by the prosecution, and so then you
27:46
Speaker 3: get convicted. And before I was sentenced, you have a
27:49
Speaker 3: sentencing hearing and you.
27:51
Speaker 6: Have the opportunity to speak. The first time I had
27:53
Speaker 6: the opportunity to speak.
27:53
Speaker 3: This whole entire time from March tenth, two thousand and
27:57
Speaker 3: four to two years later, I never done anything. I
28:00
Speaker 3: was arrested, I never said anything that implicated me or anything.
28:05
Speaker 3: All the facts proved my innocence. I never had the
28:08
Speaker 3: opportunity to speak to the public or anything. So I'm
28:10
Speaker 3: basically just being like I jumped in the stream or
28:13
Speaker 3: I got pushed in the stream, basically, and then have
28:16
Speaker 3: been going down current this whole time. So two years later,
28:19
Speaker 3: I have the first opportunity to actually speak publicly, right,
28:22
Speaker 3: and I get to speak to the judge at the
28:25
Speaker 3: sentencing hearing after I've already been convicted, and I'm telling her,
28:29
Speaker 3: I hope you can see the facts. I mean, the
28:30
Speaker 3: facts are blatantly clear. Please look at those, Please be unbiased.
28:35
Speaker 3: This is the same judge that gave me a twenty
28:36
Speaker 3: million dollar bail, and you know, give me a new
28:40
Speaker 3: trial at the very least, because I will prove my innocence.
28:43
Speaker 6: You'll see that I'm innocent or whatever.
28:45
Speaker 3: The whole time I'm talking, she didn't even look at me,
28:47
Speaker 3: didn't pay anytention, just like I wasn't even there. I'm like,
28:50
Speaker 3: this is my whole entire life, and I have one
28:53
Speaker 3: opportunity to speak and to be heard by this court.
28:57
Speaker 3: You know, I've respected the court and that you respect
29:00
Speaker 3: me the same. The one opportunity I had, she wouldn't
29:02
Speaker 3: even look at me. She didn't listen to a word
29:04
Speaker 3: I'm saying, and then she just did what she did
29:06
Speaker 3: forty years see you later. And it was just one
29:10
Speaker 3: of the most disgusting things that I've experienced in my
29:13
Speaker 3: whole entire life, and is by this judge who were
29:16
Speaker 3: supposed to, you know, hold in high respect and it's
29:18
Speaker 3: supposed to be a pillar of our community.
29:21
Speaker 6: It's a horrible person. It's a horrible person who.
29:24
Speaker 3: Has no motivation to do what's right for the society
29:29
Speaker 3: that she lives in.
29:30
Speaker 6: And it's disgusting.
29:32
Speaker 3: And even now, you know she she's still you know,
29:34
Speaker 3: she lives in like a million dollar house or something,
29:37
Speaker 3: and she's enjoying a great life and uh, and she's
29:40
Speaker 3: just this person who has destroyed lives. And there are
29:42
Speaker 3: many great judges, don't get me wrong, but the fact
29:45
Speaker 3: that that person can sit up there and be esteemed
29:49
Speaker 3: or they're not even doing their job, it is ah,
29:54
Speaker 3: it's sickening.
29:55
Speaker 4: I'm u. The idea that she would be shuffling papers
30:03
Speaker 4: or doing whatever she felt was more important than forty
30:06
Speaker 4: years of your life at that particular time after everything
30:09
Speaker 4: you've been through is just yeah, that's hard to process.
30:15
Speaker 4: It just takes a person who's like just so completely
30:19
Speaker 4: fucking bankrupt, right, so morally devoid of anything, and I
30:24
Speaker 4: don't get it. Wow, So you end up going to
30:28
Speaker 4: maximum security prison and you could put in a selling
30:30
Speaker 4: it a sell mat.
30:31
Speaker 3: Right, So it's difficult not to go on and on
30:35
Speaker 3: because there are so many It's ten years of your life, right,
30:38
Speaker 3: So my first selling when I go into prison, you know,
30:42
Speaker 3: I mean prison at a young age. I'm twenty one.
30:47
Speaker 3: I'm thinking, you know this is I'm going straight into hell.
30:51
Speaker 3: Like I'm basically just jumping feet first into hell. I
30:54
Speaker 3: got no no ifans or butts about it, no choice,
30:58
Speaker 3: and so I'm scared. There's no doubt about it. I'm
31:01
Speaker 3: very afraid at this point.
31:03
Speaker 6: And I go into the room and he's not in there.
31:06
Speaker 6: Everybody's out at rec or whatever. And then an.
31:09
Speaker 3: Hour later, this huge guy comes in and he's completely
31:13
Speaker 3: covered in tattoos. But it's really interesting how the tattoos
31:16
Speaker 3: are laid out, like half of his body are demonic
31:20
Speaker 3: tattoos and the other half are angelic tattoos.
31:24
Speaker 6: And I'm like, what the hell is going on here? Right?
31:27
Speaker 6: And so.
31:29
Speaker 3: He gets to talk and I realize his face is
31:30
Speaker 3: completely messed up and the demonic side had been shot
31:34
Speaker 3: with a shotgun and basically distorted his face and the
31:37
Speaker 3: upper part of his body's shoulder and whatnot. And so
31:41
Speaker 3: later on we get to talking and he's like, basically,
31:44
Speaker 3: you know, he was robbing a dope house and he
31:46
Speaker 3: got shot on the demonic side because that was like God.
31:50
Speaker 6: Telling him that he should be good or whatever.
31:52
Speaker 3: Well, it turns out this guy is essentially bipolar, and
31:55
Speaker 3: he definitely wasn't good at any point, and he was
31:59
Speaker 3: probably the most frightening individual I came across in prison,
32:02
Speaker 3: and especially as a first selly. But it's like, there
32:05
Speaker 3: were these imaginary lines in the cell and imagine like.
32:09
Speaker 6: You're in this little eight by eight foot box.
32:12
Speaker 3: Imagine being in your bathroom with somebody who's twice your
32:15
Speaker 3: size and insane, like literally insane.
32:18
Speaker 6: Who's known to be violent, known to.
32:20
Speaker 3: Have been arrested multiple times and spend a lot of
32:23
Speaker 3: time in the hole, and he draws these imaginary line
32:27
Speaker 3: So if you put your toe over this line that
32:29
Speaker 3: you don't even know exist, then a fight would ensue.
32:32
Speaker 3: And if a fight ensues, there's nowhere to go. You
32:34
Speaker 3: can't run, you can't beat them, you can't call for
32:38
Speaker 3: help because they're in another room. So basically, I'm tiptoeing
32:42
Speaker 3: around for the first three months of my time in prison,
32:47
Speaker 3: and it's just like a ticking time mom. I know
32:50
Speaker 3: that if I'm there long enough, this guy will kill me.
32:53
Speaker 3: And that's how I had to live for the first
32:57
Speaker 3: three or four months of my prison experience. And it
33:01
Speaker 3: was very bad, and we got into it quite a
33:03
Speaker 3: few times, and you know, and you're just trying to
33:06
Speaker 3: be as quiet and peaceful as you can, but nothing
33:09
Speaker 3: you do is right. So, yeah, I wish I could
33:12
Speaker 3: bring you into the mental anguish that exists, because although
33:16
Speaker 3: I was able to avoid being stabbed or hit by
33:20
Speaker 3: this individual, the mental anguish that you experienced from knowing
33:23
Speaker 3: that that could happen at any second for any reason,
33:26
Speaker 3: is it'll aid you like two years in one month.
33:30
Speaker 6: It's insane, it's horrible.
33:31
Speaker 4: Did you have any dialogue with him? Did you have
33:33
Speaker 4: any light moments at all? Was there, you know, was
33:36
Speaker 4: there any kind of camaraderie with this?
33:38
Speaker 6: There was? Yeah, man, And that's so weird about it.
33:42
Speaker 6: Like you you're around these people.
33:44
Speaker 3: And some of them are just horrible, horrible human beings,
33:47
Speaker 3: but you know, it's life and you get to know
33:50
Speaker 3: them or whatever. And so I didn't have a TV
33:52
Speaker 3: yet or I might have just gotten I can't remember,
33:54
Speaker 3: and the Notebook came on and uh. And so we're
33:58
Speaker 3: watching the Notebook at the same time. And the Notebook
34:01
Speaker 3: comes to a conclusion and we're not really talking during
34:04
Speaker 3: it or anything like that.
34:05
Speaker 6: It ends, and I'm like, I'm basically about to cry,
34:08
Speaker 6: you know, I'm like trying to hold back tears. I'm like,
34:10
Speaker 6: oh my.
34:10
Speaker 3: God, I'm in this cell with this maniac and the
34:13
Speaker 3: freaking great movie has got me, you know. It's like,
34:16
Speaker 3: you know, I miss society and females and everything. Of course,
34:20
Speaker 3: and then I can't talk. And then I realized this
34:23
Speaker 3: guy is sniffling up there. He's up there crying, and.
34:27
Speaker 7: I'm like, what's up in and and he's like, man,
34:30
Speaker 7: that was a good movie, you know, and uh, and
34:31
Speaker 7: He's like I'm crying or whatever, and I'm like, I'm
34:34
Speaker 7: bout to to and so that was just like this weird,
34:38
Speaker 7: very odd experience, and we like we were laughing about
34:41
Speaker 7: it or whatever, and we're surprised that impacted us both.
34:43
Speaker 3: But I mean it was very up and down. It
34:46
Speaker 3: was like that, you know. I mean, that was one
34:48
Speaker 3: good moment. There are a million bad moments. And then
34:50
Speaker 3: when I left, I went over to the.
34:51
Speaker 6: Yard, the guy gave me a hug. He's like, oh man,
34:53
Speaker 6: I'm gonna miss you. I'm not gonna miss you, dude.
34:56
Speaker 3: But all right, you know, it's just it's that's a
35:00
Speaker 3: lot of people in there.
35:01
Speaker 6: There are some really good people.
35:02
Speaker 3: I still talk to some people in prison, but there
35:04
Speaker 3: are some people that you'll just never understand that are insane.
35:07
Speaker 6: They'll hug you one minute and stab you the next.
35:10
Speaker 3: So it's just you gotta be on your p's and
35:13
Speaker 3: q's per se.
35:23
Speaker 4: So you were in there for nine and a half years.
35:26
Speaker 4: You had many many appeals denied. How many appeals did
35:30
Speaker 4: you have?
35:31
Speaker 3: I mean at least six or seven primary appeals, and
35:36
Speaker 3: then you know.
35:36
Speaker 6: They they go up through the court, so you have like.
35:40
Speaker 3: The initial court filing and then you have the appellate court,
35:43
Speaker 3: and then it goes to the Supreme Court, which you
35:45
Speaker 3: never hears it, and so it's just this like basic
35:48
Speaker 3: routine that you get in. You know, you file appeal
35:50
Speaker 3: and then it waited six months, and then they'll hear it,
35:52
Speaker 3: and then they wait another six months, and then they
35:54
Speaker 3: deny it, and then it wait another six months and
35:56
Speaker 3: it goes to another court and they'll hear it, and
35:57
Speaker 3: then they wait another six months. So it's like every
36:00
Speaker 3: appeal you file, you know, I was like, oh, it'll
36:02
Speaker 3: be another year, year and a half of my life
36:04
Speaker 3: because they're not going to listen to this. These courts
36:07
Speaker 3: that they're going to, you know which ones will will
36:09
Speaker 3: be biased and you know which ones won't. So an
36:11
Speaker 3: appeal was filed and you automatically know what the next
36:14
Speaker 3: year and a half of my life is not going
36:16
Speaker 3: to happen.
36:17
Speaker 6: So I'm just gonna sit back and hope to get
36:20
Speaker 6: out of that.
36:20
Speaker 3: Court and back into one that actually cares about justice.
36:23
Speaker 4: At some point, the only other witness against you besides
36:28
Speaker 4: your co defendant who falsely confessed and then falsely implicated
36:32
Speaker 4: you and told the story that didn't make any sense
36:34
Speaker 4: and kept changing it and was obviously anything but incredible
36:37
Speaker 4: witness against you. The only other witness against you was
36:40
Speaker 4: a convicted child molester, right, who was an incentivized witness.
36:43
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, this individual, he was a custodian. He was
36:47
Speaker 3: at the crime scene when it happened, and he went
36:50
Speaker 3: outside when the two individuals were out by this car,
36:54
Speaker 3: who may or may not have committed the crime. In
36:56
Speaker 3: the police phone call, the police were called minutes later,
36:59
Speaker 3: he says, I don't know what the people looked like.
37:01
Speaker 6: I couldn't even tell you what they were wearing.
37:02
Speaker 3: I didn't get that good of a look, right, And
37:05
Speaker 3: so he gives the phone to a female and she
37:07
Speaker 3: could tell the police what the guy's actually looked like
37:09
Speaker 3: and their build and everything, And so we have on
37:13
Speaker 3: the record this guy is saying to the police, I
37:15
Speaker 3: have no idea what these guys look like. I can't
37:16
Speaker 3: tell you what color the hair is anything. And then
37:19
Speaker 3: he gets out of jail child molestation. The prosecution obviously
37:23
Speaker 3: calls him in and ultimately he says.
37:26
Speaker 6: Yep, that's the guy that I saw.
37:28
Speaker 3: So you have the you know, So that's that story
37:31
Speaker 3: in a nutshell.
37:32
Speaker 4: So in case there wasn't enough, that's troubling everybody about
37:34
Speaker 4: this case already, the fact that they would actually release
37:37
Speaker 4: a convicted child molester in exchange for perjured testimony against you.
37:42
Speaker 3: Well, I think his time was up, so I think
37:46
Speaker 3: more of what happened there is got he was gonna
37:48
Speaker 3: get out, and they basically insinuated if you don't help us,
37:53
Speaker 3: then you're gonna go back in. So it's actually that
37:56
Speaker 3: would be the assumption, right that they helped get him out,
37:58
Speaker 3: But ultimately what they were doing is we're just.
38:00
Speaker 6: Not gonna help put you back in if you help.
38:02
Speaker 3: Us, right, But if you don't help us, then we're
38:04
Speaker 3: gonna make sure that you violate your probation and you
38:06
Speaker 3: spend another two or three years in prison as a
38:08
Speaker 3: child molester, which is very very rough to me. There
38:11
Speaker 3: is nothing worse than a jailhouse snitch. I mean that is,
38:14
Speaker 3: if you are a prosecutor and you use a jailhouse snitch,
38:17
Speaker 3: you should go straight to hell because jailhouse snitches have
38:21
Speaker 3: zero credibility. They are always lying there, always incentivized. It
38:25
Speaker 3: is literally the most discussing thing that I've ever seen,
38:28
Speaker 3: and you know, it impacts people's lives. I was in
38:33
Speaker 3: maximum security prison in jail for a decade, ten years
38:37
Speaker 3: of my life. My case really turned in two thousand
38:40
Speaker 3: and nine when Kathleen Zelner got involved. Here's one of
38:43
Speaker 3: the greatest attorneys in our nation. She has more exonerations
38:46
Speaker 3: than any other individual attorney in the whole entire country.
38:50
Speaker 3: And she was willing to take my case pro bono
38:53
Speaker 3: at that and that was just I mean, that was
38:56
Speaker 3: the biggest ray of hope that I had had at
38:58
Speaker 3: that point. And I'm so great that she's in my life,
39:01
Speaker 3: not only, you know, on the legal side, but just
39:03
Speaker 3: as as a friend and a confidant.
39:07
Speaker 4: But your biggest advocate through all those years was your father,
39:10
Speaker 4: who went to extraordinary lengths to fight for you, to
39:15
Speaker 4: make sure that you knew that he had your back,
39:17
Speaker 4: and to ultimately prevail, or you wouldn't be sitting here now.
39:21
Speaker 4: But there was another person who played an important role
39:24
Speaker 4: in this right and she was someone who had written
39:26
Speaker 4: to you as so many other people had. But but
39:29
Speaker 4: they took on a whole new life.
39:30
Speaker 6: Absolutely.
39:32
Speaker 3: Micah my girlfriend, current girlfriend. Still we've been together, I
39:35
Speaker 3: think over five years at this point. I've been out
39:37
Speaker 3: less than four. You know, I've been very fortunate, like
39:40
Speaker 3: I said, I, you know, without my family, I wouldn't
39:42
Speaker 3: have survived. I would have been crazy, I wouldn't have
39:45
Speaker 3: given up, but I would have lost a lot of hope.
39:47
Speaker 6: So without them, I wouldn't be here.
39:49
Speaker 3: And then Micah came along somehow we just ended up
39:52
Speaker 3: writing and talking more and she became a big part
39:55
Speaker 3: of my life and really kind of initiated this whole
39:59
Speaker 3: social media movement which helped my case get so much attention,
40:02
Speaker 3: which was really incredible. So, you know, it is amazing
40:05
Speaker 3: what has happened with her in the social media movement.
40:08
Speaker 3: We have a friend from Facebook, Mike, who was just
40:11
Speaker 3: very helpful. I mean he helped us like design the
40:13
Speaker 3: Facebook page and get it up there. And another guy, Richard,
40:16
Speaker 3: and so with those three they ran the social media thing.
40:20
Speaker 3: And when our page got up to one hundred thousand
40:22
Speaker 3: people on Facebook and that was big. Then there was
40:24
Speaker 3: no Instagram really and that really helped push the case
40:28
Speaker 3: forward and really helped push what.
40:30
Speaker 6: My father was doing out there and what my mother
40:32
Speaker 6: was doing.
40:32
Speaker 3: And like I said earlier, whenever my trial happened, I
40:36
Speaker 3: lost hope in humanity.
40:37
Speaker 6: I hated people.
40:38
Speaker 3: I just I couldn't stand I couldn't understand them, and
40:42
Speaker 3: that's what was so frustrating about it. I coudn't understand
40:44
Speaker 3: how people could do these things to people. I still don't,
40:46
Speaker 3: But then so many beautiful people have been in my life,
40:49
Speaker 3: like my family and Mike and Richard and Mike and
40:53
Speaker 3: so many other incredible individuals from forty eight hours in
40:56
Speaker 3: Dayline and people who wrote and so well, so many
41:01
Speaker 3: great people have shown me that the goodness in humanity
41:05
Speaker 3: can overcome the negativity, right, And there's too many people
41:08
Speaker 3: the name of course I found. No I'm leaving people
41:10
Speaker 3: out it, but it's just like thank you to them,
41:13
Speaker 3: thank you to everyone who supported me and supported other
41:16
Speaker 3: people in my situation, because without that support we would
41:20
Speaker 3: lose hope. And it's really given me the opportunity actually
41:23
Speaker 3: live my life now, right, because if I still had
41:25
Speaker 3: that mentality and I never saw the good side of people,
41:28
Speaker 3: then what would I be doing with my life now.
41:30
Speaker 3: I wouldn't want to help other people. I wouldn't I
41:33
Speaker 3: don't think i'd be happy in society. I wouldn't be
41:35
Speaker 3: happy in my life. So really they help save my
41:39
Speaker 3: life by giving me my life back, but they also
41:42
Speaker 3: help save my life a second time by showing me,
41:45
Speaker 3: you know, the real passion and real beauty of the
41:48
Speaker 3: human race.
41:49
Speaker 4: I get people asking me frequently what can I do
41:53
Speaker 4: to help? And aside from donating to Innocence Project and
41:58
Speaker 4: other organizations. It's interesting to hear you talk about it
42:02
Speaker 4: because so many people wrote to you and what that meant.
42:05
Speaker 4: What would you say to someone who's listening now in
42:08
Speaker 4: wherever they are.
42:09
Speaker 3: Well, that's a great question, and the reality is there's
42:12
Speaker 3: a lot you can do. It might not be as
42:14
Speaker 3: much as you want because you just want to reach
42:16
Speaker 3: in there and pull those people out like they're obviously innocent,
42:18
Speaker 3: and you want to do everything you can, and so
42:20
Speaker 3: you just got to you got to be patient. You've
42:22
Speaker 3: got to find the right ways. I mean, the number
42:24
Speaker 3: one thing I would say is to be active. Right, So,
42:27
Speaker 3: if you find a case that you believe in, number one,
42:31
Speaker 3: rite that person right their family and let them know
42:33
Speaker 3: you support them. I mean that that right there opens
42:35
Speaker 3: up a huge door and helps so much.
42:38
Speaker 6: But then if you.
42:39
Speaker 3: Initiate that contact, they might have other opportunities for you
42:42
Speaker 3: to help, like riding the governor or putting together some
42:45
Speaker 3: kind of thing that would bring other people in and
42:47
Speaker 3: make them aware of it. So to me, it is
42:51
Speaker 3: it is being active and creating awareness.
42:54
Speaker 6: The best thing you can do.
42:56
Speaker 3: Right a family member, right the person that you support,
43:00
Speaker 3: and then get involved and start spreading awareness to your
43:03
Speaker 3: friends and family. Tell them about the case, have them
43:05
Speaker 3: read the case, and start talking to your local politicians.
43:09
Speaker 6: Write them letters, make phone calls.
43:11
Speaker 3: I mean even this day, every week or two weeks,
43:14
Speaker 3: I'm calling some governor. I never get a hold of
43:17
Speaker 3: the governor himself, but I am letting them know how
43:20
Speaker 3: I feel about a case. And I am writing them,
43:22
Speaker 3: and I'm sending them tweets, and I'm writing them emails,
43:25
Speaker 3: Like any way we can let them know, let the
43:30
Speaker 3: people in charge of these systems know that we are
43:33
Speaker 3: paying attention and that we demand accountability. I think that
43:37
Speaker 3: is what is going to help make change right. And
43:40
Speaker 3: so what I hear a lot is people say like,
43:42
Speaker 3: I don't feel like me as a person can do
43:46
Speaker 3: enough to bring about change. But that's how change is
43:49
Speaker 3: actually done right. It's not done by one person. It's
43:51
Speaker 3: done by groups of individuals, done by all of us
43:54
Speaker 3: together doing our own little part. Like I wish I
43:57
Speaker 3: could do more, I'm just one little guy. But you know,
44:00
Speaker 3: I do my little part, and I ask other people
44:02
Speaker 3: to do their little parts. And if we keep doing
44:04
Speaker 3: that individually, then I think we're gonna we're gonna see
44:06
Speaker 3: a big change.
44:07
Speaker 4: You know, we talked about the worst moment of your
44:09
Speaker 4: life and the worst week of your life. What about
44:11
Speaker 4: the best moment of your life?
44:14
Speaker 3: You know, I think as a human being that you
44:17
Speaker 3: focus on the negative so much that I don't know
44:19
Speaker 3: what the best of the I mean, the thing about
44:24
Speaker 3: living in prison for so long is that you kind of,
44:30
Speaker 3: I don't know, you see the world a different way,
44:32
Speaker 3: and you aren't able to have those high moments of happiness.
44:37
Speaker 3: I haven't really been able to find that in my
44:39
Speaker 3: life yet, which is someone unfortunately I've been I've been
44:42
Speaker 3: able to do some incredible things. I mean, I've been
44:46
Speaker 3: to a lot of different countries and I've traveled the
44:48
Speaker 3: world since i've been out.
44:49
Speaker 6: I've been able to go to the Super Bowl.
44:51
Speaker 3: I've been able to with my father, which is really amazing,
44:54
Speaker 3: and spend that weekend with them there. And you know,
44:56
Speaker 3: I spend as much time as I can with my
44:58
Speaker 3: family doing whatever we can.
45:00
Speaker 6: There's dinner or traveling.
45:01
Speaker 3: I have my own TV show, I wrote my own book,
45:03
Speaker 3: which which was, you know, probably my greatest accomplishment personally.
45:07
Speaker 3: And throughout all these things, I've never had like this,
45:11
Speaker 3: this moment of intense joy, and and I didn't used
45:15
Speaker 3: to be that way, you know, when I was younger,
45:17
Speaker 3: when I was in high school, and you know, I mean,
45:19
Speaker 3: I I just love life so much, like every day
45:22
Speaker 3: I had intense joy. And while I do drive some
45:25
Speaker 3: joy out of these things, of course, it's just I can't.
45:28
Speaker 3: I can't get to that next level where I used
45:30
Speaker 3: to be. And I think that's kind of what prison
45:32
Speaker 3: does to people, you know. I mean, some people may
45:35
Speaker 3: be able to get out and resume a normal life.
45:37
Speaker 3: I think a lot of people, you know, put on
45:40
Speaker 3: a strong front after what's happened to them, and I
45:43
Speaker 3: certainly do. But the reality is that, you know, it
45:45
Speaker 3: affects you, and it impacts you. And that's one of
45:48
Speaker 3: the things that impacts me most. And the reality is
45:50
Speaker 3: like I walk around with this rain cloud over my head,
45:53
Speaker 3: I feel like a lot of times, and I'm afraid
45:56
Speaker 3: of the lightning, you know, And so if it's raining
45:58
Speaker 3: and thundering outside and there's lightning every I'm not going
46:00
Speaker 3: to go out there because I don't want to get
46:01
Speaker 3: hit by it, right, But the way the legal system
46:04
Speaker 3: affects a human being in these situations, and you see
46:06
Speaker 3: how humans act and everything, you know, this can happen
46:09
Speaker 3: to you or somebody you love.
46:10
Speaker 6: It's like they could come right now and kick in
46:13
Speaker 6: the door and arrest you. They could do it to me,
46:15
Speaker 6: They could do it to anybody.
46:16
Speaker 3: And so I walk around with this this cloud over
46:18
Speaker 3: my head and you know, I could get hit by
46:21
Speaker 3: that lightning at any moment, and there's nothing I can do.
46:23
Speaker 3: I can't there is no indoors, right, I could be
46:26
Speaker 3: in another country.
46:27
Speaker 6: It could happen, So it is. It is frightening.
46:29
Speaker 3: So yeah, I mean your happy moment, it's hard to describe.
46:34
Speaker 3: I I love life and I enjoy life, but for me,
46:36
Speaker 3: my happiest moments are giving back because it makes me
46:41
Speaker 3: feel like I'm protecting myself in a way as well,
46:44
Speaker 3: and it gets rid of that cloud a bit because
46:46
Speaker 3: hopefully it's turning this thing around that impacts us all.
46:50
Speaker 4: What about the moment of exoneration.
46:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wish I could say that was amazing, you know,
46:56
Speaker 3: and that you know, you really expect it would be
46:58
Speaker 3: in everything.
46:59
Speaker 6: But that was hell for me. I didn't know what
47:02
Speaker 6: was going on. I didn't know if I was actually
47:04
Speaker 6: gonna be let out.
47:06
Speaker 3: A lot of times they will take you back to
47:08
Speaker 3: the county jail and then just read you your rights
47:11
Speaker 3: and recharge you and then put you in the count
47:13
Speaker 3: of jail for another year and a half. I didn't
47:14
Speaker 3: know any of that what was going to happen until
47:17
Speaker 3: I watched my parents walk through the sally Port door.
47:20
Speaker 3: And I'm still sitting in the back of a van
47:22
Speaker 3: in a cage with shackles on and an orange jumpsuit, and.
47:26
Speaker 6: That's when I realized it was over.
47:27
Speaker 3: So, I mean, it felt good, but I still like,
47:30
Speaker 3: I don't know if these people are gonna come kick
47:31
Speaker 3: my door. On the next day, I was literally looking
47:33
Speaker 3: out my windows every time I thought I heard something
47:35
Speaker 3: for the next six months. And so that's that's the
47:38
Speaker 3: way these things impact people. And you know, I think, now,
47:43
Speaker 3: obviously there's enough facts to protect me, and I think
47:47
Speaker 3: I am safe, but I know that just happens to
47:48
Speaker 3: other people.
47:49
Speaker 6: So it's yeah, man, it's good that.
47:52
Speaker 3: Some people can enjoy it, But I've looked so much
47:55
Speaker 3: into our legal system and seen what's happened to so
47:57
Speaker 3: many other people like Brian Ferguson.
47:59
Speaker 6: You know, he was exonerating. They wanted to retry him
48:02
Speaker 6: and everything.
48:03
Speaker 3: And basically forced him into taking an alpha plea.
48:06
Speaker 6: It's situations like that that really don't allow you.
48:10
Speaker 3: To necessarily live your life to the fullest. And I
48:12
Speaker 3: think as time goes on, you get better. But here
48:14
Speaker 3: we are four years and I still have all these considerations.
48:16
Speaker 4: So let's talk about your book, all right, So tell
48:20
Speaker 4: us about the book and then any other final thoughts
48:23
Speaker 4: that you have.
48:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, so my book Stronger, Faster, Smarter. I wrote it
48:27
Speaker 3: in my last five months in prison. It is one
48:30
Speaker 3: of my greatest achievements. I just wanted to see if
48:32
Speaker 3: I could write a book, and I saw so many
48:34
Speaker 3: people working out really hard, but they weren't getting where
48:38
Speaker 3: they wanted. They weren't accomplishing their goals, and I realized
48:41
Speaker 3: that they're not educating themselves on what to do in
48:43
Speaker 3: the fitness world. So I came up with this plan
48:46
Speaker 3: of doing like basically.
48:47
Speaker 6: Six main moves.
48:48
Speaker 3: You eat it right, eat a certain way, and then
48:51
Speaker 3: educate yourself and you'll be able to accomplish whatever fitness
48:54
Speaker 3: goals you want, That's what the book is kind of about.
48:57
Speaker 3: But I tied it in with my experience in prison
48:59
Speaker 3: and how I I didn't know that ten years ago.
49:01
Speaker 3: You know, I didn't know how to get in shape.
49:03
Speaker 3: I had to figure it out to survive. And if
49:05
Speaker 3: I could do it in that environment, then certainly everyone
49:08
Speaker 3: can wherever they're.
49:09
Speaker 6: At in the life. And so that's what it's about.
49:11
Speaker 3: Man. It's a hopeful book that has some good information.
49:14
Speaker 3: I think that can help people achieve their goals.
49:16
Speaker 4: Get the book great, read, stronger, faster, or smarter. Get stronger, faster,
49:20
Speaker 4: and smarter than Ryan Ferguson way. He was able to
49:23
Speaker 4: do it in prison, so I guess the rest of
49:25
Speaker 4: us have no excuse. And Ryan, any final thoughts that
49:29
Speaker 4: you want to share, you.
49:30
Speaker 6: Know, my final thoughts are just be aware. As Jason
49:34
Speaker 6: was saying earlier, You know, when you look at.
49:36
Speaker 3: These cases, always question what you're reading, Always question what
49:40
Speaker 3: you're watching. The best thing we can do is educate ourselves, right.
49:43
Speaker 3: Don't take anyone's word as the truth. Don't take it
49:47
Speaker 3: as gospel. Whether it's your police or prosecutors, your local newspaper, whatever,
49:52
Speaker 3: look into it.
49:53
Speaker 6: Yourself.
49:53
Speaker 3: These are really interesting cases. They're very important and they
49:57
Speaker 3: impact us all and I think that each one of
50:00
Speaker 3: us can do a lot to change the way our
50:02
Speaker 3: legal system operates. And it is for ourselves, it's for
50:05
Speaker 3: our youth, it's for everyone.
50:07
Speaker 6: So yeah, it's it's it's amazing.
50:10
Speaker 3: I think the more you loo get into it, the
50:11
Speaker 3: more you're going to be intrigued, and the more you're
50:13
Speaker 3: gonna want to want to get involved.
50:15
Speaker 4: You've been listening to a very special episode of Wrongful
50:20
Speaker 4: Conviction with a very special person, my friend Ryan Ferguson. Ryan,
50:26
Speaker 4: thank you for coming and sharing your thoughts and wisdom,
50:30
Speaker 4: and once again the book is stronger, faster, smarter.
50:33
Speaker 6: Great.
50:33
Speaker 3: Thanks Jason Man. Thanks for all that you do. Seriously,
50:36
Speaker 3: like you lead by example and I appreciate that. What
50:38
Speaker 3: I just said is, you know, go out there and
50:41
Speaker 3: do what you can.
50:42
Speaker 6: That's what you've been doing. And uh and there's a.
50:44
Speaker 3: Lot you could do that you know, you could not
50:45
Speaker 3: care about any of this, and it's amazing to see
50:47
Speaker 3: what you do.
50:48
Speaker 6: Man. You give me a lot of hope. So thanks
50:49
Speaker 6: for having me. It was an honor and uh, yeah.
50:54
Speaker 4: Right it on. Don't forget to give us a fantastic review.
51:00
Speaker 4: Wherever you get your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm
51:04
Speaker 4: a proud donor to the Innocence Project and I really
51:06
Speaker 4: hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause
51:10
Speaker 4: and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence
51:13
Speaker 4: Project dot org to learn how to donate and get involved.
51:17
Speaker 4: I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and
51:20
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51:22
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51:26
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