Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #180 Jason Flom with Marty Tankleff

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#180 Jason Flom with Marty Tankleff · Wrongful Conviction

0:03
Speaker 1: For those not already familiar with the story of Marty Tancliffe,
0:06
Speaker 1: his case began on the night of September sixth, nineteen
0:10
Speaker 1: eighty eight, when Marty was just about to start his
0:12
Speaker 1: senior year of high school in an affluent area of
0:15
Speaker 1: Long Island, New York. Marty's father was an entrepreneur and
0:19
Speaker 1: investor who was playing poker with some friends and business
0:22
Speaker 1: associates in the house. That night, Marty awoke to two
0:26
Speaker 1: absolutely gruesome scenes in which both of his loving parents
0:30
Speaker 1: had been brutally beaten and stabbed. His mother was dead,
0:34
Speaker 1: his father was dying. When authorities arrived, they kept him
0:37
Speaker 1: separate from any of the adults in his life as
0:41
Speaker 1: they focused their investigations solely on Marty instead of Marty's
0:45
Speaker 1: father's business partner, Jerry Steerman, who all signs pointed to
0:50
Speaker 1: being the obvious suspect in this awful crime. In our
0:55
Speaker 1: original twenty seventeen release of Marty's story, we touched on
0:59
Speaker 1: many of these details, but at that time, with ongoing
1:03
Speaker 1: civil litigation, we were not at liberty to delve more
1:06
Speaker 1: deeply into the details of the reinvestigation of Marty's case
1:09
Speaker 1: that ultimately led to his exoneration. In this episode, you'll
1:13
Speaker 1: hear excerpts of that original interview, which included both Marty
1:17
Speaker 1: and false confession expert Saul Cassen, to set the stage
1:20
Speaker 1: for not only the evidence and witnesses that made Marty's
1:23
Speaker 1: freedom possible, as well as all the amazing things Marty
1:27
Speaker 1: has been able to accomplish since winning his freedom, but
1:29
Speaker 1: also what Marty intends to do to bring closure to
1:33
Speaker 1: this harrowing tragedy. This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm.
1:48
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. I'm especially
1:53
Speaker 1: excited today because I have two people who I consider
1:56
Speaker 1: to be well, let's just call it what it is.
1:58
Speaker 1: They're heroes of mine, but for very different sets of reasons.
2:02
Speaker 1: Marty Tankleff is here today. Marty is an exonery who
2:06
Speaker 1: was wrongfully convicted of murdering his parents, which I get
2:10
Speaker 1: the chills just hearing myself say that, and he's going
2:14
Speaker 1: to share his remarkable story of going through what could
2:19
Speaker 1: be considered one of the most traumatic experiences that any
2:22
Speaker 1: human being could ever endure, and his subsequent triumph post exoneration.
2:28
Speaker 1: You will be amazed at what he's been able to
2:31
Speaker 1: accomplish and overcome, we also have today. Saul cassen Saw
2:35
Speaker 1: pioneered in the eighties the scientific study of false confessions
2:38
Speaker 1: by introducing a taxonomy that distinguished between three types of
2:42
Speaker 1: false confessions, voluntary, compliant, and internalized that is universally accepted today.
2:48
Speaker 1: He has recently studied forensic confirmation biases and the impact
2:52
Speaker 1: that confessions have on judges, juries, lay witnesses, forensic science examiners,
2:56
Speaker 1: and the plea bargaining process. He is widely considered the
3:00
Speaker 1: foremost expert on false confession. So welcome both of you.
3:05
Speaker 1: Thanks for coming in and joining us today.
3:07
Speaker 2: Thank you for having us.
3:08
Speaker 1: Marty, let's start with you, So let's go back to
3:11
Speaker 1: you grew up in Long Island.
3:13
Speaker 2: I grew up in an affluent area called Beltan, New York,
3:15
Speaker 2: which is a little hamlet in Port Jreffson, New York,
3:19
Speaker 2: north Shore, Suffolk County. I went to Port Joffson High School,
3:23
Speaker 2: where the norm was we drove nice cars, we went
3:26
Speaker 2: on boats. And what happened to me was not something
3:30
Speaker 2: myself or anyone in my neighborhood could have ever imagined.
3:34
Speaker 1: No, no one could imagine it. You had a happy
3:37
Speaker 1: childhood nuclear family, right, you and your sister.
3:40
Speaker 2: Your parents idyllic, A little bit more idyllic because I
3:43
Speaker 2: was adopted, so my parents were older. So a lot
3:47
Speaker 2: of what we did growing up, my father live vicariously
3:50
Speaker 2: through me because he didn't have a very good childhood.
3:53
Speaker 2: So you know, we had the boats, the ATVs, we
3:56
Speaker 2: traveled a lot. People used to joke that I was
3:59
Speaker 2: a spoiled kid. I was, but my father instilled amazing
4:03
Speaker 2: work values in me. I was working since I was
4:05
Speaker 2: probably eleven or twelve years.
4:06
Speaker 1: Old, and he was the bagel king, right.
4:08
Speaker 2: My father was an entrepreneur who invested with Jerry Steuerman,
4:13
Speaker 2: who was then known as the bagel King of Long Island.
4:16
Speaker 2: My father had invested over a half a million dollars
4:20
Speaker 2: with Jerry in his bagel stores and horses, and in
4:23
Speaker 2: the summer of nineteen eighty eight their relationship significantly deteriorated.
4:28
Speaker 2: What I later learned was is that we believe my
4:30
Speaker 2: father learned that the bagel businesses may have been a
4:33
Speaker 2: money wandering operation for Jerry's son, Todd's drug dealing business.
4:37
Speaker 1: And we're talking hard, hard drugs.
4:39
Speaker 2: Todd was arrested went to prison for possession of cocaine, marijuana,
4:45
Speaker 2: and other drugs, and he served time in New York
4:48
Speaker 2: State prisons. But my father was a tough older man.
4:53
Speaker 2: Nothing would stop him. And one of the things that
4:56
Speaker 2: he was involved with was is there was a weekly
4:58
Speaker 2: poker game. September sixth was his night to hold the
5:02
Speaker 2: weekly poker game, and one of the members at that
5:05
Speaker 2: game was Jerry Struerman. My father was a type of man.
5:08
Speaker 2: It didn't matter, you know, how much threatening Jerry Struman did.
5:12
Speaker 2: And there were threats. We later learned about two weeks
5:16
Speaker 2: before September sixth, Jerry Struman threatened to cut my father's
5:19
Speaker 2: tongue out, and it got so bad that my father
5:21
Speaker 2: was even looking into buying a shotgun because he was fearful.
5:26
Speaker 1: Now we've set the stage. There's the poker game, right.
5:29
Speaker 1: There's obviously a tense environment right with the two of
5:31
Speaker 1: them in the room. But you went to sleep.
5:33
Speaker 2: I went to sleep because September seventh was the first
5:36
Speaker 2: day of my high school year. I was going to
5:38
Speaker 2: be a senior. And I woke up and my life
5:40
Speaker 2: was never the same again. The lights were on in
5:43
Speaker 2: my house, the house wasn't locked up.
5:46
Speaker 1: Walked through the house, and they were upstairs.
5:48
Speaker 2: It's a ranch house. There's a very long ranch house.
5:51
Speaker 2: Where the bedrooms were in one end of the house,
5:54
Speaker 2: where the card game was was in the complete opposite end.
5:57
Speaker 1: Of the house, right, So you wouldn't have heard any.
5:59
Speaker 2: Would have heard anything. And I discovered my father who
6:02
Speaker 2: was still sitting in his office chair, and he was alive,
6:06
Speaker 2: and he was bleeding.
6:08
Speaker 1: And what'd you do?
6:09
Speaker 2: I called nine to one one and I followed their instructions, right.
6:13
Speaker 1: They told you to wrap them as best you could,
6:15
Speaker 1: gave you some medical tips whatever, try to stop the bleeding,
6:18
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, right.
6:19
Speaker 2: And within a short period of time, law enforcement showed.
6:22
Speaker 1: Up at the house. Where's your mom?
6:25
Speaker 2: My mother was actually in her bedroom. Cops come and
6:28
Speaker 2: immediately they removed me.
6:30
Speaker 1: From the house.
6:31
Speaker 2: And what I kind of can say now is that
6:34
Speaker 2: the process of questioning me, trying to find out what
6:37
Speaker 2: happened started almost immediately. Even when I had family members
6:41
Speaker 2: show up that morning, there was this immediate separation. When
6:44
Speaker 2: my brother in law showed up, he was ripped away.
6:46
Speaker 2: When my godfather, who was also the family attorney, showed up,
6:51
Speaker 2: I saw him. He never saw me. But McCready, who
6:54
Speaker 2: is the lead detective. His name is Kay James McCready
6:57
Speaker 2: was the lead detective on the case. Ran to him
7:00
Speaker 2: and basically told him I was already on the way
7:02
Speaker 2: to the hospital. I wasn't at the house. Even though
7:05
Speaker 2: I was at the house, I was told consistently I
7:08
Speaker 2: was being taken to the hospital. Unfortunately I was never
7:11
Speaker 2: taken to the hospital. I ended up being taken to
7:13
Speaker 2: police headquarters.
7:15
Speaker 1: At this point, were you aware that your mom had
7:17
Speaker 1: been killed? Yes, so you're in a state of total shock, panic.
7:24
Speaker 2: Words can't describe it.
7:25
Speaker 1: Your parents were beaten to death. Is that right?
7:27
Speaker 2: There was a bludgeon instrument and a knife, and to
7:33
Speaker 2: this day neither one has been discovered. And there was
7:36
Speaker 2: some forensic evidence which I can talk about. There was
7:38
Speaker 2: glove prints, so whoever did do this were wearing gloves
7:43
Speaker 2: that they still haven't found the gloves. So, I mean
7:45
Speaker 2: there's all these little things that actually the jury was
7:48
Speaker 2: aware of, but they chose just to ignore.
7:51
Speaker 1: So they took you to police headquarters because and obviously
7:55
Speaker 1: this whole sort of pattern is emerging right where they
7:58
Speaker 1: wanted to. They had an agenda.
8:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, at that day, I didn't
8:02
Speaker 2: know that when I was seventeen years old. My father
8:05
Speaker 2: was the police commissioner of our little community. I was
8:09
Speaker 2: raised to trust law enforcement, believe in them. Law enforcement
8:12
Speaker 2: wouldn't lie to you, they wouldn't deceive you. Unfortunately, that's
8:16
Speaker 2: everything that they did that morning.
8:17
Speaker 1: Right, And you're in an extremely fragile state, and you
8:19
Speaker 1: need help, right, you need someone to help you. You're
8:21
Speaker 1: seventeen years old, right. We know that they have misled
8:25
Speaker 1: as it probably a nice way to put it, his
8:27
Speaker 1: family guardian at this point, right, your godfather, who was
8:30
Speaker 1: also the only lawyer that was available to you at
8:32
Speaker 1: this time.
8:33
Speaker 2: They kind of mislet everybody though. I mean I had
8:35
Speaker 2: other cousins and aunts and uncles who were at the hospitals,
8:37
Speaker 2: and they were lied to too. They were told, Marty's
8:39
Speaker 2: on the way to the hospital. Marty's on the way
8:41
Speaker 2: to the hospital.
8:42
Speaker 1: Right. So they're basically doing everything they can to prevent
8:44
Speaker 1: you from having any responsible guardian or legal representative that
8:50
Speaker 1: might be able to stand in the way of them
8:51
Speaker 1: getting the conviction that they wanted, regardless of truth.
8:54
Speaker 2: Yes, there was no truth seeking here. I mean, you
8:57
Speaker 2: have a man who was business partners with my father,
9:01
Speaker 2: half a million dollars involved was there the night before.
9:05
Speaker 2: My father also had in the weeks prior, had demanded
9:08
Speaker 2: he had two notes fifty thousand dollars. Back in the
9:11
Speaker 2: days after the murders, Jerry Struman cleaned out a joint
9:15
Speaker 2: bank account. He faked his death. He fled to California.
9:20
Speaker 2: He had a hairwave back then, and he went to
9:24
Speaker 2: a club that he wasn't a member of. He had
9:27
Speaker 2: five or six different aliases at that moment. But law
9:32
Speaker 2: enforcement never consider him suspect. And every time I tell people,
9:35
Speaker 2: you know, the average person would say, well, how is
9:37
Speaker 2: he not a suspect?
9:38
Speaker 1: I mean, you could have stopped that. He faked his
9:40
Speaker 1: own death. So let's get to the interrogation and the
9:44
Speaker 1: false confession in prison and the whole saga. So let's
9:48
Speaker 1: I mean, you're obviously very familiar with Mary's case. You've
9:50
Speaker 1: known Marty since nineteen ninety three, is all right.
9:52
Speaker 3: He started writing letters to me from prison in ninety three.
9:55
Speaker 1: So here's Marty in a state of panic and shock
9:58
Speaker 1: and grief. And as we discussed, he's still a child.
10:02
Speaker 1: And his confession is different than any of the other
10:04
Speaker 1: ones I've studied, right, because it may or may not
10:07
Speaker 1: have ever even actually happened. Right. Usually they actually get
10:11
Speaker 1: somebody to say something on video, or they'll get a
10:13
Speaker 1: written statement or something. But in Marty's case, it's much
10:17
Speaker 1: more highly nuanced, isn't it.
10:18
Speaker 3: Yes? Yes, And in Marty's case, You've got to ask
10:21
Speaker 3: yourself the first question, why did Marty, a seventeen year
10:25
Speaker 3: old without a criminal record, without a history of violence,
10:28
Speaker 3: with good parents and good relationships and an affluent community,
10:31
Speaker 3: Why would Marty kill his parents in a brutal way,
10:35
Speaker 3: in a brutal in the most brutal of ways. And
10:37
Speaker 3: you have to ask yourself the question, how in God's
10:39
Speaker 3: name did he become their suspect?
10:40
Speaker 2: You know, most people said, well, you know, he did
10:42
Speaker 2: it for the money, because they thought my parents were affluent.
10:45
Speaker 2: The way the wills were structured, I would have gotten everything.
10:48
Speaker 2: And we later learned that law enforcement never really understood
10:52
Speaker 2: the way the wills and never looked into the way
10:54
Speaker 2: the wills were structured. I wasn't going to benefit financially
10:57
Speaker 2: until I was twenty five and I was seventeen, and so,
11:00
Speaker 2: you know, as one of my aunts said, what was
11:01
Speaker 2: he supposed to do from seventeen to twenty five, live
11:04
Speaker 2: on the streets.
11:04
Speaker 1: So Saul there he is in the interrogation room, alone.
11:08
Speaker 3: Alone, seventeen, not street wise, never been in trouble before,
11:12
Speaker 3: never had to worry about how do you behave when
11:14
Speaker 3: you get picked up by police. He had done nothing wrong.
11:17
Speaker 3: And the funny thing about innocent people is even if
11:20
Speaker 3: they had read him as miranda rights, he would have
11:22
Speaker 3: waived those rights right. Most people do, so Miranda becomes
11:25
Speaker 3: not a safeguard that's particularly effective at this point. Keep
11:28
Speaker 3: in mind, they've got him in police headquarters. The whole
11:31
Speaker 3: family is with his father, who is dying but still
11:34
Speaker 3: alive in the hospital. That's where Marty wants to be.
11:37
Speaker 3: So he's already in a state where he's motivated to cooperate.
11:41
Speaker 3: And they start asking him questions about what he saw,
11:44
Speaker 3: how he saw it, what had happened, and he gives
11:46
Speaker 3: them answers, and the answers are consistent. They don't believe him,
11:49
Speaker 3: They tell him they don't believe them. They asked for
11:51
Speaker 3: the story to be told again, and they're searching for inconsistencies,
11:54
Speaker 3: and they're calling him a liar, and they're not believing
11:57
Speaker 3: the story that he keeps telling over and over again.
12:00
Speaker 3: But then they shift gears, and they shift gears toward
12:03
Speaker 3: a procedure now where they start to lie about the evidence. Now,
12:07
Speaker 3: the average American doesn't realize that in the United States,
12:11
Speaker 3: police are allowed to bring in a suspect and lie
12:13
Speaker 3: about the evidence. They're allowed to say to the suspect,
12:16
Speaker 3: we have your fingerprints on the murder weapon, even if
12:19
Speaker 3: that's not true. What happened in Marty's case is they
12:23
Speaker 3: bring them in they say, well, you know, it appears
12:25
Speaker 3: that your mother was in a struggle and there's hair
12:28
Speaker 3: in her grasp and it turns out it's your hair.
12:30
Speaker 3: We did the analysis. It's your hair, and that confused
12:33
Speaker 3: Marty wasn't true, but he got confused as to how
12:36
Speaker 3: that was possible. And then because it was such a
12:39
Speaker 3: bloody scene, it was two bloody scenes, it just wasn't
12:42
Speaker 3: enough blood on Marty to account for that. They suggested
12:45
Speaker 3: to him that he had showered before calling nine to
12:47
Speaker 3: one one. He said, no, I didn't use the shower.
12:50
Speaker 3: They came back and said, well, we did a humidity
12:52
Speaker 3: test in your bathroom and we found that the shower
12:54
Speaker 3: had been used that morning. A humidity test. I don't
12:57
Speaker 3: believe even on CSI, they've given us humidity test. Now
13:01
Speaker 3: they've delivered two lies, and then the detective delivers the
13:05
Speaker 3: ultimate lie. He leaves the room. There are two detectives
13:08
Speaker 3: in there. The lead detective McCready leaves the room, stages
13:12
Speaker 3: a phone call, and comes back to deliver the news
13:15
Speaker 3: to Marty. Marty, I've got good news and I got
13:17
Speaker 3: bad news. I just spoke to the folks at the hospital.
13:20
Speaker 3: The good news is your father has come out of
13:22
Speaker 3: his coma. He's regained consciousness. The bad news is he
13:25
Speaker 3: said you did it. Now, think about this for a
13:30
Speaker 3: nuck and sick, insane. You've got a seventeen year old
13:34
Speaker 3: and you're now delivering one lie after another, culminating in
13:38
Speaker 3: a lie that to Marty, the person he trusts most
13:41
Speaker 3: in his life has just said he committed this crime.
13:45
Speaker 3: And not only did Marty of course, had no choice
13:49
Speaker 3: but to believe that that evidence, because he doesn't believe
13:52
Speaker 3: police would lie to him. Certainly, not like that. Even
13:55
Speaker 3: McCready's partner believed that presentation. So what choice Marty have
14:00
Speaker 3: now but to wonder, how is it possible that they
14:04
Speaker 3: have this kind of objective evidence? My father doesn't lie,
14:07
Speaker 3: he said. Marty has almost no cognitive choice but to
14:11
Speaker 3: accept that information.
14:13
Speaker 1: Well, because he's got two things right. His father doesn't
14:15
Speaker 1: lie and the cops don't lie. Right, These are the
14:18
Speaker 1: two things that he believes exactly. So those things lead
14:21
Speaker 1: to one conclusion.
14:22
Speaker 3: One conclusion, I must have done it. And the conversation
14:25
Speaker 3: turns to memory consciousness, the possibility of sleepwalking and doing
14:30
Speaker 3: it without awareness, and generate theories from Marty to explain
14:33
Speaker 3: how come you don't remember doing this. So we know
14:37
Speaker 3: that that was the nature of the conversation. We know
14:39
Speaker 3: that for some degree of transient time, Marty became confused
14:44
Speaker 3: about even his own innocence. His confession was a handwritten statement,
14:49
Speaker 3: handwritten by the detective, that is inaccurate as a description
14:53
Speaker 3: of the crime. It doesn't complete itself, it's actually ends
14:57
Speaker 3: in midsense, and it is uns signed. This confession, the
15:01
Speaker 3: so called confession, was written by the detective and not
15:05
Speaker 3: signed by Marty. And yet that allegation of that confession
15:10
Speaker 3: is the one and only piece of evidence that was
15:13
Speaker 3: used to convict him.
15:14
Speaker 1: You're at trial. You still believe that justice is going.
15:18
Speaker 2: To be done at trial? Still believe it? I mean,
15:20
Speaker 2: this is what the lawyers are telling me. The system works.
15:23
Speaker 2: I was innocent. I testified on my own behalf. The
15:26
Speaker 2: prosecutor had charged me with intentional murder and depraved indifference murder.
15:31
Speaker 2: So when we got called back in, the first verdict
15:35
Speaker 2: that I was read was not guilty, and then all
15:38
Speaker 2: of a sudden, the second one was guilty. The one
15:41
Speaker 2: thing I vividly remember is the walk after they read
15:45
Speaker 2: the guilty verdicts over to the county jails. They had
15:47
Speaker 2: these tunnel systems, and I remember just I felt like
15:52
Speaker 2: I was being led like a dog because I was
15:54
Speaker 2: just listening. And I remember getting to the property room,
15:58
Speaker 2: and I remember the property room after saying what are
16:00
Speaker 2: you doing here, Marty? And I go why else would
16:02
Speaker 2: I be here? And then everything else went blank for
16:05
Speaker 2: about the next six or seven days.
16:07
Speaker 1: But now you're thrown into this environment. You're in maximum
16:09
Speaker 1: security prison, Is that right? Yeah?
16:11
Speaker 2: I was. Basically every day it's a fight for your
16:14
Speaker 2: life because you never know in maximum security facilities what
16:17
Speaker 2: could happen, whether it be the gangs going to war
16:20
Speaker 2: with each other, the ulcers taking you know, they're aggression
16:23
Speaker 2: out on you, or just the random attacks that occur
16:26
Speaker 2: just for no reason whatsoever.
16:28
Speaker 1: Right, I mean, we know that people are being killed
16:30
Speaker 1: every day in prisons in America, sometimes by guards.
16:34
Speaker 2: Even absolutely for me, my case was very high profile,
16:38
Speaker 2: so prisoners knew about the case. Guards knew about the case.
16:42
Speaker 2: And I had a guy come up to me and
16:43
Speaker 2: he said, Lilizen, he goes, if you want to survive,
16:46
Speaker 2: he says, don't do drugs, don't get involved in drugs,
16:48
Speaker 2: don't get involved homosexuality, don't get involved in gambling gangs,
16:53
Speaker 2: he said, and work your way into the college program
16:55
Speaker 2: with the lay library.
16:56
Speaker 1: He said.
16:57
Speaker 2: One of the hardest things is once you're innocent, is
16:59
Speaker 2: getting out, he said, But you'll figure out a way
17:01
Speaker 2: to do it. My lawyer said, okay, what's never been
17:04
Speaker 2: done here before? And we said a full investigation. And
17:08
Speaker 2: that's when I started looking for private investigators and ended
17:11
Speaker 2: up hiring j Salpeter. And one of the things that
17:14
Speaker 2: Jay said to me was, if you're innocent, hire me.
17:16
Speaker 2: If you're guilty, don't. I said, I'm innocent, I'll hire you.
17:19
Speaker 2: I just find the truth, Jai. And it took years.
17:23
Speaker 2: You ended up serving six three hundred and thirty eight days,
17:27
Speaker 2: which is about seventeen and a.
17:28
Speaker 4: Half years.
17:44
Speaker 1: Now that we're up to speed from our twenty seventeen release,
17:47
Speaker 1: and with Barty's civil litigation out of the way, he
17:50
Speaker 1: was finally able to tell us about the mountain of
17:53
Speaker 1: exculpatory evidence that they built, how his freedom came to pass,
17:57
Speaker 1: all of the amazing things he's been able to accomplish,
18:01
Speaker 1: and of course his plans to finally bring the people
18:04
Speaker 1: who conspired to murder his parents to justice. Witness is
18:08
Speaker 1: an evidence slowly emerged over the years pointing towards a
18:11
Speaker 1: conspiracy involving at least Peter Kent, Joseph Creeden, Glenn Harris,
18:17
Speaker 1: and of course the Steuermans and Moore continues to come
18:21
Speaker 1: to light to this day. But the process started back
18:24
Speaker 1: in the early nineties when a woman named Carlene Kovacs
18:28
Speaker 1: went to a party.
18:30
Speaker 2: In the early nineteen nineties, Joseph Creeden, who was an
18:34
Speaker 2: enforcer for Todd Steuermann, was at a party where he
18:39
Speaker 2: admitted his involvement in the murders to Carlene Kovaks. So
18:44
Speaker 2: the idea that Todd Struman and Jerry Schuman were responsible
18:48
Speaker 2: for this not only from day one, but every year
18:52
Speaker 2: subsequent to my conviction investigation, more and more evidence would
18:56
Speaker 2: come forward, continuously pointing back towards the Steuermans, And it
19:01
Speaker 2: was around nineteen ninety two, nineteen ninety three when we
19:05
Speaker 2: presented the DA's office with that information. And as the
19:10
Speaker 2: years would go on throughout the nineteen nineties and the
19:13
Speaker 2: two thousand's, the court system failed me.
19:16
Speaker 1: It feels to me like the tides started to turn
19:20
Speaker 1: around two thousand and three when you hired Jay Salpeter.
19:24
Speaker 2: Jay started from the very beginning, it was kind of
19:27
Speaker 2: like who benefited financially and let's just start branching out
19:31
Speaker 2: from there. The criminal ties around the Steuermans was pretty
19:37
Speaker 2: well known when Jay took on this case of investigating it,
19:41
Speaker 2: and he just started looking at Todd Steuerman and Jerry
19:44
Speaker 2: Steuerman and started branching out, and eventually they found Glenn Harris.
19:50
Speaker 2: Glenn Harris said something to the effect that I've been
19:53
Speaker 2: waiting for this day for twelve or thirteen years.
19:56
Speaker 1: Glenn Harris davi a Swarren statement saying that he had
19:59
Speaker 1: been high fired by Steuerman to drive the two hitmen,
20:03
Speaker 1: Joe Creeden and Peter Kent two and from the Tankliffe
20:07
Speaker 1: House where you lived on the night of the cline.
20:11
Speaker 2: And that just kind of started the snowball effect. We
20:13
Speaker 2: assembled a body of evidence of witnesses and in two
20:19
Speaker 2: thousand and five we presented everything to the Suffolk County
20:24
Speaker 2: DA with the hopes that with their subpoena power and
20:28
Speaker 2: wiretop power, that they would actually take a real serious
20:34
Speaker 2: look at this case. And we said, you know, if
20:36
Speaker 2: you don't do anything after forty five days, we will
20:39
Speaker 2: file a post conviction motion in New York. And we
20:43
Speaker 2: learned that it wasn't until the forty fourth day that
20:46
Speaker 2: they actually went out and went to interview the first witness,
20:49
Speaker 2: and we thereafter filed a post conviction motion. Judge Braslow
20:56
Speaker 2: granted a hearing, and throughout the hearing of very technical
21:00
Speaker 2: issues came up and more witnesses came forward.
21:04
Speaker 1: Throughout the hearing, Carlene Kovacs claimed that Joe Creeden told
21:07
Speaker 1: her about how he and another man hid in the
21:10
Speaker 1: bushes outside the tank of house, evaded capture and got
21:12
Speaker 1: rid of the bloody clothes. And then there was more.
21:15
Speaker 1: There were family members of the killers right, there were
21:18
Speaker 1: murder weapons that were actually had been hidden that were found.
21:21
Speaker 1: Am I wrong about that?
21:22
Speaker 2: Marty? So the culminating witness at the hearing was Joseph
21:27
Speaker 2: Creeden's son, who said that his father confessed to him
21:33
Speaker 2: of his involvement. There was a pipe that was discovered
21:38
Speaker 2: on a piece of property that Glen Harris said a
21:42
Speaker 2: pipe was thrown. Nobody knows if the pipe was actually used,
21:46
Speaker 2: but what are the chances that somebody could know or say, look,
21:50
Speaker 2: go search on this piece of property. We threw something
21:53
Speaker 2: there eighteen years ago, seventeen years ago and it was found.
21:57
Speaker 2: The actual murder weapons then have never been found.
22:01
Speaker 1: By now we're talking about two thousand and five, two
22:04
Speaker 1: thousand and six, the defense your team had assembled twenty witnesses,
22:08
Speaker 1: twenty who all painted collectively a picture of how Storman
22:12
Speaker 1: had orchestrated these murders. Two of the witnesses had seen
22:16
Speaker 1: McCready with Storman just before the murders. Hello. There was
22:20
Speaker 1: also the matter of the murder weapon not having been found.
22:23
Speaker 1: There was a bloody stain of what appeared to be
22:25
Speaker 1: a knife imprinted on one of our lead tank lif sheets,
22:28
Speaker 1: but no match was found, suggesting that someone had taken it.
22:32
Speaker 1: But justice was right around the corner right. So March seventeenth,
22:37
Speaker 1: two thousand and six, the petition for the newtrial was denied.
22:40
Speaker 1: But then December two thousand and seven, tell us about.
22:44
Speaker 2: That, Well, in New York State, after you follow post
22:47
Speaker 2: conviction motion, you have to seek permission to appeal the case. Thankfully,
22:52
Speaker 2: the Appel Division that had denied me relief in nineteen
22:56
Speaker 2: ninety three had granted me permission to hear my case,
23:01
Speaker 2: and my lawyers argued before four amazing judges in September
23:07
Speaker 2: of two thousand and seven, and I remember it was
23:12
Speaker 2: December that I was calling home, calling the lawyers every
23:17
Speaker 2: single day, trying to find out how the decision come down.
23:21
Speaker 2: And I had four different appeals in the Appella Division,
23:25
Speaker 2: including one for a new trial, one for DNA testing.
23:30
Speaker 2: So I was finally able to get through to one
23:32
Speaker 2: of my lawyer's offices and the receptionist said to me,
23:37
Speaker 2: she's like, don't tell Bruce, I told you, but we
23:40
Speaker 2: won the big one. And my legs started to shake
23:43
Speaker 2: a little bit, and I kind of almost didn't believe
23:45
Speaker 2: it because it was kind of that moment when you
23:50
Speaker 2: are just waiting for that day, for day after day,
23:53
Speaker 2: year after year, and when I finally spoke to Bruce Barquett,
23:58
Speaker 2: I'll never forget his words. He said, back your shit,
24:01
Speaker 2: You're coming home, and you'll never see the inside of
24:03
Speaker 2: a jail cell again. And at that very moment, don't
24:07
Speaker 2: ask me why I said this, but I was kind
24:08
Speaker 2: of sarcastic, and I said, Bruce, and I said, I've
24:10
Speaker 2: been studying the little long enough. I said, it's an
24:12
Speaker 2: oral agreement that I'm going to hold you to it.
24:16
Speaker 2: And he kept his word. I was brought down to
24:20
Speaker 2: the Suvin County Jail December twenty sixth, the day after Christmas,
24:24
Speaker 2: and on December twenty seventh, I was freed and I
24:30
Speaker 2: have never returned to a jail cell since. So Bruce
24:33
Speaker 2: Barkak kept his work.
24:35
Speaker 1: In the book A Criminal Injustice, which is I recommend
24:39
Speaker 1: so highly that it reads like a Grisham novel, but
24:42
Speaker 1: it's true and you lived it. And in that book,
24:45
Speaker 1: one of the things that sticks out so much and
24:48
Speaker 1: about your story is that Suffolk County was like a
24:51
Speaker 1: criminal enterprise, and I'm talking about the justice system. Can
24:54
Speaker 1: you describe it well?
24:55
Speaker 2: I think it was best described. I think it was
24:58
Speaker 2: William Hellerstein described it as the wild wild West of
25:03
Speaker 2: law enforcement and the court system. And essentially he said
25:08
Speaker 2: is that in Suffolk County they do whatever the hell
25:11
Speaker 2: they want to do, whenever they want to do it,
25:14
Speaker 2: because they are almighty. And I think that almighty attitude
25:20
Speaker 2: can be traced back to the homicide division where in
25:23
Speaker 2: the eighties they used to wear these shirts that said
25:26
Speaker 2: ninety nine percent and that referred to their confession and
25:30
Speaker 2: conviction rates for homicide cases, and they were proud of it.
25:33
Speaker 2: And Suvia County has a long history of tourmoil and corruption.
25:38
Speaker 2: When the Attorney General reinvestigated the case during some of
25:42
Speaker 2: the post conviction proceedings, they uncovered forensics that were in
25:47
Speaker 2: the possession of Suba County the entire time, and they
25:51
Speaker 2: proved to be exculpatory in nature. It just goes to
25:55
Speaker 2: the depths of how sinister and evil the criminal injustice
26:00
Speaker 2: system was in Suffolk County back then, even up to
26:04
Speaker 2: recently where the district attorney that was in office during
26:08
Speaker 2: my post conviction litigation, Tom Spoda, was recently criminally charged
26:14
Speaker 2: while he was a district attorney. When Tom Spoda was
26:17
Speaker 2: in private practice, he and his firm had represented Todd
26:21
Speaker 2: Steuerman and Jerry Stuerman and the chief of police, William Burke,
26:26
Speaker 2: was also criminally charged and he went to prison.
26:29
Speaker 1: It's unbelievable. And this gets deeper and deeper because mccreedy,
26:34
Speaker 1: the detective, was under investigation for perjury. And let's not
26:38
Speaker 1: forget mccreedy went into business with your sister, who became
26:42
Speaker 1: the heir to the family fortune.
26:45
Speaker 2: Shortly after my conviction, my half sister threw a celebratory
26:50
Speaker 2: party at a country club for family and friends, and
26:55
Speaker 2: right around the same time went into business with the
27:00
Speaker 2: money she received from my parents' estate with the lead
27:04
Speaker 2: detective who put me in prison, and they opened up
27:07
Speaker 2: a bar restaurant, diggero Dell's, in a Riverhead, New York.
27:12
Speaker 1: Yeah.
27:14
Speaker 2: I didn't want to go down in history as being
27:17
Speaker 2: known as the person who was convicted of murdering my
27:19
Speaker 2: parents because I didn't do it, and nobody stands crimly
27:25
Speaker 2: charged or convicted of those murders as of today. I
27:29
Speaker 2: knew that I wanted to continue fighting till the truth
27:32
Speaker 2: came out, and we continue to explore every lead, and
27:38
Speaker 2: even to this day, we've had new witnesses who have
27:42
Speaker 2: come forward. And the only reason why they've come forward
27:45
Speaker 2: was because Peter Kin and Joseph Krein have died. They've
27:48
Speaker 2: come forward with exculpatory evidence that no one has ever
27:51
Speaker 2: heard before that I'm hoping by the end of the
27:54
Speaker 2: year it will get out there.
27:56
Speaker 1: Are you still hoping for the authorities to do what
28:00
Speaker 1: they should have done decades ago and prosecute the people
28:03
Speaker 1: responsible for this tragedy.
28:06
Speaker 2: There is a new district attorney who ran on a
28:10
Speaker 2: line of exposing injustice. He set up a conviction integrity unit.
28:16
Speaker 2: He has clearly stated time and time again that he
28:19
Speaker 2: owes no allegiance to the prior administration, and I'm currently
28:24
Speaker 2: working on putting a package together. I'm confident that any
28:29
Speaker 2: fair minded prosecutor, if they look at the body of
28:33
Speaker 2: evidence that we have now, someone should be criminally charged.
28:39
Speaker 2: And I'm going to be asking the Suvin County District
28:42
Speaker 2: Attorney's office to reopen the case.
28:53
Speaker 1: July twenty second, two thousand and eight, the charges were
28:56
Speaker 1: dismissed and your life began again or anew I mean,
29:02
Speaker 1: you hit the ground running, and there's so much to
29:05
Speaker 1: talk about still, because there's the federal civil suit against
29:09
Speaker 1: New York State and the Suffolk County Police Department. And
29:12
Speaker 1: this was not a frivolous suit. In fact that July
29:15
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, New York State settled for three point three
29:18
Speaker 1: seven five million, and in twenty eighteen Suffolk County settled
29:22
Speaker 1: for another ten They didn't do that willingly. They did
29:26
Speaker 1: that because they had no way out. I mean, you
29:28
Speaker 1: had them literally dead to rights, and then you go
29:33
Speaker 1: and graduate from law school. Now, I mean, seriously, Marty, like,
29:36
Speaker 1: are you trying to make the rest of us look?
29:37
Speaker 1: It's unbelievable.
29:39
Speaker 2: I was just going to say, is that you know
29:41
Speaker 2: you when you say get up and start running. It
29:43
Speaker 2: was three weeks after I was out of prison if
29:47
Speaker 2: I started finishing on my bachel's grey at Hatstraw, and
29:51
Speaker 2: I knew that, you know what I went through, no
29:55
Speaker 2: one should go through, and if there was somebody that
29:58
Speaker 2: could help make a difference, it would be me. I
30:01
Speaker 2: am out now, I'm a lawyer, also an adjunct professor
30:06
Speaker 2: at Georgetown University and a Toroural law school.
30:09
Speaker 1: There's a very hard to miss message of what the
30:12
Speaker 1: rest of us have as an excuse not to live
30:14
Speaker 1: out our dreams. I mean, that's an unbelievable transformation, and
30:18
Speaker 1: I am so so proud of you. So you're now
30:22
Speaker 1: the head of the prisoner and civil rights litigation group
30:25
Speaker 1: at Metcalf and Metcalf you're living your best life. And
30:28
Speaker 1: they say living well is the best revenge. I mean,
30:30
Speaker 1: I think you can attest to that, but we can't
30:33
Speaker 1: leave alone. The other thing that you're doing now, which
30:38
Speaker 1: I'm going to guess is probably the most rewarding thing
30:40
Speaker 1: other than your family of everything, which is of course
30:43
Speaker 1: the making an exodary program. You're, of course, as we
30:47
Speaker 1: talked about, an adjunct professor at Georgetown, let's just say
30:51
Speaker 1: that again, you're a professor at Georgetown, like, what the
30:54
Speaker 1: hell anyway, and you're working with your childhood friend and
30:58
Speaker 1: my dear friend Mark Howard co teaching a class called
31:01
Speaker 1: making an Axannery. And one of the students from that
31:03
Speaker 1: class was on this show in our episode of the
31:07
Speaker 1: Awful Case of Terrell Barrows, and she said, and I
31:12
Speaker 1: think any of the students would say that her life
31:13
Speaker 1: has been forever changed by this experience. So please, anyone
31:16
Speaker 1: go back and listen to the Terrell Barrows episode. Terrell
31:19
Speaker 1: really needs and deserves our help. Listen and you'll get
31:22
Speaker 1: some ideas of how you may be able to make
31:24
Speaker 1: a difference in his life. He's just as innocent as
31:27
Speaker 1: Marty was and is so tell us about some of
31:30
Speaker 1: the people that you've helped wherever you want to go.
31:32
Speaker 2: With this, just to get people a little background and
31:35
Speaker 2: making fund a lot more on our website, making agxgnery
31:38
Speaker 2: dot com. Mark and I have been for instance, we
31:41
Speaker 2: were three years old going to lovew preschool and after
31:45
Speaker 2: I got out, Mark would invite me to come down
31:48
Speaker 2: to his class and speak to him about my experience
31:51
Speaker 2: about the criminal justice system. And as the years went on,
31:55
Speaker 2: we start talking about the idea about teaching a class together,
32:00
Speaker 2: and the idea of making exona re kind of came
32:04
Speaker 2: together one day, just us talking taking undergraduate students and
32:10
Speaker 2: having them reinvestigate real cases of men and women in prison,
32:14
Speaker 2: try to track down new witnesses and try to develop
32:18
Speaker 2: a body of evidence that could help get them exonerated.
32:22
Speaker 2: And their final project was to create short documentaries. And
32:26
Speaker 2: we started the class in twenty eighteen and one of
32:31
Speaker 2: our cases was Valentina Dixon, and our students were able
32:35
Speaker 2: to uncover enough evidence that was shared with Valentino's lawyer
32:40
Speaker 2: and he was exonerated in September of that year. And
32:44
Speaker 2: each year our students have done this amazing work, and
32:51
Speaker 2: there's not a single student who's taken our class that
32:54
Speaker 2: hasn't walked away and said that the opportunity to try
32:59
Speaker 2: to to impact someone's life is life altering for them.
33:04
Speaker 2: Our students become friends with the individuals whore incarcerated. Tragically,
33:09
Speaker 2: John Moss, who was from our first semester, our students
33:13
Speaker 2: uncovered evidence that convinced the Innocence Project to represent him. Tragically,
33:18
Speaker 2: he passed away and Martin Luther King Junior Day this year,
33:22
Speaker 2: but the students became so close to him and his
33:25
Speaker 2: family they went to his funeral. I mean, it's kind
33:29
Speaker 2: of unheard of that students can develop a bond like that.
33:33
Speaker 2: Every one of the student groups, even after they've graduated,
33:38
Speaker 2: continue to work on any of the cases that they
33:41
Speaker 2: were connected with, and if they're in a position where
33:44
Speaker 2: they can't work, they want to know what's going on.
33:46
Speaker 2: Because in Valentinero Dixon's case, when he walked free in
33:50
Speaker 2: September of twenty eighteen, Ellie and Julie, who were two
33:54
Speaker 2: of the young women that worked on his case, flew
33:57
Speaker 2: back from France and England to be there when he
34:00
Speaker 2: walked out of prison. And I think it's something that
34:04
Speaker 2: they will never forget their entire life. And Valentino has
34:08
Speaker 2: said time and time again that they have lifelong friends
34:12
Speaker 2: and if they ever need anything, he would be there
34:14
Speaker 2: for them. The relationship you develop with these men and
34:18
Speaker 2: women is just different. You know. We walk in and
34:22
Speaker 2: we tell our students that there's no guarantees here other
34:26
Speaker 2: than you putting one thousand percent in, and they do
34:30
Speaker 2: more than that. Our students can sometimes work thirty hours
34:33
Speaker 2: a week outside of class. They travel around the country,
34:37
Speaker 2: they track down witnesses, they confront former prosecutors. In one case,
34:43
Speaker 2: they confronted a krly sitting judge who was a former prosecutor.
34:47
Speaker 2: There really is no fear that our students have. And
34:53
Speaker 2: it's just to me an amazing experience having the opportunity
34:57
Speaker 2: to work with them, and it really even feel like work.
35:00
Speaker 2: From times, it feels like such an honor and pleasure
35:03
Speaker 2: to work with students that want to come to class,
35:07
Speaker 2: want to work, want to sacrifice their time. And I
35:12
Speaker 2: remember this year when the idea of spring break are
35:15
Speaker 2: going to see somebody in a maximum security prison during
35:19
Speaker 2: spring break. Our students said, who cares about spring break?
35:23
Speaker 2: Let's go to prison.
35:25
Speaker 1: Who cares about spring break? Let's go to a prison. Wow,
35:30
Speaker 1: that's really going to say it all. And the fact
35:31
Speaker 1: is that those of us who work in this area
35:33
Speaker 1: know that the first time you get to be a part,
35:37
Speaker 1: I don't care how small the part is of helping
35:41
Speaker 1: somebody out of this Kafka esque nightmare. It is unlike
35:47
Speaker 1: anything else that I've ever experienced. And it makes me
35:50
Speaker 1: feel useful. You know, you now get to live that
35:54
Speaker 1: to the tenth power or to the nth degree, you
35:56
Speaker 1: what ever you want to call it, because you're doing
35:58
Speaker 1: it again and again, and you're doing it from a
35:59
Speaker 1: place that the rest of us can't possibly understand, and
36:02
Speaker 1: doing it for all the right reasons. So it's wonderful
36:05
Speaker 1: to see. And people can go to making an axanareed
36:09
Speaker 1: dot com and see these eight minute videos which are
36:12
Speaker 1: so powerful, and I know that every one of those
36:15
Speaker 1: students is going to be forever changed by this experience
36:17
Speaker 1: and they're going to become freedom fighters in their own right.
36:20
Speaker 1: And so there goes the Marty Tankliff force multiplier effect.
36:26
Speaker 1: Marty you've been on the show before, you know how
36:30
Speaker 1: it works. At this point, we turned to my favorite
36:34
Speaker 1: part of the show. It's the part of the show
36:37
Speaker 1: we call closing arguments where first of all, I thank
36:39
Speaker 1: you for being here, sharing your story and just being
36:45
Speaker 1: this sort of beacon of hope and light that you are,
36:49
Speaker 1: and then I turn off my microphone leave yours on
36:54
Speaker 1: for what we call closing arguments.
36:57
Speaker 2: I remember when I talked about becoming a lawyer, I said,
36:59
Speaker 2: you know, I say, I don't think I can ever
37:01
Speaker 2: reach the pinnacle of exonerations of Barry Scheck or Steve
37:05
Speaker 2: Drisen or anybody like that. But I know if I'm
37:09
Speaker 2: instrumental in helping one innocent person walk free, you know,
37:14
Speaker 2: I kind of joke. I've done my job, and I
37:17
Speaker 2: was there the day Valentino walked out, but I'm far
37:20
Speaker 2: from over. You know, it is so rewarding, And I know, Jason,
37:24
Speaker 2: you've had the opportunity to be there when people have
37:26
Speaker 2: walked free and been involved in exonerations. It impacts your
37:31
Speaker 2: life in a way that I think nothing else does.
37:35
Speaker 2: And I know one of my lawyers said, you know,
37:37
Speaker 2: those who do this work are doing God's work. And
37:41
Speaker 2: he explained it was simply that, you know, when you
37:44
Speaker 2: fight to get somebody who's innocent out of prison, you
37:48
Speaker 2: were almost giving them an opportunity at new life. So
37:51
Speaker 2: it's almost like a rebirth for them because some of
37:54
Speaker 2: them have been locked up longer than they were free,
37:58
Speaker 2: and now all of a sudden you help them gain
38:01
Speaker 2: their freedom back. It really is probably some of the
38:05
Speaker 2: most rewarding work. And you know, Mark is somebody who
38:09
Speaker 2: is just amazing because you know, Mark was a tenured
38:14
Speaker 2: professor of government and it was because of his involvement
38:17
Speaker 2: and his choice to go to law school to join
38:20
Speaker 2: my defense team to fight to get me out of prison,
38:23
Speaker 2: that his career essentially changed. Where he teaches prisons and justice.
38:29
Speaker 2: He goes into prisons and teaches college credit courses. He's
38:34
Speaker 2: established the Frederick Douglas Project, and Mark and I have
38:38
Speaker 2: made a decision that we will teach this class every
38:43
Speaker 2: year going forward, just because so many innocent people don't
38:49
Speaker 2: have the ability to have their voices told. You know,
38:53
Speaker 2: after Just Mercy came out, I told our students that
38:57
Speaker 2: you have to watch the scene where Jamie is talking
39:00
Speaker 2: to his lawyer after the evidentiary hearing. And he says
39:05
Speaker 2: something to the fact that even if I don't get
39:07
Speaker 2: out of prison, I'm good because the truth came out.
39:13
Speaker 2: And that's what we empower our students to do. Get
39:16
Speaker 2: the truth out there, because those who are incarcerated, that's
39:20
Speaker 2: what they want. We can't control the criminal justice system,
39:25
Speaker 2: but we can control investigating these cases and telling the
39:29
Speaker 2: stories and having those who are incarcerated have their stories
39:33
Speaker 2: told through our voices. I think anybody who walks away
39:36
Speaker 2: and watches the videos will just find that our system
39:41
Speaker 2: is so flawed on so many levels, and everyone across
39:48
Speaker 2: America can do something because that's a question. I'm sy.
39:52
Speaker 2: You get asked all the time what can we do?
39:54
Speaker 2: And we tell people, you know, find something you're good at,
39:58
Speaker 2: and just offered help, you know, whether it be writing
40:02
Speaker 2: a letter to somebody who's in prison, social media development sharing,
40:06
Speaker 2: passing along petitions, if there are fundraising efforts, do fundraising
40:11
Speaker 2: because so often people sit back and say, I'm not
40:16
Speaker 2: a lawyer, I know nothing about the system. And when
40:19
Speaker 2: I tell people that the system is about humanity at
40:22
Speaker 2: its core, because our system succeeds and fails based on
40:27
Speaker 2: humans on so many levels that if we go deep
40:31
Speaker 2: into our hearts we can find something that we can
40:34
Speaker 2: do to make a difference.
40:41
Speaker 1: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you
40:44
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. It really helps. And I'm a proud
40:48
Speaker 1: donor to the Nisnce Project and I really hope you'll
40:50
Speaker 1: join me in supporting this very important cause and helping
40:54
Speaker 1: to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to innescenceproject dot org
40:58
Speaker 1: to learn how to donate and get it. I'd like
41:01
Speaker 1: to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis.
41:04
Speaker 1: The music in the show is by three time OSCAR
41:06
Speaker 1: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
41:09
Speaker 1: Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
41:15
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam is a production of Lava
41:18
Speaker 1: for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one