Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #449 Jason Flom with Frederick Willie Kearse

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#449 Jason Flom with Frederick Willie Kearse · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: On August sixth, nineteen ninety three, shots were fired in
0:06
Speaker 1: front of bodega in East New York, Brooklyn. One young
0:10
Speaker 1: man named Ray Frasier survived, while his friend, Devon Brown
0:14
Speaker 1: did not. Eventually, two alleged witnesses gave police a suspect,
0:20
Speaker 1: someone nicknamed Guns. On August thirtieth, a car was pulled
0:25
Speaker 1: over and two guns were found inside, along with a
0:28
Speaker 1: man who had an outstanding arrest warrant. His name was
0:33
Speaker 1: Frederick Willie Curse and his nickname was Guns. Even though
0:38
Speaker 1: Frederick claimed to have been in Boston on the day
0:41
Speaker 1: and time of the crime, he was identified by two
0:43
Speaker 1: alleged witnesses and a gun from the car was said
0:46
Speaker 1: to have matched ballistics from the crime scene. But this
0:50
Speaker 1: is wrongful conviction. Wrongful conviction has always given voice to
1:00
Speaker 1: people in prison, and now we're expanding that voice to you.
1:04
Speaker 1: Call us at eight three, three, two oh seven four
1:07
Speaker 1: six sixty six and tell us how these stories make
1:09
Speaker 1: you feel and what you've done to help the cause,
1:12
Speaker 1: even if it's something as simple as telling a friend
1:15
Speaker 1: or sharing on social media. We've really appreciated hearing from
1:18
Speaker 1: our audience so much so that we've included one of
1:21
Speaker 1: the messages at the end of this episode, so stick
1:23
Speaker 1: around for that and if you have something to say,
1:26
Speaker 1: we definitely want to hear it, and you might just
1:29
Speaker 1: hear yourself in a future episode. Call us A three three,
1:33
Speaker 1: two oh seven, four six sixty six. Welcome back to
1:46
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction. Today's case comes from an era when wrongful
1:51
Speaker 1: convictions were just an everyday occurrence in the borough of Brooklyn,
1:57
Speaker 1: East New York, specifically the Torrius seventy Precinct in New
2:02
Speaker 1: York City. And with us to tell it is the
2:06
Speaker 1: man himself, Frederick Willie Curse, who lived through this nightmare. Frederick,
2:11
Speaker 1: I appreciate you being here. I know you know a
2:13
Speaker 1: lot of guys who've been on the show already, and
2:16
Speaker 1: we need to continue to paint this picture of what
2:19
Speaker 1: was going on in Brooklyn in the nineties. So thanks
2:22
Speaker 1: for being here and sharing your story.
2:23
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
2:25
Speaker 1: And with him is his civil rights attorney Mark Cannon
2:29
Speaker 1: of Bell, doc Levigne and Hoffman. Mark. I think it's
2:32
Speaker 1: your first time on the show, so welcome.
2:34
Speaker 2: Thank you.
2:34
Speaker 1: By the way, while we're on the subject of the
2:37
Speaker 1: seventy fifth Precinct, this is not hyperbole to say they
2:40
Speaker 1: were one of the most corrupt in history. In fact,
2:42
Speaker 1: there's even a movie about them called The Seven Five
2:45
Speaker 1: that was released in twenty fourteen. So I encourage people
2:49
Speaker 1: to watch the movie to get some context on what
2:52
Speaker 1: was going on back then and why Frederick was doomed
2:56
Speaker 1: from the beginning.
2:57
Speaker 3: That's exactly right. And it was all about out closing
3:00
Speaker 3: cases back then. And you talked about the early nineties
3:03
Speaker 3: and the crack epidemic. But you know, Michael Race, who
3:05
Speaker 3: was a detective sergeant at the precinct around that time,
3:08
Speaker 3: admitted that over the seven hundred and fifty murder investigations
3:11
Speaker 3: that he supervised at the seventy fifth Precinct, only one
3:15
Speaker 3: was done correctly.
3:16
Speaker 1: Incredible. I mean, they were playing by their own set
3:19
Speaker 1: of rules, to say the least, and framing somebody was
3:23
Speaker 1: nothing to them. So, Frederick, before you got hit by
3:27
Speaker 1: this tornado of the seventy fifth Precinct, what was your
3:31
Speaker 1: life like? Did you grow up in Brooklyn?
3:33
Speaker 4: Yes, I was born and raised in East New York, Brooklyn.
3:36
Speaker 4: Several years later I moved to bethhor Stuyvesant, the Massy Houses,
3:40
Speaker 4: and my family lived in Eastern York. So I used
3:43
Speaker 4: to always go and chill out with them over the
3:45
Speaker 4: summer and spend time with them over there, and I
3:49
Speaker 4: really played a lot of basketball and just tried to
3:51
Speaker 4: find my way through school. You know, I really didn't
3:53
Speaker 4: grab hold of the academic process when I was young
3:57
Speaker 4: for numerous reasons. I think one of the ones was
4:00
Speaker 4: how terrible the public schools were and weren't able to reach.
4:04
Speaker 2: Me where I was at.
4:05
Speaker 4: Unfortunately, later on in life, while I was incarcerated, I
4:08
Speaker 4: found out that, you know, the way that I was
4:10
Speaker 4: so competitive in basketball, that I was able to apply
4:13
Speaker 4: that with anything that I can do. So that later
4:16
Speaker 4: propelled me to go and earn my ged and go
4:19
Speaker 4: to Bard College and you know, graduate from there.
4:22
Speaker 1: So it's sad to think of what could have been
4:24
Speaker 1: had Frederick not come of age during the crack epidemic
4:27
Speaker 1: in a historically poor area of New York where he
4:30
Speaker 1: was hustling in the streets, leading to a few related
4:33
Speaker 1: charges which he escaped by going on the lamb to Boston.
4:37
Speaker 4: Yes, I had a few drug chargers and a weapon charge.
4:40
Speaker 4: You know, this is where my level of thinking was.
4:42
Speaker 4: I was, you know, not understanding that the same energy
4:45
Speaker 4: I put into the streets and thinking negative, I could
4:48
Speaker 4: have did something positive.
4:49
Speaker 2: So that's how I was up in Massachusetts.
4:51
Speaker 4: And unfortunately, being caught up in crime can lead to
4:56
Speaker 4: being wrongfully convicted and accused of other things, you know,
4:58
Speaker 4: which is something I couldn't fathom because my mind didn't
5:01
Speaker 4: expand that far at the time, and I didn't understand
5:04
Speaker 4: the risks once you get into any type of criminal activity.
5:07
Speaker 4: So you know, that's how the Massachusettstate coming to play.
5:10
Speaker 4: But it helped in the case because I had an alibi.
5:14
Speaker 1: Frederick was in Boston on August sixth, nineteen ninety three,
5:17
Speaker 1: when a drive by shooting occurred in East New York, Brooklyn.
5:20
Speaker 1: Nine one one calls reported a buick century that had
5:23
Speaker 1: been traveling north on Ashred Street and made a wide
5:25
Speaker 1: left turn onto Dumont Avenue, pulling up to a bodega
5:28
Speaker 1: on the northeast corner, and more than ten shots were fired,
5:31
Speaker 1: striking two young men. Ray Frasier was hitting the legs
5:34
Speaker 1: and survived, while Devon Brown was fatally shot in the
5:37
Speaker 1: torso and the vehicle finished the left turn fleeing west
5:41
Speaker 1: on Dumont. EMTs responded and took the victims to Brookdale Hospital,
5:45
Speaker 1: where Devon was pronounced dead.
5:47
Speaker 3: So police showed up pretty quickly and they immediately started
5:51
Speaker 3: canvassing for witnesses. Unsurprisingly, even though this was during the
5:55
Speaker 3: daytime in a somewhat populated neighborhood, there were no witnesses.
5:59
Speaker 3: Nobody wanted to talk to the police, you know, because
6:01
Speaker 3: that's generally not something people did. They send officers to
6:07
Speaker 3: the hospital. They talked to Ray. Ray says he couldn't
6:11
Speaker 3: see who shot at him, has no idea, doesn't know
6:14
Speaker 3: why they wanted to shoot him. And they talked to
6:18
Speaker 3: two women who we now know. One woman who is
6:22
Speaker 3: Devon's girlfriend at the time, Yolanda Pandler, also known as
6:25
Speaker 3: Barbara Garth. She told the officers that she was at
6:29
Speaker 3: Devon's house, which was about a half blocked down from
6:32
Speaker 3: the corner of Asher in Dumont. She heard shots fired
6:35
Speaker 3: and you know, saw people running, and she saw the
6:37
Speaker 3: car turn the corner, but she didn't see anything. They
6:40
Speaker 3: talked to Ray's girlfriend, he's also at the hospital. She
6:43
Speaker 3: pretty much sees the same thing. The car turned a corner.
6:46
Speaker 3: It's a green car, and that's about the only information
6:48
Speaker 3: she's able to provide.
6:49
Speaker 1: Another witness, Greg Maloney, had a similar initial account since
6:52
Speaker 1: he was also in front of Devon's house five point
6:55
Speaker 1: fifty five Asherd Street, which was about a football fields
6:58
Speaker 1: length north of the corner. Either of these witnesses could
7:01
Speaker 1: have made a reliable ID from that distance, leaving the
7:03
Speaker 1: police with little to go on. Meanwhile, Devon's family and
7:07
Speaker 1: friends had their own ideas about who the shooter was.
7:10
Speaker 3: One of the names that kept coming up was this
7:13
Speaker 3: person known as Guns because Guns and Devon's supposedly they
7:18
Speaker 3: had known each other and been friendly at one point,
7:21
Speaker 3: but the relationships supposedly went sour, and that's what people suspected.
7:25
Speaker 3: So the police pick up the rumor that people think
7:28
Speaker 3: Guns did it, and Greg Maloney, he actually was probably
7:31
Speaker 3: pointed out to the police by members of Devon's family
7:35
Speaker 3: because people knew he was kind of a pushover. The
7:38
Speaker 3: police go to him, they ask him, do you know
7:39
Speaker 3: who Guns is? He's like, yeah, I know who Guns is.
7:41
Speaker 3: Did you see who did shooting?
7:43
Speaker 1: No?
7:44
Speaker 3: In the coughs tell them, well, if you saw the shooter,
7:46
Speaker 3: you saw Guns, because at that point they were going
7:48
Speaker 3: to take the position that Guns was the person who
7:51
Speaker 3: did it. Although even though they didn't have a witness,
7:54
Speaker 3: and they give him a story about why Guns is
7:56
Speaker 3: a bad person, and they think he's involved in other
8:00
Speaker 3: misconduct that's going on in the neighborhood, and you know,
8:03
Speaker 3: they want to make an example of him. They wanted
8:04
Speaker 3: to get him up the street. They didn't have to
8:06
Speaker 3: hold anything specific over his head. They basically threatened that
8:10
Speaker 3: they would arrest him and he would be deported, trying
8:13
Speaker 3: to pressure Greg into helping him. Greg eventually gives a
8:16
Speaker 3: statement basically describes what he saw, but he places Guns
8:19
Speaker 3: as the shooter, even though he didn't actually see that.
8:22
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, this important context around Greg Maloney, as well as
8:25
Speaker 1: the initial police reports from the interviews at the hospital
8:28
Speaker 1: with Barbara Garth, were not discovered until the reinvestigation of
8:32
Speaker 1: this case and Maloney's eventual recantation. But back in nineteen
8:36
Speaker 1: ninety three, Greg Maloney and Barbara Garth were convinced to
8:39
Speaker 1: give statements identifying the shooter as a guy nicknamed Guns,
8:43
Speaker 1: which coincidentally was very similar to Frederick's nickname.
8:47
Speaker 2: My name is Guns U n ce.
8:50
Speaker 4: It always got misinterpreted as Guns, but you know, there
8:53
Speaker 4: was other people in the neighborhood also known as guns,
8:55
Speaker 4: So you know, that's what they used to call me
8:59
Speaker 4: and I on fortunately never really corrected it as being
9:01
Speaker 4: guns instead of guns.
9:03
Speaker 1: So where does guns come from?
9:04
Speaker 2: Well, you know, in the South.
9:06
Speaker 4: My grandmother gave me that name, so I never really
9:09
Speaker 4: asked her what it meant, you know, question, Grandma, did
9:11
Speaker 4: you just go with the nickname and be thankful that
9:14
Speaker 4: she holds you on a specially little nickname category.
9:18
Speaker 1: While the police were focused on the guns rumor, Frederick
9:22
Speaker 1: came back into town from Boston on August thirtieth to
9:24
Speaker 1: visit with family, traveling with three others in a white
9:27
Speaker 1: convertible with Massachusetts plates, and it appears that they were
9:31
Speaker 1: pulled over without any cause.
9:33
Speaker 3: What I suspect is that they profiled the card is
9:36
Speaker 3: convertible with Massachusetts plates. Two women in the front, two
9:39
Speaker 3: guys in the back.
9:40
Speaker 4: Unfortunately, two people who are carrying weapons. I didn't have
9:43
Speaker 4: no WEP anything on me.
9:44
Speaker 3: And so the two women, one of whom was a
9:47
Speaker 3: former parole officer who had ability to have the gun
9:49
Speaker 3: on her, and this other woman who I don't know,
9:52
Speaker 3: but you know, they pulled the car over. There's people
9:54
Speaker 3: with guns on it, so.
9:56
Speaker 1: They ran everyone's IDs, which revealed Frederick's outstanding arrest.
10:00
Speaker 3: When he's being brought to the precinct, there's another woman there,
10:04
Speaker 3: Darlene Cook. She recognizes Frederick and says, hey, guns. And
10:11
Speaker 3: when she did that, obviously the detectives realized this is
10:15
Speaker 3: the person who they'd been hearing about the name that
10:17
Speaker 3: they'd been looking for.
10:19
Speaker 1: And since it appears that this stop and search was
10:21
Speaker 1: done without cause but had turned up these weapons and
10:24
Speaker 1: arrest warrant, the police were in a little bit of
10:27
Speaker 1: a civil rights pickle.
10:29
Speaker 3: I think they profiled the car they stopped and then
10:31
Speaker 3: created the justification. Afterwards, they got this person, Darlene Cook,
10:35
Speaker 3: to say, this convertible with Massachusetts plates pointed a gun
10:38
Speaker 3: at me and threatened me. That's what I suspect.
10:41
Speaker 1: It's quite strange that charges related to those allegations from
10:44
Speaker 1: Darlene Cook never materialized. However, Frederick was already facing plenty,
10:49
Speaker 1: starting with the prior charges that he evaded by moving
10:52
Speaker 1: to Boston.
10:53
Speaker 4: I take full responsibility for my actions dealing with that.
10:56
Speaker 4: I ended up getting sentenced to two one to three
10:59
Speaker 4: years sentences running consecutively, which was two to six years
11:02
Speaker 4: far as in this case, I had no idea that
11:04
Speaker 4: I was even a suspect until I got to the precinct.
11:07
Speaker 4: You know, then they put me in a lineup and
11:08
Speaker 4: told me everything.
11:09
Speaker 1: By this time, police had found another witness named Carmen Torado, who,
11:13
Speaker 1: unlike Barbara Garth and Greg Maloney, had said that she
11:16
Speaker 1: could reliably identify the shooter. Yet during this lineup, Torodo
11:21
Speaker 1: identify someone else, while Garth and Maloney idd Frederick, who
11:25
Speaker 1: was now facing murder and attempted murder while serving two
11:29
Speaker 1: to six years for his priors.
11:30
Speaker 4: So I ended up going back and forth from rackets
11:34
Speaker 4: backup state fighting the murder charge here from ninety three
11:37
Speaker 4: to nineteen ninety five. Like every time, if they post
11:40
Speaker 4: formed my court date for like any more than two weeks,
11:42
Speaker 4: they would send me back up state.
11:44
Speaker 2: And I'll be going back and forth. You know.
11:45
Speaker 4: I had no real communication with my attorney, you know,
11:48
Speaker 4: he would not come visit me. I felt like I
11:50
Speaker 4: would get off only because I know I didn't do it.
11:54
Speaker 2: That's all that was on my mind. You know.
11:56
Speaker 4: It was so much violence. Multiple people were getting killed
11:59
Speaker 4: and stabbed. More because I've seen so many horrific situations
12:02
Speaker 4: myself have to add I did get cut on Rockets
12:04
Speaker 4: Island too. Be honest, I don't know how I got
12:07
Speaker 4: through it.
12:21
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12:24
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12:28
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12:31
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13:10
Speaker 1: While communication was strained with his assigned counsel, Stephen Chakin,
13:15
Speaker 1: they were able to find one of his roommates outside
13:18
Speaker 1: Boston to testify on his behalf at trial in nineteen
13:22
Speaker 1: ninety five.
13:23
Speaker 3: Here's how to alibi witness a woman he was living with.
13:26
Speaker 3: It was actually Springfield Massachusetts at the time. She didn't
13:29
Speaker 3: remember the exact day, but testified how they lived together
13:32
Speaker 3: and usually had dinner together during that time.
13:35
Speaker 4: It was a lot of things that couldn't be recalled
13:37
Speaker 4: from her with the timings and all that, I think
13:39
Speaker 4: got misconstrued and made it a little bit more harder
13:41
Speaker 4: for the jury and the court to believe that I
13:44
Speaker 4: was not actually in New York when his crime happened.
13:47
Speaker 4: That's basically all I had was the alibi, and I
13:49
Speaker 4: thought that's really all I needed, but.
13:51
Speaker 3: That was not enough to counteract to other evidence against him.
13:55
Speaker 1: The state presented Barbara Garth and Craig Maloney, whose testimonies
13:58
Speaker 1: were stark departure from their initial statements in which they
14:01
Speaker 1: could not make an id, but now they were both
14:04
Speaker 1: certain that Frederick was the shooter.
14:07
Speaker 3: Greg described this car slowly coming down Ashford and around Dumont,
14:11
Speaker 3: where somebody came out of the car and started shooting,
14:14
Speaker 3: whereas Barbara Garth had a much more dramatic story and
14:17
Speaker 3: she claims she saw Kierris driving the car before the shooting,
14:21
Speaker 3: and then she claims she was coming down Dumont, approaching
14:25
Speaker 3: Devon and Ray as they came out of this bodega,
14:27
Speaker 3: and she was waving to them, and all of a
14:29
Speaker 3: sudden she sees this car with Kars in. It comes
14:33
Speaker 3: around and actually runs sint to Ray. She says, it
14:36
Speaker 3: knocks him onto the sidewalk, and then she says Kirs
14:40
Speaker 3: comes out and starts shooting at Devon and Ray before
14:44
Speaker 3: taking off. And then she claimed she runs to Devon
14:47
Speaker 3: and you know, says I love you, and he says
14:49
Speaker 3: I love you, and he squeezes her hand and his
14:52
Speaker 3: eyes roll over.
14:53
Speaker 1: Barbara Garth also testified that even though she allegedly already
14:58
Speaker 1: knew it was Frederick, while Devon Brown was dying in
15:00
Speaker 1: her arms, she claimed to have asked him if he
15:03
Speaker 1: knew who had shot him, quote, to see if he
15:06
Speaker 1: would lie end quote, which sounds just like cop logic
15:10
Speaker 1: to establish an id untainted by suggestion, not the logic
15:14
Speaker 1: of assumed to be grief stricken girlfriend. Either way, Barbara
15:18
Speaker 1: Garth was completely absent from Greg Maloney's version of events,
15:21
Speaker 1: which is a jarring inconsistency.
15:25
Speaker 3: Even though they had these inconsistent stories, they also had
15:29
Speaker 3: the gun that was recovered from the woman who was
15:31
Speaker 3: driving the car that Cures got picked up in a
15:33
Speaker 3: month later, August thirtieth. It's a ballistics expert testify that
15:37
Speaker 3: he examined the ballistics evidence. The ammunition casings recovered from
15:42
Speaker 3: the crime scene compared to two a bullet shot out
15:44
Speaker 3: of the gun recovered from this woman who was driving
15:46
Speaker 3: a car that Kirs was in on August thirtieth, and
15:49
Speaker 3: they said it's the same gun, and Curius's defense counsel
15:52
Speaker 3: he didn't challenge that claim.
15:54
Speaker 1: You can listen to our coverage of ballistics evidence on
15:56
Speaker 1: Wromful Conviction Junk Science, in which you'll find that the
16:00
Speaker 1: ballistics analysis can really only be useful in ruling out
16:04
Speaker 1: a weapon, but you can not identify a weapon to
16:08
Speaker 1: the exclusion of all others. That's exactly what was done here.
16:11
Speaker 3: The nypdalistics expert testified that scientifically it was a perfect match,
16:17
Speaker 3: and that's impossible. My impression is that the defense council
16:21
Speaker 3: didn't even look at the ballistics evidence. The only thing
16:24
Speaker 3: he did to challenge it was to say, well, maybe
16:26
Speaker 3: the bullets were there before the shooting, which of course
16:29
Speaker 3: is not a strong defense.
16:31
Speaker 1: And the jury goes out, how long did they.
16:33
Speaker 2: Deliberate for wow?
16:34
Speaker 4: I think for like a day and a half because
16:36
Speaker 4: I had to come back, and it was a lot
16:38
Speaker 4: of readbacks with them asking for clarification with certain contradictions
16:43
Speaker 4: that was with the witness's statements.
16:45
Speaker 1: And by the way, more power to them, because after
16:48
Speaker 1: two or three weeks of a bunch of bullshit, it
16:50
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been surprising to me if you would have
16:51
Speaker 1: said they deliberated for an hour, came back and said
16:53
Speaker 1: guilty and now we're going home. That's not what they did.
16:56
Speaker 1: So they had questions, they had doubts, but ultimately they
17:00
Speaker 1: sentenced you to twenty years to life for the murder,
17:04
Speaker 1: eight and the third years to twenty five for attempted murder,
17:07
Speaker 1: five to fifteen for the possession of the weapon, and
17:10
Speaker 1: two in a third to seven for the assault. All
17:12
Speaker 1: three served consecutively to the twenty of the life.
17:15
Speaker 4: You know, my family was in the courtroom when they
17:17
Speaker 4: came back with a guilty verdict, and I can still
17:20
Speaker 4: hear my sister screaming inside the courtroom, and to me,
17:23
Speaker 4: everything seemed like the courtroom just was drinking.
17:26
Speaker 2: You know.
17:26
Speaker 4: I just wanted to get out of there. It felt
17:27
Speaker 4: like everything was collapsing on me and I couldn't really
17:30
Speaker 4: believe it. That's just something that continuously to this day
17:34
Speaker 4: I go through as I think about those moments at
17:54
Speaker 4: a fourth and fifth grade reading level at the time.
17:56
Speaker 4: So that was very hard for me, and I think
17:59
Speaker 4: kind of maybe prolong my stay in prison because after
18:01
Speaker 4: I did get educated, I put my bunk, so to speak,
18:05
Speaker 4: inside the law library and started studying and writing everybody
18:09
Speaker 4: in the country for assistance.
18:11
Speaker 1: So you put your buff inside the law library. I
18:15
Speaker 1: never heard that before.
18:16
Speaker 4: That's what we used to say, like you live in
18:17
Speaker 4: a law library when you're trying to get some type
18:20
Speaker 4: of resolve. So I just was there every day in
18:22
Speaker 4: so many where I was just trying to say that.
18:24
Speaker 1: So who somebody must have helped you because you come
18:27
Speaker 1: in there, you know you have a fourth fifth grade
18:29
Speaker 1: reading level. Did you have a mentor in there who
18:31
Speaker 1: was able to help you persevere and find a way
18:34
Speaker 1: out of this mess?
18:35
Speaker 4: Yes, I had quite a few people that and I
18:37
Speaker 4: used to work in a messoor. So was this brother
18:40
Speaker 4: there by the name of Alame And he was very
18:42
Speaker 4: good at the law and he used to help me
18:44
Speaker 4: a lot. And I think that's what he taught me most,
18:47
Speaker 4: just to write and how to write the cause for
18:49
Speaker 4: a request or whatever, try to get some type of
18:52
Speaker 4: corresponse going on with the attorney, mister Chakin, that never
18:54
Speaker 4: wrote me back in the whole twenty eight years. But
18:57
Speaker 4: yes I had a lot of help in that regard.
18:59
Speaker 4: But the almost hope I got was just understand that
19:01
Speaker 4: I didn't do the crime and that I was not
19:03
Speaker 4: going to stop until I got some type of answers.
19:06
Speaker 4: Fortunately I ended up in a prison, Kaksaki Correction facility.
19:10
Speaker 4: And again the name gun Sa was my gift at
19:13
Speaker 4: this point because someone was in a few sales down
19:16
Speaker 4: for me. They heard the name and then they were
19:18
Speaker 4: the porter on the block and came out and started
19:21
Speaker 4: asking me who I am, where I'm from. And long
19:24
Speaker 4: story short, that person knew the witness that testified against me.
19:27
Speaker 1: And this man's name is Gavin Johnson.
19:30
Speaker 3: So Gavin Johnson lived a couple of houses down from
19:32
Speaker 3: Devon Brown and he was actually at home on Ashfrid
19:36
Speaker 3: Street at the time of the murders. He recalled hearing
19:39
Speaker 3: the shooting and then running outside and running up the
19:42
Speaker 3: street to see what happened and seeing that Devon got shot.
19:44
Speaker 3: So when he came across Frederick in Koksaki. He was
19:50
Speaker 3: shocked to find out that one of the witnesses he
19:53
Speaker 3: testified against him was Greg Maloney because he knew that
19:57
Speaker 3: Greg Maloney had never said anything about knowing who the
20:00
Speaker 3: murderer was of Devon Brown.
20:01
Speaker 4: And after that, you know, he just was really willing
20:04
Speaker 4: to try to get alone to talk to my lawyer.
20:06
Speaker 3: First, well, the witness, Greg Bloney didn't want to get
20:09
Speaker 3: in trouble himself and say, you know, I perjured myself
20:12
Speaker 3: at trial, and he wanted to wait for the statue
20:14
Speaker 3: limitations to run out. When that finally happened and Frederick
20:17
Speaker 3: finally got Craig to give him a statement in two thousand,
20:20
Speaker 3: he immediately gets I think it was a legal aid
20:22
Speaker 3: lawyer involved to try to help him with the four
20:24
Speaker 3: forty And that whole process ends up taking several more
20:28
Speaker 3: years while the lawyer's trying to develop the case and
20:32
Speaker 3: they don't think this one recantation is enough. They think
20:35
Speaker 3: they need the other witness to recant as well. It's
20:38
Speaker 3: not till two thousand and seven that Frederick uses his
20:41
Speaker 3: recantation in one of his pro say four forty is
20:43
Speaker 3: the judge is like, well, why did you take so long,
20:45
Speaker 3: this is incredible and just throws it out.
20:47
Speaker 2: They rejected my motion.
20:48
Speaker 4: From then on, I just started writing law clinics and
20:51
Speaker 4: actual innocent projects and mister Myra Bell doc Ronald QB.
20:55
Speaker 2: I mean, I wrote Everybody and a Mother trying to
20:57
Speaker 2: act for some help.
20:58
Speaker 4: Then at twenty fifteen, I was fortunate to write May
21:01
Speaker 4: Rest a Peace mister maer Beldock, based on another case
21:04
Speaker 4: People Versus wag Staff that he did that also involved
21:07
Speaker 4: the seventy fifth Precinct, because I knew that he was
21:10
Speaker 4: skilled with the seventy fifth Precinct and knew about their
21:13
Speaker 4: tricks of making it a pay as if witnesses were
21:15
Speaker 4: at crime scenes and were not.
21:17
Speaker 1: And Myron Belldock was of course one of the named
21:19
Speaker 1: partners from Marx firm Belldoc Levine and Hoffman. And you
21:23
Speaker 1: can hear more about his work in our interview with
21:26
Speaker 1: Evertt and Wagstaff that will be linked in the episode description.
21:30
Speaker 3: You know, Myron Belldock actually read every letter he got
21:34
Speaker 3: from a prisoner at the end of his life. That
21:37
Speaker 3: was like one of his biggest concerns is that, you know,
21:39
Speaker 3: the letters from prisoners were piling up in his mailbox,
21:42
Speaker 3: but he read Frederick's letter, so he gave the case
21:46
Speaker 3: to another lawyer, Keith Shapanski, who started investigating it. He
21:50
Speaker 3: found another witness who was actually Gavin Johnson's brother, Donald,
21:55
Speaker 3: who was a heaty corner I think to where the
21:57
Speaker 3: badega that Devon and Ray came out of at the
21:59
Speaker 3: time the murder took place, and so he witnessed it,
22:03
Speaker 3: and he couldn't identify who did the murder, but he
22:06
Speaker 3: knows that Greg was not on the opposite corner at
22:09
Speaker 3: the time of the shooting. And he also knows that
22:13
Speaker 3: Barbara Garth was not across the street on Dumont Avenue
22:16
Speaker 3: approaching the corner at the time of the shooting. That
22:18
Speaker 3: he knows those people were down the block because he
22:20
Speaker 3: had just come from down the block.
22:21
Speaker 1: And so this became the foundation of a new four
22:24
Speaker 1: to forty motion, along with the false expert ballistics testimony.
22:28
Speaker 3: By the time the case came to me, I hired
22:30
Speaker 3: an expert to point out the problems with the ballistic
22:33
Speaker 3: evidence he used to convict Frederick, but we needed more
22:37
Speaker 3: to knock out the other witness, Barbara Gareth. We were
22:40
Speaker 3: never able to find. But there are two other important
22:42
Speaker 3: pieces of evidence that we were able to get through
22:45
Speaker 3: FOIL requests. First, the DD fives from the hospital. Frederick
22:49
Speaker 3: got the file from his lawyer and he only had
22:53
Speaker 3: redacted copies that didn't identify who it was that the
22:55
Speaker 3: police interviewed at the hospital, and I thought one of
22:59
Speaker 3: them had to be Barbara Garth. But I was able
23:01
Speaker 3: to finally get the file from the NYPD. They gave
23:04
Speaker 3: me an unredacted copy that showed that Barbara Garth was
23:07
Speaker 3: the person saying right after the shooting that she was
23:10
Speaker 3: in front of five five five Ashford Street when the
23:12
Speaker 3: shooting took place, not right near the corner of the shooting,
23:15
Speaker 3: which is what she testified to. So that's the significant
23:18
Speaker 3: Brady violation because she was giving false testimony. There's one
23:21
Speaker 3: other important piece of information we're still actually putting the
23:25
Speaker 3: finishing touches on, but basically there was this practice that
23:28
Speaker 3: District Attorney's offices were engaging in. If a witness wasn't cooperating,
23:32
Speaker 3: they would get a material witness warrant. Normally, you're supposed
23:35
Speaker 3: to bring in the witness before a judge and so
23:37
Speaker 3: they can tell the judge why they didn't want to
23:39
Speaker 3: testify and either they'll hold them or they won't. But
23:42
Speaker 3: they did get a material warrant for Barbara Garth to
23:46
Speaker 3: testify against Frederick at trial, and they told the judge
23:50
Speaker 3: it was a misunderstanding. She was actually happy to testify. Therefore,
23:53
Speaker 3: you can just vacate the warrant and she testified a trial.
23:56
Speaker 3: But we're just getting the evidence to bear this out.
23:59
Speaker 3: We believe that they held her at a hotel under
24:03
Speaker 3: lock and key until she provided the testimony that they wanted,
24:06
Speaker 3: and then she was released. So that piece of information,
24:10
Speaker 3: combined with the D five showing she testified falsely about
24:13
Speaker 3: where she was, knocks out her as a witness. Then
24:16
Speaker 3: it resuscitates the reliability of Greg maloney recantation, which is
24:21
Speaker 3: also resuscitated by Don Johnson's testimony. And then we have
24:25
Speaker 3: the expert who will testify about babailistics. Evidence that gives
24:28
Speaker 3: us I think a very strong case to bring to
24:31
Speaker 3: the Conviction Integrity Unit.
24:33
Speaker 1: So despite debunking the state's case both allegedi witnesses and
24:37
Speaker 1: the junk science, Frederick has not been exonerated. Rather, after
24:42
Speaker 1: serving twenty eight years and four months, he went in
24:45
Speaker 1: front of the Parole Board for the very first time.
24:48
Speaker 1: In early twenty twenty.
24:49
Speaker 4: One, I was denied actually as a result of the
24:53
Speaker 4: opposition letter that was written years ago by formal District
24:56
Speaker 4: Attorney Charles Hines. He had impermitted that policy where they
25:00
Speaker 4: would write an opposition letter when you get convicted and sentenced,
25:03
Speaker 4: and thirty years later they still can use that opposition
25:06
Speaker 4: letter against you. However, again me reading and studying the
25:08
Speaker 4: law and trying to make a case for myself, I
25:11
Speaker 4: learned that current District Attorney Eric Gonzalez put together a
25:15
Speaker 4: memo that states that he's no longer using those opposition
25:18
Speaker 4: letters that were written decades ago.
25:20
Speaker 3: I have to give credit to this organization called the
25:23
Speaker 3: Parole Prep Projects who helped Frederick quit his prole application.
25:27
Speaker 3: And then they went to the King's County District Attorney's office,
25:31
Speaker 3: explains Frederick's situation, how he got convicted at the young
25:35
Speaker 3: age drug crime, et cetera. And they got the district
25:38
Speaker 3: attorney to write a letter on Frederick's behalf saying that
25:41
Speaker 3: they would not oppose him being released on parole because
25:45
Speaker 3: he'd been in jail so long from a young age
25:48
Speaker 3: for a drug crime. And I think that was like
25:50
Speaker 3: a major piece of why he was able to get
25:52
Speaker 3: parole without admitting wrongdoing.
25:55
Speaker 4: Six months later, I got released into SEMBEL twenty twenty one. Honestly,
25:58
Speaker 4: it was great, you know, because I had a family
26:02
Speaker 4: to come home to. Thankfully, my mom is still alive.
26:04
Speaker 4: She's eighty one. You know, I'm with her now in
26:06
Speaker 4: a home. You know, I missed all those years of
26:08
Speaker 4: my daughter life. She's thirty three now. So the freedom,
26:11
Speaker 4: of course is great. You know, I have the chance
26:13
Speaker 4: to do for myself and be responsible and show my
26:16
Speaker 4: parents and my family that I'm not this convicted killer
26:20
Speaker 4: that you know I was portrayed to be. And you know,
26:23
Speaker 4: the whole parole process is very difficult because they come
26:26
Speaker 4: up to your house six o'clock in the morning, you know,
26:28
Speaker 4: guns out, and whole neighborhood know you on parole, and
26:31
Speaker 4: then I have to report there, which is similar to
26:34
Speaker 4: going back in prison. You know, the whole process just
26:36
Speaker 4: keeps reoccurring and you got to experience it all over again.
26:40
Speaker 4: And of course, when I first got home, I got
26:42
Speaker 4: denied the partner of education job as a result of
26:44
Speaker 4: my criminal record, despite you know, I had a degree.
26:47
Speaker 4: So you know, it's been very hard. But again Parole
26:50
Speaker 4: Preparation Project has supported me. Currently, I'm an employee at
26:53
Speaker 4: the pro Reparation Project. You know, I'm a co founder
26:55
Speaker 4: of my archive based Creative Art program with them, so
26:58
Speaker 4: you know, they've been very instrumental and helping me prepare
27:01
Speaker 4: for the parole board in addition to transition it out here,
27:04
Speaker 4: you know, to take care of myself. So it's been hard,
27:07
Speaker 4: but I am very fortunate. When you look at so
27:10
Speaker 4: many others that don't have the opportunities that I have.
27:12
Speaker 4: It's very difficult, and I just hope that I have
27:15
Speaker 4: a day where I could get some justice due to
27:17
Speaker 4: all this work I put in and all the people
27:19
Speaker 4: that supported me, you know, just prove my innocence. I
27:21
Speaker 4: just really pray that it's something some resolve that I
27:24
Speaker 4: can get with.
27:25
Speaker 1: How thoroughly this case has been dismantled, the Brooklyn DA's
27:28
Speaker 1: office will surely find it difficult to say that this
27:31
Speaker 1: conviction has any integrity. But in the meantime, we're going
27:35
Speaker 1: to link to your work with the Archive Based Creative
27:37
Speaker 1: Arts Project as well as the Parole prep Project, and
27:40
Speaker 1: perhaps our audience will be moved to get involved. And
27:43
Speaker 1: with that we're going to go to closing arguments. Mark
27:46
Speaker 1: and Frederick, thank you so much for being here. And
27:49
Speaker 1: I'm now going to turn my microphone off and kick
27:53
Speaker 1: back in my chair and just listen to anything else
27:57
Speaker 1: you want to share. So Mark, you start it off,
28:00
Speaker 1: and then just hand the mic off to Frederick and
28:02
Speaker 1: he'll take us off into the sunset.
28:05
Speaker 3: The thing that's so striking about this case is that
28:08
Speaker 3: Willy should never have been convicted, and a large part
28:11
Speaker 3: of why he did get wrongfully convicted in state in
28:14
Speaker 3: jail for the twenty eight years is because he never
28:18
Speaker 3: got the representation he should have, and it just seemed
28:21
Speaker 3: like one disservice after another, until finally, when he came
28:25
Speaker 3: up for parole, he had these law school volunteers take
28:28
Speaker 3: up his cause and actually zealously work to help get
28:32
Speaker 3: him released on parole. And I think that was the
28:34
Speaker 3: first time I write the system started working for him,
28:37
Speaker 3: and I will hopefully get the system to do the
28:39
Speaker 3: right thing and vacate his conviction. And I'm also I
28:43
Speaker 3: guess want to say how impressed I am with Frederick
28:46
Speaker 3: and with the great attitude he maintains despite what he's
28:49
Speaker 3: been through. You know, whenever I called him when he
28:51
Speaker 3: was on the inside. I was just always just really
28:54
Speaker 3: taken with that the system hadn't broken him, and that
28:56
Speaker 3: he had such a hope and a reverence for life,
28:59
Speaker 3: and that he faces great adversity and comes out like
29:02
Speaker 3: an even stronger, better person and is helping others. So
29:06
Speaker 3: that's really a testament to Frederick's character.
29:08
Speaker 2: Thank you, Mark. You know, I understand my history.
29:10
Speaker 4: I understand what black people have went through in this country,
29:14
Speaker 4: So you know, I understand it's not really personal. You know,
29:16
Speaker 4: it's a stemic and the only way to address it
29:19
Speaker 4: is having opportunities like you're giving me now, you know,
29:23
Speaker 4: start making this information known and telling our stories. Right,
29:26
Speaker 4: A lot happened to me in that place. You know
29:28
Speaker 4: that I probably am still trying to understand, you know,
29:31
Speaker 4: far as trauma wise. I can stay here all day
29:34
Speaker 4: and you know, express the pains that happened to me,
29:38
Speaker 4: but that isn't going to get me nowhere. I have
29:40
Speaker 4: to stay level minded, focus and realize that it's a bigger.
29:44
Speaker 2: Issue going on with the whole system, and it's not
29:47
Speaker 2: just me.
29:47
Speaker 4: I've stood on the premise of I did not do
29:50
Speaker 4: this crime, and so many people I was with went
29:54
Speaker 4: through the same thing. I understand it, you know, I
29:56
Speaker 4: understand it from a different lens, from a historical perspective
30:00
Speaker 4: and from a systemic perspective. To this day, it's truly
30:03
Speaker 4: sad for the racial disparity to be so bad with
30:07
Speaker 4: people of color and being wrong for your victim. And
30:09
Speaker 4: I don't like to just look at it like everything
30:13
Speaker 4: is bad. This is why I maintained my hope. This
30:16
Speaker 4: is why I refuse to let a few people that
30:18
Speaker 4: was in the system that did me wrong just dominate
30:21
Speaker 4: the whole system and look at it like, you know,
30:23
Speaker 4: everything and everyone is bad. I have to keep a
30:26
Speaker 4: level of mind to expose this system as much as
30:29
Speaker 4: I can. Here's what needs to be done, and use
30:32
Speaker 4: the things that exactly happen to me inside the trial
30:35
Speaker 4: and the system that are still going on in the
30:38
Speaker 4: system today that I would like to set a precedent with.
30:40
Speaker 2: So again, thank you so much for this opportunity.
30:44
Speaker 4: I look forward to doing whatever I can to continue
30:47
Speaker 4: to expose this system.
30:54
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrong for Conviction. You can
30:56
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Speaker 1: Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow
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Speaker 1: executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cliburn. The
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Speaker 1: music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR
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Speaker 5: Hi, my name is Jessica Delaberto. Listening to your Wrongful
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