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#241 Jason Flom with Jerome Loach · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: On the night of January tenth, two thousand and nine,
0:05
Speaker 1: forty three year old Jerome Loach was performing as one
0:07
Speaker 1: of the leads in a church play in South Philadelphia.
0:10
Speaker 1: At the same time, police were responding to a home
0:13
Speaker 1: invasion in West Philadelphia in which two men forced themselves
0:17
Speaker 1: into a home at gunpoint, confronting three women. Nothing was
0:20
Speaker 1: stolen and no one was hurt. As police arrived, they
0:24
Speaker 1: saw two men running away and arrested Sophie Batt and
0:27
Speaker 1: Jesse Higgins. One of the victims, stated that there was
0:30
Speaker 1: a third man involved in In Batt's original statement, he said
0:33
Speaker 1: that he didn't know the person, but under threat of
0:35
Speaker 1: deportation and other charges by investigators, Fat changed his story
0:39
Speaker 1: to say that the third man was his employer at
0:41
Speaker 1: a barber shop, Jerome Loach. Jerome was arrested when charged
0:46
Speaker 1: with forty two counts, but prior to trial, Bat recanted
0:50
Speaker 1: his identification, citing pressure from investigators. Despite this, the prosecution
0:55
Speaker 1: read Bat's prior statement to the jury in light of
0:58
Speaker 1: the actual exculpatory phone records. An investigator misled the jury
1:03
Speaker 1: with fabricated phone records to tie Jerome into the crime.
1:06
Speaker 1: When the defense failed to present Jerome's alibi or to
1:10
Speaker 1: expose the fake phone records. Jerome was convicted and sentenced
1:14
Speaker 1: to twenty five to fifty years. Jerome was able to
1:17
Speaker 1: win an evidentiary hearing in which he was able to
1:19
Speaker 1: present his alibi and expose the fraudulent phone records, proving
1:24
Speaker 1: both ineffective assistance of counsel and prosecutorial misconduct, ultimately setting
1:29
Speaker 1: himself free after a decade in prison. This is romful conviction.
1:46
Speaker 1: Welcome back to ronful Conviction. I'm your host, Jason Flomm.
1:49
Speaker 1: Today's episode would actually be better as a comedy if
1:53
Speaker 1: it wasn't so incredibly sinister and if the consequences were
1:59
Speaker 1: so terror of this ridiculous frame job. And when I
2:03
Speaker 1: say that, I'm talking about Jerome Loach. So, Jerome, first
2:08
Speaker 1: of all, welcome to wrongful Conviction. I'm sorry you're here,
2:11
Speaker 1: but I'm happy you're here.
2:13
Speaker 2: Thank you, and the audience will allow me to come
2:15
Speaker 2: before y'all and share my story.
2:18
Speaker 1: So, Jerome, you grew up in Philadelphia, is that right?
2:22
Speaker 3: Yes, sir?
2:22
Speaker 1: Feel listen, what was your life like growing up and
2:25
Speaker 1: what were your interactions with law enforcement before this crazy day?
2:28
Speaker 2: Essentially, I grew up in a single parent household. My
2:32
Speaker 2: father passed away when I was about ten years old.
2:36
Speaker 2: That left my mother to raise six children. I took
2:40
Speaker 2: to the streets at of every young age. I wound
2:42
Speaker 2: up getting caught up in little nicknacked crimes, nothing serious,
2:47
Speaker 2: but just getting caught up with the wrong crowd.
2:51
Speaker 3: All my other.
2:52
Speaker 2: Siblings they wound up growing up to become successful entrepreneurs, ministers.
2:58
Speaker 2: My brother, he went on his served twenty five years
3:01
Speaker 2: in the army, and so I was the only one
3:04
Speaker 2: that made that wrong turn.
3:06
Speaker 3: I was young at the time.
3:07
Speaker 2: I served my time, and during my incarceration, I went
3:12
Speaker 2: to the University of Pittsburgh, went to college.
3:14
Speaker 3: I wound up getting a couple of trades.
3:16
Speaker 2: One of the main trade was in barbering, and I
3:19
Speaker 2: wound up getting my license. I transformed that and wound
3:22
Speaker 2: up getting my manager's license, and so when I come
3:27
Speaker 2: back home, I wound up getting into real estate and
3:30
Speaker 2: opening up a barbershop. Once I opened up the barbershop,
3:33
Speaker 2: I felt the need to want to give back, and
3:36
Speaker 2: so those individuals that was returning home, ex offenders and
3:40
Speaker 2: things of that nature who had the barbered license, I
3:43
Speaker 2: would hire them at my barbershop, you know, give them
3:46
Speaker 2: like a second chance, like I got a second chance,
3:48
Speaker 2: try to get their life in order and doing this.
3:52
Speaker 2: One individual that I wind up hiring was an individual
3:56
Speaker 2: by the name of Sophie fat And this is how
3:59
Speaker 2: this story in my life began to take a change.
4:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, it adds a layer of tragedy to this awful
4:08
Speaker 1: injustice because it impacted you and your family, but also
4:12
Speaker 1: the opportunities that you were providing for people who really
4:15
Speaker 1: needed those opportunities. Let's go back to the case itself.
4:19
Speaker 1: So at nine point fifteen on January tenth, two thousand
4:23
Speaker 1: and nine, the Philadelphia Police responded to a report of
4:26
Speaker 1: a home invasion in the Cobbs Creek neighborhood of West Philadelphia. Now,
4:30
Speaker 1: three women were in the house, and they said that
4:33
Speaker 1: a man knocked on their door pretending to be a
4:35
Speaker 1: pizza delivery guy. He and another man forced their way
4:38
Speaker 1: in at gunpoint. But here's where it gets really weird, right.
4:41
Speaker 1: They asked one of the women where her boyfriend was.
4:43
Speaker 1: She said she didn't know, and soon they left without
4:45
Speaker 1: taking anything, sort of apologetically, from what I understand, they
4:47
Speaker 1: were like, you know, sorry, we bothered you. Type of
4:49
Speaker 1: thing I mean, And in the end, nobody was hurt
4:53
Speaker 1: and nothing was stolen. Okay, very unusual set of circumstances here.
4:58
Speaker 1: So then police approached the he Wow. So they saw
5:00
Speaker 1: two guys running away, and they arrested two guys, a
5:03
Speaker 1: guy named Sophie Fat and Jesse Higgins. They recovered a
5:07
Speaker 1: bandana and a gun holster from Higgins at a tourist
5:09
Speaker 1: revolver from an alley where Higgins was found running. The
5:13
Speaker 1: women identified both of the guys as the home invaders
5:15
Speaker 1: and said that they're in the invasion. This is an
5:17
Speaker 1: important point. Higgins would perceive a call and turned to
5:20
Speaker 1: Fat and said let's go right before they left Esventually,
5:23
Speaker 1: they were both charged with Berkeley conspiracy from at Berkeley
5:25
Speaker 1: So one of the women said there was a third person,
5:28
Speaker 1: a black man in his twenties, about six feet tall,
5:31
Speaker 1: with the tan jacket and jeans, who got away. Now.
5:34
Speaker 1: She told police that one of the other women might
5:37
Speaker 1: have known this man, implying that the home invasion had
5:40
Speaker 1: been a setup. Sophie Fatt made a statement to Detective
5:43
Speaker 1: John Druding on January eleventh that he didn't know who
5:46
Speaker 1: this third man was besides that his nickname was Rome. So, Jerome,
5:51
Speaker 1: did you match the description of that person in any
5:53
Speaker 1: meaningful way?
5:55
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, I'm about twice that age number
5:58
Speaker 2: at that particular time. I'm mid forties, my built, everything
6:03
Speaker 2: was totally opposite. Nothing about her description match me. And
6:07
Speaker 2: we know that to be true because afterwards, a year
6:11
Speaker 2: or so later, when my picture was given to all
6:15
Speaker 2: the victims, they all said they couldn't identify me, that
6:18
Speaker 2: they didn't know who I was. Sophie Fat, in his
6:22
Speaker 2: original statement, he never said that there was three people
6:26
Speaker 2: that came in the house. He said that it was
6:28
Speaker 2: another person that was involved in the planning, and that
6:32
Speaker 2: this person came to the house but never came in
6:37
Speaker 2: the house. Sophie Fat also stated that he was upstairs
6:42
Speaker 2: and he came downstairs and that's when the second person, Jesse,
6:48
Speaker 2: said we have to go. Sophie Fat never claimed in
6:52
Speaker 2: his first statement that he heard.
6:54
Speaker 3: A phone call. He's seen a phone call, none of that.
6:59
Speaker 1: And Jesse, of course versus Jesse Higgins, who was Sophie
7:02
Speaker 1: Vatt's co defendant. And in October of that year it
7:05
Speaker 1: had been ten months since the crime, Sophie Fatt made
7:08
Speaker 1: a deal with prosecutors, and this happens again and again,
7:12
Speaker 1: where people receive almost an offer they can't refuse in
7:15
Speaker 1: exchange for implicating basically anybody else. So in this new statement,
7:20
Speaker 1: Fat now said that you, Jerome, were involved in the
7:23
Speaker 1: invasion and were the person he had previously identified as Rome.
7:27
Speaker 1: He said that you persuaded him to commit the home
7:30
Speaker 1: invasion to pay off a debt, and that you had
7:33
Speaker 1: been there during the robbery, had given Fat, who posed
7:36
Speaker 1: as a pizza deliverer, a gun, and had texted Higgins
7:39
Speaker 1: during the crime. So what do you think caused him
7:43
Speaker 1: to finger you? I mean, other than the obvious, which
7:45
Speaker 1: was that he had to pick someone out if he
7:48
Speaker 1: wanted to take some of the heat off of himself.
7:50
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know what was in Fat's mind, but
7:53
Speaker 2: what I do know is that Fat came under a
7:57
Speaker 2: lot of pressure from the police officers. They was threatening
8:01
Speaker 2: with deportation, they was threatening with fifty years, all types
8:06
Speaker 2: of stuff.
8:07
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's sad because you were a guy who
8:08
Speaker 1: had given Fat an opportunity working in your barbershop. So
8:11
Speaker 1: it's almost like a Shakespearean twist to this whole thing
8:14
Speaker 1: for him to come forward and implicate you. So this
8:19
Speaker 1: crazy case began under the district Attorney Lynn Abraham, who
8:23
Speaker 1: was wrapping up a very checkered twenty year tenure, to
8:27
Speaker 1: say the least. But her successor was the newly elected
8:30
Speaker 1: Seth Williams, and when he picked up this case, he
8:33
Speaker 1: decided to make it an example of how tough on
8:35
Speaker 1: crime he was. And so, jero on December nineteen, two
8:39
Speaker 1: thousand and nine, you were charged with forty two counts
8:42
Speaker 1: related to the incident, including two counts of robbery and
8:45
Speaker 1: single counts of criminal conspiracy, burglary, falls and prisonment, terroristic
8:49
Speaker 1: threats at attempted theft. But neither fat nor Higgins had
8:52
Speaker 1: been charged with the majority of these alleged crimes. And
8:56
Speaker 1: then you were arrested January fourth, twenty ten. But here's
9:00
Speaker 1: the thing. We haven't even scratched the surface on this insanity,
9:06
Speaker 1: because what adds another huge layer to all of this
9:12
Speaker 1: is your alibi. Your airtight alibi. I mean, in a
9:15
Speaker 1: world of alibis, yours was truly top tier. If someone
9:19
Speaker 1: could get convicted with an albi like yours, then nobody
9:22
Speaker 1: is saved from this. So tell us what you were
9:24
Speaker 1: doing at exactly the time that this crazy situation was unfolding.
9:28
Speaker 2: At the time that this whole thing was unfolding, I
9:32
Speaker 2: was performing in a play called Clean Up Your Own Mess.
9:36
Speaker 3: It was a church play.
9:37
Speaker 2: And it had two viewings, one on the afternoon and one
9:40
Speaker 2: doing an evening.
9:41
Speaker 3: In time, I'm one of the lead characters in this play.
9:45
Speaker 2: You know, billboards, paste ubs, everything showing that I'm at
9:51
Speaker 2: this play.
9:52
Speaker 3: And while was at this play, this crime was going on.
9:56
Speaker 1: So how many people were there?
9:58
Speaker 2: You know, we looking at over one hundred people, so
10:02
Speaker 2: that was there at this play.
10:04
Speaker 1: So again, there's not too many cases I've ever heard
10:08
Speaker 1: of where you have over one hundred alibi witnesses. Now,
10:12
Speaker 1: your first attorney didn't even investigate the albi, right, which
10:15
Speaker 1: would not be a difficult alibi to investigate. I mean,
10:20
Speaker 1: you throw a stick out there and you'd hit one
10:22
Speaker 1: of the witnesses, so you replaced her, and the new
10:26
Speaker 1: attorney said he would investigate it and presented a trial.
10:29
Speaker 1: But as the case approached the time of trial, that
10:32
Speaker 1: attorney told you and your family that he couldn't present
10:36
Speaker 1: his alibi defense because the first attorney failed to give
10:40
Speaker 1: adequate notice to the court. I mean, it's just unbelievable.
10:47
Speaker 1: But there you were heading into your trial, and there's
10:50
Speaker 1: yet another statement from Sophie Fatt. Please tell us about that.
10:55
Speaker 2: So once he gave his statement, a month later he
10:58
Speaker 2: gave another state and guess what. It exonerated me of
11:03
Speaker 2: everything before I even go to trial. Before anything happens,
11:07
Speaker 2: he said, hey, hold up, I lie. This man never
11:11
Speaker 2: had nothing to do with this case. I made it
11:13
Speaker 2: up because I was trying to get a better deal.
11:16
Speaker 2: And so when we go to trial, he takes the
11:19
Speaker 2: stand and he told them over after he was badgered
11:22
Speaker 2: by the DA, he said, listen, this man ain't had
11:25
Speaker 2: nothing to do with this case.
11:26
Speaker 3: I lied, And they didn't want to believe that.
11:29
Speaker 2: They went so far as to say that I may
11:33
Speaker 2: have gotten somebody to get at him. Well, that didn't work,
11:36
Speaker 2: because he wound up saying, hey, I'm the leader of
11:40
Speaker 2: an Asian gang.
11:41
Speaker 3: And I'm not afraid of none of this.
11:43
Speaker 2: He hasn't been threatened, that no one had been approached.
11:47
Speaker 3: They didn't want to believe that.
12:02
Speaker 1: So two of the women testified and didn't identify you.
12:05
Speaker 1: Fat came clean and said that you had nothing to
12:08
Speaker 1: do with this, that he had lied previously, because he
12:10
Speaker 1: was threatened with deportation. And then Higgins, who pleaded guilty,
12:14
Speaker 1: didn't testify at all, So the prosecutors had basically nothing
12:18
Speaker 1: to go on at this point, so they had to
12:19
Speaker 1: make up something, right, and that's where these phantom phone
12:23
Speaker 1: records come in. We've been doing this show for over
12:26
Speaker 1: five years, two hundred and fifty episodes or whatever. I
12:29
Speaker 1: don't think I've ever heard this one. Just follow along
12:32
Speaker 1: with me for a second here. Okay, So prosecutors used
12:35
Speaker 1: phone records to try to show that you were involved, right,
12:39
Speaker 1: What they actually showed was that you weren't involved. The
12:41
Speaker 1: original records they suppeeded in two thousand and nine were
12:44
Speaker 1: almost completely exculpatory for you. Higgins's phone showed no local
12:49
Speaker 1: calls at all on the day of the crime, so
12:51
Speaker 1: that blows it up right there. Then the police assumed
12:55
Speaker 1: that the records were wrong, so they weren't introduced into evidence.
12:58
Speaker 1: Let me just say that again. Police assumed that the records,
13:01
Speaker 1: which weren't wrong because they couldn't have been wrong, were wrong.
13:05
Speaker 1: Then they used a digital tool called a universal Forensic
13:08
Speaker 1: Extraction device to get records directly from the phone. But
13:11
Speaker 1: this also showed no calls or text between Higgins and
13:15
Speaker 1: you on the day of the crime, So okay, again,
13:20
Speaker 1: should be case closed, But nope. So this is where
13:23
Speaker 1: Detective Christopher ten Kellowix ended up going into Higgins's phone
13:28
Speaker 1: and looking at the call log. Now a trial, he
13:30
Speaker 1: testified as an expert in digital forensics, said that he
13:33
Speaker 1: quote manually extracted twenty five calls between the phone allegedly
13:38
Speaker 1: belonged to Higgins and a phone registered to Loach's wife.
13:41
Speaker 1: He manually extractedly, but I'm trying to figure out what
13:44
Speaker 1: that means. He also said he found a text from
13:47
Speaker 1: the Loach phone to the Higgins phone, made a few
13:49
Speaker 1: hours before the home invasion, and this info was contained
13:52
Speaker 1: in a quote unquote supplemental report that Detective tank Kellowick's
13:57
Speaker 1: attached to the uped report. So, I mean, drum, what
14:02
Speaker 1: the hell.
14:02
Speaker 3: Man this here?
14:05
Speaker 2: It pains me to talk about it a lot of times. Essentially,
14:09
Speaker 2: what happened was that because the young lady said that
14:13
Speaker 2: there was a phone call, they needed something to corroborate that.
14:18
Speaker 2: They then got Sophie Fat and then instead of Sophie
14:21
Speaker 2: Fat saying that it was a phone call, he slips
14:25
Speaker 2: and say that it was a text message and it's
14:27
Speaker 2: on record now.
14:29
Speaker 3: Has that never came out, I probably still would be
14:33
Speaker 3: doing fifty years in prison.
14:35
Speaker 2: Detective John Juden, he was the lead detective on this
14:39
Speaker 2: case and he was the one who obtained the phone
14:45
Speaker 2: records a year before I even got arrested Sophie Fat
14:49
Speaker 2: and mister Higgins was already convicted a year before me.
14:54
Speaker 3: And so Judy goes on this stamp.
14:57
Speaker 2: He's talking insane things about the phone records. So we
15:02
Speaker 2: had to get what he said then in compare to
15:05
Speaker 2: what he's saying a year later now. And so when
15:09
Speaker 2: he got the phone records back then, he said that
15:13
Speaker 2: there was no local phone calls on mister Higgins's phone records.
15:19
Speaker 2: He then looked at Sophie fat phone records and there
15:24
Speaker 2: was again no phone calls between.
15:27
Speaker 3: Us, so that was a problem.
15:30
Speaker 2: He then turned around and he got with a detective
15:35
Speaker 2: named Christopher tink Kellowists.
15:38
Speaker 3: He was a detective.
15:40
Speaker 2: Who moonlighted as an expert in forensics. Mister tank Kelligish
15:46
Speaker 2: had the phone records from AT and T and Sprint,
15:50
Speaker 2: both of these phone companies basically said there is no
15:55
Speaker 2: phone calls during this time period. That equates it's the
16:00
Speaker 2: Loaches phone to these phones.
16:03
Speaker 3: None. Not only that, the phone company.
16:06
Speaker 2: Said this phone itself do not have the capabilities to
16:12
Speaker 2: make texts, but they withheld all of that. Tank Calliquish said,
16:17
Speaker 2: let's use a universal for rigic distraction device. This is
16:21
Speaker 2: the device that FBI and everybody else uses to extract
16:25
Speaker 2: information from phones and computers. And he plugged that into
16:28
Speaker 2: the phone and in two minutes it extracted no phone calls.
16:34
Speaker 2: And this is what tank Calliquish testified to after the
16:38
Speaker 2: report that none of this stuff was.
16:40
Speaker 3: In that phone.
16:41
Speaker 2: He then picked up the phone a day two days later,
16:44
Speaker 2: and miraculously he sees twenty five phone calls and a
16:49
Speaker 2: text message all around the time of this crime.
16:53
Speaker 1: So he saw twenty five calls that AT and T
16:57
Speaker 1: had the incontroversial evidence never happened, and a text mess
17:00
Speaker 1: since that AT and T said the phone was incapable
17:03
Speaker 1: of sending. I mean, this is this is really dark stuff.
17:06
Speaker 2: And it gets crazier because we say Higgins phone, well
17:12
Speaker 2: that was a lie.
17:13
Speaker 3: It wasn't even his phone.
17:15
Speaker 2: Sprint wind up sending records saying that Higgins never owned
17:19
Speaker 2: the phone, that this phone that they looking at belongs
17:22
Speaker 2: to someone else, and they misrepresented the facts, They concealed
17:28
Speaker 2: the evidence, you know, and they made it all appear
17:33
Speaker 2: to be something that it wasn't. Sprint records came back
17:37
Speaker 2: and said those was no twenty five calls at and
17:40
Speaker 2: T said, those wasn't twenty five calls at and T
17:44
Speaker 2: said that phone can't even text. But that's where when
17:49
Speaker 2: you say manually extract.
17:52
Speaker 3: That sounds real technical.
17:54
Speaker 2: But all he did was picked the phone up and
17:57
Speaker 2: looked at it, a phone that supposedly been sitting in
18:01
Speaker 2: evidence for over a year. So you saying that every
18:06
Speaker 2: other police officer or detective before tank Calibers who had
18:12
Speaker 2: that phone looked at this phone and they didn't see
18:14
Speaker 2: none of this because Detective Judie said that in order
18:19
Speaker 2: for him to get the phone number from that phone,
18:23
Speaker 2: he had to turn it on and look through the phone,
18:27
Speaker 2: and he said he could not find nothing in the phone.
18:31
Speaker 1: That's because there was nothing in the phone. And it
18:33
Speaker 1: still gets crazier from here, because the police also had
18:35
Speaker 1: mister Fatt's phone records which showed a call at one
18:39
Speaker 1: twenty two and nine oh seven to the phone registered
18:41
Speaker 1: to your wife, right, because he was somebody who worked
18:44
Speaker 1: for you and you knew him right, but equally important,
18:46
Speaker 1: the phone continued to be used after fats arrest at
18:49
Speaker 1: nine to twenty pm on January tenth, two thousand and nine.
18:52
Speaker 1: So Detective Drudien testified that Fat would have had his
18:55
Speaker 1: phone confiscated upon arrest. Of course he would, and he
18:58
Speaker 1: was unable to explain these additionalks. That's crazy. So the
19:02
Speaker 1: prosecutor closed by referencing the text from you to Higgins
19:05
Speaker 1: and said that the phone records showed a coordinated effort
19:08
Speaker 1: by the three of you. Loach Batten Higgins. He said,
19:12
Speaker 1: quote at nine oh seven pm, the robbery is underway.
19:14
Speaker 1: Sophie Fat is in the middle of this robbery. Who
19:17
Speaker 1: does he call? He calls the defendant. Why would he
19:19
Speaker 1: do that? Ladies and gentlemen, There were twenty five phone
19:21
Speaker 1: calls that day. Now, I don't know about you, but
19:23
Speaker 1: I can't remember the last time I called someone twenty
19:25
Speaker 1: five times in a day. The only way that's happening,
19:28
Speaker 1: something very important must be happening. Think about it. Something
19:31
Speaker 1: in your life. You know a baby, you know a
19:34
Speaker 1: job promotion, you get on the phone, you keep calling people. Well,
19:37
Speaker 1: this robbery is important it's important to the defendant, it's
19:40
Speaker 1: important to fat and Higgins. End quote. What a steaming
19:44
Speaker 1: pile of bullshit that is. Oh my god, that's the
19:47
Speaker 1: quote from the closing argument. What is wrong with these people?
19:51
Speaker 1: So during deliberations, jurors asked to review the cell phone
19:54
Speaker 1: records for Higgins. Prosecutors told the judge that they didn't
19:58
Speaker 1: have the actual record us to supplemental report, So they
20:02
Speaker 1: withheld the real records, they substituted this quote unquote supplemental report,
20:08
Speaker 1: and that was what was given to the jurors. I
20:10
Speaker 1: actually feel sick for the jurors because they were sitting
20:12
Speaker 1: there having no ability to make a decision based on facts.
20:16
Speaker 2: You absolutely hit it on the nail. I do not
20:21
Speaker 2: fuck the jury. They only go on what's presented before them.
20:25
Speaker 2: And the jury acts three times. We want to see
20:29
Speaker 2: those phone records from Sprint. And that's when the DA said, yeah, no,
20:34
Speaker 2: we don't have those, and the judge was kind of
20:36
Speaker 2: like taking a back, like, huh, well, what was.
20:38
Speaker 3: We using during the trial.
20:40
Speaker 2: He said, oh, that was a report that was prepaid
20:43
Speaker 2: by the detective.
20:45
Speaker 3: And the judge said, well, they don't want to see that.
20:46
Speaker 2: They want to see the actual phone records, and so
20:49
Speaker 2: they asked the jury, listen, we don't have the phone records.
20:52
Speaker 2: Do y'all want to see the report? That's the only
20:55
Speaker 2: thing we have. And the jury took this and they
20:58
Speaker 2: convicted me. I do not falk the jury for what
21:01
Speaker 2: they did because they only went on what was resented
21:04
Speaker 2: before them.
21:05
Speaker 1: So the jury convicted you of criminal conspiracy on May
21:10
Speaker 1: twenty seven, twenty eleven, but it quitted you on all
21:12
Speaker 1: the other charges. So that moment when the jury came
21:14
Speaker 1: back in, I mean, you had seen what these people
21:17
Speaker 1: were capable of, and you'd been through a lot of
21:20
Speaker 1: insanity already. Did you still hold out hope that you
21:24
Speaker 1: were going to be exonerated and the truth would come out?
21:27
Speaker 1: And what was it like to find out that you
21:29
Speaker 1: were going to prison for fifty years?
21:32
Speaker 2: I honestly believe I was going to be exonerated because
21:34
Speaker 2: I knew I was innocent. But when that verdict came back,
21:38
Speaker 2: it took everything out of me. The only way that
21:41
Speaker 2: I can explain it, and my soul was stripped when
21:44
Speaker 2: they gave me fifty years.
21:47
Speaker 3: I couldn't believe it. I said, I know my life
21:50
Speaker 3: ain't going in like this is y'all kidding me? Like,
21:54
Speaker 3: wake me up? Is this a nightmare?
22:11
Speaker 2: I went in fighting because I said, if I'm going
22:14
Speaker 2: to die in here, I'm going to die fighting. And
22:17
Speaker 2: twice my life almost came to it end while being
22:20
Speaker 2: in prison. The psychological and physical torture that I experienced
22:25
Speaker 2: while being incarcerated. I am subjected to being in the
22:30
Speaker 2: cell by myself because the psychological issues that I have
22:34
Speaker 2: been dealing with, PTSD and things of that nature. And
22:38
Speaker 2: one day I fell out and myself out completely nine
22:42
Speaker 2: ten o'clock at night, I have to be rushed to
22:44
Speaker 2: the hospital. Outside hospital in which I stayed for a
22:48
Speaker 2: few days, my blood pressure shot to the roof. I
22:52
Speaker 2: can recall the doctor said, why is your blood pressure
22:55
Speaker 2: so high? I said, why did y'all convict me? That's
22:58
Speaker 2: why my blood pressure is so high. And so another
23:02
Speaker 2: incident is when I couldn't walk no more than a
23:05
Speaker 2: hundred feet before I would pass out, and no one
23:08
Speaker 2: could understand why. I wind up being admitted to the
23:11
Speaker 2: hospital for a couple of weeks. This time I wind
23:14
Speaker 2: up learning that I have a severe case of a needing.
23:18
Speaker 2: So now I have to take medication for the rest
23:20
Speaker 2: of my life to help me throughout the day.
23:22
Speaker 3: And so all these things.
23:24
Speaker 2: That I have been experienced with distress and loss of
23:28
Speaker 2: loved ones and things this nature like it just tormented
23:32
Speaker 2: me beyond torment. I can't describe it now. I don't
23:36
Speaker 2: wish this on my worsest enemy. What they've done to me,
23:40
Speaker 2: you know.
23:40
Speaker 1: I can't even imagine. But during this time, you're also
23:44
Speaker 1: pursuing your claims of innocence, and Michael Pelegi began representing
23:47
Speaker 1: you after you had filed pro sae emotions and I
23:49
Speaker 1: know you had appealed the conviction arguing that a potential
23:52
Speaker 1: juror had been dismissed due to his race, that that's
23:55
Speaker 1: out of court statement was too unreliable to be admitted
23:57
Speaker 1: to evidence. Sounds like you became a pretty good lawyer
23:59
Speaker 1: in Print and yourself, and in fact, you went so
24:02
Speaker 1: far and I loved this part of the story to
24:04
Speaker 1: send a subpoena to Higgins's phone company Sprint, including one
24:08
Speaker 1: way you referred to yourself as the law office of
24:11
Speaker 1: Jerome Loja. I love that.
24:15
Speaker 2: Yes, that's how the phone records began to unravel. What
24:19
Speaker 2: I did was I had the love of my family
24:23
Speaker 2: still out here in society still to this day, and
24:26
Speaker 2: my brother went down to city Hall and for five
24:31
Speaker 2: dollars he got me some subpoenas from the courthouse and
24:35
Speaker 2: sent them back up to the prison and I filled
24:39
Speaker 2: those subpoenas out and I subpoenaed the phone company. Well,
24:43
Speaker 2: they thought I was working with the DA's office, and
24:47
Speaker 2: they wind up sending me the phone records saying that
24:52
Speaker 2: mister Higgins doesn't have a.
24:55
Speaker 3: Phone registered to them.
24:58
Speaker 2: That blew my mind because all through my trial transcripts,
25:01
Speaker 2: that's all they talked about is that the police subpoena
25:05
Speaker 2: mister Higgins's phone records. So I said, well, hold on,
25:08
Speaker 2: if they don't have no phone records for mister Higgins,
25:11
Speaker 2: then who is these phone records? So then I had
25:14
Speaker 2: to do another subpoena, and this time I subpoena the
25:18
Speaker 2: name that was used for this phone and they wound
25:21
Speaker 2: up coming back to a female and I said, wow,
25:25
Speaker 2: they had this and they didn't tell me. And that's
25:28
Speaker 2: when I started learning about the twenty five phone calls
25:33
Speaker 2: that never existed, the text messages that never existed. It like,
25:38
Speaker 2: everything began to unravel from that point.
25:42
Speaker 1: So they were making up calls from a phone that
25:44
Speaker 1: didn't exist. I mean, the layers of misconduct is a
25:49
Speaker 1: word I'm going to use, but it's stronger than that.
25:52
Speaker 1: And what eventually happened is that after all of this
25:55
Speaker 1: stuff came to light, prosecutors tried to push back. They
25:59
Speaker 1: said that You're claims were speculative, but the state said
26:02
Speaker 1: it would not oppose an evidentiary hearing about whether the
26:05
Speaker 1: trial attorney was ineffective for failing to secure the testimony
26:08
Speaker 1: of alibi witnesses. The little victory there At the hearing,
26:12
Speaker 1: your lawyer, Pelegi, presented evidence of your incredibly powerful alibi,
26:17
Speaker 1: including the playbill that mentioned your role in the production
26:20
Speaker 1: that was distributed to the one hundred plus people who
26:22
Speaker 1: attended the show at the church. So there was literally
26:26
Speaker 1: a zero percent chance you could have been in both
26:28
Speaker 1: places at the same time. And so on July twenty
26:31
Speaker 1: four to twenty twenty, Judge Tracy roman Brandeis vacated your
26:34
Speaker 1: conviction in order the new trial. She said that your
26:36
Speaker 1: attorneys had been ineffective and that the state had engaged
26:40
Speaker 1: in misconduct by failing to disclose accurate phone records. So
26:43
Speaker 1: this is not me saying, and this is the judge
26:45
Speaker 1: and prosecutors with the DA's Conviction Integrity Unit under the
26:49
Speaker 1: Great Larry Krasner, agreed that there were problems with the conviction,
26:53
Speaker 1: but they still didn't want to dismiss the case. Yet
26:55
Speaker 1: they offered you a deal to plead guilty, to reduce
26:57
Speaker 1: charge and become eligible for parole. Now I know you
27:00
Speaker 1: turned it down, but did you even give it a
27:02
Speaker 1: second thought. That's a hard decision to make, right.
27:05
Speaker 2: Well, my lawyer, he fought with me, you know, he
27:09
Speaker 2: was very concerned about me just getting out like not
27:14
Speaker 2: during the fifty years. And he was doing what any
27:18
Speaker 2: lawyer would do and say, hey, listen, this may be
27:20
Speaker 2: a good one.
27:21
Speaker 3: We can roll the dice and things can have bad luck. Again.
27:26
Speaker 2: I didn't think twice because if you won't convict me,
27:29
Speaker 2: then you're gonna have to do this again, because I
27:32
Speaker 2: didn't do this, and I'm ready to prove my innocence.
27:36
Speaker 2: I think that he saw that and he was convinced,
27:40
Speaker 2: and he gave me.
27:41
Speaker 3: His full support and said, well, let's move forward. And
27:44
Speaker 3: we moved forward.
27:46
Speaker 2: The judge came back and said there was a constitutional
27:50
Speaker 2: violation in this man's case. There was a serious, egregious
27:54
Speaker 2: Brady violation, y'all withheld these records. And not only that
27:58
Speaker 2: this man had a fight alibi defense woo.
28:03
Speaker 3: That sent me to the moon.
28:05
Speaker 2: The main thing that I think that was so telling
28:11
Speaker 2: was how the judge came back with the Brady claim
28:15
Speaker 2: in the violation of the constitutional right, that this was
28:19
Speaker 2: an unfair trap, that they can seal those phone records,
28:23
Speaker 2: that they misrepresented those records. I think that she really
28:28
Speaker 2: gave me what I would consider justice.
28:32
Speaker 1: Wow. Listen, it's a beautiful ending to a truly miserable story.
28:36
Speaker 1: And of course, on June twenty fourth, twenty twenty one,
28:40
Speaker 1: almost a year later, the state of Pennsylvania dismissed the charges,
28:43
Speaker 1: stating that the prosecutors had admitted that they had insufficient
28:47
Speaker 1: evidence to move forward with a retrial. He had already
28:50
Speaker 1: been released on house arrestenced the judge's decision. But now
28:53
Speaker 1: you're a free man. And on July thirteenth, twenty twenty one,
28:58
Speaker 1: you follow a lawsuit against the City of philed you
29:00
Speaker 1: as well as against Detective tech Kelowitz and Detective Druding
29:03
Speaker 1: in the US District Court seeking compensation for your wrongful
29:07
Speaker 1: conviction and Jerome, let's talk about that, because to this date,
29:11
Speaker 1: you've received exactly zero dollars in compensation. Is that right?
29:17
Speaker 2: Yes, I have you seved no compensation whatsoever. They kicked
29:22
Speaker 2: me out the prison and said, and you is you
29:25
Speaker 2: got out of here after decade or more being incarcerated,
29:29
Speaker 2: losing all my finances, lost property, things of that nature.
29:33
Speaker 2: And now my family has put together go fund me
29:38
Speaker 2: to help me try to rebuild my life. So the
29:41
Speaker 2: only thing now that I have gone for me to
29:44
Speaker 2: help me at this particular time, it's a go Fundme
29:47
Speaker 2: page that people, if they want, they can support me.
29:50
Speaker 1: So we're going to have the go fund me linked
29:52
Speaker 1: in our episode bio. Please take a moment right now,
29:55
Speaker 1: don't wait. If you got anything you can spare, that
29:58
Speaker 1: would help a lot to to make it through the
30:01
Speaker 1: next phase before Jerome hopefully wins this civil trial. But
30:05
Speaker 1: that's not a certainty. So please go to the blink
30:08
Speaker 1: of our bio, click on the GoFundMe, and join me
30:10
Speaker 1: and our team in donating to help Jerome and his family.
30:14
Speaker 1: So listen, you're a strong man, and I know you're
30:17
Speaker 1: a great example of the power of human redemption. You're
30:21
Speaker 1: a courageous guy. And I know I speak for our
30:25
Speaker 1: audience and our whole team here at Ronful Conviction when
30:27
Speaker 1: I say that you have all of my respect for
30:29
Speaker 1: standing strong and for being here with us today and
30:32
Speaker 1: sharing your story so eloquently and powerfully. So now we
30:37
Speaker 1: have the closing of the show, which is my favorite
30:40
Speaker 1: part of the show and everybody knows it by now,
30:43
Speaker 1: and the reason is because it's called closing arguments and
30:45
Speaker 1: it works like this. I thank you again for being
30:48
Speaker 1: here and sharing your story. And then I'm going to
30:51
Speaker 1: turn my microphone off, kick back in my chair with
30:54
Speaker 1: the headphones on, and leave your mic on so you
30:56
Speaker 1: can share with us any other thoughts you have about
31:00
Speaker 1: out whatever else you want to talk about.
31:02
Speaker 2: I would like to take this opportunity to once again
31:05
Speaker 2: thank you Offer Conviction Podcasts for allow me this opportunity
31:10
Speaker 2: to come before this audience. One of the things that
31:13
Speaker 2: I will hope that anyone who's listening will begin to
31:18
Speaker 2: do is focusing on phone records. Phone records is so
31:25
Speaker 2: very important and if you don't understand how this goes,
31:31
Speaker 2: you need to start learning about phone records. They can
31:35
Speaker 2: be manipulated, they can be altered, changed, you got to
31:40
Speaker 2: make sure that.
31:42
Speaker 3: When going in that courtroom, when a DA.
31:46
Speaker 2: Or your lawyer or whoever it is talk about phone records,
31:50
Speaker 2: they have to authenticate those phone records.
31:54
Speaker 3: Make sure that those phone records are accurate.
31:57
Speaker 2: And it's not a they poor being disguised as phone records.
32:03
Speaker 2: There's a big distinction with certification of phone records coming
32:08
Speaker 2: directly from the phone company and those records that are
32:12
Speaker 2: being developed and created by detectives or officers who are
32:18
Speaker 2: moonlighting as expert witnesses.
32:22
Speaker 3: They still may have a gender. Thank you and God bless.
32:34
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to
32:37
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Justin Golden, Jeff Cliburn,
32:41
Speaker 1: and Kevin Wartis, with research by Lyla Robinson. The music
32:44
Speaker 1: in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
32:47
Speaker 1: composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram
32:51
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and
32:55
Speaker 1: on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava
32:58
Speaker 1: for Good. On all three platforms. You can also follow
33:01
Speaker 1: me on both TikTok and Instagram at It's Jason flam Ravel.
33:06
Speaker 1: Conviction is the production of Lava for Good podcasts and
33:08
Speaker 1: association with signal Company Number one