Speaker 1: In two thousand eighteen, I had the privilege of interviewing
Speaker 1: use of Salam well now Dr us of Salam and
Speaker 1: Dr Salam now Sirs. I love the way that sounds
Speaker 1: on the board of the Innocence Project with me. He's
Speaker 1: a father of ten children, extraordinary and he is an
Speaker 1: accomplished and celebrated motivational speaker, an author, and a tremendous
Speaker 1: advocate for criminal justice reform. Most dramatically, the story of
Speaker 1: use of Salam and the four other wrongfully convicted boys
Speaker 1: because they were just children when they were teenagers young teenagers,
Speaker 1: and they were wrongly convicted, then known as the Central
Speaker 1: Park Five, now known as the Exonerated Five, were featured
Speaker 1: in the hit Netflix show and the hit it Hit
Speaker 1: is not a strong enough for the smash Netflix show
Speaker 1: when they see us sixteen Emmy Award nominations and it's
Speaker 1: become a cultural phenomenon. It also has resulted in actual
Speaker 1: consequences for the people who wrongfully prosecuted and persecuted Yusef
Speaker 1: and the other kids. Both prosecutors have faced some censure.
Speaker 1: I'm not strong enough punishments in my view for what
Speaker 1: they did, but it really is a full circle turnaround
Speaker 1: that couldn't possibly have been imagined back when this terrible
Speaker 1: miscaracter justice was happening. Dr Yusef Salon's episode is one
Speaker 1: of my favorites. I'm excited for you to hear it.
Speaker 1: I've never been a trouble with my life. I didn't
Speaker 1: even have a parking ticket. I didn't, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. I was brought up like cops are the
Speaker 1: good guys. I didn't know what was going to happen,
Speaker 1: but I do know that everything was stacked against me.
Speaker 1: Everything like everything, this isn't supposed to happen this way.
Speaker 1: I'm innocent. I know I'm innocent. I know I had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with this. How is this possible? I
Speaker 1: grew up trusting this is tims. I grew up believing
Speaker 1: that every human being should boot the right thing. And
Speaker 1: that's why, even though he Neil is dealing with cor
Speaker 1: rough people, I wasn't going to brave anyone to get
Speaker 1: me out of prison because I wouldn't live with the
Speaker 1: funk that I braved my way out of my waystead
Speaker 1: I'm not innocent, too proven guilty. I'm guilty until I
Speaker 1: proved my innocence, and that's absolutely what happened to me
Speaker 1: her system. Since I've been out ten years, it's come
Speaker 1: a little ways, but it's still broke in a totally
Speaker 1: little trust in humanity after what's happened to it. Welcome
Speaker 1: back the Wrong for Conviction with Jason Flam That's me.
Speaker 1: And today I'm actually a little bit um star struck
Speaker 1: or awe struck because, um, we have as our guest
Speaker 1: today Yusef Salam, who is one of the most inspiring
Speaker 1: people I've ever had the privilege to be around. And
Speaker 1: so Yusef, welcome to the show. Oh thank you for
Speaker 1: having me. It is definitely my pleasure. And um, you know,
Speaker 1: I always say I'm happy you're here, but I'm sorry
Speaker 1: you're here because you never should have gone through this
Speaker 1: in the first place. But it's really it's an incredible,
Speaker 1: incredible story, both in terms of the you know, the
Speaker 1: story itself and and the the total breakdown of the
Speaker 1: criminal justice system uh that this case so perfectly um
Speaker 1: um highlights, but also because of what you've how you've
Speaker 1: managed to turn it into such an amazingly positive thing
Speaker 1: and who you've become. So we'll get into that later though,
Speaker 1: but let's go back in time. Like in the movies
Speaker 1: when it gets all foggy and we go back as this,
Speaker 1: because this goes back to the eighties, right, I mean, Um,
Speaker 1: and I lived in New York. This is a New
Speaker 1: York case. Is one of the most famous cases, the
Speaker 1: Central Park Jogre case, or one of the most infamous
Speaker 1: cases in the history of New York City. Um, which
Speaker 1: is of course the media capital of the world. And
Speaker 1: I lived in New York back then, and it was
Speaker 1: it was crazy place. You were just a kid, um
Speaker 1: years old, fifteen years old, unbelievable. I was. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm a little bit older than you, so I was
Speaker 1: in my late twenties already. But I remember like it
Speaker 1: was yesterday. I mean, this case was blasted everywhere. This
Speaker 1: was the crime wave, right, This was a time when
Speaker 1: the only thing there was a lot of crime in
Speaker 1: New York. But the hysteria around the crime was was
Speaker 1: far exceeded the actual problem. Um. And you know you
Speaker 1: were a young guy growing up. Um. And had you
Speaker 1: prior to this horrible incident, had you had any dealings
Speaker 1: with the law, had you ever been in trouble before?
Speaker 1: So I think that, you know, when I look at
Speaker 1: myself back then, being innocent, being you know, full of
Speaker 1: promise and hope and and dreams and aspirations. You know.
Speaker 1: My my so to speak, interaction with police officers or
Speaker 1: authority figures was that we would see them in the
Speaker 1: neighborhoods walking around. And you know, these were back when
Speaker 1: the cops actually walked the beat and knew the people's
Speaker 1: names that they you know, police and and so I
Speaker 1: thought that police officers were very friendly, very very um helpful.
Speaker 1: And you know, you you juxtaposed that with the backdrop
Speaker 1: of today, and it's like a horror scene when you
Speaker 1: look at what happened, you know. But my my interaction
Speaker 1: was very I didn't have I didn't have any interactions.
Speaker 1: And what I knew about police officers was that they
Speaker 1: were they were your friends, and if you needed help,
Speaker 1: you could call on them to help you, um and
Speaker 1: they would come and they would help you because they
Speaker 1: all public servants there to protect and serve. Right. So
Speaker 1: you grew up like I did, thinking these are the
Speaker 1: these are the good guys. A lot of us when
Speaker 1: we were young boys, uh, we all you know, looked
Speaker 1: up to every I looked at the most people in uniform,
Speaker 1: everyone in uniform. I always thought that's a class of cliche.
Speaker 1: You grow up wanting to be a fireman or a
Speaker 1: police officer. A lot of young kids, you know, play
Speaker 1: play act in those those roles. But this crime. I
Speaker 1: want to talk about this crime because you know, interestingly,
Speaker 1: the first guest we ever had on this podcast, and
Speaker 1: now we're deep into our sixth season, right, so, um,
Speaker 1: the first cast we ever had was Raymond Sntana, who
Speaker 1: didn't an incredible interview, just an amazing, amazing man he is,
Speaker 1: and uh did a great job um telling the story.
Speaker 1: So you know, fans of the podcast would be familiar
Speaker 1: with the case from that, but you have your own
Speaker 1: perspective on it, and you know, and and there's a
Speaker 1: very and I say that for a very specific set
Speaker 1: of reasons. But going back to the case, this was
Speaker 1: a case where a woman who was a Wall Street banker,
Speaker 1: a white twenty eight year old woman from the Upper
Speaker 1: East Side, was jockey in Central Park and she was
Speaker 1: that it was dusk right um when she was attacked
Speaker 1: and she was brutally beaten. When she was found. To
Speaker 1: give people some perspective, she sev of the blood and
Speaker 1: her body was gone, her temperate body temperatures eighty four degrees.
Speaker 1: I mean, she was as close to dead as you
Speaker 1: can be, and she had been raped and beaten to
Speaker 1: within an inch of her life. And this triggered everyone's
Speaker 1: worst fears, right because it was, oh my god, this
Speaker 1: is the you know, uh, you know, an innocent woman whatever,
Speaker 1: white and there was a whole racial aspect to it.
Speaker 1: And man, when that happened, the news media went nuts
Speaker 1: and there was a lot of pressure to solve this crime. Um,
Speaker 1: do you want to add anything to to that description?
Speaker 1: You know it was it was definitely a witch hunt,
Speaker 1: sent a frenzy of a witch hunt, because when you
Speaker 1: think about other people's projections, you know, folks look at
Speaker 1: people from so to speak, the darker honies of society
Speaker 1: as the worst of the worst. Um. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm I'm in the motivational speaking world now, and I'm
Speaker 1: told that if you look at a person and address
Speaker 1: a person as they should be, you raised the level
Speaker 1: of what they could be, as opposed to trying to
Speaker 1: be trying to address them as their circumstances are. Not
Speaker 1: everybody who may be in those same circumstances maybe of
Speaker 1: that particular elements and that's the thing that's unfortant, because
Speaker 1: there was this some speak broad stroke rush, you know,
Speaker 1: accusation uh these people type of rhetoric and talk. And
Speaker 1: the notion was that of course they did it because
Speaker 1: they're black and brown, and so you know when they
Speaker 1: when they when the woman was found, you know, towards
Speaker 1: the northern northern end of Central Park. There was this
Speaker 1: just a desire for one to solve this crime, and
Speaker 1: to solve this crime as quick as possible. And so
Speaker 1: I remember me a cosh BacT and saying something like
Speaker 1: people wanted to know how the how the criminal justice
Speaker 1: systems in New York City will work, and they're going
Speaker 1: to get a great opportunity as regards this case to
Speaker 1: see how this system works. We're gonna go after us
Speaker 1: with the full full arm of the law, you know,
Speaker 1: and true to form despike wheels of justice mold us down.
Speaker 1: But in in in their rush to judgment, they dropped
Speaker 1: the ball in the worst way and allowed the will
Speaker 1: criminals to continue to hurt name and ultimately murder. His
Speaker 1: last at them, who was a young pregnant Latina woman.
Speaker 1: He brandished his knife, came into her home. She said,
Speaker 1: hold on for one moment and I thought, my da
Speaker 1: is in the next room. He allowed her to do
Speaker 1: so she put her children in the next moment, she
Speaker 1: locked the door, and then he raped her and stabbed
Speaker 1: for the death, killing her and her unborn child. And
Speaker 1: that is I'm glad you brought that up, because it's
Speaker 1: just it makes it makes anybody sick to their stomach.
Speaker 1: And you know that that scene that you're describing is
Speaker 1: right out of a horror movie. And um, and it
Speaker 1: never should have happened, and it never needed to happen
Speaker 1: because in this case, and it's it's so tragically common,
Speaker 1: yourseff when you have uh, this tunnel vision and this um,
Speaker 1: you know, this wilful framing of innocent people. And in
Speaker 1: this case it's even worse because they really knew who
Speaker 1: the guy was. I mean, first of all, they knew
Speaker 1: and and so this woman never should have been killed.
Speaker 1: The other women that he raped in the months following
Speaker 1: the you know, the your your arrest never never should
Speaker 1: have been raped. They should have gone on and had
Speaker 1: their lives not destroyed the way they were. Um, those
Speaker 1: kids would still have a mother. This the consequences of
Speaker 1: the actions of the authorities in this case goes so
Speaker 1: far beyond having this droid um young lives, five young lives,
Speaker 1: and and your families, and how it defect it had
Speaker 1: on your families. You know, it's amazing. I've seen the
Speaker 1: picture of your mom when you were finally exonerated, and
Speaker 1: she's and the joy is so amazing. But but going
Speaker 1: back to this, the crazy thing is they knew from
Speaker 1: the beginning that it was a single perpetrator because this
Speaker 1: this poor woman was dragged into and the ground was wet, right,
Speaker 1: and she was dragged into this area. You know, obviously
Speaker 1: he wanted to take her to a secluded area. And
Speaker 1: for people who are not from the city, who haven't
Speaker 1: been to the city, Central Park is about three miles
Speaker 1: long and about a mile wide. It's a big place.
Speaker 1: And she was jogging up in the northern section of
Speaker 1: the park. Um, So they knew that there was only
Speaker 1: one set of footprints in the dewey grass. They knew
Speaker 1: that there was only one There was only traces of
Speaker 1: one person's bodily fluids. And as things progressed, even though
Speaker 1: they had you guys, and they restued you guys, and
Speaker 1: they we know, they interrogated you, each of you separately. Uh,
Speaker 1: I don't want to hear about that, because Raymond's description
Speaker 1: of that is truly terrifying when he went through for
Speaker 1: you know, for hours on end, almost almost twenty four
Speaker 1: hours without in Raymond's case, I know, in your case,
Speaker 1: but without food or water or a lawyer or an
Speaker 1: adult um and uh, ultimately ultimately everyone confess except you,
Speaker 1: which is amazing too. I mean, the fact that you,
Speaker 1: as a fifteen year old kid, under the most intense
Speaker 1: pressure that anyone could ever face, scared out of your mind,
Speaker 1: with your life at stake, still maintained your innocence is
Speaker 1: I don't even know where that kind of strength comes from.
Speaker 1: But okay, so explain the situation. So you were brought
Speaker 1: at some point, you were arrested, You were with your
Speaker 1: friends in the park. There was you know, it was
Speaker 1: a sort of a chaotic night in the park, you know,
Speaker 1: hot night. Whatever. How did this hall come down? How
Speaker 1: did you come to be arrested? How did you have
Speaker 1: been the police station? How did that after that? So
Speaker 1: interestingly enough, if we if we can kind of show
Speaker 1: the sneak shift off frame of reference to folks to
Speaker 1: TV shows like C side UH to n C I
Speaker 1: S two forensics, you know these types of things. What
Speaker 1: we get is an understanding that just like you said,
Speaker 1: they had information based on their skill set as police
Speaker 1: officers and and um and so forth, to let them know, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is what happened, they could recreate the crimes being
Speaker 1: based on forensics alone. Okay, this happened first, This happened next.
Speaker 1: If we saw the blood over here and then here
Speaker 1: it is here. We were in Central Parts. We've never
Speaker 1: denied being in Central Park, and all of the guys
Speaker 1: who became known as the Central Park five were absolute
Speaker 1: businesses to all of the mayhem that had gone on
Speaker 1: in the park. With the exception of the rape of
Speaker 1: the Jaga, no one had no idea a woman was raped,
Speaker 1: didn't know anything about it. And so here I am.
Speaker 1: At the time, I was about six ft two and
Speaker 1: two inches, very slim. Had an outfit on that was
Speaker 1: a sky blue jacket with sky blue matching pants. My
Speaker 1: sky blue pants had artwork on it. I'm actually a
Speaker 1: person who was going to LaGuardia Um Music and Art
Speaker 1: for Arts, so I'm a great graphic designer, and I
Speaker 1: drew some stuff for my pants that was just you
Speaker 1: know how how people did back then, right, if we
Speaker 1: can think about the t shows, what we know is
Speaker 1: that when they start going into the community to try
Speaker 1: to recreate what happened and to ask people what happened,
Speaker 1: what they do is they say, okay, well, who who's there,
Speaker 1: and folks in there in there thinking okay, damn what.
Speaker 1: There was a guy. It was a tall guy. I remember,
Speaker 1: it was a tall guy in the park with a
Speaker 1: flat I was probably maybe the most stand out ish
Speaker 1: looking for fellows because not only was our tall and lanky,
Speaker 1: but what I had at on almost looked like I
Speaker 1: was wearing white in the in the lights of the
Speaker 1: central Park. And so of course no one knew my name.
Speaker 1: None of us knew each other. I actually met Raymond
Speaker 1: Santana and the other guys in prison. I only knew Corey. Why.
Speaker 1: But as things go further, as you can imagine, they
Speaker 1: go to the surrounding communities and start interrogating everyone. One
Speaker 1: thing leads to another, and my name is mentioned, and
Speaker 1: I'm finding out that the police officers are looking for me,
Speaker 1: And I said, well, you know what, hey, I didn't
Speaker 1: I knew I didn't do anything wrong. I'm with Corey.
Speaker 1: Corey said Hey, I left the park almost right after
Speaker 1: we went in. We said, well, let's sort of the
Speaker 1: cops and to tell them what we saw and we'll
Speaker 1: be home before our mom gets back. So when did
Speaker 1: you get picked up? Like the crime happened at night
Speaker 1: right and the publicity happened immediately after the crime, When
Speaker 1: did you become aware of the cops were looking for you?
Speaker 1: I became aware of it. I went to school the
Speaker 1: next day. I was actually one of the only children.
Speaker 1: I had school the next day. Um, I went to
Speaker 1: school and next day came home from school and the
Speaker 1: blocks were completely empty. It was the weirdest things that
Speaker 1: you can imagine if children didn't have school. Everybody be
Speaker 1: outside riding skateboard spikes, having fun to hanging out. And
Speaker 1: I'm looking around him, like where's everybody at? And not
Speaker 1: only that, I see a whole bunch of unmarked police cars,
Speaker 1: and so I'm like, yeah, that's is crazy. Go upstairs,
Speaker 1: not thinking anything. I've changed my clothes and come back
Speaker 1: downstairs with my my playouts at this point, you know,
Speaker 1: and Corey's girlfriend at the time comes up to me
Speaker 1: and says, hey, when you see Corey, bring him to
Speaker 1: my house. I need to show you all something that's
Speaker 1: I said, I said, show no problems. So Corey, a
Speaker 1: little while later we go up to his top his
Speaker 1: girlfriend's house, and she shows us she turned the news
Speaker 1: on it. At this point. It's maybe around uh for
Speaker 1: a stock or something like that, and of course they
Speaker 1: do the things breaking the music exclusives. Um women found
Speaker 1: it as far uh supposed to go on. I'm not
Speaker 1: understanding why she's showing this us. And then she looks
Speaker 1: at us and says, hey, do you have anything to
Speaker 1: tell me? And they're looking at her like, what's up,
Speaker 1: what's up? What's going on? And she said that they're
Speaker 1: saying that this was you guys, that you're in the
Speaker 1: park last night, and this is what you all did.
Speaker 1: I said, right, no, no, no, no, no no. And
Speaker 1: then she said, and they're looking for you, and so
Speaker 1: I said, well, I'm gonna go to them and tell
Speaker 1: them what I saw. I know, I didn't do anything wrong.
Speaker 1: Colory said he didn't do anything wrong. He didn't he
Speaker 1: didn't hurt nobody or do anything bad. He left the
Speaker 1: park after entering and we get picked up. As a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, when we when we finally got a
Speaker 1: hold of the officers. That is kind of strange and
Speaker 1: ironic that I'm saying it that way, but I was
Speaker 1: looking for them. When the officers finally seen in contact
Speaker 1: with us, they were in front of my door trying
Speaker 1: to convince my thirteen year old brother to put his
Speaker 1: clothes on and come down to the printing with them.
Speaker 1: He had not been in the park, he didn't know
Speaker 1: what was going on, and they were trying to convince
Speaker 1: him to put his clothes on to come down to
Speaker 1: the precinct to be questioned. In the turkey that would
Speaker 1: have ended disastrously, as you can get back. I turned
Speaker 1: the corner to approach my door and they're in front
Speaker 1: of my door talking about brother, and they asked me
Speaker 1: who am I used to long to look at this
Speaker 1: documents that they had in their hands and said, this
Speaker 1: is one of the guys you were looking for there, Corey.
Speaker 1: Who was he? And he said, um, Corey Wise And
Speaker 1: they looked at the paper instead of you're you're not
Speaker 1: on this this paper, But do you want to come
Speaker 1: downtown with your buddy? You'll be right back, and you know,
Speaker 1: you know how the story end. Of course, Corey is
Speaker 1: sixteen years old at the time. He ends up getting
Speaker 1: weilroaded and convicted and spending almost thirteen to fourteen years
Speaker 1: of the next part of his life in prison for
Speaker 1: a crime that we all not had not committed. Wow,
Speaker 1: So he was actually the most random of them all.
Speaker 1: He just went down because he was trying to be
Speaker 1: a d d U basically right, And that was the
Speaker 1: one that was the most worst decision he ever made.
Speaker 1: He made it for the right reason. So the process
Speaker 1: that happened in the precincts, it was the Central Park
Speaker 1: precinct that you were brought to, right, that would the
Speaker 1: initial precinct um. And then they then they you know,
Speaker 1: because Manhattan Manhattan North Homicide squad steps there and they
Speaker 1: start they are the now then they are now the
Speaker 1: officers that are interrogating. They are the ones that are saying, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is looking like a sun to be a homicide.
Speaker 1: We need to figure this out and and solve this
Speaker 1: climate top quickly and appease the fears of the public
Speaker 1: and let them know that we have the city under control.
Speaker 1: We are in control, and we caught the so called perpetrators.
Speaker 1: So how did the interrogations go, Like what you were
Speaker 1: brought in? What was the whole process. You're brought to
Speaker 1: the precinct. You were with Corey. I was with Korey,
Speaker 1: and they immediately separated us, you know, and they started
Speaker 1: interrogating us and and and while they were asking me
Speaker 1: the questions I had, I was very very forthcoming. I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is what happened first, is what happened next. I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, thinking, hey, I'm just gonna go in there
Speaker 1: and tell them what I saw. And like I said,
Speaker 1: I'll be back home before my mom gets back. And
Speaker 1: when I when I wrapped up the first time, the
Speaker 1: guy said, okay, well what about the jock? And I'm like, what, JOCKO,
Speaker 1: what are you talking about? And he says, okay, well,
Speaker 1: let's start tell me what happened again from the top
Speaker 1: to start from the top again, and things began to intensify.
Speaker 1: And it began to intensify in such a way that
Speaker 1: I started feeling a phrase. And then they, you know,
Speaker 1: at some point they would leave the room and come
Speaker 1: back in, and I've never seen at one point they
Speaker 1: left the room for a very very long time. And
Speaker 1: at this point, hours were going by, and I'm feeling tired,
Speaker 1: and I'm starting at doze off, and I am immediately
Speaker 1: jolted for wait because I hear Corey Wise knelling in
Speaker 1: the next room. Cory wised. Just to give you a
Speaker 1: little big background of Corey, Corey Wise was the uh
Speaker 1: was was, probably was and still is the guy who
Speaker 1: you wanted to have as a friend because you knew
Speaker 1: that he would have your back. He wasn't gonna let
Speaker 1: nothing that happen to you. He was going to make
Speaker 1: sure that you know you were okay. And so to
Speaker 1: hear Corey, this person who had such a big heart
Speaker 1: of fearful person, yelling and screaming okay, I'll tell you,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm like, oh my goodness, they're beating him up.
Speaker 1: I hear I'm smacking him around. I hear them. I
Speaker 1: hate he's under the street. He is in a position
Speaker 1: that I have never heard him in before. And that
Speaker 1: immediately joked to me a word since chills down my spine,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh my god, that's they're gonna kill her.
Speaker 1: And at this point I'm scared. At this point, I'm
Speaker 1: still trying to maintain my innocence. I'm still trying to
Speaker 1: let them know what happened. And now it's like a
Speaker 1: boxing match. At any point, did you have a lawyer
Speaker 1: or a guardian, or a parent or anybody else in
Speaker 1: there with you know? And this is one of the
Speaker 1: most interesting things. I didn't know my mother had came
Speaker 1: to the priest, and I didn't know she was there.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until after a few more hours passed at
Speaker 1: one of the I think it might have been either
Speaker 1: Fairstein or Elizabeth Letterer came into the room, I mean
Speaker 1: not the nation that comes to a knocked on the
Speaker 1: door and summoned the officer out of the room. And
Speaker 1: when they summoned the officer out of the room, they
Speaker 1: the officers came back in and said to me, how
Speaker 1: old are you? Remind you? They they they firsted me
Speaker 1: when they took me into custody at my apartment building.
Speaker 1: They took my I D which had my I D
Speaker 1: from Mount Sinai Hospital, which I had my birthday on it.
Speaker 1: Inside my wallet had my mouth swa I D and
Speaker 1: my i'm I D. But you know, like the hospital um,
Speaker 1: your hospital cards, um I had that, I had a
Speaker 1: bus pass um and I had a a pocket knife.
Speaker 1: So they knew how old I was. So the guy
Speaker 1: comes in and says, how do you? How are you?
Speaker 1: How are you? Again? And I'm fifteen? And he curses
Speaker 1: and throws his pad across the room and says, why
Speaker 1: the act didn't you tell me that? And I'm I'm
Speaker 1: not even knowing why is that's even relevant? I don't
Speaker 1: even understand what's going on. Then they bring me down
Speaker 1: to my mom and she's she's she's telling me, hey,
Speaker 1: do not talk to these people. I did not give
Speaker 1: them permission to talk to you. You're a minor. They
Speaker 1: need my permistion. I am not giving them permission. Don't
Speaker 1: talk to them. That's how it went. But then then
Speaker 1: what happened, because now you spoke of your mom. That
Speaker 1: must have been a very emotional situation. I mean, now
Speaker 1: you just heard Corey getting eating up. You know that
Speaker 1: you're in real trouble. Um, your mom is there like
Speaker 1: like a lifeboat, right, like a life uh you know, uh,
Speaker 1: life saver. But um, but you're but but you're still
Speaker 1: in the custody of the cops. And then so did
Speaker 1: they then pull you away from her and put you
Speaker 1: back in the room. And they did, And that's the part,
Speaker 1: that's the craziest part. They don't have they don't have
Speaker 1: her permission. They they don't have her consent to talk
Speaker 1: to me. That meeting was so short. I don't know
Speaker 1: how long it lacked it, but it felt like minutes.
Speaker 1: It felt like minute. It felt like it was less
Speaker 1: than five minutes. And then they brought they almost ripped
Speaker 1: me out of her arm beginning, brought me back to
Speaker 1: the back and they continue to interrogate, and I remember
Speaker 1: one of the officers, the main officers interrogating. He says, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, you don't have to tell us anything. That's fine.
Speaker 1: You know, we have we have your We pulled your
Speaker 1: fingerprints off of her um over for short, Like how
Speaker 1: the heck did they put my favorite print off for short?
Speaker 1: Like I didn't, I wasn't there. Yeah, and that's something
Speaker 1: he said that that you know, I don't understand either.
Speaker 1: I mean, the fact that they're allowed to lie in
Speaker 1: the interrogation process is so uh, it just I don't know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't make sense to me, But go ahead. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I mean at this point, I'm like, oh man,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I'm doing I'm done for But they took
Speaker 1: my trust and put it on earth. But they didn't.
Speaker 1: The fact is your prints weren't on it. They just
Speaker 1: they just lied, I mean because they're trying to pressure static.
Speaker 1: So I thinking I'm being framed and I'm like, oh, Sean,
Speaker 1: but yeah, me lied And did they did they actually
Speaker 1: beat you up like they did the other guys. No, No,
Speaker 1: they didn't. That the threat was very real, threat was
Speaker 1: extremely real, but they didn't. They didn't touch me. And
Speaker 1: ultimately you were there for Do you even know how
Speaker 1: many hours you were in there for? No, I don't.
Speaker 1: I know. I was brought in that evening and I
Speaker 1: remember we didn't have anything to eat a drink, and
Speaker 1: you know, being worn down from that, you know, you
Speaker 1: think about I have I have ten children, so it's
Speaker 1: a interesting dynamic when you think about, you know, how
Speaker 1: much a child could eat and so my my, uh,
Speaker 1: my fifteen year old uh consumes everything in the house.
Speaker 1: You know, you got to basically go to Costcos just
Speaker 1: for that one child alone, uh and buying bulks because
Speaker 1: you know that they're going to eat everything, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: but we didn't get anything to eat, we didn't get
Speaker 1: anything to drink. I remember the next morning we were
Speaker 1: we were at another prepense and they brought McDonald's. You know,
Speaker 1: and I remember eating McDonald's was the first time I
Speaker 1: had even eat and and so and you said, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a very powerful video that I saw you do, UM,
Speaker 1: that people can watch that you did in conjunction with
Speaker 1: the New Yorker magazine and the Marshall Project, in which
Speaker 1: you talk about the fact that you thought you were
Speaker 1: going to go and as you just said you'd be
Speaker 1: home before your mind got back. Uh. And in fact
Speaker 1: he didn't get home from seven years. UM. So from
Speaker 1: this point you never did confess, right, the other guys
Speaker 1: were And which is interesting too because of the fact
Speaker 1: and kind of amazing because of the fact that we
Speaker 1: know that false confessions are very common. Um. The general
Speaker 1: public doesn't understand. Jurors don't understand why anyone would confess
Speaker 1: to a crime they didn't commit. But when they're under
Speaker 1: that type of pressure and their adolescence and their brain
Speaker 1: hasn't even fully formed like yours, Adnam, but what were
Speaker 1: you in ninth grade? It's ridiculous. And so the pressure
Speaker 1: gets to people and they also think like it must
Speaker 1: have occurred to you at some point, because they you
Speaker 1: come into that room thinking, well, these are the good guys,
Speaker 1: and there's gonna be Even if these guys that in
Speaker 1: front of me are good guys, there's gonna be some
Speaker 1: other good guys that are gonna understand that are gonna
Speaker 1: save me, because I gotta get out of this room,
Speaker 1: like I gotta get away from these people who are
Speaker 1: tormenting me, who are threatening me, who may kill me. UM.
Speaker 1: And that's what the whole you know, interrogation techniques called
Speaker 1: the red technique is designed to do. It's designed to
Speaker 1: basically make your mind collapse in on itself so that
Speaker 1: you see no other option other than to confess. So
Speaker 1: that's why false confessions are extremely common in in juveniles
Speaker 1: and adolescence. UM. And that's important for people who are
Speaker 1: listening who are someday going to serve on a jury
Speaker 1: to know if you're if you're seeing especially a case
Speaker 1: where there's no other evidence other than a false confession,
Speaker 1: other than a confession, you really have to dive into
Speaker 1: that and you have to be aware that that confession
Speaker 1: very well maybe a false confession, and you may be
Speaker 1: dealing with an innocent person. So then it comes to
Speaker 1: the to the trial and you know you've got this
Speaker 1: sensational trial. UM. It's so much media you guys were
Speaker 1: you know, I mean even I was buying into it
Speaker 1: back then. I'm ashamed to admit it. But there was
Speaker 1: only one narrative. There wasn't like somebody else going, well,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, maybe blah blah blah. Because they were
Speaker 1: withholding all the evidence that they had, right they knew,
Speaker 1: I mean, weeks into your case. They knew that it
Speaker 1: was impossible that you or any of the the four
Speaker 1: guys could have done this. But they didn't care because
Speaker 1: and that's the thing, you know, when I when I
Speaker 1: when I look at a lot of these cases and
Speaker 1: I understand the law a lot more, I realized that
Speaker 1: it's not really about the fact, it's about who can
Speaker 1: tell the best stories. And in many ways, we had
Speaker 1: an effective council. We had, you know, we were facing
Speaker 1: a situation where even the evidence that you see, you know,
Speaker 1: you would think that it's a game rate, that there's
Speaker 1: definitely going to be some some semens uh, some type
Speaker 1: of something. Nobody had blood on them, nobody had anything
Speaker 1: on them that even indicated that they were at this place,
Speaker 1: you know, but yet they still went and stepped over
Speaker 1: the bounds of the law, manufactured evidence, like you said,
Speaker 1: and went full stream ahead because now, not only did
Speaker 1: they do this in the worst way, but I've always
Speaker 1: said that it was more attractive, it was more sexy,
Speaker 1: if you will. So they're to be five people brutally
Speaker 1: as salting one woman who was white, five five people
Speaker 1: of color brutally assaulting a white woman. Then to there
Speaker 1: it has been with the evidence shows from the clans
Speaker 1: because one person dragging one person into the woods and
Speaker 1: trying to murder them after they raised them. Right, it's
Speaker 1: a wolf pack situation. It's it's preying on everybody's primal fears,
Speaker 1: is playing on the on the race card, everything else,
Speaker 1: and you know, and it's so it's so tragic because
Speaker 1: they knew that this Mathias Rays guy, they were already
Speaker 1: watching him. They knew that he was a suspect and
Speaker 1: a prior rape that had many of the similar characteristics.
Speaker 1: I mean, there was this case really came with instructions
Speaker 1: and as this evidence started coming in and they became
Speaker 1: aware in a very short time after you guys were arrested,
Speaker 1: and some of the evidence probably was even before you're arrested,
Speaker 1: that it was a single perpetrator, be that it wasn't
Speaker 1: any of you guys. See that they could have so
Speaker 1: easily gone and picked up Matthias, and they would have
Speaker 1: they would have had the guy. And we keep coming
Speaker 1: back to that, and none of these other people would
Speaker 1: have suffered the way they didn't neither would you. Um,
Speaker 1: But that that's not what happened because these people were, um,
Speaker 1: they were overtaken by ambition and publicity and accolades that
Speaker 1: they wanted to get, and they were perfectly happy to
Speaker 1: convict inness and people. It was almost like, not even
Speaker 1: inconvenient for them. It was just like, let's just get
Speaker 1: it done and and take the bows and and do
Speaker 1: their whole thing, going on with their lives. And they
Speaker 1: have gone on with their lives. I don't know how.
Speaker 1: I don't know how they sleep at night, but they do.
Speaker 1: You know, Jason, is interesting as you talk about that,
Speaker 1: because that's one of the things that people try to
Speaker 1: get people to understand as well. This is not a
Speaker 1: situation where oh my goodness, we dropped the ball my dad,
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, we've never done this before. This is
Speaker 1: this is a situation where it's the convince ability of
Speaker 1: our guilt, which was we weren't guilty. But if they
Speaker 1: were able to convince the public of this lie and
Speaker 1: do it so well. I've always said, well, how many
Speaker 1: other cases after? I never forget when the Central prop
Speaker 1: five film came out that King Burns did, which was
Speaker 1: an amazing film. I never forget when it was released,
Speaker 1: people from Columbia Law was watching it. And Elizabeth Letter
Speaker 1: is an adjunct professor at Columbia Law. I don't know
Speaker 1: if she's still there, but she was there then, and
Speaker 1: the students started an online petition to get her fired.
Speaker 1: They did not want her to teach them because in
Speaker 1: their minds they were they were looking at this case
Speaker 1: and saying, what kind of law is she gonna teach?
Speaker 1: If she said this to the Central Proas five, what
Speaker 1: is she training us to do? And they did not
Speaker 1: want her to teach them, And instead of Columbia Law
Speaker 1: firing her, they protected her. But the documents paying a
Speaker 1: pictures that this wasn't just about we're gonna prosecute this case.
Speaker 1: We're just gonna do our jobs and you know, make
Speaker 1: sure that justice is served. We like they hated us.
Speaker 1: They hated us with every fiber of their body and
Speaker 1: wanted us to be guilted. And in that they said
Speaker 1: anything and everything by hook or by crook to make
Speaker 1: sure that they can get a conviction. I never forget
Speaker 1: when they when they leaked out something about the DNA,
Speaker 1: they said the DNA evidence, and then they tested us
Speaker 1: and no match came back. And what did they do?
Speaker 1: They had to come out and say that no, there's
Speaker 1: no match. But they quickly swept it under the rug.
Speaker 1: Because that tsunami of media reports that was present within
Speaker 1: the first few weeks of this trial, or not even
Speaker 1: the trial for the case being broadcast. That tsunami of
Speaker 1: media reports dwarfs any of these small little things that
Speaker 1: came out because it munted the waters and caused people
Speaker 1: to just say to themselves, there was something about DNA
Speaker 1: in this case. They don't remember that there was no
Speaker 1: DNA match. They just remembered there was something about DNA.
Speaker 1: And then when he came out in the trial and
Speaker 1: said this will there will be no DNA evidence in mistakes.
Speaker 1: What we what we will rely on for their confession,
Speaker 1: Stay tuned, will be right back. Let's let's move to
Speaker 1: the trial itself. How long did the trial last? Man?
Speaker 1: So I want to I want to say that the
Speaker 1: trial lasted for maybe just under a year. I don't
Speaker 1: know specific time frames, but I do know that I was.
Speaker 1: I was out on bail. I was only in in
Speaker 1: in uh lock up initially for a little while. That
Speaker 1: I got out on build and that was nice. Maybe
Speaker 1: nine and how about when they convicted us? But okay,
Speaker 1: so that's weird too, because you're out on bail. I mean,
Speaker 1: you couldn't go to school. You must have had to
Speaker 1: stay inside the house. You're one of the most notorious
Speaker 1: criminals in New York State history. At that time. It was.
Speaker 1: It was one of the worst and scariest times ever because,
Speaker 1: as you can imagine, also Donald Trump, early on, we
Speaker 1: hadn't even going we haven't even going to trial yet.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump takes out a full page ad two weeks
Speaker 1: after we were accused, and it runs in the New
Speaker 1: York News, the Daily, to the New York Times Daily News,
Speaker 1: to post, all of the major newspapers. It runs, and
Speaker 1: it's it's an outcry. It's an outcry from someone from
Speaker 1: the darker enclaves of society two coming to our home
Speaker 1: to drag us from our bay and to hang us
Speaker 1: from trees and Central Park, to due to us what
Speaker 1: they had done to as a kill and I say
Speaker 1: that because what happened as a result of that article
Speaker 1: being that ad being brand and placed, people began to
Speaker 1: write us hateful mail. People begin to write us threatening letters.
Speaker 1: They began to say that they were gonna that we
Speaker 1: that they hope that we would be fried and oil,
Speaker 1: that we be raped, that we would be castrated, that
Speaker 1: thirty years from now, next year is the third year
Speaker 1: anniversary of the Central Park jogger case. Twenty to thirty
Speaker 1: years from now, some people will never forget. And one
Speaker 1: letter specifically says that maybe the one time that you
Speaker 1: don't check your back is the one time that someone
Speaker 1: must just be there to say hello. And so if
Speaker 1: you can imagine the language and and and all of
Speaker 1: the stuff that was going on back then, like they
Speaker 1: wanted to murder us. They wanted to do to us
Speaker 1: what they had done to m Hill. We became the
Speaker 1: modern day scotsporal boys, definitely, but they wanted to do
Speaker 1: to us what they had done to em Chill. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the MTL case haunts me. It's just really one of
Speaker 1: the most just really one of the darkest episodes in
Speaker 1: American history, that that that poor kid with that little
Speaker 1: baby face that he had, but you were almost the
Speaker 1: same age as he was at the time, right he was,
Speaker 1: you were fifteen, and here you are now you're a
Speaker 1: prisoner in your own home. You have this guy who
Speaker 1: we know is a racist taking out these ads advocating
Speaker 1: a lynch mob. Um. The fact that the papers would
Speaker 1: even run these ads is insane and um. And then
Speaker 1: then the trial comes. So how did the trial itself?
Speaker 1: And you know, obviously you were not adequately represented. I
Speaker 1: don't know if a good lawyer could have gotten you
Speaker 1: out with all the hysteria at that time, because you've
Speaker 1: been trial, you had already been tried in the media.
Speaker 1: But the fact that you know, there's that saying that
Speaker 1: in America you're better off being guilty and rich than
Speaker 1: innocent and poor. So the fact is, so you go
Speaker 1: to the trial. The trial itself lasted how many days?
Speaker 1: Oh man? So the trial, that's that's another thing that's
Speaker 1: very foggy on me. But I know that as the
Speaker 1: trial went in, it was like okay, as it was
Speaker 1: drawing on and drawing on, and you get the very
Speaker 1: at the very end. What I remember most is I
Speaker 1: was on the phone with a friend and I never
Speaker 1: forget it was the day was the day was ending,
Speaker 1: and I'm on the phone and say, hey, this is
Speaker 1: what's going on. You know, okay, it looks like a
Speaker 1: will will uh you know, they're not gonna have a verdict.
Speaker 1: And I'll be at the sea wall shortly. And then
Speaker 1: somebody came running down the hallway and says the verticues
Speaker 1: in the vertices and I said, man, it VERTICU is
Speaker 1: then okay, great, I'll see you soon. And I just
Speaker 1: don't know. We were all found guilty. You were trying
Speaker 1: were you trying together? Well, they split the trial and
Speaker 1: they split the case in half, and so the first
Speaker 1: of us myself, Reman's, Antana and Ara mccreers win and
Speaker 1: then the next three that was there because it was
Speaker 1: initially called a Central Park seven and uh, Michael Briscoe
Speaker 1: was able to get out of the case um and
Speaker 1: get bread and then it became the Center Park six.
Speaker 1: And when that first trial happened, myself Reminsce, myself Remans,
Speaker 1: Antanna and Ara mccraize. We got convicted, we lost, and
Speaker 1: the next trial was daring up Corey Wise, Kevin Richardson
Speaker 1: and Stephen Lopez, Stephn Lopez as Colfee all kind of
Speaker 1: rumors were out there about how much time we were facing.
Speaker 1: They wanted to try us as adults and convict us
Speaker 1: as adults, and they tried us as adults, and then
Speaker 1: when the convictions came down a few months later, for
Speaker 1: a little while later they gave us juvenile time. But
Speaker 1: each of these charges they were saying could have given
Speaker 1: us three and a half were was it three? And
Speaker 1: the third three and a third to ten years? And
Speaker 1: so were the major charges. I think it was two
Speaker 1: of them. We could have been facing fiction two thirds
Speaker 1: to twenty years if they wanted to give us that
Speaker 1: kind of time. And like I said, Stephen Lope has
Speaker 1: got cold fee heard about this, these rumors. Oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: they got convicted. I can't do that much time. Let
Speaker 1: me just cop out to something that I didn't do
Speaker 1: so I can get out of this thing. And of
Speaker 1: course we know that he copped out to robbery or
Speaker 1: something like that and got a year. U he did,
Speaker 1: he did one year and came home. I think it
Speaker 1: was one year. Um. And I was been fortunate too,
Speaker 1: because it shows, like you said, if you're poor and
Speaker 1: your innocence, you're not going to get a fair chance.
Speaker 1: You're not going to be afforded the same opportunities of
Speaker 1: the under the law as a person who maybe more
Speaker 1: and so so that you actually believe up until the
Speaker 1: moment that the verdict came in that you were going
Speaker 1: to be exonerate. It's amazing after everything you've been through
Speaker 1: that you still had that type of and well, now
Speaker 1: that I know you as I do, the fact that
Speaker 1: you're that optimistic attitude is I guess I shouldn't be surprised,
Speaker 1: but after everything you had been through at that time, um,
Speaker 1: it's amazing that you still maintained hope. But in fact,
Speaker 1: the worst possible outcome came to be, which is that
Speaker 1: you were found guilty and then you were taking to prison.
Speaker 1: Now you're sixteen years old, right and you're going to
Speaker 1: some of the worst prisons in America arguably the world.
Speaker 1: This is this is the worst of nightmare times twenty
Speaker 1: And that was in the juvenile facility as well. I
Speaker 1: know that Corey Wise in Burker's Island and Kors Island
Speaker 1: is incomparable to sponsor It or any of the other
Speaker 1: juvenile facilities. You know, the worst thing that can happen
Speaker 1: to you and Jubie is that you might get sliced
Speaker 1: or you know, beat up with slife that but in
Speaker 1: Barker's Island you could die, you could lose your life.
Speaker 1: For us, that went to the juvenile facility. That was
Speaker 1: how And then when we got convicted, they sent us
Speaker 1: to one of the three maximum Agent Street facilities at
Speaker 1: the time that was there. They sent me to Harlem Valley.
Speaker 1: They sent Raymonds and Canada goshen Uh and they spent
Speaker 1: uh and trying to create a book forward, you know,
Speaker 1: and it was the worst, worst kind of situation that
Speaker 1: you can bagine. We had to grow up very fast
Speaker 1: think about how we were going to survive when just
Speaker 1: yesterday we were riding skateboards and you know, being fru
Speaker 1: groups or something like that. I'm doing graphic design and
Speaker 1: looking forward to just just just just being a normal,
Speaker 1: innocent child. And now yet that whole reality is gone,
Speaker 1: and it's hard to it's hard to fully describe everything
Speaker 1: that went on because my story is a little bit
Speaker 1: different because I started to really try to get some
Speaker 1: type of understanding about this. I wanted to figure out
Speaker 1: why why, Like I knew that I was infant, I
Speaker 1: knew that we hadn't done it, but here we were,
Speaker 1: we were in prison, and I was trying to figure
Speaker 1: out why were we convicted? How did this happen? And
Speaker 1: I never forget that guy comes up to me in prison,
Speaker 1: one of the officers, and he's been watching me for
Speaker 1: a few months that I had been there at this time,
Speaker 1: and he asks me this one question, This one question
Speaker 1: changed my life. He said, who are you? And I
Speaker 1: and I in my in my in my ignorance and confusion.
Speaker 1: My answer was probably the same as anyone else, without
Speaker 1: understanding the philosophical realm of where he was going. I said,
Speaker 1: I'm used to salon one of the guys that they
Speaker 1: accused of rape in the Central Park Joga, but I
Speaker 1: didn't do it. And he said, no, no, no no, no,
Speaker 1: I know that, he said, but I've been watching you.
Speaker 1: You're not supposed to be here, You're not a criminal.
Speaker 1: Why are you here? Who are you? And it caused
Speaker 1: me to really evaluate my life and my circumstances, short
Speaker 1: as it may be, at a particular point in time,
Speaker 1: to to to understand things in a greater, so to speak, way,
Speaker 1: to understand that we all are here on purpose. There's
Speaker 1: things that we have to do, and we are the
Speaker 1: ones that are chosen to do that, and if they
Speaker 1: don't do it, it won't be done. Because we don't
Speaker 1: bless the world with our book. That book will never
Speaker 1: be rich. They say the Grave daughter is the wealthiest
Speaker 1: place in the world because it's stilled with the ideas
Speaker 1: and the dreams and the hopes of people that just
Speaker 1: did not get over the hump of doing those ideas
Speaker 1: and dreams and hopes, you know. And so here I was,
Speaker 1: in this place that I was supposed to be. Damned,
Speaker 1: I'm getting a sense of purpose that I would have
Speaker 1: never really really understood had not gone through this. Did
Speaker 1: you did you maintain a relationship with that officer going forward?
Speaker 1: Because that's deep. I mean, the first person that said
Speaker 1: that those same words to me was deep Ac Chopra.
Speaker 1: I'm not comparing this guy to deep oct Chopra, but um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean what happened with I mean, did
Speaker 1: you did you continue to have dialogue with him? I did?
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, this this guy befriended me.
Speaker 1: It was one of it was one of the many
Speaker 1: officers that be friended me, you know. And it was
Speaker 1: weird because at the same time there was there were
Speaker 1: little things that would go on, and one time I
Speaker 1: would come back to my cell and I would see uh,
Speaker 1: tropic orange juice and instruments cookies, and it would happen
Speaker 1: to often enough that have kind of like, oh wow,
Speaker 1: this is this is kind of strange. And it happened
Speaker 1: to life choplicate kind of orange es and intimate cookies.
Speaker 1: But in the back of my mind I had this
Speaker 1: voice playing in my head that they were trying to
Speaker 1: kill me with the food, and so I would never
Speaker 1: eat it. And one day this lady comes up to
Speaker 1: be another officer and she says, hey, have you been
Speaker 1: getting the goodies I've been leaving to you? And I said,
Speaker 1: oh wow, I didn't know you were leaving. I didn't
Speaker 1: know it was you. I said why, why, why did
Speaker 1: you do that? And she said, you said. I know
Speaker 1: you're anything. I know you're not supposed to be here,
Speaker 1: but I can't take this key and let you go
Speaker 1: for you. So every time I come in here and
Speaker 1: you're here, I want to make good time as easy
Speaker 1: and as as as comfortable as possible, And this was
Speaker 1: her way of doing that. You've found this incredible purpose
Speaker 1: in this darkest place that you could possibly be in,
Speaker 1: and it has obviously carried you through. You ended up
Speaker 1: serving on a five to ten years sentence six years
Speaker 1: and eight months. Let's talk about the fact that Matthias
Speaker 1: Reyes actually confessed all these years later, Um, when he
Speaker 1: met one of the Central Parky he met Korean prison,
Speaker 1: and then suddenly his conscience got to him. Imagine that
Speaker 1: he actually met the guy who was serving time for
Speaker 1: the crime that he committed, and then all of a
Speaker 1: sudden he got this attack of conscience. I think he
Speaker 1: may have found religion by then or I don't know what,
Speaker 1: but anyway, it doesn't matter. He confessed. How did you
Speaker 1: find out that you now had this ray of light
Speaker 1: and that you you know that that you were you
Speaker 1: were now going to be actually had a real chance
Speaker 1: of becoming being exonerated. So you know, when we heard
Speaker 1: the news, just like everyone else and our our attorneys,
Speaker 1: but telling us about how you know what happened, and
Speaker 1: you know, one of the worst things that, of course
Speaker 1: happens in the case like that is if you've been
Speaker 1: ran all about the piplos of justice once you absolutely
Speaker 1: do not trust that they are going to do the
Speaker 1: right thing this time. And so I've felt like, okay,
Speaker 1: you know this, this this the world words that came out.
Speaker 1: He he confessed the crime, confessed in a compelling way
Speaker 1: that that lets them know that he alone did this.
Speaker 1: They DNA and long behold his DNA matches, And like
Speaker 1: I said, then they when they tested his DNA and
Speaker 1: his DNA matched, they knew beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, we did the wrong things and convicted
Speaker 1: the wrong guys. And we have to fix this. And
Speaker 1: so the judge vacaid our conviction. A matter of fact,
Speaker 1: as we as we go forward, we see that Robert
Speaker 1: Morgan's office as man, had we known then what we
Speaker 1: know now, we would have never convicted them. And I'm
Speaker 1: appreciative and happy that he said that. But what we
Speaker 1: all submit is that they did know that then. What
Speaker 1: they knew now, they did know Robert Morgan thought had
Speaker 1: people working for him and under him that should have
Speaker 1: ever went after us. And it cost the city millions
Speaker 1: of dollars. It costs a million, Well, it costs so
Speaker 1: much more than just the millions of dollars they had
Speaker 1: to pay out, because it also cost, as we said,
Speaker 1: the lives of these other innocent people. That cost your
Speaker 1: lives it cost your family untold heartache and paying it
Speaker 1: cost tax money that we, uh, we had to pay
Speaker 1: to keep you guys incarcerated. Right, that's that runs into
Speaker 1: the millions of dollars when you're talking about forty years
Speaker 1: of prison time collectively or more. When and then we
Speaker 1: talked about the lost the lost taxes that you could
Speaker 1: have been outside paying. Right if you guys were if
Speaker 1: you guys had gone through your normal schooling and come
Speaker 1: out and then become gotten your jobs, whatever you're gonna
Speaker 1: be doing, and they've been paying taxes, you would have
Speaker 1: been contributing to society. So it's a it's a loss
Speaker 1: for society in every conceivable way. And it was preventable
Speaker 1: and it's despicable what happened. And I think everybody owes
Speaker 1: you a tremendous apology. And so I'm going to apologize
Speaker 1: to you on behalf of New York City and America
Speaker 1: and the human race because none of this, none of
Speaker 1: this should have ever gone down the way it did.
Speaker 1: Um and and let me I want to get to
Speaker 1: the to what you're doing now, but and and talk
Speaker 1: about your public speaking and other advocacy worked that you're doing.
Speaker 1: But before we get to that. Um. So so you
Speaker 1: had this euphoria, it still took all this time to
Speaker 1: put your life back together, but you've done it. And
Speaker 1: to see you now, um, no one would ever know
Speaker 1: that you had been through this stuff. I mean today,
Speaker 1: are you better? You know I'm not better. I think
Speaker 1: that what it is is that we've been able to
Speaker 1: take our circumstance. And when I say we, um, I
Speaker 1: know that myself in Raymonds, Antina, we've gone out and
Speaker 1: we've spoken a lot more than the other folks of
Speaker 1: the gentleman in the central charge of case. Um. But
Speaker 1: what the idea is that to be able to take
Speaker 1: this this this uh part, just this really horrific part
Speaker 1: of life in turn it into something beautiful. And so
Speaker 1: I'm reminded of what Nelson Mandela said when he was
Speaker 1: talking about how he had to be in in the
Speaker 1: world and what he had to leave behind in the prison.
Speaker 1: He said he had to leave anger and resentment and
Speaker 1: bitterness in the prison because and we all hear him say,
Speaker 1: it's liking. It's like drinking poison and expecting your enemy
Speaker 1: to die. So use that anger. You write it, you painted,
Speaker 1: you dance it, you march it, you voted. You do
Speaker 1: everything about it. You talk, it never stopped talking. And
Speaker 1: so I say that because I've been trying to utilize
Speaker 1: my energy and my platform to articulate what happened to
Speaker 1: us in a way that makes sense, so that other
Speaker 1: folks can understand how important their role is and how
Speaker 1: important they need to be as regards to what happens
Speaker 1: in the criminal justice system, you know. And so I've
Speaker 1: taken that anger and I redirected it. I transformed it,
Speaker 1: and I made it into something that is more beautiful
Speaker 1: and more powerful. And and and this is where I
Speaker 1: stand now. And let me ask you this. So if
Speaker 1: people want to know you're doing a lot of public speaking,
Speaker 1: you have a book. Um, but if people want to
Speaker 1: have you come and speak, how did they reach out
Speaker 1: of you? How do they contact you? What's the name
Speaker 1: of the book? Let's give a nice plug for any
Speaker 1: of your social media or anything else that you want
Speaker 1: to talk about. Yeah. Absolutely, I used my real name
Speaker 1: on social media so so folks can connect with me.
Speaker 1: Um use salam. Why U S T S S A
Speaker 1: L A A M on all social media platforms. My
Speaker 1: photo is there so that you'll know it's me. The
Speaker 1: name of the book is Words of a Man. It's
Speaker 1: on my website. My website is use speaks dot com.
Speaker 1: That's why U s E S S P E A
Speaker 1: k S dot com. And you know, folcusing book be
Speaker 1: by emailing me why U s s that you speaks
Speaker 1: dot com. You said that use speaks dot com. And
Speaker 1: I worked for myself, so I'm you know, people can
Speaker 1: book me, people can bring me UM, and so I
Speaker 1: can travel UM. And this is where it's not being
Speaker 1: able to bring these real life stories into spaces that
Speaker 1: can really affectuate change, whether at the universities, whether it
Speaker 1: be forums, UM wide and broad. So the last thing
Speaker 1: I would like to do is is usually the last
Speaker 1: thing we do here on the show UM. And it's
Speaker 1: actually my favorite part of the show, and I think
Speaker 1: probably a lot of people's favorite part of the show.
Speaker 1: This is the part of the show where I get
Speaker 1: quiet and I like to just turn the microphone over
Speaker 1: to you for last words. Anything that's on your mind,
Speaker 1: anything that you can share that will give people some
Speaker 1: new perspective in your own words. So what I want
Speaker 1: to do and in this moment is take people back
Speaker 1: in time. And I love to do this because it's
Speaker 1: something that I do on the role of my sign engagements.
Speaker 1: But take them back into the courthouse. I take them
Speaker 1: back to the day right after I got convicted, and
Speaker 1: here we were standing in front of the judge and
Speaker 1: we were about the sentence, and they axed us, do
Speaker 1: you have anything to say before we sent Confused and
Speaker 1: rather than throwing myself on the most mercy of the
Speaker 1: court like everyone has been telling me, I had been
Speaker 1: reading Maltha Max. I had been reading about Market Garvey.
Speaker 1: I had a reading about countless individuals who were freedom
Speaker 1: fighters trying to fight the justice. And what I stood
Speaker 1: up and said to the judge was said, I said,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna sit here at your table and watch
Speaker 1: you eat and call myself dinner. Sitting here at your
Speaker 1: table doesn't make me dinner, just like being here in
Speaker 1: America doesn't make me an American. Let us begin stresses
Speaker 1: the anger that is built up inside rage is the
Speaker 1: anger that is no longer built taking on the sucker
Speaker 1: that soon you have killed American free will doesn't mean
Speaker 1: you can kill and take another person's life. You live
Speaker 1: your life, tripe. I'm a skill builder. Some one skills
Speaker 1: I do build. We had to give a knowledge to
Speaker 1: this lies black man soon to enhance my words across
Speaker 1: the land. I'm a smooth type of fellow, cool, common mellow.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of laid back. But now I'm speaking so
Speaker 1: that you know. I got used and abused and even
Speaker 1: was put on the news without cruise from gay cruise,
Speaker 1: selling out like fools. Now checked this, who did what
Speaker 1: and who did who? Ends? But the situation that you
Speaker 1: don't know what's doing, some brothers go wild and we're
Speaker 1: not down with them. Who would have thought I'd have
Speaker 1: to lock in? I sent choose checking the scene from
Speaker 1: how the situation was. Instead of getting facts, the media
Speaker 1: made you blurred how other people don't know. All they
Speaker 1: see is the media. They never hear the blame because
Speaker 1: they're constantly deceiving us. The d A is dead wrong.
Speaker 1: This is her master plan. This case is not a case.
Speaker 1: It's just to craft the sham joe instead of trying
Speaker 1: to get your name made this reconstructing the crime that
Speaker 1: really paid me. It's law la ilaha, evil law being
Speaker 1: supreme over Satan, but no man as a law as
Speaker 1: I'm a science dropper on the righteous path, So how
Speaker 1: the hell could I take a racist path? Think about that,
Speaker 1: and then think about this. All my friends it was me.
Speaker 1: They just said the smith because I don't really need
Speaker 1: any friends like that, like when I really needed you.
Speaker 1: Where we get at. I'm not disting them all, but
Speaker 1: the ones that I called, they went and just me
Speaker 1: like I was an inch small, like a rat, a mouse,
Speaker 1: not even the man wrongly accused, like the knives in
Speaker 1: my hands. How does it look? Me? Clock now, I'm sure,
Speaker 1: but like Matlock soon you accused, it took the hook.
Speaker 1: It's real when she remembers and says, damn the cops
Speaker 1: that you went. I stand the queues, your people stop
Speaker 1: this racial dispersed and you know you've seen that kid, Vincent.
Speaker 1: He's in the hurt. And so we take it just
Speaker 1: this and hurst Fields white tide bullet proof best. We
Speaker 1: had no kind of shields. How does it look they
Speaker 1: killed the black man being black? It's time we take
Speaker 1: a stand in our situation. You saw our faces clear,
Speaker 1: but not mine. Not because of fear. It's because the
Speaker 1: black grace was disgraced. And for the Muslims, they must
Speaker 1: have felt shamed. But I'm not to blame with the
Speaker 1: words of thought. The media took our words of paper,
Speaker 1: the ones the cops distorted. I told the cops truth
Speaker 1: like this, and then boom, they were smacking my man,
Speaker 1: Corey Wise in the next room. Now, I want to
Speaker 1: know why the Bosters can't stand the Bobby Lawn. They
Speaker 1: never helped. They just babble lawn. I used to think
Speaker 1: the people and cops were cool, But who protects us
Speaker 1: from you? I stand the queues and as I wrapped
Speaker 1: it up, the judge's face was getting angrier and angrier,
Speaker 1: and I could tell they were about to throw the
Speaker 1: book it. And then I took my seat, and they
Speaker 1: gave me the maximum amount of time that they could
Speaker 1: give me with this five pretent, and they hoped that
Speaker 1: they could have gaven me more. I'm sure that's what
Speaker 1: I said. That actually is a is one of the
Speaker 1: poems that's in my book Words of a man Um
Speaker 1: that's on my website. I also when I come around
Speaker 1: and speak, I usually have some with me as well. Well.
Speaker 1: All I can say is, um, you know, I wish
Speaker 1: you all the best, all the blessings of life. I'm
Speaker 1: so happy to see you thriving, building your family, building
Speaker 1: your career, and spending the word alongside so many of
Speaker 1: us in the movement, UM and uh. I look forward
Speaker 1: to working with you and spending time with you in
Speaker 1: the future. And I just want to thank you again
Speaker 1: for taking your time to be on the show, UM
Speaker 1: and I want to thank the audience also for listening.
Speaker 1: This has been a very special and moving episode of
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction, so yusef thank you again. I pleasure thank
Speaker 1: you for having don't forget to give us a fantastic review.
Speaker 1: Wherever you get your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm
Speaker 1: a proud donor to the Innsis Project and I really
Speaker 1: hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause
Speaker 1: and helping to event future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence
Speaker 1: Project dot org to learn how to donate and get involved.
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and
Speaker 1: Kevin Wardis. The music in the show is by three
Speaker 1: time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow
Speaker 1: us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam is a
Speaker 1: production Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company
Speaker 1: Number one