Speaker 1: In twenty eighteen, I had the privilege of interviewing Yusuf
Speaker 1: Salam well now doctor Yusuf Salam and doctor Salam now Sirs.
Speaker 1: I love the way that sounds on the board of
Speaker 1: the Innocents Project with me. He's a father of ten children,
Speaker 1: extraordinary and he is an accomplished and celebrated motivational speaker,
Speaker 1: an author, and a tremendous advocate for criminal justice reform.
Speaker 1: Most dramatically, the story of Yusuf Salam and the four
Speaker 1: other wrongfully convicted boys because they were just children when
Speaker 1: they were teenagers, young teenagers when they were wrongfully convicted,
Speaker 1: then known as the Central Park Five, now known as
Speaker 1: the Exonerated Five, were featured in the hit Netflix show
Speaker 1: and the hit is not as strong enough here the
Speaker 1: smash Netflix show when they see us sixteen Emmy Award
Speaker 1: nominations and it's become a cultural phenomenon. It also has
Speaker 1: resulted in actual consequences for the people who wrongfully prosecuted
Speaker 1: and persecuted Yusef and the other kids. Both prosecutors have
Speaker 1: faced some censure, not strong enough punishments in my view,
Speaker 1: for what they did, but it really is a full
Speaker 1: circle turnaround that couldn't possibly have been imagined back when
Speaker 1: this terrible mischaracter justice was happening. Doctor Yoseph Salam's episode
Speaker 1: is one of my favorites. I'm excited for you to
Speaker 1: hear it.
Speaker 2: I've never been in trouble in my life. I didn't
Speaker 2: even have a parking ticket.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean. I was brought up like
Speaker 1: cops are the good guys.
Speaker 3: I didn't know what was going to happen, but I
Speaker 3: do know that everything was stacked against me. Everything everything,
Speaker 3: This isn't supposed to happen this way. I'm innocent. I
Speaker 3: know I'm innocent. I know I had nothing to do
Speaker 3: with this. How is this possible?
Speaker 2: I grew up trusting this is I've grew up believing
Speaker 2: that every human beings should do the right thing. And
Speaker 2: that's why, even though I knee I was dealing with
Speaker 2: more rough people, I wasn't going to break anyone to
Speaker 2: get me out of prison because I wouldn't live with
Speaker 2: the fact that I break my way out of my
Speaker 2: wife's death. I'm not innocent, too proven guilty. I'm guilty
Speaker 2: until I prove my innocence. And that's absolutely what happened
Speaker 2: to me.
Speaker 4: Our system since I've been out ten years, It's come
Speaker 4: a little ways, but it's still broken.
Speaker 2: A totally little trust in humanity have towards happ into it.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm That's me
Speaker 1: And today I'm actually a little bit starstruck or awe
Speaker 1: struck because we have as our guest today Yusef Salaam,
Speaker 1: who is one of the most inspiring people I've ever
Speaker 1: had the privilege to be around. And so Yusef, welcome
Speaker 1: to the show.
Speaker 4: Oh thank you for having me. This is definitely my pleasure.
Speaker 1: And you know, I always say I'm happier here, but
Speaker 1: I'm sorry you're here because you never should have gone
Speaker 1: through this in the first place. But it's really it's
Speaker 1: an incredible, incredible story, both in terms of the you know,
Speaker 1: the story itself and the total breakdown of the criminal
Speaker 1: justice system that this case so perfectly highlights, but also
Speaker 1: because of what you've how you've managed to turn it
Speaker 1: into such an amazingly positive thing, and who you've become.
Speaker 1: So we'll get into that later though, but let's go
Speaker 1: back in time, like in the movies when it gets
Speaker 1: all foggy and we go back as this because this
Speaker 1: goes back to the eighties, right, I mean, and I
Speaker 1: lived in New York. This is a New York case.
Speaker 1: It's one of the most famous cases, the Central Park
Speaker 1: geogra case, or one of the most infamous cases in
Speaker 1: the history of New York City, which is, of course
Speaker 1: the media capital of the world. And I lived in
Speaker 1: New York back then, and it was it was crazy place.
Speaker 1: You were just a kid to get fifteen years old.
Speaker 1: Fifteen years old, unbelievable.
Speaker 4: I was.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm a little bit older than you, so
Speaker 1: I was in my late twenties already, but I remember
Speaker 1: it like it was yesterday. I mean, this case was
Speaker 1: blasted everywhere. This was the crime wave, right, This was
Speaker 1: a time when the only thing there was a lot
Speaker 1: of crime in New York, but the hysteria around the
Speaker 1: crime was was far exceeded the actual problem. And you know,
Speaker 1: you were a young guy growing up. 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 4: No, So I think that, you know, when I look
Speaker 4: at myself back then, being innocent, being you know, full
Speaker 4: of promise and hope and dreams and aspirations. You know,
Speaker 4: My my so to speak, interaction with police officers or
Speaker 4: authority figures was that we would see them in the
Speaker 4: neighborhoods walking around and you know, these were back when
Speaker 4: the cops actually walked the beat and knew the people's
Speaker 4: names that they you know, policed and and so I
Speaker 4: thought that police officers were very friendly, very very helpful.
Speaker 4: And you know, you supposed that with the backdrop of today,
Speaker 4: and it's like a horror scene when you look at
Speaker 4: what happened, you know. But my my interaction was very
Speaker 4: I didn't have I didn't have any interactions. And what
Speaker 4: I knew about police officers was that they were they
Speaker 4: were your friends, and if you needed help, you could
Speaker 4: call on them to help you and they would come
Speaker 4: and they would help you because they are public servants,
Speaker 4: did the protect and serve right.
Speaker 1: So you grew up like I did, thinking these are
Speaker 1: the these are the good guys. A lot of us
Speaker 1: when we were young boys, 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 be one. It's a
Speaker 1: classic cliche. You grow up wanting to be a fireman
Speaker 1: or a police officer. A lot of young kids, you know,
Speaker 1: play play act in 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 the
Speaker 1: first guest we ever had was Raymond Santana, who did
Speaker 1: an incredible interview. Just an amazing, amazing man he is,
Speaker 1: and did a great job telling the story. So, you know,
Speaker 1: fans of the podcast would be familiar with the case
Speaker 1: from that, but you have your own perspective on it,
Speaker 1: you know, and there's a very and I say that
Speaker 1: for a very specific set of reasons. But going back
Speaker 1: to the case, this was a case where a woman
Speaker 1: who was a Wall Street banker, a white, twenty eight
Speaker 1: year old woman from the Upper East Side, was jogging
Speaker 1: in Central Park and she was It was dusk right
Speaker 1: when she was attacked, and she was brutally beaten. When
Speaker 1: she was found. To give people some perspective, she seventy
Speaker 1: five percent of the blood in her body was gone.
Speaker 1: Her tempered body temperature was eighty four degrees. I mean,
Speaker 1: she was as close to dead as you can be.
Speaker 1: And she had been raped and beaten to within an
Speaker 1: inch of her life, and this triggered everyone's worst fears,
Speaker 1: right because it was, oh my god, this is a
Speaker 1: you know, you know, an innocent woman whatever, white and
Speaker 1: there was a whole racial aspect to it. And man,
Speaker 1: when that happened, the news media went nuts and there
Speaker 1: was a lot of pressure to solve this crime. Do
Speaker 1: you want to add anything to that description?
Speaker 4: You know it was it was definitely a witch hunts
Speaker 4: and a frenzy of a witch hunt because when you
Speaker 4: think about other people's progyptions, you know, folks look at
Speaker 4: people from so to speak, the darker ants of society
Speaker 4: as the worst of the worst. You know, I'm I'm
Speaker 4: in the motivational speaking world now, and I'm told that
Speaker 4: if you look at a person and an addressing person
Speaker 4: as they should be, you raise the level of what
Speaker 4: they could be as opposed to trying to be trying
Speaker 4: to address them as their circumstances are. Not everybody who
Speaker 4: may be in those same circumstances may be of that
Speaker 4: particular element. And that's the thing that's unfortunate, because there
Speaker 4: was this some speak, broad stroke brush you know, accusation. Uh,
Speaker 4: these people type of rhetoric and talk, and the notion
Speaker 4: was that of course they did it because they're black
Speaker 4: and brown, and so you know when they when they
Speaker 4: when the woman was found, you know, towards the northern
Speaker 4: northern end of Central Park. There was just this desire
Speaker 4: for one to solve this crime, and to solve this
Speaker 4: crime as quick as possible. And so I remember Mayor
Speaker 4: coach back and saying something like people wanted to know
Speaker 4: how the criminal justice system in New York City will work,
Speaker 4: and they're going to get a great opportunity as regards
Speaker 4: this case, to see how this system works. We're going
Speaker 4: to go after us with the full full arm of
Speaker 4: the law, you know, and true to farms, despite wheels
Speaker 4: of justice, mowed us down. But in their rush to judgment,
Speaker 4: they dropped the ball in the worst way and allowed
Speaker 4: to reill criminals to continue to hurt, to maim, and
Speaker 4: ultimately murder. His lash victim, who was a young, pregnant
Speaker 4: Latina woman, he brandished his knife, came into her home.
Speaker 4: She said, hold on for one moment, and I put
Speaker 4: my days in the next room. He allowed her to
Speaker 4: do so. She put her children in the next room,
Speaker 4: and she locked the door and then he raped her
Speaker 4: and stabbed her death, killing her and her unborn child.
Speaker 1: And that is I'm glad you brought that up because
Speaker 1: it just it makes it make 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 and it never
Speaker 1: should have happened, and it never needed to happen because
Speaker 1: in this case, and it's it's so tragically common you
Speaker 1: when you have uh, this tunnel vision and this you know,
Speaker 1: this willful framing of innocent people. And in this case
Speaker 1: it's even worse because they really knew who the guy was.
Speaker 1: I mean, first of all, they knew for and so
Speaker 1: this woman never should have been killed. The other women
Speaker 1: that he raped in the months following the you know,
Speaker 1: your your arrest never never should have been raped. They
Speaker 1: should have gone on and had their lives not destroyed
Speaker 1: the way it were, those kids would still have a mother.
Speaker 1: This the consequences of the actions of the authorities in
Speaker 1: this case goes so far beyond having this droid young lives,
Speaker 1: five young lives, and your families and how it affected
Speaker 1: had on your families. You know, it's amazing. I've seen
Speaker 1: the picture of your mom when you were finally exonerated,
Speaker 1: and the joy is so amazing. But but going back
Speaker 1: to this, the crazy thing is they knew from the
Speaker 1: beginning that it was a single perpetrator because this poor
Speaker 1: 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, so they knew that there was only one
Speaker 1: set of footprints in the dewey grass. They knew that
Speaker 1: there was only one There was only traces of one
Speaker 1: person's bodily fluids. And as things progressed, even though they
Speaker 1: had you guys, and they rested you guys, and we
Speaker 1: know they interrogated you, each of you separately. And don't
Speaker 1: want to hear about that, because Raymond's description of that
Speaker 1: is truly terrifying what he went through for you know,
Speaker 1: for hours on end, almost almost twenty four hours without
Speaker 1: in Raymond's case, I know in your case, but without
Speaker 1: food or water or a lawyer or an adult, and
Speaker 1: ultimately ultimately everyone confess except you, which is amazing too.
Speaker 1: I mean, the fact that you, as a fifteen year
Speaker 1: old kid, under the most intense pressure that anyone could
Speaker 1: ever face, scared out of your mind, with your life
Speaker 1: at stake, still maintained your innocence is I don't even
Speaker 1: know where that kind of strength comes from. But okay,
Speaker 1: so explain the situation. So you were brought at some point,
Speaker 1: you were arrested, You were with your friends in the park.
Speaker 1: There was you know, it was a sort of chaotic
Speaker 1: night in the park. It was you know, hot night whatever.
Speaker 1: How did this hall come down? How did you come
Speaker 1: to be arrested? How did you have in the police station?
Speaker 1: How did that after that?
Speaker 4: So interestingly enough, if we can kind of show to speak,
Speaker 4: shift off a frame of reference to folks, to TV
Speaker 4: shows like PSI, to NCIS, forensics, you know, these types
Speaker 4: of things, what we get is an understanding that, just
Speaker 4: like you said, they had information based on their skill
Speaker 4: set as police officers and so forth. So let them know, okay,
Speaker 4: this is what happened. They could recreate the crime team
Speaker 4: based on forensics alans, Okay, this happened first, this happened next.
Speaker 4: If we saw the blood over here and then here
Speaker 4: it is here. We were in Central Parks never denied
Speaker 4: being in Central Park, and all of the guys who
Speaker 4: became known as the Central Park Five were absolute witnesses
Speaker 4: to all of the mayhem that had gone on in
Speaker 4: the park. With the exception of the rape of the Jagga.
Speaker 4: No one had no idea a woman was raped, didn't
Speaker 4: know anything about it. And so here I am. At
Speaker 4: the time, I was about six foot two inch two inches,
Speaker 4: very slim, had an outfit on that was a Skybrew
Speaker 4: jacket with skyblw matching pants. My sky blue pants had
Speaker 4: artwork on it. I'm actually a person who was going
Speaker 4: to LaGuardia Music and Art for Arts, so I'm a
Speaker 4: great graphic designer and I drew some stuff from my
Speaker 4: pants that was just you know, how how people did
Speaker 4: back then. But if we can think about these TV shows,
Speaker 4: what we know is that when they start going into
Speaker 4: the community to try to recreate what happened and to
Speaker 4: ask people what happened, what they do is they say, okay,
Speaker 4: well who who's there? And folks in there, in there thinking, okay,
Speaker 4: damn what it was a guy that was a tall guy.
Speaker 4: I remember there was a tall guy in the park
Speaker 4: with a flat top. I was probably maybe the most
Speaker 4: stand out ish looking for fellows because not only was
Speaker 4: I tall and lanky, but what I had on almost
Speaker 4: looked like I was wearing white in the life of
Speaker 4: Central Park. And so, of course no one knew my name.
Speaker 4: None of us knew each other. I actually met Raymond
Speaker 4: Santana and the other guys in prison. I only knew Corey.
Speaker 4: Why But as things go further, as you can imagine,
Speaker 4: they go to the surrounding communities and start interrogating everyone.
Speaker 4: One thing leads to another, and my name is mentioned,
Speaker 4: and I'm finding out that the police officers are looking
Speaker 4: for me. And I say, well, you know what, Hey,
Speaker 4: I knew I didn't do anything wrong. I'm with Corey.
Speaker 4: Corey said, hey, I left the park almost right after
Speaker 4: we went in. Well, let's sort of the cops and
Speaker 4: to tell them what we saw and we'll be home
Speaker 4: before our mom get that.
Speaker 1: So when did you get picked up? Like the crime
Speaker 1: happened at night right and the publicity happened immediately after
Speaker 1: the crime, when did you become aware that the cops
Speaker 1: were looking for you.
Speaker 4: I became aware of it. I went to school the
Speaker 4: next day. I was actually one of the only children
Speaker 4: that had school the next day. I went to school.
Speaker 4: The next day, came home from school and the blocks
Speaker 4: was completely empty. It was the weirdest thing that you
Speaker 4: can imagine if children didn't have school. Everybody be outside
Speaker 4: riding skateboards, bikes, having fun, just hanging out. And I'm
Speaker 4: looking around, I'm like, where's everybody at? And not only that,
Speaker 4: I see a whole bunch of unmarked police cars, and
Speaker 4: so I'm like, man, that's just crazy stairs not thinking
Speaker 4: anything up it, changed my clothes and come back downstairs
Speaker 4: with my playoutfit con you know. And Corey's girlfriend at
Speaker 4: the time comes up to me and says, hey, when
Speaker 4: you see Corey, bring him to my house. I need
Speaker 4: to show you all something. I said, sure, no problem,
Speaker 4: show Corey. A little while later, we go up to
Speaker 4: his house, to his girlfriend's house, and she shows us
Speaker 4: the news. She turns the news on him. At this point.
Speaker 4: It's maybe around for a stock or something like that,
Speaker 4: and of course they do the things breaking and it
Speaker 4: was a sul shape. Women found it as part uh,
Speaker 4: so far and so on. I'm not understanding why she's
Speaker 4: showing this to us. And then she looked at us
Speaker 4: and says, hey, do you have anything to tell me?
Speaker 4: And then looking at her like what's up, what's up?
Speaker 4: What's going on? And she said, they're saying that this
Speaker 4: was you guys, that you're all in the park last night,
Speaker 4: and this is what you all did. And I said, right, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 4: no no. And then she said, and they're looking for you,
Speaker 4: and so I said, well, I'm going to go to
Speaker 4: them and tell them what I saw. I know I
Speaker 4: didn't do anything wrong. Corey said he didn't do anything wrong.
Speaker 4: He didn't hurt nobody or do anything bad. He left
Speaker 4: the park after entering, and we get picked up. As
Speaker 4: a matter of fact, when we finally got a hold
Speaker 4: of the offices that it's kind of strange and ironic
Speaker 4: that I'm saying it that way, but I was looking
Speaker 4: for them. When the officers finally came in contact with us,
Speaker 4: they were in front of my door trying to convince
Speaker 4: my thirteen year old brother to put his clothes on
Speaker 4: and come down to the prison with them. He had
Speaker 4: had not been in the park he didn't know what
Speaker 4: was going on, and they were trying to convince him
Speaker 4: to put his clothes on to come down to the
Speaker 4: precinct to be questioned and interrogated. That would have ended disastrously.
Speaker 4: As you came back, I turned the corner to approach
Speaker 4: my door and they're in front of my door talking
Speaker 4: to my brother and they asked me who am? I
Speaker 4: askaid you, soud Salami look at this document that they
Speaker 4: had in their hands and said, this is one of
Speaker 4: the guys you were looking for. They asked Corey who
Speaker 4: was he? And he said, I'm Corey Wise. And they
Speaker 4: looked at the paper and said, you're not on this paper,
Speaker 4: But do you want to come downtown with your buddy.
Speaker 4: You'll be right back, and you know, you know how
Speaker 4: that story ends. Of course, Cory is sixteen years old
Speaker 4: at the time. He ends up getting railroaded and convicted
Speaker 4: and spending almost thirteen to fourteen years of the next
Speaker 4: part of his life in prison or crime that we
Speaker 4: all hannot committed.
Speaker 1: Wow, 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 boody d you 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.
Speaker 4: That was the initial precinct. And then they then they
Speaker 4: you know, because Manhattan, Manhattan nor hoomicide squad steps and
Speaker 4: they start they are the now then they are now
Speaker 4: the officers that are interrogating. They're the ones that are saying, Okay,
Speaker 4: this is looking like it's going to be a homicide.
Speaker 4: We need to figure this out and and solve this
Speaker 4: crime and top quickly and appease the fears of the
Speaker 4: public and let them know that we have the city
Speaker 4: under control. We are in control, and we caught so
Speaker 4: called perpetrators.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so how did the interrogations go, Like what you
Speaker 1: were brought in? What was the whole process? You're brought
Speaker 1: to the precinct, you were with Corey.
Speaker 4: I was with Corey, and they immediately separated us, you know,
Speaker 4: and they started interrogating. And while they were asking me
Speaker 4: the questions I had, I was very very forthcoming. I said, yeah,
Speaker 4: this is what happened first, is what happened next? I'm
Speaker 4: like you know, thinking, hey, I'm just going to go
Speaker 4: in there and tell them what I saw, and like
Speaker 4: I said, I'll be back home before my mom gets back.
Speaker 4: And when I when I wrapped up the first time,
Speaker 4: the guy said, okay, well what about the jagga? And
Speaker 4: I'm like, what jogga? What are you talking about? And
Speaker 4: he says, okay, well, let's start. Tell me what happened
Speaker 4: again from the top I saw from the top of them,
Speaker 4: and things began to intensify. And it began to intensify
Speaker 4: in such a way that I started feeling afraid. And
Speaker 4: then they you know, at some point they would leave
Speaker 4: the room and come back in, and I never seen
Speaker 4: at one point they left the room for a very
Speaker 4: very long time. And at this point, hours were going by,
Speaker 4: and I'm feeling tired and I'm starting to doze off,
Speaker 4: and I am immediately Joe toed for wait because I
Speaker 4: hear Cory Wise yelling in the next room. Now, Cory
Speaker 4: VI is just to give you a little his background
Speaker 4: of Corey. Corey Wise was the U was, probably was
Speaker 4: and still is the guy who you wanted to have
Speaker 4: as a friend because you knew that he would have
Speaker 4: your back. He wasn't gonna let nothing bad happen to you.
Speaker 4: He was gonna make sure that you know you were okay.
Speaker 4: And so to hear Corey, this person who had such
Speaker 4: a big heart or fearful person, yelling and screaming okay,
Speaker 4: I'll tell you, I'm I'm like, oh my goodness. They're
Speaker 4: beating him up. I hear them smacking him around. I
Speaker 4: hear them. I hate he's under this. He is in
Speaker 4: a position that I have never heard him in before.
Speaker 4: And that immediately joke to me. A word sent chills
Speaker 4: down my spine, and I'm like, oh my god, that's
Speaker 4: they're gonna kill us. And at this point, I'm scared.
Speaker 4: At this point, I'm still trying to maintain my innocence.
Speaker 4: I'm still trying to let them know what happened. And
Speaker 4: now it's like a boxing match.
Speaker 1: Did at any point did you have a lawyer or
Speaker 1: a guardian or a parent or anybody else in there
Speaker 1: with you?
Speaker 4: No. And this is one of the most interesting things.
Speaker 4: I didn't know my mother had came to the priest
Speaker 4: and I didn't know she was there. It wasn't until
Speaker 4: after a few more hours passed that one of the
Speaker 4: I think it might have been either Fairstein or Elizabeth
Speaker 4: Letter or came into the room. I mean they shouldn't
Speaker 4: come to a knocked on the door and summoned the
Speaker 4: officer out of the room. And when they summoned the
Speaker 4: officer out of the room, they the officer came back
Speaker 4: in and said to be how old are you? Now?
Speaker 4: Mind you? They they they first when they took me
Speaker 4: into custody at my apartment building, they took my ID,
Speaker 4: which had my ID from Mount Signai Hospital, which had
Speaker 4: my birth date on it. Inside my wallet had my
Speaker 4: Mount sign I I d I'm ID, but you know,
Speaker 4: like the hospital, your hospital card. I had that. I
Speaker 4: had the bus pad and I had a pocket knife,
Speaker 4: so they knew how old I was. So the guy
Speaker 4: comes in and says how old are you? How how
Speaker 4: old are you again? And I said I'm fifteen, and
Speaker 4: he curses and throws his pad across the room and says,
Speaker 4: why the didn't you tell me that? And I'm not
Speaker 4: even knowing why that's even relevant. I don't even understand
Speaker 4: what's going on. Then they bring me down to my
Speaker 4: mom and she's telling me, hey, do not talk to
Speaker 4: these people. I did not give them permission to talk
Speaker 4: to you. You're a minor. They need my permission. I
Speaker 4: am not giving them permission. Don't talk to them. That
Speaker 4: was how it went.
Speaker 1: But then then what happened, Because now you've spoken to
Speaker 1: your mom. That must have been a very emotional situation.
Speaker 1: And now you've just heard Corey getting eating up. You
Speaker 1: know that you're in real trouble. Your mom is there
Speaker 1: like like a lifeboat, right, like a life uh you know, uh,
Speaker 1: life saver. But but you're but but you're still in
Speaker 1: the custody of the cops. And then so did they
Speaker 1: then pull you away from her and put your back
Speaker 1: in the room.
Speaker 4: And they did, And that's the part, that's the craziest part.
Speaker 4: They don't have my they don't have her permission, they
Speaker 4: don't have her consent to talk to me. That meeting
Speaker 4: was so short. I don't know how long it lasted,
Speaker 4: but it felt like minutes. It felt like minutes. It
Speaker 4: felt like it was less than five minutes. And then
Speaker 4: they brought they almost ripped me out of her arms
Speaker 4: again and brought me back to the back and they
Speaker 4: continued to interrogate, and I remember one of the officers,
Speaker 4: the main officers interrogating. He says, uh, you know, you
Speaker 4: don't have to tell us anything. That's fine. You know,
Speaker 4: we have we have your we pulled your fingerprints off
Speaker 4: of her off for short, Like how the heck did
Speaker 4: they prove my fingers off for short? Like I didn't,
Speaker 4: I wasn't there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's something he said that that you know,
Speaker 1: I don't understand either. I mean, the fact that they're
Speaker 1: allowed to lie in the interrogation process is so uh,
Speaker 1: it's just I don't know, it doesn't make sense to me,
Speaker 1: but go ahead.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I mean at this point, I'm like, oh man,
Speaker 4: I'm I'm I'm doing I'm done for. But they took
Speaker 4: my threats and put it on her.
Speaker 1: But they didn't the fact that your prints weren't on it.
Speaker 1: They just they just lied, I mean because they're trying
Speaker 1: to pressure fantastic.
Speaker 4: So ye again I'm being trained and I'm like, oh uh,
Speaker 4: but yeah, they lied?
Speaker 1: And did they did they actually beat you up like
Speaker 1: did the other guys?
Speaker 4: No, No, they didn't. They the threat was very real,
Speaker 4: the threat was extremely real, but they didn't. They didn't
Speaker 4: touch me.
Speaker 1: And ultimately, you were there for do you even know
Speaker 1: how many hours you were in there.
Speaker 4: For no I don't I know. I was brought in
Speaker 4: that evening and I remember we didn't have an eating
Speaker 4: to eat, a drink, and you know, being worn down
Speaker 4: from that, you know, you think about I have I
Speaker 4: have ten children. So it's an interesting dynamic when you
Speaker 4: think about, you know, how much a child could eat.
Speaker 4: And so my my fifteen year old consumed everything in
Speaker 4: the house. You know, you got to basically go to
Speaker 4: Costcos just for that one child alone and buy in bulk,
Speaker 4: because you know that they're going to eat everything, you know.
Speaker 4: But we didn't get anything to eat, We didn't get
Speaker 4: anything to drink. I remember the next morning we were
Speaker 4: we were at another precrint and they bought McDonald's, you know,
Speaker 4: and I remember eating McDonald's was the first time.
Speaker 1: I had eat and so and you said, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a very powerful video that I saw you do
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 mom got back, and in fact he
Speaker 1: didn't get home. From seven years so from this point,
Speaker 1: you never did confess, right, the other guys were, and
Speaker 1: which is interesting too because of the fact and kind
Speaker 1: of amazing because of the fact that we know that
Speaker 1: false confessions are very common. The general public doesn't understand.
Speaker 1: Jurors don't understand why anyone would confess to a crime
Speaker 1: they didn't commit. But when they're under that type of
Speaker 1: pressure and their adolescence and their brain hasn't even fully formed,
Speaker 1: like yours, Adam, what were you in ninth grade? It's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: And so the pressure gets to people and they also
Speaker 1: think like it must have occurred to you at some point,
Speaker 1: because you come into that room thinking, well, these are
Speaker 1: the good guys, and there's going to be even if
Speaker 1: these guys that are in front of me aren't good guys,
Speaker 1: there's going to be some other good guys that are
Speaker 1: going to understand that are going to save me, because
Speaker 1: I got to get out of this room, like I
Speaker 1: got to get away from these people who are tormenting me,
Speaker 1: who are threatening me, who may kill me. And that's
Speaker 1: what the whole you know, interrogation techniques called the red
Speaker 1: technique is designed to do. It's designed to basically make
Speaker 1: your mind collapse in on itself so that you see
Speaker 1: no other option other than to confess. So that's why
Speaker 1: false confessions are extremely common in juvenile and adolescents. And
Speaker 1: that's important for people who are listening, who are someday
Speaker 1: going to serve on a jury to know if you're seeing,
Speaker 1: especially a case where there's no other evidence other than
Speaker 1: a false confession, other than a confession, you really have
Speaker 1: to dive into that, and you have to be aware
Speaker 1: that that confession very well may be a false confession
Speaker 1: and you may be dealing with it and its in person.
Speaker 1: So then it comes to the trial, and you know,
Speaker 1: you've got this sensational trial so much media. You guys
Speaker 1: were you know, I mean even I was buying into
Speaker 1: it back then. I'm ashamed to admit it. But there
Speaker 1: was only one narrative. There wasn't like somebody else going, well,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, may be blah blah blah. Because they
Speaker 1: were withholding all the evidence that they had, right they
Speaker 1: knew that, I mean, weeks into your case. They knew
Speaker 1: that it was impossible that you or any of the
Speaker 1: four guys could have done this, but they didn't care.
Speaker 4: And that's the thing that you know, But when I
Speaker 4: when I when I look at a lot of these
Speaker 4: cases and I understand the law a lot more, I
Speaker 4: realized that it's not really about the facts, it's about
Speaker 4: who can tell the best stories. And in many ways,
Speaker 4: we had an effective counsel. We had, you know, we
Speaker 4: were facing a situation where even the evidence that you see,
Speaker 4: you know, you would think that it's a gag rate,
Speaker 4: that there's definitely going to be some femen, some type
Speaker 4: of something. Nobody had blood on them, nobody had anything
Speaker 4: on them that even indicated that they were at this place,
Speaker 4: you know. But yet they still went and stepped over
Speaker 4: the bounds of the law, manufactured evidence, like you said,
Speaker 4: and went full stream ahead because not only not only
Speaker 4: did they do this in the worst way, but I've
Speaker 4: always said that it was more attractive, it was more sexy,
Speaker 4: if you will. For there to be five people brutally
Speaker 4: assaulting one woman who was white, five five people of
Speaker 4: color brutally assaulting a white woman, then there it have been.
Speaker 4: With the evidence shows from the clim scene there's one
Speaker 4: person dragging one person into the woods and trying to
Speaker 4: murder them after they raped them.
Speaker 1: Right, it's a wolf pack situation. It's it's preying on
Speaker 1: everybody's primal fears. It's playing on the on the race card,
Speaker 1: everything else, and you know, and it's so it's so
Speaker 1: tragic because they knew that this Matthias race guy, they
Speaker 1: were already watching him. They knew that he was a
Speaker 1: suspect and a prior rape that had many of the
Speaker 1: similar characteristics. I mean, there was this case really came
Speaker 1: with instructions and as this evidence started coming in and
Speaker 1: they they became aware in a very short time after
Speaker 1: you guys were arrested, and some of the evidence probably
Speaker 1: was even in before you arrested, that it was a
Speaker 1: single perpetrator, be that it wasn't any of you guys.
Speaker 1: See that they could have so easily gone and picked
Speaker 1: up Matthias, and they would have, they would have had
Speaker 1: the guy, and we keep coming back to that, and
Speaker 1: none of these other people would have suffered the way
Speaker 1: they didn't. Neither would you. But that's not what happened
Speaker 1: because these people were they were overtaken by ambition and
Speaker 1: publicity and accolades that they wanted to get, and they
Speaker 1: were perfectly happy to convict inns and people. It was
Speaker 1: almost like not even inconvenient for them. It was just like,
Speaker 1: let's just get it done and take the bows and
Speaker 1: do their whole thing along 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 4: You know. Jason's interesting as you talk about that, because
Speaker 4: that's one of the things that I give people try
Speaker 4: to get people to understand as well. This is not
Speaker 4: a situation where oh my goodness, we dropped the ball,
Speaker 4: my dad, Oh my gosh, we've never done this before.
Speaker 4: This is this is a situation where it's the convincibility
Speaker 4: of our guilt, which was we weren't guilty. But if
Speaker 4: they were able to convince the public of this lie
Speaker 4: and do it so well, I've always said, well, how
Speaker 4: many other cases after I'll never forget When the Central
Speaker 4: prop five film came out that King Burns did, which
Speaker 4: was an amazing film. I never forget. When it was released,
Speaker 4: people from Columbia Law was watching it, and Elizabeth Letter
Speaker 4: is an adjunct professor at Columbia Law. I don't know
Speaker 4: if she's still there, but she was there then, and
Speaker 4: the students started an online petition to get her fired.
Speaker 4: They did not want her to teach them, because in
Speaker 4: their minds they were looking at this case and saying,
Speaker 4: what kind of law is she going to teach? If
Speaker 4: she did this to the central PLoP five, what is
Speaker 4: she training us to do? And they did not want
Speaker 4: her to teach them, and instead of Columbia Law firing her,
Speaker 4: they protected her. But the document's painted pictures that this
Speaker 4: wasn't just about we're going to prosecute this case. We're
Speaker 4: just going to do our jobs and you know, make
Speaker 4: sure that justice is served. They hated us. They hated
Speaker 4: us with every fiber of their bodies and wanted us
Speaker 4: to be guilty. And in that they did anything and everything,
Speaker 4: by hook or by crook to make sure that they
Speaker 4: can get a conviction. I never forget why. When they
Speaker 4: leaked out something about the DNA, they said that DNA
Speaker 4: evidence and then they tested us and no match came back.
Speaker 4: And once did they do, they had to come out
Speaker 4: and say that no, there's no match. But they quickly
Speaker 4: swept that under the rug. Because that's tsunami of media
Speaker 4: reports that were present within the first few weeks of
Speaker 4: this trial, or not even the trial, but the case
Speaker 4: being broadcast. That sunami of media reports dwarfs, any of
Speaker 4: these small little things that came out because it mudded
Speaker 4: the waters and caused people to just say to themselves,
Speaker 4: there was something about DNA in this case. They don't
Speaker 4: remember that there was no DNA match. They just remembered
Speaker 4: there was something about DNA, and then when it came
Speaker 4: out in the trial and said this will say, will
Speaker 4: be no DNA evidence in the stakes. What we will
Speaker 4: rely on on their confessions.
Speaker 1: Stay tuned, We'll be right back. Let's move to the
Speaker 1: trial itself. How long did the trial last?
Speaker 4: Wow? Man, So I want to say that the trial
Speaker 4: lasted for maybe just under a year. I don't know
Speaker 4: specific time frames, but I do know that I was
Speaker 4: out on bail. I was only in lock up initially
Speaker 4: for a little while that I got out on bail,
Speaker 4: and that was nineteen eighty nine. And how of nineteen
Speaker 4: nine years when they convicted us.
Speaker 1: But okay, so that's weird too, because you're out on bail.
Speaker 1: I mean, you couldn't go to school. You must have
Speaker 1: had to stay inside the house. You're one of the
Speaker 1: most notorious criminals in New York state history at that time.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 4: It was one of the worst and scariest times ever because,
Speaker 4: as you can imagine, also Donald Trump, early on, we
Speaker 4: hadn't even been gone, we haven't even gone to trial yet.
Speaker 4: Donald Trump takes out a full page ad two weeks
Speaker 4: after we were accused, and it runs in the New News,
Speaker 4: the Daily, the New York Times, Daily News, the Post,
Speaker 4: all of the major newspapers. It run and it's it's
Speaker 4: an outcry. It's an outcry from someone from the darker
Speaker 4: enclaves of society to come into our home, to drag
Speaker 4: us from our bay, and to hang us from trees
Speaker 4: in Central Park, to do to us what they had
Speaker 4: done to ever till. And I say that because what
Speaker 4: happened as a result of that article being that ad
Speaker 4: being grand in place, people began to write us hateful mail.
Speaker 4: People began to write us threatening letters. They began to
Speaker 4: say that they were going to that we that they
Speaker 4: hoped that we would be fried in oil, that we
Speaker 4: would be raped, that we'll be castrated. That twenty to
Speaker 4: thirty years from now, next year is the thirtieth anniversary
Speaker 4: of the Central Park jogger case. Twenty to thirty years
Speaker 4: from now, some people will never forget. And one letter
Speaker 4: specifically says that maybe the one time that you don't
Speaker 4: check your back is the one time that someone want
Speaker 4: just be there to say hello. And so if you
Speaker 4: can imagine the language and all of the stuff that
Speaker 4: was going on back then, like they wanted to murder us.
Speaker 4: They wanted to do to us what they had done
Speaker 4: to m Mitil. We became the modern day scotspital boys, definitely,
Speaker 4: but they wanted to do to us what they had
Speaker 4: done to Emmettil.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the m Motel case haunts me all. It's just
Speaker 1: really one of the most just really one of the
Speaker 1: darkest episodes in American history. That that poor kid with
Speaker 1: that little baby face that he had. But you were
Speaker 1: almost the same age as he was at the time, Right,
Speaker 1: he was fourteen, you were fifteen. And here you are
Speaker 1: now you're a president in your own home. You have
Speaker 1: this guy who we know as a racist taking out
Speaker 1: these ads advocating a lynch mob. The fact that the
Speaker 1: papers would even run these paper ads is insane. And
Speaker 1: and then then the trial comes. So how did the
Speaker 1: trial itself? And you know, obviously you were not avaquately represented.
Speaker 1: I don't know if a good lawyer could have gotten
Speaker 1: you out with all the hysteria at that time because
Speaker 1: you'd been trialed, you had already been tried in the media.
Speaker 1: But the fact is, 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 the fact is, so you
Speaker 1: go to the trial. The trial itself lasted how many days?
Speaker 4: Oh man? So the trial, that's That's another thing that's
Speaker 4: very foggy on me. But I know that as the
Speaker 4: trial went in, it was like, okay, as it was
Speaker 4: drawing on and drawing on, and forget the very at
Speaker 4: the very end. What I remember most is I was
Speaker 4: on the phone with a friend and I never forget
Speaker 4: it was the day was the day was ending, and
Speaker 4: I'm on the phone and say, hey, this is what's
Speaker 4: going on. You know, Okay, it looks like we'll we'll
Speaker 4: you know, they're not going to have a verdict and
Speaker 4: I'll be able to see you all shortly. And then
Speaker 4: somebody came running down the hallway and said, the verdict
Speaker 4: is in. The verdict is in. I said, man, vertic
Speaker 4: is in. Okay, great, I'll see you soon. And I
Speaker 4: just don't know. We were all found guilty.
Speaker 1: You were were you tried together.
Speaker 4: Well, they split the trial, and they split the case
Speaker 4: in half. And so the first of us, myself, Remiston, Tanna,
Speaker 4: and Anton mccuariar went and then the next three that
Speaker 4: was there because it was initially called the Center Park
Speaker 4: seven and Michael Briscoe was able to get out of
Speaker 4: the case and get freed, and then it became the
Speaker 4: Center Park six. And when that first file happened to myself,
Speaker 4: Remiston's moon, yeah, myself, Ramison Tanna, and Antony McCrae, we
Speaker 4: got convicted. We lost, and the next trial jearing up
Speaker 4: Corey Wise, Kevin Richardson and Steven Lopez, Stephen Lopez, if
Speaker 4: Cole Fee. All kinds of rumors were out there about
Speaker 4: how much time we were facing. They wanted to try
Speaker 4: us as adults and convict us as adults, and they
Speaker 4: tried us as adults, and then when the convictions came
Speaker 4: down a few months later, for a little while later
Speaker 4: they gave us juvenile times. But each of these charges
Speaker 4: they were saying could have given us three and a
Speaker 4: half three was three three and a third to ten years.
Speaker 4: And so for the major charges, I think it was
Speaker 4: two of them we could have been facing dition two
Speaker 4: thirds to twenty years if they wanted to give us
Speaker 4: that kind of time. And like I said, Stephen Lopez
Speaker 4: got cold feet. He heard about this, these rumors. Oh
Speaker 4: my goodness, they got convicted. I can't do that much time.
Speaker 4: Let me just cop out to something that I didn't
Speaker 4: do so I can get out of this thing. And
Speaker 4: of course we know that he copped out to robbery
Speaker 4: or something like that and got a year. He did
Speaker 4: one year and came home. I think it was one year.
Speaker 4: Unfortunate too, because it shows what you said, if you're
Speaker 4: poor in your innocence, you're not going to get a
Speaker 4: fair chance. You're not going to be afforded the same
Speaker 4: opportunities of the under the law as a person who.
Speaker 1: Maybe more and so so that you actually believed, up
Speaker 1: until the moment that the diverted came in that you
Speaker 1: were going to be exonerated. It's amazing after everything you've
Speaker 1: been through that you still had that type of and well,
Speaker 1: and now that I know you as I do, the
Speaker 1: fact that you're the optimistic attitude is I guess I
Speaker 1: shouldn't be surprised, but after everything you had been through
Speaker 1: at that time, it's amazing that you still maintained hope.
Speaker 1: But in fact the worst possible outcome came to be,
Speaker 1: which is that you were found guilty and then you
Speaker 1: were taking to prison. Now you're sixteen years old, right
Speaker 1: and you're going to some of the worst prisons in
Speaker 1: America arguably the world.
Speaker 4: This is this is the worst of nightmare times twenty
Speaker 4: And that was in the juvenile facility as well. I
Speaker 4: know that Corey Wison in regards Island, in Reconds Island
Speaker 4: is incomparable to Sponsored or any of the other juvenile facilities.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: The worst thing that can happen to you and Jubie
Speaker 4: is that you might get sliced or you know, beat
Speaker 4: up or something like that. But in Reconsiland, God, you
Speaker 4: could lose your life. For us that went to the
Speaker 4: juvenile facility, it was hell. And then when we got convicted,
Speaker 4: they sent us to one of the three maximum as
Speaker 4: treat facilities at the time that was there. They sent
Speaker 4: me to Harlem Valley, they sent Raymonds and Canada Ghoshen,
Speaker 4: and they sent Antema Creates a book work, you know,
Speaker 4: and it was the worst, worst kind of situations that
Speaker 4: we had to grow up very bad figure out how
Speaker 4: we were going to survive when just yesterday we were
Speaker 4: riding skateboards and you know, being food groups or something
Speaker 4: like that.
Speaker 1: I'm doing graphic design and looking forward to your.
Speaker 4: Life, just just just being a normal, innocent child. And
Speaker 4: now yet that whole reality is gone, and it's hard
Speaker 4: to it's hard to fully describe everything that went on
Speaker 4: because my story is a little bit different, because I
Speaker 4: started to really try to get some type of understanding
Speaker 4: about this. I wanted to figure out why why, Like
Speaker 4: I knew that I was innotant, I knew that we
Speaker 4: hadn't done it, but here we were, we were in prison,
Speaker 4: and I was trying to figure out why were we convicted?
Speaker 4: How did this happen? And nece again. A guy comes
Speaker 4: up to me in prison, one of the officers, and
Speaker 4: he's been watching me for the few months that I
Speaker 4: had been there at this time, and he asks me
Speaker 4: this one question, This one question changed my life. He said,
Speaker 4: who are you? And I, in my ignorance and confusion,
Speaker 4: my answer was probably the same as anyone else, without
Speaker 4: understanding the philosophical realm of where he was going, I said,
Speaker 4: I'm used of Salon, one of the guys they accused
Speaker 4: of raping the essential park Joenre But I didn't do it,
Speaker 4: and he said, no, no, no, no, I know that,
Speaker 4: he said, but I've been watching you. You're not supposed
Speaker 4: to be here, You're not a criminal. Why are you here?
Speaker 4: Who are you? And it caused me to really evaluate
Speaker 4: my life and my circumstances, short as it may be,
Speaker 4: at a particular point in time, to understand things in
Speaker 4: a greater, so to speak, way, to understand that we
Speaker 4: all are here on purpose. There's things that we have
Speaker 4: to do, and we are the ones that are chosen
Speaker 4: to do that. And if we don't do it, it
Speaker 4: won't be done. If we don't bless the world with
Speaker 4: our book, that book will never be written. They say
Speaker 4: the graveyard is the wealthiest place in the world because
Speaker 4: it's filled with the ideas and the dreams and the
Speaker 4: hopes of people that just did not get over the
Speaker 4: hump of doing those ideas and dreams and hopes, you know.
Speaker 4: And so here I was, in this place that I
Speaker 4: was supposed to be. Damned, I'm getting a sense of
Speaker 4: purpose that I would have never really really understood had
Speaker 4: not gone through this.
Speaker 1: Did you did you maintain a relationship with that officer
Speaker 1: going forward, because that's deep I mean, the first person
Speaker 1: that said that those same words to me was Deepak Chopra.
Speaker 1: I'm not comparing this guy to Deepac Choprah, but but yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean what happened with I mean, did you did
Speaker 1: you continue to have dialogue with him?
Speaker 4: I did. As a matter of fact, this this guy
Speaker 4: uh befriended me. It was one of it was one
Speaker 4: of the mini officers that befriended me, you know. And
Speaker 4: it was weird because at the same time there was
Speaker 4: there were little things that were going on, and one
Speaker 4: time I would come back to my cell and I
Speaker 4: would see chopicicana orange juice and Intimates cookies and it
Speaker 4: would happen often enough that it's kind of like, oh wow,
Speaker 4: this is this is kind of strange. And it happened
Speaker 4: to like choplic kind of orange and into cookies. But
Speaker 4: in the back of my mind, I had this voice
Speaker 4: playing in my head that they were trying to kill
Speaker 4: me with the food and so I wouldn't never eat it.
Speaker 4: Then one David Lady comes up to be another officer
Speaker 4: and she says, hey, have you been getting the goodies
Speaker 4: I've been leaving to you? And I said, oh wow,
Speaker 4: I didn't know you were leaving. I didn't know it
Speaker 4: was you. I said, why did you do that? And
Speaker 4: she said, I know you're innocent, I know you're not
Speaker 4: supposed to be here, but I can't take this key
Speaker 4: and let you go for you. So every time I
Speaker 4: come in here and you here, I want to make
Speaker 4: your time as easy and as comfortable as possible. And
Speaker 4: this was her way of doing that.
Speaker 1: You found this incredible purpose in this darkest place that
Speaker 1: you could possibly be in, and it has obviously carried
Speaker 1: you through. You ended up serving on a five to
Speaker 1: ten years sentence six years and eight months. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about the fact that Matthias Reyis actually confessed all these
Speaker 1: years later when he met one of the central part
Speaker 1: He met Corey in prison and then suddenly his conscience
Speaker 1: got to him. Imagine that he actually met a guy
Speaker 1: who was serving time for the crime that he committed,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden he got this attack
Speaker 1: of conscience. I think he may have found religion by
Speaker 1: then or I don't know what, but anyway, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: He confessed, how did you find out that you now
Speaker 1: had this ray of light and that you you know,
Speaker 1: that you were now going to be actually had a
Speaker 1: real chance of becoming being exonerated.
Speaker 4: So you know, when we heard the news just like
Speaker 4: everyone else, and our attorneys were telling us about how
Speaker 4: you know what happened. And you know, one of the
Speaker 4: worst things that, of course happens in the case like that,
Speaker 4: is if you've been ran all about the five wills
Speaker 4: of justice once, you absolutely do not trust that they
Speaker 4: are going to do the right thing this time. And
Speaker 4: so felt like, okay, you know this this the world
Speaker 4: workers came out, he confessed to the crime. He confessed
Speaker 4: in a compelling way that let him know that he
Speaker 4: alone did this. They did his DNA and lo and
Speaker 4: behold his DNA matches, and like I said, then when
Speaker 4: they tested his DNA and as DNA matched, they knew
Speaker 4: beyond a shadow of a doubt, Oh my goodness, we
Speaker 4: did the wrong thing and convicted the wrong guys. And
Speaker 4: we have to fix this, and so to judge vacate
Speaker 4: our convictions. As a matter of fact, as we as
Speaker 4: we go forward, we see that Robert Morgan's office as man,
Speaker 4: had we known then what we know now, we would
Speaker 4: have never convicted them. And I'm appreciative and happy that
Speaker 4: he said that. But what we all submit is that
Speaker 4: they did know back then what they knew now. They
Speaker 4: did know Robert Morgansawt had people working for him and
Speaker 4: under him that should have ever went after us. And
Speaker 4: it cost the city millions of dollars. It costs a million.
Speaker 1: Well, it costs so much more than just the millions
Speaker 1: of dollars they had to pay out, because it also costs,
Speaker 1: as we said, the lives of these other innocent people.
Speaker 1: It costs your lives, It costs your family untold heartache
Speaker 1: and paying. It costs tax money that we we had
Speaker 1: to pay to keep you guys incarcerated. Right, that's that
Speaker 1: runs into the millions of dollars when you're talking about
Speaker 1: forty years of prison time collectively or more. When and
Speaker 1: then we talk about the lost the lost taxes that
Speaker 1: you could have been outside paying, Right, if you guys
Speaker 1: were if you guys had gone through your normal schooling
Speaker 1: and come out and then become gotten your jobs, whatever
Speaker 1: you're going to be doing, we've been paying taxes you
Speaker 1: had been contributing to society. So it's a it's a
Speaker 1: loss for society in every conceivable way. And it was
Speaker 1: preventable and it's despicable what happened. And I think everybody
Speaker 1: owes you a tremendous apology, and so I'm going to
Speaker 1: apologize to you on behalf of New York City and
Speaker 1: America and the human race because none of this, none
Speaker 1: of us, should have ever gone down the way it did.
Speaker 1: And and let me I want to get to the
Speaker 1: to what you're doing now, but and and talk about
Speaker 1: your public speaking and other advocacy work that you're doing.
Speaker 1: But before we get to that, so, so you had
Speaker 1: this euphoria, it still took all this time to put
Speaker 1: your life back together, but you've done it. And to
Speaker 1: see you now, no one would ever know that you
Speaker 1: had been through this stuff. I mean today, are you bitter?
Speaker 4: You know I'm not bitter. I think that what it
Speaker 4: is is that we've been able to take our circumstance.
Speaker 4: And when I think we, I know that myself and Raymondsontanna,
Speaker 4: we've gone out and we've spoken a lot more than
Speaker 4: the other folks of a gentleman in the Centrafak geography case.
Speaker 4: But what the idea is that be able to take
Speaker 4: this this this uh shad part, this really horrific part
Speaker 4: of life and turn it into something beautiful. And so
Speaker 4: I'm reminded of what Nelson Mandela said when he was
Speaker 4: talking about how he had to be in the world
Speaker 4: and what he had to leave behind in the prison,
Speaker 4: and he said he had to lead anger and resentment
Speaker 4: and bitterness in the prison because and we all hear
Speaker 4: him say, it's like, it's like drinking poisons and expecting
Speaker 4: your enemy to die. To use that anger, you write it,
Speaker 4: you paint it, you dance it, you march it, you voted,
Speaker 4: you do everything about it. You talk it, never stop talking.
Speaker 4: And so I say that because I've been trying to
Speaker 4: utilize my energy and my platform to articulate what happened
Speaker 4: to us in a way that makes sense, so that
Speaker 4: other folks can understand how important their role is and
Speaker 4: how important they need to be as regards to what
Speaker 4: happens in the criminal justice system, you know. And so
Speaker 4: I've taken that anger and I redirected it, I transformed it,
Speaker 4: and I made it into something that is more beautiful
Speaker 4: and more powerful.
Speaker 1: And and and this is where I stand now, And
Speaker 1: let me ask you this. So if people want to,
Speaker 1: I know you're doing a lot of public speaking.
Speaker 4: You have a book.
Speaker 1: But if people want to have you come and speak,
Speaker 1: how did they reach out to you? How do they
Speaker 1: contact you? What's the name of the book. Let's give
Speaker 1: a nice plug for any of your social media or
Speaker 1: anything else that you want to talk about.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Absolutely, I used my real name on social media
Speaker 4: so folks can connect with me Useef Salam y U
Speaker 4: S E F S A L A A M on
Speaker 4: all social media platforms. My photo was this so that
Speaker 4: you'll know it's me. The name of the book is
Speaker 4: Words of a Man. It's on my website. My website
Speaker 4: is use speaks dot com. That's why U S E
Speaker 4: F S P E A K S dot com. And
Speaker 4: you know, folks can book me by emailing me. Why
Speaker 4: U S G S at you speaks dot com used
Speaker 4: to speaks dot com and I worked for myself, so
Speaker 4: I'm you know, people can book me, people can bring me,
Speaker 4: and so I can travel. And this is where it's at,
Speaker 4: being able to bring these real life stories into spaces
Speaker 4: that can really effectuate change, whether at be universities, whether
Speaker 4: that be forums wide and broad.
Speaker 1: So the last thing I would like to do is
Speaker 1: is usually the last thing we do here on the show,
Speaker 1: and It's actually my favorite part of the show, and
Speaker 1: I think probably a lot of people people's favorite part
Speaker 1: of the show. This is the part of the show
Speaker 1: where I get quiet and I like to just turn
Speaker 1: the microphone over to you for last words. Anything that's
Speaker 1: on your mind, anything that you can share that will
Speaker 1: give people some new perspective in your own words, yousef.
Speaker 4: So what I want to do in this moment is
Speaker 4: take people back in time. And I love to do
Speaker 4: this because it's something that I do on the road
Speaker 4: of my teaking engagement. So take them back into the courthouse.
Speaker 4: I take them back to the day right after I
Speaker 4: got convicted, and here we were standing in front of
Speaker 4: the judge and we were about to be sent in,
Speaker 4: and they axed us, do you have anything to say
Speaker 4: before we sent inte? And rather than throwing myself on
Speaker 4: the mercy of the court like everyone has been telling me,
Speaker 4: I had been reading Malcolm Max, I had been reading
Speaker 4: about Marcus Garvey. I had been reading about countless individuals
Speaker 4: who are freedom fighters trying to fight for justice. And
Speaker 4: what I stood up and said to the judge was
Speaker 4: says I said, I'm not going to sit here at
Speaker 4: your table and watch you eat and call myself dinner.
Speaker 4: Sitting here at your table doesn't make me dinner, just
Speaker 4: like being here in America doesn't make me an American.
Speaker 4: Let us begin stresses the anger that is built up inside.
Speaker 4: Rage is the anger that is no longer built kicking
Speaker 4: on the sucker that soon you have killed American. Free
Speaker 4: will doesn't mean you can kill and take another person's life.
Speaker 4: You live your life, Trice. I'm a skill builder, So
Speaker 4: on skills I do builds. We ain't to given knowledge
Speaker 4: to this black man soon to enhance my words across
Speaker 4: the land. I'm a smooth type of fellow, cool, common mellow.
Speaker 4: I'm kind of laid back. But now I'm speaking so
Speaker 4: that you know I got used and abused and even
Speaker 4: was put on the news without CRUs. Some gay cus
Speaker 4: selling out like fools and I'll check this who did
Speaker 4: what and who did who?
Speaker 2: End?
Speaker 4: But in situation that you don't know what to do
Speaker 4: and some brothers go wild and we're not down with them.
Speaker 4: Who would have thought I'd have to lock in? I
Speaker 4: said it, choose checking the scene from how the situation
Speaker 4: was instead of getting facts. The media made you blur.
Speaker 4: Now the people don't know all they see is the media.
Speaker 4: They never hear the blame because they're constantly deceiving us.
Speaker 4: The DA is dead wrong. This is a master plan.
Speaker 4: This case is not a case. It's just the craft
Speaker 4: as sham Joe. Instead of trying to get your name made,
Speaker 4: it's reconstructing the crime that really paid me. It's lam
Speaker 4: e law being supreme over Satan, but no man as
Speaker 4: a law. If summer science dropper on the righteous path,
Speaker 4: So how the hell could I take a rapist path?
Speaker 4: Think about that and then think about this. All my
Speaker 4: friends it was me, they dished, said, dismissed, because I
Speaker 4: don't really need any friends like that, like when I
Speaker 4: really needed you. Where we're at, I'm not distant involved,
Speaker 4: but the ones that I called, they went and just
Speaker 4: me like I was an inch, small, like a rat,
Speaker 4: a mouse, not even the man wrongly accused, like the
Speaker 4: knife in my hands. How does it look me? Clock now?
Speaker 4: I'm surek, But like Matt Locke, soon the accused, it
Speaker 4: took the hook. It's real when she remembers and says,
Speaker 4: damn the cops that you win. I stand the cues.
Speaker 4: Few people stop this. Rachel dispersed and yo, you've seen
Speaker 4: that kid Vincent, he's in the Hurst and so we
Speaker 4: take it just Vic and Hurst Fields, white type bullet proof.
Speaker 4: Bet we had no kind of shield. How does it
Speaker 4: look they killed a black man being black. It's time
Speaker 4: we take a stand in our situation. You saw our
Speaker 4: faces clear, but not mine. Not because of fear. It's
Speaker 4: because the black race was disgrace and for the Muslim
Speaker 4: they must have felt shame. But I'm not to blame.
Speaker 4: With the words you fought. The media took our words,
Speaker 4: the paper, the ones the cops distorted. I told the
Speaker 4: cops truth like this, and then boom, they were smacking
Speaker 4: my man. Koby Wine's in the next room. Now, why
Speaker 4: no minds that Roses can't stand the Bobby lawn. They
Speaker 4: never helped. They just babblan. I used to think the
Speaker 4: people and cops were cooled, but who protects us from you?
Speaker 4: I stand the que and as I wrapped it up,
Speaker 4: the judge's face was getting angrier and angrier, and I
Speaker 4: could tell they were about to throw the book it
Speaker 4: and then I took my seat and it gave me.
Speaker 4: The maximum amount of time that they could give me
Speaker 4: was just five to tent And they hoped that they
Speaker 4: could have given me more. I'm sure that's what I said.
Speaker 4: That actually is one of the poems that's in my
Speaker 4: book Words of a Man that's on my website. I
Speaker 4: also when I come around and seek, I usually have
Speaker 4: some with me as well. That's good.
Speaker 1: Well, all I can say is, 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 spreading the word alongside so many of
Speaker 1: us in the movement. And I look forward to working
Speaker 1: with you and spending time with you in the future.
Speaker 1: And I just want to thank you again for taking
Speaker 1: your time to be on the show, and I want
Speaker 1: to thank the audience also for listening. This has been
Speaker 1: a very special and moving episode of Wrongful Conviction. So yusef,
Speaker 1: thank you again, my pleasure, Thank you for having them.
Speaker 1: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: It really helps.
Speaker 1: And I'm a proud donor to the Enesis Project, and
Speaker 1: I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
Speaker 1: important cause and helping to event future wrongful convictions. Go
Speaker 1: to Innocentsproject dot org to learn how to donate and
Speaker 1: get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor
Speaker 1: Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is
Speaker 1: by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure
Speaker 1: to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on
Speaker 1: Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm
Speaker 1: is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association
Speaker 1: with Signal Company Number one