Speaker 1: On April Twenty Five, Robert mcclendon saw his biological daughter
Speaker 1: for the first time in five years, just walking down
Speaker 1: the street. They stopped and spoke. Later on that same day,
Speaker 1: the ten year old girl was allegedly abducted blindfolded, driven
Speaker 1: to an abandoned house and raped. According to the victim,
Speaker 1: she was later able to escape from the assailant's car
Speaker 1: when he had stopped at a convenience store. The following day,
Speaker 1: the victim's mother noticed that she was acting and walking strangely.
Speaker 1: When asked, the victim alleged that her father, Robert mcclendon,
Speaker 1: had attacked her. She was taken to the hospital where
Speaker 1: a rape kit was performed. Siemen was not detected, so
Speaker 1: for now no DNA testing was done, but her underwear
Speaker 1: would later become a key piece of evidence. According to
Speaker 1: a polygraphic Examler, the final test of five that were
Speaker 1: done was ruled to be inconclusive and could have been
Speaker 1: quote a deliberate attempt at deception. With this dubious result
Speaker 1: and the testimony of the ten year old victim, Robert
Speaker 1: was ultimately con nearly two decades passed, while Roberts are
Speaker 1: fifteen to life for the kidnapping and rape of his
Speaker 1: biological daughter, before advances in DNA testing made it possible
Speaker 1: to develop a male profile from the victims underwear. The
Speaker 1: Ohio Innocence Project, the Columbus dispatch and eventually the PROJECUTOR's
Speaker 1: office worked diligently to ascertain the truth. This is wrongful conviction.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to wrongful conviction this episode. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of things in this case that are typical the state
Speaker 1: that had happened in Ohio, the crime that was committed,
Speaker 1: but there's a twist in this case. It's uh, you're
Speaker 1: you're just gonna be scratching your head like I am,
Speaker 1: because it's crazy. and to tell this story we have
Speaker 1: Jennifer Berger on an amy'll recognize. She is a professor
Speaker 1: of clinical law and the director of operations at the
Speaker 1: Ohioly business project. And actually, this, Jennifer, this was your
Speaker 1: first case, right, so I'm sure this is gonna be
Speaker 1: exciting for you and, of course, the man himself who
Speaker 1: lived through this nightmare, Robert mcclendon. Robert, I had a
Speaker 1: pleasure of meeting you recently and, listen, I'm sorry for
Speaker 1: what you went through, but I'm so glad that you're
Speaker 1: here to share your story. Thank you and I'm really
Speaker 1: glad to be here. So, before we even get into
Speaker 1: the actual crime itself, which is a horrific crime. Yes, sir,
Speaker 1: what was your life like growing up? Well, I want
Speaker 1: to say it was a normal life. I didn't have
Speaker 1: a traditional mom. I come from a family of alcohol
Speaker 1: drug apiece, but my mom tried the best, says she could,
Speaker 1: raising three boys were kind of like stairs step kids,
Speaker 1: and me and my mother we had a lot of
Speaker 1: disagreements because I've never smoked, drink or these drugs and
Speaker 1: because I will speak up to my mom and asked her,
Speaker 1: why don't you cooked like other moms, and things like that.
Speaker 1: So my mother would get on me and she would
Speaker 1: she would whoop me, and so I went to the
Speaker 1: left and I would stayed live by Martha, who who
Speaker 1: basically raised me from a teenager all the way up.
Speaker 1: But I was very good at school, made good grades
Speaker 1: in school. So you still managed to perform well in
Speaker 1: school despite everything else. And then, I understand, you had
Speaker 1: three daughters by three different mothers. Not Too long after
Speaker 1: high school. There was Robin, Nicole and then your youngest
Speaker 1: ended up being the victim in this case. But before
Speaker 1: we get into what happened to her, can you talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about your kids? Uh, I was young
Speaker 1: and I was standing at Robin and Nicole's life. I
Speaker 1: didn't really get to know the victim in this case
Speaker 1: because me and her mom that broke up and I
Speaker 1: hadn't seen her since she was five years old up
Speaker 1: until the time, and I saw her when she was
Speaker 1: ten years old. The mom kept me away from her
Speaker 1: and that's just how it was. But there was a
Speaker 1: time before the mother ever became pregnant, before your relationship
Speaker 1: had gone sout right. Yeah, I had my own apartment,
Speaker 1: but I was found myself standing over there a lot
Speaker 1: with her and she had two kids, two boys, and
Speaker 1: we were seeing each other and she, you know, she
Speaker 1: became pregnant and at some point during that pregnancy she
Speaker 1: decided that she didn't want you and your daughter's life.
Speaker 1: And at that time you were already helping to support
Speaker 1: your other two daughters while working for the Columbus Parks
Speaker 1: and recreation department. Yeah, city of Columbus, but you became
Speaker 1: a known entity to police with your side Hustle, right,
Speaker 1: selling drugs to supplement your income. No, judgment here. Back then,
Speaker 1: that's what you did because the money was so good,
Speaker 1: good and fast, and I felt that, because I wasn't
Speaker 1: using drugs, I was all in and I did very,
Speaker 1: very well until I got called. I was put on probation.
Speaker 1: I think the judge saw that I was not a
Speaker 1: bad person, but when he gave me that probation, that
Speaker 1: there were certain people back then on the police department
Speaker 1: in the eighties that did not like me and did
Speaker 1: I like other guys that did what I did, and
Speaker 1: it made it very difficult for me and other guys.
Speaker 1: And there was one officer in particular who played a
Speaker 1: pivotal role in your case, officer Nardella. There was a detective.
Speaker 1: He was what you call a dirty cop. He would
Speaker 1: arrest guys and take their money and their drugs, plant drugs,
Speaker 1: very corrupt and he took a very special interest in you,
Speaker 1: eventually arresting you while you were on probation, alleging that
Speaker 1: he had found drugs in your car, and this was
Speaker 1: in the lead up to your trial for the crime
Speaker 1: that we're here to discuss today. But I also want
Speaker 1: to make point out that once I was put on probation,
Speaker 1: I did not indulge in selling drugs anymore. I think
Speaker 1: that's important, but it wasn't important to Nardella, though. As
Speaker 1: we so often see, a prior connection to drug deal
Speaker 1: and can make someone a target from carceration by any
Speaker 1: means necessary, even though that past does not make you
Speaker 1: in any way guilty of another crime like murder or,
Speaker 1: in this case, a rape, and especially the rape of
Speaker 1: your own daughter. So let's get to the day of
Speaker 1: the incident itself. Robert, after the birth of your youngest
Speaker 1: biological daughter, you had only seen her twice, once at
Speaker 1: age five, and then, curiously, you saw her earlier in
Speaker 1: the day that this horrendous rape occurred, and it was
Speaker 1: is that accurate? That is accurate. I was going down
Speaker 1: Huston's street, going over to a lady friend's house, and
Speaker 1: this young girl came up to me and said are
Speaker 1: you Robert? I think you're my daddy. She says she
Speaker 1: remembered me from the pictures of her mother had on
Speaker 1: her metal piece. So I said well, I'll tell your
Speaker 1: Mama said hi and I asked how she was doing
Speaker 1: in school. She said good, and I said we'll keep
Speaker 1: doing good in school and take your Mama. Said Hi.
Speaker 1: Two days later, my attorney called me and told me
Speaker 1: I needed to turn myself in because I was accused
Speaker 1: of rape in his chowel. And we don't know the
Speaker 1: exact machinations behind you being accused of this rape. Perhaps
Speaker 1: because you had seen her, maybe there were resentments, maybe
Speaker 1: her mother had something to do with the blame being
Speaker 1: placed and you were really not sure, but we do
Speaker 1: know for a fact it was not you. I said
Speaker 1: it again, it was not you, and as we go
Speaker 1: along here, perhaps motivations become more clear. Now, make no mistake,
Speaker 1: this little girl absolutely did suffer a horrible sexual assault
Speaker 1: that day. According to a statement, it wasn't until the
Speaker 1: next day, though, that her mother confronted her about how
Speaker 1: she was acting or walking strangely, and at that point
Speaker 1: she told her mother that her biological father, you Robert,
Speaker 1: had abducted her from her backyard in Columbus Ohio, tied
Speaker 1: a sock over her eyes and drove her off to
Speaker 1: some abandoned house somewhere where you allegedly raped her on
Speaker 1: a couch inside the house, ejaculated on her and then
Speaker 1: drove to a convenience store and she was able to
Speaker 1: escape while you were allegedly inside this store. Now, the
Speaker 1: victim was taken to a hospital and a rape kit
Speaker 1: was performed and no seamen was identified on her underwear
Speaker 1: or unvaginal swamps. So no DNA testing was done as
Speaker 1: a result. But remember, this is and DNA testing approved
Speaker 1: over time, and this evidence became relevant again later. However,
Speaker 1: back in when asked if she could identify the attacker,
Speaker 1: the victim said, quote, I think it was my dad,
Speaker 1: but I may be wrong because my eyes were covered.
Speaker 1: So at that point things were not looking good for Robert. Well, yes,
Speaker 1: I mean when we first looked at this case, it
Speaker 1: was very perplexing. I mean, Robert has been very steadfast
Speaker 1: and his innocence from day one and you know, I
Speaker 1: wanted to believe what he was saying, but I was
Speaker 1: also kind of perplexed by why would this young girl
Speaker 1: makes something up against her own father? That could have
Speaker 1: been something manufactured in her own head, maybe completely innocently,
Speaker 1: or it could have been something that was planted in
Speaker 1: her head by someone from her family. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Then things take another tragic turn, right, which is that you, Robert,
Speaker 1: were arrested and charged with kidnapping and rape of this child. Robert,
Speaker 1: take us back to that awful day when you were
Speaker 1: arrest did, falsely accused and in fact charged with this
Speaker 1: horrendous crime. My attorney didn't believe it. I thought it
Speaker 1: was some type of mistake. I was given a very
Speaker 1: low bond of a thousand dollars and was released. Wait,
Speaker 1: a thousand dollar bond? That's like what they give somebody for,
Speaker 1: like riding their bike on the sidewalk. I mean, this
Speaker 1: seems really way off for this horrible crime that we're
Speaker 1: discussing here, but we're gonna come back to that. No,
Speaker 1: let's just say for now that it doesn't seem like
Speaker 1: your attorney was the only one who didn't believe these allegations.
Speaker 1: This judge, Judge Johnson, what's the same judge that put
Speaker 1: me on probation for aggravated trafficking during the time when
Speaker 1: they were a war on drugs, the police department was
Speaker 1: hated by goods. Okay, okay. So now you're out awaiting
Speaker 1: trial and some people in the police department feel some
Speaker 1: kind of, you know, way about that, and that's when
Speaker 1: Nardella pulled you over. I had a beautiful red Mercedes
Speaker 1: that was customized, and there's a code when you are
Speaker 1: dealing drugs or selling drugs. You never ever do it.
Speaker 1: When you're driving your prize car, you don't carry you
Speaker 1: don't do anything wrong. Anybody is selling drugs. When you're
Speaker 1: driving your show car, you're not working. There's never nothing wrong.
Speaker 1: There's no drugs, there's no illegal activities, no guns or
Speaker 1: anything in these cars. Well, that makes sense as a
Speaker 1: practical matter because in theory they could the car. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: I mean he arrested me and put drugs in my
Speaker 1: car because I was on probation and he knew that
Speaker 1: I would go to chill and not be able to
Speaker 1: get out because I was on probation. So now you're
Speaker 1: locked up for over a year awaiting trial, unable to
Speaker 1: fight the case from the outside, ineligible for bail, and
Speaker 1: now I need to go back to how bail was
Speaker 1: originally set at a thousand dollars. I mean, if they
Speaker 1: actually believed you to be the kind of sick bastard
Speaker 1: that would rape your own ten year old daughter, that
Speaker 1: just it doesn't add up. It makes no sense. What
Speaker 1: was the prosecutor did not want to take this case
Speaker 1: because he didn't think he could win. That's why he
Speaker 1: opted for me to take a polygraph test and if
Speaker 1: I passed a polygraph test would not even go to trial. Sir.
Speaker 1: And the polygraph test, we know that they're not accurate.
Speaker 1: Even if they examiner is a true expert at reading
Speaker 1: the results, there's still only approximately accurate. So it's a
Speaker 1: little better than guessing. My attorney gave me a pre
Speaker 1: polygraph test. I passed it with flying colors. They gave
Speaker 1: me four polygraph tests. We now know that the guy
Speaker 1: that did the polygraph test was corrupt. They were looking
Speaker 1: for a failed result and they got what I think
Speaker 1: was close to it when it came back inconclusive. So
Speaker 1: a state highway patrol examiner found, which is again subjective,
Speaker 1: that your answers, quote unquote, could be a deliberate attempt
Speaker 1: at deception. That could apply to any polygraph test. You
Speaker 1: could literally be you could have the best polygraph test
Speaker 1: in the history of the world right, the equivalent of
Speaker 1: getting eight hundreds on your s a t s. You
Speaker 1: could nail it right and they could still go that
Speaker 1: copy and know maybe I don't know something look like
Speaker 1: you might have tried to say. I mean, that's a
Speaker 1: ridiculous I have to laugh because if I don't, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna cry or I'm going to break something, you know. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you've got this polygraph examiner saying that this could
Speaker 1: be a deliberate attempt at deception, which could be something
Speaker 1: a corrupt polygraph examiner would testify to, and then you've
Speaker 1: got the victim saying that it was you and you
Speaker 1: decided to go for a bench trial. They chose to
Speaker 1: go with a bench trial because of the nature of
Speaker 1: this crime. It was such a horrendous crime and there
Speaker 1: was going to be testimony from a ten year old
Speaker 1: girl and I think it's very hard for nature to
Speaker 1: hear the testimony of a ten year old who went
Speaker 1: through this and a quit, even if it's the right
Speaker 1: thing to do. My attorney said a jury would think
Speaker 1: that if you're a drug dealer, that you're a child molester.
Speaker 1: We opted for a trial with judge Johnson because he
Speaker 1: felt that Judge Johnson will follow the law, and that
Speaker 1: seems like a very rational decision with the circumstances as
Speaker 1: you described. Every person knows why they were found guilty.
Speaker 1: There's two cosses of while I was found guilty, the
Speaker 1: testimony of the child and the inconclusive results of the
Speaker 1: polygraph test that I believe the prosecutor, so to the judge,
Speaker 1: more powerful than what my attorney did. If my attorney
Speaker 1: dropped the ball any time, it was with he did
Speaker 1: not convince the judge that inconclusive results of the polygraph
Speaker 1: test means you did not feel it and you did
Speaker 1: not pass it. Yeah, they gave it to you four
Speaker 1: times and probably have given it to you forty times.
Speaker 1: And eventually, you know, I mean because they were you know,
Speaker 1: if you kept passing, we're gonna keep doing it, and
Speaker 1: because we know how inaccurate these things are. Eventually, the
Speaker 1: law of averages, as you gotta either fail one or
Speaker 1: be inconclusive or whatever it is. So yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: this is important because, as anyone in our audience could
Speaker 1: end up on a jury at a criminal trial, please
Speaker 1: be aware that these things, well, he's not even allowed
Speaker 1: to be introduced as evidence. That's how that's how inaccurate
Speaker 1: these things are. They're not even allowed to be introduced
Speaker 1: as evidence. But it's not like your lawyer did nothing.
Speaker 1: I mean he did present alibi witnesses. I mean there
Speaker 1: was a cable guy, but who would have no agenda,
Speaker 1: I mean, and then it was your friend Laverne, who
Speaker 1: you had been with all that day, and I understand
Speaker 1: that they were very rough with her. But, like you said,
Speaker 1: your lawyer didn't do enough to combat the bogus polygraph evidence. And,
Speaker 1: of course, what can be said to combat the tearful
Speaker 1: words of a ten year old victim? There's nothing more
Speaker 1: powerful than a beautiful child on stand that points of
Speaker 1: finger at you and say that you did something. I
Speaker 1: have family members in the audience and they told me
Speaker 1: that we are your family, we love you, but if
Speaker 1: we did not know you and the way that girl
Speaker 1: pointed their finger at you and said you did it,
Speaker 1: we would believe it. Take us back to that moment,
Speaker 1: that awful, awful moment, when the judge declared you, and
Speaker 1: correctly declared you, guilty of this rape and kidnapping and
Speaker 1: sentence you the fifteen years of life in prison. I
Speaker 1: remember Judge Johnson even to this day. He said the
Speaker 1: testimony of the child was powerful. I believe that you're
Speaker 1: guilty and I shook my head and I said, Judge Johnson,
Speaker 1: I did not do this. He shook his head and
Speaker 1: he looked down and he said son, I think you're guilty.
Speaker 1: Never Forget it. When I walked into that sale, it
Speaker 1: was like I was being closed out of the whole world,
Speaker 1: like the whole world was was over. No, prison is
Speaker 1: a nice place. I think you have to be adaptable
Speaker 1: to it and I adapted to it. I helped a
Speaker 1: young guys, gang beggers, get their G D S. I'm
Speaker 1: very proud of that. And I did most of my
Speaker 1: time at Ross and in the last year I was
Speaker 1: transferred to chillicothe and Jennifer, how did Robert's case become
Speaker 1: the first case that you ever worked on and how
Speaker 1: did you end up prevailing against all odds? Yeah, so
Speaker 1: I came here almost fifteen years ago and there was
Speaker 1: a project underway already that the high witnisen's project was
Speaker 1: doing with the Columbus Dispatch newspaper and the reporters had
Speaker 1: realized that prisoners across the state of Ohio had been
Speaker 1: asking for postconviction DNA testing in Ohio and the vast,
Speaker 1: vast majority of times they asked for testing it was
Speaker 1: just either summarily denied or in a lot of cases
Speaker 1: the judges never even ruled on the applications. So they
Speaker 1: teamed up with US and reviewed the several hundred pieces
Speaker 1: where individuals had asked for postconviction DNA testing and had
Speaker 1: been denied or nothing had happened, and they ended up
Speaker 1: choosing thirty cases and Roberts was one of those. There
Speaker 1: was a whole series of articles in the Clumbus dispatch
Speaker 1: that came out in two thousand eight called test of convictions.
Speaker 1: So the Ohio innisence project and the Ohio public defender
Speaker 1: did a few of the thirty cases. So I had
Speaker 1: a handful of those and Roberts was one of them.
Speaker 1: We filed for DNA testing in I think, February of
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight and much to my surprise, the
Speaker 1: Franklin County Prosecutor's office actually agreed to do the testing, which,
Speaker 1: based on the responses we were getting from others across
Speaker 1: the state, was shocking. Always theorized that at the time
Speaker 1: they did it because they were so convinced he was
Speaker 1: guilty that it would just come back and prove it
Speaker 1: and that would be fine, which is fine with me
Speaker 1: because then it would show the system worked. I didn't
Speaker 1: care why they were deciding to agree, I was just
Speaker 1: glad they were. But that was that was my theory.
Speaker 1: So as a result of that, we ended up entering
Speaker 1: an agreed order to have items tested. The rape kid
Speaker 1: was searched for, but that was long since gone. But
Speaker 1: fortunately they had the victims underwear still in storage at
Speaker 1: the prosecutor's office. When off Alpha DNA testing, three times
Speaker 1: they said the underwear was missing or he couldn't find them,
Speaker 1: but when an Ohio innocent project and a Columbus spatch
Speaker 1: got involved, wail the underwear. That reminds me of the
Speaker 1: Alan Newton case in New York where for over twenty
Speaker 1: years they were denying the existence of the evidence. They
Speaker 1: said it had been lost and when the innocence project
Speaker 1: got involved they found it in exactly the place where
Speaker 1: it was supposed to be, in a vow with his
Speaker 1: name on it. And it's like US Christ like. This
Speaker 1: sounds like some banana republic, Third World country type of stuff,
Speaker 1: and this was New York City. So it's a miracle.
Speaker 1: I mean you know that there was evidence left to
Speaker 1: test and it's a travesty that there isn't a national
Speaker 1: standard for the preservation of this type of evidence. That
Speaker 1: literally turns out to be the difference between dying in prison,
Speaker 1: quite possibly, and living life. Yeah, that was one of
Speaker 1: the unfortunate discoveries. From thirty cases, there were several where,
Speaker 1: I mean I can think of one person in particular
Speaker 1: where I do believe they're innocent but all of the
Speaker 1: evidence was gone. and Um, this was for Marion Reynolds. Yeah,
Speaker 1: his wasn't the only case, but yeah, there was just
Speaker 1: a complete lack of any sort of uniform standards anywhere
Speaker 1: across the state. Fortunately, due to legislation that came into effect,
Speaker 1: I believe, in two thousand ten. That's changed in Ohio
Speaker 1: by statute, although unfortunately I don't think all of the
Speaker 1: law enforcement agencies are are following it at this point.
Speaker 1: But theoretically they should be now maintaining evidence in a
Speaker 1: more uniform way. But fortunately for Robert at least they
Speaker 1: had the underwear. It had been looked at way back
Speaker 1: at the time of trial and they had determined that
Speaker 1: there wasn't any seaman or sperm on it, which is
Speaker 1: partially why I thought they figured either they weren't going
Speaker 1: to get any results or if they did, it would
Speaker 1: come back and show Robert. But in any case they agreed,
Speaker 1: which was great, and we wanted to do y str
Speaker 1: testing on it because at this time that was the
Speaker 1: best way to find any male DNA, since we figured
Speaker 1: most of the DNA would be from the victim, who
Speaker 1: was female, and ultimately they agreed to that. So we
Speaker 1: ended up sending it to a private lab here in
Speaker 1: Fairfield that is certified by the State of Ohio, and
Speaker 1: D D C, the private company in cooperation with the
Speaker 1: clumbus dispatch, had agreed to do the testing in all
Speaker 1: of these cases, all thirty of them, for free, and
Speaker 1: Robert's happened to be the first one. The results come
Speaker 1: back and sure enough it proves that what Robert had
Speaker 1: been saying from a one was true. He had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with this. Jennifer, what was that moment like?
Speaker 1: You must have been ecstatic. Yeah, I happened to be
Speaker 1: on vacation at the beach when the results came in and,
Speaker 1: you know, I was trying not to think about work,
Speaker 1: but then I get the information about this and it
Speaker 1: just blew my mind. I mean it was amazing. I
Speaker 1: remember we went out to dinner that night. I was
Speaker 1: out with my family and I was just kind of
Speaker 1: like in a daze of like wow, this, this really happened,
Speaker 1: and it's it's not him, and then you know this
Speaker 1: was the first case I had worked. So the first time,
Speaker 1: you know I had received results. So then my head
Speaker 1: was spending with okay, now what do we do? Of
Speaker 1: course you know Robert didn't know right. So that's the
Speaker 1: thing I'm dying to know. So there you are at
Speaker 1: the beach, you're celebrating, you're probably almost in a state
Speaker 1: of shock, like I love my job, and you're like,
Speaker 1: I can't all the emotions right. How did you communicate
Speaker 1: this to Robert? And then I want to get to
Speaker 1: Robert's reaction. I gotta know everything. Tell me well, because
Speaker 1: the dispatch was involved, the two reporters, Jeff Dutton and
Speaker 1: Mike Wagner, really wanted to be there to document US
Speaker 1: giving the results to Robert, and I can let him
Speaker 1: tell the story about meeting these two reporters, but he
Speaker 1: knew them and they kind of had a good relationship going.
Speaker 1: So they definitely wanted to be there. So they worked
Speaker 1: it out with the prison so they had a camera
Speaker 1: crew there. I mean, I felt bad for Robert having
Speaker 1: not told him ahead of time, but I promised the
Speaker 1: reporters I wouldn't and also, obviously we knew it was
Speaker 1: good news. They have alerted my people that the results
Speaker 1: were in, but they never said anything about what the
Speaker 1: results was. My people are going crazy. What is it? What?
Speaker 1: So I'm in the Hallway and the attorneys are walking
Speaker 1: by and no one's looking at me at all. It
Speaker 1: makes me think about you know, when the jury, the
Speaker 1: jury comes in. They say they don't look at you,
Speaker 1: you're guilty. So I'm looking at the body language. I'm
Speaker 1: looking for eye contact. Okay, what Jennifer walks in. I'm
Speaker 1: looking at Jennifer. She don't look at me. I think
Speaker 1: a couple of the students walked by. I'm looking at them.
Speaker 1: They don't look at me. Now I remember a conversation
Speaker 1: with me and Mike Wagner had because he played basketball
Speaker 1: and he said if I ever got out that we
Speaker 1: was gonna go to the Y and play basketball together.
Speaker 1: So then he walks by and I'm looking for some
Speaker 1: type of reactions from him. He's looking straight on the floor,
Speaker 1: but he says you ready for that basketball game and
Speaker 1: I just say yeah. That's when I knew otherwise what
Speaker 1: was going on. And they must have came back inconclusive.
Speaker 1: You know, inconclusive have worked out too well for me.
Speaker 1: Everyone's keeping a poker face and he's spills. To be
Speaker 1: I guess he could have resist, I mean. And then
Speaker 1: I read that you said Hello Truth. I never ever
Speaker 1: raped anyone. Is that an accurate quote? The first words
Speaker 1: I said after Jennifer gave me the results was hello truth.
Speaker 1: I have a card, my business card is a picture
Speaker 1: of me receiving my DNA results from Jennifer. It's my favorite.
Speaker 1: So seventeen, almost seventeen years in prison, you were freed.
Speaker 1: Tell us about that day when you finally came home.
Speaker 1: When I got out, when I first got out, I
Speaker 1: went out and I said Hello Truth and hello freedom.
Speaker 1: They did the camera crew there and they asked me
Speaker 1: what I want to eat, and of course I said
Speaker 1: wings and did not old pizza. They brought stacks of
Speaker 1: pizza and stacks of wings over to my daughter's mom's
Speaker 1: house and I was just like in the days. It's
Speaker 1: still surreal. It's so many people are talking to you
Speaker 1: and everything and you just realized you just walked out
Speaker 1: of hell into heaven, basically, and you're in a zone
Speaker 1: where you're there but you're not there. It was special
Speaker 1: being around loved ones and friends and people that have
Speaker 1: been there with me through the journey the Ohio innocent
Speaker 1: project in the Columbus Dis Patch. Were there for hours,
Speaker 1: all the way until nighttime. It was wonderful, one of
Speaker 1: the best days of my life. It is wonderful and
Speaker 1: it's actually really important that we not leave out the
Speaker 1: fact that for those seventeen years of your own full incarceration,
Speaker 1: no one was looking for the guy that actually did
Speaker 1: this and we owe it to ourselves as a society
Speaker 1: to make the system better and fairer for everyone, you know,
Speaker 1: to get justice for the victims and justice for the
Speaker 1: for the innocent person, and to get the real perpetrator
Speaker 1: off the streets. Sir Robert, did did we? Did they
Speaker 1: ever find out who the real perpetrator was in this
Speaker 1: particular case? Yes, yes, Ronald' Brian, the prosecutor, the county
Speaker 1: prosecutor in Columbus Ohio, who has work very closely with
Speaker 1: the innocent project, where he wanted to do his own
Speaker 1: DNA tests a follow up. Of course, I was going
Speaker 1: crazy Google for Coco pops. Okay, yeah, this is while
Speaker 1: you were still in, before you got out, while I
Speaker 1: was still in, because I thought there was a fixing.
Speaker 1: I thought there was something going on. They're getting ready
Speaker 1: to undo this somehow so, how innocent project and told
Speaker 1: me that the science is a science. Roberts gonna come
Speaker 1: up the same. So the results come back again. It
Speaker 1: was not me, but this time, sir, they came back
Speaker 1: with a hit. A known suspect, the seventeen year old son,
Speaker 1: had molested her at the age of ten years old.
Speaker 1: They continue to have a consentual relationship while she was
Speaker 1: a teenager and then continue to have a consensual relationship
Speaker 1: into their adult life. Ronald Ryan told me when he
Speaker 1: presented the evidence to the mom, she did not even
Speaker 1: seem surprised. I asked Ron can we take this guy
Speaker 1: to court to prosecute him? He said, Robert, we can't
Speaker 1: do it because during the consentual relationship she would never
Speaker 1: take the stand against you. Now, how wicked is that? Guys,
Speaker 1: I'm rarely at a loss for words, but I don't
Speaker 1: have any words to say. It's gonna take me a minute. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm to apologizing to on. This is the first I
Speaker 1: learned of this. Yeah, did they not know this before
Speaker 1: the DNA proved it, or was this known to some
Speaker 1: people in positions of authority at the time of your
Speaker 1: rawful conviction? I'm not sure everything that happened to this child.
Speaker 1: I always empathized, guys. I always empathized with this child
Speaker 1: because I knew and believed that something happened to this
Speaker 1: child and I was very empathetic as a result of that.
Speaker 1: It just was not me, and I was even empathetic
Speaker 1: until we always thought it might have been a family member,
Speaker 1: but I stopped being empathetic. There's this child, when I
Speaker 1: found out that they was in a relationship while I
Speaker 1: was sitting in jail right and all this time, knowing
Speaker 1: that I was in prison, and her mother coerced her
Speaker 1: into saying all that stuff on the stand. Her mother
Speaker 1: knew all along. M There's a layer of evil in that.
Speaker 1: That is um there, there is, there is, sir, I'm
Speaker 1: glad you said that were because that's exactly how it feels. Sir,
Speaker 1: I've been hearing a lot of amazing things that you've
Speaker 1: been engaged in the behalf of other axonorees and the
Speaker 1: community and I would love to hear about that. I've
Speaker 1: been an advocate for the Ohio intercent project since I've
Speaker 1: been out during speaking engagement schools, colleges, universities, getting the
Speaker 1: word out, talking about. You know what happened to me
Speaker 1: and what happened to others. We all go to court
Speaker 1: when some of the other asutaries are out to support
Speaker 1: for their families and the other axonaries. is nothing more
Speaker 1: powerful than being there for one of your own when
Speaker 1: they get out to the free world. And then once
Speaker 1: they're out in the free world, they need help. We
Speaker 1: all need help. Some of these guys come out with issues,
Speaker 1: as myself, PTSD and such financial problems. Uh, me and
Speaker 1: dean were kind of like the O G S of
Speaker 1: their high innocent project, and you guys should talk being him.
Speaker 1: His story is powerful too, that lawyers can't talk about
Speaker 1: the things that me and dean can talk to other
Speaker 1: xunaries that you well know. Me and dean, we were
Speaker 1: there to talk to these guys. We're on call seven
Speaker 1: to these guys when they have problems. We're real with it.
Speaker 1: You know, they tell us everything. They come to us.
Speaker 1: We have a lady by the name of Donna Meyerson
Speaker 1: who who does a lot of work in regards to
Speaker 1: our counseling, mental health and things like that, somebody that
Speaker 1: we trust who's there for us. It's just giving back.
Speaker 1: That's a really beautiful thing. And you mentioned dean. That's
Speaker 1: Dean Gillespie and I remember meeting him at the Innocence
Speaker 1: Network Conference this year. I met him several times before
Speaker 1: in the past and it sounds like the work you're
Speaker 1: doing just keeps the spirit of the conference, you know,
Speaker 1: the Camaraderie alive all year and just being a witness,
Speaker 1: being a part of that incredible energy. I wish I
Speaker 1: could bottle it and share it with people and just
Speaker 1: take a sip of it whenever I need the inspiration,
Speaker 1: because it's it's almost impossible to describe, but anyone who's
Speaker 1: been there knows what I'm talking about and you're doing
Speaker 1: that every day. So Kudos to you. So I also
Speaker 1: understand that you've been active in getting some much needed
Speaker 1: legislation passed, which is incredible. I mean, can you fill
Speaker 1: us in on what you've been up to? House Bill
Speaker 1: Seventy seven? I was there. We helped do that. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna let Jennifer talk about the four part Bal where
Speaker 1: she can describe it better than immediate. Boy, you're putting
Speaker 1: me on the spot for the four parts, but basically
Speaker 1: there was the last big overhaul of the Ohio DNA
Speaker 1: post conviction statute, and it did things like put into
Speaker 1: the statute the right to have codus upload of any
Speaker 1: DNA results, and it also addressed recording of interrogations and
Speaker 1: preservation of evidence. It was for the first time put
Speaker 1: in statewide standards on what evidence in what crimes needs
Speaker 1: to be kept in for how long, so that we
Speaker 1: could stop running into the issues of not being able
Speaker 1: to do testing because it was gone. And Photo Up,
Speaker 1: Oh yes, thank you, and changing the way photo lineups
Speaker 1: are supposed to be done in Ohio so that it's
Speaker 1: not the six packs but is done with what they
Speaker 1: called a folder method, so it's done one at a
Speaker 1: time to try to decrease the amount of mistaken identity. Yes,
Speaker 1: so Robert was very helpful with going around and meeting
Speaker 1: with a bunch of legislators to just tell them his
Speaker 1: story firsthand, and I think, you know, hearing from him
Speaker 1: and others who had been through similar situations really helped
Speaker 1: the legislators understand why the legislation was important. And Mark,
Speaker 1: because of that legislation, mark has me talking to someone
Speaker 1: here in New York when your guys in about social
Speaker 1: security because, as you won't know when you're in prison,
Speaker 1: you don't get to pay in social security, retirement or nothing,
Speaker 1: and when you get out, the conversation that they give you,
Speaker 1: trust me, after you've become a victim of being used
Speaker 1: by your family. Black idea. It's just not enough. Some
Speaker 1: agonaries end up with nothing, some Asonnoris end up being
Speaker 1: in financial tragedies, natural straits, is say it, because we
Speaker 1: just don't have the income to to make it, and
Speaker 1: so security would help out here. That some people, we
Speaker 1: could probably get it under PTSD, because all of us
Speaker 1: suffered from some forms of PTSD when we get out.
Speaker 1: But we need powerful people that's gonna get together and
Speaker 1: put your haste in your efforts together to make this happen.
Speaker 1: You know, this idea has been floating around in the
Speaker 1: Zeitgeist lately and I feel like it's finally starting to
Speaker 1: grow some wings. So well, let's work together. Let's amend
Speaker 1: the thirteenth amendment or make a new amendment to the
Speaker 1: constitution that closes the slavery loophole in the Thirteenth Amendment. And,
Speaker 1: by the way, it's on the ballot this November in
Speaker 1: five states, Louisiana, Alabama, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont. So again, Louisiana, Alabama, Oregon,
Speaker 1: Tennessee and Vermont. If you live in one of those
Speaker 1: five states, you have an opportunity to make your voice
Speaker 1: heard and to help abolish slavery once and for all.
Speaker 1: And eventually we get all fifty states. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you think it would be a no brainer that there
Speaker 1: would be no slavery anywhere, regardless of your legal status.
Speaker 1: But who knows? In our current political climate, I shudder
Speaker 1: to think. Anyway. With all of that said, I want
Speaker 1: to thank both of you for joining us here today
Speaker 1: and sharing this incredible story and just for being who
Speaker 1: you are, and thank you for having us. Yeah, thank you, Jennifer.
Speaker 1: I want to say thank you again. I don't know
Speaker 1: if I how many times you privile and, of course,
Speaker 1: please support the Ohio Innocence Project. Their work is saving
Speaker 1: lives to this very day and they need all of
Speaker 1: our support. We'll put a link in the bio. And
Speaker 1: of course that brings us to closing arguments, where I
Speaker 1: just turned my microphone off, kicked back in my chair
Speaker 1: and listen for whatever you feel is left to be said. So, Jennifer,
Speaker 1: please go first and then Robert Close it out for us. Well,
Speaker 1: I just want to say thank you again for having
Speaker 1: me on and for putting a spotlight on these stories
Speaker 1: that are important and need to be shared, and I
Speaker 1: also want to thank Robert. It's the fourteenth anniversary of
Speaker 1: the day I was there with you when you were
Speaker 1: able to walk out of jail, and it was one
Speaker 1: of the most memoral days of my life and I've
Speaker 1: just enjoyed watching you over these last fourteen years and
Speaker 1: seeing all the good that you've been doing too, to
Speaker 1: pay it forward to all the other men and women
Speaker 1: who have been in situations similar to you. So thank
Speaker 1: you for your work with them and also for helping
Speaker 1: us out over time. Appreciate it. I just want to
Speaker 1: say that the worst day of my life was when
Speaker 1: I was wrongfully convicted and sentenced fifteen years of life.
Speaker 1: We're raping, kidnapping, but the happiest day on my life
Speaker 1: was when I was free to help it on how innes,
Speaker 1: the project and Glumbus dispatch, because it's free me to
Speaker 1: to where I'm at now, where I've been able to
Speaker 1: be there for other people to, as you say, pay
Speaker 1: it forward with the WIO innocent project. I think it's
Speaker 1: important that I don't regret to the one who gets out.
Speaker 1: They want to just go their own way and do
Speaker 1: their own thing and they have people do that. But
Speaker 1: I feel like I've never had a job since I've
Speaker 1: been out because I feel like this is my job.
Speaker 1: This this is my job and I'm on board. I'm
Speaker 1: serious about it and it means it means the world
Speaker 1: because I know that there's other people in there that
Speaker 1: should be out and I'm just doing my partners just
Speaker 1: help and bring the attention to so I want to
Speaker 1: thank you all. I want to thank you, Jennifer. I
Speaker 1: want to thank you, Jason. I want to thank Connor
Speaker 1: for the opportunity. Thank you for listening to rob for conviction.
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall, Jeff
Speaker 1: Claver and Kevin Wardis, with research by Lila Robinson. The
Speaker 1: music in this production was supplied by three time Oscar
Speaker 1: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be Sure to follow us on
Speaker 1: Instagram at wrongful conviction, on facebook at wrongful conviction podcast
Speaker 1: and on twitter at wrong conviction, as well as at
Speaker 1: lava for good. On all three platforms, you can also
Speaker 1: follow me on both Tiktok and instagram at it's Jason
Speaker 1: Flom wrongful conviction is the production of lava for good
Speaker 1: podcasts in association with Signal Company Number One