Speaker 1: I came from a beautiful neighborhood. I had a beautiful life.
Speaker 2: I went to sleep because September seventh was the first
Speaker 2: day of my high school year.
Speaker 1: I was going to be a senior. At twenty two,
Speaker 1: I was set to start college. I woke up and
Speaker 1: my life was never the same again. Cops came out
Speaker 1: with guns drawn, and I never saw freedom ever since
Speaker 1: after that. It's like groach mode, Tom, once you get
Speaker 1: in and I can't mount.
Speaker 3: I'm Jason Flomm Today we'll be talking for Nando Bermudez,
Speaker 3: a young man sent away for the rest of his life,
Speaker 3: for the rest of him, and they sew away the keys.
Speaker 2: They never did another bit.
Speaker 3: Of investigation accusations of police. In nineteen ninety one, for
Speaker 3: Nando Bermudez was arrested for the murder of a sixteen
Speaker 3: year old boy in Greenwich Village, even though he was
Speaker 3: five miles away with his friends that had multiple alum
Speaker 3: by witnesses who placed him far away from the scene
Speaker 3: of the crime.
Speaker 1: A young lady said that I looked cute, and that
Speaker 1: was enough for her to share the pictures and for
Speaker 1: the witnesses to communally agree that I resemble the perpetrator.
Speaker 3: He was convicted anyway, and since the twenty three years
Speaker 3: to life in maximum security prisons in New York State,
Speaker 3: this is wrongful conviction. With Jason Flumm Fernanda, Welcome to
Speaker 3: the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you Jason for having me.
Speaker 3: So I want to talk to you about what your
Speaker 3: life was like, what happened, what went wrong, what you
Speaker 3: learn from it, and where you're at now. So let's
Speaker 3: go back to nineteen ninety one. Major cities in the
Speaker 3: nation are under attack from within.
Speaker 1: Nowhere are the problems more visible than in New York City.
Speaker 3: Bob Fall reports New York has gotten so mean and
Speaker 3: so dangerous. The mayor actually went to church yesterday and
Speaker 3: pleaded with residents to come out from behind locked doors.
Speaker 1: What nineteen ninety one was a year where New York
Speaker 1: City was crime ridden. The homicide rates were on average
Speaker 1: two thousand per year, and it was a time where
Speaker 1: I think the city was transitioning into a intention to
Speaker 1: get tough on crime.
Speaker 3: I lived in New York my whole life, and so
Speaker 3: I remember the only thing growing faster than the crime
Speaker 3: rate was the hysteria over the crime rate, right. I mean,
Speaker 3: it wasn't like everybody was getting killed or mugged or
Speaker 3: but it seemed like it at the time. So but
Speaker 3: how were you doing back then? What were you Were
Speaker 3: you in high school college at the time, what was
Speaker 3: your family situation? Where'd you live?
Speaker 1: I lived in Washington Heights, a predominantly Dominican neighborhood, mixed
Speaker 1: with a lot of immigrants who had moved to the
Speaker 1: other side of Upper Manhattan. And yet there was certainly
Speaker 1: a commingling of ethnic groups and so forth. But for myself,
Speaker 1: I was twenty two year old, twenty two year olds
Speaker 1: at the time, and I was a happy person growing
Speaker 1: up in a close knit family, four siblings, two parents
Speaker 1: who worked hard to achieve the American dream as Dominican
Speaker 1: immigrants in coming to this country. And at twenty two
Speaker 1: I was set to start college.
Speaker 3: So let's talk about the night that your life took
Speaker 3: such a terrible turn. Let's talk about the crime itself,
Speaker 3: and then where you were and how you got mixed
Speaker 3: up in this nightmare.
Speaker 1: Well, the crime itself, according to documented evidence, is that
Speaker 1: there was a shooting at a nightclub, the mock Ballroom,
Speaker 1: in the Greenwich Village section right the mock Ballroom, Misser,
Speaker 1: and it was near NYU. And so this kid named
Speaker 1: e From Lopez, sixteen, who had have sconded it from
Speaker 1: a work release program, had gotten punched by another guy
Speaker 1: named Raymond.
Speaker 3: Blount inside the club.
Speaker 1: Inside the club outside from Lopez had wanted revenge after
Speaker 1: telling his friend from the West nineties neighborhood who had
Speaker 1: punched him.
Speaker 3: So there's two different groups of kids, yes, and they
Speaker 3: wanted to start something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Lopez had been punched, so he was embarrassed and
Speaker 1: wanted revenge, and so he told his friends from the
Speaker 1: West nineties neighborhood not only inside that he had gotten punched,
Speaker 1: but also outside he identified the person who had punched him.
Speaker 1: So I'm lay ensued in which Raymond Blount's friends were
Speaker 1: attacked by From Lopez's friends and his group from the
Speaker 1: West nineties. And in that confusion, under nighttime conditions conducive
Speaker 1: to a mistaken that Whinnes's identification, Raymond Blunt was shot.
Speaker 3: And killed and killed, right, And so what happens next,
Speaker 3: So now we have a murder, it's near NYU. That
Speaker 3: that puts a lot of pressure on the cops. Right,
Speaker 3: So you're where were you at the time of this?
Speaker 1: So at the time I'm actually uptown, meaning where I lived.
Speaker 3: Did you have alibi witnesses?
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, And that's definitely part of the story because
Speaker 1: we were together driving throughout the city in a car
Speaker 1: that I had just newly acquired. It was like that
Speaker 1: same day, August third and fourth, I had just gotten
Speaker 1: that car and it was sort of like a gift. Well,
Speaker 1: it was a big day, not just that the car
Speaker 1: was out for the first time, but also that was
Speaker 1: the car that I was going to use to go
Speaker 1: to college, to drive to for my home, which was
Speaker 1: right across in the Bronx where I was going to
Speaker 1: go to college, And we were driving around and enjoying ourselves,
Speaker 1: oblivious to anything that had happened. And at the time
Speaker 1: when the actual crime occurred, we were uptown in my neighborhood,
Speaker 1: driving around.
Speaker 3: And so when did you first come in contact with
Speaker 3: the authorities? How did that happen?
Speaker 1: August sixth, nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 3: So this is a couple of weeks, two days, two days.
Speaker 1: Right after the murder, and I'm driving home. I'm with
Speaker 1: my brother and we had actually met two young ladies
Speaker 1: that night. It was another you know, good moment, and
Speaker 1: we was driving home when suddenly cops came out with
Speaker 1: guns drawn and pointed them at the window, and everyone just.
Speaker 3: Screamed, you were in a traffic light.
Speaker 1: No, we were in front of my home. We drove.
Speaker 1: The cops had been waiting for me. They had been
Speaker 1: upstairs speaking to my mother and my siblings. When my
Speaker 1: mother said that I should be coming home shortly, they
Speaker 1: positioned themselves outside. So when we came out, they chew
Speaker 1: their guns and told me to get out the car.
Speaker 1: And I never saw freedom ever since after that.
Speaker 3: So obviously you're twenty two and you're scared out of
Speaker 3: your mind and they take you in, they tell you've
Speaker 3: been charged with murder. Is that right?
Speaker 1: That's correct. I was taken to the sixth Precinct and
Speaker 1: and it's interesting because I was so scared. Everyone was
Speaker 1: so scared. I just got out. I complied, and I
Speaker 1: got in the car. And then when they took me away,
Speaker 1: the girl was saying, I thought you were a nice guy,
Speaker 1: and I said, I screamed back, I said, I am
Speaker 1: you know, And I was taken to the precinct. I
Speaker 1: was interrogated for over ten hours, and they want to
Speaker 1: know my whereabouts on the night of August thirty fourth,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one. I told them, I told them who
Speaker 1: I was with. I told them that on no circumstances
Speaker 1: I was involved in any violence. I told him what
Speaker 1: I was wearing.
Speaker 3: Ten hours. That's a tough I mean, that's a long
Speaker 3: time to be interrogated. So did you did they get
Speaker 3: you to confess? No?
Speaker 1: I didn't confess. For me, it was surreal experience. I
Speaker 1: just felt that if I told the truth that it
Speaker 1: would be resolved. If I was just patient, that it
Speaker 1: would be resolved. All I needed to do was remember
Speaker 1: why I was, what I did, who I was with,
Speaker 1: and it would be resolved. And well.
Speaker 3: And that's interesting to hear you say that, Prenda, because
Speaker 3: there's a lot of distrust among the Latino community of
Speaker 3: police nationally. I think the figure sixty nine percent of
Speaker 3: Latinos will actually even call the police if they're a
Speaker 3: victim of a crime or if they witness a crime,
Speaker 3: because there is that distrust. But you felt differently. You
Speaker 3: felt that the police were on your side and that
Speaker 3: if you were truthful, that everything would work out all right.
Speaker 1: Well. Absolutely, cops for me at that point were heroes
Speaker 1: to me. I mean, I had gotten It's an interesting anecdote.
Speaker 1: When I was about maybe ten years old, I had
Speaker 1: found stolen car and we went to the thirty fourth Precinct,
Speaker 1: our local neighborhood, and the cops gave me a bag
Speaker 1: of jelly beans and put the cop had on me,
Speaker 1: and they said, good job for finding my cops. I mean,
Speaker 1: my father's a stolen car. So I admired them, and
Speaker 1: plus they were protecting my community.
Speaker 3: As a ten year old, that's a big moment Indy's life. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you helped out your dad, you found, you solved the crime,
Speaker 3: and the cops are giving you big props. I'm not
Speaker 3: surprised then that you had some You had a lot
Speaker 3: of faith in the system. What happens next?
Speaker 1: So because I refused to confess, I was taken to
Speaker 1: the Manhattan Tombs Central Booking in other words, and that
Speaker 1: was processed, that was arranged. I pled not guilty, and
Speaker 1: from then on, hours later I was sent to Rikers Island,
Speaker 1: where my nightmare really began in Earnest.
Speaker 3: So you're in Rikers Island now your nightmare is fully underway.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is I think this is everyone's nightmare.
Speaker 1: Solutely, I had to go into survival mode. Because all
Speaker 1: around me, I mean people were fighting over the phone
Speaker 1: to make phone calls. I mean the phones were racially divided,
Speaker 1: two phones, one Latino and one Black, and those anyone
Speaker 1: who crossed those lines so use those phones will be
Speaker 1: cut in the face, smashed in the face with a phone.
Speaker 1: These are things I actually saw, and it was black
Speaker 1: market operations. They were burgeoning gangs and what would become
Speaker 1: groups like Latin Kings and stuff like that, and I
Speaker 1: was terrified. I just try to mind my business and
Speaker 1: all along. In my heart, I still felt that the
Speaker 1: American criminal just system would prevail if I stayed patient.
Speaker 3: Was there bail said? In your case?
Speaker 1: No bail?
Speaker 3: So you had no hope of getting out it before
Speaker 3: your trial? How long did it take you to get
Speaker 3: the trial?
Speaker 1: My trial took about seven months to get on the way.
Speaker 3: So you're locked up for seven months, taken away from
Speaker 3: your family, taken away from your life, put into this
Speaker 3: devastating circumstance was what was Let's just talk about the
Speaker 3: jail for a minute. Rikers Island is technically passified as
Speaker 3: a jail even though but people don't understand that many
Speaker 3: jails like Rikers are actually more dangerous than maxims prisons.
Speaker 3: So in those seven months, what you know what went
Speaker 3: through your mind?
Speaker 1: Sure, well I was there over a year, but it
Speaker 1: took seven months to get to my trial. And you know,
Speaker 1: during the whole year and change that I was there,
Speaker 1: I mean, I was deeply affected by just seeing the
Speaker 1: violence perpetuated by not just inmates on inmates, but correctional
Speaker 1: officers attacking inmates, and even inmates attacking correctional officers. When
Speaker 1: you see someone get stabbed with sewing machine efficiency, you
Speaker 1: know there's something in you that dies and yet lives.
Speaker 1: It affects your psyche in a way that you're never
Speaker 1: the same because you see another human being injured in
Speaker 1: a way that just makes an impression, a bad impression
Speaker 1: in your.
Speaker 3: Life, and there's nothing you can do about it.
Speaker 1: There's nothing you can do about it, even if it
Speaker 1: happens to be someone that you knew and even shared
Speaker 1: a meal with for some reason.
Speaker 3: Were you when you went in, would you consider yourself
Speaker 3: a tough guy? Were you a guy who could handle
Speaker 3: himself in a fight. Were you what was your I mean,
Speaker 3: Fernando as a guy who keeps himself in very good shape.
Speaker 3: But I don't know you back then. I've known you
Speaker 3: now for six or seven years, so yeah, I mean,
Speaker 3: how were were you equipped to deal with this situation anyway?
Speaker 1: Well, mentally, I wasn't equipped. Physically, perhaps I had a
Speaker 1: better fighting chance than a more scronier person. I mean
Speaker 1: I was a bodybuilder at the time, and that's what
Speaker 1: would make also the distinction in this case in terms
Speaker 1: of the identification procedure and why they even made me
Speaker 1: sit down. They described the perpetrator by the witnesses themselves.
Speaker 1: The perpetrator was described as five ten, one hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty five pounds. I'm six two, weighing two twenty and
Speaker 1: so they made me sit down in the line up
Speaker 1: to hide the identification procedure. But for me, it was
Speaker 1: a matter of just trying to adjust because you couldn't
Speaker 1: even have a fair fight without getting jumped. That's what
Speaker 1: happened to me when I was attacked. I was trying
Speaker 1: to defend myself against someone in one instance, and then
Speaker 1: his friends came and attacked me. I had no I
Speaker 1: couldn't fight three guys.
Speaker 3: And what happened then, were you Well.
Speaker 1: They went into my locker and stole my food and
Speaker 1: the soap and deodorant that my parents brought me.
Speaker 3: But were you badly beating up at the time.
Speaker 1: I wasn't that badly beating up, but I was very embarrassed.
Speaker 1: And you know, it was a turning point because I
Speaker 1: was at a point where I was waiting for my
Speaker 1: trial to occur. I'm waiting for the American criminal just
Speaker 1: system to work in my case, and I'm being patient,
Speaker 1: and this is something that really tries your patient. And
Speaker 1: when once the Latino groups saw what had happened to me,
Speaker 1: someone tried to pass me a razor and they said, yo,
Speaker 1: you could resolve it this way, and I declined because
Speaker 1: I want to go home. If I stab or hurt
Speaker 1: someone even worse, I could end up in prison even longer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean you were already facing a very long
Speaker 3: sentence and you knew it at the time, right. So,
Speaker 3: And it's interesting too, the eyewitness identification. I just want
Speaker 3: to touch on that for a minute, because there are
Speaker 3: a lot of tricks that they play, right, and we
Speaker 3: know that eyewitness identification is a factor in seventy five
Speaker 3: percent of the DNA exonerations that have happened nationwide. So
Speaker 3: there's a lot of movement now on the Innis's project,
Speaker 3: the Spearhead and as along with some other groups to
Speaker 3: reform how I wouldn't identifications are done everything from videotaping
Speaker 3: to other procedures what we call a double blind. But
Speaker 3: in your case, they obviously just wanted to get you,
Speaker 3: and they were willing to do some dirty tricks in
Speaker 3: order to get a conviction, so they weren't really interested
Speaker 3: in the truth. Is that fair to say that's correct?
Speaker 1: I mean, as proven the witnesses were placed in a room,
Speaker 1: these teenage witnesses at that who have been beaten, who
Speaker 1: were hungry, who were tired, who were joking around, who
Speaker 1: by their own accounts did not want to be there,
Speaker 1: and they were placed in a room and allowed to
Speaker 1: just shift through pictures, and three friends of deceased who
Speaker 1: were in a separate identification procedure, correctly identified who would
Speaker 1: become the state star witness, and the four of the
Speaker 1: witnesses who were in another room selecting pictures, then selected
Speaker 1: my picture, and a seventeen year old young lady said
Speaker 1: that I looked cute, and that was enough for her
Speaker 1: to share the pictures and for the witnesses to communally
Speaker 1: agree that I resembled the perpetrator and that was enough.
Speaker 3: They looked at the pictures together.
Speaker 1: Yes, which is illegal.
Speaker 3: Of course it's illegal.
Speaker 1: It's one of the reasons I got readed.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, that's it. That's I've heard a lot,
Speaker 3: but I hadn't heard that particular story before, you know,
Speaker 3: having having you know, been being that I'm familiar with
Speaker 3: so many of these cases. But that's that's just straight crazy.
Speaker 3: So there you are, you're you're stuck there and you
Speaker 3: go to trial and and you were you were represented
Speaker 3: by a public defender at the time. You weren't a
Speaker 3: wealthy guy, right.
Speaker 1: I wasn't a wealthy guy. But my parents, uh got
Speaker 1: scared and they hired a private attorney based upon word
Speaker 1: of mouth, particularly because he spoke Spanish and he had
Speaker 1: a son named Fernando. Okay, so that was like for
Speaker 1: them for some reason that if he had like a
Speaker 1: sign like you know, and so they hired him. And
Speaker 1: you know, he was hoodwinked from the start in that
Speaker 1: the prosecutor didn't turn over excopolatory evidence, and when he
Speaker 1: did turn over boxes of evidence, it was after my
Speaker 1: jury was selected.
Speaker 3: So this is where so he had no time, no time.
Speaker 1: Even when he asked he was not allowed.
Speaker 3: Right, And we know that the Supreme Court ruled in
Speaker 3: Brady that they have to turn over exculpatory evidence, but
Speaker 3: it seems like it's almost routinely ignored by prosecutors, which
Speaker 3: is shocking. Should be shocking to everyone in America, right,
Speaker 3: I mean, everyone who watches TV, watches crime shows, knows
Speaker 3: that that's the responsibility of the prosecutor. And most people,
Speaker 3: i think, believe that the prosecutor wants to get the
Speaker 3: right guy and would want to get the right guy
Speaker 3: because who would want the wrong guy to still be
Speaker 3: out there? Right? That's always crazy to be for Nanda
Speaker 3: that when you aside from the human tragedy of locking
Speaker 3: up the wrong person, the idea that the real perpetrator
Speaker 3: is out there and is going in many cases, in
Speaker 3: almost all cases, he's going to commit more mayhem, be
Speaker 3: responsible for more mayhem and hurt other people should be
Speaker 3: enough motivation in itself for law enforcement to want to
Speaker 3: do the right thing. But obviously in your case that
Speaker 3: was not the case. I'm sure these guys were feeling
Speaker 3: a lot of pressure, so much crime, so many cases
Speaker 3: they deal with, they want to get it off their desk.
Speaker 3: You were victimized by that mentality and that lack of morality.
Speaker 3: I would say, as well, So now you're at trial,
Speaker 3: you have your alibi. Witnesses there were they called to
Speaker 3: the stand.
Speaker 1: Yes, matter by witnesses came forward. I testified, and even
Speaker 1: three friends of deceased came forward and said that I
Speaker 1: wasn't the guy who shot their best friend.
Speaker 3: And so then people are listening, They're going, well, wait
Speaker 3: a minute, shouldn't that be enough, wouldn't that be the
Speaker 3: case closed? No?
Speaker 1: Well that's what I thought, That's what I had hoped.
Speaker 1: But what the jury didn't know, and I didn't even
Speaker 1: know until the investigation unraveled on my behalf, was that,
Speaker 1: for example, from Lopez, the state start witness sixteen years old,
Speaker 1: who knew the actual perpetrator had told the police and
Speaker 1: prosecutors who actually committed the crime, but they suppressed that
Speaker 1: evidence and where he could be found. In exchange for
Speaker 1: his false testimony, he named me as someone I totally
Speaker 1: was not, and the police still did not go investigate
Speaker 1: the neighborhood. He got, after over twenty hours of interrogation,
Speaker 1: an opportunity to escape from murder charges, and the witnesses
Speaker 1: the teenage witnesses as well. In addition, who didn't know
Speaker 1: it from Lopez, but who did say that it was him.
Speaker 1: They got that that part right. They had gotten charges
Speaker 1: dismissed on the eve of their trial, who had unrelated
Speaker 1: criminal charges pending it which were dismissed right before my
Speaker 1: trial began.
Speaker 3: So it's amazing that prosecutors have this much power, right.
Speaker 3: The fact is that people think that the judge has
Speaker 3: a lot of power, or that the police or the
Speaker 3: defenders have power. The fact is that an overwhelming amount
Speaker 3: of the power rests with the prosecutors, because they can
Speaker 3: decide whether to prosecute or drop charges against anyone for
Speaker 3: any reason.
Speaker 1: Is that right, yes, sir.
Speaker 3: So it's interesting because we know everyone who follows is
Speaker 3: even aware of anything to do with criminal justice, knows
Speaker 3: that you can't bribe a witness, right, But yet the
Speaker 3: state is able to offer the best bribe that there is,
Speaker 3: which is that, hey, you got a lot of trouble
Speaker 3: on your hands, kid, right, you're facing a murder charge
Speaker 3: or you're facing assault or other things, and you know what,
Speaker 3: we're just going to ask you to do us a
Speaker 3: little favor here, you know, tell us what we need
Speaker 3: to hear, and you could go home and we're going
Speaker 3: to clean it up and keep it moving, right, I mean,
Speaker 3: what could be better than that? And I think that
Speaker 3: a lot of people would have trouble resisting that if
Speaker 3: they're looking at a long period in prison, a long
Speaker 3: many many years they're facing, they're scared too, and they
Speaker 3: want to go home, and they go, well, I don't
Speaker 3: even know this guy, Fernando, but you know what, screw him,
Speaker 3: you know. So I think that's something that's important for
Speaker 3: people to understand. People who are going to be serving
Speaker 3: on juries, people who are involved in the system in
Speaker 3: any way, I think they need to know that well absolutely.
Speaker 1: And it's also how the system sets up the vulnerability
Speaker 1: of this case. Teenage witnesses, you know, who haven't even
Speaker 1: had their prefrontal cortex meant for good judgment even fully developed.
Speaker 1: In my case, for example, two of the witnesses, one
Speaker 1: of whom had one of the charges dismissed, told the
Speaker 1: prosecutor they didn't want to come testified, they didn't believe
Speaker 1: I was the guy. And yet they were arrested, physically
Speaker 1: taken from their home as material witnesses.
Speaker 3: That doesn't sound kosher either. I mean, there's just so
Speaker 3: it was really a series of mistakes that read to
Speaker 3: you that led to your both both deliberate and and
Speaker 3: and accidental, but mostly deliberate. Right, Yes, so you're now
Speaker 3: you get convicted. The moment of that, the jury coming
Speaker 3: back in, I can't imagine the pressure, but you're you're
Speaker 3: standing there, You're still hoping that this is going to
Speaker 3: be you know, the system's going to work, and you're
Speaker 3: going to go home and try to forget this whole thing.
Speaker 3: But then they come back and they read off the verdict,
Speaker 3: and then what.
Speaker 1: And at that moment, I just had an out of
Speaker 1: body experience because I couldn't believe that, you know, all
Speaker 1: my hopes and dreams were shattered in the American criminal
Speaker 1: justice system. I really had believe in the system. I
Speaker 1: told the truth, honestly, and I was just shattered. I mean,
Speaker 1: my mother started crying. My six year old sister at
Speaker 1: that time fell to the floor, and you know, my grandmother,
Speaker 1: she like nearly fainted. I couldn't turn around because the
Speaker 1: hand of the bailiffs was shifting me now to not
Speaker 1: being able to look at my family, but to look
Speaker 1: directly at the jury or the judge, and I was
Speaker 1: just I was terrified.
Speaker 3: I didn't even feel like I was there.
Speaker 1: I felt my body, but I felt myself floating away.
Speaker 3: The nightmares now fully underway. You're in a maximum security prison.
Speaker 3: Is it as bad as people think it is?
Speaker 1: Yeah? It is. It is. You're living in a six
Speaker 1: by night foot cell. It's very small. I mean I
Speaker 1: could stretch out my hands and almost touch the cell walls.
Speaker 1: And there's two of you in there, well, there was
Speaker 1: one at times there was throughout my years, I would
Speaker 1: be forced to be with someone else, but in the
Speaker 1: beginning I was by myself. They didn't have double bunking
Speaker 1: in the beginning of my incarceration.
Speaker 3: And so there you are, facing the possibility of spending
Speaker 3: the rest of your life there. And then things took
Speaker 3: a very interesting turn. And this is the story again,
Speaker 3: one of the many things that makes your story so
Speaker 3: unique and makes you such an inspiring character to me.
Speaker 3: So your story is national news, right it became. It
Speaker 3: got a lot of coverage. I mean there's a lot
Speaker 3: of murders at this time, but your story got a
Speaker 3: lot of coverage.
Speaker 2: Fernando Bermudez five people testified against him, and the judge
Speaker 2: put them away for life, but was he wrongly convicted
Speaker 2: of murder. Fernando Bermudez had an alibi.
Speaker 3: He says he was driving around with friends.
Speaker 1: There was no physical evidence against him, no blood, no gun,
Speaker 1: but there was no getting around those witnesses.
Speaker 4: Maryanne de Berry, with the father's help, was able to
Speaker 4: track down all the witnesses who testified against Fernando and
Speaker 4: get them to admit that under pressure, they gave false testimony.
Speaker 3: And so then you received a letter. Let's talk about
Speaker 3: this because this is really and you wrote a lot
Speaker 3: of letters, but this letter that came in you probably
Speaker 3: remember pretty well what it said, right.
Speaker 1: Well, absolutely. I was in my cell and I was
Speaker 1: working out, and I just finished writing another legal letter,
Speaker 1: because I was always writing letters to try to get help.
Speaker 1: And a young lady wrote me. She had saw my case.
Speaker 1: She was living in Oklahoma at the time, and she
Speaker 1: wrote me and she says she believed in me. She
Speaker 1: said that she wanted to pray for me. And I
Speaker 1: was just amazed that at her persistent persistence in continuing
Speaker 1: a relationship with me.
Speaker 3: And she had to go to some trouble to find
Speaker 3: you and gave your address on the TV show.
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, no, no, yes, she had to investigate. At
Speaker 1: the time, there was no internet and things like that,
Speaker 1: and so she had to go. She was working for
Speaker 1: the phone company, so she had to actually call places,
Speaker 1: and finally she called Rikers Island and they got so
Speaker 1: fed up with her after calling so many different departments
Speaker 1: they already had heard about her that they just scribbled
Speaker 1: off some numbers and you know, some more information than
Speaker 1: when she was able to see on the TV apart
Speaker 1: from my name. And then she wrote me a letter.
Speaker 3: So you get this letter, and there was no picture attached, right, So,
Speaker 3: as far as you knew, could have been anybody, but
Speaker 3: just you didn't know that was going to be the
Speaker 3: woman of your dreams at the time, right, right, But
Speaker 3: then things progressed.
Speaker 1: That's right. She sent me a picture and she was
Speaker 1: beautiful apart from her description, and most importantly to me
Speaker 1: was that she brought the word of God in my life.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was at a point where I didn't
Speaker 1: know what to believe anymore. The American criminal justice system
Speaker 1: had failed me. I felt that God had abandoned me.
Speaker 1: And here was this young girl speaking about God to
Speaker 1: me and bringing about faith. You know, renewing it, and
Speaker 1: that's what she did, and she came to visit me
Speaker 1: and we got married.
Speaker 3: You got married at the prison.
Speaker 1: In prison, so I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 3: Wow, that was And that's Crystal Now, Crystal is. I've
Speaker 3: met Crystal several times. She's an amazing person, beautiful, has
Speaker 3: such a great disposition, so positive. And then you had kids, yes,
Speaker 3: while you're in prison. Yes, And your daughter was born
Speaker 3: in what ninety six, ninety five.
Speaker 1: In the early nineties, and then we had another We
Speaker 1: had our second daughter, who was born in two thousand
Speaker 1: and one, followed by my son in two thousand and five.
Speaker 3: So as much as it's a blessing to have kids
Speaker 3: and have another reason to live right and to be
Speaker 3: you know, motivated to get out of bed every day
Speaker 3: when you're in this impossible situation, how difficult is that
Speaker 3: to grow up apart from your kids And how does
Speaker 3: that affect them when they're that is, you know, not
Speaker 3: accessible to them.
Speaker 1: What was extremely difficult decision for myself because first I
Speaker 1: told Chris, I said, Chris, I said, we shouldn't get married.
Speaker 1: You know, you really even shouldn't bother with me because
Speaker 1: I don't know what I'm getting out.
Speaker 3: You don't know if you're getting out, That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so she was like, I have faith in
Speaker 1: God that it's going to turn out. And then came
Speaker 1: the decision to have kids. For me. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to have kids because I didn't want to bring more
Speaker 1: burdens to not only ourselves in the situation we were in.
Speaker 1: But if I didn't get out, then the children would
Speaker 1: essentially almost be fatherless apart from me being alive in
Speaker 1: prison if I survived. But also I was so angry
Speaker 1: at the system and what it did to me and
Speaker 1: the confines and controls that I found myself in that
Speaker 1: I said to myself, Wow, you have to do something
Speaker 1: that means if you have a kid that can survive
Speaker 1: if you don't. So it was that decision as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and listen, it was a great decision because you
Speaker 3: have a wonderful family, have three kids, right, yes, Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's fantastic. So then let's talk about how you so
Speaker 3: when things turned for the better and how you did
Speaker 3: get out. What was the breaking to tipping point, Who
Speaker 3: was it, what organization or person or combination of things
Speaker 3: and others take it through when you were released.
Speaker 1: Well. The foundation of my case leading to my exoneration,
Speaker 1: upon which all the good intention and no well spoken
Speaker 1: lawyers who fought hard for my case. The foundation begins
Speaker 1: with Marianne de Barry, who was a former nun turned
Speaker 1: attorney in her late forties, who began investigating my case
Speaker 1: as early as nineteen ninety three, nineteen ninety two and
Speaker 1: so forth. And she began investigating my case, and she
Speaker 1: started laying the foundation of all the misconduct that occurred
Speaker 1: and everything. And even though I was denied ten appeals,
Speaker 1: you know, with her help and all the different lawyers,
Speaker 1: including Hellerstein, you know, and got rest Marianne's soul as
Speaker 1: she passed away last year. The tipping point became around
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, when I had gotten help from
Speaker 1: another attorney from Seaton Hall Law School, and she was
Speaker 1: involved in my case, and she got what would many
Speaker 1: prisoners would call a dream team, including lawyers from Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. New York law firms and other people from
Speaker 1: New Jersey as well. And she also got involved on
Speaker 1: New York's Innocence Project, and together we all went into
Speaker 1: court in two thousand and nine after I had rejected
Speaker 1: a plea bargain from the District Attorney's office. So for me,
Speaker 1: that was a turning point because I finally got to
Speaker 1: test the evidence before a new judge in Manhattan stan
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. And it was a moment where I felt
Speaker 1: good because I had rejected a plea, a plea bargain
Speaker 1: and off for plea. But I was also scared because
Speaker 1: it meant that if I had lost this eleventh pal,
Speaker 1: I would definitely or most likely, I should say, die
Speaker 1: in prison.
Speaker 3: Well, that's an unbelievable amount of pressure, and an Alfred plea,
Speaker 3: for those of you who aren't aware, means that you're
Speaker 3: the state basically comes to you and says you we
Speaker 3: kind of they kind of give you like a wink, right,
Speaker 3: like we kind of know we mess this up, but
Speaker 3: we're not gonna admit that we're wrong, which means you
Speaker 3: can't sue us, but we're gonna let you go home. So,
Speaker 3: I mean, that's a tough decision to make, right, I mean,
Speaker 3: as bad as you want to get out of there.
Speaker 3: But at the same time, it's a it's sort of
Speaker 3: like a I mean, it's I don't know if you
Speaker 3: call it like a Sophie's choice. But it's a brutal
Speaker 3: decision to have to make. But you made the right decision.
Speaker 3: And yours was not a DNA case because it was
Speaker 3: a shooting, so there was no physical evidence at the time.
Speaker 3: There was actually no physical evidence of any kind that
Speaker 3: connected you.
Speaker 1: To the crime, none whatsoever.
Speaker 3: Never was never. So you go to trial with this
Speaker 3: dream team innocence projects, this group of dedicated individuals, and
Speaker 3: now you got the full Now you got the odds
Speaker 3: a little bit in your favor, right, it's fair to say.
Speaker 3: And so you go to court. Let's let's talk about
Speaker 3: the opposite experience. You're there, say, you know, different kind
Speaker 3: of pressure, right, You've been through everything that they can
Speaker 3: throw at you.
Speaker 1: What happens, Well, I'm in court and I'm just like
Speaker 1: glad that I rejected that offer because I really wanted
Speaker 1: to get down to the matter of these witnesses coming forward.
Speaker 4: And NBC News investigation shows if those witnesses are now
Speaker 4: telling the truth, and Fernando Bermudas is the wrong man.
Speaker 3: Your kids are there, wife is there.
Speaker 1: My wife was there, and all a lot of the
Speaker 1: past lawyers throughout the years were there as well. Mary
Speaker 1: Anne was actually in a cave and Israel praying for me.
Speaker 1: She went out, she was already out there, and the
Speaker 1: hearing came and she was just there and she sent
Speaker 1: word that she'd be praying in the cave, okay, and
Speaker 1: so that was good. I felt confident with that. And
Speaker 1: we were there and the EVIDENTI hearing under the leadership
Speaker 1: of Barry Pollock from Washington, d C. It went well.
Speaker 1: It went well. I mean, the detective, I don't know
Speaker 1: what kind of problems he's had in his past, but
Speaker 1: he did have, for example, past the rest for drunk
Speaker 1: driving in which he hit two girls. He came into
Speaker 1: the courtroom seemingly drunk. The prosecutor, who up until this
Speaker 1: point was so smug and confident in his position about
Speaker 1: his case against me, now was shaken, visibly shaken. They
Speaker 1: brought in a surprise detective who they said would now
Speaker 1: testify that he was observing the witnesses and that they
Speaker 1: were not engaged in the illegal identification procedures, which we
Speaker 1: already were on the verge of proving. And he couldn't
Speaker 1: remember any details. So it's like they even made a
Speaker 1: mistake bring him in because he couldn't remember.
Speaker 3: Because everybody could see he was lying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we demonstrated the cross examination. So I was just like, wow,
Speaker 1: all this is finally coming to the point where my
Speaker 1: faith told me that my enemies would become my footstool. Wow,
Speaker 1: And that's what was happening. That's what was happening.
Speaker 3: And this was a judge, not a jury.
Speaker 1: This was before a judge. And after a two week proceeding,
Speaker 1: I waited a month because the judge says he needed
Speaker 1: more time to make the decision. And I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: I was stuck at Downstate Correctional facility, starving. I mean,
Speaker 1: I was so hungry. I was actually taking rations from
Speaker 1: the mess hall and saving it in mysell like a squirrel,
Speaker 1: just to get through because there I was like in
Speaker 1: between my irregular prison and rikers, waiting to be called
Speaker 1: back to court. So it was crazy. I came back
Speaker 1: to court and it was the big moment, this was
Speaker 1: my eleventh appeal. I walked into the courtroom and there
Speaker 1: was just like a hushed suffocation. All you could hear
Speaker 1: was the whirl of recorders of television cameras, reporters furiously scribbling.
Speaker 1: You could hear people breathing. The clock seemed to be
Speaker 1: just ticking, so slow. You could just hear that. And
Speaker 1: I was just like I was. I was nervous because
Speaker 1: this was a moment. And finally, finally the judge asked
Speaker 1: me to stand, and I stood, and my knees were shaken.
Speaker 1: I felt a touch of global warming under my shirt.
Speaker 1: I was just so nervous. And the judge declared me
Speaker 1: actually innocent, and the courtroom erupted in applause. And then
Speaker 1: the judge didn't stop there. He said that in this case,
Speaker 1: the prosecutor, James G. Rodriguez, knew and should have known,
Speaker 1: that he was relying upon perjured testimony, that the identification
Speaker 1: procedures were illegal and constitutional and should not have occurred,
Speaker 1: which a federal judge I previously ruled in my favor on,
Speaker 1: And that the State of New York admitted that its
Speaker 1: state start witness from Lopez had committed perjury, and he
Speaker 1: declared me actually innocent.
Speaker 2: Fernando Bermudez was falsely accused of murder after a fight
Speaker 2: outside of Manhattan nightclub. He was convicted, though sent to prison, exonerated,
Speaker 2: then released after nearly twenty years when a judge found
Speaker 2: misconduct in his case.
Speaker 5: This wrongful conviction was predicated upon perjury, was predicated upon manipulation,
Speaker 5: was predicated upon coercion and deceit of New York City
Speaker 5: District Attorney's Office and New York City Police Department.
Speaker 3: And then you walked out of the court room of
Speaker 3: free men. TV cameras there, yes, yes, soon after that,
Speaker 3: I walked out. And that must have been like a
Speaker 3: crazy mixture of emotions too. I mean, your wife is there,
Speaker 3: You're able to hug her like a normal person, like
Speaker 3: a man, not in any nobody overseeing you or watching
Speaker 3: or anything else, right, But then you're out in the
Speaker 3: fresh air, and like, what's going through your mind?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 1: I was scared because the world had changed so much.
Speaker 1: I mean by eighteen years, eighteen and a half years,
Speaker 1: several presidents and governors later. I mean, now there was
Speaker 1: the Internet. People were walking around, cell phones, Yeah, they
Speaker 1: were walking before I went to prison. The cell phones
Speaker 1: with the size of shoe boxes, assuming you even had one,
Speaker 1: you know, it was very rare, you know, And now
Speaker 1: everyone had one. People were talking to themselves on the street.
Speaker 1: I realized it was bluetooth technology. The fashion had changed
Speaker 1: from baggy pants to now skinny jeans. Besides that, I
Speaker 1: was just scared because they didn't even feel like I
Speaker 1: had permission to be outside.
Speaker 3: I was, I was psychologically Were you worried that they
Speaker 3: were going to send you back in, that this was
Speaker 3: all a dream, or that there was someone was going
Speaker 3: to grab you and go no, go back to your cell. Whatever.
Speaker 1: Well, I certainly felt that this can happen again. I
Speaker 1: felt that, but I've had trouble crossing the street. I
Speaker 1: got Disney in department stores because there were so many
Speaker 1: colors and choices.
Speaker 3: Like a PTSD kind of Well, then that's when I realized.
Speaker 1: After a while, I said, well, what's wrong with me?
Speaker 1: Why am I waking up in the middle of the night,
Speaker 1: getting up and feeling like I'm still in a prison
Speaker 1: cell pacing and Crystal would tell me, you know, you
Speaker 1: got to get back to bed. You're not in prison anymore,
Speaker 1: you know. Walking the family dog at the point at
Speaker 1: that time was an issue. I felt like there was
Speaker 1: gun towers outside. I mean, it was just a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff. So I realized after I went to psychiatric
Speaker 1: evaluation that I have post traumatic stress disorder, and I
Speaker 1: didn't think I would have that.
Speaker 3: Well, you served, you know of the of the in
Speaker 3: the DNA exoneration cases with homicide as the as a
Speaker 3: crime that the average time served is thirteen years, so
Speaker 3: you served, you know, significantly longer than the average one,
Speaker 3: although we had a couple of recent exonerations of guys
Speaker 3: who had served thirty four years, which is unbelievable, numbers
Speaker 3: almost twice as long. But it affects everyone differently, and
Speaker 3: it obviously is going to infect anybody to go through this.
Speaker 3: So I think, you know, and it's interesting too, thinking
Speaker 3: back to that scene in the courtroom. You know, the
Speaker 3: odds are stacked against you when you're poor, when you're
Speaker 3: Latino or of color. Right, we know that a higher
Speaker 3: percentage of people of color are arrested, are prosecuted or convicted.
Speaker 3: There's no justification for that, there's no evidence that they
Speaker 3: commit crimes at a higher rate or anything else. And
Speaker 3: so you finally got the scales of justice tipped in
Speaker 3: your favor and you emerged to this loving family. But
Speaker 3: then you still had another lawsuit to go, right, you
Speaker 3: still had a case. Now you have to file a
Speaker 3: suit against the city and against the state. Right, yes,
Speaker 3: so that that has now been resolved, Right, the first.
Speaker 1: One, the first one, But it took me five and
Speaker 1: a half years. Let the rec reflect.
Speaker 3: Five and a half years. So you're out with nothing
Speaker 3: for five no job skills, no resume. No, I mean,
Speaker 3: how to get a job right, It's got to be brutal.
Speaker 1: I mean all I had was, you know, an associate's
Speaker 1: degree or the concentration in business and working toward my bachelor's.
Speaker 1: And then when I got out, I had to go
Speaker 1: to college to finish my bachelor's and I had to
Speaker 1: take loans. There was no free ride here. I had
Speaker 1: to go to college and out there and you know,
Speaker 1: like most hard working young men and women do for
Speaker 1: their lives and futures. But the thing is, I had
Speaker 1: to deal with the psychological impact. I didn't know how
Speaker 1: to drive anymore. I had to get a license. People
Speaker 1: from my church closed me. They helped me get my
Speaker 1: license back. I didn't have money to get a license
Speaker 1: or even take driving school lessons. You know, it was funny.
Speaker 1: I'm forty years old and I got to learn how
Speaker 1: to drive again.
Speaker 3: No, it's interesting for you know, almost thirty five percent
Speaker 3: of xonneries don't get any money right because the compensation
Speaker 3: statutes are so different in every state, and in some
Speaker 3: states it's impossible to get money. So it's very difficult
Speaker 3: to get money. And I think people think that you
Speaker 3: come out and society just opens its doors to you
Speaker 3: and everything's great and you get a check and you
Speaker 3: move on with your life. But five and a half
Speaker 3: years with nothing, struggling on the outside, I mean I
Speaker 3: knew you back then and I know what you were
Speaker 3: going through. That's got to be just an another almost
Speaker 3: another major challenge to get through. But you got through it.
Speaker 3: I mean you persevered. I know you went and did
Speaker 3: three hundred speaking engagements. We talked about that before and
Speaker 3: just by cold calling, you've spoken all over the world.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, we've been to Japan, Italy, Germany, France, Switzerland.
Speaker 1: We tell our story. Fine, why to transform the criminal
Speaker 1: justice systems?
Speaker 3: So, Feranda, what I wanted to ask you is what's
Speaker 3: the message you want to send?
Speaker 1: Well, certainly, the problem of wrong for convictions is far reaching.
Speaker 1: We have over seventeen hundred wrongful convictions that are just documented,
Speaker 1: and that's just documented in America today.
Speaker 3: Yeah, seventeen hundred exonerations, I think, yeah, it's almost yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 3: close to eighteen.
Speaker 1: Absolutely close to eighteen hundred exonerations. Those are just the
Speaker 1: ones that are documented. And you know, over almost one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty were released from death row, which is
Speaker 1: horrible as well.
Speaker 3: And no, that's what Brian Stevenson says. I mean, for
Speaker 3: every person we've executed, we've for every nine people we've executed,
Speaker 3: we've had one exonerated from death throat. And as he says,
Speaker 3: and he's one of my heroes, if you had planes
Speaker 3: and one out of every nine or ten planes crashed,
Speaker 3: nobody would fly. You can't have this system. So anyway,
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, interruptors to go ahead.
Speaker 1: So yeah, So on that note, there has to be accountability.
Speaker 1: You know, prosecutors get this immunity. We understand that we
Speaker 1: need prosecutors, and those who do a good job, kudos
Speaker 1: to them. But for those that don't, who fly out
Speaker 1: the system and our constitution, then shame on them. They
Speaker 1: should be held accountable. They have too much immunity. We
Speaker 1: need more accountability for those who are responsible. As a
Speaker 1: deterrent effect.
Speaker 3: Law is created to deter crime across the board.
Speaker 1: And if it doesn't deter crime or misconduct, then it
Speaker 1: doesn't work.
Speaker 3: Why is the law there above the law? Right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they shouldn't be and you know, the damage
Speaker 1: that it causes families and the people directly affected by
Speaker 1: they and costs of is just it's horrible. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm affected today. I'm still free today, but i still
Speaker 1: feel like I'm in prison.
Speaker 3: For people who want to help, what can they do?
Speaker 3: Should they go online? Should they write letters? Should they donate? Well?
Speaker 1: I think that public needs to connect with their politicians
Speaker 1: and voice their concerns that this is an issue that
Speaker 1: matters to them. But more than that, they also need to, like,
Speaker 1: if possible, to use their resources, talents, and time to
Speaker 1: volunteer to their local innocence projects.
Speaker 3: You know, there are fifty five innocence projects around the
Speaker 3: country and so there's probably one near you wherever you are.
Speaker 3: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you
Speaker 3: get your podcasts. It really helps. And I'm a proud
Speaker 3: donor to the Innocence Project, and I really hope you'll
Speaker 3: join me in supporting this very important cause and helping
Speaker 3: to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot
Speaker 3: org to learn how to do and get involved. I'd
Speaker 3: like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin
Speaker 3: Wartis the music in The show is by three time
Speaker 3: OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
Speaker 3: on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful
Speaker 3: Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is a production
Speaker 3: of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company
Speaker 3: Number one