Speaker 1: Hey, girlfriends, it's me Anna here to let you know
Speaker 1: what's coming up. This episode covers Kelly's trial, so as
Speaker 1: you'd expect, we'll be speaking about the night of the
Speaker 1: murder in great detail, but we also dive deeper into
Speaker 1: the case for the prosecution and the defense, and at
Speaker 1: the end you can make up your own mind about
Speaker 1: whether the right verdict was reached. If you feel impacted
Speaker 1: by some of the themes in this show, you can
Speaker 1: reach out to No More. There are domestic violence charity
Speaker 1: with a lot of great resources to help you or
Speaker 1: your loved ones. You can search No More dot org
Speaker 1: and we've also put a link to their website in
Speaker 1: the episode description. Oh and by the way, there's going
Speaker 1: to be some swear words. When Tommy Donovan is first
Speaker 1: arrested back in July of twenty ten, he immediately tries
Speaker 1: to shift the majority of the blame for Angel Vargas's
Speaker 1: death onto Kelly, and that he choked Angel to the
Speaker 1: point of unconsciousness, but implying that it was Kelly who
Speaker 1: really killed him. He then takes a deal where in
Speaker 1: return for giving evidence against Kelly, his charge is reduced
Speaker 1: to manslaughter. Here's an exchange from Tommy's sentencing that I
Speaker 1: found in the court records.
Speaker 2: I'll be playing the role of the court official, while.
Speaker 1: My producer Jake will voice Tommy. By your plea of guilty,
Speaker 1: you admit that on or about July seventh, twenty ten,
Speaker 1: here in Queens, you, acting in concerts with another person,
Speaker 1: caused the death of Reuben Angel Vargas by beating and
Speaker 1: choking him.
Speaker 2: Yes, the person you were acting in concert with. Who
Speaker 2: was that person?
Speaker 3: My girlfriend?
Speaker 2: What's her name?
Speaker 3: Kelly Harnett?
Speaker 1: And the evidence shows both of you were involved in
Speaker 1: the choking that led to mister Vargus dying. Yes, sir,
Speaker 1: and that's the story. Tommy sixty until twenty thirteen.
Speaker 4: Dear mister Epstein, as you already acquainted with me, I
Speaker 4: will get to the point.
Speaker 1: Kelly's reading from a letter sent by Tommy Donovan to
Speaker 1: her lawyer David Epstein, and.
Speaker 4: The night of July seven, twenty ten, I murdered Angel
Speaker 4: Argus by strangulation. I committed this murder in full presence
Speaker 4: of Kelly, though at no time was there any collusion
Speaker 4: between her and I. Though my initial written confession differs
Speaker 4: from this account. At the time I was exhausted, in
Speaker 4: opiate withdrawal, and angry with Kelly. I don't know why.
Speaker 4: Perhaps I was jealous of her going free without me
Speaker 4: and concocted a version of events. I do not regret
Speaker 4: much in life, but I do regret drag and Kelly
Speaker 4: into this. I am here to tell you, and if necessary,
Speaker 4: the court, that I myself intentionally cause the death of
Speaker 4: decedent Vargas.
Speaker 1: Holy shit, this has got to be as close to
Speaker 1: a get out of jail free card as you can get. Right,
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that gets a case thrown out,
Speaker 1: charge is dismissed, except we already know that's not how
Speaker 1: it goes down for Kelly. It's June twenty thirteen. Kelly's
Speaker 1: in a pre trial hearing. This is where the defense
Speaker 1: and prosecution can discuss any issues or questions surrounding the
Speaker 1: upcoming trial, what charges the prosecution will move forward with,
Speaker 1: what evidence will or won't be allowed in front of
Speaker 1: the jury. That kind of thing presiding over everything is
Speaker 1: the Honorable Judge Laysack.
Speaker 2: But that's not what Kelly and some of her fellow
Speaker 2: inmates know him.
Speaker 4: As they called Judge Laysac mister murder.
Speaker 5: They call him mister murder for two reasons.
Speaker 4: He tries only murder cases, and he puts everyone away,
Speaker 4: so in essence, he murders them.
Speaker 1: All the while, Kelly's been in court listening to the
Speaker 1: lawyer and the prosecutor go back and forth. She's been
Speaker 1: chomping at the bit for her chance to chip in
Speaker 1: and ask.
Speaker 5: Your honor, can I ever mission you addressed the corpses.
Speaker 1: Now, defendants don't normally address the court unless ask the question,
Speaker 1: but Kelly is not like other defendants.
Speaker 4: Judge Laysack says, talk to your lawyer. I said, your
Speaker 4: honor is actually about my lawyer.
Speaker 1: To say Kelly's k for the jury to hear Tommy's
Speaker 1: new confession is a colossal understatement. But her lawyer, David Epstein, well,
Speaker 1: as far as Kelly's concerned, that's another story.
Speaker 5: He just didn't care.
Speaker 1: Kelly says, he doesn't want to bring up the letter
Speaker 1: at all, So now here she is taking matters into
Speaker 1: her own hands.
Speaker 2: The judge nods at her to say her.
Speaker 6: Peace, Your honor, I am in possession of an exculpatory
Speaker 6: letter from mister Donovan stating that mister Donovan acted alone
Speaker 6: and I in fact took no part in this whatsoever.
Speaker 1: Kelly wants to call Tommy as a witness so he
Speaker 1: can tell his new story from the.
Speaker 4: Dock without calling mister Donovan to my trial. This is
Speaker 4: violating my right to a fair trial.
Speaker 1: The judge looks down at kelly poker face, revealing nothing.
Speaker 2: He ponders for a few moments while.
Speaker 1: Kelly crosses her fingers, hoping she's done enough to convince him.
Speaker 1: After an excruciating pause, the judge leans forward.
Speaker 5: And he's like, miss Horn there, I don't know who.
Speaker 4: You're talking to in a jail house, but he's saying
Speaker 4: it's not admissible.
Speaker 5: I was like girls he talking about hearsay.
Speaker 1: Hearsay in a legal sense, means telling the court what
Speaker 1: someone else told you, either in person or in this case,
Speaker 1: by letter.
Speaker 2: It's not allowed.
Speaker 1: You can only talk about what you know, did, or
Speaker 1: experienced firsthand.
Speaker 5: That letter or whatever it is you have is her
Speaker 5: say there you start again, your honor.
Speaker 4: At no point in time did I request the letter
Speaker 4: to be submitted into evidence.
Speaker 5: I'm stating that I am in possession.
Speaker 6: Of an exculpatory letter, which is leading to my request.
Speaker 7: You have been called to testify on my behalf at
Speaker 7: my trial. However, mister Epstein is refusing to call him.
Speaker 7: Then mister Epstein, my attorney, deides with the judge and says,
Speaker 7: she seems to think here'say is admissible.
Speaker 5: After what I just said, Like, what the hell is everybody.
Speaker 4: Listening to.
Speaker 1: Kelly can't understand why her own lawyer wouldn't be fighting
Speaker 1: tooth and nail to bring Tommy in unless he's working
Speaker 1: against her deliberately.
Speaker 5: I don't know what to think.
Speaker 6: But when you have something as earth shattering as high
Speaker 6: I'm the killer, your client is innocent, and you don't
Speaker 6: use it, you have to assess it and attest to
Speaker 6: the fact that he might have thrown this case. I
Speaker 6: don't know how far does the rabbit hole, though.
Speaker 1: I have to say I've not seen any evidence presented
Speaker 1: in court or otherwise that Kelly's lawyer was trying to
Speaker 1: lose the case on purpose, And unfortunately I'll never get
Speaker 1: the chance to ask him because he died in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: I can see it from Kelly's perspective. She's handing her
Speaker 1: lawyer what she thinks is a smoking gun, and he
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to want to know. With even her own
Speaker 1: lawyer seemingly against her. It doesn't take very long for
Speaker 1: Judge Laysac to shut down Kelly's request about the letter.
Speaker 1: So for now, Tommy's original statement stand the ones that
Speaker 1: say Kelly was a willing participant in the murder.
Speaker 6: It was awful and the trial I feel that I
Speaker 6: lasted before it began.
Speaker 1: I'm Anisinfield and from the tea at novel and iHeart podcasts.
Speaker 2: This is the Girlfriend's Gelhouse Lawyer.
Speaker 8: Is Episode five.
Speaker 2: Is He Dead Yet?
Speaker 1: It's September fourth, twenty thirteen, the first day of Kelly
Speaker 1: Harnett's trial for the murder of Reuben Angel Vargas. Like
Speaker 1: a lot of trials, this one will turn out to
Speaker 1: be pretty long and more than a little messy. Before
Speaker 1: things even really get going, one of the original twelve
Speaker 1: jurors has to be let go, which then leads to
Speaker 1: a mistrial and the selection of a brand new jury,
Speaker 1: so the whole thing has to start all over again. Eventually,
Speaker 1: things do get moving and everyone's ready to play their part.
Speaker 1: Taking on the role of prosecutor is Assistant District Attorney
Speaker 1: Sean Clark. And the first thing you should know about
Speaker 1: Sean is he's kind of a.
Speaker 4: Dream boat when two minutes Clark ken he has dark hair,
Speaker 4: handsome with glasses. Right, that's exactly what Sean looks like.
Speaker 1: But unfortunately for Kelly, Sean isn't here to rescue her.
Speaker 1: He's here to send her down, and he is very,
Speaker 1: very good at his job. Kelly is facing two charges.
Speaker 1: The most serious is murder in the second degree, which
Speaker 1: essentially means murder that wasn't premeditated. The other charge is
Speaker 1: criminal possession of a weapon in this case that the shoelace.
Speaker 1: Kelly actually had more charges before the trial began, another
Speaker 1: murder charge and three more for robbery, but they were
Speaker 1: all dismissed. Despite this, Seawan Clark leans into the robbery
Speaker 1: angle in his story of the crime.
Speaker 2: It's the primary motive. Cool, Okay, should we do this?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 1: I looped in my producer Jake again, this time to
Speaker 1: be the voice of Superman Ekay Seawan Clark. This next
Speaker 1: section is taken directly from official court transcripts.
Speaker 3: What does make sense? The likely reason why they got
Speaker 3: into an altercation with mister Vargas was to rob him.
Speaker 3: That's the likely explanation here. Did I pull that out
Speaker 3: of the air, No I pulled that out of the evidence.
Speaker 1: In at least one of Tommy Donovan's statements, the oral
Speaker 1: one typed up by police, it says that Ken robbed
Speaker 1: Angel's wallet after the murder. Tommy says he then took
Speaker 1: the cash out before throwing the wallet on the ground.
Speaker 1: From police documents, we know that Angel Vargas's wallet was
Speaker 1: found roughly near his body.
Speaker 3: In that wallet identification credit cards to City Bank cards,
Speaker 3: but no money. What's on Tommy Donovan when the police
Speaker 3: stop him in his sock is sixty dollars three twenty
Speaker 3: dollars bills. That's the likely motive for what happened.
Speaker 1: One of the wildest parts of Tommy's multiple statements is
Speaker 1: that he says Kelly didn't just hand over the shoelace.
Speaker 1: She actually physically put it around Angel's neck and pulled
Speaker 1: it before handing it over to Tommy. Tommy then claims
Speaker 1: that after the attack, he walked away and looked back
Speaker 1: to see Kelly on top of Angel choking him again
Speaker 1: with the string. But Sean Clark in the prosecut they're
Speaker 1: only going as far as to argue that Kelly kicked
Speaker 1: Angel and then handed over the shoelace, which is interesting
Speaker 1: because if you're trying to convict someone for murder, surely
Speaker 1: you'd want to tell a story that makes them seem.
Speaker 2: As culpable as possible.
Speaker 1: Kelly, of course, argues that Tommy took the shoelace from
Speaker 1: her foot, and when Tommy himself pulled it around Angel's snack,
Speaker 1: it snapped.
Speaker 4: It snapped so fist and I remember thinking about that.
Speaker 4: When I saw a snap, I got scared. I said,
Speaker 4: he's going to come back over to me.
Speaker 1: Now there is physical evidence to support this. A broken
Speaker 1: white shoelace was found near the crime scene. Kelly then
Speaker 1: says that Tommy finished strangling Angel with his belt, a
Speaker 1: theory that she says is also partially supported by physical evidence.
Speaker 4: When you read the doctor's testimony, it clearly states that
Speaker 4: there was an indentation in the form of a rectangle
Speaker 4: that was unidentified right there.
Speaker 2: Kelly's pointing to her neck.
Speaker 4: I said, I can identify it. It's a belt buckle.
Speaker 4: So if you take away the allegation of handing a
Speaker 4: shoelace and put in the fact that he used his belt,
Speaker 4: the entire charge does not meet any element of the crime.
Speaker 1: For me, In addition to Kelly's lawyer David Epstein not
Speaker 1: fighting to call Tommy as a witness, Kelly says he
Speaker 1: also doesn't want her taking the stand in her own defense. This,
Speaker 1: honestly isn't all that unusual. A lot of attorneys don't
Speaker 1: want to risk putting their client on the stand if
Speaker 1: they get up there and get flustered or say the
Speaker 1: wrong thing. That's blood in the water for the prosecution.
Speaker 1: But Kelly's worried they're missing an opportunity to make the
Speaker 1: jury really see what she went through as a victim
Speaker 1: of Tommy's abuse, something only she can truly explain.
Speaker 5: If you don't mean to pictureize to that it was scared.
Speaker 6: They need to hear more of it, Like maybe they
Speaker 6: need to hear from me, and many told me don't estify.
Speaker 1: So if Epstein doesn't want the courts to hear from
Speaker 1: Kelly or Tommy, what is his case about.
Speaker 2: Here's one angle he took.
Speaker 1: Research shows that you can feel the effects of booze
Speaker 1: at about zero point.
Speaker 2: Zero two percent blood alcohol level.
Speaker 1: On the night of the murder, Angel's bloods came out
Speaker 1: at zero point thirty six. His liver was also found
Speaker 1: to be enlarged and fatty, which is something commonly associated
Speaker 1: with chronic alcoholism. In the trial, it's argued that Angel's
Speaker 1: drunken state could have led to the bruising found on
Speaker 1: his body by falling off his bike, for example. But
Speaker 1: still it seems like there's no mention of Kelly's experience
Speaker 1: as a victim of domestic violence already, any context from
Speaker 1: her complicated life. The prosecution has painted this really vivid
Speaker 1: picture of Kelly as a villain, but the defense doesn't
Speaker 1: really present an alternative story. In fact, if you ask Kelly,
Speaker 1: she says, Epstein's approach basically amounts to Kelly's not guilty,
Speaker 1: and that's it.
Speaker 6: I think it was more of a selfish reason than anything,
Speaker 6: because I think that he knew he was unprepared, and
Speaker 6: I think that he wanted to just play it seef.
Speaker 1: But playing it safe is not going to cut it here,
Speaker 1: because the prosecution is about to unleash the biggest tool
Speaker 1: in their arsenal. There's a witness who says he saw
Speaker 1: the whole thing, and the story he's got to tell
Speaker 1: looks really really bad for Kelly. One late night in
Speaker 1: July twenty ten, Amando Perez is out jogging. It's about
Speaker 1: two am on a balmy summer's night. The sky up
Speaker 1: above is black. The lights of Manhattan are flickering off
Speaker 1: in the distance. Amando is out late because he's training
Speaker 1: for his football team or soccer.
Speaker 2: If you must.
Speaker 1: He's weaving through a story a park on his second
Speaker 1: lap when he says he hears something that brings him
Speaker 1: to a stop. Someone screaming. Amando ducks and hides behind
Speaker 1: a tree. He says, he peers out into the darkness
Speaker 1: looking for where the scream came from. His eyes land
Speaker 1: on a shadowy figure who's got a man in a
Speaker 1: chokehold on the ground. The figure shouts at a woman
Speaker 1: standing nearby to kick the man he's holding down, which
Speaker 1: she does. It's Tommy, Kelly, and Angel. Amando says he
Speaker 1: hears Tommy ask Kelly to find a shoelace. He watches
Speaker 1: as Kelly walks off, kicking at bags and a bicycle
Speaker 1: before returning with something and handing it to Tommy. At
Speaker 1: this point, it dawns on him he's watching a murder.
Speaker 1: Amando sprints off to get help. Over the next hour,
Speaker 1: he runs into several people. Firstly, he tells some cops
Speaker 1: in a nearby patrol car, but he says they just
Speaker 1: drive off. Next, he tries flagging down some teenagers, but
Speaker 1: they just laugh at him. In between these unsuccessful attempts
Speaker 1: to raise the alarm, Amando keeps heading back to near
Speaker 1: where Tommy and Kelly are. He doesn't want to lose
Speaker 1: track of them.
Speaker 2: He says. He hears Kelly ask.
Speaker 1: Is he dead yet. Tommy replies that Angel is dead.
Speaker 1: He's touched the body to be certain. Then Amando sees
Speaker 1: him and Kelly hiding things in the woodchips on the ground.
Speaker 2: Amando keeps leaving, trying to find help.
Speaker 1: Eventually he comes across a group of four teenagers and
Speaker 1: one of them calls the police. Once the police arrive,
Speaker 1: Amando walks them over to near where Angel's body is.
Speaker 1: The police point out Tommy and Kelly and ask Commando
Speaker 1: if he's sure it was them. Amanda replies, of course,
Speaker 1: I'm sure. I've been watching them for over an hour.
Speaker 1: Then Kelly and Tommy are taken away. Amando is the
Speaker 1: key witness, essentially the core of the prosecution's case against Kelly.
Speaker 1: With Tommy's statements, any defense lawyer worth their soult can
Speaker 1: argue he has a clear motivation to try and shift
Speaker 1: the blame onto Kelly. But Amando, well, he has no
Speaker 1: obvious reason to lie. Prosecutor Sean Clark described him as
Speaker 1: a completely independent eyewitness who doesn't know Kelly Harnett, has
Speaker 1: never met Kelly Harnett, has no reason to come in
Speaker 1: here and say negative things about Kelly Harnett. Amando is
Speaker 1: a neutral party who can testify that he saw Kelly
Speaker 1: hand over the shoelace. He doesn't actually ever mention anything
Speaker 1: about seeing Kelly strangle Angel, which is probably why the
Speaker 1: prosecution have decided to ignore that part of Tommy's statement.
Speaker 1: But crucially, Amando also says that he saw Kelly kick Angel.
Speaker 1: In his earlier police statements, he doesn't specify where on
Speaker 1: the body Angel was kicked, but by the time Kelly's
Speaker 1: trial rolls around, Amando says it was quote from the
Speaker 1: stomach to the chest. He also says that Angel was
Speaker 1: lying face down, which is something Kelly takes issue with.
Speaker 5: The person was face down. That's an impossibility.
Speaker 4: You cannot kick someone from the stomach to the chest
Speaker 4: if they are face down.
Speaker 1: I interpret this a little bit differently to Kelly. Amando
Speaker 1: could just be describing general areas of the body. I
Speaker 1: think I'd say the same thing even if someone was
Speaker 1: being kicked from the side on.
Speaker 2: But I'm no lawyer.
Speaker 1: Instead, it's up to Kelly's defense attorney, David Epstein to
Speaker 1: cross examine the hell out of this witness, to keep
Speaker 1: poking holes in Amando's story until it's left in tatters
Speaker 1: on the courtroom floor. So come on, David, dig deep,
Speaker 1: it's time to strike.
Speaker 4: I surenest.
Speaker 5: David Epstein stood up. He dropped all the peoplework everywhere.
Speaker 4: I said, Oh Jesus Christ, if this is foreshadowing, I'm screwed.
Speaker 1: Amando's testimony makes for a compelling story, but especially according
Speaker 1: to Kelly, there are some holes in it if you
Speaker 1: look hard enough, and planted in those holes are some
Speaker 1: striking red flags. The first has to do with language barriers.
Speaker 1: Kelly claims that Amando can't really speak English, and police
Speaker 1: documents do show that his statement was transcribed for him
Speaker 1: by a cop. I've looked at this written statement and
Speaker 1: there are phrases in it like where the scene was,
Speaker 1: which honestly does sound like something a cop would say.
Speaker 1: I think we have to interrogate how much Amando understood
Speaker 1: his own statement or how his words could have been
Speaker 1: interpreted into helpful.
Speaker 2: Shorthand by the police.
Speaker 1: And obviously, if Amando can't fully understand English, it does
Speaker 1: call into question whether he could fully understand the things
Speaker 1: he claims he heard Tommy and Kelly say. Another issue
Speaker 1: is that Amando really struggles with judging distances. He claims
Speaker 1: at one point in the trial that he was maybe
Speaker 1: eight feet away from Tommy, Kelly an angel. Then at
Speaker 1: another point he says he was about twenty feet away.
Speaker 1: To me, both of these options seem like they would
Speaker 1: bring him way too physically close to Tommy and Kelly
Speaker 1: without being noticed, so I can't see.
Speaker 2: How either could possibly be true.
Speaker 1: Then in the courtroom, he's asked to judge a distance
Speaker 1: of about three feet.
Speaker 2: But he's not able to.
Speaker 1: And when Amando is asked to mark everyone's locations on
Speaker 1: the night of the murder on a map, Kelly spots
Speaker 1: more issues.
Speaker 4: He tells the witness to put an X where the
Speaker 4: body was, an F where the female was in, an
Speaker 4: M where the male was. Then he said put an
Speaker 4: ap Amanda Perez for his initials. Now this, I just
Speaker 4: want to let everyone know those initials are taken on
Speaker 4: a bridge that you cannot.
Speaker 5: Even get up on. There's no way in God's green
Speaker 5: eerd that he was standing there.
Speaker 1: But there appears to be some confusion, and at some
Speaker 1: point Amando seems to claim that the ex actually marks
Speaker 1: where he was standing, and this confusion about who was where.
Speaker 2: It doesn't end here.
Speaker 1: In the trial, the prosecution alludes to the fact that
Speaker 1: Kelly and Tommy moved Angel's body around eighty feet away
Speaker 1: from the actual.
Speaker 2: Scene of the murder.
Speaker 1: Prosecutor Sean Clark tries to make sense of it by
Speaker 1: saying that because the murder happened near a lit path,
Speaker 1: Angel's body could have been discovered.
Speaker 2: He then says, if.
Speaker 3: You drag him into the middle of the park, you
Speaker 3: drag him in the middle where there's no lights, He's
Speaker 3: not going to be found until morning.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing, Amando never explicitly said he saw
Speaker 1: Angel's body being dragged. None of his police statements reference
Speaker 1: the body being moved at all. The police themselves also
Speaker 1: deny moving the body when questioned on this too. This
Speaker 1: whole thing with the body being moved seems to be
Speaker 1: a tactic the prosecution lands on in order to explain
Speaker 1: away Amando's confusion over who and what was where. The
Speaker 1: prosecution claims that all the dirt and grass on Angel's
Speaker 1: face and clothes show his body was dragged, But I
Speaker 1: don't by that those could easily have come from Angel
Speaker 1: trying to fight off Tommy while they were wrestling on
Speaker 1: the ground. The theory that the body was moved also
Speaker 1: goes against physical evidence. A shoelace was found right by
Speaker 1: Angel's body. If he'd been moved eighty feet after he
Speaker 1: was killed, wouldn't the shoelace that the prosecution claim was
Speaker 1: used to kill him be much further away? But next
Speaker 1: up is the biggest and reddest flag.
Speaker 2: Of them all.
Speaker 1: At one point in the trial, the prosecution decides to
Speaker 1: secure an easy win using a tried and tested tactic.
Speaker 1: While Amando is on the stand, they ask him to
Speaker 1: point out the girl he saw kicking Angel Vargas, the
Speaker 1: girl he claims willingly handed over her shoelace moments before
Speaker 1: Angel was strangled to death. Amando scans the courtroom and then.
Speaker 5: He says, she's not here.
Speaker 2: What the fuck?
Speaker 1: After Amando's frankly unbelievable answer to the seemingly easy question,
Speaker 1: of is the woman you're testifying against here, the court
Speaker 1: goes into recess. When everyone comes back into the courtroom,
Speaker 1: the prosecution try to ask Armando again, but it still
Speaker 1: doesn't go great. He says, I'm not sure because it's
Speaker 1: been three years. Some star witness for the record, I
Speaker 1: find the fact that this happened incredible, like a finale
Speaker 1: scene out of A Good Wife or something. Amando doesn't
Speaker 1: even attempt an educate a guess. Kelly is literally standing
Speaker 1: a few feet away from him at this point. Of course,
Speaker 1: we do know that Kelly was in the park that night.
Speaker 1: That's not up for debate even by her. Maybe Amanda
Speaker 1: was just too far away to recognize her in court,
Speaker 1: especially all these years later. But if he was so
Speaker 1: far away to the point that he's unable to identify
Speaker 1: Kelly when she's right there in front of him, doesn't
Speaker 1: Kelly have a point about this guy? How much stock
Speaker 1: can we put into his testimony about what he could
Speaker 1: apparently see and hear from really far away in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night. Given he's the prosecution star and
Speaker 1: only witness of the events of the murder, this has
Speaker 1: got to.
Speaker 2: Put a dent in their case.
Speaker 1: Kelly's lawyer, David Epstein certainly seems to think so.
Speaker 6: He did state to me, well, being at the sory
Speaker 6: witness didn't even point you out. I think that they
Speaker 6: are the ones that are on the weak side right now.
Speaker 1: So I've told you about how things went down in
Speaker 1: the courtroom, some of what the prosecution argued and how
Speaker 1: the defense tried to fight back. But there's another side
Speaker 1: we should hear from Angel's family. I know that so
Speaker 1: far in this show, I haven't told you very much
Speaker 1: about who Reuben Angel Vargas was. I'm also well aware
Speaker 1: that in many true crime series, too many the person
Speaker 1: who actually lost their life becomes something like a background
Speaker 1: character in their own story. Their voice gets drowned out
Speaker 1: by everyone else's, including of course podcast host like me.
Speaker 1: Part of the reason I haven't told you much is practical. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: we just don't know that much about Angel. I tried
Speaker 1: and I failed to track down his family. So I've
Speaker 1: pieced together snippets from articles and court documents, trying to
Speaker 1: patchwork together an impression of who this man was. We
Speaker 1: know that Angel was likely an alcoholic, both from the
Speaker 1: evidence provided by the medical expert and also from Kelly,
Speaker 1: who says Angel had an AA chip on him.
Speaker 2: We also know.
Speaker 1: That Kelly claimed Angel sexually assaulted her on the night
Speaker 1: of the murder, which is objectively a horrific.
Speaker 2: Thing to do.
Speaker 1: But as Kelly has said herself, Angel didn't deserve to
Speaker 1: die that night. I think it's only fair to take
Speaker 1: a moment to get to know him, to remember that
Speaker 1: he was someone's son, someone's uncle, in someone's brother. So
Speaker 1: I'd like to read you a section from his sister's
Speaker 1: victim impact statement. My name is Olga Vargas and the
Speaker 1: sister of Reuben Vargas. In a few words, I'm going
Speaker 1: to tell you what he was like in person. He
Speaker 1: was a good son, who was an excellent brother, who
Speaker 1: was a warm uncle and a very great friend. He
Speaker 1: worked with everybody, He helped everybody. We were a great,
Speaker 1: big family. The last day that we were together was
Speaker 1: on July fourth. We laughed, we played. Nothing changed until
Speaker 1: July seventh, where we were given the sad news that
Speaker 1: had been unknown to us until that moment. This changed
Speaker 1: life for all of us, for all those who knew him,
Speaker 1: especially our family.
Speaker 2: I feel destroyed. How can they feel, my parents that
Speaker 2: it's to lose the sun.
Speaker 1: It's not easy to accept, to know the terrible way
Speaker 1: in which his life was taken.
Speaker 2: My brother's life, my brother.
Speaker 1: Is another victim who dies unjustly, and it's for him
Speaker 1: and all my family.
Speaker 2: They asked for justice.
Speaker 1: For Olga an Angel's family, justice means Tommy and Kelly
Speaker 1: going behind bars. In another statement, Olga talks about their
Speaker 1: blows and their actions which caused her brother to suffer
Speaker 1: the death he did. But for Kelly, justice means something
Speaker 1: very different. Justice would been recognizing her as another victim
Speaker 1: of Tommy's violence. For Kelly, justice would mean an acknowledgment
Speaker 1: that she was scared for her life too. Justice would
Speaker 1: mean leaving the courtroom and going back to her mother
Speaker 1: and her brother Ronnie.
Speaker 2: The trial draws to a close.
Speaker 1: Now Kelly's fate is in the hands of twelve strangers.
Speaker 2: The jury is ushered out to start their deliberation.
Speaker 1: For Kelly, each minute that passes with no news feels
Speaker 1: like an hour, and each hour feels like a year.
Speaker 5: I got scared. I already didn't feel good about any
Speaker 5: of the trial.
Speaker 1: Scenes from her own personal courtroom drama start running through
Speaker 1: Kelly's head.
Speaker 5: Miss Horn, You're saying it's not admissible.
Speaker 3: They got into an altercation with mister Vargas to rob him. Fine,
Speaker 3: they drag him into the middle of the park. He's
Speaker 3: not going to be found until morning.
Speaker 5: Amanda Perez, he says, she's not here.
Speaker 3: Did I pull that out of the air? No, I
Speaker 3: pulled that out of the evidence.
Speaker 1: And then the update everyone has been waiting for comes.
Speaker 2: The jury has a verdict.
Speaker 4: The heartbeat that you feel, I've never felt anything you
Speaker 4: close to that in my life.
Speaker 1: As the twelve members of the jury fall back into
Speaker 1: the Queen's courtroom, a hushed silence falls. Kelly holds her
Speaker 1: breath as Judge Lasac asks for their verdict.
Speaker 6: They came back with the unanimous decision, and the verdict was.
Speaker 5: Guilty.
Speaker 6: I couldn't believe it because I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 6: what trial were they watching?
Speaker 5: Because it was not mine.
Speaker 1: Kelly turns around and finds her brother, Ronnie's eyes. He's
Speaker 1: begged her over and over to plead guilty before trial,
Speaker 1: to take a deal in exchange for a shorter sentence.
Speaker 5: He was in tears.
Speaker 9: Oh my god, I'll never forget. I'll never forget that, say,
Speaker 9: not seeing Ronnie in tears.
Speaker 1: Kelly turns her gaze to the prosecutor, Sean Clark.
Speaker 5: It was a stare down. I was like, you, you
Speaker 5: son of a bitch.
Speaker 6: You are never ever going to forget this moment.
Speaker 5: I'm taking you down.
Speaker 1: It would have been so easy for Kelly to give
Speaker 1: up and accept defeat in this moment. But next time
Speaker 1: on The Girlfriend's Gailhouse Lawyer, Kelly goes to war with
Speaker 1: Sean Clark, Judge Laisac and everyone else she sees standing
Speaker 1: in her way.
Speaker 4: I was found guilty.
Speaker 5: I said, what do you want me to do? She goes, ah, guilty, Shmelty.
Speaker 4: I want to take your butt Todella Library and figure
Speaker 4: something out. And this was the beginning of a seventeen
Speaker 4: month war of attrition.
Speaker 2: You're a very unique person, Kelly.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 2: I take that as a compliment. It's a compliment. It
Speaker 2: is a compliment for sure.
Speaker 1: The Girlfriend's Gelhouse Lawyer is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 1: For more from Novel, visit novel dot Audio. The show
Speaker 1: is hosted by me Annasinfield and is written and produced
Speaker 1: by me and Lee Meyer, with additional production from Jako
Speaker 1: Taivich and Michael Jinno. Our assistant producer is Madeline Park.
Speaker 1: The editors are Georgia Moody and me Annasinfield. Production management
Speaker 1: from Shari Houston, Joe Savage and Charlotte Wolfe.
Speaker 2: Our fact checker is Daniel Suleiman.
Speaker 1: Sound design, mixing and scoring by Daniel Kempson and Nicholas Alexander.
Speaker 1: Music supervision by me alis Infield, Lee Meyer and Nicholas Alexander.
Speaker 1: Original music composed by Nicholas Alexander, Daniel Kempson and Louisa Gerstein.
Speaker 1: Orry development by Nell Gray Andrews and Willard Foxton. Creative
Speaker 1: director of Novel, Max O'Brien and Craig Strachan are executive
Speaker 1: producers for Novel, and Katrina Norvell and Niki Eator are
Speaker 1: the executive producers for iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2: And the marketing lead is Alison Cantor.
Speaker 1: Thanks also to Carry Lieberman and the whole team at
Speaker 1: WME