Speaker 1: In the late eighties and early nineties, Stefan Morant and
Speaker 1: his best friend Scott Lewis were dealing drugs for local
Speaker 1: New Haven drug kingpin Frank Persi, who was going away
Speaker 1: on a weapons charge. When Paris asked Scott to take
Speaker 1: a larger role in his business, Scott refused, a decision
Speaker 1: that would alter the course of his in Stefan's lives forever.
Speaker 1: On October eleventh, nineteen ninety, former New Haven, Connecticut alderman
Speaker 1: Ricardo Turner and his lover Mamont Fields were shot and
Speaker 1: killed while they lay in bed. Now meet Detective Vincent Rauschi,
Speaker 1: a detective involved in Pereise's drug game who would pin
Speaker 1: this double homicide on Scott Lewis for Perize. Rauchi put
Speaker 1: pressure on Stefan to extract the false confession that Stefan
Speaker 1: would recant the very next day. His refusal to participate
Speaker 1: in Scott Lewis's wrongful conviction would seal him to the
Speaker 1: same fate. So now we have a double homicide. Politicians
Speaker 1: and law enforcement entangled in the drug game of a
Speaker 1: local mafioso kingpin, Frank Perezi. But eventually the FBI and
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of Yale and Columbia law students under
Speaker 1: Professor Brett Dignam save the day, bringing down the entire
Speaker 1: house of cards and setting Stefan and Scott free after
Speaker 1: they had served over twenty years in prison for crimes
Speaker 1: that they did not commit. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to wrongful conviction. Fasten your seat belts and listen up,
Speaker 1: because the story of Stefan Moran includes a tangled web
Speaker 1: of a drug gang, a politician who turned up dead
Speaker 1: with his male lover in his bed, a corrupt detective
Speaker 1: who was in on the drug dealing as well and
Speaker 1: who ended up framing you Stefan not to mention a
Speaker 1: false confession, an incentivized witness who we know now was
Speaker 1: mentally ill and who lied through his teeth and changed
Speaker 1: his story multiple times, a' mafia kingpin in case all
Speaker 1: that other stuff wasn't enough for you, And finally a
Speaker 1: good judge who ironically was named Hate. I mean, you
Speaker 1: can't even make this stuff up. And our featured guest
Speaker 1: today is Stefan Morant, who lived through this nightmare. So Stefan,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: So let's go back to the beginning. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is a Connecticut story and the backs are that on
Speaker 1: October eleventh, nineteen ninety, former New Haven alderman named Ricardo
Speaker 1: Turner and his lover Lamont Fields were shot and killed
Speaker 1: in their bed, and that's where our story starts. So
Speaker 1: back in nineteen ninety, you were a kid, you were
Speaker 1: twenty one about yes, and you were you know, you
Speaker 1: were hustling, right, yes, but you weren't killing anybody, absolutely not,
Speaker 1: and you certainly weren't killing Ricardo Turner and Lamont Fields. Okay,
Speaker 1: so how does this start? Because you ended up getting
Speaker 1: into the crosshairs of a I want's say, corrupt detective.
Speaker 1: I mean corrupt would be too light of a word
Speaker 1: for this guy Rouci. I mean you weren't his only victim.
Speaker 1: There were tons. Yes, he's sort of like a character
Speaker 1: along the lines of that guy out in Brooklyn who
Speaker 1: framed so many of those people. Stefan set the stage
Speaker 1: for us as to this crazy cast of characters in
Speaker 1: the New Haven drug market at the time that this
Speaker 1: double murder went down, because this was a culmination of
Speaker 1: a lot of other factors. So can you give us
Speaker 1: an overview?
Speaker 3: There was a lot of different what you may call,
Speaker 3: I guess organizations, guys selling on different blocks. I was
Speaker 3: working with Scott and he was getting drugs from this
Speaker 3: guy by the name of Frank Pereisi from out of
Speaker 3: the Fay of Heightst Area. That's who detective she used
Speaker 3: to work for. I think the reason why me and
Speaker 3: Scott got framed is because Frank was about to go
Speaker 3: to prison. I think he was sentenced to eighteen years.
Speaker 3: So he wanted somebody to take over the organization, and
Speaker 3: he picked Scott to take over the organization, and Scott
Speaker 3: wanted to get out of the drug trade. So Scott
Speaker 3: said that he would not do it. And next thing
Speaker 3: you know, me and Scott are being framed for murder.
Speaker 1: So how did this cross your consciousness? When did you
Speaker 1: first become entangled in it?
Speaker 3: As a young man, I was living with my mother
Speaker 3: at the time. I happened to call my mother in
Speaker 3: between seven thirty and eight o'clock, Me and a couple
Speaker 3: all of the guys wherever. He was about to go
Speaker 3: to a script club. So I just just calling her
Speaker 3: not to tell I was going to script club.
Speaker 1: But you just mom, I'm going to strip club.
Speaker 3: We're not doing that. So she tells me that someone
Speaker 3: came by. It was a detective, a couple of them,
Speaker 3: so she said they wanted me to call, So I
Speaker 3: was like, I have no problem with calling them, so
Speaker 3: she gave me the number. Happened to be Detective Rachi
Speaker 3: and I think it was a Detective Sweney at the time,
Speaker 3: which came into case later on. And uh, just probably
Speaker 3: by the reason why I'm sent before you to day
Speaker 3: because of the Detective Sweeney. That's another part of the story.
Speaker 3: But so I happened to call him. He's asking me
Speaker 3: could I meet him somewhere, and I said, not a problem. So, uh,
Speaker 3: my cour defended mister Lewis and I and another gentleman
Speaker 3: we jumped into a vehicle. He dropped me off at
Speaker 3: a local gas station around the corner from my mother's home,
Speaker 3: and he started asking me questions. I was hesitating, a boy,
Speaker 3: answering anything because I didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 3: He opened the back door and he thrust me in.
Speaker 3: That was the beginning of a nightmare of my life.
Speaker 3: They took me to the new police precinct, sent me
Speaker 3: to the Detective Burrough help me there for hours. At
Speaker 3: the time, brought out police reports, statements, those paper articles,
Speaker 3: and started aksing me the questions about doing anything about
Speaker 3: the double homicide.
Speaker 2: I said, I did not.
Speaker 1: Had you even heard about it in the neighborhoodor anything?
Speaker 2: No? I did not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is taking you totally off. And you
Speaker 1: didn't have a lawyer?
Speaker 2: No I did not.
Speaker 1: Did you read you your rights because you weren't a
Speaker 1: suspect yet?
Speaker 2: Or no, I was a suspect. Like I said.
Speaker 3: We were at the house drinking and smoking. So we
Speaker 3: was a little little nice you know, before going to
Speaker 3: the script club. Instead of spending all the money in
Speaker 3: the script club, we just to get hired before. So
Speaker 3: we're in the police precinct for hours at the time
Speaker 3: they start threatening me with talking about, oh, you could
Speaker 3: get the death penalty. We'll put you into me an
Speaker 3: other bond. So I'm looking around, like in a room
Speaker 3: such as this, one small little room, you know, how
Speaker 3: do I get out of here? Like if you help us,
Speaker 3: we'll help you. We don't want you anyway, we want Lewis.
Speaker 1: So and Lewis was Scott Lewis, correct, Scott Lewis was
Speaker 1: your friend, my brother, your brother not from another mother
Speaker 1: from another Okay, So and he had not been picked
Speaker 1: up yet. No, he wasn't right. So you're in there
Speaker 1: by yourself.
Speaker 2: Correct.
Speaker 1: Obviously a scary situation going on, and plus you were
Speaker 1: already a little impaired in the first place. That couldn't help.
Speaker 1: Although I'm imagine this would kill your buzz real quick, yes,
Speaker 1: but still you didn't have all your wits about you.
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, I would like to go back in
Speaker 1: time to that day and shake you by the collar
Speaker 1: and go, dude, call a lawyer, like, tell them you
Speaker 1: want a lawyer. That's all you had to do, and
Speaker 1: the question would have had to stop. But you didn't
Speaker 1: know that, because most people don't know. I was one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why we do the show, because we
Speaker 1: want to tell people what to do if they God
Speaker 1: forbid to end up in a situation like yours. So
Speaker 1: this questioning goes on and on and on. You don't
Speaker 1: even know. You probably have no sense of time at
Speaker 1: this point. Did you have a watch or anything.
Speaker 3: I was probably got there, Like I said, it was
Speaker 3: like eight I didn't get out of there until like
Speaker 3: probably like five six hours later, after they gave me
Speaker 3: all this information. It was recording me, of course, and
Speaker 3: it kept stopping the tap. That's not how we want it.
Speaker 3: We need you to write the statement correctly, stopping the tape,
Speaker 3: starting stopping the tape. After they fined me all this information,
Speaker 3: so I said, I felt my best interest on the
Speaker 3: way I'm to get out of here is to do
Speaker 3: what they want me to do. Because the key thing
Speaker 3: for me was what they said was after you write this,
Speaker 3: you got to come back. So now I see a
Speaker 3: way out. I didn't see a way out before because
Speaker 3: they wasn't give me a way out. I was like, listen,
Speaker 3: I don't know anything about the crime. I need to
Speaker 3: leave here and let me go, And they was not
Speaker 3: letting me go.
Speaker 1: Which is actually against the law as well. They had
Speaker 1: to let you go if you asked me let go, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, considering they were willing to break so many
Speaker 1: other rules, they certainly weren't going to abide by that
Speaker 1: one either. So so you give a statement yes, which
Speaker 1: is a statement that they had basically fed you correct,
Speaker 1: giving details of the crime that you had no idea about. Correct,
Speaker 1: but that were accurate presumably if they fed them to you. Yes,
Speaker 1: And then of course stopping and starting the tape. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's right out of a TV show as well. An
Speaker 1: amateur scriptwriter would put that in there, you know. And
Speaker 1: so they end up getting what they want. Did they
Speaker 1: then arrest you or did they send you home?
Speaker 2: No, they actually let me go.
Speaker 1: That's crazy. They me.
Speaker 3: They told me to come back because I had just
Speaker 3: signed a statement. So my godmother name is Emma Jones.
Speaker 3: She was a lawyer at the time, and I immediately
Speaker 3: went to her home. When I got there, it was
Speaker 3: like three four in the morning. She looked at me
Speaker 3: and I looked at her, and I told her where
Speaker 3: I was coming from, and she said, you did not
Speaker 3: say anything right, And I just put my head down
Speaker 3: and she said, first thing in the morning, we're going
Speaker 3: to give representation. And my cousin detected. Pontu was my
Speaker 3: father's first cousin. He called my mother and he knew
Speaker 3: because at the time of the crime, when it actually happened,
Speaker 3: I wasn't even living here. I was living in South Carolina,
Speaker 3: actually going back and forth from South Carolina North Carolina.
Speaker 3: So he was aware that I didn't live here at
Speaker 3: the time, so he called my mother. I didn't know
Speaker 3: what we camp meant. So he's like, you have a statement,
Speaker 3: down here, tell Stephan come down here. Recan't the statement.
Speaker 3: We know that he wasn't here. He knew he wasn't here.
Speaker 3: So I went back to the detective place.
Speaker 2: With my mother.
Speaker 3: A detective came out and he was brought the statement
Speaker 3: out for me to sign it. I heard over the
Speaker 3: dispatch because I actually was supposed to meet my cousin
Speaker 3: over there, which was Detective Plantu, and it was like, disregard,
Speaker 3: we got this. So the detective came out, He's like,
Speaker 3: you have to sign this. So I'm not signing anything.
Speaker 3: I said, that's bullshit. I'm not signing it. I'm not
Speaker 3: signing it because it's a lie, it's false information, it's
Speaker 3: not true. It's like, what if you don't sign this,
Speaker 3: you can charge your conspiracy. And me and my mother
Speaker 3: just she grabbed a pocketbook and we walk out the door.
Speaker 1: Okay, So this is a bizarre story in a number
Speaker 1: of levels. One is that they let you go in
Speaker 1: the first place, instead of making you sign the statement
Speaker 1: right after you had falsely confessed that. I've never heard
Speaker 1: that one before. There must have been some reason for it,
Speaker 1: but I don't know what it was. By now, this
Speaker 1: is the next day.
Speaker 2: Talking about going back to the police station. It was
Speaker 2: a couple of days later.
Speaker 1: Now by now you knew the details of the crime.
Speaker 1: You knew this was a double murder, you know, super
Speaker 1: serious situation, probably getting extra attention because of the fact
Speaker 1: that one of the dead guys, Ricardo Turner, was a
Speaker 1: former alderman, right, so there was probably pressure to solve
Speaker 1: this crime. So now, in these three days that had passed,
Speaker 1: did you touch base with Scott Lewis? Did you let
Speaker 1: him know what's going on?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 3: I called him actually probably the next day, and I
Speaker 3: told him about it. So he actually called the police
Speaker 3: priescinct and called the detective himself and went down there
Speaker 3: and spoke to him. I don't know what the details
Speaker 3: of the conversation were, but he went down there himself.
Speaker 1: So what happens next? How does it progress from here
Speaker 1: to where you end up getting convicted and serving almost
Speaker 1: half your life in prison?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: So what was I doing prior to being convicted? H
Speaker 3: So after leaving the police precinct, I went on with
Speaker 3: my life.
Speaker 2: I was working.
Speaker 3: I was working at a piece to place, being a
Speaker 3: delivery guy, and the detective Rachet, he's like, used to
Speaker 3: follow me everywhere. I moved back and forth, you know,
Speaker 3: from North Carolina, South Carolina. I moved back down there
Speaker 3: with me and my kid's mother. I formally got arrested
Speaker 3: two years later, so this is nineteen ninety e when
Speaker 3: the crime happened. I got arrested February nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 3: My kid's mother, Christie Soben, she was pregnant with my
Speaker 3: sons and we were actually living a favor in North Carolina.
Speaker 3: Her mother and father came to pick her up in
Speaker 3: December of nineteen ninety one. She was complaining because I was,
Speaker 3: of course still in the drug trade. I was going
Speaker 3: back and forth from North Carolina, South Carolina, trying to
Speaker 3: make ends meet selling little bit of drugs. So I
Speaker 3: called her in nineteen ninety two. It happened to be February. Right,
Speaker 3: my sons was born in Valentine's Day, twins. One of
Speaker 3: the great yeah, one of the greatest days of my life.
Speaker 3: Of course, it was definitely a blessing. I'm like, I
Speaker 3: got to get back to Connecticut, right, didn't have no warrant,
Speaker 3: didn't have no nothing. The last time I heard from
Speaker 3: the detectives when I seen them follow me around and
Speaker 3: the piece of place in other various places like nightclubs
Speaker 3: and stuff like that. So I didn't see him anymore
Speaker 3: because I went back down south. So when I get
Speaker 3: here for my mother home, she lives in New Haven,
Speaker 3: I happened to see a K car, you know, police
Speaker 3: detective car. I just knew, you know, what a detective
Speaker 3: car looks like. So I seen them, and I just
Speaker 3: went the opposite way. So I happened to park on
Speaker 3: my car in the communal lot in Derby, Connecticut, and
Speaker 3: me and my friend name was His name is Rob.
Speaker 3: After seeing my boys, I was on my way going
Speaker 3: back to South Carolina. So I was going to pick
Speaker 3: my car up at the communal lot and I seen
Speaker 3: my left tire was flat and looked crazy.
Speaker 2: I just felt something.
Speaker 3: And then I seen a guy like in a saville
Speaker 3: with a newspaper up on his face, like nobody reads
Speaker 3: a newspaper like that. Something's not right. So anyway, I
Speaker 3: get out of the car. As soon as I get
Speaker 3: out of the car, police come from everywhere. It's like
Speaker 3: the scene out of a movie. My sons was in
Speaker 3: the back, my name was in the back. I was
Speaker 3: in the front. I got out the detectives I was like,
Speaker 3: they asked me, what was my name?
Speaker 2: Myself?
Speaker 3: Of course my name is Steff for Morandom. But I say, you, guys,
Speaker 3: I got kids in the car that you put your
Speaker 3: guns down. It was like I was in control of
Speaker 3: the situation, but I wasn't because they put their guns down.
Speaker 3: I told my name and they're like, oh, you have
Speaker 3: an arrestaurant for doublehomicide. I'm like, what now, I'm arrested
Speaker 3: for dumb ohomicide. Like I believe if I would have
Speaker 3: never came back to Connecticut because what they was doing
Speaker 3: they was about to take Scott to trial. So what
Speaker 3: they did was rest me so they could put pressure
Speaker 3: on me so I could come and testify against mister Lewis.
Speaker 2: And that's just not how you say.
Speaker 3: They try to put division between the both of us,
Speaker 3: and it didn't work. We both ended up, of course,
Speaker 3: getting convicted. I never testified on them because I'm not
Speaker 3: testifying to a lie. But I ended up getting arrested
Speaker 3: that day. Detective Rotch was the detective that came him
Speaker 3: and another detective and picked me up from the Orange precinct.
Speaker 2: I said, hy, come this bull crap again. So he's like, oh,
Speaker 2: all we.
Speaker 3: Want you to do is tell us that mister Lewis
Speaker 3: committed this crime. You could go home, this warrant could
Speaker 3: go away. I'm like, listen, man, what's my bond? I
Speaker 3: just need to know my bond. That's all I want
Speaker 3: to know. I ended up giving my phone call. I
Speaker 3: called my mother. She wasn't home, so I called my aunt.
Speaker 3: Told my aunt about it, and she called my mother
Speaker 3: let her know. And I was in jail for like
Speaker 3: a few months, and then my mother she bonded me out.
Speaker 3: She put her home up, and I stayed out for
Speaker 3: an additional two years, and then I went to trial
Speaker 3: in nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 1: The whole thing is really surreal. I mean for a
Speaker 1: lot of reasons, but also because of in particular because
Speaker 1: of the elapsed time, right because I feel like you're
Speaker 1: listening to you talking about it now, it seems like
Speaker 1: it was kind of in the tail liights. You were
Speaker 1: going all your life, You're raising your family, trying to
Speaker 1: make me, doing whatever you can, a little of this,
Speaker 1: a little legitimate stuff, some other stuff. But you weren't
Speaker 1: killing anybody. You weren't even hurting anybody. They had another
Speaker 1: sort of nefarious weapon in their arsenal, which was this
Speaker 1: and another name that could only come out of a
Speaker 1: fictional account, right, this guy Ovill Ruiz like Ovill are
Speaker 1: you getting me with this name now? Orville Oval like evil?
Speaker 1: And Oval? Ruiz gave well, let's call it a co
Speaker 1: werced eyewitness account. He was incentivized, he was coerced. They
Speaker 1: were using a carrot and a stick. He was promised leniency,
Speaker 1: and according to Ruiz, he came up with this story.
Speaker 1: I imagine the first time you heard about this was
Speaker 1: a trial. Did you know this Ruiz guy?
Speaker 3: Yes, I knew of them well when we sold drugs.
Speaker 3: He used to sell drugs. We used to sell drugs. Yes,
Speaker 3: we wasn't the best of friends, but I know who
Speaker 3: he was.
Speaker 1: So Ruiz came up with a pretty interesting story. He
Speaker 1: said that this alderman, the former Alderman, Ricardo Turner, was
Speaker 1: storing drugs and money for Louis, your co defender for
Speaker 1: his operation in the second four apartment that he lived in,
Speaker 1: and that he also owed Lewis money. So, according to Oval, Ruiz,
Speaker 1: I love saying that name over and over again. On
Speaker 1: October tenth and eleventh, nineteen ninety, he claimed that you
Speaker 1: and Lewis discussed the idea that Turner might take the
Speaker 1: money and run, and therefore he rode with you guys
Speaker 1: to turn his apartment away in the car while you
Speaker 1: Again this is his account, his false account, but his
Speaker 1: account he claimed that, armed with a three P fifty
Speaker 1: seven and a thirty eight, did you guys force your
Speaker 1: way into Turner's apartment, murdered he and Fields in their bed,
Speaker 1: and took the money and the coke got in the
Speaker 1: getaway car. Now this would all be a little bit
Speaker 1: more believable if not for the fact that he was
Speaker 1: promised leniency if he admitted to being the getaway driver.
Speaker 1: And you know, he probably didn't even come up with
Speaker 1: this story. They probably came up with it and gave
Speaker 1: it to him.
Speaker 3: But whatever, Well, you know, at the time of me
Speaker 3: going to trial, this young kid would a background and
Speaker 3: mental health issues. My lawyer at the time subpoena in
Speaker 3: his records, and this guy was talking by he see
Speaker 3: red bean, he see different visions. He's on halladall and
Speaker 3: various drugs for his mental health. So he was not
Speaker 3: only thrown and thrusted and given leniency for given false testimony,
Speaker 3: but he also was a mental health patient. You know,
Speaker 3: I don't even understand how the jury believed this guy.
Speaker 1: So now they had you, guys, they had this guy,
Speaker 1: they had a false confession. You had no shot at trial.
Speaker 2: Absolutely not.
Speaker 1: So you go to trial. You have tried separately from Lewis.
Speaker 3: Yes, I have four counts. First, I have five counts,
Speaker 3: one count of conspiracy. They dropped that. To the beginning
Speaker 3: of the trial. Two council aid into benin and two
Speaker 3: concert felt any murder.
Speaker 1: So when the jury came back in, did you have
Speaker 1: any hope that they would come to the right answer?
Speaker 1: He still believed. Yes, even after everything that happened, you
Speaker 1: still believed the justice were going out.
Speaker 2: Of course I did have hope because I didn't do it.
Speaker 1: So okay, so take us to that moment. So the
Speaker 1: jury comes in and they read the charges in order, right, right,
Speaker 1: So you've already had the one charge dropped. Now you
Speaker 1: have the first two charges and they go not guilty.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So after that second not guilty, I'm like, You're like,
Speaker 1: I'm going home, Yes, I mean, and then they drop
Speaker 1: a bomb on you.
Speaker 3: And then a literal almost fell over, literally got rocked back.
Speaker 3: I had to catch myself and then I looked at
Speaker 3: the Jerry person, you know, he like he shook his head, like, yeah,
Speaker 3: we're convicted you. And then he read it off again
Speaker 3: and looked in his eyes again, and then he put
Speaker 3: his head down. The prosecutor, which is he was just
Speaker 3: as corrupt as the detective in my eyes. My son's again,
Speaker 3: he was twins. They were two years old at the time.
Speaker 3: And I didn't see my sons in a while, you know,
Speaker 3: so I didn't bring me to court. I didn't even
Speaker 3: know I was going to court. The prosecutor rise a
Speaker 3: fruit basket, he puts them on the table. So my
Speaker 3: mother's there. I didn't know my mother's gonna be there,
Speaker 3: and my son's are there. So he says to me,
Speaker 3: missed this, of course, what kind of questions? And of
Speaker 3: course I missed my kids, he said, So what you
Speaker 3: gonna do about it? I said, listen, I told you before,
Speaker 3: I don't know nothing about this. I'm the same way
Speaker 3: I'm looking at my son's right here. Mister Lewis has
Speaker 3: kids as well. So I'm gonna just take myself and say, okay,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna lie on the man to take myself out
Speaker 3: of prison and put him in prison.
Speaker 2: Possibly. I can't do that. I just can't do that.
Speaker 1: Did he actually tell you that he was willing to
Speaker 1: give you a deal if he would testify against Lewis?
Speaker 1: Or he would just.
Speaker 2: Assume that that's what he told me?
Speaker 1: And what was the deal they offered you?
Speaker 2: He said we would work it out.
Speaker 3: He didn't tell me, well, I'm gonna take thirty five
Speaker 3: I got seventy years now, thirty five years running wild,
Speaker 3: which means do this thirty five years and start all
Speaker 3: over again.
Speaker 2: So what can you offer him? You can't offer me, No,
Speaker 2: you couldn't.
Speaker 3: He couldn't have offered me a day because I'm not
Speaker 3: gonna sit here and lie on the man for something
Speaker 3: that I didn't do and he didn't do.
Speaker 2: It's just not gonna happen.
Speaker 1: Then that speaks to your character too, because I think
Speaker 1: there's you know, again, no one knows how you would,
Speaker 1: hell anyone would deal with a situation like the one
Speaker 1: that you were in, But you handled it, I mean
Speaker 1: with courage, and you know you did the right thing
Speaker 1: at extreme cost to yourself. So now you're sentenced to
Speaker 1: seventy years and you get taken to prison, I mean,
Speaker 1: how did you get out? I mean, these are the
Speaker 1: things I want to get to here. Because you were
Speaker 1: there for twenty years, twenty one, twenty one years in
Speaker 1: maximum security. Obviously it's felling the murder.
Speaker 3: Yes, I believe that my guy made away, you know,
Speaker 3: to mean, of course legal things took place, but people
Speaker 3: came back. Like I mentioned to you earlier, Detective Sweeney,
Speaker 3: he was a great part in this case. He came
Speaker 3: back after he was in Bosnia in nineteen ninety eight,
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety nine, he happened to see my case. I
Speaker 3: was going back for a petition for new trial, and
Speaker 3: I had the lawyer by the name of Michael Fitzpatrick
Speaker 3: at the time, and he said, I got some good
Speaker 3: evidence that's coming, and that was It took another nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety nine to twenty fifteen, sixteen more years for the
Speaker 3: court to even listen to him. And this is a
Speaker 3: supervisor of Detective Rocchi. That's telling you that the two
Speaker 3: men that you have in prison, if you're going by
Speaker 3: the information that was gathered by Detective Rocchi and that
Speaker 3: informat that you had that testified in these guys, absolutely not.
Speaker 3: I was Sweeny, was Tective Swing. He came to testify
Speaker 3: to that.
Speaker 1: That's so crazy. I'm getting the chills now thinking about it,
Speaker 1: because here you have a senior official in law enforcement
Speaker 1: who is coming forward with no motivation. What could his
Speaker 1: motivation possibly be other than the truth. And they're going, nah,
Speaker 1: we're good, Like yeah, I mean, he's he's one of
Speaker 1: the heroes in this story.
Speaker 2: Right, without a doubt.
Speaker 1: Scott Lewis wrote a letter to the FBI as well
Speaker 1: about Rachi. They looked into it, and every time they did,
Speaker 1: they would find that things were not as he said
Speaker 1: they were, but as you guys said they were. They
Speaker 1: found that Rachi not only framed you in Lewis, but
Speaker 1: that he framed a number of other people. I don't
Speaker 1: think we'll ever know how many, because we know when
Speaker 1: these guys do it, like Scarcella and Brooklyn, they just
Speaker 1: keep doing it and doing it and doing it as
Speaker 1: long as they get away with it, which is why
Speaker 1: it's so important that we tell these stories. And they
Speaker 1: even brought him back Rouchi, they brought him back to
Speaker 1: New Haven to question him, but they never charged him.
Speaker 1: They ended up charging him, this is ridiculous, but they
Speaker 1: charged him for misbuilding his overtime hours and assaulting his
Speaker 1: wife which is a serious crime in my view, and
Speaker 1: yet he received two years probation. So he was dealing drugs,
Speaker 1: framing people for murder, assaulting his wife, and he gets
Speaker 1: two years probation and you end up with seventy years
Speaker 1: for a crime you didn't commit. Another hero in this story,
Speaker 1: and it's interesting because it's a New Haven story. And
Speaker 1: along comes a Yale law professor named Brett Dignam and
Speaker 1: Richard Emmanuel and a whole bunch of law students right
Speaker 1: coming in like the cavalry, all from Yale. And that's
Speaker 1: a pretty good group to have on your side because
Speaker 1: at Yale they don't mess around. There's no question that
Speaker 1: you have an incredible amount of brain power and energy
Speaker 1: devoted to your case. How did they get involved? How
Speaker 1: do they find out about it?
Speaker 3: They got involved in Scott case actually two thousand and nine,
Speaker 3: and Brett moved from she was the law professor at Yale,
Speaker 3: and then she moved to Columbia and then they just
Speaker 3: the students. A lot of the students just went along
Speaker 3: with her, or she just had some more Columbian students.
Speaker 3: I'm not really sure of the whole procedure how it
Speaker 3: went down, but they played a big role in this
Speaker 3: getting the conviction.
Speaker 1: Overturned, and finally a good judge who ironically was named Hate.
Speaker 2: The judge Hate huh with a name but a loving guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Judge Charles Hate, the US District Judge Charles hat Junior.
Speaker 1: Your team wanted ruling in front of Judge Hate that
Speaker 1: the prosecution had failed to tell the defense and this
Speaker 1: is heavy. You get ready, that the key witness over
Speaker 1: Ruiz had repeatedly denied having any knowledge of the murders.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden he had a big memory recall
Speaker 1: after he was offered a deal. But it's important to
Speaker 1: recognize that he was at least initially telling the truth.
Speaker 1: Doesn't excuse his behavior whatsoever, but it does highlight the
Speaker 1: length that they were willing to go to to get
Speaker 1: a conviction. And let us not forget that, of course,
Speaker 1: in your case, like in so many other wrongful conviction cases,
Speaker 1: like whoever it was that went and cold bloodedly gunned
Speaker 1: these two guys down, whether it was one guy, two guys, woman,
Speaker 1: We don't know who it was, right, I don't know
Speaker 1: if you to this day know who it was.
Speaker 2: I don't know who it is.
Speaker 3: I mean, they have other suspects that they said they have,
Speaker 3: but I don't know if they pushed forward to try
Speaker 3: to arrest anybody. I mean, I don't wish nothing bad
Speaker 3: on anybody, but whether it's one individual, two or three
Speaker 3: individuals still out there.
Speaker 2: So now, what about our public exactly?
Speaker 1: Let's just say it's not unlikely that whoever it was
Speaker 1: that committed this crime went on to commit other terrible
Speaker 1: crimes while you guys were serving the time for them.
Speaker 1: So how did you end up getting out? And why?
Speaker 1: I'm sure people are listening at home in their cars whatever,
Speaker 1: saying to themselves. But wait a minute, So you had
Speaker 1: this whole dream team all of a sudden, the Avengers
Speaker 1: riding in from Yale. How is it that you were
Speaker 1: never fully exonerated? How did that work? And was that
Speaker 1: because of your false confession? Is that why they refused
Speaker 1: to ultimately admit your innocence?
Speaker 3: Actually, mister Lewis, he was released in February March of
Speaker 3: twenty fourteen on a bracelet. The judge hate ordered that
Speaker 3: they release him within the ninety days I think of
Speaker 3: after the conviction was overturned in December, well, actually after
Speaker 3: they affirmed it it got overturned then they had to
Speaker 3: go to the second Circuit court and then all the
Speaker 3: charges was dropped. I think he got exonerated in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 3: if I'm not mistaken. But it went in sequence, like
Speaker 3: one year he got out, the next year, it was affirmed.
Speaker 3: Next year. I think he got exonerated. Unlike myself, mister
Speaker 3: Lewis had a dream team and I had a team
Speaker 3: that wasn't fighting for me at all. So push forward
Speaker 3: to a year later after they affirmed for mister Lewis
Speaker 3: average released because the attorney said he spoke with the
Speaker 3: district attorney and said, oh, I think that I could
Speaker 3: talk to him, so talk to him about what like,
Speaker 3: why now you're not found the motion for me to
Speaker 3: get out of prison because you and mister Lewis cases different.
Speaker 3: I said, what you mean? What do you mean different?
Speaker 3: We went to We just went to trial differently. The
Speaker 3: evidence is the same, we just went to trial at
Speaker 3: different times. I want to be out of release from prison.
Speaker 3: I said, how long more do you think this is
Speaker 3: gonna take? He said it might take another three years.
Speaker 3: What this man's out of prison? You're telling me? I
Speaker 3: still got away the additional three years to be released
Speaker 3: from prison. He was like, yeah, So what I'm gonna
Speaker 3: do is I'm gonna go talk because I'm friends with
Speaker 3: the district attorney. So I'm gonna go down there and
Speaker 3: see if he just say, see what could happen. I
Speaker 3: think that was a Tuesday. So he came back the
Speaker 3: very next day. He's like, oh, I got good new
Speaker 3: from you.
Speaker 2: Going home.
Speaker 3: The district attorney said they'd give you time served, but
Speaker 3: you have the cop out. I'm thinking, now, my little brother,
Speaker 3: he just passed away, Lupis. I lost my grandfather. I
Speaker 3: lost my father, I lost the host of a lot
Speaker 3: of friends. My mother's getting older, my children are older.
Speaker 3: You know they Dad, when you're come home. I have
Speaker 3: a wife now that married me for I don't know
Speaker 3: why in prison in two thousand and nine, what do
Speaker 3: I do between a rock and the harbor place? Do
Speaker 3: I sit here and say, listen, I'm gonna fight for
Speaker 3: my name to be clear for another three years. There's
Speaker 3: nothing guaranteed in the judicial system. They already failed me once.
Speaker 3: So what do I do. I've always heard that if
Speaker 3: you could fight better from the outside than the inside.
Speaker 3: I need to get out. I need to get out
Speaker 3: of here. So I went with the terms in the agreement.
Speaker 3: I mean ignorant, of course, of the repercussions of still
Speaker 3: fighting for my conviction, because I still have a conviction.
Speaker 3: Mister lewisis I told you a couple of minutes ago.
Speaker 3: Is exonerated, same evidence, just different trial. He's exonerated. I'm struggling.
Speaker 3: I just had to get a second job. You know,
Speaker 3: what do you do? You know, I got to survive though, you.
Speaker 1: Know, yeah, I just hope, I hope that this show
Speaker 1: maybe can be a part of helping you to get
Speaker 1: the justice that you have deserved for or a quarter
Speaker 1: of a century now ever since you were wrongfully arrested
Speaker 1: in the first place, over a quarter of the century,
Speaker 1: almost thirty years, and that you can get a chance
Speaker 1: to get the compensation that you deserve, and that you're
Speaker 1: co defendant has received a significant amount of compensation. A
Speaker 1: lot of guys never get it, you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of guys and women, even whether they're a complete or
Speaker 1: whether they were exonerated. And people ask me all the time,
Speaker 1: and we still only have like thirty two states that
Speaker 1: have compensation statutes, and we're trying to change that because
Speaker 1: I think that everyone who's wrongfully convicted deserves compensation and
Speaker 1: deserves help to get back on their feet, as opposed
Speaker 1: to put in more roadblocks in your way like they're
Speaker 1: doing with you, which I call the second punishment.
Speaker 2: I'm out here and I'm thankful.
Speaker 3: Like again, I mean, I'm thankful that I'm able to
Speaker 3: be able to stand on my two feet. I'm able
Speaker 3: to go to a job and to go and make
Speaker 3: a difference. I don't know if you know, but I
Speaker 3: work at a halfway house. You know, it's a part
Speaker 3: of the correctional facility. Like my grandmother was a caregiver,
Speaker 3: so I guess I'm following the footsteps of her. I
Speaker 3: also just took on another job, working with the mental
Speaker 3: health I work at half of healthcare.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: It's not a lot of money, but it's getting me
Speaker 3: and my wife by because at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: I mean, it's a struggle. Again, mister Lewis was compensated
Speaker 3: for his wrongful conviction. I'm still fighting. I told you
Speaker 3: I spoke with you earlier than far as.
Speaker 2: Me and my lawyer.
Speaker 3: Right now, we're trying to put together a pardon to
Speaker 3: try to see if that the state of Connecticut will
Speaker 3: pardon me unusual circumstances. We spoke with various people about it,
Speaker 3: so hopefully that this doesn't take forever, that my conviction
Speaker 3: is a return, so I could go on and live
Speaker 3: my life because I can't get job. I was just
Speaker 3: paid well because I have a conviction on my record.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm actually like getting half the pay, you know,
Speaker 3: for somebody didn't do it. I'm still suffering. Sometimes I'd
Speaker 3: be like, yo, why, But then at the end of
Speaker 3: the day, why not. I'm not the first person that
Speaker 3: happened to him, won't be the last person that happens.
Speaker 1: To One of the reasons I do this work and
Speaker 1: I'm so obsessed and committed to it, I've been for
Speaker 1: my whole adult life and will be for the rest
Speaker 1: of my adult life, however long that may be, is
Speaker 1: because of people like you. Honestly in awe that people
Speaker 1: like yourself can go through what you went through and
Speaker 1: come out with this and I picked it up when
Speaker 1: we met before is one of the reasons I want
Speaker 1: to have you on the show, because you're such a
Speaker 1: positive guy and you're such a sort of I mean
Speaker 1: to meet you. No one would ever know that you
Speaker 1: had been through anything like this much less, this totally
Speaker 1: insane ordeal. So how did you survive prison? Was it
Speaker 1: as bad as what you were expecting? Was it as
Speaker 1: bad as what people think it is?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 3: For me, I have a Christian background, right, My grandmother
Speaker 3: was she just was a faith driven women woman, my mother,
Speaker 3: you know, my father used to take me to church
Speaker 3: all the time. Actually, the day I got convicted June eighth,
Speaker 3: that night when they threw me, told me, they reminded me,
Speaker 3: how was it like like a whole building on top
Speaker 3: of me? And I didn't know how I was gonna
Speaker 3: get it off of me. So they put me in
Speaker 3: a ballpen. There was nobody down there, and I'm looking
Speaker 3: around and I had a suit on so and the tie.
Speaker 3: So I shifted my tie from the left to the right,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, yo, how did I get How did
Speaker 3: this happen to me? So I was but to cry,
Speaker 3: of course, I'm like and so literally a voice came
Speaker 3: over me and says, son, you're gonna be all right.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I got down on my knees in that bullpen and
Speaker 3: I prayed, and that was my peace, that was my sanctuary,
Speaker 3: that's my sanity. That's what brought me through just not
Speaker 3: my faith alone. But my family was there for me,
Speaker 3: and they're still there for me. My big brother Frank,
Speaker 3: my brother Julian, he passed away at Lupis a year
Speaker 3: before I came home. He was my greatest support. My
Speaker 3: brother leand and my mother Linda, all host of family
Speaker 3: and friends. I mean, you know, it's crazy in prison
Speaker 3: because some people don't even know what the visiting room
Speaker 3: look like. I just had a great support. My wife
Speaker 3: rain sleeve of snow. I'm telling you, if it was
Speaker 3: six feet of snow and the roses clear, she was there,
Speaker 3: you know, and that says a lot for her, you know.
Speaker 3: But again I had a lot of family there for me.
Speaker 3: My family was there, they're still there for me. And
Speaker 3: again my faith kept me whole.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I actually go to school right now, to a Bible
Speaker 3: institute to become a minister. It's not easy. I go
Speaker 3: through a lot of ups and downs because of the
Speaker 3: incarceration I call it today, because of they thrust them
Speaker 3: into a cage. I'm that dog that's running away from
Speaker 3: the cage, never to go back to that cage again.
Speaker 3: I want to go back there, but I want to
Speaker 3: go back there for the right reasons, as far as
Speaker 3: if I could inspire and encourage somebody to be like, listen,
Speaker 3: there is hope. The's guys that see me today. When
Speaker 3: I was actually incarcerated, well I don't call it incarcerated again,
Speaker 3: when I was thrusting into that cage, they just literally
Speaker 3: like start crying, like, yo, yeah, you believed like you
Speaker 3: believed you was coming home when you was going home
Speaker 3: and you're here. Sometimes of course it gets rough sometime,
Speaker 3: you know, But what do you do with the situation
Speaker 3: when it happens to you? Do you sit down weeping crowd?
Speaker 3: Do you get up and stand tall? Because that's what
Speaker 3: they want you to do. They want you to be like, Okay,
Speaker 3: we're gonna take this person, thrust them in a cage,
Speaker 3: and we want them to become an animal. I did
Speaker 3: the total opposite. I became an example, like to be
Speaker 3: a better person than what they wanted me to be.
Speaker 3: Even through incarceration, I was counseling people, whether it was CEOs,
Speaker 3: whether it was convicts, whether it was inmates. I just
Speaker 3: I just had a call on and I'm still doing
Speaker 3: that to this day. So I'm just not say grateful
Speaker 3: for incarceration, absolutely not, but I'm grateful now for the
Speaker 3: opportunity to give back and to share with others that
Speaker 3: I've been through what you've been through. Like I talked
Speaker 3: to the guys in the halfway house all the time. Listen,
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna sit down and tell you that I've
Speaker 3: been in prison for twenty one years, but I'm going
Speaker 3: to let you know I've been where you are.
Speaker 2: You could change, you can transition.
Speaker 3: Your life could be totally different than what it really
Speaker 3: is today, but you have to make that first step.
Speaker 3: I could only give you a little bit of tools
Speaker 3: and ingredients, something I could share with you, a word
Speaker 3: of advice, but I can't make you walk like they say.
Speaker 3: You could bring a horse to the trough, but you
Speaker 3: can't make them drink.
Speaker 1: Stefan, if people want to reach out to you, do
Speaker 1: you do public speaking?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I'm doing.
Speaker 1: And how do if people want to get involved in
Speaker 1: your case in any way, how do they reach out
Speaker 1: to you?
Speaker 2: Do a Gmail?
Speaker 3: Stephan Morant s t e f O n m O
Speaker 3: r a n t at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: Stefan Morant s T E f O n m O
Speaker 1: r a n t at gmail dot com. And the
Speaker 1: movie About This crazy case is called one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty Years.
Speaker 3: If you haven't watched it yet, I think you could
Speaker 3: go on YouTube and watch it. But it's it's called
Speaker 3: one hundred and twenty Years, a documentary of Scott Lewis.
Speaker 3: I'm also a part of that as well.
Speaker 1: Check it out. So now we get to my favorite
Speaker 1: part of the show, where I first of all, I
Speaker 1: thank you again Stephan Moran for coming to the studio
Speaker 1: and sharing your thoughts and your incredible story and wish
Speaker 1: you all the best for the future. And then I
Speaker 1: get to turn off my microphone and just sit back
Speaker 1: and leave yours on for what we've come to call
Speaker 1: closing arguments, go for it.
Speaker 3: Well, I just like to say I appreciate and I
Speaker 3: thank you for everything that you do wrong for conviction.
Speaker 3: It's just it's a sad day. It's just a sad situation.
Speaker 3: I remember my first Innocence Project conference and they said
Speaker 3: you go when your network. It was in Texas. So
Speaker 3: I was walking about and I seen this guy and
Speaker 3: I just walked up to him and he was a
Speaker 3: social worker from out of Ohio. Yeah, how you doing?
Speaker 3: He says, I'm all right, how are you? I said, yeah,
Speaker 3: he said, we need a network meet different people. So
Speaker 3: he said, what happened with you? And I said, well,
Speaker 3: I wasn't just incarcerated for twenty one years, I know,
Speaker 3: even Connecticut. And I said to him, I said, yeah,
Speaker 3: everybody says that that they're innocent. And he looked at
Speaker 3: me and he says, no, they don't. And I had
Speaker 3: to think about that, and I said, wow, you're actually right.
Speaker 3: You hear that on TV, but in prison, it's like
Speaker 3: I could count on probably one of my hands and
Speaker 3: somebody actually said that they were innocent. And I've been
Speaker 3: around thousands and thousands of guys. If somebody tell you
Speaker 3: they're innocent, right, how much effort does it take for
Speaker 3: you just to reopen an investigation or to just look
Speaker 3: into what he or she is saying instead of allowing
Speaker 3: on this to carry on for like it carried on
Speaker 3: with me and mister Lewis, for mister Lewis twenty years
Speaker 3: and for myself twenty one years, crying, like getting shot down,
Speaker 3: denials after denials after denials. You know again. Now I
Speaker 3: have seven kids, Christian and Julian, my Twiland, Stefan Jr. Chandler,
Speaker 3: Miya and Prince Boy, junior. So we have me and
Speaker 3: my wife have a total of seven kids. Her name
Speaker 3: is Kimberlee Moran, you know, for biological, but all of
Speaker 3: them are biological to me now because that's how I
Speaker 3: bring my acceptance. You know, my children today, I don't
Speaker 3: even have a relationship like with them. I mean, we're
Speaker 3: building one and that's like the say as part of
Speaker 3: this situation. But at the end of the day, it's like,
Speaker 3: how do you just do that to somebody? And how
Speaker 3: do you live with yourself?
Speaker 2: Right? We need to change the way the judicial system
Speaker 2: is being ran today. You know, it has to be changed.
Speaker 3: We just need somebody just to have an ear and
Speaker 3: to listen, not just to say, well we're gonna talk
Speaker 3: about doing something, don't do something. If you just put
Speaker 3: forth an effort and take the time out of your day,
Speaker 3: just be like, okay, just let me look into this case.
Speaker 3: Give me an opportunity, give me a chance. The evidence
Speaker 3: is gonna speak for itself. It's just as simple as that.
Speaker 3: If the person actually committed the crime, you could set
Speaker 3: time for saying they did this or they didn't do it,
Speaker 3: But just give them opportunity. We investigate the situation. You know,
Speaker 3: I mean, I thank god for the FBI. You know
Speaker 3: who does that. They don't just say, okay, you write
Speaker 3: me a letter or not, I'm gonna get involved. And
Speaker 3: they said, hold up, something's wrong is going on, and
Speaker 3: then the state's attorney still doesn't do anything about it.
Speaker 3: The state's attorney stated that for a period of time,
Speaker 3: we knew that the lead detective was a liar, also
Speaker 3: the key witness. So why am I sitting here taking
Speaker 3: time served? Why are you just not saying, okay, we're
Speaker 3: dismissing this case right now. So if it's a lie,
Speaker 3: if it's a tainted situation, why on earth is steff
Speaker 3: On Morant still a convicted fella? Mind you, I've never
Speaker 3: had a traffic ticket, I've never had a conviction. I
Speaker 3: sold a little drugs to get by, but I worked
Speaker 3: all my life. The question is, and I leave with this,
Speaker 3: I need help and I need stuff On Moran's conviction
Speaker 3: to be overturned, because it's just not right. If one
Speaker 3: is innocent, the other one definitely has to be innocent,
Speaker 3: because you're saying I was just there. You didn't say
Speaker 3: I'd kill anybody. So how am I still a convicted fella?
Speaker 1: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review. Wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcast, it really helps. And I'm a proud
Speaker 1: donor to the Innocence Project and I really hope you'll
Speaker 1: join me in supporting this very important cause and helping
Speaker 1: to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocenceproject dot org
Speaker 1: to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like
Speaker 1: to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wortis.
Speaker 1: The music in the show is by three time OSCAR
Speaker 1: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
Speaker 1: Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flahm is a production of Lava
Speaker 1: for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one