Speaker 1: On November sixteenth, nineteen ninety two, a teenage couple was
Speaker 1: held up on West Washington Street in Chicago, and the
Speaker 1: young man, Shahar and Brandon, was shot dead, but the
Speaker 1: young lady said that she had not seen the shooter's face.
Speaker 1: Another witness statement raised the name Blue, the nickname of
Speaker 1: a local man named Roosevelt Miles. Soon the female victim
Speaker 1: also identified Blue, sending Roosevelt away for sixty long years.
Speaker 1: But this is wrongful conviction. Wrongful conviction has always given
Speaker 1: voice to innocent people in prison, and now we're expanding
Speaker 1: that voice to you. Call us at eight three three
Speaker 1: two O seven four six sixty six and tell us
Speaker 1: how these stories make you feel and what you've done
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Speaker 1: as telling a friend or sharing on social media. You
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Speaker 1: A three three two O seven four six sixty six.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Ronfel Conviction. Today, we've got a Chicago
Speaker 1: story involving another gang unit detective out of Area five,
Speaker 1: the same notorious unit as Ray Guevera and Ernest Halverson,
Speaker 1: which may give our regular listeners an inkling of what
Speaker 1: our guests today Endured Roosevelt Miles. Thanks for being here
Speaker 1: and joining us today, and along with him, Ashley Cohne
Speaker 1: from the Bonine Law Group. We appreciate you being here
Speaker 1: as well, of course. So let's get right into it.
Speaker 1: Tell us about your childhood. What was it like growing
Speaker 1: up in Chicago at that time?
Speaker 2: Life is great.
Speaker 3: Learned a lot of skills from my father, a lot
Speaker 3: of cooking skills from my mom. Kid, you know, went
Speaker 3: to school, boy scout, junior police officer, just did everything
Speaker 3: that the kid does, graduated, went to college.
Speaker 1: But his trajectory in life was interrupted by a mix
Speaker 1: of cannabis possession charges, which most people agreed should never
Speaker 1: have been a thing, and then the first of two
Speaker 1: wrongful convictions when he was about twenty three years old
Speaker 1: and charged for the actions of a juvenile family friend.
Speaker 3: I was with a young man and a young lady.
Speaker 3: I've been knowing a young man. His family's like family
Speaker 3: to meet. They was like sixteen seventeen, so he couldn't drive,
Speaker 3: So his mom gave me the car to take him
Speaker 3: to the store. And they went to the mall and
Speaker 3: we was all in there. I was doing something else
Speaker 3: and so I went looking for him, and J. C.
Speaker 3: Penny now said, I know I got bumba rushed by
Speaker 3: the police. So apparently they had picked him and her
Speaker 3: up from using a froggling credit card and they charged
Speaker 3: me with So.
Speaker 1: They stuck Roosevelt with his forgery charge rather than bothering
Speaker 1: with the two juveniles.
Speaker 3: But Daryl was on probation for maljuana offenses. Lawyer say, well,
Speaker 3: you got this other case, so you need to cop
Speaker 3: out now copped out, which I sunis should never because
Speaker 3: that wasn't my case.
Speaker 2: I did eighteen months.
Speaker 1: These are the wrongful convictions that we rarely ever even
Speaker 1: hear about, but they're probably the most prevalent where people
Speaker 1: just plead guilty and take a short sentence as a
Speaker 1: matter of being practical, they're avoiding the risk of losing
Speaker 1: a trial and multiplying the length of their sentence. So
Speaker 1: after eighteen months, Roosevelt parolled out and they began working
Speaker 1: for the Chicago Parks District, but his record kept them
Speaker 1: on the radar of police in November of nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 4: So on November sixteenth, nineteen ninety two, a sixteen year
Speaker 4: old by the name of Shaharan Brandon, who goes by
Speaker 4: the nickname Tony, was with his girlfriend, Octavius Morris, who
Speaker 4: is nicknamed Tweety. She was fifteen years old at the time,
Speaker 4: and the two of them were at her mother's house
Speaker 4: on the forty eight hundred block of West Washington Boulevard
Speaker 4: in Chicago, Illinois, and they decided at two thirty in
Speaker 4: the morning that they wanted to go get something to eat.
Speaker 4: Once outside, according to Morris, a gunman came up, said
Speaker 4: this is a stick up and fired several shots at Tony.
Speaker 4: She actually ran and she came back to the scene.
Speaker 4: Then police came and speak to any witnesses. So Octavia
Speaker 4: says that there were two shooters. One a teenage boy
Speaker 4: wearing all black clothing, that he was six feet tall,
Speaker 4: and she also says that she didn't see his face.
Speaker 4: And she said that she had seen another individual underneath
Speaker 4: the porch and she also described him as a teenager.
Speaker 3: Was a dogs young man feet eight feet nine teenager.
Speaker 4: Then there was another witness, she was a sex worker
Speaker 4: and she was down the block, and she says that
Speaker 4: she only saw one shooter, but both had described the
Speaker 4: shooter as teenager six feet tall. So those facts remained consistent.
Speaker 3: So the description these individuals never fit me at all,
Speaker 3: age and nothing. She's say fifteen to sixteen young men.
Speaker 3: I was twenty eight, so it could.
Speaker 2: Never matchin me.
Speaker 1: And that was more solidly confirmed shortly after the shooting.
Speaker 4: The original reports say that there were many individuals in
Speaker 4: the area on the sea. So Roosevelt he lived in
Speaker 4: the neighborhood. So he is picked up by two officers
Speaker 4: and taken over to the scene.
Speaker 3: Well, they didn't force me, Walt, They just walked with
Speaker 3: me over to the police car that was parked at
Speaker 3: the crime scene. And so when we got over there,
Speaker 3: they stum me back, come and the witness in the
Speaker 3: car say it wasn't me.
Speaker 4: Octavius and Sandra Birch, who is the sex worker down
Speaker 4: the street. They both knew him from the neighborhood and
Speaker 4: they both knew him as Blue, and they both tell
Speaker 4: the police, no, that wasn't him.
Speaker 5: I know, we know who that is.
Speaker 4: That's Blue, that he was not the shooter, okay, and
Speaker 4: the cops let him go.
Speaker 1: The two witnesses agreed that it wasn't Roosevelt, who they
Speaker 1: knew as Blue, but they did agree on the description
Speaker 1: of at least one of the shooters, a six foot
Speaker 1: tall teenager wearing dark clothing. But the investigation goes off
Speaker 1: the rails as Sandra Birch, with the trappings of her
Speaker 1: line of work, was vulnerable to coercion, and then Octavius
Speaker 1: also had a vulnerability. After all, Remember it's a little
Speaker 1: odd that despite her vantage point, she claimed that she
Speaker 1: had not seen the shooter's face.
Speaker 5: They assumed that Sweety knew more than she let on.
Speaker 4: It was actually the victim's family who brought it to
Speaker 4: the attention of the cops, and they thought that she
Speaker 4: may have known who the shooter was a former boyfriend.
Speaker 4: So there were some cops that were looking into that lead.
Speaker 4: But at some point we see a very well known
Speaker 4: disgraced officer, Anthony Wochik and his lackeys Rutherford and McDonald.
Speaker 4: Once Wochick gets involved, there was some transformation in the
Speaker 4: reports that instead of Sandra Birch saying I saw blue
Speaker 4: at the scene and told the officers it wasn't him,
Speaker 4: it turned into I saw Blue standing over the body
Speaker 4: at the time.
Speaker 5: Of the murder.
Speaker 1: Simultaneously, it appears Wochik turned up the pressure on Octavius.
Speaker 4: They went to her house multiple times and kept saying,
Speaker 4: we know it was blue, just say it was blue.
Speaker 4: And eventually she capitulated and she said it was blue.
Speaker 4: I mean, she's fifteen years old. She's scared the cops
Speaker 4: keep coming to her house. She does not have a
Speaker 4: clean background. She was part of a gang herself. She
Speaker 4: had a history of some criminal misconduct, and so they
Speaker 4: use that to basically persuade her and Sandra Burt to
Speaker 4: testify before the grand jury so that they have them
Speaker 4: under oath and then if they change their story, they
Speaker 4: can threaten them with perjury.
Speaker 1: And with both of their statements, they arrest the same
Speaker 1: man who both witnesses had cleared at the crime scene.
Speaker 2: Troll me a police say.
Speaker 3: You took me upstairs on the second floor into a
Speaker 3: interrogation room and they immediately handcuffed me to the bench.
Speaker 3: I was beaten by Detective Anthony Woji with a telephone
Speaker 3: book and a maglight to say I'd done something that
Speaker 3: I didn't do.
Speaker 2: I was choked and this process.
Speaker 3: Went on without being able to use to wash room
Speaker 3: or eat for two days. And at one point I
Speaker 3: told me, I started crying, you can kill me because
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna say nothing that I didn't do. I
Speaker 3: didn't allow them to be the confession out of me.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen to this
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Speaker 1: and ad free by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts. I don't believe we've ever heard of
Speaker 1: someone walking out of the Chicago interrogation room, which is
Speaker 1: really a torture room, let's call it what it is,
Speaker 1: having held on to their truth. It's remarkable, really, But nevertheless,
Speaker 1: they still had two witness statements, never mind how far
Speaker 1: their testimony departed from their original statements. But yet it
Speaker 1: still took all the way until January of nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: six to take Roosevelt to trial.
Speaker 4: There's reasons for why it was taking that long. So
Speaker 4: one thing that happened is we know Sandra Birch she
Speaker 4: had died. Another thing that happened. Roosevelt's public defenders go
Speaker 4: to see Tweety and she provides a handwritten and a
Speaker 4: typewritten statement to their investigators, basically saying, the police kept
Speaker 4: coming to my house and telling me to say that
Speaker 4: Blue is the one who did it and the only
Speaker 4: reason I said that it was blue is because they
Speaker 4: were forcing me to do and I don't know who
Speaker 4: the shooter was, but it was not blue. So they're
Speaker 4: scrambling to figure out their case, which is why continuance
Speaker 4: after continuance. They're figuring out what they can do. And
Speaker 4: what we see in the file is the victim's family
Speaker 4: member comes into the police station and says, my wife
Speaker 4: was out and was talking to a woman by the
Speaker 4: name of Deborah Lenore who said she was with Roosevelt
Speaker 4: on the night of the shooting with her brother at
Speaker 4: the dragons Den. So Roosevelt he actually was like a
Speaker 4: block and a half away when the shooting happened.
Speaker 5: He heard the shots.
Speaker 4: He was coming out of a friend of his house,
Speaker 4: and he saw a buddy of his, Michael Hooker, and
Speaker 4: then he went to the dragons Den later that night.
Speaker 3: Yes, a motorcycle MC. They have pool tournaments. I shoot
Speaker 3: pool and on Sunday nicest pool tournament time.
Speaker 1: According to statements from Debra Lenore and her brother Oliver
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety three, they did see Roosevelt that night
Speaker 1: when he was at the motorcycle club hours after the.
Speaker 4: Shooting, but then in nineteen ninety five, two years later,
Speaker 4: all of a sudden, there's this whole circumstantial story where
Speaker 4: he ran up to Deborah and Oliver after the shots,
Speaker 4: and it kind of just seemed a little sketchy that
Speaker 4: he was running out from where the shootings came from,
Speaker 4: and that ultimately ends up being the story that goes
Speaker 4: to trial. And I mean, even according to Tweety, from
Speaker 4: what we know now, Debora Lenor, who's also now deceased,
Speaker 4: she had a drug problem, was apparently being provided some
Speaker 4: drugs by the cops, at least that's what Tweety had
Speaker 4: mentioned to us. And so they take these individuals who
Speaker 4: are susceptible to coercion and they mold these stories into
Speaker 4: something that they want to tell to a jury that
Speaker 4: they think is sufficient to convict an innocent person like Roosevelt.
Speaker 1: After more than three long years in Cook County jail,
Speaker 1: the trial finally began in January nineteen ninety six, and
Speaker 1: by this time, the state's attorneys Milkititchen Lynch, along with
Speaker 1: the locked grand jury testimony and a threat of perjury,
Speaker 1: had Octavius back on her coerce story again.
Speaker 4: She flips back, and she says the reason she says
Speaker 4: it wasn't Blue is because she was scared that he
Speaker 4: was going to do something to her. So that's her
Speaker 4: reason for initially not saying that it was him, then
Speaker 4: saying that it was him, then saying that it wasn't him,
Speaker 4: and now testifying that it was him. So she testifies,
Speaker 4: and the jury hears that she provided a statement to
Speaker 4: the investigators, and it's messy. There are two cops that testify.
Speaker 4: One basically says, no, we only went to Octavius Morris's
Speaker 4: house once, we didn't go there five to six times.
Speaker 4: And then one officer testifies that after they interviewed a witness,
Speaker 4: they went looking for Blue.
Speaker 1: So the two officers testimony served to both clear up
Speaker 1: the messiness around Octavius Morris's recantation and gave the appearance
Speaker 1: that the suspicion of Roosevelt had come from an independent source.
Speaker 4: So the judge didn't let in that there was this witness,
Speaker 4: Sandra Birch. But there's an exception where it's like the
Speaker 4: course of the investigation, so you know, it makes it
Speaker 4: seem like there was a witness who identified Blue and
Speaker 4: that's what made them go look for him and.
Speaker 1: Without her there or even naming her, there was no
Speaker 1: way to impeach that evidence, perhaps raising how she hadn't
Speaker 1: identified Roosevelt at the show up and what made her
Speaker 1: change her version of events. And then there was a
Speaker 1: garbled and nonsensical, circumstantial evidence from Debra Lenore and her
Speaker 1: brother Oliver.
Speaker 4: Oliver had passed away actually at that point as well.
Speaker 4: So Deborah just testifies that basically this story of her
Speaker 4: walking down the street and Roosevelt just comes running up
Speaker 4: behind her and it's around the time of the shooting,
Speaker 4: and that's it. It's so far fetched, but these pieces
Speaker 4: being put together, apparently back in ninety six was sufficient
Speaker 4: for to convict him.
Speaker 3: Thinking I was gonna get a fair trial, thinking the
Speaker 3: lawyer that I had, mister even would represent me to
Speaker 3: the fullest. And when I sit down and heard the testimony,
Speaker 3: he barely object to a lot of what was brought out,
Speaker 3: especially things dealing with the dead prostitute that shouldn't have
Speaker 3: never been brought out.
Speaker 2: But they allowed Jewurry to hear this.
Speaker 3: Halfway through, I'd say, I I know I'm going to prison.
Speaker 3: If the jury would have knew how they all played
Speaker 3: out the scenario his whole case, I would have never
Speaker 3: been found.
Speaker 2: Guilty, but I didn't have a representation to do that.
Speaker 4: One thing about Roosevelt's public defender, he did try to
Speaker 4: get in a lot of things that the judge just
Speaker 4: would not allow him to get into. There were early
Speaker 4: on statements about the potential third party offender who was
Speaker 4: Octavius's former boyfriend, but he didn't do the work of
Speaker 4: really trying to explore that as much as she should have.
Speaker 4: And because he couldn't give the judge enough of a
Speaker 4: proffer related to that, he borrowed it from coming in.
Speaker 1: In addition, Roosevelt's attorney could have called his alibi witness,
Speaker 1: Michael Hooker. So that left Octavius Morris's fabricated identification and
Speaker 1: the circumstantial support, and somehow that was enough to send
Speaker 1: Roosevelt away for sixty years.
Speaker 3: So when they found me guilty, I just stood then shop,
Speaker 3: you know, I just stood.
Speaker 2: Dn't shop.
Speaker 3: The day I got sentenced, I asked Judge porter, can't
Speaker 3: see my parents?
Speaker 2: He denied me.
Speaker 3: Tell me they could pass me through. Why would you
Speaker 3: say that these are elderly people. He's my mom and dad.
Speaker 3: So that was the last time I saw my mom,
Speaker 3: and she passed away. Well, I was in prison, and
Speaker 3: she didn't ever come to see me because I didn't
Speaker 3: want to come see me.
Speaker 2: And that was the last time I saw it was
Speaker 2: a trial.
Speaker 3: Being shipped to Stateville was a whole different avenue. You
Speaker 3: ever been in a place and you just numb. I
Speaker 3: felt numb. And I got into sale with a guy
Speaker 3: I knowed. He was a little guy from the neighborhood.
Speaker 3: I come to find out his auntie's was my neighbors.
Speaker 3: I didn't even know that until we got to talking.
Speaker 3: But I felt somewhere okay, But you never okay. My
Speaker 3: life is never the same, you know, And s one night,
Speaker 3: I'm I'm in the sale, my CELLI at work by
Speaker 3: two and the more instorment and my next little neighbor
Speaker 3: killed his selling.
Speaker 2: That's trauma.
Speaker 3: Man being a m a grown man hollering, screaming, that's trauma.
Speaker 3: And I'm in here for somebody, and do I can
Speaker 3: honestly say that most of the staff was very supportive
Speaker 3: of my innocent because if you didn't see me at work,
Speaker 3: I was in the law light Berry. If I wasn't
Speaker 3: in a law light Beary, I was on a visit.
Speaker 3: I barely went to the yard, and that's how I
Speaker 3: gave him a bit. You know, my days was spent researching,
Speaker 3: and as she would tell you, I did so much work.
Speaker 3: I ran through three typewriters, you know, because I knew
Speaker 3: I was innocent. You know, Anderson fight for life, the
Speaker 3: guilty fight for a short period. I'm still fighting.
Speaker 1: After the boiler plate denials on direct appeal, Roosevelt did
Speaker 1: his post conviction fileingx pro sey, meaning on his own
Speaker 1: without an attorney, and that began with an affidavit from
Speaker 1: Michael Hooker, who had not only been with him, but
Speaker 1: had also seen him come out of his house after
Speaker 1: the shooting had already occurred.
Speaker 4: Michael Hooker was an alibi witness that Roosevelt had told
Speaker 4: it public defender about at the time, and he didn't
Speaker 4: call him at trial.
Speaker 5: He didn't get his affidavit and he didn't get his testimony.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the infant Custy accouncil fulfilure called my alibi witness.
Speaker 3: It was denied, and I peeled it and the season
Speaker 3: came back December two thousand and once I ready, I
Speaker 3: say I'm going home.
Speaker 4: Ultimately, Roosevelt was granted a hearing and evidentiary hearing after
Speaker 4: he did provide a affidavit from Michael Hooker basically saying
Speaker 4: that he was with him on the night when they
Speaker 4: heard the shots were fired.
Speaker 2: But I waited eighteen years is hearing.
Speaker 4: The judge just basically allows it to languish, So he
Speaker 4: is tossed around from public defender to public defender. He
Speaker 4: has one public defender who is actually doing really good
Speaker 4: work for him, but unfortunately he also died. The amount
Speaker 4: of people who have died in Roosevelt's case is actually insane.
Speaker 4: But another one takes over and just sits, and it
Speaker 4: sits and sits, and finally, in twenty seventeen, Roosevelt finds
Speaker 4: us the Bonjin Law Group. I remember it like it
Speaker 4: was yesterday. I was new from out of law school.
Speaker 4: I get this massive file from the public Defender's office
Speaker 4: that was fifteen thousand pages. And part of our responsibility
Speaker 4: as post conviction attorneys is we have to find new evidence, right,
Speaker 4: so we make efforts to go to Octavius's house multiple times.
Speaker 4: It seems like we weren't the only ones. The state
Speaker 4: was also trying to talk to her. At that time,
Speaker 4: there was a new conviction integrity unit at the Cook
Speaker 4: County States Attorney's Office, and we wrote to them, said,
Speaker 4: this case is so weak.
Speaker 5: There's no evidence.
Speaker 4: There's just this one recanted eyewitness identification that is not
Speaker 4: even legitimate because she says she didn't see the shooter's
Speaker 4: face in the beginning, and why are you sticking to this.
Speaker 4: So we thought we would maybe get played there.
Speaker 2: We didn't, and.
Speaker 4: We kept striking out with Octavius, and then all of
Speaker 4: a sudden, one day she decided to call our office
Speaker 4: and she said, I told.
Speaker 5: The police I knew who Blue was, and I knew
Speaker 5: it was not Blue.
Speaker 4: And she says, I remember the guy the officer's name,
Speaker 4: because it was my brother's name, and my brother's name
Speaker 4: was Tony, and Tony kept coming to my house and saying,
Speaker 4: this is the person who did it. And if you
Speaker 4: don't testify, then we're going to say that you were
Speaker 4: involved in the sho shooting and you knew who did it,
Speaker 4: or you had some responsibility.
Speaker 5: So you have to testify and say that it was
Speaker 5: Roosevelt's end of story. Done deal. So ultimately she.
Speaker 1: Does, and of course Tony was Detective Anthony Wochick. Octavius
Speaker 1: Morris later swore an Affidavid to exactly what she had
Speaker 1: said over the phone, exactly has she had said it
Speaker 1: when she recanted all those years ago to Roosevelt's trial attorney,
Speaker 1: And so Ashley amended Roosevelt's two thousand filing with this
Speaker 1: AFFI David.
Speaker 4: And one of the biggest things in our post conviction
Speaker 4: petition that we had filed. A lot of the new
Speaker 4: evidence was related to Anthony Wochik's pattern and practice of
Speaker 4: misconduct that has come to light over the years. Anthony
Speaker 4: Wochk rose the ranks through his thirty years at the
Speaker 4: Chicago Police Department with little to no supervision or discipline.
Speaker 4: There were scores of allegations and findings of misconduct against Wocheck.
Speaker 3: So I did afore you request and somebody gave me
Speaker 3: at the new Woji Police complain history, which they don't do,
Speaker 3: and I found out that he had forty three complaints
Speaker 3: against him.
Speaker 4: Early on in Wocheck's career, he was criminally prosecuted for
Speaker 4: beating up a man who was found in bed with
Speaker 4: some female lover of his and the case was dismissed.
Speaker 4: That was the beginning of his career, and he still
Speaker 4: rose the ranks. He went police officer, detective, sergeant, lieutenant,
Speaker 4: like they did nothing about this problem officer all these
Speaker 4: years and the exoneration project in Chicago, you know, Carl
Speaker 4: Leonard and David Owens, they did a lot of legwork
Speaker 4: getting will Check pattern and practice witnesses. And during one
Speaker 4: of our post conviction hearings for two other individuals Canaan
Speaker 4: Abrago to here, victims of Detective will Check, we put
Speaker 4: on I want to say, fourteen different witnesses, former police officers,
Speaker 4: to public defenders, to inmates, who provided compelling evidence of
Speaker 4: misconduct throughout his career and he was untouchable. And he
Speaker 4: used that to corese confessions, manipulate witnesses, to frame innocent people,
Speaker 4: and he got away with it. Detective Willcheck eventually retired
Speaker 4: in May twenty sixteen after the Office of the Inspector
Speaker 4: General found that he had committed a litany of violations,
Speaker 4: including making false reports, during the investigation of the events
Speaker 4: that led up to Laqwan McDonald's shooting.
Speaker 1: In case you don't remember, Lakwan MacDonald was a seventeen
Speaker 1: year old kid who was alleged to have been walking
Speaker 1: down the street in Chicago welding a knife and was
Speaker 1: shot by officer Jason van Dyck after he allegedly refused
Speaker 1: to drop the weapon, and the police reports from multiple
Speaker 1: officers were pretty much identical as to what had happened.
Speaker 3: So Wojet was the supervisor lieutenant in his case, but
Speaker 3: he got a call from up higher and the call
Speaker 3: was told him, I get that, didn't write Tony.
Speaker 2: Can't you make this case go away? How you make
Speaker 2: the case go away? You lieutenant? You investigate cases.
Speaker 4: After Lakwan MacDonald was shot, Anthony Wiochik basically helped officers
Speaker 4: make a bunch of reports.
Speaker 2: And he wrote that this was just a Bible homicide.
Speaker 1: But then video emerged showing that Lakwan had been murdered,
Speaker 1: Let's call it what it is, shot sixteen times, despite
Speaker 1: having complied with Officer Van Dyke's order, and he was
Speaker 1: not a threat. In fact, when he was killed, he
Speaker 1: was walking away.
Speaker 2: And everybody say that it just one apple and the
Speaker 2: barrel is just right. No, the barrol is writing.
Speaker 1: And so with Octavius Morris's affie David, supported by Wolchik's
Speaker 1: pattern and practice evidence, Ashley, along with Jennifer bon Jean,
Speaker 1: finally was able to get him back into court in
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2: And they gave me the hearing.
Speaker 3: Remember I say eighteen years, right, It took the Jewish
Speaker 3: less than five minutes. Did deny my post deviction.
Speaker 1: Roosevelt's trial judge from nineteen ninety six, Judge Porter, after
Speaker 1: waiting eighteen years to follow through on the hearing he
Speaker 1: granted back in two thousand, dismissed the ineffective assistance of
Speaker 1: council claim as untimely. Yeah. So while I try to
Speaker 1: compose myself and get my shit together off, Mike Roosevelt
Speaker 1: can tell us about how, instead of the justice he deserved,
Speaker 1: he was paroled out after twenty eight years of his
Speaker 1: sixty year sentence.
Speaker 3: So I got paroled two years short of thirty years
Speaker 3: because of good conduct credit. I received my Pearl Loue
Speaker 3: certificated state buil they county that worked twenty one years
Speaker 3: in correctional industry.
Speaker 2: So I got good time for that. So I was
Speaker 2: released two years earl.
Speaker 3: But the same time that I was a release in
Speaker 3: the Tedi court decision that came down stating did I
Speaker 3: get an evidentiary hearing?
Speaker 4: Once we got back, we get back to judge Porter
Speaker 4: recuses himself. We go to a second judge, Judge Rain's
Speaker 4: Judge Rains. There's a whole other story there that involves
Speaker 4: Jenny and Judge Rains being caught.
Speaker 5: On a hot mic.
Speaker 1: Judge Rains was on a zoom call that he thought
Speaker 1: had ended, and he said something about Jennifer Bonjing to
Speaker 1: the effect of, man, can you imagine waking up to
Speaker 1: her every morning? Now? I find miss Bonding to be
Speaker 1: a particularly wonderful individual, So I'm not sure what this
Speaker 1: guy's problem was, But either way, those zoom calls were
Speaker 1: recorded and they got leaked, it went viral.
Speaker 4: He ends up not only recusing himself but having to
Speaker 4: go to judge jail. So then finally we find ourselves
Speaker 4: in front of Judge Howard, and she presided over Cain
Speaker 4: and Abrigo's evidentiary hearing. So she had been a little
Speaker 4: familiar with Anthony Wochik and all the pattern in practice.
Speaker 4: And we get ready to go to our hearing December fifth,
Speaker 4: twenty twenty two. He was locked up December seventh, in
Speaker 4: nineteen ninety two, it was almost to the day Octavius
Speaker 4: Morris shows up. We're all ready to go, and the
Speaker 4: state's attorney, Todd Dombrowski, says that they're going to agree
Speaker 4: to post conviction relief and dismiss the charges and vacated
Speaker 4: his conviction.
Speaker 3: So I came home in twenty twenty and twenty twenty two,
Speaker 3: I was desgonerated. Twenty twenty four, I got a certificate
Speaker 3: and isdent.
Speaker 4: You have to affirmatively prove that you're actually innocent, which
Speaker 4: I by statue in Illinois, if you are actually innocent,
Speaker 4: you could be entitled to compensation. I think it maxes
Speaker 4: out around two hundred and fifty five thousand, two hundred
Speaker 4: and seventy five thousand dollars. And we're like, great, they're
Speaker 4: not going to intervene in this. The State's not going
Speaker 4: to take a position because they vacated his charges.
Speaker 5: But lo and behold they did.
Speaker 1: This decision really struck me as strange. The current office
Speaker 1: has done really great work and has been very transparent
Speaker 1: in acknowledging the city's dark past and those responsible for
Speaker 1: many of whom have been repeatedly profiled here John Birge
Speaker 1: and the Midnight Crew detectives Guevara and Halverson. But despite
Speaker 1: the condemning evidence against Anthony Wochick. They'd go so far
Speaker 1: as to try to leave Roosevelt in limbo. Charge is dismissed,
Speaker 1: but not willing to admit to and endorse his innocence
Speaker 1: as they clearly should.
Speaker 4: Wichuk is a very big problem for the city of Chicago.
Speaker 4: But for some reason, and I'm noticing a lot like
Speaker 4: the Cook County State's Attorney's office. While they're willing to
Speaker 4: admit that Guevara was a bad officer, they are not
Speaker 4: willing to admit that Wochik was a bad officer. They
Speaker 4: will do whatever to protect that man. And when that happens,
Speaker 4: it seems to me that there has to be some
Speaker 4: other reason why. There is some political something going on
Speaker 4: that suggests that there is a reason to protect him.
Speaker 1: But eventually there's a little light at the end of
Speaker 1: this long, miserable tunnel.
Speaker 4: July thirty first, we went to a five hour, contentious
Speaker 4: hearing arguing the state was trying to say that he
Speaker 4: can't affirmatively prove his innocence, and the judge same day
Speaker 4: said this case had slim evidence to begin with, and
Speaker 4: there is no evidence to rebut what Roosevelt is saying,
Speaker 4: so he gets his certificate of innocence.
Speaker 5: End of story.
Speaker 1: I wish you all the best in the civil litigation, Roosevelt.
Speaker 1: There's no amount that they could ever forgive you that
Speaker 1: would make up for this. But in the meantime, is
Speaker 1: there anything that you'd like, any action steps that you'd
Speaker 1: like our audience to take.
Speaker 3: I won't tell the audience. You know I'm doing good.
Speaker 3: I have no profit organization in por call help break
Speaker 3: the chain. I'vedafted the school while go in I do
Speaker 3: one on ones with students and small groups, and I
Speaker 3: try to better myself each and every day. God wakes
Speaker 3: me up and give me life. Everything got the that
Speaker 3: I'd give back to him, So I'm not bitter. I
Speaker 3: just hate that I lost my parents seven months apart
Speaker 3: in sixteen to seventeen. But I know they watch his
Speaker 3: old me, every movie, every step I make, and I'm
Speaker 3: just happy to have my Earth angels in my corn.
Speaker 2: Ashley and Jennifer.
Speaker 3: These young ladies brought me out of here, out of Pitiphire,
Speaker 3: and brought me to life, gave me life back as
Speaker 3: they do.
Speaker 2: With so many others.
Speaker 3: We're family, That's all I can say. We're family, and
Speaker 3: I'd just like to see Woji have his day in
Speaker 3: court where everybody sees his true clothes and who this
Speaker 3: man really is.
Speaker 1: Amen to that, and we're going to have your nonprofit
Speaker 1: linked in the episode description, so for anyone who wants
Speaker 1: to get involved, please check it out. And with that
Speaker 1: we go now to closing arguments, where first of all,
Speaker 1: I thank both of you again for sharing this unbelievable story.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna kick back in my chair with my microphone
Speaker 1: off and my headphones on and just listen to anything
Speaker 1: else you want to share. Ashley, you go first, and
Speaker 1: then Roosevelt, you take us off into the sunset.
Speaker 5: For the sixty year in a row.
Speaker 4: Chicago ranked the first in the number of exonerations across
Speaker 4: the United States. They are the wrongful conviction cap of
Speaker 4: the world. They've paid over seven hundred and thirty five
Speaker 4: million dollars in connection with lawsuits for wrongful convictions. The
Speaker 4: number does not consider the attorney's fees and the cost
Speaker 4: paid to private firms to defend these unwinnable cases, and
Speaker 4: there's over two hundred wrongful conviction cases currently pending in
Speaker 4: the Northern District of Illinois right now. There were issues
Speaker 4: back in the nineties in the eighties. That really hurt
Speaker 4: a lot of people, and it should trigger something in
Speaker 4: the City of Chicago to say, you know what, we
Speaker 4: really need to evaluate these cases. We need to look
Speaker 4: at these individuals, assess their cases early on, and provide compensation.
Speaker 4: I mean, Roosevelt's sixty years old. He doesn't want to
Speaker 4: spend the next seven years fighting in court. He'd be
Speaker 4: open to a reasonable settlement amount for what he went through,
Speaker 4: because we all know there's absolutely no amount of money
Speaker 4: that can compensate somebody for wrongful conviction. Give them the
Speaker 4: opportunity to rebuild their life and to start a new
Speaker 4: and fairly, and then maybe you'll save some money. Maybe
Speaker 4: don't think about you know, oh, how it's going to
Speaker 4: hurt your pocket. Now, think about down the road. It's
Speaker 4: going to hurt a lot more when the city goes
Speaker 4: bankrupt because they have twenty two hundred wrongful conviction cases
Speaker 4: that they have to pay out astronomical money and also
Speaker 4: two attorneys fees. It's just it's so short sighted, and
Speaker 4: there really needs to be somebody who comes in who
Speaker 4: looks at these cases for what they are early on
Speaker 4: and figures out how to settle them in a way
Speaker 4: that makes the individual on the other side happy enough.
Speaker 5: To move on with their life. It's a real problem,
Speaker 5: and I really hope somebody can figure this out for
Speaker 5: all of them.
Speaker 3: All right, I like, thank lover and you guys doing
Speaker 3: what y'all do. It helps show America what Chicago's really
Speaker 3: about when it comes to these wrongful convictions.
Speaker 2: We need to take the whole justice.
Speaker 3: System, ill know, and get it Redone need a due over,
Speaker 3: just like you're doing makeover.
Speaker 2: Need a due over.
Speaker 3: I wrote DOJ a Baptist years ago, and they wrote
Speaker 3: me back and said they gonna work on it. Yet
Speaker 3: it still hasn't happened, But now one of the former
Speaker 3: lawyers on my case is working to change it. We
Speaker 3: need change because if we don't, it's gonna be a
Speaker 3: whole lot of payment coming. And it's a lot of
Speaker 3: people that's in prison for wrongful conviction, not count the
Speaker 3: people that didn't even fight it and came home from
Speaker 3: these wrongful convictions.
Speaker 2: You know, I know a lot of them. They gave up.
Speaker 2: So I just wanted us to be back right right,
Speaker 2: society back right, man.
Speaker 3: You know, we need to get let the legislators and
Speaker 3: they'll know to sit down and go to work on it,
Speaker 3: because it's a bill out now where they'll pay me
Speaker 3: zero point five million for my cl I.
Speaker 2: All you got to do is sign that bill, quitn
Speaker 2: sitting on it. But I'm here.
Speaker 3: I'm here to testify that God is good, people are good,
Speaker 3: and I know that our lesson lady got some type
Speaker 3: of goods in their heart where they see this, because
Speaker 3: my case should never happened and it should never linger
Speaker 3: in court for twenty two years like it done.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
Speaker 1: to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
Speaker 1: week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for
Speaker 1: Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our
Speaker 1: production team, Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as
Speaker 1: my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cliburn.
Speaker 1: The music in this production was supplied by three time
Speaker 1: OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
Speaker 1: across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram
Speaker 1: at It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is the production of
Speaker 1: Lava for Good podcasts in association with signal company Number
Speaker 1: one