Speaker 1: On the night of January ten, two thousand nine, forty
Speaker 1: three year old Jerome Loach was performing as one of
Speaker 1: the leads in a church play in South Philadelphia. At
Speaker 1: the same time, police were responding to a home invasion
Speaker 1: in West Philadelphia in which two men forced themselves into
Speaker 1: a home at gunpoint, confronting three women. Nothing was stolen
Speaker 1: and no one was hurt. As police arrived, they saw
Speaker 1: two men running away and arrested Sophie pat and Jesse Higgins.
Speaker 1: One of the victims stated that there was a third
Speaker 1: man in Bob that In Vat's original statement, he said
Speaker 1: that he didn't know the person, but under threat of
Speaker 1: deportation and other charges by investigators, Fat changed his story
Speaker 1: to say that the third man was his employer at
Speaker 1: a barbershop, Jerome Loach. Jerome was arrested and charged with
Speaker 1: forty two counts, but prior to trial, Bat recanted his identification,
Speaker 1: citing pressure from investigators. Despite this, the prosecution read Bat's
Speaker 1: prior statement to the jury in light of the actual
Speaker 1: exculpatory phone records. An investigator misled the jury with fabricated
Speaker 1: phone records to tie Jerome into the crime. When the
Speaker 1: defense failed to present Jerome's alibi or to expose the
Speaker 1: fake phone records. Jerome was convicted and sentenced to fifty years.
Speaker 1: Jerome was able to win an evidentury hearing in which
Speaker 1: he was able to present his alibi and expose the
Speaker 1: fraudulent phone records, proving both ineffective assistance of counsel and
Speaker 1: prosecutorial misconduct, ultimately setting himself free after a decade in prison.
Speaker 1: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful Conviction. I'm
Speaker 1: your host, Jason Flom. Today's episode would actually be better
Speaker 1: as a comedy if it wasn't so incredibly sinister and
Speaker 1: if the consequences were it's so terror of this ridiculous
Speaker 1: frame job. And when I say that, I'm talking about
Speaker 1: Jerome Loach. So, Jerome, first of all, welcome to wrong
Speaker 1: for Conviction. I'm sorry you're here, but I'm happy you're here.
Speaker 1: Thank you and the audience for allowing me to come
Speaker 1: before y'all and share my story. So, Jerome, you grew
Speaker 1: up in Philadelphia, Is that right? Yes? Phil Listen, what
Speaker 1: was your life like growing up and what were your
Speaker 1: interactions with law enforcement before this crazy day? Essentially, I
Speaker 1: grew up in a single parent household. My father passed
Speaker 1: away when I was about ten years old. That left
Speaker 1: my mother to raise six children. I took to the
Speaker 1: streets at a every young age, I wind up getting
Speaker 1: caught up in little nick knack crimes, nothing serious, but
Speaker 1: just getting caught up with the wrong crowd. All my
Speaker 1: other siblings they want to growing up to become successful entrepreneurs, ministers.
Speaker 1: My brother he went on his served twenty five years
Speaker 1: in the army, and so I was the only one
Speaker 1: that made that wrong turn. I was young at the time.
Speaker 1: I served my time, and during my incarceration, I went
Speaker 1: to the University of Pittsburgh, went to college. I wind
Speaker 1: up getting a couple of trades. One of the main
Speaker 1: trade was in barbering, and I wind up getting my license.
Speaker 1: I transformed that and wind up getting my manager's license,
Speaker 1: And so when I come back home, I wind up
Speaker 1: getting into real estate and opening up a barbershop. Once
Speaker 1: I opened up the barbershop, I felt the need to
Speaker 1: want to give back, and so those individuals that was
Speaker 1: returning home, ex offenders and things to that nature, who
Speaker 1: had their barber license, I would hire them at my barbershop,
Speaker 1: you know, give them like a second chance, like I
Speaker 1: got a second chance to try to get their life
Speaker 1: in order. And in doing this, one individual that I
Speaker 1: wind up hiring was an individual by the name of
Speaker 1: Sophie fat And this is how this story and my
Speaker 1: life began to take a change. Yeah, it adds a
Speaker 1: layer of tragedy to this awful injustice because it impacted
Speaker 1: you in your family, but also the opportunities that you
Speaker 1: were providing for people who really needed those opportunities. Let's
Speaker 1: go back to the case itself, so that nine fifteen,
Speaker 1: on January ten, two thousand and nine, the Philadelphia Police
Speaker 1: responded to a report of a home invasion in the
Speaker 1: Cobbs Creek neighborhood of West Philadelphia. Now, three women were
Speaker 1: in the house, and they said that a man knocked
Speaker 1: on the door pretending to be a pizza delivery guy.
Speaker 1: He and another man forced their way in at gunpoint.
Speaker 1: But here's where it gets really weird, right. They asked
Speaker 1: one of the women where her boyfriend was. She said
Speaker 1: she didn't know, and soon they left without taking anything,
Speaker 1: sort of apologetically, from what I understand, they were like,
Speaker 1: you know, sorry, we bothered you type of thing I mean.
Speaker 1: And in the end, nobody was hurt and nothing was stolen. Okay,
Speaker 1: very unusual set of circumstances here. So then the police
Speaker 1: approached the so they saw two guys running away, and
Speaker 1: they arrested two guys, a guy named Sophie Fat and
Speaker 1: Jesse Higgins. They recovered a bandanna and a gun holster
Speaker 1: from Higgins at a tourist revolver from an alley where
Speaker 1: Higgins was found running. The women identified both of the
Speaker 1: guys as the home invaders and said that during the invasion,
Speaker 1: this is an important point, Higgins had perceived a call
Speaker 1: and turned to Fat and said let's go right before
Speaker 1: they left. Especially, they're both charged with Berkeley conspiracy to
Speaker 1: permit Berkeley. So one of the women said there was
Speaker 1: a third person, a black man in his twenties, about
Speaker 1: six ft tall, with the tan jack and jeans, who
Speaker 1: got away. Now, she told the least that one of
Speaker 1: the other women might have known this man, implying that
Speaker 1: the home invasion had been a set up. Sophie Fat
Speaker 1: made a statement to Detective John Drewting on January eleven
Speaker 1: that he didn't know who this third man was, besides
Speaker 1: that his nickname was Rome. So, Jerome, did you match
Speaker 1: the description of that person in any meaningful way. No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm about twice that age number at that particular time,
Speaker 1: mid forties. My built. Everything was totally opposite. Nothing about
Speaker 1: her description match me. And we know that to be
Speaker 1: true because afterwards, a year or so later, when my
Speaker 1: picture was given to all the victims, they all said
Speaker 1: they could not identify me, that they didn't know who
Speaker 1: I was. Sophie Fat, in his original statement, he never
Speaker 1: said that there was three people that came in the house.
Speaker 1: He said that it was another person that was involved
Speaker 1: in the planning, and that this person came to the
Speaker 1: house but never came in the house. Sophie Fat also
Speaker 1: stated that he was upstairs and he came downstairs and
Speaker 1: that's when the second person, Jesse, said we have to go.
Speaker 1: Sophie Fat never claimed in his first statement that he
Speaker 1: heard a phone call. He's seen a phone call, none
Speaker 1: of that. And Jesse of versus Jesse Higgins, who was
Speaker 1: Sophie Fats co defendant, and in October that year it
Speaker 1: had been ten months since the crime, Sophie Fat made
Speaker 1: a deal with prosecutors. And this happens again and again
Speaker 1: where people receive almost an offer they can't refuse and
Speaker 1: exchange for implicating basically anybody else. So in this new statement,
Speaker 1: Fat now said that you, Jerome, were involved in the
Speaker 1: invasion and were the person he had previously identified as Rome.
Speaker 1: He said that you persuaded him to commit the home
Speaker 1: invasion to pay off a debt, and that you had
Speaker 1: been there during the robbery, had given Fat, who posed
Speaker 1: as a pizza deliver, or a gun, and had texted
Speaker 1: Higgins during the crime. So what do you think caused
Speaker 1: him to finger you? I mean, other than the obvious,
Speaker 1: which was that he had to pick someone out if
Speaker 1: he wanted to take some of the heat off of himself. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know what was in fats mine, but what
Speaker 1: I do know is that Fat came under a lot
Speaker 1: of pressure from the police officers. They was threatening with deportation,
Speaker 1: they was threatening with fifty years, all types of stuff.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's sad because you're a guy who had
Speaker 1: given Fat an opportunity working in your barbershop. So it's
Speaker 1: almost like a Shakespearean twist to this whole thing for
Speaker 1: him to come forward and implicate you. So this crazy
Speaker 1: case began under the District Attorney Lynn Abraham, who was
Speaker 1: wrapping up a very checkered twenty year tenure, to say
Speaker 1: the least. But her successor was the newly elected Seth Williams,
Speaker 1: and when he picked up this case, he decided to
Speaker 1: make it an example of how tough on crime he was.
Speaker 1: And so jero on December nineteen nine, you were charged
Speaker 1: with forty two counts related to the incident, including two
Speaker 1: counts of robbery and single counts of criminal conspiracy, burglary,
Speaker 1: fALS of prisonent, terroristic threats, had attempted theft, but neither
Speaker 1: fat nor Higgins had been charged with the majority of
Speaker 1: these alleged crimes, and then you were arrested January four,
Speaker 1: two thousand ten. That but here's the thing. We haven't
Speaker 1: even scratched the surface on this insanity, because what adds
Speaker 1: another huge layer to all of this is your alibi.
Speaker 1: Your airtight alibi. I mean, in the world of alibis,
Speaker 1: yours was truly top tier. If someone can get convicted
Speaker 1: with an alibi like yours, then nobody is saved from this.
Speaker 1: So tell us what you were doing at exactly the
Speaker 1: time that this crazy situation was unfolding, At the time
Speaker 1: that this whole thing was unfolding. I was performing and
Speaker 1: a play called Clean Up Your Own Mess. It was
Speaker 1: a church play and it had two viewings. What doing
Speaker 1: the afternoon? And what do you want to even the time?
Speaker 1: I'm one of the league characters in this play. You know, billboards,
Speaker 1: paste ubs, everything showing that I'm at this play and
Speaker 1: why was that this play? This crown was going on?
Speaker 1: So how many people were there? You know, we look
Speaker 1: a at over a hundred people, so that was there
Speaker 1: at display. So again, there's not too many cases I've
Speaker 1: ever heard of where you have over a hundred alibi witnesses. Now,
Speaker 1: your first attorney didn't even investigate the alibi, right, which
Speaker 1: would not be a difficult alibi to investigate. I mean,
Speaker 1: you throw a stick out there and you'd hit one
Speaker 1: of the witnesses, so you replaced her, and the new
Speaker 1: attorney said he would investigate it and presented a trial.
Speaker 1: But as the case approached the time of trial, that
Speaker 1: attorney told you and your family that he couldn't present
Speaker 1: his alibi defense because the first attorney failed to give
Speaker 1: adequate notice to the court. I mean, it's just unbelievable.
Speaker 1: But there you were heading into your trial and there's
Speaker 1: yet another statement from Sophie Fat please tell us about that.
Speaker 1: So once he gave his statement, a month later he
Speaker 1: gave another state man and guess what. It exonerated me
Speaker 1: everything before I even go to trial, Before anything happens,
Speaker 1: he said, Hey, hold up a lot. This man never
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with this case. I made it
Speaker 1: up because I was trying to get a better deal.
Speaker 1: And so when we go to trial, he takes the
Speaker 1: stand and he told them over after he was badged
Speaker 1: by the d A, he said, listen, this man he
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with this case a lie, and
Speaker 1: they didn't want to believe that. They went so far
Speaker 1: as to say that I may have gotten somebody to
Speaker 1: get at hell. Well, that didn't work because he wind
Speaker 1: up saying, hey, I'm the leader of an Asian game
Speaker 1: and I'm not afraid of none of this. He hasn't
Speaker 1: been threatened, that no one has been approached. They didn't
Speaker 1: want to believe that. So two of the women testified
Speaker 1: and didn't identify you, Fat game clean and said that
Speaker 1: you had nothing to do with this, that he had
Speaker 1: lied previously because he was threatened with deportation. And then Higgins,
Speaker 1: who pleaded guilty, didn't testify at all. So the prosecutors
Speaker 1: had basically nothing to go on at this point, so
Speaker 1: they had to make up something, right, and that's where
Speaker 1: these phantom phone records come in. We've been doing this
Speaker 1: show for over five years, two hundred and fifty episodes
Speaker 1: or whatever. I don't think i've ever heard this one.
Speaker 1: Just follow along with me for a second here. Okay,
Speaker 1: So prosecutors used phone records to try to show that
Speaker 1: you were involved, right, What they actually showed was that
Speaker 1: you weren't involved. The original records they suppeeded in two
Speaker 1: thousand nine were almost completely exculpatory for you. Higgins' phone
Speaker 1: showed no local calls at all on the day of
Speaker 1: the crime, so that blows it up right there. Then
Speaker 1: the police assumed that the records were wrong, so they
Speaker 1: weren't introduced into evidence. Let me just say that again.
Speaker 1: Police assumed that the records, which weren't wrong, because they
Speaker 1: couldn't have been wrong, we're wrong. Then they used a
Speaker 1: digital tool called a Universal Forensic Extraction Device to get
Speaker 1: records directly from the phone. But this also showed no
Speaker 1: calls or text between Taggin's and you on the day
Speaker 1: of the crime. So okay, again should be case closed,
Speaker 1: but nope. So this is where Detective Christopher Tank Kello
Speaker 1: Wis ended up going into Higgins's phone and looking at
Speaker 1: the call log. Now a trial, he testified as an
Speaker 1: expert in digital forensics, said that he quote manually extracted
Speaker 1: twenty five calls between the phone allegedly belonged to Higgins
Speaker 1: and a phone registered to Loach, his wife. He manually extracted,
Speaker 1: but I'm trying to figure out what that means. He
Speaker 1: also said he found at text from the Loach phone
Speaker 1: to the Higgins phone, made a few hours before the
Speaker 1: home invasion, and this info was contained in a quote
Speaker 1: unquote supplemental report that Detective Tank Hello Wicks attached to
Speaker 1: the u f e D report. So, I mean, Jerome,
Speaker 1: what the hell man? This here? It pains me to
Speaker 1: talk about it a lot of times. Essentially, what happened
Speaker 1: was that because the young lady said that there was
Speaker 1: a phone call, they needed something to corroborate that. They
Speaker 1: then got Sophie Fat and then instead of Sophie Fat
Speaker 1: saying that it was a phone call, he slips and
Speaker 1: say that it was a text message and its own
Speaker 1: record now has that never came out? I probably still
Speaker 1: would be during fifty years in prison. Detective John Judy,
Speaker 1: he was the lead detective in this case and he
Speaker 1: was the one who obtained the phone records a year
Speaker 1: before I even got arrested Sophie Fat and Mr Higgins
Speaker 1: was already convicted a year before me. And so Judy
Speaker 1: goes on the stamp. He's talking insane things about the
Speaker 1: phone records. So we had to get when he said
Speaker 1: them and compared to what he's saying a year later now.
Speaker 1: And so when he got the phone records back then,
Speaker 1: he said that there was no local phone calls on
Speaker 1: Mr Higgins phone records. He then looked at Sophie Fat
Speaker 1: phone records and there was again no phone calls between us,
Speaker 1: so that was a problem. He then turned around and
Speaker 1: he got with a detective named Christopher Tank Colorist. He
Speaker 1: was a detective who moonlighted as an expert in forensics. Mr.
Speaker 1: Tank Colors had the phone records from A T and
Speaker 1: T and Sprint. Both of these phone companies basically said
Speaker 1: there is no phone calls during this time period. That
Speaker 1: equates it's the lochest phone to these phones. Not not
Speaker 1: only that the phone company said this phone itself do
Speaker 1: not have the capabilities to make texts, but they withheld
Speaker 1: all of that. Tank Kelli was said, let's use a
Speaker 1: universal for hisic distraction device. This is the device that
Speaker 1: FBI and everybody else uses to extract information from phones
Speaker 1: and computers. And he plugged that into the phone and
Speaker 1: in two minutes it extracted no phone calls. And this
Speaker 1: is what thank Kelly was testified to after the report
Speaker 1: that none of this stuff was in that phone. He
Speaker 1: then picked up the phone a day two days later,
Speaker 1: and miraculously he sees twenty five phone calls and a
Speaker 1: text message all around the time of this crown. So
Speaker 1: he saw twenty five calls that A T and T
Speaker 1: had in controvertial evidence never happened, and a text match.
Speaker 1: Since then A T and T said the phone was
Speaker 1: incapable of sending I mean, this is this is really
Speaker 1: dark stuff. And it gets crazier because we say Higgins phone,
Speaker 1: well that was a lie. It wasn't even his phone.
Speaker 1: Sprint wind up sending records saying that Higgins never owned
Speaker 1: the phone, that this phone that they're looking at belongs
Speaker 1: to someone else, and they misrepresented the facts, They concealed
Speaker 1: the evidence, you know, and they made it all appeared
Speaker 1: to be something that it wasn't. Sprint records came back
Speaker 1: and said those was no calls. A T and T said,
Speaker 1: those wasn't calls. A T and T said that phone
Speaker 1: can't even text. But that's where when you say manually extract,
Speaker 1: that sounds real technical. But all he did was picked
Speaker 1: the phone up and looked at it, a phone that
Speaker 1: supposedly been sitting in evidence for over a year. So
Speaker 1: you're saying that every other police officer or detective before
Speaker 1: tank calibers who had that phone looked at this phone
Speaker 1: and they didn't see none of this because Detective Drudi
Speaker 1: said that in order for him to get the phone
Speaker 1: number from that phone, he had to turn it all
Speaker 1: and look through the phone, and he said he could
Speaker 1: not find nothing in the phone. That's because there was
Speaker 1: nothing in the phone. And it still gets crazier from
Speaker 1: here because the police also had Mr Fat's phone records,
Speaker 1: which showed a call at and nine oh seven to
Speaker 1: the phone registered to your wife, right, because he was
Speaker 1: somebody who worked for you and you knew him, right.
Speaker 1: But equally important, the phone continued to be used after
Speaker 1: fats arrest at nine pm on January ten, two thousand nine.
Speaker 1: So Detective Druling testified the Fat would have had his
Speaker 1: phone confiscated upon arrest. Of course he would, and he
Speaker 1: was unable to explain these additional calls. That's crazy. So
Speaker 1: the prosecutor closed by referencing the text from you to
Speaker 1: Higgins and said that the phone records showed a coordinated
Speaker 1: effort by the three of you. Loach, Fatten Higgins. He said, quote,
Speaker 1: at nine oh seven pm, the robbery is underway. Sophie
Speaker 1: Fat is in the middle of this robbery. Who does
Speaker 1: he call? He calls the defendant. Why would he do that?
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, There were twenty five phone calls that day. Now,
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but I can't remember the
Speaker 1: last time I called someone times in a day. The
Speaker 1: only way that's happening, something very important must be happening.
Speaker 1: Think about it's something in your life. You know, a baby,
Speaker 1: you know a job promotion, You get on the phone,
Speaker 1: you keep calling people. Well, this robbery is important. It's
Speaker 1: important to the defendant, it's important to Fat and Higgins.
Speaker 1: End quote. What a steaming pile of bullshit that is.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's the quote from the closing argument,
Speaker 1: what is wrong with these people? So during the liberations,
Speaker 1: jurors asked to review the cell phone records for Higgins.
Speaker 1: Prosecutors told the judge that they didn't have the actual
Speaker 1: record us to supplemental report. So they withheld the real records,
Speaker 1: they substituted this quote unquote supplemental report, and that was
Speaker 1: what was given to the jurors. I actually feel sick
Speaker 1: for the jurors because they were sitting there having no
Speaker 1: ability to make a decision based on facts. You absolutely
Speaker 1: hit it on the nail. I do not funk the jury.
Speaker 1: They only go on with it's in it before them,
Speaker 1: and the jury acts three times, we want to see
Speaker 1: those phone records from Sprint. And that's when the DA said, Yaha,
Speaker 1: we don't have those, and the judgs was kind of
Speaker 1: like taking it back, like, huh, well was we're using
Speaker 1: during the trial. He said, oh, that was a report
Speaker 1: that was prepared by the detective. And the judge said, well,
Speaker 1: they don't want to see that. They want to see
Speaker 1: the actual phone records. And so they asked the jury, listen,
Speaker 1: we don't have the phone records. Do y'all want to
Speaker 1: see the report? That's the only thing we have, and
Speaker 1: the jury took this and they convicted me. I do
Speaker 1: not fut the jury for what they did because they
Speaker 1: only went on what was besent it before them. So
Speaker 1: the jury convicted you of criminal conspiracy on eleven, but
Speaker 1: it quitted you on all the other charges. So that
Speaker 1: moment when the jury came back in, I mean, you
Speaker 1: had seen what these people were capable of, and you've
Speaker 1: been through a lot of insanity already. Did you still
Speaker 1: hold out hope that you were going to be exonerated
Speaker 1: and the truth would come out? And what was it
Speaker 1: like to find out that you were going to prison
Speaker 1: for fifty years? I honestly believe I was gonna be
Speaker 1: exonerated because I knew I was innocent. But when that
Speaker 1: body came back, it took everything out of me. And
Speaker 1: the only way that I can explain it, and my
Speaker 1: soul was strict. When they gave me fifty years, I
Speaker 1: couldn't believe this. I said, I know my life ain't
Speaker 1: going and like this is y'all kidning me? Like wake
Speaker 1: me up? Is this a nightmare? M I went in
Speaker 1: fighting because I said, if I'm gonna die in here,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna die fighting and twice my life almost came
Speaker 1: to it, and while being in prison, the psychological and
Speaker 1: physical torture that I experienced while being incarcerated, I am
Speaker 1: subjected to being in the cell by myself because the
Speaker 1: psychological issues that I have been dealing with, PTSD and
Speaker 1: things of that nature. And one day I felt out
Speaker 1: and myself out completely nine ten o'clock at night, I
Speaker 1: have to be rushed to the hospital. Outside hospital in
Speaker 1: which I stayed for a few days, my blood pressure
Speaker 1: shot to the roof I could recall. The doctor said,
Speaker 1: why is your blood pressure so high? I said, why
Speaker 1: did you all confict me? That's why my blood pressure
Speaker 1: so high. And so another incident is when I couldn't
Speaker 1: walk no more than a hunted feet before I will
Speaker 1: pass out, and no one could understand why. I wind
Speaker 1: up being admitted to the hospital for a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: This time I wind up learning that I have a
Speaker 1: severe case of a needing. So now I have to
Speaker 1: take medication for the rest of my life to help
Speaker 1: me throughout the day. And so all these things that
Speaker 1: I have been experienced with distress and the loss of
Speaker 1: loved ones and things of this nature like it just
Speaker 1: tormented me beyond torment. I can't describe it, and I
Speaker 1: don't wish this on my worstest enemy. What they've done
Speaker 1: to me, you know, I can't even imagine. But during
Speaker 1: this time, you're also pursuing your claims of innocence, and
Speaker 1: Michael Polegy began representing you after you had filed pro
Speaker 1: say emotions, and I know you had appealed the conviction
Speaker 1: arguing that a potential juror had been dismissed due to
Speaker 1: his race, that that's out of court statement was too
Speaker 1: unreliable to be admitted. And it sounds like he became
Speaker 1: a pretty good lawyer in pretty in yourself and in
Speaker 1: fact you went so far, and I loved this part
Speaker 1: of the story too. Send a subpoena to Higgins Phone
Speaker 1: Company Sprint, including one way you referred to yourself as
Speaker 1: the law office of Jerome Logan. I love that. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's how the phone records began to unravel. What I
Speaker 1: did was I had the love of my family still
Speaker 1: out here in society still to this day, and my
Speaker 1: brother went down to city Hall and for five hours
Speaker 1: he got me some subpoenas from the courthouse and sent
Speaker 1: them back up to the prison and I filled those
Speaker 1: subpoenas out and I subpoened the phone company. Well, they
Speaker 1: thought I was working with the d a's office, and
Speaker 1: they wind up sending me the phone records saying that
Speaker 1: Mr Higgins doesn't have a phone registered to them. That
Speaker 1: blew my mind because all through my trial transcripts, that's
Speaker 1: all they talked about is that the police subpoened Mr
Speaker 1: higgins phone records. So I said, well, hold on, if
Speaker 1: they don't have no phone records for Mr Higgins, then
Speaker 1: who is these phone records? So then I had to
Speaker 1: do another subpoena, and this time I subpoena the name
Speaker 1: that was used for this phone, and they wind up
Speaker 1: coming back to a female and I said, wow, they
Speaker 1: had this and they didn't tell me. And that's when
Speaker 1: I started learning about the twenty five phone calls that
Speaker 1: never existed, the text messages that never existed. It like,
Speaker 1: everything begin to unravel from that point. So they were
Speaker 1: making up calls from a phone that didn't exist. I mean,
Speaker 1: the layers of misconduct is the word I'm going to use,
Speaker 1: but it's stronger than that. And what eventually happened is
Speaker 1: that after all of this stuff came to light. Prosecutors
Speaker 1: trying to push back, They said that You're claims were speculative,
Speaker 1: but the state said it would not oppose an evidentially
Speaker 1: hearing about whether the trial attorney was ineffective for failing
Speaker 1: to secure the testimony of alibi witnesses. The little victory there.
Speaker 1: At the hearing, your lawyer Pellegie presented evidence of your
Speaker 1: incredibly powerful alibi, including the playbill that mentioned your role
Speaker 1: in the production that was distributed to the hundred plus
Speaker 1: people who attended the show with the church, So there
Speaker 1: was literally a zero percent chance you could have been
Speaker 1: in both places at the same time. And so on
Speaker 1: July twenty, Judge Tracy roman brandis vacated your conviction in
Speaker 1: order the new trial. She said that your attorneys had
Speaker 1: been effective and that the state had engaged in misconduct
Speaker 1: by failing to disclosed accurate phone records. So this is
Speaker 1: not me saying that this is The judge and prosecutors
Speaker 1: with the d a's Conviction Integrity Unit under the Great
Speaker 1: Larry Krashner, agreed that there were problems with the conviction,
Speaker 1: but they still didn't want to dismiss the case. Yet
Speaker 1: they offered you a deal to plead guilty to reduce
Speaker 1: charge and become eligible for parole. Now I know you
Speaker 1: turned it down, but did you even give it a
Speaker 1: second thought. That's a hard decision to make, right. Well,
Speaker 1: my lawyer, he fought with me. You know, he was
Speaker 1: very concerned about me just getting out like not during
Speaker 1: the fifty years. And he was doing what any lawyer
Speaker 1: would do and say, hey, listen, this may be a
Speaker 1: good one. We can roll the dice and things can
Speaker 1: have bad luck again. I didn't think twice, because if
Speaker 1: you're gonna convict me, then you're gonna have to do
Speaker 1: this again because I didn't do this and I'm ready
Speaker 1: to prove my innocence. I think that he saw that
Speaker 1: and he was convinced, and he gave me his full
Speaker 1: support and said, well, let's move forward. And we moved forward.
Speaker 1: The judge came back and said there was a constitutional
Speaker 1: violation in this man's case. There was a serious, egregious,
Speaker 1: brainy valuation y'all withheld these records, and not only that
Speaker 1: this man had a want to fight alibi defense who
Speaker 1: that sent me to the moon. The main thing that
Speaker 1: I think that was so telling was how the judge
Speaker 1: came back with the Brady claim in the violation of
Speaker 1: the constitutional right, that this was an unfair trial, that
Speaker 1: they conceal those phone records, that they misrepresented those records.
Speaker 1: I think that she really gave me what I would
Speaker 1: consider justice. Well, listen, it's a beautiful ending to a
Speaker 1: truly miserable story. And of course, on June, almost a
Speaker 1: year later, the state of Pennsylvania dismissed the charges, stating
Speaker 1: that the prosecutors had admitted that they had insufficient evidence
Speaker 1: to move forward with a retrial. You had already been
Speaker 1: released on house arrestence the judge's decision. But now you're
Speaker 1: a freeman. And on July you follow the lawsuit against
Speaker 1: the City of Field the fire as well as against
Speaker 1: Detective te Heloits and Detective Drooting in the U. S.
Speaker 1: District Court seeking compensation for your wrongful conviction. And Jerome,
Speaker 1: let's talk about that, because to this date you've received
Speaker 1: exactly zero dollars in compensation. Is that right? Yes? I
Speaker 1: have you see no conversation whisoever they kicked me out
Speaker 1: the prison and said and you is yea out of
Speaker 1: here at the decade or more, being incarcerated, losing all
Speaker 1: my finances, lost property things of that nature. And now
Speaker 1: my family has looked together go fund me to help
Speaker 1: me try to rebuild my life. And so the only
Speaker 1: thing now that I have gone for me to help
Speaker 1: me at this particular time, it's a go fund Me
Speaker 1: page that people, if they want, they can support me.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna have the go fund Me linked in
Speaker 1: our episode bio. Please take a moment right now, don't wait.
Speaker 1: If you got anything you can spare that would help
Speaker 1: a lot to how to make it through the next
Speaker 1: phase before Jerome hopefully wins this civil trial. But that's
Speaker 1: not a certainty. So please go to the blink of
Speaker 1: our bio, click on the go fund Me and join
Speaker 1: me and our team and donating to help Jerome and
Speaker 1: his family. So listen, you're a strong man, and I
Speaker 1: know you're a great example of the power of human redemption.
Speaker 1: You're a courageous guy. And I know I speak for
Speaker 1: our audience and our whole team here at Rotha Conviction
Speaker 1: when I say that you have all of my respect
Speaker 1: for standing strong and for being here with us today
Speaker 1: and sharing your story so eloquently and powerfully. So now
Speaker 1: we have the closing of the show, which is my
Speaker 1: favorite part of the show and everybody knows it by now,
Speaker 1: and the reason is because it's called closing arguments and
Speaker 1: it works like this. I thank you again for being
Speaker 1: here and sharing your story, and then I'm gonna turn
Speaker 1: my microphone off, kick back in my chair with my
Speaker 1: headphones on, and leave your mic on so you can
Speaker 1: share with us any other thoughts you have about out
Speaker 1: whatever else you want to talk about. I would like
Speaker 1: to take this opportunity of once again thank you all
Speaker 1: for Conviction Podcast for allowing me this opportunity to come
Speaker 1: before this audience. One of the things that I will
Speaker 1: hope that anyone who's listening who begin to do is
Speaker 1: focusing on phone records. Phone records is so very important
Speaker 1: and if you don't understand how this goes, you need
Speaker 1: to start learning about phone records. They can be manipulated,
Speaker 1: they can be altered changed. You got to make sure
Speaker 1: that when going in that court room when a d
Speaker 1: A or your lawyer or whoever it is, talk about
Speaker 1: phone records, they have to authenticate those phone records. Make
Speaker 1: sure that those phone records are accurate and it's not
Speaker 1: at the poor being disguised as phone records. There's a
Speaker 1: big distinction with certification of phone records coming directly from
Speaker 1: the phone company and those records that are being developed
Speaker 1: and created by detectives or officers who are moonlighting as
Speaker 1: expert witnesses. They still may have a thank you and
Speaker 1: God bless thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd
Speaker 1: like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Justin Golden,
Speaker 1: Jeff Claverne, and Kevin Mortis, with research by Lila Robinson.
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: on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast,
Speaker 1: and on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at
Speaker 1: Lava for Good. On all three platforms, you can also
Speaker 1: follow me on both TikTok and Instagram at its. Jason
Speaker 1: flam Raval Conviction is the production of Lava for Good
Speaker 1: Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one