Speaker 1: It was the summer of nineteen ninety six in Upper Manhattan,
Speaker 1: while the violence of the crack epidemic continued to rage.
Speaker 1: On July fifteenth, a man survived a gunshot on one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty ninth Street. On August thirtieth, another man
Speaker 1: wasn't as lucky at a bus stop on one hundred
Speaker 1: and forty fifth On September twentieth, gunshots erupted on one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty eighth Street, and police chased down a
Speaker 1: white sedan that had sped away from the scene with
Speaker 1: two young men inside, Petro Guzman and Jerome Curry. Detectives
Speaker 1: told them that they'd found a gun in their wake,
Speaker 1: and eventually Guzman named Jerome and their friend Miguel Enriquez,
Speaker 1: saying that the gun was used in the August thirtieth
Speaker 1: murder as well. Over a day later, Jerome said the
Speaker 1: same thing, additionally admitting to the July fifteenth shooting. Either
Speaker 1: those detectives hit the jackpot, or this is wrongful conviction.
Speaker 1: Wrongful conviction has always given voice to innocent people in prison,
Speaker 1: and now we're expanding that voice to you. Call us
Speaker 1: at eight three, three, two oh seven four six sixty six,
Speaker 1: and tell us how these stories make you feel and
Speaker 1: what you've done to help the cause, even if it's
Speaker 1: something as simple as telling a friend or sharing on
Speaker 1: social media. We've really appreciated hearing from our audience so
Speaker 1: much so that we've included one of the messages at
Speaker 1: the end of this episode. So stick around for that,
Speaker 1: and if you have something to say, we definitely want
Speaker 1: to hear it, and you might just hear yourself in
Speaker 1: a future episode. Call us A three three, two oh seven,
Speaker 1: four six sixty six. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction today's episod.
Speaker 1: So it's a case that you're not going to want
Speaker 1: to hear, but you need to hear the story of
Speaker 1: mister Jerome Curry. And Jerome is on the phone with
Speaker 1: us now. First of all, I'm sorry for everything even
Speaker 1: going through for Jesus almost three decades. Yes, but I'm
Speaker 1: very honored to have you here on the show. Well,
Speaker 1: I honor also to be on the show man yeah,
Speaker 1: and joining us once again to help tell this story.
Speaker 1: My friend attorney Justin Bonas Justin, welcome.
Speaker 2: Back, thank you. It's great to be back on.
Speaker 1: So Jerome, take us back to before all of this
Speaker 1: horrible stuff happened.
Speaker 3: I was born into Dominican Republic. I spent some years
Speaker 3: out there. I grew up in between two different family structures.
Speaker 3: Social structures, like on my father's side, all of his
Speaker 3: children and everybody else in the family, they will all
Speaker 3: graduate from college and the university. They were professional, so
Speaker 3: like a middle class sort of family. And on my
Speaker 3: mother's side, basically no one had graduated from college, but
Speaker 3: some people don't even read and write. It was a
Speaker 3: very poor family and a very rough neighborhood. I kind
Speaker 3: of grew up there more than with my father. I
Speaker 3: used to like it there more because I had cousins.
Speaker 3: And in the May seventies, my mother met an American doctor.
Speaker 3: They married and he brought over to the United States,
Speaker 3: and about a year later I came over to Trent
Speaker 3: in New Jersey. It was rough. I didn't know English,
Speaker 3: and I'm baskin so experienced bullying and abused by other kids.
Speaker 3: But I ended up getting a good education, graduating, and
Speaker 3: I moved over to New York Jerome.
Speaker 1: First moved to one hundred and fifty ninth Street in
Speaker 1: Washington Heights, an area that was deep in the throes
Speaker 1: of the crack epidemic. But then soon Jerome found a
Speaker 1: safer place in the Bronx, where he met his co defendants,
Speaker 1: Miguel Enriquez and unfortunately the guy who sold him down
Speaker 1: the river, Pedro Goosemann.
Speaker 3: I had just really met the guy around the time
Speaker 3: that we both got arrested, and Rieke has introduced me
Speaker 3: to him. You know, he worked for the superl the
Speaker 3: same build than where I lived, and he kind of
Speaker 3: gravitated tow us me, so we started hanging out together.
Speaker 3: You know, Ice, it's like smoking weed. He smoked weedze.
Speaker 3: But I never really knew much about the guy. So,
Speaker 3: you know, we all had moved to the Bronx around
Speaker 3: that time because Washington Heights or the opposite west side
Speaker 3: of Manhattan was very very different man they was moving
Speaker 3: at a different speed. It was huge drug enterprise, so
Speaker 3: everybody and then the businesses, everybody was involved in something.
Speaker 3: Even the people that were not committing crimes were right
Speaker 3: there in the middle of everything.
Speaker 1: Crack epidemic era Upper Manhattan was rife with violence, But
Speaker 1: that doesn't excuse how our civil rights were regularly trampled
Speaker 1: to clear sometimes multiple open cases. If you recall what
Speaker 1: happened to Ralphie Martinez, which we're going to link that
Speaker 1: incredible story in the episode description. He became the scapegoat
Speaker 1: for drug trafficking on West one hundred and fifty seventh
Speaker 1: Street and three violent crimes. And this case bears some
Speaker 1: resemblance as the police were willing to once again use
Speaker 1: false statements to clear July fifteenth assault with a deadly weapon,
Speaker 1: an August thirtieth murder, and an attempted murder on September twentieth.
Speaker 1: And in this story, we have a known repeat offender
Speaker 1: with whom Justin has had some contact, Detective Ba de Leone.
Speaker 2: Lpedo Ba de Leone. They cleared the books. That's what
Speaker 2: they did back then. I mean BA told me that
Speaker 2: about Raffi. That's what they did back then. I mean
Speaker 2: even now in modern times is when they think they
Speaker 2: can throw everything on a guy, that's what they're going
Speaker 2: to do. The funny thing is Baight, he's in the
Speaker 2: Jabbar Walker case. Jabar Walker was exonerated November twenty seventh,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three the Innocence Project. From everyone that I've
Speaker 2: spoken with have stated that the net case there was
Speaker 2: fabricating and manufacturing evidence from Ba de Leone, And we
Speaker 2: also know about de Leone that he was found in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety to have used force against a witness in
Speaker 2: another case. In order to get statement, I could tell
Speaker 2: you that it almost never happens thirty years ago that
Speaker 2: the Civilian Complaint Review Board and the NYPD internally substantiated
Speaker 2: use of force allegation. And that's before we get the
Speaker 2: Jabar Walker's case, which took place around the same time
Speaker 2: as Curry's. So it's kind of like a clear of
Speaker 2: the books type of situation. With the Jerome the July
Speaker 2: attempted murder and then the September twentieth attempted murder, we're
Speaker 2: both in the thirty third precinct, and then the murder
Speaker 2: of Reginald Myers is in the thirtieth precinct. So this
Speaker 2: is what brings de Leone in. So you get these
Speaker 2: statements that are obviously fabricated and manufactured, not only because
Speaker 2: they're identical, but also because they are demonstrably false. Okay,
Speaker 2: but the other detectives, he was the more senior detective,
Speaker 2: it appears, and he was the one that took the
Speaker 2: lead driving the investigation with regard to the other cases.
Speaker 1: So let's start with the assault of Reginald Fraser on
Speaker 1: July fifteenth of nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 3: According to him, it was late that night, around ten o'clock.
Speaker 3: He says that it was a male black eighteen to
Speaker 3: twenty years of age. They had an argument walking down
Speaker 3: the street from the middle of the block through the
Speaker 3: corner of one hundred and fifty ninth Street in Broadway,
Speaker 3: and that the argument got a little heated and the
Speaker 3: male black put out a gun on him and shot
Speaker 3: him on a box when he tried to flee away
Speaker 3: from Reginald Fraser. He's African American, so he would know
Speaker 3: for a fact whether he's talking to an African American
Speaker 3: or Latino. That was a dark skin, he definitely would
Speaker 3: have been able to distinguish that.
Speaker 1: Now Jerome was five to seven with dark skin and
Speaker 1: a thick Dominican accent.
Speaker 3: In fact, my English back then, my accent was a
Speaker 3: little stronger. Now it has gotten better to education and
Speaker 3: studying and reading and you know, going through them off
Speaker 3: a pronunciation, but it was definitely a lot stronger back there,
Speaker 3: so he would have known that this distinction immediately.
Speaker 1: Nevertheless, Reginald Fraser initially reported a young black Mail as
Speaker 1: his assailant, not an Hispanic Mail. But eventually Fraser identified
Speaker 1: Jerome and changed his story to say that an Hispanic
Speaker 1: Mail was his assailant. And we'll get into the suggestive
Speaker 1: nature of his idea as well as Fraser's particulate later on.
Speaker 1: But first back to July fifteenth, nineteen ninety six, detectives
Speaker 1: from the thirty third precinct had no leads, and then
Speaker 1: in the thirty th precinct on August thirtieth, nineteen ninety six,
Speaker 1: there was a murder of Reginald Myers.
Speaker 2: Got two Reggies in this case, a Reggie Fraser and
Speaker 2: Reggie Myers. Myers is the deceased. Fraser is alive. My
Speaker 2: focus has been on the Myers case because you got
Speaker 2: to take one case at a time. If you don't,
Speaker 2: you're going to confuse a judge. I think you got
Speaker 2: to focus on Myers first, because there is a landslide
Speaker 2: worth of evidence, forensic, medical, One of the people that
Speaker 2: was in the car has come forward with an affidavit
Speaker 2: detailing who the killer was and that it wasn't Jerome
Speaker 2: and he wasn't there.
Speaker 3: During this time, I was visiting Trenton, New Jersey with
Speaker 3: my girlfriend visit in my mother's house. I was out
Speaker 3: there with friends and spending some time out there.
Speaker 1: Many years later, Jerome's co defend at, Miguel Enriquez, made
Speaker 1: it clear that he committed this crime with Pedro Guzman
Speaker 1: and another man.
Speaker 3: Yes, he mentioned in Markles and then he nicknamed him
Speaker 3: boas this was the guy that was supposed to have
Speaker 3: fired the shot. On the night of the murder.
Speaker 2: From my investigation, Henriquez, Guzman and a man named mark
Speaker 2: Or Leboa are looking for someone to rob. This is
Speaker 2: the west side of Harlem, and there was a lot
Speaker 2: of people running around with I guess a lot of
Speaker 2: weight in drugs, so you know, guys would drive around,
Speaker 2: you had stick up kids. And on one hundred and
Speaker 2: forty fifth Street, Henriquez Guzman on and Loboa. They see
Speaker 2: this man who happens to be Reginald Myers with a
Speaker 2: bag in his hand. They think that he has drugs
Speaker 2: in the bag. Turns out that he just got some
Speaker 2: like gatorade and like a snapple or something like that,
Speaker 2: and Henriquez gets out of the car grabs the bag.
Speaker 2: Myers chases Henriquez back to the car and a gun
Speaker 2: shot goes over.
Speaker 1: Ems arrived around nine pm and Myers was pronounced dead
Speaker 1: at the hospital. Detective de Leon arrived around nine point
Speaker 1: fifteen pm, and, according to police reports that were not
Speaker 1: presented a trial, eyewitnesses said that a man around six
Speaker 1: feet tall grabbed the bag and returned to a dark
Speaker 1: gray sedan. As Myers reached for the guy who robbed him,
Speaker 1: the car pulled off toward Amsterdam Avenue and shots were fired.
Speaker 1: The following day, the autopsy revealed stippling, suggesting a close
Speaker 1: range shot with no impediments. It was determined that a
Speaker 1: nine millimeter bullet passed through the back of his upper
Speaker 1: right arm into the armpit, striking his lungs and heart.
Speaker 1: The witnesses and trajectory suggest that the victim reach for
Speaker 1: the sedan's passenger side and was shot as the sidhan
Speaker 1: pulled away. Yet the state's narrative had Meyers slapping the
Speaker 1: windshield of a stationary vehicle and was shot with a
Speaker 1: thirty eight caliber bullet through the windshield, which is simply
Speaker 1: not supported by the facts, But that narrative didn't emerge
Speaker 1: until September twentieth. Now, Jerome was back from New Jersey
Speaker 1: and was driving around Washington Heights near his old apartment
Speaker 1: with Pedro Guzman.
Speaker 3: No, this is what we did with party, smoke, marijuana, hangout,
Speaker 3: look for girls. So we ended up driving down the
Speaker 3: streets and we ended up coming into one hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty eighth Street. While in the middle of the block,
Speaker 3: a shootout happens. For what I was told, it was
Speaker 3: over a drug spot. That they had, a crack spot
Speaker 3: that they were fighting over. It was individuals from I
Speaker 3: blocked Reginald Fraser his friends.
Speaker 1: Yep, the same Reginald Fraser from the July fifteenth assault
Speaker 1: was involved in a shootout over a crack spot in
Speaker 1: which his friend Thomas Joe Long ran toward Amsterdam Avenue
Speaker 1: with the one way flow of traffic on his right
Speaker 1: and the buildings on his left.
Speaker 3: The shot on the left shoulder and the shots supposedly
Speaker 3: came from his right side of a car that was
Speaker 3: riding along the streets, but his left shoulder is facing
Speaker 3: the buildings as he's running towards Amsterdam.
Speaker 1: Even though the bullet entering and exiting through his upper
Speaker 1: left shoulder supported that the shooter was on the sidewalk.
Speaker 1: The police radio reported that the shots came from a
Speaker 1: white Sedan. The making model varied, but this play suspicion
Speaker 1: on Jerome Curry and Petro Guzman, who were in a
Speaker 1: white Nissan Maxima.
Speaker 3: In the middle of this. We did what we thought
Speaker 3: was logical at that moment, and we also sped out
Speaker 3: of the block. The police are chasing us. You know,
Speaker 3: even though the victims identified multiple different cars, it just
Speaker 3: happened that our car was also white. Now, on that night,
Speaker 3: we had a substantial amount of marijuana, and then we
Speaker 3: ain't had no identification, no license, We didn't even have
Speaker 3: paperwork for the car, even that the car was legit.
Speaker 3: Guzman was driving, He panised him. He said, I'm not stopping.
Speaker 3: I'm not stopping. I'm going. You know, I didn't try
Speaker 3: to stop him. What I did was I tried to
Speaker 3: get rid of the marijuana we had in the and
Speaker 3: we just ran as much as we could.
Speaker 1: They sped toward the Macomb's Damn Bridge on their way
Speaker 1: back to the Bronx, but traffic from the Yankee Game
Speaker 1: was backed up and the police pulled up right next
Speaker 1: to them.
Speaker 2: Kurr gets arrested with Guzman on September twentieth.
Speaker 3: Somewhere in the area. The police found a gun. First,
Speaker 3: they claimed that it was a three fifty seven, so
Speaker 3: they put that on the reporter and said, well, we
Speaker 3: found a gun and this gun belongs to you. Guys.
Speaker 3: They never took any fingerprints off it, DNA anything, and
Speaker 3: they said, well, this is your gun, and we tell
Speaker 3: them this is not our gun from the beginning, this
Speaker 3: is not our gun. This is not our gun. And
Speaker 3: eventually Pedro Guzman started talking to the people. He said, well,
Speaker 3: that's my friend gun and I gotta talk to you.
Speaker 3: That's why he began to talk about the murder case. Well.
Speaker 1: Offending off suspicion in the attempted murder of Thomas Long,
Speaker 1: it appears that Guzman decided to try to save himself
Speaker 1: by cooperating, and at some point the three point fifty
Speaker 1: seven Magnum became a thirty eight special. I guess the
Speaker 1: police didn't know what kind of gun they allegedly found
Speaker 1: dumped from Guzman's car. Nevertheless, Guzman started to spill real
Speaker 1: information mixed in with the lies about the murder of
Speaker 1: Reginald Myers, which had occurred in the thirtieth precinct.
Speaker 3: They called in the thirtieth precinct. This is when Detective
Speaker 3: de Lyon get involved. Pedro Guzman admitted that him and
Speaker 3: two of the individuals have been involved in that shooting
Speaker 3: of Reginald Myers. They never mentioned me. Somehow they pressured
Speaker 3: him and then he implicated me in the crime.
Speaker 2: They take a statement from Guzman, not knowing that you know,
Speaker 2: this guy now is trying to dig himself up out
Speaker 2: of a really, really nefarious scenario. Here. Guzman's I know
Speaker 2: about this other murder and Curry's involved with this murder.
Speaker 2: Right basically says to de Leon that this thirty eight
Speaker 2: killed Myers. Turns out that that thirty eight was not
Speaker 2: the murder weapon in Myers. There was a deformed nine
Speaker 2: millimeter bullet that was found in Meyer's body, and that
Speaker 2: bullet was compared to the gun that was recovered in
Speaker 2: connection with Curry's arrest on the night of September twentieth.
Speaker 2: The NYPD's own ballistic expert concluded that that nine minilimeter
Speaker 2: bullet could not have been fired from that thirty eight,
Speaker 2: that there was no connection between that gun and Myers
Speaker 2: at all.
Speaker 1: But de Leon didn't know this information when he was
Speaker 1: working on these statements, first with Guzman and then they
Speaker 1: picked up Miguel Enriquez and lastly.
Speaker 3: Jerome detected de Leon came in. This guy, him and
Speaker 3: another Guydny Detected Crimes. We were kept in a freeze
Speaker 3: and approximately forty eight hours, probably a little longer than that.
Speaker 3: Things got really bad, but no, continue to deny my
Speaker 3: involvement in it. The first thing they did was they
Speaker 3: brung in big colored pictures of a victim and they
Speaker 3: put them on the table. They were determined to get
Speaker 3: a confession. Who say, you're going to tell um just
Speaker 3: out of the story. You know, it got so bad
Speaker 3: to the point where this detective Elpedio de Leon became
Speaker 3: a bit physically, you know, I remember him getting off.
Speaker 3: He went into a rage, punching and slapping me and
Speaker 3: he said, we know you're not leaving here until you
Speaker 3: tell us what we want to hear. You know. During
Speaker 3: this process, they brought in a TV screen where the
Speaker 3: DVD was BCR player and they continuously played the confession
Speaker 3: that this guy edro Guzman had already given them and
Speaker 3: gelhen Riquez that they implicated in this crime as well.
Speaker 2: Enriquez and Guzmand both say that Enriquez jumps out of
Speaker 2: the car takes the bag off of the victim, runs
Speaker 2: back to the eighty six accurate dark gray four door,
Speaker 2: and both of them say that the victim comes to
Speaker 2: the front windshield, slaps it, and Jerome shoots through the
Speaker 2: windshield and see that's the thing. The police could have
Speaker 2: easily gone to the autopsy to see that there was
Speaker 2: stippling on the body and automatically know that what Enriquez
Speaker 2: Guzmana saying is false.
Speaker 1: The windshield would have blocked any stippling at all from
Speaker 1: landing on Reginald Myers. And in addition, the nine milimeter bullet,
Speaker 1: not a three fifty seven or a thirty eight caliber,
Speaker 1: but a nine milimeter bullet entered through the back upper
Speaker 1: right arm and passed through the chest to the left.
Speaker 1: There was no upward trajectory that one might expect to
Speaker 1: have seen with a shot through the windshield. The shot,
Speaker 1: in fact, entered the back upper right arm. This scenario
Speaker 1: in which Jerome is the shooter simply defies reality.
Speaker 3: And they can tell me just with people, they are saying,
Speaker 3: you gotta give us a story, you gotta pay some
Speaker 3: type of responsibility. And this went on for hours, like
Speaker 3: I never knew how serious sleet the probation was, and
Speaker 3: not drinking water, not having access to fool for so
Speaker 3: long really meant into experience. Then they put me in
Speaker 3: a line up. I may have found out that the
Speaker 3: people that claimed that they see me at the crime
Speaker 3: scene had identify a guy that was six feet to
Speaker 3: six one. I'm only fist seven.
Speaker 1: How can a guy be identified as being six to
Speaker 1: one and be five to seven?
Speaker 3: Taking in consideration that I was sitting down when they
Speaker 3: made the identification with a bunch of other guys, so
Speaker 3: they didn't even see me standing up to compare me
Speaker 3: to the other.
Speaker 1: Individuals, you know, Oh wow, Okay, that's a whole I
Speaker 1: never heard of a lineup sitting down.
Speaker 3: Yeah, on a bench, So that's how they made the identification.
Speaker 3: So they said, well, you know, we got you. I
Speaker 3: picked out of a line on there's people that seen
Speaker 3: you there, and it was all line and it got
Speaker 3: so bad that I just wanted to end it. I
Speaker 3: ended up incriminating myself in this crime, even though I
Speaker 3: was innocent, which is something that I have regreaded all
Speaker 3: these years because I have to live with that. My
Speaker 3: family had to live with that, you.
Speaker 1: Know, listening to wrongful conviction. You can listen to this
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Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts. As far as we can tell, the
Speaker 1: witnesses that viewed to sit down lineup were never heard
Speaker 1: from again, but they served as an effective cudgel. They
Speaker 1: got Jerome to sign a confession making him the shooter
Speaker 1: for Reginald Fraser, Reginald Myers, and Thomas Long, but as
Speaker 1: we've already pointed out, the statements were not corroborated by reality.
Speaker 1: And then they brought in Reggie Fraser, who was both
Speaker 1: the victim from July fifteenth as well as the witness
Speaker 1: of the shooting in front of his crack spot, which
Speaker 1: one can surmise made him open for cooperation when he
Speaker 1: came in to view a lineup, especially when he's made
Speaker 1: to believe that the guy who shot his friend Thomas
Speaker 1: Long had been caught.
Speaker 3: He said, badd came in and he saw my picture
Speaker 3: on the detective's desk, and then he went into the
Speaker 3: lineup and identified me.
Speaker 1: There's also another version of events where someone else at
Speaker 1: the thirty third Precinct, not Detective Primus, who was conducting
Speaker 1: the lineup, but somebody else showed him Jerome's picture by mistake.
Speaker 1: Either way, Reggie Fraser made the id that was incentivised
Speaker 1: by not only a blind eye to his drug activity,
Speaker 1: but also just a few months before trial trigger warning,
Speaker 1: thirty eight year old Reggie Fraser had been charged with
Speaker 1: the rape of a thirteen year old child who became pregnant,
Speaker 1: receiving a sentence of only one and a half to
Speaker 1: three years. Meanwhile, Jerome had awaited his trials for about
Speaker 1: that same amount of time on Riker's Island. His first
Speaker 1: trial was for the July fifteenth assault of Fraser and
Speaker 1: the attempted murder of Fraser's buddy Thomas Long.
Speaker 3: Regulald Fraser, he testified that he seen a white car.
Speaker 3: Somebody pointed a girl out of the window of the
Speaker 3: car and started shooting at him or the group that
Speaker 3: he was in. Long testified also, but he really didn't
Speaker 3: provide much information. He just said that, you know, he's
Speaker 3: seen a white car. He couldn't identify the car. He
Speaker 3: don't even know where the shots came from. He just
Speaker 3: said he heard a shot and he started running. And
Speaker 3: of course, a confession for me an incriminating confession.
Speaker 1: Now, as we've discussed, this alleged confession was about shooting
Speaker 1: Thomas Long from the car, even though the bullet path
Speaker 1: through Long's left shoulder placed the shooter on the sidewalk
Speaker 1: in front of or behind him, not in a car
Speaker 1: way off to his right, but none of this was
Speaker 1: ever explained to the jury. Then they moved on to
Speaker 1: the assault.
Speaker 3: On July fifteen, Fraser said that he had a confrontation
Speaker 3: with a guy on one hundred and fifty ninth Street
Speaker 3: that he had never seen before at night, and the
Speaker 3: guy shot him as he tried to run away. He said, yes,
Speaker 3: he don't right there, sitting right there now.
Speaker 1: Importantly, he reported that this was a blackmail, but changed
Speaker 1: this description to hispanic mail and id Jerome an id
Speaker 1: that he appears to have been incentivized and guided to
Speaker 1: may He also testified to having cooperated in other prosecutions,
Speaker 1: which could mean that he regularly traded testimony to maintain
Speaker 1: his own freedom and was not thereby a reliable source.
Speaker 1: But with Jerome's own statement corroborating this witness, he probably
Speaker 1: didn't have a chance anyway, how didn't think so.
Speaker 3: One is because I wasn't allowed to take the stand
Speaker 3: and speak and defend myself and for representation that I had.
Speaker 3: He never used his private investigator to go to the
Speaker 3: ABBA and interview witnesses, and so I knew I was
Speaker 3: in trouble. They came in and they just handed.
Speaker 1: Out they'd on March seventeenth, nineteen ninety eight. Predictably, they
Speaker 1: found him guilty in both cases, ultimately resulting in two
Speaker 1: consecutive terms of twenty five and ten years for a
Speaker 1: total of thirty five years. And then his second trial
Speaker 1: for the Meyers murder began that August.
Speaker 2: The only evidence against Jerome Curry is Guzman and Curry's statement.
Speaker 2: Henrikuz does not testify a trial. He provides a statement
Speaker 2: to Ba DeLeon, and interestingly, Henriquez and Guzman's statements almost
Speaker 2: match identically, like almost word for word. We all have
Speaker 2: different perception, Okay, so you're gonna have different versions of
Speaker 2: the same event. Now that it's not going to contradict
Speaker 2: each other, but it's going to be slightly different. You're
Speaker 2: not going to have exactly the same statement right word
Speaker 2: for word. That's not gonna happen. They don't write those statements.
Speaker 2: Deleone does right. But Henriquez doesn't testify a trial.
Speaker 3: No, he didn't testify. And he told me that. He said, listen,
Speaker 3: even though I implicated you in this murder, I know
Speaker 3: you wasn't there. They forced me to say these things
Speaker 3: about are he said, Detective Lyon forced me. Crime is
Speaker 3: you know. They put me in a room. They threatened
Speaker 3: to hit me. This is a guy that never been arrested.
Speaker 3: And he took a plee. He said, I'm not doing it.
Speaker 3: He said, I'm not going to testify. I'd rather take
Speaker 3: a plea offer. Just get on with my life and
Speaker 3: do whatever amount of years I have to do before
Speaker 3: I come in here and do that. And he never
Speaker 3: testify either. He refused to testify.
Speaker 2: I forget how much time he gets. He does do
Speaker 2: a lot of time in prison. Enriquez, he does much
Speaker 2: more time than Guzman does, who does cooperate.
Speaker 3: I think he did about seven in some months. He
Speaker 3: did less than what he was supposed to do, so
Speaker 3: I don't know if they threw in a letter of
Speaker 3: consideration in there for him.
Speaker 2: And Guzman says that when Henriquez comes into the car,
Speaker 2: the victim runs up to the front of the windshield
Speaker 2: and slaps the windshield.
Speaker 3: They said that he was standing in front by the
Speaker 3: hood of the car with both hands raised in the
Speaker 3: air in a position to strike the wing shield. So
Speaker 3: that means that the bullet wood has struck him through
Speaker 3: his left.
Speaker 2: Side, and he says, Curry shoots through the front of
Speaker 2: the windshield. And what we know from the autopsy report
Speaker 2: is that they're stippling on the wound, which means two things.
Speaker 2: That this is a close gunshot wound. The other thing
Speaker 2: is there can't be an intermediate between the wound and
Speaker 2: the gun, completely refutes what Guzman is saying. And it's
Speaker 2: more that the victim, Myers, is running towards the car,
Speaker 2: reaching into the car, and is shot into the side
Speaker 2: of his body.
Speaker 1: The autopsy says that the bullet entered through the back
Speaker 1: of his upper right arm, then entered the chest under
Speaker 1: the armpit, and traveled through the lungs and heart, which
Speaker 1: further makes sense when you know that the car was
Speaker 1: moving away from him. Picture of the car with the
Speaker 1: passenger side pulled up to the curb, Enriquez darting back
Speaker 1: into the car, Myer's lunging for him. The car pulls
Speaker 1: away and the shot was fired, making that back of
Speaker 1: the upper right arm through the chest trajectory possible.
Speaker 2: Those ded files that said there were some witnesses that
Speaker 2: said the car was already moving when Myers was shot.
Speaker 2: Those deed files weren't turned over a trial because it
Speaker 2: would have contradicted Guzman's trial testimony and Curry that the
Speaker 2: shooting happens when the car is stationary.
Speaker 1: The jury never heard how the States narrative was impossible,
Speaker 1: nor did they hear from a single alibi witness.
Speaker 2: Jerome's girlfriend and mother both said that he was in Trenton.
Speaker 2: He has another guy named Figueroa. He was with Figaroa
Speaker 2: at like a birthday party at the time in Trenton.
Speaker 2: None of those people were called in Jerome's defense a trial.
Speaker 2: The defense attorney essentially he relied on his ability to
Speaker 2: cross examine Guzman and to basically say, hey, the thirty
Speaker 2: eight is not in fact a murder weapon. And of
Speaker 2: course Jerome gets convicted.
Speaker 1: Which is predictable considering that the jury heard Jerome's false statement,
Speaker 1: So he got another twenty five year sentence.
Speaker 3: At the moment, I did really comprehend who's going I
Speaker 3: couldn't put together the sentence I just heard what I
Speaker 3: hear by sentence you to twenty five a life, and
Speaker 3: I started adding off for years and which turned the
Speaker 3: entire sentence into sixty to life. Sixty to life. Yep.
Speaker 3: But at that moment, everything just goes quiet, everything goes numb.
Speaker 3: It's everything just going in slow motion. Then you go
Speaker 3: up stay. At that age, you go up stay. They
Speaker 3: send you all close to Canada, the Client and Correctional facility,
Speaker 3: and you know, that's when you feel that, you know
Speaker 3: it's over. You know, with all the histories and officers
Speaker 3: killing prisoners and prisoners killing prisoners, you know, all the
Speaker 3: violence and all the drugs and all everything that just
Speaker 3: goes on in places life that it was horrible. You know,
Speaker 3: there's no way to prepare for that.
Speaker 1: While and during the worst of New York State prisoners,
Speaker 1: Jerome began to learn the law, meanwhile receiving denials on
Speaker 1: appeal until he filed his federal habeas petition.
Speaker 3: They granted me a hearing, they said they he asked
Speaker 3: the questions in two of them, where did my defense
Speaker 3: council ever make an attempt to contact those witnesses that
Speaker 3: described me as being sixty to one? And if he
Speaker 3: didn't whether that deficiency affected the trial, so they vacated
Speaker 3: that conviction and sent it back to the district court.
Speaker 3: And when I got a hearing, I wasn't as prepared.
Speaker 3: You know, I wasn't as educated. I really didn't know
Speaker 3: the law as much as I know now. So when
Speaker 3: I went to the hearing, the magistrate judge, which is
Speaker 3: a guy named Andrew Peck, he was very tough and
Speaker 3: instead of answering the questions or having the question answered
Speaker 3: by the second Circuit, he turned it around and made
Speaker 3: it into whether I asked my counsel to call these witnesses.
Speaker 3: But I was not the question by the court. They
Speaker 3: asked whether his deficient performance in calling these witnesses affected
Speaker 3: the trial, and he'd never addressed that. He turned it
Speaker 3: around and found a way that to not the motion
Speaker 3: based on that. He said, oh, well, you never asked
Speaker 3: him to call these witnesses, which I did, by the way,
Speaker 3: I testified at the hearing, and I said, yes, I
Speaker 3: did ask them multiple times. You know, I was very
Speaker 3: interested in hearing from these witnesses that described me as
Speaker 3: being six' one and then you, know HERE i am
Speaker 3: at five, Seven and he never called Them.
Speaker 1: In while these witness descriptions in The meyers case likely
Speaker 1: referred To Miguel, enriquez those same witnesses allegedly Identified jerome
Speaker 1: while he was, Seated but regardless of how problematic all
Speaker 1: of that, is the judge still found a way to
Speaker 1: deny the. Claim the next bit of progress came With
Speaker 1: justin's involvement in twenty, sixteen when he did What jerome's
Speaker 1: trial attorney never, did an actual, investigation starting with alibi
Speaker 1: witnesses Like Eduardo.
Speaker 3: FIGUEROA i knowed this guy for, years and my mother
Speaker 3: had ran into his family his father In, Trenton New,
Speaker 3: jersey so his father gave him the. Number he immediately
Speaker 3: traveled up here AND i haven't seen this guy in
Speaker 3: aboutly twenty five, years and he was shocked to hear
Speaker 3: THAT i have been in call made a full crime
Speaker 3: to happen when we were together In, Trenton New. Jersey SO.
Speaker 2: Figureo it gives an affidavids That jerome was at a
Speaker 2: party In trenton at the time of the, homicide And
Speaker 2: jerome's mother and girlfriend both say during that week right
Speaker 2: that he was down In.
Speaker 1: Trenton he also did a reinvestigation of The meyers crime
Speaker 1: scene with two forensic, pathologists Doctors Thomas kubick And Cyril,
Speaker 1: weck the latter of whom is such a legendary. FIGURE
Speaker 1: i mean he actually worked The kennedy assassination and countless
Speaker 1: other cases since.
Speaker 2: Then Doctor wek has probably been involved with over fifty thousand,
Speaker 2: autopsies and he gave the report back in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: Two and Doctor kuick basically says the same thing as Doctor.
Speaker 2: Wex so we have two experts that basically say That
Speaker 2: guzman's trial testimony And enriquez's statement are physically.
Speaker 1: Impossible everything we've been saying about how the ballistics contradict
Speaker 1: the state's evidence comes from. Them and as we've already,
Speaker 1: Mentioned justin also got an affidavid From Miguel enriquez saying
Speaker 1: That jerome was never involved in any. Way, so As
Speaker 1: justin has, said his initial focus is The meyers, case
Speaker 1: which he has now fully. Dismantled the only way this
Speaker 1: could be better would be If guzman reappeared from The
Speaker 1: Dominican republic to corroborate everything we already know well enough
Speaker 1: even without. Him and then there's the state star witness
Speaker 1: from the first trial none other Than Reggie.
Speaker 3: FRASER i found on a foil request in recent. YEARS
Speaker 3: i think it was in twenty seventeen or, eighteen with
Speaker 3: the help of a friend of, Mine this, Guy Reginald,
Speaker 3: fraser gave two different, descriptions but that was never turned.
Speaker 3: OVER i just recently found that.
Speaker 1: Out and this is When jerome finally knew what we've
Speaker 1: been saying About fraser's credibility. Issues, then once, again contrary
Speaker 1: To fraser's, testimony the ballistics In long's case proved that
Speaker 1: the shooter must have been on the sidewalk and not
Speaker 1: in a passing White. Sedan and the backdrop For fraser's
Speaker 1: participation in both trials is the police ignoring his drug
Speaker 1: trafficking while giving him a sweetheart deal for his rape.
Speaker 1: Charge while we still don't have definitive proof That jerome
Speaker 1: didn't Shoot fraser in the ass On july, fifteenth nineteen ninety,
Speaker 1: six we do have the word of a thirty eight
Speaker 1: year old man who impregnated a thirteen year old. Child in,
Speaker 1: Addition jerome has said in writing that he's ready and
Speaker 1: willing to submit TO dna testing to exclude himself from
Speaker 1: the thirty Eight while that weapon is excluded from The meyers.
Speaker 1: Case it's just one more corroboration that he was not
Speaker 1: involved in the other two incidents in which the police
Speaker 1: say that gun was. Involved so Hopefully justin's going to
Speaker 1: be able to obtain that testing as well as additional
Speaker 1: info further Discrediting. Fraser in the, meantime they're awaiting the
Speaker 1: decision on the four to forty motion in The meyers.
Speaker 2: Case and WHAT i believe is you'll have to take
Speaker 2: one piece at a time. Here and what we know
Speaker 2: is one of his, convictions at the very least is,
Speaker 2: wrong and it's the most serious, conviction and it shows
Speaker 2: this conviction and shows it is a testament that the
Speaker 2: other convictions that he has are at the very least
Speaker 2: highly highly, problematic and that they just went all out didn't.
Speaker 2: Care they used coercive, tactics they manufactured, evidence they just didn't.
Speaker 2: Care SO i don't want to move on anything Until i'm.
Speaker 2: Sure and WHAT i am very very certain about is
Speaker 2: That Jerome curry did not Kill Reginald, myers and he
Speaker 2: was not there When Reginald myers was. Killed and we
Speaker 2: have a person that's in the, Car Miguel enriquez is
Speaker 2: now saying That Jerome curry wasn't even in the. Car
Speaker 2: it wasn't, there wasn't president at. All and he's admitting
Speaker 2: THAT i was, THERE i took the. Bag he's admitting
Speaker 2: his involvement in the. Murder he's admitting, it and he's
Speaker 2: Saying curry had nothing to do with. It and we have.
Speaker 2: Alibis and the QUESTION i have is is what part
Speaker 2: of this case isn't isn't covered by the evidence that
Speaker 2: we put in that. Motion why aren't we working with
Speaker 2: the prosecutor's office when they discover that you have a
Speaker 2: detective that has a, Pattern we've begun to establish a.
Speaker 2: Pattern THE fbi says a serial killer is defined by
Speaker 2: what two or more. MURDERS i think it is that's the. Definition.
Speaker 2: Here we know That deleone beat at least one person
Speaker 2: found guilty of that internally from THE, nypd and that
Speaker 2: The New York County District attorney's office has made allegations
Speaker 2: that he fabricated and manufactured evidence in another case that
Speaker 2: led to an exoneration of All i'm. In shouldn't we
Speaker 2: now begin to look at EVERYTHING Ba deleone. Does BUT
Speaker 2: i could tell YOU i spoke to him About jerome's,
Speaker 2: case and he still believes that that thirty eight was
Speaker 2: the murder. Weapon it's in his. Notes it's in his.
Speaker 2: Notes he still believes. That and he told me techniques
Speaker 2: that he used to get people to identify people in
Speaker 2: photo rays and lineups and things like. That, basically in six,
Speaker 2: packs he would put people in two and, five and
Speaker 2: in lineups he would push people into three and four
Speaker 2: because people go to the middle the lineup, first and
Speaker 2: that increased the chance of identification. Exponentially and then he
Speaker 2: had techniques about. Confessions, Obviously jerome knows about the confessions
Speaker 2: better THAN i. DO i don't THINK i was WITH
Speaker 2: ba for over forty hours.
Speaker 1: STRAIGHT i sincerely hope that The manhattan DA's office takes
Speaker 1: a hard look at this. Case you've got two incidents
Speaker 1: in which the ballistics Cleared Jerome curry and expose the
Speaker 1: false testimony of the victim from another incident who appears
Speaker 1: to have had plenty to gain from. Cooperating so now with,
Speaker 1: that let's go to closing. Arguments i'm been the first
Speaker 1: thank you guys for being here and sharing this incredibly important.
Speaker 1: Story so with, That i'm going to turn off my
Speaker 1: microphone and kick back in my chair and just listen
Speaker 1: to anything else you have to. Say justin let's start
Speaker 1: with you and then hand it off To jerome and
Speaker 1: he'll take us off into the.
Speaker 2: Sunset once you see one of these tainted investigations where
Speaker 2: the cops don't, care you then have to look at
Speaker 2: the other. Ones the DA's office even has more information
Speaker 2: on lpdo De. Leone i'm still fighting for the rest
Speaker 2: of the information about his, involvement and his involvement is
Speaker 2: only in The meyers, case but the other detectives that
Speaker 2: were involved in the other two cases were feeding off of.
Speaker 2: Him they were obligated even twenty eight years ago to
Speaker 2: turn over the fact THAT ba had abused another. Witness,
Speaker 2: okay they were obligated when they Exonerated Jabbar walker to
Speaker 2: turn over their findings In november of twenty twenty, three
Speaker 2: where lpdo De leone was the lead. Investigator and here
Speaker 2: every single piece of evidence Against Jerome curry was tainted
Speaker 2: by confirmation, bias contextual bias by police officers that thought
Speaker 2: that their intuition took them to the right, person by
Speaker 2: witnesses that were willing to say whatever they had to
Speaker 2: say to get out of. Jail AND i know that's
Speaker 2: a common, theme but here we can prove that physical
Speaker 2: eviden and, said we can, prove we can prove that
Speaker 2: your Own curry was, held even by the NYPD's own,
Speaker 2: admission for well over a, day over thirty, hours by
Speaker 2: the NYPD's own, admission they kept him and interrogate him
Speaker 2: over and over and over again until they got the
Speaker 2: information out of him that they, wanted not, true factual,
Speaker 2: information not information that was corroborated by the physical. Evidence
Speaker 2: and that's WHAT i want people to. Understand the police's
Speaker 2: own techniques saying that the physical evidence should match the
Speaker 2: statement of the person that's. Confessing we don't have any
Speaker 2: of that. Here there's not one piece of evidence that's
Speaker 2: used to convict your Own, curvey The Reginald myer's case that's,
Speaker 2: reliable not.
Speaker 3: ONE i want to address your, listeners those that are
Speaker 3: familiar with the criminal justice, system as well as those
Speaker 3: that are, not you, know as well as The Manhattan
Speaker 3: District attorney's office and even the judge you, know who's
Speaker 3: Passion i'm seeking and improving my innocent in this case
Speaker 3: that is before her, president you, know in her office right.
Speaker 3: Now as far AS i, know no one is above
Speaker 3: the law in this, country and the cornerstone of our
Speaker 3: constitutional law stays a normal one is above the. Law
Speaker 3: and this includes members of The District attorney's office In
Speaker 3: manhattan as well as law. Enforcement now people may not know,
Speaker 3: this but in emotion such as the one that my
Speaker 3: attorney put together and submitted to the core that is
Speaker 3: for requesting a new trial based on newly discover, evidence
Speaker 3: it's the judge has a duty or is required conduct
Speaker 3: a careful and dispassionate examination of the facts has presented
Speaker 3: in the papers that we, submitted and most, importantly the
Speaker 3: application of the law to those, facts which is what
Speaker 3: we have been. Requested we are requested that the law
Speaker 3: is applied to the facts that we have presented and
Speaker 3: all our. Submissions that's, it you, KNOW i want emphasized
Speaker 3: that from the, outset from the inception of my criminal
Speaker 3: prosecutions have always claimed my innocence and as it is
Speaker 3: demonstrated the reinvestigation of my case as well as the
Speaker 3: large amount of compelling newly discover everye this that it
Speaker 3: is attached to the four to forty motion that is
Speaker 3: pending right now In New york kind Of Supreme. Court
Speaker 3: my role for conviction was the result of sufficient representation
Speaker 3: by my trial, attorney by the suppression of a squad
Speaker 3: that told. Me ever it is by The Mahaman District attorney's,
Speaker 3: office AND i think also very importantly by the outrageous
Speaker 3: misconda and corrupt investigative techniques Of Detective opedia The. Lyon
Speaker 3: Detective lyon has an expensive career history of engaging in
Speaker 3: action misconda and using corrupt investigative practices against criminal defenders
Speaker 3: and suspense for approximately twenty eight. YEARS i have been
Speaker 3: claiming that it's very sane actions wisconda were used against
Speaker 3: me By Detective. Apitia The lyon forced me to make
Speaker 3: a terminating confection against myself and the crime THAT i
Speaker 3: did not. Commit just Like Yabaul, WALKER i am also
Speaker 3: one hundred percent, innocent And i'm just requested for justice
Speaker 3: to be delivered in my favor and for the application
Speaker 3: of the law through the facts of my case to be.
Speaker 3: Implemented you, Know i'm. INNOCENT i just want my day in,
Speaker 3: court AND i want to be able to prove my
Speaker 3: innocence AND i would like to be exonerated from his.
Speaker 1: Crime thank you for listening To Wrongful. Conviction you can
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Speaker 4: One, hello my name Is Jose fernandez and The Wrongful
Speaker 4: conviction podcast just opened my eyes to the world of
Speaker 4: wrongful convictions and the innocent movements and just how often
Speaker 4: this happens to everyday. People BUT i would say this
Speaker 4: podcast did influence me to pursue my legal. Career now
Speaker 4: going to my second year Of Loyola Law school And
Speaker 4: i'm going to be a part of Their Loyola project
Speaker 4: for The innocent this upcoming, semester So i'm really excited for,
Speaker 4: that AND i owe it all to The Wrongful Conviction
Speaker 4: podcast for really leading me that way and inspire me
Speaker 4: to do the work THAT i hear so many of
Speaker 4: these insurting to. Do thank, you and keep up with
Speaker 4: the great, work keep pumping out those, stories AND i
Speaker 4: can't wait to join the. Movement