Speaker 1: During the late nineteen eighties, Frederico Lobey was routinely harassed
Speaker 1: by Saint Louis police officers Rubin Hammon and James Long,
Speaker 1: who previously attempted to convict him on what appeared to
Speaker 1: have been fabricated charges. Then, on May twenty first, nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty eight, a woman claimed that she had been raped
Speaker 1: and sodomized, and officers Hammon and Long had prepared a
Speaker 1: line up for her in which she identified someone who
Speaker 1: did not match her initial description their recurring target, Frederico Lobay.
Speaker 1: But despite multiple factors that damaged the credibility of this id,
Speaker 1: Frederico was sent away for eighty five years. This is
Speaker 1: wrongful Conviction. You're 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. Welcome back to Ronful Conviction,
Speaker 1: where we head to Saint Louis, Missouri to discuss not
Speaker 1: only rape and sodomy allegations, but also a damning backstory
Speaker 1: that alone cast out on this conviction. But before we
Speaker 1: introduce the man who has been surviving this ordeal for
Speaker 1: decades and decades. Now we're joined once again by his
Speaker 1: attorney from Centurion Ministries, Paul Castellero. Paul, thanks for coming back,
Speaker 1: my pleasure and with us today. Calling in from a
Speaker 1: Missouri correctional facility, we have Frederico Lobe. I'm sorry you're there,
Speaker 1: but we appreciate you calling in definitely. Will So tell
Speaker 1: us about growing up in Saint Louis.
Speaker 2: I had four brothers and two sisters. We all grew
Speaker 2: up in the Saint Louis housing project. My mother and
Speaker 2: father they were good people, man. You know. My mother
Speaker 2: she was school teacher. She was also a cafeteria supervisor
Speaker 2: Scaint Lots Public Schools. And my father he drove a
Speaker 2: truck for the seven F company. And growing up in
Speaker 2: the project, you have to have something to do. And
Speaker 2: I took a boxing so I was pretty good at
Speaker 2: at one time. And so I was going to school
Speaker 2: and I was boxing, and I had a job also.
Speaker 2: I worked at a place called Span Building Maintenance where
Speaker 2: we cleaned office buildings.
Speaker 1: At Unfortunately, in nineteen eighty one, he caught a gun
Speaker 1: charge that sent him away for a forty five day stint,
Speaker 1: but also introduced him to the Moorish Science Temple of America.
Speaker 2: As a direct result of me serving the time, I
Speaker 2: was able to go to one of the meetings of
Speaker 2: the Mowis Science Type of America and I became a
Speaker 2: part of the organization. Prophet noble ju I leag He
Speaker 2: brought Islam to the United States of America and then
Speaker 2: the Lewis Science Type of America. We teach nationality and
Speaker 2: divine cree. We teached that blacks are not Negro, black colored.
Speaker 2: He delt with anything else other than Moores. Know that
Speaker 2: the Moors are from the northwestern Jews of Africa. You
Speaker 2: have to proclaim your nationality as being a Moorish American
Speaker 2: and denounced the name Nigro, black colored, del and all
Speaker 2: names that delude to slavery. So all the Moors in
Speaker 2: the United States of America identified as Bay's or ls
Speaker 2: he Ill or beat.
Speaker 1: Y, just like the leader of the Moorish Science Temple
Speaker 1: in Saint Louis, Jerry Lewis Bay. This surname signified a
Speaker 1: connection to their African roots. As folks were escaping the
Speaker 1: jim Crow South during the Great Migration to Northern cities
Speaker 1: and over the following decades, the group fractured into other
Speaker 1: Muslim organizations, including the Nation of Islam, which my own
Speaker 1: late father in law, Muhammad Ali, famously joined back in
Speaker 1: the sixties.
Speaker 3: I remember when Muhammad Ali became Muhammad Ali and he
Speaker 3: joined the Nation of Islam. Cassius Clay is now Muhammad Ali.
Speaker 3: And the kind of prevailing thought was that these people
Speaker 3: were really, Oh, they're dangerous, we should be afraid of them,
Speaker 3: because they kind of gotten out of I guess our
Speaker 3: mainstream Christianity Judaism kind of tracked and now all of
Speaker 3: a sudden, you're, well, you're bringing in this foreign kind
Speaker 3: of religion.
Speaker 1: And that still is the prevailing trend in many pockets
Speaker 1: of American culture, and certainly appears to have been for
Speaker 1: the officers in this case, Ruben Haymond and James Lung,
Speaker 1: who seemed to have been just really interested in Frederico.
Speaker 1: Back in July nineteen eighty seven, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I had gotten out of a call. A guy dropped
Speaker 2: me off at my house, went up to my apartment
Speaker 2: being where my girlfriend and my two children were, and
Speaker 2: next thing we knew, my door would be a ring
Speaker 2: And when I opened the door, officer long headed pistol
Speaker 2: in my face and told me to get my hands up.
Speaker 2: And I asked him, I said, what's this all about it?
Speaker 2: He said, you ran for me and you threw some
Speaker 2: drugs now while he was running from me. If I
Speaker 2: didn't throw them no drugs now, I ain't never have
Speaker 2: no drugs. I get down to the police department and
Speaker 2: that's when he told me that I was being charged
Speaker 2: with possession of potent drugs in marijuana. Once they saw
Speaker 2: that I had made bond, the same officers came back
Speaker 2: less than a week and a half away. This was
Speaker 2: in July of nineteen eighty seven. They saw me entering
Speaker 2: my appointment building with my girlfriend and our chest and
Speaker 2: the shame officers jumped out and told me to get
Speaker 2: my hands up. I was like, hey, had his gun
Speaker 2: pointed in my face, and long had his gun pointed
Speaker 2: at my girlfriend and he asked her who she was.
Speaker 2: He wrote her name and number and everything, if they
Speaker 2: had a birth and all this stuff down. And while
Speaker 2: he was writing it down, he was asking her where
Speaker 2: we was coming from. Did we have any narcotics on us?
Speaker 2: Did we have any weapons on us? And she said,
Speaker 2: we don't have anything on us, and said, well, this
Speaker 2: motherfucker's wanted for a first of grissault. So they took
Speaker 2: me and threw me in the back seat, and the
Speaker 2: police schooer told me that they was locking me up again,
Speaker 2: and I wasn't gonna make bond on this charge. So
Speaker 2: I kept asking them who am I supposed to have assaulted?
Speaker 2: And he said, you'll find out when we get to
Speaker 2: the station. And they kept asking me questions about one
Speaker 2: of our spiritual leaders in the Lewis Science Tymple of America,
Speaker 2: Jerry Lewis Bay, and how do I fit into the
Speaker 2: situation of the Lewis Science type of America. And I
Speaker 2: told him, look, man, I'm not going to tell you anything.
Speaker 2: He said, all you motherfuckers are just alike. We cussed
Speaker 2: me out and call me a bunch of derogatory names,
Speaker 2: and he said, yeah, we did a little research on you,
Speaker 2: and we know what you about. He said, all you
Speaker 2: fucking gangsters are just alike.
Speaker 3: And one of the resting cops testified in the civil
Speaker 3: trial that he believed that any member of that temple
Speaker 3: was a criminal.
Speaker 1: Jerry Lewis Bay was later prosecuted at a Rico trial,
Speaker 1: and it's unclear whether the charges were based in reality,
Speaker 1: or just another instance of the targeted destruction of a
Speaker 1: black leader, or maybe both. Either way, it appears that
Speaker 1: these officers may have been targeting Federico to get to
Speaker 1: Jerry Lewis Bay.
Speaker 2: He kept asking me question about Jerry Lewis Bay, and
Speaker 2: I kept telling him. I said, ain't gonna tell you shit, mate,
Speaker 2: and he said, yeah, we know what you guys I'm about,
Speaker 2: and you one of them, and you're gonna learn today.
Speaker 2: And I was like, what the fuck is you talking about?
Speaker 2: I'm gonna learn today. He got mad at man reaching
Speaker 2: in the back and he had a slapjack in his hand,
Speaker 2: and then he hit me with it, which caused blood
Speaker 2: to trickle down on the right side of my face,
Speaker 2: right aboard my eye. And once we entered the garage,
Speaker 2: Hayman drugged me out of the back seats and while
Speaker 2: I'm down on the ground, they started kicking me in
Speaker 2: and hit me with a flashlight, and so they locked
Speaker 2: me up, and it was a sergeant that came in
Speaker 2: and took the hand cuts up both of me. He said,
Speaker 2: what happened to your face? You must have ran into
Speaker 2: the wall. He booked me to fit my fingerprints and
Speaker 2: all that I did placed me back in the cell.
Speaker 2: And he said, they caught you with some drugs in
Speaker 2: the July to twelfth arrest that they made, and we
Speaker 2: want to know where you getting these drugs from that
Speaker 2: you selling out? Heut side and now those drugs, I said,
Speaker 2: but I'm not locked up on this time for no drugs.
Speaker 2: He said that I had a sawt come find out.
Speaker 2: He used the information that my girlfriend gave him about
Speaker 2: who she was and wrote the least pulled out that
Speaker 2: I was assaulting her.
Speaker 1: This assault arrest never materialized into an indictment, but the
Speaker 1: drug possession allegations made it to trial in April of
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 3: Hayman and law They testified that he had marijuana and
Speaker 3: he dropped it and it was his and the jury
Speaker 3: acquitted him in fairly fast time.
Speaker 2: After I got found, I'd get that Officer Long and
Speaker 2: Officer Hamon was standing on the side of the prosecutor
Speaker 2: and Alficer Hamon told me, he said, nigga, you ain't
Speaker 2: going to walk the street this summer. I say, fuck you.
Speaker 3: They told them he would last the summer.
Speaker 2: I looked at him and I said, fuck you, motherfuck you.
Speaker 2: At that time, the foreman of the jury came and
Speaker 2: shook my hand and told me I better watch those
Speaker 2: guys because they was out to give me. And it
Speaker 2: wasn't thirty days later that I was taughted with this
Speaker 2: right case in May of nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 1: And the legend victim in this case knew Frederico, as
Speaker 1: did her boyfriend, but he and Frederico were no longer friendly.
Speaker 2: We had a following out about a goain. I let
Speaker 2: him wear a gold chain, and so we got into
Speaker 2: an argument about me receiving my gold chain back. And
Speaker 2: a couple of days after that, they ambushed me one
Speaker 2: one that was coming out of my girlfriend's house and
Speaker 2: the boyfriend walk up to me with a gun in
Speaker 2: his hand, and the brother is walking on the side
Speaker 2: of and I didn't have no gun, and so when
Speaker 2: he got up on me, I was able to punch him,
Speaker 2: and when I hit him, I knocked the gun out
Speaker 2: of his hand. So we got into a scuffle, beat
Speaker 2: him and his brother. We was fighting in the middle
Speaker 2: of the street until we get tired of fighting, and
Speaker 2: if you wanted, jumped in the corn and burnt out
Speaker 2: as a direct result. I'm thinking that this is what
Speaker 2: this arrest may have stemmed from as well.
Speaker 1: So now we have two motivated parties, the cops and
Speaker 1: the alleged victim's boyfriend, And that takes us to May
Speaker 1: twenty first, nineteen eighty eight, and this woman who was
Speaker 1: seven months pregnant at the time, who was believed to
Speaker 1: have been raped and sodomized.
Speaker 3: Yeah, according to the State of May twenty first, nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty eight, the victim is with her boyfriend. They go out,
Speaker 3: like about midnight. They go get Hamburgers or something like that.
Speaker 3: They have a disagreement. She goes out to the car
Speaker 3: and sits in his car and then gets up and
Speaker 3: leaves and starts walking at like what five o'clock in
Speaker 3: the morning, and she's walking down the street. These guys
Speaker 3: come in the opposite direction, three guys, she says, in
Speaker 3: a car and they say, hey, you need a ride.
Speaker 3: She says no. They go down the block, make a
Speaker 3: youth turn, come back, and this one guy jumps out
Speaker 3: of the car and grabs her by the hair and
Speaker 3: pulls her into an alleyway and these other two guys
Speaker 3: get out of the car and hold her down, and
Speaker 3: allegedly at that point the one guy who initially jumps
Speaker 3: out of the car, takes off her underwear. He then
Speaker 3: assaults her orally and then vaginally, and then she gets
Speaker 3: up after it's all done, and runs off and screams,
Speaker 3: and she waves down motorists and good Samaritans take her
Speaker 3: in and they call the police, and the police come.
Speaker 1: And it just so happens that Hammon and Long were
Speaker 1: the first to respond to the scene. Now, they allegedly
Speaker 1: found her underwear and her wallet in an alley way,
Speaker 1: and she described the main attacker as a light skinned
Speaker 1: black man with freckles.
Speaker 3: And although Fredriko is light skin, there's no way in
Speaker 3: the world you could say he has freckles. And she
Speaker 3: allegedly knows Lobee never says anything about it being Lowbay.
Speaker 2: Yes, she stated all three black meals was involved and
Speaker 2: were unknown to her.
Speaker 3: So she goes to the hospital, she is examined and
Speaker 3: a rape kit is created.
Speaker 2: Now, keep the mind. The doctor asked her what was
Speaker 2: the list, and she has six She said, two weeks
Speaker 2: before the rape paint took place.
Speaker 1: Which would make sense because after all, she's seven months pregnant.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, absolutely, this makes sense. And she maintained she
Speaker 3: wasn't sure whether the assailant didn't ejaculate. That became he
Speaker 3: didn't ejaculate in the case history when she was far
Speaker 3: from sure of that, and it becomes quite relevant a
Speaker 3: couple of years later when DNA is developing and you
Speaker 3: can do testing, because she definitely has semen.
Speaker 1: At her so that it's confusing. She said that she
Speaker 1: hadn't had sex for two weeks prior to the incident.
Speaker 1: She doesn't know whether the assailant had ejaculated, which the
Speaker 1: state eventually solidifies as that the assailant had not ejaculated,
Speaker 1: but there was semen found on the vaginal swab and
Speaker 1: seminal fluid found on the underwear.
Speaker 3: Then the issue becomes ultimately down the road. She says
Speaker 3: that when she gets assaulted, the assailant takes off her underwear,
Speaker 3: that she never puts the underwear on again.
Speaker 1: So if that is to be believed, then follow me here.
Speaker 1: The seminal fluid in the underwear is from a different
Speaker 1: source than the vaginal swap on which there were four
Speaker 1: or five sperm heads, and sperm can survive in a
Speaker 1: female reproductive track for up to five days, so these
Speaker 1: sperm heads could have been the result of an earlier
Speaker 1: unrelated sex act as far as five days into the past,
Speaker 1: or they could be from pre ejaculate, which is male
Speaker 1: glandular fluid that can carry sperm heads from previous ejaculations
Speaker 1: that were deposited in the males urethra. But either way,
Speaker 1: there was an insufficient amount of material to test with
Speaker 1: the methods available back in nineteen eighty eight to determine
Speaker 1: blood type, let alone a DNA profile, So all they
Speaker 1: had to go on was this undetermined seamen source and
Speaker 1: the description.
Speaker 3: Then the next day she calls up the cops wanting
Speaker 3: her wallet, and then Hammon and Long, who are police officers,
Speaker 3: they're not investigators. Traditionally this case on a sexual assault
Speaker 3: would be turned over to a sexual assault unit and
Speaker 3: detectives would be handling, not patrolman. And she has this
Speaker 3: conversation with I believe it was Long, in which she's
Speaker 3: looking for her wallet and he creates a phutto array
Speaker 3: at one o'clock or two o'clock in the morning and
Speaker 3: runs it out to her. And these officers both know Lavea,
Speaker 3: and these officers have been told by the victim that
Speaker 3: the assailants had freckles. They put a punt, and they
Speaker 3: don't attempt to put anybody in there with freckles. Why
Speaker 3: would you not do that? Then, why would you put
Speaker 3: Lobay in there? And you know he doesn't have freckles.
Speaker 2: So they took my photograph, he took my brother's photograph,
Speaker 2: and they took the photographs of three other guys for
Speaker 2: a house and they had her to sign in the
Speaker 2: back of a muffle graph and I'm the one that
Speaker 2: riped the sadomass.
Speaker 3: He's arrested within a couple hours. Do you think one
Speaker 3: of the officers would have said to her, wait a minute,
Speaker 3: Lebay doesn't have freckles, what are you talking about? You know,
Speaker 3: you take her initial description of it, You take the
Speaker 3: idea that she knows Lobey for twenty four hours, she
Speaker 3: doesn't name them, and then all of a sudden, he's
Speaker 3: being named to the two police officers who normally wouldn't
Speaker 3: be investigating a rape. And it's clear they got a
Speaker 3: relationship with Lobay and it's a hostile relationship. After the
Speaker 3: Lobey's acquitted in his marijuana case, these cops told them
Speaker 3: he's never going to make it through the summer. You
Speaker 3: take the idea that Lobay belongs to this Maurris temple.
Speaker 3: I mean, you have all these little factors going in
Speaker 3: and then that's how the case is made. I mean,
Speaker 3: it just stinks.
Speaker 1: And the smell didn't improve with the introduction of an
Speaker 1: additional charge. While Frederico was in pre trial detention, the
Speaker 1: alleged victim claimed that he had called to threaten her
Speaker 1: on June first, nineteen eighty eight, around eleven thirty am.
Speaker 3: She says she was threatened and based on an officer's
Speaker 3: testimony that around that time Lobay was on the phone.
Speaker 2: That's a crazy point. The telephone company to the phone
Speaker 2: call did not come on from out of the Saint
Speaker 2: Louis city too, where I was being illed on eighty eight.
Speaker 1: So, despite the impossibility, witness tampering, which showed an alleged
Speaker 1: consciousness of guilt, was added to Frederico's rape insidomy charges
Speaker 1: for trial in November nineteen eighty eight, and it seems
Speaker 1: his defense was well prepared to combat that allegation. When
Speaker 1: the alleged victim took the stand, they asked that.
Speaker 2: Well, how did she know it was Frederico? She said,
Speaker 2: I remember his voice in the alley. But the officers
Speaker 2: that came in and testified for me, his name was
Speaker 2: Geryl Pitchford. He testified that he worked a floor that
Speaker 2: I was on that day, and I could not have
Speaker 2: been on that phone because at the time that they
Speaker 2: saying that phone call came in, we were longed down
Speaker 2: preparing for visits dead winnisday afternoon, and we logged down
Speaker 2: at ten thirty.
Speaker 3: There was no connection that he called her other than
Speaker 3: her saying it was really fishy. And I don't know
Speaker 3: actually how he got convicted on.
Speaker 1: It, but there's much less confusion about how they managed
Speaker 1: to make the rape inside of me charges stick.
Speaker 2: She cut up on a stand and she stated that
Speaker 2: she remembered me from the neighborhood, and she identified me.
Speaker 2: She pointed to me and said, yeah, that's him. That's
Speaker 2: Ridrico sitting at the table with Mantorny andelain Landis.
Speaker 1: And then somehow the defense didn't impeach this in court
Speaker 1: identification with her initial description. After all, Frederico doesn't have freckles.
Speaker 1: But instead they took a less direct route, starting with
Speaker 1: Officer James Long.
Speaker 3: There's a pre trial hearing and Long says that she
Speaker 3: said the guy had freckles, right. So then they go
Speaker 3: to trial, Long testifies not a word is elicited from
Speaker 3: him about her saying the guy has freckles, right.
Speaker 1: So twice already they had squandered this impeachment evidence and
Speaker 1: it didn't come out until Frederico's girlfriend finally took the stand.
Speaker 3: She talks about right after Fredriko gets arrested on this case,
Speaker 3: she's up at the circuit attorney's office. They're trying to say,
Speaker 3: wait a minute, there's no way he could be the
Speaker 3: person that did this, and the victim is there and
Speaker 3: these two women have a conversation, and during that conversation,
Speaker 3: the victim says, to Frederico's girlfriend, then, in fact, the
Speaker 3: guy had freckles. And so the lawyer brings it out
Speaker 3: from the girlfriend who is his alibi witness, right, And
Speaker 3: of course, you know, the girlfriend alibi witnesses unbelievable because
Speaker 3: she's going to lie to protect them. He doesn't bring
Speaker 3: it out from anybody else. And then the victim says,
Speaker 3: but she's testify, No, I never said to this woman
Speaker 3: at the circuit attorney's office that the guy had freckles. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: the cop who they're saying is trying to frame them,
Speaker 3: said she said this, and it never comes out.
Speaker 1: And so in addition to the bumbling of this discrepancy
Speaker 1: in the description, they were also prevented from offering evidence
Speaker 1: of the officers motivations.
Speaker 3: They try to prove that the cops basically were out
Speaker 3: to get them, and the judge refused to let him
Speaker 3: get into evidence that he had been acquitted on marijuana
Speaker 3: that these two officers testified and a jury found them
Speaker 3: not believable.
Speaker 1: So that strategy was neutered, and then the rape kit
Speaker 1: evidence was presented. Medical expert Joseph Crowe testified about finding
Speaker 1: four or five spermheads without their tails on the vaginal swab. Now,
Speaker 1: sperm begins to degrade immediately upon ejaculation, and tails the
Speaker 1: gread faster than the heads, and remember, sperm can survive
Speaker 1: up to five days in a female reproductive tract.
Speaker 3: He basically talks about, based on the sperm heads without tails,
Speaker 3: how long that indicates they could have been there? And
Speaker 3: the idea was is that that's an indication that they
Speaker 3: were depositive well before this event happened.
Speaker 2: And apostle, isn't it possible that the sperm could have
Speaker 2: been left for pre exaculation leakage to say year.
Speaker 1: Now they're positive that the assailant had not ejaculated, but
Speaker 1: this testimony makes room for two possibilities, one an earlier
Speaker 1: sex act, or two that the assailant may have deposited
Speaker 1: pre ejaculate. However, with the primitive methods that were available
Speaker 1: back in nineteen eighty eight, Crow testified that they couldn't
Speaker 1: pull a blood type, let alone a DNA profile from
Speaker 1: either the swab or the underwear seminal stain due to
Speaker 1: the small amount of material available, which Crow and the
Speaker 1: prosecution implied was further proof that the material had been
Speaker 1: from a previous, unrelated sex act, which at maximum happened
Speaker 1: five days into the past by today's knowledge and according
Speaker 1: to Crowe at that time twenty four hours Max.
Speaker 2: Keep in mad he has a report in his position
Speaker 2: to say is that the victim had not had sex
Speaker 2: for two weeks. Prides at the race heavens. But he
Speaker 2: comes to court and he testifies that this possible best
Speaker 2: firm could have been there from an old six act,
Speaker 2: but he could never be there from an old six acres.
Speaker 2: She had not had sex for two weeks, Prides and
Speaker 2: rate avenue.
Speaker 1: Yet that critical impeachment evidence evaded defense counsel.
Speaker 3: The lawyers representing Lobey don't have a legible copy of
Speaker 3: the medical record, and as a result, they don't know
Speaker 3: that she's told medical people within an hour of being
Speaker 3: brought in after being assaulted, that she hadn't had sex
Speaker 3: in two weeks with anybody. The original legible copy of
Speaker 3: the medical record goes into evidence.
Speaker 1: And this legible copy, with the statement about no sexual
Speaker 1: activity for two weeks was not discovered by Frederico's team
Speaker 1: until two thy fourteen. Now, perhaps the prosecution shared this
Speaker 1: illegible copy in the hope that this detail would not
Speaker 1: be discovered. So, but the presence of the sperm had
Speaker 1: neatly accounted for as either a previous unrelated encounter or
Speaker 1: the assailant's pre ejaculate, without any possibility of identifying the stories.
Speaker 1: At that time, the jury was sent to deliberate.
Speaker 2: Y compete, sent me to prison, gave me eighty five years,
Speaker 2: thirty five years for the rate, thirty five years for
Speaker 2: asdomy in, fifteen years for seven winness, eighty five years.
Speaker 2: I've been fighting this case ever since I've been in prison.
Speaker 2: I've been in the library. Ever since I've been in prison,
Speaker 2: I've been doing everything it is that I could do
Speaker 2: and fight this situation.
Speaker 1: After he exhausted his direct appeals, he followed a post
Speaker 1: conviction motion in two thousand and one for DNA testing
Speaker 1: of all the relevant elements, most importantly the vaginal swab
Speaker 1: and the underwear.
Speaker 2: The victim gave a deposition in September of nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 2: Then she did not know if her rape is ejaculated
Speaker 2: in her vagina. So I explained to the court that
Speaker 2: it was possible that this sperm that we found could
Speaker 2: belong to the victims rapists. Therefore I should be entitled
Speaker 2: they have a DNA testing done.
Speaker 3: Jim McCloskey from our group got evolved way back in
Speaker 3: three oh four.
Speaker 2: McCloskey had presented a DNA fiances at that time, Robert Burke.
Speaker 2: He was able to convince the court that I should
Speaker 2: be entitled to DNA testings, and we came upon realizing technologies.
Speaker 1: Inc Relia Gene conducted why str testing, which analyzes why
Speaker 1: chromosomal DNA to identify paternal lineages. So this testing could
Speaker 1: include the source of biological material as well as any
Speaker 1: close male relatives, and they tested the vaginal swab as
Speaker 1: well as the underwear.
Speaker 2: So when the DNA come back not to match me,
Speaker 2: the state began the same with the evidence loaned to
Speaker 2: the victims board flan. As it was stated in the trial,
Speaker 2: this could be from either the rapist or it could
Speaker 2: be from the victim's board flan. We'll never know because
Speaker 2: he never tested whether or not they came from him.
Speaker 1: Now remember, during trial and even at this time in
Speaker 1: post conviction litigation, the legible medical record showing the alleged
Speaker 1: victim's claim of celibacy for the two weeks prior to
Speaker 1: the incident had not yet been discovered by Federico's legal team.
Speaker 1: So even though the Prospect Houston had submitted the legible
Speaker 1: medical records with that information into evidence, the trial testimony
Speaker 1: of the medical expert and the alleged victim reflects that
Speaker 1: the vaginal sperm was either pre ejaculate from the assailant
Speaker 1: or from an earlier sexual encounter with her boyfriend.
Speaker 2: Our boyfriend was in the court room right next door
Speaker 2: to us on drug sources, and as a direct result,
Speaker 2: the sheriff was able to go over there and get
Speaker 2: him and bring him to the courtroom where we were in,
Speaker 2: and he agreed to give a DNA semple, and it
Speaker 2: came back not to match him if it good, ordered
Speaker 2: the prosecutor to go produce the victim come in and testify.
Speaker 2: Why that dnasm that's.
Speaker 3: And so when the victim gets under stand Fredrico's he's
Speaker 3: not present while she's testified because she doesn't want to
Speaker 3: face them, and they have him out of the courtroom
Speaker 3: and she says, oh, would really freak me out? Was
Speaker 3: the freckles on his face right, clearly not remembering her denial,
Speaker 3: And the lawyer doesn't pick up by it. Wait a minute,
Speaker 3: you never said the guy had freckles. It just goes
Speaker 3: by the wayside. It seems to me it's incumbent of
Speaker 3: on the judge when someone give you such a distinctive
Speaker 3: identifier is to say, wait a minute, he doesn't have freckles.
Speaker 1: But the discrepancy in the description again slipped through their fingers.
Speaker 1: And now, when asked to explain how both her boyfriend
Speaker 1: and Frederico were excluded from the vaginal sperm, she once
Speaker 1: again contradicted her statement from the yet to be discovered
Speaker 1: legible medical records.
Speaker 3: She suddenly testifies that she had sex with four different
Speaker 3: people within a day or two of this assault, and
Speaker 3: the boyfriend who she's living with, he's excluded, and obviously
Speaker 3: Frederico's exclusive. And then there was this other guy who
Speaker 3: had passed away.
Speaker 2: So she said she had stricks with a guy named
Speaker 2: Fred Knocks the week before this. So the FBI who
Speaker 2: were able to provide us with a vowel of his
Speaker 2: blood and they kissed it. When it didn't match Fred Knocks,
Speaker 2: she says she has sex with two other guys that
Speaker 2: she don't remember.
Speaker 3: So we don't know whether the semen is from the
Speaker 3: two unknowns that she had consensual sex with.
Speaker 1: So when the DNA test results excluded both sources of
Speaker 1: the vaginal sperm, the narrative completely changed and three new
Speaker 1: possible sources were added, two of whom could never be
Speaker 1: confirmed nor denied. And since this information wasn't part of
Speaker 1: the trial record, what else isn't real. What we do
Speaker 1: know is that the profile found on the vaginal swab
Speaker 1: was also present on the seminal stain in the underwear.
Speaker 3: And then the issue becomes with this judge is that
Speaker 3: what she says she never put her underwear back on
Speaker 3: so therefore the semen in the underwear cannot have been
Speaker 3: from the assailant.
Speaker 1: If we're basing our logic off of her word, again,
Speaker 1: we need to ask what else isn't real? After all?
Speaker 1: At this point in post conviction, the court and Frederico's
Speaker 1: team were still operating under the misapprehension that she hadn't
Speaker 1: claimed to be celibate for two weeks prior to this incident.
Speaker 3: Jim McCluskey retained Rix and Dell Local Council. They did
Speaker 3: habeas in fourteen and that's when they found the legible
Speaker 3: copy of the medical records and kind of brought a
Speaker 3: habeas action in Missouri State Court. And then the habeas
Speaker 3: action was basically that the DNA hearing really wasn't fair
Speaker 3: because they suppressed this medical record. The argument got shot
Speaker 3: down by the fact that the actual medical record went
Speaker 3: into evidence at the trial.
Speaker 1: So sharing this illegible medical record, the prosecution appears to
Speaker 1: have just made an honest mistake, right, yeah, okay, and
Speaker 1: I got a bridge to sell you as well. Maybe
Speaker 1: it was deceit anyway. Ultimately, the state ignored this statement
Speaker 1: about two weeks of celibacy, while also submitting the legible
Speaker 1: medical records into evidence, all while bearing no responsibility. The
Speaker 1: onus falls solely on both trial and appellate council.
Speaker 3: It could have been no, yeah, the words are due
Speaker 3: diligence if you exercise due dili She would have known
Speaker 3: this idiot.
Speaker 1: So by ignoring the initial statement and not being discovered,
Speaker 1: the prosecution and the alleged victim could create a narrative
Speaker 1: based on what appears to be a false premise that
Speaker 1: the alleged victim had not been celibate for two weeks,
Speaker 1: thereby leaving the narrative open to first the boyfriend as
Speaker 1: a contributor at trial, then during post conviction Fred Knox,
Speaker 1: and finally these two unknown contributors on which the two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven two thousand and eight denial was based upon.
Speaker 2: I should have been released from prison once it didn't
Speaker 2: mess for a knocks, but did say she believed the
Speaker 2: victim saying that she had sex with two other guys
Speaker 2: brought to the wave evene and none of this evidence
Speaker 2: was ever disclosed to me, And as a direct result,
Speaker 2: I've been sitting in prison all of this time because
Speaker 2: the jilla says she believed what the victims said. Is
Speaker 2: the absolute true, but she did not know. The victim
Speaker 2: told the doctor who examined her that she had not
Speaker 2: had sex with two weeks prior to the rate. Then
Speaker 2: and every court returned to to give us the opportunity
Speaker 2: to show that I'm being healed illegally. They disregard this
Speaker 2: evidence like it's nothing.
Speaker 1: Again, zero culpability is placed on the prosecutor, while the
Speaker 1: court places the onus on Frederico and whoever was representing
Speaker 1: him at any stage to have found the legible copy
Speaker 1: of the medical record rather than have just naively accepted
Speaker 1: what the prosecution shared.
Speaker 2: The prosecutor told my lawyer at the time, all of
Speaker 2: the documents looked just alike all the time. They had stations.
Speaker 2: Hibit twenty eight was a clerk that concise copy of
Speaker 2: the medical report, and the medical report say that she
Speaker 2: had had six for two weeks. But the prosecutor had
Speaker 2: a duty and obligation according to Naphew versus Illinois, not
Speaker 2: the Falster false evidence before the court. And I tried
Speaker 2: to bring it to the Court of Appeals because they
Speaker 2: have what you call a manifest and justice exception to
Speaker 2: open up the case, to allow you to go back
Speaker 2: in and overcome the procedure bare.
Speaker 3: In Missouri, the post conviction rules are so restrictive about
Speaker 3: when you have to file, how you have to file.
Speaker 3: It's very hostile to people trying to prove that they're innocent.
Speaker 3: The rules are all geared against you.
Speaker 2: Really, because I'm procedurally bored, nobody want to hear what
Speaker 2: I got to say.
Speaker 1: And it appears that the skulduggery goes even deeper.
Speaker 2: When they first gave us the illegible documents. I had
Speaker 2: a prosecutor down there who told us, if we didn't
Speaker 2: like how the documents look, we said, contact our supervisor.
Speaker 2: His name was George Peach. When my attorney, Honanda said
Speaker 2: he wouldn't make time for him to discuss none of
Speaker 2: the reports with him, I said, I'll write him on
Speaker 2: my own shit. I sent them a letter on July
Speaker 2: to seventh, nineteen eighty eight, and he never rode back.
Speaker 2: But this is the crazy part about George Peach. George
Speaker 2: Peach stole money out of the Saint Louis Circuits attorney's
Speaker 2: petty cash for her to buy sex from undercovered and
Speaker 2: was caught in the staying down in the See of
Speaker 2: Saint Louis.
Speaker 1: He was fired from there, so it seems that both
Speaker 1: his trial attorney and Frederico both made inquiries about this
Speaker 1: illegible document and were met with the elected circuit attorney,
Speaker 1: George Peach, who eventually resigned in nineteen ninety two behind
Speaker 1: this alleged financial and sexual impropriety, and it appears that
Speaker 1: this Peach had tried to pawn off his impropriety on
Speaker 1: a man who he had already wrongfully convicted of rape,
Speaker 1: a guy who none other than Barry Shack himself had
Speaker 1: helped to exonerate a man named Larry Johnson.
Speaker 2: George Peach used Larry Johnson's name as an individual who
Speaker 2: was buying the sixth on the undercovered cop when he
Speaker 2: got caught up in the state knowing that Larry Johnson
Speaker 2: was in prison serve and licensing, and he used that
Speaker 2: man name in vain and Larry Johnson was later exonerated
Speaker 2: by Very Shick, and Barry Shick had been to talk
Speaker 2: real bad about the prosecute de den who took over
Speaker 2: Doeorgep's position, which was Jennifer's choice because she fought him
Speaker 2: on the same thing that I'm being fought for right now.
Speaker 2: With this guy named gave gore down at Saint Louis
Speaker 2: Circus Attorney's office right now.
Speaker 3: We had a meeting with the Circuit attorney or they
Speaker 3: were unreceptive to the reinvestigation of the police officers and
Speaker 3: what happened in the case. I understand there's a new
Speaker 3: person that's now at the Circuit Attorney's office that's handling
Speaker 3: claims of innocence and reviewing them. So, I mean that's
Speaker 3: one avenue.
Speaker 2: Recently, I founded an emotion in the United States District
Speaker 2: in Eastern District of Missouri because they have a DNA
Speaker 2: database now for hy SDR DNA testing. I found an
Speaker 2: emotion for judge down there to allow me to put
Speaker 2: the evidence into why SDR DNA database to find that
Speaker 2: the individual that we're looking for. Also, I want to
Speaker 2: bring to your attention, they charged me as a private
Speaker 2: assistant in the Classics offender. CLASSICS offender requires me to
Speaker 2: serve eighty percent of the time in prison. Right, But
Speaker 2: guess what in order to be a Class AS offender,
Speaker 2: I have to be charged with Class AO Class B stundies.
Speaker 2: I've been joged with unclassified stundies. That doesn't qualify as
Speaker 2: a Class B or Class A felly and as a
Speaker 2: direct result, they've been haveing me serve eighty percent of
Speaker 2: this sentence, which normally I would be required to serve
Speaker 2: thirty percent and be released on parole.
Speaker 1: Thirty of eighty five years is twenty five and a half,
Speaker 1: and since Frederico has already served thirty seven long, miserable,
Speaker 1: fucking years, he'd be parole eligible now. So maybe, just
Speaker 1: maybe Missouri would be willing to consider that road. But
Speaker 1: in the meantime, we hope that someone who's listening may
Speaker 1: have useful information about this case, and if you do,
Speaker 1: please come forward.
Speaker 2: They can reach out to Paul with any information that
Speaker 2: they may think that would help our situation.
Speaker 1: Well link Paul's contact info at Centurion Ministries in the
Speaker 1: episode description. So now we're going to go to closing
Speaker 1: arguments and Frederico and Paul, well, what can I say
Speaker 1: except for thank you from all of us here at
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction for joining us here today and sharing this
Speaker 1: harrowing story. And now I'm just going to kick back
Speaker 1: in my chair and close my eyes and listen to
Speaker 1: anything else you guys feel is left to be said.
Speaker 3: The injustice of the case and how weak a case
Speaker 3: it is, and the lack of credibility of basically all
Speaker 3: the characters that put him away for his life is
Speaker 3: just incredible. Everybody is kind of just looks the other way.
Speaker 3: Sometimes facts to become known and put together take a
Speaker 3: lot of time, and the idea that time becomes the
Speaker 3: bar to the consideration of a full record that I
Speaker 3: find is just so scary. Throughout history, we've always learned
Speaker 3: that sometimes time is the truth. And in Missouri, because
Speaker 3: of all these rules that they have, they say it's
Speaker 3: just the opposite. I just find it so righting that
Speaker 3: you don't care. You simply don't care if you have
Speaker 3: somebody that's innocent, and if the person has some questionable background,
Speaker 3: do you even care less about whether you heap this
Speaker 3: immense injustice on them.
Speaker 2: I'm focusing, and I'm focused on getting out. I'm focused
Speaker 2: on getting out, and I'm thankful that I got guys
Speaker 2: like you, Vesend and whoever else say if I can
Speaker 2: get to push me to the limits where I need
Speaker 2: to go.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
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Speaker 1: production team Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as
Speaker 1: my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Watis, and Jeff Kliber.
Speaker 1: The music in this production was supplied by three time
Speaker 1: OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
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Speaker 1: We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported
Speaker 1: in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed
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