Speaker 1: Hi.
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Speaker 2: And it's a mere two ninety nine a month previously
Speaker 2: on Empire on Blood.
Speaker 3: These Days Full names of the record, My name is
Speaker 3: Calvin or are you okayme out? I'm back.
Speaker 4: When you looked at him, did you recognize him? Yes?
Speaker 3: And who did you see the way.
Speaker 5: Therefore, discord grants to the defender's motion and hereby vacates
Speaker 5: the conviction.
Speaker 6: All right, cow, you did it. You did it.
Speaker 5: You are the most persistent motherfucker.
Speaker 4: And oh good lord.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So cal called me last night to ask oh he
Speaker 2: did yeah?
Speaker 1: His uh.
Speaker 2: He's not left his cell in the forty eight hours,
Speaker 2: and he's turning.
Speaker 4: Francis was supposed to not.
Speaker 2: Risk any any possible problem. He's just packing himself up,
Speaker 2: sitting in his cell and just waiting. Yeah, he says,
Speaker 2: I'm staying away from everybody, about talking to anybody. I
Speaker 2: asked him how it felt to be in there and
Speaker 2: he just said he was so anxious.
Speaker 4: Yeah, how do you sleep?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 4: Do you think he has even slept?
Speaker 2: That's me in one of Calvin Buari's attorneys, Oscar Michelin,
Speaker 2: early morning of Monday May eighth, twenty and seventeen, the
Speaker 2: day Calvin is supposed to be released after twenty two
Speaker 2: years in prison. This passed for a judge in the
Speaker 2: Bronx vacated his double homicide conviction as if it never happened.
Speaker 2: Cal is free to walk out of prison. The judge
Speaker 2: said so, but paperwork that takes time. So the Department
Speaker 2: of Corrections took him back to prison for the weekend.
Speaker 2: And then in Oscar's car, the phone rings. It's Cal's friend.
Speaker 4: She yes, they say, he's not going nowhere.
Speaker 2: The judge may have let cal go, but maybe his
Speaker 2: past won't.
Speaker 7: Why that was a sergeant because they thought I was
Speaker 7: on a visit.
Speaker 5: I was like, no, I'm trying to see us the process.
Speaker 5: And so he looks on the paper and he was like, yeah,
Speaker 5: he's here, He's not going away.
Speaker 2: Why is that?
Speaker 5: He's not giving me the information.
Speaker 2: So here we are in a moment between what should
Speaker 2: be and what is We've gotten to know moments like
Speaker 2: this pretty well from Orbit Media. This is Empire on Blood,
Speaker 2: a story of murder, betrayal and a man who fought
Speaker 2: the law for two decades and of a question when
Speaker 2: is a man truly free? I'm Steve Fishman. We're sitting
Speaker 2: in Oscar's car in front of the ironically named green
Speaker 2: Haven Correctional Facility. Haven. My ass it's got a thirty
Speaker 2: foot high window is cement wall around it. We pull
Speaker 2: up shortly after ten am after a two hour ride
Speaker 2: from the city. What's going on inside green Haven? Who knows?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 2: Hi, my name is Oscar Mitchell. I'm gonna turn it
Speaker 2: for Kalabowari.
Speaker 6: The issue is that we were Yeah, he was supposed
Speaker 6: to be released today and I want to just double
Speaker 6: check to make sure that everything is all set for
Speaker 6: his release.
Speaker 2: He got his conviction.
Speaker 5: To Oscar Michelin and you attorney.
Speaker 2: I am cal Bui's attorney.
Speaker 1: Yes, concerned?
Speaker 5: And why you would think he's leaving this week.
Speaker 2: Because he was?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 3: I'm sorry?
Speaker 5: Can I have remotely close to his day?
Speaker 2: What is to be done? We're here, Let's go inside,
Speaker 2: try to get this straightened out.
Speaker 3: Oh so, just have a seat distreevisits inside.
Speaker 2: Do you know when a prisoners released, he would he
Speaker 2: come this way?
Speaker 4: This is the only way they could go.
Speaker 2: We see ourselves in a gloomy area what passes for
Speaker 2: a waiting month A few feet away. Corrections officers, process visitors,
Speaker 2: A handful of us are here. Cal's lawyers, a few relatives.
Speaker 2: His god brother, Pam is not here. She and Cal
Speaker 2: are still legally married, but they've grown apart. Cal friend,
Speaker 2: she drove up from Westchester. She's his main support now.
Speaker 2: There are also a couple of journalists from the Associated Press.
Speaker 2: Cal will be let go. A judge ordered his release.
Speaker 2: It's unconstitutional to hold him in prison, after all, he's
Speaker 2: no longer convicted of anything, but the anxiety it won't quit.
Speaker 2: Cal calls me from inside, maybe one hundred feet from him,
Speaker 2: but several tons of cement and steel separate us. It's
Speaker 2: ten forty six a m cow, cow, How are you?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: I'm all right. I'm afraid to get up out of
Speaker 5: his You know what's going to.
Speaker 8: Hold up is?
Speaker 2: I don't where are you now?
Speaker 4: Are you?
Speaker 2: Are they telling you you're getting outton?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 5: There ain't nobody even come and tell me anything. And
Speaker 5: I'm talking to people. Everybody know that I'm supposed to
Speaker 5: get out, but nobody ain't come to tell me it's
Speaker 5: time to go.
Speaker 2: The hours pass one, two, three. Finally the paperwork lands
Speaker 2: on the right desk, eyes dotted, tea's crossed. It's not
Speaker 2: every day someone's conviction is vacated. Then Cal appears in
Speaker 2: the distance, maybe fifty feet away. I can see his
Speaker 2: nit cap through the bars of the steel gate for
Speaker 2: one more minute. He looks like he's inside a cage.
Speaker 2: Then the gate slides open.
Speaker 3: You see you.
Speaker 2: Cal walks out in khaki pants, timberlands, toting a single
Speaker 2: canvas bag stuffed with the essentials from two decades behind bars,
Speaker 2: legal documents I find out later, go, oh my god.
Speaker 9: Daddy came out said, where's everybody? As you're gonna praise
Speaker 9: that you can't do the.
Speaker 1: Photography, thank you, and if you want to conduct an
Speaker 1: interview and.
Speaker 3: Asking the property, let's go.
Speaker 2: We go out double swinging doors, leaving the guard tower
Speaker 2: behind us and the thirty foot high cement wall. We
Speaker 2: go down two sets of stairs into a parking lot
Speaker 2: that spreads over a couple of acres.
Speaker 10: Surreal, surreal, man, Oh.
Speaker 7: My god, Oh no, we got a bus ticket for you.
Speaker 2: We're not gonna drive. You gotta take a great house.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry we couldn't.
Speaker 3: We couldn't afford it.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry about yeah, but it's a good man. You
Speaker 2: could see right by the driver.
Speaker 3: A call right now.
Speaker 11: People don't know, you know, it's like anxiety.
Speaker 10: It's beautiful, man. I never seen this side without the
Speaker 10: handcuffing on. That's the beautiful thing about it, you know,
Speaker 10: no handcuffs, no shocks. Finally, man, oh, long time coming.
Speaker 3: Couldn't come at a better time.
Speaker 7: Unbelievable.
Speaker 2: Right. Cal hugs his god brother, he hugs me. He's muscular,
Speaker 2: prison muscles. It's a powerful embrace. You did it. The
Speaker 2: prison authorities insist that we leave state property. They don't
Speaker 2: have to ask. Twice. We trooped through the parking lot,
Speaker 2: a small horde, making our way to the shoulder of
Speaker 2: the road. The Associated press hands cow a microphone.
Speaker 10: That's what it really.
Speaker 1: It's just like I work so hard to get to
Speaker 1: where I'm at right now, and I finally made it
Speaker 1: the long journey that I took to get to where
Speaker 1: I'm at, and it's still a continuous fight, you know,
Speaker 1: because still dealing with the issues that are launcht the
Speaker 1: a office not really worn until mix to their mistakes
Speaker 1: and doing the right thing.
Speaker 4: I gotta keep my mind and keep.
Speaker 2: Pushing Cows on message, hitting his talk point, staying focused.
Speaker 2: Of course, he's right. The District Attorney's office has threatened
Speaker 2: to appeal the decision that set him free. He knows
Speaker 2: there might be more coming. And I feel like the
Speaker 2: truth is finally revealing it, so, you know, thank you.
Speaker 2: Cal hands back the microphone. She pulls up the getaway car.
Speaker 2: My producer Emil, and I jump in with Cal.
Speaker 9: Okay, see where are we going?
Speaker 2: Well, we want We're gonna ride with you wherever.
Speaker 4: The change station station.
Speaker 2: What's Cal? Looking forward to an iPhone and a bath
Speaker 2: his first bath in twenty two years.
Speaker 10: That's that's that's one of sleeping in the bed and
Speaker 10: probably getting in the bathtube and then going into a refrigerator.
Speaker 3: What I want to to get out? What I want
Speaker 3: to get out.
Speaker 2: Of such things? Freedom is made. Cow's walked off prison grounds.
Speaker 2: But what does it take to feel free? Cal knows
Speaker 2: what I mean from prison. He told me, I just
Speaker 2: can't wait to get in a situation where I'm around
Speaker 2: the people that truly genuinely love me, so I can
Speaker 2: just be me truthfully, just be free. And so Cal
Speaker 2: he wants to see his.
Speaker 10: Mom, and I'm an knock on the door, let him
Speaker 10: have a come downstairs.
Speaker 3: Once she over the door, is gonna be me happy.
Speaker 3: Mother's dak. You got an early mother's taken.
Speaker 2: But first, Cow's got some errands to run. After the break,
Speaker 2: a free man heads out into the world with a
Speaker 2: long to do list and finds more than he bargained for.
Speaker 2: Stay with us outside, we're back with Empire on blood.
Speaker 2: So when does an ex prisoner actually shake prison out
Speaker 2: of his bones? I asked Emil mcdalell, Cal's prison buddy,
Speaker 2: who got his own sentence vacated email served nineteen years.
Speaker 12: When the judge vegacated my conviction, it was like a
Speaker 12: surreal experience.
Speaker 2: You really can't believe it.
Speaker 12: Cal is not going to believe that he's really out
Speaker 12: until he actually steps his foot on concrete and he's
Speaker 12: able to walk in a store with dollars in his pocket.
Speaker 2: That's how it was for me.
Speaker 12: Yeah, they said, you know you're out, You're going home,
Speaker 12: and I'm just still sitting there looking at the judge,
Speaker 12: and I'm just like, Okay, I'm going home. I'll be
Speaker 12: home with my family for Christmas. You know, I could
Speaker 12: be home for my birthday finally after nineteen years.
Speaker 9: But.
Speaker 12: Until I got out, and you know, my cousin gave
Speaker 12: me like one hundred dollars but in twenties and tens.
Speaker 12: He gave it to me, and I actually jumped out
Speaker 12: of his car, went into the store and I was like,
Speaker 12: I'm out.
Speaker 2: So Email will put twenties and tens in Cal's pocket.
Speaker 2: He's going to take Cal shopping in Brooklyn for sneakers.
Speaker 2: Once upon a time, Cal had wanted air Jordan's. Twenty
Speaker 2: five years ago, he'd started selling crack so he could
Speaker 2: buy them. This time, his hardworking prison comrade says he'll
Speaker 2: pick up the tab. But Cal has a few other
Speaker 2: items to attend to, people, to visit, places to see.
Speaker 2: He's a man in a hurry.
Speaker 3: Open buzz me in, man, buzz me in.
Speaker 2: Email drives Cal to Tracy, Koit's apartment, coming to see trade.
Speaker 3: Where are you at.
Speaker 7: That count?
Speaker 2: Because you look alive and he was a mess. Tracy
Speaker 2: was for a time one of his main allies on
Speaker 2: the outside, a leading light of the Free count Lady
Speaker 2: that helps fixed all mambo said, man, you know me
Speaker 2: and home was going hard.
Speaker 10: She's the first one that picked up the bend of
Speaker 10: the Free Cow fan and waved it the round in
Speaker 10: the rallies stripped.
Speaker 3: Into t shows.
Speaker 2: You know, I assume Tracy might be celebrating Cow's release.
Speaker 3: You don't want thisake, right, No?
Speaker 2: I mean she's just hearing from Cal Now.
Speaker 9: Off the audio because I got let you let me
Speaker 9: miss that moment.
Speaker 2: You're walking out of Greenhaven. You ain't want me you
Speaker 2: let me missed out.
Speaker 3: You didn't know what Dale was coming.
Speaker 2: Now he was coming out until cal changes the subject
Speaker 2: like a natural born politician, he picks up Tracy's baby
Speaker 2: harmit This.
Speaker 4: Man, yes, yes, wood, gorgeous.
Speaker 2: Ray cal is smiling, loving on harmony the way. It
Speaker 2: seems to me that maybe Tracy had hoped to be
Speaker 2: treated me.
Speaker 4: Like you.
Speaker 2: You soon it's time to go. This has been something
Speaker 2: of a thank you visit to one of the soldiers
Speaker 2: in the Free Cow movement. One of the women they
Speaker 2: came for Cow but worked for the movement price of admission,
Speaker 2: said you.
Speaker 4: Always loved yourself some Calvin, But now now let Calvin go.
Speaker 4: You are not your free man. Now you should think
Speaker 4: of me every day.
Speaker 2: I'm sure he will. And that's another element of what
Speaker 2: it means to be free, free to play the field,
Speaker 2: to be a player. As Tracy says, I.
Speaker 3: Wanted to surprise you. No, that's not how it goes you.
Speaker 3: Lucky that I was it lucky. I'm blessed. I don't
Speaker 3: believe in love. I'm blessed. I gotta give him a
Speaker 3: golf definitely always.
Speaker 2: Fire store right there, good man, so cal visits a supporter. Okay,
Speaker 2: let's shop for some sneakers on a Sunday afternoon in Brooklyn.
Speaker 2: Email and cow head to the Atlantic. Mall, eh god,
Speaker 2: they they do a whole festival for your hold festival.
Speaker 10: They knew you was coming downtown for that's where everybody
Speaker 10: at Look at that, look at it.
Speaker 11: Look that's something.
Speaker 2: They spend hours going from shoe store to shoe store
Speaker 2: along the way, callent, email, running to people. They know
Speaker 2: what they're doing with that.
Speaker 1: I ain't.
Speaker 11: Now you know, I'm all filing for my wrong for
Speaker 11: conviction and all, oh good, I've been here about him
Speaker 11: doing good by.
Speaker 2: I tell you my old lady to you right now,
Speaker 2: I say my old lights.
Speaker 3: I did that.
Speaker 4: I did thirty three years straight.
Speaker 3: That's right, Yeah, thirty three years straight.
Speaker 5: You know, look in anyway, they ain't wait five years ago.
Speaker 2: Let this took from shopping.
Speaker 5: He just came.
Speaker 4: My nephew just came over last week.
Speaker 5: I just took him shop and bought him some clothes, guns, saying, man,
Speaker 5: some barbecue, and.
Speaker 2: Now I gotta cut out your stay safe. But anything
Speaker 2: to work out for you, all right, you take care
Speaker 2: right right later?
Speaker 7: All right?
Speaker 10: Yeah, last time I was when I first met him.
Speaker 10: He cut the dude that tried to start man just
Speaker 10: being Pattica. Yeah yeah, yeah, that's how I first met him,
Speaker 10: and we ended up going to South Fort.
Speaker 4: He was never my next door neighbor.
Speaker 2: So it's good.
Speaker 10: I knew I was going run into somebody in downtown Brooklyn.
Speaker 2: Not just one somebody inside a shop. They bump into
Speaker 2: another guy from the old days. This one did nine years.
Speaker 3: I've been on being changed. Dramatic, dramatic. I'm talking. I
Speaker 3: remember how first Gale. I remember I went to Green
Speaker 3: Niggas mall.
Speaker 2: How I felt when I was giving the phone and
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, Like I was like, okay, how.
Speaker 3: Y'all doing stuff. I'm painting.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to see how you mighty rap, what's cool
Speaker 2: and what's not.
Speaker 3: I think I had some shoes on. It was like
Speaker 3: I thought they was flooding.
Speaker 4: It's not the lot.
Speaker 2: Two X cons on a Sunday shopping trip recognized another
Speaker 2: two X cons what the hell is going on at
Speaker 2: the mall. I'm accustomed to running into people, people I
Speaker 2: met at college or summer camp or over a cocktail
Speaker 2: at my bar. But this, this vast web of people
Speaker 2: linked by the shared experience of prison that's invisible to
Speaker 2: somebody like me. Of course, you read about it all
Speaker 2: the time, black men swept off the streets, crowded into prisons.
Speaker 2: And here's the evidence. Think of it. One afternoon outside
Speaker 2: Burlington Coat factory in Chucky Cheese. Four black men Email
Speaker 2: and Cal and the two others. These guys randomly meet
Speaker 2: and together they've done a total of eighty three years
Speaker 2: in prison. Yeah, Cow was a drug dealer, and maybe
Speaker 2: the too many ran into were criminals as well. Maybe
Speaker 2: they should have all done time. But I've made a
Speaker 2: seven year journey with Cal. I know his case inside
Speaker 2: and out, and I know emails too. The honor student
Speaker 2: sentence for a murder that someone else committed. The system
Speaker 2: feels rigged against people like Cal and email. People like
Speaker 2: Col people like Email. That's how the system viewed them
Speaker 2: as a type, the type of person society is better
Speaker 2: off without. And let's agree society was better off without
Speaker 2: crack dealing Cal on the streets in the theater of
Speaker 2: the early nineties, Cool Cal had a role to play,
Speaker 2: and he played it to perfection. He wore minks and
Speaker 2: drove BMW's rewards for seating a neighborhood with poison. Cal
Speaker 2: he high stepped through falling bodies and his admiring crew.
Speaker 2: They thought he was master of it all. They wanted
Speaker 2: to be just like Cal. Cal could have done other
Speaker 2: things with his life. He had the talent, but no
Speaker 2: one in authority looked at Cal and thought there's potential here,
Speaker 2: if only it could be redirected. That wasn't anyone's duty.
Speaker 2: Of course, Cal sometimes told me that if only his
Speaker 2: father had stuck around, his life might have looked different. Instead,
Speaker 2: for a pair of air Jordan's, which his mother couldn't
Speaker 2: afford and which a teenage cow desperately wanted, he turned
Speaker 2: to the streets and there was no turning back from.
Speaker 3: That ocause you gotta let me know.
Speaker 2: Cal and e. Mel ended up visiting a dozen stores
Speaker 2: in search of just the right sneakers. Cow finally selected
Speaker 2: a pair of sand colored Nike Hirachis retail price one
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty dollars.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I almosnikus. It took almost all day.
Speaker 2: But other items on cows to do list lawyers, driver's license, housing,
Speaker 2: visiting HERVs of course, and catch up with people he
Speaker 2: left behind. At one point, Cow visits Jay, another ex
Speaker 2: con who'd been his best friend. They were shot together.
Speaker 2: There's a bond, and Cow visits Pam, still legally his wife.
Speaker 2: They reminisce, laugh, They share a few hours of conversation.
Speaker 2: As for the other friends from the Bronx, friends like
Speaker 2: Jmo or former crew members, callous staying away for the time,
Speaker 2: being too close to the days of murder in Mayhem,
Speaker 2: days he needs to put behind him. But me, I
Speaker 2: stay in touch with the old crew.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeahs, you will pass myself. He saw me, master
Speaker 5: be It's all he's on dr.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: Dwight Robinson, What is Dwight going through now?
Speaker 1: Man?
Speaker 2: I hear about it. His trouble his dramas. I send
Speaker 2: Dwight things like Sudoku books, which he tells me will
Speaker 2: prevent Alzheimer's and lottery tickets, which he says can earn
Speaker 2: us millions. Once he asked for a porn magazine. Sure, Dwight,
Speaker 2: why not? And as always, Dwight wants news from the
Speaker 2: outside to keep his mind free. Lately he wants to
Speaker 2: know what outfits cal is wearing now that he's out.
Speaker 2: Is he wearing a rolex? Mostly though we talk about
Speaker 2: prison nonsense, nonsense, that's the word Dwight uses. There always
Speaker 2: seems to be some craziness happening, some of it of
Speaker 2: Dwight's own making, and that craziness it's compounded by living
Speaker 2: out his days in an institution where a body can't
Speaker 2: be free.
Speaker 5: See I write this information out.
Speaker 2: Seem to see.
Speaker 5: It right, Special Investigator Donkey, okay, all right, tell him
Speaker 5: that right now. See that my life is in danger
Speaker 5: with these officers here, and I would like to see
Speaker 5: somebody as soon as possible.
Speaker 2: Dwight says. The officers are angry at him over the incident,
Speaker 2: his plan to pick a fight with an inmate. He
Speaker 2: says it's sided with the guards. Okay, I am you
Speaker 2: sure you should do that?
Speaker 4: Man?
Speaker 5: You could just I thought about every more is the
Speaker 5: best move plus plus plus. Once I beat them up,
Speaker 5: they're gonna separate us. I'm only gonna be locked up
Speaker 5: for like thirty days. I'm just gonna beat them up.
Speaker 2: I really don't want to hear this. I do my
Speaker 2: best not to get pulled into Dwight's nonsense, but I'm
Speaker 2: thinking Dwight could get hurt. I can't not be involved.
Speaker 2: But mostly I think, how well do I really know?
Speaker 2: Dwight's a really nervous man. I just really know.
Speaker 5: Relast man. Look Steeve, Steeve, you know how we grew
Speaker 5: up really so you know what I mean different? We
Speaker 5: were a different breed. Yeah, you know that. You know
Speaker 5: what I mean?
Speaker 3: What do you mean?
Speaker 5: We're a complete different breathing. Yeah, you got from a
Speaker 5: different cloth, yeare? That's that's that's listen everything on one
Speaker 5: God for the best one you are. Don't worry about nothing,
Speaker 5: you know. I mean, I think how a company has
Speaker 5: trust me?
Speaker 2: Trust me? For the record, Dwight doesn't beat up anyone.
Speaker 2: We spoke on a recorded line. Dwight told me the
Speaker 2: authorities tuned into our conversation and then search the inmating
Speaker 2: question establish control and prison. Of course, it's all about control.
Speaker 2: Control is all encompassing. Nothing is private, not one movement,
Speaker 2: not a single article of clothing. I send Dwight a
Speaker 2: Christmas present, some timberland chuckus his dream footwear of many years.
Speaker 2: Prison officials. They return the shoes to me. The reason
Speaker 2: it's complicated. Dwight is furious in his way. Dwight is
Speaker 2: relentless too, and hopeful. On the phone. He tells me
Speaker 2: he's got a plan. He'll figure it out. He assures
Speaker 2: me he will get his sneakers. Dwight's first shot at
Speaker 2: parole is in less than four years. I wonder if
Speaker 2: Cal's appeal will affect Dwight's chances. The judge as much
Speaker 2: as said that the DA should look hard at Dwight
Speaker 2: as a murder suspect. So far, though the DA has
Speaker 2: made it clear for them, the bigger picture is still Cal,
Speaker 2: and so Dwight is hopeful on that score. Two, he
Speaker 2: dreams of freedom after the break. Cal, now outside prison's control,
Speaker 2: gets to be himself truly deeply. Finally, stay with us.
Speaker 2: We're back with empire on blood back to the day
Speaker 2: Cow was released when we rode with him in the
Speaker 2: getaway car. At last Greenhaven Correctional was just a dot
Speaker 2: in the rear view mirror. He had a lot on
Speaker 2: his mind that day. One thing above all that won
Speaker 2: a video and take one go and see my motto?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, what are you going to see her?
Speaker 3: Yeah? You want me to see if I can get
Speaker 3: a videographers come along?
Speaker 2: Would Yeah that would be a nice gift.
Speaker 3: I think I think you'd be all for it. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 4: That's day ticonic State Party.
Speaker 2: Since I first spoke with Col back in twenty eleven,
Speaker 2: lots has happened in my life. I've gotten divorced and remarried,
Speaker 2: opened a bar, one of my kids became a teenager.
Speaker 2: Much of Cal's life, his interior life, especially, has been
Speaker 2: on hold in prison. That's the way it is. And
Speaker 2: I've only known Cal while he's been in What is
Speaker 2: Cal like when he's truly free? Maybe I'll find out
Speaker 2: his mother lives in Maryland now she is driving Cow there.
Speaker 2: He's had trouble getting a driver's license.
Speaker 8: I left.
Speaker 4: Hear right, Okay, we're going forty four?
Speaker 3: God can go on up?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 5: He said.
Speaker 7: Forty three.
Speaker 2: Cal is in a car trying to spot the house,
Speaker 2: which he's never seen. He's wearing a special outfit for
Speaker 2: the day, raspberry colored sweater, gold chain, sunglasses, and the
Speaker 2: ever present cap, a tan one and for today's event,
Speaker 2: cool Cal has fastened a red bow to the front
Speaker 2: of that cap. And he's carrying presents too. He grips
Speaker 2: the string of a floating balloon, the words on it
Speaker 2: I Love You. In his other hand, he's got a
Speaker 2: dozen red roses wrapped in gold foil. I've never seen
Speaker 2: Col so full of anticipation and mischief. He wants to
Speaker 2: surprise his mother. He's actually tried to keep the news
Speaker 2: of his release from her. Didn't call her, told friends
Speaker 2: not to tell her.
Speaker 3: What su.
Speaker 2: Cal's mom lives in an attractive, well tended suburb, single
Speaker 2: family homes clipped front lawns. Hers is a white stucco house.
Speaker 2: Cal heads to the front door. She's iPhone in his hand.
Speaker 2: He calls his mother. He pretends he's not at her
Speaker 2: front door even as he bangs on the door.
Speaker 3: You know, I wanted to see her. What's up?
Speaker 7: Man?
Speaker 3: What's up?
Speaker 4: Mar Eh?
Speaker 5: Who all saw?
Speaker 2: I'm all side, I'm all saw in New York.
Speaker 3: I'm in New York City.
Speaker 2: When Col's sneak attack fails, he heads around to the
Speaker 2: back of the house, goes through the gate of a
Speaker 2: chain link fence. There's a sign on it beware of dog.
Speaker 2: He walks into the house through an open back door.
Speaker 2: His brother heads upstairs to bring down their mom, who
Speaker 2: is still recuperating from surgery. And then there she is
Speaker 2: the object of all the fuss, a small, older woman
Speaker 2: with plane glasses in a flowery house dress. Col stands
Speaker 2: awkwardly in a kind of pass through between the kitchen
Speaker 2: and living room. That bouquet in his hand, that crazy
Speaker 2: bow on his farm.
Speaker 3: A head.
Speaker 2: Cow's brother is in the background, the videographer nearby. The
Speaker 2: spectators don't matter to Cows. It's like he's in a
Speaker 2: private space with his mom. He kisses her, grips her tight,
Speaker 2: Happy Mama's day.
Speaker 6: Mommy, your son is him. Your son is here, Mommy,
Speaker 6: your son is here. Huh, I'm here, Mom, I'm here. Mo,
Speaker 6: Mom here, you hear me, I'm here. Your son's chip.
Speaker 6: I'm here, Mom, your son is here.
Speaker 3: I'm near. President, I'm the president. I'm your president present.
Speaker 1: Huh.
Speaker 3: Everything's gonna be all right. Mam. You gotta be strong.
Speaker 3: You gotta be strong.
Speaker 8: Mom.
Speaker 3: You gotta believe, you gotta believe.
Speaker 4: I'm here.
Speaker 11: You know your son is always gonna be strong. I'm
Speaker 11: gonna be alright. I'm gonna keep fighting.
Speaker 7: Mom.
Speaker 11: If you don't raise nobody that's gonna give up. You
Speaker 11: know that we don't give up. You don't give up ever.
Speaker 3: I'm here.
Speaker 11: I'm gonna have your testament to that. What you raise, Mom,
Speaker 11: nobody said you know matter, I'm gonna take give up.
Speaker 11: Points were always gonna come out on top. Always know that, Mom,
Speaker 11: always always gonna come out the.
Speaker 3: Top because we got genuine hearts. It's always in a heart.
Speaker 7: Mom.
Speaker 11: You know that.
Speaker 7: You know that I love you.
Speaker 3: It's gonna get graying.
Speaker 2: Mom. Cal always told me that his mom is a
Speaker 2: silent warrior, never complaining, honest, upright religious, never disappointed in
Speaker 2: him despite everything he's done. She prayed for his release.
Speaker 3: Everybody sold me off leaving for dad. I'm here, your
Speaker 3: son is here. I'm in the flesh of a baby.
Speaker 4: I'm here.
Speaker 8: We all we got That's how you us, that's how,
Speaker 8: that's how, that's how you small well, all of them
Speaker 8: all of them, all of them have ever doubted us.
Speaker 3: All of them know that I'm here. I don't ever
Speaker 3: think that I ain't missed your cause. Not to do
Speaker 3: whatever I can to get to my mommy, to do
Speaker 3: whatever I can't get to my mom. I love you,
Speaker 3: Love you, mom.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Before or my father the IRV in my bar IRVS.
Speaker 2: Before he passed away, I asked him a question, a
Speaker 2: nosy pointed question. He'd been ailing for a while. His balance,
Speaker 2: his strength were failing him. He had bruises on his
Speaker 2: face from falling off a curb. My father died at
Speaker 2: age eighty six, the same age at which Myron Beldock
Speaker 2: passed away. By then, my dad was chair bound. Death
Speaker 2: can be a kind of freedom, but my father resisted.
Speaker 2: It sucks getting old, he told me. He hung on.
Speaker 2: My father wanted to live forever. One day I asked
Speaker 2: him why why was he so attached to living? He
Speaker 2: had an answer ready. I want to see how the
Speaker 2: story ends. This is the end of Empire on Blood,
Speaker 2: the end of the story. I'd assigned myself seven years ago,
Speaker 2: way before I knew how long it would take. But
Speaker 2: as my father certainly knew, the story doesn't end life
Speaker 2: goes on. I'm thinking of Cow's life and the turn
Speaker 2: it took. This story never seemed to go where I expected.
Speaker 2: Cow had decades in prison to anticipate freedom, to choreograph
Speaker 2: reunions and dream of future successes. Someday Cow may be
Speaker 2: worth millions. He sued the City of New York and
Speaker 2: will sue the state. He wants compensation for having lost
Speaker 2: more than two decades of his life, but he's not
Speaker 2: waiting around for a settlement that could take years if
Speaker 2: it comes at all. Remember, in prison, he'd written seven
Speaker 2: business plans. Success legitimate success was always going to be
Speaker 2: Cow's revenge. Sitting on a beach writing checks, Cal said
Speaker 2: that was his five year plan. A couple months after
Speaker 2: his release, Cal got his driver's license and started one
Speaker 2: Venture Riders van service riders with a Z. Somehow he'd
Speaker 2: managed to get hold of a fifteen seat Chevy van.
Speaker 2: He transports families and friends of inmates to prisons upstate.
Speaker 2: Some days, Cal gets up at four in the morning
Speaker 2: to pick up customers. Imagine this, Cal walks into the
Speaker 2: waiting room of green Haven Correctional Facility to drop off
Speaker 2: his business cards. This actually happens. Cal says the corrections
Speaker 2: officers remember him and smile. Cal assures me business is
Speaker 2: picking up. That's what Cal would say. He spent decades
Speaker 2: thinking positive thoughts in the face of ongoing disappointment and disappointments, Well,
Speaker 2: it seems they never cease. On November twenty ninth, twenty seventeen,
Speaker 2: an assistant bronx DA told a judge that the office
Speaker 2: will appeal the decision to vacate Cal's sentence. The office
Speaker 2: seems intent on bringing him back to trial and back
Speaker 2: to prison. The Cal I know is relentlessly fiercely positive,
Speaker 2: But the day of the DA's announcement, I received a
Speaker 2: text from him. He was he wrote, a little drained
Speaker 2: from the living. At times, I fear the fight has
Speaker 2: deformed Cal more than anything. He wanted to be with
Speaker 2: people who truly genuinely love him. Now he has troubled
Speaker 2: being with those people. She is in love with Cal
Speaker 2: and Cal. He tells me he loves her too. He
Speaker 2: calls her his partner. Still, She tells me that one
Speaker 2: minute they are so close close is one finger wrapped
Speaker 2: around another. The next Col flees his space. The intensity
Speaker 2: of intimate relationships can overwhelm him. The living can overwhelm him.
Speaker 2: As I record this, Cal is homeless. I never expected
Speaker 2: that landlords aren't receptive. Cal has no credit history, and
Speaker 2: on the internet he is still accused of a double homicide.
Speaker 2: And so Cal tells me he lives in his van,
Speaker 2: sleeping on one of the long seats in the rear.
Speaker 2: Using the bathroom at the local McDonald's. He washes up
Speaker 2: there too, brings his own toiletries and tow.
Speaker 3: To me.
Speaker 2: Cal sounds desperate. I'm silent. I don't know how to respond,
Speaker 2: and then Cal, being Cal, recovers He assures me this
Speaker 2: too shall pass. On March twenty first, twenty eighteen, just
Speaker 2: as we were finishing production on this podcast, we got
Speaker 2: some news. At a hearing, one that had been scheduled
Speaker 2: months in advance. The Bronx District attorney shocked Cow's defense team.
Speaker 2: The DA moved to dismiss the two decade old indictment
Speaker 2: against Cal. A State Supreme Court judge granted the motion,
Speaker 2: and with that the legal cloud over Cal lifted. He
Speaker 2: is officially free. The director's cut of Empire on Blood
Speaker 2: is produced by Emil Klein. Austin Smith is our associate
Speaker 2: producer and production coordinator. The original production of the empowering
Speaker 2: Blood was also produced by Emil Klein. Neil Lobell was
Speaker 2: our executive producer, Julia Parton, our story editor, fact checking
Speaker 2: by Stephanie Daniels. Our advisor was Joel Dusk. Additional field
Speaker 2: reporting from Noah Shalom, mastering by Jason Gabrel, original scoring
Speaker 2: by Joel Saint Julian, and our theme song, The Lonely
Speaker 2: King is by mister Lynn. Special thanks to Andy Bowers,
Speaker 2: who championed the original production at Paniple. I'm Steve Fishman,
Speaker 2: Lucky Bill to.
Speaker 9: Blood, Leedsday King, The Birds, The Blurbs, Friendo and Old
Speaker 9: the last One.
Speaker 5: You hear this com com.
Speaker 2: Hi there before we go, You've just listened to another
Speaker 2: brilliant episode of Empire on Blood the Director's Cut. To
Speaker 2: hear episodes of this series one week early and ad
Speaker 2: free with exclusive content, subscribe to True Crime Clubhouse on
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts. It's just two ninety nine a month.