Speaker 1: In the early morning hours of Valentine's Day in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety five, the Pittsburgh Fire Department responded to a blaze
Speaker 1: on Briceland Street. Darlene Buckner and her teenage son, Greg
Speaker 1: Brown joined their safely evacuated family members as the raging
Speaker 1: inferno took the lives of three firefighters. Atf Investigators suspected arson,
Speaker 1: and a lab tech reported that two of the thirteen
Speaker 1: samples from the home were positive for gasoline. However, a
Speaker 1: gas powered mower stored in the basement may have been
Speaker 1: the source. Reward money brought forth two alleged witnesses to
Speaker 1: confirm what investigators had suspected. That Darlene Buckner and Greg
Speaker 1: Brown intentionally set the blaze to collect on the twenty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars insurance policy, a dollar amount that must have
Speaker 1: been incentive enough to destroy all their possessions and the
Speaker 1: lives of three brave firefighters. But this is wrongful conviction.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to wrongful conviction. I hate wrongful convictions. I
Speaker 1: hate every one of the cases that we've covered, and
Speaker 1: for different reasons. But there's a particular thing that keeps
Speaker 1: me up at night, which are cases like the one
Speaker 1: that we're going to talk about today, where someone was
Speaker 1: wrongfully convicted of a crime that never even happened. Today,
Speaker 1: we're going to be talking with Greg Brown, who served
Speaker 1: twenty years in Pennsylvania for an accidental fire with tragic fire. Nonetheless,
Speaker 1: three lives were lost, but there was a rush to judgment,
Speaker 1: there was junk science, there was all sorts of other
Speaker 1: things that you're going to hear about, and we've covered
Speaker 1: and our Junk Science podcast. But first I want to
Speaker 1: introduce Elizabeth Delosa from the Pennsylvania Innocence Project. Elizabeth, I'm
Speaker 1: so glad you're here to the show.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: And thank you for all the incredible work that you
Speaker 1: and the team there do. And of course now I
Speaker 1: get the privilege of interviewing man I first met in
Speaker 1: Phoenix at the Innocence Network conference Greg Brown. Greg, welcome
Speaker 1: to Wronful Conviction.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: So let's go back to simpler times, before nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: five Valentine's Day, when this horrible event happened. What was
Speaker 1: it like did you grow up in Pittsburgh and what
Speaker 1: was your life like? Did you have brothers and sisters,
Speaker 1: did you have a happy childhood.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, I grew up in Pittsburgh. You know, my
Speaker 3: mom was a single mother until about the age of seven,
Speaker 3: and she met my stepfather. I have a stepsister that's
Speaker 3: two years older than me. Stepbrother is about four years
Speaker 3: older than me. So it was a nice blended family.
Speaker 3: And my mom didn't have another child until nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 3: so it was happy. Man. My stepdad was great, good father, figure,
Speaker 3: great provider, good guy, straight lace, everything by the book,
Speaker 3: you know, never break the law. It was good. We
Speaker 3: had a good upbringing.
Speaker 1: So you were a typical teenager, just seventeen years old
Speaker 1: when this tragic fire happened on the night of February
Speaker 1: thirteenth into the fourteenth of nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 3: The next day was obviously it was Valentine's Day, so
Speaker 3: I was excited when school was gonna have a dance,
Speaker 3: you know. So like that night, I was over my
Speaker 3: one of my older cousin's house playing Matten like the
Speaker 3: kids do now on the Sega Genesis and I'm gonna
Speaker 3: stepfather said go to the store with mom because it's
Speaker 3: dark out there or whatever. And my mom was cooking
Speaker 3: for a relative had died, so she was cooking for
Speaker 3: like a funeral of repass. And we went to John
Speaker 3: Nagles in one location on the east side and near
Speaker 3: our house, and it was closed, so we went to waterworks.
Speaker 3: So we come home on Frankstown Avenue. You could look
Speaker 3: over and see the houses and we seen fire trucks
Speaker 3: and like, man, Mom, I look like our house. And
Speaker 3: we pulled into the alleyway in between Franktown and Briceland,
Speaker 3: and we were anxious. We wanted to know if our
Speaker 3: family was out. And one of the firemen was on
Speaker 3: the back porst to yet her out there across the
Speaker 3: street at the neighbor's house, and and my mom was frantic.
Speaker 3: The fireman just wanted her to get to call out
Speaker 3: the alley ways, you know, because there's probably gonna be
Speaker 3: more fire trucks coming. And she had to drive around.
Speaker 3: You know, we seen our family. We just was the static,
Speaker 3: just happy that everybody was out. You know. Now was
Speaker 3: waiting game and you're hoping they put the fire out
Speaker 3: as soon as possible and and maybe you could get
Speaker 3: whatever you can out of the house. And the more
Speaker 3: time it goes on, it's obvious that the house is
Speaker 3: going to get destroyed. And I went over to one
Speaker 3: of the firemen and they I said, as fire as over.
Speaker 3: They said, yeah, boy, we lost three of our guys.
Speaker 3: I'm like what, so, yeah, three firemen died. I'm like, man,
Speaker 3: you know, and then one of them said, like, I
Speaker 3: believe it was the furnace. I went back and tell
Speaker 3: my family, like, man, they said three firemen that, and
Speaker 3: my mom just just broke down, started crying and everybody
Speaker 3: we was just in shock.
Speaker 1: The city of Pittsburgh lost three courageous firefighters, Thomas Brooks,
Speaker 1: Patty Conroy, and Mark Kalenda. So rest in peace. I
Speaker 1: can't imagine how that news must have shaken their families
Speaker 1: and the entire community.
Speaker 3: No, this case in Pittsburgh was extremely it still is
Speaker 3: highly publicized, and there was no way for anyone to
Speaker 3: move on and including now anything arson related to this day.
Speaker 3: A lot of times this case will come up with
Speaker 3: This case was always on the news, so.
Speaker 1: You can imagine the rush to judgment to figure out
Speaker 1: what went wrong here. And often when a death is
Speaker 1: hard to accept, like in the case of a child
Speaker 1: or baby, or men and women in uniform, we sometimes
Speaker 1: see that same urge to blame somebody, even when there's
Speaker 1: no one to blame.
Speaker 2: In investigating several arsen cases here in western Pennsylvania, I
Speaker 2: think one common denominator is a very quick rush to
Speaker 2: judgment and determining within hours that the fire is intentionally set,
Speaker 2: thereby being a crime being arson without having done the
Speaker 2: painstaking investigation that it takes in order to rule out
Speaker 2: all accidental causes. And Greg's case is no different. Nine
Speaker 2: one one calls first came in around twelve twenty am
Speaker 2: on the fourteenth, and by three am the Pittsburgh Fire
Speaker 2: Squad Pittsburgh Police knew that they had firefighter fatalities and
Speaker 2: called in the ATF in order to assist in the investigation,
Speaker 2: and within hours and upon visual inspection alone, it was
Speaker 2: determined that this fire had been intentionally set and that
Speaker 2: set those criminal investigation gears into motion, and then once
Speaker 2: they were started, it seems like there was no stopping them.
Speaker 1: So the visual inspection also known as the dunk science
Speaker 1: portion of the investigation, in which they used disproven fire
Speaker 1: investigation methods using terms like alligator burn patterns or crazed glass,
Speaker 1: et cetera. You can hear all about this, by the way,
Speaker 1: and I encourage you to check it out in our
Speaker 1: coverage of arson investigation on our series Junk Science, which
Speaker 1: will be linked in the episode description. So, in an
Speaker 1: effort to corroborate that assessment with actual science, they sent
Speaker 1: thirteen samples from the basement, which they believe was the
Speaker 1: fire's origin point. They sent those samples for testing, and
Speaker 1: eventually the lab tech said that two of the thirteen
Speaker 1: samples tested positive for gasoline. But there also appears to
Speaker 1: be a perfectly logical explanation for that.
Speaker 2: I want to just back up a little bit, because
Speaker 2: so you're right, thirteen samples are taken, and the ATF
Speaker 2: believes that a gallon of gasoline is poured onto a
Speaker 2: pile of laundry that is in the basement, and that
Speaker 2: is what the origin of the fire is. Right, So
Speaker 2: they during the fire suppression efforts, the basement is flooded.
Speaker 2: There's about a foot of water in the basement. And
Speaker 2: so when they're taking these thirteen samples, the concrete, some
Speaker 2: fabric samples, they're all wet, and the first samples are
Speaker 2: one through eleven. Those are the first samples that are
Speaker 2: sent to the ATF laboratory for chemical analysis. The first
Speaker 2: analysis by an ATF chemist named William Canard. He says
Speaker 2: negative for any traces of accelerant. That's his first report,
Speaker 2: and we know that through discovery and through some handwritten
Speaker 2: notes that William Canard said everything is negative. They then
Speaker 2: send two additional samples twelve and thirteen, and then somehow
Speaker 2: mister Caernard's original report is amended and he eventually says
Speaker 2: that Exhibit six and thirteen are positive for trace amounts
Speaker 2: of gasoline. And in his testimony he never reveals that
Speaker 2: his original analysis is exculpatory to greg and actually said
Speaker 2: that there was no trace amounts of any accelerate, including gasoline.
Speaker 2: And then another thing is there was a lawnmower in
Speaker 2: the basement right next to this alleged a pile of
Speaker 2: laundry with a gas can. That's where the family stored
Speaker 2: their lawnmower. And so if there were trace amounts of gasoline,
Speaker 2: which John Lentini completely refutes, having gone back and looked
Speaker 2: at those comratographs, then it would have had a logical explanation.
Speaker 1: And John Lentini is a legendary fire scientist, an actual
Speaker 1: scientist who started off as an arson investigator, and by
Speaker 1: the way, he was a true believer in the old
Speaker 1: way of thinking. But he's become such an asset for
Speaker 1: exposing this junk science for what it is junk, Unlike
Speaker 1: his counterpart here, William Kinn, the same quote unquote expert
Speaker 1: from Christine Bunch's case and so many others will have
Speaker 1: her story linked as well. So back to the immediate
Speaker 1: aftermath with this report from Canard, the investigators developed the
Speaker 1: theory that you and your mom plotted to burn down
Speaker 1: your own house, destroy all of your possessions, put your
Speaker 1: whole family in danger, grave danger, and then out on
Speaker 1: the street, including two toddlers no less, in the middle
Speaker 1: of a Pittsburgh winter. Right at all of this to
Speaker 1: collect on a twenty thousand dollars insurance policy, which I'm
Speaker 1: guessing wouldn't cover the replacement costs of what you lost.
Speaker 3: Even at a preliminary hearing. One of the investigators outright
Speaker 3: say that they're from Homewood, breastliness is depressed. Are we
Speaker 3: don't believe they had over twenty thousand dollars worth of
Speaker 3: stuff in the house.
Speaker 1: So what are we supposed to believe that you had
Speaker 1: seventeen thousand, nine hundred and fifty dollars worth of stuff
Speaker 1: in there or something and that this was for two
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, this great scheme. I mean, come on, this
Speaker 1: is so it's so sick.
Speaker 3: And it's important. I know, me and my mother were
Speaker 3: black and the firemen were white. And I know for
Speaker 3: a fact there's been other cases in Pittsburgh Alleghany County
Speaker 3: alone where fire fighters have died and so caught that
Speaker 3: the suspects were white and they didn't charge them. So
Speaker 3: I definitely believe race played a major factor in it.
Speaker 3: You know, we're gonna get to the bottom and we'll
Speaker 3: get these guys, these this black family out of here.
Speaker 1: So you and your family were under investigation and out
Speaker 1: of a home. Where'd you go? Where did you live?
Speaker 3: Ironically? I moved up the street like two streets above
Speaker 3: from this house where you could look down with my
Speaker 3: father and my stepmother, And so I would walk past
Speaker 3: the house. They had the house just surrounded with agents.
Speaker 3: They had it there tight, they had it guarded like
Speaker 3: the White House, and it was on the news so
Speaker 3: much had me thinking, well, is anybody after me and
Speaker 3: my family? So you know, I'm like I need protection?
Speaker 3: Do I need to carry gun? I don't know what's
Speaker 3: going on.
Speaker 1: I mean with nightly media coverage. It's not crazy to
Speaker 1: think that a target had been painted on your back.
Speaker 1: But the investigation wasn't keeping up with the court of
Speaker 1: public opinion. There was a reasonable explanation for the alleged
Speaker 1: presence of gasoline and Canard's report, so they needed more
Speaker 1: to go on, and a year after the fire, the
Speaker 1: ATF started offering reward money fifteen thousand dollars for information.
Speaker 2: It was on the noon news, it was on the
Speaker 2: five o'clock news, and it was on the six o'clock news.
Speaker 2: This press conference issuing and publicizing this.
Speaker 1: Reward what it sounds like a good idea on paper,
Speaker 1: but it comes with the obvious pitfall of attracting false information,
Speaker 1: and sure enough, one of your neighbors, Keith Wright, took debate.
Speaker 2: Twelve minutes after the six o'clock news, Keith Wright walked
Speaker 2: down to his local fire department and made a statement
Speaker 2: a year after the fire, having never made a statement before,
Speaker 2: saying that he saw Greg standing outside of his family's
Speaker 2: home before fire park personnel got on scene. Very damaging
Speaker 2: to Greg, because, as you know, he and his mother
Speaker 2: have always said we arrived after fire personnel were on scene.
Speaker 2: We were at the Giant Eagle shopping and so that
Speaker 2: put a hole in Greg's alibi.
Speaker 1: But this hole in the alibi was not quite enough
Speaker 1: to get a warrant, so they kept going with this strategy.
Speaker 3: One of my friends told me that he say, man,
Speaker 3: you know, the ATF came visit me down South Carolina
Speaker 3: and they offered me four thousand and they said, just
Speaker 3: say that his mother made him do it foreign source money.
Speaker 3: And I was like what he said, yeah, man.
Speaker 1: So it appears that they didn't care if the information
Speaker 1: was false or not. But your friend from South Carolina,
Speaker 1: Raoul Gibson, stood strong. So the ATF found another taker,
Speaker 1: which came about when you had actually followed through on
Speaker 1: getting a gun.
Speaker 3: I did end up getting in trouble with a gun,
Speaker 3: you know, I had it for safety.
Speaker 2: The summer of nineteen ninety five, he got in trouble
Speaker 2: for the first time as a juvenile. And while you know,
Speaker 2: possession of a gun is a serious juvenile offence, it's
Speaker 2: the first time he's ever been in front of the
Speaker 2: juvenile court. And instead of probation or house arrest some
Speaker 2: type of like check in program, community based program, Greg
Speaker 2: is sent to Vision Quest in Franklin, Pennsylvania, which is
Speaker 2: like a wilderness slash boot camp program. So one of
Speaker 2: the Pittsburgh homicide detectives tells ATF, and then ATF immediately
Speaker 2: goes to the Vision Quest program and asks for all
Speaker 2: of Greg's bunkmates and starts to reach out to fifteen, sixteen,
Speaker 2: seventeen year olds and asking whether Greg has made any
Speaker 2: inculpatory statements or is as he mentioned this or confessed
Speaker 2: to anybody, and no one is making a statement, and
Speaker 2: so they start to reach out to probation off for
Speaker 2: each one of these kids, and the fifteen year old
Speaker 2: in particular that does eventually end up testifying against Greg.
Speaker 2: His probation officer is contacted upwards of twenty times each
Speaker 2: and every time money is brought up by the ATF
Speaker 2: and the fact that there is a reward in exchange
Speaker 2: for testimony implicating Greg, and finally they have a face
Speaker 2: to face with fifteen year old Ibrahim Abdullah, who only
Speaker 2: after he is told that there is a fifteen thousand
Speaker 2: dollars reward if he has information that would implicate Greg,
Speaker 2: does he make a statement. And the probation officer notes
Speaker 2: that he was really concerned about the statement particularly because
Speaker 2: it is yes and no answers to all leading questions.
Speaker 2: And so, did Greg Brown tell you something about this fire? Yes, sir?
Speaker 2: Did he tell you that he started the fire? Yes, sir.
Speaker 2: And so the fifteen year old's not offering any fact,
Speaker 2: any new facts, any corroborating facts. He's simply answering these
Speaker 2: very lading questions from the ATF.
Speaker 1: Nevertheless, this fifteen year old, Imbrahim Abdullah, gave them what
Speaker 1: they need to make arrests. You were charged with arson
Speaker 1: and murder, and your mother, Darlene Buckner, was charged with arson, murder,
Speaker 1: conspiracy and insurance fraud.
Speaker 3: I just thought I got arrested, and then I call
Speaker 3: home and my aunt answered the phone. She said they
Speaker 3: got your mom too. I said, what you already know?
Speaker 3: You didn't do anything. Now they're arresting your mother. Basically,
Speaker 3: they had a person saying I killed three firemen, but
Speaker 3: I'm bragging about it. You know, he wants you to
Speaker 3: believe it. And I was bragging about it like it
Speaker 3: was a cool crime. I mean, name one rap song
Speaker 3: where rappers was bragging about setting fires, or a movie anything.
Speaker 3: That's not a cool crime.
Speaker 4: It's just crazy man.
Speaker 2: As he's preparing for testimony, fifteen year old Ibrahim Abdullah
Speaker 2: starts to get cold feet, and he tells the ATF agent,
Speaker 2: I don't think I want to do this. I want
Speaker 2: to back out. I don't think I want to testify.
Speaker 2: And the ATF agent puts him in a room with
Speaker 2: the surviving members of the firefighters, who really, you know,
Speaker 2: impose upon him how important it is to them that
Speaker 2: justice be served and what a good thing he's doing.
Speaker 2: And so not only does this fifteen year old have
Speaker 2: the motivation of fifteen thousand dollars and what it could
Speaker 2: do for his family, and then he also has the
Speaker 2: pressure of the ATF and the hopes of the victim's
Speaker 2: families on him.
Speaker 1: So this kid, Ibrahim, his cold feet seem to have
Speaker 1: gotten nice and toasty all of a sudden.
Speaker 3: And we got to give this guys proper credit. Jason
Speaker 3: Wick from the ATF, and.
Speaker 2: He definitely was persistent, even when he was receiving no
Speaker 2: information from these children, he was not afraid to use
Speaker 2: that financial incentive to get the statement that he wanted.
Speaker 1: And I read that later on as a man, Ibraham
Speaker 1: admitted that it went even deeper than that for him
Speaker 1: with this ATF agent Jason Wick.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: He later testifies that he was kind of smitten with
Speaker 2: the ATF agent. The ATF agent, you know, helped him
Speaker 2: with like court costs, helped him with some restitution in
Speaker 2: his other cases, helped him obtain his birth certificate, would
Speaker 2: take him on these rides in his car and would
Speaker 2: like speed, would swear, would tell him how powerful he
Speaker 2: is as an ATF agent. He said, you know, I
Speaker 2: thought this guy was cool. I thought he was really cool.
Speaker 1: So this kid Ibraham was charmed and incentivized to say
Speaker 1: the least, as was the neighbor Keith, Right, and they
Speaker 1: came to testify against you and your mom, who were
Speaker 1: on trial together.
Speaker 3: Oo.
Speaker 1: It hurts my heart to even say that. And despite
Speaker 1: these press conferences, your attorney Al Lindsey was somehow unaware
Speaker 1: of the wars w money. Nevertheless, the jury nearly found
Speaker 1: out about this paid testimony scheme.
Speaker 2: Anyway, during trial, Greg told you about his friend from
Speaker 2: South Carolina named Raoul Gibson. Raoul Gibson testified at trial
Speaker 2: for the defense, saying ATF came to visit me in
Speaker 2: South Carolina and Agent Wick told me that if I
Speaker 2: gave an inculpatory statement against Greg I would be paid
Speaker 2: seven thousand dollars. And at trial, one of the prosecutors,
Speaker 2: the federal prosecutor who was cross examining him, said, Raoul,
Speaker 2: do you think that there's just some fun somewhere the
Speaker 2: agents can go and grab you seven thousand dollars? And Raoul,
Speaker 2: a kid at the time, was like, I don't know
Speaker 2: about that. And then in closing arguments, you know, prosecutors
Speaker 2: really made it seem like it was preposterous that they
Speaker 2: would be paying witnesses.
Speaker 1: Even though they most definitely were and had been saying
Speaker 1: so on the news. Yet Greg's attorney was so how unaware,
Speaker 1: But even so did he try to bring up what
Speaker 1: Raoul Gibson said. When cross examining Abraham Abdullah.
Speaker 2: They talked about what his motivation for testifying would be,
Speaker 2: and what he testified to was that he talked it
Speaker 2: over with his mom and his mom said it was
Speaker 2: the right thing to do. For a defense attorney, you
Speaker 2: can't cross that, especially for a fifteen year old kid
Speaker 2: who you're very much trying to be like, use kid
Speaker 2: gloves with and not look like a jerk in front
Speaker 2: of the jury. When fifteen year olds, as I talked
Speaker 2: to my mom as she said it was the right
Speaker 2: thing to do. There's nowhere to go from there.
Speaker 1: So the state successfully passed off these paid witnesses as
Speaker 1: concerned citizens, followed by this quote unquote arson expert William Cannard,
Speaker 1: who unbeknownst to the jury, judge and defense, had changed
Speaker 1: his original report to reflect the presence of gasoline in
Speaker 1: two of thirteen samples. And even though you were contending
Speaker 1: with an outright lie, there was still the reasonable explanation
Speaker 1: of the gas powered lawn more stored in the basement.
Speaker 1: A defense expert could have and should have gone a
Speaker 1: long way to combat this, had your offense attorney even bothered,
Speaker 1: but he didn't. Now, after seeing all this go down,
Speaker 1: did you still hold out hope that the jury would
Speaker 1: get it right?
Speaker 3: To be honest, part of me did. The bailiff grabs
Speaker 3: the verdict from the jury foreman, and he hands it
Speaker 3: to the judge. The judge was he was definitely referreening
Speaker 3: for them the whole time. You know every rule. I mean,
Speaker 3: we didn't get any type of calls if this would
Speaker 3: be a game. And I seen the judge's face, he
Speaker 3: had a confused look on his face when he read
Speaker 3: the verdict to hisself, and his facial expression was like,
Speaker 3: what the hell is this? And I was like, maybe
Speaker 3: I got a chance. So he read the ver my
Speaker 3: mother was getting acquitted of everything, and I'm like, WHOA
Speaker 3: did we do this? And then when they got to
Speaker 3: the very last charge on my mother, they found her
Speaker 3: guilty of insurance fraud. So I said, okay, now they're
Speaker 3: going to get me, and sure enough, they found me
Speaker 3: guilty on everything except they acquitted us of conspiracy, which
Speaker 3: absolutely made no sense because if she's the mastermind and
Speaker 3: she made her son do it, that's obviously a conspiracy.
Speaker 3: I might have been up there a month and I
Speaker 3: called home one day and my uncle answered the phone
Speaker 3: and he said, you're going to court. Something involve a
Speaker 3: Jordy misconduct. You know, during the trial they tell the dury,
Speaker 3: don't talk to your family members, don't read any papers,
Speaker 3: don't listen to the news, don't discuss the case with anybody,
Speaker 3: don't visit the crime scene. So what had happened was
Speaker 3: a drawer had signed Afford David after I got found guilty,
Speaker 3: and he was stating how one of the drawers had
Speaker 3: her daughter at the trial every day and was sitting
Speaker 3: with the fireman's family and she visited the crime scene.
Speaker 3: So I should have got a new trial based stoff
Speaker 3: of that, you know. But when I went to the
Speaker 3: hearing in front of Josh Coo, he said, well, it
Speaker 3: doesn't matter, it's that dream was shattered. So yeah, I'm
Speaker 3: just a kid, and I get sent to Greater for Prison,
Speaker 3: the biggest prison in the state at the time. Man,
Speaker 3: it was it was rough. It was rough in there then,
Speaker 3: you know, And I pretty much depended on my lawyer, Lindsey,
Speaker 3: my trial lawyer, to get me out.
Speaker 1: And not too long after trial, mister Lindsey, while litigating
Speaker 1: that during misconduct issue and seeking a retrial, he discovered
Speaker 1: the paid witness scheme.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it came to light during discovery for Greg's
Speaker 2: retrial that that reward was offered one year to the
Speaker 2: date of the fire. His attorney asks the court to
Speaker 2: reopen the evidence to tell the jury about the fact
Speaker 2: that this reward was offered and that it, you know,
Speaker 2: certainly could be known and expected by these two witnesses,
Speaker 2: and he's not allowed to do this, so the jury
Speaker 2: is never told that there is a fifteen thousand dollars reward.
Speaker 2: And then so Greg does his direct appeal. You know,
Speaker 2: here in Pennsylvania, he does his federal habeas corpus And
Speaker 2: each and every time members of the prosecution team say
Speaker 2: no witnesses were paid, there is no evidence that witnesses were.
Speaker 1: Paid, even though Raoul Gibson had testified about being offered
Speaker 1: a reward at the original trial. So this issue became
Speaker 1: central to your post conviction efforts. But only after the
Speaker 1: journalism students at Point Park Universities, in this institute, under
Speaker 1: the guidance of Bill Mushy, they were able to develop
Speaker 1: the evidence to prove what had happened with these witnesses.
Speaker 3: They got in touch with Abraham Abdullah and he acknowledged
Speaker 3: that he got paid. And the neighbor, Keith Wright. You know,
Speaker 3: it's like the summer twenty ten, right after the two
Speaker 3: witnesses acknowledged that they did received some type of benefits.
Speaker 3: We had got in touch with jerro Hurst. It was
Speaker 3: a great arson expert in Texas. He wrote back and
Speaker 3: agreed it didn't look like it was Arson at him.
Speaker 3: I got back in Colorida on won my pill rights
Speaker 3: and Judge Williams agreed to give me a hearing based
Speaker 3: off of I didn't have a proper expert witness at
Speaker 3: my trial. After that, mister Mushie said, I'm just a professor.
Speaker 3: He said, you're going to need representation. We're not lawyers.
Speaker 3: And it just so happened. Also in the summer of
Speaker 3: twenty ten, Did Temple started their Innocent Project and he
Speaker 3: got in touch with Marissa Bluestain.
Speaker 1: The Pennsylvania Insist Project picked up your case, and the
Speaker 1: lead up to this hearing in front of Judge Williams,
Speaker 1: while Bill Mushie's team continued to gather evidence.
Speaker 2: Bill Mushie and his students they did several for requests,
Speaker 2: and one of the documents that they got from the
Speaker 2: ATF were these two redacted checks.
Speaker 3: The check for ten thousand, the check for five thousand,
Speaker 3: and it was blacked.
Speaker 2: Out, and so really all they could tell was that
Speaker 2: the ATF issued two checks, one for five thousand and
Speaker 2: one for ten thousand. They couldn't tell who they are
Speaker 2: gone to. And so they went back and they looked
Speaker 2: at all of the appellate history in Greg's case and
Speaker 2: they were confused, right, because prosecutors really made it seem
Speaker 2: like it was preposterous that they would be paying witnesses.
Speaker 2: And so finally in twenty ten, when these redacted checks
Speaker 2: are obtained by the Innocence Institute and Point Park go
Speaker 2: back and they say to the Alleghany County District Attorney's Office, Okay,
Speaker 2: if no witnesses were paid, what are these.
Speaker 3: When mister Mushie confronted them, David Hickden was in charge
Speaker 3: of the ATF at the time, he responded, Oh, well,
Speaker 3: they got paid, but they weren't expecting anything. We didn't
Speaker 3: make any promises beforehand. You know, we basically paid the
Speaker 3: malt de clear blue.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's a good story. That's a I got
Speaker 1: a nice bridge outside of Pittsburgh, right, So that's great.
Speaker 2: And so Point Park investigators find Ibrahim Abdullah, who is now,
Speaker 2: you know, in his late twenties, and they asked him
Speaker 2: when were you paid and did you know you were
Speaker 2: going to be paid at the time of your testimony,
Speaker 2: and he very freely said yes, I was a fifteen
Speaker 2: year old kid. They offered me fifteen thousand dollars. It
Speaker 2: was more money than I had ever seen in my life,
Speaker 2: and it was highly motivating. I knew before trial, and
Speaker 2: actually I expected the fifteen thousand. I was disappointed to
Speaker 2: get only.
Speaker 1: Five, okay, So that solves the mystery of whose name
Speaker 1: was on each redacted check five thousand for Ibrahim and
Speaker 1: ten for Keith.
Speaker 2: Right point, Park was having a really difficult time locating
Speaker 2: Keith Wright, and so the Pennsylvania Innocence Project then got
Speaker 2: Dave Fawcett involved from Reid Smith, and Dave was actually
Speaker 2: able to locate Keith Wright. Mister Wright also said, yes,
Speaker 2: I absolutely knew about the reward. I knew about it
Speaker 2: before trial. Then we were able to bring in Keith Wright,
Speaker 2: bring in Ibrahim Abdullah at the post conviction hearing and
Speaker 2: testify about not only their knowledge prior to trial, but
Speaker 2: that promises were made to them. And then Ibrahim Abdullah,
Speaker 2: the fifteen year old kid at the time, further testified
Speaker 2: that Jason Wick told him prior to his testimony, They're
Speaker 2: going to ask you if I've promised you of anything,
Speaker 2: if there's any kind of incentive or reward. And I
Speaker 2: want to be very clear, I didn't promise you anything.
Speaker 2: Do you understand right?
Speaker 1: So the prosecution is saying to this fifteen year old kid, wow,
Speaker 1: we want you to lie and we want to make
Speaker 1: sure wink wink, you're going to lie about the lie right's.
Speaker 2: And there's a failed threat of there's this money on
Speaker 2: the line, right, so lie well.
Speaker 1: So both paid witnesses exposed the scheme in front of
Speaker 1: Judge Williams in twenty twelve. And then the ATF agent
Speaker 1: Jason Wick, he was also at this hearing.
Speaker 3: He threatened Dave Fawcet in the hallway. He threatened Dave
Speaker 3: and said, YEA said, trying to ruin my fucking name,
Speaker 3: you know, excuse my language, just trying to ruin my name,
Speaker 3: you know. Dave said, he just threatened me in the
Speaker 3: hallway when he's on the stand like a perfect gentleman,
Speaker 3: you know. And of course he denied everything any witness
Speaker 3: anything or offering any anything.
Speaker 1: Dave Fawcett also presented a few other witnesses that lent
Speaker 1: credibility to Abdullah and Wrights recantations. So things must have
Speaker 1: been looking up.
Speaker 3: Dave said, man, I never seen nothing like this. He said,
Speaker 3: everything went perfect for us these three days, you know.
Speaker 3: And then I might have waited for my answers for
Speaker 3: two years, all right, And.
Speaker 2: Then January two twelve is a hearing and then February
Speaker 2: twenty fourteen is the relief.
Speaker 3: Then twenty fourteen, I was in the courtroom and Jeorge
Speaker 3: Williams said, mister Brown, your attorneys made good points. The
Speaker 3: prosecutors made good points too, And my heart started beating.
Speaker 3: And but mister Brown, I believe your witnesses. You ask
Speaker 3: for a new trauma, give you a new trial. I
Speaker 3: couldn't hear nothing but my heart beating. And I just
Speaker 3: remember given my brother, my youngest brother, de Ronce, because
Speaker 3: he was they both for babies, but he was a
Speaker 3: new born when all this happened, and I like gave
Speaker 3: him like a head, not man. That was the best
Speaker 3: day right there, Well, second best day, because obviously the
Speaker 3: day I got out was the best day. And I
Speaker 3: stayed down there for two years, down the county, from
Speaker 3: twenty fourteen to twenty sixteen. I had a belt that
Speaker 3: was ridiculously high. The district attorney appealed immediately, and when
Speaker 3: they lost their last appeal, they tried to go back
Speaker 3: to the old playbook. Tried to get people that was
Speaker 3: on the pard with me to you know, jail house informants.
Speaker 3: They went to all my salemates through twenty years that
Speaker 3: they confered. Fortunately for me, those guys still firm and
Speaker 3: then you know, didn't allow on me.
Speaker 1: So they had one final play with the ATF in Bob.
Speaker 1: This case was always under joint federal and state jurisdiction,
Speaker 1: but with Judge Williams on this case, their options in
Speaker 1: state court were finally running out.
Speaker 2: And so this dual prosecution, this state and federal prosecution
Speaker 2: once again got together and said, Okay, we don't want
Speaker 2: to go and to trial in front of Judge Williams.
Speaker 2: We can't get him to recuse, and so we'll drop
Speaker 2: state charges. We'll switch forums, and we'll take Greg up
Speaker 2: the street to the federal court. They asked to withdraw
Speaker 2: state charges. Judge Williams when he granted the nol Pross motion,
Speaker 2: the motion to withdraw, he did do it with prejudice,
Speaker 2: meaning that you know, if they lost in federal court,
Speaker 2: they couldn't come immediately back to state court and prosecute Greg.
Speaker 2: And then we got to federal court and argued for
Speaker 2: supervised release.
Speaker 3: I was released a week before Thanksgiving of twenty sixteen.
Speaker 3: It was bittersweet, man, because I was obviously happy to
Speaker 3: come home, but I had to live four or five
Speaker 3: years with this case hanging over my head.
Speaker 2: You know the one thing that stands out obviously, like
Speaker 2: Greg walking out of the Allegheny County Jail. We're standing
Speaker 2: in the lobby. First thing he says to the journalists
Speaker 2: who are asking him questions is I want to thank
Speaker 2: the firefighters for saving my family. That's the first thing
Speaker 2: that's on his mind. Find the moment he's walking out
Speaker 2: of being wrongly incarcerated for twenty years.
Speaker 1: That's beautiful. Greg. So now you're released, but still not
Speaker 1: totally free. You still had this case hanging over your head.
Speaker 3: I was pretty much free with deception of I couldn't
Speaker 3: leave Western Pennsylvania or out the state without permission. So
Speaker 3: it was basically like me getting his charge from the beginning,
Speaker 3: but making bond.
Speaker 1: And this dragged out for about six long years, right,
Speaker 1: and this time you did not have Judge Williams.
Speaker 2: The players on this case in nineteen ninety seven are
Speaker 2: Prosecutor Mark Clark, Assistant United States Attorney Sean Sweeney, Judge
Speaker 2: Sir Cone presiding over the case. When we get to
Speaker 2: the federal court, we have Sewn Sweeney, United States Attorney.
Speaker 2: He's going to prosecute the case federally, we're initially assigned
Speaker 2: to Judge schwab here in the Western District, who recuses himself,
Speaker 2: and who is the case assigned to but Judge Sharcone,
Speaker 2: who has been appointed to the federal bench. And so
Speaker 2: once again we have a state federal team and the
Speaker 2: exact same players as twenty two years ago, who all have.
Speaker 1: A professional interest in maintaining this conviction. So how did
Speaker 1: it finally get resolved?
Speaker 3: I had a meeting with my attorneys. They said, the
Speaker 3: government is offering the alpha plea right and my thing was,
Speaker 3: I'm never going to admit to something I didn't do.
Speaker 3: And they said, well, this is unique saying the case
Speaker 3: will be over and you're pleading guilty while maintaining your
Speaker 3: innocence at the same time.
Speaker 2: That was a hard decision. I remember we presented this
Speaker 2: to Greg. We're all sitting at reed Smith. It's still
Speaker 2: during COVID, so we're sitting out on an outdoor patio.
Speaker 2: That's what I don't know, Greg thirteen stories above. Yeah, Eli,
Speaker 2: Greg is afraid of heights, so he's skirting across like
Speaker 2: the wall trying.
Speaker 1: To get to his seat.
Speaker 2: And yeah, we just had like a very kind of
Speaker 2: conversation about like, if we go back to trial, we
Speaker 2: have Judge Starkne, we have Sean Tweeney, we have the
Speaker 2: exact same players. None of us can labor under any
Speaker 2: illusions that you could not be wrongfully convicted. Again, we
Speaker 2: have seen it happen. We have seen it happen with
Speaker 2: these exact people.
Speaker 3: It was hard for me, man, it was very hard
Speaker 3: for me. And that's what we end up doing in
Speaker 3: June of twenty twenty two to this day, Man, it
Speaker 3: bothers me. What I mean, I don't know it's over.
Speaker 3: I'm glad it's over with. And like Liz told me,
Speaker 3: she's like, look, there's no restrictions. You'll be able to
Speaker 3: tell your story. And then Dave said, like, if we
Speaker 3: do fight it and get it, quit it, there's no
Speaker 3: guaranteed that I will get compensated. So it was tough. Man,
Speaker 3: It's still tough. Man. It definitely bothers me.
Speaker 1: Right, even though you had amassed all of this evidence
Speaker 1: and served all of that time. Plus the Great John
Speaker 1: Lintini was prepared to testify about Canard's false report actually
Speaker 1: showing no presence at all of gasoline on any of
Speaker 1: the samples, and that this was actually not an arson
Speaker 1: case at all. Still, there was no guarantee that you
Speaker 1: get an acquittal, and even if you manage that, there
Speaker 1: was no guarantee the compensation would be forthcoming.
Speaker 2: The most accountability that we can have is telling you,
Speaker 2: telling you, telling your listeners what happened to Greg.
Speaker 1: And we're very honored to have you. So is there
Speaker 1: anything at all you'd like to ask of our audience,
Speaker 1: anything they can do.
Speaker 3: I just want to say, I got a book coming
Speaker 3: out to Greg Brown Story Volume one. I'm almost done
Speaker 3: with it. I just want to ask the audience. Man,
Speaker 3: you know, she's a little bit of common sense. You
Speaker 3: just can't take everything they say is go. You can't
Speaker 3: be that naive when someone's life is in your hands.
Speaker 1: Amen. And we'll keep our ears to the ground about
Speaker 1: your book as well as link the Pennsylvania Innis's Project
Speaker 1: in the episode description so people can show some support.
Speaker 1: Without them and other organizations like them, folks like Greg
Speaker 1: would have even harder. And with that, let's go to
Speaker 1: my favorite part of the show. Closing arguments, of course,
Speaker 1: is a part of the show where I have the
Speaker 1: honor of thanking each of you. And now I'm just
Speaker 1: going to kick back in my chair, turn my microphone off,
Speaker 1: close my eyes, and leave my headphones on, and then Liz,
Speaker 1: you have the microphone to say whatever has been left unsaid,
Speaker 1: and then just hand it off to Greg.
Speaker 2: So, you know, experts theorize that anywhere from three to
Speaker 2: ten percent of all people convicted in the United States
Speaker 2: annually are actually innocent. I think that's probably very conservative.
Speaker 2: But even if we are very conservative and say that
Speaker 2: it's only one percent, that's like more than ten thousand
Speaker 2: people a year who are convicted of a crime that
Speaker 2: they didn't commit. Innocence organizations like mine are underfunded, we're understaffed,
Speaker 2: we're very small nonprofit organizations, and so it takes us
Speaker 2: years to investigate and then to litigate a wrongful conviction.
Speaker 2: And so when you do see that exoneration in the news,
Speaker 2: it's wonderful. It's a wonderful day. It has been years
Speaker 2: in the making. If we can prevent wrongful convictions from happening,
Speaker 2: if we can be better jurors, better prosecutors, better defense attorneys,
Speaker 2: better judges, then we won't cost people and their families'
Speaker 2: literal decades of their life in prison. And so be
Speaker 2: skeptical be healthily skeptical of what you're hearing and don't
Speaker 2: just take You know, someone who is very confident and
Speaker 2: also can be very wrong word for it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that family members, neighbors. You know, everyone needs to
Speaker 3: hear these type of stories because you know everyone might
Speaker 3: not listen to this, so no one wants to get
Speaker 3: involved or care until it's their cousin, their son, or brother,
Speaker 3: their nephew. You have to pay attention beforehand because you
Speaker 3: have a responsibility because if you're not helping out beforehand
Speaker 3: and it's too late, and then when you miss your
Speaker 3: loved one, they get charged and then you're crying. You
Speaker 3: should have did something about it. You know, you see
Speaker 3: a face on TV or in the papers. It's kind
Speaker 3: of hard. You know, the average person that never had
Speaker 3: a loved one to deal with this, or a friend. Ay,
Speaker 3: he's guilty, Look what he did? You know, don't You
Speaker 3: shouldn't judge because you never know when it would be
Speaker 3: you and you found me out the front row bagging
Speaker 3: and pleading these judges. When you get to the point
Speaker 3: where you need an edison project, it's bad anyway because
Speaker 3: that means obviously it didn't work out at court. So
Speaker 3: people just need to just hear these type of stories
Speaker 3: as much as possible. The last thing I want to say,
Speaker 3: I got extremely blessed and lucky at the same time.
Speaker 3: Things just came together for me the right time. I
Speaker 3: just to still be in there trying to reach out
Speaker 3: to different organizations. You know, it's messed up what happened
Speaker 3: to me, but I wouldn't want another kid to go
Speaker 3: through this or no other family.
Speaker 5: So that said, thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction.
Speaker 1: You can listen to this and all the Lava for
Speaker 1: Good podcasts one week early by subscribing to Lava for
Speaker 1: Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our
Speaker 1: production team Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as
Speaker 1: my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Clyburn.
Speaker 1: The music in this production was supplied by three time
Speaker 1: OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
Speaker 1: across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram
Speaker 1: at It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
Speaker 1: Lava for Good Podcasts and association with signal company number
Speaker 1: one