Speaker 1: On October twenty fifth, nineteen seventy nine, Rabbi David Akanov
Speaker 1: was walking with his prayer case in Crown Heights, Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: when an assailant approached, described as a young black man
Speaker 1: about five foot nine, one hundred and fifty pounds, he
Speaker 1: shot the prominent rabbi, stole the prayer case, and ran
Speaker 1: into an apartment building. Eventually, NYPD found a young man
Speaker 1: named Daryl Brown, who gave several accounts alleging that a
Speaker 1: local amateur broxer named Carl Miller had made some incriminating statements.
Speaker 1: Karl had an open warrant for assault, was brought in
Speaker 1: for a lineup, but the eyewitnesses didn't identify him. After
Speaker 1: he was processed for the previous assault charge and released,
Speaker 1: Carl approached Daryl Brown in the street, but Brown was
Speaker 1: not deterred. At trial, Brown testified that he had seen
Speaker 1: the whole thing from start to finish, so the prosecutor
Speaker 1: no longer needed the other eyewitnesses who did not identify
Speaker 1: Karl in the lineup. But this is wrongful conviction. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to wrongful conviction, where we have a story born
Speaker 1: out of racial and religious tension in New York City
Speaker 1: that existed certainly before the crime came in the late seventies,
Speaker 1: but also through the nineties and even today in Crown Heights, Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: between the Black and Ascidic communities.
Speaker 2: That live there.
Speaker 1: But before we get into how that relates to this
Speaker 1: story and the man who lived at Carl Miller, I'd
Speaker 1: like to welcome back one of his attorneys, James Henning,
Speaker 1: to our show.
Speaker 3: Pleasure to be back, Jason.
Speaker 1: And this time you brought along another attorney who played
Speaker 1: a major role in this case, Carissa Cokin.
Speaker 4: Welcome, thank you.
Speaker 1: And now i'd like to introduce the man himself, Carl Miller.
Speaker 1: And as we record this right now, October twenty fifth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, it's not only his birthday, but also
Speaker 1: the forty fourth anniversary of the crime at the center
Speaker 1: of his wrongful conviction. So Carl, I'm sure that colors
Speaker 1: how you see this day, but we hope that this
Speaker 1: one is a happy birthday, and thank you for choosing
Speaker 1: to spend some of it here with us.
Speaker 2: And you're welcome.
Speaker 1: Now, Carl, can you tell us a little bit about
Speaker 1: your childhood.
Speaker 5: I grew up in Crown Heights with my family. I
Speaker 5: went to public school to twenty one. From there went
Speaker 5: to James D. Lawrence, which is a six hundred school.
Speaker 5: My mother and my father moved out, and I just
Speaker 5: hung around with some of the guys that I was
Speaker 5: associated with.
Speaker 3: Carl did not have his parents around for a while.
Speaker 3: He was expected to go out and handle his own business.
Speaker 1: And you were married, and you were a young father
Speaker 1: at the time.
Speaker 2: That wasn't married at the time, but I was a
Speaker 2: young father.
Speaker 1: I understand you were an amateur boxer.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I did box for Izzyzerland Youth and Recreation Center and
Speaker 5: Crown Heights, and I had a little reputation in the
Speaker 5: neighborhood as somebody that you didn't want to mess.
Speaker 3: With, and I think that, unfortunately worked against him when
Speaker 3: he was wrongfully accused.
Speaker 1: In the months leading up to the murdering question, Carl
Speaker 1: had been in a fight in which he was stabbed
Speaker 1: with a screwdriver and hospitalized with a collapse lung, resulting
Speaker 1: in an open arrestaurant for assault, which seems wrong for
Speaker 1: someone defending themselves against deadly force, but that kind of
Speaker 1: unfair application of the law was nothing new to Carl.
Speaker 5: I did have a confrontation with the seventy first precinct
Speaker 5: because they used to come around and get guys to
Speaker 5: go in for lineups, and I started telling them, don't
Speaker 5: do that because you getting paid five dollars for a lineup,
Speaker 5: but in not giving you back the picture. So this
Speaker 5: is my way of like trying to keep them out
Speaker 5: of the police way.
Speaker 1: Which is solid advice. We've seen misidentifications start just that
Speaker 1: way in so many wrongful conviction cases. So as a
Speaker 1: young man, Carl had already witnessed injustices to give him
Speaker 1: that perspective. While in contrast, there appeared to be preferential
Speaker 1: treatment for the Hasidic community and Crown Heights.
Speaker 3: It's a strong voting bocke. It's like you're not going
Speaker 3: to get elected mayor if you don't have the Hasiatic
Speaker 3: community because they will vote in droves for the candidate
Speaker 3: that the rebbe tells them to vote for.
Speaker 1: The Hasidic community before and after World War Two settled
Speaker 1: in Crown Heights, which had been anointed by the leaders
Speaker 1: of what is known as the HBBAD or Hobbad Lubovich movement,
Speaker 1: many of whom had escaped persecution either at the hands
Speaker 1: of the Germans or those in the Soviet block before
Speaker 1: and after World War Two. Curiously, the city allowed one
Speaker 1: of its most powerful voting blocks to operate their own
Speaker 1: police force, the Jewish Defense League or JDL.
Speaker 3: The hard charge behind that JDL philosophy was never again,
Speaker 3: get yourself a gun, don't rely on the cops. People
Speaker 3: lived in an era where the cops were hurting you
Speaker 3: onto the trains to auschwitzenbergen Belsen and Triblinka and whatnot.
Speaker 3: It's that Merkan slogan, never again, We're not going to
Speaker 3: be vulnerable. Imagine any other group in New York City
Speaker 3: having their own police force. There are two very distinct
Speaker 3: worlds there in the Crown Heights area. One that is
Speaker 3: set up with their own ambulance and emergency systems, and
Speaker 3: they've had a number of issues going up until recent
Speaker 3: days with those two communities bordering on each other.
Speaker 5: One of the one that really stands out is the
Speaker 5: Crown Heights riot. But as I will say to people,
Speaker 5: prior to Crown Heights riots, you had like Victor Road,
Speaker 5: he was a guy that was a cost about the JDL,
Speaker 5: And of.
Speaker 1: Course you're talking about the awful incident on June sixteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight, when approximately twenty Assitic men beat a
Speaker 1: sixteen year old kid named Victor Roads into a coma
Speaker 1: that lasted for two months. And so obviously the tension
Speaker 1: was high in the area.
Speaker 5: So it was always tension, but it wasn't the con
Speaker 5: at tension that the Crown Heights riot had bought.
Speaker 1: The Crown Heights riot took place in August nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: one when a young Hasidic man drove through a red light,
Speaker 1: peered off the road to avoid now oncoming traffic, and
Speaker 1: pinned two seven year old Black children under his car,
Speaker 1: one of whom Gavin Cato, was killed, signetic a race riot.
Speaker 3: The story at the scene was the Shibata ambulance showed
Speaker 3: up and went straight for the Hasidam while kids underneath
Speaker 3: the car and they're trying to lift it up.
Speaker 1: The tension that was building for decades exploded. Jewish people
Speaker 1: and their businesses were attacked, and the violence played heavily
Speaker 1: into the nineteen ninety three mayoral election of Rudy Giuliani,
Speaker 1: who unseated New York City's first African American mayor, David Dinkins.
Speaker 1: The unrest in Crown Heights was Palpable in nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 1: and was certainly present when Victor Rhodes was attacked in
Speaker 1: June of seventy eight, as well as when Rabbi David
Speaker 1: Akanov was murdered in October seventy nine.
Speaker 3: Rabbi David Akanov, the victim in this case, was in
Speaker 3: his late sixties. He had been born in Ukraine in
Speaker 3: nineteen eleven studied the Torah under Communist rule there. Actually,
Speaker 3: after his bar Mitzvah, he wanted to continue studying, but
Speaker 3: his parents wouldn't let him, so he went on a
Speaker 3: hunger strike until they gave up and led him. He
Speaker 3: ended up emigrating to the US after learning that the
Speaker 3: KGB was looking into him, and he made efforts in
Speaker 3: the Crown Heights community to help other Jews who were
Speaker 3: living under oppression in Russia. So Rabbi Akanov was, by
Speaker 3: all accounts, a very pious and charitable man. He was
Speaker 3: not somebody who seemed to deal with a lot of trappings.
Speaker 3: But he did have a regular prayer case that he
Speaker 3: would bring with him to pray, and it contained and
Speaker 3: I'm going to butcher this terminology, his talus and his
Speaker 3: tapillon which are religious implements used by Lubovich has Seed him.
Speaker 3: So just before seven am on October twenty fifth, nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy nine, he's on his way to yeshiva when he shot.
Speaker 4: This was a very high profile case. We've got a
Speaker 4: very prominent rabbi.
Speaker 6: In the community who was shot with a thirty two
Speaker 6: caliber point blank in the face. There were two eyewitnesses
Speaker 6: to this shooting.
Speaker 3: Both of the eyewitnesses Louis Fazio, who was not a
Speaker 3: member of the seed Of community, and sixteen year old
Speaker 3: Sinaya Sperlin, who was. It's pretty evident that they saw
Speaker 3: the same person running from the scene with Rabbi Akinov's
Speaker 3: prayer case.
Speaker 1: Now, the descriptions were actually remarkably similar from the two witnesses.
Speaker 1: A man who was black, twenty one years old, ish right,
Speaker 1: about five nine, one hundred and fifty pounds, medium built,
Speaker 1: medium hair, possibly wearing a hat and a dark jacket. Carl,
Speaker 1: does that description match you or did it match you
Speaker 1: at that time?
Speaker 5: At that time, I was probaby a five one hundred
Speaker 5: and eighty pounds, weigh a little afro and wear too
Speaker 5: many hats, very athletic, not slim, as they had described
Speaker 5: this person as being a slender person.
Speaker 2: That's not me.
Speaker 1: They're talking about a guy who's five nine one fifty.
Speaker 1: You're about six feet tall, right, Yeah, there's a significant difference.
Speaker 1: You were a boxer, right, so with a class of boxing.
Speaker 5: I was in a light heavy, light heavyweight, light heavyweight.
Speaker 1: So the descriptions didn't match. What about alibis and things
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 5: I was in Queens, New York, celebrating my birthday with
Speaker 5: my daughter's mother at the time, and I left her
Speaker 5: house came back to Brooklyn, and that's when I learned
Speaker 5: about the rabbi being murdered.
Speaker 1: Carl had spent the night in Queens, and even after
Speaker 1: lies and coercion, his daughter's mother, Joanne Davis, maintained that
Speaker 1: he was there that morning and not in Crown Heights
Speaker 1: at seven am, murdering Rabbi Akanoff and running off with
Speaker 1: his prayer case into the apartment building at five point
Speaker 1: sixty five Crown Street.
Speaker 6: And that is where they end up finding a suitcase
Speaker 6: that belonged to an individual named Darryl Brown.
Speaker 3: Rabbi Akonov's prayer case is never found, and in an
Speaker 3: abandoned apartment they find this suitcase belonging to Darryl Brown
Speaker 3: with his property in there, and two days later he
Speaker 3: shows up at the precinct because he heard that they
Speaker 3: were looking for them.
Speaker 4: Daryl Brown essentially ends up being the only person to
Speaker 4: ever implicate Carl Beller in this crime.
Speaker 1: Right, you sure Lock Holmes to figure out that a
Speaker 1: misdirection play there.
Speaker 3: Right, You've also got the fact that Darryl Brown is
Speaker 3: repeatedly lying to them. His statements evolve. His initial statement
Speaker 3: indicates that he didn't see anything.
Speaker 1: And then they received a second statement from Daryl Brown
Speaker 1: on November eight, nineteen seventy nine, while he was being
Speaker 1: treated at King's County Hospital for a gunshot wound to
Speaker 1: the hand. They never investigate the cause of the wound.
Speaker 3: When they come back to him, presumably with the ability
Speaker 3: to turn the screws a little bit, when he's in
Speaker 3: the hospital with the gunshot wound, he now says that
Speaker 3: he and two other friends had seen a Jewish man
Speaker 3: with some money in a pizza falafel store and Carl
Speaker 3: supposedly said, oh, you should have ripped him off, and
Speaker 3: that he had heard the shot and saw Carl near
Speaker 3: the scene.
Speaker 1: Carl has always maintained if he was not present either
Speaker 1: for the murder or that day in the store. We
Speaker 1: only find out who that actually was much later then.
Speaker 3: Darryl Brown in his third documented statement and his first
Speaker 3: sworn statement the next day on November ninth, he says
Speaker 3: that he had seen Carl near the scene and he
Speaker 3: tried to get into five point sixty five Crown where
Speaker 3: I was staying. I've seen him with a thirty two
Speaker 3: and I spoke to him the day before the crime
Speaker 3: about a jew with money in a blue bag. And
Speaker 3: that's a quote which is important because it departs from
Speaker 3: his testimony at trial.
Speaker 1: On the strength of Dwell Brown's ever shifting word, Carl
Speaker 1: was eventually charged with the murder. However, with his open
Speaker 1: arrest warrant for assault, his reputation as a neighborhood tough guy,
Speaker 1: and previous interactions with the seventy first Precinct, they came
Speaker 1: looking for him way before Brown had ever made any statements.
Speaker 1: Just a few days after the rabbi's murder in late October.
Speaker 5: My sister tell me that the police was looking for
Speaker 5: me to talk to me, and I called him, said,
Speaker 5: what are you looking me for? Oh, we want to
Speaker 5: talk to you about the homicide. Come to the precinct.
Speaker 5: I'm like, nah, we can talk about not come to
Speaker 5: the precinct. I didn't go because I made he was
Speaker 5: going to arrest me, so I had an open case.
Speaker 3: I had a warrant, which is completely within his rights.
Speaker 5: And I think it was November fourteenth. They picked me
Speaker 5: up at my house, took me to the sixty ninth precinct,
Speaker 5: questioned me about the homicide, but they arrested me for
Speaker 5: my warrant.
Speaker 3: When Carl does get brought to the precinct, he offers
Speaker 3: to take a polygraph and provide his fingerprints, and police
Speaker 3: don't take his prince, but they do take a polygraph,
Speaker 3: which they claim Carl failed. He then stands in two
Speaker 3: lineups without council and is viewed by Shanina Sperlin and
Speaker 3: Louis Fazio, the two undisputed eyewitnesses, neither of whom identify him.
Speaker 2: I was held on the warrant.
Speaker 5: They took me to Rockets Island, came back out and
Speaker 5: walking around the street and people was telling me that
Speaker 5: this guy Brown was talking about me with the police,
Speaker 5: and I had a confrontation with him when I was accident.
Speaker 5: Why are you telling um talking to the police about
Speaker 5: me about this case? Oh, they want me to say
Speaker 5: and I'm not gonna say nothing. I was just telling
Speaker 5: him leave my name out of it, because I had
Speaker 5: nothing to do with that at all.
Speaker 2: This was around probably right after Thanksgiving.
Speaker 3: Daryl Brown on November twenty ninth is given a polygraph
Speaker 3: quote to test out his earlier statement end quote to
Speaker 3: the prosecutor and according to the police, Brown's polygraph shows
Speaker 3: that he was telling the truth about everything, but there
Speaker 3: was some question about his withholding evidence from the police.
Speaker 3: Now think about that statement, because we know number one,
Speaker 3: polygraphs aren't this nuance? Now they weren't this nuance? Then
Speaker 3: this was a tool for coercion.
Speaker 1: It usually is. Polygraphs aren't even admissible in court. And
Speaker 1: I need our audience to remember that police are allowed
Speaker 1: to lie to you about evidence, and they routinely lie
Speaker 1: about polygraph results in order to coerce confessions.
Speaker 5: When they arrested me on the fourteenth and I volunteered
Speaker 5: for the lineup, the guy has said that, oh, you
Speaker 5: was picked out in Alno, which we come to learn
Speaker 5: that was not true, that I was never identified in Lano.
Speaker 5: After I take the polygraph test, they said, oh, you fail,
Speaker 5: So I'm like, okay, I mean I watched Perry Mason
Speaker 5: when I was a kid. So if I failed a
Speaker 5: lot to take the test and I was picked down
Speaker 5: on the lineup, what more evidence do you need to
Speaker 5: arrest me? But I wasn't arrested. I was arrested in
Speaker 5: November thirtieth for this case.
Speaker 3: After Daryl Brown gives that polygraph statement where according to
Speaker 3: the police, he was truthful about everything. On the thirtieth
Speaker 3: they put Daryl Brown in lineups. But what are you
Speaker 3: putting somebody in lineups for if they've told the truth
Speaker 3: about everything implicating another individual.
Speaker 1: That's a good question. If I'm following this correctly, then
Speaker 1: they must have suspected that he might have been the guy, right.
Speaker 3: It doesn't make sense to conclude otherwise. Either he's telling
Speaker 3: the truth about everything when he implicates Carl, and okay,
Speaker 3: authorize the arrest. Certainly, there's no basis the next day
Speaker 3: to put Darryl Brown in lineups unless you're saying maybe
Speaker 3: he's still not telling the truth about everything, and instead
Speaker 3: what they do is revert to tunnel vision and authorize
Speaker 3: and arrest for Karl based entirely. This is disputed entirely
Speaker 3: on the accusation of Daryl Brown, his second differing sworn statement,
Speaker 3: his fourth or fifth differing documented statement since the murder.
Speaker 3: It's just a travesty.
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Speaker 5: When you coming off the street, you know you gotta
Speaker 5: fight within Rockets Island because that's how it was. So
Speaker 5: it can be really alled on the person that if
Speaker 5: you're not really up to it, and I was the
Speaker 5: type of person that I could defend myself, so I
Speaker 5: had no problem like that. You just waiting to go
Speaker 5: to trial and prove my innocence.
Speaker 1: So nine months later, September eighth, nineteen eighty, you go
Speaker 1: to trial. I'm assuming you were represented by a public defender.
Speaker 5: Yes, I was rep presented by how it listwise, the
Speaker 5: guy come in tell me, oh, I never lost a
Speaker 5: murder case.
Speaker 2: I didn't know you didn't have one until you had minds.
Speaker 3: There were some very serious discovery issues here, whether you
Speaker 3: want to blame it on trial council or whether you
Speaker 3: want to blame it on the prosecution. But two things
Speaker 3: that we now know happened just prior to trial. There's
Speaker 3: no indication that Carl knew at the time of trial.
Speaker 3: It's that Shanina Sperlin shows up at the Brooklyn DIA's
Speaker 3: office and tells Ada Barbara Newman, the trial prosecutor, that
Speaker 3: he recognized a possible perpetrator in one of the lineups
Speaker 3: he viewed. But it's not the Carl Miller lineup. It's
Speaker 3: the Darryl Brown lineup. The other thing that is potentially
Speaker 3: but we're not certain, disclosed on August twenty eighth, nineteen eighty,
Speaker 3: about a week or so before Carl's trial starts, is
Speaker 3: that Ada Newman discloses that an individual named Barry Lee
Speaker 3: Jackson had been identified from photographs on or before October
Speaker 3: twenty seventh, nineteen seventy nine, which is just two days
Speaker 3: after the murder, and in writing whether this was received
Speaker 3: by mister weiss Wesser or not, or whether it was
Speaker 3: taken as legitimate or not, she tells him that if
Speaker 3: he lacked any further discovery, he should tell her so
Speaker 3: she could provide it. Now, that's kind of a catch
Speaker 3: twenty two, and it's not how discovery works. He can't
Speaker 3: tell her if he's lacking something that he doesn't know about.
Speaker 3: And you're now on the eve of trial.
Speaker 1: There were several other important Brady violations, including more alternate
Speaker 1: suspects like a man named Derek Peterson, as well as
Speaker 1: a guy named Willie Easterling who had been seen trying
Speaker 1: to sell religious artifacts in the area. Police reports did
Speaker 1: not demonstrate any follow up and were not shared with
Speaker 1: the defense either, and this conduct was only compounded by
Speaker 1: presenting the ever changing testimony of Daryl Brown, this time
Speaker 1: at trial He said that he followed Carl that morning,
Speaker 1: saw him grab Achanoff, who screamed before he was shot,
Speaker 1: then saw him run off to five sixty five Crown
Speaker 1: Street with the prayer case, and Carl's attorney did lean
Speaker 1: heavily on the inconsistencies between Brown's version of events and
Speaker 1: undisputed facts of the crime, as well as how Brown's
Speaker 1: testimony may have resulted from pressure from investigators.
Speaker 3: Detective Sorrentino, who's the assigned detective here, testifies that he
Speaker 3: never told Darryl Brown he was a suspect, which, as
Speaker 3: we noted earlier, if after the fact of him giving
Speaker 3: you a completely truthful statement, you're placing him in lineups,
Speaker 3: there's only one reason to play somebody in a lineup
Speaker 3: as the subject. Second, the court prohibited Carl's council from
Speaker 3: questioning Detective Sorrentino about whether he had ever put psychological
Speaker 3: pressure on a suspect. And there's one more thing. Darryl
Speaker 3: Brown's account of Rabbi Akanov's suitcase is not accurate. His
Speaker 3: prayer bag was a distinctive dark blue color, and in
Speaker 3: the early unrecorded police statement that Daryl Brown gives describing
Speaker 3: this bag, it is a dark blue bag, but by
Speaker 3: the time he gets a trial, it's a clear bag
Speaker 3: that he can see into and actually tell the type
Speaker 3: of felt material inside, and more concerning it indicates to
Speaker 3: me one of two possible conclusions. One Daryl Brown saw
Speaker 3: inside that bag or touched it. Two Daryl Brown was
Speaker 3: told how that bag looked after he gave independent statements.
Speaker 3: Neither of them tend to support the reliability of the
Speaker 3: verdict in this case.
Speaker 1: Darryl Brown also testified that Rabbi Achanov made no attempt
Speaker 1: to block the bullet with his hand, which was contradicted
Speaker 1: by the state's forensic pathologist, citing the black powder stain
Speaker 1: and stippling on the back of the rabbi's hand. So,
Speaker 1: while the defense seated doubt about the state's witness, the
Speaker 1: state attacked Carl's alibi witness, his daughter's mother, Joanne Davis.
Speaker 6: From everything in the transcript, everything on the record, all
Speaker 6: the materials we have, the only indication we can really
Speaker 6: come to is that Carl's alibi witness was really just
Speaker 6: spoken to in order to try and get impeachment material
Speaker 6: for her.
Speaker 4: And you know something.
Speaker 6: Else that we see as well too, is that false
Speaker 6: statements are attributed to Carl's alibi witness, which is some
Speaker 6: thing that we very frequently see in these cases as well.
Speaker 6: You have unendorsed statements, you have unsigned statements. Then at
Speaker 6: trial it's the detective's word against the witnesses word.
Speaker 1: In this case, the lead detective Sorrentino, testified that Miss
Speaker 1: Davis said that she saw Karl with the thirty two
Speaker 1: caliber pistol, the kind of gun used to kill Achanov,
Speaker 1: even though Miss Davis denied ever saying that, but rather
Speaker 1: that she'd only seen him with a toy gun. In addition,
Speaker 1: Sorrentino testified that Miss Davis's mother had said that Carl
Speaker 1: was not at her home the morning of the murder.
Speaker 3: To the credit of Joanne Davis, she's actually asked under
Speaker 3: oath if her mother is stupid. She's told that Carl
Speaker 3: supposedly failed to polygraph, She's told that he may never
Speaker 3: come home, and she doesn't change her account.
Speaker 1: The state referred to Miss Davis's story as concocted, and
Speaker 1: they told the jury to quote wonder about the sense
Speaker 1: of someone who gave birth at seventeen.
Speaker 6: Wooh credit ability was unborn to being attacked by the
Speaker 6: police and prosecutors.
Speaker 1: The state made note that the main issue of the
Speaker 1: case was whether Daryl Brown had seen the shooting, calling
Speaker 1: the actual eyewitnesses nothing more than quote distractions unquote, and
Speaker 1: that eyewitness Louis Fazzio quote didn't add anything to the
Speaker 1: case unquote. They had to take this tact after all,
Speaker 1: because Fazio was no help to them.
Speaker 6: Fazio was initially subpoenaed by the people, right, So he
Speaker 6: gets into the courtroom and he tells his wife that
Speaker 6: Carl is too broad to have been the man that
Speaker 6: he saw.
Speaker 3: As a result, Adia Newman doesn't call him, but the
Speaker 3: defense does.
Speaker 6: He reiterated that he made this remark that Carl was
Speaker 6: too broad to have been the person that he saw,
Speaker 6: and he also basically said that he was not able
Speaker 6: to identify the person who he saw in the courtroom,
Speaker 6: So meaning right, it's not Carl.
Speaker 3: But the fact that Ada k Newman had subpoenaed him
Speaker 3: makes two things ridiculous. She asks him, mister Fozzio, were
Speaker 3: you wearing your glasses, as if this is supposed to
Speaker 3: impugne his account, even though she was going to call
Speaker 3: him as her witness previously when she thought maybe it
Speaker 3: wouldn't denigrate her case. But second of all, how you
Speaker 3: could get up in summation and say he couldn't add
Speaker 3: anything to the case when you were calling him in
Speaker 3: a case that did not have a ton of witnesses testifying.
Speaker 3: He's one of two people that indisputably saw the purp
Speaker 3: running from this crime scene.
Speaker 1: So Fasio was positive for the defense while Joeanne Davis
Speaker 1: was brutally attacked. But then Carl's lawyer does something absolutely
Speaker 1: insane at the end of the trial.
Speaker 3: It's absurd. It's in his own summation where the verdict
Speaker 3: is going to come down to a credibility contest between
Speaker 3: his civilian aliby witness and the sole witness for the prosecution.
Speaker 3: And first the judge says, actually says on the record, well,
Speaker 3: it's probably improper for me to express an opinion, but
Speaker 3: I'm going to say it. I think the alibi has
Speaker 3: been pretty well discredited. And instead of mister Weiswasser standing
Speaker 3: up and advocating for his client, he says, quote, I
Speaker 3: wish I never heard the word alibi. And in his
Speaker 3: own summation he points out supposed holes in miss Davis's
Speaker 3: testimony denigrator is a witness while calling Detective Sorrentino an
Speaker 3: excellent officer. It's a complete abdication of his duty to
Speaker 3: his client.
Speaker 5: He didn't really do anything in defense of me. He
Speaker 5: really didn't and a juri or eleven whites and one black.
Speaker 5: It was over two hundred asiitics inside and outside the court.
Speaker 2: The deck was stacked against me.
Speaker 1: Predictably, the jury went out and they came back with
Speaker 1: guilty on all accounts right felony, murder, robbery in the
Speaker 1: first degree, in criminal possession of a weapon in the
Speaker 1: second degree.
Speaker 5: When I was found guilty, it was like, Wow, are
Speaker 5: you serious? You're gonna believe this guy that I killed
Speaker 5: this man? A lot of things was running through my head.
Speaker 5: I'm not gonna be raise my son. I'm not gonna
Speaker 5: be able to raise my daughter, you know, my sisters,
Speaker 5: my family.
Speaker 2: So it's a whole lot going through a whole lot.
Speaker 5: I'm put on that bus to go up to Elmira.
Speaker 5: It's like the reality starts sitting there.
Speaker 2: What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do?
Speaker 5: Get caught up in a lot of negative stuff that
Speaker 5: goes on in prison, or you're gonna get yourself up
Speaker 5: out of there for time being. You get caught up
Speaker 5: in a little bit of the negativity stuff to stimulate
Speaker 5: yourself from the reality of being in prison. That's something
Speaker 5: that I did to a couple of old timers. Pulled
Speaker 5: me to the side and said, hey, look, we read
Speaker 5: about your case. It don't seem right. You need to
Speaker 5: get your butt in a little library while your indictment
Speaker 5: make it's still fresh.
Speaker 2: I had a little pill of attorney. He put together some.
Speaker 5: Type of brief that was straight up be at and
Speaker 5: I wound up doing time, just trying to seek help
Speaker 5: from different people. Just keep pushing, went to school, got
Speaker 5: a ged legal research certificate, still trying to prove my innocence.
Speaker 5: Nobody was listening to pills. Was denied time come for
Speaker 5: your first parole board. I go in there, continue to
Speaker 5: maintain my innocence. That was in two thousand and four,
Speaker 5: Go back in two thousand and six, come back in
Speaker 5: two thousand and eight, same thing, go back in twenty ten.
Speaker 5: And what was presented to the senior parole officer at
Speaker 5: the time is that Shanina Sperling and Louis Faizio did
Speaker 5: not identify me. The senior parole officer. He said, Yo,
Speaker 5: you know, they always sent up transcripts of the sentencing,
Speaker 5: but they never sent up stuff like this. And he said, wow,
Speaker 5: I never knew this. So he said, the next parole
Speaker 5: hearing come up, I think you got a good shot
Speaker 5: with this commission of someone. Set your paperwork in front.
Speaker 5: I just continue saying what you're saying, maintaining your innocent
Speaker 5: don't change, and I didn't, and the lo and behold
Speaker 5: I was parole.
Speaker 1: So I kind of glossed over a little bit over
Speaker 1: thirty years that you spent in prison. Right? Was it
Speaker 1: that long?
Speaker 2: Thirty one?
Speaker 1: Thirty one years?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: It's amazing that you survived, and that you seem to
Speaker 1: really have survived with your spirit intact. And it's also
Speaker 1: incredible that you were able to go to the parole
Speaker 1: board and do exactly opposite of what people are advised
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: They want to hear remorse, they want to hear that
Speaker 1: sort of narrative. Right, So for them to be able
Speaker 1: to act the way that they did shows that they
Speaker 1: must have known what you had known all along, and
Speaker 1: what everyone should have known all along, which is that
Speaker 1: you were actually innocent.
Speaker 5: Being released after thirty one years. It was surreal. It
Speaker 5: was wow, I'm walking the street. Oh man, what am
Speaker 5: I going to do? Okay, gotta go see parole. That's
Speaker 5: kind of frustrating because you're still on the supervision. Came out,
Speaker 5: got married, reconnected. What did I miss? I missed my
Speaker 5: daughter's first time walking. I missed my daughter's first grade.
Speaker 5: I missed my son's first grade. I missed my son's
Speaker 5: first baseball game. I missed so many things that you
Speaker 5: cannot get back. So when you come out, where do
Speaker 5: you pick up from my daughter? Because she was only
Speaker 5: a couple of months before I left. My son was two,
Speaker 5: So you look at the time. So you're saying thirty
Speaker 5: one and thirty three. These are young adults that have
Speaker 5: lived a life. So how could you interject as a father?
Speaker 5: Because this was taken away from me. So you do
Speaker 5: the best that you can. And that's all I've been
Speaker 5: doing since I've been out, was reconnecting with them, connected
Speaker 5: with other family members and things of that nature, and
Speaker 5: then got back into proving my innocence. And that's when
Speaker 5: I continue doing what I was doing. And I wrote
Speaker 5: to different people after Ken Thompson had set up the
Speaker 5: wrongful conviction unit that he has in the Brooklyn District
Speaker 5: Attorney's office, and I had contacted them, and I contacted James,
Speaker 5: and this is where we're at now.
Speaker 3: So where we are right now is we had cooperated
Speaker 3: for a bit with the conviction review unit here in Brooklyn.
Speaker 3: We'd received some materials we intend to use in support
Speaker 3: of emotion at some point. Ultimately, after they interviewed Carl
Speaker 3: and some of the witnesses in the case declined to
Speaker 3: be interviewed or could not be located, they closed out
Speaker 3: the case. But then this month they reached back out
Speaker 3: and said that there has been a recent and unexpected
Speaker 3: development in the investigation of Carl's case and that they're
Speaker 3: going to reopen the investigation, which I don't believe I've
Speaker 3: heard of them doing in any other case.
Speaker 1: After we wrapped our first interview, we got a call
Speaker 1: from James and Carrissa asking us to hold on production
Speaker 1: until they could meet with the Brooklyn DA's office. It
Speaker 1: turns out that back in nineteen seventy nine, a guy
Speaker 1: named Robert Simms gave a statement to corroborate Brown about
Speaker 1: Carl's alleged statement at the Falafel or Pizza store. Now,
Speaker 1: in October twenty twenty three, some new evidence came to
Speaker 1: light about Robert Simms and his wife.
Speaker 3: Linda Simms, the broken cru in the course of their reinvestigation,
Speaker 3: had visited her house looking to speak with her husband,
Speaker 3: Robert Simms, and left the card there. And what we've
Speaker 3: been told is that Linda Simms, the wife, January of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three, reached out to her sister and sent
Speaker 3: a picture of the assistant's business card that had been
Speaker 3: left at the door. And when her sister asked, well,
Speaker 3: what is this about, she responded, well, google Rabbi Crown
Speaker 3: Heights nineteen seventy nine, and the sister, Teresa, found articles
Speaker 3: on Rabbi Akinov's murder. And she asked her sister, Linda, well,
Speaker 3: what did you do, and Linda responded that's what I did.
Speaker 3: And Teresa, caring about her sister, said well, what you
Speaker 3: need to do is get yourself an attorney and turn
Speaker 3: yourself in. And Linda for many months did not heed
Speaker 3: that advice. So by September ish, it seems to be Teresa,
Speaker 3: this was weighing very heavily on her contacted the Brooklyn
Speaker 3: DIA's office and that's what spurred on the reopening of
Speaker 3: the investigation.
Speaker 1: The confession from Linda to her sister Teresa continued implicating
Speaker 1: Robert Simms.
Speaker 3: Linda said, I did that, and then Web meaning her
Speaker 3: and Robert, brought it up to our father. He was
Speaker 3: very pissed off and sent me down south. Now there's
Speaker 3: a fair inference that she was saying that both of
Speaker 3: us did this. And we now have additional evidence that
Speaker 3: Linda Simms's father, who was murdered in December nineteen eighty,
Speaker 3: shortly after Carl's trial, that at various points throughout nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy nine and nineteen eighty, both Linda and Robert Simms
Speaker 3: had possession of his handgun. And additional information that has
Speaker 3: come out about Robert has certainly changed our assessment of him. Specifically,
Speaker 3: when he was interviewed by the cru in relation to
Speaker 3: Carl's case, they did not know that in the early
Speaker 3: two thousands he was carrying on this relationship outside of
Speaker 3: his marriage with Linda. She was a twenty something beautician,
Speaker 3: they had a child together, and she was found disposed
Speaker 3: of in a very rough fashion in an abandoned building.
Speaker 3: And Robert was brought to trial in Brooklyn for the
Speaker 3: murder and somehow acquitted. Obviously, the file is sealed following
Speaker 3: the acquittal, but it sounds like the only reason for
Speaker 3: the acquittal was that Robert pointed the finger to friends
Speaker 3: who had helped him dispose of the body and claimed
Speaker 3: that one of them was the actual murderer.
Speaker 1: So what was the guy's name who took the fall?
Speaker 3: Meltreus Walker?
Speaker 1: Is he still serving time?
Speaker 3: He's out now? He essentially says he came over to
Speaker 3: the house the woman had been shot four times and
Speaker 3: Robert said, I need you to help me take care
Speaker 3: of this.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: What's even more interesting here is before the Brooklyn DIA's office,
Speaker 3: the cru had learned through Theresa lind his sister, about
Speaker 3: Robert's prior charge that he was acquitted of. They interviewed
Speaker 3: him and he said he did not want to talk
Speaker 3: about his prior case, which he referred to as sort
Speaker 3: of a little incident, I believe, but he didn't want
Speaker 3: to get into the details. He said that he and
Speaker 3: Daryl Brown, the sole witness against Karl, had been best
Speaker 3: friends for years up until that point, at which time
Speaker 3: they had a falling out because he asked Daryl Brown
Speaker 3: for some help with something, and Darryl Brown's response was,
Speaker 3: who the f do you think you are? John Gottie
Speaker 3: or something, And they haven't really spoken. Since it sounds
Speaker 3: like Daryl was asked to do some dirty work for Robert.
Speaker 1: Not certainly plausible that Daryl Brown may have been responding
Speaker 1: to a request from Robert Simms for yet another big favor.
Speaker 3: Going back to the original investigation, the statement attributed to
Speaker 3: Robert by police was that Robert and Daryl Brown a
Speaker 3: day or a few days before Rabbi Akinov's murder had
Speaker 3: been in a pizza shop on Kingston Avenue and seeing
Speaker 3: a Jewish man with a prayer bag full of money,
Speaker 3: and according to the police report, Robert and Daryl were
Speaker 3: thinking of robbing this man but didn't and when they
Speaker 3: later saw Carl Miller, they said, here's what we saw,
Speaker 3: and according to the police report, Carl said, oh, you
Speaker 3: should have ripped him off. Now, Carl has always denied
Speaker 3: making that statement. We have nothing from Daryl Brown on
Speaker 3: that statement at trial. We have him in a police
Speaker 3: report giving a different version of that. What Robert Simms
Speaker 3: did admit to us and to the cru is that
Speaker 3: he was looking to get one of those bags he
Speaker 3: was interested in robbing somebody. He denies that they had
Speaker 3: any conversation where Carl Miller said, yeah, you should have
Speaker 3: taken this guy off. And as Carl has said repeatedly,
Speaker 3: his response to that would have been, are you crazy.
Speaker 3: You're right across the street from the JDL and you're
Speaker 3: going to rob a guy like this. That's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: So where does the case stand now?
Speaker 3: With the cru they have turned things over to us.
Speaker 3: We're gathering information and evidence to put a motion into court.
Speaker 3: We've had several people talk to us and give us
Speaker 3: additional evidence. We're feeling good that we can get ourselves
Speaker 3: a hearing where we can subpoena some of these people
Speaker 3: and get them in to give sworn testimony so we
Speaker 3: can weed out the truth here.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, and now we're working with the CiU. Clearly there
Speaker 6: are ways and avenues for us to pursue.
Speaker 4: We just need people to speak up about it.
Speaker 2: Karl deserves it.
Speaker 3: Rabbi Akanov deserves to have the right person convicted of
Speaker 3: this crime. This is a case that is based on
Speaker 3: one person, Daryl Brown his word. We're not here to
Speaker 3: judge you. Somebody was already judged in this case, and
Speaker 3: we submit that it was wrongful. Reach out to us.
Speaker 3: We'll talk to you. This isn't a witch hunt or something.
Speaker 3: We just want the truth. We're at eighty six Livingston
Speaker 3: Street in Brooklyn. We want to get to the bottom
Speaker 3: of this.
Speaker 1: So we'll definitely have your contact info length in the
Speaker 1: episode description, and with that we're going to go to
Speaker 1: closing arguments, where first of all, I just want to
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us, and now I'm going to
Speaker 1: shut my microphone off, kick back of my chair with
Speaker 1: my headphones on, and just listen to anything else that
Speaker 1: you feel is left to be said. So let's start
Speaker 1: with James, go to Carissa, and then finish it off
Speaker 1: with you call.
Speaker 3: One thing that I think we didn't get into, something
Speaker 3: that we only learned after we started cooperating with the
Speaker 3: cru in this case, is that one of the people
Speaker 3: that we've seen pop up in a lot of these
Speaker 3: cases is a gentleman that your viewers are certainly familiar with,
Speaker 3: the detective Lewis Scarcella, and he it just so happens
Speaker 3: pops up in this case for reasons that have not
Speaker 3: been revealed to us. Two days after the murder, then
Speaker 3: Anti Crime Officer Lewis Scarcella is interviewed by the assisting
Speaker 3: detective Viola, and we have no information about that. But
Speaker 3: we do have information that former detective Scarcella has been
Speaker 3: monitoring the progress of this case and the media accounts
Speaker 3: of this case. So again I'll say the same thing
Speaker 3: I said about Daryl Brown, Missus Scarcella, my phone is on.
Speaker 3: Information is information. We don't know how you factored into this. Again,
Speaker 3: I'll say, we're not going to stop. There will be
Speaker 3: a resolution here, whether it's through the cru whether it's
Speaker 3: filing something. When Carl came to me, I said, we're
Speaker 3: going to fight this case. When Carissa read this case,
Speaker 3: she said, we're going to fight this case together. That's
Speaker 3: what we do, and we're going to keep moving forward,
Speaker 3: reach out.
Speaker 6: I'm just really happy that we were able to touch
Speaker 6: on the fact that Carl was released on parole notwithstanding
Speaker 6: him maintaining his innocence.
Speaker 4: I think that is huge.
Speaker 6: Anyone who's familiar with the criminal justice process knows that
Speaker 6: is huge.
Speaker 4: And I really think.
Speaker 6: It's no surprise that Fazio played a role and that
Speaker 6: so as we're saying, if anyone has any more information
Speaker 6: similar to Fazio.
Speaker 4: Maybe they saw something just come forward.
Speaker 5: I would like to say thank you in the role
Speaker 5: for Picent podcast for giving us the opportunity to have
Speaker 5: this out there in the public so that people can
Speaker 5: see not just me, but they are a whole bunch of
Speaker 5: wrongful convictions. And as James and Carissa as stated, it's
Speaker 5: people that know me. If you know something that need
Speaker 5: to be spoke on, speak on it. That's all I
Speaker 5: have to say.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
Speaker 1: to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
Speaker 1: week early by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team, Connor
Speaker 1: Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow executive
Speaker 1: producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cliburn. The music
Speaker 1: in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
Speaker 1: composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across all
Speaker 1: social media platforms at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction.
Speaker 1: You can also follow me on Instagram at It's Jason Flamm.
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
Speaker 1: and association with signal Company number one