Speaker 1: For those not already familiar with the story of Marty
Speaker 1: tank Cliffe, his case began on the night of September six,
Speaker 1: when Marty was just about to start his senior year
Speaker 1: of high school in an affluent area of Long Island,
Speaker 1: New York. Marty's father was an entrepreneur and investor who
Speaker 1: was playing poker with some friends and business associates in
Speaker 1: the house. That night, Marty awoke to two absolutely gruesome
Speaker 1: scenes in which both of his loving parents had been
Speaker 1: brutally beaten and stabbed. His mother was dead, his father
Speaker 1: was dying. When authorities arrived, they kept him separate from
Speaker 1: any of the adults in his life as they focused
Speaker 1: their investigations solely on Marty instead of Marty's father's business partner,
Speaker 1: Jerry Stearman, who all signs pointed to being the obvious
Speaker 1: suspect in this awful crime. In our original two thousand
Speaker 1: seventeen release of Marty's story, we touched on many of
Speaker 1: these details, but at that time, with ongoing civil litigation,
Speaker 1: we were not at liberty to delve more deeply into
Speaker 1: the details of the reinvestigation of Marty's case that ultimately
Speaker 1: led to his exoneration. In this episode. You'll hear excerpts
Speaker 1: of that original interview, which included both Marty and false
Speaker 1: confession experts Paul Cassine, to set the stage for not
Speaker 1: only the evidence and witnesses that made Marty's freedom possible,
Speaker 1: as well as all the amazing things Marty has been
Speaker 1: able to accomplish since winning his freedom, but also what
Speaker 1: Marty intends to do to bring closure to this harrowing tragedy.
Speaker 1: This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam. Especially excited today because I
Speaker 1: have two people who I consider to be well, let's
Speaker 1: just call it what it is. They're heroes of mine,
Speaker 1: but for very different sets of reasons. Marty Tankleff is
Speaker 1: here today. Marty is an exonoree who was wrongfully convicted
Speaker 1: of murdering his parents, UM, which I get the chills
Speaker 1: just hearing myself say that. UM. And he's going to
Speaker 1: share his remarkable story of going through what could be
Speaker 1: considered one of the most traumatic experiences that any human
Speaker 1: being could ever endure and his subsequent triumph post exoneration.
Speaker 1: You will be amazed at at what he's been able
Speaker 1: to accomplish and overcome. We also have today Saw Casson.
Speaker 1: Saw pioneered in the eighties the scientific study of false
Speaker 1: confessions by introducing a taxonomy that distinguished between three types
Speaker 1: of false confessions, voluntary, compliant, and internalized that is universally
Speaker 1: accepted today. He has recently studied forensic confirmation biases and
Speaker 1: the impact that confessions have on judges, juries, lay witnesses,
Speaker 1: forensic science examiners, and the plea bargaining process. He is
Speaker 1: widely considered the foremost expert on false confession. So welcome
Speaker 1: both of you. Thanks for coming in and joining us today.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having us. Marty, Let's start with you,
Speaker 1: So let's go back to you grew up in Long Island.
Speaker 1: I grew up in an affluent area called Belta, New York,
Speaker 1: which is a little hamlet in Portrepson, New York, north Shore,
Speaker 1: Suffolk County. I went to Portrefs in high school, where
Speaker 1: the norm was we drove nice cars, we went on boats.
Speaker 1: And what happened to me was not something myself or
Speaker 1: anyone in my neighborhood could have ever imagined. No, no
Speaker 1: one could imagine it. Um. You had a happy childhood,
Speaker 1: nuclear family, right, you and your sister. Your parents idyllic
Speaker 1: a little bit more idyllic because I was adopted, so
Speaker 1: my parents were older. So a lot of what we
Speaker 1: did growing up, my father lived vicariously through me because
Speaker 1: he didn't have a very good childhood. So you know,
Speaker 1: we had the boats, the a t v s, We
Speaker 1: traveled a lot. People used to joke that I was
Speaker 1: a spoiled kid, and I was, but my father instill
Speaker 1: amazing work values in me. I was working since I
Speaker 1: was probably eleven or twelve years old, and he was
Speaker 1: the bagel king, right. My father was an entrepreneur who
Speaker 1: invested with Jerry Stewarman, who was then known as the
Speaker 1: bagel King of Long Island. My father had invested over
Speaker 1: a half a million dollars with Jerry and his bagel
Speaker 1: stores and horses, and in the summer of night, their
Speaker 1: relationship significantly deteriorated. What I later learned was that we
Speaker 1: believe my father learned that the bagel businesses may have
Speaker 1: been a money wandering operation for Jerry's son, Todd's drug
Speaker 1: dealing business. We're talking hard drugs. Todd was arrested, went
Speaker 1: to prison for possession of cocaine, marijuana and other drugs,
Speaker 1: and he served time in New York State prisons. UM,
Speaker 1: but my father was a tough older man. Nothing would
Speaker 1: stop him. And one of the things that he was
Speaker 1: involved with was is there was a weekly poker game,
Speaker 1: and in September six was his night to hold the
Speaker 1: weekly poker game, and one of the members at that
Speaker 1: game was Jerry Struman. My father was the type of
Speaker 1: man it didn't matter, you know, how much threatening Jerry
Speaker 1: Struman did. And there were threats. We later learned about
Speaker 1: two weeks before September six, Jerry Struman threatened to cut
Speaker 1: my father's tongue out, and it got so bad that
Speaker 1: my father was even looking into buying a shotgun because
Speaker 1: he was fearful. Now we've set the stage. There's the
Speaker 1: poker game right, There's obviously it's a tense environment right
Speaker 1: with the two of him in the room. But you
Speaker 1: went to sleep. I went to sleep because September seven,
Speaker 1: who was the first day of my high school year,
Speaker 1: I was gonna be a senior. And I woke up
Speaker 1: and my life was never the same again. The lights
Speaker 1: were on in my house, the house wasn't locked up.
Speaker 1: UM walked through the house and we're upstairs. It's a
Speaker 1: ranch house. It's a very long ranch house. Where the
Speaker 1: bedrooms were in one end of the house. Um, where
Speaker 1: the card game was was in the complete opposite end
Speaker 1: of the house, right, So you wouldn't have heard anything,
Speaker 1: would have heard anything. And I discovered my father who
Speaker 1: was still sitting in his office chair. Um. And he
Speaker 1: was alive. Um. And he was bleeding. And what did
Speaker 1: you do? I called nine one one and I followed
Speaker 1: their instructions, right. They told you to wrap them as
Speaker 1: best you could, gave you some medical tips whatever, try
Speaker 1: to stop the bleeding, that kind of stuff, right. Um.
Speaker 1: And within a short period of time, law enforcement showed
Speaker 1: up at the house. Where's your mom? My mother was
Speaker 1: actually in her bedroom. Cops come and immediately they removed
Speaker 1: me from the house. And what I kind of can
Speaker 1: say now is that the process of questioning me, trying
Speaker 1: to find out what happened started almost immediately. Even when
Speaker 1: I had family members show up that morning, there was
Speaker 1: this immediate separation. When my brother in law showed up,
Speaker 1: he was ripped away. When my godfather, who was also
Speaker 1: the family attorney, showed up, I saw him. He never
Speaker 1: saw me. But McCready who was the lead detective. His
Speaker 1: name is Kay James McCready was the lead detective on
Speaker 1: the case. Ran two him and basically told him I
Speaker 1: was already on the way to the hospital. I wasn't
Speaker 1: at the house. Even though I was at the house,
Speaker 1: I was told consistently I was being taken to the hospital.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately I was never taken to the hospital. I ended
Speaker 1: up being taken to police headquarters. At this point, were
Speaker 1: you aware that your mom had been killed? Um? So
Speaker 1: you're in a state of total shock, panic. Words can't
Speaker 1: describe it. Your parents were beaten to death? Is that right?
Speaker 1: There was a bludgeon instrument uh and a knife uh,
Speaker 1: And to this day neither one has been discovered. And
Speaker 1: there was some forensic evidence which I can talk about.
Speaker 1: There was glove prints, so whoever did do this, we're
Speaker 1: wearing gloves. Um that they still haven't found the gloves. So,
Speaker 1: I mean there's all these little things that actually the
Speaker 1: jury was aware of, but they chose just to ignore.
Speaker 1: So they took you to police headquarters because and obviously
Speaker 1: this whole sort of pattern is emerging right where they
Speaker 1: wanted to. They had an agenda. Yeah, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: at that day. I didn't know that. I was seventeen
Speaker 1: years old. My father was the police commissioner of our
Speaker 1: little community. I was raised to trust law enforcement, believe
Speaker 1: in them. Law enforcement wouldn't lie to you, they wouldn't
Speaker 1: deceive you. Unfortunately, that's everything that they did that morning. Right,
Speaker 1: And you're in an extremely fragile state, and you need help, right,
Speaker 1: you need someone to help you. You're seventeen years old, right,
Speaker 1: we know that they have misled, is it not probably
Speaker 1: nice way to put it? His family guardian at this point, right,
Speaker 1: your godfather, who was also the only lawyer that was
Speaker 1: available to you at this time. They kind of mislike
Speaker 1: everybody though. I mean I had other cousins and aunts
Speaker 1: and uncles who were at the hospitals, and they were
Speaker 1: lied to too. They were told Marty's on the way
Speaker 1: to the hospital, Mars on the way to the hospital. Right.
Speaker 1: So they're basically doing everything they can to prevent you
Speaker 1: from having any responsible guardian or legal representative that might
Speaker 1: be able to stand in the way of them getting
Speaker 1: the conviction that they wanted. Regardless of truth. Yes, there
Speaker 1: was no truth seeking here. I mean, you have a
Speaker 1: man who was business partners with my father half a
Speaker 1: million dollars involved was there the night before. My father
Speaker 1: also had in the weeks prior, had demanded he had
Speaker 1: two notes fifty dollars. Back in the days after the murders,
Speaker 1: Jerry Steuerman cleaned out a joint bank account. He faked
Speaker 1: his death. He fled to California. He had a hair
Speaker 1: weave back then, and he went to a club that
Speaker 1: he wasn't a member. Full of um. He had five
Speaker 1: or six different aliases at that moment um. But law
Speaker 1: enforcement never considered a suspect. And every time I tell people,
Speaker 1: you know, the average person would say, well, how is
Speaker 1: he not a suspect? I mean, you could have stopped that.
Speaker 1: He faked his own death. So let's get to the
Speaker 1: interrogation and the false confession in prison and the whole Saturday.
Speaker 1: So let's I mean, you're obviously very familiar with Marty's case.
Speaker 1: You've known Marty since all right, he started writing letters
Speaker 1: to me from prison. So here's Marty in a state
Speaker 1: of panic and shock and grief. And as we discussed,
Speaker 1: he's still a child. And his confession is different than
Speaker 1: any of the other ones I've studied, right, because it
Speaker 1: may or may not have ever even actually happened, right,
Speaker 1: Usually they actually get somebody to say something on video,
Speaker 1: or they'll get a written statement or something. But in
Speaker 1: Marty's case, it's much more highly nuance, isn't it. Yes? Yes,
Speaker 1: And in Martie's cases, you've got to ask yourself the
Speaker 1: first question, why did Marty, seventeen year old, without a
Speaker 1: criminal record, without a history of violence, with good parents
Speaker 1: and good relationships, in an affluent community, why would Marty
Speaker 1: kill his parents? And in a brutal way, in a
Speaker 1: brutal in the in the most brutal of ways. And
Speaker 1: you have to ask yourself the question, how in God's
Speaker 1: name did he become their suspect? You know, most people said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, he did it for the money, because they
Speaker 1: thought my parents were affluent. The way the wills were structured,
Speaker 1: I would have gotten everything. And we later learned that
Speaker 1: law enforcement never really understood the way the wills and
Speaker 1: never looked into the way the wills were structured. I
Speaker 1: wasn't going to benefit financial until I was twenty five,
Speaker 1: and I was seventeen, and so, you know, as one
Speaker 1: of my aunts said, what was he supposed to do?
Speaker 1: From seven? Live on the streets so there he is
Speaker 1: in the interrogation room, alone, alone, seventeen, not street wise,
Speaker 1: never been in trouble before, never had to worry about
Speaker 1: how do you behave when you get picked up by police.
Speaker 1: He had done nothing wrong. And the funny thing about
Speaker 1: innocent people is even if they had read him as
Speaker 1: miranda rights, he would have waived those rights. So miranda
Speaker 1: becomes not a safeguard that's particularly effective at this point.
Speaker 1: Keep in mind, they've got him in police headquarters. The
Speaker 1: whole family is with his father, who is dying but
Speaker 1: still alive in the hospital. That's where Marty wants to be.
Speaker 1: So he's already in a state where he's motivated to cooperate.
Speaker 1: And they started asking him questions about what he saw,
Speaker 1: how he saw it, what had happened, and he gives
Speaker 1: them answers, and the answers are consistent. They don't believe him,
Speaker 1: They tell him they don't believe him. They asked for
Speaker 1: the story to be told again, and they're searching for
Speaker 1: inconsistencies and they're calling him a liar, and they're not
Speaker 1: believing the story that he keeps telling over and over again.
Speaker 1: But then they shift gears and they shift gears towards
Speaker 1: a procedure now where they start to lie about the evidence. Now,
Speaker 1: the average American doesn't realize that in the United States
Speaker 1: police are allowed to bring in a suspect and lie
Speaker 1: about the evidence. They're allowed to say to the suspect,
Speaker 1: we have your fingerprints on the murder weapon, even if
Speaker 1: that's not true. What happened in Marty's case is they
Speaker 1: bring him in they say, well, you know, it appears
Speaker 1: that your mother was in a struggle and there's hair
Speaker 1: in her grasp and it turns out it's your hair.
Speaker 1: We did the analysis, that's your hair, and that confused
Speaker 1: Marty wasn't true, but he got confused as to how
Speaker 1: that was possible. And then because it was such a
Speaker 1: bloody scene, it was too bloody scenes. There just wasn't
Speaker 1: enough blood on Marty to account for that. They suggested
Speaker 1: to him that he had showered before calling. He said, no,
Speaker 1: I didn't use the shower. They came back and said, well,
Speaker 1: we did a humidity test in your bathroom and we
Speaker 1: found that the shower had been used that morning. A
Speaker 1: humidity test. I don't believe even on c side, they've
Speaker 1: given us humidity test um. Now they have delivered two lies,
Speaker 1: and then the detective delivers the ultimate lie. He leaves
Speaker 1: the room. There are two detectives and they're the lead detective.
Speaker 1: McCready leaves the room, stages a phone call, and comes
Speaker 1: back to deliver the news to Marty. Marty, I've got
Speaker 1: good news and I got bad news. I just spoke
Speaker 1: to the folks at the hospital. The good news is
Speaker 1: your father has come out of his coma. He's regained consciousness.
Speaker 1: The bad news is he said you did it. Now,
Speaker 1: think about this for a month. Insane. You've got a
Speaker 1: seventeen year old and you're now delivering one lie after another,
Speaker 1: culminating in a lie that to Marty, the person he
Speaker 1: trusts most in his life has just said he committed
Speaker 1: this crime. And not only did Marty of course, had
Speaker 1: no choice but to believe that that evidence, because he
Speaker 1: doesn't believe police would lie to him. Certainly, not like that.
Speaker 1: Even McCready's partner believed that presentation. So what choice is
Speaker 1: Marty have now but to wonder, how is it possible
Speaker 1: that they have this kind of objective evidence. My father
Speaker 1: doesn't lie, he said. Marty has almost no cognitive choice
Speaker 1: but to accept that information. Because he's got two things right.
Speaker 1: His father doesn't lie and the cops don't lie. Right,
Speaker 1: these are the two things that he believes exactly. So
Speaker 1: those things lead to one conclusion, one conclusion, I must
Speaker 1: have done it. And the conversation turns to memory consciousness,
Speaker 1: the possibility of sleepwalking and doing it without awareness, and
Speaker 1: generate theories from Marty to explain how come you don't
Speaker 1: remember doing this. So we know that that was the
Speaker 1: nature of the conversation. We know that for some degree
Speaker 1: of transient time, Marty became confused about even his own innocence.
Speaker 1: His confession was a handwritten statement, handwritten by the detective,
Speaker 1: that is inaccurate as a description of the crime. It
Speaker 1: doesn't complete itself, it's actually ends in mid sense, and
Speaker 1: it is un signed. This confession, the so called confession,
Speaker 1: was written by the detective and not signed by Marty.
Speaker 1: And yet that allegation of that confession is the one
Speaker 1: and only piece of evidence that was used to convict him.
Speaker 1: You're at trial, You still believe that justice is going
Speaker 1: to be at trial? Still believe it? I mean, this
Speaker 1: is what the lawyers are telling me. The system works. Um,
Speaker 1: I was innocent. I testified in my own behalf. The
Speaker 1: prosecution have tried me with intentional murder and depraved in
Speaker 1: difference murder. So when we got called back in the
Speaker 1: first verdict that was read was not guilty, and then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, the second one was guilty. The
Speaker 1: one thing I vividly remember is the walk after they
Speaker 1: read the guilty verdicts over to the county jails. They
Speaker 1: have these tunnel systems, and I remember just I felt
Speaker 1: like I was being led like a dog because I
Speaker 1: was just listening. And I remember getting to the property
Speaker 1: room and I remember the property and most saying what
Speaker 1: are you doing here, Marty? And I go, why else
Speaker 1: would I be here? And been everything else went blank
Speaker 1: for about the next six or seven days. But now
Speaker 1: you're thrown into this environment. You're in maximum security prison,
Speaker 1: is that right? Yeah? I was. Basically every day it's
Speaker 1: a fight for your life because you never know in
Speaker 1: maximum security facilities what could happen, whether it be the
Speaker 1: gang's going to war with each other, the alcers taking
Speaker 1: you know, their aggression out on you, or just the
Speaker 1: random attacks that occur just for no reason whatsoever. Right,
Speaker 1: I mean, we know that people are being killed every
Speaker 1: day in prisons in America, UM, sometimes by guards, even
Speaker 1: absolutely for me. My case was very high profile, so
Speaker 1: prisoners knew about the case. Guards knew about the case.
Speaker 1: UM And I had a guy come up to me
Speaker 1: and he solicity. He goes, if you want to survive,
Speaker 1: he says, don't do drugs, don't get involid drugs, don't
Speaker 1: get involved homosexuality, don't get involved in gambling gangs, he said.
Speaker 1: And work your way into the college program or the library.
Speaker 1: He said. One of the hardest things is once you're innocent,
Speaker 1: is getting out, he said. But you'll figure out a
Speaker 1: way to do it. My lawyers said, okay, what's never
Speaker 1: been done here before? And we said a full investigation.
Speaker 1: And that's when I started looking for private investigators and
Speaker 1: end up hiring Jason Peter. And one of the things
Speaker 1: that Jay said to me was, if you're innocent, hire me.
Speaker 1: If you're guilty, don't. I said, I'm innocent, I'll hire you.
Speaker 1: I just find the truth, giant. And it took years.
Speaker 1: You ended up serving six thousand, three and thirty eight days,
Speaker 1: which is about seventeen and a half years now that
Speaker 1: we're up to speed from our two thousand seventeen release,
Speaker 1: and with party's civil litigation out of the way, he
Speaker 1: was finally able to tell us about the mountain of
Speaker 1: exculpatory evidence that they built, how his freedom came to pass,
Speaker 1: all of the amazing things he's been able to accomplish,
Speaker 1: and of course his plans to finally bring the people
Speaker 1: who conspired to murder his parents to justice. Witness is
Speaker 1: an evidence slowly emerged over the years pointing towards a
Speaker 1: conspiracy involving at least Peter Kent, Joseph Creeden, Glenn Harris,
Speaker 1: and of course the Stewarman's and more continues to come
Speaker 1: to light to this day. But the process started back
Speaker 1: in the early nineties when a woman named Carlene Kovaks
Speaker 1: went to a party. In the early nineties nineties, Joseph Creeden,
Speaker 1: who was an enforcer for Todd Steuerman, was at a
Speaker 1: party where he admitted his involvement in the murders to
Speaker 1: Carlin Kovacs. So the idea that Todd Strum and Jerry
Speaker 1: Schuhman were responsible for this not only from day one,
Speaker 1: but every year subsequent to my conviction investigation, more and
Speaker 1: more evidence would come forward, continuously pointing back towards the
Speaker 1: Stearman's and it was around three when we presented the
Speaker 1: D's office with that information. And as the years would
Speaker 1: go on, throughout the nineteen nineties and the two thousands,
Speaker 1: the court system failed me. It feels to me like
Speaker 1: the tides started to turn around two thousand three when
Speaker 1: you hired j Sawpeter. Jay started from the very beginning
Speaker 1: was kind of like who been intited financially and let's
Speaker 1: just start branching out from there. The criminal ties around
Speaker 1: the Stewardmans. It was pretty well known when Jay took
Speaker 1: on this case of investigating it, and he just started
Speaker 1: looking at Todd Storman and Jerry Stewarman and started branching out,
Speaker 1: and eventually they found Glenn Harris. Glenn Harris said something
Speaker 1: to the effect that I've been waiting for this day
Speaker 1: for twelve or thirteen years. Glenn Harris gave us one
Speaker 1: statement saying that he had been high fired by Stewartman
Speaker 1: to drive the two hitman Joe Creeden and Peter Kent
Speaker 1: to and from the Tank Cliff House where you lived
Speaker 1: on the night of decline, and that just kind of
Speaker 1: started the snowball effect. We assembled a body of evidence
Speaker 1: of witnesses, and in two thousand five we presented everything
Speaker 1: to the Suffolk County d A with the hopes that
Speaker 1: with their subpoena power and wire top power, that they
Speaker 1: would actually take a real serious look at this case.
Speaker 1: And we said, you know, if you don't do anything
Speaker 1: after forty five days, we will file a post conviction
Speaker 1: most in New York, and we learned that it wasn't
Speaker 1: until the forty four day that they actually went out
Speaker 1: and went to interview the first witness, and we thereafter
Speaker 1: filed a post conviction motion. Judge Braslow granted a hearing,
Speaker 1: and throughout the hearing of very his technical issues came up,
Speaker 1: and more witnesses came forward. Throughout the hearing, carly and
Speaker 1: Kovac's claimed that Joe Creten told her about how he
Speaker 1: and another man hid in the bushes outside the tankleff House,
Speaker 1: evaded capture and got rid of the bloody clothes. And
Speaker 1: then there was more. There were family members of the killers, right,
Speaker 1: there were murder weapons that were actually had been hidden
Speaker 1: that were found. Am I wrong about that? Mighty? So
Speaker 1: the culminating witness at the hearing was Joseph Creeding's son,
Speaker 1: who said that his father confessed to him of his involvement.
Speaker 1: There was a pipe that was discovered on a piece
Speaker 1: of property that Glenn Harris said, I pipe was thrown.
Speaker 1: Nobody knows if the pipe was actually used, but what
Speaker 1: are the chances that somebody could know or say, look,
Speaker 1: go search on this piece of property. We threw something
Speaker 1: there eighteen years ago, seventeen years ago and it was found.
Speaker 1: The actual murder weapons, the non have never been found.
Speaker 1: By now we're talking about two thousand five, two thousand six.
Speaker 1: The defense your team had assembled twenty witnesses who all
Speaker 1: painted collectively a picture of how Storman had orchestrated these murders.
Speaker 1: Two of the witnesses had seen McCready with Storman just
Speaker 1: before the murders. Hello. There was also the matter of
Speaker 1: the murder weapon not having been found. There was a
Speaker 1: bloody stain of what appeared to be a knife imprinted
Speaker 1: on one of our lead tank cliffs sheets, but no
Speaker 1: match was found, suggesting that someone had taken it. But
Speaker 1: justice was right around the corner, right so March seventeenth,
Speaker 1: two thousand six, the petition for the new trial was denied,
Speaker 1: but then December two thousand seven, tell us about that. Well,
Speaker 1: in New York State, after you fill a post conviction motion,
Speaker 1: you have to seek permission to appeal the case. Thankfully,
Speaker 1: the Appel Division that had denied me relief in three
Speaker 1: had granted me permission to hear my case and my
Speaker 1: lawyers argued before four amazing judges in September of two
Speaker 1: thousand seven, and I remember it was December that I
Speaker 1: was calling home, calling the lawyers every single day, trying
Speaker 1: to find out how the decision come down. And I
Speaker 1: had four different appeals in the Appel Division, including one
Speaker 1: for a new trial, one for DNA testing. So I
Speaker 1: was finally able to get through to one of my
Speaker 1: lawyer's offices and the receptionists said to me, She's like,
Speaker 1: don't tell Bruce, I told you, But we won the
Speaker 1: big one. And my legs started to shake a little bit,
Speaker 1: and I kind of almost didn't believe it because it
Speaker 1: was kind of that moment when you or just waiting
Speaker 1: for that day for day after day, year after year.
Speaker 1: And when I finally spoke to Bruce Barquette, I'll never
Speaker 1: forget his words. He said, act your ship. You're coming home,
Speaker 1: and you'll never see the inside of a jail cell again.
Speaker 1: And at that very moment. Don't ask me why I
Speaker 1: said this, but I was kind of sarcastic, and I said, Bruce,
Speaker 1: and I said, I've been studying a little long enough.
Speaker 1: I said, it's an oral agreement and I'm going to
Speaker 1: hold you to it. And he kept his word. I
Speaker 1: was brought down to the Subvin County jail December twenty six,
Speaker 1: the day after Christmas, and on December twenty seven, I
Speaker 1: was freed and I have never returned to a jail
Speaker 1: cell since. So Bruce Bork kept his word. In the
Speaker 1: book A Criminal Injustice, which is I recommend so highly
Speaker 1: that reads like a Grisham novel, but it's true and
Speaker 1: you lived it. And in that book, one of the
Speaker 1: things that sticks out so much and about your story
Speaker 1: is that Suffolk County was like a criminal enterprise. And
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the justice system. Can you describe it well?
Speaker 1: I think it was best described. I think it was
Speaker 1: William Hellerstein described it as the wild wild West of
Speaker 1: law enforcement and the court system. Um And essentially he said,
Speaker 1: is that in Subfolk County, they do whatever the hell
Speaker 1: they want to do, whatever they want to do it
Speaker 1: because they are almighty um. And I think that almighty
Speaker 1: attitude can be traced back to the homicide division where
Speaker 1: in the eighties they used to wear these shirts that
Speaker 1: said and that referred to their confession and conviction rates
Speaker 1: for homicide cases and they were proud of it. And
Speaker 1: Suboc County has a long history of turmoil and corruption.
Speaker 1: When the Attorney General reinvestigated the case during some of
Speaker 1: the post conviction proceedings, they uncovered forensics that were in
Speaker 1: the possession of Subbok County the entire time, and they
Speaker 1: proved to be exculpatory nature. You know, it just goes
Speaker 1: to the depths of how sinister and evil the criminals
Speaker 1: injustice system was in Suffolk County back then, even up
Speaker 1: to recently where the district attorney that was in office
Speaker 1: during my post conviction litigation, Tom Spota, was recently criminally
Speaker 1: charged while he was a district attorney. When Tom Spota
Speaker 1: was in private practice, he and his firm had represented
Speaker 1: Todd Stearman and Jerry Steuerman and the chief of Police
Speaker 1: William Burke, was also criminally charged and he went to prison.
Speaker 1: It's unbelievable. And this gets deeper and deeper because the creedy.
Speaker 1: The detective was under investigation for perjury, and let's not
Speaker 1: forget the creedy wanted to business with your sister, who
Speaker 1: became the heir to the family fortune. Shortly after my conviction,
Speaker 1: my half sister through a celebratory party at a country
Speaker 1: club for family and friends, and right around the same time,
Speaker 1: went into business with money she received from my parents
Speaker 1: estate with the lead detective who put me in prison,
Speaker 1: and they opened up a bar restaurant Diggaro Dells and
Speaker 1: the Riverhead, New York. Yeah, I didn't want to go
Speaker 1: down in history as being known as the person who
Speaker 1: was convicted of murdering my parents because I didn't do it,
Speaker 1: and nobody stands criminally charged or convicted of those murders
Speaker 1: as of today. I knew that I wanted to continue
Speaker 1: fighting until the truth came out, and we continue to
Speaker 1: explore every lead, and even to this day, we've had
Speaker 1: new witnesses who have come forward and the only reason
Speaker 1: why they've come forward was because Peter Kennon Joseph Cream
Speaker 1: have died. They've come forward with exculpatory evidence that no
Speaker 1: one has ever heard before that I'm hoping by the
Speaker 1: end of the year it will get out there. Are
Speaker 1: you still hoping for the authorities to do what they
Speaker 1: should have done decades ago and prosecute the people responsible
Speaker 1: for this tragedy. There is a new district attorney who
Speaker 1: ran on a line of exposing injustice. He set up
Speaker 1: a conviction integrity unit. He has clearly stated time and
Speaker 1: time again that he owes no allegiance to the prior administration.
Speaker 1: And I'm currently working on putting a package together. I'm
Speaker 1: confident that any fair minded prosecutor, if they look at
Speaker 1: the body of evidence that we have now, someone should
Speaker 1: be criminally charged. And I'm going to be asking the
Speaker 1: SUBFLK County District Attorney's office to reopen the case. July
Speaker 1: eight the charges were dismissed, and your life began again
Speaker 1: or a new I mean, you hit the ground running.
Speaker 1: And there's so much to talk about still, because there's
Speaker 1: the federal civil suit against New York State in the
Speaker 1: Suffolk County Police Department, and this was not a frivolous suit.
Speaker 1: In fact that July two thousand fourteen, New York State
Speaker 1: settled for three point three seven five million, and in
Speaker 1: two thousand eighteen, Suffolk County settled for another ten. They
Speaker 1: didn't do that willingly. They did that because they had
Speaker 1: no way out. I mean, you had them literally dead
Speaker 1: to rights. And then you go and graduate from law school. Now,
Speaker 1: I mean seriously, Marty, like, are you trying to make
Speaker 1: the rest of us look? It's unbelievable. I was just
Speaker 1: gonna say that, you know, when you when you say
Speaker 1: get up and start running. It was three weeks effort.
Speaker 1: I was out of prison, I started producing on my
Speaker 1: Bachelor Glory at Hatstraw, and I knew that, you know,
Speaker 1: what I went through, no one should go through. And
Speaker 1: if there was somebody that could help make a difference,
Speaker 1: it would be me. I am out Now I'm a
Speaker 1: lawyer um also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and
Speaker 1: Atoral Law School. There's very hard to miss message of
Speaker 1: what the rest of us have as an excuse not
Speaker 1: to live out our dreams. I mean, you, that's an
Speaker 1: unbelievable transformation, and I am so so proud of you.
Speaker 1: So you're now the head of the Prisoner in Civil
Speaker 1: Rights litigation group at Metcalf and Metcalf. You're living your
Speaker 1: best life. And they say living well is the best revenge.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think you can attest to that, but
Speaker 1: we can't leave alone. The other thing that you're doing now,
Speaker 1: which I'm gonna I'm gonna guess is probably the most
Speaker 1: rewarding thing other than your family of everything, which is
Speaker 1: of course, be making an axotari program. You're, of course,
Speaker 1: as we talked about, an adjunct professor at Georgetown. Let's
Speaker 1: just say that again, you're a professor at Georgetown, like,
Speaker 1: what the hell anyway, and you're working with your childhood
Speaker 1: friend and my dear friend, Mark Howard co teaching a
Speaker 1: class called making an Axonoree. And one of the students
Speaker 1: from that class was on this show in our episode
Speaker 1: of the Awful Awful Case of Terrell Barrows, and she said,
Speaker 1: and I think any of the students would say that
Speaker 1: her life has been forever changed by this experience. So please,
Speaker 1: anyone go back and listen to the Terrell Barrows episode.
Speaker 1: Terrell really needs and deserves our help. Listen and you'll
Speaker 1: get some ideas of how you may be able to
Speaker 1: make a difference in his life. He's just as innocent
Speaker 1: as Marty was and is so tell us about some
Speaker 1: of the people that you've helped Wherever you want to
Speaker 1: go with this just to get people a little background
Speaker 1: and making fun a lot more on our website, making
Speaker 1: an asoni dot com. Mark and I have been friends
Speaker 1: since we were three years old going to Love a
Speaker 1: w preschool, and every I got out, Mark would invite
Speaker 1: me to come down to his class and speak to
Speaker 1: him about my experience about the criminal justice system. And
Speaker 1: as the years went on, we start talking about the
Speaker 1: idea about teaching a class together, and the idea of
Speaker 1: making exon are kind of came together one day, just
Speaker 1: us talking taking undergraduate students and having them reinvestigate real
Speaker 1: cases of men and women in prison, try to track
Speaker 1: down new witnesses and try to develop a body of
Speaker 1: evidence that could help get them exonerated. And their final
Speaker 1: project was to create short documentaries. And we started the
Speaker 1: class in ten and one of our cases was Valentin
Speaker 1: at Dixon, and our students were able to uncover enough
Speaker 1: evidence that we share with Valentino's lawyer and he was
Speaker 1: exonerated in September of that year. And each year our
Speaker 1: students have done this amazing work, and there's not a
Speaker 1: single student who's taken our class that hasn't walked away
Speaker 1: and said that the opportunity to try to impact someone's
Speaker 1: life is life altering for them. Our students become friends
Speaker 1: with the individuals who incarcerated tragically. John Moss, who was
Speaker 1: from our first semester, our students and covered evidence that
Speaker 1: convinced the Innocence Project to represent him tragically. He passed
Speaker 1: away in Martin Luther King Jr. Day this year, but
Speaker 1: the students became so close to him and his family
Speaker 1: they went to his funeral. I mean, it's kind of
Speaker 1: unheard of that students can develop a bond like that.
Speaker 1: Every one of the student groups, even after they've graduated,
Speaker 1: continue to work on any of the cases that they
Speaker 1: were connected with, and if they're in a position where
Speaker 1: they can't work, they want to know what's going on.
Speaker 1: Because in Valentino and Dixon's case, when he walked free
Speaker 1: in September, of Ellie and Julie, who were to the
Speaker 1: young women that worked on his case, flew back from
Speaker 1: France and England to be there when he walked out
Speaker 1: of prison. And I think it's something that they will
Speaker 1: never forget their entire life. And Valentino has said time
Speaker 1: and time again that they have lifelong friends and if
Speaker 1: they ever need anything, he would be there for them.
Speaker 1: The relationship you developed with these men and women is
Speaker 1: just different. You know. We walk in and we tell
Speaker 1: our students that there's no guarantees here other than you're
Speaker 1: putting a thousand percent in, and they do more than that.
Speaker 1: Our students can sometimes work thirty hours a week outside
Speaker 1: of class. They travel around the country, They track down witnesses,
Speaker 1: they confront former prosecutors. In one case, they confronted a
Speaker 1: currently sitting judge who was a former prosecutor. There really
Speaker 1: is no fear that our students have, and it's just,
Speaker 1: to me an amazing experience having the opportunity to work
Speaker 1: with them, and it really hasn't does even feel like work.
Speaker 1: From times, it feels like such an honor and pleasure
Speaker 1: to work with students that want to come to class,
Speaker 1: want to work. I want to sacrifice their time. And
Speaker 1: I remember this year when the idea of spring break,
Speaker 1: are going to see somebody in a maximum security prison
Speaker 1: during spring break. Our students said, who cares about spring break,
Speaker 1: Let's go to prison. Who cares about spring break, Let's
Speaker 1: go to prison. Wow, that really does say it all.
Speaker 1: And the fact is that those of us who work
Speaker 1: in this area now that the first time you get
Speaker 1: to be a part I don't care how small the
Speaker 1: part is of helping somebody out of this Kafka esque nightmare.
Speaker 1: It is unlike anything else that I've ever experienced, and
Speaker 1: it makes me feel useful. You know, you now get
Speaker 1: to live that to the tense power or to the
Speaker 1: nth degree what you want to call it, because you're
Speaker 1: doing it again and again, and you're doing it from
Speaker 1: a place that the rest of us can't possibly understand,
Speaker 1: and doing it for all the right reasons. So it's
Speaker 1: wonderful to see. And people can go to making an
Speaker 1: exonoree dot com and see these eight minute videos which
Speaker 1: are so powerful, and I know that every one of
Speaker 1: those students is going to be forever changed by this
Speaker 1: experience and they're gonna become freedom fighters in their own right.
Speaker 1: And so there there goes the Marty tank Cliff force
Speaker 1: multiplier effect. Marty, you've been on the show before, you
Speaker 1: know how it works. At this point, we turned to
Speaker 1: my favorite part of the show. It's the part of
Speaker 1: the show we call closing arguments, where first of all,
Speaker 1: I thank you for being here, sharing your story and
Speaker 1: just being this sort of beacon of hope and light
Speaker 1: that you are and then I turn off my microphone
Speaker 1: leave yours on for what we call closing arguments. I
Speaker 1: remember when I talked about becoming a lawyer, I said,
Speaker 1: you know, I said, I don't think I can ever
Speaker 1: reach the pinnacle of exonerations of Barry Scheck or Steve
Speaker 1: Drisen or anybody like that. But I know if I'm
Speaker 1: instrumental in helping one innocent person walk free, you know,
Speaker 1: I kind of joke I've done my job, um, And
Speaker 1: I was there the day Valentino walked out, but I'm
Speaker 1: far from over. You know, it is so rewarding. And
Speaker 1: I know, Jason, you've had the opportunity to be there
Speaker 1: when people have walked free and been involved in exonerations.
Speaker 1: Its impacts your life in a way that I think
Speaker 1: nothing else does. Um. And I know one of my
Speaker 1: lawyers said, you know, those who do this work are
Speaker 1: doing God's work. And he explained it was simply that,
Speaker 1: you know, when you fight to get somebody who's innocent
Speaker 1: out of prison, you were almost giving them an opportunity
Speaker 1: of new life. So it's almost like a rebirth for
Speaker 1: them because some of them have been locked up longer
Speaker 1: than they were free, and now all of a sudden
Speaker 1: you help them gain their freedom back. It really is
Speaker 1: probably some of the most rewarding work. And you know,
Speaker 1: Mark is somebody who is just amazing because you know,
Speaker 1: Mark was a tenured professor of government and it was
Speaker 1: because his involvement in his choice to go to law
Speaker 1: school to join my defense team to fight to get
Speaker 1: me out of prison, that his career essentially changed. Where
Speaker 1: he teaches prisons and justice. He goes into prisons and
Speaker 1: teaches college credit courses. He's established the Frederick Douglas Project,
Speaker 1: and Mark and I have made a decision that we
Speaker 1: will teach this class every year going forward, just because
Speaker 1: so many innocent people don't have the ability to have
Speaker 1: their voices told. You know, after Just Mercy came out,
Speaker 1: I told our students that you have to watch the
Speaker 1: scene where Jamie Boxes talking to his lawyer after the
Speaker 1: evidentiary hearing and he says something to the fact that
Speaker 1: even if I don't get out of prison, I'm good
Speaker 1: because the truth came out. And that's what we empower
Speaker 1: our students to do. Get the truth out there, because
Speaker 1: those who are incarcerated, that's what they want. We can't
Speaker 1: control the criminal justice system, but we can control investigating
Speaker 1: these cases and telling the stories and having those who
Speaker 1: are incarcerated have their stories told through our voices. I
Speaker 1: think anybody who walks away and watch the videos, we'll
Speaker 1: just find that our system is is so flawed on
Speaker 1: so many levels. And everyone across America can do something,
Speaker 1: because that's a question. I'm sure you get asked all
Speaker 1: the time, what can we do? And we tell people,
Speaker 1: you know, find something you're good at and just offered
Speaker 1: a help, you know, whether it be writing a letter
Speaker 1: to somebody who's in prison, social media development sharing, passing
Speaker 1: along petitions, if there are fundraising efforts, do fundraising because
Speaker 1: so often people sit back and say, I'm not a lawyer,
Speaker 1: I know nothing about the system. And when I tell
Speaker 1: people that the system is about humanity at its core,
Speaker 1: because our system succeeds and fails based on humans on
Speaker 1: so many levels that if we go deep into our hearts,
Speaker 1: we can find something that we can do to make
Speaker 1: a difference. Don't forget to give us a fantastic review.
Speaker 1: Wherever you get your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm
Speaker 1: a proud donor to the Innocence Project and I really
Speaker 1: hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause
Speaker 1: and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence
Speaker 1: Project dot org to learn how to donate and get
Speaker 1: an involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor
Speaker 1: Hall and Kevin Wardis. The music in the show is
Speaker 1: by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure
Speaker 1: to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on
Speaker 1: Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam
Speaker 1: is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association
Speaker 1: with Signal Company Number one