Speaker 1: So, Jason, I wanted to ask you about relationships in prison,
Speaker 1: like intimate relationships. I'm always so surprised when people are
Speaker 1: able to have an intimate romantic relationship and keep it
Speaker 1: for decades. Is that something that surprised you. Yeah, I'd
Speaker 1: be surprised if I wasn't surprised. You know, it's it's
Speaker 1: a remarkable testament. I think two people on both ends
Speaker 1: of that equation, right, you know, And of course you know,
Speaker 1: anyone who's ever been in a long distance relationship probably
Speaker 1: knows how that can be tricky, right, Um, But you're
Speaker 1: always and now you have people in your business all
Speaker 1: the time. It's the opposite of spontaneous and romantic, right,
Speaker 1: and yet true love finds a way. When I saw it,
Speaker 1: with that re sentencing, he would only have fourteen years left, Maggie,
Speaker 1: I saw it to myself, well, I can wait for
Speaker 1: two years for him. That's what my gut, my heart
Speaker 1: was telling me. From Lava for Good. I'm Maggie Freeling
Speaker 1: and this is wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling today, Melvin Ortiz.
Speaker 1: On the evening of December, two masked gunmen walked into
Speaker 1: Effie's Pizza village in Reading, Pennsylvania to try and rob it,
Speaker 1: but things went awry in the restaurant's beloved owner, George Klausser,
Speaker 1: wound up dead. The family says that the response of
Speaker 1: the neighbors has been overwhelming, proving how much the young
Speaker 1: shop owner meant to the community that meant so much
Speaker 1: to him, and the family says that the pain is
Speaker 1: made even harder to bear because the men who killed
Speaker 1: twenty nine year old George Klausser are still out there.
Speaker 1: About a month later, the police placed a thousand dollar
Speaker 1: reward in the local paper to find those gunmen. A
Speaker 1: man came forward saying that seventeen year old Melvin Ortiz
Speaker 1: told him that he killed George Klausser. The man's girlfriend
Speaker 1: said she witnessed this confession. Melvin was swiftly arrested. He
Speaker 1: was charged with second degree murder, robbery, aggravated assault, reckless endangerment,
Speaker 1: possession of an instrument of a crime, and attempted theft
Speaker 1: by unlawful taking. Neighbors on Ortiz's block were just as shocked.
Speaker 1: He's a very nice person and we didn't think he
Speaker 1: would do something like that. On June fifteenth, n after
Speaker 1: a highly publicized trial, a jury convicted Melvin Ortiz of
Speaker 1: second degree murder and sentenced him to life without parole. However,
Speaker 1: Melvin had a solid alibi. Nineteen witnesses said he was
Speaker 1: at a birthday party and the man who claimed Melvin
Speaker 1: confessed to him had a much more sordid history than
Speaker 1: the prosecution and police presented. Like all this just came
Speaker 1: out years later after him inconceration, like he was getting
Speaker 1: away with it because you know, he's working with the police.
Speaker 1: Stuff like that. They've made a lot of effort and
Speaker 1: put a lot of energy and effort into cover up
Speaker 1: for him. My name is Melvine Ortiz. I've been concerated
Speaker 1: for twenty four years for crime I did not commit.
Speaker 1: I am innocent. Melvin Ortiz was born on January five
Speaker 1: to Maria and Juan Ortiz. You know, I was born
Speaker 1: in in Puerto Rico and normal Coal, Puerto Rico. He's
Speaker 1: the youngest of three brothers who loved to rough house
Speaker 1: and wrestle. When he was a kid, Melvin dreamed of
Speaker 1: being a boxer. Melvin's parents brought their kids to church
Speaker 1: every Sunday and taught their sons right from wrong. At
Speaker 1: family dinners. Mom's cooking was a favorite. When Melvin was five,
Speaker 1: the family moved from Puerto Rico to New York in
Speaker 1: search of a better life. Having language Barrows has been
Speaker 1: hard on them to get a good job and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. So you know, they did pretty much what
Speaker 1: they could, you know, to raise us, raise us right,
Speaker 1: and you know, to me and mine did a fantastic
Speaker 1: job doing that. Their first home was in the Bronx,
Speaker 1: New York. Melvin remembers this as an exciting time. It
Speaker 1: seems snow for the first time, so it was fun
Speaker 1: and and then you know that whole experience, which is
Speaker 1: you know, as a child, was was great. So how
Speaker 1: old were you when you moved to Read in Pennsylvania?
Speaker 1: I was about I was very young. I will was
Speaker 1: probably about the third grade, you know, was like man
Speaker 1: years old, something like that. Melvin's parents said they moved
Speaker 1: to Reading because Reading had a large welfare program that
Speaker 1: assisted poor families like theirs. Reading Pennsylvania was quite different
Speaker 1: from the Bronx. They moved from a borough with one
Speaker 1: point to million people to a city with around seventy thousand.
Speaker 1: If you look at Reading on a map, it's between
Speaker 1: two bigger cities Pennsylvania state capital, Harrisburg, and Philadelphia, and
Speaker 1: there's a lot of farmland in between. Reading was once
Speaker 1: a major transportation hub on the Reading Railroad. Yes, that
Speaker 1: Reading Railroad from monopoly, but after the decline of heavy
Speaker 1: industry and the railroads which helped Reading prosper, the city
Speaker 1: was on a decline. The population, which reached nearly a
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty i was in at its peak in
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties, had dropped in half by the eighties,
Speaker 1: and its economy crumbled. By two thousand eleven, Reading, Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: was dubbed the poorest city in America, with forty one
Speaker 1: percent of the city living in poverty. Around the time
Speaker 1: Melvin's family moved to Reading in the early nineties, other
Speaker 1: Latino families were also moving in. Today, sixty one of
Speaker 1: the population identifies as Hispanic or Latino, but back in
Speaker 1: the eighties and nineties, Latinos were still a minority in Reading,
Speaker 1: and Melvin says that was scary. There was a park,
Speaker 1: God forgot what name was, but we often used to
Speaker 1: go there to um to jump in the river and
Speaker 1: swim and stuff like that. So there was like a
Speaker 1: water plant right next to it. So a few times
Speaker 1: we went behind the water plan and we discovered that
Speaker 1: that was marking of the circle with the cross like that,
Speaker 1: the KKK things that used to go on and up
Speaker 1: the street where we used to live, like two blocks
Speaker 1: up there was like a chapter there. So yeah, like
Speaker 1: you see the Confederate flag and stuff like that. Um,
Speaker 1: so definitely that was that was there at that time.
Speaker 1: You know, I I personally experienced been called us three
Speaker 1: times in my life down they were all living down there,
Speaker 1: so she and those type of things. That just makes
Speaker 1: you see things a little bit different than than other people,
Speaker 1: especially with the with the police and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Melvin wasn't a stranger to the police. When Melvin was fourteen,
Speaker 1: he was arrested for receiving stolen property, although his parents
Speaker 1: tried to raise their boys right. Local residents described Reading
Speaker 1: as a city that sucks you in into its system
Speaker 1: and into its crime. Other robberies had played the city
Speaker 1: in the weeks before the homicide at Everie's Pizza. In fact,
Speaker 1: Effie's Pizza was also robbed just twelve days before the
Speaker 1: night of the homicide. I really did feel comfortable in
Speaker 1: reading out it feel like there was pretty much a
Speaker 1: future to day, but Melvin's dad did believe in the
Speaker 1: future for his son. He found a Job Corps program
Speaker 1: that would help Melvin train for a trade like mechanics
Speaker 1: or electronics. When I got there, what called my interest
Speaker 1: was like plumber because it delt a little bit where everything. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I've seen the things that they build, and
Speaker 1: it was it was it just seemed real cool. The
Speaker 1: school was about two hours away in Red Rock, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: and Melvin didn't have his own car, so he and
Speaker 1: his brother would take the bus and stayed at a
Speaker 1: dorm during the week. And you know, I just felt
Speaker 1: good about it, you know, I mean I felt like
Speaker 1: I see myself, you know, doing good, doing good in life,
Speaker 1: and just you know, I felt like that was my
Speaker 1: ticket out at renting and to be away from all
Speaker 1: the all the stuff that was just going on day.
Speaker 1: Melvin loved the drop course school. He loved meeting new people,
Speaker 1: and he made good friends in the dorm across the hall.
Speaker 1: He envisioned himself graduating from the program surrounded by the
Speaker 1: same love, camaraderie, and encouragement that he witnessed at one
Speaker 1: of the graduations. But mostly he saw himself, making his
Speaker 1: parents proud. In the winter of Melvin came home to
Speaker 1: spend Christmas with his family. He was feeling great about life.
Speaker 1: Things were going smoothly, but on December, Melvin's life would
Speaker 1: change forever. That morning, I went downtown with my sister
Speaker 1: in law and hey, that's when I meant That's when
Speaker 1: I bumped into Isaac. Isaac Figaroa was a close friend
Speaker 1: of Melvin and his brothers. So Asi told me he was,
Speaker 1: like to know, what's son's birthday party tonight, and he
Speaker 1: gave me invitation. I said, sure, you know you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to pick me up, so he picked me up
Speaker 1: between six and sixty. At the birthday party, there was
Speaker 1: no drinking or smoking aloud inside, so Melvin and his
Speaker 1: brother spent most of the night outside the door to
Speaker 1: the apartment, letting people in and out and talking with
Speaker 1: people through the window. The night to like That's when
Speaker 1: Isaac took Melvin home. Melvin had just spilled a drink
Speaker 1: on his pants and wanted to hurry up and change
Speaker 1: so he could get back to the party. He had
Speaker 1: been crushing on a girl there named Tracy, and he
Speaker 1: wanted to flirt with her. So he raced home, quickly
Speaker 1: pulled off his khaki pants, throw on a pair of
Speaker 1: black ones, and headed back with Isaac. Around eleven pm,
Speaker 1: Melvin's longtime friend Cynthia Jacques called him a murder had
Speaker 1: happened at Effie's, just to block away from her house.
Speaker 1: She was terrified and asked Melvin to come over and
Speaker 1: keep her company. At around seven thirty pm that same night,
Speaker 1: two masked gunmen walked into Effie's and tried to rob it.
Speaker 1: They shot the owner, George Klausser, in the side while
Speaker 1: he was cleaning the grille. The gunmen then struggled to
Speaker 1: open the register, but they ultimately gave up after a
Speaker 1: few minutes and fled empty handed. George was airlifted to
Speaker 1: a nearby hospital, but by the time he arrived it
Speaker 1: was too late. The twenty nine year old, who had
Speaker 1: named his restaurant after his wife and lived above it
Speaker 1: with his family, was dead. Witnesses described the gunmen as
Speaker 1: eighteen to twenty four years old. One was five ft
Speaker 1: eight hundred and eighty pounds, the other five ft six
Speaker 1: with a thin build. The original police report from a
Speaker 1: witness described the gunman as two Hispanic males with Spanish accents,
Speaker 1: both masked, one wearing white pants and a blue hoodie
Speaker 1: and one wearing black pants and a purple hoodie. Melvin
Speaker 1: is a five ft seven Hispanic mail that evening at
Speaker 1: the time of the shooting, he was wearing a black
Speaker 1: hoodie and khaki pants. Police wanted swift justice for the
Speaker 1: clausser's but after a few weeks they had nothing. That's
Speaker 1: when police offered a ten tho dollar reward, and right
Speaker 1: away a man came forward saying he knew one of
Speaker 1: the gunmen, the man who pulled the trigger, and his
Speaker 1: name was Melvin Ortiz. This episode is underwritten by a
Speaker 1: i G, a leading global insurance company. A i G
Speaker 1: is committed to corporate social responsibility and to making a
Speaker 1: positive difference in the lives of its employees and in
Speaker 1: the communities where we work and live. In light of
Speaker 1: the impelling need for pro bono legal assistance and in
Speaker 1: recognition of a i g s commitment to criminal and
Speaker 1: social justice reform, the a i G pro Bono Program
Speaker 1: provides free legal services and other support to underrepresented communities
Speaker 1: and individuals. The man who came forward to the police
Speaker 1: and named Melvin ortiz As. The murderer was nineteen year
Speaker 1: old John Kelty Jerrone. He told them that Melvin had
Speaker 1: approached him to ask for help robbing a business in
Speaker 1: the area to make some quick money. Kelty Jerrone said
Speaker 1: that around midnight on the night of the crime, Melvin
Speaker 1: called him and said, quote, things got messed up and
Speaker 1: the gun just went off. So when I learned about
Speaker 1: this warrant that they had for me, I was pretty
Speaker 1: much a shock, you know, when they told me, especially
Speaker 1: when they told me what it was for, and I
Speaker 1: was like, I was taking back, Like what the police
Speaker 1: send it onto the Ortiz house looking for Melvin. I
Speaker 1: called home and I was like, yo, like what's going on.
Speaker 1: I was spoke to my to my father and he's like, YO, listen, um,
Speaker 1: you gotta come over here. These people are here for you.
Speaker 1: And I said, well, I'm not. No, I'm not going
Speaker 1: over there. I didn't physically tell him that, but I
Speaker 1: just told myself that, like, no, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: go over there. It's just it's the whole situation. She
Speaker 1: just felt wrong. But Melvin's mom was adamant that it
Speaker 1: would be easier if he just turned himself in. She said, listen,
Speaker 1: only the guilty runs now, I mean, and I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: I gave it. I said, okay, we will go down
Speaker 1: there and fix the situation. And and when I found
Speaker 1: out the date that the crime happened, that's when Na's party.
Speaker 1: He knew he didn't commit the crime, but his mom's
Speaker 1: advice was also risky, so he was relieved he had
Speaker 1: a solid alibi the party, and he decided to go
Speaker 1: down to the station with his parents, his pastor, Isaac,
Speaker 1: and Isaac's wife. Shannon shanded me a list of the
Speaker 1: the alibis that was there at the party, and we
Speaker 1: all went down there, and they confidently brought the list
Speaker 1: down to the station. You know. But what I didn't
Speaker 1: think about was that what these people are gonna do.
Speaker 1: It didn't matter what I had to say, what type
Speaker 1: of evidence the alibis that that I had to present,
Speaker 1: and it just it just it just didn't matter. Already
Speaker 1: wanted was to get into the arrest. Melvin never left
Speaker 1: the police station that day. In fact, it was the
Speaker 1: last time he was ever free. I knew him before
Speaker 1: he went to prison, um, but we really didn't get
Speaker 1: close until after he was indicted and had turned himself in.
Speaker 1: Victoria Blanco first met Melvin when they were both teenagers.
Speaker 1: She was in her last year of high school, and initially,
Speaker 1: she says it was more of a friendship. Victoria says
Speaker 1: she started writing Melvin in jail because she thought he
Speaker 1: was cute and at the same time, you know, I
Speaker 1: was still doing my saying as a teenager, you know,
Speaker 1: as far as love life is concerned, I would still
Speaker 1: go on date, still had other boyfriends, and I actually
Speaker 1: would go and tell him about dates and boyfriends and
Speaker 1: things that became serious as as I got older. Victoria
Speaker 1: and Melvin shared everything over the year he was in
Speaker 1: jail awaiting trial, and then he would also still be
Speaker 1: writing like one or two girls from inside, and we
Speaker 1: would we would totally divulge, you know, secrets um that
Speaker 1: the other people were you know, speaking to, were talking to.
Speaker 1: UM didn't realize that we were sharing, you know, sharing
Speaker 1: our lives together. But Melvin didn't tell Victoria he was
Speaker 1: in jail awaiting trial for murder. She thought this cute
Speaker 1: guy she was building a relationship with was in for
Speaker 1: something minor. It was only after a few letters that
Speaker 1: she found out the truth. I guess, as you can imagine.
Speaker 1: You know, I was still living at home with my parents,
Speaker 1: and they were infuriated by the fact that I was
Speaker 1: talking to Melvin because the newspapers portrayed him as this
Speaker 1: like whole blooded team killer and this horrible person, and
Speaker 1: my mom's telling me here and you're gonna be You're
Speaker 1: gonna become a murderer too. But Victoria believed in his innocence,
Speaker 1: and she wasn't alone because many people at the time did. Remember,
Speaker 1: Melvin had nineteen alibi witnesses. So you start writing him
Speaker 1: while he's in jail before trial, and then he gets convicted.
Speaker 1: I mean, what was going through your head then? Um?
Speaker 1: So I was in shock, and that was for me
Speaker 1: at the time was obviously extremely difficult. It was literally
Speaker 1: like time stood still, and I I wish no teenager
Speaker 1: or anyone would ever have to go through that. The
Speaker 1: trial was chaos. There was so much publicity around the
Speaker 1: case that Melvin's court appointed lawyers all recused themselves due
Speaker 1: to their own various conflicts of interest, five of them,
Speaker 1: one after the other. In a small town like reading,
Speaker 1: this happens often because the roster of public defenders isn't limited.
Speaker 1: If any of them have had anything to do with
Speaker 1: any person involved in the case, they must recuse themselves,
Speaker 1: and in one instance, the attorney just didn't want to
Speaker 1: represent Melvin. Melvin had been demonized in the local papers. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Attorney Bill Bespells took over. Although the Spells didn't have
Speaker 1: a conflict of interest, him onto Melvin case late right
Speaker 1: before trial and he only had a couple of weeks
Speaker 1: to prepare his first order of business. In an attempt
Speaker 1: to counter inevitable biased during trial, the Spells requested a
Speaker 1: change of venue and a change of jury, but both
Speaker 1: requests were denied. On the trial officially started, the prosecutor
Speaker 1: Mark C. Baldwin went first. He called witnesses who were
Speaker 1: at Effie's the night of the murder. Rodney Delp testified
Speaker 1: that he knew Melvin saw the robbers and that Melvin
Speaker 1: was not one of the robbers. Rodney was the one
Speaker 1: who described the gunman's clothing and the police report. Remember
Speaker 1: one was in white pants and a blue hoodie and
Speaker 1: the other in black pants and a purple hoodie. That night, again,
Speaker 1: Melvin wore a black hoodie and khaki pants. That was
Speaker 1: not what the shooters were described to be. Wearing and
Speaker 1: later remember he changed into black pants after the time
Speaker 1: of the murder. The prosecut usion suggested this was Melvin's
Speaker 1: attempt to avoid recognition. This was a blow to the prosecution,
Speaker 1: one of their own witnesses saying it wasn't Melvin and
Speaker 1: there was no DNA or any kind of evidence linking
Speaker 1: Melvin to the crime. But the prosecutions still had their
Speaker 1: star witness, John Calted your own under oath. During trial,
Speaker 1: John said he was quote good friends with Melvin and
Speaker 1: that in December, Melvin suggested to him that the two
Speaker 1: of them make quick money by robbing a local business
Speaker 1: in the area, like Ffie's Pizza. So let's pause for
Speaker 1: a moment. Now. You might be wondering why John Caltgeronne's
Speaker 1: account of Melvin's quote confession held so much weight against
Speaker 1: nineteen alibi witnesses. Well, to start, all, nineteen alibi witnesses
Speaker 1: were not called to testify during the trial. Melvin's attorney
Speaker 1: the Spells only called four of them, and two of
Speaker 1: those four were friends of Melvin's. Jury might see them
Speaker 1: as willing to say anything to protect their friend. Second,
Speaker 1: John is the son of Thomas Keltic Jeroon Democrat in
Speaker 1: the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. And on top of that,
Speaker 1: John's girlfriend, Tina Valentine, told police she also overheard the
Speaker 1: conversation with Melvin. They both testified that Melvin confessed to
Speaker 1: the murder. John and Tina were not the only witnesses
Speaker 1: to testify for the prosecution, but their testimonies held the
Speaker 1: most weight now for the defense. Although they didn't call
Speaker 1: all of the alibi witnesses, they did call Cynthia Jacques,
Speaker 1: the woman whose house Melvin went to near Effie's, because
Speaker 1: she was scared when she heard about the murder. Cynthia's
Speaker 1: testimony was key. Cynthia testified that it wasn't Melvin who
Speaker 1: committed the botched robbery. What she said was that John
Speaker 1: had actually come to her with a plan to blame
Speaker 1: it on someone else and then collect the ten thou
Speaker 1: dollar reward money so that two of them could run
Speaker 1: off to Mexico with it. Allegedly, Cynthia and John are
Speaker 1: having an affair. After four days of trial, it was
Speaker 1: time for the jury to decide. After only two and
Speaker 1: a half hours of deliberation, the jury had a decision.
Speaker 1: Nineteen year old Melvin Ortiz sat motionless in the courtroom,
Speaker 1: showing no emotion as the jury gave its verdict guilty
Speaker 1: of second degree murder. They ruled in favor of John
Speaker 1: and Tina's testimonies, and Melvin was convicted and sentenced to
Speaker 1: life in prison without the possibility of parole. It was
Speaker 1: a blow to everyone in Melvin's life, including Victoria. She
Speaker 1: sat through the trial for the cute boys she caught
Speaker 1: feelings for when originally she didn't even think his case
Speaker 1: would make it to trial, and she had to think realistically, Um,
Speaker 1: I actually had made a decision to move on, you know,
Speaker 1: and stop stopped talking or or or seeing Melvine because
Speaker 1: I knew in my heart, um, but our friendship was
Speaker 1: was more than just a friendship. I will say since
Speaker 1: back when I when I then turned like eighteen or nineteen,
Speaker 1: I always knew like I wouldn't. I'm like, I want
Speaker 1: to marry Melbourne. He's he's like my best friend. We
Speaker 1: talked about everything. So it was around that time that
Speaker 1: I I think I was about twenty at the time
Speaker 1: I moved on. Not only did I stopped talking to him,
Speaker 1: but I actually just left the state of Pennsylvania. Melvin
Speaker 1: was now a convicted murderer, staring down the rest of
Speaker 1: his life behind bars. Was there ever a point that
Speaker 1: you you might have lost hope and thought that you know,
Speaker 1: you'd be stuck in there forever? Lots of times, you
Speaker 1: know you're gonna have your your weak moments, your your
Speaker 1: hard days were You're gonna feel hopeless, You're gonna feel down,
Speaker 1: You're gonna feel like, man, I'm never gonna get out
Speaker 1: of here. Uh. You know, Melvin has petitioned for post
Speaker 1: conviction relief six times from two thousand one six and
Speaker 1: he's been denied every time. It's like, what can you do?
Speaker 1: You know, you keep getting shot down from the courts.
Speaker 1: You know, I was like, okay, I'm anapeal this and
Speaker 1: you know I'm gonna win this on appeal. Man, Like
Speaker 1: I said, I was wrong. I was wrong about a
Speaker 1: lot of things. Twenty four years later, here I am
Speaker 1: speaking to you. I had followed Melvine's case and followed
Speaker 1: his appeals, and you know, it was heartbreaking each time
Speaker 1: I saw saw them get denied because they were time barred.
Speaker 1: In certain states, there's a limited amount of time you
Speaker 1: can bring new evidence to the courts. In Pennsylvania, it's
Speaker 1: sixty days. Um. I think once or twice I actually
Speaker 1: wrote him a lettern like you know, I wish you
Speaker 1: good luck on your appeal and just that I want
Speaker 1: you to know I'm thinking about you. But in that
Speaker 1: gap of that time frame, we never, um, I had
Speaker 1: the type of conversation we had when we were you know, younger.
Speaker 1: But I always always thought about him. Melvin thought about
Speaker 1: her too describatory. One word I would say, extraordinary, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. She's just a good person overall.
Speaker 1: She has a beautiful heart. She's beautiful. I love her
Speaker 1: and dropped my bed. I used to I used to
Speaker 1: always use her as a conversation piece because you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of the guys I used to talk about
Speaker 1: with their friends and how things were and you know,
Speaker 1: the messed up par and how it used to be. Like, well,
Speaker 1: I knew a good one. I had a good one.
Speaker 1: The Victoria moved on and by two thousand five she
Speaker 1: was living in Florida. I you know, obviously was put
Speaker 1: in my life doing my thing, and I met my
Speaker 1: my ex husband, and you know, we had decided to
Speaker 1: to get married, and I think six weeks before I
Speaker 1: was about to get married, I had wrote Melvin, this
Speaker 1: this letter, right, because you know that's what we do.
Speaker 1: Anytime there's a big monumental thing going in, you know,
Speaker 1: going on in your life, you want to share it
Speaker 1: with the person you care about. Mode. So I had
Speaker 1: wrote this, wrote bild in this letter that you know,
Speaker 1: I'm getting married and this is this is basically what
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do and and this is a little bit
Speaker 1: about what's going on with me. And I ended up
Speaker 1: not sending it. I had it all written out in
Speaker 1: the envelope ready to drop in the mailbox, and I
Speaker 1: just I didn't put it in the mailbox because I knew.
Speaker 1: I knew if he would have responded, I, for one,
Speaker 1: probably wouldn't have went to the altar. It wasn't until
Speaker 1: three years ago that everything changed for Melvin, Victoria You
Speaker 1: and their relationship. In the United States, Supreme Court ruled
Speaker 1: that it was unconstitutional for juveniles to be mandatorily sentenced
Speaker 1: to life in prison without parole. A Supreme Court decision
Speaker 1: that said juveniles are constitutionally different from adults for the
Speaker 1: purposes of sevencing. So over the next few years, states
Speaker 1: started resentencing their juvenile lifers. Remember, Melvin was seventeen at
Speaker 1: the time of the murder a juvenile, so in he
Speaker 1: was resentenced. At this time, a lot of juvenial lifers
Speaker 1: were actually being resentenced to twenty five to life imprisoned,
Speaker 1: which for many would have been time they had already served.
Speaker 1: Melvin's attorney recommended he be resentenced to twenty years to life,
Speaker 1: which for him would also be time served, but instead
Speaker 1: a judge resentenced him to thirty five years to life.
Speaker 1: Although it wasn't the sentence he was hoping for, he
Speaker 1: figured and he shot at freedom was better than none.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I would always follow his case. And
Speaker 1: it's just like when he was resentence in June of
Speaker 1: two thousand and eighteen. It was I I knew, um
Speaker 1: that the universe was aligning things. Victoria's marriage was on
Speaker 1: the outs at this point, she was getting divorced, and
Speaker 1: I knew that that was the right time to reach
Speaker 1: out to him, and and instinctively, UM, when I saw
Speaker 1: that that with that resentencing, he would only have fourteen
Speaker 1: years left, Maggie, I thought to myself at the time,
Speaker 1: I thought, well, I can wait for teen years for him.
Speaker 1: That's what my gut, my heart was telling me. By
Speaker 1: that time, Victoria had thought a lot about wrongful convictions
Speaker 1: and being with someone in prison. Um, I'll be honest.
Speaker 1: Back then and even up to a few years ago,
Speaker 1: I I didn't realize what an epidemic wrongful convictions are.
Speaker 1: The people that are inside are are actually people. Um.
Speaker 1: I think the media portrayed, you know, people that are
Speaker 1: incarcerated in the horrible beings, but it's actually the majority
Speaker 1: of them are are serving time for miscellaneous marijuana charges
Speaker 1: and um, wrongful convictions and crimes that have nothing to
Speaker 1: do with with public safety. Now I'm finding out as
Speaker 1: i'm as I'm older, and there's more people that are
Speaker 1: wrongfully convicted coming home and finding out that that's more
Speaker 1: common than I thought it was at the time. She
Speaker 1: figured to do it. She jumped back in with Melvin
Speaker 1: and fight to exonerate him. So do you remember what
Speaker 1: it was about Melvine's case that kind of struck you? Well,
Speaker 1: there are a number of features. I mean, one is
Speaker 1: the fact that he was a juvenile and uh, such
Speaker 1: a clear victim. In my view, there was zero evidence
Speaker 1: actual evidence against Melvin and significant evidence that he was
Speaker 1: not there and it was impossible for him to have
Speaker 1: been there. This is Mark Howard professor of Government and
Speaker 1: Law at Georgetown University. He co teaches a class called
Speaker 1: Making an exonore Ee with his childhood friend, Marty tank Cliff.
Speaker 1: Marty himself is an exonore ee. In the class, the
Speaker 1: Georgetown students investigate wrongful conviction cases and advocate for their
Speaker 1: innocence and exoneration. Victoria, now fully committed to Melvin and
Speaker 1: his exoneration, reached out to Mark's team for help, and
Speaker 1: after reviewing Mark's case, the Making an Exonoree class decided
Speaker 1: to take it on to me. I mean, it's frankly
Speaker 1: a screaming case of a wrongful conviction. Melvin's case has
Speaker 1: a lot of the classic hallmarks, such as the lack
Speaker 1: of evidence, the rock solid alibi. Actually nineteen alibi witnesses
Speaker 1: and especially the shakiest of witnesses went forward to have
Speaker 1: a motivation, which is to collect reward money and then
Speaker 1: too to get the trail off of them. Mark is
Speaker 1: talking about John Kelty Jerone, the star witness and his
Speaker 1: girlfriend Tina Valentine. Now I mentioned that John is the
Speaker 1: son of a Pennsylvania politician, so jurors may have seen
Speaker 1: him during the trial as particularly credible well it wasn't
Speaker 1: until after the trial that previously hidden information about John
Speaker 1: started to surface. So one John had an extensive criminal
Speaker 1: record himself. His record was never admitted, um it was
Speaker 1: later even expunged and and non none of it was
Speaker 1: disclosed to the jury, and he came forward as if
Speaker 1: he were a credible witness and upstanding citizen, which he's
Speaker 1: far from. Mark believes this has to do with who
Speaker 1: John's dad was, Thomas Helta Jerone who was a state
Speaker 1: rep reresentative in Pennsylvania and it's head of the Judiciary Committee.
Speaker 1: He controlled the budget of the court system, and so
Speaker 1: you're talking about someone with huge influence over the court system,
Speaker 1: over the judge, over the prosecutor's office through his political role,
Speaker 1: and so that in a sense gave John cover. His
Speaker 1: record was never admitted. It's very very suspicious. And when
Speaker 1: you add that to the fact that there's nothing else
Speaker 1: against Melbourne other than this testimony and then the kind
Speaker 1: of pressured testimony of his girlfriend, do you think something
Speaker 1: is rotten here? And something may have been. Tina was
Speaker 1: only sixteen and pregnant with John's child at the time
Speaker 1: of the trial in two thousand five, when she was
Speaker 1: twenty two years old. Tina came forward and admitted that
Speaker 1: John pressured her on what to say. She had lied
Speaker 1: about everything. She began speaking up about the true after
Speaker 1: her son died, which she interpreted as karma from God
Speaker 1: for knowingly taking Melvine's life away. In her recantation, she
Speaker 1: says it was John who committed the murder, and remember
Speaker 1: at trial, Melvine's friends Cynthia said the same thing that
Speaker 1: John told her he wanted to run away with her
Speaker 1: for the ten dollar reward Money. One of the members
Speaker 1: of Melvine's team at Georgetown is now part of our
Speaker 1: team at Wrongful Conviction East Money guarda Rama. Here's what
Speaker 1: Tina told East Money in an interview about what happened
Speaker 1: that night in December. Tina said she spent that day
Speaker 1: shopping and saw John as soon as he came home.
Speaker 1: John's beating past the house. Now he's supposed to be
Speaker 1: at work, but he's flying past the house and everything.
Speaker 1: And he came and he picked me up and told
Speaker 1: me to grab the bag behind the door. And I
Speaker 1: didn't know what it was. I'm like, what bag? He's
Speaker 1: like the bag behind the door. According to Tina, the
Speaker 1: bag contained a mask, bloods and a hoodie. And then
Speaker 1: that evening is when he sat down with me more
Speaker 1: and told me what supposedly had happened, that him and
Speaker 1: Melvin supposedly went in and robbed the pizza shop. I
Speaker 1: didn't believe it because one Melvine was at a birthday party.
Speaker 1: When that all was said and done, John started opening
Speaker 1: up a little bit more to me. He's like, look,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to say this and say this and
Speaker 1: say this to get them off my ask. They think
Speaker 1: it's Melvin that let him think that. So if she
Speaker 1: knew Melvin was innocent, why did Tina agree to testify
Speaker 1: on John's behalf. It's scared fear, not just from him,
Speaker 1: from his father and his father's pool and people that
Speaker 1: you know. I had a bunch of people, Bob trying
Speaker 1: to pressure me from the family. Did you ever experience
Speaker 1: any sort of guilt or stress at the time of
Speaker 1: the trial when you're a sixteen Yeah, that was a lot.
Speaker 1: Me sitting there won't stand saying that it was Melvine,
Speaker 1: and I wholeheartedly knew that Melvin had nothing to do
Speaker 1: with any of this. Since two thousand eight, Tina has
Speaker 1: been working with Melvine's family to present her testimony before
Speaker 1: a judge. Melvin has attempted to use Tina's recanted testimony
Speaker 1: and admission of perjury several times, but again the courts
Speaker 1: keep denying it on the basis of the evidence being
Speaker 1: time barred. It took ten years for the courts to
Speaker 1: hear her recanted testimony. When the judge finally did, he
Speaker 1: decided that although he believed her, it wouldn't have changed
Speaker 1: the trial's verdict. Here's Mark again. I think there's so
Speaker 1: many different features to the case. Talked to Melvin himself.
Speaker 1: He is a kind, intelligent, caring, loyal, just a person
Speaker 1: with integrity, and he's someone who presents zero and I
Speaker 1: mean zero threat to public safety. To think that Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: taxpayers are spending close to fifty dollars a year to
Speaker 1: keep Melvin Ortiz in prison for something he didn't do
Speaker 1: since he was a child, and that we have elected
Speaker 1: officials who are trying to make that permanent for the
Speaker 1: rest of his life, it's just unacceptable. We should also
Speaker 1: note that Mark Baldwin, the district attorney who tried Melvin's case,
Speaker 1: was cited in another wrongful conviction case, that of Roddy Johnson.
Speaker 1: In that case, District Attorney Mark Baldwin was cited for
Speaker 1: egregious prostitutor real misconduct. Mr Johnson was exonerated. And to me,
Speaker 1: that suggests that every case that prosecutor worked on should
Speaker 1: at least be looked at, and Melvine's case being one
Speaker 1: of them. In Melvin having many other hallmarks of a
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction, I think that adds even more power to
Speaker 1: his claim. Melvin says being incarcerated has definitely put a
Speaker 1: strain on his family and their relationship. You know, there
Speaker 1: are gaps between our relationship with my family and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. There are gaps, you know, don't get a
Speaker 1: messed up, but you know, we try to bridge those
Speaker 1: gaps because his family is important, you know, because especially
Speaker 1: on situations like this, I guess one of the things
Speaker 1: that brings us together is my innocence. I mean, his
Speaker 1: family has spent probably close to a hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 1: in attorney's feed just trying to bring to light of
Speaker 1: the press evidence. They've they've had to move, they've had
Speaker 1: to down five, they've had to um refinance you know,
Speaker 1: the original house. All types of financial impacts as well
Speaker 1: as the emotional. Melvin's dad, Juan, is still working six
Speaker 1: days a week at the age of seventy eight, trying
Speaker 1: to pay off the family's debts. You have two parents
Speaker 1: working two jobs to pay attorneys scenes and you also
Speaker 1: have you know, Melvine calling from the in five And
Speaker 1: keep in mind, you know when he went in he
Speaker 1: was eighteen and up until now, you know that the
Speaker 1: physical trauma, the physical abuse, seems he's young, and he's
Speaker 1: surrounded by older persons who have been there much longer
Speaker 1: than him. It's extremely it's extremely stressful, um and oppressive.
Speaker 1: While in prison, Melvin spends his free time reading, exercising,
Speaker 1: playing chess, and talking to Victoria. What are your plans
Speaker 1: for the future when you get out? You know, my
Speaker 1: plan is to to marry Vittoria. See if we give
Speaker 1: me all the family from there. Um, I just want
Speaker 1: to take it one day at a time. I just
Speaker 1: want to find peace. I mean after this experience, like
Speaker 1: the word pieces is very strong. Okay, So my last
Speaker 1: question is is there any kind of like food or
Speaker 1: something that you're dying to have when you get out? Moms? Uh,
Speaker 1: you know something just mom's cooking. I missed that. The monk. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Melvin is currently appealing resentencing decision of thirty five years
Speaker 1: to life. As of right now, he's eligible for parole
Speaker 1: in twenty thirty two. The second perpetrator in the robbery
Speaker 1: and homicide of George Klausser has never been found. Next
Speaker 1: Time un Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling Mike Polly. When
Speaker 1: they asked me who you know? Who? Do you think?
Speaker 1: There's only one person that I know that hated her
Speaker 1: that much to do that? All right? What I've seen
Speaker 1: was evil, It was hatred. Thank you for listening to
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling. Please support your local innocence
Speaker 1: organizations and go to the links in our bio to
Speaker 1: see how you can help. I'd like to thank our
Speaker 1: executive producers Jason Flam and Kevin Wurdis, as well as
Speaker 1: our senior producer Annie Chelsea, researcher Lila Robinson, story editor
Speaker 1: Sonya Paul, fact checking and additional reporting. East Mony Guadrama
Speaker 1: with additional production by Jeff Cleburne and Connor Hall. Special
Speaker 1: thanks go to Mark Howard and then making an Exonoree
Speaker 1: class at Georgetown University. The music in this production is
Speaker 1: by Three Time Oscar nominated composed or Jay Ralph. Be
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