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.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd be surprised if I wasn't surprised. You know,
Speaker 2: it's it's a remarkable testament, I think, to the people
Speaker 2: on both ends of that equation, right, you know, and
Speaker 2: of course you know, anyone who's ever been in a
Speaker 2: long distance relationship probably knows how that can be tricky. Right,
Speaker 2: But you're always and now.
Speaker 1: You have people in your business all the time.
Speaker 2: It's the opposite of spontaneous and romantic, right, and yet
Speaker 2: true love finds away.
Speaker 3: When I saw it with that resentencing, he would only
Speaker 3: have fourteen years left, Maggie, I saw it to myself, well,
Speaker 3: I can wait fourteen years for him. That's what my
Speaker 3: gut on my heart was telling me.
Speaker 1: From Lava for Good. I'm Maggie Freeling, and this is
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling today, Melvin Ortiz. On the
Speaker 1: evening of December twenty third, nineteen ninety seven, two masked
Speaker 1: gunmen walked into Effie's Pizza Village in Reading, Pennsylvania to
Speaker 1: try and rob it, but things went awry and the
Speaker 1: restaurant's beloved owner, George Klausser, wound up dead.
Speaker 4: The family says that the response of the neighbors has
Speaker 4: been overwhelming, proving how much the young shop owner meant
Speaker 4: to the community that meant so much to him, and
Speaker 4: the family says that the pain is made even harder
Speaker 4: to bear because the men who killed twenty nine year
Speaker 4: old George Klausser are still out there.
Speaker 1: About a month later, the police placed a ten ten
Speaker 1: thousand dollars reward in the local paper to find those gunmen.
Speaker 1: A man came forward saying that seventeen year old Melvin
Speaker 1: Ortiz told him that he killed George Klausser. The man's
Speaker 1: girlfriend said she witnessed this confession. Melvin was swiftly arrested.
Speaker 1: He was charged with second degree murder, robbery, aggravated assault,
Speaker 1: reckless endangerment, possession of an instrument of a crime, and
Speaker 1: attempted theft by unlawful taking.
Speaker 4: Neighbors on Ortiz's block were just as shocked.
Speaker 5: He's a very nice person and we didn't think he
Speaker 5: would do something like that.
Speaker 1: On June fifteenth, nineteen ninety nine, after a highly publicized trial,
Speaker 1: a jury convicted Melvin Ortiz of second degree murder and
Speaker 1: sentenced him to life without parole. However, Melvin had a
Speaker 1: solid alibi nineteen. Witnesses said he was at a birthday
Speaker 1: party and the man who claimed Melvin confessed to him
Speaker 1: had a much more sordid history than the prosecution and
Speaker 1: police presented.
Speaker 5: Like all this just came out years later after.
Speaker 6: I'm in calceration, like he was getting away with it
Speaker 6: because you know, he's working with the police stuff like that.
Speaker 6: They've made a lot of effort and put a lot
Speaker 6: of energy and effort into covering.
Speaker 5: Up for him. My name is Melvin Ortiz.
Speaker 7: I've been carcerated for twenty four years for crime I
Speaker 7: did not commit.
Speaker 5: I am innocent.
Speaker 1: Melvin Ortiz was born on January fifth, nineteen eighty to
Speaker 1: Maria and Juan Ortiz.
Speaker 5: You know, I was born in Puerto Rico and No Macoal,
Speaker 5: Puerto Rico.
Speaker 1: He's the youngest of three brothers who loved to rough
Speaker 1: house and wrestle. When he was a kid, Melvin dreamed
Speaker 1: of being a boxer. Melvin's parents brought their kids to
Speaker 1: church every Sunday and taught their sons right from wrong
Speaker 1: at family dinners. Mom's cooking was a favorite. When Melvin
Speaker 1: was five, the family moved from Puerto Rico to New
Speaker 1: York in search of a better life.
Speaker 6: Well, having language burials has been hard on them. To
Speaker 6: get a good job and stuff like that.
Speaker 7: So you know, they did pretty much what they could,
Speaker 7: you know, to raise us, raise us right, and you know,
Speaker 7: to me and my did a fantastic job doing that.
Speaker 1: Their first home was in the Bronx, New York. Melvin
Speaker 1: remembers this as an exciting time and.
Speaker 6: Singing snow for the first time, so it was fun.
Speaker 6: And then you know that whole experience, which is you know,
Speaker 6: as a child was great.
Speaker 1: So how old were you when you moved to Reading, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 5: I was about I was very young.
Speaker 6: Was probably about the third grade, you know, I think
Speaker 6: we said like nine years old something like that.
Speaker 1: Melvin's parents said they moved to Reading because Redding had
Speaker 1: a large welfare program that assisted poor families like theirs.
Speaker 1: Reading Pennsylvania was quite different from the Bronx. They moved
Speaker 1: from a borough with one point two million people to
Speaker 1: a city with around seventy five thousand. If you look
Speaker 1: at Reading on a map, it's between two bigger cities,
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania state capital, Harrisburg and Philadelphia, and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of farmland in between. Reading was once a major transportation
Speaker 1: hub on the Reading Railroad. Yes, that Reading Railroad from monopoly,
Speaker 1: but after the decline of heavy industry and the railroads
Speaker 1: which helped Reading prosper, the city was on a decline.
Speaker 1: The population, which reached nearly one hundred and twenty three
Speaker 1: i was in at its peak in the nineteen thirties,
Speaker 1: had dropped in half by the eighties, and its economy crumbled.
Speaker 1: By twenty eleven, Reading, Pennsylvania was dubbed the poorest city
Speaker 1: in America, with forty one percent of the city living
Speaker 1: in poverty. Around the time Melvin's family moved to Reading
Speaker 1: in the early nineties, other Latino families were also moving in. Today,
Speaker 1: sixty one percent of the population identifies as Hispanic or Latino,
Speaker 1: but back in the eighties and nineties, Latinos were still
Speaker 1: a minority in Reading, and Melvin says that was scary.
Speaker 6: There was a park I forgot what the name was,
Speaker 6: but we often used to go there to jump in
Speaker 6: the river and swim and stuff like that. So there
Speaker 6: was like a water plant right next to it. So
Speaker 6: a few times we went behind.
Speaker 8: The water plant and we discovered that there was marking
Speaker 8: of the circle with the cross like the KKK things
Speaker 8: that used to go on and up the street where
Speaker 8: we used to live, like two blocks up.
Speaker 5: There was like a Chapter day.
Speaker 6: So yeah, like you see the Confederate flag and stuff
Speaker 6: like that, So definitely that.
Speaker 5: Was there at that time. You know, I personally experienced
Speaker 5: been called a three times in.
Speaker 6: My life down there were all living down there, so
Speaker 6: seeing those type of things that just make you see
Speaker 6: things a little bit different than than other people, especially
Speaker 6: with the police and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Melvin wasn't a stranger to the police. In nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 1: when Melvin was fourteen, he was arrested for receiving stolen property,
Speaker 1: although his parents tried to raise their boys right. Local
Speaker 1: residents described Writing as a city that sucks you in
Speaker 1: into its system and into its crime. Other robberies had
Speaker 1: plagued the city in the weeks before the homicide at
Speaker 1: Evie's Pizza. In fact, Evie's Pizza was also robbed just
Speaker 1: twelve days before the night of the homicide.
Speaker 5: I really didn't feel comfortable in reading out. It feel
Speaker 5: like there was pretty much a future day.
Speaker 1: But Melvin's dad did believe in a future for his son.
Speaker 1: He found a job Core program that would help Melvin
Speaker 1: train for a trade like mechanics or electronics.
Speaker 6: When I got there, what caught my interest was like
Speaker 6: plumbing because it dealt a little bit with everything. So
Speaker 6: you know, I've seen the things that they build, and
Speaker 6: it was it was it just seemed real cool.
Speaker 1: The 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 stay at a
Speaker 1: dorm during the week.
Speaker 5: And you know, I just felt good about it, you
Speaker 5: know what I mean.
Speaker 6: I felt like I see myself, you know, doing good,
Speaker 6: doing good in life, and just you know, I felt
Speaker 6: like I was on my ticket out at a reading
Speaker 6: and to be away from.
Speaker 5: All the stuff that was just going on there.
Speaker 1: Melvin loved the job Corpse 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 nineteen ninety seven, Melvin
Speaker 1: came home to spend Christmas with his family. He was
Speaker 1: feeling great about life. Things were going smoothly, but on
Speaker 1: December twenty third, Melvin's life would change forever.
Speaker 6: That morning, I went downtown with my sister in law
Speaker 6: and hey, that's when I meant That's when I bumped
Speaker 6: into Isaac.
Speaker 1: Isaac Figueroa was a close friend of Melvin and his brothers.
Speaker 6: So Isi told me he was like, said Watson's birthday
Speaker 6: party tonight, and he gave me invitation. I said, sure,
Speaker 6: you know you're gonna have to pick me up, So
Speaker 6: he picked me up between six and six thirty.
Speaker 1: At the birthday party, there was no drinking or smoking
Speaker 1: aloud inside, so Melvin and his brother spent most of
Speaker 1: the night outside the door to the apartment, letting people
Speaker 1: in and out and talking with people through the window lasterday.
Speaker 5: Throughout the whole night, TI like.
Speaker 1: N That's when Isaac took Melvin home. Melvin had just
Speaker 1: spilled a drink on his pants and wanted to hurry
Speaker 1: up and change so he could get back to the party.
Speaker 1: He had been crushing on a girl there named Tracy,
Speaker 1: and he wanted to flirt with her, so he raced home.
Speaker 1: Quickly pulled off his khaki pants, threw on a pair
Speaker 1: of 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 a 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 grill. The gunman 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 gunman as
Speaker 1: eighteen to twenty four years old. One was five foot
Speaker 1: eight one hundred and eighty pounds, the other five foot
Speaker 1: six with a thin build. The original police report from
Speaker 1: a witness described the gunman as two Hispanic males with
Speaker 1: Spanish accents, both masked, one wearing white pants and a
Speaker 1: blue hoodie and one wearing black pants and a purple hoodie.
Speaker 1: Melvin is a five foot seven Hispanic mail that evening
Speaker 1: at the time of the shooting, he was wearing a
Speaker 1: black hoodie and khaki pants. Police wanted swift justice for
Speaker 1: the klausers, but after a few weeks they had nothing.
Speaker 1: That's when police offered a ten thousand dollars reward, and
Speaker 1: right away a man came forward saying he knew one
Speaker 1: of the gunmen, the man who pulled the trigger, and
Speaker 1: his name was Melvin Ortiz. This episode is underwritten by AIG,
Speaker 1: a leading global insurance company. AIG is committed to corporate
Speaker 1: social responsibility and to making a positive difference in the
Speaker 1: lives of its employees and in the communities where we
Speaker 1: work and live. In light of the impelling need for
Speaker 1: pro bono legal assistance, and in recognition of AIG's commitment
Speaker 1: to criminal and social justice reform, the aig pro bono
Speaker 1: program provides free legal services and other support to underrepresented
Speaker 1: communities and individuals. The man who came forward to the
Speaker 1: police and named Melvin Ortiz as the murderer was nineteen
Speaker 1: year old John kelty Jeron. He told them that Melvin
Speaker 1: had approached him to ask for help robbing a business
Speaker 1: in the area to make some quick money. Kelty Jeroon
Speaker 1: said that around midnight on the night of the crime,
Speaker 1: Melvin called him and said, quote, things got messed up
Speaker 1: and the gun just went off.
Speaker 6: So when I learned about this warrant that they had
Speaker 6: for me, I was pretty much a shock.
Speaker 7: You know, when they told me, especially when they told
Speaker 7: me what it was for, and I was like, I
Speaker 7: was taking back.
Speaker 1: I'm like, what the police send it onto the Orteze
Speaker 1: house looking for Melvin.
Speaker 5: I called home and I was like, yo, like what's
Speaker 5: going on.
Speaker 6: I was spoke to my father and he's like, YO, listen,
Speaker 6: you got to come over here.
Speaker 5: These people are here for you.
Speaker 6: And I said, well, I'm not you know, I'm not
Speaker 6: going over there. I didn't physically tell him that, but
Speaker 6: I just told myself that, like, nah, I'm not going
Speaker 6: to go over there.
Speaker 5: It's just the whole situation just felt wrong.
Speaker 1: But Melvin's mom was adamant that it would be easier
Speaker 1: if he just turned himself in.
Speaker 6: She said, listen, only the guilty runs, you know what
Speaker 6: I mean. And I'm like, well, I gave it, and
Speaker 6: I said, okay, we will go down there and fix
Speaker 6: the situation.
Speaker 5: And and when.
Speaker 6: I found out the day that the crime happened, that's
Speaker 6: when Isaiah'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.
Speaker 6: Shannon made a listen of the alibis that was there
Speaker 6: at the party, and we all went down there, and.
Speaker 1: They confidently brought the list down to the station.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: But what I didn't think about was that what these
Speaker 6: people were going to do, It didn't matter what I
Speaker 6: had to say, what type of evidence the alibis that
Speaker 6: I that I had to present, and it just it
Speaker 6: just it just didn't matter what they one.
Speaker 5: It was to get in an arrest.
Speaker 1: Melvin never left the police station that day in fact,
Speaker 1: it was the last time he was ever free.
Speaker 3: I knew him before he went to prison, but we
Speaker 3: really didn't get close until after he was indicted and
Speaker 3: 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.
Speaker 9: And at the same time, you know, I was still
Speaker 9: doing my thing as a teenager, you know, as far
Speaker 9: as love life is concerned. I would still go and date,
Speaker 9: still had other boyfriends, and I actually would go and
Speaker 9: tell him about dates and boyfriends and things that became
Speaker 9: serious as as I got older.
Speaker 1: Victoria and Melvin shared everything over the year he was
Speaker 1: in jail awaiting trial, and.
Speaker 3: Then he would also still be writing like one or
Speaker 3: two girls from inside, and we would see, we would
Speaker 3: totally devote, you know, secrets that the other people when
Speaker 3: were you know, speaking to or talking to, didn't realize
Speaker 3: that we were sharing, you know, sharing our lives together.
Speaker 1: But Melvin didn't tell Victoria he was in jail awaiting
Speaker 1: trial for murder. She thought this cute guy she was
Speaker 1: building a relationship with was in for something minor. It
Speaker 1: was only after a few letters that she found out
Speaker 1: the truth.
Speaker 3: I guess, as you can imagine. You know, I was
Speaker 3: still living at home with my parents, and they were
Speaker 3: infuriated by the fact that I was talking to Melvin
Speaker 3: because the newspapers portrayed him as this like whole blooded
Speaker 3: team killer and this horrible person, and my mom's telling me,
Speaker 3: here to be, you're going to become a murderer too.
Speaker 1: But Victoria believed in his innocence, and she wasn't alone
Speaker 1: because many people at the time did. Remember Melvin had
Speaker 1: nineteen alibi witnesses. So you start writing him while he's
Speaker 1: in jail before trial, and then he gets convicted. I mean,
Speaker 1: what was going through your head then?
Speaker 3: So I was in shock, and that was for me
Speaker 3: at the time was obviously extremely difficult. It was literally
Speaker 3: like time stood still, and I wish no teenager or
Speaker 3: anyone would ever have to go through that.
Speaker 1: The trial was chaos. There was so much publicity around
Speaker 1: the case that Melvin's court appointed lawyers all recused themselves
Speaker 1: due 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 Bespells didn't have a
Speaker 1: conflict of interest, keme onto Melvin case late right before trial,
Speaker 1: and he only had a couple of weeks to prepare
Speaker 1: his first order of business. In an attempt to counter
Speaker 1: inevitable biased or in trial, Bispells requested a change of
Speaker 1: venue and a change of jury, but both requests were denied.
Speaker 1: On May twenty fourth, nineteen ninety nine, the trial officially started.
Speaker 1: The prosecutor Mark C. Baldwin went first. He called witnesses
Speaker 1: who were at Effie's the night of the murder. Rodney
Speaker 1: Delp testified that he knew Melvin, saw the robbers and
Speaker 1: that Melvin was not one of the robbers. Rodney was
Speaker 1: the one who described the gunman's clothing in the police report.
Speaker 1: Remember one was in white pants and a blue hoodie.
Speaker 1: And the other in black pants and a purple hoodie.
Speaker 1: That night, again, Melvin wore a black hoodie and khaki
Speaker 1: pants that was not what the shooters were described to
Speaker 1: be wearing, and later remember he changed into black pants
Speaker 1: after the time of the murder. The prosecut Cushin, suggested
Speaker 1: this was Melvin's attempt to avoid recognition. This was a
Speaker 1: blow to the prosecution, one of their own witnesses saying
Speaker 1: it wasn't Melvin and there was no DNA or any
Speaker 1: kind of evidence linking Melvin to the crime, But the
Speaker 1: prosecutions still had their star witness, John Celtideron under oath
Speaker 1: during trial. John said he was quote good friends with
Speaker 1: Melvin and that in December nineteen ninety seven, Melvin suggested
Speaker 1: to him that the two of them make quick money
Speaker 1: by robbing a local business in the area, like FIE's Pizza.
Speaker 1: So let's pause for a moment now. You might be
Speaker 1: wondering why John Keltigeroon's account of Melvin's quote confession held
Speaker 1: so much weight against nineteen alibi witnesses.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 1: To start, all, nineteen alibi witnesses were not called to
Speaker 1: testify during the trial. Melvin's attorney Bespels only called four
Speaker 1: of them, and two of those four were friends of Melvin's,
Speaker 1: a jury might see them as willing to say anything
Speaker 1: to protect their friend. Second, John is the son of
Speaker 1: Thomas Keltagerone, a Democrat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.
Speaker 1: And on top of that, John's girlfriend, Tina Valentin, told
Speaker 1: police she also overheard the conversation with Melvin. They both
Speaker 1: testified that Melvin confessed to the murder. John and Tina
Speaker 1: were not the only witnesses to testify for the prosecution,
Speaker 1: but their testimonies held the most weight now for the defense.
Speaker 1: Although they didn't call all of the alibi witnesses, they
Speaker 1: did call Cynthia Jacques, the woman whose house Melvin went
Speaker 1: to near Effie's because she was scared when she heard
Speaker 1: about the murder. Cynthia's testimony was key. Cynthia testified that
Speaker 1: it wasn't Melvin who committed the botched robbery. What she
Speaker 1: said was that John had actually come to her with
Speaker 1: a plan to blame it on someone else and then
Speaker 1: collect the ten thousand dollars reward money so the two
Speaker 1: of them could run off to Mexico with it. Allegedly,
Speaker 1: Cynthia and John were having an affair. After four days
Speaker 1: of trial, it was time for the jury to decide.
Speaker 1: After only two and a half hours of deliberation, the
Speaker 1: jury had a decision.
Speaker 4: Nineteen year old Melvin Ortiz sat motionless in the courtroom,
Speaker 4: showing no emotion as the jury gave its verdict guilty
Speaker 4: of second degree murder.
Speaker 1: They ruled in favor of John and Tina's testimonies, and
Speaker 1: Melvin was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without
Speaker 1: the possibility of parole. It was a blow to everyone
Speaker 1: in Melvin's life, including Victoria. She sat through the trial
Speaker 1: for the cute boys she caught feelings for when originally
Speaker 1: she didn't even think his case would make it to trial,
Speaker 1: and she had to think realistically.
Speaker 3: I actually had made a decision to move on, you know,
Speaker 3: and stop stop talking or seeing Melvin, because I knew
Speaker 3: in my heart that our friendship was more than just
Speaker 3: a friendship. I will say to back when I then
Speaker 3: turned like eighteen or nineteen, I always knew I'm like,
Speaker 3: I'm like, I want to marry Melbourn's. He's like my
Speaker 3: best friend. We talk about everything. So it was around
Speaker 3: that time that I think I was about twenty. At
Speaker 3: the time I moved on, not only did I stop
Speaker 3: talking to him, but I actually just left the state
Speaker 3: of Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: Melvin was now a convicted murderer, staring down the rest
Speaker 1: of his life behind bars. Was there ever a point
Speaker 1: that you might have lost hope and thought that you know,
Speaker 1: you'd be stuck in there.
Speaker 5: Forever lots of time.
Speaker 6: You know you're gonna have your your week moments, your
Speaker 6: your hard days, and when you're gonna feel it hopeless,
Speaker 6: you're gonna feel down, You're gonna feel like, man, I'm
Speaker 6: never gonna get out of here.
Speaker 1: You know, Melvin has petitioned for post conviction relief six
Speaker 1: times from twenty and one to twenty sixteen, and he's
Speaker 1: been denied every time.
Speaker 5: He's like, what can you do? You know, you keep
Speaker 5: getting shot down from the courts. You know. I was like, Okay,
Speaker 5: I'm appeal this, and you know I'm gonna win this
Speaker 5: on appeal.
Speaker 6: Man, Like I said, I was wrong, I was wrong
Speaker 6: about a lot of things.
Speaker 5: Twenty four years later, yeah, I am speaking to you.
Speaker 3: I had followed Melvin's case and followed his appeals, and
Speaker 3: you know it with heartbreaking each time I saw so
Speaker 3: on 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.
Speaker 3: I think once or twice I actually wrote him a
Speaker 3: letter like, you know, I wish you good luck on
Speaker 3: your appeal, and just that I want you to know
Speaker 3: I'm thinking about you. But in that gap of that
Speaker 3: time frame, we never had the type of conversation we
Speaker 3: had when we were, you know, younger, But I always
Speaker 3: always thought about him.
Speaker 1: Melvin thought about her too.
Speaker 6: Fucking describeatory one word, I would say, extraordinary, you know,
Speaker 6: I mean, she's just.
Speaker 5: A good person overall. She has a beautiful heart. She's beautiful.
Speaker 6: I love her, and throughout my bed I used to
Speaker 6: do I used to always use her as a conversation
Speaker 6: piece because you know, a lot of the guys they
Speaker 6: used to talk about with their friends.
Speaker 3: And and how.
Speaker 5: Things were and you know the messed up part. And
Speaker 5: I used to be like, well, I knew a good one.
Speaker 5: I had a good one.
Speaker 1: That Victoria moved on and by two thousand and five
Speaker 1: she was living in Florida.
Speaker 3: I you know, obviously was with in my life doing
Speaker 3: my thing, and I met my ex husband, and you know,
Speaker 3: we had decided to get married. And I think six
Speaker 3: weeks before I was about to get married, I had
Speaker 3: wrote Melvin this letter, right because you know, that's what
Speaker 3: we do. Anytime there's a big monumental thing going in,
Speaker 3: you know, going on in your life, you want to
Speaker 3: share it with the person that you care about. Vote.
Speaker 3: So I had wrote this, wrote Melvin this letter that
Speaker 3: you know, I'm getting married and this is this is
Speaker 3: basically what I'm going to do, and this is a
Speaker 3: little bit about what's going on with me. And I
Speaker 3: ended up not sending it. I had it all written
Speaker 3: out in the envelope ready to drop in the mailbox,
Speaker 3: and I just I didn't put it in the mailbox
Speaker 3: because I knew. I knew if he would have responded, I,
Speaker 3: for one, probably wouldn't have went to the altar.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until three years ago that everything changed for
Speaker 1: Melvin Victoria and their relationship. In twenty twelve, the United
Speaker 1: States Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional for juveniles
Speaker 1: to be mandatorily sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Speaker 10: A Supreme Court decision that said juveniles are constitutionally different
Speaker 10: from adults for the purposes of serviencing.
Speaker 1: So over the next few years, states started resentencing their
Speaker 1: juvenile lifers. Remember, Melvin was seventeen at the time of
Speaker 1: the murder, a juvenile, so in twenty eighteen he was resentenced.
Speaker 1: At this time, a lot of juvenile lifers were actually
Speaker 1: being resentenced to twenty five to life in prison, which
Speaker 1: 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 any shot at freedom was better than none.
Speaker 3: Like I said, I would always follow his case. And
Speaker 3: it's just like when he was resentenced in June of
Speaker 3: twenty eighteen, it was I knew that the universe was
Speaker 3: aligning things.
Speaker 1: Victoria's marriage was on the outs at this point, she
Speaker 1: was getting divorced.
Speaker 3: And I knew that that was the right time to
Speaker 3: reach out to him. And instinctively, when I saw that
Speaker 3: with that resentencing, he would only have fourteen years left Maggie,
Speaker 3: I thought to myself at the time, I thought, well,
Speaker 3: I can wait fourteen years for him. That's what my gut,
Speaker 3: my heart was telling me.
Speaker 1: By that time, Victoria had thought a lot about wrongful
Speaker 1: convictions and being with someone in prison.
Speaker 3: I'll be honest, Back then and even up to a
Speaker 3: few years ago, I didn't realize what an epidemic wrongful
Speaker 3: convictions are. The people that are inside are are actually people.
Speaker 3: I think the media portrays, you know, people that are
Speaker 3: incarcerated as the horrible beings, but it's actually the majority
Speaker 3: of them are serving time for miscellaneous marijuana charges and
Speaker 3: wrongful convictions and crimes that have nothing to do with
Speaker 3: public safety. Now I'm finding out, as I'm older and
Speaker 3: there's more people that are wrongfully convicted coming home, I'm
Speaker 3: finding out that that's more common than I thought it
Speaker 3: was at the time.
Speaker 1: She figured she'd do it, she'd jump back in with
Speaker 1: Melvin and fight to exonerate him. So do you remember
Speaker 1: what it was about Melvin's case that kind of struck.
Speaker 10: You, Well, there are a number of features. I mean,
Speaker 10: one is the fact that he was a juvenile and
Speaker 10: such a clear victim in my view, in the words,
Speaker 10: zero evidence actual evidence against Melvin, and significant evidence that
Speaker 10: he was not there and it was impossible for him
Speaker 10: to have been there.
Speaker 1: This is Mark Howard, professor of Government and Law at
Speaker 1: Georgetown University. He co teaches a class called Making an
Speaker 1: Exonery with his childhood friend Marty Tankliff. Marty himself is
Speaker 1: an x hoonery. In the class, the Georgetown students investigate
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction cases and advocate for their innocence and exoneration. Victoria,
Speaker 1: now fully committed to Melvin and his exoneration, reached out
Speaker 1: to Mark's team for help, and after reviewing Mark's case
Speaker 1: the Making an Exonery class, decided to take it on
Speaker 1: to me.
Speaker 10: I mean, it's frank, A screaming case of a wrongful conviction.
Speaker 1: Melvin's case has a lot of the classic hallmarks, such
Speaker 1: as the lack of evidence, the rock solid alibi actually
Speaker 1: nineteen alibi witnesses, and especially.
Speaker 10: The shakiest of witnesses coming forward who have a motivation
Speaker 10: which is to collect reward money and then two to
Speaker 10: get the trail off of them.
Speaker 1: Mark is talking about John Kelter Jerone, the star witness
Speaker 1: and his girlfriend Tina Valentine. Now I mentioned that John
Speaker 1: is the son of a Pennsylvania politician, so jurors may
Speaker 1: have seen him during the trial as particularly credible. Well,
Speaker 1: it wasn't until after the trial that previously hidden information
Speaker 1: about John started to surface.
Speaker 10: So one, John had an extensive criminal record himself. His
Speaker 10: record was never admitted, it was later even expunged, and
Speaker 10: then none of it was disclosed to the jury, and
Speaker 10: he came forward as if he were a credible witness
Speaker 10: and upstanding citizen, which he's far from.
Speaker 1: Mark believes this has to do with who John's dad.
Speaker 10: Was, Thomas Heltera Jerone, who was a state rep Presentative
Speaker 10: in Pennsylvania and as head of the Judiciary Committee, he
Speaker 10: controlled the budget of the court system. And so you're
Speaker 10: talking about someone with huge influence over the court system,
Speaker 10: over the judge, over the prosecutor's office through his political role,
Speaker 10: and so that in a sense gave John cover. His
Speaker 10: record was never admitted. It's very, very suspicious, and when
Speaker 10: you add that to the fact that there's nothing else
Speaker 10: against Melbourne other than this testimony and then the kind
Speaker 10: of pressure testimony of his girlfriend, you think something is
Speaker 10: rotten here, and.
Speaker 1: Something may have been. Tina was only sixteen and pregnant
Speaker 1: with John's child at the time of the trial in
Speaker 1: two thousand and five, when she was twenty two years old,
Speaker 1: Tina came forward and admitted that John pressured her on
Speaker 1: what to say. She had lied about everything. She began
Speaker 1: speaking up about the truth after her son died, which
Speaker 1: she interpreted as karma from God for knowingly taking Melvin's
Speaker 1: life away, and her recantation. She says it was John
Speaker 1: who committed the murder, and remember at trial, Melvin's friend
Speaker 1: Cynthia said the same thing that John told her he
Speaker 1: wanted to run away with her for the ten thousand
Speaker 1: dollars reward money. One of the members of Melvin's team
Speaker 1: at Georgetown is now part of our team at Wrongful Conviction, Eastmuddy, Guadalama.
Speaker 1: Here's what Tina told Eastmuddy in an interview about what
Speaker 1: happened that night in December of nineteen ninety seven. Tina
Speaker 1: said she spent that day shopping and saw John as
Speaker 1: soon as he came home.
Speaker 11: John's beating past the house. Now he's supposed to be
Speaker 11: at work, but he's flying past the house and everything.
Speaker 11: And he came and he picked me up and told
Speaker 11: me to grab the bag behind the door, And I
Speaker 11: didn't know what it was, I'm like, what he's like
Speaker 11: the bag behind the door.
Speaker 1: According to Tina, the bag contained a mask, gloves, and
Speaker 1: a hoodie.
Speaker 11: And then that evening is when he sat down with
Speaker 11: me more and told me what supposedly had happened, that
Speaker 11: him and Melvin supposedly went in and robbed the pizza shop.
Speaker 11: I didn't believe it because one Melvin was at a
Speaker 11: birthday party. When that all was said and done, John
Speaker 11: started opening up a little bit more to me. He's like, look,
Speaker 11: you're gonna have to say this and say this and
Speaker 11: say this to get them off my ask. And they
Speaker 11: think it's Melvin that let them think that.
Speaker 1: So if she knew Melvin was innocent, why did Tina
Speaker 1: agree to testify on John's behalf.
Speaker 11: It's scared fear, not just from him, from his father
Speaker 11: and his father's pool and people that you knew. I
Speaker 11: had a bunch of people job trying to pressure me
Speaker 11: from the family.
Speaker 2: Did you ever experience any sort of guilt or stress
Speaker 2: at the time of the trial when you were.
Speaker 11: Sixteen, Yeah, that was a lot me sitting there one
Speaker 11: stand saying that it was Melvin, and I wholeheartedly knew
Speaker 11: that Melvin had nothing to do with any of this.
Speaker 1: Since two thousand and eight, Tina has been working with
Speaker 1: Melvin's family to present her testimony before a judge. Melvin
Speaker 1: has attempted to use Tina's recanted testimony an admission of
Speaker 1: perjury several times, but again, the courts keep denying it
Speaker 1: on the basis of the evidence being time barred. It
Speaker 1: took ten years for the courts to hear her recanted testimony.
Speaker 1: In twenty eighteen, when the judge finally did, he decided
Speaker 1: that although he believed her, it wouldn't have changed the
Speaker 1: trial's verdict. Here's Mark again.
Speaker 10: I think there's so many different features to the case. Now,
Speaker 10: talk to Melvin himself. He is a kind, intelligent, caring, loyal,
Speaker 10: just a person with integrity, and he's someone who presents
Speaker 10: zero and I mean zero threat to public safety. To
Speaker 10: think that Pennsylvania taxpayers are spending close to fifty thousand
Speaker 10: dollars a year to keep Melvin Ortiz in prison for
Speaker 10: something he didn't do since he was a child, and
Speaker 10: that we have elected officials who are trying to make
Speaker 10: that permanent for the rest of his life, it's just unacceptable.
Speaker 1: We should also note that Mark Baldwin, the district attorney
Speaker 1: who tried Melvin's case, was cited in another wrongful conviction case,
Speaker 1: that of Roddy Johnson. In that case, district Attorney Mark
Speaker 1: Baldwin was cited for egregious prosecutor real misconduct. Mister Johnson
Speaker 1: was exonerated in twenty twenty.
Speaker 10: And to me, that suggests that every case that prosecutor
Speaker 10: worked on should at least be looked at, and Melvin's
Speaker 10: case being one of them, and Melvin having many other
Speaker 10: hallmarks of a wrongful conviction, I think that adds even
Speaker 10: more power to his claim.
Speaker 1: Melvin says being incarcerated has definitely put a strain on
Speaker 1: his family and their relationship.
Speaker 6: You know, there are gaps between our relationship with my
Speaker 6: family and stuff like that.
Speaker 5: There are gaps, you know, don't get a.
Speaker 6: Messed up, but you know, we try to bridge those
Speaker 6: gaps because his family is important, you know, because especially
Speaker 6: on a situation like this, I guess one of the
Speaker 6: things that bring us together is my innocence.
Speaker 3: I mean, his family has spent probably close to one
Speaker 3: hundred thousand dollars in attorney's feed just trying to bring
Speaker 3: to life of the cross evidence they've had to move,
Speaker 3: they've had to downside, they've had to refinance, you know,
Speaker 3: their original house, all types of financial impacts as well
Speaker 3: as the emotional.
Speaker 1: Melvin's Dadjan is still working six days a week at
Speaker 1: the age of seventy eight, trying to pay off the
Speaker 1: family's debts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, two parents working two jobs to pay attorneys sees.
Speaker 3: And you also have you know, Melvin calling from the inside.
Speaker 3: And keep in mind, you know, when he went in
Speaker 3: he was eighteen and up until now, you know, the
Speaker 3: physical trauma, the physical abuse scenes. He's young, and he's
Speaker 3: surrounded by older persons who have been there much longer
Speaker 3: than him. It's extremely it's extremely stressful and oppressive.
Speaker 1: While in prison, Melvin spends his free time reading, exercising,
Speaker 1: playing chess, and talking to Victoria.
Speaker 5: What are your.
Speaker 1: Plans for the future when you get out?
Speaker 6: You know, my plan is to marry Victoria, see if
Speaker 6: we can build a family from there.
Speaker 5: I just wanting to take it one day at a time.
Speaker 5: I just want to find peace.
Speaker 6: I mean, after this experience, like the word piece is
Speaker 6: very strong for me.
Speaker 1: Okay, so my last question is is there any kind
Speaker 1: of like food or something that you're drying to have
Speaker 1: when you get out.
Speaker 6: Mom's cooking, you know something, just mom's cooking. I missed
Speaker 6: that the mont.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Melvin is currently appealing the twenty eighteen resentencing decision
Speaker 1: of thirty five years to life. As of right now,
Speaker 1: he's eligible for parole in twenty thirty two. The second
Speaker 1: perpetrator in the robbery and homicide of George Klausser has
Speaker 1: never been found. Next time on Wrongful Conviction with Maggie
Speaker 1: Freeling Mike Pohlee.
Speaker 12: When they were interrogating me, they asked me, you know,
Speaker 12: who do you think part of your mother? There's only
Speaker 12: one person that I know that hated her that much
Speaker 12: to do that to her, And what I've seen was
Speaker 12: evil hatred.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
Speaker 1: Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
Speaker 1: links in our bio to see how you can help.
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason Flamm and
Speaker 1: Kevin Wurtis, as well as our senior producer Annie Chelsea,
Speaker 1: researcher Lila Robinson, story editor Sonya Paul, fact checking and
Speaker 1: additional reporting. Eastmany Guadarrama with additional production by Jeff Cliburn
Speaker 1: and Connor Hall. Special thanks go to Mark Howard and
Speaker 1: the making an ex Honery class at Georgetown University. The
Speaker 1: music in this production is by three time OSCAR nominated
Speaker 1: composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and
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Speaker 1: for Good. On all three platforms, you can also follow
Speaker 1: me on both Instagram and Twitter at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for
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