Speaker 1: It was Thanksgiving the eve in nineteen eighty seven, and
Speaker 1: after visiting her daughter at Wykoff Hospital in Queen's Maureene
Speaker 1: Fernandez went to a few of her usual bars with
Speaker 1: a man who was unfamiliar to the other bar patrons.
Speaker 1: The next morning, her body was found in an empty
Speaker 1: lot next to a stretch of the Long Island Railroad.
Speaker 1: She had been stabbed thirty five times. Investigators spoke with
Speaker 1: the bar patrons and a night watchman near the empty lot,
Speaker 1: who described a white Cadillac type car leaving the lot
Speaker 1: at four am. The detectives began looking into people who
Speaker 1: worked at the hospital, and it turned out that a
Speaker 1: security guard named Tavier Ramos owned a white Oldsmobile. Detectives
Speaker 1: leaned hard on Ramos, extracting a confession about lending his
Speaker 1: car to a friend named Richard Pereira. Ramos claimed Pereira
Speaker 1: had returned the vehicle with a mysterious red liquid on
Speaker 1: the passenger's side and admitted to the murder before Ramos
Speaker 1: thoroughly cleaned the car. When Perrera was cleared in a lineup,
Speaker 1: police arranged for Pereira to record a conversation with Ramos,
Speaker 1: who admits to making up the story, even admitting that
Speaker 1: his car battery was dead the night of the murder.
Speaker 1: But instead of switching directions, the cops interrogate Ramos again,
Speaker 1: extracting the same story with a new suspect, Felipe Rodriguez,
Speaker 1: without the Perrera recording being presented at trial. Felipe ended
Speaker 1: up spending over twenty six years in prison after being
Speaker 1: identified by a man who knew nothing about the murder
Speaker 1: of a woman whom Felipe had never even met. This
Speaker 1: is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. Welcome back to Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction with Jason Flamm.
Speaker 2: That's me.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, and today I am well you can
Speaker 1: probably hear. I'm excited because we have not one, but
Speaker 1: two of my favorite human beings on the show today. First,
Speaker 1: Nina Morrison is the senior litigation attorney at the Innocence
Speaker 1: Project in New York and just an all around certified
Speaker 1: badass lawyer, human mom, person, friend, and so Nina, I'm
Speaker 1: really excited to have you back on.
Speaker 3: Welcome Thanks Jason. Great to be back.
Speaker 1: And now, in our tradition of saving the best for last,
Speaker 1: we have one of the kindest, gentlest, funniest and best
Speaker 1: dressed humans that you're ever going to come across. So,
Speaker 1: Felipe Rodriguez, welcome to wrongful conviction.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Jesson, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Felipa, Let's start at the beginning. You grew up in
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico, right.
Speaker 2: Yes, I was born in Ponsa, Puerto Rico, on August fifteen,
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 1: And you came to New York and at what time?
Speaker 2: I actually came to New York with my mother and
Speaker 2: my stepfather late seventies. I was like thirteen or fourteen
Speaker 2: years old.
Speaker 1: Can you just describe to us what your life was
Speaker 1: like before for this incident in nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty five, I actually got married to my
Speaker 2: now ex wife, Godus Rodriguez, and I had a kid
Speaker 2: with her, Felippe Willando Diriguez Junior. He was born on
Speaker 2: July second, nineteen eighty six. By eighty six, I started
Speaker 2: working for a subcontracting company for the City of New York.
Speaker 2: I was getting paid good, I had good health care,
Speaker 2: so I was being pretty well for myself.
Speaker 1: And then you were implicated in a murder that you
Speaker 1: had absolutely nothing to do with. And this particular murder
Speaker 1: was really gruesome, Nina. Can you take us back to
Speaker 1: the crime itself and how they came to say settle
Speaker 1: because they settled on Felipe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Felipe wasn't arrested and charged for this crime until
Speaker 3: sixteen months after the victim in this case, Marine Fernandez,
Speaker 3: was murdered. As you mentioned, it was an extraordinarily brutal crime.
Speaker 3: She was stabbed thirty five times and her body was
Speaker 3: found in a deserted lot in Queens, New York, near
Speaker 3: the Long Island railroad tracks behind a food warehouse. Her
Speaker 3: body was actually found on Thanksgiving morning. She had been
Speaker 3: at a local hospital visiting her two year old daughter,
Speaker 3: who was in the hospital the night before, went out
Speaker 3: to a bar with a man that the other bar
Speaker 3: patrons didn't recognize, but it was a bar that she
Speaker 3: went to with some frequency, left there around two in
Speaker 3: the morning and was never seen again. You know, we
Speaker 3: get a lot of cases, Jason, where there's some reasonable
Speaker 3: evidence pointing to our clients as a suspect, and then
Speaker 3: later through DNA or further investigation or advanced science some
Speaker 3: other evidence, we find the picture changes. And when we
Speaker 3: at the Innocence Project took on Felipe's case. It was
Speaker 3: just so clear that this investigation was pointing far away
Speaker 3: from Felipe for the beginning, and eventually, sixteen months later,
Speaker 3: when they had no viable suspect, the police just decided
Speaker 3: to coerce witnesses and harsh Felipe.
Speaker 1: The police had the description of the most likely culprit
Speaker 1: from the bar patrons, right.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: The thing that was so obvious was that the man
Speaker 3: who was with the victims Fernandez at the bar, did
Speaker 3: not remotely resemble Felibe. Felibe as your desk can see
Speaker 3: if they google him as a tall, slender, very dark haired,
Speaker 3: handsome man of Puerto Rican descent. And yet the man
Speaker 3: at the bar, who was the last person to come
Speaker 3: to the bar with and leave with the victim, the
Speaker 3: obvious likely suspect, was described by witnesses as white or Italian,
Speaker 3: clean shaven. Felipe, had a black mustache, stocky, which Felipe
Speaker 3: definitely is not and never was, and had reddish brown
Speaker 3: hair with hazel eyes. I mean, the list goes on
Speaker 3: and on.
Speaker 1: One of the patrons at the bar, Robert Thompson, who
Speaker 1: was heavily intoxicated, said that he had tried to sell
Speaker 1: a watch to Maureen Fernandez and the man she was with.
Speaker 1: And then this Thompson described the potential perpetrator's hands as large,
Speaker 1: calloused and wearing rings. Then later on he sort of
Speaker 1: agreed with the detectives that the man may have had
Speaker 1: writing on his left hand. Again, you wouldn't want to
Speaker 1: hang a murder conviction on this. And then there's this
Speaker 1: Peter Saloni guy. He was a night watchman at the
Speaker 1: food wholesaler near the empty lot where the body was found,
Speaker 1: and he told police that he witnessed a white car
Speaker 1: with a loane mail driver leaving the warehouse area at
Speaker 1: four am. He said the car may have been a
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties era a Cadillac.
Speaker 3: There wasn't really any evidence that anybody's white car was
Speaker 3: necessarily the car used in this crime. The security guard
Speaker 3: thought he saw a white car with a loan driver
Speaker 3: leaving the warehouse area around four am. No one knows
Speaker 3: what time miss Fernandez was brought there or when she
Speaker 3: was killed. There were different reports about when she left
Speaker 3: the bar, and originally the investigation focused on a black car,
Speaker 3: which had a much closer connection to the crime. Because
Speaker 3: several witnesses describes seeing an unfamiliar shiny black Monte Carlo
Speaker 3: with windows outside the bar, and people started suggesting to
Speaker 3: police that maybe the perpetrator drove her to and from
Speaker 3: the bar in that car. And it was only when
Speaker 3: six eight months later the case remained unsolved that suddenly
Speaker 3: a new detective on the case, Jack Baizel, said, oh, well,
Speaker 3: maybe it was the white car seen by the security guard,
Speaker 3: And from that little read of a hypothesis, they reverse
Speaker 3: engineered a case designed to find anyone they could with
Speaker 3: a connection to Whycoff Hospital who happened to have a
Speaker 3: white car of that general description.
Speaker 1: So the detectives began looking at the staff of the hospital,
Speaker 1: that this poor woman had been visiting her sick child
Speaker 1: at a pediatric ward because people were staying around the neighborhood,
Speaker 1: that it was like a pickup spot, which is bizarre
Speaker 1: in itself, but okay. So the detective started talking about
Speaker 1: the staff and there was a security guard named Javier
Speaker 1: Ramos who had a white Oldsmobile at the time of
Speaker 1: the murder. Not a cadillact, but he had gotten off
Speaker 1: work at the hospital at midnight on the night of
Speaker 1: the murder, and a few months later in February or
Speaker 1: March of nineteen eighty eight, Ramos had sold the Oldsmobile
Speaker 1: to another staffer, a guy named Pedro Sierra, and he
Speaker 1: had painted the roof of the Oldsmobile red, and Soloney,
Speaker 1: the night watchman guy, was taken to the area where
Speaker 1: the car formerly owned by Ramos was parked.
Speaker 3: They drove him around the block, passed it several times,
Speaker 3: and he didn't pick it out, and then by self
Speaker 3: finally says to him or detective said to him, Hey,
Speaker 3: if that car didn't have a red roof, could it
Speaker 3: have been the car? And he said probably maybe, like
Speaker 3: an eight out of ten. So that's not exactly an unbiased,
Speaker 3: spontaneous identification of the car. It's about a suggestive and
Speaker 3: equivocal as you get.
Speaker 1: And then Detective by Zell aggressively interrogated and intimidated, i
Speaker 1: would say Ramos for hours and hours, and finally the
Speaker 1: interrogation ended when Ramos told the story that they wanted
Speaker 1: to hear, and he signed a statement not implicating Felipe,
Speaker 1: but a friend and coworker named Richard.
Speaker 3: Pereira Ramas's original story implicating Peera said Terrera bar in
Speaker 3: the car brought it back on Thanksgiving morning, there was
Speaker 3: a reddish stain in the car. It smelled terrible, and
Speaker 3: that Pererra allegedly said to him that he had to
Speaker 3: stab some bitch to show her that he was a
Speaker 3: man and not some boy. So essentially admitted to a murder,
Speaker 3: and it was a very damning statement. The problem is
Speaker 3: it was completing it up. The police bring in Richie.
Speaker 3: We don't know the full extent of the investigation they did,
Speaker 3: but we know that he was not picked out of
Speaker 3: a lineup by any of the eyewitnesses from the bar
Speaker 3: or by the security guard, and for that or for
Speaker 3: other reasons, they decided Ramus had given them the wrong guy.
Speaker 3: So they go back to Ramos and they work him over,
Speaker 3: and they work him over, but before they do that,
Speaker 3: they go to Perrera and they say, hey, Ramos implicated you.
Speaker 3: We think Ramos might be the killer. Can you wear
Speaker 3: a wire and go talk to him.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: None of this was heard by Felipe jury. This didn't
Speaker 3: come out till after he was convicted. But Ramos was
Speaker 3: taped by Pererra, the man he falsely implicated, essentially admitting
Speaker 3: he made up the whole story, and on this audio tape,
Speaker 3: that none of the jurors ever heard. Ramo said, look,
Speaker 3: the cops were coming at me and coming at me.
Speaker 3: It was going to be me or you, and I
Speaker 3: had to give them somebody or else I was going
Speaker 3: to go to prison for the rest of my life.
Speaker 3: And then he said, my car wasn't even working that day,
Speaker 3: the battery was dead, and there was no blood on
Speaker 3: the cushion. That was juice that my girlfriend's kid spilled there.
Speaker 3: He admitted the whole thing was fabricated, not just naming Pereira,
Speaker 3: but the whole entire story, and Felipe's jury never heard that.
Speaker 3: What they did here at Felipe's trial was that Ramos
Speaker 3: gave another version of that statement implicating Felipe. The only
Speaker 3: two differences in that statement were one, and most importantly,
Speaker 3: he switched the names. So he gave the exact same statement.
Speaker 3: But he said, oh, it was actually Felipe Rodriguez who
Speaker 3: brought the car back to me that morning and said
Speaker 3: all these terrible things, not Richie Perreira. Okay, So to
Speaker 3: believe he's telling the truth, you have to believe he
Speaker 3: implicated one innocent man to protect another man, Felipe Rodriguez,
Speaker 3: not exactly the most reliable witness in the world. In addition,
Speaker 3: another thing that always jumped out at us is that
Speaker 3: Ramo said in his second statement that he cleaned the
Speaker 3: car himself. In his first statement, the false one implicating
Speaker 3: Richie Perreira, he said that his grandfather helped him clean
Speaker 3: the car, and suddenly, in the second statement, the grandfather disappears.
Speaker 3: Grandfather never testifies a trial, and to this day we
Speaker 3: have never seen a single piece of paper indicating whether
Speaker 3: the police ever talked to the grandfather and Jason, I
Speaker 3: probably don't need to connect the dots for your very
Speaker 3: crime savvy listeners, or even the ones who aren't right, Like,
Speaker 3: the first thing you would do as a rookie cop
Speaker 3: if somebody says, oh, I cleaned blood off of a
Speaker 3: vehicle that was used in a grisly murder and this
Speaker 3: person helped me, is you'd go find that person and
Speaker 3: interview them and see if they corroborate or contradict what
Speaker 3: this witness has just told you. And the fact that
Speaker 3: there is no record of them talking to the grandfather,
Speaker 3: along with the fact that we now now Remos made
Speaker 3: it all up, leads me to the conclusion that the
Speaker 3: police absolutely talked to him, and that he told them
Speaker 3: my grandson's full of you know what, I never went
Speaker 3: near a stinky, bloody carr or else I would have
Speaker 3: called the cops. So they took that detail out of
Speaker 3: the second statement, but everything else he subbed one name
Speaker 3: for another, and in the second statement he subbed in
Speaker 3: an innocent man who did twenty seven years in prison
Speaker 3: for a crime commit Felipe.
Speaker 2: Had you even heard about it when they came to me,
Speaker 2: that was the first I heard it, and I was
Speaker 2: shocked us out.
Speaker 1: So they put Felipe in a live lineup, and they
Speaker 1: brought in several of the people from the bar, and
Speaker 1: none of them identified Filipe except for the one guy
Speaker 1: who had admitted that he was drunk as a skunk
Speaker 1: that night, and you would have to be drunk as
Speaker 1: a skunk to except a guy who's described as Italian
Speaker 1: five eight with reddish brown hair and chunky with a
Speaker 1: guy who's slender five eleven, jet black hair and a mustache. Well,
Speaker 1: with Ramos's statement and Thompson's identification, that they felt was
Speaker 1: enough to indict Felipe for murder.
Speaker 2: You know, I was truly truly baffled of why me.
Speaker 1: Felipe also passed a polygraph denying his involvement and was
Speaker 1: released on bail pre trial, which again gives me some
Speaker 1: indication that they didn't think he was that dangerous or
Speaker 1: they wouldn't have sent it back to the neighborhood. And
Speaker 1: then there was the issue with the trial itself.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So, originally Felipe was represented by Kenneth Litwack, but then
Speaker 1: replaced by an attorney named Jennifer Miolo.
Speaker 3: As we later found out, she was defending Felibe with
Speaker 3: one hand time behind her back because there was a
Speaker 3: lot of evidence of his innocence that she never got.
Speaker 3: Some of the best lawyers in the world will lose
Speaker 3: trials when the prosecution doesn't play fair and the police
Speaker 3: don't play fair, and they don't get all the evidence
Speaker 3: that they're entitled to get.
Speaker 1: And that was exactly the situation that was happening here
Speaker 1: in April nineteen ninety. Your trial was held in the
Speaker 1: Queen's County Supreme Court, and I know that Ramos repeated
Speaker 1: his false narrative about lending his car to Felipe man
Speaker 1: He said that he had delayed reporting the crime and
Speaker 1: initially shifted the blame to Peric because Felipe was quote
Speaker 1: like a brother to me. I mean, the whole thing stinks.
Speaker 3: As you know, many jurors, when they show up for
Speaker 3: jury duty, assume that the police have it right, that
Speaker 3: the person who's charged with the crime wouldn't be sitting
Speaker 3: there if they weren't guilty, and despite the legal burden
Speaker 3: of innocent until proven guilty, in reality it's often just
Speaker 3: the opposite, where jurors assume the person is guilty, and
Speaker 3: if there's any evidence to support that conclusion, they often
Speaker 3: latch onto that evidence. And so I can see a
Speaker 3: world where a man who represents himself to be a
Speaker 3: close friend of Felipe's, claims to be like a other
Speaker 3: to him, comes in and says I didn't want to
Speaker 3: turn him in, but I had to because it was
Speaker 3: the right thing to do. Never mind that he implicated
Speaker 3: another admittedly innocent person in between might give them what
Speaker 3: they need, or they might have been swayed by just
Speaker 3: the horrible glory nature of the crime and not want
Speaker 3: to let it go unsolved.
Speaker 1: So the prosecution calls these two witnesses that claim to
Speaker 1: have seen the writing on Felipe's hands in the past
Speaker 1: This also seems just so dicey.
Speaker 3: You know, it's a sign of how thin the case
Speaker 3: was that they're relying on things like a witness twenty
Speaker 3: months later who says she thought she saw something written
Speaker 3: on Felipe's hands. That happens to match something that another
Speaker 3: drunk witness said ten months after the crime that he
Speaker 3: thought he saw written on Felipe's hand. And that's really
Speaker 3: emblematic of just how weak a case this was. But
Speaker 3: and the other key piece of it was that the
Speaker 3: police witnesses testified really to back up the whole theory
Speaker 3: about the white car. You know, the prosecution was allowed
Speaker 3: to walk detectives by cell and Sullivan through the investigation.
Speaker 3: Oh and also they had the bartender who would initially
Speaker 3: not picked flee bad of a lineup, came into court
Speaker 3: and said, oh, yeah, that's the guy. And between the
Speaker 3: white car ramas, the testimony, some of the other incredibly
Speaker 3: shaky IDs and some dubious testimony about writing and things
Speaker 3: Felipe allegedly said, and that was enough to send this
Speaker 3: man away for what could have been the rest.
Speaker 2: Of his life.
Speaker 1: Felipe was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to
Speaker 1: twenty five years to life in prison.
Speaker 2: When they said that they had found me guilty of
Speaker 2: murdering the second degree, my niece buckled. Man, I put
Speaker 2: both of my hands on the table and I just
Speaker 2: it was a rough day. Man. It was at that
Speaker 2: time I was married to Loida Castinero, and all I
Speaker 2: heard was her screams. It was like a scream when
Speaker 2: somebody dies. And then the judge said, you're remanded, and
Speaker 2: he told the user to take meant cross city, and
Speaker 2: that's what the whole thing. Maybe can.
Speaker 1: This episode is brought to you by Stand Together. Stand
Speaker 1: Together is a philanthropic community dedicated to helping people improve
Speaker 1: their lives. For more than twenty years, Stand Together and
Speaker 1: its partners have been on the front lines of criminal
Speaker 1: justice reform. By empowering people to take action, supporting nonprofits,
Speaker 1: and working with businesses, Stand Together tackles the root causes
Speaker 1: of problems in our communities and empowers those closest to
Speaker 1: the problems to drive solutions. Solutions like reducing unjust prison
Speaker 1: sentences through the First Step Act, empowering community based programs
Speaker 1: and help people re enter society, and now working to
Speaker 1: bridge divides in our communities to learn how you may
Speaker 1: get involved. Visit Standtogether dot org slash conviction.
Speaker 2: I was twenty three twenty four. One of the first
Speaker 2: Mexican security persons that I arrived at was Great Metals
Speaker 2: Correctional Facility better known as Gladiator School or Comstock. There
Speaker 2: I seen the violence, the homosexuality, the drugs, the gangs,
Speaker 2: and I said, how can I pulled myself out of
Speaker 2: this dungeon safely and returned to my son. So the
Speaker 2: first few months were crucial. I prayed a lot, I
Speaker 2: cried a lot. That was nice when you know, I
Speaker 2: put myself to sleep crying thinking about my son and
Speaker 2: you know who was being dead for him. I was angry,
Speaker 2: of course, I was angry. I was angry at the system.
Speaker 2: I was angry that I was thrown in prison for
Speaker 2: twenty five to life for something I haven't done. And
Speaker 2: I was completely confused on how I was going to
Speaker 2: solve this mystery. But quickly I understood that in order
Speaker 2: for me to think clearly, in order for me to
Speaker 2: see things for what they were, I needed to forgive everybody.
Speaker 2: I needed to take all hatred, I needed to take
Speaker 2: all resentment, and I needed to get that out of
Speaker 2: my system. So that I won't get more hurt than
Speaker 2: what I was already, because you know, most people don't
Speaker 2: understand hatred, resentment. All that does. It hurts you, It
Speaker 2: doesn't hurt the person you're angry at, because the person
Speaker 2: you're angry at is actually in their hour, sleeping or
Speaker 2: having fun with their family while you are doing in
Speaker 2: all this madness. So very early in my incarceration, I
Speaker 2: got rid of all that, and I devoted myself to
Speaker 2: giving thanks to God for me being healthy and alive
Speaker 2: and asking him to protect my son. And I started
Speaker 2: learning and reading every book i'd get my hands on,
Speaker 2: and it was a hell of a quest. For sure.
Speaker 1: I can't picture you in this gladiator school, but you
Speaker 1: turned it into positivity. But then there was still so
Speaker 1: much more to come, right, and we're going to go
Speaker 1: quickly through the proceedings. In the early nineties.
Speaker 3: Felipe got appointed some terrific lawyers from the Legal Aids
Speaker 3: Society for his initial round of appeals right after his conviction.
Speaker 1: Right, and this is Martin Lucente, of course, of the
Speaker 1: Legal Aid Society. We're talking about a very very talented lawyer, and.
Speaker 3: They very quickly through some catching a reference to it
Speaker 3: in another report, discovered that this tape of the lead
Speaker 3: witness against Felipe Javier Ramos existed, was in the state's
Speaker 3: possession and had never been turned over. So they got
Speaker 3: to copy the tape in which Ramos admits to making
Speaker 3: up the whole story about the car and the bloodstains
Speaker 3: and his car and having it to the battery. And
Speaker 3: they go to a hearing. And as we've seen so
Speaker 3: many times, when you go to a hearing with a
Speaker 3: claim that the prosecution withheld evidence you're supposed to have,
Speaker 3: it's a very hard claim to win because the prosecutor
Speaker 3: will often come in and say, well, I turned it over,
Speaker 3: I handed it to the defense layer, I gave it
Speaker 3: to her. And that's exactly what he said here. And
Speaker 3: at the end of the day, the judge's decision denying
Speaker 3: Felipe a new trial didn't say this wasn't significant evidence.
Speaker 3: He never says, oh, this wouldn't have made a difference anyway,
Speaker 3: it was so obvious how important it is. He says,
Speaker 3: I find that there's not enough proof or evidence that
Speaker 3: it wasn't disclosed. I'm not going to call the prosecutor
Speaker 3: a liar. So essentially he's saying that maybe Felipe's trial
Speaker 3: or or missed it, but you know, she was cross
Speaker 3: examining Ramo's pretty hard. It's something that would have been
Speaker 3: almost impossible to miss if she'd had this kind of
Speaker 3: ammo to cross examine him further about making it up.
Speaker 3: So he lost that round, but it was still more
Speaker 3: evidence that, by the time the Innocence Project took the
Speaker 3: case was on record, further undermining this already incredible conviction.
Speaker 1: So none of these initial emotions or appeals led to
Speaker 1: the result that they should have, which is of course
Speaker 1: for Philip to come home. And then it comes to
Speaker 1: two thousand and one, when Felipe you wrote to the Innocence.
Speaker 2: Project, they sent me a letter. They said, look, we
Speaker 2: have a lot of requests and right now, you know,
Speaker 2: we only have a certain amount of staff, so we
Speaker 2: will take a look at it. We'll let you know.
Speaker 2: But then I was transferred to Sullivan, and in Sullivan
Speaker 2: I met Father Bona, who became my mentor. I really
Speaker 2: got immerged into the Catholic religion and I started serving.
Speaker 2: They made population. It became a chaplain's aid and the
Speaker 2: chaplain kirk eucharistic minister. I was in charge of the
Speaker 2: entire Mass, and I was also in charge of the
Speaker 2: prayer Nis, the Bible studies. You know, we started the
Speaker 2: formation class that allow people to become secular Franciscans, which
Speaker 2: I am today, and I forgot about the Innis's project.
Speaker 2: I just you know, I left it off to God.
Speaker 2: And then I started working with a serial killer. His
Speaker 2: name is Alter John Showcross. He was a Stanic worshiper
Speaker 2: and everybody hated him in the prison. Actually, one day
Speaker 2: I came from formation class on a Sunday after Mass,
Speaker 2: and I was sitting at my table with too of
Speaker 2: the chairs empty, and mister Showcross, man he rest in peace,
Speaker 2: was sitting on the floor because nobody wanted them on
Speaker 2: their tables. And I felt so hyper critical. I felt like,
Speaker 2: here I am teaching Bible study and holding mass, and
Speaker 2: I have a guy that's sitting on the stairs eating
Speaker 2: its food because people think that they are better than him.
Speaker 2: I said, who am I to touch this guy or
Speaker 2: what saying do I have? And saying that this guy
Speaker 2: is redeed mobile or not redeemable, that's not off to me.
Speaker 2: That's not up to any human being deserved, that's up
Speaker 2: to God. Whatever we want to call God. So I
Speaker 2: got up from my table and I went up to
Speaker 2: Shortcross and I said, come on, man, sit on the table.
Speaker 2: So he came up. He sat on the table. I said,
Speaker 2: as long as I'm in this prison, you sit on
Speaker 2: this table with me, and whoever has a problem with it,
Speaker 2: I'll take care of it. He said, why why are
Speaker 2: you doing that? I said, everybody deserves a little bit
Speaker 2: of humanity. I'm not here to deprive you of that.
Speaker 2: I've been deprived of that myself, so I'm not going
Speaker 2: to deprive you of that. And from that day he
Speaker 2: started asking me questions about religion and what I believe
Speaker 2: and why I didn't believe. And one day he came
Speaker 2: out and he said, what would you do if I
Speaker 2: wanted to go to church? You think they allow me
Speaker 2: in church? I said, well, I'll tell you what. Why
Speaker 2: don't you come Sunday to Mass with me? If you
Speaker 2: don't like it, you don't never have to come again,
Speaker 2: and nobody's going to judge you or whatever. And he said,
Speaker 2: are you sure people? I said, listen, I'm sure God
Speaker 2: would love to have you in his house. And he
Speaker 2: said okay. That day was the greatest day for me.
Speaker 2: I got blessed by God for me. It was the
Speaker 2: best letter I've ever received. Nina Morrison was assigned to
Speaker 2: my case. From there, Nina became my guardian angel. I
Speaker 2: don't think there's ever going to be a woman more
Speaker 2: important to me aside from my mother than Nina Morrison.
Speaker 2: And I'm married and I love Karen. But I'm gonna
Speaker 2: tell you, and I told Karen a hundred times, and
Speaker 2: you can ask him. She could tell you. If Nina
Speaker 2: called me from China today and told me that she
Speaker 2: needed me over there, Karen will stay here and I
Speaker 2: go to China, because that's just the way it's going
Speaker 2: to be. This is where the Innocent Project stands with me.
Speaker 1: Nina takes a case and the physical evidence had been destroyed.
Speaker 1: There was almost nothing left to go on.
Speaker 3: Felipe's case for a few years in our office was
Speaker 3: literally hanging by some hairs because the hairs were among
Speaker 3: the few things we hadn't found yet. We actually managed
Speaker 3: with the help of a pretty diligent newer prosecutor in
Speaker 3: the years office, Eric Rosenbaum, tracked down some of the hairs,
Speaker 3: and then Hurricane Sandy hit and they lost them again,
Speaker 3: and we had to wait another eighteen months, and after
Speaker 3: that testing and some testings we found on some biological
Speaker 3: material left over from the car yielded no DNA that
Speaker 3: was of any use to the investigation. The hairs were
Speaker 3: all from the victim herself. The cuttings from the car
Speaker 3: didn't yield a thing blood, no, nothing. We were kind
Speaker 3: of stuck.
Speaker 1: You know, it would have been at that point not
Speaker 1: an illogical thing for someone in Nina's position to say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, like we would love to help you, but
Speaker 1: we just don't have what we need. But that's not
Speaker 1: how this rolled out.
Speaker 3: I used to joke in the office that we could
Speaker 3: have a TV show, you know, like the old show
Speaker 3: Everybody Loves Raymond, called Everybody Loves Felipe, because if I
Speaker 3: so much just suggested that we might close his case,
Speaker 3: I was going to have five law students in my
Speaker 3: office telling me I was insane or worse. So we
Speaker 3: just kind of kept it open. So I brought in
Speaker 3: my old law school classmate, Zach margalla'sanama to do some
Speaker 3: work with me on the case and lighten the load
Speaker 3: so I could justify keeping Fuliba's file open. And then
Speaker 3: in the Hall of twenty sixteen, we started to think
Speaker 3: we might be able to get fully Bay out of
Speaker 3: prison another way, not a prison.
Speaker 1: Break, although I think that had this failed, that probably
Speaker 1: would have been Nina and a helicopter ladder.
Speaker 3: On that one. I have no prouts to commit any
Speaker 3: prison breaks.
Speaker 1: I'm glad it didn't come to that. So the next
Speaker 1: and only probably remaining option was coubernatorial clemency.
Speaker 3: So we actually got a call in our office at
Speaker 3: the Innocent Project from one of the lawyers in Governor
Speaker 3: Cuomo's office in New York saying that they were actively
Speaker 3: soliciting clemency applications from people who had I think what
Speaker 3: they called exemplary prison rep so people who had done
Speaker 3: very well inside and had proven that they would be
Speaker 3: no threat to anyone on the outside. And of course
Speaker 3: it helps if you have a lot of evidence that
Speaker 3: they are innocent. And you know, many of our innocent clients,
Speaker 3: they're in the middle of a healthscape, nightmare, get into
Speaker 3: some fights, get into drugs, get into all kinds of
Speaker 3: things just to survive. And you know who among us
Speaker 3: can judge who has never spent a night in one
Speaker 3: of those places, but Felipe and a few of our
Speaker 3: other clients had managed to have really truly extraordinary records
Speaker 3: inside of community service, peacefulness, the respect and trust of
Speaker 3: the staff and the CEOs, and so it was pretty
Speaker 3: obvious that Felipe would be one of the people who
Speaker 3: we would want to put forward. But when I went
Speaker 3: to go talk to Felipe about it, he said, well,
Speaker 3: it's not an exoneration.
Speaker 1: And Felipe, before you get into that, as the man
Speaker 1: of principle that you are, you had refused to go
Speaker 1: in front of the parole board because of the fact
Speaker 1: that they were expecting or even insisting that you were
Speaker 1: going to admit guilt and remorse for crime you didn't commit.
Speaker 1: So you had made a conscious decision that you would
Speaker 1: rather stay in prison than tell a lie and admit
Speaker 1: to something you didn't do.
Speaker 2: When they told me that I was for parole, I
Speaker 2: told the depth of security at the time, Peter Early.
Speaker 2: He came to see me. He says, listen, you are
Speaker 2: for parole. You know I'm going to I want to
Speaker 2: give you a letter of commendation so that you could
Speaker 2: get parole. I said, I don't want a letter. With
Speaker 2: all due respect, I appreciate your intentions, but I'm not
Speaker 2: appearing before parole. I don't want to go out that way.
Speaker 2: I'm not negotiating my innocence. I said, I am willing
Speaker 2: to die in prison if they're not going to recognize
Speaker 2: that I'm a this man. And then came Nina shortly
Speaker 2: thereafter with this great idea of a partner or commutation
Speaker 2: from the governor. I said, no, I said, I'm not
Speaker 2: interested in that. That's not an exageration. She said, hold on,
Speaker 2: I got some nice tickets to the Yankees, great box seats.
Speaker 2: Wouln't you want to go to a game with Filipito?
Speaker 2: And you know, man, she sold that ship to me
Speaker 2: immediately though, Dude, she said, well, we still fight for
Speaker 2: your exaggeration, and we're gonna we're gonna cut your name,
Speaker 2: but at least we'll get you out of here. So
Speaker 2: I said, all right, I try it. So it was
Speaker 2: almost by Christmas. The death of Security came. Death early.
Speaker 2: He would come like little buddies. And I was on
Speaker 2: a ladder painting, and the Death of Security came and
Speaker 2: he said, hey, Rod, get down from the ladder. So
Speaker 2: the way he said it, I thought I was in trouble.
Speaker 2: I said, thing, What did I do? So I get down.
Speaker 2: I said, what's up that? He said, get in my truck.
Speaker 2: I said, what happened? What did I do? He said,
Speaker 2: you didn't do nothing. Get in the truck. So I
Speaker 2: got in the truck. You can't get into depth truck, dude,
Speaker 2: no inmate gets in the depth truck. So I knew
Speaker 2: something was amiss when a death of security tell you
Speaker 2: to get on his truck and then take you outside
Speaker 2: of the jail to his office. So once I seen
Speaker 2: that I was going outside the gate, I said, you're dead.
Speaker 2: He said, relax, everything is good. So we went to
Speaker 2: his office and there it is the superintendent, the type
Speaker 2: of administration, type of programs, step early and a lieutenant.
Speaker 2: So he says, sit on my chair man that Shay
Speaker 2: and I can tell the breaks. I said, what's up there?
Speaker 2: He said, sit on my chair, go ahead. So I
Speaker 2: sat on the depth chair and the Superintendent said, in
Speaker 2: all the years that I've been in corrections, I never
Speaker 2: had the privilege to do this. The governor of the
Speaker 2: State of New York cos to grant you a commutation.
Speaker 2: De said, my phone is your phone. You could do
Speaker 2: whatever you want with my phone. Go ahead and die
Speaker 2: whatever you want to die. This is your phone, is
Speaker 2: your office for today. The first phone call I made
Speaker 2: my son. I called my son and I don't flip it,
Speaker 2: I said, I said, it's overdue, I said, coming home.
Speaker 2: I called Nina and I already knew. She's a bomb.
Speaker 2: She didn't let me know, but she already knew. And
Speaker 2: Zach knew too, And he's another bomb. He didn't tell
Speaker 2: me either, So it was like a big bomb dropped
Speaker 2: on me. You know. I didn't think a commutation will
Speaker 2: feel the way that felt. But to get out and
Speaker 2: be able to hold my son and see the city
Speaker 2: after almost three decades, see it and walk free and
Speaker 2: smell the air and get in the car and do
Speaker 2: the things that we so much take for granted was amazing.
Speaker 2: To be started back to some extent of humanity, to
Speaker 2: feel that sense of belonging, the sense that freedom that
Speaker 2: only comes from you doing what you want when you
Speaker 2: want to do it. Most people don't know what it
Speaker 2: feels like because they never lost their freedom. Freedom is
Speaker 2: a gift. It is the greatest gift any human being
Speaker 2: ever has. I am in eternal debt to the entire
Speaker 2: stop of the Innit's project. Governor Pomo also deserves some
Speaker 2: gratitude for me, and the next step was even better.
Speaker 2: But this was a crucial moment in my life after
Speaker 2: spending twenty six years and nine months in prison.
Speaker 1: So the best was yet to come. And I'll never
Speaker 1: forget your sort of homecoming lunch in New York City.
Speaker 1: I was sort of very blessed to be there for
Speaker 1: your first free hug with your son. I had some
Speaker 1: amazing photographs. I think I was a designated photographer for
Speaker 1: that moment, and it was just the type of moment
Speaker 1: that I think we live for all of us who
Speaker 1: work in this field. And of course then there's still
Speaker 1: more good news and a cold day in Queens, New York,
Speaker 1: we witnessed the formal exoneration.
Speaker 3: Three years to the day after he got his clemency.
Speaker 3: December thirtieth is Felipe's lucky day. So watch out powerball people,
Speaker 3: because if he plays the lottery on that day, things.
Speaker 1: Make his way exactly that.
Speaker 2: I didn't plan it that way.
Speaker 3: It just happened, and it was pretty much the last
Speaker 3: official act from the outgoing administration of Richard Brown. Mister
Speaker 3: Brown died in office about six months before Fullibe was exonerated,
Speaker 3: but one of his top eights, Bob Masters agreed. After
Speaker 3: Phillipe was granted clemency, Bob Masters, who was one of
Speaker 3: the most senior officials in a very large DA's office,
Speaker 3: agreed to my pleading to have somebody with authority take
Speaker 3: a closer look at the case. And I spent about
Speaker 3: close to the better part of those three years working
Speaker 3: with him to dig up every last bit of paper
Speaker 3: that they could find and help them understand the significance
Speaker 3: of what they saw by explaining and really opening up
Speaker 3: our files for the whole case to them. And on
Speaker 3: December twenty third of twenty nineteen I finally got a
Speaker 3: call from Bob Masters that he agreed that there was
Speaker 3: a lot of evidence in that DA's file and then
Speaker 3: the police file that none of us had ever seen,
Speaker 3: that Fellybe's trial lawyer certainly never had, and that the
Speaker 3: jury never had. That convinced him that fully Bay's right
Speaker 3: two affair trial had been egregiously violated.
Speaker 1: Okay, So they found a statement from Ramos taken by
Speaker 1: a Long Island Railroad detective, with Ramos claiming that Felipe
Speaker 1: was with a black man when he allegedly returned the car.
Speaker 1: So that's a totally different story there, and then in
Speaker 1: front of Robert Masters, Ramos recanted his identification of Felipe,
Speaker 1: blaming pressure from police at the time. I mean, there
Speaker 1: was also a statement from a bar patron named William
Speaker 1: Perry that a firmly stated that the couple had arrived
Speaker 1: in the black Monte Carlo, which undermined the entire theory
Speaker 1: about the white car seen by Soloni. And if that
Speaker 1: wasn't enough, one of.
Speaker 4: The biggest red flags of all was that Detective Byzell
Speaker 4: had gained permission to arrest Felipe. Get this eight days
Speaker 4: before Ramos had changed his story from Pereira to Felipe.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's unfucking believable, and it left the DA's
Speaker 4: office no choice.
Speaker 3: Finally, Bob Masters agreed, and he had convinced the district
Speaker 3: attorney that throwing out fully based conviction and exonerating him
Speaker 3: was the right thing to do. And I was able
Speaker 3: to give Felipe a pretty good Christmas present. I called
Speaker 3: him on Christmas Eve and said, can you come to
Speaker 3: the office. And I couldn't tell him why I wanted
Speaker 3: him to come in, because he'd want to know what
Speaker 3: was going on, and So what did I tell you?
Speaker 3: I think I said, I need you to look at
Speaker 3: some papers.
Speaker 2: You need to sign, sign some papers.
Speaker 3: Come to look at some papers.
Speaker 1: Every typical lawyer excuse.
Speaker 3: And he was working at a hotel town and on
Speaker 3: the way home he stopped.
Speaker 2: Off, and when I got there, she's all smiley and
Speaker 2: you know, being Nina, you know how you doing? What's up?
Speaker 2: And I said, what's the documents? Because I see the documents?
Speaker 2: She said, relax. You know Santa Claus brought you a gift.
Speaker 2: And I said what gift? She said, well, you finally
Speaker 2: got what you wanted. And I looked at Nina sideway like, nah,
Speaker 2: don't drop this again, and she said, well, on the tempathy,
Speaker 2: you will be exonerated. I made my whole world tend
Speaker 2: upside down. Dude.
Speaker 3: In eighteen years of the Innocence Project, this was the
Speaker 3: first client that I'd ever gotten to tell in person
Speaker 3: that he was getting exonerated. I've done a lot of
Speaker 3: joyful phone calls, but the first time, because he was
Speaker 3: a New Yorker and he was already free in body,
Speaker 3: if not a name, that I got to actually tell
Speaker 3: someone in my office and be there with him when
Speaker 3: he got to call all his family members and tell
Speaker 3: them the good news. So that was pretty special.
Speaker 1: So now we get to the part of the show
Speaker 1: that everyone, especially he looks forward to, and that part
Speaker 1: of the show is called closing arguments, and this is where,
Speaker 1: first of all, I thank each of you. Nina Morrison,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for being on the show again.
Speaker 3: Thanks Jason, great to be back.
Speaker 1: And Felipe Rodriguez, thanks again for being here and sharing
Speaker 1: your story with us.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: And now I'm going to turn my mic off, kick
Speaker 1: back in my chair, close my eyes, and leave the
Speaker 1: mic on. Nina, why don't you go first, and then
Speaker 1: when you're done, just hand the mic off to Felipe,
Speaker 1: and then Felipe you do the mic drop.
Speaker 3: It's hard to know what to say to sum up
Speaker 3: or make meaning out of what Felipe went through. We
Speaker 3: do know a few things. Why is that he never
Speaker 3: should have been arrested or charged in the first place,
Speaker 3: That there was so much evidence even at the time
Speaker 3: that made very clear that they had the wrong imp
Speaker 3: Another is that if Pollice and prosecutors had turned over
Speaker 3: still more evidence that no one on the defense team
Speaker 3: and Felipe himself didn't know was there, he never would
Speaker 3: have been convicted. Fortunately, New York has since changed its
Speaker 3: laws on what's called pre trial discovery, meaning the universe
Speaker 3: of documents that you get not but as a prosecutor says, well,
Speaker 3: I think this is helpful to you, so I'm going
Speaker 3: to provide it, and I'm legally obligated to provide it.
Speaker 4: But all of the.
Speaker 3: Documents collected in connection with an investigation, police reports, and
Speaker 3: notes now need to be turned over as a matter
Speaker 3: of right. So had these laws been in place at
Speaker 3: the time fully Bay was charged, I like to think
Speaker 3: that he never would have been convicted. So we are
Speaker 3: grateful to the legislature and so the Governor for enacting
Speaker 3: its discovery reform, as we call it, into law, and
Speaker 3: for keeping the bill strong because it will prevent more
Speaker 3: fully fair Ladigue Systrom going to prison for crimes I
Speaker 3: didn't commit.
Speaker 2: So I came out of prison on January twenty six,
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen. A week and a half later, Nina Morrizon
Speaker 2: got me to go and walk into the president of
Speaker 2: Locals six Trades Council Union, mister Peter Ward. He was
Speaker 2: really taken aback by what I've been through and he said, look,
Speaker 2: if nobody wants to hire you, I'll make the call myself.
Speaker 2: And I became a hotel worker and I just got
Speaker 2: laid off because of the COVID, but I was making
Speaker 2: good money healthcare. I got a great family. And Nina
Speaker 2: is the one responsible for me marrying Karen Rodriguez. Nina
Speaker 2: has done so much for me. Nina is so intertwined
Speaker 2: in my home, in my life, in my future, in
Speaker 2: my past. It's amazing. I'm in the great position even
Speaker 2: though with this COVID. You know, I hear people saying that, oh,
Speaker 2: we feel like we're in jail. They don't even know
Speaker 2: what jail is like. This is no way compared to jail.
Speaker 2: Trust me, I'm going to tell you something. People should
Speaker 2: be thanking COVID. COVID has given the people a chance
Speaker 2: to know their children, to know their wives, to know
Speaker 2: their mothers, to talk to share moments with them. So
Speaker 2: what I say to people is I took prison and
Speaker 2: I made something good out of it. Let's take COVID
Speaker 2: and make something good out of it. I mean, sometimes
Speaker 2: it's stressful, you know, overwhelming with the kids, you know,
Speaker 2: because you're not used to it. But let's see the positive.
Speaker 2: I mean, prison is a dark place. I welcomed it.
Speaker 2: I used the tool that was placed on my feet
Speaker 2: and I did something positive. And we could do that
Speaker 2: during COVID. We we just got to take it one
Speaker 2: day at a time, you know, and the rest should
Speaker 2: be history.
Speaker 1: Man, don't forget to give us a fantastic review. Wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm a
Speaker 1: proud donor to the Innocence Project and I really hope
Speaker 1: you'll join me in supporting this very important cause and
Speaker 1: helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project
Speaker 1: dot org to learn how to donate and get involved.
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and
Speaker 1: Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is by three
Speaker 1: time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow
Speaker 1: us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is a
Speaker 1: production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal
Speaker 1: Company Number one