Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 2: I'm Connor Hall, one of the producers for Ronfuel Conviction.
Speaker 2: And if you don't follow us on social media, you
Speaker 2: may not have heard, but our good friends Jason Flamm
Speaker 2: and Gliali got married and now for their honeymoon. In
Speaker 2: true Ali Flahm fashion, they're in Texas right now fighting
Speaker 2: to save an innocent man on death row, Robert Robertson.
Speaker 2: He's scheduled for execution on October seventeenth, twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: We'll link his episode in the episode description. And while
Speaker 2: they're away, Jason is generously handed over hosting duties to me,
Speaker 2: and I promised that I wouldn't screw it up, So
Speaker 2: here we go. On July fifteenth, two thousand and eight,
Speaker 2: twenty two year old Mustafa O Maria was gunned down
Speaker 2: in front of his building in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. There
Speaker 2: was confusion whether there was one or two assailants, but
Speaker 2: the descriptions Cohen sided on male, varying shades of black skin,
Speaker 2: between five nine and six feet tall, late teens early twenties. Soon,
Speaker 2: another alleged witness claimed to know the shooter's motive. The
Speaker 2: victim had been sleeping with a woman named Nicki Collier
Speaker 2: and her alleged boyfriend, Rvel Marshall had just gotten out
Speaker 2: of jail. But Arvel stood at five foot five and
Speaker 2: was thirty six years old, not a teenager. Nevertheless, the
Speaker 2: victim's friends identified r Vel as the shooter, sending him
Speaker 2: away for twenty five to life. This is wrongful conviction.
Speaker 3: Wrongful conviction has always given voice to innocent people in prison,
Speaker 3: and now we're expanding that voice to you. Call us
Speaker 3: at eight three three two o seven four six sixty
Speaker 3: six and tell us how these stories make you feel
Speaker 3: and what you done to help the cause, even if
Speaker 3: it's something as simple as telling a friend or sharing
Speaker 3: on social media, and you might just hear yourself in
Speaker 3: a future episode. Call us A three three two o
Speaker 3: seven four six sixty six.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction, where we have another case
Speaker 2: out of Brooklyn, and across from me is a man
Speaker 2: named Rvil Marshall who endured something that well, I mean,
Speaker 2: it was disgusting, unnecessary, should have been completely avoidable, and
Speaker 2: almost was. And we're going to get to that in
Speaker 2: just a minute, but we're just happy to have him home.
Speaker 2: Thanks for doing this, well, you welcome, Amen and you
Speaker 2: may have just heard a familiar voice say, Amen, that's
Speaker 2: justin bonus.
Speaker 4: You and I probably talk more than most people talk
Speaker 4: to their.
Speaker 2: Family, and it's typically about another case you're working on.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately that well never dries up. I mean we've worked
Speaker 2: on how many cases already, Marcus.
Speaker 5: Wiggins, Vincent Simmons, Jerome Curry, Raphael Martinez, Garriy Ben Loss.
Speaker 4: Well, thank you for coming back. Absolutely, Yeah, this case
Speaker 4: is no less fucked up.
Speaker 5: The only good part about r Vel's case is he's
Speaker 5: exonerated and we're on the next phase, which is fighting
Speaker 5: to get him compensated. But that's about the only good
Speaker 5: thing about Rvel's case.
Speaker 4: And you and Brownsville and bedsty Hey.
Speaker 1: This is nice. You know, it's kind of rough, but
Speaker 1: it's nice. I used to work as Super Marcus as
Speaker 1: a kid, packing bags and stuff. I get a little
Speaker 1: money here there because my family was poor. But that
Speaker 1: growing up at browns with a dead style, you literally
Speaker 1: get tested because especially the Ghattle, the neighborhoods like you
Speaker 1: would have to.
Speaker 2: Fight famously, Mike Tyson's from Brownsville, and then you're like
Speaker 2: coming of age when Mike is getting huge, right, But
Speaker 2: before it was huge.
Speaker 4: He must have been known around town.
Speaker 1: Yeah he was. He's the right coach screep for your
Speaker 1: a boy tweet Sunny and Blake the shelters.
Speaker 2: No shit, Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: Mike trying to help the community, you know, like Hivy
Speaker 1: dog K used to come through there, give it out,
Speaker 1: turkeys and shit like that.
Speaker 4: So what's the precinct?
Speaker 1: Seventy seven?
Speaker 4: Some people that you are familiar.
Speaker 5: With Brooklyn North homicide. One of them, if you know
Speaker 5: James Davis. James Davis was wrong, clear convicted.
Speaker 4: Oh wait Ja Davis?
Speaker 5: Yeah, Legelaide represented felt okay, yeah, ye ye ye yah yeah.
Speaker 5: So one of the lead detectives there was Jay Wallski
Speaker 5: and then Matthew Hutchinson. Matthew Hutchinson, from my understanding, fabricated
Speaker 5: a statement in James Davis's case, and he's all over
Speaker 5: our Velle's case.
Speaker 2: If you're unfamiliar with James Davis's case, we'll have that
Speaker 2: linked in the episode description as well. Now, Ourvell's case
Speaker 2: really began when he met a young lady in two
Speaker 2: thousand and.
Speaker 1: Three, Jadique will Collier aka Nicky.
Speaker 4: Tell me about meeting her, like, was there a good time?
Speaker 1: Yeah? It was a good time. I was, you know,
Speaker 1: but I still feel she has something to do with
Speaker 1: me going to jail. Even though it was a good time,
Speaker 1: I still feel that way.
Speaker 4: And this is in bed star at the time now
Speaker 4: that you were living.
Speaker 1: Now, I'm staying at Brownsville, but I moved to current
Speaker 1: high school. KICKI her baba ah all right, Okay, Nicky
Speaker 1: Moba was originally my girlfriend. O Dick kept coming on
Speaker 1: to me. I ain't want a best one, it though
Speaker 1: it just happened. Nicky used to date my brother. She
Speaker 1: got my brother Dave tattooed on her back. Shit, and
Speaker 1: she was dating my niece baby father.
Speaker 2: Wow. Now, as most of us are aware, betraying the
Speaker 2: expectation of a monogamous relationship can offense, spark fights, breakups, or,
Speaker 2: as the police believed in this case, murder. But Nicki
Speaker 2: appears to have lived as she pleased and not led
Speaker 2: any of her lovers to have any other expectation, including
Speaker 2: r vel or the victim in this case Mustafo Maria.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she was dated a that will tell she was
Speaker 1: messing with him and I was in rackets.
Speaker 4: Out what were you in for me?
Speaker 1: And my sister tell you we had I got in
Speaker 1: a fight as she lied to the cops and told
Speaker 1: him that I stabbed her, but I didn't stab her.
Speaker 1: I beat that. I came home, but she came to
Speaker 1: visit beat on my birthday and she told me she
Speaker 1: wanted me to leave her mother at bibleh and she's
Speaker 1: going to leave the victims Mustafo Barrio.
Speaker 4: I said, okay, and this dude we were talking earlier,
Speaker 4: so he's in the Bloods. And then he's also like
Speaker 4: a handsome guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was a handsome guy. He was messing with
Speaker 1: dudes girls.
Speaker 2: I don't know, between the victims involvement with the Bloods
Speaker 2: as well as his activity with women who were in
Speaker 2: otherwise monogamous relationships, there may have been some ill will
Speaker 2: toward him. On the night that he died July fifteenth,
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight, sometime before ten pm, in front
Speaker 2: of his building one thirty nine Albany Avenue in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: There's not thirty day sent call to the witnesses.
Speaker 5: Right, you know, if you're the cops, you wanted to
Speaker 5: be closer to ten o'clock, right, Arvel? Yeah, because they
Speaker 5: knew Rvel had a pretty good Alibi between nine thirty
Speaker 5: and nine to forty five, and Rvel didn't have a
Speaker 5: car either, just by the way, so he would have
Speaker 5: had to take in a bus from his mother's house
Speaker 5: in right all the way to Crown Heights. It's like
Speaker 5: a twenty minute bus strip by itself. But you have
Speaker 5: Mustapha sitting on the stoop and three of his friends,
Speaker 5: a guid by the name of Zakarie, Zaybo and Benison,
Speaker 5: and somebody rolls up to them and head shots their
Speaker 5: friend that around nine thirty at night and then runs away.
Speaker 1: They said he came from D Street and walked along
Speaker 1: Albity Avenue. They ran back on D Street after leave.
Speaker 1: It a sea from Albity Avenue.
Speaker 5: Now, the initial description is somebody between five foot nine
Speaker 5: and six foot Rvel's like five to five okay, three
Speaker 5: inches to a half of foot potentially. We also got
Speaker 5: a description of light skin on the nine to one
Speaker 5: one calls. And then the other description, which is a
Speaker 5: seventeen year old Rvel looked probably forty Rvel right.
Speaker 2: Yep, So the description didn't even come close to Rvel.
Speaker 2: But there were some unresolvable discrepancies between the descriptions from
Speaker 2: Benison and then Zebo and Zakari.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: First they said bel black light skid, seventeen years old,
Speaker 1: wearing the white T shirt blue JS. Then with the
Speaker 1: other twols take it to the priests. They give a statement.
Speaker 1: They said bel black dog skid. We with the white
Speaker 1: T shirt dog JS and either hat or do but
Speaker 1: well he went to the DA's office. He fixed it.
Speaker 1: It said that the Bell was black, brown skinned, wearing
Speaker 1: all dark clothes.
Speaker 5: Which interestingly matches the video that we're going to talk about.
Speaker 5: And understand this, the three witnesses are testify to trial,
Speaker 5: never say there were two people involved. Yet we have
Speaker 5: a video that shows that there were two people involved.
Speaker 2: As Arvel mentioned, the assailants were traveling west on Dean,
Speaker 2: made a left going south on Albany to where these
Speaker 2: four men were at one thirty nine Albany. So the
Speaker 2: police found a surveillance camera on Dean Street, which didn't
Speaker 2: capture the shooting, but it saw enough to account for
Speaker 2: the discrepancies and the descriptions.
Speaker 5: It's in the middle of the block. Actually, the video
Speaker 5: is pretty good quality and it has an angle that
Speaker 5: goes both ways, so you see the guys what we
Speaker 5: now know are the perpetrators. And a key thing is
Speaker 5: they're both the same size.
Speaker 4: One has light skin, one has dark shind Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well dual gattle dark clothes and other dual gattle light shirt,
Speaker 1: blue jays. He got a baseball capboard.
Speaker 5: This is what the video shows. These two young guys
Speaker 5: walking down, one guy lifting up, pulling a gun out,
Speaker 5: and you watch them make a left on the Albany.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: How you know what's the shooting is there's two guys walking,
Speaker 5: one with a dog, one or not on Dean, and
Speaker 5: they're walking towards Albany. They hear the shots, they stop,
Speaker 5: start walking f pass the other way. Then all of
Speaker 5: a sudden you see the same two guys and the
Speaker 5: guy with the white shirt has a big black thing
Speaker 5: in his hand, which is a gun. And the two
Speaker 5: guys that were on the block here in the shooting,
Speaker 5: they see these two young guys on Dean running towards them.
Speaker 5: They're back on the camera again, running back towards Weeks filth.
Speaker 5: This is how we know those are the shooters.
Speaker 2: The police made two copies of the video, one for
Speaker 2: the DA and one for the case file, and then
Speaker 2: made still images from the video of the assailants. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: police alleged that someone named Abraham Omar told them about
Speaker 2: the connection between Nikki Arvel and the victim, but then
Speaker 2: this person seemed to just disappear and then never testified.
Speaker 5: Let's talk about Abraham Omoa.
Speaker 1: Detective Hushis claved he took somebody statement with Jula Vizi.
Speaker 1: It did clave that person provided additional information after they
Speaker 1: called back the last sixty and that person he gave
Speaker 1: a dave to as Abraham Omar.
Speaker 5: He talks about the boyfriend of Nikki that lives at eighteen.
Speaker 1: Was it eighteen ninety six? Specific?
Speaker 5: Were you using that address as where you were on
Speaker 5: probation right, yes, so then they had your name at
Speaker 5: that address too.
Speaker 4: What does Abraham Omar say?
Speaker 1: He basically said, allegedly that he was best friends with
Speaker 1: the victim, and before the victim died, the victim told
Speaker 1: him that he had a problem with a girl named Nikki's.
Speaker 5: Boyfriend, and I tried, my darnedness, and I'm pretty good
Speaker 5: to find the people by the way, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean? There was no Abraham Omar in Brooklyn at all,
Speaker 5: at all.
Speaker 4: He's a fucking fabrication.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, because according to like you know, the court record,
Speaker 2: and and who's the one?
Speaker 5: There is no nine one call with Abraham won.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he fabricated Abraham Omar.
Speaker 2: But if Abraham Omar doesn't exist, the nine one one
Speaker 2: call didn't exist. It's possible that all of this information
Speaker 2: might have come from Nicki.
Speaker 1: The ass who's her boyfriend.
Speaker 5: She told me what day was that?
Speaker 1: Allow sixteen, the same day they allegedly spoke to this
Speaker 1: Abraham Omar. If you read Nikki's statement that was given
Speaker 1: to Hushinston and Wolski, you could see that they just
Speaker 1: took certain parts out that could incriminate me and put
Speaker 1: it in the alleged Abraham omo statement. They took everything
Speaker 1: she said about be getting out of jail, I will
Speaker 1: allegedly boost by the good, and that I wanted to
Speaker 1: kill some god the block. So they just took all
Speaker 1: that and just put it in.
Speaker 4: The person called Abraham Omar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right on this witness statement to this person who's
Speaker 2: best friends with Santa Claus.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2: And then Bennison identified RFL from a photo array.
Speaker 5: And a photo ray is crazy because RFL is the
Speaker 5: only one with corn roast.
Speaker 4: What does everyone else look like?
Speaker 1: Caesars.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's in the photo array.
Speaker 4: What day was it when they picked you up?
Speaker 1: July twenty second and they came VICKI house. I was
Speaker 1: sleep in the living room. I heard beg you. I'm
Speaker 1: thinking it was because of the temporary order protection that
Speaker 1: be A Dicky had to stay away from each other
Speaker 1: because the twenty first Mian Niggie was argued. So I
Speaker 1: ain't taking no chance. I jumped out the window, got
Speaker 1: on the roof. As they chased me. A black officer
Speaker 1: came that I knew they used to live with my building,
Speaker 1: and he asked me. He's like, yo, you really don't
Speaker 1: know what's going on? I said, Dawn, I don't know nothing.
Speaker 1: They took me to the priest and I'm actually, what's
Speaker 1: this fun? They didn't tell me. They didn't tell me.
Speaker 1: They didn't tell me. They put me the line up.
Speaker 5: And then in the lineup they had you guys in hats, yeah,
Speaker 5: sitting down, of course.
Speaker 4: Sitting down, so they oh, what what? How tall is he?
Speaker 4: I don't know, but what was different about the other
Speaker 4: guys in the lineup?
Speaker 1: They was taller than me.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Then after the lineup was over, they took me another
Speaker 1: rule the Haircuffy start offered me Suldas McDonald's and all
Speaker 1: the cigarette stuff. The talk, Wolski said that Ustofo Mario
Speaker 1: was murdered and I'm the one that killed him because
Speaker 1: I found out he was banging my girl. And I'm like, yo,
Speaker 1: what did you talk about?
Speaker 2: Man?
Speaker 1: He said, well, you the word going down for this.
Speaker 1: I don't care what you say. If yn't want to
Speaker 1: tell who did it, you go it down for it.
Speaker 1: I said, I can you tell you without a will
Speaker 1: and they'll say you without a lawyer. The devil was
Speaker 1: given a lawyer. I was never read by rights. I
Speaker 1: was just arrested.
Speaker 3: You're listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen to this
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Speaker 3: on Apple Podcasts. Freedom Agenda is a proud sponsor of
Speaker 3: this episode of Wrongful Conviction. Freedom Agenda is led by
Speaker 3: people directly impacted by incarceration, and they're organizing to get
Speaker 3: Mayor Eric Adams to follow the law and shut down
Speaker 3: Rikers Island. Right now, thousands of people are awaiting trial
Speaker 3: there in life threatening conditions. Freedom Agenda is committed to
Speaker 3: creating a safer and more just city by winning investments
Speaker 3: in long neglected communities, protecting the rights of people involved
Speaker 3: in the criminal legal system, and ending the cycle of
Speaker 3: violence that Rikers perpetuates. To learn more about the Campaign
Speaker 3: to Close Rikers and to sign up for Freedom Agenda's
Speaker 3: mailing list, go to Campaign to Close Rikers dot org, slash,
Speaker 3: get involved, or follow at Freedom Agenda and Why on
Speaker 3: social media.
Speaker 2: Arvel spent nineteen months on Rikers Island pre trial. He
Speaker 2: was going to be tried by Assistant District Attorney Tim
Speaker 2: Goff in front of Judge Vincent del Judas, and he
Speaker 2: was assigned to public defender Alan Stuttman.
Speaker 1: That would receive the visit Stubb in nineteen months. The
Speaker 1: only time about say Stubb is the court.
Speaker 2: Public defenders they're typically overworked, underpaid. But that said, you're
Speaker 2: telling him exactly what to do.
Speaker 1: He was listened to me a total CD to investigator
Speaker 1: out judge fire talk is the one hyat the investigator
Speaker 1: Stubman did hie.
Speaker 2: Him right, So you went above del Judis's head. So
Speaker 2: he loved that shit too, right.
Speaker 5: Yes, Two out of three of the witnesses told the
Speaker 5: defense investigator that they knew who to pick out because
Speaker 5: Rvel looked totally different than everybody else in the lineup.
Speaker 4: Do they do that on purpose? You think?
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, did you ask that sarcastic?
Speaker 4: Yes, of course.
Speaker 2: All right, So now, I mean, this isn't funny, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, this is crazy.
Speaker 4: But it gets worse.
Speaker 5: You have this defense investigator, David Walker, who's from Brooklyn,
Speaker 5: new people in the neighborhood, and he had somebody in
Speaker 5: the neighborhood that gave him this information. This individual said
Speaker 5: it was a mistaken identity, like they didn't mean to
Speaker 5: kill the victim, but it was guys from Weeksville, which
Speaker 5: isn't that far from where Nikki lived, right, And the
Speaker 5: description that he gets from the format matches what happens
Speaker 5: on the video, which is it's a hit. It's not
Speaker 5: a crime of passion, right.
Speaker 4: This is doing a trial.
Speaker 5: Well, he doesn't ever testify. They found this out before trial.
Speaker 5: Trial attorney does nothing with us.
Speaker 1: By the way, I still remember that statement. It says
Speaker 1: Jamal Joles is the set up man for the shooter.
Speaker 1: He lives at one thirty seven. Mother is a cop,
Speaker 1: they said, Auvel Barshoot, which is me, is it his thirties?
Speaker 1: It it's not the shooter. They said. The shooter is
Speaker 1: sixty year old Don L. White, also lives in Weeksville.
Speaker 1: They say God named Lewis is the ubdillah for the
Speaker 1: group and he is expanded. His last name is adult.
Speaker 1: They say if Lewis house is checked, the gun for
Speaker 1: the shooter would probably be found there.
Speaker 5: Wow, very vivid description, right.
Speaker 2: And with this vivid narrative available to the defense. In
Speaker 2: December two thousand and nine, Arvell was taken to trial
Speaker 2: on the identifications that had also been exposed by the
Speaker 2: investigator is false and potentially engineered and Rvel didn't even
Speaker 2: know about the surveillance for the jet.
Speaker 1: The DA Colly walked into courtroom with the videos and
Speaker 1: still photos in her head. That's how I found out
Speaker 1: that they exist.
Speaker 5: The stills.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's still photos in the video. When I first
Speaker 1: brought video to the judge attention, I went through my lawyer.
Speaker 1: The DA said he didn't have the video. He said
Speaker 1: he only had still photos that he provided to my
Speaker 1: lawyer months ago. My lawyers said they was of no value.
Speaker 1: The next day I brought it the police report showing
Speaker 1: that the videosis and still photos made off of it.
Speaker 1: Then the DA said, yeah, he had the video, but
Speaker 1: he can't open it. It won't work. So I said, yo,
Speaker 1: how did you get the still photos off the video
Speaker 1: if the video don't work? He said his office had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with it. He said, I was giving
Speaker 1: the tapes after they made copies of the tape they
Speaker 1: retrieved and all it depicts its two individuals just walking
Speaker 1: down the street.
Speaker 5: Allegedly, what the police tell the prosecutor is they take
Speaker 5: a clip of the video and they say the only
Speaker 5: thing that they see on the video is two guys
Speaker 5: walking on Dean Street. That's it. They don't say that
Speaker 5: these two individuals are the shooters.
Speaker 2: And let's not forget the defense investigator David Walker uncovered
Speaker 2: that one of those assailants may have been the son
Speaker 2: of a cop at the seventy seventh Precinct. So we're
Speaker 2: not sure if the DA saw this video or not.
Speaker 2: Maybe eighty A. Tim guff was presenting some kind of
Speaker 2: plausible deniability ploy about this video to the court.
Speaker 4: We don't know.
Speaker 2: Nevertheless, they logically follows that the police tech guys that
Speaker 2: produced the still were able to open the videos. I'm
Speaker 2: reading what my researcher extracted from these exchanges, and if
Speaker 2: he had a new excuse every fucking day, every time
Speaker 2: he was like, oh, I can only play it on
Speaker 2: this particular laptop that has this particular software on it.
Speaker 4: You could just install the software. That's it.
Speaker 1: That's fact.
Speaker 4: But he's making fucking excuses every single day.
Speaker 1: Aby single day. If the video showed me or he
Speaker 1: would have been happy to play it, but be it
Speaker 1: that he know was to be and know it was
Speaker 1: the Astra appropritrators.
Speaker 2: They just kept stalling. Meanwhile, they presented the eyewitnesses.
Speaker 5: Zakari is the first one to get on the witness
Speaker 5: stand and they asked him, do you see the shooter
Speaker 5: in the courtroom?
Speaker 4: Yeah? No, Right, well then I guess that wraps it up.
Speaker 5: Okay, And you had to understand something. Zacarry before trial
Speaker 5: identifies Rvel in the lineup allegedly. So how does he
Speaker 5: come in at trial and say, no, Rvel isn't the one.
Speaker 5: How does he tell the defense investigator that he couldn't
Speaker 5: make an ID?
Speaker 4: Yep?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 5: The only way that it happens that he does make
Speaker 5: the ID. And again this is when you get into
Speaker 5: all best practices and everything. The investigators that know about
Speaker 5: the investigation shouldn't be involved with the identification. But you
Speaker 5: can only come to one conclusion if this guy's telling
Speaker 5: the defense investigator and then comes in a trial and
Speaker 5: says that Rvel Marshall's not the shooter, right, is that
Speaker 5: he was told that Rvel Marshall was the shooter during
Speaker 5: the lineup that he viewed. And that's why he makes
Speaker 5: the positive identification. You gotta remember, all three witness this
Speaker 5: is their friend that's dead. Yeah, so if the police
Speaker 5: are telling them that this is the guy that did it,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 4: You got to back that up. I mean, what are
Speaker 4: you gonna dishonor his dead?
Speaker 5: Like now, all of a sudden, Benison comes in and
Speaker 5: he's positive, it's our velt, right. And what's interesting is
Speaker 5: the one thing that Alan Stutman did and Arvell and
Speaker 5: I were talking about this is he cross examines and
Speaker 5: eats Benison up on the fact that you only had
Speaker 5: moments to see this person. It's not like you got
Speaker 5: a good look at him. And Benison in amidst us right,
Speaker 5: the next one that gets on the witness stand is
Speaker 5: Eyeball a positive all of a sudden, right, and we
Speaker 5: know from the defense investigator that these witnesses are all
Speaker 5: saying that they weren't sure of their ID before trial.
Speaker 5: To do with the defense is, so we're going to
Speaker 5: talk about circumstantial evidence. Right, there's a jury instruction that
Speaker 5: described circumstantial evidence. You get up in the morning, there's
Speaker 5: snow on the ground, right, what can we assume it
Speaker 5: snowed last night? Right? First witness gets on the witness stand.
Speaker 5: I don't see the shoot her in the courtroom. The
Speaker 5: next two get up on the witness standard. We're a positive.
Speaker 5: What can we assume happen here?
Speaker 4: They got coached?
Speaker 1: Yeah, this corse?
Speaker 2: So all right, that circus goes on. Yes, your defensive
Speaker 2: investigator already knows his bullshit. Yes, your public defender is
Speaker 2: already cross examining them, and the jury sees this.
Speaker 4: I mean, am I missing anything about this trial other.
Speaker 5: Than affected his alibi his sister, who, by the way,
Speaker 5: he told you he went to Rikers because he was
Speaker 5: fighting the case because he had an incident with his sister.
Speaker 5: So the sister that he had an incident with is
Speaker 5: his alibi. She comes in and testifies that he was home.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 4: And then you're fighting to see this video the final straw, though,
Speaker 4: tell me about that interaction with Dell Judas.
Speaker 1: Actually get we played a video to pull my edicist.
Speaker 1: He told me I'm having outbust in order the court officers.
Speaker 1: He scored me out of the court room, and that's
Speaker 1: when I got upset. Star Curses said, fuck this, I
Speaker 1: didn't kill nobody. Why the fuck you gotta do this
Speaker 1: to me? Yah? Got the evidence right there, It proves
Speaker 1: my edocence. Why you don't wuld to play the video?
Speaker 1: Because you do? It proves my edocence. And then he
Speaker 1: started yelling heavy up, take him out of the court.
Speaker 5: Rule was this in front of the jury?
Speaker 4: R V Yes, and he says, quote, I've had enough
Speaker 4: for you. All you do is rant. It's like my
Speaker 4: fucking life mother, Like, what the fuck are you talking about?
Speaker 1: Exactly what he said.
Speaker 5: Rvel talked about this video so much he was actually
Speaker 5: found in contempt. And you have to remember this is
Speaker 5: that at that point Rvel hadn't even seen the video.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, why the fuck would you be so
Speaker 2: interested in seeing something unless you absolutely knew you weren't
Speaker 2: fucking there? Yeah, all right, So I mean the jury
Speaker 2: sees this, yep, are you thinking like, oh maybe maybe.
Speaker 1: Maybe I got a chance. Yeah, it took like forty
Speaker 1: five minutes to deliverer rate if that would be guilty
Speaker 1: with no evidence, like, yeah, we be STARp vertic guilty.
Speaker 1: I said, y'all people crazy, I said, y'all hear me
Speaker 1: up here, actually judge to make the DA play the video,
Speaker 1: I say, because it's fool my innocence. Did y'all really
Speaker 1: that crazy? Like y'all really that blind? They have being
Speaker 1: Auburn Clinton Albirah say say Attica. Theom CEOs there they
Speaker 1: talked about racist. They racist. They don't care, they don't
Speaker 1: hide it. That jail needs to be shut down.
Speaker 5: Man.
Speaker 1: The losers do whatever they want. Lieutenants is down with it. Captors,
Speaker 1: all of them. They just let them do whatever they
Speaker 1: want to jump people, be people up and kill people there.
Speaker 1: It's places, it's crazy, man.
Speaker 4: They have some interesting artwork on their bodies.
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, you already know the bay with the rope.
Speaker 1: You know all types of crazy shit man, the hitless suns.
Speaker 5: Yeah, them shits you know these are correctional Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, why do you take this job?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Oh I couldn't fucking wait. Like Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: Cow was always going to take a job where they
Speaker 1: could see they got the upper head or the real motherfucker.
Speaker 1: If I had done this, you would never hear of
Speaker 1: be fighting by case. I was just left it alone.
Speaker 1: I'd be like, you know what, fuck it, I did it.
Speaker 1: Let me do my time. But I know how didn't
Speaker 1: do it. I was going to the little library and
Speaker 1: I learned as much as I could about my case,
Speaker 1: and then I just put it motions. I raised Brady
Speaker 1: that shoot, it is Rozario violations, prosecution misconduct, police misconduct,
Speaker 1: and the judge being biased.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, he wasn't able to gain any traction for over
Speaker 2: ten years, but over that time he built evidence to
Speaker 2: support all of his issues claims and ultimately obtained the video.
Speaker 5: Rvel did what he did pro say, and then he
Speaker 5: reached out to Derek Hamilton. You know I work with Derek, right.
Speaker 4: Do you guys know each other from the inside.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to imagine like Auburn, you met Nelson
Speaker 2: in them and the AI team.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's where I met Derek campibell to too.
Speaker 5: He came to me late October early November twenty twenty three,
Speaker 5: and I looked at the video, and Rvel made a
Speaker 5: clear record that it wasn't turned over. Actually contacted his attorney,
Speaker 5: and there wasn't just the video. There were interviews with
Speaker 5: some of the witnesses weren't turned over, and his trial
Speaker 5: attorney admitted that he never received a video.
Speaker 1: Audio statements, right.
Speaker 5: Audio statements. So Rvel really makes a clear record. And
Speaker 5: I look at this video and I'm like, okay, well
Speaker 5: these are the shooters, yep. So then i looked at
Speaker 5: the description of Rvel and I'm like, he doesn't match
Speaker 5: the description. I look at a picture of him, and
Speaker 5: I'm like, nobody is going to confuse him for the
Speaker 5: people in the.
Speaker 4: Video, even if it's grainy, right.
Speaker 5: And so it was, you know, Brady, the cru had
Speaker 5: to do their investigations. I tried to find Abraham Omar.
Speaker 5: I tried to track down the actual person that owned
Speaker 5: the business that took the video to see if maybe
Speaker 5: I could get even better copy, maybe the raw files
Speaker 5: of the video. I hired it an expert to maybe
Speaker 5: enhance it even more.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 2: Justin was trying to develop further support for Rvel's claim.
Speaker 2: The Brooklyn Conviction Review Unit conducted interviews, including with Nicki
Speaker 2: and Zebo Zacari, Benison and his attorney, Alan Stutman.
Speaker 5: The DA's office interviews Alan Stuttman and they show him
Speaker 5: the video and he said he would have used that video.
Speaker 5: He said that he would have shown that to Rvel
Speaker 5: and we would have built a defense around that. So
Speaker 5: not only did they with hul Brady evidence, they created
Speaker 5: a separation between Rvel and his lawyer. They turned Rvel
Speaker 5: against his lawyer, and the lawyers looking at Rvel like,
Speaker 5: you're crazy. The video doesn't mean anything. Yeah, he says,
Speaker 5: I trusted what the DA said. I trusted what the
Speaker 5: police said. I trusted what the judge said. And then
Speaker 5: you got to remember too, this lawyer is an eight
Speaker 5: and B lawyer, and his vouchers get signed by the judge. Okay,
Speaker 5: so there's only but so much pushing. We're gonna get here, right, Yeah,
Speaker 5: gonna get paid, right.
Speaker 1: So you have that.
Speaker 5: Then he interviews A Carrie and Za Carry says specifically
Speaker 5: that we were unsure and then we were told he's
Speaker 5: the killer.
Speaker 1: Yep. After the fact, the cops told him that Nicky
Speaker 1: boyfriend was the shooter. I was locked up and I
Speaker 1: was described as Nicky's boyfriend. At that time, So who
Speaker 1: else will he be talking about? How would it be?
Speaker 5: And it goes from a no I D to then
Speaker 5: an ID. Then they interview Niki and this is why
Speaker 5: RVL believes that Nicky has something to do with this
Speaker 5: other than some of the things he's already laid out.
Speaker 5: Nicki gives a statement to his defense investigator no one
Speaker 5: else says there's two people involved other than her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she knew it was two perpetrated and she also
Speaker 1: knew that they was one of them was young m
Speaker 1: How did she notice? Nicky claimed to have received information
Speaker 1: from her next door neighbor, say that somebody told them
Speaker 1: allegedly that they say two perpetrators. How do they.
Speaker 2: Notice because her next door neighbor is Abraham Omar.
Speaker 1: Yes, none other that Abraham strikes again.
Speaker 5: But you know, interestingly, they showed her the video and
Speaker 5: she said, what'd she say, Arvel?
Speaker 1: She said, that's not all about of that video.
Speaker 5: Boom I mean, I wish could do we have a
Speaker 5: funk flex that we have a bomber. I mean it
Speaker 5: took ten months though once I got on board of
Speaker 5: pushing and RVEL was frustrated. I was frustrated, but at
Speaker 5: the end of the day, the DA's office did the
Speaker 5: right thing and they admitted that's not him in the video.
Speaker 5: That video had a tremendous amount of value and they
Speaker 5: let him out.
Speaker 1: A blessed man, you know, basically helped me prove that.
Speaker 2: It's August ninth, twenty twenty four. What do you have
Speaker 2: going on?
Speaker 4: Like? You know, whe are you living with's life? Like?
Speaker 1: Well, I don't have a place to stay right now.
Speaker 1: I'm staying at people houses here and there. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm homeless really right now. You know, they just send
Speaker 1: me back out here with nothing.
Speaker 5: He has a state suit pending, and we're moving on
Speaker 5: civil rights and we're working to try to get r
Speaker 5: VEL stabilized.
Speaker 1: This case stressed my mother out so bad she passed away.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 1: It stressed my father out, my sister out. They all
Speaker 1: three passed away, and my step father well that's for people.
Speaker 1: They passed away because they wanted to be back home
Speaker 1: so much, and all they used to think about was me.
Speaker 1: I gotta letters, so I to be baby, come home.
Speaker 1: Have you ever to get hold I don't know how
Speaker 1: much more I could take and then she's gone. Now
Speaker 1: they all got and that was my support while I
Speaker 1: was a jet. There was my support of the street.
Speaker 1: That'll have able.
Speaker 2: No, as you've just heard, our Vell has very little support,
Speaker 2: and you can help them stay afloat by donating to
Speaker 2: his GoFundMe. We'll have that linked in the episode description.
Speaker 2: We wish Justin in him all the luck in the
Speaker 2: world and their pursuit of civil litigation. I mean, obviously
Speaker 2: nothing could ever make up the time for our vel.
Speaker 2: But however, during the interview, Larvell expressed a small measure
Speaker 2: of revenge that he had on Nikki and someone from
Speaker 2: the seventy seventh Precinct That felt pretty cathartic.
Speaker 1: It was funny. By after I got locked up, Nicky
Speaker 1: started dating a guy that woke to seventy seven Precinct
Speaker 1: as a cop. Guess what of a day, little his
Speaker 1: RoboCop asked, though, nick you sent me a neckad picture
Speaker 1: on my phone. Oh bunny boy, Yeah, I hope you
Speaker 1: hit his shit. And I also got a letter from
Speaker 1: her telling me she's gonna leave him to come back
Speaker 1: to me. Oh man, but you know what, I don't
Speaker 1: want to ask back. I ain't even want to steak
Speaker 1: ass neckert picture. She could have kept that shit.
Speaker 2: And with that we go to closing arguments where I'm
Speaker 2: just going to express my gratitude to Rvel and Justin
Speaker 2: as well as to Jason and the team for letting
Speaker 2: me do this, and then I'm going to lock it
Speaker 2: up and listen to anything else. Justin and Rvel have
Speaker 2: to say.
Speaker 5: Everybody says, what would an innocent man say? A menisin,
Speaker 5: you'd scream to the rooftop, im menison, I didn't do it,
Speaker 5: and then people on that jury that think this is
Speaker 5: what I would do if I didn't do Rvel Marshall
Speaker 5: did what everybody says that they would do, even though
Speaker 5: they don't have an iota of what it is like
Speaker 5: to be interrogated and arrested and prosecuted. Right, most people
Speaker 5: in this country don't. They don't know. I see I do.
Speaker 5: I've been I've had the police come to try to
Speaker 5: interrogate me, and they have a very good method to
Speaker 5: make you feel like they know something about you when
Speaker 5: they don't, the psychological games that they play. But see,
Speaker 5: he withstood all of the psychological games. He never admitted
Speaker 5: he committed the crime. He said he was innocent from
Speaker 5: the very beginning, had an alibi from the very beginning
Speaker 5: was in court, and when his lawyer wouldn't advocate for him,
Speaker 5: he advocated for himself. He does exactly what everybody said
Speaker 5: that they would do, which is they would tell everybody
Speaker 5: I'm innocent, tell him where I am. Still gets convicted,
Speaker 5: And the worst part about it is he's undermined by
Speaker 5: the prosecutor and it's not just their job to get
Speaker 5: a conviction. They have a duty of candor to the
Speaker 5: court and fairness to the accused. That didn't happen here,
Speaker 5: whether it was because the prosecutors fault himself or the
Speaker 5: cops fault, they cheated every chance that they got. Is
Speaker 5: we know this now because of physical evidence that they
Speaker 5: had to frame him in order to get him arrested
Speaker 5: and then convicted, and they had to coach these witnesses
Speaker 5: to take it all away to the end, to the
Speaker 5: finish line. He does, though, what everybody says they would do,
Speaker 5: which is repeatedly say he innocent, and every chance he got,
Speaker 5: even when he was told not to do it, he
Speaker 5: did it. And he was blasted by the judge in
Speaker 5: front of the jury said he's not credible in front
Speaker 5: of the jury.
Speaker 1: What would y'all have done in my situation. Would y'all
Speaker 1: would is still quiet? Did the time or fight to
Speaker 1: prove you Editus, but you know it could be done.
Speaker 1: Let other people that really out there killing people be
Speaker 1: home so they could kill more people, or ask that
Speaker 1: you put them people away and let the edocon man out.
Speaker 1: Would y'all want them cops to still be workome to y'all,
Speaker 1: communities of the judges and the da I don't feel
Speaker 1: they should have a job anymore, none of them because
Speaker 1: they no good. I hope y'all feel the same way
Speaker 1: I do. And like I said, I'm edocent. Still I'm
Speaker 1: gonna always fame. This is because I know how you
Speaker 1: do that like that. I never killed nobody in my
Speaker 1: life and I'm not ashamed to sit. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: kill him. I'm just a god that will fight for
Speaker 1: his rights.
Speaker 4: That's it.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction.
Speaker 4: You can listen to this.
Speaker 3: And all the Lava for Good podcasts one week early
Speaker 3: and ad free by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus
Speaker 3: on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team,
Speaker 3: Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow
Speaker 3: executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cleibern. The
Speaker 3: music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR
Speaker 3: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across
Speaker 3: all social media platforms at Lava for Good and at
Speaker 3: Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram at
Speaker 3: it's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is the production of Lava
Speaker 3: for Good podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one