Speaker 1: In recording our coverage of John Juca's case, we realized
Speaker 1: that there are simply too many twists and turns for
Speaker 1: one episode, so we split this episode in two and
Speaker 1: are releasing both at the same time. On October eleventh,
Speaker 1: two thousand and three, three groups of college kids, one
Speaker 1: from Long Island, another from Brooklyn, as well as New Jersey,
Speaker 1: ran into one another at a bar on the upper
Speaker 1: east side of Manhattan. A mutual friend among them, Angel
Speaker 1: DiPietro knew Brooklyn night Albert Cleary, as well as her
Speaker 1: Fairfield University classmate Mark Fisher, a football player from New Jersey.
Speaker 1: When the night started to wind down and all of
Speaker 1: the trains of Long Island, New Jersey had stopped running,
Speaker 1: Albert Cleary's friend, twenty year old John Juca, offered up
Speaker 1: his house in Flatbush, Brooklyn, for an after party and
Speaker 1: a place to crash. A few of John and Albert's
Speaker 1: friends joined, including a neighborhood tough guy named Antonio Russo.
Speaker 1: Sometime before six am, Angel and Albert walked to his
Speaker 1: nearby house. Since Angel was the only person Mark Fisher knew,
Speaker 1: he left to find his way over to Albert's with
Speaker 1: Antonio Russo and soon ended up fatally shot without his
Speaker 1: wallet on the driveway across from Albert Cleary's house, a
Speaker 1: blanket from John's house at its feet. In the immediate aftermath,
Speaker 1: Antonio Russo cut his dreadlocks and absconded to California. A
Speaker 1: police investigation revealed that other voices and a carridor were
Speaker 1: heard before the gunshots. Albert and Angel denied any knowledge,
Speaker 1: and soon statements were made that alleged that John Juca
Speaker 1: was involved. The motivations and level of involvement varied, but
Speaker 1: with this many witnesses placing blame on John. There had
Speaker 1: to be something to it. But this is wrongful conviction.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to ronful conviction. Today, we have a story
Speaker 1: that was front page news all over New York City
Speaker 1: when it happened, with flaring head line, salacious headlines about
Speaker 1: want to be Brooklyn gangsteries who allegedly conspired at an
Speaker 1: after party to kill a suburban college football star who
Speaker 1: just happened to be in their midst, when in fact,
Speaker 1: there were no gangsters, only a group of friends, and
Speaker 1: the murder was not a group effort at all. The
Speaker 1: only group effort here who took the form of multiple
Speaker 1: conflicting false statements against a member of that group. John
Speaker 1: Juca and John is calling in from prison and upstate
Speaker 1: New York right now. John, I'm sorry you're here under
Speaker 1: these circumstances, but we're very honored to have you. The
Speaker 1: only good news in this whole, miserable story is that
Speaker 1: his attorney is Mark Bettera and Mark is one of
Speaker 1: the most respected criminal defense attorneys in the New York
Speaker 1: area and beyond. Mark, Welcome to RONFA Conviction. Glad to
Speaker 1: be here. Thanks for having me and Mark. Why was
Speaker 1: this such a high profile case? This was a big
Speaker 1: one at the time. I was a prosecutor in Manhattan
Speaker 1: and I remember it in real time, just reading tabloids
Speaker 1: on the subway going to work. It was in the
Speaker 1: fall of two thousand. It felt like there was an
Speaker 1: update on this flawed investigation every day. It was the
Speaker 1: grid kid murder case, because you had a situation where
Speaker 1: the victim was the all American son that any parent
Speaker 1: wish they had as a child. Mark Fisher was a
Speaker 1: nineteen year old, good looking college football player from New
Speaker 1: Jersey who went to Brooklyn for the first time in
Speaker 1: his life, and unfortunately he ended up dead on the street,
Speaker 1: and certainly that's the kind of thing that is going
Speaker 1: to feed the tabloids and get the public attention. So
Speaker 1: the Gridkid murder case became sensational from day one, and
Speaker 1: that moniker actually referred to the admitted grid Kid killer,
Speaker 1: John's co defendant, Antonio Russo. But somehow John's face was
Speaker 1: also plastered on the front page of those tabloids as
Speaker 1: if he was some sort of criminal mastermind or co
Speaker 1: conspirator to somehow actually involved. The prosecution never actually decided
Speaker 1: on any one theory. They just put all this stuff
Speaker 1: out there and the press ate it up, and of
Speaker 1: course this media firestorm polluted to jurypool. Now don't forget
Speaker 1: the HBO series The Sopranos was an absolute cultural phenomenon
Speaker 1: at this time. Is the only thing people were talking
Speaker 1: about is seeing So this story of the death of
Speaker 1: a promising suburban kid allegedly at the hands of these
Speaker 1: wanna be mafia city kids was like it was the
Speaker 1: imperfect storm. It just captured everybody's imaginations. By the time
Speaker 1: his trial came around, you actually had the prosecutor comparing
Speaker 1: him to Tony Soprano and talking about ordering hits to
Speaker 1: build up street credibility for a non existing gang, which
Speaker 1: in fact was just a bunch of knucklehead teenagers in
Speaker 1: Brooklyn calling themselves names. And this alleged gang was called
Speaker 1: the Ghetto Mafia. Right, So, John, what actually was the
Speaker 1: Ghetto Mafia? Oh? My god, it was a bunch of
Speaker 1: kids hanging out. We had some people who who used
Speaker 1: to hang out with us who never even heard of
Speaker 1: our name, some people who considered it a joke, and
Speaker 1: there were other people who didn't. One thing was never
Speaker 1: was an actual gang. John was just a regular nineteen
Speaker 1: year old Brooklyn kid. So let's talk about your life
Speaker 1: before all of this, John, You grew up in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Right,
Speaker 1: It's like a little enclave in Flatbush called Profitt Park South.
Speaker 1: I guess you could say I grew up in a
Speaker 1: regular middle class upbringing. First, I went to public school
Speaker 1: PS one thirty nine. Then I went to Catholic school
Speaker 1: around third grade when my mother met my stepfather. So
Speaker 1: your parents broke up when you were young, Yes, when
Speaker 1: I was five years old my stepfather, but consider him
Speaker 1: like my father. Also, I didn't look at it as
Speaker 1: a negative thing. Really, My real father went on to
Speaker 1: get married again, and that woman who he married already
Speaker 1: had kids, so he had a family over there too,
Speaker 1: and I considered them family also. I looked at it
Speaker 1: as I had two fathers, like two men in my
Speaker 1: life who loved me and wanted to see me succeed
Speaker 1: and supported me. And your biological father ended up suffering
Speaker 1: a stroke when you were nineteen, which ended up having
Speaker 1: relevance in this case. But at that time, like you said,
Speaker 1: both he and your stepdad were supportive of you. You
Speaker 1: were trying to succeed as an actor and actually got
Speaker 1: some work as a teenager. Yes, I was on School
Speaker 1: of Rock. I got to meet Jack Black, the guys
Speaker 1: from Lauren Order, Lawn Order like Ten Signs. I played
Speaker 1: a dead kid on Lauren Order. I remember one funny
Speaker 1: story that I'm on Lauren Order and I'm the dead
Speaker 1: kids on lane on the pavement, and I have fake
Speaker 1: blood all over my head and everything, and I remember
Speaker 1: the two actors, Jerry Orbach and the other one, the
Speaker 1: two main cops, Jerry Orback and Chris Noth. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: they have to kneel down and search my pockets. I
Speaker 1: have a pair of keys that they're supposed to take
Speaker 1: out of my pockets, and so Jerry or guys kneels
Speaker 1: down and he kneels right on the keys and he's
Speaker 1: son of a bitch and they're like cat and then
Speaker 1: they shouted like four, five, six, seven times. They keep
Speaker 1: trying to shut his things keep going wrong. And then
Speaker 1: I had smoke some weeks before I went. I think
Speaker 1: I was like six seventeen years old, and this is
Speaker 1: not part of script. And he goes it smells like marijuana,
Speaker 1: and they're like, cat, what are you talking about. He's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, it smells like marijuana. And my stepfather
Speaker 1: is looking at me like, oh my god, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: kill you. That's incredible, and Jerry orback rest in peace.
Speaker 1: I can just picture it in my mind right now.
Speaker 1: And your stepfather was there too, So it sounds like
Speaker 1: you had this great sort of blended Brady bunch sort
Speaker 1: of a family situation. And can you tell us about
Speaker 1: the woman at the center of it. And I'm talking
Speaker 1: about your mom, Dorene, And I know her from rallies
Speaker 1: and events and calls and texts, and she's just a
Speaker 1: pillar of strength and somebody I admire greatly. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: she was reckon. Let's stay at home, Mom, she was
Speaker 1: more I guess you could say liberal minded. Like my
Speaker 1: house was the house where a lot of kids from
Speaker 1: the neighborhood used to come and she used to feed them,
Speaker 1: or we used to play basketball in the backyard or whatever.
Speaker 1: She always told me that law enforcement was a good guys.
Speaker 1: I remember this going up. She was encouraging me to
Speaker 1: go to John Jay, encouraging me to become a cop,
Speaker 1: her brother as a correction officer, my uncle Eddie. That's
Speaker 1: another crazy irony about your story, which is that while
Speaker 1: you were pursuing an acting career, you were also studying
Speaker 1: criminal justice at John Jay College. Yes, and what you
Speaker 1: learn about the criminal justice system in school is just
Speaker 1: one hundred and eighty degrees from the reality of the
Speaker 1: criminal justice system. They say that you have all these rights,
Speaker 1: and they're not going to arrest people unless this standard
Speaker 1: is MATT, and then they don't get convicted unless this
Speaker 1: standard is MATT and go on, and it's just none
Speaker 1: of that is true. Yeah, you saw those standards go
Speaker 1: out the window pretty quickly when the false statements that
Speaker 1: were used to obtain your arrestaurant and conviction didn't even
Speaker 1: form a cohesive narrative. Now, one of the people who
Speaker 1: gave false testimony against you was your girlfriend at the time,
Speaker 1: Lauren Calciano. Now we're going to read from her recantation later.
Speaker 1: But you two had started dating in high school, right.
Speaker 1: She was my first love. I was with her since
Speaker 1: I was about coronal fifteen or sixteen. I thought I
Speaker 1: wanted to get married and everything. We were young. Why
Speaker 1: he used to practically live at her house sometimes, or
Speaker 1: I knew her whole family. You ended up hiring her
Speaker 1: family's attorney, Sam Gregory, who had previously represented her father,
Speaker 1: Sal Calciano. He was head of paintenance in the World
Speaker 1: Trade Center. He went to federal prison because the World
Speaker 1: Trade Center got robbed. They said it was about four
Speaker 1: million Americans. This has been the nineties. Sometimes. For whatever
Speaker 1: her father's mistakes were, the DA was eventually able to
Speaker 1: use her father's situation, among other things, in order to
Speaker 1: coerce her false testimony against you. They were also able
Speaker 1: to coerce or incentivize your friend Albert Cleary as well,
Speaker 1: who was arguably closer to this incident than you were.
Speaker 1: Albert's mother, Susan Cleary, was the vice president of the
Speaker 1: King's County GOP Executive Committee, the group in Brooklyn that
Speaker 1: can authorize what is known as a Wilson pecula, which
Speaker 1: allows a candidate from another party to run on that
Speaker 1: party's ticket, and it can be used in order to
Speaker 1: run unopposed or in the case when a candidate loses
Speaker 1: the party's primary election. Whether or not that was a
Speaker 1: bargaining ship used to keep her son's name out of
Speaker 1: the investigation, that's something we'll never know. A lot of
Speaker 1: people say the system is broken. I don't think it's broken.
Speaker 1: I think it's working exactly how they intended it to work,
Speaker 1: as like battering ram for the rich and powerful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and as we've seen in cases like yours, the prosecutor's
Speaker 1: office will use high profile cases for publicity with the
Speaker 1: hope of reaping those benefits come election time. Now, back
Speaker 1: in two thousand and three, the DA was Charles Joe
Speaker 1: Hines who was facing a primary challenge in two thousand
Speaker 1: and five, and wouldn't you know that he stretched out
Speaker 1: this investigation and prosecution. You guessed it to occur right
Speaker 1: before the election. He ended up winning both the primary
Speaker 1: and the general. Now, anyone who's familiar with our podcast,
Speaker 1: it's familiar with the problems in Brooklyn during the Hines era.
Speaker 1: Nineteen thirteen is a really dark period for criminal justice
Speaker 1: at Brooklyn. Hines was a political creature of the first order.
Speaker 1: That office back then was known as the poster child
Speaker 1: for wrongful convictions. Maybe in the last ten or fifteen
Speaker 1: years would people have really been paying attention to the
Speaker 1: problem of wrongful convictions. I think a lot of the
Speaker 1: momentum on this really started when people like Ken Thompson
Speaker 1: were running against Hines ten years ago and exposing bad
Speaker 1: case after bad case that was coming out of the
Speaker 1: Hines Brooklyn DA's office. And this is exhibit A. John
Speaker 1: Juca to this day is exhibit A. And many of
Speaker 1: the people who worked under Hines, who were responsible and
Speaker 1: complicit and so many of the wrongful convictions of that
Speaker 1: era are still there today. And those who have moved
Speaker 1: on to private practice or even careers in media, like
Speaker 1: the trial prosecutor in this case, Anna sigon Netalazzi. Those
Speaker 1: former Hines adas, their reputations in public fates are arguably
Speaker 1: tied to the political fate of the Brooklyn DA's office.
Speaker 1: In terms of the graduates of the Hines DA's office,
Speaker 1: this trial prosecutor was their superstar and the biggest red
Speaker 1: flag in a case like this when a trial prosecutor
Speaker 1: markets themselves as I'm a homicide DA and I've never
Speaker 1: lost a case. I have a perfect record and old
Speaker 1: trial record. Let me tell you something, if you won,
Speaker 1: you're cheating. And after John's conviction, you know all this marketing.
Speaker 1: This is a successful DA. She's on TV today as
Speaker 1: an expert on everything that's right in criminal justice, and
Speaker 1: it would have been humiliating for the Brooklyn DA to
Speaker 1: take her down. For years after this conviction, John's was
Speaker 1: her number one marketing pitch on her greatest hits, and
Speaker 1: after two post conviction hearings and litigation and covered extensively
Speaker 1: in the media, when one judge of the New York
Speaker 1: Court of Appeals ripped the prosecutor a new one and
Speaker 1: basically all but called her corrupt and deliberately violating his rights.
Speaker 1: All the references to John's heroic conviction have been scrubbed
Speaker 1: from the record, which makes you wonder, if you're proud
Speaker 1: of this conviction and proud of what you've done, why
Speaker 1: you would do that? Why would anyone be proud of
Speaker 1: what should be It really should be illegal sending an
Speaker 1: innocent man to prison and effectively compounding the tragic loss
Speaker 1: of another young man's life. So let's get to the incident,
Speaker 1: the crux of everything we're discussing. Of course, I'm referring
Speaker 1: to the awful night of October eleven into the twelfth
Speaker 1: of two thousand and three. It was Columbus Day weekend.
Speaker 1: Mark Fisher, who went to Fairfield University in Connecticut, and
Speaker 1: some of his friends went to the city and partied.
Speaker 1: John Juca and his friend Albert Cleary and a few
Speaker 1: others also went to the city, and the groups ended
Speaker 1: up being connected through a very interesting person in this
Speaker 1: sordid process named Angel DiPietro, who was a college classmate
Speaker 1: and theoretically friend of Mark Fisher, who also was friendly
Speaker 1: with Albert Cleary. Angel Dpietro's father was a prominent Long
Speaker 1: Island defense attorney. As well. You had the Brooklyn contingent,
Speaker 1: which was John Albert Cleary, and two more neighborhood friends,
Speaker 1: Angel d Pietro and her friend Meredith Denahan from Long
Speaker 1: Island and Mark Fisher, who had come in from New Jersey,
Speaker 1: and they met at a bar on the upper east
Speaker 1: side of Manhattan, which at the time was known to
Speaker 1: college kids for being the home of many bars that
Speaker 1: had pretty loose id policies. Right and so now it
Speaker 1: was getting late and the Long Island and New Jersey
Speaker 1: kids had to figure out a way home on the train.
Speaker 1: The last train left, the next one didn't leave till
Speaker 1: some time the next morning, so they were stranded. So
Speaker 1: I opened my house to them. In the cab, it
Speaker 1: was me, Albert, Mary Mark, and Angel. Me and Albert
Speaker 1: paid for the cab. And then after we got there,
Speaker 1: a few more people showed up. I'm pretty sure it
Speaker 1: was Tommy. Jimmy, my brother was home and Antonio Russo.
Speaker 1: Russo had a house right behind John, so they were
Speaker 1: certainly friendly from the neighborhood now. Antonio Russo was a
Speaker 1: strongly built high school dropout who wore dreadlocks and sold weed,
Speaker 1: which was the reason he gave for coming over to
Speaker 1: John's house in a twenty eighteen interview with the cops
Speaker 1: to sell weed to some of those who were interested,
Speaker 1: and according to three people, Russo had a gun in
Speaker 1: his waistband both before and after the murder. One of
Speaker 1: those three people said they had been threatened with it
Speaker 1: he's the tough guy. He's a little bit crazy, not
Speaker 1: in the legal sense, just in the real world sense.
Speaker 1: He's the resident tough guy. He's making everyone uncomfortable, but
Speaker 1: for now he's supplying weed to this otherwise fun after
Speaker 1: party at John's house. Now, at some point, Mark Fisher
Speaker 1: made some sort of a faux pa that served as
Speaker 1: an alleged motive. Everybody was drinking, a couple of people
Speaker 1: were smoking weed at one point, and Marks out on
Speaker 1: a table. And we're in a big deal right sitting
Speaker 1: on a table. I've never heard that be cited as
Speaker 1: a reason to kill anyone. And what's nice about Antonio
Speaker 1: Russo's statement to detectives in twenty eighteen is that it
Speaker 1: takes some of the guesswork out of what actually happened. Now,
Speaker 1: Russo said that he and Fisher went to the ATM
Speaker 1: together so Fisher could buy weed. The receipt said four
Speaker 1: twenty three, but according to the bank it was an
Speaker 1: hour behind. This was five twenty three am. So, Russo
Speaker 1: and Fisher returned to John's house a little after that. Now,
Speaker 1: Albert and Angel were there when they returned, so they
Speaker 1: soon left together to go to Albert's which was only
Speaker 1: a couple of blocks away. They were there when they
Speaker 1: came back from the a TM, Yes, and then they
Speaker 1: slip out. They say they said goodbye to people, but
Speaker 1: I don't remember them saying goodbye to anybody. I just
Speaker 1: remembered them disappearing without me Mark, by the way, both
Speaker 1: of whom had a reasonable expectation that they'd be sticking
Speaker 1: with Angel and Albert, which was their only connection to
Speaker 1: this after party. Now we're not sure why they were
Speaker 1: left behind, but nonetheless, Meredith had fallen asleep and before
Speaker 1: Mark actually did you called Albert at five fifty seven
Speaker 1: am to let him know that Mark was on his
Speaker 1: way over, and then Russo left with him. Correct Now,
Speaker 1: it was cold out right, so Mark asked if he
Speaker 1: could take the blanket that he had draped over his shoulders,
Speaker 1: And that becomes an interesting topic of conversation or evidence,
Speaker 1: if you could call it that, later on. What we
Speaker 1: know is that forty minutes later, Mark Fisher was shot
Speaker 1: and killed in front of one fifty Argyle Road, which
Speaker 1: was just a few blocks from John's house and directly
Speaker 1: across the street from Albert's, directly across the street from
Speaker 1: Cleary's house. Correct Now, According to Google Maps, this is
Speaker 1: about a five minute walk less than a quarter of
Speaker 1: a mile, so we're not sure what happened in those
Speaker 1: other thirty five minutes. The free floating radicals, if you will,
Speaker 1: are Mark Fisher, Antonio Russo, Angel Dpietro, and Albert Cleary.
Speaker 1: Now from this two eighteen detected report, Russo said that
Speaker 1: while on Argyle Road, he pulled out his German Luger
Speaker 1: nine millimeter, which belonged to him and him alone. He
Speaker 1: took Fisher's wallet and told him to run before firing
Speaker 1: a shot at the ground to let Fisher know that
Speaker 1: the gun was real and loaded. He then fired a
Speaker 1: shot at Fisher, who fell to the ground. When Fisher
Speaker 1: asked him why he had shot him, Russo emptied his
Speaker 1: clip into him, killing him on the spot. Now, Russo
Speaker 1: said that there was a woman in a car who
Speaker 1: could identify him. When he was fleeing the scene, he
Speaker 1: got rid of the wallet and a sewer near his house.
Speaker 1: It was later recovered by police. Now, immediately after the crime,
Speaker 1: Antonio Russo did a few things that a guilty person might.
Speaker 1: He used to wear braids his whole life, and he
Speaker 1: shaved his head. Russo then decides to take a vacation
Speaker 1: in California for a month and just disappear, and it'll
Speaker 1: become clear that Russo's twenty eighteen account is definitely missing
Speaker 1: a few details, but what is absolutely certain is that
Speaker 1: he said he did this alone with his own gun.
Speaker 1: The other interesting factor was the people who lived on
Speaker 1: Argyle Road. They heard voices right before the shots, and
Speaker 1: the woman whose bedroom was right above the driveway where
Speaker 1: Mark was found heard car doors opening and closing. Also
Speaker 1: heard young voices, and she was adamant that one of
Speaker 1: them was a female voice. Right the ocument of one
Speaker 1: fifty Argyle Road, Hiroko Swarnick said that she was awakened
Speaker 1: by her dog barking and heard the sound of a
Speaker 1: car door opening and shutting, which was later clarified to
Speaker 1: be a van door. The Clearies owned a van. Swarnick
Speaker 1: went on to say that the view from her second
Speaker 1: story window was obstructed by foliage, but she heard more
Speaker 1: than two young people talking. The conversation specifically did not
Speaker 1: sound like an argument, and one of the voices was female.
Speaker 1: She said that she went back to bed, and a
Speaker 1: bit later she and her husband heard gunshots and called police.
Speaker 1: Mark Fisher's body had been shot five times. The blanket
Speaker 1: from John's house lay underneath his feet, and there were
Speaker 1: abrasions on his right hand and the right side of
Speaker 1: his face, suggesting that he had been in a fight
Speaker 1: with someone who was left handed. While the suggestion of
Speaker 1: that physical evidence is not proof positive of anything. John
Speaker 1: is in fact a righting and also visible in the
Speaker 1: crime scene photos is a petite, bare footprint left in
Speaker 1: the mud. But none of those details were even brought
Speaker 1: up at trial, and neither was what the police heard
Speaker 1: from neighbors. They did a canvas of the neighborhood. Some
Speaker 1: people said that they heard shots. Some people said that
Speaker 1: they heard a flighting van door and also saw a
Speaker 1: dark colored car speeding away curiously. Antonio Russo also mentioned
Speaker 1: in that twenty eighteen report being seen by a woman
Speaker 1: in a car while he fled on foot. And by
Speaker 1: the way, he's not left handed either. I believe Albert
Speaker 1: Cleary is left handed. Now let me be clear, I'm
Speaker 1: not going any farther than that accusing him of anything.
Speaker 1: But Albert Cleary also had a vehicle of similar make
Speaker 1: and model that was described by the witnesses on Argyle Road.
Speaker 1: Our working theory has always been that Albert and Angel
Speaker 1: stumbled in to Russo doing something bad and didn't want
Speaker 1: to get involved in coming after him because he's a monster.
Speaker 1: And I'm not using Albert and Angel of murders or
Speaker 1: anything like that, but there is a ton of credible
Speaker 1: evidence that suggests that they were not honest about what
Speaker 1: they knew. One of the things which is really troubling
Speaker 1: is at the party, Russo comes in, and Russo's got
Speaker 1: long dreadlocks, and he's a tough guy. He sticks out
Speaker 1: like a sword thumb. And when Angel talks to the
Speaker 1: cops and she says, tell us all the people at
Speaker 1: the party, she never mentions Russo at all. In fact,
Speaker 1: she says it's just like a bunch of white guys.
Speaker 1: Now Russo is not white. But she told her friend,
Speaker 1: her then boyfriend, that there was a really scary guy there.
Speaker 1: When trial comes around, Angel identifies John, which is not
Speaker 1: a big deal, just oh yeah, that's the guy whose
Speaker 1: house we went to. And she's describing the people there,
Speaker 1: remember Russo sitting at the table too. They're on trial.
Speaker 1: At the same time, She's never asked to identify Russo,
Speaker 1: not even asked. The reality is Russo said he saw
Speaker 1: a girl. The neighbors heard a girl. There's the footprint
Speaker 1: that you described by their own admission. Albert and Angel
Speaker 1: are across the street, now, wouldn't you know it? Who
Speaker 1: do you think the only people on the block when
Speaker 1: they interviewed people at the houses who said they didn't
Speaker 1: hear anything, which is completely unbelievable, because I've been to
Speaker 1: this neighborhood and the neighbor's driveways or maybe at most
Speaker 1: twenty thirty yards across the street from the other neighbor's
Speaker 1: front doors, six thirty in the morning on a Sunday,
Speaker 1: and there's boom boom, boom, boom, boom boom, and no
Speaker 1: one in the clearye house. Here's the thing. And if
Speaker 1: you talk to some of the neighbors, they and they
Speaker 1: told us this when everybody came out, obviously, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's kind of a big deal in the neighborhood like that,
Speaker 1: nobody came out of the Cleary house. The morning after
Speaker 1: the murder, Him and Angel d Pietro decided to clean
Speaker 1: the garage after partying all night, which is a bizarre thing.
Speaker 1: Before they quickly decamped to her Long Island home, where
Speaker 1: they hung out with her criminal defense father all day
Speaker 1: a place Cleary had never been before. What does that
Speaker 1: all mean? Who's to say? But this is highly bizarre
Speaker 1: conduct in the grand scheme of what happened here. And
Speaker 1: as I mentioned, Angel's father, James D. Pietro, was a
Speaker 1: prominent defense attorney. He's a prominent lawyer, well respected lawyer,
Speaker 1: close friend to Hines, frequent financial donor to Hines. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: Angel had plans to follow in her dad's footsteps and
Speaker 1: later passed the bar. And then a short time later
Speaker 1: she gets hired as a prosecutor to the point where
Speaker 1: her and Nicolozzi are colleagues for years. Who's ever heard
Speaker 1: of this? So a short time later she got hired
Speaker 1: as a prosecutor in the Brooklyn DA's office. You can't
Speaker 1: make this up, so okay, So back to the immediate aftermath.
Speaker 1: At around ten am that morning, Angel began receiving phone
Speaker 1: calls from family and friends of Mark Fisher, and she
Speaker 1: told them that Meredith Denahan had given Mark train fare
Speaker 1: and he had taken a train around eight or nine am. Now,
Speaker 1: in initial interviews, Angel also told detectives that she had
Speaker 1: spoken of Meredith on the morning of October twelfth, who
Speaker 1: allegedly told her that Mark had woken John up around
Speaker 1: six am and asked where to catch a train, but
Speaker 1: Meredith denied that this conversation ever took place. She didn't
Speaker 1: talk to Mary for some period of time because Mary
Speaker 1: was pissed at her for what she believed was being abandoned.
Speaker 1: Mary is her like Garden City friend, but she doesn't
Speaker 1: go to Brooklyn that often and she's left at this
Speaker 1: house by herself. She's pissed off because she thinks Angel
Speaker 1: is sneaking out to stoop Cleary and just snuck out
Speaker 1: and left her there. So this is what Meredith told
Speaker 1: investigators on October fourteenth, So this is two days in
Speaker 1: and they knew that Angel wasn't telling the truth. And
Speaker 1: Mark Fisher's friends and family old investigators the same thing.
Speaker 1: They had a hard time getting a straight answer from Angel.
Speaker 1: Everyone who was concerned about Mark Fisher is asking where's Mark?
Speaker 1: Where's Mark? An Angel is telling different stories about when
Speaker 1: his friends were calling or when he left. And in
Speaker 1: two thousand and four, late spring, early summer, a key
Speaker 1: point of emphasis for law enforcement was Angel, and you
Speaker 1: could see they spent a lot of time tracking her
Speaker 1: and trying to interview her friends and roommates, and they
Speaker 1: all said, we didn't believe her. She's telling different stories.
Speaker 1: We basically cut her off. We didn't want to be
Speaker 1: associated with her anymore after this. And the people who
Speaker 1: believe Angel is not telling the truth more than anyone
Speaker 1: else are Mark Fisher's family. They have from day one
Speaker 1: accused her and Cleary of not telling the truth. They
Speaker 1: went so far as to sue the both of them
Speaker 1: after their son was murdered and John was convicted, and
Speaker 1: they wanted to sue Albert An Angel. They asked the
Speaker 1: DA for this police paperwork that talked about these neighbors
Speaker 1: on Argyle Road, who said we heard a girl, we
Speaker 1: heard a girl, and the Brooklyn Day's response was we're
Speaker 1: not giving you that. They were protecting Angel even back then.
Speaker 1: It at least appears as if some deal was made
Speaker 1: with her, or perhaps with her father, to keep her
Speaker 1: out of the crosshairs. So this is all super interesting,
Speaker 1: But what the hell does this have to do with
Speaker 1: John's guilt or innocence. How do the vulnerabilities of Albert
Speaker 1: and Angel having maybe seen Russo commit this crime and
Speaker 1: covering for that fact. How does this get directed towards
Speaker 1: John and this narrative with the Ghetto Mafia. When the
Speaker 1: cops interviewed Antonio Russo a couple of days after the murder,
Speaker 1: he is the one who planted the seed in the
Speaker 1: cops ears that there was this big tough gang named
Speaker 1: Ghetto Mafia, of which John and others were involved in,
Speaker 1: and that they could have been behind this. As soon
Speaker 1: as I found out that the police wanted to talk
Speaker 1: to me, I went right there to the priestinct. As
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, Lauren Calciano drove me. That was
Speaker 1: the seven Old Precinct detectives, which are the same guys
Speaker 1: who stuck a punger of the guy to ask a
Speaker 1: Noluima And for those who don't remember the awful case
Speaker 1: of Abner Luima, embrace yourself. It was nineteen ninety seven
Speaker 1: and the seventieth Precinct, or the seven oh as it
Speaker 1: was called, and mister Luima was effectively kidnapped by police
Speaker 1: from the scene of a fight outside of a club.
Speaker 1: They accused him of assaulting one of the four police
Speaker 1: officers with them, then brutally beat him and went back
Speaker 1: at the seventieth Precinct. They sexually assaulted mister Luima with
Speaker 1: a broken broomstick. And yes, it's actually even worse than
Speaker 1: it sounds. This spark national outrage and protest here in
Speaker 1: New York. And so these officers knew that you knew
Speaker 1: that story. They tried to like subtly threaten me with
Speaker 1: that too. When I was in the precinct, they said,
Speaker 1: you have to use the bathroom. I said, I don't
Speaker 1: have to use the bathroom because you have to use
Speaker 1: the bathroom. I'm like what, And they took me to
Speaker 1: the bathroom and then tried to question me in the bathroom,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, my fucking god, unfucking believable. These
Speaker 1: fucking dirt bags. I'm guessing that this was before your
Speaker 1: lawyer got there, right before my lawyer got there. They
Speaker 1: just wanted me to either confess or blame someone. That's
Speaker 1: when my lawyer cut the interviews. Often he said, that's it.
Speaker 1: That's the only thing you guys want to hear. That's say,
Speaker 1: we have nothing more to say. So these are the
Speaker 1: tactics that we're being used in the initial investigation back
Speaker 1: in the fall of two thousand and three, and as
Speaker 1: the Prosecutor's office took over, things may have been more delicate, perhaps,
Speaker 1: but still very sinister and very serious. And it appears
Speaker 1: that Albert Cleary was under the same sort of intense pressure.
Speaker 1: Now Cleary had denied knowing anything, and he actually had
Speaker 1: his lawyer go on national TV to say, we're cooperating,
Speaker 1: we know nothing. They even commissioned a polygraph in which
Speaker 1: Cleary passed the polygraph in which he said, I don't
Speaker 1: know anything about this. I've been truthful, I've told the
Speaker 1: police everything I know, which i'll sensibly at that time
Speaker 1: was I know nothing. But a few months later, after
Speaker 1: you got pressured, according to Cleary, he knew everything. And
Speaker 1: what becomes clear is that he had become their star
Speaker 1: witness against you. So, John, when did you get the
Speaker 1: feeling that this investigation had shifted and the heat was
Speaker 1: being directed towards you? When they appointed this elite investigative
Speaker 1: unit consisting of Brooklyn's ada's and Major Case Squad detectives,
Speaker 1: and Michael Veckion was spearheading that team. So even with
Speaker 1: Albert shouting from the rooftops that he quote passed a
Speaker 1: polygraph saying that he didn't know anything, this elite investigative
Speaker 1: you that headed by the now disgraced Michael VECCHIONI had
Speaker 1: Albert ready to say whatever the hell he could dream
Speaker 1: up in order to save himself, and as we mentioned,
Speaker 1: he wasn't the only one. The two most important pieces
Speaker 1: of false testimony centered around when Albert and your girlfriend
Speaker 1: at the time, Lauren Calciano, met up with you at
Speaker 1: your house sometime on October twelfth, in the aftermath of
Speaker 1: the murder. What the DA claims is later that night
Speaker 1: or the day, according to Lauren, that John is meeting
Speaker 1: with his girlfriend, Lauren and Albert in his bedroom. According
Speaker 1: to the DA, he tells them what happened, and according
Speaker 1: to Cleary, John tells him Mark disrespected my house by
Speaker 1: sitting on a table and it pissed me off. So
Speaker 1: I told Russo take my gun and show him what's up.
Speaker 1: Basically gave the order. Lauren, again ostensibly at the exact
Speaker 1: same meeting, says what happened is John told us Russo
Speaker 1: had approached him that night and said I want to
Speaker 1: rob Mark. Can I borrow your gun? And John, ever,
Speaker 1: the loyal friend that he is, would say, here, take
Speaker 1: my gun. She claims it's during the day. Albert claims
Speaker 1: it's at night. Albert's claiming John's talking about ordering a hit,
Speaker 1: Lauren's talking about Russo asking them for a gun. And
Speaker 1: the common denominator here is that both of these witnesses
Speaker 1: had denied for a year knowing anything until they were
Speaker 1: pressured and threatened with all kinds of things. Lauren was
Speaker 1: threatened with her future, very embarrassing details about her personal life.
Speaker 1: Albert was threatened with jail, perjury, all kinds of things.
Speaker 1: He was on probation for kicking the crap out of
Speaker 1: somebody a few months earlier. And so, at a bare minimum,
Speaker 1: you have conclusive proof that either one of Lauren or
Speaker 1: Albert take your pick. I would argue it doesn't even matter,
Speaker 1: just demonstrates they're all full of shit. But you have
Speaker 1: conclusive proof that the prosecution has no problem calling at
Speaker 1: least one witness it knows is flat out perjuring themselves. Now, Cleary,
Speaker 1: you also added to that story that you know, I
Speaker 1: was talking to John and this guy Rob Legister, the
Speaker 1: head of ghetto mafia, and John and Row We're talking
Speaker 1: about how we don't have enough street credibility, so we
Speaker 1: need to catch your body. Legister, at the time was
Speaker 1: a college student in North Carolina, and we of course
Speaker 1: have a sworn AFFI David from this legister guy saying
Speaker 1: this is all a bunch of nonsense. He's never called
Speaker 1: to testify to any of this. But yet at the
Speaker 1: trial you have Nicolozzi talking about Capo's soldiers orders Tony Soprano.
Speaker 1: It's insane. So these are the two falls statements that
Speaker 1: eventually got John indicted at a secret grand jury. Now,
Speaker 1: Antonio Russo had already been arrested in November two thousand
Speaker 1: and four. Why that took so long, nobody knows. After
Speaker 1: Russo got arrested, that was it, I thought, And then
Speaker 1: I went shopping. It was a couple of days before Christmas,
Speaker 1: on December twenty first, two thousand and four, and I
Speaker 1: bought a whole bunch of Christmas gifts for everyone. And
Speaker 1: I was on my way home to put up the
Speaker 1: Christmas tree for my mother and I had I was
Speaker 1: walking home with a whole bunch of bags from Macy's
Speaker 1: and all different places, and they were there in front
Speaker 1: of my house and then Detective Burns too, we've been
Speaker 1: being good. I said, yeah, what are you doing here?
Speaker 1: And he said, put your hands behind your back. And
Speaker 1: then when they put me in the car. I could
Speaker 1: hear they called Chione and I could hear on the
Speaker 1: phone because it's so loud, and we're sitting in a
Speaker 1: quiet car, and he is laughing hysterically and he said,
Speaker 1: wish you were marry Christmas while he was just laughing
Speaker 1: like a cool, evil motherfucker. Their use. So you spent
Speaker 1: Christmas on Riker's Island, and with a Class A one felony,
Speaker 1: you weren't given any chance to bond out, so you
Speaker 1: were stuck there for the next nine months. I thought
Speaker 1: it would have took much longer because every person who
Speaker 1: was there for an A one filmy or s serious
Speaker 1: case like that, a murder case was taken at least
Speaker 1: two or three years, and they rushed my case to
Speaker 1: trial in eight months. Because of that election, Joe Hines
Speaker 1: had a Areas primary challenger stage Senator John Sampson, and
Speaker 1: if he lost, he may have had to call in
Speaker 1: a favor from Albert's mother on the King's County Goop
Speaker 1: Executive Committee. And I'm not a conspiracy guy, but that's
Speaker 1: who you call. But as part of his taxpayer funded
Speaker 1: election campaign, he was making a big splash in the
Speaker 1: media with your case, the grid kid killer case as
Speaker 1: they called it, and they didn't plan on losing, so
Speaker 1: they needed to support their two false witnesses with more bullshit,
Speaker 1: and it went out and found another friend of yours
Speaker 1: with a vulnerability to exploit, a guy named Anthony Bahari
Speaker 1: who played the part of another alleged mafia soldier whose
Speaker 1: job it was to get rid of the gun. Yes,
Speaker 1: he was another witness who satisfied the formula of claimed
Speaker 1: for a year and a half that he didn't know anything,
Speaker 1: but after being heavily pressured, claimed that the morning after
Speaker 1: the homicide that John called him up and asked him
Speaker 1: to do him a favor and pick up an item
Speaker 1: and leave it on the corner for somebody else to
Speaker 1: pick up and Beharry testified that he looked at the
Speaker 1: item and that it was a firearm. So that testimony
Speaker 1: was potentially very damaging, but it's problematic for a lot
Speaker 1: of reasons. He was threatened with losing his son, with
Speaker 1: being prosecuted for actually possessing the gun, which is a
Speaker 1: legal fiction. The gun was never recovered. The DA was
Speaker 1: threatening to prosecute him for possession of a gun that
Speaker 1: they had no evidence of where it was, or whether
Speaker 1: it was operable, or anything else. It was alleged that
Speaker 1: John and Bahari had called each other back and forth
Speaker 1: to plan how he would leave the gun under a
Speaker 1: box on the street for some mystery buyer who would
Speaker 1: leave the money in its place. All they had to
Speaker 1: do to prove that that wasn't true would get these
Speaker 1: phone records, and then what case with this many coerced
Speaker 1: and or incentivized witnesses and a total lack of any
Speaker 1: concrete evidence would be complete without a jailhouse snitch. So
Speaker 1: in walks John of Vito, who did time at Rikers
Speaker 1: while you were there. He had a burglary charge and
Speaker 1: was eventually sentenced to a drug rehab program with the
Speaker 1: burglary sentence suspended pending his completion of the program, and
Speaker 1: I believe a probation period. But he fell off the wagon,
Speaker 1: and now all of a sudden he had a story
Speaker 1: to tell, and in swoop the Brooklyn DA's office to
Speaker 1: snatch up another willing participant in John's railroading. So you
Speaker 1: and Antonio Russo went to trial together. So you're in
Speaker 1: the same courtroom, but you had two separate juries, which
Speaker 1: I'm led to understand is meant to streamline the process,
Speaker 1: save money, and then say if there's a jury misconduct issue,
Speaker 1: then they don't have to toss both convictions. So same trial,
Speaker 1: separate juries, right, red jury and green jury. All the
Speaker 1: green jury. So we've gone over three of the four
Speaker 1: substantive witnesses, Albert Cleary, Lauren Calciano, and Anthony Bahari. Lauren
Speaker 1: and Anthony both were canted under oath, as as the
Speaker 1: jailhouse snitch John A. Vito, whose testimony were about to
Speaker 1: cover Mark tell us about the state's case. The jury's
Speaker 1: being told essentially that Juca's childhood friend, Albert Cleary's going
Speaker 1: to come in and tell you that John, as a
Speaker 1: member of this gang ghetto mafia, told Albert that they
Speaker 1: wanted to increase their street credibility, so they needed to
Speaker 1: kill someone that Mark Fisher sat on a table in
Speaker 1: his family room. This was such an act of disrespect
Speaker 1: that it made Juca rage to the point where he
Speaker 1: told Antonio Russo, take my gun and you go out
Speaker 1: and you quote unquote show Fisher what's up, which apparently
Speaker 1: is their way of saying shoot him. I remember that
Speaker 1: he tried to say that. I told Russo to wait
Speaker 1: in the bushes and ambush him on Turner Plate, which
Speaker 1: is a block away from my house. Meanwhile, it was
Speaker 1: obviously based on nine on one coals where the body
Speaker 1: was found and the blood. There was no blood trail
Speaker 1: from Turner all the way to his house, so it
Speaker 1: was just an obvious lie. Also, and he pushed the
Speaker 1: one PM phone call up to eleven, which Angel d
Speaker 1: Pietro testified falsely too as well. So you had called
Speaker 1: Albert just before one pm that day. Phone wreckers corroborated that,
Speaker 1: but both of them testified to an eleven am call,
Speaker 1: So it might be plausible that you were the alleged
Speaker 1: source of all of their shady information during the immediate aftermath.
Speaker 1: Now there's something else about Albert's time on the stand.
Speaker 1: Nicolozzi brought up the polygraph he had taken to prove
Speaker 1: he didn't know anything about the crime, but in a
Speaker 1: very misleading context. She really is slick Nikolozzi. When he
Speaker 1: was on the stand, after he says the exact opposite
Speaker 1: of that polygraph, he says he does know the desert,
Speaker 1: he does know everything about it. She asks him, didn't
Speaker 1: you take a polygraph? And he said yes, And then
Speaker 1: of course knowing polygraphs aren't admissible in court, so she
Speaker 1: knew Gregory would object and it was a firm, so
Speaker 1: that's it. The jury thought that he took in past
Speaker 1: the polygraph about what he was saying. Now, it was
Speaker 1: never cleared up that he took a polygraph to the
Speaker 1: exact opposite of what he was saying. Now, that is
Speaker 1: really devious. Now they called your ex girlfriend Lauren Cassiano
Speaker 1: to the stand, whose testimony just can't be squared with
Speaker 1: Albert Cleary's version of the same exact conversation between the
Speaker 1: three of you on October twelfth. Both stories could not
Speaker 1: be true. There could not have been the same meeting
Speaker 1: that Albert and Lauren are talking about. And Albert's talking
Speaker 1: about John complaining about disrespect and ordering Russo to commit
Speaker 1: a murder, when Lauren is saying, no, what happened as
Speaker 1: Russo said, I just want to rob the guy? Can
Speaker 1: I borrow your gun? If that wasn't a red flag,
Speaker 1: I don't know what is. And John, this was the
Speaker 1: first time that you were hearing the one time love
Speaker 1: of your life falsely implicating you in a murder that
Speaker 1: was crushed. She stared at me the whole time she
Speaker 1: was up there, and it wasn't like a malicious like
Speaker 1: she wasn't staring me down. She was looking at me
Speaker 1: like as if she was saying I'm sorry with her eyes.
Speaker 1: I had a conversation with my stepsister about that. She
Speaker 1: was like, she's being forced to do this for Zavila.
Speaker 1: To me, she's telling you, I'm sorry. So at this
Speaker 1: point the jury had heard from Bihari, Angel DiPietro, as
Speaker 1: well as from Lauren and Albert, and to anyone paying attention,
Speaker 1: it would have to be clear that one or both
Speaker 1: of these versions of events simply were not true. So
Speaker 1: at the last minute they pull a hail Mary. This
Speaker 1: guy John A Vito, who is a jailhouse snitch, and
Speaker 1: he claims that I was in jail with John, and
Speaker 1: I was having visitation in Riker's Island the same time
Speaker 1: John was, and he was with his father and two women,
Speaker 1: and a Veto says I overheard John in response to
Speaker 1: the question from his father, why did you have a
Speaker 1: gun with you? John said, I don't know, I just did,
Speaker 1: and in essence acknowledge have a gun. What the jury
Speaker 1: never learns is that John Juca's father, prior to this
Speaker 1: jailhouse visitation, which did happen, by the way, and it's
Speaker 1: not surprising that the snitch would use a kernel of
Speaker 1: truth that could be documented by looking at jail records.
Speaker 1: But what the jury didn't know, and presumably the DA
Speaker 1: didn't know it, was that John's father had a series
Speaker 1: of debilitating strokes and as a result, he couldn't speak.
Speaker 1: He couldn't say what a Vito said that he said,
Speaker 1: He could only say one or maybe sometimes he would
Speaker 1: string two words together. At the time. Had a veto
Speaker 1: even sat close enough to hear your conversation. He sat
Speaker 1: somewhere near us, but he didn't obviously sit close enough
Speaker 1: to actually hear my father. Because he did, he would
Speaker 1: have made up a better life. The jury also didn't
Speaker 1: know that the family relatives, the women who were present,
Speaker 1: would have strenuously denied that occurred. They have sworn under
Speaker 1: oath and Davis that this never happened. And there was
Speaker 1: even more to this false testimony where a Vito claimed
Speaker 1: to hear incriminating statements directly from John, this time completely
Speaker 1: changing the location of the crime. The murder unquestionably is
Speaker 1: on Argyle Road. The shots were heard by the residents,
Speaker 1: but a Vito says, No, what happened is John told
Speaker 1: me that he went to the ATM with Mark Fisher, which,
Speaker 1: as you also said earlier, was an hour before the murder.
Speaker 1: But this is what snitches do. They read papers, they
Speaker 1: see the news, and they concoct. He says, when Mark
Speaker 1: Fisher withdrew money at the ATM that John told me
Speaker 1: he pulled out a gun pistol whip, Mark Fisher beat
Speaker 1: him up, and then Russo took the gun and shot him.
Speaker 1: So the story changes dramatically. On top of the fact
Speaker 1: that this is coming from a jailhouse snitch who again
Speaker 1: was trying to avoid a prison sentence, and they're moving
Speaker 1: the murder location. This is beyond absurd. So what did
Speaker 1: Sam Gregory do about a veto? Unfortunately he didn't even
Speaker 1: know about John Evito until right before a trial. There's
Speaker 1: no offer proof, meaning here's what he's going to say.
Speaker 1: There's no notice to the defense that, oh, by the way,
Speaker 1: we're going to argue through this witness that Juco was
Speaker 1: physically there and did it. So he wasn't prepared to
Speaker 1: try a case on a theory other than the nonsense
Speaker 1: inconsistencies that was going to come out of Lauren and Albert.
Speaker 1: The defense had been aware of this from the beginning.
Speaker 1: They could have tactically prepared differently. He could have prepared
Speaker 1: to have John's father's doctor testified to his father's limitations,
Speaker 1: or the two women could have testified to the actual
Speaker 1: substance of the conversation. Instead, they're caught with their pants
Speaker 1: down now. The defense did argue in their summation that
Speaker 1: the mere fact that they called the Vito as a
Speaker 1: witness was kind of a hail mary because Lauren and
Speaker 1: Albert had imploded telling inconsistent stories. That was a credible
Speaker 1: argument that led the prosecutor to respond that John Avito
Speaker 1: was just for once in his life, being a good guy,
Speaker 1: motivated to do the right thing, and that's the only
Speaker 1: reason he's cooperating, and that was just a baldfaced lie.
Speaker 1: So they squashed his problems in exchange for testimony for
Speaker 1: the time being. They kept him out of jail despite
Speaker 1: repeated violations in a mandatory prison sentence, and then once
Speaker 1: he was no longer needed a year later, when he
Speaker 1: violated the program again, they threw him out with the
Speaker 1: trash and into prison he went. When he no longer
Speaker 1: had any value to them. So this exchange of leniency
Speaker 1: for testimony represents just one Brady violation. But there's another
Speaker 1: major one in which Russo admitted to a fellow in
Speaker 1: maintenamed James Ingram, to acting alone. And we'll get into
Speaker 1: that Ingram evidence in more detail later, but back to trial.
Speaker 1: So now they go from two conflicting versions of this
Speaker 1: crime to three convicting versions of this crime. Not only
Speaker 1: are they different, they're internally incompatible. You can't square any
Speaker 1: one of the stories with the other. You had he
Speaker 1: gave Russo a gun for a robbery, or he ordered
Speaker 1: the murder for street credibility, or he told him to
Speaker 1: show him what's up because he disrespected him by sitting
Speaker 1: on the table, or he was there himself at the ATM.
Speaker 1: And the concern here is you throw enough mud, however inconsistent.
Speaker 1: It is that the risk and concern is that any
Speaker 1: jurors says, if all of these people are saying he
Speaker 1: did something, I may not know what the hell he did,
Speaker 1: but he's sure as hell must have done it. Aren't
Speaker 1: They not supposed to or not allowed to offer conflicting
Speaker 1: theories of the crime. They're really supposed to take one
Speaker 1: theory and prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. Not give
Speaker 1: the jurors Chinese food menu of different theories, because then
Speaker 1: you might have some jurors that believe this, some journeys
Speaker 1: that believe that. It's called a unanimity issue where they
Speaker 1: have to be unanimous about something. Yeah, to offer a
Speaker 1: menu of theories and basically say it doesn't matter, you
Speaker 1: know he did it, which is essentially what the summation
Speaker 1: amounted to, is not consistent with due process, and it
Speaker 1: leads to a jury possibly being six jurors say what
Speaker 1: if he ordered a murder? Four jurors saying what if
Speaker 1: he gave him a gun for a robbery? And what
Speaker 1: if two jurors say, maybe he was physically there, Okay,
Speaker 1: but we all agree he did it. Okay, guilty, that's absurd,
Speaker 1: But that's what happened. It was the worst day of
Speaker 1: my life. I was sentenced to twenty five to life
Speaker 1: on October nineteenth, two thousand and five. Every idea you
Speaker 1: could form in your mind full short of the reality
Speaker 1: of how bad that is. It's like bleak, hopeless, stabilitating misery.
Speaker 1: It's crippling. The depression in this space go through just
Speaker 1: thinking about how I wasn't even alive for twenty five
Speaker 1: years at that point when I got sentences, so I
Speaker 1: don't even I didn't even know what twenty five years
Speaker 1: to set life. In Part one of John Jeffer's story,
Speaker 1: you heard about all of the different characters and circumstances
Speaker 1: that led his arrest and conviction. Now here about his
Speaker 1: epic battle through post conviction in Part two available now.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction special thanks to
Speaker 1: our amazing production team Connor Hall, Annie Chelsea, Jeff Clyburne,
Speaker 1: and Kevin Wards, with research by Lalla Robinson. The music
Speaker 1: in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
Speaker 1: composer Jay Ralph. Make sure to follow us on Instagram
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and
Speaker 1: on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava
Speaker 1: for Good. On all three platforms, you can also follow
Speaker 1: on TikTok and Instagram at its Jason Flam. That's It's
Speaker 1: Jason Flam. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for
Speaker 1: Good Podcasts in the Association a Signal Company Number one