Speaker 1: This is a hard one for me to even talk
Speaker 1: about because John Agrian Alasquez is someone who I consider
Speaker 1: well more than a close friend, I consider him extended family.
Speaker 1: I hate to report that nothing much has changed since
Speaker 1: the episode I recorded with him behind the walls of
Speaker 1: maximum security prison sing Sing Correctional Facility on March sixth,
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: He's still there.
Speaker 1: I mean, just think about that's two and a half
Speaker 1: years ago, and he's been in for well over two
Speaker 1: decades now. The bad news is that, even with a
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of effort from so many great advocates, his
Speaker 1: motion for new trial based on a Brady violation was denied.
Speaker 1: I'm not really sure how that could happen. The Brady
Speaker 1: violation would seem to be obvious to almost anyone, but
Speaker 1: this judge.
Speaker 2: Didn't see it that way.
Speaker 1: So JJ is anyone making the best of a terrible situation.
Speaker 2: And I will.
Speaker 1: Say this sinxing Correctional hosts some wonderful events called Choices,
Speaker 1: which are focused on helping children of inmates follow their
Speaker 1: own paths in life and not make the mistakes that
Speaker 1: their fathers may have made. In JJ's case, so John
Speaker 1: Adrien's case, he didn't make any mistakes, but many of
Speaker 1: the men who are incarcerated there certainly did things that
Speaker 1: we want to help steer their children away from. So
Speaker 1: in April twenty seventeen. In December of twenty eighteen, JJ
Speaker 1: John Adrien organized, fundraised and was the massive ceremonies of
Speaker 1: the Choices events.
Speaker 2: I was there. It was a powerful presentation.
Speaker 1: In October of twenty seventeen, he organized, coordinated, and co
Speaker 1: moderated NYCHEPS. That's nychep's second annual conference. Nychep's collective goal
Speaker 1: is to increase access to higher education for those impacted
Speaker 1: by the criminal justice system and to pool resources in
Speaker 1: order to create seamless access to quality education in prison
Speaker 1: and beyond. In October twenty seventeen, he also organized and
Speaker 1: facilitated the first ever job Readiness and re Entry Initiative
Speaker 1: at sing Sing for individuals in the Singing population who
Speaker 1: have eighteen months or less until they're to be released.
Speaker 1: It's designed to prepare them for re entry so important.
Speaker 1: While imprisoned, John Adrian has been a teacher Fellow for
Speaker 1: Columbia University and the Psychology Course from September to December
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, and he's still an administrative program assistant for
Speaker 1: Hudson Link for Higher Education in prison, a position he's
Speaker 1: held since twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2: His accomplishments behind.
Speaker 1: Bars are above and beyond the accomplishments of so many
Speaker 1: people in free society, and I just want to get
Speaker 1: him home.
Speaker 2: With the police banging on the door, open up.
Speaker 3: The choice to be in that lineup was the last
Speaker 3: choice I made as a free man. A year later,
Speaker 3: I ended up writing the system. I'm going to be
Speaker 3: one of those people who everyone in the world is
Speaker 3: going to.
Speaker 4: Think as a monster or suspect is a monster for
Speaker 4: the rest of my life, and I'm just going to
Speaker 4: have to come to peace with that.
Speaker 3: Somebody was able to look at my picture in the
Speaker 3: database and say that I was somewhere where I definitely wasn't.
Speaker 3: I overheard three of the jailers discussing what part they
Speaker 3: might have to play in my hanging. They had been
Speaker 3: told that two prison officers would have to participate in
Speaker 3: my execution. Now I walked back inside that prison for
Speaker 3: the last time. Man all help broke loose.
Speaker 1: But welcome to another edition of Wrongful Conviction. Today's a
Speaker 1: very special day because this is the debut of wrongful
Speaker 1: conviction behind Bars, and our guest today is my dear friend,
Speaker 1: an innocent man stuck in a nightmare here at Sing
Speaker 1: Sing prison.
Speaker 2: John Adrian Velasquez, also known as Jay.
Speaker 4: John Adrian Belasquez, convicted of killing a retired New York
Speaker 4: City police officer during a botched robbery and Harlem. Fifty
Speaker 4: nine year old Albert Ward was killed. Blaskaz was found
Speaker 4: guilty of second degree murder JJ. Velaskaz was thrown in
Speaker 4: a lineup been fingered for murdered by a drug dealer
Speaker 4: who the police threatened with the rest with no physical evidence.
Speaker 2: Valasquez was prosecuted for murder.
Speaker 4: This sentence twenty five years to life.
Speaker 3: Valaskaz remains in prison.
Speaker 2: JJ. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: You're hearing a lot of background noise today, and there's
Speaker 1: a very simple reason for that, which is that we
Speaker 1: are inside of Sing Sing correctional facility and it is
Speaker 1: a noisy place and there's really no getting away from it.
Speaker 1: I apologize for any distractions that you're going to experience
Speaker 1: during today's show. We've highlighted the cases of over a
Speaker 1: dozen people so far who've been exonerated, and my hope
Speaker 1: is that in bringing more exposure and light to your situation,
Speaker 1: that this will be another part of the process of
Speaker 1: getting you out. Because JJ is just as innocent as
Speaker 1: any of the people who've been on the show, but
Speaker 1: as of yet, he has not been able to win
Speaker 1: his freedom. So that's what we're here to talk about today.
Speaker 1: But before we even get into that, I want to
Speaker 1: go back. Let's go back to how you grew up,
Speaker 1: where you grew up. You know, we like to always
Speaker 1: give a little context.
Speaker 3: Sure, I'm a native New Yorker, grew up in a
Speaker 3: middle class family home. My mother was a healthcare worker
Speaker 3: and eventually she went through training and became a union
Speaker 3: organizer for eleven ninety nine. My father is a former
Speaker 3: was a former US Army veteran who later became an
Speaker 3: Amtrak police officer. By the age of ten, things changed
Speaker 3: in my household. I started to realize a lot of
Speaker 3: arguments and fights were happening between my parents, and it
Speaker 3: was because my father was actually living a double life.
Speaker 3: He had two families. I found out for the first
Speaker 3: time that I had a younger brother that was five
Speaker 3: years younger than me. Half brother from another mother. It
Speaker 3: was kind of ecstatic to have a brother. At that time,
Speaker 3: I was young and I was naive, and I didn't
Speaker 3: really get to see what was about to happen because
Speaker 3: everything changed. The dynamics of my household changed. My father
Speaker 3: wasn't around as much anymore, and he made it his
Speaker 3: business to remain present in my life. But it's impossible
Speaker 3: to be two places at once, and eventually I started
Speaker 3: to fill that void that I missed with my father
Speaker 3: by spending more time in the Devil's playground. And for
Speaker 3: those that are listening that may not understand what the
Speaker 3: devil's playground is, the streets of New York are harsh,
Speaker 3: and when you go out there and you start to
Speaker 3: experience and be exposed to the streets, you start being
Speaker 3: overwhelmed by certain environmental factors. And in my particular neighborhood,
Speaker 3: there was a lot of negative peer influence and that
Speaker 3: kind of changed the dynamics of my thinking. It changed
Speaker 3: the trajectory of my interests where at one point all
Speaker 3: I cared about was school, sports, and home, And then
Speaker 3: a time came where I lost interest in home in school,
Speaker 3: but I still had that interest in sports. I had
Speaker 3: this dream because I was good. Baseball was really where
Speaker 3: I was at a lot of people believed in my talent.
Speaker 3: I had gotten hit by a bus at the corner
Speaker 3: of my school when I was sixteen, days after my
Speaker 3: sixteenth birthday, and when the doctors told me that I
Speaker 3: would never be able to compete at the same level
Speaker 3: that I was used to. That changed my life. That
Speaker 3: was a crossroad at that point when school went out
Speaker 3: the window, or when sports went out the window. Rather,
Speaker 3: school went out the window with it, and I started
Speaker 3: cutting class, and before you knew it, I became so rebellious.
Speaker 3: There were so many arguments in my household with my
Speaker 3: mom's and I would try to play my father against
Speaker 3: my mother and my mother against my father. And eventually
Speaker 3: I just got tired of it all and I ran
Speaker 3: away from home and in search of my independence. In
Speaker 3: pursuit of my independence, I found my self homeless. I've
Speaker 3: had many nights where I went to sleep hungry, and
Speaker 3: I know what it is to live off of a
Speaker 3: dollar a salami and a dollar cheese and a stolen
Speaker 3: loaf of bread. And that's basically where everything started for me.
Speaker 3: As a whole different aspect of living in New York
Speaker 3: because I was on my own and I didn't have
Speaker 3: working papers, I didn't have an ID, I was a
Speaker 3: high school drop out. I'm running for my mother and
Speaker 3: my father, so I can't I got to stay away
Speaker 3: from police, I got to stay away from anybody who
Speaker 3: can officially report me to my family. And it was
Speaker 3: a matter of pride, like I left and I didn't
Speaker 3: want to go back. And then there was also a
Speaker 3: matter of fear where it was like I'm going to
Speaker 3: be judged when it gets scolded, you know, So there
Speaker 3: was shame. There was a lot of different factors playing
Speaker 3: in and it just made me go deeper and deeper.
Speaker 3: And it was like, I've realized now that that was
Speaker 3: the worst choice in my life, because all I did
Speaker 3: from that point forward was continued to make worse choices
Speaker 3: that dig the deeper grave.
Speaker 1: You somehow or other, managed to survive very difficult circumstances,
Speaker 1: a lot of disappointments, a lot of things that no
Speaker 1: child should have to go through and end up on
Speaker 1: the streets. But you turned it around to the extent
Speaker 1: that you met a great woman, right and you had
Speaker 1: a couple of kids. Yeah, So how did you go
Speaker 1: from a sixteen, seventeen year old kid on the streets
Speaker 1: to being a twenty two year old man with a
Speaker 1: couple of kids and a wife and more of a
Speaker 1: stable situation.
Speaker 3: So basically what happened is being in the streets. I
Speaker 3: met Vanessa. I met her at sixteen turning seventeen. Eventually
Speaker 3: I started living with her, and her family took me
Speaker 3: in and I was still trying to survive and I
Speaker 3: was moving too fast for my own good. Before you
Speaker 3: knew it, I was a father, and that made me
Speaker 3: start to take life a lot more seriously. And I'm
Speaker 3: trying to figure out my way and say, all right,
Speaker 3: and I need to do something, and I need to
Speaker 3: do something to ensure that my family's going to be
Speaker 3: all right. Tried to look for jobs, but again my
Speaker 3: high school drop out. At that point, I didn't know
Speaker 3: what skills I may have had that were employable. I
Speaker 3: was a child trying to find my way. Before you
Speaker 3: knew it, I was a father with another child on
Speaker 3: the way, and it was rough. I was basically living
Speaker 3: off of Vanessa because she was getting welfare, and it's
Speaker 3: all social service, you know, SSI. I mean, the rent
Speaker 3: was under one hundred dollars, so it was affordable, you know.
Speaker 3: But at the same token, they don't know I'm living there.
Speaker 3: And it's crazy because, yeah, I got arrested a few times,
Speaker 3: no charges ever, you know, stuck. I've gotten arrested for loitering.
Speaker 3: I've gotten arrested for all kinds of little nonsense that
Speaker 3: happens in the neighborhood. They gave me a trespassing for
Speaker 3: going to see a friend in the projects because I
Speaker 3: don't live in the projects. What people need to realize
Speaker 3: in New York and all over the world is that
Speaker 3: all it takes for you to be in my shoes
Speaker 3: is to get arrested, for them to take a picture,
Speaker 3: for them to take a name and put it in
Speaker 3: a system, for them to take your fingerprints. That's what
Speaker 3: starts everything. That's what started for me. Somebody was able
Speaker 3: to look at my picture in a database and say
Speaker 3: that I was somewhere where I definitely wasn't.
Speaker 1: And I want to talk about that for a second, JJ,
Speaker 1: because I'm very well aware of the fact that in
Speaker 1: the poorest neighborhoods like the one that you were residing in,
Speaker 1: they do these sweeps and they'll pick people up for
Speaker 1: riding a bike on the sidewalk, or like you said,
Speaker 1: visiting a friend. I mean, I'm not sure how that's
Speaker 1: a crime, you know, trespassing, You could call trespassing anything.
Speaker 1: I mean, you might as well arrest somebody for breathing.
Speaker 1: It's you know, it's almost a fada complee that a
Speaker 1: young person like yourself, especially a person of color, is
Speaker 1: going to end up in the system in some form
Speaker 1: or another for doing the same type of thing that
Speaker 1: other people in other parts of the city or other
Speaker 1: parts of the country would not.
Speaker 2: Get arrested for.
Speaker 1: As you said, that starts a chain of events that
Speaker 1: can only have negative consequence and in your case, tragic consequences.
Speaker 2: When I tell these.
Speaker 1: Stories to people, they go, but that can be like,
Speaker 1: you can't convict somebody with no evidence, but you can absolutely.
Speaker 1: So there you were, you have your two kids, You're
Speaker 1: turning your life around, doing the best you can.
Speaker 3: At the time, yeah, I was actually a student at
Speaker 3: TCI Technical Careers Institute trying to learn about computer programming,
Speaker 3: trying to get a skill that would be employable.
Speaker 1: And to your credit, it's interesting because I think for
Speaker 1: some people, the responsibility of fatherhood, of having become a
Speaker 1: father at such a young age causes them to run.
Speaker 1: But in your case, you took it seriously, and you
Speaker 1: took it as it actually has an opportunity to turn
Speaker 1: your life around.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: So one day everything changed.
Speaker 3: It's almost like a blink of an eye. I receive
Speaker 3: a phone call. It was a Saturday morning, and it's
Speaker 3: from my brother's mother, Carmen, who I also have a
Speaker 3: very close relationship with. And basically my license, my driver's
Speaker 3: license was addressed to my father's address and that's where
Speaker 3: Carmen and my brother Jason lived. So they went to
Speaker 3: that apartment at Life four in the morning Friday night
Speaker 3: going into Saturday morning, and they were looking for me.
Speaker 3: You have police officers looking for me, and they tried
Speaker 3: to even grab up my little brother. Now, at the time,
Speaker 3: I was twenty one years old, so my little brother
Speaker 3: being five years younger than me, it's sixteen years old.
Speaker 3: The description was given of two male blacks from twenty
Speaker 3: five to thirty years old. Why are you trying to
Speaker 3: grab up this child? Clearly he looks like a child.
Speaker 3: Clearly he doesn't look like me either, and neither one
Speaker 3: of us appear to be two black men, right, but
Speaker 3: they're trying to grab him, thinking that he's me for
Speaker 3: whatever odd reason. And then Carmen just makes a big
Speaker 3: stink and says, do you understand that this is the
Speaker 3: house of an officer who died within the last ten months.
Speaker 3: Do you understand what you're doing. You're violating the children
Speaker 3: of somebody who served this country just like you. And
Speaker 3: that's when they were like, they eased up a little bit.
Speaker 3: They didn't have a warrant for arrest, so they gave
Speaker 3: her a card and said, listen, and you get in
Speaker 3: touch with mister Velaskis. Please have him get in touch
Speaker 3: with us. We're trying to help him. I was living
Speaker 3: in the Bronx with Vanessa and I get this call
Speaker 3: from Carmen and it's a startling call because she's like, listen,
Speaker 3: you know the cops are looking for you. They're saying
Speaker 3: something about you shot a police officer and that you
Speaker 3: need to call them. They're making it seem very serious.
Speaker 3: They came in here deep and I'm like, listen, Carmen,
Speaker 3: what's going on? What are you talking about? I have
Speaker 3: no idea what you're talking about. Slow down, And she's like, yo, listen.
Speaker 3: All I know here's a number they want you to call.
Speaker 3: I'm like, what precinct did they come from? You know,
Speaker 3: where's this coming from. Listen, here's the name. His name
Speaker 3: is Joseph Latrenta. Here's his phone number. They told me
Speaker 3: the precinct. At the time, it was a twenty eighth precint.
Speaker 3: I don't think I even registered.
Speaker 2: That was this four in the morning.
Speaker 3: She called me about nine in the morning. She waited
Speaker 3: until a decent time I guess to call me. At
Speaker 3: that point, I started to kind of like panic, and
Speaker 3: I was frantic. And I have two children. One is
Speaker 3: a child that's only a few weeks old. I have
Speaker 3: Vanessa there. Vanessa realized from the phone call that something
Speaker 3: serious is going on. But she's like, what's going on?
Speaker 3: And I'm like, yo, just wait a minute. I gotta
Speaker 3: process this, Like I really don't even know what's going on, Like,
Speaker 3: let me call my mother. So I called my mother
Speaker 3: and I'm like, yo, ma, you know they're saying the
Speaker 3: police are looking for me. She started getting hysterical on
Speaker 3: phone what happened? And I'm like, listen, I don't know
Speaker 3: what happened. I don't know what happened. This is what
Speaker 3: I know, I know the police are looking for me.
Speaker 3: I know it's the weekend. I know it's not a
Speaker 3: good time to get into contact with the police because
Speaker 3: I can't see a judge or anybody else until maybe
Speaker 3: one day if they come for me. They're saying this
Speaker 3: is serious. It's saying I shot a cop. I have
Speaker 3: no idea what this is about, but I'm scared and
Speaker 3: I need your help. What are we going to do?
Speaker 3: So she's like, stay there, I'm coming. My mother lives
Speaker 3: upstate at the time, and she came and picked me up,
Speaker 3: and she took me to the church that we used
Speaker 3: to attend together regularly on the weekend. It's called Love
Speaker 3: Gospel Assembly. We went to the church and there were
Speaker 3: a few people there and we started to tell what
Speaker 3: was going on, but everything was so limited, like didn't
Speaker 3: have any real knowledge. And they're saying, listen, the first
Speaker 3: thing you got to do is get an attorney and
Speaker 3: contact the precinct. So we try to figure out, you know,
Speaker 3: who would be a good lawyer. So I try to
Speaker 3: speak to a couple of my friends that I know
Speaker 3: have been involved in the system. Do you know any
Speaker 3: good lawyers? They tell me your name, his name, is
Speaker 3: Franklin Gould may rest in peace. At this point, I've
Speaker 3: learned that he has passed away recently, so I'm trying
Speaker 3: to get in touch with Franklin Gould.
Speaker 2: Bad part about this.
Speaker 3: Again, it's the weekend. How do you get in touch
Speaker 3: with a lawyer over the weekend? Right? And we're waiting
Speaker 3: for frank Gould to get back to us, and in
Speaker 3: that time, the range of emotions that we went through
Speaker 3: as a family picture us being in a car driving
Speaker 3: around aimlessly. It's my mother, me, Vanessa, JJ, which is
Speaker 3: my son, right, I don't want to confuse nobody and Jacob,
Speaker 3: and JJ is three years old at the time. Jacob
Speaker 3: is a few weeks He was born December twentieth, and
Speaker 3: this is Jane where he maybe thirtieth, so he's a
Speaker 3: little bit more than a month. And we're driving around
Speaker 3: aimlessly and aimlessly, and every time I see a police
Speaker 3: car it's like I get this little chill and I
Speaker 3: don't know what's going to happen here. Eventually we get
Speaker 3: in touch with this lawyer. We were outside of a
Speaker 3: restaurant and I remember I spoke to him briefly. I
Speaker 3: didn't have any information for him. I didn't know what
Speaker 3: to tell him. He's asking me for information, like I'm
Speaker 3: supposed to know certain things. I don't know nothing.
Speaker 2: All you know is that the cops are looking for.
Speaker 3: Well, no, I didn't even know there was a murder
Speaker 3: at the time. At that point, all I was told
Speaker 3: was that a cop was shot. But I just want
Speaker 3: to address this and get it over with because the
Speaker 3: longer I'm out here, the more my life is in jeopardy.
Speaker 2: And he wants you to give him details, which you would.
Speaker 3: Have to have them. I'm trying to tell him, I'm
Speaker 3: hiring you so you can get the details, right, That's
Speaker 3: just why I'm calling you. So he said that he
Speaker 3: had contacted the precinct but that they weren't giving any information.
Speaker 3: They just wanted me to turn myself in. But I
Speaker 3: left him on the phone my mother, and when my
Speaker 3: mother came back, I was so upset. I was scared,
Speaker 3: but I was so upset that I decided there's no
Speaker 3: way I want to deal with this guy. Because this
Speaker 3: lawyer told my mother that if we were to get
Speaker 3: pulled over by police, that I should put my head
Speaker 3: down in the ground and that my mother should throw
Speaker 3: her body over me to make sure that nothing happens
Speaker 3: to me, because I could get shot and I didn't
Speaker 3: like that. You know, if anything, he should have said
Speaker 3: that to me while I was on the phone. You
Speaker 3: don't see that to my mother had a frantic you know.
Speaker 1: That's a strange thing for a lawyer to say. I mean,
Speaker 1: I understand he was in a certain way trying to
Speaker 1: prevent it. Looking that's a little bit hysterical. Yeah, and yeah,
Speaker 1: and you're absolutely right. I mean he should have addressed
Speaker 1: that directly with you, right, So you ended up not engaging.
Speaker 3: I didn't engage with him. We ended up dealing with
Speaker 3: an attorney. I believe his name is Goldstein. I don't
Speaker 3: know his first name. And he told us to go
Speaker 3: to a hotel and we got a hotel. We called
Speaker 3: him from the hotel, gave me the address, and everything
Speaker 3: is crazy. At this point, Vanessa and my mother go
Speaker 3: get the hotel room. I'm sneaking in through the back.
Speaker 3: I'm afraid, and I'm staying in the hotel room. I'm
Speaker 3: waiting for this guy. So this the lawyer comes. He
Speaker 3: comes to the hotel and he meets me and he's like,
Speaker 3: all right, how you're doing this is what's going to happen.
Speaker 3: I contacted the precinct. I told him that I'm arranging
Speaker 3: to turn you in on Monday, right because it was
Speaker 3: Saturday still, so he says, I'm going to turn you
Speaker 3: in on Monday. Until then, I want you to stay
Speaker 3: in this hotel room. I do not want you to
Speaker 3: leave this hotel room. I want you to shave your face.
Speaker 3: I want you to be clean shaving. We're going to
Speaker 3: walk into that precinct early in the morning on Monday,
Speaker 3: and we're going to deal with this situation. I want
Speaker 3: a thousand dollars right now. I want one thousand dollars
Speaker 3: the day that you turn yourself in on Monday, and
Speaker 3: then you'll be locked up and Friday you'll be going
Speaker 3: to an arraignment. And at that point, I want five
Speaker 3: thousand dollars. And I'm like, what are you not getting
Speaker 3: I didn't do anything. What are you talking about that?
Speaker 3: I got to give you money? Now, give you money again,
Speaker 3: then give you money on Friday. And you're saying them,
Speaker 3: spend five days in jail. What do you represent me for?
Speaker 3: And he's like, listen, I'm just telling you these are
Speaker 3: some serious charges. This was going to happen. You want
Speaker 3: me to be real with you or not. So I
Speaker 3: give him the money. I gave him the first thousand dollars,
Speaker 3: and I'm just frantic. I don't know what's going to happen.
Speaker 3: This guy's telling me now that I'm going to jail,
Speaker 3: like it doesn't matter what I did or didn't do.
Speaker 3: I'm going to jail.
Speaker 1: And let's go back for a second. I mean, we're
Speaker 1: talking twenty years ago. That was a lot of money.
Speaker 1: I mean there's a lot of money now. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of money.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 3: Yeah. He actually said that the case was going to
Speaker 3: cost fifty thousand dollars before everything was said and done,
Speaker 3: because I would be going to trial on this case.
Speaker 3: So he basically convicted me before we even got to
Speaker 3: the precinct. So this is the mindset that I'm dealing with. Already,
Speaker 3: two lawyers have rubbed me the wrong way, and at
Speaker 3: that time, I'm not measuring if maybe it's because of
Speaker 3: the emotions that I have something inside of me, maybe
Speaker 3: it's not them. I'm not thinking like that. I was
Speaker 3: twenty one years old, and eventually, you know, I'm just
Speaker 3: sitting there and I keep staring at my children, I'm
Speaker 3: staring at for us, and I'm staring at my mother,
Speaker 3: and I'm saying, this might be the last time I
Speaker 3: get to see my children, This might be the last
Speaker 3: time I get to see my mother. How did this happen?
Speaker 1: It's literally everybody's worst nightmare. Everybody's out to get you.
Speaker 1: You didn't do anything, and it's the most terrible thing
Speaker 1: that you could be accused of. The murder or the
Speaker 1: shooting of a police officer is right at the top
Speaker 1: of them to the list of things that you don't
Speaker 1: want to be wrongly accused.
Speaker 3: And bear in mind you're talking to the son of
Speaker 3: a police officer. I was raising a police officer's household, right,
Speaker 3: I mean, what sense would it make for me to
Speaker 3: go out on a rampage and shoot a police officer.
Speaker 1: That's crazy, And you had no history of violence, and
Speaker 1: none of it adds up. The nightmare is growing as
Speaker 1: you are encountering these people who are supposed to be
Speaker 1: on your side and people who are supposed to be
Speaker 1: helping you. Right, your only chance is to get a
Speaker 1: lawyer that's going to represent you. Monday comes actually the
Speaker 1: step back just a second.
Speaker 3: Sunday, I get a call from Frank gould and Frank
Speaker 3: gould Man. There's something about this guy. He's a real
Speaker 3: smooth talker. He made me feel comfortable and he said, Yo, listen,
Speaker 3: don't worry about that guy Goldsting. I'm gonna see if
Speaker 3: I can get the thousand dollars from him. If not,
Speaker 3: don't worry about it. We're not even talking about money
Speaker 3: right now. You're in a serious dilemma. And guess what,
Speaker 3: I want to meet you outside that precinct. We're gonna
Speaker 3: meet in the morning time. I'm gonna walk in there
Speaker 3: with you. We're gonna see what's going on. You wait
Speaker 3: for my phone call. After my phone call, you meet
Speaker 3: me in front of the twenty eighth precinct and we'll
Speaker 3: deal with this situation. He made me feel a thousand
Speaker 3: times better. I mean, he knew how to talk to me.
Speaker 3: He's talking to me like, all right, you're innocent. We're
Speaker 3: gonna see what's going on, and we're gonna play this
Speaker 3: by ear not you're going to jail, you're gonna get shot.
Speaker 3: That's not what somebody wants to hear. And I really
Speaker 3: respected that, and eventually Monday came and that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 3: We had found out that the apartment in the Bronx
Speaker 3: thirteen forty four University Avenue, the door to our apartment
Speaker 3: was hanging off the hinges with a police lock on it,
Speaker 3: which means that the police had gone into the building,
Speaker 3: went into my apartment, knocked down the door. They've been
Speaker 3: in it. They said it was trash. These were neighbors
Speaker 3: that ended up calling. They got in touch with Vanessa,
Speaker 3: I believe. So we sent Vanessa home and my mother
Speaker 3: took me to the Priescst to meet my attorneys. So
Speaker 3: now we get to the front and Frank Goule's there
Speaker 3: with another attorney. Her name is Susan Walsh. We're on
Speaker 3: the steps. My mother's like, you know, you want me
Speaker 3: to stay and wait for you out here. I said, listen,
Speaker 3: I don't know what's going to happen. Just go home.
Speaker 3: If anything, I'll take a cab. Just go home. And
Speaker 3: she's like, all right, And I mean, that was the
Speaker 3: last time I got to touch my mother as a
Speaker 3: free person. It's kind of crazy. And we walked into
Speaker 3: the precinct and when we went in there, Frank said,
Speaker 3: give me a minute. He left me there with Susan.
Speaker 3: I remember him coming and saying, let's go. I said,
Speaker 3: what you mean let's go? He said, let's get out
Speaker 3: of here. They don't got no warm for your arrest.
Speaker 3: So we're walking out, and I'm like, listen, Frank, you
Speaker 3: really have to make me understand what's going on. I've
Speaker 3: been frantic for an entire weekend, running around with my family,
Speaker 3: staying in hotels, being threatened by lawyers, and you're telling
Speaker 3: me we could just walk away from this. And he's like,
Speaker 3: they don't have a waran for your arrest. So I
Speaker 3: want you to go home. I said, and then what
Speaker 3: happens when I go home? I got a door hanging
Speaker 3: off a hinge. What happens when I go home? Is
Speaker 3: this over? He said, no, it's not over. I said,
Speaker 3: what do you mean it's not over? He says, they
Speaker 3: want to put you in a lineup. I'm not going
Speaker 3: to let them put you in a lineup. I said,
Speaker 3: what happens if I don't get picked in that lineup?
Speaker 3: He says, then you're free. I said, so I'm going
Speaker 3: in that lineup? He says, no, you're not. Let us
Speaker 3: do our job, let them do their job. Okay, I'm like, no,
Speaker 3: it's not okay. I want to go in that lineup.
Speaker 3: You're telling me that the only way that this is
Speaker 3: going to be over is if I go in that
Speaker 3: lineup and I don't get picked, telling you I didn't
Speaker 3: do this crime. So I'm going in that lineup. He says.
Speaker 3: If you get picked in that lineup, your life is
Speaker 3: going to change forever. But you're going to jail, I said,
Speaker 3: and what happens if I leave? What do they go
Speaker 3: pick me up? Put something in my pocket or do
Speaker 3: they shoot at me? Do you realize what I've been
Speaker 3: through this weekend? I'm going in that lineup. And that's
Speaker 3: exactly what we did. We walked back in that precinct
Speaker 3: and I volunteered for that lineup. I stood in a bullpen,
Speaker 3: like the outside area of a bullpen, sitting in a
Speaker 3: chair with Susan wallsh for a couple of hours while
Speaker 3: they went and got some phyllis.
Speaker 1: And this is a bizarre part of the story too,
Speaker 1: because at this point it's interesting and it's important that
Speaker 1: you highlighted that you just spent the weekend like a
Speaker 1: fugitive hiding out. It's exactly when you come to find
Speaker 1: out they don't even have a warm for your arrest.
Speaker 1: Now you're volunteering for a lineup, which you would be
Speaker 1: a little nuts if you were actually guilty to go
Speaker 1: and do that. Absolutely, that doesn't add up. And then
Speaker 1: you know, you don't have to be a professor of
Speaker 1: criminology to understand that, right. And then on top of that,
Speaker 1: you didn't know this at the time, but the suspect
Speaker 1: they were looking for was a guy named Mustafa. Is
Speaker 1: any part of your name Mustafa?
Speaker 3: Absolutely?
Speaker 1: And the suspect they were looking for was a black
Speaker 1: male with dreads, right, right? Have you ever been a
Speaker 1: black mail or had dreads?
Speaker 3: Maybe in another life?
Speaker 1: Right, So it would be pretty much it would seem
Speaker 1: like an open and shut situation. And there were numerous
Speaker 1: witnesses who all agreed on this description. It wasn't like
Speaker 1: it was one that said this and one that said that.
Speaker 1: There were numerous witnesses who all said that the suspect
Speaker 1: that the police were looking for was a guy whose.
Speaker 2: Street name was Mustafa.
Speaker 1: And I want to encourage people to watch the show
Speaker 1: on jj coul Conviction, because in it you'll see the
Speaker 1: actual police sketch, which it doesn't look any more like
Speaker 1: you than it looks like me.
Speaker 2: It's a guy. It's a black guy with dreads.
Speaker 1: Had you known that, it would have been perfectly logical
Speaker 1: for you to go into the lineup. And I think
Speaker 1: people can identify with the idea that you're going in
Speaker 1: there and saying, well, I mean you grew up as
Speaker 1: the son of a police officer.
Speaker 2: You're going to say to yourself, well, the system is
Speaker 2: going to work.
Speaker 1: Absolutely right, I mean that was my belief, right, You're
Speaker 1: going to go in there and there's no way that
Speaker 1: somebody's going to pick you out of that lineup, even
Speaker 1: not knowing what we just talked about, right, But had
Speaker 1: you known that, you would have been one hundred percent
Speaker 1: sure that if you go in there, they can't pick
Speaker 1: you out of that lineup. So finally, now you're going
Speaker 1: into the lineup. Yes, And got to be a surreal
Speaker 1: experience too. It was like kind of right out of
Speaker 1: a movie, right, So for this time you're not watching,
Speaker 1: you're actually in it.
Speaker 3: Well, that was my second time ever being in a lineup.
Speaker 3: The first time I was a student at Martin Luther
Speaker 3: King High School and they had this little bus coming
Speaker 3: around and they were offering us five hours to appear
Speaker 3: in a lineup, and I took it five hours, you know,
Speaker 3: take that, and I went to a lineup. So it
Speaker 3: wasn't the first time I was in a lineup, but
Speaker 3: it was the first time I was in the lineup
Speaker 3: as a suspect. And you know, I don't know what's
Speaker 3: going on on the other side if there's a mirror there,
Speaker 3: and I don't know what's going on the other side,
Speaker 3: but I do know that Susan Walsh is on that side.
Speaker 3: So what happened was when Frank Goule finally realized that
Speaker 3: I was determined to go into that priest and volunteer
Speaker 3: for the lineup, he said, listen, if you're going in
Speaker 3: for the lineup, you're going to stay here with Susan.
Speaker 3: I have to leave because it would be a conflicent
Speaker 3: interest for me to be your witness and your attorney.
Speaker 3: So she's an attorney and she is your witness. And
Speaker 3: that's basically where I still felt comfortable, because I was like,
Speaker 3: she's there, and I'm going to be all right. And
Speaker 3: sure enough, at some point told Number three to stand
Speaker 3: and approach the mirror, and then they told him to
Speaker 3: sit down. Then they said Number two we need you
Speaker 3: to stand up and approach the mirror. And I did
Speaker 3: that and I sat back down. They said, everybody said
Speaker 3: thank you. Here it's like a speaker somewhere in the
Speaker 3: room and he's like, thank you.
Speaker 1: Be there.
Speaker 3: Shortly, somebody comes and opens the door and says everybody
Speaker 3: can leave. I start to get up. He's like, no,
Speaker 3: you stay. So I don't know if I have to
Speaker 3: fill out some paperwork or something before I leave. I said,
Speaker 3: all right, I sit down. Eventually they take me around
Speaker 3: back to the same room and Susan's there and she's like, Jay,
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, but you're gonna be staying. I said, what
Speaker 3: are you talking about. I'm gonna be staying. She said,
Speaker 3: you know you were picked, but there's some serious problems
Speaker 3: with your lineup. They made me wear a hat. I
Speaker 3: don't know that that's a problem then, but they made
Speaker 3: us all wear these black pullover hats, winter hats, ski hats.
Speaker 3: They had a problem with fillers. But at the end
Speaker 3: of the day, there's an existing affidavit from Susan Walsh.
Speaker 3: She's admitting that my lineup was manipulated on that day,
Speaker 3: and unbeknownst to me, what she's saying is that she
Speaker 3: had an argument with the police officers about my position.
Speaker 3: She wanted me between number five and number six, and
Speaker 3: they said, nah, we're not doing that. Here he's sitting
Speaker 3: right there, he's number two.
Speaker 1: They didn't want you to be between five and six,
Speaker 1: They wanted you to be number two.
Speaker 2: What is the significance of that?
Speaker 3: Even towards trial, I really didn't understand the significance of it.
Speaker 3: But now in all my studies, it's supposed to be
Speaker 3: kind of a random process. And there's a lot of
Speaker 3: studies going on now about sequential lineups and double blind lineups.
Speaker 3: By putting me in a certain position, it can be
Speaker 3: inferred that you have already told these witnesses that an
Speaker 3: individual that committed the crime is going to be sitting
Speaker 3: in a particular position, right, So that will they enable
Speaker 3: the identification?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Of course, they could say up front, you know, take
Speaker 1: a real close look at number two, right, they could say,
Speaker 1: And that's why a double blind And for those of
Speaker 1: you listening, a double blind means that the person conducting,
Speaker 1: whether it's a police officer or anyone else conducting the lineup,
Speaker 1: should not know cannot.
Speaker 2: Know, who the suspect is.
Speaker 1: Because even if their intentions are pure, they subconsciously can
Speaker 1: steer a witness absolutely to just sort of take another
Speaker 1: I mean, you're doing good. I know this is very
Speaker 1: difficult for you, but you know you got to really
Speaker 1: try hard. Because we've seen it many times. A witness
Speaker 1: will say, I don't know, I don't I don't think
Speaker 1: I see the person in it. Go well, listen, I mean,
Speaker 1: we really need your help. You know, this is a
Speaker 1: brutal crime, this is a we've got to get this
Speaker 1: guy off the streets. What they should be saying is,
Speaker 1: we don't know whether the actual killer, the actual perpetrator
Speaker 1: is in this lineup, absolutely, but if you see them,
Speaker 1: then we need your help.
Speaker 2: But they don't do that.
Speaker 3: They don't typically they they and.
Speaker 1: They may in many cases, and we don't know, but
Speaker 1: in your because we don't know what was going on
Speaker 1: in that room. But it's entirely possible that in your case,
Speaker 1: that your suspicions are true. That they said we think
Speaker 1: we got the guy. We think it's number two. Take
Speaker 1: a look. Let's see if you agree.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Anything like that, even something much more subtle than that,
Speaker 1: can really terribly mess up the process and eliminate objectivity,
Speaker 1: but even then, memories far from perfect.
Speaker 3: Because that's that's what a lineup does. Who looks most
Speaker 3: like the individual, it's not who looks most like the
Speaker 3: individual who did it right, That's why we're here. And
Speaker 3: I was selected by three individuals, Philip Jones, Robert Jones,
Speaker 3: who were both brothers, and Augustus Brown. Later learning that
Speaker 3: Augustus Brown had actually been the person who selected my photo,
Speaker 3: which made me a suspect, so there was really no
Speaker 3: need for him to come and identify me again. So
Speaker 3: if you look at it in a realistic manner, at
Speaker 3: the lineup, there were only two people who really identified
Speaker 3: me because Augustus Brown had already made me a suspect.
Speaker 3: But technically all three of those individuals out of five individuals,
Speaker 3: had identified me.
Speaker 1: And we know that Augustus Brown had a very good
Speaker 1: reason to want to identify you because Augustus Brown was
Speaker 1: a heroin dealer.
Speaker 3: Yes, he was so not.
Speaker 1: Somebody you would consider to be a top notch witness
Speaker 1: or a reliable witness necessarily, and he had a motivation
Speaker 1: which was that when he was picked up, correctly if
Speaker 1: I'm wrong, when he was picked up, he was in
Speaker 1: possession of ten bags of heroin. Yes he was, and
Speaker 1: the cops weren't letting him leave until he identified somebody
Speaker 1: they wanted this case soft.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Sugustus Brown is an interesting character all to himself.
Speaker 3: He has a rap sheet that we can stick on
Speaker 3: the wall and drop to the floor, but in reality,
Speaker 3: he was actively on probation at that time. We come
Speaker 3: to find out a trial that he wasn't reporting, so
Speaker 3: he had already abscounded from probation right this, which is
Speaker 3: why he fled before any police would arrive. When he
Speaker 3: gets picked up, because he didn't come to the priestsint voluntarily.
Speaker 3: They he was sent multiple messages to come to the precinct.
Speaker 3: He was arrested on a street corner that he sold
Speaker 3: drugs on. He did get caught with ten bags of
Speaker 3: heroin on him. He was brought to a precinct and
Speaker 3: he spent hours in that precinct. He came about three
Speaker 3: o'clock and he wasn't let go until about eleven o'clock
Speaker 3: at night from a different precinct. He has stated on
Speaker 3: multiple occasions that he was wrong and that he was
Speaker 3: forced to do what he did, and there's layers to this.
Speaker 3: So when he was at the precinct. They were trying
Speaker 3: to time in as an accessory to murder. They told him,
Speaker 3: we got you in possession of drugs. I violated your
Speaker 3: probation and you fled the scene, and we have witnesses
Speaker 3: who think that you were a part of the team.
Speaker 3: So you're gonna be charged with accessory to murder if
Speaker 3: you don't help us do something. He looks at thousands
Speaker 3: of photos. It's supposed to be eight photos per page,
Speaker 3: and he looked at a total of one hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty six pages. But if you look at the description
Speaker 3: that he initially gave to the police, which was consistent
Speaker 3: and unanimous in the descriptions provided by all witnesses, that
Speaker 3: stated that two black males came into that place and
Speaker 3: victimized these individuals. One was dark skin and one was
Speaker 3: light skin. The light skin individual had dreads or braids.
Speaker 3: I don't know which one. Some of them said break,
Speaker 3: some of them said dreads.
Speaker 1: By the way, it's also arguable that your picture shouldn't
Speaker 1: have been in there in the first places.
Speaker 2: You're never convicted of anything.
Speaker 1: Freedom Agenda is a proud sponsor of this episode of
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction. Freedom Agenda is led by people directly impacted
Speaker 1: by incarceration, and they're organizing to get Mayor Eric Adams
Speaker 1: to follow the law and shut down Rikers Island. Right now,
Speaker 1: thousands of people are awaiting trial there in life threatening conditions.
Speaker 1: Freedom Agenda is committed to creating a safer and more
Speaker 1: just city by winning investments in long neglected communities, protecting
Speaker 1: the rights of people involved in the criminal legal system,
Speaker 1: and ending the cycle of violence that Rikers perpetuates. To
Speaker 1: learn more about the Campaign to Close Rikers and to
Speaker 1: sign up for Freedom Agenda's mailing list, go to Campaign
Speaker 1: to Close Rikers dot org, slash, get involved, or follow
Speaker 1: at Freedom Agenda.
Speaker 2: And Why on social media.
Speaker 1: Back to where we were at, You're now in this
Speaker 1: kafka esque and I always say that, but it's true
Speaker 1: nightmare where you're ready to leave the police station. You
Speaker 1: know they must have identified somebody else or nobody because
Speaker 1: you didn't do anything, and you don't even know it.
Speaker 1: But you don't match the description, not even close.
Speaker 2: But they tell you to day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so they tell me to stay. Susan says, listen,
Speaker 3: we'll see you in court tomorrow. You'll be arraigned and
Speaker 3: we'll take it day by day, take it one step
Speaker 3: at a time. In the meantime, before I leave, I
Speaker 3: want you just to be conscious of something. We told
Speaker 3: these offices that we took pictures of you and your
Speaker 3: underwear in a hotel and that if they touch you,
Speaker 3: they will be losing their job. So you should feel safe,
Speaker 3: you should be all right. Do not speak to them
Speaker 3: about anything. And from that point I was escorted into
Speaker 3: this small cage that had a concrete slab and a
Speaker 3: bunch of bars, and I stood theify I don't know
Speaker 3: how long, and you know, it was real. It was
Speaker 3: a real surreal experience where it was just like, you
Speaker 3: know what, you gotta realize at this point you just
Speaker 3: have to block everything out and deal with the situation,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. Don't talk to them, don't
Speaker 3: ask them no more questions, don't provoke them, just deal
Speaker 3: with it. And that's what I did. Eventually we got
Speaker 3: to Central Booking, and Central Booking is like another zoo, right,
Speaker 3: they heard you from one place to another, you shackled
Speaker 3: up on a chain gang, You got shackles on your feet,
Speaker 3: and you go from one bullpen to another bullpen, and
Speaker 3: it's twenty thirty of you moving at the same time
Speaker 3: people are sitting on the floor. You have homeless people
Speaker 3: in there. The smell is crazy. Some of these places.
Speaker 3: The plumbing is all messed up, so you might have
Speaker 3: some feat season and toilet or some urine, and the
Speaker 3: toilet might have urine on the floor because it might
Speaker 3: have flowed out, you know. And it's just a bunch
Speaker 3: of people around and you're lucky if you get a
Speaker 3: bench to sit on or whatever. And they kept moving,
Speaker 3: moving the chain, moving the chain, and eventually you get
Speaker 3: to this place and they start taking your stuff out
Speaker 3: of your pockets and they're searching you on the wall.
Speaker 3: And that's when I had my first serious experience with
Speaker 3: corrections officer. Just out of nowhere, towering officer, big hits
Speaker 3: me in the back and I never knew that you
Speaker 3: can get your wind knocked out from getting hit in
Speaker 3: the back. Knocks me, knocks me down. I'm conscious, but
Speaker 3: I'm just like blown away and he's just wailing at me,
Speaker 3: and I'm just covering up officers that brought me in.
Speaker 3: They were still around and they had stopped them. They say, oh, listen,
Speaker 3: leave them alone. You can't do that. He's like yeah,
Speaker 3: but he killed a cop. He thinks he's a tough guy.
Speaker 3: I Mi, shewe him a tough guy, and I'm like, yo,
Speaker 3: I don't know what's going on. And what ended up
Speaker 3: happening at that point was they moved me and I
Speaker 3: got separated from the rest of the prisoners and I
Speaker 3: got put in a bullpenp by myself. I could still
Speaker 3: see prisoners in a bull pit adjacent from me right across.
Speaker 3: They got bullpens everywhere, but I'm by myself now, so
Speaker 3: I definitely have all the room to stretch out and
Speaker 3: lay down and do whatever on a bench. That wasn't
Speaker 3: the problem, but I start to realize the fear of
Speaker 3: what that lawyer was talking about that first time when
Speaker 3: he told my mother that this is serious, and I'm
Speaker 3: wondering how much more do I have to go through?
Speaker 3: And he had before I'm able to get out. Fortunately
Speaker 3: for me, I never had that problem again. But that's
Speaker 3: where I first got a taste of reality. The next
Speaker 3: day came and I go into another bullpen where they
Speaker 3: have these windows that you can have attorneys come visit you,
Speaker 3: so they call your name. So eventually my name gets
Speaker 3: called and I go in there and it's another attorney.
Speaker 3: It's not frankl it's not Susan Waash, nobody I never
Speaker 3: met in my life. His name is Norman Rima. And
Speaker 3: Norman Riema comes and he tells me. He says, listen,
Speaker 3: mister Velaskaz, we're about to go in front of the
Speaker 3: judge and you're going to be arrainged. But I just
Speaker 3: want to put you on point to a few things
Speaker 3: that are important. You're being charged with capital murder. I said,
Speaker 3: what is that? He says, you're facing the death penalty.
Speaker 3: I said, what the death penalty? I mean, I don't
Speaker 3: understand what's going on. And everything is spinning. The walls
Speaker 3: are spinning. Norman Reema is talking. It's incoherent. I don't
Speaker 3: know what you're saying. I don't hear you. I block
Speaker 3: everything out, and I just I don't know how I
Speaker 3: got to that point. And at that point, I don't
Speaker 3: even know how I coped with that, how I dealt
Speaker 3: with that, I don't know. I went into some short
Speaker 3: sense of trauma and I became numb. I do recall
Speaker 3: him saying don't worry about the death penalty, which was
Speaker 3: didn't do any good, right, But he said, don't worry
Speaker 3: about the death penalty because Robert morganhal has never pursued
Speaker 3: the death penalty in New York. So within six months
Speaker 3: they'll probably drop that and you'll be facing natural life
Speaker 3: in prison. And I said, Norman, I didn't commit this crime.
Speaker 3: Why are we talking about death? Why are we talking
Speaker 3: about natural life? Why aren't we talking about freedom? Why
Speaker 3: aren't we talking about restoring my status as a citizen.
Speaker 3: And he's like, listen, you just have to stay strong.
Speaker 3: But you're not going nowhere else. You're not getting bail.
Speaker 3: You're gonna have to go through this process. I said, well,
Speaker 3: how long is this process going to take? And he
Speaker 3: said anywhere from six months to a year, maybe two years,
Speaker 3: there's no telling. You just gotta stay strong and talk
Speaker 3: about turning point in life. Everything changed from there. I
Speaker 3: got sent to Rikers Island, ryk As Island is a
Speaker 3: war zone. You know, they call that the school a
Speaker 3: hard Knocks, but it's more like Vietnam or going to
Speaker 3: Iraq because everywhere you go there's blood. And that's all
Speaker 3: it happens, is humans shedding other human's blood. And you
Speaker 3: see it everywhere. There's no way around it. To fight
Speaker 3: after fight, I mean, I don't know how is it
Speaker 3: able to navigate through a lot of that. But I
Speaker 3: made it through. I have no scars, I'm still safe,
Speaker 3: I'm in one piece, and I'm blessed. Eighteen months I
Speaker 3: did on Rykers Island. Eighteen months I was able to
Speaker 3: navigate through the bullshit, and eventually I went to trial.
Speaker 3: And going to trial was the first time I get
Speaker 3: to learn how everything unfolded and took place, because for
Speaker 3: all those months, I still couldn't underst then what's going on?
Speaker 3: How did it happen? What took place? Why am I here?
Speaker 3: Those questions weren't answered. They weren't answered by my lawyers.
Speaker 3: They just stay strong, John, We're gonna make it through
Speaker 3: and worry about it when we get to trial. We mean,
Speaker 3: don't worry about it. Life continues, It doesn't stop for anyone.
Speaker 3: My children are growing. I watched Jacob's first steps. We're
Speaker 3: in a visiting room on Rikers Island. For me, the
Speaker 3: first time I seen my son come to me. He's
Speaker 3: daddy walking. He's smaller than the table. I raised my
Speaker 3: children in prison. That wasn't easy, and looking back at
Speaker 3: it now, I can't even take credit for raising my children. Actually,
Speaker 3: so I go to trial, and during the trial, I
Speaker 3: start to learn things. I learned that this cop tried
Speaker 3: to interfere with the robbery that was taking place because
Speaker 3: he owned the establishment. And I knew that relative earlier
Speaker 3: as a retired police officer who owned the gambling place.
Speaker 3: He also owned the Basket Robbers one hundred and twenty
Speaker 3: fifth Street. He also owned some print shop and another bar.
Speaker 3: Own a lot of establishments for police officer or a
Speaker 3: retired police officer rather. And he had this legal gambling
Speaker 3: spot and somebody came in. They're saying to shoot him,
Speaker 3: this light skinned guy with this with these braids or
Speaker 3: these dreads, and he came in. He tried to place
Speaker 3: a bet. And this spot is one hundred and twenty
Speaker 3: fifth Street between hundred twenty fifth and one hundred twenty
Speaker 3: six and eighth Avenue. So this guy comes in, it's
Speaker 3: broad daylight, somewhere around noon, and he comes in, he
Speaker 3: places a bet. So when he comes into place to bet,
Speaker 3: the guy's like, yo, listen, we don't do that here.
Speaker 3: You're a stranger. Get out of here. He's like, I
Speaker 3: ain't no stranger, man, I'm not a cop from the projects.
Speaker 3: He said, Yeah, I'm from the projects. I played my
Speaker 3: number on the east side. Man, I'm not trying to
Speaker 3: go down there. Let me just play my number. So
Speaker 3: they like, all right here. So he goes to fill
Speaker 3: out the betting slip. They said, he filled out the
Speaker 3: wrong slip. This is Robert Jones testifying, right, because I
Speaker 3: learned everything through testimony. So now Robert Jones says he
Speaker 3: filled out the wrong betty slip. He takes it, throws
Speaker 3: it out, and fills out the right slip for him.
Speaker 3: So then he leaves it said. Forty five minutes later
Speaker 3: to an hour later, this guy comes back, knocks on
Speaker 3: the door. The numbers about to come out. They're not
Speaker 3: taking more bets, they said, Yo, let him in. Let
Speaker 3: him in, worry about he was here earlier. So he's like, yo,
Speaker 3: want to place another bet? He said, Yo, be BET's
Speaker 3: a closed, but the numbers about to come out. Just
Speaker 3: stick around. Next thing you know, another knock comes on
Speaker 3: the door, and then the doorman's at the door and
Speaker 3: he's like, yo, there's another guy here. Man, we can't
Speaker 3: keep letting these guys there. Next thing you know, they said,
Speaker 3: this light skinned guy pulls out a gun. He's like
Speaker 3: you know what it is. Let my man. The guy
Speaker 3: comes in. Next thing, you know, they tell everybody get
Speaker 3: on the ground, and I don't know what happened, but
Speaker 3: there was an exchange of fire and eventually the officer
Speaker 3: or the retired officer, wound up dead on the ground.
Speaker 1: So pandemonium inside the book He Joint or the Illegal
Speaker 1: Numbers Joint is total. You've got people being tied up,
Speaker 1: you've got people jumping over things, you've got gunshots ringing out,
Speaker 1: you've got people fleeing, and in the process, a retired
Speaker 1: police officers killed.
Speaker 2: So here you are at the trial and you're being
Speaker 2: represented by Norman Reamer, Norman and Frank Goulden, and now
Speaker 2: you've been in the system for eighteen months.
Speaker 3: At that time. Yes, to be precise, I turned myself
Speaker 3: in February second, nineteen ninety eight. I walked into that precinct.
Speaker 3: The choice to be in that lineup was the last
Speaker 3: choice I made as a free man. I was on
Speaker 3: trial in October of nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 1: Right, so over a year and a half in the
Speaker 1: most dangerous prison in New York State, which is Rikers Island.
Speaker 3: So the trial, at the trial, this is where I
Speaker 3: get the revelation of what occurred. You have several witnesses
Speaker 3: who come and they testify. What people need to realize
Speaker 3: is that everybody that was at this illegal gambling spot
Speaker 3: was engaging in criminal activity. Every single one of those
Speaker 3: people could have been arrested in charged with a crime
Speaker 3: where the murder of a retired police officer occurred, so
Speaker 3: it was serious for all of them. They were all
Speaker 3: under pressure. And then you have to think about the response.
Speaker 3: You're talking about the center of Harlem in broad daylight,
Speaker 3: a retired officer who worked that area, who owned the
Speaker 3: basket Robbins in that area, was shot and killed. There
Speaker 3: has to be a response so that the people in
Speaker 3: that neighborhood, the residents of Harlem, understand that this is
Speaker 3: not tolerable. There has to be a response for that
Speaker 3: the people in the residence of Harlem can understand that
Speaker 3: this is still a safe environment. And that's why there's
Speaker 3: so much pressure to bring somebody to jail.
Speaker 1: And you bring up another interesting point, which is that
Speaker 1: everybody involved had a very strong motive. I want to
Speaker 1: identify you because it takes the heat off of them, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just straightforward as it could be. I mean,
Speaker 1: these are all people who were engaged in the various
Speaker 1: activities of various different degrees, and the situation provided them
Speaker 1: a very convenient way to make this problem go away,
Speaker 1: and that opportunity was sitting right in front of them.
Speaker 1: All they had to do was point to you and
Speaker 1: say that's the guy who did it. Now you go
Speaker 1: through the trial, all the evidence has been presented, prosecutors
Speaker 1: do their.
Speaker 2: Thing, the defense does its thing.
Speaker 1: As we know, the defense did a very competent job
Speaker 1: in your case, but they were hamstrung by the fact
Speaker 1: that they didn't have the money to do the proper
Speaker 1: investigations leading up to the trial. And the fact is
Speaker 1: that's where the real stuff happens, right, That's where you
Speaker 1: can't go into.
Speaker 2: A war with a toy pistol. Right.
Speaker 1: In fact, that's kind of what happens in these cases
Speaker 1: when you have a defense team that isn't given access
Speaker 1: to the evidence, that isn't even the resources or the
Speaker 1: time because they're so busy to properly investigate the situation.
Speaker 1: And then they're going in there and they're doing the
Speaker 1: best job that they can and presenting the best arguments
Speaker 1: of the camp, but they don't have the information that
Speaker 1: they need that. Actually, in your case, had they been
Speaker 1: able to do that, it's almost impossible to imagine that
Speaker 1: a jury would have convicted you. But that's exactly what happened,
Speaker 1: and that's why we're sitting here right now, and let's
Speaker 1: talk about that. So the moment comes when all the
Speaker 1: evidence has been presented, the jury goes out, and they
Speaker 1: didn't go out for a short time either.
Speaker 2: They were out for a long time.
Speaker 3: They started getting their instructions Monday, and they started deliberating Tuesday,
Speaker 3: and from Tuesday from ten in the morning to ten
Speaker 3: at night, Wednesday from ten in the morning to ten
Speaker 3: at night, Thursday from ten in the morning to ten
Speaker 3: at night, and to Friday, where the judge is telling
Speaker 3: them in the evening, if you do not come back
Speaker 3: with a verdict, you will be sequested. That means that
Speaker 3: they were going to be held and they weren't going
Speaker 3: to be able to go home over the weekend. Probably
Speaker 3: about another hour later, hour and a half later, they
Speaker 3: came back with a verdict and they found me not
Speaker 3: guilty of murdering the first degree.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: That was the first ruling. Right, So you had reason
Speaker 1: to be optimistic. Now, all of a sudden, you're like, okay,
Speaker 1: so not guilty.
Speaker 3: Murder, not guilty in a first degree, and then guilty, guilty, guilty.
Speaker 3: I just kept hearing it over and over again. For
Speaker 3: every other charge. They were charges of robbery, charges of
Speaker 3: attempt murder, another charge of murder for the same exact
Speaker 3: crime that I was just acquitted of. Right. The only
Speaker 3: reason why it was murdering the first degree was because
Speaker 3: of the occupation, the former occupation of the person who
Speaker 3: got killed, right, because he was a police officer. I
Speaker 3: was facing the death penalty, but I wasn't facing the
Speaker 3: death penalty at that particular phase. I was actually facing
Speaker 3: the same charge one twenty five, twenty seven, murdering the
Speaker 3: first degree, natural life in prison, no opportunity for parole,
Speaker 3: never to be released again. And that's what they acquitted
Speaker 3: me of. See, but the jury doesn't understand what's going on.
Speaker 3: In fact, through investigations in another film that's taking place now,
Speaker 3: I found out that several jurors in that jury room,
Speaker 3: in that deliberation room, had an impression that I might
Speaker 3: be able to go home in two years as long
Speaker 3: as they acquitted me of the top charge and found
Speaker 3: me guilty. Of the lesson, and they figured that I
Speaker 3: was young enough to be able to bounce back from
Speaker 3: that and continue with my life. I have no idea
Speaker 3: where they got that impression, because two decades have passed
Speaker 3: and I'm still in prison.
Speaker 1: But that's extremely important because now with that information, you
Speaker 1: can sort of see into the mind of some of
Speaker 1: the jurors where they're sitting there and you have whatever
Speaker 1: number of them, two, three are going, the.
Speaker 2: Guy didn't do it.
Speaker 1: The guy didn't do it, and the other guys are going,
Speaker 1: I want to go home, and he's only going to
Speaker 1: be in for two years. Just go along with us.
Speaker 1: Maybe he did it, maybe he didn't. We can't sit
Speaker 1: here all weekend. I got things to do with my kids.
Speaker 1: I got to get back from whatever the hell they're saying.
Speaker 3: Right, absolutely, and it's obvious that this occurred because it
Speaker 3: took four days to come back with a verdict, so
Speaker 3: there was obviously some dissension in that room.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if it was a clear cut case, it would
Speaker 1: have been out in an hour. They would have stayed
Speaker 1: for lunch. So now you're found guilty on all these charges,
Speaker 1: you end up in this unbelievable situation, and here we
Speaker 1: are right now inside the walls of sing Sing, almost
Speaker 1: twenty years later. How did you manage to cope? Where
Speaker 1: does that spirit come from?
Speaker 3: It was an organic process, so it wasn't a methodical process.
Speaker 3: It wasn't thought out. It just kind of occurred. Basically,
Speaker 3: how I saw life was once I got out the fog.
Speaker 3: Because it took me a few years to get out
Speaker 3: the fog. What I realized is that life is about balance.
Speaker 3: So I'm at a low, the lowest I could possibly
Speaker 3: be to be alive on earth. I consider my circumstances
Speaker 3: being buried alive. I say that a lot. I still
Speaker 3: believe that. And I have this philosophy about time, and
Speaker 3: I said, I've been sent to twenty five a life.
Speaker 3: I wasn't even twenty five years old when that happened.
Speaker 3: So I was looking at a portion of time that
Speaker 3: I hadn't even lived yet, under the circumstances that I
Speaker 3: was in, and I couldn't see that. So I had
Speaker 3: to start lying to myself, and I didn't realize they
Speaker 3: were lies then for twenty years. Lady, you look back
Speaker 3: and you say, every year I told myself it would
Speaker 3: be my last in prison. I did that for nineteen
Speaker 3: years and I'm still here. So I was lying to myself,
Speaker 3: not knowing. But it was that sense of hope that
Speaker 3: allowed me to rise from the ashes of oppression into
Speaker 3: this resilient spirit that I've acquired. And the balance was
Speaker 3: about how do I reach beyond the boundaries of prison
Speaker 3: and become a person who's felt outside of those boundaries.
Speaker 3: How can I help others live? And that's where I
Speaker 3: started to acquire a love for writing, because my letters
Speaker 3: can reach outside the walls. My voice wasn't out yet,
Speaker 3: but I utilized writing. And you can change your life
Speaker 3: in prison. So instead of just taking time, the way
Speaker 3: I look at it is this My philosophy personally is
Speaker 3: that life is precious, There's no doubt about that, and
Speaker 3: time is priceless. And why is time priceless Because our
Speaker 3: lives as humans are being measured by the time that
Speaker 3: we spend a life on this earth. And if I'm
Speaker 3: going to be spending all this time in prison where
Speaker 3: I don't have particular responsibilities to anything except for my
Speaker 3: children and my mother, then I can utilize this time
Speaker 3: to learn because I have access to read. So I
Speaker 3: start reading, and I start listening, and I start watching
Speaker 3: and I start observing, and I start to realize that
Speaker 3: there's an untapped pool of resources in prison that exist.
Speaker 3: What I'm around is a compounded environment that's actually a
Speaker 3: microcosm of society. And the majority of the individuals that
Speaker 3: I'm around are the people who took the wrong path
Speaker 3: in life. So by sitting down and speaking to them
Speaker 3: and learning what caused them to come across this path,
Speaker 3: I've found answers that we can utilize as preventative measures.
Speaker 3: So now I've learned to take the tools that are
Speaker 3: around me and utilize them to spread the word, become
Speaker 3: a voice for the voiceless, and try to create healthy
Speaker 3: communities from the inside out. And that's how these projects
Speaker 3: started to take place. We have a project called Voices
Speaker 3: from Within right now. Voices from Within are a group
Speaker 3: of individuals or are using the power of their testimony,
Speaker 3: guilty individuals that are using the power of their testimony
Speaker 3: to reach out to the youth and tell them you
Speaker 3: don't want to do this.
Speaker 1: And I've seen the Voices from Within and I recommend
Speaker 1: anybody check it out. It's so powerful because there are
Speaker 1: people who shot someone, killed someone, They've taken life, they've
Speaker 1: taken life, and they have such an incredible sense of
Speaker 1: remorse and responsibility for their actions, and they're channeling into
Speaker 1: a need to help others not make those same mistakes.
Speaker 1: There's one that sticks.
Speaker 2: In my mind.
Speaker 1: The guy who you know was in the movie theater
Speaker 1: right and you know what, think a rival gang or
Speaker 1: something like that started shooting and he shot back in
Speaker 1: the dark and shot an innocent person. And you know,
Speaker 1: you almost put yourself in that situation, and it's so
Speaker 1: vivid when you see him talk about it and the
Speaker 1: pain that he feels of having taken away, as he says,
Speaker 1: the son of somebody, or the brother or the It's
Speaker 1: a very very powerful thing and a very positive thing
Speaker 1: that's turning a negative inty positive. Aside from the voices
Speaker 1: from within, there's a number of other things that you've
Speaker 1: accomplished in prison. Absolutely, Why don't you just run through
Speaker 1: some of the laundry list of things?
Speaker 3: For me, these weren't tasks. This was a lifestyle that
Speaker 3: I've adopted. So in running through them, a lot of
Speaker 3: them are vivid. But I never realized how much I've
Speaker 3: actually accomplished until I was tasked with putting this together
Speaker 3: for clemency. It all started with a think tank in
Speaker 3: an inmate organization, and before you knew it, I became
Speaker 3: the community organizer of the facility and I started getting
Speaker 3: involved at anything that's positive or if anybody needed help
Speaker 3: how to put something together. I had this tenacity that
Speaker 3: was inherent to just be able to put things together,
Speaker 3: and we started doing it. When I came to this facility,
Speaker 3: there were a lot more options available. Sink singh is
Speaker 3: the big House of New York. It's the prison right
Speaker 3: but it has been redubbed into sing sing University and
Speaker 3: a documentary about Hudson Link that has been on HBO.
Speaker 3: So I started to go to college right. I started
Speaker 3: to acquire a degree in behavioral science, and I started
Speaker 3: to apply what I was learning between that and what
Speaker 3: I've learned on my own and what was happening in organizations.
Speaker 3: And then I found like minded individuals and we called
Speaker 3: ourselves the Forgotten Voices, and we said, you know what,
Speaker 3: we need to reach out to people who can make
Speaker 3: and affect change. So it's teaching children, and we're working
Speaker 3: with the children of incarcerated parents because they're the closest
Speaker 3: ones to us. But we're trying to work with all children,
Speaker 3: and we're trying to reach out to organizations to help
Speaker 3: children choose better options in life and utilize the experiences
Speaker 3: of those who have choosed bad options in life as
Speaker 3: a platform of experience to learn from, saying you don't
Speaker 3: have to come here to learn this, you can be better.
Speaker 1: And it's so important because we know that number one
Speaker 1: factor that determines whether a child will end up in
Speaker 1: prison is not education or race or socioeconomic factors. It's
Speaker 1: whether or not they've had a parent in prison. So
Speaker 1: the idea that you're able to interfere and intervene, i
Speaker 1: should say, and helped to prevent that from happening is
Speaker 1: so critical and stopping that pipeline because those kids deserve
Speaker 1: as much of a chance as anybody else.
Speaker 3: I think what's important to discuss when we discussed the
Speaker 3: projects and what I've accomplished with these projects, is to
Speaker 3: talk about how it really came to where it is today. Right,
Speaker 3: So what ended up really occurring was in two thousand
Speaker 3: and two, an individual came into my life. His name
Speaker 3: is Dan Slepian. He's a producer of NBC and he
Speaker 3: did the documentary Conviction. He did the investigation that proves
Speaker 3: that I am an innocent man. And February twenty twelve,
Speaker 3: when that documentary aired, I was already heavily active in
Speaker 3: positive endeavors in prison, but when it aired, so many
Speaker 3: people reached out to me. And I'm talking about young people,
Speaker 3: old people, all kinds of people all over the world,
Speaker 3: but in particular, there were young people reaching out to
Speaker 3: me and telling me that my story changed their lives.
Speaker 3: Some of them were actively involved in the street life
Speaker 3: and realized that if an innocent man can come to prison,
Speaker 3: then I'm really getting there and I might be the
Speaker 3: next one. And what that did was because in going
Speaker 3: back Again, we're going to go back and forth. In
Speaker 3: two thousand and four, I was the captain of Youth
Speaker 3: Assistance program in green Haven and I used to deal
Speaker 3: with youth and we give them tours of the prison
Speaker 3: and we deal with them on a therapeutic manner. So
Speaker 3: from seeing how film works and seeing that for years
Speaker 3: I've been trying to get my voice outside the boundaries
Speaker 3: of this wall to reach people, to enact change in
Speaker 3: these communities and to change people's lives. I realized that
Speaker 3: the media is a tool to be able to get
Speaker 3: us to them because the problem we had when I
Speaker 3: was Upstate in the Youth Assistance program was the resources
Speaker 3: to get the children to the prison so that we
Speaker 3: can speak to them. We were having an effect on them,
Speaker 3: but if we only saw them one time, we would
Speaker 3: never see them again because the resources to get them
Speaker 3: up there that one time was hard enough. To get
Speaker 3: them to come back and do a reinforcement project was
Speaker 3: even harder. But I realized that we can bring the
Speaker 3: Youth Assistance program to them by doing this. And in
Speaker 3: the same time, other individuals in prison were reaching out
Speaker 3: to me and saying, I'm innocent too, I need help.
Speaker 3: I need the type of help that you have. And
Speaker 3: I started passing names on to Dan Slepian right, and
Speaker 3: these individuals have gotten out of prison. Eric Glistened served
Speaker 3: seventeen years for a crime he didn't commit. He was
Speaker 3: featured on Dateline a Bronx tale that was our work
Speaker 3: Johnny Kopier. His case was just dismissed last week in
Speaker 3: Manhattan court. Another individual we have, Richard Rozario, a very
Speaker 3: dear and personal friend of mine, as is Eric Glisten,
Speaker 3: twenty years for a crime in commit shot him down
Speaker 3: in the courts all the way through six months later,
Speaker 3: the influence of media and a new prosecutor going into
Speaker 3: the bronx became the perfect storm. And now he's a
Speaker 3: free man. And these are individuals I've been around. I've
Speaker 3: been around so many individuals who have been released over
Speaker 3: this time. This is like a whole nother life that
Speaker 3: I've lived in. Here, the ability to affect change in others' lives,
Speaker 3: and to see innocent men become free men based upon
Speaker 3: work that we've done together, To see prisoners who have
Speaker 3: taken lives trying to give back to life. To see
Speaker 3: all of these things taking place in the most unlikeliest
Speaker 3: place is amazing. And it's the driving force that keeps
Speaker 3: me vigilant, that keeps me alive, and that keeps me
Speaker 3: resilient today despite my circumstances, despite the devastation and the
Speaker 3: trauma that we've had to go through. Just think about this.
Speaker 3: My children, for the first ten years of my incarceration,
Speaker 3: remember one was just a month old, was three years old.
Speaker 3: They spent five days in school and one day in
Speaker 3: prison because my mother brought them up religiously. Every week.
Speaker 3: My mother worked hard as a union organizer, five days working,
Speaker 3: coming up one day bringing two young children to prison.
Speaker 3: What kind of social life did they have? They've experienced
Speaker 3: severe trauma, Vanessa, Her and I were together, We were
Speaker 3: going to raise our children together. We're not together anymore.
Speaker 3: But I don't blame her. I was facing twenty five
Speaker 3: years in prison. We weren't twenty five years old. I
Speaker 3: left her with an unfair burden of having to raise
Speaker 3: two children in a broken home, a home that was
Speaker 3: broken by an egregious miscarriage of justice. The trauma just
Speaker 3: continues to spread throughout the community. When an innocent man
Speaker 3: is convicted, he's not the only person who experiences the
Speaker 3: trauma as a result. The entire community will be affected
Speaker 3: because of the children, because of everything. You asked me,
Speaker 3: what the worst thing that I've experienced in prison. The
Speaker 3: worst thing that I've experienced in prison is that my
Speaker 3: son became a victim to prison. My son came to
Speaker 3: prison because I wasn't there to guide him. Okay, he's
Speaker 3: not innocent, but he if he had me, he would
Speaker 3: have had a different life. And in that sense, he
Speaker 3: was innocent. Whatever he got charged for he did, but
Speaker 3: he shouldn't have had to be in a position to
Speaker 3: be raised without a father and a role model in
Speaker 3: his life to teach him what's right, to guide them
Speaker 3: to see. Yo, listen, I see you going wrong. I'm
Speaker 3: not gonna let you do that. To pull him up.
Speaker 3: I don't get that. I get two three hours of
Speaker 3: his life on a visit every once in a while.
Speaker 3: You think he's given me what he's going through. Nah,
Speaker 3: I'm going on to visit. He's telling me I'm fine. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: he has to go back and face those demons in
Speaker 3: the Bronx. It's very unfair getting off the negative note
Speaker 3: and going to some of the more positive things. Besides
Speaker 3: the people that I've been able to touch. The thing
Speaker 3: I was proud about throughout this entire ordeal, it's my mother.
Speaker 3: My mother. She's carried my weight in a devastating way.
Speaker 3: She's the strongest person I know. She's been a father
Speaker 3: to my children. She's been amazing. I don't know anybody
Speaker 3: who has the strength that she has and the drive
Speaker 3: and the determination to carry the burden that was left
Speaker 3: by this miscarriage of justice. My mother is old man,
Speaker 3: she was young, and she was vibrant. She deserves to
Speaker 3: have me. They are taken care of. I'm a holy child,
Speaker 3: not been in prison. She's been taking care of me
Speaker 3: since I was born. That's not fair. Forty one years old.
Speaker 3: She deserves better, and she's been through way too much.
Speaker 3: Trauma is different for different people. And while I'm in
Speaker 3: the experience, prison has taught me that in order to survive,
Speaker 3: you have to become numb. And I've become numb to
Speaker 3: my environment and the circumstances in it so that I
Speaker 3: can deal with it. But in some regard, I haven't
Speaker 3: dealt with it yet, and I don't know what I'm
Speaker 3: going to and I don't know what's going to happen
Speaker 3: as a result, but I hope what has happened to
Speaker 3: others won't happen to me. David Ranther served twenty four
Speaker 3: years for a crimean commit and within a week of
Speaker 3: his release he had a heart attack. Within that same year,
Speaker 3: he had two more. Anthony Yarborough served twenty two or
Speaker 3: twenty three years for a crime in commit They said
Speaker 3: he killed his own sister and mother. DNA exonerated him.
Speaker 3: He died within a year of his release. Willie Lopez,
Speaker 3: personal friend of mine we worked together, got out of
Speaker 3: prison after about twenty two twenty three years and he
Speaker 3: died within a year of his release. I'm forty one
Speaker 3: years old. My father died at forty nine, and he
Speaker 3: wasn't killed. People need to understand how serious raw andful
Speaker 3: convictions are. I've been told that eleven million people cycle
Speaker 3: through the American penal system angrily. Even if we were
Speaker 3: too imagine a ninety nine percent success rate in the
Speaker 3: accuracy of convictions. One percent of that eleven million cycle
Speaker 3: through prison for crimes they don't commit. That's one hundred
Speaker 3: and ten thousand people on an annual basis. And if
Speaker 3: they come through for a serious offense, think about the
Speaker 3: type of time that they have to face. Fernando Bermude
Speaker 3: is a personal friend of mine seventeen years. Jeffrey Dskovic
Speaker 3: personal friend of mine sixteen years. David limis the person
Speaker 3: who introduced me to Dan Slepian from the Palladium murder
Speaker 3: fourteen years. Eric Glisten an individual I helped get out
Speaker 3: seventeen years. Richard Zario an individual helped get out twenty years.
Speaker 3: Johnny and Capyer an individual help get out twenty five years.
Speaker 3: The list will continue to go on the years go
Speaker 3: into the thousands.
Speaker 1: People are hearing this story. It's an outrageous miscarriage of justice.
Speaker 1: It's gotta be fixed. I'm sure people are wondering what
Speaker 1: can they do to help? What can they do to
Speaker 1: help you? In particular. We've talked about things that people
Speaker 1: can do in general on the show. Is there anything
Speaker 1: they can do to help in this particular situation and
Speaker 1: as concise a manner as possible? Is there something that
Speaker 1: you would have people do to help, as you've helped
Speaker 1: so many other people reverse their wrong for conviction.
Speaker 3: I always think that we can't make change, but we
Speaker 3: have demonstrated that we can, and I believe in the
Speaker 3: power of people. I think I need people, particularly the
Speaker 3: listeners of this show, to believe in the power of themselves.
Speaker 3: There's a website being utilized to advocate for my freedom.
Speaker 3: It's called free John Adriavealaskis dot org. J O N
Speaker 3: A D R I V E l A Z qu easy. If, however,
Speaker 3: many people listen to this show were to go and
Speaker 3: get ten people to sign that petition, we would have thousands.
Speaker 3: I'm a stamp away from anybody who cares. I'm sitting
Speaker 3: in sing sing correctional facility. My number zero zero A
Speaker 3: twenty three oh three reach out. I'll tell you how
Speaker 3: you can help. Go to the website, They'll tell you
Speaker 3: how you can help.
Speaker 1: I think that's the most important thing is go to
Speaker 1: the website. It's free John Adrewanblasquez dot org. And again
Speaker 1: that's j O N A D R I A n
Speaker 1: v E, l A Z que Z and then of
Speaker 1: course dot org, so free John Adrewandlaskuaz dot org. Go there,
Speaker 1: learn how you can help. John has generously offered to
Speaker 1: have people write to him, and like I said earlier,
Speaker 1: you should expect a letter back that you're going to
Speaker 1: think he must have had help from a great novelist
Speaker 1: or a professor of English at an Ivy League university.
Speaker 2: But he writes beautiful letters.
Speaker 3: You have already somehow reached society because over the time
Speaker 3: of December and Christmas I got a stack of mail
Speaker 3: about this big I appreciate that. Thank you. I want
Speaker 3: everyone to know how touched I am by their humanity
Speaker 3: and their opportunity to say, you know what, somebody cares
Speaker 3: about you. And that's some of the energy that I
Speaker 3: utilize to basically catalyze my drive. So I appreciate it.
Speaker 3: I want people to be patient I've been working on
Speaker 3: a petition for clemency. I've been working on my appeal,
Speaker 3: but I will try to get back to everyone, and
Speaker 3: upon my release, I guarantee that I'll be available somewhere
Speaker 3: on social media and we'll get to everyone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll have a big party, but everybody's going to
Speaker 1: have to sign some petitions to get in, that's for sure.
Speaker 2: JJ. I want to thank you for being on the show.
Speaker 3: I want to thank Revolver Productions for having me. I
Speaker 3: want to thank you Jason for having me and for
Speaker 3: doing everything that you have. You're an amazing individual. Thank you.
Speaker 1: You've been listening to the first episode of Wrongful Conviction
Speaker 1: Behind Bars, and it won't be the last. I think
Speaker 1: it's very important that we bring these stories to light
Speaker 1: from inside the maximum security prison, in this case Sing Sing.
Speaker 1: I want to thank the Tuberintendent Capra for allowing us
Speaker 1: to film with Ja inside the prison walls. And again
Speaker 1: our guest today, John Adrian Velasquez. John, I'm looking forward
Speaker 1: to seeing you as I saw Felipe the other day
Speaker 1: on the outside with your family, and it's going to
Speaker 1: happen because we're not going to.
Speaker 2: Give up until it does.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review. Wherever you
Speaker 2: get your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm a proud donor.
Speaker 1: To the Innocence Project and I really hope you'll join
Speaker 1: me in supporting this very important cause and helping to
Speaker 1: prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocenceproject dot org to
Speaker 1: learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like to
Speaker 1: thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The
Speaker 1: music in the show is by three time OSCAR nominatede
Speaker 1: composer Jay Ralph.
Speaker 2: Be sure to follow us on.
Speaker 1: Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is a production of Lava
Speaker 1: for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one