Speaker 1: I came from a beautiful neighborhood. I had a beautiful life.
Speaker 2: I went to sleep because September seventh was the first
Speaker 2: day of my high school year.
Speaker 1: I was going to be a senior. At twenty two,
Speaker 1: I was set to start college. I woke up and
Speaker 1: my life was never the same again.
Speaker 3: Cops came out with guns drawn, and I never saw
Speaker 3: freedom ever since after that.
Speaker 1: It's like roach motan. Once you get in, you and
Speaker 1: I can't now.
Speaker 2: This is wrongful conviction with Jason Flommer. Today's guest is
Speaker 2: Richard Rosario. Richard, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: Richard was convicted of a murder that happened in the
Speaker 2: Bronx while he was one thousand miles away in Florida,
Speaker 2: with thirteen alibi witnesses and.
Speaker 4: Various other types of evidence to back it up. But
Speaker 4: let's go back. So you were born in Puerto Rico.
Speaker 5: My parents were at the time just My mother was
Speaker 5: a seamstress.
Speaker 1: My father used to work labor.
Speaker 5: And they were poor by definition, by today's definitions.
Speaker 1: But we had a house. We had a little mango
Speaker 1: tree in the front of the house. It was beautiful.
Speaker 5: I mean, you didn't have all the luxuries that you
Speaker 5: see in America, but you have what you need. You know,
Speaker 5: you had the good weather, the sustenance, great weather, and
Speaker 5: people that loved you. There wasn't a day that I
Speaker 5: would go to sleep hungry or you know, have any
Speaker 5: troubles in school or anything.
Speaker 1: So it was beautiful.
Speaker 4: When did you come here?
Speaker 5: When I was five years old, immigrated to the United
Speaker 5: States and we resided in the Bronx.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty eighty one, we.
Speaker 5: Started living in the Bronx, and it's an experience because
Speaker 5: you're an immigrant. You don't know English, so you have
Speaker 5: to acclimate to a whole new culture, right and the
Speaker 5: culture in New York back then was hip hop and
Speaker 5: you know, this whole drug phase happened in New York
Speaker 5: at the time where there was a lot of crime
Speaker 5: in the streets was riddled with that. So here I
Speaker 5: am a young boy from Puerto Rico who wasn't never
Speaker 5: exposed to that type of stuff, being exposed to this
Speaker 5: different type of culture. Did you have, Yes, I had.
Speaker 5: I have two brothers and five sisters. At that time,
Speaker 5: my mom separated from my dad, and it was one
Speaker 5: of the reasons why she relocated in the United States
Speaker 5: to find new life. And you know, everybody that comes
Speaker 5: in migrades to the United States to find a new life,
Speaker 5: a better life. And she came here a single parent
Speaker 5: and raised us on her own in the South Bronx.
Speaker 5: New York was my main everything I knew, So Puerto
Speaker 5: Rico wasn't appealable to me as a teenager, so I
Speaker 5: stopped going at the age of them.
Speaker 2: I mean, we know, New York was a little were
Speaker 2: now in nineteen eighty eighty nine, eighty nine, so yeah,
Speaker 2: that was kind of the height of the crime wave.
Speaker 2: Things getting crazy, right, and then you got you had
Speaker 2: a little altercation and when you were fifteen years old.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was a kid, and you know, once again
Speaker 5: in Puerto Rico and never witnessed anything that that I've
Speaker 5: witnessed in the United States and the Bromston particular at
Speaker 5: this time. And for obvious reasons, the crime rate, the
Speaker 5: drugs and everything that was happening in this era, it
Speaker 5: was pretty tough. But you know, I began, you know,
Speaker 5: my teenage life trying to follow the new trends, wanting
Speaker 5: to have those sneakers. My family's poor, we can't afford
Speaker 5: those sneakers, the lottos, the new fashion statements back then.
Speaker 1: And so I started hanging out with the wrong crowd as.
Speaker 5: Most teenagers and despite what type of environment they grow up.
Speaker 5: When you meet your contemporaries at the time and you
Speaker 5: start acting made into what they liked, well, you know,
Speaker 5: the music, the style, and I living in the South Bronx,
Speaker 5: it's that's the environment that I'm acclimating to, where it's crime,
Speaker 5: it's drugs, it's closed, it's you have to go out
Speaker 5: and get it.
Speaker 1: And so I got with this bad crowd, and.
Speaker 5: You know, the one thing that they used to do
Speaker 5: is go out there and commit crimes to get what
Speaker 5: they wanted a shirt, a pair of sneakers and stuff.
Speaker 5: And unfortunately I knew it was wrong, but I followed
Speaker 5: and I got caught. One day, my friends committed the
Speaker 5: robbery as a kid, and they had the wallet. And
Speaker 5: my friend was older than me at the time, he
Speaker 5: was seventeen years old. His name is Danny and he
Speaker 5: died since, but he passed me the wallet and I
Speaker 5: took the wallet and I put it in my pocket.
Speaker 5: Had the guy's credit cards, and that was my first
Speaker 5: interaction with the criminal justice.
Speaker 1: System. I was caught with credit cards in my pocket.
Speaker 4: And got probation for that.
Speaker 1: Yes, I got probation.
Speaker 4: Fifteen years old.
Speaker 2: And yeah, you weren't a violent guy, you know, I
Speaker 2: was in No, we're going to go now from time
Speaker 2: you're fifteen to the time you're twenty, and we're talking
Speaker 2: about nineteen ninety six. Yes, right, in nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 2: Let's let's paint a picture here. So you're in Florida, Yes, right,
Speaker 2: And what were you doing in Florida at the time.
Speaker 4: First of all, which part of Florida were you?
Speaker 1: I was in Orlando.
Speaker 5: And the reason why I went over there is, you know,
Speaker 5: I was a quick learning in life, and you know,
Speaker 5: I made the mistakes as a teenager. I got in trouble.
Speaker 5: I had my daughter, and things started dawning on me
Speaker 5: that I can't live life like this. I have children
Speaker 5: that take care of I have, you know, a daughter
Speaker 5: that's going to look up to a dad and a
Speaker 5: son that's gonna need me there.
Speaker 1: So I said it's time for me to change. My environment.
Speaker 5: In New York was in the place the Bronx, especially
Speaker 5: at the time, was in a place where I had
Speaker 5: opportunities because I had messed up them opportunities as a child,
Speaker 5: and I was known in the local precinct as you know,
Speaker 5: one of these troubled teenagers. And so I wanted to
Speaker 5: just leave that past and go to Florida and give
Speaker 5: my family a new life. And you know that's why
Speaker 5: my plans were.
Speaker 2: So you went down to Florida to sort of scope
Speaker 2: it out and try to figure out what kind of
Speaker 2: opportunities were going to be there.
Speaker 5: For you exactly, and it's basically you're twenty now, so
Speaker 5: you're saying, well, I want to Yeah, I want a
Speaker 5: piece of the American dream. What does that dream look
Speaker 5: like to me? To me, it looked at like on Florida,
Speaker 5: you know, Sunshine State, it's a slower speed. And I
Speaker 5: want folks to understand that I was still young and
Speaker 5: still immature, so you know, it wasn't beyond me smoking
Speaker 5: a little marijuana or hanging out in a club. But
Speaker 5: I wasn't out there, you know, hurting people. And I
Speaker 5: remember I was in Florida and I was still you know,
Speaker 5: My biggest issue, and I want people to understand, is
Speaker 5: that I was dealing with individuals that were still into
Speaker 5: that lifestyle.
Speaker 1: So although I was into it.
Speaker 5: These guys were still doing things that weren't good.
Speaker 1: And I find out from my.
Speaker 5: Mother, you know, I call my mother check up as
Speaker 5: I usually do, my wife and the kids how they're doing.
Speaker 5: And they're telling me the detectives are looking for you.
Speaker 5: And I'm like, they were just here just a couple
Speaker 5: months ago, you know, tell them I'm here, I'm in Florida.
Speaker 1: They want me, they know where I'm at.
Speaker 5: She said, well, I told them he was in Florida.
Speaker 5: They're saying, they're looking for you for a murder. And
Speaker 5: I'm like, I'm thinking at the time, my mother, she
Speaker 5: she knows English, but she's Puerto Rican descent. Maybe she's confused,
Speaker 5: she's maybe she's confused, right, But then my sister tells
Speaker 5: me the same thing, and then my wife tells me
Speaker 5: the same thing.
Speaker 1: Detectives are looking for you for murder. And then they
Speaker 1: tell me to day June nineteenth.
Speaker 4: And you had been in Florida for how long? For
Speaker 4: a couple of months.
Speaker 5: I was there from May first that I arrived to
Speaker 5: Florida all the way to the time that I came
Speaker 5: back from Florida.
Speaker 4: So you come back, you're here. They're looking for you, yes,
Speaker 4: so you come back to New York.
Speaker 1: June thirtieth.
Speaker 5: I got on a Greyhound bus and arrived July first,
Speaker 5: I at six in the morning, and I called my
Speaker 5: wife and I told her I'm heading home right now.
Speaker 1: And at this time, me and my wife lived separately.
Speaker 5: I lived at my parents' house until we had enough
Speaker 5: money to get on apartment. My wife is living at
Speaker 5: her parents' house. She was working, so I'm going over
Speaker 5: to my in law's house to see my kids, see
Speaker 5: my wife before she went to work. Seven in the morning.
Speaker 5: I get there and you know, I had to talk
Speaker 5: with her and I told her, listen, I've never killed
Speaker 5: no one in my life.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to go to the Bronx.
Speaker 5: I'll contact the priestsint and I should be home sometime
Speaker 5: tonight and we'll talk more. And I spent that afternoon.
Speaker 5: I made breakfast with my kids. I took them to
Speaker 5: the park, and I told my daughter at the end
Speaker 5: of the day, and that afternoon before I left to
Speaker 5: the Bronx that you know, she was crying.
Speaker 1: She wanted to go with daddy, and I told her
Speaker 1: I'll be back. I'll be back later.
Speaker 5: On and I left to go to the Bronx to
Speaker 5: talk to the police, and I never came back for
Speaker 5: twenty years.
Speaker 2: I just got to digest that for a second, left
Speaker 2: it and after saying goodbye, like any dad would, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I gotta go take care of something. I'll see you later.
Speaker 2: It's the same thing any dad. Anything that would react
Speaker 2: a three year old girl. And so you go to
Speaker 2: the police precinct and you go in there to clear
Speaker 2: things up.
Speaker 4: And what happens.
Speaker 5: Well, first I got to the Bronx, I called the detectives.
Speaker 5: Detective Charles Krueger picks up the phone. He's from the
Speaker 5: Robbery Division. He has nothing to do with this homicide.
Speaker 5: So Charles Krueger tells me listen, they want to talk
Speaker 5: to you about some homicide that occurred, and one would
Speaker 5: be the best time.
Speaker 1: And I told Charles Kruger, well, i'll be in with
Speaker 1: my lawyers tomorrow.
Speaker 5: I'll get to the priests and with my lawyers. I
Speaker 5: didn't commit a crime. I've been in Florida. And he
Speaker 5: said all right, So I hung up the phone. A
Speaker 5: half an hour later, the detectives come to my mother's house.
Speaker 5: So I look at the peak hole and I see
Speaker 5: the detectives.
Speaker 1: I opened the door.
Speaker 5: There's nothing for me to worry about, and I let
Speaker 5: them in the house. They talked to my mother briefly,
Speaker 5: and this was Charles Kruger was there, but the main
Speaker 5: two homicide detectives were offso Martinez and Gary Whittaker where
Speaker 5: the two detectives. So they come in. Martinez spoke to
Speaker 5: my mother. Whittaker spoke to me and they said, listen,
Speaker 5: we just want to ask you questions and relating to
Speaker 5: this murder, and if you were in Florida, we're going
Speaker 5: to find out and you're going to be good.
Speaker 1: And I said, okay, so let's go.
Speaker 5: And right before we left, they said, but we have
Speaker 5: to cuff you because this procedure. And my heart like
Speaker 5: skipped a little bit because I'm saying, wait a minute,
Speaker 5: I'm leaving with you.
Speaker 1: Why do you have to put can't cuffs on me.
Speaker 5: I'm telling you I'm innocent, and I have evidence that
Speaker 5: I'm leaving with you.
Speaker 1: It's not like I'm running.
Speaker 5: I opened the door for you, and when they put
Speaker 5: them cuffs on me, it gave me a little chill
Speaker 5: having them cuffs on me.
Speaker 4: And don't understand that.
Speaker 5: I mean, I went to the priest and then everything
Speaker 5: changed in the priest and Detective Whittaker was very amicable.
Speaker 5: He tried to persuade me telling them the truth, which
Speaker 5: I was that I was in Florida, would be the
Speaker 5: best thing. And then Martinez would come in after Whitker
Speaker 5: would finish this interrogation start that lasted five hours.
Speaker 1: And he'll tell me, we know you did it.
Speaker 5: You know you're a murderer and you're going to spend
Speaker 5: the rest of your life in jail, and if you
Speaker 5: don't tell me about it, you will never see your daughter.
Speaker 1: And he's given me this.
Speaker 5: So after five hours, I said, all right, you want
Speaker 5: me to write a statement, and he passes me a
Speaker 5: piece of paper and a pen and I wrote on
Speaker 5: it and then I passed it back and they were
Speaker 5: really pissed off of what I wrote. I said, I've
Speaker 5: never committed a crime. I've never taken someone's life, and
Speaker 5: God knows this and it is God's will. And that
Speaker 5: was my exact statement. And that was it. From that
Speaker 5: moment on. They they they just processed me through the system.
Speaker 5: I spoke to Detective Silverman, who was in part of
Speaker 5: the case, which is still a mystery. He was the
Speaker 5: one showing the witnesses pictures. He was in the homicide detectives.
Speaker 5: He was not part of the case at all, and
Speaker 5: he took the statement for me where I gave thirteen
Speaker 5: alibi witnesses. In addition to that, I described where I was,
Speaker 5: the homes, I mean detail from the staircase, the houses
Speaker 5: to the right, the bedroom is here. I gave a
Speaker 5: detailed description of where I was, the people I was with,
Speaker 5: the phone numbers, phone records, job applications, everything, and they never,
Speaker 5: not once, they didn't pick up the phone to find
Speaker 5: out if I was saying the truth.
Speaker 2: So you're presenting them with basically ironclad evidence, right, There's
Speaker 2: really no other way to describe it. I mean, you
Speaker 2: can't have a better alibi than there were a thousand
Speaker 2: miles away. Right, It's not like I was at the
Speaker 2: movies and my sister said she saw me and whatever
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, which is still an alibi.
Speaker 1: Right, it was impossible.
Speaker 4: It's impossible. Here you are.
Speaker 2: Now you're in the system. Now you're in lock up, right,
Speaker 2: you're waiting for your trial.
Speaker 4: You got a lawyer.
Speaker 5: Yes, I'm thinking this will be over in a day.
Speaker 5: You know, they're gonna find out I was in Florida.
Speaker 1: Is done.
Speaker 5: So first I talked to the detectives, went through that,
Speaker 5: talked to the DA, went through that, went through the
Speaker 5: lineup with a Lloyder named Rudy VELAs. I was picked
Speaker 5: out of the lineup. They finally assigned me a lawyer
Speaker 5: named Joyce Hartsfield. Then I poured out my heart tug
Speaker 5: because it's been more than a week now and I'm saying, hey,
Speaker 5: I don't belong here. You know, my witnesses are in Florida.
Speaker 5: The evidence is there, everything is there for you. And
Speaker 5: I reiterated most of the things I did to the detectives,
Speaker 5: and Joyce Horsfield asked the judge for funds to send
Speaker 5: an investigator. I'm indigent. I don't have no money for investigators,
Speaker 5: and so the judge granted the motion.
Speaker 4: Okay, so now you're good.
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to be good.
Speaker 5: It's supposed to work great, Right, you get the evidence,
Speaker 5: you have the investigators going. What happened was that Joyce Harsfield,
Speaker 5: after a year, I'm telling her, please, you know, find
Speaker 5: these people. She would not answer my letters. She would
Speaker 5: not and to my my please, and I'm desperate. It's
Speaker 5: been Yeah, I've wrote the letters that we have records of.
Speaker 5: You know, she was not being she was in contact
Speaker 5: with me at all. And I'm desperate. I'm in prison.
Speaker 5: I'm not seeing my children as much as I would
Speaker 5: like to. I don't belong here, and yes, I know
Speaker 5: it's a mistake. I'm dealing with these gang members and
Speaker 5: police officers, and I'm really having a lot of trouble
Speaker 5: because you know, I'm twenty years old and I don't
Speaker 5: belong here, and you know, you have to deal with
Speaker 5: this volatile environment that you don't belong and and she
Speaker 5: would not answer me.
Speaker 4: It's rikers, It's chaos.
Speaker 5: It's chaos. It's completely chaos. I mean, from the correctional
Speaker 5: officers to the inmates. The corruption is just so you know,
Speaker 5: abhorrent that that you know, I can't even put into
Speaker 5: the words what I was experiencing.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 5: All I knew is that if I had to talk
Speaker 5: to my lawyer and my wife, I had to be
Speaker 5: at the mercy of gang bangers and you know, malicious
Speaker 5: people that are actually in there for crimes they committed
Speaker 5: and I'm nothing like these people.
Speaker 1: Just to get to the phone, what do I do
Speaker 1: to talk to my family?
Speaker 5: And you know, unfortunately it led to a lot of
Speaker 5: fights and tribulations and a lot of victimization. Because I
Speaker 5: don't I don't want people to think that I glamorized that.
Speaker 5: But I've been I've been slashed, I've been stabbed, I've
Speaker 5: been jumped by inmates, and I've had to struggle and
Speaker 5: fight and claw my way out that type of environment,
Speaker 5: even correctional offices. I've been brutalized by then. And you know,
Speaker 5: I've stood up because I was in the right. I
Speaker 5: didn't belong there and I had to suffer that, and
Speaker 5: you know, my family had to suffer it. But it's
Speaker 5: it's chaos. It's completely chaos.
Speaker 2: So your lawyer is not only doing nothing, but also
Speaker 2: not even returning your calls. Yes, so now what happens?
Speaker 2: Does she eventually come through, investigate through something?
Speaker 4: What happens next? What leads Let's get up to the trial.
Speaker 5: This is the amazing part that I saw of learning
Speaker 5: the law, and I had to this.
Speaker 1: Lady's not defending me.
Speaker 5: So I put in emotion to have a taking off
Speaker 5: my case and giving me another lawyer. The judge does this,
Speaker 5: he gives me Stephen Kaiser and so Stephen Kaiser comes in.
Speaker 5: He has no clue of what motion has been approved
Speaker 5: and denied. He comes in under the belief that the
Speaker 5: investigative funds were denied, no investigation.
Speaker 4: And he never asked you.
Speaker 5: I told him, I mean my witnesses. I mean, here's
Speaker 5: a year later, and I'm I'm I'm livid. I'm talking
Speaker 5: the same thing for years. I'm innocent. This is where
Speaker 5: the evidence is at, these all the people. And he says, well,
Speaker 5: the judge denied the funds for investigators, so I don't
Speaker 5: know nothing.
Speaker 2: So you think now that maybe the first one had
Speaker 2: it wrong, yeah, or maybe the judge changed their mind,
Speaker 2: or whatever it is. And now you're dealing with a lawyer,
Speaker 2: who are dealing with two lawyers, both of whom are incompetent. Yes,
Speaker 2: and so now so, somehow, amazingly in between the transition
Speaker 2: from the first lawyer to the second lawyer, information, the
Speaker 2: one thing that could have helped you gets lost and
Speaker 2: get screwed up, which is the idea that there was
Speaker 2: money for someone to go to Florida, confirm the alibis
Speaker 2: and come back on a white horse and go very sorry.
Speaker 4: It's all a big mistake. Go home. Let's go find
Speaker 4: the real killer. That's what's supposed to happen.
Speaker 1: That's what it's supposed to happen.
Speaker 4: That's not what happened.
Speaker 1: That's not what happened.
Speaker 4: A right, So what happened now, so now you got
Speaker 4: to go to trial.
Speaker 5: Now I got to go to trial with a lawyer
Speaker 5: that's ill prepared to defend me.
Speaker 2: And they're balancing all these other things. They're going to court,
Speaker 2: they're juggling all these.
Speaker 1: Cases, hundreds cases.
Speaker 5: And one thing that I want to add to that,
Speaker 5: which is important. You know, I don't want to make
Speaker 5: excuses for these lawyers that misrepresented me, and you know
Speaker 5: it's completely appropriate to say that they.
Speaker 1: Dropped the ball.
Speaker 5: But before that, the DA gets the case, the police
Speaker 5: get the case. So before a lawyer touches your case,
Speaker 5: if anybody's going to know whether you're innocent or not,
Speaker 5: it's going.
Speaker 1: To be the district attorney and the police, if they
Speaker 1: do the.
Speaker 5: Investigative work and the work that they support supposed to
Speaker 5: be doing to protect the citizens that they've been sworn
Speaker 5: to protect and serve.
Speaker 1: So the DA drops the ball.
Speaker 5: Now they give it to these overworked, overstressed lawyers.
Speaker 1: What do you think is going to happen.
Speaker 2: You're in trial and the pressure is incredible. Now your
Speaker 2: lawyer gets up. Are there any of the witnesses from
Speaker 2: Florida that came up.
Speaker 4: To testify on your behalf?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Jeanie SAIDA.
Speaker 5: And John Torres came and the DA said, well, they're
Speaker 5: his friends.
Speaker 1: They were life in him.
Speaker 5: But what we know now is that the DA was
Speaker 5: telling the jury a lie, that this crime that occur
Speaker 5: was not premeditated, that it was coincidental.
Speaker 2: So they testified on your behalf and they're saying, all
Speaker 2: these are your friends and say whatever you want. In
Speaker 2: the meantime, they came all the way up from Florida
Speaker 2: just to lie for you, Okay, whatever. And there were
Speaker 2: some eyewitnesses for the prosecution.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was George, George Calaso's best friend. And I
Speaker 5: want to get into this because this is very telling
Speaker 5: and important for the narrative. Michael Sanchez testified, guy never
Speaker 5: met in his life, don't know him, never met him,
Speaker 5: don't know his history, his background, We have no connection.
Speaker 5: Robert Davis was the second witness. Don't know one, never
Speaker 5: seen him in my life. Another independent witness picked my
Speaker 5: picture out, picked me out in the lineup, and Jose Diaz,
Speaker 5: another old man had the food truck at the time,
Speaker 5: said that he witnessed the shooting. But it's amazing about
Speaker 5: all these three witnesses is that they have all said
Speaker 5: the same thing. At the time, Jose Diaz was deemed
Speaker 5: uncredible because when he was asked, did you see the shooter?
Speaker 5: They said, he said, yeah, I've seen the shooter. They said,
Speaker 5: do you see him in the courtroom. He says, no,
Speaker 5: I don't see him in the courtroom. And he says,
Speaker 5: but I remember picture that I was shown, and he
Speaker 5: said that two times, and that testimony was made obsolete
Speaker 5: because now the DA has to shift and say, well,
Speaker 5: you know, he initially said it was Richard or picked
Speaker 5: out his picture.
Speaker 1: Now he's not saying that.
Speaker 5: And so these other two witnesses were allowed to testify
Speaker 5: and perjure themselves because now we know both of the
Speaker 5: witnesses are saying that why the police told them that
Speaker 5: they had the right guy. That is how I went
Speaker 5: to trial, based on police telling these people, you know,
Speaker 5: they write these reports and said they looked at two
Speaker 5: hundred pictures. We come to find out now that not
Speaker 5: only these three witnesses are saying the police showed them
Speaker 5: a pictures.
Speaker 1: But there were several witnesses in.
Speaker 5: My case that they did not allow us to see,
Speaker 5: to interview or to testify my trial.
Speaker 1: And these witnesses said the same thing.
Speaker 5: The police came to them with a picture of one
Speaker 5: man and they mentioned that he was somehow connected to Florida.
Speaker 1: None of these witnesses ever testified.
Speaker 4: Right, And we don't know. I mean, they may have
Speaker 4: made some sort of a deal with them.
Speaker 5: We don't know that, but we know for a fact
Speaker 5: at least this is what we know now. According to
Speaker 5: the witnesses, the police told them that's the right guy.
Speaker 4: So I want to talk about this for a second.
Speaker 4: This is very interesting to me.
Speaker 2: While experts agree to eyewitness testimony is inherently flawed, Americans
Speaker 2: and potential jurors continue to place a great deal of
Speaker 2: weight in eyewitness testimony. In a two thousand and one
Speaker 2: survey of adams the United States funded by the National
Speaker 2: Institute of Health sixty three, they found the sixty three
Speaker 2: percent of Americans believe that memory works like a video camera,
Speaker 2: forty eight percent believe memory is permanent, and thirty seven
Speaker 2: percent believe the testimony of a single confident eyewitness should
Speaker 2: be enough to convict the criminal defendant. And it should
Speaker 2: be noted that mistaken eyewitness identification was a factor in
Speaker 2: over seventy five percent of the nation's DNA exigny.
Speaker 1: It's amazing.
Speaker 4: I hope that.
Speaker 2: People will remember when they take away, they'll take away
Speaker 2: from this podcast that the I was identification. It's something
Speaker 2: that is very orful and it's something that you have
Speaker 2: to analyze.
Speaker 4: Was this person in a panic mode?
Speaker 2: Was it dark, were they across the street, did they
Speaker 2: have do they have a motive?
Speaker 1: And this person's was there an interior motive?
Speaker 5: Because now we're finding out that the main witness, Michael Sanchez,
Speaker 5: was sleeping with the young lady that was slapped by
Speaker 5: his best friend, George Colaso, two weeks from before the
Speaker 5: murder happened. Now this is all speculation, but now we
Speaker 5: know that someone came up to Michael Sanchez a week
Speaker 5: before the murder and told them we're coming after your friend.
Speaker 5: Now we know that the food truck guy saw the
Speaker 5: shooter for more than several hours. Now we know that
Speaker 5: another witness is coming and saying, well, this wasn't a
Speaker 5: coincidental shooting.
Speaker 1: This wasn't a shooting of two.
Speaker 5: People that didn't know each other, because the shooter called
Speaker 5: the victim by name.
Speaker 1: We know this now, this.
Speaker 5: Back then, so they presented to jury fraud and misrepresentation by.
Speaker 1: Telling them, oh, they don't know each other. This was
Speaker 1: a mistake. Now we know there was a getaway car.
Speaker 5: But what they knew back then is that they could
Speaker 5: not prove that all those facts fit me. There was
Speaker 5: no connection with me. So they had to lie to
Speaker 5: the jury. They had to concoct this story to get
Speaker 5: a conviction.
Speaker 2: And what we also know that the victim was carrying
Speaker 2: a gun, yes, and that his sister has satisfied or
Speaker 2: set on camera that he began carrying a gun because
Speaker 2: he had been threatened, yes, And because he had slapped
Speaker 2: the girl that you were talking about, and that her
Speaker 2: friends or her family had threatened to get him. So again,
Speaker 2: if you would follow that trail, you would say, well, maybe,
Speaker 2: I mean, if it would seem to me if I was,
Speaker 2: I would say, let me go, let me go check
Speaker 2: that out. That sounds a little dicey to me, you know, like,
Speaker 2: let's go see. But none of that, none of that happened.
Speaker 1: The case ended with my picture again picked out.
Speaker 4: That's it, the whole narrative. That's the criminal justice.
Speaker 2: We've got to got somebody, they're poor, particularly a person
Speaker 2: of color, and you are basically about to get ground
Speaker 2: up by the gears.
Speaker 4: And that's what happened here.
Speaker 2: So you get convicted r Yes, serve twenty years of
Speaker 2: a twenty five year life sentence.
Speaker 4: Yes, let's talk about the prison experience.
Speaker 5: It's a psychological and physical torture. You know, you don't
Speaker 5: belong in this place. But now you have to face
Speaker 5: the indignations of what being a prison is.
Speaker 1: And with respect to the system.
Speaker 5: You know, if you committed a crime, you have to
Speaker 5: deal with these security measures. You have to get naked,
Speaker 5: you have to show cavity, you know, your butt, you
Speaker 5: have to go through cavity searches, you have to have
Speaker 5: your family go through searches, and you know, a lot
Speaker 5: of indignations. But if you committed a crime and this
Speaker 5: is what the system is built for, then a right, fine.
Speaker 5: You know, they have to keep the security of the
Speaker 5: prison safe. Right, But here is a man that didn't
Speaker 5: commit a crime and now I have to go through
Speaker 5: the same indignities. I have to deal with users that
Speaker 5: at me like a no good citizen, because most prisoners
Speaker 5: are considered, you know, people that are not wanted in society,
Speaker 5: people that have committed acts against society.
Speaker 1: So here I am amongst these people.
Speaker 5: I'm nothing like them, and I'm being treated as such,
Speaker 5: being pushed as such, being.
Speaker 1: Put in positions where it's.
Speaker 5: Either I have to fight to be able to talk
Speaker 5: to my family, to keep the little things that my
Speaker 5: family get me, provide me, whether it's some money for commissary.
Speaker 1: And here you have a real hard and.
Speaker 5: Murderer and a criminal trying to take what's yours, or
Speaker 5: correctional officer coming in his son because he feels that
Speaker 5: you're not You're not you're subhuman, you're worthless. They destroy
Speaker 5: your property. And now I'm going through these conflicts. I
Speaker 5: don't belonging here. And now I'm lashing out. I'm standing up.
Speaker 5: It's not even lashing out saying you don't have a
Speaker 5: right to do this, you don't have a right to
Speaker 5: abuse it me in mad or correctional officers. I stood up,
Speaker 5: and you know I bear the scars of it, you know,
Speaker 5: physically and internally I bear the scars.
Speaker 2: Every little one of those things would seem on the
Speaker 2: outside like a big problem, and there's just one of
Speaker 2: one hundred problems.
Speaker 5: One of a hundred, because you're starting with your personal safety, yeah,
Speaker 5: your personal safety, and you think a correctional office is
Speaker 5: going to protect you. And a lot of times the
Speaker 5: correction of the officers the one that opens yourself so
Speaker 5: that inmate.
Speaker 1: Could get in there and rob your property or you have.
Speaker 5: And I want to be upfront with this, not all
Speaker 5: correctional officers. For the majority, most of these people are
Speaker 5: just wanting to come in, do their job and provide
Speaker 5: for their family.
Speaker 1: So I don't want to seem like.
Speaker 5: I'm anti corrections because I met some great correctional or
Speaker 5: some great men in there that live every day to
Speaker 5: just do the best to provide for their family and
Speaker 5: do their job with some type of integrity.
Speaker 1: But then you have those more numbers or ulcers that
Speaker 1: you know, and.
Speaker 5: Same thing with police officers, the same thing I could
Speaker 5: be said about them. For the most part, great individuals.
Speaker 5: They're here to protect our people in our communities. But
Speaker 5: you have that small percentage that just you know, causes
Speaker 5: adverse effect that everybody believes that all correctional ulcers are
Speaker 5: like this, and.
Speaker 4: I'm with you.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't want to sound like I'm against
Speaker 2: the entire criminal justice system. I'm again, I'm in favor
Speaker 2: of fixing the problems so we don't have to have
Speaker 2: more stories like yours. So let's get to the part
Speaker 2: of the exoneration and to the and to what life
Speaker 2: has been like for the last four months on the outside.
Speaker 2: So the day, well, what happened is that the new
Speaker 2: DA came into the Bronx recently, right, and so she
Speaker 2: came in and all of a sudden, your faith turned,
Speaker 2: your your luck turn around, everything changed.
Speaker 1: Because I wanted to make sure that people know these stats.
Speaker 5: First, Robert Johnson, who was the DA in the Bronx
Speaker 5: for twenty seven years and who is now amazingly a judge.
Speaker 5: Under his tenor in office, he had the lowest conviction
Speaker 5: rate in the Bronx, meaning that murderers land being allowed
Speaker 5: to run.
Speaker 1: The streets, Thieves, murderers.
Speaker 5: Whatever you want to call criminals were allowed to run
Speaker 5: the streets. The conviction rate in the Bronx was the
Speaker 5: lowest in the city. But what's telling is the highest
Speaker 5: rate of brawn for convictions were in the Bronx and
Speaker 5: they didn't have a committee. So you know, in essence,
Speaker 5: what this is telling you is that he was in
Speaker 5: convicting criminals. He was convicting innocent people. And that's just
Speaker 5: a horrible statistic. And now this man.
Speaker 2: Is a judge, right, how do people you know, that's
Speaker 2: like saying the food's bad and the portions are too small, right,
Speaker 2: I mean you can't.
Speaker 4: You're striking out on both sides. Absolutely, that's terrible.
Speaker 5: So that's why it's happened with that, and those facts
Speaker 5: speak for themselves. But here we are twenty years later,
Speaker 5: no one has ever done the investigation in this new
Speaker 5: DA says, well, you know what, I want to start
Speaker 5: something new. She came into office under a cloud of suspicion.
Speaker 5: She wasn't voted in. They pulled the political maneuver the
Speaker 5: Democratic Party. Robert Johnson exited through retirement and they left
Speaker 5: the voters out and put Darcell Clark in through the
Speaker 5: Democratic Party of voting and vetting a person. So now
Speaker 5: here she is, she has an opportunity to change these policies,
Speaker 5: and she took a bold step and after investigating my
Speaker 5: case for the first time in twenty years She sent
Speaker 5: investigators to Florida on a Friday.
Speaker 1: I was released on a Wednesday. This is amazing.
Speaker 5: This woman investigated my case twenty years later and deemed
Speaker 5: that there was enough evidence there innocence to release me.
Speaker 2: So now you're walking out into the fresh air, into
Speaker 2: the sunlight.
Speaker 4: What happened then?
Speaker 1: What I felt?
Speaker 5: You know? One way, I felt relief be with my
Speaker 5: family finally, and you know, in a sudden that you
Speaker 5: know that I deserved, you know, and I'm happy.
Speaker 1: I'm with my wife and my children, I'm with my ess.
Speaker 1: Yes they were all there.
Speaker 5: But my thing when I came out, I faught a
Speaker 5: sense of anger because I you know, I was happy
Speaker 5: to be with my family, but it was like I
Speaker 5: was like just thrown out into society, and you know,
Speaker 5: in a fashion where there was no empathy towards what
Speaker 5: I went through other than people want to know what
Speaker 5: I felt like.
Speaker 1: But DA's office, no.
Speaker 5: One other than my family and you know, individuals like yourself.
Speaker 1: I don't have a job.
Speaker 5: I don't you know, have any needs of providing for
Speaker 5: my wife and my children. Twenty years later, so I'm
Speaker 5: having a hard time reintegrating into a life of having
Speaker 5: the work getting back into the workforce. But it's difficult
Speaker 5: for me. The transition is still is, but I'm making
Speaker 5: the best out of it.
Speaker 2: What happened to Richard Rosaria was horrible. He spent twenty years,
Speaker 2: the best years of his life behind bars. When the
Speaker 2: criminal justice system makes a mistake, it's not just the
Speaker 2: individual that gets hurt. It's families, friends, partners, and children.
Speaker 2: Richard's children, Amanda and Richard Jr. Turned their stress and
Speaker 2: creep into music, and I wanted to share this audio
Speaker 2: note and song they made for their dad.
Speaker 3: Good one today E fishsh Well, we.
Speaker 6: Have to say all of my life I've been hearing
Speaker 6: and he's coming home. He's coming home, And I had
Speaker 6: so much hope.
Speaker 1: One day it really had gotten to me.
Speaker 6: I was right, really, really down, and I was sitting
Speaker 6: in our living room and I heard my brother in
Speaker 6: his closet playing the piano.
Speaker 7: It was like a sad time in the house. So
Speaker 7: I was just playing around with keys and I just
Speaker 7: ended up coming up with this riff.
Speaker 6: The song is about, you know, I wish he was
Speaker 6: here for my dance recitles. I wish he was here
Speaker 6: for this and for my brother's baseball games to cheer
Speaker 6: us on. You know, we have collect calls and we
Speaker 6: have letters and all those things, but I wanted to
Speaker 6: I want to experience this world and everything that I'm
Speaker 6: doing with you. I want you to be able to
Speaker 6: enjoy it, not through pictures, but right here physically with Menelet.
Speaker 3: Call letter advance. It's together, wish this And I wanted
Speaker 3: to experience this world with you by my side, who
Speaker 3: cheering for me from the side lines.
Speaker 1: Home man, tell me it's gonna.
Speaker 8: Be oh oh.
Speaker 7: There's no words I can explain that feeling of just
Speaker 7: hearing those words that he's coming home.
Speaker 6: I was like, you know, don't get your hopes up.
Speaker 6: This happens all the time. We think he's coming home.
Speaker 6: And that was the craziest moment of my life.
Speaker 7: And he's always showed love, and now that he's al,
Speaker 7: he's done it to the high extent that every day
Speaker 7: I went to wake up and to see his face
Speaker 7: every day.
Speaker 3: I think this is supposed too much. Click and letters,
Speaker 3: short vines together, whish this would him?
Speaker 9: Every collects let her short VISs together.
Speaker 3: Wish this would and every night I wanted to experience
Speaker 3: this world with.
Speaker 9: You bumba side here.
Speaker 3: You cheered for me from the sidelines, homie and tell
Speaker 3: me it's gonna be oh ye oh, won't you place?
Speaker 3: Come and night from me aunt Hommie time through the
Speaker 3: dark see the light, won't you please God night?
Speaker 1: Won't you please?
Speaker 3: Home to night from me in your arms home meet time.
Speaker 3: The more the darknessy the light you please. I wanted
Speaker 3: to experience this world.
Speaker 9: Whether you buy my side here, you t inform me
Speaker 9: from the side line home me and tell me.
Speaker 4: It's gonna be ah.
Speaker 3: Ohnan to experience this world.
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
Speaker 2: donor to the Innocence Project and I really hope you'll
Speaker 2: join me in supporting this very important cause and helping
Speaker 2: to prevent future wrongs. Go to Innisonsproject dot org to
Speaker 2: learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like to
Speaker 2: thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The
Speaker 2: music in the show is by three time OSCAR nominated
Speaker 2: composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram
Speaker 2: at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
Speaker 2: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is a production of Lava
Speaker 2: for Good podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one