Speaker 1: Since the release of Stefan Brant's story, there have been
Speaker 1: some exciting new developments. This is a re release of
Speaker 1: his story with brand new content. In the late eighties
Speaker 1: and early nineties, Stepan Morant and his best friend Scott
Speaker 1: Lewis were dealing drugs for local New Haven, Connecticut kingpinn
Speaker 1: Frank Perezzi, who was about to go to prison on
Speaker 1: a weapon's charge. When Perezi asked Scott Lewis to take
Speaker 1: out a larger role in his business while he was away,
Speaker 1: Scott refused, a decision that altered the course of his
Speaker 1: end Stefan's lives. On October eleven, former New Haven, Connecticut
Speaker 1: alderman Ricardo Turner and his lover Lamont Fields were shot
Speaker 1: and killed while they laid in bed. Detective Vincent Rauci
Speaker 1: is believed to have pinned this double homicide on Scott Lewis.
Speaker 1: At Frank Parizi's request, Routchi pressured Stefan Morant implicate Scott
Speaker 1: Lewis in a murder. He knew nothing about a false
Speaker 1: statement that Stefan recanted the very next day. However, his
Speaker 1: refusal to participate and Scott Lewis's rangful conviction sealed him
Speaker 1: to the same fate. Rauci coerced and incentivized another street dealer,
Speaker 1: Oville Louise, sending Scott and Stepan away for seventy years. Eventually,
Speaker 1: it took an FBI investigation and the help of law
Speaker 1: students under Professor Brett Dignam to untangled Paris and Raunchie's
Speaker 1: web of lies, setting Stefan and Scott free after both
Speaker 1: had served over twenty years for a crime they didn't commit.
Speaker 1: This it's wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. Fasten
Speaker 1: your seatbelts and listen up, because the story of Stefan
Speaker 1: Morant includes a tangled web of a drug gang, a
Speaker 1: politician who turned up dead with his male lover in
Speaker 1: his bed, a corrupt detective who was in on the
Speaker 1: drug dealing as well and who ended up framing you,
Speaker 1: Stefan not to mention a false confession, an incentivized witness
Speaker 1: who we know now was mentally ill and who lied
Speaker 1: through his teeth and changed his story multiple times, a
Speaker 1: mafia kingpin in case all that other stuff wasn't enough
Speaker 1: for you, And finally, a good judge who ironically was
Speaker 1: named Hate. I mean, you can't even make this stuff up.
Speaker 1: And our featured guest today is Stefan Marant, who lived
Speaker 1: through this nightmare. So Stefan, welcome to the show. Thank you.
Speaker 1: So let's go back to the beginning. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is a Connecticut story and the backs are that on
Speaker 1: October eleventh, former New Haven alderman named Ricardo Turner and
Speaker 1: his lover Lamont Fields were shot and killed in their bed,
Speaker 1: and that's where our story starts. So back were a
Speaker 1: kid about, yes, and you were you know, you were hustling, right, yes,
Speaker 1: but you weren't killing anybody, absolutely not, and you certainly
Speaker 1: weren't killing Ricardo Turner and Lamont Fields. Okay, so how
Speaker 1: does this start? Because you ended up getting into the
Speaker 1: cross hairs of a let's say, corrupt detective. I mean
Speaker 1: corrupt wived be two light of a word for this
Speaker 1: guy Rouci. I mean you weren't his only victim. There
Speaker 1: were tons. Yes, He's sort of like a character along
Speaker 1: the lines of that guy out in Brooklyn Um who
Speaker 1: framed so many of those people. Stefan set the stage
Speaker 1: for us as to this crazy cast of characters in
Speaker 1: the New Haven drug market at the time that this
Speaker 1: double murder went down. Because this was a culmination of
Speaker 1: a lot of other factors. So can you give us
Speaker 1: an overview. There's a lot of different what you meet
Speaker 1: call I guess, organizations, guys um selling on different blocks.
Speaker 1: I was working with Scott and he was getting drugs
Speaker 1: from this guy by the name of Frank Parisi from
Speaker 1: out of the Fame hece Area. That's who Detective Rochi
Speaker 1: used to work for. I think the reason why me
Speaker 1: and Scott got framed it because Flank was about to
Speaker 1: go to prison. I think he was sent this to
Speaker 1: eighteen years. So he wanted somebody to take over the organization,
Speaker 1: and he picked Scott to take over the organization, and
Speaker 1: Scott wanted to get out of the drug trade. So
Speaker 1: Scott said that he would not do it. And next
Speaker 1: thing you know, me and Scott to be in a
Speaker 1: frame for murder. So how did this cross your consciousness?
Speaker 1: When did you first become entangled in it? As a
Speaker 1: young man, I was living with my mother at the time.
Speaker 1: I happened to call my mother in between seven thirty
Speaker 1: and eight o'clock, me and a couple of the guys
Speaker 1: where he's got to go to a script club. So
Speaker 1: I just just calling her not to tell I was
Speaker 1: going to script club, but just we're not doing that.
Speaker 1: So she tells me that if someone came by, it
Speaker 1: was a detective, a couple of them. So she said
Speaker 1: they wanted me to call. So I was like, I
Speaker 1: have no problem with calling them, So she gave me
Speaker 1: the number. Happened to be Detective Racchi, and I think
Speaker 1: it was the technical Sweeney at the time, which came
Speaker 1: in the case later on. And uh, just probably by
Speaker 1: the reason why I'm sent before you to day because
Speaker 1: of Detective Sweeney. That's another part of the story. But um,
Speaker 1: so I happened to call him. He's asking me because
Speaker 1: I meet him somewhere, and I said, not a problem.
Speaker 1: So my court defended Mr Lewis and I and another gentleman.
Speaker 1: We jumped into a vehicle. He dropped me off at
Speaker 1: a local gas station round corner for my mother's home,
Speaker 1: and um, he started asking me questions. I was hesitanting
Speaker 1: about answering anything because I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 1: He opened the back door and he thrusted me in.
Speaker 1: That was the beginning of a nightmare in my life. Um.
Speaker 1: They took me to the New Even Police Precinct, helped
Speaker 1: me to the detective Burrow. How May there for hours
Speaker 1: at the time, brought out police reports, statements, use paper articles,
Speaker 1: and started asking me questions about doing anything about the
Speaker 1: double homicide. I said, I did not. Had you even
Speaker 1: heard about it in the neighborhood anything? No, I did not.
Speaker 1: So this is taking you totally off guard. And you
Speaker 1: didn't have a lawyer? No I did not. Did you
Speaker 1: read your right because you weren't a suspect yet? You know,
Speaker 1: I wasn't a suspect, like I said. We were at
Speaker 1: the house drinking and smoking, so we was a little
Speaker 1: no nice, you know, before going to the script club.
Speaker 1: Instead of spending all the money in the script club,
Speaker 1: we just to get high before. So, um, we're in
Speaker 1: the police precinct for hours at the time. They start
Speaker 1: threatening with talking about all you could get the death penalty,
Speaker 1: we'll put you in a man out of bond. So
Speaker 1: I'm looking around, like in a room such as this,
Speaker 1: one small little room, you know, how do I get
Speaker 1: out of here? Like if you help us, will help you.
Speaker 1: We don't want you anyway, we want Lewis So and
Speaker 1: Lewis was Scott Lewis correct? Scott Lewis was your friend,
Speaker 1: my brother, your brother not from another mother another okay,
Speaker 1: so and he had not been picked up yet. No,
Speaker 1: he wasn't right. So you're in there by yourself. Obviously
Speaker 1: a scary situation going on. Un Plus you were already
Speaker 1: a little impair in the first place. That couldn't have helped.
Speaker 1: Although imagine this would kill your buzz real quick, but
Speaker 1: still you didn't have all your wits about you. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, I would like to go back in
Speaker 1: time to that day and and shake you by the
Speaker 1: collar and go, dude, call a lawyer, like, tell him
Speaker 1: you want a lawyer. That's all you had to do.
Speaker 1: And the question we have had to stop. But you
Speaker 1: didn't know that because most people don't know. I was
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why we do the show, because
Speaker 1: we want to tell people what to do if they
Speaker 1: got a bit of end up in a situation like yours.
Speaker 1: So this question goes on and on and on. You
Speaker 1: don't even know. You probably have no sense of time
Speaker 1: at this point. Did you have a watch or anything.
Speaker 1: I was probably got there, like I said, it was
Speaker 1: like eight I didn't get out of there toil like
Speaker 1: probably like five six hours later after if they gave
Speaker 1: me all this information, it was recording me, of course,
Speaker 1: and it kept stopping the take. That's not how we wanted.
Speaker 1: We need you to write the statement correctly, stopping the
Speaker 1: tape starting stopping the take. After they felt all this information,
Speaker 1: so I said, I felt in my best interest on
Speaker 1: it with him to get out of here is to
Speaker 1: do what they want me to do. Because the key
Speaker 1: thing for me was what they said was you, after
Speaker 1: you write this, you gotta come back. So now I
Speaker 1: see a way out, and see a way out before
Speaker 1: because they weren't give me the way. I was like, listen,
Speaker 1: I don't know anything about the crime. I need to
Speaker 1: leave it, let me go. And it was not letting
Speaker 1: me go, which is actually against the law as well.
Speaker 1: They had to let you go if you have to
Speaker 1: be let go, like I mean, considering they were willing
Speaker 1: to break so many other rules, they certainly weren't going
Speaker 1: to abide by that one either. So so you give
Speaker 1: a statement, which is a statement that they had basically
Speaker 1: fed your giving details of the crime that you had
Speaker 1: no idea about. Correct, but that we're accurate presumably if
Speaker 1: they fed them to you. Yes, And then of course
Speaker 1: stopping and starting the tape. I mean, that's right out
Speaker 1: of a TV show as well. An amateur scriptwriter would
Speaker 1: put that in there, you know. And so they end
Speaker 1: up getting what they want. Did they then arrest you
Speaker 1: or did they send you home? No, they actually let
Speaker 1: me go. That's crazy. Let me They told me to
Speaker 1: come back because I just signed a statement. So my
Speaker 1: god mother name is Emma Jones. She was a lawyer
Speaker 1: at the time, and I immediately went to her home. Um,
Speaker 1: when I got there, it was like three four in
Speaker 1: the morning. She looked at me, and I looked at her,
Speaker 1: and I told her what I was coming from, and
Speaker 1: she said, you did not say anything right, And I
Speaker 1: just put my head down and she said, first thing
Speaker 1: in the morning, we're going to get representation. And my cousin,
Speaker 1: Detective Planto, was my father's first cousin. He called my
Speaker 1: mother and he knew because at the time of the crime,
Speaker 1: when it actually happened, I wasn't even living here. I
Speaker 1: was living in South Carolina, actually going back and forth
Speaker 1: from South Carolina North Carolina. So he was aware that
Speaker 1: I didn't live here at the time, so he called
Speaker 1: my mother. I didn't know where we camp meant, so
Speaker 1: he's like, do you have a statement down here? Tell
Speaker 1: Steflon come down here. He can't the statement. We know
Speaker 1: that he wasn't here. He knew he wasn't here. So
Speaker 1: I went back to the detective place with my mother.
Speaker 1: A detective came out and he was brought the statement
Speaker 1: off of me to sign it. I heard over the
Speaker 1: dispatch because I actually supposed to meet my cousin over there,
Speaker 1: which we detective plant to and it was disregard. We
Speaker 1: got this. So the detective came out, He's like, you
Speaker 1: have to sign this or I'm not signing anything. I said,
Speaker 1: that's bullshit. I'm not signing it. I'm not signing it
Speaker 1: because it's a lie. It's false information, it's not true.
Speaker 1: Like what if you don't sign this, we could charge
Speaker 1: of conspiracy, and I mean my mother just she grabbed
Speaker 1: a pocket book and we walked out the door. Okay,
Speaker 1: so this is a bizarre story. In the number of levels.
Speaker 1: One is that they let you go in the first
Speaker 1: place instead of making you sign a statement right after
Speaker 1: you had false to confessed. That's I've never heard that
Speaker 1: one before. There must have been some reason for it,
Speaker 1: but I don't know what it was. By now, this
Speaker 1: is the next day talking about going back to the
Speaker 1: police station. It was a couple of days later. By
Speaker 1: now you knew the details of the crime. You knew
Speaker 1: this was a double murder. You know, the super serious situation, right.
Speaker 1: Um probably getting extra attention because of the fact that
Speaker 1: one of the dead guys, Ricardo Turner, was a former alderman. Right,
Speaker 1: so there was probably a sure to solve this crime. Um.
Speaker 1: So now, in these three days that had passed, did
Speaker 1: you touch base with Scott Lewis? Did you let him
Speaker 1: know what's going on? Yes? I called him actually probably
Speaker 1: the next day, and I told him about it. So
Speaker 1: he actually called the police priesting and called the detective himself,
Speaker 1: and I went down there and spoke to him. I
Speaker 1: don't know what the details of the conversation were, but
Speaker 1: he went down there himself. So what happens next? How
Speaker 1: does it progress from here to where you end up
Speaker 1: getting convicted and serving almost half your life in prison?
Speaker 1: So what was I doing prior to being convicted? So
Speaker 1: after leaving the police precinct, I went on with my life.
Speaker 1: I was I was working. I was working at a
Speaker 1: piece of place, being a delivery guy. And it detected Rachi.
Speaker 1: He's like used to follow me everywhere I moved back
Speaker 1: and forth, you know, from North Carolina, South Carolina. I
Speaker 1: moved back down there with me and my kids mother.
Speaker 1: I formally got arrested two years later, so this is
Speaker 1: the crime happened. I got arrested her and February nineteen
Speaker 1: my kids mother, Christie Sobing, she was pregnant with my
Speaker 1: sons and we were actually living in favor of North Carolina.
Speaker 1: Her mother and father came to pick her up in
Speaker 1: December of n um. She was complaining because I was,
Speaker 1: of course still in the drug trade. I was going
Speaker 1: back and forth from North Carolina, South Carolina, trying to
Speaker 1: make ends meet something a little bit of drugs. So
Speaker 1: I called her in. Happened to be February, right, my
Speaker 1: sons was born on Valentine's Day, twins one of the
Speaker 1: great yeah, and one of the greatest days in my life.
Speaker 1: Of course, it was definitely a blessing. I'm like, I
Speaker 1: got to get back to Connecticut, right. I didn't have
Speaker 1: no warrant, didn't have no nothing. The last time I
Speaker 1: heard from the detectives when I seen them following me
Speaker 1: around in the piece of place in other various places
Speaker 1: like nightclubs and stuff like that. So I didn't see
Speaker 1: him anymore because I went back down south. So when
Speaker 1: I get here from my mother's home she lives in
Speaker 1: New Haven, happened to see a K car, you know,
Speaker 1: police detective car. I just knew, you know, what the
Speaker 1: detective car looked like. So I've seen him, and I
Speaker 1: just went the opposite way. So I happened to park
Speaker 1: in a car in the communal lot in Derby, Connecticut,
Speaker 1: and me and my friend named his name is robbed.
Speaker 1: After seeing my boys, I was on my way going
Speaker 1: back to South Carolina. So I was going to pick
Speaker 1: my car up at the communal lot, and I've seen
Speaker 1: my left tire was flat and it looked crazy. I
Speaker 1: just felt something. And then I've seen a guy like
Speaker 1: in the Seville with a newspaper up on his face,
Speaker 1: like nobody reads the newspaper like that, something's not right.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I get out of the car. As soon
Speaker 1: as I get out of the car, police come from everywhere.
Speaker 1: It's like the scene out of a movie. My sons
Speaker 1: was in the back, my my name was in the back.
Speaker 1: I was in the front. I got out the detectives.
Speaker 1: I was like, they asked me what was my name?
Speaker 1: Myself of course my name and stoff with my random
Speaker 1: but I said, you guys, I got kids in the car,
Speaker 1: and you put your guns down. It was like I
Speaker 1: was in control of the situation, but I wasn't because
Speaker 1: they put their guns down. I told him my name
Speaker 1: and they're like, oh, you have an arrest want for
Speaker 1: the homicide. Like what now, I'm arrested for the homicide.
Speaker 1: Like I believe if I would have never came back
Speaker 1: to Connecticut because what they were doing, they was about
Speaker 1: to take Scott the trial. So what they did was
Speaker 1: rested me so they could put pressure on me so
Speaker 1: I have become and testify against Mr Lewis. And that's
Speaker 1: just that how you say. They try to put division
Speaker 1: between both of us, and it didn't work. We both
Speaker 1: ended up, of course getting convicted. I never testified on
Speaker 1: them because I'm not testifying to a lie. But I
Speaker 1: ended up getting arrested that day. Detective RATCHI was the
Speaker 1: detective that came him and another detective and picked me
Speaker 1: up from the Orange precinct. I said, he him this
Speaker 1: bull crap again. So he's like, all we want you
Speaker 1: to do is tell us that Mr Lewis committed his crime.
Speaker 1: You could go home, this warrant could go away. I'm like, listen, man,
Speaker 1: what's my bond? I just need to know my bond,
Speaker 1: That's all I wanna know. I ended up giving my
Speaker 1: phone call. I called my mother. She wasn't home, so
Speaker 1: I called my aunt. Told my aunt about it, and
Speaker 1: she called my mother let her know. And I was
Speaker 1: in jail for like a few months, and then my
Speaker 1: mother she bonded me out. She put her home up
Speaker 1: in my state out for an addition to two years,
Speaker 1: and then I went to trial. The whole thing is
Speaker 1: really surreal. I mean for a lot of reasons, but
Speaker 1: also because of in particular because of the elapsed time,
Speaker 1: right because I feel like you're listening to you talking
Speaker 1: about it now, it seems like it was kind of
Speaker 1: in the tail life. You were going out your life,
Speaker 1: You're raising your family, trying to make hims meet, doing
Speaker 1: or whatever you can, a little of this, a little
Speaker 1: legitimate stuff, some other stuff. But you weren't killing anybody.
Speaker 1: You weren't even hurting anybody. They had another sort of
Speaker 1: nefarious weapon in their arsenal, which was this and another
Speaker 1: another name that could only come out of a fictional account, right,
Speaker 1: this guy Oville Ruise like Oville? Are you getting me
Speaker 1: with this name? Not Orville Oville like evil? And Oval
Speaker 1: Ruise gave well, let's call it a co werst eyewitness account.
Speaker 1: He was incentivized, he was coerced, they were using the
Speaker 1: carrot and the stick. He was promised leniency, and according
Speaker 1: to Ruise, he came up with this story. I imagine
Speaker 1: the first time you heard about this was that trial.
Speaker 1: Did you know this Ruise guy? Yes, I knew of
Speaker 1: him well when we sold drugs. He was he sused
Speaker 1: to sell drugs. We used drugs. Yes, we wasn't the
Speaker 1: best of friends, but I know he was. So Ruise
Speaker 1: came up with a pretty interesting story. He said that
Speaker 1: this alderman, the former alderman, Ricardo Turner, was storing drugs
Speaker 1: and money for Louis, your co defendant for his operation
Speaker 1: in the second four apartment that he lived in, and
Speaker 1: that he also owed Louis money. So, according to Oval, Ruise,
Speaker 1: I love saying that name over and over again. On
Speaker 1: October tenth and eleventh, he claimed that you and Lewis
Speaker 1: discussed the idea that Turner might take the money and run,
Speaker 1: and therefore Ruise rode with you guys to turn his
Speaker 1: apartment away in the car while you Again this is
Speaker 1: his account, his false account, but his account he claimed that,
Speaker 1: armed with a three fifty seven and a thirty eight,
Speaker 1: that you guys forced your way into Turner's apartment, murdered
Speaker 1: he and Fields in their bed, then took the money
Speaker 1: and the coke got in the getaway car. Now this
Speaker 1: would all be a little bit more believable if not
Speaker 1: for the fact that he was promised lenien. See if
Speaker 1: he admitted to being a getaway driver. And you know,
Speaker 1: he probably didn't even come up with this story. They
Speaker 1: probably came up with and gave it to him. But whatever, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, at the time, I'm be going to trial
Speaker 1: this young kid. What a background in mental health issues.
Speaker 1: My lawyer at the time subpoena in his records, and
Speaker 1: this guy was talking by he see red bean, Um,
Speaker 1: he see different visions. He's on hollid doll and various
Speaker 1: drugs for his mental health. So he was not only
Speaker 1: thrown and thrusted and given leniency for giving false testimony,
Speaker 1: but he also was a mental health patient. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't even understand how to jury believe this guy.
Speaker 1: So now they had you, guys, they had this guy,
Speaker 1: they had a false confession. You had no shot at trial.
Speaker 1: So you go to trial. You're tried separately from Lewis. Yes,
Speaker 1: I have four counts. First, I have five counts, one
Speaker 1: count of conspiracy. They dropped that to the beginning of
Speaker 1: the trial too. Counts eight into have been in and
Speaker 1: two counts of felony murder. So when the jury came
Speaker 1: back in, did you have any hope that they would
Speaker 1: come to the right answer? He still believed even after
Speaker 1: everything that happens, you still believe the justice were gonna win.
Speaker 1: Out of course I did have hope because I didn't
Speaker 1: do it. So, okay, so take us to that moment.
Speaker 1: So the jury comes in and they read the charges
Speaker 1: in order, right, So you've already had the one charge dropped.
Speaker 1: Now you have the first two charges and they go
Speaker 1: not guilty. So after that second not guilty, you're You're like,
Speaker 1: I'm going home, Yes, I mean, and then they dropped
Speaker 1: a bomb on you, and then a literal almost fell over.
Speaker 1: Literally I rocked back and to catch myself, and then
Speaker 1: I looked at the Jerry person, and he like, he
Speaker 1: shook his head, like, yeah, we convicted you, and then
Speaker 1: he read it off again. I looked in his eyes again,
Speaker 1: and then he put his head down. This episode is
Speaker 1: underwritten by A i G, a leading global insurance company,
Speaker 1: and by Accenture, a global professional services company with leading
Speaker 1: capabilities in digital, cloud and security, working to reform the
Speaker 1: criminal justice system as a key pillar of the A
Speaker 1: i G pro Bono Program, which provides free legal services
Speaker 1: and other support to many nonprofit organizations and individuals most
Speaker 1: in need. As part of Accenture's commitment to racial and
Speaker 1: civil justice. Accenture's Legal Access Program provides pro bono legal
Speaker 1: services in partnership with more than forty organizations, bringing meaningful
Speaker 1: change to people and communities worldwide. The prosecutor, which is,
Speaker 1: he was just as corrupt as the detective in my eyes.
Speaker 1: My son's again, he was twins. They were two year
Speaker 1: old at the time, and um, I didn't see my
Speaker 1: sons in a while, you know, So I didn't bring
Speaker 1: me the court. I don't even know I was going
Speaker 1: to court. The prosecutor rising fruit basket. He puts them
Speaker 1: on the table, so my mother's there. I didn't know,
Speaker 1: my mother's gonna be there and my sons are there.
Speaker 1: So he says to me, you missed this. Of course?
Speaker 1: What kind of questions that? Of course I missed my kids,
Speaker 1: he says, So what you gotta do about it? I said, listen,
Speaker 1: I told you before, I don't know nothing about this.
Speaker 1: I'm the same way. I'm looking at my son's right here.
Speaker 1: Mr Lewis has kids as well. So I'm gonna just
Speaker 1: take myself and say, okay, I'm gonna lie on the
Speaker 1: man and take myself out of prison and put him
Speaker 1: in prison. Possibly I can't do that. I just can't
Speaker 1: do that. Did he actually tell you that he was
Speaker 1: willing to give you a deal if you would test
Speaker 1: the pike against Lewis? Or he would just assume that
Speaker 1: that's what he told me. And what was the deal
Speaker 1: they offered you? He said we would work it out.
Speaker 1: He didn't tell me, well, I'm gonna take thirty five
Speaker 1: I got seventy years now, thirty five years running wile,
Speaker 1: which means do this thirty five years and start all
Speaker 1: over again. So what can you offer me? You can't
Speaker 1: offer me. No, you couldn't. He couldn't offer me a
Speaker 1: day because I'm not gonna see him lying the man
Speaker 1: for something that I didn't do and he didn't do.
Speaker 1: It's just not gonna happen. Then that speaks to your
Speaker 1: character too, because I think there's you know, no again,
Speaker 1: no one knows how you would hell anyone would deal
Speaker 1: with the situation like the one that you were in.
Speaker 1: But you handled it, I mean with courage and um,
Speaker 1: you know, you did the right thing at extreme cost
Speaker 1: to yourself. So now you're sentenced to seventy years and
Speaker 1: you get taken to prison. One of the reasons I
Speaker 1: do this work and I'm so obsessed and committed to it,
Speaker 1: have been from my whole adult life and will be
Speaker 1: for the rest of my adult life, however long that
Speaker 1: may be. It's because of people like you. Um, honestly
Speaker 1: in awe that people like yourself can go through what
Speaker 1: you went through and come out with this and I
Speaker 1: picked it up when we've met before. Is one of
Speaker 1: the reasons I want to have you on the show,
Speaker 1: because you're such a positive guy and you're such a
Speaker 1: sort of I mean to meet you. No one would
Speaker 1: ever know that you had been through anything like this,
Speaker 1: much less this totally insane ordeal. So how did you
Speaker 1: survive prison? Was it as bad as what you were expecting?
Speaker 1: Was it as bad as what people think it is? Well?
Speaker 1: For me, um, I have a Christian background, right, My
Speaker 1: grandmother was she just was a faith driven woman. My mother,
Speaker 1: you know, my father should take me to church all
Speaker 1: the time. Actually, the day I got convicted June eighth,
Speaker 1: that night when they threw me and told me, they
Speaker 1: reminded me, how was it like like the whole building
Speaker 1: on top of me, like, and I didn't know how
Speaker 1: it was gonna get it off of me. So they
Speaker 1: put me in the bullpen. There was nobody down there,
Speaker 1: and I'm looking around and I had a suit on,
Speaker 1: so in the tie. So I shifted my tie from
Speaker 1: the left to the right, and I'm like, yeo, how
Speaker 1: did I get here? How did this happen to me?
Speaker 1: So I was about to cry, of course, I'm like
Speaker 1: and so literally a voice came over me and said, son,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be all right. You know. I got down
Speaker 1: on my knees in that bullpen and I prayed, and
Speaker 1: that was my piece. That was my sinct, you guys,
Speaker 1: my sanity. That's what brought me through, just not my
Speaker 1: faith alone, but My family was there for me. They're
Speaker 1: still there for me. My big brother Frank, my brother
Speaker 1: julian Um he passed away at Loopus a year before
Speaker 1: I came home. He was my great to support, my
Speaker 1: brother leand and my mother Linda, or host of family
Speaker 1: and friends. I mean, you know, it's crazy in prison
Speaker 1: because some people don't even know what the visiting room
Speaker 1: look like. I just had a great support my wife
Speaker 1: Rangely the snow. I'm telling you, if it was six
Speaker 1: ft of snow and the rose is clear, she was there,
Speaker 1: you know, And and that says a lot for her,
Speaker 1: you know. But again, I had a lot of family
Speaker 1: there for me. My family was there, they're still there
Speaker 1: for me. And again my faith kept me whole. You know.
Speaker 1: I actually go to school right now, to a Bible
Speaker 1: institute to become a minister. It's not easy. I go
Speaker 1: through a lot of ups and downs because of the
Speaker 1: incarceration I call it today, because of they thrusted me
Speaker 1: into a cage. I'm that dog that's running away from
Speaker 1: the cage. Never to go back to that cage again.
Speaker 1: I want to go back there, but I want to
Speaker 1: go back there for the right reasons. As far as
Speaker 1: if I could inspire and encourage somebody to be like, listen,
Speaker 1: there is hope. These guys that see me today. When
Speaker 1: I was actually incarcerated, when I don't call it incarcerated again,
Speaker 1: when I was strutted into that cage, they just literally
Speaker 1: like start crying, like, yeah, you know you believed like
Speaker 1: you believed you was coming home when you was going
Speaker 1: home and you're here. Sometimes of course it gives rough sometime,
Speaker 1: you know, but what do you do with the situation
Speaker 1: when it happens to you? Do you sit down weeping
Speaker 1: crowd and you get up a stand to all, because
Speaker 1: that's what they want you to do. They want you
Speaker 1: to be like, Okay, we're gonna take this person, thrust
Speaker 1: them in the cage, and we want them to become
Speaker 1: an animal. I did the total opposite. I mean, how
Speaker 1: did you get out? And these are the things I
Speaker 1: want to get to here because you were there for
Speaker 1: twenty years, twenty one years and maximum security. Obviously it's
Speaker 1: felony murder. I believe that my guy made away, you know,
Speaker 1: to me, of course legal things took place, but people
Speaker 1: came back, Like I mentioned to you earlier, detected Sweeney.
Speaker 1: He was a great part in this case. He came
Speaker 1: back after he was in Bosnia in nine he happened
Speaker 1: to see my case. I was going back for a
Speaker 1: petition for new trial and um I had the lawyer
Speaker 1: by the name of Michael Fitzpatrick at the time, and
Speaker 1: he said, I got some good evidence that's coming and
Speaker 1: that was It took another sixteen more years for the
Speaker 1: court to even listen to him. And this is the
Speaker 1: supervisor of detective Racchi. That's telling you that the two
Speaker 1: men that you have imprisoned, if you're going by the
Speaker 1: information that was gathered by Detective Racchi and that informat
Speaker 1: that you had to testify in, these guys absolutely not swing.
Speaker 1: He came to testify to that. That's so crazy. I'm
Speaker 1: getting the chills now thinking about it, because here you
Speaker 1: have a senior official in law enforcement who is coming
Speaker 1: forward with no motivation. What could his motivation possibly be
Speaker 1: other than the truth? And they're going, yeah, we're good,
Speaker 1: like yeah, I mean, he's he's one of the heroes
Speaker 1: in this story, right, without a doubt. Scott Lewis wrote
Speaker 1: a letter to the FBI as well about Rachi. They
Speaker 1: looked into it, and every time they did they would
Speaker 1: find that things were not as he said they were,
Speaker 1: but as you guys said they were. They found that
Speaker 1: Rauchi not only framed you and Lewis, but that he
Speaker 1: framed a number of other people. I don't think we'll
Speaker 1: ever know how many, because we know when these guys
Speaker 1: do it, like Scarcella in Brooklyn, they just keep doing
Speaker 1: it and doing it and doing it as long as
Speaker 1: they get away with it, which is why it's so
Speaker 1: important that we tell these stories. And they even brought
Speaker 1: him back Rouchi, they brought him back to New Haven
Speaker 1: to question him, but they never charged him. They they
Speaker 1: ended up charging him with his ridiculous but they charged
Speaker 1: him for misbuilding his overtime hours and assaulting his wife,
Speaker 1: which is a serious crime in my view. And yet
Speaker 1: he received two years probation. Um, so he was dealing drugs,
Speaker 1: framing people for murder, assaulting his wife, and uh, he
Speaker 1: gets two years of probation and you end up with
Speaker 1: seventy years for a crime you didn't commit. Another hero
Speaker 1: in this story, and it's it's interesting because it's a
Speaker 1: New Haven story. And along comes a Yale law professor
Speaker 1: named Brett Dignam and Richard Emmanuel and a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of law students right coming in like the cavalry, all
Speaker 1: from Yale. And that's a pretty good group to have
Speaker 1: on your side because at Yale they don't mess around.
Speaker 1: There's no question that you have an incredible amount of
Speaker 1: brain power and energy to vote it to your case.
Speaker 1: How did they get involved? How they find out about it?
Speaker 1: They got involved in Scott case actually two thousand and
Speaker 1: nine and um Brett moved from them. She was a
Speaker 1: law professor at Yale and then she moved to Columbia
Speaker 1: and then they just the students. A lot of the
Speaker 1: students just went along with her, or she just had
Speaker 1: some more Columbian students. I'm not really sure of the
Speaker 1: whole procedure how it went down, but they played a
Speaker 1: big role in this getting the conviction overturn. And finally
Speaker 1: a good judge who ironically was named Hate the judge
Speaker 1: Hate huh with a name but a loving guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Judge Charles Hate the U S District Judge Charles Hate Jr.
Speaker 1: Your team want a ruling in front of Judge Hate
Speaker 1: that the prosecution had failed to tell the defense and
Speaker 1: does his heavy get ready that the key witness Oval
Speaker 1: Louise had repeatedly denied having any knowledge of the murders.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, he had a big memory recall
Speaker 1: after he was offered a deal. But it's important to
Speaker 1: recognize that he was at least initially telling the truth.
Speaker 1: Doesn't excuse his behavior whatsoever, but it does highlight the
Speaker 1: lengths that they were willing to go to to get
Speaker 1: a conviction. And let us not forget that, of course,
Speaker 1: in your case, like in so many other moldli conviction cases,
Speaker 1: like whoever it was that went in cold bloodedly gunned
Speaker 1: these two guys down? But there was one guy, two
Speaker 1: guys women. We don't know who it was, right, I
Speaker 1: don't know if you took this day know who was
Speaker 1: I don't know who it is. I mean, they have
Speaker 1: the suspects that they say they have, um, but I
Speaker 1: don't know if they pushed forward to try to arrest anybody.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't wish nothing bad on anybody, but
Speaker 1: whether it's one into is your two or three individuals
Speaker 1: still out there? So now, what about our public exactly?
Speaker 1: Let's just say it's not unlikely that whoever it was
Speaker 1: I committed this crime went on to commit other terrible
Speaker 1: crimes while you guys were serving the time for them.
Speaker 1: So how did you end up getting out? Actually, Mr Lewis,
Speaker 1: he was releasing February March and two thousand and fourteen.
Speaker 1: On the bracelet. Judge Hate ordered that they release him
Speaker 1: within ninety days. I think of after the conviction was overturning.
Speaker 1: Then they had to go to the second Circuit court
Speaker 1: and then all the charges was dropped. I think he
Speaker 1: got exonerated in two thousand sixteen, if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 1: Unlike myself, Mr Lewis had a dream team and I
Speaker 1: had a team that wasn't fighting for me at all.
Speaker 1: So pushed forward to a year later. The attorney said
Speaker 1: he he spoke with the district attorney and said, oh,
Speaker 1: I think that Um, I could talk to him, to
Speaker 1: talk to him about what like, why now you're not
Speaker 1: found the motion for me to get out of prison? Um,
Speaker 1: because you know Mr Lewis cases different. I said, what
Speaker 1: you mean, what do you mean different? We went to
Speaker 1: we just went to trial differently. The evidence is the same,
Speaker 1: we just went to trial at different times. I want
Speaker 1: to be released from prison. I said, how long more
Speaker 1: do you think this is gonna take? He said it
Speaker 1: might take another three years. What this man is out
Speaker 1: of prison? You're telling me I still got a wait
Speaker 1: in additional three years to be released from prison. He
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, So what I'm gonna do is I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go talk because I'm friends with the district attorney.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna go down there and see if he
Speaker 1: had just say, see what can happened? I think that
Speaker 1: was a Tuesday. So he came back the very next day.
Speaker 1: He's like, I got good news from You're going home.
Speaker 1: The district attorney said, we give you time, sir, but
Speaker 1: you have the cop out. I'm thinking now, my little brother,
Speaker 1: he just passed away. Lopus. I lost my grandfather. I
Speaker 1: lost my father, I lost the host of a lot
Speaker 1: of friends. My mother's getting older, my children are older.
Speaker 1: You know they did when you come home. I have
Speaker 1: a wife now that married me for I don't know
Speaker 1: why in prison in two thousand and nine. What do
Speaker 1: I do between the rock and hard place? Do I
Speaker 1: sit here and say, listen, I want to fight for
Speaker 1: my name to be clear for another three years. There's
Speaker 1: nothing guaranteed in the judicial system. They already failed me once,
Speaker 1: So what do I do. I've always heard that if
Speaker 1: you can fight better from the outside and the inside.
Speaker 1: I need to get out. I need to get out
Speaker 1: of here. So I went with the terms in the agreement.
Speaker 1: I mean ignorant, of course, of the repercussions of still
Speaker 1: fighting for my conviction, because I still have a conviction. Mr. Lords,
Speaker 1: as I told you a couple of minutes ago, is exonerated,
Speaker 1: same evidence, just different trial. He's desonerated. I'm struggling. You know,
Speaker 1: what do you do? You know, I gotta survive, though,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm thankful that I'm able to be able
Speaker 1: to stand on my two feet. I'm able to to
Speaker 1: go to a job and to go and make a
Speaker 1: difference something I don't know if you know, but I
Speaker 1: work at a half way house. You know, it's a
Speaker 1: part of the frectional facility. Like my grandmother was a caregiver,
Speaker 1: so I guess I'm following the footsteps of her. I
Speaker 1: also just took on another job working with the mental
Speaker 1: health I work at half and Healthcare. Now. It's not
Speaker 1: a lot of money, but it's getting me and my wife.
Speaker 1: By me and my lawyer. Right now, we're trying to
Speaker 1: put together a pardon to try to see if that
Speaker 1: the state of Connecticut, were pardon me and use circumstances
Speaker 1: because I can't get jobs that's paid as well because
Speaker 1: I have a conviction of my record. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: actually like getting half to pay, you know, for somebody
Speaker 1: didn't do and I'm still suffering. Sometimes I'll be like, yo, why,
Speaker 1: But then at the end of the day, why not.
Speaker 1: I'm not the first person that happened to him, won't
Speaker 1: be the last person that happens to so Stefan. Last
Speaker 1: time we spoke, you were still fighting for your innocence
Speaker 1: to be recognized. You were out here struggling to get
Speaker 1: by on what jobs you could get with murder conviction
Speaker 1: hanging over your head until you and your attorney, Ken Rosenthal,
Speaker 1: we're finally able to get a hearing in July, just
Speaker 1: a short time ago, for an absolute pardon, which would
Speaker 1: finally expunge your record of having ever been convicted of
Speaker 1: a crime. And you finally received your absolute part and
Speaker 1: certificate just a few months later. When you found out,
Speaker 1: what was that moment, Like a bunch of bricks, everything
Speaker 1: just fell off my shoulders. It was like I'm free,
Speaker 1: you know. It was like for a long time I've
Speaker 1: been accused of something that I did not do, and
Speaker 1: now it felt like a release. You know, I'm free.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm finally free. Words can't even sum it
Speaker 1: up right now. I'm ready to just to tear up.
Speaker 1: I think I was telling you earlier this year that
Speaker 1: they called me in for Jerry Dooty. So they called
Speaker 1: you imagine that freshly minted usnoie, right, they called you
Speaker 1: for Jerry Dooty to sub been really kind of poetic
Speaker 1: about that. The same court that convicted me was calling
Speaker 1: me off a jury duty. It didn't pick me for
Speaker 1: the jury, but they called me in for jury duty.
Speaker 1: I felt, I felt honored, I felt like a human being.
Speaker 1: I felt a sense of release. Or even though I
Speaker 1: probably couldn't serve in the jury because I was still
Speaker 1: a convicted felon at the time, but it would just
Speaker 1: honor for the jury pool to even call me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine. And let's face it, most people do
Speaker 1: everything they can to avoid jury duty. Which I'm going
Speaker 1: to talk directly to our audience here. Please take what
Speaker 1: you've learned here and serve on a jury every chance
Speaker 1: you get. Okay, it is an honor and it is
Speaker 1: a duty, and it is an opportunity for each of
Speaker 1: us to help prevent what happened to step On and
Speaker 1: to every other one of the axondres that we've covered
Speaker 1: in these twelve seasons of wrongful conviction. We have the
Speaker 1: opportunity to prevent that from happening to other people. But
Speaker 1: it starts with serving on a jury. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: can see how you know, after being exiled from the
Speaker 1: rest of society, that even jury duty could feel like
Speaker 1: the sort of a warm welcome, like almost like a blessing.
Speaker 1: And you deserve so much more than that. I mean,
Speaker 1: now you're going to be eligible for compensation, which is great,
Speaker 1: but no amount of money will ever be able to
Speaker 1: replace what they took from you two decades of time.
Speaker 1: And speaking of that, I hope that on top of
Speaker 1: the struggle of being out here, living with a conviction
Speaker 1: on your record, having to check that box on job applications,
Speaker 1: working four jobs, I hope that you've been able to
Speaker 1: make up for lost time with your loved ones. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm fortunate and it's been blessed that me and my wife,
Speaker 1: Kimberly Morant, purchased a home. Great woman, she's my angel,
Speaker 1: she is a ride die, She's somebody that whole at
Speaker 1: a at a high regard. That man, I'm getting tongue
Speaker 1: twisted right now, just thinking who would do that? I mean,
Speaker 1: who would just come into somebody's life and just believe
Speaker 1: in the innocent. She believed in me, She believed that
Speaker 1: I was innocent. Other than that, she says, she would
Speaker 1: never have stayed. She became my wife in two thousand
Speaker 1: nine while in prison. Between me and her, we have
Speaker 1: seven children, Twilight, Stefan, Mia, Jailer, Prince Christian, and Julian.
Speaker 1: We have grandchildren now, stuff on the third Tiland, Marquise, Madison, Demi,
Speaker 1: and Juliana. And just knowing that I wasn't here for
Speaker 1: my children, but they got him here for my grandchildren.
Speaker 1: Hope that we could develop a relationship. That man, it's
Speaker 1: hard because they have a life. We have a life.
Speaker 1: Hopefully it gets better. I want to be there more
Speaker 1: because the relationship it's not what it should be. I mean,
Speaker 1: my children tell me every time they thought that it
Speaker 1: would be different, they thought it would make us closer.
Speaker 1: When you came home. My daughter always says that she
Speaker 1: spoke to me it seemed like more when I was
Speaker 1: able to call it from them, fifteen minutes, and that
Speaker 1: to me is sad for me to just hear that
Speaker 1: from her. I mean, and I just pray that one
Speaker 1: day that we all could just just find time from
Speaker 1: one another. Because now again again you heard me earlier,
Speaker 1: I work for a job, so it's like I'm always
Speaker 1: trying to stay busy, stay busy, so I'm always tagged
Speaker 1: with a place that I am, so they can never
Speaker 1: do that to me again. Yeah, it's crazy, step On,
Speaker 1: and it's powerful to hear you say it. But you're
Speaker 1: not the first guy I've heard say that or something
Speaker 1: like it. I mean, some guys will say that they
Speaker 1: will get receipts anywhere they can every time they can't
Speaker 1: get a receipt for a pack of gum anything. I
Speaker 1: just looked at my draw my drawers full of everywhere
Speaker 1: I go, they you want to see, Yeah, I need
Speaker 1: that absolutely location. Like on my phone, I put, yeah,
Speaker 1: do you want people to know you location? And that's
Speaker 1: sad because you want a private life, but you can't
Speaker 1: have a private life because you're afraid that's something like
Speaker 1: this happened to you again. Yeah, I mean that is
Speaker 1: a sad part of reality. And know it's a continuing
Speaker 1: toll of the damage that they did. But I gotta say,
Speaker 1: everyone on the Wrongful Conviction team is really like so
Speaker 1: so happy for you now and with your new clean record.
Speaker 1: I guess all I can say is, may your reputation
Speaker 1: never be smeared and impugned again. And now we come
Speaker 1: to my favorite part of the show, which of course
Speaker 1: is called closing arguments, And with the incredible, magnificent news
Speaker 1: of your absolute pardon, this will be a brand new
Speaker 1: closing argument from the one we did with you back
Speaker 1: in two thousand nine. Honestly, I can't wait to hear
Speaker 1: this one. So first I want to thank you against
Speaker 1: the fan for sharing with us your incredible courage, your journey,
Speaker 1: your your spirit, all of it. And now I'm going
Speaker 1: to turn my microphone off, keep my headphones on, kick
Speaker 1: back in my chair, and just listen to anything you
Speaker 1: feel you want to say. For me. Close arguments would
Speaker 1: be that to recognize my mother have been there from
Speaker 1: the beginning, it's still there now, my little brother Leander,
Speaker 1: my big brother Frank, my wife of course, my mother
Speaker 1: in law, father in law, my children I named them earlier,
Speaker 1: for us to just have a better relationship and building
Speaker 1: on this. I mean, this is cause so much grief
Speaker 1: and so much pain in my life, but I just
Speaker 1: want to make it better. But we have to do
Speaker 1: it together, not you know, as individuals, sometimes we get
Speaker 1: selfish and think that we gotta put off things, but
Speaker 1: sometimes take that minute, take that hour out in that second,
Speaker 1: because nothing it's promised to you. I mean, every day
Speaker 1: is a blessing just to be on this earth. We
Speaker 1: know what we just went through in this last couple
Speaker 1: of years with this COVID situation. I just just pray
Speaker 1: that uh this happened for me, and I hope that
Speaker 1: everybody that's unjustly and crossray to get their day in court,
Speaker 1: that they're able to come and do the same thing
Speaker 1: I'm doing right now with this podcast and of this
Speaker 1: story amongst the world that uh who, this is the
Speaker 1: day that the Lord has made and let us rejoice
Speaker 1: and be exceedingly glad there. And that's one of my
Speaker 1: favorite sayings. And I'm so grateful to God that I
Speaker 1: know that that's the only reason why I stand before
Speaker 1: you today and I sit here and I'm able to
Speaker 1: be here. And again, thank you to Jason Flam and
Speaker 1: thank you to Connor for allowing me just to be here,
Speaker 1: just to share the story and hope that it can
Speaker 1: help somebody see something or hear something, or some people
Speaker 1: just do the right thing. Just to know that you
Speaker 1: don't have to lie on somebody in order to change
Speaker 1: your life, for to save your life, because it's no
Speaker 1: good got to come out of that. If you do
Speaker 1: something wrong, it's some money. Believe me. Let's go come
Speaker 1: back on your teenfold with that. Let's I have a
Speaker 1: blessed day. Thank you, Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction.
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Justin Golden,
Speaker 1: Jeff Claver, and Kevin Wardis with research by Lila Robinson.
Speaker 1: The music in this production was supplied by three time
Speaker 1: OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
Speaker 1: on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast,
Speaker 1: and on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at
Speaker 1: Lava for Good. On all three platforms. You can also
Speaker 1: follow me on both TikTok and Instagram at It's Jason
Speaker 1: flop ravul Conviction is the production of Lava for Good
Speaker 1: Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one