Speaker 1: Since the release of Stefan Morant'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, Stefan Morant and his best friend Scott
Speaker 1: Lewis were dealing drugs for local New Haven, Connecticut Kingpinn
Speaker 1: Frank Perezi, who was about to go to prison on
Speaker 1: a weapons charge. When Perizi 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: and Stefan's lives. On October eleventh, nineteen ninety, former New Haven,
Speaker 1: Connecticut alderman Ricardo Turner and his lover Lamont Fields were
Speaker 1: shot and killed while they laid in bed. Detective Vincent
Speaker 1: Rouchi is believed to have pinned this double homicide on
Speaker 1: Scott Lewis. At Frank Perzi's request, Rauchi pressured Stefan Morant
Speaker 1: to implicates Scott Lewis in a murder. He knew nothing
Speaker 1: about a false statement that Stefan recanted the very next day. However,
Speaker 1: his refusal to participate in Scott Lewis's wrongful conviction sealed
Speaker 1: him to the same fate. Rauchi coerced and incentivized another
Speaker 1: street dealer, Ovil Ruiz, sending Scott and Stefan away for
Speaker 1: seventy years. Eventually, it took an FBI investigation and the
Speaker 1: help of law students under Professor Brett Dignam to untangle
Speaker 1: Parisi and Rauchi's web of lies, setting Stefan and Scott
Speaker 1: free after both had served over twenty years for a
Speaker 1: crime they didn't commit. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to wrongful conviction. Fasten your seat belts and listen up,
Speaker 1: because the story of Stefan Moran includes a tangled web
Speaker 1: of a drug gang, a politician who turned up dead
Speaker 1: with his male lover in his bed, a corrupt detective
Speaker 1: who was in on the drug dealing as well and
Speaker 1: who ended up framing you, Stefan not to mention a
Speaker 1: false confession, an incentivized witness who we know now was
Speaker 1: mentally ill and who lied through his teeth and changed
Speaker 1: his story multiple times, a mafia kingpin in case all
Speaker 1: that other stuff wasn't enough for you, And finally, a
Speaker 1: good judge who ironically was named Hate. I mean you
Speaker 1: can't even make this stuff up. And our featured guest
Speaker 1: today is Stefan Morant, who lived through this nightmare. So Stefan,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: 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, nineteen ninety, former New Haven alderman named Ricardo
Speaker 1: Turner and his lover Lamont Fields, were shot and killed
Speaker 1: in their bed, and that's where our story starts. So
Speaker 1: back in nineteen ninety, you were a kid.
Speaker 2: You were one about, yes.
Speaker 1: 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 did. Okay, So
Speaker 1: how does this start? Because you ended up getting into
Speaker 1: the crosshairs of a I want to say corrupt detective.
Speaker 1: I mean corrupt would be too light of a word
Speaker 1: for this guy, Rauci. I mean you weren't his only victim.
Speaker 1: There were tons. Yes, He's sort of like a character
Speaker 1: along the lines of that guy out in Brooklyn 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.
Speaker 3: There was a lot of different what you may call,
Speaker 3: I guess, organizations, guys selling on different blocks. I was
Speaker 3: working with Scott and he was getting drugs from this
Speaker 3: guy by the name of Frank Perisi from out of
Speaker 3: the Fame Heights area. That's who Detective Rochet used to
Speaker 3: work for. I think the reason why me and Scott
Speaker 3: got framed is because Frank was about to go to prison.
Speaker 3: I think he was sentenced to eighteen years. So he
Speaker 3: wanted somebody to take over the organization and he picked
Speaker 3: Scott to take over the organization, and Scott wanted to
Speaker 3: get out of the drug trade. So Scott said that
Speaker 3: he would not do it, and next thing you know,
Speaker 3: me and Scott are being framed for murder.
Speaker 1: So how did this cross your consciousness? When did you
Speaker 1: first become entangled in it?
Speaker 2: As a young man, I was living with my mother
Speaker 2: at the time.
Speaker 3: I happened to call my mother in between seven thirty
Speaker 3: and eight o'clock, me and a couple all of the
Speaker 3: guys whatever he was about to go to a script club.
Speaker 3: So I just just calling her not to tell I
Speaker 3: was going to script club.
Speaker 1: But you just mom, I'm going to strip club.
Speaker 3: We're not doing that. So she tells me that someone
Speaker 3: came by. It was a detective, a couple of them.
Speaker 3: So she said they wanted me to call, So I
Speaker 3: was like, I have no problem with calling them, so
Speaker 3: she gave me the number. It happened to be Detective Rachi,
Speaker 3: and I think it was the technic was Sweeney at
Speaker 3: the time, which came in the case later on, and uh,
Speaker 3: just probably by the reason why I'm sending before you
Speaker 3: to day because of Detective Sweeney. That's another part of
Speaker 3: the story. But so I happened to call him. He's
Speaker 3: asking me could I meet him somewhere, and I said,
Speaker 3: not a problem. So my court defended mister Lewis and
Speaker 3: I and another gentleman. We jumped into a vehicle. He
Speaker 3: dropped me off at a local gas station around the
Speaker 3: corner from my mother's home, and he started asking me questions.
Speaker 3: I was hesitating by answering anything because I didn't know
Speaker 3: what was going on. He opened the back door and
Speaker 3: he thrust me in. That was the beginning of a
Speaker 3: nightmare of my life. They took me to the new
Speaker 3: police precinct, took me to the detective Burrough, held me
Speaker 3: there for hours at the time, brought out police reports, statements,
Speaker 3: those paper articles, and started asking me the questions about
Speaker 3: doing or anything about the double homicide.
Speaker 2: I said, I did not.
Speaker 1: Had you even heard about it in the neighborhood or anything?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: I did not.
Speaker 1: So this is taking you totally off guard. And you
Speaker 1: didn't have a lawyer.
Speaker 2: No I did not.
Speaker 1: Did you read you your rights because you weren't a
Speaker 1: suspect yet?
Speaker 3: Or no, I was a suspect, Like I said. We
Speaker 3: were at the house drinking and smoking, so we was
Speaker 3: a little little nice, you know, before going to the
Speaker 3: script club. Instead of spending all the money in the
Speaker 3: script club, we just to get high before. So we
Speaker 3: were in the police precinct for hours at the time.
Speaker 3: They start threatening me with talking about, oh, you could
Speaker 3: get the death penalty, we'll put you in the mad
Speaker 3: dollar bond. So I'm looking around, like in a room
Speaker 3: such as this, one small little room, you know, how
Speaker 3: do I get out of here? Like if you help us,
Speaker 3: we'll help you. We don't want you anyway, we want Lewis.
Speaker 1: So and Lewis was Scott Lewis?
Speaker 2: Correct, Scott Lewis.
Speaker 1: Was your friend, my brother, your brother not from another mother,
Speaker 1: from another Okay, so, and he had not been picked
Speaker 1: up yet.
Speaker 2: No, he wasn't right.
Speaker 1: So you're in there by yourself correct. Obviously a scary
Speaker 1: situation going on, and plus you were already a little
Speaker 1: impair in the first place. I couldn't have helped, although
Speaker 1: I imagine this would kill your buzz real quick, yes, but
Speaker 1: still you didn't have all your wits about you. I mean, listen,
Speaker 1: I would like to go back in time to that
Speaker 1: day and shake you by the collar and go, dude,
Speaker 1: call a lawyer, like, tell them you want a lawyer.
Speaker 1: That's all you had to do, and the question would
Speaker 1: have had to stop. But you didn't know that, because
Speaker 1: most people don't know. I was one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why we do the show, because we wanted to tell
Speaker 1: people what to do if they got for a bid
Speaker 1: of end up in a situation like yours. So this
Speaker 1: questioning goes on and on and on. You don't even know.
Speaker 1: You probably have no sense of time at this point.
Speaker 1: Did you have a watch or anything?
Speaker 3: No, I was, we probably got there, Like I said,
Speaker 3: it was like eight I didn't get out of there
Speaker 3: until like probably like five six hours later. After they
Speaker 3: gave me all this information. It was recording me, of course,
Speaker 3: and it kept stopping the tap. That's not how we
Speaker 3: want it. Need you to write the statement correctly stopping
Speaker 3: the tate starting stopping the tap. After they fied me
Speaker 3: all this information, so I said, I felt in my
Speaker 3: best interest on.
Speaker 2: The way I'm gonna get out of here is to
Speaker 2: do what they want me to do.
Speaker 3: Because the key thing for me was what they said
Speaker 3: was you, after you write this, you got to come back.
Speaker 3: So now I see a way out. I didn't see
Speaker 3: a way out before because they wanted to give me
Speaker 3: a way out. I was like, listen, I don't know
Speaker 3: anything about the crime. I need to leave here and
Speaker 3: let me go, and they was not letting me go, which.
Speaker 1: Is actually against the law as well. They had to
Speaker 1: let you go if you have to be let go, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, considering they were willing to break so many
Speaker 1: other rules, they certainly weren't going to abide by that
Speaker 1: one either. So so you give a statement, yes, which
Speaker 1: is a statement that they had basically fed you, correct,
Speaker 1: giving details of the crime that you had no idea about. Correct,
Speaker 1: but that we're accurate presumably if they fed them to you. Yes,
Speaker 1: and then of course stopping and starting the tape. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's right out of a TV show as well. An
Speaker 1: amateur scriptwriter would put that in there, you know. And
Speaker 1: so they end up getting what they want. Did they
Speaker 1: then arrest you or did they send you home?
Speaker 2: No, they'd actually let me go.
Speaker 1: That's crazy.
Speaker 2: They let me.
Speaker 3: They told me to come back because I just signed
Speaker 3: a statement. So my godmother name is Emma Jones. She
Speaker 3: was a lawyer at the time, and I immediately went
Speaker 3: to her home. When I got there, it was like
Speaker 3: three four in the morning, she looked at me and
Speaker 3: I looked at her and I told her where I
Speaker 3: was coming from. And she said, you did not say
Speaker 3: anything right, And I just put my head down and
Speaker 3: she said, first thing in the morning, we're going to
Speaker 3: get representation. And my cousin, Detective Pontu was my father's
Speaker 3: first cousin. He called my mother and he knew because
Speaker 3: at the time of the crime, when it actually happened,
Speaker 3: I wasn't even living here. I was living in South Carolina.
Speaker 3: Actually going back and forth from South Carolina North Carolina.
Speaker 3: So he was aware that I didn't live here at
Speaker 3: the time, so he called my mother. I didn't know
Speaker 3: where we camp meant, so he's like, do you have
Speaker 3: a statement down here? Tell Stephan come down here. We
Speaker 3: can't the statement. We know that he wasn't here. He
Speaker 3: knew he wasn't here, So I went back to the
Speaker 3: detective place with my mother. A detective came out and
Speaker 3: he was brought the statement off for me to sign it.
Speaker 3: I heard over the dispatch because I actually was supposed
Speaker 3: to meet my cousin over there, which was Detective Pontu,
Speaker 3: and it was disregard. We got this. So the detective
Speaker 3: came out, He's like, you have to sign this. So
Speaker 3: I'm not signing anything. I said, that's bullshit. I'm not
Speaker 3: signing it. I'm not signing it because it's a lie,
Speaker 3: it's false information, it's not true. He's like, what if
Speaker 3: you don't sign this, we could charge your conspiracy, and
Speaker 3: I mean my mother just she grabbed a pocketbook and
Speaker 3: we walk out the door.
Speaker 1: Okay, So this is a bizarre story in a number
Speaker 1: of levels. One is that they let you go in
Speaker 1: the first place, instead of making you sign a statement
Speaker 1: right after you had falsely confessed that. I've never heard
Speaker 1: that 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.
Speaker 2: Talking about going back to the police station. It was
Speaker 2: a couple of days later.
Speaker 1: Now by now you knew the details of the crime.
Speaker 1: You knew this was a double murder, you know, super
Speaker 1: serious situation, probably getting extra attention because of the fact
Speaker 1: that one of the dead guys, Ricardo Turner, was a
Speaker 1: former alderman, right, so there was probably to solve this crime.
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?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 3: I called him actually probably the next day, and I
Speaker 3: told him about it. So he actually called the police
Speaker 3: precinct and called the detective himself and went down there
Speaker 3: and spoke to him. I don't know what the details
Speaker 3: of the conversation were, but he went down there himself.
Speaker 1: So what happens next? How does it progress from here
Speaker 1: to where you end up getting convicted and serving almost
Speaker 1: half your life in prison?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: So what was I doing prior to being convicted m
Speaker 3: So after leaving the police precinct, I went on with
Speaker 3: my life. I was I was working. I was working
Speaker 3: at a piece to place, being a delivery guy. And
Speaker 3: the detective Rochet, he's like, used to follow me everywhere.
Speaker 3: I moved back and forth, you know, from North Carolina,
Speaker 3: South Carolina. I moved back down there with me and
Speaker 3: my kid's mother. I formally got arrested two years later,
Speaker 3: so this is nineteen ninety and the crime happened. I
Speaker 3: got arrested her in February nineteen ninety two. My kid's mother,
Speaker 3: Christie Soben, she was pregnant with my sons and we
Speaker 3: were actually living a favor in North Carolina. Her mother
Speaker 3: and father came to pick her up in December of
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety one. She was complaining because I was, of
Speaker 3: course still in the drug trade. I was going back
Speaker 3: and forth from North Carolina South Carolina, trying to make
Speaker 3: ends meet selling a little bit of drugs. So I
Speaker 3: called her in nineteen ninety two. It happened to be February, right.
Speaker 3: My sons was born in Valentine's Day, twins. One of
Speaker 3: the great yeah, one of the greatest days of my life.
Speaker 3: Of course, It was definitely a blessing. I'm like, I
Speaker 3: got to get back to Connecticut right, didn't have no warrant,
Speaker 3: didn't have no nothing. The last time I heard from
Speaker 3: the detectives when I seen him follow me around in
Speaker 3: the piece of place, in other various places like nightclubs
Speaker 3: and stuff like that. So I didn't see him anymore
Speaker 3: because I went back down south. So when I get
Speaker 3: here at my mother's home, she lives in New Haven,
Speaker 3: I happened to see a K car, you know, the
Speaker 3: police detective car. I just knew, you know, what the
Speaker 3: detective car looks like. So I seen him and I
Speaker 3: just went the opposite way. So I happened to park
Speaker 3: on a car in the communal lot in Derby, Connecticut,
Speaker 3: and me and my friend name his name is Rob.
Speaker 3: After seeing my boys, I was on my way going
Speaker 3: back to South Carolina. So I was going to pick
Speaker 3: my car up at the communal lot, and I seen
Speaker 3: my left tire was flat and looked crazy.
Speaker 2: I just felt something.
Speaker 3: And then I seen a guy like in a Seville
Speaker 3: with a newspaper up on his face, like nobody reads
Speaker 3: a newspaper like that. Something's not right. So anyway, I
Speaker 3: get out of the car. As soon as I get
Speaker 3: out of the car, police come from everywhere. It's like
Speaker 3: a scene out of a movie. My sons was in
Speaker 3: the back, my name was in the back. I was
Speaker 3: in the front. I got out the detectives. I was like,
Speaker 3: they asked me what was my name?
Speaker 2: Myself?
Speaker 3: Of course my name is Steffa Morandom. But I say, you, guys,
Speaker 3: I got kids in the car. Case you put your
Speaker 3: guns down. It was like I was in control of
Speaker 3: the situation, but I wasn't because they put their guns down.
Speaker 3: I just told her my name and they were like, oh,
Speaker 3: you have an arrestaurant for doublehomicide. I'm like, what now,
Speaker 3: I'm arrested for dumb ohomicide. Like I believe if I
Speaker 3: would have never came back to Connecticut because what they
Speaker 3: was doing they was about to take Scott to trial.
Speaker 3: So what they did was rest me so they could
Speaker 3: put pressure on me so I could come and testify.
Speaker 2: Against mister Lewis. And that's just not how you say.
Speaker 3: They try to put division between the both of us,
Speaker 3: and it didn't work. We both ended up, of course,
Speaker 3: getting convicted. I never testified on them because I'm not
Speaker 3: testifying to a lie, but I ended up getting arrested
Speaker 3: that day. Detective Rotch, she was the detective that came
Speaker 3: him and another detective and picked me up from the
Speaker 3: Orange Precinct.
Speaker 2: I said, hey, come this bull crap again. So he's like, oh, all.
Speaker 3: We want you to do is tell us that mister
Speaker 3: Lewis committed this crime. You could go home, this warrant
Speaker 3: could go away. I'm like, listen, man, what's my bond?
Speaker 3: I just need to know my bond, That's all I
Speaker 3: wanna know. I ended up giving my phone call. I
Speaker 3: called my mother and she wasn't home, so I called
Speaker 3: my aunt. Told my aunt about it, and she called
Speaker 3: my mother let her know, and I was in jail
Speaker 3: for like a few months, and then my mother she
Speaker 3: bonded me out. She put her home up, and I
Speaker 3: stayed out for an additional two years, and then I
Speaker 3: went to trial in nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 1: The whole thing is really surreal. I mean for a
Speaker 1: lot of reasons, but also because of in particular because
Speaker 1: of the elapsed time right because I feel like you're
Speaker 1: listening to you talking about it now, it seems like
Speaker 1: it was kind of in the tail life. You were
Speaker 1: going all your life. You're raising your family, trying to
Speaker 1: make m's meat, doing whatever you can, a little of this,
Speaker 1: a little legitimate stuff, some other stuff. But you weren't
Speaker 1: killing anybody. You weren't even hurting anybody. They had another
Speaker 1: sort of nefarious weapon in their arsenal, which was this
Speaker 1: another name that could only come out of a fictional account, right,
Speaker 1: this guy Ovill Ruiz like Ovill, are you kidding me
Speaker 1: with this name? Now? Orville Oval like evil and Oval.
Speaker 1: Ruiz gave well, let's call it a coerced eyewitness account.
Speaker 1: He was incentivized, he was coerced. They were using the
Speaker 1: carrot and a stick. He was promised leniency, and according
Speaker 1: to Ruiz, he came up with this story. I imagine
Speaker 1: the first time you heard about this was a trial.
Speaker 1: Did you know this Ruiz guy?
Speaker 3: Yes, I knew of them well when we sold drugs.
Speaker 3: He used to sell drugs. We used to sell drugs. Yes,
Speaker 3: we wasn't the best of friends, but I know who
Speaker 3: he was.
Speaker 1: So Ruiz came up with a pretty interesting story. He
Speaker 1: said that this alderman, the former alderman, Ricardo Turner, was
Speaker 1: storing drugs and money for Louis, your co defender, for
Speaker 1: his operation in the second four apartment that he lived in,
Speaker 1: and that he also owed Lewis money. So, according to Oval,
Speaker 1: Ruiz I love saying that name over and over again.
Speaker 1: On October tenth and eleventh, nineteen ninety. He claimed that
Speaker 1: you and Lewis discussed the idea that Turner might take
Speaker 1: the money and run, and therefore Ruiz rode with you
Speaker 1: guys to turn his apartment await in the car while
Speaker 1: you Again this is his account, his false account, but
Speaker 1: his account, he claimed that, armed with a three p
Speaker 1: fifty seven and a thirty eight, that you guys forced
Speaker 1: your way into Turner's apartment, murdered he and Fields in
Speaker 1: their bed, and took the money and the coke got
Speaker 1: in the getaway car. Now, this would all be a
Speaker 1: little bit more believable if not for the fact that
Speaker 1: he was promised leniency if he admitted to being the
Speaker 1: getaway driver. And you know, he probably didn't even come
Speaker 1: up with this story. They probably came up with it
Speaker 1: and gave it to him.
Speaker 3: But whatever, Well, you know, at the time I'm be
Speaker 3: going to trial this young kid would a background in
Speaker 3: mental health issues. My lawyer at the time subpoena in
Speaker 3: his records, and this guy was talking about he see
Speaker 3: red bean, he see different visions. He's on halladall and
Speaker 3: various drugs for his mental health. So he was not
Speaker 3: only thrown and thrusted and given leniency for given false testimony,
Speaker 3: but he also was a mental health patient. You know,
Speaker 3: I don't even understand how the jury believed this guy.
Speaker 1: So now they had you, guys, they had this guy
Speaker 1: that had a false confession. You had no shot at trial,
Speaker 1: absolutely not. So you go to trial. You tried separately
Speaker 1: from Lewis.
Speaker 3: Yes, I had four counts. First, I have five counts,
Speaker 3: one count of conspiracy. They dropped that at the beginning
Speaker 3: of the trial. Two council aid into benin and two
Speaker 3: concert felony murder.
Speaker 1: So when the jury came back in, did you have
Speaker 1: any hope that they would come to the right answer?
Speaker 1: He still believed. Yes, even after everything that happened, you
Speaker 1: still believed the justice were going out.
Speaker 2: Of course I did have hope because I didn't do it.
Speaker 1: So, okay, so take us to that moment. So the
Speaker 1: jury comes in and they read the charges in order,
Speaker 1: right 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, right, So after that second not guilty, I'm like,
Speaker 1: You're like, I'm going home, Yes, I mean, and then
Speaker 1: they drop a bomb on you.
Speaker 3: And then a literal almost fell over. Literally I rocked back.
Speaker 3: I had to catch myself, and then I looked at
Speaker 3: the Jerry person. He shook his head like, yeah, we
Speaker 3: convicted you, and then he read it off again and
Speaker 3: looked in his eyes again, and then he put his
Speaker 3: head down.
Speaker 1: This episode is underwritten by AIG, a leading global insurance company,
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Speaker 1: pro Bono Program, which provides free legal services and other
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Speaker 3: The prosecutor, which is he was just as corrupt as
Speaker 3: the detective in my eyes, my sons again, they was twins.
Speaker 3: They were two years old at the time, and I
Speaker 3: didn't see my sons in a while, you know, so
Speaker 3: I didn't bring me to court. I didn't even know
Speaker 3: I was going to court. The prosecutor rise a fruit basket.
Speaker 3: He puts it on the table, So my mother's there.
Speaker 3: I didn't know my mother's gonna be there, and my
Speaker 3: sons are there. So he says to me, missed this.
Speaker 3: Of course kind of questions and of course I missed
Speaker 3: my kids, he says, So what you gonna do about it?
Speaker 3: I said, listen, I told you before. I don't know
Speaker 3: nothing about this. I'm the same way. I'm looking at
Speaker 3: my son's right here. Mister Lewis has kids as well.
Speaker 3: So I'm gonna just take myself and say, okay, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna lie on the man to take myself out of prison,
Speaker 3: to put him in prison.
Speaker 2: Possibly, I can't do that. I just can't do that.
Speaker 1: Did he actually tell you that he was willing to
Speaker 1: give you a deal if you would testify against Lewis?
Speaker 1: Or he would just.
Speaker 2: Assume that that's what he told me.
Speaker 1: And what was the deal they offered you?
Speaker 3: He said we would work it out. He didn't tell me, well,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna take thirty five. I got seventy years now
Speaker 3: thirty five years running wild, which means do this thirty
Speaker 3: five years and start all over again. So what can
Speaker 3: you offer him? You can't offer me, No, you couldn't.
Speaker 3: He couldn't have offered me a day because I'm not
Speaker 3: gonna sit here and lie on the man for something
Speaker 3: that I didn't do and he didn't do.
Speaker 2: It's just not gonna happen.
Speaker 1: Then that speaks to your character too, because I think
Speaker 1: there's you know, no again, no one knows how you
Speaker 1: would hell anyone would deal with a situation like the
Speaker 1: one that you were in. But you handled it, I
Speaker 1: mean with courage, and you know you did the right
Speaker 1: thing at extreme cost to yourself. So now you're sentenced
Speaker 1: to seventy years and you get taken to prison. One
Speaker 1: of the reasons I do this work and I'm so
Speaker 1: obsessed and committed to it, have been for my whole
Speaker 1: adult life and will be for the rest of my
Speaker 1: adult life, however long that may be, is because of
Speaker 1: people like you. Honestly in awe that people like yourself
Speaker 1: can go through what you went through and come out
Speaker 1: with this and I picked it up. When we've met
Speaker 1: before is one of the reasons I want to have
Speaker 1: you on the show, because you're such a positive guy,
Speaker 1: and you're such a sort of I mean to meet you.
Speaker 1: No one would ever know that you had been through
Speaker 1: anything like this, much less this totally insane ordeal. So
Speaker 1: how did you survive prison? Was it as bad as
Speaker 1: what you were expecting? Was it as bad as what
Speaker 1: people think it is?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 3: For me, I have a Christian background, right, my grandmother,
Speaker 3: she just was a faith driven woman. My mother, you know,
Speaker 3: my father used to take me to church all the time. Actually,
Speaker 3: the day I got convicted, June eighth, that night when
Speaker 3: they threw me, told me they reminded me, I was
Speaker 3: like like a whole building on top of me, like
Speaker 3: and I didn't know how I was gonna get it
Speaker 3: off of me. So they put me in a bullpen
Speaker 3: and there was nobody down there, and I'm looking around
Speaker 3: and I had a suit on so and the tie.
Speaker 3: So I shifted my tie from the left to the right,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, yo, how did I get here? How
Speaker 3: did this happen to me? So I was about to cry,
Speaker 3: of course, I'm like and so literally a voice came
Speaker 3: over me and said son you're gonna be all right,
Speaker 3: you know. I got down on my knees in that
Speaker 3: bullpenner and I prayed, and that was my peace.
Speaker 2: That was my sanctuary, that was my sanity. That's what
Speaker 2: brought me through.
Speaker 3: Just not my faith alone, but my family was there
Speaker 3: for me, and they're still there for me. My big
Speaker 3: brother Frank, my brother Julian, he passed away to Lupis
Speaker 3: a year before I came home. He was my great
Speaker 3: to support, my brother le End and my mother Linda,
Speaker 3: or host the family and friends. I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: it's crazy in prison because some people don't even know
Speaker 3: what the visiting room look like. I just had a
Speaker 3: great support. My wife Rain sleep of snow. I'm telling you,
Speaker 3: if it was six feet of snow and the roses clear,
Speaker 3: she was there, you know, And that says a lot
Speaker 3: for her, you know. But again, I had a lot
Speaker 3: of family there for me. My family was there, they're
Speaker 3: still there for me. And again my faith kept me whole.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I actually go to school right now, to a Bible
Speaker 3: institute to become a minister. It's not easy. I go
Speaker 3: through a lot of ups and downs because of the incarceration.
Speaker 3: I call it today because of they thrust me into
Speaker 3: a cage. I'm that dog that's running away from the cage,
Speaker 3: never to go back to that cage again. I want
Speaker 3: to go back there, but I want to go back
Speaker 3: there for the right reasons, as far as if I
Speaker 3: could inspire and encourage somebody to be like, listen, there
Speaker 3: is hope. The's guys that see me today. When I
Speaker 3: was actually incarcerated, well I don't call it incarcerated again,
Speaker 3: when I was thrusting into that cage, they just literally
Speaker 3: like start crying, like yo, yo, you believed like you
Speaker 3: believed you was coming home when you was going home
Speaker 3: in you're here. Sometimes of course it gets rough sometime,
Speaker 3: you know, But what do you do with the situation
Speaker 3: when it happens to you? Do you sit down weeping crowd?
Speaker 3: Do you get up and stand tall? Because that's what
Speaker 3: they want you to do. They want you to be like, Okay,
Speaker 3: we're gonna take this person, thrust them in a cage,
Speaker 3: and we want them to become an animal.
Speaker 2: I did the total opposite.
Speaker 1: I mean, how did you get out? I mean, these
Speaker 1: are the things I want to get to here because
Speaker 1: you were there for twenty years twenty one twenty one
Speaker 1: years in maximum security. Obviously it's felling the murder.
Speaker 3: Yes, I believe that my gud made away, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean, of course legal things took place, but people
Speaker 3: came back. Like I mentioned to you earlier to text
Speaker 3: the Sweeney, he was a great part in this case.
Speaker 3: He came back after he was in Bosnia in nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety eight nineteen ninety nine, he happened to see my case.
Speaker 3: I was going back for a petition for new trial,
Speaker 3: and I had the lawyer by the name of Michael
Speaker 3: Fitzpatrick at the time, and he said, I got some
Speaker 3: good evidence that's coming, and that was It took another
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety nine to twenty fifteen, sixteen more years for
Speaker 3: the court to even listen to him.
Speaker 2: And this is a supervisor of Detective Rocchi.
Speaker 3: That's telling you that the two men that you have
Speaker 3: in prison, if you're going by the information that was
Speaker 3: gathered by Detective Rocchi and that informat that you had
Speaker 3: that testified in these guys, absolutely not I Tective Swing
Speaker 3: he came to testify to that.
Speaker 1: That's so crazy. I'm getting the chills now thinking about it,
Speaker 1: because here you have a senior official in law enforcement
Speaker 1: who is coming forward with no motivation. What could his
Speaker 1: motivation possibly be other than the truth? And they're going, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're good, like yeah, I mean, he's He's one of
Speaker 1: the heroes in this.
Speaker 2: Story right, without a doubt.
Speaker 1: Scott Lewis wrote a letter to the FBI as well
Speaker 1: about Rachi. They looked into it, and every time they
Speaker 1: did they would find that things were not as he
Speaker 1: said they were, but as you guys said they were.
Speaker 1: They found that Rauchi not only framed you and Lewis,
Speaker 1: but that he framed a number of other people. I
Speaker 1: don't think we'll ever know how many, because we know
Speaker 1: when these guys do it, like Scarcela and Brooklyn, they
Speaker 1: just keep doing it and doing it and doing it
Speaker 1: as long as they get away with it, which is
Speaker 1: why it's so important that we tell these stories. And
Speaker 1: they even brought him back Rouchi, they brought him back
Speaker 1: to New Haven to question him, but they never charged him.
Speaker 1: They ended up charging him with his ridiculous but they
Speaker 1: charged 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. So he was dealing drugs,
Speaker 1: framing people for murder assaulting his wife, and he gets
Speaker 1: two years probation and you end up with seventy years
Speaker 1: for a crime you didn't commit. Another hero in this story,
Speaker 1: and it's interesting because it's a New Haven story. And
Speaker 1: along comes a Yale law professor named Brett Dignam and
Speaker 1: Richard Emmanuel and a whole bunch of law students right
Speaker 1: coming in like the cavalry, all from Yale. Yes, and
Speaker 1: that's a pretty good group to have on your side
Speaker 1: because at Yale they don't mess around. There's no question
Speaker 1: that you have an incredible amount of brain power and
Speaker 1: energy devoted to your case. How did they get involved?
Speaker 1: How do they find out about it?
Speaker 3: They got involved in Scott case actually two thousand and nine,
Speaker 3: and Brett moved from she was a law professor at Yale,
Speaker 3: and then she moved to Columbia. And then they just
Speaker 3: the students. A lot of the students just went along
Speaker 3: with her, or she just had some more Columbian students.
Speaker 3: I'm not really sure of the whole procedure how it
Speaker 3: went down, but they played a big role in this,
Speaker 3: getting the conviction overturned.
Speaker 1: And finally a good judge who ironically was named hate.
Speaker 2: The judge Hate huh with a name but a loving guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Judge Charles hate the US district Judge Charles hat Junior.
Speaker 1: Your team want a ruling in front of judge that
Speaker 1: the prosecution had failed to tell the defense and this
Speaker 1: is heavy. Get ready that the key witness, ov Ruiz
Speaker 1: had repeatedly denied having any knowledge of the murders. All
Speaker 1: of a sudden he had a big memory recall after
Speaker 1: he was offered a deal. But it's important to recognize
Speaker 1: that he was at least initially telling the truth. Doesn't
Speaker 1: excuse his behavior whatsoever, but it does highlight the lengths
Speaker 1: that they were willing to go to to get a conviction.
Speaker 1: And let us not forget that, of course, in your case,
Speaker 1: like in so many other wrong for conviction cases, like
Speaker 1: whoever it was that went and cold bloodedly gunned these
Speaker 1: two guys down, whether it was one guy, two guys, woman,
Speaker 1: we don't know who it was, right, I don't know
Speaker 1: if you to this day know who it was.
Speaker 2: I don't know who it is.
Speaker 3: I mean, they have other suspects that D said they have,
Speaker 3: but I don't know if they pushed forward to try
Speaker 3: to arrest anybody. I mean, I don't wish nothing bad
Speaker 3: on anybody, but whether it's one, ind visual, two or
Speaker 3: three individuals still out there.
Speaker 2: So now what about our public exactly?
Speaker 1: Let's just say it's not unlikely that whoever was I
Speaker 1: committed this crime went on to commit other terrible crimes
Speaker 1: while you guys were serving the time for them. So
Speaker 1: how did you end up getting out?
Speaker 3: Actually, mister Lewis, he was released in February March of
Speaker 3: twenty fourteen on the bracelet. The judge hate ordered that
Speaker 3: they release him within the ninety days I think of
Speaker 3: after the conviction was overturned. Then they had to go
Speaker 3: to the second Circuit court and then all the charges
Speaker 3: was dropped. I think he got exonerated in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 3: if I'm not mistaken. Unlike myself, mister Lewis had a
Speaker 3: dream team and I had a team that wasn't fighting
Speaker 3: for me at all. So pushed forward to a year later,
Speaker 3: the attorney said he spoke with the district attorney and said, oh,
Speaker 3: I think that I could talk to him, so talk
Speaker 3: to him about what like, why now you not found
Speaker 3: the motion for me to get out of prison because
Speaker 3: you and mister Lewis cases there. I said, what you mean,
Speaker 3: what do you mean different we went We just went
Speaker 3: to trial differently. The evidence is the same. We just
Speaker 3: went to trial at different times. I want to be
Speaker 3: out of release from prison. I said, how long more
Speaker 3: do you think this is gonna take? He said, I
Speaker 3: might take another three years. What this man's out of prison?
Speaker 3: You're telling me? I still got away to the additional
Speaker 3: three years to be released from prison. He was like, yeah,
Speaker 3: So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go talk
Speaker 3: cause I'm friends with the district attorney. So I'm gonna
Speaker 3: go down there and see if he'd just say, see
Speaker 3: what could happen. I think that was a Tuesday. So
Speaker 3: he came back the very next day. He's like, oh,
Speaker 3: I got good news from you going home. The district
Speaker 3: attorney said, we'd give you time served, but you have
Speaker 3: the cop out. I'm thinking now, my little brother, he
Speaker 3: just passed away. Lupis. I lost my grandfather. I lost
Speaker 3: my father, I lost the host of a lot of friends.
Speaker 3: My mother's getting older, my children are older. You know
Speaker 3: they Dad, when you're coming home. I have a wife
Speaker 3: now that married me for I don't know why in
Speaker 3: prison in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 2: What do I do. I'm between a rock and the harbor.
Speaker 3: Place do I sit here and say, listen, I want
Speaker 3: to fight for my name to be clear for another
Speaker 3: three years. There's nothing guaranteed in the judicial system. They
Speaker 3: already failed me once, So what do I do. I've
Speaker 3: always heard that if you can fight better from the
Speaker 3: outside than the inside. I need to get out. I
Speaker 3: need to get out of here. So I went with
Speaker 3: the terms in the agreement. I mean ignorant, of course,
Speaker 3: of the repercussions of still fighting for my conviction. Because
Speaker 3: I still have a conviction. Mister Lowisside, I told you
Speaker 3: a couple of minutes ago, was exonerated, same evidence, just
Speaker 3: different trial.
Speaker 2: He's exonerated. I'm struggling. You know, what do you do?
Speaker 3: You know I got to survive, though, you know, I'm
Speaker 3: thankful that I'm able to be able to stand on
Speaker 3: my two feet. I'm able to go to a job
Speaker 3: and to go and make a difference. I don't know
Speaker 3: if you know, but I work at a halfway house.
Speaker 3: You know, it's a part of the frictional facility. Like
Speaker 3: my grandmother was a caregiver. So I guess I'm following
Speaker 3: the footsteps of her. I also just took on another
Speaker 3: job working with the mental health I work at health
Speaker 3: for healthcare.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: It's not a lot of money, but it's getting me
Speaker 3: and my wife by me and my lawyer. Right now,
Speaker 3: we're trying to put together a pardon to try to
Speaker 3: see if that the state of Connecticut will pardon me
Speaker 3: and use circumstances because I can't get jobs. It's pay
Speaker 3: as well, because I have a conviction of my record.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm actually like getting half the pay, you know,
Speaker 3: for somebody didn't do and I'm still suffering.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I'd be like, yo, why, But then at the
Speaker 2: end of the day, why not.
Speaker 3: I'm not the first person that happened to them, won't
Speaker 3: be the last person that happens too.
Speaker 1: So, Stefan, last time we spoke, you were still fighting
Speaker 1: for your innecens to be recognized. You were out here
Speaker 1: struggling to get by on what jobs you could get
Speaker 1: with that murder conviction hanging over your head until you
Speaker 1: and your attorney, Ken Rosenthalv. Were finally able to get
Speaker 1: a hearing in July of twenty twenty one, just a
Speaker 1: short time ago, for an absolute pardon, which would finally
Speaker 1: expunge your record of having ever been convicted of a crime,
Speaker 1: and you finally received your absolute parton certificate just a
Speaker 1: few months later. When you found out, what was that moment,
Speaker 1: Like who.
Speaker 3: A bunch of bricks? Everything just fell off my shoulders.
Speaker 3: It was like, I'm free, you know. It was like
Speaker 3: for a long time, I've been accused of something that
Speaker 3: I did not do, and now it felt like our release.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm free. I mean, I'm finally free. Words
Speaker 3: can't even sum it up right now. I'm ready to
Speaker 3: just to tear up. I think I was telling you
Speaker 3: earlier this year that they called me in for Jerry duty.
Speaker 1: Wait, so they called you? Imagine that rashly minted Axonnerie, right, Jerry,
Speaker 1: they called you for Jerry duty. Than really kind of
Speaker 1: poetic about that.
Speaker 3: The same court that convicted me was calling me on
Speaker 3: for jury duty. It didn't pick me for the jury,
Speaker 3: but they called me in for jury duty. I felt,
Speaker 3: I felt honored, I felt like a human being. I
Speaker 3: felt a sense of release, even though I probably couldn't
Speaker 3: serve in the jury because I was still a convicted
Speaker 3: felon at the time, but it would just an honor
Speaker 3: for the jury pool to even call me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't imagine. And let's face it, most people
Speaker 1: do everything they can to avoid jury duty, which I'm
Speaker 1: going to talk directly to our audience here. Please take
Speaker 1: what you've learned here and serve on a jury every
Speaker 1: chance you get. Okay, it is an honor and it
Speaker 1: is a duty, and it is an opportunity for each
Speaker 1: of us to help prevent what happened to step On
Speaker 1: and to every other one of the axguneries that we've
Speaker 1: covered in these twelve seasons of wrongful conviction. We have
Speaker 1: the opportunity to prevent that from happening to other people.
Speaker 1: But it starts with serving on a jury. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I can see how. You know, after being exiled for
Speaker 1: the rest of society, even jury duty can feel like
Speaker 1: a 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
Speaker 1: applications working for jobs. I hope that you've been able
Speaker 1: to make up for lost time with your loved ones.
Speaker 3: Well, um fortunate and it's been blessed that me and
Speaker 3: my wife, Kimberly Moran purchased a home. Great woman, she's
Speaker 3: my angel, she is a rid died She's somebody that
Speaker 3: I hold at a high regard. That man, I'm getting
Speaker 3: tongue twisted right now to stinking who would do that?
Speaker 3: I mean, who would just come into somebody's life and
Speaker 3: just believe in the innocence. She believed in me. She
Speaker 3: believed that I was innocent. Other than that, she says,
Speaker 3: she would never have stayed. She became my wife in
Speaker 3: two thousand and nine while in prison. Between me and her,
Speaker 3: we have seven children, Twiler, Stefan, Mia, Jayla, Prince Christian
Speaker 3: and Julian. We have grandchildren now, Steph On the third, Thailand, Marquise, Madison,
Speaker 3: Demi and Juliana.
Speaker 2: And just knowing that.
Speaker 3: I wasn't here for my children, but thank God, I'm
Speaker 3: here for my grandchildren. Hope that we could develop a
Speaker 3: relationship that a man, It's hard because they have a life.
Speaker 3: We have a life. Hopefully it gets better. I want
Speaker 3: to be there more because the relationship is not what
Speaker 3: it should be. I mean, my children tell me every
Speaker 3: time they thought that it would be different, they thought
Speaker 3: it would make us closer when you came home. My
Speaker 3: daughter always says that she spoke to me seemed like
Speaker 3: more when I was able to call her fro them
Speaker 3: fifteen minutes, and that's to me. Is sad for me
Speaker 3: to just hear that from her, I mean, and I
Speaker 3: just pray that one day that we all could just
Speaker 3: find time for one another. Because now, again you heard
Speaker 3: me earlier, I work for a job, so it's like
Speaker 3: I'm always trying to stay busy, stay busy, so I'm
Speaker 3: always tagged with a place that I am, so they
Speaker 3: can never do that.
Speaker 2: To me again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's crazy, step On, and it's powerful to hear
Speaker 1: you say it, But you're not the first guy I've
Speaker 1: heard say that or something like it. I mean, some
Speaker 1: guys will say that they will get receipts anywhere they can,
Speaker 1: every time they can get a receipt for pack of
Speaker 1: gum anything.
Speaker 3: I just looked at my drawer. My drawers full uped
Speaker 3: me everywhere I go. You want to receive. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: need that timestep absolutely location. Like on my phone, I put, yeah,
Speaker 3: do you want people to know you?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Location, And that's sad because you want a private life,
Speaker 3: but you can't have a private life because you're afraid
Speaker 3: that something like this can happen to you again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that is a sad part of reality.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's a continuing toll of the damage
Speaker 1: that they did. But I got to say, everyone on
Speaker 1: the Wrongful Conviction team is really like, so so happy
Speaker 1: for you now and with your new clean record, I
Speaker 1: guess all I could say is, may your reputation never
Speaker 1: be smeared and impugned again. And now we come to
Speaker 1: my favorite part of the show, which of course is
Speaker 1: called closing arguments. And with the incredible, magnificent news of
Speaker 1: your absolute pardon, this will be a brand new closing
Speaker 1: argument from the one we did with you back in
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen. Honestly, I can't wait to hear this one.
Speaker 1: So first I want to thank you again Stefan for
Speaker 1: sharing with us your incredible courage, your journey, your spirit,
Speaker 1: all of it. And now I'm going to turn my
Speaker 1: microphone off, keep my headphones on, Kick back in my
Speaker 1: chair and just listen to anything you feel you want
Speaker 1: to say.
Speaker 3: For me, arguments would be that to recognize my mother
Speaker 3: been there from the beginning, it's still there now, my
Speaker 3: little brother Leander, my big brother Frank, my wife of course,
Speaker 3: my mother in law, father in law, my children I
Speaker 3: named them earlier, for us to just have a better
Speaker 3: relationship and building on this. I mean, this has caused
Speaker 3: so much grief and so much pain in my life,
Speaker 3: but I just want to make it better. But we
Speaker 3: have to do it together, not you know, as individuals,
Speaker 3: sometimes we get selfish and think that we got to
Speaker 3: put off things. But sometime take that minute, take that
Speaker 3: hour out in that second, because nothing is promised to you.
Speaker 3: I mean, every day it's a blessing just to be
Speaker 3: on this earth. We know what we just went through
Speaker 3: in this last couple of years with this COVID situation.
Speaker 2: I just just pray that.
Speaker 3: This happened for me, and I hope that everybody that's
Speaker 3: unjustly incarcerated to get their day in court, that they're
Speaker 3: able to come and do the same thing I'm doing
Speaker 3: right now with this podcast and this story amongst the.
Speaker 2: World, that.
Speaker 3: This is the day that the Lord has made and
Speaker 3: let us rejoice and be exceedingly glad that they're in.
Speaker 3: That's one of my favorite sayings. And I'm so grateful
Speaker 3: to God that I know that that's the only reason
Speaker 3: why I stand before you today and I sit here
Speaker 3: and I'm able to be here. And again, thank you
Speaker 3: to Jason Flam and thank you to Connor for allowing
Speaker 3: me just to be here, just to share the story
Speaker 3: and hope that it can help somebody see something or
Speaker 3: hear something, or some people just do the right thing.
Speaker 3: Just to know that you don't have to lie on
Speaker 3: somebody in order to change your life or to save
Speaker 3: your life, because it's no good God to come out
Speaker 3: of that. If you do something wrong with somebody, Believe me,
Speaker 3: it's gonna come back on you tenfold.
Speaker 2: And with that, I say, I have a blessed day.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Justin Golden, Jeff Cliburn,
Speaker 1: and Kevin Wardis. With research by Lyla Robinson. The music
Speaker 1: in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
Speaker 1: composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram.
Speaker 1: At Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast, and
Speaker 1: on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava
Speaker 1: for Good. On all three platforms, you can also follow
Speaker 1: me on both TikTok and Instagram at it's Jason Flopp.
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction is the production of Lava for Good podcasts
Speaker 1: and association with Signal Company Number one