Speaker 1: With the police banging on the door, open up.
Speaker 2: The choice to be in that lineup was the last
Speaker 2: choice I made as a free man. A year later,
Speaker 2: I ended up writing the system.
Speaker 1: I'm going to be one of those people who everyone
Speaker 1: in the world is going to think as a monster
Speaker 1: or suspect as a monster for the rest of my life,
Speaker 1: and I'm just going to have to come to peace
Speaker 1: with that.
Speaker 2: Somebody was able to look at my picture in the
Speaker 2: database and say that I was somewhere where I definitely wasn't.
Speaker 2: I overheard three of the jailers discussing what part they
Speaker 2: might have to play in my hanging. They had been
Speaker 2: told that two prison officers would have to participate in
Speaker 2: my execution.
Speaker 1: Now I walked back inside that prison for the last time. Man,
Speaker 1: all help broke loose.
Speaker 3: But welcome to another edition of Wrongful Conviction. Today is
Speaker 3: a very special day because this is the debut of
Speaker 3: wrongful Conviction behind bars, and our guest today is my
Speaker 3: dear friend, an innocent man stuck in a nightmare here
Speaker 3: at Sing Sing Prison. John Adrian Velasquez, also known as JJ.
Speaker 4: John Adrien Belasquez, convicted of killing a retired New York
Speaker 4: City police officer during a botched robbery and Harlem, fifty
Speaker 4: nine year old Albert Ward was killed. Velaskaz was found
Speaker 4: guilty of second degree murder.
Speaker 2: JJ.
Speaker 3: Velaskaz was thrown in a lineup and fingered for murdered
Speaker 3: by a drug dealer who the police threatened with the.
Speaker 2: Rest with no physical evidence. Valaskaz was prosecuted for murder.
Speaker 4: This sentence twenty five years to life.
Speaker 5: Valaskaz remains in prison.
Speaker 1: JJ, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 3: You're hearing a lot of background noise today, and there's
Speaker 3: a very simple reason for that, which is that we
Speaker 3: are inside of Singsing Correctional Facility and it is a
Speaker 3: noisy place and there's really no getting away from it.
Speaker 3: I apologize for any distractions that you're going to experience
Speaker 3: during today's show. We've highlighted the cases of over a
Speaker 3: dozen people so far who've been exonerated, and my hope
Speaker 3: is that in bringing more exposure and light to your situation,
Speaker 3: that this will be another part of the process of
Speaker 3: getting you out. Because JJ is just as innocent as
Speaker 3: any of the people who've been on the show, but
Speaker 3: as of yet, he has not been able to win
Speaker 3: his freedom. So that's what we're here to talk about today.
Speaker 3: But before we even get into that, I want to
Speaker 3: go back. Let's go back to how you grew up,
Speaker 3: where you grew up. You know, we like to always
Speaker 3: give a little context.
Speaker 2: Sure, I'm a native New Yorker, grew up in a
Speaker 2: middle class family home. My mother was a healthcare worker
Speaker 2: and eventually she went through training and became a union
Speaker 2: organizer for eleven ninety nine. My father is a former
Speaker 2: was a former US Army veteran who later became an
Speaker 2: Amtrak police officer. By the age of ten, things changed
Speaker 2: in my household. I started to realize a lot of
Speaker 2: arguments and fight to what happening between my parents, and
Speaker 2: it was because my father was actually living a double life.
Speaker 2: He had two families. I found out for the first
Speaker 2: time that I had a younger brother that was five
Speaker 2: years younger than me, half brother from another mother. I
Speaker 2: was kind of ecstatic to have a brother. At that time,
Speaker 2: I was young and I was naive, and I didn't
Speaker 2: really get to see what was about to happen. Because
Speaker 2: everything changed. The dynamics of my household changed. My father
Speaker 2: wasn't around as much anymore, and he made it his
Speaker 2: business to remain present in my life. But it's impossible
Speaker 2: to be two places at once. And eventually I started
Speaker 2: to fill that void that I missed with my father
Speaker 2: by spending more time in the Devil's playground. And for
Speaker 2: those that are listening that may not understand what the
Speaker 2: devil's playground is, the streets of New York are harsh,
Speaker 2: and when you go out there and you start to
Speaker 2: experience and be exposed to the streets, you start being
Speaker 2: overwhelmed by certain environmental factors. In my particular neighborhood, there
Speaker 2: was a lot of negative peer influence and that kind
Speaker 2: of changed the dynamics of my thinking. It changed the
Speaker 2: trajectory of my interests, where at one point all I
Speaker 2: cared about was school, sports, and home. And then a
Speaker 2: time came where I lost interest in home in school,
Speaker 2: but I still had that interest in sports. I had
Speaker 2: this dream because I was good. Baseball was really where
Speaker 2: I was at a lot of people believed in my talent.
Speaker 2: I had gotten hit by a bus at the corner
Speaker 2: of my school when I was sixteen days after my
Speaker 2: sixteenth birthday, and when the doctors told me that I
Speaker 2: would never be able to compete at the same level
Speaker 2: that I was used to. That changed my life. That
Speaker 2: was a crossroad at that point when school went out
Speaker 2: the window, or when sports went out the window, rather,
Speaker 2: school went out the window with it, and I started
Speaker 2: cutting class, and before you knew it, I became so rebellious.
Speaker 2: There were so many arguments in my household with my
Speaker 2: mom's and I would try to play my father against
Speaker 2: my mother and my mother against my father. And eventually
Speaker 2: I just got tired of it all and I ran
Speaker 2: away from home and in search of my independence. In
Speaker 2: pursuit of my independence, I found myself homeless. I've had
Speaker 2: many nights where I went to sleep hungry, and I
Speaker 2: know what it is to live off of a dollar
Speaker 2: a salami and a dollar cheese and a stolen loaf
Speaker 2: of bread. And that's basically where everything started for me
Speaker 2: as a whole different aspect of living in New York.
Speaker 2: Because I was on my own and I didn't have
Speaker 2: working papers, I didn't have an ID, I was a
Speaker 2: high school drop out. I'm running from my mother and
Speaker 2: my father, so I can't I got to stay away
Speaker 2: from police. I got to stay away from anybody who
Speaker 2: can officially report me to my family, and it was
Speaker 2: a matter of pride, like I left and I didn't
Speaker 2: want to go back. And then there was also a
Speaker 2: matter of fear where it was like I'm going to
Speaker 2: be judged when it gets scolded, you know, So there
Speaker 2: was shame, There was a lot of different factors playing
Speaker 2: in and it just made me go deeper and deeper,
Speaker 2: and it was like, I've realized now that that was
Speaker 2: the worst choice in my life, because all I did
Speaker 2: from that point forward was continued to make worse choices
Speaker 2: that dig the deeper grave.
Speaker 3: You somehow or other, managed to survive very difficult circumstances,
Speaker 3: a lot of disappointments, a lot of things that no
Speaker 3: child should have to go through and end up on
Speaker 3: the streets.
Speaker 1: But you turned it around.
Speaker 3: To the extent that you met a great woman, right
Speaker 3: and you had a couple of kids. Yeah, So how
Speaker 3: did you go from a sixteen seventeen year old kid
Speaker 3: on the streets to being a twenty two year old
Speaker 3: man with a couple of kids and a wife and
Speaker 3: more of a stable situation.
Speaker 2: So basically what happened is being in the street, I
Speaker 2: met Vanessa. I met her at sixteen turning seventeen, Eventually
Speaker 2: I started living with her and her family. He took
Speaker 2: me in and I was still trying to survive and
Speaker 2: I was moving too fast for my own good. Before
Speaker 2: you knew it, I was a father, and that made
Speaker 2: me start to take life a lot more seriously. And
Speaker 2: I'm trying to figure out my way and say, all right, listen,
Speaker 2: I need to do something, and I need to do
Speaker 2: something to ensure that my family's going to be all right.
Speaker 2: Tried to look for jobs, but again my high school
Speaker 2: drop out. At that point, I didn't know what skills
Speaker 2: I may have had that were employable. I was a
Speaker 2: child trying to find my way. Before you knew it,
Speaker 2: I was a father with another child on the way,
Speaker 2: and it was rough. I was basically living off of
Speaker 2: Vanessa because she was getting welfare and it's all social service,
Speaker 2: you know SSI. I mean, the rent was under one
Speaker 2: hundred dollars, so it was affordable, you know. But at
Speaker 2: the same token, they don't know I'm living there. And
Speaker 2: it's crazy because yeah, I got arrested a few times,
Speaker 2: no charges ever, you know, stuck. I've gotten arrested for loitering,
Speaker 2: I've gotten arrested for all kinds of little nonsense that
Speaker 2: happens in the neighborhood. They gave me a trespassing for
Speaker 2: going to see a friend in the projects, because I
Speaker 2: don't live in the projects. What people need to realize
Speaker 2: in New York and all over the world is that
Speaker 2: all it takes for you to be in my shoes
Speaker 2: is to get arrested, for them to take a picture,
Speaker 2: for them to take your name and put it in
Speaker 2: a system, for them to take your fingerprints. That's what
Speaker 2: starts everything. That's what started for me. Somebody was able
Speaker 2: to look at my picture in a database and say
Speaker 2: that I was somewhere where I definitely wasn't.
Speaker 3: And I want to talk about that for a second, JJ,
Speaker 3: because I'm very well aware of the fact that in
Speaker 3: the poorest neighborhoods like the one that you were residing in,
Speaker 3: they do these sweeps and they'll pick people up for
Speaker 3: riding a bike on the sidewalk or like you said,
Speaker 3: visiting a friend. I mean, I'm not sure how that's
Speaker 3: a crime. You know, trespassing, you could call trespassing anything.
Speaker 3: I mean, might as well arrest somebody for breathing. It's
Speaker 3: you know, it's almost a fada compleet. That a young
Speaker 3: person like yourself, especially a person of color, is going
Speaker 3: to end up in the system in some form or
Speaker 3: another for doing the same type of thing that other
Speaker 3: people in other parts of the city or other parts
Speaker 3: of the country.
Speaker 1: Would not get arrested for.
Speaker 3: As you said, that starts a chain of events that
Speaker 3: can only have negative consequences and in your case, tragic consequences.
Speaker 3: When I tell these stories to people, they go, but
Speaker 3: that can be like, you can't convict somebody with no evidence,
Speaker 3: but you can absolutely. So there you were, you have
Speaker 3: your two kids, You're turning your life around, doing the
Speaker 3: best you can.
Speaker 2: At the time, Yeah, I was actually a student at
Speaker 2: TCI Technical Careers in trying to learn about computer programming,
Speaker 2: trying to get a skill that would be employable.
Speaker 3: And to your credit, it's interesting because I think for
Speaker 3: some people, the responsibility of fatherhood, of having become a
Speaker 3: father at such a young age, causes them to run.
Speaker 3: But in your case, you took it seriously, and you
Speaker 3: took it as it actually has an opportunity to turn
Speaker 3: your life around.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, So one day everything changed.
Speaker 2: It's almost like a blink of an eye. I receive
Speaker 2: a phone call. It was a Saturday morning, and it's
Speaker 2: from my brother's mother, Carmen, who I also have a
Speaker 2: very close relationship with. And basically my license, my driver's
Speaker 2: license was addressed to my father's address and that's where
Speaker 2: Carmen and my brother Jason lived. So they went to
Speaker 2: that apartment at like four in the morning Friday night
Speaker 2: going into Saturday morning, and they were looking for me.
Speaker 2: You have police officers looking for me, and they tried
Speaker 2: to even grab up my little brother. Now, at the time,
Speaker 2: I was twenty one years old, so my little brother
Speaker 2: being five years younger than me, it's sixteen years old.
Speaker 2: The description was given of two male blacks from twenty
Speaker 2: five to thirty years old. Why are you trying to
Speaker 2: grab up this child? Clearly he looks like a child.
Speaker 2: Clearly he doesn't look like me either, and neither one
Speaker 2: of us appear to be two black men, right, But
Speaker 2: they're trying to grab him thinking that he's me for
Speaker 2: whatever odd reason. And then you know, Carmen just makes
Speaker 2: a big stink and says, do you understand that this
Speaker 2: is the house of an officer who died within the
Speaker 2: last ten months. Do you understand what you're doing? You're
Speaker 2: violating the children of somebody who served this country, just
Speaker 2: like you. And that's when they were like, they eased
Speaker 2: up a little bit. They didn't have a warrant for arrest,
Speaker 2: so they gave her a card and said, listen, you
Speaker 2: get in touch with mister Velaskis. Please have him get
Speaker 2: in touch with us. We're trying to help him. I
Speaker 2: was living in the Bronx with Vanessa and I get
Speaker 2: this call from Carmen and it's a startling call because
Speaker 2: she's like, listen, you know, the cops are looking for you.
Speaker 2: They're saying something about you shot a police officer and
Speaker 2: that you need to call them. They're making it seem
Speaker 2: very serious. They came in here deep and I'm like, listen, Carmen,
Speaker 2: what's going on? What are you talking about? I have
Speaker 2: no idea what you're talking about. Slow down, and she's like, yo, listen,
Speaker 2: all I know, here's a number they want you to call.
Speaker 2: I'm like, what precinct did they come from? You know,
Speaker 2: where's this coming from? Listen, here's the name. His name
Speaker 2: is Joseph latrent That here's his phone number. They told
Speaker 2: me the precinct at the time, it was a twenty
Speaker 2: eighth precinct I don't think I even registered that was.
Speaker 1: This four in the morning.
Speaker 2: She called me about nine in the morning. She waited
Speaker 2: until a decent time I guess to call me. At
Speaker 2: that point, I started to kind of like panic, and
Speaker 2: I was frantic. And I have two children. One is
Speaker 2: a child that's only a few weeks old. I have
Speaker 2: Vanessa there. And Vanessa realized from the phone call that
Speaker 2: something serious is going on. But she's like, what's going on?
Speaker 2: And I'm like, yo, just wait a minute. I gotta
Speaker 2: process this, like I really don't even know what's going on, Like,
Speaker 2: let me call my mother. So I called my mother
Speaker 2: and I'm like, yo, ma, you know they're saying the
Speaker 2: police are looking for me. She started getting hysterical on
Speaker 2: the phone what happened, And I'm like, listen, I don't
Speaker 2: know what happened. I don't know what happened. This is
Speaker 2: what I know. I know the police are looking for me.
Speaker 2: I know it's the weekend. I know it's not a
Speaker 2: good time to get into contact with the police because
Speaker 2: I can't see a judge or anybody else until maybe
Speaker 2: one day. If they come for me. They're saying this
Speaker 2: is serious. They're saying I shot a cop. I have
Speaker 2: no idea what this is about, but I'm scared and
Speaker 2: I need your help. What are we gonna do? So
Speaker 2: she's like, stay there, I'm coming. My mother lives upstate
Speaker 2: at the time, and she came and picked me up
Speaker 2: and she took me to the church that we used
Speaker 2: to attend together regularly on the weekend. It's called Love
Speaker 2: Gospel Assembly. We went to the church and there were
Speaker 2: a few people there and we started to tell what
Speaker 2: was going on, but everything was so limited, like we
Speaker 2: didn't have any real knowledge. And they're saying, listen, the
Speaker 2: first thing you gotta do is get an attorney and
Speaker 2: contact the precinct. So we try to figure out, you know,
Speaker 2: who would be a good lawyer. So I try to
Speaker 2: speak to a couple of my friends that I know
Speaker 2: have been involved in the system. Do you know any
Speaker 2: good lawyers? They tell me a name. His name is
Speaker 2: Franklin Gould May rest in peace. At this point, I've
Speaker 2: learned that he has passed away recently. So I'm trying
Speaker 2: to get in touch with Franklin Gould. Bad part about
Speaker 2: this again, it's the weekend. How do you get in
Speaker 2: touch with a lawyer over the weekend? Right, and we
Speaker 2: were waiting for Frank Gould to get back to us,
Speaker 2: and in that time, the range of emotions that we
Speaker 2: went through as a family picture us being in a
Speaker 2: car driving around aimlessly. It's my mother, me, Vanessa, JJ,
Speaker 2: which is my son, right, I don't want to confuse
Speaker 2: nobody and Jacob, and JJ is three years old at
Speaker 2: the time. Jacob is a few weeks He was born
Speaker 2: December twentieth, and this is January maybe thirtieth, so he's
Speaker 2: a little bit more than a month. And we're driving
Speaker 2: around aimlessly and aimlessly, and every time I see a
Speaker 2: police car, it's like I get this little chill and
Speaker 2: I don't know what's going to happen here. Eventually we
Speaker 2: get in touch with this lawyer. We were outside of
Speaker 2: a restaurant and I remember I spoke to him briefly.
Speaker 2: I didn't have any information for him. I didn't know
Speaker 2: what to tell him. He's asking me for information, like
Speaker 2: I'm supposed to know certain things. I don't know nothing.
Speaker 5: All you know is that the cops are looking for well, no.
Speaker 2: I didn't even know there was a murder at the time.
Speaker 2: At that point. All I was told was that a
Speaker 2: cop was shot but I just want to address this
Speaker 2: and get it over with because the longer I'm out here,
Speaker 2: the more my life is in jeopardy.
Speaker 1: And he wants you to give him deep tell what
Speaker 1: you would have to have them.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to tell him, I'm hiring you so you
Speaker 2: can get the details, right, That's just why I'm calling you.
Speaker 2: So he said that he had contacted the precinct, but
Speaker 2: that they weren't giving any information. They just wanted me
Speaker 2: to turn myself in. But I left them on the
Speaker 2: phone my mother, and when my mother came back, I
Speaker 2: was so upset. I was scared, but I was so
Speaker 2: upset that I decided there's no way I want to
Speaker 2: deal with this guy. Because this lawyer told my mother
Speaker 2: that if we were to get pulled over by police,
Speaker 2: that I should put my head down in the ground
Speaker 2: and that my mother should throw her body over me
Speaker 2: to make sure that nothing happens to me because I
Speaker 2: could get shot. And I didn't like that. You know,
Speaker 2: if anything, he should have said that to me while
Speaker 2: I was on the phone. You don't see that to
Speaker 2: my mother had a frantic You know.
Speaker 3: That's a strange thing for a lawyer to say. I mean,
Speaker 3: I understand he was in a certain way trying to
Speaker 3: prevent looking that's a little bit hysterical. Yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 3: you're absolutely right. I mean he should have addressed that
Speaker 3: directly with you, right, So you ended up not engage you.
Speaker 2: I didn't engage with him. We ended up dealing with
Speaker 2: an attorney. I believe his name is Goldstein. I don't
Speaker 2: know his first name. And he told us to go
Speaker 2: to a hotel and we got a hotel. We called
Speaker 2: him from the hotel, gave me the address, and everything
Speaker 2: is crazy. At this point, Vanessa and my mother go
Speaker 2: get the hotel room. I'm sneaking in through the back.
Speaker 2: I'm afraid, and I'm staying in the hotel room. I'm
Speaker 2: waiting for this guy. So this the lawyer comes. He
Speaker 2: comes to the hotel and he meets me, and he's like,
Speaker 2: all right, how you doing? This is what's going to happen.
Speaker 2: I contacted the precinct. I told him that I'm arranging
Speaker 2: to turn you in on Monday, right because it was Saturday. Still,
Speaker 2: so he says, I'm going to turn you in on Monday.
Speaker 2: Until then, I want you to stay in this hotel room.
Speaker 2: I do not want you to leave this hotel room.
Speaker 2: I want you to shave your face. I want you
Speaker 2: to be clean shaving. We're going to walk into that
Speaker 2: precinct early in the morning on Monday, and we're going
Speaker 2: to deal with this situation. I want a thousand dollars
Speaker 2: right now. I want one thousand dollars the day that
Speaker 2: you turn yourself in on Monday, and then you'll be
Speaker 2: like and Friday you'll be going to an arraignment, and
Speaker 2: at that point, I want five thousand dollars. And I'm like,
Speaker 2: what are you not getting I didn't do anything. What
Speaker 2: are you talking about that? I got to give you money?
Speaker 2: Now give you money again, then give you money on Friday.
Speaker 2: And you're saying them, spend five days in jail. What
Speaker 2: are you representing me for? And he's like, listen, I'm
Speaker 2: just telling you. These are some serious charge. This was
Speaker 2: going to happen. You want me to be real with
Speaker 2: you or not? So I give him the money. I
Speaker 2: gave him the first thousand dollars, and I'm just frantic.
Speaker 2: I don't know what's going to happen. This guy's telling
Speaker 2: me now that I'm going to jail like it doesn't
Speaker 2: matter what I did or didn't do I'm going to jail.
Speaker 3: And let's go back for a second. I mean we're
Speaker 3: talking twenty years ago. That was a lot of money.
Speaker 3: I mean there's a lot of money. Now, yeah, there's
Speaker 3: a lot of money.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. He actually said that the case was going to
Speaker 2: cost fifty thousand dollars before everything was said and done,
Speaker 2: because I would be going to trial on this case.
Speaker 2: So he basically convicted me before we even got to
Speaker 2: the precinct. So this is the mindset that I'm dealing with. Already,
Speaker 2: two lowers have rubbed me the wrong way, and at
Speaker 2: that time, I'm not measuring if maybe it's because of
Speaker 2: the emotions that I have something inside of me, maybe
Speaker 2: it's not them. I'm not thinking like that. I was
Speaker 2: twenty one years old, and eventually, you know, I just
Speaker 2: sitting there and I keep staring at my children. I'm
Speaker 2: staring at for us, and I'm staring at my mother,
Speaker 2: and I'm saying, this might be the last time I
Speaker 2: get to see my children, This might be the last
Speaker 2: time I get to see my mother. How did this happen?
Speaker 3: It's literally everybody's worst nightmare. Everybody's out to get you.
Speaker 3: You didn't do anything and it's the most terrible thing
Speaker 3: that you could be accused of. The murder or the
Speaker 3: shooting of a police officer is right at the top
Speaker 3: of them to the list of things that you don't
Speaker 3: want to be wrongly accused.
Speaker 2: And bear in mind you're talking to the son of
Speaker 2: a police officer. I was raising a police officer's household, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, what sense would it make for me to
Speaker 2: go out on a rampage and shoot a police officer.
Speaker 3: That's crazy, And you had no history of violence, and
Speaker 3: none of it adds up. The nightmare is growing as
Speaker 3: you are encountering these people who are supposed to be
Speaker 3: on your side, people who are supposed to be helping you. Right,
Speaker 3: your only chance is to get a lawyer that's gonna
Speaker 3: represent you. Monday comes.
Speaker 2: Actually the step back just a second. Sunday I get
Speaker 2: a call from Frank Gould and Frank Gould man is
Speaker 2: something about this guy. He's a real smooth talker. He
Speaker 2: made me feel comfortable, and he said, Yo, listen, don't
Speaker 2: worry about that guy Goldsting. I'm gonna see if I
Speaker 2: can get the thousand dollars from him. If not, don't
Speaker 2: worry about it. We're not even talking about money. Right now,
Speaker 2: You're in a serious dilemma. And guess what, I want
Speaker 2: to meet you outside that precinct. We're gonna meet in
Speaker 2: the morning time. I'm gonna walk in there with you.
Speaker 2: We're gonna see what's going on. You wait for my
Speaker 2: phone call. After my phone call, you meet me in
Speaker 2: front of the twenty eighth precinct and we'll deal with
Speaker 2: this situation. Made me feel a thousand times better. I mean,
Speaker 2: he knew how to talk to me. He's talking to
Speaker 2: me like, all right, you're innocent. We're gonna see what's
Speaker 2: going going on, and we're going to play this by ear.
Speaker 2: Not you're going to jail. You're gonna get shot. That's
Speaker 2: not what somebody wants to hear. And I really respected that.
Speaker 2: And eventually Monday came and that's exactly what happened. We
Speaker 2: had found out that the apartment in the Bronx thirteen
Speaker 2: forty four University Avenue, the door to our apartment was
Speaker 2: hanging off the hinges with a police lock on it,
Speaker 2: which means that the police had gone into the building,
Speaker 2: went into my apartment, knocked down the door. They've been
Speaker 2: in it. They said it was trash. These were neighbors
Speaker 2: that ended up calling. They got in touch with Vanessa,
Speaker 2: I believe. So we sent Vanessa home and my mother
Speaker 2: took me to the priests and to meet my attorneys.
Speaker 2: So now we get to the front and Frank Goule's
Speaker 2: there with another attorney. Her name is Susan Walsh. We're
Speaker 2: on the steps. My mother's like, you know you want
Speaker 2: me to stay and wait for you out here. I said, listen,
Speaker 2: I don't know what's going to happen. Just go home.
Speaker 2: If anything, I'll take a cab. Just go home. And
Speaker 2: she's like, all right. I mean, that was the last
Speaker 2: time I got to touch my mother as a free person.
Speaker 2: It's kind of crazy. And we walked into the precinct
Speaker 2: and when we went in there, Frank said give me
Speaker 2: a minute. He left me there with Susan. I remember
Speaker 2: him coming back and saying, let's go. I said, what
Speaker 2: you mean, let's go? He said, let's get out of here.
Speaker 2: They don't got no warran for your arrest. So we're
Speaker 2: walking out and I'm like, listen, Frank, you really have
Speaker 2: to make me understand what's going on. I've been frantic
Speaker 2: for an entire weekend, running around with my family, staying
Speaker 2: in hotels, being threatened by lawyers, and you're telling me
Speaker 2: we could just walk away from this. And he's like,
Speaker 2: they don't have a waran for your arrest. So I
Speaker 2: want you to go home, I said, and then what
Speaker 2: happens when I go home? I got a door hanging
Speaker 2: off a hinge. What happens when I go home? Is
Speaker 2: this over? He said, no, it's not over. I said,
Speaker 2: what do you mean it's not over? He says, they
Speaker 2: want to put you in a lineup. I'm not going
Speaker 2: to let them put you in a lineup. I said,
Speaker 2: what happens if I don't get picked in that lineup?
Speaker 2: He says, then you're free. I said, so I'm going
Speaker 2: in that lineup. He says, no, you're not. Let us
Speaker 2: do our job. Let them do their job. Okay. I'm like, no,
Speaker 2: it's not okay. I want to go in that lineup.
Speaker 2: You're telling me that the only way that this is
Speaker 2: going to be over is if I go in that
Speaker 2: lineup and I don't get picked. I'm telling you I
Speaker 2: didn't do this crime. So I'm going in that lineup.
Speaker 2: He says. If you get picked in that lineup, your
Speaker 2: life is going to change forever. You're going to jail,
Speaker 2: I said, And what happens if I leave? What are
Speaker 2: they go pick me up? Put something in my pocket?
Speaker 2: Or do they shoot at me? Do you realize what
Speaker 2: I've been through this weekend? I'm going in that lineup.
Speaker 2: And that's exactly what we did. We walked back in
Speaker 2: that precinct and I volunteered for that lineup. I stood
Speaker 2: in the bullpen, like the outside area of a bullpen,
Speaker 2: sitting in a chair with Susan wallsh for a couple
Speaker 2: of hours while they went and got some fellers.
Speaker 3: And this is a bizarre part of the story too,
Speaker 3: because at this point it's interesting and it's important that
Speaker 3: you highlighted that you just spent the weekend like a
Speaker 3: fugitive hiding out.
Speaker 2: It's exactly when we come.
Speaker 3: To find out they don't even have a warn for
Speaker 3: your arrest. Now you're volunteering for a lineup, which you
Speaker 3: would be a little nuts if you were actually guilty
Speaker 3: to go and do that. Absolutely that that doesn't add up,
Speaker 3: And then you know, you don't have to be a
Speaker 3: professor of criminology to understand that, right, And then on
Speaker 3: top of that, you didn't know this at the time,
Speaker 3: But the suspect they were looking for was a guy
Speaker 3: named Mustafa.
Speaker 1: Is any part of your name Mustafa?
Speaker 2: Absolutely?
Speaker 3: And the suspect they were looking for was a black
Speaker 3: mail with dreads right, right? Have you ever been a
Speaker 3: black mail or had dreads?
Speaker 2: Maybe in another life?
Speaker 3: Right, So it would be pretty much it would seem
Speaker 3: like an open and shot situation. And there were numerous
Speaker 3: witnesses who all agreed on this description. It wasn't like
Speaker 3: it was one that said this and one that said that.
Speaker 3: There were numerous witnesses who all said that the suspect
Speaker 3: that the police were looking for was a guy whose street.
Speaker 1: Name was Mustafa.
Speaker 3: And I want to encourage people to watch the show
Speaker 3: on jj coul Conviction, because in it you'll see the
Speaker 3: actual police sketch, which it doesn't look any more like
Speaker 3: you than it looks like me.
Speaker 1: It's a guy, It's a black guy with dreads.
Speaker 3: Had you known that, it would have been perfectly logical
Speaker 3: for you to go into the lineup. And I think
Speaker 3: people can identify with the idea that you're going in
Speaker 3: there and saying, well, I mean you grew up as
Speaker 3: the son of a police officer. You're going to say
Speaker 3: to yourself, well, the system is going to work.
Speaker 2: Absolutely right.
Speaker 3: I mean that was my belief, right, You're going to
Speaker 3: go in there and there's no way that somebody's going
Speaker 3: to pick you out of that lineup, even not knowing
Speaker 3: what we just talked about, right, But had you known that,
Speaker 3: you would have been one hundred percent sure that if
Speaker 3: you go in there, they can't pick you out of
Speaker 3: that lineup. So finally, now you're going into the lineup. Yes,
Speaker 3: and got to be a surreal experience too. It was
Speaker 3: like kind of right out of a movie, right, so
Speaker 3: for this time, you're not watching, you're actually in it.
Speaker 2: Well, that was my second time ever being in a lineup.
Speaker 2: The first time I was a student at Martin Luther
Speaker 2: King High School and they had this little bus coming
Speaker 2: around and they were offering us five to appear in
Speaker 2: the lineup. And I took it five hours, you know,
Speaker 2: take that, and I went to a lineup. So it
Speaker 2: wasn't the first time I was in a lineup, but
Speaker 2: it was the first time I was in the lineup
Speaker 2: as a suspect. And you know, I don't know what's
Speaker 2: going on on the other side. If there's a mirror
Speaker 2: there and I don't know what's going on the other side,
Speaker 2: but I do know that Susan Walsh is on that side.
Speaker 2: So what happened was when Frank Goule finally realized that
Speaker 2: I was determined to go into that priest and volunteer
Speaker 2: for the lineup, he said, listen, if you're going in
Speaker 2: for the lineup, you're going to stay here with Susan.
Speaker 2: I have to leave because it would be a conflicent
Speaker 2: interest for me to be your witness and your attorney.
Speaker 2: So she's an attorney and she is your witness. And
Speaker 2: that's basically where I still felt comfortable, because I was like,
Speaker 2: she's there, and I'm going to be all right. And
Speaker 2: sure enough, at some point told number three to stand
Speaker 2: and approach the mirror, and then they told him to
Speaker 2: sit down. Then they said number two, we need you
Speaker 2: to stand up and approach the mirror. And I did
Speaker 2: that and I sat back down. They said everybody said
Speaker 2: thank you. Here it's like a speaker somewhere in the
Speaker 2: room and he's like, thank you. Be there. Shortly somebody
Speaker 2: comes and opens the door and says everybody can leave.
Speaker 2: I start to get up. He's like, no, you stay,
Speaker 2: so I don't know if I have to fill out
Speaker 2: some paperwork or something before I leave, but I said,
Speaker 2: all right, I sit down. Eventually they take me around
Speaker 2: back to the same room and Susan's there and she's like, Jay,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, but you're gonna be staying. I said, what
Speaker 2: are you talking about. I'm gonna be staying. She said,
Speaker 2: you know you were picked, but there's some serious problems
Speaker 2: with your lineup. They made me wear a hat. I
Speaker 2: don't know that that's a problem then, but they made
Speaker 2: us all wear these black pullover hats, winter hats, ski hats.
Speaker 2: They had a problem with fillers. But at the end
Speaker 2: of the day, there's an existing affidavit from Susan Walsh.
Speaker 2: She's admitting that my lineup was manipulated on that day,
Speaker 2: and unbeknownst to me, what she's saying is that she
Speaker 2: had an argument with the police officers about my position.
Speaker 2: She wanted me between number five and number six and
Speaker 2: they said, nah, we're not doing that. Here he's sitting
Speaker 2: right there, he's number two.
Speaker 3: They didn't want you to be between five and six.
Speaker 1: They wanted you to be number two. What is the
Speaker 1: significance to.
Speaker 2: That, Even towards trial. I really didn't understand the significance
Speaker 2: of it. But now in all my studies, it's supposed
Speaker 2: to be kind of a random process. And there's a
Speaker 2: lot of studies going on now about sequential lineups and
Speaker 2: double blind lineups. By putting me in a certain position,
Speaker 2: it can be inferred that you have already told these
Speaker 2: witnesses that an individual that committed the crime is going
Speaker 2: to be sitting in a particular position, right, So that
Speaker 2: would enable the identification.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: Of course, they could say up front, you know, take
Speaker 3: a real close look at number two, right, they could say,
Speaker 3: And that's why a double blind and for those of
Speaker 3: you listening, a double blind means that the person conducting,
Speaker 3: whether it's a police officer or anyone else conducting the lineup,
Speaker 3: should not know cannot know who the suspect is, because
Speaker 3: even if their intentions are pure, they subconsciously can steer
Speaker 3: a witness absolutely to just sort of take another I mean,
Speaker 3: you're doing good. I know this is very difficult for you,
Speaker 3: but you know you got to really try hard. Because
Speaker 3: we've seen it many times. A witness will say, I
Speaker 3: don't know, I don't I don't think I see the
Speaker 3: person in it. Go, well, listen, I mean, we really
Speaker 3: need your help. You know, this is a brutal crime,
Speaker 3: this is a we've got to get this guy off
Speaker 3: the streets. What they should be saying is, we don't
Speaker 3: know whether the actual killer, the actual perpetrator, is in
Speaker 3: this lineup. Absolutely, but if you see them, then we
Speaker 3: need your help. But they don't do that.
Speaker 2: They don't.
Speaker 1: Typically they they.
Speaker 3: And they may in many cases, and we don't know,
Speaker 3: but in your because we don't know what was going
Speaker 3: on in that room. But it's entirely possible that in
Speaker 3: your case, that your suspicions are true. That they said,
Speaker 3: we think we got the guy. We think it's number two.
Speaker 1: Take a look. Let's see if you agree.
Speaker 3: Anything like that, even something much more subtle than that,
Speaker 3: can really terribly mess up the process and eliminate objectivity.
Speaker 3: But even their memories far from perfect, because.
Speaker 2: That's what a lineup does. Who looks most like the individual,
Speaker 2: it's not who looks most like the individual who did
Speaker 2: it right. That's why we're here. And I was selected
Speaker 2: by three individuals, Philip Jones, Robert Jones, who were both brothers,
Speaker 2: and Augustus Brown. Later learning that Augustus Brown had actually
Speaker 2: been the person who selected my photo which made me
Speaker 2: a suspect, so there was really no need for him
Speaker 2: to come and identify me again. So if you look
Speaker 2: at it in a realistic manner, at the lineup, there
Speaker 2: were only two people who really identified me because Augustus
Speaker 2: Brown had already made me a suspect. But technically all
Speaker 2: three of those individuals had of five individuals had identified me.
Speaker 3: And we know that Augustus Brown had a very good
Speaker 3: reason to want to identify you because Augustus Brown was
Speaker 3: a heroin dealer. Yes he was so not somebody you
Speaker 3: would consider to be a top notch witness or a
Speaker 3: reliable witness necessarily, and he had a motivation which was
Speaker 3: that when he was picked up, and correctly, if I'm wrong,
Speaker 3: when he was picked up he was in possession of
Speaker 3: ten bags of heroin, Yes he was, and the cops
Speaker 3: weren't letting him leave until he identified somebody they wanted
Speaker 3: this case soft.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Augustus Brown is an interesting character all to himself.
Speaker 2: He has a rap sheet that we can stick on
Speaker 2: the wall and drop to the floor, but in reality
Speaker 2: he was actively on probation at that time. We come
Speaker 2: to find out a trial that he wasn't reporting, so
Speaker 2: he had already abscounded from probation right this, which is
Speaker 2: why he fled before any police would arrive. When he
Speaker 2: gets picked up, because he didn't come to the priestint voluntarily,
Speaker 2: they he was sent multiple messages to come to the precinct.
Speaker 2: He was arrested on a street corner that he sold
Speaker 2: drugs on. He did get caught with ten bags of
Speaker 2: heroin on him. He was brought to a precinct and
Speaker 2: he spent hours in that precinct. He came about three
Speaker 2: o'clock and he wasn't let go until about eleven o'clock
Speaker 2: at night from a different precint. He has stated on
Speaker 2: multiple occasions that he was wrong and that he was
Speaker 2: forced to do what he did. And there's layers to this.
Speaker 2: So when he was at the precinct, they were trying
Speaker 2: to time in as an accessory to murder. They told
Speaker 2: him we got you in possession of drugs. It violated
Speaker 2: your probation, and you fled the scene. And we have
Speaker 2: witnesses who think that you were a part of the team.
Speaker 2: So you're going to be charged with accessory to murder
Speaker 2: if you don't help us do something he looks at
Speaker 2: thousands of photos. It's supposed to be eight photos per page,
Speaker 2: and he looked at a total of one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty six pages. But if you look at the description
Speaker 2: that he initially gave to the police, which was consistent
Speaker 2: and unanimous in the descriptions provided by all witnesses, that
Speaker 2: stated that two black males came into that place and
Speaker 2: victimize these individuals. One was dog skin and one was
Speaker 2: light skin. The light skin individual had dreads or braids.
Speaker 2: I don't know which one. Some of them said braids,
Speaker 2: some of them said dreads.
Speaker 3: By the way, it's also arguable that your picture shouldn't
Speaker 3: have been in there in the first place, since you
Speaker 3: were never convicted of any of it. Freedom Agenda is
Speaker 3: a proud sponsor of this episode of wrongful conviction. Freedom
Speaker 3: Agenda is led by people directly impacted by incarceration, and
Speaker 3: they're organizing to get Mayor Eric Adams to follow the
Speaker 3: law and shut down Rikers Island. Right now, thousands of
Speaker 3: people are awaiting trial there in life threatening conditions. Freedom
Speaker 3: Agenda is committed to creating a safer and more just
Speaker 3: city by winning investments in long neglected communities, protecting the
Speaker 3: rights of people involved in the criminal legal system, ending
Speaker 3: the cycle of violence that rikers perpetuates. To learn more
Speaker 3: about the Campaign to Close Rikers and to sign up
Speaker 3: for Freedom Agenda's mailing list, go to Campaign to Close
Speaker 3: Rikers dot org, slash, get involved, or follow at Freedom
Speaker 3: Agenda and Why on social media. Back to where we
Speaker 3: were at. You're now in this kafka esque and I
Speaker 3: always say that, but it's true nightmare where you're ready
Speaker 3: to leave the police station. You know they must have
Speaker 3: identified somebody else or nobody because you didn't do anything
Speaker 3: and you don't even know it. But you don't match
Speaker 3: the description, not even close.
Speaker 1: But they tell you to day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they tell me to stay. Susan says, listen,
Speaker 2: we'll see you in court tomorrow. You'll be arraigned, and
Speaker 2: we'll take it day by day, take it one step
Speaker 2: at a time. In the meantime, before I leave, I
Speaker 2: want you just to be conscious of something. We told
Speaker 2: these offices that we took pictures of you and your
Speaker 2: underwe in a hotel, and that if they touch you
Speaker 2: they will be losing their job. So you should feel safe.
Speaker 2: You should be all right. Do not speak to them
Speaker 2: about anything. And from that point I was escorted into
Speaker 2: this small cage that had a concrete slab and a
Speaker 2: bunch of bars, and I stood theify I don't know
Speaker 2: how long, and you know, it was real. It was
Speaker 2: a real, surreal experience where it was just like, you
Speaker 2: know what, you gotta realize at this point, you just
Speaker 2: have to block everything out and deal with the situation,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. Don't talk to them, don't
Speaker 2: ask them no more questions, don't provoke them, just deal
Speaker 2: with it. And that's what I did. Eventually we got
Speaker 2: to Central Booking, and Central Booking is like another zoo,
Speaker 2: right they heard you from one place to another. You
Speaker 2: shackled up on a chain gang. You got shackles on
Speaker 2: your feet, and you go from one bullpen to another bullpen,
Speaker 2: and it's twenty thirty of you moving. At the same time,
Speaker 2: people are sitting on the floor. You have homeless people
Speaker 2: in there. The smell is crazy. Some of these places.
Speaker 2: The plumbing is all messed up, so you might have
Speaker 2: some feet season and toilet or some urine in the toilet,
Speaker 2: might have urine on the floor because it might have
Speaker 2: flowed out, you know, And it's just a bunch of
Speaker 2: people around and you're lucky if you get a bench
Speaker 2: to sit on or whatever. And they kept moving, moving
Speaker 2: the chain, moving the chain, and eventually you get to
Speaker 2: this place and they start taking your stuff out of
Speaker 2: your pockets and they're searching you on the wall. And
Speaker 2: that's when I had my first serious experience with corrections officer.
Speaker 2: Just out of nowhere, towering office, A big hits me
Speaker 2: in the back and I never knew that you can
Speaker 2: get your wind knocked out from getting hit in the back.
Speaker 2: Knocks me, knocks me down. I'm conscious, but I'm just
Speaker 2: like blown away and he's just wailing at me, and
Speaker 2: I'm just covering up officers that brought me in. They
Speaker 2: were still around and they had stopped them. They say, oh, listen,
Speaker 2: leave them alone. You can't do that. He's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: but he killed a cop. He thinks he's a tough guy. Oh,
Speaker 2: I'm a tough guy. And I'm like, yo, I don't
Speaker 2: know what's going on. And what ended up happening at
Speaker 2: that point was they moved me and I got separated
Speaker 2: from the rest of the prisoners and I got put
Speaker 2: in a bullpenp by myself. I can still see prisoners
Speaker 2: in a bullpen adjacent from me right across it got
Speaker 2: bullpens everywhere. But I'm by myself now, so I definitely
Speaker 2: have all the room to stretch out and lay down
Speaker 2: and do whatever on a bench. That wasn't the problem.
Speaker 2: But I start to realize the fear of what that
Speaker 2: lawyer was talking about that first time when he told
Speaker 2: my mother that this is serious, and I'm wondering how
Speaker 2: much more do I have to go through? And he
Speaker 2: had before I'm able to get out. Fortunately for me,
Speaker 2: I never had that problem again. But that's where I
Speaker 2: first got a taste of reality. The next day came
Speaker 2: and I go into another bullpen where they have these
Speaker 2: windows that you can have attorneys come visit you, so
Speaker 2: they call your name. So eventually my name gets called
Speaker 2: and I go in there and it's another attorney. It's
Speaker 2: not frankl it's not Susan Wallash, somebody never met in
Speaker 2: my life. His name is Norman Rima. And Norman Riema
Speaker 2: comes and he tells me, says, listen, mister Velasquez, we're
Speaker 2: about to go in front of the judge and you're
Speaker 2: going to be arrainged. But I just want to put
Speaker 2: you on point to a few things that are important.
Speaker 2: You're being charged with capital murder. I said, what is that?
Speaker 2: He says, you're facing the death penalty. I said, what
Speaker 2: the death penalty? I mean, I don't understand what's going on.
Speaker 2: And everything is spinning. The walls are spinning. Norman Reema
Speaker 2: is talking. It's incoherent. I don't know what you're saying.
Speaker 2: I don't hear you. I block everything out, and I
Speaker 2: just I don't know how I got to that point.
Speaker 2: And at that point, I don't even know how I
Speaker 2: coped with that, How I dealt with that, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I went into some short sense of trauma and I
Speaker 2: became numb. I do recall him saying, don't worry about
Speaker 2: the death penalty, which was didn't do any good, right,
Speaker 2: But he said, don't worry about the death penalty because
Speaker 2: Robert Morgenthal has never pursued the death penalty in New York.
Speaker 2: So within six months they'll probably drop that and you'll
Speaker 2: be facing natural life in prison. And I said, Norman,
Speaker 2: I didn't commit this crime. Why are we talking about death?
Speaker 2: Why are we talking about natural life? Why aren't we
Speaker 2: talking about freedom? Why aren't we talking about restoring my status?
Speaker 2: As a citizen, and he's like, listen, you just have
Speaker 2: to stay strong. But you're not going nowhere. You're not
Speaker 2: getting bail. You're gonna have to go through this process.
Speaker 2: I said, well, how long is this process going to take?
Speaker 2: And he said anywhere from six months to a year,
Speaker 2: maybe two years. There's no telling. You just gotta stay
Speaker 2: strong and talk about a turning point in life. Everything
Speaker 2: changed from there. I got sent to Rikers Island. Ryk
Speaker 2: As Island is a war zone. You know, they call
Speaker 2: that the school a hard knocks, but it's more like
Speaker 2: Vietnam or going to Iraq because everywhere you go there's blood.
Speaker 2: And that's all that happens is humans shedding other human's blood,
Speaker 2: and you see it everywhere. There's no way around it
Speaker 2: to fight after fight. I mean, I don't know how
Speaker 2: is it able to navigate through a lot of that,
Speaker 2: But I made it through. I have no scars, I'm
Speaker 2: still safe, I'm in one piece, and I'm blessed. Eighteen
Speaker 2: months I did on Rykers Island. Eighteen months. I was
Speaker 2: able to navigate through the bull and eventually I went
Speaker 2: to trial. And going to trial was the first time
Speaker 2: I get to learn how everything unfolded and took place.
Speaker 2: Because for all those months I still couldn't understand what's
Speaker 2: going on. How did it happen, what took place? Why
Speaker 2: am I here? Those questions weren't answered. They weren't answered
Speaker 2: by my lawyers. They just stay strong, John, We're gonna
Speaker 2: make it through and worry about it when we get
Speaker 2: to trial. We mean, don't worry about it. Life continues,
Speaker 2: It doesn't stop for anyone. My children are growing. I
Speaker 2: watched Jacob's first steps. We're in a visiting room on
Speaker 2: Rikers Island. For me, the first time I seen my
Speaker 2: son come to me. He's daddy walking. He's smaller than
Speaker 2: the table. I raised my children in prison. That wasn't easy,
Speaker 2: and looking back at it now, I can't even take
Speaker 2: credit for raising my children. Actually, So I go to trial,
Speaker 2: and during the trial I start to learn things. I
Speaker 2: learned that this cop tried to interfere with the robbery
Speaker 2: that was taking place because he owned the establishment, and
Speaker 2: I knew that relatively early, as a retired police officer
Speaker 2: who owned the gambling place. He also owned the Basket
Speaker 2: Robbins one hundred and twenty Fifth Street. He also owned
Speaker 2: some print shop and another bar own a lot of
Speaker 2: establishments for a police officer or a retired police officer rather,
Speaker 2: and he had this legal gambling spot and somebody came in.
Speaker 2: They're saying to shoot him, this light skinned guy with
Speaker 2: these braids or these dreads, and he came in. He
Speaker 2: tried to place a bet. And this spot is one
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty fifth Street between hundred twenty fifth and
Speaker 2: one hundred twenty six and eighth Avenue. So this guy
Speaker 2: comes in, it's broad daylight, somewhere around noon, and he
Speaker 2: comes in, he places a bet. So when he comes
Speaker 2: into place to bet, the guy's like, yo, listen, we
Speaker 2: don't do that here. You're a stranger. To get out
Speaker 2: of it. And he's like, I ain't no stranger, man,
Speaker 2: I'm not a cop from the projects. He said, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm from the projects. I played my number on the
Speaker 2: east Side. Man, I'm not trying to go down there.
Speaker 2: Let me just play my number. Say like all right here.
Speaker 2: So he goes to fill out the betting slip. They
Speaker 2: said he filled out the wrong slip. This is Robert
Speaker 2: Jones testifying, right, because I learned everything through testimony. So
Speaker 2: now Robert Jones says he filled out the wrong betting slip.
Speaker 2: He takes it, throws it out, and fills out the
Speaker 2: right slip for him. So then he leaves, he said.
Speaker 2: Forty five minutes later to an hour later, this guy
Speaker 2: comes back, knocks on the door. The numbers about to
Speaker 2: come out. They're not taking more bets, they said, Yo,
Speaker 2: let him in. Let him in. Worry about he was
Speaker 2: here earlier. So he's like, yo, want to place another bet?
Speaker 2: He said, Yo, be BET's a closed, but the numbers
Speaker 2: about to come out. Just stick around. Next thing, you know,
Speaker 2: another knock comes on the door, and then the doorman's
Speaker 2: at the door and he's like, yo, there's another guy here, man.
Speaker 2: We can't keep betting these guys there. Next thing, you know,
Speaker 2: they said, this light skinned guy pulls out a gun.
Speaker 2: He's like, you know what it is? Let my man.
Speaker 2: The guy comes in. You know, they tell everybody get
Speaker 2: on the ground, and I don't know what happened, but
Speaker 2: there was an exchange of fire and eventually the officer
Speaker 2: or the retired officer wound up dead on the ground.
Speaker 3: So the pandemonium inside the bookie joint or the illegal
Speaker 3: numbers joint is total.
Speaker 1: You've got people being tied up.
Speaker 3: You've got people jumping over things, you've got gunshots ringing out,
Speaker 3: you've got people fleeing, and in the process, a retired
Speaker 3: police officers killed. So here you are at the trial
Speaker 3: and you're being represented by Norman.
Speaker 2: Reamer, Norman and Frank Goulden, and now you've.
Speaker 1: Been in the system for eighteen months.
Speaker 2: At that time. Yes, to be precise, I turned myself
Speaker 2: in February second, nineteen ninety eight. I walked into that precinct.
Speaker 2: The choice to be in that lineup was the last
Speaker 2: choice I made as a freeman. I was on trial
Speaker 2: in October of nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 3: Right, so over a year and a half in the
Speaker 3: most dangerous prison in New York State, which is Rikers Island.
Speaker 2: So the trial, at the trial, this is where I
Speaker 2: get the revelation of what occurred. You have several witnesses
Speaker 2: who come and they testified. What people need to realize
Speaker 2: is that everybody that was at this illegal gambling spot
Speaker 2: was engaging in criminal activity. So every single one of
Speaker 2: those people could have been arrested and charged with a
Speaker 2: crime where the murder of a retired police officer occurred.
Speaker 2: So it was serious for all of them. They were
Speaker 2: all under pressure, and then you have to think about
Speaker 2: the response. You're talking about the center of Harlem in
Speaker 2: broad daylight, a retired officer who worked that area, who
Speaker 2: owned the basket Robbins in that area, was shot and killed.
Speaker 2: There has to be a response so that the people
Speaker 2: in that neighborhood, the residents of Harlem, understand that this
Speaker 2: is not tolerable. There has to be a response for
Speaker 2: that the people in the residence of Harlem can understand
Speaker 2: that this is still a safe environment. And that's why
Speaker 2: there's so much pressure to bring somebody to jail.
Speaker 3: And you bring up another interesting point, which is that
Speaker 3: everybody involved had a very strong motive. I want to
Speaker 3: identify you because it takes the heat off of them.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's as straightforward as it could be.
Speaker 3: I mean, these are all people who were engaged in
Speaker 3: the various activities of various different degrees, and the situation
Speaker 3: provided them a very convenient way to make this problem
Speaker 3: go away.
Speaker 1: And that opportunity was sitting right in front of them.
Speaker 3: All they had to do was point to you and
Speaker 3: say that's the guy who did it. Now you go
Speaker 3: through the trial, all the evidence has been presented, prosecutors
Speaker 3: do their thing, the defense does its thing. As we know,
Speaker 3: the defense did a very competent job in your case,
Speaker 3: but they were hamstrung by the fact that they didn't
Speaker 3: have the money to do the proper investigations leading up
Speaker 3: to the trial. And the fact is that's where the
Speaker 3: real stuff happens, right, That's where you You can't go
Speaker 3: into a war with a toy pistol.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: In fact, that's kind of what happens in these cases
Speaker 3: when you have a defense team that isn't given access
Speaker 3: to the evidence, that isn't given the resources or the
Speaker 3: time because they're so busy to properly investigate the situation.
Speaker 3: And then they're going in there and they're they're doing
Speaker 3: the best job that they can and presenting the best
Speaker 3: arguments of the kimp but they don't have the information
Speaker 3: that they need that Actually, in your case, had they
Speaker 3: been able to do that, it's almost impossible to imagine
Speaker 3: that a jury would have convicted you. But that's exactly
Speaker 3: what happened, and that's why we're sitting here right now,
Speaker 3: and let's talk about that. So the moment comes when
Speaker 3: all the evidence has been presented, the jury goes out
Speaker 3: and They didn't go out for a short time either.
Speaker 1: They were out for a long time.
Speaker 2: They started getting their instructions Monday, and they started deliberating Tuesday,
Speaker 2: and from Tuesday from ten in the morning to ten
Speaker 2: at night, Wednesday from ten in the morning to ten
Speaker 2: at night, Thursday from ten in the morning to ten
Speaker 2: at night, and to Friday, where the judges telling him
Speaker 2: in the evening, if you do not come back with
Speaker 2: a verdict, you will be sequested. That means that they
Speaker 2: were going to be held and they weren't going to
Speaker 2: be able to go home over the weekend. Probably about
Speaker 2: another hour later, an hour and a half later, they
Speaker 2: came back with a verdict and they found me not
Speaker 2: guilty of murdering the first degree.
Speaker 3: Right, that was the first ruling. Right, so you had
Speaker 3: reason to be optimistic. Now all of a sudden, you're like, okay,
Speaker 3: so not guilty.
Speaker 2: Murder, not guilty in a first degree, and then guilty, guilty, guilty.
Speaker 2: I just kept hearing it over and over again. For
Speaker 2: every other charge. They were charges of robbery, charges of
Speaker 2: attempt murder, another charge of murder for the same exact
Speaker 2: crime that I was just acquitted of.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 2: The only reason why it was murdering the first degree
Speaker 2: was because of the occupation, the former occupation of the
Speaker 2: person who got killed, right because he was a police officer.
Speaker 2: I was facing the death penalty, but I wasn't facing
Speaker 2: the death penalty at that particular phase. I was actually
Speaker 2: facing the same charge one twenty five twenty seven murder
Speaker 2: in the first degree, natural life in prison, no opportunity
Speaker 2: for parole, never to be released again. And that's what
Speaker 2: they acquitted me of. See, but the jury doesn't understand
Speaker 2: what's going on. In fact, through investigations in another film
Speaker 2: that's taking place now, I found out that several jurors
Speaker 2: in that jury room, in that deliberation room, had an
Speaker 2: impression that I might be able to go home in
Speaker 2: two years as long as they acquitted me at the
Speaker 2: top charge and found me guilty of the lesson, and
Speaker 2: they figured that I was young enough to be able
Speaker 2: to bounce back from that and continue with my life.
Speaker 2: I have no idea where they got that impression, because
Speaker 2: two decades have passed and I'm still in prison.
Speaker 3: But that's extremely important because now with that information, you
Speaker 3: can sort of see into the mind of some of
Speaker 3: the jurors where they're sitting there and you have whatever
Speaker 3: number of them, two, three are going the guy didn't
Speaker 3: do it. The guy didn't do it, and the other
Speaker 3: guys are going, I want to go home, and he's
Speaker 3: only going to be in for two years. Just go
Speaker 3: along with us. Maybe he did it, maybe he didn't.
Speaker 3: We can't sit here all weekend. I got things to
Speaker 3: do with my kids. I got to get back from
Speaker 3: whatever the hell they're saying.
Speaker 2: Right, absolutely, and it's obvious that this occurred because it
Speaker 2: took four days to come back with a verdict, So
Speaker 2: there was obviously some dissension in that room.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if it was a clear cut case, they would
Speaker 3: have been out of there in an hour. They would
Speaker 3: have stayed for lunch. So now you're found guilty on
Speaker 3: all these charges, you end up in this unbelievable situation.
Speaker 3: And here we are, right now inside the walls of
Speaker 3: sing Sing, almost twenty years later. How did you manage
Speaker 3: to cope? Where does that spirit come from?
Speaker 2: It was an organic process, so it wasn't a methodical process.
Speaker 2: It wasn't thought out. It just kind of occurred. Basically,
Speaker 2: how I saw life was once I got out the fog,
Speaker 2: Because it took me a few years to get out
Speaker 2: the fog. What I realized is that life is about balance.
Speaker 2: So I'm at a low, the lowest that could possibly
Speaker 2: be to be alive on earth. I consider my circumstances
Speaker 2: being buried alive. I say that a lot. I still
Speaker 2: believe that, and I have this philosophy about time, and
Speaker 2: I said, I've been sent to twenty five of life.
Speaker 2: I wasn't even twenty five years old when that happened,
Speaker 2: So I was looking at a portion of time that
Speaker 2: I hadn't even lived yet under the circumstances that I
Speaker 2: was in, and I couldn't see that. So I had
Speaker 2: to start lying to myself. And I didn't realize they
Speaker 2: were lies then. But twenty years lady, you look back
Speaker 2: and you say, every year I told myself it would
Speaker 2: be my last in prison. I did that for nineteen years,
Speaker 2: and I'm still here. So I was lying to myself,
Speaker 2: not knowing. But it was that sense of hope that
Speaker 2: allowed me to rise from the ashes of oppression into
Speaker 2: this resilient spirit that I've acquired. And the balance was
Speaker 2: about how do I reach beyond the boundaries of prison
Speaker 2: and become a person who's felt outside of those boundaries
Speaker 2: how can I help others live? And that's where I
Speaker 2: started to acquire a love for writing, because my letters
Speaker 2: can reach outside the walls. My voice wasn't out yet,
Speaker 2: but I utilize writing, and you can change your life
Speaker 2: in prison. So instead of just taking time, the way
Speaker 2: I look at it is this. My philosophy personally is
Speaker 2: that life is precious, There's no doubt about that, and
Speaker 2: time is priceless. And why is time priceless Because our
Speaker 2: lives as humans are being measured by the time that
Speaker 2: we spend a live on this earth. And if I'm
Speaker 2: going to be spending all this time in prison, where
Speaker 2: I don't have particular responsibilities to anything except for my
Speaker 2: children and my mother, then I can utilize this time
Speaker 2: to learn because I have access to read. So I
Speaker 2: start reading, and I start listening, and I start watching,
Speaker 2: and I start observing, and I start to realize that
Speaker 2: there's an untapped pool of resources in prison that exist.
Speaker 2: What I'm around is a compounded environment that's actually a
Speaker 2: microcosm of society. And the majority of the individuals that
Speaker 2: I'm around are the people who took the wrong path
Speaker 2: in life. So by sitting down and speaking to them
Speaker 2: and learning what caused them to come across this path.
Speaker 2: I've found answers that we can utilize as preventative measures.
Speaker 2: So now I've learned to take the tools that are
Speaker 2: around me and utilize them to spread the word, become
Speaker 2: a voice for the voiceless, and try to create healthy
Speaker 2: communities from the inside out. And that's how these projects
Speaker 2: started to take place. We have a project called Voices
Speaker 2: from Within right now. Voices from Within are a group
Speaker 2: of individuals or are using the power of their testimony,
Speaker 2: guilty individuals that are using the power of their testimony
Speaker 2: to reach out to the youth and tell them you
Speaker 2: don't want to do this.
Speaker 3: And I've seen the Voices from Within and I recommend
Speaker 3: anybody check it out. It's so powerful because because there
Speaker 3: are people who shot someone, killed someone, they've they've taken life,
Speaker 3: and they have such an incredible sense of remorse and
Speaker 3: responsibility for their actions, and they're channeling it into a
Speaker 3: need to help others not make those same mistakes. There's
Speaker 3: one that sticks in my mind. The guy who you
Speaker 3: know was in the movie theater right and you know what,
Speaker 3: think a rival gang or something like that started shooting
Speaker 3: and he shot back in the dark and shot an
Speaker 3: innocent person, and you know, you almost put yourself in
Speaker 3: that situation, and it's so vivid when you see him
Speaker 3: talk about it and the pain that he feels of
Speaker 3: having taken away as he says, the son of somebody,
Speaker 3: or the brother or the it's a very very powerful
Speaker 3: thing and a very positive thing that's turning a negative
Speaker 3: invitory positive. Aside from the voices from within, there's a
Speaker 3: number of other things that you've accomplished in prison. Absolutely,
Speaker 3: why don't you just run through some of the laundry
Speaker 3: list of things?
Speaker 2: For me, these weren't tasks. This was a lifestyle that
Speaker 2: I've adopted. So in running through them, a lot of
Speaker 2: them are vivid. But I never realized how much I've
Speaker 2: actually accomplished until I was tasked with putting this together
Speaker 2: for clemency. It all started with a think tank in
Speaker 2: an inmate organization, and before you knew it, I became
Speaker 2: the community organizer of the facility and I started getting
Speaker 2: involved at anything that's positive or if anybody needed help
Speaker 2: how to put something together. I had this tenacity that
Speaker 2: was inherent to just be able to put things together,
Speaker 2: and we started doing it. When I came to this facility,
Speaker 2: there were a lot more options available. Sinsing is the
Speaker 2: big house of New York. It's the prison right but
Speaker 2: it has been redubbed into sing Sing University and a
Speaker 2: documentary about Hudson Link that has been on HBO. So
Speaker 2: I started to go to college, right. I started to
Speaker 2: acquire a degree in behavioral science, and I started to
Speaker 2: apply what I was learning between that and what I've
Speaker 2: learned on my own and what was happening in organizations.
Speaker 2: And then I found like minded individuals and we called
Speaker 2: ourselves the Forgotten Voices, and we said, you know what,
Speaker 2: we need to reach out to people who can make
Speaker 2: and affect change. So it's teaching children, and we're working
Speaker 2: with the children of incarcerated parents because they're the closest
Speaker 2: ones to us, but we're trying to work with all children,
Speaker 2: and we're trying to reach out through organizations to help
Speaker 2: children choose better options in life and utilize the experiences
Speaker 2: of those who have choosed bad options in life as
Speaker 2: a platform of experience to learn from, saying you don't
Speaker 2: have to come here to learn this, you can be better.
Speaker 3: And it's so important because we know that number one
Speaker 3: factor that determines whether a child will end up in
Speaker 3: prison is not education or race or socioeconomic factors. It's
Speaker 3: whether or not they've had a parent in prison. So
Speaker 3: the idea that you're able to interfere and intervene, i
Speaker 3: should say, and help to prevent that from happening, is
Speaker 3: so critical in stopping that pipeline, because those kids deserve.
Speaker 1: As much of a chance as anybody else.
Speaker 2: I think what's important to discuss when we discuss the
Speaker 2: projects and what I've accomplished with these projects, is to
Speaker 2: talk about how it really came to where it is today. Right,
Speaker 2: So what ended up really occurring was in two thousand
Speaker 2: and two, an individual came into my life. His name
Speaker 2: is Dan Slepian. He's a produci of NBC and he
Speaker 2: did the documentary Conviction. He did the investigation that proves
Speaker 2: that I am an innocent man. And February twenty twelve,
Speaker 2: when that documentary aired, I was already heavily active in
Speaker 2: positive endeavors in prison, but when it aired, so many
Speaker 2: people reached out to me. And I'm talking about young people,
Speaker 2: old people, all kinds of people all over the world,
Speaker 2: but in particular, there were young people reaching out to
Speaker 2: me and telling me that my story changed their lives.
Speaker 2: Some of them were actively involved in the street life
Speaker 2: and realized that if an innocent man can come to prison,
Speaker 2: then I'm really getting there and I might be the
Speaker 2: next one. And what that did was because in going
Speaker 2: back again, we're going to go back and forth. In
Speaker 2: two thousand and four, I was the captain of Youth
Speaker 2: Assistance Program in green Haven and I used to deal
Speaker 2: with youth and we give them tours of the prison
Speaker 2: and we deal with them on a therapeutic manner. So
Speaker 2: from seeing how film works and seeing that for years
Speaker 2: I've been trying to get my voice outside the boundaries
Speaker 2: of this wall to reach people, to enact change in
Speaker 2: these communities and to change people lives, I realized that
Speaker 2: the media is a tool to be able to get
Speaker 2: us to them. Because the problem we had when I
Speaker 2: was upstate in the Youth Assistance program was the resources
Speaker 2: to get the children to the prison so that we
Speaker 2: can speak to them. We were having an effect on them,
Speaker 2: but if we only saw them one time, we would
Speaker 2: never see them again because the resources to get them
Speaker 2: up there that one time was hard enough. To get
Speaker 2: them to come back and do a reinforcement project was
Speaker 2: even harder. But I realized that we can bring the
Speaker 2: youth Assistance program to them by doing this. And in
Speaker 2: the same time, other individuals in prison were reaching out
Speaker 2: to me and saying, I'm innocent too, I need help,
Speaker 2: I need the type of help that you have. And
Speaker 2: I started passing names on to Dan Slepian right, and
Speaker 2: these individuals have gotten out of prison. Eric Glistens served
Speaker 2: seventeen years for a crime he didn't commit. He was
Speaker 2: featured on Dateline, a Bronx tale that was our work
Speaker 2: Johnny Encopier. His case was just dismiss this last week
Speaker 2: in Manhattan court. Another individual we have, Richard Rosario, a
Speaker 2: very dear and personal friend of mine, as is Eric Glisten,
Speaker 2: twenty years for a crime in commit shot him down
Speaker 2: in the courts all the way through. Six months later,
Speaker 2: the influence of media and a new prosecutor going into
Speaker 2: the Bronx became the perfect storm. And now he's a
Speaker 2: free man. And these are individuals I've been around. I've
Speaker 2: been around so many individuals who have been released over
Speaker 2: this time. This is like a whole nother life that
Speaker 2: I've lived in here, the ability to affect change in others' lives,
Speaker 2: and to see innocent men become free men based upon
Speaker 2: work that we've done together, To see prisoners who have
Speaker 2: taken lives trying to give back to life. To see
Speaker 2: all of these things taking place in the most unlikeliest
Speaker 2: place is amazing. And it's the driving force that keeps
Speaker 2: me vigilant, that keeps me alive, and that keeps me
Speaker 2: resilient to despite my circumstances, despite the devastation and the
Speaker 2: trauma that we've had to go through. Just think about this.
Speaker 2: My children for the first ten years of my incarceration,
Speaker 2: remember one was just a month old, one was three
Speaker 2: years old. They spent five days in school and one
Speaker 2: day in prison because my mother brought them up religiously
Speaker 2: every week. My mother worked hard as a union organizer,
Speaker 2: five days working, coming up one day bringing two young
Speaker 2: children to prison. What kind of social life did they have?
Speaker 2: They've experienced severe trauma. Vanessa, her and I were together.
Speaker 2: We were going to raise our children together. We're not
Speaker 2: together anymore, but I don't blame her. I was facing
Speaker 2: twenty five years in prison. We weren't twenty five years old.
Speaker 2: I left her with an unfair burden of having to
Speaker 2: raise two children in a broken home, a home that
Speaker 2: was broken by an egregious miscarriage of justice. The trauma
Speaker 2: just continues to spread throughout the community. When an innocent
Speaker 2: man is convicted, he's not the only person who experiences
Speaker 2: the trauma. As a result, the entire community will be
Speaker 2: affected because of the children, because of everything. You ask
Speaker 2: me what the worst thing that I've experienced in prison.
Speaker 2: The worst thing that I've experienced in prison is that
Speaker 2: my son became a victim to prison. My son came
Speaker 2: to prison because I wasn't there to guide him. Okay,
Speaker 2: he's not innocent, but he if he had me, he
Speaker 2: would have had a different life. And in that sense,
Speaker 2: he was innocent. Whatever he got charged for he did,
Speaker 2: but he shouldn't have had to be in a position
Speaker 2: to be raised without a father and a role model
Speaker 2: in his life to teach him what's right, to guide
Speaker 2: them to see yo, listen, I see you going wrong.
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna let you do that to pull him up.
Speaker 2: I don't get that. I get two three hours of
Speaker 2: his life on a visit every once in a while.
Speaker 2: You think he's given me what he's going through. Nah,
Speaker 2: I'm going on to visit he's telling me I'm fine. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: he has to go back and face those demons in
Speaker 2: the Bronx. It's very unfair getting off the negative note
Speaker 2: and going to some of the more positive things. Besides
Speaker 2: the people that I've been able to touch. The thing
Speaker 2: I'm most proud about throughout this entire ordeal is my mother.
Speaker 2: My mother. She's carried my weight in a devastating way.
Speaker 2: She's the strongest person I know. She's been a father
Speaker 2: to my children. She's been amazing. I don't know anybody
Speaker 2: who has the strength that she has and the driver
Speaker 2: and the determination to carry the burden that was left
Speaker 2: by this miscarriage of justice. My mother is old man.
Speaker 2: She was young, and she was vibrant. She deserves to
Speaker 2: have me there taken care of. I'm a holy child,
Speaker 2: not been in prison. She's been taking care of me
Speaker 2: since I was born. That's not fair. Forty one years old.
Speaker 2: She deserves better, and she's been through way too much.
Speaker 2: Trauma is different for different people. And while I'm in
Speaker 2: the experience, prison has taught me that in order to survive,
Speaker 2: you have to become numb. And I've become numb to
Speaker 2: my environment and the circumstances in it so that I
Speaker 2: can deal with it. But in some regard, I haven't
Speaker 2: dealt with it yet, and I don't know what I'm
Speaker 2: going to and I don't know what's going to happen
Speaker 2: as a result. But I hope what has happened to
Speaker 2: others won't happen to me. David Ranter served twenty four
Speaker 2: years for a crime in commit and within a week
Speaker 2: of his release he had a heart attack. Within that
Speaker 2: same year, he had two more. Anthony Yarborough served twenty
Speaker 2: two or twenty three years for a crime and commit
Speaker 2: They said he killed his own sister and mother. DNA
Speaker 2: exonerated him. He died within the year of his release.
Speaker 2: Willie Lopez, personal friend of mine, we worked together, got
Speaker 2: out of prison after about twenty two twenty three years,
Speaker 2: and he died within a year of his release. I'm
Speaker 2: forty one years old. My father died at forty nine,
Speaker 2: and he wasn't killed. People need to understand how serious
Speaker 2: rawful convictions are. I've been told that eleven million people
Speaker 2: cycle through the American penal system angrily. Even if we
Speaker 2: were to imagine a ninety nine percent success rate in
Speaker 2: the accuracy of convictions. One percent of that eleven million
Speaker 2: cycle through prison for crimes they don't commit. That's one
Speaker 2: hundred and ten thousand people on an annual basis, And
Speaker 2: if they come through for a serious offense, think about
Speaker 2: the type of time that they have to face. Fernando
Speaker 2: Bermuda is a personal friend of mine seventeen years. Jeffrey
Speaker 2: Dskovic personal friend of mine sixteen years. David limis the
Speaker 2: person who introduced me to Dan Slepian from the Palladium
Speaker 2: murder fourteen years. Eric Glisson an individual I helped get
Speaker 2: out seventeen years. Richard Rozario an individual I helped get
Speaker 2: out twenty years. Johnny and Capier an individual helped get
Speaker 2: out twenty five years. The list will continue to go
Speaker 2: on the years go into the thousands.
Speaker 3: People are hearing this story. It's an outrageous miscarriage of justice.
Speaker 3: It's got to be fixed. I'm sure people are wondering
Speaker 3: what can they do to help? What can they do
Speaker 3: to help you? In particular? We've talked about things that
Speaker 3: people can do in general on the show. Is there
Speaker 3: anything they can do to help in this particular situation?
Speaker 3: And as concise a manner as possible, is there something
Speaker 3: that you would have people do to help, as you've
Speaker 3: helped so many other people reverse their wrongful conviction.
Speaker 2: I always think that we can't make change, but we
Speaker 2: have demonstrated that we can. And I believe in the
Speaker 2: power of people. I think I need people, particularly the
Speaker 2: listeners of this show, to believe in the power of themselves.
Speaker 2: There's a website being utilized to advocate for my freedom.
Speaker 2: It's called free John adriavealaskis dot org j O n
Speaker 2: ADRII E l A z qu easy. If, however, many
Speaker 2: people listen to this show with to go and get
Speaker 2: ten people to sign that petition, we would have thousands.
Speaker 2: I'm a stamp away from anybody who cares. I'm sitting
Speaker 2: in sing sing correctional facility. My number zero zero a
Speaker 2: twenty three oh three reach out. I'll tell you how
Speaker 2: you can help. Go to the website, they'll tell you
Speaker 2: how you can help.
Speaker 3: I think that's the most important thing is go to
Speaker 3: the website. It's free John adrewandlaskuz dot org. And again
Speaker 3: that's j O N A d R I A n
Speaker 3: V E l A z que z and then of
Speaker 3: course dot org. So free John adrewandalaskaz dot org. Go there,
Speaker 3: learn how you can help. John has generously offered to
Speaker 3: have people write to him, and like I said earlier,
Speaker 3: you should expect a letter back that you're going to
Speaker 3: think ulmust have had help from a great novelist or
Speaker 3: a professor of English at an Ivy League university.
Speaker 1: But he writes beautiful letters.
Speaker 2: You have already somehow reached society because over the time
Speaker 2: of Decemble Christmas, I got a stack of mail about
Speaker 2: this big I appreciate that. Thank you. I want everyone
Speaker 2: to know how touched I am by their humanity and
Speaker 2: their opportunity to say, you know what, somebody cares about you.
Speaker 2: And that's some of the energy that I utilize to
Speaker 2: basically catalyze my drive. So I appreciate it. I want
Speaker 2: people to be patient. I've been working on a petition
Speaker 2: for clemency. I've been working on my appeal, but I
Speaker 2: will try to get back to everyone, and upon my release,
Speaker 2: I guarantee that I'll be available somewhere on social media
Speaker 2: and we'll get to everyone.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll have a big party, but everybody's going to
Speaker 3: have to sign some petitions to get in, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: JJ I want to thank you for being on the show.
Speaker 2: I want to thank Revolver Productions for having me. I
Speaker 2: want to thank you Jason for having me and for
Speaker 2: doing everything that you have. You're an amazing individual. Thank you.
Speaker 3: You've been listening to the first episode of Wrongful Conviction
Speaker 3: Behind Bar, and it won't be the last. I think
Speaker 3: it's very important that we bring these stories to light
Speaker 3: from inside a maximum security prison, in this case Sing Sing.
Speaker 3: I want to thank the Superintendent Capra for allowing us
Speaker 3: to film with JJ inside the prison walls. And again
Speaker 3: our guest today, John Adrian Velasquez. John, I'm looking forward
Speaker 3: to seeing you as I saw Felipe the other day
Speaker 3: on the outside with your family, and it's going to
Speaker 3: happen because we're not going to give up until it does.
Speaker 5: Thank you, don't forget to give us a fantastic review.
Speaker 5: Wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: It really helps.
Speaker 3: And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project and
Speaker 3: I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
Speaker 3: important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go
Speaker 3: to Innocenceproject dot orgorg to learn how to donate and
Speaker 3: get it I'd like to thank our production team, Connor
Speaker 3: Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is
Speaker 3: by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure
Speaker 3: to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on
Speaker 3: Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm
Speaker 3: is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association
Speaker 3: with Signal Company Number one