Speaker 1: On Saturday, September twenty fourth, nineteen eighty eight, the body
Speaker 1: of nineteen year old Anthony Clan was discovered on the
Speaker 1: east side of Cleveland, Ohio, in Rockefeller Parkstone Creek. He
Speaker 1: had been stabbed in the chest three times and his
Speaker 1: throat was slit on the verge of decapitation. The ground
Speaker 1: around him was undisturbed, suggesting that.
Speaker 2: The murder occurred elsewhere.
Speaker 1: One of the three men who came to identify the
Speaker 1: body on Monday, September twenty sixth, and thus began to
Speaker 1: control the narrative, had arguably the most to gain from
Speaker 1: doing so, a convicted rapist and drug dealer named Paul
Speaker 1: Stony Lewis, whom Anthony Clan had once identified in another rape.
Speaker 1: The two other men supported Stoney's narrative at trial. During
Speaker 1: the investigation of fourth man emerged the victims cuckoled Edward Espinoza,
Speaker 1: who joined the narrative and received leniency for the part
Speaker 1: he played in the murder in exchange for his false
Speaker 1: eyewitness testimony against his employer Michael Keenan and his co
Speaker 1: worker Joji abroshow some elements of the story were real
Speaker 1: and occurred on Thursday September twenty second, but had little
Speaker 1: to do with the actual night of Anthony Clan's murder Friday,
Speaker 1: September twenty third. Both Michael Keenan and Joe de Ambrosio's
Speaker 1: whereabouts on Friday night were known, and despite Espinoza's two
Speaker 1: separate and contradictory affidavits and knowing about the discrepancy between
Speaker 1: the two nights, the prosecution nevertheless forged ahead, hiding a
Speaker 1: mountain of exculpatory evidence and sending Joe de Ambrosio and
Speaker 1: Michael Keenan.
Speaker 2: Straight to death row. This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. Today you're
Speaker 1: going to hear the story of Joe d Ambrose, who
Speaker 1: is the sixth person to be exonerated from Ohio's Death Throw,
Speaker 1: one hundred and fortieth in America to be exonerated. Joe,
Speaker 1: this story is, I mean, it's got so many twists
Speaker 1: and turns. But let me just for the audience's sake,
Speaker 1: before I even introduce you, let me just say this
Speaker 1: involves a group of cops that were so corrupted. Forty
Speaker 1: four of them were charged with taking money and protecting
Speaker 1: cocaine operations in Cleveland and northern Ohio. This goes back
Speaker 1: to the nineteen eighties. Of course, it involves a date
Speaker 1: that was changed in order to make the case fit
Speaker 1: the facts instead of the other way around. It involves
Speaker 1: a dead body found in Dones Creek that had been
Speaker 1: stabbed and split throat and everything. I mean, this thing,
Speaker 1: I'm not even scratching the surface. I hate to say it,
Speaker 1: but you lived it. So Joe, I'm sorry for what
Speaker 1: you went through, but I'm very very grateful and honor
Speaker 1: that you're here on the show with us today.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: And with us is a very you unique individual with
Speaker 1: a unique name as well. We have Neil Kakutha, who
Speaker 1: was one of the great heroes in this story, but
Speaker 1: who was also When I say the unique individual, here's
Speaker 1: a guy who's a nurse, a lawyer, and a priest.
Speaker 1: I mean it almost sounds like the punchline and a
Speaker 1: joke or the setup to a joke, right, a nurse,
Speaker 1: a lawyer, and a priest walking a bar. But then
Speaker 1: it was only one guy. Hey, and here he is,
Speaker 1: so Neil Kakuthe. Thank you for being here with us today.
Speaker 3: It's good to be with you.
Speaker 1: And Joe, you were a guy who served in the
Speaker 1: US Army, right You achieved the rank of sergeant.
Speaker 3: Is that correct?
Speaker 1: Yes, and we're honorably discharged. But were you a guy
Speaker 1: who had had a lot of trouble with the law
Speaker 1: before this crazy thing happened. Tell us a little bit
Speaker 1: about your background, your upbringing.
Speaker 3: I grew up just outside of Cleveland in the suburbs,
Speaker 3: a little town called North Royalton, and the only thing
Speaker 3: that was in that place was bars and gas stations
Speaker 3: and farms. So I kind of a country boy, and
Speaker 3: I didn't on a stay and be one of those
Speaker 3: three things. So I joined the military as soon as
Speaker 3: I got out of high school. I did my four
Speaker 3: years in the military, and then I got out, honorably discharged,
Speaker 3: sergeant out of the military, and then this thing comes
Speaker 3: out of the blue.
Speaker 1: I mean, is it fair to say that this could
Speaker 1: happen to you? It could happen to anyone.
Speaker 3: Oh, exactly, I'm the most common Joe there could be. Truly.
Speaker 3: All it takes is one person, no other evidence, one
Speaker 3: person to point their finger at you and say they
Speaker 3: stood there and watched why you killed this person? And
Speaker 3: there you go.
Speaker 1: It's so nuts that you could have ended up on
Speaker 1: death row just because of one person with a lot
Speaker 1: to gain by saying so, right, an incentivized person.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to set this stage a bit here.
Speaker 1: This is the late eighties and liter Lily on the
Speaker 1: east side of Cleveland, Ohio, very reminiscent of Tony I.
Speaker 1: Panovitch's story. Actually, you know, bar culture, lots of partying
Speaker 1: going on, and in this case there's coke drinking and
Speaker 1: a group of friends and acquaintances, some of whom Joe
Speaker 1: worked with doing landscaping. And then there's a bit of
Speaker 1: crossover from that group into the drug business of a
Speaker 1: guy named Paul Stony Lewis.
Speaker 4: So Stony was just your local two bit drug dealer
Speaker 4: down in the little Italy neighborhood on the east side
Speaker 4: of Cleveland. And Anthony Klan was one of these guys
Speaker 4: that frequented Stony, as was a number of the other guys.
Speaker 4: Michael Keenan in this case, at Espinoza and others hung
Speaker 4: around together.
Speaker 1: Right, And something that needs to be pointed out here
Speaker 1: was that months before this murder occurred, back in May
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight, Stoney allegedly raped Anthony Clan's roommate Chris Longenecker,
Speaker 1: and Anthony and Chris were both scheduled to testify against
Speaker 1: Tony Lewis, but Chris Longenecker was legally blind and misread
Speaker 1: when they were supposed to appear in court, so Stony
Speaker 1: was released, leaving Clan and Longeneck are in danger. Now
Speaker 1: you mentioned before Mike Keenan and Edward Espinoza, who, from
Speaker 1: what I understand, had a landscaping business. Mike Keenan Joe's
Speaker 1: kind of co defended in this whole mess. He was
Speaker 1: the owner and Espinosa was his foreman. And Joe around
Speaker 1: the end of August nineteen eighty eight, you were going
Speaker 1: to go back into the military, but you needed to
Speaker 1: wait on your discharge paperwork to be reissued. And while
Speaker 1: you waited, you worked for Mike Keenan. Do I have
Speaker 1: that right?
Speaker 3: Well, I needed a job to hold me over, and
Speaker 3: I grew up in the country cutting grasses like in
Speaker 3: my blood, So yeah, I got hired on September first,
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty eight. September twenty sixth, I'm sitting in jail,
Speaker 3: accused the most tenous crime in.
Speaker 1: The world right. But before we even get to that,
Speaker 1: I want to talk about Thursday night, September twenty second,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight, a day before this murder occurred. It
Speaker 1: was the events of that night that were used to
Speaker 1: predicate the narrative that was used against you and Michael
Speaker 1: Keenan at both of your trials, while all along people
Speaker 1: had seen the victim here, Anthony Clan alive the following night, Friday,
Speaker 1: September twenty third, one of whom even gave him camp
Speaker 1: Fair home. But we'll get to that later. So let's
Speaker 1: go back to Thursday the twenty second.
Speaker 4: On Thursday night of this week, all of these people,
Speaker 4: Eddie Espinoza, Mike Keenan, with Mike Keenan's girlfriend, Anthony Clan, Joe,
Speaker 4: Dan Brosio, Paul Stony Lewis, they were on a pub
Speaker 4: call through the Coventry area of Little Italy, and so
Speaker 4: they were all drinking that night. And Joe admittedly was
Speaker 4: part of this drinking group on Thursday night at these
Speaker 4: different bars, and at one of the bars, Joe, where
Speaker 4: was it where they got into the restroom fight?
Speaker 3: That was Coconut Joe's.
Speaker 4: So Anthony Clan and Eddie Espinoza got into a somewhat
Speaker 4: violent or at least racous altercation in the men's room
Speaker 4: of the bar. There is some suspicion that Anthony Clan
Speaker 4: was having a sexual relationship with Eddie Espinoza's girlfriend. Anyway,
Speaker 4: that racus scene at the bar caused the bouncer to
Speaker 4: throw them out, and Eddie Espinoza takes a beer bottle,
Speaker 4: slams it against the bar, breaks it in half, and
Speaker 4: starts threatening people. And so they're thrown out and the
Speaker 4: night moves on, the police come, everybody assures them that
Speaker 4: they're calmed down, there won't be any problem, and they
Speaker 4: go home. So we've got Eddie Espinoza, who's already in
Speaker 4: conflict with Tony Klan over something which we suspect as
Speaker 4: a triangular romantic relationship. And we got Paul Stony Lewis,
Speaker 4: who's involved with Anthony Clan because Anthony Klan is a
Speaker 4: witness to this rape with Christopher Longenecker. And you've got
Speaker 4: both of those people who are involved with Anthony Klan
Speaker 4: from different perspectives.
Speaker 1: So we're going to come back to Thursday night and
Speaker 1: what eventually becomes the narrative of the case against Joe
Speaker 1: and Mike Keenan in a minute, But first let's talk
Speaker 1: about what we know. On Saturday, September twenty third, nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty eight, nineteen year old Anthony Klan's body was found
Speaker 1: by a jogger on the east side of Cleveland and
Speaker 1: Rockefeller Parks Doan Brook or Doan Creek, depending on who
Speaker 1: you're talking to, they have different names for it. He
Speaker 1: had sustained multiple stabounds to the chest and his throat
Speaker 1: had been slit so deeply that he had nearly been decapitated. Now,
Speaker 1: no murder weapon was ever found, and the body went
Speaker 1: unclaimed until Monday the twenty sixth.
Speaker 3: That Monday, an anonymous caller called in to the morgue
Speaker 3: and asked if there was a nineteen year old kid.
Speaker 3: Does he have this color hair, these color eyes, these
Speaker 3: tattoos and these marks on his hands and wrists? And
Speaker 3: the detective got on the phone and the Detective's like, yes,
Speaker 3: we have him. Can you come down and please identify him?
Speaker 3: The guy he wouldn't identify himself, and then he hung up. Wow. Well.
Speaker 3: Shortly after that, Stony Foot and Adam Flannick all went
Speaker 3: down to the morgue and identified Anthony. But the thing is,
Speaker 3: how did Stony know about the defensive wounds on Anthony's
Speaker 3: hands and arms? All who was in the paper was
Speaker 3: a little blurb that an unidentified white male was found
Speaker 3: in Dome Creek and that was it.
Speaker 1: Right, So at least it appears that the person on
Speaker 1: the phone knew things that only someone involved could have
Speaker 1: possibly known. And then, surprise, surprise, right after the Carter's
Speaker 1: office got this anonymous call, who shows up but Paul Stony, Lewis,
Speaker 1: James Russell, or as Joe called him, Foot and Adam Flannick,
Speaker 1: three of the witnesses that helped with Joe and Mike
Speaker 1: Keenan on death row. Now these three men identify the body,
Speaker 1: and the narrative began to build that the murder happened
Speaker 1: on the night you were all out together at the bar,
Speaker 1: which was Thursday, which is when Stny went home early. However,
Speaker 1: the murder actually occurred on Friday. Eventually, investigators caught up
Speaker 1: with the guy who had fought with Clan on Thursday,
Speaker 1: Tony Clan's cuckled, Edward Espinoza, who gave police a false
Speaker 1: eyewitness account claiming to have witnessed Joe and Mike Keenan
Speaker 1: commit the murder.
Speaker 4: Eddie Espinoza refers to him as little Tony, and supposedly
Speaker 4: little Tony is his best buddy and he's going to
Speaker 4: do everything he can to protect little Tony all along
Speaker 4: the way. And so Eddie Espinoza gets arrested and taken
Speaker 4: down to the station and he swears out an affidavit
Speaker 4: that lists all of the dates, times, places, people and everything.
Speaker 4: And then when the police come in and look at this,
Speaker 4: they realize that what Eddie Espinoza has put down in
Speaker 4: his the David does not fit the narrative that they
Speaker 4: want to paint of this case, and so they have
Speaker 4: him swear out another aff the davit that literally gives
Speaker 4: different day, different times, different places, so that the police
Speaker 4: can paint their narrative. And both of those Affi davits,
Speaker 4: to this very day, they exist in the file and
Speaker 4: you can put them side by side and you can
Speaker 4: see that somebody coached Eddie Espinoza to change his story up.
Speaker 1: Wow. They were like, no, no, that one's not so great?
Speaker 1: Am I doing that over? We'll just give you a
Speaker 1: little bit of a right.
Speaker 4: Within forty eight hours of each other, two distinct aff
Speaker 4: the Davits sworn out by Eddie Espinoza.
Speaker 1: And then how in the world can anybody take anything
Speaker 1: that guy says seriously? After that, well, you know, when
Speaker 1: they want to get somebody, they get somebody.
Speaker 4: And Eddie Espinoza has a violent history. He was also
Speaker 4: in the service, dishonorably discharged for drugs and for violent behavior.
Speaker 1: So you got a guy with a violent history and
Speaker 1: a motive to kill as the spurned, cuckolded boyfriend of
Speaker 1: the woman with whom Anthony Klan was having an affair,
Speaker 1: and in his narraive events. After his fight with Anthony
Speaker 1: Klan at the bar, he and Joe headed back to
Speaker 1: Joe's apartment around one thirty am, at which point Mike
Speaker 1: Keenan drove up and told them that Stony had stolen
Speaker 1: drugs from him. Espinoza grabbed a bat, Joe grabbed a knife,
Speaker 1: and the three of them drove around looking for Paul
Speaker 1: Stony Lewis Now again, what about this so far is true?
Speaker 3: Guess what?
Speaker 1: None of this shit even fucking matters because this is
Speaker 1: Thursday night, not the night of the murder, which was Friday,
Speaker 1: so lies truth. It's utterly meaningless to even debated. Now,
Speaker 1: another two witnesses supported this narrative, Carolyn Roselle and her
Speaker 1: friend you'll remember him, James Russell. You know his dictum
Speaker 1: was Foot said that the three men knocked on Rosell's
Speaker 1: door looked looking for Stony at around three am. After
Speaker 1: this encounter, Espinosa's narrative continues, saying that while driving along,
Speaker 1: they eventually saw Anthony Clan walk on the side of
Speaker 1: the road, forced him into the back seat, interrogated him
Speaker 1: about Stoney's whereabouts, and after Espinoza hit him with a bat,
Speaker 1: Clan told them Stony's address, and the men proceed to
Speaker 1: Stony's apartment building. Now, according to Stony's neighbor, you'll remember him,
Speaker 1: of course, Adam Flannick, he first heard the group yelling
Speaker 1: at and banging on Stoney's door, saying I want my
Speaker 1: dope or I want my coke. So Flanet continued to
Speaker 1: claim to be able to see down into the car
Speaker 1: where you Joe were allegedly pointing a knife up to
Speaker 1: Anthony Clan's jaw, a view that would be totally impossible
Speaker 1: from any vantage point because of how the back seats
Speaker 1: and Kenyan's pick up face one Another but we still
Speaker 1: don't know what Planet had to gain from saying that
Speaker 1: maybe he was involved, maybe he was coerced, who knows,
Speaker 1: maybe he was even confused. But what we do know
Speaker 1: is that again, it really just doesn't fucking matter, because
Speaker 1: Anthony Clan was not murdered that night, but the following night. Anyway,
Speaker 1: back to Espinosa's narrative, the three men went back to Roselle's,
Speaker 1: where they issued a warning for Roselle to deliver to
Speaker 1: Stony that there was a quote contract out on him
Speaker 1: and that they had Clan in the car who was
Speaker 1: quote dead meat. Espinosa goes on to say that Clan
Speaker 1: eventually escaped from the car. Keenan allegedly then told Joe
Speaker 1: to finish him off, and then Joe allegedly ran after Clan.
Speaker 1: Clan begged for his life while Joe allegedly killed him
Speaker 1: with a knife. Again, this is a bogus recollection of
Speaker 1: Thursday night, and we know this because we later found
Speaker 1: out that Clan was seen alive again at Coconut Joe's
Speaker 1: on Friday night. He got drunk and was given capfair
Speaker 1: by the barmaid. So that was Friday night, the night
Speaker 1: after this alleged Stony Lewis search party happened, and Joe,
Speaker 1: on Friday, your whereabouts were totally accounted for, correct, right.
Speaker 3: I was getting near being able to go back into
Speaker 3: the military and I was getting evicted. So I was
Speaker 3: having an eviction party that night, and there was a
Speaker 3: bunch of people that were over all night long. But
Speaker 3: the problem was I'm terrible with names.
Speaker 4: Later, when we were able to identify some of the
Speaker 4: names that Joe was talking about people who were indeed
Speaker 4: at that inviction party, one of them mentioned to me
Speaker 4: that on that Friday night, they were all gathered at
Speaker 4: Joe's apartment and they were watching a football game, and
Speaker 4: so I'm like, who's got a Friday night football game?
Speaker 4: I'm doing this ten years later. So I literally ended
Speaker 4: up doing some research at the Cuyahoga County Public Library
Speaker 4: for old editions of the Cleveland Plane Dealer, and I
Speaker 4: was looking through the high school games that were being
Speaker 4: played on Friday night, and one of them was Brush
Speaker 4: High School on the east side of Cleveland, and names
Speaker 4: that we literally discovered later were there. And remember watching
Speaker 4: that particular.
Speaker 1: Game, and that's the night that the murder actually took place,
Speaker 1: not the Knight that was sort of substituted. So you
Speaker 1: had all these people that could exonerate you, but you
Speaker 1: had no way to subpoena them to testify because you
Speaker 1: didn't have full names and numbers, nor did you have
Speaker 1: lawyers who were even particularly interested. And then you've got
Speaker 1: these guys who you've been working or just partying with
Speaker 1: for about the last month, who are all spinning a
Speaker 1: narrative together to close this case for the authorities on
Speaker 1: you and your boss, Mike Keenan. And of course I'm
Speaker 1: talking about Espinosa and Stony Lewis, who would probably have
Speaker 1: thrown their own mother under the bus in order to
Speaker 1: save themselves from death row.
Speaker 3: Exactly so, because I barely knew any of these people,
Speaker 3: I think myself that it was Paul, Stony Lewis and
Speaker 3: Espinoza together killed Anthony because they both knew facts that
Speaker 3: only the murder or would know, and then they were
Speaker 3: able to point their finger elsewhere.
Speaker 1: So three men ultimately were charged with this gruesome murder,
Speaker 1: Michael Keenan, Edward Espinoza, and you, Joe. And it's important
Speaker 1: again to note that in exchange for his testimony against
Speaker 1: you and Keenan, who were tried separately. Espinoza pleaded guilty
Speaker 1: to manslaughter and was given the lesser sentence of fifteen
Speaker 1: to seventy five years in prison. So we know what
Speaker 1: his motivation was. And this is a guy who we
Speaker 1: know is a liar. You don't have to say he's
Speaker 1: a liar. You can't sign two sworn affidavits that are
Speaker 1: totally different within forty eight hours of each other and
Speaker 1: not be lying. Okay, let's get to the trial. Tell
Speaker 1: us a little about your representation.
Speaker 3: It should be lack thereof representation. If my attorneys would
Speaker 3: have believed me and did a little bit of investigation,
Speaker 3: I never would have been convicted because father Neil, ten
Speaker 3: years after the fact, was finding all this evidence with
Speaker 3: little work. So my attorneys did very little. One was
Speaker 3: running for mayor of a little town at the time
Speaker 3: and couldn't be bothered, and the other one just didn't
Speaker 3: want anything to do with me because they didn't believe
Speaker 3: me from day one that I had nothing to do
Speaker 3: with this, because they were the ones that talked to
Speaker 3: me into going with a three judge panel because I
Speaker 3: didn't know no better. You have to do very little
Speaker 3: work as an attorney for a three judge panel case.
Speaker 1: So the trial took place on February sixth, nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: in the Cayahoga Court of Common Please, as you said,
Speaker 1: in front of a three judge panel. The prosecutor was
Speaker 1: Carmen Marino. Now important to note that no murder weapon
Speaker 1: was ever found in this case, right, So, how the
Speaker 1: hell do you send a guy much less too to
Speaker 1: death row with no murder weapon and no physical evidence.
Speaker 3: Well, back then, I used to hunt and fish, and
Speaker 3: I had my hunting knives. So when they came and
Speaker 3: illegally entered my house and arrested me, they took my knives,
Speaker 3: and all three of my knives tested negative for blood.
Speaker 3: Yet throughout the whole trial they waved them around and
Speaker 3: called them the murder weapons.
Speaker 1: So they're parading around false evidence. What the hell else
Speaker 1: was presented against you?
Speaker 3: Most of the time on the stand was covered by
Speaker 3: Espinoza and Paul Stony Lewis. You know when the two
Speaker 3: real murderers are taking the stand and they're backed up
Speaker 3: by the prosecutor, and then you throw in this joke
Speaker 3: of a coroner we had that all she ever did
Speaker 3: was rubber stamp. Whatever the cops said that was their
Speaker 3: whole prosecution that Espinosa said he stood there and watched
Speaker 3: why me and Mike Keenan killed Anthony clan Stony says,
Speaker 3: the knight that Anthony was killed was the knight that
Speaker 3: we were in the bars.
Speaker 1: A very very important problem with this is that he
Speaker 1: mixed up September twenty third as September twenty second.
Speaker 3: Exactly what it was is they wouldn't say dates. All
Speaker 3: they kept saying is on the night when we went
Speaker 3: to the bar, when we were there, when we were
Speaker 3: all together, nobody used a date.
Speaker 1: And were you elbowing your lawyer going hey, hey, hey,
Speaker 1: that's the wrong Oh you bet.
Speaker 4: They did bring up the idea that the state was
Speaker 4: painting the wrong day because the day that you were
Speaker 4: at the bar was tequila Knite, right, And so tequila
Speaker 4: Knight was Thursday not Friday. And you even had the
Speaker 4: proprietor of the bar, Stephen Gaines I believe was his name. Yes,
Speaker 4: Stephen Gaines, literally came and took the stand and said
Speaker 4: these men were there on tequila knite Thursday, not Friday.
Speaker 1: So this discrepancy was actually clearly pointed out. And I mean,
Speaker 1: do you even have any theory whatsoever about how this
Speaker 1: three junge panel could have been so blind and gotten
Speaker 1: this so totally wrong.
Speaker 4: You know, you've got anybody that might have been put
Speaker 4: on the stand for Joe's case, we're not available at
Speaker 4: the time of the trial to establish that alibi for Joe,
Speaker 4: or to even be there as a character witness. And
Speaker 4: so you put that up against Eddie Espinoza as suspect
Speaker 4: as he may be, but he's claiming to be an
Speaker 4: eye witness to this, and it literally becomes you know,
Speaker 4: where's the greater way of the evidence and the credibility?
Speaker 4: And you know, the three judge panel, who were all
Speaker 4: former prosecutors, have that prosecutorial bent and they're going to
Speaker 4: lean that way to begin with.
Speaker 3: See, the one thing that I made my attorneys do
Speaker 3: is let me testify. And I figured if I could
Speaker 3: get up there and tell the truth, the judges would
Speaker 3: be like, come on, this this case is just wrong,
Speaker 3: you know, and release me. So my attorneys threw me
Speaker 3: up their cold They didn't give me any preparation, they
Speaker 3: didn't have checked when the prosecutor just tore me to pieces,
Speaker 3: they kept telling me I'm lying, I'm just saying all
Speaker 3: this to save my life. But the sad part is
Speaker 3: they had evidence that proved that everything I said was true,
Speaker 3: and they hid it from me. In a blink of
Speaker 3: an eye. My trial's over with. I have the shortest
Speaker 3: penalty trial in the state of Ohio history, two and
Speaker 3: three quarter days from let's start to you die. You
Speaker 3: know you hear that they're going to pass thirty thousand
Speaker 3: volts through your body until you are dead for something
Speaker 3: I had nothing to do with.
Speaker 4: So I was ordained in nineteen ninety five and I
Speaker 4: was reading a cat flake newsweek called National Catholic Reporter,
Speaker 4: and in that there was a brother, Patrick Byrd from
Speaker 4: Texas who had his own death row pen Pale ministry,
Speaker 4: and he was looking for people to join him in
Speaker 4: writing to death row inmates. I eventually started writing to many, many,
Speaker 4: many of the inmates and became penpales with them, including Joe.
Speaker 4: And in December of nineteen ninety eight, Dorothy Dan Brosio,
Speaker 4: Joe's mother, passed away here in Cleveland. I found out
Speaker 4: about it through the obituaries in the newspaper, and so
Speaker 4: on Joe's behalf. I went to the funeral home to
Speaker 4: pay my respects and then The next day, I actually
Speaker 4: went to the church to con celebrate his mother's funeral mass.
Speaker 3: And then the.
Speaker 4: Next time I was down on death row, I asked
Speaker 4: the corrections officers if I could have just a few
Speaker 4: minutes of Joe's time to express my condolence, says and
Speaker 4: paint a picture of his mother's funeral for him.
Speaker 3: At this point, I was writing everybody, every law school,
Speaker 3: every journalism school, all the news media. I was writing everybody,
Speaker 3: trying to get somebody to help me. But now I
Speaker 3: have a human being in my cell and he can't
Speaker 3: run away because he's locked in there with me. So
Speaker 3: he's sitting there trying to explain my mother's funeral to me,
Speaker 3: and I'm thanking him profusely, but I'm like, but you
Speaker 3: don't understand. You have to help me. I didn't do
Speaker 3: what they said I did. And he's like, no, no.
Speaker 3: He would go back to talking about my mom's funeral,
Speaker 3: and then I would thank him again, you know, and
Speaker 3: be like, you know, I appreciate and everything, but you
Speaker 3: don't understand. They're trying to put me where she's at.
Speaker 3: They're trying to murder me for something I had nothing
Speaker 3: to do. And that's when the attorney of him kicked in,
Speaker 3: because he's not only a priest, he's an attorney and
Speaker 3: a registered nurse, and he had to be all three
Speaker 3: things to do what he did for me.
Speaker 4: And so I took the trial transcript home and I
Speaker 4: read it from cover to cover the first night, and
Speaker 4: I knew that there was at least something wrong because
Speaker 4: I was reading the coroner's testimony and she was describing
Speaker 4: Anthony Clan's wounds. Now, Anthony Klan was sliced ear to
Speaker 4: ear and then stabbed three times in the chest. He
Speaker 4: was almost decapitated. And so she testifies that after these
Speaker 4: massive holes are created in the trachea that, based on
Speaker 4: Eddie Espinoza's testimony, Anthony is running away from his perpetrators,
Speaker 4: literally screaming for his life. Don't kill me, don't kill me, Please,
Speaker 4: don't kill me. Now, you don't have to be a
Speaker 4: nurse to understand that when your airway is compromised, especially
Speaker 4: as severely as his was, that you're not whispering, let
Speaker 4: alone screaming any And not only that, but they all
Speaker 4: testified that he had six hundred and fifty milliters of
Speaker 4: blood in his chest cavity and if you saw these wounds,
Speaker 4: you would know without question that he wasn't running at all,
Speaker 4: that he would never have been able to speak, and
Speaker 4: he would have been drowning in his own secretions. And
Speaker 4: I'm like, somebody got away with this testimony, either lying
Speaker 4: or the cross examination just was totally nonexistent or totally ineffective.
Speaker 4: And I began to ask myself, what else could be
Speaker 4: wrong in this case?
Speaker 1: Tell us about what you found and how it led
Speaker 1: to where we are today.
Speaker 4: So I went down to the records room of the
Speaker 4: Cuyahoga County Justice Center and I started pulling the microfish
Speaker 4: files of all the major names in this case. And then,
Speaker 4: just as a fluke, I decided to pull Anthony Klan's
Speaker 4: microfish file and came across a notation from a police
Speaker 4: report that Anthony had witnessed a rape in May nineteen
Speaker 4: eighty eight. And then you find out that the rapist
Speaker 4: is one Paul Stoney Lewis. And then in the records
Speaker 4: they gave the name of the rape victim, a guy
Speaker 4: by the name of Christopher Longeneker. Christopher is blind and
Speaker 4: suffers from cerebral palsy, but he can read in just
Speaker 4: a very small sliver. And so Christopher Longeneker gets this
Speaker 4: notice that he needs to appear in court for a
Speaker 4: pre trial, and he does. He shows up at the
Speaker 4: courthouse on August eleventh, but he had misread it. He
Speaker 4: was supposed to be there on August first. And because
Speaker 4: the only witness didn't show up, they released Paul stony Lewis,
Speaker 4: who had been in jail down there since May. And
Speaker 4: now you've got a previous rapist just out on his
Speaker 4: own recognizance, and there's one guy out there that can
Speaker 4: testify him and put him in back in jail for
Speaker 4: a long, long, long long time, and that's Anthony Clan.
Speaker 4: And all of a sudden, Anthony Klan ends up dead
Speaker 4: in Don't Creek. And the guy that points his finger
Speaker 4: to Joe is Paul stony Lewis, the guy who has
Speaker 4: the most to do to save his neck. So that
Speaker 4: rape was the seminole thing that got us back into
Speaker 4: federal court. And Judge Kathleen O'Malley of the District Court
Speaker 4: here in Cuyahoga County, the sixth District Federal Court, gave
Speaker 4: us sweeping discovery which literally said we had full access
Speaker 4: to the police files. The coroner's files the prosecutor's files,
Speaker 4: almost nothing could be withheld from.
Speaker 1: Us, so in July two thousand and four, at an
Speaker 1: evidentiary hearing, they presented the following evidence, none of which
Speaker 1: was given to the defense before Joe's initial trial.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 1: Two former Cleveland police detectives testified that because no grass
Speaker 1: or weeds were disturbed in the area where Clan's body
Speaker 1: had been found, they believed he was killed elsewhere, dumped
Speaker 1: in the creek. Clan's ex roommate, Chris Longenecker, testified that
Speaker 1: Lewis had raped him shortly before Clan was killed. Longnecker
Speaker 1: said that after hearing of Clan's murder, Longenecker called the
Speaker 1: police to say that he believed Clan was killed because
Speaker 1: he was likely aware of the rape. The records showing
Speaker 1: that at one time police had had an order or
Speaker 1: recording of a statement from a man named Angelo Crimini,
Speaker 1: who also implicated others in the murder. At the same
Speaker 1: July two thousand and four hearing, Joe's trial lawyer testified
Speaker 1: that during a pre trial conference with Marino, he was
Speaker 1: not allowed to see any police reports. He was allowed
Speaker 1: to take notes as Marino read selected portions. Huh yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: one of which ones they selected, and then the alibi
Speaker 1: finally right the alibi. Other witnesses now testified that on
Speaker 1: the night of September twenty third, nineteen eighty eight, Joe
Speaker 1: was not a Coconut Joe's, but rather was hosting a
Speaker 1: party at his own apartment because he was being evicted.
Speaker 1: The one witness who was pregnant and therefore not drinking,
Speaker 1: recalled that Joe had passed out on his bed. It's
Speaker 1: really hard. I don't know. I've never stabbed anyone, but
Speaker 1: I don't think I could do it while it was
Speaker 1: passed out, even if I wanted to.
Speaker 4: So there was another piece of evidence that came to
Speaker 4: light for us was we have a witness by the
Speaker 4: name of Linda Deblasio, who was a bar maid at
Speaker 4: Coconut Joe's, who testified that Anthony Clan came to her
Speaker 4: bar on Friday night. This would have been now twenty
Speaker 4: four hours after the state said that he was dead,
Speaker 4: and she served Anthony Clan alcohol, served him and realized
Speaker 4: that he was not in any kind of shape to
Speaker 4: get home on his own, so literally gave him money
Speaker 4: for a cab so that he could get home.
Speaker 1: So finally, on March twenty four, two thousand and six, Judg.
Speaker 1: O'Malley granted the writ because of the failure to turn
Speaker 1: over exculpatory evidence, that conviction was vacated and the new
Speaker 1: trial was ordered. The US Court of Appeals for the
Speaker 1: Sixth Circuit affirmed the ruling, saying that the withheld evidence
Speaker 1: would have quote substantially increased reasonable jurors to doubt of
Speaker 1: the Ambrosio's guilt. The court said the evidence not only
Speaker 1: contradicted or weakened Espinosa's testimony and he was, of course
Speaker 1: the only eyewitness for the prosecution, but also demonstrated a
Speaker 1: motive for Lewis to kill Clan. And of course the
Speaker 1: state fought to retry you despite the evidence of your
Speaker 1: innocence that they've been withholding since the investigation, and your
Speaker 1: team sought to bar the prosecution from retrying you. And
Speaker 1: then something whirred.
Speaker 3: It happens.
Speaker 1: One day before O'Malley ruled not to bar retrial, Edward Espinoza,
Speaker 1: who had been released after serving twelve years, was found
Speaker 1: dead in a Chicago suburb. Now, who knows if this
Speaker 1: is a coincidence or not, but anyway, your team renewed
Speaker 1: their motion to borrow retrial, arguing that they would not
Speaker 1: be able to cross examine the only eyewitness against Joe
Speaker 1: with all the newly discovered evidence. The motion was granted,
Speaker 1: and after the state's appeal was ultimately denied, your nightmare
Speaker 1: was finally over. Can you tell us about your first
Speaker 1: taste of freedom?
Speaker 3: Well, the first time I was actually out, I was
Speaker 3: out on bond, and so that was like the first
Speaker 3: time that I was actually out in fresh air without
Speaker 3: bars around me. I was on that for exactly one
Speaker 3: year before Judge Sindenberg dismissed the case and refused to
Speaker 3: allow him to retry me.
Speaker 4: But Joe, where was the first place your lawyers took
Speaker 4: you on the day that you were freed?
Speaker 3: They took me across the street from the Justice Center
Speaker 3: to a bar to have a drink.
Speaker 4: And who was having a fit?
Speaker 3: You were having a fis because He's like, really, he
Speaker 3: was in this because he was at bars, and now
Speaker 3: you're going to take him to a bar and give
Speaker 3: him alcohol. And they were like, yes, yes, we are.
Speaker 5: Give him whatever you want at that point, exactly right,
Speaker 5: And Jesus, I feel like I need a drink after
Speaker 5: hearing your story.
Speaker 4: There's a part that you guys don't know and never
Speaker 4: made it into the trial records or trial transcripts. But
Speaker 4: it's the smoking gun, and the smoking gun is Teresa Farinacci.
Speaker 4: So Teresa Farinacci is a woman who lived in Little
Speaker 4: Italy at the time of the murder. Teresa Farinacci knows
Speaker 4: dates and times because she anchors everything that she does
Speaker 4: around her niece's wedding. So on Friday night, Teresa Farinacci
Speaker 4: is at her niece's wedding rehearsal and dinner, comes home
Speaker 4: on Friday night early Saturday morning, where she hears a
Speaker 4: violent altercation taking place in the home next to her.
Speaker 4: This is Little Italy. They are set rated by just
Speaker 4: little alleyways that maybe one or two people side by
Speaker 4: side can walk through. And she hears this violent altercation
Speaker 4: taking place and calls the police, and the police logs
Speaker 4: still in existence indicate that the police responded to her call,
Speaker 4: but when they arrived everything's calm, and so rather than investigate,
Speaker 4: the police just say, well, whatever it is, it's over with.
Speaker 4: Now comes Saturday morning and Teresa Farinacci is going to
Speaker 4: her niece's wedding and she's being picked up, and as
Speaker 4: she walks out of the house, she glances at the
Speaker 4: street next to her, where Mike Keenan's truck is parked,
Speaker 4: because Eddie Espinoza was Mike Keenan's foreman for his Sunshine
Speaker 4: Landscaping company, and so Eddie Espinoza often borrowed Mike Keenan's
Speaker 4: truck for his own personal use with Mike Keenan's permission.
Speaker 4: And Anthony Klnn is in the bed of the truck
Speaker 4: and she calls out to Anthony Klan and he does
Speaker 4: not respond. She thinks that he's sleeping off a drunk,
Speaker 4: and so she calls out to Anthony Clan again with
Speaker 4: no response, and she says, you know, because the US
Speaker 4: Marshals interviewed her in Joe's retrial proceedings, that she wishes
Speaker 4: she had gone over to literally check on him because
Speaker 4: she would have found out that he was dead in
Speaker 4: the bed of that truck on Saturday. But she was
Speaker 4: going to be late if she didn't. So she gets
Speaker 4: in the car and she goes off to the wedding
Speaker 4: and there's Anthony Klan in the bed of that truck
Speaker 4: and the US marshals say to her, so you think
Speaker 4: you saw Anthony Klan in the bed of that truck,
Speaker 4: And she says, you're not listening to me. She said,
Speaker 4: I know I saw Anthony Klan in the bed of
Speaker 4: that truck was Saturday as she was going to her
Speaker 4: niece's wedding. But because we never got to a retrial,
Speaker 4: that's not out there.
Speaker 3: Oh well wait, wait, you didn't hear the best part.
Speaker 3: Guess who lives in the apartment next to.
Speaker 4: Her where the commotion was taking place.
Speaker 1: Tell me Paul Stony Lewis saw that coming.
Speaker 4: On that very same night, Friday night to Saturday morning.
Speaker 4: There is an affidavit from a married couple that lived
Speaker 4: in that same complex. This man and woman swore out
Speaker 4: an affidavit that that very same night they heard someone
Speaker 4: say we need to dump the body in the basement.
Speaker 4: And so we believe that is where Anthony Clan was murdered.
Speaker 4: We believe he was murdered by Paul Lewis and Eddie
Speaker 4: Espinoza in concert with each other. We believe that he
Speaker 4: was later taken from that basement, thrown in the bed
Speaker 4: of that truck and dropped off at Don's Creak. Sometime
Speaker 4: Saturday morning early afternoon.
Speaker 1: Joe, have you ever received any compensation?
Speaker 3: We struck a deal with the state of Ohio to
Speaker 3: get me compensation nowhere near anything I should have gotten,
Speaker 3: and I could have gotten if I continued to fight
Speaker 3: it in the courts. But I'm getting too old. I
Speaker 3: needed something to retire on.
Speaker 1: Well, listen, I wish you nothing but the best of everything.
Speaker 1: Thank you, And of course now we turn to our
Speaker 1: closing of our show, which is appropriately called Closing Arguments.
Speaker 1: First of all, I thank you once again. I really
Speaker 1: appreciate you being on the podcast today, and now closing
Speaker 1: Arguments works like this, I turn off my microphone, kicked
Speaker 1: back in my chair and just listen. You get to
Speaker 1: say whatever do you want. Father, With all due respect,
Speaker 1: We're going to save the best for last. The star
Speaker 1: of our show courses Joe. But it's so great to
Speaker 1: have you here. And Joe, if you wouldn't mind going first,
Speaker 1: Father and Neil Kokuth.
Speaker 4: So I would just say, when it comes to the
Speaker 4: matter of sentencing people to death, to be very very
Speaker 4: very careful. People's lives are at stake here, and you
Speaker 4: know a lot of people will tell me I'm the
Speaker 4: liberal priest that believes everything that the death row innate says,
Speaker 4: and that is not the truth. And Joe would be
Speaker 4: the first one to tell you that. I get letters
Speaker 4: from around the country and sometimes around the world, and
Speaker 4: many of them from guys right here on Ohio's death
Speaker 4: Row saying you need to do for me what you
Speaker 4: did for Joe, and I say to them, I didn't
Speaker 4: do anything for Joe. The evidence freed Joe, and we
Speaker 4: just needed to find it, and we just needed somebody
Speaker 4: to present it. People think you got away with murder
Speaker 4: on a technicality, and that is not the case. This
Speaker 4: went through district court, federal court, Supreme Court with some
Speaker 4: of the finest jurists in the country, and literally the
Speaker 4: evidence freedom. So don't take things at face value, go
Speaker 4: deep and look and then ask yourself some serious questions.
Speaker 4: And one of those questions for me would be this,
Speaker 4: do we really want to give our government the power
Speaker 4: and the authority to take someone's life from them when
Speaker 4: the system is so screwed up?
Speaker 3: Joe, The thing that people have to understand is that
Speaker 3: they're murdering in your name. You're paying to have this done.
Speaker 3: To have the death penalty is so ludicrous places like
Speaker 3: Russia abolish their death penalty and we still hang on
Speaker 3: to it because all it is is revenge, and our
Speaker 3: justice system should not be about revenge. It's not supposed
Speaker 3: to be. So if you even think for a second
Speaker 3: that the system is so perfect that you're willing to
Speaker 3: bet somebody's life and it could be your own, then
Speaker 3: don't do anything about it, because, like we started out saying,
Speaker 3: if this could happen to me, this could happen to
Speaker 3: you very easily. But I think you need to stand
Speaker 3: up right now. In Ohio, we have two bills that
Speaker 3: are trying to get the death penalty abolished in Ohio,
Speaker 3: and this is the time to do it. People need
Speaker 3: to stand up and say that you don't kill in
Speaker 3: my name and just stop this stupidity that's going on
Speaker 3: with the duck penalty.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm.
Speaker 1: Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
Speaker 1: links in our bio now to see how you can help.
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our amazing production team Connor Hall,
Speaker 1: Justin Golden, Jeff Clyburn, and Kevin Wardis. The music on
Speaker 1: this show, as always is by three Time Oscar nominated
Speaker 1: composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram
Speaker 1: at Wronful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast.
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is a production of Lava
Speaker 1: for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one