WEBVTT - #592 Jason Flom with Anthony DiPippo 0:00:00.840 --> 0:00:03.920 The episode you're about to hear was originally published in 2017, 0:00:03.920 --> 0:00:07.210 the very first year of this podcast. It was episode 0:00:07.230 --> 0:00:10.870 number 25. Now, this interview is near and dear to 0:00:10.910 --> 0:00:15.090 my heart. Anthony DePippo courageously shared his story with me 0:00:15.350 --> 0:00:19.130 shortly after he'd been released from prison and exonerated. Since then, 0:00:19.890 --> 0:00:23.120 Anthony's done a lot of growing, reflecting on and healing 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:26.440 from the trauma of being wrongfully incarcerated for two decades. 0:00:27.520 --> 0:00:29.740 I couldn't be more proud of the man he's become. 0:00:30.930 --> 0:00:33.150 To hear a lot more of Anthony's story and where 0:00:33.190 --> 0:00:35.820 he is now, check out Bone Valley Season 5, The 0:00:35.860 --> 0:00:41.740 Devil's Quarry. Host Paul Solitaroff deeply investigates Anthony's case and 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:46.879 the person who may have been implicated instead. A second 0:00:46.909 --> 0:00:50.470 installment of The Devil's Quarry is coming soon. Paul's back 0:00:50.510 --> 0:00:53.170 in the same small New York town reporting on a 0:00:53.229 --> 0:00:56.410 crime with eerie similarities to the one Anthony was originally 0:00:56.450 --> 0:01:00.040 convicted of. Look out for the first episode on September 30th. 0:01:00.850 --> 0:01:03.990 Trust me, you won't want to miss it. And now, 0:01:04.730 --> 0:01:06.270 here is Anthony's story. 0:01:06.290 --> 0:01:14.020 I think we have the best legal system. It's just 0:01:14.060 --> 0:01:17.199 the people that implement it. They get lost along the 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:19.320 way and forget what their job really is. 0:01:20.959 --> 0:01:23.580 He just kept on trying to remind me that who 0:01:23.620 --> 0:01:26.860 was in authority, who was in control, and how easy 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:31.170 it was for my body to be found in any 0:01:31.310 --> 0:01:32.510 alley of New York City. 0:01:33.670 --> 0:01:36.289 It's a tough prison when you have the guards going 0:01:36.330 --> 0:01:39.630 against you because they are the biggest gang in the prison. 0:01:40.990 --> 0:01:41.509 They do that. 0:01:41.550 --> 0:01:43.870 They'll give a guy a life sentence and go home 0:01:43.910 --> 0:01:45.270 and eat spaghetti like it was nothing. 0:01:46.850 --> 0:01:48.850 And anybody that would say, well, why would you confess 0:01:48.870 --> 0:01:51.530 to something that you didn't do? My question to them 0:01:51.580 --> 0:01:54.440 would be, why wouldn't you confess when somebody's threatening to 0:01:54.480 --> 0:01:55.120 kill your life? 0:01:56.640 --> 0:01:58.520 The judge, he said, how you feel? 0:01:58.580 --> 0:01:59.240 I said, I'm okay. 0:01:59.790 --> 0:02:01.340 He said, well, today is your lucky day. 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:04.520 You're going home. 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:17.090 This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with 0:02:17.130 --> 0:02:22.709 Jason Flom. Today's guest is a larger-than-life character in every way, 0:02:23.010 --> 0:02:23.829 Anthony DePippo. 0:02:24.169 --> 0:02:28.070 Anthony DePippo went behind bars as a 19-year-old troublemaker, but 0:02:28.110 --> 0:02:30.430 insists he was never the killer they said he was. 0:02:30.650 --> 0:02:33.130 After 20 years in prison for a crime the courts 0:02:33.190 --> 0:02:34.810 now say he did not commit. 0:02:34.940 --> 0:02:37.480 A jury in Putnam County found him not guilty in 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:41.280 the 1994 rape and murder of 12-year-old Josette Wright. This 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:43.740 was his third trial for the same crime. The previous 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:47.869 convictions were overturned, then on Tuesday, an acquittal. The main 0:02:47.889 --> 0:02:50.250 witness against him was a former girlfriend who said she 0:02:50.310 --> 0:02:52.670 witnessed the attack, but the jury didn't buy it. 0:02:52.850 --> 0:02:55.000 What we learned at this trial is that the eyewitness 0:02:55.020 --> 0:02:55.579 wasn't credible. 0:02:56.020 --> 0:02:58.299 In the third trial, the defense was allowed to suggest 0:02:58.320 --> 0:03:00.960 Howard Gombert is the real killer, seen with the victim 0:03:01.020 --> 0:03:04.310 shortly before her disappearance and currently in a Connecticut prison 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:07.370 on sex assault charges. The Putnam County District Attorney, though, 0:03:07.430 --> 0:03:10.470 isn't backing down. He insists not guilty is not the 0:03:10.510 --> 0:03:11.230 same as innocent. 0:03:11.810 --> 0:03:15.110 He was freed six months ago. Anthony, welcome to the show. 0:03:15.150 --> 0:03:16.730 Great to be on the show. Thank you for having me. 0:03:17.130 --> 0:03:20.960 So Anthony is a very interesting guy. I've gotten to 0:03:21.000 --> 0:03:23.500 know him well over the last several months since he's 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:25.540 been out of prison. And when I say he's a 0:03:25.530 --> 0:03:27.830 larger than life character, what are you, 6'5? 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:29.200 Almost 6'6. 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:33.490 Yeah, I mean, he looks like a gentle giant. So 0:03:33.790 --> 0:03:36.930 just gregarious and funny and fun to be around. And 0:03:37.010 --> 0:03:42.580 so it really belies the incredible saga that you've lived through. 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:47.040 How you came out with your spirit so, so strong 0:03:47.100 --> 0:03:49.980 and so positive. And it gives me a lot of 0:03:50.020 --> 0:03:51.820 joy just hanging around with you. So I'm glad to 0:03:51.860 --> 0:03:52.300 have you here. 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:55.320 Thank you. I try to live for the moment and 0:03:55.360 --> 0:03:57.200 for the future and not in the past. I did 0:03:57.200 --> 0:04:00.490 20 years wrongfully, falsely accused of crimes I didn't commit. 0:04:00.650 --> 0:04:02.950 It's a privilege to be back in society. A lot 0:04:02.970 --> 0:04:05.510 of people in my situation don't get to make it here. 0:04:05.930 --> 0:04:07.870 Yeah, that's true. In fact, we'll get to it. The 0:04:07.890 --> 0:04:10.980 guy who was wrongfully convicted with you, Is not here 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:13.820 because he's still locked up for the same crime, which 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:17.109 is crazy because you've been exonerated. And let's go back 0:04:17.170 --> 0:04:19.130 to the time of the crime. I mean, you were 0:04:19.210 --> 0:04:22.850 still a kid. Right. Which makes it extra tragic, right, 0:04:22.870 --> 0:04:25.229 because of the fact that you lost those years. So 0:04:25.610 --> 0:04:26.510 you grew up where? 0:04:26.790 --> 0:04:27.650 In Carmel, New York. 0:04:28.029 --> 0:04:29.450 Carmel, New York. Nice place. Pretty nice. 0:04:29.470 --> 0:04:33.180 It's a nice place. It's picket fences and people are 0:04:33.210 --> 0:04:36.520 just living life. It's one of the safest communities according 0:04:36.600 --> 0:04:38.380 to the state. to live in. 0:04:38.620 --> 0:04:41.060 So you had a relatively happy childhood growing up in 0:04:41.300 --> 0:04:43.840 Carmel and things are going good. You play sports? 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:46.730 You know, I was involved in wrestling in school and 0:04:47.140 --> 0:04:49.850 I wasn't involved with baseball, football, none of that. But, 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:51.890 you know, I was doing a lot of stuff that 0:04:52.010 --> 0:04:55.130 normal kids do. And I did come to an age where, 0:04:55.230 --> 0:04:57.910 you know, I began experimenting with drugs and I kind 0:04:57.950 --> 0:05:00.669 of went south on everything. And that kind of led 0:05:00.710 --> 0:05:03.630 me down the path to how the police started to 0:05:03.690 --> 0:05:06.400 focus in on me as a person of interest. Just 0:05:06.460 --> 0:05:08.500 because of what I was doing. I mean, we weren't 0:05:09.339 --> 0:05:13.660 out threatening people or robbing people or committing sexual assault crimes. But, 0:05:13.700 --> 0:05:16.219 you know, we were using and selling drugs and we 0:05:16.260 --> 0:05:18.460 were dressing up and we were playing a part. You know, 0:05:18.560 --> 0:05:21.230 as the culture shows that, you know, when you're a kid, 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:24.010 you kind of go a certain way. You listen to 0:05:24.070 --> 0:05:28.650 rap music, you're easily influenced. These influences affected me. And 0:05:28.810 --> 0:05:29.370 I left school. 0:05:29.650 --> 0:05:32.150 Sort of like a knock-around guy, but you weren't hurting anybody. 0:05:32.420 --> 0:05:34.880 No, it wasn't my goal. I didn't wake up in 0:05:34.900 --> 0:05:37.279 the morning and say, oh, I'm going to rape somebody 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:39.020 or I'm going to go rob somebody or I'm going 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:42.040 to hurt somebody. But at the same time, we were youths. 0:05:42.140 --> 0:05:44.940 We were criminal thinkers. I mean, it happens. I'm not 0:05:44.980 --> 0:05:47.239 a criminal thinker today. I like to think of myself 0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:48.400 as a mature human being. 0:05:48.820 --> 0:05:52.430 Many of us have had our transgressions at that age. 0:05:52.710 --> 0:05:55.089 So things are going along pretty well. You're having your 0:05:55.150 --> 0:05:57.490 different issues, whatever, some of your teenage things that are 0:05:57.529 --> 0:05:59.350 going on. You've got to get through a lot of people. 0:05:59.870 --> 0:06:02.409 And then a crazy thing happens in the community, which 0:06:02.470 --> 0:06:06.370 is a 12-year-old girl was raped and murdered. Right. We're 0:06:06.410 --> 0:06:07.730 talking 1994 now. 0:06:07.950 --> 0:06:08.250 Yes. 0:06:09.050 --> 0:06:10.230 Her name was Josette Wright. 0:06:10.390 --> 0:06:11.010 Josette Wright. 0:06:11.130 --> 0:06:13.530 And this must have been big news in the community 0:06:13.570 --> 0:06:13.850 like that. 0:06:13.870 --> 0:06:16.369 It was huge news. It was in the newspapers. Everybody 0:06:16.410 --> 0:06:19.110 was talking about it. The entire police forces in the 0:06:19.150 --> 0:06:22.120 community got together and they were trying to solve this crime. 0:06:22.700 --> 0:06:24.260 It took a long time to find her, right? 0:06:24.260 --> 0:06:26.620 13 months. She was last seen in October of 1994 0:06:26.620 --> 0:06:33.200 and Her skeletal remains were found in November 1995. And 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:35.920 so they find this girl in the woods. A rope 0:06:36.000 --> 0:06:38.420 is attached to her. Her hands were bound behind her back. 0:06:38.980 --> 0:06:42.260 The right leg was pulled up and the rope went 0:06:42.300 --> 0:06:45.260 around the neck in sort of a half hogtied position. 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:49.050 I don't want to be graphic, but the underwear was 0:06:49.310 --> 0:06:51.270 inside of her mouth and the bra was tied around 0:06:51.290 --> 0:06:54.850 her face. And she was found prone face down and 0:06:54.910 --> 0:06:56.810 she decomposed in that position. 0:06:57.160 --> 0:06:59.560 And this is where things start to get really weird, right? 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:03.240 Because now you have a really, I mean, I'm getting 0:07:03.260 --> 0:07:06.900 the chills thinking about it, a really terrifying scenario, right? 0:07:06.980 --> 0:07:08.540 It's the most horrible you can imagine. 0:07:08.900 --> 0:07:12.870 Everybody's worst nightmare, a little girl, innocent, found and having 0:07:12.910 --> 0:07:17.390 been tortured and killed. And now the pressure mounts, right? 0:07:17.450 --> 0:07:18.830 The cops, they got to find out who did it, 0:07:18.830 --> 0:07:19.670 but for a lot of reasons. 0:07:19.710 --> 0:07:22.570 It was, you know, re-election year for the sheriff. And 0:07:22.650 --> 0:07:24.690 so everybody wanted this case solved. 0:07:24.750 --> 0:07:24.890 So. 0:07:25.400 --> 0:07:27.800 They started looking at people, and one of the people 0:07:27.820 --> 0:07:29.920 they were looking at was a guy named Howard Gombert, 0:07:30.440 --> 0:07:33.460 who later had confessed that he committed this crime to 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:36.930 several individuals. She was last seen getting into his red 0:07:36.970 --> 0:07:39.930 car with the Connecticut license plates. Now, the woman eyewitness 0:07:40.570 --> 0:07:43.690 that had seen this identified his photo out of a 0:07:43.730 --> 0:07:46.750 photo array as if anybody number two. He was number two. 0:07:46.850 --> 0:07:48.650 I wasn't in the photo array, and I didn't drive 0:07:48.670 --> 0:07:51.010 a red car. Howard Gombert did drive a red car 0:07:51.050 --> 0:07:54.380 with the Connecticut plates. So you have this girl getting 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:56.460 in a red car 15 minutes after she walks out 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:58.680 of her house for the last time, which is a 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:01.880 stone's throw away from her home. Now she's not seen again. 0:08:02.220 --> 0:08:04.480 The next time they find her, she's in the woods 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:06.960 in this condition. When I went to trial, I didn't 0:08:06.980 --> 0:08:10.980 know about this guy, Howard Gombert. My attorney had previously 0:08:11.020 --> 0:08:13.520 represented him on a rape charge. So he received the 0:08:13.580 --> 0:08:17.100 pretrial discovery material that implicated his former client, this guy, 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:17.800 Howard Gombert. 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:19.660 Stop there for a second, right? This is where things 0:08:19.700 --> 0:08:22.960 get really weird. The fact is, The attorney who was 0:08:23.060 --> 0:08:26.940 representing you had previously represented the guy who was the 0:08:27.080 --> 0:08:28.040 actual suspect. 0:08:28.300 --> 0:08:28.660 Correct. 0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:33.449 Which is totally forbidden. I mean, unethical, not allowed, whatever 0:08:33.470 --> 0:08:36.270 you want to call it. Any lawyer knows that they 0:08:36.309 --> 0:08:40.030 can't do that. And in fact, he withheld information that 0:08:40.070 --> 0:08:42.910 he had that would have implicated his former client and 0:08:42.990 --> 0:08:47.050 ended up screwing. And I'm using a very nice word 0:08:47.090 --> 0:08:51.170 for it, screwing you, his current client. It's so backwards 0:08:51.210 --> 0:08:54.450 and so conflicted and so fucked up, honestly, that people 0:08:54.490 --> 0:08:57.180 can't even imagine that this goes on, but it does. 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:01.160 But let's go back to how this started, right? Because 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:04.220 it started with a guy named Gombert. 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:07.179 We're doing the week they found her remains. So they 0:09:07.220 --> 0:09:11.020 got this eyewitness testimony that week. They also interviewed people 0:09:11.059 --> 0:09:14.380 that Howard Gombert knew that they were saying he was 0:09:14.420 --> 0:09:17.400 trying to entice her into a babysitting job and that 0:09:17.820 --> 0:09:20.439 he was flirting with her and he was acting strange 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:24.380 around her. So the cops are focusing on this guy Gombert. 0:09:24.620 --> 0:09:28.319 But now we're driving along to Jersey City. We go 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:30.479 to a rave. Like I said, we were using and 0:09:30.500 --> 0:09:33.260 selling drugs. We were coming back from this rave and 0:09:33.300 --> 0:09:36.170 we get pulled over. Now, while we were in the car, 0:09:36.470 --> 0:09:39.150 present in the car was me, Dominic Neglia, who was 0:09:39.170 --> 0:09:42.560 a later informant, and Andrew Krivak, who became my co-defendant. 0:09:42.980 --> 0:09:46.079 We're in this car and we're talking just candidly about 0:09:46.179 --> 0:09:48.559 they just found this girl in the woods. So when 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:52.800 we got arrested, Dominic Neglia told the police that we 0:09:52.850 --> 0:09:55.250 might have information on that case. So they whisked him 0:09:55.290 --> 0:09:57.650 away and they promised to treat him with some special 0:09:57.690 --> 0:09:59.930 treatment to get him off his drug charges or whatever. 0:10:00.330 --> 0:10:03.530 if he would further give information upon us about what 0:10:03.570 --> 0:10:04.349 we were talking about. 0:10:04.450 --> 0:10:05.470 He was only 16, right? 0:10:05.530 --> 0:10:09.390 He was 17. We were talking about basic newspaper knowledge. 0:10:09.470 --> 0:10:13.489 We weren't talking about implied knowledge that we actually participated 0:10:13.530 --> 0:10:16.170 in this crime. So then what happened from there was 0:10:16.210 --> 0:10:19.240 that Dominic Negley was repeatedly pulled out of his school, 0:10:19.360 --> 0:10:21.360 pulled out of his job until he got fired. He 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:24.059 worked at the Olive Garden until he was brought to 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:28.260 the police station for several hours of interrogation. And this 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:31.850 Detective Castallo, Patrick Castallo, and this other Detective William Quick 0:10:32.290 --> 0:10:36.360 were telling him, They have to get information against me. Otherwise, 0:10:36.400 --> 0:10:38.260 he's going to go to prison for his charges. And 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:40.380 they were paying him money and they were beating him 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:42.780 up at the same time. He said, I don't want 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:44.719 to do this anymore. It came to a point where 0:10:44.740 --> 0:10:47.040 he says, everything I said was a fabrication. I don't 0:10:47.059 --> 0:10:49.780 want to do this anymore. So Castaldo, who was later 0:10:49.830 --> 0:10:53.170 indicted for dissimilar conduct, hit the guy in the head 0:10:53.309 --> 0:10:54.970 with the handcuffs and spit on him and said, you 0:10:55.010 --> 0:10:57.980 ain't got no other choice. So he said, fine. He 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:01.480 came back and said, all right, they wanted witnesses. I 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:04.860 got your witnesses. Adam Wilson, Denise Rose and Bill McGregor. 0:11:05.140 --> 0:11:07.990 Supposedly this crime happened in a van and they were there. 0:11:08.550 --> 0:11:11.390 So the cops took this information and went to Denise 0:11:11.429 --> 0:11:13.650 Rose and threatened her with life in prison for three weeks. 0:11:13.670 --> 0:11:14.949 Denise Rose was your girlfriend, right? 0:11:15.460 --> 0:11:17.500 Yeah, we were seeing each other on and off. And 0:11:17.700 --> 0:11:20.420 at the time, shortly prior to her giving a statement, 0:11:20.460 --> 0:11:22.160 we were seeing each other. But then I broke up 0:11:22.220 --> 0:11:24.660 with her, which, you know, is not the cause of 0:11:24.740 --> 0:11:27.300 why she did this to me. But it probably contributed 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:29.660 because some women are scorned, you know, when they get 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:32.870 a certain feeling towards something. And so she became a 0:11:32.890 --> 0:11:35.650 witness against me. Now, remember what I told you about 0:11:35.690 --> 0:11:38.309 how the body was tied up. She said the girl 0:11:38.350 --> 0:11:40.110 was gagged, her hands were tied in the front, and 0:11:40.130 --> 0:11:42.570 the rope was tied to nothing else. With the forensic 0:11:42.650 --> 0:11:45.670 evidence is contrary to that. What the police were mistaken 0:11:45.690 --> 0:11:47.750 because the finger bones, not to be graphic here, but 0:11:47.770 --> 0:11:49.670 the finger bones fell to the rib cage. So, they 0:11:49.710 --> 0:11:52.290 wanted a mistaken impression. The girl's hands were tied in 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:56.000 the front. So, they spoon fed this to Denise Rose. So, 0:11:56.020 --> 0:11:58.280 Denise Rose parrots this. So, she swears that the hands 0:11:58.300 --> 0:11:59.880 were tied in the front. Now, if your hands are 0:11:59.900 --> 0:12:01.220 tied in the front and you're gagged in the mouth 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:03.600 and you're being attacked or whatever, you're going to be 0:12:03.660 --> 0:12:05.939 able to reach up to your mouth to pull the 0:12:05.980 --> 0:12:10.120 gag out and breathe if the theory of death is asphyxiation. But- 0:12:10.940 --> 0:12:12.979 We were later able to find out that this guy, 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:16.540 Howard Gombert, did this to 10 other girls with the 0:12:16.780 --> 0:12:18.090 same type of bondage and stuff. 0:12:18.210 --> 0:12:21.110 Why did the cops, in your opinion, when they had 0:12:21.250 --> 0:12:23.250 the guy who turned out to be the right guy, 0:12:23.470 --> 0:12:25.569 this Gombert, the wrong guy, the right guy, however you 0:12:25.590 --> 0:12:28.070 want to talk about it, they had the actual perpetrator, right? 0:12:28.730 --> 0:12:31.910 How did they go so far wrong? They were interviewing him. 0:12:31.929 --> 0:12:34.910 They were interrogating him. Right. They had it right. All 0:12:34.929 --> 0:12:36.809 they had to do was, I mean, this thing pretty 0:12:36.830 --> 0:12:39.350 much came with instructions, right? You had the red car. 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:43.560 You had the witnesses. And then ultimately it comes out 0:12:43.600 --> 0:12:46.329 that he's this serial predator, right? I don't know if 0:12:46.350 --> 0:12:48.330 they had that information at that time. But why did 0:12:48.350 --> 0:12:49.530 they go off of him? 0:12:50.750 --> 0:12:53.610 Like I said, Dominic Neglia. And then from Denise Rose, 0:12:53.650 --> 0:12:56.490 it went on to Adam Wilson, who since recanted, and 0:12:56.510 --> 0:12:59.670 then Bill McGregor, who since recanted. Supposedly the crime, the 0:12:59.750 --> 0:13:02.180 theory of the crime was that we got so high 0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:04.640 in a van, we played spin the bottle, and the 0:13:04.660 --> 0:13:07.380 girl just wound up dead. That Andy attacked her, stuffed 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:09.300 her mouth with the underwear, tied her hands in front, 0:13:09.990 --> 0:13:11.770 And he went first for a minute and a half. 0:13:11.820 --> 0:13:14.320 And then supposedly I went first for a minute. And 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:17.000 then supposedly we were supposed to dump the body. Now, 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:20.500 this is all a fabrication to begin with. But the 0:13:20.559 --> 0:13:22.839 people that were supposedly playing spin the bottle who were 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:27.089 falsely identified by Dominic Neglia had recanted. So Adam Wilson 0:13:27.150 --> 0:13:30.590 says after a 12, 15-hour interrogation with Dan Stevens, the 0:13:30.610 --> 0:13:34.050 same guy that coerced Jeffrey Deskovic using a lie detector test. 0:13:34.370 --> 0:13:37.650 And we all know that Jeffrey Deskovic is innocent because... 0:13:37.730 --> 0:13:40.490 DNA established, the real killer and the real kill confess, 0:13:40.870 --> 0:13:42.850 gave the same type of lie detector test to my 0:13:42.890 --> 0:13:46.470 friend Adam Wilson. And he signed the paper, but immediately recanted, 0:13:46.510 --> 0:13:48.550 went to his probation officer the next day, said, the 0:13:48.590 --> 0:13:50.470 story is untrue. I was not in a van. The 0:13:50.510 --> 0:13:52.210 cops threatened me. They said I was going to be 0:13:52.250 --> 0:13:55.370 charged as an accomplice on accessory to murder, and I 0:13:55.410 --> 0:13:57.969 wouldn't be able to go home. So he signed a 0:13:57.990 --> 0:14:01.330 statement and recanted the next day. Bill McGregor, he recanted. 0:14:01.370 --> 0:14:04.069 It took him 10 years to recant, but he recanted, 0:14:04.250 --> 0:14:06.480 gave us a sworn affidavit that cops threatened him with 0:14:06.500 --> 0:14:09.810 accessory to or accomplice to murder unless he put me 0:14:09.830 --> 0:14:12.030 in a van. And he said he never met Josette 0:14:12.050 --> 0:14:14.210 Wright in his life. And he said he doesn't know 0:14:14.230 --> 0:14:17.489 who Denise Rose was until 96, two years after the 0:14:17.510 --> 0:14:20.380 crime when the police introduced Denise Rose to him and 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:22.760 they had Denise Rose try to spoon feed him the 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:24.740 story while he's in the police department because he only 0:14:24.780 --> 0:14:26.480 said he fell asleep during the crime and woke up 0:14:26.500 --> 0:14:26.780 at home. 0:14:26.860 --> 0:14:30.960 This is making my head hurt, right? So they have Gombert, right? 0:14:31.610 --> 0:14:34.570 And then this terrible sequence of events happens where they 0:14:34.610 --> 0:14:38.520 pull you guys over And then that turns into exactly 0:14:38.540 --> 0:14:41.350 what we just talked about. But then at the same time, 0:14:42.030 --> 0:14:43.670 they must have said, all right, well, we're going to 0:14:43.710 --> 0:14:45.690 let this guy Gombert go because we think we got 0:14:45.730 --> 0:14:48.250 a different lead. Is that basically how you understand it? 0:14:48.250 --> 0:14:49.270 Because it's so weird. 0:14:49.610 --> 0:14:52.580 You asked a critical question. How did the focus shift 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:56.780 off Gombert to us? So Dominic Neglia, in my view, 0:14:56.820 --> 0:14:59.700 was that shift. Is there anything more to it? Were 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:00.960 they protecting Gombert? 0:15:01.730 --> 0:15:02.090 I don't know. 0:15:02.710 --> 0:15:06.390 All I know is that guilt was shift to actually 0:15:06.430 --> 0:15:10.370 innocent by the police who either did so maliciously or 0:15:10.450 --> 0:15:13.330 by mistake, but it was done. And we wound up 0:15:13.430 --> 0:15:16.480 spending the next 20 years and Andy's still in jail 0:15:16.860 --> 0:15:19.880 for crimes we didn't commit. I don't know why the 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:23.520 cops wanted us so badly, but it just happened. It 0:15:23.560 --> 0:15:25.480 was a 20 year struggle to get out of prison 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:28.720 and God bless us. I'm here and we're going to 0:15:28.740 --> 0:15:29.320 get Andy out. 0:15:29.420 --> 0:15:31.600 Yeah, we're going to get him out. The question is, Gombert, 0:15:31.620 --> 0:15:32.340 what happened to him? 0:15:33.100 --> 0:15:35.620 So can I just tell the story about Howard Gombert 0:15:35.660 --> 0:15:37.240 so people can understand? 0:15:37.260 --> 0:15:37.920 All right. 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:41.370 Howard Gombert is incarcerated now for taking an eight-year-old girl 0:15:41.390 --> 0:15:43.780 in the woods. threatening her with death. I'm not going 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:45.890 to name names because these people are, some of them 0:15:45.950 --> 0:15:48.130 are still living. He threatens her with death. He sexually 0:15:48.170 --> 0:15:51.570 assaults her. In the last 11 years of his freedom, 0:15:51.630 --> 0:15:55.230 he was charged four times serious sex crimes. One girl 0:15:55.310 --> 0:15:58.720 he was abusing from when she was eight to 18 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:01.380 would repeatedly tie her up and put the underwear in 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:03.180 her mouth and tie her hands behind her back with 0:16:03.220 --> 0:16:07.040 various things, including the rope. He was 64 days prior 0:16:07.060 --> 0:16:09.300 to the girl that went missing in my case, Joseph Wright. 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:11.680 And this is very critical right here. and this is 0:16:11.900 --> 0:16:16.020 how I know Gomber's guilty, is that he abducted his 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:20.990 other babysitter, blonde hair, blue eyes, strikingly similar characteristics at 0:16:21.030 --> 0:16:23.190 knife point. A knife was also found at the crime scene. 0:16:23.830 --> 0:16:25.730 He jumps out of the trees and abducts her at 0:16:25.750 --> 0:16:29.850 knife point, ties her hands behind her back, and repeatedly 0:16:29.910 --> 0:16:32.470 sexually assaults her. I'm not going to identify no names here, 0:16:33.530 --> 0:16:35.950 but he put the underwear in her mouth. He tied 0:16:35.990 --> 0:16:39.710 something around her face. This is an identical modus operandi 0:16:40.070 --> 0:16:43.400 with a babysitter and he was enticing Joseph to babysit. 0:16:43.460 --> 0:16:45.540 She quit. She went to the police department, filed a 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:49.540 police report that night, documented all this down, documented this. 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:52.520 She didn't identify Howard Gombert in the police report because 0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:54.680 later she said she was scared, but she did call us. 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:57.660 We didn't know she existed. She did call us and said, 0:16:57.760 --> 0:16:59.870 this is what happened. Howard Gombert did this to me. 0:17:00.490 --> 0:17:03.650 So she comes forward with this information. The modus operandi 0:17:03.730 --> 0:17:06.920 is distinct and unique. This wasn't an accident. This wasn't 0:17:06.980 --> 0:17:10.000 somebody who paraded the girl around a gas station for 0:17:10.060 --> 0:17:12.420 two hours, like the prosecution said, for the entire views 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:14.899 and pleasure of the town of Carmel. This is somebody 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:16.830 that jumped out of the darkness and fled back off 0:17:16.869 --> 0:17:18.830 into the night. Now, I just want to build a 0:17:18.850 --> 0:17:21.490 little bit more on Howard Gombert. Howard Gombert was also 0:17:21.550 --> 0:17:25.270 seen six months later with Robin Murphy, 17, who's still missing. 0:17:25.950 --> 0:17:29.469 And Robin Murphy, they were seen at this laundromat. They 0:17:29.490 --> 0:17:32.840 were together. Years later, they would find Robin Murphy's underwear 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:35.840 bearing her DNA, 8 billion to 1 odds that it 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:38.879 was her DNA, in a trophy suitcase maintained by Howard 0:17:38.900 --> 0:17:42.690 Gombert with some underwear from his other rape victims. Her necklace, 0:17:42.730 --> 0:17:44.850 what we believed to be her necklace, was hanging from 0:17:44.910 --> 0:17:47.270 his rearview mirror. And when the cops arrested him for 0:17:47.290 --> 0:17:50.730 the last charge, the 8-year-old, they found this material and 0:17:50.750 --> 0:17:55.350 they tested it. Now, years go by after that. He's incarcerated. 0:17:55.890 --> 0:17:59.139 serving time in the McDougal Walker Correctional Facility, where he 0:17:59.180 --> 0:18:03.260 proceeds to tell a fellow jail inmate that he had 0:18:03.780 --> 0:18:06.580 sex with Josette Wright when she went missing, and that 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:09.440 they'll never find Robin Murphy's remains, and that they have 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:12.060 material with Robin Murphy's DNA on it, and that he 0:18:12.080 --> 0:18:14.429 was trying to entice Josette to babysit, and that he 0:18:14.470 --> 0:18:16.710 got her in a car with the babysitting lure. Now, 0:18:16.790 --> 0:18:19.590 all these statements or declarations against penal interest made by 0:18:19.630 --> 0:18:23.710 Howard Gombert and the Connecticut Correctional Institution that are corroborated 0:18:24.290 --> 0:18:28.090 by proof, independent of the statements themselves, to attest to 0:18:28.130 --> 0:18:32.200 their trustworthiness and reliability, which culminated in my third reversal 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:34.520 because of the second trial the judge didn't allow any 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:36.179 of this in. You know, let the jury hear the 0:18:36.220 --> 0:18:37.000 name Howard Gombert. 0:18:37.100 --> 0:18:39.600 So there's a number of things here that anybody who 0:18:39.640 --> 0:18:44.230 has any shred of decency and cares about women, girls 0:18:44.270 --> 0:18:50.609 in this case, right? The idea is so fucking outrageous 0:18:50.730 --> 0:18:54.070 that this guy was allowed by the authorities to go 0:18:54.130 --> 0:18:58.760 free And went on to commit these unspeakable crimes against 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:02.420 these young women over and over again. And it took 0:19:02.440 --> 0:19:04.850 them so long to figure it out when none of 0:19:04.890 --> 0:19:07.250 those things ever really needed to happen. If they would 0:19:07.270 --> 0:19:09.629