Speaker 1: We originally released our interview with Lamont McIntyre on September
Speaker 1: twenty fifth, twenty seventeen, but with all that has changed
Speaker 1: in this case and the world around us, we thought
Speaker 1: it a good time to release an updated version of
Speaker 1: this episode. On the afternoon of April fifteenth, nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 1: Donielle Quinn and Donald Ewing sat in a powder blue
Speaker 1: Cadillac when a man dressed in black pumped four shotgun
Speaker 1: rounds into the car, killing the two men. Within six
Speaker 1: hours of the crime, Kansas City, Kansas Police detective Roger
Speaker 1: Glubski began the process of framing Lamont McIntyre, who was
Speaker 1: seventeen at the time, for two counts of first degree murder.
Speaker 1: Why did he do this because Lamont's mother had refused
Speaker 1: Glubski's repeated sexual advances. But without any physical evidence whatsoever
Speaker 1: to link Lamont to the crime, Kolubski in the state,
Speaker 1: would rely on mistaken eyewitness identification to seal them's fate.
Speaker 1: And to make matters even worse, Lamont was represented at
Speaker 1: trial by a public defender who would later be disbarred
Speaker 1: for failing to diligently handle three other cases. All of
Speaker 1: this resulted in his wrongful conviction at being sentenced to
Speaker 1: two consecutive life prison terms. On this episode, I'll speak
Speaker 1: with Kansas City attorney Cheryl Pilot, who worked to exonerate
Speaker 1: Lamont McIntyre and was successful shortly after this story was released.
Speaker 1: She's joined by former FBI agent Al Jenerich, who spent
Speaker 1: much of his career investigating police corruption all over the country.
Speaker 1: And finally we spoke with Lamont while he was still
Speaker 1: behind bars, a victim of the systemic racism and police
Speaker 1: corruption that plagues our criminal legal system. This is Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction with Jason Flaub. Welcome back to Ronful Conviction with
Speaker 1: Jason Flumm. Today's episode will make your blood boil and
Speaker 1: it will blow your mind. So settle in because this
Speaker 1: is going to be a crazy ride.
Speaker 2: Guilty one word ceiling Lamont McIntyre's fate.
Speaker 3: Lamont McIntyre, aged seventeen in nineteen ninety four, has so
Speaker 3: far been imprisoned for twenty two years. Twenty two years ago,
Speaker 3: two young men, twenty one year old Donielle Quinn and
Speaker 3: his thirty four year old cousin Donald Ewing, were gunned
Speaker 3: down in a horrible double homicide.
Speaker 2: Six hours after the murder's police arrested McIntyre but never
Speaker 2: searched his house for evidence.
Speaker 3: Moreover, it was a trial which prosecutors offered no physical
Speaker 3: evidence tying McIntyre to the crime, no motive, no connection
Speaker 3: between him and the victims, no weapon, no fingerprints, nor
Speaker 3: did Kansas City, Kansas believe even request search warrants to
Speaker 3: find any of that material.
Speaker 2: A retired officer who reviewed the case caused the investigation
Speaker 2: grossly deficient.
Speaker 3: Most notable is that the family of the victims for
Speaker 3: twenty two years have steadfastly insisted that he is innocent.
Speaker 3: Other witnesses, also relatives of the victim, insisted as soon
Speaker 3: as they saw McIntyre sitting at the defense table, they
Speaker 3: knew he was not the shooter. They told the prosecutor,
Speaker 3: but were ignored. One family member has signed an affi
Speaker 3: David claiming that under pressure from police and the prosecutor,
Speaker 3: she lied at McIntyre's trial.
Speaker 2: For the first time, a jury is speaking publicly about
Speaker 2: the case, Greg Lauber says that he now believes that
Speaker 2: yan Dot County jury was wrong.
Speaker 4: They didn't care about anything.
Speaker 5: They just had their.
Speaker 2: Man and it was enough for the twelve person jury
Speaker 2: in deliberations, Lauber says he and another juror were holdouts,
Speaker 2: but it was late in the day and there was
Speaker 2: mounting pressure from others who wanted a verdict.
Speaker 3: Maybe I had an opportunity to, you know, do something
Speaker 3: good on that jury, but I sure didn't do it.
Speaker 5: I took a coward's way out.
Speaker 3: It is the speedy investigation and prosecution of that crime
Speaker 3: in this place that a team of exonerators now insist
Speaker 3: was also the focus of a terrible injustice. Lamont McIntyre,
Speaker 3: aged seventeen in nineteen ninety four, has so far been
Speaker 3: imprisoned for twenty two years, convicted, and given two consecutive
Speaker 3: life sentences for a crime they say he never committed.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm just going to say I'm really happy that
Speaker 1: today joining us to discuss the insane case of Lamont McIntyre,
Speaker 1: we have with us Lamont's attorney, Cheryl Pilot, as well
Speaker 1: as retired FBI special agent Al Jenerich. Cheryl and Al,
Speaker 1: thank you for being here.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much. We're glad to be here, happy
Speaker 5: to be.
Speaker 1: Here, and we will be hearing later on in the
Speaker 1: episode from Lamont, who will be calling in from president Kansas,
Speaker 1: where he has been incarcerated for approximately twenty four years
Speaker 1: now since he was a teenager for a crime that
Speaker 1: he did not commit. Now, let's go back to the beginning.
Speaker 1: On April fifteenth, nineteen ninety four, there were two men
Speaker 1: sitting in a Cadillac in Kansas City, Kansas, when they
Speaker 1: were approached by a man with a shotgun. These facts
Speaker 1: are not in dispute right correct, And what we know
Speaker 1: is that four shots were fired into the car, killing
Speaker 1: the passenger, Donielle Quinn instantly and the driver, Donald Ewing,
Speaker 1: who died later in the hospital. And amazingly, within six hours,
Speaker 1: they managed to find a guy who had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with the crime, Lamont McIntyre, who was seventeen at
Speaker 1: the time, and he was arrested and charged with two
Speaker 1: counts of first degree murder in spite of a total
Speaker 1: lack of any physical evidence connecting him to the crime.
Speaker 1: How did this happen? Cheryl and al jump in whenever
Speaker 1: you want.
Speaker 5: Lamont was arrested and prosecuted after police obtained three interviews
Speaker 5: from eyewitnesses, one of them never testified, but the taped
Speaker 5: interviews of these eyewitnesses in a very serious crime obviously,
Speaker 5: where someone can go to prison for the rest of
Speaker 5: their life. Amounted to a total of twenty taped minutes,
Speaker 5: and one of the eyewitnesses was only interviewed for four minutes.
Speaker 5: Is that an investigation?
Speaker 4: What is that?
Speaker 1: So? Al? You've done a lot of research and you
Speaker 1: were in the FBI for quite a while, Is that right?
Speaker 6: I was in the FBI for twenty five years. I
Speaker 6: was a special agent. I specialized in investigating police corruption.
Speaker 6: I worked in Chicago very successfully, and then in Kansas City, Kansas.
Speaker 5: Agent Generich was not involved with this murder case at
Speaker 5: all when it happened. I knew mister Generich through other cases,
Speaker 5: and after he retired a number of years after he retired,
Speaker 5: actually and I was working on trying to achieve Lamont's exoneration,
Speaker 5: I approached him to talk to him about the Kansas City,
Speaker 5: Kansas Police Department and things that I had a covered
Speaker 5: in my investigation. And it was at that point that
Speaker 5: Alan and I started talking about some of the things
Speaker 5: he had learned while working for the FBI, and they
Speaker 5: matched up with some of the things I had uncovered
Speaker 5: in my investigation. And it was because of that that
Speaker 5: he became a witness in this case that I hope
Speaker 5: to use at our hearing.
Speaker 1: So prior to Lamont's arrest, can we talk about what
Speaker 1: was happening with this particular cop, whose name was Roger Glubski.
Speaker 6: Sometime around nineteen eighty eight or so, I was able
Speaker 6: to open an investigation into police corruption in Kansas City, Kansas.
Speaker 6: And as the investigation went on over time, over many years,
Speaker 6: we developed maybe somewhere between twelve and fifteen police officers
Speaker 6: who were titled subjects of the investigation. Some of it
Speaker 6: involved civil rights like beating people up, stealing their shoes
Speaker 6: when they were walking down the street because the officer
Speaker 6: liked the shoes, or in the case of Kaulupski, you know,
Speaker 6: sexual extortion. But most of it involved corruption involving drugs,
Speaker 6: mostly cocaine.
Speaker 1: And in the.
Speaker 6: Course of this investigation, just by talking to people, which
Speaker 6: is what I'm pretty good at, over time, you know,
Speaker 6: a number of people told us about Gaulupski extorting sex
Speaker 6: from black women, and he liked black women. We never
Speaker 6: developed enough evidence on Gallupski to prosecute him. That's the
Speaker 6: extent of my knowledge about Gaulupski.
Speaker 1: I always believe that that police were good and the
Speaker 1: police were on our side and they're there to protect
Speaker 1: us all and so I always find these stories, even
Speaker 1: as long as I've been working on this issue, and
Speaker 1: I've got twenty five years now of experience, but I
Speaker 1: always find these stories so just depressing and shocking, and
Speaker 1: it flips everything upside down.
Speaker 6: Well, like you, I was very nice eve until I
Speaker 6: went to Chicago, and then I sought police corruption on
Speaker 6: the massive scale. But then when I got back to
Speaker 6: Kansas City in eighty six and probably got involved in
Speaker 6: Kansas City, Kansas in eighty eight, I saw the same activity.
Speaker 6: There wasn't on the grand scale.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 6: It's that it's conducted in Chicago. It's basically police officers,
Speaker 6: most of whom are white, picking on minorities, most of
Speaker 6: whom are black, some of them are Hispanic. Because when
Speaker 6: you're a drug dealer, you know, you can't go to
Speaker 6: the police or the FBI and say, hey, these cops
Speaker 6: are stealing my drugs, these cops are stealing my drug money.
Speaker 6: You basically have to you have to suck it up.
Speaker 6: So that's what they do in Chicago, That's what they
Speaker 6: do everywhere.
Speaker 1: So Lamont his troubles really began when his mom was
Speaker 1: at a car with I guess was her boyfriend at
Speaker 1: the time, showl right. Glubski approached the car and told
Speaker 1: her to get out and threatened her with the rest
Speaker 1: or the rest of her boyfriend unless she agreed to
Speaker 1: come down to the police station. And then the problems
Speaker 1: really began when she refused to become one of his girls,
Speaker 1: so to speak, right, I mean, obviously, she was in
Speaker 1: a terrible situation where she's very vulnerable, not able to
Speaker 1: defend herself from a cop who's willing to go to
Speaker 1: almost any length to fulfill his desires. She had a
Speaker 1: tremendous problem, and she decided that she wanted to maintain
Speaker 1: her dignity, really right, And so what seems like happened
Speaker 1: is that as a consequence, Golubski decided that he would
Speaker 1: target and frame her son in something that is so
Speaker 1: evil that makes me want to quit the human race.
Speaker 5: There was an encounter that Lamon's mother had with the
Speaker 5: detective some years earlier. I mean it was years actually
Speaker 5: before the double homicide happened. And at the time of
Speaker 5: the double homicide, my client was inexplicably dragged into the case.
Speaker 5: One of the eyewitnesses told the police she thought the
Speaker 5: shooter looked like a Lamont dating her niece. Police never
Speaker 5: bothered to find out what Lamont that was. They don't
Speaker 5: go ask the niece what Lamont that was. They simply
Speaker 5: put another Lamont and it's undisputed, an entirely different Lamont
Speaker 5: my client into the case, and somehow obtain this identification.
Speaker 5: What's interesting about the lineup, and I've never seen anything
Speaker 5: like this before, is three of the five photos were
Speaker 5: of young male members of the McIntyre family.
Speaker 1: You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to say, well,
Speaker 1: that doesn't make a lot of sense. It's one perpetrator.
Speaker 1: It's not like somebody said there were three brothers that
Speaker 1: were involved. It's one perpetrator, you know. And then the
Speaker 1: justice system, we know, has a tendency to chew people
Speaker 1: up and spit them out when they are poor, particularly
Speaker 1: if they're minorities and underrepresented. It's really it's not a
Speaker 1: fair fight, is it.
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, this whole thing was an impossible battle
Speaker 5: for Lamont to begin with. I mean, first of all,
Speaker 5: the investigation itself, I don't think really qualified is a
Speaker 5: true investigation because so little was done, no evidence of
Speaker 5: motive was ever uncovered. There was no physical evidence that
Speaker 5: tied Lamont to the crime. There was not even any
Speaker 5: evidence that he knew the two victims. There are backgrounds
Speaker 5: of the two victims and who might have a motive
Speaker 5: to harm them that was never investigated. There was an
Speaker 5: eyewitness directly across the street who was never interviewed, whose
Speaker 5: mother said, you know, she knows who the suspect is.
Speaker 5: I mean, the failures and lapses and regularities in this
Speaker 5: case just go on and on. I mean, other than
Speaker 5: the twenty minutes of taped interviews from the eyewitnesses, there
Speaker 5: was very little else and the only evidence at trial
Speaker 5: against Lamont were two eyewitnesses. One of them has admitted
Speaker 5: that she lied, that she was coursed. The other eyewitness
Speaker 5: seems frankly, very perplexed by her testimony, and it's very
Speaker 5: clear that it's an eyewitness a misidentification based on manipulation.
Speaker 1: And we know also that had this trial taken place
Speaker 1: twenty years later or so, with everything that's known now
Speaker 1: about the unreliability of eyewitness identification, there's a very good
Speaker 1: chance that would have been discredited. Because there was no
Speaker 1: other evidence connecting him to the crime.
Speaker 5: You take a person who's traumatized, who has just witnessed
Speaker 5: a really horrific event, and they can be pretty easy
Speaker 5: to pressure or manipulate. And in factness provided in a
Speaker 5: tape statement my client's last name, a man she did
Speaker 5: not know and had never heard of, which raises the
Speaker 5: very interesting question of who gave her the name. It
Speaker 5: was undisputed at trial that she did not know my client,
Speaker 5: yet the fact that there was an original tape statement
Speaker 5: where she provided his name never came out. That was
Speaker 5: never admitted at trial. She also stated wrongly that my
Speaker 5: client was the Lamont who had dated her niece. At
Speaker 5: trial undisputed that that was not true. It was an
Speaker 5: entirely different Lamont who was in fact identified by his
Speaker 5: name to the jury, an entirely different person. So, I mean,
Speaker 5: the whole thing is troubling beginning to end, really a
Speaker 5: perfect storm of chaos and horror and misconduct, things being
Speaker 5: done improperly.
Speaker 1: So you have this cop and this department that is
Speaker 1: so corrupt isn't even the word, but that's engaged in
Speaker 1: so many illegal activities, And isn't it ironic and tragic
Speaker 1: that Lamont is in prison, living in hell after twenty
Speaker 1: four years, and this cop who was, from what I've read,
Speaker 1: raping people, robbing people, dealing drugs, protecting drug dealers, he's out.
Speaker 1: How is that? I mean that must not sit well
Speaker 1: with you with your whole background either.
Speaker 5: What I'm really hoping for, what our entire team is
Speaker 5: hoping for, and what we have sought for a long time,
Speaker 5: is a very full investigation into the activities of this detective.
Speaker 5: There needs to be an investigation by people who have
Speaker 5: the power to follow all the leads, develop information, compel
Speaker 5: the testimony of witnesses, and obtain other evidence.
Speaker 1: Ah, let me turn it to you for a second,
Speaker 1: because we have not had somebody with your background and
Speaker 1: experience on the show before. And I would adventure to
Speaker 1: say that you had a very very difficult and dangerous job, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, investigating cops, particularly when you're investigating cops who've
Speaker 1: got a lot to hide, makes you a very unpopular person,
Speaker 1: I would think so, looking back on it, how did
Speaker 1: this manage to go on for so long without somebody
Speaker 1: coming along and saying, you know, besides you, hey, hey,
Speaker 1: we're not going to tolerate this.
Speaker 6: They don't give a shit. At the time we were
Speaker 6: doing these investigations, the police chief of Kansas City, Kansas,
Speaker 6: a guy named Tom Daly. He had previously been indicted
Speaker 6: by the Federal Strike Force for extorting money at a
Speaker 6: whorehouses along the Kaw River in Kansas. He was doing
Speaker 6: that allegedly when it was a captain. He was acquitted
Speaker 6: because it was a real weak case, but after a
Speaker 6: quit it for extortion, the city wound up eventually making
Speaker 6: him the chief. Is that the actions, you know, over
Speaker 6: responsible a city administration or a police department. So he
Speaker 6: had the chief over here, Tom Dale, who had previously
Speaker 6: been indicted by the Feds. He despised the federal government,
Speaker 6: he hated the US Attorney's Office and the FBI. And
Speaker 6: he's the chief. He was part of it.
Speaker 1: So you have this guy Golubski who in that scenario
Speaker 1: is operating basically with impunity, right because he knows his
Speaker 1: chief doesn't give a shit, And with the chief having literally,
Speaker 1: well for what it sounds like, gotten away with that
Speaker 1: particular pattern of activity as well as I'm sure other
Speaker 1: things that he was doing, the people underneath him are
Speaker 1: probably thinking, hey, this is great. No one's going to
Speaker 1: touch us, and they're right, and nobody did. So how
Speaker 1: frustrating was that for you?
Speaker 5: There?
Speaker 1: You are really fighting an unwinnable war, right, They're trying
Speaker 1: to protect the public from the police force with they
Speaker 1: chief of police who not only doesn't give a fuck,
Speaker 1: but doesn't want that he wants you. He probably wants
Speaker 1: you the fuck out of his hair, so he could
Speaker 1: just you know, run the streets how he wants to.
Speaker 6: Right when I started working over there, you had a person,
Speaker 6: you know, some guy I knewed know a lot of
Speaker 6: people in the county jail, and they would say, he
Speaker 6: so and so confronted me and stole my money, stole
Speaker 6: my drugs. You go, what's the cops name? I don't
Speaker 6: know his name, you know what's he looked like, Well,
Speaker 6: you know he's some white guy. Well you go to
Speaker 6: the police. The police did not have photographs of their
Speaker 6: police officers, So if if a victim came in there
Speaker 6: alleging that so and so officer robbed from me, extorted me,
Speaker 6: they didn't even have photographs to show people so they
Speaker 6: could identify who the police officer was. So good luck,
Speaker 6: you know, through the US Attorney's office, through Julie Robinson,
Speaker 6: who was a prosecutor at the time. We subpoenaed photographs
Speaker 6: of every sworn officer in the Kansas City, Kansas Police Department,
Speaker 6: and there was hell to pay for that. I was
Speaker 6: almost removed from the investigation because of that.
Speaker 5: I think one of the problems is that other law
Speaker 5: enforcement officers don't want to investigate law enforcement, and as
Speaker 5: a general rule, I think they find it distasteful, something
Speaker 5: they would rather avoid, and there is a tendency to
Speaker 5: minimize misconduct. I found that really pretty shocking, not.
Speaker 1: In light of everything else we're talking about, but I
Speaker 1: could see how you would, and it really gets easier
Speaker 1: and easier to see how these wrongful convictions are so common.
Speaker 1: I mean, here, we have an interesting situation, right, We're
Speaker 1: talking to Al who's in there with his badge, working
Speaker 1: for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and basically being told
Speaker 1: go fuck himself. So what chance does a seventeen year
Speaker 1: old black kid from the poorer side of town. What
Speaker 1: chance do does he have against this blue wall, this
Speaker 1: blue monster that was out to get him. He had
Speaker 1: no chance. So now fast forward to twenty four years later,
Speaker 1: the monsets in a prison studying reading by all accounts,
Speaker 1: a model prisoner, somebody who maintains a positive outlook in
Speaker 1: spite of this what can only be described as the
Speaker 1: worst fate that can befall an individual, to be incarcerated
Speaker 1: with something he didn't do for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1: But now we have hope, right, I mean, he has
Speaker 1: hope thanks to you and the years of work that
Speaker 1: you've done in this case and al and other brave
Speaker 1: people who have devoted their time and in some cases
Speaker 1: probably even risk their own personal safety to try to
Speaker 1: get justice in this case. What does it look like now?
Speaker 1: What happens next? Tell us what's going on.
Speaker 5: We have a evidentiary hearing coming up in October, and
Speaker 5: we tend to present somewhere between forty and fifty witnesses
Speaker 5: who provide very powerful testimony on various aspects of the case.
Speaker 5: There was almost nothing really to support the conviction to
Speaker 5: begin with, nothing other than the testimony of the two
Speaker 5: eye witnesses, and I believe that has been thoroughly shredded
Speaker 5: at this point through recantations and admissions and the result
Speaker 5: of other investigation. And we are also focusing on the
Speaker 5: very troubling misconduct in the case. It is intimately connected
Speaker 5: to how the investigation was conducted, and we're going to
Speaker 5: bring all that out and show how we believe this
Speaker 5: went wrong, and we very much hope to be successful.
Speaker 1: What's the data of the hearing October twelfth, October twelfth,
Speaker 1: and is this in a federal court?
Speaker 5: We are in Windock County District Court is a state court.
Speaker 5: My client is litigating what's called a successive petition under
Speaker 5: sixty fifteen oh seven, and you have essentially a procedural
Speaker 5: barrier to get over before you can get back into court.
Speaker 5: But we do have this evidentiary hearing schedule that we
Speaker 5: are very very excited about. One of the most compelling
Speaker 5: things about the case we haven't mentioned this yet, is
Speaker 5: that the families of both victims have always known my
Speaker 5: client is innocent and are very much squarely supporting the
Speaker 5: quest to free him. They know that they did not
Speaker 5: get justice, Their families did not get justice.
Speaker 1: And that's Cheryl. In your experience, it's not a common thing, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, most of the cases I've seen, even in
Speaker 1: the face of what could be overwhelming evidence to the contrary,
Speaker 1: the victim's family sometimes stick with you. What they've been
Speaker 1: told all along, because they just can't They can't even
Speaker 1: process the idea that they may have been lied to
Speaker 1: and that the wrong person may have been serving time
Speaker 1: for the murder of their loved one. So in this case,
Speaker 1: this is a very very unusual scenario, isn't.
Speaker 5: It It is? And one of the eyewitnesses is related
Speaker 5: to both of the victims, and she her family and
Speaker 5: the family of the second victim to whom she's a
Speaker 5: bit more distantly related, have always told me that they
Speaker 5: have known from the beginning that the authorities got the
Speaker 5: wrong man. They have always known this. They've made periodic
Speaker 5: efforts to correct this, to address this, to try and
Speaker 5: get some justice, all without success.
Speaker 1: And if there wasn't already enough to chew on, this
Speaker 1: is the part that really just sets me off, his
Speaker 1: court pointed. Attorney Gary Long was on supervised probation at
Speaker 1: the time of the trial for failing to diligently handle
Speaker 1: three prior cases. He was suspended from the bar a
Speaker 1: couple years later for failure to adequately hand or a
Speaker 1: separate criminal case. And he was this bar in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety eight. How is it even possible that, in all
Speaker 1: life or death situation that you take somebody and you say,
Speaker 1: you know what, we're going to give you a lawyer
Speaker 1: who's already messed up three times.
Speaker 6: Well, when I said nobody gives a shit, do you
Speaker 6: understand what I mean? Do you know that that you
Speaker 6: know that Tara Morehead Do you know she's now a
Speaker 6: federal prosecutor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Tara Moorehead was the prosecutor in this case.
Speaker 1: Obviously didn't see anything wrong with her prosecuting a case
Speaker 1: in which a young man's life was at stake in
Speaker 1: front of a judge with whom she had carried on
Speaker 1: an affair a few years earlier. I think most reasonable
Speaker 1: people would agree that one or the other should have
Speaker 1: been recused from this particular scenario because even if they
Speaker 1: were saints, and obviously they weren't. Because she's also the
Speaker 1: same woman from what I've read, who threatened a witness
Speaker 1: who tried to come forward with the truth with losing
Speaker 1: custody of her own children. But yes, so now she's
Speaker 1: moved up the ladder. Seems like all the bad guys
Speaker 1: have won here. Al what the fuck?
Speaker 6: Well, I think Sarah Morhait's currently married to a police officer.
Speaker 6: I think there's some other prosecutors over in the federal
Speaker 6: US Attorney's Office that are married to other police officers.
Speaker 6: So you're not going to expect them to investigate police corruption,
Speaker 6: are you.
Speaker 1: Well, I guess that would make it tricky, wouldn't it.
Speaker 6: They're not going to do it, and they don't.
Speaker 5: I mean, there is so much that it could be
Speaker 5: investigated that ought to be investigated. And you know, I
Speaker 5: should also point out that sexual misconduct among police officers
Speaker 5: is not unusual in some departments. When you have poor
Speaker 5: and vulnerable people encounter folks with ultimate authority over them,
Speaker 5: ultimate authority in that particular moment, you know, those things
Speaker 5: can happen all too easily, and they do happened frequently.
Speaker 6: You know, when I was an agent, I'm about six
Speaker 6: foot four. I had a gun, a badge, and a
Speaker 6: radio and everything. At nighttime, when I was on my
Speaker 6: way home or on the weekends, I would not drive
Speaker 6: through Kansas City, Kansas unless I was accompanied by another
Speaker 6: FBI agent.
Speaker 1: So because you thought they might have run you off
Speaker 1: the road or something else.
Speaker 6: They could do anything. They could pull me over and
Speaker 6: not saying they don't know who I was, and they
Speaker 6: could say I pulled a gun and they could shoot me.
Speaker 6: So I have all that power and authority. What does
Speaker 6: some little black kid on the street have.
Speaker 1: I hope that in exposing the story of Lamont and
Speaker 1: some of the things that you've shared out that people,
Speaker 1: you know, get their backs up and get get angry
Speaker 1: and get involved. These are just people, They're just regular people,
Speaker 1: and they're being so terribly abused and victimized by people
Speaker 1: who are supposed to protect them. I don't it makes
Speaker 1: me sick.
Speaker 5: I just say that the fear and the terror that
Speaker 5: some of the citizens experience cannot be overstated. I mean,
Speaker 5: you have someone with a badge with ultimate and really,
Speaker 5: as I said in that moment, unchecked authority, there's enormous
Speaker 5: fear of the police and enormous, sometimes unmovable resistance to
Speaker 5: getting involved in anything that has to do with the
Speaker 5: criminal justice system. I've spent some years, honestly, just earning
Speaker 5: the trust of some people in the community so that
Speaker 5: they will sit down and speak with me so that
Speaker 5: we can investigate the case. Nobody wants anything to do
Speaker 5: with a case you say, courthouse people walk the other way.
Speaker 5: They don't want anything to do with that. And ultimately
Speaker 5: we have been successful in securing some very good witnesses
Speaker 5: because they did want to help someone they viewed as innocent.
Speaker 5: And you know, I should point out here that all
Speaker 5: of the street talk have ever heard in the community
Speaker 5: is that Lamont is innocent, the guy who got wrongfully convicted.
Speaker 5: It's like everyone knows, the whole community knows, the victims'
Speaker 5: families know, everyone knows Lamont did not do this. Everyone knows.
Speaker 7: You have a prepaid call from the Boks an innate
Speaker 7: at Kansas Department of Corrections Lancing Correctional Facility. To accept
Speaker 7: this call, press or say five to refuse. This call
Speaker 7: will be recorded and subject to monitoring. At any time.
Speaker 7: You may begin speaking.
Speaker 1: Now, Lamont, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 1: So, Lamont. I want to go back to the beginning,
Speaker 1: when you grew up and how this all started. I've
Speaker 1: seen photos of you with your family. It looked like
Speaker 1: you had not an easy but a happy childhood. Is
Speaker 1: that fair?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I did.
Speaker 1: Can you just describe what it was like. I've heard
Speaker 1: you talk about Christmas and stuff. Uh.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we was tight knit.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: It's like my mother was just an only parent in
Speaker 4: the house and we was close. Me and my siblings,
Speaker 4: and we did everything together. We stayed in one house.
Speaker 4: You know, we took care of each other. So glowing
Speaker 4: up with me was my family was a big game.
Speaker 4: We didn't really fight about a lot of stuff.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: It was me and my three brothers and my sister,
Speaker 4: my modest sister. My mother worked a lot, so my
Speaker 4: sister kind of watched after us a little bit. Some
Speaker 4: other family members. I used to go to my family
Speaker 4: member's house, my uncles, and be around them. Our mother
Speaker 4: was at work. I kind of still stayed around family
Speaker 4: outside my home. So real family.
Speaker 1: Oriented and where you grew up, you had no idea
Speaker 1: at this time that the police force was really as
Speaker 1: corrupt as any one could possibly imagine until this terrible
Speaker 1: incident occurred. And I want to go back to that.
Speaker 1: What happened. You were a seventeen year old kid going
Speaker 1: along with your life, trying to make it in a
Speaker 1: difficult place, and then one day out of the blue,
Speaker 1: you get arrested and don't even know what's going on
Speaker 1: or what happened.
Speaker 4: Uh, That's exactly what happened. And it was a typical day.
Speaker 4: It was like a Friday, typical day. I was in
Speaker 4: road in a downy commage program where it's all time
Speaker 4: to school where they would help you get your high
Speaker 4: school the phone wall, and then they gets you in college.
Speaker 4: So it was like a little degree program I was
Speaker 4: a part of. And it was just a Friday. I
Speaker 4: get a car phone call saying the police is over
Speaker 4: my grandmother's house looking for me. Call my mother. We
Speaker 4: go to the police station and they start talking about
Speaker 4: two murders and I had no answers for him because
Speaker 4: I didn't know what they were saying talking about. So
Speaker 4: from that moment, I was arrested, charge and ovously convicted
Speaker 4: of two murders that I had nothing to do with about.
Speaker 1: And we know now that they were deliberately targeting you
Speaker 1: because of this particular police officer who was up to
Speaker 1: all kinds of criminal activity himself. And that's the irony
Speaker 1: of this is that he belongs in jail. And I'm
Speaker 1: hoping that by the end of this that's exactly what's
Speaker 1: going to happen. But the idea that this system, this
Speaker 1: so called justice system, had made a decision that you
Speaker 1: were going to be their guy. There was this double
Speaker 1: murder right two guys sitting in a car. They were
Speaker 1: involved in drug activity. They were dealers. We now know
Speaker 1: also that one of them had been beaten by the
Speaker 1: guys he was working for in the drug business. Right.
Speaker 1: He was working as a doorman in a crack then,
Speaker 1: and he had feared for his life. And in fact
Speaker 1: he had good reason too, because I guess he had
Speaker 1: from what I've learned, he had been stealing from them.
Speaker 1: So that every reason to know that this was a
Speaker 1: drug hit. And you weren't involved in that game or
Speaker 1: that business. Did you know these guys.
Speaker 4: I didn't know the witnesses, I didn't know the victims,
Speaker 4: and I wouldn't connected to it at all. That's why
Speaker 4: so it so halted me to understand how something like
Speaker 4: that could happen, because and I was bored about everything.
Speaker 4: I didn't try to hide nothing, because I knew what
Speaker 4: they were talking about at that time. I had nothing
Speaker 4: to do with it, and I wasn't involved. I don't
Speaker 4: know what the police officer's motive was to plan it
Speaker 4: on me or I still don't know if this day
Speaker 4: what happened.
Speaker 1: Well, it does seem like now with everything we've learned
Speaker 1: that the officer involved, the first one who arrived on
Speaker 1: the scene was an officer named Golubski. It's a white
Speaker 1: guy who had a proclivity for women of color, and
Speaker 1: when he didn't get his way, he would exact revenge.
Speaker 1: And so what it seems like is that in this
Speaker 1: particular case, he targeted you because your mom wasn't having
Speaker 1: any part of that. And that's what makes this particularly
Speaker 1: sinister and sick. You end up going to trial, and
Speaker 1: I find it interesting, among all the other things in
Speaker 1: your case, that they offered you a plea bargain right
Speaker 1: and you didn't take it.
Speaker 4: I woman in the rest in the pleaborgan, I can't
Speaker 4: understand how was I sit in that situation, and I
Speaker 4: didn't know nothing about the crime itself, So plea borger
Speaker 4: was far from my mom would think about a plea bog.
Speaker 1: And why I find that and why I brought that up, Lamont.
Speaker 1: And I've seen the mugshot picture of you, and it
Speaker 1: really hurt my heart because I could see in your
Speaker 1: face just how confused you were and scared of a
Speaker 1: situation that you couldn't possibly imagine what's happening at that time.
Speaker 1: I also would think that if you were guilty and
Speaker 1: they're offering you a deal and you know your chances
Speaker 1: of winning in the court are going to be low
Speaker 1: because they have all these cops and everybody else that
Speaker 1: is going to testify this. You would have taken the
Speaker 1: plea bargain. Anybody with the right mind would take a
Speaker 1: plea bargain. You're not crazy, are you? I'm not right.
Speaker 1: It don't sound it don't sound crazy at all. So
Speaker 1: in the situations like this, I mean, we have in
Speaker 1: this country over ninety percent of cases end up in
Speaker 1: plea bargains. So had you been guilty, that would have
Speaker 1: been a very logical thing to do. But as an
Speaker 1: innocent person and probably somebody who still trusted in the system,
Speaker 1: you went forward with your right to a trial, and
Speaker 1: you were represented by a guy who they knew your
Speaker 1: court appointed lawyer. They knew this guy was incompetent because
Speaker 1: he had already been disciplined for three previous cases that
Speaker 1: he had completely botched. It almost sounds like they did
Speaker 1: it on purpose. They assigned a guy who didn't go
Speaker 1: and interview witnesses, who really didn't do anything he was
Speaker 1: supposed to do. And what was that like? Were you
Speaker 1: aware at that time that this guy I wasn't I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't even know if it was really on your side,
Speaker 1: But I mean, as you're watching these procedings, what were
Speaker 1: you thinking.
Speaker 4: He presented himself like a lawyer. He presented itself like
Speaker 4: a person in there on my behalf to take care
Speaker 4: of this business. And he's seeing real professional at first.
Speaker 4: So I didn't know what to expect because I've never
Speaker 4: been in that situation before anyway, So his first impression
Speaker 4: was for me, it was a good impression because I
Speaker 4: didn't know what a lawyer was supposed to do, or
Speaker 4: I was so ignorant to the law and how things worked.
Speaker 4: I just believed in the justice system at that time,
Speaker 4: I really did. I thought there was no possible way,
Speaker 4: being an innocent person or person that has nothing to
Speaker 4: do with that crime, that I would be found guilty.
Speaker 4: So I didn't really pay too much attention to the
Speaker 4: credibility of this lawyer. It didn't dont on me that
Speaker 4: I would be found guilty of the crime that I
Speaker 4: had nothing to do with, so I didn't really think
Speaker 4: about it in those times. I was just thinking, you
Speaker 4: can give me any lawyer, anybody from anywhere, and it'd
Speaker 4: be okay. Because once they realized they had the wrong
Speaker 4: person ironed out in trial. That's what I was thinking.
Speaker 4: But I didn't plan all. I think that people would
Speaker 4: get on the stand and line it was on fabricate
Speaker 4: and I didn't think that was gonna happen. I had
Speaker 4: no idea that they had already made up in their
Speaker 4: mind that I was going to be escaped goal for
Speaker 4: this particular crime, so being needed at all, and how
Speaker 4: they worked in the justice system. I believed in the
Speaker 4: justice system at that time. I really did.
Speaker 1: I think all of us do when we're kids, especially
Speaker 1: brought up in a good home like you were. You
Speaker 1: brought up to believe that people are good and that
Speaker 1: the system is going to work for you. And then
Speaker 1: you had a lawyer who, had he been competent, I
Speaker 1: still think would have won your case in spite of
Speaker 1: all this, because of the simple fact that it was
Speaker 1: an easy case. The witnesses were not credible at all.
Speaker 1: We now know that they also withheld exculpatory evidence, So
Speaker 1: you really didn't have a fair chance, especially not with
Speaker 1: a lawyer who was incompetent. And ultimately, let's not forget
Speaker 1: that this particular lawyer was disbarred not too long after
Speaker 1: your trial. And again for the listeners out there, think
Speaker 1: about that. This is a guy who had been disciplined
Speaker 1: in numerous cases prior to Lamont's and then ultimately gets
Speaker 1: disbarred when the extent of his gross incompetence is brought
Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court of Kansas the attention of the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, and then he voluntarily gave up his license
Speaker 1: to practice law. And that wasn't the end of the nightmare.
Speaker 1: We now know too that your appellate lawyer was disbarred.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can't even make this stuff up. So
Speaker 1: what happened? Like now you're in the courtroom, the jury
Speaker 1: goes out, the arguments have been made. You saw these
Speaker 1: witnesses get up and lie. You saw these police officers
Speaker 1: get up and lie. Your defense made whatever arguments they made.
Speaker 1: Did you believe that they would come back and declare
Speaker 1: you innocent?
Speaker 4: I did. I did fire with my ben I did.
Speaker 4: I just didn't know that this is how the system worked.
Speaker 4: They found me guilty based on false evidence or the
Speaker 4: kind of evidence that was presented by a certain district attorney.
Speaker 4: They heard stuff about me that wasn't even about Lama mcnatize,
Speaker 4: and she just kind of made it stuff up, they
Speaker 4: told his story and the jury believed it. But at
Speaker 4: the time before they came back it was guilty verdict,
Speaker 4: I still didn't think I'll be found guilty because the
Speaker 4: whole time I'm sitting there and the whole time I'm
Speaker 4: going through the process of getting too trial, I still
Speaker 4: had no knowledge of the actual crime. So I'm thinking,
Speaker 4: with my young mind being naive, that there's no way
Speaker 4: a jury can find me guilty when I'm really not guilty,
Speaker 4: when I had nothing to do with it. I'm not
Speaker 4: tied to it at all. The witnesses, the victims, I'm
Speaker 4: not tied to it. I wasn't in the area when
Speaker 4: it happened. When they came in, I noticed that no
Speaker 4: jury's no one looked me in my face, no one
Speaker 4: looked looked up. Everyone came in looking down at the floor.
Speaker 4: So I kind of had an eerie feeling, but I
Speaker 4: still had hope that it would work out in the
Speaker 4: right way. So when they read the verdict and they
Speaker 4: said guilty, it's like I seen my whole life last
Speaker 4: before me and I and for that moment, I froze,
Speaker 4: and I was sitting there and I stood up, and
Speaker 4: I just remember saying something. I was screaming something, you know,
Speaker 4: to the effects of I'm not guilty, and you got
Speaker 4: the wrong person whatever, And I felt someone hold me
Speaker 4: or grab me from behind, and I was in shot,
Speaker 4: so I didn't really I was like a lost moment.
Speaker 4: But I turned around. I see my mother hold me, screaming,
Speaker 4: crying like don't take my baby away from me, don't
Speaker 4: take my baby. And I'm looking at her and I
Speaker 4: realized that this is a serious situation. Now I'm but
Speaker 4: it still didn't feel real. It was my life in
Speaker 4: my situation, but it didn't feel like my life or
Speaker 4: my situation. I felt like I was outside of myself
Speaker 4: looking at this event happened and I couldn't stop it.
Speaker 4: So I was in shot and that shot lasted for
Speaker 4: a few years after that. I was in shot.
Speaker 1: So, no, you're convicted of a double murder and sentence
Speaker 1: to life in prison. Where did they take you to?
Speaker 4: The process is like from the time you get convicted,
Speaker 4: stay in the county for about two months, then you
Speaker 4: go to a citizen. Now the sentaceen in Wanna County.
Speaker 4: It gave me two life sentences toront consecutive. Then after
Speaker 4: that they send me to a process and center which
Speaker 4: we call ARDU, where they see you to determine what
Speaker 4: classification you would be, what custody you would be in.
Speaker 4: I was considered max custody. So from there they send
Speaker 4: me to prison. I was in hunts That's a that's
Speaker 4: a prison in Kansas. They came Glady in the school,
Speaker 4: one of those tough prisons. You know with people. You know,
Speaker 4: it's a prison. It's like the work not there. You
Speaker 4: have a prison? Is that more? It's it's this dark negative,
Speaker 4: It's pension fields, hopelessness. It's a world that is all.
Speaker 1: As a seventeen year old. Did you have plans, did
Speaker 1: you have a career in mind? What was the outlook
Speaker 1: for the future. We were still just trying to figure
Speaker 1: it out.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was seeing I wanted to do. It was
Speaker 4: just I was I was being guided the line, and
Speaker 4: I was just in a place where everybody around me
Speaker 4: was either dying or going to jail or I was
Speaker 4: just in the kind of environment. It didn't produce a
Speaker 4: lot of hope or didn't have I didn't have a
Speaker 4: lot of people to look up to or emulate, nothing
Speaker 4: like that. But I did enjoy taking care of my
Speaker 4: family so my life was just basically about trying to
Speaker 4: take care of my family the best way I knew that,
Speaker 4: or to look out for my loved ones. You know,
Speaker 4: I had skills and things I could do, Like I
Speaker 4: was a barber, I was cut here since I was twelve,
Speaker 4: or you know, I was comedian. You know, I had
Speaker 4: these in the back of my mind. I wanted to
Speaker 4: be a comedian. I had things I wanted to do.
Speaker 4: I just didn't know how to get to where I
Speaker 4: wanted to be. But I still didn't think that my
Speaker 4: life was just of being in prison or going to jail,
Speaker 4: being in this kind of situation.
Speaker 1: What is a typical day like for you on the inside,
Speaker 1: How do you get through it? What's the schedule?
Speaker 4: Typical day? Typical day is, I'll readjusted. It's like from
Speaker 4: one day to the nextus finding a way to get
Speaker 4: by for one day, learn something from my days, and
Speaker 4: then I just try to it just sucks. I gotta
Speaker 4: repeat it. Like if I have a bad day or
Speaker 4: I'm frustrated for one day, I go to sleep, wake
Speaker 4: up to repeat this day again. So I try to
Speaker 4: find the best I can or get the best I
Speaker 4: can out of a day. Because waking up and repeat
Speaker 4: it is the anxiety. That's why all that The worst
Speaker 4: stuff is knowing that for the last twenty three years,
Speaker 4: two hundred some months, eleven hundred weeks and eight thousand days,
Speaker 4: it's the same thing. It never changes. So I devote
Speaker 4: my time to reading and studying and write. I write music,
Speaker 4: I write poetry. I try to keep my mind free
Speaker 4: as possible. I try to stay out of prison mentally.
Speaker 4: I try not to. I'm not into prison politics. I'm
Speaker 4: not in prison mentally, but I'm here. I have to
Speaker 4: be my body here, but I try to keep my mind.
Speaker 4: It's far from as place as I can. So it's
Speaker 4: just a bunch of moments of readjusted every day. And
Speaker 4: I have a lot of love people that love me
Speaker 4: and care about me, so I focused on that. But
Speaker 4: it's bad. It used to be a lot worse than
Speaker 4: it is now. I'm starting to see I'm coming alive
Speaker 4: now because I can see a light and then it
Speaker 4: just dark. Toddle, I've been there for so long. Something
Speaker 4: better now, But yeah, it wasn't so good before. It's
Speaker 4: better now. But it was always sad to wake up.
Speaker 4: I had to repeat this same cycle over and over again.
Speaker 4: That stuff is another driving person crazy. There's a lot
Speaker 4: of moments while I'm feeling like it's the point, you know,
Speaker 4: to keep going to wake up every day to have
Speaker 4: to deal with the exact same nightmare you trying to
Speaker 4: stay something the night before. But I had my mother
Speaker 4: like she never gave up on me from day one.
Speaker 4: When the worst moments of my life, you know, I
Speaker 4: felt like I just couldn't do it no more, feel
Speaker 4: like I couldn't take another step, she would show up.
Speaker 4: And when she would grab me and hold me and
Speaker 4: look me my faith and tell me this is not
Speaker 4: my life I'm passing through, this is not my destination.
Speaker 4: And so I had a lot of support my family,
Speaker 4: and I gave my life to God and I pray
Speaker 4: a lot of meditated lot. So initially I was kind
Speaker 4: of in this dark place where I was just so
Speaker 4: hurt and sad and depressed, and so I kept people
Speaker 4: kept coming to my life. There was like becons of
Speaker 4: light and hope for me. And I thank God for
Speaker 4: all those people came into my life and supported me.
Speaker 4: They sure that, uh I always had something to look
Speaker 4: forward to. Because this is a dark place. It's a
Speaker 4: dark situation where if you don't have enough support for me,
Speaker 4: it was just support I had. Family is important. Then
Speaker 4: years later chryl and ministries in anything projects, they kept
Speaker 4: start coming into my life and they they breed a
Speaker 4: life into me. It's like a second win. And I'm
Speaker 4: grateful for those people, everybody who support me and everybody
Speaker 4: who put forth effort go out every day and do
Speaker 4: something to help me get my life back. I'm very
Speaker 4: grateful for those people.
Speaker 1: If you even allow yourself, if you allow your mind
Speaker 1: to go there, what are you dreaming about when you
Speaker 1: get out? Because I'm convinced you are going to come
Speaker 1: home and I'm going to be there fighting right alongside
Speaker 1: with everybody else. What's the first thing you want to do?
Speaker 1: And then how do you see the future?
Speaker 4: First day I'm gonna do with eat something. That's what
Speaker 4: I fantasize about. Mostly, I want to eat something that
Speaker 4: there from there, I want to have some type of
Speaker 4: impact or effect on young people making poor decisions that
Speaker 4: was eventually land them in a situation like this. You know,
Speaker 4: So I want to just raise any kind of wareness
Speaker 4: I can out decision making, because you know, had I
Speaker 4: been taught how to make better decisions for myself. I
Speaker 4: think even though I was eign to the law and
Speaker 4: this is something that had nothing to do with me
Speaker 4: and all that, I still could have been making better
Speaker 4: decisions for myself before this stuff even came about. So
Speaker 4: I didn't want to be able to be there for
Speaker 4: young people as much as I can. So I can,
Speaker 4: I can help them understand that even though you don't
Speaker 4: do something wrong, even though you don't commit a crime,
Speaker 4: you can be you still got to be accountable, and
Speaker 4: you still got to be mindful of the fact that
Speaker 4: you out there floating around and you can easily be
Speaker 4: put in a situation like that and if you're not
Speaker 4: being productive and doing something that's productive out there in life.
Speaker 4: So I don't want to be able to reach the
Speaker 4: young people as much as I can. And now that
Speaker 4: this said to be young, just anybody that doesn't want
Speaker 4: to be able to share my experience and hopefully it
Speaker 4: will help out in any kind of way.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that you will do that. And then you're
Speaker 1: going to have a very positive impact on a lot
Speaker 1: of people because you have a very rare combination of
Speaker 1: intelligence and a manner that is so positive and strong
Speaker 1: but still gentle that I believe that you'll be able
Speaker 1: to affect a lot of a lot of young people,
Speaker 1: and I'm looking forward to watching you do that. There's
Speaker 1: one other thing I wanted to raise. I'm always amazed
Speaker 1: when I speak to someone in your situation, and especially
Speaker 1: so with you, that you don't seem to be bitter
Speaker 1: after everything that's happened. And I know you talked about
Speaker 1: your faith and family and the strength that you get
Speaker 1: from them, But how is it possible that someone can
Speaker 1: go through this most unimaginable nightmare still be in it,
Speaker 1: and yet be as positive and strong as you are now?
Speaker 4: Well, I have my moment with anger, but you've always
Speaker 4: liked taken poison helping someone else die from it. I
Speaker 4: would only want to think about me being angry. No
Speaker 4: one else seemed to notice a pay attention to meet
Speaker 4: being angry, So how is just for ourn experience? Being
Speaker 4: angry doesn't help me? So I just wanted to help
Speaker 4: myself because I knew. I always knew I was gonna
Speaker 4: be here forever. I knew that eventually the truth was
Speaker 4: surface and I would have a life outside of the wall.
Speaker 4: So I devoted a lot of time and energy towards
Speaker 4: helping myself and not hurt myself. So being angry was
Speaker 4: something that was a hindrance to me, not a benefit.
Speaker 4: So I try to say positive because this place is
Speaker 4: you got to keep up with yourself and take care
Speaker 4: of yourself, and anger and stress and all those things
Speaker 4: is just shorten your life span. And I got life
Speaker 4: to live, so I just choose. I choose to be positive.
Speaker 4: I choose to not be angry and allow anger to
Speaker 4: kill me. I don't want to die in this place,
Speaker 4: and I don't want to have a short life. So
Speaker 4: I stick fine to what I believe in, and I
Speaker 4: believe in my favor and I believe in meditation, I
Speaker 4: believe in exercise. I believe in taking care of my
Speaker 4: mom body and soul, and that's what I devote my
Speaker 4: time to.
Speaker 1: Wow, all I can do is tell you that you
Speaker 1: have you have all my respect and support, and I
Speaker 1: have a saying, lamont you know. I've seen too many
Speaker 1: miracles to stop believing in miracles. So I'm excited to
Speaker 1: watch you be the next one or one of the
Speaker 1: next ones, and we'll never stop fighting for you and
Speaker 1: for other people in your situation. I'm looking forward to
Speaker 1: a positive outcome and to getting to know you on
Speaker 1: the outside. The min I'm just going to turn it
Speaker 1: over to you and say, is your microphone, what do
Speaker 1: you want to share with the audience.
Speaker 4: Well, these kind of cases having well more than they should,
Speaker 4: you know. So it's like a I always stay on
Speaker 4: TV or DAYLN twenty twenty we see innocent man so
Speaker 4: many years in prison and you get exonerated and you
Speaker 4: see this happened Tom and Tom again. But what you
Speaker 4: never ever see or hear or hear about is how
Speaker 4: much that stuff and impact the affected the families. For
Speaker 4: those people like I had a close knit family. We
Speaker 4: was close and it was a thing just like me
Speaker 4: being affected by it and invent that happened in my life.
Speaker 4: It hurts me to see how much how much it
Speaker 4: affected not only me but my family. And it's difficult
Speaker 4: because if a man has to go through a certain
Speaker 4: thing by himself, that's his life, that's his path and
Speaker 4: life he gotta go through that. I have to do
Speaker 4: what I have to do, no matter what. But when
Speaker 4: you see somebody you care about being affected by what
Speaker 4: you have to do or what you have to endure,
Speaker 4: it a different kind of feeling. And it's like people
Speaker 4: don't really pay attention to that or know about that.
Speaker 4: Like when district attorneys of being dishonest when they're trying
Speaker 4: to get convictions and all that, often they take that
Speaker 4: consideration how many people they are affected by just not
Speaker 4: going by the law, just not being truthful about certain things.
Speaker 4: It's not just me, whatever issue personal issues they may
Speaker 4: add about with me. My family is affected by that.
Speaker 4: My brothers, my brother's kids when all this happened, and
Speaker 4: they feel like they've lost a mother because my mother
Speaker 4: devoted so much time for trying to get me back
Speaker 4: out of the system that they felt like they was neglected.
Speaker 4: So they was affected by that. My older sister was affected,
Speaker 4: my brother was affected. I mean, everybody was.
Speaker 7: Affected one minute.
Speaker 4: And when you try to hold onto something good, even
Speaker 4: when you try to get something good this kind of situation,
Speaker 4: it's still nothing good comes from me. It's just always bad.
Speaker 4: It's always negative because always a challenge, it's always hurdles,
Speaker 4: it's always something. But for the person that's in the
Speaker 4: middle of it, that's just my experience. But on the
Speaker 4: outside of it, that's something people don't ever get a
Speaker 4: chance to see. That's just a harsh or harsh reality
Speaker 4: for the person that lives based on someone else being
Speaker 4: in competence when all this stuff basically could have been
Speaker 4: avoided by someone that's doing their job. But the job
Speaker 4: people was uh employed them to do, you know. So
Speaker 4: I think people should understand that and know that it's
Speaker 4: a lot of people to be affected by something like that.
Speaker 4: I think a lot of tasers should be brought to
Speaker 4: this moment and this kind of situation, so a lot
Speaker 4: of people will get up. If you ever find another
Speaker 4: person that situation, it can be more modeful of it.
Speaker 4: It's not to help in a different kind of way
Speaker 4: they could. It's not just about me, it's about everybody
Speaker 4: who here about me too.
Speaker 1: On October thirteenth, twenty seventeen, Wyandot County District Attorney Mark
Speaker 1: dupri moved to vacate the conviction and dismissed all charges
Speaker 1: against Lamont Magatyre. Hours later, Lamont walked free for the
Speaker 1: first time in over twenty three long, miserable years. He
Speaker 1: called me from the courthouse steps. It was one of
Speaker 1: the best calls I've ever gotten. And in that call,
Speaker 1: he said he thanked me, and he said that the
Speaker 1: exposure that his case had gotten from being on this
Speaker 1: podcast had helped, and even if it was a tiny bit,
Speaker 1: it had helped to lead to his exoneration. It was
Speaker 1: a really extraordinary feeling, and I'm excited to share that
Speaker 1: one has since won a one and a half million
Speaker 1: dollar judgment for his wrawful conviction, and he and his
Speaker 1: mother are currently suing Roger Klubski for all the damage
Speaker 1: he did to their lives and their family. After a
Speaker 1: thirty year reign of terror in the Kansas City, Kansas
Speaker 1: Police Department, disgraced officer Roderikklupski went to work in Edwardsville,
Speaker 1: Kansas in twenty ten. He has yet to face justice,
Speaker 1: and he retired in twenty sixteen. Don't forget to give
Speaker 1: us a fantastic review. Wherever you get your podcasts, it
Speaker 1: really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the Ennocence Project,
Speaker 1: and I really hope you'll join me in supporting this
Speaker 1: very important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions.
Speaker 1: Go to Innocenceproject dot org to learn how to donate
Speaker 1: and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team,
Speaker 1: Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show
Speaker 1: by three time Oscar nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure
Speaker 1: to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on
Speaker 1: Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm
Speaker 1: is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association
Speaker 1: with Signal Company Number one