Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey, it's Jake Today. We're continuing with the Ronnie
Speaker 1: Kiskio story. This is part two, so if you haven't
Speaker 1: listened to part one yet, you should definitely go back
Speaker 1: and do that now. So last episode we ended with
Speaker 1: Ronnie getting some good news or what seemed like it. Anyhow,
Speaker 1: the court basically told him, we think your sentence of
Speaker 1: two hundred to six hundred years may have violated a
Speaker 1: clause in the Illinois Constitution. That clause, by the way,
Speaker 1: says quote, all penalties shall be determined both according to
Speaker 1: the seriousness of the offense and with the objective of
Speaker 1: restoring the offender to useful citizenship. Bottom line, Ronnie could
Speaker 1: now be resentenced. Well maybe. Last June there was yet
Speaker 1: another hearing to figure this all out. He took days.
Speaker 1: Ronnie's lawyer, Michael Deutsch, brought in over a dozen witnesses
Speaker 1: to testify about who Ronnie was and is now, about
Speaker 1: the type of man that Ronnie has become in prison.
Speaker 1: One of those witnesses was Ali Pruitt, a lawyer and
Speaker 1: Chicago activist. She talked about Ronnie and the people he'd
Speaker 1: mentored or inspired. What really has stuck out to me
Speaker 1: over the years is the positive impact he's left I
Speaker 1: not only folks who have been incarcerated, but folks who haven't.
Speaker 1: He has this sort of positive influence and inspiring story,
Speaker 1: and it's just such a motivator for so many people,
Speaker 1: for his family, for his friends. The State of Illinois
Speaker 1: had lawyers there arguing the other side, it's always difficult
Speaker 1: in a post conviction proceeding to take what we know
Speaker 1: today and apply it to a trial proceeding that happened
Speaker 1: years and in this case, decades ago. The circumstances of
Speaker 1: the crime, the facts of the under lying crime, those
Speaker 1: have all been litigated, and its council said, we're not
Speaker 1: here to relitigate the facts of the case. Basically, the
Speaker 1: state was saying, look, we're not here for a new trial.
Speaker 1: We're only here to determine if Ronnie Kariskio should be resentenced. Now,
Speaker 1: Ronnie claimed that his sentence was unfair and disproportionate to
Speaker 1: his crime. But the state then argues, what really matters
Speaker 1: here is that Ronnie has a shot at release, and
Speaker 1: as long as he does well, then the sentence is fair.
Speaker 1: And that is key to the decision and the key
Speaker 1: to the analysis here because mister Karasko is eligible for parole.
Speaker 1: In other words, perhaps six hundred years sounds like a
Speaker 1: long time, but he's eligible for parole. So what's the problem.
Speaker 1: And the judge basically agrees. What does this mean for Ronnie? Well,
Speaker 1: it means that he now has to place all of
Speaker 1: his hopes on getting parole. There's just one problem when
Speaker 1: it comes to the parole boards. Seems that he can't
Speaker 1: escape the notoriety of his own story. Ronnie's been in
Speaker 1: prison for nearly half a century and he's stuck in
Speaker 1: a convoluted legal system, a system that perhaps could be
Speaker 1: gamed by an operator like Bob Cooley, but which was
Speaker 1: terrifying to a guy like Ronnie who was trapped inside
Speaker 1: with no fixer to call. And I gotta tell you,
Speaker 1: at times, Ronnie's story felt a bit like a Franz
Speaker 1: Kafka novel. There's a guy and he's stuck trying to
Speaker 1: find his way out of one darkened labyrinth after another,
Speaker 1: and every time it looks like there might be an exit,
Speaker 1: the lights flicker out. I'm Jake Halpern and this is
Speaker 1: deep cover mob Land. Thank you for using Securist. You
Speaker 1: may start the conversation. Now this morning, Hey Ronnie, how
Speaker 1: are you well? It will go again. Ronnie's been incarcerated
Speaker 1: since October of nineteen seventy six. Back then, Ronnie was
Speaker 1: a teenager and a gang member. One night, he got
Speaker 1: involved in a fight. He says he shot off the
Speaker 1: gun to break things up and accidentally killed an off
Speaker 1: duty policeman, a man named Terence Loftis. Ronnie was sentenced
Speaker 1: to two hundred to six hundred years in prison, and
Speaker 1: afterwards he was sort of stunned. He says. It took
Speaker 1: him years to realize what the sentence would really mean
Speaker 1: for him and realize. He filed some early appeals that
Speaker 1: went well, nowhere, that's my father. Don't buy no more appeals.
Speaker 1: I'll buy no more lawyers. I go to the provok
Speaker 1: I'm gonna see it and I shot this type from
Speaker 1: far away. There's no attention in it, and I'll make parole. Parole.
Speaker 1: That was Ronnie's big hope. Yeah. Sure, maybe he'd gotten
Speaker 1: slammed on his sentencing, but with good behavior, he hoped
Speaker 1: he'd get out on parole. So he gradually turned his
Speaker 1: life around in prison. He renounced his gang membership. He
Speaker 1: learned a number of trades got his geed, found religion,
Speaker 1: became a mentor, he says, in so many ways, he
Speaker 1: became a different person. And he figured the parole board
Speaker 1: would see this, that they'd review the facts of his
Speaker 1: case and release him. How many times have you been
Speaker 1: before a parole board? I think thirty five times. At
Speaker 1: least thirty five times. Over thirty times Ronnie's gone before
Speaker 1: the parole board. That's almost once a year. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like going to the Super Bowl annually and losing
Speaker 1: every single time. Ronnie just keeps getting told Nope, you're
Speaker 1: not getting out. Even so each year or so, when
Speaker 1: Ronnie comes up for parole, he keeps trying, keeps providing
Speaker 1: evidence of his rehabilitation, and talks about how far he's come.
Speaker 1: My life is transform so much from what I came
Speaker 1: as a youth. I was a poor student. I was
Speaker 1: not help right educational wise, book wise, not that I
Speaker 1: got my gez started going to college a half sixty
Speaker 1: seven different trades while behind bars, He's worked as an electrician,
Speaker 1: a welder, a locksmith, a pipe bend and a washer
Speaker 1: dryer repairman. He's also trained to become a typist and
Speaker 1: a paralegal. He's mentored fellow inmates, given them legal advice.
Speaker 1: He's coached the prisons baseball team and organized soccer tournaments
Speaker 1: for his jailmates. He's a pastor, and he's even written
Speaker 1: a Bible study workbook called Covenant with Abraham. Ronnie is
Speaker 1: not allowed to attend parole hearings in person, but his
Speaker 1: supporters are and they do. They show up and vouch
Speaker 1: for him. All different kinds, black, white, Latin, whatever, races,
Speaker 1: different ex gang members, different and all of them write
Speaker 1: letters that I impacted their life. And I've been coaching
Speaker 1: them in Christianity for long to say, oh you'll live
Speaker 1: your life, will help your modi, health, your family, and
Speaker 1: there's all I do for my whole forty six years.
Speaker 1: Over the years, Ronnie has won over a number of supporters,
Speaker 1: including religious leaders, an Alderman, a US congressman, even one
Speaker 1: of the prosecutors who originally brought the case against him.
Speaker 1: That prosecutor, Thomas Breen, noted that Ronnie's years of men
Speaker 1: showed him to be a model for other inmates. Breen
Speaker 1: went so far as to compare Ronnie to the police
Speaker 1: officer he killed. He said that Ronnie had quote many
Speaker 1: of the generous characteristics of a caring person, not unlike
Speaker 1: Terry Loftus. Members of the media have also written about
Speaker 1: Ronnie's story, tracking his bid for freedom. All of this
Speaker 1: seems like it might tip the scales in Ronnie's favor, right,
Speaker 1: the only problem being the parole board itself. It's known
Speaker 1: in Illinois as the Prisoner Review Board. Now in theory,
Speaker 1: it's a neutral body that can reach its own independent verdict.
Speaker 1: Its members are appointed by the governor. Its ranks include
Speaker 1: former parole officers, prosecutors, social workers, cops, and politicians. The
Speaker 1: board operates with virtually no oversight, and its decisions are
Speaker 1: not reviewable in court. Jorge Montez sat on that parole
Speaker 1: board for sixteen years. I was law and order and
Speaker 1: conservative Republican, and I was going to do what all
Speaker 1: conservative people should do, is keep them all in and
Speaker 1: not let anybody out. That's what I set out to do.
Speaker 1: Jorge was a former prosecutor, and he was tough. He
Speaker 1: wasn't inclined to let many guys out. And then one
Speaker 1: day this one inmate comes up for parole. Jorge says,
Speaker 1: this inmate had a very strong case for being released,
Speaker 1: but Korge still voted no. He said, he did it
Speaker 1: almost automatically, like that's just what he was supposed to do.
Speaker 1: And then something kind of odd happened. The very conservative
Speaker 1: Republican chairman told me, mister Montez, is there something we're
Speaker 1: missing here? I said, well, why would that be. You're
Speaker 1: voting to deny parole for what appears to be a
Speaker 1: pretty perfect candidate for a parole. I said, in that case,
Speaker 1: I withdraw my emotion and I would move that we
Speaker 1: parole them, and we did. It was almost like on
Speaker 1: some level, Jorge was looking for permission to show leniency,
Speaker 1: to say, you know what, Yeah, this guy does deserve
Speaker 1: a second chance. Let him out. And that started my
Speaker 1: journey on these issues. So increasingly I began to scrutinize cases,
Speaker 1: to really consider whether there's somebody had changed their lives
Speaker 1: and that warranted a second look, a second chance. And
Speaker 1: increasingly I began to find that a lot of these
Speaker 1: people were really redeemable, and my votes started to reflect that.
Speaker 1: All of that being said, when Jorge first heard Ronnie's
Speaker 1: case for parole, he says he wasn't persuaded, not at
Speaker 1: first anyhow, especially given the fact that Ronnie had killed
Speaker 1: a police officer. Jorge says that he voted against Ronnie
Speaker 1: a few times. At these hearings, the inmates are not
Speaker 1: allowed to show up and speak for themselves. Instead, one
Speaker 1: member of the parole board speaks with the inmate and
Speaker 1: then presents their case, almost like a lawyer, but not really,
Speaker 1: because the presenters they may have their own agenda and
Speaker 1: they might not advocate for that inmate at all. So
Speaker 1: maybe you're starting to get what I'm talking about when
Speaker 1: I say this whole process at times feels like something
Speaker 1: that Franz Kafka cooked up. Anyway, one day, Ronnie is
Speaker 1: up for parole yet again, Jorge, I'm still not convinced
Speaker 1: that Ronnie should be set free. And on this occasion,
Speaker 1: Ronnie's presenter is well, I'll just let Jorge explain. There
Speaker 1: was a gentleman on the board named Dick Doria, and
Speaker 1: Dick Doria was a sheriff of Tuopage County formerly the sheriff,
Speaker 1: a hard conserve, ultra conservative. So bad news for Ronnie. Right,
Speaker 1: But wait, because Dick Doria, the conservative former sheriff, when
Speaker 1: he made his presentation, he said something that really surprised
Speaker 1: Jorge and Dick said than it was impossible, in his
Speaker 1: professional opinion, that Ronnie would have killed this officer purposefully intentionally.
Speaker 1: Impossible the kind of weapon he used. And mister Doria
Speaker 1: knew all about ballistics and weapons and calibers, and he
Speaker 1: made a wonderful presentation. He said, I'm not well, I'm
Speaker 1: voting to release this man because I think he did
Speaker 1: not intentionally kill the police officer. According to Jorge, Dictoria
Speaker 1: said that he looked at the evidence, the distances, the
Speaker 1: ballistics and the like, and determined it did not up.
Speaker 1: It didn't make sense that Ronnie had killed this cop intentionally,
Speaker 1: and this really got Jorge thinking critically about Ronnie's whole case,
Speaker 1: about Ronnie's intentions, his efforts to redeem himself, and even
Speaker 1: about the original sentence back in the nineteen seventies from
Speaker 1: Judge Wilson, and whether it had been fair. In fact,
Speaker 1: Jorge says he came to feel that Ronnie's sentence of
Speaker 1: up to six hundred years did seem a bit fishy
Speaker 1: coming on the heels of the Harry alam On trial,
Speaker 1: and that this might be an instance of camouflage bias. Well,
Speaker 1: it makes sense to me that that a judge would
Speaker 1: behave this way and take it out on poor Carraskio
Speaker 1: because he had just given this sniper who was well
Speaker 1: known in the community for being a Fielso he gives
Speaker 1: them an out, he gives them, he gives them a pass,
Speaker 1: and then of course he's got to cover his tracks
Speaker 1: by then overreacting on the Carraskio man. I thought that
Speaker 1: was an excellent argument, and I believe that we'll be
Speaker 1: right back throughout this process. Ronnie has also faced another
Speaker 1: big challenge. The Chicago Police Department and the union representing
Speaker 1: its officers do not want him to get parole, so
Speaker 1: much so that they have physically showed up at his
Speaker 1: parole hearings. Jorge remembers this. He says, they made quite
Speaker 1: an impression. The conference room was very tight, and Chicago
Speaker 1: would send bus loads of police officers and they would
Speaker 1: all crowd in to the conference room that just fit
Speaker 1: the conference table, and there were all there thirty cops
Speaker 1: standing around us, and they were looking over our shoulder
Speaker 1: and literally and so as we're casting boats. It was
Speaker 1: very intimidating and very difficult. I've seen a picture of
Speaker 1: this scene and I got to describe it to you.
Speaker 1: You can see the Parole board members sitting at a table,
Speaker 1: and then like a foot behind them is a whole
Speaker 1: crowd of uniformed officers literally hovering over them. With time,
Speaker 1: Jorge came to realize that Ronnie might not ever receive
Speaker 1: enough votes for parole. In fact, at one point he
Speaker 1: even wrote an affid David, Ronnie's behalf. In that Affidavid,
Speaker 1: he said that despite Ronnie's quote excellent prison record and
Speaker 1: his strong family and community support, that he was repeatedly
Speaker 1: denied parole because quote, the victim was a Chicago police officer.
Speaker 1: Montez concluded that quote, there are several members of the
Speaker 1: board then and now who will never vote for parole
Speaker 1: when the victim is a police officer. For Ronnie, none
Speaker 1: of this is encouraging. You know, the constitution says we
Speaker 1: have voice that we don't care. How must you got
Speaker 1: that we don't care? None of that? You kill the
Speaker 1: police officer, and they blatantly say, I'm not gonna have
Speaker 1: vote for a police killer. So you know, how can
Speaker 1: I ask them for mercy when they're telling me before
Speaker 1: this the hearing's even done. So, I mean, if I
Speaker 1: bring anybody in there to testifying, I'll hope for anything
Speaker 1: like that. We don't want to hear that. And this
Speaker 1: creates a real logistical challenge for Ronnie. Can he get
Speaker 1: the votes he needs to be released. Each time Ronnie
Speaker 1: is up for parole, the board is different. Old members
Speaker 1: cycle out, new members cycle in, and he's come close
Speaker 1: a few times. Each one of these moments is seared
Speaker 1: into his memory, moments when it seemed like maybe the
Speaker 1: door was about to swing open for him. In Justice Watch,
Speaker 1: a Chicago based nonprofit newsroom, has done some excellent reporting
Speaker 1: on Ronnie's bid for parole. They found that in the
Speaker 1: years between two thousand and five and two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: Ronnie had a series of parole hearings and each year
Speaker 1: he came within one vote of winning his freedom. Jorge
Speaker 1: can still remember these votes, how excitement would build as
Speaker 1: the board members cast their votes one at a time
Speaker 1: for those of us that were favorable to his release.
Speaker 1: It builds up a lot of momentum in an expectation.
Speaker 1: And there's one, there's two, there's three. Oh, we're getting closed.
Speaker 1: I think this is it. He's gonna go home. And
Speaker 1: then we get to know. So that's it's very tense
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight, Ronnie actually won a majority
Speaker 1: of votes from the board, six yeses and five nos.
Speaker 1: That's a win, right, Nope, The Illinois Prisoner Review Board
Speaker 1: requires that he get a majority of all members, not
Speaker 1: just those in attendance, and that day there were two
Speaker 1: no shows and only thirteen members on the board at
Speaker 1: the time, so his six vote majority it didn't count.
Speaker 1: Jorge was the chairman of the parole Board at this point,
Speaker 1: and he says, to come this close and to fall short,
Speaker 1: it was really hard for him personally. You feel deflated
Speaker 1: and you feel demoralized because if you really believe in
Speaker 1: this and you work his work and you try to
Speaker 1: keep work away from home, but if you believe that
Speaker 1: it's the right thing to do and that we're keeping
Speaker 1: somebody locked up, a human being locked up that in
Speaker 1: the year, you're sympathizing with the family and you see
Speaker 1: all the tears and you see people leaving devastated. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it impact, It impacts you. Ronnie wasn't there, but he
Speaker 1: soon got the news. According to my law, I was
Speaker 1: supposed to be granted parole. I made the majority of
Speaker 1: the of the vote. To me, like, what's it my
Speaker 1: going before the parole Board thirty five times and getting
Speaker 1: rejected every time. I never go in front of the
Speaker 1: whole committee. I see one person. One person comes and
Speaker 1: they call him my hearing officer. After that, talk to nobody,
Speaker 1: but this one person up against an invisible body that
Speaker 1: I never see. In two and twenty, Ronnie was up
Speaker 1: for parole once again, and the event attracted attention from
Speaker 1: the local press. WGN investigates cop killers going free. Now
Speaker 1: another officer's murderer is appealing to the Illinois Prisoner Review
Speaker 1: Board for freedom. This is a news report from WGN
Speaker 1: in Chicago that aired in September of twenty twenty, a
Speaker 1: few weeks before Ronnie was set to appear before the
Speaker 1: parole board. You might think that killing a cop would
Speaker 1: lead to an automatic life sentence, but under old sentencing rules,
Speaker 1: inmates are fighting themselves eligible for release, and as we found,
Speaker 1: it often lands in the lapse of deceased officers families
Speaker 1: to fight to keep them locked up. The family members
Speaker 1: of the victim often come to these hearings. It's a
Speaker 1: tortured process. They talk about how hard it's been for
Speaker 1: them and how they hope that the killer will not
Speaker 1: be allowed to just walk away. In the wug N
Speaker 1: news story about Ronnie, a cousin spoke for the Loftis family.
Speaker 1: We are aging and we need to speak for him.
Speaker 1: We need to speak for his parents and for his brother,
Speaker 1: and they are all gone. I did read an interview
Speaker 1: with Loftus's brother before he passed away. He told the
Speaker 1: Chicago Sun Times that the shooting devastated the family, saying, quote,
Speaker 1: our mother was never the same. After that, the Fraternal
Speaker 1: Order of Police declined my request for an interview, and
Speaker 1: the Chicago Police Department didn't respond my requests for comment.
Speaker 1: But I did manage to find a web page commemorating
Speaker 1: Terence Loftis. A number of his friends and fellow police
Speaker 1: officers had posted messages here. One read, I remember the
Speaker 1: night he was killed. He was showing me his new
Speaker 1: green leather jacket in the tactical office. A few hours
Speaker 1: later he was shot. I remember seeing him later at
Speaker 1: the hospital with a breathing tube in his mouth and
Speaker 1: the sounds of the air machine pumping in a steady rhythm.
Speaker 1: That vision to this day has haunted me and will
Speaker 1: until the day I die. Unlike the reprobate that killed him,
Speaker 1: Terry was an honorable and exceptional person. Some of the
Speaker 1: posts were written directly to Terry, like letters sent to
Speaker 1: him in the beyond. One of those read quote, once again,
Speaker 1: parole has been denied for the individual that took your
Speaker 1: life and cause so much pain to those that love you.
Speaker 1: This time, the parole board said, he has to wait
Speaker 1: three years to be heard again. When that time comes,
Speaker 1: your brother, officers will be there again like they have
Speaker 1: been in the past, to stop this individual from getting
Speaker 1: out of prison. You have not been forgotten. Reading these posts,
Speaker 1: it was heartbreaking, and I could see how, even all
Speaker 1: these years later, his friends and family would still be
Speaker 1: simmering with anguish and rage at the tragedy of it all.
Speaker 1: It also seemed almost cruel that year after year Loftus's
Speaker 1: friends and family members would be expected to attend these
Speaker 1: parole hearings and share these kinds of sentiments, that they'd
Speaker 1: have to relive their trauma again and again. I also
Speaker 1: have to wonder what Terence Loftus himself would say about
Speaker 1: all of this. I wonder how he would want to
Speaker 1: be remembered, what he would want his legacy to be, Because,
Speaker 1: after all, this was a man whose defining act was
Speaker 1: one of courage and decency. His biggest mistake, the thing
Speaker 1: that got him killed, was his inclination to help to
Speaker 1: step into the fray when he absolutely didn't have to.
Speaker 1: For Ronnie, the whole situation is confounding. He accepts his
Speaker 1: responsibility for the death of Officer Loftus, he knows he's
Speaker 1: the one who pulled the trigger, and he says that
Speaker 1: he's done everything in his power to redeem himself. But
Speaker 1: as far as the justice system is concerned, there appears
Speaker 1: to be no real path forward. I'm not supposed to
Speaker 1: mature and be able to have the constitutional right of
Speaker 1: being restored a useful citizenship. The judge didn't leave me
Speaker 1: no room for it. He just waste to me. I'm
Speaker 1: wondering how, in the face of being rejected for parole
Speaker 1: for thirty five times and being in is in from
Speaker 1: almost half a century, like, how do you keep that
Speaker 1: safe in that hopeful lives? Well. I study two hours
Speaker 1: a day, I stay in the scripture, I pray every day,
Speaker 1: I pray with other people. Uh. It's it's heartbreaking, especially
Speaker 1: when you lose family members down the line, and to
Speaker 1: keep your faith. So there's a scripture in there where
Speaker 1: it says, what is a Genesius fifty twenty? Where Mann's
Speaker 1: men means for evil, God means for good. And in
Speaker 1: the Bible, God is a just God is just all justice.
Speaker 1: This whole exchange oddly reminded me of something that Bob
Speaker 1: Cooley once said to me. He said that in his mind,
Speaker 1: the world of justice was divided into man's law and
Speaker 1: God's law, and then he put little faith in Man's law,
Speaker 1: I think because he saw it as arbitrary and fundamentally corrupt.
Speaker 1: But God's law, on the other hand, was pure and transcendent,
Speaker 1: and according to Bob, it's had meaning for him. And
Speaker 1: I kind of understood this. In a city like Chicago,
Speaker 1: where corruption and politics and gang violence and lingering class
Speaker 1: resentments all skewed the law of man, he almost had
Speaker 1: to grasp for something higher, hope that true justice might
Speaker 1: exist elsewhere, in some better realm. And it was here
Speaker 1: that Ronnie's faith resided. Though I wondered if he thought
Speaker 1: that this faith alone would actually get him past that
Speaker 1: parole board. What do you think your chances of being
Speaker 1: released are. I'm gonna get release. I have faith in God.
Speaker 1: I pray every day that he uh put on the
Speaker 1: hearts of the just people, you know, to see the scenario,
Speaker 1: and they don't address the politics of it and give
Speaker 1: the judgment by law. I'm not gonna surrender myself all
Speaker 1: gonna die here. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna go
Speaker 1: for it. I'm not I'm not living that way. If
Speaker 1: you were released tomorrow, what's the first thing you would do.
Speaker 1: I will sit in the backyard basically look up to
Speaker 1: see the sky, see the stars at night. And the
Speaker 1: threat is over. So I came from a gang life.
Speaker 1: That threat never goes away. So the first thing I
Speaker 1: want to do is just go and just life, oh
Speaker 1: man and all it's over, and then go go live
Speaker 1: the life from there. I got so much time left
Speaker 1: to live. Basically, Gopia helped in humanity is supposed to
Speaker 1: do in the first place, be a giver. I was
Speaker 1: a taker as a kid. I can't take back my
Speaker 1: criminal activity as again, I can't take back I can't
Speaker 1: put the bulls back and I go I can't do
Speaker 1: any of them. I'm going to go forward. This summer,
Speaker 1: Ronnie was moved to a new facility, a reentry center.
Speaker 1: Ronnie's attorney petition to have him moved there. He's there
Speaker 1: to learn some basic life skills like how to write
Speaker 1: a resume and how to manage finances, skills that he
Speaker 1: would need if he ever makes parole. Ronnie is now
Speaker 1: sick four years old. He'll be up for parole again
Speaker 1: in November of twenty twenty two. This episode of deep
Speaker 1: Cover was produced by Amy Gaines and edited by Karen Shakerge.
Speaker 1: Our managing producers Jacob Smith. Original music and our theme
Speaker 1: was composed by Luise Gara, mastering by Jake Korski. Mia
Speaker 1: LaBelle is our executive producer. Additional thanks to Jesse de
Speaker 1: Bartelomeo and Emily Horner, formerly of Injustice Watch and now
Speaker 1: at the Chicago Tribune for her reporting on Ronnie's case.
Speaker 1: I'm Jake Halpern. Deep Cover is a production of Pushkin Industries.
Speaker 1: For ad free listening and early access to upcoming seasons
Speaker 1: of deep Cover, consider becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber. You
Speaker 1: can find Pushkin Plus on the deep Cover show page
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin dot Fm.