Speaker 1: In part one of our coverage with John Joker, you
Speaker 1: heard about how a corrupt investigation turned a group of
Speaker 1: friends against one of their own, producing initially three and
Speaker 1: eventually a fourth false and conflicting testimony led to John's
Speaker 1: arrest and conviction. Now here about his continuing fight for
Speaker 1: freedom and where the case stands today. They taking things
Speaker 1: from me that I'll never get back. You know. They
Speaker 1: took all my twenties and now all my thirties, sup.
Speaker 1: And now they're going to start working on the forties.
Speaker 1: Unless something happened. When I came up state, the automatically
Speaker 1: started trying to go to the Low Library a lot.
Speaker 1: But it's hard to even get up out of bed
Speaker 1: in the morning knowing what's being done to you. But
Speaker 1: you want to just try to keep going on, in
Speaker 1: which I did, and I try to. I was going
Speaker 1: to the Low Library every day at one point, trying
Speaker 1: to get to know the law. And that's when I
Speaker 1: saw that my prosecutor, NICOLASI is the Prosecutorial Misconduct Handbook
Speaker 1: as like a playbook, even though all those things are
Speaker 1: considered a greciousness conducted by lawyer whose name was laid
Speaker 1: Epstein at the time, said that that's your major issue
Speaker 1: right here, because there's so much here. This is just
Speaker 1: a case based off of words, and so they had
Speaker 1: to beat for their case with misconduct and pulling every
Speaker 1: dirty move that because she suppressed evidence more than once
Speaker 1: that we could prove between coursing witnesses, mistating the full record,
Speaker 1: or even mistating the law. She told the jury that
Speaker 1: and this was in my first appeal that what Lawnan
Speaker 1: said alone is enough to convict me of fell any murder.
Speaker 1: And that's not really true either, But it's all that
Speaker 1: is moved now because of the recantations. But the major
Speaker 1: one was besides her polygraph trade, was a whitewashed drug
Speaker 1: program violation documents that they gave us. So they literally
Speaker 1: whitewashed records that they gave us for John of Vito.
Speaker 1: They put them up on the stand and got him
Speaker 1: to say that he wasn't getting anything and didn't want
Speaker 1: anything in return for his testimony, no leniency and no
Speaker 1: benefits at all. Meanwhile, he just fucked up seven or
Speaker 1: eight drug programs and got like all these violations and
Speaker 1: he just got violated like a couple of days before
Speaker 1: he was on the stand up there. But they gave
Speaker 1: us drug program violation reports that didn't have any of
Speaker 1: that stuff on there. And then later when we got
Speaker 1: the case file, we got the real copy of the
Speaker 1: exact same document. It's the same document. It's not a
Speaker 1: different document. It's the exact same If you've pulled them
Speaker 1: up to each other, they are the same document, but
Speaker 1: they have more sentences in them. So somebody just highlighted
Speaker 1: that part presidentally and printed it out and gave it
Speaker 1: to us. Then the Supreme Court judges have said for
Speaker 1: years that is huge. That's a major that the jury
Speaker 1: knows the credibility of someone and what their motive is
Speaker 1: for testifying against someone. They just prepped him up there
Speaker 1: and made it look like he was just sustimoned to
Speaker 1: be a good citizen and that he didn't want anything
Speaker 1: in change for his testimony. He was a total why
Speaker 1: she even showed up to one of his court appearances
Speaker 1: and made sure he didn't go to jail. That was
Speaker 1: my first appeal of the consecutorial misconduct stuff, But then
Speaker 1: really those early years were more about my juror misconduct issue.
Speaker 1: I understand that one of your friends was with your
Speaker 1: mom and noticed somebody in the jury that he recognized.
Speaker 1: Do I have that right? Yeah, I'm pretty sure. It
Speaker 1: was the day of the verdict. Someone came in to
Speaker 1: support me and he saw one of the jurors and
Speaker 1: he was like, holy shit, I know this guy from
Speaker 1: the neighborhood and he hangs out at the Wensville's house
Speaker 1: and that's the same place John always hangs out. How
Speaker 1: the fuck does this guy not know John or know
Speaker 1: of John or something, you know how, it's weird. So
Speaker 1: he told my mother and then your mom puts on
Speaker 1: her literal superhero cape and goes and you gotta hear
Speaker 1: being the audience. Now, you're gonna have to hear this
Speaker 1: to believe it. She's unbelievable. I can't say enough about Dorene.
Speaker 1: My mother tried to go to a private investigator. First,
Speaker 1: she got ripped. Dolph tried multiple private investigators, and she
Speaker 1: just had to take manage into her own hands. And
Speaker 1: she did. And then I think they found out threw
Speaker 1: a barber or something like that, exactly where he was
Speaker 1: from and who he was. She watched him for a
Speaker 1: period of time and eventually started communicating with him and
Speaker 1: they started hanging out. Now, of course, she was not
Speaker 1: known to him to be John Juca's mother, but she
Speaker 1: recorded her interactions with him. They began an ostensible friendship,
Speaker 1: and after a period of time, she started talking about
Speaker 1: the case, and this guy Aloe started saying things that
Speaker 1: would make your jaw drop or make you spit out
Speaker 1: your morning coffee if you're talking about due process and
Speaker 1: having a fair and impartial jury. He said that he
Speaker 1: read newspapers and watched TV all about the case, even
Speaker 1: though the judge won them. I dike it was like
Speaker 1: thirteen or fifteen times, not too and he's that bullshit.
Speaker 1: He said that he couldn't get off for work because
Speaker 1: his boss really don't want them to take off for
Speaker 1: curry duty. But once he told him about which case
Speaker 1: it was, his boss gave him off and said, I
Speaker 1: want to see that fucking kid Fry told him he'll
Speaker 1: give him off with pay something like that. All kinds
Speaker 1: of things were coming out of this guy's mouth, including
Speaker 1: admitting that he never should have been on the jury
Speaker 1: because he knew some of the people. I've heard of
Speaker 1: this crowd of kids. He said that his cousin who
Speaker 1: also used to hang out at a house that I
Speaker 1: hung out at before, and knew those guys, and she
Speaker 1: thought I was guilty, so she told him that I
Speaker 1: was guilty, said his cousin wouldn't lie to me about
Speaker 1: something like that. Another thing was that he said, which
Speaker 1: is guys that I used to hang out with used
Speaker 1: to bully his brother. I didn't even recognize the names
Speaker 1: that he was talking about, but guys that I knew,
Speaker 1: or that who knew me, he's to bully his brother.
Speaker 1: So it was like revenge. He had an act to
Speaker 1: rhy And he also basically said that he didn't like Jews. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the name Juka sounds like jew but it's very Italian,
Speaker 1: not Jewish. He's not even a competent anti Semite. He's
Speaker 1: wrong on every conceivable way, morally bankrupt, mentally deficient. Just
Speaker 1: can't even process this. And there is that famous cringe
Speaker 1: inducing interview on twenty twenty where when this became public,
Speaker 1: Jason Alo actually made the very ill advised decision to
Speaker 1: defend himself on TV and he was interviewed by Martin
Speaker 1: Bisher if you remember him, and you know he was
Speaker 1: denying a lot of this, where Bisher is reading the
Speaker 1: transcript and playing the recording for anyone and everyone to
Speaker 1: hear and there's just no question that the case should
Speaker 1: have been tossed because of the German's conduct pushing other
Speaker 1: jurors in to a guilty verdict. He even admitted and
Speaker 1: he was pushing the other jurors in to a guilty
Speaker 1: verdict when they filed a motion to reverse the conviction
Speaker 1: on that issue. The recordings were not authenticated. There are
Speaker 1: rules of evidence in a courtroom. You can't just take
Speaker 1: someone's word for it, and for whatever reason, those recordings
Speaker 1: were not authenticated in the proper way, and so the
Speaker 1: motion was denied on procedural grounds. But the judge who
Speaker 1: denied the motion went farther and said, even if it
Speaker 1: was proper, I would deny it on the merits because
Speaker 1: this is, you know, an assault on the judicial system
Speaker 1: for somebody to be going after a juror. So the
Speaker 1: criticism was actually leveled entirely at Doreene for exposing this,
Speaker 1: rather than the juror, who clearly had no business being
Speaker 1: on the case. If you didn't do anything wrong, She
Speaker 1: didn't commit any crimes. It was just she dug for
Speaker 1: the truth that she got it. They didn't like what
Speaker 1: they found out or what they heard, so I got
Speaker 1: involved in this in two welve was contacted by Dorene
Speaker 1: John's mother or who some know as Mother Justice because
Speaker 1: of what she did trying to unravel the conviction. When
Speaker 1: she showed up in my office with just stacks of papers,
Speaker 1: The first piece of paper that was on top of
Speaker 1: this whole pile was a transcript in the People of
Speaker 1: the State of New York versus John a Veto, not
Speaker 1: John Juca, And it was the court appearance in which
Speaker 1: a Veto had gone to court after he started meeting
Speaker 1: with John's prosecutor. Now, on the cover of any transcript,
Speaker 1: it's going to list the caption of the case, the
Speaker 1: name of who appears for the DA's office, who appears
Speaker 1: for the defense, that sort of thing, and the appearance
Speaker 1: for the DA on the cover of this transcript in
Speaker 1: June thirteenth of two thousand and five was Anna Sega Nicolotzi,
Speaker 1: who was John's prosecutor. And there was no reason why
Speaker 1: a homicide prosecutor on the biggest murder case in New
Speaker 1: York City would be appearing on a mundane, meaningless return
Speaker 1: on warrant for some mope who had a burglary sentence
Speaker 1: because he violated a drug program other than the fact
Speaker 1: he had to be cooperating in the murder case. And
Speaker 1: so I knew within the first day I met Doreen
Speaker 1: that this case was sideways and all of this is
Speaker 1: happening in the ramp up to the historic run of
Speaker 1: Ken Thompson. It seemed like he was really ready to
Speaker 1: change things for good. There was some story in the
Speaker 1: press during the election in twenty twelve thirteen, because we
Speaker 1: were in the process of trying to get Juca's conviction overturned,
Speaker 1: and a lot of this news about angel DiPietro came out,
Speaker 1: and again the idea that she could be hired by
Speaker 1: Hines as a prosecutor and be Nicolozzi's colleague years later
Speaker 1: just so absurd on his face that he asked me
Speaker 1: about what is all this? In my view, he wanted
Speaker 1: to campaign on Juca, ironically enough, and maybe it was
Speaker 1: my mistake at the time, but I told him, I
Speaker 1: don't want to talk to you about anything Duker related
Speaker 1: because you're probably going to be the next DA And
Speaker 1: I'm telling you right now, I'm going to be coming
Speaker 1: to you to right this wrong. And I look back
Speaker 1: and one of my sins in this case is probably
Speaker 1: not unloading to him because ironically, what he would have
Speaker 1: probably done his campaigned on it. So Ken Thompson challenges
Speaker 1: Hines against long odds in the primary. He wins, and
Speaker 1: what does Joe Hines do. He's got to go to
Speaker 1: the GOP Kings County Executive Committee and get the Wilson
Speaker 1: Pacular waiver to allow him to run as a Republican.
Speaker 1: He pulled the sneaky political move and he used that
Speaker 1: card when he needed it. So it was something that
Speaker 1: he was always getting during all of his elections, just
Speaker 1: in case he needed it. But in twenty thirteen he
Speaker 1: actually needed it and used it and ran as Republicans
Speaker 1: to take a second bite at the apple and tried
Speaker 1: to win the race, even though he lost the primary.
Speaker 1: So now, Mark, at this point, you're thinking, this is
Speaker 1: your time. You've got Ken Thompson in. It's time to
Speaker 1: resolve this once and for all. Yeah, the idea here
Speaker 1: was to convince the incoming administration of the Brooklyn Tha's
Speaker 1: office that the Hinz crowd got this wrong and here's
Speaker 1: a chance to do right. When we did bring the
Speaker 1: case to the Conviction Review Unit, we presented them with
Speaker 1: all kinds of evidence, including literally hundreds, if not thousands,
Speaker 1: of pages of medical records of John Juca S who
Speaker 1: had the strokes that we talked about, which meant that
Speaker 1: the Avito's story couldn't have happened. We presented them with
Speaker 1: the sworn affidavits of the two women who were at
Speaker 1: that jailhouse visit, who denied that conversation ever took place.
Speaker 1: We presented them with overwhelming proof of how Angel and
Speaker 1: Albert clearly testified falsely, and how it contradicted what they
Speaker 1: told the police and contradicted all the other available evidence.
Speaker 1: We presented them with sworn affidavits of the residence of
Speaker 1: Argyle Road, who explained how they heard the car door,
Speaker 1: the voice of the young woman the car fleeing the location.
Speaker 1: And while this is in the cru we're talking twenty thirteen,
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen. Amazingly, this is when the recantations start rolling in.
Speaker 1: So in twenty fourteen, Lauren Calciano recanted. And I have
Speaker 1: some excerpts here that I want to share. She said,
Speaker 1: and this is a long quote, so hang in there
Speaker 1: with me because you have to hear every word of this. Okay,
Speaker 1: here's her quote. I have regretted this testimony since I
Speaker 1: was first pressured to claim this by law enforcement officials,
Speaker 1: I repeatedly told them that he did not have any
Speaker 1: information regarding John's a legend involvement in this crime. Law
Speaker 1: enforcement pressured and frightened me to the point that I
Speaker 1: ultimately relented and told them what they wanted to hear. Specifically,
Speaker 1: I was pressured to admit that John had told me
Speaker 1: that he gave Tony Russel a gun before Tony shot
Speaker 1: and killed Mark Fisher. She goes on to say, law
Speaker 1: enforcement officials suggested that I was involved in the after
Speaker 1: method to crime by telling me that Albert Cleary had
Speaker 1: told them that I removed a gunbag or evidence from
Speaker 1: John's house. Although this was untrue, I recognized the seriousness
Speaker 1: of this claim. Law enforcement officers threatened me with jail,
Speaker 1: told me that I could be charged with obstruction and
Speaker 1: or perjury. Adia Niccolazzi told me that if I did
Speaker 1: not cooperate with her, that police would show up in
Speaker 1: my place of employment with a subpoena. Adia Niccolazzi referenced
Speaker 1: a very personal issue between John and me, which was
Speaker 1: discussed only in our private letters. She told me, you
Speaker 1: do not want this to come out at trial. I
Speaker 1: interpreted this as a not so subtle threat that I
Speaker 1: would be publicly humiliated by the DA if I did
Speaker 1: not cooperate. Adia Niccolatzi and detectives told me that they
Speaker 1: were aware that my father was in prison and that
Speaker 1: by not cooperating with them, I was quote going to
Speaker 1: make this hard on him and my family. More than
Speaker 1: any other factor, this threat influenced me to testify in
Speaker 1: the manner that they desired. Now, this thing goes on
Speaker 1: for eight full pages, and it completely shreds the state's case.
Speaker 1: She also, in her affidavit, explained how Albert Cleary lied
Speaker 1: and that his testimony was false because I was there
Speaker 1: and he didn't say that either. In other words, what
Speaker 1: I said was not true, but what he said was
Speaker 1: not true either. And she also gave a little insight
Speaker 1: into what ghetto Mafia was. Now, she didn't testify to
Speaker 1: what it was because she was an ass but in
Speaker 1: her sworn recantation she said, I was around these people
Speaker 1: during this time period. In ghetto mafia is a name
Speaker 1: of a bunch of local kids and knuckleheads, not some
Speaker 1: sophisticated street gang. We also gave them a sworn affidavit
Speaker 1: from if you recall when we talked about Albert Cleary,
Speaker 1: the guy that he said was the boss of the
Speaker 1: gang who had spoken to John about let's catch a body,
Speaker 1: and that's why maybe Mark Fisher was shot. And he
Speaker 1: very calmly explained under oath that I was going to
Speaker 1: college in North Carolina and I was not the leader
Speaker 1: of a gang, and John and I did not discuss
Speaker 1: how to get a body or anything like that. And
Speaker 1: then John Avito recants he did. And a Veto was
Speaker 1: very seriously mentally ill, and he was a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic.
Speaker 1: We got all of his Riker's Island jail records and
Speaker 1: sure enough, he was a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic who had
Speaker 1: been taking a number of drugs psychotropic drugs, including Sarah Quill,
Speaker 1: and part of his symptoms and what Sarah Quill treats
Speaker 1: are people who suffer auditory hallucinations, which a Veto was.
Speaker 1: So it turns out that the guy who says I
Speaker 1: overheard a man who can't speak ask questions about our murder.
Speaker 1: You can't make this up, had a history of actually
Speaker 1: hearing voices and seeing snakes was another one of his
Speaker 1: visual hallucinations. We had many, many meetings with their conviction
Speaker 1: review unit, including one in the summer, I want to
Speaker 1: say a twenty fourteen, which was chaired by Ericnzalice, who
Speaker 1: at the time was not the DA. Obviously, Eric was
Speaker 1: overseeing the process, so he knew exactly what was going
Speaker 1: on here, and they declined to overturn the conviction, either
Speaker 1: on innocence or on any constitutional violations. They had Mark
Speaker 1: Hale call me to tell me. I believe the words
Speaker 1: were that the district Attorney is not going to disturb
Speaker 1: the conviction. I have to be honest with you. I
Speaker 1: was a little surprised for a couple of reasons. One
Speaker 1: because the decision is wrong. But I know Ken, and
Speaker 1: I would have expected that call to come from him
Speaker 1: given what this was. And I said that to Mark,
Speaker 1: and I asked, I'd like to hear that from Ken.
Speaker 1: So I was hoping to get in touch with Ken,
Speaker 1: and instead I got a call from Eric, who at
Speaker 1: the time was you know, the number two guy. Eric's
Speaker 1: a nice guy. We had a conversation and I told
Speaker 1: him I was disappointed that Ken couldn't find the time
Speaker 1: to tell me himself and explain his reasoning. And this
Speaker 1: was in late for and by the first couple of
Speaker 1: months and fifteen we filed the motion. It's just really disappointing.
Speaker 1: Is not strong enough for her. It's devastating, and even
Speaker 1: with ken Thompson in there that just for some reason
Speaker 1: had some sort of a block against doing this. The
Speaker 1: worst part about it for me was that all these
Speaker 1: other guys, they were like when ken Thompson took office,
Speaker 1: there were twenty five generations and that gave me so
Speaker 1: much hope, And at this point I've almost ceased to
Speaker 1: hope because of what they did to me. Although the
Speaker 1: difference between me and all those other guys is that
Speaker 1: the ada that put them in jail doesn't work there anymore.
Speaker 1: But when it came to me, when ken Thompson got elected,
Speaker 1: he didn't fire Nicolagi, so she did still work there
Speaker 1: and they covered for her instead of doing justice like
Speaker 1: they should have. I mean, there was all the pile
Speaker 1: of mountain of evidence that pointed away from me, and
Speaker 1: they just didn't care. They denied me and use what
Speaker 1: we gave them to try to counter them. In They
Speaker 1: knew that there was no way in hell that if
Speaker 1: they denied his review that there wasn't going to be
Speaker 1: a postconviction motion. So I believe that they exploited our
Speaker 1: petition to gather evidence, to cross examine witnesses and use
Speaker 1: it as discovery. And when John A. Vito and Lauren
Speaker 1: Calciano and others at risk to themselves, they're controverting sworn
Speaker 1: testimony with new sworn testimony. When they went in to
Speaker 1: see the conviction Review Unit, what the DA did was
Speaker 1: record them, swear them in, make transcripts, and put them
Speaker 1: under oath. When the Brooklyn DA witnesses were interviewed Anna Sega,
Speaker 1: Nicolozzi others, they weren't sworn. There's no record of their interviews,
Speaker 1: and the report has never been made public. It's never
Speaker 1: been shared, like so many others that they do share.
Speaker 1: But it's as if they viewed the JUCA conviction review
Speaker 1: as an exercise in preparing for a postconviction motion and
Speaker 1: locking down these witnesses to cross examined them if they
Speaker 1: testify for the defense. So now, after the cru decided
Speaker 1: for reasons I'll never understand, to pass, you got set
Speaker 1: up to file for forty motion that culminated in a
Speaker 1: reversal in February of twenty eighteen. Yeah, I got an
Speaker 1: unanimous decision that should be reversed and he should get
Speaker 1: a new trial. Well, I got the reversal of the
Speaker 1: John of Vito issue and the fact that Nicolazzi did
Speaker 1: give him benefits. The DA showed up to the witness
Speaker 1: his court hearing and kept him from going to jail,
Speaker 1: and that is leniency in a change for a ceremony.
Speaker 1: My jury should have known about that. And then I
Speaker 1: go back down to Rycker's Island, and I said there
Speaker 1: for a year and a half when the DA was
Speaker 1: contemplating a retrial, they actually so desperate to get Juca
Speaker 1: okay that they set these detectives up there to interview
Speaker 1: Russo for one reason. They want to secure his cooperation
Speaker 1: to testify against John. Now, Antonio Russo is the murderer
Speaker 1: in this case. Everybody knows it. They know it. Antonio
Speaker 1: Russo carried a gun, threatened people. Yet when it came
Speaker 1: time to potentially retry the case, they went up there
Speaker 1: for the purpose of trying to flip Russo to testify
Speaker 1: against Juca, and instead what he tells them is I
Speaker 1: did it alone with my own gun. And that was
Speaker 1: the end of their discussions. With Antonio Russo. So now
Speaker 1: you're back at Rikers for a couple of months, and
Speaker 1: during the discovery process you discover this recording that was
Speaker 1: named with a guy named Ingram Ada Nicolazzi made a
Speaker 1: recording in two thousand and five before the trial that
Speaker 1: was recording, and this was a guy who was probably
Speaker 1: trying to help himself somehow, you know. He told him
Speaker 1: he had information and he said things that she didn't
Speaker 1: want to hear because it did pretty much clear me.
Speaker 1: So they had what held this for I think was
Speaker 1: it thirteen years. This tape was not disclosed prior to trial.
Speaker 1: It was disclosed to me in twenty eighteen and Joseph
Speaker 1: Ingram was in the same cell block as John and
Speaker 1: traveled to Bellevue for medical treatment one day with Antonio Russo,
Speaker 1: and him and Russo were on the bus chit chatting.
Speaker 1: He said, Russo admitted he did this alone. I wasn't there,
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with it, none of that. And
Speaker 1: Russo admitted to Ingram that I tried to get John
Speaker 1: to take the gun after the murder. I went to
Speaker 1: his house and he wouldn't do it. He told me
Speaker 1: leave go no. And this was the exact opposite of
Speaker 1: what the trial evidence was. Again, but Harris's John got
Speaker 1: rid of a gun. Antonio Russo told Joseph Ingram John
Speaker 1: would not take the gun. But the new trial was
Speaker 1: never actualized, so for now they didn't have to contend
Speaker 1: with this evidence. In June twenty nineteen, the New York
Speaker 1: Court of Appeals reinstated the conviction that you had reversed
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen, and John went back to state prison.
Speaker 1: The New York State Court of Appeals authored a decision
Speaker 1: that is so absurd to find the logic, and it
Speaker 1: was obvious by the decision that they didn't know the
Speaker 1: facts of the case. Although they agreed with us that
Speaker 1: Nicolotze's suppressed evidence, they argued it was not material to
Speaker 1: the outcome of trial, which is reasoning, which is mind boggling,
Speaker 1: given that Nicolotzy's whole summation, as I told you earlier,
Speaker 1: was about how critical a witness a veto was, and
Speaker 1: how credible he was, and how altruistic he was, and
Speaker 1: how he established the real theory of what happened. And
Speaker 1: one would think that if the defense had known the
Speaker 1: full story about his credibility and demolished him as it
Speaker 1: should have been that would somehow have impacted the significance
Speaker 1: of his testimony. But in the five one opinion against us,
Speaker 1: they argued it wasn't material because a veto had been
Speaker 1: impeached about other things, and it was Judge Rivera in
Speaker 1: a very lengthy descent to explained why that reasoning was
Speaker 1: flawed and why his credibility on this particular issue is
Speaker 1: so important, and why the behavior of the trial prosecutor
Speaker 1: was intended to mislead the judge, the jury and defense.
Speaker 1: You don't usually see a judge of the Court of
Speaker 1: Appeals call out a prosecutor and essentially say you engaged
Speaker 1: in deliberate misconduct in violation of your ethical responsibilities. But
Speaker 1: again in Brooklyn, what's for dinner? Nobody cares. They do care,
Speaker 1: it seems, though, about bending over backwards and doing mental
Speaker 1: gymnastics to maintain this inexplicable wrongful conviction, which it seems
Speaker 1: they did when you were able to get a hearing
Speaker 1: on this Brady material, this recording that was made with
Speaker 1: a guy named Ingram in front of Justice Danny Chunn. Now,
Speaker 1: I have sworn statements and there's been sworn testimony from
Speaker 1: Russo's lawyer and from Sam Gregory that they didn't get
Speaker 1: this evidence and they would have remembered it if they did.
Speaker 1: And then we had testimony from Nicolozzie who said, I
Speaker 1: can't say whether I did or didn't, but if I did,
Speaker 1: it wasn't on purpose, but I probably did. And this
Speaker 1: was litigated a couple of years ago in front of
Speaker 1: Justice Chun, who found that the DA probably disclosed it,
Speaker 1: notwithstanding the fact that they explained why this would have
Speaker 1: been significant evidence and steps they would have taken had
Speaker 1: they known about it back then. But nevertheless, Justice Chun
Speaker 1: found that we did not satisfy our burden that it
Speaker 1: wasn't disclosed. And I just respectfully because I like him personally,
Speaker 1: but the ruling on that case is just flat out
Speaker 1: one hundred percent wrong. So that's where this is at.
Speaker 1: What I what can any of us do to help
Speaker 1: writing to the Governor's probably best right now, because I
Speaker 1: really don't see myself again justice in Brooklyn and these worts,
Speaker 1: with these judges and with this DA. So I need
Speaker 1: to get a special prosecutor appointed, and the only one
Speaker 1: who can do that for me is a governor. That's
Speaker 1: my next motion I'm pretty sure. All right, I'm going
Speaker 1: to link your website and Instagram account to keep our
Speaker 1: audience abreast of all future developments and action steps as
Speaker 1: well as if they wanted to learn more about your case. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've got briefs, transcripts, exhibits. One thing we definitely believe
Speaker 1: in is shining a bright light on this and with
Speaker 1: that we go to closing arguments. This, of course, is
Speaker 1: the part of the show where I'm going to put
Speaker 1: my microphone down, leave my headphones on, kick back in
Speaker 1: my chair, close my eyes, and just take a couple
Speaker 1: of deep breaths because I needed after this, and listen
Speaker 1: to anything else you guys want to share. So Mark,
Speaker 1: why does you take it from here? And then hand
Speaker 1: the mic off to John. And John you have the
Speaker 1: last word, and you know my last word is I
Speaker 1: just wish you all the best, and I hope we
Speaker 1: see you back in the free world home with your
Speaker 1: family where you belong, really really soon. We are always investigating,
Speaker 1: gathering and doing things. As I said, these John and
Speaker 1: his mother or his family, his supporters. Sometimes they fade
Speaker 1: out of the public eye a little bit, but there
Speaker 1: we're always getting ready to fight, and we are still
Speaker 1: looking into certain things, which, as I said, I think
Speaker 1: will at some point lead us back. They want us
Speaker 1: to be gone, but we're not going anywhere. I know that.
Speaker 1: You know, in the eyes of the Brooklyn DA at
Speaker 1: this point, they just wish we would go away and
Speaker 1: fade away, and he would do his time and Doreen
Speaker 1: would stop fighting. And why did they get better road
Speaker 1: to help them? How can he fall for this nonsense?
Speaker 1: You know? I know that's kind of how they perceive
Speaker 1: my involvement of this, and they couldn't be more wrong.
Speaker 1: I believe in this. I have no doubt that John
Speaker 1: was wrongfully convicted. I have confidence in his actual innocence.
Speaker 1: I believe to my core that he didn't commit this crime,
Speaker 1: and that's after reviewing all the evidence. And I certainly
Speaker 1: believe in know, based on my review of the evidence
Speaker 1: of the law, that his rights were violated several different ways,
Speaker 1: and that this was not a trial. What happened in
Speaker 1: two thousand and five, it was a railroading. It was
Speaker 1: just Brooklyn's style justice in the Charles Hines administration, and
Speaker 1: those skeletons are still there. It's not so far past
Speaker 1: where people are going to be willing to forget about it,
Speaker 1: and certainly we aren't, and we're not going anywhere. There's
Speaker 1: just been too much suffering for too long. You know,
Speaker 1: it's wrong palab on top of wrong palam on top
Speaker 1: of injustice, problem on top of injustices, but an ongoing tragedy.
Speaker 1: This is not only am I being effective, but my
Speaker 1: family is being crushed from this. They took my youth
Speaker 1: from me and all the experiences I would have had it,
Speaker 1: and I feel like a financial burden on my family too.
Speaker 1: I can anchor around that neck and my mother again
Speaker 1: older now I'm afraid she I pray every day that
Speaker 1: she could come home while she's still alive, but she
Speaker 1: makes it. And they took all that time away from
Speaker 1: me that I was supposed to have with her. And
Speaker 1: being in prison wrongfully is much different than being here
Speaker 1: for something you actually did. That's what me and a
Speaker 1: lot of these other guys have already been on your show,
Speaker 1: haven't common. I think is them, we understand what it
Speaker 1: feels like. That's why I feel it's not kinship with them,
Speaker 1: some of them who are even never met, because when
Speaker 1: you're here for something you actually did, I see if
Speaker 1: these other guys, they get into a routine and they
Speaker 1: just say they accepted. But when you hear ropefully, it's
Speaker 1: impossible for you to accept. You just really can't accept it.
Speaker 1: So every day becomes torture. Thank you for listening to
Speaker 1: Ronful Conviction special thanks to our amazing production team Connor Hall,
Speaker 1: Annie Chelsea, Jeff Clyburne, and Kevin Warris, with research by
Speaker 1: Lalla Robinson. The music in this production was supplied by
Speaker 1: three times OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph Makes To follow
Speaker 1: us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well
Speaker 1: as at Lava for Good. On all three platforms, you
Speaker 1: can also follow on TikTok and Instagram at its Jason Flam.
Speaker 1: That's It's Jason Flom. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
Speaker 1: Lava for Good Podcasts in association Signal Company Number one