Speaker 1: I originally interviewed Raymond Santana on the very first episode
Speaker 1: of Wrongful Conviction, which aired seems like a long time
Speaker 1: ago on October three of two thousand sixteen. I'm so
Speaker 1: excited to see what's happening for my friend Raymond. Not
Speaker 1: only is he now an activist, a clothing designer, and
Speaker 1: an accomplished and celebrated public speaker. He also launched a
Speaker 1: clothing company called Park Madison, NYC in two thousand and eighteen.
Speaker 1: And Raymond is, of course featured in the hit Netflix
Speaker 1: show When They See Us, which prepared on May thirty one,
Speaker 1: two thousand nineteen. And it's so great to see him
Speaker 1: out and about in the spotlight, spreading a good word,
Speaker 1: beaming out that positive energy that he has. I also
Speaker 1: encourage you to watch Raymond and I did a speech together.
Speaker 1: If you google my name and Nantucket project, you'll see
Speaker 1: it right away. Raymond, you deserve all the success and more.
Speaker 1: And now please listen to the first episode, the premier
Speaker 1: of raul Conviction with Raymond Antana. I came from a
Speaker 1: beautiful neighborhood, had a beautiful life. I went to sleep
Speaker 1: because September seven, who was the first day of my
Speaker 1: high school year. I was gonna be a senior. At
Speaker 1: twenty two, I was set to start college. I woke
Speaker 1: up and my life was never the same again. Cops
Speaker 1: came out with guns drawn, and I never saw freedom
Speaker 1: ever ever since after that. It's like roach Moke town.
Speaker 1: Once you get in, you're not getting mapped. On April
Speaker 1: fourteen year old Raymond Santana was arrested and charged with
Speaker 1: one of the most notorious crimes in the history of
Speaker 1: New York City, the rape and brutal beating of a
Speaker 1: woman who became known as the Central Park jogger. Five
Speaker 1: youths were arrested at nineties Street, all between fourteen and
Speaker 1: fifteen years of age. Police are still questioning some of
Speaker 1: the young suspects they believe were involved in last night's attack.
Speaker 1: Immediately following the crime, New York City Police picked up
Speaker 1: Raymond and four other teenage boys. They were interrogated separately.
Speaker 1: They were denied food, water, and access to lawyers, and
Speaker 1: they were held for between fifteen and thirty hours until
Speaker 1: each of them confessed to a crime they did not commit.
Speaker 1: And he says, so where were you? And I said,
Speaker 1: what I saw it from a distance. I was witnessing it,
Speaker 1: and he said that's not good enough. He said, you
Speaker 1: have to place yourself at the scene. You have to
Speaker 1: be right there watching it. All five of them were convicted.
Speaker 1: This is wrongful conviction. With Jason Flamm, I want it
Speaker 1: so bad, Raymond. Welcome to the show. Thank you for
Speaker 1: having me. Raymond. I want to go back and talk
Speaker 1: about your crazy life story because I lived through it.
Speaker 1: I'm a New Yorker and I remember very well seeing
Speaker 1: your face on every front of every newspaper. You were
Speaker 1: one of the most hated people in New York City
Speaker 1: at the time. Is that's fair to say that correct?
Speaker 1: You were like the face of evil. There is anger
Speaker 1: over this incident that seems to have only grown in
Speaker 1: the days since the assault occurred. I also wanted to
Speaker 1: take them after they get at jail and put him
Speaker 1: in a grilla cage in the park Zoo, the New Zoo,
Speaker 1: see if they could survive it. I think that's analogous
Speaker 1: to what they did to her. The punishment has to
Speaker 1: fit the crime castrat um. They can't only one problem.
Speaker 1: You didn't do it. That's a big problem. That's a
Speaker 1: big problem. But I want to go even further back
Speaker 1: than that. First of all, what's your where are you from?
Speaker 1: What's your family from? Let's talk about your childhood before
Speaker 1: this all came down. Yeah, Um, originally I was I
Speaker 1: was born in ham moved to the Bronx. My my
Speaker 1: my dad was from Puerto Rico. Mother was born here. Um,
Speaker 1: she's Puerto Rico and know so. Um, and my childhood
Speaker 1: was like any other childhood, right, middle class family. Father
Speaker 1: works you know at a hospital. Um he was there
Speaker 1: for about forty four years or total. Um. My mom's
Speaker 1: was a housewife. Um. It was me and my sister
Speaker 1: growing up. So you're growing up. I mean you were
Speaker 1: fourteen years old when this happened, right, Yeah. I mean
Speaker 1: and when I think about how young that is, many
Speaker 1: of the audience have kids, teenage kids. I mean fourteen,
Speaker 1: you're a child. I mean, at fifteen or sixteen, you're
Speaker 1: starting to become moving towards adulthood, right, but at fourteen,
Speaker 1: you're a child. Let's face, at fourteen, you know, my
Speaker 1: dad wasn't even thinking about all right, let me sit
Speaker 1: them down and fill out an application, right, show him
Speaker 1: how to do that, you know, show him how to
Speaker 1: take a girl on the date, like that stuff. Wasn't
Speaker 1: even coming in yet that maybe you're shaved once by
Speaker 1: then maybe not not even you're not going on dates. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're like eighth grader pretty much. Yeah, I was about yeah, yeah. Seven.
Speaker 1: So let's go back to the night of this horrendous
Speaker 1: crime and this terrible nightmare that you and the other four, um,
Speaker 1: the other four guys went through. First of all, you
Speaker 1: didn't know those guys, did you. So the case, let's
Speaker 1: talk about the case a little bit, so the Central
Speaker 1: Park Jogger case. The fact is Central Park Joger case.
Speaker 1: This was in the I guess it was in the
Speaker 1: early nineties, right, and eighty nine, right, So the crime
Speaker 1: in New York City was out of control at that time.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of fear, a lot of panic,
Speaker 1: a lot of violence, and this case hit all the
Speaker 1: trigger points because what happened was there was a woman,
Speaker 1: a wealthy woman from the Upper East Side, white woman,
Speaker 1: who was jogging in the park and at night and
Speaker 1: was attacked, dragged into the bushes and raped and beaten
Speaker 1: almost to death. This became a huge, uh flash point,
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure on the cops to figure this
Speaker 1: out real quick, right. I imagine the mayor everybody must
Speaker 1: have been calling like, get this figured out right now,
Speaker 1: So let's go, let's go to the night of the
Speaker 1: of the Climes. So where were you? What were you doing? Well? Um,
Speaker 1: it started out because I lived originally, I lived on
Speaker 1: a hundred and nineteen street in between Lexington and Park,
Speaker 1: right next to the twenty fifth Precinct. So so ironically, yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, and so some guys that I went to
Speaker 1: school with living in Taft Houses, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: roughly about five six blocks away, and that night we
Speaker 1: plan to go to Shaunburg because there was a party
Speaker 1: there that the housing project. Yeah, that's where use of
Speaker 1: and and Kevin and Corey they live over there. So
Speaker 1: so I didn't know these guys. Yeah, I didn't know
Speaker 1: these guys, and but there was mutual friends within their
Speaker 1: group and there was mutual friends within my group. And
Speaker 1: that's how we came to meet up in front of
Speaker 1: Shaunburg and talk to these guys. And then from there
Speaker 1: where just so people who are saying that I don't
Speaker 1: expect people to know this, but Central Park goes from
Speaker 1: fifty New York and it goes from Fifth Avenue to
Speaker 1: Central Park West. This crime happened in the northern section
Speaker 1: of the park around a hundred and second street, right,
Speaker 1: So naturally the cops are up there looking and they're
Speaker 1: looking for, you know, suspects in that area, but you weren't.
Speaker 1: I mean, you were still a good half a mile
Speaker 1: away at least from the crime scene at this point.
Speaker 1: So the Schenberg houses, how did you let's get to where?
Speaker 1: How did you get picked up? Where? Where did you
Speaker 1: guys go from the Schenberg House? Why did you happen
Speaker 1: to be standing somewhere that the cops would happen to
Speaker 1: look at you and say, let's grab this guy and
Speaker 1: the other guys. So what happened was that we went
Speaker 1: into the park, right, and so me just looking at
Speaker 1: something to do, yeah, because we was out out there talking.
Speaker 1: There was a bunch of guys, and then guys started
Speaker 1: going into the park in that hundred of tenn Street
Speaker 1: area right there on the corner, because that's the corner
Speaker 1: of the park. They lived right across the street from it,
Speaker 1: and so that was something that they did all the time,
Speaker 1: Like they always went into the park and hung out
Speaker 1: in that corner area on a hunt intenstory fifth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So to them that was like their backyard. You know,
Speaker 1: the Shaun Berg boys always was in the park. Um.
Speaker 1: And so we did go with the park with them. Um.
Speaker 1: And then from there we wind up traveling into the park.
Speaker 1: They did walk into the park and they wind up
Speaker 1: traveling going south into the park. Um. Now, there was
Speaker 1: some things that happened that night because it was a
Speaker 1: very large group at this time. You know how many
Speaker 1: kids we're talking over thirty kids. And you were with
Speaker 1: this group. I was with the group, but I didn't
Speaker 1: know I didn't know majority of them. I knew just
Speaker 1: the guys that I came with, and you were the youngest,
Speaker 1: the one of the youngest. Yeah, I was one of
Speaker 1: the youngest. Um. And so there were some guys in
Speaker 1: there who were rowdy, right, and so one guy did
Speaker 1: get assaulted. It was an Hispanic man. And then um,
Speaker 1: I think three people got solced by the reservoir. When
Speaker 1: that happened is when we left reservoirs in the park. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's in the park, um. And so when that last
Speaker 1: incident happened with those three people is when the group left.
Speaker 1: Like the guys who I came with, they was like
Speaker 1: we were leaving the park. And so as we left,
Speaker 1: the Park. We was on Central Park West, like going
Speaker 1: around a hundred and second street, and that's where the
Speaker 1: police came. And I got picked up at it. And
Speaker 1: so the guys who I came with, um they had left,
Speaker 1: and so I was there walking with a group of
Speaker 1: people who I didn't know, and so small, a small group,
Speaker 1: and so when the police did approach, that group scattered,
Speaker 1: and so one of the officers grabbed me. And then
Speaker 1: there was another kid who we grabbed. My name is
Speaker 1: Stephen Lopez, who I didn't even know. And then they
Speaker 1: grabbed you because you didn't run, because I didn't run,
Speaker 1: And why didn't you run? Because I didn't do anything,
Speaker 1: So there was no reason to run. Yeah, I didn't
Speaker 1: do anything, And so you trusted the cops at this point, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: I never had no dealings with them. I never had
Speaker 1: no bad experience with them, so you know, it was
Speaker 1: no reason for me to run, right, And so you know,
Speaker 1: I just I told him myself, well why are you
Speaker 1: stopping me? Because I didn't do anything, and and he pulled,
Speaker 1: he had to walk, he talking. He hit me over
Speaker 1: the head with the K talkie right put me on
Speaker 1: the wall. So I just did the war and I
Speaker 1: ain't say anything. And then he also grabbed Steve Lopez
Speaker 1: and put him on the wall. And by this time
Speaker 1: the rest of the group, that look group that he
Speaker 1: was with, they scat it. Okay, So anyway, so they
Speaker 1: take so they arrest you. Do you know why you're
Speaker 1: being arrested? No, I just want to don't. Do you
Speaker 1: know anything about the central part geography situation hadn't even
Speaker 1: gotten out, you know, no, not not nothing, because we
Speaker 1: didn't have social media back then everything like that. It's
Speaker 1: not like you were checking your phone and there's an
Speaker 1: alert that comes in from the sea. There wasn't no phone.
Speaker 1: I didn't have no phone. So okay, so now you
Speaker 1: just you know what's going on now. I don't know
Speaker 1: what's going on now. Now there was some instance that
Speaker 1: happened in the park that I saw, but you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't have nothing to do with that. So so
Speaker 1: to me, it's like, you know, it's nothing word about
Speaker 1: You're fourteen. I mean, you're probably not in a great
Speaker 1: position to attack anybody anyway. You probably the one at
Speaker 1: that point. I was, you know, ninety pounds, so yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I was a small guy, so not nothing
Speaker 1: real scary about ninety pounds. Um. So okay, so they
Speaker 1: take you to the precinct in the park, right, So
Speaker 1: again for audience, the precinct that is in Central Park.
Speaker 1: There's a Central Park precinct, that's what it's called. So
Speaker 1: they take you to the precinct and what happens next.
Speaker 1: And so I'm there with because me Stephen Lopez, we
Speaker 1: got picked up the same time. Um. There's another guy, well,
Speaker 1: Kevin Richardson gets picked up two right because also Powers
Speaker 1: goes into the park. He chases Kevin Richond down. Richardson down,
Speaker 1: He hits him in the face with the helm and
Speaker 1: he tackles him, he arrests him. Um. And so there's him,
Speaker 1: and then there's two other guys, uh, Lamart McCall and
Speaker 1: a kid by the name of Clarence. So so this
Speaker 1: is the five of us that get picked up. Um.
Speaker 1: And so we're sitting in the precinct together together. So
Speaker 1: you know, you go through like the whole taking to
Speaker 1: the pictures, you know, like a mug shot and um,
Speaker 1: stuff like that. And then they sit us in this
Speaker 1: room and they say, all right, make your phone call
Speaker 1: and had your parents come pick you up. Um. Because
Speaker 1: originally what we were given with dessappearance tickets right to
Speaker 1: appear in family court. So so you know, the charges
Speaker 1: then were like trust passing, ah, menacing, These are all
Speaker 1: like misdemeaned charges that they gave us. And so then
Speaker 1: we just had to sit and wait until um our
Speaker 1: parents came to pick us up. Right, So you called
Speaker 1: your mommy dad. I called my dad, right, and then
Speaker 1: you got him on the phone. I got him on
Speaker 1: at least, yeah, yeah, because by that time it was
Speaker 1: like maybe like ten eleven o'clock at night and and yeah,
Speaker 1: and again no cell phones back then. I want to
Speaker 1: picture here, right, so you know, if somebody's not home,
Speaker 1: they don't answer the phone. Yeah. I had to call
Speaker 1: about two or three times because he was sleep so
Speaker 1: so okay, so he answered the phone. He must be
Speaker 1: freaking out. Yeah, he's piste off, you know. Um, And
Speaker 1: so I told him, I gotta, you know, you gotta
Speaker 1: come down and pick me up. And uh, he speaks
Speaker 1: to the officer off and tell him you got to
Speaker 1: pick me up. So he does, all right. He doesn't
Speaker 1: have a car, so they said they supposed to be
Speaker 1: sending the car to pick him up, to come down
Speaker 1: and pick me up and so uh so you're sitting
Speaker 1: there for hours and hours. Yeah, and the time you're
Speaker 1: probably hungry. Yeah, all of us is in the in
Speaker 1: the room a little bit bigger than this. Um, not
Speaker 1: in the cell though, not in the cell. It's so okay.
Speaker 1: So then so so okay, So your dad comes eventually, right,
Speaker 1: eventually he can't take no. Um, all the parents show up.
Speaker 1: My dad is the last one to come. He shows
Speaker 1: over my grandmother. Um. They get there like maybe three
Speaker 1: four in the morning. UM, So he asked what's going on?
Speaker 1: So they tell him. They explained to him that it's
Speaker 1: just the disappearance ticket. We have to pay a family court.
Speaker 1: They're gonna release us. So he goes, okay, so he
Speaker 1: has to go to work. So he tells my grandmother
Speaker 1: asked my grandmother to stay. Um. So my grandmen said
Speaker 1: all right, you know, he said, he's gonna le him
Speaker 1: go take him home. I deal with him later. So
Speaker 1: he goes to work, my grandmother stays there. And then
Speaker 1: what happens is that, um, they move us out of
Speaker 1: the small room into the waiting area with our parents,
Speaker 1: and they say, like they can't let us go because
Speaker 1: the detectives won't talk to us, but they don't say why.
Speaker 1: Now it's three, four or five in the morning. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you got picked up at at a ten eleven o'clock.
Speaker 1: So now we're talking like, yeah, it's a long night.
Speaker 1: We're talking like five six in the morning, maybe even seven, um,
Speaker 1: and so, uh, you know, we don't know what's going on.
Speaker 1: We're just sitting there waiting. Have you heard about the
Speaker 1: central party? Still don't know and still don't know anything. Um,
Speaker 1: but you're sure not gonna ask a lot of questions
Speaker 1: if you got hit in the head with a radio. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right, that's right, that's right, that'll question and especially
Speaker 1: if you know that I'm gonna be released. So they're
Speaker 1: not gonna make any ways, no, you know. Um. So
Speaker 1: we're sitting in his waiting room for hours and detectives coming.
Speaker 1: They talked to Kevin, take Kevin in the room, and
Speaker 1: then he's in there for hours. So we don't know
Speaker 1: what's going on. Right, Well, it's eight o'clock in the morning,
Speaker 1: it's no By the time they've done with him, it's
Speaker 1: maybe like one too al in the afternoon, and you're
Speaker 1: still sitting there and we're still sitting to give you
Speaker 1: anything to eat. No, we're just sitting there, no water
Speaker 1: or anything. We're just sitting there, just sitting there. Time
Speaker 1: to just sit there. Yeah. And so after Kevin is
Speaker 1: I remember them taking Kevin out of the room and
Speaker 1: they don't let him come and sit with us. They
Speaker 1: you know, they take him straight out, straight out the
Speaker 1: all the office and he leaves. Um, he leaves the precincts.
Speaker 1: And so they called me in next and so I'm
Speaker 1: sitting there with my grandmother. So the detective, you know,
Speaker 1: he uh he uh. He introduced himself as detective from
Speaker 1: birth or royal. Right. He's in the room and and
Speaker 1: he says, you know, Raymond, uh, we just want to
Speaker 1: sit down and talk to you about some of the
Speaker 1: events that happened that night. And so go, okay, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, what do you want to know? And so
Speaker 1: we're going to the whole lot of questions of who
Speaker 1: I was with, who I came with, what did I see,
Speaker 1: where was I asked? Stuff like that, what time did
Speaker 1: I leave, how did I get picked up? And so
Speaker 1: you know, he doesn't he doesn't say anything to me
Speaker 1: about the jagga for a while. He talks about just
Speaker 1: what happened that night. What did I see? And who
Speaker 1: was I with? Right? And so I tell him that, yeah,
Speaker 1: I did see uh these guys assault you know, the
Speaker 1: homeless man. And I did see some of these guys
Speaker 1: through box at joggers who were running on the reservoir
Speaker 1: and and there was one kid who who did assault uh,
Speaker 1: one of the joggers. And and based on that assault
Speaker 1: is when I decided that it was time for me
Speaker 1: to lead a park. And so that lot of the
Speaker 1: question that goes on for hours, and then you know,
Speaker 1: he gets he he you know, he says to me, well,
Speaker 1: what happened to the jaga? And I said, well, what, Jocka,
Speaker 1: what are you talking about? And he says the woman?
Speaker 1: And I say what woman? I never saw a woman.
Speaker 1: And he said, so you didn't see the woman jogging
Speaker 1: center in the park and I said no, and m
Speaker 1: I said, the only woman I saw was when we
Speaker 1: first entered the park, there was a guy walking with
Speaker 1: his girlfriend and he walked through the through the group,
Speaker 1: and everybody moved out the way and let him and
Speaker 1: her pass. And I said, that's the only woman I saw.
Speaker 1: There was no other woman. And and so we went
Speaker 1: back and forth about that for a little bit right,
Speaker 1: because he kept trying to you know, you know, asking
Speaker 1: me the same questions. You didn't see a woman jogga
Speaker 1: woman was raped And I'm like, no, there was no
Speaker 1: woman raped that, Like, I didn't see anything like that.
Speaker 1: And he said, um, yeah, of course there was. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, it wasn't. And so from there that's
Speaker 1: when the line of questions saw us to change. Now
Speaker 1: things get a little more scary still, just the one
Speaker 1: detective in you in the room and your grandmother, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and my grandmother. But what happened? But your grandmother she
Speaker 1: didn't speak good English. She didn't speak She couldn't carry
Speaker 1: a conversation. She knew curse words, right, she could sit
Speaker 1: then curse you out of English words. But she couldn't
Speaker 1: carry a conversation. That's kind of funny better, Yeah, it is,
Speaker 1: especially when she used to say it. It's interesting, right,
Speaker 1: I mean that your case was based on a false confession. Um. People,
Speaker 1: I've been I've been working on innocence issues for twenty years.
Speaker 1: And one of the things people always asked about, how
Speaker 1: could anybody compass through a crime they didn't commit. It
Speaker 1: seems crazy, Why would somebody do that? You basically fucking yourself,
Speaker 1: like totally right, and I understand it. But to the audience,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people probably wanted the same thing.
Speaker 1: Why the hell would anybody do that? I mean, you
Speaker 1: really really have to be nuts to do that, right,
Speaker 1: But you're not nuts. Don't seem nuts at all. So, um,
Speaker 1: the very large percentage. Well, first of all, the first
Speaker 1: two or fifty DNA generations, forty of them involved uh,
Speaker 1: false confessions. So it's a very big number. And we
Speaker 1: know that of those very large percentage of those involved
Speaker 1: teenagers because we know that there's a thing called course
Speaker 1: compliant confessions, right, where you're basically being convinced that something
Speaker 1: good is going to happen for you if you say
Speaker 1: what the detective wants to hear, right, that you're gonna
Speaker 1: get to go home, or you're gonna get better treatment,
Speaker 1: or you're gonna get something. And there's a there's a
Speaker 1: thing called the Read method, right, which was developed in Chicago,
Speaker 1: um by this guy named Read and working with a
Speaker 1: psychologist I think he was a detective, where they basically
Speaker 1: talk you into, you know, in a very sort of
Speaker 1: smooth way, they get you to tell a story that
Speaker 1: they want to hear which may have may have no
Speaker 1: relation to the truth, but it makes their jobs easier.
Speaker 1: And then there's a lot of gray areas outside of
Speaker 1: that too that lead to false confessions, including you know,
Speaker 1: force threats, other things. Um. But so in your case
Speaker 1: because it's you know, obviously, that's what it came down to. It.
Speaker 1: It's the most powerful thing to a jury to when
Speaker 1: you hear a false confession and you're in a jury.
Speaker 1: And we've seen cases, many cases where it was DNA
Speaker 1: that proved that the guy couldn't have been the guy
Speaker 1: that did it in the first place, presented to the
Speaker 1: jury and the jury was like, they, I don't know
Speaker 1: the guy said he did it, so there must be
Speaker 1: some crazy other explanation because I'm gonna I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: look at the science. I'm not gonna believe science. It's
Speaker 1: almost like that Chris rock line, right, he says when
Speaker 1: you when you if you walk in uh, if your
Speaker 1: girlfriend walks in on you with another woman and it
Speaker 1: catches you with nag you, who are you gonna believe me?
Speaker 1: Or you're lying in eyes? Right, So it's almost like that.
Speaker 1: But anyway, so back to this, So, so you're so
Speaker 1: now you're you're there. You've gotta be getting feeling desperate
Speaker 1: by now. You've got to be exhausted, confused, tired, definitely, definitely,
Speaker 1: and over and you're overmatched. They've got they've got the
Speaker 1: whole way to the New York City Police Department behind them, right,
Speaker 1: and they've got detectives, experienced detectives. And you've got your
Speaker 1: grandmother who can alway speak English curse words, yeah right,
Speaker 1: and that's basically the team, that team Santana right now,
Speaker 1: that's right. You're a fourteen year old, ninety nine pound
Speaker 1: kids and grandma who you know, may may whip out
Speaker 1: a little English turrets, but other than that, she's speaking
Speaker 1: Spanish and this and then this interrogation is not being
Speaker 1: conducted in Spanish. So so okay, So so now it's
Speaker 1: it's you've been there for fourteen fifteen hours, by right,
Speaker 1: And now how does it turn? How does he get
Speaker 1: you into this? How did they convince you to confess
Speaker 1: to this crip? All right? So, so what happens is
Speaker 1: that the line of questions starts to become a little
Speaker 1: more forceful, right, you know, he uh, he saw us
Speaker 1: to get frustrated, He saw us to get upset at me.
Speaker 1: You know, he says that I'm not telling him, um,
Speaker 1: what it is that he wants to hear. He says
Speaker 1: that I'm holding stuff back. Um. You know, even when
Speaker 1: my grandmother intervenes, he tells him in Spanish, I'm not
Speaker 1: telling him everything. That he feels like I'm hiding things. Um.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, you have to look at the
Speaker 1: dynamics of the situation and and understand that I was
Speaker 1: a kid, I was fourtune. I never had no involvement
Speaker 1: with the law. You know, He's a season veteran detectives
Speaker 1: who do this daily and so, and he wants a confession,
Speaker 1: and he wants a confession. You know. By now, this
Speaker 1: case is on the front page in the newspaper. It's
Speaker 1: the number one thing in New York City. And the
Speaker 1: press made you guilty. The whole New York City was
Speaker 1: convinced that these were the guys who saw their pictures everywhere.
Speaker 1: Of course, they took the scariest pictures they could find
Speaker 1: of your guys, right, make it look like criminals, and
Speaker 1: and plastered those everywhere. And so, yeah, you were you
Speaker 1: weren't public enemy number one at this point. At this point, yeah,
Speaker 1: and so he knew that even there was a pressure
Speaker 1: with them to get this confession. And so so for me,
Speaker 1: what happened was that, um, there's a knock at the door, right,
Speaker 1: So there comes to knock at the door, and this
Speaker 1: detective comes in who speaks Spanish, and he talks to
Speaker 1: my grand mother and he says, listen, can you step out?
Speaker 1: Another guy and uh, he asked myrn can she step outside?
Speaker 1: And he's talking to him span he takes out on
Speaker 1: the hallway and he closes the door, and at that
Speaker 1: point the line of question becomes a little more harsher, right,
Speaker 1: it becomes stop lying to me, You're gonna give me
Speaker 1: what I want. And in that same instance, as she
Speaker 1: goes out, another detective comes in, and so the third
Speaker 1: one third third guy right, real tall detective, UM, slim guy.
Speaker 1: And he comes in and he's making a small talk
Speaker 1: with a royal and I'm just sitting in the chair.
Speaker 1: I don't know what's gonna happen. And then he gives
Speaker 1: me this look and he says, what the funk are
Speaker 1: you looking at? Right? And you know there's apartment I
Speaker 1: wants to say who me, but I don't say ship.
Speaker 1: I just stay quiet and then um, and and then
Speaker 1: he makes like this step towards me right, and I go, oh, ship,
Speaker 1: this guy is about to kick my ass right, But
Speaker 1: at that moment there's the knock. Right the door opens,
Speaker 1: my grandmother walks in, the detective walks out, and so
Speaker 1: my grandmother sits down, and I'm like, whof you know,
Speaker 1: I just got saved, right, And so you know, the
Speaker 1: Royal starts from the top, Okay, who were you with?
Speaker 1: What did you do? What did you see? What's going on?
Speaker 1: And I give him the same story, you know, during
Speaker 1: this line of question. It goes on for a couple
Speaker 1: of hours, and then it comes another knock at the door.
Speaker 1: So now the same knock comes, the same detective comes
Speaker 1: in talking Spanish, speaking Spanish to my grandmother. So he says,
Speaker 1: is this is comeback? Who did it? And the Royal
Speaker 1: says yeah, but he's not giving us what we want
Speaker 1: to hear. And so um, he pulls his chair really
Speaker 1: close up and he sits down and he starts to
Speaker 1: talk in my ear, and he's talking real forcefully, and
Speaker 1: he's not really loud, but you know, I could just
Speaker 1: I could feel the pressure on my ear from talking
Speaker 1: and he says, you know you fucking did it, You
Speaker 1: know you did it. You're going to jail. And as
Speaker 1: he starts to talk, then the Royal starts to yell
Speaker 1: at me. So I got them coming from two different angles, right,
Speaker 1: and I could just sit in the chair and freeze
Speaker 1: because I don't know what to do, right, and so
Speaker 1: there is nothing to do, and and so he's yelling
Speaker 1: in my ear and he says, you're going to jail,
Speaker 1: You're going to prison, you fucking did it. And then
Speaker 1: the Royal was yelling at me, and that not comes right,
Speaker 1: and detective let lets my grandmother back in, and at
Speaker 1: that point I start to cry a little bit, right,
Speaker 1: So now right, my this guy gets up, he walks
Speaker 1: right out. So my grandmother comes and she sits down,
Speaker 1: and now she looks at me, and she can see
Speaker 1: like something is wrong, right, and and she sees the tears,
Speaker 1: but she don't know because she doesn't see anything else happening.
Speaker 1: She just sees me, right, and then she goes, well,
Speaker 1: what's going on, and and the Royal says, no, you know,
Speaker 1: like I told you before, you know, we just feel
Speaker 1: like he's not telling us everything. He's holding something. And
Speaker 1: then he says, well, let's start from the top once again, Raymond,
Speaker 1: tell me who were you with and what did you see?
Speaker 1: And We're going through the whole story. And by this
Speaker 1: time I'm kind of beat down, right, I haven't slept,
Speaker 1: i haven't ate nothing, and so I'm just sitting there
Speaker 1: and I'm talking to him, and then comes the knock
Speaker 1: one more time. Right, the same detective comes in. He says, MS, cologne,
Speaker 1: when you come out, and she gets up right, she
Speaker 1: gets up and she walks out and the door closes.
Speaker 1: He starts talking to me, and then he gets frustrated. Right,
Speaker 1: Detective Royal gets frustrated. He starts cursing at me. You're
Speaker 1: gonna fucking tell me what I want. I'm tired of
Speaker 1: this ship, and and he bangs on the table, you know,
Speaker 1: really hard. And at this point he lunges at me, right,
Speaker 1: and I go, ship, this is it. I'm gonna die, right,
Speaker 1: And it's precinct. And so when he lunges at me,
Speaker 1: somebody stops him, right. So the whole time they was
Speaker 1: a detective behind who I didn't see. He stops him, right, So,
Speaker 1: what the fund are you doing? Starts cursing, what the fund?
Speaker 1: Is going on. You gotta get him a class e
Speaker 1: fourteen years old. I don't know that. Everybody watches talking
Speaker 1: about listening now, yeah, you don't know. You're scared ships
Speaker 1: out of your mind. See aside, Lord Nord, I don't
Speaker 1: know this stuff. And and he kicks get out of
Speaker 1: the room. Get out the room, get the royal, gets up,
Speaker 1: leaves out. The guy closes the door, right And at
Speaker 1: that moment, I'm like, whoever this guy is. He just
Speaker 1: saved my life. He's my friend, and you know, and
Speaker 1: he now I have a little hope. He says, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, Raymond, you don't know me. I'm Detective hard again, right,
Speaker 1: and and I hear what's going on, and you know
Speaker 1: it's a serious case, serious crime. And he goes into
Speaker 1: like he pitches it so well where he's like, you know,
Speaker 1: you're a good kid. You know, I know you didn't
Speaker 1: do this, but these kids didn't, these other priestincts and
Speaker 1: they're saying you did it. And I don't want you
Speaker 1: to go to jail. You know, you gotta help me here.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to help you. You want to go home, right,
Speaker 1: He just saved you, babe, just save your life and
Speaker 1: so he a terrific guy. He's that's the proof. He
Speaker 1: just saved me from getting killed in the priests. So
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, he's he has my best interests at hard,
Speaker 1: you know. And he says, you know, I need you
Speaker 1: to help me. You gotta give me some At this point,
Speaker 1: You're like, I don't want to help this guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this guys didn't get me out of here, you know,
Speaker 1: So what does he need you to do? So so
Speaker 1: he pulled out this picture of Kevin Richardson and he says,
Speaker 1: do you know this guy? And I say no, And
Speaker 1: he said what this is Kevin? And you see the
Speaker 1: scratch on his face? And I said yeah, because he
Speaker 1: had the monk shot. You can see it because you know,
Speaker 1: you can see it. And he says, well that that
Speaker 1: scratch came from the job when she was fighting them all. Now,
Speaker 1: I know, we know he's going to jail, right, you
Speaker 1: can't do them about that. But I don't want you
Speaker 1: to go to jail. So you gotta give me something.
Speaker 1: You gotta help me here, right, I'm trying to help you.
Speaker 1: You gotta help me. You want to go home, right,
Speaker 1: you gotta help me. And then he just left the picture.
Speaker 1: Then he sat back and he just waited, he just
Speaker 1: he just got quiet, you know. And as a fourteye
Speaker 1: old kid, I'm sitting there saying, I don't even know
Speaker 1: this guy, right, but I'm trying to get this pressure
Speaker 1: to stop, because if this guy leaves the room, then
Speaker 1: I gotta deal with these detectives coming back in here again.
Speaker 1: And this is all gonna start all over again. It's
Speaker 1: never gonna it's never gonna add And so you know,
Speaker 1: for me, you know, I'm a fourte ye old kid, right,
Speaker 1: what do we do at fourteen? We know how to
Speaker 1: lie to our parents, all right, And so that's what
Speaker 1: kind of mind, my king of mind was lie, you know.
Speaker 1: And and so I said, well he did it, and
Speaker 1: so I said, well he did it, and he said
Speaker 1: he did what? And he said, well he reaped the woman?
Speaker 1: And he said, all right, what else did he do?
Speaker 1: What did you see him do? Here's a clip of
Speaker 1: Raymond's confession which was used at trial. He was him
Speaker 1: anytimes he was told. And so I actually sat there
Speaker 1: in fabric of the story just involving Kevin Richardson, right,
Speaker 1: because in my mind, that's the only picture you gave me.
Speaker 1: So he's the rapist. Well, and you're going home, and
Speaker 1: I'm going home and and and I'm lying. But so
Speaker 1: what you figured out out later on, So what happened
Speaker 1: was that he said, okay, so what did you see
Speaker 1: him do? So I said, I saw Kevin struggling with
Speaker 1: this woman and he took it down, and he said,
Speaker 1: did you see him rapem? And I said yeah. And
Speaker 1: then he said, well, what about and Trau mccraig. And
Speaker 1: I go, well, I don't know who an Trau McCray is.
Speaker 1: And he said, well, hey, you know he was there
Speaker 1: and I said he was? He said yeah, he said,
Speaker 1: you know, we know he was there, and I said, okay,
Speaker 1: whoa you know, Anton was holding the all you know? Um,
Speaker 1: by the way, what's crazy about all of this, on
Speaker 1: top of all the other stuff that's crazy about all
Speaker 1: of this, which is everything, is that So we of
Speaker 1: course find out later that the woman was that was
Speaker 1: raped by one guy and one guy only, and that
Speaker 1: they knew this. So here they are. If they got
Speaker 1: the right guy among the five of you, they still
Speaker 1: got four guys that they know that they're not possibly
Speaker 1: have had anything to do with this, but they have
Speaker 1: no problem with that but they have no problem that
Speaker 1: they sleep at night, they go home their families, everything's fine.
Speaker 1: I never understand that. I don't understand it. So now
Speaker 1: they got the two guys, They got you identifying the
Speaker 1: two guys in there, and and and then the third
Speaker 1: one is Stephen Lopez. So so they said, well what
Speaker 1: about Stephen. I go, wow, No, I don't know Stephen.
Speaker 1: He said, well, he was there. You know, you gotta
Speaker 1: put him in there. He was there. And so at
Speaker 1: this point you're already deep into this tail of lying
Speaker 1: you through your teeth anyway you're like, and you're more
Speaker 1: and more tired and hungry and everything else. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: with Stephen Lopez. You know, I didn't know Stephen. Stephen
Speaker 1: was sitting out and waiting area, and um, I didn't
Speaker 1: know who he was. And he said, well, we know
Speaker 1: Stephen did it. And he said, you know this woman,
Speaker 1: you know, she lost a lot of blood and we
Speaker 1: don't know she's in the and we know that she
Speaker 1: had all these injuries on it, and it had to
Speaker 1: come from somewhere. So he said, they had to come
Speaker 1: from me, the rock, a brick, or a pipe, right,
Speaker 1: And so this is what he told me. So he
Speaker 1: actually gave me options to choose which one And then
Speaker 1: I said a brick. And he said, well, who you
Speaker 1: the brick? And I said Stephen Lopez. And so that
Speaker 1: became the brick that was introduced later on in the case,
Speaker 1: which we never there never even was a brick. Then, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: The prosecutor brought in the brick that she said was
Speaker 1: used to bash the woman's head in the driver's headed
Speaker 1: into the trial. Right, yeah, that's that's correct. What happened
Speaker 1: is that she, uh, you know, because of my statement
Speaker 1: said it was a brick that was used. Um, she
Speaker 1: brought the brick in during the trial, and she presented
Speaker 1: the brick and and and she says that this is
Speaker 1: the brick that was using the ASSAULTUM on the jocks.
Speaker 1: She held it up, She held the brick up and
Speaker 1: and powerful her jury. Right. No, definitely, and and the
Speaker 1: and the brick also the next day it was on
Speaker 1: the front of the New York news day. You know,
Speaker 1: a brick, A brick had his own front page. Each
Speaker 1: couple on the New York and said this was the
Speaker 1: brick that was used in the Dogger case. And so
Speaker 1: when they did the reinvestigation years later, um and they
Speaker 1: tested the brick. There was no blood on it. There
Speaker 1: was nothing on the brick. So they just found a
Speaker 1: brick somewhere and who knows where they got it from.
Speaker 1: That could have been on the way from the prosecutor's
Speaker 1: office come to the court house, and he picked up
Speaker 1: and said, this is it, right, Yeah, she probably had
Speaker 1: it on her desk like a paperweight from just so
Speaker 1: proud of it, right, So ridiculous, it's so fucking ridiculous,
Speaker 1: the fact that she would hold up a brick when
Speaker 1: there was no brick. I mean, we're in imagination land now,
Speaker 1: like deep into like I mean, that's kind of psychotic.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I just uh, I mean at that point, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're you're screwed. The jury scenes at and they're like,
Speaker 1: that's the that's the brick, that's that. Poor woman, these
Speaker 1: scary kids, a poor woman. Oh my god. This this
Speaker 1: fight was fixed from the beginning. This fight was fixed.
Speaker 1: Talk about a brick shit house. That's not a great analogy,
Speaker 1: but you know what I'm saying. And so afterwards, you know,
Speaker 1: he wrote everything down and then he said, you know,
Speaker 1: all right, you did great, sign it. And then I
Speaker 1: signed it. And then he said why don't you do.
Speaker 1: I used two more things for me and then and
Speaker 1: then you got to go. And I said, well what?
Speaker 1: And he said, I used to give it the same
Speaker 1: statement that you have here in front of you, give
Speaker 1: this to another detective and then do the video tape.
Speaker 1: And I said, all right. It was fine because in
Speaker 1: my mind, you know, this was the guy who saved me, right,
Speaker 1: and so he was making sure that I was gonna
Speaker 1: go home. Right. This is gonna be evidence of you
Speaker 1: not doing it right. It's right in your in your
Speaker 1: twisted mind at this point, which has been jumbled up
Speaker 1: in twenty different ways, you're thinking, oh great, this is
Speaker 1: gonna be more evidence that will prove that I didn't
Speaker 1: do it. So how did they even now? It seems
Speaker 1: like if I'm listening to the podcast, I'm saying, well, okay,
Speaker 1: but you didn't really say anything that you did it.
Speaker 1: So where is the confession come in? Right? And so?
Speaker 1: And this was really when when I heard you speak
Speaker 1: last time, I was really, uh, it really hit me hard.
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about it a lot. So how did
Speaker 1: they get you to place yourself? I mean, you saw it, right,
Speaker 1: but that's not a crime. Wit the singer crime it's
Speaker 1: not a crime. You didn't go to prison for witness
Speaker 1: singer crime. Okay, So, so so how's it now? It
Speaker 1: goes now, it goes downhill fast, yeah, because what happens
Speaker 1: is that and even the way he did it, you know,
Speaker 1: he said listen, He said, okay, So, so you saw
Speaker 1: Kevin raped the woman. You saw Stephen Lopez hit her
Speaker 1: with the brick, and you saw and trauma. Craig was
Speaker 1: holding it right, and he said, so where were you?
Speaker 1: And I said what I saw it from a distance.
Speaker 1: I was witnessing it. And he said that's not good enough.
Speaker 1: And I said, what do you mean is now? He said,
Speaker 1: you know you can't sit there and witness it from
Speaker 1: a distance because it's questionable night time. It's night time.
Speaker 1: How could you see Kevin, you know, having sex with
Speaker 1: this woman? He said, you have to place yourself at
Speaker 1: the scene. You have to be right there watching it, right,
Speaker 1: And I said okay, And he said that's the only
Speaker 1: way it's gonna be believable. Did he offer you anything
Speaker 1: to eat or drink at this time? And even the
Speaker 1: nice guy didn't even nice guy didn't do that. Nice
Speaker 1: guy came in and said, this is it, right? Here,
Speaker 1: and and and so. But you can see now, you
Speaker 1: can see daylight. You're like, I'm going to get out
Speaker 1: of here. I'm almost done. I'm almost done. I'm almost done,
Speaker 1: you know. Like like Kevin said in the film, he said,
Speaker 1: at this point, you just have to sell it. And
Speaker 1: so he says, you have to place yourself right there.
Speaker 1: You have to see everything in order to say that
Speaker 1: you saw it. You know, where were you? And I said, well,
Speaker 1: I was there and he said, okay, where And I
Speaker 1: said I was on the side and he said, what
Speaker 1: did you do? And then I said, well I reached
Speaker 1: over and I grabbed the joggers breast and he said,
Speaker 1: that's all you did, right? And I said that's all
Speaker 1: I did? And he said, okay, all right. And so
Speaker 1: and what what possessed you to say that? Because that
Speaker 1: you kind of pulled that one out of there there?
Speaker 1: I mean, you told lies already I did. I did
Speaker 1: and and and it came from me. Uh, I wanted
Speaker 1: to be believed that I was at the scene, and
Speaker 1: didn't me saying well, this was a lesser role, right,
Speaker 1: You're like like, yeah, because I couldn't say that I
Speaker 1: held could I say? Did it? Had you even grabbed
Speaker 1: a woman's breast. By this point in your life, maybe
Speaker 1: maybe it's not a woman a girl. So yeah, so
Speaker 1: you made this up, right, just to add a little yeah,
Speaker 1: because I couldn't. Couldn't already said Kevin rape and I
Speaker 1: already said Steve hit it with the brick, and I
Speaker 1: already said Anton held her. And you you know, I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people don't realize that once you
Speaker 1: say that, you're just as guilty as everybody else. Now
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's ah, exactly a part of the group.
Speaker 1: Even though you didn't play. You didn't implicate yourself in
Speaker 1: hitting her or raping her or strangling or doing anything
Speaker 1: like that. But now you're guilty as everybody. They got
Speaker 1: you know, you got me. So now what happens? And
Speaker 1: so then, um, he said, okay, you did good. You
Speaker 1: don't you know? He tells me he wants me to
Speaker 1: go another priest and he wants me to tell the
Speaker 1: same story to this other detective. And um, and then
Speaker 1: that's what I do. So they picked me up. They
Speaker 1: take me to another preescinct. Well, I sit in the
Speaker 1: interrogation room with the TV cameras now waiting for you.
Speaker 1: Things like that Yeah, well we we we come out.
Speaker 1: When we go to the priestsinct, there's cameras there. He says, Look,
Speaker 1: just walk right in. Don't look at the cameras, just
Speaker 1: keep walking right in. Um, but I still don't know
Speaker 1: what's going on because I'm trying to paint a picture
Speaker 1: for the eyes. Like, if you didn't live in New
Speaker 1: York back then, you can't imagine. This was really one
Speaker 1: of the most notorious crimes in New York history. And
Speaker 1: and that's a lot of history there, but it was
Speaker 1: I mean, it crystallized, like I said, everybody's fears of
Speaker 1: these predators roaming in the park, these scary minority kids
Speaker 1: who were like super predators. They came from superretor predators, right.
Speaker 1: They are often the kinds of kids that are called
Speaker 1: super predators. No conscience, no empathy. We can talk about
Speaker 1: why they ended up that way, but first we have
Speaker 1: to bring them to heal. There is anger over this
Speaker 1: incident that seems to have only grown in the days
Speaker 1: since the assault occurred. For a city that has been
Speaker 1: simmering for years over the issue of race, this vicious
Speaker 1: crime with young black defendants and a white female victim
Speaker 1: brings the issue to the boiling point, and these kids
Speaker 1: should be made examples for the rest of the country
Speaker 1: that if you do a crime, you're gonna get convicted.
Speaker 1: If you're guilty, you're either going to jail or you're
Speaker 1: gonna hang. So at this point, every cameras out everybody,
Speaker 1: but you still don't know. You still don't know. I
Speaker 1: still don't know. So now you're like, okay, so you
Speaker 1: go through the cameras. So what's another priest? And and
Speaker 1: I mean, uh, detective Mike she In, right, Mike Sheen
Speaker 1: uh was part of hamasan North detective squad, went on
Speaker 1: years of being movies and and and be a reporter
Speaker 1: for several different news stations. And so are going to
Speaker 1: meet him. And we go in the room and he says, look,
Speaker 1: you know, you spoke the hard again already. And I
Speaker 1: said yeah. He says, so you know what we're gonna
Speaker 1: do here, right, And I said yeah. He said, all right,
Speaker 1: we'll just tell me the same thing you're so hard
Speaker 1: again and I write it down and that time I win. So,
Speaker 1: you know, but because I'm selling it, that first statement
Speaker 1: with hard again maybe two and a half pages, right,
Speaker 1: this statement turns into like five right, because now you're
Speaker 1: embellishing the story. Yeah, because now he's pulling details and
Speaker 1: stuff and he's asking me stuff and I'm just making
Speaker 1: stuff up as we go along. Well, at this point
Speaker 1: it is easy work for him. Yeah, he could have
Speaker 1: said he could have said that you, uh, that you
Speaker 1: could kidnapped the Lindbergh baby, and I could have been like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was like yeah, yeah, that happened the same night. Yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah I did that. I was out there in California. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: helped his skelter and all that stuff. That was you
Speaker 1: It would have been like, yeah, can I go home now, right?
Speaker 1: And can I got a sandwich? At least give me
Speaker 1: a sandwich while I'm telling you the story, right, So
Speaker 1: you would have confessed anything. I wouldn't confessed anything. And
Speaker 1: this is so at this point he's got you. Now
Speaker 1: you So let's just fast forward a little bit. Okay,
Speaker 1: So now you're all of this is done, right, and
Speaker 1: you're taking away to jail to spartfor detention center, right
Speaker 1: and so, and you have a sense it's it's dangerous definitely,
Speaker 1: and you're okay, So, now how long did it take
Speaker 1: to get to trial? Um? It took us about a
Speaker 1: year almost obviously about a year and a half. So
Speaker 1: you're in jail for a year and a half way
Speaker 1: in for trial. Yeah, um, and were the other kids
Speaker 1: in the same jail with you? At this point everybody
Speaker 1: started to get bailed out, So so it was all
Speaker 1: of us that came in together and we got split up.
Speaker 1: And then what happened was everybody so Kevin got built out,
Speaker 1: You have got built out, Stephen Lopez got built out,
Speaker 1: and Trump mccraig got built out, and then I was
Speaker 1: the last one and m and then Corey was on
Speaker 1: right the island. So you got bailed out. I didn't
Speaker 1: get bailed out. I mean the bell must have been high, No,
Speaker 1: it was. It was. It started about two or fifty thousand,
Speaker 1: and then as the months went on it got lower
Speaker 1: to one fifty than a hundred and fifty thousand, and
Speaker 1: then it finally went down to twenty five thousand. And
Speaker 1: this was the time when Al Shopton was raising money
Speaker 1: to get everybody out. Um, but I don't know what
Speaker 1: happened when the King and me getting out. The money
Speaker 1: wasn't raised, Okay, so that's where it too. But um,
Speaker 1: so so then you got to trial, so they're gonna trial.
Speaker 1: Do you think did you think you're gonna be uh convicted? No,
Speaker 1: because at this point that DNA evidence is there nothing matches, right.
Speaker 1: You know, they took handprints, footprints, they took hair samples,
Speaker 1: they took blood samples, it took all of our clothes, um,
Speaker 1: and they sent it to the lab and nothing matches, right,
Speaker 1: So so you know, there's the hope. All right, there's
Speaker 1: no physical evidence to prove that we did anything. And so, um,
Speaker 1: your lawyer had a lawyer by name of Peter Orrera
Speaker 1: from the Bronx. He was originally handling my father's divorce
Speaker 1: paperwork and then he became a lawyer. All right, so
Speaker 1: you got a divorce lawyer. I got a divorce lawyer
Speaker 1: fight for your life, to fight for my life, and
Speaker 1: you let's just think about that for a second. Divorce
Speaker 1: lawyers aren't even good at divorces, exactly what I mean.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know how many of you out
Speaker 1: there have been through that, but I have. I don't
Speaker 1: want to denagram that by a lot of good divorce
Speaker 1: lawyers out there too, So I don't mean to, you know,
Speaker 1: but the fact is that's that's crazy, okay. So but
Speaker 1: he was confident, you felt, you know, you know, when
Speaker 1: I looked back at it, there was a lot of
Speaker 1: things that I felt that he could have did that
Speaker 1: he didn't do. Um. He didn't fight enough, you know. UM.
Speaker 1: And when you tried together sepally, we were know it
Speaker 1: was me and Twon mccrai and used to Salam tried together.
Speaker 1: And it's a media circus. Yeah, oh definitely. By this time,
Speaker 1: you know, the articles are being written. Within the first
Speaker 1: two weeks, there four hundred articles written about us um
Speaker 1: dissecting outline and again you got Trump saying you guys
Speaker 1: should be executed, going out of his way. Then the
Speaker 1: ad came out of it, took out an ad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he put eighty five thou dollars on the ad and
Speaker 1: the major four made the newspapers calling for the death penalty.
Speaker 1: You better believe that I hate the people that took
Speaker 1: this girl and raped your brutally. You better believe it
Speaker 1: because he's a he's an expert on this stuff. Yeah right, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: So he would have executed all five of you guys.
Speaker 1: I don't think he would have lost any sleep over,
Speaker 1: I believe, you know. I mean even years later when
Speaker 1: we got exonerated, and we we went through the lawsuit.
Speaker 1: He said, you know, it was the biggest heys in
Speaker 1: New York City history, you know. Um, So okay, So
Speaker 1: so you you're now you're you're going through this trial, um,
Speaker 1: the circus, the whole thing. You've been in jail for
Speaker 1: at this point a year and a half, which is
Speaker 1: as a fifteen and a half year old kid, a
Speaker 1: pretty big percentage of your life. So now you're there
Speaker 1: and you're still expecting that justice is going to be done.
Speaker 1: That's because you didn't do anything. And you've got DNA
Speaker 1: and I got DNA now, so so you've got all
Speaker 1: this forensic evidence and you're ready to go home. Now
Speaker 1: it's gonna be fixed. And then the verdict comes in.
Speaker 1: Then the verdict comes in. And the first trial, the
Speaker 1: first trial was chep murder, and they said not guilty,
Speaker 1: and so said okay, and then from then the rest
Speaker 1: of the charges was all guilty. Let's talk about the
Speaker 1: experience and and and you know, the tension and just
Speaker 1: thinking about you in that courtroom and waiting for that verdict,
Speaker 1: and the stomach and the pain and the everything. I
Speaker 1: can't even That's why I do this work that I
Speaker 1: do because I can't imagine what it's like to go
Speaker 1: through this. Nobody can if you haven't been through it.
Speaker 1: I'm amazed you're here smiling, laughing. You know, got your
Speaker 1: Park Madison shirt. Yeah, yeah, fashion line Park Madison NYC.
Speaker 1: I want to put it in a plug for that.
Speaker 1: So now you're now you're off the prison. Um, and
Speaker 1: then a crazy thing happens. Right, You're you're in prison
Speaker 1: for seven years you serve because you're a juvenile, was
Speaker 1: the most they can give you, right, and then you
Speaker 1: get out. Then I get out. Now you're out, and
Speaker 1: you're thinking, Okay, now I can start my life. Got
Speaker 1: an associate's degree while you're in prison, that's correct, right,
Speaker 1: So you're like, you're you're bettering yourself, doing the best
Speaker 1: you could while you're in there. And then, um, which
Speaker 1: prison were you in? Um? They said they shipped me
Speaker 1: to go to Secure Center and I served five years there,
Speaker 1: and then um, they shipped me the downstair correction and
Speaker 1: then I got released from there. I mean you say
Speaker 1: so casually to five years there? Like five years imagine
Speaker 1: five years at the Holiday Inn would be torture, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, and this is not the holiday inn. This
Speaker 1: is we're talking violence, terrible food, loneliness, all the stuff, noise,
Speaker 1: all the stuff that goes with it. Um. So you
Speaker 1: get out and now you find out that your prospects
Speaker 1: for getting employment are basically zero. Like I filled out
Speaker 1: several applications, nobody will hire me. Um, since you know,
Speaker 1: there's that question and says have you ever been convicted
Speaker 1: of crime? And you go yes, and UM, don't even
Speaker 1: get a call back. And then somebody said, well, just
Speaker 1: put we'll discuss upon interview. And then I said, all right,
Speaker 1: let's try that, and so we'll discuss the point interview.
Speaker 1: And then they call you in and said, will you
Speaker 1: want to jail? Yeah? For what isn't it right? Oh?
Speaker 1: And you're registered sex you're registered sex offender. And then
Speaker 1: if somebody does say, okay, well you know what, you
Speaker 1: went to jail for rape. Things happen, what happened, And
Speaker 1: then you go to send you paut jogger case and okay, okay,
Speaker 1: well we're just closing up for the day. We'll get
Speaker 1: back there soon as we can. Yeah, because now you're
Speaker 1: a level three or level one, like you're like the
Speaker 1: highest level of a sex offender. There is and so
Speaker 1: that's that's so there's nobody's hiring, nobody hiring, no nobody,
Speaker 1: So you still got to feed yourself somehow r Yeah.
Speaker 1: So what happens is that, um, at this point, I
Speaker 1: just for me because now it started to take a
Speaker 1: toll on me, right that I was in society. I
Speaker 1: had a nine o'clock curfew or seven o'clock curfew. Um,
Speaker 1: I couldn't get a job. You know. UM, these characteristics
Speaker 1: that are brown with me from prison, we're starting the
Speaker 1: surface now, the pent up aggression. UM, not wanting to
Speaker 1: be around a lot of people in the room, not
Speaker 1: want to be around kids, UM, not want to be
Speaker 1: around a woman by myself, right, because people start to
Speaker 1: look at that, UM walking on the eight shows on
Speaker 1: a daily basis a copy you gotta be yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: So so you got a lot of PTSD type syndrome
Speaker 1: symptoms and then and then so you got mixed up
Speaker 1: in drugs a little bit. So for me, what happened
Speaker 1: was that, you know, you know, these guys on the
Speaker 1: corner to get a lot of money. I can see
Speaker 1: it every day. They're sitting there and they're doing what
Speaker 1: they don't have to do. It and and and and
Speaker 1: in my mind it was like, well, you know what,
Speaker 1: I don't have to fill out an application for that, right,
Speaker 1: I don't you have to go to the job interview.
Speaker 1: I could just come out there. By the way, you
Speaker 1: have to understand, I believe that drugs should be legal
Speaker 1: and should be decriminalizing, tax and regulated. I've been working
Speaker 1: in Nashfield for twenty four years, even longer than this,
Speaker 1: so you're gonna find me very sympathetic on this particular subject,
Speaker 1: you know. Um. But that being said, so you got arrested. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah. So I got arrested with UH and I
Speaker 1: was charged with criminal possession with the attempt to distribute.
Speaker 1: And so you know, for me, you know, UH had
Speaker 1: a high bail, right, I had a parole hold, and
Speaker 1: I knew I was guilty of this case. So it
Speaker 1: wasn't you know, it wasn't about sitting there fighting the system.
Speaker 1: It was just about give me something that I can
Speaker 1: handle because I knew I was guilty. And now you're
Speaker 1: an adult, and now you've been through the system, and
Speaker 1: there's nothing they can show you that you haven't already seen.
Speaker 1: That's correct. Not that's scary, Not that's scary. And so
Speaker 1: you know, they gave me a three and a half
Speaker 1: the seven year sentence and I said, all right, I'll
Speaker 1: gladly take that because I was guilty. And this is
Speaker 1: where it gets really interesting. So you're back in prison,
Speaker 1: this time for something you did do. And a crazy
Speaker 1: thing happens because the guyed Mathias res who who who's
Speaker 1: serving the thirty three and uh third to life year
Speaker 1: sentence for murder and several rapes. Um. It's sitting in
Speaker 1: the prison with Corey Wise. You know Corey Wise, one
Speaker 1: of my core defendants was at this point, he's in
Speaker 1: his thirty even a half year right, never never been released,
Speaker 1: you know, never, no programs, no nothing, He's just been
Speaker 1: in prison. And he sees Corey in the yard walking around,
Speaker 1: and he approaches Corey, right, and he doesn't tell Corey
Speaker 1: that he's the person who committed the crime. But what
Speaker 1: he does is he engaged in the conversation with Corey
Speaker 1: because back in nineteen nine they was on the same
Speaker 1: house in unit right, and they had a fight over
Speaker 1: the TV. And so he comes to Corey and he says, hey,
Speaker 1: you remember me, Corey says, you know, the looks out
Speaker 1: of me says we had a fight in eighty nine
Speaker 1: over the TV, and Corey says, yeah, I remember you.
Speaker 1: And from there he starts to tell Corey how his
Speaker 1: faith and religion has changed and how he's trying to
Speaker 1: be better and do better things in life, and they
Speaker 1: engaged in the dialogue, and based on that dialogue, he
Speaker 1: never told Corey he was the person who committed the
Speaker 1: jogger case. He didn't do that. He just spoke to
Speaker 1: Corey and and the conversation made him feel a certain
Speaker 1: type of way that he felt he had to do something.
Speaker 1: And so that's where it started. Where he actually went
Speaker 1: and he talked to the prison chaplain and this is
Speaker 1: the first person that he told that, you know, somebody's
Speaker 1: in this prison for a crime that I know I did,
Speaker 1: and they've been here all this time and they're innocent.
Speaker 1: And then that's how the ball starts to roll. This's
Speaker 1: the first time you've hurt me. Shut up, because I'm
Speaker 1: just sitting here trying to like process this right. And
Speaker 1: this guy, like, he didn't just tell the story once.
Speaker 1: He told it over and over and over even till
Speaker 1: it got to Albany and and and they had to
Speaker 1: send an investigate the d S office had to send
Speaker 1: somebody to go talk to him, and he told them
Speaker 1: the story and so, and he was the sole perpetrator.
Speaker 1: That he was the sole perpetrator. He was known as
Speaker 1: the East Side slasher. All his crimes he committed by himself.
Speaker 1: All his victims had the same kind of injuries. And
Speaker 1: he had been under investigation prior to the Central Park jography.
Speaker 1: That's correct. He committed a rape in Central Park two
Speaker 1: days before the rape won the JAGA and they had
Speaker 1: some information that they were looking at him as a prospect.
Speaker 1: He had he had a scar on his chin. The
Speaker 1: lady who he raped in Central Park twins before I
Speaker 1: did him as having a scar on the chin. So
Speaker 1: one of the detectives who was looking for him, they
Speaker 1: went to the hospital and they find out who was
Speaker 1: the last person that has stitches and they found the
Speaker 1: tears reds and so this information came to uh Lynda Festi,
Speaker 1: who was the head. This information came to Lynda Festi,
Speaker 1: who was the head of the sex crimes unit, around
Speaker 1: the same time that the DNA evidence from our case
Speaker 1: came back. It was about six weeks and it came
Speaker 1: around the same time that it came back that said that, uh,
Speaker 1: there was no match, and so she had she had
Speaker 1: the information on her desk, but she chose not to
Speaker 1: either talk to us again. She chose not to entertain
Speaker 1: on alternative theory or on an alternative suspect. She just
Speaker 1: chose to go forward with this case. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: what can you even say about that? I mean, it's like,
Speaker 1: I'm so agree about it. And I wasn't the one
Speaker 1: who got victimized here, um, and there's a lot of
Speaker 1: victims here, right, the woman who didn't get justice, the
Speaker 1: society who wasn't protected from this guy who truly is evil, uh,
Speaker 1: and then the five of you guys, and then your
Speaker 1: whole families. Right. I mean that's the thing, Like, I
Speaker 1: think people need to understand that when we lock up
Speaker 1: the wrong guy, by definition, we stopped looking for the
Speaker 1: right guy, that guy is then free to go out
Speaker 1: and commit more terrible acts against innocent people, to commit
Speaker 1: a murder and I think four additional raps, right, So
Speaker 1: a murder at four rapes, that's the scorecard. If Fairstein
Speaker 1: would have done her job, which was right in front
Speaker 1: of her, it wasn't tricky, right, It wasn't like this
Speaker 1: one came with instructions, right, and all she had to
Speaker 1: do was look at it and say, yes, I'm going
Speaker 1: to do my job, my sacred duty to protect the
Speaker 1: public and the citizens of which you are one, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to investigate the obvious lead that is going
Speaker 1: to lead me to the right rapist in this case
Speaker 1: and and almost killer. And she didn't do it because
Speaker 1: it was inconvenient in some way, and she probably liked
Speaker 1: all the press she was getting them guessing and uh
Speaker 1: and as a result, Uh, it's really I can't imagine
Speaker 1: how those people must feel that we're victims of Reis,
Speaker 1: knowing that he could have been and should have been
Speaker 1: off the street and they and their families never would
Speaker 1: have had that. I can't imagine if it was my daughter,
Speaker 1: or my sister, or my mother or somebody else who
Speaker 1: he victimized. I don't know, I can't. The amount of
Speaker 1: anger is really, uh, it's hard to even a put
Speaker 1: it into words. Yeah, there's a there's a report. There's
Speaker 1: a report that's that's done by the d a's office
Speaker 1: called to Nancy Ryan Report. It's about fifty two pages long,
Speaker 1: and it tells you and why we're innocent. All the
Speaker 1: evidence and the reinvestigation as to how we're innocent. Ray
Speaker 1: has went on to even solve unsolved crimes because they
Speaker 1: because they never aboty to look into things other even
Speaker 1: though he even though it was in a neat pattern,
Speaker 1: like I said, this one was with it. This one
Speaker 1: came with instructions. So now so okay, so now we
Speaker 1: as we're nearing the end of this uh this show.
Speaker 1: So by some miracle, he ends up in the prison
Speaker 1: with with Corey and he has this moment of h
Speaker 1: he has this awakening and then he has this moment
Speaker 1: of feeling guilty, which is a bad word in this
Speaker 1: particular case. Um, but uh and then he uh he
Speaker 1: spells the beings and now you're in prison and you
Speaker 1: get the word, how's this happen? You get the word
Speaker 1: that you've been exonerating. Well, you know what happened was
Speaker 1: they bring me back down and they questioned me, right,
Speaker 1: they questioned me be us. It's not that simple for
Speaker 1: them to just let us go to them. Ray as
Speaker 1: is the sixth man right to them. We knew each other,
Speaker 1: We was in cohersive with each other, and so they
Speaker 1: have to try to find a connection and so they
Speaker 1: give me all these photos to see if I know
Speaker 1: who he is. But I don't know who he is,
Speaker 1: so I never picked him out of a photo. And
Speaker 1: so it's a year long investigation by the d a's
Speaker 1: office before they actually um exonerators. Well yeah, so they yeah,
Speaker 1: so they just had to to to string it out
Speaker 1: even a little bit longer. But then you do get
Speaker 1: get get the word that I'm exonerated. My dad. I'm
Speaker 1: talking to my father on the phone and he says,
Speaker 1: you know, I said, you know, they keep questioning about
Speaker 1: the old case. And he's like, yeah, because I got
Speaker 1: something to tell you. And I go what. And he says,
Speaker 1: because he's been watching the news and it's all over
Speaker 1: the news and he sees it and this time he's
Speaker 1: in touch with the lawyers and he goes, you know,
Speaker 1: they found a guy who did it. And and I'm
Speaker 1: like what and he says, yeah, they found them. You
Speaker 1: get come home. And I'm like, get the funk out
Speaker 1: of here. Like I was so institutionalized that I didn't
Speaker 1: even believe him. I hung up the phone on him
Speaker 1: and I said, you know what, I don't even want
Speaker 1: to talk to you no more. You just roared my
Speaker 1: day and I hung up the phone on him, right.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't until I actually got the call from
Speaker 1: my attorneys that yeah, you're gonna be exonerated. Well yeah,
Speaker 1: and then how long was it before you got home? Um?
Speaker 1: We got exonerated December five? And then I was home.
Speaker 1: My lawyer said I'll get you home before Christmas, and
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, whatever, and he got me home
Speaker 1: December twenty second. And when you when you did finally
Speaker 1: get that news that you were exonerated, and when you
Speaker 1: actually believed it, Yeah, what happened? Did you collapse? Did
Speaker 1: you like started crying? Laughing? I cried. I cried when
Speaker 1: I found out about Reds and but I was still
Speaker 1: in disbelief. And it wasn't until I actually got until
Speaker 1: I got released. They sent me to Queensboro and then
Speaker 1: they released me from there, and then for the first
Speaker 1: time I actually got to see the magnitude of how
Speaker 1: much cameras and lights, and because I never really been
Speaker 1: in that situation, that was the first time for me.
Speaker 1: So it was really overwhelming, Like it was like, wow,
Speaker 1: you know, well and now let's just talk for a
Speaker 1: minute about what life is like now I know you're
Speaker 1: doing a lot of public speaking raising awareness. Definitely. Um,
Speaker 1: I know you. Uh, every everyone knows that there was
Speaker 1: a settlement, but you, guys, I don't think you could
Speaker 1: ever pay enough for what you've been through. But um,
Speaker 1: but you're good now, right Uh and um, you got
Speaker 1: some money in the bank. Definitely. Um, I see you've
Speaker 1: got good style, right, you got your you got your
Speaker 1: he's he can't see it on the radio, but he's
Speaker 1: looking good and uh it got a great smile and
Speaker 1: so uh and now now you have a family. Yes,
Speaker 1: my daughter is twelve years old. I've been married now
Speaker 1: two years. Yeah. So I'm trying to put the pieces
Speaker 1: together back slowly, but surely sounds like you're doing the
Speaker 1: hell of the job. And I'll tell you something, you know,
Speaker 1: just just being with you and hearing that story, and
Speaker 1: and knowing that you've come through this, uh with an
Speaker 1: incredible spirit and with an incredible attitude. Uh. It's it's
Speaker 1: really it's an inspiration to so many people. I don't
Speaker 1: think you even know. And now I'm hoping that with
Speaker 1: this Wrong Flviction podcast will reach a lot more people,
Speaker 1: many of whom will have heard parts of your story
Speaker 1: or seeing the movie again in the central part five
Speaker 1: incredible movie you get a chance to see it, um
Speaker 1: and uh and I'm hoping that again that this will
Speaker 1: help to make a difference in the lives of some
Speaker 1: other people. And uh, you know, I really just appreciate
Speaker 1: you coming in and sharing your story and your strength
Speaker 1: and and hope and and uh and and wisdom and uh.
Speaker 1: You know, as a New Yorker, I want to apologize
Speaker 1: to you from all of us that you ever had
Speaker 1: to go through this um and uh. Having lived through it,
Speaker 1: I couldn't have known, you know, it was so one
Speaker 1: side of the press. I have no idea. And now
Speaker 1: to be sitting here with you now, it's really it's
Speaker 1: kind of a thrill for me to be honest and
Speaker 1: uh and and yeah, I'm I'm like I said, I
Speaker 1: just really want to thank you for being here on
Speaker 1: the show. But as thank you for having me, don't
Speaker 1: forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. It really helps. And I'm a proud donor
Speaker 1: to the Innocence Project, and I really hope you'll join
Speaker 1: me in supporting this very important cause and helping to
Speaker 1: prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot org
Speaker 1: to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like
Speaker 1: to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis.
Speaker 1: The music in the show is by three time OSCAR
Speaker 1: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
Speaker 1: Instagram at Rawnful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrangful Conviction podcast.
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam is a production of Lava
Speaker 1: for Good Podcasts and association with Sick the company number
Speaker 1: one