September 2, 2026 • 30 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Jim McCloskey grew up in church, but by adulthood he wanted nothing to do with the faith of his childhood. He pursued the life he thought he wanted, serving in the Navy, working in Japan, and building a successful career in international business. Yet by his thirties, Jim felt that something was missing. He returned to church and eventually walked away from the corporate world for Princeton Theological Seminary.
Then a seminary assignment took him inside Trenton State Prison, where a man serving a life sentence for murder insisted he was innocent. Jim wasn't supposed to get involved. But the more he listened, the more he began to believe him, forcing Jim to confront a question that would change the course of his life: If his faith demanded that he seek justice, could he simply walk away? Jim McCloskey, author of When the Truth Is All You Have, shares his story.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. Up next, we
have a story from Jim McCluskey, co-author of the book
entitled When the Truth is All You Have. We start
off with Jim sharing a bit about his childhood and
early adult life.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
My brother and I were made to go to Sunday school.
But mom and dad were completely unchurched. And so they
would just drop us off and pick us up. So
one day, when I was in fourth grade, I said
to dad, how come Rich and I have to go
to Sunday school and you and mom don't even go
to church? Well, that stung him, I guess. Maybe mom
and dad were feeling a little guilty before that, but
(00:49):
I provoked them by that question. And then they started
going to the same church that I was going to
Sunday school. They became stalwart and very active members of
this Bethany Presbyterian Church in Havertown. Dad became a very
important lay leader of the church. When I was in
grade school, my Christian faith was very important to me
(01:14):
in fourth, fifth, and sixth grade. I was fearless at
that time because of my Christian faith. In other words,
I wouldn't go along with the crowd. Peer pressure didn't
phase me in grade school, but once I hit junior high,
Then I fell into that wanting to please my peers
and their values became my values. My faith was really compromised.
(01:39):
When I was in high school, I'll never forget this,
I saw a short documentary on the nightlife in Tokyo
with all the bars and the beautiful Japanese women in
their kimonos and gaiter shoes walking the streets and all
the lights. I was just fascinated with that mysterious city.
(02:02):
And that's where I wanted to go. I wanted to
go to Tokyo. I wanted to be a quote-unquote international businessman.
I always had this obsession to work overseas. International, I
thought that was, again, a great way to live a life.
But I didn't know specifically what I wanted to do,
so I decided, well, I'm going to join the Navy.
(02:23):
And so I went to Officer Kennedy Training School in Newport,
Rhode Island in the summer of 64. While at OCS,
when you're nearing graduation, which I did in November of 64,
you fill out what they call a dream sheet. My
first choice that I put on my dream sheet was
shore duty Japan. And that's exactly what I got. That
in and of itself is a miracle. The Navy gave
(02:45):
me what I wanted and they assigned me to the
communication station in Yokosuka, Japan, which is about an hour's
train ride south of Tokyo along the Tokyo Bay. As
a commissioned 22-year-old Navy officer, I'm on my way to
the land that I've always wanted to go to, Japan.
(03:06):
Three years later, I was separated from the service, and
now I'm going to the American Graduate School for International
Management in Glendale, Arizona, to get a degree to return
to Tokyo in a business capacity. I graduated from the
American Graduate School for International Management in October of 68.
(03:26):
You know, I wanted to go to Japan, but I
couldn't find a company willing to send me to Japan,
and Tokyo in particular. So, I borrowed $ 1, 200 from my
parents as a stake, and I flew to Tokyo without
a job, no prospects for a job, but I did
have the name of a man by the name of
(03:48):
Bud Inglesby who had started up this management consulting firm,
a market research firm called Coral, and he hired me.
And so I worked for Bud for three or four years.
As it turned out, unbeknownst to me or the staff
of Coral, Inglesby secretly sold Coral to a joint venture
(04:14):
between the Fuji Bank of Japan and those days the
First National City Bank of New York. now Citicorp. And
it became readily apparent to me that I had no
future in that firm. I decided it's time to go
home to Philadelphia. Now, here we are in the summer
(04:37):
of 1974. I've come back from Japan, disillusioned, disheartened, feeling
betrayed by Inglesby. But now I'm looking for a whole
new career. And I wrote a letter to 25 different
consulting firms, including a local international management consulting firm called Hay, H-A-Y,
(04:59):
Hay Associates. Hay was the only company who was interested
in hiring me. So I was one for 25, but
I struck gold with the one, Hay Associates. Now, at
the same time, during those five years, I felt that
an important part of my earlier life, my boyhood life,
if you will, I had gone completely off track. I
(05:23):
had left the church. I wanted nothing to do with
the church. When I came home from Bucknell in my
freshman year, I said to Dad, Dad, I'm never going
to church again. And so I didn't darken the church
doorstep from when I was 19 until I'm now working
for Hay in the 70s, in my early 30s. But
(05:44):
I felt the need to go back to church and
rekindle my faith. because I felt that my lifestyle was
not a good one. My moral compass had gone south.
So I joined Paoli Presbyterian Church, which was very close
to my house in Paoli, Pennsylvania. And the minister there
(06:07):
was Dick Streeter, with whom I'm still close with today.
His message was to wash the other's feet, to give
of yourself, to help the other, to follow the the
Gospels of Christ, and that started to really take hold
within me. I was starting to become disillusioned, even though
(06:28):
things were going well, with the corporate life. I felt
I was leading a shallow, superficial, self-centered life. And in
reading the words of the Gospels where Jesus talks about
what it means to be a disciple and to follow him,
now I'm I felt I was a hypocrite leading one
(06:51):
life in darkness and at the same time steeped in
the scriptures. So this was a battle going on within
me and finally I decided after consulting only with Dick
Streeter that I think Christ was calling me to leave
the business world and become a ordained Presbyterian church pastor.
(07:17):
Which I saw that Dick Streeter, the minister of this
large congregation, he was touching the hearts and souls in
a life-changing way of a lot of his parishioners and
even people in the community. I wasn't touching anybody's heart
or soul. I wasn't serving anyone except myself. And this
(07:38):
really started to bother me deeply. And I wanted a
life where I felt I was serving others in a purposeful,
authentic way. meaningful way and I felt the church pastorate
was the way to do it just like Streeter in
79 I decided to leave not only leave Hay but
(07:59):
leave the business world and go to Princeton Theological Seminary
and when I told my boss Bill Dinsmore who was
the second top executive in the firm I said Bill
there's something I need to tell you his first words
were Jim I didn't even know you went to church
So I was still leading two different lives. It was
time for me, not that they cared all that much,
(08:21):
but to tell the world who I really am, what's
really important to me. So off to the seminary I went.
So for the next three years, I'm going to be
at the seminary to earn that degree. Two of those
three years, all of those students, all of us were
required to do field education work in hospitals, churches. I
(08:45):
chose Trenton State Prison. It was just a matter of curiosity.
I've never been in a prison. I had no experience
in any regard, in any way with the criminal justice system.
But who are these people? Who are these inmates? And
so I said, I'm going to join the program as
a student chaplain.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
And you're listening to Jim McCluskey tell the story of
his journey from businessman, international businessman, to pastor. And in
the end, returning to his youth and that connection between
the soul, his heart, and the rest of his life.
When we come back, we're going to join Jim on
that journey, the journey of becoming a pastor. More of
(09:27):
Jim McCluskey's story here on Our American Stories. And we
(10:13):
continue with Our American Stories, and we've been listening to
Jim McCluskey tell his story. Those words earlier in that
segment and in his story, my moral compass had headed south,
and that was the swing and determining factor in this
big pivot. We left off with Jim deciding to return
to church and reignite the faith he'd had as a boy.
(10:34):
Going back to church inspired him to leave the business
world and pursue a seminary degree.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
While there, he had to choose.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Required field education work, and he chose, of all places,
Trenton State Prison. Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
I was assigned to the Maxim Security Unit. He assigned
me to two different cell blocks, each containing 20 men.
in their cells, 24-7. Our role was to go cell
to cell, two afternoons a week, every Tuesday and Thursday,
from 1 to 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and just
be their friend. Talk to them. Not to evangelize. Just
(11:14):
talk about whatever they wanted to talk about. One of
the 40 men there was a man by the name
of Jorge de los Santos, nicknamed Chiefy. He was the
only one who was telling me that he was an
innocent man He did not do what he was convicted for.
And that he was serving a life sentence for a Newark,
(11:36):
New Jersey murder. Now, we were forewarned, do not, under
any circumstances, get involved in either their personal or legal problems, situation.
And if you do, you're out. You're out of here.
(11:57):
Never to come back again. Up until my tenure as
a student chaplain, that had been strictly enforced and obeyed
by all those who came before me in years before. Chiefy,
when I arrived at his cell, which was midway down
one cell block, all he would talk about was that
(12:23):
he's innocent, he got framed by the prosecutors and the
police in Newark, never killed anybody. And he was in
prison for life for the botched armed robbery attempt of
a used car lot in Newark, where whoever did this
shot and killed the proprietor of that used car lot. Now,
(12:47):
at that point, I'd never been a juror. I'd never
been in a courthouse. I had absolutely zero connection or
experience with our criminal justice system. I believed at that
time that if you were convicted, that certainly you were guilty,
that the police and prosecutors would never countenance supporting perjury
(13:07):
or in any way presenting anything other than credible, substantial
evidence of guilt, that they were as honest as the
day is long. And yet here this man is. Now,
he was 28 years old when he was convicted. He's 34,
(13:28):
35 by the time I encounter him. And he was
very honest and open with me about his lifestyle. He
was a heroin addict of Puerto Rican descent, raised in
the harshest of housing projects in Newark, New Jersey. Two
witnesses convicted him and sent him away. One was an
eyewitness who claimed that when he was driving his tow
(13:50):
truck by the used car lot, he heard gunshots. And
then he looked in his rearview mirror and And he
claimed to have seen Chiefy and another man, who he
identified as Lamont Harvey, fleeing the crime scene. The second
evidence used against Chiefy was a man by the name
of Richard Delisante, who claimed that while he and Chiefy
(14:14):
were in the Essex County Jail, Chiefy awaiting trial based
only on the eyewitness account, Delisante claimed that Chiefy confessed
the crime to him. Both witnesses against Chiefie were drug addicts.
Delisante in particular had an extensive criminal record, although that
was misrepresented at trial. As I said to Chiefie, I said,
(14:37):
come on, you're telling me not only that you're innocent,
but that the prosecutors framed you? Now, why in the
world would they frame you, Chiefie? You were a junkie.
You were basically a throwaway. And why would they conjure
up and go to all that trouble to frame somebody
like you. He said, that's just the point. The police
(15:02):
convinced the eyewitness to identify me and Harvey because that
helped them clear a case. That's all they care about,
clearing cases. The prosecutors, when you're a prosecutor, you want
to get convictions. And if you don't get convictions and
you go to trial, then when you come back to
the prosecutor's office, You're not coming back with what you
(15:23):
were there for in the first place, a conviction. So
I had a very difficult time believing that. Over time,
three months, September, October, November, I finally said to Chief,
I said, look, I'm not supposed to do this, but
I'm going to get your trial transcripts. I want to
read what the state has to say. So I did.
(15:44):
I was able to get his trial transcripts. And I
read them over the Thanksgiving holiday of 1980, some year.
2,000 pages of documents. And basically, what I learned in
reading the transcripts was essentially what Chiefy had confirmed. And
then I learned that Richard D'Alessante had not only given
(16:05):
a false, given a jailhouse confession against Chiefy, but he
did the same thing against his first cousin, Danny D'Alessante.
He claimed at Danny's trial that Danny confessed the crime
to him and Danny got convicted based on Richard Delisante's
jailhouse confession and sent away to life. So I read
the transcripts, and now I come back from Thanksgiving. Now
(16:28):
we're in early December, and Chiefie says to me, he said, look,
you've asked me a million questions, and I've answered every
question that you've posed as truthful as possible. Now I
have a question for you, Chiefie said to me. I said,
what's that? He said, do you believe I'm innocent? And
(16:51):
I said, well, yeah, I do believe you're innocent. Then
he threw out the $ 64, 000 question. Well, what are you
going to do about it? He says to me. I said, Chief,
what do you mean, what am I going to do
about it? There's nothing I can do. You know, this
is way beyond my 37 years of experience in life.
(17:15):
I don't know anything about murder. I don't know anything about...
trials and criminal justice and DAs and police. I know
nothing about it. It's a whole new world for me.
He said, well, Jim, I've been on my hands and
knees praying to God for someone to believe in me
and work to free me. Whether you know it or not,
(17:40):
whether you like it or not, you're that man. God
brought you to my cell to work to free me
and bring me home to my wife, Elena, who was
stuck by me all these years, even in my drug
addiction days. What are you going to do? He said,
(18:01):
go back to your nice, safe, little secure seminary and
pray that somebody will help free Chiefy, will help rescue
him from this wrongful conviction that you believe occurred. I said, well, yeah,
that's kind of what I was thinking about doing. He said,
If you leave me behind, knowing that I'm believing I'm innocent,
(18:23):
then you're not really a man of faith. How can
you square that with God?
Speaker 1 (18:32):
And you've been listening to Jim McCluskey tell one heck
of a tale. And it gets me to thinking about
the two questions in the Bible. The first question God
ever asks man, which of course he asks Adam, where
art thou? And the first question that man ever asks God,
and that's Cain saying, am I my brother's keeper? And
here is Jim on his faith journey in seminary, trying
(18:55):
to fashion an answer to both of those questions, God's
and man's. We continue with this remarkable story, Jim McCluskey's
story here on Our American Stories. And we return to
(19:42):
Our American Stories. We've been listening to Jim McCluskey, author
of When the Truth is All You Have and founder
of Centurion. an innocence project dedicated to freeing the wrongly convicted.
Jim had begun his seminary fieldwork in prison when he
was confronted by a man who claimed to be innocent.
(20:02):
And that's Chiefy. Jim was challenged on what he was
going to do next. Let's return to Jim McCluskey.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
And that shook me up. It struck me right to
the core of my heart and soul. This man was
confronting me with who am I? What do I really believe?
What does God expect of me? So I went back
(20:31):
to the seminary, quite disturbed by this challenge. I prayed,
I read scripture. then I came across the book of
Isaiah chapter 59 and Isaiah says in this chapter no
one goes to law honestly they lie and spin their
(20:51):
web of deceit we look for justice but there is
none truth has fallen from the public squares the Lord
saw this And was upset and wondered why there was
no one to intervene in seeking justice. And I looked
(21:17):
at that word intervene. And I said, I wonder if
this is God's sign to me to intervene on behalf
of Chiefie. And I felt that it was. And so
I went into prison the next week. Actually, a little
before Christmas. And I told him, I have a Christmas
present for you. and Elena. And so I said, Chiefie,
(21:41):
I'm going to take a year off and I'm going
to do what I can, move the ball forward to
try and free you. I'm going to start that in
a month or so after we finish our final exams.
I believe that I was called by God to do this.
So I'm doing it and we'll see how it works out.
We embraced through the cell bars and silently tears coming down.
(22:04):
We were both moved by what was going to take place.
I decided to do this investigation myself. I'm 38 years old.
I've been around the world. I know a little bit
about how the world works. Nevertheless, I was a greenhorn.
The first thing I did, I went to Newark and
(22:26):
stood at the exact same spot where Pat Pusilo said
he was when he heard the gunshots and saw these
two men Flea the scene of the crime. Through the
rearview mirror of his tow truck in darkness. And I
determined very easily and quickly it was impossible for him
(22:49):
to have seen what he said he saw based on
darkness and distance. Number one. So he's out as a
credible witness. It took 10 minutes, which, by the way,
Chiefie's lawyer never did. Now I'm going to investigate Richard Delisante,
the jailhouse confession person. Richard said he had only been arrested,
(23:12):
he'd only been convicted of two crimes, when in fact
he had been arrested 40 times as a habitual criminal
and had testified in other cases. When at Chiefie's trial,
under direct examination by the trial prosecutor, Kevin Kelly, He
(23:34):
claimed he had never testified in any other case at all.
That was a lie. And I had the documents to
prove that was a lie. Then I would write Richard
Delisante letter after letter. It took a year before he
finally agreed to meet with me. I got a call
from him in February of 1982. No amenities. He says,
(23:56):
I know who you are. I know what you've been doing.
I got your letters. I'm in the Hudson County Jail
in Jersey City. If you want to talk to me,
come on up. Later that week, I spent two full
days visiting with Richard Delisante, and he told me the
whole story. And I was taping all his conversations with me.
So we had a whole rich treasure full of conversations
(24:20):
and his confessions about all the wrongdoing he had done
in Chiefie's case and Danny's case and other cases on
behalf of this crooked, corrupt Essex County prosecutor's detective who
was his handler. And I met with the prosecutor, Kevin Kelly,
and told him all this information. I was naive. I
(24:41):
still believed at that time that Kevin Kelly, although he mistakenly,
he honestly mistakenly, convicted innocent man, when he hears this
new evidence that establishes that, he might even help me
free Chiefie. That was so naive and so dumb. And
when I told Kevin Kelly what I had, and then
(25:04):
I telephoned him. When I telephoned him months later, when
I learned even more, he hung up on me and said, Jim,
I don't give a darn. If 10 people come forward
and confess to this crime, you know, Chief, he's good
for this, and he hung up on me. One of
the most important things I did, and I got lucky,
is I need a lawyer. I can't do this by myself.
(25:27):
Paul Castellero began work on this case with me. We
were a team in late 1981. Paul was able to
draw up a very compelling writ of habeas corpus, and
we got a hearing in federal court for the federal
district judge to consider and review all the documented evidence
(25:50):
as well as witness testimony, post-conviction witness testimony. We put
Kevin Kelly on the stand. He had to account for
what we knew to be his subordination of perjury. And
I almost felt sorry for him by the time Paul
got through with him, but I didn't. On July 6th, 1983,
(26:13):
three or four months after the hearings, Honorable District Judge
Frederick B. Lacey reversed the conviction and found as a
fact that De La Sante lied to stay out of
prison and that the prosecutor knew that he had lied
and supported perjury. And on July 26, 1983, several weeks later,
(26:37):
Paul Castellero and I went down to Trenton State Prison
and picked Chiefy up, a free and exonerated man, and
brought him home to his wife in Newark that glorious day.
Up until that point, it was the best day by
far of my entire life. Now, during the two and
a half years I was working for Chiefy, I had
(27:00):
met three other New Jersey lifers who I had come
to believe were also innocent. And all three were asking
me to please do for them what I had done
for Chiefy after we freed them. Now we come to
another crossroads, which is in July of 1983. Chiefies freed.
(27:24):
I had finished my Master Divinity degree program. That was
completed at the same time. But at that time, I
was broke. However, just at that time, now I have
a choice to make. Am I going to now go
on and get ordained as a church pastor? Or... what
(27:45):
am I going to do with these three other men?
Just when I'm struggling with that decision, I received a
$ 10, 000 tax-free gift from my mother and father. They had
come into some extraordinary income from an old investment they
(28:05):
had made years before, and they gave each of us
three kids a $ 10, 000 tax-free gift. I looked at that
as manna from heaven, and seed money to begin what
I later called Centurion Ministries. I decided to establish a
(28:31):
non-profit organization called Centurion Ministries and I named it Centurion
after the Centurion in the Gospel of Luke the Centurion
standing at the foot of the crucified Christ, looks up
and says, surely this one was innocent. That's where the
name comes from. Then I began work. I started to
(28:54):
work on those three cases. Eventually, we freed all three.
Renee Santana was freed in February of 86. Nate Walker
was freed in November of 86. And DeMaso Vega was
freed in November of 1989.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
And a terrific job on the storytelling and production by
Faith Buchanan and Robbie Davis. And a special thanks to
Jim McCluskey for his work with Chiefie and with so
many others. Centurion has freed 67 men and women serving
life sentences and all again. because he answered God's calls.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Who am I?
Speaker 1 (29:42):
He asked. What do I believe and what does God
require of me when challenged by Chiefy? And Isaiah chapter
59 provided the answer for him. God had sent a
sign to me. He said, that word intervene just kept
calling at me. And by the way, you can get
to Jim's organization, Centurion, at centurion.org. Jim McCluskey's story here
(30:06):
on Our American Stories.
And we continue with our American stories. Up next, we
have a story from Jim McCluskey, co-author of the book
entitled When the Truth is All You Have. We start
off with Jim sharing a bit about his childhood and
early adult life.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
My brother and I were made to go to Sunday school.
But mom and dad were completely unchurched. And so they
would just drop us off and pick us up. So
one day, when I was in fourth grade, I said
to dad, how come Rich and I have to go
to Sunday school and you and mom don't even go
to church? Well, that stung him, I guess. Maybe mom
and dad were feeling a little guilty before that, but
(00:49):
I provoked them by that question. And then they started
going to the same church that I was going to
Sunday school. They became stalwart and very active members of
this Bethany Presbyterian Church in Havertown. Dad became a very
important lay leader of the church. When I was in
grade school, my Christian faith was very important to me
(01:14):
in fourth, fifth, and sixth grade. I was fearless at
that time because of my Christian faith. In other words,
I wouldn't go along with the crowd. Peer pressure didn't
phase me in grade school, but once I hit junior high,
Then I fell into that wanting to please my peers
and their values became my values. My faith was really compromised.
(01:39):
When I was in high school, I'll never forget this,
I saw a short documentary on the nightlife in Tokyo
with all the bars and the beautiful Japanese women in
their kimonos and gaiter shoes walking the streets and all
the lights. I was just fascinated with that mysterious city.
(02:02):
And that's where I wanted to go. I wanted to
go to Tokyo. I wanted to be a quote-unquote international businessman.
I always had this obsession to work overseas. International, I
thought that was, again, a great way to live a life.
But I didn't know specifically what I wanted to do,
so I decided, well, I'm going to join the Navy.
(02:23):
And so I went to Officer Kennedy Training School in Newport,
Rhode Island in the summer of 64. While at OCS,
when you're nearing graduation, which I did in November of 64,
you fill out what they call a dream sheet. My
first choice that I put on my dream sheet was
shore duty Japan. And that's exactly what I got. That
in and of itself is a miracle. The Navy gave
(02:45):
me what I wanted and they assigned me to the
communication station in Yokosuka, Japan, which is about an hour's
train ride south of Tokyo along the Tokyo Bay. As
a commissioned 22-year-old Navy officer, I'm on my way to
the land that I've always wanted to go to, Japan.
(03:06):
Three years later, I was separated from the service, and
now I'm going to the American Graduate School for International
Management in Glendale, Arizona, to get a degree to return
to Tokyo in a business capacity. I graduated from the
American Graduate School for International Management in October of 68.
(03:26):
You know, I wanted to go to Japan, but I
couldn't find a company willing to send me to Japan,
and Tokyo in particular. So, I borrowed $ 1, 200 from my
parents as a stake, and I flew to Tokyo without
a job, no prospects for a job, but I did
have the name of a man by the name of
(03:48):
Bud Inglesby who had started up this management consulting firm,
a market research firm called Coral, and he hired me.
And so I worked for Bud for three or four years.
As it turned out, unbeknownst to me or the staff
of Coral, Inglesby secretly sold Coral to a joint venture
(04:14):
between the Fuji Bank of Japan and those days the
First National City Bank of New York. now Citicorp. And
it became readily apparent to me that I had no
future in that firm. I decided it's time to go
home to Philadelphia. Now, here we are in the summer
(04:37):
of 1974. I've come back from Japan, disillusioned, disheartened, feeling
betrayed by Inglesby. But now I'm looking for a whole
new career. And I wrote a letter to 25 different
consulting firms, including a local international management consulting firm called Hay, H-A-Y,
(04:59):
Hay Associates. Hay was the only company who was interested
in hiring me. So I was one for 25, but
I struck gold with the one, Hay Associates. Now, at
the same time, during those five years, I felt that
an important part of my earlier life, my boyhood life,
if you will, I had gone completely off track. I
(05:23):
had left the church. I wanted nothing to do with
the church. When I came home from Bucknell in my
freshman year, I said to Dad, Dad, I'm never going
to church again. And so I didn't darken the church
doorstep from when I was 19 until I'm now working
for Hay in the 70s, in my early 30s. But
(05:44):
I felt the need to go back to church and
rekindle my faith. because I felt that my lifestyle was
not a good one. My moral compass had gone south.
So I joined Paoli Presbyterian Church, which was very close
to my house in Paoli, Pennsylvania. And the minister there
(06:07):
was Dick Streeter, with whom I'm still close with today.
His message was to wash the other's feet, to give
of yourself, to help the other, to follow the the
Gospels of Christ, and that started to really take hold
within me. I was starting to become disillusioned, even though
(06:28):
things were going well, with the corporate life. I felt
I was leading a shallow, superficial, self-centered life. And in
reading the words of the Gospels where Jesus talks about
what it means to be a disciple and to follow him,
now I'm I felt I was a hypocrite leading one
(06:51):
life in darkness and at the same time steeped in
the scriptures. So this was a battle going on within
me and finally I decided after consulting only with Dick
Streeter that I think Christ was calling me to leave
the business world and become a ordained Presbyterian church pastor.
(07:17):
Which I saw that Dick Streeter, the minister of this
large congregation, he was touching the hearts and souls in
a life-changing way of a lot of his parishioners and
even people in the community. I wasn't touching anybody's heart
or soul. I wasn't serving anyone except myself. And this
(07:38):
really started to bother me deeply. And I wanted a
life where I felt I was serving others in a purposeful,
authentic way. meaningful way and I felt the church pastorate
was the way to do it just like Streeter in
79 I decided to leave not only leave Hay but
(07:59):
leave the business world and go to Princeton Theological Seminary
and when I told my boss Bill Dinsmore who was
the second top executive in the firm I said Bill
there's something I need to tell you his first words
were Jim I didn't even know you went to church
So I was still leading two different lives. It was
time for me, not that they cared all that much,
(08:21):
but to tell the world who I really am, what's
really important to me. So off to the seminary I went.
So for the next three years, I'm going to be
at the seminary to earn that degree. Two of those
three years, all of those students, all of us were
required to do field education work in hospitals, churches. I
(08:45):
chose Trenton State Prison. It was just a matter of curiosity.
I've never been in a prison. I had no experience
in any regard, in any way with the criminal justice system.
But who are these people? Who are these inmates? And
so I said, I'm going to join the program as
a student chaplain.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
And you're listening to Jim McCluskey tell the story of
his journey from businessman, international businessman, to pastor. And in
the end, returning to his youth and that connection between
the soul, his heart, and the rest of his life.
When we come back, we're going to join Jim on
that journey, the journey of becoming a pastor. More of
(09:27):
Jim McCluskey's story here on Our American Stories. And we
(10:13):
continue with Our American Stories, and we've been listening to
Jim McCluskey tell his story. Those words earlier in that
segment and in his story, my moral compass had headed south,
and that was the swing and determining factor in this
big pivot. We left off with Jim deciding to return
to church and reignite the faith he'd had as a boy.
(10:34):
Going back to church inspired him to leave the business
world and pursue a seminary degree.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
While there, he had to choose.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Required field education work, and he chose, of all places,
Trenton State Prison. Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
I was assigned to the Maxim Security Unit. He assigned
me to two different cell blocks, each containing 20 men.
in their cells, 24-7. Our role was to go cell
to cell, two afternoons a week, every Tuesday and Thursday,
from 1 to 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and just
be their friend. Talk to them. Not to evangelize. Just
(11:14):
talk about whatever they wanted to talk about. One of
the 40 men there was a man by the name
of Jorge de los Santos, nicknamed Chiefy. He was the
only one who was telling me that he was an
innocent man He did not do what he was convicted for.
And that he was serving a life sentence for a Newark,
(11:36):
New Jersey murder. Now, we were forewarned, do not, under
any circumstances, get involved in either their personal or legal problems, situation.
And if you do, you're out. You're out of here.
(11:57):
Never to come back again. Up until my tenure as
a student chaplain, that had been strictly enforced and obeyed
by all those who came before me in years before. Chiefy,
when I arrived at his cell, which was midway down
one cell block, all he would talk about was that
(12:23):
he's innocent, he got framed by the prosecutors and the
police in Newark, never killed anybody. And he was in
prison for life for the botched armed robbery attempt of
a used car lot in Newark, where whoever did this
shot and killed the proprietor of that used car lot. Now,
(12:47):
at that point, I'd never been a juror. I'd never
been in a courthouse. I had absolutely zero connection or
experience with our criminal justice system. I believed at that
time that if you were convicted, that certainly you were guilty,
that the police and prosecutors would never countenance supporting perjury
(13:07):
or in any way presenting anything other than credible, substantial
evidence of guilt, that they were as honest as the
day is long. And yet here this man is. Now,
he was 28 years old when he was convicted. He's 34,
(13:28):
35 by the time I encounter him. And he was
very honest and open with me about his lifestyle. He
was a heroin addict of Puerto Rican descent, raised in
the harshest of housing projects in Newark, New Jersey. Two
witnesses convicted him and sent him away. One was an
eyewitness who claimed that when he was driving his tow
(13:50):
truck by the used car lot, he heard gunshots. And
then he looked in his rearview mirror and And he
claimed to have seen Chiefy and another man, who he
identified as Lamont Harvey, fleeing the crime scene. The second
evidence used against Chiefy was a man by the name
of Richard Delisante, who claimed that while he and Chiefy
(14:14):
were in the Essex County Jail, Chiefy awaiting trial based
only on the eyewitness account, Delisante claimed that Chiefy confessed
the crime to him. Both witnesses against Chiefie were drug addicts.
Delisante in particular had an extensive criminal record, although that
was misrepresented at trial. As I said to Chiefie, I said,
(14:37):
come on, you're telling me not only that you're innocent,
but that the prosecutors framed you? Now, why in the
world would they frame you, Chiefie? You were a junkie.
You were basically a throwaway. And why would they conjure
up and go to all that trouble to frame somebody
like you. He said, that's just the point. The police
(15:02):
convinced the eyewitness to identify me and Harvey because that
helped them clear a case. That's all they care about,
clearing cases. The prosecutors, when you're a prosecutor, you want
to get convictions. And if you don't get convictions and
you go to trial, then when you come back to
the prosecutor's office, You're not coming back with what you
(15:23):
were there for in the first place, a conviction. So
I had a very difficult time believing that. Over time,
three months, September, October, November, I finally said to Chief,
I said, look, I'm not supposed to do this, but
I'm going to get your trial transcripts. I want to
read what the state has to say. So I did.
(15:44):
I was able to get his trial transcripts. And I
read them over the Thanksgiving holiday of 1980, some year.
2,000 pages of documents. And basically, what I learned in
reading the transcripts was essentially what Chiefy had confirmed. And
then I learned that Richard D'Alessante had not only given
(16:05):
a false, given a jailhouse confession against Chiefy, but he
did the same thing against his first cousin, Danny D'Alessante.
He claimed at Danny's trial that Danny confessed the crime
to him and Danny got convicted based on Richard Delisante's
jailhouse confession and sent away to life. So I read
the transcripts, and now I come back from Thanksgiving. Now
(16:28):
we're in early December, and Chiefie says to me, he said, look,
you've asked me a million questions, and I've answered every
question that you've posed as truthful as possible. Now I
have a question for you, Chiefie said to me. I said,
what's that? He said, do you believe I'm innocent? And
(16:51):
I said, well, yeah, I do believe you're innocent. Then
he threw out the $ 64, 000 question. Well, what are you
going to do about it? He says to me. I said, Chief,
what do you mean, what am I going to do
about it? There's nothing I can do. You know, this
is way beyond my 37 years of experience in life.
(17:15):
I don't know anything about murder. I don't know anything about...
trials and criminal justice and DAs and police. I know
nothing about it. It's a whole new world for me.
He said, well, Jim, I've been on my hands and
knees praying to God for someone to believe in me
and work to free me. Whether you know it or not,
(17:40):
whether you like it or not, you're that man. God
brought you to my cell to work to free me
and bring me home to my wife, Elena, who was
stuck by me all these years, even in my drug
addiction days. What are you going to do? He said,
(18:01):
go back to your nice, safe, little secure seminary and
pray that somebody will help free Chiefy, will help rescue
him from this wrongful conviction that you believe occurred. I said, well, yeah,
that's kind of what I was thinking about doing. He said,
If you leave me behind, knowing that I'm believing I'm innocent,
(18:23):
then you're not really a man of faith. How can
you square that with God?
Speaker 1 (18:32):
And you've been listening to Jim McCluskey tell one heck
of a tale. And it gets me to thinking about
the two questions in the Bible. The first question God
ever asks man, which of course he asks Adam, where
art thou? And the first question that man ever asks God,
and that's Cain saying, am I my brother's keeper? And
here is Jim on his faith journey in seminary, trying
(18:55):
to fashion an answer to both of those questions, God's
and man's. We continue with this remarkable story, Jim McCluskey's
story here on Our American Stories. And we return to
(19:42):
Our American Stories. We've been listening to Jim McCluskey, author
of When the Truth is All You Have and founder
of Centurion. an innocence project dedicated to freeing the wrongly convicted.
Jim had begun his seminary fieldwork in prison when he
was confronted by a man who claimed to be innocent.
(20:02):
And that's Chiefy. Jim was challenged on what he was
going to do next. Let's return to Jim McCluskey.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
And that shook me up. It struck me right to
the core of my heart and soul. This man was
confronting me with who am I? What do I really believe?
What does God expect of me? So I went back
(20:31):
to the seminary, quite disturbed by this challenge. I prayed,
I read scripture. then I came across the book of
Isaiah chapter 59 and Isaiah says in this chapter no
one goes to law honestly they lie and spin their
(20:51):
web of deceit we look for justice but there is
none truth has fallen from the public squares the Lord
saw this And was upset and wondered why there was
no one to intervene in seeking justice. And I looked
(21:17):
at that word intervene. And I said, I wonder if
this is God's sign to me to intervene on behalf
of Chiefie. And I felt that it was. And so
I went into prison the next week. Actually, a little
before Christmas. And I told him, I have a Christmas
present for you. and Elena. And so I said, Chiefie,
(21:41):
I'm going to take a year off and I'm going
to do what I can, move the ball forward to
try and free you. I'm going to start that in
a month or so after we finish our final exams.
I believe that I was called by God to do this.
So I'm doing it and we'll see how it works out.
We embraced through the cell bars and silently tears coming down.
(22:04):
We were both moved by what was going to take place.
I decided to do this investigation myself. I'm 38 years old.
I've been around the world. I know a little bit
about how the world works. Nevertheless, I was a greenhorn.
The first thing I did, I went to Newark and
(22:26):
stood at the exact same spot where Pat Pusilo said
he was when he heard the gunshots and saw these
two men Flea the scene of the crime. Through the
rearview mirror of his tow truck in darkness. And I
determined very easily and quickly it was impossible for him
(22:49):
to have seen what he said he saw based on
darkness and distance. Number one. So he's out as a
credible witness. It took 10 minutes, which, by the way,
Chiefie's lawyer never did. Now I'm going to investigate Richard Delisante,
the jailhouse confession person. Richard said he had only been arrested,
(23:12):
he'd only been convicted of two crimes, when in fact
he had been arrested 40 times as a habitual criminal
and had testified in other cases. When at Chiefie's trial,
under direct examination by the trial prosecutor, Kevin Kelly, He
(23:34):
claimed he had never testified in any other case at all.
That was a lie. And I had the documents to
prove that was a lie. Then I would write Richard
Delisante letter after letter. It took a year before he
finally agreed to meet with me. I got a call
from him in February of 1982. No amenities. He says,
(23:56):
I know who you are. I know what you've been doing.
I got your letters. I'm in the Hudson County Jail
in Jersey City. If you want to talk to me,
come on up. Later that week, I spent two full
days visiting with Richard Delisante, and he told me the
whole story. And I was taping all his conversations with me.
So we had a whole rich treasure full of conversations
(24:20):
and his confessions about all the wrongdoing he had done
in Chiefie's case and Danny's case and other cases on
behalf of this crooked, corrupt Essex County prosecutor's detective who
was his handler. And I met with the prosecutor, Kevin Kelly,
and told him all this information. I was naive. I
(24:41):
still believed at that time that Kevin Kelly, although he mistakenly,
he honestly mistakenly, convicted innocent man, when he hears this
new evidence that establishes that, he might even help me
free Chiefie. That was so naive and so dumb. And
when I told Kevin Kelly what I had, and then
(25:04):
I telephoned him. When I telephoned him months later, when
I learned even more, he hung up on me and said, Jim,
I don't give a darn. If 10 people come forward
and confess to this crime, you know, Chief, he's good
for this, and he hung up on me. One of
the most important things I did, and I got lucky,
is I need a lawyer. I can't do this by myself.
(25:27):
Paul Castellero began work on this case with me. We
were a team in late 1981. Paul was able to
draw up a very compelling writ of habeas corpus, and
we got a hearing in federal court for the federal
district judge to consider and review all the documented evidence
(25:50):
as well as witness testimony, post-conviction witness testimony. We put
Kevin Kelly on the stand. He had to account for
what we knew to be his subordination of perjury. And
I almost felt sorry for him by the time Paul
got through with him, but I didn't. On July 6th, 1983,
(26:13):
three or four months after the hearings, Honorable District Judge
Frederick B. Lacey reversed the conviction and found as a
fact that De La Sante lied to stay out of
prison and that the prosecutor knew that he had lied
and supported perjury. And on July 26, 1983, several weeks later,
(26:37):
Paul Castellero and I went down to Trenton State Prison
and picked Chiefy up, a free and exonerated man, and
brought him home to his wife in Newark that glorious day.
Up until that point, it was the best day by
far of my entire life. Now, during the two and
a half years I was working for Chiefy, I had
(27:00):
met three other New Jersey lifers who I had come
to believe were also innocent. And all three were asking
me to please do for them what I had done
for Chiefy after we freed them. Now we come to
another crossroads, which is in July of 1983. Chiefies freed.
(27:24):
I had finished my Master Divinity degree program. That was
completed at the same time. But at that time, I
was broke. However, just at that time, now I have
a choice to make. Am I going to now go
on and get ordained as a church pastor? Or... what
(27:45):
am I going to do with these three other men?
Just when I'm struggling with that decision, I received a
$ 10, 000 tax-free gift from my mother and father. They had
come into some extraordinary income from an old investment they
(28:05):
had made years before, and they gave each of us
three kids a $ 10, 000 tax-free gift. I looked at that
as manna from heaven, and seed money to begin what
I later called Centurion Ministries. I decided to establish a
(28:31):
non-profit organization called Centurion Ministries and I named it Centurion
after the Centurion in the Gospel of Luke the Centurion
standing at the foot of the crucified Christ, looks up
and says, surely this one was innocent. That's where the
name comes from. Then I began work. I started to
(28:54):
work on those three cases. Eventually, we freed all three.
Renee Santana was freed in February of 86. Nate Walker
was freed in November of 86. And DeMaso Vega was
freed in November of 1989.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
And a terrific job on the storytelling and production by
Faith Buchanan and Robbie Davis. And a special thanks to
Jim McCluskey for his work with Chiefie and with so
many others. Centurion has freed 67 men and women serving
life sentences and all again. because he answered God's calls.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Who am I?
Speaker 1 (29:42):
He asked. What do I believe and what does God
require of me when challenged by Chiefy? And Isaiah chapter
59 provided the answer for him. God had sent a
sign to me. He said, that word intervene just kept
calling at me. And by the way, you can get
to Jim's organization, Centurion, at centurion.org. Jim McCluskey's story here
(30:06):
on Our American Stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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