September 22, 2021 • 43 mins
19 year old Anthony Klann was stabbed to death in Cleveland, Ohio in September of 1988. Two men who had a lot to gain worked with detectives to spin a narrative, claiming two other men, Joe D'Ambrosio and Michael Keenan, committed the murder on September 22nd; however, Anthony Klann was still very much alive the following night.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
On Saturday September, the body of nineteen year old Anthony
Clan was discovered on the east side of Cleveland, Ohio,
in Rockefeller Park Stone Creek. He had been stabbed in
the chest three times and his throat was slit on
the verge of decapitation. The ground around him was undisturbed,
suggesting that the murder occurred elsewhere. One of the three
(00:23):
men who came to identify the body on Monday, September
twenty six and thus began to control the narrative, had
arguably the most to gain from doing so, a convicted
rapist and drug dealer named Paul Stoney Lewis, who Anthony
Clan had once identified in another rape. The two other
men supported Stoney's narrative at trial. During the investigation of
(00:43):
fourth man emerged the victims, cuckold Edward Espinoza, who joined
the narrative and received leniency for the part he played
in the murder in exchange for his false eyewitness testimony
against his employer Michael Keenan and his co worker Joji Abrochow. Now,
some elements of the story were real and occurred on
Thursday September, but had little to do with the actual
(01:07):
night of Anthony Klan's murder Friday September. Both Michael Keenan
and Joe de Ambrosio's whereabouts on Friday night were known,
and despite Espinosa's two separate and contradictory affidavits and knowing
about the discrepancy between the two nights, the prosecution nevertheless
forged ahead, hiding a mountain of exculpatory evidence and sending
(01:32):
Joe de Ambrosio and Michael Keenan straight to death row.
This is wrongful conviction with Jason Flam. Welcome back the
(01:54):
wrongful conviction with Jason Flam. Today you're gonna hear the
story of Joe d Ambrose. You who is the sixth
person to be exonerated from Ohio's death throw in America
to be exonerated, Joe, This story is, I mean, it's
got so many twists and turns. But let me just
for the audience's sake, before I even introduce you, let
(02:16):
me just say this involves a group of cops that
were so corrupted. Forty four of them were charged with
taking money and protecting cocaine operations in Cleveland and northern Ohio.
This goes back to the eighties. Of course, it involves
a date that was changed in order to make the
case fit the facts instead of the other way around.
(02:37):
It involves a dead body found in Dones Creak that
had been stabbed and split throat and everything. I mean,
this thing, I'm not even scratuating the surface. I hate
to say it, but you lived it. So Joe, I'm
sorry for what you went through, but I'm very, very
grateful and honored that you're here on the show with
us today. Thank you very much. And with us is
(02:59):
a very you unique individual with a unique name as well.
We have Neil Cokuta, who was one of the great
heroes in this story, but who was also When I
say the unique individual, here's a guy who's a nurse,
a lawyer, and a priest. I mean it almost sounds
like the punchline and a joke, or the set up
to a joke. Right, a nurse, a lawyer, and a
(03:19):
priest walk out a bar. But then it was only
one guy, hey, and here he is, So Neil Cocute,
thank you for being here with us today. It's good
to be with you. And Joe. You're a guy who
served in the U. S. Army, right, you achieved the
rank of sergeant. Is that correct? And we're honorably discharged.
But were you a guy who had had a lot
(03:39):
of trouble with the law before this crazy thing? Haven't
tell us a little bit about your background, your upbringing.
I grew up just outside of Cleveland in the suburbs,
a little town called North Royalton, and the only thing
that was in that place was bars and gas stations
and farms. So I could kind of a country boy,
and I didn't want to stay and be one of
(04:01):
those three things, so I joined the military as soon
as I got out of high school. I did my
four years in the military, and then I got out,
honorably discharged, sergeant, out of the military. And then this
thing comes out of the blue. I mean, is it
fair to say that this could happen to you? Could
happen to anyone? Oh exactly, I'm the most common Joe
(04:22):
there could be. Truly. All it takes is one person,
no other evidence, one person to point their finger at
you and say they stood there and watched while you
killed this person, and there you go. It's so nuts
that you could have ended up on death row just
because of one person with a lot to gain by saying,
(04:42):
so write an incentivized person. So I'd like to set
this stage a bit here. This is the late eighties
and Little Italy on the east side of Cleveland, Ohio.
Very reminiscent of Tonya Ponovich's story. Actually, you know, bar culture,
lots of party and going on, And in this case,
there's coke drinking and a group of friends and acquaintances,
some of whom Joe worked with doing landscaping. And then
(05:05):
there's a bit of crossover from that group into the
drug business of a guy named Paul Stoney. Lewis So
Stony was just your local two bit drug dealer down
in the Little Italy neighborhood on the east side of Cleveland.
And Anthony Clan was one of these guys that frequented Stony,
(05:26):
as was a number of the other guys Michael Keenan
in this case at Espinosa and others hung around together, right,
And something that needs to be pointed out of here
was that months before this murder occurred back in Stoney
allegedly raped Anthony Clan's roommate Chris Longenecker, and Anthony and
(05:48):
Chris were both scheduled to testify against Stony Lewis, but
Chris Longenecker was legally blind and misread when they were
supposed to appear at court, so Stoney was released, leaving
Clan and Longannecker in danger. Now you mentioned before Mike
Keenan and Edward Espinoza, who, from what I understand, had
a landscaping business. Mike Keenan Joe's kind of co defendant
(06:10):
in this whole mess. He was the owner and Espinoza
was this foreman and Joe. Around the end of August
nineteen eighty eight, you were going to go back into
the military, but you needed to wait on your discharge
paperwork to be reissued. And while you waited, you worked
for Mike Keenan. Do I have that right? Well, I
needed a job to hold me over, and I grew
(06:31):
up in the country cutting grasses like in my blood,
So yeah, I got hired. On September one, September twenty six,
I'm sitting in the jail accused the most teneous crime
in the world. Right. But before we even get to that,
I want to talk about Thursday night, September twenty, a
day before this murder occurred. It was the events of
(06:51):
that night that were used to predicate the narrative that
was used against you and Michael Keenan at both of
your trials. While all along people had seen the victim
here Anthony Clan alive the following night, Friday September, one
of whom even gave him cab fair home. But we'll
get to that later. So let's go back to Thursday.
(07:14):
On Thursday night of this week, all of these people,
Eddie Espinoza, Mike Keenan, with Mike Keenan's girlfriend, Anthony Clan,
Joe da Ambrosio, Paul Stoney Lewis, they were on a
pub call through the Coventry area of Little Italy, and
so they were all drinking that night. And Joe admittedly
(07:35):
was part of this drinking group on Thursday night at
these different bars, and at one of the bars, Joe,
where was it where they got into the restroom fight
that was Coconut Joe's. So Anthony Clan and Eddie Espinoza
got into a somewhat violent or at least raucous altercation
in the men's room of the bar. There is some
(07:57):
suspicion that a Denny Klan was having a sexual relationship
with Eddie Espinoza's girlfriend. Anyway, that raucous scene at the
bar caused the bouncer to throw them out, and Eddie
Espinoza takes a beer bottle, slams it against the bar,
(08:17):
breaks it in half, and starts threatening people. And so
they're thrown out and the night moves on, the police come,
everybody assures them that they're calmed down, there won't be
any problem, and they go home. So we've got Eddie
Espinoza who's already in conflict with Tony Klan over something
(08:39):
which we suspect as a triangular romantic relationship. And we
got Paul Stoney Lewis, who's involved with Anthony Klan because
Anthony Klan is a witness to this rape with Christopher Longenecker.
And you've got both of those people who are involved
with Anthony Klan from different perspectives. Oh so we're gonna
(09:00):
come back to Thursday night and what eventually becomes the
narrative of the case against Joe and Mike Keenan in
a minute. But first let's talk about what we know.
On Saturday, September twenty, nineteen year old Anthony Klan's body
was found by a jagger on the east side of
Cleveland and Rockefeller Parks, Don't Brook or Don't Creek, depending
on who you're talking to, the different names for it.
He had sustained multiple stab wolence to the chest and
(09:24):
his throat had been slit so deeply that he had
nearly been decapitated. Now, no murder weapon was ever found,
and the body went unclaimed until Monday. That Monday, an
anonymous caller called in to the morgue and asked if
there was a nineteen year old kid? Does he have
(09:45):
this color hair, these color eyes, these tattoos and these
marks on his hands and wrists? And the detective got
on the phone and the detectives like, yes, we have him.
Can you come down own and please identify him? The
guy he wouldn't identify himself, and then he hung up. Wow. Well,
(10:07):
shortly after that, Stony Foot and Adam Flannic all went
down to the morgue and identified Anthony. But the thing is,
how did Stoney know about the defensive wounds on Anthony's
hands in arms. All there was in the paper was
a little blurb that an unidentified white male was found
(10:29):
in Don't Creek and that was it, right, So at least,
it appears that the person on the phone knew things
that only someone involved could have possibly known. And then, surprise, surprise,
right after the Carter's office got this anonymous call, who
shows up but Paul Stoney, Lewis, James Russell, or as
Joe called him, Foot, and Adam Flannic, three of the
(10:50):
witnesses that helped with Joe and Mike Keenan on death throw.
Now these three men identify the body, and the narrative
began to build that the murder happened on the night
you were all out together at the bar, which was Thursday,
which is when Stony went home early. However, the murder
actually occurred on Friday. Eventually, investigators caught up with the
(11:13):
guy who had fought with Clan on Thursday, Tony Klan's
cuckoled Edward Espinoza, who gave police a false eyewitness account
claiming to have witnessed Joe and Mike Keenan commit the murder.
Eddie Espinoza refers to him as little Tony, and supposedly
little Tony is his best buddy, and he's going to
do everything he can to protect little Tony all along
(11:37):
the way, and so Eddie Espinoza gets arrested and taken
down to the station and he swears out an affidavit
that lists all of the dates, times, places, people and everything.
And then when the police come in and look at this,
they realized that what Eddie Espinoza has put down in
(11:59):
his the David does not fit the narrative that they
want to paint of this case, and so they have
him swear out another half the David that literally gives
different day, different times, different places, so that the police
can paint their narrative at both of those after David's
(12:22):
to this very day, they exist in the file and
you can put them side by side and you can
see that somebody coached Eddie Espinoza to change his story up. Wow.
They were like, no, no, that one's not so great
a mind doing that over and we'll just give you
a little bit of there. Within forty eight hours of
(12:43):
each other, two distinct aff the Davits sworn out by
Eddie Espinoza. And then how in the world can anybody
take anything that guy says seriously? After that, well, you know,
when they want to get somebody, they get somebody, And
Eddie Espinoza has a violent history. He was also in
the service, dishonorably discharged for drugs and for violent behavior.
(13:04):
So you've got a guy with a violent history and
a motive to kill as the spurned, cuckolded boyfriend of
the woman with whom Anthony Clan was having an affair,
and in his narrative events after his fight with Anthony
Klan at the bar, he and Joe headed back to
Joe's apartment around one thirty am, at which point Mike
Keenan drove up and told them that Stony had stolen
(13:26):
drugs from him. Espinoza grabbed the bat, Joe grabbed a knife,
and the three of them drove around looking for Paul Stony.
Lewis Now again, what about this so far as true?
Guess what, none of this shit evening matters because this
is Thursday night, not the night of the murder, which
was Friday. So lies truth. It's utterly meaningless to even
(13:48):
debate it. Now, another two witnesses supported this narrative, Carolyn
rosel and her friend you'll remember him, James Russell, you
know his dictam his foot said that the three men
knocked on Roselle's door looking for Stoney at around three Am.
After this encounter, Espinoza's narrative continues, saying that while driving along,
they eventually saw Anthony Klan walk on the side of
(14:09):
the road, forced him into the back seat, interrogated him
about Stoney's whereabouts, and after Espinoza hit him with a bat,
Clan told them Stoney's address, and the men proceed to
Stony's apartment building. Now, according to Stoney's neighbor you'll remember him,
of course, Adam Flannic, he first heard the group yelling
at at banging on Stoney's door, saying I want my
dope or I want my coke. So Plannic continued to
(14:32):
claim to be able to see down into the car
where you Joe were allegedly pointing a knife up to
Anthony Clan's jaw, a view that would be totally impossible
from any advantage point because of how the back seats
and Kenyans pick up base one another. Well, we still
don't know what Plantic had to gain from saying that
(14:52):
maybe he was involved, maybe he was coerced, who knows,
maybe he was even confused. But what we do know
is that again, it really just doesn't matter, because Anthony
Klan was not murdered that night, but the following night. Anyway,
back to Espinoza's narrative, the three men went back to
Roselle's where they issued a warning for result to deliver
(15:15):
to Stony that there was a quote contract out on
him and that they had Clan in the car who
was quote dead meat. Espinoza goes on to say the
Klan eventually escaped from the car. Keenan allegedly then told
Joe to finish him off, and then Joe allegedly ran
after Clan. Clan begged for his life while Joe allegedly
(15:35):
killed him with a knife. Again, this is a bogus
recollection of Thursday night, and we know this because we
later found out that Klan was seen alive again at
Coconut Joe's on Friday night. He got drunk and was
given kempair by the barmaid. So that was Friday night,
the night after this alleged Stony Lewis search party happened
(15:57):
and Joe on Friday, your whereabouts were totally accounted for, correct.
I was getting near being able to go back into
the military, and I was getting evicted, so I was
having an eviction party that night's and there was a
bunch of people that were over all night long. But
the problem was, I'm terrible with names. Later, when we
(16:19):
were able to identify some of the names that Joe
was talking about people who were indeed at that inviction party,
one of them mentioned to me that on that Friday night,
they were all gathered at Joe's apartment and they were
watching a football game. And so I'm like, who's got
a Friday night football game? I'm doing this ten years later.
(16:41):
So I literally ended up doing some research at the
Cuyahoga County Public Library for old editions of the Cleveland
Playing Dealer, and I was looking through the high school
games that were being played on Friday night, and one
of them was Brush High School on the East side Cleveland,
and names that we literally discovered later were there. And
(17:06):
remember watching that particular game, And that's the night that
the murder actually took place, not the night that was
sort of substituted. So you had all these people that
could exonerate you, but you had no way to subpoena
them to testify because you didn't have full names and numbers,
nor did you have lawyers who were even particularly interested.
And then you've got these guys who you've been working
(17:28):
or just partying with for about the last month, who
are all spinning a narrative together to close this case
for the authorities on you and your boss, Mike Keenan,
And of course I'm talking about Espinosa and Stony Lewis
would probably have thrown their own mother under the bus
in order to save themselves from death row. Exactly So,
because I barely knew any of these people, I think
(17:49):
myself that it was Paul Stoney, Lewis and Espinoza together
killed Anthony because they both knew facts that only the
murder or would know, and then they were able to
point their finger elsewhere. So three men ultimately were charged
with this gruesome murder, Michael Keenan, Edward Espinoza, and you, Joe.
(18:13):
And it's important again to note that exchange for his
testimony against you and Keenan, who were tried separately, Espinoza
pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was given the lesser sentence
of fifteen to seventy five years in prison. So we
know what his motivation was. And this is a guy
who we know is a liar. You don't have to
say he's a liar. You can't signed to sworn affidavits
(18:36):
that are totally different within forty eight hours of each
other and not be lying. Okay, let's get to the trial.
Tell us a little about your representation. It should be
lack there of representation. If my attorneys would have believed
me and did a little bit of investigation, I never
(18:56):
would have been convicted because father Neil, ten years after
the fact, was finding all this evidence with little work.
So my attorneys did very little. One was running from
mayor of a little town at the time and couldn't
be bothered, and the other one just didn't want anything
to do with me because they didn't believe me from
(19:17):
day one that I had nothing to do with this,
because they were the ones that talked me into going
with the three judge panel because I didn't know no better.
You have to do very little work as an attorney
for a three judge panel case. So the trial took
place on February nine, and the Cuyahoga Court of Common Pleas,
as you said, in front of a three judge panel.
(19:39):
The prosecutor was Carmen Marino. Now important to note that
no murder weapon was ever found in this case, right
So how the hell do you send a guy much
less too to death row with no murder weapon and
no physical evidence. Well, back then, I used to hunt
and fish, and I had my hunting knives. So when
(20:03):
they came and illegally entered my house and arrested me,
they took my knives, and all three of my knives
tested negative for blood. Yet throughout the whole trial they
waved them around and called him the murder weapons. So
they're parading around false evidence. What the hell else was
presented against you? Most of the time on the stand
(20:26):
was covered by Espinosa and Paul Stoney. Lewis you know
when the two real murderers are taking the stand and
they're backed up by the prosecutor, and then you throw
in this joke of a corner we had that all
she ever did was rubber stamp. Whatever the cops said,
that was their whole prosecution. And Espinosa said he stood
(20:49):
there and watched why me and Mike Keenan killed Anthony Klan.
Stoney says, the night that Anthony was killed was the
night that we were in the bars. A very very
important problem with this is that he mixed up September September.
What it was is they wouldn't say dates. All they
(21:10):
kept saying is on the night when we went to
the bar, when we were there, when we were all together,
nobody used a date. And were you elbowing your lawyer
going hey, hey, hey, that's the wrong You bet. They
did bring up the idea that the state was painting
the wrong day because the day that you were at
the bar was tequila Knight, right, And so tequila Knight
(21:32):
was Thursday, not Friday. And you even had the proprietor
of the bar, Stephen Gaines I believe was his name, Yes,
Stephen Gaines, literally came and took the stand and said
these men were there on tequila Night Thursday, not Friday.
So this discrepancy was actually clearly pointed out. And I mean,
(21:54):
do you even have any theory whatsoever about how this
three junge panel could have been so mind and gotten
this so totally wrong. You know, you've got anybody that
might have been put on the stand for Joe's case
were not available at the time of the trial to
establish that alibi for Joe, or to even be there
is a character witness, And so you put that up
(22:15):
against Eddie Espinoza as suspect as he may be, but
he's claiming to be an eyewitness to this, and it
literally becomes you know, where's the greater weight of the
evidence of the credibility? And you know, the three judge panel,
who were all former prosecutors, have that prosecutorial bent and
(22:36):
they're going to lean that way to begin with. See,
the one thing that I made my attorneys do is
let me testify. And I figured if I could get
up there and tell the truth, the judges would be like,
come on this, this case is just wrong, you know,
and release me. So my attorneys threw me up there cold.
(22:57):
They didn't give me any preparation. They didn't have checked
when the prosecutor just tore me to pieces. They kept
telling me online, I'm just saying all this to save
my life. But the sad part is they had evidence
that proved that everything I said was true, and they
(23:17):
hid it from me. In a blink of an eye,
my trial is over with. I have the shortest that
penalty trial in the state of Ohio history, two and
three quarter days from let's start until you die. You know,
you hear that they're going to pass thirty thousand bolts
through your body until you are dead for something I
(23:38):
had nothing to do with. So I was ordained in
and I was reading a cat like newsweek called National
(24:02):
Catholic Reporter, and in that there was a brother Patrick
Byrd from Texas who had his own death Row penpel ministry,
and he was looking for people to join him in
writing to death row inmates. I eventually started writing to many, many,
many of the inmates and became pen pals with them,
(24:22):
including Joe and in December Dorothy da Ambrosio, Joe's mother
passed away here in Cleveland. I found out about it
through the obituaries in the newspaper, and so on Joe's
behalf I went to the funeral home to pay my respects,
and then the next day I actually went to the
(24:43):
church to con celebrate his mother's funeral mass. And then
the next time I was down on death Row, I
asked the corrections officers if I could have just a
few minutes of Joe's time to express my condolences and
paint a picture of his mother's funeral for him. At
(25:04):
this point I was writing everybody, every law school, every
journalism school, all the news media. I was writing everybody
trying to get somebody to help me. But now I
have a human being in my cell and he can't
run away because he's locked in there with me. So
he's sitting there trying to explain my mother's funeral to me,
(25:28):
and I'm thanking him profusely, but I'm like, but you
don't understand. You have to help me. I didn't do
what they said I did, and he's like, and I
don't know. He would go back to talking about my
mom's funeral, and then I would thank him again, you know,
and be like, you know, I appreciate and everything, but
you don't understand. They're trying to put me where she's at.
(25:49):
They're trying to murder me for something I had nothing
to do. And that's when the attorney of him kicked in,
because he's not only a priest, he's an attorney and
a registered nerve and he had to be all three
things to do what he did for me. And so
I took the trial transcript home and I read it
from cover to cover the first night, and I knew
(26:10):
that there was at least something wrong because I was
reading the coroner's testimony and she was describing Anthony Klan's wounds. Now,
Anthony Clan was sliced ear to ear and then stabbed
three times in the chest. He was almost decapitated. And
so she testifies that after these massive holes are created
(26:33):
in the trachea, that, based on Eddie Espinoza's testimony, Anthony
is running away from his perpetrators, literally screaming for his life.
Don't kill me, don't kill me, Please, don't kill me. Now,
you don't have to be a nurse to understand that
when your airway is compromised, especially as severely as his was,
(26:55):
that you're not whispering, let alone screaming any thing. And
not only that, but they are testified that he had
six fifty milli liters of blood in his chest cavity.
And if you saw these wounds, you would know without
question that he wasn't running at all, that he would
never have been able to speak, and he would have
(27:16):
been drowning in his own secretions. And I'm like, somebody
got away with this testimony, either lying or the cross
examination just was totally non existent or totally ineffective. And
I began to ask myself what else could be wrong
in this case? Tell us about what you found and
how it led to where we are today. So I
(27:38):
went down to the records room of the Cuyahoga County
Justice Center and I started pulling the micro fish files
of all the major names in this case. And then,
just as a fluke, I decided to pull Anthony Klan's
microfish file and came across a notation from a police
(27:59):
report that Anthony had witnessed a rape in May. And
then you find out that the rapist is one Paul
Stoney Lewis. And then in the records they gave the
name of the rape victim, a guy by the name
of Christopher Longenecker. Christopher is blind and suffers from cerebral policy,
(28:22):
but he can read in just a very small sliver.
And so Christopher Longenecker gets this notice that he needs
to appear in court for a pre trial, and and
he does. He shows up at the courthouse on August eleventh,
but he had misread it. He was supposed to be
there on August one. And because the only witness didn't
(28:42):
show up, they released Paul Stoney Lewis, who had been
in jail down there since May. And now you've got
a previous rapist just out on his own recognizance, and
there's one guy out there that can testify him and
put him in back in jail for a long, long,
long long time, and that's Anthony Clinton. And all of
(29:02):
a sudden, Anthony Clan ends up dead and don't creek.
And the guy that points his finger to Joe is
Paul Stoney. Lewis the guy who has the most to
do to save his neck. So that rape was the
seminal thing that got us back into federal court. And
Judge Kathleen O'Malley of the District Court here in Cuyahoga County,
(29:26):
the sixth District Tuggle Court, gave us sweeping discovery which
literally said we had full access to the police files,
the corners files, the prosecutors files. Almost nothing could be
withheld from us. So in July two thousand four and
an evidentially hearing, they presented the following evidence, none of
(29:47):
which was given to the defense before Joe's initial trial.
So two former Cleveland police detectives testified that because no
grass or weeds were disturbed in the area where Clan's
body had been found, he believed he was killed elsewhere
dumped in the creek. Klan's ex roommate Chris Longenecker testified
that Lewis had raped him shortly before Klan was killed.
(30:09):
Longnecker said that after hearing of plans murder, Longenecker called
the police to say that he believed Klan was killed
because he was likely aware of the rape. The records
showing that at one time police had had an audio
recording of a statement from a man named Angelo Cremini,
who also implicated others in the murder. At the same
(30:29):
July two thousand and four hearing, Joe's trial lawyer lawyer
testified that during a pre trial conference with Marino, he
was not allowed to see any police reports. He was
allowed to take notes as Marina read selected portions. Huh yeah, okay,
I wonder which ones they selected, and then the alibi
finally right, the alibi. Other witnesses now testified that on
(30:50):
the night of September, Joe was not a Cocoa Joe's,
but rather it was hosting a party at his own
apartment because he was being evicted. One witness, who was
pregnant and therefore not drinking, recalled that Joe had passed
out on his bed. It's really hard. I don't know.
I've never stabbed anyone, but I don't think I could
do it while it was passed out, even if I
wanted to. So there was another piece of evidence that
(31:10):
came to light for us was we have a witnessed
by the name of Linda de Blasio, who was a
barmaid at Coconut Joe's, who testified that Anthony Clan came
to her bar on Friday night. This would have been
now twenty four hours after the state said that he
was dead, and she served Anthony Clan alcohol, served him
(31:32):
and realized that he was not in any kind of
shape to get home on his own, so literally gave
him money for a cab so that he could get home.
So finally, on March six, Judge O'Malley granted the writ
because of the failure to turn over exculpatory evidence, that
conviction was vacated and the new trial was ordered. The U. S.
Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed the ruling,
(31:53):
saying that the withheld evidence would have quote substantially increased
reasonable jurors doubt of the Ambrose was guilt and quote.
The court said the evidence not only contradicted or weakened
Esponos's testimony, and he was of course the only eyewitness
for the prosecution, but also demonstrated a motive for Louis
to kill Klan. And of course the state fought to
(32:13):
retry you despite the evidence of your innocence that they've
been withholding since the investigation, and your team sought to
bar the prosecution from retrying you. And then something weird happens.
One day before O'Malley ruled not to bar retrial, Edward Espinoza,
who had been released after serving twelve years, was found
(32:34):
dead in a Chicago suburb. Now who knows if this
is a coincidence or not, but anyway, your team renewed
their motion to borrow retrial, arguing that they would not
be able to cross examine the only eyewitness against Joel
with all the newly discovered evidence. The motion was granted,
and after the state's appeal was ultimately denied, your nightmare
was finally over. Can you tell us about your first
(32:58):
taste of freedom. Well, the first time I was actually out,
I was out on bond, and so that was like
the first time that I was actually out in fresh
air without bars around me. I was on that for
exactly one year before Judge Sentnenberg dismissed the case and
refused to allow him to retry me. But Joe, where
(33:21):
was the first place your lawyers took you on the
day that you were freed? They took me across the
street from the Justice Center to a bar to have
a drink. And who was having a fit? You were
having a because He's like, really, he was in this
(33:41):
because he was at bars, and now you're going to
take him to a bar and give him the alcohol.
And they were like, yes, yes, we are give him
whatever you want at that point, exactly right, And Jesus,
I feel like I need a drink after hearing your story.
(34:09):
There's a part that you guys don't know and never
made it into the trial records or trial transcripts, But
it's the smoking gun, and the smoking gun is Teresa Fernaci.
So Teresa Ferronaci is a woman who lived in Little
Italy at the time of the murder. Teresa Fernaci knows
(34:31):
dates and times because she anchors everything that she does
around her Nieces wedding. So on Friday night, Teresa Fernaci
is at her Nieces wedding rehearsal and dinner, comes home
on Friday night early Saturday morning, where she hears a
(34:53):
violent altercation taking place in the home next to her.
This is little Italy. They are seth rated by just
little alleyways that maybe one or two people side by
side can walk through. And she hears this violent altercation
taking place and calls the police, and the police logs
still in existence, indicate that the police responded to her call,
(35:16):
but when they arrived everything's calm, and so rather than investigate,
the police just say, well, whatever it is, it's over
with now. Come Saturday morning and Teresa Fernaci is going
to her niece's wedding and she's being picked up and
as she walks out of the house, she glances at
(35:38):
the street next to her, where Mike Keenan's truck is parked,
because Eddie Spinoza was Mike Keenan's foreman for his Sunshine
Landscaping company, and so Eddie Espinoza often borrowed Mike Keenan's
truck for his own personal use with Mike Keenan's permission,
(35:58):
And Anthony Klan is in the bed of the truck
and she calls out to Anthony Klan and he does
not respond. She thinks that he's sleeping off a drunk
and so she calls out to Anthony Klan again with
no response, and she says, you know, because the U. S.
(36:22):
Marshals interviewed her in Joe's retrial proceedings, that she wishes
she had gone over to literally check on him because
she would have found out that he was dead in
the bed of that truck on Saturday. But she was
going to be late if she didn't. So she gets
in the car and she goes off to the wedding
and there's Anthony Klan in the bed of that truck.
(36:45):
And the U. S. Marshals say to her, so you
think you saw Anthony Klan in the bed of that truck,
And she says, you're not listening to me. She said,
I know I saw Anthony Klan in the bed of
that truck and was Saturday as she was going to
her niece's wedding. But because we never got to a retrial,
(37:06):
that's not out there. Oh but wait, wait, you you
didn't near the best part. Guess who losing the apartment
next to her where the commotion was taking place. Tell me,
Paul Stoney Lewis saw that on that very same night,
Friday night to Saturday morning, there is an affidavit from
(37:28):
a married couple that lived in that same complex. This
man and woman swore out in affidavit that that very
same night they heard someone say, we need to dump
the body in the basement, and so we believe that
is where Anthony Klan was murdered. We believe he was
(37:51):
murdered by Paul Lewis and Eddie Spinoza in concert with
each other. We believe that he was later taken from
that basement, thrown in the bed of that truck, and
dropped off the Dones Creek sometimes Saturday morning early afternoon. Joe,
have you ever received any compensation? We struck a deal
(38:12):
with the state of Ohio to get me compensation nowhere
near anything I should have gotten, and I could have
gotten if I continued to fight it in the courts,
but I'm getting too old. I needed something to retire on.
Well listen, I wish you nothing but the best of everything.
(38:37):
Thank you, and of course, um now we turn to
our closing of our show, which is appropriately called closing arguments.
First of all, I thank you once again. I really
appreciate you being on the podcast today and now closing
arguments works like this. I turned off my microphone, kicked
back in my chair and just listen. You get to
(39:00):
say whatever do you want. Father, With all due respect,
we're going to save the best for last. The star
of our show courses Joe. But it's so great to
have you here. And if you wouldn't mind going first,
Father and Neil, So I would just say, when it
comes to the matter of sentencing people to death, to
be very very very careful. People's lives are at stake here.
(39:25):
And you know, a lot of people tell me I'm
the liberal priest that believes everything that the death row
inmate says, and that is not the truth. And Joe
would be the first one to tell you that. I
get letters from around the country and sometimes around the world,
and many of them from guys right here on Ohio's
(39:46):
death row saying you need to do for me what
you did for Joe, and I say to them, I
didn't do anything for Joe. The evidence freed Joe and
we just needed to find it and we just needed
somebody to present it. People think he got away with
murder on a technicality, and that is not the case.
(40:08):
This went through district court, federal court, Supreme Court with
some of the finest jurists in the country, and literally
the evidence freed him. So don't take things at face value,
go deep and look, and then ask yourself some serious questions.
And one of those questions for me would be this,
(40:30):
do we really want to give our government the power
and the authority to take someone's life from them when
the system is so screwed up? Joe, The thing that
people have to understand is that they're murdering in your name.
(40:55):
You're paying to have this done. To have the death
penalty is so ludicrous. Places like Russia abolish their death penalty,
and we still hang onto it because all it is
is revenge, and our justice system should not be about revenge.
(41:22):
It's not supposed to be. So if you're even think
for a second that the system is so perfect that
you're willing to bet somebody's life and it could be
your own, then don't do anything about it. Because, like
we started out saying, if this could happen to me,
(41:43):
this could happen to you very easily. But I think
you need to stand up right now. In Ohio, we
have two bills that are trying to get the death
penalty abolished in Ohio, and this is the time to
do it. People need to stand up and say that
you don't kill in my name and to stop this
(42:04):
stupidity that's going on with the death penalty. Thank you
for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. Please support
your local innocence organizations and go to the links in
our bio now to see how you can help. I'd
(42:25):
like to thank our amazing production team Connor Hall, Justin Golden,
Jeff Clyburne and Kevin Wardis. The music on this show,
as always, is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction
and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with
Jason Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
(42:48):
and association with Signal Company Number one
On Saturday September, the body of nineteen year old Anthony
Clan was discovered on the east side of Cleveland, Ohio,
in Rockefeller Park Stone Creek. He had been stabbed in
the chest three times and his throat was slit on
the verge of decapitation. The ground around him was undisturbed,
suggesting that the murder occurred elsewhere. One of the three
(00:23):
men who came to identify the body on Monday, September
twenty six and thus began to control the narrative, had
arguably the most to gain from doing so, a convicted
rapist and drug dealer named Paul Stoney Lewis, who Anthony
Clan had once identified in another rape. The two other
men supported Stoney's narrative at trial. During the investigation of
(00:43):
fourth man emerged the victims, cuckold Edward Espinoza, who joined
the narrative and received leniency for the part he played
in the murder in exchange for his false eyewitness testimony
against his employer Michael Keenan and his co worker Joji Abrochow. Now,
some elements of the story were real and occurred on
Thursday September, but had little to do with the actual
(01:07):
night of Anthony Klan's murder Friday September. Both Michael Keenan
and Joe de Ambrosio's whereabouts on Friday night were known,
and despite Espinosa's two separate and contradictory affidavits and knowing
about the discrepancy between the two nights, the prosecution nevertheless
forged ahead, hiding a mountain of exculpatory evidence and sending
(01:32):
Joe de Ambrosio and Michael Keenan straight to death row.
This is wrongful conviction with Jason Flam. Welcome back the
(01:54):
wrongful conviction with Jason Flam. Today you're gonna hear the
story of Joe d Ambrose. You who is the sixth
person to be exonerated from Ohio's death throw in America
to be exonerated, Joe, This story is, I mean, it's
got so many twists and turns. But let me just
for the audience's sake, before I even introduce you, let
(02:16):
me just say this involves a group of cops that
were so corrupted. Forty four of them were charged with
taking money and protecting cocaine operations in Cleveland and northern Ohio.
This goes back to the eighties. Of course, it involves
a date that was changed in order to make the
case fit the facts instead of the other way around.
(02:37):
It involves a dead body found in Dones Creak that
had been stabbed and split throat and everything. I mean,
this thing, I'm not even scratuating the surface. I hate
to say it, but you lived it. So Joe, I'm
sorry for what you went through, but I'm very, very
grateful and honored that you're here on the show with
us today. Thank you very much. And with us is
(02:59):
a very you unique individual with a unique name as well.
We have Neil Cokuta, who was one of the great
heroes in this story, but who was also When I
say the unique individual, here's a guy who's a nurse,
a lawyer, and a priest. I mean it almost sounds
like the punchline and a joke, or the set up
to a joke. Right, a nurse, a lawyer, and a
(03:19):
priest walk out a bar. But then it was only
one guy, hey, and here he is, So Neil Cocute,
thank you for being here with us today. It's good
to be with you. And Joe. You're a guy who
served in the U. S. Army, right, you achieved the
rank of sergeant. Is that correct? And we're honorably discharged.
But were you a guy who had had a lot
(03:39):
of trouble with the law before this crazy thing? Haven't
tell us a little bit about your background, your upbringing.
I grew up just outside of Cleveland in the suburbs,
a little town called North Royalton, and the only thing
that was in that place was bars and gas stations
and farms. So I could kind of a country boy,
and I didn't want to stay and be one of
(04:01):
those three things, so I joined the military as soon
as I got out of high school. I did my
four years in the military, and then I got out,
honorably discharged, sergeant, out of the military. And then this
thing comes out of the blue. I mean, is it
fair to say that this could happen to you? Could
happen to anyone? Oh exactly, I'm the most common Joe
(04:22):
there could be. Truly. All it takes is one person,
no other evidence, one person to point their finger at
you and say they stood there and watched while you
killed this person, and there you go. It's so nuts
that you could have ended up on death row just
because of one person with a lot to gain by saying,
(04:42):
so write an incentivized person. So I'd like to set
this stage a bit here. This is the late eighties
and Little Italy on the east side of Cleveland, Ohio.
Very reminiscent of Tonya Ponovich's story. Actually, you know, bar culture,
lots of party and going on, And in this case,
there's coke drinking and a group of friends and acquaintances,
some of whom Joe worked with doing landscaping. And then
(05:05):
there's a bit of crossover from that group into the
drug business of a guy named Paul Stoney. Lewis So
Stony was just your local two bit drug dealer down
in the Little Italy neighborhood on the east side of Cleveland.
And Anthony Clan was one of these guys that frequented Stony,
(05:26):
as was a number of the other guys Michael Keenan
in this case at Espinosa and others hung around together, right,
And something that needs to be pointed out of here
was that months before this murder occurred back in Stoney
allegedly raped Anthony Clan's roommate Chris Longenecker, and Anthony and
(05:48):
Chris were both scheduled to testify against Stony Lewis, but
Chris Longenecker was legally blind and misread when they were
supposed to appear at court, so Stoney was released, leaving
Clan and Longannecker in danger. Now you mentioned before Mike
Keenan and Edward Espinoza, who, from what I understand, had
a landscaping business. Mike Keenan Joe's kind of co defendant
(06:10):
in this whole mess. He was the owner and Espinoza
was this foreman and Joe. Around the end of August
nineteen eighty eight, you were going to go back into
the military, but you needed to wait on your discharge
paperwork to be reissued. And while you waited, you worked
for Mike Keenan. Do I have that right? Well, I
needed a job to hold me over, and I grew
(06:31):
up in the country cutting grasses like in my blood,
So yeah, I got hired. On September one, September twenty six,
I'm sitting in the jail accused the most teneous crime
in the world. Right. But before we even get to that,
I want to talk about Thursday night, September twenty, a
day before this murder occurred. It was the events of
(06:51):
that night that were used to predicate the narrative that
was used against you and Michael Keenan at both of
your trials. While all along people had seen the victim
here Anthony Clan alive the following night, Friday September, one
of whom even gave him cab fair home. But we'll
get to that later. So let's go back to Thursday.
(07:14):
On Thursday night of this week, all of these people,
Eddie Espinoza, Mike Keenan, with Mike Keenan's girlfriend, Anthony Clan,
Joe da Ambrosio, Paul Stoney Lewis, they were on a
pub call through the Coventry area of Little Italy, and
so they were all drinking that night. And Joe admittedly
(07:35):
was part of this drinking group on Thursday night at
these different bars, and at one of the bars, Joe,
where was it where they got into the restroom fight
that was Coconut Joe's. So Anthony Clan and Eddie Espinoza
got into a somewhat violent or at least raucous altercation
in the men's room of the bar. There is some
(07:57):
suspicion that a Denny Klan was having a sexual relationship
with Eddie Espinoza's girlfriend. Anyway, that raucous scene at the
bar caused the bouncer to throw them out, and Eddie
Espinoza takes a beer bottle, slams it against the bar,
(08:17):
breaks it in half, and starts threatening people. And so
they're thrown out and the night moves on, the police come,
everybody assures them that they're calmed down, there won't be
any problem, and they go home. So we've got Eddie
Espinoza who's already in conflict with Tony Klan over something
(08:39):
which we suspect as a triangular romantic relationship. And we
got Paul Stoney Lewis, who's involved with Anthony Klan because
Anthony Klan is a witness to this rape with Christopher Longenecker.
And you've got both of those people who are involved
with Anthony Klan from different perspectives. Oh so we're gonna
(09:00):
come back to Thursday night and what eventually becomes the
narrative of the case against Joe and Mike Keenan in
a minute. But first let's talk about what we know.
On Saturday, September twenty, nineteen year old Anthony Klan's body
was found by a jagger on the east side of
Cleveland and Rockefeller Parks, Don't Brook or Don't Creek, depending
on who you're talking to, the different names for it.
He had sustained multiple stab wolence to the chest and
(09:24):
his throat had been slit so deeply that he had
nearly been decapitated. Now, no murder weapon was ever found,
and the body went unclaimed until Monday. That Monday, an
anonymous caller called in to the morgue and asked if
there was a nineteen year old kid? Does he have
(09:45):
this color hair, these color eyes, these tattoos and these
marks on his hands and wrists? And the detective got
on the phone and the detectives like, yes, we have him.
Can you come down own and please identify him? The
guy he wouldn't identify himself, and then he hung up. Wow. Well,
(10:07):
shortly after that, Stony Foot and Adam Flannic all went
down to the morgue and identified Anthony. But the thing is,
how did Stoney know about the defensive wounds on Anthony's
hands in arms. All there was in the paper was
a little blurb that an unidentified white male was found
(10:29):
in Don't Creek and that was it, right, So at least,
it appears that the person on the phone knew things
that only someone involved could have possibly known. And then, surprise, surprise,
right after the Carter's office got this anonymous call, who
shows up but Paul Stoney, Lewis, James Russell, or as
Joe called him, Foot, and Adam Flannic, three of the
(10:50):
witnesses that helped with Joe and Mike Keenan on death throw.
Now these three men identify the body, and the narrative
began to build that the murder happened on the night
you were all out together at the bar, which was Thursday,
which is when Stony went home early. However, the murder
actually occurred on Friday. Eventually, investigators caught up with the
(11:13):
guy who had fought with Clan on Thursday, Tony Klan's
cuckoled Edward Espinoza, who gave police a false eyewitness account
claiming to have witnessed Joe and Mike Keenan commit the murder.
Eddie Espinoza refers to him as little Tony, and supposedly
little Tony is his best buddy, and he's going to
do everything he can to protect little Tony all along
(11:37):
the way, and so Eddie Espinoza gets arrested and taken
down to the station and he swears out an affidavit
that lists all of the dates, times, places, people and everything.
And then when the police come in and look at this,
they realized that what Eddie Espinoza has put down in
(11:59):
his the David does not fit the narrative that they
want to paint of this case, and so they have
him swear out another half the David that literally gives
different day, different times, different places, so that the police
can paint their narrative at both of those after David's
(12:22):
to this very day, they exist in the file and
you can put them side by side and you can
see that somebody coached Eddie Espinoza to change his story up. Wow.
They were like, no, no, that one's not so great
a mind doing that over and we'll just give you
a little bit of there. Within forty eight hours of
(12:43):
each other, two distinct aff the Davits sworn out by
Eddie Espinoza. And then how in the world can anybody
take anything that guy says seriously? After that, well, you know,
when they want to get somebody, they get somebody, And
Eddie Espinoza has a violent history. He was also in
the service, dishonorably discharged for drugs and for violent behavior.
(13:04):
So you've got a guy with a violent history and
a motive to kill as the spurned, cuckolded boyfriend of
the woman with whom Anthony Clan was having an affair,
and in his narrative events after his fight with Anthony
Klan at the bar, he and Joe headed back to
Joe's apartment around one thirty am, at which point Mike
Keenan drove up and told them that Stony had stolen
(13:26):
drugs from him. Espinoza grabbed the bat, Joe grabbed a knife,
and the three of them drove around looking for Paul Stony.
Lewis Now again, what about this so far as true?
Guess what, none of this shit evening matters because this
is Thursday night, not the night of the murder, which
was Friday. So lies truth. It's utterly meaningless to even
(13:48):
debate it. Now, another two witnesses supported this narrative, Carolyn
rosel and her friend you'll remember him, James Russell, you
know his dictam his foot said that the three men
knocked on Roselle's door looking for Stoney at around three Am.
After this encounter, Espinoza's narrative continues, saying that while driving along,
they eventually saw Anthony Klan walk on the side of
(14:09):
the road, forced him into the back seat, interrogated him
about Stoney's whereabouts, and after Espinoza hit him with a bat,
Clan told them Stoney's address, and the men proceed to
Stony's apartment building. Now, according to Stoney's neighbor you'll remember him,
of course, Adam Flannic, he first heard the group yelling
at at banging on Stoney's door, saying I want my
dope or I want my coke. So Plannic continued to
(14:32):
claim to be able to see down into the car
where you Joe were allegedly pointing a knife up to
Anthony Clan's jaw, a view that would be totally impossible
from any advantage point because of how the back seats
and Kenyans pick up base one another. Well, we still
don't know what Plantic had to gain from saying that
(14:52):
maybe he was involved, maybe he was coerced, who knows,
maybe he was even confused. But what we do know
is that again, it really just doesn't matter, because Anthony
Klan was not murdered that night, but the following night. Anyway,
back to Espinoza's narrative, the three men went back to
Roselle's where they issued a warning for result to deliver
(15:15):
to Stony that there was a quote contract out on
him and that they had Clan in the car who
was quote dead meat. Espinoza goes on to say the
Klan eventually escaped from the car. Keenan allegedly then told
Joe to finish him off, and then Joe allegedly ran
after Clan. Clan begged for his life while Joe allegedly
(15:35):
killed him with a knife. Again, this is a bogus
recollection of Thursday night, and we know this because we
later found out that Klan was seen alive again at
Coconut Joe's on Friday night. He got drunk and was
given kempair by the barmaid. So that was Friday night,
the night after this alleged Stony Lewis search party happened
(15:57):
and Joe on Friday, your whereabouts were totally accounted for, correct.
I was getting near being able to go back into
the military, and I was getting evicted, so I was
having an eviction party that night's and there was a
bunch of people that were over all night long. But
the problem was, I'm terrible with names. Later, when we
(16:19):
were able to identify some of the names that Joe
was talking about people who were indeed at that inviction party,
one of them mentioned to me that on that Friday night,
they were all gathered at Joe's apartment and they were
watching a football game. And so I'm like, who's got
a Friday night football game? I'm doing this ten years later.
(16:41):
So I literally ended up doing some research at the
Cuyahoga County Public Library for old editions of the Cleveland
Playing Dealer, and I was looking through the high school
games that were being played on Friday night, and one
of them was Brush High School on the East side Cleveland,
and names that we literally discovered later were there. And
(17:06):
remember watching that particular game, And that's the night that
the murder actually took place, not the night that was
sort of substituted. So you had all these people that
could exonerate you, but you had no way to subpoena
them to testify because you didn't have full names and numbers,
nor did you have lawyers who were even particularly interested.
And then you've got these guys who you've been working
(17:28):
or just partying with for about the last month, who
are all spinning a narrative together to close this case
for the authorities on you and your boss, Mike Keenan,
And of course I'm talking about Espinosa and Stony Lewis
would probably have thrown their own mother under the bus
in order to save themselves from death row. Exactly So,
because I barely knew any of these people, I think
(17:49):
myself that it was Paul Stoney, Lewis and Espinoza together
killed Anthony because they both knew facts that only the
murder or would know, and then they were able to
point their finger elsewhere. So three men ultimately were charged
with this gruesome murder, Michael Keenan, Edward Espinoza, and you, Joe.
(18:13):
And it's important again to note that exchange for his
testimony against you and Keenan, who were tried separately, Espinoza
pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was given the lesser sentence
of fifteen to seventy five years in prison. So we
know what his motivation was. And this is a guy
who we know is a liar. You don't have to
say he's a liar. You can't signed to sworn affidavits
(18:36):
that are totally different within forty eight hours of each
other and not be lying. Okay, let's get to the trial.
Tell us a little about your representation. It should be
lack there of representation. If my attorneys would have believed
me and did a little bit of investigation, I never
(18:56):
would have been convicted because father Neil, ten years after
the fact, was finding all this evidence with little work.
So my attorneys did very little. One was running from
mayor of a little town at the time and couldn't
be bothered, and the other one just didn't want anything
to do with me because they didn't believe me from
(19:17):
day one that I had nothing to do with this,
because they were the ones that talked me into going
with the three judge panel because I didn't know no better.
You have to do very little work as an attorney
for a three judge panel case. So the trial took
place on February nine, and the Cuyahoga Court of Common Pleas,
as you said, in front of a three judge panel.
(19:39):
The prosecutor was Carmen Marino. Now important to note that
no murder weapon was ever found in this case, right
So how the hell do you send a guy much
less too to death row with no murder weapon and
no physical evidence. Well, back then, I used to hunt
and fish, and I had my hunting knives. So when
(20:03):
they came and illegally entered my house and arrested me,
they took my knives, and all three of my knives
tested negative for blood. Yet throughout the whole trial they
waved them around and called him the murder weapons. So
they're parading around false evidence. What the hell else was
presented against you? Most of the time on the stand
(20:26):
was covered by Espinosa and Paul Stoney. Lewis you know
when the two real murderers are taking the stand and
they're backed up by the prosecutor, and then you throw
in this joke of a corner we had that all
she ever did was rubber stamp. Whatever the cops said,
that was their whole prosecution. And Espinosa said he stood
(20:49):
there and watched why me and Mike Keenan killed Anthony Klan.
Stoney says, the night that Anthony was killed was the
night that we were in the bars. A very very
important problem with this is that he mixed up September September.
What it was is they wouldn't say dates. All they
(21:10):
kept saying is on the night when we went to
the bar, when we were there, when we were all together,
nobody used a date. And were you elbowing your lawyer
going hey, hey, hey, that's the wrong You bet. They
did bring up the idea that the state was painting
the wrong day because the day that you were at
the bar was tequila Knight, right, And so tequila Knight
(21:32):
was Thursday, not Friday. And you even had the proprietor
of the bar, Stephen Gaines I believe was his name, Yes,
Stephen Gaines, literally came and took the stand and said
these men were there on tequila Night Thursday, not Friday.
So this discrepancy was actually clearly pointed out. And I mean,
(21:54):
do you even have any theory whatsoever about how this
three junge panel could have been so mind and gotten
this so totally wrong. You know, you've got anybody that
might have been put on the stand for Joe's case
were not available at the time of the trial to
establish that alibi for Joe, or to even be there
is a character witness, And so you put that up
(22:15):
against Eddie Espinoza as suspect as he may be, but
he's claiming to be an eyewitness to this, and it
literally becomes you know, where's the greater weight of the
evidence of the credibility? And you know, the three judge panel,
who were all former prosecutors, have that prosecutorial bent and
(22:36):
they're going to lean that way to begin with. See,
the one thing that I made my attorneys do is
let me testify. And I figured if I could get
up there and tell the truth, the judges would be like,
come on this, this case is just wrong, you know,
and release me. So my attorneys threw me up there cold.
(22:57):
They didn't give me any preparation. They didn't have checked
when the prosecutor just tore me to pieces. They kept
telling me online, I'm just saying all this to save
my life. But the sad part is they had evidence
that proved that everything I said was true, and they
(23:17):
hid it from me. In a blink of an eye,
my trial is over with. I have the shortest that
penalty trial in the state of Ohio history, two and
three quarter days from let's start until you die. You know,
you hear that they're going to pass thirty thousand bolts
through your body until you are dead for something I
(23:38):
had nothing to do with. So I was ordained in
and I was reading a cat like newsweek called National
(24:02):
Catholic Reporter, and in that there was a brother Patrick
Byrd from Texas who had his own death Row penpel ministry,
and he was looking for people to join him in
writing to death row inmates. I eventually started writing to many, many,
many of the inmates and became pen pals with them,
(24:22):
including Joe and in December Dorothy da Ambrosio, Joe's mother
passed away here in Cleveland. I found out about it
through the obituaries in the newspaper, and so on Joe's
behalf I went to the funeral home to pay my respects,
and then the next day I actually went to the
(24:43):
church to con celebrate his mother's funeral mass. And then
the next time I was down on death Row, I
asked the corrections officers if I could have just a
few minutes of Joe's time to express my condolences and
paint a picture of his mother's funeral for him. At
(25:04):
this point I was writing everybody, every law school, every
journalism school, all the news media. I was writing everybody
trying to get somebody to help me. But now I
have a human being in my cell and he can't
run away because he's locked in there with me. So
he's sitting there trying to explain my mother's funeral to me,
(25:28):
and I'm thanking him profusely, but I'm like, but you
don't understand. You have to help me. I didn't do
what they said I did, and he's like, and I
don't know. He would go back to talking about my
mom's funeral, and then I would thank him again, you know,
and be like, you know, I appreciate and everything, but
you don't understand. They're trying to put me where she's at.
(25:49):
They're trying to murder me for something I had nothing
to do. And that's when the attorney of him kicked in,
because he's not only a priest, he's an attorney and
a registered nerve and he had to be all three
things to do what he did for me. And so
I took the trial transcript home and I read it
from cover to cover the first night, and I knew
(26:10):
that there was at least something wrong because I was
reading the coroner's testimony and she was describing Anthony Klan's wounds. Now,
Anthony Clan was sliced ear to ear and then stabbed
three times in the chest. He was almost decapitated. And
so she testifies that after these massive holes are created
(26:33):
in the trachea, that, based on Eddie Espinoza's testimony, Anthony
is running away from his perpetrators, literally screaming for his life.
Don't kill me, don't kill me, Please, don't kill me. Now,
you don't have to be a nurse to understand that
when your airway is compromised, especially as severely as his was,
(26:55):
that you're not whispering, let alone screaming any thing. And
not only that, but they are testified that he had
six fifty milli liters of blood in his chest cavity.
And if you saw these wounds, you would know without
question that he wasn't running at all, that he would
never have been able to speak, and he would have
(27:16):
been drowning in his own secretions. And I'm like, somebody
got away with this testimony, either lying or the cross
examination just was totally non existent or totally ineffective. And
I began to ask myself what else could be wrong
in this case? Tell us about what you found and
how it led to where we are today. So I
(27:38):
went down to the records room of the Cuyahoga County
Justice Center and I started pulling the micro fish files
of all the major names in this case. And then,
just as a fluke, I decided to pull Anthony Klan's
microfish file and came across a notation from a police
(27:59):
report that Anthony had witnessed a rape in May. And
then you find out that the rapist is one Paul
Stoney Lewis. And then in the records they gave the
name of the rape victim, a guy by the name
of Christopher Longenecker. Christopher is blind and suffers from cerebral policy,
(28:22):
but he can read in just a very small sliver.
And so Christopher Longenecker gets this notice that he needs
to appear in court for a pre trial, and and
he does. He shows up at the courthouse on August eleventh,
but he had misread it. He was supposed to be
there on August one. And because the only witness didn't
(28:42):
show up, they released Paul Stoney Lewis, who had been
in jail down there since May. And now you've got
a previous rapist just out on his own recognizance, and
there's one guy out there that can testify him and
put him in back in jail for a long, long,
long long time, and that's Anthony Clinton. And all of
(29:02):
a sudden, Anthony Clan ends up dead and don't creek.
And the guy that points his finger to Joe is
Paul Stoney. Lewis the guy who has the most to
do to save his neck. So that rape was the
seminal thing that got us back into federal court. And
Judge Kathleen O'Malley of the District Court here in Cuyahoga County,
(29:26):
the sixth District Tuggle Court, gave us sweeping discovery which
literally said we had full access to the police files,
the corners files, the prosecutors files. Almost nothing could be
withheld from us. So in July two thousand four and
an evidentially hearing, they presented the following evidence, none of
(29:47):
which was given to the defense before Joe's initial trial.
So two former Cleveland police detectives testified that because no
grass or weeds were disturbed in the area where Clan's
body had been found, he believed he was killed elsewhere
dumped in the creek. Klan's ex roommate Chris Longenecker testified
that Lewis had raped him shortly before Klan was killed.
(30:09):
Longnecker said that after hearing of plans murder, Longenecker called
the police to say that he believed Klan was killed
because he was likely aware of the rape. The records
showing that at one time police had had an audio
recording of a statement from a man named Angelo Cremini,
who also implicated others in the murder. At the same
(30:29):
July two thousand and four hearing, Joe's trial lawyer lawyer
testified that during a pre trial conference with Marino, he
was not allowed to see any police reports. He was
allowed to take notes as Marina read selected portions. Huh yeah, okay,
I wonder which ones they selected, and then the alibi
finally right, the alibi. Other witnesses now testified that on
(30:50):
the night of September, Joe was not a Cocoa Joe's,
but rather it was hosting a party at his own
apartment because he was being evicted. One witness, who was
pregnant and therefore not drinking, recalled that Joe had passed
out on his bed. It's really hard. I don't know.
I've never stabbed anyone, but I don't think I could
do it while it was passed out, even if I
wanted to. So there was another piece of evidence that
(31:10):
came to light for us was we have a witnessed
by the name of Linda de Blasio, who was a
barmaid at Coconut Joe's, who testified that Anthony Clan came
to her bar on Friday night. This would have been
now twenty four hours after the state said that he
was dead, and she served Anthony Clan alcohol, served him
(31:32):
and realized that he was not in any kind of
shape to get home on his own, so literally gave
him money for a cab so that he could get home.
So finally, on March six, Judge O'Malley granted the writ
because of the failure to turn over exculpatory evidence, that
conviction was vacated and the new trial was ordered. The U. S.
Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed the ruling,
(31:53):
saying that the withheld evidence would have quote substantially increased
reasonable jurors doubt of the Ambrose was guilt and quote.
The court said the evidence not only contradicted or weakened
Esponos's testimony, and he was of course the only eyewitness
for the prosecution, but also demonstrated a motive for Louis
to kill Klan. And of course the state fought to
(32:13):
retry you despite the evidence of your innocence that they've
been withholding since the investigation, and your team sought to
bar the prosecution from retrying you. And then something weird happens.
One day before O'Malley ruled not to bar retrial, Edward Espinoza,
who had been released after serving twelve years, was found
(32:34):
dead in a Chicago suburb. Now who knows if this
is a coincidence or not, but anyway, your team renewed
their motion to borrow retrial, arguing that they would not
be able to cross examine the only eyewitness against Joel
with all the newly discovered evidence. The motion was granted,
and after the state's appeal was ultimately denied, your nightmare
was finally over. Can you tell us about your first
(32:58):
taste of freedom. Well, the first time I was actually out,
I was out on bond, and so that was like
the first time that I was actually out in fresh
air without bars around me. I was on that for
exactly one year before Judge Sentnenberg dismissed the case and
refused to allow him to retry me. But Joe, where
(33:21):
was the first place your lawyers took you on the
day that you were freed? They took me across the
street from the Justice Center to a bar to have
a drink. And who was having a fit? You were
having a because He's like, really, he was in this
(33:41):
because he was at bars, and now you're going to
take him to a bar and give him the alcohol.
And they were like, yes, yes, we are give him
whatever you want at that point, exactly right, And Jesus,
I feel like I need a drink after hearing your story.
(34:09):
There's a part that you guys don't know and never
made it into the trial records or trial transcripts, But
it's the smoking gun, and the smoking gun is Teresa Fernaci.
So Teresa Ferronaci is a woman who lived in Little
Italy at the time of the murder. Teresa Fernaci knows
(34:31):
dates and times because she anchors everything that she does
around her Nieces wedding. So on Friday night, Teresa Fernaci
is at her Nieces wedding rehearsal and dinner, comes home
on Friday night early Saturday morning, where she hears a
(34:53):
violent altercation taking place in the home next to her.
This is little Italy. They are seth rated by just
little alleyways that maybe one or two people side by
side can walk through. And she hears this violent altercation
taking place and calls the police, and the police logs
still in existence, indicate that the police responded to her call,
(35:16):
but when they arrived everything's calm, and so rather than investigate,
the police just say, well, whatever it is, it's over
with now. Come Saturday morning and Teresa Fernaci is going
to her niece's wedding and she's being picked up and
as she walks out of the house, she glances at
(35:38):
the street next to her, where Mike Keenan's truck is parked,
because Eddie Spinoza was Mike Keenan's foreman for his Sunshine
Landscaping company, and so Eddie Espinoza often borrowed Mike Keenan's
truck for his own personal use with Mike Keenan's permission,
(35:58):
And Anthony Klan is in the bed of the truck
and she calls out to Anthony Klan and he does
not respond. She thinks that he's sleeping off a drunk
and so she calls out to Anthony Klan again with
no response, and she says, you know, because the U. S.
(36:22):
Marshals interviewed her in Joe's retrial proceedings, that she wishes
she had gone over to literally check on him because
she would have found out that he was dead in
the bed of that truck on Saturday. But she was
going to be late if she didn't. So she gets
in the car and she goes off to the wedding
and there's Anthony Klan in the bed of that truck.
(36:45):
And the U. S. Marshals say to her, so you
think you saw Anthony Klan in the bed of that truck,
And she says, you're not listening to me. She said,
I know I saw Anthony Klan in the bed of
that truck and was Saturday as she was going to
her niece's wedding. But because we never got to a retrial,
(37:06):
that's not out there. Oh but wait, wait, you you
didn't near the best part. Guess who losing the apartment
next to her where the commotion was taking place. Tell me,
Paul Stoney Lewis saw that on that very same night,
Friday night to Saturday morning, there is an affidavit from
(37:28):
a married couple that lived in that same complex. This
man and woman swore out in affidavit that that very
same night they heard someone say, we need to dump
the body in the basement, and so we believe that
is where Anthony Klan was murdered. We believe he was
(37:51):
murdered by Paul Lewis and Eddie Spinoza in concert with
each other. We believe that he was later taken from
that basement, thrown in the bed of that truck, and
dropped off the Dones Creek sometimes Saturday morning early afternoon. Joe,
have you ever received any compensation? We struck a deal
(38:12):
with the state of Ohio to get me compensation nowhere
near anything I should have gotten, and I could have
gotten if I continued to fight it in the courts,
but I'm getting too old. I needed something to retire on.
Well listen, I wish you nothing but the best of everything.
(38:37):
Thank you, and of course, um now we turn to
our closing of our show, which is appropriately called closing arguments.
First of all, I thank you once again. I really
appreciate you being on the podcast today and now closing
arguments works like this. I turned off my microphone, kicked
back in my chair and just listen. You get to
(39:00):
say whatever do you want. Father, With all due respect,
we're going to save the best for last. The star
of our show courses Joe. But it's so great to
have you here. And if you wouldn't mind going first,
Father and Neil, So I would just say, when it
comes to the matter of sentencing people to death, to
be very very very careful. People's lives are at stake here.
(39:25):
And you know, a lot of people tell me I'm
the liberal priest that believes everything that the death row
inmate says, and that is not the truth. And Joe
would be the first one to tell you that. I
get letters from around the country and sometimes around the world,
and many of them from guys right here on Ohio's
(39:46):
death row saying you need to do for me what
you did for Joe, and I say to them, I
didn't do anything for Joe. The evidence freed Joe and
we just needed to find it and we just needed
somebody to present it. People think he got away with
murder on a technicality, and that is not the case.
(40:08):
This went through district court, federal court, Supreme Court with
some of the finest jurists in the country, and literally
the evidence freed him. So don't take things at face value,
go deep and look, and then ask yourself some serious questions.
And one of those questions for me would be this,
(40:30):
do we really want to give our government the power
and the authority to take someone's life from them when
the system is so screwed up? Joe, The thing that
people have to understand is that they're murdering in your name.
(40:55):
You're paying to have this done. To have the death
penalty is so ludicrous. Places like Russia abolish their death penalty,
and we still hang onto it because all it is
is revenge, and our justice system should not be about revenge.
(41:22):
It's not supposed to be. So if you're even think
for a second that the system is so perfect that
you're willing to bet somebody's life and it could be
your own, then don't do anything about it. Because, like
we started out saying, if this could happen to me,
(41:43):
this could happen to you very easily. But I think
you need to stand up right now. In Ohio, we
have two bills that are trying to get the death
penalty abolished in Ohio, and this is the time to
do it. People need to stand up and say that
you don't kill in my name and to stop this
(42:04):
stupidity that's going on with the death penalty. Thank you
for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. Please support
your local innocence organizations and go to the links in
our bio now to see how you can help. I'd
(42:25):
like to thank our amazing production team Connor Hall, Justin Golden,
Jeff Clyburne and Kevin Wardis. The music on this show,
as always, is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction
and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with
Jason Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
(42:48):
and association with Signal Company Number one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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