October 20, 2021 • 36 mins
On March 16, 1989, Lloyd Witter and Jomo Kenyatta sustained several gunshot wounds at a residence in Jamaica, Queens. Witter died from his injuries. Paul Anderson, who also lived at the residence, was found handcuffed near Witter’s body. Under questioning, both Kenyatta and Anderson provided at least a half dozen different versions of the story that finally landed on Carlton Roman as the gunman. Roman claimed he’d been with his girlfriend on the night of Witter’s murder, an alibi that she corroborated. Nevertheless, he was charged with murder. Despite maintaining his innocence throughout the trial, and no forensic, ballistic, fingerprint, or DNA evidence tying him to the shooting, Roman was convicted and served 32 years until his exoneration in August 2021.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
In nine, Paul Anderson lived in a Jamaica queen's drug
house owned by his sister but operated by a man
named Jomo Kenyatta. On March sixteenth, nine, Jomo Kenyatta and
one of his associates, Lloyd Witter, were shot at the house,
leaving Winter dead and Kenyatta in a coma. Police found
Paul Anderson alone, bound, handcuffed, and unharmed outside the home,
(00:27):
under pressure from lead Detective William Peppy and desperately trying
to divert attention away from himself. Anderson's initial description of
four unknown men quickly changed to that of two acquaintances
who did not fit his initial descriptions, Carlton Roman and
Hollis Laylor. With no physical or forensic evidence tying Carlton
or Hollis to the shooting, the state's case relied solely
(00:50):
on the inconsistent and outright false testimonies of Anderson, Kanyata,
and Detective Peppy. Carlton, a twenty six year old bother
at college dude with no connection to the drug trade,
was portrayed by the prosecution as a dangerous drug kingpin,
and despite the testimony of alibi witnesses Carlton was convicted
(01:10):
and sentenced over forty three years in prison. The Queens
a blocked Carlton's attempts at justice for over three decades
until the election of District Attorney Olympic Cats and the
formation of a new Conviction Integrity Unit. A reinvestigation revealed
the misdeeds of Paul Anderson, Jomo Kenyata, and Detective Peppy,
(01:31):
as well as led to Carlton's freedom after thirty two
long years in prison. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back
(01:56):
to wrongful Conviction. I'm your host, Jason Floman. I'm going
to start today's episode by issuing an apology and I'm
going to direct that at our featured guest, Carlton Roman,
because what he went through doesn't make any logical sense whatsoever,
even by our crazy standards. And so Mr Roman, thank
you for being here. And then with Mr Roman today
is his attorney James Henning. James, welcome to the show.
(02:19):
Pleasure to be here. Thanks for having us. Jason, Yeah,
and I'm glad you're here as well to help tell
this crazy story because honestly, when I was researching this,
I was kind of just like turning the paper upside down,
back and forth and saying maybe somebody left something out,
Maybe there's a mistake or omission here somewhere. I mean, Carlton,
you were a twenty six year old man who was
(02:40):
a father boyfriend, going to college, living in Queen's, New York,
no criminal record whatsoever. So if a guy like you
can get caught up in something like this, then the
uncomfortable fact is that nobody's safe. Right, So let's go
back to that. First of all, where are you from?
But I'm Jamaican. I was born here into this country
that was in My mother migrated before me, and she
(03:02):
worked to a three four jobs sometimes until she was
able to sponsor me and get me up here. At
the one point of me coming here was educational purposes
to go to college. We started going around trying to
get me into a college, and she kept bringing me
to different colleges and I'd be looking at the campuses.
I have no frame of reference and what to go by.
I mean, it's completely difference. It's a first world country
(03:24):
and all that. We started looking at colleges and queens
and I fell in love with Queensboro, which was a
community of college. That's what I settled on. So my
mom and her husband started looking at place in Queens
and then we moved there within like maybe ten months
of me coming up here. So it seems like everything
was going pretty well until of course, one day in
(03:45):
and that's when it all went terribly wrong. Now, this
was the late eighties in New York, a time that
was rife with both drug dealing and police corruption that
stretched through the nineties. And I'm not breaking any news here, right.
It was the cry epidemic, the War on drugs. A
lot of bad shit happened on both sides of the law.
And in Jamaica, Queens, there was a house known for
(04:07):
drug activity and a guy Carlton knew Paul Anderson, lived there.
It was his sister's house, and a guy named Jomo Kenyatta,
who we later find out was a very violent guy
operating under a number of aliases. He was dealing drugs
out of that house. There was also a dude that
Carlton knew, Lloyd Witer or Jimbo as people call them,
(04:27):
who hung around with those guys and may or may
not have been involved in drugs as well. Now, on
March six, a shooting happened at this drug house, killing
Lloyd Witter and putting Jomo Kenyatta into a coma that
lasted for weeks, and when police first arrived at the
crime scene, they found Paul Anderson outside, bound and handcuffed,
(04:50):
but somehow unharmed. James tell us where the investigation went
from there. Lloyd Witter is obviously killed and can't give
an account of the crime. Jomo Kenya Wada is in
a coma for several weeks following the crime, and so
the initial stories come from Paul Anderson, and he gives
several Initially, he claims that a group of individuals came
(05:13):
to his house, unknown individuals that he describes in detail,
and they force him inside at gunpoint, and they handcuff
him and tie him up, and they tell him that
they're after Jomo Kenyatta and Lloyd Whiter and then they
do nothing to him when they go and shoot Joe
Ocanada and Lloyd Witter when they show up. It isn't
until the next day that Carlton is purportedly identified by
(05:36):
Paul Anderson as one of the individuals, along with another
guy he knew, Hollis Laylor Fro among the shooters, and
this is the same day that Carlton learns of the
shooting of his very good friend Lloyd Witter and calls
up Witter's wife and says is this true, and she says, yes,
it's true, and Carlton, being a good friend, runs over
to his friend's house to check what's going on. And
(05:59):
it was found out later that the victim's wife, Andrea Witter,
was told by someone we don't know who that Carlton
was responsible for her husband's death. We know she was
contacted on her husband's beeper after the shooting took place.
It may have been Paul Anderson, perhaps Detective Peppe, We're
not exactly sure. So when Carlton got to her house,
(06:19):
she called the police. When he shows up, nobody answers
the door at the winter home and he goes across
the street to a pay phone to call up the
house and see what's going on. And as he's calling,
a number of one marked cars show up and Mrs
Whitter crosses the street, points at Carlton and says, that's
the man who killed my husband, and things are just
off to the races. From there, Carlton is identified as
(06:42):
being one of the shooters and is taken into custody
by Detective William Peppe. And this is the morning of
the seventeenth, and it just changes Carlton's life, James, As
you're talking about these various different stories that Anderson told,
this is where the whole thing starts to become surreal,
right because Anderson initially told Detective John Logocio that four
(07:03):
men came to his house and that he couldn't identify
the men. And there's no dispute here, Jason, that he
knew who Carlton was at that point, right, So major
red flag right there. But this initial description given to
Detective Legercio was never even presented to the jury and
was only discovered recently, and he gave a detailed description
for the police report. According to Paul Anderson, he didn't
(07:26):
know any of the men, but the apparent leader was
five two or five three and walked with a limp.
Two other guys no taller than five four, and then
the fourth guy. It was about six ft tall with
a cameo haircut, which you remember from the music videos.
At that time, this meant tight on the sides and
tall on top. But then Anderson's account and descriptions changed
(07:48):
six times before this thing even went to trial, And
it comes out much later that according to Anderson, he
was under a great deal of pressure from Detective Peppy,
who fed of various details along the way, but before
his narrative changed. His description definitely did. When they get
Anderson to the precinct, he allegedly identified Carlton Roman as
(08:12):
the shooter. So somehow he magically remembered that his friend
was the shooter from these four unknown men who he
described with some detail, right, and even stranger, Carlton, you
had no criminal record whatsoever, no involvement with this drughouse.
He didn't match any of the initial descriptions. Of his
(08:32):
initial descriptions, He's talking about guys who are under five
four and then one over six ft, but you're five seven.
He'll be out here. Do you have any other matching
characteristics from the initial police report? No, absolutely not. And
if Anderson knew it was you, Carlton, why in the
world didn't he say so from the very beginning, right
when the police first showed up after the shooting. How
(08:54):
in the world is he not going to say, yeah,
it was my friend that did this, and here's where
he lives and here's his phone number. That would have
been the easiest idea ever if you were the guy
who actually did it. I think the other thing that
flows into that, Jason, which has always been a big
point to me and was a big point to the
judge who ultimately exonerated Carlton, is I kind of refer
(09:14):
to it as like a Batman or James Bond scenario
where Paul Anderson says that these guys came in, told
him their entire criminal plot, shot two other guys to
pieces that they told him they were going to shoot,
and then leave him completely unscathed and able to tell
this story. Nobody questioned that from the beginning. Yeah, I
was wondering about that too. And then it gets weirder
(09:34):
write because with Kenyatta drifting in and out of consciousness
for several weeks at the hospital, they went in and
did some really crazy stuff in the hospital in order
to get him to make an identification. Right, how did
that work? So, according to Detective Pepe, the lead investigator,
when Kenyatta awakens from this coma, he goes to visit
(09:56):
with him and he displays a board with letters on it.
Because Kenyatta is supposedly nonverbal, and he has Kenyata supposedly
spell out the names of the people who shot him,
and according to Pepe, he identifies Carlton, Hollis Laylor by
their nicknames, and the other two people who by this point,
(10:16):
Paul Anderson has identified a pair of brothers named Bigger
and Richie. Now, there are a couple of problems with this.
Number One, there's no basis in any police procedure for
going and showing a nonverbal witness a letter board to
identify people. Number two, there's no indication that Kenyatta is
separated from Paul Anderson or other people who could have
(10:38):
influenced an identification. There's no indication that another officer is
present or involved in this procedure. And number three, when
Kenyatta ultimately testifies at Carlton's trial, he says, I didn't
spell out these guys names. I gave three letters. So
he's only claiming to have identified three people during this procedure,
and they don't correspond to the claims that Pepe made.
(10:59):
Not top of this, when Carlton's attorney makes a motion
to see what procedures produced identifications in this case, the
prosecution essentially hides Kenyatta's i D. They represent that only
Paul Anderson has made an idea, and because he knows Carlton,
there's nothing suggestive in any way, shape or form. But
Carlton's trial attorneys actually saying somebody in Kenyatta's condition could
(11:23):
have easily been led to make a misidentification. And the
people's response, which is relied upon by a court, is
that no, there's no problem because the only witness to
make an i D knew the defendant. So they kind
of pushed forward without any review. These two ideas by
these guys who were, you know, years later acknowledged to
be completely incredible and all over the place. Yeah, and
(11:44):
if I'm hearing you correctly, there was only the two
of them in the hospital room at the time anyway, right,
he could have said he identified, you know, Santa Claus
or Helen Keller as the shooter. Rite anybody, right, because
it was just his word. And there's an interesting aspect
there where he aims that Kenyatta spelled out the name
of Hollis Laylor's girlfriend, which he doesn't explain why Kenyatta
(12:06):
would have found that to be at all relevant. And
the first three letters of that name just happened to
be the same as Carlton's nickname. So it kind of
stinks all around here. This is how, you know, sort
of rash they were back in those days. Right, They
didn't even bother to attempt to pretend to make this
sound credible because they knew they'd get away with it anyway. Right.
(12:27):
Was there any other evidence physical for forensick or anything
tying you to the shooting? Absolutely nothing. During trial, they
said they scoured the entire hours from top to bottom,
and they found no fingerprints that were usable, no gun,
no confession, no physical or biological evidence. It really just
(12:47):
comes down to the word of Jomo Kenyada and Paul Anderson.
And then how long were you held before the trial?
The trial took eighteen months before it got there. I
was in I did, and you know, march shoot the system.
A female associate of Mr Greenberg. She came to represent me.
She came back, I'm such and such and you're go
(13:08):
in front of a judge, this is what's gonna happen.
And I remember selling this woman like, what do you
mean I'm not going to be able to go home today,
and she's like, no, this is such a I'm like, listen,
I'm a working man, I have college, I have a
girlfriend and the child home, and I'm going And she
started writing all this stuff down, and when we went
in front of a judge, she hammered him exactly with
all the information I had just given her a minute ago.
(13:29):
And the judge granted me bail. Okay, bail, said that
a hundred thousand dollars bangers gable and left and she
was like, amazing to judge gave you bail, and you
know you have a great record. All that, my family
ran around. They put the house up and I was
built out, and I remained at liberty, going back and
forth to court for another sixteen seventeen months until certain
(13:51):
changes were made in my case. It was a new
judge and suddenly a new DA When Mrs Lemucio came
on the case, everything changed. I think in the second
our sole appearance with her, she asked from my ability
to be revoked, and the new judge did it, and
you know, my life went completely in the toilet from
that point on. This episode is underwritten by A i G,
(14:21):
a leading global insurance company, and by Accenture, a global
professional services company with leading capabilities in digital, cloud and security.
Working to reform the criminal justice system is a key
pillar of the ai G pro Bono program, which provides
free legal services and other support to many nonprofit organizations
and individuals most in need as part of Accenture's commitment
(14:43):
to racial and civil justice. Accenture's Legal Access Program provides
pro bono legal services in partnership with more than forty organizations,
bringing meaningful change to people and communities worldwide. And so
(15:03):
we moved to the trial so because of the fact
that there was no evidence, no actual evidence. The entire
case of the state relied solely on the testimony of
Detective Peppy, who we find out is totally unreliable. And then,
of course the contradictory and inconsistent testimonies of two perhaps incentivized,
if not at least coerced witnesses, Anderson and Kenyatta, and
(15:26):
they each described the shooting and the events leading up
to it. So Anderson's testimony, he said that Carlton Roman,
Hollis Laylor, Jomo Kenyatta, and Lloyd Witter were at Paul
Anderson's house on March fifty nine, the day before the shooting,
a quote unquote bus occurred after Jomo Kenyatta and Lloyd
Witterer took a gun from Carlton Roman. Did you ever
(15:48):
have a gun? Carlton, by the way, did you ever
own a gun? Absolutely not, No, of course not. And
now back to Anderson's bogus account again. He said that
day after this alleged a bus over a gun that
you never owned, Jomo Kenyatta and Lloyd Witner were supposed
to come over to help him, Paul Anderson, I'm talking
about move, but allegedly before they arrived, Carlton Roman, Hollis
(16:11):
Laylor and these two other made up characters Bigger and
Richie came by handcuffed Anderson and put him in the basement.
Several hours later, he heard the doorbell and then a
series of shots. He also testified that he was an architect.
I mean, if you're gonna lie, why not just say
you're a freaking astronaut. He also testified that he was
not involved with drug dealing, and when it was alleged
(16:33):
that he Paul Anderson had been shot by the victim
Lloyd witter just a few months earlier in November, he
denied that he had been shot or treated at a
hospital for the shooting. He also refused to show the
leg where it was alleged that he had been shot.
So he was an architect, had nothing to do with
drug dealing or any ill will towards the victim in
(16:54):
this case. What we know now is Paul Anderson's residence
was a drug house. It was used for drugs and gambling.
And the underlying thing is that the law enforcement actors
involved in this case had to have known the truth
about Paul Anderson and what he was doing. So to
let him get on the stand and say, oh, yeah,
I'm an architect, I've never been shot, it was just
fundamentally unfair. Now we get to Kenyatta's testimony, so he
(17:19):
said that the initial March fifteenth argument was about drugs
and involves Carlton Roman, Hollis Laylor, and Lloyd Witter, not
a gun as Paul Anderson said. According to Kenyata, he
and Lloyd went back to Anderson's house on March sixteenth,
and when they walked into the house, the door shut
quickly behind them, followed by gunshots, and he allegedly saw
Hollis Laylor and Carlton Roman shooting Lloyd Witter when he
(17:42):
tried to run away, Carlton Roman allegedly shot him on
the stairs. On direct examination, Kenyada testified that his criminal
record consisted of a single conviction for reckless driving and
that he was not involved in dealing drugs. He was
recalled to the stand after Carlton's attorney showed of him
leading guilty to attempted possession of a weapon after being
(18:03):
charged with attempted murder. So not only does he lie
in the stand, but the two lying liars who lied
don't match up with each other. Not surprising, and they
both just directly lied about their own backgrounds in ways
that were probably false and in this case were in
fact proven false. And Carlton, I have to ask you
before we even get the Peppy's testimony. You lived through this, right,
(18:26):
I mean, what were you thinking at that time? Well,
I was so stupid. I was just so naive. I
still expected Kenyada to come in there and say no,
that it's not this guy. He wasn't there. So I
was sitting there listening to this guy talking about how
I shot him and all this other stuff, and I
was like, I'm sitting here with my mouth hanging out.
I remember at one point turned around to look at
(18:48):
my mom, and my grandmother was there. They were also
sitting there with their mouths hanging. No. I couldn't believe
he was actually saying any of this stuff. I'm sitting
there like a training at me listening to this stuff. Yeah,
I mean he must have felt like you just want
to scream out and say, wait a minute, that's not true, right.
I wanted to do that, and I made several attempts
on Mr Greenberg. He had a hand on my knee
(19:08):
under the table and he kept squeezing my knee. Just relax,
don't worry, take it easy, don't make a scene in
the court. It's not like I was going to turn
the table over or anything. But I wanted to really,
like stand up and scream. It is do like you're lying.
You understand what I'm saying. And I've always regretted that
I listened to my attorney. From what I read in
the research, there was very little defense to speak of. James,
(19:29):
can you talk about what did this guy do wrong?
And what did he leave out and how did he
manage to blow what should have been an easy win.
We only have one podcast, so I can't really go
through everything he did wrong. Carlton's attorney had an alibi
that Carlton provided to him. He had alibi witnesses that
supported that Carlton was nowhere near Paul Anderson's house on
(19:50):
the day of the shootings. Carlton testified in his own defense.
His testimony was coherent with his alibi witnesses. Mr Greenberg,
the trial attorney, called some of them, but then he
permitted so much of this false insinuation by the prosecution
that Carlton was a drug dealer. One example of this
is that Carlton had a car that his mother had
(20:11):
put the down payment on, and all Mr Greenberg would
have needed to do is bring in the financing agreement
for that car, which was a fairly easy thing to
do to show that this wasn't the product of drug money.
It was a car that was financed by his mother.
And instead, because he didn't do that, the prosecutor was
able to make it seem as if, look, this is
(20:31):
a drug dealer who's buying new cars and living high
on drug money. But Mr Greenberg just didn't rise to
the occasion. In response to these bogus allegations by the prosecution,
there were so many opportunities where he just showed that
he had not been engaged in the case. And maybe
that's because in the time between the shootings and the trial,
it didn't seem like Paul Anderson was actually going to
(20:53):
come back from Jamaica to testify. He had fled to
Jamaica after the grand jury, and from what I gathered
from the transcripts, I in Greenberg thought this was going
to be dismissed. But you don't not prepare based on that.
You've still got a client on trial for murder. You
gotta be ready to defend them. And so with the
fact that these lies were allowed to be foisted on
(21:14):
the jury and that your own team didn't really do
much of anything to help you, the results were predictable,
and ultimately you were convicted of second degree murder as
well as other counts and sentenced to forty three and
a half years in prison. Can you describe what you
were feeling in that moment they said guilty and I
(21:37):
just fell into a black hole like I couldn't think.
I don't remember it was in the court. I don't
remember even if I looked around on anybody. Everything that's
closed in at me at once and like I was
just dragged into a black hole. I couldn't think. I
was a complete wreck. It was like the worst thing
in the world that could happen to anybody. The thing
(22:11):
that never left me was like, I did not do this,
and I'm gonna have to prove that to everybody. So
I never lost any of that. Over all the years,
I always knew deep down that some way, somehow I'm
getting out of this. You're gonna know I did not
do this. I'm an only child from my mother and
(22:32):
I have one daughter now, and those are the most
two important people for me in the world. And I
knew if I broke what it would do to my
mom it would destroy her completely. I really felt that
that hanger that this had happened to me, and that
I'm dragging my mother right along with me through all
of this stuff. So I could not stop, and I
(22:53):
never did. No, you did not and facing denial after
denial from the courts and the opposition from Richard Brown's
d A office and Queen's Justice did not look like
it must have looked like a very distant possibility, but
you just didn't quit. So, James, when did you get
involved and how does this situation finally get to where
(23:14):
we are now? And how did the Queen's District Attorney's
race play a role in all of that? In two
thou fifteen, the Queen's DA's office certifies Carlton's file as
completely missing. The prosecution file first case is gone. And
this is although since his conviction in nine Carlton had
been litigating his conviction. I come in in two thousand
(23:35):
seventeen as co counsel for another attorney who had been
working on Carlton's case, and we put an emotion based
on some material that we felt was newly discovered from
the Hollis Slaylor file, and we were unsuccessful in that motion.
It was denied in two thousand nineteen. A lot of
this is because they could kind of argue whatever they
wanted in the absence of a prosecution file. There's no
(23:57):
reference point for saying this is what occurred or this
is what was said, because all of the material was
purportedly lost. The attorney that I had been working with
left the case, and Carlton asked me if I would
stay on as lead counsel, and I said sure, and
we sent an investigator to Jamaica to locate Paul Anderson
because we said, look, there's not a lot of moving
parts in this case. And in two thousand nineteen, we
(24:19):
went down and spoke with Paul Anderson and he recanted
in an affidavit and on tape. And as you alluded to, Jason,
there was a race for Queen's DA. Richard Brown had
been there for years. His office had steadfastly opposed any
attempt by Carlton to try and get a review of
this evidence. Carlton had never had a hearing on any
(24:41):
of his motions. And we brought the recantation of Paul
Anderson to the new district attorney who had been elected,
Melinda cats Her newly formed Conviction Integrity Unit, and they
agreed to a reinvestigation of this case. And ultimately what
they found and what we put forward made them agree
that Carlton should no longer be in prison, that this
conviction should be vacated. So what were the major points
(25:04):
that ultimately tipped the scales of justice back to where
they should have been in the first place. So, for one,
it's Paul Anderson unsurprisingly comes forward and acknowledges that his
story was bs and he knew that the cops were
looking at his house, which belonged to his sister, and
that they knew that there was a legal activity going
on there, that there was a drug operation running out
(25:27):
of there which was headed up by Joe Moo Kenyata.
And we also learned that Joemo Kenyada was operating under
we don't know how many different aliases, but other than
the crimes that were revealed at trial, he was wanted
for at least one murder that's still a cold case
in Queens. He was a heavy drug dealer. His brother
was a drug dealer. Essentially, there was motive for many
(25:48):
other people other than Carlton, who had no criminal record,
to have committed this crime, including even the state's main witness,
Paul Anderson, who according to new eyewitnesses, had survived being
shot by the victim in this case, ace Lloyd Witter.
In November, the Conviction Integrity Unit did a number of
interviews with Carlton and as alibi witnesses, and those essentially
corroberated the alibi that was or should have been presented
(26:11):
at trial. And interviews with Andrea Wider and others demonstrate
that Detective Pepe was unreliable to say the least detective
Pepe fabricated a visa to bring Paul Anderson back from
Jamaica to testify at Carlton's trial. The fact that he's
willing to break federal law fabricate an official document to
(26:31):
push forward this case. Where does that end? Does that
end with fabricating witness statements? You have to take a
hard look at that. This is the guy that pushes
forth the evidence in this case. Ultimately, what they come
down to is that the original descriptions from Paul Anderson
that did not match Carlton Roman are nowhere in the transcript,
and that new evidence completely and totally undermines the two witnesses,
(26:54):
Paul Anderson and Jomo Kenyada, whose testimony is used to
convict him. So now you're still in at this point, Carlton.
You've been through everything at this point, and you've been
through every heartbreak and disappointment. But are you now feeling
like there really is finally light at the end of
this horrible tunnel? Yes. I realized then that this was
the closest I've come to getting the truth revealed and
(27:17):
my freedom back. I've been to the appellate Division, I've
tried have been to the Court of Appeals, I did
federal a I've done everything, and everywhere that I went
it was just a consistent slam in the face, denied, denied, denied, denied, denied.
Like James correctly said, despite all the craziness you're seeing
in my case, no judge that actually looked at it
(27:38):
and seeing fit to at least grant me a hearing.
So nobody wanted to hear anything at all from me.
I just kept going back like a boxer getting punch
in the face every time, and just kept going back.
But when this was happening now, it kind of felt different.
It felt different, mainly because at the Year's Office there
were different people there and it seemed like they were serious.
(27:58):
It was actually new people here who might be receptive
to correct in what had happened to me. So finally,
August nine, the Queen's District Attorney and you James, filed
the joint motion asking the court to vacate Carlton Romans convictions.
In that affirmation, the District Attorney's office said, quote, it
had concluded that three witnesses and the facts undermine the
(28:21):
credibility of the key trial witnesses Anderson and Kenyatta could
not have been discovered in the context of your trial, Carlton,
with the exercise of due diligence, and are of such
character that they would have probably led to a verdict
more favorable to the defendant. So on August nine, one,
Justice Michelle Johnson of Queen's County Supreme Court granted the
(28:43):
motion and dismissed the charges against you and d A.
Melinda cat said, there is a quote. We are not
so arrogant to think that the system doesn't make mistakes
powerful words. She went on to say, when we find
mischaracters of justice, we do everything in our power to
correct them quickly and court into the daily news, it's
quoted you, Carlon was saying right outside the courtroom. I'm
(29:05):
not technically a shy person. I have nothing prepared to
say to you all, but let me say one thing.
The justice system. Everybody knows it's broken. I've read a
thousand reports that say that. But words alone aren't going
to get that fixed. You have all have a part
to play in this also. But I'm here now, but
there's a lot of people in there who need your attention. Now,
there's people in there who have been fighting for justice
(29:25):
longer than I have end. Quote, what a fucking thing.
By the way, here, you are just getting out of
this thirty two year or deal that something out of
a Greek tragedy or something, and the first thing you're
doing is thinking about other people. I mean, who are you, dude?
Who are you? I've heard that so much different times.
A lot of it is a blurnout to I have
(29:46):
to watch the thing to digest fully the entire moment.
It was just overwhelming for me. I had a conversation
with somebody that was locked in sing sing that I
knew for a long time, you know, made a securest
phone call and I was talking to him and he said, Man,
I just want to to talk to you about one thing,
and it's what you said when you came out of
the court. He said, there's dozens of people here who
(30:07):
don't know you, and they're just so happy you said that.
They're praising you and all this other stuff. I use
this reference. It's like if you're in the desert and
you're dying of thirst and there's wild animals circling you,
and you're there with a bunch of people and some
are miraculously you stumble and make it out. The first
thing any decent human beings should do is say, wait,
(30:29):
there's more people in there that needs help. So that's
the point of view where I was coming from. And
you know, it's a day for justice and all that,
but we can't forget all the people in there who's
going to the very same thing. Yeah, it just speaks
a lot to your character. I'm sure there's a lot
of people listening. Now. You're inspiring them to want to
(30:51):
take action to make a difference, and you're inspiring me
to want to two more. And what would you suggest
that's a course of action. The first thing that the
mind for me is when people wind up in my
situation and they finally get exonerated, something needs to be
done to reintegrate them into society. For instance, I've lost
(31:13):
all my paperwork. I have no idea where my Social
Security card is, passport, my immigration papers, my driver's license,
all that stuff is gone. I have to go to
hell just to get a learner's permit. On the way
to getting the driver's license, I went to the d
m V and I had nothing to show them that
would make them allow me to take the written tests
(31:34):
to start the whold process over. The thing that helped
me most get that accomplished was the front page of
the Daily News with my picture on the cover saying
I was exonerated after thirty two years. I know right now,
like off the top of my head, three other exonerated
people who's out here and we're in regular touch, and
all of us had the same problem. You can't go
to a bank and establish an account because when you
(31:56):
go there, there first thing you're asking you for his
I D. I remember pulling out the last j L
D they gave me and it was told like, well,
that's absolutely useless. I went to try to get my
social Security card reached. Well you need a driver advice
and then you need a password. But I don't have
any of those things. And when I go to another office,
they asked me for my social Security card. So it's
like this cap when the two things happening and something
(32:17):
needs to be done about that. Now we have But
I always referred to as my favorite part of the show,
and everybody who's listening knows what I'm talking about because
he gave me say it every week. But this is
the part of the show called closing arguments. And it
works like this. First of all, I thank each of
you again, James Henning for the great work you've done
(32:38):
for Mr Roman and on behalf of other clients. Thank
you for that, and thank you for taking your time
to be on the show with us today. Thanks for
having us. Jason, what you're doing means a lot, and
of course same for you Carlton again, thank you so
much for just being yourself and inspiring everybody to march
forward and try to make change. And now the closing
arguments works like this. I turned my microphone off, I
(33:02):
leave yours on. James, you're gonna go first, if that's okay,
and say the best for last. With all due respect
to you, And all you have to do now is
say whatever you want, anything that we may have left out,
or anything that's left unsaid. This is closing arguments. James Henning,
you go, dropped the mic, pass it off to Carlton,
and that's how we'll close the show. I think basically
(33:24):
what I would say is that Carlton's case, the cliche
never give up gets thrown around a lot. There was
not a tremendous amount of hope after his entire file
was lost, but he always kept fighting, and I think
that's the spirit that this story should inspire in people.
The people who actually did this were allowed to go
(33:45):
free and potentially take other lives, but Carlton absolutely refused
to let his life be taken, and I think that
should be a message to everybody in whatever situation they're in.
This guy was in the darkest of places and he
just never gave up. And it's a beautiful thing to
see because he's a truly remarkable person. And I'm very
(34:06):
proud to have played whatever role I did in helping
bring him back to society because he's an important guide
and how you know, he's great. So that's what I'll say,
and I'll pass around to him. Hold public officials accountable.
All the district attorney and the idea is accountable, and
even more important, all the judges accountable. People tend to
(34:28):
forget how much power a judge as and how much
thing a judge can look away from. From my point
of view, if my case had landed in front of
a fear judge, even say twenty five years ago, this
should have been over. Then judges can be allowed to
just ignore the cries of innocent people because they just
don't feel like reviewing it or granted a hearing or
(34:51):
looking further into what happened or whatever. So there needs
to be a spotlight on what judges are doing, how
they're coming to the conclusions that they're coming to, and
when they're shirking your duties. Man, they got to get
out of there. And it's the same thing with the
District attorney's offices. And again, none of that stuff is
secret stuff. Start calling hesterin, hammering whoever it is that's
(35:14):
in the points of authority that's responsible for what's going
on in these courtrooms when they can't live up to
the holtes they take, get them out of there, whole
public officials accountable, make them do better. Thank you for
(35:37):
listening to Wrong for Conviction. Please support your local innocence
organizations and go to the links in our bio to
see how you can help. I'd like to thank our
production team Connor Hall, Justin Golden, Jeff Cleburne, and Kevin Wardas.
The music on this show, as always, is by three
time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow
(35:57):
us on Instagram at Wrong for Conviction, on Twitter at
Wrong Conviction, and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast. Wrongful
Conviction is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
association with Signal Company Number one
In nine, Paul Anderson lived in a Jamaica queen's drug
house owned by his sister but operated by a man
named Jomo Kenyatta. On March sixteenth, nine, Jomo Kenyatta and
one of his associates, Lloyd Witter, were shot at the house,
leaving Winter dead and Kenyatta in a coma. Police found
Paul Anderson alone, bound, handcuffed, and unharmed outside the home,
(00:27):
under pressure from lead Detective William Peppy and desperately trying
to divert attention away from himself. Anderson's initial description of
four unknown men quickly changed to that of two acquaintances
who did not fit his initial descriptions, Carlton Roman and
Hollis Laylor. With no physical or forensic evidence tying Carlton
or Hollis to the shooting, the state's case relied solely
(00:50):
on the inconsistent and outright false testimonies of Anderson, Kanyata,
and Detective Peppy. Carlton, a twenty six year old bother
at college dude with no connection to the drug trade,
was portrayed by the prosecution as a dangerous drug kingpin,
and despite the testimony of alibi witnesses Carlton was convicted
(01:10):
and sentenced over forty three years in prison. The Queens
a blocked Carlton's attempts at justice for over three decades
until the election of District Attorney Olympic Cats and the
formation of a new Conviction Integrity Unit. A reinvestigation revealed
the misdeeds of Paul Anderson, Jomo Kenyata, and Detective Peppy,
(01:31):
as well as led to Carlton's freedom after thirty two
long years in prison. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back
(01:56):
to wrongful Conviction. I'm your host, Jason Floman. I'm going
to start today's episode by issuing an apology and I'm
going to direct that at our featured guest, Carlton Roman,
because what he went through doesn't make any logical sense whatsoever,
even by our crazy standards. And so Mr Roman, thank
you for being here. And then with Mr Roman today
is his attorney James Henning. James, welcome to the show.
(02:19):
Pleasure to be here. Thanks for having us. Jason, Yeah,
and I'm glad you're here as well to help tell
this crazy story because honestly, when I was researching this,
I was kind of just like turning the paper upside down,
back and forth and saying maybe somebody left something out,
Maybe there's a mistake or omission here somewhere. I mean, Carlton,
you were a twenty six year old man who was
(02:40):
a father boyfriend, going to college, living in Queen's, New York,
no criminal record whatsoever. So if a guy like you
can get caught up in something like this, then the
uncomfortable fact is that nobody's safe. Right, So let's go
back to that. First of all, where are you from?
But I'm Jamaican. I was born here into this country
that was in My mother migrated before me, and she
(03:02):
worked to a three four jobs sometimes until she was
able to sponsor me and get me up here. At
the one point of me coming here was educational purposes
to go to college. We started going around trying to
get me into a college, and she kept bringing me
to different colleges and I'd be looking at the campuses.
I have no frame of reference and what to go by.
I mean, it's completely difference. It's a first world country
(03:24):
and all that. We started looking at colleges and queens
and I fell in love with Queensboro, which was a
community of college. That's what I settled on. So my
mom and her husband started looking at place in Queens
and then we moved there within like maybe ten months
of me coming up here. So it seems like everything
was going pretty well until of course, one day in
(03:45):
and that's when it all went terribly wrong. Now, this
was the late eighties in New York, a time that
was rife with both drug dealing and police corruption that
stretched through the nineties. And I'm not breaking any news here, right.
It was the cry epidemic, the War on drugs. A
lot of bad shit happened on both sides of the law.
And in Jamaica, Queens, there was a house known for
(04:07):
drug activity and a guy Carlton knew Paul Anderson, lived there.
It was his sister's house, and a guy named Jomo Kenyatta,
who we later find out was a very violent guy
operating under a number of aliases. He was dealing drugs
out of that house. There was also a dude that
Carlton knew, Lloyd Witer or Jimbo as people call them,
(04:27):
who hung around with those guys and may or may
not have been involved in drugs as well. Now, on
March six, a shooting happened at this drug house, killing
Lloyd Witter and putting Jomo Kenyatta into a coma that
lasted for weeks, and when police first arrived at the
crime scene, they found Paul Anderson outside, bound and handcuffed,
(04:50):
but somehow unharmed. James tell us where the investigation went
from there. Lloyd Witter is obviously killed and can't give
an account of the crime. Jomo Kenya Wada is in
a coma for several weeks following the crime, and so
the initial stories come from Paul Anderson, and he gives
several Initially, he claims that a group of individuals came
(05:13):
to his house, unknown individuals that he describes in detail,
and they force him inside at gunpoint, and they handcuff
him and tie him up, and they tell him that
they're after Jomo Kenyatta and Lloyd Whiter and then they
do nothing to him when they go and shoot Joe
Ocanada and Lloyd Witter when they show up. It isn't
until the next day that Carlton is purportedly identified by
(05:36):
Paul Anderson as one of the individuals, along with another
guy he knew, Hollis Laylor Fro among the shooters, and
this is the same day that Carlton learns of the
shooting of his very good friend Lloyd Witter and calls
up Witter's wife and says is this true, and she says, yes,
it's true, and Carlton, being a good friend, runs over
to his friend's house to check what's going on. And
(05:59):
it was found out later that the victim's wife, Andrea Witter,
was told by someone we don't know who that Carlton
was responsible for her husband's death. We know she was
contacted on her husband's beeper after the shooting took place.
It may have been Paul Anderson, perhaps Detective Peppe, We're
not exactly sure. So when Carlton got to her house,
(06:19):
she called the police. When he shows up, nobody answers
the door at the winter home and he goes across
the street to a pay phone to call up the
house and see what's going on. And as he's calling,
a number of one marked cars show up and Mrs
Whitter crosses the street, points at Carlton and says, that's
the man who killed my husband, and things are just
off to the races. From there, Carlton is identified as
(06:42):
being one of the shooters and is taken into custody
by Detective William Peppe. And this is the morning of
the seventeenth, and it just changes Carlton's life, James, As
you're talking about these various different stories that Anderson told,
this is where the whole thing starts to become surreal,
right because Anderson initially told Detective John Logocio that four
(07:03):
men came to his house and that he couldn't identify
the men. And there's no dispute here, Jason, that he
knew who Carlton was at that point, right, So major
red flag right there. But this initial description given to
Detective Legercio was never even presented to the jury and
was only discovered recently, and he gave a detailed description
for the police report. According to Paul Anderson, he didn't
(07:26):
know any of the men, but the apparent leader was
five two or five three and walked with a limp.
Two other guys no taller than five four, and then
the fourth guy. It was about six ft tall with
a cameo haircut, which you remember from the music videos.
At that time, this meant tight on the sides and
tall on top. But then Anderson's account and descriptions changed
(07:48):
six times before this thing even went to trial, And
it comes out much later that according to Anderson, he
was under a great deal of pressure from Detective Peppy,
who fed of various details along the way, but before
his narrative changed. His description definitely did. When they get
Anderson to the precinct, he allegedly identified Carlton Roman as
(08:12):
the shooter. So somehow he magically remembered that his friend
was the shooter from these four unknown men who he
described with some detail, right, and even stranger, Carlton, you
had no criminal record whatsoever, no involvement with this drughouse.
He didn't match any of the initial descriptions. Of his
(08:32):
initial descriptions, He's talking about guys who are under five
four and then one over six ft, but you're five seven.
He'll be out here. Do you have any other matching
characteristics from the initial police report? No, absolutely not. And
if Anderson knew it was you, Carlton, why in the
world didn't he say so from the very beginning, right
when the police first showed up after the shooting. How
(08:54):
in the world is he not going to say, yeah,
it was my friend that did this, and here's where
he lives and here's his phone number. That would have
been the easiest idea ever if you were the guy
who actually did it. I think the other thing that
flows into that, Jason, which has always been a big
point to me and was a big point to the
judge who ultimately exonerated Carlton, is I kind of refer
(09:14):
to it as like a Batman or James Bond scenario
where Paul Anderson says that these guys came in, told
him their entire criminal plot, shot two other guys to
pieces that they told him they were going to shoot,
and then leave him completely unscathed and able to tell
this story. Nobody questioned that from the beginning. Yeah, I
was wondering about that too. And then it gets weirder
(09:34):
write because with Kenyatta drifting in and out of consciousness
for several weeks at the hospital, they went in and
did some really crazy stuff in the hospital in order
to get him to make an identification. Right, how did
that work? So, according to Detective Pepe, the lead investigator,
when Kenyatta awakens from this coma, he goes to visit
(09:56):
with him and he displays a board with letters on it.
Because Kenyatta is supposedly nonverbal, and he has Kenyata supposedly
spell out the names of the people who shot him,
and according to Pepe, he identifies Carlton, Hollis Laylor by
their nicknames, and the other two people who by this point,
(10:16):
Paul Anderson has identified a pair of brothers named Bigger
and Richie. Now, there are a couple of problems with this.
Number One, there's no basis in any police procedure for
going and showing a nonverbal witness a letter board to
identify people. Number two, there's no indication that Kenyatta is
separated from Paul Anderson or other people who could have
(10:38):
influenced an identification. There's no indication that another officer is
present or involved in this procedure. And number three, when
Kenyatta ultimately testifies at Carlton's trial, he says, I didn't
spell out these guys names. I gave three letters. So
he's only claiming to have identified three people during this procedure,
and they don't correspond to the claims that Pepe made.
(10:59):
Not top of this, when Carlton's attorney makes a motion
to see what procedures produced identifications in this case, the
prosecution essentially hides Kenyatta's i D. They represent that only
Paul Anderson has made an idea, and because he knows Carlton,
there's nothing suggestive in any way, shape or form. But
Carlton's trial attorneys actually saying somebody in Kenyatta's condition could
(11:23):
have easily been led to make a misidentification. And the
people's response, which is relied upon by a court, is
that no, there's no problem because the only witness to
make an i D knew the defendant. So they kind
of pushed forward without any review. These two ideas by
these guys who were, you know, years later acknowledged to
be completely incredible and all over the place. Yeah, and
(11:44):
if I'm hearing you correctly, there was only the two
of them in the hospital room at the time anyway, right,
he could have said he identified, you know, Santa Claus
or Helen Keller as the shooter. Rite anybody, right, because
it was just his word. And there's an interesting aspect
there where he aims that Kenyatta spelled out the name
of Hollis Laylor's girlfriend, which he doesn't explain why Kenyatta
(12:06):
would have found that to be at all relevant. And
the first three letters of that name just happened to
be the same as Carlton's nickname. So it kind of
stinks all around here. This is how, you know, sort
of rash they were back in those days. Right, They
didn't even bother to attempt to pretend to make this
sound credible because they knew they'd get away with it anyway. Right.
(12:27):
Was there any other evidence physical for forensick or anything
tying you to the shooting? Absolutely nothing. During trial, they
said they scoured the entire hours from top to bottom,
and they found no fingerprints that were usable, no gun,
no confession, no physical or biological evidence. It really just
(12:47):
comes down to the word of Jomo Kenyada and Paul Anderson.
And then how long were you held before the trial?
The trial took eighteen months before it got there. I
was in I did, and you know, march shoot the system.
A female associate of Mr Greenberg. She came to represent me.
She came back, I'm such and such and you're go
(13:08):
in front of a judge, this is what's gonna happen.
And I remember selling this woman like, what do you
mean I'm not going to be able to go home today,
and she's like, no, this is such a I'm like, listen,
I'm a working man, I have college, I have a
girlfriend and the child home, and I'm going And she
started writing all this stuff down, and when we went
in front of a judge, she hammered him exactly with
all the information I had just given her a minute ago.
(13:29):
And the judge granted me bail. Okay, bail, said that
a hundred thousand dollars bangers gable and left and she
was like, amazing to judge gave you bail, and you
know you have a great record. All that, my family
ran around. They put the house up and I was
built out, and I remained at liberty, going back and
forth to court for another sixteen seventeen months until certain
(13:51):
changes were made in my case. It was a new
judge and suddenly a new DA When Mrs Lemucio came
on the case, everything changed. I think in the second
our sole appearance with her, she asked from my ability
to be revoked, and the new judge did it, and
you know, my life went completely in the toilet from
that point on. This episode is underwritten by A i G,
(14:21):
a leading global insurance company, and by Accenture, a global
professional services company with leading capabilities in digital, cloud and security.
Working to reform the criminal justice system is a key
pillar of the ai G pro Bono program, which provides
free legal services and other support to many nonprofit organizations
and individuals most in need as part of Accenture's commitment
(14:43):
to racial and civil justice. Accenture's Legal Access Program provides
pro bono legal services in partnership with more than forty organizations,
bringing meaningful change to people and communities worldwide. And so
(15:03):
we moved to the trial so because of the fact
that there was no evidence, no actual evidence. The entire
case of the state relied solely on the testimony of
Detective Peppy, who we find out is totally unreliable. And then,
of course the contradictory and inconsistent testimonies of two perhaps incentivized,
if not at least coerced witnesses, Anderson and Kenyatta, and
(15:26):
they each described the shooting and the events leading up
to it. So Anderson's testimony, he said that Carlton Roman,
Hollis Laylor, Jomo Kenyatta, and Lloyd Witter were at Paul
Anderson's house on March fifty nine, the day before the shooting,
a quote unquote bus occurred after Jomo Kenyatta and Lloyd
Witterer took a gun from Carlton Roman. Did you ever
(15:48):
have a gun? Carlton, by the way, did you ever
own a gun? Absolutely not, No, of course not. And
now back to Anderson's bogus account again. He said that
day after this alleged a bus over a gun that
you never owned, Jomo Kenyatta and Lloyd Witner were supposed
to come over to help him, Paul Anderson, I'm talking
about move, but allegedly before they arrived, Carlton Roman, Hollis
(16:11):
Laylor and these two other made up characters Bigger and
Richie came by handcuffed Anderson and put him in the basement.
Several hours later, he heard the doorbell and then a
series of shots. He also testified that he was an architect.
I mean, if you're gonna lie, why not just say
you're a freaking astronaut. He also testified that he was
not involved with drug dealing, and when it was alleged
(16:33):
that he Paul Anderson had been shot by the victim
Lloyd witter just a few months earlier in November, he
denied that he had been shot or treated at a
hospital for the shooting. He also refused to show the
leg where it was alleged that he had been shot.
So he was an architect, had nothing to do with
drug dealing or any ill will towards the victim in
(16:54):
this case. What we know now is Paul Anderson's residence
was a drug house. It was used for drugs and gambling.
And the underlying thing is that the law enforcement actors
involved in this case had to have known the truth
about Paul Anderson and what he was doing. So to
let him get on the stand and say, oh, yeah,
I'm an architect, I've never been shot, it was just
fundamentally unfair. Now we get to Kenyatta's testimony, so he
(17:19):
said that the initial March fifteenth argument was about drugs
and involves Carlton Roman, Hollis Laylor, and Lloyd Witter, not
a gun as Paul Anderson said. According to Kenyata, he
and Lloyd went back to Anderson's house on March sixteenth,
and when they walked into the house, the door shut
quickly behind them, followed by gunshots, and he allegedly saw
Hollis Laylor and Carlton Roman shooting Lloyd Witter when he
(17:42):
tried to run away, Carlton Roman allegedly shot him on
the stairs. On direct examination, Kenyada testified that his criminal
record consisted of a single conviction for reckless driving and
that he was not involved in dealing drugs. He was
recalled to the stand after Carlton's attorney showed of him
leading guilty to attempted possession of a weapon after being
(18:03):
charged with attempted murder. So not only does he lie
in the stand, but the two lying liars who lied
don't match up with each other. Not surprising, and they
both just directly lied about their own backgrounds in ways
that were probably false and in this case were in
fact proven false. And Carlton, I have to ask you
before we even get the Peppy's testimony. You lived through this, right,
(18:26):
I mean, what were you thinking at that time? Well,
I was so stupid. I was just so naive. I
still expected Kenyada to come in there and say no,
that it's not this guy. He wasn't there. So I
was sitting there listening to this guy talking about how
I shot him and all this other stuff, and I
was like, I'm sitting here with my mouth hanging out.
I remember at one point turned around to look at
(18:48):
my mom, and my grandmother was there. They were also
sitting there with their mouths hanging. No. I couldn't believe
he was actually saying any of this stuff. I'm sitting
there like a training at me listening to this stuff. Yeah,
I mean he must have felt like you just want
to scream out and say, wait a minute, that's not true, right.
I wanted to do that, and I made several attempts
on Mr Greenberg. He had a hand on my knee
(19:08):
under the table and he kept squeezing my knee. Just relax,
don't worry, take it easy, don't make a scene in
the court. It's not like I was going to turn
the table over or anything. But I wanted to really,
like stand up and scream. It is do like you're lying.
You understand what I'm saying. And I've always regretted that
I listened to my attorney. From what I read in
the research, there was very little defense to speak of. James,
(19:29):
can you talk about what did this guy do wrong?
And what did he leave out and how did he
manage to blow what should have been an easy win.
We only have one podcast, so I can't really go
through everything he did wrong. Carlton's attorney had an alibi
that Carlton provided to him. He had alibi witnesses that
supported that Carlton was nowhere near Paul Anderson's house on
(19:50):
the day of the shootings. Carlton testified in his own defense.
His testimony was coherent with his alibi witnesses. Mr Greenberg,
the trial attorney, called some of them, but then he
permitted so much of this false insinuation by the prosecution
that Carlton was a drug dealer. One example of this
is that Carlton had a car that his mother had
(20:11):
put the down payment on, and all Mr Greenberg would
have needed to do is bring in the financing agreement
for that car, which was a fairly easy thing to
do to show that this wasn't the product of drug money.
It was a car that was financed by his mother.
And instead, because he didn't do that, the prosecutor was
able to make it seem as if, look, this is
(20:31):
a drug dealer who's buying new cars and living high
on drug money. But Mr Greenberg just didn't rise to
the occasion. In response to these bogus allegations by the prosecution,
there were so many opportunities where he just showed that
he had not been engaged in the case. And maybe
that's because in the time between the shootings and the trial,
it didn't seem like Paul Anderson was actually going to
(20:53):
come back from Jamaica to testify. He had fled to
Jamaica after the grand jury, and from what I gathered
from the transcripts, I in Greenberg thought this was going
to be dismissed. But you don't not prepare based on that.
You've still got a client on trial for murder. You
gotta be ready to defend them. And so with the
fact that these lies were allowed to be foisted on
(21:14):
the jury and that your own team didn't really do
much of anything to help you, the results were predictable,
and ultimately you were convicted of second degree murder as
well as other counts and sentenced to forty three and
a half years in prison. Can you describe what you
were feeling in that moment they said guilty and I
(21:37):
just fell into a black hole like I couldn't think.
I don't remember it was in the court. I don't
remember even if I looked around on anybody. Everything that's
closed in at me at once and like I was
just dragged into a black hole. I couldn't think. I
was a complete wreck. It was like the worst thing
in the world that could happen to anybody. The thing
(22:11):
that never left me was like, I did not do this,
and I'm gonna have to prove that to everybody. So
I never lost any of that. Over all the years,
I always knew deep down that some way, somehow I'm
getting out of this. You're gonna know I did not
do this. I'm an only child from my mother and
(22:32):
I have one daughter now, and those are the most
two important people for me in the world. And I
knew if I broke what it would do to my
mom it would destroy her completely. I really felt that
that hanger that this had happened to me, and that
I'm dragging my mother right along with me through all
of this stuff. So I could not stop, and I
(22:53):
never did. No, you did not and facing denial after
denial from the courts and the opposition from Richard Brown's
d A office and Queen's Justice did not look like
it must have looked like a very distant possibility, but
you just didn't quit. So, James, when did you get
involved and how does this situation finally get to where
(23:14):
we are now? And how did the Queen's District Attorney's
race play a role in all of that? In two
thou fifteen, the Queen's DA's office certifies Carlton's file as
completely missing. The prosecution file first case is gone. And
this is although since his conviction in nine Carlton had
been litigating his conviction. I come in in two thousand
(23:35):
seventeen as co counsel for another attorney who had been
working on Carlton's case, and we put an emotion based
on some material that we felt was newly discovered from
the Hollis Slaylor file, and we were unsuccessful in that motion.
It was denied in two thousand nineteen. A lot of
this is because they could kind of argue whatever they
wanted in the absence of a prosecution file. There's no
(23:57):
reference point for saying this is what occurred or this
is what was said, because all of the material was
purportedly lost. The attorney that I had been working with
left the case, and Carlton asked me if I would
stay on as lead counsel, and I said sure, and
we sent an investigator to Jamaica to locate Paul Anderson
because we said, look, there's not a lot of moving
parts in this case. And in two thousand nineteen, we
(24:19):
went down and spoke with Paul Anderson and he recanted
in an affidavit and on tape. And as you alluded to, Jason,
there was a race for Queen's DA. Richard Brown had
been there for years. His office had steadfastly opposed any
attempt by Carlton to try and get a review of
this evidence. Carlton had never had a hearing on any
(24:41):
of his motions. And we brought the recantation of Paul
Anderson to the new district attorney who had been elected,
Melinda cats Her newly formed Conviction Integrity Unit, and they
agreed to a reinvestigation of this case. And ultimately what
they found and what we put forward made them agree
that Carlton should no longer be in prison, that this
conviction should be vacated. So what were the major points
(25:04):
that ultimately tipped the scales of justice back to where
they should have been in the first place. So, for one,
it's Paul Anderson unsurprisingly comes forward and acknowledges that his
story was bs and he knew that the cops were
looking at his house, which belonged to his sister, and
that they knew that there was a legal activity going
on there, that there was a drug operation running out
(25:27):
of there which was headed up by Joe Moo Kenyata.
And we also learned that Joemo Kenyada was operating under
we don't know how many different aliases, but other than
the crimes that were revealed at trial, he was wanted
for at least one murder that's still a cold case
in Queens. He was a heavy drug dealer. His brother
was a drug dealer. Essentially, there was motive for many
(25:48):
other people other than Carlton, who had no criminal record,
to have committed this crime, including even the state's main witness,
Paul Anderson, who according to new eyewitnesses, had survived being
shot by the victim in this case, ace Lloyd Witter.
In November, the Conviction Integrity Unit did a number of
interviews with Carlton and as alibi witnesses, and those essentially
corroberated the alibi that was or should have been presented
(26:11):
at trial. And interviews with Andrea Wider and others demonstrate
that Detective Pepe was unreliable to say the least detective
Pepe fabricated a visa to bring Paul Anderson back from
Jamaica to testify at Carlton's trial. The fact that he's
willing to break federal law fabricate an official document to
(26:31):
push forward this case. Where does that end? Does that
end with fabricating witness statements? You have to take a
hard look at that. This is the guy that pushes
forth the evidence in this case. Ultimately, what they come
down to is that the original descriptions from Paul Anderson
that did not match Carlton Roman are nowhere in the transcript,
and that new evidence completely and totally undermines the two witnesses,
(26:54):
Paul Anderson and Jomo Kenyada, whose testimony is used to
convict him. So now you're still in at this point, Carlton.
You've been through everything at this point, and you've been
through every heartbreak and disappointment. But are you now feeling
like there really is finally light at the end of
this horrible tunnel? Yes. I realized then that this was
the closest I've come to getting the truth revealed and
(27:17):
my freedom back. I've been to the appellate Division, I've
tried have been to the Court of Appeals, I did
federal a I've done everything, and everywhere that I went
it was just a consistent slam in the face, denied, denied, denied, denied, denied.
Like James correctly said, despite all the craziness you're seeing
in my case, no judge that actually looked at it
(27:38):
and seeing fit to at least grant me a hearing.
So nobody wanted to hear anything at all from me.
I just kept going back like a boxer getting punch
in the face every time, and just kept going back.
But when this was happening now, it kind of felt different.
It felt different, mainly because at the Year's Office there
were different people there and it seemed like they were serious.
(27:58):
It was actually new people here who might be receptive
to correct in what had happened to me. So finally,
August nine, the Queen's District Attorney and you James, filed
the joint motion asking the court to vacate Carlton Romans convictions.
In that affirmation, the District Attorney's office said, quote, it
had concluded that three witnesses and the facts undermine the
(28:21):
credibility of the key trial witnesses Anderson and Kenyatta could
not have been discovered in the context of your trial, Carlton,
with the exercise of due diligence, and are of such
character that they would have probably led to a verdict
more favorable to the defendant. So on August nine, one,
Justice Michelle Johnson of Queen's County Supreme Court granted the
(28:43):
motion and dismissed the charges against you and d A.
Melinda cat said, there is a quote. We are not
so arrogant to think that the system doesn't make mistakes
powerful words. She went on to say, when we find
mischaracters of justice, we do everything in our power to
correct them quickly and court into the daily news, it's
quoted you, Carlon was saying right outside the courtroom. I'm
(29:05):
not technically a shy person. I have nothing prepared to
say to you all, but let me say one thing.
The justice system. Everybody knows it's broken. I've read a
thousand reports that say that. But words alone aren't going
to get that fixed. You have all have a part
to play in this also. But I'm here now, but
there's a lot of people in there who need your attention. Now,
there's people in there who have been fighting for justice
(29:25):
longer than I have end. Quote, what a fucking thing.
By the way, here, you are just getting out of
this thirty two year or deal that something out of
a Greek tragedy or something, and the first thing you're
doing is thinking about other people. I mean, who are you, dude?
Who are you? I've heard that so much different times.
A lot of it is a blurnout to I have
(29:46):
to watch the thing to digest fully the entire moment.
It was just overwhelming for me. I had a conversation
with somebody that was locked in sing sing that I
knew for a long time, you know, made a securest
phone call and I was talking to him and he said, Man,
I just want to to talk to you about one thing,
and it's what you said when you came out of
the court. He said, there's dozens of people here who
(30:07):
don't know you, and they're just so happy you said that.
They're praising you and all this other stuff. I use
this reference. It's like if you're in the desert and
you're dying of thirst and there's wild animals circling you,
and you're there with a bunch of people and some
are miraculously you stumble and make it out. The first
thing any decent human beings should do is say, wait,
(30:29):
there's more people in there that needs help. So that's
the point of view where I was coming from. And
you know, it's a day for justice and all that,
but we can't forget all the people in there who's
going to the very same thing. Yeah, it just speaks
a lot to your character. I'm sure there's a lot
of people listening. Now. You're inspiring them to want to
(30:51):
take action to make a difference, and you're inspiring me
to want to two more. And what would you suggest
that's a course of action. The first thing that the
mind for me is when people wind up in my
situation and they finally get exonerated, something needs to be
done to reintegrate them into society. For instance, I've lost
(31:13):
all my paperwork. I have no idea where my Social
Security card is, passport, my immigration papers, my driver's license,
all that stuff is gone. I have to go to
hell just to get a learner's permit. On the way
to getting the driver's license, I went to the d
m V and I had nothing to show them that
would make them allow me to take the written tests
(31:34):
to start the whold process over. The thing that helped
me most get that accomplished was the front page of
the Daily News with my picture on the cover saying
I was exonerated after thirty two years. I know right now,
like off the top of my head, three other exonerated
people who's out here and we're in regular touch, and
all of us had the same problem. You can't go
to a bank and establish an account because when you
(31:56):
go there, there first thing you're asking you for his
I D. I remember pulling out the last j L
D they gave me and it was told like, well,
that's absolutely useless. I went to try to get my
social Security card reached. Well you need a driver advice
and then you need a password. But I don't have
any of those things. And when I go to another office,
they asked me for my social Security card. So it's
like this cap when the two things happening and something
(32:17):
needs to be done about that. Now we have But
I always referred to as my favorite part of the show,
and everybody who's listening knows what I'm talking about because
he gave me say it every week. But this is
the part of the show called closing arguments. And it
works like this. First of all, I thank each of
you again, James Henning for the great work you've done
(32:38):
for Mr Roman and on behalf of other clients. Thank
you for that, and thank you for taking your time
to be on the show with us today. Thanks for
having us. Jason, what you're doing means a lot, and
of course same for you Carlton again, thank you so
much for just being yourself and inspiring everybody to march
forward and try to make change. And now the closing
arguments works like this. I turned my microphone off, I
(33:02):
leave yours on. James, you're gonna go first, if that's okay,
and say the best for last. With all due respect
to you, And all you have to do now is
say whatever you want, anything that we may have left out,
or anything that's left unsaid. This is closing arguments. James Henning,
you go, dropped the mic, pass it off to Carlton,
and that's how we'll close the show. I think basically
(33:24):
what I would say is that Carlton's case, the cliche
never give up gets thrown around a lot. There was
not a tremendous amount of hope after his entire file
was lost, but he always kept fighting, and I think
that's the spirit that this story should inspire in people.
The people who actually did this were allowed to go
(33:45):
free and potentially take other lives, but Carlton absolutely refused
to let his life be taken, and I think that
should be a message to everybody in whatever situation they're in.
This guy was in the darkest of places and he
just never gave up. And it's a beautiful thing to
see because he's a truly remarkable person. And I'm very
(34:06):
proud to have played whatever role I did in helping
bring him back to society because he's an important guide
and how you know, he's great. So that's what I'll say,
and I'll pass around to him. Hold public officials accountable.
All the district attorney and the idea is accountable, and
even more important, all the judges accountable. People tend to
(34:28):
forget how much power a judge as and how much
thing a judge can look away from. From my point
of view, if my case had landed in front of
a fear judge, even say twenty five years ago, this
should have been over. Then judges can be allowed to
just ignore the cries of innocent people because they just
don't feel like reviewing it or granted a hearing or
(34:51):
looking further into what happened or whatever. So there needs
to be a spotlight on what judges are doing, how
they're coming to the conclusions that they're coming to, and
when they're shirking your duties. Man, they got to get
out of there. And it's the same thing with the
District attorney's offices. And again, none of that stuff is
secret stuff. Start calling hesterin, hammering whoever it is that's
(35:14):
in the points of authority that's responsible for what's going
on in these courtrooms when they can't live up to
the holtes they take, get them out of there, whole
public officials accountable, make them do better. Thank you for
(35:37):
listening to Wrong for Conviction. Please support your local innocence
organizations and go to the links in our bio to
see how you can help. I'd like to thank our
production team Connor Hall, Justin Golden, Jeff Cleburne, and Kevin Wardas.
The music on this show, as always, is by three
time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow
(35:57):
us on Instagram at Wrong for Conviction, on Twitter at
Wrong Conviction, and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast. Wrongful
Conviction is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
association with Signal Company Number one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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