March 9, 2023 • 29 mins
On October 12, 2003, Mark Fisher was found shot and killed in a driveway in Brooklyn, NY after spending the night hanging out with a group of his peers, including John Giuca and Antonio Russo. Upon interrogation, a few of the people that Mark had been with late the night before led police to believe that John and Antonio were involved in Mark’s murder. Despite no physical evidence and no eyewitnesses linking him to the crime, John was convicted of the murder and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison solely based on witness testimony.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
In part one of our coverage with John Joker, you
heard about how a corrupt investigation turned a group of
friends against one of their own, producing initially three and
eventually a fourth false and conflicting testimony led to John's
arrest and conviction. Now here about his continuing fight for
freedom and where the case stands today. They taking things
(00:28):
from me that I'll never get back. You know. They
took all my twenties and now all my thirties, sup.
And now they're going to start working on the forties.
Unless something happened. When I came up state, the automatically
started trying to go to the Low Library a lot.
But it's hard to even get up out of bed
in the morning knowing what's being done to you. But
(00:50):
you want to just try to keep going on, in
which I did, and I try to. I was going
to the Low Library every day at one point, trying
to get to know the law. And that's when I
saw that my prosecutor, NICOLASI is the Prosecutorial Misconduct Handbook
as like a playbook, even though all those things are
considered a greciousness conducted by lawyer whose name was laid
Epstein at the time, said that that's your major issue
(01:11):
right here, because there's so much here. This is just
a case based off of words, and so they had
to beat for their case with misconduct and pulling every
dirty move that because she suppressed evidence more than once
that we could prove between coursing witnesses, mistating the full record,
or even mistating the law. She told the jury that
(01:32):
and this was in my first appeal that what Lawnan
said alone is enough to convict me of fell any murder.
And that's not really true either, But it's all that
is moved now because of the recantations. But the major
one was besides her polygraph trade, was a whitewashed drug
program violation documents that they gave us. So they literally
(01:52):
whitewashed records that they gave us for John of Vito.
They put them up on the stand and got him
to say that he wasn't getting anything and didn't want
anything in return for his testimony, no leniency and no
benefits at all. Meanwhile, he just fucked up seven or
eight drug programs and got like all these violations and
(02:14):
he just got violated like a couple of days before
he was on the stand up there. But they gave
us drug program violation reports that didn't have any of
that stuff on there. And then later when we got
the case file, we got the real copy of the
exact same document. It's the same document. It's not a
different document. It's the exact same If you've pulled them
(02:35):
up to each other, they are the same document, but
they have more sentences in them. So somebody just highlighted
that part presidentally and printed it out and gave it
to us. Then the Supreme Court judges have said for
years that is huge. That's a major that the jury
knows the credibility of someone and what their motive is
(02:56):
for testifying against someone. They just prepped him up there
and made it look like he was just sustimoned to
be a good citizen and that he didn't want anything
in change for his testimony. He was a total why
she even showed up to one of his court appearances
and made sure he didn't go to jail. That was
my first appeal of the consecutorial misconduct stuff, But then
really those early years were more about my juror misconduct issue.
(03:19):
I understand that one of your friends was with your
mom and noticed somebody in the jury that he recognized.
Do I have that right? Yeah, I'm pretty sure. It
was the day of the verdict. Someone came in to
support me and he saw one of the jurors and
he was like, holy shit, I know this guy from
the neighborhood and he hangs out at the Wensville's house
and that's the same place John always hangs out. How
(03:40):
the fuck does this guy not know John or know
of John or something, you know how, it's weird. So
he told my mother and then your mom puts on
her literal superhero cape and goes and you gotta hear
being the audience. Now, you're gonna have to hear this
to believe it. She's unbelievable. I can't say enough about Dorene.
My mother tried to go to a private investigator. First,
(04:03):
she got ripped. Dolph tried multiple private investigators, and she
just had to take manage into her own hands. And
she did. And then I think they found out threw
a barber or something like that, exactly where he was
from and who he was. She watched him for a
period of time and eventually started communicating with him and
they started hanging out. Now, of course, she was not
(04:25):
known to him to be John Juca's mother, but she
recorded her interactions with him. They began an ostensible friendship,
and after a period of time, she started talking about
the case, and this guy Aloe started saying things that
would make your jaw drop or make you spit out
your morning coffee if you're talking about due process and
(04:49):
having a fair and impartial jury. He said that he
read newspapers and watched TV all about the case, even
though the judge won them. I dike it was like
thirteen or fifteen times, not too and he's that bullshit.
He said that he couldn't get off for work because
his boss really don't want them to take off for
curry duty. But once he told him about which case
it was, his boss gave him off and said, I
(05:09):
want to see that fucking kid Fry told him he'll
give him off with pay something like that. All kinds
of things were coming out of this guy's mouth, including
admitting that he never should have been on the jury
because he knew some of the people. I've heard of
this crowd of kids. He said that his cousin who
also used to hang out at a house that I
hung out at before, and knew those guys, and she
(05:32):
thought I was guilty, so she told him that I
was guilty, said his cousin wouldn't lie to me about
something like that. Another thing was that he said, which
is guys that I used to hang out with used
to bully his brother. I didn't even recognize the names
that he was talking about, but guys that I knew,
or that who knew me, he's to bully his brother.
So it was like revenge. He had an act to
rhy And he also basically said that he didn't like Jews. Obviously,
(05:56):
the name Juka sounds like jew but it's very Italian,
not Jewish. He's not even a competent anti Semite. He's
wrong on every conceivable way, morally bankrupt, mentally deficient. Just
can't even process this. And there is that famous cringe
(06:19):
inducing interview on twenty twenty where when this became public,
Jason Alo actually made the very ill advised decision to
defend himself on TV and he was interviewed by Martin
Bisher if you remember him, and you know he was
denying a lot of this, where Bisher is reading the
transcript and playing the recording for anyone and everyone to
(06:40):
hear and there's just no question that the case should
have been tossed because of the German's conduct pushing other
jurors in to a guilty verdict. He even admitted and
he was pushing the other jurors in to a guilty
verdict when they filed a motion to reverse the conviction
(07:11):
on that issue. The recordings were not authenticated. There are
rules of evidence in a courtroom. You can't just take
someone's word for it, and for whatever reason, those recordings
were not authenticated in the proper way, and so the
motion was denied on procedural grounds. But the judge who
denied the motion went farther and said, even if it
(07:32):
was proper, I would deny it on the merits because
this is, you know, an assault on the judicial system
for somebody to be going after a juror. So the
criticism was actually leveled entirely at Doreene for exposing this,
rather than the juror, who clearly had no business being
on the case. If you didn't do anything wrong, She
didn't commit any crimes. It was just she dug for
(07:53):
the truth that she got it. They didn't like what
they found out or what they heard, so I got
involved in this in two welve was contacted by Dorene
John's mother or who some know as Mother Justice because
of what she did trying to unravel the conviction. When
she showed up in my office with just stacks of papers,
The first piece of paper that was on top of
(08:15):
this whole pile was a transcript in the People of
the State of New York versus John a Veto, not
John Juca, And it was the court appearance in which
a Veto had gone to court after he started meeting
with John's prosecutor. Now, on the cover of any transcript,
it's going to list the caption of the case, the
(08:36):
name of who appears for the DA's office, who appears
for the defense, that sort of thing, and the appearance
for the DA on the cover of this transcript in
June thirteenth of two thousand and five was Anna Sega Nicolotzi,
who was John's prosecutor. And there was no reason why
a homicide prosecutor on the biggest murder case in New
(08:58):
York City would be appearing on a mundane, meaningless return
on warrant for some mope who had a burglary sentence
because he violated a drug program other than the fact
he had to be cooperating in the murder case. And
so I knew within the first day I met Doreen
that this case was sideways and all of this is
(09:21):
happening in the ramp up to the historic run of
Ken Thompson. It seemed like he was really ready to
change things for good. There was some story in the
press during the election in twenty twelve thirteen, because we
were in the process of trying to get Juca's conviction overturned,
and a lot of this news about angel DiPietro came out,
and again the idea that she could be hired by
(09:43):
Hines as a prosecutor and be Nicolozzi's colleague years later
just so absurd on his face that he asked me
about what is all this? In my view, he wanted
to campaign on Juca, ironically enough, and maybe it was
my mistake at the time, but I told him, I
don't want to talk to you about anything Duker related
(10:04):
because you're probably going to be the next DA And
I'm telling you right now, I'm going to be coming
to you to right this wrong. And I look back
and one of my sins in this case is probably
not unloading to him because ironically, what he would have
probably done his campaigned on it. So Ken Thompson challenges
Hines against long odds in the primary. He wins, and
(10:25):
what does Joe Hines do. He's got to go to
the GOP Kings County Executive Committee and get the Wilson
Pacular waiver to allow him to run as a Republican.
He pulled the sneaky political move and he used that
card when he needed it. So it was something that
he was always getting during all of his elections, just
in case he needed it. But in twenty thirteen he
(10:45):
actually needed it and used it and ran as Republicans
to take a second bite at the apple and tried
to win the race, even though he lost the primary.
So now, Mark, at this point, you're thinking, this is
your time. You've got Ken Thompson in. It's time to
resolve this once and for all. Yeah, the idea here
was to convince the incoming administration of the Brooklyn Tha's
(11:07):
office that the Hinz crowd got this wrong and here's
a chance to do right. When we did bring the
case to the Conviction Review Unit, we presented them with
all kinds of evidence, including literally hundreds, if not thousands,
of pages of medical records of John Juca S who
had the strokes that we talked about, which meant that
(11:28):
the Avito's story couldn't have happened. We presented them with
the sworn affidavits of the two women who were at
that jailhouse visit, who denied that conversation ever took place.
We presented them with overwhelming proof of how Angel and
Albert clearly testified falsely, and how it contradicted what they
told the police and contradicted all the other available evidence.
(11:50):
We presented them with sworn affidavits of the residence of
Argyle Road, who explained how they heard the car door,
the voice of the young woman the car fleeing the location.
And while this is in the cru we're talking twenty thirteen,
twenty fourteen. Amazingly, this is when the recantations start rolling in.
So in twenty fourteen, Lauren Calciano recanted. And I have
(12:12):
some excerpts here that I want to share. She said,
and this is a long quote, so hang in there
with me because you have to hear every word of this. Okay,
here's her quote. I have regretted this testimony since I
was first pressured to claim this by law enforcement officials,
I repeatedly told them that he did not have any
information regarding John's a legend involvement in this crime. Law
enforcement pressured and frightened me to the point that I
(12:33):
ultimately relented and told them what they wanted to hear. Specifically,
I was pressured to admit that John had told me
that he gave Tony Russel a gun before Tony shot
and killed Mark Fisher. She goes on to say, law
enforcement officials suggested that I was involved in the after
method to crime by telling me that Albert Cleary had
told them that I removed a gunbag or evidence from
John's house. Although this was untrue, I recognized the seriousness
(12:57):
of this claim. Law enforcement officers threatened me with jail,
told me that I could be charged with obstruction and
or perjury. Adia Niccolazzi told me that if I did
not cooperate with her, that police would show up in
my place of employment with a subpoena. Adia Niccolazzi referenced
a very personal issue between John and me, which was
discussed only in our private letters. She told me, you
do not want this to come out at trial. I
interpreted this as a not so subtle threat that I
(13:19):
would be publicly humiliated by the DA if I did
not cooperate. Adia Niccolatzi and detectives told me that they
were aware that my father was in prison and that
by not cooperating with them, I was quote going to
make this hard on him and my family. More than
any other factor, this threat influenced me to testify in
the manner that they desired. Now, this thing goes on
for eight full pages, and it completely shreds the state's case.
(13:43):
She also, in her affidavit, explained how Albert Cleary lied
and that his testimony was false because I was there
and he didn't say that either. In other words, what
I said was not true, but what he said was
not true either. And she also gave a little insight
into what ghetto Mafia was. Now, she didn't testify to
what it was because she was an ass but in
(14:03):
her sworn recantation she said, I was around these people
during this time period. In ghetto mafia is a name
of a bunch of local kids and knuckleheads, not some
sophisticated street gang. We also gave them a sworn affidavit
from if you recall when we talked about Albert Cleary,
the guy that he said was the boss of the
gang who had spoken to John about let's catch a body,
(14:25):
and that's why maybe Mark Fisher was shot. And he
very calmly explained under oath that I was going to
college in North Carolina and I was not the leader
of a gang, and John and I did not discuss
how to get a body or anything like that. And
then John Avito recants he did. And a Veto was
(14:46):
very seriously mentally ill, and he was a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic.
We got all of his Riker's Island jail records and
sure enough, he was a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic who had
been taking a number of drugs psychotropic drugs, including Sarah Quill,
and part of his symptoms and what Sarah Quill treats
(15:09):
are people who suffer auditory hallucinations, which a Veto was.
So it turns out that the guy who says I
overheard a man who can't speak ask questions about our murder.
You can't make this up, had a history of actually
hearing voices and seeing snakes was another one of his
(15:31):
visual hallucinations. We had many, many meetings with their conviction
review unit, including one in the summer, I want to
(15:54):
say a twenty fourteen, which was chaired by Ericnzalice, who
at the time was not the DA. Obviously, Eric was
overseeing the process, so he knew exactly what was going
on here, and they declined to overturn the conviction, either
on innocence or on any constitutional violations. They had Mark
Hale call me to tell me. I believe the words
(16:17):
were that the district Attorney is not going to disturb
the conviction. I have to be honest with you. I
was a little surprised for a couple of reasons. One
because the decision is wrong. But I know Ken, and
I would have expected that call to come from him
given what this was. And I said that to Mark,
(16:37):
and I asked, I'd like to hear that from Ken.
So I was hoping to get in touch with Ken,
and instead I got a call from Eric, who at
the time was you know, the number two guy. Eric's
a nice guy. We had a conversation and I told
him I was disappointed that Ken couldn't find the time
to tell me himself and explain his reasoning. And this
(16:58):
was in late for and by the first couple of
months and fifteen we filed the motion. It's just really disappointing.
Is not strong enough for her. It's devastating, and even
with ken Thompson in there that just for some reason
had some sort of a block against doing this. The
worst part about it for me was that all these
other guys, they were like when ken Thompson took office,
(17:19):
there were twenty five generations and that gave me so
much hope, And at this point I've almost ceased to
hope because of what they did to me. Although the
difference between me and all those other guys is that
the ada that put them in jail doesn't work there anymore.
But when it came to me, when ken Thompson got elected,
he didn't fire Nicolagi, so she did still work there
(17:43):
and they covered for her instead of doing justice like
they should have. I mean, there was all the pile
of mountain of evidence that pointed away from me, and
they just didn't care. They denied me and use what
we gave them to try to counter them. In They
knew that there was no way in hell that if
they denied his review that there wasn't going to be
(18:04):
a postconviction motion. So I believe that they exploited our
petition to gather evidence, to cross examine witnesses and use
it as discovery. And when John A. Vito and Lauren
Calciano and others at risk to themselves, they're controverting sworn
testimony with new sworn testimony. When they went in to
(18:25):
see the conviction Review Unit, what the DA did was
record them, swear them in, make transcripts, and put them
under oath. When the Brooklyn DA witnesses were interviewed Anna Sega,
Nicolozzi others, they weren't sworn. There's no record of their interviews,
and the report has never been made public. It's never
(18:46):
been shared, like so many others that they do share.
But it's as if they viewed the JUCA conviction review
as an exercise in preparing for a postconviction motion and
locking down these witnesses to cross examined them if they
testify for the defense. So now, after the cru decided
(19:06):
for reasons I'll never understand, to pass, you got set
up to file for forty motion that culminated in a
reversal in February of twenty eighteen. Yeah, I got an
unanimous decision that should be reversed and he should get
a new trial. Well, I got the reversal of the
John of Vito issue and the fact that Nicolazzi did
give him benefits. The DA showed up to the witness
(19:31):
his court hearing and kept him from going to jail,
and that is leniency in a change for a ceremony.
My jury should have known about that. And then I
go back down to Rycker's Island, and I said there
for a year and a half when the DA was
contemplating a retrial, they actually so desperate to get Juca
okay that they set these detectives up there to interview
(19:51):
Russo for one reason. They want to secure his cooperation
to testify against John. Now, Antonio Russo is the murderer
in this case. Everybody knows it. They know it. Antonio
Russo carried a gun, threatened people. Yet when it came
time to potentially retry the case, they went up there
(20:12):
for the purpose of trying to flip Russo to testify
against Juca, and instead what he tells them is I
did it alone with my own gun. And that was
the end of their discussions. With Antonio Russo. So now
(20:36):
you're back at Rikers for a couple of months, and
during the discovery process you discover this recording that was
named with a guy named Ingram Ada Nicolazzi made a
recording in two thousand and five before the trial that
was recording, and this was a guy who was probably
trying to help himself somehow, you know. He told him
(20:57):
he had information and he said things that she didn't
want to hear because it did pretty much clear me.
So they had what held this for I think was
it thirteen years. This tape was not disclosed prior to trial.
It was disclosed to me in twenty eighteen and Joseph
(21:18):
Ingram was in the same cell block as John and
traveled to Bellevue for medical treatment one day with Antonio Russo,
and him and Russo were on the bus chit chatting.
He said, Russo admitted he did this alone. I wasn't there,
had nothing to do with it, none of that. And
Russo admitted to Ingram that I tried to get John
(21:40):
to take the gun after the murder. I went to
his house and he wouldn't do it. He told me
leave go no. And this was the exact opposite of
what the trial evidence was. Again, but Harris's John got
rid of a gun. Antonio Russo told Joseph Ingram John
would not take the gun. But the new trial was
never actualized, so for now they didn't have to contend
(22:01):
with this evidence. In June twenty nineteen, the New York
Court of Appeals reinstated the conviction that you had reversed
in twenty eighteen, and John went back to state prison.
The New York State Court of Appeals authored a decision
that is so absurd to find the logic, and it
was obvious by the decision that they didn't know the
facts of the case. Although they agreed with us that
(22:22):
Nicolotze's suppressed evidence, they argued it was not material to
the outcome of trial, which is reasoning, which is mind boggling,
given that Nicolotzy's whole summation, as I told you earlier,
was about how critical a witness a veto was, and
how credible he was, and how altruistic he was, and
(22:44):
how he established the real theory of what happened. And
one would think that if the defense had known the
full story about his credibility and demolished him as it
should have been that would somehow have impacted the significance
of his testimony. But in the five one opinion against us,
they argued it wasn't material because a veto had been
impeached about other things, and it was Judge Rivera in
(23:06):
a very lengthy descent to explained why that reasoning was
flawed and why his credibility on this particular issue is
so important, and why the behavior of the trial prosecutor
was intended to mislead the judge, the jury and defense.
You don't usually see a judge of the Court of
Appeals call out a prosecutor and essentially say you engaged
(23:31):
in deliberate misconduct in violation of your ethical responsibilities. But
again in Brooklyn, what's for dinner? Nobody cares. They do care,
it seems, though, about bending over backwards and doing mental
gymnastics to maintain this inexplicable wrongful conviction, which it seems
(23:51):
they did when you were able to get a hearing
on this Brady material, this recording that was made with
a guy named Ingram in front of Justice Danny Chunn. Now,
I have sworn statements and there's been sworn testimony from
Russo's lawyer and from Sam Gregory that they didn't get
this evidence and they would have remembered it if they did.
And then we had testimony from Nicolozzie who said, I
(24:12):
can't say whether I did or didn't, but if I did,
it wasn't on purpose, but I probably did. And this
was litigated a couple of years ago in front of
Justice Chun, who found that the DA probably disclosed it,
notwithstanding the fact that they explained why this would have
been significant evidence and steps they would have taken had
they known about it back then. But nevertheless, Justice Chun
(24:36):
found that we did not satisfy our burden that it
wasn't disclosed. And I just respectfully because I like him personally,
but the ruling on that case is just flat out
one hundred percent wrong. So that's where this is at.
What I what can any of us do to help
writing to the Governor's probably best right now, because I
(24:56):
really don't see myself again justice in Brooklyn and these worts,
with these judges and with this DA. So I need
to get a special prosecutor appointed, and the only one
who can do that for me is a governor. That's
my next motion I'm pretty sure. All right, I'm going
to link your website and Instagram account to keep our
audience abreast of all future developments and action steps as
(25:16):
well as if they wanted to learn more about your case. Yeah,
we've got briefs, transcripts, exhibits. One thing we definitely believe
in is shining a bright light on this and with
that we go to closing arguments. This, of course, is
the part of the show where I'm going to put
my microphone down, leave my headphones on, kick back in
my chair, close my eyes, and just take a couple
(25:37):
of deep breaths because I needed after this, and listen
to anything else you guys want to share. So Mark,
why does you take it from here? And then hand
the mic off to John. And John you have the
last word, and you know my last word is I
just wish you all the best, and I hope we
(25:57):
see you back in the free world home with your
family where you belong, really really soon. We are always investigating,
gathering and doing things. As I said, these John and
his mother or his family, his supporters. Sometimes they fade
out of the public eye a little bit, but there
we're always getting ready to fight, and we are still
(26:21):
looking into certain things, which, as I said, I think
will at some point lead us back. They want us
to be gone, but we're not going anywhere. I know that.
You know, in the eyes of the Brooklyn DA at
this point, they just wish we would go away and
fade away, and he would do his time and Doreen
would stop fighting. And why did they get better road
to help them? How can he fall for this nonsense?
(26:43):
You know? I know that's kind of how they perceive
my involvement of this, and they couldn't be more wrong.
I believe in this. I have no doubt that John
was wrongfully convicted. I have confidence in his actual innocence.
I believe to my core that he didn't commit this crime,
and that's after reviewing all the evidence. And I certainly
(27:03):
believe in know, based on my review of the evidence
of the law, that his rights were violated several different ways,
and that this was not a trial. What happened in
two thousand and five, it was a railroading. It was
just Brooklyn's style justice in the Charles Hines administration, and
those skeletons are still there. It's not so far past
(27:26):
where people are going to be willing to forget about it,
and certainly we aren't, and we're not going anywhere. There's
just been too much suffering for too long. You know,
it's wrong palab on top of wrong palam on top
of injustice, problem on top of injustices, but an ongoing tragedy.
This is not only am I being effective, but my
family is being crushed from this. They took my youth
(27:48):
from me and all the experiences I would have had it,
and I feel like a financial burden on my family too.
I can anchor around that neck and my mother again
older now I'm afraid she I pray every day that
she could come home while she's still alive, but she
makes it. And they took all that time away from
me that I was supposed to have with her. And
being in prison wrongfully is much different than being here
(28:10):
for something you actually did. That's what me and a
lot of these other guys have already been on your show,
haven't common. I think is them, we understand what it
feels like. That's why I feel it's not kinship with them,
some of them who are even never met, because when
you're here for something you actually did, I see if
these other guys, they get into a routine and they
just say they accepted. But when you hear ropefully, it's
(28:32):
impossible for you to accept. You just really can't accept it.
So every day becomes torture. Thank you for listening to
Ronful Conviction special thanks to our amazing production team Connor Hall,
Annie Chelsea, Jeff Clyburne, and Kevin Warris, with research by
(28:53):
Lalla Robinson. The music in this production was supplied by
three times OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph Makes To follow
us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful
Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well
as at Lava for Good. On all three platforms, you
can also follow on TikTok and Instagram at its Jason Flam.
(29:15):
That's It's Jason Flom. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
Lava for Good Podcasts in association Signal Company Number one
In part one of our coverage with John Joker, you
heard about how a corrupt investigation turned a group of
friends against one of their own, producing initially three and
eventually a fourth false and conflicting testimony led to John's
arrest and conviction. Now here about his continuing fight for
freedom and where the case stands today. They taking things
(00:28):
from me that I'll never get back. You know. They
took all my twenties and now all my thirties, sup.
And now they're going to start working on the forties.
Unless something happened. When I came up state, the automatically
started trying to go to the Low Library a lot.
But it's hard to even get up out of bed
in the morning knowing what's being done to you. But
(00:50):
you want to just try to keep going on, in
which I did, and I try to. I was going
to the Low Library every day at one point, trying
to get to know the law. And that's when I
saw that my prosecutor, NICOLASI is the Prosecutorial Misconduct Handbook
as like a playbook, even though all those things are
considered a greciousness conducted by lawyer whose name was laid
Epstein at the time, said that that's your major issue
(01:11):
right here, because there's so much here. This is just
a case based off of words, and so they had
to beat for their case with misconduct and pulling every
dirty move that because she suppressed evidence more than once
that we could prove between coursing witnesses, mistating the full record,
or even mistating the law. She told the jury that
(01:32):
and this was in my first appeal that what Lawnan
said alone is enough to convict me of fell any murder.
And that's not really true either, But it's all that
is moved now because of the recantations. But the major
one was besides her polygraph trade, was a whitewashed drug
program violation documents that they gave us. So they literally
(01:52):
whitewashed records that they gave us for John of Vito.
They put them up on the stand and got him
to say that he wasn't getting anything and didn't want
anything in return for his testimony, no leniency and no
benefits at all. Meanwhile, he just fucked up seven or
eight drug programs and got like all these violations and
(02:14):
he just got violated like a couple of days before
he was on the stand up there. But they gave
us drug program violation reports that didn't have any of
that stuff on there. And then later when we got
the case file, we got the real copy of the
exact same document. It's the same document. It's not a
different document. It's the exact same If you've pulled them
(02:35):
up to each other, they are the same document, but
they have more sentences in them. So somebody just highlighted
that part presidentally and printed it out and gave it
to us. Then the Supreme Court judges have said for
years that is huge. That's a major that the jury
knows the credibility of someone and what their motive is
(02:56):
for testifying against someone. They just prepped him up there
and made it look like he was just sustimoned to
be a good citizen and that he didn't want anything
in change for his testimony. He was a total why
she even showed up to one of his court appearances
and made sure he didn't go to jail. That was
my first appeal of the consecutorial misconduct stuff, But then
really those early years were more about my juror misconduct issue.
(03:19):
I understand that one of your friends was with your
mom and noticed somebody in the jury that he recognized.
Do I have that right? Yeah, I'm pretty sure. It
was the day of the verdict. Someone came in to
support me and he saw one of the jurors and
he was like, holy shit, I know this guy from
the neighborhood and he hangs out at the Wensville's house
and that's the same place John always hangs out. How
(03:40):
the fuck does this guy not know John or know
of John or something, you know how, it's weird. So
he told my mother and then your mom puts on
her literal superhero cape and goes and you gotta hear
being the audience. Now, you're gonna have to hear this
to believe it. She's unbelievable. I can't say enough about Dorene.
My mother tried to go to a private investigator. First,
(04:03):
she got ripped. Dolph tried multiple private investigators, and she
just had to take manage into her own hands. And
she did. And then I think they found out threw
a barber or something like that, exactly where he was
from and who he was. She watched him for a
period of time and eventually started communicating with him and
they started hanging out. Now, of course, she was not
(04:25):
known to him to be John Juca's mother, but she
recorded her interactions with him. They began an ostensible friendship,
and after a period of time, she started talking about
the case, and this guy Aloe started saying things that
would make your jaw drop or make you spit out
your morning coffee if you're talking about due process and
(04:49):
having a fair and impartial jury. He said that he
read newspapers and watched TV all about the case, even
though the judge won them. I dike it was like
thirteen or fifteen times, not too and he's that bullshit.
He said that he couldn't get off for work because
his boss really don't want them to take off for
curry duty. But once he told him about which case
it was, his boss gave him off and said, I
(05:09):
want to see that fucking kid Fry told him he'll
give him off with pay something like that. All kinds
of things were coming out of this guy's mouth, including
admitting that he never should have been on the jury
because he knew some of the people. I've heard of
this crowd of kids. He said that his cousin who
also used to hang out at a house that I
hung out at before, and knew those guys, and she
(05:32):
thought I was guilty, so she told him that I
was guilty, said his cousin wouldn't lie to me about
something like that. Another thing was that he said, which
is guys that I used to hang out with used
to bully his brother. I didn't even recognize the names
that he was talking about, but guys that I knew,
or that who knew me, he's to bully his brother.
So it was like revenge. He had an act to
rhy And he also basically said that he didn't like Jews. Obviously,
(05:56):
the name Juka sounds like jew but it's very Italian,
not Jewish. He's not even a competent anti Semite. He's
wrong on every conceivable way, morally bankrupt, mentally deficient. Just
can't even process this. And there is that famous cringe
(06:19):
inducing interview on twenty twenty where when this became public,
Jason Alo actually made the very ill advised decision to
defend himself on TV and he was interviewed by Martin
Bisher if you remember him, and you know he was
denying a lot of this, where Bisher is reading the
transcript and playing the recording for anyone and everyone to
(06:40):
hear and there's just no question that the case should
have been tossed because of the German's conduct pushing other
jurors in to a guilty verdict. He even admitted and
he was pushing the other jurors in to a guilty
verdict when they filed a motion to reverse the conviction
(07:11):
on that issue. The recordings were not authenticated. There are
rules of evidence in a courtroom. You can't just take
someone's word for it, and for whatever reason, those recordings
were not authenticated in the proper way, and so the
motion was denied on procedural grounds. But the judge who
denied the motion went farther and said, even if it
(07:32):
was proper, I would deny it on the merits because
this is, you know, an assault on the judicial system
for somebody to be going after a juror. So the
criticism was actually leveled entirely at Doreene for exposing this,
rather than the juror, who clearly had no business being
on the case. If you didn't do anything wrong, She
didn't commit any crimes. It was just she dug for
(07:53):
the truth that she got it. They didn't like what
they found out or what they heard, so I got
involved in this in two welve was contacted by Dorene
John's mother or who some know as Mother Justice because
of what she did trying to unravel the conviction. When
she showed up in my office with just stacks of papers,
The first piece of paper that was on top of
(08:15):
this whole pile was a transcript in the People of
the State of New York versus John a Veto, not
John Juca, And it was the court appearance in which
a Veto had gone to court after he started meeting
with John's prosecutor. Now, on the cover of any transcript,
it's going to list the caption of the case, the
(08:36):
name of who appears for the DA's office, who appears
for the defense, that sort of thing, and the appearance
for the DA on the cover of this transcript in
June thirteenth of two thousand and five was Anna Sega Nicolotzi,
who was John's prosecutor. And there was no reason why
a homicide prosecutor on the biggest murder case in New
(08:58):
York City would be appearing on a mundane, meaningless return
on warrant for some mope who had a burglary sentence
because he violated a drug program other than the fact
he had to be cooperating in the murder case. And
so I knew within the first day I met Doreen
that this case was sideways and all of this is
(09:21):
happening in the ramp up to the historic run of
Ken Thompson. It seemed like he was really ready to
change things for good. There was some story in the
press during the election in twenty twelve thirteen, because we
were in the process of trying to get Juca's conviction overturned,
and a lot of this news about angel DiPietro came out,
and again the idea that she could be hired by
(09:43):
Hines as a prosecutor and be Nicolozzi's colleague years later
just so absurd on his face that he asked me
about what is all this? In my view, he wanted
to campaign on Juca, ironically enough, and maybe it was
my mistake at the time, but I told him, I
don't want to talk to you about anything Duker related
(10:04):
because you're probably going to be the next DA And
I'm telling you right now, I'm going to be coming
to you to right this wrong. And I look back
and one of my sins in this case is probably
not unloading to him because ironically, what he would have
probably done his campaigned on it. So Ken Thompson challenges
Hines against long odds in the primary. He wins, and
(10:25):
what does Joe Hines do. He's got to go to
the GOP Kings County Executive Committee and get the Wilson
Pacular waiver to allow him to run as a Republican.
He pulled the sneaky political move and he used that
card when he needed it. So it was something that
he was always getting during all of his elections, just
in case he needed it. But in twenty thirteen he
(10:45):
actually needed it and used it and ran as Republicans
to take a second bite at the apple and tried
to win the race, even though he lost the primary.
So now, Mark, at this point, you're thinking, this is
your time. You've got Ken Thompson in. It's time to
resolve this once and for all. Yeah, the idea here
was to convince the incoming administration of the Brooklyn Tha's
(11:07):
office that the Hinz crowd got this wrong and here's
a chance to do right. When we did bring the
case to the Conviction Review Unit, we presented them with
all kinds of evidence, including literally hundreds, if not thousands,
of pages of medical records of John Juca S who
had the strokes that we talked about, which meant that
(11:28):
the Avito's story couldn't have happened. We presented them with
the sworn affidavits of the two women who were at
that jailhouse visit, who denied that conversation ever took place.
We presented them with overwhelming proof of how Angel and
Albert clearly testified falsely, and how it contradicted what they
told the police and contradicted all the other available evidence.
(11:50):
We presented them with sworn affidavits of the residence of
Argyle Road, who explained how they heard the car door,
the voice of the young woman the car fleeing the location.
And while this is in the cru we're talking twenty thirteen,
twenty fourteen. Amazingly, this is when the recantations start rolling in.
So in twenty fourteen, Lauren Calciano recanted. And I have
(12:12):
some excerpts here that I want to share. She said,
and this is a long quote, so hang in there
with me because you have to hear every word of this. Okay,
here's her quote. I have regretted this testimony since I
was first pressured to claim this by law enforcement officials,
I repeatedly told them that he did not have any
information regarding John's a legend involvement in this crime. Law
enforcement pressured and frightened me to the point that I
(12:33):
ultimately relented and told them what they wanted to hear. Specifically,
I was pressured to admit that John had told me
that he gave Tony Russel a gun before Tony shot
and killed Mark Fisher. She goes on to say, law
enforcement officials suggested that I was involved in the after
method to crime by telling me that Albert Cleary had
told them that I removed a gunbag or evidence from
John's house. Although this was untrue, I recognized the seriousness
(12:57):
of this claim. Law enforcement officers threatened me with jail,
told me that I could be charged with obstruction and
or perjury. Adia Niccolazzi told me that if I did
not cooperate with her, that police would show up in
my place of employment with a subpoena. Adia Niccolazzi referenced
a very personal issue between John and me, which was
discussed only in our private letters. She told me, you
do not want this to come out at trial. I
interpreted this as a not so subtle threat that I
(13:19):
would be publicly humiliated by the DA if I did
not cooperate. Adia Niccolatzi and detectives told me that they
were aware that my father was in prison and that
by not cooperating with them, I was quote going to
make this hard on him and my family. More than
any other factor, this threat influenced me to testify in
the manner that they desired. Now, this thing goes on
for eight full pages, and it completely shreds the state's case.
(13:43):
She also, in her affidavit, explained how Albert Cleary lied
and that his testimony was false because I was there
and he didn't say that either. In other words, what
I said was not true, but what he said was
not true either. And she also gave a little insight
into what ghetto Mafia was. Now, she didn't testify to
what it was because she was an ass but in
(14:03):
her sworn recantation she said, I was around these people
during this time period. In ghetto mafia is a name
of a bunch of local kids and knuckleheads, not some
sophisticated street gang. We also gave them a sworn affidavit
from if you recall when we talked about Albert Cleary,
the guy that he said was the boss of the
gang who had spoken to John about let's catch a body,
(14:25):
and that's why maybe Mark Fisher was shot. And he
very calmly explained under oath that I was going to
college in North Carolina and I was not the leader
of a gang, and John and I did not discuss
how to get a body or anything like that. And
then John Avito recants he did. And a Veto was
(14:46):
very seriously mentally ill, and he was a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic.
We got all of his Riker's Island jail records and
sure enough, he was a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic who had
been taking a number of drugs psychotropic drugs, including Sarah Quill,
and part of his symptoms and what Sarah Quill treats
(15:09):
are people who suffer auditory hallucinations, which a Veto was.
So it turns out that the guy who says I
overheard a man who can't speak ask questions about our murder.
You can't make this up, had a history of actually
hearing voices and seeing snakes was another one of his
(15:31):
visual hallucinations. We had many, many meetings with their conviction
review unit, including one in the summer, I want to
(15:54):
say a twenty fourteen, which was chaired by Ericnzalice, who
at the time was not the DA. Obviously, Eric was
overseeing the process, so he knew exactly what was going
on here, and they declined to overturn the conviction, either
on innocence or on any constitutional violations. They had Mark
Hale call me to tell me. I believe the words
(16:17):
were that the district Attorney is not going to disturb
the conviction. I have to be honest with you. I
was a little surprised for a couple of reasons. One
because the decision is wrong. But I know Ken, and
I would have expected that call to come from him
given what this was. And I said that to Mark,
(16:37):
and I asked, I'd like to hear that from Ken.
So I was hoping to get in touch with Ken,
and instead I got a call from Eric, who at
the time was you know, the number two guy. Eric's
a nice guy. We had a conversation and I told
him I was disappointed that Ken couldn't find the time
to tell me himself and explain his reasoning. And this
(16:58):
was in late for and by the first couple of
months and fifteen we filed the motion. It's just really disappointing.
Is not strong enough for her. It's devastating, and even
with ken Thompson in there that just for some reason
had some sort of a block against doing this. The
worst part about it for me was that all these
other guys, they were like when ken Thompson took office,
(17:19):
there were twenty five generations and that gave me so
much hope, And at this point I've almost ceased to
hope because of what they did to me. Although the
difference between me and all those other guys is that
the ada that put them in jail doesn't work there anymore.
But when it came to me, when ken Thompson got elected,
he didn't fire Nicolagi, so she did still work there
(17:43):
and they covered for her instead of doing justice like
they should have. I mean, there was all the pile
of mountain of evidence that pointed away from me, and
they just didn't care. They denied me and use what
we gave them to try to counter them. In They
knew that there was no way in hell that if
they denied his review that there wasn't going to be
(18:04):
a postconviction motion. So I believe that they exploited our
petition to gather evidence, to cross examine witnesses and use
it as discovery. And when John A. Vito and Lauren
Calciano and others at risk to themselves, they're controverting sworn
testimony with new sworn testimony. When they went in to
(18:25):
see the conviction Review Unit, what the DA did was
record them, swear them in, make transcripts, and put them
under oath. When the Brooklyn DA witnesses were interviewed Anna Sega,
Nicolozzi others, they weren't sworn. There's no record of their interviews,
and the report has never been made public. It's never
(18:46):
been shared, like so many others that they do share.
But it's as if they viewed the JUCA conviction review
as an exercise in preparing for a postconviction motion and
locking down these witnesses to cross examined them if they
testify for the defense. So now, after the cru decided
(19:06):
for reasons I'll never understand, to pass, you got set
up to file for forty motion that culminated in a
reversal in February of twenty eighteen. Yeah, I got an
unanimous decision that should be reversed and he should get
a new trial. Well, I got the reversal of the
John of Vito issue and the fact that Nicolazzi did
give him benefits. The DA showed up to the witness
(19:31):
his court hearing and kept him from going to jail,
and that is leniency in a change for a ceremony.
My jury should have known about that. And then I
go back down to Rycker's Island, and I said there
for a year and a half when the DA was
contemplating a retrial, they actually so desperate to get Juca
okay that they set these detectives up there to interview
(19:51):
Russo for one reason. They want to secure his cooperation
to testify against John. Now, Antonio Russo is the murderer
in this case. Everybody knows it. They know it. Antonio
Russo carried a gun, threatened people. Yet when it came
time to potentially retry the case, they went up there
(20:12):
for the purpose of trying to flip Russo to testify
against Juca, and instead what he tells them is I
did it alone with my own gun. And that was
the end of their discussions. With Antonio Russo. So now
(20:36):
you're back at Rikers for a couple of months, and
during the discovery process you discover this recording that was
named with a guy named Ingram Ada Nicolazzi made a
recording in two thousand and five before the trial that
was recording, and this was a guy who was probably
trying to help himself somehow, you know. He told him
(20:57):
he had information and he said things that she didn't
want to hear because it did pretty much clear me.
So they had what held this for I think was
it thirteen years. This tape was not disclosed prior to trial.
It was disclosed to me in twenty eighteen and Joseph
(21:18):
Ingram was in the same cell block as John and
traveled to Bellevue for medical treatment one day with Antonio Russo,
and him and Russo were on the bus chit chatting.
He said, Russo admitted he did this alone. I wasn't there,
had nothing to do with it, none of that. And
Russo admitted to Ingram that I tried to get John
(21:40):
to take the gun after the murder. I went to
his house and he wouldn't do it. He told me
leave go no. And this was the exact opposite of
what the trial evidence was. Again, but Harris's John got
rid of a gun. Antonio Russo told Joseph Ingram John
would not take the gun. But the new trial was
never actualized, so for now they didn't have to contend
(22:01):
with this evidence. In June twenty nineteen, the New York
Court of Appeals reinstated the conviction that you had reversed
in twenty eighteen, and John went back to state prison.
The New York State Court of Appeals authored a decision
that is so absurd to find the logic, and it
was obvious by the decision that they didn't know the
facts of the case. Although they agreed with us that
(22:22):
Nicolotze's suppressed evidence, they argued it was not material to
the outcome of trial, which is reasoning, which is mind boggling,
given that Nicolotzy's whole summation, as I told you earlier,
was about how critical a witness a veto was, and
how credible he was, and how altruistic he was, and
(22:44):
how he established the real theory of what happened. And
one would think that if the defense had known the
full story about his credibility and demolished him as it
should have been that would somehow have impacted the significance
of his testimony. But in the five one opinion against us,
they argued it wasn't material because a veto had been
impeached about other things, and it was Judge Rivera in
(23:06):
a very lengthy descent to explained why that reasoning was
flawed and why his credibility on this particular issue is
so important, and why the behavior of the trial prosecutor
was intended to mislead the judge, the jury and defense.
You don't usually see a judge of the Court of
Appeals call out a prosecutor and essentially say you engaged
(23:31):
in deliberate misconduct in violation of your ethical responsibilities. But
again in Brooklyn, what's for dinner? Nobody cares. They do care,
it seems, though, about bending over backwards and doing mental
gymnastics to maintain this inexplicable wrongful conviction, which it seems
(23:51):
they did when you were able to get a hearing
on this Brady material, this recording that was made with
a guy named Ingram in front of Justice Danny Chunn. Now,
I have sworn statements and there's been sworn testimony from
Russo's lawyer and from Sam Gregory that they didn't get
this evidence and they would have remembered it if they did.
And then we had testimony from Nicolozzie who said, I
(24:12):
can't say whether I did or didn't, but if I did,
it wasn't on purpose, but I probably did. And this
was litigated a couple of years ago in front of
Justice Chun, who found that the DA probably disclosed it,
notwithstanding the fact that they explained why this would have
been significant evidence and steps they would have taken had
they known about it back then. But nevertheless, Justice Chun
(24:36):
found that we did not satisfy our burden that it
wasn't disclosed. And I just respectfully because I like him personally,
but the ruling on that case is just flat out
one hundred percent wrong. So that's where this is at.
What I what can any of us do to help
writing to the Governor's probably best right now, because I
(24:56):
really don't see myself again justice in Brooklyn and these worts,
with these judges and with this DA. So I need
to get a special prosecutor appointed, and the only one
who can do that for me is a governor. That's
my next motion I'm pretty sure. All right, I'm going
to link your website and Instagram account to keep our
audience abreast of all future developments and action steps as
(25:16):
well as if they wanted to learn more about your case. Yeah,
we've got briefs, transcripts, exhibits. One thing we definitely believe
in is shining a bright light on this and with
that we go to closing arguments. This, of course, is
the part of the show where I'm going to put
my microphone down, leave my headphones on, kick back in
my chair, close my eyes, and just take a couple
(25:37):
of deep breaths because I needed after this, and listen
to anything else you guys want to share. So Mark,
why does you take it from here? And then hand
the mic off to John. And John you have the
last word, and you know my last word is I
just wish you all the best, and I hope we
(25:57):
see you back in the free world home with your
family where you belong, really really soon. We are always investigating,
gathering and doing things. As I said, these John and
his mother or his family, his supporters. Sometimes they fade
out of the public eye a little bit, but there
we're always getting ready to fight, and we are still
(26:21):
looking into certain things, which, as I said, I think
will at some point lead us back. They want us
to be gone, but we're not going anywhere. I know that.
You know, in the eyes of the Brooklyn DA at
this point, they just wish we would go away and
fade away, and he would do his time and Doreen
would stop fighting. And why did they get better road
to help them? How can he fall for this nonsense?
(26:43):
You know? I know that's kind of how they perceive
my involvement of this, and they couldn't be more wrong.
I believe in this. I have no doubt that John
was wrongfully convicted. I have confidence in his actual innocence.
I believe to my core that he didn't commit this crime,
and that's after reviewing all the evidence. And I certainly
(27:03):
believe in know, based on my review of the evidence
of the law, that his rights were violated several different ways,
and that this was not a trial. What happened in
two thousand and five, it was a railroading. It was
just Brooklyn's style justice in the Charles Hines administration, and
those skeletons are still there. It's not so far past
(27:26):
where people are going to be willing to forget about it,
and certainly we aren't, and we're not going anywhere. There's
just been too much suffering for too long. You know,
it's wrong palab on top of wrong palam on top
of injustice, problem on top of injustices, but an ongoing tragedy.
This is not only am I being effective, but my
family is being crushed from this. They took my youth
(27:48):
from me and all the experiences I would have had it,
and I feel like a financial burden on my family too.
I can anchor around that neck and my mother again
older now I'm afraid she I pray every day that
she could come home while she's still alive, but she
makes it. And they took all that time away from
me that I was supposed to have with her. And
being in prison wrongfully is much different than being here
(28:10):
for something you actually did. That's what me and a
lot of these other guys have already been on your show,
haven't common. I think is them, we understand what it
feels like. That's why I feel it's not kinship with them,
some of them who are even never met, because when
you're here for something you actually did, I see if
these other guys, they get into a routine and they
just say they accepted. But when you hear ropefully, it's
(28:32):
impossible for you to accept. You just really can't accept it.
So every day becomes torture. Thank you for listening to
Ronful Conviction special thanks to our amazing production team Connor Hall,
Annie Chelsea, Jeff Clyburne, and Kevin Warris, with research by
(28:53):
Lalla Robinson. The music in this production was supplied by
three times OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph Makes To follow
us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful
Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well
as at Lava for Good. On all three platforms, you
can also follow on TikTok and Instagram at its Jason Flam.
(29:15):
That's It's Jason Flom. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
Lava for Good Podcasts in association Signal Company Number one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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