April 8, 2024 • 40 mins
In the early morning hours of June 15, 1979, 17-year-old Amer Zada’s truck stalled out near the waterfront in Nyack, NY. While he waited for a ride, Amer discovered the body of Shirley Smith behind a dumpster in a restaurant parking lot. Minutes later, police arrived on the scene. Amer was thrown into the cruiser, arrested and charged with sexual assault and murder. Evidence proving his innocence was never turned over to his trial attorney. “I guess the first time the reality of my situation hit me was the day of my sentencing, when they gave me 25 to life,” Amer remembers. “I just fell apart. I can still feel that feeling right now in my heart.”
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Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freleng is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Early on the morning of June fifteenth, nineteen seventy nine,
Amir Zeta was driving home from partying with friends when
his car got stuck in an embankment down near the
Hudson River waterfront in Nyak, New York. Amir called a
friend from a payphone to help him secure a tow truck.
While he waited in the darkened parking lot of a
(00:25):
nearby restaurant, he heard a strange noise coming from behind
a dumpster.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
It was a growl, like a gruff, growling noise. I
didn't want to go in the corner, but at the
same time I was saying, like, well, whatever is going
on over there, Like, you know, don't be a punk,
go over there and check it out.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
What he saw there shocked and terrified him. But before
he could react, police cars were on the scene, sirens blaring.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Two police officers dow me down. He handcuffed me behind
my back, searched me, and then they put me in
a back at a car just that quick.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Amir was arrested and charged with sexual assaults and the
brutal murder of a young local woman, Shirley Smith. The
woman he had found lying behind a dumpster covered in
blood and had tried to help.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
My name is Emir Zeta. I did forty one years
in prison for a crime that I didn't commit.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
From Lava for good.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
This is wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling today Amir Zeta.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
I'm an Arab American. I was born in Nyak Hospital
in Rockley County.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
New York.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Amir Zeta was born in nineteen sixty one into a large,
loving family.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
My mother and father are from Jordan. They immigrated to
the United States in nineteen fifty eight. At the time,
it was my eldest brother, Nasar, eldest sister in the Zira,
and the two twins, Samir and Samir who was my
next oldest, and then myself from the baby of the family.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Growing up, Amir didn't feel any different from the other
kids at school, but when he was five or six
years old, something happened changed the way others saw his
family and the way he felt about himself.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
My father got a dispute with a neighbor over property.
Apparently my father didn't speak English at will, and they
ended up calling a police officer. The police officer ended
up getting a glass cut on the back of his hand.
But at the time they maintained that he had been
shot by my father. It wasn't the case. But I
(02:45):
still have the memories too of being a six year
old kid sitting in my father's attempted a murder on
a police officer's trial.
Speaker 5 (02:52):
And how it affected me, and then how it affected.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Me through my school years from that point on, about
being called the murder the cop killer's son, even though
there was no police officer killed or even shot.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
The charge against his father was dismissed, but from that
time on, Amir says his family was treated differently by
the police.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
They started going after my family in a methodical manner,
for my eldest brother, then my next brother, and me.
My eldest sister left out of the county. She seen
the writing on the wall and she took off. She
got married and left the county.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Amir's other sister, Samira, was deported to the Middle East
and later died from a medical issue that Amir beliefs
could have been.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Easily treated in the United States.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
His brother Samir ended up serving nearly forty two years
in prison and was also deported upon his release. Despite
his family's troubles, Amir found a bright spot in all
of this darkness.
Speaker 6 (04:00):
I knew a mirror from the time I was like
in grammar school, and I always knew Amir had a
crush on me.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
So we were like, what maybe twelve years old.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
This is Bonnie McKenna, But when Amir met her in
seventh grade, she was Bonnie Stalter.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
We shared an art class, I believe, in a music
class at the school. I used to always sit at
the table with her in the class, and you know,
spend more time paying attention to her than I was
to class. And then one day I took a chance
and I walked up to her when we were at
the lockers.
Speaker 6 (04:40):
And he's like Bonnie Sue Stalter, and he like just
takes me and he flings me up against the locker and.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
He starts kissing me, and I kissed her.
Speaker 6 (04:50):
Man, he like stole the kiss from me, his first
kiss from me, and we have like connected ever since
that moment on.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Amir soon went away to military academy, but he never
forgot that first kiss. A year and a half later,
he came back to Nayak to register for high school.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
She was the first person I seen she was actually
outside the school and I still had I was in
the military academy. I still have my uniform on, and
she was the first beautiful face that I seen. And
then from there we just reignited the flame that you
know has been lit for quite a while. And you know,
I've always felt like I loved her.
Speaker 6 (05:33):
So I didn't have the perfect life. My life was
very complicated as a child, and I was a runaway
and I wound up with mister and missus.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Zaida Bonnie moved in with a Meher's family when she
was fifteen. They gave her a stable home, and she
says his parents treated her like a princess. By then,
she and Amir were inseparable.
Speaker 6 (05:57):
He was the most generallest, kindest person I ever met,
and we had a good time together. You know, in
the seventies, we were just popping around, you know, being
kids having a good time.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
But those good times would soon come to an end,
and Amir's troubles that the police were about to begin.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
He was seventeen years old in June of nineteen seventy nine,
and the night that this crime happened, he and his
friends went out drinking and partying. You know, they were
out all night.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
This is Arthur Larkin of the law firm Hale and Monico,
Amir's post conviction attorney.
Speaker 5 (06:40):
And the last five years I'm representing plaintiffs in civil
rights cases, including people like Amir Zeta who've been wrongfully
convicted of crimes and are seeking to overturn their convictions.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
So, Arthur, can you walk us through what happened that
night June fifteenth, nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 5 (07:01):
Emir was driving. He admits he was drinking. He actually
he bought Kayludes at Joseph Flente's Deli. He bought a
couple of magazines and he bought kayludes. So, as the
knight's coming to a close, he's driving around the town.
After he dropped all his friends off and he starts
driving home. He took a right turn down I believe
(07:24):
it's Gedney Street, and he turned off the street onto
a sort of a dirt area, an embankment adjacent to
the wind Jammer parking lot, and his car got stuck.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
The Windjammer restaurant was located at the foot of Main
Street on the Hudson River waterfront. After trying unsuccessfully to
free his car from the embankment, Amir walked to a
phone booth and called his friend John Nash to tell
him he needed a tow truck. John offered to call
around looking for one, and after making a couple of calls,
he left to pick a mirror.
Speaker 5 (07:58):
Up and Amir had told him in the phone call.
Amir had said, listen, just meet me at the in
the Windjammer parking lot. That's where my car is. It's adjacent.
After a Mer hangs up the phone, he goes down
back to his car. He tries to drive it again.
He can't. He wanders down to the parking lot and
as he's walking through the parking lot, he hears a sound.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
It was a growl, like a gruff growling noise. I
was reluctant to actually even walk into that area because
it was dark. It was completely pitch black. There was
a garbage dumpster there, the trees were hanging over the top.
I had fear. I didn't want to go in the corner,
but at the same time, I was saying, like, well,
whatever is going on over there, Like, you know, don't
(08:42):
be a punk over there and check it out. I
approached slowly, and when I first looked, I seeing that
there was something at the dumpster, but I didn't. I
wasn't sure what it was.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
A young woman was lying face down behind the dumpster,
her clothes and shreds. She was nearly naked and had
been stabbed multiple times.
Speaker 5 (09:06):
He leans over and he tries to lift her up.
Oh my god, you know are you okay?
Speaker 2 (09:12):
That's when I noticed, you know who that was?
Speaker 3 (09:16):
The woman was seventeen year old Shirley Smith.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Amir recognized her because he'd gone to school with her cousin,
but he didn't know Shirley well.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
By the time I had stepped up, discovered the victim
and attempted to try to help her, to you know,
give her assistance. I heard the my police car pulling
down the street.
Speaker 5 (09:41):
Amir looks up. He sees a police car. He's standing
over a body. His family has had trouble with the
police before. Okay, so Amir immediately runs. He scared and
he runs.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Officers John McCorry and James Thurston were the first ones
on the scene. When they spotted a mirror crouch next
to the body. They immediately ran for him.
Speaker 5 (10:08):
The two police officers threw me down.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
He hand cuffed me behind my back, took me threw
me over the back of the police car, searched me,
took everything out of my pockets and put it in
a police officer's hat, and then they put me in
the back of the car just that quick.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
And that's so fast, I mean, did you even register
what was happening at that point?
Speaker 2 (10:28):
I knew something was wrong, it was someone there, but
I didn't realize the extent as far as my involvement.
I just walked up on it just that quick.
Speaker 5 (10:40):
They put him in the backseat of the car and
they go to the victim and they try to revive her.
The victim is very bloody and they're trying to you know,
they're trying to do CPR, but she's pronounced dead at
the scene.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Unfortunately, at that point another officer, Michael Roman, had arrived.
The policeman put a mirror back out of the car,
patrol car number three eighty three, to frisk him.
Speaker 5 (11:05):
Now keep in mind, they've been touching the victim's body,
so their hands are bloody, they weren't wearing gloves, and
they don't find a murder weapon on a mirror there.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
You took me up in the troll car. They transported
me up to my police station, and then later on
that morning I went before I believe it was Judge
mccar thing, and he arrayed me without bail and charged
me with second year murder and remanded me to the
Rockland County Jail.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
You're listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling. You can
listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts
one week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava
for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
I honestly believed that the truth would come out. I
really I did not realize the extent that they were
going to go to to make me look guilty.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
So Arthur Shirley Smith's body has been found.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
She's apparently been sexually assaulted and stabbed to death, but
no weapon has recovered and a mirror is the number
one suspect. So can you tell us about the investigation
that followed? What did police report say?
Speaker 5 (12:35):
The police's version of events is that they pulled into
the parking lot after they received a call about screams
and dogs barking in the vicinity of the Windjama parking lot.
They say that when they got to the scene, they
saw a pair of legs protruding from behind a dumpster
with the underwear and pants down, and they said that
(12:56):
pair of legs was Amir Zeta's and that Amir was
trying to sexually assault the victim.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Officers McCord and Thurston claimed that when they came upon
a mirror, he wasn't wearing a shirt, and that as
they chased him, his pants were falling down. They said
that when they cuffed him and put him in the car,
his pants were still down.
Speaker 5 (13:16):
And after they had attended to the victim and they
opened the police car door to try to frisk them,
his pants were miraculously pulled up and zipped up. Okay,
so they frisk a mirror and they find no murder weapon. Nothing.
There's some blood on his underwear, the back of his underwear,
there's some blood in his front pants pocket, and there's
(13:37):
a marijuana cigarette that they say they found in his
pocket with blood on it. Later tests show that that
blood matches the victim's blood. Now, no murder weapon was
ever found at the scene.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Divers searched the nearby Hudson River, and detectives scoured the
Windjammer parking lot, but no murder weapon was ever found.
Two days later, another officer, Douglas McDonald, was driving the
same patrol car number three eighty three, as McDonald later testified,
when he stopped to get gas, he ran into another
(14:14):
officer who was doing the same and the two started talking.
Speaker 5 (14:18):
Now the crime is on a Friday morning, this is
now Sunday, and son of a gun. If both officers
don't look in the backseat of the car and say, oh,
my goodness, there's a knife.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Remember, patrol car three point eighty three had been searched
thoroughly after a mirror was picked up, and no knife
had been found at the time. But now this knife
had somehow been discovered in the car's back seat. This
was before DNA testing was available, but when tested, traces
of blood found on the knife were shown to be
consistent with Shirley Smith's genetic profile.
Speaker 5 (14:52):
And the prosecution's theory of trial is that the knife
was the murder weapon, and that even those hands were
handcuffed behind his back after the officers put him in
the car, a meir Zeta had somehow managed to wherever
he had secreted the knife on his person. He managed
to extract it, shove it under the seat somehow, and
(15:13):
pull his pants up all in one shot. Okay.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
There were no fingerprints on the knife, nothing that directly
connected it to a mirror, and the blood found on
the knife could very well have gotten there the next day,
when Detective Arthur Keenan took it to New York City
for testing along with two vials of the victim's blood.
But determined to hold onto their prime suspect a mirror,
(15:37):
the police went looking for a witness to corroborate their theory.
Speaker 5 (15:41):
They went to see Joe Lenti, who was known to
be a local drug dealer and who had sold a
mere the queludes and the magazines the night before. Joe
Lenti says, Yeah, that's very similar to the knife that
I sold a mer on Thursday night.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
So the main evidence against you, allegedly was this knife.
Did you buy this knife?
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Was this knife yours?
Speaker 2 (16:08):
I'd had no knife. The knife miss magically appeared.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
The knife the cop said they found in the car
was a black folding knife with the word leopard on
the handle. When they went to see Joseph Lenty, they
didn't show him this exact knife, but one that was
very similar, a white handled knife with a lion on
the handle the detective Keenan had found in a drawer
at the police station. Joseph Lenty told police that he
(16:36):
had bought seventeen of these knives at a place called
the Bronx Terminal Market.
Speaker 5 (16:42):
And that he had sold them all, well, sixteen of them.
Amir came in the knight before the crime and bought
the last of them, the seventeenth knife, and he had
the receipt for fifteen dollars from a mer but that
was for the kueludes and the magazines. That wasn't for
a knife.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Based on this knife that was found in the patrol car,
the alleged murder weapon which a Mirror had supposedly purchased
from Joseph Lenty, and the fact that a mirror was
at the scene when police arrived, A Mirror was charged
with second degree murder, first degree attempted sodomy, and aggravated
criminal sexual abuse. His trial was set for six months later.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
So did you always believe in his innocence?
Speaker 1 (17:24):
You know, back then when you guys were kids and
he gets arrested.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
What were you thinking.
Speaker 6 (17:30):
When that happened? And I heard mama downstairs, and I
heard her crying and screaming, I never in a thousand
years thought that he had gotten arrested for such a
crime or anything of that nature. And I lost a
lot of friends over that because they were like, Bonnie,
(17:51):
you know your life's going to change. I didn't care
that my life was going to change. I stayed beside him,
I stuck by him, and I said, this is going
to get better. I don't know why they're doing this.
I don't know why it came to this point, but I, honestly,
Maggie thought that this was going to get better, that
they were going to find the real person that committed
(18:13):
this crime. And that's what I kept thinking for all
of these years.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Within a week following the crime, a grand jury was
convened and Amir gave testimony about the events of that night.
Amir's trial began six months later on January seventh, nineteen eighty,
in Rockland County Court before Judge Albert Rosenblatt. The prosecutor
was Rockland County's first Assistant District Attorney, William Frank. Amir's
(18:44):
defense attorney was William Kunstler.
Speaker 5 (18:46):
The officer's testified to finding the knife in the backseat
of the car two days later, Joe Lenti testifies that
he bought the knife the Bronx Terminal market.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
The prosecution also presented a witness, Donald Lewis, someone who
had gone to school with Shirley and knew a mirror
as well.
Speaker 5 (19:04):
And he claimed that he saw a mir at a
phone booth and the Amir turned and said to Shirley
Smith the victim, hey, Shirley, want to smoke a joint?
And Shirley said sure. That was his testimony at trial.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Amir maintains that this encounter never happened, and in fact,
Donald Lewis was later tape recorded telling an acquaintance that
he had made the whole story up.
Speaker 5 (19:28):
And Lewis said, listen, you know I had a beef
with him. Don't tell anybody I didn't see him at
a phone booth. In essence, what he said was his
trial testimony was a lie and he had that recorded.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
After the trial, Amir tried to appeal his conviction based
on that recorded confession, but at the hearing Lewis changed
his story again.
Speaker 5 (19:50):
Instead of sticking by the recantation, Lewis said, yeah, I
knew that he was recording me, and so we just
orchestrated it, and the judge did not buy the recantation.
He wouldn't accept it, and Amir's motion was denied. I
think the police probably got to him and said, look,
you better, you better stick to your story.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
And that's because, as it turned out later, Lewis was
facing criminal charges in another matter and thus highly incentivized
to incriminate a mirror. By sticking to his story that
he'd seen Amir and Shirley together, he was able to
avoid prosecution. So Arthur, the defense did not know that
at the time. It wasn't disclosed by the prosecution. So
(20:32):
what was the defense that Amir's attorneys presented.
Speaker 5 (20:37):
You know, Counsseler did a pretty good job tracking down
the witnesses who confirmed Amir Zeida's version of events. His
friend John Nash testified. John Nash's mother, Catherine, testified that
Emir had called the house at four o'clock in the morning.
Kunstler got phone records from the phone company showing that
a call was made from a payphone in nayak All
(21:00):
on Broadway to Nash's house at four in the morning.
Phone records showing that Nash had called for a tow
truck at four fifteen and four to fourteen am right,
just as he testified, and just as Emir said that
his friend told him he would.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
John testified that he had driven down to the waterfront
that night, but his own car broke down, and when
he couldn't locate a mirror, he called a taxi to
take him home. And John's version of events matches up
with the testimony that Amir gave at the earlier grand
jury hearing.
Speaker 5 (21:32):
Amir testified in his own defense, and so the jury
had Amir's version of what happened, and his explanation, as
I just said, is backed up by witnesses and by
telephone records and by the business records of this Buds taxi. Right,
But it didn't it didn't matter to the jury. The
jury credits the officer's version of events and they convict him.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
It was surreal. I guess the first time the reality
of my situation hit me, dawned on me was the
day of my sentencing, when they gave me twenty five
to light. I just fell apart. I just started crying.
I couldn't believe I can still feel that feeling right
now in my heart as to what they did to
(22:22):
me and Howard felt, you know, they took my life away.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
You know I could.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
I still could not understand what motivated them to want
to do what they did to me. We always believe,
(23:00):
you know, like the truth will prevail. And once I
got convicted, we believe that when we filed the appeal,
you know, that I would win the appeal and they
would be all be put in the past and then
we can go on with our lives. And then as
time started to go by, reality set in. I was
in prison. There wasn't really much I can do. I've
(23:23):
been assaulted, abused while I was incarcerated by staff. I'm
missing a bone and my right shoulder where I was
jumped by seven officers in the sergeant in attica and
brutally beaten. That's a type of treatment that's like a
regular thing, that's kind of like expected, as they say,
for people with the type of crime that I was
(23:44):
convicted of. They thought it was their privilege to abuse
people that were incarcerated for the type of crime I
was incarcerated for.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
You mean like a sex offense.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
The sex offense. Yeah, the corrections officers took it upon themselves,
the you know, hurt people that had cases like mine. Yeah,
they thought it was funny, you know. Yeah, I guess
they thought it was their place in life to get
revenge for the victims.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Amir and Bonnie had gotten married in nineteen eighty before
he went to prison. She continued to believe in him
and to visit regularly. They were allowed conjugal visits, and
in nineteen eighty one, their son, Amir Junior, was born.
In nineteen eighty eight, they had a second son, Jimyor.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
You know, I'm sure if things had went better, we
would have had more children.
Speaker 6 (24:45):
We had the two boys, and it was becoming complicated.
I mean, I always thought that things were going to change,
you know, because it was innocent. I thought that tomorrow
is going to get out. Tomorrow, things are going to change.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
So what did you tell your kids over the y
years with their dad in prison.
Speaker 6 (25:02):
That he was always innocent?
Speaker 2 (25:03):
That, you know, when they were little.
Speaker 6 (25:06):
That was hard to tell them things like that, you know,
but they always hurt the same thing over and over,
so they always believed in his innocence. I mean, I
didn't want to get into the glory parts of it,
you know, It's not something you really wanted to discuss.
But the kids were being subjected to things they shouldn't have.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Maggie, she had two sons to raise and she had
a life of her own that she had to live,
so it became difficult for her.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Eventually, Bonnie and Amir made the difficult decision to divorce.
Bonnie later remarried and had a third son, Connor.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
She did what she had to do, and I respected that.
It broke my heart. But the thing is is though
even though she went on and made a life for herself,
I was still always a part of her life and
she was still there for me.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Filed a number of appeals between nineteen eighty seven and
two thousand, but his conviction was upheld in every case.
He went up for parole seven times, but was denied
each time because he refused to admit guilt for the murder.
The Parole Board has since relaxed its requirement that defendants
admit guilt in order to be eligible, and finally, in
(26:22):
February of twenty eighteen, after serving almost forty years of
his sentence, Amir was granted parole, but his incarceration didn't
end there.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
I wasn't released for two more years because parole sabotaged
my release.
Speaker 5 (26:40):
He couldn't find suitable housing, and the reason for that
is he's got a sex offense as part of his conviction,
and there were restrictions on where he can live.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
My family, my son were attempting to get me a
place to stay, but I also still went through trouble
because every time my family rented a place with the
New York state law, with the Registry, you have to
inform the landlord as to what you're incarcerated for.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Finally, Amir was able to find a housing situation that
satisfied the parole board and he was officially released in
twenty twenty one, but the charges and the restrictions remain
on his record.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
You're still a registered sex offender right now. You have
not been cleared of that.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
No, I haven't been cleared of anything yet. So I
am a Level three and I'm basically under house arrest.
Speaker 6 (27:38):
So yeah, after Jesus, I don't know how many years
we've got back together again. I never stopped loving them,
and I never stopped believing in them.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Amir is now living with Bonnie, whose husband Brian McKenna
passed away in twenty twenty one. Amir is able to
spend time with his sons and under certain conditions, his grandchildren.
But his current status out of prison but with severe
restrictions on his freedom is taking a toll.
Speaker 6 (28:05):
You know. It's it's hard for him just to become
a grandfather at home because he's actually not fully home
yet if you look at the big picture of it.
We can't go to them and Vermont. We can't play
with the grandchildren over there. We can't go to a
Thanksgiving dinner over there, or at Easter dinner.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Amir also suffers from PTSD as a result of his
decades in prison.
Speaker 6 (28:32):
So sometimes he's got to take a step back because
it just it's too overwhelming. He'll just sit there and
sometimes stare. You know, I don't even know what's going
on in his mind, and what does it look like
throughout the night? He fights, he yells, he's he's.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
Got a lot of you know, things that happen to
him in the sleep, and we're still learning how to
control that.
Speaker 6 (29:01):
He's still in his back of his mind, is not
released from this hole that's on him. It's rough sometimes,
but I love him. He doesn't need me any harm.
Here's a man that wouldn't hurt a freaking fly. We
had one incident where it was a little rough and
oh my god, didn't cry and cry and cry, And
(29:25):
it was something that we got through and it's something
we continue to get through.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
In twenty twenty, Arthur Larkin learned about a Mirror through
Jeffrey Dskovic, an XANNERI, who upon his release, started a
foundation to look into other cases of wrongful conviction.
Speaker 5 (29:44):
And he took letters from people all over the country
who alleged that they were wrongfully convicted. And this is
one case that he and I started working on a
couple of years ago.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
So what was it about this case?
Speaker 1 (29:57):
You know, on its face, it does seem like this
was a guy who was found next to a body,
kind of wrong place, wrong time. So what was it
about this that you were like, you know, I think
this guy might be innocent.
Speaker 5 (30:09):
I think it's a good point you're making, because a
lot of these cases, when you first look at them,
you think, Okay, you know this guy saying he's innocent.
Knock me over with a feather. You know, you were
at the scene, you were found leaning over the body,
according to your version of events, at a minimum, so
(30:30):
there's no question, you were there, what happened here? And
when I started digging into the facts of the case
and looking at some of the police reports in the case,
you know, bit by bit my confidence in the conviction
was chipped away. And the kicker for me was the
information about the knife, which was the alleged murder weapon.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
In twenty nineteen, Paula Parrish, a caseworker for the Deskovic Foundation,
filed a freedom of information in law request to review
the Nayak police records from Amir's case.
Speaker 5 (31:04):
And in this box of documents is a lot of information,
a lot of stuff that was never turned over to
the defense. The first document is an investigation memorandum prepared
by an investigator, James Stewart, who was a DA investigator
at the time.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
And so what does this memo say?
Speaker 5 (31:25):
The memorandum says that in August nineteen seventy nine, investigator
Stuart and a Nayak detective went to the Bronx terminal
market and they interviewed a security supervisor who told them that,
to his knowledge, the Bronx terminal market does not sell knives,
which means that Joe Lenti's story about buying knives at
(31:49):
the Bronx terminal market and selling one to Amir Zeta
was highly suspect.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
So why would Lenti lie.
Speaker 5 (31:56):
Lenti would lie because he was under investigation at the
time for selling drugs in Niak and in July of
nineteen seventy nine, about a month after he gave his statement,
he was arrested and charged in a federal case. He
was arrested by the Niak police working in conjunction with
the FBI, and he was charged with federal drug crimes.
(32:20):
He was indicted and he was allowed to plead guilty
and got a sentence of probation. All the other defendants
in that drug case went to prison, all of them
who were convicted, except for Joe Lenti, he only got probation.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
The information that lenty could not have bought the knives
of the Bronx terminal market was never turned over to
the defense. Withholding evidence from the defense is known as
a Brady violation.
Speaker 5 (32:46):
And not only that, the reports of the two officers
who supposedly found the knife, their daily activity reports were
never turned over to the defense. Now we've seen them,
they're full of crossouts and strikeouts. They suggest that they
were both at this garage at different times. They weren't
there at the same time as they said they were
a trial.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
So that would be another Brady violation.
Speaker 5 (33:08):
Yes, that would be clearly be a Brady violation my view, absolutely,
But the jury did not know the information about the knife.
And I think that if the jury had known that
the police made up a story and testified inaccurately, if
not outright falsely about investigating the source of that knife,
and that the testimony was intended to cover up the
(33:30):
fact that there was a witness out there who could
have said that they didn't sell knives at the Bronx
Terminal market, it would have called into question the whole
story of how how is it that this knife got
into the backseat of the car.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
All of this points to police and prosecutorial misconduct, which
in itself is basis for a new trial. But when
they took a deeper dive into those recovered police documents,
the team uncovered further evidence that could prove even more significant.
Speaker 5 (33:59):
We did make another FOIL freedom of information law request
to a different agency within Rockland County known as the
Bureau of Criminal Identification, and one of the things that
that agency does is process crime scenes. So we requested
everything that they had on this case, and we got
over one hundred photographs as well as additional reports and
(34:21):
summaries of what the investigators found that morning when they
came to the crime scene after the crime had occurred.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Arthur and his team showed those photographs to a renowned
crime reconstruction expert, Brent Turvy.
Speaker 5 (34:36):
So one of the conclusions he drew after looking at
all the photos is that the victim was transported within
the parking lot inside of a car. You can see
blood spatter on one end of the parking lot, and
then you see the victim's body is found on the
other end of the parking lot, and there was a
large blood stain close to where the victim was apparently
(34:57):
thrown out of a car and then dragged behind the dumpster.
But in between those two areas, there's no blood spatter,
and you'd naturally expect a lot of blood inside the
car where that victim was transported. Emir Zeta's car, as
you know, was found near the crime scene. It was
not driveable, it had broken down, and there was not
a drop of blood in the car. So clearly Emir's
(35:20):
car was not used in this crime. That's point number one.
Point number two is he looked closely at the photos
of the knife that was alleged to be the murder weapon.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
Remember this is the knife that the two policemen said
they found in the patrol car days after the crime.
Speaker 5 (35:38):
He said clearly that knife was not used in this
crime because if it had been, it would have had
a lot more blood on it than it did. The
thing would have been full of blood if it had
been used to stab this woman twenty six times.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Arthur believes this new evidence, along with a number of
other conclusions Turvy drew from the crime scene photos, is
a game changer for Amir's case.
Speaker 5 (36:01):
What we have now is affirmative evidence that Amir had
nothing to do with this, and so we've asked the
court to hold a hearing on a claim of actual
innocence that Amir is actually innocent of the crime. And
I really think the court should take a very hard
look at everything we've presented. I really do think this
(36:22):
is a compelling case of a miscarriage of justice and
I hope the court agrees with us.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
But for now, until he's fully exonerated, Amir's life is
still on hold.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
I want to go on with my life and be
able to live my life like a human being, not
like a trapped animal. That throle has me like, you know,
caged up.
Speaker 5 (36:48):
As I just you know, I want.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
To be able to go and go to water parks
and amusement parks with my grandkids. I am not allowed
to go anywhere where there's children. I mean, they're just like, really,
they literally have me designated as being an animal, a monster.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
What does that feel like emotionally to be called these things?
A murderer, a rapist and you're none of those?
Speaker 3 (37:17):
What is that like?
Speaker 2 (37:18):
I mean, it breaks my heart. I see it in
the look that people give me when they look at me,
like I'm an animal and I've never done anything to
anybody in my life in a cool way.
Speaker 7 (37:33):
My mother and father raised me right. They were beautiful people.
I want people to know. I want them to know
the truth. I want my mother and father to finally
be able to rest in peace. I don't want this
to be the legacy.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
That I leave behind from my children and my grandchildren.
Speaker 6 (37:52):
We wanted all to come to an end. We haven't
started living again, Maggie, you know, and that's where we
need to get at.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Amir and Bonnie are planning to remarry when the time
is right, she says, when all of this is behind them.
Speaker 6 (38:15):
I envision us like getting married next to the ocean.
Speaker 8 (38:19):
Us being dressed in attire that we dressed in the seventies,
like me in this beautiful white, easy going dressed with
some flowers in my hair.
Speaker 6 (38:30):
And I envision him and white khakis and you know,
a shirt from that time period. I do envision good things,
and I envision all our kids with us.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
What beach do you think? Is there a place that
you like?
Speaker 2 (38:43):
I would say down at the shore.
Speaker 6 (38:44):
We used to spend a lot of time down at
the shore, Seaside heights, that area, those are our stopping grounds. Yeah,
we both missed the shore.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
If you'd like to support the work of the Jeffrey
Deskovic Foundation for Justice, please go to the link in
the episode description, and we'll also have a link to
amersko fund me campaign to help support him in his
new life. Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with
(39:25):
Maggie Freeling. Please support your local innocence organizations and go
to the links in the episode description to see how
you can help. I'd like to thank our executive producers
Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Wortis, as well as
senior producer Annie Chelsea, producer Kathleen Fink, story editor Hannah Beal,
and researcher Shelby Sorels. Mixing and sound design are by
(39:47):
Jackie Pauley, with additional production by Jeff Cleiburn and Connor Hall.
The music in this production is by three time OSCAR
nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
all social media platforms at Lava for Good and at
Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on all platforms
at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a
(40:09):
production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal
Company Number one
Early on the morning of June fifteenth, nineteen seventy nine,
Amir Zeta was driving home from partying with friends when
his car got stuck in an embankment down near the
Hudson River waterfront in Nyak, New York. Amir called a
friend from a payphone to help him secure a tow truck.
While he waited in the darkened parking lot of a
(00:25):
nearby restaurant, he heard a strange noise coming from behind
a dumpster.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
It was a growl, like a gruff, growling noise. I
didn't want to go in the corner, but at the
same time I was saying, like, well, whatever is going
on over there, Like, you know, don't be a punk,
go over there and check it out.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
What he saw there shocked and terrified him. But before
he could react, police cars were on the scene, sirens blaring.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Two police officers dow me down. He handcuffed me behind
my back, searched me, and then they put me in
a back at a car just that quick.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Amir was arrested and charged with sexual assaults and the
brutal murder of a young local woman, Shirley Smith. The
woman he had found lying behind a dumpster covered in
blood and had tried to help.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
My name is Emir Zeta. I did forty one years
in prison for a crime that I didn't commit.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
From Lava for good.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
This is wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling today Amir Zeta.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
I'm an Arab American. I was born in Nyak Hospital
in Rockley County.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
New York.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Amir Zeta was born in nineteen sixty one into a large,
loving family.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
My mother and father are from Jordan. They immigrated to
the United States in nineteen fifty eight. At the time,
it was my eldest brother, Nasar, eldest sister in the Zira,
and the two twins, Samir and Samir who was my
next oldest, and then myself from the baby of the family.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Growing up, Amir didn't feel any different from the other
kids at school, but when he was five or six
years old, something happened changed the way others saw his
family and the way he felt about himself.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
My father got a dispute with a neighbor over property.
Apparently my father didn't speak English at will, and they
ended up calling a police officer. The police officer ended
up getting a glass cut on the back of his hand.
But at the time they maintained that he had been
shot by my father. It wasn't the case. But I
(02:45):
still have the memories too of being a six year
old kid sitting in my father's attempted a murder on
a police officer's trial.
Speaker 5 (02:52):
And how it affected me, and then how it affected.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Me through my school years from that point on, about
being called the murder the cop killer's son, even though
there was no police officer killed or even shot.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
The charge against his father was dismissed, but from that
time on, Amir says his family was treated differently by
the police.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
They started going after my family in a methodical manner,
for my eldest brother, then my next brother, and me.
My eldest sister left out of the county. She seen
the writing on the wall and she took off. She
got married and left the county.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Amir's other sister, Samira, was deported to the Middle East
and later died from a medical issue that Amir beliefs
could have been.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Easily treated in the United States.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
His brother Samir ended up serving nearly forty two years
in prison and was also deported upon his release. Despite
his family's troubles, Amir found a bright spot in all
of this darkness.
Speaker 6 (04:00):
I knew a mirror from the time I was like
in grammar school, and I always knew Amir had a
crush on me.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
So we were like, what maybe twelve years old.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
This is Bonnie McKenna, But when Amir met her in
seventh grade, she was Bonnie Stalter.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
We shared an art class, I believe, in a music
class at the school. I used to always sit at
the table with her in the class, and you know,
spend more time paying attention to her than I was
to class. And then one day I took a chance
and I walked up to her when we were at
the lockers.
Speaker 6 (04:40):
And he's like Bonnie Sue Stalter, and he like just
takes me and he flings me up against the locker and.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
He starts kissing me, and I kissed her.
Speaker 6 (04:50):
Man, he like stole the kiss from me, his first
kiss from me, and we have like connected ever since
that moment on.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Amir soon went away to military academy, but he never
forgot that first kiss. A year and a half later,
he came back to Nayak to register for high school.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
She was the first person I seen she was actually
outside the school and I still had I was in
the military academy. I still have my uniform on, and
she was the first beautiful face that I seen. And
then from there we just reignited the flame that you
know has been lit for quite a while. And you know,
I've always felt like I loved her.
Speaker 6 (05:33):
So I didn't have the perfect life. My life was
very complicated as a child, and I was a runaway
and I wound up with mister and missus.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Zaida Bonnie moved in with a Meher's family when she
was fifteen. They gave her a stable home, and she
says his parents treated her like a princess. By then,
she and Amir were inseparable.
Speaker 6 (05:57):
He was the most generallest, kindest person I ever met,
and we had a good time together. You know, in
the seventies, we were just popping around, you know, being
kids having a good time.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
But those good times would soon come to an end,
and Amir's troubles that the police were about to begin.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
He was seventeen years old in June of nineteen seventy nine,
and the night that this crime happened, he and his
friends went out drinking and partying. You know, they were
out all night.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
This is Arthur Larkin of the law firm Hale and Monico,
Amir's post conviction attorney.
Speaker 5 (06:40):
And the last five years I'm representing plaintiffs in civil
rights cases, including people like Amir Zeta who've been wrongfully
convicted of crimes and are seeking to overturn their convictions.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
So, Arthur, can you walk us through what happened that
night June fifteenth, nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 5 (07:01):
Emir was driving. He admits he was drinking. He actually
he bought Kayludes at Joseph Flente's Deli. He bought a
couple of magazines and he bought kayludes. So, as the
knight's coming to a close, he's driving around the town.
After he dropped all his friends off and he starts
driving home. He took a right turn down I believe
(07:24):
it's Gedney Street, and he turned off the street onto
a sort of a dirt area, an embankment adjacent to
the wind Jammer parking lot, and his car got stuck.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
The Windjammer restaurant was located at the foot of Main
Street on the Hudson River waterfront. After trying unsuccessfully to
free his car from the embankment, Amir walked to a
phone booth and called his friend John Nash to tell
him he needed a tow truck. John offered to call
around looking for one, and after making a couple of calls,
he left to pick a mirror.
Speaker 5 (07:58):
Up and Amir had told him in the phone call.
Amir had said, listen, just meet me at the in
the Windjammer parking lot. That's where my car is. It's adjacent.
After a Mer hangs up the phone, he goes down
back to his car. He tries to drive it again.
He can't. He wanders down to the parking lot and
as he's walking through the parking lot, he hears a sound.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
It was a growl, like a gruff growling noise. I
was reluctant to actually even walk into that area because
it was dark. It was completely pitch black. There was
a garbage dumpster there, the trees were hanging over the top.
I had fear. I didn't want to go in the corner,
but at the same time, I was saying, like, well,
whatever is going on over there, Like, you know, don't
(08:42):
be a punk over there and check it out. I
approached slowly, and when I first looked, I seeing that
there was something at the dumpster, but I didn't. I
wasn't sure what it was.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
A young woman was lying face down behind the dumpster,
her clothes and shreds. She was nearly naked and had
been stabbed multiple times.
Speaker 5 (09:06):
He leans over and he tries to lift her up.
Oh my god, you know are you okay?
Speaker 2 (09:12):
That's when I noticed, you know who that was?
Speaker 3 (09:16):
The woman was seventeen year old Shirley Smith.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Amir recognized her because he'd gone to school with her cousin,
but he didn't know Shirley well.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
By the time I had stepped up, discovered the victim
and attempted to try to help her, to you know,
give her assistance. I heard the my police car pulling
down the street.
Speaker 5 (09:41):
Amir looks up. He sees a police car. He's standing
over a body. His family has had trouble with the
police before. Okay, so Amir immediately runs. He scared and
he runs.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Officers John McCorry and James Thurston were the first ones
on the scene. When they spotted a mirror crouch next
to the body. They immediately ran for him.
Speaker 5 (10:08):
The two police officers threw me down.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
He hand cuffed me behind my back, took me threw
me over the back of the police car, searched me,
took everything out of my pockets and put it in
a police officer's hat, and then they put me in
the back of the car just that quick.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
And that's so fast, I mean, did you even register
what was happening at that point?
Speaker 2 (10:28):
I knew something was wrong, it was someone there, but
I didn't realize the extent as far as my involvement.
I just walked up on it just that quick.
Speaker 5 (10:40):
They put him in the backseat of the car and
they go to the victim and they try to revive her.
The victim is very bloody and they're trying to you know,
they're trying to do CPR, but she's pronounced dead at
the scene.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Unfortunately, at that point another officer, Michael Roman, had arrived.
The policeman put a mirror back out of the car,
patrol car number three eighty three, to frisk him.
Speaker 5 (11:05):
Now keep in mind, they've been touching the victim's body,
so their hands are bloody, they weren't wearing gloves, and
they don't find a murder weapon on a mirror there.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
You took me up in the troll car. They transported
me up to my police station, and then later on
that morning I went before I believe it was Judge
mccar thing, and he arrayed me without bail and charged
me with second year murder and remanded me to the
Rockland County Jail.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
You're listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling. You can
listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts
one week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava
for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
I honestly believed that the truth would come out. I
really I did not realize the extent that they were
going to go to to make me look guilty.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
So Arthur Shirley Smith's body has been found.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
She's apparently been sexually assaulted and stabbed to death, but
no weapon has recovered and a mirror is the number
one suspect. So can you tell us about the investigation
that followed? What did police report say?
Speaker 5 (12:35):
The police's version of events is that they pulled into
the parking lot after they received a call about screams
and dogs barking in the vicinity of the Windjama parking lot.
They say that when they got to the scene, they
saw a pair of legs protruding from behind a dumpster
with the underwear and pants down, and they said that
(12:56):
pair of legs was Amir Zeta's and that Amir was
trying to sexually assault the victim.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Officers McCord and Thurston claimed that when they came upon
a mirror, he wasn't wearing a shirt, and that as
they chased him, his pants were falling down. They said
that when they cuffed him and put him in the car,
his pants were still down.
Speaker 5 (13:16):
And after they had attended to the victim and they
opened the police car door to try to frisk them,
his pants were miraculously pulled up and zipped up. Okay,
so they frisk a mirror and they find no murder weapon. Nothing.
There's some blood on his underwear, the back of his underwear,
there's some blood in his front pants pocket, and there's
(13:37):
a marijuana cigarette that they say they found in his
pocket with blood on it. Later tests show that that
blood matches the victim's blood. Now, no murder weapon was
ever found at the scene.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Divers searched the nearby Hudson River, and detectives scoured the
Windjammer parking lot, but no murder weapon was ever found.
Two days later, another officer, Douglas McDonald, was driving the
same patrol car number three eighty three, as McDonald later testified,
when he stopped to get gas, he ran into another
(14:14):
officer who was doing the same and the two started talking.
Speaker 5 (14:18):
Now the crime is on a Friday morning, this is
now Sunday, and son of a gun. If both officers
don't look in the backseat of the car and say, oh,
my goodness, there's a knife.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Remember, patrol car three point eighty three had been searched
thoroughly after a mirror was picked up, and no knife
had been found at the time. But now this knife
had somehow been discovered in the car's back seat. This
was before DNA testing was available, but when tested, traces
of blood found on the knife were shown to be
consistent with Shirley Smith's genetic profile.
Speaker 5 (14:52):
And the prosecution's theory of trial is that the knife
was the murder weapon, and that even those hands were
handcuffed behind his back after the officers put him in
the car, a meir Zeta had somehow managed to wherever
he had secreted the knife on his person. He managed
to extract it, shove it under the seat somehow, and
(15:13):
pull his pants up all in one shot. Okay.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
There were no fingerprints on the knife, nothing that directly
connected it to a mirror, and the blood found on
the knife could very well have gotten there the next day,
when Detective Arthur Keenan took it to New York City
for testing along with two vials of the victim's blood.
But determined to hold onto their prime suspect a mirror,
(15:37):
the police went looking for a witness to corroborate their theory.
Speaker 5 (15:41):
They went to see Joe Lenti, who was known to
be a local drug dealer and who had sold a
mere the queludes and the magazines the night before. Joe
Lenti says, Yeah, that's very similar to the knife that
I sold a mer on Thursday night.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
So the main evidence against you, allegedly was this knife.
Did you buy this knife?
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Was this knife yours?
Speaker 2 (16:08):
I'd had no knife. The knife miss magically appeared.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
The knife the cop said they found in the car
was a black folding knife with the word leopard on
the handle. When they went to see Joseph Lenty, they
didn't show him this exact knife, but one that was
very similar, a white handled knife with a lion on
the handle the detective Keenan had found in a drawer
at the police station. Joseph Lenty told police that he
(16:36):
had bought seventeen of these knives at a place called
the Bronx Terminal Market.
Speaker 5 (16:42):
And that he had sold them all, well, sixteen of them.
Amir came in the knight before the crime and bought
the last of them, the seventeenth knife, and he had
the receipt for fifteen dollars from a mer but that
was for the kueludes and the magazines. That wasn't for
a knife.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Based on this knife that was found in the patrol car,
the alleged murder weapon which a Mirror had supposedly purchased
from Joseph Lenty, and the fact that a mirror was
at the scene when police arrived, A Mirror was charged
with second degree murder, first degree attempted sodomy, and aggravated
criminal sexual abuse. His trial was set for six months later.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
So did you always believe in his innocence?
Speaker 1 (17:24):
You know, back then when you guys were kids and
he gets arrested.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
What were you thinking.
Speaker 6 (17:30):
When that happened? And I heard mama downstairs, and I
heard her crying and screaming, I never in a thousand
years thought that he had gotten arrested for such a
crime or anything of that nature. And I lost a
lot of friends over that because they were like, Bonnie,
(17:51):
you know your life's going to change. I didn't care
that my life was going to change. I stayed beside him,
I stuck by him, and I said, this is going
to get better. I don't know why they're doing this.
I don't know why it came to this point, but I, honestly,
Maggie thought that this was going to get better, that
they were going to find the real person that committed
(18:13):
this crime. And that's what I kept thinking for all
of these years.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Within a week following the crime, a grand jury was
convened and Amir gave testimony about the events of that night.
Amir's trial began six months later on January seventh, nineteen eighty,
in Rockland County Court before Judge Albert Rosenblatt. The prosecutor
was Rockland County's first Assistant District Attorney, William Frank. Amir's
(18:44):
defense attorney was William Kunstler.
Speaker 5 (18:46):
The officer's testified to finding the knife in the backseat
of the car two days later, Joe Lenti testifies that
he bought the knife the Bronx Terminal market.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
The prosecution also presented a witness, Donald Lewis, someone who
had gone to school with Shirley and knew a mirror
as well.
Speaker 5 (19:04):
And he claimed that he saw a mir at a
phone booth and the Amir turned and said to Shirley
Smith the victim, hey, Shirley, want to smoke a joint?
And Shirley said sure. That was his testimony at trial.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Amir maintains that this encounter never happened, and in fact,
Donald Lewis was later tape recorded telling an acquaintance that
he had made the whole story up.
Speaker 5 (19:28):
And Lewis said, listen, you know I had a beef
with him. Don't tell anybody I didn't see him at
a phone booth. In essence, what he said was his
trial testimony was a lie and he had that recorded.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
After the trial, Amir tried to appeal his conviction based
on that recorded confession, but at the hearing Lewis changed
his story again.
Speaker 5 (19:50):
Instead of sticking by the recantation, Lewis said, yeah, I
knew that he was recording me, and so we just
orchestrated it, and the judge did not buy the recantation.
He wouldn't accept it, and Amir's motion was denied. I
think the police probably got to him and said, look,
you better, you better stick to your story.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
And that's because, as it turned out later, Lewis was
facing criminal charges in another matter and thus highly incentivized
to incriminate a mirror. By sticking to his story that
he'd seen Amir and Shirley together, he was able to
avoid prosecution. So Arthur, the defense did not know that
at the time. It wasn't disclosed by the prosecution. So
(20:32):
what was the defense that Amir's attorneys presented.
Speaker 5 (20:37):
You know, Counsseler did a pretty good job tracking down
the witnesses who confirmed Amir Zeida's version of events. His
friend John Nash testified. John Nash's mother, Catherine, testified that
Emir had called the house at four o'clock in the morning.
Kunstler got phone records from the phone company showing that
a call was made from a payphone in nayak All
(21:00):
on Broadway to Nash's house at four in the morning.
Phone records showing that Nash had called for a tow
truck at four fifteen and four to fourteen am right,
just as he testified, and just as Emir said that
his friend told him he would.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
John testified that he had driven down to the waterfront
that night, but his own car broke down, and when
he couldn't locate a mirror, he called a taxi to
take him home. And John's version of events matches up
with the testimony that Amir gave at the earlier grand
jury hearing.
Speaker 5 (21:32):
Amir testified in his own defense, and so the jury
had Amir's version of what happened, and his explanation, as
I just said, is backed up by witnesses and by
telephone records and by the business records of this Buds taxi. Right,
But it didn't it didn't matter to the jury. The
jury credits the officer's version of events and they convict him.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
It was surreal. I guess the first time the reality
of my situation hit me, dawned on me was the
day of my sentencing, when they gave me twenty five
to light. I just fell apart. I just started crying.
I couldn't believe I can still feel that feeling right
now in my heart as to what they did to
(22:22):
me and Howard felt, you know, they took my life away.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
You know I could.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
I still could not understand what motivated them to want
to do what they did to me. We always believe,
(23:00):
you know, like the truth will prevail. And once I
got convicted, we believe that when we filed the appeal,
you know, that I would win the appeal and they
would be all be put in the past and then
we can go on with our lives. And then as
time started to go by, reality set in. I was
in prison. There wasn't really much I can do. I've
(23:23):
been assaulted, abused while I was incarcerated by staff. I'm
missing a bone and my right shoulder where I was
jumped by seven officers in the sergeant in attica and
brutally beaten. That's a type of treatment that's like a
regular thing, that's kind of like expected, as they say,
for people with the type of crime that I was
(23:44):
convicted of. They thought it was their privilege to abuse
people that were incarcerated for the type of crime I
was incarcerated for.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
You mean like a sex offense.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
The sex offense. Yeah, the corrections officers took it upon themselves,
the you know, hurt people that had cases like mine. Yeah,
they thought it was funny, you know. Yeah, I guess
they thought it was their place in life to get
revenge for the victims.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Amir and Bonnie had gotten married in nineteen eighty before
he went to prison. She continued to believe in him
and to visit regularly. They were allowed conjugal visits, and
in nineteen eighty one, their son, Amir Junior, was born.
In nineteen eighty eight, they had a second son, Jimyor.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
You know, I'm sure if things had went better, we
would have had more children.
Speaker 6 (24:45):
We had the two boys, and it was becoming complicated.
I mean, I always thought that things were going to change,
you know, because it was innocent. I thought that tomorrow
is going to get out. Tomorrow, things are going to change.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
So what did you tell your kids over the y
years with their dad in prison.
Speaker 6 (25:02):
That he was always innocent?
Speaker 2 (25:03):
That, you know, when they were little.
Speaker 6 (25:06):
That was hard to tell them things like that, you know,
but they always hurt the same thing over and over,
so they always believed in his innocence. I mean, I
didn't want to get into the glory parts of it,
you know, It's not something you really wanted to discuss.
But the kids were being subjected to things they shouldn't have.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Maggie, she had two sons to raise and she had
a life of her own that she had to live,
so it became difficult for her.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Eventually, Bonnie and Amir made the difficult decision to divorce.
Bonnie later remarried and had a third son, Connor.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
She did what she had to do, and I respected that.
It broke my heart. But the thing is is though
even though she went on and made a life for herself,
I was still always a part of her life and
she was still there for me.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Filed a number of appeals between nineteen eighty seven and
two thousand, but his conviction was upheld in every case.
He went up for parole seven times, but was denied
each time because he refused to admit guilt for the murder.
The Parole Board has since relaxed its requirement that defendants
admit guilt in order to be eligible, and finally, in
(26:22):
February of twenty eighteen, after serving almost forty years of
his sentence, Amir was granted parole, but his incarceration didn't
end there.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
I wasn't released for two more years because parole sabotaged
my release.
Speaker 5 (26:40):
He couldn't find suitable housing, and the reason for that
is he's got a sex offense as part of his conviction,
and there were restrictions on where he can live.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
My family, my son were attempting to get me a
place to stay, but I also still went through trouble
because every time my family rented a place with the
New York state law, with the Registry, you have to
inform the landlord as to what you're incarcerated for.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Finally, Amir was able to find a housing situation that
satisfied the parole board and he was officially released in
twenty twenty one, but the charges and the restrictions remain
on his record.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
You're still a registered sex offender right now. You have
not been cleared of that.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
No, I haven't been cleared of anything yet. So I
am a Level three and I'm basically under house arrest.
Speaker 6 (27:38):
So yeah, after Jesus, I don't know how many years
we've got back together again. I never stopped loving them,
and I never stopped believing in them.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Amir is now living with Bonnie, whose husband Brian McKenna
passed away in twenty twenty one. Amir is able to
spend time with his sons and under certain conditions, his grandchildren.
But his current status out of prison but with severe
restrictions on his freedom is taking a toll.
Speaker 6 (28:05):
You know. It's it's hard for him just to become
a grandfather at home because he's actually not fully home
yet if you look at the big picture of it.
We can't go to them and Vermont. We can't play
with the grandchildren over there. We can't go to a
Thanksgiving dinner over there, or at Easter dinner.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Amir also suffers from PTSD as a result of his
decades in prison.
Speaker 6 (28:32):
So sometimes he's got to take a step back because
it just it's too overwhelming. He'll just sit there and
sometimes stare. You know, I don't even know what's going
on in his mind, and what does it look like
throughout the night? He fights, he yells, he's he's.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
Got a lot of you know, things that happen to
him in the sleep, and we're still learning how to
control that.
Speaker 6 (29:01):
He's still in his back of his mind, is not
released from this hole that's on him. It's rough sometimes,
but I love him. He doesn't need me any harm.
Here's a man that wouldn't hurt a freaking fly. We
had one incident where it was a little rough and
oh my god, didn't cry and cry and cry, And
(29:25):
it was something that we got through and it's something
we continue to get through.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
In twenty twenty, Arthur Larkin learned about a Mirror through
Jeffrey Dskovic, an XANNERI, who upon his release, started a
foundation to look into other cases of wrongful conviction.
Speaker 5 (29:44):
And he took letters from people all over the country
who alleged that they were wrongfully convicted. And this is
one case that he and I started working on a
couple of years ago.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
So what was it about this case?
Speaker 1 (29:57):
You know, on its face, it does seem like this
was a guy who was found next to a body,
kind of wrong place, wrong time. So what was it
about this that you were like, you know, I think
this guy might be innocent.
Speaker 5 (30:09):
I think it's a good point you're making, because a
lot of these cases, when you first look at them,
you think, Okay, you know this guy saying he's innocent.
Knock me over with a feather. You know, you were
at the scene, you were found leaning over the body,
according to your version of events, at a minimum, so
(30:30):
there's no question, you were there, what happened here? And
when I started digging into the facts of the case
and looking at some of the police reports in the case,
you know, bit by bit my confidence in the conviction
was chipped away. And the kicker for me was the
information about the knife, which was the alleged murder weapon.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
In twenty nineteen, Paula Parrish, a caseworker for the Deskovic Foundation,
filed a freedom of information in law request to review
the Nayak police records from Amir's case.
Speaker 5 (31:04):
And in this box of documents is a lot of information,
a lot of stuff that was never turned over to
the defense. The first document is an investigation memorandum prepared
by an investigator, James Stewart, who was a DA investigator
at the time.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
And so what does this memo say?
Speaker 5 (31:25):
The memorandum says that in August nineteen seventy nine, investigator
Stuart and a Nayak detective went to the Bronx terminal
market and they interviewed a security supervisor who told them that,
to his knowledge, the Bronx terminal market does not sell knives,
which means that Joe Lenti's story about buying knives at
(31:49):
the Bronx terminal market and selling one to Amir Zeta
was highly suspect.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
So why would Lenti lie.
Speaker 5 (31:56):
Lenti would lie because he was under investigation at the
time for selling drugs in Niak and in July of
nineteen seventy nine, about a month after he gave his statement,
he was arrested and charged in a federal case. He
was arrested by the Niak police working in conjunction with
the FBI, and he was charged with federal drug crimes.
(32:20):
He was indicted and he was allowed to plead guilty
and got a sentence of probation. All the other defendants
in that drug case went to prison, all of them
who were convicted, except for Joe Lenti, he only got probation.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
The information that lenty could not have bought the knives
of the Bronx terminal market was never turned over to
the defense. Withholding evidence from the defense is known as
a Brady violation.
Speaker 5 (32:46):
And not only that, the reports of the two officers
who supposedly found the knife, their daily activity reports were
never turned over to the defense. Now we've seen them,
they're full of crossouts and strikeouts. They suggest that they
were both at this garage at different times. They weren't
there at the same time as they said they were
a trial.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
So that would be another Brady violation.
Speaker 5 (33:08):
Yes, that would be clearly be a Brady violation my view, absolutely,
But the jury did not know the information about the knife.
And I think that if the jury had known that
the police made up a story and testified inaccurately, if
not outright falsely about investigating the source of that knife,
and that the testimony was intended to cover up the
(33:30):
fact that there was a witness out there who could
have said that they didn't sell knives at the Bronx
Terminal market, it would have called into question the whole
story of how how is it that this knife got
into the backseat of the car.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
All of this points to police and prosecutorial misconduct, which
in itself is basis for a new trial. But when
they took a deeper dive into those recovered police documents,
the team uncovered further evidence that could prove even more significant.
Speaker 5 (33:59):
We did make another FOIL freedom of information law request
to a different agency within Rockland County known as the
Bureau of Criminal Identification, and one of the things that
that agency does is process crime scenes. So we requested
everything that they had on this case, and we got
over one hundred photographs as well as additional reports and
(34:21):
summaries of what the investigators found that morning when they
came to the crime scene after the crime had occurred.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Arthur and his team showed those photographs to a renowned
crime reconstruction expert, Brent Turvy.
Speaker 5 (34:36):
So one of the conclusions he drew after looking at
all the photos is that the victim was transported within
the parking lot inside of a car. You can see
blood spatter on one end of the parking lot, and
then you see the victim's body is found on the
other end of the parking lot, and there was a
large blood stain close to where the victim was apparently
(34:57):
thrown out of a car and then dragged behind the dumpster.
But in between those two areas, there's no blood spatter,
and you'd naturally expect a lot of blood inside the
car where that victim was transported. Emir Zeta's car, as
you know, was found near the crime scene. It was
not driveable, it had broken down, and there was not
a drop of blood in the car. So clearly Emir's
(35:20):
car was not used in this crime. That's point number one.
Point number two is he looked closely at the photos
of the knife that was alleged to be the murder weapon.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
Remember this is the knife that the two policemen said
they found in the patrol car days after the crime.
Speaker 5 (35:38):
He said clearly that knife was not used in this
crime because if it had been, it would have had
a lot more blood on it than it did. The
thing would have been full of blood if it had
been used to stab this woman twenty six times.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Arthur believes this new evidence, along with a number of
other conclusions Turvy drew from the crime scene photos, is
a game changer for Amir's case.
Speaker 5 (36:01):
What we have now is affirmative evidence that Amir had
nothing to do with this, and so we've asked the
court to hold a hearing on a claim of actual
innocence that Amir is actually innocent of the crime. And
I really think the court should take a very hard
look at everything we've presented. I really do think this
(36:22):
is a compelling case of a miscarriage of justice and
I hope the court agrees with us.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
But for now, until he's fully exonerated, Amir's life is
still on hold.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
I want to go on with my life and be
able to live my life like a human being, not
like a trapped animal. That throle has me like, you know,
caged up.
Speaker 5 (36:48):
As I just you know, I want.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
To be able to go and go to water parks
and amusement parks with my grandkids. I am not allowed
to go anywhere where there's children. I mean, they're just like, really,
they literally have me designated as being an animal, a monster.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
What does that feel like emotionally to be called these things?
A murderer, a rapist and you're none of those?
Speaker 3 (37:17):
What is that like?
Speaker 2 (37:18):
I mean, it breaks my heart. I see it in
the look that people give me when they look at me,
like I'm an animal and I've never done anything to
anybody in my life in a cool way.
Speaker 7 (37:33):
My mother and father raised me right. They were beautiful people.
I want people to know. I want them to know
the truth. I want my mother and father to finally
be able to rest in peace. I don't want this
to be the legacy.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
That I leave behind from my children and my grandchildren.
Speaker 6 (37:52):
We wanted all to come to an end. We haven't
started living again, Maggie, you know, and that's where we
need to get at.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Amir and Bonnie are planning to remarry when the time
is right, she says, when all of this is behind them.
Speaker 6 (38:15):
I envision us like getting married next to the ocean.
Speaker 8 (38:19):
Us being dressed in attire that we dressed in the seventies,
like me in this beautiful white, easy going dressed with
some flowers in my hair.
Speaker 6 (38:30):
And I envision him and white khakis and you know,
a shirt from that time period. I do envision good things,
and I envision all our kids with us.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
What beach do you think? Is there a place that
you like?
Speaker 2 (38:43):
I would say down at the shore.
Speaker 6 (38:44):
We used to spend a lot of time down at
the shore, Seaside heights, that area, those are our stopping grounds. Yeah,
we both missed the shore.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
If you'd like to support the work of the Jeffrey
Deskovic Foundation for Justice, please go to the link in
the episode description, and we'll also have a link to
amersko fund me campaign to help support him in his
new life. Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with
(39:25):
Maggie Freeling. Please support your local innocence organizations and go
to the links in the episode description to see how
you can help. I'd like to thank our executive producers
Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Wortis, as well as
senior producer Annie Chelsea, producer Kathleen Fink, story editor Hannah Beal,
and researcher Shelby Sorels. Mixing and sound design are by
(39:47):
Jackie Pauley, with additional production by Jeff Cleiburn and Connor Hall.
The music in this production is by three time OSCAR
nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
all social media platforms at Lava for Good and at
Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on all platforms
at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a
(40:09):
production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal
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