July 25, 2024 • 41 mins
Jerome Curry was arrested in connection with several shootings in the Bronx, NY, on September 20, 1996. When taken in for questioning, Jerome faced verbal and physical abuse from the police and ultimately falsely confessed to the shootings. Despite no physical evidence tying him to the crimes and questionable police tactics, Jerome was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for murder and attempted murder.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
It was the summer of nineteen ninety six in Upper Manhattan,
while the violence of the crack epidemic continued to rage.
On July fifteenth, a man survived a gunshot on one
hundred and fifty ninth Street. On August thirtieth, another man
wasn't as lucky at a bus stop on one hundred
and forty fifth On September twentieth, gunshots erupted on one
(00:25):
hundred and fifty eighth Street, and police chased down a
white sedan that had sped away from the scene with
two young men inside, Petro Guzman and Jerome Curry. Detectives
told them that they'd found a gun in their wake,
and eventually Guzman named Jerome and their friend Miguel Enriquez,
saying that the gun was used in the August thirtieth
(00:46):
murder as well. Over a day later, Jerome said the
same thing, additionally admitting to the July fifteenth shooting. Either
those detectives hit the jackpot, or this is wrongful conviction.
(01:09):
Wrongful conviction has always given voice to innocent people in prison,
and now we're expanding that voice to you. Call us
at eight three, three, two oh seven four six sixty six,
and tell us how these stories make you feel and
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social media. We've really appreciated hearing from our audience so
(01:31):
much so that we've included one of the messages at
the end of this episode. So stick around for that,
and if you have something to say, we definitely want
to hear it, and you might just hear yourself in
a future episode. Call us A three three, two oh seven,
four six sixty six. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction today's episod.
(02:00):
So it's a case that you're not going to want
to hear, but you need to hear the story of
mister Jerome Curry. And Jerome is on the phone with
us now. First of all, I'm sorry for everything even
going through for Jesus almost three decades. Yes, but I'm
very honored to have you here on the show.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Well, I honor also to be on the show man.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yeah, and joining us once again to help tell this story.
My friend attorney Justin Bonas Justin, welcome.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Back, thank you. It's great to be back on.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
So Jerome, take us back to before all of this
horrible stuff happened.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
I was born into Dominican Republic. I spent some years
out there. I grew up in between two different family structures.
Social structures, like on my father's side, all of his
children and everybody else in the family, they will all
graduate from college and the university. They were professionals, so
like a middle class sort of family. And on my
mother's side, basically no one had graduated from college, but
(02:58):
some people don't even read and write. It was a
very poor family and a very rough neighborhood. I kind
of grew up there more than with my father. I
used to like it there more because I had cousins.
And in the May seventies, my mother met an American doctor.
They married and he brought over to the United States,
and about a year later I came over to Trent
(03:18):
in New Jersey. It was rough. I didn't know English,
and I'm Baskin, so experienced bullying and abused by other kids.
But I ended up getting a good education, graduating, and
I moved over to New York Jerome.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
First moved to one hundred and fifty ninth Street in
Washington Heights, an area that was deep in the throes
of the crack epidemic. But then soon Jerome found a
safer place in the Bronx, where he met his co defendants,
Miguel Enriquez and unfortunately the guy who sold him down
the river, Pedro Goosemann.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
I had just really met the guy around the time
that we both got arrested, and Rieke Haz introduced me
to him. You know, he worked for the superl the
same build than where I lived, and he kind of
gravitated towards me, so we started hanging out together. You know, Ice,
it's like smoking weed. He smoked weedze. But I never
really knew much about the guy. So, you know, we
all had moved to the Bronx around that time because
(04:15):
Washington Heights or the opposite west side of Manhattan was
very very different. Man they was moving at a different speed.
It was huge drug enterprise, so everybody and then the businesses,
everybody was involved in something. Even the people that were
not committing crimes were right there in the middle of everything.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Crack epidemic era Upper Manhattan was rife with violence, but
that doesn't excuse how our civil rights were regularly trampled
to clear sometimes multiple open cases. If you recall what
happened to Ralphie Martinez, which we're going to link that
incredible story in the episode description. He became the scapegoat
for drug trafficking on West one hundred and fifty seventh
(04:55):
Street and three violent crimes. And this case bears some
resemblance as the police were willing to once again use
false statements to clear July fifteenth assault with a deadly weapon,
an August thirtieth murder, and an attempted murder on September twentieth.
And in this story, we have a known repeat offender
with whom Justin has had some contact, Detective Ba de Leone.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Lpedo, Ba de Leone. They cleared the books. That's what
they did back then. I mean, Ba told me that
about Raffi. That's what they did back then. I mean
even now in modern times is when they think they
can throw everything on a guy, that's what they're going
to do. The funny thing is Baight, he's in the
Jabbar Walker case. Jabar Walker was exonerated November twenty seventh,
(05:40):
twenty twenty three the Innocence Project. From everyone that I've
spoken with have stated that the net case there was
fabricating and manufacturing evidence from BA de Leone, and we
also know about de Leone that he was found in
nineteen ninety to have used force against a witness in
another case. In order to get statement, I could tell
(06:01):
you that it almost never happens thirty years ago that
the Civilian Complaint Review Board and the NYPD internally substantiated
use of force allegation. And that's before we get the
Jabbar Walker's case, which took place around the same time
as Curry's. So it's kind of like a clear of
the books type of situation. With the Jerome the July
(06:22):
attempted murder and then the September twentieth attempted murder, we're
both in the thirty third precinct, and then the murder
of Reginald Myers is in the thirtieth precinct. So this
is what brings de Leone in. So you get these
statements that are obviously fabricated and manufactured, not only because
(06:43):
they're identical, but also because they are demonstrably false. Okay,
But the other detectives, he was the more senior detective,
it appears, and he was the one that took the
lead driving the investigation with regard to the other cases.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
So let's start with the assault of Reginald Fraser on
July fifteenth of nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
According to him, it was late that night, around ten o'clock.
He says that it was a male black eighteen to
twenty years of age. They had an argument walking down
the street from the middle of the block through the
corner of one hundred and fifty ninth Street in Broadway,
and that the argument got a little heated and the
(07:27):
male black put out a gun on him and shot
him on a box when he tried to flee away
from Reginald Fraser. He's African American, so he would know
for a fact whether he's talking to an African American
or Latino. That was a dark skin, he definitely would
have been able to distinguish that.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Now, Jerome was five to seven with dark skin and
a thick Dominican accent.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
In fact, my English back then, my accent was a
little stronger. Now it has gotten better to education and
studying and reading and you know, going through them off
a pronunciation, but it was definitely a lot stronger back there,
so he would have known that this distinction immediately.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Nevertheless, Reginald Fraser initially reported a young black Mail as
his assailant, not an Hispanic Mail, but eventually Fraser identified
Jerome and changed his story to say that an Hispanic
Mail was his assailant. And we'll get into the suggestive
nature of his idea as well as Fraser's particulate later on.
But first back to July fifteenth, nineteen ninety six, detectives
(08:28):
from the thirty third precinct had no leads, and then
in the thirty th precinct on August thirtieth, nineteen ninety six,
there was a murder of Reginald Myers.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Got two Reggies in this case, a Reggie Fraser and
Reggie Myers. Myers is the deceased. Fraser is alive. My
focus has been on the Myers case because you got
to take one case at a time. If you don't,
you're going to confuse a judge. I think you got
to focus on Myers first, because there is a landslide
(08:59):
worth of evidence, forensic, medical. One of the people that
was in the car has come forward with an affidavit
detailing who the killer was and that it wasn't Jerome
and he wasn't there.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
During this time, I was visiting Trenton, New Jersey with
my girlfriend visit in my mother's house. I was out
there with friends and spending some time out there.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Many years later, Jerome's co defend at Miguel Enriquez, made
it clear that he committed this crime with Pedro Guzman
and another man.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Yes, he mentioned in Markles and then he nicknamed him
boas this was the guy that was supposed to have
fired the shot on the night of the murder.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
From my investigation, Henriquez, Guzman and a man named Mark
or Loboa are looking for someone to rob. This is
the west side of Harlem, and there was a lot
of people running around with I guess a lot of
weight in drugs, so you know, guys would drive around,
you had stick up kids. And on one hundred and
(09:57):
forty fifth Street Henriquez, Guzman on and Loboa. They see
this man who happens to be Reginald Myers with a
bag in his hand. They think that he has drugs
in the bag. Turns out that he just got some
like gatorade and like a snapple or something like that,
and Henriquez gets out of the car grabs the bag.
(10:17):
Myers chases Henriquez back to the car, and a gun
shot goes over.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Ems arrived around nine pm and Myers was pronounced dead
at the hospital. Detective de Leon arrived around nine point
fifteen pm, and, according to police reports that were not
presented a trial, eyewitnesses said that a man around six
feet tall grabbed the bag and returned to a dark
gray sedan. As Myers reached for the guy who robbed him,
the car pulled off toward Amsterdam Avenue and shots were fired.
(10:45):
The following day, the autopsy revealed stippling, suggesting a close
range shot with no impediments. It was determined that a
nine millimeter bullet passed through the back of his upper
right arm into the armpit, striking his lungs and heart.
The witnesses and trajectory suggest that the victim reach for
the sedan's passenger side and was shot as the sidhan
(11:05):
pulled away. Yet the state's narrative had Meyers slapping the
windshield of a stationary vehicle and was shot with a
thirty eight caliber bullet through the windshield, which is simply
not supported by the facts, But that narrative didn't emerge
until September twentieth. Now, Jerome was back from New Jersey
and was driving around Washington Heights near his old apartment
(11:25):
with Pedro Guzman.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
No, this is what we did with party, smoke, marijuana, hangout,
look for girls. So we ended up driving down the
streets and we ended up coming into one hundred and
fifty eighth Street. While in the middle of the block,
a shootout happens. For what I was told, it was
over a drug spot that they had, a crack spot
that they were fighting over. It was individuals fro Night
blocked Reginald Fraser his friends.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
YEP, the same Reginald Fraser from the July fifteenth assault
was involved in a shootout over a crack spot in
which his friend Thomas Joe Long ran toward Amsterdam Avenue
with the one way flow of traffic on his right
and the buildings on his left.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
He shot on the left shoulder and the shots supposedly
came from his right side of a car that was
riding along the streets, but his left shoulder is facing
the buildings as he's running towards Amsterdam.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Even though the bullet entering and exiting through his upper
left shoulder supported that the shooter was on the sidewalk.
The police radio reported that the shots came from a
white Sedan. The making model varied, but this play suspicion
on Jerome Curry and Petro Guzman, who were in a
white Nissan Maxima.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
In the middle of this. We did what we thought
was logical at that moment, and we also sped out
of the block. The police are chasing us. You know,
even though the victims identified multiple different cars, it just
happened that our car was also white. Now, on that night,
we had a substantial amount of marijuana, and then we
(12:55):
ain't had no identification, no license, we didn't even have
paperwork for the car, even that the car was legit.
Guzman was driving. He panised him. He said, I'm not stopping.
I'm not stopping. I'm going.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
You know.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
I didn't try to stop him. What I did was
I tried to get rid of the marijuana we had
in the and we just ran as much as we could.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
They sped toward the Macomb's Damn Bridge on their way
back to the Bronx, but traffic from the Yankee Game
was backed up and the police pulled up right next
to them.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Kurry gets arrested with Guzman on September twentieth.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Somewhere in the area. The police found a gun. First,
they claimed that it was a three fifty seven, so
they put that on the reporter and said, well, we
found a gun and this gun belongs to you. Guys.
They never took any fingerprints off it, DNA anything, and
they said, well, this is your gun, and we tell
them this is not our gun from the beginning, this
is not our gun. This is not our gun. And
(13:44):
eventually Pedro Guzman started talking to the people. He said, well,
that's my friend gun and I gotta talk to you.
That's why he began to talk about the murder case.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Well. Offending off suspicion in the attempted murder of Thomas Long,
it appears that Guzman decided to try to save himself
by cooperating, and at some point the three point fifty
seven Magnum became a thirty eight special. I guess the
police didn't know what kind of gun they allegedly found
dumped from Guzman's car. Nevertheless, Guzman started to spill real
(14:14):
information mixed in with the lies about the murder of
Reginald Myers, which had occurred in the thirtieth precinct.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
They called in the thirtieth Precinct. This is when Detective
de Lyon get involved. Pedro Guzman admitted that him and
two of the individuals have been involved in that shooting
of Reginald Myers. They never mentioned me. Somehow they pressured
him and then he implicated me in the crime.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
They take a statement from Guzman, not knowing that you know,
this guy now is trying to dig himself up out
of a really, really nefarious scenario. Here. Guzman's I know
about this other murder and Curry's involved with this murder, right,
basically says to de Leon that this thirty eight killed Myers.
Turns out that that thirty eight was not the murder
(15:00):
weapon in Myers. There was a deformed nine millimeter bullet
that was found in Meyer's body, and that bullet was
compared to the gun that was recovered in connection with
Curry's arrest on the night of September twentieth. The NYPD's
own ballistic expert concluded that that nine minilimeter bullet could
(15:21):
not have been fired from that thirty eight, that there
was no connection between that gun and Myers at all.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
But de Leon didn't know this information when he was
working on these statements, first with Guzman and then they
picked up Miguel Enriquez and lastly.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Jerome detected de Leon came in. This guy, him and
another Guydny Detected Crimes. We were kept in a freeze
and approximately forty eight hours, probably a little longer than that,
things got really bad, but no continue to deny my
involvement in it. The first thing they did was they
brung in big colored pictures of a victim and they
put them on the table. They were determined to get
(15:57):
a confession. Who say, you're going to tell um just
out of the story. You know, it got so bad
to the point where this detective Elpedio de Leon became
a bit physically, you know, I remember him getting off.
He went into a rage, punching and slapping me and
he said, we know you're not leaving here until you
tell us what we want to hear. You know. During
this process, they brought in a TV screen where the
(16:19):
DVD was BCR player and they continuously played the confession
that this guy Edro Guzman had already given them and
gelhen Riquez that they implicated in this crime as well.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
Enriquez and Guzband both say that Enriquez jumps out of
the car, takes the bag off of the victim, runs
back to the eighty six accurate dark gray four door,
and both of them say that the victim comes to
the front windshield, slaps it, and Jerome shoots through the
windshield and see that's the thing. The police could have
(16:53):
easily gone to the autopsy to see that there was
stippling on the body and automatically know that what Enriquez
Guzmana saying is false.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
The windshield would have blocked any steppling at all from
landing on Reginald Myers. And in addition, the nine milimeter bullet,
not a three fifty seven or a thirty eight caliber,
but a nine milimeter bullet entered through the back upper
right arm and passed through the chest to the left.
There was no upward trajectory that one might expect to
(17:23):
have seen with a shot through the windshield. The shot,
in fact entered the back upper right arm. This scenario
in which Jerome is the shooter simply defies reality.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
And they can tell me just with people, they are saying,
you gotta give us a story, you gotta pay some
type of responsibility. And this went on for hours, like,
I never knew how serious sleet the probation was, and
not drinking water, not having access to fool for so
long really meant into experience. Then they put me in
a line up. I may have found out that the
(17:56):
people that claimed that they see me at the crime
scene had identify a guy that was six feet to
six one. I'm only fist seven.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
How can a guy be identified as being six to
one and be five to seven?
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Taking in consideration that I was sitting down when they
made the identification with a bunch of other guys, so
they didn't even see me standing up to compare me
to the other individuals.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
You know, Oh wow, Okay, that's a whole there. I
never heard of a lineup sitting down.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Yeah, on a bench, So that's how they made the identification.
So they said, well, you know, we got you picked
out of a line on there's people that seen you there,
and it was all line and it got so bad
that I just wanted to end it. I ended up
incriminating myself in this crime even though I was innocent,
which is something that I have regreaded all these years
because I have to live with that. My family had
(18:47):
to live with that you.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Know listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen to this
and all the Lava for Good podcasts one week early
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(19:09):
on Apple Podcasts. As far as we can tell, the
witnesses that viewed to sit down Lineup were never heard
from again, but they served as an effective cudgel. They
got Jerome to sign a confession making him the shooter
for Reginald Fraser, Reginald Myers, and Thomas Long, but as
(19:33):
we've already pointed out, the statements were not corroborated by reality.
And then they brought in Reggie Fraser, who was both
the victim from July fifteenth as well as the witness
of the shooting in front of his crack spot, which
one can surmise made him open for cooperation when he
came in to view a lineup, especially when he's made
(19:53):
to believe that the guy who shot his friend Thomas
Long had been caught.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
He said, badd came in and he saw my picture
on the detective's desk, and then he went into the
lineup and identified me.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
There's also another version of events where someone else at
the thirty third precinct, not Detective Primus who was conducting
the lineup, but somebody else showed him Jerome's picture by mistake.
Either way, Reggie Fraser made the id that was incentivised
by not only a blind eye to his drug activity,
(20:27):
but also just a few months before trial trigger warning,
thirty eight year old Reggie Fraser had been charged with
the rape of a thirteen year old child who became pregnant,
receiving a sentence of only one and a half to
three years. Meanwhile, Jerome had awaited his trials for about
that same amount of time on Riker's Island. His first
(20:49):
trial was for the July fifteenth assault of Fraser and
the attempted murder of Fraser's buddy Thomas.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Long Regulald Fraser. He testified that he seen a white car.
Somebody pointed a girl out of the window of the
car and started shooting at him or the group that
he was in. Long testified also, but he really didn't
provide much information. He just said that, you know, he's
seen a white car. He couldn't identify the car. He
(21:16):
don't even know where the shots came from. He just
said he heard a shot and he started running and
of course, a confession for me an incriminating confession.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Now, as we've discussed, this alleged confession was about shooting
Thomas Long from the car, even though the bullet path
through Long's left shoulder placed the shooter on the sidewalk
in front of or behind him, not in a car
way off to his right, but none of this was
ever explained to the jury. Then they moved on to
the assault.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
On July fifteen, Fraser said that he had a confrontation
with a guy on one hundred and fifty ninth Street
that he had never seen before at night, and the
guy shot him as he tried to run away. He said, yes,
he don't right there, sitting right there now.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Importantly, he reported that this was a blackmail, but changed
this description to hispanic mail and id Jerome an id
that he appears to have been incentivized and guided to
may He also testified to having cooperated in other prosecutions,
which could mean that he regularly traded testimony to maintain
his own freedom and was not thereby a reliable source.
(22:19):
But with Jerome's own statement corroborating this witness, he probably
didn't have a chance anyway, how didn't think so.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
One is because I wasn't allowed to take the stand
and speak and defend myself and for representation that I had.
He never used his private investigator to go to the
ABBA and interview witnesses, and so I knew I was
in trouble. They came in and they just handed out they'd.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
On March seventeenth, nineteen ninety eight. Predictably, they found him
guilty in both cases, ultimately resulting in two consecutive terms
of twenty five and ten years for a total of
thirty five years. And then his second trial for the
Meyers murder began that August.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
The only evidence against Jerome Curry is Guzman and Curry's statement.
Henrikuz does not testify a trial. He provides a statement
to Ba DeLeon, and interestingly, Henriquez and Guzman's statements almost
match identically, like almost word for word. We all have
different perception. Okay, so you're gonna have different versions of
(23:19):
the same event. Now that it's not going to contradict
each other, but it's going to be slightly different. You're
not going to have exactly the same statement right word
for word. That's not gonna happen. They don't write those
statements Deleone does, right. But Henriquez doesn't testify a trial.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
No, he didn't testify. And he told me that. He said, listen,
even though I implicated you in this murder, I know
you wasn't there. They forced me to say these things
about are he said, Detective Lyon forced me. Crime is
you know. They put me in a room. They threatened
to hit me. This is a guy that never been arrested.
And he took a plee. He said, I'm not doing it.
He said, I'm not going to testify. I'd rather take
(23:58):
a plea offer. Just get on with my life and
do whatever amount of years I have to do before
I come in here and do that. And he never
testify either. He refused to testify.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
I forget how much time he gets. He does do
a lot of time in prison. Enriquez, he does much
more time than Guzman does, who does cooperate.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
I think he did about seven in some months. He
did less than what he was supposed to do, so
I don't know if they threw in a letter of
consideration in there for him.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
And Guzman says that when Henriquez comes into the car,
the victim runs up to the front of the windshield
and slaps the windshield.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
They said that he was standing in front by the
hood of the car with both hands raised in the
air in a position to strike the wing shield. So
that means that the bullet wood has struck him through
his left.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Side, and he says, Curry shoots through the front of
the windshield. And what we know from the autopsy report
is that they're stippling on the wound, which means two things.
That this is a close gunshot wound. The other thing
is there can't be an intermediate between the wound and
the gun completely refutes what Guzman is saying. And it's
(25:06):
more that the victim, Myers, is running towards the car,
reaching into the car, and is shot into the side
of his body.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
The autopsy says that the bullet entered through the back
of his upper right arm, then entered the chest under
the armpit, and traveled through the lungs and heart, which
further makes sense when you know that the car was
moving away from him. Picture of the car with the
passenger side pulled up to the curb, Enriquez darting back
into the car, Myer's lunging for him. The car pulls
(25:35):
away and the shot was fired, making that back of
the upper right arm through the chest trajectory possible.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
Those ded files that said there were some witnesses that
said the car was already moving when Myers was shot,
those ded files weren't turned over a trial because it
would have contradicted Guzman's trial testimony and Curry that the
shooting happens when the car stationary.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
The jury never heard how the States narrative was impossible,
nor did they hear from a single alibi witness.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Jerome's girlfriend and mother both said that he was in Trenton.
He has another guy named Figueroa. He was with Figaroa
at like a birthday party at the time in Trenton.
None of those people were called in Jerome's defense a trial.
The defense attorney essentially he relied on his ability to
cross examine Guzman and to basically say, hey, the thirty
eight is not in fact a murder weapon. And of
(26:28):
course Jerome gets convicted.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Which is predictable considering that the jury heard Jerome's false statement,
so he got another twenty five year sentence.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
At the moment, I did really comprehend who's going I
couldn't put together the sentence. I just heard what I
hear by sentence you to twenty five a life, and
I started adding off for years and which turned the
entire sentence into sixty to life. Sixty to life. Yep.
But at that moment, everything just goes quiet, everything goes numb.
(26:59):
It's everything just going in slow motion. Then you go
up stay at that age, you go up stay. They
(27:25):
send you all close to Canada, the Client and Correctional facility,
and you know, that's when you feel that, you know
it's over. You know, with all the histories and officers
killing prisoners and prisoners killing prisoners, you know, all the
violence and all the drugs and all everything that just
goes on in places life that it was horrible. You know,
there's no way to prepare for that.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
While and during the worst of New York State prisoners,
Jerome began to learn the law, meanwhile receiving denials on
appeal until he filed his federal habeas petition.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
They granted me a hearing, they said they he asked
the questions in two of them, Where did my defense
council ever make an attempt to contact those witnesses that
described me as being six y to one and if
he didn't, whether that deficiency affected the trial. So they
vacated that conviction and sent it back to the district court.
And when I got a hearing, I wasn't as prepared.
(28:20):
You know, I wasn't as educated. I really didn't know
the law as much as I know now. So when
I went to the hearing, the magistrate judge, which is
a guy named Andrew Peck, he was very tough and
instead of answering the questions or having the question answered
by the second Circuit, he turned it around and made
it into whether I asked my counsel to call these witnesses,
(28:44):
But I was not the question by the court. They
asked whether his deficient performance in calling these witnesses affected
the trial, and he'd never addressed that. He turned it
around and found a way that to not the motion
based on that. He said, oh, well, you never asked
him to call these witnesses, which I did, by the way,
I testified at the hearing, and I said, yes, I
(29:05):
did ask them multiple times. You know, I was very
interested in hearing from these witnesses that described me as
being six ' one and then you know, here I
am at five seven and he never called them in.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
While these witness descriptions in the Meyers case likely referred
to Miguel Enriquez, those same witnesses allegedly identified Jerome while
he was seated, But regardless of how problematic all of
that is, the judge still found a way to deny
the claim. The next bit of progress came with Justin's
involvement in twenty sixteen, when he did what Jerome's trial
(29:35):
attorney never did, an actual investigation, starting with alibi witnesses
like Eduardo Figueroa.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
I knowed this guy for years, and my mother had
ran into his family his father in Trenton, New Jersey,
so his father gave him the number. He immediately traveled
up here and I haven't seen this guy in abbly
twenty five years, and he was shocked to hear that
I have been in call made a full crime to
happen when we were together in Trenton, New Jersey.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
So FIGUREO. It gives an affidavids that Jerome was at
a party in Trenton at the time of the homicide,
and Jerome's mother and girlfriend both say during that week
right that he was down in Trenton.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
He also did a reinvestigation of the Meyers crime scene
with two forensic pathologists, doctors Thomas Kubick and Cyril Weck,
the latter of whom is such a legendary figure. I
mean he actually worked the Kennedy assassination and countless other
cases since then.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Doctor Wek has probably been involved with over fifty thousand autopsies,
and he gave the report back in twenty twenty two.
And doctor Kuick basically says the same thing as doctor Wex.
So we have two experts that basically say that Guzman's
trial testimony and Enriquez's statement are physically impossible.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Everything we've been saying about how the ballistics contradict the
state's evidence comes from them. And as we've already mentioned,
Justin also got an affidavid from Miguel Enriquez saying that
Jerome was never involved in any way. So, as Justin
has said, his initial focus is the Meyers case, which
he has now fully dismantled. The only way this could
be better would be if Guzman reappeared from the Dominican
(31:12):
Republic to corroborate everything we already know well enough even
without him. And then there's the state star witness from
the first trial none other than Reggie Fraser.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
I found on a foil request in recent years. I
think it was in twenty seventeen or eighteen, with the
help of a friend of mine, This guy, Reginald Fraser,
gave two different descriptions, but that was never turned over.
I just recently found that.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Out, and this is when Jerome finally knew what we've
been saying about Fraser's credibility issues. Then, once again, contrary
to Fraser's testimony, the ballistics in Long's case proved that
the shooter must have been on the sidewalk and not
in a passing white sedan. And the backdrop for Fraser's
participation in both trials is the police ignoring his drug
(31:55):
trafficking while giving him a sweetheart deal for his rape charge.
While we still don't have definitive proof that Jerome didn't
shoot Fraser in the ass on July fifteenth, nineteen ninety six,
we do have the word of a thirty eight year
old man who impregnated a thirteen year old child. In addition,
Jerome has said in writing that he's ready and willing
(32:17):
to submit to DNA testing to exclude himself from the
thirty eight. While that weapon is excluded from the Meyers case,
it's just one more corroboration that he was not involved
in the other two incidents in which the police say
that gun was involved. So hopefully Justin's going to be
able to obtain that testing as well as additional info
(32:38):
further discrediting Fraser. In the meantime, they're awaiting the decision
on the four to forty motion in the Meyers case.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
And what I believe is you'll have to take one
piece at a time here. And what we know is
one of his convictions, at the very least is wrong,
and it's the most serious conviction, and it shows this
conviction and shows it is a testament that the other
convictions that he has are at the very least highly
(33:08):
highly problematic, and that they just went all out didn't care.
They used coercive tactics, they manufactured evidence, they just didn't care.
So I don't want to move on anything until I'm sure.
And what I am very very certain about is that
Jerome Curry did not kill Reginald Myers, and he was
(33:28):
not there when Reginald Myers was killed. And we have
a person that's in the car Miguel Enriquez is now
saying that Jerome Curry wasn't even in the car. It
wasn't there, wasn't president at all. And he's admitting that
I was there, I took the bag. He's admitting his
involvement in the murder. He's admitting it, and he's saying
Curry had nothing to do with it. And we have alibis.
(33:50):
And the question I have is is what part of
this case isn't isn't covered by the evidence that we
put in that motion. Why aren't we working with the
prosecutor's office when and they discover that you have a
detective that has a pattern, We've begun to establish a pattern.
The FBI says a serial killer is defined by what
two or more murders. I think it is that's the definition. Here.
(34:12):
We know that Deleone beat at least one person found
guilty of that internally from the NYPD, and that the
New York County District Attorney's office has made allegations that
he fabricated and manufactured evidence in another case that led
to an exoneration of all I men. Shouldn't we now
begin to look at everything BA Deleone does? But I
(34:33):
could tell you. I spoke to him about Jerome's case,
and he still believes that that thirty eight was the
murder weapon. It's in his notes. It's in his notes.
He still believes that. And he told me techniques that
he used to get people to identify people in photo
rays and lineups and things like that. Basically, in six packs,
he would put people in two and five, and in
(34:55):
lineups he would push people into three and four because
people go to the middle the lineup first, and that
increased the chance of identification exponentially. And then he had
techniques about confessions. Obviously, Jerome knows about the confessions better
than I do. I don't think I was with BA
for over forty hours straight.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
I sincerely hope that the Manhattan DA's office takes a
hard look at this case. You've got two incidents in
which the ballistics cleared Jerome Curry and expose the false
testimony of the victim from another incident who appears to
have had plenty to gain from cooperating. So now with that,
let's go to closing arguments. I'm being the first. Thank
you guys for being here and sharing this incredibly important story.
(35:39):
So with that, I'm going to turn off my microphone
and kick back in my chair and just listen to
anything else you have to say. Justin let's start with
you and then hand it off to Jerome and he'll
take us off into the sunset.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Once you see one of these tainted investigations where the
cops don't care, you then have to look at the
other ones. The DA's office even has more information on
lpdo de Leone. I'm still fighting for the rest of
the information about his involvement, and his involvement is only
in the Meyers case, but the other detectives that were
(36:16):
involved in the other two cases were feeding off of him.
They were obligated even twenty eight years ago to turn
over the fact that Ba had abused another witness. Okay,
they were obligated when they exonerated Jabbar Walker to turn
over their findings in November of twenty twenty three, where
lpdo de Leone was the lead investigator. And here every
(36:39):
single piece of evidence against Jerome Curry was tainted by
confirmation bias, contextual bias, by police officers that thought that
their intuition took them to the right person, by witnesses
that were willing to say whatever they had to say
to get out of jail. And I know that's a
common theme, but here we can prove that physical eviden
(37:00):
and said, we can prove, we can prove that your
own Curry was held, even by the NYPD's own admission,
for well over a day, over thirty hours, by the
NYPD's own admission, they kept him and interrogate him over
and over and over again until they got the information
out of him that they wanted, not true, factual information,
(37:20):
not information that was corroborated by the physical evidence. And
that's what I want people to understand. The police's own
techniques saying that the physical evidence should match the statement
of the person that's confessing. We don't have any of
that here. There's not one piece of evidence that's used
to convict your own Curvey the Reginald Myer's case, that's reliable,
not one.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
I want to address your listeners, those that are familiar
with the criminal justice system, as well as those that
are not, you know, as well as the Manhattan District
Attorney's office and even the judge you know, who's passion
I'm seeking and improving my innocent in this case that
is before her. President you know, in her office right now,
as far as I know, no one is above the
(38:01):
law in this country, and the cornerstone of our constitutional
law stays a normal one is above the law. And
this includes members of the District Attorney's office in Manhattan
as well as law enforcement. Now people may not know this,
but in emotion such as the one that my attorney
put together and submitted to the core, that is for
requesting a new trial based on newly discover evidence, it's
(38:23):
the judge has a duty or is required conduct a
careful and dispassionate examination of the facts has presented in
the papers that we submitted, and most importantly, the application
of the law to those facts, which is what we
have been requested. We are requested that the law is
applied to the facts that we have presented and all
(38:43):
our submissions. That's it, you know, I want to emphasized
that from the auset from the inception of my criminal
prosecutions have always claimed my innocence and as it is
demonstrated the reinvestigation of my case, as well as the
large amount of compelling newly discover everye this that is
attached to the four to forty motion, that is pending
right now in New York kind of Supreme Court. My
(39:05):
role for conviction was the result of sufficient representation by
my trial attorney, by the suppression of a squad that
told me ever it is by the Mahaman District Attorney's office,
and I think also very importantly by the outrageous misconda
and corrupt investigative techniques of detective Opedia the Lyon. Detective
Lyon has an expensive career history of engaging in action
(39:28):
misconda and using corrupt investigative practices against criminal defenders and
suspense for approximately twenty eight years. I have been claiming
that it's very sane actions wisconder were used against me
by Detective Apitia. The Lyon forced me to make a
terminating confection against myself and the crime that I did
not commit. Just like Yabaul Walker, I am also one
(39:49):
hundred percent innocent, and I'm just requested for justice to
be delivered in my favor and for the application of
the law through the facts of my case to be implemented.
You know, I'm innocent. I just want my day in court,
and I want to be able to prove my innocence,
and I would like to be exonerated from this crime.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
week early by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on
Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team, Connor
Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow executive
producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cliburn. The music
in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
(40:32):
composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across all
social media platforms at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction.
You can also follow me on Instagram at It's Jason Flamm.
Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
and association with Signal Company Number one.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
Hello, my name is Jose Fernandez and the Wrongful Conviction
podcast just opened my eyes to the world of wrongful
convictions and the innocent movements and just how often this
happens to everyday people. But I would say this podcast
did influence me to pursue my legal career.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Now going to my second year of Loyola Law School
and I'm going to be a part of their Loyola
Project for the Innocent this upcoming semester, so I'm really
excited for that, and I owe it all to the
Wrongful Conviction Podcast for really leading me that way and
inspire me to do the work that I hear so
many of these insurting to do. Thank you, and keep
up with the great work, keep pumping out those stories,
and I can't wait to join the movement.
It was the summer of nineteen ninety six in Upper Manhattan,
while the violence of the crack epidemic continued to rage.
On July fifteenth, a man survived a gunshot on one
hundred and fifty ninth Street. On August thirtieth, another man
wasn't as lucky at a bus stop on one hundred
and forty fifth On September twentieth, gunshots erupted on one
(00:25):
hundred and fifty eighth Street, and police chased down a
white sedan that had sped away from the scene with
two young men inside, Petro Guzman and Jerome Curry. Detectives
told them that they'd found a gun in their wake,
and eventually Guzman named Jerome and their friend Miguel Enriquez,
saying that the gun was used in the August thirtieth
(00:46):
murder as well. Over a day later, Jerome said the
same thing, additionally admitting to the July fifteenth shooting. Either
those detectives hit the jackpot, or this is wrongful conviction.
(01:09):
Wrongful conviction has always given voice to innocent people in prison,
and now we're expanding that voice to you. Call us
at eight three, three, two oh seven four six sixty six,
and tell us how these stories make you feel and
what you've done to help the cause, even if it's
something as simple as telling a friend or sharing on
social media. We've really appreciated hearing from our audience so
(01:31):
much so that we've included one of the messages at
the end of this episode. So stick around for that,
and if you have something to say, we definitely want
to hear it, and you might just hear yourself in
a future episode. Call us A three three, two oh seven,
four six sixty six. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction today's episod.
(02:00):
So it's a case that you're not going to want
to hear, but you need to hear the story of
mister Jerome Curry. And Jerome is on the phone with
us now. First of all, I'm sorry for everything even
going through for Jesus almost three decades. Yes, but I'm
very honored to have you here on the show.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Well, I honor also to be on the show man.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yeah, and joining us once again to help tell this story.
My friend attorney Justin Bonas Justin, welcome.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Back, thank you. It's great to be back on.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
So Jerome, take us back to before all of this
horrible stuff happened.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
I was born into Dominican Republic. I spent some years
out there. I grew up in between two different family structures.
Social structures, like on my father's side, all of his
children and everybody else in the family, they will all
graduate from college and the university. They were professionals, so
like a middle class sort of family. And on my
mother's side, basically no one had graduated from college, but
(02:58):
some people don't even read and write. It was a
very poor family and a very rough neighborhood. I kind
of grew up there more than with my father. I
used to like it there more because I had cousins.
And in the May seventies, my mother met an American doctor.
They married and he brought over to the United States,
and about a year later I came over to Trent
(03:18):
in New Jersey. It was rough. I didn't know English,
and I'm Baskin, so experienced bullying and abused by other kids.
But I ended up getting a good education, graduating, and
I moved over to New York Jerome.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
First moved to one hundred and fifty ninth Street in
Washington Heights, an area that was deep in the throes
of the crack epidemic. But then soon Jerome found a
safer place in the Bronx, where he met his co defendants,
Miguel Enriquez and unfortunately the guy who sold him down
the river, Pedro Goosemann.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
I had just really met the guy around the time
that we both got arrested, and Rieke Haz introduced me
to him. You know, he worked for the superl the
same build than where I lived, and he kind of
gravitated towards me, so we started hanging out together. You know, Ice,
it's like smoking weed. He smoked weedze. But I never
really knew much about the guy. So, you know, we
all had moved to the Bronx around that time because
(04:15):
Washington Heights or the opposite west side of Manhattan was
very very different. Man they was moving at a different speed.
It was huge drug enterprise, so everybody and then the businesses,
everybody was involved in something. Even the people that were
not committing crimes were right there in the middle of everything.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Crack epidemic era Upper Manhattan was rife with violence, but
that doesn't excuse how our civil rights were regularly trampled
to clear sometimes multiple open cases. If you recall what
happened to Ralphie Martinez, which we're going to link that
incredible story in the episode description. He became the scapegoat
for drug trafficking on West one hundred and fifty seventh
(04:55):
Street and three violent crimes. And this case bears some
resemblance as the police were willing to once again use
false statements to clear July fifteenth assault with a deadly weapon,
an August thirtieth murder, and an attempted murder on September twentieth.
And in this story, we have a known repeat offender
with whom Justin has had some contact, Detective Ba de Leone.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Lpedo, Ba de Leone. They cleared the books. That's what
they did back then. I mean, Ba told me that
about Raffi. That's what they did back then. I mean
even now in modern times is when they think they
can throw everything on a guy, that's what they're going
to do. The funny thing is Baight, he's in the
Jabbar Walker case. Jabar Walker was exonerated November twenty seventh,
(05:40):
twenty twenty three the Innocence Project. From everyone that I've
spoken with have stated that the net case there was
fabricating and manufacturing evidence from BA de Leone, and we
also know about de Leone that he was found in
nineteen ninety to have used force against a witness in
another case. In order to get statement, I could tell
(06:01):
you that it almost never happens thirty years ago that
the Civilian Complaint Review Board and the NYPD internally substantiated
use of force allegation. And that's before we get the
Jabbar Walker's case, which took place around the same time
as Curry's. So it's kind of like a clear of
the books type of situation. With the Jerome the July
(06:22):
attempted murder and then the September twentieth attempted murder, we're
both in the thirty third precinct, and then the murder
of Reginald Myers is in the thirtieth precinct. So this
is what brings de Leone in. So you get these
statements that are obviously fabricated and manufactured, not only because
(06:43):
they're identical, but also because they are demonstrably false. Okay,
But the other detectives, he was the more senior detective,
it appears, and he was the one that took the
lead driving the investigation with regard to the other cases.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
So let's start with the assault of Reginald Fraser on
July fifteenth of nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
According to him, it was late that night, around ten o'clock.
He says that it was a male black eighteen to
twenty years of age. They had an argument walking down
the street from the middle of the block through the
corner of one hundred and fifty ninth Street in Broadway,
and that the argument got a little heated and the
(07:27):
male black put out a gun on him and shot
him on a box when he tried to flee away
from Reginald Fraser. He's African American, so he would know
for a fact whether he's talking to an African American
or Latino. That was a dark skin, he definitely would
have been able to distinguish that.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Now, Jerome was five to seven with dark skin and
a thick Dominican accent.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
In fact, my English back then, my accent was a
little stronger. Now it has gotten better to education and
studying and reading and you know, going through them off
a pronunciation, but it was definitely a lot stronger back there,
so he would have known that this distinction immediately.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Nevertheless, Reginald Fraser initially reported a young black Mail as
his assailant, not an Hispanic Mail, but eventually Fraser identified
Jerome and changed his story to say that an Hispanic
Mail was his assailant. And we'll get into the suggestive
nature of his idea as well as Fraser's particulate later on.
But first back to July fifteenth, nineteen ninety six, detectives
(08:28):
from the thirty third precinct had no leads, and then
in the thirty th precinct on August thirtieth, nineteen ninety six,
there was a murder of Reginald Myers.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Got two Reggies in this case, a Reggie Fraser and
Reggie Myers. Myers is the deceased. Fraser is alive. My
focus has been on the Myers case because you got
to take one case at a time. If you don't,
you're going to confuse a judge. I think you got
to focus on Myers first, because there is a landslide
(08:59):
worth of evidence, forensic, medical. One of the people that
was in the car has come forward with an affidavit
detailing who the killer was and that it wasn't Jerome
and he wasn't there.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
During this time, I was visiting Trenton, New Jersey with
my girlfriend visit in my mother's house. I was out
there with friends and spending some time out there.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Many years later, Jerome's co defend at Miguel Enriquez, made
it clear that he committed this crime with Pedro Guzman
and another man.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Yes, he mentioned in Markles and then he nicknamed him
boas this was the guy that was supposed to have
fired the shot on the night of the murder.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
From my investigation, Henriquez, Guzman and a man named Mark
or Loboa are looking for someone to rob. This is
the west side of Harlem, and there was a lot
of people running around with I guess a lot of
weight in drugs, so you know, guys would drive around,
you had stick up kids. And on one hundred and
(09:57):
forty fifth Street Henriquez, Guzman on and Loboa. They see
this man who happens to be Reginald Myers with a
bag in his hand. They think that he has drugs
in the bag. Turns out that he just got some
like gatorade and like a snapple or something like that,
and Henriquez gets out of the car grabs the bag.
(10:17):
Myers chases Henriquez back to the car, and a gun
shot goes over.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Ems arrived around nine pm and Myers was pronounced dead
at the hospital. Detective de Leon arrived around nine point
fifteen pm, and, according to police reports that were not
presented a trial, eyewitnesses said that a man around six
feet tall grabbed the bag and returned to a dark
gray sedan. As Myers reached for the guy who robbed him,
the car pulled off toward Amsterdam Avenue and shots were fired.
(10:45):
The following day, the autopsy revealed stippling, suggesting a close
range shot with no impediments. It was determined that a
nine millimeter bullet passed through the back of his upper
right arm into the armpit, striking his lungs and heart.
The witnesses and trajectory suggest that the victim reach for
the sedan's passenger side and was shot as the sidhan
(11:05):
pulled away. Yet the state's narrative had Meyers slapping the
windshield of a stationary vehicle and was shot with a
thirty eight caliber bullet through the windshield, which is simply
not supported by the facts, But that narrative didn't emerge
until September twentieth. Now, Jerome was back from New Jersey
and was driving around Washington Heights near his old apartment
(11:25):
with Pedro Guzman.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
No, this is what we did with party, smoke, marijuana, hangout,
look for girls. So we ended up driving down the
streets and we ended up coming into one hundred and
fifty eighth Street. While in the middle of the block,
a shootout happens. For what I was told, it was
over a drug spot that they had, a crack spot
that they were fighting over. It was individuals fro Night
blocked Reginald Fraser his friends.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
YEP, the same Reginald Fraser from the July fifteenth assault
was involved in a shootout over a crack spot in
which his friend Thomas Joe Long ran toward Amsterdam Avenue
with the one way flow of traffic on his right
and the buildings on his left.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
He shot on the left shoulder and the shots supposedly
came from his right side of a car that was
riding along the streets, but his left shoulder is facing
the buildings as he's running towards Amsterdam.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Even though the bullet entering and exiting through his upper
left shoulder supported that the shooter was on the sidewalk.
The police radio reported that the shots came from a
white Sedan. The making model varied, but this play suspicion
on Jerome Curry and Petro Guzman, who were in a
white Nissan Maxima.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
In the middle of this. We did what we thought
was logical at that moment, and we also sped out
of the block. The police are chasing us. You know,
even though the victims identified multiple different cars, it just
happened that our car was also white. Now, on that night,
we had a substantial amount of marijuana, and then we
(12:55):
ain't had no identification, no license, we didn't even have
paperwork for the car, even that the car was legit.
Guzman was driving. He panised him. He said, I'm not stopping.
I'm not stopping. I'm going.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
You know.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
I didn't try to stop him. What I did was
I tried to get rid of the marijuana we had
in the and we just ran as much as we could.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
They sped toward the Macomb's Damn Bridge on their way
back to the Bronx, but traffic from the Yankee Game
was backed up and the police pulled up right next
to them.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Kurry gets arrested with Guzman on September twentieth.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Somewhere in the area. The police found a gun. First,
they claimed that it was a three fifty seven, so
they put that on the reporter and said, well, we
found a gun and this gun belongs to you. Guys.
They never took any fingerprints off it, DNA anything, and
they said, well, this is your gun, and we tell
them this is not our gun from the beginning, this
is not our gun. This is not our gun. And
(13:44):
eventually Pedro Guzman started talking to the people. He said, well,
that's my friend gun and I gotta talk to you.
That's why he began to talk about the murder case.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Well. Offending off suspicion in the attempted murder of Thomas Long,
it appears that Guzman decided to try to save himself
by cooperating, and at some point the three point fifty
seven Magnum became a thirty eight special. I guess the
police didn't know what kind of gun they allegedly found
dumped from Guzman's car. Nevertheless, Guzman started to spill real
(14:14):
information mixed in with the lies about the murder of
Reginald Myers, which had occurred in the thirtieth precinct.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
They called in the thirtieth Precinct. This is when Detective
de Lyon get involved. Pedro Guzman admitted that him and
two of the individuals have been involved in that shooting
of Reginald Myers. They never mentioned me. Somehow they pressured
him and then he implicated me in the crime.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
They take a statement from Guzman, not knowing that you know,
this guy now is trying to dig himself up out
of a really, really nefarious scenario. Here. Guzman's I know
about this other murder and Curry's involved with this murder, right,
basically says to de Leon that this thirty eight killed Myers.
Turns out that that thirty eight was not the murder
(15:00):
weapon in Myers. There was a deformed nine millimeter bullet
that was found in Meyer's body, and that bullet was
compared to the gun that was recovered in connection with
Curry's arrest on the night of September twentieth. The NYPD's
own ballistic expert concluded that that nine minilimeter bullet could
(15:21):
not have been fired from that thirty eight, that there
was no connection between that gun and Myers at all.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
But de Leon didn't know this information when he was
working on these statements, first with Guzman and then they
picked up Miguel Enriquez and lastly.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Jerome detected de Leon came in. This guy, him and
another Guydny Detected Crimes. We were kept in a freeze
and approximately forty eight hours, probably a little longer than that,
things got really bad, but no continue to deny my
involvement in it. The first thing they did was they
brung in big colored pictures of a victim and they
put them on the table. They were determined to get
(15:57):
a confession. Who say, you're going to tell um just
out of the story. You know, it got so bad
to the point where this detective Elpedio de Leon became
a bit physically, you know, I remember him getting off.
He went into a rage, punching and slapping me and
he said, we know you're not leaving here until you
tell us what we want to hear. You know. During
this process, they brought in a TV screen where the
(16:19):
DVD was BCR player and they continuously played the confession
that this guy Edro Guzman had already given them and
gelhen Riquez that they implicated in this crime as well.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
Enriquez and Guzband both say that Enriquez jumps out of
the car, takes the bag off of the victim, runs
back to the eighty six accurate dark gray four door,
and both of them say that the victim comes to
the front windshield, slaps it, and Jerome shoots through the
windshield and see that's the thing. The police could have
(16:53):
easily gone to the autopsy to see that there was
stippling on the body and automatically know that what Enriquez
Guzmana saying is false.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
The windshield would have blocked any steppling at all from
landing on Reginald Myers. And in addition, the nine milimeter bullet,
not a three fifty seven or a thirty eight caliber,
but a nine milimeter bullet entered through the back upper
right arm and passed through the chest to the left.
There was no upward trajectory that one might expect to
(17:23):
have seen with a shot through the windshield. The shot,
in fact entered the back upper right arm. This scenario
in which Jerome is the shooter simply defies reality.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
And they can tell me just with people, they are saying,
you gotta give us a story, you gotta pay some
type of responsibility. And this went on for hours, like,
I never knew how serious sleet the probation was, and
not drinking water, not having access to fool for so
long really meant into experience. Then they put me in
a line up. I may have found out that the
(17:56):
people that claimed that they see me at the crime
scene had identify a guy that was six feet to
six one. I'm only fist seven.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
How can a guy be identified as being six to
one and be five to seven?
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Taking in consideration that I was sitting down when they
made the identification with a bunch of other guys, so
they didn't even see me standing up to compare me
to the other individuals.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
You know, Oh wow, Okay, that's a whole there. I
never heard of a lineup sitting down.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Yeah, on a bench, So that's how they made the identification.
So they said, well, you know, we got you picked
out of a line on there's people that seen you there,
and it was all line and it got so bad
that I just wanted to end it. I ended up
incriminating myself in this crime even though I was innocent,
which is something that I have regreaded all these years
because I have to live with that. My family had
(18:47):
to live with that you.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Know listening to Wrongful Conviction. 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
(19:09):
on Apple Podcasts. As far as we can tell, the
witnesses that viewed to sit down Lineup were never heard
from again, but they served as an effective cudgel. They
got Jerome to sign a confession making him the shooter
for Reginald Fraser, Reginald Myers, and Thomas Long, but as
(19:33):
we've already pointed out, the statements were not corroborated by reality.
And then they brought in Reggie Fraser, who was both
the victim from July fifteenth as well as the witness
of the shooting in front of his crack spot, which
one can surmise made him open for cooperation when he
came in to view a lineup, especially when he's made
(19:53):
to believe that the guy who shot his friend Thomas
Long had been caught.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
He said, badd came in and he saw my picture
on the detective's desk, and then he went into the
lineup and identified me.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
There's also another version of events where someone else at
the thirty third precinct, not Detective Primus who was conducting
the lineup, but somebody else showed him Jerome's picture by mistake.
Either way, Reggie Fraser made the id that was incentivised
by not only a blind eye to his drug activity,
(20:27):
but also just a few months before trial trigger warning,
thirty eight year old Reggie Fraser had been charged with
the rape of a thirteen year old child who became pregnant,
receiving a sentence of only one and a half to
three years. Meanwhile, Jerome had awaited his trials for about
that same amount of time on Riker's Island. His first
(20:49):
trial was for the July fifteenth assault of Fraser and
the attempted murder of Fraser's buddy Thomas.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Long Regulald Fraser. He testified that he seen a white car.
Somebody pointed a girl out of the window of the
car and started shooting at him or the group that
he was in. Long testified also, but he really didn't
provide much information. He just said that, you know, he's
seen a white car. He couldn't identify the car. He
(21:16):
don't even know where the shots came from. He just
said he heard a shot and he started running and
of course, a confession for me an incriminating confession.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Now, as we've discussed, this alleged confession was about shooting
Thomas Long from the car, even though the bullet path
through Long's left shoulder placed the shooter on the sidewalk
in front of or behind him, not in a car
way off to his right, but none of this was
ever explained to the jury. Then they moved on to
the assault.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
On July fifteen, Fraser said that he had a confrontation
with a guy on one hundred and fifty ninth Street
that he had never seen before at night, and the
guy shot him as he tried to run away. He said, yes,
he don't right there, sitting right there now.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Importantly, he reported that this was a blackmail, but changed
this description to hispanic mail and id Jerome an id
that he appears to have been incentivized and guided to
may He also testified to having cooperated in other prosecutions,
which could mean that he regularly traded testimony to maintain
his own freedom and was not thereby a reliable source.
(22:19):
But with Jerome's own statement corroborating this witness, he probably
didn't have a chance anyway, how didn't think so.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
One is because I wasn't allowed to take the stand
and speak and defend myself and for representation that I had.
He never used his private investigator to go to the
ABBA and interview witnesses, and so I knew I was
in trouble. They came in and they just handed out they'd.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
On March seventeenth, nineteen ninety eight. Predictably, they found him
guilty in both cases, ultimately resulting in two consecutive terms
of twenty five and ten years for a total of
thirty five years. And then his second trial for the
Meyers murder began that August.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
The only evidence against Jerome Curry is Guzman and Curry's statement.
Henrikuz does not testify a trial. He provides a statement
to Ba DeLeon, and interestingly, Henriquez and Guzman's statements almost
match identically, like almost word for word. We all have
different perception. Okay, so you're gonna have different versions of
(23:19):
the same event. Now that it's not going to contradict
each other, but it's going to be slightly different. You're
not going to have exactly the same statement right word
for word. That's not gonna happen. They don't write those
statements Deleone does, right. But Henriquez doesn't testify a trial.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
No, he didn't testify. And he told me that. He said, listen,
even though I implicated you in this murder, I know
you wasn't there. They forced me to say these things
about are he said, Detective Lyon forced me. Crime is
you know. They put me in a room. They threatened
to hit me. This is a guy that never been arrested.
And he took a plee. He said, I'm not doing it.
He said, I'm not going to testify. I'd rather take
(23:58):
a plea offer. Just get on with my life and
do whatever amount of years I have to do before
I come in here and do that. And he never
testify either. He refused to testify.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
I forget how much time he gets. He does do
a lot of time in prison. Enriquez, he does much
more time than Guzman does, who does cooperate.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
I think he did about seven in some months. He
did less than what he was supposed to do, so
I don't know if they threw in a letter of
consideration in there for him.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
And Guzman says that when Henriquez comes into the car,
the victim runs up to the front of the windshield
and slaps the windshield.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
They said that he was standing in front by the
hood of the car with both hands raised in the
air in a position to strike the wing shield. So
that means that the bullet wood has struck him through
his left.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Side, and he says, Curry shoots through the front of
the windshield. And what we know from the autopsy report
is that they're stippling on the wound, which means two things.
That this is a close gunshot wound. The other thing
is there can't be an intermediate between the wound and
the gun completely refutes what Guzman is saying. And it's
(25:06):
more that the victim, Myers, is running towards the car,
reaching into the car, and is shot into the side
of his body.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
The autopsy says that the bullet entered through the back
of his upper right arm, then entered the chest under
the armpit, and traveled through the lungs and heart, which
further makes sense when you know that the car was
moving away from him. Picture of the car with the
passenger side pulled up to the curb, Enriquez darting back
into the car, Myer's lunging for him. The car pulls
(25:35):
away and the shot was fired, making that back of
the upper right arm through the chest trajectory possible.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
Those ded files that said there were some witnesses that
said the car was already moving when Myers was shot,
those ded files weren't turned over a trial because it
would have contradicted Guzman's trial testimony and Curry that the
shooting happens when the car stationary.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
The jury never heard how the States narrative was impossible,
nor did they hear from a single alibi witness.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Jerome's girlfriend and mother both said that he was in Trenton.
He has another guy named Figueroa. He was with Figaroa
at like a birthday party at the time in Trenton.
None of those people were called in Jerome's defense a trial.
The defense attorney essentially he relied on his ability to
cross examine Guzman and to basically say, hey, the thirty
eight is not in fact a murder weapon. And of
(26:28):
course Jerome gets convicted.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Which is predictable considering that the jury heard Jerome's false statement,
so he got another twenty five year sentence.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
At the moment, I did really comprehend who's going I
couldn't put together the sentence. I just heard what I
hear by sentence you to twenty five a life, and
I started adding off for years and which turned the
entire sentence into sixty to life. Sixty to life. Yep.
But at that moment, everything just goes quiet, everything goes numb.
(26:59):
It's everything just going in slow motion. Then you go
up stay at that age, you go up stay. They
(27:25):
send you all close to Canada, the Client and Correctional facility,
and you know, that's when you feel that, you know
it's over. You know, with all the histories and officers
killing prisoners and prisoners killing prisoners, you know, all the
violence and all the drugs and all everything that just
goes on in places life that it was horrible. You know,
there's no way to prepare for that.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
While and during the worst of New York State prisoners,
Jerome began to learn the law, meanwhile receiving denials on
appeal until he filed his federal habeas petition.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
They granted me a hearing, they said they he asked
the questions in two of them, Where did my defense
council ever make an attempt to contact those witnesses that
described me as being six y to one and if
he didn't, whether that deficiency affected the trial. So they
vacated that conviction and sent it back to the district court.
And when I got a hearing, I wasn't as prepared.
(28:20):
You know, I wasn't as educated. I really didn't know
the law as much as I know now. So when
I went to the hearing, the magistrate judge, which is
a guy named Andrew Peck, he was very tough and
instead of answering the questions or having the question answered
by the second Circuit, he turned it around and made
it into whether I asked my counsel to call these witnesses,
(28:44):
But I was not the question by the court. They
asked whether his deficient performance in calling these witnesses affected
the trial, and he'd never addressed that. He turned it
around and found a way that to not the motion
based on that. He said, oh, well, you never asked
him to call these witnesses, which I did, by the way,
I testified at the hearing, and I said, yes, I
(29:05):
did ask them multiple times. You know, I was very
interested in hearing from these witnesses that described me as
being six ' one and then you know, here I
am at five seven and he never called them in.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
While these witness descriptions in the Meyers case likely referred
to Miguel Enriquez, those same witnesses allegedly identified Jerome while
he was seated, But regardless of how problematic all of
that is, the judge still found a way to deny
the claim. The next bit of progress came with Justin's
involvement in twenty sixteen, when he did what Jerome's trial
(29:35):
attorney never did, an actual investigation, starting with alibi witnesses
like Eduardo Figueroa.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
I knowed this guy for years, and my mother had
ran into his family his father in Trenton, New Jersey,
so his father gave him the number. He immediately traveled
up here and I haven't seen this guy in abbly
twenty five years, and he was shocked to hear that
I have been in call made a full crime to
happen when we were together in Trenton, New Jersey.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
So FIGUREO. It gives an affidavids that Jerome was at
a party in Trenton at the time of the homicide,
and Jerome's mother and girlfriend both say during that week
right that he was down in Trenton.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
He also did a reinvestigation of the Meyers crime scene
with two forensic pathologists, doctors Thomas Kubick and Cyril Weck,
the latter of whom is such a legendary figure. I
mean he actually worked the Kennedy assassination and countless other
cases since then.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Doctor Wek has probably been involved with over fifty thousand autopsies,
and he gave the report back in twenty twenty two.
And doctor Kuick basically says the same thing as doctor Wex.
So we have two experts that basically say that Guzman's
trial testimony and Enriquez's statement are physically impossible.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Everything we've been saying about how the ballistics contradict the
state's evidence comes from them. And as we've already mentioned,
Justin also got an affidavid from Miguel Enriquez saying that
Jerome was never involved in any way. So, as Justin
has said, his initial focus is the Meyers case, which
he has now fully dismantled. The only way this could
be better would be if Guzman reappeared from the Dominican
(31:12):
Republic to corroborate everything we already know well enough even
without him. And then there's the state star witness from
the first trial none other than Reggie Fraser.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
I found on a foil request in recent years. I
think it was in twenty seventeen or eighteen, with the
help of a friend of mine, This guy, Reginald Fraser,
gave two different descriptions, but that was never turned over.
I just recently found that.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Out, and this is when Jerome finally knew what we've
been saying about Fraser's credibility issues. Then, once again, contrary
to Fraser's testimony, the ballistics in Long's case proved that
the shooter must have been on the sidewalk and not
in a passing white sedan. And the backdrop for Fraser's
participation in both trials is the police ignoring his drug
(31:55):
trafficking while giving him a sweetheart deal for his rape charge.
While we still don't have definitive proof that Jerome didn't
shoot Fraser in the ass on July fifteenth, nineteen ninety six,
we do have the word of a thirty eight year
old man who impregnated a thirteen year old child. In addition,
Jerome has said in writing that he's ready and willing
(32:17):
to submit to DNA testing to exclude himself from the
thirty eight. While that weapon is excluded from the Meyers case,
it's just one more corroboration that he was not involved
in the other two incidents in which the police say
that gun was involved. So hopefully Justin's going to be
able to obtain that testing as well as additional info
(32:38):
further discrediting Fraser. In the meantime, they're awaiting the decision
on the four to forty motion in the Meyers case.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
And what I believe is you'll have to take one
piece at a time here. And what we know is
one of his convictions, at the very least is wrong,
and it's the most serious conviction, and it shows this
conviction and shows it is a testament that the other
convictions that he has are at the very least highly
(33:08):
highly problematic, and that they just went all out didn't care.
They used coercive tactics, they manufactured evidence, they just didn't care.
So I don't want to move on anything until I'm sure.
And what I am very very certain about is that
Jerome Curry did not kill Reginald Myers, and he was
(33:28):
not there when Reginald Myers was killed. And we have
a person that's in the car Miguel Enriquez is now
saying that Jerome Curry wasn't even in the car. It
wasn't there, wasn't president at all. And he's admitting that
I was there, I took the bag. He's admitting his
involvement in the murder. He's admitting it, and he's saying
Curry had nothing to do with it. And we have alibis.
(33:50):
And the question I have is is what part of
this case isn't isn't covered by the evidence that we
put in that motion. Why aren't we working with the
prosecutor's office when and they discover that you have a
detective that has a pattern, We've begun to establish a pattern.
The FBI says a serial killer is defined by what
two or more murders. I think it is that's the definition. Here.
(34:12):
We know that Deleone beat at least one person found
guilty of that internally from the NYPD, and that the
New York County District Attorney's office has made allegations that
he fabricated and manufactured evidence in another case that led
to an exoneration of all I men. Shouldn't we now
begin to look at everything BA Deleone does? But I
(34:33):
could tell you. I spoke to him about Jerome's case,
and he still believes that that thirty eight was the
murder weapon. It's in his notes. It's in his notes.
He still believes that. And he told me techniques that
he used to get people to identify people in photo
rays and lineups and things like that. Basically, in six packs,
he would put people in two and five, and in
(34:55):
lineups he would push people into three and four because
people go to the middle the lineup first, and that
increased the chance of identification exponentially. And then he had
techniques about confessions. Obviously, Jerome knows about the confessions better
than I do. I don't think I was with BA
for over forty hours straight.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
I sincerely hope that the Manhattan DA's office takes a
hard look at this case. You've got two incidents in
which the ballistics cleared Jerome Curry and expose the false
testimony of the victim from another incident who appears to
have had plenty to gain from cooperating. So now with that,
let's go to closing arguments. I'm being the first. Thank
you guys for being here and sharing this incredibly important story.
(35:39):
So with that, I'm going to turn off my microphone
and kick back in my chair and just listen to
anything else you have to say. Justin let's start with
you and then hand it off to Jerome and he'll
take us off into the sunset.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Once you see one of these tainted investigations where the
cops don't care, you then have to look at the
other ones. The DA's office even has more information on
lpdo de Leone. I'm still fighting for the rest of
the information about his involvement, and his involvement is only
in the Meyers case, but the other detectives that were
(36:16):
involved in the other two cases were feeding off of him.
They were obligated even twenty eight years ago to turn
over the fact that Ba had abused another witness. Okay,
they were obligated when they exonerated Jabbar Walker to turn
over their findings in November of twenty twenty three, where
lpdo de Leone was the lead investigator. And here every
(36:39):
single piece of evidence against Jerome Curry was tainted by
confirmation bias, contextual bias, by police officers that thought that
their intuition took them to the right person, by witnesses
that were willing to say whatever they had to say
to get out of jail. And I know that's a
common theme, but here we can prove that physical eviden
(37:00):
and said, we can prove, we can prove that your
own Curry was held, even by the NYPD's own admission,
for well over a day, over thirty hours, by the
NYPD's own admission, they kept him and interrogate him over
and over and over again until they got the information
out of him that they wanted, not true, factual information,
(37:20):
not information that was corroborated by the physical evidence. And
that's what I want people to understand. The police's own
techniques saying that the physical evidence should match the statement
of the person that's confessing. We don't have any of
that here. There's not one piece of evidence that's used
to convict your own Curvey the Reginald Myer's case, that's reliable,
not one.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
I want to address your listeners, those that are familiar
with the criminal justice system, as well as those that
are not, you know, as well as the Manhattan District
Attorney's office and even the judge you know, who's passion
I'm seeking and improving my innocent in this case that
is before her. President you know, in her office right now,
as far as I know, no one is above the
(38:01):
law in this country, and the cornerstone of our constitutional
law stays a normal one is above the law. And
this includes members of the District Attorney's office in Manhattan
as well as law enforcement. Now people may not know this,
but in emotion such as the one that my attorney
put together and submitted to the core, that is for
requesting a new trial based on newly discover evidence, it's
(38:23):
the judge has a duty or is required conduct a
careful and dispassionate examination of the facts has presented in
the papers that we submitted, and most importantly, the application
of the law to those facts, which is what we
have been requested. We are requested that the law is
applied to the facts that we have presented and all
(38:43):
our submissions. That's it, you know, I want to emphasized
that from the auset from the inception of my criminal
prosecutions have always claimed my innocence and as it is
demonstrated the reinvestigation of my case, as well as the
large amount of compelling newly discover everye this that is
attached to the four to forty motion, that is pending
right now in New York kind of Supreme Court. My
(39:05):
role for conviction was the result of sufficient representation by
my trial attorney, by the suppression of a squad that
told me ever it is by the Mahaman District Attorney's office,
and I think also very importantly by the outrageous misconda
and corrupt investigative techniques of detective Opedia the Lyon. Detective
Lyon has an expensive career history of engaging in action
(39:28):
misconda and using corrupt investigative practices against criminal defenders and
suspense for approximately twenty eight years. I have been claiming
that it's very sane actions wisconder were used against me
by Detective Apitia. The Lyon forced me to make a
terminating confection against myself and the crime that I did
not commit. Just like Yabaul Walker, I am also one
(39:49):
hundred percent innocent, and I'm just requested for justice to
be delivered in my favor and for the application of
the law through the facts of my case to be implemented.
You know, I'm innocent. I just want my day in court,
and I want to be able to prove my innocence,
and I would like to be exonerated from this crime.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
week early by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on
Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team, Connor
Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow executive
producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cliburn. The music
in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
(40:32):
composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across all
social media platforms at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction.
You can also follow me on Instagram at It's Jason Flamm.
Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
and association with Signal Company Number one.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
Hello, my name is Jose Fernandez and the Wrongful Conviction
podcast just opened my eyes to the world of wrongful
convictions and the innocent movements and just how often this
happens to everyday people. But I would say this podcast
did influence me to pursue my legal career.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Now going to my second year of Loyola Law School
and I'm going to be a part of their Loyola
Project for the Innocent this upcoming semester, so I'm really
excited for that, and I owe it all to the
Wrongful Conviction Podcast for really leading me that way and
inspire me to do the work that I hear so
many of these insurting to do. Thank you, and keep
up with the great work, keep pumping out those stories,
and I can't wait to join the movement.
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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