November 14, 2024 • 38 mins
Ronald Miller and Lori Johnson of Rockford, IL had a daughter, G.M., in 2010. In 2015, several days after an argument between Johnson and Miller in which Miller threatened to sue Johnson for full custody, Johnson reported Miller to DCFS. Shortly after, she obtained an order of protection which ended all contact between Miller and his daughter. Johnson claimed G.M. had told her that Miller touched her inappropriately and proceeded to bring her daughter to Carrie Lynn Children's Center to record a video accusing her father of sexual abuse. Before the trial, G.M. took back her accusation, telling her mother, her therapist, and the trial prosecutors that the abuse never happened. The trial proceeded anyway, and this information was not shared with the jury. The prosecutors presented the testimony of a pediatric nurse admitted as an “expert in the field of child abuse.” Trial counsel called no experts for the defense, and Miller testified in his own defense. He was convicted by the jury on all three counts and sentenced to twenty years.
To learn more and get involved, visit:
https://www.lengoodmanlawoffice.com/
Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.
We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
On February eleventh, twenty ten, a baby girl was born
to unwed parents, Lourie Johnson and Ronnie Miller in Rockford, Illinois,
but her parents' relationship gradually became contentious, which only worsened
during the custody battle. During a heated exchange on July twelfth,
twenty fifteen, Ronnie threatened to sue for full custody. A
(00:25):
few days later, he was accused of sexually assaulting their
daughter in a video statement made with Child Protective Services.
The daughter appeared to have been coached into making the
accusation on the record, an accusation that she repeatedly recanted
and never again affirmed. Yet the state was able to
find a nurse who claimed that the daughter's medical history
(00:48):
was suspicious for sexual abuse, and that was enough for
a jury to send Ronnie away for twenty long years.
This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to ronful conviction, where
(01:10):
we have a case where it appears that false accusations
were used to weaponize our courts and child Protective services
to settle a custody battle and ultimately victimized the child
whom they purported to protect, as it seems that she
was used against her own will to incarcerate her father,
Ronnie Miller, who's now calling in from an Illinois correctional facility. Ronnie,
(01:35):
I'm sorry you're here, but I'm really happy to be
able to share your story and I appreciate you being here.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Welcome, Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
And joining him his post conviction attorney, Leonard Goodman.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yes, thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
And later we'll hear from Ronnie's sister, Deborah, But first
let's hear about what Ronnie's life was like before all
of this.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
I grew up in Rockford, Illinois. Not a good place
growing up, but it became a teenager who moved out.
I dropped out of school, I got my ended up
getting my dad, and then kind of just fell into
factory work. Up until this, I actually had a pretty
decent pharmaceutical packaging company. I worked in the warehouse, you know,
I'd been there four years. All the other factories that
(02:18):
I worked in Rockford were pretty much shitholes, horrid conditions
and a little bit of money. So this company that
I actually made it into that the work was clean.
You're in a pharmaceutical company, The people were friendly, nice,
you had room for success. It was a pretty good
place to work at on my way to becoming management.
This was from two thousand eleven until twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
During which time Ronnie was trying to copat his daughter
with a woman named Laurie Johnson.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
I had known Laurie off and on. We had our
daughter in twenty tens, but in the beginning of the
relationship it wasn't nothing serious. It was just having fun
until she wanted me to move into her place, which
I did. We had been doing good for i'd say
about a whole year before she found out she was pregnant,
(03:07):
and at that time she already had a child before,
so I would say she was questionable about having another.
For me, this would have been my first child, which, yeah,
I was stoked that I was going to be a dad.
I made every doctor's appointment that it was scheduled. I
remember at one time I found out that my daughter
(03:28):
she could hear me, so I started reading books and
talking and playing music and everything, but a lot of reading.
So you know, during the verse, she came out screaming.
She screamed, and the nurses got her in her hands
and everything, and I remember saying to her, it's okay,
baby girl. Here's daddy, and she immediately knew my voice.
(03:49):
Even the nurse commented was like, oh she knows you.
You know something I'll never forget.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
So while fatherhood seemed to suit Ronnie, he and Laurie
weren't a natural fit.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
We made it like the first when I found out
she was cheating on me with a another man, and
we pretty much broke things off. I was out of
the house, but it was a very toxic relationship to
where I would move out and she would convince me
to come back and all this, oh, let's do it
for the babies. I'd fall for it every time I
(04:19):
wanted my daughter to see us together. My parents were
divorced and I didn't want that for her, So yeah,
of course I kept coming back, even though the way
she treated me was like shit. But when I wasn't
with her, she would hold the child from me. No
you can't see her, No you can't talk to her,
this type of stuff, to where she would use the
kid as leverage.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
My understanding is that if he was not allowed to
see her, he would get a court order so that
the mom's obstruction of his visitation would be put to
a stop by the judge.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
And it appeared that this was a pattern for miss
Johnson that had been playing out with the father of
her fifteen year old son, Tristan oh Man.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
If you talk to Wayne Gilberto, he'll tell you the
exact same thing. And she had me believing this man
was a heroin addict, the just the worst person imaginable.
She was selling to me, and of course I believed her,
But later on I found out this dude was going
to work wanting to see his kid, wanted to be
in his kid's life, but because he wouldn't submit to her,
(05:20):
she did the exact same thing with him, use the
kid as leverage.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
If you look at the family court records, you'll see
similar accusations made against that father or that other child.
But that child had a history of some mental illness
and was doing things that were frightening.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
He threatened to commit suicide, spent like two weeks in
the side corps getting on this medication. She told me, okay,
he was at one point accused by his father that
he was touching his stepdaughter on like a weekend visit
over there, and she kept it real hush with me,
(05:59):
so I didn't know the exact detailed. I just knew
that he wasn't allowed to go over there because of
these allegations. Okay, and his dad called him a pervert,
and then she went to DCFF trying to say that
Wayne was abusing Driston by accusing him of these things
that were not true.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
It appears that mister Gilberto was interested in protecting his stepdaughters,
but miss Johnson took that as an opportunity to weaponize
the Illinois Department of Child and Family Services, or DCFS
to restrict his access to their son. Meanwhile, Ronnie and
his sister Deborah began fearing for GM safety.
Speaker 5 (06:38):
Yeah, so I used to watch GM every day, So
there was things that GM would say to me about
things happening in the household with her brother. There was
one instance where she told me she woke up with
her brother standing over her and she was afraid. And
I told her mom about that and she told me, no,
she's just lying. She's making things up. And I become
(07:00):
concerned and I start telling Ronnie, like some of the
things that GM has been saying to me.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
That's why I was concerned about my daughter living over there.
And I confronted Maurie about this. She said oh, no, Tristan,
he wouldn't do that. I said, well, why wouldn't my
daughter be lying about this? I said, I don't feel safe,
especially him coming out of a psych ward, being doped
up on all this medication, and then all of a sudden,
couple weeks later, you take him off his medication and
(07:28):
now he's acting all fucking weird and shit.
Speaker 5 (07:30):
Then later on we come to find out in court
record Tristan has sexually abused his dad's girlfriend's daughters. But
none of this was ever brought to court.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Which seems like some really important context, almost as important
as what happened next.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
So I told her I was going to take her
back to court for full custody because I'm concerned about
what's going on here, and I'm going to let the
courts know about his psych ward visits, about all this
stuff that you say he's not doing but obviously is.
So yeah, yeah, I threatened to take her back to
court for full custody. And then I believe that was
on like a Sunday, and here it is Wednesday. Now
(08:09):
I'm being accused of sexually molesting my daughter.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
So it appears that July twelve, twenty fifteen, was the
Sunday of the argument, and then Mims Johnson called DCFS.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
We don't know because we weren't there, but maybe the
mom said the daughter had some itchiness and she asked
her about it and she said, oh, daddy's weird.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
He touches me.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
And that was the initial report that was made, and
that report was enough to get in order of protection.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
The way I found out was through my sister, because
my sister watched my daughter. They showed up at my
sister's house on Friday.
Speaker 5 (08:42):
She came by to pay me for the week before
because heard my brother split paying me, and she made
GM wait outside, like Laurie was telling me all these things.
And GM was looking through the screen door and she's like, yeah, yeah,
I got to tell you something. So I come outside
and she runs to the back of my yard and
I have like a trampoline and everything because I have kids,
(09:03):
and she's like, yeah, I got to tell you something.
Daddy touches me. And then she runs off and goes
and jumps on the trampoline like it was nothing, no
big deal. I go to my brother because obviously, if
a child is being hurt, I want to protect that child.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
GM was examined by their pediatrician, doctor Rhodes, who found
no cause for concern. Meanwhile, Aunt Debbie called the family together.
Speaker 5 (09:26):
I instantly called my mom, my brother, and I'm like, look,
this is what's going on. So then Ronnie called Laurie
and got Laurie to come over to my mom's house.
And she's telling everybody it's too late. DCFS is involved.
I've taken her to the doctor. GM. She comes in
the house and she wants to sit with her dad like.
She actually cried because she wanted to stay with all
(09:48):
of us. When Laurie told her it's time to go.
You tell them what you have to tell them, and
let's go. And she was sitting on Ronnie's lap crying
and screaming as Laurie took her to leave. That's actually
the last time Ronnie seen her when GM was sitting
(10:15):
on my brother's lap. And I'm sitting there talking to
her and I'm explaining to her like GM, I'm an adult.
I'm here to protect you. If there's anything going on.
You can share this with Aunt Debbie and I'll make
sure you know I keep you safe. That's what adults
are supposed to do. And then She looked at me
and she goes, so, if that was happening to Abby,
which is my daughter, they're only a few years apart.
(10:36):
She's like, would you do the same thing? And I
told her, I said, Jim, if any child is ever
being hurt, I will always keep them safe. And I
kept telling her, this is very important that you tell
me the truth. And then she changed her whole story,
saying it was a guy at her mom's house, which
was confusing to us.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
MS Johnson had another boyfriend at the time, or perhaps
GM meant her older half brother Tristan. Either way, two
weeks later, on August fourth, twenty fifteen, MS Johnson made
an appointment with DCFS to get the allegation on video.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
My understanding is that the child had recanted to the
mom and was telling the mom it never happened, and
that was part of what prompted her to put the
child in front of the video camera to try to
document these stories against Ronnie and put them on film. Literally,
with the mom practically sitting next to her.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
In this video interview, she's not supposed to know where
she's going.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
Know what was going to be asked, the child starts
making accusations against her dad before she's even asked any
question by the interviewer, suggesting that she had been coached.
Many of the things that she said during the interview
are conceded to be not true and fantastical. She said
that the police came and arrested my dad, but he
got away, who was conceded that no police had come.
(11:58):
She said that her dad had a cast in her
description of the abuse. He never had a cast on
his arm during this period. She said that there was
a dog involved. So all these things were conceded to
be not true.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Everything that video is total lies, except the one that
they want to believe is that I sexually abused my child.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
So yes, she had recanted before she was put in
front of the video camera and after to a therapist,
to the mom, and to the trial prosecutors, saying it's
not true. I was manipulated into saying that. The prosecution
then went out and hired a nurse practitioner who had
taken a course in sexual abuse and somebody that they
(12:42):
had used in the past as a sexual abuse expert,
and this woman examined the child, who was at this
time was five years old, found nothing abnormal and the
prosecution said, well, the child is now saying it never happened,
so we can't go forward with this case unless the
expert will say that there is physical evidence of abuse.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
So no charges were filed, but the order of protection
remained in place.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
The mom went to extraordinary lengths to keep the daughter
away not only from her father, but from his whole family.
It was almost as if the mom was afraid that
people that clearly posed no threat to the child if
they were with her, that the story that the mom
had fabricated would be exposed.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
And by October and November, Ronnie and his family began
winning at family court, and it appeared that they would
all be allowed supervised visitation at a DCFS facility called
Safe Harbor.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
The judge said, hey, there's no evidence here. I gotta
let them see the kid. Here's Laurie calling up DCFS
and letting them know that I'm winning in family court
that they need to do something about it.
Speaker 5 (13:49):
I have all those records where DCFS contacted Shannon. Krueger
was like, and it's all in the notes, which is
crazy to me. This is what we need you to say.
Can you say this? And she said yes, I can
say that. Then they told her to contact the prosecutor
and let them know that she would state that in court.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
So the expert then examined the child's medical history and
found that there were some urinary tract infections and some
genital redness and said, yes, I can say conclusively that
is highly suspicious for sexual abuse in a five year
old girl. I think she was four at the time
that she had this redness.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Previously, the child's preediatrician had attributed these issues to potty training,
a new bath soap, or a new laundry detergent. Yet
Krueger's opinion led to Ronnie's arrest in early December. He
was bonded out his family. Court wins were rolled back,
but at least his family was granted access to GM.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Their first visit was right after the holidays for my
whole family. I'm talking like eight adults and like twelve
nieces and nephews. They wanted to give her all of
her presents for Christmas and all that. So they have
a thing over at my sister's house.
Speaker 5 (15:01):
All the girls in the family, my daughter and then
my brother's two daughters and her. They're all pretty close
in age, so just seeing them together, playing with their dolls,
being able to sit with my mom, having all her
grandkids together.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Now, mind you, I can't be around at all. I'm
at a whole nother house with another witness that says
I was there the whole time, after they dropped her
back off, after she got all of her presents, all
this stuff. Now, this is Lorie. This ain't my daughter.
This is Laurie calling the police saying that my daughter
told her that I talked to her on the phone.
(15:35):
A total fabrication.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
After checking the call logs and speaking with Ronnie's family,
the police confirmed that the accusation was false, and then
after the second visitation came another false accusation.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
The mom calls Protective Services again and said Ronnie's violating it.
He's using these grandparent visitations to see his daughter and
to sexually abuse her at school.
Speaker 5 (15:57):
The DCFS they pulled my daughter in question her for
two hours. They were trying to see if she could
verify if Ronnie was at the visit.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
That was later conceded to be false.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
Everyone agreed he never violated the order protection, but it
was enough to end these grandparent visitations.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Since these two new accusations were provably false. The state
only moved forward with the first one with the support
of Nurse Krueger.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
And Ronnie had a conversation with his lawyer prior to
trial where he said, I've seen these reports that they're
going to call an expert to say that my daughter
was abused. Shouldn't we have our own expert, And his
lawyer responded, no, we don't because there was no physical evidence.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
We don't need an expert.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Jafer admits she never called or looked around for any
expert testimony. If she had, she would have found out
that the allegations that Kruger made were totally medically mumbo jumbo.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Shannon Krueger's opinion was about to go unchallenged a trial,
along with Miss Johnson's credit with her well documented history
of weaponizing family court.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
This lawyer didn't pull the family court file, so she
wouldn't have known about the past history, but she did
know about the December January incident and the false accusation,
and the lawyer just was unable to figure out how
to get that in at trial.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
The judge in my case, Judge McGraw, he wouldn't even
allow my witnesses to testify to the second allegation denied
it on grounds of relevance.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
The recantation to the therapist was also denied on grounds
of confidentiality, even though it was clearly exculpatory, as were
the recantations to the trial prosecutors.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
They were trying to prefer for trial. That's when she
told them that once twice, that my dad didn't do
this to me. Also, they admit during those interviews with
her that she seemed to cheer up when she heard
my name, was excited to see me and was like,
oh is my daddy here? Like is that somebody afraid
to somebody? No witness recans to you twice, she recants
(18:02):
to a therapist, She recants to her mother on thirty
times that she says. So she's trying to tell these
people this shit didn't happen, but none of them are
believe in her.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Or maybe they did, considering the affidavits they signed about
the recantations, as well as the offer they made to
Ronnie prior to trial.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Yeah, they offered me probation, no jail time. What type
of guilty man is not going to take a deal
for no jail time? In probation. The only person that
is not going to take that deal is the innocent
person that believed in the justice system and has the
truth behind their side. I turned that opportunity down.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
Even though he's facing twenty years. He said, no, I
can't because it requires me to say that I harmed
my daughter and I never would have harmed my daughter.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Because he refused this deal, Ronnie was taken to trial
in twenty seventeen, where curiously, first the state called GM's pediatrician,
doctor Rhodes, to the stand and asked about the history
of discomfort.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
Rhodes she admits, Hey, this could be something simple as
hygiene or an allergic reaction to laundry soap or something
like that, and they told the jury to totally disregard
their witness.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Then they revited Rhodes with nurse Krueger.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Krueger has asked the same questions that the Rhodes testify to,
and she would not admit that could be caused by
something simple as hygiene issues or allergic reaction from bubble
bass or laundry detergent.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
And then GM was brought to the stand.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
This is a matter of Illinois law. They had to
put her on the stand in order to put in
the videotape of her prior statement, but the child was
no longer accusing her father of a crime. They were
very concerned, the prosecutors, because it had been more than
two years since she had last seen her dad.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Oh yes, I was very emotional and just see in
her face. It was just like it was crazy. And
as soon as my daughter walked in the you should
stopped the trial. And basically told the judge was that, hey,
we're afraid that she's going to run up and just
give him a hug, and that's not going to look
good in front of the jury.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
The judge's suggestion, and the prosecutors carried this out, is
to create sort of a human shield so that when
the child was brought to the stands, she would not
be able to see her father and so she would
not be tempted to go and run and hug him.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
So a human shield obstructed GM's view of her father.
And GM did say that her father touched her cuckoo
with his finger, but it was said in a vague
and non sexual context, and GM didn't recall any details
of a sexual nature. So the exchange went, quote, do
you remember if he touched you on the inside or
(20:45):
the outside of your cuckoo? She replied, uh huh, you
don't remember, she said, no. Do you remember what it
felt like? She says, well, it hurt it a little bit,
but not too much, like getting your ears pierced. Did
you ever see daddy's private she says, I don't remember.
Did daddy ever touch you anywhere else on your body
(21:06):
that he shouldn't have touched? She says no. Do you
miss your daddy? She answered yes. Do you love your daddy?
She said yes? And there they're back and forth ends
right there. That's an end quote.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
The prosecution Hader preps and is very vague on whether
you could consider this sexual abuse. Well, did your daddy
touch me? Yeah, he touched which could be construed as anything.
I was a responsible single parent. Yes, I bade my child. Yes,
I brush my daughter's hair, I made her brush her teeth,
I dressed her. Yes, I did all that. A responsible
(21:40):
parent does all those things. To say that sexual abuse
is just.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Crazy, But that testimony came with the context of the
video statement, and despite the absurdities and untrue details, it
appears to have made a powerful impression on the jury,
who subsequently were deprived of knowing about the false accusations
and Miss Johnson's history with family court, despite Debra's best efforts.
Speaker 5 (22:05):
When we testified the only thing when we tried to
bring up that date, they obviously kept it out of
the court. They would seal everything, They would go up
there and talk to the judge. Then the judge would decide,
this can't be discussed because it has nothing to do
with it. And we kept trying to say, yes it does.
It's a pattern of these lies that are continuing. It
like it totally had something to do with the case,
(22:27):
and they kept all of that out of the court documents.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
This to me was incredibly troubling.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Almost as troubling as the prosecution, the court, and her
mother repeatedly ignoring GM's recantations. And when Miss Johnson was
asked about the July twelfth, twenty fifteen, argument with Ronnie,
she said it wasn't about suing for full custody or Tristan,
but rather about where GM would go to school. But
(22:53):
that testimony went unchallenged, and with that jury deliberation predictably
went very quickly.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
They delivered rated two hours and they came back in
and said guilty, and it was over. I went from
not spending one day in jail in my whole life
to being cuffed up and brought away into a prison
system for twenty years, and I've been here ever since.
(23:40):
Prison is tough, man. Every day I wake up and
it's a nightmare. Man. Prison is designed to break you
down every single day, and I refuse to let them
do that. Now. This is what counts me every day,
is that my daughter has been left in her refuser's
hands and continue to be used by the state and Laurie,
(24:04):
And I'm fearful every day for her safety. And she's
the most important thing to me. If she could know
the truth and I knew that she was safe, I'd
have no problem doing whatever they needed. If they needed
me here for the rest of my life, I could
hear lists or my life's already ruined. I want her
to be safe, and I want her to know the truth,
(24:24):
and that's the bottom line of it. And I will
always maintain my innocence no matter how this goes, and
I'll never give up fighting. I'll fight this to the
day I die.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Ronnie's direct appeal was handled by another lawyer soon after
his conviction. But unfortunately you can't bring in new evidence
like the defense expert that should have been hired, or
evidence of false allegations, et cetera. Of course, just don't
allow it.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
But the lawyer made a fairly strong argument that the
evidence was insufficient. As a matter of law and due
process says, the prosecution must present evidence to prove guilt,
otherwise the or should set you free. But what the
appellate court said is well, even though the child never
made any accusation at trial, there was an expert to
corroborate what was said on videotape. The court went on
(25:11):
to say, the defense put on no evidence to rebut
this so we have to sort of accept that it
was true.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Now, I'd like you to remember that the court noted
the absence of what would have been helpful evidence at trial,
as the next part of the fight would be to
prove that Ronnie had been deprived of his right to
effective counsel.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
Part of the problem is the lawyer that represented Ronnie
is now a judge in Winnebago County. She was appointed
to a vacancy in the court by the judge that
presided over Ronnie's trial.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
Another thing weird too, is after Schaeffer loses the trial,
Judge mcgrall teach congratulates her, Like, what kind of person
is like, Oh, you did such a good job, but
you lost the case. I found that very weird. And
then Judge mcral puts Schaeffer up for the judge ship. Right,
there's a lot of suspicion with that. Right after my case.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
In a case where raising ineffective assists of counsel also
calls the trial judges judgment into question, this doesn't bode well.
It stinks, but those are the cards that they were dealt.
So Leonard raised the issue that his attorney had failed
to get Miss Johnson's history in family court as well
as her having made false allegations. She wasn't able to
(26:27):
get any of this admitted into the proceedings, in addition
the failure to hire a defense expert to rebut the
testimony of the States expert.
Speaker 4 (26:36):
I had a conversation with this lawyer when I came
into the case, and she confirmed to me that she
made no attempt to contact any experts for the defense. Now,
it took me probably less than a couple hours to
make some phone calls and find somebody, a well respected,
board certified guynecologist that had experience with prepubescent teens and
(26:57):
was able to tell me very quickly what their expert
told the jury was complete nonsense. That this is very
common in prepubescent girls to have episodes of urinary tract
infections and general redness and itchiness, especially when they're learning
toilet skills and all of that.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Doctor Jack McCubbin said, quote, there is no medical evidence
of sexual abuse, and it is imperative that the jury
not be left with that perception end quote.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
The post conviction was filed with I think something like
seventy exhibits, including doctor mccubbin's report, the family law documents,
DCFS records, which showed that the girl had recanted to
her therapist. It was conceded at trial that she recanted
to the trial prosecutors. There was also a report from
(27:47):
a child psychologist, because the defense really should have called
a child psychologist, because the prosecution told the jury I'm paraphrasing,
but inclosing argument that kids don't make these sort of
things up. When kids tell stories, it's about dinosaurs, ghosts,
and monsters. It's not about daddy touching me. What a
child's psychologist would have done is explain the situations when
(28:10):
there's a negative influence from the mother when children do fabricate.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
The other thing that the.
Speaker 4 (28:15):
Prosecution said is it because the person that was asking
the questions on the videotape was a forensically trained interviewer
that guaranteed the accuracy of what the child was saying,
and this child psychologist would have explained to the jura
is that, in fact, that forensically trained interviewer was not
using very good practices, including the mother bringing the child
(28:36):
into the room and placing her in front of the camera,
and the fact that the child started making accusations without
even being asked a question by the interviewer, which is
highly suspicious that the child had been coached. The other
thing that we had asked for is we wanted the
child's counseling records because we had direct evidence that the
child had told her therapist that this never happened. Counseling
(29:00):
records are private, but if you can show a compelling
reason that we need this information to free an innocent person,
the judge should order it. And the judge did not,
so that was part of the post conviction petition. As
I said, there were dozens and dozens of exhibits that
was presented to the trial judge who was now asked
to find that lawyer that he had appointed to the
(29:20):
bench had been ineffective in this case.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
And as expected, the motion was denied.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
She's part of the club, she's a judge. Now got
one person covering the other person's ass all the way up.
Just look at his explanation of denying my post conviction.
He didn't even give an explanation. Mister Goodman had to
file the motion for reasoning and he was pissed about
that that we would even question why he denied it. Well,
(29:45):
you didn't give us an explanation why.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
So that decision was appealed to the very same court
that denied the direct appeal, considering that they had noted
two years prior that the defense had not rebutted the
state's expert. Their ruling was.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
The same court is looking at the appeal of the
post conviction case, in which evidence has been presented in
the form of a report from a gynecologist with forty
years of experience saying that what the state's expert said
at trial was complete nonsense. And I would just point
out that the state never disputed that they basically conceded. Yeah,
that's true, but you should still affirm this conviction. The
(30:23):
state sort of came up with this excuse, Well, it's cumulative,
there's other evidence that the girl had told some lies
that there's other evidence that the girl had trouble wiping herself. Therefore,
we don't need to hear from doctor mccubbn. It would
have been cumulative to call doctor McCubbin.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Again.
Speaker 4 (30:39):
This is complete nonsense. But the appellate court twisted itself
in knots in order to uphold this conviction and keep
this innocent person in jail and avoid making a finding
of ineffective assistance against this colleague on the bench.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
So it appears that Nurse Krueger's testimony the only thing
that kept them from ruling for insufficient evidence on direct appeal,
where the expert would have been key. Now, with some
mental gymnastics, that court decided that the presentation of such
an expert was now cumulative to what had been presented.
Make it make sense, I can't so. Additionally, the Illinois
(31:16):
Supreme Court chose not to hear the case. So Leonard
and Ronnie moved on to federal habeas.
Speaker 4 (31:23):
The case is pending in front of a federal district
judge in Rockford, Ian Johnson, a judge with a very
good reputation. We've asked for a hearing in front of him,
and we'll see what happens. The case is fully briefed.
The state filed their response, We filed a reply. Those
are all sitting on the judge's desk waiting for him
to make a ruling.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Well, we hope Ronnie is granted a hearing where the
judge can recognize both his innocence and the violations of
his rights. In the meantime, there's a young girl still
out there without her dad.
Speaker 5 (31:53):
Even why Ronnie's been locked up all these years. We
continued in family court, fighting and fighting, and where my
mom was finally approved to just have visits with GM
with Lourie present, and it'd always be like they go
out to eat, or they'd take her shopping or something.
We did get a guardian at lightam involved. My daughter
was allowed to go to the visits with my mom.
But then when I finally got allowed my first very
(32:15):
first visit with my daughter, my mom, GM, Laurie and
Laurie's mother. We were at McDonald's. She went back and
told the court that I was questioning GM about everything
again because you know, obviously you're not allowed to talk
about any of it, and then all visits were stopped again.
I even asked the guardian at Lightham to come to
the visit, like none of this happened. And they're still
(32:37):
using the court to say now you guys can't see her.
And I know why they're keeping us away from her
because the truth will come out. It will come out
one day when she's old enough and she can say
what happened. It's all going to come out.
Speaker 4 (32:49):
The one other aspect of this case, it's so tragic.
This is secondhand information, but it is something that would
not be hard to understand, is that she was basically
used by the prosecution to put her father in prison
for a crime that he didn't commit. And the fact
that the child is telling you and telling everyone that
(33:10):
will listen to her, this never happened. I think as
she has gained some awareness of what her role was,
it's been very difficult for her and apparently there was
some suicidal ideation in the child.
Speaker 5 (33:26):
To this day, she's still having lots of issues between
her mom and her brother, and there's no help for her.
I recently found out Tristan was arrested. Laurie stated she
came home from work. He was drunk under the influence
and had destroyed and broke everything in the house. They
did arrest him, and they actually put him in the
hospital that night. They said they had to strap him
to a bed for over six hours and they couldn't
(33:48):
release them because of Laurie's safety. And in the police
report Laurie puts she's afraid of him and this has
happened on another occasion. But if they couldn't release them
for Lorie's safety, what about GM safety?
Speaker 2 (34:00):
This girl is now, what is she twelve? Thirteen years old?
Speaker 5 (34:04):
She is fourteen.
Speaker 4 (34:05):
So I'm hoping that someday we will be able to
have some contact with her and maybe the truth can
come out to not only set Ronnie free, but at
least an attempt to right the wrong that was done
to them.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
And hopefully Judge Johnston can give Ronnie the relief that
he so richly deserves and needs. And with that, we're
going to go to closing arguments, first Leonard, then Debrah
and Finally, Ronnie, thank you all for being here. I'm
going to switch off my mic, kick back in my
chair with my headphones on and just listen to anything
else you have to say.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
I always had the feeling that deep down people want
to do the right thing. And one of the things
that they don't teach you in law school is that
you can be right on the facts and the law
and still lose if you have judges that have a
different agenda. And that's a very painful lesson for lawyers,
especially lawyers that do criminal defense work and really believe
(34:59):
in some of their co clients. And I think what
you're doing is probably the most important. As they say,
sunlight is the best disinfect and people know that a
wrong was done, and I think if they think that
it can be done in darkness, then there is little
incentive for people to want to come forward and right
or wrong, because it is hard for prosecutors to admit
that they made mistakes. It is hard for judges to
(35:21):
admit that they made mistakes. It is hard for lawyers.
But let's make this right.
Speaker 5 (35:26):
I've been there since day one. I've gone to every
court thing. I have all the documents and me having
my own daughter, I couldn't imagine your kids mean everything
to you and then for somebody to use your kid
against you for their own personal gain. That's what's really
hard for me to understand. I just want them to
see how the justice system is wrong and how it
(35:47):
incarcerates completely innocent people and rips lifes apart. Not only
for my brother, not only was he wronged, GM was
wronged by the system too. I used to tell Ronnie
that one day we be standing somewhere talking about how
the truth would come out and people would really see
what a person around he really is instead of what's
(36:09):
been cast upon him. It will happen just one day.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Our justice system is broken from the foundation to the top.
All the checks and balances that are supposed to protect
an innocent man like myself failed. It failed because it
is run by corrupt people who only see people like
myself as money and a conviction rate, and they care
nothing about true justice or the truth. I think everyone
(36:35):
who has heard and knows my story and say that
I was not given a fair trial, I was deliberately
denied a fair trial. When it comes to sex abuse allegations,
I have learned that no evidence is needed for a conviction.
All the players in our justice system know how sensitive
the public is towards sex abuse, and they exploit this
(36:55):
fear to convict innocent people like myself, all for money,
all for power, not for real justice or public safety.
This is bigger than me. This can easily happen to anyone.
It could happen to you, to someone in your family.
This must stop. The system has failed me and my daughter.
To the people listening, I need your help. These corrupt
(37:19):
individuals work in the shadows. They don't want cases like
mine to be in the public eye. So I need
all those who are listening to be my voice to
expose what happened to me. The whole people that listen
to this, the bigger and brighter that light becomes, and
then these corrupt individuals won't be able to hide in
those shadows no more, and the truth, God willing will prevail.
(37:42):
I am pleading with all those listening to talk to
everyone they know and encourage them to listen to this podcast.
Thank you for your time and God bless you.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Thank you for 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 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 Kliber.
The music in this production was supplied by three time
(38:17):
OSCAR nominated 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 (38:33):
We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported
in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed
by the individuals featured in this show are their own
and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good.
On February eleventh, twenty ten, a baby girl was born
to unwed parents, Lourie Johnson and Ronnie Miller in Rockford, Illinois,
but her parents' relationship gradually became contentious, which only worsened
during the custody battle. During a heated exchange on July twelfth,
twenty fifteen, Ronnie threatened to sue for full custody. A
(00:25):
few days later, he was accused of sexually assaulting their
daughter in a video statement made with Child Protective Services.
The daughter appeared to have been coached into making the
accusation on the record, an accusation that she repeatedly recanted
and never again affirmed. Yet the state was able to
find a nurse who claimed that the daughter's medical history
(00:48):
was suspicious for sexual abuse, and that was enough for
a jury to send Ronnie away for twenty long years.
This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to ronful conviction, where
(01:10):
we have a case where it appears that false accusations
were used to weaponize our courts and child Protective services
to settle a custody battle and ultimately victimized the child
whom they purported to protect, as it seems that she
was used against her own will to incarcerate her father,
Ronnie Miller, who's now calling in from an Illinois correctional facility. Ronnie,
(01:35):
I'm sorry you're here, but I'm really happy to be
able to share your story and I appreciate you being here.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Welcome, Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
And joining him his post conviction attorney, Leonard Goodman.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yes, thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
And later we'll hear from Ronnie's sister, Deborah, But first
let's hear about what Ronnie's life was like before all
of this.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
I grew up in Rockford, Illinois. Not a good place
growing up, but it became a teenager who moved out.
I dropped out of school, I got my ended up
getting my dad, and then kind of just fell into
factory work. Up until this, I actually had a pretty
decent pharmaceutical packaging company. I worked in the warehouse, you know,
I'd been there four years. All the other factories that
(02:18):
I worked in Rockford were pretty much shitholes, horrid conditions
and a little bit of money. So this company that
I actually made it into that the work was clean.
You're in a pharmaceutical company, The people were friendly, nice,
you had room for success. It was a pretty good
place to work at on my way to becoming management.
This was from two thousand eleven until twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
During which time Ronnie was trying to copat his daughter
with a woman named Laurie Johnson.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
I had known Laurie off and on. We had our
daughter in twenty tens, but in the beginning of the
relationship it wasn't nothing serious. It was just having fun
until she wanted me to move into her place, which
I did. We had been doing good for i'd say
about a whole year before she found out she was pregnant,
(03:07):
and at that time she already had a child before,
so I would say she was questionable about having another.
For me, this would have been my first child, which, yeah,
I was stoked that I was going to be a dad.
I made every doctor's appointment that it was scheduled. I
remember at one time I found out that my daughter
(03:28):
she could hear me, so I started reading books and
talking and playing music and everything, but a lot of reading.
So you know, during the verse, she came out screaming.
She screamed, and the nurses got her in her hands
and everything, and I remember saying to her, it's okay,
baby girl. Here's daddy, and she immediately knew my voice.
(03:49):
Even the nurse commented was like, oh she knows you.
You know something I'll never forget.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
So while fatherhood seemed to suit Ronnie, he and Laurie
weren't a natural fit.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
We made it like the first when I found out
she was cheating on me with a another man, and
we pretty much broke things off. I was out of
the house, but it was a very toxic relationship to
where I would move out and she would convince me
to come back and all this, oh, let's do it
for the babies. I'd fall for it every time I
(04:19):
wanted my daughter to see us together. My parents were
divorced and I didn't want that for her, So yeah,
of course I kept coming back, even though the way
she treated me was like shit. But when I wasn't
with her, she would hold the child from me. No
you can't see her, No you can't talk to her,
this type of stuff, to where she would use the
kid as leverage.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
My understanding is that if he was not allowed to
see her, he would get a court order so that
the mom's obstruction of his visitation would be put to
a stop by the judge.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
And it appeared that this was a pattern for miss
Johnson that had been playing out with the father of
her fifteen year old son, Tristan oh Man.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
If you talk to Wayne Gilberto, he'll tell you the
exact same thing. And she had me believing this man
was a heroin addict, the just the worst person imaginable.
She was selling to me, and of course I believed her,
But later on I found out this dude was going
to work wanting to see his kid, wanted to be
in his kid's life, but because he wouldn't submit to her,
(05:20):
she did the exact same thing with him, use the
kid as leverage.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
If you look at the family court records, you'll see
similar accusations made against that father or that other child.
But that child had a history of some mental illness
and was doing things that were frightening.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
He threatened to commit suicide, spent like two weeks in
the side corps getting on this medication. She told me, okay,
he was at one point accused by his father that
he was touching his stepdaughter on like a weekend visit
over there, and she kept it real hush with me,
(05:59):
so I didn't know the exact detailed. I just knew
that he wasn't allowed to go over there because of
these allegations. Okay, and his dad called him a pervert,
and then she went to DCFF trying to say that
Wayne was abusing Driston by accusing him of these things
that were not true.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
It appears that mister Gilberto was interested in protecting his stepdaughters,
but miss Johnson took that as an opportunity to weaponize
the Illinois Department of Child and Family Services, or DCFS
to restrict his access to their son. Meanwhile, Ronnie and
his sister Deborah began fearing for GM safety.
Speaker 5 (06:38):
Yeah, so I used to watch GM every day, So
there was things that GM would say to me about
things happening in the household with her brother. There was
one instance where she told me she woke up with
her brother standing over her and she was afraid. And
I told her mom about that and she told me, no,
she's just lying. She's making things up. And I become
(07:00):
concerned and I start telling Ronnie, like some of the
things that GM has been saying to me.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
That's why I was concerned about my daughter living over there.
And I confronted Maurie about this. She said oh, no, Tristan,
he wouldn't do that. I said, well, why wouldn't my
daughter be lying about this? I said, I don't feel safe,
especially him coming out of a psych ward, being doped
up on all this medication, and then all of a sudden,
couple weeks later, you take him off his medication and
(07:28):
now he's acting all fucking weird and shit.
Speaker 5 (07:30):
Then later on we come to find out in court
record Tristan has sexually abused his dad's girlfriend's daughters. But
none of this was ever brought to court.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Which seems like some really important context, almost as important
as what happened next.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
So I told her I was going to take her
back to court for full custody because I'm concerned about
what's going on here, and I'm going to let the
courts know about his psych ward visits, about all this
stuff that you say he's not doing but obviously is.
So yeah, yeah, I threatened to take her back to
court for full custody. And then I believe that was
on like a Sunday, and here it is Wednesday. Now
(08:09):
I'm being accused of sexually molesting my daughter.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
So it appears that July twelve, twenty fifteen, was the
Sunday of the argument, and then Mims Johnson called DCFS.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
We don't know because we weren't there, but maybe the
mom said the daughter had some itchiness and she asked
her about it and she said, oh, daddy's weird.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
He touches me.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
And that was the initial report that was made, and
that report was enough to get in order of protection.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
The way I found out was through my sister, because
my sister watched my daughter. They showed up at my
sister's house on Friday.
Speaker 5 (08:42):
She came by to pay me for the week before
because heard my brother split paying me, and she made
GM wait outside, like Laurie was telling me all these things.
And GM was looking through the screen door and she's like, yeah, yeah,
I got to tell you something. So I come outside
and she runs to the back of my yard and
I have like a trampoline and everything because I have kids,
(09:03):
and she's like, yeah, I got to tell you something.
Daddy touches me. And then she runs off and goes
and jumps on the trampoline like it was nothing, no
big deal. I go to my brother because obviously, if
a child is being hurt, I want to protect that child.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
GM was examined by their pediatrician, doctor Rhodes, who found
no cause for concern. Meanwhile, Aunt Debbie called the family together.
Speaker 5 (09:26):
I instantly called my mom, my brother, and I'm like, look,
this is what's going on. So then Ronnie called Laurie
and got Laurie to come over to my mom's house.
And she's telling everybody it's too late. DCFS is involved.
I've taken her to the doctor. GM. She comes in
the house and she wants to sit with her dad like.
She actually cried because she wanted to stay with all
(09:48):
of us. When Laurie told her it's time to go.
You tell them what you have to tell them, and
let's go. And she was sitting on Ronnie's lap crying
and screaming as Laurie took her to leave. That's actually
the last time Ronnie seen her when GM was sitting
(10:15):
on my brother's lap. And I'm sitting there talking to
her and I'm explaining to her like GM, I'm an adult.
I'm here to protect you. If there's anything going on.
You can share this with Aunt Debbie and I'll make
sure you know I keep you safe. That's what adults
are supposed to do. And then She looked at me
and she goes, so, if that was happening to Abby,
which is my daughter, they're only a few years apart.
(10:36):
She's like, would you do the same thing? And I
told her, I said, Jim, if any child is ever
being hurt, I will always keep them safe. And I
kept telling her, this is very important that you tell
me the truth. And then she changed her whole story,
saying it was a guy at her mom's house, which
was confusing to us.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
MS Johnson had another boyfriend at the time, or perhaps
GM meant her older half brother Tristan. Either way, two
weeks later, on August fourth, twenty fifteen, MS Johnson made
an appointment with DCFS to get the allegation on video.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
My understanding is that the child had recanted to the
mom and was telling the mom it never happened, and
that was part of what prompted her to put the
child in front of the video camera to try to
document these stories against Ronnie and put them on film. Literally,
with the mom practically sitting next to her.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
In this video interview, she's not supposed to know where
she's going.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
Know what was going to be asked, the child starts
making accusations against her dad before she's even asked any
question by the interviewer, suggesting that she had been coached.
Many of the things that she said during the interview
are conceded to be not true and fantastical. She said
that the police came and arrested my dad, but he
got away, who was conceded that no police had come.
(11:58):
She said that her dad had a cast in her
description of the abuse. He never had a cast on
his arm during this period. She said that there was
a dog involved. So all these things were conceded to
be not true.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Everything that video is total lies, except the one that
they want to believe is that I sexually abused my child.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
So yes, she had recanted before she was put in
front of the video camera and after to a therapist,
to the mom, and to the trial prosecutors, saying it's
not true. I was manipulated into saying that. The prosecution
then went out and hired a nurse practitioner who had
taken a course in sexual abuse and somebody that they
(12:42):
had used in the past as a sexual abuse expert,
and this woman examined the child, who was at this
time was five years old, found nothing abnormal and the
prosecution said, well, the child is now saying it never happened,
so we can't go forward with this case unless the
expert will say that there is physical evidence of abuse.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
So no charges were filed, but the order of protection
remained in place.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
The mom went to extraordinary lengths to keep the daughter
away not only from her father, but from his whole family.
It was almost as if the mom was afraid that
people that clearly posed no threat to the child if
they were with her, that the story that the mom
had fabricated would be exposed.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
And by October and November, Ronnie and his family began
winning at family court, and it appeared that they would
all be allowed supervised visitation at a DCFS facility called
Safe Harbor.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
The judge said, hey, there's no evidence here. I gotta
let them see the kid. Here's Laurie calling up DCFS
and letting them know that I'm winning in family court
that they need to do something about it.
Speaker 5 (13:49):
I have all those records where DCFS contacted Shannon. Krueger
was like, and it's all in the notes, which is
crazy to me. This is what we need you to say.
Can you say this? And she said yes, I can
say that. Then they told her to contact the prosecutor
and let them know that she would state that in court.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
So the expert then examined the child's medical history and
found that there were some urinary tract infections and some
genital redness and said, yes, I can say conclusively that
is highly suspicious for sexual abuse in a five year
old girl. I think she was four at the time
that she had this redness.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Previously, the child's preediatrician had attributed these issues to potty training,
a new bath soap, or a new laundry detergent. Yet
Krueger's opinion led to Ronnie's arrest in early December. He
was bonded out his family. Court wins were rolled back,
but at least his family was granted access to GM.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Their first visit was right after the holidays for my
whole family. I'm talking like eight adults and like twelve
nieces and nephews. They wanted to give her all of
her presents for Christmas and all that. So they have
a thing over at my sister's house.
Speaker 5 (15:01):
All the girls in the family, my daughter and then
my brother's two daughters and her. They're all pretty close
in age, so just seeing them together, playing with their dolls,
being able to sit with my mom, having all her
grandkids together.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Now, mind you, I can't be around at all. I'm
at a whole nother house with another witness that says
I was there the whole time, after they dropped her
back off, after she got all of her presents, all
this stuff. Now, this is Lorie. This ain't my daughter.
This is Laurie calling the police saying that my daughter
told her that I talked to her on the phone.
(15:35):
A total fabrication.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
After checking the call logs and speaking with Ronnie's family,
the police confirmed that the accusation was false, and then
after the second visitation came another false accusation.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
The mom calls Protective Services again and said Ronnie's violating it.
He's using these grandparent visitations to see his daughter and
to sexually abuse her at school.
Speaker 5 (15:57):
The DCFS they pulled my daughter in question her for
two hours. They were trying to see if she could
verify if Ronnie was at the visit.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
That was later conceded to be false.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
Everyone agreed he never violated the order protection, but it
was enough to end these grandparent visitations.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Since these two new accusations were provably false. The state
only moved forward with the first one with the support
of Nurse Krueger.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
And Ronnie had a conversation with his lawyer prior to
trial where he said, I've seen these reports that they're
going to call an expert to say that my daughter
was abused. Shouldn't we have our own expert, And his
lawyer responded, no, we don't because there was no physical evidence.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
We don't need an expert.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Jafer admits she never called or looked around for any
expert testimony. If she had, she would have found out
that the allegations that Kruger made were totally medically mumbo jumbo.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Shannon Krueger's opinion was about to go unchallenged a trial,
along with Miss Johnson's credit with her well documented history
of weaponizing family court.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
This lawyer didn't pull the family court file, so she
wouldn't have known about the past history, but she did
know about the December January incident and the false accusation,
and the lawyer just was unable to figure out how
to get that in at trial.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
The judge in my case, Judge McGraw, he wouldn't even
allow my witnesses to testify to the second allegation denied
it on grounds of relevance.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
The recantation to the therapist was also denied on grounds
of confidentiality, even though it was clearly exculpatory, as were
the recantations to the trial prosecutors.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
They were trying to prefer for trial. That's when she
told them that once twice, that my dad didn't do
this to me. Also, they admit during those interviews with
her that she seemed to cheer up when she heard
my name, was excited to see me and was like,
oh is my daddy here? Like is that somebody afraid
to somebody? No witness recans to you twice, she recants
(18:02):
to a therapist, She recants to her mother on thirty
times that she says. So she's trying to tell these
people this shit didn't happen, but none of them are
believe in her.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Or maybe they did, considering the affidavits they signed about
the recantations, as well as the offer they made to
Ronnie prior to trial.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Yeah, they offered me probation, no jail time. What type
of guilty man is not going to take a deal
for no jail time? In probation. The only person that
is not going to take that deal is the innocent
person that believed in the justice system and has the
truth behind their side. I turned that opportunity down.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
Even though he's facing twenty years. He said, no, I
can't because it requires me to say that I harmed
my daughter and I never would have harmed my daughter.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Because he refused this deal, Ronnie was taken to trial
in twenty seventeen, where curiously, first the state called GM's pediatrician,
doctor Rhodes, to the stand and asked about the history
of discomfort.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
Rhodes she admits, Hey, this could be something simple as
hygiene or an allergic reaction to laundry soap or something
like that, and they told the jury to totally disregard
their witness.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Then they revited Rhodes with nurse Krueger.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Krueger has asked the same questions that the Rhodes testify to,
and she would not admit that could be caused by
something simple as hygiene issues or allergic reaction from bubble
bass or laundry detergent.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
And then GM was brought to the stand.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
This is a matter of Illinois law. They had to
put her on the stand in order to put in
the videotape of her prior statement, but the child was
no longer accusing her father of a crime. They were
very concerned, the prosecutors, because it had been more than
two years since she had last seen her dad.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Oh yes, I was very emotional and just see in
her face. It was just like it was crazy. And
as soon as my daughter walked in the you should
stopped the trial. And basically told the judge was that, hey,
we're afraid that she's going to run up and just
give him a hug, and that's not going to look
good in front of the jury.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
The judge's suggestion, and the prosecutors carried this out, is
to create sort of a human shield so that when
the child was brought to the stands, she would not
be able to see her father and so she would
not be tempted to go and run and hug him.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
So a human shield obstructed GM's view of her father.
And GM did say that her father touched her cuckoo
with his finger, but it was said in a vague
and non sexual context, and GM didn't recall any details
of a sexual nature. So the exchange went, quote, do
you remember if he touched you on the inside or
(20:45):
the outside of your cuckoo? She replied, uh huh, you
don't remember, she said, no. Do you remember what it
felt like? She says, well, it hurt it a little bit,
but not too much, like getting your ears pierced. Did
you ever see daddy's private she says, I don't remember.
Did daddy ever touch you anywhere else on your body
(21:06):
that he shouldn't have touched? She says no. Do you
miss your daddy? She answered yes. Do you love your daddy?
She said yes? And there they're back and forth ends
right there. That's an end quote.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
The prosecution Hader preps and is very vague on whether
you could consider this sexual abuse. Well, did your daddy
touch me? Yeah, he touched which could be construed as anything.
I was a responsible single parent. Yes, I bade my child. Yes,
I brush my daughter's hair, I made her brush her teeth,
I dressed her. Yes, I did all that. A responsible
(21:40):
parent does all those things. To say that sexual abuse
is just.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Crazy, But that testimony came with the context of the
video statement, and despite the absurdities and untrue details, it
appears to have made a powerful impression on the jury,
who subsequently were deprived of knowing about the false accusations
and Miss Johnson's history with family court, despite Debra's best efforts.
Speaker 5 (22:05):
When we testified the only thing when we tried to
bring up that date, they obviously kept it out of
the court. They would seal everything, They would go up
there and talk to the judge. Then the judge would decide,
this can't be discussed because it has nothing to do
with it. And we kept trying to say, yes it does.
It's a pattern of these lies that are continuing. It
like it totally had something to do with the case,
(22:27):
and they kept all of that out of the court documents.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
This to me was incredibly troubling.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Almost as troubling as the prosecution, the court, and her
mother repeatedly ignoring GM's recantations. And when Miss Johnson was
asked about the July twelfth, twenty fifteen, argument with Ronnie,
she said it wasn't about suing for full custody or Tristan,
but rather about where GM would go to school. But
(22:53):
that testimony went unchallenged, and with that jury deliberation predictably
went very quickly.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
They delivered rated two hours and they came back in
and said guilty, and it was over. I went from
not spending one day in jail in my whole life
to being cuffed up and brought away into a prison
system for twenty years, and I've been here ever since.
(23:40):
Prison is tough, man. Every day I wake up and
it's a nightmare. Man. Prison is designed to break you
down every single day, and I refuse to let them
do that. Now. This is what counts me every day,
is that my daughter has been left in her refuser's
hands and continue to be used by the state and Laurie,
(24:04):
And I'm fearful every day for her safety. And she's
the most important thing to me. If she could know
the truth and I knew that she was safe, I'd
have no problem doing whatever they needed. If they needed
me here for the rest of my life, I could
hear lists or my life's already ruined. I want her
to be safe, and I want her to know the truth,
(24:24):
and that's the bottom line of it. And I will
always maintain my innocence no matter how this goes, and
I'll never give up fighting. I'll fight this to the
day I die.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Ronnie's direct appeal was handled by another lawyer soon after
his conviction. But unfortunately you can't bring in new evidence
like the defense expert that should have been hired, or
evidence of false allegations, et cetera. Of course, just don't
allow it.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
But the lawyer made a fairly strong argument that the
evidence was insufficient. As a matter of law and due
process says, the prosecution must present evidence to prove guilt,
otherwise the or should set you free. But what the
appellate court said is well, even though the child never
made any accusation at trial, there was an expert to
corroborate what was said on videotape. The court went on
(25:11):
to say, the defense put on no evidence to rebut
this so we have to sort of accept that it
was true.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Now, I'd like you to remember that the court noted
the absence of what would have been helpful evidence at trial,
as the next part of the fight would be to
prove that Ronnie had been deprived of his right to
effective counsel.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
Part of the problem is the lawyer that represented Ronnie
is now a judge in Winnebago County. She was appointed
to a vacancy in the court by the judge that
presided over Ronnie's trial.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
Another thing weird too, is after Schaeffer loses the trial,
Judge mcgrall teach congratulates her, Like, what kind of person
is like, Oh, you did such a good job, but
you lost the case. I found that very weird. And
then Judge mcral puts Schaeffer up for the judge ship. Right,
there's a lot of suspicion with that. Right after my case.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
In a case where raising ineffective assists of counsel also
calls the trial judges judgment into question, this doesn't bode well.
It stinks, but those are the cards that they were dealt.
So Leonard raised the issue that his attorney had failed
to get Miss Johnson's history in family court as well
as her having made false allegations. She wasn't able to
(26:27):
get any of this admitted into the proceedings, in addition
the failure to hire a defense expert to rebut the
testimony of the States expert.
Speaker 4 (26:36):
I had a conversation with this lawyer when I came
into the case, and she confirmed to me that she
made no attempt to contact any experts for the defense. Now,
it took me probably less than a couple hours to
make some phone calls and find somebody, a well respected,
board certified guynecologist that had experience with prepubescent teens and
(26:57):
was able to tell me very quickly what their expert
told the jury was complete nonsense. That this is very
common in prepubescent girls to have episodes of urinary tract
infections and general redness and itchiness, especially when they're learning
toilet skills and all of that.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Doctor Jack McCubbin said, quote, there is no medical evidence
of sexual abuse, and it is imperative that the jury
not be left with that perception end quote.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
The post conviction was filed with I think something like
seventy exhibits, including doctor mccubbin's report, the family law documents,
DCFS records, which showed that the girl had recanted to
her therapist. It was conceded at trial that she recanted
to the trial prosecutors. There was also a report from
(27:47):
a child psychologist, because the defense really should have called
a child psychologist, because the prosecution told the jury I'm paraphrasing,
but inclosing argument that kids don't make these sort of
things up. When kids tell stories, it's about dinosaurs, ghosts,
and monsters. It's not about daddy touching me. What a
child's psychologist would have done is explain the situations when
(28:10):
there's a negative influence from the mother when children do fabricate.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
The other thing that the.
Speaker 4 (28:15):
Prosecution said is it because the person that was asking
the questions on the videotape was a forensically trained interviewer
that guaranteed the accuracy of what the child was saying,
and this child psychologist would have explained to the jura
is that, in fact, that forensically trained interviewer was not
using very good practices, including the mother bringing the child
(28:36):
into the room and placing her in front of the camera,
and the fact that the child started making accusations without
even being asked a question by the interviewer, which is
highly suspicious that the child had been coached. The other
thing that we had asked for is we wanted the
child's counseling records because we had direct evidence that the
child had told her therapist that this never happened. Counseling
(29:00):
records are private, but if you can show a compelling
reason that we need this information to free an innocent person,
the judge should order it. And the judge did not,
so that was part of the post conviction petition. As
I said, there were dozens and dozens of exhibits that
was presented to the trial judge who was now asked
to find that lawyer that he had appointed to the
(29:20):
bench had been ineffective in this case.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
And as expected, the motion was denied.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
She's part of the club, she's a judge. Now got
one person covering the other person's ass all the way up.
Just look at his explanation of denying my post conviction.
He didn't even give an explanation. Mister Goodman had to
file the motion for reasoning and he was pissed about
that that we would even question why he denied it. Well,
(29:45):
you didn't give us an explanation why.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
So that decision was appealed to the very same court
that denied the direct appeal, considering that they had noted
two years prior that the defense had not rebutted the
state's expert. Their ruling was.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
The same court is looking at the appeal of the
post conviction case, in which evidence has been presented in
the form of a report from a gynecologist with forty
years of experience saying that what the state's expert said
at trial was complete nonsense. And I would just point
out that the state never disputed that they basically conceded. Yeah,
that's true, but you should still affirm this conviction. The
(30:23):
state sort of came up with this excuse, Well, it's cumulative,
there's other evidence that the girl had told some lies
that there's other evidence that the girl had trouble wiping herself. Therefore,
we don't need to hear from doctor mccubbn. It would
have been cumulative to call doctor McCubbin.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Again.
Speaker 4 (30:39):
This is complete nonsense. But the appellate court twisted itself
in knots in order to uphold this conviction and keep
this innocent person in jail and avoid making a finding
of ineffective assistance against this colleague on the bench.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
So it appears that Nurse Krueger's testimony the only thing
that kept them from ruling for insufficient evidence on direct appeal,
where the expert would have been key. Now, with some
mental gymnastics, that court decided that the presentation of such
an expert was now cumulative to what had been presented.
Make it make sense, I can't so. Additionally, the Illinois
(31:16):
Supreme Court chose not to hear the case. So Leonard
and Ronnie moved on to federal habeas.
Speaker 4 (31:23):
The case is pending in front of a federal district
judge in Rockford, Ian Johnson, a judge with a very
good reputation. We've asked for a hearing in front of him,
and we'll see what happens. The case is fully briefed.
The state filed their response, We filed a reply. Those
are all sitting on the judge's desk waiting for him
to make a ruling.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Well, we hope Ronnie is granted a hearing where the
judge can recognize both his innocence and the violations of
his rights. In the meantime, there's a young girl still
out there without her dad.
Speaker 5 (31:53):
Even why Ronnie's been locked up all these years. We
continued in family court, fighting and fighting, and where my
mom was finally approved to just have visits with GM
with Lourie present, and it'd always be like they go
out to eat, or they'd take her shopping or something.
We did get a guardian at lightam involved. My daughter
was allowed to go to the visits with my mom.
But then when I finally got allowed my first very
(32:15):
first visit with my daughter, my mom, GM, Laurie and
Laurie's mother. We were at McDonald's. She went back and
told the court that I was questioning GM about everything
again because you know, obviously you're not allowed to talk
about any of it, and then all visits were stopped again.
I even asked the guardian at Lightham to come to
the visit, like none of this happened. And they're still
(32:37):
using the court to say now you guys can't see her.
And I know why they're keeping us away from her
because the truth will come out. It will come out
one day when she's old enough and she can say
what happened. It's all going to come out.
Speaker 4 (32:49):
The one other aspect of this case, it's so tragic.
This is secondhand information, but it is something that would
not be hard to understand, is that she was basically
used by the prosecution to put her father in prison
for a crime that he didn't commit. And the fact
that the child is telling you and telling everyone that
(33:10):
will listen to her, this never happened. I think as
she has gained some awareness of what her role was,
it's been very difficult for her and apparently there was
some suicidal ideation in the child.
Speaker 5 (33:26):
To this day, she's still having lots of issues between
her mom and her brother, and there's no help for her.
I recently found out Tristan was arrested. Laurie stated she
came home from work. He was drunk under the influence
and had destroyed and broke everything in the house. They
did arrest him, and they actually put him in the
hospital that night. They said they had to strap him
to a bed for over six hours and they couldn't
(33:48):
release them because of Laurie's safety. And in the police
report Laurie puts she's afraid of him and this has
happened on another occasion. But if they couldn't release them
for Lorie's safety, what about GM safety?
Speaker 2 (34:00):
This girl is now, what is she twelve? Thirteen years old?
Speaker 5 (34:04):
She is fourteen.
Speaker 4 (34:05):
So I'm hoping that someday we will be able to
have some contact with her and maybe the truth can
come out to not only set Ronnie free, but at
least an attempt to right the wrong that was done
to them.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
And hopefully Judge Johnston can give Ronnie the relief that
he so richly deserves and needs. And with that, we're
going to go to closing arguments, first Leonard, then Debrah
and Finally, Ronnie, thank you all for being here. I'm
going to switch off my mic, kick back in my
chair with my headphones on and just listen to anything
else you have to say.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
I always had the feeling that deep down people want
to do the right thing. And one of the things
that they don't teach you in law school is that
you can be right on the facts and the law
and still lose if you have judges that have a
different agenda. And that's a very painful lesson for lawyers,
especially lawyers that do criminal defense work and really believe
(34:59):
in some of their co clients. And I think what
you're doing is probably the most important. As they say,
sunlight is the best disinfect and people know that a
wrong was done, and I think if they think that
it can be done in darkness, then there is little
incentive for people to want to come forward and right
or wrong, because it is hard for prosecutors to admit
that they made mistakes. It is hard for judges to
(35:21):
admit that they made mistakes. It is hard for lawyers.
But let's make this right.
Speaker 5 (35:26):
I've been there since day one. I've gone to every
court thing. I have all the documents and me having
my own daughter, I couldn't imagine your kids mean everything
to you and then for somebody to use your kid
against you for their own personal gain. That's what's really
hard for me to understand. I just want them to
see how the justice system is wrong and how it
(35:47):
incarcerates completely innocent people and rips lifes apart. Not only
for my brother, not only was he wronged, GM was
wronged by the system too. I used to tell Ronnie
that one day we be standing somewhere talking about how
the truth would come out and people would really see
what a person around he really is instead of what's
(36:09):
been cast upon him. It will happen just one day.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Our justice system is broken from the foundation to the top.
All the checks and balances that are supposed to protect
an innocent man like myself failed. It failed because it
is run by corrupt people who only see people like
myself as money and a conviction rate, and they care
nothing about true justice or the truth. I think everyone
(36:35):
who has heard and knows my story and say that
I was not given a fair trial, I was deliberately
denied a fair trial. When it comes to sex abuse allegations,
I have learned that no evidence is needed for a conviction.
All the players in our justice system know how sensitive
the public is towards sex abuse, and they exploit this
(36:55):
fear to convict innocent people like myself, all for money,
all for power, not for real justice or public safety.
This is bigger than me. This can easily happen to anyone.
It could happen to you, to someone in your family.
This must stop. The system has failed me and my daughter.
To the people listening, I need your help. These corrupt
(37:19):
individuals work in the shadows. They don't want cases like
mine to be in the public eye. So I need
all those who are listening to be my voice to
expose what happened to me. The whole people that listen
to this, the bigger and brighter that light becomes, and
then these corrupt individuals won't be able to hide in
those shadows no more, and the truth, God willing will prevail.
(37:42):
I am pleading with all those listening to talk to
everyone they know and encourage them to listen to this podcast.
Thank you for your time and God bless you.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Thank you for 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 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 Kliber.
The music in this production was supplied by three time
(38:17):
OSCAR nominated 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 (38:33):
We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported
in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed
by the individuals featured in this show are their own
and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good.
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.