November 21, 2024 • 55 mins
UPDATE- Gary Benloss walked out of prison on November 20th, 2024, after 22.5 years. Jason was there to greet him.
On April 10, 2002, Victor Vulcain was shot and killed in broad daylight in front of 201 Linden Blvd. Brooklyn, NY. There were several witnesses, each of whom provided a version of events to police that stood in conflict with the other witnesses; not even their descriptions of the shooter matched. No murder weapon was ever recovered, and no DNA evidence connected Gary to the murder. Yet, Gary was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years to life.
To learn more and get involved, visit:
https://www.change.org/p/justice-for-gary-benloss https://www.freegarybenloss.com/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Since we first covered the case of Gary ben Loss
back in October of twenty twenty two, there have been
some really exciting developments. Together with Gary's legal team and
other advocates, we've been able to convince the Brooklyn DA's
office to ask a judge to resence him from twenty
five to life to twenty two to life, making him
immediately eligible for parole. And they did this on the
(00:28):
grounds of compassion, his amazing track record in prison, various
advanced degrees, you being a leader in the Choices program,
honor Block, literally an absolute star, and they acknowledged that
Gary doesn't represent a threat to society. He never did,
so the whole team remains committed to clearing his name.
(00:52):
But in the meantime, Gary was released yesterday, November twenty
twenty four, and it was beautiful about damn time.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Luck.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
That feeling never gets old. So Gary, best of luck
as you continue to fight to clear your name. And
now please check out our original coverage of the insane
case of Gary ben Loss. On April tenth, two thousand
and two, on Lynden Boulevard in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn,
(01:29):
a man named Victor Vulcan was shot and killed in
broad daylight just after school had let out. Fortunately, no
one else was heard as people ran to their buildings
for cover, including a young father named Gary ben Loss
who had had prior run ins with the police. Nine
one one callers and eyewitnesses described the shooter with short hair,
dark skin, and a similar build to the victim, who
(01:50):
was five ten and one hundred and sixty eight pounds. However,
one allegend witness, Anthony Holder, who did not give a
description of the shooter, set among other falsehoods, that the
saleen's nickname was Chucky. Gary Benloss was known as Chucky,
but he was over six three and two hundred and
fifty pounds with a seven inch high afro. A photo
of a much younger and slimmer Gary with short hair
(02:13):
was put into a photo array, eliciting and identification from
Anthony Holder and one other witness. However, once that other
witness saw Gary a trial, she too joined all the
other witnesses in denying Gary's involvement. Holders pending charges for
which it is believed that he received leniency in exchange
for cooperation, were hidden by the state, and somehow the
(02:34):
jury believed his bizarre testimony that included a non existent
second victim, sending Gary away for twenty five to life.
This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to awful conviction. Today,
(03:01):
we have a Brooklyn case dating back to two thousand
and two in which several witnesses described a gunman that
looked wildly different from our guest today, Gary Benloss, a
guy that I came to know through my friendship with
a previous guest on our show, John Asia Velasquez. Now
Gary is joining us from sing Sing, and I'm glad
you're here with us, even though i hate the reason
(03:22):
why you're here. But Gary, welcome to the show. Thank you,
You're very welcome. And with him is a man whose
voice you'll probably recognize from other appearances here with us,
where he's been advocating for Nelson Cruz, Marcus Wiggins, Vincent Simmons,
and so many more. Justin bonus, welcome back.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
It's great to be back on the show for Shiit all.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Right, So Gary, before we get into the reason why
we're here today, can you tell us a little bit
about your life growing up.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
I was born July twenty sixth, nineteen eighty to a
proud single mother who migrated from the rural country area
of Jamaica, West Indies, moved to America where she resided
in Flatbush, Brooklyn.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
And your nickname was Chucky, right, how I mean, where
does that come from?
Speaker 2 (04:06):
At the age of nine, I received the nickname Chuckles.
Being poor no farther around at school, kids could be
very cruel, So as a defense mechanism, I was one
of those kids who used to always like to joke
and laugh. That's how I got the moniker Chuckles. Always
(04:28):
had people laughing, always.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Joking, and that nickname ended up playing a part in
your wrongful conviction. But before all of that, in the
summer of nineteen ninety six, you had your first encounter
with one of the detectives on this case. Robert Reedy.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
He knows me because on my fifteenth birthday I was
jump assaulted and hospitalized. He was actually the detective on
the case, and he wanted not just for me, you know,
to snitch on the guys that hospitalized me, but he
wanted me to become a neighborhood snatch. So the case
(05:03):
against those who are saw to me never went to
court and I never became this niche for a detective reading,
I said, it's.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Not happening, right, So you refused to help Ready, and
then the following spring you ran into some more trouble,
but this time you were the assailant.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
At the age of sixteen March of nineteen ninety seven,
I made a very foolish mistake, but I'm not proud.
It was a lesson that I needed to learn. So,
because of growing up being poor, I followed a friend
of mine into a pizzeria to rob the pizzeria. I
took full responsibility, and I cocked out to one to
(05:46):
three years, right. And I've been haunted by the NYPD
ever since.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
And I'd like the audience to take note here when
guilty people usually take plea deals it makes sense. I mean, hell,
even innocent people take plead deals if it makes more sense,
which it often does than fighting the charges, like our
friend Dieter te Hata. So you did a few years
as a juvenile in a men's prison, paid your debt
to society, and after your release, you moved back in
(06:15):
with your mother at two eighteen Linden Boulevard and Flat Push,
where you remained on the NYPD's radar leading up to
this crime. In two thousand and two. But before we
get into all those details, justin we've seen this kind
of thing before more than once, where the cops just
grab a guy with a record, whether they did a
crime or not. And as our listeners will surely recognize, Brooklyn,
(06:39):
especially in the eighties, nineties and into the two thousands,
was fraught with wrongful conviction cases and issues like I
wouldn't smits. Identification coerced and incentifies witnesses who made misidentifications,
sometimes knowingly by the way, and of course crazily corrupted
identification procedures. And in this case we have all those factors.
(07:01):
And at the helm of the investigation we had detectives
Robert Reedy and John mcgerrin, as well as King's County
assistant DA Kyle Reeves. And I feel like I've heard
his name before, Kyle Reeves, right.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Yes, absolutely, Jabbar Washington. I believe Jabar was exonerated in
twenty eighteen. Kyle Reeves in that case had withheld Brady evidence,
put witnesses on the stand that testified falsely. Then Reeves
pushed forward with prosecuting someone for murder. I believe it
was a fight of some sort, and it turned out
(07:33):
that the mother of the victim actually sued the hospital
for medical malpractice wrongful death that the hospital caused the death.
I know that he had some issues. He left the
DA's office in Brooklyn and he went to Staten Island,
and I know he had some issues in Staten Island
with witnesses and then left. And now he's in private practice.
(07:54):
So he has a history of prosecuting cases that he
shouldn't and two not turning over exculpatory material.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
I mean, I'd like to point out prior misconduct just
to give the audience an idea of who we were
dealing with. But to be fair, Reeves doesn't really sound
like an outlier. Knowingly prosecuting innocent people and heidek exculpatory
evidence to make it stick. Sounds like the usual playbook
in New York.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
It's a little different because it's a lot harder to
catch them, and he's been caught. New York is different
in that there's usually no forensic investigation, no paper right,
no paper trail, whereas a lot of other places there's
a lot of paper here. These are very short, choppy statements.
The police don't write as much down, and then prosecutors
(08:39):
even when the case falls apart, they are able to
hang their hat on somebody like Anthony Holder, who's the
only witness that testified at trial, A Garribbin Lost committed
this murder.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
And we're going to talk a lot more about this
alleged eyewitness, Anthony Holder. And I say alleged because his
description of the crime conflicted with both real and with
every other eyewitness. All of them corroborated each other, and
none of them described or ultimately identified Gary in person. Now,
(09:10):
Anthony Holder was a building super right who were intended
on Gary's block, and he's the guy who's credited with
throwing Gary's nickname Chucky to the cops right into the
mix after the crime. Gary, did you know this guy Holder?
Speaker 2 (09:24):
So Anthony Holder is the super of I believe two
of the buildings on land them Boulevard across the street
from mine. So I didn't live there, but my friends did,
so I'm visiting them. Anthony Holder never used to like
when my friends and I will hang out on the stool,
So in the courtyards of the building, it wasn't like
(09:47):
we was closing a disruption, being disrespectful.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Okay, So he didn't like you, but he didn't have
a real beef with you, but maybe he didn't care
if he used you to stay at a prison. That's
what it seems like to me. As it becomes clear
much later, holder had some pending charges for which he
likely received leniency for his testimony in this case, but
a trial, that deal was when you've heard this before,
(10:12):
that deal was hidden by Assistant DA Kyle Reeves. And
now here we are, so let's get to the climate itself.
This was April tenth, two thousand and two, a sunny
spring day, on Linden Boulevard in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Now this
is a broad street with an east and westbound side,
a turning lane down the middle street, parking on either side,
so about five lanes of cars wide if you can
(10:34):
picture that. And there are apartment buildings on either side,
so tons of people in the area. It's a bustling
street scene. And the shooting happened in front of two
h one Linden Boulevard where you lived, across the street
and down the block at number two eighteen.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
So it's about three and afternoon, the weather extremely nice,
the blocks are extremely extremely busy. People are out enjoying
the weather. School is lettin out as I'm approaching my building.
The first blood shot right now, and that's when I
started seeing everybody starting to run, and I ran right
(11:10):
into my building.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
And according to corroborating eyewitness accounts, two men, the victim
in this case, Victor Vulcan, and the shooter got into
an argument. Welcome was shot four or five times, and
then a mail carrier woman named let him and Boten
gave police a description, as did another woman named Paula Edgehill,
who called nine one one and spoke to a dispatcher.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
So you had let him in Bolton, who's the mail carrier?
And the nine one one callers, who described the shooter
as a dark skin five foot eight, short hair let
him in. Boden actually, in a statement to police, described
the shooter as similarly built to the victim in the case.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Now, the victim, Victor Vulcan, was one hundred and sixty
eight pounds, so the nine one one caller and Boten's
accounts corroborated each other. Now, Gary, what did you look
like at this time?
Speaker 2 (12:01):
I was about six three, two forty years and I
had a very large afro and I'm light skinned.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
No one describes the afro. That's the other major major issue.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
I mean, was this like a close cropped afro? How
much volume are we talking about here?
Speaker 2 (12:18):
It would have to be roughly sixty seven inches.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Okay, so that's a remarkable haird Like, I mean, people
aren't going to miss a seven inch i afro. But unfortunately,
this giant discrepancy didn't seem to matter to Anthony Holder
or the detectives, and later didn't matter either to the
prosecutor in the case. So what did Anthony Holder's statement
to police say? This alternate version of events.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
And Anthony Holder says that Chucky is talking to some girls. Uh,
they say, get at him, Chucky. Nobody else describes this,
by the way. Then he says that Chucky began to
argue with this guy and pulls a gun out of
a bag and then shoots the guy. And Anthony Holder
(13:06):
he doesn't describe Gary at all, and he never gives
a description.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
See.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
All he does, Anthony Holder is drop a nickname, and
the police know the nickname because they're familiar with Gary.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
And we're not even sure who brought up the nickname first.
Perhaps Anthony Holder decided to trade information false information. Let's
call it what it is about a neighborhood guy who
he didn't really like in exchange for leniency and his
pending charges, or the lead detectives who knew Gary from
both previous incidents when he was an assault victim who
refused to snitch and then the robbery. Now, of course
(13:40):
I'm referring to detectives Robert Reedy and John mcgerrin.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
It was recently going over the DD fives I've come
across John mcgurn's DD five. He says that he was
at two eighteen Lyndon Boulevard when he receives information that
the shooter is God by the name of Chuckles. Only
(14:04):
people that use the name Chuckles is people that went
to elementary school with me. Anthony Holden never said Chuckles.
Anthony Holder says Chucky. So before John mcgurnan we see
any information in regards to the shooter, he was already
(14:26):
at two eighteen the shooting apthem at two o one
Lend Him Boulevard. We have nine to one one calls
police reports that says the shooter ran into one eighty
Lend Him Boulevard. It was never a police call to
respond to two eighteen. Why are you at two eighteen.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Right, the nine one one call said one eighty Linden Boulevard.
But mcgoerrin went straight to your building and claimed to
hear that the assailant was named Chuckles, your original nickname
that had evolved into Chucky over time.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Exactly. Mc gurn's already knew who I was, the same
way detective really already knew who I was.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
So this isn't definitive proof, but it certainly looks like
they were immediately directing the investigation towards you without cause
either way, your nickname was now part of this investigation.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
And then they take this and they and they run
with it, and they put a photo array together very
soon after the shooting. And why the photo array was
really important is because the picture of Gary is of
when he was I believe eighteen years old. By the
(15:40):
time he was twenty one, he was much heavier than
he was when he was eighteen. He didn't even look
like the same person, and he had short hair when
he was eighteen.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Oh right, So they showed this misleading photo array with
an eighteen year old, slimmer looking Gary importantly with no
afro but short hair instead. Right, as the witnesses that
initially described the assailant, I mean it's so dirty, it's amazing.
And the mail carrier let him in boten. Looking at
(16:11):
this old photograph, dave a tepid identification, right, and the
incentivized alleged witness, Anthony Holder, gave an idea as well. Now,
Anthony Holder also allegedly told him that the shooter had
a black duffelback. No other witnesses reported seeing this, and
in the continued effort to get to Gary, investigators put
(16:32):
pressure on a guy from your building, guy named Roger Isaac,
who at about five eight, dark skinned with short hair,
better match the description of the shooter, and so he
was snatched up shortly after the shooting.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Roger Isaac, I feel the phone, I really do. He's
oblivious to what's going on. They jump out on him
and say he's being arrested with the murder. They bring
him down to the stage in his DD five. He
saw me come into the building, go a bag into
department and come right back out.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
So now they have someone corroborating Holder about you and
the alleged black bag. And then Roger Isaac allegedly described
you as five foot eight two hundred pounds, but again,
you're over six foot three and at least two hundred
and forty at the time, and he said nothing about
your impressive afro, which is very telling because the only
(17:27):
picture that Detextas McGurrin and Reedy had at that time
was from when you were eighteen years old. It looks
like they still thought that you were under two hundred
pounds was short hair. So they brought Roger Isaac down
to the precinct where he allegedly made this statement implicating
you carrying this non existent black Duffel bag. And we're
getting ahead of ourselves here, but at trial, this alleged
(17:49):
statement from the D five unravels for the prosecution exactly.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
At trial, Assistant dish Attorney Kyle Reeves is trying to
have Roger Isaac testify that he saw me run into
the building go back into the barment, so he gives
them the DD five, and that's when the cat is
that at the bat he did the DD five. He said,
I don't recall saying none of this. He says that
(18:16):
he was in a cell and that the police roughed
them up, assaulted mister Roger Isaac.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
It sounds like they might have just written that statement
up just for him to sign.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
There is no signature. This is typed up, and then
you have the officer's signature. So there's no Roger Isaac
right in and saying I dually swear of this being authentic.
There's none of that.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
So this sham statement in Roger Isaacs DD five blew
up in Kyle reaves his face at trial. But in
the immediate aftermath of the crime, this same DD five
corroborated Anthony Holder. They had already tricked led him in
voting into making the ID with that phony baloney photo array.
So now they're closing in on you, but you didn't
even know it. So let's go back to the immediate
(18:59):
after math. Shots rang out, you got to safety, and
after things calmed down, you went out to handle a
few errands before your three month old son and his
mother arrived later on from Queen's. Now, at that time,
you had gone to a friends in Bushwick when a
neighborhood friend paged you to tell you that the police
had raided your apartment.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
He said, Yo, the police just went into your apartment.
So I called my mother. When she goes home, the
police are still there. They asked her to sign a
consent for him to search. They already searched her ready,
so now they're using her consent to cover your eyes.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
So the police I legally searched your apartment looking for
this alleged black double bag, but they came up empty,
and they got your mom to give consent to the
search after the fact.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
So at this time, again, I'm not even aware that
someone even died. It wasn't until they I speak to
my mother, she said. Detective really gave her his card
for me to call. He said, a guy was shot
and killed and they're looking to speak to me about it.
I have none to high, so I called them. He said,
(20:12):
people are saying that you killed this guy. I said
it to him, I don't know what you're talking about.
I've just had a son. I have no reason to
be out killing anybody. He said, well, you know, let's
meet up somewhere. I said, that's not happening. I am
not comfortable meeting you guys, and you talking about y'all
(20:33):
looking for me because somebody got killed. He said, oh,
you know, just get me call you change in mind.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
And this is right after nine to eleven. So the
police had all these sweeping new powers from the Patriot Act,
and they triangulated your position from the cell signal and
found you over at your friends in Bushwick. But what's
weird is that they're looking for the old version of you, right,
They're looking for the eighteen year old, slimmer, short haired
(21:02):
Gary from the photo array, not the fully grown out,
much heavier, twenty one year old Gary with a seven
inch high afro who looks nothing close to the Eyewinness descriptions.
So both you and the police are confused. Now can
you describe what happened during your arrest.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
It's like one of those scenes in almost like a
die Hard movie. The whole block is just filled with,
you know, squad cars and police officers and police officers
on the rules and the helicopters. As they were going
in to the building, I was coming out, right, I'm
(21:40):
not knowing they're coming for me. All right, I'm going
to the store and hit all these police officers. I
look at them, they look at me. I'll go and
I walk to the store, not running. Walking. As I'm
in the store, the door opened and then a head
pokes in. He said, hey, did you just come from
(22:02):
and he recites to build a number, and I said yes.
He asked me what my name is, and I tell
him my name is Guy Bella. He said, I can
you can fase put your hands behind your back. So
again I adn't say, Oh, my name is George Jeffrey Calvin.
So I'm not evading being identified. Does this sound like
(22:24):
the actions of a guilty man.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Of course not. But it's crazy because you didn't think
they were even there for you, and they thought they
were looking for a guy who could potentially fit the description.
But as we see here in your case, the description
really didn't matter to them. They just move forward anyway.
So you're arrested. Detective Reedy questioned you. You told him
(22:46):
what you're telling us here today, that you had absolutely
nothing to do with it, and then they put you
in a lineup.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
But that lineup was was conducted by Robert Reedy, and
Robert Reedy at least one time a couple of years
after this case admitted to essentially taining a lineup in
a photo right, and the case was thrown out on
that basis. So Robert Reedy knew who Gary was, and
he violated best practices. He shouldn't have been involved with
(23:14):
the lineup at all, but he was.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
So they take me out of the cell and now
I'm going to go for this lineup. They took the
clothes I was wearing, gave me something else to put on,
and then they told me to put on a shower
cap to hide my ear. And that's when I started O.
I said, hell no, I said, oh, what's I doing?
(23:36):
And I looked at Ready and I said, Ridio, you
ain't right, and he just like held down his head.
At that time, I already knew what they was doing,
that they was dressing me up to fit the description
of this person that they're looking for. They gave me
a jacket. I'm like, hold on, this is not my clothes. Oh,
(23:57):
you gotta put it on. And then if it hidden
my here, by what reason would you have to hide
my hear?
Speaker 1 (24:18):
This episode is underwritten by AIG, a leading global insurance company.
AIG is committed to corporate social responsibility and is making
a positive difference in the lives of its employees and
in the communities where we work and live. In light
of the compelling need for pro bono legal assistance, and
in recognition of AIG's commitment to criminal and social justice reform.
(24:39):
The AIG pro Bono program provides free legal services and
other support to underrepresented communities and individuals. So they corrupted
that lineup, and ultimately both Anthony Holder big surprise, and
then the mail carrier let him in and identified you.
(25:01):
So you spent eighteen long months awaiting trial at Rikers,
away from your family and your baby son. Your lawyer,
Daniel F. Lynch got discovery and the machinations of that
lineup started to become even clearer, confirming what you had feared.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
And I said, I knew it. I knew this is
why they wanted me to change my clothes. They wanted
me to hide my head. These witnesses are saying X,
Y and Z. If this witness says short here, they
cannot put me in the lineup with this large afro,
so they have me hide it. But now the particular
(25:41):
witness let him in. Broughton, I'm gonna pick her first
at the grand jury, and then's questioned and let him
in brought and she stops for a second to say
as if she wasn't sure she picked out the right guy.
So fast forward to two thousand and three. While I'm
at trial, they asked her, did you see the shooter
(26:03):
in the courtroom? Letting mcbiden unequivancies says no. So she
says no at trial and at the grand jury she
wasn't sure. But then at the time of when she's
viewing the lineup, I am presented with this shower cap
that's hide in my ear and with some clothing that's
(26:26):
close enough to what the shooter had on the day
of the crime. Is there any reason why she wouldn't
have picked me out?
Speaker 3 (26:33):
Two witnesses identified Gary in a lineup, and of those
two witnesses, only one of them identify I'm a trial,
which is Anthony Holder.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
So let him in. Bowten was supposed to be a
prosecution witness but ended up working in favor of Gary's defense,
just like Roger Isaac. So at that point, as this
case was crumbling in front of their eyes, all they
had left was Anthony Holder, who ended up being totally unreliable,
and we're going to get to his testimony. But it
doesn't seem like your attorney should have had to work
(27:03):
very hard to discredit hold her with what was available
to him on.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Assistant This attorney kyd Reeve's witness list they had Paula
Edschell that was the witness that I wanted my attorney
to call on my behalf. Her phone call, the nine
one call, as well as her d de fives and
her Affrod David at the sixty seventh Precinct is very
(27:28):
much as fulatory and Crue's third party culpability. The description
that she gave Paula Edshill states that she looked through
her window and she saw the shooter and the shooter
was a medium height, dark skinned male, no afro.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
So that's not me right, But neither the prosecution nor
your attorney called her as a witness. But even without
Paula Edgehill, you still had let him in Voten and
Roger Isaac blow up their part of the state's case.
So all this left is Anthony Holder, who never actually
described the shooter. He just used your nickname Chucky, saying
(28:12):
that some girls were encouraging you to get after him,
meaning Victor Vulcan. And none of those girls ever surfaced,
nor did this alleged black duffle bag. What other holes
should your defense have poked in Holder's testimony?
Speaker 3 (28:25):
The inconsistencies are abound with Anthony Holder. He says, the
guys shot with the thirty eight. Guy's not shot with
the thirty eight. I believe the slugs were consistent with
the twenty five. Forensically, the description that he gives does
not match up to the wounds that the man suffers,
And to be honest with you, I don't really think
(28:45):
anybody gives a very consistent description of what actually happened
because of how fast it happened. We don't know if
Vulcan was standing upright when the first shots ring out right,
but what we do know is that there was stippling
on one of the shots on the chest, which would
(29:07):
indicate that the shooter was very close, within twenty four inches.
Anthony Holder says that the shooter was four feet away.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
So it would have been helpful if these wild inconsistencies
were pointed out to impeach the one the only state's
witness here was in fact their only piece of evidence,
but your attorney was not prepared to do that. However,
your attorney did present one very powerful witness, Augustin Hinkson,
(29:37):
who had called nine to one one and corroborated let
him In Voden and Paula Edgehill's descriptions and versions of events.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Augustin Hinkson states that the shooter and the victim is
same height. The medical examiner at trials stated that if
the volcane sustained a gunshot wound to his chest, is
no vertical for ponderance when asks what can cause that?
(30:05):
Is that whoever shot him with the same height ass him.
So Gustin Hinton is right on that. Now, another part
of his testimony is he states that when the shooting
was going on, that he was ushering some young children
(30:26):
away from the crime. Now, when you get to Anthony Holder,
Anthony Holder is a legend that he was the one
that was ushering his young children away from the crime.
But he goes on to also say that the shooter
(30:46):
also is responsible for shooting one of those young children.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
What I think is important about Holder is there's nothing
about his testimony that's true. The fact that he says
a little girl was at the scene when there's absolutely
no NYPD record of a small younger girl being shot
at the scene. A little girl was not. This is
like if a child was shot at the scene, Gary
(31:15):
been lost to be doing a lot more than twenty
five the life.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
That testimony had never surfaced at any time prior to trial.
That false testimony only came about when assisted. Just as
Attorney Kyle Reeves elicited that false and inflammatory testimony from
(31:40):
Anthony Holder and then later turned around and vouched for
the authenticity of that testimony, he also presented Anthony Holder
as this super righteous citizen of society.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
I mean, not only should his shaky testimony have been
seen through, but also they were hiding some thing, which
was that this guy had a powerful incentive to lie
or to say what the authorities wanted him to say,
which is that he was facing pending charges himself. And
we know that in a lot of these cases where
these eyewitnesses suddenly are able to make an identification, those
(32:18):
charges that they're facing magically go away and they're sort
of making it deal with the devil. Is that what
happened here?
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Yes, absolutely, absolutely he had pending charges, and from our investigation,
those charges are sealed, which means at some point they
were dismissed, but they were pending while he testified. And
interestingly enough, Kyle Reeves, when asked if the man had
(32:44):
any pending charges, said that he'd never been arrested.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Before, so that sounds carefully worded. And why would any
prosecutor lie or mislead the jury about a witness's criminal
history or pending charges if not to hide a potential
deal for leniency. And when Holder's testimony is he only
piece of evidence against you, stacked up against all of
the independent witnesses whose testimony was in favor of Gary's innocence.
(33:06):
Plus Anthony Holder made an unfounded charge that a little
girl had been shot as well. If that's true, then
why wasn't Gary charged with the attempted murder of a child.
It's just it's just hard to see how the jury
could get this so wrong. You had Roger Isaac let
him in voting, and even without Paula Edgehill, you then
(33:29):
had Augustin Hinkson. I mean, was the prosecution able to
say that Hinkson was a friend of Gary's or something
anything to impeach him.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
I think Augustin Hickson was the most reliable person that testified.
Augustin Hinkson's relations to Gary's is just an acquaintance. Hankson
had no dog in the race, I believe. Actually, Hankson
is a nine to one to one caller. That's how
they get to Hankson, Hankson is a real world person
that's there that they know is there from the gate
that gives a statement to them. Hinkson is adamant that
(34:01):
Gary was not there. I don't understand how Gary loses
other than the fact that maybe the jury believed that
he shot a little girl. I don't know. I mean
that a little girl that definitely wasn't a shot.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
There was a miracle that no kids were shot. But
the fact for me is that no kid was shot.
But they just made up this story, and it seems
to me there's at least a good chance that they
were doing that in order to cast this terrible light
on Gary, so that if the jury saw through the
nonsense that they were being fed, they would still say, well,
(34:39):
this guy's a terrible guy because he shot a child.
So even if the evidence is shaky as hell, we're
still going to go ahead and convict him. Am I
am I off base here?
Speaker 3 (34:49):
No? No, not at all. No. I think you're one
hundred percent right. Holder was a terrible witness, but he
was enough, you know, he was enough to sink Gary. Unfortunately,
and that's the problem with the American justice system is
that a single witness like this could actually send a
(35:09):
man in prison for twenty five the life.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Gary was convicted of second agree murder on November twenty,
two thousand and three. So Gary, take us inside the
courtroom and inside your heart and soul at that moment.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
It was unbelievable. It was heartbreaking, it was so shadowing.
My life and my world came to a halt at
that moment. The day I was sentenced, my family has
also been sentenced to twenty five years to life. Yeah,
(35:59):
pretty much gift of everything I was given. You know,
this new identity, the identity that the Department of Correction
wished to know me by. They don't care to know
who Gary Benlass is, and if Gary Benlass is wrongfully convicted,
they don't care about that. I'm known to the Department
(36:20):
of Corrections at zero three eight six four one five.
But I'm here to tell everyone that's not who I
am talking about, a young man who was stripped away
from his family. There's a void in the lives of
my mother or my sister, the mother of my son,
for my grandmother, my uncles, my aunts, my cousins. So
(36:46):
I'm not carrying this sentence alone. There's a void. That's
in the life of my son, who had to grow
up without me there, that had dreams of his father
coming home, but he would never see that because she
had passed away before it actually happened.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
This tragedy, it's almost hard to even process this right,
but I know when I was up visiting you, Gary,
you showed me a letter you had gotten from your son. Now,
your son grew up without his dad through no fault
of yours, a no fault of his own, and yet
you managed to be a good father, a great father
from prison, as good as anyone could be, and he
(37:33):
turned out to be a fantastic kid. I saw a
letter that he wrote to you, that was a letter
that any father would love to get from their child,
where he basically said, I love you and I wish
things were different, but we're going to make up for
lost time when you come home. You're my inspiration, You're
my hero. And that letter, which I could almost not
(37:58):
read knowing what happened next, was just so beautiful and powerful.
And the awful truth is that the day after that
you received that letter, he was killed in a writing
in an uber just a passenger and an uber and
a random hit and run accident. I think we should
really dedicate this episode to his memory.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Yeah, you know, you're talking about a very very very
dull moment, and I had to find first within me strength.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
It's a tremendous weight that I cannot imagine lifting, considering
the weight you had already lifted. Perhaps it's the strength
that you built over all that time leading up to
this even heavier moment.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
And I had to find that light of redemption first
within me to guide me through this perilous place so
I can get to that plat where I can say, listen,
I'm not going to let my time in here go
(39:06):
to ways. I'm not going to allow my wrong for
conviction to stop me from being the man that I'm
supposed to be. I'm going to fight this. I'm going
to win, and I'm also going to make sure that
I'm in position where I can help others.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
And I've read a bit about some of the good
things that you've done with your time on the inside,
the fact I've witnessed some of them in person. I mean,
I've been up there and seen you doing your thing,
making a difference. Can you tell us a little bit
about your work?
Speaker 2 (39:39):
So in two thousand and six, I went and I
actually attained my GED. Now I'm helping other individuals to
achieve their GEDs. I became a facilitator for a cultural
awareness class due to CAU organization, which is a Caribbean
afric community. I've partaked in alternative violence program where you
(40:02):
help to mentor people to find a way to allegate
situations without the needs of violence. Twenty twelve, I was
in the Electrical Trade program. I actually advanced and became
an IT which is called im program assistant, so I
(40:22):
was an assistant to the teacher. So I became a
facilitator and through that also allowed me the opportunity to
gain my apprenticeship through the NCCDER course, where I was
able to take the same type of tests and courses
that a person on the outside would so they could
(40:42):
become electrician. When I came to since immediately signed up
for the Mercy College Hustling program that they have here
where I am actually going for my bachelor's in behavioral Science.
I wasn't allowing my state of mind incarceration to hold
me back, and I was sitting down the stones for
my future and I have a.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Little better No, you have not, and you've brought that
same proactive and incredibly positive spirit to the work that
you've done inside with a group of guys called the
AI Team, the Actual Innocence Team, good name. Longtime listeners
of the show will remember other members of this New
York based crew, two of whom are already out. I'm
(41:24):
talking about Derek Hamilton, Shabaka Shakur, and of course Nelson Cruz,
Danny rin Khan and yourself still remain inside. You also
were friendly with another great friend of the show and
great personal friend of mine, personal hero, I would say,
I'm talking about JJ Velasquez, who is another just incredibly
(41:44):
inspirational man.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Being around these individuals also help to give me a
sense of hope and courage, because now you no longer
feel alone. And we'll go to a law a lot
berries will release church cases and we'll see what we
can find will be able to help us. Oh that right,
(42:06):
there is a batching issue that's a strictly versus Washington issue.
Oh that's the way issue. And that's how I started
to learn the law. Interestingly, you know it's not supposed
to happen, but now you can put legal theory to it.
Now it's more than just going into a court submitting
a piece of paper and saying I didn't do it.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
So you fought your case for a while this way,
and eventually Derek, Shabaka and JJ got out and slowly
but surely you got your case in front of our
friend Justin here. So Justin, what has happened so far
in Gary's post conviction fight and where does his case stand? Now?
Speaker 3 (42:44):
Okay, well, Gary, you know, of course he filed the
direct appeal. And what's very interesting about Gary's direct appeal
is that he's we're saying the same thing that we're
saying now, right, Gary has been consistent since day one.
He filed a motion to vacate his conviction back in
two thousand and two. One of the issues was the
(43:05):
fact that Anthony Holder had a criminal charge that was
pending during the trial that was never disclosed. Actually, Kyle Reeves,
as per usual, I should say, Kyle Reeves, failed to
turn that over and actually indicated that Anthony Holder had
never been arrested before in his life, which was totally untrue.
(43:25):
That just goes along with Kyle Reeves's theme. But as
of right now, you know, we are really reinvestigating the
forensics at the scene and pulling all the files from
the NYPD and the District Attorney's office to prepare for
another four point forty or to go to the conviction
Review Unit, which I do think would be very interested
(43:46):
in this case based upon how unreliable the evidence is
here that convicted Gary and the evidence of innocence. You know, Jason,
I think the biggest thing is what makes a case
like Gary's very strong is the evidence that's in the
possession of the prosecutor. And when you look at that,
including Augustin Hinkson let him in Bolton and then a
(44:09):
nine to one one caller, three people all say that
Gary Binlass is not the shooter here, He's not the
person that killed Victor Vulcan. And I think that that's
overwhelming evidence of innocence in comparison to Anthony Holder. And
that's what we're working on right now is tying that
all together, both forensically and through our investigation and to
(44:30):
see if there's any more Brady evidence out there, because
there was at least one witness that was interviewed that
was friends with Victor Vulcan that stated that Victor Vulcan
had beef with people from his own block. He was
not from the block where he was found murdered at.
So we you know, we are investigating all these claims
before we do anything, but we're evaluating whether we go
(44:51):
forward with another motion to vacate or go to Brooklyn's
Conviction Review Unit.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
Justin what can people do? And I'm sure people are listening,
heartbroken and angry and motivating. So what can people do
to help bring some semblance of justice for Gary?
Speaker 3 (45:06):
I would say start off by reaching out to Ari Gonzales,
Brooklyn DA's office, and also Gary has a change dot
org page, and support the petition and continue to support
people who are like Gary. I think that's the biggest problem.
There needs to be more support from a broader base
in the country, right. It has to be more than
(45:27):
just the people that have been affected by wrongful convictions.
It has to be people that are just regular, average
American citizens because they need to understand that this could
be you, because it could be you, It could be
your son, it could be your daughter, it could it
could be anybody. It could be you, and people need
to stop acting like that that's.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
Not a fact. We will link in the bio to
the petition and to other information about the case. Please
do click on the link in the bio, sign the
petition and get involved, and will hopefully be able to
publish an update to this episode sometime and then not
too distant future where we get to speak with Gary
from the outside. And now, of course it's time to
(46:09):
turn to the closing of our show, which everyone knows
is called closing arguments, and this is where I thank
you guys again. I'm going to turn it over to
you first, justin for your thoughts, any other thoughts you
want to share, and then of course hand off to
Gary and he'll take us off into the sunset.
Speaker 3 (46:28):
The first thing that we really need to consider in
this case is because it happens over and over and
over again in identification cases, is where there's a description
that does not match the person that they end up arrestling. Obviously,
common sense says that the suspect should match the description
(46:49):
that the witnesses say was the perpetrator, and Gary's case
is very typical, especially in a place like New York City,
where the police don't care. They just don't care. They
get a name, they focus on the name. They don't
care that the person that is this name doesn't match
the description of the perpetrator given by the witnesses. That
(47:12):
just goes right out the window. People don't think that
that's true. But Gary is evident to that. And I
can tell you as an attorney that practices in New
York City every day, that that happens all the time,
and it still happens in twenty twenty two. And Gary
is a he's a spot on case of where the
police didn't care. And the police didn't care because they
knew his name, they knew who he was. They focused
(47:34):
in on him. They put him in a photo array
with a photo that didn't match anything that looked like him.
It matched more the description of what the witnesses said
the perpetrator looked like. And what I mean by that
is obviously a photo array. All you really have is
the head. The person had short hair in the photo ray, right,
so that at least matched more the description of the perpetrator.
(47:56):
They went and they arrested Gary. Then they put him
in a lineup where he looks nothing like he looked
in the photo all right, And Robert Reedy is the
one that handles the identification and the witnesses somehow identify
him in the lineup. The person that's running these procedures
should not be involved with the investigation and they should
not know who the subject is. And Robert Reedy has
(48:18):
done this before, He's gotten called out, cases have been
thrown out because he suggested and tainted identification procedures. And
then who does Robert Reedy hand the case off to
Kyle Reeves, who's framed numerous men, scumback of the highest order.
And people need to understand what is the DA's job.
(48:40):
The DA's job is to vet the police's investigation. Kyle
Reeves doesn't vet an investigation. He takes the investigation and
he fixes it. He does the opposite of what you're
supposed to do. And even in the face of descriptions
of a perpetrator that are eighty pounds less, yes, and
(49:02):
half a foot shorter than Gary ben Lost and having
a haircut that doesn't match the afro that Gary Ben Los, says,
there's nothing about the shooter in this case that matches
the description of Gary ben Lost. Kyle Reeves still takes
this to trial. He puts let him in Bolton on
the stand. She stands up in courtiess and you see
(49:22):
the guy that shot the victim, Victor Vulcan here. She
says no. She says no, her testimony matches her initial
description of the shoe, which it was not gary Ben Lost.
That's a non identification. He puts Anthony Holder on the
witness stand. Anthony Holder gives a ridiculous testimony that is
(49:42):
not consistent at all with the evidence at the scene,
not consistent at all with the other witnesses at the scene.
Says that a little girl was shot at the scene.
There is no NYPD record of a little girl being shot.
And let me tell you, if a little if a
child was shot at the scene, Gary bin Loss to
be doing a lot more than twenty five to life, Okay,
(50:02):
he would be, and there would be absolutely police reports
indicating that medical reports indicating there wasn't. Anthony Holder completely lies.
There's not one shred of his testimony that is true.
And then another witness comes in and says that it
wasn't Gary Ben Lost. That the defense calls. But what
(50:24):
the defense failed to do here, which they often do,
is they failed to put on the nine to one
one caller that described the shooter as five foot eight,
dark skin with short hair the defense failed to cross
examine let him in Bolton, even though she said that
Gary ben Lost wasn't the person that she saw fying
(50:45):
the weapon that day. The jury never heard the description
of let him in Bolten, that the shooter matched the
description and body type of the victim, who was five
foot ten, one hundred and sixty eight pounds. That could
have defiedly proved to the jury. It would have overridden
the terrible testimony of Anthony Holder. I don't even really
(51:07):
need to do a reinvestigation here. It's clear Gary is innocent.
He's been in jail for over twenty years at this point.
It's a travesty of justice. But it's all too often
of a story, especially in a place like New York City.
Eyewitness identification is a real problem in New York City.
It's all too often of a story. And it is
(51:29):
just tragic with Gary because he should have never been arrested,
should have never been charged, and he was just railroaded.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
The traumatic and irreparable effects of wrongful conviction just don't
affect those wrongfully convicted. It also impacts the lives of
their families, their communities, and the fabric of our nation.
Jay that explain what I mean. I will let you
share this letter with you all. It was written by
my beloved son, Isaiah Benlos, who was seventeen years old
(52:01):
at the time. It reads, Dear Sir Madam, I'm writing
on behalf of my father, Gary Benloss. When I was
a baby, I never really got the chance to spend
time in bond with my father until I got older.
This situation really got to me while I was growing
up without him. He wasn't there when I first picked
(52:24):
up a basketball and when I first rode a bike. Also,
he wasn't there when I graduated elementary and middle school.
All I wish is for me and him to go
out and bond with each other. Even though he wasn't
there for my elementary and middle school years. I hope
he can be there when I graduated from high school
(52:46):
in twenty twenty. I hope whoever is reading this you
find it in your heart to give my father early parole.
Please thank you in advance Toceili Isaiah Benloss. That was
written in April twenty second of twenty nineteen. And as
(53:07):
you see, I'm still in prison, so he never got
that wish for me to be there for his graduation
in June of twenty twenty. The month following his graduation,
he sent me a card for my birthday and it reads,
happy birthday to the real O Gi. I just want
(53:29):
to say thank you for being real with me, believing
in me when no one did, still being real and
never switching up and sticking it through even in these
hard times. I know you can't be out here with
me and wishing things could have been different, but I
always reminded myself and never regret what I have, because
(53:50):
then I wouldn't have you and my amazing girlfriend and
family that I love Daaling, I appreciate and love you
that Hopefully when you get out we can make up
for lost times. I love your pops can sell your
son Isaiah ben laws again those wishes would never be manifested.
(54:16):
But just a day after receiving this card from my son,
he was in a tragic car accident that later claimed
his life. So as I leave your law here with
these final thoughts. As I studied before, the state of
wrong for conviction doesn't just impact those wrongful convicted, it
(54:38):
also affects the families.
Speaker 1 (54:43):
Thank you, Thank you for listening to Ropel conviction. I'd
like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Cliburn,
and Kevin Wardis, with research by Lylah Robinson. The music
in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
(55:04):
composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram
at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and
on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava
for Good. On all three platforms, you can also follow
me on both TikTok and Instagram at it's Jason Flamm.
Wrongful Conviction is the production of Lava for Good podcast
(55:25):
and association with Signal Company Number one
Since we first covered the case of Gary ben Loss
back in October of twenty twenty two, there have been
some really exciting developments. Together with Gary's legal team and
other advocates, we've been able to convince the Brooklyn DA's
office to ask a judge to resence him from twenty
five to life to twenty two to life, making him
immediately eligible for parole. And they did this on the
(00:28):
grounds of compassion, his amazing track record in prison, various
advanced degrees, you being a leader in the Choices program,
honor Block, literally an absolute star, and they acknowledged that
Gary doesn't represent a threat to society. He never did,
so the whole team remains committed to clearing his name.
(00:52):
But in the meantime, Gary was released yesterday, November twenty
twenty four, and it was beautiful about damn time.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Luck.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
That feeling never gets old. So Gary, best of luck
as you continue to fight to clear your name. And
now please check out our original coverage of the insane
case of Gary ben Loss. On April tenth, two thousand
and two, on Lynden Boulevard in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn,
(01:29):
a man named Victor Vulcan was shot and killed in
broad daylight just after school had let out. Fortunately, no
one else was heard as people ran to their buildings
for cover, including a young father named Gary ben Loss
who had had prior run ins with the police. Nine
one one callers and eyewitnesses described the shooter with short hair,
dark skin, and a similar build to the victim, who
(01:50):
was five ten and one hundred and sixty eight pounds. However,
one allegend witness, Anthony Holder, who did not give a
description of the shooter, set among other falsehoods, that the
saleen's nickname was Chucky. Gary Benloss was known as Chucky,
but he was over six three and two hundred and
fifty pounds with a seven inch high afro. A photo
of a much younger and slimmer Gary with short hair
(02:13):
was put into a photo array, eliciting and identification from
Anthony Holder and one other witness. However, once that other
witness saw Gary a trial, she too joined all the
other witnesses in denying Gary's involvement. Holders pending charges for
which it is believed that he received leniency in exchange
for cooperation, were hidden by the state, and somehow the
(02:34):
jury believed his bizarre testimony that included a non existent
second victim, sending Gary away for twenty five to life.
This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to awful conviction. Today,
(03:01):
we have a Brooklyn case dating back to two thousand
and two in which several witnesses described a gunman that
looked wildly different from our guest today, Gary Benloss, a
guy that I came to know through my friendship with
a previous guest on our show, John Asia Velasquez. Now
Gary is joining us from sing Sing, and I'm glad
you're here with us, even though i hate the reason
(03:22):
why you're here. But Gary, welcome to the show. Thank you,
You're very welcome. And with him is a man whose
voice you'll probably recognize from other appearances here with us,
where he's been advocating for Nelson Cruz, Marcus Wiggins, Vincent Simmons,
and so many more. Justin bonus, welcome back.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
It's great to be back on the show for Shiit all.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Right, So Gary, before we get into the reason why
we're here today, can you tell us a little bit
about your life growing up.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
I was born July twenty sixth, nineteen eighty to a
proud single mother who migrated from the rural country area
of Jamaica, West Indies, moved to America where she resided
in Flatbush, Brooklyn.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
And your nickname was Chucky, right, how I mean, where
does that come from?
Speaker 2 (04:06):
At the age of nine, I received the nickname Chuckles.
Being poor no farther around at school, kids could be
very cruel, So as a defense mechanism, I was one
of those kids who used to always like to joke
and laugh. That's how I got the moniker Chuckles. Always
(04:28):
had people laughing, always.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Joking, and that nickname ended up playing a part in
your wrongful conviction. But before all of that, in the
summer of nineteen ninety six, you had your first encounter
with one of the detectives on this case. Robert Reedy.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
He knows me because on my fifteenth birthday I was
jump assaulted and hospitalized. He was actually the detective on
the case, and he wanted not just for me, you know,
to snitch on the guys that hospitalized me, but he
wanted me to become a neighborhood snatch. So the case
(05:03):
against those who are saw to me never went to
court and I never became this niche for a detective reading,
I said, it's.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Not happening, right, So you refused to help Ready, and
then the following spring you ran into some more trouble,
but this time you were the assailant.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
At the age of sixteen March of nineteen ninety seven,
I made a very foolish mistake, but I'm not proud.
It was a lesson that I needed to learn. So,
because of growing up being poor, I followed a friend
of mine into a pizzeria to rob the pizzeria. I
took full responsibility, and I cocked out to one to
(05:46):
three years, right. And I've been haunted by the NYPD
ever since.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
And I'd like the audience to take note here when
guilty people usually take plea deals it makes sense. I mean, hell,
even innocent people take plead deals if it makes more sense,
which it often does than fighting the charges, like our
friend Dieter te Hata. So you did a few years
as a juvenile in a men's prison, paid your debt
to society, and after your release, you moved back in
(06:15):
with your mother at two eighteen Linden Boulevard and Flat Push,
where you remained on the NYPD's radar leading up to
this crime. In two thousand and two. But before we
get into all those details, justin we've seen this kind
of thing before more than once, where the cops just
grab a guy with a record, whether they did a
crime or not. And as our listeners will surely recognize, Brooklyn,
(06:39):
especially in the eighties, nineties and into the two thousands,
was fraught with wrongful conviction cases and issues like I
wouldn't smits. Identification coerced and incentifies witnesses who made misidentifications,
sometimes knowingly by the way, and of course crazily corrupted
identification procedures. And in this case we have all those factors.
(07:01):
And at the helm of the investigation we had detectives
Robert Reedy and John mcgerrin, as well as King's County
assistant DA Kyle Reeves. And I feel like I've heard
his name before, Kyle Reeves, right.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Yes, absolutely, Jabbar Washington. I believe Jabar was exonerated in
twenty eighteen. Kyle Reeves in that case had withheld Brady evidence,
put witnesses on the stand that testified falsely. Then Reeves
pushed forward with prosecuting someone for murder. I believe it
was a fight of some sort, and it turned out
(07:33):
that the mother of the victim actually sued the hospital
for medical malpractice wrongful death that the hospital caused the death.
I know that he had some issues. He left the
DA's office in Brooklyn and he went to Staten Island,
and I know he had some issues in Staten Island
with witnesses and then left. And now he's in private practice.
(07:54):
So he has a history of prosecuting cases that he
shouldn't and two not turning over exculpatory material.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
I mean, I'd like to point out prior misconduct just
to give the audience an idea of who we were
dealing with. But to be fair, Reeves doesn't really sound
like an outlier. Knowingly prosecuting innocent people and heidek exculpatory
evidence to make it stick. Sounds like the usual playbook
in New York.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
It's a little different because it's a lot harder to
catch them, and he's been caught. New York is different
in that there's usually no forensic investigation, no paper right,
no paper trail, whereas a lot of other places there's
a lot of paper here. These are very short, choppy statements.
The police don't write as much down, and then prosecutors
(08:39):
even when the case falls apart, they are able to
hang their hat on somebody like Anthony Holder, who's the
only witness that testified at trial, A Garribbin Lost committed
this murder.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
And we're going to talk a lot more about this
alleged eyewitness, Anthony Holder. And I say alleged because his
description of the crime conflicted with both real and with
every other eyewitness. All of them corroborated each other, and
none of them described or ultimately identified Gary in person. Now,
(09:10):
Anthony Holder was a building super right who were intended
on Gary's block, and he's the guy who's credited with
throwing Gary's nickname Chucky to the cops right into the
mix after the crime. Gary, did you know this guy Holder?
Speaker 2 (09:24):
So Anthony Holder is the super of I believe two
of the buildings on land them Boulevard across the street
from mine. So I didn't live there, but my friends did,
so I'm visiting them. Anthony Holder never used to like
when my friends and I will hang out on the stool,
So in the courtyards of the building, it wasn't like
(09:47):
we was closing a disruption, being disrespectful.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Okay, So he didn't like you, but he didn't have
a real beef with you, but maybe he didn't care
if he used you to stay at a prison. That's
what it seems like to me. As it becomes clear
much later, holder had some pending charges for which he
likely received leniency for his testimony in this case, but
a trial, that deal was when you've heard this before,
(10:12):
that deal was hidden by Assistant DA Kyle Reeves. And
now here we are, so let's get to the climate itself.
This was April tenth, two thousand and two, a sunny
spring day, on Linden Boulevard in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Now this
is a broad street with an east and westbound side,
a turning lane down the middle street, parking on either side,
so about five lanes of cars wide if you can
(10:34):
picture that. And there are apartment buildings on either side,
so tons of people in the area. It's a bustling
street scene. And the shooting happened in front of two
h one Linden Boulevard where you lived, across the street
and down the block at number two eighteen.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
So it's about three and afternoon, the weather extremely nice,
the blocks are extremely extremely busy. People are out enjoying
the weather. School is lettin out as I'm approaching my building.
The first blood shot right now, and that's when I
started seeing everybody starting to run, and I ran right
(11:10):
into my building.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
And according to corroborating eyewitness accounts, two men, the victim
in this case, Victor Vulcan, and the shooter got into
an argument. Welcome was shot four or five times, and
then a mail carrier woman named let him and Boten
gave police a description, as did another woman named Paula Edgehill,
who called nine one one and spoke to a dispatcher.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
So you had let him in Bolton, who's the mail carrier?
And the nine one one callers, who described the shooter
as a dark skin five foot eight, short hair let
him in. Boden actually, in a statement to police, described
the shooter as similarly built to the victim in the case.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Now, the victim, Victor Vulcan, was one hundred and sixty
eight pounds, so the nine one one caller and Boten's
accounts corroborated each other. Now, Gary, what did you look
like at this time?
Speaker 2 (12:01):
I was about six three, two forty years and I
had a very large afro and I'm light skinned.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
No one describes the afro. That's the other major major issue.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
I mean, was this like a close cropped afro? How
much volume are we talking about here?
Speaker 2 (12:18):
It would have to be roughly sixty seven inches.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Okay, so that's a remarkable haird Like, I mean, people
aren't going to miss a seven inch i afro. But unfortunately,
this giant discrepancy didn't seem to matter to Anthony Holder
or the detectives, and later didn't matter either to the
prosecutor in the case. So what did Anthony Holder's statement
to police say? This alternate version of events.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
And Anthony Holder says that Chucky is talking to some girls. Uh,
they say, get at him, Chucky. Nobody else describes this,
by the way. Then he says that Chucky began to
argue with this guy and pulls a gun out of
a bag and then shoots the guy. And Anthony Holder
(13:06):
he doesn't describe Gary at all, and he never gives
a description.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
See.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
All he does, Anthony Holder is drop a nickname, and
the police know the nickname because they're familiar with Gary.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
And we're not even sure who brought up the nickname first.
Perhaps Anthony Holder decided to trade information false information. Let's
call it what it is about a neighborhood guy who
he didn't really like in exchange for leniency and his
pending charges, or the lead detectives who knew Gary from
both previous incidents when he was an assault victim who
refused to snitch and then the robbery. Now, of course
(13:40):
I'm referring to detectives Robert Reedy and John mcgerrin.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
It was recently going over the DD fives I've come
across John mcgurn's DD five. He says that he was
at two eighteen Lyndon Boulevard when he receives information that
the shooter is God by the name of Chuckles. Only
(14:04):
people that use the name Chuckles is people that went
to elementary school with me. Anthony Holden never said Chuckles.
Anthony Holder says Chucky. So before John mcgurnan we see
any information in regards to the shooter, he was already
(14:26):
at two eighteen the shooting apthem at two o one
Lend Him Boulevard. We have nine to one one calls
police reports that says the shooter ran into one eighty
Lend Him Boulevard. It was never a police call to
respond to two eighteen. Why are you at two eighteen.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Right, the nine one one call said one eighty Linden Boulevard.
But mcgoerrin went straight to your building and claimed to
hear that the assailant was named Chuckles, your original nickname
that had evolved into Chucky over time.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Exactly. Mc gurn's already knew who I was, the same
way detective really already knew who I was.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
So this isn't definitive proof, but it certainly looks like
they were immediately directing the investigation towards you without cause
either way, your nickname was now part of this investigation.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
And then they take this and they and they run
with it, and they put a photo array together very
soon after the shooting. And why the photo array was
really important is because the picture of Gary is of
when he was I believe eighteen years old. By the
(15:40):
time he was twenty one, he was much heavier than
he was when he was eighteen. He didn't even look
like the same person, and he had short hair when
he was eighteen.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Oh right, So they showed this misleading photo array with
an eighteen year old, slimmer looking Gary importantly with no
afro but short hair instead. Right, as the witnesses that
initially described the assailant, I mean it's so dirty, it's amazing.
And the mail carrier let him in boten. Looking at
(16:11):
this old photograph, dave a tepid identification, right, and the
incentivized alleged witness, Anthony Holder, gave an idea as well. Now,
Anthony Holder also allegedly told him that the shooter had
a black duffelback. No other witnesses reported seeing this, and
in the continued effort to get to Gary, investigators put
(16:32):
pressure on a guy from your building, guy named Roger Isaac,
who at about five eight, dark skinned with short hair,
better match the description of the shooter, and so he
was snatched up shortly after the shooting.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Roger Isaac, I feel the phone, I really do. He's
oblivious to what's going on. They jump out on him
and say he's being arrested with the murder. They bring
him down to the stage in his DD five. He
saw me come into the building, go a bag into
department and come right back out.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
So now they have someone corroborating Holder about you and
the alleged black bag. And then Roger Isaac allegedly described
you as five foot eight two hundred pounds, but again,
you're over six foot three and at least two hundred
and forty at the time, and he said nothing about
your impressive afro, which is very telling because the only
(17:27):
picture that Detextas McGurrin and Reedy had at that time
was from when you were eighteen years old. It looks
like they still thought that you were under two hundred
pounds was short hair. So they brought Roger Isaac down
to the precinct where he allegedly made this statement implicating
you carrying this non existent black Duffel bag. And we're
getting ahead of ourselves here, but at trial, this alleged
(17:49):
statement from the D five unravels for the prosecution exactly.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
At trial, Assistant dish Attorney Kyle Reeves is trying to
have Roger Isaac testify that he saw me run into
the building go back into the barment, so he gives
them the DD five, and that's when the cat is
that at the bat he did the DD five. He said,
I don't recall saying none of this. He says that
(18:16):
he was in a cell and that the police roughed
them up, assaulted mister Roger Isaac.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
It sounds like they might have just written that statement
up just for him to sign.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
There is no signature. This is typed up, and then
you have the officer's signature. So there's no Roger Isaac
right in and saying I dually swear of this being authentic.
There's none of that.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
So this sham statement in Roger Isaacs DD five blew
up in Kyle reaves his face at trial. But in
the immediate aftermath of the crime, this same DD five
corroborated Anthony Holder. They had already tricked led him in
voting into making the ID with that phony baloney photo array.
So now they're closing in on you, but you didn't
even know it. So let's go back to the immediate
(18:59):
after math. Shots rang out, you got to safety, and
after things calmed down, you went out to handle a
few errands before your three month old son and his
mother arrived later on from Queen's. Now, at that time,
you had gone to a friends in Bushwick when a
neighborhood friend paged you to tell you that the police
had raided your apartment.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
He said, Yo, the police just went into your apartment.
So I called my mother. When she goes home, the
police are still there. They asked her to sign a
consent for him to search. They already searched her ready,
so now they're using her consent to cover your eyes.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
So the police I legally searched your apartment looking for
this alleged black double bag, but they came up empty,
and they got your mom to give consent to the
search after the fact.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
So at this time, again, I'm not even aware that
someone even died. It wasn't until they I speak to
my mother, she said. Detective really gave her his card
for me to call. He said, a guy was shot
and killed and they're looking to speak to me about it.
I have none to high, so I called them. He said,
(20:12):
people are saying that you killed this guy. I said
it to him, I don't know what you're talking about.
I've just had a son. I have no reason to
be out killing anybody. He said, well, you know, let's
meet up somewhere. I said, that's not happening. I am
not comfortable meeting you guys, and you talking about y'all
(20:33):
looking for me because somebody got killed. He said, oh,
you know, just get me call you change in mind.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
And this is right after nine to eleven. So the
police had all these sweeping new powers from the Patriot Act,
and they triangulated your position from the cell signal and
found you over at your friends in Bushwick. But what's
weird is that they're looking for the old version of you, right,
They're looking for the eighteen year old, slimmer, short haired
(21:02):
Gary from the photo array, not the fully grown out,
much heavier, twenty one year old Gary with a seven
inch high afro who looks nothing close to the Eyewinness descriptions.
So both you and the police are confused. Now can
you describe what happened during your arrest.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
It's like one of those scenes in almost like a
die Hard movie. The whole block is just filled with,
you know, squad cars and police officers and police officers
on the rules and the helicopters. As they were going
in to the building, I was coming out, right, I'm
(21:40):
not knowing they're coming for me. All right, I'm going
to the store and hit all these police officers. I
look at them, they look at me. I'll go and
I walk to the store, not running. Walking. As I'm
in the store, the door opened and then a head
pokes in. He said, hey, did you just come from
(22:02):
and he recites to build a number, and I said yes.
He asked me what my name is, and I tell
him my name is Guy Bella. He said, I can
you can fase put your hands behind your back. So
again I adn't say, Oh, my name is George Jeffrey Calvin.
So I'm not evading being identified. Does this sound like
(22:24):
the actions of a guilty man.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Of course not. But it's crazy because you didn't think
they were even there for you, and they thought they
were looking for a guy who could potentially fit the description.
But as we see here in your case, the description
really didn't matter to them. They just move forward anyway.
So you're arrested. Detective Reedy questioned you. You told him
(22:46):
what you're telling us here today, that you had absolutely
nothing to do with it, and then they put you
in a lineup.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
But that lineup was was conducted by Robert Reedy, and
Robert Reedy at least one time a couple of years
after this case admitted to essentially taining a lineup in
a photo right, and the case was thrown out on
that basis. So Robert Reedy knew who Gary was, and
he violated best practices. He shouldn't have been involved with
(23:14):
the lineup at all, but he was.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
So they take me out of the cell and now
I'm going to go for this lineup. They took the
clothes I was wearing, gave me something else to put on,
and then they told me to put on a shower
cap to hide my ear. And that's when I started O.
I said, hell no, I said, oh, what's I doing?
(23:36):
And I looked at Ready and I said, Ridio, you
ain't right, and he just like held down his head.
At that time, I already knew what they was doing,
that they was dressing me up to fit the description
of this person that they're looking for. They gave me
a jacket. I'm like, hold on, this is not my clothes. Oh,
(23:57):
you gotta put it on. And then if it hidden
my here, by what reason would you have to hide
my hear?
Speaker 1 (24:18):
This episode is underwritten by AIG, a leading global insurance company.
AIG is committed to corporate social responsibility and is making
a positive difference in the lives of its employees and
in the communities where we work and live. In light
of the compelling need for pro bono legal assistance, and
in recognition of AIG's commitment to criminal and social justice reform.
(24:39):
The AIG pro Bono program provides free legal services and
other support to underrepresented communities and individuals. So they corrupted
that lineup, and ultimately both Anthony Holder big surprise, and
then the mail carrier let him in and identified you.
(25:01):
So you spent eighteen long months awaiting trial at Rikers,
away from your family and your baby son. Your lawyer,
Daniel F. Lynch got discovery and the machinations of that
lineup started to become even clearer, confirming what you had feared.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
And I said, I knew it. I knew this is
why they wanted me to change my clothes. They wanted
me to hide my head. These witnesses are saying X,
Y and Z. If this witness says short here, they
cannot put me in the lineup with this large afro,
so they have me hide it. But now the particular
(25:41):
witness let him in. Broughton, I'm gonna pick her first
at the grand jury, and then's questioned and let him
in brought and she stops for a second to say
as if she wasn't sure she picked out the right guy.
So fast forward to two thousand and three. While I'm
at trial, they asked her, did you see the shooter
(26:03):
in the courtroom? Letting mcbiden unequivancies says no. So she
says no at trial and at the grand jury she
wasn't sure. But then at the time of when she's
viewing the lineup, I am presented with this shower cap
that's hide in my ear and with some clothing that's
(26:26):
close enough to what the shooter had on the day
of the crime. Is there any reason why she wouldn't
have picked me out?
Speaker 3 (26:33):
Two witnesses identified Gary in a lineup, and of those
two witnesses, only one of them identify I'm a trial,
which is Anthony Holder.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
So let him in. Bowten was supposed to be a
prosecution witness but ended up working in favor of Gary's defense,
just like Roger Isaac. So at that point, as this
case was crumbling in front of their eyes, all they
had left was Anthony Holder, who ended up being totally unreliable,
and we're going to get to his testimony. But it
doesn't seem like your attorney should have had to work
(27:03):
very hard to discredit hold her with what was available
to him on.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Assistant This attorney kyd Reeve's witness list they had Paula
Edschell that was the witness that I wanted my attorney
to call on my behalf. Her phone call, the nine
one call, as well as her d de fives and
her Affrod David at the sixty seventh Precinct is very
(27:28):
much as fulatory and Crue's third party culpability. The description
that she gave Paula Edshill states that she looked through
her window and she saw the shooter and the shooter
was a medium height, dark skinned male, no afro.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
So that's not me right, But neither the prosecution nor
your attorney called her as a witness. But even without
Paula Edgehill, you still had let him in Voten and
Roger Isaac blow up their part of the state's case.
So all this left is Anthony Holder, who never actually
described the shooter. He just used your nickname Chucky, saying
(28:12):
that some girls were encouraging you to get after him,
meaning Victor Vulcan. And none of those girls ever surfaced,
nor did this alleged black duffle bag. What other holes
should your defense have poked in Holder's testimony?
Speaker 3 (28:25):
The inconsistencies are abound with Anthony Holder. He says, the
guys shot with the thirty eight. Guy's not shot with
the thirty eight. I believe the slugs were consistent with
the twenty five. Forensically, the description that he gives does
not match up to the wounds that the man suffers,
And to be honest with you, I don't really think
(28:45):
anybody gives a very consistent description of what actually happened
because of how fast it happened. We don't know if
Vulcan was standing upright when the first shots ring out right,
but what we do know is that there was stippling
on one of the shots on the chest, which would
(29:07):
indicate that the shooter was very close, within twenty four inches.
Anthony Holder says that the shooter was four feet away.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
So it would have been helpful if these wild inconsistencies
were pointed out to impeach the one the only state's
witness here was in fact their only piece of evidence,
but your attorney was not prepared to do that. However,
your attorney did present one very powerful witness, Augustin Hinkson,
(29:37):
who had called nine to one one and corroborated let
him In Voden and Paula Edgehill's descriptions and versions of events.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Augustin Hinkson states that the shooter and the victim is
same height. The medical examiner at trials stated that if
the volcane sustained a gunshot wound to his chest, is
no vertical for ponderance when asks what can cause that?
(30:05):
Is that whoever shot him with the same height ass him.
So Gustin Hinton is right on that. Now, another part
of his testimony is he states that when the shooting
was going on, that he was ushering some young children
(30:26):
away from the crime. Now, when you get to Anthony Holder,
Anthony Holder is a legend that he was the one
that was ushering his young children away from the crime.
But he goes on to also say that the shooter
(30:46):
also is responsible for shooting one of those young children.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
What I think is important about Holder is there's nothing
about his testimony that's true. The fact that he says
a little girl was at the scene when there's absolutely
no NYPD record of a small younger girl being shot
at the scene. A little girl was not. This is
like if a child was shot at the scene, Gary
(31:15):
been lost to be doing a lot more than twenty
five the life.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
That testimony had never surfaced at any time prior to trial.
That false testimony only came about when assisted. Just as
Attorney Kyle Reeves elicited that false and inflammatory testimony from
(31:40):
Anthony Holder and then later turned around and vouched for
the authenticity of that testimony, he also presented Anthony Holder
as this super righteous citizen of society.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
I mean, not only should his shaky testimony have been
seen through, but also they were hiding some thing, which
was that this guy had a powerful incentive to lie
or to say what the authorities wanted him to say,
which is that he was facing pending charges himself. And
we know that in a lot of these cases where
these eyewitnesses suddenly are able to make an identification, those
(32:18):
charges that they're facing magically go away and they're sort
of making it deal with the devil. Is that what
happened here?
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Yes, absolutely, absolutely he had pending charges, and from our investigation,
those charges are sealed, which means at some point they
were dismissed, but they were pending while he testified. And
interestingly enough, Kyle Reeves, when asked if the man had
(32:44):
any pending charges, said that he'd never been arrested.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Before, so that sounds carefully worded. And why would any
prosecutor lie or mislead the jury about a witness's criminal
history or pending charges if not to hide a potential
deal for leniency. And when Holder's testimony is he only
piece of evidence against you, stacked up against all of
the independent witnesses whose testimony was in favor of Gary's innocence.
(33:06):
Plus Anthony Holder made an unfounded charge that a little
girl had been shot as well. If that's true, then
why wasn't Gary charged with the attempted murder of a child.
It's just it's just hard to see how the jury
could get this so wrong. You had Roger Isaac let
him in voting, and even without Paula Edgehill, you then
(33:29):
had Augustin Hinkson. I mean, was the prosecution able to
say that Hinkson was a friend of Gary's or something
anything to impeach him.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
I think Augustin Hickson was the most reliable person that testified.
Augustin Hinkson's relations to Gary's is just an acquaintance. Hankson
had no dog in the race, I believe. Actually, Hankson
is a nine to one to one caller. That's how
they get to Hankson, Hankson is a real world person
that's there that they know is there from the gate
that gives a statement to them. Hinkson is adamant that
(34:01):
Gary was not there. I don't understand how Gary loses
other than the fact that maybe the jury believed that
he shot a little girl. I don't know. I mean
that a little girl that definitely wasn't a shot.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
There was a miracle that no kids were shot. But
the fact for me is that no kid was shot.
But they just made up this story, and it seems
to me there's at least a good chance that they
were doing that in order to cast this terrible light
on Gary, so that if the jury saw through the
nonsense that they were being fed, they would still say, well,
(34:39):
this guy's a terrible guy because he shot a child.
So even if the evidence is shaky as hell, we're
still going to go ahead and convict him. Am I
am I off base here?
Speaker 3 (34:49):
No? No, not at all. No. I think you're one
hundred percent right. Holder was a terrible witness, but he
was enough, you know, he was enough to sink Gary. Unfortunately,
and that's the problem with the American justice system is
that a single witness like this could actually send a
(35:09):
man in prison for twenty five the life.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Gary was convicted of second agree murder on November twenty,
two thousand and three. So Gary, take us inside the
courtroom and inside your heart and soul at that moment.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
It was unbelievable. It was heartbreaking, it was so shadowing.
My life and my world came to a halt at
that moment. The day I was sentenced, my family has
also been sentenced to twenty five years to life. Yeah,
(35:59):
pretty much gift of everything I was given. You know,
this new identity, the identity that the Department of Correction
wished to know me by. They don't care to know
who Gary Benlass is, and if Gary Benlass is wrongfully convicted,
they don't care about that. I'm known to the Department
(36:20):
of Corrections at zero three eight six four one five.
But I'm here to tell everyone that's not who I
am talking about, a young man who was stripped away
from his family. There's a void in the lives of
my mother or my sister, the mother of my son,
for my grandmother, my uncles, my aunts, my cousins. So
(36:46):
I'm not carrying this sentence alone. There's a void. That's
in the life of my son, who had to grow
up without me there, that had dreams of his father
coming home, but he would never see that because she
had passed away before it actually happened.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
This tragedy, it's almost hard to even process this right,
but I know when I was up visiting you, Gary,
you showed me a letter you had gotten from your son. Now,
your son grew up without his dad through no fault
of yours, a no fault of his own, and yet
you managed to be a good father, a great father
from prison, as good as anyone could be, and he
(37:33):
turned out to be a fantastic kid. I saw a
letter that he wrote to you, that was a letter
that any father would love to get from their child,
where he basically said, I love you and I wish
things were different, but we're going to make up for
lost time when you come home. You're my inspiration, You're
my hero. And that letter, which I could almost not
(37:58):
read knowing what happened next, was just so beautiful and powerful.
And the awful truth is that the day after that
you received that letter, he was killed in a writing
in an uber just a passenger and an uber and
a random hit and run accident. I think we should
really dedicate this episode to his memory.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Yeah, you know, you're talking about a very very very
dull moment, and I had to find first within me strength.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
It's a tremendous weight that I cannot imagine lifting, considering
the weight you had already lifted. Perhaps it's the strength
that you built over all that time leading up to
this even heavier moment.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
And I had to find that light of redemption first
within me to guide me through this perilous place so
I can get to that plat where I can say, listen,
I'm not going to let my time in here go
(39:06):
to ways. I'm not going to allow my wrong for
conviction to stop me from being the man that I'm
supposed to be. I'm going to fight this. I'm going
to win, and I'm also going to make sure that
I'm in position where I can help others.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
And I've read a bit about some of the good
things that you've done with your time on the inside,
the fact I've witnessed some of them in person. I mean,
I've been up there and seen you doing your thing,
making a difference. Can you tell us a little bit
about your work?
Speaker 2 (39:39):
So in two thousand and six, I went and I
actually attained my GED. Now I'm helping other individuals to
achieve their GEDs. I became a facilitator for a cultural
awareness class due to CAU organization, which is a Caribbean
afric community. I've partaked in alternative violence program where you
(40:02):
help to mentor people to find a way to allegate
situations without the needs of violence. Twenty twelve, I was
in the Electrical Trade program. I actually advanced and became
an IT which is called im program assistant, so I
(40:22):
was an assistant to the teacher. So I became a
facilitator and through that also allowed me the opportunity to
gain my apprenticeship through the NCCDER course, where I was
able to take the same type of tests and courses
that a person on the outside would so they could
(40:42):
become electrician. When I came to since immediately signed up
for the Mercy College Hustling program that they have here
where I am actually going for my bachelor's in behavioral Science.
I wasn't allowing my state of mind incarceration to hold
me back, and I was sitting down the stones for
my future and I have a.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Little better No, you have not, and you've brought that
same proactive and incredibly positive spirit to the work that
you've done inside with a group of guys called the
AI Team, the Actual Innocence Team, good name. Longtime listeners
of the show will remember other members of this New
York based crew, two of whom are already out. I'm
(41:24):
talking about Derek Hamilton, Shabaka Shakur, and of course Nelson Cruz,
Danny rin Khan and yourself still remain inside. You also
were friendly with another great friend of the show and
great personal friend of mine, personal hero, I would say,
I'm talking about JJ Velasquez, who is another just incredibly
(41:44):
inspirational man.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Being around these individuals also help to give me a
sense of hope and courage, because now you no longer
feel alone. And we'll go to a law a lot
berries will release church cases and we'll see what we
can find will be able to help us. Oh that right,
(42:06):
there is a batching issue that's a strictly versus Washington issue.
Oh that's the way issue. And that's how I started
to learn the law. Interestingly, you know it's not supposed
to happen, but now you can put legal theory to it.
Now it's more than just going into a court submitting
a piece of paper and saying I didn't do it.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
So you fought your case for a while this way,
and eventually Derek, Shabaka and JJ got out and slowly
but surely you got your case in front of our
friend Justin here. So Justin, what has happened so far
in Gary's post conviction fight and where does his case stand? Now?
Speaker 3 (42:44):
Okay, well, Gary, you know, of course he filed the
direct appeal. And what's very interesting about Gary's direct appeal
is that he's we're saying the same thing that we're
saying now, right, Gary has been consistent since day one.
He filed a motion to vacate his conviction back in
two thousand and two. One of the issues was the
(43:05):
fact that Anthony Holder had a criminal charge that was
pending during the trial that was never disclosed. Actually, Kyle Reeves,
as per usual, I should say, Kyle Reeves, failed to
turn that over and actually indicated that Anthony Holder had
never been arrested before in his life, which was totally untrue.
(43:25):
That just goes along with Kyle Reeves's theme. But as
of right now, you know, we are really reinvestigating the
forensics at the scene and pulling all the files from
the NYPD and the District Attorney's office to prepare for
another four point forty or to go to the conviction
Review Unit, which I do think would be very interested
(43:46):
in this case based upon how unreliable the evidence is
here that convicted Gary and the evidence of innocence. You know, Jason,
I think the biggest thing is what makes a case
like Gary's very strong is the evidence that's in the
possession of the prosecutor. And when you look at that,
including Augustin Hinkson let him in Bolton and then a
(44:09):
nine to one one caller, three people all say that
Gary Binlass is not the shooter here, He's not the
person that killed Victor Vulcan. And I think that that's
overwhelming evidence of innocence in comparison to Anthony Holder. And
that's what we're working on right now is tying that
all together, both forensically and through our investigation and to
(44:30):
see if there's any more Brady evidence out there, because
there was at least one witness that was interviewed that
was friends with Victor Vulcan that stated that Victor Vulcan
had beef with people from his own block. He was
not from the block where he was found murdered at.
So we you know, we are investigating all these claims
before we do anything, but we're evaluating whether we go
(44:51):
forward with another motion to vacate or go to Brooklyn's
Conviction Review Unit.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
Justin what can people do? And I'm sure people are listening,
heartbroken and angry and motivating. So what can people do
to help bring some semblance of justice for Gary?
Speaker 3 (45:06):
I would say start off by reaching out to Ari Gonzales,
Brooklyn DA's office, and also Gary has a change dot
org page, and support the petition and continue to support
people who are like Gary. I think that's the biggest problem.
There needs to be more support from a broader base
in the country, right. It has to be more than
(45:27):
just the people that have been affected by wrongful convictions.
It has to be people that are just regular, average
American citizens because they need to understand that this could
be you, because it could be you, It could be
your son, it could be your daughter, it could it
could be anybody. It could be you, and people need
to stop acting like that that's.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
Not a fact. We will link in the bio to
the petition and to other information about the case. Please
do click on the link in the bio, sign the
petition and get involved, and will hopefully be able to
publish an update to this episode sometime and then not
too distant future where we get to speak with Gary
from the outside. And now, of course it's time to
(46:09):
turn to the closing of our show, which everyone knows
is called closing arguments, and this is where I thank
you guys again. I'm going to turn it over to
you first, justin for your thoughts, any other thoughts you
want to share, and then of course hand off to
Gary and he'll take us off into the sunset.
Speaker 3 (46:28):
The first thing that we really need to consider in
this case is because it happens over and over and
over again in identification cases, is where there's a description
that does not match the person that they end up arrestling. Obviously,
common sense says that the suspect should match the description
(46:49):
that the witnesses say was the perpetrator, and Gary's case
is very typical, especially in a place like New York City,
where the police don't care. They just don't care. They
get a name, they focus on the name. They don't
care that the person that is this name doesn't match
the description of the perpetrator given by the witnesses. That
(47:12):
just goes right out the window. People don't think that
that's true. But Gary is evident to that. And I
can tell you as an attorney that practices in New
York City every day, that that happens all the time,
and it still happens in twenty twenty two. And Gary
is a he's a spot on case of where the
police didn't care. And the police didn't care because they
knew his name, they knew who he was. They focused
(47:34):
in on him. They put him in a photo array
with a photo that didn't match anything that looked like him.
It matched more the description of what the witnesses said
the perpetrator looked like. And what I mean by that
is obviously a photo array. All you really have is
the head. The person had short hair in the photo ray, right,
so that at least matched more the description of the perpetrator.
(47:56):
They went and they arrested Gary. Then they put him
in a lineup where he looks nothing like he looked
in the photo all right, And Robert Reedy is the
one that handles the identification and the witnesses somehow identify
him in the lineup. The person that's running these procedures
should not be involved with the investigation and they should
not know who the subject is. And Robert Reedy has
(48:18):
done this before, He's gotten called out, cases have been
thrown out because he suggested and tainted identification procedures. And
then who does Robert Reedy hand the case off to
Kyle Reeves, who's framed numerous men, scumback of the highest order.
And people need to understand what is the DA's job.
(48:40):
The DA's job is to vet the police's investigation. Kyle
Reeves doesn't vet an investigation. He takes the investigation and
he fixes it. He does the opposite of what you're
supposed to do. And even in the face of descriptions
of a perpetrator that are eighty pounds less, yes, and
(49:02):
half a foot shorter than Gary ben Lost and having
a haircut that doesn't match the afro that Gary Ben Los, says,
there's nothing about the shooter in this case that matches
the description of Gary ben Lost. Kyle Reeves still takes
this to trial. He puts let him in Bolton on
the stand. She stands up in courtiess and you see
(49:22):
the guy that shot the victim, Victor Vulcan here. She
says no. She says no, her testimony matches her initial
description of the shoe, which it was not gary Ben Lost.
That's a non identification. He puts Anthony Holder on the
witness stand. Anthony Holder gives a ridiculous testimony that is
(49:42):
not consistent at all with the evidence at the scene,
not consistent at all with the other witnesses at the scene.
Says that a little girl was shot at the scene.
There is no NYPD record of a little girl being shot.
And let me tell you, if a little if a
child was shot at the scene, Gary bin Loss to
be doing a lot more than twenty five to life, Okay,
(50:02):
he would be, and there would be absolutely police reports
indicating that medical reports indicating there wasn't. Anthony Holder completely lies.
There's not one shred of his testimony that is true.
And then another witness comes in and says that it
wasn't Gary Ben Lost. That the defense calls. But what
(50:24):
the defense failed to do here, which they often do,
is they failed to put on the nine to one
one caller that described the shooter as five foot eight,
dark skin with short hair the defense failed to cross
examine let him in Bolton, even though she said that
Gary ben Lost wasn't the person that she saw fying
(50:45):
the weapon that day. The jury never heard the description
of let him in Bolten, that the shooter matched the
description and body type of the victim, who was five
foot ten, one hundred and sixty eight pounds. That could
have defiedly proved to the jury. It would have overridden
the terrible testimony of Anthony Holder. I don't even really
(51:07):
need to do a reinvestigation here. It's clear Gary is innocent.
He's been in jail for over twenty years at this point.
It's a travesty of justice. But it's all too often
of a story, especially in a place like New York City.
Eyewitness identification is a real problem in New York City.
It's all too often of a story. And it is
(51:29):
just tragic with Gary because he should have never been arrested,
should have never been charged, and he was just railroaded.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
The traumatic and irreparable effects of wrongful conviction just don't
affect those wrongfully convicted. It also impacts the lives of
their families, their communities, and the fabric of our nation.
Jay that explain what I mean. I will let you
share this letter with you all. It was written by
my beloved son, Isaiah Benlos, who was seventeen years old
(52:01):
at the time. It reads, Dear Sir Madam, I'm writing
on behalf of my father, Gary Benloss. When I was
a baby, I never really got the chance to spend
time in bond with my father until I got older.
This situation really got to me while I was growing
up without him. He wasn't there when I first picked
(52:24):
up a basketball and when I first rode a bike. Also,
he wasn't there when I graduated elementary and middle school.
All I wish is for me and him to go
out and bond with each other. Even though he wasn't
there for my elementary and middle school years. I hope
he can be there when I graduated from high school
(52:46):
in twenty twenty. I hope whoever is reading this you
find it in your heart to give my father early parole.
Please thank you in advance Toceili Isaiah Benloss. That was
written in April twenty second of twenty nineteen. And as
(53:07):
you see, I'm still in prison, so he never got
that wish for me to be there for his graduation
in June of twenty twenty. The month following his graduation,
he sent me a card for my birthday and it reads,
happy birthday to the real O Gi. I just want
(53:29):
to say thank you for being real with me, believing
in me when no one did, still being real and
never switching up and sticking it through even in these
hard times. I know you can't be out here with
me and wishing things could have been different, but I
always reminded myself and never regret what I have, because
(53:50):
then I wouldn't have you and my amazing girlfriend and
family that I love Daaling, I appreciate and love you
that Hopefully when you get out we can make up
for lost times. I love your pops can sell your
son Isaiah ben laws again those wishes would never be manifested.
(54:16):
But just a day after receiving this card from my son,
he was in a tragic car accident that later claimed
his life. So as I leave your law here with
these final thoughts. As I studied before, the state of
wrong for conviction doesn't just impact those wrongful convicted, it
(54:38):
also affects the families.
Speaker 1 (54:43):
Thank you, Thank you for listening to Ropel conviction. I'd
like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Cliburn,
and Kevin Wardis, with research by Lylah Robinson. The music
in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
(55:04):
composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram
at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and
on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava
for Good. On all three platforms, you can also follow
me on both TikTok and Instagram at it's Jason Flamm.
Wrongful Conviction is the production of Lava for Good podcast
(55:25):
and association with Signal Company Number one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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