September 22, 2025 • 43 mins
On April 9, 1997, shortly after midnight in Buffalo, NY, Officers Charles “Skip” McDougald and Michael Martinez were patrolling near Northampton and East Parade in Buffalo’s East Side when they observed what they described as a “suspicious person.” According to police accounts, when they approached, the individual produced a handgun and fired. Officer McDougald was struck in the chest and fatally wounded, and Officer Martinez was shot and seriously injured but survived. Nineteen-year-old Jonathan Parker was convicted for the shooting death of Officer McDougald and the attempted murder of Officer Martinez, and was sentenced to life without parole plus consecutive terms. The prosecution’s case rested heavily on eyewitness testimony and seized items, while Parker has consistently maintained his innocence.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
On April ninth, nineteen ninety seven, sometime before one am,
two Buffalo police officers were shot, one in the ankle
while the other was killed. The surviving officer gave a
description that was echoed by two others, a light skinned
mail about five to nine in dark clothing. That morning,
(00:23):
nearly a half mile from the scene, police found some
personal effects belonging to Jonathan Parker, a local young man
with a criminal record who was in the middle of
fighting another case. And even though Jonathan didn't match the description,
he was identified by three alleged eyewitnesses, while the surviving
officer would not join them. This is wrongful conviction.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Hey, y'all, it's Maggie. I'm here to tell you about
a new show I've been working on for the past
two years. It's called Graves County and it's an investmentative
series about the murder of a young mom in Kentucky
and just how far our legal system will go in
order to find someone to blame. Here is the trailer
for Graves County.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
All I know is what I've been told, and that's
a half truth, is a whole lie.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
For almost a decade, the murder of an eighteen year
old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky,
went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist, and a
handful of girls came forward with a story. I'm telling you,
we know, we know a story that law enforcement used
(01:42):
to convict six people, and that got the citizen investigator
on national TV.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give
justice to Jessica Current.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning
journalist producer, and I wouldn't be here if the truth
were that easy to find.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
I did not know her, and I did not kill her,
or raid or burn or any of that other stuff
that y'all said.
Speaker 5 (02:11):
They literally made me say that I took a match
and struck and threw it on her. They made me
say that I wore guests on.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Her from Lava for Good. This is Graves County, a
show about just how far our legal system will go
in order to find someone to blame MARKA.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
Y'all gotta work the hell up. Bad things happens to
good people and small towns.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Listen to Graves County in the Bone Valley, Feed on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts,
and to binge the entire season at free, subscribe to
Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction, where we've got a story
that's been on our radar and living rent free in
my head since we interviewed Keyante Rix back in the
summer of twenty twenty, and we've held back on it
as we were waiting for the case to make its
way through court. But we can't wait any longer, So
calling in now from a prison in upstate New York,
(03:25):
we've got the man himself, Jonathan Parker. Thank you for calling.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
In, Jonathan, no problem, I appreciate you.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
And joining him. We have the paralegal who worked on
Kanty Rix's case, Carl Deviver, and well, we're going to
link Kyante's story in the episode description. You have to
hear it to believe it. Carl, Thanks for being here.
Speaker 5 (03:41):
Thanks for being somebody willing to do something to help Jonathan.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
And Carl didn't start out as a paralegal.
Speaker 5 (03:48):
I had been a police offer shake twenty seven years.
I didn't like what I saw wrongfully convicted people riding
away in jail for crime. So I did not commit
and felt that I should use what energy I have
to try to seek vindication. So I studied law and
(04:09):
switched into that.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Also, we have Jonathan's attorney, Stephen Metcalf. Stephen, thanks for
being here absolutely. So let's start by hearing about Jonathan's
childhood in Buffalo. How was it growing up there?
Speaker 4 (04:22):
I grew up on the east side of Buffalo, the Projects,
about the age of seven or eight years old. About
the purchase the house which was three blocks away from
the projects. At the age of about unteen or fourteen,
I started getting into problems in school. Maybe no disruptive
in class. I didn't get into too many fights, just
(04:44):
you know, general things that teenage boys do. So they're
sitting to was known as Buffalo Alternative School, into more
trouble and I was placed in a group of homes
was known as Lincoln Hall from fifteen to sixteen. After
being released from Lincoln Hall again went to Buffalo Tournative
(05:05):
High School. Once you do a lot of times, you
returned to a normal high school of South Park High
School didn't want to accept me because I was a
year behind the man and I kind of dropped out
of high school, at which point I got involved in
quote unquote the street life.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
If anyone ever wanted to know what the praise school
to prison pipeline means, it sounds like Jonathan is the
living proof of it. During the crack epidemic, no less,
and this area in East Buffalo, specifically on Gerard Place,
was an open air drug market which came along with
extreme poverty and occasional bursts of violence.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
It was a violent period of the city of Buffalo.
A lot of crime, young men involved in the street life,
shooting at each other, Southern crack, coquaine, marijuana, things of
that nature. The police just because they see you on
the street, young guys know they would pick you up,
shake you down. And I was long to frequent that neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Well, as we all know, the crack epidemic ushered in
so called tough on crime policies and politicians and legislation
that instituted mandatory minimum sentences, funded task forces in the
so called high traffic areas, and any means necessary attitude
toward removing anyone they suspected of being involved in drug trafficking.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Every time I investigator speak to anybody about this, they've
said the same thing. Jonathan Parker was someone who they
wanted off the streets by any means. Apparently that meant
to them at this time, and.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
As we've seen, that could mean framing someone for murder.
And the first attempt on Jonathan came within January nineteen
ninety seven murder of a man named Leroy Lewis.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Listen to this defendant of Pella. Jonathan Parker was convicted
in the US District Court for the Western District of
New York of killing Leroy Lewis while engaged in a
conspiracy to possess with intended distribute crack. On appeal, Parker
challenges the sufficiency of the government's evidence. The government produced
no direct or physical evidence establishing Parker as the shooter,
(07:12):
no eyewitness testimony to the shooting, any statements concerning the
circumstances of the shooting. No evidence was introduced as the motive,
no murder weapon was found. The government's evidence was entirely circumstantial.
It was a statement base upon a statement upon a statement,
but nothing to tie Jonathan to the murder other than
(07:34):
lay opinion testimony. Specifically, whether a small bulge in Parker's
jacket viewed from a distance was a handgun, and hey,
he looked a little suspicious after the fact. Basically, Jonathan
got convicted and they didn't have shit.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
So that conviction was overturned in two thousand and two.
But they had already buried Jonathan with two other sentences,
only one of which was based in fact, which was
a weapons possession charge. And the same officers who were
shot in this case, they were the ones who arrested
Jonathan and he pleaded guilty.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
Yes, I have played guilty to the weapons possessor's charges.
You no more than a three and a half to
nine sentence. I believe it might have been that morning
from an interview with that with a probation officer to
do a probation report to prepare it for my centisces.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
So Jonathan had this probation officer's business card in his
jacket that night, which he wore to a party which
was about a five minute walk from the crime scene
in this case, but according to both Jonathan and witnesses
from the party, he had left his jacket, his hat,
and his beeper at the party before leaving.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
Actually, I left the resident in a cab with my
cousin to my home with the attention of returning to
the resident. I never returned to the residents because I
was supposed to be meeting up with a young woman.
So my cousin left and I came to our house
around the corner from this in a cab. When I'm
pulling up in a cab, they literally are scolar in
the neighborhood. She got in the cab and we went
(09:03):
back to my own.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
By the time he was picking up this young lady
around one am, the shooting had already occurred near the
corner of Northampton and East Parade now. According to Officer
Michael Martinez, at around twelve forty five am, he and
his partner, Charles Skip McDougall spotted a suspicious individual who
they believed might have stolen a car.
Speaker 5 (09:25):
They say when they hailed this person that he simply
opened fire on them, hit the one in the foot,
and then shot McDougall and killed him.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
Martinez he actually gave the initial description in it. It was
a light skinned male of proximmand five nine of maybe
a shade removed from being darve skinned for sure of
nowhere near five. I'm five six and a half and.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Officer Martinez knew what Jonathan looked like from prior arrests,
and we can only presume that he would have interested
in catching his own shooter. Right. And two more witnesses,
James Gaines and Event Pryor, agreed this shooter was a
light skinned guy about five foot nine, and they added
that he wore dark clothing and white sneakers, and they
said he had run up East Parade toward Fujuran. So
(10:18):
police scoured the area looking for someone meeting that description,
as well as witnesses and evidence. And it appears that
the narrative about Jonathan may have begun to emerge with
the discovery of his jacket, hat and beeper, the ones
that he left at the party.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
They say they found in a backyard. So May the
District Attorney had a witness said that maybe an hour
or two prior to this incident, that I was in
a house full of people and then I left out
of the house, leaving my jacket in that house and
never returned. The house was located near the corner of
(10:53):
Fugean and Fillmore, unless they founded in a backyard on
the next street over from fuge which is oben Well.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
No one has offered information about how these items left
the house party, but Jonathan's probation officer's business card was
inside the jacket. At this point, it seems the investigation
steered away from whoever Officer Martinez, James Gaines, and Yvette
Fryar had described and focused in on Jonathan, who had
just pled guilty. The weapons charges and the Leroy Lewis
(11:25):
charges were still looming.
Speaker 5 (11:26):
I have several cases like that where they say, he's
a nasty street kid, let's get him off the streets.
We know he didn't kill Skip, but he's a trouble
let's get him off the streets.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
I actually remember, ironically, I was sitting in the house
with one of my cousins and we were watching the
news when they first booke about the incident, and my
cousin made it common to the extent of, you know,
she felt sorry for whoever they ended up picking up
for this because of the climate of things in Buffalo
(12:01):
just prior to this, I want to say, maybe within
a year, so a year and a half half, it
has so where young black males were still being ended
plice to call.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
But if they were going to get Jonathan, they needed
a lot more than just finding his belongings nearly a
half a mile away from the crime scene. So it
was at this time that lead investigator Andre Ortiz approached
another man known to frequent the open air drug market. Now,
this guy was named Aaron Yarborough, and he was known
to sell random items, and according to subsequent statements, he
(12:37):
had told them that he was in the pharmacy on
Northampton and Fillmore when he heard the gunshots. But something
which we're going to get into later led him to
tell a very different story on April tenth.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
This is a statement that he gave to the police
at the time, and anytime he refers to Parker, he
calls him Face. Well, I was on the corner of
Northampton in East Parade when I had seen Face Now.
I asked him if he wanted to buy a CD player.
He said yeah, but the price that we talked about
wasn't going to fulfill. So I went up East Parade.
(13:12):
We seen Junior sitting in a white Chevy Caprice and
he agreed to one hundred dollars. So this is a
CD player and he paid me the money and then
I went down the street towards Northampton and East Parade
where I heard some shots when I had seen face
ran past me holding a gun at his side.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
Soon after that, I've seen my picture on the news
saying that I was assister. So I got in contact
with Tourny Paul Hermy, and he didn't have much detail.
It forged me to turn myself in.
Speaker 6 (13:43):
If I had nothing to high, but I didn't have
anything now, so I asked him to come pick me
up and take me to turn myself in. I was
arrested April eleventh, nineteen ninety.
Speaker 4 (13:54):
Seven, and I've been in prison ever since.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
At approximately twenty fifteen hours on April eighteen, nineteen ninety seven,
Aaron Yarborough stated that himself and Jonathan Parker were outside
his uncle's house on Josephine Street when the police raided it.
Jonathan Parker pointed to officer McDougall and stated, that's the
guy who arrested me for the gun. I'm going to
(14:35):
get that motherfucker. So they used Aaron to basically show
a history or a motive.
Speaker 7 (14:41):
Here.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
April twenty second, Aaron Yarborough was put into a Buffalo
Hilton Hotel, Room two ten. This is a guy who's
selling CD players walking down the street now is getting
put up in a hotel for who knows how long
to make a very easy statement.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
And that's what we'll find out this It was far
better treatment than he was originally offered, but a few
statements from a guy with substance abuse issues is not
going to cut it. So on April twenty eighth, police
approached Aaron Lott and his wife Cassandra Salinas, who had
an encounter with officers MacDougall and Martinez on the night
of April eighth.
Speaker 7 (15:18):
Ten forty five.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Aaron Lott is sitting in a parking lot with our
driver's license while Cassandra's in work. He gets a ticket,
the car gets impounded. McDougal and Martinez are the officers
on that ticket and on the impound documentation. Cassandra gets
out of work at about eleven fifteen. Her and Aaron
(15:41):
then make their way to the police precinct. Then they
never actually got the car back that night.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
However, it was stated in a report that officer Martinez
had recognized Lot and Selinas as they passed each other
on Northampton Street moments before the shooting because they were
in the same car in which Lot had been ticket earlier.
This is allegedly how they knew to approach Lot for
a statement. But as the narrative goes, Aaron and Cassandra,
as well as a driver passed the scene in a
(16:10):
Ford Explorer, not a Hyundai Excel, and to top it off,
the Ford Explorer had tinted windows. It's only discovered many
years later that Aaron Lott was exchanging testimony for leniency
in his own charges. You probably saw that coming. Nevertheless,
he gave a statement nineteen days after the crime that
as they rolled down Northampton, he and Cassandra saw Jonathan
(16:34):
crossing the street. He yelled yo to the car as
they passed, and they turned around to witness the shooting
through the Explorer's back window.
Speaker 5 (16:45):
And the driver of the truck. He was never called.
We presume that since the cops had no hold on him,
it wasn't facing anything, they wouldn't testify. It might even
be a Brady issue. We don't know what he originally
told the cops. We just know he never testified.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
All the witnesses aged some type of ulterior motive, with
the exception.
Speaker 5 (17:09):
Of Aaron Lotte's wife. She basically agreed with what said
the storers lined up very well because it was orchestrated, with.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
The community and media calling for blood, and the context
of Jonathan's weapon's possession, guilty plea and other pending murder case.
The district attorney sought the death penalty, and as we
often see in capital cases, a ton of circumstantial evidence
is produced to try to ensure a win, but without
the support of a relatively small amount of consequential direct evidence,
(17:44):
the circumstantial evidence tends to lose its meaning. For example,
there was James Gaines and Evette Fryar who echoed Officer
Martinez's description and confirmed that the assailant ran in the
direction of where Jonathan's belongings were discovered, granting that evidence
of validity. And then along came Aaron Yarborough, without the
(18:05):
critically important context of how his statement came to.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
Be, He said that just prior to this incident that
he was attempted to sell me. I believe you said
it was some CDs and I don't even think I
had seen him that day.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Yarborough also said that he saw Jonathan running from the
scene with a gun in the direction of where police
found his belongings. Again granting a cent of validity to
that evidence, and then, unbeknownst to the defense, Aaron Lott
was trading testimony for a time cut when he parroted
what he'd already said in his statement and the grand
(18:43):
jury then Cassandra bolstered his credibility with what they claimed
to see while being driven down Northampton that same night.
Speaker 4 (18:52):
There was the driver, which I'm still confused as to
why he was never called to testify, other than maybe
the fact that he wasn't being cooperative like Aaron Yardborough
and air a.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Lot, or maybe he didn't actually exist also possible. Then
the police officer Michael Martinez testified to the narrative of
the shooting, but would not positively I d Jonathan.
Speaker 5 (19:16):
He wasn't sure that it was Parker. Even on the stands,
he wouldn't lie and say it was definitely Parker. It
could have been Parker. So he's he's one of the
not willing to totally perjure himself cops.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
And Martinez was cross examined with his initial description.
Speaker 4 (19:36):
I was positive I was going to get acquitted. I
know I have anything to do with it, and how
already came into the prison system for my other weapon
possessed his charges. But I was confident I was going
to be leaving out of that court room to finish
my censes and eventually be home to my family.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
And maybe he would have, but it seems like his attorney,
Jim Harrington, didn't want to take that gamble, so in closing,
he tried a strategy that was not aimed at acquittal.
In fact, the opposite.
Speaker 5 (20:05):
Harrington was a death penalty attorney, and he said so
in his affidavit that his job was not so much
as to acquit Jonathan, but to keep him alive. So
trying to create sympathy or pity from the jury, He said,
Jonathan did it, but it was in the spur of
(20:26):
the moment. He didn't plan on doing it, which is all. Yes,
he never did it at all.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
I made him very weird that I was innocent of
this crime. I'm sitting in the courtroom and it was
only by sheer will that I did act a fool.
At the time, my defense wasn't a defense geared towards
guilty innocence. It was geared towards life with death. I've
got life without the possibility of growl, which is just death.
(20:55):
By incarcerations. I've had close to thirty years to think
about it. But when you go back to the initial description,
(21:19):
you have a police officer, who we know are trained observers,
who said that the perpetrator in his crime was a
liceicined bail five nine and these are things that are
reasonable tryer in fact, when you say, okay, you got
a young man sitting in the court room in front
of you who is maybe a shade removed from being
(21:40):
darb skinned, but three or four shades removed from being licekined.
And again, like I said, I'm five to six maybe
five six and a half. Then we go back to
Latina's being shot on the passenger side of the car,
but the suspect shooting from the driver side of the car.
I don't understand how person gets shot in the ankle.
(22:02):
Then you're saying you found a weapon that's who alleged
that have been used in this incident at the nine
milimeter seventeen clock, which is the exact same weapons that
police officers are issued to carry when they all duty.
Speaker 5 (22:18):
The street version is that McDougal didn't want to be
dirty anymore. Everybody spoken to says that the cops killed
Skip because he wanted to go clean and they were
afraid he'd reveal their antics, so they killed them. Allegedly,
they took their time getting to the hospital to make
(22:40):
sure Skip was dead allegedly, but before.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Carl spoke to anyone, Jonathan did his direct appeal, subsequent appeal,
and federal havias, which took about twelve years to finally
all be denied. Twelve long years, during which time the
lead investigator on this case, Detective Andrea Ortiz, was himself
arrest in connection with his involvement with a local drug
trafficking organization headed by an individual named Frankie Johnson.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Detective or Ties in the Western District of New York
took a play on a two thousand and four case. Now,
this plea agreement is ten pages. This was the most
substantive document that I could find with regards to this case,
because everything else I searched for was under seal, and
the plea agreement essentially lays out what he pled to
(23:30):
fraud and related activity in connection with computers or Tees.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Agreed to plead guilty to accessing a Justice Department criminal
database and then sharing that information with this notorious drug
kingpin Frankie Johnson. Now who knows what it was used for.
I mean, my mind doesn't go to a good place.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
If he's going to utilize his access as a Buffalo
police officer and passed that information along to someone who's
not a police or someone who may be in the streets,
and that was alleged here.
Speaker 7 (24:03):
There has to be a history there.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
And there's probably a bunch of other things that are
being exchanged as well. It just so happened to be
that this is what they caught, or this what was
on their radar, or this is what they were able
to say was ultimately past to someone who shouldn't have
gotten this information. And also, in order for the FEDS
(24:25):
to take on a case like this, there has to
be substantial ties to criminal activity that far exceed this
for this to even become an issue in the Fed world.
Speaker 7 (24:37):
This is a nominal crime that he took a plea to.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
According to his plea deal, he'd either do one year
in prison, pay a fine, or both. A sweet deal
when you think about it, for his role in this
drug organization for which guys like Jonathan may end up
in and out of prison for life.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
So whatever this guy was able to really work out,
it seems like it was actually a slap on the wrist.
The maximum possible sentences are usually just statutory and don't
actually apply.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
I can't honestly speak accurately to what was going on
with those officers at the time, but as evidently something
was going on because I say, aside from the technive
war piece, there was another police officers and detectives. They
were also brought up on.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Corruption charges, which begins to grant a sent of validity
to that street version of events that Karl was talking about.
And then Aaron Yarborough came forward to shed even more
light on the situation.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
Somewhere around twenty twelve, Aaron Yarborough actually ran into a
family member of mine and was saying that he had
got sick and he was likely to have long to
live and he was feeling guilty about what he had
done and he just wanted to tell the truth about it.
Speaker 5 (25:53):
Aaron Yarborough, who now has passed away, said that he
was at a drug store nearby and see anything, but
the cops told him exactly what they wanted him to
say he saw.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
So Yarborough actually gives a sworn statement wherever. He says
that testimony that I then offered was false and totally untrue.
I was told what to say that I had seen.
He basically says, I did not see Jonathan Parker at
or near the scene of the murder. I definitely did
(26:26):
not see Jonathan Parker shoot a Buffalo Police officer. I
had been around the corner store a block away from
the shooting when I heard the noise. I looked out
to see what was happening. I saw many police cars
going by, so I quickly left the area. Later that evening,
homicide Detective Andre Ortiz and a bunch of other cops
(26:51):
captured me. He actually uses the word captured me.
Speaker 5 (26:54):
Detective Ortiese had threatened him that if he didn't lie
and that he saw Jonathan do the shooting, that he
would take him out in the cornfields and blow his
head off.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
He said that he knew the reputation of Detective Ortz.
He was afraid for his life, so he agreed to
see whatever they told me to say. At Jonathan Parker's
murder triumph. Now that Detective Ortiz is no longer a
Buffalo Police detective and therefore can no longer kill me
for telling the truth. I am now willing to tell
(27:31):
the absolute truth.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
By the time Yarboro came clean, Jonathan had connected with
Keantay Ricks in prison, who put him in contact with
Carl and Stephen, who began reinvestigating the case and recording
these affidavits. So they also visited Aaron Lott.
Speaker 5 (27:49):
According to Aaron lott subsequent statement, there was a Ford
Explorer that had gone by. According to the witnesses, they
were all the way down to the next life on
Fillmore when they heard the shots. They didn't see anything.
Aaron Lott. He was facing federal prison time for drugs.
(28:10):
The police said, we'll make it go away if you'll
say you're a block back and saw this whole thing,
which he did.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
But now we get to how they knew to approach
Aaron Lott for testimony. Remember, he wasn't in the Hyundai
Excel that Officer Martinez had seen him in earlier that night.
He was in this Ford Explorer with tinted windows. It
appears that Aaron Lott had already been cooperating with the Feds,
but strangely that wasn't information that was readily available even
(28:40):
if trial counsel wanted to find it, or anyone else
for that matter.
Speaker 7 (28:46):
I'm looking for Aaron Lott. Why do I not.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
Find anything in Aaron Lot Because I discovered that he's
going by his criminal cases Aaron Davis, and I have
confirmed with the District Attorney's office that Aaron Davis in
this key is Aaron Lott. And specifically, the plea agreement
that I received with regards to Aaron Lott pertains to
(29:11):
a nineteen ninety five Western District case. But on the
plea there is a actual stamp about his plea agreement
being in December of nineteen ninety seven. So here's the
entry of guilt from sometime in nineteen ninety three and
(29:33):
continuing through September ninety four. Defendant Aaron Davis aka Aaron
Lott knowingly, intentionally and willfully agree to assist Dexter Hennings
and others in purchasing, storing, and selling cocaine and cocaine
based crack in Buffalo, New York and elsewhere in the
Western District. Forty one grams of cocaine base and one
(29:56):
hundred and thirty grams of cocaine are the amounts in
his relevant conduct. Now they were talking about a mandatory
minimum of five.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
It's the perfect time, actually for me to point out
the one hundred and one sentencing disparity between crack and
powder cocaine. Five grams of crack meant a minimum of
five years, fifty grams carried a minimum of ten years.
But compared to sentencing for powder cocaine, which was more
popular in wealthier and wider circles, it would take five
(30:28):
hundred grams of powder cocaine to trigger the very same
mandatory five year sentence that someone could get with just
five grams of crack. Meanwhile, simple possession of even one
hundred and thirty grams of cocaine was just a misdemeanor
punishable by up to a year in prison. Now, I'll
let you make your own inferences about why this disparity existed.
(30:49):
We spoke with Senator Dick Durbin about how he worked
to correct that disparity with the bill that he proposed,
which was signed into law in twenty ten. All of
this fascinating history is on the episode of Righteous Convictions
where I interviewed Dick Durbin. We're going to link to
that in the episode description, but back to Aaron Lott.
It appears that he had cooperated on this nineteen ninety
(31:11):
five case, yet the plea deal was signed in December
nineteen ninety seven, and his charges appear to completely ignore
the trafficking of one hundred and thirty grams of cocaine
and who knows what else, and instead was focused solely
on the forty one grams of crack with a minimum
sentence of five years.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
Now the talk of community or house confinement, there is
this understanding that he is going to get time towards
his sentence by not officially going in. And here's what
it's based on. Check this out. There is a paragraph
entitled cooperation Paragraph eighteen. Defendant has already cooperated and will
(31:53):
continue to cooperate with the government by providing complete and
truthful information regards arding his knowledge of any and all
criminal activity, whether undertaken by himself or others. So they
sprinkled all this stuff in there, And what do you
think he's doing during this time? During this time he
is cooperating on Jonathan Parker's case.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
In the next paragraph, it stated that the FEDS would
give him credit against his sentence for cooperation with state
and local authorities. As well, and in federal sentence and
guidelines they have numerical levels that correspond to time ranges
for specific charges. After his first cooperation, he was at
level twenty five with a minimum of sixty to seventy
one months on a community confinement.
Speaker 7 (32:35):
All right, So they got him at a level twenty five.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
And essentially it's saying, if you provide additional assistance. Now
we're talking about ninety seven grand jury testimony, we'll knock
it down five levels. You know, we'll talk about thirty
three to forty one months. But if you provide additional assistance,
you get another two levels knocked down at eighteen, which
(33:01):
provides for a sentence of twenty seven to thirty three
months of incarceration.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
So by cooperating in Jonathan's case, he was able to
chip away to level eighteen, meaning just two years in
change on community confinement, with the opportunity to chip away
even more with further cooperation, and the deal got even
sweeter for mister Aaron Lott.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Moving on paragraph twenty, in exchange for defendans flee of
guild and cooperation is set forth, he will not be
prosecuted by the Office of the United States attorney for
the Western District for any other federal criminal offenses. I mean,
in that world, that is huge. Check this out now,
(33:45):
paragraph twenty one. The government will move the court at
sentencing provided to guidelines five K one point one. I
don't know if you know what a five K one
point one is, but it's a downward departure that submitted
in a letter format that basically says you have provided
the government substantral assistance. And it essentially is and can
(34:09):
be considered as good as a get out of jail
free card without question. It is amazing what a five
K one letter will do.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
So Aaron Lott was in a position to be a
serial testifier, which not only would have been very useful
to trial counsel, but alternatively anyone else who Aaron Lott
may have cooperated against, falsely or otherwise. Which makes me
wonder again about what information Detective Ortiz might have accessed
and shared that got the Feds pissed off enough to
(34:38):
prosecute him. Either way, Jonathan now had Yarborough Lot and
by association Cassandra Salinis, this was powerful evidence of innocence,
and then Jonathan's case got another boost in twenty eighteen,
when the Supreme Court ruled in McCoy versus Louisiana, affirming
that a defendant has the right to choose their own defense,
(34:59):
which for him meant that his attorney violated his rights
by conceiving guilt in closing arguments. So Carl added that
to a new for forty.
Speaker 5 (35:08):
Motion, I had four issues. Issue one was based on McCoy.
Issue two, McCoy is retroactive because at that point under
Montgomery and Welch they had held it to be retroactive.
Third was newly discovered evidence, basically Aaron Yacht and Aaron
(35:29):
Yarborough's testimony. And the fourth issue actual innocence. I did
that because under federal law, a claim of actual innocence
cannot be time barred. I had plenty of affidavits from Harrington,
from Aaron Loss, from Aaron Yarborough, and from the lead
(35:50):
death penalty lawyer in Rochester explaining why Harrington said what
he did because his job was not to quit Jonathan,
but to keep him alive. So originally the four forty
lead off was McCoy. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court subsequently claimed
(36:13):
that McCoy will not apply retroactively. Too many people were
getting out, so that issue went out.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
So an amended four to forty was submitted in twenty
twenty two based on all this new evidence and the
actual illness it's claim.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
I was having status conferences with the court and trying
to push for an evidentiary hearing, and I got everybody
to agree that a hearing was warranted. Then the assigned
assistant district attorney who was on the case, I believe
he was fired. He was no longer on the case.
(36:47):
A new set of district attorneys came on the case,
and they immediately contacted the court and said that the
district attorney's office has changed their stance on whether or
not and entry hearing was warranted. I then as for
another status conference. At that court appearance, we actually both
(37:08):
I mean I addressed the court at least twice. Carl
was working with Attorney Goldstein. He addressed the court and
the people's position was to essentially attack the credibility of
the recantations. And I continued to push for a hearing,
and at one point the judge said that he would
(37:29):
have a decision in thirty days.
Speaker 7 (37:31):
Whether or not we could have an evident your hearing.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
That was at the end of twenty twenty two, so
we are now going on thirty days turning into three years.
At first, my position was, let's not rock the boat
because I could force a decision, but enforcing a decision
that's going to land us in a pellet world for
the next couple of years. I submitted a bunch of
different subpoenas I kept pushing this issue that I want
(37:57):
people to testify, and I am told that a decision
will be issued in the month of October of this year.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
And we understand that they have a massed witnesses that
will corroborate the recantations as well as support for the
alternate theory, but they can always use more help.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
I'm asking for anybody who as any information in regards
to this matter and a murder officer child Skip McDowell
to please contact Carl Deviver, Stephen A. Metcalf, anybody who
you feel can hear what needs to be her for
you to say what needs to be said.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
We're going to link contact information in the episode description.
Please go there, check it out, and take whatever action
you're capable of. And in the meantime, we await Judge
by NACI's decision on the evidentiary hearing. Let's hope for
a good one, and with that we'll go to closing arguments,
where I think you guys, from the bottom of my heart,
especially you Jonathan, for sharing courageously sharing your story. And
(38:54):
now I'm going to kick back in my chair with
my headphones on and my eye clothes on, my microphone off,
and just listen to anything else you guys have to say. Steven,
you go first, and then hand the microphone off to
Carl and then Jonathan will take us off into the sunset.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
I mean, I think to summarize this with what we
spoke about tonight is if it doesn't fit, it just
there's a reason it doesn't fit.
Speaker 7 (39:20):
Aaron Yarborough is ultimately.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
Trying to sell CD players on the street, yet he
becomes one of the government's first witnesses. The guy gets
thrown into the Hilton. He's living his best life at
this point, giving statements to substantiate the investigation throughout the
course of this time. Then you have Aaron Lott and Cassandra.
Aaron Lott happens to be a player or drug dealer
(39:46):
in the streets at this time, has so much to
gain from providing information against Jonathan Parker, and in order
to do that, he had the rope Cassandra into it.
Does ultimately me and them look more credible. And ultimately
you take this mixed bag of various different characters, potentially
(40:07):
two of them crackheads, one of them a nice crack dealer.
You mix it all up, and you got the witnesses
they needed to put the gun in Jonathan Parker's hand.
It's just nobody actually looked at it and told the
additional story or the other side of the story. The
streets have spoken about this, The streets keep speaking about this,
(40:28):
and the thirty years that the streets have spoke about that,
we're looking to actually tell that real side of that
story and seek justice for Jonathan. And I'm confident that
all you got to do is give me a hearing
and I can blow Jonathan Parker's case out of the
water where no appellate division would ever even question it,
and it would just be another repeat of Jonathan Parker
(40:50):
case with no evidence whatsoever to justify a conviction.
Speaker 5 (40:55):
They know Jonathan was innocent, but they had a dead
cop and newspaper screaming for a perpetrator, and they thought
that Parker is a nasty street kid. Let's get him
off the streets. We know he didn't kill Skip, but
he's a trouble Let's get him off the streets. I'm
glad to say that somebody is finally willing to do
(41:17):
something to get an innocent man, a framed man, out
of jail.
Speaker 4 (41:24):
Well, there's obviously that the evidence in this case shows
that I didn't commit this crime. And as I've said,
I've professed my innocence from the day I turned myself
into the very second where you're hearing this broadcast. So
I just asked the justice to be served. We say
we have a justice system, that the justice system is
(41:44):
supposed to be equal to everyone. This is justice system
was not equal to me in these circumstances surrounding this case.
So now is the time to correct what needs to
be corrected, and hopefully the truth will come to the
light and I will be set free.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for
Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our
production team, Connor Hall, and Kathleen Fink, as well as
my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cleiber.
The music in this production was supplied by three time
(42:25):
OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and
at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram
at It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One.
Speaker 7 (42:41):
We've worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in
this show are accurate.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in
this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect
those of Lava for Good.
On April ninth, nineteen ninety seven, sometime before one am,
two Buffalo police officers were shot, one in the ankle
while the other was killed. The surviving officer gave a
description that was echoed by two others, a light skinned
mail about five to nine in dark clothing. That morning,
(00:23):
nearly a half mile from the scene, police found some
personal effects belonging to Jonathan Parker, a local young man
with a criminal record who was in the middle of
fighting another case. And even though Jonathan didn't match the description,
he was identified by three alleged eyewitnesses, while the surviving
officer would not join them. This is wrongful conviction.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Hey, y'all, it's Maggie. I'm here to tell you about
a new show I've been working on for the past
two years. It's called Graves County and it's an investmentative
series about the murder of a young mom in Kentucky
and just how far our legal system will go in
order to find someone to blame. Here is the trailer
for Graves County.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
All I know is what I've been told, and that's
a half truth, is a whole lie.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
For almost a decade, the murder of an eighteen year
old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky,
went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist, and a
handful of girls came forward with a story. I'm telling you,
we know, we know a story that law enforcement used
(01:42):
to convict six people, and that got the citizen investigator
on national TV.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give
justice to Jessica Current.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning
journalist producer, and I wouldn't be here if the truth
were that easy to find.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
I did not know her, and I did not kill her,
or raid or burn or any of that other stuff
that y'all said.
Speaker 5 (02:11):
They literally made me say that I took a match
and struck and threw it on her. They made me
say that I wore guests on.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Her from Lava for Good. This is Graves County, a
show about just how far our legal system will go
in order to find someone to blame MARKA.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
Y'all gotta work the hell up. Bad things happens to
good people and small towns.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Listen to Graves County in the Bone Valley, Feed on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts,
and to binge the entire season at free, subscribe to
Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction, where we've got a story
that's been on our radar and living rent free in
my head since we interviewed Keyante Rix back in the
summer of twenty twenty, and we've held back on it
as we were waiting for the case to make its
way through court. But we can't wait any longer, So
calling in now from a prison in upstate New York,
(03:25):
we've got the man himself, Jonathan Parker. Thank you for calling.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
In, Jonathan, no problem, I appreciate you.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
And joining him. We have the paralegal who worked on
Kanty Rix's case, Carl Deviver, and well, we're going to
link Kyante's story in the episode description. You have to
hear it to believe it. Carl, Thanks for being here.
Speaker 5 (03:41):
Thanks for being somebody willing to do something to help Jonathan.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
And Carl didn't start out as a paralegal.
Speaker 5 (03:48):
I had been a police offer shake twenty seven years.
I didn't like what I saw wrongfully convicted people riding
away in jail for crime. So I did not commit
and felt that I should use what energy I have
to try to seek vindication. So I studied law and
(04:09):
switched into that.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Also, we have Jonathan's attorney, Stephen Metcalf. Stephen, thanks for
being here absolutely. So let's start by hearing about Jonathan's
childhood in Buffalo. How was it growing up there?
Speaker 4 (04:22):
I grew up on the east side of Buffalo, the Projects,
about the age of seven or eight years old. About
the purchase the house which was three blocks away from
the projects. At the age of about unteen or fourteen,
I started getting into problems in school. Maybe no disruptive
in class. I didn't get into too many fights, just
(04:44):
you know, general things that teenage boys do. So they're
sitting to was known as Buffalo Alternative School, into more
trouble and I was placed in a group of homes
was known as Lincoln Hall from fifteen to sixteen. After
being released from Lincoln Hall again went to Buffalo Tournative
(05:05):
High School. Once you do a lot of times, you
returned to a normal high school of South Park High
School didn't want to accept me because I was a
year behind the man and I kind of dropped out
of high school, at which point I got involved in
quote unquote the street life.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
If anyone ever wanted to know what the praise school
to prison pipeline means, it sounds like Jonathan is the
living proof of it. During the crack epidemic, no less,
and this area in East Buffalo, specifically on Gerard Place,
was an open air drug market which came along with
extreme poverty and occasional bursts of violence.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
It was a violent period of the city of Buffalo.
A lot of crime, young men involved in the street life,
shooting at each other, Southern crack, coquaine, marijuana, things of
that nature. The police just because they see you on
the street, young guys know they would pick you up,
shake you down. And I was long to frequent that neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Well, as we all know, the crack epidemic ushered in
so called tough on crime policies and politicians and legislation
that instituted mandatory minimum sentences, funded task forces in the
so called high traffic areas, and any means necessary attitude
toward removing anyone they suspected of being involved in drug trafficking.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Every time I investigator speak to anybody about this, they've
said the same thing. Jonathan Parker was someone who they
wanted off the streets by any means. Apparently that meant
to them at this time, and.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
As we've seen, that could mean framing someone for murder.
And the first attempt on Jonathan came within January nineteen
ninety seven murder of a man named Leroy Lewis.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Listen to this defendant of Pella. Jonathan Parker was convicted
in the US District Court for the Western District of
New York of killing Leroy Lewis while engaged in a
conspiracy to possess with intended distribute crack. On appeal, Parker
challenges the sufficiency of the government's evidence. The government produced
no direct or physical evidence establishing Parker as the shooter,
(07:12):
no eyewitness testimony to the shooting, any statements concerning the
circumstances of the shooting. No evidence was introduced as the motive,
no murder weapon was found. The government's evidence was entirely circumstantial.
It was a statement base upon a statement upon a statement,
but nothing to tie Jonathan to the murder other than
(07:34):
lay opinion testimony. Specifically, whether a small bulge in Parker's
jacket viewed from a distance was a handgun, and hey,
he looked a little suspicious after the fact. Basically, Jonathan
got convicted and they didn't have shit.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
So that conviction was overturned in two thousand and two.
But they had already buried Jonathan with two other sentences,
only one of which was based in fact, which was
a weapons possession charge. And the same officers who were
shot in this case, they were the ones who arrested
Jonathan and he pleaded guilty.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
Yes, I have played guilty to the weapons possessor's charges.
You no more than a three and a half to
nine sentence. I believe it might have been that morning
from an interview with that with a probation officer to
do a probation report to prepare it for my centisces.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
So Jonathan had this probation officer's business card in his
jacket that night, which he wore to a party which
was about a five minute walk from the crime scene
in this case, but according to both Jonathan and witnesses
from the party, he had left his jacket, his hat,
and his beeper at the party before leaving.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
Actually, I left the resident in a cab with my
cousin to my home with the attention of returning to
the resident. I never returned to the residents because I
was supposed to be meeting up with a young woman.
So my cousin left and I came to our house
around the corner from this in a cab. When I'm
pulling up in a cab, they literally are scolar in
the neighborhood. She got in the cab and we went
(09:03):
back to my own.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
By the time he was picking up this young lady
around one am, the shooting had already occurred near the
corner of Northampton and East Parade now. According to Officer
Michael Martinez, at around twelve forty five am, he and
his partner, Charles Skip McDougall spotted a suspicious individual who
they believed might have stolen a car.
Speaker 5 (09:25):
They say when they hailed this person that he simply
opened fire on them, hit the one in the foot,
and then shot McDougall and killed him.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
Martinez he actually gave the initial description in it. It was
a light skinned male of proximmand five nine of maybe
a shade removed from being darve skinned for sure of
nowhere near five. I'm five six and a half and.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Officer Martinez knew what Jonathan looked like from prior arrests,
and we can only presume that he would have interested
in catching his own shooter. Right. And two more witnesses,
James Gaines and Event Pryor, agreed this shooter was a
light skinned guy about five foot nine, and they added
that he wore dark clothing and white sneakers, and they
said he had run up East Parade toward Fujuran. So
(10:18):
police scoured the area looking for someone meeting that description,
as well as witnesses and evidence. And it appears that
the narrative about Jonathan may have begun to emerge with
the discovery of his jacket, hat and beeper, the ones
that he left at the party.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
They say they found in a backyard. So May the
District Attorney had a witness said that maybe an hour
or two prior to this incident, that I was in
a house full of people and then I left out
of the house, leaving my jacket in that house and
never returned. The house was located near the corner of
(10:53):
Fugean and Fillmore, unless they founded in a backyard on
the next street over from fuge which is oben Well.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
No one has offered information about how these items left
the house party, but Jonathan's probation officer's business card was
inside the jacket. At this point, it seems the investigation
steered away from whoever Officer Martinez, James Gaines, and Yvette
Fryar had described and focused in on Jonathan, who had
just pled guilty. The weapons charges and the Leroy Lewis
(11:25):
charges were still looming.
Speaker 5 (11:26):
I have several cases like that where they say, he's
a nasty street kid, let's get him off the streets.
We know he didn't kill Skip, but he's a trouble
let's get him off the streets.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
I actually remember, ironically, I was sitting in the house
with one of my cousins and we were watching the
news when they first booke about the incident, and my
cousin made it common to the extent of, you know,
she felt sorry for whoever they ended up picking up
for this because of the climate of things in Buffalo
(12:01):
just prior to this, I want to say, maybe within
a year, so a year and a half half, it
has so where young black males were still being ended
plice to call.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
But if they were going to get Jonathan, they needed
a lot more than just finding his belongings nearly a
half a mile away from the crime scene. So it
was at this time that lead investigator Andre Ortiz approached
another man known to frequent the open air drug market. Now,
this guy was named Aaron Yarborough, and he was known
to sell random items, and according to subsequent statements, he
(12:37):
had told them that he was in the pharmacy on
Northampton and Fillmore when he heard the gunshots. But something
which we're going to get into later led him to
tell a very different story on April tenth.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
This is a statement that he gave to the police
at the time, and anytime he refers to Parker, he
calls him Face. Well, I was on the corner of
Northampton in East Parade when I had seen Face Now.
I asked him if he wanted to buy a CD player.
He said yeah, but the price that we talked about
wasn't going to fulfill. So I went up East Parade.
(13:12):
We seen Junior sitting in a white Chevy Caprice and
he agreed to one hundred dollars. So this is a
CD player and he paid me the money and then
I went down the street towards Northampton and East Parade
where I heard some shots when I had seen face
ran past me holding a gun at his side.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
Soon after that, I've seen my picture on the news
saying that I was assister. So I got in contact
with Tourny Paul Hermy, and he didn't have much detail.
It forged me to turn myself in.
Speaker 6 (13:43):
If I had nothing to high, but I didn't have
anything now, so I asked him to come pick me
up and take me to turn myself in. I was
arrested April eleventh, nineteen ninety.
Speaker 4 (13:54):
Seven, and I've been in prison ever since.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
At approximately twenty fifteen hours on April eighteen, nineteen ninety seven,
Aaron Yarborough stated that himself and Jonathan Parker were outside
his uncle's house on Josephine Street when the police raided it.
Jonathan Parker pointed to officer McDougall and stated, that's the
guy who arrested me for the gun. I'm going to
(14:35):
get that motherfucker. So they used Aaron to basically show
a history or a motive.
Speaker 7 (14:41):
Here.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
April twenty second, Aaron Yarborough was put into a Buffalo
Hilton Hotel, Room two ten. This is a guy who's
selling CD players walking down the street now is getting
put up in a hotel for who knows how long
to make a very easy statement.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
And that's what we'll find out this It was far
better treatment than he was originally offered, but a few
statements from a guy with substance abuse issues is not
going to cut it. So on April twenty eighth, police
approached Aaron Lott and his wife Cassandra Salinas, who had
an encounter with officers MacDougall and Martinez on the night
of April eighth.
Speaker 7 (15:18):
Ten forty five.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Aaron Lott is sitting in a parking lot with our
driver's license while Cassandra's in work. He gets a ticket,
the car gets impounded. McDougal and Martinez are the officers
on that ticket and on the impound documentation. Cassandra gets
out of work at about eleven fifteen. Her and Aaron
(15:41):
then make their way to the police precinct. Then they
never actually got the car back that night.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
However, it was stated in a report that officer Martinez
had recognized Lot and Selinas as they passed each other
on Northampton Street moments before the shooting because they were
in the same car in which Lot had been ticket earlier.
This is allegedly how they knew to approach Lot for
a statement. But as the narrative goes, Aaron and Cassandra,
as well as a driver passed the scene in a
(16:10):
Ford Explorer, not a Hyundai Excel, and to top it off,
the Ford Explorer had tinted windows. It's only discovered many
years later that Aaron Lott was exchanging testimony for leniency
in his own charges. You probably saw that coming. Nevertheless,
he gave a statement nineteen days after the crime that
as they rolled down Northampton, he and Cassandra saw Jonathan
(16:34):
crossing the street. He yelled yo to the car as
they passed, and they turned around to witness the shooting
through the Explorer's back window.
Speaker 5 (16:45):
And the driver of the truck. He was never called.
We presume that since the cops had no hold on him,
it wasn't facing anything, they wouldn't testify. It might even
be a Brady issue. We don't know what he originally
told the cops. We just know he never testified.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
All the witnesses aged some type of ulterior motive, with
the exception.
Speaker 5 (17:09):
Of Aaron Lotte's wife. She basically agreed with what said
the storers lined up very well because it was orchestrated, with.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
The community and media calling for blood, and the context
of Jonathan's weapon's possession, guilty plea and other pending murder case.
The district attorney sought the death penalty, and as we
often see in capital cases, a ton of circumstantial evidence
is produced to try to ensure a win, but without
the support of a relatively small amount of consequential direct evidence,
(17:44):
the circumstantial evidence tends to lose its meaning. For example,
there was James Gaines and Evette Fryar who echoed Officer
Martinez's description and confirmed that the assailant ran in the
direction of where Jonathan's belongings were discovered, granting that evidence
of validity. And then along came Aaron Yarborough, without the
(18:05):
critically important context of how his statement came to.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
Be, He said that just prior to this incident that
he was attempted to sell me. I believe you said
it was some CDs and I don't even think I
had seen him that day.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Yarborough also said that he saw Jonathan running from the
scene with a gun in the direction of where police
found his belongings. Again granting a cent of validity to
that evidence, and then, unbeknownst to the defense, Aaron Lott
was trading testimony for a time cut when he parroted
what he'd already said in his statement and the grand
(18:43):
jury then Cassandra bolstered his credibility with what they claimed
to see while being driven down Northampton that same night.
Speaker 4 (18:52):
There was the driver, which I'm still confused as to
why he was never called to testify, other than maybe
the fact that he wasn't being cooperative like Aaron Yardborough
and air a.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Lot, or maybe he didn't actually exist also possible. Then
the police officer Michael Martinez testified to the narrative of
the shooting, but would not positively I d Jonathan.
Speaker 5 (19:16):
He wasn't sure that it was Parker. Even on the stands,
he wouldn't lie and say it was definitely Parker. It
could have been Parker. So he's he's one of the
not willing to totally perjure himself cops.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
And Martinez was cross examined with his initial description.
Speaker 4 (19:36):
I was positive I was going to get acquitted. I
know I have anything to do with it, and how
already came into the prison system for my other weapon
possessed his charges. But I was confident I was going
to be leaving out of that court room to finish
my censes and eventually be home to my family.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
And maybe he would have, but it seems like his attorney,
Jim Harrington, didn't want to take that gamble, so in closing,
he tried a strategy that was not aimed at acquittal.
In fact, the opposite.
Speaker 5 (20:05):
Harrington was a death penalty attorney, and he said so
in his affidavit that his job was not so much
as to acquit Jonathan, but to keep him alive. So
trying to create sympathy or pity from the jury, He said,
Jonathan did it, but it was in the spur of
(20:26):
the moment. He didn't plan on doing it, which is all. Yes,
he never did it at all.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
I made him very weird that I was innocent of
this crime. I'm sitting in the courtroom and it was
only by sheer will that I did act a fool.
At the time, my defense wasn't a defense geared towards
guilty innocence. It was geared towards life with death. I've
got life without the possibility of growl, which is just death.
(20:55):
By incarcerations. I've had close to thirty years to think
about it. But when you go back to the initial description,
(21:19):
you have a police officer, who we know are trained observers,
who said that the perpetrator in his crime was a
liceicined bail five nine and these are things that are
reasonable tryer in fact, when you say, okay, you got
a young man sitting in the court room in front
of you who is maybe a shade removed from being
(21:40):
darb skinned, but three or four shades removed from being licekined.
And again, like I said, I'm five to six maybe
five six and a half. Then we go back to
Latina's being shot on the passenger side of the car,
but the suspect shooting from the driver side of the car.
I don't understand how person gets shot in the ankle.
(22:02):
Then you're saying you found a weapon that's who alleged
that have been used in this incident at the nine
milimeter seventeen clock, which is the exact same weapons that
police officers are issued to carry when they all duty.
Speaker 5 (22:18):
The street version is that McDougal didn't want to be
dirty anymore. Everybody spoken to says that the cops killed
Skip because he wanted to go clean and they were
afraid he'd reveal their antics, so they killed them. Allegedly,
they took their time getting to the hospital to make
(22:40):
sure Skip was dead allegedly, but before.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Carl spoke to anyone, Jonathan did his direct appeal, subsequent appeal,
and federal havias, which took about twelve years to finally
all be denied. Twelve long years, during which time the
lead investigator on this case, Detective Andrea Ortiz, was himself
arrest in connection with his involvement with a local drug
trafficking organization headed by an individual named Frankie Johnson.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Detective or Ties in the Western District of New York
took a play on a two thousand and four case. Now,
this plea agreement is ten pages. This was the most
substantive document that I could find with regards to this case,
because everything else I searched for was under seal, and
the plea agreement essentially lays out what he pled to
(23:30):
fraud and related activity in connection with computers or Tees.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Agreed to plead guilty to accessing a Justice Department criminal
database and then sharing that information with this notorious drug
kingpin Frankie Johnson. Now who knows what it was used for.
I mean, my mind doesn't go to a good place.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
If he's going to utilize his access as a Buffalo
police officer and passed that information along to someone who's
not a police or someone who may be in the streets,
and that was alleged here.
Speaker 7 (24:03):
There has to be a history there.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
And there's probably a bunch of other things that are
being exchanged as well. It just so happened to be
that this is what they caught, or this what was
on their radar, or this is what they were able
to say was ultimately past to someone who shouldn't have
gotten this information. And also, in order for the FEDS
(24:25):
to take on a case like this, there has to
be substantial ties to criminal activity that far exceed this
for this to even become an issue in the Fed world.
Speaker 7 (24:37):
This is a nominal crime that he took a plea to.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
According to his plea deal, he'd either do one year
in prison, pay a fine, or both. A sweet deal
when you think about it, for his role in this
drug organization for which guys like Jonathan may end up
in and out of prison for life.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
So whatever this guy was able to really work out,
it seems like it was actually a slap on the wrist.
The maximum possible sentences are usually just statutory and don't
actually apply.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
I can't honestly speak accurately to what was going on
with those officers at the time, but as evidently something
was going on because I say, aside from the technive
war piece, there was another police officers and detectives. They
were also brought up on.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Corruption charges, which begins to grant a sent of validity
to that street version of events that Karl was talking about.
And then Aaron Yarborough came forward to shed even more
light on the situation.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
Somewhere around twenty twelve, Aaron Yarborough actually ran into a
family member of mine and was saying that he had
got sick and he was likely to have long to
live and he was feeling guilty about what he had
done and he just wanted to tell the truth about it.
Speaker 5 (25:53):
Aaron Yarborough, who now has passed away, said that he
was at a drug store nearby and see anything, but
the cops told him exactly what they wanted him to
say he saw.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
So Yarborough actually gives a sworn statement wherever. He says
that testimony that I then offered was false and totally untrue.
I was told what to say that I had seen.
He basically says, I did not see Jonathan Parker at
or near the scene of the murder. I definitely did
(26:26):
not see Jonathan Parker shoot a Buffalo Police officer. I
had been around the corner store a block away from
the shooting when I heard the noise. I looked out
to see what was happening. I saw many police cars
going by, so I quickly left the area. Later that evening,
homicide Detective Andre Ortiz and a bunch of other cops
(26:51):
captured me. He actually uses the word captured me.
Speaker 5 (26:54):
Detective Ortiese had threatened him that if he didn't lie
and that he saw Jonathan do the shooting, that he
would take him out in the cornfields and blow his
head off.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
He said that he knew the reputation of Detective Ortz.
He was afraid for his life, so he agreed to
see whatever they told me to say. At Jonathan Parker's
murder triumph. Now that Detective Ortiz is no longer a
Buffalo Police detective and therefore can no longer kill me
for telling the truth. I am now willing to tell
(27:31):
the absolute truth.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
By the time Yarboro came clean, Jonathan had connected with
Keantay Ricks in prison, who put him in contact with
Carl and Stephen, who began reinvestigating the case and recording
these affidavits. So they also visited Aaron Lott.
Speaker 5 (27:49):
According to Aaron lott subsequent statement, there was a Ford
Explorer that had gone by. According to the witnesses, they
were all the way down to the next life on
Fillmore when they heard the shots. They didn't see anything.
Aaron Lott. He was facing federal prison time for drugs.
(28:10):
The police said, we'll make it go away if you'll
say you're a block back and saw this whole thing,
which he did.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
But now we get to how they knew to approach
Aaron Lott for testimony. Remember, he wasn't in the Hyundai
Excel that Officer Martinez had seen him in earlier that night.
He was in this Ford Explorer with tinted windows. It
appears that Aaron Lott had already been cooperating with the Feds,
but strangely that wasn't information that was readily available even
(28:40):
if trial counsel wanted to find it, or anyone else
for that matter.
Speaker 7 (28:46):
I'm looking for Aaron Lott. Why do I not.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
Find anything in Aaron Lot Because I discovered that he's
going by his criminal cases Aaron Davis, and I have
confirmed with the District Attorney's office that Aaron Davis in
this key is Aaron Lott. And specifically, the plea agreement
that I received with regards to Aaron Lott pertains to
(29:11):
a nineteen ninety five Western District case. But on the
plea there is a actual stamp about his plea agreement
being in December of nineteen ninety seven. So here's the
entry of guilt from sometime in nineteen ninety three and
(29:33):
continuing through September ninety four. Defendant Aaron Davis aka Aaron
Lott knowingly, intentionally and willfully agree to assist Dexter Hennings
and others in purchasing, storing, and selling cocaine and cocaine
based crack in Buffalo, New York and elsewhere in the
Western District. Forty one grams of cocaine base and one
(29:56):
hundred and thirty grams of cocaine are the amounts in
his relevant conduct. Now they were talking about a mandatory
minimum of five.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
It's the perfect time, actually for me to point out
the one hundred and one sentencing disparity between crack and
powder cocaine. Five grams of crack meant a minimum of
five years, fifty grams carried a minimum of ten years.
But compared to sentencing for powder cocaine, which was more
popular in wealthier and wider circles, it would take five
(30:28):
hundred grams of powder cocaine to trigger the very same
mandatory five year sentence that someone could get with just
five grams of crack. Meanwhile, simple possession of even one
hundred and thirty grams of cocaine was just a misdemeanor
punishable by up to a year in prison. Now, I'll
let you make your own inferences about why this disparity existed.
(30:49):
We spoke with Senator Dick Durbin about how he worked
to correct that disparity with the bill that he proposed,
which was signed into law in twenty ten. All of
this fascinating history is on the episode of Righteous Convictions
where I interviewed Dick Durbin. We're going to link to
that in the episode description, but back to Aaron Lott.
It appears that he had cooperated on this nineteen ninety
(31:11):
five case, yet the plea deal was signed in December
nineteen ninety seven, and his charges appear to completely ignore
the trafficking of one hundred and thirty grams of cocaine
and who knows what else, and instead was focused solely
on the forty one grams of crack with a minimum
sentence of five years.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
Now the talk of community or house confinement, there is
this understanding that he is going to get time towards
his sentence by not officially going in. And here's what
it's based on. Check this out. There is a paragraph
entitled cooperation Paragraph eighteen. Defendant has already cooperated and will
(31:53):
continue to cooperate with the government by providing complete and
truthful information regards arding his knowledge of any and all
criminal activity, whether undertaken by himself or others. So they
sprinkled all this stuff in there, And what do you
think he's doing during this time? During this time he
is cooperating on Jonathan Parker's case.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
In the next paragraph, it stated that the FEDS would
give him credit against his sentence for cooperation with state
and local authorities. As well, and in federal sentence and
guidelines they have numerical levels that correspond to time ranges
for specific charges. After his first cooperation, he was at
level twenty five with a minimum of sixty to seventy
one months on a community confinement.
Speaker 7 (32:35):
All right, So they got him at a level twenty five.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
And essentially it's saying, if you provide additional assistance. Now
we're talking about ninety seven grand jury testimony, we'll knock
it down five levels. You know, we'll talk about thirty
three to forty one months. But if you provide additional assistance,
you get another two levels knocked down at eighteen, which
(33:01):
provides for a sentence of twenty seven to thirty three
months of incarceration.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
So by cooperating in Jonathan's case, he was able to
chip away to level eighteen, meaning just two years in
change on community confinement, with the opportunity to chip away
even more with further cooperation, and the deal got even
sweeter for mister Aaron Lott.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Moving on paragraph twenty, in exchange for defendans flee of
guild and cooperation is set forth, he will not be
prosecuted by the Office of the United States attorney for
the Western District for any other federal criminal offenses. I mean,
in that world, that is huge. Check this out now,
(33:45):
paragraph twenty one. The government will move the court at
sentencing provided to guidelines five K one point one. I
don't know if you know what a five K one
point one is, but it's a downward departure that submitted
in a letter format that basically says you have provided
the government substantral assistance. And it essentially is and can
(34:09):
be considered as good as a get out of jail
free card without question. It is amazing what a five
K one letter will do.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
So Aaron Lott was in a position to be a
serial testifier, which not only would have been very useful
to trial counsel, but alternatively anyone else who Aaron Lott
may have cooperated against, falsely or otherwise. Which makes me
wonder again about what information Detective Ortiz might have accessed
and shared that got the Feds pissed off enough to
(34:38):
prosecute him. Either way, Jonathan now had Yarborough Lot and
by association Cassandra Salinis, this was powerful evidence of innocence,
and then Jonathan's case got another boost in twenty eighteen,
when the Supreme Court ruled in McCoy versus Louisiana, affirming
that a defendant has the right to choose their own defense,
(34:59):
which for him meant that his attorney violated his rights
by conceiving guilt in closing arguments. So Carl added that
to a new for forty.
Speaker 5 (35:08):
Motion, I had four issues. Issue one was based on McCoy.
Issue two, McCoy is retroactive because at that point under
Montgomery and Welch they had held it to be retroactive.
Third was newly discovered evidence, basically Aaron Yacht and Aaron
(35:29):
Yarborough's testimony. And the fourth issue actual innocence. I did
that because under federal law, a claim of actual innocence
cannot be time barred. I had plenty of affidavits from Harrington,
from Aaron Loss, from Aaron Yarborough, and from the lead
(35:50):
death penalty lawyer in Rochester explaining why Harrington said what
he did because his job was not to quit Jonathan,
but to keep him alive. So originally the four forty
lead off was McCoy. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court subsequently claimed
(36:13):
that McCoy will not apply retroactively. Too many people were
getting out, so that issue went out.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
So an amended four to forty was submitted in twenty
twenty two based on all this new evidence and the
actual illness it's claim.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
I was having status conferences with the court and trying
to push for an evidentiary hearing, and I got everybody
to agree that a hearing was warranted. Then the assigned
assistant district attorney who was on the case, I believe
he was fired. He was no longer on the case.
(36:47):
A new set of district attorneys came on the case,
and they immediately contacted the court and said that the
district attorney's office has changed their stance on whether or
not and entry hearing was warranted. I then as for
another status conference. At that court appearance, we actually both
(37:08):
I mean I addressed the court at least twice. Carl
was working with Attorney Goldstein. He addressed the court and
the people's position was to essentially attack the credibility of
the recantations. And I continued to push for a hearing,
and at one point the judge said that he would
(37:29):
have a decision in thirty days.
Speaker 7 (37:31):
Whether or not we could have an evident your hearing.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
That was at the end of twenty twenty two, so
we are now going on thirty days turning into three years.
At first, my position was, let's not rock the boat
because I could force a decision, but enforcing a decision
that's going to land us in a pellet world for
the next couple of years. I submitted a bunch of
different subpoenas I kept pushing this issue that I want
(37:57):
people to testify, and I am told that a decision
will be issued in the month of October of this year.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
And we understand that they have a massed witnesses that
will corroborate the recantations as well as support for the
alternate theory, but they can always use more help.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
I'm asking for anybody who as any information in regards
to this matter and a murder officer child Skip McDowell
to please contact Carl Deviver, Stephen A. Metcalf, anybody who
you feel can hear what needs to be her for
you to say what needs to be said.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
We're going to link contact information in the episode description.
Please go there, check it out, and take whatever action
you're capable of. And in the meantime, we await Judge
by NACI's decision on the evidentiary hearing. Let's hope for
a good one, and with that we'll go to closing arguments,
where I think you guys, from the bottom of my heart,
especially you Jonathan, for sharing courageously sharing your story. And
(38:54):
now I'm going to kick back in my chair with
my headphones on and my eye clothes on, my microphone off,
and just listen to anything else you guys have to say. Steven,
you go first, and then hand the microphone off to
Carl and then Jonathan will take us off into the sunset.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
I mean, I think to summarize this with what we
spoke about tonight is if it doesn't fit, it just
there's a reason it doesn't fit.
Speaker 7 (39:20):
Aaron Yarborough is ultimately.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
Trying to sell CD players on the street, yet he
becomes one of the government's first witnesses. The guy gets
thrown into the Hilton. He's living his best life at
this point, giving statements to substantiate the investigation throughout the
course of this time. Then you have Aaron Lott and Cassandra.
Aaron Lott happens to be a player or drug dealer
(39:46):
in the streets at this time, has so much to
gain from providing information against Jonathan Parker, and in order
to do that, he had the rope Cassandra into it.
Does ultimately me and them look more credible. And ultimately
you take this mixed bag of various different characters, potentially
(40:07):
two of them crackheads, one of them a nice crack dealer.
You mix it all up, and you got the witnesses
they needed to put the gun in Jonathan Parker's hand.
It's just nobody actually looked at it and told the
additional story or the other side of the story. The
streets have spoken about this, The streets keep speaking about this,
(40:28):
and the thirty years that the streets have spoke about that,
we're looking to actually tell that real side of that
story and seek justice for Jonathan. And I'm confident that
all you got to do is give me a hearing
and I can blow Jonathan Parker's case out of the
water where no appellate division would ever even question it,
and it would just be another repeat of Jonathan Parker
(40:50):
case with no evidence whatsoever to justify a conviction.
Speaker 5 (40:55):
They know Jonathan was innocent, but they had a dead
cop and newspaper screaming for a perpetrator, and they thought
that Parker is a nasty street kid. Let's get him
off the streets. We know he didn't kill Skip, but
he's a trouble Let's get him off the streets. I'm
glad to say that somebody is finally willing to do
(41:17):
something to get an innocent man, a framed man, out
of jail.
Speaker 4 (41:24):
Well, there's obviously that the evidence in this case shows
that I didn't commit this crime. And as I've said,
I've professed my innocence from the day I turned myself
into the very second where you're hearing this broadcast. So
I just asked the justice to be served. We say
we have a justice system, that the justice system is
(41:44):
supposed to be equal to everyone. This is justice system
was not equal to me in these circumstances surrounding this case.
So now is the time to correct what needs to
be corrected, and hopefully the truth will come to the
light and I will be set free.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for
Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our
production team, Connor Hall, and Kathleen Fink, as well as
my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cleiber.
The music in this production was supplied by three time
(42:25):
OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and
at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram
at It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One.
Speaker 7 (42:41):
We've worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in
this show are accurate.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in
this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect
those of Lava for Good.
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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