February 17, 2021 • 30 mins
On June 10th, 1993, Henry Gomez was wounded, and Manny Quintero was killed in a drive-by shooting in Harlem. Alleged ex coke dealer turned NYPD cop AJ Melino and repeat wrongful conviction offender Detective Mark Tebbens joined forces with members of the Yellow Top crack gang to spin a tale that sent Pablo Fernandez away for almost 25 years in exchange for leniency.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
In the early nineties, the crack epidemic was in full swing,
and violence between rival gangs, the Red Top Crew and
the Yellow Top Crew, among others, gripped Harlem and other
parts of the city. On June tenth, a slender light
skined man in his forties with a gray ponytail rolled
up to a building on West one thirty fifth Street
and open fire, wounding fifteen year old Henry Gomez and
(00:25):
killing eighteen year old Many Kintero. The case went cold
for two years. Then two members of Yellow Top joint
forces with a corrupt detective and officer team to bring
a close to this case in exchange for leniency in
their own cases. Officer A. J. Molino had been involved
in dealing at some point himself. The detective was Mark Tabbin's,
(00:48):
the same one responsible for Danny ring Kohn's ronfl conviction
in the bungling of another Red Top Crew shooting in
the Bronx, These members of Yellow Top made up a
story that Pablo for and As had been hired by
Red Top to carry out the June tenth shooting. Then
Tabbans and Molino used misleading identification tactics to trick or
coerce several teenage eye witnesses to build what they knew
(01:12):
was a farcical case. The prosecution followed suit to turn Pablo,
a stocky, darker skin two year old with short black hair,
into this slender forty something light skin shooter with a
gray ponytail. Pabo spent almost twenty five years behind bars,
and it took nearly a decade and a half of
pro bono work from legal giant Paul Weiss to win
(01:35):
his freedom. This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flomer. Welcome
back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason flam that's me. I'm
(01:56):
your host, and today I want to introduce first the
atturn any who spent thousands of hours pro bono on
this case. So Dave Brown, thanks for being here on
the show today, Thanks for having me Jason and with us,
of course, is the person who endured this nightmare that
you're about to hear about and lived to tell the story.
So now it's my great privilege to introduce you to
(02:18):
Pablo Fernandez. Pablo, thank you for being here with us today.
And this story goes back to the early nineties. Pablo,
you came from the Dominican Republic right, And you ended
up as a teenager in Upper Manhattan at the height
of the crack epidemic. What what was it like growing
up in that crazy time that we've heard so much about.
(02:39):
It was a way deeper about the day cry. Every
day we walking in this dree to see the house
in it bottled the crack of the flow. You see
a lot of cracking people walking in the three like.
Gunshots could be heard regularly around the clock, not just
at nighttime in those days. And you had a police
force that is out of control as well. And Dave
(03:02):
take us back to the original crime and how this
turned into this terribly flawed case and ultimately wonwerful conviction.
The crime in question took place on June tenth. It
was a drive by shooting where a car drives down
undred thirty fIF street, stops, The gunman gets out for
(03:24):
just a few seconds for the passenger side fire. Several
shots kills Mann Kintaro, wounds Henry Gomez, jumps back in
the car and the car drives away. A number of
Fie witnesses saw that shooting. They called in to nine
one one with descriptions. Some of them were interviewed by
the police either that evening or in the days that followed,
and they all described the shooter as having light skin,
(03:46):
in his thirties or forties, tall, thin build, gray or
salt and pepper hair pulled back in a ponytail. And
Pablo looked nothing like that description. He was twenty years old,
so he had short, dark hair, stock build, He had
never worn his hair long, much less in a ponytail.
And the case went cold, we believe because the police
(04:08):
failed to follow up on leads. They sent officers who
didn't speak Spanish to conduct interviews in the neighborhood around
where the shooting took place, and they just came back
and reported, well, we couldn't communicate with some of the
witnesses because they spoke Spanish, um, and just we think
there was no serious effort to really solve this time,
so the case goes cold. Approximately two years later, NYPD
(04:30):
officers engaged in a really brazen and corrupt scheme to
manufacture evidence against Pablo, faced with the facts that he
bore no resemblance to the shooter and there was never
any physical or forensics or ballistic evidence that connected him
to the crime, and there was absolutely no motive for
(04:51):
him to committed the crime. But let me start with
the police officers who were the primary architects of this.
To falsely incriminate Pablo, NYPD officer Albert Molino, he went
by a j who had ties to the drug trade
himself from before he went to the police academy, and
(05:12):
also Detective Mark Tebbans. Our audience might remember Mark Tabbans
from another case that we covered recently, Danny Rink Cohn case,
and of course all the corrupt tactics that he used
to make that preposterous case stick as well. The corrupt
and unconstitutional tactics that they used were not unique to them.
(05:33):
I mean these were commonplace in MYPD homicide and serious
felony investigations during the early mides, and the way they
constructed this false case was based on perjured testimony. At
the center of this corrupt investigation were two members of
the Yellow Top Crew, who were rivals of the Red
(05:55):
Top Crew. Now, in those days, of course, the crews
were named after the colored caps of the crack files
that they sold. Those Yellow Tops had two motives to
give up seemingly useful but false information to the police.
One was to help their own charges and the other
was to try to inflict damage on their arrivals, the
(06:15):
Red Top Crew, and these two individuals that worked with
Malino and Tabins were Raymond Dilley Rivera and the leader
of the Yellow Top Crew, whose name was Martin Chango
Maheas now Maheis was known in the streets to be
a crazy, violent drug dealer, and he was arrested in
(06:37):
June charged with three counts of murder, one kind of
attempted murder, and multiple drug conspiracy charges, and he was
facing potential life in prison, so he decided that he
would cooperate with the Manhattan DA's office and testify against
other people to get a lighter sentence. He put away
dozens of people who worked for him, and around that time, Rivera,
(06:59):
who was one of the chief lieutenants in the Yellow
Top Crew, came into the Benhanda DA's office and he
confessed that he had committed more than five hundred felonies,
including assaults, robberies, and attempted murder. He was never charged
for any of those crimes. So somehow Melino and Tepens
urged these two cooperators, Miheis and Rivera to say that
(07:22):
they knew Pablo had been hired to do this shooting
for the leader of the Red Top crew. They said
that they saw Pablo being paid money to do the
shooting about and one of them said that after the
shooting he saw Pablo come back and meet with the
person who had hired him to do the shooting and
take out a shell casing and say this is the
(07:43):
bullet that killed Cantaro. They said that they knew that
Pablo war disguise like a wig or he painted his hair,
and of course we would have also had to believe
that he had a makeup artist on hand who could
have changed his skin color. But you can't be stocky
and pretend you're skinny. That doesn't work. None of this
was true. And then early detective Tibbins and Officer Malino
(08:05):
found two eyewitnesses who had seen the shooting. Now, when
these kids saw the shooting, they were approximately thirteen years old,
and both of them were cousins of Manicin Taro. One
of them his name was Hickliffe Rosario and the others
name was George Rosario, and both of them had reported
seeing a light skin shooter, you know, long gray hair,
(08:27):
thirties or forties do the killing. But they were pressured
by Molino and Tebbans to falsely identify Pablo as the shooter,
in part because the police just kept pointing to pictures
of Pablo over and over and over, saying this shooter.
The police officers lied to Hickliff and George Rosario and said,
you know, even though he may not have been the shooter,
(08:50):
he had something to do with the crime, so you
should say that he did. And if you look at
the picture from Pablo's lineup, they're six men and five
of them are where white T shirts, and Pablo was
put in completely different clothes to make it easier for
the witnesses to falsely incriminate him. I think this is
something they had done many times before. You would think
(09:10):
that it would be incredibly difficult to frame an innocent
person for murder. It almost seemed effortless for these corrupt
police officers. And Pablo, what was it like going through
this for you? Did you understand what was going on?
And the beginning no, I thought I learned a little
about a little. It was really back from me. I
(09:32):
just have my song, my first baby to change that
life that quick like that, that won one second, it's
really huh they I mean the rack Asylum, you know
about that dying Rack as Islands, the acquisition that I
have something that I know that I'm not do my
(09:52):
son everything I see my son in the coal it
was it's it's impossible, I think for anyone who hasn't
been through it to imagine what you went through. I mean,
you're twenty years old, You're still a kid. Now you're
thrust into a very adult situation that you didn't cause
and you didn't create. And I want to just highlight
(10:14):
one of them. The Innocence Project has led to charge
along other organizations, to make videotaping of interrogations mandatory, but
also the photo arrays, line up procedures, all of that,
anything involving eye witnesses should also be videotaped. That's the
only way we can clamp down on these type of practices.
(10:34):
And they're not always as defarious as this one was, right,
but if they're influencing the witness in any way, the
jury must know about that. And that brings us to
the trial, which was Janu And let me start just
a few weeks before the trial begins. Actually, because it
appears that Molino and Keven's they knew approaching the trial
(10:56):
as was a week case. They had two cooperators obviously
had motives to lie and fabricate evidence, and then you
had these two teenagers who have been pressured to lie,
and so it looks like they went out to try
to bolster this case. And they found two more eyewitnesses
and one of them, his name is Hayes's. Canela Cannella
(11:16):
recants in the mid two thousand's, actually, as do the Rosarios,
but Cannella, when he came forward, he said that he
had been pressured by the police officers and they showed
him a picture of Pablo, not even a photo array,
just a single photograph of Pablo, saying this is the
person who did the crime. And then they told him
you don't have to testify in court about the fact
(11:38):
that you saw this photo. So this witness is found
two weeks before the trial, right it's now two and
a half years since he saw the murder, and he
testifies that he still recognizes Pablo, even though you know
Pablo supposedly wearing a disguise at the time, and he
says he's never seen any pictures of Pablo up until then,
although of course just two weeks before trial started, he
(12:01):
indeed was something pictures of problem, but that's all covered up.
It's so bad because you can do nothing. You can
say nothing. It's like if somebody pointing you and you
can do nothing. Everything was lying problem. When the jury
came back. What was that moment like when it told
me that I'm guilty? Um Man, I thought I want
to die. I feel my body like like I hold
(12:23):
in a thousand pounds my back. I looking bad to
see my family and all my family was prying. I
was crying. I was prying. I can't hold it when
you know that you he knowsing and they find you
guilty or something that you want to confront doing if
a year this, this is crazy. I lost my family
(12:43):
with my song. I love everybody. This episode is underwritten
by the A i G pro Bono Program. He I
G is a leading global insurance company, and for over
a decade, the A I G pro Bono Program has
(13:05):
provided thousands of hours of free legal services and other
support to nonprofit organizations and individuals most in need. More recently,
the program added criminal and social justice reform as a
key pillar of its mission. The case against Pablo really
(13:26):
began fall apart just a few days after the trial,
when the d A's office came to Publo's trial council
and said, we've had to arrest Officer A. J. Malino
because we discovered that he was under investigation by the
New York State Troopers for dealing large amounts of cocaine
to undercover cops a few years prior, right before he
(13:47):
went into the police academy, and for some reason that
investigation installed, but it was reopened during the trial. Malino
was arrested right after the trial, but the d a's
office never follows up to prosecute him, and after about
five years the case is dismissed for failure to prosecute. Now,
it's my theory that somebody who's dealing large amounts of
(14:10):
drugs and it goes into the police academy does not
stop after they've become a police officer. And we'll see
what comes to lighten Pablo's civil case, but I think
this was likely a corrupt officer through and through again.
We know during this time there were other officers in
up to Manhattan who were dealing drugs themselves, providing protection
(14:31):
to drug dealers, robbing drug dealers and signed the drugs themselves,
and you know, Molino certainly seems to fit that pattern. Yeah,
And one would think that that would cause an immediate
reopening of the case or retrial or something. But of
course we know that it took the most twenty five
years for this to be resolved and thousands of hours
of pro bono legal work from you and your team
(14:53):
at Paul Weiss. You know, it's one of the things
that gives me hope, just the fact that there are
people like you and firms like Paul Weiss and so
many others that provide almost limitless resources of human talent
to help someone like Pablo get out of what is
almost impossible morass. Dave, you didn't get involved to two
(15:14):
thousand five, but talk to us about this crazy appellate process.
The next major event occurs in two thousand two. Hicklov
and George Rosario both recanted their trial testimony and they
met with a lawyer who was representing Pablo at the time,
and they provided sworn testimony stating that Melino and others
had pressured them to falsely identify Pablo as the shooter.
(15:36):
The Hicklov stated that he was positive that Pablo had
not shot Kintaro. George said that he never would have
identified Pablo as the shooter if he had not been
told by the police that Pablo was involved, and that
he had been pressured to identify Pablo after being shown
Pablo's picture again. The impellate courts did not consider this
(15:57):
evidence enough to free public. The next year, in two
thousand three, Henry Gomants, of the second victim of the shooting,
he provided sworn testimony that Pablo was not the man
who shot him and didn't look like the shooter. That
is not enough either. Now, in two thousand five, my
law firm got involved. One of the top law firms,
(16:20):
not in the city, in the world comes in, you know,
to the rescue. How did his case land on your radar? Now,
we do a lot of pro bono work at Paul Wise,
including criminal defense work, criminal justice reform work. But your
question indicated, you know, why, of all of the thousands
and thousands of criminal defendants in the New York State system,
(16:44):
how do we get involved in Populo's case. Well, there
was a Yale law student named Andrew Goldstein who, because
of a program at the law school became aware of
this case, and then he came to Paul Wise for
our summer associate program, which lasts about eight to ten weeks.
And when he came in, he said, can I get
some support from Paul Wise to help me on Pablo's case?
(17:05):
And and we said sure. We thought this was going
to be something that we helped Andrew Goldstein with for
a summer. Well, that summer lasted fourteen years. Andrew ended
up coming to the firm as an associate where he
worked on the case, and then he left us after
about four or five years, and he became a prosecutor
(17:27):
in the U. S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District,
and he went on to work on Bob Mueller's team
a few years ago and is now back in private practice.
And just so overjoyed that the case that he brought
in as a law student ended with such a great result,
even though it took just such a long time for
justice to be delivered. What did it mean to you
(17:50):
when Dave and his team first got involved with your
case and to have their support, And how did that
feel the lawyer that I have it before uh Da
even the thing came. They told me listen, you look,
you got the best loyal United States, and maybe in
the world, you got one of the best loyal And
(18:10):
I was so happy, my family too, because you know,
I wouldn't be in the best hang that I can be.
That's that's the only way I came home. And I
want to get to that, you know, the good part,
your freedom. So let's go right back to that post
conviction history. In two thousand five, Paul White took the case,
(18:31):
and then there was another rectation in two thousand ten.
Two thousand ten, Hans was Cannella Rekns and again that
motion is denied. One of the reasons that the New
York State judge said that this witness was not to
be believed because he said, well, he was trying too
hard to be convincing when he recanted, which is just
(18:54):
such a ridiculous and bizarre thing to say. And with
lost in all the state court appeals in the federal
district court, and now we're going up to the federal
appeals court, and we knew that if we lost, it
was over. We would have only had the ability to
appeal to the Supreme Court. And there was almost a
(19:15):
zero chance that they would ever have taken this case.
So this was really our last stopped and this is
really the case. It shows you the value of perseverance. Well,
it certainly does, because in February, the U. S. Court
of Appeals for the Second District finally overturned the conviction,
(19:35):
ruling that it was unconstitutional and citing the state courts
denial as an quote unquote an unreasonable determination on the
grounds that Cannela was and again him quota here trying
too hard to be convincing end quote. So now the
conviction is overturned, but the indictment still stands because there's
(19:55):
no statute of limitations on murder, and the d A
comes you with the deal, right to go free immediately
if you plead guilty to manslaughter. But yet on the
other hand, they could still retry you. You had twenty
five to life, so parole was just around the corner.
But there's no guarantee you there either, because who knows,
(20:17):
Like if you wouldn't have admitted guilt, if you had
refused the deal, you might still be sitting in prison today.
I understand, but he's never passed from my mind to
take any deal with him. From the beginning, I will
fire for my freeing. So after all this year working
in my k in the right to be free to
(20:37):
brew my you know, say, I'm not gonna take nothing
for these people, nothing, you know. At first, we on
the defense team thought, there's no way that as Opicer
(20:58):
is going to retry this case. Hickla Rosario has recanted,
George Rosario has recanted, Hayes's Cannella has recanted. We learned
that Rivera was a quadriplegic and gravely ill, not even
able to speak. And then Maheas was a drug dealer
who had served in signifficant amount of time in prison,
(21:19):
and there was absolutely no case left. And so during
the spring of the d a's office was making one
disclosure after another to us. Has showed that the case
was even worse than we had known. But we contacted
Martin Maheias and he made some incredible disclosure to us.
(21:41):
We told our investigator, you know, when I was cooperating
with the police, I was supposed to go back to
the Rikers Island after I testified or after I met
with the d a's office, But Molino and Tabbins would
take me all around the city. We would go to
Dallas barbecue. We would get drunk. They would take me
to visit girlfriends, take me shopping. I was drinking a
(22:05):
lot at the time. I was drunk when I testified.
I viewed Tebbins as a friend, basically indicating that he
would have done anything to please the police. He also
said the police had given him marijuana to sell in prison.
I mean, this was just, you know, amazing to us.
(22:26):
And we got similar disclosures from the Manhattan DIA's office
about miheis in July of information to show that mahe
has said, I'm not going to testify for you again.
The police told me to lie in the trial. I'm
not gonna testify again. So then we learned just some
(22:48):
shocking information about Raymond Rivera. Raymond Rivera said that he
saw Pablo two days before the murder and that he
witnessed pub of being hired to shoot Kintaro. Now, at
this time, according to what the d a's office disclosed
to us, Rivera could not have been in Upper Manhattan
(23:09):
witnessing Pablo or anybody else being paid to do this
murder because during this time, Rivera was actually incarcerated in
state prison more than three hundred miles away. From New
York City, and that meant that his testimony was just
outright perjury. He could not have been in New York,
(23:30):
he could now have been in Manhattan. They were prison records,
new York State records that showed that he was incarcerated
at the time. And when these disclosures came out, the
d a's office decided to stop fighting the case, and
Pablo was first released on bail in August, and then
(23:51):
in September of the d a's office asked the trial
court to dismiss the case against Pablo. In September, two
days before his birthday, Pablo walked out of Manhattan Criminal Court.
Finally a freeman. The day that you've been waiting for
for twenty five years has finally come. You're innocent. Your
(24:14):
lawyers know you were innocent the whole time, your family
do you're innocent the whole time. Now everyone knows, the
court has said it. What was that moment like when
you were finally declared actually innocent and set free? Wow?
It was an amazing day. He was. It was he
was my day every day. I was thinking in that
day and I know that one day you're going to come.
(24:37):
And that was the date. I was so happy that
the trew came out and that I was re free.
But in the same way, I feel a little bad.
My father passed away when I was in jail two
d and fourteen, and one of the things that I
wanted is to see my family, my then my father.
(25:00):
They see my freedom, they see me out or my father,
and how a portunity to see me. He knows that
I know from the beginning, I can show him, you know,
my FREEO. I feel happy that I'm free, b in
the same in the same time, I feel little. I
don't know how to say, but I'm feeling my father,
(25:22):
my my hall, that I can see him, that I
can hold her no and show him no. I hear
with you again. The good news is your home now.
Um they're never going back. And Pablo, I have to
ask how, I mean people out here in the free
world trying to find love, going everywhere, looking on lyne on, here,
(25:45):
on there, going out, and you found love from behind
the walls of prison. I mean, you're a charming guy,
but still that's amazing. Can you explain? We know he
shad the folk outside before I get locked up. When
I get Lato in jail, a friend of mine. He
was my white Tania best friend brother. We see that
(26:07):
we from the same area, and we started talking about people,
and when I mentioned Litania, so he said, listen, my
sister is Tanya Strengths. So the same day he called,
so he sistered that I was here, and next day
I got a visit Fontania. Since that day we together.
(26:28):
That happened to thousands three Sina means one basis the
all we call to see me. Yeah, and you two
got married. She I mean, it's amazing. Really, she stuck
by you the whole way. It's beautiful and it's just
got to feel amazing. And I know I speak for
so many others, all of us here a round for
(26:48):
connection and everyone in your in your very wide circle.
Now when I say that, we wish you to all
the best that life has to offer. Any other news.
Now I got a new soul. Now come out a
great stuff. Congratulations to you both. So I mean, there's
(27:08):
really nowhere left to go after that. So let's just
end on a high note here and go straight to
closing arguments, which is of course a segment on the show,
my favorite segment. When I thank both of you, each
of you for being here. And then I shut my
microphone off, just kick back and listen as I hear
whatever you want to say, whatever you want to talk
(27:30):
about it. Let's start with David first and leave you
Pablo for last. Thanks Jason. I just want to say
that it was such an honor and the privilege to
represent Pablo, to fight for him, to meet his family,
his mother, his sisters, other members of his family, his
wife Tanya, who is just such a lovely, impressive woman.
(27:56):
I'm just so happy for Pablo Antania. But even though
twenty four years in prison and fourteen fifteen years of
their marriage, Pablo was incarcerated, now that they get a
chance to be together and to have a child together,
and they have two other children and this will be
a third, and this is just really wonderful. As I
(28:17):
said before, it's just so rewarding to do this type
of work. I would urge every lawyer I know to
try to get involved in criminal justice reform where it
doesn't have to be an innocent case. But there's so
much work that needs to be done around criminal justice reform,
and especially if you are at a large firm like
Paul Wise, there's so many resources that you can bring
(28:40):
to bear. And there's so many wrongs that need to
be righted, especially in the New York criminal justice system.
There have been a lot of cases that NYPD has
been involved in that had terrible, unjust tragic results. In
these cases can also be a lot of fun. It
is fun to be on the right side of his
three and on the right side of justice, and it's
(29:03):
energizing in the morning to get out and now that
you're fighting for an innocent person, I want to say
thank you. I feel so grateful for ord wise everybody
they're working in the case. That's the only reason I know.
They know I'm innocing. They do the best. Yes, they
made my my dream through they made my freedom or
(29:26):
my family happy. Now I enjoyed my song because then
and everything because then I feel so happy for then
grateful my family too, Like we kill like family, my
family feel like there is my family. I feel like
they're my family. And thank you for Grammy in the
program to make that troop come out. You know, I
(29:49):
know so many people like me innocently. They know how
the opportunity that I have. It's Brayma, don't forget to
give us a fantastic review. Wherever you get your podcasts,
it really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the
Innocence Project and I really hope you'll join me in
(30:12):
supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future
wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot org to learn
how to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank
our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis. The music
in the show is by three time OSCAR nominated composer
Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at
Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful
(30:36):
Conviction with Jason Flam is a production of Lava for
Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one
In the early nineties, the crack epidemic was in full swing,
and violence between rival gangs, the Red Top Crew and
the Yellow Top Crew, among others, gripped Harlem and other
parts of the city. On June tenth, a slender light
skined man in his forties with a gray ponytail rolled
up to a building on West one thirty fifth Street
and open fire, wounding fifteen year old Henry Gomez and
(00:25):
killing eighteen year old Many Kintero. The case went cold
for two years. Then two members of Yellow Top joint
forces with a corrupt detective and officer team to bring
a close to this case in exchange for leniency in
their own cases. Officer A. J. Molino had been involved
in dealing at some point himself. The detective was Mark Tabbin's,
(00:48):
the same one responsible for Danny ring Kohn's ronfl conviction
in the bungling of another Red Top Crew shooting in
the Bronx, These members of Yellow Top made up a
story that Pablo for and As had been hired by
Red Top to carry out the June tenth shooting. Then
Tabbans and Molino used misleading identification tactics to trick or
coerce several teenage eye witnesses to build what they knew
(01:12):
was a farcical case. The prosecution followed suit to turn Pablo,
a stocky, darker skin two year old with short black hair,
into this slender forty something light skin shooter with a
gray ponytail. Pabo spent almost twenty five years behind bars,
and it took nearly a decade and a half of
pro bono work from legal giant Paul Weiss to win
(01:35):
his freedom. This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flomer. Welcome
back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason flam that's me. I'm
(01:56):
your host, and today I want to introduce first the
atturn any who spent thousands of hours pro bono on
this case. So Dave Brown, thanks for being here on
the show today, Thanks for having me Jason and with us,
of course, is the person who endured this nightmare that
you're about to hear about and lived to tell the story.
So now it's my great privilege to introduce you to
(02:18):
Pablo Fernandez. Pablo, thank you for being here with us today.
And this story goes back to the early nineties. Pablo,
you came from the Dominican Republic right, And you ended
up as a teenager in Upper Manhattan at the height
of the crack epidemic. What what was it like growing
up in that crazy time that we've heard so much about.
(02:39):
It was a way deeper about the day cry. Every
day we walking in this dree to see the house
in it bottled the crack of the flow. You see
a lot of cracking people walking in the three like.
Gunshots could be heard regularly around the clock, not just
at nighttime in those days. And you had a police
force that is out of control as well. And Dave
(03:02):
take us back to the original crime and how this
turned into this terribly flawed case and ultimately wonwerful conviction.
The crime in question took place on June tenth. It
was a drive by shooting where a car drives down
undred thirty fIF street, stops, The gunman gets out for
(03:24):
just a few seconds for the passenger side fire. Several
shots kills Mann Kintaro, wounds Henry Gomez, jumps back in
the car and the car drives away. A number of
Fie witnesses saw that shooting. They called in to nine
one one with descriptions. Some of them were interviewed by
the police either that evening or in the days that followed,
and they all described the shooter as having light skin,
(03:46):
in his thirties or forties, tall, thin build, gray or
salt and pepper hair pulled back in a ponytail. And
Pablo looked nothing like that description. He was twenty years old,
so he had short, dark hair, stock build, He had
never worn his hair long, much less in a ponytail.
And the case went cold, we believe because the police
(04:08):
failed to follow up on leads. They sent officers who
didn't speak Spanish to conduct interviews in the neighborhood around
where the shooting took place, and they just came back
and reported, well, we couldn't communicate with some of the
witnesses because they spoke Spanish, um, and just we think
there was no serious effort to really solve this time,
so the case goes cold. Approximately two years later, NYPD
(04:30):
officers engaged in a really brazen and corrupt scheme to
manufacture evidence against Pablo, faced with the facts that he
bore no resemblance to the shooter and there was never
any physical or forensics or ballistic evidence that connected him
to the crime, and there was absolutely no motive for
(04:51):
him to committed the crime. But let me start with
the police officers who were the primary architects of this.
To falsely incriminate Pablo, NYPD officer Albert Molino, he went
by a j who had ties to the drug trade
himself from before he went to the police academy, and
(05:12):
also Detective Mark Tebbans. Our audience might remember Mark Tabbans
from another case that we covered recently, Danny Rink Cohn case,
and of course all the corrupt tactics that he used
to make that preposterous case stick as well. The corrupt
and unconstitutional tactics that they used were not unique to them.
(05:33):
I mean these were commonplace in MYPD homicide and serious
felony investigations during the early mides, and the way they
constructed this false case was based on perjured testimony. At
the center of this corrupt investigation were two members of
the Yellow Top Crew, who were rivals of the Red
(05:55):
Top Crew. Now, in those days, of course, the crews
were named after the colored caps of the crack files
that they sold. Those Yellow Tops had two motives to
give up seemingly useful but false information to the police.
One was to help their own charges and the other
was to try to inflict damage on their arrivals, the
(06:15):
Red Top Crew, and these two individuals that worked with
Malino and Tabins were Raymond Dilley Rivera and the leader
of the Yellow Top Crew, whose name was Martin Chango
Maheas now Maheis was known in the streets to be
a crazy, violent drug dealer, and he was arrested in
(06:37):
June charged with three counts of murder, one kind of
attempted murder, and multiple drug conspiracy charges, and he was
facing potential life in prison, so he decided that he
would cooperate with the Manhattan DA's office and testify against
other people to get a lighter sentence. He put away
dozens of people who worked for him, and around that time, Rivera,
(06:59):
who was one of the chief lieutenants in the Yellow
Top Crew, came into the Benhanda DA's office and he
confessed that he had committed more than five hundred felonies,
including assaults, robberies, and attempted murder. He was never charged
for any of those crimes. So somehow Melino and Tepens
urged these two cooperators, Miheis and Rivera to say that
(07:22):
they knew Pablo had been hired to do this shooting
for the leader of the Red Top crew. They said
that they saw Pablo being paid money to do the
shooting about and one of them said that after the
shooting he saw Pablo come back and meet with the
person who had hired him to do the shooting and
take out a shell casing and say this is the
(07:43):
bullet that killed Cantaro. They said that they knew that
Pablo war disguise like a wig or he painted his hair,
and of course we would have also had to believe
that he had a makeup artist on hand who could
have changed his skin color. But you can't be stocky
and pretend you're skinny. That doesn't work. None of this
was true. And then early detective Tibbins and Officer Malino
(08:05):
found two eyewitnesses who had seen the shooting. Now, when
these kids saw the shooting, they were approximately thirteen years old,
and both of them were cousins of Manicin Taro. One
of them his name was Hickliffe Rosario and the others
name was George Rosario, and both of them had reported
seeing a light skin shooter, you know, long gray hair,
(08:27):
thirties or forties do the killing. But they were pressured
by Molino and Tebbans to falsely identify Pablo as the shooter,
in part because the police just kept pointing to pictures
of Pablo over and over and over, saying this shooter.
The police officers lied to Hickliff and George Rosario and said,
you know, even though he may not have been the shooter,
(08:50):
he had something to do with the crime, so you
should say that he did. And if you look at
the picture from Pablo's lineup, they're six men and five
of them are where white T shirts, and Pablo was
put in completely different clothes to make it easier for
the witnesses to falsely incriminate him. I think this is
something they had done many times before. You would think
(09:10):
that it would be incredibly difficult to frame an innocent
person for murder. It almost seemed effortless for these corrupt
police officers. And Pablo, what was it like going through
this for you? Did you understand what was going on?
And the beginning no, I thought I learned a little
about a little. It was really back from me. I
(09:32):
just have my song, my first baby to change that
life that quick like that, that won one second, it's
really huh they I mean the rack Asylum, you know
about that dying Rack as Islands, the acquisition that I
have something that I know that I'm not do my
(09:52):
son everything I see my son in the coal it
was it's it's impossible, I think for anyone who hasn't
been through it to imagine what you went through. I mean,
you're twenty years old, You're still a kid. Now you're
thrust into a very adult situation that you didn't cause
and you didn't create. And I want to just highlight
(10:14):
one of them. The Innocence Project has led to charge
along other organizations, to make videotaping of interrogations mandatory, but
also the photo arrays, line up procedures, all of that,
anything involving eye witnesses should also be videotaped. That's the
only way we can clamp down on these type of practices.
(10:34):
And they're not always as defarious as this one was, right,
but if they're influencing the witness in any way, the
jury must know about that. And that brings us to
the trial, which was Janu And let me start just
a few weeks before the trial begins. Actually, because it
appears that Molino and Keven's they knew approaching the trial
(10:56):
as was a week case. They had two cooperators obviously
had motives to lie and fabricate evidence, and then you
had these two teenagers who have been pressured to lie,
and so it looks like they went out to try
to bolster this case. And they found two more eyewitnesses
and one of them, his name is Hayes's. Canela Cannella
(11:16):
recants in the mid two thousand's, actually, as do the Rosarios,
but Cannella, when he came forward, he said that he
had been pressured by the police officers and they showed
him a picture of Pablo, not even a photo array,
just a single photograph of Pablo, saying this is the
person who did the crime. And then they told him
you don't have to testify in court about the fact
(11:38):
that you saw this photo. So this witness is found
two weeks before the trial, right it's now two and
a half years since he saw the murder, and he
testifies that he still recognizes Pablo, even though you know
Pablo supposedly wearing a disguise at the time, and he
says he's never seen any pictures of Pablo up until then,
although of course just two weeks before trial started, he
(12:01):
indeed was something pictures of problem, but that's all covered up.
It's so bad because you can do nothing. You can
say nothing. It's like if somebody pointing you and you
can do nothing. Everything was lying problem. When the jury
came back. What was that moment like when it told
me that I'm guilty? Um Man, I thought I want
to die. I feel my body like like I hold
(12:23):
in a thousand pounds my back. I looking bad to
see my family and all my family was prying. I
was crying. I was prying. I can't hold it when
you know that you he knowsing and they find you
guilty or something that you want to confront doing if
a year this, this is crazy. I lost my family
(12:43):
with my song. I love everybody. This episode is underwritten
by the A i G pro Bono Program. He I
G is a leading global insurance company, and for over
a decade, the A I G pro Bono Program has
(13:05):
provided thousands of hours of free legal services and other
support to nonprofit organizations and individuals most in need. More recently,
the program added criminal and social justice reform as a
key pillar of its mission. The case against Pablo really
(13:26):
began fall apart just a few days after the trial,
when the d A's office came to Publo's trial council
and said, we've had to arrest Officer A. J. Malino
because we discovered that he was under investigation by the
New York State Troopers for dealing large amounts of cocaine
to undercover cops a few years prior, right before he
(13:47):
went into the police academy, and for some reason that
investigation installed, but it was reopened during the trial. Malino
was arrested right after the trial, but the d a's
office never follows up to prosecute him, and after about
five years the case is dismissed for failure to prosecute. Now,
it's my theory that somebody who's dealing large amounts of
(14:10):
drugs and it goes into the police academy does not
stop after they've become a police officer. And we'll see
what comes to lighten Pablo's civil case, but I think
this was likely a corrupt officer through and through again.
We know during this time there were other officers in
up to Manhattan who were dealing drugs themselves, providing protection
(14:31):
to drug dealers, robbing drug dealers and signed the drugs themselves,
and you know, Molino certainly seems to fit that pattern. Yeah,
And one would think that that would cause an immediate
reopening of the case or retrial or something. But of
course we know that it took the most twenty five
years for this to be resolved and thousands of hours
of pro bono legal work from you and your team
(14:53):
at Paul Weiss. You know, it's one of the things
that gives me hope, just the fact that there are
people like you and firms like Paul Weiss and so
many others that provide almost limitless resources of human talent
to help someone like Pablo get out of what is
almost impossible morass. Dave, you didn't get involved to two
(15:14):
thousand five, but talk to us about this crazy appellate process.
The next major event occurs in two thousand two. Hicklov
and George Rosario both recanted their trial testimony and they
met with a lawyer who was representing Pablo at the time,
and they provided sworn testimony stating that Melino and others
had pressured them to falsely identify Pablo as the shooter.
(15:36):
The Hicklov stated that he was positive that Pablo had
not shot Kintaro. George said that he never would have
identified Pablo as the shooter if he had not been
told by the police that Pablo was involved, and that
he had been pressured to identify Pablo after being shown
Pablo's picture again. The impellate courts did not consider this
(15:57):
evidence enough to free public. The next year, in two
thousand three, Henry Gomants, of the second victim of the shooting,
he provided sworn testimony that Pablo was not the man
who shot him and didn't look like the shooter. That
is not enough either. Now, in two thousand five, my
law firm got involved. One of the top law firms,
(16:20):
not in the city, in the world comes in, you know,
to the rescue. How did his case land on your radar? Now,
we do a lot of pro bono work at Paul Wise,
including criminal defense work, criminal justice reform work. But your
question indicated, you know, why, of all of the thousands
and thousands of criminal defendants in the New York State system,
(16:44):
how do we get involved in Populo's case. Well, there
was a Yale law student named Andrew Goldstein who, because
of a program at the law school became aware of
this case, and then he came to Paul Wise for
our summer associate program, which lasts about eight to ten weeks.
And when he came in, he said, can I get
some support from Paul Wise to help me on Pablo's case?
(17:05):
And and we said sure. We thought this was going
to be something that we helped Andrew Goldstein with for
a summer. Well, that summer lasted fourteen years. Andrew ended
up coming to the firm as an associate where he
worked on the case, and then he left us after
about four or five years, and he became a prosecutor
(17:27):
in the U. S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District,
and he went on to work on Bob Mueller's team
a few years ago and is now back in private practice.
And just so overjoyed that the case that he brought
in as a law student ended with such a great result,
even though it took just such a long time for
justice to be delivered. What did it mean to you
(17:50):
when Dave and his team first got involved with your
case and to have their support, And how did that
feel the lawyer that I have it before uh Da
even the thing came. They told me listen, you look,
you got the best loyal United States, and maybe in
the world, you got one of the best loyal And
(18:10):
I was so happy, my family too, because you know,
I wouldn't be in the best hang that I can be.
That's that's the only way I came home. And I
want to get to that, you know, the good part,
your freedom. So let's go right back to that post
conviction history. In two thousand five, Paul White took the case,
(18:31):
and then there was another rectation in two thousand ten.
Two thousand ten, Hans was Cannella Rekns and again that
motion is denied. One of the reasons that the New
York State judge said that this witness was not to
be believed because he said, well, he was trying too
hard to be convincing when he recanted, which is just
(18:54):
such a ridiculous and bizarre thing to say. And with
lost in all the state court appeals in the federal
district court, and now we're going up to the federal
appeals court, and we knew that if we lost, it
was over. We would have only had the ability to
appeal to the Supreme Court. And there was almost a
(19:15):
zero chance that they would ever have taken this case.
So this was really our last stopped and this is
really the case. It shows you the value of perseverance. Well,
it certainly does, because in February, the U. S. Court
of Appeals for the Second District finally overturned the conviction,
(19:35):
ruling that it was unconstitutional and citing the state courts
denial as an quote unquote an unreasonable determination on the
grounds that Cannela was and again him quota here trying
too hard to be convincing end quote. So now the
conviction is overturned, but the indictment still stands because there's
(19:55):
no statute of limitations on murder, and the d A
comes you with the deal, right to go free immediately
if you plead guilty to manslaughter. But yet on the
other hand, they could still retry you. You had twenty
five to life, so parole was just around the corner.
But there's no guarantee you there either, because who knows,
(20:17):
Like if you wouldn't have admitted guilt, if you had
refused the deal, you might still be sitting in prison today.
I understand, but he's never passed from my mind to
take any deal with him. From the beginning, I will
fire for my freeing. So after all this year working
in my k in the right to be free to
(20:37):
brew my you know, say, I'm not gonna take nothing
for these people, nothing, you know. At first, we on
the defense team thought, there's no way that as Opicer
(20:58):
is going to retry this case. Hickla Rosario has recanted,
George Rosario has recanted, Hayes's Cannella has recanted. We learned
that Rivera was a quadriplegic and gravely ill, not even
able to speak. And then Maheas was a drug dealer
who had served in signifficant amount of time in prison,
(21:19):
and there was absolutely no case left. And so during
the spring of the d a's office was making one
disclosure after another to us. Has showed that the case
was even worse than we had known. But we contacted
Martin Maheias and he made some incredible disclosure to us.
(21:41):
We told our investigator, you know, when I was cooperating
with the police, I was supposed to go back to
the Rikers Island after I testified or after I met
with the d a's office, But Molino and Tabbins would
take me all around the city. We would go to
Dallas barbecue. We would get drunk. They would take me
to visit girlfriends, take me shopping. I was drinking a
(22:05):
lot at the time. I was drunk when I testified.
I viewed Tebbins as a friend, basically indicating that he
would have done anything to please the police. He also
said the police had given him marijuana to sell in prison.
I mean, this was just, you know, amazing to us.
(22:26):
And we got similar disclosures from the Manhattan DIA's office
about miheis in July of information to show that mahe
has said, I'm not going to testify for you again.
The police told me to lie in the trial. I'm
not gonna testify again. So then we learned just some
(22:48):
shocking information about Raymond Rivera. Raymond Rivera said that he
saw Pablo two days before the murder and that he
witnessed pub of being hired to shoot Kintaro. Now, at
this time, according to what the d a's office disclosed
to us, Rivera could not have been in Upper Manhattan
(23:09):
witnessing Pablo or anybody else being paid to do this
murder because during this time, Rivera was actually incarcerated in
state prison more than three hundred miles away. From New
York City, and that meant that his testimony was just
outright perjury. He could not have been in New York,
(23:30):
he could now have been in Manhattan. They were prison records,
new York State records that showed that he was incarcerated
at the time. And when these disclosures came out, the
d a's office decided to stop fighting the case, and
Pablo was first released on bail in August, and then
(23:51):
in September of the d a's office asked the trial
court to dismiss the case against Pablo. In September, two
days before his birthday, Pablo walked out of Manhattan Criminal Court.
Finally a freeman. The day that you've been waiting for
for twenty five years has finally come. You're innocent. Your
(24:14):
lawyers know you were innocent the whole time, your family
do you're innocent the whole time. Now everyone knows, the
court has said it. What was that moment like when
you were finally declared actually innocent and set free? Wow?
It was an amazing day. He was. It was he
was my day every day. I was thinking in that
day and I know that one day you're going to come.
(24:37):
And that was the date. I was so happy that
the trew came out and that I was re free.
But in the same way, I feel a little bad.
My father passed away when I was in jail two
d and fourteen, and one of the things that I
wanted is to see my family, my then my father.
(25:00):
They see my freedom, they see me out or my father,
and how a portunity to see me. He knows that
I know from the beginning, I can show him, you know,
my FREEO. I feel happy that I'm free, b in
the same in the same time, I feel little. I
don't know how to say, but I'm feeling my father,
(25:22):
my my hall, that I can see him, that I
can hold her no and show him no. I hear
with you again. The good news is your home now.
Um they're never going back. And Pablo, I have to
ask how, I mean people out here in the free
world trying to find love, going everywhere, looking on lyne on, here,
(25:45):
on there, going out, and you found love from behind
the walls of prison. I mean, you're a charming guy,
but still that's amazing. Can you explain? We know he
shad the folk outside before I get locked up. When
I get Lato in jail, a friend of mine. He
was my white Tania best friend brother. We see that
(26:07):
we from the same area, and we started talking about people,
and when I mentioned Litania, so he said, listen, my
sister is Tanya Strengths. So the same day he called,
so he sistered that I was here, and next day
I got a visit Fontania. Since that day we together.
(26:28):
That happened to thousands three Sina means one basis the
all we call to see me. Yeah, and you two
got married. She I mean, it's amazing. Really, she stuck
by you the whole way. It's beautiful and it's just
got to feel amazing. And I know I speak for
so many others, all of us here a round for
(26:48):
connection and everyone in your in your very wide circle.
Now when I say that, we wish you to all
the best that life has to offer. Any other news.
Now I got a new soul. Now come out a
great stuff. Congratulations to you both. So I mean, there's
(27:08):
really nowhere left to go after that. So let's just
end on a high note here and go straight to
closing arguments, which is of course a segment on the show,
my favorite segment. When I thank both of you, each
of you for being here. And then I shut my
microphone off, just kick back and listen as I hear
whatever you want to say, whatever you want to talk
(27:30):
about it. Let's start with David first and leave you
Pablo for last. Thanks Jason. I just want to say
that it was such an honor and the privilege to
represent Pablo, to fight for him, to meet his family,
his mother, his sisters, other members of his family, his
wife Tanya, who is just such a lovely, impressive woman.
(27:56):
I'm just so happy for Pablo Antania. But even though
twenty four years in prison and fourteen fifteen years of
their marriage, Pablo was incarcerated, now that they get a
chance to be together and to have a child together,
and they have two other children and this will be
a third, and this is just really wonderful. As I
(28:17):
said before, it's just so rewarding to do this type
of work. I would urge every lawyer I know to
try to get involved in criminal justice reform where it
doesn't have to be an innocent case. But there's so
much work that needs to be done around criminal justice reform,
and especially if you are at a large firm like
Paul Wise, there's so many resources that you can bring
(28:40):
to bear. And there's so many wrongs that need to
be righted, especially in the New York criminal justice system.
There have been a lot of cases that NYPD has
been involved in that had terrible, unjust tragic results. In
these cases can also be a lot of fun. It
is fun to be on the right side of his
three and on the right side of justice, and it's
(29:03):
energizing in the morning to get out and now that
you're fighting for an innocent person, I want to say
thank you. I feel so grateful for ord wise everybody
they're working in the case. That's the only reason I know.
They know I'm innocing. They do the best. Yes, they
made my my dream through they made my freedom or
(29:26):
my family happy. Now I enjoyed my song because then
and everything because then I feel so happy for then
grateful my family too, Like we kill like family, my
family feel like there is my family. I feel like
they're my family. And thank you for Grammy in the
program to make that troop come out. You know, I
(29:49):
know so many people like me innocently. They know how
the opportunity that I have. It's Brayma, don't forget to
give us a fantastic review. Wherever you get your podcasts,
it really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the
Innocence Project and I really hope you'll join me in
(30:12):
supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future
wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot org to learn
how to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank
our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis. The music
in the show is by three time OSCAR nominated composer
Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at
Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful
(30:36):
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