September 8, 2021 • 48 mins
This is an updated episode that originally aired on September 21, 2021.
On May 18th, 1998, Charlie Winbush told her fiancé, Julius Graves, that a man named Li Run Chen, who worked at a Chinese restaurant in the neighborhood had touched her inappropriately. Graves replied that he would scare him. Later that day, Julius Graves, his fiancée's cousin, and another younger friend had a few drinks with Graves and his friend Anthony Sims as they listened to music by Sims’ car.
That same evening, Graves asked Sims to drive him to the restaurant where Chen worked and Sims agreed, unaware of any issue with Chen. They went into the restaurant when it is believed that Graves shot and killed Chen. In shock, Sims fled alone while Graves and the two younger men returned to his apartment, wiped the gun clean, figured out where to stash it, and began to conjure up a story to deflect blame from Graves and onto Sims. Consequently, investigators set their sights on Sims who was eventually sentenced to 25 years to life for the crime.
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https://www.freeanthonysims.com/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
One woman named Rachel claims to have seen her neighbors
Julius Graves and Charlique Winbush talking. Charlie was telling her
fiance and Graves about how a man named Lee run Chen,
who worked at the Chinese restaurant up the block. Mr Hanks,
had touched her inappropriately. Graves replied that he would scare him.
(00:23):
Later that day, Julius Graves, his fiance's cousin, and another
younger friend had a few drinks with Graves's friend, Anthony
Simms as they listened to music by Anthony's car. As
the evening wrapped up, Graves asked Anthony to drive him
down the block to Mr. Hanks. Oblivious to any issue
with Chen, Anthony agreed. They went into the restaurant, when
(00:44):
it is believed that Graves shot and killed Lee run Chen.
In shock, Anthony fled alone while Graves and the two
younger guys returned to Graves's apartment, wiped the gun, clean,
figured out where the statue, and began to conjure up
a story to deflect blame from Graves and on to
Anthony Simms, with Graves and a number of his friends
and family supporting this phony narrative investigators set their sights
(01:07):
on Anthony. Only one witness came forward independently who was
neither coerced nor friends and family of Julius Graves. Graves
his neighbor Rachel, who was on the phone outside of
Mr Hanks during the shooting and saw Graves running from
the restaurant with a sawed off shotgun in his hand.
Yet her statement was ignored by investigators and hidden from
(01:29):
the defense, and as a result, Anthony Simms continues to
serve twenty five years to life. This is wrongful conviction
with Jason Flomer. Welcome back to wrongful conviction with Jason Flamm.
(01:55):
That's me, and today if you hear my voices, sounds
sort of down. I mean, this is of the most
troubling wrongful conviction cases that I've ever seen in twenty
eight years of doing this work, which is almost as
long as Anthony Simms has been locked up for a
crime he obviously didn't commit. First of all, I want
(02:16):
to introduce the two attorneys who are so devoted to
this case and to this man, Jonathan Hiles and Thomas Hoffman.
Thank you both for being here, Thank you, thank you
for doing this and now of course, saving the best
for last. And I'm just so sorry that you're here
under these circumstances. But I'm honestly honored that you're here
(02:36):
with us today on the podcast. So Anthony Simms, welcome
to Ronful Conviction. And Anthony, of course, is now forty
five year old man, twenty four years into a life
sentence for a murderer he didn't commit. Now, this began
back in but I want to go back even further
(02:57):
than that, Um, Anthony, what where did you grow up
and what was your childhood like? Was it a happy childhood? Yes?
I grew up in Brooklyn, New York and grove a mother,
father and my two older brothers, and we had was
very happy, loving family. We would do a lot of
fun activity together, go on vacations. I remember every Sunday
(03:18):
with family Day, whatever thing we needed to do we
had to do together as a family. And leading up
to when this awful crime occurred, you had kids, Beyonce,
at that time, what was life like for you? I
live what I thought was a normal life. I work
for Bell Atlantic Telephone Company and I was a fail technician,
installed fall lines and provided doubts on the customers. I
(03:40):
live with my fiance a Kisha, and my two sons
at the town and we would do a lot of
family things together. As a told of very family oriented,
so we regard the movies, parks, practice rods, everything. We
would just do as much as we can possibly. So
this brings us to May eighteen, nineteen eight Yate, when you, Anthony,
(04:01):
witnessed a terrible crime. There was a Chinese restaurant Mr. Hings,
which was down the block from where your former friend
Julius Grays lived, and around ten o'clock that night, a
man named Lee run Shan, who worked at Mr. Hings
was shot and killed. But earlier that day, before any
of that happened, you thought you were just going to
swing by Graves's apartment to show him this new car
(04:23):
you bought your fiance Keisha. So this day I decided
to Baha care and Julius Graves was at that time
my best friend, and of course because I bought the car,
was happy. I wanted to show him the car and
the boat. My wife this a process, so I drove
took his house at that town. So during that time
he asked me the job him to the liquor store.
(04:45):
I drove him to the liquor store and I went
to the regular store and bought some There we was talking.
I was letting the music play from my car radio,
and then his two friends came over, his fiance's cousin Derek,
and then later on his friend Louis, and they was
listening to music with us. And I want to say,
like around ten o'clock, he was getting late. I wanted
(05:06):
to go home, showed my wife the cause, and I
wanted to be home with my sons. So during that time,
Julius asked me to drive him today and findese restaurant.
So I thought this is a weird request because he
lived down the Blood around a corner from the restaurant,
and I thought he could have just walked to the restaurant.
So I said, oh, I listened. I was drinking a
couple of days. Let me go to the thought about
(05:28):
some restments because I don't like driving around like that.
I remember, right before I decided to go to the
store to get the restaurants whatever. I remember Julius saying, listen,
and I'm going to the house. I'm gonna go check
with Chalik, which is his girlfriend at the time, to
see if she wanted anything from the store as well.
So I said, all right, so I can only assume
that's the time that he got the weapon. And when
I got back come out called Julius was sitting in
(05:50):
my passengers seat and his two little friends was in
the back. They know that I didn't expect him to
be in a car because they looked at me with
this look like all right, we are, We're just gonna
go to this restaurant with you. So I didn't think
nothing now very I got in the car and I
drove him to the finest restaurant. When I got out
the car, I looked back and I noticed they were
still sitting in the car. So I was like, all right,
(06:11):
come on, because I'm not driving your home from here.
I'm going straight home because it was getting late, so
I decided to proceed to the Chinese restaurant. When I
got inside of the restaurant, I started looking around for
the menus and stuff to see what I was going
to purchase from my wife. The next thing I know,
I saw Julius come in the store with like a
weird expression on his face, and almost immediately he reached
(06:31):
in his fans and pulled out a pseudo side gun,
and and I remember thinking like what the hell was
going on? And why didn't even get that gun from asked?
I said, what the hell are you doing? Are you crazy?
Julius sexy said no, approached the counter, pointed the gun
of one of the workers and pulled the charger and
I couldn't believe it. I fell the blood rush from
(06:52):
my body. I was like shocked, and well, I remember
that time, just running out the store, getting in my car.
Julius jumped in into and I said get out and
kicked everybody. I said, everybody get out of my car.
And I drove home and told keis what I happened.
That was the worst night of my life. Yeah, it
(07:13):
would be the worst night of almost anyone's life to
witness something like that good night. When I when I
went home, I god like, I said, I can't believe it.
I got home, I got on the phone and I
called though, and I said, what the hell is wrong
with you? Probably courage my ass some other things for him. Basically,
want to know why he put me in that situation?
Why do you Why did he allow me to walk
(07:34):
into that Why didn't he tell me what was going on.
Maybe he could I would talk him out of it.
I don't know, but he just kept apologizing and that's
when he told me that you know the person that
he said that, I can't believe it. And I said, dude,
is don't ever call me again. I don't want to
hear from you no more. I just wanted to try
to separate my cell phone. So it turns out that
(07:55):
Julius Graves had a motive, and that is that Graves
was upset that Mr Chen, who worked at the Chinese restaurant,
had reportedly touched the hand of Graves's fiance Charlie earlier
in the day of the murder. That he had touched
her hand inappropriately. She was upset about this, she told Graves,
(08:18):
and Graves said that he would go to the restaurant
and scare the victim. We know he did a lot
more than that, but that appears to have been the
motive that we didn't find out until many years later. Now,
what was known at the time is that after the murder,
after Anthony got Graves and his two friends, Derek Dallup
and Louis Cologne to leave the car, it is undisputed
(08:41):
that Graves took the shotgun used in the murder, went
back to the apartment where he was staying, feverishly wiped
off the shotgun to get his fingerprints off of it,
and then gave the gun to his friend Louis Cologne
to hide from police. And Louis, by the way, was
only fourteen years old at the time, gives is excuse
(09:01):
for doing this is that he wasn't thinking. That was
his only justification for the fact that he took the
murder weapon, wiped it up, his fingerprints, and tried to
hide it from police. Now, Furthermore, this murder weapon, that
sawt off shotgun had previously been kept in a lock
box in the apartment where Graves was staying, and Graves
(09:24):
and his friend Derek Dallup, who was also his fiance's cousin,
admitted even that they knew the shotgun was kept there
and had seen it there before. So all the evidence
suggested that the shotgun belonged to Graves, and it is
undisputed he had handled it right after the murder occurred.
Right and the physical evidence from the scene later proved
(09:46):
that this sought off shotgun from graves apartment was used
in the murder. So this is where we start seeing
a narrative being formed from the Graves cab to try
to deflect responsibility for this murder away from Graves and
to and Anthony. And initially it will seem like a
lot of witnesses came forward to support what was really
(10:06):
just coming straight from Graves's imagination and what later became
the prosecution's narrative. But it will become clear as we
move along here that none of these witnesses were to
believed they should have believed for two reasons. One, it's
discovered later that these eyewitness accounts are initially riddled with
glaring inconsistencies and contradictions that were then changed to bit
(10:28):
a cohesive narrative in time for trial, which is just
not typical what a group of people are telling. The
truths obviously right and to most of the witnesses are
friends and family of Graves. There are only two witnesses
to who are not Graves as friends or family, one
of whom was coerced by police into an ambiguous statement
that nonetheless helped the prosecution's case at the time of trial,
(10:51):
and the other is the only independent witness who bravely
came forward to tell the truth about Graves's motive and
having seen him running from the restaurant with the gun. However,
none of this info about these two witnesses was known
to the defense at trial, but we'll get to that later. Now.
Right now, let's focus on the dubious narrative coming from
the Graves camp. So, the day after the murder, Charlik's brother,
(11:15):
William Robertson told police a second hand story from Charlie
that Charlie had said that Anthony had come by earlier
the day of the murder and taken the shotgun out
of the apartment. Then comes the narrative from Graves about
the night of the murder. Okay, ready, So, according to Graves,
Anthony dropped by the apartment around six pm and they
(11:35):
had a few drinks. Anthony allegedly showed Graves a shotgun
that he had in his trunk, a shotgun that Graves
should have recognized as the one from his apartment, as
Jonathan just said that Graves had admitted. Now, at some
point Anthony and Graves are joined by Charlique's cousin, Derek
Dallup and another younger friend, Louise Cologne. According to Graves,
(11:57):
Anthony had a previous altercation with the victim, Lee run Chen,
who worked at the Chinese restaurant down the block Mr Hins.
The reason behind this disagreement and the timing changed between
initial interviews and trial. In this farcical version of events,
Anthony allegedly had refused to pay for something that Mr.
Hings because it was either something he hadn't ordered, or
(12:20):
some chicken was undercooked, or it didn't look right. You know,
lying is tricky that way, right, It gets hard to
keep track of your own bullshit. Anyway, at the time
of this alleged problem and refusal of payment, Lee run
Chen allegedly pulled a gun on Anthony, to which Anthony
allegedly responded that he would get Chen for this. So
(12:42):
this patently ridiculous and poorly written story is what established
Anthony's alleged motive to murder Lee run Chen. According to Graves,
that night, in the lead up to the murder, Anthony
brought up this two to three week old and then
later four to five month old be several times and
was getting heated up about it before they headed to
(13:04):
Mr Hins, where Anthony was the one who allegedly shot
Lee run Chen, not Graves, whose fiance had complained to
him about Chen's inappropriate touching earlier that day. So this
just super believable narrative is what became the prosecution's theory.
I don't even know what to say at this point,
but it just feels liberated to hear you retell that
(13:27):
story because it sounded crazy to me, and from you
saying how crazy it sounds to you, that means a
lot because I've always believed down the line that the
truth was going to come out and the truth was
going to set me free. I didn't know that I
would be in prison twenty three years before this truth
came out, and it's going to be out there now
finally for everyone to hear, to shine a much needed
(13:47):
light on this terrible and tragic injustice. There are a
lot of good people working on your behalf right now,
not least of which, of course, are your lawyers and Jonathan.
There's even more than know about Graves's ridiculous narrative. Yeah,
I think the chronology of how the investigation unfolded, which Jason,
(14:08):
you've sort of given that it was Graves trying to
divert attention from himself. He his friends and his family,
and that's why the murder got pinned on Anthony, because
the case against Graves was so overwhelming that there had
to be a scapegoat, and the story against Anthony was
not only ridiculous, but as he alluded to, it was
(14:30):
so inconsistent. Graves first actually told police Anthony and Graves
his other two friends had gone to the Chinese restaurant
earlier on that evening and then come back and Anthony
was heated about an argument with the victim. But Graves's
two friends never said they went to the Chinese restaurant.
It was just made up. So Graves had to change
(14:51):
his story and say that he had witnessed an argument
between Anthony and the victim months earlier over a food order,
and that Anthony was still fuming about this months later
on the night of the murder. Again, Graves his friends
right who were trying to back him up. They never
said that Anthony had any beef with the victim or
was fuming about it in the car that evening, so
(15:13):
the story never really made sense. But what was important
to police and prosecutors, unfortunately was clearing the case. And
once they had Graves and his two friends who were
willing to point the finger at Anthony as a scapegoat.
The train had left the station. Okay, so they've got
their sites set on you, Anthony, and initially they show
(15:35):
up at your job, but you were out that day.
This tipped you off though that they were at least
looking to talk to you, and eventually you went involuntarily.
I mean, you're an innocent man. So did you think, well,
I'll just go in there, clear this up and head
on home. I did, And a big key does me
left out? Was there was a camera inside of a restaurant.
So I thought regartless that somebody would at one point
(15:59):
in Tom reviewed tape and that I had nothing to
worry about to take what Cleary came up for me.
So yes, I drove myself to the precint and that's
what I've been ever. Sense knocked away. You never walked
out of there again, never walked out. Now what happened
with the videotape from the Chinese restaurant? They said that
(16:19):
the tape wasn't recorded. Do you believe that? To be honest,
I don't know what to believe anymore. I used to
have a lot of faith in the judicial system. But
from being a crossery to myself listening to some of
the other horror stories from people in here with me,
I don't know what to believe. Now they had their man,
(16:51):
and any other evidence that existed then were emerged later
that suggested Anthony was innocent or that Graves was guilty
was just an inconvenience to the prosecution's case, and so
it was not disclosed to the defense. And of course
listeners to this show will know that when the authority's
withhold exculpatory evidence, it's called the Brady violation. Brady violations
(17:15):
are illegal, but as our listeners also know, Brady violations
rarely seemed to bring any actual ramifications for the people
who commit them. So it just keeps fucking happening in
case after case, and and in this case, I believe
the worst Brady violation, the worst one amongst so many,
is the sole independent witness who came forward in this
(17:35):
case that I alluded to earlier, whose statement was hidden
from the defense. Will refer to her only as Rachel.
So Rachel was right outside the Chinese restaurant where the
murder occurred, talking on a pay phone. This was an
undisputed fact and police spoke to her, and initially she
said that she had heard the shot and seen people
(17:58):
running from the Chinese restaurant, but she didn't have her
contacts in and so she couldn't identify who those people were.
That was what she said. Now, this was not a
neighborhood where it was easy to report to police who
you had seen involved in a murder, much less if
that person was your neighbor. And actually Rachel, who was
(18:19):
seventeen at the time, she was neighbors with Julius Graves. Now,
a couple of weeks went by and Rachel had kept
this information to herself, but her conscience was gnawing away
at her. She learned that Anthony had been wrongfully arrested
for the crime, and she actually received a call from
(18:40):
Anthony's wife at the time, Keisha, who said to Rachel,
I hear you were present at the scene and that
you may have seen something. Please just talk to police,
tell them what you saw, whatever you saw, Please just
tell them the truth. Now, at around the same time,
Rachel actually had an exchange with Graves and his fiancee
(19:02):
outside of their brown stone. During that exchange, there was
an argument and Rachel said, you know, I know what
you did. I saw what you did and what had
she seen? In truth, she had seen Julius Graves, her neighbor,
running from the Chinese restaurant with a shotgun right after
the shot was fired, so she knew that he had
(19:24):
run off with a weapon and was likely the killer.
And she said, I know what you did, and you're
trying to put it on somebody else. And Graves said,
you talked too much, and if you keep talking, I'm
going to shut you up. And Rachel was terrified, but
she was also angry at what was happening and at
(19:45):
the injustice and also at the way Graves was talking
to her, and so she called police, spoke to a
detective and she said, I saw Julius Graves running from
the Chinese restaurant with a big long gun. I know
was him. He's my neighbor. And the detective said, we
already have another guy. It was the taller guy. Anthony
(20:07):
is six three, Graves is five nine. Rachel said, no,
I know, they look completely different. I know that it
was Graves who was running with the shotgun. And the
detective basically said, well, thank you for your time and
hung up the phone. They had already arrested Anthony and
decided he was the guy they were going to pin
the murder on. Shaw Lee had anticipated that Rachel could
(20:29):
going to the police. So shaw Lee reports that Rachel
said that Graves had committed the murder and she spun
that as harassment. That was a written report. They had
that report. But if I can complete that incredibly, even
though Rachel lived next door to shaw Lee, they did
(20:50):
not question Rachel at all about that police report. They
didn't go up knock on the door and say is
this true. They didn't have to go across the country
to interview somebody or across the state, right. They go
across the street, across the street somebody who who actually
had begged to be interviewed, right, who, even though she
(21:12):
had been threatened by it by a really dangerous guy,
was like, no, I'm going to do the right thing
as someone we could be proud of, you know, that
comes forward in a situation like this. But instead she
just got shut down by those who are supposed to
protect us, which left Graves out on the streets to
potentially commit more violent crimes, while Anthony was stripped of
(21:34):
his freedom and civil rights. So back to this investigation.
If you want to call it that, the grandmother of
Graves's children, you know, Charlie's mom signs onto parents some
of the narrative. This is Dorothy Bolding, whose story changed
from her initial interview when she didn't mention Anthony Graves
or even having been at Mr. Hings at all. This
(21:57):
interview critical information here hidden from the defense, and by
the time the grand jury and the trial roll around,
she's changed her story, now claiming to be able to
implicate Antony in the murder. But still the investigators needed
to get someone outside of Graves's inner circle in order
to strength in the case. And as I alluded to earlier,
(22:19):
this is the only other witness besides Rachel who was
not directly related to Graves. She was a single mom
who certainly appears to have been coerced into giving an
ambiguous statement that helped the prosecution's case a trial, and
will refer to this witness as Salima, now Shalima. As
we have since learned, she initially told police that she,
(22:42):
when visiting her friend's apartment across the street from the murder,
had heard this loud bang, had looked out the window
across the street from a second floor on a dark
night and had seen a couple of men ran out
of the Chinese restaurant, but she couldn't describe them at all.
It seemed that one of them appeared to be holding
a long gun, but she couldn't make any sort of
(23:04):
description because it was dark and it was a very
fleeting observation. And they said, well, let's take you in
and see if we can refresh your memory. They took
her in, They separated her from her young child, and
they interrogated her for hours and intimidated her and wouldn't
tell her where her child was, which she kept asking,
(23:26):
and then eventually they emerged with the report saying that
she identified the taller man as being the one holding
the gun, which was something that was clearly fed to
her because she told police that she couldn't describe the
men she had seen, including the person who was running
with the gun. We first learned that in the past year.
Shalima said, I don't know how I could have testified
(23:49):
that I saw the taller man running with the shotgun.
I couldn't have made a description, and that's what I
told detectives, and their response was to take me in
for basically a full day of interrogation, separated from my
child until they had pressured her to give them what
they wanted. And so the prosecution really leaned on her
(24:13):
with this made up story that they sort of force
fed her because she was the only witness who wasn't
totally biased in favor of Graves. Right, so now they
finally had someone as shaky as this idea was to
corroborate what the Graves camp was saying. So July they
charged you, Anthony, with two counts and murder in the
(24:33):
second degree intentional and depraved indifference, and one count of
criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree, a
weapon that you had never even held in your hand.
And before a trial even began in April, Graves attempted
to disappear. Graves didn't want to testify. He wanted to
get himself off of the hook, but even he perhaps
(24:57):
had some pangs of conscience about falsely implicating someone who
had formerly been his friend, and so he went underground
before the trial started. And he was on probation at
the time, actually on a weapon's possession charge, and he
hadn't been reporting to his probation officer for three years,
(25:17):
and so the District Attorney's office actually initiated proceedings to
revoke Graves his probation so that he would be remanded
to prison potentially, And in the meantime, Grays went into
hiding because he didn't want to participate in the prosecution's case,
which was, as you said, Jason, a made up case
(25:38):
that was based on graves his own lies. This one's
really mystifying. I mean, do you have a guy who
has a propensity to violence, who knows his way around
with weapons, who was a possession of the gun, who
had a previous weapons violation, and it's like, yeah, no,
we're just gonna ignore that. Julius was asked directly, have
you reported to your probation officer often and regularly? He
(26:01):
answered yes, when he hadn't reported for three years, and
that's why was not corrected. And clearly the credibility of
Graves was critical. We did not know that he had
not reported till last year. So at trial, the state
presented Salima along with Graves's cadre of liars right Graves himself,
(26:22):
of course, and his fiance's cousin Derek Dallup, his friend
Louise Cologne and the grandmother of Graves's two children, Dorothy Boulding.
Now Bolding story changed twice. In her initial interview, she
didn't mention seeing Graves, Anthony or even having been at
Mr Hains. And then at the grand jury she testified
(26:43):
that while drinking outside of Mr Hains, she saw Anthony
enter with a long gun and heard a shot fired
before Graves entered the restaurant. Then at trial, I don't know,
maybe she had some pangs of conscience Either way, though,
she testified that she Anthony go in, followed by Graves,
then heard a gunshot but never saw a gun. Miss
(27:07):
Bolding for initial report would have really discredit her as
a prosecution witness was not disclosed. Also not disclosed for
bias given her relation to Julius Graves. Okay, so now
there's Shelima. She also testified against you, Anthony. She said
that on the night of the shooting, she was visiting
a friend who lived on the second floor in an
(27:27):
apartment across the street from Mr. Hans. She said that
she heard a gunshot and looked out the window to
see two black men running from the restaurant, and that
quote the taller guy had a gun. This was helpful
for the prosecution because Anthony was taller than Graves. Now,
Slima did not identify Anthony. The prosecutor tried to get
(27:50):
her to identify Anthony. You know, look around the courtroom.
Is the person you saw running with the gun here?
She said, I don't know. I can't say. And also
she testified that of the two men she saw running,
it was the person who was running second, who was
behind who was running with the shotgun. Graves testified that
he was running second, that he was behind Anthony. So
(28:13):
actually her testimony was very ambiguous, but it was really
the only thing the prosecution had that came outside of
Graves's inner circle. And as a result, the failure to
disclose what Shalima had had told detectives from the beginning
that she couldn't describe anything was a very damaging Brady
violation for Anthony's defense. Was there any real defense mounted
(28:39):
in your case? Anthony? But no, we didn't even call
any witnesses. M of behalf although Layer can testify, and
he said, no, what rightful person would just sit there
and listen to people say certain things about him and
not defend himself like he was really confident that there
(29:00):
was no need for them because the case was a
weak case, and they eventually gave it to say, you know,
Julia did or whatever, and that was that. So I
didn't really have a defense. So after hearing from Graves's
network of liars and Salima's ambiguous testimony, and then importantly
the absence of Rachel, did you still hold out any
(29:20):
hope at all that you'd be vindicated? I did only
because it was It was a time during the deliberations
what the jury came back into the courtroom and they
passed to note that said it was deadlocked, and the
just said, well, listen, I'm going to give you a
brief out in charge. It was almost like a kangaroo
court because he was basically saying, I don't know what
(29:42):
the problem is. It's not like he's facing the death county.
Go give me a verdict. And they needed some reback,
some courses and stuff. And I looked at my lawyer
at that point and I was mad because I said, well,
maybe if I testified, maybe it would have been different.
Maybe it wouldn't be at this point. But to answer you,
of course, and I was still hopeful, although hope was
(30:03):
slipping away at that point, but they came back and
found you guilty. What was that moment was that if
you can just take us inside that court room and
inside your mind and your soul. At that moment, uh,
I was shocked, confused, I was hurt, devastated, nass. I mean,
(30:25):
I was angry. I remember trying to stand up, but
I didn't have any feeling in my livings are just
so weak. Ironically, what was going through my mind at
that point was my son's because they were so young,
and every night I would tell them crazy bedtime stories,
either ones that I read from a book or I
used to make up some stories, and they looked forward
(30:45):
to going to sleep just about I could come into
room and telling them stories. And I said to myself,
I'm not going to be able to do that for
a while. As you can imagine, for the first couple
(31:12):
of years, I was very better. I was I was
I was mad, I was angry, and I was almost
like a walking Tommy so to speak. I mean, I
was always trying to do programs and stuff and trying
to help myself and help other people as well. But
inside I was really messed up. And I remember going
(31:34):
on a visit one day and my son, little Anthony Junior,
which I loved to dollo, both of my sons, he
was crying. He just broke out one day crying on
a visit and he said, Daddy, don't worry, I'm gonna
I'm gonna get Julius to doing this to you, because
he had known at that point Julius as his uncle,
because we were so close. And I looked at him
(31:58):
and I said, no, Anthony, don't ever say that a
game as I don't ever say that. And I was
basically letting them know that the law will e mentually
prevail and there to work yourself out. And in the
same time, he looked at me and he says, Lord
and Daddy, you gotta promise me that you would never
do anything to him. And I said, I won't. I
promise you that. And it was that point with that
(32:20):
I forgave to is and I continue to live my
life as a life giver but also trying to help
any and everybody out because in a sense helping me
as well. But that's that was my turnal point. That's
when I forgave him. Forgot what it did. Well, it
sounds like you you did a hell of a job,
even in the brief time you had with your son's
(32:42):
raising them and teaching them right. Unfortunately, prison has a
way to divine families, as you can only imagine. So
my son's mother, which is my wife with the town,
her name is also Keisha. This prison bay became too
much for her but us, and it felt like I
was holding back from living high life. So we both
came to the agreement that we should just divorce into
(33:04):
the race so that she can live for life of
this week. And God always has a way of making
things happen. But my wife today with his alpen named Kisa,
it's my junior high school girlfriend. She was my chiliader
when I was a captain of the basketball team. So
Jesus started to write me and one thing turned into another.
(33:28):
All of the old filings came back and we decided
to try one more time and get married. And that
was probably the best decision of my life. My name
is Keisha Sims and I am Anthony Simms wife, and
it is it's the best decision that we've ever made
that I've ever made. Anthony and I were, you know,
(33:49):
junior high school sweethearts. You know, people in the situation
always think that the people in prison, you know, they
should be grateful that someone makes a hyper commitment to
them under these circumstances. But for me, Anthony has brought
just so much to my life. He hasn't reached my
life so much. I'm grown so much as a person
because of him. This situation in particular has made me stronger,
(34:12):
and so I'm just grateful that he chose me to
go on this journey with him and to fight for
his innocence. One day, I was reading the newspaper from
a friend of my name, Kevin Jenkins, and he asked
me to read this article because the article is involved
the person that we both behavior, the value Cooper. Kevin
suggested that I try to get intest with Tom Hopf
(34:33):
and the lawyer that got this guy out. So I
talked to my wife and she said that night it
was awful her to sleep because she worked around a
lot of lawyers and you can do that. She only
had one shot at this and she was making a
little bullet point. She was rehearsing what she would say
because you knew that it was really important to obtain
Thomas Hosper. He said the first thing Tom wanted to
(34:54):
know was was he because he would not represent anybody
who was not innocent and casad yes he is, but
I'm going to save you some information so that you
can see it for yourself. At that point, I had
all of Anthony's legal work because his son had kept
all of his documentation, and he said, well, send me
everything that you have. So I'm working from home. All
(35:17):
I have is an Adobe scan app on my phone
which can only scan one page at a time. One
of Anthony's transcripts is four hundred and some odd pages.
That's just only one transcript. And I did that for days,
you know, trying to get all the information to him,
and he saw all of the discrepancies, you know, and
(35:39):
all the violations and things that we had always seen.
Tom knew that Anthony was innocent, and it was just
astounding evidence to support that. At that Tom and kind
of can have doing my kids pro bono, and you
ever had Lowy's work as hard as they were. It's
(36:00):
an amazing story, I mean, a tale of tukishas and
which eventually resulted in these two attorneys, which of course
brings us to the post conviction litigation. And it looks
like before you both got involved, there were some filing
surrounding an inappropriate remarked by the prosecutor, in effective assistant claims,
trial court errors, discriminatory jury challenges, all of which were
(36:24):
serious points but ultimately failed. There was some new evidence,
a recantation of trial testimony from Graves. We know he
was feeling remorseful for throwing Anthony under the bus, but
he didn't want to come clean. So this affid David
really is reflective of that, meaning he doesn't tell the
whole truths. He basically says that Anthony went inside Mr
(36:45):
Hans and he, Julius Graves, did not. He continued that
he didn't see who shot Chen and was coerced to
testify that he had seen Anthony do it. So it
takes the onus off of Anthony, but it's definitely not
the exonerating evidence that one would hope for, as or
the other filings in this case. Everything that sort of
(37:07):
happened in those initial post trial proceedings was sort of
skirmishes around secondary issues, which unfortunately is often the best
you can do for a convicted person until you get
to Tom Hoffman to fully reinvestigate the case. Like a detective. Right.
Without Tom, we wouldn't know the context around Shalima's testimony,
(37:28):
which is what passed for a corroborating witness for Graves
and his whole network of liars. I mean, it wasn't
corroborating testimony at all, but misleading or even pointing to
Graves's guilt. And then the major Brady violation in hiding
Rachel for all of these years. Remember she witnessed Charlik
and Graves talking about the inappropriate touching, which established the motive.
(37:50):
She saw Graves running from Mr Hans with a gun.
Then when she confronted Charlie Engraves, she was threatened, you
talk too much. You keep talking, I'm gonna shut you up.
Was the quote, not to even mention of the previously
unknown or ignored holes and Shifts and Graves as narrative.
And finally, we haven't even talked about this yet, but
(38:11):
there was a cook at Mr Hins who had a
view of the shooter and described his complexion as quote
not black. This is consistent with Graves's light brown skin,
while Anthony importantly has a dark complexion. So Tom, what
is being done with all of the exculpatory evidence that
you've compiled. The four forty was initially filed in December,
(38:34):
and we attached Rachel's affi David Slima's statement. Both of
those statements were recorded from beginning to end, all all
to goodbye. We also found this documentation that Graves had
lied about reporting to his probation officer often and regularly.
We also found additional Grady violation, and as the case
(38:56):
was proceeding, we then get even more documents foil, including
that Graves on the day of his testimony, received money,
received housing together with his girlfriend, his girlfriend's brother, and
the brother's girlfriend, and then he eventually gets twenty five
thousand dollars in benefits. All this comes out, so we
(39:20):
then amend our petition. We also found out that Cologne
had told one of his friends that it was his
friend who committed to shoot it. Well, his friend was
Julius Graves. That was only recently ascertained, as with others,
and I should say, look the current four forty a
(39:41):
d s. In their response, they did not address any
of our allegations. Did Julius Graves lie or did he
not lie? Not addressed. They said you could have a hearing. Well,
the hearing's gonna take quite a while, and Anthony should
be home now. His children are now twenty seven and
(40:02):
twenty eight, his father recently suffered a stroke. His eight
year old grandmother wants to see her grandson before she dies.
The evidence is overwhelming. Anthony should not have to wait
any longer. The resistance on undoing a wrongful conviction is you. Yeah, absolutely,
(40:23):
it is even under normal circumstances. But here in Brooklyn
there's been an even more obstinate than usual obstacle in
this case. Anthony brought his case to the Brooklyn Conviction
Review Unit in two thousand seventeen, and one would think
that the good folks there would take one look at
Graves's bullshit and do something about it. But the man
tasked with running the CiU in Brooklyn since two thousand
(40:45):
fourteen was Mark Hale, who just so happens to be
the man who prosecuted Anthony's case. Yeah, but, and this
is a big butt. Mark Hale just retired at the
beginning of July. So while this is good news for Anthony,
there's still plenty of ways that this might not work out.
(41:05):
So while we know that out case is overwhelming. There
is no assurance that we're going to prevail, and that's
why we need all of the help that we can.
We appreciate all of the listeners to the podcasts, and
of course Jason, all of your advocacy what you're doing
and just giving us a platform. And we have a
website Free Anthony Simms dot com and you can sign
(41:26):
your name to the petition which calls on Brooklyn District
Attorney Eric Gonzalez to join our motion to vacate Anthony's
wrongful conviction and to let him go home to his
family where he belongs. There's also a link where you
can email the District Attorney's office, so please visit Free
Anthony Simms dot com. And we greatly appreciate all of
(41:50):
your help. And I'm going to be signing and joining.
And you know, I do believe in Eric Gonzalez. Eric,
if you're listening right now, we're counting on you. That's
all I can say. We believe that d Agnzalez, once
he understands this case, he's going to do the right there.
Amen to that, and I'll have the website linked in
our episode bio. Okay, so now we come to the
(42:13):
part of the show called Closing Arguments, where I offer
my sincere thanks to you, guys, Jonathan Hows and Thomas
Hoffman for your passionate devotion to this case and just
for being good humans. And of course you know, Anthony,
you're a hero to me and so many other people,
just for your spirit, courage, and your grace. You know,
(42:35):
it's really an honor to have you here today. And
so here's how this works. I'm gonna turn my microphone off,
kick back in my chair, close my eyes, and each
of you guys get the opportunity to share any final
parting thoughts you have. We call it closing arguments. We'll
start with Jonathan Hoiles that you could pass the mike
to Thomas Hoffman, and then we'll save the best for
(42:56):
last and Anthony you'll be with all due respect to
you guys, Anthony, he's going to be bad and clean up,
so to speak. So, without further ado, Jonathan Hile's closing arguments.
Thank you, Jason. I think it's important to look at
the broader picture and how this injustice occurred, and it's
because the system did not value the life of Anthony Simms,
(43:19):
and it also did not value the life of the
run chunt and what we're fighting to do is to
make sure that justice is served for Anthony and also
for the victim, for the truth to emerge, and every
ounce of help we can get to ensure that happens
is deeply appreciated because the truth has been clear from
(43:42):
the start, and that truth is that Julius Graves was
the perpetrator of this awful crime, not Anthony Simms. And
it's time for Anthony to go home and to be
reunited with his family so that he can be with
them and serve the community to which he has so
much to contribute. So thank you again, Jason, thank you
again for doing this. I believe you have had a
(44:04):
hundred forty five podcasts of people who were wrongfully convicted.
I have listened to many. While the facts vary, the
stories are all the same. The horrific crime is committed,
drawing wide media and public attention. Perpetrators need to be
taken off the street and held to account. However, the
(44:25):
concern of the police and the prosecutors is not to
find the actual perpetrator, but to give the public the
perception that the case was solved. It did not matter
whether the right person was brought to justice as long
as the conviction was secured and the public fear allay.
As Jonathan said, neither the victim nor the defendant's life
(44:46):
is value as long as the case is worth so
to the public is not valued as the police did
not care whether the actual perpetrator remained loose and posed
the danger to the public. Also common in order to
win these cases, evidence pointing away from the defendants culpability
(45:07):
is ignored and not investigated, as such investigation could potentially
sculptor the accused, and of course Rachel is an example
of that. In this case, favorable evidence pointing away from
defendants guilt is disregarded and, in contravention of the prosecutor's
(45:27):
constitutional duty, is hidden from the defender. Meanwhile, husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers,
and sons and daughters are destroyed, all in the interests
of winning at all. Course, people ask me why do
I do this? I now, I'm giving it away and
(45:49):
a Holocaust survivor, I was born in nineteen Basically my family,
extensive family was wiped out, and that Holocaust was caused
by people remaining silent, and that is why I call
on our audience not to be silent. Go to that
(46:11):
website to undo this horrific injustice. Anthony, I want to
say thank you, Tom, Jonathan, Jason and Connor. Really thank
you for this. This has probably been one of the
highlights of many years. And now that I know that
(46:31):
Gonzales is complete looking at this, I want to talk
directly to you, miss A Gazales, and I want to
ask that you please review this evidence. You don't just
called my case like the restival few it with an
open mind. I understand what would happen. And although I'll
(46:52):
never be able to get back over year that I've
been in here, I'm just you can make this right.
But doing a right that allow me to be the father,
gain out of the society that I know I need
to be with my sons. And I'm gonna about some
time with my mother and father who got old, you know,
and father had his show. My mother's walking around with
kine as an at eleventh victim, my grandmother who's eighty
(47:15):
six years old, who lives for me, my wife, family,
my family, just a general allow me to get some
of my life back, do the right thing. Thank you
(47:36):
for listening to wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam. Please support
your local innocence projects and go to the link in
our bio to see how you can help. I'd like
to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburne and
Kevin Warness. The music on the show, as always, is
by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure
to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on
(47:58):
Facebook at wrong a Conviction Podcast. Rightful Conviction with Jason
Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
association with Signal Company Number one
One woman named Rachel claims to have seen her neighbors
Julius Graves and Charlique Winbush talking. Charlie was telling her
fiance and Graves about how a man named Lee run Chen,
who worked at the Chinese restaurant up the block. Mr Hanks,
had touched her inappropriately. Graves replied that he would scare him.
(00:23):
Later that day, Julius Graves, his fiance's cousin, and another
younger friend had a few drinks with Graves's friend, Anthony
Simms as they listened to music by Anthony's car. As
the evening wrapped up, Graves asked Anthony to drive him
down the block to Mr. Hanks. Oblivious to any issue
with Chen, Anthony agreed. They went into the restaurant, when
(00:44):
it is believed that Graves shot and killed Lee run Chen.
In shock, Anthony fled alone while Graves and the two
younger guys returned to Graves's apartment, wiped the gun, clean,
figured out where the statue, and began to conjure up
a story to deflect blame from Graves and on to
Anthony Simms, with Graves and a number of his friends
and family supporting this phony narrative investigators set their sights
(01:07):
on Anthony. Only one witness came forward independently who was
neither coerced nor friends and family of Julius Graves. Graves
his neighbor Rachel, who was on the phone outside of
Mr Hanks during the shooting and saw Graves running from
the restaurant with a sawed off shotgun in his hand.
Yet her statement was ignored by investigators and hidden from
(01:29):
the defense, and as a result, Anthony Simms continues to
serve twenty five years to life. This is wrongful conviction
with Jason Flomer. Welcome back to wrongful conviction with Jason Flamm.
(01:55):
That's me, and today if you hear my voices, sounds
sort of down. I mean, this is of the most
troubling wrongful conviction cases that I've ever seen in twenty
eight years of doing this work, which is almost as
long as Anthony Simms has been locked up for a
crime he obviously didn't commit. First of all, I want
(02:16):
to introduce the two attorneys who are so devoted to
this case and to this man, Jonathan Hiles and Thomas Hoffman.
Thank you both for being here, Thank you, thank you
for doing this and now of course, saving the best
for last. And I'm just so sorry that you're here
under these circumstances. But I'm honestly honored that you're here
(02:36):
with us today on the podcast. So Anthony Simms, welcome
to Ronful Conviction. And Anthony, of course, is now forty
five year old man, twenty four years into a life
sentence for a murderer he didn't commit. Now, this began
back in but I want to go back even further
(02:57):
than that, Um, Anthony, what where did you grow up
and what was your childhood like? Was it a happy childhood? Yes?
I grew up in Brooklyn, New York and grove a mother,
father and my two older brothers, and we had was
very happy, loving family. We would do a lot of
fun activity together, go on vacations. I remember every Sunday
(03:18):
with family Day, whatever thing we needed to do we
had to do together as a family. And leading up
to when this awful crime occurred, you had kids, Beyonce,
at that time, what was life like for you? I
live what I thought was a normal life. I work
for Bell Atlantic Telephone Company and I was a fail technician,
installed fall lines and provided doubts on the customers. I
(03:40):
live with my fiance a Kisha, and my two sons
at the town and we would do a lot of
family things together. As a told of very family oriented,
so we regard the movies, parks, practice rods, everything. We
would just do as much as we can possibly. So
this brings us to May eighteen, nineteen eight Yate, when you, Anthony,
(04:01):
witnessed a terrible crime. There was a Chinese restaurant Mr. Hings,
which was down the block from where your former friend
Julius Grays lived, and around ten o'clock that night, a
man named Lee run Shan, who worked at Mr. Hings
was shot and killed. But earlier that day, before any
of that happened, you thought you were just going to
swing by Graves's apartment to show him this new car
(04:23):
you bought your fiance Keisha. So this day I decided
to Baha care and Julius Graves was at that time
my best friend, and of course because I bought the car,
was happy. I wanted to show him the car and
the boat. My wife this a process, so I drove
took his house at that town. So during that time
he asked me the job him to the liquor store.
(04:45):
I drove him to the liquor store and I went
to the regular store and bought some There we was talking.
I was letting the music play from my car radio,
and then his two friends came over, his fiance's cousin Derek,
and then later on his friend Louis, and they was
listening to music with us. And I want to say,
like around ten o'clock, he was getting late. I wanted
(05:06):
to go home, showed my wife the cause, and I
wanted to be home with my sons. So during that time,
Julius asked me to drive him today and findese restaurant.
So I thought this is a weird request because he
lived down the Blood around a corner from the restaurant,
and I thought he could have just walked to the restaurant.
So I said, oh, I listened. I was drinking a
couple of days. Let me go to the thought about
(05:28):
some restments because I don't like driving around like that.
I remember, right before I decided to go to the
store to get the restaurants whatever. I remember Julius saying, listen,
and I'm going to the house. I'm gonna go check
with Chalik, which is his girlfriend at the time, to
see if she wanted anything from the store as well.
So I said, all right, so I can only assume
that's the time that he got the weapon. And when
I got back come out called Julius was sitting in
(05:50):
my passengers seat and his two little friends was in
the back. They know that I didn't expect him to
be in a car because they looked at me with
this look like all right, we are, We're just gonna
go to this restaurant with you. So I didn't think
nothing now very I got in the car and I
drove him to the finest restaurant. When I got out
the car, I looked back and I noticed they were
still sitting in the car. So I was like, all right,
(06:11):
come on, because I'm not driving your home from here.
I'm going straight home because it was getting late, so
I decided to proceed to the Chinese restaurant. When I
got inside of the restaurant, I started looking around for
the menus and stuff to see what I was going
to purchase from my wife. The next thing I know,
I saw Julius come in the store with like a
weird expression on his face, and almost immediately he reached
(06:31):
in his fans and pulled out a pseudo side gun,
and and I remember thinking like what the hell was
going on? And why didn't even get that gun from asked?
I said, what the hell are you doing? Are you crazy?
Julius sexy said no, approached the counter, pointed the gun
of one of the workers and pulled the charger and
I couldn't believe it. I fell the blood rush from
(06:52):
my body. I was like shocked, and well, I remember
that time, just running out the store, getting in my car.
Julius jumped in into and I said get out and
kicked everybody. I said, everybody get out of my car.
And I drove home and told keis what I happened.
That was the worst night of my life. Yeah, it
(07:13):
would be the worst night of almost anyone's life to
witness something like that good night. When I when I
went home, I god like, I said, I can't believe it.
I got home, I got on the phone and I
called though, and I said, what the hell is wrong
with you? Probably courage my ass some other things for him. Basically,
want to know why he put me in that situation?
Why do you Why did he allow me to walk
(07:34):
into that Why didn't he tell me what was going on.
Maybe he could I would talk him out of it.
I don't know, but he just kept apologizing and that's
when he told me that you know the person that
he said that, I can't believe it. And I said, dude,
is don't ever call me again. I don't want to
hear from you no more. I just wanted to try
to separate my cell phone. So it turns out that
(07:55):
Julius Graves had a motive, and that is that Graves
was upset that Mr Chen, who worked at the Chinese restaurant,
had reportedly touched the hand of Graves's fiance Charlie earlier
in the day of the murder. That he had touched
her hand inappropriately. She was upset about this, she told Graves,
(08:18):
and Graves said that he would go to the restaurant
and scare the victim. We know he did a lot
more than that, but that appears to have been the
motive that we didn't find out until many years later. Now,
what was known at the time is that after the murder,
after Anthony got Graves and his two friends, Derek Dallup
and Louis Cologne to leave the car, it is undisputed
(08:41):
that Graves took the shotgun used in the murder, went
back to the apartment where he was staying, feverishly wiped
off the shotgun to get his fingerprints off of it,
and then gave the gun to his friend Louis Cologne
to hide from police. And Louis, by the way, was
only fourteen years old at the time, gives is excuse
(09:01):
for doing this is that he wasn't thinking. That was
his only justification for the fact that he took the
murder weapon, wiped it up, his fingerprints, and tried to
hide it from police. Now, Furthermore, this murder weapon, that
sawt off shotgun had previously been kept in a lock
box in the apartment where Graves was staying, and Graves
(09:24):
and his friend Derek Dallup, who was also his fiance's cousin,
admitted even that they knew the shotgun was kept there
and had seen it there before. So all the evidence
suggested that the shotgun belonged to Graves, and it is
undisputed he had handled it right after the murder occurred.
Right and the physical evidence from the scene later proved
(09:46):
that this sought off shotgun from graves apartment was used
in the murder. So this is where we start seeing
a narrative being formed from the Graves cab to try
to deflect responsibility for this murder away from Graves and
to and Anthony. And initially it will seem like a
lot of witnesses came forward to support what was really
(10:06):
just coming straight from Graves's imagination and what later became
the prosecution's narrative. But it will become clear as we
move along here that none of these witnesses were to
believed they should have believed for two reasons. One, it's
discovered later that these eyewitness accounts are initially riddled with
glaring inconsistencies and contradictions that were then changed to bit
(10:28):
a cohesive narrative in time for trial, which is just
not typical what a group of people are telling. The
truths obviously right and to most of the witnesses are
friends and family of Graves. There are only two witnesses
to who are not Graves as friends or family, one
of whom was coerced by police into an ambiguous statement
that nonetheless helped the prosecution's case at the time of trial,
(10:51):
and the other is the only independent witness who bravely
came forward to tell the truth about Graves's motive and
having seen him running from the restaurant with the gun. However,
none of this info about these two witnesses was known
to the defense at trial, but we'll get to that later. Now.
Right now, let's focus on the dubious narrative coming from
the Graves camp. So, the day after the murder, Charlik's brother,
(11:15):
William Robertson told police a second hand story from Charlie
that Charlie had said that Anthony had come by earlier
the day of the murder and taken the shotgun out
of the apartment. Then comes the narrative from Graves about
the night of the murder. Okay, ready, So, according to Graves,
Anthony dropped by the apartment around six pm and they
(11:35):
had a few drinks. Anthony allegedly showed Graves a shotgun
that he had in his trunk, a shotgun that Graves
should have recognized as the one from his apartment, as
Jonathan just said that Graves had admitted. Now, at some
point Anthony and Graves are joined by Charlique's cousin, Derek
Dallup and another younger friend, Louise Cologne. According to Graves,
(11:57):
Anthony had a previous altercation with the victim, Lee run Chen,
who worked at the Chinese restaurant down the block Mr Hins.
The reason behind this disagreement and the timing changed between
initial interviews and trial. In this farcical version of events,
Anthony allegedly had refused to pay for something that Mr.
Hings because it was either something he hadn't ordered, or
(12:20):
some chicken was undercooked, or it didn't look right. You know,
lying is tricky that way, right, It gets hard to
keep track of your own bullshit. Anyway, at the time
of this alleged problem and refusal of payment, Lee run
Chen allegedly pulled a gun on Anthony, to which Anthony
allegedly responded that he would get Chen for this. So
(12:42):
this patently ridiculous and poorly written story is what established
Anthony's alleged motive to murder Lee run Chen. According to Graves,
that night, in the lead up to the murder, Anthony
brought up this two to three week old and then
later four to five month old be several times and
was getting heated up about it before they headed to
(13:04):
Mr Hins, where Anthony was the one who allegedly shot
Lee run Chen, not Graves, whose fiance had complained to
him about Chen's inappropriate touching earlier that day. So this
just super believable narrative is what became the prosecution's theory.
I don't even know what to say at this point,
but it just feels liberated to hear you retell that
(13:27):
story because it sounded crazy to me, and from you
saying how crazy it sounds to you, that means a
lot because I've always believed down the line that the
truth was going to come out and the truth was
going to set me free. I didn't know that I
would be in prison twenty three years before this truth
came out, and it's going to be out there now
finally for everyone to hear, to shine a much needed
(13:47):
light on this terrible and tragic injustice. There are a
lot of good people working on your behalf right now,
not least of which, of course, are your lawyers and Jonathan.
There's even more than know about Graves's ridiculous narrative. Yeah,
I think the chronology of how the investigation unfolded, which Jason,
(14:08):
you've sort of given that it was Graves trying to
divert attention from himself. He his friends and his family,
and that's why the murder got pinned on Anthony, because
the case against Graves was so overwhelming that there had
to be a scapegoat, and the story against Anthony was
not only ridiculous, but as he alluded to, it was
(14:30):
so inconsistent. Graves first actually told police Anthony and Graves
his other two friends had gone to the Chinese restaurant
earlier on that evening and then come back and Anthony
was heated about an argument with the victim. But Graves's
two friends never said they went to the Chinese restaurant.
It was just made up. So Graves had to change
(14:51):
his story and say that he had witnessed an argument
between Anthony and the victim months earlier over a food order,
and that Anthony was still fuming about this months later
on the night of the murder. Again, Graves his friends
right who were trying to back him up. They never
said that Anthony had any beef with the victim or
was fuming about it in the car that evening, so
(15:13):
the story never really made sense. But what was important
to police and prosecutors, unfortunately was clearing the case. And
once they had Graves and his two friends who were
willing to point the finger at Anthony as a scapegoat.
The train had left the station. Okay, so they've got
their sites set on you, Anthony, and initially they show
(15:35):
up at your job, but you were out that day.
This tipped you off though that they were at least
looking to talk to you, and eventually you went involuntarily.
I mean, you're an innocent man. So did you think, well,
I'll just go in there, clear this up and head
on home. I did, And a big key does me
left out? Was there was a camera inside of a restaurant.
So I thought regartless that somebody would at one point
(15:59):
in Tom reviewed tape and that I had nothing to
worry about to take what Cleary came up for me.
So yes, I drove myself to the precint and that's
what I've been ever. Sense knocked away. You never walked
out of there again, never walked out. Now what happened
with the videotape from the Chinese restaurant? They said that
(16:19):
the tape wasn't recorded. Do you believe that? To be honest,
I don't know what to believe anymore. I used to
have a lot of faith in the judicial system. But
from being a crossery to myself listening to some of
the other horror stories from people in here with me,
I don't know what to believe. Now they had their man,
(16:51):
and any other evidence that existed then were emerged later
that suggested Anthony was innocent or that Graves was guilty
was just an inconvenience to the prosecution's case, and so
it was not disclosed to the defense. And of course
listeners to this show will know that when the authority's
withhold exculpatory evidence, it's called the Brady violation. Brady violations
(17:15):
are illegal, but as our listeners also know, Brady violations
rarely seemed to bring any actual ramifications for the people
who commit them. So it just keeps fucking happening in
case after case, and and in this case, I believe
the worst Brady violation, the worst one amongst so many,
is the sole independent witness who came forward in this
(17:35):
case that I alluded to earlier, whose statement was hidden
from the defense. Will refer to her only as Rachel.
So Rachel was right outside the Chinese restaurant where the
murder occurred, talking on a pay phone. This was an
undisputed fact and police spoke to her, and initially she
said that she had heard the shot and seen people
(17:58):
running from the Chinese restaurant, but she didn't have her
contacts in and so she couldn't identify who those people were.
That was what she said. Now, this was not a
neighborhood where it was easy to report to police who
you had seen involved in a murder, much less if
that person was your neighbor. And actually Rachel, who was
(18:19):
seventeen at the time, she was neighbors with Julius Graves. Now,
a couple of weeks went by and Rachel had kept
this information to herself, but her conscience was gnawing away
at her. She learned that Anthony had been wrongfully arrested
for the crime, and she actually received a call from
(18:40):
Anthony's wife at the time, Keisha, who said to Rachel,
I hear you were present at the scene and that
you may have seen something. Please just talk to police,
tell them what you saw, whatever you saw, Please just
tell them the truth. Now, at around the same time,
Rachel actually had an exchange with Graves and his fiancee
(19:02):
outside of their brown stone. During that exchange, there was
an argument and Rachel said, you know, I know what
you did. I saw what you did and what had
she seen? In truth, she had seen Julius Graves, her neighbor,
running from the Chinese restaurant with a shotgun right after
the shot was fired, so she knew that he had
(19:24):
run off with a weapon and was likely the killer.
And she said, I know what you did, and you're
trying to put it on somebody else. And Graves said,
you talked too much, and if you keep talking, I'm
going to shut you up. And Rachel was terrified, but
she was also angry at what was happening and at
(19:45):
the injustice and also at the way Graves was talking
to her, and so she called police, spoke to a
detective and she said, I saw Julius Graves running from
the Chinese restaurant with a big long gun. I know
was him. He's my neighbor. And the detective said, we
already have another guy. It was the taller guy. Anthony
(20:07):
is six three, Graves is five nine. Rachel said, no,
I know, they look completely different. I know that it
was Graves who was running with the shotgun. And the
detective basically said, well, thank you for your time and
hung up the phone. They had already arrested Anthony and
decided he was the guy they were going to pin
the murder on. Shaw Lee had anticipated that Rachel could
(20:29):
going to the police. So shaw Lee reports that Rachel
said that Graves had committed the murder and she spun
that as harassment. That was a written report. They had
that report. But if I can complete that incredibly, even
though Rachel lived next door to shaw Lee, they did
(20:50):
not question Rachel at all about that police report. They
didn't go up knock on the door and say is
this true. They didn't have to go across the country
to interview somebody or across the state, right. They go
across the street, across the street somebody who who actually
had begged to be interviewed, right, who, even though she
(21:12):
had been threatened by it by a really dangerous guy,
was like, no, I'm going to do the right thing
as someone we could be proud of, you know, that
comes forward in a situation like this. But instead she
just got shut down by those who are supposed to
protect us, which left Graves out on the streets to
potentially commit more violent crimes, while Anthony was stripped of
(21:34):
his freedom and civil rights. So back to this investigation.
If you want to call it that, the grandmother of
Graves's children, you know, Charlie's mom signs onto parents some
of the narrative. This is Dorothy Bolding, whose story changed
from her initial interview when she didn't mention Anthony Graves
or even having been at Mr. Hings at all. This
(21:57):
interview critical information here hidden from the defense, and by
the time the grand jury and the trial roll around,
she's changed her story, now claiming to be able to
implicate Antony in the murder. But still the investigators needed
to get someone outside of Graves's inner circle in order
to strength in the case. And as I alluded to earlier,
(22:19):
this is the only other witness besides Rachel who was
not directly related to Graves. She was a single mom
who certainly appears to have been coerced into giving an
ambiguous statement that helped the prosecution's case a trial, and
will refer to this witness as Salima, now Shalima. As
we have since learned, she initially told police that she,
(22:42):
when visiting her friend's apartment across the street from the murder,
had heard this loud bang, had looked out the window
across the street from a second floor on a dark
night and had seen a couple of men ran out
of the Chinese restaurant, but she couldn't describe them at all.
It seemed that one of them appeared to be holding
a long gun, but she couldn't make any sort of
(23:04):
description because it was dark and it was a very
fleeting observation. And they said, well, let's take you in
and see if we can refresh your memory. They took
her in, They separated her from her young child, and
they interrogated her for hours and intimidated her and wouldn't
tell her where her child was, which she kept asking,
(23:26):
and then eventually they emerged with the report saying that
she identified the taller man as being the one holding
the gun, which was something that was clearly fed to
her because she told police that she couldn't describe the
men she had seen, including the person who was running
with the gun. We first learned that in the past year.
Shalima said, I don't know how I could have testified
(23:49):
that I saw the taller man running with the shotgun.
I couldn't have made a description, and that's what I
told detectives, and their response was to take me in
for basically a full day of interrogation, separated from my
child until they had pressured her to give them what
they wanted. And so the prosecution really leaned on her
(24:13):
with this made up story that they sort of force
fed her because she was the only witness who wasn't
totally biased in favor of Graves. Right, so now they
finally had someone as shaky as this idea was to
corroborate what the Graves camp was saying. So July they
charged you, Anthony, with two counts and murder in the
(24:33):
second degree intentional and depraved indifference, and one count of
criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree, a
weapon that you had never even held in your hand.
And before a trial even began in April, Graves attempted
to disappear. Graves didn't want to testify. He wanted to
get himself off of the hook, but even he perhaps
(24:57):
had some pangs of conscience about falsely implicating someone who
had formerly been his friend, and so he went underground
before the trial started. And he was on probation at
the time, actually on a weapon's possession charge, and he
hadn't been reporting to his probation officer for three years,
(25:17):
and so the District Attorney's office actually initiated proceedings to
revoke Graves his probation so that he would be remanded
to prison potentially, And in the meantime, Grays went into
hiding because he didn't want to participate in the prosecution's case,
which was, as you said, Jason, a made up case
(25:38):
that was based on graves his own lies. This one's
really mystifying. I mean, do you have a guy who
has a propensity to violence, who knows his way around
with weapons, who was a possession of the gun, who
had a previous weapons violation, and it's like, yeah, no,
we're just gonna ignore that. Julius was asked directly, have
you reported to your probation officer often and regularly? He
(26:01):
answered yes, when he hadn't reported for three years, and
that's why was not corrected. And clearly the credibility of
Graves was critical. We did not know that he had
not reported till last year. So at trial, the state
presented Salima along with Graves's cadre of liars right Graves himself,
(26:22):
of course, and his fiance's cousin Derek Dallup, his friend
Louise Cologne and the grandmother of Graves's two children, Dorothy Boulding.
Now Bolding story changed twice. In her initial interview, she
didn't mention seeing Graves, Anthony or even having been at
Mr Hains. And then at the grand jury she testified
(26:43):
that while drinking outside of Mr Hains, she saw Anthony
enter with a long gun and heard a shot fired
before Graves entered the restaurant. Then at trial, I don't know,
maybe she had some pangs of conscience Either way, though,
she testified that she Anthony go in, followed by Graves,
then heard a gunshot but never saw a gun. Miss
(27:07):
Bolding for initial report would have really discredit her as
a prosecution witness was not disclosed. Also not disclosed for
bias given her relation to Julius Graves. Okay, so now
there's Shelima. She also testified against you, Anthony. She said
that on the night of the shooting, she was visiting
a friend who lived on the second floor in an
(27:27):
apartment across the street from Mr. Hans. She said that
she heard a gunshot and looked out the window to
see two black men running from the restaurant, and that
quote the taller guy had a gun. This was helpful
for the prosecution because Anthony was taller than Graves. Now,
Slima did not identify Anthony. The prosecutor tried to get
(27:50):
her to identify Anthony. You know, look around the courtroom.
Is the person you saw running with the gun here?
She said, I don't know. I can't say. And also
she testified that of the two men she saw running,
it was the person who was running second, who was
behind who was running with the shotgun. Graves testified that
he was running second, that he was behind Anthony. So
(28:13):
actually her testimony was very ambiguous, but it was really
the only thing the prosecution had that came outside of
Graves's inner circle. And as a result, the failure to
disclose what Shalima had had told detectives from the beginning
that she couldn't describe anything was a very damaging Brady
violation for Anthony's defense. Was there any real defense mounted
(28:39):
in your case? Anthony? But no, we didn't even call
any witnesses. M of behalf although Layer can testify, and
he said, no, what rightful person would just sit there
and listen to people say certain things about him and
not defend himself like he was really confident that there
(29:00):
was no need for them because the case was a
weak case, and they eventually gave it to say, you know,
Julia did or whatever, and that was that. So I
didn't really have a defense. So after hearing from Graves's
network of liars and Salima's ambiguous testimony, and then importantly
the absence of Rachel, did you still hold out any
(29:20):
hope at all that you'd be vindicated? I did only
because it was It was a time during the deliberations
what the jury came back into the courtroom and they
passed to note that said it was deadlocked, and the
just said, well, listen, I'm going to give you a
brief out in charge. It was almost like a kangaroo
court because he was basically saying, I don't know what
(29:42):
the problem is. It's not like he's facing the death county.
Go give me a verdict. And they needed some reback,
some courses and stuff. And I looked at my lawyer
at that point and I was mad because I said, well,
maybe if I testified, maybe it would have been different.
Maybe it wouldn't be at this point. But to answer you,
of course, and I was still hopeful, although hope was
(30:03):
slipping away at that point, but they came back and
found you guilty. What was that moment was that if
you can just take us inside that court room and
inside your mind and your soul. At that moment, uh,
I was shocked, confused, I was hurt, devastated, nass. I mean,
(30:25):
I was angry. I remember trying to stand up, but
I didn't have any feeling in my livings are just
so weak. Ironically, what was going through my mind at
that point was my son's because they were so young,
and every night I would tell them crazy bedtime stories,
either ones that I read from a book or I
used to make up some stories, and they looked forward
(30:45):
to going to sleep just about I could come into
room and telling them stories. And I said to myself,
I'm not going to be able to do that for
a while. As you can imagine, for the first couple
(31:12):
of years, I was very better. I was I was
I was mad, I was angry, and I was almost
like a walking Tommy so to speak. I mean, I
was always trying to do programs and stuff and trying
to help myself and help other people as well. But
inside I was really messed up. And I remember going
(31:34):
on a visit one day and my son, little Anthony Junior,
which I loved to dollo, both of my sons, he
was crying. He just broke out one day crying on
a visit and he said, Daddy, don't worry, I'm gonna
I'm gonna get Julius to doing this to you, because
he had known at that point Julius as his uncle,
because we were so close. And I looked at him
(31:58):
and I said, no, Anthony, don't ever say that a
game as I don't ever say that. And I was
basically letting them know that the law will e mentually
prevail and there to work yourself out. And in the
same time, he looked at me and he says, Lord
and Daddy, you gotta promise me that you would never
do anything to him. And I said, I won't. I
promise you that. And it was that point with that
(32:20):
I forgave to is and I continue to live my
life as a life giver but also trying to help
any and everybody out because in a sense helping me
as well. But that's that was my turnal point. That's
when I forgave him. Forgot what it did. Well, it
sounds like you you did a hell of a job,
even in the brief time you had with your son's
(32:42):
raising them and teaching them right. Unfortunately, prison has a
way to divine families, as you can only imagine. So
my son's mother, which is my wife with the town,
her name is also Keisha. This prison bay became too
much for her but us, and it felt like I
was holding back from living high life. So we both
came to the agreement that we should just divorce into
(33:04):
the race so that she can live for life of
this week. And God always has a way of making
things happen. But my wife today with his alpen named Kisa,
it's my junior high school girlfriend. She was my chiliader
when I was a captain of the basketball team. So
Jesus started to write me and one thing turned into another.
(33:28):
All of the old filings came back and we decided
to try one more time and get married. And that
was probably the best decision of my life. My name
is Keisha Sims and I am Anthony Simms wife, and
it is it's the best decision that we've ever made
that I've ever made. Anthony and I were, you know,
(33:49):
junior high school sweethearts. You know, people in the situation
always think that the people in prison, you know, they
should be grateful that someone makes a hyper commitment to
them under these circumstances. But for me, Anthony has brought
just so much to my life. He hasn't reached my
life so much. I'm grown so much as a person
because of him. This situation in particular has made me stronger,
(34:12):
and so I'm just grateful that he chose me to
go on this journey with him and to fight for
his innocence. One day, I was reading the newspaper from
a friend of my name, Kevin Jenkins, and he asked
me to read this article because the article is involved
the person that we both behavior, the value Cooper. Kevin
suggested that I try to get intest with Tom Hopf
(34:33):
and the lawyer that got this guy out. So I
talked to my wife and she said that night it
was awful her to sleep because she worked around a
lot of lawyers and you can do that. She only
had one shot at this and she was making a
little bullet point. She was rehearsing what she would say
because you knew that it was really important to obtain
Thomas Hosper. He said the first thing Tom wanted to
(34:54):
know was was he because he would not represent anybody
who was not innocent and casad yes he is, but
I'm going to save you some information so that you
can see it for yourself. At that point, I had
all of Anthony's legal work because his son had kept
all of his documentation, and he said, well, send me
everything that you have. So I'm working from home. All
(35:17):
I have is an Adobe scan app on my phone
which can only scan one page at a time. One
of Anthony's transcripts is four hundred and some odd pages.
That's just only one transcript. And I did that for days,
you know, trying to get all the information to him,
and he saw all of the discrepancies, you know, and
(35:39):
all the violations and things that we had always seen.
Tom knew that Anthony was innocent, and it was just
astounding evidence to support that. At that Tom and kind
of can have doing my kids pro bono, and you
ever had Lowy's work as hard as they were. It's
(36:00):
an amazing story, I mean, a tale of tukishas and
which eventually resulted in these two attorneys, which of course
brings us to the post conviction litigation. And it looks
like before you both got involved, there were some filing
surrounding an inappropriate remarked by the prosecutor, in effective assistant claims,
trial court errors, discriminatory jury challenges, all of which were
(36:24):
serious points but ultimately failed. There was some new evidence,
a recantation of trial testimony from Graves. We know he
was feeling remorseful for throwing Anthony under the bus, but
he didn't want to come clean. So this affid David
really is reflective of that, meaning he doesn't tell the
whole truths. He basically says that Anthony went inside Mr
(36:45):
Hans and he, Julius Graves, did not. He continued that
he didn't see who shot Chen and was coerced to
testify that he had seen Anthony do it. So it
takes the onus off of Anthony, but it's definitely not
the exonerating evidence that one would hope for, as or
the other filings in this case. Everything that sort of
(37:07):
happened in those initial post trial proceedings was sort of
skirmishes around secondary issues, which unfortunately is often the best
you can do for a convicted person until you get
to Tom Hoffman to fully reinvestigate the case. Like a detective. Right.
Without Tom, we wouldn't know the context around Shalima's testimony,
(37:28):
which is what passed for a corroborating witness for Graves
and his whole network of liars. I mean, it wasn't
corroborating testimony at all, but misleading or even pointing to
Graves's guilt. And then the major Brady violation in hiding
Rachel for all of these years. Remember she witnessed Charlik
and Graves talking about the inappropriate touching, which established the motive.
(37:50):
She saw Graves running from Mr Hans with a gun.
Then when she confronted Charlie Engraves, she was threatened, you
talk too much. You keep talking, I'm gonna shut you up.
Was the quote, not to even mention of the previously
unknown or ignored holes and Shifts and Graves as narrative.
And finally, we haven't even talked about this yet, but
(38:11):
there was a cook at Mr Hins who had a
view of the shooter and described his complexion as quote
not black. This is consistent with Graves's light brown skin,
while Anthony importantly has a dark complexion. So Tom, what
is being done with all of the exculpatory evidence that
you've compiled. The four forty was initially filed in December,
(38:34):
and we attached Rachel's affi David Slima's statement. Both of
those statements were recorded from beginning to end, all all
to goodbye. We also found this documentation that Graves had
lied about reporting to his probation officer often and regularly.
We also found additional Grady violation, and as the case
(38:56):
was proceeding, we then get even more documents foil, including
that Graves on the day of his testimony, received money,
received housing together with his girlfriend, his girlfriend's brother, and
the brother's girlfriend, and then he eventually gets twenty five
thousand dollars in benefits. All this comes out, so we
(39:20):
then amend our petition. We also found out that Cologne
had told one of his friends that it was his
friend who committed to shoot it. Well, his friend was
Julius Graves. That was only recently ascertained, as with others,
and I should say, look the current four forty a
(39:41):
d s. In their response, they did not address any
of our allegations. Did Julius Graves lie or did he
not lie? Not addressed. They said you could have a hearing. Well,
the hearing's gonna take quite a while, and Anthony should
be home now. His children are now twenty seven and
(40:02):
twenty eight, his father recently suffered a stroke. His eight
year old grandmother wants to see her grandson before she dies.
The evidence is overwhelming. Anthony should not have to wait
any longer. The resistance on undoing a wrongful conviction is you. Yeah, absolutely,
(40:23):
it is even under normal circumstances. But here in Brooklyn
there's been an even more obstinate than usual obstacle in
this case. Anthony brought his case to the Brooklyn Conviction
Review Unit in two thousand seventeen, and one would think
that the good folks there would take one look at
Graves's bullshit and do something about it. But the man
tasked with running the CiU in Brooklyn since two thousand
(40:45):
fourteen was Mark Hale, who just so happens to be
the man who prosecuted Anthony's case. Yeah, but, and this
is a big butt. Mark Hale just retired at the
beginning of July. So while this is good news for Anthony,
there's still plenty of ways that this might not work out.
(41:05):
So while we know that out case is overwhelming. There
is no assurance that we're going to prevail, and that's
why we need all of the help that we can.
We appreciate all of the listeners to the podcasts, and
of course Jason, all of your advocacy what you're doing
and just giving us a platform. And we have a
website Free Anthony Simms dot com and you can sign
(41:26):
your name to the petition which calls on Brooklyn District
Attorney Eric Gonzalez to join our motion to vacate Anthony's
wrongful conviction and to let him go home to his
family where he belongs. There's also a link where you
can email the District Attorney's office, so please visit Free
Anthony Simms dot com. And we greatly appreciate all of
(41:50):
your help. And I'm going to be signing and joining.
And you know, I do believe in Eric Gonzalez. Eric,
if you're listening right now, we're counting on you. That's
all I can say. We believe that d Agnzalez, once
he understands this case, he's going to do the right there.
Amen to that, and I'll have the website linked in
our episode bio. Okay, so now we come to the
(42:13):
part of the show called Closing Arguments, where I offer
my sincere thanks to you, guys, Jonathan Hows and Thomas
Hoffman for your passionate devotion to this case and just
for being good humans. And of course you know, Anthony,
you're a hero to me and so many other people,
just for your spirit, courage, and your grace. You know,
(42:35):
it's really an honor to have you here today. And
so here's how this works. I'm gonna turn my microphone off,
kick back in my chair, close my eyes, and each
of you guys get the opportunity to share any final
parting thoughts you have. We call it closing arguments. We'll
start with Jonathan Hoiles that you could pass the mike
to Thomas Hoffman, and then we'll save the best for
(42:56):
last and Anthony you'll be with all due respect to
you guys, Anthony, he's going to be bad and clean up,
so to speak. So, without further ado, Jonathan Hile's closing arguments.
Thank you, Jason. I think it's important to look at
the broader picture and how this injustice occurred, and it's
because the system did not value the life of Anthony Simms,
(43:19):
and it also did not value the life of the
run chunt and what we're fighting to do is to
make sure that justice is served for Anthony and also
for the victim, for the truth to emerge, and every
ounce of help we can get to ensure that happens
is deeply appreciated because the truth has been clear from
(43:42):
the start, and that truth is that Julius Graves was
the perpetrator of this awful crime, not Anthony Simms. And
it's time for Anthony to go home and to be
reunited with his family so that he can be with
them and serve the community to which he has so
much to contribute. So thank you again, Jason, thank you
again for doing this. I believe you have had a
(44:04):
hundred forty five podcasts of people who were wrongfully convicted.
I have listened to many. While the facts vary, the
stories are all the same. The horrific crime is committed,
drawing wide media and public attention. Perpetrators need to be
taken off the street and held to account. However, the
(44:25):
concern of the police and the prosecutors is not to
find the actual perpetrator, but to give the public the
perception that the case was solved. It did not matter
whether the right person was brought to justice as long
as the conviction was secured and the public fear allay.
As Jonathan said, neither the victim nor the defendant's life
(44:46):
is value as long as the case is worth so
to the public is not valued as the police did
not care whether the actual perpetrator remained loose and posed
the danger to the public. Also common in order to
win these cases, evidence pointing away from the defendants culpability
(45:07):
is ignored and not investigated, as such investigation could potentially
sculptor the accused, and of course Rachel is an example
of that. In this case, favorable evidence pointing away from
defendants guilt is disregarded and, in contravention of the prosecutor's
(45:27):
constitutional duty, is hidden from the defender. Meanwhile, husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers,
and sons and daughters are destroyed, all in the interests
of winning at all. Course, people ask me why do
I do this? I now, I'm giving it away and
(45:49):
a Holocaust survivor, I was born in nineteen Basically my family,
extensive family was wiped out, and that Holocaust was caused
by people remaining silent, and that is why I call
on our audience not to be silent. Go to that
(46:11):
website to undo this horrific injustice. Anthony, I want to
say thank you, Tom, Jonathan, Jason and Connor. Really thank
you for this. This has probably been one of the
highlights of many years. And now that I know that
(46:31):
Gonzales is complete looking at this, I want to talk
directly to you, miss A Gazales, and I want to
ask that you please review this evidence. You don't just
called my case like the restival few it with an
open mind. I understand what would happen. And although I'll
(46:52):
never be able to get back over year that I've
been in here, I'm just you can make this right.
But doing a right that allow me to be the father,
gain out of the society that I know I need
to be with my sons. And I'm gonna about some
time with my mother and father who got old, you know,
and father had his show. My mother's walking around with
kine as an at eleventh victim, my grandmother who's eighty
(47:15):
six years old, who lives for me, my wife, family,
my family, just a general allow me to get some
of my life back, do the right thing. Thank you
(47:36):
for listening to wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam. Please support
your local innocence projects and go to the link in
our bio to see how you can help. I'd like
to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburne and
Kevin Warness. The music on the show, as always, is
by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure
to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on
(47:58):
Facebook at wrong a Conviction Podcast. Rightful Conviction with Jason
Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
association with Signal Company Number one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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