February 16, 2023 • 45 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
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
When we first released this episode on September eight, Anthony
Sims had already spent twenty two years in prison and
was hoping to bring some much needed attention to this
horrendous injustice. At the time has passed to freedom or
uncertain Since then, some monumental changes have occurred. For this
updated episode, we spoke again with Anthony and his legal team.
(00:22):
You'll hear this episode as it was originally released, but
with brand new content to pick up where we left
off on eight, a woman named Rachel claims to have
seen her neighbors Julius Graves and Charlique Winbush talking. Charlie
was telling her fiance Graves about how a man named
(00:42):
Lee run Chen, who worked at the Chinese restaurant up
the block. Mr Hays, had touched her inappropriately. Graves replied
that he would scare him. Later that day, Julius Graves,
his fiance's cousin, and another younger friend had a few
drinks with Graves his friend Anthony Simms as they listened
of music by Anthony's car. As the evening wrapped up,
(01:03):
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 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
(01:24):
to stash it, and began to conjure up a story
to deflect blame from Graves and onto Anthony Simms. With
Graves and a number of his friends and families supporting
this phony narrative, investigators set their sights on Anthony. Only
one witness came forward independently who was neither coerced nor
friends and family of Julius Graves Graves, his neighbor Rachel,
(01:45):
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 the defense, and
as a result, Anthony Simms continues to serve twenty five
years to life. This is wrongful conviction with Jason Flomer.
(02:21):
Welcome back to wrongful conviction with Jason Flom. That's me
and today if you hear my voices, sounds sort of down.
I mean, this is one 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
(02:42):
obviously didn't commit. First of all, I want 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 Jason, 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
(03:05):
with us today on the podcast. So Anthony Simms, Welcome
to raval Conviction. Thank you. And Anthony, of course, is
now forty five year old man, twenty four years into
a life sentence for a murder he didn't commit. Now,
this began back in but I want to go back
even further than that. Um, Anthony, where did you grow
(03:28):
up and what was your childhood like? Was it a
happy childhood? Yes? I grew up in Brooklyn, York and
a mother, father, and my two older brothers and we
had was a very happy, loving family. We would do
a lot of fun activity together, go on vacations. I
remember every Sunday with family Day and leading up to
(03:49):
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 line. I work for
Bell Atlantic Telephone Company and I installed pull lines and
provide a doubts on the customers. I live with my
fiance Kisha and my two sons at the town. So
this brings us to May, when you, Anthony, witnessed a
(04:12):
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 you
(04:33):
bought your fiance Keisha. Julius Graves was at that time
my best friend. I wanted to show him the cart
and a boat. My wife this a process, so I
drove took his house at that town. He asked me
the job and to the liquor store. I went to
the regular store on Boston. 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,
(04:58):
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
to go home. Showed my wife the cars, and I
wanted to be home with my sons. So Dolis ask
him to drop him to them and find the restaurants.
So I thought this is a weird request because he
(05:18):
lived down the Blood around a corner from the restaurant,
and I thought he could have just walked. So I said,
I listened, I was drinking a couple of days. Let
me go to the thought about some restmans, because I
don't like driving around like that. I remember Julius saying, listen,
and I'm going to the house. I'm gonna go check
with Charlik, 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
(05:38):
that's the time that he got the weapon, and when
I got back from my car, Julius was sitting in
my passengers seat and his two little friends was sit
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, well, 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 them and find the restaurants. When I
(05:59):
got it out 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 re
sent his fans and pulled out a port of Saga,
and I remember thinking like, what the hell was going on?
And where? Didn't even get the gun from act? I said,
(06:21):
what the hell are you doing to you? Praising Julius,
Sexty said no, approached the count of pointed the gun
of one of the workers and pulled the trigger, and
I couldn't believe it. I felt the blood us from
my body, and well, I remember at that time, just
running out the store, getting in my car. Julius jumped
in in too, and I said get out and kicked everybody.
(06:42):
I said, everybody get out of my car and I drove.
Pharman told keis what I happened. That was the worst
night of my life. Yeah, it would be the worst
night of almost anyone's life to witness something like that.
I got home, I got on the phone. In that
call though, and that's what the hell is wrong with you?
Probably cursed about says some other things. So I'm gonna
(07:04):
basically want to know why did he put me in
a situation? And why do you Why did he allow
me to walk into that? Why didn't come me? What
was going on? Maybe he could, I would talk ab
out of it. I don't know, but he just kept apologize.
And that's when he told me that you know the
person that he found out. I can't believe it. And
I said, dude, I don't ever call me again. I
don't want to hear from you no more. I just
(07:25):
wanted to try to separate my cell phone. So it
turns out that 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 Is Fyonce Charlie earlier in the day of the
(07:45):
murder that he had touched her hand inappropriately. She was
upset about this, she told Graves, and Graves said that
he would go to the restaurant and scare the victor.
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
(08:05):
at the time is that after the murder, after Anthony
got Graves and his two friends, Derek Dollup and Louis
Cologne to leave the car, it is undisputed 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
(08:26):
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. Graves Is excuse for doing
this is that he wasn't thinking. That was his only justification. Now. Furthermore,
this murder weapon that sawt off shotgun had previously been
kept in a lockbox in the apartment where Graves was staying,
(08:51):
and Graves and his friend Derek Dollup, 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
(09:13):
scene later proved that this sought off shotgun from Graves's
apartment was used in the murder. So this is where
we start seeing a narrative being formed from the Graves
camp to try to deflect responsibility for this murder away
from Graves and towards Anthony. And initially it will seem
like a lot of witnesses came forward to support what
(09:34):
was really 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 be 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
(09:56):
bit a cohesive narrative in time for trial, which is
just not typical what a group of people are telling
the truth 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
(10:19):
of trial, 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
(10:41):
day after the murder, Charlie's brother, 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
(11:02):
pm and they 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. Now, at some point, Anthony and Graves are
joined by Charlique's cousin, Derek Dallup and another younger friend,
Louise Cologne. According to Graves, Anthony had a previous altercation
(11:24):
with the victim, Lee run Chen, who worked at the
Chinese restaurant down the block, Mr Hans. 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 some chicken was under cooked,
(11:46):
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. According to Graves that night,
(12:09):
in the lead up to the murder, Anthony brought up
this two to three weeks old and then later four
to five month old beef several times and was getting
heated up about it before they headed to 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
(12:33):
narrative is what became the prosecution's theory. It just feels
liberated to here you retell that story because it sounded
crazy to me, and from you saying how craze this
ounds to you, that means a lot. Because I've always
believed down the line that the truth was going to
come out. I didn't know that I would be in
prison twenty three years before the truth came out, and
(12:55):
it's gonna be out there now finally for everyone to
hear it. And Jonathan, there's even more to know about
Graves's ridiculous narrative. The story against Anthony was not only ridiculous,
but as he alluded to. It was so inconsistent. Graves
first actually told police Anthony and Graves his other two
(13:15):
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 his story and
say that he had witnessed an argument between Anthony and
the victim months earlier over a food order, and that
(13:38):
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 the story
never really made sense. But what was important to police
and prosecutors, unfortunately, was clear in the case. And once
(14:02):
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
site set on you, Anthony, and initially they show 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,
(14:23):
you were 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 that restaurant,
So I thought regartless that somebody would at one point
in time review to take and then I had nothing
to worry about to take with cleary thing up for me.
(14:43):
So yes, drove with myself to the precinct, and that's
what 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 the tape wasn't recalling.
Do you believe that? To be honest, I don't know
what to believe anymore. I used to have a lot
(15:04):
of faith in the judicial system, but from being a
cross rate of mysell phone 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,
(15:30):
and any other evidence that existed then were emerged later
that suggested Anthony was innocent, where 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
(15:54):
are illegal, but as our listeners also know, Brady violations
rarely seemed to be 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
(16:15):
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
(16:37):
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
(16:58):
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
(17:19):
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 fiance
(17:41):
outside of their brown stone. During that exchange, Rachel said,
I know what you did. I saw what you did.
In truth, she had seen Julius Graves running from the
Chinese restaurant with a shotgun right after the shot was fired,
and she said, I know what you did, and you're
trying to put it on somebody out us and Graves
(18:01):
said you talked too much and if you keep talking,
I'm gonna shut you up. 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 it was him. He's my neighbor. And the
detective said, we already have another guy. It was the
(18:24):
taller guy. Anthony 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 a shotgun.
And the detective basically said, well, thank you for your
time and hung up the phone. Shaw Lee had anticipated
that Rachel good going to the police. So shaw Lee
(18:45):
reports that as harassment. They had that report, but if
I can complete that incredibly, even though Rachel lived next
door to shaw Lee, they did not question Rachel at
all about up that police report. They didn't have to
go across the country to interview somebody or across the state, right,
(19:05):
they go across the street, across the street. Somebody who
who actually had begged to be interviewed, even though she
had been threatened by a really dangerous guy, was like, no,
I'm going to do the right thing, 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
(19:28):
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 interview.
(19:52):
Critical information here was 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,
(20:13):
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,
(20:36):
when visiting her friend's apartment across the street from the murder,
had heard this loud bang, had looked out the window
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. She'd seemed that
one of them appeared to be holding along done, but
she couldn't make any sort of description, and they said, well,
(20:59):
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
wouldn't tell her where her child was, which she kept asking,
And then eventually they emerged with the report saying that
she identified the taller man as being the one holding
(21:20):
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
that I saw the taller man running with the shotgun.
I couldn't have made a description, and that's what I
(21:43):
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. Right, So,
now they finally had someone as shaky as this idea
was to corroborate what the Graves camp was saying. So
(22:04):
July second, they charged you, Anthony, with two counts and
murder in the 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
(22:27):
wanted to get himself off of the hook. But even
he perhaps 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,
(22:47):
and he hadn't been reporting to his probation officer for
three years, and so the District Attorney's office actually initiated
proceedings to revoke graves probation so he would be remanded
to prison potentially. 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 the
(23:08):
possession of the gun, who had a previous weapons violation,
and it's like, yeah, now we're just gonna ignore that.
Julius was asked directly, have you reported to your probation
officer often and regularly? He 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
(23:32):
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, of course, and his
fiance's cousin Derek Dallap, his friend Louise Cologne, and the
grandmother of Graves's two children, Dorothy Boulding. Now, bulding story
(23:54):
changed twice. In her initial interview, she didn't mention seeing
Graves Anthony or even having been at Mr Hins, and
then at the grand jury she testified 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
(24:16):
had some pangs of conscience Either way, though, she testified
that she saw Anthony go in followed by Graves, then
heard a gunshot but never saw a gun. Miss bolding
for initial report would have really discredit her as a
prosecution witness was not disclosed. Also not disclosed for bias
(24:37):
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 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
(24:59):
tall the guy had a gun. This was helpful for
the prosecution because Anthony was taller than Graves. Now, the
prosecutor tried to get 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
(25:20):
men she saw running, it was the person who was
running second, who was behind, who was running with a shotgun.
Graves testified that he was running second, that he was
behind Anthony. So 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,
(25:43):
the failure to disclose what Shlima 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 in your case, Anthony? No, we didn't
even call any witnesses them of behalf, although I asked
(26:04):
my lawyer, cannot testify and he said no, like he
was really confident that there was no need for them
because the case was a weak case and they eventually
gave it to say, you know, Julias 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,
(26:27):
and then importantly the absence of Rachel, did you still
hold out any 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 notice that they were deadlocked,
and the just said, well, listen, I'm going to give
you a brief out in charge. He was basically saying,
(26:49):
I don't know what the problem is. It's not like
he's facing the death. Unity, go give me a verdict.
And they needed some reback, some courses and stuff. I
was still hopeful, although hope was flipping 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 core room and inside your mind and your soul.
(27:10):
At that moment, uh, I was shocked, confused, I was hurt, devastated, nases.
I mean I was angry. I remember trying to stand up,
but I didn't have any feeling in my livings there
just so weak. Ironically, what was going through my mind
(27:30):
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
to going to sleep just about I could come in
the room and telling them stories. And I said to myself,
I'm not gonna be able to do that for a while.
(28:07):
As you can imagine, for the first couple 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
(28:27):
really messed up. And I remember going on a visit
one day and my son, little Anthony Junior, which I
loved to dollop both of mysels, 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 julia Is as his uncle because we
(28:49):
were so close. And I looked at him and I said, no, Anthony,
don't ever say that again. I said, I don't ever
say that. No, And I was very you let them
know that the law will mentally prevailing there to work
herself 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
(29:12):
I said, I won't. I promise you that. And it
was that point with that I forgave to is and
I continue to live my life as a life give them,
but also trying to help any and everybody out because
of his helping me as well. And 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
(29:35):
hell of a job even in the brief time you
had with your son's 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
of the town, her name is also Kisa. This prison
bay became too much for us and it felt like
I was holding back from living high life. So we
(29:56):
both came to the agreement that we should just divorce
semper 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 which is Olfen named Kisa,
it's my junior high school girlfriend. She was my Chilidher
when I was a captain of the basketball team. So
(30:18):
Jesus started to write me, and one thing turned into another.
All of the old filings came back and we decided
to try one more time to get married. And that
was probably the best decision of my life. My name
is Keisha Sins and I am Anthony sins wife, and
it is it's the best decision that we've ever made
(30:39):
that I've ever made. Anthony and I were, you know,
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
(31:01):
because of him. This situation in particular has made me stronger,
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 mine name Kevin Jenkins. He asked me
to read this article because the articles involved the person
(31:21):
that we both know rehave the Manu Cooper. Kevin suggested
that I try to get in touch with Tom hoff
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. You can do that. She only had
one shot at this and she was making little bullet point.
She was rehearsing what she would say because you knew
(31:43):
that it was really important to obtain Thomas Hoffer. She said.
The first thing Tom wanted to know was was he
any because he would not represent anybody who was not innocent.
And Casa told, 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,
(32:05):
and he said, well, send me everything that you have.
So I'm working from home. All 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 our pages. That's just only one transcript.
And I did that for days, you know, trying to
(32:28):
get all the information to him and he saw all
of the discrepancies, you know, and 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 house doing my
(32:49):
kids pro bono. It's an amazing story, I mean, a
tale of two kishas and which eventually resulted in these
two attorneys, which of course brings us to the post
conviction that a gaistion. 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,
(33:11):
discriminatory jury challenges, all of which were 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
(33:33):
basically says that Anthony went inside Mr 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
(33:55):
in this case. Everything that sort of 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 it Tom Hoffman to
fully reinvestigate the case like a detective. Right Without Tom,
(34:15):
we wouldn't know the context around Shalima's testimony, which is
what passed for a corroborating witness for Graves and his
whole network of liars, 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. She saw Graves running from Mr Hins
(34:36):
with the gun. Then when she confronted Charlie and Graves,
she was threatened, you talked too much. You keep talking,
I'm going to shut you up. Was the quote. Not
to even mention all of the previously unknown or ignored
holes and shifts and Graves as narrative and finally, we
haven't even talked about this yet, but there was a
cook at Mr Hins who had a view of the
(34:56):
shooter and described his complexion as quote not black. This
is consistent with Graves is 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, and we
(35:18):
attached Rachel's Affidavid Slima's statement. 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 was proceeding, we then get even more
documents from Foil, including that Graves on the day of
(35:41):
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 then amend our Titian. We also
found out that Cologne had told one of his friends
(36:05):
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 d s. In their response, they did
not address any of our allegations. Did Julius Graves lie
(36:26):
or did he not lie? Not addressed? They said you
could have a hearing. Well, the hearing is gonna take
quite a while, and Anthony should be home now. The
evidence is overwhelming. The resistance on undoing a wrongful conviction
is huge. Yeah, absolutely, it is even under normal circumstances.
(36:48):
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 would take
one look at Graves's bullshit and do something about it.
But the man tasked with running the cru in Brooklyn
since two thousand fourteen was Mark Hale, who just so
(37:10):
happens to be the man who prosecuted Anthony's case. Huhm.
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. Even when Mark Hale out
(37:31):
of the way, Brooklyn, d a Erik and z Alice
continued to oppose throwing out his wrongful conviction, knowing that
Anthony only had two other options, his four or forty
emotion in front of Judge Danny Chun, who had never
granted a single four forty emotion in his lengthy career,
or going in front of the Pearl board. Both were
dubious avenues. So they went in front of this judge,
(37:55):
and Julius Graves not only admitted to perjuring himself at trial,
but also continued to say things that contradicted what he
had previously said under oath. Meanwhile, Mark Hale also took
the stand and claimed over and over again to have
no memory of this case, Julius Graves or the egregious
Brady violations. The motion is still pending. I mean, in
(38:17):
the summer, Anthony was eligible for parole and the board
was much more reasonable releasing him on his first try.
So Anthony, welcome back. Thank you for having me again. Well,
I'm sure your family, Kisha and everyone is just ecstatic
to have you home. So tell me about your first
moments on the outside with them. It was surreal. I
(38:38):
can't believe it. December first, I was released. I walked
through the doors. I put my different clothes on that
my wife sent me, and I stood outside and I
was met by Hood with his big hug and smiles
of joy. And although I was outside, it didn't seem real.
Nothing at that moment seemed to real. And we drove
to a nearby dinah, and she just wanted to make
(38:58):
sure that I had something good to eat for a change.
I had sunny side up eggs has frown fried, and
I had some toast, and we ate and we talked.
He held my hand, I held us and I just
tried to take it all in. I got to imagine
that all of this has been amazing, but bitter sweet.
I mean, you're finally free, but only after all of
(39:20):
those years. Years you can't get back, and there must
be a lot of mixed emotions, and it's got to
just be a burning desire to just clear your name.
That's the main thing. Because although I'm free, I'm still
technically awarded the state. I'm on parole right now. I
have to report a parole officer, so whenever I need
to go somewhere, I have to call and get permission
(39:42):
to go. I thank god that the parole officer that
I was as handed to me is a cool parole officer.
He's decent. You know, he does his job, but he's
not one of those sticklers for just trying to mess
with people, so he's fair. But yeah, I'm still I'm
still awarded the state. So any thing that could happen,
golf a bit, I get pulled over, somebody has a
(40:03):
rough day because just don't be right back in it.
So what are the plans going forward? Right now? It's
a waiting game. It's not the more. We could do.
Everything now rest in the hand of the judge. Any
tongue which is optimistic and hopeful that you know he'll
he'll do the right thing and exonerate me. If he
does an Exonaret as did, then of course we're gonna
put an appeal in. Well, you have all of our
(40:26):
support in your quest to lay claim to your actual innocence,
and with that we're going to go to closing arguments, where,
first of all, I'm gonna thank you again, I mean
just for being you, because you inspire the funk out
of me. Honestly, I know you don't curse, but I do. Um.
You inspire me to want to work harder and smarter
and longer hours to help the other countless. A number
(40:50):
of Anthony Sims is out there. And now I'm going
to sit back in my chair, turn my mic off,
and just listen to any closing thoughts that you may
want to share. I'm I'm really excited that you're here.
I'm really excited that you're free. So Jonathan and Thomas
will go and then we're going to save you for last.
(41:11):
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, and it
also did not value the life of the run chunt.
What we're fighting to do is to make sure that
justice is served for Anthony and also for the victim,
(41:33):
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 the start that
Julius Graves was the perpetrator of this awful crime, not
Anthony Simms. So thank you again, Jason, thank you again
for doing this. I believe you have had a hundred
(41:56):
forty five podcasts of people who are wontfully convicted. I
have listened to many. While the facts vary, the stories
are all the same. A horrific crime is committed, drawing
wide media and public attention. Perpetrators need to be taken
off the street and held to account. However, the concern
(42:16):
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 allayed. As
Jonathan said, neither the victim nor the defendant's life is
(42:37):
value as long as the case is worked. 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, favorable evidence pointing away from defendants guilt is
(42:59):
disregarded and, in contravention of the prosecutors 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 courts. People ask me why do
(43:20):
I do this? I now I'm giving it away. And
my Holocaust survivor I was born in nineteen basically my family,
extensive family was wiped out, and that Holocaust was caused
by people remaining silent. Undo this horrific injustice, Anthony. I
(43:45):
just want to say thank you again for all the supporters.
Definitely to you for taking the time out to actually
here our stories, to give us a platform and give
me a platform to talk about these raw for convictions.
Since I've been out, I've been doing a lot of
things to try to bring awareness criminals justice. I've been
very supportive and different venues to speaking engagements, and I
(44:05):
will always try to lend a voice to the people
who can't be heard. I just pray and hope that
you know this nightmare is over with soon. I pray
and hope that Danny Tune just does the right thing
and go over the material and review everything and then
exonerate me so that I could live my life. I
know I'll never be able to get those years back.
I know that I never be able to get the
(44:28):
skall off me of prison. You know what I'm saying,
but I just want to fresh start and I just
pray for that opportunity. And again I thank you all
for the support and everything, and of course I thank
my beautiful wife because she's the truth, that's my better
half right there. So thanks again, thank you for listening
(44:54):
to Roble Conviction. I'd like to thank our production team
Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburn and Kevin Artists, with research by
Lyla Robinson. The music in this production was supplied by
three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to
follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at
Wrongful Conviction podcast, and on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as
(45:15):
well as at Lava for Good. On all three platforms,
you can also follow me on both TikTok and Instagram
at It's Jason flam Ralevul Conviction is the production of
Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number
one
When we first released this episode on September eight, Anthony
Sims had already spent twenty two years in prison and
was hoping to bring some much needed attention to this
horrendous injustice. At the time has passed to freedom or
uncertain Since then, some monumental changes have occurred. For this
updated episode, we spoke again with Anthony and his legal team.
(00:22):
You'll hear this episode as it was originally released, but
with brand new content to pick up where we left
off on eight, a woman named Rachel claims to have
seen her neighbors Julius Graves and Charlique Winbush talking. Charlie
was telling her fiance Graves about how a man named
(00:42):
Lee run Chen, who worked at the Chinese restaurant up
the block. Mr Hays, had touched her inappropriately. Graves replied
that he would scare him. Later that day, Julius Graves,
his fiance's cousin, and another younger friend had a few
drinks with Graves his friend Anthony Simms as they listened
of music by Anthony's car. As the evening wrapped up,
(01:03):
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 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
(01:24):
to stash it, and began to conjure up a story
to deflect blame from Graves and onto Anthony Simms. With
Graves and a number of his friends and families supporting
this phony narrative, investigators set their sights on Anthony. Only
one witness came forward independently who was neither coerced nor
friends and family of Julius Graves Graves, his neighbor Rachel,
(01:45):
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 the defense, and
as a result, Anthony Simms continues to serve twenty five
years to life. This is wrongful conviction with Jason Flomer.
(02:21):
Welcome back to wrongful conviction with Jason Flom. That's me
and today if you hear my voices, sounds sort of down.
I mean, this is one 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
(02:42):
obviously didn't commit. First of all, I want 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 Jason, 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
(03:05):
with us today on the podcast. So Anthony Simms, Welcome
to raval Conviction. Thank you. And Anthony, of course, is
now forty five year old man, twenty four years into
a life sentence for a murder he didn't commit. Now,
this began back in but I want to go back
even further than that. Um, Anthony, where did you grow
(03:28):
up and what was your childhood like? Was it a
happy childhood? Yes? I grew up in Brooklyn, York and
a mother, father, and my two older brothers and we
had was a very happy, loving family. We would do
a lot of fun activity together, go on vacations. I
remember every Sunday with family Day and leading up to
(03:49):
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 line. I work for
Bell Atlantic Telephone Company and I installed pull lines and
provide a doubts on the customers. I live with my
fiance Kisha and my two sons at the town. So
this brings us to May, when you, Anthony, witnessed a
(04:12):
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 you
(04:33):
bought your fiance Keisha. Julius Graves was at that time
my best friend. I wanted to show him the cart
and a boat. My wife this a process, so I
drove took his house at that town. He asked me
the job and to the liquor store. I went to
the regular store on Boston. 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,
(04:58):
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
to go home. Showed my wife the cars, and I
wanted to be home with my sons. So Dolis ask
him to drop him to them and find the restaurants.
So I thought this is a weird request because he
(05:18):
lived down the Blood around a corner from the restaurant,
and I thought he could have just walked. So I said,
I listened, I was drinking a couple of days. Let
me go to the thought about some restmans, because I
don't like driving around like that. I remember Julius saying, listen,
and I'm going to the house. I'm gonna go check
with Charlik, 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
(05:38):
that's the time that he got the weapon, and when
I got back from my car, Julius was sitting in
my passengers seat and his two little friends was sit
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, well, 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 them and find the restaurants. When I
(05:59):
got it out 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 re
sent his fans and pulled out a port of Saga,
and I remember thinking like, what the hell was going on?
And where? Didn't even get the gun from act? I said,
(06:21):
what the hell are you doing to you? Praising Julius,
Sexty said no, approached the count of pointed the gun
of one of the workers and pulled the trigger, and
I couldn't believe it. I felt the blood us from
my body, and well, I remember at that time, just
running out the store, getting in my car. Julius jumped
in in too, and I said get out and kicked everybody.
(06:42):
I said, everybody get out of my car and I drove.
Pharman told keis what I happened. That was the worst
night of my life. Yeah, it would be the worst
night of almost anyone's life to witness something like that.
I got home, I got on the phone. In that
call though, and that's what the hell is wrong with you?
Probably cursed about says some other things. So I'm gonna
(07:04):
basically want to know why did he put me in
a situation? And why do you Why did he allow
me to walk into that? Why didn't come me? What
was going on? Maybe he could, I would talk ab
out of it. I don't know, but he just kept apologize.
And that's when he told me that you know the
person that he found out. I can't believe it. And
I said, dude, I don't ever call me again. I
don't want to hear from you no more. I just
(07:25):
wanted to try to separate my cell phone. So it
turns out that 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 Is Fyonce Charlie earlier in the day of the
(07:45):
murder that he had touched her hand inappropriately. She was
upset about this, she told Graves, and Graves said that
he would go to the restaurant and scare the victor.
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
(08:05):
at the time is that after the murder, after Anthony
got Graves and his two friends, Derek Dollup and Louis
Cologne to leave the car, it is undisputed 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
(08:26):
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. Graves Is excuse for doing
this is that he wasn't thinking. That was his only justification. Now. Furthermore,
this murder weapon that sawt off shotgun had previously been
kept in a lockbox in the apartment where Graves was staying,
(08:51):
and Graves and his friend Derek Dollup, 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
(09:13):
scene later proved that this sought off shotgun from Graves's
apartment was used in the murder. So this is where
we start seeing a narrative being formed from the Graves
camp to try to deflect responsibility for this murder away
from Graves and towards Anthony. And initially it will seem
like a lot of witnesses came forward to support what
(09:34):
was really 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 be 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
(09:56):
bit a cohesive narrative in time for trial, which is
just not typical what a group of people are telling
the truth 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
(10:19):
of trial, 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
(10:41):
day after the murder, Charlie's brother, 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
(11:02):
pm and they 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. Now, at some point, Anthony and Graves are
joined by Charlique's cousin, Derek Dallup and another younger friend,
Louise Cologne. According to Graves, Anthony had a previous altercation
(11:24):
with the victim, Lee run Chen, who worked at the
Chinese restaurant down the block, Mr Hans. 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 some chicken was under cooked,
(11:46):
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. According to Graves that night,
(12:09):
in the lead up to the murder, Anthony brought up
this two to three weeks old and then later four
to five month old beef several times and was getting
heated up about it before they headed to 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
(12:33):
narrative is what became the prosecution's theory. It just feels
liberated to here you retell that story because it sounded
crazy to me, and from you saying how craze this
ounds to you, that means a lot. Because I've always
believed down the line that the truth was going to
come out. I didn't know that I would be in
prison twenty three years before the truth came out, and
(12:55):
it's gonna be out there now finally for everyone to
hear it. And Jonathan, there's even more to know about
Graves's ridiculous narrative. The story against Anthony was not only ridiculous,
but as he alluded to. It was so inconsistent. Graves
first actually told police Anthony and Graves his other two
(13:15):
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 his story and
say that he had witnessed an argument between Anthony and
the victim months earlier over a food order, and that
(13:38):
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 the story
never really made sense. But what was important to police
and prosecutors, unfortunately, was clear in the case. And once
(14:02):
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
site set on you, Anthony, and initially they show 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,
(14:23):
you were 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 that restaurant,
So I thought regartless that somebody would at one point
in time review to take and then I had nothing
to worry about to take with cleary thing up for me.
(14:43):
So yes, drove with myself to the precinct, and that's
what 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 the tape wasn't recalling.
Do you believe that? To be honest, I don't know
what to believe anymore. I used to have a lot
(15:04):
of faith in the judicial system, but from being a
cross rate of mysell phone 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,
(15:30):
and any other evidence that existed then were emerged later
that suggested Anthony was innocent, where 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
(15:54):
are illegal, but as our listeners also know, Brady violations
rarely seemed to be 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
(16:15):
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
(16:37):
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
(16:58):
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
(17:19):
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 fiance
(17:41):
outside of their brown stone. During that exchange, Rachel said,
I know what you did. I saw what you did.
In truth, she had seen Julius Graves running from the
Chinese restaurant with a shotgun right after the shot was fired,
and she said, I know what you did, and you're
trying to put it on somebody out us and Graves
(18:01):
said you talked too much and if you keep talking,
I'm gonna shut you up. 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 it was him. He's my neighbor. And the
detective said, we already have another guy. It was the
(18:24):
taller guy. Anthony 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 a shotgun.
And the detective basically said, well, thank you for your
time and hung up the phone. Shaw Lee had anticipated
that Rachel good going to the police. So shaw Lee
(18:45):
reports that as harassment. They had that report, but if
I can complete that incredibly, even though Rachel lived next
door to shaw Lee, they did not question Rachel at
all about up that police report. They didn't have to
go across the country to interview somebody or across the state, right,
(19:05):
they go across the street, across the street. Somebody who
who actually had begged to be interviewed, even though she
had been threatened by a really dangerous guy, was like, no,
I'm going to do the right thing, 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
(19:28):
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 interview.
(19:52):
Critical information here was 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,
(20:13):
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,
(20:36):
when visiting her friend's apartment across the street from the murder,
had heard this loud bang, had looked out the window
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. She'd seemed that
one of them appeared to be holding along done, but
she couldn't make any sort of description, and they said, well,
(20:59):
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
wouldn't tell her where her child was, which she kept asking,
And then eventually they emerged with the report saying that
she identified the taller man as being the one holding
(21:20):
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
that I saw the taller man running with the shotgun.
I couldn't have made a description, and that's what I
(21:43):
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. Right, So,
now they finally had someone as shaky as this idea
was to corroborate what the Graves camp was saying. So
(22:04):
July second, they charged you, Anthony, with two counts and
murder in the 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
(22:27):
wanted to get himself off of the hook. But even
he perhaps 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,
(22:47):
and he hadn't been reporting to his probation officer for
three years, and so the District Attorney's office actually initiated
proceedings to revoke graves probation so he would be remanded
to prison potentially. 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 the
(23:08):
possession of the gun, who had a previous weapons violation,
and it's like, yeah, now we're just gonna ignore that.
Julius was asked directly, have you reported to your probation
officer often and regularly? He 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
(23:32):
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, of course, and his
fiance's cousin Derek Dallap, his friend Louise Cologne, and the
grandmother of Graves's two children, Dorothy Boulding. Now, bulding story
(23:54):
changed twice. In her initial interview, she didn't mention seeing
Graves Anthony or even having been at Mr Hins, and
then at the grand jury she testified 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
(24:16):
had some pangs of conscience Either way, though, she testified
that she saw Anthony go in followed by Graves, then
heard a gunshot but never saw a gun. Miss bolding
for initial report would have really discredit her as a
prosecution witness was not disclosed. Also not disclosed for bias
(24:37):
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 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
(24:59):
tall the guy had a gun. This was helpful for
the prosecution because Anthony was taller than Graves. Now, the
prosecutor tried to get 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
(25:20):
men she saw running, it was the person who was
running second, who was behind, who was running with a shotgun.
Graves testified that he was running second, that he was
behind Anthony. So 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,
(25:43):
the failure to disclose what Shlima 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 in your case, Anthony? No, we didn't
even call any witnesses them of behalf, although I asked
(26:04):
my lawyer, cannot testify and he said no, like he
was really confident that there was no need for them
because the case was a weak case and they eventually
gave it to say, you know, Julias 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,
(26:27):
and then importantly the absence of Rachel, did you still
hold out any 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 notice that they were deadlocked,
and the just said, well, listen, I'm going to give
you a brief out in charge. He was basically saying,
(26:49):
I don't know what the problem is. It's not like
he's facing the death. Unity, go give me a verdict.
And they needed some reback, some courses and stuff. I
was still hopeful, although hope was flipping 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 core room and inside your mind and your soul.
(27:10):
At that moment, uh, I was shocked, confused, I was hurt, devastated, nases.
I mean I was angry. I remember trying to stand up,
but I didn't have any feeling in my livings there
just so weak. Ironically, what was going through my mind
(27:30):
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
to going to sleep just about I could come in
the room and telling them stories. And I said to myself,
I'm not gonna be able to do that for a while.
(28:07):
As you can imagine, for the first couple 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
(28:27):
really messed up. And I remember going on a visit
one day and my son, little Anthony Junior, which I
loved to dollop both of mysels, 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 julia Is as his uncle because we
(28:49):
were so close. And I looked at him and I said, no, Anthony,
don't ever say that again. I said, I don't ever
say that. No, And I was very you let them
know that the law will mentally prevailing there to work
herself 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
(29:12):
I said, I won't. I promise you that. And it
was that point with that I forgave to is and
I continue to live my life as a life give them,
but also trying to help any and everybody out because
of his helping me as well. And 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
(29:35):
hell of a job even in the brief time you
had with your son's 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
of the town, her name is also Kisa. This prison
bay became too much for us and it felt like
I was holding back from living high life. So we
(29:56):
both came to the agreement that we should just divorce
semper 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 which is Olfen named Kisa,
it's my junior high school girlfriend. She was my Chilidher
when I was a captain of the basketball team. So
(30:18):
Jesus started to write me, and one thing turned into another.
All of the old filings came back and we decided
to try one more time to get married. And that
was probably the best decision of my life. My name
is Keisha Sins and I am Anthony sins wife, and
it is it's the best decision that we've ever made
(30:39):
that I've ever made. Anthony and I were, you know,
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
(31:01):
because of him. This situation in particular has made me stronger,
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 mine name Kevin Jenkins. He asked me
to read this article because the articles involved the person
(31:21):
that we both know rehave the Manu Cooper. Kevin suggested
that I try to get in touch with Tom hoff
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. You can do that. She only had
one shot at this and she was making little bullet point.
She was rehearsing what she would say because you knew
(31:43):
that it was really important to obtain Thomas Hoffer. She said.
The first thing Tom wanted to know was was he
any because he would not represent anybody who was not innocent.
And Casa told, 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,
(32:05):
and he said, well, send me everything that you have.
So I'm working from home. All 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 our pages. That's just only one transcript.
And I did that for days, you know, trying to
(32:28):
get all the information to him and he saw all
of the discrepancies, you know, and 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 house doing my
(32:49):
kids pro bono. It's an amazing story, I mean, a
tale of two kishas and which eventually resulted in these
two attorneys, which of course brings us to the post
conviction that a gaistion. 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,
(33:11):
discriminatory jury challenges, all of which were 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
(33:33):
basically says that Anthony went inside Mr 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
(33:55):
in this case. Everything that sort of 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 it Tom Hoffman to
fully reinvestigate the case like a detective. Right Without Tom,
(34:15):
we wouldn't know the context around Shalima's testimony, which is
what passed for a corroborating witness for Graves and his
whole network of liars, 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. She saw Graves running from Mr Hins
(34:36):
with the gun. Then when she confronted Charlie and Graves,
she was threatened, you talked too much. You keep talking,
I'm going to shut you up. Was the quote. Not
to even mention all of the previously unknown or ignored
holes and shifts and Graves as narrative and finally, we
haven't even talked about this yet, but there was a
cook at Mr Hins who had a view of the
(34:56):
shooter and described his complexion as quote not black. This
is consistent with Graves is 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, and we
(35:18):
attached Rachel's Affidavid Slima's statement. 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 was proceeding, we then get even more
documents from Foil, including that Graves on the day of
(35:41):
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 then amend our Titian. We also
found out that Cologne had told one of his friends
(36:05):
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 d s. In their response, they did
not address any of our allegations. Did Julius Graves lie
(36:26):
or did he not lie? Not addressed? They said you
could have a hearing. Well, the hearing is gonna take
quite a while, and Anthony should be home now. The
evidence is overwhelming. The resistance on undoing a wrongful conviction
is huge. Yeah, absolutely, it is even under normal circumstances.
(36:48):
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 would take
one look at Graves's bullshit and do something about it.
But the man tasked with running the cru in Brooklyn
since two thousand fourteen was Mark Hale, who just so
(37:10):
happens to be the man who prosecuted Anthony's case. Huhm.
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. Even when Mark Hale out
(37:31):
of the way, Brooklyn, d a Erik and z Alice
continued to oppose throwing out his wrongful conviction, knowing that
Anthony only had two other options, his four or forty
emotion in front of Judge Danny Chun, who had never
granted a single four forty emotion in his lengthy career,
or going in front of the Pearl board. Both were
dubious avenues. So they went in front of this judge,
(37:55):
and Julius Graves not only admitted to perjuring himself at trial,
but also continued to say things that contradicted what he
had previously said under oath. Meanwhile, Mark Hale also took
the stand and claimed over and over again to have
no memory of this case, Julius Graves or the egregious
Brady violations. The motion is still pending. I mean, in
(38:17):
the summer, Anthony was eligible for parole and the board
was much more reasonable releasing him on his first try.
So Anthony, welcome back. Thank you for having me again. Well,
I'm sure your family, Kisha and everyone is just ecstatic
to have you home. So tell me about your first
moments on the outside with them. It was surreal. I
(38:38):
can't believe it. December first, I was released. I walked
through the doors. I put my different clothes on that
my wife sent me, and I stood outside and I
was met by Hood with his big hug and smiles
of joy. And although I was outside, it didn't seem real.
Nothing at that moment seemed to real. And we drove
to a nearby dinah, and she just wanted to make
(38:58):
sure that I had something good to eat for a change.
I had sunny side up eggs has frown fried, and
I had some toast, and we ate and we talked.
He held my hand, I held us and I just
tried to take it all in. I got to imagine
that all of this has been amazing, but bitter sweet.
I mean, you're finally free, but only after all of
(39:20):
those years. Years you can't get back, and there must
be a lot of mixed emotions, and it's got to
just be a burning desire to just clear your name.
That's the main thing. Because although I'm free, I'm still
technically awarded the state. I'm on parole right now. I
have to report a parole officer, so whenever I need
to go somewhere, I have to call and get permission
(39:42):
to go. I thank god that the parole officer that
I was as handed to me is a cool parole officer.
He's decent. You know, he does his job, but he's
not one of those sticklers for just trying to mess
with people, so he's fair. But yeah, I'm still I'm
still awarded the state. So any thing that could happen,
golf a bit, I get pulled over, somebody has a
(40:03):
rough day because just don't be right back in it.
So what are the plans going forward? Right now? It's
a waiting game. It's not the more. We could do.
Everything now rest in the hand of the judge. Any
tongue which is optimistic and hopeful that you know he'll
he'll do the right thing and exonerate me. If he
does an Exonaret as did, then of course we're gonna
put an appeal in. Well, you have all of our
(40:26):
support in your quest to lay claim to your actual innocence,
and with that we're going to go to closing arguments, where,
first of all, I'm gonna thank you again, I mean
just for being you, because you inspire the funk out
of me. Honestly, I know you don't curse, but I do. Um.
You inspire me to want to work harder and smarter
and longer hours to help the other countless. A number
(40:50):
of Anthony Sims is out there. And now I'm going
to sit back in my chair, turn my mic off,
and just listen to any closing thoughts that you may
want to share. I'm I'm really excited that you're here.
I'm really excited that you're free. So Jonathan and Thomas
will go and then we're going to save you for last.
(41:11):
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, and it
also did not value the life of the run chunt.
What we're fighting to do is to make sure that
justice is served for Anthony and also for the victim,
(41:33):
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 the start that
Julius Graves was the perpetrator of this awful crime, not
Anthony Simms. So thank you again, Jason, thank you again
for doing this. I believe you have had a hundred
(41:56):
forty five podcasts of people who are wontfully convicted. I
have listened to many. While the facts vary, the stories
are all the same. A horrific crime is committed, drawing
wide media and public attention. Perpetrators need to be taken
off the street and held to account. However, the concern
(42:16):
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 allayed. As
Jonathan said, neither the victim nor the defendant's life is
(42:37):
value as long as the case is worked. 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, favorable evidence pointing away from defendants guilt is
(42:59):
disregarded and, in contravention of the prosecutors 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 courts. People ask me why do
(43:20):
I do this? I now I'm giving it away. And
my Holocaust survivor I was born in nineteen basically my family,
extensive family was wiped out, and that Holocaust was caused
by people remaining silent. Undo this horrific injustice, Anthony. I
(43:45):
just want to say thank you again for all the supporters.
Definitely to you for taking the time out to actually
here our stories, to give us a platform and give
me a platform to talk about these raw for convictions.
Since I've been out, I've been doing a lot of
things to try to bring awareness criminals justice. I've been
very supportive and different venues to speaking engagements, and I
(44:05):
will always try to lend a voice to the people
who can't be heard. I just pray and hope that
you know this nightmare is over with soon. I pray
and hope that Danny Tune just does the right thing
and go over the material and review everything and then
exonerate me so that I could live my life. I
know I'll never be able to get those years back.
I know that I never be able to get the
(44:28):
skall off me of prison. You know what I'm saying,
but I just want to fresh start and I just
pray for that opportunity. And again I thank you all
for the support and everything, and of course I thank
my beautiful wife because she's the truth, that's my better
half right there. So thanks again, thank you for listening
(44:54):
to Roble Conviction. I'd like to thank our production team
Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburn and Kevin Artists, with research by
Lyla Robinson. The music in this production was supplied by
three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to
follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at
Wrongful Conviction podcast, and on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as
(45:15):
well as at Lava for Good. On all three platforms,
you can also follow me on both TikTok and Instagram
at It's Jason flam Ralevul Conviction is the production of
Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number
one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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