Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
I fell into the hands of corrupt detective. I was
naive enough to believe that I would be able to
just present all of my proof of actual innocence, that
they would investigate adequately, and so that I wouldn't be
going to prison because I was a good person. I
hadn't anything wrong. In the back of your mind, you say, well,
when we go to a hearing, we go to court,
(00:23):
the truth will come out. The prosecution from day one
knew I was innocent and let force testimony go uncorrected
from the lower courts. All we got to United States
Supreme Court. You have someone with the badge with ultimate
and really, in that moment, unchecked authority. Don't presume that
(00:46):
people are guilty when you see them on TV, because
it may just be a dirty d ai that is
trying to rise upward. This is a wrongful conviction. Welcome
(01:11):
back to ronfal Conviction with Jason Flam. Today's episode will
make your blood boil and it will blow your mind.
So settle in because this is going to be a
crazy ride. Guilty one word ceiling Lamont McIntyre's fate. Lat McIntyre,
aged seventeen, has so far been imprisoned for twenty two years.
(01:33):
Twenty two years ago, two young men, twenty one year
old Don Yell Quinn and his thirty four year old cousin,
Donald Ewing, were gunned down in a horrible double homicide.
Six hours after the murders, police arrested McIntyre, but never
searched his house for evidence. Moreover, it was a trial
which prosecutors offered no physical evidence tying McIntyre to the crime,
(01:53):
no motive, no connection between him and the victims, no weapon,
no fingerprints, nor did Kansas City, Kansas Belief even request
search warrants to find any of that material. A retired
officer who reviewed the case calls the investigation grossly deficient.
Most notable is that the family of the victims for
twenty two years have steadfastly insisted that he is innocent.
(02:17):
Other witnesses, also relatives of the victim, insisted as soon
as they saw McIntyre sitting at the defense table, they
knew he was not the shooter. They told the prosecutor,
but were ignored. One family member has signed an affid
David claiming that under pressure from police and the prosecutor,
she lied at McIntyre's trial. We're the first time a
jury is speaking publicly about the case, Greg Lauber says
(02:38):
that he now believes that Wyandot County jury was wrong.
They didn't care about anything. They just had their man
and it was enough for the twelve person jury. In deliberations,
Louber says he and another juror were holdouts, but it
was late in the day and there was mounting pressure
from others who wanted a verdict. Maybe I had an
opportunity to, you know, do something good on that jury,
(03:00):
but I sure didn't do it. I took a coward's
way out. It is the speedy investigation and prosecution of
that crime in this place that a team of exonerators
now insist was also the focus of a terrible injustice.
Lamont McIntyre aged seventeen and has so far been imprisoned
for twenty two years, convicted and given two consecutive life
(03:20):
sentences for a crime they say he never committed. Well,
I'm just gonna say I'm really happy that today joining
us to discuss the insane case of Lamont McIntyre, we
have with us Lamont's attorney, Cheryl Pilot, as well as
retired FBI special agent Al gener Rich Cheryl and al,
(03:42):
thank you for being here. Thank you so much. We're
glad to be here, happy to be here. And we
will be hearing later on in the episode from Lamont,
who will be calling in from president in Kansas, where
he has been incarcerated for approximately twenty four years now,
since he was a teenage for a crime that he
did not commit. Now, let's go back to the beginning.
(04:05):
On April fift there are two men sitting in a
Cadillac in Kansas City, Kansas, when they were approached by
a man with a shotgun. These facts are not in dispute,
right and what we know is that four shots were
fired into the car, killing the passenger don Yelle Quinn
instantly and the driver, Donald Ewing, who died later in
(04:27):
the hospital. And amazingly, within six hours, they managed to
find a guy who had nothing to do with the crime,
Lamont McIntyre, who was seventeen at the time, and he
was arrested and charged with two counts of first degree
murder in spite of a total lack of any physical
evidence connecting him to the crime. How did this happen?
(04:49):
Cheryl and I'll jump in whenever you want. Lamont was
arrested and prosecuted after police obtained three interviews from witnesses,
one of them never testified. But the taped interviews of
these eyewitnesses in a very serious crime, obviously where someone
(05:09):
can go to prison for the rest of their life,
amounted to a total of twenty taped minutes, and one
of the eyewitnesses was only interviewed for four minutes. Is
that an investigation? What is that? So all You've done
a lot of research, and you were in the FBI
for quite a while, Is that right? I was in
(05:30):
the FBI for twenty five years. I was a special agent.
I specialized in investigating police corruption. I worked in Chicago
very successfully and then in Kansas City, Kansas. Agent Jenner
was not involved with this murder case at all when
it happened. I knew Mr jenner Rich through other cases
(05:52):
and after he retired a number of years after he retired,
actually and I was working on trying to achieve Lamont's exoneration,
I approached him to talk to him about the Kansas City,
Kansas Police Department and things that I had uncovered in
my investigation. And it was at that point that Al
(06:13):
and I started talking about some of the things he
had learned while working for the FBI, and they, you know,
matched up with some of the things I had uncovered
in my investigation. And it was because of that that
he became a witness in this case that I hope
to use at our hearing. So, prior to Lamont's arrest,
(06:37):
can we talk about what was happening with this particular cop,
whose name was Roger Globski. Sometime around or so, I
was able to open an investigation into police corruption in
Kansas City, Kansas. And as the investigation went on over time,
over many years, we developed maybe somewhere between o and
(07:00):
fifteen police officers who were titled subjects of the investigation.
Some of it involved civil rights like beating people up,
stealing their shoes when they were walking down the street
because the officer liked the shoes, or in the case
of Glupski, you know, sexual extortion. But most of it
involved corruption involving drugs, mostly cocaine. And in the course
(07:23):
of this investigation, just by talking to people, which is
when I'm pretty good at over time, you know, a
number of people told us about Glupski extorting sex from
black women, and he liked black women. We never developed
enough evidence on on Glupski to prosecute him. That's the
extent of my knowledge about Glupski. And I had no
(07:45):
involvement whatsoever in the in the murder investigation. Now, I
always believe that that police were good, and the police
were on our side and they're there to protect us
all and so I always find these stories, even as
long as I've been working on this issue, and I've
got twenty five years now of experience, but I always
(08:05):
find these stories so just depressing and shocking and the
flips everything upside down. Well, like you, I was very
naive until I went to Chicago, and then I saw
police corruption on the massive scale. But then when I
got back to Kansas City in six and probably got
involved in Kansas City, Kansas and I saw the same activity.
(08:28):
There wasn't on the grand scale. You know that. It's
that it's conducted in Chicago. It's basically police officers, most
of whom are white, picking on minorities, most of whom
are black, some of them are Hispanic. Because when you're
a drug dealer, you know you can't go to the
police the FBI and say, hey, these cops are stealing
(08:49):
my drugs. These cops are stealing my drug money. You
basically have to you have to suck it up. So
that's what they do in Chicago. That's so they do everywhere.
So Lamont his troubles really began when his mom was
in a car with I guess was her boyfriend at
the time, Cheryl Right. And Glubski approached the car and
(09:16):
told her to get out and threatened her with arrest
or arrest of her boyfriend unless she agreed to come
down to the police station. And then the problems really
began when she refused to become one of his girls,
so to speak. Right, I mean, obviously, she was in
a terrible situation where she's very vulnerable, not able to
(09:40):
defend herself from a cop who's willing to go to
almost any lengths to fulfill his desires. She had a
tremendous problem, and she decided that she wanted to maintain
her dignity, really right, And so what seems like happen
is that as a consequence of her action, Globski decided
(10:02):
that he would target and frame her son in something
that is so evil that you just sit there and say,
I don't you know it makes me want to quit
the human race. And not only that, but he was
also represented by an attorney who was so incompetent that
he was disbarred not too long after the trial. So
(10:26):
what kind of a chance did he really have. Well,
that's a lot untangled right there. There was an encounter
that Lamont's mother had with the detective some years earlier.
I mean it was years actually before the double homicide happened.
And at the time of the double homicide, my client
(10:51):
was inexplicably dragged into the case. One of the eyewitnesses
told the police she thought the shooter looked like a
Lament dating her knee. Police never bothered to find out
what Lamont that was. They don't go ask the niece
what Lamont that was. They simply put another Lamant and
it's undisputed and entirely different Lamont, my client into the
(11:13):
case and somehow obtain this identification. What's interesting about the lineup,
and I've never seen anything like this before, is three
of the five photos were of young male members of
the mc entire family. You don't have to be a
conspiracy theorist to say, well, that doesn't make a lot
(11:36):
of sense. What it's one perpetrator. It is not like
that somebody said there were three brothers that were involved.
It's one perpetrator, you know. And then the justice system,
we know, has a tendency to chew people up and
spit them out when they are poor, particularly if they're
minorities and underrepresented. It's really it's not a fair fight,
(11:59):
is it. Well, I mean, this, this whole thing um
was an impossible battle for Lamont to begin with. I mean,
first of all, the investigation itself, I don't think really
qualified is is a true investigation because so little was done.
No evidence of motive was ever uncovered. There was no
(12:21):
physical evidence that tied Lamont to the crime. There was
not even any evidence that he knew the two victims,
their backgrounds, of the two victims, and who might have
a motive to harm them. That was never investigated. There
was an eyewitness directly across the street who was never interviewed,
whose whose mother said, you know, she she knows who
(12:42):
the suspect is. I mean, the the failures and lapses
and irregularities in this case just go on and on.
I mean, other than the twenty minutes of taped interviews
from the eyewitnesses. There was very little else and the
only evidence at trial against Amont were two eyewitnesses who
(13:03):
were we contend, confused, coerced, manipulated, threatened into implicating Lamont McIntyre,
and that was it. There was nothing else. So you
have this cop and this department that is so corrupt
isn't even the right word, but that's engaged in so
(13:24):
many illegal activities. And isn't it ironic and tragic that
Lamont is in prison living in hell after twenty four
years and this this cop who was from what I've read,
raping people, robbing people, dealing drugs, protecting drug dealers, he's out.
(13:46):
How How is that? I mean? And that must not
not sit well with you with your whole background either. Well,
I'm really hoping for what our entire team is hoping for,
and what we have sought for a long time is
a very full investigation into the activities of this detective.
There needs to be an investigation by people who have
(14:10):
the power and the authority and the ability to follow
all the leads, develop information, compel the testimony of witnesses,
and obtain other evidence. Let me let me turn it
to you for a second, because we have not had
somebody with your background and experience on the show before,
(14:32):
and I would venture to say that you had a
very very difficult and dangerous job, right I mean, investigating cops,
particularly when you're investigating cops, we've got a lot to hide,
makes you a very unpopular person, I would think. So,
looking back on it, how did this manage to go
(14:52):
on for so long without somebody coming along and saying, uh,
you know beside do you hey, hey, we're not going
to tolerate this. They don't give a ship. At the
time we were doing these investigations, the police chief of
Kansas City, Kansas, a guy named Tom Daly. He had
previously been indicted by the Federal Strike Force for extorting
(15:16):
money at a whorehouses along the kar River in Kansas.
He was doing that allegedly when it was a captain.
He was acquitted because it was a real weak case.
But after being an acquitted for extortion, the city wound
up eventually making him the chief. Is that the actions
you know, of a responsible a city administration or a
(15:36):
police department. So he had he had the chief over there,
Tom Dale, he had previously been indicted by the Feds.
He despised the federal government. He hated the U. S.
Attorney's Office and UH and the FBI. And he's the chief,
he was part of it. So you have this guy
Golubski who in that scenario is operating basically with impunity,
(15:59):
right because he knows his chief doesn't give a ship,
and with the chief having literally what it sounds like,
gotten away with that particular pattern of activity as well
as I'm sure other things that he was doing. The
people underneath them are probably thinking, hey, this is great,
no one's going to touch us, and they're right, and
(16:21):
nobody did. So how frustrated was that for you? There?
You are really fighting an unwinnable war, right You're you're
there trying to protect the public from the police force.
Were the chief of police who not only doesn't give
a fuck, but doesn't want that He wants you. He
probably wants you the funk out of his hair, so
he could just go and run his little you know,
(16:41):
run the streets how he wants to write. When I
started working over there, you had a person, you know,
some guy, I knave it a lot of people in
the county jail and they would say so and so
confronted me and stole my money, stole my drugs. You go, what,
what's the cops name? I don't know his name. You
know what she looked like? Well, you know he's someone guy.
Well you go to the police. The police did not
(17:03):
have photographs of their police officers. So if a victim
came in there alleging that so and so officer robbed
from me, extorted me, they didn't even have photographs to
show people so they could identify who the police officer was.
So good luck, you know, through the U. S. Attorney's Office,
through UH Julie Robinson, who was a prosecutor at the time,
(17:25):
we subpoenaed photographs of every sworn officer in the Kansas City,
Kansas Police Department, and there was how to pay for that.
I was almost removed from the investigation because of that.
You know, I think one of the problems is that
other law enforcement officers don't want to investigate law enforcement
(17:46):
and as the general rule, I think they find it distasteful,
something they would rather avoid, and there is a tendency
to minimize misconduct. I found that really pretty shocking, not
in light of anything else we're talking about, but I
can see how you would, and it's it really gets
easier and easier to see how these wrongful convictions are
(18:10):
so common. I mean, here we have an interesting situation, right,
We're talking to Al, who's in there with his badge
working for the Federal Beer of Investigation and basically being
told go fund himself. So what chance does a seventeen
year old black kid from the poorer side of town,
what chance does he have against this blue wall, this
(18:34):
blue monster that was out to get him? That he
had no chance? So now fast forward to twenty four
years later, Lamont sits in a prison studying reading. By
all accounts, a model prisoner, somebody who maintains a positive
outlook in spite of this. You know, what can only
(18:56):
be described as the worst fate that can befall an
individual to be in cars raver was something he didn't
do for the rest of your life. But now we
have hope, right, I mean, he has hope thanks to
you and the years of work that you've done in
this case, and Al and other brave people who have
devoted their time and in some cases probably even risk
their own personal safety to try to get justice in
(19:18):
this case. What does it look like now? What happens next,
tell us what's going on. We have a evidentiary hearing
coming up in October and we intend to present somewhere
between forty and fifty witnesses who provide very powerful testimony
(19:38):
on various aspects of the case. There was almost nothing
really to support the conviction to begin with, nothing other
than the testimony of the two eye witnesses, and I
believe that has been thoroughly shredded at this point through
recantations and admissions and the result of other investigator Shan
(20:00):
and we are also focusing on the very troubling misconduct
in the case. It is intimately connected to how the
investigation was conducted, and we're going to bring all that
out and show how we believe this went wrong, and
we very much hope to be successful. What's the date
(20:22):
of the hearing October twelfth, October twelve, And is this
in a federal court. We are in Windott County District Court,
which is a state court. My client is litigating what's
called a successive petition under sixty fIF seven, and you
have essentially a procedural barrier to get over before you
(20:42):
can get back into court. But we do have this
evidentiary hearing schedule that we are very very excited about.
One of the most compelling things about the case we
haven't mentioned this yet, is that the families of both
victims have always known my client is innocent and are
very much squarely supporting the quest to free him. They
(21:04):
know that they did not get justice, their families did
not get justice, and that cheryld. In your experience, that's
not a common thing, right, I mean, most of the
cases I've seen, even in the face of what could
be overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the victims families sometimes
stick with what they've been told all along because they
just can't. They can't even process the idea that they
(21:25):
may have been lied to and that the wrong person
may have been serving time for the for the murder
of their loved one. So in this case, this is
a very unusual scenario, isn't it. Uh? It is. And
one of the eyewitnesses is related to both of the victims,
and she her family and the family of the second
(21:45):
victim to whom she's a bit more distantly related, have
always told me that they have known from the beginning
that the authorities got the wrong man. They have always
known this they've made periodic efforts to correct this, to
a rest this, to try and get some justice, all
without success. And they were never tested that they were
never called it testify a trial. One of them was
(22:08):
not called to testify. Another has admitted that she lied,
that she was coerced. The other eyewitness seems frankly very
perplexed by her testimony, and it's it's very clear that
it's an eye witness, a misidentification based on manipulation. And
we know also that had this trial taken place twenty
(22:31):
years later, so with everything that's known now about the
unreliability of eyewitness identification, there's a very good chance that
that would have been discredited because there was no other
evidence connecting to the crime. You take a person who's traumatized,
who has just witnessed a really horrific event, and they
can be pretty easy to pressure or manipulate. And in fact,
(22:53):
this witness provided in a tape statement my client's last name,
a man she did not know and had never heard of,
which raises the very interesting question of who gave her
the name. It was undisputed at trial that she did
not know my client. Yet the fact that there was
an original tape statement where she provided his name never
(23:15):
came out. That was never admitted at trial. She also
stated wrongly that my client was the Lamont who had
dated her niece. At trial undisputed that that was not true.
It was an entirely different Lamont who was in fact
identified by his name to the jury, an entirely different person. So,
I mean, the whole thing is is troubling beginning to end,
(23:37):
really a perfect storm of chaos and horror and misconduct,
things being done improperly. And if there wasn't already enough
to chew on, this is the part that really just
sets me off his core to point that Attorney Gary
(23:58):
Long was on supervised obasition at the time of the
trial for failing to diligently handle three prior cases. He
was suspended from the bar a couple of years later
for failure to adequately hinder a separate criminal case, and
he was this bar. How is it even possible that
in a life or death situation, because this is really
somebody's life that they were playing with, right, How could
(24:21):
it be in this great country of ours that you
take somebody and you say, you know what, we're going
to give you a lawyer who's already messed up three times.
It's I don't know, it doesn't make any sense. Well,
when I said nobody gives a ship nut, do you
(24:41):
understand what I mean? Do you know that that you
know that that Tara Moore Had, You know she's now
a federal prosecutor. Yea, So Tara Moorehead was the prosecutor
in this case. Obviously didn't see anything wrong with her
prosecuting a case in which a young man's life was
at stake in a very real way, in front of
(25:05):
a judge with whom she had carried on an affair
a few years earlier. I think most reasonable people would
agree that one or the other should have been recused
from this particular scenario because even if they were saints,
and obviously they weren't. Because she's also the same woman
(25:27):
from what I've read, who threatened a witness who tried
to come forward with the truth with losing custody of
her own children. But yes, and now she's moved up
the ladder. Seems like all the bad guys have one here.
Al what the fuck? Well? I think Tara Moore Had
is currently married to a police officer. I think there's
(25:47):
some other prosecutors over in the federal U. S. Attorney's
Office that are married to other police officers. So you're
not going to expect them to investigate police corruption, are you. Wow?
I guess that would make it tricky, and they're not
going to do it, and they don't. I mean, there
there's so much that could be investigated that ought to
(26:08):
be investigated, and you know, I I should also point
out that sexual misconduct among police officers is not unusual
in some departments. When you have poor and vulnerable people
encounter folks with ultimate authority over them, ultimate authority in
(26:28):
that particular moment, you know, those things can happen all
too easily, and they do, and they happen frequently. You know,
when I was in agent, I'm about six ft four.
I had a gun, a badge and radio and everything.
At nighttime when I was on my way home or
on the weekends, I would not drive through Kansas City, Kansas,
unless I was accompanied by another FBI agent. Thought they
(26:51):
might have run you off the road or something else.
They could do anything. They could pull me over and
not saying they don't know who I was, and they
could say pulled a gun and they could shoot me.
So I have all that power and authority. What is
some little black kid on the street half and I
was afraid? That's Uh, I gotta take a minute to
process that. That's a very powerful statement, and uh, it
(27:15):
really does bring it into perspective. I hope that in
exposing the story of LaMonte and some of the things
that you've shared out that people, you know, get their
backs up and get get angry and get involved. These
are just people, just regular people, and they're they're being
so terribly abused and victimized by people who are supposed
(27:39):
to protect them. I I don't it makes me sick.
I just say that the fear and the terror that
some of the citizens experience cannot be overstated. I mean,
you have someone with a badge with ultimate and really,
as I said in that moment, unchecked authority, there's enormous
fear of the police and enormous, sometimes unmovable resistance to
(28:04):
getting involved in anything that has to do with the
criminal justice system. I've spent some years, honestly, just earning
the trust of some people in the community so that
they will sit down and speak with me so that
we can investigate the case. Nobody wants anything to do
with a case you say, courthouse, people walk the other way.
(28:28):
They don't want anything to do with that. And ultimately
we have been successful in securing some very good witnesses
because they did want to help someone they've viewed as innocent.
And you know, I should point out here that all
of the street talk we have ever heard in the
community is that Lamont is innocent, the guy who got
(28:50):
wrongfully convicted. It's like everyone knows. The whole community knows,
the victims, families know, everyone knows Lamont did not do this.
Everyone knows. Um, I'm sure people are listening, doing and saying, God,
this is horrible. But what can I do? How how
could I possibly help? So, if you have any ideas
(29:13):
on that to share with the audience, Cheryl, let's start
with you and then go to al and give you
last words. Take it away. Uh In In a general sense,
I'd say, support honest policing, be grateful for the good
and honest officers that you know, and when you see
wrongdoing done by someone with a badge pointed out, don't
(29:35):
be afraid to make a complaint and hope and pray,
and I don't know, make phone calls, write letters, and
ask for an investigation of the misconduct that has come
to the surface. In this case. You know, the problem
is working police corruption. You're not very popular, and even
(29:55):
the work I did here with Kansas City, Kansas, you're
not very popular. I have a word about being popular,
you know. So it didn't affect me. But there's a
lot of agents that simply don't want to do it
because they want to be popular. They want people to
like them. Yeah, we need we need more guys like
you out there because otherwise it's it's the systems. Uh.
It feels I mean, I'm so depressed after talking to
(30:18):
you and hearing that it's actually even worse than I
thought it was. It makes me insane, but it energizes me. Okay,
thanks you guys. I'll be there in the courtroom with
you in spirit on October twelve. Thank you. Thank you.
(30:40):
You have a prepaid call from an innate at Kansas
Department of Corrections Lansing Correctional Facility. To accept this call,
press or say five to. This call will be recorded
and subject to monitoring at any time. You maybe in
speaking now. We just concluded a disturbing and really terrifying
(31:06):
interview with Al Janner, retired FBI agent, and Cheryl Pilot,
who are doing such incredible work, heroic work on a
case that keeps me up at night in a case
of a man named Lamont McIntyre. And now we have
on the phone from maximum security prison in Kansas, Lamont himself. Lamont,
(31:31):
Welcome to the show. Thank you, so, Lamont, I want
to go back to the beginning, when you grew up
and how this all started. I've seen photos of you
with your family. Looked like you had not an easy
but a happy childhood. Is that fair? Yeah? Can you
just describe what it was like. I've heard you talk
about Christmas and stuff. Ah, well, we've tightened it. You know.
(31:54):
It's like my mother was just an only parent of
the house and it was close siblings, and we did
everything together. We stayed in one house, you know, to
carry each other. So going off of me was my
family was a big day. Wedn't really fit about a
lot of stuff, and I was me and my three
brothers and my sister and mother a sister. My mother
(32:15):
worked a lot, so my sister kind of watched that.
There was a little bit some other family members liked
to go to my family member's house, my uncles and
be around them. Our mother was at work. I kind
of still stayed around family. I saw at my home
so real, family oriented and where you grew up. You
had no idea at this time that the police force
(32:38):
was really as corrupt as anyone could possibly imagine until
this terrible incident occurred. And I want to go back
to that. What happened. You were a seventeen year old
kid going along with your life, trying to make it
in a difficult place, and then day out of the blue,
(33:01):
you get arrested and don't even know what's going on
or what happened. Uh, That's exactly what happened. And I
was it was a typical day. It was like a Friday,
typical day. I was in Rode in a Donny Commage
program where it is altern of school where they would
help you get your high school to phone and then
they gets you in uh college, so like a little
(33:22):
degree program as a part of and um, it was
just a Friday. I wouldn't saying this in the time
I were looking at uh what I was doing. I
wasn't thinking about it because it's a typical day. And uh,
I get a call phone call saying the police over
my grandmother's house looking for me. Called my mother. We
go to the police station and they started talking about
(33:44):
two murders. When I'm saying, they ask the questions about
an invented happened that day, and I had no answers
for him because I didn't know if they were saying
what they were talking about. So from that moment, I
was arrested, charged, basically convicted of two murders that I
hadn't about. And we know now that they were deliberately
(34:09):
targeting you because of this particular police officer who was
up to all kinds of criminal activity himself. And that's
the irony of this is that he belongs in jail.
And I'm hoping that by the end of this that's
exactly what's going to happen. But the idea that this system,
(34:31):
this so called justice system, had made a decision that
you were going to be there. Guy, there was this
double murder, right, two guys sitting in a car. They
were involved in drug activity. They were dealers. We now
know also that one of them had been beaten by
his the guys he was working for in the drug business. Right.
(34:51):
He was working as a doorman in a crack then,
and he had feared for his life, and in fact,
he had good reason to because I guess he from
what I've learned he has been he had been stealing
from them, So that every reason to know that this
was a drug hit. And you weren't involved in that
(35:11):
game or that business. Did you know these guys. I
didn't know the witnesses, I didn't know the victims, and
I would have connected to it at all. That's why
I said, it's so hard for me to understand how
somebody that could happen because and I was. I was
full front. I was forward about everything. I don't try
to hide nothing I was. I was open to what
(35:32):
they wanted to ask me about whatever, because I knew
that what they were talking about that time, I had
nothing to do with it. And I wasn't involved or
was responsible for the death of those men. So I
still don't know to this day, like what happened, like
on how I became the main suspect. I don't know
how that happened. Still to this day, I don't know
(35:53):
what what the police officer's motive was too to implement
me or to plan a meal. I still don't know
to this day would happen. Well, it does seem like
now with everything we've learned that the officer involved, the
first one who arrived on the scene, was an officer
named Glubski, and he had it out for you because
(36:17):
of a family situation, right. I mean, he is a
white guy who had a proclivity for women of color
and when he didn't get his way, he would exact revenge.
And so what it seems like is that in this
particular case, he targeted you because your mom wasn't having
(36:37):
any part of that. And that's what makes this particularly
sinister and sick. You end up going to trial, and
I find it interesting, among all the other things in
your case, that they offered you a plea bargain, right,
and you didn't take it. You know, I wouldn't arrest
in the plea bargain. I don't even know. I don't
even know I was there. So it's like they're telling
(36:58):
me this stuff they say, and something happened. I'm sitting
there and I'm listening. They keep saying things to me,
but I can't understand how I'm sitting in that situation,
and I hadn't know nothing about the time itself, so
plea bargains far from my mom. I would think about
a plea bark and why I find that and why
(37:18):
I brought that up, Lemon, And I've seen the mugshot
picture of you, and it really hurt my heart because
I could see in your face just how confused you
were and scared of a situation that you couldn't possibly
imagine what's happening at that time. I also would think
that if you were guilty and they're offering you a
(37:39):
deal and you know your chances of winning in the
court are going to be low because they have all
these cops and everybody else that is going to testify,
I guess you would have taken the plea bargain. Anybody
with the right mind would take a plea bargain. You're
not crazy, are you not right? You don't you don't
sound you don't sound crazy at all. So in the
situation like this, I mean, we have in this country
(37:59):
over other cases end up in plea bargains. So had
you been guilty, that would have been a very logical
thing to do. But as an innocent person and probably
somebody who still trusted in the system. You went forward
with your right to a trial, and that's where things
get really squirrelly too, because you were represented by a
guy who they knew your court appointed lawyer. They knew
(38:22):
this guy was incompetent because he had already been disciplined
for three previous cases that he had completely botched. It
almost sounds like they did it on purpose. They assigned
a guy who didn't go and interview witnesses, who didn't
really didn't do anything he was supposed to do. And
what was that like? Were you aware at that time
(38:43):
that this guy wasn't I mean, I don't even know
if it was really on your side, but I mean,
as you're watching these proceedings, what were you thinking? Uh? Well,
I thought he was. He presented himself like a lawyer.
He presented itself like a person in there had to
take care of this business. And he's seeing real professional
at first. So I didn't know what to expect because
(39:05):
I've never been in that situation before anyway. So his
first impression was for me, it was a good impression
because I didn't know what a lawyer was supposed to do.
I was so ignorant to the law and how things work.
I just believed in the justice system at that time.
I really did. I thought there was no possible way,
being an innocent person or person that has nothing to
(39:25):
do with the crime, that I would be found guilty.
So I don't really pay too much attention to the
credibility of this lawyer. It didn't die on me that
I would be found guilty of the crime that I
had nothing to do with it, So I didn't really
think about it. And then those times, I was just thinking,
you can't give me any lawyer, anybody from anywhere, and
it'll be okay, because once they realized they had the
(39:46):
wrong person to get ironed out and trial, That's what
I was thinking. But I didn't plan on how to
think that people would get on the stand and line
they was gonna fabricade, and I didn't think that was
gonna happen. I had no idea that they had already
made in their mind and I was going to escape
God for this particular crime. So definitely being needed at
law have they work in the justice system. I believe
(40:09):
in the justice system at that time, I really did.
I think all of us do when we're kids, especially
brought up in a good home like you were. You
brought up to believe that people are good and that
the system is is going to work for you. And
then you had a lawyer who, had he been competent,
I still think would have one your case in spite
of all this, because of the simple fact that it
(40:31):
was an easy case. The witnesses were not credible at all.
We now know that they also withheld exculpatory evidence, and
I'm sure that's going to come to light next month
when you have your hearing. So you really didn't have
a fair chance, especially not with a lawyer who was incompetent.
And ultimately, let's not forget that this particular lawyer was
(40:54):
disbarred not too long after your trial. And again, for
the listeners out there, think about at this is a
guy who had been disciplined in numerous cases prior to
laments and then ultimately gets disbarred when the extent of
his gross incompetence is brought to the Supreme Court of Kansas,
(41:16):
the attention to the Supreme Court, and then he voluntarily
gave up his license to practice law. And that wasn't
the end of the nightmare. We now know too that
your appellate lawyer was disbarred. I mean, you can't even
make this stuff up. So what happened, Like now you're
in the courtroom, the jury goes out, the arguments have
(41:37):
been made. You saw these witnesses get up and lie.
You saw these police officers get up and lie. Your
defense made whatever arguments they made. Did you believe that
they would come back and declare you innocent? I did.
I did being I did. I just didn't know that.
(41:58):
I didn't know the people can the jury to the
security thing like the jury selection and how course ran
and I had no idea that this is how the
system works. I didn't know that they found me guilty
based on false evidence or the kind of evidence that
was presented by a certain district attorney. So basically, what
she did was set the stage to make it seem
(42:19):
as if I was guilty and I did something long
and I had a reason for doing it. So the
jury heard evidence it didn't really exist. They heard stuff
about me. There wasn't even about Lemarmacktide, and she just
kind of made self up. They told his story and
the jury believed. But at the time before they came
back with a guilty Birdie, I still didn't think I'll
be found guilty because the whole time I'm sitting there,
(42:40):
in the whole time I'm going through the process of
getting to trial, I still had no knowledge of the
actual crime. So I'm thinking, with my young mind being naive,
that there's no way a jury can probally guilty when
I'm really not guilty, when I had nothing to do
with it. I'm not tied to it at all. The witnesses,
the victims, I'm not tied to it. I was in
(43:02):
the area when it happened, so I'm thinking it'll get
dying out the jury have come back. I didn't think
I was ever gonna be found guilty. I didn't think
that I was shocking when they came back with the
guilty burdie, I was. I was hot broken and can
you talk about that that moment, which is the most
devastating moment of your life. When they came in, I
noticed that no jury, no one looked me in my face,
(43:25):
no one looked looked up. Everyone came in looking down
at the floor. So I kind of had an eerie feeling,
but I still had hope that it will work out
in the right way. So when they read the verdict
and they said guilty. It's like I've seen my whole
life flash before me and I and for that moment,
I fosed and I was sitting there and I stood up,
(43:46):
and I just remember saying something. I was screaming something,
you know, to the effects of I'm not guilty, and
you got the wrong person whatever. And now I felt
someone holding me or grabbing me from behind, and I
wasn't shots, so I didn't really I was like a
lost moment. But I turned around and I see my
mother hold me, screaming cry like, don't take my baby
away from me, don't take my baby, and I'm looking
(44:07):
at her and I realized that this is a serious
situation now, but it still didn't feel real. It was
my life in my situation, but it didn't feel like
my life and my situation. I felt like I was
outside of myself looking at this event happened. I couldn't
stop it, so I wasn't shot. That shot lasted for
a few years after that. I wasn't shot. I just couldn't.
(44:31):
There was nothing inside of me, or my intellect or
my experiences in life that prepared me for that moment.
It was just something I just couldn't deal with I
just didn't know how to deal with that. So emotionally,
I was just distraught. I was hurt, I was I
was frustrated, I was confused that it was just a horrible,
horrible moment. And when you talk about your whole life
(44:53):
flashing in front of you as a seventeen year old,
did you have plans, did you have a career in mind?
What was the outlook for the future. We're still just
trying to figure it out. Yeah, it was things I
wanted to do. It was just I was I was
misguided the line, and I was just in a place
where everybody around me was either die or going to jail.
Or I was just in the kind of environment that
(45:14):
didn't produce a lot of hope or didn't have I
didn't have a lot of people to look up to
or emulation, nothing like that. But I did enjoy taking
care of my family. So my life was just basically
about trying to take care of my family the best
way I know how, or to look out for my
loved ones. You know, I had skills and things I
could do, Like I was a barber. I was cutting
(45:36):
hair since I was twelve, you know, I was comedian,
you know, I had these in the back of my mind.
I wanted to be a comedian, and I had things
I wanted to do. I just didn't know how to
get to where I wanted to be. But I still
didn't think that my life was a man in prison
or going to jail. Man in this kind of situation,
and I wanted to life. I didn't know how to
(45:57):
attain the kind of life that I wanted. So now
come on, now, you're convicted of a double murder and
sense to life in prison? Where did they take you
(46:19):
to the process of life? On the timing you think it?
Then the county about to month. Then you go to CITISEN.
Now the cenis in Wanna County. They gave me to
life sentences to one the second, and after that they
send me to a contest center we call hard to
you when they see you, to determine what classification it
(46:41):
would be, what custody would be in pubsusder, max custody.
So from there they gi me to prison in prison
at all, Yeah, I was in huts. That's a that's
a prison in Kansas they called Gladiator School, one of
those tough prisons you know what people, you know, it's
the prison. It's like this the worst I did you
(47:01):
have a prison? Is that? More? It's the world and
at all this this dark negative, this pension field, it's hopelessness.
It's all those stays differ those negativity. I mean, you
paint the picture that just really is Yeah. I don't
(47:21):
even know what to say to that. Um, it just
sounds absolutely terrifying and horrible, especially for somebody so young,
a super for anybody, especially an innocent person. And then
I also want to talk about a very unique aspect
of your case, which is the fact that it's one
of the few cases I've ever seen where the victims
family has been saying for almost the entire time you've
(47:44):
been locked up, that you are not the guy right.
That is not something that we see in this business.
And I think it's a very brave thing that they've done,
that they've stood up for you steadfastly from the beginning.
Have they been in touch with you? Have you spoken
to them? Nah, they spoke to my legal team, and
they spoke to the people who's putting together my defense
(48:08):
and so like that, but not personally. I haven't you
know something what I read in the newspaper or see
the news or something like that. But no, I haven't
spoke to nobody like that. They tell me what they
tell me. I'm always getting the word on what what's
being said. How do it's just feel? If it's the
family feel, so I'm aware. I also wanted to ask,
(48:31):
what is a typical day like for you on the inside?
How do you get through it? What's the schedule? Typical day?
Typical day is readjusted. It's like from hunt day to
the nexus, finding a way to get by for one day,
the line something for my days, and then I just
(48:53):
try to it just sucks. I gotta repeat it, like
if I have a bad day or I'm frustrated for
one day, I go to sleep, wake up to repeat
this day again. So I try to find the best
I can. I get the best I can out of
a day, because waking up to repeat it is the anxiety.
That's why all that. The worst stuff is knowing that
for the last twenty three years and two hundred some
(49:14):
months and they have a hundred weeks and eight thousand days,
it's the same thing. It never changes. So I devote
my time to reading and studying and write, write, music,
write poetry, trying to keep my mind free as possible.
I try to stay out of prison mentally. I tried
out to. I'm not into prison politics. I'm not in
(49:35):
prison mentally, but I'm here. I have to be my
body here, but I try to keep my mind far
from its places I can. So it's just a bunch
of moments of readjusting every day. Today is will be
different than the marvel because I feel there where there
have to readjust readjusting. And like I said, I gotta
I gotta support team of a system of people that's
(49:57):
been placed. It always there for me. That's all is
supporting me. And I have a lot of love people
that love me and care about me. So I'll focus
on that. That's why my attention go. So if it's
really it's bad. It used to be a lot worse
than it is. Now I'm starting to see I'm coming
alive now because I can see a light at the end.
It is tuned up, been there for so long, so
(50:18):
I'm better now. But yeah, it wasn't so good before.
It's better now. But it was always sad to wake
up and have to repeat the same cycle over and
over again. That stuff is another job of person crazy.
How in the world can somebody in your situation just
not give up? You sound like an incredible, incredible person.
(50:42):
I gotta credit that the God and my relationship with
God always manage to place good people in my life.
I've had a support system allow the moments. Is a
lot of moments where I felt like it, what's the point,
you know, to keep going to wake up every day
that had to deal with the exact same night mare
you try to escape from the night before. But I
had my mother like she never gave up on me
(51:04):
from day one. Like when the worst moments of my life,
you know, I felt like I just couldn't do it
no more. For that I couldn't take another step. She
would show up and when she would grab me and
hold me and looked at my faith to tell me
this is not my life. I passed through, this is
not my destination. And so I had a lot of
support my family and and I did my life to
(51:26):
God and I pray a lot of meditated a lot.
So initially I was kind of in this dark place
where I was so hurt and sad and depressed, and
so I kept people kept coming to my life there
was like beacons of light and hope for me and
(51:47):
I and I and I thank God for all those
people came into my life and supported me. They shut
it up. I always asked something to look forward to,
because this is a dark places. It's a dark situation
where if you don't have enough to for For me,
it was just supporting family, supportant. Then years later Sheryl
and Centurion Ministries and Innocent Projects they saw coming to
(52:08):
my life they breathe, uh, they breathe life. It to
me like a second win. And I'm grateful for those people,
everybody who support me and everybody who performs the effort
go out every day and do something to help me
get my life back. I'm ever grateful for those people.
Well that's I mean, that says it all. I mean,
(52:29):
it says so much about your your character that I
really I'm having trouble composing the right words to say.
But I am glad that you brought up a number
of things. Lamon. Can you talk a little bit about
the Centurion Ministries and their role as well as the
role that the Innocence Project and which Innocence project it
was that's been able to help to get this this
(52:53):
case to the point it is now where we could
actually see light at the end of the tunnel. Okay,
that that was ah other process in itself. Like I
had had written so many different innocent projects and different people.
The President United States was just cleaning at the time
I was writing. I even wrote over I was right
now kind of people trying to get some type of help,
(53:14):
for some type of support, and uh, act like the
fifties sixtieth letter. I gotta response back from the Centurion
ministries in New Jersey, Printon, New Jersey, and that was
in the first time they responded to it was the
ninety six seven. But they told me that my case
had to be dead in the water, so it's kind
of early in my feel process. So they said they
(53:35):
wasn't able to help me at that time. So I
continued with my prayer process. So two thousand and one
I contacted him again, and uh they started corresponding with me.
Now from two thousand one they kept writing me, responding
and saying they're not taking my case. It's just looking
at it to see if it has any marriage, to
see if it's a case they can take and possibly win.
(53:56):
So from two thousands one, and two thousand nine, I
just corresponded with them. They never promised to take my case.
They never said they was going to commit in time
or resources to my case. We just corresponding for years.
From eight years eight years, it is, there was a
process of just corresponding. And then two thousand nine T. M.
Mcclousy came down from New Jersey said with me and
(54:18):
my mother don't visit and said, congratulations, you know we're
taking your case, and uh, we're gonna get you out
of here now two thousand nine. And we know that
the wheels of justice, when they're moving in the wrong direction,
they moved very quickly, but when we're moving back in
the right direction, they move very slowly. But nonetheless, it
does seem like there's a lot of very positive momentum
(54:40):
right now. And what about the Innocence Project, LA, Which
instance project was it that you wrote to? Because there
are instance projects over the country right, uh? Answered, projects
in New York, Georgia, California, Topika. I mean, there was
so many different I was getting addresses, like my mother
was always is finding addresses for me somewhere, so I
(55:02):
end up just send them to me that our right them.
I was just writing all over the place. I mean
any place I could, can't you School of Law, different
Washburning school of Law, just different places, like everywhere anywhere
I could. If I knew there was an innocent project around,
I'm pretty sure. I've got to contact with them, and
most of responded by saying there's something they could do.
(55:23):
Some never responded, but sit our ministries in Preston, New Jersey,
they responded, you know, I responded, I've been grateful ever since. Yeah.
I mean, it's just projects around the country. They're all
overloaded and overworked and over burned, and it's important for
people to give money to them and also to center
(55:45):
in ministries to be able to continue this work. The
Centurion Ministries really has done, from what I can tell,
great work on your case ever since they got involved,
and now getting it again to the point where you're
gonna get you're day in court, and I think hopefully
this time you're gonna get a fair trial with more
(56:06):
than competent attorneys, with great attorneys, and the truth will
come out. If you're even allow yourself, if you allow
your mind to go there, what are you dreaming about
when you get out? Because I'm convinced you are going
to come home and I'm gonna be there fighting right
alongside with everybody else. What's the first thing you want
to do? And then how do you see the future
(56:30):
the first day, I'm gonna eat something. I'm gonna eat
some breakfast or something. I'm home, stay all right here,
So I'm gonna eat something. That's what I'm fantasized about. Mostly,
I want to eat something that's there and there. I
want to have some type of impact or effect young
people making poor decisions. It was eventively, uh land am
in a situation like this, you know. So I want
(56:51):
to just raise any kind of awareness I can about
decision making, because you know, had I've been told how
to make better decisions myself. I think even no I
was even to the law, and this is something that
had nothing to do with me, And then I still
could have been making better assistance myself before this stuff
even came about. So I don't want to be able
to be there for young people as much as I can.
(57:14):
So I can I can help them understand that even
though you don't do something wrong, even though you don't
commit a crime, you can be you still gotta be
accountable and you still gotta be a mindful of the
fact that you're out there and floating around and you
can easily be put in a situation like that and
if you're not being productive and doing something just uh
productive out there in life. So I just want to
(57:35):
be able to reach the young people as much as
I can, and now that there's that to be young,
just anybody, I don't want to be able to share
my experience and hopefully it all it will help out
in any kind of way. You know, well, I'm gonna
say this, I'm sure that you will do that, and
then you're gonna have a very positive impact on a
lot of people because you have a very rare combination
(57:57):
of intelligence and a manner that is so positive and
strong but still gentle that I believe that you'll be
able to affect a lot of a lot of young people,
and I'm looking forward to watching you do that. There's
one other thing I wanted to raise. I'm always amazed
when I speak to someone in your situation, and especially
so with you, that you don't seem to be bitter
(58:21):
after everything that's happened. And I know you talked about
your faith and family and the strength that you get
from from them. But how is it possible that someone
can go through this most unimaginable nightmare still be in it,
and yet be as positive and strong as you are now? Well,
(58:44):
I had my moments with anger and a moment with
I'm still as frustrated, but I have my moments with anger.
But you've all we like taking point and hoping someone
else died from it. I was the only want to
affect about me being angry. No one else seeing the
notice of attition to me being angry, So I was
just a learning experience, Like being angry doesn't help me.
So I just wanted to help myself because I knew,
(59:07):
I always knew I was gonna be here forever. I
knew that eventually the truth was surface and I would
have a life outside of the wall. So I devoted
a lot of time and energy towards helping myself, and
I hurt myself. So being angry was something that was
a hinderest to me, not a benefit. So I just
stood firm on what I believe. That's my my life
(59:29):
with God. And I try to say positive because these
places you gotta keep up with the seven take care
of yourself and anger and stress and all those things
just short in your life span, and I got to
like to live, So I just choose. I choose to
be positive. I choose to not be angry and allow
anger to kill me. I don't want to die in
this place, and I don't want to have a short life.
(59:51):
So I stick firm to what I believe in. And
I believe in my faith, and I believe in meditation,
I believe in exercise. I'm believing take care of my
mom audience. So and that's another vote my time too. Wow.
Um um, I don't know what else to say. I
(01:00:12):
know that people are probably listening to this and feeling
the same way I'm feeling that they want to do
anything they can to help. Do you want people to
write Yeah, that'll be all right, so um yeah, do
you have the prison I D number in the address
to right to? Yeah? Okay, that's Lamon McIntyre number six
(01:00:32):
O five l C l PO box two lass and
can six six o three. Okay, there it is. And
hopefully people have a chance to write it down and
we'll be able to reach out and I know hopefully
we'll have at least a couple of people listening to
show maybe they've been in a position to do something
(01:00:54):
to help aside from offer their their support, their prayers,
whatever it may be. The mine, I'm just going to
turn it over to you and say, is your microphone,
what do you want to share with the audience. Well,
these these kind of cases having more than they should,
you know. So it's like a I always see on
TV or day Lynch year anything man so many years
(01:01:17):
in prison and get exonerated, and you see this happened
time and time again. But what you never ever see
or every here about is how much that stuff impact
the affect of the families. But those people like I
had a post knit family. We was close and it
was a thing. This is not just like me being
affected by the invented happened in my life. In effect,
everyone has tied to me, loved me, or care about me,
(01:01:40):
and it's affecting my family in a way that it's
like it hurts me to see how much how much
it affected not only me, was my family. And it's
difficult because if if a man has to go through
a certain thing by himself, that's a that's his life,
that's his his path and life. He got to go
through that I had to do what I had to
do no matter what. But when you see someone you
(01:02:01):
care about being affected about what you have to do
or what you had to endure, it's it's a it's
a different kind of feeling. And it's like people don't
really pe attentions that I know about that, Like when
UH disc attorneys of being dishonest when they're trying to
get convictions and all that, I don't think they take
that consideration how many people they are affecting, but just
not going by the law, just not being truthful about
(01:02:24):
certain things. It's not just me, whatever issue of personal
issue they may add about with me. My family is
affected by that. My brothers, my brother's kids when all
this happened, and they feel like they lost a mother
because my mother devoted so much time for trying to
give me back out of the system that they felt
like they were neglected. So they were affected by that.
(01:02:45):
My older sister was affected, my brother was affected. I mean,
everybody was affected. And when you try to hold onto
something good, even when you're trying to get something good
in this kind of situation, it's still nothing good come
from it. It's just always bad. It's always negative because
always a challenge, is always hurdles, it's always something. But
for the person that's in the middle of it, that's
(01:03:06):
just my experience. But on the outside of it, that's
something people don't never get a chance to see. That's
that's just a harsh or harsh reality. But a person
to live based on someone else being in competition when
all this stuff basically have been avoided by someone just
doing the job. But the job people was h employed
them to do, you know. So I think people should
(01:03:27):
understand that and know that there's a lot of people
to be affected by something like that. I think a
lot of tissues should be brought to this moment and
this kind of situation, so a lot of people can
if you ever find another person that situation, it can
be more mindful of that. Not to help in a
different kind of way, they could. It's not just about me,
(01:03:49):
somebody everybody who care about me too. It does have
a ripple effect on the whole community. All I can
do is tell you that you have you have all
my respect and support. And I was saying, lamont you know,
I've seen too many miracles to stop believing in miracles.
So I'm excited to watch you be the next one
(01:04:12):
or one of the next ones, and we'll never stop
fighting for you and for other people in your situation.
One minute remaining. I'm looking forward to a positive outcome
and to getting to know you on the outside and
in the meantime, I just all I can say is
thank you for being on Wrongful Conviction with me and
(01:04:34):
sharing your thoughts and strength and wisdom. I'll appreciate the
time they have me. All ap, We'll talk again soon.
I'll see you when you get out, all right, all right, man, thanks,
don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you
get your podcasts. It really helps. And I'm a proud
(01:04:56):
donor to the Innocence Project and I really hope you'll
join me. It's reporting this very important cause and helping
to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot
org to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd
like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis.
The music on the show is by three time OSCAR
nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
(01:05:18):
Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam is a production of Lava
for Good podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one