April 8, 2025 • 51 mins
In this compelling episode of RED, hosts Michelle Barone and Ashleigh McPherson delve into the harrowing experience of Bruce Bryan, a man wrongfully convicted of murder and imprisoned for 29 years. Throughout the conversation, Bruce details his turbulent journey through the court system, his time at Rikers Island, the corrupt officials he encountered, and his relentless fight for justice.
Despite numerous setbacks including the passing of several advocates who supported his case, Bruce's unyielding faith and perseverance led to his eventual exoneration. The episode also highlights the crucial role of mental health, the importance of self-love, and the tenacity required to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds.
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From Orphan to Millionaire: From the gunfire of a Colombian nightmare to the fulfillment of the American Dream, discover Steve Prohaska's gripping journey to survival in his unyielding memoir. https://bigstevebigmoves.com/product/book/
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00:00 Introduction
00:28 Courtroom Struggles and Legal Battles
03:56 Life in Rikers Island
11:45 Mental Health and Family Support
15:32 Faith and Resilience
22:47 Education and Transformation in Prison
26:31 Transforming Prison Time into Growt
28:51 Connecting with Advocates and Legal Help
30:11 The Struggles and Losses Along the Way
32:57 The Fight for Clemency and Hope
46:19 The Parole Board Decision
Despite numerous setbacks including the passing of several advocates who supported his case, Bruce's unyielding faith and perseverance led to his eventual exoneration. The episode also highlights the crucial role of mental health, the importance of self-love, and the tenacity required to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds.
-----------------------------------------------------
Support Our Sponsors!
Mental Health America of Dutchess County: Dedicated to promoting mental health and providing comprehensive support services to individuals and families. Learn more and find resources at https://mhadutchess.org.
WAVA Water: Discover how Wava Water goes beyond hydration to fuel your body and mind. Visit wavawater.com to find your focus and stay refreshed.
Mahoney’s Irish Pub: Friday nights at Mahoney’s Irish Pub are where the vibes are HIGH, the drinks are flowing, and the weekend officially begins!
From Orphan to Millionaire: From the gunfire of a Colombian nightmare to the fulfillment of the American Dream, discover Steve Prohaska's gripping journey to survival in his unyielding memoir. https://bigstevebigmoves.com/product/book/
-----------------------------------------------------
Subscribe to the podcast now: https://www.youtube.com/@michellebaroneredpodcast
Check out RED on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michellebaronered?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==
Follow Michelle Barone
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michellebaroneonline/
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@michellebarone?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc
Follow Ashleigh McPherson
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ashhmcpherson/
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ashhmcpherson?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Ashmcpherson
Check out RED for more: https://michellebaroneonline.com/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
00:00 Introduction
00:28 Courtroom Struggles and Legal Battles
03:56 Life in Rikers Island
11:45 Mental Health and Family Support
15:32 Faith and Resilience
22:47 Education and Transformation in Prison
26:31 Transforming Prison Time into Growt
28:51 Connecting with Advocates and Legal Help
30:11 The Struggles and Losses Along the Way
32:57 The Fight for Clemency and Hope
46:19 The Parole Board Decision
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to rid reddits Michelle Barone and I am here
with Ashley McPherson, my co host. Today we have a
very serious topic with a friend of mine, Bruce Bryan,
who was wrongfully committed of murder and spent twenty nine
years in jail for something he did not do. I'd
love to bring him back. This is our part too,
And where we left off was, you know you were
(00:22):
we were talking about jurors and how they don't have
the experience at times to make these decisions. When you
finally were arrested, you were put in the lineup and
you went to jail or went to court. What was
that process like? Walk me through the next phase of
this for me?
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Quote was it was like a nervous wreckord. Right.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
But your attorney said he had your back.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
He didn't exactly say that. I had my situation. I
was really had a recipe for disaster, right. I had
an at and d quarter point of attorney who who
was a black guy by the name of Reginald Tao,
who was previously slashed by his previous client. He was
(01:10):
slashed with a raiser in the court pins and had
a long scar across his face similar to the one
that I have.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
I need to ask you about that.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Absolutely, because his client couldn't get rid of him. His
client kept acting the course to take him off of
his case. So I guess, you know, the client took
matters into his own hands, and when he came to
court and he was in the back bullpens, he cut
his attorney. And so this attorney was Reginald Taw was
actually seeing a psych I had no knowledge of any
(01:43):
of this.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Was this the one appointed to you?
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Yes? Until twenty literally, you know, maybe twenty years later
right where you know, an angel in disguise of Ed Webster,
a private investigator. I just was having a regular conversation
with him, and he said, your attorney was Slash. I
see Aver Slash, and he filed suit against the city
I had, you know, I found this out later on.
(02:08):
I says, but I don't know what happened with him,
And he said what was his name? And he didn't
tell me anything. He just took it upon himself and
investigated the incident with the attorney and what he found
out was that my attorney was Sue in the city. Wow.
But he was also seeing a psychiatrist because he suffered
from post traumatic stressice on right, right, and it's why
(02:32):
he didn't communicate and didn't come to visit me. Didn't
even want to come near me in the court pens.
When we would but I would try to talk to him,
it would be you're not seeing judged today, and he
would leave. He was just because he was going through
his own trauma, which I had no knowledge.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Of, ye and practicing shouldn't have been, but the court
system did.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
And during what they call a fifty hc heron where
he testifies about his injuries in his civil claim against
the city, he admitted, it's affected me because I can't
properly prepare a defense. I was his next client, charged
with homicide. I had his master, and then I had
(03:15):
former Queen's prosecutor, John Scoppo, who literally went, you know,
stopped being a prosecutor because he was pushed down to
Queen's DA's office, and then later became a defense attorney,
where he engaged in his same misconduct as he as
a prosecutor. You have qualified immunity. As a defense attorney,
you don't, right, But a leopard doesn't change their spots.
(03:36):
So he continued in the same behavior and he was
arrested in charge by the Fens. They had him on
wire attack and charged him. Right, So I had him
as a prosecutor, and I had Reginald Tao as a
defense attorney.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
And who was the judge?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
And judge? I had about thirteen different I had so
many judges for the first thirteen months. I never haven't.
I didn't go in front of a judge. I went
to court from Rykers Island, which was so they lost.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
You right away from the lineup. Yeah, and then you.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Kept going in and of itself. Right is that the
worst is the maximum right island? Back in the nineties.
You know, they complained about rykis being violent now, but
Rakings is Racors was nowhere near as violent as it
was back then. Back then there were over twenty thousand
people on Rikers Now you have over less than ten thousand.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
So what happened when you were locked up there? What
did you see?
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Everything?
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Like?
Speaker 2 (04:26):
You know, gang wars? You know, I had incidents with
Hispanic gangs in the yard, fightings and stabbings and cuttings
like this is every day in Rikansound. And the guards. Yeah,
the Ryk Islands the worst, the worst, and the guards
were no different because that's where you go when you're
arrested in New York City. Back then, you either go
to one of the borough houses or you go to
(04:47):
ryk As Island. And Rykers Island is literally the biggest
p now commonly in the country. Back then, Rykers could
hold about twenty three thousand prisoners, right and all going
to You're waking up four thirty in the morning to
go to court and sleep in the ballpen with maybe
sometimes twenty other guys, and you in there trying to
(05:09):
make sure you got a seat because you're tired. You
make up fourth thirty morning Rikers to go to court.
Even today you still do so.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Then you get thrown here.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
For thirty months. I was on Rikas for eleven years,
day in and day out, and we're talking about stabbings
and cuttings.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
I have a question about that.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
This might be a dumb question, but like these people
are already in jail for whatever gang related things that
they were in jail for. What is like the purpose
of like gangs inside jails, Like what is like the reason?
Speaker 3 (05:40):
I mean, there's no reasoning, but it's like.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
There's unity, you know, coming together in numbers. Numbers matter
and then it's you know, it's it's like a subculture
of society. That's my resources too, right, it's resources.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Right.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
It's a sense of camaraderie. And for a guy that, yeah,
maybe coming up without his father or without a man
a role model in his life, it's a sense of
belonging to a family, to a crew, and it makes
you feel strong, it makes you feel empowered, right, it
gives you a false sense of power. When I got
the Rikers in ninety four, I mean the Latin I
(06:13):
got to a building called C ninety five. C ninety
five was better known as sang Wang, right, sang Wang.
In other words, it was all Spanish gangs, metas and
Latin kings.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Did you know Spanish?
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Absolutely not. I still don't know Spanish.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Was there a lot of black and brown people there? Not?
Speaker 2 (06:33):
In C ninety five in the other buildings, a lot
of black and mist place there? Because that's you wind
up wherever you wind up, just random. Yeah, it's just.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Random, And so you don't know the language. Oh no,
Never been frustrated when you.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Know, I had been in concentrated before, but I hadn't
experienced C. Ninety five in my life where there were
you go into a housing area that it may be
fifty people in a dorm, forty five of them Hispanic, right,
and so their phone situation is, you know, you gotta
either fight or you just take the little six or
(07:07):
ten minutes that you get in the morning, and that's it. Right.
There were like six thousand areas that you know, you
may find or less than six, maybe three housing areas
that you may find. Blacks are kind of like in
some type of you know, opposition where they can you know,
have but oh why you came in. We're gonna give
(07:28):
you twenty minutes on the phone at night or half
an hour. Every other house was Hispanic, and it was
you know, a lot of the officers were Latin kings
and yetas too. So the officers were in the same
gangs as the Hispanic brothers.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
So you were definitely the minority there.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Oh, it's no doubt about it. Se ninety five, back
in the nineties, No, there's no doubt about it.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Oh my god, I have so many questions about Rikers itself.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
I mean, Rykers was you know, predominantly black and brown
correction officers, Hispanic correction.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Officers, and they're all crooked yea.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
And they'll beat you just as bad as some of
the white races offices way upstate. Right, So Rikers is
still you know, I don't know what it's like today,
but it was very, very rough back then.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Did you ever get.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Is at an all time?
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Huh? No?
Speaker 2 (08:16):
I was fighting regularly on Kazound. So you fight one
area because you want to get from that particular area,
so you may intentionally have a fight. So saying I
gotta get the help from over here. I ain't got
no black guys over here. Three black guys in the house.
It's thirty Puerto Ricans and Dominicans. They acting crazy with
the phone. So I got to wake up in the
morning and pick fow some ship, you know, so I
(08:40):
can My ship has already packed.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
So I can go somewhere else Where'd you get the
nickname fashion.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
From society in the street and just you know, liking
nice stuff, you know, likeing the wey nice things and
just friends and family.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
You know, I like the shirt by the way, thank you.
Tower Farm has been a big a kit for.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
You, absolutely, And what do they do there? They provide
What I specifically love is the pain medication that my
mother has used on her that I actually rubbed it
on her myself for authoritis. She's always complained about her
knees for very long, for years. Knees and elbows like
(09:22):
your joints. You know that you get older your joints.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
And nothing seemed to work for her. Literally, nothing seemed
to work for her. And I put Tower Meds on her.
But I put on every three to four hours. So
I kept putting it on during the day and for
the next three days. When she woke up, she took
the jar and she had it in the living room
with her. I said when I came home from work,
(09:47):
because I didn't get to ask her in the morning,
so I said, how do you feel? She said, wonderful?
And so it really really works. The stuff is natural.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
I can't wait to try it because I have some
wealth writers right and I'm about texting.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
It's texting and holding wava, you know, I think. But
it was like the lavas late.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
It's all good, but that's amazing. I want to try
it out. I hear it's good. So you can go
to Towerfarma dot com. Yes, all right, so make sure
you check it out. You can read it right there
on my friend Bruce's shirt. So I want to go
back to the Rikers conversation. So Rikers in the nineties
absolutely terrible. Your poor mom, your dad, I mean, all
these things. Two and a half years. Oh, yes, you're
(10:30):
waiting to get this sentencing. Right, What did you think
at that time? You were surviving? Right, But did you
think you were going to be let go.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
At some point? Right? At some point you feel like.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Right?
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Is that it's it's like almost never ending the chaos
because it's a it's chaotic.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
You can't just sleep through it.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
No way you sleeping two rackers. There's no way.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
You don't have your own bed.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
You have your own bed. But sometimes you're in a dorm.
Right when I was in the dorm, I always stuck
with you know, sneakers on tied many nights until you
get into an area where you have your own cell
because people take everything you got, or because somebody jumps
on you while you're sleeping, or you know what I.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Mean, Oh my god, talk about ptst.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Cut you while you sleep. Yeah, yeah, no, Rikers is
definitely a traumatic experience. Anyone who has been there and
has seen you know, the collef Browder story, they understand
that that's raal right. Some guys never they never recuperate
from that experience, right, And this is three years of
(11:39):
him being on Rikers. I was there for two and
a half years.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
I just want to tell everybody I'm here again with
Bruce Bryant, wrongfully convicted of murder and spent twenty nine
years in jail. I just I still can't get over it.
I can't believe I'm saying that. I can't believe I'm
sitting here with you. There's so much to say, and
we're going through the story. We talked about your experience
at Rikers. What happens next? So you go to your
(12:08):
thirteen go through your thirteen judges, your court cases.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
All of that.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
When did you finally get wind that you were convicted
of thirty seven years?
Speaker 4 (12:18):
Or well?
Speaker 2 (12:19):
For me, I had a few squabbles with judges because
I would speak up myself. Once I realized that having
the Reginal Towers my attorney was almost like having no attorney.
You had to and I tried continuously to get rid
of them and said, well, my family's and the judgers
say no, you're not getting rid of them. Judge Democas
and everything, I'm saying to you, I have on record
(12:41):
like I have in black and white, until I finally
got in front of a judge McGann, Robert McGann, and
he started trial. And first he started like a hearings
and stuff like that, and I had one hearing in
democas and then I had another hearing in front of McGann,
(13:02):
and then we started trial, and I was a nervous wreck.
I was a nervous wreck. Anyone who tells you that
they you know, they go on trial for murder or
that they're on right a island and that you don't
feel a level of uncomfortability, a level of nervousness knowing
that your life is in the hands of the judge
(13:24):
and whoever these twelve people are that he puts on
the jewelry panel, is lying to you.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
I mean, if you're not mentally ill, that is pushing
you to the point of being Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
I mean the stress was at an all time high. Yep, deeply,
deeply stressful, and trying to figure it out right day
in and day out, just trying to figure it out,
trying to be strong, always in the law library. So
you would try to communicate with your lawyer and say, well, look,
this law says this, this and this, and he would
(13:56):
you know this guy literally never came within.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Of me.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
That has got to be so defeating.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
Like knowing you didn't do it, and you're sitting in
there and everyone's against you. You're doing research on your
own when you don't have a degree in law, trying
to get yourself free. What was that feeling like when
you were convicted? Like what did that feel?
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Oh man? The wind is completely knocked out of you,
and what happened? You think about when you think about
if your mother and father are gonna still be alive
when you you know if and when you make it
out of there. But there's something inside of me that
always made me know that I would make it out.
(14:38):
I always I never lost hope in that I'm gonna
get out of here because you knew you didn't do it,
Because I know I didn't do it, So I knew
internally that I would make And people always ask me,
did you ever give up hope? No, I've never never
once could I say, well, I'm throwing the towel, I'm here.
I've never I've never felt that I felt defeated. I
(15:00):
felt hurt, you know, you know, thousands of sleepless nights,
you know, filled with tears, right, you know, I'm talking
about my pillow drenas as if I was sweating them.
But they're all tears, right. I spent countless nights like that,
especially on right as I fighting my case at the time.
(15:20):
But I always, I've always prayed, and I think faith
prayed a tremendous role to make me cry in me
being where I am today. I think that faith and
then you start learning about, you know, what it means
to visualize what it is that you want. So you
start writing things on your wall, you start creating vision
(15:45):
boards of just you know, drawings of someone walking home.
These were things that literally kept me alive in prison.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
After so you were then convicted, What happened that day
you get there? Did you know the sensing it was
taking place that day?
Speaker 2 (16:02):
No, it didn't take place that day, Okay, But when
I was found guilty, it knocked all the wind own
of me, and I was I was in a state
of deep depression, was there? Oh yeah, what'd she do?
She broke down? She broke down, My family broke down.
Keep in mind, my sister is a court officer at
(16:25):
the time. So she's in the courtroom while I'm going
to court. She's now a court sergeant. And when I
go to court now she says, see, this is my brother.
I was telling you all about that's wrongfully convicted. He's
home down. That's so sad, right, But initially they didn't
believe none of that.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
Oh my god, your family knows, your family knows who
you are.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
My god, this is crazy, and that was so important
to me.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
Yeah, I feel like that like also just shows you,
like what is valuable and what isn't. I mean, you
said the same thing, like material things don't matter as much,
like you really do realize like the value of having
a loyal family.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Absolutely, Yeah, priceless. You didn't do this, priceless, absolutely, But
it's still it still broke my heart every day because
my father would always tell me, you know, your mother
she cried herself to sleep at night every night. You know.
My father would tell me this, like when he wouldcome
on the visits. Then I lost my father while la
(17:28):
I was in prison. So that was like the toughest
blow for me throughout the course of my entire life. Right,
I was my father in twenty seventeen, but I think
somewhere in the back of my mind and I would
never know how to tell someone how to do it.
But I think in the back of my mind I
(17:48):
was always preparing, just you know, to lose a loved one, right,
you always prepare, like how do you prepare to lose
a mother or father? I think psychologically I was always
family and saying to myself, this couldn't the possibility of
this happening is great. It's great, right, So I think
once you start telling yourself that and then it happens,
(18:12):
you're still not ready. It's still tough to deal with.
But I think something inside of you says you always
knee you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Then?
Speaker 2 (18:23):
And how do you and how do you process that?
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Right?
Speaker 2 (18:28):
How do you process that?
Speaker 1 (18:31):
What were the moments after you were convicted, like you
said you fell into a deep depression.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
Did they take you away from that point and then
where'd you go?
Speaker 2 (18:41):
No, they take you back to a cell like a dollar.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
And you you got convicted of thirty years or you got.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Yeah, and guys say, yo, what happened happened? They say,
I got convicted. I blue trial. And then you go
on your cell and you cry yourself to sleep, then
you wake up in the middle of the night for me,
and I prayed for hours, you know, I would pray,
I would fast, I would do everything because then my
(19:08):
mother and father, you know, we were brought up in
the church as a young person. We strayed away when
we got the Queens, when we were in Manhattan, we
were going to church when we lived on the Lower
East Side. So I always knew that it was something
greater than me that I had to acknowledge, right, and
that and that's something can make great things happen that
(19:29):
I simply couldn't have make happen. That man was just
impossible for man. Right, what's impossible for man is always
possible with God. And so relying on that, totally totally
reliance on God is It's what I had to do
after blowing trial. Right, Man, when you begin to think
(19:58):
of what you're facing, you can't at twenty three, you
don't know what. You can't fathom next week, right, you
can't fathom you can think about next week, and you
have to think about what's going to happen to me
for thirty seven and a half years, like all.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Of your twenties, all of your thirties, well into your forties.
Just think about that. I mean, I think you two now,
until you're how old, fifty three? Fifty three years old?
Speaker 4 (20:30):
I can't imagine like I'm twenty two years old, Like
I can't imagine like having like something like that where
it's like your entire life is changing before your eyes.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
And you have no control over it, and you're in
a jungle right and you're terrified.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
And volatile, extremely violent.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
How many days did you wish you could take back
that night?
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Oh? Every single day, every single day.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
I want to talk to you about something that Ashley
and I care a lot about. Mental health.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Taking care of your mental health is just as important
and taking care of your physical health and mental health.
America of Duchess County is the perfect place for that health.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Mental Health America of Duchess County is super empowering and
helps so many people with so many problems.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
Honestly, it's pretty amazing seeing how mental health actually affects people.
I mean, the guests that we've had on the show,
we've talked about mental health in almost every episode, and
it's a serious topic.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Now's the time to prioritize your mental well being. If
you're suffering from anxiety, depression, or anything mental health related,
visit Mental Health America Duchess County at MHA Duchess dot org.
Shout out to our incredible partner, Steve Prohashka from Big
Steve Big Moves dot com. He has a book called
From Orphan to Millionaire where he shares his incredible story
(21:45):
about becoming a millionaire after being an orphan. If you're
ready to elevate your mindset, master resilience, and make big
moves in life in business, make sure you check out
Big Steve Big Moves dot com where you can find
his book. If reading isn't enough, Steve takes it to
the stage. He's a dynamic public speaker. He delivers game
(22:06):
changing talks on partnerships, leaderships, success, and overcoming obstacles. Steve
is one of a kind and completely dynamics. So if
you're looking for a speaker that will change the game
for your event and beyond, make sure you check out
Big Steve, Big Moves dot com and Big Steve Big
Moves on Instagram.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
All right, listen up, party people Friday's at Mahoney's Irish
Pub or where the vibes are high. The drinks are flowing,
and the weekend officially begins. If you're looking for the
ultimate night out, Mahoney's has got you covered with killer
drink specials, live DJs, and crowds that know how to
bring the energy. Whether he's sipping on an ice cold beer,
toasting with a perfectly mixed cocktail, or taking a shot
to kickstart the night, this is the spot to be
(22:47):
every Friday, starting at ten pm, So grab your crew,
hit the dance floor and make some memories. The Mahoney's Way.
Doors open late, the drinks are cold, music's hot.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
What more do you need.
Speaker 4 (22:57):
I'll see you guys this Friday and every Friday at
Mahony's Pub, where the weekend starts the right way.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
Wrong place?
Speaker 2 (23:04):
And then you start I mean for me, what.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Do you want to say to kids who are doing
the things you did when you were twenty three?
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Oh man, you always hear. Be conscious of the company
that you keep, Be conscious of who you call your friend,
Be conscious of who you walk down the street with right,
be conscious of who you are, and I think, more
(23:33):
than anything, more than anything, you should always look in
the mirror and love what you see when you look
in the mirror, and your action should reflect that, because
if you love yourself, you won't hang around somebody that
you think doesn't love themselves, or that you think is
not good for you, or that I engage in things
(23:53):
that are not good for them. That's right, because self
love is the most important thing that that a child
or a young person or old person could fully understand
and grasp.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Is it.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Look in that mirror every day and begin to tell
that person you love them. And you know, when I
started to do that, my mindset began to shift.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
When did you so month one was terrible? Month two?
Month three? Month six?
Speaker 1 (24:22):
When did you start to change and fall more into God,
more into reading more, you know, manifestation?
Speaker 2 (24:29):
I think a few years down the line, Ways Island,
ryck As Island was a jungle and it was Lord Library.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Is that where you got this?
Speaker 2 (24:37):
No, I got cut up state when I first went
up state. Yeah, I was still a bit angry when
I first got up state.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Did you lash out a lot? Were you a problem
child in jail a little? Because you were upset a
little a little on Rygas Island a little. You get upstate,
you kind of calm down a little bit. You start
getting involved, but you're still in.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
The mix because you were just traumatized.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Uh huh, and and and that trauma. You know that
if that lives with you, you know, if you don't
take the initiative to engage in some form of therapy
when you're released, as well as some form of self
development psychologically, emotionally, mentally, it's going to impact you, right
(25:25):
if you don't. I think for me, my biggest decision
was that I decided that I was going to bloom
where I was planted. I decided that wherever I was at,
I was gonna bloom. I love that, and that, you know,
changed the trajectory of my life because I began devouring
books that could uplift me and change me and impact
(25:46):
my mind.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
When was that so? You said about two years three
years in?
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Yeah, that was maybe eight ninety nine, even boring.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Yeah, I mean just think about that. You won't even
hear yet. So nine you're sitting there like, I'm gonna
change my life.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
I'm gonna do this.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Were you in touch with any attorneys that were helping
you that knew you were wrongfully convicted?
Speaker 2 (26:09):
I was in touch with attorneys that knew I was
wrongfully convicted, but they were full of shit. The best
thing to know that I was hoping to pay. I
didn't know that then. Initially. I think guys inside, right,
older guys began to pour into you and talk to
you about class and about your life, and you know,
(26:31):
and these guys had already had twenty five years in right,
and these guys been in prison since the seventies.
Speaker 4 (26:36):
Some of them.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
And so you have these conversations with some of them,
and you see, like, you know, they're kind of teaching
you what it means to construct a conducive prison life,
one that can uplift your soul, right, one that can
make you better and not bitter. Right, and you begin saying, oh, right,
I'm an internalize some of the stuff that I'm learning.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
That's amazing and insane. How many so, how many people
did you know that were wrongfully committed? And did the
people in prison know the people that were wrongfully committed
and the people that were actually like dangerous individuals.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
I think for the most part, the guys that I
was around, they would all tell you, like Champ, I'm
not like you. I'm trying to get out, but you know,
you know, you you know they're like, Man, I'm not
like you, Bruce, I'm not wrongfully convicted.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
I did this.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Yeah, but then you meet those guys in the law
library that are actually innocent, and then you meet me,
you stick with them and more I think you acknowledge
each other because you always found each other in the
law library and you developed the bond with them. But
for me, I still with a group of men that
were kind of teaching courses, the Resurrection Study Group, and
(27:46):
I started learning from those guys. So I started really
going hard in education and learning because I found that
it helped me change the way that I think. And
and you know when you change the way you think,
you change the way you live. Right, And I made
that conscious decision that I wasn't going to serve time.
I was gonna have time serve me, right.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
And so that's a good name of a book, that's it. Yeah,
that's a really good name of a book.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
And so that for me is what really said. Okay,
this is you know, yourself has to be a classroom
of some sort or your office. Right. The yard has
to be a place where you go strictly to work out.
So that's like a gym, that's like your fitness center,
and then the phone you call your family. Then you
you know, church is your your spirituality. The school building
(28:36):
is you back into your education. So you start compartmentalizing
the different aspects of prison, but you're not looking at
them as prison. You're looking at them as different parts
of an institution that can help you grow.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
And you you matured there.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
I mean, you went from a young adult to a
man to an older man, right, a middle aged man
and what was the process?
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Only three and came out fifty two.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
I just keep crazy. It's such a whole life.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Yeah, that's the best part of your life. It is
because as a teenager you don't really know, you don't
really have much.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
You're hope with me learning. So this is your adult
life where you feel good.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
Especially I feel like even now, like the experiences like
you've been through, I feel like that gives you like
a different experience and like outlook to life that like
people that like maybe were doing whatever for like those
twenty years, like still don't have that perspective on life,
you know, like you know, like the value in things
because like you were literally had everything taken from you.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
You're grateful for being here today.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Yeah, but I didn't waste my time while I was
in there. Yeah, it made me feel good. Man. I
didn't just want to in self pity. I allowed myself
to have that time, you know, serve me in a
way that I can grow and develop.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
All right, and you're in jail.
Speaker 4 (29:52):
All these other inmates are teaching you kind of how
to like have a routine in jail. How long did
you have that routine that you were in the routine before?
You kind of did it before you were out of jail.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
And you're like, what, so, what happened?
Speaker 2 (30:05):
You just had that I walked out, You had that
routine forever happened? I mean I went and I buried
myself in education and in self help books, and I
did that my entire for the last twenty years of
mine conservations.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Where did you meet the person that got you out? When?
And where?
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Wow, that's a good question, because Steve Zionman I met
through a New York law journal. He had an op
editing side of it, and I wrote him. Me and
two other guys we developed the package about work release
work releases where you come home early two years before
(30:48):
your pro board and you get a job and you
report back to work release, and you go home, you
go to work every day, then you report, you stay
home two days out the week. Five days you're in
the institution, but you're going to work every day from
the institution, right. And when we sent this to him,
I didn't hear back from him for a while. How long,
(31:10):
probably a year or two. That's a long I didn't
write to him for help. Previously I had written. I
read a book called Innocence in two thousand and five
with a guy who I now know by the name
of Fernando Bermudez, who was also wrongfully convicted. He's on
the cover of the book. The book is by Scott
(31:31):
Christiansen and it's called Innocent. It's a great cover. I'll
never forget it. And I read this book and I
wrote every lawyer in the book. And it wasn't until
maybe six years later that a lawyer by the name
of Mary Anne de Barry said, she's she's a Catholic,
a devout Catholic. She passed away and may she be
(31:52):
at peace. She said, you know, I prayed on this
for years whether or not I should write you back
and help you. And I decided that I would. And
she popped up on the visit one there. Wow, little
older lady used to be in Russia and America. She
lived in Pound Ridge, New York.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
Yeah, that is how many people? Did you write about?
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Ten thousand letters while I was in prison? Ten to people,
easy to people to help you or yeah. What happens
is you get five free legal letters every week. Back then,
you're allowed to send out five letters with legal mail,
and and that are going to a legal entity, a
law firm, all particular lawyers.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
That's insane.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
So every week for years, I would send out my
five free letters. Sometimes I would send out I would
get you know, most times I would get over and
they would not check, and I would send out ten.
You know, sometimes they'll kick back one or two and say, oh,
you're five years over for the for the week. But
I did that every week for years and years. My
routine was, you know, on Saturday and Sunday when I
(32:58):
lock and I would begin riting letters. I wasn't smart
enough to write one standard letter, which I should have done.
He just made a bunch of copies. I would rewrite
the letters by hand because I like to write, so
I write the letters by hand. Each one was a
little different but definitely, And so I was writing lawyers
all over and mary Anne finally responded and she would
(33:21):
help me. She went to she befriended, you know, the stepfather,
and he confided in her, I don't know that guy
from nowhere. I wouldn't know him if I saw him
walk in hand.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
I wonder if he was behind the wall.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
He canfid it in her and her two daughters.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Right.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Unfortunately, mary Anne had a brain cancer and she passed away,
but she came to visit me, and she'd tell I
never forget it, because she and I had gotten really close.
She is about seventy eight maybe, and she said, don't worry.
My daughters know what to do. You got the address,
they know everything. I've been speaking to this guy. They're
(34:09):
going to help you if anything happens to me. But
I have brain cancer. I literally and she passed away.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
Did they help?
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Absolutely?
Speaker 4 (34:20):
Not? Or serious?
Speaker 2 (34:23):
How I was in maybe sixteen seventeen years at the time.
Oh my god, didn't help it all? How did that
not make even today? As you know, I've had people
like could you see and they're like, yeah, we know,
but you know, mom died and we don't really want
to get involved them. We do know such and such.
(34:45):
We oh, we know all about it. Yeah, and so,
I mean it's always I should revisit there if someone
revisit them, but they would absolutely of no help.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
What happened? Then?
Speaker 2 (34:56):
I had a private investigator by the name of Edie Webster.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
How did you get him?
Speaker 2 (35:02):
A friend of mine? Sarah and Emily Kunsseler, which are
both attorneys. Sarah counsel the daughter of renowned William Kunsler,
attorney or he's a renowned attorney that passed away, right,
probably one of the best attorneys that New York has
ever seen. So his daughter went to an event and
she met a private investigator by the name of Edward
(35:24):
Webster and they were talking about he was giving a
presentation about investigations, and she pulled him over and said,
you know, I got a guy by the name of
Bruce Bryan. I think you should go see him. I
think he'll find his case to be interesting. And this
guy came to visit me and he's the one that
found out that Reginald Tao was suffering from PTSD as
(35:47):
a result of him being slashed, and all the comments
he made on record stating that he couldn't properly prepare
a defense because you know, that incident was impacting him. Wow,
for twenty years, and he was seeing a psychiatrist by
the name by out of Harlem Hospital by by the
name of Henry something, Henry McGirk, mcclirk, something like that.
(36:11):
I'll never forget it. And he was like, I'm gonna
look into this. No, he didn't tell me he was
gonna look into it. He came back with the documents
and said, I looked into this, and I was like, wow.
And I got a lawyer who I was writing, by
the name of Yvonne Shivers to prepare emotion based on that,
because that's what they called newly discovered evidence. The motion
(36:32):
was denied, but I had a big heroing and it
got placed on the record, right even though everyone thought, Oh,
you're going to win, You're gonna win. That's you know,
that's that's.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Where I'm in.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
So, how many years were you at that point?
Speaker 2 (36:50):
Maybe twenty one, twenty somewhere around there, maybe a little less,
maybe nineteen twenty and so. And Webster developed brain cancer.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
No, and.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Yes, are you kidding?
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Yes? And then the odds yes, and then he passed away.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
Oh my god.
Speaker 4 (37:14):
At this point, like, are you not feeling like so defeated?
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Like are you like defeated?
Speaker 2 (37:19):
I'm stressed out, I'm depressed, but you've never given up hope. Okay,
there's a friend of mine name that's it doesn't end there.
There's a friend of mine named Karen Smolaw. And I
met Karen through her husband, Alan Brenner, who I knew
because he represented my cole defend and Clarence Smith, who
(37:40):
wasn't even present at the crime scene. But Alan Brenner
always liked me and always believed in my innocence because
he understood the case. We were in touch and he
was like, look, I like what EDW. Webster found that.
I want to try to help you, and I'm gonna
try to be in caught for you and this that
and of Pharaoh. When I got called for the hearing
(38:02):
in twenty seventeen to go to court, he couldn't make
it because he was hospitalized. No found out later on
he had brain can stop.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
Before after your dad died, because he died in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
This was after my dad died.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
Oh, I can't believe that.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
So then why so I'm hearing about what is that
hospital that does cancer Sloan Kettering, Stone Kettering. He's in
stone Kettering and his ex wife, Karen Smallaw, who I'm
still close friends with now I actually go to.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
Did he die?
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Yeah? He died?
Speaker 1 (38:37):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Before he died, he wrote out a six page Affidavid
for me, stating, listen, this man never got a fear shake.
He's innocent. I know the case I represented. I mean,
he gave up a beautiful letter and his wife had there.
She was you know, she was transcribing everything that he
told us of to write because he was that l
(39:02):
and so she got it, got it done, and then
he died of brain cancer. That rocked my world. I
thought there was some kind of omen on me.
Speaker 3 (39:13):
Was this the same thing I said?
Speaker 2 (39:14):
I'm scared to even tell people that three people that
represented me died of brain cancer because they might feel like, listen,
I don't want to catch brain cancer too, right.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
Was it like the me of blestoma.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
I don't know, but he had. He had a cancer
that traveled to his brain that really messed him up.
Marianne the Barby and Ed Webster actually had brain cancer,
but they were functioning very very well, it's crazy. So
then what alan All three of them were really really
tight with me. Mary Anne, she was super tight with me.
(39:49):
Me and Ed Webster, me and his wife are still
like this, you like and yeah, she lives up by
po Keepsie. She lives near Peak Skill. Matter of fact,
that's exactly where she lives, in Peak Skill. And she
and I super tight. She was there the day I
walked out of prison. And she would always say, and
(40:11):
it is still pulling for you from the grave, just
like your father. And and we still talk, we still
call each other even to this day.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
But what happened? So the third guy has brain cancer.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
And I'm still going to court for my hearing.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
Did the wife come with the motion?
Speaker 2 (40:29):
No, the motion was she She came with the letter
that attacked. That will be attached to the moment.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
Then what happened.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
I'm back and forth fighting for court, fighting and fighting,
and then in the course of that, John Scarper gets
arrested and the whole courtroom is like, who's John scopp is?
The former prosecutor in my case? He gets arrested as
a defense attorney. So the courtroom, the courtroom, the officers,
(40:58):
they all know my sister because she's always there and
court with me in her uniform.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Your poor sister.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
So they're all telling her your brothers. Everybody knows who
Scarper is. He was just on the wrong team, you know.
He was actually on the right team when he worked
for the prosecutor. Now he's arrested, Your brother should be fine,
and everybody's telling her this. So I'm going back and
forth to court from June to December in twenty seventeen.
(41:26):
Then the next year, I go back to court again.
Then I go back to my hearing took two years
from twenty seventeen to twenty nineteen, and Judge low Prestough
I never forgured his name. I actually was asking him
to see if he's still around today. He denied my motion,
(41:48):
and my heart, I.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Was like, what.
Speaker 3 (41:54):
All of that?
Speaker 2 (41:55):
All of that. But prior to that, Steve Zeidman had
wrote me back. Steves no I had answered him. He
wrote me and I didn't pay clemency no mine. I said, Ah,
nobody's getting clemency in New York because what is that
executive clemency is the governor. The governor has the power,
she has executive power to let out five hundred people tomorrow.
(42:17):
She wants ten thousand people if she wants tomorrow. He
just has to have the willingness to do it, the
same way Biden let out. They only do that on
a federal level, right, the presidents are in charge of
the facts, got it. The governors can do that in
the state. A governor is like the president of the state.
(42:40):
Governor Kathy Hokle can say tomorrow, I'm gonna let out
a thousand women who have been impacted by domestic violence
and you know, killed their spouse in the process of
a fight. I'm gonna give them a shot and let
them out. She can do that tomorrow, and no one
can stop on, just like no one can stop Trump
from letting out fifteen hundred January sixth defendants. No one
(43:00):
can stop him. There's no oversighting. That's executive power that
you have. But you just have to have the heart
and the willingness to want to do it.
Speaker 3 (43:07):
And you said this is never happen, because it doesn't happen.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Clemency. Prior to Steve Zeidman in twenty fifteen sixteen starting
to look at clemency, no one had gotten clemency for
a decade, right, I mean, clemency is not even real lot.
So what happened and no one was doing clemency. So
I came back from court and guys said, look, man,
(43:33):
you should write that dude, Steve Ziden h back. I said,
we mean writing back. They said, boy, he came up
here to visit guys, man, and he's really serious about
this clemency. He had written me back and said listen,
I like the work that you do. Have you ever
thought about applying for executive clemency? I looked at his
letter and I said, it's fucking guys right, because I'm
(43:56):
stressed out. I'm going back and forth the court trying
to fight my hair, and I'm like, it's no clemency.
This is twenty seventeen. Nobody getting who out out on clemency.
There's no there's no frame of reference for you to say, well,
these people did it right, you just didn't see it.
So when I come back from court and guys say, listen, fashion,
(44:17):
if I were you out writing him back, So I said,
I write him back. A month go by, I still
ain't write him. He comes in while I'm there and
the auditorium guys flocked to him. So I said, oh shit,
that's the guy I'm writing back now. So I write
him back and he says, let's just find out this
form I want to take the case. I want to
(44:38):
put you in for executive clemency. So I said, I'm like,
what the but I got to lose right at this point,
and he put it in. At this time, the governor
only does this during Christmas time.
Speaker 3 (44:54):
Did she get brain cancers? Because she did?
Speaker 2 (44:58):
At this time, it was Cuomo in off us, Oh god,
good luck. Yeah, but you know, you know, Cuomo actually
started giving people claiming, oh my god. Yeah, he gave
guys clemency several That's what happened. And they were all
represented by Steve Zeidman. So I'm like, okay, this is good,
(45:20):
but I'm still writing other lawyers for my wrong for
conviction from the television. I wrote Elizabeth Felber, and I
wrote Josh Dubin, and they didn't write me back. I
wrote them again. Elizabeth Felber wrote me back. Josh Dubin
didn't write me back. So I wrote him again, right,
and he didn't write. He didn't write me back. I
wrote him again. Then he popped up on a visit
(45:42):
and said we're gonna we're gonna take your case. Not
before I asked him like, why didn't you write me back?
And you know, he kind of got emotional because he
understood that like I was. I was saying, like, you know,
a letter, a letter for a guy in prison, means
hope to you. As a letter to me, it means.
Speaker 3 (46:05):
That's one of your five letters you can send out.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
That way, he represents hope for Michelle to say, Yo,
we have an interest in helping you, or for actually say, look,
we have an interest in helping you. That's hope, right,
And so a response from someone is better than no
response at all, especially for a guy serving a life sentence.
And so now all of a sudden, I have Steve
(46:27):
z Iivemen representing me on clemency. Now I have Elizabeth
Felwell working on my wrong for conviction, and I got
Josh Duben and Derek Hamilton who was known as the
jail house lawyer because he did a lot of his
law while he was inside. I got him helping me.
And it's like, you know, I can't get.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
Here now.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
And so a year after year, from twenty eighteen nineteen,
I was overlooked for clemency. It would be nine guys
get it.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
I don't. In Cuomo's last year in office, he did
clemency like three times in one year, and each time
that he did it, I was in each group. But
I was overlooked.
Speaker 3 (47:14):
It wasn't until were guys that committed crimes.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
Yeah, they were getting executive clemency. It wasn't until Kathy
Hokl came in and my executive clemency package had my
actual innocence and everything I had done in prison why
I deserved to be free, and it was I mean,
it was time and time again I was overlooked. It
wasn't until twenty twenty two Christmas time that she granted
(47:40):
me executive clemency. But she didn't release me right away.
She said, you got to go to a parole board.
So pro board is four months away. So that means
in twenty twenty three, I had to go to a
pro board in like January or February, and everyone is
on pins and needles because in New York State, you
have to admit guilt an express remorse in order to
(48:02):
make the parole boy. And I've always said, listen, I'm
prepared to die in prison, if you expect me to
go in there and say that I did this crime,
you know, and everyone, all my lawyers are like, well,
you know, you gotta figure it out, man, you know,
we got to figure out what you're going to do.
I said, I know exactly what I'm want to do.
(48:22):
I want to go in there and tell him that
I didn't do it, that I'm awful, that I'm innocent.
That's exactly what I'm wanting to do. And everyone is like, yo, man,
you're not going to get out take your shot.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
Man. You know.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
Guys inside was like, yo, man, stand on your truth.
And I was like, that's what I intended to do.
And I went there and I told him exactly what
I just said to you, that I was prepared to
die in here if I was required to come in
here and at mint guilt because I didn't do this crime.
And one of the prole commissioners said to me, she said,
(48:54):
Samuel said, I'll never forget it. She said, you've been
saying that. She said, we went through your record. She said,
motion after motion, you've been saying this since the beginning
of your arrest. I said, that's right. She said, well,
now that you have an opportunity to be free. After
all this time, people are finally listening to you. How
does that make you feel? And in my mind a
(49:16):
light bulb went off. I said, she wants to see
if I'm bitter, if I'm upset, I said, but I'm not.
I'm not bitter and I'm not upset. I said, I'm
not bitter. I said, I'm better, right, I said, I
had time to reflect, I had time to grow. I
had time to review my own life and take stock
on my own life, right, And I didn't serve time.
(49:36):
Time served me. So this is who I am. What
happened in the past For me, it wasn't look you
just were imprisoned, dormant, doing nothing, lifting ways to do
the pushups. That wasn't the case with me. I've forced
myself into education, allowed myself to grow, right, and this
is who I am. And I'm wrongfully convicted, but you
(49:59):
know to continue to fight. And she said, good luck,
mister Bryan, thank you. And for seven days I did
not sleep because it took seven days for you to
get the response. Oh God, you get the response through
your counselor Now, there are two rules that prisoners have
when you go to pro board. If you get an
(50:19):
envelope and it's thin, you're going home. If you get
an envelope and it's thick, you got smoked for two
years or less. Because if it's thick, that means the
appeal papers are in there for you to appeal the
negative decision that you just received. If it's thin, it's
one sheet that says or two sheets that says, congratulations,
(50:42):
you made the pro board. These are your requirements. Go
see parole within twenty four hours of your release. You
don't have a curfew, or you do have a curfew,
don't get hired.
Speaker 3 (50:50):
Whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (50:52):
But it's not thick. So the counselor called me down
to the office and said take a seat, and I
said sit down for what I'm standing up. I mean
because I'm exhausted. I hadn't slept. And she passes me
the envelope and I feel it before she said congratulations,
you're going home. I already knew because I felt it.
(51:14):
I just broke down in tears.
Speaker 3 (51:16):
That's amazing. So how long after that were you out
break that in there that day?
Speaker 2 (51:21):
No, like sixty days later, Okay, So what were those
sixty days like? Oh, anxiety, just.
Speaker 3 (51:28):
Ready to get back out. The most amazing moments. Yes,
now I was a fifty three year old man
Speaker 2 (51:35):
Yeah, with a world that's completely different,
Welcome to rid reddits Michelle Barone and I am here
with Ashley McPherson, my co host. Today we have a
very serious topic with a friend of mine, Bruce Bryan,
who was wrongfully committed of murder and spent twenty nine
years in jail for something he did not do. I'd
love to bring him back. This is our part too,
And where we left off was, you know you were
(00:22):
we were talking about jurors and how they don't have
the experience at times to make these decisions. When you
finally were arrested, you were put in the lineup and
you went to jail or went to court. What was
that process like? Walk me through the next phase of
this for me?
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Quote was it was like a nervous wreckord. Right.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
But your attorney said he had your back.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
He didn't exactly say that. I had my situation. I
was really had a recipe for disaster, right. I had
an at and d quarter point of attorney who who
was a black guy by the name of Reginald Tao,
who was previously slashed by his previous client. He was
(01:10):
slashed with a raiser in the court pins and had
a long scar across his face similar to the one
that I have.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
I need to ask you about that.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Absolutely, because his client couldn't get rid of him. His
client kept acting the course to take him off of
his case. So I guess, you know, the client took
matters into his own hands, and when he came to
court and he was in the back bullpens, he cut
his attorney. And so this attorney was Reginald Taw was
actually seeing a psych I had no knowledge of any
(01:43):
of this.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Was this the one appointed to you?
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Yes? Until twenty literally, you know, maybe twenty years later
right where you know, an angel in disguise of Ed Webster,
a private investigator. I just was having a regular conversation
with him, and he said, your attorney was Slash. I
see Aver Slash, and he filed suit against the city
I had, you know, I found this out later on.
(02:08):
I says, but I don't know what happened with him,
And he said what was his name? And he didn't
tell me anything. He just took it upon himself and
investigated the incident with the attorney and what he found
out was that my attorney was Sue in the city. Wow.
But he was also seeing a psychiatrist because he suffered
from post traumatic stressice on right, right, and it's why
(02:32):
he didn't communicate and didn't come to visit me. Didn't
even want to come near me in the court pens.
When we would but I would try to talk to him,
it would be you're not seeing judged today, and he
would leave. He was just because he was going through
his own trauma, which I had no knowledge.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Of, ye and practicing shouldn't have been, but the court
system did.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
And during what they call a fifty hc heron where
he testifies about his injuries in his civil claim against
the city, he admitted, it's affected me because I can't
properly prepare a defense. I was his next client, charged
with homicide. I had his master, and then I had
(03:15):
former Queen's prosecutor, John Scoppo, who literally went, you know,
stopped being a prosecutor because he was pushed down to
Queen's DA's office, and then later became a defense attorney,
where he engaged in his same misconduct as he as
a prosecutor. You have qualified immunity. As a defense attorney,
you don't, right, But a leopard doesn't change their spots.
(03:36):
So he continued in the same behavior and he was
arrested in charge by the Fens. They had him on
wire attack and charged him. Right, So I had him
as a prosecutor, and I had Reginald Tao as a
defense attorney.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
And who was the judge?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
And judge? I had about thirteen different I had so
many judges for the first thirteen months. I never haven't.
I didn't go in front of a judge. I went
to court from Rykers Island, which was so they lost.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
You right away from the lineup. Yeah, and then you.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Kept going in and of itself. Right is that the
worst is the maximum right island? Back in the nineties.
You know, they complained about rykis being violent now, but
Rakings is Racors was nowhere near as violent as it
was back then. Back then there were over twenty thousand
people on Rikers Now you have over less than ten thousand.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
So what happened when you were locked up there? What
did you see?
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Everything?
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Like?
Speaker 2 (04:26):
You know, gang wars? You know, I had incidents with
Hispanic gangs in the yard, fightings and stabbings and cuttings
like this is every day in Rikansound. And the guards. Yeah,
the Ryk Islands the worst, the worst, and the guards
were no different because that's where you go when you're
arrested in New York City. Back then, you either go
to one of the borough houses or you go to
(04:47):
ryk As Island. And Rykers Island is literally the biggest
p now commonly in the country. Back then, Rykers could
hold about twenty three thousand prisoners, right and all going
to You're waking up four thirty in the morning to
go to court and sleep in the ballpen with maybe
sometimes twenty other guys, and you in there trying to
(05:09):
make sure you got a seat because you're tired. You
make up fourth thirty morning Rikers to go to court.
Even today you still do so.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Then you get thrown here.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
For thirty months. I was on Rikas for eleven years,
day in and day out, and we're talking about stabbings
and cuttings.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
I have a question about that.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
This might be a dumb question, but like these people
are already in jail for whatever gang related things that
they were in jail for. What is like the purpose
of like gangs inside jails, Like what is like the reason?
Speaker 3 (05:40):
I mean, there's no reasoning, but it's like.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
There's unity, you know, coming together in numbers. Numbers matter
and then it's you know, it's it's like a subculture
of society. That's my resources too, right, it's resources.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Right.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
It's a sense of camaraderie. And for a guy that, yeah,
maybe coming up without his father or without a man
a role model in his life, it's a sense of
belonging to a family, to a crew, and it makes
you feel strong, it makes you feel empowered, right, it
gives you a false sense of power. When I got
the Rikers in ninety four, I mean the Latin I
(06:13):
got to a building called C ninety five. C ninety
five was better known as sang Wang, right, sang Wang.
In other words, it was all Spanish gangs, metas and
Latin kings.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Did you know Spanish?
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Absolutely not. I still don't know Spanish.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Was there a lot of black and brown people there? Not?
Speaker 2 (06:33):
In C ninety five in the other buildings, a lot
of black and mist place there? Because that's you wind
up wherever you wind up, just random. Yeah, it's just.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Random, And so you don't know the language. Oh no,
Never been frustrated when you.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Know, I had been in concentrated before, but I hadn't
experienced C. Ninety five in my life where there were
you go into a housing area that it may be
fifty people in a dorm, forty five of them Hispanic, right,
and so their phone situation is, you know, you gotta
either fight or you just take the little six or
(07:07):
ten minutes that you get in the morning, and that's it. Right.
There were like six thousand areas that you know, you
may find or less than six, maybe three housing areas
that you may find. Blacks are kind of like in
some type of you know, opposition where they can you know,
have but oh why you came in. We're gonna give
(07:28):
you twenty minutes on the phone at night or half
an hour. Every other house was Hispanic, and it was
you know, a lot of the officers were Latin kings
and yetas too. So the officers were in the same
gangs as the Hispanic brothers.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
So you were definitely the minority there.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Oh, it's no doubt about it. Se ninety five, back
in the nineties, No, there's no doubt about it.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Oh my god, I have so many questions about Rikers itself.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
I mean, Rykers was you know, predominantly black and brown
correction officers, Hispanic correction.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Officers, and they're all crooked yea.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
And they'll beat you just as bad as some of
the white races offices way upstate. Right, So Rikers is
still you know, I don't know what it's like today,
but it was very, very rough back then.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Did you ever get.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Is at an all time?
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Huh? No?
Speaker 2 (08:16):
I was fighting regularly on Kazound. So you fight one
area because you want to get from that particular area,
so you may intentionally have a fight. So saying I
gotta get the help from over here. I ain't got
no black guys over here. Three black guys in the house.
It's thirty Puerto Ricans and Dominicans. They acting crazy with
the phone. So I got to wake up in the
morning and pick fow some ship, you know, so I
(08:40):
can My ship has already packed.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
So I can go somewhere else Where'd you get the
nickname fashion.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
From society in the street and just you know, liking
nice stuff, you know, likeing the wey nice things and
just friends and family.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
You know, I like the shirt by the way, thank you.
Tower Farm has been a big a kit for.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
You, absolutely, And what do they do there? They provide
What I specifically love is the pain medication that my
mother has used on her that I actually rubbed it
on her myself for authoritis. She's always complained about her
knees for very long, for years. Knees and elbows like
(09:22):
your joints. You know that you get older your joints.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
And nothing seemed to work for her. Literally, nothing seemed
to work for her. And I put Tower Meds on her.
But I put on every three to four hours. So
I kept putting it on during the day and for
the next three days. When she woke up, she took
the jar and she had it in the living room
with her. I said when I came home from work,
(09:47):
because I didn't get to ask her in the morning,
so I said, how do you feel? She said, wonderful?
And so it really really works. The stuff is natural.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
I can't wait to try it because I have some
wealth writers right and I'm about texting.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
It's texting and holding wava, you know, I think. But
it was like the lavas late.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
It's all good, but that's amazing. I want to try
it out. I hear it's good. So you can go
to Towerfarma dot com. Yes, all right, so make sure
you check it out. You can read it right there
on my friend Bruce's shirt. So I want to go
back to the Rikers conversation. So Rikers in the nineties
absolutely terrible. Your poor mom, your dad, I mean, all
these things. Two and a half years. Oh, yes, you're
(10:30):
waiting to get this sentencing. Right, What did you think
at that time? You were surviving? Right, But did you
think you were going to be let go.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
At some point? Right? At some point you feel like.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Right?
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Is that it's it's like almost never ending the chaos
because it's a it's chaotic.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
You can't just sleep through it.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
No way you sleeping two rackers. There's no way.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
You don't have your own bed.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
You have your own bed. But sometimes you're in a dorm.
Right when I was in the dorm, I always stuck
with you know, sneakers on tied many nights until you
get into an area where you have your own cell
because people take everything you got, or because somebody jumps
on you while you're sleeping, or you know what I.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Mean, Oh my god, talk about ptst.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Cut you while you sleep. Yeah, yeah, no, Rikers is
definitely a traumatic experience. Anyone who has been there and
has seen you know, the collef Browder story, they understand
that that's raal right. Some guys never they never recuperate
from that experience, right, And this is three years of
(11:39):
him being on Rikers. I was there for two and
a half years.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
I just want to tell everybody I'm here again with
Bruce Bryant, wrongfully convicted of murder and spent twenty nine
years in jail. I just I still can't get over it.
I can't believe I'm saying that. I can't believe I'm
sitting here with you. There's so much to say, and
we're going through the story. We talked about your experience
at Rikers. What happens next? So you go to your
(12:08):
thirteen go through your thirteen judges, your court cases.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
All of that.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
When did you finally get wind that you were convicted
of thirty seven years?
Speaker 4 (12:18):
Or well?
Speaker 2 (12:19):
For me, I had a few squabbles with judges because
I would speak up myself. Once I realized that having
the Reginal Towers my attorney was almost like having no attorney.
You had to and I tried continuously to get rid
of them and said, well, my family's and the judgers
say no, you're not getting rid of them. Judge Democas
and everything, I'm saying to you, I have on record
(12:41):
like I have in black and white, until I finally
got in front of a judge McGann, Robert McGann, and
he started trial. And first he started like a hearings
and stuff like that, and I had one hearing in
democas and then I had another hearing in front of McGann,
(13:02):
and then we started trial, and I was a nervous wreck.
I was a nervous wreck. Anyone who tells you that
they you know, they go on trial for murder or
that they're on right a island and that you don't
feel a level of uncomfortability, a level of nervousness knowing
that your life is in the hands of the judge
(13:24):
and whoever these twelve people are that he puts on
the jewelry panel, is lying to you.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
I mean, if you're not mentally ill, that is pushing
you to the point of being Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
I mean the stress was at an all time high. Yep, deeply,
deeply stressful, and trying to figure it out right day
in and day out, just trying to figure it out,
trying to be strong, always in the law library. So
you would try to communicate with your lawyer and say, well, look,
this law says this, this and this, and he would
(13:56):
you know this guy literally never came within.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Of me.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
That has got to be so defeating.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
Like knowing you didn't do it, and you're sitting in
there and everyone's against you. You're doing research on your
own when you don't have a degree in law, trying
to get yourself free. What was that feeling like when
you were convicted? Like what did that feel?
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Oh man? The wind is completely knocked out of you,
and what happened? You think about when you think about
if your mother and father are gonna still be alive
when you you know if and when you make it
out of there. But there's something inside of me that
always made me know that I would make it out.
(14:38):
I always I never lost hope in that I'm gonna
get out of here because you knew you didn't do it,
Because I know I didn't do it, So I knew
internally that I would make And people always ask me,
did you ever give up hope? No, I've never never
once could I say, well, I'm throwing the towel, I'm here.
I've never I've never felt that I felt defeated. I
(15:00):
felt hurt, you know, you know, thousands of sleepless nights,
you know, filled with tears, right, you know, I'm talking
about my pillow drenas as if I was sweating them.
But they're all tears, right. I spent countless nights like that,
especially on right as I fighting my case at the time.
(15:20):
But I always, I've always prayed, and I think faith
prayed a tremendous role to make me cry in me
being where I am today. I think that faith and
then you start learning about, you know, what it means
to visualize what it is that you want. So you
start writing things on your wall, you start creating vision
(15:45):
boards of just you know, drawings of someone walking home.
These were things that literally kept me alive in prison.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
After so you were then convicted, What happened that day
you get there? Did you know the sensing it was
taking place that day?
Speaker 2 (16:02):
No, it didn't take place that day, Okay, But when
I was found guilty, it knocked all the wind own
of me, and I was I was in a state
of deep depression, was there? Oh yeah, what'd she do?
She broke down? She broke down, My family broke down.
Keep in mind, my sister is a court officer at
(16:25):
the time. So she's in the courtroom while I'm going
to court. She's now a court sergeant. And when I
go to court now she says, see, this is my brother.
I was telling you all about that's wrongfully convicted. He's
home down. That's so sad, right, But initially they didn't
believe none of that.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
Oh my god, your family knows, your family knows who
you are.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
My god, this is crazy, and that was so important
to me.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
Yeah, I feel like that like also just shows you,
like what is valuable and what isn't. I mean, you
said the same thing, like material things don't matter as much,
like you really do realize like the value of having
a loyal family.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Absolutely, Yeah, priceless. You didn't do this, priceless, absolutely, But
it's still it still broke my heart every day because
my father would always tell me, you know, your mother
she cried herself to sleep at night every night. You know.
My father would tell me this, like when he wouldcome
on the visits. Then I lost my father while la
(17:28):
I was in prison. So that was like the toughest
blow for me throughout the course of my entire life. Right,
I was my father in twenty seventeen, but I think
somewhere in the back of my mind and I would
never know how to tell someone how to do it.
But I think in the back of my mind I
(17:48):
was always preparing, just you know, to lose a loved one, right,
you always prepare, like how do you prepare to lose
a mother or father? I think psychologically I was always
family and saying to myself, this couldn't the possibility of
this happening is great. It's great, right, So I think
once you start telling yourself that and then it happens,
(18:12):
you're still not ready. It's still tough to deal with.
But I think something inside of you says you always
knee you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Then?
Speaker 2 (18:23):
And how do you and how do you process that?
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Right?
Speaker 2 (18:28):
How do you process that?
Speaker 1 (18:31):
What were the moments after you were convicted, like you
said you fell into a deep depression.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
Did they take you away from that point and then
where'd you go?
Speaker 2 (18:41):
No, they take you back to a cell like a dollar.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
And you you got convicted of thirty years or you got.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Yeah, and guys say, yo, what happened happened? They say,
I got convicted. I blue trial. And then you go
on your cell and you cry yourself to sleep, then
you wake up in the middle of the night for me,
and I prayed for hours, you know, I would pray,
I would fast, I would do everything because then my
(19:08):
mother and father, you know, we were brought up in
the church as a young person. We strayed away when
we got the Queens, when we were in Manhattan, we
were going to church when we lived on the Lower
East Side. So I always knew that it was something
greater than me that I had to acknowledge, right, and
that and that's something can make great things happen that
(19:29):
I simply couldn't have make happen. That man was just
impossible for man. Right, what's impossible for man is always
possible with God. And so relying on that, totally totally
reliance on God is It's what I had to do
after blowing trial. Right, Man, when you begin to think
(19:58):
of what you're facing, you can't at twenty three, you
don't know what. You can't fathom next week, right, you
can't fathom you can think about next week, and you
have to think about what's going to happen to me
for thirty seven and a half years, like all.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Of your twenties, all of your thirties, well into your forties.
Just think about that. I mean, I think you two now,
until you're how old, fifty three? Fifty three years old?
Speaker 4 (20:30):
I can't imagine like I'm twenty two years old, Like
I can't imagine like having like something like that where
it's like your entire life is changing before your eyes.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
And you have no control over it, and you're in
a jungle right and you're terrified.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
And volatile, extremely violent.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
How many days did you wish you could take back
that night?
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Oh? Every single day, every single day.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
I want to talk to you about something that Ashley
and I care a lot about. Mental health.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Taking care of your mental health is just as important
and taking care of your physical health and mental health.
America of Duchess County is the perfect place for that health.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Mental Health America of Duchess County is super empowering and
helps so many people with so many problems.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
Honestly, it's pretty amazing seeing how mental health actually affects people.
I mean, the guests that we've had on the show,
we've talked about mental health in almost every episode, and
it's a serious topic.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Now's the time to prioritize your mental well being. If
you're suffering from anxiety, depression, or anything mental health related,
visit Mental Health America Duchess County at MHA Duchess dot org.
Shout out to our incredible partner, Steve Prohashka from Big
Steve Big Moves dot com. He has a book called
From Orphan to Millionaire where he shares his incredible story
(21:45):
about becoming a millionaire after being an orphan. If you're
ready to elevate your mindset, master resilience, and make big
moves in life in business, make sure you check out
Big Steve Big Moves dot com where you can find
his book. If reading isn't enough, Steve takes it to
the stage. He's a dynamic public speaker. He delivers game
(22:06):
changing talks on partnerships, leaderships, success, and overcoming obstacles. Steve
is one of a kind and completely dynamics. So if
you're looking for a speaker that will change the game
for your event and beyond, make sure you check out
Big Steve, Big Moves dot com and Big Steve Big
Moves on Instagram.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
All right, listen up, party people Friday's at Mahoney's Irish
Pub or where the vibes are high. The drinks are flowing,
and the weekend officially begins. If you're looking for the
ultimate night out, Mahoney's has got you covered with killer
drink specials, live DJs, and crowds that know how to
bring the energy. Whether he's sipping on an ice cold beer,
toasting with a perfectly mixed cocktail, or taking a shot
to kickstart the night, this is the spot to be
(22:47):
every Friday, starting at ten pm, So grab your crew,
hit the dance floor and make some memories. The Mahoney's Way.
Doors open late, the drinks are cold, music's hot.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
What more do you need.
Speaker 4 (22:57):
I'll see you guys this Friday and every Friday at
Mahony's Pub, where the weekend starts the right way.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
Wrong place?
Speaker 2 (23:04):
And then you start I mean for me, what.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Do you want to say to kids who are doing
the things you did when you were twenty three?
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Oh man, you always hear. Be conscious of the company
that you keep, Be conscious of who you call your friend,
Be conscious of who you walk down the street with right,
be conscious of who you are, and I think, more
(23:33):
than anything, more than anything, you should always look in
the mirror and love what you see when you look
in the mirror, and your action should reflect that, because
if you love yourself, you won't hang around somebody that
you think doesn't love themselves, or that you think is
not good for you, or that I engage in things
(23:53):
that are not good for them. That's right, because self
love is the most important thing that that a child
or a young person or old person could fully understand
and grasp.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Is it.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Look in that mirror every day and begin to tell
that person you love them. And you know, when I
started to do that, my mindset began to shift.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
When did you so month one was terrible? Month two?
Month three? Month six?
Speaker 1 (24:22):
When did you start to change and fall more into God,
more into reading more, you know, manifestation?
Speaker 2 (24:29):
I think a few years down the line, Ways Island,
ryck As Island was a jungle and it was Lord Library.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Is that where you got this?
Speaker 2 (24:37):
No, I got cut up state when I first went
up state. Yeah, I was still a bit angry when
I first got up state.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Did you lash out a lot? Were you a problem
child in jail a little? Because you were upset a
little a little on Rygas Island a little. You get upstate,
you kind of calm down a little bit. You start
getting involved, but you're still in.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
The mix because you were just traumatized.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Uh huh, and and and that trauma. You know that
if that lives with you, you know, if you don't
take the initiative to engage in some form of therapy
when you're released, as well as some form of self
development psychologically, emotionally, mentally, it's going to impact you, right
(25:25):
if you don't. I think for me, my biggest decision
was that I decided that I was going to bloom
where I was planted. I decided that wherever I was at,
I was gonna bloom. I love that, and that, you know,
changed the trajectory of my life because I began devouring
books that could uplift me and change me and impact
(25:46):
my mind.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
When was that so? You said about two years three
years in?
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Yeah, that was maybe eight ninety nine, even boring.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Yeah, I mean just think about that. You won't even
hear yet. So nine you're sitting there like, I'm gonna
change my life.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
I'm gonna do this.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Were you in touch with any attorneys that were helping
you that knew you were wrongfully convicted?
Speaker 2 (26:09):
I was in touch with attorneys that knew I was
wrongfully convicted, but they were full of shit. The best
thing to know that I was hoping to pay. I
didn't know that then. Initially. I think guys inside, right,
older guys began to pour into you and talk to
you about class and about your life, and you know,
(26:31):
and these guys had already had twenty five years in right,
and these guys been in prison since the seventies.
Speaker 4 (26:36):
Some of them.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
And so you have these conversations with some of them,
and you see, like, you know, they're kind of teaching
you what it means to construct a conducive prison life,
one that can uplift your soul, right, one that can
make you better and not bitter. Right, and you begin saying, oh, right,
I'm an internalize some of the stuff that I'm learning.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
That's amazing and insane. How many so, how many people
did you know that were wrongfully committed? And did the
people in prison know the people that were wrongfully committed
and the people that were actually like dangerous individuals.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
I think for the most part, the guys that I
was around, they would all tell you, like Champ, I'm
not like you. I'm trying to get out, but you know,
you know, you you know they're like, Man, I'm not
like you, Bruce, I'm not wrongfully convicted.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
I did this.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Yeah, but then you meet those guys in the law
library that are actually innocent, and then you meet me,
you stick with them and more I think you acknowledge
each other because you always found each other in the
law library and you developed the bond with them. But
for me, I still with a group of men that
were kind of teaching courses, the Resurrection Study Group, and
(27:46):
I started learning from those guys. So I started really
going hard in education and learning because I found that
it helped me change the way that I think. And
and you know when you change the way you think,
you change the way you live. Right, And I made
that conscious decision that I wasn't going to serve time.
I was gonna have time serve me, right.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
And so that's a good name of a book, that's it. Yeah,
that's a really good name of a book.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
And so that for me is what really said. Okay,
this is you know, yourself has to be a classroom
of some sort or your office. Right. The yard has
to be a place where you go strictly to work out.
So that's like a gym, that's like your fitness center,
and then the phone you call your family. Then you
you know, church is your your spirituality. The school building
(28:36):
is you back into your education. So you start compartmentalizing
the different aspects of prison, but you're not looking at
them as prison. You're looking at them as different parts
of an institution that can help you grow.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
And you you matured there.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
I mean, you went from a young adult to a
man to an older man, right, a middle aged man
and what was the process?
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Only three and came out fifty two.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
I just keep crazy. It's such a whole life.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Yeah, that's the best part of your life. It is
because as a teenager you don't really know, you don't
really have much.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
You're hope with me learning. So this is your adult
life where you feel good.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
Especially I feel like even now, like the experiences like
you've been through, I feel like that gives you like
a different experience and like outlook to life that like
people that like maybe were doing whatever for like those
twenty years, like still don't have that perspective on life,
you know, like you know, like the value in things
because like you were literally had everything taken from you.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
You're grateful for being here today.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Yeah, but I didn't waste my time while I was
in there. Yeah, it made me feel good. Man. I
didn't just want to in self pity. I allowed myself
to have that time, you know, serve me in a
way that I can grow and develop.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
All right, and you're in jail.
Speaker 4 (29:52):
All these other inmates are teaching you kind of how
to like have a routine in jail. How long did
you have that routine that you were in the routine before?
You kind of did it before you were out of jail.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
And you're like, what, so, what happened?
Speaker 2 (30:05):
You just had that I walked out, You had that
routine forever happened? I mean I went and I buried
myself in education and in self help books, and I
did that my entire for the last twenty years of
mine conservations.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Where did you meet the person that got you out? When?
And where?
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Wow, that's a good question, because Steve Zionman I met
through a New York law journal. He had an op
editing side of it, and I wrote him. Me and
two other guys we developed the package about work release
work releases where you come home early two years before
(30:48):
your pro board and you get a job and you
report back to work release, and you go home, you
go to work every day, then you report, you stay
home two days out the week. Five days you're in
the institution, but you're going to work every day from
the institution, right. And when we sent this to him,
I didn't hear back from him for a while. How long,
(31:10):
probably a year or two. That's a long I didn't
write to him for help. Previously I had written. I
read a book called Innocence in two thousand and five
with a guy who I now know by the name
of Fernando Bermudez, who was also wrongfully convicted. He's on
the cover of the book. The book is by Scott
(31:31):
Christiansen and it's called Innocent. It's a great cover. I'll
never forget it. And I read this book and I
wrote every lawyer in the book. And it wasn't until
maybe six years later that a lawyer by the name
of Mary Anne de Barry said, she's she's a Catholic,
a devout Catholic. She passed away and may she be
(31:52):
at peace. She said, you know, I prayed on this
for years whether or not I should write you back
and help you. And I decided that I would. And
she popped up on the visit one there. Wow, little
older lady used to be in Russia and America. She
lived in Pound Ridge, New York.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
Yeah, that is how many people? Did you write about?
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Ten thousand letters while I was in prison? Ten to people,
easy to people to help you or yeah. What happens
is you get five free legal letters every week. Back then,
you're allowed to send out five letters with legal mail,
and and that are going to a legal entity, a
law firm, all particular lawyers.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
That's insane.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
So every week for years, I would send out my
five free letters. Sometimes I would send out I would
get you know, most times I would get over and
they would not check, and I would send out ten.
You know, sometimes they'll kick back one or two and say, oh,
you're five years over for the for the week. But
I did that every week for years and years. My
routine was, you know, on Saturday and Sunday when I
(32:58):
lock and I would begin riting letters. I wasn't smart
enough to write one standard letter, which I should have done.
He just made a bunch of copies. I would rewrite
the letters by hand because I like to write, so
I write the letters by hand. Each one was a
little different but definitely, And so I was writing lawyers
all over and mary Anne finally responded and she would
(33:21):
help me. She went to she befriended, you know, the stepfather,
and he confided in her, I don't know that guy
from nowhere. I wouldn't know him if I saw him
walk in hand.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
I wonder if he was behind the wall.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
He canfid it in her and her two daughters.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Right.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Unfortunately, mary Anne had a brain cancer and she passed away,
but she came to visit me, and she'd tell I
never forget it, because she and I had gotten really close.
She is about seventy eight maybe, and she said, don't worry.
My daughters know what to do. You got the address,
they know everything. I've been speaking to this guy. They're
(34:09):
going to help you if anything happens to me. But
I have brain cancer. I literally and she passed away.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
Did they help?
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Absolutely?
Speaker 4 (34:20):
Not? Or serious?
Speaker 2 (34:23):
How I was in maybe sixteen seventeen years at the time.
Oh my god, didn't help it all? How did that
not make even today? As you know, I've had people
like could you see and they're like, yeah, we know,
but you know, mom died and we don't really want
to get involved them. We do know such and such.
(34:45):
We oh, we know all about it. Yeah, and so,
I mean it's always I should revisit there if someone
revisit them, but they would absolutely of no help.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
What happened? Then?
Speaker 2 (34:56):
I had a private investigator by the name of Edie Webster.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
How did you get him?
Speaker 2 (35:02):
A friend of mine? Sarah and Emily Kunsseler, which are
both attorneys. Sarah counsel the daughter of renowned William Kunsler,
attorney or he's a renowned attorney that passed away, right,
probably one of the best attorneys that New York has
ever seen. So his daughter went to an event and
she met a private investigator by the name of Edward
(35:24):
Webster and they were talking about he was giving a
presentation about investigations, and she pulled him over and said,
you know, I got a guy by the name of
Bruce Bryan. I think you should go see him. I
think he'll find his case to be interesting. And this
guy came to visit me and he's the one that
found out that Reginald Tao was suffering from PTSD as
(35:47):
a result of him being slashed, and all the comments
he made on record stating that he couldn't properly prepare
a defense because you know, that incident was impacting him. Wow,
for twenty years, and he was seeing a psychiatrist by
the name by out of Harlem Hospital by by the
name of Henry something, Henry McGirk, mcclirk, something like that.
(36:11):
I'll never forget it. And he was like, I'm gonna
look into this. No, he didn't tell me he was
gonna look into it. He came back with the documents
and said, I looked into this, and I was like, wow.
And I got a lawyer who I was writing, by
the name of Yvonne Shivers to prepare emotion based on that,
because that's what they called newly discovered evidence. The motion
(36:32):
was denied, but I had a big heroing and it
got placed on the record, right even though everyone thought, Oh,
you're going to win, You're gonna win. That's you know,
that's that's.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Where I'm in.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
So, how many years were you at that point?
Speaker 2 (36:50):
Maybe twenty one, twenty somewhere around there, maybe a little less,
maybe nineteen twenty and so. And Webster developed brain cancer.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
No, and.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Yes, are you kidding?
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Yes? And then the odds yes, and then he passed away.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
Oh my god.
Speaker 4 (37:14):
At this point, like, are you not feeling like so defeated?
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Like are you like defeated?
Speaker 2 (37:19):
I'm stressed out, I'm depressed, but you've never given up hope. Okay,
there's a friend of mine name that's it doesn't end there.
There's a friend of mine named Karen Smolaw. And I
met Karen through her husband, Alan Brenner, who I knew
because he represented my cole defend and Clarence Smith, who
(37:40):
wasn't even present at the crime scene. But Alan Brenner
always liked me and always believed in my innocence because
he understood the case. We were in touch and he
was like, look, I like what EDW. Webster found that.
I want to try to help you, and I'm gonna
try to be in caught for you and this that
and of Pharaoh. When I got called for the hearing
(38:02):
in twenty seventeen to go to court, he couldn't make
it because he was hospitalized. No found out later on
he had brain can stop.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
Before after your dad died, because he died in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
This was after my dad died.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
Oh, I can't believe that.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
So then why so I'm hearing about what is that
hospital that does cancer Sloan Kettering, Stone Kettering. He's in
stone Kettering and his ex wife, Karen Smallaw, who I'm
still close friends with now I actually go to.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
Did he die?
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Yeah? He died?
Speaker 1 (38:37):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Before he died, he wrote out a six page Affidavid
for me, stating, listen, this man never got a fear shake.
He's innocent. I know the case I represented. I mean,
he gave up a beautiful letter and his wife had there.
She was you know, she was transcribing everything that he
told us of to write because he was that l
(39:02):
and so she got it, got it done, and then
he died of brain cancer. That rocked my world. I
thought there was some kind of omen on me.
Speaker 3 (39:13):
Was this the same thing I said?
Speaker 2 (39:14):
I'm scared to even tell people that three people that
represented me died of brain cancer because they might feel like, listen,
I don't want to catch brain cancer too, right.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
Was it like the me of blestoma.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
I don't know, but he had. He had a cancer
that traveled to his brain that really messed him up.
Marianne the Barby and Ed Webster actually had brain cancer,
but they were functioning very very well, it's crazy. So
then what alan All three of them were really really
tight with me. Mary Anne, she was super tight with me.
(39:49):
Me and Ed Webster, me and his wife are still
like this, you like and yeah, she lives up by
po Keepsie. She lives near Peak Skill. Matter of fact,
that's exactly where she lives, in Peak Skill. And she
and I super tight. She was there the day I
walked out of prison. And she would always say, and
(40:11):
it is still pulling for you from the grave, just
like your father. And and we still talk, we still
call each other even to this day.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
But what happened? So the third guy has brain cancer.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
And I'm still going to court for my hearing.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
Did the wife come with the motion?
Speaker 2 (40:29):
No, the motion was she She came with the letter
that attacked. That will be attached to the moment.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
Then what happened.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
I'm back and forth fighting for court, fighting and fighting,
and then in the course of that, John Scarper gets
arrested and the whole courtroom is like, who's John scopp is?
The former prosecutor in my case? He gets arrested as
a defense attorney. So the courtroom, the courtroom, the officers,
(40:58):
they all know my sister because she's always there and
court with me in her uniform.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Your poor sister.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
So they're all telling her your brothers. Everybody knows who
Scarper is. He was just on the wrong team, you know.
He was actually on the right team when he worked
for the prosecutor. Now he's arrested, Your brother should be fine,
and everybody's telling her this. So I'm going back and
forth to court from June to December in twenty seventeen.
(41:26):
Then the next year, I go back to court again.
Then I go back to my hearing took two years
from twenty seventeen to twenty nineteen, and Judge low Prestough
I never forgured his name. I actually was asking him
to see if he's still around today. He denied my motion,
(41:48):
and my heart, I.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Was like, what.
Speaker 3 (41:54):
All of that?
Speaker 2 (41:55):
All of that. But prior to that, Steve Zeidman had
wrote me back. Steves no I had answered him. He
wrote me and I didn't pay clemency no mine. I said, Ah,
nobody's getting clemency in New York because what is that
executive clemency is the governor. The governor has the power,
she has executive power to let out five hundred people tomorrow.
(42:17):
She wants ten thousand people if she wants tomorrow. He
just has to have the willingness to do it, the
same way Biden let out. They only do that on
a federal level, right, the presidents are in charge of
the facts, got it. The governors can do that in
the state. A governor is like the president of the state.
(42:40):
Governor Kathy Hokle can say tomorrow, I'm gonna let out
a thousand women who have been impacted by domestic violence
and you know, killed their spouse in the process of
a fight. I'm gonna give them a shot and let
them out. She can do that tomorrow, and no one
can stop on, just like no one can stop Trump
from letting out fifteen hundred January sixth defendants. No one
(43:00):
can stop him. There's no oversighting. That's executive power that
you have. But you just have to have the heart
and the willingness to want to do it.
Speaker 3 (43:07):
And you said this is never happen, because it doesn't happen.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Clemency. Prior to Steve Zeidman in twenty fifteen sixteen starting
to look at clemency, no one had gotten clemency for
a decade, right, I mean, clemency is not even real lot.
So what happened and no one was doing clemency. So
I came back from court and guys said, look, man,
(43:33):
you should write that dude, Steve Ziden h back. I said,
we mean writing back. They said, boy, he came up
here to visit guys, man, and he's really serious about
this clemency. He had written me back and said listen,
I like the work that you do. Have you ever
thought about applying for executive clemency? I looked at his
letter and I said, it's fucking guys right, because I'm
(43:56):
stressed out. I'm going back and forth the court trying
to fight my hair, and I'm like, it's no clemency.
This is twenty seventeen. Nobody getting who out out on clemency.
There's no there's no frame of reference for you to say, well,
these people did it right, you just didn't see it.
So when I come back from court and guys say, listen, fashion,
(44:17):
if I were you out writing him back, So I said,
I write him back. A month go by, I still
ain't write him. He comes in while I'm there and
the auditorium guys flocked to him. So I said, oh shit,
that's the guy I'm writing back now. So I write
him back and he says, let's just find out this
form I want to take the case. I want to
(44:38):
put you in for executive clemency. So I said, I'm like,
what the but I got to lose right at this point,
and he put it in. At this time, the governor
only does this during Christmas time.
Speaker 3 (44:54):
Did she get brain cancers? Because she did?
Speaker 2 (44:58):
At this time, it was Cuomo in off us, Oh god,
good luck. Yeah, but you know, you know, Cuomo actually
started giving people claiming, oh my god. Yeah, he gave
guys clemency several That's what happened. And they were all
represented by Steve Zeidman. So I'm like, okay, this is good,
(45:20):
but I'm still writing other lawyers for my wrong for
conviction from the television. I wrote Elizabeth Felber, and I
wrote Josh Dubin, and they didn't write me back. I
wrote them again. Elizabeth Felber wrote me back. Josh Dubin
didn't write me back. So I wrote him again, right,
and he didn't write. He didn't write me back. I
wrote him again. Then he popped up on a visit
(45:42):
and said we're gonna we're gonna take your case. Not
before I asked him like, why didn't you write me back?
And you know, he kind of got emotional because he
understood that like I was. I was saying, like, you know,
a letter, a letter for a guy in prison, means
hope to you. As a letter to me, it means.
Speaker 3 (46:05):
That's one of your five letters you can send out.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
That way, he represents hope for Michelle to say, Yo,
we have an interest in helping you, or for actually say, look,
we have an interest in helping you. That's hope, right,
And so a response from someone is better than no
response at all, especially for a guy serving a life sentence.
And so now all of a sudden, I have Steve
(46:27):
z Iivemen representing me on clemency. Now I have Elizabeth
Felwell working on my wrong for conviction, and I got
Josh Duben and Derek Hamilton who was known as the
jail house lawyer because he did a lot of his
law while he was inside. I got him helping me.
And it's like, you know, I can't get.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
Here now.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
And so a year after year, from twenty eighteen nineteen,
I was overlooked for clemency. It would be nine guys
get it.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
I don't. In Cuomo's last year in office, he did
clemency like three times in one year, and each time
that he did it, I was in each group. But
I was overlooked.
Speaker 3 (47:14):
It wasn't until were guys that committed crimes.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
Yeah, they were getting executive clemency. It wasn't until Kathy
Hokl came in and my executive clemency package had my
actual innocence and everything I had done in prison why
I deserved to be free, and it was I mean,
it was time and time again I was overlooked. It
wasn't until twenty twenty two Christmas time that she granted
(47:40):
me executive clemency. But she didn't release me right away.
She said, you got to go to a parole board.
So pro board is four months away. So that means
in twenty twenty three, I had to go to a
pro board in like January or February, and everyone is
on pins and needles because in New York State, you
have to admit guilt an express remorse in order to
(48:02):
make the parole boy. And I've always said, listen, I'm
prepared to die in prison, if you expect me to
go in there and say that I did this crime,
you know, and everyone, all my lawyers are like, well,
you know, you gotta figure it out, man, you know,
we got to figure out what you're going to do.
I said, I know exactly what I'm want to do.
(48:22):
I want to go in there and tell him that
I didn't do it, that I'm awful, that I'm innocent.
That's exactly what I'm wanting to do. And everyone is like, yo, man,
you're not going to get out take your shot.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
Man. You know.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
Guys inside was like, yo, man, stand on your truth.
And I was like, that's what I intended to do.
And I went there and I told him exactly what
I just said to you, that I was prepared to
die in here if I was required to come in
here and at mint guilt because I didn't do this crime.
And one of the prole commissioners said to me, she said,
(48:54):
Samuel said, I'll never forget it. She said, you've been
saying that. She said, we went through your record. She said,
motion after motion, you've been saying this since the beginning
of your arrest. I said, that's right. She said, well,
now that you have an opportunity to be free. After
all this time, people are finally listening to you. How
does that make you feel? And in my mind a
(49:16):
light bulb went off. I said, she wants to see
if I'm bitter, if I'm upset, I said, but I'm not.
I'm not bitter and I'm not upset. I said, I'm
not bitter. I said, I'm better, right, I said, I
had time to reflect, I had time to grow. I
had time to review my own life and take stock
on my own life, right, And I didn't serve time.
(49:36):
Time served me. So this is who I am. What
happened in the past For me, it wasn't look you
just were imprisoned, dormant, doing nothing, lifting ways to do
the pushups. That wasn't the case with me. I've forced
myself into education, allowed myself to grow, right, and this
is who I am. And I'm wrongfully convicted, but you
(49:59):
know to continue to fight. And she said, good luck,
mister Bryan, thank you. And for seven days I did
not sleep because it took seven days for you to
get the response. Oh God, you get the response through
your counselor Now, there are two rules that prisoners have
when you go to pro board. If you get an
(50:19):
envelope and it's thin, you're going home. If you get
an envelope and it's thick, you got smoked for two
years or less. Because if it's thick, that means the
appeal papers are in there for you to appeal the
negative decision that you just received. If it's thin, it's
one sheet that says or two sheets that says, congratulations,
(50:42):
you made the pro board. These are your requirements. Go
see parole within twenty four hours of your release. You
don't have a curfew, or you do have a curfew,
don't get hired.
Speaker 3 (50:50):
Whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (50:52):
But it's not thick. So the counselor called me down
to the office and said take a seat, and I
said sit down for what I'm standing up. I mean
because I'm exhausted. I hadn't slept. And she passes me
the envelope and I feel it before she said congratulations,
you're going home. I already knew because I felt it.
(51:14):
I just broke down in tears.
Speaker 3 (51:16):
That's amazing. So how long after that were you out
break that in there that day?
Speaker 2 (51:21):
No, like sixty days later, Okay, So what were those
sixty days like? Oh, anxiety, just.
Speaker 3 (51:28):
Ready to get back out. The most amazing moments. Yes,
now I was a fifty three year old man
Speaker 2 (51:35):
Yeah, with a world that's completely different,
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