Jeffrey Deskovic

Sean and I sit down with attorney Jeffrey Deskovic. 16 years locked up for a crime he didn't commit. Here his story and the mis perception that lead to his arrest. 

Episode Transcript

(00:11):
How's it going, everybody. I'mJukebox Ginger. Welcome back to another episode
of Singed Eye Sockets Perception podcast wherewe discuss, you know, cases and
kind of change a perception on youknow, the views in some of the
facts behind cases and kind of showyou more than what you just see at
the surface. And our guest tonightis going to be a huge example of

(00:34):
a lot of those things. SoI just want to let you know,
first off, Jeffrey Deskovic, thatI appreciate you coming on and reaching out
to me absolutely. Thanks for havingme on. So how you doing.
I'm great, Thank you. Howare you gonna be gonna be better?
It's been one hundred and some degreesoutside and now I'm in the cold,
so I'm very happy. Yeah,I hear you, listen. I'm I'm

(00:57):
happy to feel I'm happy to feelsad on my face in the fresh year
and be able to be outside thenight time and freedom of travel. Yeah,
I mean, you've had a hellof a hell of a life and
that or lack thereof based on certaincircumstances. So let's start out with them.

(01:17):
Tell everybody what you do now.So I'm a lawyer and I run
a nonprofit organization, the Jeffrey DeskovicFoundation for Justice, which I founded.
We have as our mission freeing peoplewho are in prison for crimes are innocent
of, and we also do policywork game that preventing those injustices in the
first place. So far, we'vegotten fourteen people home since opening our doors

(01:41):
back in twenty eleven, and we'vealso helped pass three laws in another six
as a key members of a nationalcoalition group called it Could Happen to You
have a master's degree in criminal justice. My thesis has written our won for
conviction causes Enemfore that's a lot's andthat's it definitely lines up with sort of

(02:06):
the path that your life has takenyou. So the fact that that's something
that you pursued definitely shows how like, I don't know, sort of how
intense you were treated and and justsort of the honestly, the whole purpose
of the show is misperception and justbeing in your in your shoes at the

(02:30):
age of sixteen or seventeen when allthis went down, and we'll get to
that, you know, to whereyou are now, I imagine so much
mentally has changed for you as well. Yeah, yeah, absolutely sure.
You know, just in recovering fromyou know, psychological after effects of my

(02:52):
experience, you know, post traumaticstress disorder related related symptoms such as panic
attacks, anxiety, ultra personality,you know, mood swings down that aspect
of it, stigma associated with it. Technology being different, GPS, cell
phones into that not being created,culture being different, and cities and towns

(03:15):
looking different. So those three things, you know, often makes it feel
like I'm coming a parallel world.Yeah, you know, it's it's funny.
First off, I'd like to introducemy co host, Sewn Shank.
I guess he did not get thelink. That's my fault, so I
sent it over real quick, Shank. This is Jeffrey Dskovic. Jeffrey,

(03:37):
Pleasure to meet you, Pleasure tomeet you. Is it shank or is
it shank? Which is a fairquestion coming from me, Yes it is.
It is shank like the backside ofa pig's leg, a bad golf
shot, and of course stabby stabbyprison a device. Absolutely all right.

(04:00):
Never thought I'd be happy to seea shank, but uh, nice to
meet you, uh through your podcast. But let's let's pressed on. We've
kind of teased around, not quitegot the story out, but you came
just you came up just in time. Actually, I've been I've been very
much looking forward to this for aa few weeks. And you know,

(04:23):
this is uh when we do thesepodcasts, you know, Jukebox gets you
know, most of the information,uh, and and then we kind of
ride along for what's happening. SoI've done a little bit of research,
but I try to try to stayaway from from it a bit because I

(04:43):
just wanted to experience you and yourstory and everything organically. Great, Yes,
and I definitely want to start outlike headstrong, right into the case
and sort of what happened and thenbacktrack. So let's set the scene with
November seventeenth of nineteen eighty nine.So the body was found, sure,

(05:08):
so I was just it's exactly thedate that you mentioned. And a classmate
of mind that I barely knew.Her name was Angela Correa. She was
an immigrant from Colombia. She hadbeen in the country for about a year
and a half, didn't speak verymuch English, lived a very sheltered life,
as I later came to learn wherein which she never went anywhere unless

(05:29):
she was accompanied by her older sisteror her parents. So you know,
she went missing on November fifteenth,and her body was found two days later,
November seventeenth. It was found nakedfrom the waist down. Murders were
pretty rare in Peak scale, soit created an atmosphere of fear, rumored
paranoia. Parents were concerned with theirown safety and the safety of their children.

(05:55):
Yeah. I listened to some ofyour other interviews and sort of this
of where she was found, andjust based on the timing, you know,
the year and everything, like wetalked about, there wasn't social media
wasn't really a thing, you know. So what was the town like,

(06:16):
because I mean, like I said, it wasn't a very large town,
Like, was the whole town involvedin this when it happened? It was.
The population was approximately twenty five thousandpeople. And you know, it's
kind of like this. You know, Peak still calls itself a city.
It's really more like a town,but I guess we'll call it a city
because it does, right. Butit's small and you know, I had

(06:40):
a small town feel to it.And you know, parents were driving their
kids to school, picking them upafter school, bringing them straight home.
There was rumors abound. There weretown hall meetings held by the mayor and
the police in which, you know, progress on investigation was given, safety
tips were given out, and reallyit really shook everybody up emotionally, to

(07:01):
the point that free mental health counselingwas offered throughout the city to anyone who
wanted it. You know, that'syou say, twenty five thousand in While
that seems like a large number onits face, if you've been around towns
of that size, it's not reallythat shock because twenty five thousand in a

(07:24):
town that size isn't really that big. That's kind of a place where most
people on some level know each otheror in some kind of tertiary sense,
know of people. You know,because that big so I can see you
know, you know what you're sayingwould impact a community like that, because

(07:46):
it's not it's not a big city. Correct. So at what point did
the officers you know, start lookingat because I imagine they started talking to
neighborhood kids and obviously you were oneof them. So at what point did
they almost kind of they took youin? Is it correct? Almost?

(08:07):
Yeah? Almost? Yeah? Well, yes, So let me about about
about I want to say, maybelike four to six weeks in, you
know, the police intercepted me onmy way to school. They interviewed a
lot of students from the high schooland some of them told some of the
kids told the police they might wantto talk with me because I didn't quite

(08:30):
fit in. And I guess theirthinking process was that people who are quiet
and to themselves commit henus crimes,So that's what got me on their radar.
And in addition, I was asensitive teenager. This was my first
brush with death, and I hadan emotional reaction, and to the police
that was suspicious because, look,you barely knew this girl, why would

(08:50):
you be upset that way? Butalthough in a larger sense, I wasn't
all that different from other people inthe city, because again it shook everyone
up to the point that free mentalhealth services were offered. So those two
factors, and then thirdly a reinforcingfactor is that they got a psychological profile

(09:11):
from the NYPD which purported to havethe characteristics of the actual perpetrator, and
I had the misfortunate of matching that. So it was a reinforcing factor.
So for the next six leaks,they played this cat and mouse game with
me in which half the time theytalked to me as a suspect. I
mean, it would push too hardand I would get frightened and I'd want

(09:31):
to get away from them. Jeffis this Jujor would switch it up and
Jeff is this junior detective helper themewas developed, so they would say things
like, the kids won't talk freelyaround you, but they will around us.
They won't talk freely around us,but they will around you. Let
us know if you hear anything.Stop in. From time to time they'd
ask opinion questions and congratulate me thatmy opinion was correct. Prior to being

(09:54):
a teenager, I dreamed about beinga cop when I grew up, and
so that was how that I wentalong with my That's how they pulled the
wool over my eyes. You know, it's it's it's sad that they this
is something that occurs. And youknow, I've had a stepfather who was

(10:16):
very abusive, but he was alsoan officer at one point, and you
know, it was very contradicting andjust kind of definitely changed my views on
things too. So obviously those thereare two different aspects totally, But there
is one thing I do in thisshow where I kind of almost jump back
and forth a little bit to kindof throw things off a little bit,
and I would like to do thatat this point before we kind of go

(10:37):
through the process. That's the sixweeks before you're convicted. But you confessed
to this crime at one point,correct? Correct? And what exactly was
the confession? If you're if you'refree, if you're willing to talk to
say it? Sure? Yeah,I mean you want me to just jump

(11:01):
in. Well, so they gotme to agree to take a lot of
detective test. They said, look, look, kid, we got some
new information in the file. Wewant to share that with you. That
don't let you be more helpful tous, But you got to pass the
polygraph first. So I agreed totake the polygraph. I went to the
police station for the polygraph on aschool day, so my mother and grandmother
thought I was in school, Thereforethey didn't call around looking for me.

(11:24):
Drove me up from Peakskill in WestchesterCounty to the town of Brewster, whi's
in Putnam County, so forty minutesaway by car, which means I can't
leave on my own. I'm dependentupon the police. They the polygraph was
a Putnam County Sheriff's investigator. Buthe's dressed like a civilian. He doesn't
identify himself as law enforcement. Doesn'tread me my rights, I don't have

(11:46):
an attorney, don't give me anythingto eat. I don't understand the big
words in the brochure which explains howthe polygraph work that I figured with.
I'm there to help the police,so it doesn't matter. Let's just get
on with it. He puts mein a small room, me countless cups
of coffee. Then he attaches meto the machine and he launches into his
third degree tactics, you know,invades my personal space. He raises his

(12:09):
voice at me. He keeps askingme the same questions over and over again,
you know. And he kept thatup for six and a half to
seven hours. So in terms ofso, in terms of that, I
mean they in the course of thatinterrogation, in the six weeks up to
that, they gave me a bunchof details about the crime, which I
you know, in my desperation toget out of there. So they they

(12:31):
were doing the but good cop,bad cop routine. And once he says,
look, you failed, you know, and after the six and a
half to seven hours, the goodcop comes in the room and says,
they're going to hurt you. I'vebeen holding them off. I can't do
this any longer. You got tohelp yourself. Look, just tell them
what they want to hear. Youcan go home afterwards and you're not going
to be arrested. So, beingyoung, naive, frightened sixteen, I

(12:54):
wasn't taking the long term. Iwould just concern my safety in the moment,
you know, So I made upthe story, you know, in
which basically parrotied back what they toldme. I said, I said that
I became aware that she was goingto the park, that she was going
to see some other to see someother guy. Don't see some other guy.
She said to me, you know, don't tell me what to do.

(13:16):
And you know, they told methat there was three different crime scenes.
So, you know, so Isaid that she ran, that I
tapped her, and you know,she was raped here, the body was
dragged there. But they gave meall those that put the leaves are over,
But they gave me all those detailsbefore I was spitting back and actually
how the crime actually happened, whichwe know because you know, jumping ahead.

(13:39):
The actual perpetration was later found theway, you know, that's not
how the crime happened. Yes,and so that's so that's what I said.
In the last thing is I saidthat you know, I said that
I hit her over the head witha gatorade bottle. But back in those
days, the Gatorade gatorade bottles werenot in plastic gi Yeah. But even

(14:01):
with that, the type of injuriesthat the medical examiner said that she sustained
to her head, you would nothave been could not have been caused by
a glass body. You would havehad asked something harder than that. And
on top of that, why isthere no shattered glass either anyways, not
on the body, none at thecrime scene. So that so that is

(14:22):
the content. And last thing isI did say that I ripped her brought
off, right, And that's important. We're going to come back to that
one. Yes, get to getto the get to the trial. And
by the way, none of thiswas videotaped. It was not audio taped.
There's no sign confession, just thecops work for it. Okay,
if i'm money interject here, though, there there's no justice in this,

(14:43):
there's no solid police work because one. As you stated, they're feeding you
the bits of information. You're sixteen, You are under duress there, fee,
I mean, you don't have alawyer. There's so many things they're
wrong about this. But the thingthat I find particularly egregious, aside from

(15:03):
the scare tactics and everything else,is this whole thing about light detectors.
You know, they are so fallible. Even the man that invented the light
detector said it was a junk invention. Like the guy that invented it said
that this has no This is whyit's not admissible in court. But yet

(15:24):
they will turn around and like theywill, do you just take the light
detector, you know, it's allyou need to do. Oh you know,
we jacked you up with caffeine andwe're scaring you and everything. How
else did they think your body wasgoing to react to this outward stimulus you
know, and stimulus. Of courseyou're going to be reacting physically in every
other way, and then they canpoint at that, Oh, we failed

(15:45):
it. What are you talking about? This This is not police work.
You're just trying to pigeonhole somebody intoa confession. That's all I'm here.
Yeah, yeah, that's completely correct. But I just want to share for
your listeners, the whole premise ofthe polygraph is that if a person tells
a lie, you'll become nervous.The nervousness will result in an increase pulse

(16:07):
rate, and the machine actually measuresthe puls ate. But right, but
but but other factors have been knownto increase people's pulse rates, including including
fear, which they were drilling intoyou, right, which which they were
drilling into me. Sure, evenby polygraph standards, the longest the longest

(16:29):
they could see somebody being polygraphed wouldbe like three hours. And here they
had me on this thing more thandouble right, right, And there were
supposed and the suppose and and it'syou know, in the Vaccter method which
they used that they were suppose you'resupposed to have either a video recording or
audio recording because because of the highincidence rate of false confessions being caused by

(16:53):
it. But they violated as slowedas the machine is, and it's it
is junk and it's totally not scientific. But even even with that, they
even violated some of their own protocolsin that right, Yeah, And and
the reason that I wanted to kindof get this part out of the way,
is because as we kind of unravelthings, it'll be very obvious to

(17:17):
the listeners how corrupt and mistreated youwere as a teenage kid. So they
did. We do know that StephenCunningham was the actual murderer who were four
years later was actually arrested for themurder of another of a teacher. Correct,
yes, three and a half yearslater, he was he was,
he was He was captured for stranglinga teacher who also had two children.

(17:44):
It was actually his girlfriend's sister becauseyou know, he was a drug addict,
and she walked in on him whilehe was in the middle of stealing
her VCR, which, if youremember, back in the day VCRs they
were expensive, and she wouldn't agreeto give him the VCR, and unfortunate,
he decided to kill her in orderto take it. That's it's such

(18:07):
a shame because, like I didread the article where he like confesses about
it, but it sounds like hecould care less that you spell all that
time, right, Yeah, Iagree with that. So you know,
Cunningham later he once the DNA matcheshim, you know, he winds up
eventually confessing, and he claims thatif he knew that I was in prison

(18:32):
for his crime, that he wouldhave came forward and said something, you
know, but to the extent thatan apology from a double murderer who allowed
me to do sixteen years, tothe extent that that would have held any
value at all whatsoever, he managedto take a little bit from that by
mixing this lie into it and renderedit meaningless because there's in such a small

(18:52):
city, there's no way he couldhave not known about it. And actually
I know somebody in Peak Skill who, like about thirty years ago, was
a drug addict who actually knew StephenCuttingham, who used to get high with
Stephen Cuttingham, and she told methat in the course of them getting high
together sometimes in their conversation they wouldtalk about the murder. I mean,

(19:17):
he wouldn't say anything to let onor give any clue that he was the
perpetrator, but they would talk aboutthe crime, and they would talk about
me being arrested and found guilty ofit. So I know that there's no
way aside from the fact that thiswas a huge media deal and every time
I went to court it was abig media moment. There's no way he
could have not known that I wasdoing time for his crime. So you

(19:42):
did sixteen years now when you werefound guilty. What kind of emotions were
going through through your mind? Sure? But can I just quickly whenever you
happen to trial, Let me justdo the trial really quickly, and then
I fin I'm right to that.Yeah. So before the trial, the
DNA doesn't match me. It showsthat seminal fluid found in and around the

(20:04):
victim didn't match me. But theprosecutor got the medical et ceminter to commit
fraud, to commit perjury. Sosix months after doing this autopsy, once
the DNA doesn't match me, hesuddenly says, try to follow this.
Now it's going to be tricky.He remembered that he forgot to document medical

(20:29):
evidence, which he claims showed thatAngela was promiscuous, which is how the
process. Aha, that is howthe DNA doesn't match Deskovic, and yet
he's guilty. She was sleeping around. Matter of fact, she slept around
the day that she was murdered,and then she mentioned then he mentioned the
person by name, the other youthby name. But he claimed that stept

(20:52):
with the victim but he never triedto set the proper evidentiary foundation, so
he never didn't call him as awitness testimony, didn't get a blood sample
to do DNA testing, just maybeunsupported argument to the jury. The police
officers left the threat and false promiseout of their testimony when they came to
court. The public defender I hadessentially didn't defend me. He didn't present

(21:18):
my alibi. I told him whoI was with and what I was doing.
I was playing with football when thecrime happened. He never explained the
jury the significance of the DNA notmatching me, never used that to challenge
the confession. Literally didn't ask themedical examin or any questions. He said,
you're going to be pleased to knowthat I don't have a single question
for you. Then he should havenever represented me, because this other youth

(21:42):
of the prosecutor was falsely saying itslept. But the victim was represented by
another member the same public defender agency, which prevented us from asking him for
a sample, which prevented the defensefrom calling him as a witness. He
would not allow me to testify.He said it wasn't his job to prove
that I was innocent. He wasup to the prosecution to prove I was

(22:03):
guilty. That's a very naive wayof practicing law. You have to answer
the confession, you have to uh, you have to explain the confession.
You have to you have to youhave to bring it all together in your
closing argument, you know. Buthe didn't do that. Instead he told
that he argued to the jury sometimesa confession never happened. Other times he

(22:25):
said it did happen, but itwas coerced that still. Other times he
was arguing it was false. Theother two irregularities in my trial is the
judge allowed the polygraphists to repeatedly tellthe jury that I that I lied when
I denied committing the crime, sohe told the jury that I failed the

(22:45):
polygraph. And lastly, when thejury asked to see the victim's bra,
which had been entered into evidence,that's when the judge said, well,
the bra was left in the courtover the weekend and the janitors thought it
was garbage, so it was thrownout. It's not available anymore. And

(23:06):
he replaced the bra with a photoin which he said that you could almost
see the bra. And lastly,on the third day of the jury deliberation,
they sent out a note and asked, well, if we can't come
up with the verdict, we're goingto be kept sequested over the Christmas holiday.
I learned many years later. Atthat point it was eleven oh one
for a conviction, but there wasa holdout juror. But they were all

(23:29):
pressing the holdout, and when thejudge gave that answer, they really ratcheted
up the pressure and nobody wanted tobe there over the Christmas holiday, including
the juror, so he switched hisvote and I was found guilty. Any
comment on that before I get youa question about my reaction, go ahead.
Well, first off, if ajanitor is cleaning at courtroom and sees

(23:49):
a bra, my reaction, ifI was a janitor would not be,
oh, this is trash. Itwould be why the hell is there a
bra in the courtroom. It dependson the courtroom. Well, it was
a bra, it was a bra, It was her moccasin's, it was
it was a pair of genes,and it was all in like a brown
paper bag. Okay, but evenso, it's a court it's a courtroom.

(24:15):
You don't you don't look you don'tknow what it is. I mean,
why would that's that? But buton the judicial level, why would
you even leave evidence in the opencourt like that? And wouldn't you give
instruction a court personnel and security,hey don't touch that, or why wouldn't
you lock that up in a andyou know, in in a closet or
something, right, Well, itsounds like it. It is just a

(24:41):
I would say, an amazing amountof effort put in to willfully ignore procedure
and due process because you know,you know, it's like that old sailing.
You know, it better that ahundred guilty people go free than one

(25:06):
innocent man and go to prison.Right, But in this case, you
know, it sounds like and correctme if I'm wrong, But they were
so desperate because of the small communitythat you were in to get this buttoned
up that they were going to youknow, it's almost like taking a puzzle
piece and jamming it in because youjust want to get the puzzle finished right,

(25:29):
right, And that's what it soundslike they were trying to do with
you. No matter what, theywere going to try to make it fit.
Yes, I agree with that.I agreed. There was a lot
of public pressure on the police solveto solve the crime. And there was
also pressure from the state police becausethe victim's family went to the state police
and said, look, we don'tthink they have enough experience, we don't

(25:52):
think they know what they're doing.Can you guys take over the investigation,
which they didn't do, but theytold the big skilled police that, you
know, they had been approached,So, you know, yet yet another
level of pressure, right and upto this point, like, did you
think without a doubt that you werenot going to be found guilty? Yes,
up until this point, I thoughtwithout a doubt that I was going

(26:15):
to be found not guilty because tomy way of thinking, at least up
until that point in time, onlyguilty people were convicted. So to answer
your question, when I was foundguilty, uh so they I was kind
of like in a stunned disbelief.It felt like it was like a nightmare
of surreal surrealness. So the firstthree, you know, the first three

(26:37):
charges because they had read you know, charged me with different theories of murder.
The first three charges they read off. You know, the jury found
me guilty, not guilty of soI hear it, not guilty, not
guilty, not guilty. Then Isuddenly hear guilty, and well, whoa,
whoa, Wait a minute, waita minute, did I Did I
just hear that? Right? DidI miss the word not? They they

(26:59):
can't guilty? Guilty? Oh mygoodness. And so are you still sixteen
at this time? Or are youseventeen? O? I'm yeah, I
was, so I was sixteen whenI was arrested. I had turned seventeen
just before a couple of months beforethe trial. So right now, I'm
seventeen, okay. And they didn't, I mean, there was no juvenile
detention. You went to straight prison, right. I was given a fifteen

(27:23):
to life sentence because I had beencharged it and tried as an adult,
so they sentenced me as an adult. The judge sentenced me, by the
way, despite saying to me,maybe you are innocent. And then I
was sent Then I was sent toa men's maximum security at prison, where
I would stay for sixteen years.Before we get into the yes, the

(27:47):
term that you you served, let'sjump back to sort of the investigation part
of it, and sure things thatled up to your false confession. So
you and if I remember right fromlistening to some of the other interviews.
You were in private school and thenyou wanted to be in a public school,
right, right, Yes, soyou already kind of had a social

(28:11):
disadvantage, would you say yes,I would say that, yeah, yes,
because I was totally unfamiliar with thepeople in the public school. So
my calculation in purposely failing the parochialschool entrance exam so that I could go
to the public high school, whichis right next door, rather than a
Catholic school that my mother wanted meto do, is because after school,

(28:33):
I was kind of a popular kid, and you know, and almost all
of my friends were going to publicschool, and you know, and usually
whatever I would suggest would be whatwe would do. If we're going to
play monopoly, or ride bikes,or go swimming or shoot, you know,
shoot hoops or play stickball or anynumber of other games that we did,
would usually be what I would do. And I had a really fun

(28:55):
time. I was, you know, I liked I was athletic and energetic.
So I thought, well, letme go instead of this dreary life
that I have at school, whereit's a different life, let me go
to the public high school where Ican be in with all my friends,
not realizing that, look, they'renot going to be in my classes.
I'm a little bit I'm like oneor two years older than most of them.

(29:18):
But the kids in the school,in the grade I'm going to are
going to be a little bit olderthan me because I skipped the I got
skipped in the first grade because Iwas I was advanced in the kindergarten.
So all of that resulted in myyou know, being on the fringes of
the society in the high school,which is what led people to suggest to

(29:42):
the cops to look at me,which is what got the ball rolling.
What when you say, got theball rolling? Like? What was like?
What were some of the things thatwere being said to kind of direct
the cops your way. All Iever learned was that was that some of

(30:02):
the police, some of the kids, told the police they might want to
look at me because I was Iwas quiet to myself. But I was
actually the third suspect. So itstarted off that they were suspicious of the
victim's stepfather, but he ended uphiring a retired NYPD police officer to investigate,

(30:26):
and that was persuasive to the peaceskilled police, so they moved on
from him as a suspect, andthe next person they looked at was the
youth that they later would falsely claimthat had slept with the victim. They
started doing these same rough house tactics, you know, bringing him too the
police station, you know, notallowing him to leave, you know,

(30:49):
the suggressive questioning. But the differencebetween him and I is he had a
stepfather in the home, and thestepfather got way into what was going on,
went down to the police station.They wouldn't let him in to see
a step son, you know.Eventually they did, and he went and
got an attorney for his step son. So at that point they moved on

(31:11):
from him and focused in on me. Yeah, so they were going after
the one person that didn't have representation, didn't have somebody fighting for him.
You're the easiest target, right,well, and they also pursued you differently.
They didn't they didn't make you feellike you were being a suspect,
right. They would start out thatway, and and you know, in
each encounter and then when they wouldpush too hard, I want to get

(31:33):
away from that's when they you know, this junior detective helper thing, and
you know that also was facilitated bytheir good cop, bad cop routine because
my father was never involved in mylife in any aspect. You know,
when I was still in my mother'swomb, he wanted to get out of
financial responsibility. So even back then, he was pretending that I wasn't his
okay, So that intersected with thegood cop, bad cop routine because I

(31:59):
began to look up to the copwas pretending to be my friends as a
father figure. So they kept meoff balance. And really they're grown adults,
they're in law enforce when I'm asixteen year old, and honestly speaking,
they overreached me. And did yourwhen they first approached you, did

(32:21):
you inform your mom that they differredto you. Yeah, the first time
that they approached me, they did. They intercepted me on my way to
school. They convinced me to godown to the police station to talk to
them. You know, they weretelling me they needed my help, and
I told them I don't know anythingabout the crime. I don't see how
I can be helpful, but theywanted me to be helpful anyway, and
they persisted, and so I wentto the police station and I was there

(32:45):
from the time they intercepted me aroundaround eight o'clock in the morning till about
one point thirty in the afternoon.So I wound up telling my I wound
up telling my mother, and shetold me she didn't want me to interact
with the police. But then thepolice reached out to me through one of
my best friends at the time.The cops would like to talk to you,

(33:07):
you know, and I was sixteenyears old, and you know,
I had been despite my mother notwanting me to talk to them. You
know, we were raised in generalto the police that you know, respect
the police, and you know they'reyour friend, they're there to help.
I didn't know. I didn't Ifigured I don't know, I didn't do
it, and I know I don'tknow anything about it, so I don't

(33:27):
see what could possibly happen, whatcould possibly go wrong. And then their
feet and my ego, and thenthey're appealing to you know, what the
career is when I want to havewhen I grew up, they got you
know, they know I wanted tobe a cop, and you know,
Jeff is a junior detective helper andyou know, and at sixteen, that's
that's the age when kids start topush back against the authority. Of their
parents, and you know, youwant individuality and rebellion, and you know,

(33:52):
and our parents are all dumb.We know better than them, except
that my mother did know better thanme, right, you know, I
if I may ask, at anypoint while they were the police, who
And I think what you're saying ringsso true because you know, I remember
back to grade school, and youknow, we would be given these you

(34:15):
know, worksheets, you know,and you see a police officer on there.
It's like, if you're ever introuble, go to a police officer,
go to a firefighter, you knowwhat I mean. Like we're taught
from a young age to respect thoseauthority figures and they are there to help.
I mean, it's only until webecome adults when you know, you
learn I'm from the government, I'mhere to help. As a threatening phrase.

(34:36):
But at any point during your we'lljust call it your interrogations, did
you say, you know, maybeI should talk to a lawyer. Did
that ever come, like come toyour mind? Did you ever say that?
And did they ever say you don't, you don't, you don't need
one of those No, that nevercame. That never came to my mind.

(34:59):
You know, I do want tosay on the semi semi related note
that every time they came to thatportion of the miranda warnings where they would
say, you know, anything yousay can it will be used against you
in a court of law. Youknow, you have a right to an
attorney, and you know if youcan't afford an attorney, we want to
be provided to you. I remembermy mind would go to what I saw
on TV and different civil court contexts, and I remember thinking to myself,

(35:23):
court, what are you talking about. We're not we're not We're not going
to court, right, So Inever had any idea. But even with
them saying even so my age notunderstanding that. But then further they're keeping
me off balance with this Jeff asa junior detective helper thing, mm hmm.
And then at one point or oreven several points, they actually took

(35:46):
you to the crime scenes. Correct, that's right, correct, Yes,
And that's what I was alluding toearlier when I mentioned they you know that
they gave me details. They tookme to the crime scene at night,
and you know they're pointing out,well, you know this happened here,
and that happened there, and youknow the body was found over here with
leaves. It almost it almost seemedlike, you know, whoever did this,

(36:08):
you know, despite doing this actof violence, was now trying to
protect her by putting leaves over herbody to try to protect the body from
the elements. Is that what happened, Jeff? Is that you know?
Is that? Is that what happened? So they they gave me all these
details and then they showed me,they showed me all these uh graphic photos

(36:30):
of the crime scene and including photoswhere you know, her body is in.
So they did everything wrong. Theydid all of that is what's referred
to as I'm sure Shank will confirmin a second, uh, that's all
called contamination. Oh, absolutely,without question, without question. You know.

(36:53):
But the thing is that they theywere imprinting is what they're doing on
you when they're they're putting these tacticsin and then when they say is that
is that's what's you know, what'shappening, Jeff? You know you're probably
not even thinking about it. You'resixteen. Well, yeah, that that
sounds about right, officer, Imean, because you're correct. Well yeah,

(37:15):
I mean I as a junior detective, I think that sounds about right.
And they're you know it's yes,yes, you got no one ever,
no other hosts ever like figured thatout before. That's so crazy.
Have you ever seen the movie mycousin Vinny I have, yes, Remember
when the officer is talking to RalphMaccio and he says, and so that's

(37:38):
when you shot him and he goes, I shot him, and he goes,
yeah, you shot him, hegoes, I shot That's what this
seems like, where they're just likethey're putting words and thoughts into your mouth
and you're not even like it's noteven cluing into you at the point that
point, but they're just checking offboxes, going yeah, we got this

(37:59):
kid, what an ex mayor exactly? And then on top of that again
I want to keep I want toemphasize too, They're they're phrasing these questions
like opinion questions, like in mymind, I'm I'm giving you my opinion
like you said, is the juniordetective helper? Okay, I'm not telling
you what I did. I knowhow to speak about myself if I'm telling

(38:21):
you what I did, but butthat's not what is occurring. I'm I'm
I'm just I'm just oh, pindingmy you know, I'm just so I'm
just so pinding, and you knowthey're egging me on, and you know,
well, you're you're doing remarkably well, You're you're doing remarkable. You're
doing remarkably. Are you using acomputer? You know, computers, because

(38:43):
you know you're very accurate in allthis stuff, and you know, computers
can do some really amazing things,and right, and you're it's nineteen eighty
nine, so computers, you know, back then are nothing like they were.
I mean it barely even existed,right, right, But they're doing
that to try to, you know, to try to like flatter me and
to try to you know, now, I gotta kind of, you know,

(39:06):
I gotta kind of live up tothat. You know, I can't.
I can't. I can't. Ican't like start shooting their scenarios down
and say, no, I don'tthink it's that. First of all,
how what other alternative, you know, what life experience would I have had?
Even just to try to guesstimate thisscenario versus this other scenario, I
try to handicap it in my mind, and you know what's more likely to

(39:28):
have happened. I'm not able todo all of that I gotta. I
don't have a choice but to goalong with what you're saying because I don't
have the ability to generate my ownscenario. How long? How long did
this? How was this time?Spence? This was about six weeks?
This was six This was six weeks. Were you still going to school throughout
this? I was still going toschool with throughout this. Yes, But

(39:49):
I do have one question that I'mgoing to guess the answer is that it
didn't go through your mind. Butwere you asking kids like, hey,
have you been going to getting pulledby the cops? Say? Have you
been going to? This is whatthey're doing with me? All right?
So I didn't ask that, butI did hear through the rumor mill that
a couple of other people were questionedby by by the police. That's so

(40:10):
you weren't really thinking that, Oh, it's just me, No exactly,
No, I thought it was Iknow this is going to sound crazy to
say, but I thought it wasnormal. I don't think that's not That's
not all I am. This isthis is off subject and I'm gonna be
very quick with it. But youknow I was I was abused as a

(40:31):
child for about seven years and whenmy mom finally left, I thought,
that's how every kid's life was,you know. So when I got we
got away from that, it waslike, wait a minute, that's not
how it is. So so Imean, I I that doesn't sound crazy
to me at all. Okay,so we've kind of discussed the interrogragation and

(40:52):
investigation and they're basically feeding you yourfalse confession. That's literally what correct and
when you were found. I mean, is there anything else that you want
to touch based on on this beforewe moved towards your time and incarcerated.
No, that's everything. Okay,how about you, Sean, you got
you got any questions for him beforewe get into the trial and the incarceration,

(41:15):
Well, you know, not knowingwhat your support system was like at
the time. So I can tellyou that. I can tell you that.
So really it was just my motherand my aunt. Now we had
heard so I had an uncle,Bye Bye by marriage that was in law
enforcement, and he conveyed to usthat the intel he collected was that the

(41:38):
trial lawyer that I had from thePublic Defender's office was supposed to be their
their best trial lawyer. So wewere under impression that we were, we
were in good hands, you know. He he didn't. He met with
me very few times. When Itried to ask him, like what our
strategy and everything else is, He'slike, look, kid, look,

(41:58):
you're a teenager. You be thedefendant. Let me be the lawyer.
You already thought that you were smarterthan adults already once. Okay, and
you see how that turned out.So you got arrested. So want you
to sit back and let me letme do my job. Okay. So
that's that. And he took avery narrow view of attorney client privilege.

(42:23):
He actually, my lawyer found away to use attorney client privilege against me,
meaning that he would not allow myuncle, he wouldn't allow my mother.
He wouldn't allow my mother's stepfather tobe included in any of the strategic
decisions that we made that had tomake in the course of the trial,
such as whether or not I wasgoing to testify or not, such as

(42:49):
whether we're going to have a benchtrial, which decided by a judge,
or a jury trial. So hewould not, he wouldn't. So I
was essentially cut off, and frankly, I was in over my head.
I only understood what was going onin the court run only but to a
certain extent, right, so Ididn't have any real support in terms of

(43:13):
that or understanding the process, orhaving adults to think with me. And
no, it sounds like you were, I mean basically isolated, you know.
And what's seventeen year old is goingto have the mental wherewithal to you
know, be able to stand upin court and say no, this isn't
I mean that the amount of pressurethat you must have been under must have

(43:36):
been just stultifying. I can't evenimagine. But what And this might sound
a bit conspiracy theorist on my end, but to me, the way this
is all stacking up it to me, it literally sounds like your public defender
on some level seems like he wasin cahoots with the rest of the public

(43:59):
officials to get this thing wrapped up. Because, as you said, to
take such a narrow view of whatthat means in basically telling his client,
you know what, shut the hellup, kid, I got this when
he or she in fact did nothave it at all all. Right,
that's exactly that's that's exactly right.So last thing on this that we'll move

(44:20):
to the prison. But as acallery to that in support of that.
When I've had lunch with many attorneysin Westchester County, they they they frequently
I'm frequently asked, well, whatwas the name of the public defender that
you had? And when I givethe name, they're all very surprised because
they say, wow, well,I've had cases with them, I've I've

(44:44):
tried cases alongside them, I've triedI've tried cases against him. He's a
very good trial lawyer. I don'tI don't understand what what what? What
the heck happened here because a lotof these things that we're talking about.
I mean, you know, agood a good third year law student would
know not to do. Yeah,so what do you think? I mean

(45:07):
jukebox? I mean, what doesthat sound like to you? No?
I mean you know and today,So I grew up through sort of the
social media exploding, you know,because I graduated in O seven and so
I remember having a pager. So, but the way social media is now
and doing this interview with you,it's almost in a sense stereotypical based on

(45:32):
some of the things you see onsocial media now having to deal with federal
things. But back when I wasmaybe in high school and you didn't have
your TikTok and your Facebook and stuff. This is just shocking. So I
imagine you as a high school student, did I mean, this is just
a flip of a switch when whenyou were found guilty. Yes, it

(45:55):
was. I was really expecting tobe acquitted, because that's what all the
adults are around me, we're tellingme. I want to add that as
I went to court, you know, and every time I went to court,
it was this major media moment.It was everything from it was it
was a from a guilt presumptive orientedperspective of all the media coverage. So

(46:15):
it was a scary and out ofcontrol feeling in the newspapers and talking,
you know, like if I'm guilty, and and the only views were probably
saying that you were guilty. Becausethere's again, social media didn't really exist
besides a newspaper. So whether peoplewere reading in town or anything, I'm

(46:38):
guessing even when you were incarcerated,people who saw news articles, which we'll
get to that, I'm sure we'reprobably like, oh, look, look
what this guy did, right exactly, and the fact that you know,
the fact that there was a falseconfession lent credibility to that. Yeah.
So so you're found guilty, You'reseventeen years old. Your whole world is

(47:00):
just being flipped upside down. Whatwas the process of getting incarcerated? So
when I got convicted, I wastaken into custody immediately, I mean I
had I was on I was onbail. When you get your found guilty,
they you know, they take youinto custody right away. And it

(47:21):
was a very difficult adjustment to beto be incarce I you know, I've
got sentence. We discussed that andthen shortly after that, I was transferred
to a reception center, which isthe first prison you go to. And
in a reception center, your yourlike the name implies your your You're assessed,
they do psychological assessment, they domedical assessment, they issue your supplies.

(47:43):
All the information is conveyed to youknow, the headquarters, Department of
correction, headquarters, and they determinewhat prison your your best suitor to be
sent to for your your first facility. So I wound up being sent to
Elmira Correctional Facility, which was formore and a half hours from where I
lived. Elmira had the reputation asin junior junior gladiator school. Uh,

(48:07):
shake and elaborate on that given hisname in the moment. But there was
you know, there was three orfour stampings of cuttings every day. You
know, a lot of a lotof violence that didn't involve weapons. There
was gang activity so Q movie.There was a general environment of violence and
adrenaline that permeated the air. Theguards were unprofessional, most of them.

(48:30):
Some were professional, did their job, most of them did not. And
you know, there was a lotof verbal abuse and some were lazy and
they would not break fights up andbecause they didn't want to, they didn't
want to have to file paperwork andpossibly get injured. So food was terrible,
was it was Sometimes it wasn't fullycooked all the time. It was

(48:50):
other times it was other times itwas burnt. It was difficult adjustice to
being in a cell. So,okay, so you're already a quiet kid,
right, So you're you're going intothis environment which I can't imagine is

(49:12):
quiet on any level. It's noton any level. No, it's very
very loud. Yeah, So it'sallowed you know a lot of testosterone,
a lot of kind of assume Lordof the Flies you know, insanity,
what kind of how long or didyou even have the ability to think I

(49:35):
don't belong here? This isn't right? Or is it? Just like?
Man, I have got to getmyself acclimated to this, you know,
or I'm not going to make itthrough because I'm just sitting here thinking about
the mental gymnastics a person would haveto go through, you know, being
innocent, knowing knowing that you're innocent, and you're you're in a bas a

(50:00):
place full of miscreants and nary wells. Right, Well, it was it
was both, so I'll go intothat a little bit. So I remember
when I first arrived in Almira,the guards asked me, well do you
want to do you want to goto protective custody? And I'm like,
well, what's what's that? Well, if you felt that your life was
in danger, which you know itlikely would be given given what you're you

(50:22):
know, you're charged with, yougotta you know, if you just had
the murder, it'd be fine,except that there's a ripe attached to it,
so you're not. You know,the only way we could protect you
that would be if you told usyou felt your life was in danger and
and well, if I do that, what would that actually be like.
Well, you'd be kept in thecell twenty three hours a day and you
go out to recreation by yourself,you know, and take a shower,

(50:44):
use the phone, you know,use the TV. You'd be by yourself.
It's just an hour you'd be inyour cell. Besides that, you
can't go to recreation. You can'tdo any educational is going to be in
the cell. And so at seventeenthe thought crossed my mind. I made
a snap decision, because you haveto let them know what you're going to
do. And I thought to myself, well, look, I already can't

(51:04):
believe that I'm here. I stillcan't believe everything I've seen, you know,
the prison wall, the barbed wire, all the cue visual cues that
letting me know I'm incarcerated for somethingI didn't do. That this is I
can't believe that this has actually happened. But I think to myself, despite
that, you know, I'm notgoing to agree to a set of conditions
that's going to make my situation gofrom bad to worse. So I'm just

(51:29):
going to go to general population andtake my chances, and if somebody kills
me. Well, I guess Idon't have to worry about doing the rest
of this life sentence anymore that Ihave now do I I do want to
just step in real quick. There'sseveral people watching. If you guys have
questions, leave them in the comments. I'll throw them up on the screen

(51:49):
and we can discuss them. Butjust that mindset right there that you said
about, well, if I getkilled, I get killed. I mean,
that's it's emotionally, that's just it'sso corrupt in itself that that you're
at that point just based on likethe way you were treated through this whole

(52:10):
trial, through the whole thing.Yeah, it is. And uh,
you know, I want to sayit was very hard for me to adjust
being in a cell. I meaninitially I just try to, you know,
sleep things off whenever I was inthe cell. But you know,
that's that's not a healthy way of, you know, dealing with things the
extent that any way of dealing withanything in prison could be considered to be

(52:30):
healthy. But I had to keepfighting off feelings of hopelessness, helplessness,
thoughts of giving up. Of course, you know, you entertain suicide,
but you know, I but youknow, I maybe I have a cow
Maybe I had a coward's line ofreasoning and not committing suicide. I think,
well, if I do try tocommit suicide and this didn't doesn't go

(52:51):
right, then, you know,then then maybe maybe this won't go right
either, and now I'm going tostill be in here wrongfully, only now
I'm going to be my next brokeor maybe I'm stuck in a wheelchair,
so I better not do that,and you know, and then I'm thinking,
also, you know, I haveno choice. I can't give in
to the thought. Okay, Iwant to just lay down in the damn

(53:13):
bed. I don't want to gothrough the prison life process. I don't
want to talk. I don't wantto go through the whole routine. I
feel like just just laying there inone great big protest and just lose my
mind. Except that I can't dothat because nobody's coming to my rescue.
And so if I'm going to getthe hell out of here, I'm going

(53:34):
to have to try to hold ittogether, to try to find somebody that
doesn't exist at present. And theonly way I can do pull off that
miracle, you know, Slim,is the hope might be I have to
have no choice but to hold ittogether. So have all those dynamics.
And you know, I had afew some advice along the way, Like

(53:57):
you know, one old timer suggested, look, you got to go to
law library and study that. Youknow, Look you should. You don't
waste your time being a janitor calledthe porter. You know, get to
ged, you know, go togo to college. Take the programs that
you you should take. You know, Look, don't get involved in the
prison politics. You know. Anotherperson here, here's some prison survival tactics.

(54:19):
You know, so all all ofall of those, all those But
it's not like somebody put me underthe wing like in a cohort fashion going
forward. It's more that one personhad one nugget of wisdom or another.
They played their role in giving thatsome I mean, then they moved on.
And you know, I'm the onlyconstant in the in the story,
you know, the in the contry, in the contrast. So I know,

(54:44):
we're very focused on what's going onon the inside. But as you're
talking, you're telling me these things, my brain's going to Yeah, and
on the outside, what's going onwith the family. Are these guys all
pat in each other on the back, like, yeah, good job,
we got this guy. You know, like, you know, everything is
honky dory outside and you're you're tuckedaway inside. I mean, it's just

(55:06):
like, what is the what isthe contrasting? Well, they got a
lot of credit, but they gota lot of credit for solving the case.
And the lieutenant went on to becomea police chief based in part on
his overseeing you know, their solvingthis case. And you know, there
was lots of accolades. All therewas a it was a textbook case that
they developed, and that was allsaid publicly. That was that phrase was

(55:32):
was said text others. I wouldlove to see the textbook. I write
books and I can't imagine putting somethingtogether like that and saying yeah, this
is good, this is good authorshiptext. Yeah, this is this is
the model. This is the model. We got to more follow like this.
This was a mob hit is whatit is. So the the other

(55:53):
inmates when you when you were broughtin, were they aware of what you're
brought in for? They were not. No, So I kept my head
down. I tried to avoid beingattracting any attention because I wanted to minimize
you know that you know, forthe for the most part, I don't
think most people realized throughout the years. But there were at times where that

(56:15):
did, where that did happen.There were some times where I was beat
up. One time I nearly lostmy life. I mean that the lowest
point, the most difficult time ofthat is I was sent from Elmira to
Shiwangank. There was a high concentrationof old timers there, so that whole
vigilanting mentality was fairly ingrained into theirpsyche. And you know, people went

(56:37):
to the law library and made copiesof my case. Because you do an
appeal, the decision comes out inthe law book. So you know,
it wasn't a lot happening in Elmira. So people were boards, they got
into each other's business, and sopeople went to the law library and you
know, they made photo copies inmy case, and they were you know,
they stapled it to the to thebulletin board and they were passing it,

(56:58):
passing it out to people. Asyou might imagine what the impact of
that was. Uh, you know, everybody turned hostile, and the few
and the few that did not turnhostile, they you know, just they
want nothing to do with me justbecause of the politics of it. And
you know, I I, Iwas very very dangerous. So that that

(57:21):
that's where you know, I gothit multiple times on the side of my
head with a ten pound weight platelike you might put on, like if
you're doing like flat you're doing likeflat bench. And yeah, you know,
got scars on my hands and Igot hit multiple times, you know,
almost lost my life on almost lostmy life on that one. And
on top of that, I mean, you know, I you know,

(57:42):
I you know, they could haveyou know, they asked both of us
to go well, the security askedboth of us, did either one of
us want to press charges against theother one? You know, So I
mean I could I very nearly caughtanother case, while I very nearly what
I very nearly caught another another caseright there, just from defending yourself in

(58:06):
just just from just from defending myself. Yeah, my goodness. So you
clearly took a steered away from thesuicidal aspect of it, and you got
I mean, you started learning readingbooks. I started learning, started learning
the loss. I started going tolaw library because I didn't trust lawyers to
defend me anymore given what happened atthe trial. Okay, so that's just

(58:34):
all a nervous laugh. Okay,yeah. Watch so I I used to
also collect articles about people that wereexonerated. You know, I would want
to study who helped them, whatroute did they take. I would also
use the articles as motivation to keepgoing. Uh. Then then also,
you know, I was not goingto my prison assignment in the morning and

(58:59):
my prisoners signment at night. I'mgoing to school and I'm going to work.
And it's not the prison guard,it's the correction officer, and it's
not the warden, it's the superintendent. And you know, you settle into
a routine. And I took itall kinds of educational programs. I got
ged associates, I got towards ayear towards the bachelor's when they took cut

(59:21):
the funding for college education for prisoners. I did plumbing General Business I which
pertains the different usages of the computerand workforce, setting computer repair, plumbing,
painting, food service. I learned. I took a class on how
adults learned, and then I workedas a teacher's aid for a year and
a half. Then from ninety eightto two thousand and six, I read

(59:45):
three or four nonfiction books a week, and you know, my appeals were
ultimately over. I began, youknow, the only way back into court
is if you can find some somenew evidence. But you know, I
would kind of I'd like to justdiscuss a little bit about the appeal process
and how I was. It's notready, yeah, okay, So the

(01:00:07):
first court went to the Pelop division. My lawyer argued, I have a
different lawyer now now now I actuallyhave a real lawyer. Okay, that's
trying hard, novel concept that thatis. So the lawyer argues that I'm
innocent based on a DNA. Theyargued it was legally insufficient evidence, the
prosecution had improven guilt beyond a reasonabledoubt, and that the verdict was against

(01:00:28):
the way the evidence. They arguedthat my Fifth Amendment rights have been violated
by the way I've been questioned.They argued that my right to confront my
accusers, my sixth Amendment right hadbeen violated because the judge, while allowing
the polygraphists to tell that you kepttelling the jury I failed, blocked by
lawyer from asking him questions on themethods he used. The evidence being thrown

(01:00:50):
out was argued and the judge beingbiased, all told ten issues of law,
we're argued. The prosecution answered,you know one thing that sticks out,
I'm gonna mention they wrote, Nowthis is a lawyer, now,
okay, with a law degree,law educated, legal education, knows what
DNA is. That they wrote thata negative d N A test is no

(01:01:15):
insulation to a guilty verdict. Andthen then the so then I'm gonna just
answer this thing and I'll let chankit in because I can see, you
know he wants to want Uh Sotheir their decision. They're just watching you.
Let's take your comment because it's becauseit because it's gonna I tell you,

(01:01:37):
the court decision on all of thisis that that's gonna take you for
a loop. Right. I'm justthat's that's a kid is saying, like,
look, just because you're innocent doesn'tmean you're not guilty. I mean
that is essentially what you just said. Yeah, I said, what is

(01:02:00):
not? Are we in clown world? What is going on? Now?
If you think that's something? Wheredo you get a load of this?
Yeah? Okay, the court thecourt said that you know, I was
free to come and go as Iwanted, and therefore the statements were all
voluntary. They wrote that there wasoverwhelming evidence of guilt, which doesn't make

(01:02:23):
sense because the DNA doesn't match me. They have this confession obtained under highly
questionable circumstances, and they got theDNA tests which shows I didn't do it.
And then they they knocked out allof my other issues. In one
sentence, they wrote, they lookedat my remaining contentions and found them either

(01:02:43):
to be either either without merit orelse not preserved for review. And they
ruled against me five nothing on that, and they all went downhill. They
denied. From there, they deniedthe reargument motion one word denied. The
New York Court of Appeals declined togive me permission to appeal to them,

(01:03:06):
So I lost there. You're goingto really love this one. I lost
in the federal court because the courtclerk gave my lawyer the wrong information pertaining
to the filing procedure, as aresult of which my petition arrived four days
too late, which former wests ofthe aged piro her office took the position
that those four days were prejudicial tothe government, so the court should just

(01:03:30):
rule I was late and close thecase, which is which is what the
court did. I appealed that rulingto the Federal Court of Appeals, where
Judge Rosemary Pooler and future US SupremeCourt Justice Sonya sort of major upheld that
decision. Then they denied my reargumentmotion, and then the Supremes declined to

(01:03:55):
give me permission to appeal to them. That's the end to my appeals.
I'm permanently locked out of the courtunless I could find some previously unknown evidence
of innocence, which probably would haveled to a different outcome. I mean,

(01:04:15):
I imagine Shanks the same as me. It's speechless, how how and
it's inappropriate and disrespect and then thelegal and federal courts on how they're handling
any of this at every at everyturn. Like I look, guys,

(01:04:36):
I have massive love for the lawand our system of justice. Obviously imperfect,
but I think it's one of thebest in the world when it's applied
properly. But it just seems obviouslyup to the highest level that I mean,

(01:04:58):
were you just born under a badside I did? Or what is
going on here? So I wroteletters for four years trying to find an
attorney or investigator because I don't haveany money. My family doesn't have any
money. And by the way,you know, by you know, my
mother was my only consistent visitor,but the last five six years she came
once every six months. My grandmotherpassed away while I was in prison.

(01:05:23):
My brother, who's three and ahalf years younger than I am, came
three times in sixteen years, notat all in the last decade. And
a few different and a few differentsets of aunts and uncles which you would
come, then disappear for three yearsand would go on. So for most
intents and purposes, though not totally, I essentially did the time by myself.

(01:05:45):
So I'm writing letters looking for anyonewho could help me, law firms,
nonprofits, faith based or organizations,anyone and everyone I could think of,
even if someone wasn't in the legalworld. If in my mind I
could come up with an action thatsomebody could take that could set in motion
a chain of events that ultimately culminatedinto my getting the representation I needed,

(01:06:09):
I wrote the letter. So thatwas my legal work for for four years.
And you actually did put out afew articles for pen pals, correct,
I did. I put a fewads out for pen pals. Yeah,
that was that was part of it, and actually that was good that
I did that, because you know, I had read that some other people

(01:06:30):
were exonerated. They came in contactwith pen pals, and you know,
events of the conversation rolled around toand by the way, what are you
doing in there in the first place? And that came. That opened the
door for them to discuss their case, and ultimately the pen pal, through
one route or another, connected somebodyto the legal help that they needed.
So that was py alteria motive andplacing the had I mentioned that I was

(01:06:53):
interested in the DNA. I didput an ad out in the Sacramento b
which was a random newspaper that anotherprisoner told me about, and I decided
to go with that because the firsttwo ads I put out were in New
York publications. And so the firsttime a prison guard from a different prison.
I wasn't even in or burned correctionalfacility. I was in Elmira,

(01:07:15):
but a guard saw my ad andhe interpreted my ad in which I was
beyond looking for the pen pal,I'm mentioning a innocent and you know,
maybe you can help me with alawyer. Maybe you could do fundraising events
to help me. I that wasinterpreted at that I was violating the prison
rule of solicitation. So I gotin trouble for that. And then when

(01:07:39):
I placed another ad more locally thistime, someone in the prison saw it,
and I got in trouble for thattoo, And you know, the
lieutenant pulled me into his office,a sergeant rather and you know, and
I said, well, look,I'm here and I'm innocent, okay,
and I'm not trying to make aproblem institution. I'm sorry, I'm running
a pharaoh this rule. But I'mnot about to just sit back and be

(01:08:00):
quiet, and you know, justdo this life sentence. My appeals are
over and I'm going to die inhere if if I don't get if I
don't get some help, and soyou know, my appeals are shot.
The only way back in is ifI can find some new evidence. So
I have to I have to writeletters. So that's why I put the
thing in Sacramento, the sacrament ofthe I felt fairly confident that no prison

(01:08:24):
employee in New York would see myad in sacramental be but somebody, uh,
somebody answered the letter. A crimevictim of all people, you know,
wrote wrote me, and he hadhad his own brush with the law
where he felt that, you know, the cops didn't didn't do a proper

(01:08:44):
investigation, didn't give him any justice. So he wrote me, and I
was at the end of my rope, and I mean I didn't I didn't
pay attention to his suggestions because hewas in over his head. You know,
some of the suggestions. Some ofhis tactics were kind of off the
wall. I mean, he was, you know, suggesting that I write
a civilian you know, civilian complaintreview board about the cops, and these

(01:09:05):
other things that you know, werekind of ridiculous. So I ignored that
part of it and I just focusedon the morale part of his letter,
and we talked sports, and Iwas asking this stranger, Look, do
you think I should quit? Youthink I should just give up? Is
it time to just do the suicidething? Because you know, because I
wrote letters for four years and nevergot responses other than the occasional no.

(01:09:26):
And then I went to the paroleboard, where, largely based on the
fact that I maintained my innocence ratherthan expressing remorse and taking responsibility, I
was denied parole. So it wasfelt it was feeling pretty grim. I
felt like it was uh, Iwasn't going to get out of this.
So my previous generally solid hope waswavering quite a bit, and it seemed

(01:09:53):
like he showed up right in thenick of time and was encouraging me not
to commit suicide, to keep tokeep go it. And so one of
those letters, thank god, Ilistened to him, right. But one
of those letters that I sent toa book author in care of a publishing
house was instead sent to an investigator. The investigator was convinced of my innocence

(01:10:15):
based on the DNA and by theway, she never saw a case with
DNA excluded somebody and yet there wasstill a conviction. So she suggests I
write the Innocence Project again. Theythey're a nonprofit that freeze people where DNA
testing can demonstrate innocence. So shesuggested I write them. I wrote them.
I wouldn't have thought to write themagain. They previously said no because

(01:10:39):
at the time they wanted to dotesting that he wanted there to be no
prior result so that they could usethe test results as newly discovered evidence,
and I already had been excluded.So you might say that I was excluded
by the DNA a little too soonfor my own for my own goods,
so the results wouldn't have been anythingnew. But said, look, the

(01:11:00):
database has been created, so theprior denials irrelevant. So I wrote them,
and she lobbied them. She gotother people to lobby them. One
of the Intake workers. When theInterests Project didn't want to take my case,
she represented her a second time andthen then a third time getting them
to take it. So getting theirhelp was the first key. Second thing

(01:11:21):
was Pierro left office. Her successorwas not as dug In was willing to
let me get the testing. I'veheard through the rumor mill that neither one
of them liked each other. AndPiero when Pio was in the middle of
running for Attorney General in New York. And you know, I think that
I was allowed to have the testing. You know she was the DA was

(01:11:42):
hoping that I would be exonerated itwith damage her run for attorney general.
Uh, but I'll take it.However you get there, you're give me
the testing, I'll take it.So that was so at this at this
point, are you starting to getsome hope back. I'm sorry to get
a little bit of hope back,Yes, I I am. And the
third the third key is they tookthe crime. The crime seed DNA was

(01:12:04):
put into the data bank and itmatched the actual uh match the actual perpetrator
whose DNA was there because he killeda second victim. So my lawyer comes
up to see me in a surprisevisit, first and only time I saw
my lawyer. All the correspondences bythe communications either by collect quill or by
Mayo. She says, look,I'm your lawyer. She mentions her name

(01:12:27):
and says, look that the itemshave been tested. I'm like, what
do you mean. They're not supposedto be tested for another month and she
said, yeah, it's been.It's been tested. The results match the
actual perpetrator. You're going home tomorrow. Oh my god. Well hold on,
So so you have a visitor,you don't have visitors? So what's
the rhymes? Like? Like?So when they open? So? So

(01:12:50):
when they open right? So whenthey hope, I'm thinking, who the
help came to see me? Theyopen, cracked open my cell door.
I stuck my head out. You'resupposed to do that, and they said
there's a well I walk down.Well look can you guys like, call
up there and double check, becauseyou know, it's not exactly unheard of
that they would send the wrong prisonerto the visitor visiting room, right,

(01:13:13):
so they called the double checked,so that I run back and I,
you know, we I put onmy left little dress shirt. Everyone has
that little routine in person. Youhave a one shirt. Where you're going
with the visiting room is as closestyou're gonna come to be in the public,
Okay, so you don't want togo there with the with the state
green shirt. You put put onyour outside And as I'm buttoning the thing
up, as I'm going to theI'm thinking to myself, well, well,

(01:13:35):
who the hell came to see me? Right? So when I get
there and I'm at the guard deskand this lady is waving her hand like
this, and you know, Iwave back, but I'm thinking, well,
she thinks I'm somebody else, ormaybe she recon you know, recognized
me from from from Almira. SoI asked the guard, well, you
know, where's my visitor? Shepoints and it says, well, don't

(01:13:58):
you know who came to see you? And so I just I quickly said,
yeah, yeah, of course Ido, because you know, I
wasn't. I wasn't going to sayno, and you know, worry that
somehow this visit's going to be canceled. I mean, this is this is
a visit, man, this isbig. So she I got social again.
She says she's my lawyer, sayswhat I said, And you know,

(01:14:21):
my mind is on alert as soonas she identify. I'm on the
lookout for like any sign of anythingbeing abnormal because that normally spells disaster.
So she says that the items havebeen tested and I'm like, well,
no, that's not for next month. And then she says you're going home
and I said no, I'm not. And she says, yes you are.

(01:14:42):
And I said I'm not, andshe says, yes you are.
I said no, I'm not,and then she had to. I had
the three and a half hours inmental paralysis whereby I sat there and she
literally held my hand as my allthese my head is spinning, All these
thoughts are coming through my head,one thought after an other. One thought
has nothing to do with the other. None of it has anything to do

(01:15:04):
with what, you know, whatshe just told me. And every now
and then she'd cut in and say, well, are you ready to talk
about tomorrow. No, no,no, no, I'm not talking about
tomorrow, not going home. Don'tplay with me that way. I'm not
entertaining that because by that point Iwas afraid to hope anymore. I was

(01:15:27):
afraid to hope. So what madeit real at the end is she said,
look, I need to know yourshoe size, your clothing size.
We've got to get a sue.There's a ton of work to do between
now and tomorrow as far as thepress. We got to get clothed and
clothes for you. And that madeit feel real and I felt better for
five minutes, and then a differentconcern came in my head. I thought,

(01:15:51):
well, something's gonna happen between nowand tomorrow. They're going to change
their mind, gonna do what theyalways do, which is fighting, fight
me and win. Yeah, butthat didn't happen. No, thank god,
that did not happen. No,No, I was they both sides

(01:16:13):
agreed to overturn the conviction, andI was, uh uh, you know,
and they, I mean, basedon the evidence they didn't have.
There's that just squashed everything though,right, they didn't have an option besides
the correct that's true, Yes,that's true, right. And then the
person who did the crime, Cunningham, when the DNA matched him, he
you know, he eventually worked hisway around to admitting he was the one

(01:16:35):
who committed the crime. I meanhe he initially tried to deny it.
Yeah, but why would he dothat because if he knew you were in
there, he said, he wouldhave already said it. So it doesn't
make any damn sense, right right, which, just for the improves,
he lied, he lied? Yeah, man, what did what he is?

(01:16:56):
I can completely understand why you justkept saying no, no, no,
because I mean, how must thathave How did that feel? When
the Innocence Project is this one groupthat you know, everybody hears about,
and your story is i mean justwedged right into their their you know,
what they're looking for. And whenthey said no, it's I mean,

(01:17:21):
I mean, God love you man, like you talk. You said something
earlier that that kind of stuck inmy brain about you know, you know,
coward not taking the doing the suicide. It's like, no, I
would say, you had this undercurrentof strength, honestly to keep going through
all of this. I mean,you know, and then you said that

(01:17:44):
the Innocence project said no, it'sI mean, the fact that you kept
going through all of this is justamazing because I can imagine it would break
most people, and your denial atthe end there totally makes sense. But

(01:18:04):
did it feel real or did ittake a while, even after you were
out for this to be like,Okay, this is real, I'm actually
out, or yes, it did? No, it did? It did.
As a matter of fact, myfirst words even at the press conference,
you know, was is this reallyhappening? I felt like I did

(01:18:26):
it, Like I finally did it, I meaning I finally managed to lose
my mind right, And at somepoint I'm gonna wake up from all this
and I'm still going to be inthe prison cell and see the bars and
the walls and everything else. Yeah. But even after that, for a
long time, and by the way, I went from not knowing what to
say to everything everything I ever wantedto say in sixteen years but could never

(01:18:53):
get anyone to hear me came out. And just when I thought I was
finished, a different topic came inmy head, and then another one,
and before it was all said anddone, I spoke for like two two
and a half hours off off thecuff. I held the media there.
In fact, I said that Ihaven't said before. So Barry Scheck is

(01:19:15):
one of my lawyers there and myprimary attorney at the Innis's project, Nea
Morrison. So at some point hescribbles out, you remember those small pads
like this your year homework assignment thingand small thing you whip it out.
So he's standing next to me,and finally he opens the damn thing up
and he writes on there, youknow, let's you know, wrap it
up. And so I read thething and I made the decision. You

(01:19:39):
know what, man, you're gonnabe on to the next case. Okay,
doing press conferences, that's far forcourse for you. Far as I
know, I'm never gonna get infront of the media again. So I
ignored what he wrote and I justkept all speaking, man, I just
kept on. I kept on speaking. But there were many times, though,

(01:20:01):
you know, in the for fora long time where it didn't feel
real. I couldn't quite believe it. Other times I felt like a I
felt like a metaphorical tapping on theback of your shoulder, you know,
like you tap someone with a fingerand hey, well and that hey what
what what? What are you doing. Okay, you're you're not supposed to

(01:20:23):
be out here. Okay, noone else realizes it. They're supposed to
be out here. Okay, you'restill supposed to be in in prison.
So it took a while. Andother basic things like at times if at
times it felt unnatural and crazy thatI had keys, I would say the

(01:20:45):
world is probably totally you know thatthat I'm walking around and you know,
drive and eventually got a license,and I'm moving around and like nobody's keeping
track of me. There's no past, No one knows where I'm going or
what I'm doing or where I'm comingback, and you know, none of
that stuff felt natural. The worldwas different, so cell phone, GPS,

(01:21:06):
internet hadn't been created. Culture wasdifferent, The cities and towns looked
different. So I felt like afish out of water. It was awkward
when I'd meet up with my extendedfamily because they never came to see me,
and a few times and the onesthat did few and far between,
very sparse. There was the psychologicalafter effects. There was the stigma you

(01:21:30):
were in prison for sixteen years,but you were there, so how much
of that rubbed off on it?Was it safety be alone someplace with you.
I was always passed over for gainfulemployment. At one point I was
a couple of weeks away from homelyshelter. I had a particularly difficult time

(01:21:51):
because the years that I spent inprison. Like in other words, it
would have been a different dynamic ifI went to prison at thirty and came
out at forty six. But Iwent in when I was seventeen, and
I was there to thirty two.So when I got out, I had
never before lived alone. I hadnever before had a driver's license. I

(01:22:14):
never before went shopping. I hadnever wrote a check. I had never
had to balance a budget. Soall those things made everything very difficult.
Sometimes I got overwhelmed by the sheeramount of choices in a supermarket. I
interpreted that as noise. And sometimesI'd have some items and I couldn't finish.
But look, this is pushed thedamn cart away from me, and

(01:22:35):
let me leave, Or I getin trouble for pushing the cart away from
me, and I'm gonna come backand try this some other some other,
some other day. Or if Iwas out to eat with somebody, you
know, I dis ordered. Youknow I couldn't make a decision on the
menu, and so I would justI'll have the same thing you know he's
having or she's having. So itwas all very It was all a lot.

(01:23:00):
It was all very, very verydifficult. Okay, so oh,
I'm sorry, go ahead, No, I mean he literally touched based on
what I was gonna talk about.You know, he was a kid going
in so like he goes home atnight to his mom's house, you know,
where he lives. And now allof a sudden, he's a grown
adult going out there in the worldthat he just can't even doesn't even know
how to provide for himself. Reallyright, absolutely different stage of life.

(01:23:25):
Now. I have a couple ofquestions. One was a weird question,
but the main one I have rightnow is so you come out, you
know, you're you're still kind ofwaiting for the other shoot to drop.
You're acclimating back into the world,like you said, with the push in
the car away and everything. Inthe midst of all this going on,

(01:23:45):
you know, this this mailstream ofthought and sensory imagery and all these other
things that are happening, is therea repeating like tick in the back of
your mind of are you so gratefulto be out, that you you're not
thinking anything malicious or are you're lookingat this rogues gallery of prosecutors and judges

(01:24:06):
and everything else going vendetta, youknow, like I am going to sue
come after you get you like,was that there in your mind? Or
you're just like, I'm out,I'm grateful. I don't even want to
think about this at this point becauseI mean, I don't know because I

(01:24:29):
haven't been through it. But inmy mind, my human reaction would be
like, I am coming after allof you legally, don't get me wrong,
not like doing something, you knowwhat I mean, just like I'm
going to as much as I canbring the full weight of the log down
on all of your heads. Well, it was both. It was both.
I was just I was happy tobe free and you know, just

(01:24:51):
appreciating, like I said at thebeginning of the podcast, you know,
just to got to sit outside atnight because they make you go into prison
yard and the fresh air and youcan get the sunlight. And so I'm
grateful to be out. I'm gratefulto be free. But at the same
time, there is another element ofyou know, I'm going to bring the
full way of the low down oneveryone that had had a hand in what

(01:25:14):
happened to me. So I didbring a I did bring a civil I
did bring a civil suit. Soit was both. Yeah, I didn't.
I didn't. I didn't leave anybodybehind. Good, nobody taught,
nobody got away. All right.So here's my weird question for you.
You said prison food was lousy.Was there an item from the prison cafeteria

(01:25:36):
where you're not that you'd ever wantto go back to prison, but you're
like, man, this is prettydamn good. Yeah, so believe it,
so all right, So yeah,that's a good question. So I
did. I did like their tatertots and their French fries. As a
matter of fact, you know,whenever I was working, you know,
I was I would be assigned togive that out because I was the most

(01:25:58):
experienced person on the food line.But like, that was a nightmare because
everybody coming through the line has thesame idea. They want to get more
than what the portion is they're supposedto. Except that except that the guards
and the civilians, you know,they know that that's going on, and
they're they're warning me, you know, not to give more than the portion.
And if they run out, they'recoming to me, So you're caught

(01:26:20):
in a difficult juxtaposition. And sothere were other two weird items other than
those two, uh those two luxuryitems that I that I enjoyed, that
I that I honestly can say Ihaven't had as good on the outside here
as crazy as all. So Ireally did like that's it made a soup.
And I really did like the splitpea soup. Not not navy bean,

(01:26:42):
but actual split p This split peasoup was very good. Actually,
you're only the second person I knowthat likes split peace soup. I've never
had it, but now I'm thishas made me interested enough, I'm gonna
try some. But man, that'scrazy there. Like there's one thing where
there's like a gourmet back there goingyou know what, so two items really

(01:27:06):
quickly on that. So if Icome across an item that was one of
the horrific things on the menu,if I come across that on the men
in a restaurant, I take afast picture of it and I then send
it to somebody that that I knewfrom the inside that that's home now,
And I always get back a laughingface or I laugh out loud or something

(01:27:30):
like that. Hey one guy,one guy say, hey, I'm not
ordering that and put together and that'sI'm not ordering that, you know.
So there's that element to it.But then the opposite direction in a way.
So, look, you can bea goodie two shoes in the prison,

(01:27:50):
or you can break a few rulesand try to slightly improve your quality
of life. Okay. And soI went on the black market and I
bought a metal hot uh, okay, so that I could fry, you
know. And uh, you know, so some of the delicacy meals in
prison, you know, octopus haveI did sell cancer octopus of you know,

(01:28:12):
you have onions and garlic, andyou make that with the octopus and
you put that on some some somerice and you favor the rice up and
sas so. And so those prisonmeals or like Jack mac or you know,
believe it or not, that's that'salmost that's almost like comfort food,
like it was one of the fewthings that was decent. Making a self

(01:28:32):
prepared meal, you know, wouldbe that that would be like the highlight
of the month, maybe even thehighlight of two months. You know.
So I have found myself occasionally makinga couple of prison meals on the out
on the outside, you know,that's that's that's such a like, like

(01:28:57):
I said, a weird question,but it's not like just thinking, well,
the details that you just gave us, like that's you wouldn't think about
it. But mentally, yeah,you're like, man, I'm just craving
this right now, right right,well, I'm thinking about having a can
of octopus after him after So,what did when you said you kind of

(01:29:18):
had that vendetta as we touched abase on, did you get anywhere with
that? I mean, did anybodyget charged? Well? No, no,
no, nobody faced criminal charges,although they should have, but they
but they didn't. And that's that'sunfortunately part for of course, nobody nobody
faced in a professional consequences. Themost that could be said was that,

(01:29:42):
uh, the so the medical examinerwhen I filed the lawsuit, he suddenly
retired. And then the prosecutor,uh, two weeks before I came out,
he suddenly retired and ran to Floridato you know, get away from
the media store. And I did. I did bring suit in state court,

(01:30:02):
and you know, they settled withme after five years, and I
brought I did bring a federal civilrights lawsuit, where the difference between the
two is the federal one you haveto show that there was a malicious violation
of a constitutional right that led tothe wrong from imprisonment, whereas the lawsuit
in state court is kind of likea no fault insurance right. So,

(01:30:26):
so I had four defendants. Isettled with Westchester County because of the FRAUDA
Medical Examiner, and then City ofPeak Skills settled with me. The Public
Defender's office. Uh, they settledwith me that that was like a legal
malpractice claim because it was this guythe lawyer had put in the legal a

(01:30:49):
file he memorialized. I told himabout my alibi and it was clear he
never spoke to the alibi witness.And then I went to went to trial
against the polygraph and I want ajury verdic. So I didn't leave anybody
behind. I went against every Theonly one I didn't win against was the
trial prosecutor, but that was becausehe had a he had immunity. So

(01:31:11):
uh, you know, the judgewas constrained by the doctrine of prosecutorial immunity,
which says that any any misconduct bya prosecutor, if it happens after
after an arrest has been made,they have immunity for it. Maybe what
will they try to say, usethat good faith argument, BS, Well,
what you know, they don't.It's not it's not even dependent on

(01:31:34):
on good faith. It's the theoryof giving them immunity is is that they're
worried that they want to they willthey don't want a prosecutor to be looking
over their shoulder over over a lawof potential lawsuits, and they want them
to have it. But to me, that's BS because look, cops don't
have the immunity. They're not hinderedfor making the rest are doing the job.

(01:31:55):
Neither do forensic scientists. I mean, it's kind of simple. Don't
don't break the law, don't doimproper procedure, don't run over state or
federal constitutional rights, and you're goodto go. Yeah, you know,
don't railroad and innocent sixteen seventeen yearold kid into the prison system just so
you can check something off of yourwin loss column, you know. And

(01:32:16):
obviously it benefited many people, youknow, as you said, there were
promotions and other things. They shouldbe looking over their shoulder. Yeah,
so after all of this, alsohaving this difficult time, all these challenges
I mentioned, but simultaneously, I, you know, I get a scholarship

(01:32:38):
for Mercy College to finish the bachelor'sdegree, and they allowed me to live
on campus and they gave me themeal plan. And that's how I avoided
the homeless shelter and how I hateI didn't get into law school, went
to grad school, got the master'sdegree. I figured, well, the
extra credential would would make me abetter advocate because I was simultaneously, you

(01:32:59):
know, doing I can see whatas an individual, I was speaking,
I was writing weekly column I wasdoing media interviews, I was meeting with
the electeds. Got the master's degree, my thesis written on ruffle conviction Caused
and reforms a criminal justice degree.Got compensated after five years use. Some
of the money started the Jeffrey DeskovicFoundation for Justice. We have gotten I've

(01:33:19):
gotten fourteen people home past three lawsand then another six. It's part of
a coalition and I got I gottired of sitting in the front row of
the of the court, so soI went to law school, became a
lawyer. Unbelieved, I mean,you know, believable, I might say
unbelievable, believable after all that youwent through and all that you survived.

(01:33:44):
I'm not shocked at all, sir. That's beautiful, and you're you're doing
what happened to you like you're you'rehelping those who are going through things that
you went through. Correct. Yes, it's very, Yeah, it's very.
It's it's meaningful, it's it's it'shealing, it's cathartic, it's making
a difference. It makes my sufferingcount for something. So I feel like
I'm in the world to do thiskind of work, and I feel like

(01:34:06):
an enter piece. I'm not anangry person. I want to enjoy my
life as much as I can.I can't do that if I'm angry or
better. I've lost so much alreadyas is, what would I want to,
in effect lose the rest of mylife. And it's not like if
I was angry, I would beharming the people involved. That would really
be the only loser in that scenario. So the vehicle that allows me to

(01:34:28):
actualize that is take the energy Ifeel a channeled into the advocacy work.
And what would you say? Wouldyou say that because of your experiences like
reading into these cases, it's beeneasier for you to point out the flaws.
Yes, yeah, yes, yesit has. But also I mean,

(01:34:48):
I've read several hundred case summaries ofpeople that were wrongthully convicted and exonerated,
so I know the routes and thetactics and the way that the cases
on folded. So when one ofmy volunteer case handless, you know,
they read the original legal stuff andthey give me like a short summary.

(01:35:09):
I have a form I've developed andI wrap my head around it, and
then we start talking and I say, well, what about this? So
what about that? And if youthought about this, if you thought about
that, and they can tell meif that's that's a potential, if that's
viable to the case we're considering ornot. And usually they go back to
the drawing board once or twice,and eventually there's no more rocks we can

(01:35:29):
turn up. But we know allwe can know about the case. And
then we ask ourselves two questions.You know, do we believe the innocence
claim? That you know that includeslooking at what was used as evidence,
and we know what the red flagsare based on cases that have ended in
a DNAX honoration. You know thatan informant might be lying, or that
identificationous mistaken, or the confession's false. So we have that in mind we're

(01:35:51):
analyzing it. So we ask ourselveslike, do we believe in the innocence
claim? And number two, dowe see a potential route? And only
if we can say yes to bothof those that we then take a case
and believe it or not. That'swhen the actual work on a case starts.
So, all right, have youin your current line of work have

(01:36:18):
you seen a case because to me, to my mind, your situation,
the way you were railroaded in isparticularly particularly egregious. But have you seen
a case in your current line ofwork where you looked at it and you're
like, my god, I thoughtI had it bad, but you know,

(01:36:40):
like it's just exponential wors than whatyou went through. Yeah, So
I had my first success as alawyer last this tumber I was co counsel
to the lead attorney, Oscar Michegan. We overturned Andrea Brown's raful conviction.
Andre had been in for twenty threeyears, so in a nutshell, Andre's
trial lawyer never presented the medical evidence, so he had been which he had

(01:37:03):
been shot in an This is adouble attempted murder. Okay, So he
had been shot a year before thatin an unrelated incident, and therefore he
could not have descended a bronx subway, ran four blocks, chasing after people,
you know, shooting one person,then churning and and then running another

(01:37:24):
four or five blocks to shoot,to shoot another, to shoot the other
person. So his trial lawyer neverpresented, uh, never never presented that
uh that that that evidence. Wefound an alternative suspect who was the spitting
image of Andrea. They looked exactlyalike. We found, uh two two

(01:37:48):
witnesses who identified the alternative, thealternative suspect, and he had the misfortune
Andrea had had the misfortune of hehe switched his lawyer. The lawyer he
initially hired missed a couple of courtappearances, you know, because he had
other cases. He had sent apartner into sub for him. And on

(01:38:09):
the third time that happened, hedecided to switch the lawyer. And he
had the misfortune of hiring, asfar as we know, the only lawyer
in American history to have entered theWitness Protection program because he had been functioning
as in house counsel for the Bonanocrime family. Oh wow, so what

(01:38:31):
one? So this is a twowitness case. So one witness claim that
as he got shot, as he'sfalling, the bullet severed the spinal court.
As he's falling shot, he claimsthat he turned his head, which
is an impossibility, and you knowhe saw him. So that's one one
witness. Then another witness claims that, you know, while she's parked on

(01:38:56):
a street in the Bronx and ata red light, she sees one person
running, a victim running by,and she claims that she sees him running
by putting the sche masks down.And but the problem with the story is
that, first of all, therethere is no traffic light on that street,
and second of all, that's notthat's not the street where the crime

(01:39:19):
happened at it was only a coupleof seconds. She waited some time before
she came forward with the story,and ultimately she didn't. She never was
questioned at the trial because so sheonly testified at the grand jury, and
somebody put a couple of bullets onher windshield when she was at court to

(01:39:43):
testify at the trials, so youknow, she no longer was willing to
cooperate, and so the judge,you know, the judge decided to let
her grand jury testimony be be read, which, as you both know,
you're not it's only a prosecutor ata grand jury. There's nobody questioning her
at all. And so that wasthe evidence. That was the evidence against

(01:40:04):
me. God, wow, theaterof the absurd. It is. Man's
so insane. And you know theysay truth of stranger than fiction, you
know, and I'm a fiction writer, and I will tell you some of

(01:40:26):
these things I don't even know ifI can imagine imagine them happening, you
know, like to create a storysuch as this, Wow you and his
Wow? Sorry, didn't you know? What is? I mean, I
know you've got the foundation and everything. What's your what's your social life like?
Now? I mean, do youhave a good group of friends?
Is your family back? And Imean do you want to see the family

(01:40:49):
that you have? That didn't agood question? Yeah? All right.
So I've worked really hard and youknow, put in some some significant time,
and I've read relations with my extendedfamily. I mean I do I
do go and make grounds periodically becauseI mean, I guess that's what you're
supposed to do, but honestly,I don't feel like a like a close

(01:41:13):
relation to them. You know.I kind of go just to go.
There's not really much of a sentimentalthing. I know, if something happens,
I really can't rely on them.But like I said, I mean,
you just you know, so there'sthat I have found it difficult to
I I have found I have foundit difficult to you know, put my

(01:41:35):
social life together again. I meanit it's, uh, you know,
I enjoy interactions with people, youknow, when they have like three or
four or five different things in commonwith me, so we can they can
change genres of activity, you know, but it's been it's been difficult finding
that. You know, I've foundpeople that I have one thing in common

(01:41:56):
with for another. But I meanit's I like, and I'm eclectic,
and I like to try new things, and you know, to just get
together and just keep doing the samething over and over again, it's kind
of frustrating. It's kind of boring. It's really not satisfying. And honestly
speaking, I feel like that's reallykind of a that's really been a disappointment

(01:42:18):
because I really wanted more when Iyou know, I mean, I could
be by myself. I was bymyself and the some of the worst of
times, worst of circumstances. SoI can do it. It's just that
that's not really the quality of lifethat I want. So well, it's

(01:42:38):
in a sense, in a senselike did when you came out you probably
did? You still feel almost likeyou were seventeen? Again? I did?
I didn't. I did, Yes, I did. In fact,
that was even the New York Timeseven wrote an article, you know,
released that they're free to thirty twobut feeling like seven, feeling like seventeen.

(01:42:58):
That is true. So I'm fifteennow, I've been home for eighteen
years, and I feel like I'mI feel like I'm probably like twenty eight.
Yeah. Wow, Well, Jeff, I tell you, just from
this end, i'd play Monopoly withyou. Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah.
I mean, look, I stillwant to I still want to throw

(01:43:20):
a ball around. I still Istill want to go on the bumper cars,
and you know, and I wishthere was a bunch of guys I
could get together and you know,we can play a nice game at kickball,
or we can we can shoot hoops. But you know, it's hard.
I got kind of good at basketballwhile I was inside, and so

(01:43:40):
you know, the challenge is actuallyto find people to play with in the
gunst that actually know how to play, that aren't going to hurt me without
even wanting to, you know,while on the court. So I still
want to do those things, andI know it's Look, if there were
people to do it with, Iwould I would play a game at tackle
football with those go pants on onthe the grass. I would still I

(01:44:03):
would still I was, I wouldstill do it. Yeah, but you
know, but you know, youlisten, I feel like you like I'd
love to get a spontaneously call somebodyand say, hey, I'm free you
for not not literally as in free, like I'm not incarcerated, but like
I'm not doing anything. I'm free, you free. Let's uh, let's
let's get together, let's do this, Let's do that yo quotquote call the

(01:44:24):
other people, let's divide it,let's do cap let's do captains, Let's
do you remember the one finger ortwo fingers to see who's gonna get the
first pick? And then let's thenlet's uh, then let's play you know,
but yeah, I don't I don'thave that that then I miss,
I really miss that. I do. I do like play so chess and

(01:44:46):
ping pong to a couple of thingsfrom the prison that that I still I
still engage in. So I do. I learned to play ping pong and
chess in prison, and I do, I do, and I still still
and still do enjoy playing nice pingpong. Do you use the reverse grip
with a paddle with it coming downor do you hold it standards? I

(01:45:09):
hold a standards, but I preferto work with a stand but I prefer
to use the sand paddle by theway. Okay, yeah right, well
I would love to. You know, obviously we ain't gonna be able to
do tackle football online. But youknow we have like sixteen different shows on
this network and if you ever wantto jump on, yeah, some of

(01:45:31):
them. I want. I wantto go on. I want to I
want to go on all of them. I want to go on all of
them if I can. I wantto live in a comedy listen. I
did stand up, So I wentto look. I went to Florida because
one of the comedians, Uh it'son Facebook. I'll plug for him.
Uh uh the I g the bumyou know Esteban Uh Romero who pretends to

(01:45:58):
be a bum. That's his that'shis stick and doing all these puns.
But he agreed to give me likefive minutes of his stage time in Florida.
So I went to Florida to geton stage for five but I did
other things. I have some Ihave some people, I know some friends
in Florida, so I did someother stuff. But I went there,
and you know, I did mylittle five minute routine. I had a

(01:46:18):
lawyer routine that I developed using usingsome pun so I'd go on the comedy
and can do some dark humor.You know, I laugh at myself,
So I think that's part of havinga good think. I think that's part
of having good humor and look.And also, I'm sure you'll appreciate this
as well. I do. Ido like doing dark humor as well.

(01:46:40):
That's good. Yeah, that's theonly way. That's the only way I
don't lose my mind. Right.Well, one thing that you don't know
about Shank, Well, you knowwhat, why don't you tell him?
Jeoh oh, I've been a standup comedian for almost thirty years, travel
all over the country doing it.Oh my god. Well, yeah,

(01:47:00):
as a matter of fact, that'swhere I was before the podcast tonight.
I'm the GM of the Underground LaughLounge of Niles, Michigan. So I
was there at the show tonight andyeah, I love it. And when
you said that she did the standup, but that's that's fantastic. And
I think puns are the To me, the pun is the height of humor.

(01:47:23):
I don't care if people grown athim. It's the best. Puns
are the best. Yeah, let'slook, man, you gotta gotta get
me in the show at some point. I'd love to. I'd love to
just have my face on a flyor a promotion, even just one of
the performers or something. Would loveto do it. Would love to go
on the other podcast. Yeah.I do the podcast because for a number

(01:47:45):
of reasons, Like a lot ofthings in life, more than one thing
can be true at the same time. Okay, So number one, I
want to call attention to the issueof wrong for conviction. I want to
hold up the work of the organization. I'm hoping that some of the people
out there that are listening, youknow, I can get other media opportunities.
We're always looking for donors, large, small, intermediate. Maybe some

(01:48:10):
people are watching that they work ina corporation and do corporate philanthropy. I
want to increase my profile even morebecause you know, I'm a tool in
the struggle. So and to someextent as go why as goes my organization,
I do have my I do havemy dream of you know what if
twenty five thousand people were you know, we're willing to part with three to
five dollars a month on a recurringmonthly basis that we give us close to

(01:48:33):
a million dollars. Imagin how manycases we could work on if we had
more personnel, more lawyers, investigators, right, paralegals, other essential personnel.
My ultimate dream would be to havea chapter of the Foundation in each
state, ultimately each country, becauseI really do see this as a as

(01:48:54):
a worldwide issue. And I thinkcountries where we don't hear about wrongful conviction,
it's not because they don't happen,it's because nobody's being exonerated. So
yeah, so yeah, so Ialways do hope they'll be find people for
our Patreon page, and so Ido it for all of those for all
those reasons. And lastly, look, it's healing, and it's healing and

(01:49:15):
it's cathartic. Yeah, yeah,I agree. I actually agree with the
cathartic part. I mean it's forme. I do it because I love
meeting people. It's this is persontoo, So I can appreciate that I
don't want to go out to abar. I don't want to go right.
You know, these these are thingsI did when I was a much

(01:49:36):
younger, A lot of the stuffthat you didn't have the opportunity to do.
Correct. I got out of myway when I was a lot younger,
and it's just I don't want todo it. So this is this
is fun for me. So andmeeting you people like you, I would
never would have I never would havemet you if it wasn't for doing this
kind of stuff. So I do. I really appreciate you coming on,
and I'd love to have you onseveral of the other shows. So absolutely,

(01:49:58):
I'd like to have to make asmany rounds up possibly can. So.
I don't know how you feel aboutconspiracy theory stuff, but Sean's got
a conspiracy theory show as well.Yeah, it's called Blurred Lines, and
it's it's more of a what ifyou know. I tell people to do
their own research. But you knowit's we present evidence, you know,

(01:50:19):
And this is one of the thingsI'm also a college professor. One of
the things I do with the classesthat I teach is every semester I present
a major conspiracy theory and one classhas to be for it. Part of
the class is before it, andthe other part of the class has to
be against it, and then theyargue theories back and forth. And that's

(01:50:40):
kind of what we do with blurredlines, is we just look into the
what ifs, and then I,just like jukebox does with sins dies,
you know, I'll start dumping in, well, what do you think about
this fact? You know, it'slike the moon landing. You know,
there was supposed to be ten thousandthrust, you know, ten thousand pounds
of thrust coming out of the bottomof the lander, but there's no blast

(01:51:02):
crater underneath it whatsoever. And they'vethey've tried to loosely explain that away multiple
times, and it just sounds likeyou're just like, guys, come on,
like, physics works everywhere, youknow, so well we we put
things like that out there and letpeople make their own decisions. But it's

(01:51:24):
it's a lot of fun the lastone we did. Actually that I want
to continue as we were talking swappingghost stories in theories on the afterlife and
did that one with jukebox and evolutionman that that I would we have to
do a part two and three onthat thing. And Jeff, you're happy

(01:51:45):
to have you along on some ofthose journeys. They kind of get you,
get you out of your normal routinetoo. Yeah, exactly, yeah,
exactly. Listen, I love noexperiences and I think that you know,
there is a lot of gains shouldbe made when you we do new
things. That's part of enjoying theworld. I mean I love new places,
new places, new activities, newnew try, new food, travel,

(01:52:10):
I love all those in me.That's how you experienced the world.
So yeah, I think when youthink we do get outside of our comfort
zone, I mean we we doexpand our mind and we do maybe even
find parts of us that we didn'teven really know existed. Right. Why,
I really want to, you know, again, express my appreciation for

(01:52:30):
you to coming on tonight and toeverybody that's tuned in, I appreciate you.
I do want to kind of wrapit up as we had this two
hour march sure. Is there anythingthat is there anything that you want to
say to kind of wrap up theshow tonight, Jeffery. Sure. So
if you've enjoyed what you've if you'veenjoyed the podcast tonight, please check out.
There's a documentary short about me that'sa called Conviction, which is available

(01:52:54):
on Amazon Prime. Is the websitewww dot escovic dot org. There's a
web form there. Follow us onsocial media Instagram, Dskavik Foundation, Facebook,
Jeffrey Dskovic. I have my publicfigure page, my personal page which
is public. I just copy stuffover. This is the foundation page.
So and you know, think aboutword of mouth and contribute on Patreon towards

(01:53:17):
bring innocent people and word of mouthand social media. That's all well appreciate.
Sometimes people do those short birthday thingson birthday, many birthday fundraisers on
Facebook, and it all all addsup. So look at this happened to
me, It could happen to anybodythat being said, I'm doing the best

(01:53:38):
that I that I can in lifeand just trying to enjoy it all and
look track your dreams down, man, try to work real hard and turn
the dreams to reality. I thinkthat that's better than ever trying. And
that's what I'm living. That's whatI'm living. So nice, that's well
said. Yeah, Sean, thankyou for coming on. Sorry for the

(01:53:59):
for the Lincoln shoe there even comingin late. Man, I had an
absolute blast, Jeff was It wasfantastic meeting you. Thank you for sharing
your story. Man, this wasyou know, as tragic as it is,
I think this you of you haveturned this into something beautiful. I
love it. Yeah, I havea wonderful night everybody. Yeah, you
two, you as well. Untileverybody, We'll see around next time,

(01:54:23):
Okay, yes, sir,