#014 Jason Flom with Jon-Adrian Velazquez

Jon-Adrian “J.J.” Velazquez was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years to life for the 1998 shooting death of Albert Ward, a retired police officer who owned and operated an illegal gambling spot in Harlem. Ward was shot and killed in the course of a robbery. Following the robbery, witnesses provided a description of the gunman as “a light-skinned black male with dreadlocks,” which prompted the search for “Mustafa,” a known drug dealer who fit the description. After learning that he was being sought by the police, J.J. attempted to vindicate himself of the allegations by voluntarily subjecting himself to a lineup. Out of nine eyewitnesses present at the scene of the crime, three identified him at the lineup. Despite being a light-skinned Latino who had never had dreadlocks and despite providing phone records which corroborated his alibi and showed that he was talking to his mother during the time of the crime, J.J. Velazquez was sentenced to 25 years to life even though there was no physical evidence linking him to the crime. Since then, two of the witnesses have recanted, and the other eyewitness has expressed serious doubts. J.J. and his alibi witness have both taken lie detector tests and have passed them. He is currently in his 21st year, and Jason Flom interviews him from inside the walls of Sing Sing Correctional Facility for this special edition of Wrongful Conviction.

https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/with-jason-flom

Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava For Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
With the police banging on the door, open up.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
The choice to be in that lineup was the last
choice I made as a free man. A year later,
I ended up writing the system.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
I'm going to be one of those people who everyone
in the world is going to think as a monster
or suspect as a monster for the rest of my life,
and I'm just going to have to come to peace
with that.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Somebody was able to look at my picture in the
database and say that I was somewhere where I definitely wasn't.
I overheard three of the jailers discussing what part they
might have to play in my hanging. They had been
told that two prison officers would have to participate in
my execution.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
Now I walked back inside that prison for the last time. Man,
all help broke loose.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
But welcome to another edition of Wrongful Conviction. Today is
a very special day because this is the debut of
wrongful Conviction behind bars, and our guest today is my
dear friend, an innocent man stuck in a nightmare here

(01:11):
at Sing Sing Prison. John Adrian Velasquez, also known as JJ.

Speaker 4 (01:15):
John Adrien Velasquez, convicted of killing a retired New York
City police officer during a botched robbery and Harlem, fifty
nine year old Albert Ward was killed. Velaskaz was found
guilty of second degree murder.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
JJ.

Speaker 3 (01:27):
Velaskaz was thrown in a lineup been fingered for murdered
by a drug dealer who the police threatened with the
rest with no physical evidence.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
Valaskaz was prosecuted for murder.

Speaker 4 (01:35):
This sentence twenty five years to life.

Speaker 5 (01:38):
Valaskaz remains in prison.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
JJ, Welcome to the show.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
You're hearing a lot of background noise today, and there's
a very simple reason for that, which is that we
are inside of Singsing Correctional Facility and it is a
noisy place and there's really no getting away from it.
I apologize for any distractions that you're going to experience
during today's show. We've highlighted the cases of over a
dozen people so far who've been exonerated, and my hope

(02:06):
is that in bringing more exposure and light to your situation,
that this will be another part of the process of
getting you out. Because JJ is just as innocent as
any of the people who've been on the show, but
as of yet, he has not been able to win
his freedom. So that's what we're here to talk about today.
But before we even get into that, I want to

(02:28):
go back. Let's go back to how you grew up,
where you grew up. You know, we like to always
give a little context.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Sure, I'm a native New Yorker, grew up in a
middle class family home. My mother was a healthcare worker
and eventually she went through training and became a union
organizer for eleven ninety nine. My father is a former
was a former US Army veteran who later became an
Amtrak police officer. By the age of ten, things changed

(02:55):
in my household. I started to realize a lot of
arguments and fight to what happening between my parents, and
it was because my father was actually living a double life.
He had two families. I found out for the first
time that I had a younger brother that was five
years younger than me, half brother from another mother. I
was kind of ecstatic to have a brother. At that time,

(03:17):
I was young and I was naive, and I didn't
really get to see what was about to happen. Because
everything changed. The dynamics of my household changed. My father
wasn't around as much anymore, and he made it his
business to remain present in my life. But it's impossible
to be two places at once. And eventually I started

(03:37):
to fill that void that I missed with my father
by spending more time in the Devil's playground. And for
those that are listening that may not understand what the
devil's playground is, the streets of New York are harsh,
and when you go out there and you start to
experience and be exposed to the streets, you start being
overwhelmed by certain environmental factors. In my particular neighborhood, there

(04:02):
was a lot of negative peer influence and that kind
of changed the dynamics of my thinking. It changed the
trajectory of my interests, where at one point all I
cared about was school, sports, and home. And then a
time came where I lost interest in home in school,

(04:24):
but I still had that interest in sports. I had
this dream because I was good. Baseball was really where
I was at a lot of people believed in my talent.
I had gotten hit by a bus at the corner
of my school when I was sixteen days after my
sixteenth birthday, and when the doctors told me that I
would never be able to compete at the same level
that I was used to. That changed my life. That

(04:47):
was a crossroad at that point when school went out
the window, or when sports went out the window, rather,
school went out the window with it, and I started
cutting class, and before you knew it, I became so rebellious.
There were so many arguments in my household with my
mom's and I would try to play my father against
my mother and my mother against my father. And eventually

(05:08):
I just got tired of it all and I ran
away from home and in search of my independence. In
pursuit of my independence, I found myself homeless. I've had
many nights where I went to sleep hungry, and I
know what it is to live off of a dollar
a salami and a dollar cheese and a stolen loaf
of bread. And that's basically where everything started for me

(05:29):
as a whole different aspect of living in New York.
Because I was on my own and I didn't have
working papers, I didn't have an ID, I was a
high school drop out. I'm running from my mother and
my father, so I can't I got to stay away
from police. I got to stay away from anybody who
can officially report me to my family, and it was

(05:50):
a matter of pride, like I left and I didn't
want to go back. And then there was also a
matter of fear where it was like I'm going to
be judged when it gets scolded, you know, So there
was shame, There was a lot of different factors playing
in and it just made me go deeper and deeper,
and it was like, I've realized now that that was
the worst choice in my life, because all I did

(06:12):
from that point forward was continued to make worse choices
that dig the deeper grave.

Speaker 3 (06:18):
You somehow or other, managed to survive very difficult circumstances,
a lot of disappointments, a lot of things that no
child should have to go through and end up on
the streets.

Speaker 1 (06:31):
But you turned it around.

Speaker 3 (06:33):
To the extent that you met a great woman, right
and you had a couple of kids. Yeah, So how
did you go from a sixteen seventeen year old kid
on the streets to being a twenty two year old
man with a couple of kids and a wife and
more of a stable situation.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
So basically what happened is being in the street, I
met Vanessa. I met her at sixteen turning seventeen, Eventually
I started living with her and her family. He took
me in and I was still trying to survive and
I was moving too fast for my own good. Before
you knew it, I was a father, and that made
me start to take life a lot more seriously. And

(07:12):
I'm trying to figure out my way and say, all right, listen,
I need to do something, and I need to do
something to ensure that my family's going to be all right.
Tried to look for jobs, but again my high school
drop out. At that point, I didn't know what skills
I may have had that were employable. I was a
child trying to find my way. Before you knew it,
I was a father with another child on the way,

(07:34):
and it was rough. I was basically living off of
Vanessa because she was getting welfare and it's all social service,
you know SSI. I mean, the rent was under one
hundred dollars, so it was affordable, you know. But at
the same token, they don't know I'm living there. And
it's crazy because yeah, I got arrested a few times,
no charges ever, you know, stuck. I've gotten arrested for loitering,

(07:57):
I've gotten arrested for all kinds of little nonsense that
happens in the neighborhood. They gave me a trespassing for
going to see a friend in the projects, because I
don't live in the projects. What people need to realize
in New York and all over the world is that
all it takes for you to be in my shoes
is to get arrested, for them to take a picture,
for them to take your name and put it in

(08:17):
a system, for them to take your fingerprints. That's what
starts everything. That's what started for me. Somebody was able
to look at my picture in a database and say
that I was somewhere where I definitely wasn't.

Speaker 3 (08:30):
And I want to talk about that for a second, JJ,
because I'm very well aware of the fact that in
the poorest neighborhoods like the one that you were residing in,
they do these sweeps and they'll pick people up for
riding a bike on the sidewalk or like you said,
visiting a friend. I mean, I'm not sure how that's
a crime. You know, trespassing, you could call trespassing anything.

(08:51):
I mean, might as well arrest somebody for breathing. It's
you know, it's almost a fada compleet. That a young
person like yourself, especially a person of color, is going
to end up in the system in some form or
another for doing the same type of thing that other
people in other parts of the city or other parts
of the country.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
Would not get arrested for.

Speaker 3 (09:10):
As you said, that starts a chain of events that
can only have negative consequences and in your case, tragic consequences.
When I tell these stories to people, they go, but
that can be like, you can't convict somebody with no evidence,
but you can absolutely. So there you were, you have
your two kids, You're turning your life around, doing the
best you can.

Speaker 2 (09:29):
At the time, Yeah, I was actually a student at
TCI Technical Careers in trying to learn about computer programming,
trying to get a skill that would be employable.

Speaker 3 (09:38):
And to your credit, it's interesting because I think for
some people, the responsibility of fatherhood, of having become a
father at such a young age, causes them to run.
But in your case, you took it seriously, and you
took it as it actually has an opportunity to turn
your life around.

Speaker 1 (09:51):
Absolutely, So one day everything changed.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
It's almost like a blink of an eye. I receive
a phone call. It was a Saturday morning, and it's
from my brother's mother, Carmen, who I also have a
very close relationship with. And basically my license, my driver's
license was addressed to my father's address and that's where
Carmen and my brother Jason lived. So they went to
that apartment at like four in the morning Friday night

(10:17):
going into Saturday morning, and they were looking for me.
You have police officers looking for me, and they tried
to even grab up my little brother. Now, at the time,
I was twenty one years old, so my little brother
being five years younger than me, it's sixteen years old.
The description was given of two male blacks from twenty
five to thirty years old. Why are you trying to

(10:38):
grab up this child? Clearly he looks like a child.
Clearly he doesn't look like me either, and neither one
of us appear to be two black men, right, But
they're trying to grab him thinking that he's me for
whatever odd reason. And then you know, Carmen just makes
a big stink and says, do you understand that this
is the house of an officer who died within the

(11:00):
last ten months. Do you understand what you're doing? You're
violating the children of somebody who served this country, just
like you. And that's when they were like, they eased
up a little bit. They didn't have a warrant for arrest,
so they gave her a card and said, listen, you
get in touch with mister Velaskis. Please have him get
in touch with us. We're trying to help him. I
was living in the Bronx with Vanessa and I get

(11:21):
this call from Carmen and it's a startling call because
she's like, listen, you know, the cops are looking for you.
They're saying something about you shot a police officer and
that you need to call them. They're making it seem
very serious. They came in here deep and I'm like, listen, Carmen,
what's going on? What are you talking about? I have
no idea what you're talking about. Slow down, and she's like, yo, listen,

(11:41):
all I know, here's a number they want you to call.
I'm like, what precinct did they come from? You know,
where's this coming from? Listen, here's the name. His name
is Joseph latrent That here's his phone number. They told
me the precinct at the time, it was a twenty
eighth precinct I don't think I even registered that was.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
This four in the morning.

Speaker 2 (11:59):
She called me about nine in the morning. She waited
until a decent time I guess to call me. At
that point, I started to kind of like panic, and
I was frantic. And I have two children. One is
a child that's only a few weeks old. I have
Vanessa there. And Vanessa realized from the phone call that
something serious is going on. But she's like, what's going on?

(12:20):
And I'm like, yo, just wait a minute. I gotta
process this, like I really don't even know what's going on, Like,
let me call my mother. So I called my mother
and I'm like, yo, ma, you know they're saying the
police are looking for me. She started getting hysterical on
the phone what happened, And I'm like, listen, I don't
know what happened. I don't know what happened. This is
what I know. I know the police are looking for me.
I know it's the weekend. I know it's not a

(12:41):
good time to get into contact with the police because
I can't see a judge or anybody else until maybe
one day. If they come for me. They're saying this
is serious. They're saying I shot a cop. I have
no idea what this is about, but I'm scared and
I need your help. What are we gonna do? So
she's like, stay there, I'm coming. My mother lives upstate
at the time, and she came and picked me up

(13:02):
and she took me to the church that we used
to attend together regularly on the weekend. It's called Love
Gospel Assembly. We went to the church and there were
a few people there and we started to tell what
was going on, but everything was so limited, like we
didn't have any real knowledge. And they're saying, listen, the
first thing you gotta do is get an attorney and
contact the precinct. So we try to figure out, you know,

(13:24):
who would be a good lawyer. So I try to
speak to a couple of my friends that I know
have been involved in the system. Do you know any
good lawyers? They tell me a name. His name is
Franklin Gould May rest in peace. At this point, I've
learned that he has passed away recently. So I'm trying
to get in touch with Franklin Gould. Bad part about
this again, it's the weekend. How do you get in
touch with a lawyer over the weekend? Right, and we

(13:45):
were waiting for Frank Gould to get back to us,
and in that time, the range of emotions that we
went through as a family picture us being in a
car driving around aimlessly. It's my mother, me, Vanessa, JJ,
which is my son, right, I don't want to confuse
nobody and Jacob, and JJ is three years old at

(14:09):
the time. Jacob is a few weeks He was born
December twentieth, and this is January maybe thirtieth, so he's
a little bit more than a month. And we're driving
around aimlessly and aimlessly, and every time I see a
police car, it's like I get this little chill and
I don't know what's going to happen here. Eventually we
get in touch with this lawyer. We were outside of

(14:31):
a restaurant and I remember I spoke to him briefly.
I didn't have any information for him. I didn't know
what to tell him. He's asking me for information, like
I'm supposed to know certain things. I don't know nothing.

Speaker 5 (14:42):
All you know is that the cops are looking for.

Speaker 2 (14:46):
Well, no, I didn't even know there was a murder
at the time. At that point. All I was told
was that a cop was shot but I just want
to address this and get it over with because the
longer I'm out here, the more my life is in jeopardy.

Speaker 1 (14:58):
And he wants you to give him deep tell what
you would have to have them.

Speaker 2 (15:01):
I'm trying to tell him, I'm hiring you so you
can get the details, right, That's just why I'm calling you.
So he said that he had contacted the precinct, but
that they weren't giving any information. They just wanted me
to turn myself in. But I left them on the
phone my mother, and when my mother came back, I
was so upset. I was scared, but I was so

(15:23):
upset that I decided there's no way I want to
deal with this guy. Because this lawyer told my mother
that if we were to get pulled over by police,
that I should put my head down in the ground
and that my mother should throw her body over me
to make sure that nothing happens to me because I
could get shot. And I didn't like that. You know,
if anything, he should have said that to me while

(15:44):
I was on the phone. You don't see that to
my mother had a frantic You know.

Speaker 3 (15:48):
That's a strange thing for a lawyer to say. I mean,
I understand he was in a certain way trying to
prevent it.

Speaker 1 (15:55):
Looking that's a little bit hysterical. Yeah, yeah, and you're
absolutely right. I mean he should have.

Speaker 6 (16:02):
Addressed that directly with you, right, So you ended up
not engage you. I didn't engage with him. We ended
up dealing with an attorney. I believe his name is Goldstein.
I don't know his first name. And he told us
to go to a hotel and we got a hotel.
We called him from the hotel, gave me the address,
and everything is crazy. At this point, Vanessa and my

(16:22):
mother go get the hotel room. I'm sneaking in through
the back. I'm afraid, and I'm staying in the hotel room.
I'm waiting for this guy. So this the lawyer comes.
He comes to the hotel and he meets me, and
he's like, all right, how you doing? This is what's
going to happen. I contacted the precinct. I told him
that I'm arranging to turn you in on Monday, right
because it was Saturday.

Speaker 2 (16:39):
Still, so he says, I'm going to turn you in
on Monday. Until then, I want you to stay in
this hotel room. I do not want you to leave
this hotel room. I want you to shave your face.
I want you to be clean shaving. We're going to
walk into that precinct early in the morning on Monday,
and we're going to deal with this situation. I want
a thousand dollars right now. I want one thousand dollars
the day that you turn yourself in on Monday, and
then you'll be like and Friday, you'll be going to

(17:02):
an arraignment, and at that point, I want five thousand dollars.
And I'm like, what are you not getting I didn't
do anything. What are you talking about that? I got
to give you money? Now, give you money again, then
give you money on Friday. And you're saying them, spend
five days in jail. What are you representing me for?
And he's like, listen, I'm just telling you. These are
some serious charge. This was going to happen. You want
me to be real with you or not? So I

(17:22):
give him the money. I gave him the first thousand dollars,
and I'm just frantic. I don't know what's going to happen.
This guy's telling me now that I'm going to jail
like it doesn't matter what I did. Or didn't do
I'm going to jail.

Speaker 3 (17:35):
And let's go back for a second. I mean we're
talking twenty years ago. That was a lot of money.
I mean there's a lot of money now, Yeah, there's
a lot of money.

Speaker 1 (17:42):
Absolutely.

Speaker 6 (17:43):
Ya.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
He actually said that the case was going to cost
fifty thousand dollars before everything was said and done, because
I would be going to trial on this case. So
he basically convicted me before we even got to the precinct.
So this is the mindset that I'm dealing with. Already,
two lowers have rubbed me the wrong way, and at
that time, I'm not measuring if maybe it's because of

(18:06):
the emotions that I have something inside of me, maybe
it's not them. I'm not thinking like that. I was
twenty one years old, and eventually, you know, I just
sitting there and I keep staring at my children. I'm
staring at for us, and I'm staring at my mother,
and I'm saying, this might be the last time I
get to see my children. This might be the last
time I get to see my mother. How did this happen?

Speaker 3 (18:29):
It's literally everybody's worst nightmare. Everybody's out to get you.
You didn't do anything, and it's the most terrible thing
that you could be accused of. The murder or the
shooting of a police officer is right at the top
of them to the list of things that you don't
want to be wrongly accused.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
And bear in mind you're talking to the son of
a police officer. I was raising a police officer's household, right,
I mean, what sense would it make for me to
go out on a rampage and shoot a police officer.

Speaker 3 (18:58):
That's crazy, and you had no history of violence, and
none of it adds up. The nightmare is growing as
you are encountering these people who are supposed to be
on your side and people who are supposed to be
helping you. Right, your only chance is to get a
lawyer that's gonna represent you. Monday comes.

Speaker 2 (19:17):
Actually the step back just a second. Sunday I get
a call from Frank gould and Frank Gould man, there
is something about this guy. He's a real smooth talker.
He made me feel comfortable and he said, Yo, listen,
don't worry about that guy Goldsting. I'm gonna see if
I can get the thousand dollars from him. If not,
don't worry about it. We're not even talking about money

(19:37):
right now. You're in a serious dilemma. And guess what,
I want to meet you outside that precinct. We're gonna
meet in the morning time. I'm gonna walk in there
with you. We're gonna see what's going on. You wait
for my phone call. After my phone call, you meet
me in front of the twenty eighth precinct and we'll
deal with this situation made me feel a thousand times better.
I mean, he knew how to talk to me. He's
talking to me like, all right, you're innocent. We're gonna

(19:59):
see what's going going on, and we're going to play
this by ear not you're going to jail, you're gonna
get shot. That's not what somebody wants to hear. And
I really respected that. And eventually Monday came and that's
exactly what happened. We had found out that the apartment
in the Bronx thirteen forty four University Avenue, the door

(20:21):
to our apartment was hanging off the hinges with a
police lock on it, which means that the police had
gone into the building, went into my apartment, knocked down
the door. They've been in it. They said it was trash.
These were neighbors that ended up calling. They got in
touch with Vanessa, I believe. So we sent Vanessa home
and my mother took me to the priests and to
meet my attorneys. So now we get to the front

(20:43):
and Frank Goule's there with another attorney. Her name is
Susan Walsh. We're on the steps. My mother's like, you know,
you want me to stay and wait for you out here.
I said, listen, I don't know what's going to happen.
Just go home. If anything, I'll take a cab. Just
go home. And she's like, all right. I mean, that
was the last time I got to touch my mother
as a free person. It's kind of crazy. And we

(21:07):
walked into the precinct and when we went in there,
Frank said give me a minute. He left me there
with Susan. I remember him coming back and saying, let's go.
I said, what you mean, let's go? He said, let's
get out of here. They don't got no warran for
your arrest. So we're walking out and I'm like, listen, Frank,
you really have to make me understand what's going on.
I've been frantic for an entire weekend, running around with

(21:29):
my family, staying in hotels, being threatened by lawyers, and
you're telling me we could just walk away from this.
And he's like, they don't have a waran for your arrest.
So I want you to go home, I said, And
then what happens when I go home? I got a
door hanging off a hinge. What happens when I go home?
Is this over? He said, no, it's not over. I said,
what do you mean it's not over? He says, they

(21:52):
want to put you in a lineup. I'm not going
to let them put you in a lineup. I said,
what happens if I don't get picked in that lineup?
He says, then you're free. I said, so I'm going
in that lineup. He says, no, you're not. Let us
do our job. Let them do their job. Okay. I'm like, no,
it's not okay. I want to go in that lineup.
You're telling me that the only way that this is
going to be over is if I go in that

(22:13):
lineup and I don't get picked. I'm telling you I
didn't do this crime. So I'm going in that lineup.
He says, if you get picked in that lineup, your
life is going to change forever. You're going to jail,
I said, And what happens if I leave? What are
they go pick me up? Put something in my pocket?
Or do they shoot at me? Do you realize what
I've been through this weekend? I'm going in that lineup.

(22:34):
And that's exactly what we did. We walked back in
that precinct and I volunteered for that lineup. I stood
in the bullpen, like the outside area of a bullpen,
sitting in a chair with Susan wallsh for a couple
of hours while they went and got some fellers.

Speaker 3 (22:46):
And this is a bizarre part of the story too,
because at this point it's interesting and it's important that
you highlighted that you just spent the weekend like a
fugitive hiding out. It's exactly when we come to find
out they don't even have a warn for your arrest.
Now you're volunteering for a lineup, which you would be
a little nuts if you were actually guilty to go
and do that. Absolutely that that doesn't add up, And

(23:07):
then you know you don't have to be a professor
of criminology to understand that, right, And then on top
of that, you didn't know this at the time, but
the suspect they were looking for was a guy named Mustafa.

Speaker 1 (23:21):
Is any part of your name Mustafa?

Speaker 3 (23:23):
Absolutely, And the suspect they were looking for was a
black mail with dreads, right, right?

Speaker 1 (23:30):
Have you ever been a black mail or had dreads?

Speaker 2 (23:33):
Maybe in another life?

Speaker 3 (23:34):
Right, So it would be pretty much it would seem
like an open and shot situation. And there were numerous
witnesses who all agreed on this description. It wasn't like
there was one that said this and one that said that.
There were numerous witnesses who all said that the suspect
that the police were looking for was a guy whose street.

Speaker 1 (23:53):
Name was Mustafa.

Speaker 3 (23:54):
And I want to encourage people to watch the show
on JJ Coule Conviction, because in it you'll see the
actual police sketch, which it doesn't look any more like
you than it looks like me.

Speaker 1 (24:07):
It's a guy, It's a black guy with dreads.

Speaker 3 (24:10):
Had you known that, it would have been perfectly logical
for you to go into the lineup. And I think
people can identify with the idea that you're going in
there and saying, well, I mean, you grew up as
the son of a police officer, you're going to say
to yourself, well, the system is going to work, absolutely right,
I mean that was my belief, right, You're going to
go in there and there's no way that somebody's going
to pick you out of that lineup, even not knowing

(24:31):
what we just talked about, right, But had you known that,
you would have been one hundred percent sure that if
you go in there, they can't pick you out of
that lineup. So finally, now you're going into the lineup. Yes,
and got to be a surreal experience too. It was
like kind of right out of a movie, right, So
for this time, you're not watching, you're actually in it.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
Well, that was my second time ever being in a lineup.
First time I was a student at Martin Luther King
High School and they had this little bus coming around
and they were offering us five to appear in the lineup,
and I took it five hours. You know, we'll take that,
and I went to a lineup. So it wasn't the
first time I was in a lineup, but it was
the first time I was in the lineup as a suspect,

(25:10):
and you know, I don't know what's going on on
the other side. If there's a mirror there, and I
don't know what's going on the other side, but I
do know that Susan Walsh is on that side. So
what happened was when Frank Goule finally realized that I
was determined to go into that priests and volunteer for
the lineup, he said, listen, if you're going in for
the lineup, you're going to stay here with Susan. I
have to leave because it would be a conflicent and

(25:31):
interest for me to be your witness and your attorney.
So she's an attorney and she is your witness. And
that's basically where I still felt comfortable because I was like,
she's there, and I'm going to be all right. And
sure enough, at some point told number three to stand
and approach the mirror, and then they told him to

(25:51):
sit down. Then they said number two, we need you
to stand up and approach the mirror. And I did
that and I sat back down. They said, everybody said
thank you. Here it's like a speaker somewhere in the
room and he's like, thank you. Be there. Shortly somebody
comes and opens the door and says everybody can leave.
I start to get up he's like, no, you stay.
So I don't know if I have to fill out

(26:13):
some paperwork or something before I leave, but I said,
all right, I sit down. Eventually they take me around
back to the same room and Susan's there and she's like, Jay,
I'm sorry, but you're gonna be staying. I said, what
are you talking about. I'm gonna be staying. She said,
you know you were picked, but there's some serious problems

(26:33):
with your lineup. They made me wear a hat. I
don't know that that's a problem then, but they made
us all wear these black pullover hats, winter hats, ski hats.
They had a problem with fillers. But at the end
of the day, there's an existing affidavit from Susan Walsh.
She's admitting that my lineup was manipulated on that day,

(26:56):
and unbeknownst to me, what she's saying is that she
had an argument with the police officers about my position.
She wanted me between number five and number six and
they said, nah, we're not doing that. Here he's sitting
right there, he's number two.

Speaker 3 (27:09):
They didn't want you to be between five and six.

Speaker 1 (27:12):
They wanted you to be number two. What is the
significance to that.

Speaker 2 (27:16):
Even towards trial, I really didn't understand the significance of it.
But now in all my studies, it's supposed to be
kind of a random process. And there's a lot of
studies going on now about sequential lineups and double blind lineups.
By putting me in a certain position, it can be
inferred that you have already told these witnesses that an

(27:39):
individual that committed the crime is going to be sitting
in a particular position, right, So that would enable the identification.

Speaker 1 (27:48):
Right.

Speaker 3 (27:49):
Of course, they could say up front, you know, take
a real close look at number two, right, they could say,
And that's why a double blind and for those of
you listening, a double blind means that the person conducting,
whether it's a police officer or anyone else conducting the lineup,
should not know cannot know who the suspect is, because
even if their intentions are pure, they subconsciously can steer

(28:14):
a witness absolutely to just sort of take another I mean,
you're doing good. I know this is very difficult for you,
but you know you got to really try hard. Because
we've seen it many times. A witness will say, I
don't know, I don't I don't think I see the
person in it. Go well, listen, I mean, we really
need your help. You know, this is a brutal crime,
this is a we've got to get this guy off

(28:35):
the streets. What they should be saying is, we don't
know whether the actual killer, the actual perpetrator, is in
this lineup.

Speaker 1 (28:42):
Absolutely, but if you see them, then we need your help.
But they don't do that.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
They don't.

Speaker 3 (28:47):
Typically they they and they may in many cases, and
we don't know, but in your because we don't know
what was going on in that room. But it's entirely
possible that in your case, that your suspicions are true.
That they said, we think we got the guy. We
think it's number two. Take a look.

Speaker 1 (29:03):
Let's see if you agree.

Speaker 3 (29:04):
Anything like that, even something much more subtle than that,
can really terribly mess up the process and eliminate objectivity.
But even their memories far from perfect, because.

Speaker 2 (29:14):
That's what a lineup does. Who looks most like the individual,
it's not who looks most like the individual who did
it right.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
That's why we're here.

Speaker 2 (29:21):
And I was selected by three individuals, Philip Jones, Robert Jones,
who were both brothers, and Augustus Brown later learning that
Augustus Brown had actually been the person who selected my
photo which made me a suspect, so there was really
no need for him to come and identify me again.
So if you look at it in a realistic manner,

(29:42):
at the lineup, there were only two people who really
identified me because Augustus Brown had already made me a suspect.
But technically all three of those individuals had of five
individuals had identified me.

Speaker 3 (29:54):
And we know that Augustus Brown had a very good
reason to want to identify you because Augustus Brown.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
Was a heroin dealer.

Speaker 3 (30:02):
Yes, he was so not somebody you would consider to
be a top notch witness or a reliable witness necessarily,
and he had a motivation which was that when he
was picked up, and correctly, if I'm wrong, when he
was picked up, he was in possession of ten bags
of heroin, Yes he was, and the cops weren't letting
him leave until he identified somebody they wanted this case soft.

Speaker 2 (30:25):
Yeah, Augustus Brown is an interesting character all to himself.
He has a rap sheet that we can stick on
the wall and drop to the floor, but in reality
he was actively on probation at that time, we come
to find out a trial that he wasn't reporting, So
he had already abscounded from probation right this, which is
why he fled before any police would arrive. When he

(30:46):
gets picked up, because he didn't come to the priestint voluntarily,
they he was sent multiple messages to come to the precinct.
He was arrested on a street corner that he sold
drugs on. He did get caught with ten bags of
heroin on him. He was brought to a precinct and
he spent hours in that precinct. He came about three
o'clock and he wasn't let go until about eleven o'clock

(31:06):
at night from a different precint. He has stated on
multiple occasions that he was wrong and that he was
forced to do what he did. And there's layers to this.
So when he was at the precinct, they were trying
to time in as an accessory to murder. They told

(31:28):
him we got you in possession of drugs. It violated
your probation, and you fled the scene. And we have
witnesses who think that you were a part of the team.
So you're going to be charged with accessory to murder
if you don't help us do something. He looks at
thousands of photos. It's supposed to be eight photos per page,

(31:48):
and he looked at a total of one hundred and
fifty six pages. But if you look at the description
that he initially gave to the police, which was consistent
and unanimous in the descriptions provided by all witnesses, that
stated that two black males came into that place and
victimize these individuals. One was dog skin and one was

(32:10):
light skin. The light skin individual had dreads or braids.
I don't know which one. Some of them said braids,
some of them said dreads.

Speaker 3 (32:18):
By the way, it's also arguable that your picture shouldn't
have been in there in the first place, since you
were never convicted of any ofthing. Freedom Agenda is a
proud sponsor of this episode of wrongful Conviction. Freedom Agenda
is led by people directly impacted by incarceration, and they're

(32:40):
organizing to get Mayor Eric Adams to follow the law
and shut down Rikers Island. Right now, thousands of people
are awaiting trial there in life threatening conditions. Freedom Agenda
is committed to creating a safer and more just city
by winning investments in long neglected communities, protecting the rights
of people involved in the criminal legal system, ending the

(33:00):
cycle of violence that rikers perpetuates. To learn more about
the Campaign to Close Rikers and to sign up for
Freedom Agenda's mailing list, go to Campaign to Close Rikers
dot org, slash, get involved, or follow at Freedom Agenda
and Why on social media. Back to where we were at,

(33:25):
You're now in this kafka esque and I always say that,
but it's true nightmare where you're ready to leave the
police station. You know they must have identified somebody else
or nobody because you didn't do anything and you don't
even know it. But you don't match the description, not
even close.

Speaker 1 (33:40):
But they tell you to day.

Speaker 2 (33:41):
Yeah, so they tell me to stay. Susan says, listen,
we'll see you in court tomorrow. You'll be arraigned, and
we'll take it day by day, take it one step
at a time. In the meantime, before I leave, I
want you just to be conscious of something. We told
these offices that we took pictures of you and your
underwe in a hotel, and that if they touch you

(34:02):
they will be losing their job. So you should feel safe.
You should be all right, do not speak to them
about anything. And from that point I was escorted into
this small cage that had a concrete slab and a
bunch of bars, and I stood theify I don't know
how long, and you know, it was real. It was

(34:24):
a real surreal experience where it was just like, you
know what, you gotta realize at this point, you just
have to block everything out and deal with the situation,
you know what I mean. Don't talk to them, don't
ask them no more questions, don't provoke them, just deal
with it. And that's what I did. Eventually we got
to Central Booking, and Central Booking is like another zoo,

(34:45):
right they heard you from one place to another. You
shackled up on a chain gang. You got shackles on
your feet, and you go from one bullpen to another
bullpen and it's twenty thirty of you moving. At the
same time, people are sitting on the floor. You have
homeless people in there. The smell is crazy. Some of
these places, the plumbing is all messed up, so you
might have some feet season and toilet or some urine

(35:08):
in the toilet, might have urine on the floor because
it might have flowed out you know, and it's just
a bunch of people around and you're lucky if you
get a bench to sit on or whatever. And they
kept moving, moving the chain, moving the chain, and eventually
you get to this place and they start taking your
stuff out of your pockets and they're searching you on
the wall. And that's when I had my first serious

(35:30):
experience with corrections officer. Just out of nowhere, towering office,
A big hits me in the back and I never
knew that you can get your wind knocked out from
getting hit in the back. Knocks me, knocks me down.
I'm conscious, but I'm just like blown away, and he's
just wailing at me, and I'm just covering up officers

(35:51):
that brought me in. They were still around and they
had stopped them. They say, oh, listen, leave them alone.
You can't do that. He's like, yeah, but he killed
a cop. He thinks he's a tough guy. Oh I'm
a tough guy. And I'm like, yo, I don't know
what's going on. And what ended up happening at that
point was they moved me and I got separated from
the rest of the prisoners and I got put in

(36:12):
a bullpenp by myself. I can still see prisoners in
a bullpen adjacent from me right across it got bullpens everywhere.
But I'm by myself now, so I definitely have all
the room to stretch out and lay down and do
whatever on a bench. That wasn't the problem, but I
start to realize the fear of what that lawyer was

(36:32):
talking about that first time when he told my mother
that this is serious, and I'm wondering how much more
do I have to go through? And he had before
I'm able to get out. Fortunately for me, I never
had that problem again. But that's where I first got

(36:53):
a taste of reality. The next day came and I
go into another bullpen where they have these windows that
you can have attorneys come visit you, so they call
your name. So eventually my name gets called and I
go in there and it's another attorney. It's not frankl
it's not Susan Wallash, somebody never met in my life.

(37:16):
His name is Norman Rima. And Norman Riema comes and
he tells me, says, listen, mister Velasquez, we're about to
go in front of the judge and you're going to
be arrainged. But I just want to put you on
point to a few things that are important. You're being
charged with capital murder. I said, what is that? He says,
you're facing the death penalty. I said, what the death penalty?

(37:42):
I mean, I don't understand what's going on. And everything
is spinning. The walls are spinning. Norman Reema is talking.
It's incoherent. I don't know what you're saying. I don't
hear you. I block everything out, and I just I
don't know how I got to that point. And at
that point, I don't even know how I coped with that,

(38:02):
how I dealt with that, I don't know. I went
into some short sense of trauma and I became numb.
I do recall him saying, don't worry about the death penalty,
which was didn't do any good, right, But he said,
don't worry about the death penalty because Robert Morgenthal has

(38:24):
never pursued the death penalty in New York. So within
six months they'll probably drop that and you'll be facing
natural life in prison. And I said, Norman, I didn't
commit this crime. Why are we talking about death? Why
are we talking about natural life? Why aren't we talking
about freedom? Why aren't we talking about restoring my status

(38:45):
as a citizen. And he's like, listen, you just have
to stay strong. But you're not going nowhere. You're not
getting bail. You're gonna have to go through this process.
I said, well, how long is this process going to take?
And he said anywhere from six months to a year,

(39:06):
maybe two years. There's no telling. You just gotta stay
strong and talk about a turning point in life. Everything
changed from there. I got sent to Rikers Island. Ryk
As Island is a war zone. You know, they call
that the school a hard knocks, but it's more like

(39:28):
Vietnam or going to Iraq because everywhere you go there's blood.
And that's all that happens is humans shedding other human's
blood and you see it everywhere. There's no way around
it to fight after fight. I mean, I don't know
how is it able to navigate through a lot of that,
But I made it through. I have no scars, I'm

(39:51):
still safe, I'm in one piece, and I'm blessed. Eighteen
months I did on Rykers Island. Eighteen months. I was
able to navigate through the bull and eventually I went
to trial and going to trial was the first time
I get to learn how everything unfolded and took place,

(40:11):
because for all those months, I still couldn't understand what's
going on. How did it happen, what took place? Why
am I here? Those questions weren't answered. They weren't answered
by my lawyers. They just stay strong, John, We're gonna
make it through and worry about it when we get
to trial. We mean, don't worry about it. Life continues,

(40:34):
It doesn't stop for anyone. My children are growing. I
watched Jacob's first steps. We're in a visiting room on
Rikers Island. For me the first time I seen my
son come to me. He's daddy walking. He's smaller than
the table. I raised my children in prison. That wasn't easy,
and looking back at it now, I can't even take

(40:57):
credit for raising my children. Actually, So I go to trial,
and during the trial I start to learn things. I
learned that this cop tried to interfere with the robbery
that was taking place because he owned the establishment, and
I knew that relatively early as a retired police officer
who owned the gambling place. He also owned the basket

(41:19):
Robbins one hundred and twenty fifth Street. He also owned
some print shop and another bar. Own a lot of
establishments for a police officer or a retired police officer rather,
And he had this legal gambling spot and somebody came in.
They're saying to shoot him, this light skinned guy with
these braids or these dreads, and he came in. He

(41:41):
tried to place a bet. And this spot is one
hundred and twenty fifth Street between hundred twenty fifth and
one hundred twenty six and eighth Avenue. So this guy
comes in, it's broad daylight, somewhere around noon, and he
comes in, he places a bet. So when he comes
into place to bet, the guy's like, yo, listen, we
don't do that here. You're a stranger.

Speaker 1 (41:59):
To get out of it.

Speaker 2 (42:00):
And he's like, I ain't no stranger, man, I'm not
a cop from the projects. He said, Yeah, I'm from
the projects. I played my number on the east Side. Man,
I'm not trying to go down there. Let me just
play my number. Say like all right here. So he
goes to fill out the betting slip. They said he
filled out the wrong slip. This is Robert Jones testifying, right,
because I learned everything through testimony. So now, Robert Jones says,

(42:20):
he filled out the wrong betting slip. He takes it,
throws it out, and fills out the right slip for him.
So then he leaves, he said. Forty five minutes later
to an hour later, this guy comes back, knocks on
the door. The numbers about to come out. They're not
taking more bets, they said, Yo, let him in. Let
him in. Worry about he was here earlier. So he's like, yo,
want to place another bet? He said, Yo, be BET's

(42:42):
a closed, but the numbers about to come out. Just
stick around. Next thing, you know, another knock comes on
the door, and then the doorman's at the door and
he's like, yo, there's another guy here.

Speaker 6 (42:52):
Man.

Speaker 2 (42:52):
We can't keep betting these guys there. Next thing, you know,
they said, this light skinned guy pulls out a gun.
He's like, you know what it is? Let my man.
The guy comes in. You know, they tell everybody get
on the ground, and I don't know what happened, but
there was an exchange of fire and eventually the officer
or the retired officer, wound up dead on the ground.

Speaker 3 (43:10):
So the pandemonium inside the bookie joint or the illegal
numbers joint is total. You've got people being tied up,
you've got people jumping over things, you've got gunshots ringing out,
you've got people fleeing, and in the process, a retired
police officers killed. So here you are at the trial
and you're being represented by Norman Reamer, Norman and Frank Goulden,

(43:34):
and now you've.

Speaker 1 (43:35):
Been in the system for eighteen months.

Speaker 2 (43:38):
At that time. Yes, to be precise, I turned myself
in February second, nineteen ninety eight. I walked into that precinct.
The choice to be in that lineup was the last
choice I made as a freeman. I was on trial
in October of nineteen ninety nine.

Speaker 3 (43:52):
Right, so over a year and a half in the
most dangerous prison in New York State, which is Rikers Island.

Speaker 2 (43:58):
So the trial, at the trial, this is where I
get the revelation of what occurred. You have several witnesses
who come and they testified. What people need to realize
is that everybody that was at this illegal gambling spot
was engaging in criminal activity. So every single one of
those people could have been arrested and charged with a crime.

(44:19):
Where the murder of a retired police officer occurred, so
it was serious for all of them. They were all
under pressure. And then you have to think about the response.
You're talking about the center of Harlem in broad daylight,
a retired officer who worked that area, who owned the
basket Robbins in that area, was shot and killed. There

(44:43):
has to be a response so that the people in
that neighborhood, the residents of Harlem, understand that this is
not tolerable. There has to be a response for that
the people in the residence of Harlem can understand that
this is still a safe environment. And that's why there's
so much pressure to bring somebody to jail.

Speaker 3 (45:01):
And you bring up another interesting point, which is that
everybody involved had a very strong motive. I want to
identify you because it takes the heat off of them.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
I mean, it's as straightforward as it could be.

Speaker 3 (45:16):
I mean, these are all people who were engaged in
the various activities of various different degrees, and the situation
provided them a very convenient way to make this problem
go away. And that opportunity was sitting right in front
of them. All they had to do was point to
you and say that's the guy who did it. Now

(45:36):
you go through the trial, all the evidence has been presented,
prosecutors do their thing, the defense does its thing. As
we know, the defense did a very competent job in
your case, but they were hamstrung by the fact that
they didn't have the money to do the proper investigations
leading up to the trial. And the fact is that's
where the real stuff happens, right, That's where you you

(46:00):
can't go into a war with a toy pistol.

Speaker 1 (46:04):
Right.

Speaker 3 (46:05):
In fact, that's kind of what happens in these cases
when you have a defense team that isn't given access
to the evidence, that isn't given the resources or the
time because they're so busy to properly investigate the situation.
And then they're going in there and they're they're doing
the best job that they can and presenting the best

(46:26):
arguments of the kid, but they don't have the information
that they need that Actually, in your case, had they
been able to do that, it's almost impossible to imagine
that a jury would have convicted you. But that's exactly
what happened, and that's why we're sitting here right now,
and let's talk about that. So the moment comes when
all the evidence has been presented, the jury goes out,
and they didn't go out for a short time either.

Speaker 1 (46:47):
They were out for a long time.

Speaker 2 (46:49):
They started getting their instructions Monday, and they started deliberating Tuesday,
and from Tuesday from ten in the morning to ten
at night, Wednesday, from ten in the morning to ten
at night, Thursday from ten in the morning to ten
at night, and to Friday, where the judges telling him
in the evening, if you do not come back with
a verdict, you will be sequested. That means that they

(47:10):
were going to be held and they weren't going to
be able to go home over the weekend. Probably about
another hour later, an hour and a half later, they
came back with a verdict and they found me not
guilty of murdering the first degree.

Speaker 3 (47:24):
Right, that was the first ruling. Right, so you had
reason to be optimistic. Now all of a sudden, you're like, okay,
so not guilty murder.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
Not guilty in a first degree, and then guilty, guilty, guilty.
I just kept hearing it over and over again. For
every other charge. They were charges of robbery, charges of
attempt murder, another charge of murder for the same exact
crime that I was just acquitted of right. Theirly reason
why it was murdering the first degree was because of

(47:53):
the occupation, the former occupation of the person who got
killed right, because he was a police officer. I was
facing the death penalty, but I wasn't facing the death
penalty at that particular phase. I was actually facing the
same charge one twenty five twenty seven murder in the
first degree, natural life in prison, no opportunity for parole,
never to be released again. And that's what they acquitted

(48:15):
me of. See, but the jury doesn't understand what's going on.
In fact, through investigations in another film that's taking place now,
I found out that several jurors in that jury room,
in that deliberation room, had an impression that I might
be able to go home in two years as long
as they acquitted me at the top charge and found
me guilty of the lesson, and they figured that I
was young enough to be able to bounce back from

(48:36):
that and continue with my life. I have no idea
where they got that impression, because two decades have passed
and I'm still in prison.

Speaker 3 (48:43):
But that's extremely important because now with that information, you
can sort of see into the mind of some of
the jurors where they're sitting there and you have whatever
number of them, two, three are going the guy didn't
do it. The guy didn't do it, and the other
guys are going, I want to go home, and he's
only going to be in for two years. Just go
along with us. Maybe he did it, maybe he didn't.

(49:06):
We can't sit here all weekend. I got things to
do with my kids. I got to get back from
whatever the hell they're saying.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
Right, Absolutely, and it's obvious that this occurred because it
took four days to come back with a verdict, so
there was obviously some dissension in that room.

Speaker 3 (49:21):
Yeah, if it was a clear cut case, they would
have been out of there in an hour. They would
have stayed for lunch. So now you're found guilty on
all these charges, you end up in this unbelievable situation.
And here we are right now inside the walls of
sing Sing, almost twenty years later. How did you manage
to cope? Where does that spirit come from?

Speaker 2 (49:41):
It was an organic process, so it wasn't a methodical process.
It wasn't thought out. It just kind of occurred. Basically,
how I saw life was once I got out the
fog because it took me a few years to get
out the fog. What I realized is that life is
about balance. So I'm at a low, the lowest that
could possibly be to be alive on earth. I consider

(50:03):
my circumstances being buried alive. I say that a lot.
I still believe that, And I have this philosophy about time,
and I said, I've been sent to twenty five of life.
I wasn't even twenty five years old when that happened,
So I was looking at a portion of time that
I hadn't even lived yet, under the circumstances that I
was in, and I couldn't see that. So I had

(50:23):
to start lying to myself. And I didn't realize they
were lies then. But twenty years lady, you look back
and you say, every year, I told myself it would
be my last in prison. I did that for nineteen
years and I'm still here. So I was lying to myself,
not knowing. But it was that sense of hope that
allowed me to rise from the ashes of oppression into

(50:44):
this resilient spirit that I've acquired. And the balance was
about how do I reach beyond the boundaries of prison
and become a person who's felt outside of those boundaries.
How can I help others live? And that's where I
started to acquire a love for writing, because my letters

(51:04):
can reach outside the walls. My voice wasn't out yet,
but I utilize writing, and you can change your life
in prison. So instead of just taking time, the way
I look at it is this. My philosophy personally is
that life is precious, There's no doubt about that, and
time is priceless. And why is time priceless Because our

(51:26):
lives as humans are being measured by the time that
we spend a live on this earth. And if I'm
going to be spending all this time in prison, where
I don't have particular responsibilities to anything except for my
children and my mother, then I can utilize this time
to learn because I have access to read. So I

(51:47):
start reading, and I start listening, and I start watching,
and I start observing, and I start to realize that
there's an untapped pool of resources in prison that exist.
What I'm around is a compounded environment that's actually a
microcosm of society. And the majority of the individuals that

(52:07):
I'm around are the people who took the wrong path
in life. So by sitting down and speaking to them
and learning what caused them to come across this path.
I've found answers that we can utilize as preventative measures.
So now I've learned to take the tools that are
around me and utilize them to spread the word, become

(52:31):
a voice for the voiceless, and try to create healthy
communities from the inside out. And that's how these projects
started to take place. We have a project called Voices
from Within right now. Voices from Within are a group
of individuals or are using the power of their testimony,
guilty individuals that are using the power of their testimony

(52:51):
to reach out to the youth and tell them you
don't want to do this.

Speaker 3 (52:54):
And I've seen the Voices from Within and I recommend
anybody check it out.

Speaker 1 (52:58):
It's so powerful because because there are people who shot someone,
killed someone, they've.

Speaker 3 (53:04):
They've taken life, and they have such an incredible sense
of remorse and responsibility for their actions, and they're channeling
it into a need to help others not make those
same mistakes. There's one that sticks in my mind. The
guy who you know was in the movie Theater right
and you know what thin a rival gang or something

(53:27):
like that started shooting, and he shot back in the
dark and shot an innocent person. And you know, you
almost put yourself in that situation. And it's so vivid
when you see him talk about it and the pain
that he feels of having taken away as he says,
the son of somebody or the brother or the it's
a very very powerful thing and a very positive thing

(53:48):
that's turning a negative invitory positive. Aside from the voices
from within, there's a number of other things that you've
accomplished in prison. Absolutely, why don't you just run through

(54:11):
some of the laundry list of things?

Speaker 2 (54:14):
For me, these weren't tasks. This was a lifestyle that
I've adopted. So in running through them, a lot of
them are vivid. But I never realized how much I've
actually accomplished until I was tasked with putting this together
for clemency. It all started with a think tank in
an inmate organization, and before you knew it, I became
the community organizer of the facility and I started getting

(54:37):
involved at anything that's positive or if anybody needed help
how to put something together. I had this tenacity that
was inherent to just be able to put things together.
And we started doing it. When I came to this facility,
there were a lot more options available. Sinsing is the
big house of New York. It's the prison right but

(54:58):
it has been redubbed into sing Sing University and a
documentary about Hudson Link that has been on HBO. So
I started to go to college right. I started to
acquire a degree in behavioral science, and I started to
apply what I was learning between that and what I've
learned on my own and what was happening in organizations.

(55:20):
And then I found like minded individuals and we called
ourselves the Forgotten Voices, and we said, you know what,
we need to reach out to people who can make
and affect change. So it's teaching children, and we're working
with the children of incarcerated parents because they're the closest
ones to us. But we're trying to work with all children,
and we're trying to reach out through organizations to help

(55:43):
children choose better options in life and utilize the experiences
of those who have choosed bad options in life as
a platform of experience to learn from, saying you don't
have to come here to learn this, you can be better.

Speaker 3 (56:00):
And it's so important because we know that number one
factor that determines whether a child will end up in
prison is not education or race or socioeconomic factors. It's
whether or not they've had a parent in prison. So
the idea that you're able to interfere and intervene, i
should say, and help to prevent that from happening is
so critical in stopping that pipeline, because those kids deserve.

Speaker 1 (56:24):
As much of a chance as anybody else.

Speaker 2 (56:26):
I think what's important to discuss when we discuss the
projects and what I've accomplished with these projects, is to
talk about how it really came to where it is today. Right.
So what ended up really occurring was in two thousand
and two, an individual came into my life. His name
is Dan Slepian. He's a produci of NBC and he
did the documentary Conviction. He did the investigation that proves

(56:50):
that I am an innocent man. And February twenty twelve,
when that documentary aired, I was already heavily active in
positive endeavors in prison, but when it aired, so many
people reached out to me. And I'm talking about young people,
old people, all kinds of people all over the world,
but in particular, there were young people reaching out to

(57:13):
me and telling me that my story changed their lives.
Some of them were actively involved in the street life.
And realized that if an innocent man can come to prison,
then I'm really getting there and I might be the
next one. And what that did was because in going
back again, we're going to go back and forth. In

(57:33):
two thousand and four, I was the captain of Youth
Assistance Program in green Haven and I used to deal
with youth and we give them tours of the prison
and we deal with them on a therapeutic manner. So
from seeing how film works and seeing that for years
I've been trying to get my voice outside the boundaries

(57:55):
of this wall to reach people, to enact change in
these communities and to change people lives, I realized that
the media is a tool to be able to get
us to them. Because the problem we had when I
was upstate in the Youth Assistance program was the resources
to get the children to the prison so that we
can speak to them. We were having an effect on them,

(58:16):
but if we only saw them one time, we would
never see them again because the resources to get them
up there that one time was hard enough to get
them to come back and do a reinforcement project was
even harder, but I realized that we can bring the
youth Assistance program to them by doing this. And in
the same time, other individuals in prison were reaching out

(58:37):
to me and saying, I'm innocent too, I need help,
I need the type of help that you have. And
I started passing names on to Dan Slepian right, and
these individuals have gotten out of prison. Eric Glistens served
seventeen years for a crime he didn't commit. He was
featured on Dateline a Bronx tale that was our work
Johnny Encopier. His case was just dismiss this last week

(59:01):
in Manhattan court. Another individual we have, Richard Rosario, a
very dear and personal friend of mine, as is Eric Glisten,
twenty years for a crime in commit shot him down
in the courts all the way through. Six months later,
the influence of media and a new prosecutor going into
the Bronx became the perfect storm. And now he's a

(59:23):
free man. And these are individuals I've been around. I've
been around so many individuals who have been released over
this time. This is like a whole nother life that
I've lived in here. The ability to affect change in others' lives,
and to see innocent men become free men based upon
work that we've done together. To see prisoners who have

(59:43):
taken lives trying to give back to life. To see
all of these things taking place in the most unlikeliest
place is amazing. And it's the driving force that keeps
me vigilant, that keeps me alive, and that keeps me
resilient to despite my circumstances, despite the devastation and the

(01:00:04):
trauma that we've had to go through. Just think about this.
My children for the first ten years of my incarceration,
remember one was just a month old, one was three
years old. They spent five days in school and one
day in prison because my mother brought them up religiously
every week. My mother worked hard as a union organizer,

(01:00:24):
five days working, coming up one day bringing two young
children to prison. What kind of social life did they have?
They've experienced severe trauma. Vanessa, her and I were together.
We were going to raise our children together. We're not
together anymore, but I don't blame her. I was facing
twenty five years in prison. We weren't twenty five years old.

(01:00:45):
I left her with an unfair burden of having to
raise two children in a broken home, a home that
was broken by an egregious miscarriage of justice. The trauma
just continues to spread throughout the community. When an innocent
man is convicted, he's not the only person who experiences
the trauma as a result. The entire community will be

(01:01:06):
affected because of the children, because of everything. You ask me,
what the worst thing that I've experienced in prison. The
worst thing that I've experienced in prison is that my
son became a victim to prison. My son came to
prison because I wasn't there to guide him. Okay, he's
not innocent, but he if he had me, he would

(01:01:28):
have had a different life. And in that sense, he
was innocent. Whatever he got charged for he did, but
he shouldn't have had to be in a position to
be raised without a father and a role model in
his life to teach him what's right, to guide them to. See, yo, listen,
I see you going wrong. I'm not gonna let you
do that to pull him up. I don't get that.

(01:01:48):
I get two three hours of his life on a
visit every once in a while, you think he's given
me what he's going through nah, I'm going on to visit.
He's telling me I'm fine. Meanwhile, he has to go
back and face those demons in the Bronx. It's very
unfair getting off the negative note and going to some
of the more positive things. Besides the people that I've

(01:02:12):
been able to touch, the thing I'm most proud about
throughout this entire ordeal is my mother. My mother. She's
carried my weight in a devastating way. She's the strongest
person I know. She's been a father to my children.
She's been amazing. I don't know anybody who has the

(01:02:33):
strength that she has and the driver and the determination
to carry the burden that was left by this miscarriage
of justice. My mother is old man. She was young,
and she was vibrant. She deserves to have me there
taken care of. I'm a holy child, not been in prison.
She's been taking care of me since I was born.

(01:02:55):
That's not fair. Forty one years old. She deserves better,
and she's been through way too much. Trauma is different
for different people, and while I'm in the experience, prison
has taught me that in order to survive, you have
to become numb, and I've become numb to my environment
and the circumstances in it so that I can deal

(01:03:16):
with it. But in some regard, I haven't dealt with
it yet, and I don't know what I'm going to
and I don't know what's going to happen as a result.
But I hope what has happened to others won't happen
to me. David Ranter served twenty four years for a
crime in commit and within a week of his release
he had a heart attack. Within that same year, he
had two more. Anthony Yarborough served twenty two or twenty

(01:03:37):
three years for a crime and commit They said he
killed his own sister and mother. DNA exonerated him. He
died within the year of his release. Willie Lopez, personal
friend of mine, we worked together, got out of prison
after about twenty two twenty three years, and he died
within a year of his release. I'm forty one years old.

(01:03:58):
My father died at forty nine, and he wasn't killed.
People need to understand how serious rawful convictions are. I've
been told that eleven million people cycle through the American
penal system angrily. Even if we were to imagine a
ninety nine percent success rate in the accuracy of convictions.

(01:04:20):
One percent of that eleven million cycle through prison for
crimes they don't commit. That's one hundred and ten thousand
people on an annual basis. And if they come through
for a serious offense, think about the type of time
that they have to face. Fernando Bermuda is a personal
friend of mine seventeen years. Jeffrey Dskovic personal friend of

(01:04:40):
mine sixteen years. David limis the person who introduced me
to Dan Slepian from the Palladium murder fourteen years. Eric
Glisson an individual I helped get out seventeen years. Richard
Rozario an individual I helped get out twenty years, Johnny
and Capier an individual help get out twenty five years.

(01:05:02):
The list will continue to go on the years go
into the thousands.

Speaker 3 (01:05:08):
People are hearing this story. It's an outrageous miscarriage of justice.
It's got to be fixed. I'm sure people are wondering
what can they do to help? What can they do
to help you? In particular. We've talked about things that
people can do in general on the show. Is there
anything they can do to help in this particular situation?
And as concise a manner as possible. Is there something

(01:05:30):
that you would have people do to help, as you've
helped so many other people reverse their wrongful conviction.

Speaker 2 (01:05:36):
I always think that we can't make change, but we
have demonstrated that we can. And I believe in the
power of people. I think I need people, particularly the
listeners of this show, to believe in the power of themselves.
There's a website being utilized to advocate for my freedom.
It's called free John adriavealaskis dot org j O n

(01:05:58):
ADRII E l A z qu easy. If, however, many
people listen to this show with to go and get
ten people to sign that petition, we would have thousands.
I'm a stamp away from anybody who cares. I'm sitting
in sing sing correctional facility. My number zero zero a
twenty three oh three reach out. I'll tell you how

(01:06:18):
you can help. Go to the website. They'll tell you
how you can help.

Speaker 3 (01:06:21):
I think that's the most important thing is go to
the website. It's free John adrewandlaskuz dot org. And again
that's j O N A d r I A n
V E l A z que z. And then of
course dot org so free John adrewandalaskaz dot org. Go there,
learn how you can help. John has generously offered to
have people write to him, and like I said earlier,

(01:06:44):
you should expect a letter back that you're going to
think he must have had help from a great novelist
or a professor of English at an Ivy League university.

Speaker 1 (01:06:52):
But he writes beautiful letters.

Speaker 2 (01:06:54):
You have already somehow reached society because over the time
of Decemble Christmas, I got a stack of mail about
this big I appreciate that. Thank you. I want everyone
to know how touched I am by their humanity and
their opportunity to say, you know what, somebody cares about you.

(01:07:14):
And that's some of the energy that I utilize to
basically catalyze my drive. So I appreciate it. I want
people to be patient. I've been working on a petition
for clemency. I've been working on my appeal, but I
will try to get back to everyone, and upon my release,
I guarantee that I'll be available somewhere on social media

(01:07:37):
and we'll get to everyone.

Speaker 3 (01:07:38):
Yeah, we'll have a big party, but everybody's going to
have to sign some petitions to get in. That's for sure, JJ,
I want to thank you for being on the show.

Speaker 2 (01:07:46):
I want to thank Revolver Productions for having me. I
want to thank you Jason for having me and for
doing everything that you have. You're an amazing individual. Thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:07:54):
You've been listening to the first episode of Wrongful Conviction
Behind Bar, and it won't be the last. I think
it's very important that we bring these stories to light
from inside a maximum security prison, in this case, Sing Sing.
I want to thank the Superintendent Capra for allowing us
to film with JJ inside the prison walls. And again

(01:08:18):
our guest today, John Adrian Velasquez. John, I'm looking forward
to seeing you as I saw Felipe the other day
on the outside with your family, and it's going to
happen because we're not going to give up until it does.

Speaker 5 (01:08:30):
Thank you, don't forget to give us a fantastic review.
Wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 1 (01:08:45):
It really helps. And I'm a proud donor.

Speaker 3 (01:08:48):
To the Innocence Project, and I really hope you'll join
me in supporting this very important cause and helping to
prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocenceproject dot orgorg to
learn how to donate and get it. I'd like to
thank our production team Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The
music in the show is by three time OSCAR nominated
composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram

(01:09:10):
at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is a production of Lava
for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one