March 7, 2024 • 38 mins
On October 25, 1979, Rabbi David Okunov was robbed and fatally shot while on his way to temple in Brooklyn, New York. Two eyewitnesses described the perpetrator to authorities, and the police's first primary suspect fingered 19-year-old Carl Miller as the gunman. Despite not matching either eyewitness's descriptions, not being picked out of the line-up, and no physical evidence tying him to the crime, Carl was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for the murder.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
On October twenty fifth, nineteen seventy nine, Rabbi David Akanov
was walking with his prayer case in Crown Heights, Brooklyn,
when an assailant approached, described as a young black man
about five foot nine, one hundred and fifty pounds, he
shot the prominent rabbi, stole the prayer case and ran
it too an apartment building. Eventually, NYPD found a young
(00:24):
man named Daryl Brown, who gave several accounts alleging that
a local amateur broxer named Carl Miller had made some
incriminating statements. Karl had an open warrant for assault, was
brought in for a lineup, but the eyewitnesses didn't identify him.
After he was processed for the previous assault charge and released,
Carl approached Daryl Brown in the street, but Brown was
(00:46):
not deterred. At trial, Brown testified that he had seen
the whole thing from start to finish, so the prosecutor
no longer needed the other eyewitnesses who did not identify
Karl in the lineup. But this is wrongful conviction. Welcome
(01:12):
back to wrongful conviction, where we have a story born
out of racial and religious tension in New York City
that existed certainly before the crime came in the late seventies,
but also through the nineties and even today in Crown Heights, Brooklyn,
between the black and Ascidic communities.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
That live there.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
But before we get into how that relates to this
story and the man who lived at Carl Miller, I'd
like to welcome back one of his attorneys, James Henning,
to our show.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Pleasure to be back, Jason.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
And this time you brought along another attorney who played
a major role in this case, Carissa Cokin.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
Welcome, thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
And now i'd like to introduce the man himself, Carl Miller.
And as we record this right now, October twenty fifth,
twenty twenty three, it's not only his birthday, but also
the forty fourth anniversary of the crime at the center
of his wrongful conviction. So Carl, I'm sure that colors
how you see this day, but we hope that this
(02:05):
one is a happy birthday, and thank you for choosing
to spend some of it here with us.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
And you're welcome.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Now, Carl, can you tell us a little bit about
your childhood.
Speaker 5 (02:15):
I grew up in Crown Heights with my family I
went to public school to twenty one.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
From there went to James D. Lawrence, which is a
six hundred school.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
My mother and my father moved out, and I just
hung around with some of the guys that I was
associated with.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Carl did not have his parents around for a while.
He was expected to go out and handle his own business.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
And you were married, and you were a young father
at the time.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
That wasn't married at the time, but I was a
young father.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
I understand you were an amateur boxer.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (02:47):
I did box for Izzyzerland Youth and Recreation Center and
Crown Heights, and I had a little reputation in the
neighborhood as somebody that you didn't want to mess.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
With, and I think that, unfortunately worked against him when
he was wrongfully accused.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
In the months leading up to the murdering question, Carl
had been in a fight in which he was stabbed
with a screwdriver and hospitalized with a collapse lung, resulting
in an open arrestaurant for assault, which seems wrong for
someone defending themselves against deadly force, but that kind of
unfair application of the law was nothing new to Carl.
Speaker 5 (03:20):
I did have a confrontation with the seventy first Precinct
because they used to come around and get guys to
go in for lineups, and I started telling them, don't
do that because you getting paid five dollars for a lineup,
but in not giving you back the picture. So this
is my way of like trying to keep them out
of the police way.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Which is solid advice. We've seen misidentifications start just that
way in so many wrongful conviction cases. So as a
young man, Carl had already witnessed injustices to give him
that perspective. While in contrast, there appeared to be preferential
treatment for the Hasidic community and Crown Heights.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
It's a strong voting bocke. It's like you're not going
to get elected mayor if you don't have the Hasiatic
community because they will vote in droves for the candidate
that the Rebbe tells them to vote for.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
The Hasidic community before and after World War Two settled
in Crown Heights, which had been anointed by the leaders
of what is known as the HBBAD or Hobbad Lubovich movement,
many of whom had escaped persecution either at the hands
of the Germans or those in the Soviet block before
and after World War Two. Curiously, the city allowed one
of its most powerful voting blocks to operate their own
(04:26):
police force, the Jewish Defense League or JDL.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
The hard charge behind that JDL philosophy was never again,
get yourself a gun, don't rely on the cops. People
lived in an era where the cops were hurting you
onto the trains to auschwitzenbergen Belsen and Triblinka and whatnot.
It's that Merkan slogan, never again, We're not going to
be vulnerable. Imagine any other group in New York City
(04:52):
having their own police force. There are two very distinct
worlds there in the Crown Heights area. One that is
set up with their own ambulance and emergency systems, and
they've had a number of issues going up until recent
days with those two communities bordering on each other.
Speaker 5 (05:09):
One of the one that really stands out is the
Crown Heights riot. But as I will say to people,
prior to Crown Heights riots, you had like Victor Road,
he was a guy that was a cost about a JDL.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
And of course you're talking about the awful incident on
June sixteenth, nineteen seventy eight, when approximately twenty Assitic men
beat a sixteen year old kid named Victor Roads into
a coma that lasted for two months. And so obviously
the tension was high in the area.
Speaker 5 (05:37):
So it was always tension, but it wasn't the con
attension that the Crown Heights riot had bought.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
The Crown Heights riot took place in August nineteen ninety
one when a young Hasidic man drove through a red light,
veered off the road to avoid now oncoming traffic, and
pinned two seven year old Black children under his car,
one of whom Gavin Cato, was killed, signetic a race riot.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
The story at the scene was the Shibata ambulance showed
up and went straight for the Hasidam while kids underneath
the car and they're trying to lift it up.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
The tension that was building for decades exploded. Jewish people
and their businesses were attacked, and the violence played heavily
into the nineteen ninety three mayoral election of Rudy Giuliani,
who unseated New York City's first African American mayor, David Dinkins.
The unrest in Crown Heights was Palpable in nineteen ninety three,
and was certainly present when Victor Rhodes was attacked in
(06:32):
June of seventy eight, as well as when Rabbi David
Akanov was murdered in October seventy nine.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Rabbi David Akanov, the victim in this case, was in
his late sixties. He had been born in Ukraine in
nineteen eleven studied the Torah under Communist rule there. Actually,
after his bar Mitzvah, he wanted to continue studying, but
his parents wouldn't let him, so he went on a
hunger strike until they gave up and led him. He
(06:59):
ended up emigrating to the US after learning that the
KGB was looking into him, and he made efforts in
the Crown Heights community to help other Jews who were
living under oppression in Russia. So Rabbi Akanov was, by
all accounts, a very pious and charitable man. He was
not somebody who seemed to deal with a lot of trappings.
(07:20):
But he did have a regular prayer case that he
would bring with him to pray, and it contained and
I'm going to butcher this terminology, his talus and his
tapillon which are religious implements used by Lubovich has siedam
so just before seven am on October twenty fifth, nineteen
seventy nine. He's on his way to yeshiva when he shot.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
This was a very high profile case. We've got a
very prominent rabbi.
Speaker 6 (07:47):
In the community who was shot with a thirty two
caliber point blank in the face. There were two eyewitnesses
to this shooting.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Both of the eyewitnesses Louis Fazio, who was not a
member of the Seated community, and sixteen year old Sinaya Sperlin,
who was. It's pretty evident that they saw the same
person running from the scene with Rabbi Akinov's prayer case.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Now, the descriptions were actually remarkably similar from the two witnesses.
A man who was black, twenty one years old, ish
right about five nine, one hundred and fifty pounds, medium built,
medium hair, possibly wearing a hat and a dark jacket. Carl,
does that description match you or did it match you
at that time?
Speaker 5 (08:30):
At that time, I was probaby a five one hundred
and eighty pounds, weigh a little afro and wear too
many hats. Very athletic, not slim, as they had described
this person as being a slender person.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
That's not me.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
They're talking about a guy who's five nine one fifty.
You're about six feet tall, right, Yeah, there's a significant difference.
You were a boxer, right, so with a class of boxing.
Speaker 5 (08:51):
I was in a light heavy, light heavyweight, light heavyweight.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
So the descriptions didn't match. What about alibis and things
like that.
Speaker 5 (09:02):
I was in Queens, New York, celebrating my birthday with
my daughter's mother at the time, and I left her
house came back to Brooklyn, and that's when I learned
about the rabbi being murdered.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Carl had spent the night in Queens, and even after
lies and coercion, his daughter's mother, Joanne Davis, maintained that
he was there that morning and not in Crown Heights
at seven am, murdering Rabbi Akanoff and running off with
his prayer case into the apartment building at five point
sixty five Crown Street.
Speaker 6 (09:29):
And that is where they end up finding a suitcase
that belonged to an individual named Daryl Brown.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Rabbi Akonov's prayer case is never found, and in an
abandoned apartment they find this suitcase belonging to Darryl Brown
with his property in there, and two days later he
shows up at the precinct because he heard that they
were looking for them.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
Daryl Brown essentially ends up being the only person to
ever implicate Carl Beller in this crime.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Right, you sure Lock Holmes to figure out a misdirection
play there.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Right, You've also got the fact that Darryl Brown is
repeatedly lying to them. His statements evolve. His initial statement
indicates that he didn't see anything.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
And then they received a second statement from Daryl Brown
on November eight, nineteen seventy nine, while he was being
treated at King's County Hospital for a gunshot wound to
the hand. They never investigate the cause of the wound.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
When they come back to him, presumably with the ability
to turn the screws a little bit, when he's in
the hospital with the gunshot wound, he now says that
he and two other friends had seen a Jewish man
with some money in a pizza falafel store and Carl
supposedly said, oh, you should have ripped him off, and
that he had heard the shot and saw Carl near
(10:46):
the scene.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Carl has always maintained if he was not present either
for the murder or that day in the store. We
only find out who that actually was much later then.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Darryl Brown in his third documented statement and his first
sworn statement the next day on November ninth, he says
that he had seen Carl near the scene and he
tried to get into five point sixty five Crown where
I was staying. I've seen him with a thirty two
and I spoke to him the day before the crime
about a jew with money in a blue bag. And
(11:17):
that's a quote which is important because it departs from
his testimony at trial.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
On the strength of dwell Brown's ever shifting word, Carl
was eventually charged with the murder. However, with his open
arrest warrant for assault, his reputation as a neighborhood tough guy,
and previous interactions with the seventy first Precinct, they came
looking for him way before Brown had ever made any statements.
Just a few days after the rabbi's murder in late October.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
My sister tell me that the police was looking for
me to talk to me, and I called him, said,
what are you looking me for? Oh, we want to
talk to you. About the homicide. Come to the precinct.
I'm like, Noah, we can talk about not come to
the precinct. I didn't go because I made he was
going to arrest me, so I had an open case.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
I had a warrant, which is completely within his rights.
Speaker 5 (11:59):
And I think it was November fourteenth. They picked me
up at my house, took me to the sixty ninth precinct,
questioned me about the homicide, but they arrested me for
my warrant.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
When Carl does get brought to the precinct, he offers
to take a polygraph and provide his fingerprints, and police
don't take his prince, but they do take a polygraph,
which they claim Carl failed. He then stands in two
lineups without council and is viewed by Shanina Sperlin and
Louis Fazio, the two undisputed eyewitnesses, neither of whom identify him.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
I was held on the warrant.
Speaker 5 (12:34):
They took me to Rockets Island, came back out and
walking around the street and people was telling me that
this guy Brown was talking about me with the police,
and I had a confrontation with him when I was accident.
Why are you telling um talking to the police about
me about this case. Oh, they want me to say
and I'm not going to say nothing. I was just
telling him leave my name out of it, because I
(12:54):
had nothing to do with that at all.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
This was around probably right after Thanksgiving.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Daryl Brown on November twenty ninth is given a polygraph
quote to test out his earlier statement end quote to
the prosecutor and according to the police, Brown's polygraph shows
that he was telling the truth about everything, but there
was some question about his withholding evidence from the police.
Now think about that statement, because we know number one,
(13:20):
polygraphs aren't this nuance? Now they weren't this nuance? Then
this was a tool for coercion.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
It usually is. Polygraphs aren't even admissible in court. And
I need our audience to remember that police are allowed
to lie to you about evidence, and they routinely lie
about polygraph results in order to coerce confessions.
Speaker 5 (13:42):
When they arrested me on the fourteenth and I volunteered
for the lineup, the guy has said that, oh, you
was picked out in Alno, which we come to learn
that was not true, that I was never identified in Lano.
After I take the polygraph test. They said, oh, you fail,
So I'm like, okay, I mean I watched Perry Mason
when I was a kid. So if I failed a
lot to take the test and I was picked down
(14:03):
on the lineup, what more evidence do you need to
arrest me? But I wasn't arrested. I was arrested in
November thirtieth for this case.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
After Daryl Brown gives that polygraph statement where according to
the police, he was truthful about everything. On the thirtieth
they put Daryl Brown in lineups. But what are you
putting somebody in lineups for if they've told the truth
about everything implicating another individual.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
That's a good question. If I'm following this correctly, then
they must have suspected that he might have been the guy, right.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
It doesn't make sense to conclude otherwise. Either he's telling
the truth about everything when he implicates Carl, and okay,
authorize the arrest. Certainly, there's no basis the next day
to put Darryl Brown in lineups unless you're saying maybe
he's still not telling the truth about everything, And instead
what they do is revert to tunnel vision and authorize
(14:56):
and arrest for Karl based entirely. This is disputed entirely
on the accusation of Daryl Brown, his second differing sworn statement,
his fourth or fifth differing documented statement since the murder.
It's just a travesty.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
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Wrongful Conviction. Freedom Agenda is led by people directly impacted
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Speaker 5 (16:12):
When you coming off the street, you know you gotta
fight within Rockets Island because that's how it was, so
it can be really alled on the person that if
you're not really up to it and I was the
type of person that I could defend myself, so I
had no problem like that. You just waiting to go
to trial and prove my innocence.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
So nine months later, September eighth, nineteen eighty, you go
to trial. I'm assuming you were represented by a public defender.
Speaker 5 (16:38):
Yes, I was reaping presented by how it listwise? The
guy come in tell me, oh, I never lost a
murder case.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
I didn't know you didn't have one until you had minds.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
There were some very serious discovery issues here, whether you
want to blame it on trial council or whether you
want to blame it on the prosecution. But two things
that we now know happened just prior to trial. There's
no indication that Carl knew at the time of trial.
It's that Shanina Sperlin shows up at the Brooklyn DIA's
(17:09):
office and tells Ada Barbara Newman, the trial prosecutor, that
he recognized a possible perpetrator in one of the lineups
he viewed. But it's not the Carl Miller lineup. It's
the Darryl Brown lineup. The other thing that is potentially
but we're not certain, disclosed on August twenty eighth, nineteen eighty,
(17:30):
about a week or so before Carl's trial starts, is
that Ada Newman discloses that an individual named Barry Lee
Jackson had been identified from photographs on or before October
twenty seventh, nineteen seventy nine, which is just two days
after the murder, and in writing whether this was received
by mister weiss Wesser or not, or whether it was
(17:52):
taken as legitimate or not, she tells him that if
he lacked any further discovery, he should tell her so
she could provide it. Now, that's kind of a catch
twenty two, and it's not how discovery works. He can't
tell her if he's lacking something that he doesn't know about,
and you're now on the eve of trial.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
There were several other important Brady violations, including more alternate
suspects like a man named Derek Peterson, as well as
a guy named Willie Easterling who had been seen trying
to sell religious artifacts in the area. Police reports did
not demonstrate any follow up and were not shared with
the defense either, and this conduct was only compounded by
(18:32):
presenting the ever changing testimony of Daryl Brown. This time
at trial, he said that he followed Carl that morning,
saw him grab Achanoff, who screamed before he was shot,
then saw him run off to five sixty five Crown
Street with the prayer case, and Carl's attorney did lean
heavily on the inconsistencies between Brown's version of events and
undisputed facts of the crime, as well as how Brown's
(18:53):
testimony may have resulted from pressure from investigators.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Detective Sorrentino, who's the assigned detective here, testifies that he
never told Darryl Brown he was a suspect, which, as
we noted earlier, if after the fact of him giving
you a completely truthful statement, you're placing him in lineups,
there's only one reason to play somebody in a lineup
as the subject. Second, the court prohibited Carl's council from
(19:19):
questioning Detective Sorrentino about whether he had ever put psychological
pressure on a suspect. And there's one more thing. Darryl
Brown's account of Rabbi Akanov's suitcase is not accurate. His
prayer bag was a distinctive dark blue color, and in
the early unrecorded police statement that Daryl Brown gives describing
(19:43):
this bag, it is a dark blue bag, but by
the time he gets to trial, it's a clear bag
that he can see into and actually tell the type
of felt material inside, and more concerning it indicates to
me one of two possible conclusions. One Daryl Brown saw
inside that bag or touched it. Two Daryl Brown was
(20:06):
told how that bag looked after he gave independent statements.
Neither of them tend to support the reliability of the
verdict in this case.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Darryl Brown also testified that Rabbi Achanov made no attempt
to block the bullet with his hand, which was contradicted
by the state's forensic pathologist, citing the black powder stain
and stippling on the back of the rabbi's hand. So,
while the defense seated doubt about the state's witness, the
state attacked Carl's alibi witness, his daughter's mother, Joanne Davis.
Speaker 6 (20:36):
From everything in the transcript, everything on the record, all
the materials we have, the only indication we can really
come to is that Carl's alibi witness was really just
spoken to in order to try and get impeachment material
for her.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
And you know something.
Speaker 6 (20:53):
Else that we see as well too, is that false
statements are attributed to Carl's alibi witness, which is some
thing that we very frequently see in these cases as well.
You have unendorsed statements, you have unsigned statements. Then at
trial it's the detective's word against the witnesses word.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
In this case, the lead detective Sorrentino, testified that Miss
Davis said that she saw Karl with the thirty two
caliber pistol, the kind of gun used to kill Achanov,
even though Miss Davis denied ever saying that, but rather
that she'd only seen him with a toy gun. In addition,
Sorrentino testified that Miss Davis's mother had said that Carl
was not at her home the morning of the murder.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
To the credit of Joanne Davis, she's actually asked under
oath if her mother is stupid. She's told that Carl
supposedly failed to polygraph, She's told that he may never
come home, and she doesn't change her account.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
The state referred to Miss Davis's story as concocted, and
they told the jury to quote wonder about the sense
of someone who gave birth at seventeen.
Speaker 6 (21:58):
Wooh credit ability was unborn to being attacked by the
police and prosecutors.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
The state made note that the main issue of the
case was whether Daryl Brown had seen the shooting, calling
the actual eyewitnesses nothing more than quote distractions unquote, and
that eyewitness Louis Fazzio quote didn't add anything to the
case unquote. They had to take this tact after all,
because Fazio was no help to them.
Speaker 6 (22:23):
Fazio was initially subpoenaed by the people, right, So he
gets into the courtroom and he tells his wife that
Carl is too broad to have been the man that
he saw.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
As a result, Adia Newman doesn't call him, but the
defense does.
Speaker 6 (22:41):
He reiterated that he made this remark that Carl was
too broad to have been the person that he saw,
and he also basically said that he was not able
to identify the person who he saw in the courtroom,
So meaning, right, it's not Carl.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
But the fact that Ada k Newman had subpoenaed him
makes two things ridiculous. She asks him, mister Fozzio, were
you wearing your glasses as if this is supposed to
impugne his account, even though she was going to call
him as her witness previously when she thought maybe it
wouldn't denigrate her case. But second of all, how you
could get up in summation and say he couldn't add
(23:18):
anything to the case when you were calling him in
a case that did not have a ton of witnesses testifying.
He's one of two people that indisputably saw the purp
running from this crime scene.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
So Fasio was positive for the defense while Joeanne Davis
was brutally attacked. But then Carl's lawyer does something absolutely
insane at the end of the trial.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
It's absurd. It's in his own summation where the verdict
is going to come down to a credibility contest between
his civilian aliby witness and the sole witness for the prosecution.
And first the judge says, actually says on the record, well,
it's probably improper for me to express an opinion, but
I'm going to say it. I think the alibi has
(24:03):
been pretty well discredited. And instead of mister Weiswasser standing
up and advocating for his client, he says, quote, I
wish I never heard the word alibi. And in his
own summation he points out supposed holes in miss Davis's
testimony denigrator is a witness while calling Detective Sorrentino an
(24:24):
excellent officer. It's a complete abdication of his duty to
his client.
Speaker 5 (24:28):
He didn't really do anything in defense of me. He
really didn't and a juri or eleven whites and one black.
It was over two hundred asiitics inside and outside the court.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
The deck was stacked against me.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Predictably, the jury went out and they came back with
guilty on all accounts right felony, murder, robbery in the
first degree, in criminal possession of a weapon in the
second degree.
Speaker 5 (24:51):
When I was found guilty, it was like, Wow, are
you serious? You're gonna believe this guy that I killed
this man? A lot of things was running through my head.
I'm not gonna be raise my son. I'm not gonna
be able to raise my daughter, you know, my sisters,
my family. So it's a whole lot going through a
whole lot. I'm put on that bus to go up
(25:24):
to Elmira. It's like the reality starts sitting there.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do?
Speaker 5 (25:29):
Get caught up in a lot of negative stuff that
goes on in prison, or you're gonna get yourself up
out of there.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
For time being.
Speaker 5 (25:36):
You get caught up in a little bit of the
negativity stuff to stimulate yourself from the reality of being
in prison. That's something that I did to a couple
of old timers. Pulled me to the side and said, hey, look,
we read about your case. It don't seem right. You
need to get your butt in a little library while
your indictment it gets still fresh. I had a little
pill of attorney. He put together some type of brief
(25:58):
that was straight up be at and I wound up
doing time, just trying to seek help from different people.
Just keep pushing, went to school, got a ged legal
research certificate, still trying to prove my innocence. Nobody was
listening to pills. Was denied time. Come for your first
parole board. I go in there, continue to maintain my innocence.
(26:20):
That was in two thousand and four, Go back in
two thousand and six, come back in two thousand and eight,
same thing, go back in twenty ten. And what was
presented to the senior parole officer at the time is
that Shanina Sperling and Louis Faizio did not identify me.
The senior parole officer. He said, Yo, you know, they
always sent up transcripts of the sentencing, but they never
(26:42):
sent up stuff like this. And he said, wow, I
never knew this. So he said, the next parole hearing
come up, I think you got a good shot with
this commission of someone.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Set your paperwork in front.
Speaker 5 (26:51):
I just continue saying what you're saying, maintaining your innocent
don't change, and I didn't, and the lo and behold
I was parole.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
So I kind of glossed over a little bit over
thirty years that you spent in prison. Right? Was it
that long?
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Thirty one?
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Thirty one years?
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Right?
Speaker 1 (27:07):
It's amazing that you survived, and that you seem to
really have survived with your spirit intact. And it's also
incredible that you were able to go to the parole
board and do exactly opposite of what people are advised
to do.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Right.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
They want to hear remorse, they want to hear that
sort of narrative. Right, So for them to be able
to act the way that they did shows that they
must have known what you had known all along, and
what everyone should have known all along, which is that
you were actually innocent.
Speaker 5 (27:35):
Being released after thirty one years. It was surreal. It
was wow, I'm walking the street. Oh man, what am
I going to do? Okay, gotta go see parole. That's
kind of frustrating because you're still on the supervision. Came out,
got married, reconnected. What did I miss? I missed my
daughter's first time walking. I missed my daughter's first grade.
(27:56):
I missed my son's first grade. I missed my son's
first baseball game. I missed so many things that you
cannot get back. So when you come out, where do
you pick up from my daughter? Because she was only
a couple of months before I left. My son was two,
So you look at the time. So you're saying thirty
one and thirty three. These are young adults that have
lived a life. So how could you interject as a father?
(28:18):
Because this was taken away from me. So you do
the best that you can. And that's all I've been
doing since I've been out, was reconnecting with them, connected
with other family members and things of that nature, and
then got back into proving my innocence. And that's when
I continue doing what I was doing. And I wrote
to different people after Ken Thompson had set up the
wrongful conviction unit that he has in the Brooklyn District
(28:40):
Attorney's office, and I had contacted them, and I contacted James,
and this is where we're at now.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
So where we are right now is we had cooperated
for a bit with the conviction review unit here in Brooklyn.
We'd received some materials we intend to use in support
of emotion at some point. Ultimately, after they interviewed Carl
and some of the witnesses in the case declined to
be interviewed or could not be located, they closed out
(29:07):
the case. But then this month they reached back out
and said that there has been a recent and unexpected
development in the investigation of Carl's case and that they're
going to reopen the investigation, which I don't believe I've
heard of them doing in any other case.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
After we wrapped our first interview, we got a call
from James and Carrissa asking us to hold on production
until they could meet with the Brooklyn DA's office. It
turns out that back in nineteen seventy nine, a guy
named Robert Simms gave a statement to corroborate Brown about
Carl's alleged statement at the Falafel or Pizza store. Now,
in October twenty twenty three, some new evidence came to
light about Robert Simms and his wife.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
Linda Simms, the broken cru in the course of their reinvestigation,
had visited her house looking to speak with her husband,
Robert Simms, and left the card there. And what we've
been told is that Linda Simms, the wife, January of
twenty twenty three, reached out to her sister and sent
a picture of the assistant's business card that had been
(30:08):
left at the door. And when her sister asked, well,
what is this about, she responded, well, google Rabbi Crown
Heights nineteen seventy nine, and the sister, Teresa, found articles
on Rabbi Akinov's murder. And she asked her sister, Linda, well,
what did you do, and Linda responded that's what I did.
And Teresa, caring about her sister, said well, what you
(30:32):
need to do is get yourself an attorney and turn
yourself in. And Linda for many months did not heed
that advice. So by September ish, it seems to be Teresa,
this was weighing very heavily on her contacted the Brooklyn
DIA's office and that's what spurred on the reopening of
the investigation.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
The confession from Linda to her sister Teresa continued implicating
Robert Simms.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
Linda said, I did that, and then Web meaning her
and Robert, brought it up to our father. He was
very pissed off and sent me down south. Now there's
a fair inference that she was saying that both of
us did this. And we now have additional evidence that
Linda Simms's father, who was murdered in December nineteen eighty,
shortly after Carl's trial, that at various points throughout nineteen
(31:22):
seventy nine and nineteen eighty, both Linda and Robert Simms
had possession of his handgun. And additional information that has
come out about Robert has certainly changed our assessment of him. Specifically,
when he was interviewed by the cru in relation to
Carl's case, they did not know that in the early
(31:42):
two thousands he was carrying on this relationship outside of
his marriage with Linda. She was a twenty something beautician,
they had a child together, and she was found disposed
of in a very rough fashion in an abandoned building.
And Robert was brought to trial in Brooklyn for the
murder and somehow acquitted. Obviously, the file is sealed following
(32:05):
the acquittal, but it sounds like the only reason for
the acquittal was that Robert pointed the finger to friends
who had helped him dispose of the body and claimed
that one of them was the actual murderer.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
So what was the guy's name who took the fall?
Speaker 3 (32:20):
Meltreus Walker?
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Is he still serving time?
Speaker 3 (32:23):
He's out now? He essentially says he came over to
the house the woman had been shot four times, and
Robert said, I need you to help me take care
of this.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Now.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
What's even more interesting here is before the Brooklyn DIA's office,
the cru had learned through Theresa and his sister about
Robert's prior charge that he was acquitted of. They interviewed
him and he said he did not want to talk
about his prior case, which he referred to as sort
of a little incident, I believe, but he didn't want
(32:54):
to get into the details. He said that he and
Daryl Brown, the sole witness against Karl, had been best
friends for years up until that point, at which time
they had a falling out because he asked Daryl Brown
for some help with something, and Darryl Brown's response was,
who the f do you think you are? John Gottie
(33:16):
or something, And they haven't really spoken. Since it sounds
like Daryl was asked to do some dirty work for Robert.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
Not certainly plausible that Daryl Brown may have been responding
to a request from Robert Simms for yet another big favor.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
Going back to the original investigation, the statement attributed to
Robert by police was that Robert and Daryl Brown a
day or a few days before Rabbi Akinov's murder had
been in a pizza shop on Kingston Avenue and seeing
a Jewish man with a prayer bag full of money,
and according to the police report, Robert and Daryl were
(33:53):
thinking of robbing this man but didn't and when they
later saw Carl Miller, they said, here's what we saw,
and according to the police report, Carl said, oh, you
should have ripped him off. Now, Carl has always denied
making that statement. We have nothing from Daryl Brown on
that statement at trial. We have him in a police
report giving a different version of that. What Robert Simms
did admit to us and to the cru is that
(34:15):
he was looking to get one of those bags he
was interested in robbing somebody. He denies that they had
any conversation where Carl Miller said, yeah, you should have
taken this guy off. And as Carl has said repeatedly,
his response to that would have been, are you crazy.
You're right across the street from the JDL and you're
going to rob a guy like this. That's ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
So where does the case stand now? With the cru they.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
Have turned things over to us. We're gathering information and
evidence to put a motion into court. We've had several
people talk to us and give us additional evidence. We're
feeling good that we can get ourselves a hearing where
we can subpoena some of these people and get them
in to give sworn testimony so we can weed out
the truth here.
Speaker 6 (34:57):
Absolutely, and now we're working with the CiU. Clearly there
are ways and avenues for us to pursue.
Speaker 4 (35:06):
We just need people to speak up about it.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Karl deserves it.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Rabbi Akanov deserves to have the right person convicted of
this crime. This is a case that is based on
one person, Daryl Brown his word. We're not here to
judge you. Somebody was already judged in this case, and
we submit that it was wrongful. Reach out to us.
We'll talk to you. This isn't a witch hunt or something.
(35:30):
We just want the truth. We're at eighty six Livingston
Street in Brooklyn. We want to get to the bottom
of this.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
So we'll definitely have your contact info length in the
episode description, and with that we're going to go to
closing arguments, where first of all, I just want to
thank you for joining us, and now I'm going to
shut my microphone off, kick back of my chair with
my headphones on, and just listen to anything else that
you feel is left to be said. So let's start
(35:56):
with James, go to Carissa, and then finish it off
with you call.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
One thing that I think we didn't get into, something
that we only learned after we started cooperating with the
cru in this case, is that one of the people
that we've seen pop up in a lot of these
cases is a gentleman that your viewers are certainly familiar with,
the detective Lewis Scarcella, and he it just so happens
pops up in this case for reasons that have not
(36:24):
been revealed to us. Two days after the murder, then
Anti Crime Officer Lewis Scarcella is interviewed by the assisting
detective Viola, and we have no information about that. But
we do have information that former detective Scarcella has been
monitoring the progress of this case and the media accounts
(36:46):
of this case. So again I'll say the same thing
I said about Daryl Brown, Missus Scarcella, my phone is on.
Information is information. We don't know how you factored into this. Again,
I'll say, we're not going to stop. There will be
a resolution here, whether it's through the cru whether it's
filing something. When Carl came to me, I said, we're
(37:07):
going to fight this case. When Carissa read this case,
she said, we're going to fight this case together. That's
what we do, and we're going to keep moving forward,
reach out.
Speaker 6 (37:15):
I'm just really happy that we were able to touch
on the fact that Carl was released on parole notwithstanding
him maintaining his innocence.
Speaker 4 (37:25):
I think that is huge.
Speaker 6 (37:27):
Anyone who's familiar with the criminal justice process knows that
is huge.
Speaker 4 (37:31):
And I really think.
Speaker 6 (37:32):
It's no surprise that Fazio played a role and that
so as we're saying, if anyone has any more information
similar to Fazio.
Speaker 4 (37:42):
Maybe they saw something just come forward.
Speaker 5 (37:45):
I would like to say thank you in the role
for Fixing podcasts, for giving us the opportunity to have
this out there in the public so that people can
see not just me, but they are a whole bunch of
wrongful convictions. And as James and Carissa as stated, it's
people that know me. If you know something that need
(38:05):
to be spoke on, speak on it. That's all I
have to say.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
week early by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on
Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team, Connor
Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow executive
producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cliburn. The music
in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
(38:35):
composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across all
social media platforms at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction.
You can also follow me on Instagram at It's Jason Flamm.
Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
and association with signal Company number one
On October twenty fifth, nineteen seventy nine, Rabbi David Akanov
was walking with his prayer case in Crown Heights, Brooklyn,
when an assailant approached, described as a young black man
about five foot nine, one hundred and fifty pounds, he
shot the prominent rabbi, stole the prayer case and ran
it too an apartment building. Eventually, NYPD found a young
(00:24):
man named Daryl Brown, who gave several accounts alleging that
a local amateur broxer named Carl Miller had made some
incriminating statements. Karl had an open warrant for assault, was
brought in for a lineup, but the eyewitnesses didn't identify him.
After he was processed for the previous assault charge and released,
Carl approached Daryl Brown in the street, but Brown was
(00:46):
not deterred. At trial, Brown testified that he had seen
the whole thing from start to finish, so the prosecutor
no longer needed the other eyewitnesses who did not identify
Karl in the lineup. But this is wrongful conviction. Welcome
(01:12):
back to wrongful conviction, where we have a story born
out of racial and religious tension in New York City
that existed certainly before the crime came in the late seventies,
but also through the nineties and even today in Crown Heights, Brooklyn,
between the black and Ascidic communities.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
That live there.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
But before we get into how that relates to this
story and the man who lived at Carl Miller, I'd
like to welcome back one of his attorneys, James Henning,
to our show.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Pleasure to be back, Jason.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
And this time you brought along another attorney who played
a major role in this case, Carissa Cokin.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
Welcome, thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
And now i'd like to introduce the man himself, Carl Miller.
And as we record this right now, October twenty fifth,
twenty twenty three, it's not only his birthday, but also
the forty fourth anniversary of the crime at the center
of his wrongful conviction. So Carl, I'm sure that colors
how you see this day, but we hope that this
(02:05):
one is a happy birthday, and thank you for choosing
to spend some of it here with us.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
And you're welcome.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Now, Carl, can you tell us a little bit about
your childhood.
Speaker 5 (02:15):
I grew up in Crown Heights with my family I
went to public school to twenty one.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
From there went to James D. Lawrence, which is a
six hundred school.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
My mother and my father moved out, and I just
hung around with some of the guys that I was
associated with.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Carl did not have his parents around for a while.
He was expected to go out and handle his own business.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
And you were married, and you were a young father
at the time.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
That wasn't married at the time, but I was a
young father.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
I understand you were an amateur boxer.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (02:47):
I did box for Izzyzerland Youth and Recreation Center and
Crown Heights, and I had a little reputation in the
neighborhood as somebody that you didn't want to mess.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
With, and I think that, unfortunately worked against him when
he was wrongfully accused.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
In the months leading up to the murdering question, Carl
had been in a fight in which he was stabbed
with a screwdriver and hospitalized with a collapse lung, resulting
in an open arrestaurant for assault, which seems wrong for
someone defending themselves against deadly force, but that kind of
unfair application of the law was nothing new to Carl.
Speaker 5 (03:20):
I did have a confrontation with the seventy first Precinct
because they used to come around and get guys to
go in for lineups, and I started telling them, don't
do that because you getting paid five dollars for a lineup,
but in not giving you back the picture. So this
is my way of like trying to keep them out
of the police way.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Which is solid advice. We've seen misidentifications start just that
way in so many wrongful conviction cases. So as a
young man, Carl had already witnessed injustices to give him
that perspective. While in contrast, there appeared to be preferential
treatment for the Hasidic community and Crown Heights.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
It's a strong voting bocke. It's like you're not going
to get elected mayor if you don't have the Hasiatic
community because they will vote in droves for the candidate
that the Rebbe tells them to vote for.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
The Hasidic community before and after World War Two settled
in Crown Heights, which had been anointed by the leaders
of what is known as the HBBAD or Hobbad Lubovich movement,
many of whom had escaped persecution either at the hands
of the Germans or those in the Soviet block before
and after World War Two. Curiously, the city allowed one
of its most powerful voting blocks to operate their own
(04:26):
police force, the Jewish Defense League or JDL.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
The hard charge behind that JDL philosophy was never again,
get yourself a gun, don't rely on the cops. People
lived in an era where the cops were hurting you
onto the trains to auschwitzenbergen Belsen and Triblinka and whatnot.
It's that Merkan slogan, never again, We're not going to
be vulnerable. Imagine any other group in New York City
(04:52):
having their own police force. There are two very distinct
worlds there in the Crown Heights area. One that is
set up with their own ambulance and emergency systems, and
they've had a number of issues going up until recent
days with those two communities bordering on each other.
Speaker 5 (05:09):
One of the one that really stands out is the
Crown Heights riot. But as I will say to people,
prior to Crown Heights riots, you had like Victor Road,
he was a guy that was a cost about a JDL.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
And of course you're talking about the awful incident on
June sixteenth, nineteen seventy eight, when approximately twenty Assitic men
beat a sixteen year old kid named Victor Roads into
a coma that lasted for two months. And so obviously
the tension was high in the area.
Speaker 5 (05:37):
So it was always tension, but it wasn't the con
attension that the Crown Heights riot had bought.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
The Crown Heights riot took place in August nineteen ninety
one when a young Hasidic man drove through a red light,
veered off the road to avoid now oncoming traffic, and
pinned two seven year old Black children under his car,
one of whom Gavin Cato, was killed, signetic a race riot.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
The story at the scene was the Shibata ambulance showed
up and went straight for the Hasidam while kids underneath
the car and they're trying to lift it up.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
The tension that was building for decades exploded. Jewish people
and their businesses were attacked, and the violence played heavily
into the nineteen ninety three mayoral election of Rudy Giuliani,
who unseated New York City's first African American mayor, David Dinkins.
The unrest in Crown Heights was Palpable in nineteen ninety three,
and was certainly present when Victor Rhodes was attacked in
(06:32):
June of seventy eight, as well as when Rabbi David
Akanov was murdered in October seventy nine.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Rabbi David Akanov, the victim in this case, was in
his late sixties. He had been born in Ukraine in
nineteen eleven studied the Torah under Communist rule there. Actually,
after his bar Mitzvah, he wanted to continue studying, but
his parents wouldn't let him, so he went on a
hunger strike until they gave up and led him. He
(06:59):
ended up emigrating to the US after learning that the
KGB was looking into him, and he made efforts in
the Crown Heights community to help other Jews who were
living under oppression in Russia. So Rabbi Akanov was, by
all accounts, a very pious and charitable man. He was
not somebody who seemed to deal with a lot of trappings.
(07:20):
But he did have a regular prayer case that he
would bring with him to pray, and it contained and
I'm going to butcher this terminology, his talus and his
tapillon which are religious implements used by Lubovich has siedam
so just before seven am on October twenty fifth, nineteen
seventy nine. He's on his way to yeshiva when he shot.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
This was a very high profile case. We've got a
very prominent rabbi.
Speaker 6 (07:47):
In the community who was shot with a thirty two
caliber point blank in the face. There were two eyewitnesses
to this shooting.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Both of the eyewitnesses Louis Fazio, who was not a
member of the Seated community, and sixteen year old Sinaya Sperlin,
who was. It's pretty evident that they saw the same
person running from the scene with Rabbi Akinov's prayer case.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Now, the descriptions were actually remarkably similar from the two witnesses.
A man who was black, twenty one years old, ish
right about five nine, one hundred and fifty pounds, medium built,
medium hair, possibly wearing a hat and a dark jacket. Carl,
does that description match you or did it match you
at that time?
Speaker 5 (08:30):
At that time, I was probaby a five one hundred
and eighty pounds, weigh a little afro and wear too
many hats. Very athletic, not slim, as they had described
this person as being a slender person.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
That's not me.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
They're talking about a guy who's five nine one fifty.
You're about six feet tall, right, Yeah, there's a significant difference.
You were a boxer, right, so with a class of boxing.
Speaker 5 (08:51):
I was in a light heavy, light heavyweight, light heavyweight.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
So the descriptions didn't match. What about alibis and things
like that.
Speaker 5 (09:02):
I was in Queens, New York, celebrating my birthday with
my daughter's mother at the time, and I left her
house came back to Brooklyn, and that's when I learned
about the rabbi being murdered.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Carl had spent the night in Queens, and even after
lies and coercion, his daughter's mother, Joanne Davis, maintained that
he was there that morning and not in Crown Heights
at seven am, murdering Rabbi Akanoff and running off with
his prayer case into the apartment building at five point
sixty five Crown Street.
Speaker 6 (09:29):
And that is where they end up finding a suitcase
that belonged to an individual named Daryl Brown.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Rabbi Akonov's prayer case is never found, and in an
abandoned apartment they find this suitcase belonging to Darryl Brown
with his property in there, and two days later he
shows up at the precinct because he heard that they
were looking for them.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
Daryl Brown essentially ends up being the only person to
ever implicate Carl Beller in this crime.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Right, you sure Lock Holmes to figure out a misdirection
play there.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Right, You've also got the fact that Darryl Brown is
repeatedly lying to them. His statements evolve. His initial statement
indicates that he didn't see anything.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
And then they received a second statement from Daryl Brown
on November eight, nineteen seventy nine, while he was being
treated at King's County Hospital for a gunshot wound to
the hand. They never investigate the cause of the wound.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
When they come back to him, presumably with the ability
to turn the screws a little bit, when he's in
the hospital with the gunshot wound, he now says that
he and two other friends had seen a Jewish man
with some money in a pizza falafel store and Carl
supposedly said, oh, you should have ripped him off, and
that he had heard the shot and saw Carl near
(10:46):
the scene.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Carl has always maintained if he was not present either
for the murder or that day in the store. We
only find out who that actually was much later then.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Darryl Brown in his third documented statement and his first
sworn statement the next day on November ninth, he says
that he had seen Carl near the scene and he
tried to get into five point sixty five Crown where
I was staying. I've seen him with a thirty two
and I spoke to him the day before the crime
about a jew with money in a blue bag. And
(11:17):
that's a quote which is important because it departs from
his testimony at trial.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
On the strength of dwell Brown's ever shifting word, Carl
was eventually charged with the murder. However, with his open
arrest warrant for assault, his reputation as a neighborhood tough guy,
and previous interactions with the seventy first Precinct, they came
looking for him way before Brown had ever made any statements.
Just a few days after the rabbi's murder in late October.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
My sister tell me that the police was looking for
me to talk to me, and I called him, said,
what are you looking me for? Oh, we want to
talk to you. About the homicide. Come to the precinct.
I'm like, Noah, we can talk about not come to
the precinct. I didn't go because I made he was
going to arrest me, so I had an open case.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
I had a warrant, which is completely within his rights.
Speaker 5 (11:59):
And I think it was November fourteenth. They picked me
up at my house, took me to the sixty ninth precinct,
questioned me about the homicide, but they arrested me for
my warrant.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
When Carl does get brought to the precinct, he offers
to take a polygraph and provide his fingerprints, and police
don't take his prince, but they do take a polygraph,
which they claim Carl failed. He then stands in two
lineups without council and is viewed by Shanina Sperlin and
Louis Fazio, the two undisputed eyewitnesses, neither of whom identify him.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
I was held on the warrant.
Speaker 5 (12:34):
They took me to Rockets Island, came back out and
walking around the street and people was telling me that
this guy Brown was talking about me with the police,
and I had a confrontation with him when I was accident.
Why are you telling um talking to the police about
me about this case. Oh, they want me to say
and I'm not going to say nothing. I was just
telling him leave my name out of it, because I
(12:54):
had nothing to do with that at all.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
This was around probably right after Thanksgiving.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Daryl Brown on November twenty ninth is given a polygraph
quote to test out his earlier statement end quote to
the prosecutor and according to the police, Brown's polygraph shows
that he was telling the truth about everything, but there
was some question about his withholding evidence from the police.
Now think about that statement, because we know number one,
(13:20):
polygraphs aren't this nuance? Now they weren't this nuance? Then
this was a tool for coercion.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
It usually is. Polygraphs aren't even admissible in court. And
I need our audience to remember that police are allowed
to lie to you about evidence, and they routinely lie
about polygraph results in order to coerce confessions.
Speaker 5 (13:42):
When they arrested me on the fourteenth and I volunteered
for the lineup, the guy has said that, oh, you
was picked out in Alno, which we come to learn
that was not true, that I was never identified in Lano.
After I take the polygraph test. They said, oh, you fail,
So I'm like, okay, I mean I watched Perry Mason
when I was a kid. So if I failed a
lot to take the test and I was picked down
(14:03):
on the lineup, what more evidence do you need to
arrest me? But I wasn't arrested. I was arrested in
November thirtieth for this case.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
After Daryl Brown gives that polygraph statement where according to
the police, he was truthful about everything. On the thirtieth
they put Daryl Brown in lineups. But what are you
putting somebody in lineups for if they've told the truth
about everything implicating another individual.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
That's a good question. If I'm following this correctly, then
they must have suspected that he might have been the guy, right.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
It doesn't make sense to conclude otherwise. Either he's telling
the truth about everything when he implicates Carl, and okay,
authorize the arrest. Certainly, there's no basis the next day
to put Darryl Brown in lineups unless you're saying maybe
he's still not telling the truth about everything, And instead
what they do is revert to tunnel vision and authorize
(14:56):
and arrest for Karl based entirely. This is disputed entirely
on the accusation of Daryl Brown, his second differing sworn statement,
his fourth or fifth differing documented statement since the murder.
It's just a travesty.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
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 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
(15:45):
just city by winning investments in long neglected communities, protecting
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Speaker 5 (16:12):
When you coming off the street, you know you gotta
fight within Rockets Island because that's how it was, so
it can be really alled on the person that if
you're not really up to it and I was the
type of person that I could defend myself, so I
had no problem like that. You just waiting to go
to trial and prove my innocence.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
So nine months later, September eighth, nineteen eighty, you go
to trial. I'm assuming you were represented by a public defender.
Speaker 5 (16:38):
Yes, I was reaping presented by how it listwise? The
guy come in tell me, oh, I never lost a
murder case.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
I didn't know you didn't have one until you had minds.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
There were some very serious discovery issues here, whether you
want to blame it on trial council or whether you
want to blame it on the prosecution. But two things
that we now know happened just prior to trial. There's
no indication that Carl knew at the time of trial.
It's that Shanina Sperlin shows up at the Brooklyn DIA's
(17:09):
office and tells Ada Barbara Newman, the trial prosecutor, that
he recognized a possible perpetrator in one of the lineups
he viewed. But it's not the Carl Miller lineup. It's
the Darryl Brown lineup. The other thing that is potentially
but we're not certain, disclosed on August twenty eighth, nineteen eighty,
(17:30):
about a week or so before Carl's trial starts, is
that Ada Newman discloses that an individual named Barry Lee
Jackson had been identified from photographs on or before October
twenty seventh, nineteen seventy nine, which is just two days
after the murder, and in writing whether this was received
by mister weiss Wesser or not, or whether it was
(17:52):
taken as legitimate or not, she tells him that if
he lacked any further discovery, he should tell her so
she could provide it. Now, that's kind of a catch
twenty two, and it's not how discovery works. He can't
tell her if he's lacking something that he doesn't know about,
and you're now on the eve of trial.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
There were several other important Brady violations, including more alternate
suspects like a man named Derek Peterson, as well as
a guy named Willie Easterling who had been seen trying
to sell religious artifacts in the area. Police reports did
not demonstrate any follow up and were not shared with
the defense either, and this conduct was only compounded by
(18:32):
presenting the ever changing testimony of Daryl Brown. This time
at trial, he said that he followed Carl that morning,
saw him grab Achanoff, who screamed before he was shot,
then saw him run off to five sixty five Crown
Street with the prayer case, and Carl's attorney did lean
heavily on the inconsistencies between Brown's version of events and
undisputed facts of the crime, as well as how Brown's
(18:53):
testimony may have resulted from pressure from investigators.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Detective Sorrentino, who's the assigned detective here, testifies that he
never told Darryl Brown he was a suspect, which, as
we noted earlier, if after the fact of him giving
you a completely truthful statement, you're placing him in lineups,
there's only one reason to play somebody in a lineup
as the subject. Second, the court prohibited Carl's council from
(19:19):
questioning Detective Sorrentino about whether he had ever put psychological
pressure on a suspect. And there's one more thing. Darryl
Brown's account of Rabbi Akanov's suitcase is not accurate. His
prayer bag was a distinctive dark blue color, and in
the early unrecorded police statement that Daryl Brown gives describing
(19:43):
this bag, it is a dark blue bag, but by
the time he gets to trial, it's a clear bag
that he can see into and actually tell the type
of felt material inside, and more concerning it indicates to
me one of two possible conclusions. One Daryl Brown saw
inside that bag or touched it. Two Daryl Brown was
(20:06):
told how that bag looked after he gave independent statements.
Neither of them tend to support the reliability of the
verdict in this case.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Darryl Brown also testified that Rabbi Achanov made no attempt
to block the bullet with his hand, which was contradicted
by the state's forensic pathologist, citing the black powder stain
and stippling on the back of the rabbi's hand. So,
while the defense seated doubt about the state's witness, the
state attacked Carl's alibi witness, his daughter's mother, Joanne Davis.
Speaker 6 (20:36):
From everything in the transcript, everything on the record, all
the materials we have, the only indication we can really
come to is that Carl's alibi witness was really just
spoken to in order to try and get impeachment material
for her.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
And you know something.
Speaker 6 (20:53):
Else that we see as well too, is that false
statements are attributed to Carl's alibi witness, which is some
thing that we very frequently see in these cases as well.
You have unendorsed statements, you have unsigned statements. Then at
trial it's the detective's word against the witnesses word.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
In this case, the lead detective Sorrentino, testified that Miss
Davis said that she saw Karl with the thirty two
caliber pistol, the kind of gun used to kill Achanov,
even though Miss Davis denied ever saying that, but rather
that she'd only seen him with a toy gun. In addition,
Sorrentino testified that Miss Davis's mother had said that Carl
was not at her home the morning of the murder.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
To the credit of Joanne Davis, she's actually asked under
oath if her mother is stupid. She's told that Carl
supposedly failed to polygraph, She's told that he may never
come home, and she doesn't change her account.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
The state referred to Miss Davis's story as concocted, and
they told the jury to quote wonder about the sense
of someone who gave birth at seventeen.
Speaker 6 (21:58):
Wooh credit ability was unborn to being attacked by the
police and prosecutors.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
The state made note that the main issue of the
case was whether Daryl Brown had seen the shooting, calling
the actual eyewitnesses nothing more than quote distractions unquote, and
that eyewitness Louis Fazzio quote didn't add anything to the
case unquote. They had to take this tact after all,
because Fazio was no help to them.
Speaker 6 (22:23):
Fazio was initially subpoenaed by the people, right, So he
gets into the courtroom and he tells his wife that
Carl is too broad to have been the man that
he saw.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
As a result, Adia Newman doesn't call him, but the
defense does.
Speaker 6 (22:41):
He reiterated that he made this remark that Carl was
too broad to have been the person that he saw,
and he also basically said that he was not able
to identify the person who he saw in the courtroom,
So meaning, right, it's not Carl.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
But the fact that Ada k Newman had subpoenaed him
makes two things ridiculous. She asks him, mister Fozzio, were
you wearing your glasses as if this is supposed to
impugne his account, even though she was going to call
him as her witness previously when she thought maybe it
wouldn't denigrate her case. But second of all, how you
could get up in summation and say he couldn't add
(23:18):
anything to the case when you were calling him in
a case that did not have a ton of witnesses testifying.
He's one of two people that indisputably saw the purp
running from this crime scene.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
So Fasio was positive for the defense while Joeanne Davis
was brutally attacked. But then Carl's lawyer does something absolutely
insane at the end of the trial.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
It's absurd. It's in his own summation where the verdict
is going to come down to a credibility contest between
his civilian aliby witness and the sole witness for the prosecution.
And first the judge says, actually says on the record, well,
it's probably improper for me to express an opinion, but
I'm going to say it. I think the alibi has
(24:03):
been pretty well discredited. And instead of mister Weiswasser standing
up and advocating for his client, he says, quote, I
wish I never heard the word alibi. And in his
own summation he points out supposed holes in miss Davis's
testimony denigrator is a witness while calling Detective Sorrentino an
(24:24):
excellent officer. It's a complete abdication of his duty to
his client.
Speaker 5 (24:28):
He didn't really do anything in defense of me. He
really didn't and a juri or eleven whites and one black.
It was over two hundred asiitics inside and outside the court.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
The deck was stacked against me.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Predictably, the jury went out and they came back with
guilty on all accounts right felony, murder, robbery in the
first degree, in criminal possession of a weapon in the
second degree.
Speaker 5 (24:51):
When I was found guilty, it was like, Wow, are
you serious? You're gonna believe this guy that I killed
this man? A lot of things was running through my head.
I'm not gonna be raise my son. I'm not gonna
be able to raise my daughter, you know, my sisters,
my family. So it's a whole lot going through a
whole lot. I'm put on that bus to go up
(25:24):
to Elmira. It's like the reality starts sitting there.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do?
Speaker 5 (25:29):
Get caught up in a lot of negative stuff that
goes on in prison, or you're gonna get yourself up
out of there.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
For time being.
Speaker 5 (25:36):
You get caught up in a little bit of the
negativity stuff to stimulate yourself from the reality of being
in prison. That's something that I did to a couple
of old timers. Pulled me to the side and said, hey, look,
we read about your case. It don't seem right. You
need to get your butt in a little library while
your indictment it gets still fresh. I had a little
pill of attorney. He put together some type of brief
(25:58):
that was straight up be at and I wound up
doing time, just trying to seek help from different people.
Just keep pushing, went to school, got a ged legal
research certificate, still trying to prove my innocence. Nobody was
listening to pills. Was denied time. Come for your first
parole board. I go in there, continue to maintain my innocence.
(26:20):
That was in two thousand and four, Go back in
two thousand and six, come back in two thousand and eight,
same thing, go back in twenty ten. And what was
presented to the senior parole officer at the time is
that Shanina Sperling and Louis Faizio did not identify me.
The senior parole officer. He said, Yo, you know, they
always sent up transcripts of the sentencing, but they never
(26:42):
sent up stuff like this. And he said, wow, I
never knew this. So he said, the next parole hearing
come up, I think you got a good shot with
this commission of someone.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Set your paperwork in front.
Speaker 5 (26:51):
I just continue saying what you're saying, maintaining your innocent
don't change, and I didn't, and the lo and behold
I was parole.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
So I kind of glossed over a little bit over
thirty years that you spent in prison. Right? Was it
that long?
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Thirty one?
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Thirty one years?
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Right?
Speaker 1 (27:07):
It's amazing that you survived, and that you seem to
really have survived with your spirit intact. And it's also
incredible that you were able to go to the parole
board and do exactly opposite of what people are advised
to do.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Right.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
They want to hear remorse, they want to hear that
sort of narrative. Right, So for them to be able
to act the way that they did shows that they
must have known what you had known all along, and
what everyone should have known all along, which is that
you were actually innocent.
Speaker 5 (27:35):
Being released after thirty one years. It was surreal. It
was wow, I'm walking the street. Oh man, what am
I going to do? Okay, gotta go see parole. That's
kind of frustrating because you're still on the supervision. Came out,
got married, reconnected. What did I miss? I missed my
daughter's first time walking. I missed my daughter's first grade.
(27:56):
I missed my son's first grade. I missed my son's
first baseball game. I missed so many things that you
cannot get back. So when you come out, where do
you pick up from my daughter? Because she was only
a couple of months before I left. My son was two,
So you look at the time. So you're saying thirty
one and thirty three. These are young adults that have
lived a life. So how could you interject as a father?
(28:18):
Because this was taken away from me. So you do
the best that you can. And that's all I've been
doing since I've been out, was reconnecting with them, connected
with other family members and things of that nature, and
then got back into proving my innocence. And that's when
I continue doing what I was doing. And I wrote
to different people after Ken Thompson had set up the
wrongful conviction unit that he has in the Brooklyn District
(28:40):
Attorney's office, and I had contacted them, and I contacted James,
and this is where we're at now.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
So where we are right now is we had cooperated
for a bit with the conviction review unit here in Brooklyn.
We'd received some materials we intend to use in support
of emotion at some point. Ultimately, after they interviewed Carl
and some of the witnesses in the case declined to
be interviewed or could not be located, they closed out
(29:07):
the case. But then this month they reached back out
and said that there has been a recent and unexpected
development in the investigation of Carl's case and that they're
going to reopen the investigation, which I don't believe I've
heard of them doing in any other case.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
After we wrapped our first interview, we got a call
from James and Carrissa asking us to hold on production
until they could meet with the Brooklyn DA's office. It
turns out that back in nineteen seventy nine, a guy
named Robert Simms gave a statement to corroborate Brown about
Carl's alleged statement at the Falafel or Pizza store. Now,
in October twenty twenty three, some new evidence came to
light about Robert Simms and his wife.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
Linda Simms, the broken cru in the course of their reinvestigation,
had visited her house looking to speak with her husband,
Robert Simms, and left the card there. And what we've
been told is that Linda Simms, the wife, January of
twenty twenty three, reached out to her sister and sent
a picture of the assistant's business card that had been
(30:08):
left at the door. And when her sister asked, well,
what is this about, she responded, well, google Rabbi Crown
Heights nineteen seventy nine, and the sister, Teresa, found articles
on Rabbi Akinov's murder. And she asked her sister, Linda, well,
what did you do, and Linda responded that's what I did.
And Teresa, caring about her sister, said well, what you
(30:32):
need to do is get yourself an attorney and turn
yourself in. And Linda for many months did not heed
that advice. So by September ish, it seems to be Teresa,
this was weighing very heavily on her contacted the Brooklyn
DIA's office and that's what spurred on the reopening of
the investigation.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
The confession from Linda to her sister Teresa continued implicating
Robert Simms.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
Linda said, I did that, and then Web meaning her
and Robert, brought it up to our father. He was
very pissed off and sent me down south. Now there's
a fair inference that she was saying that both of
us did this. And we now have additional evidence that
Linda Simms's father, who was murdered in December nineteen eighty,
shortly after Carl's trial, that at various points throughout nineteen
(31:22):
seventy nine and nineteen eighty, both Linda and Robert Simms
had possession of his handgun. And additional information that has
come out about Robert has certainly changed our assessment of him. Specifically,
when he was interviewed by the cru in relation to
Carl's case, they did not know that in the early
(31:42):
two thousands he was carrying on this relationship outside of
his marriage with Linda. She was a twenty something beautician,
they had a child together, and she was found disposed
of in a very rough fashion in an abandoned building.
And Robert was brought to trial in Brooklyn for the
murder and somehow acquitted. Obviously, the file is sealed following
(32:05):
the acquittal, but it sounds like the only reason for
the acquittal was that Robert pointed the finger to friends
who had helped him dispose of the body and claimed
that one of them was the actual murderer.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
So what was the guy's name who took the fall?
Speaker 3 (32:20):
Meltreus Walker?
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Is he still serving time?
Speaker 3 (32:23):
He's out now? He essentially says he came over to
the house the woman had been shot four times, and
Robert said, I need you to help me take care
of this.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Now.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
What's even more interesting here is before the Brooklyn DIA's office,
the cru had learned through Theresa and his sister about
Robert's prior charge that he was acquitted of. They interviewed
him and he said he did not want to talk
about his prior case, which he referred to as sort
of a little incident, I believe, but he didn't want
(32:54):
to get into the details. He said that he and
Daryl Brown, the sole witness against Karl, had been best
friends for years up until that point, at which time
they had a falling out because he asked Daryl Brown
for some help with something, and Darryl Brown's response was,
who the f do you think you are? John Gottie
(33:16):
or something, And they haven't really spoken. Since it sounds
like Daryl was asked to do some dirty work for Robert.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
Not certainly plausible that Daryl Brown may have been responding
to a request from Robert Simms for yet another big favor.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
Going back to the original investigation, the statement attributed to
Robert by police was that Robert and Daryl Brown a
day or a few days before Rabbi Akinov's murder had
been in a pizza shop on Kingston Avenue and seeing
a Jewish man with a prayer bag full of money,
and according to the police report, Robert and Daryl were
(33:53):
thinking of robbing this man but didn't and when they
later saw Carl Miller, they said, here's what we saw,
and according to the police report, Carl said, oh, you
should have ripped him off. Now, Carl has always denied
making that statement. We have nothing from Daryl Brown on
that statement at trial. We have him in a police
report giving a different version of that. What Robert Simms
did admit to us and to the cru is that
(34:15):
he was looking to get one of those bags he
was interested in robbing somebody. He denies that they had
any conversation where Carl Miller said, yeah, you should have
taken this guy off. And as Carl has said repeatedly,
his response to that would have been, are you crazy.
You're right across the street from the JDL and you're
going to rob a guy like this. That's ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
So where does the case stand now? With the cru they.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
Have turned things over to us. We're gathering information and
evidence to put a motion into court. We've had several
people talk to us and give us additional evidence. We're
feeling good that we can get ourselves a hearing where
we can subpoena some of these people and get them
in to give sworn testimony so we can weed out
the truth here.
Speaker 6 (34:57):
Absolutely, and now we're working with the CiU. Clearly there
are ways and avenues for us to pursue.
Speaker 4 (35:06):
We just need people to speak up about it.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Karl deserves it.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Rabbi Akanov deserves to have the right person convicted of
this crime. This is a case that is based on
one person, Daryl Brown his word. We're not here to
judge you. Somebody was already judged in this case, and
we submit that it was wrongful. Reach out to us.
We'll talk to you. This isn't a witch hunt or something.
(35:30):
We just want the truth. We're at eighty six Livingston
Street in Brooklyn. We want to get to the bottom
of this.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
So we'll definitely have your contact info length in the
episode description, and with that we're going to go to
closing arguments, where first of all, I just want to
thank you for joining us, and now I'm going to
shut my microphone off, kick back of my chair with
my headphones on, and just listen to anything else that
you feel is left to be said. So let's start
(35:56):
with James, go to Carissa, and then finish it off
with you call.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
One thing that I think we didn't get into, something
that we only learned after we started cooperating with the
cru in this case, is that one of the people
that we've seen pop up in a lot of these
cases is a gentleman that your viewers are certainly familiar with,
the detective Lewis Scarcella, and he it just so happens
pops up in this case for reasons that have not
(36:24):
been revealed to us. Two days after the murder, then
Anti Crime Officer Lewis Scarcella is interviewed by the assisting
detective Viola, and we have no information about that. But
we do have information that former detective Scarcella has been
monitoring the progress of this case and the media accounts
(36:46):
of this case. So again I'll say the same thing
I said about Daryl Brown, Missus Scarcella, my phone is on.
Information is information. We don't know how you factored into this. Again,
I'll say, we're not going to stop. There will be
a resolution here, whether it's through the cru whether it's
filing something. When Carl came to me, I said, we're
(37:07):
going to fight this case. When Carissa read this case,
she said, we're going to fight this case together. That's
what we do, and we're going to keep moving forward,
reach out.
Speaker 6 (37:15):
I'm just really happy that we were able to touch
on the fact that Carl was released on parole notwithstanding
him maintaining his innocence.
Speaker 4 (37:25):
I think that is huge.
Speaker 6 (37:27):
Anyone who's familiar with the criminal justice process knows that
is huge.
Speaker 4 (37:31):
And I really think.
Speaker 6 (37:32):
It's no surprise that Fazio played a role and that
so as we're saying, if anyone has any more information
similar to Fazio.
Speaker 4 (37:42):
Maybe they saw something just come forward.
Speaker 5 (37:45):
I would like to say thank you in the role
for Fixing podcasts, for giving us the opportunity to have
this out there in the public so that people can
see not just me, but they are a whole bunch of
wrongful convictions. And as James and Carissa as stated, it's
people that know me. If you know something that need
(38:05):
to be spoke on, speak on it. That's all I
have to say.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
week early by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on
Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team, Connor
Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow executive
producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cliburn. The music
in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
(38:35):
composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across all
social media platforms at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction.
You can also follow me on Instagram at It's Jason Flamm.
Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
and association with signal Company number one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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