Letters from Sing Sing - Ep. 6: Friendship

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Speaker 7 Today is my son's 40th birthday, which I didn't think I would be spending it

Speaker 6 on a visit with him in jail, but I usually try to spend his birthday with him.

Speaker 10 It's November 11th, 2015.

Speaker 11 JJ's mom Maria is driving to see him at Sing Sing.

Speaker 6 We're lucky this year he has a visit today, so I'm on my way to visit him and wish him a happy birthday. I just wish it was under different circumstances, but

Speaker 6 we'll just keep pushing forth.

Speaker 18 It's been one year since JJ sent me that devastating letter, the one he'd written at four in the morning in despair after finding out a judge had denied his request for a hearing.

Speaker 18 That letter was a turning point for me.

Speaker 12 I knew that something had changed in my relationship with JJ.

Speaker 11 When I read it, I was afraid for him.

Speaker 20 My dateline story about JJ had already aired, and there wasn't another one planned, but I was more committed than ever to keep going.

Speaker 11 After the judge's denial, JJ's lawyers filed an appeal.

Speaker 21 As JJ waited, time was passing.

Speaker 18 By his 40th birthday, he'd been locked up for nearly 18 years.

Speaker 26 Maria says over time, it's gotten harder to visit

Speaker 7 Actually, my visits have

Speaker 7 gotten less and less. I don't like seeing him there.

Speaker 27 He's gotten old.

Speaker 7 And every time I see him, it hurts.

Speaker 7 And when I think about the fact that he's lost all those years,

Speaker 7 that he's never going to get that back.

Speaker 7 I try not to think about that, but

Speaker 7 it does come into my mind,

Speaker 28 especially on his birthday.

Speaker 18 By now, I've known JJ for 13 years.

Speaker 30 We've grown closer.

Speaker 31 We've both grown older, too.

Speaker 32 I've lost a little hair.

Speaker 30 His goatee has gone a little gray.

Speaker 33 Turning 40 in prison only serves to remind me of how many years I've lost.

Speaker 33 My salvation, my

Speaker 33 ability ability to survive this ordeal has basically been based off the fact that I've tucked away,

Speaker 33 I've tucked away a lot of pain and suffering. I call it a reservoir of pain.
And I try to numb myself to the situation because I know I have no choice but to survive it.

Speaker 33 No matter what it is that comes my way, I have to survive it.

Speaker 34 And turning 40 reminds me that I'm getting older.

Speaker 33 And I wonder how many years I got left in this world.

Speaker 14 My father died at 49 and I'm I'm still locked up.

Speaker 33 Every year, I say, you're going home.

Speaker 14 This is your year.

Speaker 14 Every year,

Speaker 14 I still don't know when I'm going home.

Speaker 29 I'm Dan Sleppian, and this is Letters from Sing Sing.

Speaker 23 Episode 6 Friendship

Speaker 32 From the moment I met JJ all those years ago, one thing was clear to me.

Speaker 12 Not only was he focused on fighting his case, he was determined to make something of his life.

Speaker 18 And in prison, that's not an easy thing to do.

Speaker 34 You know, prison is designed in a way that individuals are supposed to just waste their time.

Speaker 9 It's like every day, it's come to the yard, lift some weights, run around the yard, walk around the yard, talk about nonsense. So, you know, like it was monotonous.

Speaker 23 And that was JJ's life in the first couple of years after he was locked up.

Speaker 30 Then one day, a group of older men approached him in the yard.

Speaker 22 They had a proposition.

Speaker 36 Come to the school building.

Speaker 9 A lot of these older guys, their whole mentality was, get these guys out of the yard because there's nothing good happening in the yard.

Speaker 9 And so it started with like a VCR and a TV in a room. It was like, you guys can watch movies.
The only thing is, if you're going to watch a movie, you have to write about it.

Speaker 24 The older guys were proposing movie nights, but with a required writing assignment.

Speaker 18 And that changed everything for JJ.

Speaker 9 And so I had developed a reputation. People started to say, listen, that kid right there knows how to write.

Speaker 38 JJ says other men in the prison started to notice him.

Speaker 39 Some of the younger ones wanted help with their writing.

Speaker 29 But the more senior guys, the ones who were active in organizations on the inside, asked JJ to come to their meetings.

Speaker 38 So JJ got more involved in the prison's programs.

Speaker 26 I remember on one of my visits back in 2008, he told me about some of the things he was working on, like starting volunteer programs, organizing fundraisers.

Speaker 34 We donated $1,200 for back to school supplies where the kids to come up, and they're actually going to be coming up starting this weekend.

Speaker 34 And they get a book bag with a bunch of supplies in it to try to help the families that come up here with their children. This was for the annual toy drive for Christmas.

Speaker 34 We buy toys for the children to come up on a visit.

Speaker 2 What does it do for you right here?

Speaker 9 Well, it gives me the opportunity to help them, you know, to give back.

Speaker 16 JJ was even elected by the prison's population to speak for them when issues came up, which meant he began to work closely with the man who runs Sing Sing.

Speaker 43 He was a natural leader, and so he stood out right away.

Speaker 44 That's Superintendent Michael Capra.

Speaker 12 He's been in charge of Sing Sing for more than a decade.

Speaker 16 He says he immediately noticed something about JJ.

Speaker 43 Here's a guy who

Speaker 43 kind of reminds you of a CEO right from the beginning.

Speaker 43 There's a certain air about him, the way he carries himself,

Speaker 43 the way he speaks. He's very clear on what he's thinking about, but he also reads the room very well, understands who he is.
He stepped out as like a young professional who was, you know,

Speaker 43 an executive in a company.

Speaker 10 And that's kind of how JJ began to operate inside the prison.

Speaker 9 Responsibility brings a sense of purpose. Now it's not, I'm just waking up every day in a cage, looking out in the yard.
And no, I got to go and see this guy in the yard, so I'm trying to help him.

Speaker 9 But it also was an escape for me. While I'm focusing on everybody else, I don't have to focus on what I'm going through.

Speaker 9 I don't have to deal with the suffering, the trauma of being incarcerated for a crime I didn't commit.

Speaker 18 But JJ was surrounded by men who did commit crimes, and he got to know them.

Speaker 10 Many felt remorse for what they'd done.

Speaker 23 JJ realized their stories could help people on the outside.

Speaker 17 So he helped create a group with 10 of them to talk about the pain they'd caused, the people they'd hurt.

Speaker 12 They wanted to redefine what it meant to pay a debt to society.

Speaker 9 During time in prison is doing nothing to give back to your community. There is no reparations in that, right?

Speaker 9 But doing something for your community, using your experience, your lived experience, using your hindsight and sharing your insight. to provide foresight for the future and the safety of our children.

Speaker 16 So JJ and the group began to work with Superintendent Capra.

Speaker 29 They wanted to make a video to discourage kids from following in their footsteps.

Speaker 38 But Sing Sing is a maximum security prison, not a production company.

Speaker 36 They needed help.

Speaker 29 The superintendent had seen my dateline special on JJ, so he called me.

Speaker 43 And I told you, hey, listen, I need a consultant. And, you know, we talked for a while and you were like, I am in this 1,000%.

Speaker 43 I'm doing this.

Speaker 2 I'm going to bring a team with me.

Speaker 20 And that's what I did.

Speaker 19 I loved the sound of the project, but honestly, I had another motive.

Speaker 23 I wanted to keep JJ's spirits up while I continued to look into his case.

Speaker 12 I enlisted the help of a couple of colleagues, and we all volunteered to make a short video.

Speaker 30 We set up a camera in an empty room, and one by one, the incarcerated men went in and started to talk to the lens.

Speaker 31 I shot my friend six times because I was angry.

Speaker 37 I know how it feels to have destroyed a family.

Speaker 37 I know how it feels to have eliminated a name.

Speaker 24 You

Speaker 8 can't

Speaker 41 make it right.

Speaker 48 That video eventually grew into a program inside the prison called Voices from Within.

Speaker 21 JJ was the group's leader.

Speaker 14 We gotta get to the younger guys.

Speaker 34 It's about re-establishing a new culture.

Speaker 14 Believe it or not, a lot of the culture out there emanated from prison.

Speaker 14 Those kids that are out there cutting each other's faces, that started in here.

Speaker 5 JJ ran the meetings and Superintendent Capra helped spread the message of voices from within to the rest of the prison's population.

Speaker 2 This is what we're doing.

Speaker 42 Guys that care, men that want to make a difference, men that don't have a negative agenda. want to give back to their own peer group, you guys.
But the point of it is that everybody can be successful.

Speaker 42 It's just being a success for who we are, doing the right thing, period, and being able to be man enough to step up and say that is not cool, that ain't right, we're not doing that, we're going to do this.

Speaker 16 But to JJ, the accomplishment he was most proud of was getting an education.

Speaker 23 SingSing has a college program, something not all prisons offer.

Speaker 38 It's run by a nonprofit called Hudson Link for Higher Education.

Speaker 18 And in 2014, JJ graduated with a bachelor's degree in behavioral science.

Speaker 38 The commencement took place in the prison's visiting room.

Speaker 18 JJ and 25 other graduates wore caps and gowns over their green prison pants.

Speaker 29 His mom Maria was there with his younger son Jacob, and I was there too with my camera.

Speaker 29 There were special guests like Harry Belafonte and the commencement speaker was Whoopi Goldberg.

Speaker 28 Unless you know the past, you're doomed to repeat it. That's right.
You know, it will happen. So now here you all are

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 28 you're being encouraged to go out into your communities, but you know what you're walking into.

Speaker 28 Because you have to think back to who you were. Because who you were isn't when you came here is not who you are when you're leaving.
And that's really the journey.

Speaker 16 Then they handed out the diplomas.

Speaker 41 John Adrian Velasco's.

Speaker 45 I was so proud of JJ that day.

Speaker 23 I had such respect for what he'd achieved despite everything he'd faced, everything he'd gone through.

Speaker 10 If I were in his place, I think I would have lost my mind.

Speaker 49 But over the years, I'd seen how strong and resilient JJ was.

Speaker 19 We'd become true friends.

Speaker 29 That's not something I ever expected to happen, getting this close with someone I'd done a story about.

Speaker 30 This was new territory for me.

Speaker 13 As a journalist, I needed to be careful.

Speaker 17 In my mind, I wasn't advocating for JJ.

Speaker 22 I was simply following the facts.

Speaker 20 I was advocating for the truth.

Speaker 18 JJ knew that.

Speaker 30 I said it to him a hundred times.

Speaker 32 And while he continued to fight his own case, JJ told me about other men who were convicted of murder, who he believed were innocent.

Speaker 18 He introduced me to three of them and encouraged me to look into their cases.

Speaker 26 And I did.

Speaker 32 I wound up doing dateline stories on each of those men.

Speaker 36 All of them were ultimately exonerated.

Speaker 19 Eric Glisson was one of them.

Speaker 20 I was with him the moment he was released.

Speaker 27 It's like jumping up out of a coffin and walking. You know, it's like being read your last rites.
And all of a sudden, a miracle happens.

Speaker 31 But JJ, the guy who led me to Eric and the other men, who helped free them, he remained locked up.

Speaker 53 When I visited him at his cell one time, he showed me news clippings that he taped to the wall.

Speaker 35 Show me who everybody is.

Speaker 33 It's the wall of shame. That's all the people who had to spend time in prison for crimes they didn't commit.

Speaker 9 This is Eric Glisson,

Speaker 9 wrongfully convicted, 17 years.

Speaker 9 Came out of the Bronx. Richard Vizario, 20 years, wrongfully convicted, also on the Bronx.
Did a story on him called conviction, just like my documentary.

Speaker 9 So I wake up every day and I look at this.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 9 it's what drives me to keep going because

Speaker 9 while I may not be able to get my freedom through this process, there have been others that we've been able to help.

Speaker 9 And I guess that's a part of my purpose.

Speaker 42 How does it feel to look at that wall knowing that you're still here?

Speaker 9 There's no way to deal with this, man. I mean, it's a very painful experience.

Speaker 28 That's where my hope lies.

Speaker 23 JJ hoped that he'd soon be free too, that the New York State Supreme Court would finally grant him the hearing that he'd been asking for for years.

Speaker 18 In September 2016, two years after J.J.'s graduation, his lawyers Celia Gordon and Bob Gottlieb got the answer.

Speaker 54 Last week, after

Speaker 54 many months of waiting, we received word that the appellate division denied our motion, denied the appeal.

Speaker 54 So the news is lousy, to say the least.

Speaker 12 Once again, JJ had been denied a hearing.

Speaker 13 The decision was unanimous.

Speaker 39 The judges didn't buy what the eyewitnesses, Augustus Brown and Philip Jones, had said, that they knew J.J.

Speaker 17 was the wrong man.

Speaker 15 The court wrote, quote, the alleged recantations by two of the four eyewitnesses were shown to be highly suspect.

Speaker 50 The opinion also addressed Mustafa in Seattle, the man I'd confronted outside his house, the one that two women said had confessed to them.

Speaker 17 The court wrote, simply put, there is nothing either trustworthy or reliable about the purported confession attributed to Mustafa, and that it, quote, was refuted by the overwhelming evidence the people unearthed in their reinvestigation of the crime.

Speaker 16 I'd also had doubts about Mustafa, but to me, The main issue was, did JJ commit this crime?

Speaker 39 Now, unless new evidence surfaced, JJ was at the end of his legal road.

Speaker 22 Bob and Celia were devastated.

Speaker 55 Knowing that this is the end of the line, legally speaking,

Speaker 55 it was so hard to read that decision. I don't have words.
I don't have words for that.

Speaker 27 You know,

Speaker 55 this is John Adrian's life.

Speaker 54 I firmly believe that someday,

Speaker 44 somehow, when you least expect it,

Speaker 54 something is going to break. Someday, justice is going to be done, and I only hope that I'm going to be alive when that day comes.

Speaker 41 You have a prepaid call from John Adrian, an inmate at Sing Sing.

Speaker 29 JJ called from Sing Sing after hearing the news.

Speaker 56 I'm just coming to terms with realizing the effects of the court decision is having on me. It's like, you you know, they don't want to hear the facts.

Speaker 56 They don't even want to take the opportunity to dig deeper into the facts by just simply holding a hearing. I just don't know how much more of this I can take.
It's been two decades.

Speaker 56 I mean, at this point, speaking to my attorneys,

Speaker 56 they're baffled by what's next. It took me 19 years to get where I'm at today.

Speaker 26 What am I supposed to do? Another 19 years?

Speaker 56 To try to figure out where we went wrong, what we haven't uncovered already, how can we uncover something new?

Speaker 56 How am I supposed to pull all this off if I'm locked up in a,

Speaker 56 I live in a cage.

Speaker 56 I just don't know what's next. What's next? Finishing my time? I've been sentenced to life.

Speaker 18 I don't know what's next.

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Speaker 40 After JJ's appeal was denied in 2016, I began speaking with him several times a week, and rarely did a month go by without a visit.

Speaker 26 We'd have long talks about his case and his work, and we talked a lot about his family, how much he missed his boys, how much it hurt to be separated from them.

Speaker 9 June 26, 2009. I haven't told anyone this, Dan, but I've been waking up in the middle of the night worried about my son.

Speaker 36 I have not spoken to him.

Speaker 12 Almost a decade earlier, JJ had written me letters about how concerned he was that his son John would get caught up in the system.

Speaker 9 He is a good child with a pretty solid foundation of principles and morals, yet he is vulnerable in an environment that makes statistics out of our youth.

Speaker 31 I have to get in a way.

Speaker 53 two years in prison.

Speaker 29 Now, John was 23 and on parole.

Speaker 12 He'd been working, driving a delivery truck, trying to make ends meet.

Speaker 17 Then one day, Maria called to tell me that he had gotten into another situation and was in danger of getting locked up again.

Speaker 25 John was hiding out in a motel room, just like his dad had all those years ago.

Speaker 12 Maria urged John to get in touch with me, and he did. He texted me to come over.

Speaker 35 So I'm on my way to see John Adrian Jr. now.

Speaker 47 He's had some problems.

Speaker 35 You know, when he was a kid, when he was little, he used to say how he didn't like to go visit his dad at Sing Sing because he didn't like prisons. He never wanted to end up in jail.

Speaker 35 And

Speaker 35 as he got older, I think he got

Speaker 35 sucked into a life that maybe he wouldn't have had his dad been around.

Speaker 42 He got in trouble with the law.

Speaker 35 And he's already been to jail himself.

Speaker 34 So I just drove an hour to get here.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 35 I'm going to go talk to him.

Speaker 12 I pull up to a rundown motel next to a gas station.

Speaker 31 Hello. Hey, Jay.

Speaker 2 Yeah. What room are you in?

Speaker 2 All right. I'm parking right out front, okay?

Speaker 2 All right, come and open the door.

Speaker 29 You look so stressed, man.

Speaker 48 John is sitting on the edge of the bed.

Speaker 39 The room is full of smoke.

Speaker 48 An old square TV is flickering in the background, but he isn't watching it.

Speaker 22 His head is down.

Speaker 24 He just looks lost.

Speaker 57 So, what have you just been doing? Smoking and sleeping?

Speaker 57 Yeah, not really sleeping to save the rest of my body.

Speaker 38 This is tricky for me.

Speaker 48 I've known John since he was a little kid.

Speaker 57 I've watched him grow up.

Speaker 36 I care about him, and I want him to be okay.

Speaker 48 But as a journalist, I've also been documenting his life for years. So with John's consent, I record our conversation.

Speaker 57 Why don't you start with what happened last week?

Speaker 49 It was difficult.

Speaker 57 I just came back from a long trip.

Speaker 57 I'm just like... At the house coming back from this trip.
Somebody called me. It was like, one of my friends had got robbed.

Speaker 48 John tells me his story, how one of his friends was robbed and thought he knew the guy who did it. So John and a few others went to get the money back.

Speaker 29 Except he says it was a setup.

Speaker 48 Someone called the police and John was arrested for burglary.

Speaker 29 He spent about a week in jail.

Speaker 57 So you got out of jail four days ago.

Speaker 57 Yes.

Speaker 48 Getting arrested was a violation of John's parole.

Speaker 29 So now he's facing another state prison sentence.

Speaker 57 I mean, I have seven months of parole left, but I just came out of jail on Monday. Like, I just don't want to go right back right now.

Speaker 57 It's too much.

Speaker 57 Why are you here?

Speaker 57 In this room.

Speaker 57 Just to get away from everything.

Speaker 57 I could just do as I please for the moment.

Speaker 57 What's your plan?

Speaker 57 Not too sure yet. That's another reason for being here, to make one.

Speaker 57 Well, have you thought it through?

Speaker 57 Not yet. Well, let's do that, okay?

Speaker 29 Let's start doing that together.

Speaker 15 Let's start thinking this through.

Speaker 57 I want you to just feel free to be honest with me, too.

Speaker 29 You know what I mean?

Speaker 57 I'm not here to pass any judgment at all.

Speaker 45 No matter what happens, the fact that you were arrested last week is a violation of parole.

Speaker 57 Let's just talk about your real options.

Speaker 57 Let's deal with what's a fact.

Speaker 45 The fact is

Speaker 57 what your parole officer said you need to come in, right? So now what are your options? Tell them to me. Option one.

Speaker 57 To go there. Okay.
Option two. To not go.

Speaker 57 What happens if you go?

Speaker 11 Let's go down that road for a minute.

Speaker 57 I'll just be sitting in Iraq and come in jail. For how long?

Speaker 57 Worst case scenario, just do seven months.

Speaker 57 What's the best possible thing that could happen if you turn yourself in?

Speaker 57 I do four months. What was option two? You run?

Speaker 57 Yeah. Okay, so let's go down that road.

Speaker 57 What happens there?

Speaker 57 You keep moving around, right?

Speaker 57 How is that life look?

Speaker 57 I don't know. I need to be able to

Speaker 57 get in a good state of mind.

Speaker 57 Just can't go right back to jail. It's like, it's just too much.
Does it feel good to live like this?

Speaker 57 On the run? Hiding?

Speaker 57 Doesn't feel good.

Speaker 57 But I know I can get some things done. Like what?

Speaker 49 I could work.

Speaker 57 Not if there's a warrant out for your arrest.

Speaker 57 You're 23.

Speaker 57 Yep.

Speaker 57 As a child, I wanted to

Speaker 57 be this age. I was trying to grow up too fast.

Speaker 57 Now that I'm here, it's just like whatever.

Speaker 57 Just a lot going through my mind.

Speaker 57 I'm really trying to figure out what I'm going to do.

Speaker 57 But until I figure that out, I know that I'm just going to stay here.

Speaker 45 You know what?

Speaker 57 You know I talked to your dad. You know that?

Speaker 57 And rarely is there a time when I visit him that we talk. that he doesn't tell me how much he loves you.

Speaker 57 I was with your dad on your birthday.

Speaker 57 And you know what he said to me? My son is 23 years old today.

Speaker 57 I turned 23 in prison.

Speaker 57 He doesn't want to see you go down this path.

Speaker 48 You know what he would say?

Speaker 45 He would say,

Speaker 57 I love him no matter what. I'm going to be there for him no matter what he does.

Speaker 57 He knows there's a future for you.

Speaker 57 And he also knows that you've been robbed of him.

Speaker 57 It makes your burden that much harder. It makes your fight that much harder, right?

Speaker 57 I've watched you grow up.

Speaker 57 And it just...

Speaker 57 Must be very, very difficult for you. So I don't want to pretend.
that I know what it's like to be you or that I know what the right decision for you is. You got to do that for yourself.

Speaker 57 I'm sorry, man.

Speaker 57 I'm sorry.

Speaker 38 I give John a hug.

Speaker 23 He's kind of in a daze.

Speaker 18 He's hearing me, but I don't know if it's registering or if I'm even helping.

Speaker 57 I'm sorry that you're going through all this, right?

Speaker 57 Yeah.

Speaker 57 Tough choices, right?

Speaker 18 I head back to my car

Speaker 17 and I sit there for a few minutes, letting it all sink in.

Speaker 5 Then my phone rings.

Speaker 41 You have a prepaid call from

Speaker 41 John Adrian.

Speaker 41 An inmate at SingSing, the New York State Correctional Facility. If you wish to accept and pay for this call, John Adrian.

Speaker 2 Hello?

Speaker 56 guy off the phone, my mother.

Speaker 41 She told me you two were together.

Speaker 11 You know, I spoke to him for more than an hour.

Speaker 12 And I did my best to try to not judge him and not to give him any advice, but to help him think through all of the options that he has before him.

Speaker 50 You know, and I told him that.

Speaker 50 You know what your father would say right now.

Speaker 50 And he said, what?

Speaker 19 I said, no matter what you do he's gonna love you

Speaker 11 no matter what you do he's gonna support you

Speaker 20 so that's what i said on your behalf to him

Speaker 20 well i thank you for that

Speaker 29 uh he's gonna have to make decisions right

Speaker 29 yeah definitely

Speaker 29 it's a collateral damage

Speaker 29 Since he was 15, he's been going in and out of situations with the criminal justice system, and it's not working.

Speaker 56 Whatever they're doing with him while he's institutionalized, it's not working. It's obvious that he needs something else.
He needs help, and he's not getting it in here.

Speaker 18 It was tough to tell JJ about what was happening with his son, especially because I knew there was nothing he could do about it.

Speaker 44 JJ had predicted this.

Speaker 38 He told me about the research on children of incarcerated incarcerated parents. He knew how they face a host of hardships, a higher risk of financial instability, emotional stress, trauma.

Speaker 44 Sometimes that can lead to making bad decisions.

Speaker 29 John didn't turn himself in after I spoke with him in that motel room.

Speaker 38 Police caught up with him months later.

Speaker 49 He was sent back to prison to serve two and a half more years.

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Speaker 13 It had been 15 years since I received that first letter from JJ asking me to look into his case.

Speaker 30 And despite all that I'd found since then, he was still in prison.

Speaker 30 What made this so hard for me to understand was that from my read, prosecutors hadn't really been evaluating whether or not JJ was the gunman.

Speaker 29 In their court filings, it seemed to me their position was that JJ's trial had been fair, that his constitutional rights had not been violated, that their conviction was a solid one.

Speaker 17 The only chance JJ now had to get a judge to even listen again would be if he found new evidence that hadn't been available at the time of his trial.

Speaker 5 And it would have to be a big deal.

Speaker 17 There would need to be a reasonable probability that the new evidence would have led to a more favorable verdict for JJ.

Speaker 45 After all these years, that was a tall order.

Speaker 12 Still, I figured there had to be something new out there.

Speaker 31 I simply refused to accept that the law could keep JJ locked up when to me, there was so much evidence of his innocence.

Speaker 36 So I got back to work.

Speaker 10 I followed up on random leads I'd never explored, chased down old ones, reviewed notes and court filings.

Speaker 5 One day, I even walked the streets of Harlem looking for a guy mentioned by one of the eyewitnesses.

Speaker 26 And there was something else I wanted to check.

Speaker 18 Before a trial, prosecutors have a legal obligation to turn over any documents to the defense that might be relevant to their case.

Speaker 51 But it was up to the DA's office to determine what was relevant.

Speaker 25 In JJ's case, his lawyers asked the DA's office for copies of all of the police reports, more than 100 of them.

Speaker 38 But prosecutors responded with a letter saying they'd decided to withhold dozens of those reports.

Speaker 29 They said that they weren't material to JJ's defense.

Speaker 24 But I started to wonder, what if there was something important in those reports?

Speaker 29 For months, I worked to get my hands on them.

Speaker 17 I can't say how I did it without revealing sources.

Speaker 40 But one day, I finally got them.

Speaker 60 It's March 21st, 2017, 15 years after I started this investigation.

Speaker 47 And I get home last night and there's this big yellow envelope in my mailbox.

Speaker 31 And inside are all of the police reports from JJ's case.

Speaker 17 One of those police reports, number 93, felt like a bombshell.

Speaker 16 It was an interview that a detective had done with the father of Derry Daniels, JJ's alleged accomplice, the man with the duct tape.

Speaker 15 That interview took place the day before JJ's name first came up in the investigation.

Speaker 18 According to Police Report 93, Daniel's father said his son Derry had come over to his apartment the night before the murder.

Speaker 17 Derry had a friend with him, someone he owed money to.

Speaker 18 The father told the detective he didn't let that friend in, and he described the friend as a light-skinned black man with braids.

Speaker 18 The exact description of the shooter many of the eyewitnesses gave police.

Speaker 46 The father even said said he could identify that friend.

Speaker 31 Think about it.

Speaker 10 This is the father of JJ's alleged accomplice, saying his son showed up the night before the murder with a man who matched the original description of the shooter.

Speaker 18 And the father tells police he can ID the guy.

Speaker 13 The next day, JJ's photo was picked out by Augustus Brown, the key eyewitness.

Speaker 17 But there's no record of anyone ever going back to speak with Derry Daniels' father.

Speaker 49 Not even to check if JJ was that friend.

Speaker 18 I drove over to Sing Sing to tell JJ what I'd found.

Speaker 31 That's seven building, right? To the left?

Speaker 48 A guard leads me to JJ's cell. He's sitting on his bed.

Speaker 29 I sit across from him.

Speaker 29 So

Speaker 2 here I am.

Speaker 2 We're cramped in here.

Speaker 9 You're starting to get a feel for it. How does it feel for you to be inside of a cell?

Speaker 47 It's small. What am I? Sitting on your toilet, right?

Speaker 9 I'm sitting on my toilet.

Speaker 12 My knees are touching the bed.

Speaker 9 We can reach both sides just by standing up and reaching across.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 31 your

Speaker 47 latest appeal was denied.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 40 Now, I'm not a lawyer.

Speaker 10 And what I'm going to tell you, I don't want you to talk about it on the phone right now.

Speaker 47 I don't want you to talk to anybody else about it until it plays itself out to see what happens.

Speaker 47 But I've seen some of the police reports that were missing.

Speaker 31 It turns out

Speaker 31 that

Speaker 47 I have now seen an interview with Derry Daniels' father.

Speaker 47 That interview was done on the 29th of January, which was two days after the murder. in the narrative of the report,

Speaker 47 the father said that on Monday night at 5 p.m., which was

Speaker 47 19 hours before the murder or so,

Speaker 47 that Derry had come over to his apartment with a friend that he owed money to. And the father described the friend as a light-skinned black man with braids

Speaker 47 and said he could identify him.

Speaker 9 Why am I finding the shout 20 years later?

Speaker 34 There's no justice in this justice system.

Speaker 9 It's no justice in this justice system.

Speaker 9 Lost 20 years of my life, man.

Speaker 35 What does it matter?

Speaker 9 I got five years left for the sentence that they gave me.

Speaker 9 I'm so numb at this point that I can do it.

Speaker 9 I spent half my life in prison

Speaker 9 because people want to hold back information, because people want to continue to perpetuate lies.

Speaker 2 I didn't deserve this.

Speaker 9 My children didn't deserve this.

Speaker 35 My mother didn't deserve this.

Speaker 9 These people destroyed my life, destroyed my family. And that's time we can't get back.

Speaker 9 My children, my oldest son is the age that I was when I came to prison.

Speaker 9 He was three years old when I left him.

Speaker 9 My youngest son doesn't even know what it is to wake up to a father.

Speaker 2 He was a month old.

Speaker 9 These people stole my life from me.

Speaker 9 There's nothing that could be done to make this right. Even releasing me tomorrow doesn't make it right.
It'll never hurt any less.

Speaker 9 Do any of them prosecutors ever think about that when they destroy our lives?

Speaker 9 Somebody had this information. Why was it withheld?

Speaker 9 This is not a mistake, Dan.

Speaker 9 They know I'm innocent.

Speaker 18 My heart was breaking for JJ.

Speaker 20 What he said was true.

Speaker 18 There was nothing that could change the fact that he spent nearly 20 years in prison.

Speaker 19 But this police report, Report 93, could mean a new chance at getting out.

Speaker 32 When JJ's lawyers saw the report, they were outraged it had been withheld.

Speaker 16 To them, it was clear evidence that JJ's constitutional rights had been violated.

Speaker 40 They immediately filed another motion for a hearing.

Speaker 32 And this time, it was granted.

Speaker 17 JJ would finally be back in court.

Speaker 45 Next time.

Speaker 61 Your Honor, it is not too much to ask: how in heaven's name was DD593 not turned over? How do the people not turn it over to the defense?

Speaker 9 The system that we're up against is...

Speaker 9 I don't even know how to explain that, man, but it's dark, it's ugly, it's disgusting, but it's powerful.

Speaker 52 When I look at my son and I find him to be so strong, I say to him, how do you do that?

Speaker 8 I couldn't do it.

Speaker 43 In my 40 years of service, this is one of the more exciting times in my whole entire life.

Speaker 29 Why is it so hard?

Speaker 57 Because I know he doesn't belong here.

Speaker 13 Letters from Sing Sing was written and produced by Preethi Varathon, Rob Allen, and me.

Speaker 16 Our associate producer is Rachel Young.

Speaker 11 Our story editor is Jennifer Goren.

Speaker 21 Original score by Christopher Scullion, Robert Riale, and Four Elements Music.

Speaker 22 Sound design by Cedric Wilson.

Speaker 21 Fact-checking by Joseph Frischmuth.

Speaker 50 Bryson Barnes is our technical director.

Speaker 40 Preethyvarathon is our supervising producer.

Speaker 17 Soraya Gage, Reed Jerlin, and Alexa Danner are our executive producers.

Speaker 53 Liz Cole runs NBC News Studios.

Speaker 40 Special thanks to Sean Gallagher.

Speaker 20 Letters from Sing Sing is in NBC News Studios production.

Speaker 1 Did you know 39% of teen drivers admit to texting while driving? Even scarier, those who text are more likely to speed and run red lights. Shockingly, 94% know it's dangerous, but do it anyway.

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