Letters from Sing Sing - Ep. 2: 74 Minutes

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Speaker 3 some family

Speaker 3 pictures

Speaker 3 school papers that i've kept he always got

Speaker 3 very good grades This is excellent. He loved dinosaurs.
He did a dinosaur project. And you could see that he was such a happy person,

Speaker 3 always with the smiles and the laughter and friends. He had a lot of friends.

Speaker 4 I'm with Maria Velasquez, JJ's mother.

Speaker 7 She's showing me his childhood drawings, old report cards, photos of JJ when he was a kid.

Speaker 3 I used to feel like a taxi driver. running them to the movies, running them to shows, running them all over the place, because he always, oh mom, mom will take you, mom will take you.

Speaker 3 And I wind up like with five or six boys in my car, driving them to the movies, taking them bowling, doing all kinds of things, you know.

Speaker 4 This is one of my favorites. Maria lives in Havestra, a town in New York on the Hudson River.

Speaker 7 Directly across the water is Sing Sing, the maximum security prison where her son is locked up.

Speaker 12 Maria pulls out another set of photos.

Speaker 13 These look more recent.

Speaker 14 In them, JJ's older.

Speaker 3 When we go to the FRPs, the Family Reunion Project,

Speaker 3 we always take pictures.

Speaker 14 The program that Maria is describing lets incarcerated people with good behavior visit with their families for a couple of nights in a trailer on prison grounds.

Speaker 3 We've celebrated birthdays, my birthday, his birthday, Mother's Day, Father's Day, all on FRPs.

Speaker 17 She tells me that she always tries to spend the major holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas with her son.

Speaker 3 There's no gifts, there's no tree, you know, what we used to, but I've gone outdoors and picked a little bush and come inside and put little things on it and made a tree out of it.

Speaker 19 And

Speaker 3 we've always managed to just keep the family going no matter what.

Speaker 20 But my reason for coming to see Maria went beyond just hearing stories about JJ's past.

Speaker 23 He insisted he had proof he didn't murder murder Al Ward, the retired police officer.

Speaker 7 He told me that he had an alibi.

Speaker 3 I have always felt so grateful to have known where my son was

Speaker 3 when they said that he was someplace else. I have shed many tears, but not because my son is a murderer.
My son is not a murderer. He is not.

Speaker 7 And I I know

Speaker 3 because I know where he was.

Speaker 3 He was on the phone with me.

Speaker 23 I'm Dan Slepian,

Speaker 25 and this is Letters from Sang Sing.

Speaker 7 Episode 2:

Speaker 5 74 Minutes

Speaker 26 JJ Velasquez was an only child raised by two working parents in the Bronx.

Speaker 26 His mother, Maria, was a labor union organizer, and his dad was a police officer for Amtrak. They separated when JJ was 11, and his father had another son.

Speaker 26 Maria says JJ was a good kid.

Speaker 6 He played soccer and baseball, was an altar boy at their church, and he was on the right track at school.

Speaker 3 He was very active in school. The high school that was closest to us had a law program.
And so I took him over to the school to get him interviewed for the program.

Speaker 3 And it just so happens that I had to go outside and put money in the meter. And by the time I got back, the law professor had already interviewed him and said, he's in.

Speaker 3 He liked the way he expressed himself.

Speaker 3 And he was just, I guess,

Speaker 3 charismatic. People are drawn to him when he speaks.
He's always been like that.

Speaker 31 When JJ was about 16, things began to change.

Speaker 8 He began to change.

Speaker 34 Got to high school and I started spreading my wings a little bit. Got exposed a little bit more to life, a little more freedom.
Came a little hard-headed.

Speaker 34 Wanted to be seen as a cool individual. I was into sports, so I had to hold up some type of image.

Speaker 3 He kind of like just started letting loose and just

Speaker 3 started, you know, hanging out with the boys and just not paying attention to school. And the only class that he did well in was his law class.

Speaker 3 And the professor said, You know, he does really well in this class, but I'm not going to pass him if he doesn't do well in his other classes.

Speaker 3 When he was about

Speaker 3 16, I sent him to live with his father. His father lived in Manhattan, and I figured maybe, you know, living with his father would help him, you know, through these issues.
And

Speaker 3 instead, I think what happened was that it got worse.

Speaker 34 My parents offered me something better,

Speaker 34 but I was rebellious, and I wanted my own way. You know, I wanted to be able to tell myself what to do.
I thought I was grown.

Speaker 30 JJ dropped out of high school and started selling drugs.

Speaker 34 I sold weed. I sold coke.

Speaker 34 I was in the street. I was by myself.
I ran away from home. Not because of anything that my parents did, just me trying to find my way.

Speaker 34 Where I come from, the working class people are struggling, barely paying their bills. I don't live around doctors or lawyers.
They're not from my neighborhood.

Speaker 34 The drug dealers are hanging out on the street, having fun, partying with girls, driving nice cars, have nice clothes.

Speaker 35 So growing up, it's almost like you see that

Speaker 34 success

Speaker 34 is the image of these drug dealers. And I wasn't very successful in it.

Speaker 34 You know, but that was my life.

Speaker 26 During those years, JJ had a few run-ins with the police.

Speaker 6 He'd been arrested for drug possession, but had never been convicted.

Speaker 26 Even so, his mugshot remained in the police database.

Speaker 22 When he was 17, JJ met Vanessa Sapero, who lived in his neighborhood. They started dating, and two years later, Vanessa got pregnant.

Speaker 10 They named their baby boy, John.

Speaker 34 My son was born in Union Hospital in the Bronx,

Speaker 34 and it gave me new meaning.

Speaker 34 It gave me a sense of purpose. I knew now that I had to live for him.

Speaker 34 But still, where was I?

Speaker 34 How was I going to pull it off?

Speaker 23 So J.J. enrolled in classes at a technical career institute, but at night to make money, he continued to sell drugs on a street corner.

Speaker 20 A few years after their first son, John, was born, J.J.

Speaker 6 and Vanessa had another baby, Jacob.

Speaker 10 On the morning of January 27th, 1998, the day of Al Ward's murder, JJ says he was at home in the Bronx with Vanessa and his two boys.

Speaker 6 Jacob had been born just five weeks earlier.

Speaker 34 I woke up early, entertained my oldest son, who was up, jovial, running around, you know, looking for attention.

Speaker 34 So I give him the attention that he wants.

Speaker 28 You know, I make breakfast.

Speaker 10 Later that morning, JJ says he got on the phone with his mom, Maria.

Speaker 4 They had something to discuss about the next day, January 28th.

Speaker 34 January 28th is my father's birthday.

Speaker 34 And

Speaker 34 he died April 1997.

Speaker 34 So this would be the first time that my father's birthday would come around and we wouldn't spend it with him.

Speaker 3 It was something that was hard, you know, for my son. He was an only child.
He was always very close to his father.

Speaker 34 He He was more than my father. He was my best friend.
You know, like he was the spark.

Speaker 28 He's the one who got everybody together and knew what was going on with everybody.

Speaker 34 I wanted to continue being that staple in the family that my father was. I wanted to take his place.
I wanted our family to be together, you know.

Speaker 6 So during that call, JJ says he told his mom he wanted to gather his family at his father's gravesite the next day.

Speaker 25 And he wanted the two most important women in his life to be there, Maria and Vanessa.

Speaker 9 The problem was the two of them had been fighting.

Speaker 8 They weren't speaking to each other.

Speaker 34 So I was torn between them. I was trying to let them know that at this time I need your support.

Speaker 27 You both have to come.

Speaker 34 Now, Vanessa was like, you know, I don't want to be around her, but I'll go, but I'm not talking to her, you know?

Speaker 38 Well, my mother's, you know,

Speaker 39 that's my mom's.

Speaker 34 You can't tell her anything. You don't tell me what to do, man.

Speaker 34 So we had a long conversation because I kept, you know, trying to instill in her how important it was.

Speaker 6 JJ remembers the conversation getting heated.

Speaker 7 It was a tug-of-war.

Speaker 34 It was me against her, you know.

Speaker 3 We spoke a long time on the phone.

Speaker 7 A long time.

Speaker 34 We went back and forth for a while, but she finally agreed.

Speaker 40 The next day, JJ says they all headed to a cemetery in the Bronx.

Speaker 7 But when they got there, the gates were locked.

Speaker 34 And I remember being there in the clouds, and it was starting to rain, and I wanted to climb over the fence just to go see my father. You know, and my mother was like, it's not worth it.

Speaker 34 You can get caught for trespassing or whatever. We'll come back.

Speaker 34 The sad part about it is I never had that chance to go back.

Speaker 42 Three days later, JJ would get a call and learn the police were looking for him.

Speaker 10 Maria would scramble to find a lawyer.

Speaker 9 They'd spend the weekend holed up in a hotel.

Speaker 18 And then she'd drive her son to the 28th Precinct in Harlem.

Speaker 3 I can't forget

Speaker 3 how I felt.

Speaker 3 It was like I had betrayed my son

Speaker 3 by turning him into the police. I let out this scream.

Speaker 3 It was

Speaker 3 such a loud scream.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 I stood there for a few minutes. And then I just

Speaker 3 left and started to head home.

Speaker 7 As Maria was driving home, she says she started thinking about the day of the crime, trying to remember what she had been doing, what JJ had been doing.

Speaker 7 And then she remembered that long, heated phone call with him.

Speaker 3 I got home and immediately I started, you know, calling the phone company. I requested my my phone bells.
I called

Speaker 3 Vanessa. I told her, you have to call the phone company.

Speaker 3 We need to put all this information together and we need to get it to the lawyer as soon as possible because this is what's going to prove where he was.

Speaker 19 All this time, Maria still didn't know what was happening with her son.

Speaker 6 He'd been at the precinct for hours.

Speaker 7 She still hadn't heard from JJ or his lawyer.

Speaker 3 That day was like the longest day.

Speaker 3 Not knowing, not hearing anything.

Speaker 3 And when I finally heard,

Speaker 3 it was that they had kept my son.

Speaker 3 And I couldn't believe it.

Speaker 3 I was told that he would probably be in Rikers.

Speaker 33 Rikers is New York City's massive jail complex where people who have been arrested wait for their day in court.

Speaker 42 It's considered one of the most horrific and dangerous jails in the country.

Speaker 3 I was so worried and heard so many stories about Rikers and how terrible a place it is and all the things that happen in there.

Speaker 3 So I was very concerned

Speaker 3 that they would hurt him, especially that he was being accused

Speaker 3 of murdering a retired

Speaker 3 police officer.

Speaker 17 She kept pushing the phone company for records and eventually she got them.

Speaker 3 We got the phone records and

Speaker 3 we saw

Speaker 3 that we had been on the phone that whole time.

Speaker 6 Here's what the records show.

Speaker 41 A 74-minute phone call made on a landline.

Speaker 43 This was before everyone had a cell phone.

Speaker 10 The call was from JJ and Vanessa's apartment in the Bronx.

Speaker 37 to Maria's home in Havestra, overlapping with the time the robbery was unfolding in Harlem.

Speaker 3 Once we got that phone record,

Speaker 3 we said it's all a matter of just going in there

Speaker 3 and proving where you were, and you're going to be a free man.

Speaker 17 Maria was certain that with these phone records, no jury would convict JJ.

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Speaker 46 You pulled his number.

Speaker 14 I first received JJ's trial transcript in 2002.

Speaker 14 It was over 2,000 pages and it filled three large binders.

Speaker 37 I read it when I could, but by 2008, I'd actually gone through it twice, marking up the margins, returning to certain sections over and over again.

Speaker 14 I wanted to be sure that I really understood what the jury had heard, the facts that ended up convicting JJ.

Speaker 27 I've read a lot of transcripts over the years, and this trial was strange.

Speaker 41 It began on October 18, 1999, at a courthouse in Lower Manhattan.

Speaker 32 By then, J.J.

Speaker 27 had been at Rikers Rikers for almost two years.

Speaker 6 He was facing 13 charges, including first and second-degree murder.

Speaker 22 A jury was selected, and then the prosecutor, Eugene Hurley, presented his opening statement.

Speaker 47 It's our theory that the defendant is the gunman.

Speaker 7 This defendant murdered Albert Ward.

Speaker 47 And after all this evidence is presented to you, I'll ask you to find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Speaker 22 That voice you're hearing isn't actually Eugene Hurley.

Speaker 7 We've asked actors to read read portions of the trial transcripts because no recording of the trial exists.

Speaker 47 You'll hear that five people, Philip Jones, Robert Jones, Lorenzo Woodford, Augustus Brown, and Dorothy Kennedy, five of them, identified this defendant after being able to...

Speaker 26 The prosecution's case rested solely on those eyewitnesses.

Speaker 25 The first one called to the stand was Augustus Brown.

Speaker 20 He was the drug dealer who first picked out JJ's photo, making him a suspect.

Speaker 7 Prosecutors were worried Brown wasn't going to show up at the trial, so they put him in jail on what's called a material witness order.

Speaker 6 As Brown took the stand, JJ says he realized something. He recognized him from that very morning when JJ was in a holding cell behind the courtroom.

Speaker 27 It's called the bullpen.

Speaker 34 I'm in this bullpen right in front of the desk where there's officers right here. There's another bullpin here, and there's an individual staring at me.

Speaker 34 And, you know, being in prison, you start becoming conscious, you know. So I look at him and he says it wasn't me.

Speaker 39 I'm like, what are you talking about, man?

Speaker 34 As he starts talking and rambling off, the officers say, yo, they got a separation. Get them out of there.
So they start taking him out the pin.

Speaker 48 I say, yo, what are you talking about?

Speaker 34 He said, yo, they're making me do it. I'm in jail right now because I won't testify against you.
I said, what?

Speaker 48 And they took him out.

Speaker 34 I told my lawyers about what happened. They said, listen, don't bring that up.

Speaker 7 I don't know any better.

Speaker 39 I'm listening to my lawyers.

Speaker 34 This guy gets on the stand and testifies against me. This is the main witness, Augustus Brown.

Speaker 22 The prosecutor began by asking Brown questions about the day of the crime.

Speaker 47 I would like to direct your attention back to the afternoon of January 27th, 1998, between around noon and 2 p.m.

Speaker 7 Do you recall where you were then?

Speaker 38 On 127th and 8th Avenue.

Speaker 7 What were you doing?

Speaker 38 I was selling drugs.

Speaker 28 Brown explained to the jury that he was in the back room of the illegal gambling spot in the middle of a drug deal with a regular customer, Lorenzo Woodford.

Speaker 38 We was talking, then we heard like a noise. So I walked down to the other room, and then that's when this gentleman right here

Speaker 38 had the gun in my face and was like, you know what this is? And it was a bunch of people laying on the floor, duct taped up, and he told us to lay over there with him.

Speaker 43 Brown told the jury that Al Ward, the retired officer, pulled out his weapon and fired.

Speaker 7 Then he saw Ward fall after being shot by the gunman.

Speaker 47 Can you tell us where that person is in the room?

Speaker 7 What he's wearing right now?

Speaker 38 He's right here with the black suit on.

Speaker 14 Again, Brown pointed right at JJ.

Speaker 40 The prosecution called more eyewitnesses to the stand.

Speaker 6 Robert Jones had been working the door at the gambling spot that day and was questioned by detectives just hours after the shooting.

Speaker 47 Do you remember giving the police a description of the light-skinned male?

Speaker 49 Yes.

Speaker 47 Do you remember now what description it was that you gave him?

Speaker 49 Well, the first time I described it to him, I told him he was like light-skinned Puerto Rican, you know?

Speaker 7 Wait a minute.

Speaker 27 I'd read the police reports.

Speaker 22 That wasn't how Robert Jones initially described the shooter.

Speaker 28 He first described the gunman as a light-skinned black man.

Speaker 9 There was no mention of the words Puerto Rican.

Speaker 6 It seemed to me like Jones was now adjusting his description to fit JJ.

Speaker 11 During cross-examination, JJ's lawyer, Frank Gould, tried to point out this discrepancy.

Speaker 40 He asked Jones to read the original statement he gave to police.

Speaker 35 Is it accurate?

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 35 Is it true?

Speaker 49 From what I read, yes.

Speaker 35 Did you describe the person who you said did the shooting as male, black, light-skinned, with light beard and mustache and braids? He was about five foot seven inches or eight inches tall, 150 to 155.

Speaker 17 And then Jones said something I found highly suspicious.

Speaker 7 I don't remember using the word black.

Speaker 37 I'm sorry, sir.

Speaker 49 I don't remember using the word there, black.

Speaker 12 JJ's lawyer didn't seem to buy it.

Speaker 35 Are you suggesting they put the word black in, but you didn't say it?

Speaker 49 I could have said it at the time. I could have said it.
I was a little shaken up at the time, so I could have said it.

Speaker 7 According to the police report, Jones did say it.

Speaker 40 He did initially describe the gunman as black, but he changed that description the day after the murder.

Speaker 6 the report says jones looked at a series of mugshots of black men but then said he quote felt the perp was half black and half hispanic ultimately he said mugshots of white hispanics were the most accurate in similarity to the shooter and at trial jones insisted jj was that shooter do you see the light-skinned man in court today that's him

Speaker 10 Two more eyewitnesses, Philip Jones and Lorenzo Woodford, took the stand.

Speaker 30 Both first described the shooter as a black man.

Speaker 19 Now, both swore under oath that JJ was the gunman.

Speaker 34 It felt like a slap in the face, a stab in the gut.

Speaker 34 People accusing me of something that I didn't do. People that I'm meeting for the first time.

Speaker 34 Everybody that was there basically said two black males came up in there, one light skin with dreadlocks, one dark skin. I'm not a black male.

Speaker 34 I'm not trying to make this a racist argument or anything like that, but clearly when you meet me, you would know that I'm Hispanic.

Speaker 8 The last eyewitness who police said identified JJ was an 84-year-old woman named Dorothy Kennedy.

Speaker 34 She was an elderly woman, testified that she was a church-going woman, God-fearing woman.

Speaker 6 Dorothy Kennedy testified that she was at the number spot on the day of the shooting and saw the gunman.

Speaker 17 The prosecutor asked her about that.

Speaker 47 Do you see the person who had the gun in court today?

Speaker 49 Excuse me?

Speaker 7 I'd like you to look around the courtroom and tell us whether you see the fellow who had the gun in court right now.

Speaker 48 The one with the white shirt on.

Speaker 7 Over here in the jury box?

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 43 I actually read this part several times because I found it so hard to believe.

Speaker 6 According to the transcript, when she was asked to identify the shooter, She did not point to JJ.

Speaker 34 You know who she points out? Jury number six. The jury's there laughing.

Speaker 7 Majority of people in the courtroom are laughing, but this ain't a joke.

Speaker 5 This is my life on the line.

Speaker 34 It seemed like the only two people who were serious was me and the prosecutor. The prosecutor pissed off because she selected the wrong man.

Speaker 34 And me pissed off because everybody thinks it's a joke.

Speaker 34 Something was going on in that stand.

Speaker 48 Something was clearly wrong.

Speaker 48 You know what was wrong?

Speaker 34 I wasn't the person who did this.

Speaker 30 After the the prosecution rested, JJ's lawyers presented their case.

Speaker 24 During his opening statement, Frank Gould had argued that JJ didn't match the initial descriptions that the eyewitnesses gave in the hours after the crime.

Speaker 35 What's the first thing you ask a witness? What did he look like?

Speaker 35 Every witness in this case said the man who did the shooting was a male black light-skinned. Every witness said that.
Some said the man had braids.

Speaker 11 He pointed out that JJ isn't black, that he didn't match the sketch, and that he didn't have braids.

Speaker 34 I had what they would refer to in the street as a Caesar, low-cut,

Speaker 34 you know, used with the trimmers. They cut it down.
Can't even put scissors on it.

Speaker 5 His lawyers even showed the jury a picture of JJ that was taken one month before the murder.

Speaker 27 In the photo, he's holding his newborn son Jacob in the hospital, and JJ has short, close-cropped hair.

Speaker 19 But to JJ, the most important evidence was his alibi, the 74-minute phone call.

Speaker 6 His girlfriend Vanessa testified about that day.

Speaker 10 And as a reminder, these are actors reading the transcript.

Speaker 35 Now, on January 27th of 1998, let's stay with the morning and the afternoon, the early afternoon. Do you know where JJ was?

Speaker 34 Yes.

Speaker 35 Where was he?

Speaker 44 He was home with me and the two kids.

Speaker 6 And she testified that she remembered JJ having a conversation with his mother.

Speaker 26 Then it was Maria's turn.

Speaker 6 JJ says, watching his mom on the stand tore him up.

Speaker 34 The judge kept saying, speak up, speak up, speak into the mic.

Speaker 34 It was like he was taunting her. And, you know, she started to cry.
As she started to cry, I started to cry because,

Speaker 7 you know,

Speaker 34 I couldn't fathom the fact that my mother was being put in such a precarious situation. The prosecutor was trying to assassinate a character.
My mom's a straight-up woman.

Speaker 34 You know, she stands by the truth. That's who she is.

Speaker 40 Maria testified that she and JJ were on the phone for those 74 minutes.

Speaker 6 But the prosecutor suggested that someone else could have been on the line with her, like JJ's girlfriend, Vanessa.

Speaker 36 He implied Maria was covering for her only son.

Speaker 3 When the DA said that I'm just a mother who would do anything,

Speaker 3 anything

Speaker 3 to save my son, to keep him out of jail.

Speaker 3 That felt like a rock that hit my chest and blew the wind out of me because I told the truth. I told the truth.

Speaker 20 JJ says he did too.

Speaker 22 He even took the stand in his own defense.

Speaker 9 Many defendants don't do that to avoid cross-examination.

Speaker 17 But JJ says he wanted a chance to make his own case, that the facts were on his side.

Speaker 7 I mean,

Speaker 39 facts are facts.

Speaker 34 You know, your interpretation or somebody else's interpretation of facts can be altered, but the facts cannot change.

Speaker 39 The fact is that I was on the phone with my mother for a long time.

Speaker 39 We have phone reports.

Speaker 9 The prosecutor didn't deny that the call happened.

Speaker 10 He just suggested in his closing arguments that they were all lying about who was actually on the phone.

Speaker 47 The claim here is that a 22-year-old man had a 74-minute conversation with his mother. Now, that is not his girlfriend or his boyfriend.
This is his mother.

Speaker 47 A 74-minute conversation from a 22-year-old man. I think that you'll admit, if you think about that, that that is a highly unlikely event.
It just doesn't ring true, if you'll pardon the expression.

Speaker 43 Still, JJ says he felt confident the jury wouldn't buy the prosecutor's argument. He even told me that some of the court officers working the trial thought he'd walk out of there.

Speaker 34 I mean, every court officer that escorted me back and forth saying, man, you're free. The court officer that was in the courtroom listening to the testimony, he's telling me, you're free.

Speaker 19 The jury got the case on a Wednesday morning and was sequestered, meaning they couldn't go home until they came up with a verdict.

Speaker 27 They deliberated for three full days.

Speaker 15 It wasn't until Friday afternoon that they announced they'd reached a verdict.

Speaker 12 On the top count of first-degree murder, not guilty.

Speaker 34 And I felt great and I knew I was walking out.

Speaker 18 Then came the next count, second-degree murder.

Speaker 34 And then I remember

Speaker 34 a sharp pain,

Speaker 7 a real sharp pain in my heart

Speaker 34 because I found out that I may never see the streets again.

Speaker 34 I was found guilty.

Speaker 12 He was found guilty of second-degree murder and multiple counts of robbery.

Speaker 8 Maria says she was stunned.

Speaker 3 The first thing I said to myself was they didn't believe me

Speaker 3 because had they believed me, they wouldn't have found them guilty.

Speaker 3 I totally believed in the justice system.

Speaker 7 Totally.

Speaker 3 I was one of those people that believes

Speaker 3 that if you're in prison, it's because you belong there because you did something wrong.

Speaker 3 Boy, was I wrong.

Speaker 5 A trial usually presents two narratives, and it's up to the jury to decide which one is the right one.

Speaker 23 I did think the phone call was pretty solid evidence, and yet the prosecution had a point.

Speaker 31 There was no way to prove that it had been JJ on the other side of that call.

Speaker 6 Still, based on the evidence I'd read in JJ's case file, I had a lot of unanswered questions.

Speaker 42 There were parts of the story the jury never even heard.

Speaker 10 Like, what about JJ's alleged accomplice, Derry Daniels, the guy with the duct tape?

Speaker 6 He never testified against JJ, even though he pleaded guilty and said he did the crime with him.

Speaker 14 Why wasn't he a part of JJ's trial?

Speaker 27 And why would the eyewitnesses say the shooter was black in police reports and then say something else when they testified?

Speaker 8 And then there was that strange thing JJ told me about his exchange with Augustus Brown.

Speaker 21 He'd said, they're making me do it.

Speaker 9 I didn't know what to make of that conversation.

Speaker 26 I wasn't even sure it happened.

Speaker 40 But if it had, what did it mean?

Speaker 11 What if JJ was telling the truth?

Speaker 22 On the day of his sentencing, JJ read a statement to the court.

Speaker 6 We asked him to read part of it.

Speaker 34 I'm in jail for a crime I did not commit. As God's witness, I had absolutely nothing to do with this crime.
Nothing at all. I've never met these people.
I've never been in such a spot.

Speaker 34 I've never even heard of it.

Speaker 34 In my eyes, the justice system played some type of game. And I really don't take this as a game.
This is my life.

Speaker 34 And for those that do look at it as some type of game, winners and losers, there will be no winners here. We are all losers.
We have not found your killer yet.

Speaker 34 Instead, an innocent man will go on to serve a life sentence while the murderer remains at large. Is that justice?

Speaker 34 I don't think so.

Speaker 34 Thank you for listening to what I have to say.

Speaker 34 I sincerely hope one day you find your man.

Speaker 11 JJ was sentenced to 25 years to life.

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Speaker 22 It's 2009.

Speaker 30 10 years have passed since JJ's trial and almost seven since he wrote me his first letter.

Speaker 10 Now I have a stack of them.

Speaker 5 So many are about the pain of being separated from his two boys.

Speaker 30 He's especially concerned about his older son, John.

Speaker 34 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.
I have not spoken to him since December. I know my son is trouble-bound.

Speaker 34 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 34 How can a father accept that there is nothing that he can do? Is it all right for a father to trick himself into thinking that everything will be alright?

Speaker 30 One month after receiving that letter, I decided to visit JJ's son, John, in the South Bronx, where he lived with his younger brother Jacob and his mom, Vanessa.

Speaker 14 She and JJ were no longer together.

Speaker 4 I first met John when he was eight years old in that prison lobby on Thanksgiving morning.

Speaker 40 Now he's almost 15, and it seems like what JJ was worrying about is starting to happen.

Speaker 54 Yeah, I don't really trust cops.

Speaker 54 Like I know they're not all the same but most of them like they do stupid stuff.

Speaker 11 We're sitting outside his apartment building.

Speaker 33 He tells me that he and some friends recently had a run-in with undercover police officers.

Speaker 54 And we just all sitting on a bench and stuff and the car pulls up and like it makes like the brake noise or whatever. And I hear doors open and then the doors slam.
I get up and I start running.

Speaker 54 But I didn't know they was was cops because they were wearing all black. And then he takes me and he slams me.
Like,

Speaker 54 I can't blame him for that because I was running. He slams me.
I'm like, what do you want? What do you want? You can't have anything in my pocket. He was like, nah, I'm a cop.
What do you mean?

Speaker 54 And then he pulls out his badge. I'm like, oh, mister, I didn't know.
I'm sorry.

Speaker 11 He says the cops searched him, but didn't find anything.

Speaker 54 And now, like, I look at everybody carefully. Like, if they have that silver thing around their neck, I know that they're a cop or something because they have a badge.

Speaker 54 So I look at everybody carefully now.

Speaker 8 John knows how his dad would react to all of this.

Speaker 54 My dad's the type of person that he gonna hear everything first

Speaker 54 and then he gonna go down on me what I did wrong. And then he'll help me and tell me what to do about it.

Speaker 54 But I have no problem with telling my dad anything because

Speaker 54 me and him had that relationship. Like he's like my best friend.
I can tell him anything. My dad always says the same thing.
He tells me like to stay in school like to keep off the streets.

Speaker 54 Don't do stupid stuff.

Speaker 54 Don't do anything that puts yourself in a position for a cops to come because if cops got him locked up for a long time for not doing anything

Speaker 54 like me just doing one thing put me in the same position he's in.

Speaker 54 Like my dad's didn't say he's in a place you're not supposed to be.

Speaker 54 He told me that it wasn't him and I believe him. And now that this stuff happens, I even believe him more.
Because I know that the system's real messed up.

Speaker 54 And just because he's there, I could be there too for doing something I never did.

Speaker 15 But John hasn't talked to his father about the incident with the police because he hasn't gone to see him in six months.

Speaker 54 Right now, I really don't want to go up there.

Speaker 54 It has nothing to do with my father.

Speaker 54 I love my father. I do want to see my father.
I have nothing against him, not at all.

Speaker 54 It's just jails and stuff like that.

Speaker 11 I get it.

Speaker 17 I understand how John feels.

Speaker 28 I've been going to see JJ for a while now at Sing Sing.

Speaker 40 It is not a place where someone would want to visit.

Speaker 17 Just the process of getting in is frustrating.

Speaker 27 And once you're inside, you can feel the tension.

Speaker 9 By now, I'd been given unusual access.

Speaker 29 He lives on A Block here?

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 6 I'm allowed to bring my camera to JJ's cell.

Speaker 17 He lives in A Block, a housing unit with hundreds of other men.

Speaker 7 The block is the the length of two football fields.

Speaker 43 Rows of cells stacked on top of each other line the walls.

Speaker 4 JJ's on the upper tier.

Speaker 6 I'm led up two flights of stairs to a narrow catwalk that runs the length of the block.

Speaker 4 I walk by dozens of cells.

Speaker 15 I see men sleeping, reading, listening to music with headphones on.

Speaker 30 An officer leads me to JJ's cell.

Speaker 5 He's locked inside, so I reach through the bars to shake shake his hand.

Speaker 34 How you doing, Dan? You all right?

Speaker 12 Good to see you, man. Okay.

Speaker 6 His cell is about seven by nine feet.

Speaker 15 Even from the outside, I can see the whole space.

Speaker 11 So just, yeah, just take me on a little tour of it.

Speaker 7 All right.

Speaker 34 My little radio, keep me in tune with the world. A lot of books that I like to read from time to time in here.
You don't have much to do but read. So I read a lot.

Speaker 8 There are books and papers and neat stacks everywhere.

Speaker 32 On top of a makeshift desk, under it, by his bed, I can see a book propped up.

Speaker 17 It's titled Forensics, True Crime Scene Investigations.

Speaker 8 JJ moves a few steps to the back of his cell.

Speaker 34 Back there, I keep my food. For the most part, I try to, you know, make do what my mother sends me in a package and commissary.

Speaker 34 Everything has to be hermetically sealed, commercially sealed, or in a can.

Speaker 34 You can't really cook in here.

Speaker 34 What you can do is you can utilize this to heat up the food.

Speaker 5 He holds up a small electric kettle.

Speaker 34 This is basically your only tool. You have to be very creative to learn how to eat in here.

Speaker 15 JJ then points to his bed.

Speaker 6 He's covered it in maroon sheets and a blanket that his mom sent him.

Speaker 8 The mattress is barely an inch thick.

Speaker 34 A lot of people get back problems in prison because everything you do, you got to do like this. You don't have no back support.

Speaker 14 He's lying flat on his bed.

Speaker 34 You know, you move around so much in here and you try to find ways to get comfortable, but there's no way of being comfortable in here. It's not situated to be comfortable.

Speaker 34 Another thing that ends up happening, which is a bad habit, and I try to break it, is

Speaker 34 a lot of times often when a person comes into their cell, being that there's nothing to do but lay down, you tend to fall asleep. So it's like you sleep your life away.

Speaker 34 You know, there's times where I feel like,

Speaker 34 I guess you could say like a turtle.

Speaker 34 I go and hide up in that little shell.

Speaker 34 And

Speaker 34 I've experienced those times during the time that I've known you where I won't write for a long time. I won't write my mother.
I won't write anybody. I won't write my children.

Speaker 20 But he keeps their photos close.

Speaker 34 Those photo albums right here.

Speaker 34 I have plenty of photo albums

Speaker 34 with my kids. That's their mother.
That's my mother. That's when they were younger.

Speaker 34 Picture my family, my father, my uncles, my two sons.

Speaker 34 You spend a lot of time sitting here thinking about your kids, the time that you're not with them. I spent a lot of time about that.
I spent a lot of time in fear.

Speaker 34 If I may, for a second, I'll show you something.

Speaker 15 JJ reaches under his bed and pulls out a newspaper.

Speaker 34 This is the New York Post.

Speaker 34 We don't always have access to the newspaper.

Speaker 34 But if you see this article right here,

Speaker 34 it says, South Bronx boxing star shot dead. This is a young kid, 20 years old.

Speaker 34 He's from the Bronx.

Speaker 34 I know his father. His father's imparcerated.
My kids are from the Bronx. I'm afraid of the same thing.

Speaker 34 To being here while my sons get killed or get arrested or get into some problems in the street and I can't be there for them. That's the worst part of being in prison.

Speaker 14 You know?

Speaker 15 That's depression. You get depressed.

Speaker 34 They get depressed often. You know, but I have 11 years in.
What I've learned, the best way to stay away from depression is to keep active, stay busy.

Speaker 10 He shows me a massive stack of manila folders.

Speaker 34 This area right here that I have covered is a bunch of files, mainly legal work.

Speaker 34 That's where I have all my legal work. I have some more legal work right here under my bed that I keep in a bag.

Speaker 4 He pulls out some more papers and starts leafing through them.

Speaker 32 Trial transcripts, arrest records, court motions, all stashed under his bed.

Speaker 17 A decade after his conviction, it's clear JJ has not stopped fighting the verdict that sent him here.

Speaker 4 You know, 12 jurors said you're here for a reason.

Speaker 43 That's right.

Speaker 34 That's what they gathered, but

Speaker 34 they didn't know the whole story and neither did I at that time.

Speaker 7 JJ says he knows the jury didn't get the whole picture because of something he discovered in his case file.

Speaker 34 Had it not been me waking up and saying, yo, you can't stay in here forever. You got to start getting your paperwork.
You got to ask your lawyers for your paperwork.

Speaker 34 You got to start writing the courts and getting your paperwork. Had it not been for that, I would have never known about Mustafa to this day.

Speaker 7 It turns out, back in 1998, just days after the crime, the NYPD had a main suspect for the murder of Al Ward. And it wasn't JJ,

Speaker 11 it was a man named Mustafa.

Speaker 12 Next time.

Speaker 34 They had a primary target.

Speaker 48 They knew who they were looking for.

Speaker 7 How did I wind up here?

Speaker 34 The moment they had that one identification, one guy after all this stuff, they stopped.

Speaker 8 If somebody sticks a gun in your face and take money from you, you don't think you'd remember what that person looked like.

Speaker 14 What I'm trying to do is trying to find the truth. That's all I'm trying to do.

Speaker 22 Letters from Sing Sing was written and produced by Preethi Varathon, Rob Allen, and me.

Speaker 20 Our associate producer is Rachel Yon.

Speaker 50 Our story editor is Jennifer Gorin.

Speaker 32 Our voice actors are Michael Bach, Leah Finney, Aaron Goodson, Isaiah Seward, Desiree Rodriguez, and Dan Wachs.

Speaker 9 Original score by Christopher Scullion, Robert Riale, and Four Elements Music.

Speaker 6 Sound design by Cedric Wilson.

Speaker 25 Fact-checking by Joseph Frischmith.

Speaker 16 Bryson Barnes is our technical director.

Speaker 28 Preethi Varathon is our supervising producer.

Speaker 22 Soraya Gage, Reed Cherlin, and Alexa Danner are our executive producers.

Speaker 8 Liz Cole runs NBC News Studios.

Speaker 25 Letters from Sing Sing is an NBC News Studios production.

Speaker 1 What does it mean to live a rich life? It means brave first leaps, tearful goodbyes, and everything in between.

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Speaker 1 Because with all you've done to find your rich, we'll do all we can to help you keep enjoying it. Edward Jones, member SIPC.