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00:00We have a homicide in 4-2 Precinct.
00:15Unidentified male.
00:18We'll work all night through this.
00:21It was right after 9-11.
00:23The NYPD were the heroes of the city,
00:26the rock stars of the country.
00:28And I thought, maybe I can have access to the NYPD
00:31to follow these detectives as they investigate homicides.
00:36I was embedded with Bronx homicide detectives.
00:39Why don't you come down and open the door?
00:41Bobby Adelarado and his partner, John Schwartz.
00:44This is a currency.
00:45So you've been a cop a long time.
00:47Almost 20 years.
00:48This is the twilight of your career.
00:49It's plausible.
00:50I walked into that building so young, eager,
00:55so unbelievably naive.
01:00These were tough guys, and I was ready, you know,
01:02to see how they solved murders.
01:03That's why I was there.
01:04Let's stand the man on patrol in Lower Manhattan.
01:08I didn't bang in today.
01:14More importantly, let's go eat.
01:15We were out at dinner one night, and I said to Bobby,
01:25you must bring this job home with you,
01:27everything that you see.
01:28And he says, I really don't, except this one case.
01:31This one case has been bothering me for about a decade.
01:33And I said, what's that about?
01:36You told me that this is going to haunt me.
01:38It's going to haunt you.
01:39You think?
01:40Oh, without a doubt.
01:41Because it's not only going to haunt you,
01:43it's going to haunt you until there's closure.
01:46And even after the closure, it's still going to haunt you.
01:50Why?
02:06Why?
02:26Why?
02:29Thanksgiving night of 1990, there was a shooting at the Palladium nightclub.
02:54One man is dead and another injured after a shooting at a Manhattan hotspot.
02:57It happened early this morning at the Palladium after some customers were thrown out for
03:02fighting.
03:03Police say some customers were thrown out, but they returned shooting.
03:06Marcus Peterson, a bouncer, was shot and killed.
03:09Another bouncer was wounded.
03:13Witnesses identified a couple of guys, David Lemus and Omado Hidalgo.
03:20They were arrested, tried and convicted for the murder of Marcus Peterson.
03:27They convicted the wrong guys.
03:30You think they had nothing to do with this crime?
03:32I know they had nothing to do with this crime.
03:34And they still sit in prison.
03:37Bobby told me he knew who really committed the murder.
03:40These two other guys by the name of Spanky and Joey.
03:43And that really, really aided him.
03:45And that's when I said to him, well, let's make this our story.
03:48Let me follow you as you reinvestigate this.
03:51Where are we going, Bobby?
03:54Well, we're going down to the 9th precinct to dig through the record room and see if we
03:59can come up with the original case folder from 1990.
04:041931 to 1960.
04:05Get the hell out of here.
04:06All right, sir.
04:07I feel like Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark.
04:21It seems to be missing, huh?
04:24It seems to be extremely hard to locate.
04:37This case, it's about who committed the homicide of Marcus Peterson.
04:44Yeah.
04:45They're convinced that they got the right guys.
04:49Yeah.
04:50And I guess it's up to me to put together the best presentation I can put together based
04:56on all the facts I have to try to change their minds.
05:01And hopefully, this will replace that.
05:06At that point, David Lemus and Elmedo Hidalgo had been locked up for more than a decade.
05:13It was hard for me to wrap my mind around.
05:16If they were innocent, why were they there?
05:20David Lemus apparently bragged to a woman he was having an affair with that he had been
05:25involved with the murder.
05:26Elmedo Hidalgo is a bit of a mystery.
05:29A confidential informant gave a tip to police that he had been involved with the Palladium
05:33shooting.
05:36From the beginning, David Lemus and Hidalgo claimed that they did not know each other.
05:41Had you ever been at the Palladium?
05:42I went to the Palladium one time.
05:46In my life.
05:47In your entire life?
05:48My entire life.
05:49It wasn't Thanksgiving night?
05:50No, it wasn't Thanksgiving night.
05:51No, it wasn't Thanksgiving night.
05:52This was like maybe a year before.
05:53Were you at the Palladium on Thanksgiving?
05:54No.
05:55Have you ever been to the Palladium?
05:56No.
05:57Have you ever been to the Palladium?
05:58Have you ever been to the Palladium?
05:59No.
06:00Have you ever been to the Palladium?
06:01I have been to the Palladium.
06:02No.
06:03I have never been to the Palladium.
06:04No.
06:05It wasn't Thanksgiving night.
06:06No, it wasn't Thanksgiving night.
06:07It was like maybe a year before.
06:08Were you at the Palladium on Thanksgiving?
06:09No.
06:10Have you ever been to the Palladium?
06:11No.
06:12He says he doesn't even know where the Palladium is at.
06:18The shooting happened at the Palladium on Thanksgiving night at one o'clock in the morning.
06:19Right.
06:20Where were you?
06:21I was home, because I was with my girlfriend Janice.
06:23So then after you spent the Palladium to the Palladium, you know?
06:26I was a grader.
06:27I was a grader.
06:28I was a grader.
06:29I was a grader.
06:30I was a grader.
06:31I was a grader.
06:32I was a grader.
06:33You had a grader.
06:34You had a grader.
06:35He was a grader.
06:36It was a grader.
06:37I was a grader.
06:38And I was a grader.
06:39He was a grader.
06:40So then after you spend the night with your girlfriend,
06:42you go and spend that night with Dolores a couple days later.
06:45A couple days later, I spent the night with Dolores.
06:47And I said, listen, you know, something happened last night.
06:50I was in the club and a shooting had broke out
06:54and I was involved with that shooting.
06:55Based on what you saw in the news?
06:57Based on what I saw in the news.
06:58That's the dumbest thing I ever heard anybody do in my life.
07:01It's ridiculous.
07:02Why would you do that?
07:04I was trying to portray somebody, portray an image that wasn't me.
07:07You know what I mean?
07:08And I figured, well, if I come at her like some kick-ass type of guy,
07:11she might think differently of me.
07:13I was trying to fill those shoes without actually being a part of it.
07:18And I just made it like one of the biggest mistakes of my life
07:20and admitted to something I didn't do.
07:22How did you get involved in all this?
07:29He says he doesn't know to this day.
07:31He still asks himself the same question.
07:33Describe to me the day the verdict was read for you.
07:35How did it feel?
07:38He said his life was crushed at that.
07:51Get out of one.
07:53Get out of one.
07:56Sevi game some more.
07:57Nobody wants to live in a cage like an animal.
08:18It's harder to accept being in here when you know you didn't do anything.
08:23You understand?
08:26And that's not a day that goes by.
08:30Then I don't say to myself,
08:33why, no matter all the things that you could have told Dolores,
08:38that day,
08:41why the palladium
08:42eats you up?
08:45I was born in the Bronx.
09:03I was raised by a single mother.
09:06Whenever you wanted to find me,
09:09all you had to do was go to the handball court,
09:11the baseball field,
09:12basketball court.
09:13I had my childhood friends where we were always together.
09:15You know,
09:15we were like Charlie Brown,
09:17you know,
09:17the little Rat Pack.
09:18My life was torn from me.
09:25My 20s were,
09:26I want to get out of prison,
09:27I want to clear my name,
09:28I want to be free again.
09:31There are always going to be people out there that say,
09:33innocent people don't go to jail.
09:35Innocent people don't get arrested.
09:37He had to do something wrong.
09:38But these two detectives,
09:40Bobby Alorado and John Swartz,
09:42truly believed that Hidalgo and I were innocent.
09:45So that's why we have to go speak to him.
09:46Speak to him.
09:47Bobby just happens to have Dan Slippian,
09:50producer at Dateline NBC
09:52that's going to be following him around.
09:54He was young, eager, and green,
09:55but he was also hungry.
09:57So I was willing to take my chance with him
09:59because I had nobody else to take a chance with.
10:04We're already in here for 25 years.
10:06We have nothing to lose
10:07because we're already lost.
10:17This is a DD5
10:41Paired by a detective at Crime Stoppers.
10:44And says,
10:45Caller overheard two individuals talking about
10:48being thrown out of the palladium
10:49and coming back to retaliate.
10:51They bragged about shooting two of the bouncers.
10:53The caller describes and identifies the males as follows.
10:56Spanky, male Hispanic, 28 years old, 5'8", light skin.
11:00Second male is Joe.
11:02Male Hispanic, 20 to 23, 5'6", medium, beard, mustache,
11:06earring and ear, tattoo on the arm.
11:08The guy describes these guys to a T.
11:10When this got called in,
11:12Lemus and Hildago hadn't even been arrested yet.
11:15Bobby told me there was a decade's worth of information
11:18that made a very, very strong case
11:22that David Lemus and Almedo Hildago were actually innocent,
11:26and these two other guys, Joey and Spanky, were actually guilty.
11:30The palladium case was not my case.
11:33It was in another borough.
11:35But in 93, I arrested a guy named Joey Palat.
11:40And he admits that he participated in the palladium homicide.
11:46Palladium shooting in a Manhattan hotspot.
11:48So we went to corroborate Joey's story.
11:51And then we find several more witnesses.
11:55The Manhattan District Attorney's Office was notified.
11:58But they already had two guys locked up.
12:01Eventually, in a hearing, Joey Palat testified
12:05that he and Spanky were the shooters.
12:09But the judge, he finds Joey Palat to be not credible,
12:13and denies the motion for a new trial.
12:15And David Lemus and Almodo Hildago are still sitting in jail
12:22for a crime they did not commit.
12:30So John and I decided that there were definitely leads
12:33we could follow up on.
12:34See, here was David's problem.
12:36Janice Katala was a girlfriend of David Lemus,
12:43who, when she was originally interviewed by the case detective,
12:49she said they were at the palladium.
12:51Then she turned around and said that they were home.
12:55So I'd like to talk to her about exactly where they were that night.
13:03Hey, how you doing? What's up?
13:19No worries.
13:20It has to do with David Lemus.
13:22We're re-investigating that case.
13:24You spoke to a detective Feist,
13:26and I don't know if you're going to remember who that is.
13:28I remember that.
13:29Okay.
13:30I remember that very clearly.
13:31At the precinct, that's when they told me,
13:34well, he's here for murder.
13:36Mm-hmm.
13:37For murder?
13:38That night, we didn't go anywhere.
13:39We were home.
13:40We ate.
13:41We did what we had to do.
13:42We watched TV.
13:43And that was it.
13:44We went to sleep.
13:45So they kept on badgering me.
13:46I mean, they were the ones telling me,
13:48you guys went to the palladium.
13:50Okay.
13:51And what you're telling me is,
13:52they told you this story about being at the palladium.
13:56Oh, the palladium.
13:57You never volunteered any of that information?
13:59No.
14:00Was David there that night?
14:01No, I wasn't there that night.
14:02Was David there that night?
14:03No, he wasn't there that night.
14:04Okay.
14:05Did you sign a written statement?
14:06No, I didn't sign it at all.
14:07Okay.
14:08You didn't write a statement?
14:09I didn't write a statement.
14:10I didn't, you know.
14:11They didn't ask you to sign anything?
14:12Mm-hmm.
14:13Okay.
14:14Were you ever called to testify at a trial?
14:16Never.
14:17Never.
14:18Okay.
14:19When he was convicted of this murder,
14:22what was your feeling?
14:23I couldn't believe it.
14:24I really couldn't believe it,
14:25and I kept on saying,
14:26there's no way.
14:27He was with me.
14:28I kept on telling him,
14:29but that can't happen.
14:30This bus is a lousy spot.
14:31This is the position that all those bad cop movies are.
14:32Right.
14:33And we like to think that stuff like this doesn't go on.
14:36Right.
14:37But I have no reason to think she's not comfortable.
14:38No.
14:39She's not.
14:40No, not at all.
14:41We had somebody telling us that one of our brother officers
14:44had basically perjured himself.
14:45in a police report.
14:46The foundations of everything that I believed in,
14:47at that point,
14:48was starting to shake.
14:49The foundations of everything that I believed in,
14:50at that point,
14:51was starting to shake.
14:52And the foundations of everything that I believed in,
14:55at that point,
14:59was starting to shake.
15:04The foundations of everything that I believed in,
15:09at that point,
15:11was starting to shake.
15:13shake
15:35as part of his reinvestigation bobby wants to speak with joey plott
15:39who had confessed all those years ago that he and spanky committed the crime
15:53mip thing for a one o'clock visit
15:56what's up
16:09if they came to visit me they just dropped the whole bar and something because
16:12i thought these kids went home no hey
16:18well you know what joey run through the whole thing man hanging out in the club rodriguez had a little
16:24problem with his girlfriend they walked outside the bounces started being up on him that's when
16:31the shooting started i never got to let off around for my gun for what reason i don't know
16:36i cocked the gun back you jacked the slide yeah round come out yeah i did okay who had what gun
16:42i had a nine millimeter what did spanky have 38 everything was hectic the shots happened and we
16:50drove all back to the bronx they know the truth not that they don't want to believe they know the
16:54truth and they just don't want to let the kids go on i don't know they told you that that i meant
17:00both of them now when when when i went for the hearing oh you did yeah i was handcuffed next to
17:08david oh really he's telling me a story on the bus and he didn't know who he was he ain't know who i
17:12was did you tell him yeah i called him a jackass why i'm trying to impress her he was a young kid
17:18right i know that the other kid i don't know how he got involved with it he just went and snatched
17:23him off the street he's a mystery the system sucks man should let those kids go on i'm trying i know
17:29that john and i we've been working this we ain't gonna stop we know the truth you know the truth
17:35i believed you back then that's why i'm still here joey repeated something critically important
17:47his gun jammed well a live nine millimeter round was found at the scene of the crime
17:54that's physical evidence that matched what joey was saying
17:59i became fully convinced that there was a real problem here
18:15is that a heavy box yeah that's a heavy burden bobby pulled in attorney steve cohen to get legal
18:23advice steve also believed that the wrong guys were in prison he was one of the u.s attorneys
18:31assigned to work with bobby years earlier when joey palat confessed that he and spanky committed the
18:36crime yeah you get like more establishment looking each time i run into it steve was now in private
18:45practice and had been working pro bono to help lemus and haldago in the year 2000 steve got a
18:53reporter to write a new york times article about lemus and haldago's plight that article led a new
18:59witness to come forward who said i was there that night spanky committed the palladium murder but what
19:06came of that nothing nobody ever deals with the fact that at the time at least lemus did not speak
19:14spanish and hidalgo at the time at least didn't speak english this is a much better case against
19:20rodriguez than they ever had against lemus and haldago you have two eyewitnesses who know the
19:26guy you have three admission witnesses who said after the fact they admitted it to them and then
19:31you have a co-conspirator who's confessing to it i don't get this amount of evidence in a normal
19:36prosecution now if you look at him and you look at him with lemus it's possible yeah you know the
19:45witnesses miss id him the next step for bobby was to go down to the manhattan d.a's office to make
19:50his case about lemus and haldago's innocence we actually don't know what we're walking into the d.a
20:06himself in petition to vacate the conviction i mean we're going in uh telling the truth here i mean
20:12if they don't take our word for it then you know what it just means that the defense attorneys then
20:16have to file their papers and make their motions all right boys and there's more time these guys are
20:22gonna have to spend in jail while the wheels of justice grind slowly bobby
20:42i'm not gonna comment right now about what i feel right now
20:45yeah yeah john do you have anything you want to say nope hi steven it's in your court
20:56right at 440 and they'll probably consent to a new hearing
21:06i was expecting to have them look at the evidence and have a discussion about it
21:11which didn't happen somebody's got to listen and if it's not going to be the da's office
21:21it'll have to be a judge
21:22in prison you're just a number
21:39they can tell you when to eat when to sleep when to shower but they can't take away your hope
21:46and they can't take away my mom at that time had moved to florida
21:54mom didn't want to leave new york obviously because i was incarcerated
21:57and i like literally had to force my mom like hey you got to go go live your life i'll be good
22:03come see me once a year
22:04i'll be glad just to have you there
22:17i'm gonna make it festive that's all
22:19hi honey hello hi how you doing all right we're just having here dinner listen yes um you know i
22:32have to make the food list you know all right you want everything nothing's going back don't worry about
22:38oh you want me to make you okay now that's it this could go on forever now how many weeks we have
22:5342 days but who's counting 42 days but who's counting 42 days and how many hours i don't know okay baby
23:02all right all right okay we'll be fine
23:08i had to dye my hair are you kidding my son sees me like this and i really i only had an hour and a
23:23half sleep here i am okay i have so many things in my head i'm excited because i'm here to see my son
23:32but at the same time um this gets me very depressed the good part is i'm gonna see him
23:40and i'm really happy i can't wait i just really can't wait
23:48our thanksgapings were awesome you know you're in different modular units
23:52our mothers will be there cooking food it was like oh man my mom is making turkey and
23:57my mom's making pen lean and we have racing beans and your stuffing that was the one thing that i had
24:04to look forward to he's a man you see pictures of him when he first started it was uh you're so young
24:15you know but he's gonna be 35 years old has no life no children no nothing
24:32it hurts more knowing that he's not guilty
24:45in my heart i know that this poor lady on the other side of the wall
24:51that's never given up on me that always believed in me
24:59you see her suffering
25:03and you can't help but feel
25:08that could have been avoided
25:15the chimes
25:36that's the chimes of freedom
25:37i was hoping they'd be out by christmas
25:42come here and light a candle for hope you know and light a candle for david and umano and for
25:48marcus peterson try to seek some strength to carry on and get this job done
25:53let me miss and aldago remained in prison
26:03several months later is this on can you hear me in the spring of 2003
26:09look at this the tree is a blow man the manhattan da's office says okay we're going to reinvestigate
26:13the case start it over you have to have our input on this now let's search for the truth
26:19the box of tormented souls prosecutor dan bibb took over the reinvestigation
26:25and assigned two manhattan detectives to work on the case a couple manhattan detectives want to
26:31talk to you bobby and john were asked to go down to manhattan for a month to get the new detectives up
26:36to speed i think it's a great thing because i think anybody who looks at this is going to come to
26:41the same opinion that's why i'm more than happy to do this and the case file that he had never been
26:49able to find was there we found information that we believed never got to the defense attorneys
27:03one was spanky's sister-in-law who called up and she says spanky was responsible for the palladium
27:09murder photo arrays were done identifications were made and spanky was identified by their own witnesses
27:20they find more evidence more information that the defense attorneys never got that implicated spanky
27:29and joey so i called the legal division the lieutenant in manhattan south found out and we were
27:35reprimanded i was told point blank this is a da's investigation this isn't a police department
27:42investigation if they wanted me to do something and i disregard that order they could fire me you're still
27:48in jail you know what so am i i'm in jail in my own in my own city you know i've been stripped from my
27:57power to investigate a case we've been treated like we're not able to make a difference and that's what
28:03this job has always been to me making some kind of difference
28:20let's come on man let's talk some more
28:25let's talk about the da's over just strip me of my dignity
28:28bobby was no longer allowed to speak with anyone about the case including defense attorney steve cohen
28:37but steve was speaking with the da's office who had implied to him months earlier that the
28:43reinvestigation was weeks away from being done so steve reached out to prosecutor dan bibb to find out
28:51what the progress was message it is not my job to keep you up to speed and on exactly what we're
29:04doing what i can tell you is that the investigation is proceeding there are interviews happening every
29:10day of people with information relevant to the investigation i can also tell you that the investigation
29:18is not going to take weeks it's going to take months that's unfortunate for you i apologize but
29:27i have other obligations in the office besides this case
29:34it's pathetic i believed a month ago that they were operating in good faith i want to believe it now
29:43if this is a crock if there's nothing there why is the district attorney's office investigating anything
29:51and why is it going to take months it's about whether the district attorney's office in obtaining
29:57those convictions complied with their legal duties did they violate the law
30:04at the end of the day if i am able to prove that we are right and they are wrong
30:15what conclusion are you going to draw about them
30:20this whole case seems so obvious to me but after hearing that message it started to give me
30:27a real education about how the system really works i wanted to speak with the manhattan d.a's office and
30:35i reached out to them many times for an interview but they never agreed to give me one
30:39last day last day this police department it's been good to me i have no problem with the police department but i
30:58have a problem with everything else that's going on how's it feel like before you get on a roller coaster
31:04scary like you don't know what's uh you don't know what's coming you know it's
31:16that's it huh that's it you're retired i felt i needed to leave after what happened last year what
31:36do you mean what happened last year uh the fact that the case the palladium case was taken away from me and
31:43you know basically i was told i couldn't investigate that case it's it's unbelievable
31:49it's unbelievable not the way you wanted to go out no
31:58not long after bobby retired the defense filed a motion for a new hearing
32:04i thought the right thing was to go to the da's office tell them what i knew tell them that i thought
32:07the wrong guys were in jail again they then said to me give us six weeks they
32:12asked us to delay as they investigated this case 19 months is what it actually took
32:22steve cohen got two new attorneys to work pro bono to represent lemus and hildago
32:35within the 12 years that these two men have been in prison
32:38not a single piece of evidence has surfaced showing that these two men committed the crime
32:46the defense was arguing that there was evidence that wasn't turned over that could possibly
32:51exculpate them the da's office denied it morales was identified as an additional participant the
32:58prosecution's theory of this case was oh yeah we know about spanky we've always known about spanky he's a
33:06third shooter with lemus and hildago the one person who both the prosecution and the defense
33:12agreed was indisputably involved in the shooting has never been arrested and remains scot-free
33:20mr bibb i must say it it is something that's puzzling to the court it is the subject of continuing
33:29discussion within my office the point counsel makes is um trouble in other words if your theory is correct
33:40why is that person unprosecuted that also is the subject of continuing discussions in my office
33:49by this point dan bibb had been speaking with me telling me that he believed that lemus and hildago were
33:55innocent yet here he is standing up protecting the convictions i was shocked when we see you standing
34:04up in court at that point do you believe that the conviction should have been overturned
34:11yes it's not like i can jump up in a courtroom and say
34:16let's set aside these convictions i had a client my client was the people of the state of new york
34:27as represented by the elected district attorney so he was calling the shots
34:32he was aware of what was going on it becomes fairly i guess obvious that spanky had something
34:38to do with this it's obvious to me when i read the file that spanky had something to do with it
34:56both prosecutors and the defense agreed that spanky was involved with this murder
35:02yet spanky remained a free man i felt a responsibility to get to the truth
35:09and that's when i found spanky this is lamus and hildago
35:19i do not know any of them you don't know either one of them no you never spoke with them before no
35:25were they known in your neighborhood did they hang out in the neighborhood nope never seen them before
35:34is there anything else you want to say about it i just came on my own to fix a little problem
35:40what they're saying that i know these guys i'm not hiding from nobody they know where i'm at they
35:44saying that they got an abundance of evidence that i have something involved with this um with
35:48this thing you know and i just want to make it clear in the record that i don't know these guys
35:55i produced a dateline hour about the case in 2005. we put spanky on tv and a couple of months later
36:02he was finally arrested thomas spanky morales an admitted former gang member from the bronx
36:10is charged with second degree murder in the death of marcus peterson two of the bouncers who were there
36:15that night saw the shooter saw the show and said they were absolutely certain that spanky was the gunman
36:22and that's what they testified to at the hearing there was a mistake of identification to where
36:27the guy that had the altercation with me was spanky it was neither one of these guys i've never seen
36:33either one of these guys in my life meanwhile lemus and hildago are in hell they're living in rikers
36:41island going back and forth to court for these hearings over the course of nine months or so
36:53regarding the defendant alamedo hidalgo only the court accepts the people's recommendation
37:00the charges are dismissed against mr no one could believe what just happened
37:19after years and years of fighting prosecutors walk into the courtroom and say okay
37:24we agreed to vacate hildago's conviction but lemus they said he was still the shooter
37:44but i don't know because i don't know because i don't know because we had to pay for something
37:56two months after hildago's release judge hayes was finally prepared to make a ruling in david lemus's case
38:09it's coming
38:14oh
38:29hopefully this is the day that all our lives begin again yes
38:44the day that all our lives begin again yes
38:47mr lemus
38:49your motion to vacate your convictions of murder and attempted murder based on newly discovered evidence
38:57is granted
38:59home
39:14Bye
39:20you
39:25you
39:27oh my baby
39:33everything's about crying
39:36Good luck man. Good luck. Do something good with your life man.
39:44Glory be my life. Glory be my life.
39:48Take care of yourself. Take care of your family, okay?
39:52Bobby, how do you feel?
39:56I honestly feel like a weight has been lifted man. I really do.
40:04Do you feel like something just lifts off you? I have that feeling right now.
40:08This was the highlight of my career. How are you feeling
40:12at this moment? I feel great. Today is a very good day.
40:16How does mama feel right now? I really can't express
40:20the joy that I feel at the 14 years.
40:24I just want to just watch this and fade off into the sunset.
40:34After Spanky was arrested,
40:38he made an argument to the court
40:40that you, the prosecutor,
40:42had so much evidence
40:44that I was guilty
40:46at the time of the crime.
40:48It is a violation of my constitutional rights
40:51to arrest me a decade and a half later
40:54because I can't get a fair trial.
40:56And he won. And the case was dropped against him.
41:00It was all too much for Prosecutor Dan Bibb.
41:04He retired from the DA's office.
41:06Disgusted, he told me,
41:08by how it handled the Palladium case.
41:10But the DA's office maintained
41:12that Bibb was never asked
41:14to protect the convictions of anyone
41:16he believed to be innocent.
41:18Then the Manhattan DA's office retried David Lemus for murder.
41:26Spanky got on the stand
41:29and said he was the gunman
41:31and he had no idea who David Lemus was.
41:34Why did it need to get to that?
41:38In the end, David Lemus was acquitted.
41:41Were you surprised at the verdict?
41:42Oh, come on.
41:43Absolutely not.
41:44Once they found me not guilty,
41:47the prosecutors immediately stood up
41:49and walked out the courtroom.
41:51They take lives.
41:54And they never look back.
41:55And then they're not held accountable.
41:58There are hundreds of thousands
42:00of people incarcerated.
42:02If you have one that's innocent,
42:05that's one too many.
42:08During my incarceration,
42:10I met a lot of people
42:11that said they were innocent.
42:12But with JJ, it was different.
42:15What I saw in JJ was what I saw in my reflection and mirror.
42:20When he spoke about his case,
42:22you see that hurt, that pain.
42:25You know, to just feel it in my gut like,
42:28this guy is telling the truth.
42:30And this guy is me in another form.
42:32He became a friend.
42:34And his family became my family.
42:37I would give my life for him.
42:42I spoke to Dan.
42:43I was like, hey, you really need to talk to this guy.
42:47I visited JJ a few times,
42:51but I was busy working on the Palladium case.
42:56So after David Lemus' release,
43:00I went to Sing Sing with my camera to visit JJ.
43:05I need you to be honest with me every step of the way.
43:23Good things, bad things, everything.
43:25You have my honesty thing.
43:30You know when I bring this up to people on the outside,
43:34so I think there's another case.
43:36Right.
43:37Like, yeah, right.
43:38Sure.
43:39Everybody's innocent.
43:40All I can do to anybody that doesn't believe me
43:42is to challenge me.
43:44Go out there and find the facts in my case
43:46and prove me guilty.
43:47Because when you do that,
43:49you'll find that I'm innocent.
43:53I had absolutely no idea
43:56what I was getting myself into.
43:59Or how unbelievably deep
44:03this problem goes.
44:17And I have so many ways
44:18to heal the felicidad sociais,
44:20but I was going to believe
44:23another way to figure out
44:25that I wanted to know
44:39The Lord is DEGไ South
44:41全部 were truly single,
44:42but they seemed happy to
44:43the galaxy.
44:44Somewhere to die,
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