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JORGE DE LOS SANTOS Newark, NJ
Convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the 1975 murder of a Newark, NJ used-car salesman, Jorge De Los Santos spent almost 9 years in prison before being freed in July, 1983, by former US District Court Judge Frederick B. Lacey. The judge said testimony from a jailhouse witness that convicted De Los Santos "reeked of perjury" and that the prosecutor knew it. Centurion Ministries\' investigation yielded the new evidence that freed De Los Santos.

The Star Ledger, Guy Sterling, July 28, 1983: "Lifer Savors Freedom as Essex Mulls a Retrial."

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RENE SANTANA Newark, NJ
Rene Santana was freed in 1986 after wrongly spending 10 years in prison for the 1976 murder of a Newark, NJ apartment building superintendent. An investigation by Centurion Ministries showed the state\'s star witness had a secret deal with prosecutors whereby his charges were dropped in exchange for false eyewitness testimony. This witness visited Santana in prison a decade after his trial and apologized for lying against him.

The Star Ledger, Guy Sterling, February 25, 1986: "Cleared Murder Suspect Deported to Dominican Republic."

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NATHANIEL WALKER Elizabeth, NJ
Convicted in 1975 and sentenced to life plus 50 years for the brutal rape of an Elizabeth, NJ woman, Nathaniel Walker spent 8 years in prison and 3 years as a fugitive before being freed November 5, 1986 by a Superior Court judge. Centurion Ministries prodded the prosecutor\'s office to locate and test the semen stained vaginal swab taken from the victim 12 years earlier. The blood type developed from the semen proved that Walker was not the rapist.

Star Ledger, Guy Sterling, November 6, 1986: "Exonerated."

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JAMES LANDANO Hudson County, NJ
James Landano was convicted in 1977 for the murder of a police officer during an armed robbery in Kearny, NJ. After spending 13 years in prison, Landano was freed in July, 1989 based on a police report discovered by Centurion Ministries and suppressed by law enforcement, wherein the only eyewitness to the murder identified another man as the shooter. After a nine-year effort to put Landano back in prison failed, the Hudson County Prosecutor\'s office retried him. After deliberating for less than one hour on July 27, 1998, Landano was acquitted by a jury who later joined him at a huge victory party.

The Star Ledger, Guy Sterling, July 29, 1989: "Landano Freed after 13 Years."
The New York Times, Susan Sachs, July 28, 1998: "2nd Trial in Killing of Officer Ends with Acquittal."

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JOYCE ANN BROWN Dallas, TX
Joyce Ann Brown was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1980 for the robbery and murder of a Dallas, TX fur storeowner. Her conviction was thrown out and she was freed on November 3, 1989. An investigation by Centurion Ministries identified as the murderer another woman with a startling resemblance to Brown, and proved a jailhouse witness lied to convict her. CBS\' 60 Minutes aired the story in 1989.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Ashley Chesire, Fort Worth Star-Telegram Dallas Bureau, July 28, 1983: "Like a Dream."

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DAMASO VEGA Long Branch, NJ
Convicted in 1982 for the Monmouth County, NJ, murder of the 16 year-old daughter of his best friend, Damaso Vega was freed in November 1989 when a NJ Superior Court Judge ruled that the three primary witnesses against Vega had lied at his trial. All three had recanted at an earlier 1989 post-conviction evidentiary hearing. The judge apologized to Vega for his false imprisonment, and complimented Centurion Ministries for the quality of its investigation

Asbury Park Press, Paul D\'Ambrosio, November 18, 1989: "After 7 Years in Prison, He Walks Free."

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CLARENCE BRANDLEY Conroe, TX
After spending 10 years on Texas\' death row for a 1980 Conroe, TX, murder, Clarence Brandley was declared innocent by a Texas judge and finally freed in January 1990. 60 Minutes broadcasted this story in 1987. On the eve of his execution, Centurion Ministries brought forward an eyewitness to the crime who named the real killers and cleared Brandley.

Houston Post, William Pack & Guy Cantwell, January 24, 1990: "Brandley Free After 10 Years."

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MATTHEW CONNOR Philadelphia, PA
Centurion Ministries convinced the Philadelphia DA\'s office to reopen this conviction in 1989. The DA discovered that the police had hidden reports that proved the testimony against Matthew Connor was false. Connor was freed in March, 1990 after 11-1/2 years in prison for the brutal 1978 rape and ice pick murder of an 11 year-old girl in a north Philadelphia, PA, housing project.

The Philadelphia Inquirer, Robin Clark, Staff Writer, March 3, 1990: "Ex-Inmate Rejoices in His New Freedom."

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CHARLES DABBS Westchester, NY
On August 1, 1991 Charles Dabbs was freed from a life sentence for a 1982 Westchester County, NY, rape. The DNA test of a 9-year-old semen stain proved him innocent despite the victim\'s erroneous identification of him. Centurion Ministries agreed to bear all DNA costs knowing that it was the only chance Dabbs had for exoneration.

The New York Times, Lisa Foderaro, August 1, 1991: "DNA Frees Convicted Rapist After 9 years."

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CLARENCE CHANCE AND BENNY POWELL Los Angeles, CA
The Los Angeles District Attorneys office jointly sponsoring Chance and Powell\'s release along with Centurion Ministries. On March 25, 1992, a Los Angeles, CA, judge freed and apologized to Clarence Chance (shown left) and Benny Powell (shown right) for their 17-1/2 years of wrongful imprisonment for the 1973 murder of a deputy sheriff. Their vindication was the result of a 4-year investigation by Centurion Ministries that proved how the LAPD had coerced the trial witnesses to lie against these two men.

Los Angeles Times, Sheryl Stolberg, Staff Writer, March 26, 1992: "Judge Apologizes, Frees 2 Men in 1973 Murder."

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CLARENCE CHANCE AND BENNY POWELL Los Angeles, CA
The Los Angeles District Attorneys office jointly sponsoring Chance and Powell\'s release along with Centurion Ministries. On March 25, 1992, a Los Angeles, CA, judge freed and apologized to Clarence Chance (shown left) and Benny Powell (shown right) for their 17-1/2 years of wrongful imprisonment for the 1973 murder of a deputy sheriff. Their vindication was the result of a 4-year investigation by Centurion Ministries that proved how the LAPD had coerced the trial witnesses to lie against these two men.

Los Angeles Times, Sheryl Stolberg, Staff Writer, March 26, 1992: "Judge Apologizes, Frees 2 Men in 1973 Murder."

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DAVID MILGAARD Saskatoon, Canada
An unprecedented order of the Canadian Supreme Court freed David Milgaard on April 16, 1992 after 23 years of false imprisonment. Centurion Ministries\' two-year investigation of a 1969 Saskatoon, Canada, rape/murder established the identity of the real killer. The Supreme Court recognized that "the continued conviction of Milgaard amounts to a miscarriage of justice" Then, a 1997 DNA testing of physical evidence confirmed Milgaard\'s innocence and resulted in the arrest of the actual killer, albeit 28 years after the crime.

The Globe and Mail, Tim Appleby & David Roberts, Staff Writers, November 30, 1991: "Saskatchewan to Oppose Bail in Milgaard Review."

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EDWARD RYDER Philadelphia, PA
In 1993 Edward Ryder was granted executive clemency and freed by Governor Casey for a 1974 Philadelphia, PA, prison murder he did not commit. Centurion Ministries\' investigation yielded an eyewitness to the crime who identified the real murderers. The victim\'s family and Philadelphia sheriff, John Green, joined Centurion Ministries in successfully lobbying for Ryder\'s clemency. Subsequent to his release, Ryder\'s conviction was thrown out in 1996 due to prosecutorial misconduct.

The Philadelphia Inquirer, Howard Goodman, October 1, 1993: "First Day of Freedom Brings Sweet Surprise for Inmate."

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EDWARD HONAKER Nelson County, VA
After serving 10 years of two life sentences for a 1984 Blue Ridge Mountain, VA, kidnapping and rape, Edward Honaker was granted an unconditional pardon by Virginia\'s Governor George Allen and freed on October 21, 1994. Centurion Ministries\' investigation and DNA testing proved that despite two erroneous eyewitness identifications, Honaker was innocent. In addition to Centurion Ministries, the DA\'s office also urged the Governor to pardon Honaker.

The Washington Post, Peter Baker, Staff Writer, October 22, 1994: "Wrongly Imprisoned VA Man Is Freed."

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EARL BERRYMAN Irvington, NJ
After spending 10 years in NJ\'s Trenton State Prison for a 1983 rape near Newark, NJ, Earl Berryman was freed in July, 1995, by Federal District Judge Dickinson Debevoise, who expressed "very substantial doubt" that Berryman had any involvement in this crime. The lead police investigator of this case told Centurion Ministries that he, too, had grave doubts about the victim\'s identification. This capped a five-year effort by Centurion Ministries on behalf of Berryman.

The Star Ledger, Tom Hester, July 22, 1995: "Freedom."

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RICHARD JOHNSON Chicago, IL
In December, 1995, Richard Johnson\'s Chicago, IL, trial judge reversed the bench trial conviction and the 36-year sentence he had issued Johnson five years earlier for sexual assault. Again, DNA testing, championed and paid for by Centurion Ministries, established Johnson\'s innocence and proved victim eyewitness testimony to be erroneous.

Chicago Sun Times, Daniel Lehmann, December 6, 1995: "DNA Results Free Man on Bond in 1990 Rape Case."

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STEVEN TONEY St. Louis, MO
After a federal appellate court ruled Steven Toney had a right to DNA testing, the Centurion Ministries sponsored DNA test results exonerated and freed Toney in July 1996. He had spent 14 years of a life sentence in prison for a 1982 St. Louis, MO, rape. Although it fought the petition for DNA testing relying on two eyewitness identifications, the St. Louis County Prosecutor\'s Office accepted Toney\'s innocence and urged his immediate release upon learning of the DNA results.

St. Louis Post Dispatch, Tim Bryant, Staff Writer, July 17, 1996: "Innocent Man \'Elated\' to Be Free."

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ELMER \'GERONIMO\' PRATT Los Angeles, CA
In the late 1960\'s Elmer \'Geronimo\' Pratt was the leader of the Los Angeles Black Panther Party. Soon after the FBI had vowed to "neutralize" him, he was falsely charged and then convicted in 1972 for a 1968 murder on a Santa Monica, CA, tennis court. After 27 years of imprisonment and many denials of habeas petitions, Pratt was granted a new trial and then freed in June 1997 by Orange County Superior Court Judge Everett Dickey. After conducting an extensive evidentiary hearing, Judge Dickey ruled that the state\'s primary witness was in fact an FBI, LAPD, and LADA informant, who had significantly lied against Pratt at trial. This culminated a four-year effort by Centurion Ministries on Pratt\'s behalf.

Los Angeles Times, Edward Boyer, Staff Writer, June 11, 1997: "Pratt Strides into Freedom."

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KERRY MAX COOK Tyler, TX
In November, 1997, Kerry Max Cook was freed after spending nearly 20 years on death row for a murder in which he had no involvement. This was the crowning moment of a grueling seven-year effort by Centurion Ministries on Cook\'s behalf. Texas\' highest court threw out the conviction and ruled that the state\'s "illicit manipulation of the evidence permeated the entire investigation of the murder", and that the state "gained a conviction based on fraud and ignored it\'s own duty to seek the truth�"

The Dallas Morning News, Lee Hancock, November 12, 1997: "Cook Released on Bond After Years in Prison."
Trenton Times, Ron Southwick, February 23, 1999: "Bittersweet Victory for Death Row Inmate."
The Dallas Morning News, Peter Slover, Staff Writer, April 17, 1999, "DNA Doesn\'t Match Convicted Killer Cook\'s."

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ELLEN REASONOVER St. Louis, MO
Ellen Reasonover was freed and cleared by a Federal District Judge in August, 1999, after spending 17 years of a life sentence in prison for the 1983 murder of a St. Louis County, MO, gas station attendant. Centurion Ministries\' investigation yielded evidence that Reasonover\'s conviction was based on the false jailhouse "confession" testimony given by two female drug-addicted career criminals who received secret deals for their lies. The judge ruled that the prosecutor hid evidence that clearly pointed to the false testimony of these two witnesses and to the innocence of Reasonover.

The Washington Post, Athelia Knight, Staff Writer, August 4, 1999: "1983 Murder Conviction Overturned."

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EDWARD BAKER Philadelphia, PA
After spending 26 years in prison for the robbery and murder of a south Philadelphia, PA retiree, Edward Baker was freed in December, 1999, when a judge ruled that "there is evidence pointing to perpetrators other than the petitioner". At a 1996 evidentiary hearing, the star witness against Baker remorsefully told the Judge that he was the real killer and that he falsely incriminated Baker at the original 1974 trial to spare himself a natural life prison sentence. Inspired by Centurion Ministries to tell the full truth, the recanting killer also named his confederates in this crime which Centurion Ministries\' investigation was able to corroborate to the satisfaction of the judge.

On February 11, 2002, the Philadelphia District Attorney\'s office decided not to retry Mr. Baker. Since freed in late 1999, various avenues of legal maneuvering to bar a retrial had been exhausted, and a retrial seemed imminent. However, when the DA was presented with Ed Baker\'s refusal to accept any kind of a plea agreement, a passed polygraph conducted by a nationally renowned polygrapher, and a witness list that included twelve alibi witnesses, the DA agreed that a retrial was pointless. So, on February 11th all charges against Mr. Baker were dropped and his 28-year nightmare was over.

The Inquirer, December 14, 1999: "Conviction Overturned; South Philadelphia Man Seeks Bail."
The Inquirer, February 12, 2002: "With Murder Case Dismissed, S.Phila. Man Finally Is Freed".
South Philly Review, February 21, 2002: "Free and Clear".

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A.B. BUTLER Tyler, TX
A.B. Butler spent 17 years of a life sentence in prison for a Tyler, TX kidnapping and rape that DNA evidence proved he did not do. With the recommendation of the Smith County District Attorney, the Sheriff and the Judge, Governor George W. Bush issued a full pardon in May, 2000 "based on innocence". Before Centurion Ministries\' entry & sponsorship, Butler\'s pro se petitions to the court for DNA testing were repeatedly rebuffed. Butler was cleared and freed when the DNA test results of three different hair and semen samples left by the perpetrator excluded him as the rapist.

Trenton Times, Robert Stern, June 1, 2000: "Princeton Ministry Helps Man Prove Innocence."

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DANIEL BROWN Toledo, OH
Daniel Brown spent 19 years in prison for the 1981 Toledo, OH rape and murder of a woman he casually knew. He was convicted based on the eyewitness identification of the victim\'s traumatized six year old son who was only able to catch a glance of the killer, and whose testimony was described by the trial judge as replete with "glaring inconsistencies." On April 9, 2001, Brown was freed due to DNA testing that not only exonerated him, but also identified the real killer who was already serving a life sentence for a 1982 rape/murder that was committed in a similar manner.

The Blade, Dale Emch, Staff Writer, April 10, 2001: "Moment of Freedom."

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CLARENCE MOORE - Atlantic County, NJ

Clarence Moore was convicted of a 1986 rape wherein the victim who consistently admitted she did not see the assailant clearly underwent hypnosis and ended up positively identifying Moore as her assailant.

Background

Clarence Moore and his wife, Cheryl, lived in Townbank, NJ (Cape May County) along with their three children. Moore owned his own successful masonry company making the family’s financial situation very secure. Moore and his wife also owned their home as well as an apartment building. Moore was also active in his church and was a coach his community.

In 1986, when their third child was just a newborn, Moore was charged with the rape of a Caucasian woman who lived an hour away in the neighboring Atlantic County.

The Crime

On January 14, 1986, a 26-year-old woman returned home in Somers Point, NJ from her night job at about 1:00 a.m. Her relationship with her boyfriend of a little over two months had become strained and so while they typically spent evenings together, they did not do so this night. By about 1:30 a.m. she removed her contact lenses (she is nearsighted) and went to bed. An hour later she was awakened by a man with his hands on her throat and demanding money. She offered him the $8 she had, but he was dissatisfied, remarking that he thought she had more money hidden in the house. The attacker then raped her vaginally, orally, and anally. He ejaculated twice in her mouth and made her swallow the semen.

Identification of the Rapist and the Trouble with Hypnosis

In an initial interview with police, the victim said that she thought the rapist was Black and that he might have had facial hair, but she wasn’t sure because all the lights were out. Hours later she gave her first official police statement.

In her statement, she repeated that there were no lights on in her apartment during the horrific ordeal, explaining that the only light that was present came through a curtained window from a hospital parking lot over a block away. She stated that to the best of her knowledge, he rapist was a Black male (she could tell by the way he talked). His face was round with light facial hair. (At the time, Moore had a thick “fu-man-chu” type mustache. He has a very oval face with a long nose; facial features more similar to an American Indian than African American. He has a distinctly higher pitched voice.)
Because the victim was unable to describe her assailant in enough detail, it was decided that she would be hypnotized in an effort to “enhance her memory” of what her attacker looked like. Sixteen days later she was hypnotized.

During the pre-hypnosis interview, the hypnotist questioned her about how much light was in the room. The victim reiterated that there was very little light saying, “There’s not much, some, a little bit of light comes through the window but there was no light in my house, no lights were on, it’s pretty dark.” She described the curtain on the window as thin and in response to how much light came in at that hour, she said, “not very much; it’s enough to see, like, shadows and stuff… Like outlines of things, ….nothing in detail”. When asked to describe what she recalled of her attacker, she said he was a Black male with a light beard, a round face, no big nose or big eyes. When the hypnotist questioned the detective about the layout of the apartment, explaining that the lack of light was an issue, the detective responded that there was sufficient light.

After the hypnosis session, the victim worked up the first composite sketch for the case. And three weeks after the assault, the victim picked out a three-year-old photo of Clarence Moore with a little facial hair, but no mustache.

It is important to note that at trial it came out that the only time the victim saw her attacker was when he was standing in the room. She described this as a fleeting glimpse for a split second because the rapist had ordered her to keep her eyes closed and she did so throughout the entire attack. However, her memory having improved so much by the time of the trial, she stated that she recalled Moore’s nose as an outstanding feature of his face. She testified, “I will never forget his face.”

Hypnosis is Unreliable

The problems with hypnosis are the effects – suggestibility, confabulation or “gap filling”, pseudo-memory or “false memory”, memory hardening or “false confidence”. Experts agree that any one of these negative results is possible under hypnosis. While the general public believes that hypnosis can help recover accurate memories, there is very little evidence confirming that hypnosis actually improves recall. Therefore, prior to being hypnotized, a person may believe that he will recall in more detail memories that are accurate and after the hypnosis will feel more confident about those memories although those memories may actually be wrong. Additionally, the jurors hearing testimony from a witness who has been hypnotized will give more credibility to that testimony believing that the witness has recalled truthful memories.

Racial Implications at Trial

In the State’s closing arguments, the prosecutor suggested to the jury that proof of Moore’s guilt was the fact that his wife was Caucasian, which proved he had a predilection for Caucasian women. The prosecutor further stated that at the time of the rape, Moore was sexually frustrated because his wife, who had recently given birth to their third child, had a breast infection, implying that she was not able to satisfy him sexually. Moore’s wife testified that she did in fact have a very painful breast infection at the time and Moore was doing double duty caring for the two older children, the baby, and her at time. She testified that she would have noticed if her husband was not at home in the middle of the night. While the judge instructed the jury to disregard the racial remarks, the implication served to tip the scales in favor of conviction.

Lost Evidence

Before Centurion took on this case, Moore’s attorney took steps to have the physical evidence DNA tested, however the prosecution chose what sheet and bedspread stains to test; none of which inculpated Moore, but also did not exonerate him (semen belonged to the boyfriend). When Centurion took on the case in 1996, the physical evidence still existed in the case, so we requested the semen mixed with saliva stains to be tested. However, in response to our request, we were told that the evidence could no longer be located.

Post Conviction

Moore’s desire has always been to be exonerated through scientific testing. However, with the mysterious disappearance of the evidence, that was not possible. Moore appealed his conviction based on the racist remarks by the prosecutor, the outrageousness of the hypnosis session of the victim who hadn’t actually seen the face of the assailant, and the misrepresentation to the grand jury. Moore’s appeals were consistently denied until Atlantic County Court Judge Conner overturned his indictment in 2002. The state appealed and the conviction was reinstated which caused more rounds of appeals until 2004 when the NJ Supreme Court remanded the case back to Judge Conner for a hearing on the issue of hypnosis and whether the current NJ (Hurd) guidelines were sufficient for admitting hypnosis into criminal cases.

In August 2006, Judge Conner found that the guidelines were insufficient and recommended the NJ Supreme Court no longer allow hypnotically refreshed testimony in criminal courts. Two weeks later, the NJ Supreme Court accepted Judge Conner’s findings and ordered that NJ no longer allow such testimony in criminal proceedings. Within 14 days, the Atlantic County prosecutor dropped the indictment against Moore.

Clarence Moore’s legal odyssey was finally over.

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MICHAEL AUSTIN Baltimore, MD
After 27 years of false imprisonment, Michael Austin\'s conviction was reversed. He was freed from the Maryland House of Corrections by Baltimore Circuit Court Judge John Carroll Byrnes on December 28, 2001. A week later, on January 3, 2002, the Baltimore City State\'s Attorney decided not to retry Austin, and all charges were dismissed. As Judge Byrnes remarked in his opinion, "Michael Austin as an accused was wronged, and no matter the age of the wrong, it remains wrong. Our capacity to right a wrong is a measurement of our true commitment to due process and justice as a State."

At an evidentiary hearing in July, 2001, Austin\'s attorney, Larry Nathans, (retained by Centurion Ministries) presented overwhelming evidence of Michael Austin\'s innocence developed by Centurion Ministries The Austin jury never knew any of this evidence due to a combination of police misconduct and shameful defense lawyering.

Firstly, Austin had an ironclad alibi. He clocked out of his factory job at 4:53 p.m. on April 29, 1974, only 27 minutes before the crime commenced. Given the time of day and distance between the factory and the crime location, it would have been impossible for Austin to have arrived at the Crown Market Grocery store (the crime scene) and fatally shoot the security guard at the time the store was being robbed, which was 5:20 p.m.

Secondly, the assistant manager of the store, Eric Komitzski, testified at the 2001 hearing that he was positive that Mr. Austin did not shoot the guard. He knew this to be a fact because the suspect held a gun to his head and robbed his cash register immediately after shooting the guard. Mr. Komitzski was eyeball to eyeball with the shooter. The killer was absolutely no taller than Mr. Komitzski, who is 5\'9" tall. Michael Austin stands 6\'5" tall.

Additionally, the only witness against Mr. Austin at trial was Jackie Robinson, another clerk at the store. Although Robinson was a life-long drug addict, and died of a drug overdose in 1997, his brother, Harry Robinson, testified at the 2001 evidentiary hearing that Jackie confided to him that he (Jackie) sent an innocent man to prison for the murder of the security guard at the Crown Food Market.

Sponsored by 33 state legislators, as of March 2002, a special bill is currently being considered by the State Legislature that will enable Austin to receive special compensation by the State for his 27 years of wrongful imprisonment.

The Baltimore Sun, March 18, 2001: "After 27 Years, Justice Overdue".
The Baltimore Sun, December 29, 2001: "After 27 Years in Prison, Austin Released on Bail".
The The Baltimore Sun, January 4, 2002: "Jessamy Says She\'ll Drop Case Against Austin".
The Baltimore Sun, February 17, 2002: "Becoming Attuned to a New Life".
The Baltimore Sun, March 23, 2002: " \'Today I Have Nothing,\' Austin Tells House Panel; Bill Would Ease Compensation of Wrongly Incarcerated".

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TIMOTHY HOWARD AND GARY JAMES Columbus, OH
After spending 26 years in prison for a 1976 Columbus, OH bankrobbery/murder, these two boyhood friends were freed in 2003 when new evidence developed by Centurion Ministries established their innocence. Hitherto suppressed police and FBI reports clearly demonstrated that theirconvictions for this crime were based on perjured testimony manipulated bycorrupt Columbus, OH police officers. The retired FBI agent who originally helped investigate the case with the Columbus Police was instrumental inassisting Centurion Ministries free these men. Mr. Howard (shown on left) was freed in April 2003 and hisco-defendant, Mr. James (shown on right), was released in July 2003.

The Columbus Dispatch, April 24, 2003: "Finally Freedom".
Columbus Dispatch, July 18, 2003: "Wrongly Convicted Now Free as a Bird".

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TIMOTHY HOWARD AND GARY JAMES Columbus, OH
After spending 26 years in prison for a 1976 Columbus, OH bankrobbery/murder, these two boyhood friends were freed in 2003 when new evidence developed by Centurion Ministries established their innocence. Hitherto suppressed police and FBI reports clearly demonstrated that theirconvictions for this crime were based on perjured testimony manipulated bycorrupt Columbus, OH police officers. The retired FBI agent who originally helped investigate the case with the Columbus Police was instrumental inassisting Centurion Ministries free these men. Mr. Howard (shown on left) was freed in April 2003 and hisco-defendant, Mr. James (shown on right), was released in July 2003.

Columbus Dispatch, April 24, 2003: "Finally Freedom".
The Columbus Dispatch, July 18, 2003: "Wrongly Convicted Now Free as a Bird".

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DENNIS HALSTEAD, JOHN KOGUT AND JOHN RESTIVO Long Island, NY

In 1985 Dennis Halstead, John Kogut, and John Restivo were arrested and convicted in Nassau County, NY for the 1984 rape and murder of Teresa Fusco. In June 2003, 18-years later, all three were released from prison as a result of DNA testing of an intact vaginal swab that scientifically proved that none of the defendants were a match for the DNA left by her rapist/murderer. Their freedom was the result of an arduous 10-year reinvestigation by Centurion Ministries� Kate Germond. Later joining in on the effort were the New York Innocence Project and Pace Law School.

Dennis Halstead, John Kogut, and John Restivo

In 2005, the Nassau County District Attorney�s Office decided to retry John Kogut, with the hope that a guilty verdict would be the springboard to the later retrial of Halstead and Restivo. The State chose to retry John Kogut first because in 1985, after over 18 hours of interrogation, he gave a videotaped false confession (a confession proven false by the DNA results) that inculpated all three men in the assault and murder of the victim. The State believed the videotaped confession, in combination with a new junk science theory, asserting the time semen was deposited in the victim�s vaginal cavity could be fixed, would explain away the DNA exclusions and result in Mr. Kogut�s conviction. Mr. Kogut�s case was clearly seen as a dry run for the later prosecution of Halstead & Restivo.

Paul Casteleiro, Mr. Kogut�s attorney, and Kate Germond spent the better part of 2005 preparing for and trying the case for Mr. Kogut. Pretrial hearings began in April 2005 and lasted through August. In October of the same year, a three month long bench trial began and resulted in a finding of actual innocence of John Kogut. This finding by the trial judge was so sweeping that the prosecution dropped the indictment against John Restivo and Dennis Halstead one week after the verdict. Finally, after 18 long and painful years in prison, for a crime they had nothing to do with, all three men were completely vindicated.

Synopsis of the case:

Sixteen-year-old Theresa Fusco was last seen alive in November 1984 leaving her place of employment during the early evening hours. Tragically, her naked and strangled body was discovered a month later in woods several blocks from her job. Further examination revealed she had been raped. Over the next few months, police desperately searched for the killer. Many young men were interviewed and polygraphed, but no arrests were made. Then in March 1985, John Restivo was brutally interrogated for over 18 hours. During the interrogation, he mentioned John Kogut�s name to police simply describing Kogut as a friend of a friend; there was nothing inculpating about his comments regarding Kogut. Several weeks later, 21-year old John Kogut, a local landscaper, was brought in for questioning. Kogut had finished a day of labor-intensive work, and at the time police picked him to bring him in, he had just finished drinking a couple of beers and smoking a marijuana cigarette. Police polygraphed/interogated him for three hours and then told him he had failed the polygraph. (Centurion learned while reinvestigating the case, he had passed the polygraph.) He then endured 15 hours of intense interrogation and allegedly gave six varying confessions, and in none of them did the police maintain they obtained any information that they did not already know. In the end, the sixth version was videotaped. In the alleged confession, Kogut inculpated Halstead and Restivo as the individuals who raped the victim, just as the police wanted him to do. At the time Kogut was interrogated the police had already obtained an eavesdropping warrant for Dennis Halstead�s home, and were following John Restivo�s van. Kogut�s confession merely provided an actor to perform the script that the police had already written. Despite all three men being acquainted with each other, they were not friends and did not hang out together.

At the original trial in 1985, the State�s theory of the case was that the three men, using Restivo�s blue van, abducted, raped, and murdered the victim, Teresa Fusco; and then immediately dumped her body in the woods not far from where they abducted her. Each defendant pleaded not guilty at trial. Kogut, who was tried first, testified that his confession was coerced and that he knew nothing about the murder. Evidence against Halstead and Restivo consisted of jailhouse informants and acquaintances that had been arrested or had outstanding charges pending and therefore were lying to obtain favorable treatment. Police alleged that hairs belonging to the victim were found when the Restivo van used in abducting, raping, and transporting the victim once killed was swept for evidence.

Neither Halstead nor Restivo had a criminal record. Kogut had been arrested previously for non-violent offenses. All three men had very good alibis.

The confession was the strongest piece of evidence against Kogut at his first trial. The reason that this evidence held so much sway is that juries and judges, like the general public, typically do not believe that people confess falsely. Today, experts are capable of showing a clear and strong correlation between specific interrogation tactics practiced by some police and how they can easily result in a completely false confession, but these experts are often not allowed to testify.

Fortunately, Mr. Kogut�s 2005 re-trial judge, Victor M. Ort, J.S.C., was of the view that the expert on false confessions that Centurion retained, Dr. Saul Kassin, a social psychologist and professor at Williams College, should be able to testify in order to educate the jury on the phenomena of false confessions. In a first of its kind ruling in the State of New York, Judge Ort allowed the testimony of a false confession expert as necessary to evaluate the credibility of Mr. Kogut�s confession. Dr. Kassin testified, explaining exactly how a person can be persuaded to confess falsely. Typically, interrogators isolate a suspect, interrogate him for extremely long periods of time, often without sleep or food, to create an environment of hopelessness in the suspect. The whole point of the police interrogation is to obtain a confession from the suspect the police have already concluded is guilty. Often, at a certain point, the person comes to believe that the only way out of this intolerable situation is to agree to do or say whatever is asked of him so that the interrogation will end.

The 2005 re-trial also brought a fascinating scientific discovery into the spotlight: forensic examination of post mortem root hair banding. Eight to twelve hours, at the earliest, after the time of death, a post mortem artifact that looks like a band can begin to appear underneath the scalp of antigen hairs (hairs in the active growth stage) still attached to the head of a deceased person (shed hairs do not band). This was important because the State insisted that banded head hairs from the victim were found in the van belonging to John Restivo, therefore establishing she was in the van. The State, however, maintained, based on Mr. Kogut�s confession, that the body of the victim had been in the van only a matter of minutes. The problem with the State�s proofs was that the hairs it maintained belonged to the victim clearly showed the presence of post mortem root hair banding. If post mortem banding was present on the victim�s hairs, it was impossible that the hairs had been left in the van by the victim during the commission of the crime because she was not in the van after her death long enough for post mortem banding to have occurred. Furthermore, the hairs belonging to the victim, which were supposedly found in the van, were in pristine condition and indistinguishable from the hairs of the victim taken during her autopsy. All the other hairs recovered from the van, not alleged to be the victim�s, were dirty and broken due to being in the van for a period of time. Therefore, the alleged hairs of the victim were either planted by the police or, through negligence, hairs recovered from the van were inadvertently co-mingled with pulled autopsy head hairs. It should be noted, at the time of the crime, Mr. Restivo�s van was actually up on blocks and not drivable due to failed brakes; a fact to which many defense witnesses testified.

During the re-trial, the district attorney attempted to ambush the defense by bringing in an alleged expert to say that he could fix the time of coitus by counting the white blood cells. He testified that based on his analysis of a microphotograph of the vaginal slide, the semen found in Ms. Fusco was deposited several hours before her abduction. The district attorney�s new theory was that the victim had consensual sex the day she was killed and then was raped by Kogut, Halstead, and Restivo with none of them leaving any biological matter, e.g. seminal fluids, in her vaginal cavity. This theory was very different from the first trial, pre-DNA days, when the district attorney claimed the seminal fluid found had to belong to Kogut, Halstead, and Restivo because the victim was a virgin. The problem with the professor�s testimony was that his statistics were based on results of studies done on healthy, sexually active, infertile women! This professor had never done any studies on circumstances such as in our case: a teenaged female, dead for a month, with an unknown fertility rate, and with no documented sexual history. Centurion was able to bring in several scientists to completely debunk the attempted quackery being promulgated by the district attorney.
-
Over the three months of re-trial, the defense team shot down the State�s case with solid examinations and explanations from renowned experts in each field. On December 21, 2005, the trial judge, Hon.Victor Ort, J.S.C. pronounced John Kogut not guilty. The Judge found that the alleged confession was not credible and that he did not believe the only physical evidence in the case -- the hairs from Fusco that police said they found in Restivo�s van -- were ever actually in the van.

Promptly thereafter, on December 28, 2005, prosecutors dropped all charges against Kogut�s co-defendants, John Restivo and Dennis Halstead. No announcements regarding a search for the real rapist/murder have been offered by the State.

It is alarming that the Nassau County District Attorney�s Office tried so blatantly to dismiss the DNA results in this case. Much of what went on during the retrial of John Kogut was scientifically groundbreaking and, therefore, was closely followed by various scientific communities. Had the prosecution prevailed, the floodgates could have been opened for other unscrupulous prosecutors to challenge good DNA exclusions.

Click here to view a PDF of news articles related to this case

Click here to view a PDF of Honorable Judge Victor Ort�s Opinion

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DENNIS HALSTEAD, JOHN KOGUT AND JOHN RESTIVO Long Island, NY

In 1985 Dennis Halstead, John Kogut, and John Restivo were arrested and convicted in Nassau County, NY for the 1984 rape and murder of Teresa Fusco. In June 2003, 18-years later, all three were released from prison as a result of DNA testing of an intact vaginal swab that scientifically proved that none of the defendants were a match for the DNA left by her rapist/murderer. Their freedom was the result of an arduous 10-year reinvestigation by Centurion Ministries� Kate Germond. Later joining in on the effort were the New York Innocence Project and Pace Law School.

Dennis Halstead, John Kogut, and John Restivo

In 2005, the Nassau County District Attorney�s Office decided to retry John Kogut, with the hope that a guilty verdict would be the springboard to the later retrial of Halstead and Restivo. The State chose to retry John Kogut first because in 1985, after over 18 hours of interrogation, he gave a videotaped false confession (a confession proven false by the DNA results) that inculpated all three men in the assault and murder of the victim. The State believed the videotaped confession, in combination with a new junk science theory, asserting the time semen was deposited in the victim�s vaginal cavity could be fixed, would explain away the DNA exclusions and result in Mr. Kogut�s conviction. Mr. Kogut�s case was clearly seen as a dry run for the later prosecution of Halstead & Restivo.

Paul Casteleiro, Mr. Kogut�s attorney, and Kate Germond spent the better part of 2005 preparing for and trying the case for Mr. Kogut. Pretrial hearings began in April 2005 and lasted through August. In October of the same year, a three month long bench trial began and resulted in a finding of actual innocence of John Kogut. This finding by the trial judge was so sweeping that the prosecution dropped the indictment against John Restivo and Dennis Halstead one week after the verdict. Finally, after 18 long and painful years in prison, for a crime they had nothing to do with, all three men were completely vindicated.

Synopsis of the case:

Sixteen-year-old Theresa Fusco was last seen alive in November 1984 leaving her place of employment during the early evening hours. Tragically, her naked and strangled body was discovered a month later in woods several blocks from her job. Further examination revealed she had been raped. Over the next few months, police desperately searched for the killer. Many young men were interviewed and polygraphed, but no arrests were made. Then in March 1985, John Restivo was brutally interrogated for over 18 hours. During the interrogation, he mentioned John Kogut�s name to police simply describing Kogut as a friend of a friend; there was nothing inculpating about his comments regarding Kogut. Several weeks later, 21-year old John Kogut, a local landscaper, was brought in for questioning. Kogut had finished a day of labor-intensive work, and at the time police picked him to bring him in, he had just finished drinking a couple of beers and smoking a marijuana cigarette. Police polygraphed/interogated him for three hours and then told him he had failed the polygraph. (Centurion learned while reinvestigating the case, he had passed the polygraph.) He then endured 15 hours of intense interrogation and allegedly gave six varying confessions, and in none of them did the police maintain they obtained any information that they did not already know. In the end, the sixth version was videotaped. In the alleged confession, Kogut inculpated Halstead and Restivo as the individuals who raped the victim, just as the police wanted him to do. At the time Kogut was interrogated the police had already obtained an eavesdropping warrant for Dennis Halstead�s home, and were following John Restivo�s van. Kogut�s confession merely provided an actor to perform the script that the police had already written. Despite all three men being acquainted with each other, they were not friends and did not hang out together.

At the original trial in 1985, the State�s theory of the case was that the three men, using Restivo�s blue van, abducted, raped, and murdered the victim, Teresa Fusco; and then immediately dumped her body in the woods not far from where they abducted her. Each defendant pleaded not guilty at trial. Kogut, who was tried first, testified that his confession was coerced and that he knew nothing about the murder. Evidence against Halstead and Restivo consisted of jailhouse informants and acquaintances that had been arrested or had outstanding charges pending and therefore were lying to obtain favorable treatment. Police alleged that hairs belonging to the victim were found when the Restivo van used in abducting, raping, and transporting the victim once killed was swept for evidence.

Neither Halstead nor Restivo had a criminal record. Kogut had been arrested previously for non-violent offenses. All three men had very good alibis.

The confession was the strongest piece of evidence against Kogut at his first trial. The reason that this evidence held so much sway is that juries and judges, like the general public, typically do not believe that people confess falsely. Today, experts are capable of showing a clear and strong correlation between specific interrogation tactics practiced by some police and how they can easily result in a completely false confession, but these experts are often not allowed to testify.

Fortunately, Mr. Kogut�s 2005 re-trial judge, Victor M. Ort, J.S.C., was of the view that the expert on false confessions that Centurion retained, Dr. Saul Kassin, a social psychologist and professor at Williams College, should be able to testify in order to educate the jury on the phenomena of false confessions. In a first of its kind ruling in the State of New York, Judge Ort allowed the testimony of a false confession expert as necessary to evaluate the credibility of Mr. Kogut�s confession. Dr. Kassin testified, explaining exactly how a person can be persuaded to confess falsely. Typically, interrogators isolate a suspect, interrogate him for extremely long periods of time, often without sleep or food, to create an environment of hopelessness in the suspect. The whole point of the police interrogation is to obtain a confession from the suspect the police have already concluded is guilty. Often, at a certain point, the person comes to believe that the only way out of this intolerable situation is to agree to do or say whatever is asked of him so that the interrogation will end.

The 2005 re-trial also brought a fascinating scientific discovery into the spotlight: forensic examination of post mortem root hair banding. Eight to twelve hours, at the earliest, after the time of death, a post mortem artifact that looks like a band can begin to appear underneath the scalp of antigen hairs (hairs in the active growth stage) still attached to the head of a deceased person (shed hairs do not band). This was important because the State insisted that banded head hairs from the victim were found in the van belonging to John Restivo, therefore establishing she was in the van. The State, however, maintained, based on Mr. Kogut�s confession, that the body of the victim had been in the van only a matter of minutes. The problem with the State�s proofs was that the hairs it maintained belonged to the victim clearly showed the presence of post mortem root hair banding. If post mortem banding was present on the victim�s hairs, it was impossible that the hairs had been left in the van by the victim during the commission of the crime because she was not in the van after her death long enough for post mortem banding to have occurred. Furthermore, the hairs belonging to the victim, which were supposedly found in the van, were in pristine condition and indistinguishable from the hairs of the victim taken during her autopsy. All the other hairs recovered from the van, not alleged to be the victim�s, were dirty and broken due to being in the van for a period of time. Therefore, the alleged hairs of the victim were either planted by the police or, through negligence, hairs recovered from the van were inadvertently co-mingled with pulled autopsy head hairs. It should be noted, at the time of the crime, Mr. Restivo�s van was actually up on blocks and not drivable due to failed brakes; a fact to which many defense witnesses testified.

During the re-trial, the district attorney attempted to ambush the defense by bringing in an alleged expert to say that he could fix the time of coitus by counting the white blood cells. He testified that based on his analysis of a microphotograph of the vaginal slide, the semen found in Ms. Fusco was deposited several hours before her abduction. The district attorney�s new theory was that the victim had consensual sex the day she was killed and then was raped by Kogut, Halstead, and Restivo with none of them leaving any biological matter, e.g. seminal fluids, in her vaginal cavity. This theory was very different from the first trial, pre-DNA days, when the district attorney claimed the seminal fluid found had to belong to Kogut, Halstead, and Restivo because the victim was a virgin. The problem with the professor�s testimony was that his statistics were based on results of studies done on healthy, sexually active, infertile women! This professor had never done any studies on circumstances such as in our case: a teenaged female, dead for a month, with an unknown fertility rate, and with no documented sexual history. Centurion was able to bring in several scientists to completely debunk the attempted quackery being promulgated by the district attorney.
-
Over the three months of re-trial, the defense team shot down the State�s case with solid examinations and explanations from renowned experts in each field. On December 21, 2005, the trial judge, Hon.Victor Ort, J.S.C. pronounced John Kogut not guilty. The Judge found that the alleged confession was not credible and that he did not believe the only physical evidence in the case -- the hairs from Fusco that police said they found in Restivo�s van -- were ever actually in the van.

Promptly thereafter, on December 28, 2005, prosecutors dropped all charges against Kogut�s co-defendants, John Restivo and Dennis Halstead. No announcements regarding a search for the real rapist/murder have been offered by the State.

It is alarming that the Nassau County District Attorney�s Office tried so blatantly to dismiss the DNA results in this case. Much of what went on during the retrial of John Kogut was scientifically groundbreaking and, therefore, was closely followed by various scientific communities. Had the prosecution prevailed, the floodgates could have been opened for other unscrupulous prosecutors to challenge good DNA exclusions.

Click here to view a PDF of news articles related to this case

Click here to view a PDF of Honorable Judge Victor Ort�s Opinion

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DENNIS HALSTEAD, JOHN KOGUT AND JOHN RESTIVO Long Island, NY

In 1985 Dennis Halstead, John Kogut, and John Restivo were arrested and convicted in Nassau County, NY for the 1984 rape and murder of Teresa Fusco. In June 2003, 18-years later, all three were released from prison as a result of DNA testing of an intact vaginal swab that scientifically proved that none of the defendants were a match for the DNA left by her rapist/murderer. Their freedom was the result of an arduous 10-year reinvestigation by Centurion Ministries� Kate Germond. Later joining in on the effort were the New York Innocence Project and Pace Law School.

Dennis Halstead, John Kogut, and John Restivo

In 2005, the Nassau County District Attorney�s Office decided to retry John Kogut, with the hope that a guilty verdict would be the springboard to the later retrial of Halstead and Restivo. The State chose to retry John Kogut first because in 1985, after over 18 hours of interrogation, he gave a videotaped false confession (a confession proven false by the DNA results) that inculpated all three men in the assault and murder of the victim. The State believed the videotaped confession, in combination with a new junk science theory, asserting the time semen was deposited in the victim�s vaginal cavity could be fixed, would explain away the DNA exclusions and result in Mr. Kogut�s conviction. Mr. Kogut�s case was clearly seen as a dry run for the later prosecution of Halstead & Restivo.

Paul Casteleiro, Mr. Kogut�s attorney, and Kate Germond spent the better part of 2005 preparing for and trying the case for Mr. Kogut. Pretrial hearings began in April 2005 and lasted through August. In October of the same year, a three month long bench trial began and resulted in a finding of actual innocence of John Kogut. This finding by the trial judge was so sweeping that the prosecution dropped the indictment against John Restivo and Dennis Halstead one week after the verdict. Finally, after 18 long and painful years in prison, for a crime they had nothing to do with, all three men were completely vindicated.

Synopsis of the case:

Sixteen-year-old Theresa Fusco was last seen alive in November 1984 leaving her place of employment during the early evening hours. Tragically, her naked and strangled body was discovered a month later in woods several blocks from her job. Further examination revealed she had been raped. Over the next few months, police desperately searched for the killer. Many young men were interviewed and polygraphed, but no arrests were made. Then in March 1985, John Restivo was brutally interrogated for over 18 hours. During the interrogation, he mentioned John Kogut�s name to police simply describing Kogut as a friend of a friend; there was nothing inculpating about his comments regarding Kogut. Several weeks later, 21-year old John Kogut, a local landscaper, was brought in for questioning. Kogut had finished a day of labor-intensive work, and at the time police picked him to bring him in, he had just finished drinking a couple of beers and smoking a marijuana cigarette. Police polygraphed/interogated him for three hours and then told him he had failed the polygraph. (Centurion learned while reinvestigating the case, he had passed the polygraph.) He then endured 15 hours of intense interrogation and allegedly gave six varying confessions, and in none of them did the police maintain they obtained any information that they did not already know. In the end, the sixth version was videotaped. In the alleged confession, Kogut inculpated Halstead and Restivo as the individuals who raped the victim, just as the police wanted him to do. At the time Kogut was interrogated the police had already obtained an eavesdropping warrant for Dennis Halstead�s home, and were following John Restivo�s van. Kogut�s confession merely provided an actor to perform the script that the police had already written. Despite all three men being acquainted with each other, they were not friends and did not hang out together.

At the original trial in 1985, the State�s theory of the case was that the three men, using Restivo�s blue van, abducted, raped, and murdered the victim, Teresa Fusco; and then immediately dumped her body in the woods not far from where they abducted her. Each defendant pleaded not guilty at trial. Kogut, who was tried first, testified that his confession was coerced and that he knew nothing about the murder. Evidence against Halstead and Restivo consisted of jailhouse informants and acquaintances that had been arrested or had outstanding charges pending and therefore were lying to obtain favorable treatment. Police alleged that hairs belonging to the victim were found when the Restivo van used in abducting, raping, and transporting the victim once killed was swept for evidence.

Neither Halstead nor Restivo had a criminal record. Kogut had been arrested previously for non-violent offenses. All three men had very good alibis.

The confession was the strongest piece of evidence against Kogut at his first trial. The reason that this evidence held so much sway is that juries and judges, like the general public, typically do not believe that people confess falsely. Today, experts are capable of showing a clear and strong correlation between specific interrogation tactics practiced by some police and how they can easily result in a completely false confession, but these experts are often not allowed to testify.

Fortunately, Mr. Kogut�s 2005 re-trial judge, Victor M. Ort, J.S.C., was of the view that the expert on false confessions that Centurion retained, Dr. Saul Kassin, a social psychologist and professor at Williams College, should be able to testify in order to educate the jury on the phenomena of false confessions. In a first of its kind ruling in the State of New York, Judge Ort allowed the testimony of a false confession expert as necessary to evaluate the credibility of Mr. Kogut�s confession. Dr. Kassin testified, explaining exactly how a person can be persuaded to confess falsely. Typically, interrogators isolate a suspect, interrogate him for extremely long periods of time, often without sleep or food, to create an environment of hopelessness in the suspect. The whole point of the police interrogation is to obtain a confession from the suspect the police have already concluded is guilty. Often, at a certain point, the person comes to believe that the only way out of this intolerable situation is to agree to do or say whatever is asked of him so that the interrogation will end.

The 2005 re-trial also brought a fascinating scientific discovery into the spotlight: forensic examination of post mortem root hair banding. Eight to twelve hours, at the earliest, after the time of death, a post mortem artifact that looks like a band can begin to appear underneath the scalp of antigen hairs (hairs in the active growth stage) still attached to the head of a deceased person (shed hairs do not band). This was important because the State insisted that banded head hairs from the victim were found in the van belonging to John Restivo, therefore establishing she was in the van. The State, however, maintained, based on Mr. Kogut�s confession, that the body of the victim had been in the van only a matter of minutes. The problem with the State�s proofs was that the hairs it maintained belonged to the victim clearly showed the presence of post mortem root hair banding. If post mortem banding was present on the victim�s hairs, it was impossible that the hairs had been left in the van by the victim during the commission of the crime because she was not in the van after her death long enough for post mortem banding to have occurred. Furthermore, the hairs belonging to the victim, which were supposedly found in the van, were in pristine condition and indistinguishable from the hairs of the victim taken during her autopsy. All the other hairs recovered from the van, not alleged to be the victim�s, were dirty and broken due to being in the van for a period of time. Therefore, the alleged hairs of the victim were either planted by the police or, through negligence, hairs recovered from the van were inadvertently co-mingled with pulled autopsy head hairs. It should be noted, at the time of the crime, Mr. Restivo�s van was actually up on blocks and not drivable due to failed brakes; a fact to which many defense witnesses testified.

During the re-trial, the district attorney attempted to ambush the defense by bringing in an alleged expert to say that he could fix the time of coitus by counting the white blood cells. He testified that based on his analysis of a microphotograph of the vaginal slide, the semen found in Ms. Fusco was deposited several hours before her abduction. The district attorney�s new theory was that the victim had consensual sex the day she was killed and then was raped by Kogut, Halstead, and Restivo with none of them leaving any biological matter, e.g. seminal fluids, in her vaginal cavity. This theory was very different from the first trial, pre-DNA days, when the district attorney claimed the seminal fluid found had to belong to Kogut, Halstead, and Restivo because the victim was a virgin. The problem with the professor�s testimony was that his statistics were based on results of studies done on healthy, sexually active, infertile women! This professor had never done any studies on circumstances such as in our case: a teenaged female, dead for a month, with an unknown fertility rate, and with no documented sexual history. Centurion was able to bring in several scientists to completely debunk the attempted quackery being promulgated by the district attorney.
-
Over the three months of re-trial, the defense team shot down the State�s case with solid examinations and explanations from renowned experts in each field. On December 21, 2005, the trial judge, Hon.Victor Ort, J.S.C. pronounced John Kogut not guilty. The Judge found that the alleged confession was not credible and that he did not believe the only physical evidence in the case -- the hairs from Fusco that police said they found in Restivo�s van -- were ever actually in the van.

Promptly thereafter, on December 28, 2005, prosecutors dropped all charges against Kogut�s co-defendants, John Restivo and Dennis Halstead. No announcements regarding a search for the real rapist/murder have been offered by the State.

It is alarming that the Nassau County District Attorney�s Office tried so blatantly to dismiss the DNA results in this case. Much of what went on during the retrial of John Kogut was scientifically groundbreaking and, therefore, was closely followed by various scientific communities. Had the prosecution prevailed, the floodgates could have been opened for other unscrupulous prosecutors to challenge good DNA exclusions.

Click here to view a PDF of news articles related to this case

Click here to view a PDF of Honorable Judge Victor Ort�s Opinion

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JAMES DRISKELL Winnipeg, Canada
On November 28, 2003, James Driskell walked out of a Winnipeg, Canada courthouse a free man after having served over 13 years of a life sentence for a 1990 murder of one of his friends. Centurion Ministries worked hand in hand with The Association in Defense of the Wrongly Convicted (AIDWYC), our Canadian counterpart, on this case. New evidence emerged which proved that the Winnipeg Police had secretly promised its star witness immunity from prosecution for possible arson charges and had covertly paid this witness over $70,000 for his false testimony against Mr. Driskell.

The Winnipeg Free Press, November 29, 2003: "Driskell Free at Last".

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LOUIS MICKENS-THOMAS Philadelphia, PA
Lou Thomas is 76 years old. After serving 40 years in prison for the 1964 murder and rape of a 12-year-old west Philadelphia, PA girl, Mr. Thomas was finally freed by the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on January 28, 2004. For the last 13 years, Centurion Ministries has fought for his freedom.

Lou was convicted solely on the basis of the work of a disgraced criminalist by the name of Agnes Mallattratt at the Philadelphia crime lab. She had testified that a number of microscopic particles she brushed from the victim\'s clothes were "similar in all physical characteristics" to samples taken from Lou\'s row house. The body was found lying outside in a rain-blown, debris-strewn, back alley. These "microscopic" particles could easily have been transferred to the alley from any number of neighborhood sources. The police suspected Lou because some of the particles were shoe wax and bristles. Lou\'s shoe repair shop was located three houses up from where the body was found. The police took no other samples from any other location in the neighborhood. They focused solely on Lou. Miss Mallatratt is on record saying that her job was, "to fit the suspect to the crime"; and that she did to Lou Thomas.

In the late 1960\'s, Miss Mallatratt was finally exposed as a fraud and a liar. Since she began her career at the crime lab in 1958, she had always testified, as she did at Lou\'s trial, that she was a graduate of Temple University; had done post graduate work in zoology, biology, and botany; and that she was a hematologist. At someone else\'s murder trial in 1967, under cross-examination by a renowned Philadelphia lawyer, she admitted that these were all lies. She had never even graduated from junior high school!

This was a huge scandal in Philadelphia. Lou was granted a new trial. In 1969, he was reconvicted when Miss Mallatratt\'s retired supervisor testified in her stead that he vouched for the veracity of her work. Neither of Lou\'s two juries knew that the person who collected and analyzed the evidence was a serial perjurer and a professional fraud.

On his last day in office on January 14, 1995, Governor Casey had 25 petitions for clemency for disposition. Centurion Ministries, working with attorney Dennis Cogan since 1990, had opted to develop a clemency petition because the age of the case did not allow us to develop enough new evidence to get back into court.

Of the 25 petitions on the Governor\'s desk, only Lou\'s request was granted. He did so based on Lou\'s sterling prison record and accomplishments as well as Lou\'s 31 years (at the time) of unshakeable insistence of his innocence.

Governor Casey stipulated that Lou should first be released to a halfway house as a transitional phase to eventual freedom. Governor Casey\'s successor, Tom Ridge, refused to honor Lou\'s clemency. This was the first time in Pennsylvania history that an inmate\'s freedom was blocked after he had received clemency. Ridge was elected on a "get tough on crime" platform and he vowed to never free a lifer.

For the last nine years Centurion Ministries, along with attorneys Len Sosnov and David Rudovsky, have fought to reverse the outrageous usurpation by Governor Ridge of Lou\'s constitutional right to clemency. Finally this past January the Federal Court intervened and instructed the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to release Mr. Thomas immediately, chastising its hitherto "willful noncompliance, bad faith, and � vindictiveness" in denying Mr. Thomas his rightful commutation.

When a natural lifer in Pennsylvania is granted clemency by the governor, this means that he is freed, but on lifetime parole. Thus, if the Parole Board violates him for not meeting the parole requirements they can send him back to state prison for life. This is what they tried to do with Lou just last month. Continuing its "vindictiveness" against Lou, the Parole Board made it a requirement that Lou admit to his crime and attend sex offender therapy. For 40 years, Lou has insisted that he is innocent. When Lou refused to admit that he was a sex offender, the Parole Board violated Lou for being a "denier;" and thus unable to successfully complete the required sex offender counseling program. They then bound this 76-year-old man in chains and threw him back into Graterford State Prison on April 28, 2004.

The next day, the Federal Court, outraged by this unbelievably inhuman and barbaric treatment, once again ordered Lou\'s immediate release. That evening, on April 29th, I drove to Graterford and personally drove Lou back to his residence in Allentown, PA.

This case is one of those that never ends. Since the Parole Board will not approve Lou\'s home plan of living with his nephew\'s family in northeastern Pennsylvania because there are "children in the community", we are back in the Federal Court asking it to intercede yet again to order the Parole Board to allow Lou to live out his remaining years in peace with family members who truly love him and very much want him to live with them in their spacious four-bedroom home.

The Philadlephia Inquirer, Oliver Prichard, January 29, 2004: "After 40 Years in Jail, Freedom is Oh, So Sweet."

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Michael Damien, Joseph Nick Sousa, & Joseph Wayne Eastridge Washington, D.C.

In 1976 Michael Damien, Nick Sousa, and Wayne Eastridge were convicted in Washington, D.C. for a stabbing murder that they did not commit. Centurion’s Kate Germond started reinvestigating this case in 1989. Assisted by lawyers John Zwerling of Arlington, VA and lawyers at Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering, Hale, and Dorr of Washington, D.C., Centurion requested and was granted an evidentiary hearing in 2004 before U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer. Judge Collyer issued her decision on May 26, 2005 in which all three men were completely vindicated

Synopsis of the Case

Nick Sousa The case at trial pivoted on the false testimony of Sousa’s jilted girlfriend who offered the only evidence against Eastridge and Sousa. There was no evidence offered against Damien.

On a November evening in 1974, Michael Damien, Nick Sousa, and Wayne Eastridge, all in their twenties, were attending a birthday celebration for the president of the Pagan Motorcycle Club (PMC). It was Sousa and Eastridge’s first PMC event. On the night in question, the three men, along with a group consisting of seven other Pagan Motorcycle Club members and two of their girlfriends, were leaving a Washington, D.C. bar. Upon the group’s exit, a brief altercation occurred between the group of bikers and three Black males. Minutes later, as the group of bikers were dispersing to their cars parked nearby, PMC members were approached by two of the three Black males, one of whom was carrying a gun. He fired at the group of bikers, badly wounding one.

Sousa and Eastridge were at their car when they heard the shots. One shot came in their direction; Sousa got into the car while Eastridge ran up the street. Damien, who had been standing with the Pagan member who was shot, ran down an alley at the moment of gunfire.

Wayne Eastridge In retaliation for shooting one of their friends, four PMC members chased the shooter. Pedestrians and patrons of the bars in the well-lit neighborhood witnessed this chase. Within a matter of minutes, the bikers chased down and stabbed the shooter, Johnnie Battle, to death. Witnesses called the police, but by the time police arrived, none of the bikers were to be found. The victim lay dead with multiple stab wounds and bleeding profusely.

Simultaneously with the chase and the stabbing, two Pagan members and the two girlfriends left immediately with the Pagan member who had been shot to take him to the hospital. After the car with the wounded biker left, Sousa started to drive his car away from the scene. Sousa immediately picked up Eastridge and Damien on the corner. Due to their unfamiliarity with the neighborhood, they inadvertently circled a city block and ended up back where they began. In doing so, they picked up 16-year-old Steve Jones, one of the bikers who later admitted to having only chased the shooter.

Police at the scene only questioned a few of the many witnesses. The car with Sousa, Damien, Eastridge, and Jones was stopped when it ended up circling right back to the location of the shooting. During the search of the men and the car, Jones’ clothes were obviously heavily stained with blood, as was the back seat of the car where he had been sitting. In contrast, Sousa, Damien, and Eastridge’s clothes were essentially clean. As far as a weapons search, police removed a few dusty knives from the vehicle. Several days later police found one clean Buck knife and attributed it to Damien, but the knife was actually Sousa’s.

Michael Damien All four were indicted seven months later after Sousa’s ex-girlfriend, Dorothy Willetts, came forward with a multitude of detailed stories of confessions by Sousa and Eastridge that she had concocted. As U.S. District Court Judge Collyer noted in her May 2005 decision, “Dorothy Willetts’ testimony at trial was the capstone to the prosecution’s case against Messrs. Eastridge and Sousa.” It should be noted that there was no evidence presented against Michael Damien, yet Damien was convicted along with Sousa and Eastridge and sentenced to life in prison.

Centurion’s investigator, Kate Germond, obtained statements from all the people Willetts mentioned, with the exception of Willetts’ husband, as having been present during the many “confessions” by Sousa and Eastridge. They all said Eastridge and Sousa never confessed and in fact, both men always maintained their innocence. At the Evidentiary Hearing in 2004, many of the witnesses were able to come into court and testify. Judge Collyer found them all to be credible. All of Willetts’ prior testimony against Sousa and Eastridge had, therefore, been discredited.

Steven Jones maintained at trial that he had attempted to chase the shooter, but fell down during the chase and cut his hands, which caused his clothing to become bloody. His blood type was the same as the shooter/victim and therefore enough doubt was cast. While Jones was convicted of the murder of the victim along with Eastridge, Damien and Sousa, Jones only served three years for the crime due to Federal sentencing laws for people 18 years old and under with no prior criminal record. During reinvestigation of the case, Centurion Ministries obtained an affidavit from Steven Jones wherein he stated that he had chased and caught the victim. He also named the three other men who had stabbed the victim. Jones testified truthfully and completely at the 2004 Hearing and Judge Collyer found him credible.

Centurion also secured affidavits from other PMC members to whom the chasers and stabbers had confessed. Centurion obtained an affidavit from a woman who was at the house where two of the chasers returned to the night of the murder and overheard conversations about the crime. All the witnesses who were able to testify at the 2004 Hearing did so and the judge found them to be credible as well.

This case was Centurion’s longest running case before exoneration. It was an accumulation of hard work by Centurion along with the creative and brilliant legal acumen of attorney John Zwerling and many outstanding lawyers at the law firm of Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering, Hale, and Dorr.

Michael Damien and Nick Sousa were paroled in 1995 after serving 20 years of their life sentence. Wayne Eastridge was paroled in 2005 after serving 30 years of his life sentence. Sadly, Michael Damien died of a massive heart attack before hearing of Judge Collyer’s May 2005 decision. Judge Collyer declared in her opinion that ”the Court finds that this is the rare case in which Petitioners can prove their actual innocence of the crime charged as well as violations of their constitutional rights at trial.” She went on to say “the petition is supported by evidence unearthed by Centurion Ministries, a non-profit prison advocacy center, during an eight year investigation of the case.”

In December 2005, the Government decided not to appeal the ruling. They have also not pursued the prosecution of the only still living assailant.

Click here to download a PDF of some of the news articles relating to this case.

Click here to download a PDF of Judge Rosemary Collyer’s Opinion.

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JOHNNY BRISCOE - St. Louis County, MO

In 1983, Johnny Briscoe was convicted and sentenced to 45 years in prison for a St. Louis County, MO rape that he had no involvement in whatsoever. On July 19, 2006, receiving apologies from the county prosecutor, Johnny was freed and vindicated based on DNA testing that not only exonerated him, but also identified the real rapist.

Synopsis of the Case

In the middle of the night on October 21, 1982, a Black male entered the apartment of a 28-year-old single Caucasian woman in the suburbs of St. Louis, and at knifepoint, he robbed her of some jewelry and then sexually assaulted her at least three times, ejaculating each time. In between the assaults, three cigarettes were smoked – two by the victim and one by her assailant. At one point during the horrendous ordeal, the rapist engaged the victim in general conversation and eventually asked her name. She identified herself and asked him for his name. He told her he was John Briscoe. He then asked her if he could call her on the telephone. When the offender departed, the victim immediately called the police.

While the police were in the victim’s apartment soon thereafter, the rapist called the victim three times within the hour of 4:15 a.m. and 5:10 a.m. The police were present for all three calls. He again identified himself as “John.” Police then took the victim to the hospital for an examination. A sexual assault evidence kit was obtained from her and delivered to the St. Louis County police laboratory.

Later that same day the police obtained a photo of the only John Briscoe in their files and showed a photo array to the victim. One of the photos shown to her was that of Johnny Briscoe. (Johnny’s mug shot was in the police files because he had been confined in the mid 1970’s for a stolen vehicle and attempted robbery.) When a victim of one race must identify a perpetrator who is of another race, as in this case, it is called “cross-racial identification.” There have been many studies and research done on the phenomenon of cross-racial identification. Research consistently shows that a person of one race has an increased difficulty of accurately identifying a person of another race. Misidentification is the leading cause of wrongful convictions. This factor may have played a part when the victim mistakenly identified Johnny Briscoe as her rapist after having viewed Johnny’s mug shot. One week later, Johnny was put in a live line up and the victim again identified him; however, Johnny was the only one wearing an orange county jail jumpsuit! The other three men in the line up wore civilian street clothes. Needless to say, the physical line up was simply for “show” purposes.

The Forensic Evidence

This case was rich with evidence that could have aided in the identification of the rapist through simple blood typing yet blood typing was not done with any of the evidence. Furthermore, the defense did not challenge the fact that blood typing was not conducted. Bed sheets, bathroom towels (the rapist cleaned himself after each assault) panty hose, and evidence collected during the examination of the victim all held the potential for scientifically identifying the real rapist because all tested positive for seminal fluid, however, it would be another four years before DNA typing would be applied to criminal cases. In addition to this evidence, the three cigarette butts and a Negroid head hair were collected.

At Johnny’s trial, he was convicted on the strength of the victim’s erroneous ID of Johnny and false microscopic hair testimony. The county crime lab criminalist testified that the one Negroid head hair that had been collected from the victim’s bed sheets “matched the known head hairs from John Briscoe.” This is a complete overstatement. At best, this type of examination could only allow that the head hairs were “similar” (i.e.: in color, texture, length, etc.) or “dissimilar.” Such visual inspection could not lead to irrefutably matching hairs to a specific person.

Johnny’s only defense at the trial was that he was home at the time with his mother and nephew watching the World Series. The jury, as is often the case, dismissed such testimony from these family members. As a result, Johnny was issued a 45-year sentence.

An important note to keep in mind as the story unfolds is that according to the crime lab report dated October 26, 1982, the cigarette butts “will be retained in the laboratory freezer for possible future comparison.”The other items of evidence were “sent to property control.”

Briscoe’s Post Conviction Developments

Innocence Project, NYC

Johnny had written to The Innocence Project (IP) at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York in 1993. For three years, the IP tried to convince the courts and the St. Louis County prosecutor’s office to locate the evidence and allow it to be DNA’d. Both refused to do so. J.D. Evans, the First Assistant Prosecutor, wrote the IP in December 1996 that “we will neither conduct searches of our records nor turn over information unless…. ordered by a court to do so.” By May of 1998, the IP informed Johnny that it was regrettably closing out his case citing the refusal by the judicial and prosecutorial authorities to search for the evidence, let alone submit it for DNA analysis.

Centurion Ministries

In 1996, Centurion freed another St. Louis County man, Steven Toney. Steve was the first Missouri person to be falsely convicted and then vindicated by DNA. In this case, the St. Louis County prosecutor fought tooth and nail, refusing to allow DNA testing to go forward without a court order. After being denied at every other state and federal judicial level, finally the Federal 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered this testing to take place. Once the results were issued, the prosecutor agreed Steve Toney was innocent and dismissed all charges.

As Centurion’s Executive Director, Jim McCloskey, was waiting for Steve’s release in the prison’s lobby, the last inmate to say goodbye to Steve as he was being released from prison was Johnny Briscoe. Toney & Briscoe became good friends at the St. Louis County Jail in the fall of 1982 when they were both awaiting their respective trials for sexual assault. Something clicked between them as they expressed and believed in their mutual innocence.

Steve suggested to Johnny that he write to Centurion for help. The first letter Centurion received from Johnny was dated July 30, 1996 and with that letter an extensive review of his case began.

Centurion Begins Work for Johnny

As the last step in Centurion’s long and arduous selection process, in late March 2000, Jim McCloskey interviewed Johnny for three hours. Convinced of his innocence, McCloskey accepted Briscoe as a Centurion Ministries client. McCloskey then visited with St. Louis County Prosecutor J.D. Evans the very next day. Evans and McCloskey, although politely adversarial, had formed a relationship of mutual respect based on the Steven Toney and Ellen Reasonover cases. (Ellen Reasonover, another St. Louis County wrongful conviction, had just been freed by Centurion in August 1999.)

In the meeting, McCloskey explained to Evans why Centurion was so compelled by Johnny’s innocence. McCloskey asked him to make an exception to their policy of not allowing DNA testing on post conviction cases unless ordered to do so by a court. Evans agreed to search for the evidence. One week later (April 4, 2000), Evans told McCloskey that the evidence could not be found. McCloskey asked Evans to personally look for the evidence. Evans wrote back detailing the second futile search for the evidence that he personally conducted. No record of destruction of the evidence existed.

As a result of this, Centurion retained an attorney for the next two years. We went to court asking for yet another search and an accounting of the missing evidence. As a result of a court ordered search, the Commander of the St. Louis County Police’s Bureau of Criminal Identification gave an affidavit and wrote a March 20, 2002 letter to Centurion’s St. Louis attorney assuring that the crime lab personnel had “searched the evidence storage freezers in an attempt to locate the three cigarette butts and the search failed to locate any evidence associated with Mr. Johnny Briscoe”.

In 1982 the crime lab specifically recorded the cigarette butts as ‘in the freezer for future testing’, and now the butts are gone without any record of destruction?! All the other pieces of evidence were also unaccounted for. With hairs, swabs, towels, bedding, clothes, and cigarette butts all gone with no indication as to what happened to them, McCloskey had reached a brick wall.

Clemency and Parole Petition

From 2002 until 2004, with legal assistance, McCloskey made a personal appeal to the Missouri Parole Board and the Governor for Clemency. These appeals and petition were, not surprisingly, denied.

A Miracle in the Making

Unbeknownst to Centurion and the St. Louis County Prosecutor’s Office the following developments were taking place:

In April 2004, the St. Louis County Crime Lab had a power failure to its evidence storage freezer. This triggered an inventory of the items in the freezer at the time. The three cigarette butts from the Briscoe case were listed as items on the inventory sheet stored in the freezer. No one at the lab remembered or connected this evidence to the search requested by the prosecutor’s office in 2000 and by the court in late 2001. So, the newly accounted for cigarette butts sat in the freezer without any special attention.

At a DNA conference at St. Louis University in November 2005 attended by St. Louis County Crime Lab personnel, Steve Toney spoke about his experiences as a wrongfully convicted lifer saved by DNA. Steve knew about the missing evidence in the Briscoe case from many conversations with McCloskey. Steve mentioned Johnny as an example of another innocent man who probably will not see the light of day due to a tragic disappearance of the case’s forensic evidence.

Provoked by Steve’s remarks, the lab’s supervisor ordered a search for the Briscoe evidence in their freezers. The cigarette butts were located on November 17, 2005. But still the connection wasn’t made between this evidence and the prosecutor’s interest in it several years earlier.

On its own initiative, the lab conducted DNA tests on the butts in May 2006. It is not clear why they waited from November 2005 until May 2006 to do so. A female DNA profile was obtained from two of the butts. The DNA from the third butt was a mixture of the same female DNA and an unknown male.

On June 27, 2006 through CODIS (the FBI’s DNA databank), the unknown male on the third cigarette was identified as a known convicted rapist, Larry Smith. Then, for the first time, the lab notified the St. Louis Prosecutor’s Office of these developments. Other than identifying the rapist, they still didn’t realize the significance of this DNA finding.

The prosecutor immediately recognized that this was a case whose evidence they had been looking for several years earlier (at Centurion’s urging). His office jumped into high gear right away. Samples were collected from the victim on July 10, 2006 to confirm that she was the source of the female DNA on the three cigarettes and confirmatory samples were also obtained from Larry Smith and Johnny Briscoe. Johnny was cleared and Smith was confirmed as the donor of male saliva on the third cigarette.

On July 19, 2006, just three days after hearing the good news of his exoneration, investigators from the prosecutor’s office personally escorted Johnny Briscoe from prison to his mother’s home where friends and family joyfully received him.

Commentary from Jim McCloskey regarding the Briscoe Case

This case obviously raises a lot questions about shoddy police work. The assault Larry Smith is currently incarcerated for occurred sometime after the rape for which Johnny was convicted. Is this a situation where because the police already had Johnny for Smith’s first rape, no one wanted to connect both rapes to the same perpetrator, i.e. Larry Smith? I ask this in light of the fact that Centurion learned that both rapes evidenced the same M.O. and occurred in the same apartment complex within months of each other. There is still much more to learn about this part of the case.

It is interesting to note that during his imprisonment, Johnny heard that it was Larry Smith had committed the rape for which Johnny was convicted. In 1995, they ended up in the same prison. Johnny confronted Smith with this information. Smith, of course, denied it. Johnny did not know Smith prior to being arrested for his crime, but he had heard about him on the streets of St. Louis. Why and how Smith decided to identify himself as “John Briscoe” to the victim remains a mystery.

Finally, the premise that a rapist would tell the victim his real name is absurd, especially in this case -- Smith was wise enough to wear gloves during the entire time of the assault so that fingerprints would not identify him. Giving a false name was an obvious “head fake” by Smith, which the police went for and ended up convicting an innocent man.

Click here to read news articles related to the case.

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DAVID ALEXANDER & HARRY GRANGER - New Iberia, LA
David Alexander and Harry Granger In the summer of 2006 the Louisiana Parole Board released David & Harry after 30 years of false imprisonment for a 1976 New Iberia, LA robbery/murder. Arguing their innocence before the Board alongside CM was the former Sheriff and a former Deputy Sheriff of Iberia Parish, both of whom knew that these men were framed by a preceding set of corrupt Sheriff Officers. When two of the three real killers were arrested by the FBI and confessed to this crime, and then led the corrupt Sheriff to the buried murder weapon that was also used in two other fatal shooting/robberies, that Sheriff convinced the killers to retract their confessions because he had already indicted 6 innocent men, including David and Harry. He couldn’t bear to admit the magnitude of his mistake. CM’s 10-year battle included getting 60 Minutes to profile this gross injustice in 1998. Nevertheless, the entire state and federal judiciary refused to consider habeas petitions detailing the evidence of innocence. In a last bid for freedom, only the Parole Board heard our pleas for justice. Please see our November 12, 2004 Friends & Benefactors Letter for details on the case.

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KEVIN WILLIAMS - Kenner, LA

Kevin Williams spent 21 years in prison for a 1985 armed robbery of a Kenner, Louisiana convenience store in which he had no involvement.

Kevin Williams first contacted CM in 1986 and investigation on his case began in 1988. CM’s Staff Investigator, Paul Henderson, uncovered strong new evidence of how police strong-armed witnesses and ignored exculpatory evidence in order to strengthen their weak case against Williams. Unfortunately, every judicial body up and down the State and Federal Judiciary denied Williams, twice around. After all avenues for appeal were exhausted, parole became the only recourse for freedom. On October 12, 2006, the Louisiana Board of Parole granted Kevin Williams’ parole based (unofficially) on his innocence

The Case for Innocence

In the late night hours of October 6, 1985, two 18-20 year old Black males rushed in and robbed a 7-Eleven convenience store. The shorter male pointed a gun at the female cashier and told her to open the register and stand back. The taller unarmed robber grabbed the contents of the cash register – all of $15. The 7-Eleven cashier called the police as soon as the robbers fled and her call was logged in as 10:56 p.m. (police then estimated that the actual robbery occurred two minutes prior at 10:54 p.m.) Two teenaged eyewitnesses saw the robbers flee in a brown car.

Meanwhile Kevin Williams was driving in his 1976 brown Chevrolet Monte Carlo with his passenger and friend, Ernest Brown. At one point, a brown Oldsmobile Cutlass sped past them going in the opposite direction. At 11:06 p.m. (about 10 minutes after the 7-Eleven robbers fled) and only 1-1/2 miles from the crime scene, police stopped Williams’ car because it looked very similar to the description of the car that had fled 7-Eleven. (Williams’ Chevrolet Monte Carlo was in fact very similar in style to the Oldsmobile Cutlass that sped past them.)

The police brought the 7-Eleven cashier to the spot where they had Williams and Brown. She was asked to observe Williams and Brown as they stood by their car with a bright light shining on them. Looking at the two men, she cleared Brown, but identified 28-year-old Williams as the unarmed taller one of the two teen-aged robbers.

Based on the 7-Eleven cashier’s identification, Williams was charged and Brown was released.

Physical Evidence:

A search of Williams’ car yielded absolutely no physical evidence related to the 7-Eleven robbery. No gun was found; nor did either man have any money on them. What police did find in Kevin’s car was two six packs of Pepsi.

Not long before being stopped by the police, Williams and Brown were at a nearby Exxon station where Williams had spent his last dollars on gas. Brown told the police that he had stolen the two packs of Pepsi from an Exxon station while Williams was paying for the gas. Williams did not know of the theft until after they left the Exxon. Brown’s account to the police was verified by the Exxon Station’s cashier who recognized Williams as a repeat customer and also saw Brown take the two six packs. The cashier said she called police to report the theft as soon as the two men drove away. When asked by police that night about when the “Pepsi robbers” left, the cashier estimated the two men drove away at 10:45 p.m.

Timing is Key

The police report on the Exxon Pepsi theft recorded 10:45 p.m. as the time Williams and Brown drove away from the Exxon. About 9 to 11 minutes was needed to drive the distance between the gas station and the convenience store (7 minutes if you’re were lucky enough to hit all the lights just right) and so a 10:45 departure time gave Williams more than enough time to drive to the 7-Eleven and rob it at 10:54 p.m. What the police failed to disclose was that the 10:45 p.m. departure time from the Exxon was an estimate given by the cashier and that the exact minute of Williams’ departure from the Exxon station was recorded when the cashier called the Kenner Police department seconds after they left the station. CM attempted to obtain the police dispatcher’s log for the night of the Pepsi theft; but unfortunately, the police told us that it “no longer existed.”

The point being that if Williams had exited the Exxon station lot any later than 10:47 p.m., it would have been impossible for him to arrive at the 7-Eleven by 10:54 p.m. Just those few minutes were crucial in proving Williams’ innocence. It is interesting to note that police made note of the exact time the 7-Eleven cashier called in to report the $15 theft, yet they made no attempt to document the exact time of the call by the Exxon cashier about the Pepsi theft which would have accurately determined when Williams left the Exxon.

Additionally, if the police theory was correct, it would mean that prior to the 7-Eleven robbery, Williams and Brown leave the Exxon station, travel the distance to the 7-Eleven picking up a gunman along the way, rob the 7-Eleven, flee, drop off the gunman along with the stolen $15, and then remain within a 1-1/2 miles of the crime ten minutes after having committed it. It’s a complicated and unlikely 20 minute span of events.

Furthermore, while out on bail for the arrest, Williams tried to tell police about the Oldsmoble Cutlass that sped past them that night and how similar it looked to his car. He also told them that he’d heard that the owner of the car was bragging about having robbed the 7-Eleven, but police disregarding this information.

At Williams’ Trial

The 7-Eleven Cashier’s identification of Williams was the primary basis for his conviction. Although she denied it at trial, Ernest Brown testified at Williams’ trial that the 7-Eleven cashier was in fact uncertain about Williams and Brown, but came around to identify Williams only after urging by the police. Brown testified that, “the lady said she really wasn’t sure, and they kept asking her and asking her.” The two teenaged witnesses who saw the robbers and their car from a distance positively identified Williams at trial, but one of these witnesses gave CM an affidavit stating that he was really not confident of his identification, however the prosecutor threatened him with jail unless he testified to his positive identification of Williams. Unfortunately, the Exxon cashier was never called to testify at Williams’ trial, and so Brown’s account of the Pepsi robbery was never corroborated for the jury.

Without the testimony from the 7-Eleven cashier and the two other witnesses, the State had no case against Williams. The cashier saw the robbers for only a few traumatic minutes while a gun was pointed at her. The other two witnesses saw the robbers from a distance at night. Both situations leave little room for an accurate identification. Misidentification remains the leading cause of wrongful convictions.

Williams was tried on October 16, 1986 and after only a half day of actual testimony, he was found guilty that same afternoon. Williams was convicted and sentenced to 50 years for being the unarmed accomplice in a $15 robbery. Neither Williams nor Brown were ever requested to face charges on the theft of Pepsi to which Brown readily admitted.

After all State and Federal judiciaries denied Williams, parole was the last possibility for freedom. In October 2006, Kevin Williams went before the Louisiana Parole Board with the hope of receiving parole after 21 years of wrongful incarceration. The Board unanimously agreed to grant Kevin parole. While they are unable to admit it publicly (factual innocence is not a consideration in the granting of parole), the Board members believed Kevin was innocent.

Jim McCloskey on The Parole Board Hearing:

In Louisiana, the parole board procedure is rather interesting and quite exciting. The State and the Defense present their arguments before the three member Board in a conference room in the Parole Board’s Baton Rouge headquarters. The inmate is video conferenced into the proceedings from his prison. Thus, all the attendees can see and hear the inmate and the inmate can see and hear all those in the proceedings as well. Once arguments are completed and all of the Board’s questions to the inmate have been answered, Board members cast a vote aloud right then and there in the presence of all. The inmate needs unanimity in order to be granted parole. You can imagine the anxiousness of the inmate and his advocates as each vote is announced!

Another powerful ingredient mixed into Louisiana parole procedures is the allowed attendance of family members and friends of the inmate at the parole hearing. A selected family member or friend is also allowed to speak to the Board on behalf of the inmate. If the inmate has family support, it is important that all who can attend do so. This, of course, helps to impress the Board. In Kevin’s case, CM paid for and arranged for the attendance of Kevin’s mother from Detroit; his brother from Birmingham, AL; and his 21-year old son from Dallas (a displaced Katrina victim).

Kevin’s mother pleaded with the Board to free her son. She used this opportunity as part of her remarks to publicly apologize to Kevin and ask for his forgiveness for abandoning him and his two siblings forty years ago when they were all under 10 years of age. She had never before, even in private, offered such sentiments to Kevin. As this attractive, well-dressed, 70 year old woman spoke in earnest from the bottom of her heart about her past “waywardness” many decades ago, there wasn’t a dry eye in the room.

The next day Kevin told me that he had been completely “blown away” and was still stunned by his mother’s honesty. He said that whatever resentments he still harbored towards her vanished by the time she finished her lamentation. What a joy it was to not only have helped free Kevin but to also have played an unwitting role in this poignant mother-son reconciliation. Through this process, Justice arrived at Kevin’s door in two truly remarkably different manifestations.

When the Chairman of the Parole Board declared the meeting adjoined, the conference room erupted in celebration. All ten family members present personally surrounded the beaming Parole Board members and offered them a heartfelt thank you. Even the Assistant District Attorney shook hands and congratulated the family, wishing them good luck. In the midst of this joyfulness, each of the three panel members personally thanked me for the work of CM in Louisiana; and told me that even though they would not publicly say it, they voted for parole due to their belief in the innocence of Kevin as well as David Alexander and Harry Granger’s earlier in the year.

A hearty thanks to the Louisiana Parole Board. They proved to be the “court of last resort” for all three of our Louisiana men. They found CM’s argument for the innocence of Kevin to be compelling and told me so.

Also, a very important thank you to CM’s Paul Henderson. Paul’s tireless and effective investigation of this case breathed new life into it, providing me with the evidence and information with which to convince the Board of Kevin’s innocence.

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Walter Lomax - Baltimore, Maryland

On December 13, 2006, thirty nine (39) years to the day after he was arrested for a 1967 Baltimore, MD robbery/murder of a grocery store proprietor, Walter Lomax emerged a free man from the same courtroom in which he had been falsely convicted four decades earlier. The judge, citing evidence of actual innocence, was particularly impressed with the fact that on the day of the crime a doctor had dressed Walter’s seven day old broken right hand with a plaster of Paris cast which went from his fingers all the way to his elbow. This was significant because all the witnesses who had observed the shooter testified that there was nothing unusual about his right hand which wielded the gun that he had used to fatally shoot the store manager. Walter was the victim of faulty cross-racial identification, sloppy police work, and woefully ineffective trial counsel.


The Case

In the early morning hours of December 2, 1967, a lone gunman robbed the Giles Food Market in Baltimore and fatally shot the proprietor of this small grocery store. This crime was one of the many, mostly unsolved, robberies and shootings that occurred in a one month time period in Baltimore. Under tremendous pressure to clear these crimes, the police resorted to en-mass line ups at the main police station which they advertised in the newspaper. Showing up to view the line-ups were 75 witnesses to 58 crimes, including the Giles Food Market murder.

When Walter heard that there was a warrant out for him, he voluntarily went to the police station to see why the police wanted him. The warrant was actually for his brother, Michael, for non-payment of child support. As a result, Walter was mistakenly put into one of the numerous line ups for reasons still unknown to him today. Tragically he was mis-identified by three people who saw the Giles Food Market shooting.

The person who did the crime had shopped for about 20 minutes prior to the actual start of the crime. He finally went to the check out counter where he irritated the two clerks there by constantly returning to a grocery shelf to obtain one item after another. The two clerks had a clear and calm view of him for quite a while during his extended check out procedure. By the time he finished his shopping, he had two full bags of groceries.

It wasn’t until he left the store and deposited the grocery bags at an unknown place that he returned to the store and began the crime. He shot the manager dead and then robbed the same two clerks. These two clerks had, by far, the best opportunity to view the suspect; and significantly, neither of these two clerks, a 20 year old man and a 60 year old woman, identified Walter Lomax as the robber/shooter.

A Broken Right Hand
The coup de grace that established Mr. Lomax’s factual innocence was his physical condition on the date of the crime. Nine days before the crime, 20 year old Walter had chaperoned his 15 and 16 year old sisters to a Thanksgiving evening dance at a YMCA in Baltimore. Protecting his sisters from unwanted advances, he was attacked by a gang of 10 to 12 teenaged thugs who came to the dance to make trouble.

During the attack, Walter was stabbed in the top of his right hand in such a forceful manner by one of the assailants that the knife went through the hand partly severing a portion of the hand muscles, fracturing a bone, bursting blood vessels, and causing significant swelling of the hand. He also suffered severe rib and chest damage inflicted by the gang when they had him on the ground and repeatedly kicked and punched him. As a result he could not walk upright due to the painful injuries caused by the beating.

Walter was rushed to Johns Hopkins Hospital and a plaster cast was applied from his palm and fingers all the way to his elbow. Two days later he returned to the hospital. The hospital report stated that the swelling in his right hand had increased since the assault.

On December 1, 1967 (the day of the crime), Walter returned once again to the hospital clinic. The doctor on this date described the splint that Walter had on when he left the clinic as being a plaster of Paris going from the fingertips to the elbow with 15 layers of gauze padding a half inch thick covering the hand and going from the palm to the elbow, rendering the hand immobile.

His painfully bruised ribs restricted his movement according to his friends and relatives who were never presented by his trial counsel. During his recovery period he lived with his older sister who nursed him. He was so disabled from the rib injury that he could hardly move during the first week of rehabilitation.

Nothing Wrong with the Shooter’s Right Hand
All the witnesses described the perpetrator as wielding and shooting the gun in his right hand without any sign of difficulty. Furthermore, none of the witnesses noticed anything unusual with the shooter’s right hand. Police had chased the criminal in full flight and saw him evade a police cruiser as well as an officer who fired shots at the fleeing suspect over several blocks. Additionally, the perpetrator had purchased and carried in each hand two large shopping bag of groceries that he took outside before reentering the store and commencing the crime – Walter could not have done these things given his painful chest and rib injuries and his severely injured right hand that was in a plaster cast.

Unfortunately, Walter’s trial attorney did not present the hand injury in a way that the jury could grasp or envision. Trial counsel made no mention of the rib and chest injuries. Nor did he present evidence concerning the circumstances surrounding the stabbing of Walter’s hand. The judge even wondered aloud at trial as to how and why Walter’s hand had been stabbed. Not knowing the circumstances surrounding the hand injury, the jury could have easily attached sinister and criminal conduct on Walter’s part with his stabbing.

Thirty nine years after Walter’s conviction, Centurion and attorneys Ripke and Nathans were able to present the full facts and circumstances to a concerned judge in a motion to reopen the post conviction case and suspend the life sentence to time served. The court made reference to the “evidence of actual innocence” as well as Walter’s spotless 39 year prison record and concluded its decision by modifying the sentence to time served. With the prosecutor’s agreement to this ruling, Walter walked out of the same courtroom in which he was convicted four decades earlier, but now as a free man.

Walter’s long suffering victory is a testament to his “never say die” spirit and faith as well as the triumph of good over the past evil of a callous and inept criminal justice system.

Click here to read a news article about the case.

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JIMMY WINGO Dixie Inn, LA
Centurion Ministries\' investigation yielded videotaped recantations by the two main state witnesses who admitted they were coerced by a deputy sheriff into lying at Jimmy Wingo\'s trial. A dismissive Louisiana Governor and Board of Pardons rejected this strong evidence. Wingo, an innocent man, was executed by electric chair on June 16, 1987, for a 1983 Dixie Inn, LA, murder.

Morning Advocate, June 17, 1987: "Wingo\'s Case First Failure for McCloskey."

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ROGER COLEMAN Grundy, VA

Today, January 12, 2006, we are sad to let you know that Governor Mark Warner has announced that the DNA testing in the Roger Keith Colman case has confirmed Roger�s guilt.

Below, please find Jim McCloskey�s official press release statement:

Press Release from James C. McCloskey, Executive Director of Centurion Ministries, Inc. on the Roger Coleman DNA Testing Results

With Governor Warner�s announcement, it has been established once and for all, with absolute scientific certainty through unimpeachable DNA testing, that the semen found in Wanda McCoy belongs to Roger Coleman. This means that Roger Coleman is the killer of Wanda McCoy. We now know that Roger�s proclamations of innocence, even as he sat strapped in the electric chair moments before his death, were false.

We, who seek the truth, must live or die by the sword of DNA. Through my efforts, spanning from 1988 until the day of Roger�s execution on May 20 1992, Centurion Ministries conducted an exhaustive reinvestigation of Roger�s conviction. Up until the Centre of Forensic Sciences issued the most recent DNA results, I had always believed in Roger�s complete innocence. In my view, he had no motive, means, or opportunity to do this crime. I now know that I was wrong. Indeed, this is a bitter pill to swallow.

Those of us who seek the truth in criminal justice cases must never be afraid of finding it. If there is a means to discover the truth, we must never shrink or shy away from using it in our search. We must never stop the hard effort to touch the factual bottom of any case. The Truth can be very elusive, and even illusory. Our search for facts can delude us into thinking that what we have found is gold, only to discover that it is in fact fool�s gold. But once the gold of absolute truth is revealed, we must embrace it, and be thankful that we have finally uncovered it.

Believing in Roger�s innocence and even promising him on the night of his execution that I would do all in my power to one day prove his innocence, I have spent the last six years persistently pushing for the post execution DNA testing that was just completed. Even though the results are far different that I expected, and even though this particular truth feels like a kick in the stomach, I do not regret that this effort has at last brought finality to all who have had an interest in this matter. In Socrates� Apology, he said that, �in doing anything, we ought only consider if, in our doing, we are doing right or wrong.� This arduous journey was an honest and diligent search for the truth that I believe has served the public interest.

The search for the truth in establishing Roger Coleman�s innocence or guilt is finally over. The controversy that has surrounded the Coleman case for the last 25 years has now been put to rest, at least as far as I am concerned. I�d like to thank Virginia Governor Mark Warner for authorizing the DNA testing to proceed. Without his intervention, the complete truth would never have been revealed.

I also want to thank Paul Enzinna, Esq. of the law firm Baker Botts in Washington, DC for partnering with me in our six-year effort to get the DNA testing done.

I trust that all those with the power and authority to do so throughout the nation will follow in Governor Warner�s footsteps � to have the courage and vision to preserve all the biological evidence and allow post conviction and even post execution DNA and other forensic testing to go forward so that the absolute truth may be known to all. No one should fear the truth. As Governor Warner did, let the DNA chips fall where they may. Only then, can real justice be done.

January 17, 2006

An Additional Reflection on the Roger Keith Coleman DNA Results
By Centurion Ministries Executive Director, James C. McCloskey

As I said in my first statement issued on January 12, 2006, we now know through unimpeachable scientific DNA testing that Roger Coleman was guilty of the rape and murder of his sister-in-law, Wanda McCoy, 25 years ago in Grundy, Virginia.

The results turned out far different than I expected. My belief in Roger�s innocence was proven wrong. Naturally, I was devastated and shocked when the Director of the Centre of Forensic Sciences in Toronto, Canada telephoned the findings to me immediately after he informed the Governor. As deeply disappointed and hurt by the results as I am, nevertheless, I feel a great sense of relief that an innocent man was not executed in this case.

In my numerous investigative trips to Grundy and Buchanan County, Virginia, I developed a great respect and warm affection for the people in those communities. In particular, I much admired the fair-mindedness and courage of Judge Nicholas Persin, Mr. Coleman�s trial and sentencing judge who ordered the original 1990 DNA testing much against the wishes of the local and statewide law enforcement folks. I also have always had a deep sympathy for the family and friends of Wanda McCoy. I know that the truth-seeking process that has extended over the last 25 years has been an extremely painful and never-ending ordeal for them. Now, with the certainty of Roger�s guilt, I hope that all of those whose lives have been disturbed by this hard journey will finally obtain peace of mind.

We all make mistakes, and I made a whopper that was magnified a million times over, especially since the whole world seemed to be watching. However, I do not regret in the least that I pushed for the DNA to be done. Those of us who search for the truth must never be afraid of what we will find. If there are any unused and reliable means with which to uncover the truth, we must employ them in our pursuit of it. If we don�t, then we are charlatans who merely pretend to be seekers and lovers of the truth. To limit our search by not using the available tools of contemporary science is both morally irresponsible and a disservice to the public interest.

Besides establishing guilt, much has been accomplished through this most recent DNA testing. Governor Warner made history last week. He was the first governor to authorize and order post-execution DNA testing. This was a groundbreaking and precedent-setting decision that can serve as a model for other governors and those with the power and authority to follow in his footsteps when asked. In the future when those who have well-informed reasons to believe in someone�s innocence petition for DNA testing, they can always point to Governor Warner and use his action as an example to convince the powers that be to do the same.

What Centurion Ministries achieved in forging the agreement with Governor Warner and propelling the Coleman post execution testing forward 14 years after the fact was a pioneering effort. Surely, some day in the future it will pave the way for others in authority to order DNA testing that might save genuinely innocent people from execution or prove the innocence of someone already executed.

There is no reason not to allow DNA testing that has the potential to establish innocence or guilt to go forward in any case where it could shed light on the truth of the matter. Those of us who are fact-finders in the criminal justice system must live or die by the sword of DNA. This applies in all criminal cases, whether they are post-execution or pre-execution in capital cases, or post-conviction and pre-conviction in non-capital cases. The biological evidence must be preserved and tested in all instances.

Do as Governor Warner did. Let the DNA chips fall where they may. Only then can the real truth be known, and only then can �Justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an everlasting stream (Amos 5:24).�

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