#545 Jason Flom with Fredrico Lowe-Bey

Joy is essential and it's also elusive, but now there's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence. Joy 101, it's a new podcast hosted by me, Hota Kotby. If you're craving inspiration to maximize your joy, tune into these candid uplifting and moving on air chats. Open your free iHeartRadio app search, Joy 101 and listen now. Joy 101 with Hota Kotby is presented by CVS. June is Black Music Month and on the Drink Chams Podcast, we're speaking with the hottest names in the culture, like Swae Lee. Do you realize how legendary you are? I appreciate it. I'd be seeing it, but I'm like, "Master got so much more to do." Like, Prince, he's got like 30 albums. We got like five right now. That's the rate we gotta be going. Yep, that's a good attitude. Matter-to-a-airer, Drink Chams brings you the biggest names and the most unfiltered conversations. Listen to Drink Chams from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Every family has its secrets. But what happens when you discover that your dad has been living a double life? That is not the look of an innocent man. Is everyone lying to me about who they are? I felt such desperation. I felt it was what I had to do. Listen to Deep Cover, The Family Man on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. During the late 1980s, Federico Lowe was routinely harassed by St. Louis Police officers Ruben Hammond and James Long, who previously attempted to convict him on what appeared to have been fabricated charges. Then, on May 21, 1988, a woman claimed that she had been raped and sodomized. An officer's Hammond and Long had prepared a lineup for her in which she identified someone who did not match her initial description. Their recurring target, Federico Lowe, but despite multiple factors that damaged the credibility of this ID, Federico was sent away for 85 years. This is wrongful conviction. You're listening to wrongful conviction. You can listen to this in all the Lowe for Good Podcasts one week early and add free by subscribing to Lowe for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Welcome back to wrongful conviction where we had to St. Louis, Missouri to discuss not only rape and sodomy allegations, but also a damning backstory that alone cast out on this conviction. But before we introduce the man who has been surviving this ordeal for decades and decades now, we're joined once again by his attorney from Centurion Ministries Paul Castellero. Paul, thanks for coming back. My pleasure. And with us today calling in from a Missouri Correctional Facility, we have Federico Lowe. I'm sorry you're there, but we appreciate you calling in. Definitely, you're welcome. So tell us about growing up in St. Louis. I had four brothers and two sisters. We all grew up in the St. Louis Highland Project. My mother and father, they were good people, man. You know, my mother, she was first two school teachers. She was also a cafeteria supervisor for St. Louis Public Schools. My father, he drove a truck for the seven-year company and growing up in the project, you have to have something built and not took a box. So I was pretty good at it at one time. And so I was going to school and I was boxed and I had a job. Also, I worked at a place called Span Building Maintenance where we cleaned all this building. Unfortunately, in 1981, he caught a gun charge that sent him away for a 45-day stint, but also introduced him to the Morris Science Temple of America. As a direct result of me serving the time, I was able to go to one of the meetings for the Morris Science Temple of America. And I became a part of the organization, our prophet, Nobuzuli. He brought Islam to the United States of America. And then the Morris Science Temple of America. We teach nationality and divine creed. We teach that blacks are not Negro black color, Ethiopian or anything else other than Morris. And we know that the Morris are from Northwestern South Africa. You have to proclaim your nationality as being a Morris American and denounced the name Negro black color in the Ethiopian and all names that dilute the slavery. So how the Morris and denounced this America identified as base or else, EL or B-E-Y. Just like the leader of the Morris Science Temple in St. Louis, Jerry Lewis Bay. This surname signified a connection to their African roots as folks were escaping the Jim Crow South during the Great Migration to Northern cities. And over the following decades, the group fractured into other Muslim organizations, including the Nation of Islam, which my own late father-in-law Muhammad Ali famously joined back in the 60s. I remember with Muhammad Ali became Muhammad Ali and he joined the Nation of Islam. Cash's clay is now Muhammad Ali and the kind of prevailing thought was that these people were really, oh they're dangerous, we should be afraid of them because they've kind of gotten out of, I guess, our mainstream Christianity, Judaism kind of track. And now all of a sudden you're, whoa, you're bringing in this far end kind of religion. And that still is the prevailing trend in many pockets of American culture and certainly appears to have been for the officers in this case. Ruben Hammond and James Long who seemed to have been just really interested in Frederico back in July of 1987. Yeah, I had gotten out of court. A guy dropped me off at my house. One of them, my apartment being with my girlfriend and my two children were next thing we knew my doorbell rang and when I opened the door he offered us a long head and his pistol in my face and told me to get my hands up. And I asked him, I said, what's this all about? He said, you ran from me and you threw some drugs down while you was running from me. If I didn't throw them on drugs down, I never have no drugs. I get down to the police department and that's when he told me that I was being charged with possession of potent drugs and marijuana. Once they saw that I had made bond, these same officers came back less than a week and a half away. This was in July of 1987. They saw me entering my apartment with my girlfriend and I was choosing these same officers jumped out and told me to get my hands up. I was a ham and had his gun pointed in my face and long had his gun pointed in my girlfriend. And he asked her who she was. He wrote her name and number and everything. They'd offered all the stuff down. And while he was writing it down, he was asking her where we was coming from. Did we have any narcotics on us? Did we have any weapons on us? And she said, we don't have anything on us and say, well, listen to all the fuckers wanted for a first degree or something. So it took me and threw me in the back seat of the police car told me that they was locking me up again. And I wasn't going to make bond on this towards. So I kept asking them, who am I supposed to have a solid? And he said, you'll find out when we get to the station and it kept asking me questions about one of our spiritual leaders, the more assigned to the American, Jerry Lewis Bay. And how do I fit into the situation of the more assigned to the American? And I told him, look, man, I'm not finna tear you anything. He said, all you motherfuckers are just alike to cut me out and call me a bunch of the wrong, the Tory names. And he said, yeah, we did a little research on you and we know what you're about. He said, all you fucking gangsters are just alike. And one of the resting cops testified in the civil trial that he believed that any member of that temple was a criminal. Jerry Lewis Bay was later prosecuted in a Rico trial and it's unclear whether the charges were based in reality or just another instance of the targeted destruction of a black leader. Or maybe it both either way, it appears that these officers may have been targeting Federico to get to Jerry Lewis Bay. He kept asking me questions about Jerry Lewis Bay. And I kept telling him, I said, hang on to you shit me. And he said, yeah, we know what you guys are about. And you want him and you're going to learn today. And I was like, what the fuck is you talking about? I'm going to learn today. He got mad at me and bristen in the back. He had a slap, Jack, in his hand. And then he hit me with it, which caused the truth to trickle down on the right side of my face, right above my eye. And once we entered the garage, Hayman drug me out of the back seat and while I'm down on the ground, they still kicking me and hit me with a flat knife. And so they locked me up and it was a soldier and they came in and took the handcuffs off me. He said, what happened to your face? He must have ran into the wall. He booked me, took my fingerprints and all that. I did place me back in the city. And he said, they caught you with some drugs in the July to 12 arrests that they made. And we want to know where you get these drugs from, that you sell another outside of that drug. I said, but I'm not locked up on this time for no drugs. He said that I had a cell come find out. He used the information that my girlfriend gave him about who she was and wrote the police report out that I was assaulting her. This assault arrest never materialized into an indictment, but the drug possession allegations made it to trial in April of 1988. Hayman and law they testified that he had marijuana and he dropped it and it was his and the jury acquitted him in fairly fast time. After I got found I did it off so long and officer Amy was standing on the side of the prosecutor and And Officer Heyman told me he said, "Nikah, you ain't going to walk the street this summer, I say fuck you." They told them he wouldn't last the summer. I looked at him and I said, "Fuck you, mother fuck you." At that time, the form and other jewelry came and shook my hand. It told me I better watch those guys because they was out to get me. And it wasn't 30 days later that I was so out to with this right case in May of 1980. And the alleged victim in this case, New Fred Rico, as did her boyfriend, but he and Fred Rico were no longer friendly. We had a father and not about a gold chain. I let him wear gold chain and so we got into an argument about me receiving my gold chain back in a couple days after that. They ambushed me. One one of us coming out of my girlfriend's house and the boyfriend walked up to me with a gun in his hand. And the brother is walking on the side of and I didn't have no gun. And so when it got up on me, I wasn't able to punch him. And when I hit him, I knocked the gun out of his hand. So we got into a scuffle to be him and this brother, we was fighting in the middle of the street until we got tired of fighting. And everyone is up in the corner and burned out. As a direct result, I'm thinking that this is what this arrest may have stemmed from as well. So now we have two motivated parties, the cops and the alleged victim's boyfriend. And that takes us to May 21st, 1988 and this woman who was seven months pregnant at the time, who was believed to have been raped and satanized. Yeah, of course, he's the stand on May 21st, 1988. The victim is with her boyfriend. They go out like about midnight. They go get hamburgers or something like that. They have a disagreement. She goes out to the car. It sits in his car and then gets up and leaves and starts walking like what five o'clock in the morning. And as she's walking down the street, these guys come in the opposite direction. Three guys, she says in the car and they say, hey, you need a ride. She says, no, they go down the block, make a youth turn, come back. And this one guy jumps out of the car and grabs her by the hair and pulls her into an alleyway. And these other two guys get out of the car and hold her down. And allegedly at that point, the one guy who initially jumps out of the car takes off her underwear. He then assaults her orally and then vaginally. And then she gets up after it's all done and runs off in screams and she waves down motorists and good Samaritan's take her in and they call the police and the police come. And it just so happens that Hammond and Long were the first to respond to the scene. Now they allegedly found her underwear and her wallet in an alleyway. And she described the main attacker as a light skin black man with freckles. And although Rodrigo is light skinned, there's no way in the world you could say he has freckles and she allegedly knows low bay never says anything about it being low bay. Yes, she stayed in all three black males who's involved and were unknown to her. So she goes to the hospital. She is examined and a rape kid is created. Now keep the man that doctor asked her when was the last time she had sex. She said two weeks before the rape act took place. Which would make sense because after all she's seven months pregnant. Yeah, no, absolutely. This makes sense. And she maintained she wasn't sure whether the a salad didn't ejaculate that became he didn't ejaculate in the case history when she was far from sure of that. And it becomes quite relevant a couple years later when DNA is developing and you can do testing because she definitely has seen it. So that's confusing. She said that she hadn't had sex for two weeks prior to the incident. She doesn't know whether the assailant had ejaculated, which the state eventually solidifies. Whereas that the assailant had not ejaculated. But there was semen found on the vaginal swab and seminal fluid found on the underwear. Then the issue becomes ultimately down the road. She says that when she gets assaulted, the assailant takes off her underwear that she never puts the underwear on again. So if that is to be believed, then follow me here that some little fluid in the underwear is from a different source than the vaginal swab on which there were four or five sperm heads. And sperm can survive in a female reproductive tract for up to five days. So these sperm heads could have been the result of an earlier unrelated sex act as far as five days into the past. Or they could be from pre-ajaculate, which is male glandular fluid that can carry sperm heads from previous ejaculations that were deposited in the male's urethra. But either way, there was an insufficient amount of material to test with the methods available back in 1988 to determine blood type and let alone a DNA profile. So all they had to go on was this undetermined semen source and the description. Then the next day she calls up the cops wanting her wallet and then Hammond and long who are police officers. They're not investigators. Traditionally, this case on the sexual assault would be turned over to a sexual assault unit and detectives would be handling not patrolmen. And she has this conversation with I believe it was long in which she's looking for her wallet and he creates a photo right at one o'clock or two o'clock in the morning and runs it out to her. And these officers both know love and these officers have been told by the victim that the sale of the freckles they put a photo array and they don't attempt to put anybody in there with freckles. Why would you not do that then why would you put love a in there and you know he doesn't have freckles so they took my photograph. He took my brother's photograph and they took the photograph of three other guys to her house and they had her assigned the back of my mom photograph and I'm the one that great decided my husband. He's arrested within a couple hours. Do you think one of the officers would have said to her wait a minute. Labata isn't that freckles. What are you talking about. Joy is essential and it's also elusive you can't order it you can't borrow it or simply hope it into life but now there's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence. Joy 101 it's a new podcast hosted by me how to copy together guys will have meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people entertainment legends sports icons wellness experts and everyday people will share how they find allow. And experience joy and offer some of my own tips and takes on seeking a more balanced and harmonious life if you're craving inspiration support and useful tools to maximize your joy tune into these candid uplifting and moving on air chats. Joy after a break up joy is an empty nester joy after a loss joy as a caretaker this new podcast will speak to you. Listen to joy 101 on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. June is Black Music Month and on the Drink Chams podcast we're speaking with the hottest names in the culture like sway Lee. Do you realize how the legend there we are. I appreciate it. I've seen it but I'm like I'm asked to got like so much more to do like Prince he's got like 30 albums we got like fire right now that's the rate we got to be going. That's a good attitude you also hear stories from industry legends and hip hop pioneers like Fab 5 Freddie. I directed when the Nasda is the early video which one one love. Wow. I literally filmed in his apartment in Queens bridge. His mom was still up in that apartment Nasda was just beginning to take off his pops used to live near me and Harlem. His dad introduced him to a whole lot of you know conscious stuff and he made a young prodigy. No matter the era drink chance brings you the biggest names and the most unfiltered conversations listen to drink chance from the Black Effect podcast network on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Keith Jim Anko seemed like a mild mannered suburban dad but secretly he became someone else a master of disguise who went on a crime spree. At the time did it seem like a crazy idea. It seemed very crazy but I felt so desperate that I felt it was the quickest easiest way out. Did you allow yourself to think about how we could go wrong and what that might look like? No. I didn't want to manifest that. I was trying to manifest success. Every family has its secrets but what happens when you discover that your dad has been living a double life. That is not the look of an innocent. This is going to change my life and my family dynamic forever because everything that had existed prior in my reality is now untrue. Listen to Deep Cover the Family Man on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. You take her initial description of it. You take the idea that she knows Lowe Bay for 24 hours. She doesn't name him and that all of a sudden he's being named to the two police officers who normally wouldn't be investigating a rape and it's clear they got a relationship with Lowe Bay and it's a hostile relationship. After Lowe Bay's acquitted in his marijuana case, these cops told him he's never going to make it through the summer. You take the idea. that La Bay belongs to this mortgage temple. I mean, you have all these little factors going in and that's how the case is made. I mean, it just stinks. - And the smell didn't improve with the introduction of an additional charge. While Puerto Rico wasn't pretrial detention, the alleged victim claimed that he had called to threaten her on June 1, 1988, around 11.30 AM. She says she was threatened and based on law pursuits, testimony that around that time, La Bay was on the phone. - This is a crazy point. The telephone company said the phone call did not come. From out of the St. Louis City, to jail where I was being here at that time, on 8.8. - So despite the impossibility, witness tampering, which showed an alleged consciousness of guilt, was added to Puerto Rico's rape and sodomy charges for trial in November, 1988. And it seems his defense was well prepared to combat that allegation when the alleged victim took the stand. - They asked, well, how did she know it was Rodrigo? She said, I remember his voice in the alley, but the officer that came in at testify, for me, his name was Darrell Pitchford. He testified that he worked the fool that I was on that day, and I could not have been on that phone because at the time that they sent a phone call came in, we were long down preparing for this is that Wednesday afternoon. And we logged out at 10.30. - There was no connection that he called her other than her saying, was really fishy. And I don't know actually how he got convicted on it. - But there's much less confusion about how they managed to make the rape and sodomy charges stick. - She kind of understand, and she stated that she remembered me from the neighborhood, and she identified me. She pointed to me and said, yeah, that's him. That's where Rodrigo fit in the table right there with my attorney, Angela Hernandez. - And then somehow the defense didn't impeach this in court identification with her initial description. After all, Rodrigo doesn't have freckles, but instead they took a less direct route starting with Officer James Long. - There's a pretrial hearing and Long says that she said the guy had freckles, right? So then they go to trial. Long testifies not a word is elicited from him about her saying the guy has freckles, right? - So twice already they had squandered this impeachment evidence, and it didn't come out until Federico's girlfriend finally took the stand. - She talks about, right after Rodrigo gets arrested on this case, she's up at the circuit, attorneys are up as they're trying to say, wait a minute, there's no way he could be the person that did this, and the victim is there, and these two women have a conversation. And during that conversation, the victim says to Federico's girlfriend, then in fact the guy had freckles. And so the lawyer brings it out from the girlfriend who's a zalabye witness, right? And of course, you know, the girlfriend, alabye witness is unbelievable because she's gonna lie to protect them. He doesn't bring it out from anybody else. And then the victim says, when she testified, no, I never said to this woman at the circuit, attorneys are up as the guy had freckles. Meanwhile, the cop who they're saying is trying to frame them says she said this and it never comes out. - And so in addition to the fumbling of this discrepancy in the description, they were also prevented from offering evidence of the officers' motivations. - They tried to prove that the cops basically were out to get them. And the judge refused to let him get into evidence that he had been acquitted of marijuana. That he's two officers testified and a jury found them not believable. - So that strategy was neutered and then the rape kit evidence was presented. Medical expert Joseph Crow testified about finding four or five sperm heads without their tails on the vaginal swab. Now sperm began to degrade immediately upon the ejaculation and tails degrade faster than the heads. And remember sperm can survive up to five days in a female reproductive tract. - He basically talks about based on sperm heads without tails how long that indicates they could have been there. And the idea was is that that's an indication that they were a positive well before this event happened. - And the positive to ask them, say isn't it possible that sperm could have been left for pre-acculation leakage? You say, yeah. Now they're positive that the assailant had not ejaculated but this testimony makes room for two possibilities. One, an earlier sex act or two, that the assailant may have deposited pre-adjaculate. However, with the primitive methods that were available back in 1988, Crow testified that they couldn't pull a blood type let alone a DNA profile from either the swab or the underwear seminal stain due to the small amount of material available. Which Crow and the prosecution implied was further proof that the material had been from a previous unrelated sex act, which at maximum happened five days into the past by today's knowledge. And according to Crow at that time, 24 hours max. - Keep in mind, he has a clear report in his position that says that the victim had not had sex for two weeks prior to the rape happen. But he comes to court and he specifies that it's possible that sperm could have been done from a old sex act. But he could never be there from a old sex act if she had not had sex for two weeks prior to the rape happen. - Yet that critical impeachment evidence evaded defense counsel. The lawyers representing LeBaye don't have a legible copy of the medical record. And as a result, they don't know that she's told medical people within the hour of being brought in after being assaulted, that she hadn't had sex in two weeks with anybody. The original legible copy of the medical record goes into evidence. - And this legible copy with the statement about no sexual activity for two weeks was not discovered by Fred Rico's team until 2014. Now, perhaps the prosecution shared this illegible copy in the hope that this detail would not be discovered. So with the presence of the sperm had neatly accounted for as either a previous unrelated encounter or the assailant's pre-ejaculate without any possibility of identifying the stories at that time, the jury was sent to deliberate. - Just a complicate to me. Sent me to prison. Gave me 85 years. 35 years for the rape. 35 years for the sobbing. 15 years for the temperament witness. 85 years. (soft music) - Joy is essential and it's also elusive. You can't order it, you can't borrow it or simply hope it into life, but now. There's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence. Joy 101. It's a new podcast hosted by me, Hota Kotby. Together, guys, we'll have meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people, entertainment legends, sports icons, wellness experts, and everyday people will share how they find, allow and experience joy. And I'll offer some of my own tips and takes on seeking a more balanced and harmonious life. If you're craving inspiration, support, and useful tools to maximize your joy, tune into these candid, uplifting, and moving on air chats. Joy after a breakup, joy is an empty nester, joy after a loss. Joy as a caretaker, this new podcast will speak to you. Listen to Joy 101 on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. - Here's something that should not be as complicated as it is, getting a racist statue removed. And here's something that should be a whole lot easier than it is, getting a new one put up in its place. - As long as the politics of race in America, there's gonna be a politics of remembering the Civil War. To get to school, I had to go down to the Robert E. Lee Boulevard. Get to the grocery store, I had to go down Jefferson Davis Parkway. - If you're in a store in and you leave out half of what the history is, you're not doing your job. - I'm Achila Hughes. In Rebel Spirit season two goes deep on both of those things. The fights, the politics, the people who won, and my personal campaign to add something to the Kentucky State House that's actually worth the wall space. - We are more than our bodies. We contain essence, we contain spirit. How do you represent that? - They are just fueling a fire that is really catching. - You'll see what I mean. Listen to Rebel Spirit season two on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. - June is Black Music Month, and on the Drink Champs Podcast, we're speaking with the hottest names in the culture, like Sway Lee. - Do you realize how legendary you are? - I appreciate it. I've been seen it, but I'm like, I've been asked to got like so much more to do. Like Prince, he's got like 30 albums. We just like fire, ain't nothing. - Yep, that's a good attitude. You also hear stories from industry legends and hip-hop pioneers, like Fab Five Freddie. - I directed when the Nasda's the early video. - Which one? - One love. - Wow. - I literally filmed in his apartment in Queens Bridge. His mom's was still up in that apartment. Nasda was just beginning to take off. His pops used to live near me in Harlem. His dad introduced him to a whole lot of, you know, all kind of stuff and he made a young prodigy. - No matter the era, DrinkChance brings you the biggest names and the most unfiltered conversations. Listen to DrinkChance from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. (dramatic music) - I've been fighting this case ever since I've been a priest. I've been in the library ever since I've been a priest. I've been going, everything it is that I could do. in fighting this situation. After he exhausted his direct appeals, he filed a post-conviction motion in 2001 for DNA testing of all the relevant evidence. Most importantly, the vaginal swab and the underwear. The victim gave a deposition at September of 1988. Ed she did not know her rapist's circulation on the vagina. So I explained to the court that it was possible that this sperm that we found could belong to the victim's rapist. Therefore I should be entitled to have a DNA testing done. Jim McCloskey from our group got a bob way back in 0304. McCloskey had presented a top DNA scientist at that time, Robert Burke. He was able to convince the court that I should be entitled to DNA testing. And we came up on the "Religing Technologies Inc." Religing conducted Y-S-T-R testing, which analyzes Y-chromosonal DNA to identify paternal lineages. So this testing could include the source of biological material as well as any close male relatives. And they tested the vaginal swab as well as the underwear. So when the DNA come back, not to match me. The state began to say, "Well, the evidence belonged to the victim's born friend." As it was stated in the trial, this could be from either the rapist or it could be from the victim's born friend. We'll never know because he never tested whether or not they came from him. Now remember during trial, even at this time in post-conviction litigation, the legible medical record showing the alleged victims claim of celibacy for the two weeks prior to the incident had not yet been discovered by Frederico's legal team. So even though the prosecution had submitted the legible medical records with that information into evidence, the trial testimony of the medical expert and the alleged victim reflects that the vaginal sperm was either pre-ajaculated from the assailant or from an earlier sexual encounter with her boyfriend. Our boyfriend was in the courtroom right next door to us on drug charges. And as a direct result, the sheriff was able to go over and get him and bring him to the courtroom where we were at. And he agreed to give it DNA sample and he came back not to match him. And we did order the prosecutor to go produce the victim, come in and testify why that DNA doesn't match a boy. And so when the victim gets on the stand by Frederico's, he's not present while she's testifying because she doesn't want to face him. And they have him out of the courtroom. And she says, "Oh, we really freak me out with the freckles on his face." Right? Clearly not remembering her denial. And the lawyer doesn't pick up on it. Wait a minute. You never said the guy had freckles. It just goes by the wayside. It seems to me it's incumbent upon the judge when someone give you such a distinctive adentifier is to say, wait a minute, you don't have freckles. But the discrepancy in the description again slipped through their fingers. And now when asked to explain how both her boyfriend and Frederico were excluded from the vaginal sperm, she once again contradicted her statement from the yet to be discovered legible medical records. She suddenly testifies that she had sex with four different people within a day or two of this assault. And the boyfriend who she's living with, he's excluded. And obviously Frederico's excluded. And then there was this other guy who had passed away. So she said that she had sex with a guy named Fred Knox the week before that. So the FBI who were able to provide us with a violence is blood and a testety. When it didn't match Fred Knox, she says she had sexual two other guys that she don't remember. So we don't know whether the semen is from these two unknowns that she has consensual sex with. So when the DNA test results excluded both sources of the vaginal sperm, the narrative completely changed. And three new possible sources were added, two of whom could never be confirmed nor denied. And since this information wasn't part of the trial record, what else isn't real? What we do know is that the profile found on the vaginal swab was also present on the seminal stain in the underwear. And then the issue becomes with this judge is that what she said she never put her underwear back on. So therefore the semen in the underwear cannot have been from the assailant. If we're basing our logic off of her word, again, we need to ask what else isn't real? After all, at this point in post-conviction, the court and Federico's team were still operating under the misapprehension that she hadn't claimed to be celibate for two weeks prior to this incident. Jim McCloskey retained Rick Sandell, local council. They did a habeas in 14. And that's when they found the legible copy of the medical records and kind of brought a habeas action in Missouri. State court. And then the habeas action was basically that the DNA hearing really wasn't fair because they suppressed this medical record. They are given a shot down by the fact that the actual medical record went into heaven at the trial. So sharing this illegible medical record, the prosecution appears to have just made an honest mistake, right? Yeah. Okay. And I got a bridge to sell you as well. Maybe it was deceit. Anyway, ultimately, the state ignored this statement about two weeks of celibacy while also submitting the legible medical records into evidence, all while bearing no responsibility. The honest falls solely on both trial and appellate council. It could have been not. Yeah. The words are due diligence. If you exercise due diligence, you would have known this idiot. So by ignoring the initial statement and not being discovered, the prosecution and the alleged victim could create an narrative based on what appears to be a false premise that the alleged victim had not been celibate for two weeks. Thereby leaving the narrative open to first the boyfriend as a contributor trial, then during post conviction, Fred Knox. And finally, these two unknown contributors on which the 2007-2008 denial was based upon. The victim should have been released from prison once it didn't match Fred Knox. But the judge says she believed the victim saying that she had sex with two other guys prior to the rape. And none of this evidence was ever disclosed to me. And as a direct result, I've been sitting in prison all of this time because the judge says she believed what the victim said is absolute truth. But she did not know the victim told the doctor who examined her that she had not had sex for two weeks prior to the rape. And every court returned to to give us the opportunity to show that I'm being held illegally. They just record this evidence like it's nothing. Again, zero culpability is placed on the prosecutor while the court places the onus on Fred Rico and whoever was representing him at any stage to have found the legible copy of the medical record, rather than have just naively accepted what the prosecution shared. And the prosecutor told my lawyer at the time all of the documents look just like all the time they had states in Zibbid 20B was a clerk at the five copies of the medical report and the medical report say that she had sex for two weeks. But the prosecutor had a duty in obligation according to the nature versus Illinois. Not the foster boss evidence before the court and I try to bring it to the court of appeals because they have what you call a manifest injustice exception to open up the case that allow you to go back in and overcome the procedure. In Missouri, the post conviction rules are so restrictive about when you have to file how you have to file is very hostile to people trying to prove that the innocent the rules are all geared against you really because I'm procedurally bored nobody want to hear what I got to say. And it appears that the skull duggery goes even deeper when they first gave us the eligible documents where I had a prosecutor down there who told us if we didn't like how the documents look we should contact a supervisor his name was George Pete when my attorney on the end of the city it would make time for him to discuss none of the reports with him. I said I buy them on my own I sent them a letter on July of seven 1988 and he never wrote back but this is the crazy part about George Pete George Pete stole money out of the same little circuit attorney speddy cash for the bad sex from undercover. It was called in the state down in the city of St. Louis. He was fired from that. So it seems that both his trial attorney and Fredericko both made inquiries about this eligible document and were met with the elected circuit attorney George Peach who eventually resigned in 1992 behind this alleged financial and sexual impropriety and it appears that this peach had tried to pawn off his impropriety on a man who he had already wrongfully convicted of rape. A guy who none other than Barry check himself had helped to exonerate a man named Larry Johnson. George Peach used Larry Johnson's name as an individual who was behind the sex from undercover car when he got caught up in the state knowing that Larry Johnson was imprisoned serving life sentence and he used that man name in vain and Larry Johnson was later exonerated by Barry Sheck and Barry Sheck had the talk real bad about the prosecutor then who took over George Peach's position. Which was Jennifer Joyce because she fought him only saying that I'm being fought for right now with this guy named Gaye Gordown and St. Louis circuit attorney. We had a meeting with the circuit attorney for they were unreceptive to re-investigation of police officers and what happened in the city. Okay, I understand there's a new person that's now at the Circuit of Attorney's Office that's handling claims of innocence and reviewing them. So, I mean, that's one avenue. Recently, I found a motion in a United States District Court Eastern District of Missouri because they have a DNA database now for YSDR DNA testing. I found a motion for just down to allow me to put the evidence in YSDR DNA database to find the individuals that we're looking for. Also, I want to bring to your attention, they chose me as a pro-assistant and a class-exefender. Class-exefender requires me to serve 80% of the time in prison, right? But guess what? In order to be a class-exefender, I have to be chosen. Class A or Class B facilities. I've been chosen with unclassified facilities that doesn't qualify as a class B or a class A-cell. And as a direct result, they've been having me serve 80% of the sentence, which normally I would be required to serve 30% and be released on parole. 30% of 85 years is 25 and a half. And since Fredrico has already served 37 long miserable fucking years, he'd be parole eligible now. Maybe, just maybe, Missouri would be willing to consider that road. But in the meantime, we hope that someone who's listening may have useful information about this case. And if you do, please come forward. They can reach out to Paul with any information that they may think that would help out situation. We'll link Paul's contact info at Centurion Ministries in the episode description. So now we're going to go to closing arguments and Fredrico and Paul, what can I say, except for thank you from all of us here at RONFL Conviction for joining us. And sharing this harrowing story. And now I'm just going to kick back in my chair and close my eyes and listen to anything else you guys feel is left to be said. The injustice of the case and how weak a case it is and the lack of credibility of basically all the characters that put him away for his light is just incredible. Everybody is kind of just looks the other way. Sometimes facts to become known and put together take a lot of time. And the idea that time becomes the bar to the consideration of a full record. That I find just so, so scary throughout history. We've always learned that sometimes time is the truth. And in Missouri, because of all these rules that they have, they say it's just the opposite. And I just find it so frightening that you don't care. You simply don't care if you have somebody that's innocent. And if the person has some questionable background, do you even care less about whether you keep this immense injustice on them? I'm focused, man. I'm focused on getting out. I'm not mindful that I got guys like the UZ, and whoever else they might get to push me to the limits where I need to go. Thank you for listening to "Romple Conviction." You can listen to this in all the Lava For Good podcasts one week early and add free by subscribing to Lava For Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow executive producers, Jeff Campler, Kevin Wartus, and Jeff Clyburn. The music in this production was supplied by three-time Oscar-nominated composer, J. Rouse. Be sure to follow us across all social media platforms at Lava For Good and @RompleConviction. You can also follow me on Instagram @itstjsonflom. Romple Conviction is a production of Lava For Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company #1. We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in this show are accurate. 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