Transcript
Letters from Sing Sing
Episode 2: 74 Minutes
JJ Velazquez claimed he had an alibi: a 74-minute phone call on a landline with his mother, Maria Velazquez, that overlapped with the time of the crime. So Dan visits Maria. She lives in a town in New York on the Hudson River directly across from Sing Sing, the maximum security prison where her son is incarcerated. Maria talks to Dan about JJ’s childhood. And she recounts in detail her memory of January 27th, 1998, the day of Al Ward’s murder.
Meanwhile, Dan is still familiarizing himself with JJ’s case file. There are thousands of pages of documents that sit in a box by his desk. He starts to work his way through the trial transcript. Immediately, it’s clear to him that the trial was strange. As Dan unpacks what happened in the courtroom, he’s left with more questions than answers. Prosecutors say five people identified JJ as the man who killed Al Ward. Dan decides to find them.
[NBC CHIMES]
[PAPERS RUSTLING]
MARIA VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: Here are some family pictures. School papers that I’ve kept. He always got very good grades. This is excellent. He loved dinosaurs. He did a dinosaur project. And you could see that he was such a happy person, always with the smiles and the laughter and friends. He had a lot of friends.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: I’m with Maria Velazquez, JJ’s mother. She’s showing me his childhood drawings, old report cards, photos of JJ when he was a kid.
MARIA VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: [LAUGHS] I used to feel like a taxi driver, running them to the movies, running them to shows, running them all over the place. ’Cause he always— “Oh, Mom— Mom will take you. Mom will take you.” And I’d wind up, like, with five or six boys in my car, driving them to the movies, taking them bowling, doing all kinds of things, you know?
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: Maria lives in Haverstraw, a town in New York on the Hudson River. Directly across the water is Sing Sing, the maximum security prison where her son is locked up. Maria pulls out another set of photos. These look more recent. In them, JJ’s older.
MARIA VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: When we go to the FRPs, the family reunion project, we always take pictures.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: The program that Maria’s describing lets incarcerated people with good behavior visit with their families for a couple of nights in a trailer on prison grounds.
MARIA VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: We've celebrated birthdays — my birthday, his birthday — Mother's Day, Father's Day, all on FRPs.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: She tells me that she always tries to spend the major holidays, like Thanksgiving and Christmas, at the prison with her son.
MARIA VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: There's no gifts, there's no tree, you know? What we’re used to. But I've gone outdoors and picked a little bush, and come inside and put little things on it, and made a tree out of it. And we’ve always managed to just keep the family going no matter what.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: But my reason for coming to see Maria went beyond just hearing stories about JJ’s past. He insisted he had proof he didn’t murder Al Ward, the retired police officer. He told me that he had an alibi.
MARIA VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: I have always felt so grateful to have known where my son was when they said that he was someplace else. I’ve shed many tears, but not because my son is a murderer. My son is not a murderer. He is not. And I know. Because I know where he was.
He was on the phone with me.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: I’m Dan Slepian, and this is Letters from Sing Sing.
Episode Two: 74 Minutes
JJ Velazquez was an only child raised by two working parents in the Bronx. His mother, Maria, was a labor union organizer, and his dad was a police officer for Amtrak. They separated when JJ was 11. And his father had another son.
Maria says JJ was a good kid. He played soccer and baseball, was an altar boy at their church, and he was on the right track at school.
MARIA VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: He was very active in school. The high school that was closest to us had a law program. And so I took him over to the school to get him interviewed for the program. And it just so happens that I had to go outside and put money in the meter. And by the time I got back, the law professor had already interviewed him and said, “He’s in!”
He liked the way he expressed himself. And he was just, I guess, charismatic. People are drawn to him when he speaks. He's always been like that.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: When JJ was about 16, things began to change. He began to change.
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: I got to high school and I started spreading my wings a little bit, got exposed a little bit more to life, a little more freedom, became a little hard-headed. Wanted to be seen as a cool individual. I was into sports. So I had to hold up some type of image.
MARIA VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: He kind of, like, just started letting loose and just started, you know, hanging out with the boys and just not paying attention to school. And the only class that he did well in was his law class. And the professor said, you know, “He does really well in this class, but I'm not gonna pass him if he doesn't do well in his other classes.”
When he was about 16, I sent him to live with his father. His father lived in Manhattan and I figured maybe, you know, living with his father would help him, you know, through these issues. And instead I think what happened was: it got worse.
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: My parents offered me something better, but I was rebellious and I wanted my own way. You know, I wanted to be able to tell myself what to do. I thought I was grown.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: JJ dropped out of high school and started selling drugs.
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: I sold weed. I sold coke. I was in the street. I was by myself. I ran away from home. Not because of anything that my parents did. Just me trying to find my way.
Where I come from, the working class people are struggling, barely paying their bills. I don't live around doctors or lawyers. They're not from my neighborhood. The drug dealers are hanging out on the street, having fun, partying with girls, driving nice cars, have nice clothes. So, growing up, it's almost like you see that success is the image of these drug dealers. And I wasn't very successful in it, you know, but that was my life.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: During those years, JJ had a few run-ins with the police. He’d been arrested for drug possession, but had never been convicted. Even so, his mugshot remained in the police database.
When he was 17, JJ met Vanessa Cepero, who lived in his neighborhood. They started dating, and two years later, Vanessa got pregnant. They named their baby boy Jon.
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: My son was born in Union Hospital in the Bronx, and it gave me new meaning. It gave me a sense of purpose. I knew now that I had to live for him. But still, where was I? How was I gonna pull it off?
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: So JJ enrolled in classes at a technical career institute, but at night, to make money, he continued to sell drugs on a street corner. A few years after their first son, Jon, was born, JJ and Vanessa had another baby, Jacob.
[HOME VIDEO TAPE]
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: On the morning of January 27th, 1998, the day of Al Ward’s murder, JJ says he was at home in the Bronx with Vanessa and his two boys. Jacob had been born just five weeks earlier.
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: I woke up early. entertained my older son who was up, jovial, running around, you know, looking for attention.
[HOME VIDEO TAPE]
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: So I give him the attention that he wants. You know, I make breakfast.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: Later that morning, JJ says he got on the phone with his mom Maria. They had something to discuss about the next day: January 28th.
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: January 28th is my father's birthday. And he died April 1997. So this would be the first time that my father's birthday would come around and we wouldn't spend it with him.
MARIA VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: It was something that was hard, you know, for my son. He was an only child. He was always very close to his father.
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: He was more than my father. He was my best friend. You know? Like, he was the spark. He's the one who got everybody together, knew what was going on with everybody. I wanted to continue being that staple in the family that my father was. I wanted to take his place. I wanted our family to be together, you know?
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: So, during that call, JJ says he told his mom he wanted to gather his family at his father’s gravesite the next day. And he wanted the two most important women in his life to be there: Maria and Vanessa. The problem was, the two of them had been fighting. They weren’t speaking to each other.
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: So, I was torn between them, and I was trying to let them know that: At this time, I need your support. You both have to come. Now, Vanessa was like: You know, I don't want to be around her, but— I'll go, but I'm not talking to her, you know? But my mother's— You know, that's my moms. You can't tell her anything. “Don't tell me what to do, man.” So we had a long conversation, because I kept, you know, trying to instill in her how important it was.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: JJ remembers the conversation getting heated.
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: It was a tug of war. It was me against her, you know.
MARIA VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: We spoke a long time on the phone. A long time.
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: We went back and forth for a while, but she finally agreed.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: The next day, JJ says they all headed to a cemetery in the Bronx. But when they got there, the gates were locked.
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: And I remember being there, and the clouds, and it was starting to rain, and I wanted to climb over the fence just to go see my father, you know? And my mother was like, “It's not worth it. You can get caught for trespassing.” Whatever. “We'll come back.” The sad part about it is I've never had that chance to go back.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: Three days later, JJ would get a call and learn the police were looking for him. Maria would scramble to find a lawyer. They’d spend the weekend holed up in a hotel. And then, she’d drive her son to the 28th precinct in Harlem.
MARIA VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: I can't forget how I felt. It was like I had betrayed my son by turning him into the police. I let out this scream. It was such a— a loud scream. And I stood there for a few minutes. And then I just left, and started to head home.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: As Maria was driving home, she says she started thinking about the day of the crime — trying to remember what she had been doing, what JJ had been doing. And then she remembered that long, heated phone call with him.
MARIA VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: I got home, and immediately I started, you know, calling the phone company. I requested my phone bills. I called Vanessa. I told her, “You have to call the phone company. We need to put all this information together, and we need to get it to the lawyer as soon as possible, because this is what's gonna prove where he was.”
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: All this time, Maria still didn’t know what was happening with her son. He’d been at the precinct for hours. And she still hadn’t heard from JJ or his lawyer.
MARIA VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: That day was, like, the longest day. Not knowing, not hearing anything. And when I finally heard, it was that they had kept my son. And I couldn't believe it. I was told that he would probably be in Rikers.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: Rikers is New York City’s massive jail complex, where people who’ve been arrested wait for their day in court. It’s considered one of the most horrific and dangerous jails in the country.
MARIA VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: I was so worried, and heard so many stories about Rikers, and how terrible a place it is, and all the things that happen in there. So I was very concerned that they would hurt him. Especially that he was being accused [SNIFFLES] of murdering a retired police officer.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: She kept pushing the phone company for records. And eventually, she got them.
MARIA VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: We got the phone records, and we saw that we had been on the phone that whole time.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: Here’s what the records show: A 74-minute phone call made on a landline — this was before everyone had a cell phone. The call was from JJ and Vanesssa’s apartment in the Bronx to Maria’s home in Haverstraw, overlapping with the time the robbery was unfolding in Harlem.
MARIA VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: Once we got that phone record, we said, “It’s all a matter of just going in there and proving where you were and you’re going to be a free man.”
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: Maria was certain that, with these phone records, no jury would convict JJ.
[AD BREAK]
[SOUND OF PAPERS RUSTLING]
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: I first received JJ’s trial transcript in 2002. It was over 2,000 pages. It filled three large binders. I read it when I could. But by 2008, I’d actually gone through it twice, marking up the margins, returning to certain sections over and over again. I wanted to be sure that I really understood what the jury had heard: The facts that ended up convicting JJ.
I’ve read a lot of transcripts over the years, and this trial was strange. It began on October 18, 1999 at a courthouse in lower Manhattan. By then, JJ had been at Rikers for almost two years. He was facing 13 charges, including first and second degree murder. A jury was selected, and then the prosecutor, Eugene Hurley, presented his opening statement.
HURLEY [VOICE ACTOR]: It's our theory that the defendant is the gunman. This defendant murdered Albert Ward, and after all this evidence is presented to you, I'll ask you to find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: That voice you’re hearing isn’t actually Eugene Hurley. We’ve asked actors to read portions of the trial transcripts, because no recording of the trial exists.
HURLEY [VOICE ACTOR]: You’ll hear that five people — Philip Jones, Robert Jones, Lorenzo Woodford, Augustus Brown, and Dorothy Canady — five of them, identified this defendant… [FADES DOWN]
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: The prosecution’s case rested solely on those eyewitnesses. The first one called to the stand was Augustus Brown. He was the drug dealer who first picked out JJ’s photo, making him a suspect. Prosecutors were worried Brown wasn’t going to show up at the trial, so they put him in jail on what’s called a material witness order.
As Brown took the stand, JJ says he realized something: He recognized him from that very morning, when JJ was in a holding cell behind the courtroom. It’s called a bullpen.
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: I'm in this bullpen right in front of the desk where there's officers, right here. There's another bullpen here. And there’s an individual staring at me. And, you know, being in prison, you start becoming conscious, you know? So I look at him, and he says, “It wasn't me.” And I'm like, “What are you talking about, man?”
As he starts talking and rambling off, the officers say, “Yo, they got a separation, get him out of there.” So they start taking him out the pen. I say, “Yo, what are you talking about?” He said, “Yo, they're making me do it. I'm in jail right now because I won't testify against you.” I said “What?” And they took him out.
I told my lawyers about what happened. They said, “Listen, don't bring that up.” I don't know any better. I'm listening to my lawyers. This guy gets on the stand and testifies against me. This is the main witness: Augustus Brown.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: The prosecutor began by asking Brown questions about the day of the crime.
HURLEY [VOICE ACTOR]: I would like to direct your attention back to the afternoon of January 27th,1998, between around noon and 2 PM. Do you recall where you were then?
BROWN [VOICE ACTOR]: On 127th and 8th Avenue.
HURLEY [VOICE ACTOR]: What were you doing?
BROWN [VOICE ACTOR]: I was selling drugs.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: Brown explained to the jury that he was in the back room of the illegal gambling spot, in the middle of a drug deal with a regular customer, Lorenzo Woodford.
BROWN [VOICE ACTOR]: We was talking. Then we heard, like, a noise, so I walked down to the other room, and then that's when this gentleman right here—
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: Brown pointed at JJ.
BROWN [VOICE ACTOR]: —had the gun in my face and was like,"You know what this is." And it was a bunch of people laying on the floor duct-taped up, and he told us to lay over there with them.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: Brown told the jury that Al Ward, the retired officer, pulled out his weapon and fired. Then he saw Ward fall after being shot by the gunman.
HURLEY [VOICE ACTOR]: Can you tell us where that person is in the room? What he's wearing right now?
BROWN [VOICE ACTOR]: He's right here, with the black suit on.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: Again, Brown pointed right at JJ. The prosecution called more eyewitnesses to the stand. Robert Jones had been working the door at the gambling spot that day and was questioned by detectives just hours after the shooting.
HURLEY [VOICE ACTOR]: Do you remember giving the police a description of the light-skinned male?
JONES [VOICE ACTOR]: Yes.
HURLEY [VOICE ACTOR]: Do you remember now what description it was that you gave him?
JONES [VOICE ACTOR]: Well, the first time I described it to him, I told him he was, like, light-skinned Puerto Rican, you know?
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: Wait a minute. I’d read the police reports. That wasn’t how Robert Jones initially described the shooter. He’d first described the gunman as a light-skinned Black man. There was no mention of the words “Puerto Rican.” It seemed to me like Jones was now adjusting his description to fit JJ.
During cross examination, JJ’s lawyer, Frank Gould, tried to point out this discrepancy. He asked Jones to read the original statement he gave to police.
GOULD [VOICE ACTOR]: Is it accurate?
JONES [VOICE ACTOR]: Yes.
GOULD [VOICE ACTOR]: Is it true?
JONES [VOICE ACTOR]: From what I read, yes.
GOULD [VOICE ACTOR]: Did you describe the person who you said did the shooting as: male, Black, light-skinned with light beard and moustache and braids; he was about five foot seven inches or eight inches tall, 150 to 155?
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: And then Jones said something I found highly suspicious.
JONES [VOICE ACTOR]: I don’t remember using the word “Black.”
GOULD [VOICE ACTOR]: I’m sorry, sir?
JONES [VOICE ACTOR]: I don’t remember using the word there, Black.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: JJ’s lawyer didn’t seem to buy it.
GOULD [VOICE ACTOR]: Are you suggesting they put the word “Black” in, but you didn’t say it?
JONES [VOICE ACTOR]: I could have said it at the time. I could have said it. I was a little shaken up at the time, so I could have said it.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: According to the police report, Jones did say it. He did initially describe the gunman as Black. But he changed that description the day after the murder. The report says Jones looked at a series of mugshots of Black men but then said he “felt that the perp was half Black and half Hispanic.” Ultimately, he said mugshots of “white Hispanics” were the most accurate in similarity to the shooter. And at trial, Jones insisted JJ was that shooter.
HURLEY [VOICE ACTOR]: Do you see the light-skinned man in court today?
JONES [VOICE ACTOR]: That’s him.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: Two more eyewitnesses — Phillip Jones and Lorenzo Woodford — took the stand. Both first described the shooter as a Black man. Now, both swore under oath that JJ was the gunman.
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: It felt like a slap in the face, a stab in the gut. People accusing me of something that I didn't do, people that I'm meeting for the first time. Everybody that was there basically said two Black males came up in there: one light-skinned with dreadlocks, one dark-skinned. I’m not a Black male. I'm not trying to make this a racist argument, or anything like that. But clearly, when you meet me, you would know that I'm Hispanic.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: The last eyewitness who police said identified JJ was an 84-year-woman named Dorothy Canady.
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: She was an elderly woman. Testified that she was a church-going woman, God-fearing woman.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: Dorothy Canady testified that she was at the numbers spot on the day of the shooting and saw the gunman. The prosecutor asked her about that.
HURLEY [VOICE ACTOR]: Do you see the person who had the gun in court today?
CANADY [VOICE ACTOR]: Excuse me?
HURLEY [VOICE ACTOR]: I’d like you to look around the courtroom and tell us whether you see the fellow who had the gun in court right now?
DOROTHY [VOICE ACTOR]: The one with the white shirt on.
HURLEY [VOICE ACTOR]: Over here in the jury box?
DOROTHY [VOICE ACTOR]: Yes.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: I actually read this part several times, because I found it so hard to believe. According to the transcript, when she was asked to identify the shooter, she did not point to JJ.
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: You know who she points out? Juror #6. The jury's there laughing. Majority of people in the courtroom are laughing, but this ain't a joke. This is my life on the line. It seemed like the only two people who were serious was me and the prosecutor — the prosecutor pissed off because she selected the wrong man, and me pissed off‘’cause everybody thinks it's a joke. Something was going on in that stand. Something was clearly wrong. You know, what was wrong? I wasn't the person who did this.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: After the prosecution rested, JJ’s lawyers presented their case. During his opening statement Frank Gould had argued that JJ didn’t match the initial descriptions that the eyewitnesses gave in the hours after the crime.
GOULD [VOICE ACTOR]: What’s the first thing you ask a witness? “What did he look like?” Every witness in this case said the man who did the shooting was a male, Black, light-skinned. Every witness said that. Some said the man had braids.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: He pointed out that JJ isn’t Black. That he didn’t match the sketch. And that he didn’t have braids.
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: I had what they would refer to in the street as a Caesar. Low cut, you know? Used with the trimmers, they cut it down. Can't even put scissors on it.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: His lawyers even showed the jury a picture of JJ that was taken one month before the murder. In the photo, he’s holding his newborn son, Jacob, in the hospital. And JJ has short, close-cropped hair.
But to JJ, the most important evidence was his alibi, that 74-minute phone call. His girlfriend Vanessa testified about that day. And as a reminder, these are actors reading the transcript.
GOULD [VOICE ACTOR]: Now, on January 27th of 1998 — let’s stay with the morning and the afternoon, the early afternoon — do you know where JJ was?
VANESSA [VOICE ACTOR]: Yes.
GOULD [VOICE ACTOR]: Where was he?
VANESSA [VOICE ACTOR]: He was home with me and the two kids.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: And she testified that she remembered JJ having a conversation with his mother. Then it was Maria’s turn. JJ says watching his mom on the stand tore him up.
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: The judge, he kept saying, “Speak up, speak up, speak into the mic.” It was like he was taunting her. And, you know, she started to cry. And as she started to cry, I started to cry, because, you know, I couldn't fathom the fact that my mother was being put in such a precarious situation. The prosecutor was trying to assassinate her character. My moms is a straight up woman, you know? She stands by the truth. That’s who she is.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: Maria testified that she and JJ were on the phone for those 74 minutes. But the prosecutor suggested that someone else could have been on the line with her, like JJ’s girlfriend Vanessa. He implied Maria was covering for her only son.
MARIA VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: When the DA said that I'm just a mother who would do anything — anything — to save my son, to keep him out of jail, that felt like a rock that hit my chest and blew the wind out of me. Because I told the truth. I told the truth.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: JJ says he did, too. He even took the stand in his own defense. Many defendants don’t do that to avoid cross-examination. But JJ says he wanted a chance to make his own case. That the facts were on his side.
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: I mean, facts are facts. You know, your interpretation or somebody else's interpretation of facts can be altered, but the facts cannot change. The fact is that I was on the phone with my mother for a long time. We have phone reports.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: The prosecutor didn’t deny that the call happened. He just suggested in his closing arguments that they all were lying about who was actually on the phone.
HURLEY [VOICE ACTOR]: The claim here is that a 22-year-old man had a 74-minute conversation with his mother. Now, this is not his girlfriend or his boyfriend. This is his mother. A 74-minute conversation from a 22-year-old man. I think that you'll admit, if you think about that, that that is a highly unlikely event. It just doesn't ring true, if you'll pardon the expression.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: Still, JJ says he felt confident the jury wouldn’t buy the prosecutor’s argument. He even told me some of the court officers working the trial thought he’d walk out of there.
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: I mean, every court officer that escorted me back and forth— Saying, “Man, you’re free.” The court officer that was in the courtroom, listening to the testimony, he's telling me: “You're free!”
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]:The jury got the case on a Wednesday morning and was sequestered, meaning they couldn’t go home until they came up with a verdict. They deliberated for three full days. It wasn’t until Friday afternoon that they announced they’d reached a verdict. On the top count of first degree murder? Not guilty.
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: And I felt great, and I knew I was walking out.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: Then came the next count… second degree murder…
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: And then I remember a sharp pain, a real sharp pain in my heart. Because I found out that I may never see the streets again. I was found guilty.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: He was found guilty of second degree murder and multiple counts of robbery. Maria says she was stunned.
MARIA VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: The first thing I said to myself, “They didn't believe me, because, had they believed me, they wouldn't have found them guilty.”
I totally believed in the justice system. Totally. I was one of those people that believes that, if you're in prison, it's because you belong there, because you did something wrong. Boy, was I wrong.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: A trial usually presents two narratives, and it’s up to the jury to decide which one is the right one. I did think the phone call was pretty solid evidence. And yet, the prosecution had a point—there was no way to prove that it had been JJ on the other side of that call.
Still, based on the evidence I’d read in JJ’s case file, I had a lot of unanswered questions. There were parts of the story the jury never even heard. Like: What about JJ’s alleged accomplice, Derry Daniels, the guy with the duct tape? He never testified against JJ even though he pleaded guilty and said he did the crime with him. Why wasn’t he a part of JJ’s trial?
And why would the eyewitnesses say the shooter was Black in police reports and then say something else when they testified?
And then there was that strange thing JJ told me about his exchange with Augustus Brown. He’d said, “They’re making me do it.” I didn’t know what to make of that conversation. I wasn’t even sure it happened. But if it had, what did it mean? What if JJ was telling the truth?
On the day of his sentencing, JJ read a statement to the court. We asked him to read part of it.
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: I'm in jail for a crime I did not commit. As God's witness, I had absolutely nothing to do with this crime. Nothing at all. I've never met these people. I've never been in such a spot. I've never even heard of it. In my eyes, the justice system played some type of game. And I really don't take this as a game. This is my life.
And for those that do look at it as some type of game — winners and losers — there will be no winners here. We are all losers. We have not found your killer yet. Instead, an innocent man will go on to serve a life sentence while the murderer remains at large. Is that justice? I don't think so.
Thank you for listening to what I have to say. I sincerely hope one day you find your man.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: JJ was sentenced to 25 years to life.
ACT 3
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: It’s 2009. Ten years have passed since JJ’s trial. And almost seven since he wrote me his first letter. Now I have a stack of them. So many are about the pain of being separated from his two boys. He’s especially concerned about his older son, Jon.
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: June 26, 2009. I haven’t told anyone this, Dan, but I’ve been waking up in the middle of the night worried about my son. I have not spoken to him since December. I know my son is trouble-bound. He is a good child with a pretty solid foundation of principles and morals, yet he is vulnerable in an environment that makes statistics out of our youth. How can a father accept that there is nothing that he can do? Is it all right for a father to trick himself into thinking that everything will be all right?
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: One month after receiving that letter, I decided to visit JJ’s son Jon in the South Bronx, where he lived with his younger brother Jacob and his mom, Vanessa. She and JJ were no longer together.
[OUTDOOR SOUNDS]
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: I first met Jon when he was 8 years old, in that prison lobby on Thanksgiving morning. Now, he’s almost 15, and it seems like what JJ was worrying about is starting to happen.
JON VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: Yeah, I don't really trust cops. Like, some cops, like, I know they’re not all the same, but most of them, like, they do… [FADES DOWN]
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: We’re sitting outside his apartment building. He tells me that he and some friends recently had a run-in with undercover police officers.
JON VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: We just all sitting on a bench and stuff, and a car pulls up, and, like, it makes like the brake noise or whatever. And I hear doors open, and then the doors slam. I get up and I start running. But I didn't know they was cops, ’cause they’re wearing all black. And then he takes me and he slams me. Like, I can't— I can't blame him for that, because I was running. He slams me. I'm like: “What do you want? What do you want? You can have anything in my pocket.” He was like, “Nah, I'm a cop. What do you mean?” And then he pulls out his badge. I was like: “Oh, mister, I didn't know. I'm sorry.”
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: He says the cop searched him, but didn’t find anything.
JON VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: And now, like, I look at everybody carefully. Like, if they have that silver thing around their neck, I know that they're a cop or something, ’cause they have a badge. So I look at everybody carefully now.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: Jon knows how his dad would react to all of this.
JON VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]:My dad's the type of person that: He gon’ hear everything first,and then he gon’ go down on me what I did wrong. And then he'll help me, and tell me what to do about it.
But I have no problem with telling my dad anything, ’cause me and my dad's relationship— Like, he's, like, my best friend. I could tell him anything. My dad always says the same thing. He tells me, like, to stay in school. Like, to keep off the streets. Don't do stupid stuff. Don't do anything that puts yourself in a position for cops to come. Because if cops got him locked up for a long time for not doing anything? Like, me just doing one thing could put me in the same position he's in.
Because, like, my dad's innocent, and he's in a place he's not supposed to be. He told me that it wasn't him, and I believe him. And now that this stuff happens, I even believe him more. ’Cause I know that the system's real messed up. And just ’cause he's there, I could be there too for doing something I never did.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: But Jon hasn’t talked to his father about the incident with the police, because he hasn’t gone to see him in six months.
JON VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: Right now, I really don't want to go up there. It has nothing to do with my father. I love my father. I do want to see my father. I have nothing against him. Not at all. It's just jails and stuff like that.
[POLICE SIRENS FADE DOWN]
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: I get it — I understand how Jon feels. I’d been going to see JJ for a while now at Sing Sing. It’s not a place where someone would want to visit. Just the process of getting in is frustrating. And once you’re inside, you can feel the tension. By now I’d been given unusual access.
[PRISON INTERIOR SOUNDS]
DAN SLEPIAN [TAPE]: He lives in A Block here?
GUARD [TAPE]: Yeah.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: I’m allowed to bring my camera to JJ’s cell. He lives in A Block, a housing unit with hundreds of other men. The block is the length of two football fields, rows of cells stacked on top of each other line the walls.
[PRISON INTERIOR SOUNDS]
GUARD [TAPE]: Tell him we’re coming up top. Yep.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: JJ’s on the upper tier. I’m led up two flights of stairs to a narrow catwalk that runs the length of the block. I walk by dozens of cells. I see men sleeping, reading, listening to music with headphones on. An officer leads me to JJ’s cell. He’s locked inside, so I reach through the bars to shake his hand.
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: How you doing, Dan? You all right?
DAN SLEPIAN [TAPE]: Great to see you, man.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: His cell is about seven by nine feet. Even from the outside, I can see the whole space.
DAN SLEPIAN [TAPE]: So just— Yeah, just take me a little tour of this.
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: All right. Here's my little radio. Keep me in tune with the world. A lot of books that I like to read from time to time in here. You don't have much to do, but read. So I read a lot.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: There are books and papers in neat stacks everywhere: on top of a makeshift desk, under it, by his bed. I can see a book propped up. It’s titled: “Forensics: True Crime Scene Investigations.”JJ moves a few steps to the back of his cell.
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: Back there, I keep my food. For the most part, I try to, you know, make do with what my mother sends me in a package and commissary. Everything has to be hermetically sealed — commercially sealed — or in a can. You can't really cook in here.
[SOUND OF WATER POURING]
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: What you can do is: You can utilize this to heat up your food.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: He holds up a small electric kettle.
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: This is basically your only tool. You have to be very creative to learn how to eat in here.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: JJ then points to his bed. He’s covered it in maroon sheets and a blanket that his mom sent him. The mattress is barely an inch thick.
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: A lot of people get back problems in prison, because everything you do, you gotta do like this. You don't have no back support.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: He’s lying flat on his bed.
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: You know, you move around so much in here, and you try to find ways to get comfortable, but there's no way of being comfortable in here. It's not situated to be comfortable.
Another thing that ends up happening — which is a bad habit and I try to break it — is: A lot of times, often, when a person comes into their cell, being that there's nothing to do but lay down, you tend to fall asleep. So, it's like you sleep your life away.
You know, there's times where I feel like, um, guess you could say, like a turtle. I go— I go and hide up in that little shell. And I've experienced those times during the time that I've known you, where I won't write for a long time. I won't write my mother. I won't write anybody. I won't write my children.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: But he keeps their photos close.
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: There’s photo albums right here. I have plenty of photo albums. My kids. That's their mother. That's my mother. It's when they were younger.
[SOUNDS OF PAGES TURNING]
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: Picture of my family. My father, my uncles, my two sons.
DAN SLEPIAN [TAPE]: You spend a lot of time sitting in here thinking about your kids and the time that you’re not with them?
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: I spend a lot of time about that. I spent a lot of time in fear. If I may, for a second, I'll show you something.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: JJ reaches under his bed and pulls out a newspaper.
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: This is the New York Post. We don't always have access to the newspaper, but if you see this article right here?
[SOUNDS OF NEWSPAPER PAGES CRINKLING]
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: It says “South Bronx boxing star shot dead.”
DAN SLEPIAN [TAPE]: Yeah.
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: This is a young kid, 20 years old. He's from the Bronx. I know his father. His father's incarcerated. My kids are from the Bronx. I'm afraid of the same thing: To be in here while my sons get killed, or get arrested, or get into some problems in the street, and I can't be there for them. That's the worst part of being in prison, you know?
DAN SLEPIAN [TAPE]: What about depression? Do you get depressed?
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: I get depressed often, you know? But I have 11 years in. And what I've learned? The best way to stay away from depression is to keep active, stay busy.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: He shows me a massive stack of manila folders.
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: This area right here that I have covered is a bunch of files, mainly legal work. That's where I have all my legal work at. I have some more legal work right here under my bed that I keep in a bag.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: He pulls out some papers and starts leafing through them: Trial transcripts, arrest records, court motions — all stashed under his bed. A decade after his conviction, it’s clear JJ hasn’t stopped fighting the verdict that sent him here.
DAN SLEPIAN [TAPE]: You know, 12 jurors said you're here for a reason.
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: That's right. That's what they gathered. But they didn't know the whole story. And neither did I at that time.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: JJ says he knows the jury didn’t get the whole picture, because of something he discovered in his case file.
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: Had it not been me waking up and saying, “Yo, you can't stay in here forever. You gotta start getting your paperwork. You gotta ask your lawyers for your paperwork. You gotta start writing the courts and getting your paperwork.” Had it not been for that? I would've never known about Mustafa to this day.
DAN SLEPIAN [NARRATION]: It turns out, back in 1998, just days after the crime, the NYPD had a main suspect for the murder of Al Ward. And it wasn’t JJ. It was a man named Mustafa.
Next time…
JON-ADRIAN VELAZQUEZ [TAPE]: They had a primary target. They knew who they were looking for. How did I wind up here?
DAVID BARRETT [TAPE]: The moment they had that one identification — one guy, after all this stuff — they stopped.
LORENZO WOODFORD [TAPE]: If somebody stick a gun in your face and take money from you, you don't think you'd remember what that person looked like?
DAN: What I'm trying to do is trying to find the truth. That’s all I’m trying to do.
Letters from Sing Sing was written and produced by Preeti Varathan, Rob Allen, and me. Our Associate Producer is Rachel Yang. Our Story Editor is Jennifer Goren. Our voice actors are Michael Bach, Leah Finnie, Aaron Goodson, Isaiah Seward, Desiree Rodriguez, and Dan Wachs. Original score by Christopher Scullion, Robert Reale, and 4 Elements Music. Sound Design by Cedric Wilson. Fact-checking by Joseph Frischmuth. Bryson Barnes is our Technical Director. Preeti Varathan is our Supervising Producer. Soraya Gage, Reid Cherlin, and Alexa Danner are our Executive Producers. Liz Cole runs NBC News Studios.
New episodes every Monday. See you then.
