Camouflage Bias: Part 3

Pushkin.

Hey, it's Jake. We've been hard at work on season four of deep Cover. I can't say much about it yet, but I will tell you this, it's a story you won't want to miss. We'll be releasing it this spring. But today we're back with an update on a story from season two.

Back in twenty twenty two, we released a series called Camouflage Bias, where we shared the story of Ronnie Kerascillo, a man who is loosely connected to a case that we covered in deep Cover season two, Mobland. Today we're releasing this special bonus episode with an update on Ronnie's case because there's some big news. If you haven't heard the original episodes, you can go back and listen now. We just re released them in our feed, so they're

I've seen everybody running round, so I so Galgias fired a gun and isn't a breakof and they're gonna run. So I just fired four shots and I left. I walked. I didn't run, I didn't know I shot anybody. I went, walked up back in the house. I walked out the back door, and I left.

In nineteen seventy eight, the judge in Ronnie's case ultimately found him guilty of murder. I spoke with Michael Deutsch, one of Ronnie's attorneys.

The judge gave you two hundred to six hundred years.

Wait, did you say six hundred years?

Two hundred to six hundred years he gave him.

Michael thought that the timing of Ronnie's sentence was suspicious. Here's why. He noted that just a few months prior, the judge, Frank Wilson, had allegedly taken a bribe and let a hitman walk free, a notorious hit man named Harry Alamann. Point being, Michael believed the judge wanted to make an example out of Ronnie to restore his own reputation as a tough judge.

Wilson took ten thousand dollars to quit Harry Aloman, and now he needed what's called compensatory bias.

Compensatory bias. That's this idea that a judge takes a bribe in one case and then, to avoid suspicion, punishes the hell out of another defendant in a separate case. It's also called camouflage bias. After the verdict came down, Ronnie began serving out his two hundred to six hundred year long sentence.

Wake up and realize, man, I'm in trouble.

Ronnie filed some early appeals that went well nowhere.

That's my father. Don't buy no more appeals, don't find no more lawyers. I go to the par boarder than the season, and I shot this type of far away there's no attention in it, and I'll make parole parole.

Ronnie and his legal team thought that this would be their best recourse, the best chance at getting Ronnie released, But as we reported back in twenty twenty two, that route has presented some challenges.

How many times have you been before parole board. I've think thirty five times, at least thirty five times.

In the forty seven years that Ronnie's been incarcerated. He's come close to being granted parole a few times. He's even come within one vote of being set free, but it hasn't happened, in part because there's been stiff opposition from the police unions. Ronnie turned sixty five last year. He spent nearly all of his adult life serving out this sentence, but he's never given up hope that one

These hearings are a very big deal. We bring seventy eighty people with us from Chicago to come and show support for the hearing, which takes place in Springfield.

That's Jennifer Soble. She's the executive director of the Illinois Prison Project, a nonprofit that represents incarcerated people. She's represented Ronnie for the last few years when he appeared before the parole board.

So you know, at five am, we all get in our cars, get in our buses, and our vans, and we piled them to Springfield.

Jennifer and a gaggle of Ronnie's supporters show up at the hearing, and on that particular day, Jennifer had a special guest.

The person sitting next to me who was going to argue that Ronnie should be released was Tom Breen, who prosecuted Ronnie in the first place.

Tom agreed to help advocate for Ronnie's freedom. In fact, he told Jennifer that he expected and had hoped that Ronnie would have been paroled decades ago. So here was the prosecutor who'd put Ronnie in prison, now he was telling the parole board to let him out. Tom said that he was quote astounded that mister Karraschio hasn't been paroled yet. Tom Brain's attendance there that day was a big deal, But Jennifer told me what was even more striking was who wasn't at this meeting.

The members of the Prisoner Review Board sort of started whispering to each other, and it became very clear, very quickly that something was wrong. There were no police officers, the Eternal Order of Police wasn't there. It was just us and Ronnie supporters.

Remember, Ronnie had been convicted of the murder of a police officer, and representatives of the Fraternal Order of Police had followed Ronnie's case carefully. I'm not going to get into their stance in detail here, but if you're interested in more background, we included more on them in the

And so what the parole board did, over my strenuous objection is they I'm doing air quotes here. They bifurcated the hearing.

The parole board decided mid meeting to bifurcate the hearing, split it in two, and here's how that played out. On that day, Ronnie's side made its case. Jennifer told the board that the teenager who entered prison over forty years ago was a different person now. She told them that he fully admits to his crime and that Ronnie has even been hand picked to move into a re entry center to prepare him for life on the outside.

Was an extremely frustrating hearing, and at the end of that hearing, the vote I believe was eight to one against parole. It wasn't even closed. I like, eternally the optimist was like, we're gonna get him out this year. I really had fate that we would be able to make this system work for Ronnie, and so that denial was a pretty crushing blow.

Who breaks this news to Ronnie?

I do. It was awful. It was really awful. But Ronnie has walked this line between optimism and realism for forty seven years and he was not surprised. I think he was extremely disappointed, and in like very like typical Ronnie fashion, He's like, onto the courts, let's get to the next So he was already ready to do the next thing.

Ronnie's chances that parole seemed even slimmer than before. His legal team realized he needed a plan B, and in fact, they'd already been pursuing that plan B for some time, knowing full well that the whole parole board thing might never work out, and that Plan B was to use the courts to petition the state of Illinois to overturn Ronnie's original sentence. Ronnie's attorneys made the case that since he was barely eighteen at the time of the crime,

People in this eighteen to twenty six twenty seven to twenty eight range are often called In the social sciences, they're called emerging adults because although they're physically vague and they often act a lot like adults, their neurocognitive development is not done.

The state opposed a new sentence for Ronnie. Their argument was Ronnie had a shot at release parole, and as long as he did well, he shouldn't be granted a new sentence, and the court agreed with this. Ronnie's legal team appealed that decision. It took time, but Eventually, a panel of three judges heard their appeal. By then it was the summer of twenty twenty three. Ronnie had just

Ronnie just went before the parole board. He's never gotten out before, and now his book count is going down. He had this great hearing, he had the prosecutor who prosecuted him saying he should get out. Parole is not meaningful for Ronnie. For Ronnie, parole is a sham.

The panel of judges heard Ronnie's appeal. They heard about his childhood, about his years in prison, and about the many times that he'd appeared before the Illinois Prisoner Review Board. And then one day they reached a decision.

I'm in my office and I get an email from Chick, Ronnie's appellate layer, saying that the court has agreed with us that parole is meaningless in this context, that Ronnie should at least have the opportunity to be treated like a juvenile and that the matter was going to be remanded back to the trial court.

What's the moment when it becomes clear to you that maybe this is going to happen.

When the judge said, all right, well, let's get this on the calendar next week. He's waited long enough, That's when I knew. That's when I hoped, thanks for real.

When the judge said let's get this on the calendar, he's talking about a new sentence for Ronnie as in it's time. We'll be right back. On October eighteenth, twenty twenty three, yet another hearing was held. The appellate court had thrown out Ronnie's two hundred to six hundred year sentence. The judge at this hearing will determine what his new sentence would be.

It was absolutely packed was Ronnie's friends and families, but several members of the parole board who had been fighting for his release for years came to the hearing, which was just unbelievable. The hearing was short. Jos Maldonato had already heard hours and hours days in fact of testimony about how incredible Ronnie was. The judge rules from the bench and sentenced him to forty seven years, and the courtroom just exploded.

Forty seven years. Ronnie had been incarcerated since nineteen seventy six, so this new sentence amounted to time served, meaning Ronnie would be released right away.

People are crying. I was crying. I think all the words were crying. Ronnie was really still. I don't think that he had fully taken it in, or maybe wasn't ready to trust it until he was released, which happened later that day. Yeah, it was amazing. It was one of the most I asked things I've wetnessent apart.

In late October of last year, I got a text from Ronnie's brother telling me that Ronnie was home. I couldn't quite believe it, not until I actually heard directly from Ronnie.

Ronnie, Yes, sir, how are you well? I'm just my brain camera's just taken in off kind of new things, you know, started from scrash, like kindergarten or something.

I spoke to Ronnie on the phone in late December and we talked about the lead up to his release. For the last year before getting out, Ronnie had been held in a lower security facility known as a re entry center.

They placed me in there to get basically like re established, learn a little computers, learn how to say hello again. You know, when you're in a maximum setting for so many years, you basically lose out to say good morning or good afternoon.

Ronnie told me that living in this re entry center was an adjustment. He'd spent decades in a maximum security prison, being told where and when to go now Here. He was for the first time checking a watch.

You steady looking at your clock, What time is it? I was like, man, he just watches like a job. You know. I never never paid attention to a watch. It didn't matter. In a maximum setting Sunday three o'clock, five o'clock, you're just going around circles. But in the renswery center, you make your appointment and it helps you to be there.

Ronnie was moved to this reentry center in twenty twenty two. It's a small and selective place designed for people who are on the brink of being released. But exactly how that might happen for Ronnie still remained elusive. Then one day Ronnie got a phone call.

I was out in the yard and a councul ladies you know, me and her kind of cool. So she come run out there and she said, hey, I got a call from your your brother and he says to call home. She says, not an emergency, but you need to call home.

Ronnie called his brother and he told him the news. The court had ruled in his favor. His two hundred to six hundred year sentence had been vacated. Then someone at the re entry center printed the decision for Ronnie to read.

All it said was a sentenced vacator. When I seen when I when I seen that, I was like, oh man, you know six hundred years gone. I was like, whoa man, this is a you know, this is it.

Ronnie understood what would happen next. He began to prepare.

So I just passed everything out commissary, my tablet, whatever, lamps, radio, everything, TV. You said, fans, you raise her Stremmers. I'll take everything. I'm not coming back. It's over.

Well, you gave away all your possessions that you had.

I didn't take nothing but my bible, my photo album, and my legal papers. On than that. I didn't need none of that.

On October eighteenth, twenty twenty three, Ronnie was released. The very same day he was resentenced. He walked out into the free world. A crowd of supporters greeted him. They waited hours, but really years.

For this moment. All my brothers, my sisters, you know, friends, attorneys, a lot of people. People I've been in prison with people, I've been lived in prison with just a multitude of people waiting out there, a lot of people.

That sounds like that could be kind of overwhelming.

Yeah, of course it is. Of course it is. Now you can't everybody's you know, you're hugging one after another just to see him. Some of them some people I haven't seen thirty years, and you know, seeing I know him as a young man. Now I'm looking and you know, we're all older. And he just laughed. He just having a good time.

I asked Ronnie about that first night that he spent on the outside with his family.

We just you know, sat around and you know, they was pizzas and donuts and just you know, juice, just talking and hugging on each other and just you know, we haven't sat on couches together since little kids, so just leaning on each other, laying on each other and just you know, just love.

Ronnie told me, took turns catching up with people for hours and hours late into the night, you know, until.

One or two o'clock in the morning. Finally a hey, you're gonna You're gonna lay down a little bit. So I was eating cough drops after cough jobs, losing my voice talking so much. That's what happened.

We talked a bit about Ronnie's plans for the holidays and how he intends to spend his days now as a free man.

I'm gonna go back to the prison I came from because I started the program and there were other individuals called Credible Messengers mentorship program. Now I'm soliciting to the juvenile centers and the wardens to I want to walk into the facilities where the juvenile again men are and walk the yard with them or be in the gym with them, you know, to help them understand direction, because some of them guys already have sentences and they have to go to the prison. So I just want to advise.

That kind of blows my mind, though, I can't imagine. It's hard to put myself in your mindset you'd actually want to step foot inside of prison again.

Well, you know, I've been practicing Christianity for a long time, and I don't leverage God. But uh, I'm a walking grace or I understand walking into a prison system when I was eighteen years old with six hundred years, I understand them young men that are in that in that position. So it's bigger in me. It's not about my life. I did mine already, so now it's you know, reach him.

Back years back, when Ronnie was still in prison, I asked him what he'd most look forward to doing if and when he ever got out. He said he'd just walk out into the backyard, look up at the stars, take a deep breath, and at last savor the feeling of being safe. Now, I asked him if you ever did this.

So once I got to the house, it was nighttime, I didn't go to the back, but I just stayed in the front just looking around, just like wow, just peace and quiet. I just said, Hey, this is it. You could just see the peace. I said, Hey, it's Ober.

Deep Cover is produced by Amy Gaines McQuaid and Jacob Smith. Our editor is Karen Chakerji, mastering by Jake Gorsky. I'm Jake Halpern