#056 Jason Flom with Angel Cordero

America has two point two million people in prison. If just one percent is wrong, that's twenty two thousand people. That's a lot of people's lives destroyed.

If the system want to take you out of society, they will do it no matter what laws they have to break, saying that they are enforcing the laws, but they're breaking the lord.

Having to hear those people say that I was guilty of a crime that I did not commit, and then hear my family break down behind me and not be able to do anything about it. I can't describe the crushing weight that was.

I'm not anti police, I'm just anti corruption.

A lot of times we look and we see something happen to somebody and that's the first thing we said, that could never happen to me, But.

They can.

This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Ronfuel Conviction with Jason Flom. Today we're going to tell the story of Angel Cordero, which is an ongoing story and it is in some ways sadly typical of the system, and I'll explain that. In other ways it's terrifying.

A bronx ban is released from prison after serving thirteen years for a crime. He says he didn't commit. Angel Cordero came home two years early for good behavior. Cordero was found guilty of murder and sentenced to fifteen years for the stabbing of a Bronx resident in nineteen ninety nine. The victim was walking home when he was attacked by a group of strangers. Officers responding to the attack arrested

Angel. Welcome to ronful conviction. Thank you, Jason, and with him is his beautiful wife, Michelle. Michelle, welcome to the show.

Thank you so.

Angel, your case makes no fucking sense. What's I mean, It just doesn't make any sense. But before we get into all of that, Yeah, and we'll get into all that for sure, but let's go back to before any of this insanity happened. And of course it's it's a family tragedy because you and your brother were both convicted of this crime along with other people. But how was life treating you before everything went upside down and sideways and turned into a nightmare.

I had a regular teenage light, you know. I was into sports, working out New York City, New York City, Bronx, what kind of sports? My favorite basketball Bolso played BASB one football as well.

So you're having this, you know, happyildhood pretty much right. How many brothers and sisters.

Did you have? I have one brother and three sisters, but two of my sisters off my father's side, so I wasn't in contact with them as much. But I lived with my brother and my sister and my mother, So.

You had it's sort of a typical childhood. You were never in trouble, right, in trouble, no prior record before this happened. Because that's the thing, angel I get asked a lot from people. Well, this guy got wrongfully convicted. He probably was doing something else or there must have been some reason. But we know that most of the people who were wrongfully convicted had no prior record, just like you didn't when this thing happened. Let's go back

Yes.

Yeah. So how did this incident unfold?

I must start around eight o'clock that night, my brother and I was invited to a birthday party for one of our neighbors sons. He was gonna turn one. So we went to the party and we stood there till like two in the morning, and then by two in the morning with up the party because there was already winding down by that time, and we went outside to the corner store cause my brother wanted to get a

Did you even know at this point that someone had been stabbed?

I didn't know what the fuck was going on. I knew there was a fight going on. Other than that, I didn't know what happened.

Because you heard like yelling, screaming.

From across the street. You can see two kids fighting, right, you know, you can see a commotion happening.

But now there was a crowd, so you're just sort of in the crowd.

My view is catching my brother being grab out. This officer where his gun out.

This is your little brother, my little brother, So you're doing what a big brother does. You're sort of trying to come to his you know, hey.

I'm focusing on him now. I don't know anything else but what was going on in front of me.

And then the next thing, you know, the cops got a gun in your face.

Next thing, you know, the guns in my.

Face, and what happens next?

So I put my hands up and the next thing, he's yelling at me to get against the wall, and I'm like, for what, I'm questioning him, why just get against the wall, And I'm refusing. I'm not getting against the wall for nothing. So he just smashed me with a gun. And next thing, you know, I feel a bunch of hits happening, and I go down to put the handcuffs on me, and one of the officers said, hey, hey,

Wow, this is this is heavy. I mean, you're one minute you're just buying cigarettes and the next minute you're in this insane situation of being beaten up by the cops, pistol whipped, and now you're blind and.

The gun was to my face. At the time, the officers were cowboys, were talking about the nineties where the officer was killing just about any innocent person that was in the bronx.

You knew that the cops were out of control at that time in that neighborhood. But yet you had said, I'm not getting up against the wall. You must have known what you were heading into by sort of disobeying in order, right, so you still believe in the system somewhat if you said, well, if I know I'm innocent, if I just stayed up for my right, so I'm.

Gonna be all right, Right, I did nothing wrong.

So now you're laying on the ground, you're bleeding, you've been beaten up, you're blind, you're handcuffed.

So I go to the hospital, and the hospital and one of the cops started messing with me. He started rough housing me that even the nurse, one of the nurses had to get involved and she was leaving them alone, leave them alone. She came and took care of me. She stished me up and everything.

Because they cracked the angels head open. They had million staples in the back of his head.

Yeah, this was not like this is now of them slapping you around. I mean they almost they I mean nine staples in your head. That's uh. I mean even just hearing about it now, and even though it's Jesus almost twenty years ago, it's just sickening. I mean, like the whole thing is really uh. Like I said, it's terrifying and it's sickening. There's just so many things wrong with this story already, and then it gets worse, right, then it gets worse. I mean you're probably thinking at

Didn't know?

So you have no idea, what the hell?

Nothing other than the cors beat me up. And then I think I mentioned to one of them, I'm anaue your asses after all this is said and done. And then I guess I sparked something in them or something. I don't know. I don't know the motive to what, What was their motive for putting me in prison? I forgot to mention that when I was getting beat up,

They let the bad guy get away and they couldn't admit it.

Well, that's the weird thing in this story too, right, And I was doing my homework to get ready for the episode. I'm sitting here going were they friends with this guy? Like? Why would they have done this guy? The favor of life? This one came with instructions, right, like the Academy one on one like this is it? You got your guy right there? I mean, so the cops roll up on this scene minutes after it happened, right, almost record speed, and they got the perpetrator there covered in blood.

Yes, right, And.

This is like a dream, right, this is like you could get this case done quick and get home in time for dinner. So absolutely, So that's the crazy thing. And this guy Bdario Rodriguez, Sai Barrio Rodriguez, he's no dummy. He takes the opportunity. Once all this commotion happens and you're getting beat up and your brother's getting beat up,

How many times he'd been in jail, he knew, he knew what could possibly happen if he didn't run away.

So okay, now let's go back to that for a second. I'm glad you brought to that, Michelle. So, this guy Dario is a known bad guy. It's fair to say the cops knew about him from the neighborhood because he was a guy he was in and out of jail all the time.

At the time, I think he was like twenty eight and he's been getting on arrested since the age of fourteen. So it's a news record.

Wow, hard to hard to process this one. A little bit okay. So now you're in the hospital. Yes, how long was the hospital for?

Four or five hours?

And then they take you to jail.

We left on eight o'clock that morning to the TENTI booking. Now, when I get into the cop car from the hospital, this is Sugan Delaney. What happened last night? He's actually me what happened last night?

And you still don't know?

And I said, I don't know. He's asking me what happened last night. So I'm on the back seat. It's me, it's Delaney. I think it's Curry anyhow. So then he in terms of mind asked me, asked me what happened last night? And I'm like, y'all fucked me up. That's the only thing that happened last night. I'm'a fucking sue ya. I got a voiceous And he was like, man, he seems like such a nice guy. I can't believe what you did. And I'm like, I like, hell, I don't know.

With me that night, including your brother, including my brother.

And that's how I found out by Dario being there that night, caught up through Pierre and Julio. They told me, what the fuck are you doing here? They didn't even know I got arrested. Then when it's on me coming in, they asked me, what the fuck are you doing here? I said, what the fuck you mean? I'm doing here for the shit that just happened. He was like, but why, I said, the constans fucked me up, and then they arrested me and then put me in here with you.

Guys at their original arrest questioning where the DA comes in the very first time, all three of them, Julio, Pierre, and Gregory all say we know the guy who did it that same night. That was that night, it was maybe an hour after the incident. Will take you to where he is. We know where he is. He's colored in blood, we know where he lives.

His name is that.

We will take you to him. This is all in transcripts. The first night, they just ignored it.

Right, Let's just reflect on that for a second too, because with these guys, crackheads, with these guys like young kids, there was no reason for the cops to think that they would be making up a story, right, and especially there's three of them, three of them, So there's three of them all going.

I know where he's at. I'm not going down for this. I know where he's.

At, and they never followed up on.

It, and then never followed up on that. They just ignored it.

It's so weird.

Well, when you put it together with they had him apprehended, So then there goes three kids telling you, I know where he's at, let's go get him. What's going on? What happened here? What's the motive? What's the motive? That's what the question I always ask myself, what's the motives? Put me in jail?

I Mean, the only thing which still doesn't make any sense that I could possibly think of is that they maybe feel a little embarrassed that they had already had the guy. They let him go. But why nobody's gonna know that? That doesn't make any difference.

Why doesn't matter when the end of the day, he did the right thing. Gituation.

But I'm thinking, I'm not thinking about doing the right thing. There's not a lot of right things being done here so far, right I mean, And I'm thinking about you in this situation too. Had you called anybody by this point, your parents, anybody else.

Sister knew she was at the scene. She came to the scene.

Someone called her, just got arrested.

So she figured out that you were at the precinct and she came.

She came to the crime scene. We was laid on the floor for a while, like they didn't just arrests picked us up and let leave.

By the way, just a visual, Hunts Point is small and someone is small.

The whole community really knows each other.

You could walk that neighborhood in a few minutes.

It's a small person. If somebody knows your neighborhood, most likely fifty people's gonna know your neighborhood. But there's a small community.

So your sister did Tony's Angel's brother. She told Tony, you know why you're here. And he's like, no, oh, and she said it's murdered. There was a stabbing and he went no, like he didn't even know why he was there until Keisha, my sister in law.

Told now you're in the precinct, you get fingerprinted, booked, et cetera.

And then what happened, Well, before I went to the precinct, they had all of us talked to the DA. The fair printed me and all that. Then we all talked to the guy so to the DA and I refused to talk to the DA. I said, isn't need for me to talk to the I don't.

Know, don't talk about Well, that was the right thing to do because you had no lawyer. They read your Maranda rights and did you wave your Miranda rights?

I did not anything that I recorded remumba actually.

So you're the right to remain silent, and that's exactly way you should do, and that's important to them. And they interrupted you for a second because I like to tell people on the show that you should know, if you're listening right now, if you or someone you love gets picked up for something you didn't do and the cops want to talk to you about it. All you say is I want a lawyer. That's all you tell them, telling your name, your address, and I want a lawyer,

It could be school and twisted around.

You talking you're at their mercy, So don't talk. But you didn't, right, So that was smart, and yet things just continued to go Soundhill. Yeah, So so what happened whether they said bail, no, you were held without bail.

That I recall. Yeah, I was held without bail.

Where were you held in jail? And how long were you held for prior to your trials? I'm assuming you didn't make trial.

I was on Records Island. I was also on the boat on the Bronx and Point, which is part of Records Island. Oh, Bronx House, Yeah, that I was also in.

And it was thirteen months before his trial.

Thirteen months in some of the worst places in the world.

I set before trying all that. But I think the bill with something like what it's an astronomical number, something I couldn't afford.

So you were there, So I was there. If you can't post it, you can't post it. And I always think bail is such a strange thing too, because if you're rich and violent, you can go home. No. I mean that's what we say, you know, because I've been working on bail reform for many years, and you know there's a saying in the bailiform movement that a system in which Robert Thurst goes home and Sandra Blamb goes to prison is a broken system, right, I mean Robert Thurst,

How bad is it? It is bad? Yeah, it's just as bad. I mean, whatever stories you hear, you hear about Rikers, it's the same stories you're going to hear about the boat. And it's dirty, the food's not that great. Then the conditions are horrible. I mean, you have like forty different personalities in one area, sleeping with each other, spending each other's feet, spending each other's thoughts.

And that's the thing about Chelse. You have a violent little mixture of people who are violent people and non violent people are guilty, people are innocent. But everybody has one thing common. They want to go home, and they're frustrated, and it gets violent and it's chaotic. You know, there's nothing good about any of it. And then there you are for thirteen months. Now, when did you first get a lawyer? And how much time did you get to

Public defender? So my first love was a lady. She actually sat down, sat down with me, looked me in my face, and she just tells me she believes that I'm guilty.

Would you say?

I forget that my exact words, but I know my exact thought was like, okay, so you need to be here. So then I think I got the manco.

And did you get to spend any meaningful amount of time with any of your attorneys before the trial?

Me and the Manchael spoke a couple of times.

We spoke a couple of times.

We have Yeah, no, But I just want you to know how.

That sounds to me. Right. So here you are, you're facing a sentence of fifteen years to life. I think people would like to think that you spent some time with your lawyer going through documents evidence that that's not the way it was. You spoke to him a couple of times.

I spoke to them a couple of times.

How you doing.

We didn't go through no paperwork. It was just a couple of questions and a couple of answers.

Right, and that's you know, I mean, look, public de there's a lot of very good ones. I have a lot of respect for people who go into that line of work because it's a thankless job. They're dealing with hundreds of cases, they're underpaid, overworking, and even the best ones are really really have an uphill battle in every situation. You eventually end up at trial, eventually with a lawyer who's senior. A couple of times it's fair to say he's probably unprepared.

He put a good show, though he did. I mean a show doesn't mean he put up a good fight. It's two different things.

That's an interesting way of putting it. So you're a trial, you have the three cops testify against you, and the one witness, right, which was actually the guy who was stabbed.

Correct.

And it's important to talk about this to Angel because the guy who was stabbed this is thirteen months later, right, and he's trying to remember a very traumatic incident that happened in the dark, in the middle of the night. And we know the way memory works, you know, the leading cause of raeful convictions, of course, is mistaken eye withness identification. Then that could be it could be the eyewitness,

Of course at the trial, which is the first time Jason ever saw Angel. Jason's the victim, first time he ever saw Angel.

Yeah, you didn't know it.

I've never seen him either. Like, I'm from the neighborhood. I've been in the neighborhood most of my life and I've never saw it, okay at all. And to go backtracked a little bit, the cops, like you were saying, told him about or we got the guys, but you.

Were talking about like influencing someone's mind. The night that Jason, I mean, his lung was collapsed, he was stabbed. He was seriously injured.

But this was not a little slice, right.

Yeah, it was. It was bad. He he didn't.

Even know it was the cops that was coming to rescue. Hening and who it was. It was just to him, it was somebody came and a fight started, and he got the opportunity to get away, and he got away.

Yeah, and he crawled home.

The victim.

The victim but his house was like three houses from where the incident happened. He was like almost home when the incident happened. When he was in the hospital, the police officers were saying to him, we got him, we got him. No lineup, no finger pointing, no prior arrest book with photos because the angel had no history, right, no mugshot, right, none of this. Fast forward thirteen months later, they asked, Jason, you know, where's the guy who did it?

That's what he said.

That's what he said.

But it is important to note that you bear a physical resemblance to the actual purpetare, right, which is really another here. You were a wrong place, wrong time, and you happen to, you know, have some physical characteristics that you share. Another piece of bad bad luck. But okay, but still he's saying, he's questioning himself.

He's going, yeah, and this is in try transcripts. You know he looks he looks taller. Well, yeah, Dario's significantly shorter. Than Angel, and he looks a lot heavier. In the meantime, Angel had lost more than thirty pounds on Riker's islence.

But nonetheless, you know, as you said, you know it makes sense. He's in the courtroom, he's thinking, well, all these people are here because this guy Stabby is probably the guy.

He looks close enough the guy, right, I mean the guy.

He's a little taller, a little heavier. But yeah, the cop said it was him, so I had to be.

Had the jury goes out, how long did they deliberate for him?

Remember a day, full day, twenty four hours.

That's gotta be a long fucking day waiting for that.

Yeah, I was going to get convicted, you because I knew that my lawyer wasn't working throughly on my behalf. He didn't give me the best chance to win. He didn't really get out the full details I needed to be out there. And even though he didn't do that, with the information that they had was I think was enough for me to win the case.

During the trial, Dario's girlfriend comes into the courtroom. This is like a movie. She comes into the courtroom and she's like, I want to speak, I want to speak.

During the deliberation, timeberation.

I want to speak, I want to testify. He wasn't with me that night. She was his alibi.

Yeah, he said that night that he was with her. She really wasn't.

So she came clean, but too late to help you.

Because judgment judge had to open the case. Yere.

Wow, that's a heavy one. I mean, I wonder how that even works, Like if you're the judge. I don't know what the legal principle is or whether he would be allowed to reopen the case.

He would have been been It's a judgment call. That's why he's a judge.

Yeah, I think it would be his duty.

Yeah, and we know that we found out later that a nun testified and said that she was in the homeless shelter, that the nun worked on the night that he claimed that he was with.

Her with curfew, with walking, So she was no.

Question that his alibi was totally false. Right. So, and again, if your attorney had had more time, had been more diligent, had been more interested, he probably could have fished out some of these things.

He was more diligent, That's what he needed to be. He needed to be interested in me. He wasn't interested in me.

He didn't you didn't care about you.

No, he was processing representing. But it is interesting that the jury deliberated for a full day even though you had three police officers and the victim testifying saying this is the guy that did it. You could see how it would be more likely that they would deliberate for an hour if they were sure, and they would have said, we don't even want lunch. Right, yeah, I'm going home. Absolutely, I got my kids at home. Oh I got this, I got that right. And that's why it's important for

I was hope football, waiting for the other shoe to drop. That's their hurts. It still hurts nine, but it definitely hurt. It tremids back then I just looked in my brother's face. He was crying, My mother was crying, my sister, and then I just came another judge, but we have another witness. We have the perpetrator's wife here ready to testify. It was that chance he paint me no mind. It threw us out the court, and I just told my mother that was gonna be all right. It's gonna be all right.

You always believe till the day he walked out that door, he always believed he was going to get exonerated. I did every denial, every shitty answer in the mail.

Let's talk about that, because your brother was convicted also, but his conviction was overturned on the technicality and he was freed after six years.

The technicality was that I got boisterous and that it threw us out, and he didn't get to hear his verdict because it threw both That wasn't supposed to throw me out because I'm screaming with But the girl is here. She gotted to testify, That's all I'm saying.

So you're gonna try with your brother, Yes, And he got thrown out of the court room.

Both of us got thrown out. He was not supposed to. That was said accuntity, that he got the reversal on.

Wow, that's the only good break in this whole story that.

Seven years later did seven years before he got the reversal.

Right, and that's seven years a hard time. But but then even for you, it still was worse because you had so many appeals and you had new evidence that kept coming up.

Yeah, different witnesses.

And let's not forget the fact that there was never any physical evice.

They tried. They tried with the DNA with the blood.

They said during trial that the blood that was on Angels clothes belonged to the victim. The clothes tested, but the results didn't and air quotes didn't come in in time for the conclusion of the trial, so it wasn't brought up at the trial any further than that.

Okay, so they they had thirteen months to test the blood on your clothes, but that wasn't enough time.

Apparently that wasn't enough time.

There's even a letter from the DNA testing lab that says we have the results to submit something to the result.

There is never turned it over to its purpose.

That because of all of the blood.

The results knowing whose blood it was. But on top of that, there's still got tended jerviy lies. Well, you already knew ahead of time before you entold the Jervisy's lies that the blood it was my own. It was not the blood of the victims, as you were betraying it to be.

Wow. So they yeah, it gets deeper. Now it's not just police misconduct, it's also prosecutoral miskind of a very serious nature. And I'm glad this is coming out now and it will hopefully come out in the future in an official manner. So they withheld that evidence, they buried it, they lied about it, they actually twisted it. It's just worse than hiding. Get it's actually they they knew that what they were saying at the time was bullshit, actually

I actually gave everything away. I'm going home. This is my throat process. Now. There was no ifs about anything else. I said, I'm going home finally, damn thank you. All my stuff, all my books, all my best sheets, all my clothes, all my sneakers. I gave him away. I said, I'm not going back to this.

Place because you went back to court with the evidence that.

Yes, he testified at that hearings area and admitted guilt.

I made it, how he did it, why he did it. Yeah, everything that happened that night, admitted everything the judge.

So again, I mean, I'm pretty experienced at this. I've been doing this for almost twenty five years. But for people who might be new to the show, they're sitting at home, they're going but wait a minute, that's where the story ends, right, But what happened is that the the powers that be, the judge, decided that he was not a credible witness.

Yeah, their favorite word, credibility.

He was not a credible witness, but.

He was credible during the time that he's still on the stand against me on my trial, doing my trial, right, But he's not credible.

Now, that's got to be almost as bad as the original conviction.

That was worse, really, kan Off, that might be had to hang.

Because by now you've been in for six or seven years, already seven years, yeah, and you're going home. You gave your stuff away.

I get everything.

This wasn't the only new evidence that came out, right.

No, it was plenty of evidence beforehand before he even came out.

But let's talk about that too. What was the other evidence that came out that allowed you to get your appeals?

Heard eyewitnesses, a lot of them twenty eight of them, twenty eight, twenty eight.

There were people who said they saw Dario steal a knife from the party.

That was just and there was a dozen people who testified that you weren't there, right, yes, right, So twenty eight witnesses that might be a record is I don't know, we.

Got to look it up. I've never heard of it. There's a lot of witnesses for those.

People again listening to home, this is your tax dollars at work, right, this is the system. So twenty eight eye witnesses, a confession from the killer.

A confession from the perpetrated, yes.

A confession from the from the purpose.

Yeah, nobody died, thank god, would have been in jail. You imagine that.

And they're like, no, we're not interested. None of this stuff is moving us. So you ended up going from state court to federal.

Right, yes?

And how'd that work? Same thing, deny, How did you get into federal court as opposed to state court for people who not familiar with the system.

Once you exhaust all your state of peals, then you can present everything you presented to the state, to the fas to the higher court, the higher court.

I mean, you really had overwhelming evidence at this point of innocence. I don't know what else you can do.

From day one, I had overwhelming evidence from day one. As soon as three kids tell you, I know where he's at, that should have been the end of the story. I shouldn't have gone no further than that.

And the element of clamsham. We're going back to that again. So much doom and gloom in this story. But let's talk about a happy thing. How did you guys meet?

I lived in Florida. I'm from New York, but I lived in Florida. I went to graduate school in Florida. I became friends with Angel's first cousin. My Space was the big thing at the time, and you could change who your top friend was on MySpace until her top friend was him. But I'd never seen this guy before. I kind of knew the guy she hung out with, Like, who is this guy? She's like my cousin. I'm like he's cute. She's like he's in prison. I'm like, no way.

Did she tell you he was innocent?

That was the first thing out of her mouth that his brother was either just came home or about to come home, I don't remember. And we talked a little about the case. She's like, you guys would totally hit it off as like you're totally insane.

You're like, that's my dream, A guy in prison.

So a guy in prison. You know at this point, I don't know if he's innocent or guilty.

Yeah, I mean, so what compelled you to want to find out more? I mean you thought he was cute.

I actually I googled it and I'm a social worker, so I like to research and investigate. It's just in my blood. And I came across this article that was in the Daily News, but it talked about how he was innocent and how Dariel had confessed, and I was like, this is crazy. I want to know more.

Okay, so you want to know more? And then how did you end up first meeting?

Well, I did write in the first letter, like, you know, I could be your friends. Your case is interesting, you know. We wrote for a while, then it went to phone calls for a while, and then I went to visit him. I don't know how the visit first visit happened. I don't know if you asked me.

To come on the first visit.

I mean I remember the first visit obviously, but I don't know how it all went down that. You know, we decided I was going to go visit him, and I never stopped visiting. Here we are, we're together, ten years.

Two kids, two kids, two beautiful kids.

Yeah, he's home. Six years just a couple of weeks ago. Me and six years ago.

You got a parole year ago, usber vision parole. Same shit. And we have two beautiful kids.

Amazing.

One of the names lug and Danny four years old Jujuicio, practitioner beast and my little star lit Danny Daniella.

And you have your daughter from before you went away.

And I also, yeah, I have the oldest daughter. How does she know she is twenty three?

Well, that's amazing. Congratulations on that. That's actually a beautiful love story. You know, you mentioned something which is obviously going to get people's attention because I'm sure people are thinking, well, wait a minute, he's here, he must have been exonerated. But in fact you still have to fight this case.

I am still fighting the case.

Yes, And let's talk about that too, because ultimately you were released on parole, as you said after twelve years.

Supervision same a split bit like a two to four. They consider that going home to parole. When there's a flat bait, they considered it a supervision basically the same thing.

But yeah, when Angel was originally sentenced, he didn't plea bargain. He blew trial. So when he got sentenced, he got sentenced to fifteen years flat bit, which meant in thirteen or close to thirteen years he could get out on good behavior and that was it. There was no supervision involved.

Yes, there wasn't supervision involved.

There was shifted at some point and allowed I forgot about that the Department of Corrections to impose supervision on people. So they were like slapping people with all the supervision. I guess they were working in connection with Department of the people.

That won't fully put on them. That was getting a play. That was either getting the time cut and they go home there on supervision, or they could finish out their time and the supervision was taken out, but you had to do both adventity.

So they placed five years post release supervision on Angel. They were putting this on everyone. Now this is after your trial's over. You're serving your time here in the middle of your time and you get this notice that now you have post released supervision, which is what they term it versus parole. A lot of guys were getting it reversed because they had plea bargains, and plea bargain is like a legal binding agreement, and this was a

So now on.

Top of this wrongful conviction years, he gets another five years on supervision when he comes home. And this happened, we were already together.

I was already better to go home. I was ten years into the bit after being ten years, and then that added extra five years on top of everything.

And the good news is that's over now and you have a chance to fight and actually get this conviction overturned, at which point you could sue and hopefully get damages and things that you deserve.

All they had to start is with a sorry. I'll take a sorry right now, an apology.

And that's a powerful thing that you just said. I mean, I'll take a sorry. I mean, yeah, I'll give you one. Michelle. I want to turn to you for a second. So what was it like for you having this unusual relationship let's call it, right? I mean, obviously you're in love. We know that crosses all boundaries and goes over walls and everything else. But what was that like being in a relationship? Did you get people judging you?

And sure, of course I did. There were people who didn't know my job didn't know. I mean I told one person who I work with, who's a friend, but I went to work every day and it was my secret.

Must have been people saying, hey, Michelle, I got a nice guy for you to me whatever. You know.

Yeah, times, I mean all of my friends knew people in my life who judged it as soon as they met Angel. While the judgment went away, I think they judged circumstance. I like to say I surround myself with been minded people, but yeah, there was definitely even judgment from them. It's it's it's weird.

What about your parents?

My father passed away when I was nineteen. It was heartbreaking. It to my mom it was difficult. I'm sure that she was disappointed. But then when she met Angel, because she went up to visit him. I remember when we left, I'm like, whoa, what do you think She's like, he's really even keeled. The way I told my mom was.

So you know the next question I'm going to ask, because you were in various different prisons at the time, were stuck in one place the whole twelve years.

After my first prison I was in was sing sing. Then after Attica and Kaiksaki and then I came home from Eastern Did.

Any of these places have conjugal visits? Yes?

Yeah?

How often are you allowed to have.

At that time it was ninety every ninety days, not often enough.

Every ninety day, four times a year?

Yeah?

Is that it?

Yeah? Every three months.

And as wonderful as those things are, and everybody, oh, you're so lucky, you know, as wonderful as it is, it's awful.

Yeah, can you explain that? Like, what does that even look like too? I mean, so you go to the prison, you obviously had months of anticipation for you, even more so if you're sitting there looking at four walls. At least you're out doing your job and you have to distract you. But you got to be so much pent up, you know, and then you see each other, and I mean it sounds like a really strange date speak.

But I mean we just felt before we even got a conjugal we knew each other for a year, so we got to know each other. That's one thing about prison there, that's all you have time for is to sit down and talk and make eye contact.

And there's time since Angel's been home that I've said to him in rough moments of adjusting, especially when he first came home, that I missed our visits, as crazy as that might sound, but I missed the six hours of just sitting and talking. Even with the trailers as it's horrible. They treat the families horribly. They treat you like you're a criminal. You take this horrible van and you go through all these gates and wires, and it's not a pretty environment. I mean, it's not meant to

On the van.

It's all the wives and moms and sons and family on the van going to the area in this wall where the trailers are, and everybody's lively and happy and having a good time and talking about what they're gonna cook or what movies they're gonna watch, or we should all barbecue together and going back. No one says one word. Everybody's just crying.

It's impossible. Obviously, family hasn't been through it to imagine it. But for me, even when I visit people in prison, I feel terrible when I leave because they can't leave. So I can get just a fraction of a sensation of what that must have been like for you. Listen.

About the victim either. I mean, how much should they really care about him if they weren't willing to find out the true story?

Not at all, just another day at the office. So now you went from having, in the first instance, as bad of a lawyer as you could possibly have a guy who literally shows up and says, yeah, I'm pretty sure you're guilty, right, I mean, you're just sitting there and go, wait a minute, that's not even possible except in the movie. And now you literally now you literally have the dream team. Literally, yes, you got. You got

Throughout this whole bad old deal. You know, there's been many good things that have happened as well. Now everything's bad, and my wife, you know, I got two beautiful kids out of that. My mother and my relationship became closer. She was always there for me, sticking it out through things, and thin I had some pretty good appeal lawyers. Unfortunately they didn't have a gut defense lawyer. But you know, Claudia True was wonderful and trying to get me justice.

Mary Pollock who if it wasn't for him the project.

To just out of the pebrew Sky just took the case, I mean, for no apparent reasons, and he believed. And and then from Barry Potter, we we we come to the to the present with Barry and Seema. So as followed representation after the fact, I've been very blessed, but unfortunately, you know, if it has come of it yet. But I'm sure there's many great things.

And what else do you want people to know? I mean, there's the website.

Angel Cordero is Innocent dot com.

There's the movie Coming Watch, which won a bunch of awards.

Right then one on about three or four awards, and iron the.

Movie is called Coming Coming Home.

What the film is about is not so much about Angel's case. It talks about his case. Dario is featured in the film, but what it really talks about is what it does to the family. And that's I think what a lot of people forget. It has families apart. It ruins relationships.

My daughter, my relationship, I mean, we're not even on speaking terms. It's been about a year now, and the whole time when I came home, I tried and tried and tried.

Yeah, it's a very poignant look at how that does affect, you know, the other victims in the situation, or the family members of the people. There's so many.

Yeah's not just one person I'm doing the time, it's sometimes a whole family.

Especially if it's you, it's your son or daughter. I mean, it's hard enough on your parents, brothers, sisters, but for son or daughter, I'm sure they don't know what to think. And it's just a tragedy all the way around. But you know, the good news is you're here, Michelle's here. You got a lot of good people that care about you, that are fighting for you. Lucky that way, and I do believe that justice. You know, it's been terribly delayed, but it's not going to be denied, not with that team.

The victim of this stabbing was a victim, but Angels also a victim. His family's a victim, his daughter's a victim. There's a lot more victims than just the guy sitting in the defendant chair with a wornful conviction.

Angel, what are your thoughts, anything else you have to share with the audience.

I'm surprised that I'm not exonerated yet. By this time, I thought I wouldn't have to deal with this issue anymore. I've always been hopeful that one person will finally in his heart to tell the truth, and that would be the victim himself, Jason Mercardo, because I know in his heart, I know for one hundred percent fact that he knows it wasn't me. That would be a dream for him to come forward and finally give me my overlong due justice.

My last question, what do you want your young children to know? If they're ever listening to this years from now, maybe someday they get a chance to hear it, what would you say to them about this whole situation?

Then they made life after that worthwhile, Evan, that's it. It was all worth it, and I would do it all over again. I find you that I was going to get the same, the same two kids waiting for me at the end of the tunnel.

Well, I got nothing to say after that except for I just want to thank both of you for coming here and being so brave and sharing this incredible saga. It's not over yet and I hope we'll get a chance to celebrate together. And so to everyone listening, thank you for tuning in. And I want to thank you Michelle Cordero, an Angel Cordero, thank you for coming in and sharing your story.

Thank you for allowing it's a story. Thank you, pig to.

Us, don't forget to give us a fantastic review. Wherever you get your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project, and I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot org to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is by three