Welcome to part two of the Nick Yarras story on Wrongful Conviction. We've already heard about Nick's surviving sexual assault, his misspent young adulthood, the lie that turned the authorities hell bent on his conviction, Gladiator Sunday's suicide torture, and then with a court date that could have led to his freedom in sight, he unintentionally finds himself escaping from death row, only to turn himself in instead of committing suicide by shark, I mean, seriously, what the actual fuck?
And we're still just halfway. We pick up with Nick again on death row in Florida, where he was awaiting transfer back to Pennsylvania and where he ran into Jesse to Farroh, who was the life partner and father of the children of Sunny Jacobs, who we may remember was one of the most extraordinary episodes of Wrongful Conviction. I
think it was season one episode four. Jesse, who ends up crazy enough on death row in Florida with Nick, was later executed in a botched execution where the electric chair quote unquote malfunctioned and.
His head caught fire.
It's a gruesome, gruesome story, and even more so because he was an actually innocent.
Man and get ready for this.
At the same time, Nick, on death Row again in Florida, was sharing that pod with one of the most notorious inmates in the history of America, Ted Bundy. Fasten your seatbelts for part two of nick yaris onun Wrongful Conviction.
I knew the beaten that was waiting on me, I knew the torture that was waiting on me, and I turned myself in and I went back to Pennsylvania, and I faced the music because I told a lie of missus Craig Jason, It's never stopped bothering me. Man. I told a lie to get out of a copslot. But that's only half the story. I told a lie about a woman's murder man and shamed her family, disrespected mine.
I got to live with that man, so I decided to go back, but first I had to sit in friggin Florida for eight months down there with Ted Bundy. When Florida's Death Row and I meet, of all people, Jesse Trefero, an innocent man. Jesse was married to a very good friend of mine now called Sonny Jacob's and she lives over in Ireland with Peter Pringle, her partner, who was also sentenced to death, and they got the Sunny Foundation where they helped people who got out of prison.
And I didn't know any of this. All I knew was this very attractive, sweet hearted Buddhist man told me, hey, man, take me back to Pennsylvania with me. These crazy bessards are trying to kill me. Man, I said, Jesse, what happen? He said, Man, I pick up a hitchhiker, he kills the cop. They put me and my wife death row, but we didn't kill nobody. It's stuck with me, you know.
So I go back to Pennsylvania after eight months of Florida, and they added thirty five years to my sentence in the state of Florida for the escape and related charges, and I knew I was done. I had one hundred and five years. There is no such thing as DNA testing. I ruined my appeals with absconding. You know the law, Jason,
If you run, you forfeit your appeals, You're done. So I was sitting there in nineteen eighty eight and I had just met a woman who told me that I had a fascinating mind and she wanted to spend time talking to me, and I felt absolutely horrible about that. And then I get a hand in a newspaper. It's almost thrown away, and the next thing I know, I'm the very first man in history to seek DNA testing
from death throw. In March of nineteen eighty eight, I filed my first petition, and that historic event led me to watch one hundred and ten men get set free before me. I watched the mall, Gary Dotson, I watched all these dudes. I watched Kurt Bludworth go out and be the first death row prisoner exonerated, but he filed years after I did. I had to watch him all go home and walk free, and none of them spoke beautifully. And I felt like, man, if I ever get my chance,
I'm going to do justice to this man. And then meanwhile I meet a man who's innocent, named Walter Ogrod. You see, I've been through so much at this point, twenty years of prison, I'm sick with hepatitis. See all the DNA evidence has either been destroyed or missing or spilled in transit. I have no hope. And I get moved to a Green County supermax prison, and the staff there knew me from years ago from Huntington, and knew
I was cool. So they cut me a break and they let me become a block worker for a month where I could come out of my cell and sweep up. And I meet this prisoner named Walter Ogrod and he tries to speak to me. But Walter's been convicted of putt a little girl in a TV box and leaving her on the street corner in Philadelphia. And I don't want no shit like that bothering me. I just lost everything. The wife that I met just before the DNA testing began walked out on me. I lost all the DNA evidence.
I don't want no trouble. And there's these two men in the prison tormenting them, Hackett and Spence. They broke into Walter's house and they tried to kill his brother, and they murdered his sister in law to be. But I didn't care. I had enough troubles on my own, you know. But when I went back at my cell and I thought about how I treated Walter, I thought, that's it, Nick, Why get out? You got no humanity.
The very next day, I went over to Walter and I began at first, I began writing letters to his lawyer. I would decipher Walter's efforts to write a letter in minutia. An entire eight by eleven page would be filled with micro lines of writing, not just single line. I mean he would compress as many possible words into one page and desperation to get information out. I would take that apart and write to his lawyers as best that I
could and help. I told Hackett and Spence that if they kept bothering water that I'd smashed their face and that they had time to just think about one thing. I wasn't no fucking joke, and if they bothered my friend again, I was gonna hurt him. I told the rest of the dudes on death Row, I didn't care what they thought. I was standing up for Walter. A
man named Tom Lowenstein, whose father had been murdered. He was a journalist from Louisiana, contacted me and wanted to write a book about my story and said it was incredible. I said, Tom, tell Walter's story, leave me alone. This man needs to help more than me. No one on death Row does things like that. But I believe so much in this man that it started to make me feel good about it. In the past, I had already done legal work and helped get other prisoners off death row,
I wrote to their mother's. In fact, the administration told me one of the things that made me the most dangerous prisoner had ever dealt with is so many men cared about me that whenever a guards or anything did stuff to me, they would all go on hunger protests and stuff like that. I said, well, I can't help, but that I'm a caring person. I told my mom I wouldn't lose that humanity. So while I'm trying to get water help, I keep feeling weaker and weaker. Jay,
something's wrong inside man. And in two thousand and two, my brother died in August, and I knew over the past seven months after being diagnosed with hepatitis see that I was in bad condition, but I had to hold off. My parents were burying their youngest child, so I couldn't ask to be executed then when I was really suffering, so I waited, you know. And the whole precipice of it all was I lost my eyesight for three days one time because of the medical toxins that they were
giving me to fight the infection. Pumping my body full of interferon and rivereverron Well. I had to go tell Walter that I couldn't help him no more, and it broke his heart. But I told him before I told anybody else, that I was going to be asking to be executed for a crime that I didn't commit, rather than just die like Dale Carter did. There was a dude convicted of rape and murder on my pod in
Green County Prison in two thousand and one. He died of an impacted bowl from the onset of hepatitis C while nurses stood in front of his cell, knowing he was convicted of raping and murdering the woman, and they laughed at him suffering. And I knew that's what my fate was. They were going to taunt me, they were going to make me miserable, and they were going to laugh in my face at my death. And I said no, no, no, no. In fact, I decided I he was going to fulfill
my efforts. The only reason I ever learned how to speak with any modicum of decency was after the escape, when they beat my face and broke my teeth, and I couldn't look at myself without flinching. So I took all the photographs off my wall, and I put one of myself up as a seventeen year old boy, and I began to speak politely to this person. Every day, I quietly began to speak to this man, knowing he was the only one who going to get me out
of here. And that transitioned into reading beautiful literature to this photograph. It was such an empowerment to read beautiful passages from Gabron as I stood before my own photograph. Or even better, I practiced my death speech over and over beautifully. I had it down. You see. The only thing I really feared was that on the day that they executed me, I would mess it up, that I wouldn't have the acumen, the poise to say the lovely
thing that I had to say. It was so important to me to talk and speak beautifully for myself that I rehearsed this beautiful death speech forgiving them for taking my life.
You remember the speech always.
It's a reference to the neutrino and how the neutrino passes through the earth unnoticed by us all. But this neutrino is unstoppable. It emanates from the earth and passes through whatever surface it meets, regardless of density, strength, power doesn't matter. And I was like a neutrino passing through
their lives. And just like that new trainer that they allowed to pass through in ignorance, so too were they ignorant of the loving, caring person that I made myself into be and that I forgave them for killing me. I apologized for embarrassing my family, and I accepted my faith.
I want to get into the exoneration because you know the miracle that awaited you that you had just almost given up hope of ever having, which there would be very good reason that somebody in your situation would give up hope and that you might have ended up either executed or having taken your own life like so many other people that you knew. Is that in two thousand and three, fast forwarding God, this is twenty two years
since the original date. Right in two thousand and three, a doctor named Edward Blake tested the gloves, fingernail scrapings, and sperm that was found on inside of the victim, Missus Craig, and it was determined at that time all of the DNA that was found was from the same person and on July second of two thousand and three, you were excluded as the source of any of that biological material. And on September third, so this is now another two months and a day later, your conviction was
vacated by the court. You became at that time at the one hundred and fortieth DNA exoneration in America and the thirteenth from death throat. I'm getting the chills when as I say that, So, I mean, we have to talk about that, right, What was that?
Like? You know?
I wish I could tell you it was something really big. But the truth is I was still in prison until January two thousand and four. The federal court gave Pennsylvania the right to retry me as they would, and they drug it out, and they drug it out, and it kept going on. So in the end they botched my release. After a week of telling me I was going home on Monday, they came and told me, January eleventh, you're going home, pack your stuff. We'll be back for you
in an hour. They didn't come back on what day was that, January eleventh?
January eleven, two thousand and four. You're going home, pack your stuff, getting out of here.
The whole argument was do we send them back to Florida? Do we let them go? What do we do? What do we do? What do we do?
So wait, you'd already been exonerated, so why in the world did you have to go back to Florida.
It was a possibility that they would have to take me back to Florida and release me there because Florida still had that thirty five year sentence on me. So Pennsylvania had, of course dropped all the charges against me, but they were in the process of negotiating with Florida, at which time my lawyer filed an application to have my sentence reduced because I was sentenced in Florida only because I was an escapee and convicted of murder. Everybody
vacated their sentences. Everything's ready, but I'm dragging on the whole time I'm sitting in a mental cell. They took me out of prison and put me into a restricted housing union meant for mentally impaired prisoners, because they rationalized that because of all the things that they'd done to me, I was going to kill one of them as soon as my door opened up, And I swear to God that's what they told me to my face. So meanwhile, I'm waiting. January eleventh, they tell me I'm going home.
January twelfth, they told me the same thing. On January thirteenth, I was shown a photograph of my mother in the Delaware County newspaper holding up a photograph of me from the previous day, saying where's my son? He was supposed to be released on January fourteenth. That photograph was very widely used in the Philadelphia area because January fifteenth, I was told I was going home, but at five pm
that night they said it was too late. On January sixteenth, two thousand and four, I packed up my belongings, said goodbye to everybody, and I got in a van and I drove out of the prison, only to be stopped at the second barrier and told we made a mistake. You have to go back. It was the testing moment of testing moments in my life, and I handled it with grace because I knew this was important. They put me back into prison and they said, what can we do for you? This has nothing to do with this.
We just simply have to get some paperwork from Florida done and we will let you go. I said how long. They said, what do you mean? I said, well, my parents are across the street with all the assembled press. How long do you think they're going to stand out there in the snow. He said, no, no, no, no. We told your parents. They're well aware of the situation. They're not put off by this. They understand there's a lawyer.
This is crazy. Elliott Shirker, attorney at law, put a lawyer on a plane in Fort Lauderdale and flew to Tallahassee, Florida to have my parole papers stamped so I could be released by one o'clock that day. That's the power of having my wonderful attorney, Peter Goldberger, have that kind of influence over friendships because he told people, look, my
client's innocent, but I need some help. So Elliott Shirker, on his own dime, sends a lawyer by plane to the state capitol, faxes the paperwork over, and at one o'clock they let me out. The crazy thing is they dropped all the charges. I was allowed to have my conviction vacated, and then the state attorney appealed it and
got it reinstated. While I was in France speaking before the League the Nationale and told that if I go back to Florida that I can voluntarily resume my thirty five your sentence there if I so choose.
So I guess it's fair to say you won't be going to Florida anytime soon.
I don't think I'm going to go to Florida and commit any crimes. But I have been there to thank Elliott Shirker. I went down there to thank that lawyer to help me get free. And by the way, Jeff, I think you're an amazing man. Thank you, thank you, thank you. But I had this amazing gift given to me by this Baptist preacher who was a sergeant in the prison, and he came in and he spent these two hours with me, and I'm telling you, man, he made every officer on shift come and shake my hand.
Dudes were coming up to me and saying the same thing. It's a hard job. Sorry, sometimes we have to hurt men. But you're a good man, Nick. I respect you, thank you for help. And other prisoners when they were down, I'm like, fuck, I'm growing, Like this is building me up so much, Jason, that when I walked out of that prison and got into the arms of my father. I knew I didn't have a goddamn thing to say.
I walked up to the assembled media. I said, Walter Ogrod and Ernie Simmons are two men in the prison behind me. Can someone send some help for them? Thank you, and goodbye. I knew everybody wouldn't listen to me. I knew that they would think I was crazy if I went on this big rant or anything. I did the honorable thing. I said, we need a moratorium on the death penalty, and I got some friends here, I'm going
to help. They didn't think I was serious. Only ten months after my release, when I got set free, I had no medical help nothing. I had to heal myself with my parents' help. Ten months later, I'm in London speaking in Parliament and Kofi Annan listens to me speak, walks up to me and said, young men, you are one of the finest speakers I've ever heard in my life. Keep going. That was my empowerment when I realized that this education I gave myself because I went well past
those five first books, I went crazy. I read all of the world's religions so that I could have respect for everyone's beliefs. I went out of my way to read and read and read every possible thing about history and our arts and sciences so I could be alive to the world. What was the point if I got out? So I even spent six years of my life studying psychology so I could understand the principles of what I would face. I am a human experiment of endurance, and
for some magical reason, I'm built for it. I took this notion that I am everything I believed about myself while there, and I've expounded upon it now to teaching people about neuroplasticity, healing, the receptacle, and beautiful feeding frenzy. Your brain gets from being polite. You having a meticulous polite behavior is your own healing. Your brain absorbs all of this neuron reciprocal healing from being nice. I didn't
understand any of this. All I knew is that on the second day of my freedom, I had to go to the hospital to pick my brother up who got hit by a car. Because that's an alcoholic crossing the road. He tended to get hit by cars. But my mother sat me down and she said, NICKI do me a favor. Please listen to what I'm about to say to you. I need you to be a polite man so that when you meet people, you say yes sir and no sir,
and yes ma'am and no ma'am. Because I want you to show respect for this family, for what we've gone through. Because I got something to tell you, Nick. For you to get out of prison and not be a nice man is a waste of every one of my prayers and tears. Don't you dare let me down? Well, I didn't know. This is the basis of neuroplasticity healing. If you can think about this, your brain when you go out and light up and smile has receptacles in it.
For you to go out and be gregariously nice and polite, your brain is actually erasing the PTSD in your brain. How is it that for the last hour or so, I've been able to sit here and talk about things that most people will be crushed by, and yet Jason knows this. I'm probably the happiest I've been in my life in the fifteen years of my freedom, so exponentially, I've been able to take on this notion that I'm an athlete, and as an athlete in training in neuroplasticity healing.
I am like an olympian. I have been doing this so well for so long, with such a polite manner. I am not affected by the stresses that deteriorate our brains, cause heart attacks, stress, divorce. I don't have a need for substance abuse because I don't have the fissure within me that needs to be masked. I actually go around and I teach people in the corporate world how to empower themselves with kindness for the workforce to be the
utmost beautiful boss. I go around and teach students about how their politeness makes them a better student, able to absorb more from their own self respect. I go around and I teach people how to handle fucked up shit. Sorry for the language, but since I did Joe Rogan's podcast, over a thousand people came to me and promised me they would no longer be abusive and killing themselves. A thousand men like dudes with the most broken hearted, damaged lives.
They come to me and they say, if you're doing what you're doing in your because of it, I'm going to do this. Just listening to you talk, I swear to God changed my whole perspective. That too, is why I'm doing this, Jason. I listened to your podcasts, and the one thing that I really wanted to tell you, I was so glad that you were alive to caring
about other species, not just humans. We can all feel that empathy and we all try for that, but when I saw that, you really likened it to your own happiness. You're well on your way to having neuroplasticity healing in your life. Whatever scars you've carried, you've already mastered them. You're now this fountain of foundation and hope for other people. You are now able to have a perspective that allows you freedom, just like me. But Dude, the way you
go about it has been so different. This is why I told you. You didn't have the earth dropped on your head a couple of times to make you do this, and for you to go out and make these efforts with Brandon Deasy or all these other people. Man, I'm like, why why is this?
Then? I get it.
You're already tuned into your own healing. You know what the reward system in you is and why it's genuine to you. You're not doing this to be famous. Jason. I see the effort you made this week alone and half the shit no one's even gonna know, are they? But inside your brain is feeding off this man just like me. It's profoundly making you a lovely person, someone
I've learned to really respect. You got the same message as me, but we came about at different angles, brother, and I'm here to just tell you that's all I want. I want to go around and teach the kindness approach. I want to go to schools and get students to be amazing people. I want to have a purposeful life like you. I just want to do good. I don't care where it came from.
Thank you for the kind words. It's really humbling to hear those coming from you. I recognize, you know in myself. You know, I call it selfish altruism because I know that I feel really sort of tuned in, or however you would say it. You know, when I'm able to bring some hope to a hopeless place to a person who needs it, sometimes even able to effectuate real change, bring somebody home, maybe help them after they get out,
it's an unbelievably rewarding thing. You know, It's funny when I meet somebody, a stranger, and we're talking wherever it might be, and they hear me talk what do you do? I talk about my living, how I make a living, this and that, and then I say, well, but I also work on this other and you know, after a few minutes to say, you know, your voice changed, like you become so much more animated when you talk about this other work. Yeah, yeah, so I think I've Yeah,
you're absolutely right. We came and you know, I had this revelation Nick. It was about a couple of years ago. I was leaving Buckingham Correctional in Virginia somewhere, and it was about an hour and forty minutes from Richmond, you know, some maximum security prison, and I was visiting a couple of innocent guys there, Yen Zurring and Tim Wright with the legal team, and trying to you know, help them
in any way that I could. I spent three very focused hours, really you know, dialed in of course there's no phones in, there's no distractions. And also it's when
I feel most useful. So I walked out. It was maybe late winter, early spring, and I walked out of this prison through the yard and then out the doors and it was about forty degrees and so sleep a little bit outside whether it wasn't very nice at all, And I had this momentary revelation and I said, Wow, there's no place I'd rather be in, nothing i'd rather be doing. You know, I'm no saint, you know, so
I don't want to make it sound like that. And I wish for everyone that you find something that gets you to that place. It's so many people doing such amazing things in the world, in so many different areas. You know, there's people that make my efforts look like a drop in the ocean. But I'm grateful to be a part of the movement and to be able to make a difference whenever I can, and to be able to spend time with people like you, honestly is the great reward.
This is what I think a lot of people don't really get. You throw out so much love and effort for everyone else. Give it to you, give it to you as well, and when you do it shines. I mean, it's you.
See.
I'll always carry my scars as a noble approach to my toll in life that I have to pay. And one of the tolls I'll never stop paying for is to fight for missus Craig. When I got out, I was in a documentary called After Innocence with Phil Donahue and Barry Shack and all them, and they filmed me going to the courthouse fighting to get the DNA to catch a killer. I recognize my wrong. So if I'm willing to do that effort like that for my wrongs, I should have some of that effort for my right.
We're not willing to do that without that ego blast bothering us about it, and that's wrong. My mother told me, when you go somewhere and you want to show people that you show respect for yourself, dress up nicely, make yourself feel good, show that you care about yourself, because that is a good example for when you go before someone to show them respect, you shown yourself enough care,
enough wisdom to know that you care about yourself. And the reason that we should care about ourselves in this way is people who trust us and rely on us need us to know we're not just loving and strong for them, but for ourselves. It's that weakness about us that makes people apprehensive that will he capitulate? Will you
give up? And we can't allow that. So I work very hard to find that perspective that if I can love myself to craft a deaf speech when I yet know justs like today, I'm living under a death sentence every day anyway, I don't know when it's gonna be Jason. The city's so chaotic. Me and you could get taken up by a taxi, caab, a bicyclist. We could die of choking on a pretzel. These are all realities today, right.
After all you've been through. Are you scared of a pretzel?
Yeah? Man, Hey, you joke. But I used to have a phobia because I watch the man choked to death in a prison cell because the guards thought he was tricking them and let him die. So there you go. So but the truth is that I realize that if every day I'm living with a death sentence, that I should not waste this last day with anger and stupid resentment. I have a really unique situation in which I have now a major motion picture being made about my life.
I'm on pins and needles this week because a very famous actor and his agent have been watching the latest work of my director, and it's a possibility this lovely man would say yes to playing me as the lead role, and I know that would change things. I've recently gone through a spate of jobs trying to find any kind of employment in the area I am. I'm actually currently unemployed, and I recognize that it doesn't matter. I know myself to know I have talent and a bit and I'll
bounce back. I've been trying to develop a television show based on what's happening now with my friend Walter, who I mentioned you see. One of the great pleasures of having come here to meet you is yesterday at the San Francisco Airport, the Philadelphia District Attorney's office called me personally, and the man that I spoke to told me he was very proud of me for the efforts I made, and it was one of the reasons he joined a
district attorney's integrity unit. It touched me that he couldn't break protocol and tell me information about my friend Walter's case and the hearing that's coming up next month, but he wanted me to know that there's good people in that office willing to do the right thing, and that
I shouldn't be worried. And I told him the only reason I rang was because I didn't want to embarrass his office by going on this podcast and giving me out wrong information and lamenting their efforts when I don't know. So I do know my friend has the DNA evidence back. It does not match him. I can't say more than that. I'm precluded from saying anything. But they did do DNA evidence in Walter Ogrod's case and they're now waiting for his hearing next month and he should be.
Released, amen man, and we'll be there for him with the support that he needs when he gets out.
Anybody wishing to know about Walter Ogrod, you can look up Death Row Stories, season three, episode four. I gave up my opportunity to be on this show so that they could tell his story. Jigsaw Productions did a great work and that was what led to the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office investigating's Walter's case.
That's Death Row Story season three, episode four. It's Walter Ogrid Ogrod. Please do check it out, and he's going to need a lot of support when he gets out. And we'll be publishing that information on the Rofel Conviction website and I'll be putting it on my social media of course.
It's Jason flum Nick.
For people who are listening now, and you've had a remarkable journey since you've been out. You had the one of them most listened to episodes ever of the Joe Rogan podcast. I think your episode will be one of the most listened to of this podcast. For people who want to get in touch with you, to book you for doing speaking gigs or come and give a teaching or whatever.
Usually social media works best Facebook page. I'm on Twitter, Instagram, nick Yarris.
That's nick Y a r rs, that's nick Yarris ya r r s.
And of course it's nic k right.
I also have nick Yarris dot Org my website, and I have a really sincere platform. I try and go around and talk to either university students, school students, or I do a corporate and I try and focus on two things, either the neuroplasticity, but I also cover media, and I also cover one of the best fields of all, which is our penology and how we need the work to change our penology. And one of the great passions that I have personally is I want to see a
change for prison officers. They have the highest mortality rates, the highest divorce rates the highest rates of alcohol abuse in our services. Imagine Jason, all the hards these men have to live with, and then they see me go free. One of the heartbreaking things is a man who stomped me, and I mean stomp the shit out of me for escaping, wrote me an email, said, dear miss Yerris, I got your email from one of your lawyers in nineteen eighty seven.
I beat the shit out of you for escaping for death row, and I thought you were a scumbag piece of shit, and I have to live with that. I'm sorry. So I want to see that prison officers are giving at least a two year course in psychology so they don't become abusive, and that they don't kill themselves. Because everything that I got good came from that officer, he said, Boy, go in a cell. I promise you, if you read these books, you won't be angry. I can't stop thinking
about that gift. I watched eleven men kill themselves. I watched as they burned the buildings around me during the nineteen eighty nine riot. I had a prison officers try to use different serial killers to kill me. Over a three year period. I've endured so many horrors. I think I'm going to lead them in prison and take the good home with me.
Wow, that's that's it in a nutshell, isn't it. And yeah, and I'm with you. I think that we need to do a much better job training the people who are there to protect the rehabilitate, and of course monitor the people who are in our prison system. Of course, we need to decarcerate this nation a two point three million. We are not the most evil people in the world.
We don't.
Our fourth largest industry is penology, right, that's.
Crazy, eighty something billion dollarstry. And the fact is that obviously there's some correction officers who will do very, very bad things. There's also a lot of them to do good and women.
Let's give it up. There's so many good men and women. And I love you for Look if you left prison today as a prison officer, and you dealt with the insanity of a man who mentally ill or somebody did something to you, please don't bring it home. I left everything in prison. Please do the same thing.
I just wanted to say too, that you know the fact that our prison conditions are so terrible affects the men and women who are there very nobly serving in a very difficult environment. That doesn't mean that they should be subjected to prisons that don't have air conditioning alongside the prisoners, that they should be subjected to mold that we have in so many prisons now as the major scandals in Florida and other places, the mold affects everybody that works.
Remember the TV. I remember at one point tuberculosis was in seventy percent of prisons. That's not made up like they had seventy percent infection rates in life out of these county jails because they're overcrowding.
So as a country, we need to do a much better job. This is America, it's twenty nineteen. Come on, everybody. Well, Nick, all I can say is it's been an extraordinary experience for me getting to spend this time with you. We're going to go to dinner later. I hope you'll come to dinner with absolutely.
I want chicken parmers on it.
You want chicken farm, that's what you'll get.
I'm a vegan. I'll get you whatever you want. But that's again, You're an amazing man. You're you're a hero to me and so many other people. I'm glad you're here. We need more like you, and we need more of you.
I'll bring over with me, and I promise you this, Jason, for your efforts, I won't let you down now that we've made a bond. I promise you a I won't capitulate, I won't kill myself, I won't quit, and I'll always be a respectful, kind and dignified person as best that I'm able to, so that you're never embarrassed by me. I mean, because I think a lot of us forget you and I come together on this principled effort. But for me to then forget that it would be a
terrible loss. So I tell everyone, if you believe in me and you've given me your time, I promise you no one will ever work harder to show gratitude. And dude, I ain't gonna let you down. I ain't gonna quit. I'm gonna be there like you and just ride this out. Man. I had this fascinating thing happened to me when I first got out. I came here to New York City and I was interviewed by Jennifer Garnerman of the Village Voice. At the conclusion of our interview, like we're doing now.
She put down her pen and she said, Nick, you do know you're living one of the greatest stories ever. I leaned over to the table to her. I said, it's just begun. And it's true. In the fifteen years of my freedom, things have been a rocket ride. Jay. But I've held on to the principles that A I had no business getting out if I wasn't looking for good, and B as long as I'm willing to believe in the good of others, I think I'm going to find people like you waiting. And thank you for letting me
earn your respect. That matters to me.
Man, Amen, brother, Thank you again, Nick Yaris. You can find him at what's Theosocial mediak.
Garis dot org or Nick Yaris on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Reach out to Nick follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, bring him in for a speech. You've heard the man's voice now, it's always different, it's always amazing. So listeners to the show know that this is the time when I usually go to closing arguments and just leave my mic off and leave yours on. But you have already dropped so many incredible pearls of wisdom, and so many
beautiful sayings. I'm just going to go home and have a good cry and then get energized and go out and make as much of a change as I possibly can.
And I'm going to do it in your name.
So thank you, fucking badass boy, badass, thank.
You, Thank you for listening. This has been a wild ride for me and I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. We'll see you next week. 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 Ennisnce Project and I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to innisonsproject 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 time OSCAR nominated.
Composer Jay Ralph.
Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and Association with signal company number one