Best friends, Cordel Hubbard and Ruel Sailor, were small time dealers on the East side of Cleveland. On November sixteenth, two thousand and two, Cordell's sister Nicole was out partying with some friends. She fronted the group twenty bucks for drugs, but felt taken advantage of when she only got ten dollars back from the group of five. When she spoke up, a gun was pulled on her, so she called Cordel.
While celebrating a birthday at a bar with a large group including will Sizemore and Ruelle, Cordell answered the call from Nicole and took Sizemore along to confront the two men who had done her wrong, Omar Clark and Clark Lamar Williams. They pulled up on these men on a darkened street, and Sizemore initially got out of the passenger side and confronted them about his sister, leading witnesses to believe that the passenger was Cordel. Cordell got out of
the driver's side. Omar Clark pulled a gun and Cordell shot him in self defense, while the other man, Williams, got caught with a bullet in his buttocks as he ran away. Ruel was clearly not involved, but his tight friendship with Cordel and his days in the streets would come back to haunt him. A corrupt vice detective who had once vowed to get Ruel would use this opportunity, claiming an informant had told him that Ruel was the other man with Cordell while threatening and coercing Ruel's alibi
witnesses into silence. Even with Cordell taking full responsibility and naming Will Sizemore as the other man before sentencing, Ruel still spent fifteen years behind bars. This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm.
That's me. I'm your host, and today, if I was going to title this episode, I would call it Web of Lies, because this case was built on so many different layers of lies, so many different people had to tell in order to convict an innocent man named Ruel Sailor of murder and other charges. So we'll get right into it. First of all, I want to introduce the woman who was responsible for Ruel winning his freedom a couple of years ago. Jennifer Passion Bergeron, who is the
deputy director of the Ohio Innocence Project. So, Jennifer, welcome to Ronful Conviction. Thank you.
It's good to be here. I would be remiss if I didn't give a shout out to Kim Carral too, because she was in private attorney that worked with me on this case.
Thank you for doing that. And without further Ado Ruel Sailor, welcome to Ronfuel Conviction.
Thank you for having me.
And let's start in the beginning. So did you grow up in Cleveland.
Yes, on the east side, the Saint Clair area in the east side of Cleveland. My mother, for as I remember, she always was a nurse. Sometimes he worked two three shifts a day. My father he was there. Then he wasn't there. He was in the streets. But then I had started get older, I had to be there to help out with my siblings. I have a younger brother and sister. So once my dad wasn't there, it was just us. And then as a teenager, I took more into the streets than school because I felt like I
had to help my mom with my siblings. So I begin like to sell drugs at a young age and I drop out of high school in like tenth grade.
Tell us about Cordell Hubbard, because he really is a central figure and this really crazy crime.
Well black history of Cordell Hubbard. Me and Cordell Hubbard met in third grade and for some reason we ended up in the same class every grade throughout our whole entire school year up until high school. So he was always best friends and Jennifer.
This started from a drug deal gone bad, right, but a very minor drug deal at that And this goes back to the night of November sixteenth of two thousand and two.
One of the people that we'll be talking about is Clark Lamar Williams, and we'll just refer to him as Williams just to try to make it simpler. My understanding is Nicole Hubbard was with Omar Clark and Williams and a couple of her friends that night and they were driving. Omar Clark and Williams should buy a wet cigarette, one cigarette with PCP and I guess it was twenty bucks and Nicole fronted the twenty bucks. So when they stopped, I think it was Omar Clark that went in to
get the money to pay her back. But didn't come back with twenty bucks, came back with only ten bucks, apparently because everyone had taken turns smoking, so I guess he figured he only needed to pay half of it. I don't know, but in any case, this did not go over well with the Cole Hubbard, and my understanding is Omar pulled a gun on her and that's when she called her brother and things escalated from there.
Me and Grardill Hubbard, he was happening to be out sun to brain one of our friends' birthdays. He's had a bar and Cordell had received a phone call from his sister and Nicole Hubbert. Him and William Sizemore left the board and he was at and went to go confront these guys about his sister to go see about her well being, because he thought she was still there,
and when he got there, she was gone. To my understanding from when I was told like Oldmark Clark pulled a gun on Cordell Hubbard twice and Cordell Hubbard shot Openmark Clark in self defense.
Omar Clark was shot eleven times and mister Williams was running away from the scene and was shot. He was lucky to be shot in the butt and therefore not badly hurt. And the two men drove off afterwards.
And so the witnesses that was on the scene had confused the driver and the passenger. William Sizemore was the passenger. ForDeal Hubbert was the driver, and William Sizemore got out and confronted the individuals saying, what do I do to my sister? So the witnesses on that street automatically assumed that the brother was the passenger, and that's where the confusion came at. So they always had put Cordell on the passenger side, and they didn't know who the driver was.
So when they arrested Cordell for this crime, they was charging him as an accomplice because the driver was the shooter and they didn't have a second person. And going back to my history in the streets, there was a vice cop from my neighborhood that particularly didn't get along with me per se, and he had planned drugs on me once before and I didn't go to prison, and he felt that I said with the prison. He told
me that he would get me one day. And so when Cordell name came up in his crime, they automatically just assumed I was with Cordell because we've always been together for so many years, and everyone knew that we were best friends. So this cop told the homicide detectives that he had a complicitive informant, which was never named,
never brought up during our trial, just his word. He had a complicatory informant told him that I was the driver and that I was the shooter, and I was arrested based upon that.
And then we fast forward, of course, to March twenty six, two thousand three, and a grand jury indicted you, well, right on charges of murder, kidnapping, and assault. But I mean the alibi it's pretty strong in this case, right, I mean he was miles and miles away across town with lots of other people, right.
Yes, we have several affidavits from different people later on who could have potentially testified at the trial, but they also said in their appidats that they were threatened by the police if they did show up to testify.
Now, the case went to trial in May of two thousand and three, and all three of you were tried together. First of all, it seems like a very quick turnaround, and I can't leave out the fact that when I see the words Cyahoga County, I immediately get the chills, because we keep hearing about cases from Cuyahoga County wrongful conviction one after the other.
I was indicted more twenty six. I was arrested April second, Whdell Hubbard was already indicted and was out on bond and his court date prior to me being arrested. The state didn't have any witnesses to come to court, so the judge, Nancy MacDonald told were they owe, his lawyers and the prosecutors that she was going to reschedule next court date for May nineteenth. To my understanding that they didn't come May nineteenth with witnesses, that the case would
be thrown out. In the midst of that, I was arrested and they added Cordell and the code to my new indictment, but kept they saying court date May nineteenth was their original court date to start a trial. Or lawyers who I was separate trial, they denied as a separate trial, and I had to nearly prepare for a murder trial from April second to May nineteen.
Jennifer, this all sounds pretty irregular, even amongst the crazy shit we hear week to week on this podcast.
Well, I can't imagine as an attorney trying to get ready for a murder case in basically a month. So that set the whole stage for things to just go downhill because there just wasn't time to do the type of investigation that would have been necessary to mount the proper defense.
By the time I had put my witness list together, the detective on my case, before I can even make calls to get to these witnesses, he had already got to them. The board that I was at, he got to the owner and he told her that if she came to court of my defense, he would he would get her board raided, like raided for drugs and shut down, like he was like playing drugs at her bar. And he's known for this throughout our neighborhood, so she didn't
want to jeopardize her business, which I understand. And then my other witnesses neighbors in the street life as well, and he went to them and threatened them with planning drugs on them and getting those guys cases, so they didn't come to court. So when it came time for trial, I didn't have any out of out witnesses that was on my list to come to court, because this detective had when it spoke to all of them and threatened them not to come to court.
So you didn't have a shot in l when it really comes down to it. And I don't think the best lawyer in the world could have helped you out of that situation with what they were willing to do, the links they were willing to go to. So the trial, did you think, after having seen all the worst of what our quote unquote justice system has to offer, did you think that you still had a chance to be acquitted.
I was skeptical because my jury wasn't of my peers. Majority of my jury were older, white people from suburban areas. And so the biggest thing in this case was identification. There was no physical evidence, no scientific evidence, no bullets cases, none of that. The witnesses in this case described the two individuals as two light skinned males that looked like brothers. For they'll hover, it's the same skin complexion as Steph Curry, and you would put me as the same complexion as
maybe Lebron James or Dwayne Wade maybe. And I'm sitting there and I'm like, these human beings in this jury box has to understand that me and Cordell Hubbard could never look alike on no scene, no setting, whatsoever, two different shades of color completely. But when you get a jury that's not from my culture of my background, they just see two African Americans, so it was a different I didn't know that, but I know now. I'm just thinking that everybody knows about light skin and dark skin,
and that's just common sense. I wasn't aware that there are people that live in this world that don't know that.
So the jury comes back in what was that moment or those moments like for you.
It was a moment of clarity, because before you go through those things, you feel like nobody goes to jail that didn't do anything unless you know somebody that's actually innocent. So I'm sitting there and I'm like, they just found me guilty of something I didn't even see. I wasn't even nowhere nearer the scene of the crime, hadn't been
nowhere near that side of the town or anything. But to make it even worse that I'm being convicted of a crime that the man standing next to me actually committed and here I am being found guilty of a crime I never saw.
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It was an even heavier blow between me being convicted and me going to prison, because Creil Hubber comes forward and he admits that he killed Omar Clark, and he admits that William Sizon World was with him and that I was nowhere near that, and that he played on my innocence to get free, and now he wants to
tell the truth. So when we get ready to go to Sensing, the plan is he selling his attorney that when we go to Senson there were news cameras in there and media in there, So he was saying like, I'm going to speak the truth in front of the cameras and blow this whole thing up. So I don't know if his lawyer plays both sides or what. But we go to Sencent and are judged. She kicks the
media out of the courtroom before court starts. Cordial still confesses to the crime, and she still convicts me right there on the spot, sends me to twenty eight years to life.
He's actually solving the case for them, right, he's identified, which took some courage. I mean it was too it was too late as it turns out, but it did take some courage. Hubbard signed a Swan statement right claiming that Rouel was not with him at the crime scene, and he said it was quote unquote, it was a guy named Will and he meant by that Will size bore. And it goes on to say, I didn't think it was going to turn out like this. I didn't think
my best friend would get convicted as a shooter. But he wasn't even there.
So I have to follow a new trial motion based on Cordell's affidavit amanting to this crime. We sent subpoenas to William Sizemore. So we have this retrial here where we present all to the courts. Cordeal takes the stand at the retrial here stead he killed Omar Clark, describes the whole night in detail, how it happened, how he left, everything that happens. Before Cordell can make it back to his seats, he denies me a new trial, then sends me to prison.
Jennifer, help us out here. What was going on here that they were so actively disinterested in knowing what really happened.
I don't have an answer for that. I don't know how you could hear that testimony and not try to fix this wrong.
So, I mean, years go by and we're all the way to twenty thirteen, when you filed another petition asking for a new trial based on another sworn AFFI, David, right, right, Do you want to walk us through that.
You Mark Clark, the victim's brother, Omark Clark's brother. He was heavily involved in the whole entire investigation. And that's how a lot of things worked out on the Cordell and the Cole Hubberd side, because you work. Clark would go talk to the witnesses, he would go talk to Williams, and he would go relay everything he found out in the streets to the police, and that's how they found out who Cordell and the Cole Hover even was. Fast forward.
You Mark Clarker's in prison. I write him a letter and he writes me back. He tells me that days after trial he knew the truth. William Sizemore had came forward to him and told him that he was with Cordell the night of the shooting, that Cordell killed his brother. He said, Man, send a lawyer at me, or send an investigator at me. I'll do an affidavit. So I'm thinking this was the mother load right here. So I'll get the affidavit. I found me a new trial motion again,
this newly discovered evidence. The same judge, Nancy McDonald.
I feel like it would be a more objective process if it was a different judge. But she denied that petition without a hearing. The petition's dismissal was upheld on appeal in twenty fourteen. And then how did you end up contacting the Ohio Innocence Project.
I had wrote to the Ohio Interest Project. They never denied my case, they just at the times that I wrote them. They responded saying they had a heavy case load. So I understood that I'm going to keep fighting and keep building evidence as I go, so if they do come along, I'll have enough. And in the midst of that, I had retained the attorney, amazing attorney, Kimberly Curel, my wife, Amy Saylor, my family. They was out here and they
was be down doors having rallies. And then Kyle Swinson from the Scene magazine had did an article on me and I had like a ten pay spread and the Ohio Interest Project and then they had contacted me. They had seen the traction I had with my cases was going. They looked into it, and Jennifer and this student Andrew and Ruby, they came to see me I was in Ohio State Penitentiary and went over my case and I just I just knew right then and there, like I was about to go home.
So, Jennifer, how did you crack this case?
There was really nothing to crack. I mean, by the time we got the case, we knew exactly what had happened because everybody had already explained that Cordell admitted he was the shooter. We knew William Sizemore it admitted he was the second person there, and so there really wasn't anything to solve. We knew from the get go that Ruel wasn't there and had nothing to do with it. The challenge was to convince the prosecutor in the court to let him out of prison since he was innocent,
and that's what took a long time. So in the spring of twenty sixteen, I think his other attorney, Kim, we started working cooperatively together to try to figure out a plan to get Ruel out and then we were kind of working with additional investigation to try to find anything else we could, and that's where we got additional affidavits from some of the alibi witnesses and from Nicole Hubbard.
And because he'd already filed as we were talking about, before these new trial motions that had been denied, it looked like the best path for him was to try the conviction Integrity Unit that had opened in Cuyahoga County.
My whole time at prison, every attorney, every investigator, everybody always told me like, if William Sizemore was to ever come forward and tell the truth, that's your go to key, you walking out of prison. So I'm in Lucasville and I get a phone called and Kim is crying. As soon as I called, I'm like, why why is she crying? She's like, William Sizemore just went to the prosecutor's office and told the truth. So in my mind, they about to come pop my door in the next five minutes
and I'm about to walk out of here. It didn't happen like that, though, Like I still sat in prison for like almost eight nine months. After William Sizemore came forward and told the truth and the prosecutors from the CiU, Russell tied him and Kim came to see me and he's like, well, we gotta do some more investigating. And at this point, William Sizemore has admitted that he was with Cordial Hubbard and that Cordill Hubbard shot Odmark Clark in self defense and said that old Mark Clark had
a gun. Williams had came forward and recanted and said he never saw me a day of his life and that they made him say that I was the shooter. My witness is body Netto's Anthony McKenzie. They've came forward and told the truth that they was threatened. Correll has admitted, So I have all this evidence mounted with me saying that I'm innocent, and the prosecutor told me that he had to go do more investigation and was going to
leave me in prison. So I had to ask, well, where's William sideboard and he told me William Sizemore was at home because he didn't see him as a suspect. The system is not built right at all.
Was there a worst moment in that fifteen years, in that very very dark place where you almost gave up, or where it's just a moment of absolute despair And at the same time, what was the happiest moment.
Well, the happiest moment would be they told me I was going home. But just a quick how I went from dark to light. I was in Lucasville and it's like the worst prison in Ohio, hands down. And I was I was on a straight path. I was stayed out of trouble, and I was trying to get my status dropped so I can go to a lower level prison. And right before I went up to get up my status dropped for a lower level prison, I was a
porter and a dust pan had came up missing. Now, a dustpan in any other prison or any other times is a minor thing. They don't make a big deal about it or nothing. But this particular time, they made
the biggest deal about this dust pan. And they tried to give me like a LC which is like sixty days in the hole and segregation, and they tried to take my status being lowered away from me and all these things and my phone privileges and my visit privileges, and it was like it just came out of nowhere, and it was like I didn't even do nothing. It was like this is the story of my life. And so they put me in the hole and They wouldn't trying to hear me out. They weren't trying to wash
the camera to see. They have these high tech cameras, and I just keep saying, wash the camera. It's just something simple. Wash the camera. You would see I didn't touch the dust pan. They refused to wash the camera. So it was like this is it set up or something? And I got to the whole. I just went on a hunger strike because I had to fight for my way without being violent or being rude or anything like that. So I just refused to eat me refusing to eat being the person I was in prison, I was had
a little bit of a mount of respect. A lot of other guys follow suit, and they refused they trades on account what they was doing to me because everybody knew they never did. It's a lot of dust bands. So long story short, I went to do like seven eight, I think like ten days on hunger strike in solitary confinement, not a soul around me. I'm by myself, and it's like I'm just feeling like this damn near to eat. I'm feeling like I'm about to die in the CeAl.
I ain't eight. I'm not feeling good and they come get me. So I had a lawyer phone call and I came got the phone. It was genderfer Kim and the Channel five news from my city, Joe Packin Naggas all on three way on the phone with me, and I'm like, what's going on? What was going on? And they was like, that's it, You're coming home. You'd be out a couple of days. It went from like the worst time in prison to the best time in prison, all one cycle, for.
The literal depths of despair, starving alone in solitary confinement for another crime E didn't commitment.
And then they finally decide to watch the camera and another porter head through the dustband in the trash by mistake.
Ultimately, you obviously were freed. And when I say freed, I chose that word carefully because even after all of this, they still weren't done messing with you, right, Because what I'm referring to is, in March twenty eighteen, the prosecutor Andrew Well's team file the joint motion vacating conviction all
the convictions and dismissing all the charges. But there was another little dirty trick, right, which is that the prosecution had a caveat, and they said to you, well that you had to plead guilty to perjury and obstruction of justice, saying that you had falsely testified at trial that Cordell was not involved in the shooting, and in exchange for this, they were willing to re sentence you to ten years, which obviously you had already served a lot longer than that, and you could go home.
I never disclosed at pordial and William Size more than left the board, and I stayed. I never really lied. We was together all that night, which I didn't find out he left the board to after the fact. And so they told me that I lied. Understand I committee perjury, perjury and obstrusting the justice. They gave me five years max on each one equal to ten years. And at this point they hold it in front of me like, well, you can go home right now. If you agreed it is,
you can go home. You don't agree it is, you know telling how long it might take for us to get you a new trial, starty, It might take a year, it might take two years, who knows, but you can go home right now. Did you say you take these ten years time? Serve? So I agreed to it, even though I know it wasn't right. I agreed to it because I wanted to go home. Who don't want to go home after being in jail for fifteen years? What primary didn't commit?
It's an unreal story. And of course, now fast forward to March of twenty twenty, you file the federal civil rights lawsuit against the Cleveland Police Department and non officers seeking damages for your wrongful conviction, and your team also filed a separate complaint in the Kuyahoga Court of Climbing Polease to have you declared wrongfully in prisoned and therefore eligible for state compensation or actually innocent, however you want to look at it, So we don't need to get
into that now. But I just want to say that all of us in the family, the roycal conviction family, and and it's community are all rooting for you.
I can't let this platform go without sharing where I'm at currently since being released. I married my wife on my one year anniversary March twenty eighth. As of recently, I just had a daughter, Mayels. She was born on the twelfth of October. I started a business when I came home from prison. I still a clothing line call Comma Club Clothing. The Comma means continuation. The mantra is my story is not over. No one's story is ever over.
As long as you get up and continue to fight what you want in life, your story is never over. I've done speaking engagements. I go to high schools, colleges and tell my story and you can find me on Instagram at Comma Underscore Club Underscore Clothing. Thank you.
That's Comma Underscore Club Underscore Clothing. Follow Ruel. The clothes are great. I've seen them and they're comfortable too. So I'm giving up. I'm giving my plug. So now this is the part of the podcast, which is my favorite part. I always say that because this is the part where I get to first of all, I think both of you for coming and taking your time and sharing your story and just for being freedom fighters that you are.
And so Jennifer Passion Vergeron, thank you again for being on the show today.
It's been my pleasure.
Thank you, and Ruell you know, once again you're a hero to me and so many others. And I'm just so thrilled that we got to talk today, and you know we're going to be friends for a long time, So thanks again for sharing your strength and your spirit with the audience. Oh thank you for having me on one hundred percent. So now what happens is I turned my microphone off, kick back, close my eyes and just
listen to closing arguments. Jennifer you first, please, and then you can just hand it off to ru Well.
I just want to say thank you to everyone for listening and being interested in these issues because they are pervasive throughout the country and they need to be heard. The stories and the exoneries and just the awareness in general. And if you get the chance to work on a jury, please do so and just be skeptical and look for the truth.
Jennifer, I love you, Thank you for what you've done. And I can't leave this podcast without giving my wife, Amy Saylor her roses, as well as Kim Correll and Tim Pablished, Andrew and Ruby and work at the OP. I wouldn't be seeing her having this conversation. It wouldn't for these people because they fought for me on the outside. Like Kim Corell was my attorney. She did ten times more than what I paid her for. Leave that and she's been a friend from their own out and the
op has tocome a family. They don't just get you out of prison, but they stick with you the whole time while you're out. I just wanted to just give all them their flowers. Now I get a joy out of just sharing my story. It's about the awareness of what's going on in our world, our country, far as our legal system and how our courts, police officers, things of that nature. The jury's handle theirselves because I was
once that person that didn't believe these things happen. So the more we share stories like minds and others, we wake up more people than know that these things actually happen. If you know someone in prison, please contact them, Please come and gaze in their cases. Just be there for those guys that are in prison. There are a lot more guys in prison that are innocent. I say that over and over again. There are so many more. I'm just one of many that happen to make it out.
There's so many more in there. So I encourage people to be on the jury Listen, be attentive, study these cases. If you're in the jury, and just help people that you know that's are incarcerated. Write them, send them a letter, give them a phone call anything like that because it means a lot. It means a lot more than you may think.
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. Please support your local innocence projects and go to the link in our bio to see how you can help. I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Cliburn and Kevin Warnis. The music on the show, as always, is by three time OSCAR nominated compe Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one