#229 Jason Flom with Ronald Jacobsen

her mother. Over the course of several detailed statements, BT maintained that she did not know her attack her and that at one point during the abduction, she thought of fleeing to the home of her friend Ron Jacobson when they were close by. Despite these statements and the lack of any physical or forensic evidence inculpating Ron, police ultimately persuaded Bat that she had just repressed the memory of

her friend Ron being her actual attacker. At trial, Ron's defense failed to bring up the inconsistencies between Batt's many earlier statements to Lease and the story of Ron being the perpetrator, and with DNA testing only in its infancy.

Ron was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. In two thousand three, Georgia enacted a law that allowed for post conviction DNA testing, but the Rape Shield Law, the law that has meant to protect rape survivors from irrelevant character assassinations, was first used to bar the DNA testing in this case, and then the introduction of the results when they clearly excluded Ron as BT's attacker. Finally, the newly elected district attorney took one look at Ron's case

and dismissed all charges. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. I'm your host, Jason Flam and today's story is terrifying for a number of reasons. First because of all the things that should have pointed investigators away from Ron Jacobson, not Adam, but even more so because, once DNA testing was available to exonerate him, the d at tooth and nail both to block that testing and then to maintain a conviction that they knew was unjust.

So first of all, Ron, I'm sorry you're here because of the circumstances that brought you here, but I'm happy and honored to have you on the show. Thank you, thank you. And with Ron is one of my favorite human beings. Ron's incredible attorney and champion who is a driving force not just in the Innocence Project, but also in the movement for justice across the board. And of course I'm talking about a voice you'll recognize, Vanessa Podkins

of Vanessa Welcome back the Rawful Conviction. It's fantastic to be here. Okay, So before all this happened, Ron, you were engaged and Navy veteran and father to be, living and working between Georgia and Tennessee. Can you tell us a little bit about your life before this terrible series of events took place. I was working as an ortu men mechanic and I was doing real good, making good money. My girlfriend was pregnant with our son, and we were

planning on getting married. Rant a nice house in Georgia, you know, very middle class, comfortable life. My life was really really come together at that point when this happened. You know, everything I worked for was gone. Right, So you were renting a place in Georgia, but you were kind of spending part of your time in Chattanooka, Tennessee with your pregnant fiance. So things are sailing along smoothly. For now. Have you had any previous run ins with

the law? Yes, that was one of the reasons I was in Georgia. I had an auto depth charge back in the eighties, and I was on parole and I was doing good, you know, no violations, and I wanted to put everything behind me and change get all my life. And before we get to the crime, a very important fact in this case is that you and the victim, this woman who were referring to as BT, you two had dated at some point prior to the incident, right, Yes,

I met her one time. Then about a couple of months later, her mother was dating my roommate and a mother mentioned BT. She's working down here at a golden pantry. I'll fight twenty She would like to see you, talk to you, so you know, I drove on down. We talked and who could aff work. We drove back to Atlanta, went out to a little five Points for Irish pub and we started seeing each other. I want to say over October. So you dated her for approximately how long run?

I want to say, four weeks? Three? Four weeks? All right? So Vanessa, take us back to the incident itself. On the night of January six, it's an awful, unspeakable crime, but just walk us through it, okay. So Bt was working overnight at the Golden Pantry convenience store and was abducted into a white, grayish truck and driven up the interstate, where the assailant beat her, forced her to perform oral sex at some point pulled over and vaginally and anally

raped her. The assailant kept driving and actually ran out of gas, and so they were pulled over on the side of the road, and somebody stopped seeing the car in distress on the side of the road, and the assailant got into the car with this good samaritan and drove off, presumably to get gas. And so Bat saw this as her opportunity to escape. She ran to a nearby house and ultimately knocked on the door. The person who lived there, you know, opened it up and saw Bat,

who was bloody and shaken up, and called police. At this point, the Sheriff's office actually had already arrived at the Golden Pantry because the customer had come in noticed that nobody was in the store, saw blood and the store and disarray, and so had called the sheriff office, and somebody from a convenience store across the way had said that they saw BT getting into this truck, and so she was immediately taken to the hospital. They performed

a sexual assault kit and recovered male DNA. Yeah, and they found more evidence as well, write a bloody handprint on the wall, folding knife outside on the ground, and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the gb I performed blood tests on the knife and the handprint, so they had tons of evidence, I imagine. They also had a description of the truck. Now, was the assailant wearing a mask

B any chance? No, But it's hard to know actually what really happened because BT gave different stories to the police.

So in the week right after the crime, she talked to the police on three different occasions, and the first time she did she gave a really detailed statement, and she said that she was working at the convenience store and that a group had come in of two gods and two girls earlier in the evening, and that one of the men returned several hours later and that was the person who came behind the counter and ultimately abducted her. And in this statement, she was extremely detailed and very

specific about the assailant being a stranger. She told police that she said to him, I'm quoting. I said, what did I ever do to you? I don't even know you, she said, I just knew my own personal opinion. He had come by the store, saw me earlier, got the idea that I might be there alone, come in there. Sure enough, I wasn't so busy. So he took off young girl alone three o'clock in the morning. Why not.

So she's very detailed about this being a stranger, and she even says it's this person who was with a group earlier in the evening, and then she goes on to give other statements. Two days after the attack, she gives a description of her assailant. She talks about him being five or ten. She wasn't clear if he had tattoos. Of course, at that time, Ron is a half a foot taller. He's six three. He has multiple tattoos. So

she's describing somebody who's not Ron. And then she gives a third statement, right, which is a written statement, and the police take her on a drive through of the route that the assailant had taken her, and she points several locations where she was sexually assaulted and walks through

a lot of details. She says in this statement that at one of the stops during the attack that she thought this could be an opportunity to escape, and that she had a friend, Ronald Jacobson, who lived nearby, and she said, you know, maybe I could escape if I have the chance, and I could get help from him. I mean, it's all craziness. The victim grant that she's traumatized for sure, but she said she was hoping to escape to the home of none other than ron Jacobsen.

How do we square that with the idea that run Jacobson, she later says, was the guy who was attacking her. I mean, how did they eventually convinced her to identify him? And they interviewed her father as well, I mean, how

does that play into this? So she told police that at the time that the assailant came into the store, that there was somebody else with her and she couldn't really remember who it was, but she thought it was Bob Knight, who was an older man who had worked at the store previously but was friends with her father. In the days following her attack, Bob Knight and the father are talking and the father says, well, you know, she was having some issues with this guy she dated,

Ron Jacobson. Maybe he did it. So Bob Knight takes Ron Jacobson's name to the police and says, I think I know who the assaylant is, Ron Jacobson. Bob Knight had never met Ron Jacobson. He's just going off of the statement that the dad said. So police pull a picture of Ron Jacobson, his d m V photograph and show it to Bob Knight, who then says, that's the

person I saw in the store. But I mean that line up or photo show up procedure is just bonkers and of itself, because they give him Ron Jacobson's driver's license, which presumably has his name on it, and he says, yeah, that's the guy. And so based on that, the police go back to Bet and say we think we know who didn't it's Ron Jacobson and she says, no, it wasn't. So she's adamant that it's not Ron, and then the

police want to polygraph her. So you have BT saying no, it's not Ron, and the police saying we don't believe you, and we're going to polygraph you. I've never even seen this circumstance in any case that I've worked on, where the police seek to polygraph the victim because the victim is not identifying the person who they believe as the suspect.

But that's what was happening here. It turns out that BT, at the time of her attack was newly pregnant, and so the polligrapher refused to administer the polygraph, and instead the police consult with a behavioral analyst at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation that says to them, go back to her, talk to her. Sometimes victims repress things. Tell her you know what happened, and eventually she'll remember and she'll come

forward with the information. And so that's what happens. They go back to her, and then she eventually says it was wrong. And then six days later, January twelve, Ron they brought you in. How did that go? I mean, you must have been shocked to even find yourself in that situation in the first place. Well, how was at work in Atlanta? And the phone ring it was my prouser.

He said, look, I need to come into the office as fast as possible, So okay, I'll be there so I'm thinking myself, okay, it's a random your analysis in and out. So I told my Boston, I said, look, I gotta go. I'll be back an hour. So I'll walk into the Pro office. Another Pro officer walks in behind me, pushed me against the wall, put me in handcuffs, says I'm under arrest. So now I'm wondering, you know,

for what. I didn't violate parole and they said no, for a suchual saut of the victim BT, And so I explained, IL said, BT nah, I was in Tennessee with Janey, my girlfriend, and they called the Sheriff's department and the g b I agents Sheriff's department come up, picked me up, drove me back to the county jail. So it was a total shock to me. So police didn't record the interrogation, but nonetheless they went I had an issue a police report that was written in the

first person, as if Ron had written it right. And then, of course, to double down on this obvious mouthfeasance, they also never showed a copy of the report to Ron or his team to determine whether it was accurate or not. And Ron was arrested the same day, charged with aggravated side of me kidnapping with bodily injury and a bit of assault. And then six months later Ron went to trial in Newton County Superior Court and in the opening state with the prosecutor now get this, okay, The prosecutor

acknowledged that the case was problematic. He said that the police quote went back to Bat and kind of told her who it was, and at that point in time she said, yes, it was him, and she went and told the whole same story again, but just supplied his name at this point in time unquote. So from what we already know of the investigation, that summary is misleading at best. There was, of course, zero physical or forensic

evidence tying Ron to the crime. So it comes down to the problematic testimony to Bob Knight and Bat, to which the jury was simply not aware of how these pieces of evidence were gathered. Now, Night testified that he recognized Ron as the man who came into the store that night as he was leaving, and then Bat went ahead and identified you Ron as her attacker. And she said she didn't immediately it ify you because you had

threatened to kill her if she did. No Vanessa go ahead, tell us about the defense here, BT is never really confronted with the detailed statements that she gave implicating somebody else. It is mentioned at trial that she initially didn't say it was wrong, and she says it was because you know, she was scared of her life. But just not saying it was wrong at the beginning could mean you didn't say it in the first hour or two. It doesn't mean you know. And the jury never was told you

gave these really detailed statements. Right, You've talked about even going to Ron for help. You talked about this group of people coming in and one of the guys coming back, and you saying to him, I don't even know you. I mean, none of that came out to the jury. So there's two possibilities, right, it wasn't turned over and either the police buried it or the prosecution buried it, or it was turned over and his defense attorney just

failed to use it. I don't have the answer to that, as the records aren't perfect, and because Ron's lawyer was so bad that it is possible that he didn't use it, and the witnesses that Ron had in his favor to say that he was a hundred and fifty miles away when this happened. It was his girlfriend at the time, it was pregnant, her mother. They were watching TV at two thirty three in the morning. He's hours away from where this crime happened at shortly probably after four am.

And there's reason that they would remember this night. It was just within days of his girlfriend's birthday. He had got up there that weekend. He brought her car as a president. So it's just none of that really came out at trial to really add credibility and show why these people who were testifying and had been with Ron, you know, why they were so believable and credible, and that just didn't come out. It was just like five

questions and you're done. The defense that Ron had. I mean, this is where you feel like you're in a movie, like this is a horror movie. You're from Brooklyn, you're stuck basically in Georgia, You're now facing trial, and your lawyer is scared of his own shadow or just doesn't care.

And I think one just being an outsider in this place, which is you know, close to Atlanta, but whirled away right Even on his booking sheet there was a line for deformities, and the deformity listed is Brooklyn accent Ron. What are your recollections of the trial? Stranger in a Strange Land. My trial attorney came to see me, I believe maybe twice at the most prepare. He never talked to none of my witnesses till the day to trial.

So the night before my attorney comes walking down to jail and he said, we got to trial on the morning. Try to get a haircut and cut your beard. I got an old, rusty razor. I trimmed my beard off. So the day to trial, I go in. Now you've got this prosecutor to jury looking at him, he tried to change his appearance. He shaved his beard off. Basically, everything my trial attorney did was negative. When he had bat on the witness stand, he popped the question off

as well, what's your relationship tonight? The district attorney john I you know, he jumped up, So whoa, whoa, whoa? You told the judge get the juriority here, and they displayed my attorney. They brought up the rape shield. You're not supposed toy asked, no kind of sexual relationships, past relationships, but you know it was too late. The jury already

heard this question, so they bring it back. And from that point on, my attorney sat there and drew little sailboats on his pad, so it was a foregone conclusion though I was gonna get convicted. He drew little sailboats on his pass, and you're sitting there watching him do this. So you've got like a split screen horror show. You've got these people up there telling all kinds of lies about you, and you've got the one person who's there that's supposed to be your last line of defense. Really,

John fucking sailboats on a path. It's really nut. And then of course it gets worse because in June twelve, the jury convicted you of aggravated psotomy can have a bodily injury and aggravated a sawt in sense your life in prison. It was a hards show. Then I took the stand in my own defense. My trial attorney you never really asked me any questions, but then the prosecutor he told a jury everything I said. I'm pathological liar,

viitual liar. I brought up a valley the police, you know, with the statements, and oh, so you're accusing the police being liars when you're the liar, but you know small town politics. And here I am, you know, from Brooklyn, outsider New Yorker, and this is what happens. A gross miscaracter. Justice cost me thirty years, eight months, and thirteen days

of my life. This episode is underwritten by a i G, a leading global insurance company, and by Accenture, a global professional services company with leading capabilities in digital, cloud and security. Working to reform the criminal justice system is a key pillar of the ai G pro Bono Program, which provides free legal services and other support to many nonprofit organizations and individuals most in need as part of Accenture's commitment

to racial and civil justice. Accenture's Legal Access Program provides pro bono legal services in partnership with more than forty organizations, bringing meaningful change to people and communities worldwide. When I first went to prison, it's basically like a wild dog pack. Everybody wants being l fa mail, so you don't trust nobody. You gotta watch your back, you gotta watch what you say.

And the guards, you know, they don't care. People getting killed there every week, no prosecution on because you've got twenty year old kids, with life sentences. No whole begin now, so they're gonna do what they want. When you first get convicted, you go through the stage, is a lot of anger, anger at the world. Then it's acceptance. You say to yourself, Okay, this happened to me, what are

you gonna do about it? So now you educate yourself, go to law library, you start reading and start researching. And I happened to be watching j trial and I've seen Baryscheck talking about d NA. I talked to my mom. I said, look that DNA is gonna clear me one day. So I started researching, and I've seen Barrischeck wrote a book, Actual Innocence, So my mom sent it to me. I read this book like sixteen times. And at the time, around two thousand, Free Georgia passed the law for post

conviction DNA test. So I sat down, wrote thirteen fifteen page letter to Georgia Innocent Project and the Innocent Project in New York and Georgia. People wrote me right back, said okay, we'll help you. We'll take your case, send it to transcripts and everything. So I did. About a year goes by. They send everything back says at this time. We can't do nothing for you, but your case is still open. Ten years go by, it was in ateen.

Out of the blue, I get a letter, go up to the mail room, get legal mail, and here it is a letter from the INDUS project says we're going to accept your case. And it was just like a lot of load off my back. So I'll run over to the low Library get everything not US gets straight into mail. And I've been working with Vanessa seven eight

years now. It's been an uphill battle. Yeah, uphill sounds about right, because from what I understand is that this d A who's now, by the way, a judge, her name is La Lazan, she fought both to disallow the DNA testing to begin with and then to disallow the admission of results that they knew would have cleared you, which is just freaking nuts. So Vanessa, can you tell us about the fight against this da Laylazan, who was

just how bent on maintaining this awful injustice. The DNA test results that we obtained clearing ron came back in two thousand and seventeen, and when we got those results, the d A opposed relief fought against a new trial and her primary argument was Ron could not use these test results to prove his innocence because the rape shield law prevented him from using the DNA to secure his exoneration.

So the rape shield law is a law that has been enacted to protect victims of sexual assault from defense attorneys going in and trying to say, oh, well, you know you slept with twenty other people and so you weren't really sexually assaulted, or you consented, or try to use victims past sexual history to somehow undermine the veracity of his or her claim. And it has nothing to do with if you have scientific evidence that goes to

the heart of who committed the crime. Right, But this is how twin that the state was in this case. Their position was, we know Ron was the assailant, so if there's some male DNA in her rape kit, that, by the way, we know couldn't come from a prior act of consensual sex because she told hospital personnel she hadn't had sex in a week before the attack, so we know it couldn't have come from anyone else. But their position was, since it excluded Ron, it had to

come from somebody else. She must be lying. She must have not been honest about another encounter and therefore Ron can't use it. And it's like that was crazy, and even ultimately the d A recognized it was crazy because of some cases that were going on in the Georgia Supreme Court at the time. So she tried to use the rape shield law as a rape shield sword against Ron. Then when that didn't prevail and his conviction was vacated, he was being held in the county jail with no bail.

He was in on a sexual assault for which he had already served thirty years, and the court declined to set fail and so he was in jail for over a year with no activity. The state had made no real attempt to bring this case to retrial, but wouldn't dismiss the charges. And then, of course the COVID nineteen pandemic hits, and so in April we make this emergency motion to set bail in Ron's case. This is when the pandemic is taking off. It starts to spread like

wildfire in jail's. People in jails are sitting ducks, right. They don't have access to mass and purel and all of the things that people were clamoring for out in society. And so it's at this point that we finally are approaching a hearing date. And by the way, in this jurisdiction, if you file emotion, the only way you can get on the court's calendar is if the d A sets it down. So for a while she wouldn't even set this,

We couldn't even get the motion set. And finally we get an opportunity that the court is going to hear it, and she makes this offer to Ron, you know, if you just plead guilty, you can get out tomorrow. She even offers him an Alfred plea, which means that he could have maintained his innocence but still pledged guilty would have the same effect as a conviction. But he could have gotten out, you know, the next day, if he

had just said I did it. But by saying no, Ron wasn't just taking this stance, he was also risking his life. You know, we didn't know what was going to go on with COVID. He didn't have access to even protect himself, so it was even more dangerous than usual, this thought that, you know, by saying no, Ron could have died in prison and just never had the opportunity

to even walk out. And then, of course, after he turns down the deal, the state goes into court and argues that Ron shouldn't get bailed because he's too dangerous. So he's too dangerous to walk out of prison if he's maintaining his innocence. But if he had just said he was guilty, you were going to let him go, right.

And then to top it all off, the prosecutor says, we oppose bail, but if you're going to set bail, set it at fifty thousand, and the court said, I'm going to send it at I mean, what master to these people, sir, because it certainly isn't justice. And Ron, can you take us back to that moment when they offered you the plea, where if you just accepted it and said you were guilty, that you could walk out the door the next day, right the very next day,

after thirty years in prison. I mean, what went through your mind in that moment. I thought about that for a split second, and I said, well, if I give in, I've been saying I'm minister for thirty years. Also now I will change my story. I said, you know, the worst they can do if they reconvict me is give me another life sentence. They already took everything from me. My mom died, my brother died while I was in prison. I'm living up here with my sister now helping her.

She supported me for thirty years and it's my turn to give back help her. So by not giving in, if somebody hears about my case that's in the same position and want to take a plea bargain, I'm not holding it against them. You know, it's their personal choice. But if they look at me and they take some strength and say, hey, I'm innocent, let's prove it, I don't give into these bastards. It's incredible to hear you say that you thought about it for a split second.

It's like you've already seen the worst aspects of our system, so you knew what they could do to you. It took a lot of courage, and like you said, everybody

makes that choice differently. It's another sort of sick thing about our system that people are put into that position, having already been through the unbelievable trauma of drawing from incarceration for a decade and then faced with possibly waiting gears for another trial and then potentially being framed again, but you stood by your guns and ultimately that was clearly the right decision, and all of us are thrilled that you've been vindicated, exonerated, and proven to have been

telling the truth all along. Vanessa helped me out here because this is really it's evil. I mean, what they did to him is evil, right, I mean that's not too strong of a word. Well, I guess it's not when you consider that the district attorney Layla's On who was handling his case, had been exposed for having a little toy electric chair on her desk. I think you

definitely identified the mentality that's going on here. And Ron, I want to highlight the fact that you ended up with a literal dream team here, right, I mean you have Vanessa and the Innocence Projects. I want to also shout out the other good guys here, Donald Samuel and Amanda Clark Palmer from the Atlanta law firm of Garland Samuel and Loebe. My understanding is that they played a

really significant role in this. Am I right, yes, yes, When first came on board, that was such a relief over the years talking on the phone, getting the information about my case and learning more and seeing how the process works. It's amazing, especially Vanessa, and now that the I'm out have access to needed that so I could see the scope of the units of project now how many people they helped and affected their lives in a positive way. Don An, Amanda and Georgia, Vanessa, all the paralegals,

the law students, I can name them all. I'm in their debt. And we did ultimately work with the Georgia Insens project as well. They were really instrumental when we were fighting to get the DNA testing and have been a great partner with us. So ultimately, justice was delayed

by three decades, but not denied. In June, District Attorney Layla's on one of the major villains in this case, and an ironic twist of fate, her good fortune was the best thing that could have happened for Ron, because when she was appointed to a Superior Court judge ship and her chief deputy, Randy McGinley was sworn in as the new d A then also elected that November, he

promised a review of Ron's case. At this point, Ron was already out on bail, but still not free until on August d A. McGinley had reviewed Ron's case and dismissed all the charges, and that days called me. She cried and said, you're free. They dropped the charges like it stunned me. I said, nah, it took a couple of days of walking around and letting the sink in.

Finally free. Then you know, you start thinking about how many more people still in prison that I have no chance, have no help, And it hurts, you know, bothers you because after so many years of prison, my psyche, you know, is still there with them people. It's something that I can't let it go. And there's no telling how many countless people that are still innocent, still in prison with no help, never go, get no help. So I feel blessed. Don't take nothing for granted, no more, just one day

at a time. Yeah, And it's really incredible to have you here today, just weeks since you were fully exonerated. So for those of you who are moved by Ron's story and who would like to help him as he begins this next chapter of his life, there's an Amazon wish list as well as a Mighty cause dot com story. We're gonna put links to both of these in the bio where you can donate to help Ron, So please go click on the link and the bio do it. Now we're going to join you in doing so here

at Wrongful Conviction as well. So now this is a part of the show called Closing Arguments, and it works like this. First of all, I thank you again Ron Jacobson for having the courage to come here and share your incredible story, and of course Vanessa Potkin for just being such a you know, super woman, freedom fighter, all around just awesome human. And so thanks to both of you for being here on the show. And now closing

Arguments works like this. I turned my mic off, kicked back in my chair and leave my headphones on, and just leave your microphones on so you can share any other thoughts that we may have left out or anything that's on your mind of any kind. So Vanessa, with all due respect to you, will say the best for last, and of course Ron, that's you. You're the featured guest here, So Vanessa, once you go first and then just hand it off to Ron, and that's how we'll close out

the show. You know, being here today and listening to Ron's speak, it's just hitting me, particularly now his incredible strength and forwarded to to have turned down that offer, and we just know how coercive the legal system is. Pre trial, the state tries to extort guilty please to resolve cases. The stakes are so high that you're incentivized to just take can leave and when you're innocent, or

just give up your constitutional rights to a trial. So I am respecting the amount of courage and strength that took you, Ron, to make that decision and stand up to the system. And I'm so proud that you prevailed to making me think about the judges again, that the person really dragged this out through so many years is now on the bench. We need to get progressive prosecutors in place, but we also need to make sure that they're judges on the bench who are going to also

be in line with change. And so I think those are the takeaways I'm experiencing. In addition to Ron, you're just an all around such an incredible person. And you know, when Ron got out, while he was still fighting to get the charges dismissed, he started going on social media and he was on Facebook. And when you're representing someone who could face a retrial, it's a real stressor to

have them out there making all these comments. So I thought about reaching out to Ron and saying, hey, fall back a little bit nice reading what he was saying and his perspective on the legal system and change, and it was just so right on that I was like, I'm not saying anything keep going wrong. Well, you know, my heart and soul bleeds for all my brother's sisters still behind the walls with no hope, and if I could be a voice in the wilderness to help them,

you know, that's my goal life right now? Do you use my exoneration to help the next person pay forward, whatever it takes. And the Innocent Project and the Innocent Network, they do incredible work and I thanked them every day. Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the links in our

bio to see how you can help. I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Justin Golden, Jeff Clyburne, and Kevin wardas The music on this show, as always, is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Twitter at wrong Conviction, and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one