#231 Jason Flom with Vincent Simmons

tread direction. According to Keith and the twins, they picked up a hitchhiking black man who allegedly pulled a gun and forced Keith and Karen into the trunk before raping Sharon, followed by Karen. Conflicting accounts and descriptions, as well as a rape kit that confirmed that Sharon was still a virgin,

didn't stop the accusation of an alleged black assailant. While police officer Robert la Board was out searching for a potential culprit on the morning of May nineteen seventy seven, his partner Floyd Juno, spot at Vincent Simmons whom he knew from previous petty crimes. Despite not matching what we're already conflicting descriptions of this imaginary black man, they arrested

Vincent for the alleged rapes. Both girls and Keith picked out the only handcuffed black man in the lineup, and when Vincent refused to confess, Officer Robert Laborde shot him in the chest. Miraculously, Vincent survived, but only to have all evidence, all of it exculpatory withheld from him at trial, condemning him to serve one dred years and a goal of prison. Vincent's fight against a web of family connections, lies and the worst in American racism continues to this

very day. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. I'm Jason Flam. Today's case is so trouble that I don't know where to start. But I will tell you this before we even get into it, and I introduced to you the man himself, Vincent Simmons, who's still incarcerated in Angola Penitentiary for over forty four years now for

a crime he had nothing to do with. I will tell you that this case has a toxic mixture of small town racism, false accusations, a total lack of evidence, a police officer who was closely related to what should have been the obvious suspect, who actually shot Mr Simmons in the police station when he refused to confess in the chest by the way, narrowly missing his heart and killing him. Yes, you heard that correctly. And everybody involved basically is white, except for Mr Simmons is black. And

now that's just the freaking beginning. So first of all, Vincent, I'm so honored that you're here today to talk to us. I'm so sorry that you are where you are, that we're talking to you from prison, and I'm hoping that soon we'll be having a totally different conversation from the free world. So welcome to wrongful conviction. Thank you, We're very happy to have you, and we apologize to our audience in advance for the audio quality on Vincent's phone.

It sounds like he's calling us from a time capsule, and in many ways he really is. As Angola Penitentiary was built on a literal plantation, which couldn't put a finer point on what this case is all about. And joining us today as a man who you may be familiar with from our coverage of Nelson Cruz in Brooklyn and Marcus Wiggins in Chicago. Now today he's fighting for Vincent's case pro bono, flying back and forth from New York to Louisiana. So justin bonus, thanks for coming back

to wrongful conviction not a problem. Jason's great to be on here again as well. So this insane saga goes all the way back to nine seven. So Vincent, before this happened in your life got turned upside down and inside out, what was your life like before the insanity? Yeah, I was borne in a ball parish, a place called man Stilla, Louis. Yeah. When I was living in man Stilla, I had had some involvement with all parents share of

the fault. I was involved with competitive crime. I moved to Houston and I got a job and I was learned that my father had time and I come back to Louis Yeah. I was back for about a month. I would live with my sister. O leave you and I was on my way to work and I was

picked up of all Terrish Codine. So you were a known entity to a bolds Past police before heading to Houston for work and returning when your father asked away, which made you available to be picked up for what allegedly happened to these twin girls on May nine seven, and the date, I mean, we're not even sure of that, because the girls were never really clear on a date

and time. But the narrative that comes out is a sadly familiar American tale, a false accusation of a black man by an alleged white victim or victims in this case, and the alleged crime that took place. The narrative that set this horrible and justice against Vincent in motion is this.

On May nine seven, twin sisters Sharon and Karen Sanders allegedly went over to the house of their eighteen year old cousin, Keith la Board remember that last name, to help him clean, and while driving the sister's home that night, the three allegedly stopped for gas when Vincent Simmons allegedly approached and asked La Board for a ride home, to

which the Board supposedly agreed. And then the claim is that six miles outside of Marksville, on a deserted stretch of Little California Road, Vincent allegedly took out a gun, forced Keith la Board and Karen into the trunk while he allegedly raped Sharon, and then he allegedly put Sharon in the trunk, drove on for a bit before retrieving Karen to do the same to her. Now afterwards, Vincent allegedly threatened them all before dropping himself off to catch

a bus. So about two weeks after this alleged incident, May is when this narrative is first reported to the Sheriff's office and the investigation, if you can even call it, that begins justin take us through this nightmare. So there was Karen Sanders, Sharon Sanders and then Keith la Board that were allegedly basically kidnapped, thrown in a trunk. The two sisters were raped. That's their story. So on May, John la Board, Keith's father calls the sheriff because Keith's

father is the parish assessor. What you have to understand about the law Boards is there's like ten thousand of them in a vols parish. This is a very strong family. He calls the chief of police and he says that my twin nieces have been raped by a black man. That's how this begins. And then the girls are brought in. The girls don't know what date it happens. The police give them a date, okay. The girls provide their initial statements,

which weren't turned over at trial. Uh, they weren't turned over. They give completely inconsistent statements. Sharon Sanders actually calls the suspect the N word over and over again, says all blacks look alike, okay, and that's why she wouldn't be able to identify him. They don't talk to the boy, Keith Laboard until after Vincent has already arrested. Neither of these girls give a description that matches Vincent. They say short and fat well. Vincent is five nine, one fifty. Again,

their descriptions conflict. You know, it's just one thing after another, and specifically with regard to Karen Sanders, she talks about being raped anally orally vaginally. When the doctor looks at her after she talks to police, there is no injuries. Sharon talks about a thirty minute rape vaginally to the

point where she bled. She said that she gave her panties to her grandmother and they were washed, of course, And what's interesting about Sharon is that her hyman was intact when she was examined by the doctor in this case, So okay, inconsistent statement. It's conflicting descriptions and outright lies unsupported by physical reality. And the next day at am on Vincent was just walking to work when he was picked up off the street, arrested and brought to the station.

He was arrested on May twenty three, nineteen seventy seven, on view for this crime. And what on view means is they didn't have a named Vincent Simmons, They had no probable cause to arrest him. They saw him on the side of the street. When I say they, you had mentioned a family member of one of the alleged victims, and that was Robert la Board. And I don't know his direct relation to Keith la Board, but I believe

it could be a cousin. So really, what you have to understand with Vincent is he had a history with the Marksville Police Department and the Valls Parish Sheriff's office. And Floyd Juneau was driving with Robert la Board on the day Vincent got arrested on May, and he knew Vincent, he knew who he was before, and he knew he was a troublemaker. And he's the glue to this. He's the person that basically points the finger at Vincent first, right,

right right. And if you have the chance to watch one of the documentaries about Vincent's story, there's the Farm and Shadows of a Doubt. We'll have them linked in to bio of course. But in Shadows of a Doubt, Floyd Juneau described just arrest in much the same way

that Justin has. So that same morning, the sheriff sent deputies for the twins, who were picked up from school and brought to the station along with Keith Laboard, who was brought from work, and told them that they were going to view a line up with the perpetrator in it. So officers picked out seven guys for the lineup, one of whom was white. Okay, a few others were well over six ft tall, but remember the description was of this imaginary perpetrator was black, short, and bat right, and

they placed Vincent in the center. And get this, Vincent is the only one who was handcuffed out of all of them. I mean, it wasn't like they were trying to be subtled. Here right as to who they wanted them to identify. So the twins and Keith lo and Behold all select Vincent as the perpetrator. They claimed that I would identify and from that port they took me into another roan and that's when he told me that I had to give him a confession, and I refused

to give a confession. I told him that before I confessed to a crime that I didn't do, I'll die for. And that's when they hit me. And they knocked into the flow and it started kicking me. And then when I tried to get up, he kicked me again. And then when I did you to chat, I was sitting in to get up Robert lo Bold he raised up from his seat where he was writing her confession and pulled his weapon and shot me. He shot me in

the chat. I think something that I really want to bring to your attention to her, Jason, is is is that technically Vincent really should have been charged with kidnapping Keith Laboard. They didn't charge him with that. Why, well, you know, I think we know why. The other thing is the police all said that Vincent attempted to grab the gun of one of the officers and the safety

was on or something like that ridiculous story. They don't ever charge Vincent with attempted murder of a police officer either, And this is weird, right, because it's not like the state typically has any issue at all with piling on charges. Right. But there were no gun charges here either, as that was part of the alleged kidnapping in this case as well. So at the preliminary hearing on July seven, both twins testified, but neither the alleged kidnapping victim, Keith Laboard, nor the

alleged attempted murder victims the police officers participated. Yeah that's yeah, sure, okay. So during her testimony, Sharon has asked three consecutive times to identify the man from the crime, and this is the twin who states that all black people look alike. She doesn't respond until the court steps in, and this was when, for the very first time ever, she says that the man said his name was Simmons. Now, Karen also parrotted this statement that the culprit told Keith his

name was Simmons. But then in the same preliminary hearing, when asked why it took two weeks to come forward with this story. Karen testified that quote, we couldn't go to the cops because we didn't know his name, unquote, So which one is it? Karen, right, which is it? Because both of those things can't be true. Everyone overlooked that. That means that their testimony in the preliminary hearing that they knew the man's name, and their testimony at trial

that they knew the man's name is false. That kind of just got glossed over. So let's get to the trial, and I'm gonna put trial in quote here it too. So there's no physical evidence that these rapes ever actually happened. Start with that. No forensic tests were done on the twins, clothing, or the car in which the alleged rapes occurred, and police reports did not include a single lead depointed to Vincent. Doctors didn't find any signs of injury on either of

the alleged victims, including Sharon's intact him. And she was a virgin who was, according to her statement, the victim of a bloody rape, which of course is physically impossible. So if you're listening to this now and going, well, then there's all this evidence, right, how the hell could anyone, even a black man in the Deep South in the seventies, how could anyone get convicted on the basis of this. Well, it later comes out with Vincent and his attorney received

exactly none of this. They received no discovery in this case, but not I mean zero. What I'm saying is all of that critical exculpatory evidence that you just heard wasn't revealed to him for another sixteen years. His lawyers never even knew about the shady lineup with the handcuffs, you know, which was obviously done for one reason, so that these alleged victims would know who to pick in this imaginary crime. There were pictures of that, the inconsistencies and conflicts in

the initial accounts and assailant descriptions and initial statements. They said they didn't know his name, but later testified that he had told Keith his name was Simmons. How Karen gave a clue to that discrepancy in her preliminary hearing testimony, all of it. So the fix was in. So justin, can you take us through what happened at this sham trial?

So they take him to trial and the girls get on the witness stand and they say they know his name, they say a rape happened, and the defense attorneys don't do a great job of poking holes in there because they don't have anything to poke holes in. They don't have any cross examination material. Okay, they have three witnesses that were allegedly with this man for three hours. That's

a long time to be with somebody. Mistaken identification is not really something you can argue when you're around somebody for three hours unless you saw the initial statements, right, I can't really do it. I mean the trials a joke. Eddie Nole, who was the prosecutor, and the district attorney and his wife are the ones that tried the case,

and this was a flam flam show. They actually, on occasion during direct examination they would interchange when they thought the other one didn't ask enough questions, or on cross examine. I've never seen that, and they probably could have done anything they wanted because without discovery, they had nothing with which to hold the prosecution or any of the witnesses accountable.

Then you have these racially charged elements to white twin sisters underage, by the way, fourteen years old, a black guy in Louisiana in so they could have said that he took them in a spaceship, hit them on the head with a toaster of it, and then they went and visited, you know, talking penguins on Mars. I mean, they could have said anything. And I could actually picture in my mind the jury just sort of sitting there, you know, horrified with their mouths open, hearing about how

the two young girls were brutalizing. You know, these these poor little girls. It's hard to turn away from that kind of testimony. But there were some very significant things that still should have sowed serious doubts in the minds of these jurors. Now, I think the biggest thing here that we started to uncover as we investigated is that the area that Vincent allegedly sees these three at a gas station in the middle of Marksville, but then he takes him allegedly or tells them to go to a

part of a Vols parish that's like clan country. So where these alleged rapes happen is in the middle of clan country. It's not where the black community is. That's what to me should have raised alarm bells for everybody, including the white jury. This is not believable. What was alleged to be a three hour long encounter with two twin underage white girls being raped by a black man in the middle of Clan country. I would have sooner bought into the story about Mars and Vincent was able

to present something in his defense right. His attorney called him to the stand where he said that he was at a bar on May night and presented three alibi witnesses who all dated that he was at the bar with them. His alibi witnesses, they tried to discredit these people with traffic tickets and like petty crimes because they wanted to make the alibis look like they were not

law abiding citizens, even though they basically were. I mean, one of the witnesses that testified for Vincent was a business owner, and they attacked them using like speeding tickets and parking tickets that he received. It was a joke. The trial was a joke. Yeah, it was a joke, but not not a funny one though, because eleven white people and one black woman on the jury. I remember at that time in Louisiana and all the way up till two thousand and eighteen, they didn't need the unanimous

verdict to convict. It was one of the ways that they disenfranchised black folks. You only needed ten of the twelve members on the jury to vote guilty. So black woman or not, let's just call it like it is. There was no hope in hell for Vincent. And so there you are, still trying to heal from a gunshot wound to the chest at close range and watching this ridiculous trial. Did you still have any hope that they would see the discrepancies in this crazy narrative and se

that you were innocent? Oh? Yeah, that was no hope because the way that was focused, Oh what the victims were saying, there was no hope of the receiving a fair crown. And even though I was shot, the ad that was there was no question answer what happened. So, Vince, at that moment, a lot had happened to you already. But I have to think this would be the worst moment of anybody's life to be wrongfully convicted of a

crime they didn't commit. Do you remember that moment when they declared you guilty and sentency to a hundred years in prison? Yes? I did. When I heard all those lives and the juror come back and convicted. Even with my alibi, the jurist believe their lies, and it was amazing for me to believe that those people would. Yeah, they kind of lied to the jury, and the jury believed that. When I got dam golden and they slammed the doors behind me, it was like a shot to me.

And from that moment then I was experiencing nightmares at night. When I went to sleep, I tried to go to sleep, I would have a nightmare as a being shot and beating over and over again. When I got there. Given the guys in the tail, they already knew what my job was and I went to mulate experiences. They told

I brought all you ship human ways. You know you taught U. I've been called several times, you know all the skin come over my father, but I wouldn't report it because they would call your retire At several night nights, balls that were from of all pass they would make it possible for they didn't make it got a home. You the gods heard from of all pry they would intentionally I could repot where I would be the repetrator

of the night. So from one laddob to another. That's what called me to be locked down, and it controd and all these years because I was being attacked and being transfer to another lot said twenty some years and solid confed. And I just got out in uh two thousands,

and that's where I got the call from Boston. See as you would take my case, forty four years wrongfully convicted, and twenty seven of those were in solitary confinement because of constant assaults from other prisoners who also found ways to believe the childish nonsensicalized that these three backwoods, redneck low life told to cover up their dirty, disgusting little incest secret. And I don't even know what to say except that I'm absolutely amazed at your courage and strength

to persevere and just even be here at all. After all you've gone through, Vincent, you are a living miracle. Suggested. We know that the post conviction litigation started almost immediately back in nineteen seventy eight, and it went about as well as the trial did. But Vincent finally got a break of sorts in can you talk us through that? Vincent files a man Damis and somebody in the d a's office copies the whole file. That's how Vincent gets

his file. That's when he first gets the discovery. And then Vincent got a letter from his lawyer in ninety eight saying that we've never seen these documents before. You know, and by the way, that lawyer in night, I think he was a judge by that point. I mean, these are credible people that came forward and said that they had never seen these documents before. Right, this is the

discovery with the details that we mentioned earlier. That if Vincent's trial attorney would have had this at the trial in nineteen seventy seven, and of course it was totally illegal for them not to share it, but if they had had this discovery, it's very possible that even that jury could have come to the right conclusion. So, in addition to that, more exculpatory evidence has developed over time. Meanwhile, Vincent is denied parole again and again and again and again.

The sisters showed up at the parole hearings and said all sorts of awful racist things. I remember seeing this on the video and hearing about it. In one occasion where one of the three members of the pro board was a black gentleman and one of the sisters actually said in the parole hearing that she wouldn't feel safe alone in the room with him. And I'm talking about the guy who was on the parole board, the black guy in the pro board. Am I actually right about that?

You are? You cannot make this up? So now we're all the way at October and Justin you've now joined Vincent's team, and Vincent has applied for post conviction leave based on several to process violations and newly discovered evidence which shows that the alleged rape was a total fabrication, and that part of the new evidence that was presented is from a family member of the alleged victims themselves, right,

So can you tell us about that? Essentially, we have a family member of the LA board's coming forward with a detailed statement about an admission that Keith gave her. I think it was in two thousand and eleven, two thousand twelve, And actually what happened forty four years ago was she was there when Keith came into her mother's

house and he had a scratch on his neck. And it appears is that Keith is the first one that drops the story that gets Vincent thrown in prison, which is that you know, he gave a black man a ride home with the girls and the black man scratched his neck, threw him in the trunk, and raped the two girls. See the problem with that, though, if you talk to this witness, she knows Keith the board. He's

a total psycho. Keith also, I believe I said two thousand eleven, two thousand twelve, he admits did that there was no black man. We actually have Facebook messages between Keith Laborde's first cousin and Karen were Karen admitted that Keith Labord raped her. Now you have to understand this same cousin, Keith Laborde actually admitted that he had what he termed to be consensual sex with Karen and through

Sharon in the trunk. So that's why Sharon's hyman is intact as Key threw her in the trunk because she didn't want to have sex with him. But he definitely had sex with Karen. Now Karen says that it was a rape. He says it was consensual sex. But at the time of the alleged sexual act, Keith was an adult, Karen was a miner. You know. Then we have an investigative report from our investigator who spoke to Karen, where Karen said she might have made a mistake that she

doesn't want to testify again in this case. This is even worse than I originally thought, which I didn't think was possible. So where are we now? What in the world is it going to take to bring Vincent home?

Where are we right now? We filed the motion to vacate the conviction of post conviction relief motion in October of I mean, there's Affidavid's newly discovered evidence, there's scientific reports and here identification experts, doctors, obviously the previous discovery that wasn't turned over when the motion was initially filed. Carry Sproul was the judge that was overseeing the motion,

and Charles Riddle was the district attorney. And essentially what happened is in March of one, I got my hands on a document where Carry Sprul admitted that he represented Keith Laborde's daughter in a previous I don't know if it was a custody case or a family court case.

And so we had a hearing to recuse carry Sprul, and in that hearing to recuse Verry Sprool Kerry Sprool not only admitted that he had represented keith La Board's daughter, but also that he had a close relationship with keith La Board since I guess almost childhood and actually hired keith La Board to work on construction projects in his house, so he had a longstanding relationship with keith La Board

and his family. And then after that is when we had the motion to recuse the District Attorney's office where we took testimony from Vincent's trial attorney, Mike Kelly were Mike Kelly testified at the hearing that the defense received no discovery, not a single document. They didn't know there was a lineup, they didn't know that there was original

statements made, they didn't know anything. We took testimony from a civil rights activist, Alan Holmes, who heard Charles Riddle admit that Mike Kelly didn't receive discovery, and then we took testimony from Charles Riddle himself, and Charles Riddle admitted that he believed Mike Kelly when Mike Kelly tell stified that they didn't have any of the discovery in this case.

That caused Judge Bennett to recuse Charles Riddle because Charles Riddle refused to consent to give Vincent Simmons a new trial. Essentially that Riddle was basically condoning a constitutional violation. Right he knew that there was a violation and refused to remedy it. And a prosecutor has a duty to act fair and impartial, and his duties are based upon the Constitution.

He has to be fair to the accused, and when there's a due process violation like there is in this case, the only way he can remedy that is by giving Vincent another trial, and he refused to do it. We now have an Attorney General's office that's taken over there trying to vacate the recusal of Charles Riddle. They're basically trying to delay this as best as they can. No one wants to give Vincent any relief here, and that's

where we are right now. We're in front of the Supreme Court battling it out over the motion to recuse the district Attorney. And I'm in the process of filing something to try to compel the court to do the right thing here. So before we go to the closing of the show, is there something that our listeners can do hopefully they're going to be inspired to take action. What would you recommend that they do to help Vincent

or just to help in general. I would recommend that they write Judge William Bennett the Attorney General's office, and that they write the Governor of Louisiana, and that they write the District Attorney of a v Alls Paris, Charles Riddle. These are all people that have the ability to concede. I mean, Vincent would love a retrial because the retrial

is not going to happen because it didn't happen. Vincent has a page on the Friends and Family of the Wrongfully Convicted, which is an organization that Derrick Hamilton's started, and then he also has a change dot org web page as well. We're gonna put everything in the episode O bio for everybody to do what they can. And I've gotten to know the Governor of Louisiana over the years.

I think he's a good man, and I think he's a fair man, and I believe if he was made aware of this, that he will feel inspired to take the action that the local authorities are still to this day unwilling to take. So with that, we now turned to the closing of our show, and it works like this. It's called closing arguments. First of all, I thank you Justin bonus again for being here sharing you know, your frustration and your thoughts on this case. And of course

Vincent Simmons stay strong. You know there's a lot of good people out here that care about you. I'm one of them, and so I speak for our whole wrongful conviction community when we say we're rooting for you, A lot of people praying for you and hopefully help is a red around the corner. So now the end of

our show works like this. I turned my microphone off, I leave both of your guys on, and I turn it over first to Justin for his final thoughts whatever he wants to say, and then of course Vincent, we're gonna say the best for last all due respect to you, Justin. Vincent is demand of the hour. And then Vincent, you could just say whatever you want about whatever you want. Okay, I'm now going to turn my microphone off and kick

back in my chair and just listen. Okay, Well, I just want to start off by saying what's right in front of the court right now is probably the most egregious Brady violation in the history of the United States, because I've never seen a case where no discovery was turned over and almost all of the discovery is exculpatory that the d A's office in a Vols Parish has admitted that they believed if Vincent Simmons' defense attorney that

he didn't receive discovery in this case. The only way you can remedy that situation is by a new trial, and they are refusing to give him a new trial. It should start there because the evidence that wasn't turned over is what proves that Vincent Simmons didn't commit this crime. This guy didn't commit this crime. He was railroaded, he was legally lynched, and he's been in prison for almost

forty five years. It's a disgrace. This is simple. They could give him a new trial right now, but they know that they can't retry him because the people that testified against him will never testify against him again because they lied. All of the evidence that wasn't disclosed proves that they lied. I took this case because my wife said I have to take this case because that's how much she believed he was innocent. But I believe he will be victorious because he is innocent and every single

shred of the evidence shows him. And that's all I have to Second, I say, God, and the length uncovered. So I have faith and I have yes. God have put in justice in my life and in this face that is going to grant us justice. A 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 Wardis.

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 Podcast in association with Signal Company Number one