When we first released this episode on September eight, Anthony Sims had already spent twenty two years in prison and was hoping to bring some much needed attention to this horrendous injustice. At the time has passed to freedom or uncertain Since then, some monumental changes have occurred. For this updated episode, we spoke again with Anthony and his legal team.
You'll hear this episode as it was originally released, but with brand new content to pick up where we left off on eight, a woman named Rachel claims to have seen her neighbors Julius Graves and Charlique Winbush talking. Charlie was telling her fiance Graves about how a man named Lee run Chen, who worked at the Chinese restaurant up the block. Mr Hays, had touched her inappropriately. Graves replied
that he would scare him. Later that day, Julius Graves, his fiance's cousin, and another younger friend had a few drinks with Graves his friend Anthony Simms as they listened of music by Anthony's car. As the evening wrapped up, Graves asked Anthony to drive him down the block to Mr Hanks. Oblivious to any issue with Chen. Anthony agreed they went into the restaurant. When it is believed that
Graves shot and killed Lee run Chen. In shock, Anthony fled alone while Graves and the two younger guys returned to Graves's apartment, wiped the gun clean, figured out where to stash it, and began to conjure up a story to deflect blame from Graves and onto Anthony Simms. With Graves and a number of his friends and families supporting
this phony narrative, investigators set their sights on Anthony. Only one witness came forward independently who was neither coerced nor friends and family of Julius Graves Graves, his neighbor Rachel, who was on the phone outside of Mr Hanks during the shooting and saw Graves running from the restaurant with a sawed off shotgun in his hand. Yet her statement was ignored by investigators and hidden from the defense, and as a result, Anthony Simms continues to serve twenty five
years to life. This is wrongful conviction with Jason Flomer. Welcome back to wrongful conviction with Jason Flom. That's me and today if you hear my voices, sounds sort of down. I mean, this is one of the most troubling wrongful conviction cases that I've ever seen in twenty eight years of doing this work, which is almost as long as Anthony Simms has been locked up for a crime he obviously didn't commit. First of all, I want to introduce the two attorneys who are so devoted to this case
and to this man, Jonathan Hiles and Thomas Hoffman. Thank you both for being here. Thank you, Thank you for doing this Jason, and now of course saving the best for last. And I'm just so sorry that you're here under these circumstances, but I'm honestly honored that you're here with us today on the podcast. So Anthony Simms, Welcome to raval Conviction. Thank you. And Anthony, of course, is now forty five year old man, twenty four years into
a life sentence for a murder he didn't commit. Now, this began back in but I want to go back even further than that. Um, Anthony, where did you grow up and what was your childhood like? Was it a happy childhood? Yes? I grew up in Brooklyn, York and a mother, father, and my two older brothers and we had was a very happy, loving family. We would do a lot of fun activity together, go on vacations. I remember every Sunday with family Day and leading up to
when this awful crime occurred. You had kids, Beyonce, at that time. What was life like for you? I live what I thought was a normal line. I work for Bell Atlantic Telephone Company and I installed pull lines and provide a doubts on the customers. I live with my fiance Kisha and my two sons at the town. So this brings us to May, when you, Anthony, witnessed a
terrible crime. There was a Chinese restaurant Mr. Hings, which was down the block from where your former friend Julius Grays lived, and around ten o'clock that night, a man named Lee run Shan, who worked at Mr. Hings was shot and killed. But earlier that day, before any of that happened, you thought you were just going to swing by Graves's apartment to show him this new car you bought your fiance Keisha. Julius Graves was at that time my best friend. I wanted to show him the cart
and a boat. My wife this a process, so I drove took his house at that town. He asked me the job and to the liquor store. I went to the regular store on Boston. There we was talking. I was letting the music play from my car radio, and then his two friends came over, his fiance's cousin Derek, and then later on his friend Louis, and they was listening to music with us. And I want to say, like around ten o'clock, he was getting late, I wanted to go home. Showed my wife the cars, and I
wanted to be home with my sons. So Dolis ask him to drop him to them and find the restaurants. So I thought this is a weird request because he lived down the Blood around a corner from the restaurant, and I thought he could have just walked. So I said, I listened, I was drinking a couple of days. Let me go to the thought about some restmans, because I don't like driving around like that. I remember Julius saying, listen,
and I'm going to the house. I'm gonna go check with Charlik, which is his girlfriend at the time, to see if she wanted anything from the store as well. So I said, all right. So I can only assume that's the time that he got the weapon, and when I got back from my car, Julius was sitting in my passengers seat and his two little friends was sit in the back. They know that I didn't expect him to be in a car because they looked at me with this look like, all right, well, we're just gonna
go to this restaurant with you. So I didn't think nothing now very I got in the car and I drove him to them and find the restaurants. When I got it out of the restaurant, I started looking around for the menus and stuff to see what I was going to purchase from my wife. The next thing I know, I saw Julius come in the store with like a weird expression on his face, and almost immediately he re sent his fans and pulled out a port of Saga, and I remember thinking like, what the hell was going on?
And where? Didn't even get the gun from act? I said, what the hell are you doing to you? Praising Julius, Sexty said no, approached the count of pointed the gun of one of the workers and pulled the trigger, and I couldn't believe it. I felt the blood us from my body, and well, I remember at that time, just running out the store, getting in my car. Julius jumped in in too, and I said get out and kicked everybody. I said, everybody get out of my car and I drove.
Pharman told keis what I happened. That was the worst night of my life. Yeah, it would be the worst night of almost anyone's life to witness something like that. I got home, I got on the phone. In that call though, and that's what the hell is wrong with you? Probably cursed about says some other things. So I'm gonna basically want to know why did he put me in a situation? And why do you Why did he allow me to walk into that? Why didn't come me? What was going on? Maybe he could, I would talk ab
out of it. I don't know, but he just kept apologize. And that's when he told me that you know the person that he found out. I can't believe it. And I said, dude, I don't ever call me again. I don't want to hear from you no more. I just wanted to try to separate my cell phone. So it turns out that Julius Graves had a motive, and that is that Graves was upset that Mr. Chen, who worked at the Chinese restaurant, had reportedly touched the hand of Graves Is Fyonce Charlie earlier in the day of the
murder that he had touched her hand inappropriately. She was upset about this, she told Graves, and Graves said that he would go to the restaurant and scare the victor. We know he did a lot more than that, but that appears to have been the motive that we didn't
find out until many years later. Now, what was known at the time is that after the murder, after Anthony got Graves and his two friends, Derek Dollup and Louis Cologne to leave the car, it is undisputed that Graves took the shotgun used in the murder, went back to the apartment where he was staying, feverishly wiped off the shotgun to get his fingerprints off of it, and then gave the gun to his friend Louis Cologne to hide from police. And Louis, by the way, was only fourteen
years old at the time. Graves Is excuse for doing this is that he wasn't thinking. That was his only justification. Now. Furthermore, this murder weapon that sawt off shotgun had previously been kept in a lockbox in the apartment where Graves was staying, and Graves and his friend Derek Dollup, who was also his fiance's cousin, admitted even that they knew the shotgun
was kept there and had seen it there before. So all the evidence suggested that the shotgun belonged to Graves, and it is undisputed he had handled it right after the murder occurred, right and the physical evidence from the scene later proved that this sought off shotgun from Graves's apartment was used in the murder. So this is where we start seeing a narrative being formed from the Graves camp to try to deflect responsibility for this murder away
from Graves and towards Anthony. And initially it will seem like a lot of witnesses came forward to support what was really just coming straight from Graves's imagination and what later became the prosecution's narrative. But it will become clear as we move along here that none of these witnesses
were to be believed they should have believed for two reasons. One, it's discovered later that these eyewitness accounts are initially riddled with glaring inconsistencies and contradictions that were then changed to bit a cohesive narrative in time for trial, which is just not typical what a group of people are telling the truth obviously, right, and to most of the witnesses
are friends and family of Graves. There are only two witnesses to who are not Graves as friends or family, one of whom was coerced by police into an ambiguous statement that nonetheless helped the prosecution's case at the time of trial, and the other is the only independent witness who bravely came forward to tell the truth about Graves's motive and having seen him running from the restaurant with
the gun. However, none of this info about these two witnesses was known to the defense at trial, but we'll get to that later. Now. Right now, let's focus on the dubious narrative coming from the Graves camp. So, the day after the murder, Charlie's brother, William Robertson told police a second hand story from Charlie that Charlie had said that Anthony had come by earlier the day of the murder and taken the shotgun out of the apartment. Then
comes the narrative from Graves about the night of the murder. Okay, ready, so, According to Graves, Anthony dropped by the apartment around six pm and they had a few drinks. Anthony allegedly showed Graves a shotgun that he had in his trunk, a shotgun that Graves should have recognized as the one from his apartment. Now, at some point, Anthony and Graves are joined by Charlique's cousin, Derek Dallup and another younger friend,
Louise Cologne. According to Graves, Anthony had a previous altercation with the victim, Lee run Chen, who worked at the Chinese restaurant down the block, Mr Hans. The reason behind this disagreement and the timing changed between initial interviews and trial. In this farcical version of events, Anthony allegedly had refused to pay for something that Mr Hings because it was either something he hadn't ordered, or some chicken was under cooked,
or it didn't look right. You know, lying is tricky that way, right, It gets hard to keep track of your own bullshit. Anyway, At the time of this alleged problem and refusal of payment, Lee run Chen allegedly pulled a gun on Anthony, to which Anthony allegedly responded that
he would get Chen for this. According to Graves that night, in the lead up to the murder, Anthony brought up this two to three weeks old and then later four to five month old beef several times and was getting heated up about it before they headed to Mr Hins, where Anthony was the one who allegedly shot Lee run Chen, not Graves, whose fiance had complained to him about Chen's inappropriate touching earlier that day. So this just super believable
narrative is what became the prosecution's theory. It just feels liberated to here you retell that story because it sounded crazy to me, and from you saying how craze this ounds to you, that means a lot. Because I've always believed down the line that the truth was going to come out. I didn't know that I would be in prison twenty three years before the truth came out, and it's gonna be out there now finally for everyone to hear it. And Jonathan, there's even more to know about
Graves's ridiculous narrative. The story against Anthony was not only ridiculous, but as he alluded to. It was so inconsistent. Graves first actually told police Anthony and Graves his other two friends had gone to the Chinese restaurant earlier on that evening and then come back and Anthony was heated about an argument with the victim. But Graves's two friends never said they went to the Chinese restaurant. It was just
made up. So Graves had to change his story and say that he had witnessed an argument between Anthony and the victim months earlier over a food order, and that Anthony was still fuming about this months later, on the night of the murder. Again, Graves his friends right who were trying to back him up. They never said that Anthony had any beef with the victim or was fuming about it in the car that evening. So the story never really made sense. But what was important to police
and prosecutors, unfortunately, was clear in the case. And once they had Graves and his two friends who were willing to point the finger at Anthony as a scapegoat, the train had left the station. Okay, so they've got their site set on you, Anthony, and initially they show up at your job, but you were out that day. This tipped you off though that they were at least looking to talk to you, and eventually you went involuntarily. I mean,
you were an innocent man. So did you think, well, I'll just go in there, clear this up and head on home. I did, And a big key does me left out was there was a camera inside of that restaurant, So I thought regartless that somebody would at one point in time review to take and then I had nothing to worry about to take with cleary thing up for me. So yes, drove with myself to the precinct, and that's what sense knocked away. You never walked out of there again,
never walked out. Now what happened with the videotape from the Chinese restaurant? They said that the tape wasn't recalling. Do you believe that? To be honest, I don't know what to believe anymore. I used to have a lot of faith in the judicial system, but from being a cross rate of mysell phone listening to some of the other horror stories from people in here with me, I
don't know what to believe now. They had their man, and any other evidence that existed then were emerged later that suggested Anthony was innocent, where that Graves was guilty was just an inconvenience to the prosecution's case, and so it was not disclosed to the defense. And of course listeners to this show will know that when the authority's
withhold exculpatory evidence, it's called the Brady violation. Brady violations are illegal, but as our listeners also know, Brady violations rarely seemed to be any actual ramifications for the people who commit them, so it just keeps fucking happening in case after case, and and in this case, I believe the worst Brady violation, the worst one amongst so many, is the sole independent witness who came forward in this case that I alluded to earlier, whose statement was hidden
from the defense. Will refer to her only as Rachel. So Rachel was right outside the Chinese restaurant where the murder occurred, talking on a pay phone. This was an undisputed fact, and police spoke to her, and initially she said that she had heard the shot and seen people running from the Chinese restaurant, but she didn't have her contacts in and so she couldn't identify who those people were.
That was what she said, Now, this was not a neighborhood where it was easy to report to police who you had seen involved in a murder, much less if that person was your neighbor. And actually Rachel, who was seventeen at the time, she was neighbors with Julius Graves. Now, a couple of weeks went by and Rachel had kept this information to herself, but her conscience was gnawing away
at her. She learned that Anthony had been wrongfully arrested for the crime, and she actually received a call from Anthony's wife at the time, Keisha, who said to Rachel, I hear you were present at the scene and that you may have seen something. Please just talk to police, tell them what you saw, whatever you saw, Please just tell them the truth. Now. At around the same time, Rachel actually had an exchange with Graves and his fiance
outside of their brown stone. During that exchange, Rachel said, I know what you did. I saw what you did. In truth, she had seen Julius Graves running from the Chinese restaurant with a shotgun right after the shot was fired, and she said, I know what you did, and you're trying to put it on somebody out us and Graves said you talked too much and if you keep talking,
I'm gonna shut you up. And so she called police, spoke to a detective and she said, I saw Julius Graves running from the Chinese restaurant with a big, long gun. I know it was him. He's my neighbor. And the detective said, we already have another guy. It was the taller guy. Anthony is six three, Graves is five nine. Rachel said, no, I know, they look completely different. I know that it was Graves who was running with a shotgun. And the detective basically said, well, thank you for your
time and hung up the phone. Shaw Lee had anticipated that Rachel good going to the police. So shaw Lee reports that as harassment. They had that report, but if I can complete that incredibly, even though Rachel lived next door to shaw Lee, they did not question Rachel at all about up that police report. They didn't have to go across the country to interview somebody or across the state, right,
they go across the street, across the street. Somebody who who actually had begged to be interviewed, even though she had been threatened by a really dangerous guy, was like, no, I'm going to do the right thing, but instead she just got shut down by those who are supposed to protect us, which left Graves out on the streets to potentially commit more violent crimes while Anthony was stripped of his freedom and civil rights. So back to this investigation.
If you want to call it that the grandmother of Graves's children, you know, Charlie's mom signs onto parents some of the narrative. This is Dorothy Bolding, whose story changed from her initial interview when she didn't mention Anthony Graves or even having been at Mr. Hings at all this interview. Critical information here was hidden from the defense, and by the time the grand jury and the trial roll around, she's changed her story, now claiming to be able to
implicate Antony in the murder. But still the investigators needed to get someone outside of Graves's inner circle in order to strength in the case. And as I alluded to earlier, this is the only other witness besides Rachel who was
not directly related to Graves. She was a single mom who certainly appears to have been coerced into giving an ambiguous statement that helped the prosecution's case a trial, and will refer to this witness as Salima now Shalima, as we have since learned, she initially told police that she, when visiting her friend's apartment across the street from the murder, had heard this loud bang, had looked out the window from a second floor on a dark night and had
seen a couple of men ran out of the Chinese restaurant, but she couldn't describe them at all. She'd seemed that one of them appeared to be holding along done, but she couldn't make any sort of description, and they said, well, let's take you in and see if we can refresh
your memory. They took her in, they separated her from her young child, and they interrogated her for hours and wouldn't tell her where her child was, which she kept asking, And then eventually they emerged with the report saying that she identified the taller man as being the one holding the gun, which was something that was clearly fed to her because she told police that she couldn't describe the men she had seen, including the person who was running
with the gun. We first learned that in the past year. Shalima said, I don't know how I could have testified that I saw the taller man running with the shotgun. I couldn't have made a description, and that's what I told detectives. And their response was to take me in for basically a full day of interrogation, separated from my child, until they had pressured her to give them what they wanted. Right, So, now they finally had someone as shaky as this idea
was to corroborate what the Graves camp was saying. So July second, they charged you, Anthony, with two counts and murder in the second degree intentional and depraved indifference, and one count of criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree, a weapon that you had never even held in your hand. And before a trial even began in April, Graves attempted to disappear. Graves didn't want to testify, He
wanted to get himself off of the hook. But even he perhaps had some pangs of conscience about falsely implicating someone who had formerly been his friend, and so he went underground before the trial started. And he was on probation at the time, actually on a weapon's possession charge, and he hadn't been reporting to his probation officer for three years, and so the District Attorney's office actually initiated proceedings to revoke graves probation so he would be remanded
to prison potentially. This one's really mystifying. I mean, do you have a guy who has a propensity to violence, who knows his way around with weapons, who was the possession of the gun, who had a previous weapons violation, and it's like, yeah, now we're just gonna ignore that. Julius was asked directly, have you reported to your probation officer often and regularly? He answered yes, when he hadn't reported for three years, and that's why was not corrected.
And clearly the credibility of Graves was critical. We did not know that he had not reported till last year. So at trial, the state presented Salima, along with Graves's cadre of liars right Graves himself, of course, and his fiance's cousin Derek Dallap, his friend Louise Cologne, and the grandmother of Graves's two children, Dorothy Boulding. Now, bulding story
changed twice. In her initial interview, she didn't mention seeing Graves Anthony or even having been at Mr Hins, and then at the grand jury she testified that while drinking outside of Mr Hains, she saw Anthony enter with a long gun and heard a shot fired before Graves entered the restaurant. Then at trial, I don't know, maybe she had some pangs of conscience Either way, though, she testified that she saw Anthony go in followed by Graves, then
heard a gunshot but never saw a gun. Miss bolding for initial report would have really discredit her as a prosecution witness was not disclosed. Also not disclosed for bias given her relation to Julius Graves. Okay, so now there's Shelima. She also testified against you, Anthony. She said that on the night of the shooting, she was visiting a friend who lived on the second floor in an apartment across
the street from Mr Hans. She said that she heard a gunshot and looked out the window to see two black men running from the restaurant, and that quote the tall the guy had a gun. This was helpful for the prosecution because Anthony was taller than Graves. Now, the prosecutor tried to get her to identify Anthony. You know, look around the courtroom. Is the person you saw running with the gun here? She said, I don't know. I
can't say. And also she testified that of the two men she saw running, it was the person who was running second, who was behind, who was running with a shotgun. Graves testified that he was running second, that he was
behind Anthony. So actually her testimony was very ambiguous, but it was really the only thing the prosecution had that came outside of Graves's inner circle, and as a result, the failure to disclose what Shlima had had told detectives from the beginning that she couldn't describe anything was a very damaging Brady violation for Anthony's defense. Was there any
real defense mounted in your case, Anthony? No, we didn't even call any witnesses them of behalf, although I asked my lawyer, cannot testify and he said no, like he was really confident that there was no need for them because the case was a weak case and they eventually gave it to say, you know, Julias did or whatever,
and that was that. So I didn't really have a defense. So, after hearing from Graves's network of liars and Salima's ambiguous testimony, and then importantly the absence of Rachel, did you still hold out any hope at all? That you'd be vindicated. I did only because it was It was a time during the deliberations what the jury came back into the courtroom and they passed to notice that they were deadlocked, and the just said, well, listen, I'm going to give
you a brief out in charge. He was basically saying, I don't know what the problem is. It's not like he's facing the death. Unity, go give me a verdict. And they needed some reback, some courses and stuff. I was still hopeful, although hope was flipping away at that point, but they came back and found you guilty. What was that moment was that if you can just take us inside that core room and inside your mind and your soul.
At that moment, uh, I was shocked, confused, I was hurt, devastated, nases. I mean I was angry. I remember trying to stand up, but I didn't have any feeling in my livings there just so weak. Ironically, what was going through my mind at that point was my son's because they were so young, and every night I would tell them crazy bedtime stories, either ones that I read from a book or I used to make up some stories, and they looked forward to going to sleep just about I could come in
the room and telling them stories. And I said to myself, I'm not gonna be able to do that for a while. As you can imagine, for the first couple of years, I was very better. I was I was I was mad, I was angry, and I was almost like a walking Tommy so to speak. I mean, I was always trying to do programs and stuff and trying to help myself and help other people as well, but inside I was really messed up. And I remember going on a visit one day and my son, little Anthony Junior, which I
loved to dollop both of mysels, he was crying. He just broke out one day crying on a visit and he said, Daddy, don't worry, I'm gonna I'm gonna get Julius to doing this to you, because he had known at that point julia Is as his uncle because we were so close. And I looked at him and I said, no, Anthony, don't ever say that again. I said, I don't ever
say that. No, And I was very you let them know that the law will mentally prevailing there to work herself out, And in the same time he looked at me and he says, Lord and Daddy, you gotta promise me that you would never do anything to him. And I said, I won't. I promise you that. And it was that point with that I forgave to is and I continue to live my life as a life give them, but also trying to help any and everybody out because of his helping me as well. And that's that was
my turnal point. That's when I forgave him. Forgot what it did. Well. It sounds like you you did a hell of a job even in the brief time you had with your son's raising them and teaching them right. Unfortunately, prison has a way to divine families, as you can only imagine. So my son's mother, which is my wife of the town, her name is also Kisa. This prison bay became too much for us and it felt like
I was holding back from living high life. So we both came to the agreement that we should just divorce semper Race so that she can live for life of this week. And God always has a way of making things happen. But my wife today which is Olfen named Kisa, it's my junior high school girlfriend. She was my Chilidher when I was a captain of the basketball team. So Jesus started to write me, and one thing turned into another. All of the old filings came back and we decided
to try one more time to get married. And that was probably the best decision of my life. My name is Keisha Sins and I am Anthony sins wife, and it is it's the best decision that we've ever made that I've ever made. Anthony and I were, you know, junior high school sweethearts. You know, people in the situation always think that the people in prison, you know, they should be grateful that someone makes a hyper commitment to them under these circumstances. But for me, Anthony has brought
just so much to my life. He hasn't reached my life so much. I'm grown so much as a person because of him. This situation in particular has made me stronger, and so I'm just grateful that he chose me to go on this journey with him and to fight for his innocence. One day, I was reading the newspaper from a friend of mine name Kevin Jenkins. He asked me to read this article because the articles involved the person
that we both know rehave the Manu Cooper. Kevin suggested that I try to get in touch with Tom hoff and the lawyer that got this guy out. So I talked to my wife and she said that night it was awful her to sleep because she worked around a lot of lawyers. You can do that. She only had one shot at this and she was making little bullet point. She was rehearsing what she would say because you knew that it was really important to obtain Thomas Hoffer. She said.
The first thing Tom wanted to know was was he any because he would not represent anybody who was not innocent. And Casa told, yes, he is, but I'm going to save you some information so that you can see it for yourself. At that point, I had all of Anthony's legal work because his son had kept all of his documentation, and he said, well, send me everything that you have. So I'm working from home. All I have is an Adobe scan app on my phone, which can only scan
one page at a time. One of Anthony's transcripts is four hundred and some our pages. That's just only one transcript. And I did that for days, you know, trying to get all the information to him and he saw all of the discrepancies, you know, and all the violations and things that we had always seen. Tom knew that Anthony was innocent and it was just astounding evidence to support that at that Tom and kind of house doing my
kids pro bono. It's an amazing story, I mean, a tale of two kishas and which eventually resulted in these two attorneys, which of course brings us to the post conviction that a gaistion. And it looks like before you both got involved, there were some filing surrounding an inappropriate remarked by the prosecutor, in effective assistant claims, trial court errors, discriminatory jury challenges, all of which were serious points but ultimately failed. There was some new evidence, a recantation of
trial testimony from Graves. We know he was feeling remorseful for throwing Anthony under the bus, but he didn't want to come clean. So this affid David really is reflective of that, meaning he doesn't tell the whole truths. He basically says that Anthony went inside Mr Hans and he,
Julius Graves, did not. He continued that he didn't see who shot Chen and was coerced to testify that he had seen Anthony do it, so it takes the onus off of Anthony, but it's definitely not the exonerating evidence that one would hope for as or the other filings
in this case. Everything that sort of happened in those initial post trial proceedings was sort of skirmishes around secondary issues, which unfortunately is often the best you can do for a convicted person until you get it Tom Hoffman to fully reinvestigate the case like a detective. Right Without Tom, we wouldn't know the context around Shalima's testimony, which is what passed for a corroborating witness for Graves and his whole network of liars, and then the major Brady violation
in hiding Rachel for all of these years. Remember, she witnessed Charlik and Graves talking about the inappropriate touching, which established the motive. She saw Graves running from Mr Hins with the gun. Then when she confronted Charlie and Graves, she was threatened, you talked too much. You keep talking,
I'm going to shut you up. Was the quote. Not to even mention all of the previously unknown or ignored holes and shifts and Graves as narrative and finally, we haven't even talked about this yet, but there was a cook at Mr Hins who had a view of the shooter and described his complexion as quote not black. This is consistent with Graves is light brown skin, while Anthony importantly has a dark complexion. So, Tom, what is being done with all of the exculpatory evidence that you've compiled.
The four forty was initially filed in December, and we attached Rachel's Affidavid Slima's statement. We also found this documentation that Graves had lied about reporting to his probation officer
often and regularly. We also found additional Grady violation, and as the case was proceeding, we then get even more documents from Foil, including that Graves on the day of his testimony, received money, received housing together with his girlfriend, his girlfriend's brother, and the brother's girlfriend, and then he eventually gets twenty five thousand dollars in benefits. All this comes out, so we then amend our Titian. We also found out that Cologne had told one of his friends
that it was his friend who committed to shoot it. Well, his friend was Julius Graves. That was only recently ascertained as with others, and I should say, look the current four forty a d s. In their response, they did not address any of our allegations. Did Julius Graves lie or did he not lie? Not addressed? They said you could have a hearing. Well, the hearing is gonna take quite a while, and Anthony should be home now. The
evidence is overwhelming. The resistance on undoing a wrongful conviction is huge. Yeah, absolutely, it is even under normal circumstances. But here in Brooklyn there's been an even more obstinate than usual obstacle in this case. Anthony brought his case to the Brooklyn Conviction Review Unit in two thousand seventeen, and one would think that the good folks would take one look at Graves's bullshit and do something about it.
But the man tasked with running the cru in Brooklyn since two thousand fourteen was Mark Hale, who just so happens to be the man who prosecuted Anthony's case. Huhm. But and this is a big butt. Mark Hale just retired at the beginning of July. So while this is good news for Anthony, there's still plenty of ways that
this might not work. Out. Even when Mark Hale out of the way, Brooklyn, d a Erik and z Alice continued to oppose throwing out his wrongful conviction, knowing that Anthony only had two other options, his four or forty emotion in front of Judge Danny Chun, who had never granted a single four forty emotion in his lengthy career, or going in front of the Pearl board. Both were
dubious avenues. So they went in front of this judge, and Julius Graves not only admitted to perjuring himself at trial, but also continued to say things that contradicted what he had previously said under oath. Meanwhile, Mark Hale also took the stand and claimed over and over again to have no memory of this case, Julius Graves or the egregious
Brady violations. The motion is still pending. I mean, in the summer, Anthony was eligible for parole and the board was much more reasonable releasing him on his first try. So Anthony, welcome back. Thank you for having me again. Well, I'm sure your family, Kisha and everyone is just ecstatic to have you home. So tell me about your first moments on the outside with them. It was surreal. I can't believe it. December first, I was released. I walked
through the doors. I put my different clothes on that my wife sent me, and I stood outside and I was met by Hood with his big hug and smiles of joy. And although I was outside, it didn't seem real. Nothing at that moment seemed to real. And we drove to a nearby dinah, and she just wanted to make sure that I had something good to eat for a change. I had sunny side up eggs has frown fried, and I had some toast, and we ate and we talked. He held my hand, I held us and I just
tried to take it all in. I got to imagine that all of this has been amazing, but bitter sweet. I mean, you're finally free, but only after all of those years. Years you can't get back, and there must be a lot of mixed emotions, and it's got to just be a burning desire to just clear your name. That's the main thing. Because although I'm free, I'm still
technically awarded the state. I'm on parole right now. I have to report a parole officer, so whenever I need to go somewhere, I have to call and get permission to go. I thank god that the parole officer that I was as handed to me is a cool parole officer. He's decent. You know, he does his job, but he's not one of those sticklers for just trying to mess with people, so he's fair. But yeah, I'm still I'm
still awarded the state. So any thing that could happen, golf a bit, I get pulled over, somebody has a rough day because just don't be right back in it. So what are the plans going forward? Right now? It's a waiting game. It's not the more. We could do. Everything now rest in the hand of the judge. Any tongue which is optimistic and hopeful that you know he'll he'll do the right thing and exonerate me. If he does an Exonaret as did, then of course we're gonna
put an appeal in. Well, you have all of our support in your quest to lay claim to your actual innocence, and with that we're going to go to closing arguments, where, first of all, I'm gonna thank you again, I mean just for being you, because you inspire the funk out of me. Honestly, I know you don't curse, but I do. Um. You inspire me to want to work harder and smarter and longer hours to help the other countless. A number
of Anthony Sims is out there. And now I'm going to sit back in my chair, turn my mic off, and just listen to any closing thoughts that you may want to share. I'm I'm really excited that you're here. I'm really excited that you're free. So Jonathan and Thomas will go and then we're going to save you for last.
I think it's important to look at the broader picture and how this injustice occurred, and it's because the system did not value the life of Anthony Simms, and it also did not value the life of the run chunt.
What we're fighting to do is to make sure that justice is served for Anthony and also for the victim, for the truth to emerge, and every ounce of help we can get to ensure that happens is deeply appreciated, because the truth has been clear from the start that Julius Graves was the perpetrator of this awful crime, not Anthony Simms. So thank you again, Jason, thank you again for doing this. I believe you have had a hundred forty five podcasts of people who are wontfully convicted. I
have listened to many. While the facts vary, the stories are all the same. A horrific crime is committed, drawing wide media and public attention. Perpetrators need to be taken off the street and held to account. However, the concern of the police and the prosecutors is not to find the actual perpetrator, but to give the public the perception that the case was solved. It did not matter whether the right person was brought to justice, as long as
the conviction was secured and the public fear allayed. As Jonathan said, neither the victim nor the defendant's life is value as long as the case is worked. So to the public is not valued, as the police did not care whether the actual perpetrator remained loose and posed the danger to the public. Also common in order to win these cases, favorable evidence pointing away from defendants guilt is disregarded and, in contravention of the prosecutors constitutional duty, is
hidden from the defender. Meanwhile, husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, and sons and daughters are destroyed, all in the interests of winning at all courts. People ask me why do I do this? I now I'm giving it away. And my Holocaust survivor I was born in nineteen basically my family, extensive family was wiped out, and that Holocaust was caused by people remaining silent. Undo this horrific injustice, Anthony. I just want to say thank you again for all the supporters.
Definitely to you for taking the time out to actually here our stories, to give us a platform and give me a platform to talk about these raw for convictions. Since I've been out, I've been doing a lot of things to try to bring awareness criminals justice. I've been very supportive and different venues to speaking engagements, and I will always try to lend a voice to the people who can't be heard. I just pray and hope that
you know this nightmare is over with soon. I pray and hope that Danny Tune just does the right thing and go over the material and review everything and then exonerate me so that I could live my life. I know I'll never be able to get those years back. I know that I never be able to get the skall off me of prison. You know what I'm saying, but I just want to fresh start and I just
pray for that opportunity. And again I thank you all for the support and everything, and of course I thank my beautiful wife because she's the truth, that's my better half right there. So thanks again, thank you for listening to Roble Conviction. I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburn and Kevin Artists, with research by Lyla Robinson. The music in this production was supplied by
three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast, and on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On all three platforms, you can also follow me on both TikTok and Instagram at It's Jason flam Ralevul Conviction is the production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one