On August sixteenth, nineteen eighty one, gunshots sprayed into Chicago's Petrowsky Park. Three young people were hit and two of
them died. The victims were affiliated with the Latin Kings, and witnesses identified two alleged members of the two sixth Street gang, But when one went missing and the other was to be tried as a juvenile, the police targeted the alleged gang leadership, amassing witness testimony about an alleged meeting held by eighteen year old David Ayala and his cousin Jimmy Soto, who were both sent away for life.
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Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. Today we're interviewing David Ayala, who served more time than anyone else wrongfully convicted in the history of the state that probably has more wrongful convictions than any other state in this crazy country of ours. I'm talking about Illinois. Forty two years in prison for a crime. I think they should have known at a minimum from the beginning that he had nothing to do
with it. And before we get into the story, first of all, I want to introduce the man himself, a hero of mine and so many other people. David Ayala, Welcome to Wrongful Conviction.
Thank you for the warm welcome.
And I'm so glad you're here. And I'm so glad you're free, finally free. It's sort of a miracle. And the miracle is in those small part due to our other guests today I name people who are fans of the show or just fans of justice. Will recognize Jennifer boninga bojin Lag group. Jennifer, welcome back to Wrongful Conviction.
Thanks for having me back.
And I know you're excited to be here to talk about this guy, right yeah. So, David, I want to get to know you first though, before we talk about what happened to you. You grew up in the Chicago area, right yeah.
I grew up on the southwest side of Chicago, an area known as Little Village, predominantly Mexican American working class. My home was my parents, three brothers, and my sister. We went to Catholic grade school and then at the age of nine, my parents divorced and my siblings chose to go with my mother. And I was always especially close to my father, so I decided to go to my father. So we relocated to another part of Little Village.
It's good neighborhood. There was also gangs there, unfortunately, but other than that, it was sort of a normal childhood.
But a normal childhood during this time in Chicago meant gang affiliation based on location, regardless of involvement, and for David, that was the two sixth Street gang. In our experience, gang affiliation has served as more than enough motivation for Cook County Police. The target young man like David and his cousin Jimmy Soto, but David stood out even more.
My best friend was dating the daughter of the police commander of that local police district who didn't like who his daughter was dating, and he was like my best friend. He was always with me, and so that commander put the word out. We see these guys give them the treatment. The treatment consists of pulling you over without probable call,
searching your car. Twice. It took me to the rival neighborhood land King neighborhood left me there a block away from the groups of these land Kings and told them you got one down the block and I had to run away, so twice they put my life in jeopardy. They will harassed me so much. I filled a complaint with the Office of Professional Standards and I was coming back from that actual police station where I registered my
complaint and the same group officers pulled me over. I had the papers that I had to sign registering the complaint and they're all passing that paperwork around and they hated me from that point on. They're like, Okay, you're gonna file a complaint on us watch and they actually used that word watch and I didn't have to wait very long to watch picked me up for anything. You're standing in front of your house disorader conduct and you're
not even drinking anything. And it was just constant harassment. After being harassed, I was cocky with them. Don't you guys got anything better to do than harass me. Every single time go saw some crimes, I would advise it strongly not to be that way with the officers. One thing I learned about the police officers in Chicago. You never want to rout of their cage. You will become a target.
And since David and his cousin Jimmy were often seeing together, they both were targets. Which brings us to August sixteenth, nineteen eighty one Petrowski Park, which was allegedly the territory of the two sixth Street gang rivals of the Latin Kings, and shots were fired into the park from a walkway, hitting three young people, sixteen year old Julie Limis, eighteen year old Hector Valleriano, and nineteen year old Wan Padilla. Tragically, one was the only one who survived out of the gate.
The Chicago Police Department assumed, and not necessarily unjustly, that this was a gang related shooting. The victims were associated purportedly with the Latin King Street gang.
And according to the surviving victim, Juan Padia and his friend Mario Abarca, shortly before the shooting, a Chicago Animal Control van flashed its lights into the park and an employee of that agency. Twenty year old JJ Rojas was identified as was his friend sixteen year old Victor Rodriguez, and later on the name Wally Cruz was thrown in the mix, but initially it was just the Jeuve Rodriguez and JJ Rojas.
Moments before this shooting happened, numerous witness identified JJ Rojas in the van flashing his light on the crowd, and after the shooting happened, Lo and behold, he doesn't report to work the next day, He's off the face of the map and is gone. And it's still gone to this very day.
Rodriguez, who was arrested on October fifth, about a month and a half after the crime, rejuvenile court judge for some reason refused to grant the prosecution motion to move his case to adult court, and he was released. I don't know. I mean, I'm just going to speculate and say, maybe they wanted a bigger fish. He was a sixteen year old kid. They probably wouldn't have been able to get him for life or death sentence or whatever they were trying to get out of this case.
So instead of saying it's possible that Victor Rodriguez, JJ Rojas or Wally Cruz on their own committed a crime. They decided, no, it's not important enough to get the right people. They decided, we're going to use it as an opportunity to frame two people who we believe are high ranking gang members in the two six Streak gang. And they had their eyes on David Ayala. David was only eighteen himself. He was in their crosshairs and his cousin was Jimmy Soto, who they perceived as this right
hand man, so they became the prime suspects. Now they knew that David Iyola was nowhere near the seam, so they could only get him if he was calling the shots. And the way they did it was like rounding up juveniles then coercing them to regurgitate the narrative that was being fed to them.
And my particular case happened during aorial election and one of the platforms of the candidates was to make crime. You know their platform, They're going to solve this case. And young people were abused, physically abused, mental abuse, They were deny their rights, deny their parents, they were lied to. This was a terrible abuse of our civil rights.
They went so far as to in some cases charged them with obstruction of justice, and in order to essentially get their obstruction of justice charge dismissed, they had to get on the bandwagon of the story that the Chicago Police Department wanted them to tell, and the story was that there had been some gang meeting at David Ayala's house earlier that they were all present for.
Ultimately, nine young men who were allegedly affiliated with the two six Street gang were indicted, including the four that were brought to trial, David and Jimmy, as well as David's cousin Reuben Palomo and eighteen year old Wally Gator Cruz, the last of whom ended up testifying against his co
defendants in exchange for you guests at leniency. This narrative continued that by about six pm, all but the four co defendants had left David's house when a phone call alerted them that the Latin Kings were in Petrovsky Park. Cruise said that he was ordered to start David's dark Blue band.
I've never owned a dark blue van in my life. And here's the funny part about it. The police went and asked my neighbors, does David have a van? Have you ever seen a van here? And the neighbors confirmed, I've never had a van. They've never seen a van. The only event that really came up conclusively was the animal control van, but we were taking into custody October fifteen, nineteen eighty one.
You're listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. The state's narrative continued that Cruz allegedly's roven armed Jimmy Soto and Ruben Palomo to Petrowsky Park, where they first encountered two young women, Isabelle gone Mez and Lisa Suarez, who told them that the Latin Kings
were still in the park. Then they spoke againic allegedly with JJ Rojas and Victor Rodriguez, before pulling into an alley near the park, where Jimmy and Rubin allegedly exited the van with a rifle and a handgun, and Cruise
heard gunshots. Then the pair returned to the van saying quote, we might have hit somebody, and the three sped back to David's house, where David allegedly received a phone call confirming the two fatalities, and they were put on trial in September nineteen eighty two, where the state supported cruise with a parade of witnesses.
Well, there were a parade of witnesses that didn't have really even that much to say. Frankly, there were witnesses who testified about the shooting what they saw, but not any identification testimony, nothing that would suggest that these defendants were the people responsible. There was a lot of time spent on the crime itself, which was clearly horrific, but designed to a flame the passions of the jury and that's all fair game, but when it came down to the actual evidence, it was scammed.
But let's just talk about one Isabelle Gomez, right, She testified she was in the park with her friend Suarez prior to the shooting. She recalled that one of those president was a guy named Mario Abarca who was a member of the Latin King. She said that she and Suarez left and she saw Suarez make a phone call that Suarez said she had called Ayala's home. Now it goes on that they saw Cruz and Palomo. She said Cruz was driving a dark blue van and Palomo was
in the pastor seat. She couldn't see if anyone else was in the rear seat. Goma said that Palomo asked who was in the park, and she told him that Ebarca was there. She said the cruise drove off toward the park and she later heard gunshots. Now, during cross examination, get this, this is the key, right. So she said that about two or three weeks after the shooting, police came to her home to interview her. The detectives came every two or three days, and she said the officers
threatened her. They told her, quote, we are going to take you to the park. We are going to tell all the people there that you'd set them up, so similar to what they were doing to you before, David. They were going to drop her off in a place where she would likely be killed or who knows what.
They're going to take her to the Lang King so she get raped. So I wasn't angry with her because her experience of what she had to endure as a young girl should never have happened.
In addition, Isabelle Gomez said that she and Suarez had initially been charged with the murders, but those charges were swapped for obstruction of justice charges that would remain until after they testified. The state also put on a guy named John Erosco, who testified about seeing the animal control van that he knew Rojas usually drove, but that he said he thought it was a different dark blue van
that rolled up at the time of the shooting. He and the surviving victim, want Padia, testified that they hadn't seen the gunman.
When push came to shove. The only witness who ultimately implicated David and Jimmy was this highly incentivized co defendant, Wally Cruz, who had negotiated a deal with the state to testify against them in exchange for a five year sentence. Maybe he was actually involved, Maybe he was just afraid that they would falsely accuse him. It's unclear why he did this, but we do know that the testimony was false and he got a sweetheart deal because of it.
He says, we had this gang meeting at my house, and he names these people being there, and we were able to show it's impossible for these people to have been at this meeting, as he indicated.
The defense did a very good job of showing this gang meeting never happened. One kid that initially said was at the gang meeting was actually in a juvenile facility locked up at the time of the alleged gang meeting. So if that's not evidence of coercion, I don't know what is. Another kid was in the hospital. There were medical records showing he was literally in the hospital at the time time the alleged meeting took place.
Now, Alex Gomez was the one who was in Jewvie and Robert Via Gomez was the one at the hospital. Javier Yakez was at home. Tyrone Ayala was at his mother's. Jimmy Sodo's sister Martha, and his girlfriend Diana were at David's house that night and they testified that no gang meeting took place and neither David nor Jimmy ever left the home. In addition, there was Elisa Orosco and Carol Choppa who both testified the Cruz told them that he planned to falsely testify a trial, but.
The prosecutions just like they're all gang members and they're all liars. You can't believe any of them, but you can believe this one gang member, Wally Cruz, who we just gave a kiss to in exchange for participating in this murder. So it really did turn on Cruz's testimony, which again was highly incentivized.
What point of our trial when the jury was excused, the state attorney turned syrus. He gave me the middle finger. I was naive to think that justice would prevent because of evidence. But they were not emphasizing the evidence. They were emphasizing the gang factor. If you want the gangs to run your city streets, find these men innocent. If you want a secure neighborhood, they have to be found guilty.
So finally, September thirtieth, nineteen eighty two, after eight hours of deliberation, the jury came back and reported that they were deadlocked on all but one charge against you and your cousin, Jimmy Soto.
Judges have a way of coercing verdicts, shall we say, They have a way of signaling through instructions, through all types of means. Go back, keep deliberating, keep deliberating, bring us back a verdict. And jurors of human beings, they get fatigued. They read the tea leaves, They get the impression that their job is to come back and in this case, to come back and convict I think deadlocked
or not. There was probably fewer people on the not guilty side than the guilty side, which is typically the case.
The bailiff was a pretty nice guy. He seen what was happening in our court room. He kind of empathized with us, and he told me the air ventilation in the jury room is malfunctioning. There's miserable conditions in that
jury room. And so when the jury foreman told the judge that he couldn't reach a verdict their deadlocked, the judge and tone to them, well, you're going to go back and I'm sure you're going to reach a verdict, or you could keep deliberating, and then all of a sudden, miraculously, forty five minutes later or whatever it was, they reached a vertict you not misus verdict. They all averted their eyes, every single one of them had their eyes down.
And so ultimately David Aila and Jimmy Soto are convicted in this grave miscarriage of justice in which they both are sentenced to mandatory life sentences.
My brain like blew a gasket. I wasn't like shouting out, oh, how did this happen? I was just like stupefied, how could this possibly happen? The whole spirit inside of me was just like vacuumed out. My attorney came back and said, we're going to feel this. And forty two years.
Past, David Ayala, for no reason other than his perceived status, not because he was a difficult prisoner or had a bad disciplinary history or anything of that nature, was shipped off the TAMS the minute it was opened, which was the supermax facility that has since been shut down as human rights violation, violation of Eighth Amendment, cruel and unusual conditions, where he spent literally seven years in isolation, seventeen years without a phone call, no human contact.
We went literally years with the same people on the tie they call it, and it's five sales upstairs, five sales downstairs. Were I never saw that person face, I heard his voice. I had no idea what he could look like. They always put a mentally old person on Earth tier, and instead of them getting a treatment, they
were locked in their cells and made it worse. And so now they're hearing voices and everything, and he'd make noise all night, and I noticed there was a recipe for coping with it, and there was a recipe for disaster, recipe for maintaining your sanity. I found what was working for me and others was seeing sleep hours, meditate, prey, have an exercise routine. The yard is a misnomer. It was not a yard. I went seventeen years without stepping
on earth or seeing a blade of grass. It was a concrete box that you couldn't even run laps the stay in shape because you run three steps you have to turn. That's how small that area was. But at least you could have fresh air. They had these high concrete walls. All you saw was concrete walls. Your other view was to look at the sky and see at barbed wire and chaining fence. So everything was a reminder
you're in prison. And the people that weren't doing those things were the people that were the most frustrated, screaming out, lashing out. They're losing their minds.
I have one other client who spent a lot of time there. It is not anything that any of us can wrap our heads around. But as far as I know, David, I was there the day it was opened, and the day it was closed, he, I think, not only has the unfortunate circumstance of being one of the men who has served the longest wrongful conviction in the history of Illinois, but also served the longest time at TAM's supermacs in complete isolation, which frankly, I don't know how he even functions to this day.
I would like to think that I overcame my conditions, but I really didn't, because to this day there's triggers, tears come out just remembering the horrible experience. And so when there was a movement to close TAMS based on the effects that was having, the mental deterioration of the inmates, the cost, and there was a movement to close the prison, the local officer union threatened the judge. They put a court injunction to keep the prison open, and they told
the judge, listen, you were your constituents. In six months, you're for reelection. If you closed this prison, we're going to vote you out office. But he had no recourse to keep that prison open. When the governor of the state of Illinois and the prison director said that prison has to be closed. The prison has to be closed.
In those nearly first two long decades, David's cousin, Jimmy Soto, became a legendary jailhouse lawyer at Stateville Penitentiary, and he was responsible for sending so many other innocent men home. But somehow though, he couldn't develop that kind of traction for himself and for David, whose cases were, let's face it, inextectably lengked. Meanwhile, in the years following the closure of the TAMS facility, David was not reunited with Jimmy.
Illinois has a agreement with other states that if we have a high profile prisoner or someone that we believe should be outside the state doing their time because of some reason, they will have them doing time elsewhere. And David fell into that category because the Illinois Department of Corrections, whether it was justified or not, whether it was based in fact or not, had designated David as high ranking
a chief. You know, they have all types of labels, and once they have put that label on you, you are stuck with it. So he did all of his time in Utah. It was extraordinarily difficult, not just for his mental state, but also just being able to, for instance, keep up with your appeals and access to courts in
Illinois was so difficult. He's either in isolation or out well outside the state of Illinois, communication, etc. So over the forty two years that he was fighting this case, he had additional challenges that even other prisoners would.
Not have, so appeal after appeal were denied. First denied in eighty six by the First District of Illinois Repellent Court. In ninety one, Jimmy acting without a lawyer while the post conviction pro se petition legend his child defense attorney Pride inadequate legal defense. The lawyer had failed to call six other witnesses who would have testified the cruise live, but they said they were at your house for the
gang meeting. Petition will go do other things. But nonetheless the petition was dismissed.
And I'm familiar with Jimmy's case too, the way that the system handled his post conviction petitions. They lingered on for decades, up and down the courts, back and up to the appellate court, back down, judge screws up again, goes up. I mean, we're talking decades of just colossal mistakes. But eventually David and Jimmy find themselves in twenty fifteen back in the Circuit Court on a post conviction petition
on claims of actual innocence. Perge your testimony in effective assistance a council, and there's a strong body of support for these claims.
The petitions contained numerous affidavits from witnesses identifying the actual gunman as here we go again, Victor Rodriguez and JJ Rojas. Some of them recounted that police officers had slapped and hit them until they agreed to say that this meeting, this phantom meeting, had taken place. Robert jack Quiz, for instance, said police told him that unless he signed a statement, he would go to jail for the rest of his life.
He also said that he had spoken with Cruise after Cruise was released from prison, and Cruise admitted to him that he had falsely implicated you guys. It goes on and on. Isabelle Gomez wrote an affid David that the prosecutor had told her exactly what to say to the grand jury, and she said that the detectives told me if I didn't cooperate, I would be charged with murder.
She went on to say, this is a quote the detectives told me if I didn't cooperate, they would drop me off by the Latin Kings so they could rape me. At this point, I was so frightened and confused that I felt I had no choice but to testify as to what I was told. I didn't want to be charged with murder or harmed by the Latin Kings end quote.
And the judge ultimately denies them an evidentiary hearing, which was I'm sure a low point for David. I'm sure it was a low point for Jimmy, and then they had to go back up to the appellate court. God knows how many times it was at this juncture. I
stepped into the case. At that point, with my colleagues over there at Lov and Lov, who now represent Jimmy, we were able to get the case reversed and sent back to the judge for an evidentiary hearing, both on actual innocence and in effective assistance a council.
Jennifer told me, she said, listen, the state is indicating that they're not going to contest our petition and they just have to go through the procedures to the levels of the state's attorney's office. And so we had like I don't know, four, maybe five continuances.
We were sweating it out to the last minute, right.
David test to understatement, He's really an understatement. It was a emotional, mental, spiritual roller coaster. I made the rookie mistake of a prisoner where you count down the days and you say to yourself, this is going to be the final day. And my friends that were touching with my family, they were like, well, we want to take you to this comedy event on this date here. My court day was a week before that. I daydreamed and I fantasized my mind, I'm going to be at that event. Well,
we went to court another continuance. So that night when I was counting on going to that event, I was just ining to my cell, looking at the ceiling, saying, okay, well, this is going to be clear by the next time. The next time, I was saying, I want to be out there for my daughter's birthday. I'm going to celebrate. I'm going to have a father daughter dance. And it hadn't cleared yet.
And the good part of the story is that eventually, although they made us sweat it out for a very long time, the Cook County State's Attorney's office ultimately threw in the towel could not proceed in good faith after all of these years, and agree that David and Jimmy were both entitled to post conviction relief and then ultimately dismissed all charges against them. And even then the judge almost didn't want to do it.
The judge was given like this long spill of what was presented before him. He doesn't have to rubber stamp anything, and this and that. And after this long spill, he said, in light of the state's attorney position, or vacate the sentence and then it's over with. I was like, wow, did this really just happen. When you go to court, you have supporters there and the jubilant and they want to scream and they want to reach it to Heaven,
pump the fish in the air. But when you're dealing with a cantigerous judge, you can't even express an outburst of joy because you get reprimanded. You just imagine, after forty two years of wrong for imprisonment, you awarded your freedom and you can't even scream out a joyous exclamation. But I felt it. I felt it in my spirit.
So when they finally vacated his convictions and he was going to be released that night, he came to my law from this Christmas party.
I was lucky to meet you at that wonderful celebration we had in Chicago. I was just looking at the picture on my phone that we took. I think you were wearing a Boding Law Group long sleeved t shirt because it was December in Chicago, and yeah it with a big smile on your face, and oh yeah, yeah. It was just so great to be with you and Jimmy and Jennifer and the whole team. It's a moment I won't forget. So what was it like when you finally breathed free air?
Well, when I was finally released, everything was wondrous to me. Everything was wondrous, just looking on the street and seeing lights and everything and people walking, pedestrians walking. And after I got out of prison about a month later, my brother in law, my sister and him have two dogs and they asked me if I can walk the dog. Seeing the dogs stiff on the ground, I was thinking to myself, I wonder what that dog's thinking, and my brother and LAG's just trying to rush. He wanted to
get home. I'm like, let's take a second, let me enjoy this here, and he said, okay, he got it. He finally understood. I seen the squirrels running round. And you know when we went to New Orleans as part of the Innocence Conference and we're on a boat and I was looking at the moon like these things touched me deeply to see a moon, because for years in prison, I didn't see a move. So there are blessings now after that experience.
I imagine everything is just I can't imagine. I can't even say can imagine. I can't imagine. It's just I'm just so happy that you're here. I wish you all the best of everything now, today, tomorrow, and for the rest of your life. And we're going to have a link in the episode description to a GoFundMe that was set up for David. I hope that our listeners will join me in donating to help him get back on
his feet. And with that, I want to turn to my favorite part of the show, which is called closing arguments, and it works like this. First of all, thank you Jennifer David, and now I'm going to pick back in my chair and close my eyes and just listen to anything that you think is left unset. So Jennifer, tradition holds you go first, and then this is David's show and I want him to take us off into the sunset. So Jennifer, over to you.
David is an incredible person. I've really enjoyed getting to know him and what he's endured. I can't even wrap my head around. And after he was released from Cook County Jail, he had this beautiful gift made for me, which is the T shirt that David was wearing when
he got released from prison from Cook County Jail. He had it framed and on it it says to Jennifer Bonjeing, I wore this Cook County Jail T shirt as part of my Cook County Jail uniform while facing Judge Joyce on December fourteenth, twenty twenty three, the day you secured my freedom. You and your excellent law group put an end of forty two years of wrongful imprisonment. I am eternally grateful to you with my love and admiration. David Ayala, So even in the mix of it all, even though
he had no need to do something so special. It really is special to me. So that's why it's hanging on my office wall.
For me now after this horrible experience, Like people ask me, am I bitter? Am I resentful? No, because like my mind is taking in new experiences like walking the dog was a new experience, having an umbrella in the rain. Tomato sister put a tomato on the table and I was like, this is beautiful tomato. She's like, it's a tomato. Dude, to you, it's a tomato. You go years in prison. What I seeing a full tomato. You're so grateful for
these things. I recently started working. I work twelve hour shifts from six o'clock in the morning six o'clock at night. I have friends that are retiring at this age. I'll be sixty one next month. I should have had a nestache, but when I got my paycheck, I felt proud. This is something ironed as a man, and so these things that everybody else so you won't think twice of it. It's like it's an incredible experience for me, and I think, if there's any blessing in this, I was given this
deep sense of gratitude. It's just it's wondrous to me. It's just like I have a deep sense of gratitude to have my freedom now after losing all those decades in prison.
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one week early by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Watis, and Jeff Clibern. The music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram at It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is auction of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one