On November two, nineteen seventy four, a Baltimore General store delivery man claimed that he was robbed by three armed men. When he and his coworkers returned to the scene, they saw the three alleged assailants drive off and reported the license plate number to police, but when the car was pulled over, only two men were arrested, despite the protestations of his coworkers. The delivery driver later identified a regular at the general store, seventeen year old Leslie Vass, as
the third assailant. But this is wrongful conviction. Wrongful conviction has always given voice to innocent people in prison, and now we're expanding that voice to you. Call us at eight three three two o seven four six sixty six and tell us how these stories make you feel and what you've done to help the cause, even if it's something a say boys, telling a friend or sharing on social media, and you might just hear yourself in a future episode. Call us A three three two oh seven
four six sixty six. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction, where we've got I believe the first wrongful conviction ever recognized by the State of Maryland, and it appears that at least some folks still have a problem with wiping the slate clean once and for all. But before we get into all that, let's introduce the man himself, Leslie vas Leslie, thank you for sharing your story.
Thank you for lowing me.
It's an honor to have you here with us. So let's go back and start from the beginning.
I was born September seventh, nineteen fifty seven, and in the South Forma area. My mom she moved up here to Maryland from Henderson, North Carolina. I never knew anything about a personal relationship with my father, whom I had never met at that time. At the age of two years old, my mom's had allowed my guard mother, Shirly Ray, to take me and move to Brooklyn, New York, up in bed Star Breevoid Projects, Ben Star Do a Die.
I still remember that right, and I grew up there, attending school there, and in the summertime I would come back here in Baltimore. That went on for a period of time. When I was fifteen, I had actually come back to Maryland to actually live with my mom. I moved into the projects, but my weekends was spent at my grandfather's house in the South Bahma area. So then we went forth to me playing basketball. I really became sincere about it when I was in junior high school.
When the weather was bad, I was on the court. Right when the weather was good, was on the court because I made applants for myself. I wanted to excel Earl the Pearl, Walt Frasier, Western Cell and all that. That's the era I grew up there, and that was my dream and aspirations to really become the best.
The year that Leslie was arrested, he had won the city wide championship, and his skill gave him notoriety, including at the neighborhood's social hub that became part of a robbery investigation, the Westport Pharmacy.
It was the only store in that community had a deli back in and back where people go sit down with stools and stuff and eat and drink sodas and all that kind of stuff. That's how this place was. I come in that store regularly. I would remember going in the back of the store and speaking to the delivery drivers that I knew, Clarence mcclerk and Willie Adams. Mister Clarence was like Leslie, how many points are you
gonna give him this week. I'm saying I don't know about thirty points right, laughing and joking.
In addition to Clarence McCleary and Willie Adams, another man, Joseph Chester, did deliveries on the weekends when Leslie was usually at his grandfather's house in another neighborhood, and on one particular Saturday, November two, nineteen seventy four, Joseph Chester claimed to have been robbed.
I think it was supposed been around seven or something in the evening. There was a call put into the Westport Pharmacy for some kind of alcoholic beverages that they wanted to deliver it at twenty seven o seven Spellman Road on the second floor or something right. The delivery driver supposed to said that when he pulled up, he observed three men just lounging around outside. He said he went up the steps to the second floor and said that whoever the lady was to answer the door, said
that she didn't call for a delivery. Said he turned around and come back downstairs. As he coming by the gods, one of the guys stepped out and told him to put his hands up. He said the other guy put a gun to his head. He said. The other guy stood on the side and didn't say anything or do anything. Then the guy that was supposed to be me with the short cut haircut took the money out of his pocket and told him to get him his vehicle and drive off. He said he went down to the gas
station and called the robbery in. Then he called the Westport pharmacy to let them know that he had been robbed. Then mister Clarence in them they met him over there, and they sat outside of the building in mister Clarence car and they waited and they watched three men who the victim identified as being the people who robbed him, come out the building and get into this yellow volkswagon. They followed it and used the phone to notify the police and gave them the tag number. From the reports,
it showed that the vehicle was stopped. Two of these men were at the Balemas City drug program called Cash. They came home on the weekend, committed the robbery and were actually going back to the jail.
At the time of his trial, Leslie was unaware of this police report, and for some reason, the report only documented these two of the three men, Joseph Lewis White and Claude Knight.
One man pled guilty got five years probation. The other one was found guilty and given a five year consecutive sentence to whatever sentence he was serving for a number charge. But it's three of y'all that's supposed to have been in his vehicle.
Leslie discovered the third man's identity unfortunately much later. So three men were in the yellow volkswagon that night, none of them were Leslie, and only two of them were held accountable. And it appears that the alleged victim in this case, who had already id'd the third assailant in front of his coworkers, may have used that third suspect role to his own ends. On February fifteenth, nineteen seventy five.
My moms woke me up on a Saturday, told me, Leslie, I want you to go to the store, get me a paper. I call in front of mine Harrison. They live down the street from me, like a couple of doors down, asking him did he want to walk over? And we see the fellow who owns the place called Doc, and I'm said, doctor, you got any papers? He said, go out front they had a paper dispenser chained to the poles. I went out there and got the paper.
As I turn around, I heard someone say, you with the level coat on, go stand up against the wall. I turn around and looking at a police officer with his gun pointed at us. I'm like, woo me. He said, yah. Now, I'm a seventeen year old kid that ain't never been arrested. This man put his gun to the back of my head and told me face that ball. I heard him saying something to somebody and I heard a voice say it looks like him, and he said, well, you're under
arrest for arm roby. I said arm riby, I said, sir, I just came up the store, asked doc. I said, mister Clarins, saying because I ain't robbed no store. He said, shut up, you're under arrest. Tell it to the judge. Now. I was underimpression that the robbery happened the day that I was being.
Arrested, and that confusion may have been cleared up if they held a hearing to bound his case over from juvenile court. But they just granted seventeen year old Leslie Bell, released him to his mother and instructed him to have no contact at all with the Westport pharmacy as he waited to be tried as an adult.
My mom's she entrusted my safety and well being to an attorney by the name of robber Paul Conrad. I'll never forget that name. When I went to see him the first time, the only thing he said to me was, did your mother send me an envelope? I said, sir, I said, well, what about this case? Did these people talk about? I robbed the drug store? I said, I know, doctor, don't worry about that. Let me deal with that. I
know how, but I'm doing I'm the lawyer. He never gave me any information about the case.
Whatsoever, including the date of the robbery, the details from the police report, the identity of his two co defendants, Joe Louis White and Claude Knight, how Joseph Chester had I d'd the three assailants in front of the other deliverymen, as well as how the third man's description simply didn't match Leslie. He was older with short, cropped hair. Nothing was shared that would have helped Leslie develop an alibi defense for trial on July second, nineteen seventy five.
Now I remember I'm standing in the hallway and I see Clarss mccruury and Willie Adams, the two drivers for the Westport Pharmacy, and they're talking to a white guy with a suit on, who I found out was the state's attorney and the case against me all right now. When they see me, they look around and they said, boy, what are you doing in here? I said, they locked
me up, and said I robbed store. And the guy was still standing there and they turned around looked at him, and he said, this kid wasn't the people that we seeing in the car that ribed that man. And I'm hearing this, but I don't understand none of it because I don't know the essence of the story. So I remember the man said to them, y'all gonna be dismissed as witnesses. So he was like, Leslie, something is wrong here. Who is your attorney? Now, as I'm saying that, he's
coming up the steps. Him and the white guy they start talking. Then he comes back over to me and I said, sir, he said, I don't want to hear none of that. He said, I told you don't talk to anybody. You know. It's a lot of other things. I learned about that attorney after I was convicted. Right come to find out the judge that my case was before was a well known racist.
Leslie's hired attorney, Robert Conrad, advised him, a seventeen year old kid, to take a bench trial in front of Judge same parat, while keeping him completely in the dark about the evidence, including the star witness.
They called the case. Then they say the victim, Joseph Frederick Chester. I'm like, who is that? And the lawyer turns to me and say, that's the victim. You never seen the man that you charged with robbing? I said, man, I said that man had me put my face through the wall. I never turned around, I said, I ain't never seen that man a day in my life. But he was in the hallway watching me when I was walking home with mister Clarenson. I'm coming And mister Clarinson
then went to him and told him you're wrong. He wasn't one of the people that was in that car that night.
Nevertheless, something had convinced Joseph Chester to again identify Leslie as the third assailant.
The victim testified that he was ribbed by three men and that I'm supposed to been the man that removed the money from his pocket, another dude supposed to hell got into his head, and the other guy just stood on the side. But all three of us supposed been accompliced. I said, well, where they at because I don't know them. They asked, do you know a fellow by the name
of Joe Lowis talking about the boxer. No, it's a fellow named Joe Lewis that was with you when you committed I said, I don't know anyone named Joe Lawns, and I didn't commit this ribbery. Right. My testimony was consistent to what I knew that had happened up February fifteen, nineteen seventy five. I'm finding out that the robbery happened in November. The state's attorney asked me, where were you November two, nineteen seventy four. I said, I can't specifically say.
I said, if it was a weekend, then I probably was at my grandfather's house.
Then Leslie's attorney, Robert Conrad, I didn't call mister McCleary or mister Adams to impeach the state's only witness, leaving it all up to this judge.
The judge stated that he believed him over me, and I looked at the attorney. He laughed. He looked at me and laughed, man, like the fuck. It was fun, you understand. And I was tripped on and I was like, you did this? Man? You know that I had nothing to do with this, and he was like, nigga, you're gonna serve this twenty years.
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You laughed me up at the age of seventeen. I'm in a massive security Maryland State pen attention where people getting killed in the dining home. You understand people stabbing each other, niggas raping other boys and all that kind of stuff. While I'm in there, Death Row is directly
above me. The guys on death Row when the article who came out about seventeen year old basketball star received twenty years sentence, they must have followed sports when I was out in the street, because when I come to the Penchuchry, guys on death Row taught me how to file for the freedom of information that I don't know, just God, that I've been mistaken for who he is. I don't know nothing about the people I was charged with being co defenders too. And I stayed up at night. Man,
my glasses is thick, all right. I stayed up at night reading constantly of what I need to understand about the process regarding armed ribery, what it consisted of, the essence, the elements and all that. And I became very adept with what I was doing, to the point I was helping other individuals get out, get their sentence reduced.
And are to call Leslie's main issue an ineffective assistance of council claim is an insult, frankly to shitty lawyers. It appears that Bob Conrad actually helped this judge convict Leslie.
Everybody claimed he was such a good attorney, but he was only good for those that he wanted to work for. When it comes to people of color, he made it clear how he felt about them. This man was a well known racist individual. But when I fouled complaint against him with the Attorney Grievers Commission, the Greevans Commission chairman sent me a letter back saying, Bob Conrad has been a dear friend to me for years, and I do not believe for you he's an honorary member of this
bark mission. I'm saying, well, if that's the case, then you need to outside. This is somebody else to investigate, because this ethical issuy here for you. How can you investigate yourself?
So there was no movement on the grievance or on his initial appeals, But those four your requests turned up the police reports, which eventually led to the the co defendants. This was the first time Leslie even knew about mister McCleary and mister Adams taking out the apartment building with mister Chester. This is when it finally made sense that they were witnesses to these three men who had gotten into the Yellow folkswagon that night.
But what gives me is that when the vehkuus stopped, they lock up two people, they don't say nothing about this third dude. Then I start hearing because of me being a basketball player, being young people who used to live in that community that were in prison with me. But said man, Joe Louis got a buddy, Bucky Nutt, and Joe and Bucky nutt are rat buddies. They was on charges together. A guy came to me in the Maryland House Correction and Jessa. He said, my half brother
Bucky is the one that people mistake you for. So he started telling me about the robbery the girl that lived in the apartment bend them being outside the apartment waiting for the guy to come to make the delivery. Then he says, Bucky and them they had been doing this before. From what I was getting was the possibility that they were pretending that they were robbing people, and they probably took the delivery drivers money from him and they beat him out of it.
It appears that not only was Joseph Chester potentially involved with his alliged assailants, but also something else made him both a disgusting human being and specially vulnerable to police coercion.
Come to find out, he liked young girls, and one of the young girls that he really liked was a girl that my mother was friends with. Her mother. My mother said that she was in that lady's house playing cards on the weekend when the victim came in to make deliveries and they got into a confrontation. She told the ladies she said, this is the man that said Leslie robbed him, and she was like, well he messed with my daughter, Dina din know younger than Leslie.
It appears there were multiple angles by which Joseph Chester's identification of Leslie could have been engineered, while Bucky Nutt aka Charles Parker was the actual third assailant. So while Leslie continued his fight, he was offered a work release program and a pathway to parole. In nineteen eighty two.
They take me to pre release. It's in Balima City. They give me a push brum and they tell me to sweep from this.
Corner all the way down.
There to that corner right and I said, the officer gonna be with me, No Leslie, U went pre release. You ain't got worried about that no more. I couldn't wait till the morning. Ogay a guy on the farm. I made a couple of phone calls and some people that I knew. I needed a bus ticket for New York. You understand, it was about eight thirty in the morning when they gave me that brum. They said they checked
out there at twelve o'clock. They didn't see me. They found that broom down there, lane up against the wall, and I was gone.
So Leslie escaped, but before boarding a bust in New York, he made a stop in Baltimore.
I went to where the fellow Joe Lord's sister lived there, and I explained to her that I was the kid that had gotten locked up for Bucky nutt Right. And she explains to me that Bucky was working with the police. He said, that's why they never locked him up. This woman sat and explaining some stuff to me. I said to myself, I don't know if I can believe everything this woman's saying, but everything she said to me proved factly because I checked everything.
After a six month stint of freedom in New York, he was discovered when he returned to visit family in Baltimore for the holidays.
I notified the state about the identification the problem, and all they take a year and a half to send somebody out to the victim, and he positively identify as a Bucky nutt Right, saying that the man on the picture even still had the same shirt on that he
had on when they committed the robbery. So there's a new state's attorney in Baltimore that's just been elected, and everybody had high hopes that this man was an African American man and he would be more understanding of the racial issues that was faced with us all these years. And all that His name was Kurt Smokes, right. I wrote him from the MARYW House Correction asking him to
please take a look at my case. He wrote me back no. When the victim positively identified the photograph, then they contact me and said they would be willing to release me if I accepted a deal to plead no low contender to one count in exchange for just being released. I same, I'm not taking no deal. Man. Took them another year and a half for me to get out.
Kurt Schmoke not only became the mayor of Baltimore, but then also the dean of Howard University Law School, followed by the president of the University of Baltimore and a part owner of the Baltimore Orioles. It's hard to square all of that with Leslie's experience, but nevertheless, Leslie was released.
I got released October the seventeenth, nineteen eighty four, and before I even had to hear and I had written to the judge and told them about the deal that they tried to force me to accept, and they told me that the judge and Smokes was best friends and they were fraternity brothers, and if I didn't accept the deal, he was gonna have to judge dismiss my petition based on the original in court identification that was made by
the victim. Then he threatened the victim and told him, if you don't say it was Leslie's, we're gonna charge you with perjury from your original in court out therefication. While in prison, I had been earning credits and all towards my bachelor's First I got my bachelor's degree in sociology from Tawson State University. I then got my certification as a prior legal right Now. In nineteen eighty six, I got a full unconditional pardon from Governor Harria Hughes.
I got a court order that all records relating to that conviction was supposed to been destroyed. That was the first expansiment order. That was May of nineteen eighty six. The clerk of the court, when I tried to have them enforce it, he told me that he think the judge made a mistake and he wasn't putting the order through, so it sat dormant in their office. Everybody I went to get help in regard to it would never help me.
And it appears that this one clerk's in action has repeatedly reared its ugly head multiple times throughout Lesley's life. But for now, there were other fights to win.
You have to remember during that time, they didn't believe that wrongful convictions happened. I petitioned the state for compensation. I had no alternity. I did interviews with the news media about what was going on and how I had been fighting with the state. I was able to get an agreement with the state that with the compensation, I supposed to god assistance with housing, education, employment. The only thing that they actually did was give me the monthly payments.
I was paid a quarter million dollars over seven years by monthly checks. When I first got the first payment, I purchased a nineteen eighty seven Toyola Crest and I was going to my mom's house and it's restored, it sits there. I'll come back out the store and it's a guy propped up on the front of my car. I'm like, I ha, no chair, yo, you got that twisted. He said, I'm Bucky Nutt. And I was like, sir, y'all, let me say something to you. As long as your
butthole points to the ground. Don't you ever approached me? Don't you ever say nothing to me? Ever? And he was like, yo, I man, I ain't made no harm, man, I was just introduced her. I said, I don't want to hear that shit about you introduce your stuff to me. Don't you ever approach me?
Leslie continued to try to put his wrongful conviction behind him. Things went well for a while. He worked for several different state agencies while receiving his monthly check while pursuing his record expungement, and in nineteen ninety eight, he believed he had finally been successful. Over those years, he also got married to a woman named Donna, which unfortunately brought him nothing but more heartache.
After we got married, Donna had all kind of substance abuse problems. I tried to have her roll in different programs. She would disappeared. I wouldn't see her for months at a time. Come to find out her ex husband before me. She would go back to him and he would beat and bang on her. Then he would write up a
report and submitted to the police for her right. She supposed he had made an accusation that she was stabbed by me, that I supposed that had pulled up on her and forced her to get into my vehicle and I tried to kidnap her. He would write up a report, they would take a charge out on me, and then she wouldn't come to court.
And things went on this way, unbeknownst to Leslie until two thousand and four.
In two thousand and four, I was working for the Maryland Department of Labor licen Regulation as employment specialists, and I was doing extremely well. My first child was born in eighty eight, and at that time I had a custody of forts I'll never forget. I went to work that morning. The security officer told me that they did what they call a random check of my name. They said, it's a warrant for your arrest and the systems. So I'm like, hell right, I'm laughing. Couse, I know he
got to be joking. He talked about Leslie. Vasque got the old ward.
It wasn't a joke. The charge was first degree attempted murder.
And I voluntarily surrendered myself and went in there and people walked me in. Now I got before the Core Commission. She asked me, have you ever been convicted of a felony, mister Vasq And I said no, could I haven't the wrong for Robbie conviction, but not so up. I got paperwork from the Attorney General from the state of Mind in nineteen ninety eight, said that he got ex funds
all right, which was the fourth ex monthment order. Turned the computer screen around and told me, mister Vass, I'm sorry, but I can't release you on a ball because this nineteen seventy five on Robbie is still on the records. And I pulled out the expungement order, the order from the Circuit court, saying that everything was done, the certificate of compliance, all of it. She said, mister asked, I understand,
She said, I'm familiar with your case. I'm so sorry that I'm the one that has to do to She said, but because of the charge being what it is, a first degree attempted murder charge, we cannot release you on bail because you have this armed robby. I contact the Attorney General from the jail, the same one that's supposedly did the expungement in ninety eight. He actually represents Public Safety and Correctional Services here in the state of Month,
which is the agency that dissimilates all criminal histories. He told me, oh, no, Leslie, that's not correct. We're gonna get that taken care of and then get you released and all this stuff, okay. He never accepted another call from me from the jail.
Leslie awaited trial in jail for eighteen months, and with no one to care for his four minor children, they were placed in foster care. Luckily, he was able to beat the charges, but the nineteen seventy five wrongful conviction continued to wreck havoc in his life.
After the acquittal, they opposed returning my children to me. It took me two and a half years to get them back because they claimed I was an habitual criminal. And I'm saying, how can you use the same criminal history that you know was a wrongful conviction to claim that I'm an habitual criminal no matter where I go at and what I do. I've left Maryland, moved all
the way to Tampa, Florida, Fayetteville, Georgia. I've lived in ox Nord, California, in twenty twenty, was working for an re entry organization, did a live scan and hit come the same wrongful conviction and you still bringing it up at the age of sixty six. Come on, something's wrong with this.
But something positive did happen for all ex honer reason. Maryland twenty one, the Walter Lomas Act was passed, which meant a new avenue for compensation for Leslie.
They awarded me five hundred and seventy seven thousand dollars two years ago, and on July the fourth, they honored me at the Waterfront Festival in Cherry Hill. When I met the Controller for the State of Maryland. Her name is Brooke Lureman explained her. I said, look, I said, Brooke, I said, I'm tired all. I've asked them correct their injustice that's been going on over these years that I've been sending y'all. She's aware, but she said to me that I need to make an appointment meet the.
Governor and maybe he can't trust them to finally effectively expunge his record, but we really hope that someone finally gets it right.
The lesson of all this man that I hope and played at all the other anxietaries recognized that, make sure they check about these background histories. Make sure that it's done the way it's supposed to. That means it has to be exam it from the FBI fouls also, and that might be something that a lot of JARNA reeves don't know.
So any calls to action for our audience.
Call for actions for this voy Marcellus Williams. My blessings for him and prayers for his family.
For those of you who aren't aware, an innocent man named Marcellus Williams is set to be executed on September twenty fourth, twenty twenty four, even though he has been excluded from every piece of physical evidence. The current Saint Louis prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell supports Marcellus's motion to vacate the conviction. Yes you heard that right, while Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, on the other hand, has gone so far as to try to block recent exculpatory DNA evidence
from being even heard in court. Marcellus and the Midwest Innocence Project desperately need our help, and we're going to link action steps in the episode description. And with that we turn now to my favorite part of the show where I have the privilege of thanking you again for being here and sharing your story. And now I'm just going to kick back in my chair, close my eyes, and you've just shared with us any other thoughts you may have.
I hope this governor do what he says. That's it. There's nothing else that I can ask for. I want to be able to live I'll be sixty seven, except telling my man. I want to be able to have peace, not just at night when I lay down and rest, but I want to have peace so that I can enjoy the remains of my days. I think I deserve that. I know I'm gonna have that. You can't never make me hold because of what happened, because you can put me to a point where I don't have to worry no more.
Thank you for listening to Wrong for Conviction. You can listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one week early and ed free 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 Wartis, and Jeff Clyburn. 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 a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one