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My next guests is Jeffrey Deskovic.
Jeffrey is an American man from upstate New York known for having been wrongfully convicted in 1990 at the age of seventeen of raping, beating, and strangling Angela Correa, a 15-year-old high school classmate.
He made a false confession to police, which he withdrew, and his DNA was excluded from that left at the scene. He was nonetheless convicted, based on police testimony that he had confessed. He served sixteen years, although he continued to maintain his innocence and appealed his conviction. He requested post-conviction DNA testing, but the DA’s office refused to accept his lay request.
After a new DA was elected and Jeffrey gained support by the Innocence Project in 2006 DNA testing was conducted for Jeffrey. It excluded his DNA from the evidence at the crime scene. Significantly, the forensic DNA was found to match that of an inmate already serving time for murder. The latter man confessed to the attack on Correa and was convicted of her death.
Jeffrey was exonerated and released in 2006. He has become an advocate for criminal justice reform. In 2014 a jury found in favor of Jeffrey and awarded him $41.6 million in a federal civil suit against the county for wrongful imprisonment. Due to his pretrial settlement with the county, Jeff was limited to receive $10 million. He has set up a foundation to work for criminal justice reform.
The award-winning short film, Conviction, tells the story of Jeffrey and this must-see documentary was made by Jia Wertz, who joined us on the podcast recently.
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