American Monsters: James Leeper
Sources:
https://www.propublica.org/article/for-a-respected-prosecutor-an-unpardonable-failure
https://nypost.com/2015/07/07/exonerated-convict-hasnt-seen-a-dime-of-his-6m-settlement/
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/10/nyregion/ken-thompson-brooklyns-first-black-district-attorney-dies-at-50.html
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/brooklyn-da-hopefuls-return-funds-questionable-donors-article-1.3343542
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/kinda-murdery-true-crime-murder-stories--5496890/support.
Zevon Odelberg is a true crime podcast host and disability advocate. Zevon has cerebral palsy and he wants Kinda Murdery to be welcoming community for people with disabilities and for people living with challenges of any kind. Life can be hard, but being together makes it better.
Speaker 1: Warning, Kind of Murdery contains adult themes, explicit language, and
Speaker 1: descriptions of violence. It is not suitable for anyone, and
Speaker 1: we recommend you stop listening now.
Speaker 2: True crime with a dash of the paranormal, the garish,
Speaker 2: the strange in the darkly comic. I'm Zevan Odelberg, host
Speaker 2: of Kind of Murdery, a podcast that's about more than
Speaker 2: just murder. It's my very own pocket dimension, home to
Speaker 2: a curated collection of bizarre and compelling stories, the unsolved,
Speaker 2: the unsettling, and the unbelievable. I cover it all just
Speaker 2: so long as it's kind of Murdery. I know I
Speaker 2: am far from perfect, which is actually a bit of
Speaker 2: a useful segue today. You see, every human being has weaknesses, right,
Speaker 2: every human being sometimes succumbs to them, and every human
Speaker 2: being makes mistakes. I think that is something that all
Speaker 2: of us intuitively understand in but some of us may
Speaker 2: choose vocations, jobs that don't allow for us to lose
Speaker 2: the battle with weakness, that cannot admit the flaws in
Speaker 2: our humanity. Because if we lose the battle within ourselves,
Speaker 2: the battle to do what's right for some of us,
Speaker 2: and more to the point, for others. Because of us,
Speaker 2: the consequences may simply be too dire to be born.
Speaker 2: I bring you one such story today. It's a story
Speaker 2: entitled for a respected Prosecutor, an Unpardonable Failure. It was
Speaker 2: written by Joaquin Sapien and first published by pro Publica
Speaker 2: dot Org on June fourth, twenty fourteen. Sources are in
Speaker 2: the show notes based on the story in this article,
Speaker 2: I'm calling today's episode Leaper and Fleming, and I'm choosing
Speaker 2: to share it with you because not only are its
Speaker 2: twists and turns compelling, but I think it has much
Speaker 2: to say about compassion and consequence kind of murderies Leaper
Speaker 2: and Fleming starts now, by any acceptable standard today, it
Speaker 2: goes without saying that wrongfully incarcerated Jonathan Fleming is the
Speaker 2: rightful mythic hero, the protagonist of the story I'm about
Speaker 2: to tell. He is the man who rose unbowed from
Speaker 2: the depths of the abyss, never gave up, and proved
Speaker 2: himself righteous. And by those same measures, James Leeper is
Speaker 2: our villain. But there's another set of in air quotes
Speaker 2: heroic standards, those of ancient Greece and the Ancient Greek
Speaker 2: tragic hero. Those standards are described like so, Aristotle's tragic
Speaker 2: heroes are flawed individuals who commit without evil intent, at
Speaker 2: least initially, great wrongs or injuries that ultimately lead to
Speaker 2: their misfortune. This misfortune is often followed by a tragic
Speaker 2: realization of the true nature of events that led to
Speaker 2: the tragic hero's destiny, which means that the hero must
Speaker 2: still be at least to some degree morally grounded. And
Speaker 2: while Jonathan Fleming is unquestionably our tragic victim, it becomes again,
Speaker 2: unfortunately true by modern morals, but obviously true according to
Speaker 2: ancient Greeks, that former Brooklyn prosecutor James Leeper is the
Speaker 2: tragic hero of this story. Again, please hold the hate mail.
Speaker 2: I want to be abundantly clear. I am not saying
Speaker 2: that James Leeper is a hero. I'm saying that he
Speaker 2: is a flawed individual who committed, perhaps without evil intent,
Speaker 2: at least at some point, great wrongs and injuries that
Speaker 2: ultimately led to his own misfortune. And he certainly has
Speaker 2: been confronted with the true nature of events that led
Speaker 2: to his destiny, and he was once if he is
Speaker 2: not still, by all accounts, to some degree morally grounded,
Speaker 2: and that makes him a nearly text book Greek tragic hero.
Speaker 2: And I mean textbook, both literally and figuratively. All right,
Speaker 2: enough couching and hedging, let's get into it. On the
Speaker 2: afternoon of July eighteenth, nineteen ninety, James Leaper, a newly
Speaker 2: minted homicide prosecutor in Brooklyn, had to make a challenging
Speaker 2: closing argument. The man he'd charged with murder had mounted
Speaker 2: a substantial defense, offering plane tickets and video footage indicating
Speaker 2: he'd been vacationing at disney World when a man named
Speaker 2: Darryl Rush was shot dead in front of a Brooklyn
Speaker 2: housing project. Lieper acknowledged to the jury that this seemed
Speaker 2: like a quote perfect alibi. Nonetheless, Lieper confronted the defense
Speaker 2: straight on. Yes, the defendant, a man named Jonathan Fleming,
Speaker 2: could have been in Florida around the time of the murder,
Speaker 2: but Fleming had ample opportunity to fly back to New
Speaker 2: York kill Rush and returned to his family vacation. Lieper
Speaker 2: told the jury there were fifty three possible airline flights
Speaker 2: Fleming could have taken to do just that. Lieper's presentation
Speaker 2: won the day the jury returned a guilty verdict, Fleming
Speaker 2: twenty seven was sentenced to twenty five years to life
Speaker 2: in prison. It took twenty four years, but eventually it
Speaker 2: became clear that there had been much more to Fleming's
Speaker 2: alibi defare events, and that Leeper had failed to disclose
Speaker 2: it to the jury. The original case file from nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety contained a timestamper seat showing that Fleming had paid
Speaker 2: an Orlando Hotel phone bill just hours before Rush's murder.
Speaker 2: The file also contained a letter from the Orlando Police
Speaker 2: Department informing Brooklyn detectives that Fleming had been seen at
Speaker 2: the hotel around the time of the killing. By law,
Speaker 2: Leeper was obligated to turn that material over to Fleming's lawyer,
Speaker 2: but he had disclosed none of it, which is utterly
Speaker 2: appalling and thankfully, in April twenty fourteen, Fleming was set free,
Speaker 2: becoming at that time the latest victim of a string
Speaker 2: of wrongful convictions involving the Brooklyn District Attorney's office. But
Speaker 2: Leeper's role in the case packed a distinctive mix of
Speaker 2: shock and dismay. Interviews in twenty fourteen with an array
Speaker 2: of current and former Brooklyn prosecutors, his adversaries in the
Speaker 2: defense bar and at least one former Brooklyn judge, uniformly
Speaker 2: produced glowing testimonials to Leaper's skill, compassion, and integrity. People,
Speaker 2: even those with unflattering views of Leeper's longtime boss, former
Speaker 2: District Attorney Charles J. Hines, and the office he ran,
Speaker 2: find it close to impossible to accept the fact that
Speaker 2: Leeper knowingly hid vital evidence in a murder case. He
Speaker 2: was universally thought of as a model prosecutor, said Dan Saunders,
Speaker 2: a Queen's Deputy Executive Assistant District Attorney who once worked
Speaker 2: with Leeper in the Brooklyn District Attorney's office. You'll hear
Speaker 2: that from everybody, Saunders continued. He was a trustworthy and
Speaker 2: reliable guy, the kind of guy you want to entrust
Speaker 2: with the difficult work of being a government prosecutor. I
Speaker 2: hope people say something like that about me one day.
Speaker 2: An exploration of Leaper's career as a prosecutor in Brooklyn
Speaker 2: uncovers an amalgam of genuine respect and personal troubles. Interviews
Speaker 2: with colleagues detail his quick initial rise in the office,
Speaker 2: but also a long standing struggle with alcohol. Those interviews
Speaker 2: with people who worked with Leaper show that eventually his
Speaker 2: drinking earned him a demotion in twenty twelve. In the
Speaker 2: late eighties, James Leeper was a fast rising prosecutor known
Speaker 2: for his fairness and loyalty. Decades later, his alleged misconduct
Speaker 2: in Fleming's case shocked colleagues and adversaries alike. In nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety seven, there was a case in which Leeper and
Speaker 2: the Brooklyn District Attorney's office were accused of withholding evidence
Speaker 2: that might have established the innocence of a convicted murderer.
Speaker 2: In twenty fourteen, at the time of these various revelations, Lieper,
Speaker 2: in a telephone interview, refused to comment. He did not
Speaker 2: respond to further request to discuss the Fleming case, his career,
Speaker 2: or any alleged issues with alcohol. In the early twenty tens,
Speaker 2: the reputation of prosecutors in Brooklyn had been banned. In
Speaker 2: late May twenty fourteen, the New York City Department of
Speaker 2: Investigation issued a scathing report finding that former District Attorney Hines,
Speaker 2: among other violations, received political advice from a top New
Speaker 2: York state judge and misused public money to fund his
Speaker 2: ultimately failed twenty thirteen reelection campaign in a lawsuit, He'd
Speaker 2: also been accused of having long overseen an office of
Speaker 2: rogue prosecutors where misconduct was condoned. Even encouraged Hines denied
Speaker 2: the charges. In the lawsuit, One of Hines's top lieutenants,
Speaker 2: Michael Veckioni, had been accused of railroading an innocent man
Speaker 2: on a murder charge, a claim he vehemently denied. Another
Speaker 2: senior prosecutor left the office in twenty twelve after she
Speaker 2: was accused of having withheld exculpatory evidence in a high
Speaker 2: profile rape case that soon was abandoned. By twenty fourteen,
Speaker 2: some ninety murder convictions involving the office were under review,
Speaker 2: many involving a retired police detective, and any one of
Speaker 2: which might have held additional trouble for then, current or
Speaker 2: former prosecutors. But for all the accusations and embarrassments, however,
Speaker 2: few in the New York legal world could have predicted
Speaker 2: that James Leaper would be at the center of the
Speaker 2: most appalling tumult. Until the beginning of May in twenty fourteen,
Speaker 2: Leaper still had a portfolio of cases he was prosecuting.
Speaker 2: Then on May fifth, twenty five fourteen, he was due
Speaker 2: in court to make another closing argument in a murder case.
Speaker 2: The family of twenty three year old Nikita Gribelski, a
Speaker 2: passenger in a livery cab who was shot in the
Speaker 2: head during a boxed robbery, was awaiting justice. Lieper had
Speaker 2: already laid out all the evidence against twenty one year
Speaker 2: old Michael Magnan when he was arrested the knight of
Speaker 2: the crime. Magnan had a three eighty caliber shell casing
Speaker 2: in his shoe. The casing matched the bullet lodge at
Speaker 2: Gribelski's head. A gun found near the crime scene matched
Speaker 2: both the bullet and the casing, and there was DNA
Speaker 2: found on the gun that matched the shooter. All that
Speaker 2: was left for Leeper to do was sum it all
Speaker 2: up in one final statement to the jury, but he
Speaker 2: didn't show up. He was nearly forty miles away in
Speaker 2: a hospital recovering from a damaging bout with alcohol. According
Speaker 2: to numerous colleagues, I've never heard of anything like this
Speaker 2: happening before, said Martin Goldberg, Magnum's defense attorney, who worked
Speaker 2: on New York criminal cases for more than thirty years.
Speaker 2: The Brooklyn District Attorney's office announced that Lieper had been suspended.
Speaker 2: The office did not say why and refused to answer
Speaker 2: any question about Leaper's career or his role in any
Speaker 2: possible misconduct. In the case of Jonathan Fleming, the man
Speaker 2: whose wrongful conviction destroyed James Leaper's career, Taylor Koss, Leiper's
Speaker 2: former protege in the Brooklyn DA's Office, would become the
Speaker 2: foyle whose investigation ultimately brought James Leaper down. Koss joined
Speaker 2: the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office in September two thousand and one.
Speaker 2: He was a young, ambitious lawyer, eager to realize his
Speaker 2: long held dream of becoming a top prosecutor, one that
Speaker 2: he said hearkened back to his teenage days watching Hours
Speaker 2: of Law and Order on television. James Leaper was one
Speaker 2: of cos's early bosses and mentors. At the time, Leeper
Speaker 2: was running one of the most active bureaus in the office.
Speaker 2: Prosecutors in Leaper's bureau handled nearly all criminal prosecutions in
Speaker 2: some of the most violent areas of Brooklyn, and the
Speaker 2: unit was known officially as the quote Red Zone quote.
Speaker 2: Kass said he wanted to shine there, and he saw
Speaker 2: in Leeper a man to impress and learn from. He
Speaker 2: had a red reputation for being a very strong homicide prosecutor,
Speaker 2: and it was a reputation that he earned as opposed
Speaker 2: to others who were thought of as being political appointees.
Speaker 2: Costs said of Leeper, people respected Jim for being a
Speaker 2: workhorse who earned his spot. Leeper himself had already been
Speaker 2: in the Brooklyn office for fourteen years by that time,
Speaker 2: and he, like Costs, had his heart set on being
Speaker 2: a prosecutor in his first years out of law school,
Speaker 2: so much so that he applied twice, enduring a rejection
Speaker 2: by the Brooklyn office's top brass in nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 2: According to the office's personnel records, an assistant district attorney
Speaker 2: plays two vital roles in society. Leaper wrote as part
Speaker 2: of his second successful application, The position requires one to
Speaker 2: be an advocate within the criminal justice system as well
Speaker 2: as a neutral and objective representative of all the people
Speaker 2: in the district in which he or she works. In
Speaker 2: the latter role, one has the responsibility to thoroughly investigate
Speaker 2: all leads in a case and to approach cases with
Speaker 2: a non advocacy or non adversary perspective. In that sense,
Speaker 2: one of the eighty eight his most important duties is
Speaker 2: to ensure that a defendant's constitutional rights are preserved and protected.
Speaker 2: The letter moved the District Attorney's office, then run by
Speaker 2: former US Representative Elizabeth Holtzman, to hire Leaper away from
Speaker 2: private practice. By nineteen ninety, with Hines having succeeded Holtzman,
Speaker 2: Lieper had secured a position as a homicide trial attorney
Speaker 2: and impressively advanced assignment for a young man with only
Speaker 2: three years of experience as a prosecutor. By the time
Speaker 2: KOs was christened as a fledgling prosecutor in two thousand
Speaker 2: and one, Leiper was head of the Red Zone, and everyone,
Speaker 2: according to Koss, wanted to work in the Red Zone.
Speaker 2: It had the coolest people in it, the coolest bosses,
Speaker 2: said Kaos. It was the place to be, and I
Speaker 2: got it. I got lucky. KOs reported a Leaper for
Speaker 2: more than a decade, and he, like many others who
Speaker 2: worked under Leaper, revered the man for his fairness and loyalty.
Speaker 2: Lieper stuck up for younger prosecutors when they made missteps.
Speaker 2: He took them aside to school them in the art
Speaker 2: of persuading a jury. He gave them opportunities to challenge themselves.
Speaker 2: He had implicit faith and if you earn that trust.
Speaker 2: He'd never micromanaged. Cos said he believed I could handle myself.
Speaker 2: He only came to see me do one trial. I
Speaker 2: had a cooperating witness, and he came to watch me
Speaker 2: put him on and after that he never questioned me again.
Speaker 2: I wanted him to trust me because I wanted to
Speaker 2: be in his good graces. People wanted him to think
Speaker 2: you were a good da But those who worked with
Speaker 2: Leaper came to see a troubled side of him too.
Speaker 2: In interviews, more than half a dozen lawyers who worked
Speaker 2: in the office at the time said Leaper's drinking became
Speaker 2: pronounced and as a result a problem. In twenty twelve,
Speaker 2: according to numerous people in the office, Leaper's drinking cost
Speaker 2: him his title. Personnel records show he was demoted from
Speaker 2: chief of the Red Zone back to the Homicide Bureau,
Speaker 2: but the records do not list a specific reason, and
Speaker 2: the District Attorney's office refused to comment on the cause
Speaker 2: of the demotion. For his part, Cos moved on to
Speaker 2: his own new job within the office, he became deputy
Speaker 2: Bureau chief of the Conviction Integrity Unit, a small group
Speaker 2: of assistant district attorneys and investigators tasked with reexamining old
Speaker 2: convictions that might have been flawed. In his new job,
Speaker 2: Cos soon found himself in the uncomfortable and unpopular position
Speaker 2: of reviewing cases handled by prosecutors who'd made their marks
Speaker 2: years before. He said, however, that he came to feel
Speaker 2: a sense of gratification in the work finding evidence that
Speaker 2: might lead to an innocent person's release rather than a
Speaker 2: guilty person's incarceration. Coss's first case wound up widely celebrated.
Speaker 2: Over a year long investigation, Coss and his supervisor, John
Speaker 2: O'Mara found evidence that an unemployed printer had been wrongly
Speaker 2: convicted of murdering a beloved Williamsburg rabbi in nineteen ninety.
Speaker 2: Then District Attorney Hines consented to the release of David
Speaker 2: Ranta following Cooss's investigation in March of twenty thirteen. I'm
Speaker 2: sure people resented me for it, but I didn't really care,
Speaker 2: Cos said of his unit's work. In June twenty thirteen,
Speaker 2: three months after Ranta's release, Coss left the office but
Speaker 2: he said he made a critical observation in his last
Speaker 2: year there, one that would stay with him in the
Speaker 2: co months. Murder cases, especially those tried in Brooklyn in
Speaker 2: the early bloody nineteen nineties, could be seriously flawed, and
Speaker 2: so could the prosecutors who handled them. Newly in private practice,
Speaker 2: cost came to learn of an imprisoned man named Jonathan Fleming,
Speaker 2: and shortly afterward he joined Fleming's bid for freedom. Fleming's
Speaker 2: case was pending before the conviction integrity unit. Costs once
Speaker 2: helped run and Cos realized quickly what lay ahead. He'd
Speaker 2: be challenging the work and perhaps the ethics of his
Speaker 2: one time mentor, James Leeper. Jonathan Fleming did not have
Speaker 2: an unblemished record or a reputation in Brooklyn in the
Speaker 2: late nineteen eighties, having racked up a number of convictions,
Speaker 2: including for robbery and weapons possession, but the evidence that
Speaker 2: Fleming was the man who gunned down Darryl Rush back
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty nine, even at the time of trial,
Speaker 2: was less than overwhelming. One witness, a crack addict, had
Speaker 2: testified that she'd seen Fleming shoot Rush, but it was
Speaker 2: ultimately shown that she'd been more than four hundred feet
Speaker 2: from the scene of the shooting and had not been
Speaker 2: wearing her glasses at the time. Another witness had been
Speaker 2: so reluctant to testify that he had to be dragged
Speaker 2: to the witness stand by a court officer. As a result,
Speaker 2: Fleming had spent years after his conviction pressing for a
Speaker 2: re examination of his case. The crack addict had recanted
Speaker 2: shortly after the trial. The man who had reluctantly testified
Speaker 2: turned out to have testified under a false name. New
Speaker 2: witnesses had emerged saying that another man was the likely shooter.
Speaker 2: Fleming's efforts, however, got nowhere. Prosecutors dismissed the crackhead's recantation
Speaker 2: as well as the reliability of the new witness. Judges
Speaker 2: routinely denied his motions for a rehearing. Then, in summer
Speaker 2: of twenty thirteen, with the Brooklyn District Attorney's office under
Speaker 2: fire for a variety of alleged misconduct, Koss's former colleagues
Speaker 2: agreed to look into Fleming's claims of innocence. The ex
Speaker 2: colleagues unearthed a bombshell. The Fleming case file had been found,
Speaker 2: and its contents crippled the case against him. There was,
Speaker 2: among other evidence, the receipt that had been taken off
Speaker 2: of Fleming's person at the time of his arrest, and
Speaker 2: it showed he had paid a phone bill at his
Speaker 2: hotel in Orlando at nine to twenty seven pm on
Speaker 2: August fourteenth, nineteen eighty nine. The murder took place in
Speaker 2: the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn at approximately two fifteen am.
Speaker 2: Cost recalled the moment he got the word of the
Speaker 2: discovery made by his old office. I was instantaneously nauseous,
Speaker 2: physically sick to my stomach. He said. You want to
Speaker 2: believe that these mistakes don't happen, he said, Then slowly
Speaker 2: you come to the realization that these mistakes do happen,
Speaker 2: and it results in people losing years of their lives.
Speaker 2: Cost credits the work of the conviction Integrity Unit, but
Speaker 2: the Ditrict Attorney's office said nothing about the botched case
Speaker 2: other than to consent in court to Fleming's release. Had
Speaker 2: the case file been lost, overlooked, buried in a police file,
Speaker 2: or not shared with the prosecutors. Was it intentionally withheld
Speaker 2: by leaper. James Devereaux was one of the detectives who
Speaker 2: worked on the Fleming case. At the original trial, well,
Speaker 2: Fleming's attorney had asked Devereaux several questions about the phone
Speaker 2: build receipt, including whether he recalled telling Fleming he'd make
Speaker 2: a xerox copy of it. He testified that he had
Speaker 2: no recollection of the receipt, but under questioning, conceded that
Speaker 2: it was possible that one existed, and even that he
Speaker 2: had assured Fleming he would make a copy of it,
Speaker 2: but the receipt was never injured as evidence in the case.
Speaker 2: In an interview with Pro Publica, Devereux said he didn't
Speaker 2: remember the Fleming case, but he was firm about his
Speaker 2: evidence disclosure practice at the time. I'm not in a
Speaker 2: position to try to put blame on anybody, especially when
Speaker 2: I don't recall the case, Devereux said. But when a
Speaker 2: case goes to trial, you go to the DA's office
Speaker 2: with your file and everything goes over to them. The
Speaker 2: law is certainly clear about the responsibility for gathering and
Speaker 2: disclosing evidence. Leeper was the person ultimately responsible for discovering
Speaker 2: it and turning it over. His failure to do so
Speaker 2: was unpardonable. In nineteen ninety, Jonathan Fleming was convicted of
Speaker 2: a murder that took place in Brooklyn, New York. These
Speaker 2: newly discovered documents suggested that he was in Florida at
Speaker 2: the time, supporting his original alibi. James Leeper, the prosecutor
Speaker 2: who handled the case, never shared the information. Bennett Gresham,
Speaker 2: a law professor at Pace University and a leading expert
Speaker 2: on prosecutorial misconduct, wrote a column in twenty fourteen entitled
Speaker 2: quote don't let the prosecutor off the hook unquote. In
Speaker 2: an interview, he said prosecutors will often try to deflect
Speaker 2: blame for evidence disclosure problems to the police. But said Gershman,
Speaker 2: even if we assume it was in the police file
Speaker 2: and not in the district attorney's file, and the prosecutor
Speaker 2: had no first hand knowledge of this thing. Once the
Speaker 2: defense attorney says, hey, check this out, this is a
Speaker 2: major claim of innocence, the prosecutor has the obligation to
Speaker 2: go back to the police and say, do you have
Speaker 2: this receipt, did you write a report? Did you ask
Speaker 2: the hotel if he was there? It goes to what
Speaker 2: your obligation is as a prosecutor, Gershman says, is it
Speaker 2: to bury your head in the sand, or is it
Speaker 2: to follow all possible leads to find out whether this
Speaker 2: guy is innocent? This wasn't a needle in a haystack.
Speaker 2: This was something that was right under his nose. In fact,
Speaker 2: Jonathan Fleming was not even the first time that James
Speaker 2: Leaper made this mistake, if indeed it was a mistake,
Speaker 2: and not just a man overly eager to build his
Speaker 2: reputation in the prosecutorial office of his dreams. Anne Feldman
Speaker 2: served for twenty six years as a judge in Brooklyn,
Speaker 2: but across those years she only once exercised the power
Speaker 2: to set a convicted prisoner free. The prisoner was Julio Assevedo,
Speaker 2: and the prosecutor whose failure factored into his release none
Speaker 2: other than James Leaper in nineteen eighty nine. Notably, the
Speaker 2: same year as Fleming's conviction, Judge Feldman had presided over
Speaker 2: Asceveto's initial murder trial. Aceveto had been charged with fatally
Speaker 2: shooting a man in a housing project hallway in Brooklyn.
Speaker 2: At trial, Aceavito claimed that he'd been caught up in
Speaker 2: an ugly street beef over drugs and had been forced
Speaker 2: with his own life threatened to carry out the deadly shooting.
Speaker 2: Ocevito's argument made an impression on Feldman, but ultimately failed
Speaker 2: to persuade the jury. At Ozzevito's sentencing, Feldman said she
Speaker 2: had quote no idea what the real circumstances were unquote
Speaker 2: that led him to kill I suspect. The truth lies
Speaker 2: somewhere between what you said and what the district attorney said.
Speaker 2: Feldman told Ozzivito in the court. She then sent him
Speaker 2: away for twenty years to life, but the case was
Speaker 2: back before Feldman eight years later. Something new had come
Speaker 2: to light evidence that Oscevito's account, known legally as a
Speaker 2: quote duress defense unquote, was genuine. A prosecutor in a subsequent,
Speaker 2: unrelated case had taken testimony from a man who said
Speaker 2: he was the person who had forced Oscevito to carry
Speaker 2: out the killing. The man said he had kidnapped Ozcevito
Speaker 2: and ordered him at gunpoint to fire the deadly shots.
Speaker 2: Leeper was the prosecutor who took the potentially exculpatory statement.
Speaker 2: Most damning was the fact that this new information was
Speaker 2: gained in nineteen ninety two, just three years after Ozzevito's
Speaker 2: cant but five years before his eventual release because it
Speaker 2: was never turned over to Oscevito. The man's account had
Speaker 2: surfaced on yet another unrelated Brooklyn case, and Oscevito's lawyers,
Speaker 2: when they became aware of it, eventually had it brought
Speaker 2: to the court's attention. Feldman, presented with the new information,
Speaker 2: didn't waste much time to veto pled guilty to a
Speaker 2: lesser charge, and was released. I remember feeling that this
Speaker 2: guy had told a story at his trial that was true,
Speaker 2: and just feeling very good about letting him out, Feldman
Speaker 2: said in an interview last month with Pro Publica. It
Speaker 2: remains unclear to this day just what James Leeper was thinking.
Speaker 2: The man who had confessed to forcing Ossavito to kill
Speaker 2: had also admitted to lieper a long string of violent crimes.
Speaker 2: There's no evidence that Leeper was in any way sanctioned. Feldman,
Speaker 2: in releasing Acevedo, appears to have only dealt with the
Speaker 2: new evidence and not the question of Leeper's apparent failure. Still,
Speaker 2: a spokesman for the District Attorney's office would years later
Speaker 2: acknowledged that the failure to alert Asovito to the new
Speaker 2: evidence was a mistake. The law, after all, requires that
Speaker 2: information favorable to the defense be turned over by prosecutors
Speaker 2: as soon as they discover it, even after someone has
Speaker 2: been convicted. Dan Saunders, who was a senior homicide attorney
Speaker 2: in Brooklyn at the time, declined a comment on this
Speaker 2: particular case, but in an interview he emphasized the importance
Speaker 2: of sharing such information no matter what the timing, whether
Speaker 2: a case is pending or the person has already been
Speaker 2: convicted or even served their sentence. If we get something exculpatory,
Speaker 2: there's always an obligation to investigate it and turn it over,
Speaker 2: he said. Judge Feldman said that Leeper never struck her
Speaker 2: as the kind of aggressive prosecutor so driven to win
Speaker 2: that he might break the rules to do so. It
Speaker 2: seemed to me that he was a very upfront guy.
Speaker 2: Feldman said, he was not overly zealous. I didn't feel
Speaker 2: like he was out there to kill like some of
Speaker 2: the other prosecutors. In regards to Jonathan Fleming's case. On
Speaker 2: April eighth, twenty fourteen, the proceeding before Brooklyn Judge Matthew
Speaker 2: Damick was brief, if momentous. Brooklyn Assistant District Attorney Mark Hale,
Speaker 2: in consenting to Jonathan Fleming's release from prison after twenty
Speaker 2: four years, quickly laid out the rationale. The documentary evidence,
Speaker 2: and I'm talking specifically about the receipt from the Florida
Speaker 2: Hotel and the interviews with the employees at the hotel,
Speaker 2: was not available to the defense at trial. It is
Speaker 2: likely that the result would have been different, and for
Speaker 2: that reason we asked that the conviction be vacated. Dmick
Speaker 2: accepted a motion to dismiss Fleming's conviction, and pandemonium ensued
Speaker 2: in the courtroom. Reporters from every major newspaper and television
Speaker 2: channel in New York were there to record an overjoyed
Speaker 2: Fleming celebrating with his family. His story went viral. A
Speaker 2: Wall Street banker started an internet campaign that raised nearly
Speaker 2: fifty thousand dollars to help Flemming get back on his feet.
Speaker 2: Donations came in from more than six hundred people in
Speaker 2: at least fourteen different countries, but little was said about Leeper.
Speaker 2: Few news articles even mentioned his name, and he went
Speaker 2: on prosecut shooting a full load of cases. Kenneth Thompson
Speaker 2: was elected as Brooklyn's new DA in twenty thirteen. Unseating
Speaker 2: Charles Hines. As we just heard, Fleming was released in
Speaker 2: April of twenty and fourteen, and his conviction was rightfully vacated.
Speaker 2: On June fourth of twenty and fourteen, the expose that
Speaker 2: provided the backbone of this episode was published, and four
Speaker 2: days later, the new DA fired eight holdover members of
Speaker 2: the Hines regime, and James Leaper was among them. Other
Speaker 2: than a future DA candidate in New York, returning Leaper's
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty dollars campaign donation in two thousand
Speaker 2: and fifteen, I could find essentially nothing about him or
Speaker 2: what's become of him since he was let go by
Speaker 2: the DA's office. He appears to have been extremely mildly
Speaker 2: active on LinkedIn in the last eight months, and that's
Speaker 2: as much as I could come up with as for
Speaker 2: Jonathan Fleming. After his release, he sued the City of
Speaker 2: New York for one hundred and sixty two million dollars
Speaker 2: for the twenty four years of life that he lost,
Speaker 2: which seems reasonable. He was ultimately awarded six point two
Speaker 2: million dollars, which was then tied up and unavailable to
Speaker 2: him because of a dispute between his attorneys for some
Speaker 2: amount of time. But eventually the funds were released and
Speaker 2: he used them to establish a foundation, and then he
Speaker 2: was hired by Tyler Perry to work for Tyler Perry's
Speaker 2: production company in Atlanta. And I know there's some other
Speaker 2: cool things that have happened for Jonathan Fleming as well,
Speaker 2: So at least that part of the story, if you
Speaker 2: can get over the twenty four years of incarceration, which,
Speaker 2: by the way, no one should. And it's amazing that
Speaker 2: Jonathan Fleming is able to productively channel the massive anger
Speaker 2: he must have. But if you can get over that,
Speaker 2: I suppose you could say that Fleming's story has a
Speaker 2: happy ending. As for Leaper, he should neither be excused
Speaker 2: nor forgiven. However, his battles with alcohol and subsequent hospitalization
Speaker 2: I think demonstrate that he was already at the mercy
Speaker 2: of his demons and likely a very guilty conscience, long
Speaker 2: before public disgrace drummed him from his chosen profession. I'm Zevanodleberg,
Speaker 2: and this has been kind of Murdery.
Speaker 1: If you like the show, please subscribe, review and tell
Speaker 1: your friends. You can find us on social media at
Speaker 1: Kindomurdery or email at kinomurderyat gmail dot com,
Apple Podcasts
Castbox
Castro
Goodpods
Moon FM
Overcast
Pocket Casts
Podbean
Podcast Addict
Podcast Republic
Spotify