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Shine On Success
Welcome to "Shine On Success," the podcast dedicated to exploring the journeys, challenges, and triumphs of today's entrepreneurs. Each episode from your host, Dionne Malush is crafted to inspire, educate, and empower you, whether you're just starting out or are a seasoned business owner.
Shine On Success
From Wrongful Conviction to Justice Advocate: A Story of Resilience and Transformation
Welcome to Shine on Success, where we examine the lives of those who transform adversity into powerful change. I'm your host, Dionne Malush, and today we have a truly inspiring guest, Jeff Deskovic, founder of the Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation for Justice. Jeff's story is one of resilience and dedication, having spent 16 years wrongfully imprisoned before being exonerated by DNA evidence. Now, he focuses on advocacy, restorative justice, and supporting formerly incarcerated individuals.
In this episode, Jeff shares the emotional moment he learned of his impending release and the incredible journey from wrongful conviction to freedom. He discusses the psychological challenges of incarceration, the role of faith and education in his survival, and the inspiring work of his foundation, which has freed 14 wrongfully convicted individuals and helped pass nine laws.
Jeff also provides insights into how he navigated life post-exoneration, the importance of never giving up, and his formula for overcoming adversity. His story is a testament to the power of perseverance, hope, and the human spirit.
Tune in to hear Jeff Deskovic's inspiring journey and learn about his ongoing efforts to bring justice to others. Connect with Jeff at www.deskovic.org, on Instagram at Deskovic Foundation, or on Facebook at Jeffrey Deskovic. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share this episode to inspire those facing adversity.
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Have you ever wondered what it takes to turn unimaginable adversity into a powerful force for change? Welcome to Shine on Success. I'm your host, dionne Malish, and today we have a truly inspiring guest. Jeff Duskovic Esquire is the founder of the Jeffrey Duskovic Foundation for Justice, which has freed 14 wrongfully convicted individuals and helped pass nine laws. Jeff's story is one of incredible resilience having spent 16 years in prison before being exonerated by DNA, his work now focuses on advocacy, restorative justice and supporting formerly incarcerated individuals. Welcome, jeff, it's so nice to have you on today. How are you doing?
Speaker 2:I'm doing well, thank you. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:I'm very excited to talk because I know that you've been through a lot and the point of Shine On Success is getting through adversity to push through the other side. So let's just start. Your journey from wrongful conviction to exoneration is nothing short of extraordinary. Can you share with us the moment you found out that you were going to be released and what that felt like?
Speaker 2:Well, my lawyer came to see me on an unscheduled surprise visit and when I went up to her she said the items have been tested. And I said well, what do you mean? They're not supposed to be tested for another month? And she said no, they've been tested and the results match the actual perpetrator.
Speaker 2:You're going home tomorrow and I said no, because the test, the items, were not supposed to be tested for another month and on top of that this was a long shot. We were hoping that the actual perpetrator's DNA would be in the data bank, you know, so that it would be something new. And if it was not, then you know it really wasn't going to change anything because the DNA had already not matched me. You know, before the trial that information was in front of the jury already.
Speaker 2:So I just want to add on the story just so. I said no, I'm not. And she said, yes, you are. And I said no, I'm not. And she again said yes, you are.
Speaker 2:And then she had to sit there and hold my hand for the next three and a half hours while my mind was spending one thought occurring right after the other, and none of them having anything to do with the other thought and none of it having anything to do with the news. And every now and then she would cut in and say are you ready to talk about tomorrow? And I would say, no, listen, we're not talking about tomorrow. I'm not entertaining that, I'm not going home. No.
Speaker 2:And what finally made it real after the three and a half hours, with her periodically cutting in that way, is she said well, we need to get your shoe size, we need to get your suit size. There's a ton of work to do between now and tomorrow as far as media prep. And that's what made it all feel real and I felt better for five minutes. And then another concern popped in my head, which was that I thought that something was going to happen between that day and the next and that the DA was going to change their mind and do what they always did, which was fight and win.
Speaker 1:So do you want to share your story of how you got there?
Speaker 2:Not at all. That's what I'm here for. Okay, so I was arrested in 1990 at 16 years of age in the city of Peekskill, which is in Westchester County, new York. So suburb, middle class, ethnically diverse population of approximately 25,000 people Murders were pretty rare A classmate who I barely knew she was in two of my classes as a freshman, one as a sophomore she went missing. Her body was found naked from the waist down.
Speaker 2:A couple of days later I got on the police radar because I didn't quite fit in in the high school. I was quiet and to myself. I wasn't familiar with the kids there. They were different from the kids that I grew up with and played with in the apartment complex and plus they were a little bit older than me, since I had skipped first grade. So that kind of caught up to me in high school. So I was kind of on the fringes there and when the police interviewed a lot of students from the school, some of them told the police they might want to talk to me because I didn't quite fit in. So that got me on their radar.
Speaker 2:Second thing is I was a sensitive teenager. This was my first brush with death and I had an emotional reaction. And then the police thought that emotional reaction was suspicious, considering I barely knew the victim, although in a larger sense I wasn't all that different from everybody else in the city of Peekskill. I mean, many people were emotional. It really rocked the city. Murders were very rare and it was to the point that free mental health services were offered to anyone who wanted it. They also got a psychological profile from the NYPD, which purported to have the characteristics of the actual perpetrator. I had the misfortune of matching that, so it was a reinforcing factor. So for about six weeks the police played this cat and mouse game with me, in which half the time they would talk to me like I was a suspect and the other half the time they would pretend like they need my help to solve the crime. The kids won't talk freely around us, but they will around you. Let us know if you hear anything. Stop in.
Speaker 2:From time to time They'd ask opinion questions and congratulate me that my opinion was correct. Eventually they got me to agree to take a lie detector test. So the next day, instead of going to the high school I went to the police station. They drove me on a school day, so my mother and grandmother had no idea that anything was wrong. They drove me from Peekskill, which is in Westchester County, to the town of Brewster, which is in Putnam County, 40 minutes away, by car. So I had no idea where I was. I had no money, so that meant I was totally dependent upon the police. So I had no attorney present. They didn't give me anything to eat.
Speaker 2:The polygraph was actually a Putnam County Sheriff's investigator, but he was dressed like a civilian. He never identified himself as a law enforcement, never read me my rights. I didn't understand the four page brochure about how the polygraph worked because it had a lot of big words in it. But I figured I'm there to help, so what does it matter, let's just get on with it. And from there they put me in a small room. He gave me countless cups of coffee, he wired me to the machine.
Speaker 2:He launched into his third degree tactics so he invaded my personal space. He raised his voice at me. He kept asking me the same questions over and over again and he kept that up for six and a half to seven hours. Towards the end he said what do you mean? You didn't do it, you just told me through the test that you did. We just want you to verbally confirm it. And that shot my fear to the roof. And then the officer had been pretending to be my friend. He came in the room and told me look, they're going to harm you. I've been holding them off, I can't do this. Any was and no one else did either loomed large. I made up a story based on the information which they gave me in the course of the interrogation. In that, six weeks, by the time it was all said and done, I collapsed on the floor in a fetal position, crying uncontrollably. That was the arrest.
Speaker 2:In terms of the trial, I lost the trial, even though the DNA didn't match me, because the cops, when they came to court, they left the threatened false promise out of their story. The interrogation had not been videotaped or audio. No sign confession, just their word. So of course they're going to leave out the threatened false promise, which was illegal.
Speaker 2:The prosecutor got the medical examiner to commit fraud, to claim that he remembered that he forgot to document medical evidence that he said showed the victim had been promiscuous, which is how they answered how the DNA didn't match me, while the next level and said well, you know, she slept with this person in particular before you murdered and raped her. And he got away with that because my public defender essentially didn't defend me. He never called my alibi as a witness. He never cross-examined the medical examiner, never explained to the jury the significance of the DNA not matching me, never used that to argue that that proved the confession was coerced and false. He never should have represented me because this other youth of the prosecutor was falsely saying I slept with the victim who was represented by another member of that same public defender agency. So that prevented us from asking him to give a DNA sample, prevented the defense from calling him as a witness.
Speaker 2:He wouldn't allow me to testify so I couldn't explain the confession and sometimes he told the jury the confession never happened. Other times he argued it happened but it was coerced and a lot of times it was, he argued it was a false confession. So, adding all of that up, the end result of it all, as I was found guilty of a murder and rape which I didn't commit, I had been charged as an adult, tried as an adult and I was therefore given a 15 to life sentence where I was sent to a men's maximum security prison. Last thing I want to quickly mention is the judge sentenced me despite telling me maybe I am innocent. He said that.
Speaker 1:He said that you know, you don't know until you know right and you hear. You watch movies, you see things happen, but you're living a nightmare. That was a living nightmare. How do you push through to the other side of that? So you get out and you're surprised. You have no idea. You're getting out and then what? Like what? How do you, how do you rebuild?
Speaker 2:Well, let me explain really briefly how I was exonerated. So I lost seven appeals and I wrote letters for four years looking for an investigator and a lawyer to help take my case for free, because the only way back into the court when your appeals are over is if you can find some new evidence. So I wrote letters for four years looking for help. Then I went to the parole board and, largely because I maintain my innocence rather than expressing remorse and taking responsibility, largely because I maintained my innocence rather than expressing remorse and taking responsibility, they denied parole.
Speaker 2:Ultimately, I was exonerated because one of my letters culminated into my getting the representation from the Innocence Project. Second thing key was that the district attorney, who had fought all of the testing, fought my appeals and blocked me from getting further testing, left office. Her successor allowed me to have the testing and, thirdly, we got lucky that the actual perpetrator's DNA was in the data bank because, left free while I was doing time for his crime, he killed a second victim three and a half years later, was a school teacher and had two children. So, confronted with that, he admitted he was a person who committed the crime.
Speaker 2:In terms of how I got through in prison, definitely belief in God. And then another thing is I used to go to a law library and study the law. That gave a sense of empowerment. I would collect articles about people who were exonerated and I'd use that as motivation to keep going. I didn't focus on the 15 to life sentence, I just told myself look, you just have to hold on for a year or two to the next appeal, which I was sure I was going to win.
Speaker 2:There was another prisoner there who was also innocent and we used to keep each other going morale wise. Once every six weeks we brainstormed. We used to keep each other going morale-wise. Once every six weeks We'd brainstorm together. We'd try to keep each other going morale-wise. He was actually exonerated. His name was Frank Sterling. He was exonerated through DNA two years after me. So Frank did 18 years.
Speaker 2:So for the record, I wasn't naively believing that another prisoner there was innocent just because I happened to be. He actually was A pen pal, answered an ad and he helped keep me going. In the last year, I mean, I was openly asking a stranger look, should I give up? Should I quit? Should I commit suicide I'm never going to get out of here. So he showed up at the end and you know, the mind wants to survive. So it created this elaborate delusion for me. So when I would play chess or play basketball or play ping pong, I would pretend that I was a professional needed to it's time to do escape. It needed to leave for a couple hours and that's what it came up with. But in terms of after I was exonerated, how was I? And, by the way, along the way I had to keep fighting off those feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, thoughts of suicidal ideation.
Speaker 2:But after I got out, it was very difficult. So there was a psychological aftereffects of the experience. There was the stigma you were in prison for 16 years wrongfully, but you were there for 16 years. So how much of that rubbed off on you. Was it safe to be alone someplace with you? Technology was different Cell phone, gps, internet hadn't been created. Culture was different, cities and towns looked different. So collectively it felt like I was in a parallel world where I didn't belong.
Speaker 2:It was awkward when I'd meet up with members of my extended family because overwhelming majority of them never came to see me. Overwhelming majority of them never came to see me and the few that did was few and far between. There was often periods of three and four years in between visits. So that was difficult. It was lonely. I had some particular challenges because my years in prison spanned 17 to 32.
Speaker 2:A lot of rites of passage. A lot of growth is supposed to happen. So when I got out for the first time I had never lived alone before, never had a driver's license, never went shopping, never wrote a check, never balanced a budget. So all those things made everything more difficult. It crystallized the loss. I missed births, deaths, weddings, graduating high school, high school prom, finishing education at a more traditional age, being on my way in a career, possibly having a family. So the loss was huge.
Speaker 2:I was always passed over for gainful employment, felt like all the managers wanted someone who could hit the job running, who had job experience, which I obviously didn't have. And I lacked stability of housing at that point. And it was a couple of weeks away from homeless shelter. But you know Mercy University, mercy College which became Mercy University they gave me a scholarship and they allowed me to live on campus. So that's how I avoided the homeless shelter. They gave me the meal plan, started doing advocacy work in the middle of all that struggle speaking, writing, I was a columnist for a weekly newspaper. I was speaking around the country. I was trading privacy for awareness of interviews I was meeting with electeds.
Speaker 2:Didn't get into law school after I graduated so I got a master's degree instead. I figured the criminal justice degree with a thesis on wrongful conviction, cause and reform would help me make me a better advocate. So I did that, got compensated, started organization. We've gotten 14 people home, helped pass three laws and another six, as key members of a coalition group called it Could Happen to you, got tired of sitting in the front row of the courtroom, so that way I tried again to go to law school. I'm an attorney now and I do this advocacy work. My life mission is to free people in the same position I was in and while also working to prevent what happened to me through others, through policy changes. I want to mention Restorative Justice International, where I've been on their global advisory council. I advise them on wrongful conviction and criminal justice issues in general.
Speaker 1:So you turned everything around and then you created a documentary.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm the subject of a documentary. I mean, I didn't produce and direct it that was GeoWorks but I did agree to participate in it and I am the subject of it. It's called Conviction and it's available on Amazon Prime.
Speaker 1:During the darkest times and you had a lot. You've been through a lot, jeff, more than a lot of people can even understand. How did you get through the darkest times while you were there? So you said it was faith. You had faith in God. Did you read a lot, did you?
Speaker 2:no-transcript adults learned and then worked as a teacher's aide for a year and a half and then from 1998 to 2006,. I read three or four nonfiction books a week, so I made use of my time.
Speaker 1:You did. Wow, that's incredible. So who's the most influential person in your life now that you're? How many years has it been since you've been exonerated?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've been exonerated now. I've been home for 18 years.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about the most influential person in your life.
Speaker 2:Wow, you know it's kind of hard to pinpoint. I mean, is it the investigator who got Claudia Whitman, who got the letter that I actually sent to a book author and care of a publishing company, who took it upon herself to write me back and then suggest that I send me in the right direction? The Innocence Project, lobby them, get other people to lobby them and take my case? Is it the Innocence Project worker that represented my case several times Maggie Taylor, who's an attorney, now got them to take it on the third time. Is it the dean of Mercy College that lined up the scholarship for me without even asking me? Is it Richard Blasberg who gave me the job at the Westchester Guardian as a columnist, which helped keep me going financially and otherwise serve as a mentor? Is it Professor Gershman that, as if one of the founding members of Pace Law School, really went to the mat and, you know, did everything he could to get me admitted, securing me an interview with the admissions committee at which, as he told me, look, you have to knock it out of the park in order for them to let you in, otherwise you're not going to get in. I've done everything I can just to get you this interview. Is it him?
Speaker 2:Is it Barry Sheck, who I emulate in a lot of ways, the founder of the Innocence Project, you know? Is it my best friend, nancy Lopez, who I met a couple of years after being released, who, you know, assisted me in those early days, pre-compensation days, and really has been a rock emotionally and mentally and encouraging me to make the best of everything that I can, that including pushing me to even try to get into law school. Who, you know, so many times I wanted to quit, I was crying, I was pulling my hair out. I can't do this, this is too hard. But yet, keep, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2:You got to keep going, keep going, come on, even look here, I'll sit down next to you, even though she doesn't understand the words on the page, she doesn't understand the law, but, you know, is it just a towering figure, influential, wise? But it's any one of all of those people I mean. Is it Bill Bastic that is my policy director, who started a coalition that I've been working with for about 10 years? The founder of it Could Happen to you. So, between working together passed six laws and working together, I mean learning so much from him. I mean honestly, it's all those people. Really, I can't say one versus.
Speaker 1:It's a lot of good people that helps you. It's so good to hear the turnaround and how many people really fought for you. So your story is just getting better and better. You did it. You proved that it can be done, you can get out, you can become whatever you want to be. And was it hard? Heck, yeah, I mean, you're telling me Law school. I don't even know how you got through all that. That's hard. So what's something interesting about you that you would like people to know outside of this story? Because this is your story, but it's not everything. What's something else?
Speaker 2:So I love doing new things. So I like new activities, experiences, trying new food, going new places and travel. To me, that's how you experience the world, so I think that's something interesting about me. I love going to you know professional sporting events live. I still do play chess, so I learned how to do that while I was in prison. I'm still in touch with some of the people that I knew that are there and many of them are home. A few have been exonerated. A few of them, you know, did the crime for steam incarcerated for. But they did their time. They're committed to a crime, free life, and so we do get together once in a while to do that. So those are some interesting things.
Speaker 1:So so tell us about your foundation.
Speaker 2:I have one more thing that's a little bit more interesting than that. So I'm an avid NBA fan. I love basketball. I used to play quite a bit while I was inside, but before I got arrested it was one of my best friends as a kid. So we used to play on the Nintendo with this basketball game called Double Dribble and we made like a league. We divided up six teams and we had records and some of the teams would make the playoffs and while we were doing that and actually playing the games against each other, you know we would simultaneously be doing color commentary of the game, emulating like Rick Barry Marv, albert Skip Carey, and we would do that and interview each other. We would pretend that we're interviewing people while we were playing and so that.
Speaker 2:But combined with this item here that I am able to, there's a podcast called the Sports Scope which they bring me on there periodically and has nothing to do with my story. I'm just allowed to just talk sports and the only crossovers at the end of the podcast. Hey, jeff, is there anything you want to plug? You know this is your backstory, like in two sentences. Anything you want to plug. But you know I get to do analysis on NBA and you know talk football and I have the time of my life doing that and you know, one day, you know, somehow, some way I'd love to just be able to do, get that friend next to me and just for one time, just be able to do color commentary on a game, even if it was somehow dubbed, and just for me, not the people at large. I'd love to be able to do that and maybe that's a minor dream that could come true.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, you put it out there to the university, it will happen. So I you know, I love football, just so you know. So let's talk football. Who's your favorite team?
Speaker 2:The Buffalo Bills.
Speaker 1:Oh geez, of course mine's the Pittsburgh Steelers, who has six Super Bowls.
Speaker 2:Just saying I just yeah, a lot, of, a lot of success. The most I can say is four, four Super Bowl losses in a row.
Speaker 1:OK, it doesn't hit the same. It's nice that you still love them. I mean, that makes, that makes it. You know. It shows your true passion for sports. So let's talk about your foundation for justice before we wrap up. Then let us know how our listeners can get a hold of you or reach out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, okay. So right now we currently have 13 active cases, people representing I'm co-counseling nine of them. So some of them predate my law license that I've entered the cases and others no one. Since then, I'm mostly second seating a more experienced attorney, oscar Michelin, who also has been a mentor to me, who's a law professor and was exonerated nine people. But there's a few cases where I'm the lead attorney and he's second seating me. But it's really just like you get the experience of being the lead. He's there with the experience.
Speaker 2:So we're currently doing policy work in New York, pennsylvania, california. So, really quickly, we're working on three bills in New York that would address false confessions, false confessions being causing wrongful convictions in 29% of the DNA proven wrongful convictions. So there's a bill that would give 16, 17 year olds and kids younger a non-waivable right to counsel that they would have to speak. So you'd have you at that age you'd have to speak to an attorney to explain your rights before you could then decide to waive them, keeping in mind that most kids that age don't understand their rights I certainly didn't understand mine. And secondly, it would ban police from using deception and interrogations, recognizing that's inherently coercive. And lastly, videotaping interrogations. You know from beginning to end. Right now in New York they do record custodial interrogations but not in not if the crime they're investigating is homicide, drug cases or sex offenses. So we want to close out the exceptions. Record everything. Let's be clear. Does someone have guilty knowledge or are you coercing? Are you inadvertently or even intentionally giving information that people are parroting back? So that's what that's about.
Speaker 2:In Pennsylvania, one of 12 states that does not compensate exonerees, so it's a border state to New York, one of 12 states that does not compensate exonerees, so it's a border state to New York. And I remember my five very difficult years post-release before I got compensation. So I know what an important tool. The money doesn't give you your time back. No amount of money is worth it, but it is an important tool in rebuilding your life. So working on that and then in California trying to pass a bill. So the coalition group it could happen to you, which the foundation is part of we passed a landmark bill in New York called Commission on Prosecutor Conduct, so it's an oversight bill for prosecutors. So we passed it in New York. We're trying to emulate that in California.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. Well, it's impressive what you're doing and thank you for what you're doing. It just shouldn't be like this, but it is, you're proof positive. And I have a friend growing up that also was falsely accused and he spent some time in prison and you know his life was different. He was a. He was a different person. When he came out he was so happy, go lucky and fun and he changed. And but he's also, you know, doing good things with his life now. So I'm very proud of him. So thank you for sharing your story and your insights so to our listeners. Don't forget to like, subscribe and share Shine on Success with anyone you know who is going through adversity. If we can help just one person, this podcast is a success. Reach out to either myself or Jeff. How can they get a hold of you?
Speaker 2:Sure. So our website is wwwdeskovicorg. That's D-E-S-K-O-V-I-Corg. There is a web form there. You can email me through. I answer the emails. We're on Instagram Deskovic Foundation. I'm on Facebook, jeffrey Deskovic, and both the personal page, which is public, and also the public figure page. The organization has a Facebook page as well. Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation Would love for people to catch up with me.
Speaker 2:Follow along with me To sneak in a quick formula, since you know this is about. You did mention about people overcoming adversity, so I've reflected on my life journey and I've come up with this formula have a goal, have a realistic plan, meaning you should be able to look at the plan three or four different ways and say to yourself well, yeah, I could see how this might work, and who wants to carry out a plan that you don't think has a chance of being successful? Number three be flexible. Remember the goal's the goal. The plan is not the goal.
Speaker 2:Number four don't be afraid of hard work. I don't believe in a pie in the sky. I think that you have to work really, really hard to put yourself in position for a miracle to happen or the right door to open for you by the right person. No excuses there might be reasons why something is hard yes, or even harder for you, but no excuse why you can't do it. You just have to want it enough. You just have to be willing to work hard enough. And, lastly, never give up. And when I've reached points in time when I felt like I could not go on anymore, I would say to myself you know, this might be the key moment right here. I might be on the verge of a breakthrough, but because I quit, it's not going to happen. So, even though I can't go on anymore, I'm going to do it anyway, just to see what happens on the other side. And then, when you cross the bridge, you got to reach back and help people in the same position.
Speaker 2:Since I've been home in my 18 years, I've seen family members who I love one of which was murdered who does advocacy work. I've seen formerly incarcerated people work with at-risk youth. I saw a woman who had been the victim of domestic violence and now she works with that population. I've seen people work with homeless population that used to be homeless. I even saw an advocate that had previously been sexually trafficked and now she's doing advocacy work at a nonprofit that are being sexually trafficked. Now they fund the work of rescuing people in that situation. So I know that that formula applies to far more than just wrongful conviction. It can apply to discrimination or prejudice or any other extreme or even, relatively speaking, less extreme life difficult situations.
Speaker 1:So thank you for that. It was a great ending to our call and I hope to see I'm heading to New York myself. I'm going to get some of that Spumona Gardens pizza, hopefully, and go on Spring Street and eat some good Italian food. So I will see you someday and thank you so much for being on today.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much for having me.
