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The last time I spoke with Richard Rosario, the chances of him getting out seemed slim. But somehow, through it all, he had never given up. I'm never going to lose hope. They'll have to take me out of here in a box. I'll never lose hope, no matter how long I'm here. And then, early in 2016, everything changed, almost overnight. I'm Dan Slepian, and this is 13 Alibis.
In January of 2016, Robert Johnson, the longtime Bronx District Attorney, stepped down after nearly 30 years in office. The new DA? Darcelle Clark. She was an appellate judge for years. And as it turns out, she comes from the same neighborhood where the murder happened. Rosario's attorneys saw an opening and immediately asked for a meeting.
Just two weeks before she took office, the incoming DA agreed to hear what they had to say. Today is a potentially important day. And the fact that we have an audience with the district attorney-to-be is huge because we're hopeful that she's going to be receptive and that justice can be served quickly. It had been 20 years, 20 years, since Rosario had first given authorities the names of his alibi witnesses.
And now, the Bronx DA decides to send investigators to Florida to speak with them. Remember Fernando Torres, the pastor? He was one of the first alibi witnesses they interviewed. And what did they say? So did they interview you and Margarita? Yes, the other people at Palm Beach. And after sending those investigators to speak with the witnesses, the new DA was willing to speak with me on the record. Hello. Hello. How are you? I meet with Darcelle Clark, the Bronx District Attorney.
The first time anyone from that office has agreed to go on the record with me since I began looking into this case. I presided as a judge in this county for 13 of my 16 years on the bench. And now I'm the chief law enforcement officer for the entire borough. We're in a conference room at her office. The building isn't far from where she grew up herself. Whole life in the Bronx. I'm a daughter of the Bronx.
She tells me how she heard about Rosario's case. Well, before I took office, I met with the exoneration initiative about Mr. Rosario. And it came to my attention that
They had an appeal and our answer was due. So before I did anything else on Mr. Rosario's case, I thought it was necessary to just do the preliminary steps of investigating the case or the allegations. He had an alibi defense that was never investigated. So the first thing I did was let's investigate the alibi. Sounds so simple the way she says it. And you said, why don't we call him?
No, I sent somebody down. You sent somebody down to talk to them, right? Yes. Why has that not happened in 20 years? I cannot speak for that. I've been a district attorney since January 1st. Was it surprising to you when you heard that, that no one from the Bronx DA's office or the NYPD, no one in law enforcement has ever reached out to those alibi witnesses until last week when you did it? I have to say I was surprised. I was surprised.
And it didn't take long for her to conclude Richard Rosario did not get a fair trial. But that doesn't mean she believes he's innocent. There still needs to be more investigation. I didn't have a chance to thoroughly investigate every aspect of his defense, as well as continuing to investigate the crime itself.
I need a chance to investigate it more. But in the meantime, there's no reason for him to have to wait behind bars in order for me to continue the investigation. That's right. She doesn't feel Rosario needs to sit in prison anymore. But that's not up to her. It's up to yet another judge. We're in Bronx Criminal Court. I'm standing in a jury box. It's packed with reporters and cameras.
So we're just a few minutes away from Richard coming out. There's a ton of press here, which is surprising because no one was really interested in his case for 20 years. We're going to see what happens. Minerva, Richard Jr., and Amanda are seated in the second row. Rosario is led into the courtroom, shackled. Your Honor, I was going to ask if the cuffs can be taken off of him. The cuffs are quickly removed. Rosario looks like he could be going for a job interview.
He's in a suit with shiny new leather shoes. An attorney from the Bronx DA's office tells the judge they now believe Richard Rosario did not get a fair trial. In this case, we can see that the defendant did not receive effective assistance from counsel. We can sense a release of the defendant on his own recognizance. Translation? The DA is saying Rosario should be set free. And this time, the judge agrees.
Released. But it's not that simple. The judge is throwing out his conviction, but that's not the same as exonerating him. They're not calling Rosario an innocent man. And believe it or not, the DA could decide to retry him. He stands and addresses the judge.
The jury is still out on the DA's office with regards to this wrongful conviction, and I hope that she would do the right thing to exonerate me because I've been in prison for 20 years for a crime I didn't commit. My family didn't deserve this. I didn't deserve this, nor the victim's family or the victim. And I hope this conviction is not just vacated, but exoneration is given to me.
But for now, he gets to go home with his family. I'm ready to take the next step. I'm good, man. Three months after his release, I go down to Florida to visit with Richard and his family. You're a free man. Richard answers the door of their home. It feels odd to see him wearing street clothes. He has on a blue Superman t-shirt, and he's with his family. United, just like he once promised them. Man, last time we were down here...
Then there was all three of you. Yeah, it was just the three of us. First of all, this is quite a picture, right? Of the four of you sitting together.
were all sitting at their island in the kitchen. Can you describe what it's like to be in a cell for 20 years and then come home? I can't even describe it. I know that I woke up one night, I was with my wife and I was sleeping, and I woke up in the middle of the night and jumped up and if the door wasn't locked, I was going to be running right out of there. I didn't know where I was. You were disoriented. Yeah.
The first night, the second night, the third night. And weeks later, I still have the effects of what I went through. His family tells me it's been tough for them since Richard's come home. Prison has hardened him, they say, and they're learning to connect in a whole new way. Here's his wife Minerva, who stuck it out while Richard was locked up all those years.
Our journey, we have a long way to go. But we're gonna do it and we're gonna make it. And I mean it's not easy, because to say that this is easy and that love conquers everything, that's not the case. It's a matter of us growing together and being able to walk through this and being able to understand each other and respect each other. To have them around the house and stuff, you know,
Every day interacting and stuff like that is different than just visiting someone or calling someone on the phone. Definitely. It's much different having him here every day than having a 30-minute phone call. You know, so for me, I feel like we're building a whole new relationship. You know, Amanda and Richard, you know, and my wife, including my wife, they wanted their Richard back. And here we are 20 years later. They're adults, and I'm not the same man. It's so sad.
You see how a new reality is confronting him with all that he's missed and all that he can't get back. His kids even wrote a song about it. I want to experience this world with my son. Hear you cheering for me from the skies. Hold me and tell me it's gonna be. Nice. That was great. That's what I'm talking about, you see.
Rosario says he's doing all he can to make up for lost time. Playing basketball with his son. Simply enjoying a meal with his wife. But it's not all happily ever after. Remember, he still has to go back to court to see if he's going to be retried for George Collazo's murder. But Rosario says he's not worried about that. What he wants is for the DA to publicly say he could not possibly have been the killer.
A week after our visit, Rosario is back in New York City for the first time since his release.
It's the day before his court date. You have court tomorrow. Yes. How are you feeling about that? I'm feeling confident. You know, the truth is on my side. What do you think is going to happen? I have no idea. I have no clue. He says he's confident that anyone who looks at the facts of his case can only come to one conclusion. So what does District Attorney Darcelle Clark think about that?
She agrees to sit down with me again on the eve of the hearing. And when we last spoke, you said your office needed more time to investigate. Yes. Have you done that? Yes, we have. What have you learned?
We've thoroughly interviewed a number of witnesses, his alibi witnesses. We interviewed our witnesses. Just every single angle we looked into. I don't feel now that I would be able to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. And that is the burden of proof that I must satisfy. But you're not saying that he's innocent?
What I'm saying is that I can't prove that he's guilty. I ask her about Rosario's insistence that she simply acknowledge that he's innocent. I could understand his disappointment, but, you know, this is, you know, this is how it's going to work in his particular case. He's presumed innocent. He does not have to prove he's innocent. He is innocent. So if I can't prove him guilty, then he remains innocent. So what about other leads? If Richard's innocent, then who really did this?
The case is still under investigation. I'm not ending the investigation. I'm ending the case against Mr. Rosario. Or so she thought. The next day in court, an assistant district attorney gets right to the point. In light of the people's inability to meet the burden at trial, the district attorney moves to dismiss all charges against Mr. Rosario in the interest of justice.
But to Rosario, this is not justice. He wants the D.A. to go on the record that he could not have killed George Colazzo. I would like to express my condolences to the family of the deceased. But the bottom line here is that their son deserves justice, their family deserves closure, and the public deserves the truth. I've been in prison for 20 years saying that I'm innocent. I've been transparent and forthcoming with information to prove my innocence. The public should know the truth.
That's when, at Richard's insistence, his lawyer stuns the courtroom and asks the judge not to dismiss the case until Rosario is declared fully innocent. The judge wants to make sure he fully understands what this means. An open homicide case still hangs over your head. Do you understand that? Yes. The judge tells everyone they'll have to come back to court to sort it all out.
Outside court, George Colazzo's father does not mince words about how he feels about Richard Rosario. He goes around saying he's innocent. He's lying to you and he's lying to the public. I also catch up with Rosario to ask about what just happened. They just tried to dismiss a murder indictment against you and you said no thanks. Yeah, no, because the truth is important to me and it should be important to the community and to the victim's family.
Five months later, everyone is back in court again, where the judge officially dismisses the case against Richard Rosario. But as much as he wants to hear it, the DA never says Rosario couldn't have been the killer. Instead, in a statement, she says, we have concluded that since we would be unable to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the case should not be retried. The investigation into the killing of George Colazzo will continue.
Rosario tells me he feels cheated once again. I wanted to get completely exonerated. The fact that I did that wasn't with any intent of thumbing my nose down at people. I just wanted the truth. I wanted the transparency of the facts of what happened in my case, who was involved in my wrongful conviction. I wanted that to come out. It didn't, but it's still a victory nevertheless.
My whole point of standing up is just letting the system know that this problem that's going on across the country with wrongful convictions is just something that has to stop. So I took that stance, and regardless of their conclusions, America knows I'm innocent. I know I'm innocent, and finally I can move on with my life. It's now been three years since Richard Rosario has been free. But after losing all those years to prison, has he been able to adjust to life as a free man?
That's next time on 13 Alibis. 13 Alibis is a production of NBC News and Dateline NBC. It's produced and edited by Robert Allen and Grant Irving. Our music is by Nolan Schneider. If you like the podcast, please share it.