Cal has been in prison for years as Dwight rules the Corner on Blood,which once belonged to Cal. Then Dwight “catches a body” and is sentenced to 25 years to life for murder. One day, Cal and Dwight, the man who testified against him, cross paths in a prison yard. Both Cal’s and Dwight’s worlds turn upside down, and alarmed prosecutors in the Bronx call in their ace. It’s all up to Father Frank now.
Empire on Blood is a production of Orbit Media in association with Signal Co. No1
Hi.
There a quick note before we start. Most of you love listening to ads. I know that, But if you don't, here's an option. Subscribe to True Crime Clubhouse on Apple Podcasts. You'll get ten episodes of Empire on Blood the Director's Cut ad free in one week early with exclusive bonus content, and it's a mere two ninety nine a month. Previously on Empire on Blood everything was on the new when you made it was in the papers all of course, of that one.
Corner cases on today for the court's ruling. Did you tell anybody about it before Alan Karen offered you. I got out of jail card in a fight against crime. It's a dirty game. I mean, Dwighten, there's a gift. The white is an emphatical liar.
You're telling me sho okay for you to kill my family if you had to, but telling us forbidden.
Who made that rule.
It's two thousand and three and Dwight Robinson is in his sixth year as a guest of the New York State Department of Corrections. He's just been transferred to Clinton Correctional Facility, where he spots someone he knows.
I walks in the mental and I'm just looking. I see him. He was already sitting down. I look, I saw me, Chunk, and he saw me and he's like, oh shut.
And I remember he was with a dude that was real close to him and he actually said, Yo, that's my little brother right here.
And it was like, oh, Shot, you're right. He was like, you know, typical.
Cal Cal, the man Dwight helped convictim a double homicide. After Cal went away, Dwight caught a body, as they say, and now he's doing twenty five to life for murder. So Dwight and Cal find themselves in the same prison mess hall. I've interviewed plenty of prosecutors and detectives and they all say this should never happen. A cooperating witness and the inmate he helped put away, they should never meet.
He should I'm always good, you need anything?
Should I'm good, Shoul, I'm a shoe in a yall.
So Call and dwighte meet later in the yard where on nice days inmates play basketball and lift weights. It's November, it's cold. Call and Dwight sit on a bench, both in green prison uniforms. Cow may seem cool to Dwight. But really Cal is wary. He's wary of the man who not only snitched on him, but who once shot him.
He could knife me down in a yard. You understand, it's the same guy that just tried to kill me.
You know.
For me, it's like, why, how didn't try to hurt you? How didn't try to do.
Nothing to you?
As in fact that I want him for you what I want for myself. I never try to cheat you. I wanted just to hear him out, and why you know, that's what I did.
I listened more so than anything. I don't I don't show no anger man.
For Dwight, seeing Cal in the yard is like time travel. They'd once been brothers in the crack trade back then. Dwight loved being close to Cal. Maybe Dwight thought this is a chance to start all over again.
Old.
He had a say, miscommunication bring misunderstanding, and we never communicate.
The only thing we did was let our guns talk.
So he felt like if we had just sat down and spoke about things, maybe everything would have worked out different, you know, And I kind of agree with that, because again a lot of the things that we was going through was mental. Basically, just we just like a lot. We put a lot of things on the table. At that point, it was we was more mature. We looked at life different and I guess we both knew and what we had and laws.
So it was just like from a more mature angle.
More mature. Well, yeah, they're older now. Both Cal and Dwight went to prison in their early twenties. Now they're adults trying to figure out the past and the way forward.
Like I was bracing myself, possibly for the worst, but there have been some type of confrontation or whatever. I'm watching his hands and stuff like that.
And he was like, I see that you're thinking, so you know, we can't we just kick it in the yard. And it was like steal sharp and still still sharp and still great minds think alike, and that's say yeah not. But he didn't add they just said still short and still but I know I know what he meant.
Count remembers. Duke got emotional.
We started breaking down to me, you know, not boohoo crying, but tears started to come to his eyes where you know, He's like, Cal, I'm on the inside. This is what I'll never forget what he said to me. He said, Cal, I'm on the inside looking out. Now you're hearing no call for this. You know what I'm saying. Whatever, I'm gonna do, whatever I have to do. I'm gonna do the right thing to make sure you get out here. You're in here for something you ain't do. You know what I'm saying. He's like, if I didn't do what I did, I think everything would have been different.
Jill is a strange place. At the end of the day, we went to each other. But guess what, I know you.
You know me.
These thousands of guys around us don't know us. It's a comfort day that I know you. You see what I'm saying. We're in a war zone. I might be cool if these guys that I met in jail, but I know.
You, and then it happens. Cal reassumes his role as Dwight's big brother, a protector and true friend. Dwight points out an inmate he is a beef with Cal. According to Dwight, Cal says, I should slap the shit out of him. In other words, I'm gonna take care of you, Dwight. Once again, Dwight is in Cal's thraw. Soon enough, Cal tells me. Dwight has a confession to make about the Harris brothers.
He told me, you know, I was the one that killed them.
Duels whoa from Orbit Media.
This is Empire on Blood, a story of murder, betrayal and a man who fought the law for two decades, and of the confession that could set him free. I'm Steve Fishman. There is one thing that Dwight and Cal agree on. Prison is awful.
Saves this saves this saves shit.
Same old, same old, same old shit, different taller now.
In a classic prison movie Shawshank Redemption, maybe one inmate comes to trust another. Their situation brings them together. They bond, take pleasure in friendship, pledged to help each other. But the prison life that Cal and Dwight described to me is not like that. Everyone is out for themselves, friends are enemies waiting to happen. Hell is other inmates. Life is not interesting anymore. The routine is crushing, the stimuli so sparse you barely feel alive. Dwight tells me repeatedly, I'm bored out of my skull. In prison, they say, do the time, don't let the time, do you? Dwy isn't so good? At that. He has a TV in his cell, enjoys Sudoku, loves to read John Grisham novels. Sometimes knuckleheads get into a fight and Dwight gets to spectate. That can be amusing, but mainly he counts the days until his first board is shot. At parole, Cal He's different. At one point, Cal creates a resume, the idea of a resume in prison that seems pure fantasy, But well, the resume is impressive. He's valedictorian of his GED program, earns thirty credits towards an associate's degree at Cornell. Cal's only job experience has been crack distribution, but under his resume's professional profile category, Cal writes succeeds in a highly challenging work environment. My point is Cal can imagine a life for himself outside of prison, and inside prison too. Cal starts a business. He gets married. More on that later. For now, consider how this encounter with Dwight changes everything. Cal and Dwight former partners in the drug trade, former blood enemies. They are now friends.
No in a strange land where jail is not Kumbaya. Jail is a dangerous place, and I know what you're about you know what I'm about. We're going through our issues, but in this situation you have in my back. I feel confident and I know you feel confident having my back. As far as this situation.
Go, Dwight promises to help Cal get out of prison. He confesses to the crime that Cal is convicted of, and Cal well at first, he's stunned. He'd always suspected that Dwight brother Peter killed the Harris brothers.
You know, Peter was the guy that he was, the gangster of the area. You know, Peter was the guy that shot at police. Peter was the guy that didn't have no problem with shooting at people that he had problems with, and that was Peter.
But if Dwight is going to take responsibility for the killings, well great. Cal won't waste time puzzling out why Dwight would have committed the murders or why he is confessing to them now. Cal, as his resume notes, is a highly motivated, detail oriented self starter, and Cal gets started. He sends Dwight to a jailhouse lawyer, who persuades him that his confession can not be used to convict him of the double murders. Dwight writes an affidavit saying he killed the Harris brothers in nineteen ninety two. Cal is represented by Legal Aid lawyers, this time, based on Dwight's confession, they file an appeal which makes its way to the DA's office. The appeal lands on the desk of Cal's nemesis. That's right, Alan Karen Turtleman, the prosecutor who had turned the hopeless case against Cal into a winner. If Dwight's confession sticks Turtleman's brilliant work down the drain. Usually the DA's Appeals Bureau handles appeals, but Turtleman volunteers to take the lead on this case. Again.
You never believe for a second that this is a real confession. Absolutely not.
So Turtleman is suspicious. I have questions too. Inmate, in his right mind would volunteer that he committed a double homicide. He's not stupid. He has to know that his confession will expose him to all kinds of risk. So why in the world would he stand up and say, hey, I did it? Even if he did do it. I've thought a lot about this. The Dwight, I know, is a complicated being a convicted killer, yes, but also a person with a deep loyalty to his own self interest as well as a person in need of approval. Dwight feels things deeply. He cares what other people say. He once told me he hears Peter, his dead brother, whisper in his ear.
I always felt like, what would this Dowd say right now if he knew what I did?
And it always put a chip on my shoulder, go would go?
Would Peter say?
Honestly?
He would have said, man, that I need the way to hand of that absolutely violish hate, say, violish of the way to handle it.
Violence. That is how you handle your business, not by snitching to the DA, not by being a rat.
Deep down, and no, he frowned upon that. So that always ate on that, that part of it always ate a.
Peter would be ashamed of Dwight, and Dwight wants to make his brother proud. Yes, he'd snitched, now he'd unsnitch. And then in addition to Peter's praise, well imagine praise since you know Peter's dead, Dwight sees another benefit. Cal seems to like Dwight again, and Dwight has missed that. But the criminal justice system not especially interested in Dwight's rekindled friendships.
And I never believed for one second that he did it, because there ain't no way in the world he's gonna get up and say that he did do it.
Even if he did do it, I see, yeah, that's different. So I knew it was all bullshit, and I knew what happened.
I knew that he got pressured, and you know, he was forced to be enforced to say this.
After the break, Turtleman sends his right hand man to see Dwight his mission. Undo the unsnitching. We're back with Empire on blood. Let's leave the grim prison world with its betrayals and fear and tedium. It's a beautiful day in New York. Let's get on a boat. You know this is the bron Huh.
That's beautiful. You ever think that this is a.
Boat?
Was pretty high end? What his boat? No, believe it or not. There's an old sex as well, who it's like brons.
Get out again, Get out. I'm on a boat on a dock at City Island in the Bronx, just five miles from where Dwight and cow sold crack back in the nineties. The boat belongs to retired police detective Frank Vigiano.
I love your boat. It's fantastic.
It's beautiful.
It's beautiful here too.
You know, it's a quiet I mean it's it's really not out.
Here in the city.
Frank is in his seventies. He's short and slim, more Colombo than Van Dam. He served four decades in the New York City Police Department. I ask why he became a cop. He points across the East River to Throgsnick. That's where he grew up. A comfortable, blue collar section of the Bronx.
Had like thirty forty guys that we grew up with. That most of you guys went into the service, and when it came out, you know, there was a lot of there was a lot of openings for the fire and the police department. So we all everybody took the test just to take it, and I got cold, and you know when I said, this.
Might be fun fun. Every cop must graduate from the Police Academy, the institution where the City of New York turns a young person into a cop. Frank's first day of school, it was cut short.
I remember people were running around the academy that day. Saying, oh my ludther King got killed. I mean I was twenty one years old. I was just at in Marine Corps. I didn't even know who he was.
To be honest with you, man, I loved with the King, you know. Oh yeah, big civil rights leader is probably going to be riots.
Now.
It's April fourth, nineteen sixty eight, and there are riots throughout New York City. The order comes from on high, all hands on deck, schools out. Frank and his classmates are taken to the firing range. It's dark, you can barely see the target. They fire off fifty rounds, and then they are sworn in and sent to the barricades.
That night, they gave his blue hats and the gray uniforms zero training, zero right, and they sent me out to be besiders.
I had never been out there. I didn't know if I hadn't been to Brooklyn.
Here's what Frank were members of that night. A long haired Native American dude comes running by, chased by a group, yelling that he stabs somebody. In a minute, Frank has him on the ground. They're exchanging punches. Then something called the Tactical Patrol Force.
Arrives, so they respond first, and you know, they literally pummel his guide to the ground.
They throw him in a car. You say, to me, what the hell were you doing? You know, I was trying to open the handcuffs with the key. I didn't know you could do it. You can push them through, you know, and that's how you open them. Now, I mean, how would I know that? You know what I mean? I never had a pivode Ankov site. I had no train.
In case you didn't pick up on it. That's the light in Frank's voice.
Oh yeah, I loved it. Front row seats and best show in town.
Years past. Frank Vigiano rises through the ranks, becomes a detective in the Bronx, then he gets the top investigative job at the DA's office. Frank strengths me is different from other cops. He doesn't like guns, doesn't believe in the death penalty. Turtleman says he's more cerebral than the average cop. Also, Frank, he's a people person.
I was nicknamed father Frank by the homicide you're supervisor.
How does that to get confessions? But again, you know, to you, yeah, that was pretty good at.
That and you know that's just a not that I'm back grate, but you get guys that have a way sometimes of people.
And that's what makes Father Frank a formidable adversary for someone like Calvin Buari. Father knows how to talk to people like Dwight, how to get them to confess or unconfess without even talking to Dwight. Frank believes he knows how Dwight's confession happened. Cal threatened Dwight. This explanation is easy to understand. No psychological mumbo jumbo. Prison is a dangerous place, and in Father Frank's estimation, cal he's very dangerous. Frank knows Cal's type cunning, ruthless, manipulative.
Most of these guys in jail. I mean, that's only knew is try to figure out how to gonta get out, you know. But she gotta like Calvin, that's the only hope he has in life, is there?
Fifty is?
So what else does he had?
You know? Yeah, old girlfriends on the outside, and he gets them working for him, doing shit, make a sweatshirts for Calvin, you know. And he keeps writing letters to defense lawyers trying to get people to take his case and studying law books.
And you know, in fact, Frank is exactly right. Cal has been doing all those things and more, running a campaign from a prison payphone to keep his name and cause alive. He's recruited people on the outside. One ally, in particular, Pamela Williams visits him in prison several times a week. Been doing that for a couple of years now.
So we get to take a picture and he get down and he was like, would you marry me? And yeah, he did it. And I was like, I thought he was joking and he's like, I'm serious.
And I was like, yeah, okay, I need to give you a little background here. When Calvin Buwari entered prison in nineteen ninety five with a sentence of fifty years to life, he was despondent, angry, out of control. His future wife.
Knows that when I came into his life again, he didn't care. He didn't he had an attitude. He didn't care. He didn't care what happened to him, any cared what he did to anybody, because here he is convicted of something he really didn't do all this time, so he didn't care. He really had that attitude. He showed it a lot.
Cal spent a lot of time in the hole in solitary. He was found guilty of reckless endangerment and promoting contraband yes, Cow dealt drugs in prison. Eventually Cal got three more years tacked onto his sentence, fifty three to life. Still Pam sticks around. She drives for hours, stays overnight in hotels so she can see him several times a week. Several women have called me on Cow's behalf. They talked to me about Cow, how he listened to them, helped sort out their problems, and they they showed their love too. They worked for Cow's cause. But Pam, she goes above and beyond. Pam was raised in the South Bronx, but she knew Col's old neighborhood well very well. Her aunt and uncle and cousins lived on East two hundred and thirteenth Street, near the corner on Blood. Her first cousin sold crack for Cow and then testified against him. Given her connections, Call had reason to be wary of Pam.
But then and I came into lawsuit money and I gave him some and then some of them was hard earned savings, and I you know I did that. I gave him on and how much made you give him that It was twenty thousand.
At the time.
It was for his freedom, It wasn't really for his freedom. I didn't care. I just gave it.
I gave it to him.
Make sure that you know, post conviction is very expensive. To know that, and to know that, you know what, if you and I don't work out at the end of the day, this is for you, for you so that you don't need to depend on anybody else that comes behind me, you know. And that's what I did.
What was his.
I think that's when he said, I'm a married this woman.
Cal's mother had given her son some advice. Love the one who loves you. That way, she'll never leave you. Cal took her advice. Now, Pam is no slouch. Eventually she'll earn a couple of master's degrees and land a big job in the healthcare industry. She's impressive. And as I sit in her large corner office and listen to her, I'm confused. You marry a guy who might never be able to go anywhere.
I didn't care. That's the funny thing. I didn't care. You know, we were still together. I told him I would have did their life with him, like I really, truly at that time loved him. I didn't think that far ahead. I lived in a moment. Why are you looking at?
Yeah?
I did, I really did. I don't have no regrets.
Prison marriages. They are not ordinary unions. No wedding planners, no flowers, no band. On her wedding day, Pam arrived at the prison with Cow's mother and brother. What happened?
He got into trouble and they say, and I get married today?
And what do you think?
I was pissed off because it was embarrassing your mother here, I'm here, your brother here, and you know, they like, no wedding today. He is actually being detained.
What did he done?
I don't know if it was drugs or weapon or fighting or arguing. I don't know what. I know that they just told me no wedding. They told me no wedding today.
Wow.
It's a tough ride home, A very tough ride home.
Pam and Cal do manage to get married a few months later, and Cal discovers marriage has benefits. They have some conjugal visits, kl can let his guard down. Among other things. He and Pam go into business together. They start a fashion business catalogs of clothes they sell to inmates, Timberland Chuckers among them. Pam funnels more money into Cow's cause, fifty thousand dollars all told, that's what she figures. Col responds, he focuses, gets to work on his case, and all this happens before Dwight shows up in the mess hall at Clinton Correctional Facility. Dwight doesn't just sign a confession. He joins Cal's campaign. Once he was a super cooperator for the DA. Now he's a super cooperator for Cal. He tries to reach out to witnesses. The witnesses he wants urged to testify against Cal. Now Dwight wants them to testify for Cow. In November two thousand and three, Cal calls Pam. Not unusual, but this time Cal says, somebody wants to talk to you, and he doesn't say who. The Department of Corrections records every phone call and inmate makes. This is the recording of that call. Something found in evidence story.
Yeah, I'm I'm about to credit wise man place nobody, So I'm gonna do.
What I gotta do.
You know, Pam is now in a complicated position. She's the life partner of a man who may spend the rest of his life in prison. She's also the bridge between the outside and the inside. Now the Dwight and Call have been reunited, Dwight wants Pam to reach out to her cousin and the others who testified against Cal, and listen.
Let me explain something to you and your people that are staying at the phone. Okay, So if I do my point, nobody wants to give it up. That's them.
They don't want to give it up.
They don't want to be bothered. They don't want to be bothered.
Pam is annoyed. Cal is always a handful, always demanding, but this particular phone call is different. Pam has not been running around telling the world that she and Cal are married. She may be in love with mister Coole for life, but she doesn't need everybody in her business.
Man.
It's like this man, right now, I'm trying to help your husband.
Wait a minute, my husband.
Dwight isn't put off by Pam's reticence. He presses her to reach out to the witnesses.
I'm not gonna stress nobody with a point, but somebody will say I'm harassing them.
Listen, listen to me.
If he tell them she's calling me because she involved with a dude that killed they really not gonna help you.
Did you catch that? They're going to say, you're harassing, you're threatening Pam's right. After all, the DA believes that even behind bars, Cal is a master manipulator. Cal does let those who testified against him know he hasn't forgotten them. He sends a couple of them birthday cards, which is kind of creepy.
Okay, I don't wanna be staying out here ConTroll my this lord night anyway, seng, I already know what I did was wrong.
I'm gonna correct my.
That's the boblem.
Yeah, well, it would be nice if if the stone will roll, would everybody come back.
But they gotta understand something.
Everybody moved on and everybody said not to be funny. They happy, you understand that they they like, they don't care. Y'all have to realize that not everybody can. People like Man's that they go back and they go they meditate and they're like this ning ain't worth thought. I'm not doing nothing. That's what they're gonna do wrong. Huh Your okay, well, it was nice talking to you.
Meanwhile, the DA's chief investigator, Father Frank, is on a mission undo what Dwight has done. Father Frank needs to sit down with Dwight, but first he has to figure out how to keep that sit down secret. That's after the break, we're back with the Empire on Blood, back on the boat with Frank Vigiano. Father Frank remembers how hard it was to plan that sit down with Dwight. Discreetly, you remember.
Something, you're in jail and you ain't there.
Everybody wants to know where are you? Right, you get pulled out for something, you're pulling him out. Yeah, you know, it'd be like, you know, you're home with your wife in the middle of the night. You leave, like the fuck you're going right, you know what I mean, I'm going out. You're going out where you're going? You know?
I mean, that's that's the way it is. I mean, everybody you know, you're in a routine that you're in jail.
So we made it look like we're looking at him for an old robbery or something to line up with him.
So, with a little subterfuge, Frank gets Dwight in a room. Father Frank never yells, but in a quiet voice, he lets Dwight know, if you help Cal, you'll never go home. At least that's the message that Dwight takes away. We're going to deuce you for the rest of your life. Deuce that means too. Dwight gets a shot at parole every two years after his minimum twenty five is served, but if he helps Cal, the DA will deduce him every two years.
So at that point I have something to think about. I never put that equation that they were low blowning like that.
So Dwight's alarmed. But Father Frank, he's not done yet. Now the courtship phase.
It took a long time for me to win favor with him. I had a visit of a couple of times. Yeah, he wouldn't.
He stood fast to what he was saying in the beginning.
You know.
So what happens, Well, I called his mother and and you know, and I take a shot.
Father Frank called Dwight's mother, told her her son had confessed to a double homicide, that he joined the free cow.
Movement in that community.
From what I my experience, anyways, a lot of a lot of these kids, their parents were West Indian immigrants and you know, hardworking people and for the most part, decent people, you know.
And that was the case with his mother, right, And what's his mother's role in it?
Of course she was upset, you know, and you know she's concerned like any mother would be, you know, but you know, very low keyed and like, you know, except the fact that the son's a bad kid and he's in jail and he didn't murder, and he's going to be there for the next twenty at that point, the next twenty years.
You know, she came with me once I brought her there.
What was that like?
Well, he wasn't happy that I brought it, but I did, you know, and he refused. He refused to see me, which he has the right to do. But the correction, you guys st him out anyway, Yeah, just technically, you know, you do us some rights man.
You know, Dwight's mom is his strongest family connection. His only brother was shot dead. No one was arrested, but cal had a hand in that, right, Dwight believes so, and so does his mother.
The next thing was, they went and told my mom what was going on, and she couldn't believe it, Like wait a minute, you're willing to help this guy that killed your brother.
She let me know, if you help him, just live your life. We don't have nothing to do with you. So at that point.
Wain't on the option. It was like, you know what, this guy going home turns back on me. I'm in jail for the rest of your life. Guess what with no family? Talk about a hard bid.
A hard bid. So Dwight faces a choice continue on his path and lose his mom and serve out the rest of his life in prison, or recan't double cross cow, reap the rewards and live with the consequences. Yeah.
And when I said to him, then we'll move you to another prison. I'll put you in eight prison you want, I said, I'll put you somewhere close to home. I said, and we'll give you a new name. I said, We'll change your identity, which.
I could have done. He said, everybody I grew up with, everybody I know is in here, said, ain't I you.
Everybody you know is probably topsifying, And he said, but everybody I know is an He said, you can't.
You can't change my face.
Frank calls in a few favors, gets quite moved out of the prison population and into a special unit, a protective custody unit at another prison. For Cal, it's just like Dwight disappears. Prisoners are transferred all the time, and now Dwight he's back on the DA's team. Frank and Turtleman's team. The hearing on Col's appeal begins in two thousand and five in the same courthouse where Cal was convicted ten years earlier. This is the hearing in which Dwight was supposed to be the lead witness for cow Assistant DA. Turtleman is, as usual, smart, aggressive and in control. He calls father Frank to the stand. Father Frank looks over at Cal.
Had him staring me again, entered the whole testimony, you know, and you know, well dressed, we're cool, you know, never.
Flatlined the whole time. But he's a crazy He's he's a cold, calculated killer.
Maybe Cal looked that way to Frank, but Cal really he's stunned to him. It's like Turtleman has shifted reality. It's like he's taken the same set of facts and concocted an entirely different story from them. Those tender moments of camaraderie with Dwight. Hey, that's my little brother there. In his testimony, Dwight now characterizes them as subtle and not so subtle displays of power, veiled threats. Why had Dwight confessed, He tells the judge, I knew. If I didn't, you know, my life was in danger. And then on the stand, Dwight repeats the whopper. Cal's legal attorneys bring up Dwight's attempt to kill their client, and Dwight straight faced responds, no, I didn't try to kill Cal, even though he's told father Frank all about it on Frank's boat. I'd confirm that. Yeah, as Dwight open about trying that he tried to kill Cal, then he.
Told me he goes. It was my brother's fault. He said that he ain't dead, he said, because he goes. He told me.
So the authorities know, but nobody tells. Dwight gets away with the lie again, and not just any lie. The prosecution's lead witness tried to murder the defendant, significant detail. I think, how can Dwight's perjury go unchallenged. Turtleman insists he personally didn't know that Dwight tried to murder cow not during the first trial and not during the second hearing. But I have to wonder, is this business as usual? No one tells the prosecutor do inconvenient facts get dropped from consideration. I went to the archives. I found a case with similar circumstances. It's the Bronx nineteen ninety eight. Two teenagers are convicted of murder. Someone else confesses, but the Bronx DA discounts the confession. Does an investigate. Thirteen years later, a federal judge rights quote, the record contains a number of troubling indications that the prosecution was more intent on protecting a conviction than in seeing that justice was done. End quote. The judge sets the two men free. The prosecutor in the case Alan Karen Turtleman in a previous episode. I had asked Turtleman about this kind of thing.
So I never got reversed for anything. Nope.
Maybe everyone's memory is faulty from time to time, and yet Turtleman is kind of right. Okay, a judge did reverse one of his convictions, but that occurred inside a federal courtroom. It didn't affect Turtleman's career, his standing in the office his annual raise. His boss stood behind him. The reversal. For Turtleman, it's like it didn't happen. And from what I can tell, that's the rule. Prosecutors don't get in trouble for this kind of thing. At Cal's hearing, Turtleman knows just how to handle the question of why Dwight would confess to something he now claims he didn't do. Dwight doesn't have to be threatened, he has to feel threatened. Remember when Cal and Dwight were in the yard together, Cal offered to protect Dwight. According to Dwight, he offered to slap the shit out of another inmate. Was Cal really offering help or was it a way to let Dwight know that Cal takes care of business. It's like those birthday cards Cal sent to the witnesses. Turtleman can tell you what their purpose is. Cal knows where you live. Even Pam in this view is one of Cal's enforcers. On a prison visit, she spots Dwight offers him some food. Aha. Turtleman knows what that's really about. Two harassing, threatening, He tells the judge quote it was in the nature of a clear threat and the message was as it was with all the other threats. We know who you are, we know where you are, and we can get you at any time. Cal's fate once again depends on one person, Dwight Robinson. Which Dwight should the judge believe, the Dwight who confessed to a horrible crime, or the Dwight who now says his confession was forced. The judge concludes Dwight is credible, the Dwight who felt threatened, the one who said the only reason he confessed is because he was afraid of Cal, And so Turtleman triumphs again. Col's appeal is dismissed. The Dwight who snitched, unsnitched, and re snitched is sent to protective custody, and Cal he returns to prison to serve the remainder of his term.
I mean it was a crushing blow.
Now Cal doesn't really put the crushing in crushing blow. You just don't hear it in his voice. That's Cal. But Cal's wife, Pam, she sat in the courtroom as the ruling came down.
I was numb. I was I think I cried. I probably did. I didn't want to cry for him, because then he'll be worried about me. But it was a blow because you're really thinking he's coming home.
You're going to bring him home to the house.
Yeah, he's coming home.
One day when I do ride, Man, it's gonna be a floodgate that I can't stop. No, because I think that you know, I am kind of like repressing a lot, you know, but you know, this is how I stay strong. This is not a place where you can just let out your tears and not be looked at a certain way or be considered weak. But you know, one day, you know, I know I'm gonna have my day of just releasing all my tears. I think I'm just trying to hold on to my strength.
Cal will have to put off his tears. His first possible release date two thousand and forty eight. Next time on Empire, on Blood, I stepped on the gray line, which you're supposed to be on one side of the gray line, and if you're on the other side of the gray line, you're you're evil or bad.
I'm on the gray line.
The Bronx never forgets. I take a twelve hour train ride with a private eye who carries a gun and a bible. We search for the Missing Witness. The Director's Cut of Empire on Blood is produced by Emil Klein. Austin Smith is our associate producer and production coordinator. The original production of the Empire on Blood was also produced by Emil Klein. Mia Lobel was our executive producer. Julia Parton our story editor, fact checking by Stephan M.
Daniels.
Our advisor was Joel Dusk. Mastering by Jason Gabreel, original scoring by Joel Saint Julian and our theme song, The Lonely King is by mister Lynn. Special thanks to Andy Bauers, who championed the original production at Panoply.
I'm Steve Fishman, go to the Blood leadsday.
We have the burden you have, we have the burn low between friends and told the last ones you hear.
Welcome to you, Hi there, before we go, You've just listened to another brilliant episode of Empire on Blood the Director's Cut. To hear episodes of this series one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to True Crime Clubhouse on Apple Podcasts.
It's just two ninety nine a month.