EVERY SPOKEN WORD
155 min read · 30,549 words- 0:00 – 15:00
(drumming) Joe Rogan podcast,…
- JDJosh Dubin
(drumming) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.
- JRJoe Rogan
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music plays) What's up?
- JDJosh Dubin
What's up, man?
- JRJoe Rogan
Good to see ya.
- JDJosh Dubin
Good to see you.
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh, so I guess we just get right into it. The last case that we talked about, we had, uh, a, a very unfortunate incident happen after the podcast, uh, about a month later.
- JDJosh Dubin
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh, the gentleman beheaded somebody.
- JDJosh Dubin
Allegedly, yes. Uh...
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) Allegedly.
- JDJosh Dubin
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's a lot of allegedlys, but-
- JDJosh Dubin
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... there were so many crazy things to that case. The craziest thing was him, uh, trying to fool the security cameras with a wig. Like, I guess he didn't know how high resolution cameras had gotten over the 25 years that he was in jail.
- JDJosh Dubin
Uh, I mean, apparently there's a lot he didn't know.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JDJosh Dubin
Uh, uh, the only reason I say allegedly is because, um, I'd be a bit of a hypocrite if I started calling him guilty, um-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- JDJosh Dubin
... before he has a trial. But-
- JRJoe Rogan
Of course.
- JDJosh Dubin
... based on the surveillance, um-
- JRJoe Rogan
It doesn't look good.
- JDJosh Dubin
... what do they say in Texas? It ain't too shiny.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) It's so crazy, because, uh, you know, we went out with him that evening. We brought him to the comedy club. He was hanging out with us in the green room, and then the news broke, and then, uh, the comics were all like, "Hey, man, what the fuck?" (laughs)
- JDJosh Dubin
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
"What the fuck are you doing bringing that guy around?" I'm like, "Well, we didn't know."
- JDJosh Dubin
I, I, I mean, he-
- JRJoe Rogan
Who could've known he was gonna do that other than him?
- JDJosh Dubin
Uh, I, man, uh, I'm as, I'm as, uh, I'm as shocked over it now as, as I was in the moment. I mean, yeah, I don't, uh, you know, there are no words. I, I went through, um, it's really not funny. I mean, I'm only laughing out of sort of nervousness, I guess.
- JRJoe Rogan
Of course.
- 15:00 – 30:00
Mm-hmm. …
- JDJosh Dubin
But I have to be a big enough person to look at myself and say, "Well, what can I learn from this and what could I do better?" Because, you know, I was talking to Derek Hamilton, who's been on the show and the, the deputy director of the, the Freedom Clinic at the Perlmutter Center, and, you know, Derek said, "Look, um, mental health counseling, when I was incarcerated was something that was like ... It, it flew in the face of the us-versus-them mentality." I didn't think they could help me.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- JDJosh Dubin
And I didn't want ha- want the help. I was mad and there was a stigma attached to it, that I was soft if I did it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- JDJosh Dubin
I didn't want people in- inside knowing. Um, so I don't, um ... We're trying to formulate a plan to normalize mental health counseling in prison, so Derek and I are doing a town hall at Shawangunk, which is a pretty rough prison in New York, on December 6th, to try to get some of the inmates to understand that it's okay to ask for this help. I think when they see Derek and hear his story, it's, um, it's helpful for them. So ...
- JRJoe Rogan
I'm gonna say something that's g- gonna sound pretty controversial, but I think, you know, one of the, uh, one of the conversations that I've had, uh, repeatedly, I had it with J.D. Vance, I've had it with quite a few people, is psychedelic therapy for veterans. Um, people with severe PTSD because of war, I think are the most deserving of psychedelic therapy and the benefits of it, and the fact that that stuff is Schedule 1 and is illegal in the United States, I think is absurd. It's ridiculous, it's horrible, it's a, a massive disservice to those people that put their lives on the line and went over and experienced horrific things that the average person like myself can only imagine. And you're not gonna do a good job of imagining it. I think prisoners could benefit from psychedelic therapy as well. I think there's a lot of people that could be rehabilitated by changing the way they m- they view things, literally changing their mind, changing their perspective. And I think there's a lot of psychedelic therapies that could aid in that, particularly for people who, you know, they're not violent people, um, they're, they're just had, they're a victim of circumstance or they made bad decisions in their life, or what have you. And they're stuck and they're stuck both mentally and physically, and if we want to use prisons as just a deterrent to crime, okay, I think we should probably put some effort towards rehabilitation. You know, s- sincere, significant efforts towards rehabilitation. And one of the best ways to do that is to tr- kind of try to change the way people view themselves and view the world and view themselves as a part of the world.
- JDJosh Dubin
The fact that you would even think that that would be controversial I think is just a, a byproduct of the fact that anything that somebody articulates that's outside of, like, what's considered mainstream-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JDJosh Dubin
... is rejected.... unquestionably, the research is overwhelming-
- JRJoe Rogan
Overwhelming.
- JDJosh Dubin
... it's ... that psychedelics are one of the best, um, one of the best, most effective, um, therapies for PTSD. My therapist has, um, you know, counseled people with PTSD coming back from war. And, you know, has, has espoused the, the, not only the efficacy of it, but how remarkably, um, different it is from conventional therapies in the most positive of ways. And I could not agree with you more. I think that if you look at some of the European countries, that look at their prison systems as a real rehabilitative model. I mean, we have to decide it. We, we incar- we talked about the stats, and I'm not, um, gonna, you know, re-litigate that here, but look, we incarcerate people at a higher rate than any other civilization on Earth. So we have to decide as a society, are we just gonna throw people away and put them in cages and make them worse? Even if they committed the crime. Or, as you said, are we really going to try to rehabilitate people? Because some people are getting out no matter what. Whether they have people like me involved and other great people that do this work, um, but they're gonna get out. Do you want them out bec- like they were just an animal let out of a cage? Or do you want them out where rehabilitation is a cornerstone of their incarceration?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JDJosh Dubin
And it just doesn't happen in our criminal justice system.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, there's a bizarre attitude in this country that we shouldn't do anything to make their life better while they're in there, you know? And that something like psychedelic therapy, uh, i- is like, um, that it's a luxury, you know? That it's, uh, something they don't deserve. That it's, um, something that should be reserved for good people.
- JDJosh Dubin
Or, or some- or that there's some like, um, it's for people that are like fucking off-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- JDJosh Dubin
... and, you know, the others that do drugs.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- JDJosh Dubin
That whole mentality.
- JRJoe Rogan
Sure. Yeah, there's that, too.
- JDJosh Dubin
So, yeah. I, listen, I mean, we talk about like looking up at the mountain and saying, "Can I scale it?" I think what you have to do, and, and I'm talking about this ... All it takes is one state, one municipality, one person who says, "That's interesting. Show us the literature." We have this amazing policy director at the Perlmutter Center named Sarah Chew, and she's in the trenches having these arguments, having these fights, trying to get forensic labs, um, you know, ensuring that they have the proper training accreditation so that they're not introducing, you know, various forms of junk science. All it takes is just the effort going forward to try to start pushing that boulder uphill or else, you know, again, this goes to, um, you know, the incoming hatred in a situation like we had here is like, "What the fuck are you doing to help try to make the situation better?" Because just calling names and pointing fingers and saying, "You fucked up," or, "This person that we threw away is not worth saving." Listen. Everybody has made some mistake that they wish other people didn't know about, you know? And it's not always homicide, obviously, but a lot of people have done something that but for the grace of God go I, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- JDJosh Dubin
Um, where if somebody was looking, if law enforcement was looking, it could be you that was there. And would you want a second chance? Would you want redemption? Would you want the help to overcome whatever demons?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Yeah.
- JDJosh Dubin
And I, I just think why psychedelics aren't, you know, looked at, um, ketamine, the, the little bit that I did, going through a dark time, it, uh, it almost snapped me in a different direction.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JDJosh Dubin
And I mean, I, you know, you urged me onto it. I mean, you were the one that said, "You should really think about this." And my therapist urged me onto it, and I think, you know, so I know that the literature is there, it's just we have to get past this whole, um ... It's so f- weird that you mention that. I was talking to a guy on the plane on the way down who was tell- uh, asked me, um, if marijuana legalization passed in Florida. Um, because I was talk- we were talking about, you know, where you're from, this and that. And he was telling me that, um, and he was from Colorado, and he told me that, uh, you know, in Colorado, when marijuana was legalized, that there was this whole, um, movement of people that were, uh, saying that it would be a gateway drug, and that it was gonna, uh, lead people down this slippery slope to doing other hardcore drugs. And he said, you know, the gulf between smoking weed and turning into a meth addict doesn't exist. He said that the bridge between the two doesn't exist, and if you start walking marijuana use and trying to link it to, um, drugs that the US government considers a problem, the link just isn't there.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JDJosh Dubin
So, I mean, I, you know, he was sort of ar- trying to explain to me how he didn't understand how marijuana is any different than alcohol. And I said, "Well, go tell that to the state legislature (laughs) in Florida." I don't know what to tell you. I just-
- JRJoe Rogan
Did it not pass in Florida?
- 30:00 – 45:00
A great job of…
- JRJoe Rogan
people had this very ignorant idea that was born out of propaganda, 'cause you have to think, 20 years ago was only 30 years removed from the sweeping Psychedelics Act. So, you're dealing with, uh, a whole society that's been just programmed by propaganda and lies, and that propa- those propaganda and lies were established in order to villainize this one group of the population that was completely changing the culture. The difference in the United States culture from 1965...... to 1955 to 1965 was so dramatic. It was such an enormous shift, you know? Then you have the Vietnam War, the protests, all these things that were happening in the '60s, the music. Everything was changing so radically and so drastically that the people in power had a very, uh, like, a, an accurate sense that they were losing control and that change was inevitable. And they threw water on it, and they did a great job if you look at it from that perspective. The difference between... I mean, it's terrible what they did, but it was effective in that from 1970-
- JDJosh Dubin
A great job of throwing water on it, I would say.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. A great job of changing culture, uh, which was changing in a, in a potentially beneficial way for everyone. To get us to recognize that we, we, we truly are all one and that the way to make things better for everyone is to make things better for the most disadvantaged. And this was the Civil Rights Movement, right? And this was the Antiwar Movement. This was, uh, this was recognizing that people were being taken advantage by the military-industrial complex and just sent overseas so that they could profit.
- JDJosh Dubin
Amen. I, I, uh... The first guy that I met that really, like, um, changed my perspective on, on the world, especially in terms of what, uh, what I could potentially do as a lawyer was Jerry Lefcourt. Jerry Lefcourt was Abbie Hoffman's lawyer.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- JDJosh Dubin
He was the lead attorney in the Panther 21 trial. I was like a kid. I was in my late 20s, and I was... met with him to help him pick a jury on a case, and I had read about him before. And he saw something in me. We hit it off. He became like my, uh, like my surrogate uncle, and he would regale me with tales of his, um, of the Panther 21 trial. And here's a guy that was kinda winging it in his late 20s and can feel the change that you're talking about happening, and he could feel the weight against him, the pushback coming from the other side, where he would get death threats. He would get, um, bomb threats at his office where he could not even see his client in jail approaching trial and had to get on a cherry picker in, in, outside the jail to be able to get even with the window so that they could communicate. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Jesus Christ.
- JDJosh Dubin
So, Jerry Lefcourt, um, and he, by the way, got a full acquittal in the Panther 21 trial against all odds. He was the first person that told me about COININTELPRO and what the gov- the lengths that the government will go to, um, when they feel like their message, their, um, way of doing things is being challenged. And I think that you hit the nail right on the head, which is, this was like a... flew in the face of, of, um, Leave It to Beaver. It flew in the face-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- JDJosh Dubin
... of, you know-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JDJosh Dubin
... um, Father Knows Best.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
- JDJosh Dubin
It flew in the face of what white America was trying to instill as a value system that should be followed by all people without question for all time.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- JDJosh Dubin
And people started to say, "What the fuck is this about?"
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JDJosh Dubin
"I want to explore the messiness and the, um, the gray areas of what it means to exist as a human being."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JDJosh Dubin
And that expression, um, whether it was Richard Nixon (laughs) or the people around him that got their backs up, um, you know? So if you are a student of history and, um, you start to understand sort of why we're here rather than just looking here and forward, I think these things for me are a little bit easier to understand, um, when somebody comes at me and calls me a race baiter for the work that I do because I talk about the problem of race. I understand that that's borne out of ignorance, and I don't mean ignorance like you're a dummy. I mean ignorance like you're-
- JRJoe Rogan
You're not, you don't have access to the information.
- JDJosh Dubin
Yeah, or, or you chose not to have access to it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Your perspective is incorrect.
- JDJosh Dubin
Read Ta-Nehisi Coates's book, Between the World and Me. It's a fascinating fucking tale. It's a letter written from this, you know, Black man to his 15-year-old son, and it is, um, it's a life-altering book for me because it puts you into his soul of what it has been like to grow up as a Black man in this country. And, um, it- it- it stops me in my tracks when I think about it, when I talk about it, because it's like the only way that we can get to a more common understanding is to, you know, I think to read books like that and to talk to people. And if you're so closed off and close-minded... And again, I- I keep on sort of adding this disclaimer, and maybe this is my, my aversion to, like, getting attacked. I am not excusing if Sheldon did this. I just think that, um, it's not so simple as, "Oh, you let some guy, you helped some guy get out and get re-sentenced, and look what he did, and fuck all these people, and fuck your movement." Okay, you're entitled to that opinion. That's where I leave it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, you can't listen to those people. You just... You know what you're doing. You're smart. You can't listen.
- JDJosh Dubin
Well-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's just, you're gonna have those people. They're, they're always gonna exist.... there's always gonna be people with, um, limited information perspective, you know. And limited information people sometimes are the loudest and, uh, the most vocal about it. And, and also the ones who are least willing to objectively assess how they came to the conclusions that they're so vocal and loud about. You know, limited information people, that's a, that's a big ... I mean, that's why, um, clickbait headlines work.
- JDJosh Dubin
Well, look, I mean-
- JRJoe Rogan
People love that shit.
- JDJosh Dubin
... that's why you get attacked sometimes by, you know ... You don't know about it because you don't read it. (laughs)
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
(laughs) …
- JDJosh Dubin
that is sitting in judgment of whether or not these four men that I'm gonna tell you about in a moment, right before the election, for him to become DA, gets indicted. He gets indicted for allegedly, like, harassing a former employee and then trying to bribe her not to file a complaint against him, something like that. Right before the election. And all of a sudden, he is now embroiled in this, he loses the election a couple of weeks ago, and he is now, finds himself wrongful- according to him, wrongfully accused of a crime he didn't commit. Well, my client, um, is a na- guy by the name of John Edwards and there were four guys. This is in Lorain, Ohio. Lorain County, Ohio. It's John Edwards, Lenworth Edwards, Benson Davis and a guy named Al Cleveland. New York guys, um, in the early 90s who were selling drugs in Ohio. They were going back and forth from Ohio to New York. And one morning, um, a man by the name of Epps is found dead in the street. His roommate is found about seven hours later, a woman named Marcia Blakely, um, dumped in an alley, um, behind a shopping center. The case is cold for a month. The police have hit dead ends. They have nowhere to go with the case. The prosecutor's office offers a $2,000 reward for anyone with information about the case. Well, didn't you know that the next day, a man by the name of William Avery Sr. walks into the Lan- the Lorain County prosecutor's office, they sit him down with the police and he says, "I have information about the case." Now, this guy William Avery Sr. was a known informant. The police knew him. He had come and tried to give information about other cases, didn't pan out. He was also a drug addict and they sit with him for over an hour and they say to him, "E- everything you're telling us has been in the papers. So you're not giving us anything new here." He shows up the next day with his son, William Avery Jr., and he says he witnessed the murder. So William Avery Jr. talks to the police. At the end of that interview, he goes, "What about the reward money?" And the officer says, "Let's turn the tape recorder off and let's talk about that." They tell him, "We're not giving you the reward money because now you're telling us that information that's been in the papers and all you're telling us is that you saw Marcia Blakely assaulted in an apartment and you're not telling us anything about the murder." The very next day, he shows up and says that Al Cleveland told him that he murdered Marcia Blakely. So let's put a bookmark in it, 'cause I decided I wanted to do something a little bit different today. Um, at the end of the episode, I'm gonna give you a Twitter account-I've submitted, today, a 40-page submission, all of the exhibits that are mentioned in that submission to the Lorain County prosecutor, his name is JD Tomlinson. So now, I'm going to invite the public, before you go writing a letter to him or calling him, you read the submission and look at the exhibits yourself, because what often happens is that in these reinvestigations, prosecutors' offices have something called a Conviction Integrity Unit where they say they'll reinvestigate the case, and the very first thing they make you do is sign a no media agreement that you won't go to the media, 'cause the last thing they want you to do is what I just did, is to talk about the case publicly. So we're not in a Conviction Integrity Unit, we're trying to appeal to a prosecutor, JD Tomlinson, who from what I understand has told Al Cleveland's wife, 'cause I've spoken to her, her name is Roberta, great woman, came up to her in the summer at a barbecue and said, "When I was a law student, I sat in on your husband's trial and it always bothered me and I want you to come in and have your lawyers come in, I'm gonna do the right thing." And now that he's been indicted, he has gone silent. I haven't heard from him. I've texted him, I see he reads my messages because he has read receipts on-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- JDJosh Dubin
... and I guess he doesn't know that. Um, and I've asked him for his time. I think in his wildest dreams he probably never could have imagined that the case was gonna now become national news. Um, he has between now and December 31st to do the right thing and exonerate them. The incoming DA would never do it, I don't think, from what I've heard. So I'm gonna invite the public and I'll give you the link at the end and I wanna tell you the rest of the story, um, because some of the things I tell you, you're gonna say, "Come on. That can't be true." So I have the exhibits sitting in a folder for everybody to read, but, um, you know, the... I think that the justice system has been weaponized against JD Tomlinson because he was coming up for re-election, there's all sorts of, like, personal animosity between him and the guy that just got elected. There's allegations, at least, that the guy that just got elected helped, you know, was somehow involved in, um, you know, getting him indicted by a special prosecutor. I don't know if it's true or not, but it doesn't just happen on the big national stage.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JDJosh Dubin
It happens all over the place and you just don't always hear about it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, I think the fact that it happened on the big national stage the way it did, and not just the case of the hush money, but also the case of, uh, Mar-a-Lago being overvalued, which is preposterous. That was one of the most ridiculous ones. They, they listed it what, $17, $18 million? I would buy five of those if they were available for $18 million. Do you know how much money you would make for that kind of property?
- JDJosh Dubin
Have you e- have you ever been to this place?
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- JDJosh Dubin
It's... I've been there a bunch.
- JRJoe Rogan
I've seen it.
- JDJosh Dubin
It's fucking... it's magnificent.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JDJosh Dubin
You walk in there and you feel like, you know, Marjorie Post bought it and had it design- it's magnificent.
- JRJoe Rogan
Forbes, I think, had valued it between $700 million and $900 million. Is that true? Find out what- what the valuation was. But, like, independently, before all this shit, it had been valued v- and I think Trump valued it over a billion, which of course he's gonna do.
- JDJosh Dubin
And he's doing it to the bank.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JDJosh Dubin
Right? Trying to get a loan.
- JRJoe Rogan
But not only that, paid the loan off with interest, everything was fine, n- nobody... there's zero victims involved in this, and the fact that they want to say that it was actually... So what does it say here? Okay, 350, okay. So the club had revenues of $25.1 million for the calendar year of 2017, 22 in 2018, and 21 in 2019. 2020 to 2022, Forbes estimated the value of the estate around $350 million. I think Trump jacked it way higher than that and I think... I, I read somewhere that someone had said between seven and nine if you could... like, what a real estate evaluation would be. Like, what it's actually worth in the state that it's at. I think there was an issue though that it, it was, uh, wasn't it, like, listed as a national historic landmark or something like that, Jamie?
- JDJosh Dubin
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, so then you really can't do anything to it which devalues it somewhat, but still.
- JDJosh Dubin
I would think... listen.
- JRJoe Rogan
18 million is fucking crazy.
- JDJosh Dubin
There's no property like that anywhere. Um, you feel like you're in Europe when you're there. Um, it is, it is a magnificent place and has some of the best food in Florida (laughs) . Um, so I don't... and I don't know that... part of the valuation of something like that seems to me to be a bit subjective. It's now the home, um, of the sitting two-time President of the United States, um, so yeah, but putting all that aside-
- JRJoe Rogan
Just the real estate alone.
- JDJosh Dubin
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
There was a, there was a lot that was sold next to it, or a home that was sold next to it, that was $50 million. So it's-
- JDJosh Dubin
And they... it's not just Mar-a-Lago. Across the street they have the beach club that sits right on the beach, but the point is is that they're meddling into... look, the bank could have said, "Well, we're gonna send an appraiser out there."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JDJosh Dubin
"And we're gonna determine whether or not we agree with you that it's worth that."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- 1:00:00 – 1:15:00
They just wanna win.…
- JDJosh Dubin
And the prosecutors sitting in the room were like... It wasn't that they weren't open-minded, they had their mind made up before we got in there. And you feel like saying, "Can't you just listen? Just listen."
- JRJoe Rogan
They just wanna win.
- JDJosh Dubin
Yeah, and I think that that, that is my problem with the two-party system, is that it's you're either on this side or you're on this side.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JDJosh Dubin
And there's no room for gray area between the issues.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JDJosh Dubin
Um, I have, I have a friend who... I mean, I- I learned so much during this election. I have a friend who is from Central America and, um, she was telling me, "I- I didn't... When Trump won the first time, I was furious. I couldn't stand the guy. Um, but when I came to this country, I saw my mom fight for citizenship and I saw what she had to go through the right way for me to get citizenship." And she said, "So I just can't vote for anybody but him." So everybody has their own reasons for doing it, it doesn't mean it has to be all about a cult of personality and you voting for your... Endorsing everything about the person, and I think that, you know, having that understanding that, you know, look, a lot of people that... I spoke to a friend of mine the other day that...... grandparents, m- you know, were in the Holocaust. His grandfather survived the Holocaust, and he voted for Trump because he's like, "I didn't feel protected by the other side." You know, as, as the grandson of people that went through that. So yeah, I just think that, um, watching a system get weaponized against someone in that, in that way, it's up-
- JRJoe Rogan
(sniffs)
- JDJosh Dubin
... it's upsetting and hopefully, like you said, it opens people's eyes to the fact that if they could do it to the president-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JDJosh Dubin
... it could happen to you.
- JRJoe Rogan
And it's so transparent. It was so transparent. Uh, it wasn't like he committed a murder and there's a lot of evidence pointing to the fact that he committed this murder. No, it was just a crime that didn't make any sense. You're gonna spend millions and millions of dollars prosecuting this crime. You're gonna parade it around for the whole world just so the Democrats can have this talking point, convicted felon. And you just see it re- repeated over and over again on MSNBC and CNN. These pundits wanna say, "Convicted felon."
- JDJosh Dubin
(sniffs)
- JRJoe Rogan
They wanna say that. Like, what's the fucking crime?
- JDJosh Dubin
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Tell me what the crime is. But when you, you want to get smart and, and s- spout off facts, why don't you tell me about the case? Because I've looked at it and it's fucking bananas. And if it happened to you, you'd be terrified, because they just made a crime, they made a felony out of something that's not a felony.
- JDJosh Dubin
I mean, listen, the, um ... If you're looking for logic and reasoning in any of these, you're not gonna find it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JDJosh Dubin
I mean, listen, I feel-
- JRJoe Rogan
Which is terrible.
- JDJosh Dubin
But I feel different about some of the cases. Like, I feel like the, you know, the election case is, had, has the most substance to it. You know, standing up and saying, "The election's rigged. The election's rigged." I have a problem with that. But, you know, o- obviously, more than half the country didn't have as much of a problem with it. And-
- JRJoe Rogan
But that was one of the ones that I said, uh, was the weirdest where he didn't have an answer ready. That you should have an answer ready right away.
- JDJosh Dubin
Well-
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, if I, if I had been accused of something that, like that and I strongly believed that the elections were rigged, I'd be able to give you facts right away.
- JDJosh Dubin
But he can't. M- well, who's his facts? Rudy Giuliani and-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, I don't-
- JDJosh Dubin
... and, and MyPillow?
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, that's the thing is like, I don't know how much time he has to investigate the cases, right? So, he has probably people telling him things, and who are these people and what is their evidence and what's their information? I, I would, I would hope that if you have something that's so controversial, like you ran for president, you believe you should've won, and they rigged it, you should have data that you could spit out at any cocktail party.
- JDJosh Dubin
But he's doing the same thing that you're talking about CNN and MSNBC do, which is just repeating the same thing. When people were standing in line voting a couple of weeks ago, he was saying the election was, this election was rigged.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- 1:15:00 – 1:30:00
(laughs) …
- JDJosh Dubin
you know, the reason, um, he- this woman gets beat is because Al Cleveland wanted him to work off a debt and beat her up, and he said no. So then, these four men bust in the door and th- this is how the crime occurs. It comes time for the first trial of these four men, and William Avery, Jr. shows up as the prosecution's star witness and he says, "I want $10,000 to testify. You gave me two? I want 10,000." And the prosecutors say, "We're not giving it to you." And he says, "Then I'm not testifying." The judge throws him in jail. He's in jail. He is cool on his heels, as they say, and he says, "You know, um, I made this whole thing up and I did it for the money," and no one believes him.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- JDJosh Dubin
And the judge says, (laughs) "What are you talking about? You're gonna get on the stand and testify." He says, "No, I'm not." And now he's facing potential perjury charges. The judge declares a mistrial. He then comes back with a new story to the prosecutors and says he witnessed the beating, he witnessed other details of the crime. He then goes on to testify at all four of their trials. After the first mistrial, they all get convicted. He then fully recants of his own volition. Says he got off drugs, says he wants to straighten out his life. He's in the process of cooperating with the FBI and the Secret Service. Now, these exhibits are sitting in this folder. You go to Twitter, it's Free the Ohio Four. Free the Ohio Four. There it is. And if you just click on that URL-
- JRJoe Rogan
Only one person's following it?
- JDJosh Dubin
Well, we-
- JRJoe Rogan
Zero followers?
- JDJosh Dubin
There was a, there was a, a reason because I didn't put it up until right before the episode today.
- JRJoe Rogan
I, I wanna be the first person to follow it.
- JDJosh Dubin
(laughs) So-
- JRJoe Rogan
I'm gonna get on, I'm gonna get on right now and be the first person to follow it.
- JDJosh Dubin
If you click on that, it will bring you to a folder with this 40-page submission that I put in today, and references to all of the exhibits. So here it, um ... This is my first page. "At the trials of Al Munday," that was his pseudonym, Al Cleveland's pseudonym. "At the trials of Al Munday and those charged with him, I testified under oath that I was an eyewitness to Alfred Cleveland, who I knew as Munday, along with other people I knew as JR Will and Shakim," who was John Edwards, "beat Marsha Blakeley at Floyd Epps' apartment and then murder her behind Charlie's Bar in Lorain. All of this was a lie. I never witnessed the murder of Marsha Blakeley, was not with her or Al Cleveland the night she was murdered. I only done it for the money and everything was not true." The entire case was built on this man. There's no forensic evidence, no eyewitnesses, nothing. So this is not to be believed.
- JRJoe Rogan
What was the reason why they thought this woman and that other man were murdered?
- JDJosh Dubin
They didn't know. They had no theory. Police had no theory.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's no connection to them?
- JDJosh Dubin
No connection to them.
- JRJoe Rogan
There was no theory, like drug deal gone wrong, something?
- JDJosh Dubin
Oh, oh, that was what they ended up coming up with, was that she was a drug user, Al Cleveland was a drug dealer. It must've been drugs gone wrong. So, something involving drugs gone wrong. So William Avery, Jr. is, after they get convicted, is working as an informant for the FBI and the Secret Service. Now, prior to this case, maybe this is how obtuse I am, I thought that the Secret Service's purview was the President, but apparently they have other investigative functions 'cause he was working on some food stamp scheme as an informant. The Secret Service tells the FBI, and the testimony is in that exhibit file. The Secret Service tells the FBI, "This guy, William Avery, Jr.? He's not to be trusted. He's lying to us and he's lying to us for money."... they contact the prosecutor, the FBI calls the prosecutor in Lorain County and says, "This guy, William Avery Jr., he used them as an informant in that case against these four men, he's a liar and he does this for money." So they end up getting Al Cleveland's lawyers, John Edwards' lawyers, Lenworth Edwards, Benson Davis, they end up getting an evidentiary hearing. And William Avery Jr. comes to testify. And he's coming to testify that I made the whole thing up and he s- in very exquisite detail, his father who obviously brought him there threatened his life, he was... sat him down and smoked crack with him to calm him down.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- JDJosh Dubin
You can't make this shit up. Wait till you read the affidavit. He sat him down-
- JRJoe Rogan
Smoked crack with a nig- ugh.
- JDJosh Dubin
... and smoked crack with him to calm him down.
- JRJoe Rogan
The fuck calms down from crack?
- JDJosh Dubin
And told them, "I need that reward money-"
- JRJoe Rogan
(smacks lips) Oh, my God.
- JDJosh Dubin
"... for my drug habit." He was a fucking junkie. So he needs the reward money and he gets his son to go in there. And it's obvious if you watch the, if you read the interrogation and his testimony that he's being led. They show him pictures of the apartment where this woman was allegedly beat. He's getting details wrong. They're, they're, um... You know, he changed his story. He was telling conflicting versions of the story. So at these post-conviction hearings where these men should have all been exonerated, he gets on the stand and before he testifies, the judge says to him, "Have you been advised, um, do you have an attorney?" He said, "I don't think I need an attorney." And he tells William Avery Jr., "Well, you need an attorney. We're going to appoint you an attorney because you're about to perjure yourself because you either did one of two things, you either lied and that put four men in prison or you're about to lie now to set them free. Either way, you've lied under oath." Think about the mind fuck of this. So this guy is coming to clear his conscience and the judge threatens him with prosecution. So he gets an appointed attorney and they go and ask the prosecutor, "Will you give him immunity so he can tell the truth?" They say no. His defense attorney asks the judge, "Will you give him immunity so he can tell the truth?" And the judge says no.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, God.
- JDJosh Dubin
And they tell him, "We're gonna charge you with perjury if you tell the truth."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- JDJosh Dubin
He walks out of the courthouse, okay, after pleading the Fifth and is interviewed by the local paper walking out of the courthouse, that's in the exhibits, and he says, "They're all innocent. I made the whole thing up. I've been trying to tell the truth here, but I can't go to jail for whatever time they're going to give me." So here you have a guy that is the son of a known junkie. He has been... The prosecutors in this, in Lorain County have told, um, have been told by the FBI that he's not reliable, that he makes things up just to get money. He's been caught in lie after lie after lie. And now he comes and wants to tell the truth and set these men free. And the crazy... And, and this judge puts him in this situation where he's, he can't tell the truth or else he's going to get prosecuted. This is what happens in this country. This is the kind of thing that... And these four men, two of them are out, two of them are serving life sentences. Al Cleveland's wife, Roberta Cleveland, saw this DA and he said he was going to do the right thing. He knew that the case was problematic. And now because he's worried about his own indictment, you know, he's not responding. So what we're asking for is your listeners to go through and read this very detailed submission that I've made along with the Ohio Innocence Project, the Ohio Public Defenders, um, and a great attorney, um, by the name of Kim Correll, who you actually, uh, m-... you actually had a good laugh over one time, oddly enough, because she was at the White House when Kanye West was there.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- 1:30:00 – 1:31:43
Section 7
- JDJosh Dubin
going through some, um, serious personal issues being under indictment, running for re-election. Um, this is an easy thing. This is just doing the right thing. Um, there is no way that you could look at this evidence ... And this is why I think it's a good idea for ... Rather than give, uh, a snapshot of a case and, um, have to rely on some process with these conviction integrity units behind closed doors where they run the reinvestigation, I like the public being able to get invested and look at the evidence themselves. Everyone loves a true crime story, um, so why not, as part of this, let the public help make the case? And when they write a letter, they'll do it more forcefully. Or they call him and say, "How could you ignore this?" So, um, I would just encourage everyone to go on Twitter and go to FreeTheOhio4 and look at the evidence. And if you ever ... I've gotten so many reach outs, "How can I make a difference? What can I do to make a difference?" This is it. You can write, you can call. Um, you know, his, his cell phone number is online because he was running for re-election. You know, let him know that the public is watching and expecting him to do the right thing. Um, you know, that's the, the, the best use I feel like I can make of publicly advocating for change, is to help bring in the public and, and give them a vested interest in trying to help.
Episode duration: 2:15:04
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