in order to prove their theory, joe s team would need to interview the alleged rape victim. that chris longencker had vanished without a trace. the new discoveries in joe s case caught the attention of one of the most prominent law firms in town, jones day, which agreed to fight for him on a pro bono basis. it was like night and day. it went from i have two appeals left and then they re going to murder me to now i have neil and all these resources from the world s third-largest law firm backing me up. armed with the fact that prosecutor carmen marino had withheld information, joe s team presented a sweeping discovery request to the federal court. to me, it seemed like a logical question. what else is in there? meanwhile, the alleged
there was some fear issues there from from the fact that he had a firearm in his apartment. and the whole time that i was being assaulted, i told him, this is not consensual. this is rape. chris says just after the rape, tony klann showed up at stoney s apartment. there was a knock on his door. it was tony klann. then i left when tony left. i figured that was my way out. i told him that paul lewis raped me. and sort of freaked out a little bit. and then i went to the police department and filed a report. soon after, stoney was arrest asked indicted for reportedly raping chris. he spend a few weeks in jail before being released on bond. when it was time for stoney s pretrial hearing, chris missed the court date. and i misread the court date,
or memorized the wrong date. so, i called them. that s when they told me that i was a day late. and that paul lewis went free. after tony s murder, chris called the police and mentioned the connection to the earlier rape case. i never accused paul lewis of murdering tony klann. i just told someone of authority that all the people in both cases know one another. but i guess they paid no attention to that. when you hear chris longenecker tell the story about what happened to him and who paul lewis really is based on that event, then you start to imagine that this is a guy who could have orchestrated this type of crime. following the hearing, joe
chris, who is legally blind and born with a physical disability on the left side of his body, was 22 years old and tony klann s roommate in 1988. he told the court what happened one evening when he was hanging around with his downstairs neighbor, stoney lewis. we went back to his place to hang out. and decided to make something to eat, i guess. and he started pressing up against me and crap. and i was like, dude, what the hell are you doing? i told him i was not into that. and he was a little more threatening. he started pulling my hair. some hands-on stuff. and and that happened and
said they heard someone say, let s dump the body in the basement. joe and his lawyers believed that at the very least, the withheld evidence provided reasonable doubt the crime could have happened differently than the state presented at trial. in july 2004, joe s team went before judge o malley to obtain a new trial. we put up all our witnesses. the newly discovered people, the newly discovered evidence. by far the most powerful witness at the hearing was chris longencker, stoney lewis alleged rape victim who had been found living in florida. neil convinced chris his testimony could save joe s life. i wasn t able to do anything for tony because so, i figured, if i could help someone else, then i ll do that.