there from the fact 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 at his door. it was tony klann. and then i left when tony left. because 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 arrested and indicted for reportedly raping chris. he spent a few weeks in jail before being released on bond. but when it was time for stoney s pretrial hearing, chris missed the court date.
else, then i ll do that. chris, who is legally blind and was born with a physical disability on the left side of his body, was 22 years old and tony klann s roommate back 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 wasn t into that. and he was a little bit more threatening. he started pulling my hair and some hands-on stuff. and and that s how that happened. and there was some fear issues
and i misread the court date, or memorized the wrong date. and so i called them. and 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.
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 felt good about his chances of getting a new trial. but the decision would not come quickly. two years. judge o malley took two years to rule. finally, in march 2006, the judge released her decision. she overturned my case. she granted me my retrial. what i wanted all along. i wanted my day in court. she said, look, no reasonable jury would have convicted him if it had heard this evidence.
but to joe d ambrosio s defense team it seemed very connected. tony klann was the only eyewitness that was called by either side for that trial. the only eyewitness suddenly ends up killed and the case goes away. to us, that was a far better motive and opportunity than the prosecution had theorized. in order to prove their theory, joe s team would need to interview the alleged rape victim. but chris longenecker 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 joe 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