mention. he said that tony klann had told him, richard, that he had witnessed a rape in the apartment building where he lived. i understood that there was going to be a trial and tony was going to be a witness for that. after we hung up, i felt like i needed to share that information with neil. martin told me that. and i went down to the justice center. i pulled anthony klann s file. and i discovered that he indeed had witnessed a rape and that the rape victim was a young man by the name of christopher longenecker. you don t really hear about male on male rape all that often. and to me that suggests a whole other degree of violence. but then it went a step further because it was that the man who had been arrested for the rape was stoney lewis. the same stoney lewis who had first tipped off police that
to the defense attorneys and that s what they would get. the sixth amendment protects your right to an attorney. the right is no good if your attorney doesn t have the information. in addition to ohio s draconian discovery laws, neil would also learn that the prosecutor in joe s case, carmen marino, had his own controversial reputation. with carmen marino there are ten cases where he had been reprimanded by the courts. i summarized it as cheating to win. get a conviction at all costs seemed to be the approach. and let the truth fall where it may. in fact, in the tony klann murder case marino was cited by the ohio supreme court for prosecutorial misconduct in the trial of joe s co-defendant, mike keenan. i gave a good closing argument. and i ended by taking this big bowie knife and stabbing it in the evidence desk. that s the prosecutorial misconduct tt was alleged. and my argument is you re
record that event was in one volume. so i thought, whoa. something is not right. in addition to being a priest and a lawyer, neil was a registered nurse with 15 years experience in critical care. it s one of those like if you re a believer it s a god moment. a priest who was an r.n. and an attorney. where did that come from? and he shows up right at joe s cell. the thing that struck me right away was the coroner s testimony. anthony klann had sustained a very significant and deep neck wound from ear to ear. that neck wound opened up two large holes in anthony s trachea. but at trial state eyewitness eddie espinoza claimed he heard tony klann scream for mercy after his throat had been slit. i worked with trachea patients every day. so i knew if you could find the
could happen. i must have been angry for months. and then, one day, i was like, you know what? i m sick and tired of this. i have to start learning the law. because i knew if i went back for a retrial i could prove that i didn t do this. as father neil kookoothe looked into joe d ambrosio s case, he became suspicious that prosecutors had not told joe s defense team everything they knew about the murder of tony klann. i felt from the neck wound to the scene at the crime, it seemed like at every other turn there was more that was being discovered. neil was also shocked to learn that in 1988 ohio law did not require the state authorities to share all their evidence with defendants. what would happen back in those days is that the prosecutor would look at their files and they would determine what to hand over or to reveal
death row. so a catholic priest and former lawyer named neil kookoothe decided to attend her funeral on joe s behalf. i asked the corrections officers, would you let me talk with joe for just a few minutes so that i can walk him through his mother s funeral. and while joe was very appreciative of it, it was obvious that my goal for that meeting and his goal were not the same. i m like, oh, man. a real human being i can talk to. i need help. nobody will help me. i didn t do this. and i was very resistant to doing that. i knew that these death row cases were immense cases. 5, 10, 15 volumes long. i m like no, it s one volume big. that s all it is. one volume? that s where the attorney of him kicked in. i was just stunned that a man could be brought to trial for his life and be convicted in the amount of space it took to