Legal AF by MeidasTouch - SPECIAL EDITION: REAL Law & Order; Prosecuting Predator Harvey Weinstein | Legal AF

Episode Date: June 9, 2022

The midweek edition of LegalAF x MeidasTouch, the top-rated podcast covering law and politics, is anchored by national trial attorney and strategist, Michael Popok and former prosecutor and leading criminal defense attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo. On this week’s special episode, KFA interviews top Manhattan DA sex crimes prosecutor Joan Illuzzi Orbon to discuss and have a rare inside look into two landmark prosecutions of the Manhattan DA’s office: the successful prosecution of Harvey Weinstein; and the infamous “cold case” of the killer of 6 year old Etan Patz, in 1979, who’s body was never found, both leading to convictions. Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 Zoomed In: https://pod.link/1580828633 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the special edition of Legal AF. This is the midweek edition. I'm your host Karen Friedman Agnifalo and I'm thrilled here to have my friend and former colleague, Joan Alluzzi Orbán. Joan was a prosecutor at the Manhattan D.A.'s office for 33 years. Was it Joan? Yes, 33. And so I've worked with Joan for a very, very long time. And John is, I used to call part of the thoroughbred race forces of the Manhattan D.A.'s office. She was one of the go-to trial attorneys

when you had a really serious case or a really big case. She tried some of the biggest cases in the office that I'm excited that she's agreed to be here to talk to us about. Hi, John. Welcome. Hi, Joan, welcome. Hi, Karen, Harry you. Karen, for those people who don't know, was my boss at the Manhattan DA's office, and one could ask for a better supervisor and boss.

She not only was brilliant, but also gave people the freedom to think for themselves and encourage people to soar in whatever capacity they can at their job. Well, it's very, very nice of you, but today's about you, not about me. And so when I'm thinking about sort of talking to Joan and talking to you about your incredible career, there's been so many cases that you've tried and won,

that it was hard to decide which ones to choose from. And so the two cases that come to mind that were really, at least to me, just incredible victories and incredible trials that you did, investigations and trials. One was the, I guess it was 50 year old case involving Aeton Pates. There was this young boy named Aeton Pates who in 1972 went missing and he was, he started the the Missing Children Act and the sort of movement and anyone who saw who remembers children on milk cartons that started from the Aeton Pates case here in Manhattan. And that case went cold for the better part of, since 1972, they never could solve the case, right, John? Yeah, it was actually 79, but since 79 until a DA advance came in

and asked to staff to re-examine and look into the case, it was very little to no activity. And how old was he? Do you remember when he went missing? Six years old. He was born in 1972 and went missing in 1979. His first day walking to school, right? His first day walking to the bus stop by himself, which was only a block away in front of a little bodega. Yeah, so if I remember correctly, there was a civil case against a kind of notorious child molester, Jose Ramo's, I believe, right? Yes.

And they thought he was the main suspect. But then when you and the Manhattan D.A.'s office, when we all engaged in this investigation, why don't you tell everybody sort of what happened and how it ended? So Jose Raymos was a likely suspect. He was a known pedophile who frequented the area where a Tom went missing. So he was a likely suspect, but when you really examine the evidence against him, it was like a house of cards. It wasn't as solid as people had always assumed because he just sort of fit the profile of somebody who would have done this.

And it was really crazy and said crazy things, but none of which was that he had killed a time. And then what happened is that the DA looked into it again, asked the police department to look into it again. And there was one person who was an interest in the case, who the police felt that they had never fully examined and explored a certain area of his house. So they actually began to dig in the basement of a carpenter who worked on the block and who had given Aetana dollars to help him paint, quote, unquote, paint the day before.

And while they were doing that, one of the relatives of Pedro Hernandez, the person who actually kidnapped and killed Aetana, called up and said, I've been trying to tell people for years. My son, my brother-in-law did this. He was working at the Go-Dega. He was very young. He was in his late teens. And he saw this beautiful boy. And he brought him down to the basement. He had given various versions of why he did it, but he strangled him to death, put him in a plastic bag, put him in a box, and brought him approximately a block away to a basement area in the box after he was dead. And how was that solved?

I mean, obviously, the brother-in-law came forward and said, I think this is my brother-in-law, but what happened to Dan bringing a case that you could bring to trial? Well, once we started looking into it, we examined the people who this man had been spoken to for years. And it turns out this man was telling people what he had done.

It was a little bit vague at times, and he wasn't exactly doing it to get caught but war relieving his conscious and then the police met with him and spoke to him and he fully confessed. He's fully confessed and everything that he said Karen was bore out by the facts. He had said he put it down, the boxed out of basement steps but that a gate had been moved and we found the man who moved the gate in 1981, something that this, you know, that Pedro Hernandez would have never known, because he left the area, never to come back after this happened.

Wow. So, I think this is kind of an important, interesting thing that people would love to hear more about, which is, you know, just the idea that a real, a reinvestigation isn't just, you know, we sort of do a reinvestigation of the guy that everyone thought did it. And I think books were written about Jose Ramos being the killer and that there was this whole, if I remember correctly, there was this whole, like people had what they would call evidence

that Jose Ramas did it. And I think there was even a civil suit where he was declared in a civil court as the perpetrator of the in a wrongful death action. Like there are a lot of litigation over the years went into Jose Ramas. And I think what's really fascinating is prosecutors, when they, when you guys and us, I guess, you know, reinvestigate a case,

it's not, you really, really start fresh. You don't have any preconceived notions. You don't have any sort of, I'm going to prove that, that Jose Ramos did it. Instead, we're going to look and see, it's just start the investigation over again. And I think that's fascinating. Let's talk a little bit about the trial.

So there was more than one trial, right? Yeah, sadly, we tried that this twice. Why is that? The first time it was 11 to 1 for conviction against Pedro Hernandez. And the second time there was a conviction against Pedro Hernandez. What's interesting, Karen, is that to get back

to what you were just saying is that Mr. Moltenko, who of course was the DA for many, many years prior to our birth. Yes. He had the information that everyone else did about Jose Ramos and declined to prosecute him. He knew it just wasn't enough. It just wasn't enough. It just wasn't enough. So I was really happy to look at it with fresh eyes. There were thousands and thousands of police reports

and FBI reports that we really had to comb through. We had a wonderful team. And I had fresh eyes because of course I wasn't even in the office at the time. I was in high school when A-Ton disappeared. Yeah, I understand. And so tell us a little bit about kind of what goes into a trial that old. I mean, there wasn't, there was no DNA,

there was no video, there was, I mean, there was nothing right that you have today. How do you, and you talked about calling the guy who put the gate in from 1988, whatever you were saying about the gate guy. Like tell us a little bit how you try a case and what kind of evidence you put in in a case that is that old. That's a, that's, it's very interesting. It really is because what you do is you get, you gather all of the information, all of the information about what happened that day.

And then it's a lot like storytelling. And I don't mean storytelling because it's like it's fake, it's a story. I just mean in storytelling, in a way that jurors can understand one progress to another and one step to another and to really paint the scene of what happened, particularly when it was such a long time ago. Remember, there were no traffic cams.

There were no videos to present. Aside from his own confession, there wasn't technology. There was no cell sites. So when you think about all the things we have, the tools we have today to present to jurors, it's quite vastly different than the way we have tried this case. This case is about the people. This case was going back and reaching back all those many years late before and finding

some people who remember certain things, finding people who were documented as going certain places and saying certain things. And it was remarkable about how great people's memories were, how consistent they were with what they remembered before, how important it was, right, because you'll forget the face of the person maybe who brings the groceries tonight, because it's a non-event. But if you did something on the cusp and right before a child witnessing and it was traumatic for you, you'll remember trauma is stored in a different part of the brain. And so we were able to bring back a lot of people who really had great concrete,

memories and evidence about what happened. So it's a little bit like putting a puzzle together. That's exactly right. I mean, I had a list of a hundred people who I thought could completely and fully tell the story and then eliminated a few that I thought were repetitive. But for the most part we called dozens and dozens of people because we needed the jury to know everything that we knew about this case. And you also had to... one of the things I thought was interesting about your trial, was you had to disprove certain things, right? You had to disprove. Sure. Go ahead.

Tell them the things you had to disprove. Well, you know, we had to disprove the fact that Jose Ramos was seen in that area that day, that Jose Ramos actually committed this crime. Well, what he said was just sort of nonsense or cryptic and had nothing really to do with A-Ton. So we had to disprove that he was the person of interest and say, although he fit the profile, it was not so likely suspect. It just wasn't. Was that in your primary case that you did that or was that on rebuttal?

Oh, it was both. It was both. Didn't you also have to weren't there's didn't you have to prove that Aiton was dead? I mean, or that he wasn't just sort of run away or missing and that because they weren't their sightings of people who thought had sightings and didn't you have to also, wasn't that a part of this as well? For sure, that's exactly correct, right? Because you have to prove that crime was committed at all, and if H.O.M. was still alive, obviously, the crime was committed. So we had to explore some of the more interesting or somewhat realistic options of people who said they had seen A-Ton or that they had,

they were A-Ton or they thought they knew A-Ton, you know, it was sad because, you know, we get phone calls from people who would say, I just saw him in the grocery store and he's such a beautiful little boy and they're calling us 30 years later. Not appreciating or not thinking about the fact that A. Ton would no longer be a child. He would be an adult. Did you take someone's DNA? Didn't you do a DNA test if someone who thought he might be A. Ton or? There was there was a person who unfortunately was mentally ill who believed he was

A-ton for many, many years and in order to prove to him that he wasn't A-ton I think that there was a DNA sample taken. So Pedro Hernandez was convicted, right, and got 25 to life. Is that right? Yes, that's correct. Yeah, finally bringing some sense of closure and relief to that poor family that truly never gave up on their child, never. They never gave up. They suffered so badly. I mean, first of all, the loss of a child is something that no parent ever gets over.

And difficult to know when and how they could take their next step. But this was worse because they didn't know. Was their child being abused? Was their child change to a radiator somewhere? Was their child sex trafficked? They had no idea what happened to this poor child. And so every day was a living nightmare. They'd go to sleep and wake up in the same nightmare.

And so- And they made their phone on. Did They kept the same phone number, right? Just in case he would call, you know, same address, kept the same apartment. After all of our trial and everything was done and said and done, they were finally able to move on with their lives. Unfortunately, Julie, for a very short period of time, she died about a year after the verdict. Yes. So tragic. But you know what, Joan, you and Sy Vance, frankly, really brought just closure to this family that never got it before. And so it was just that

it was such a meaningful, incredible prosecution. So, I had a lot of help, right? We had Joel Simon who was such an experienced and thoughtful DA. He did a masterful job with the psychiatric evidence in the case of that second round. We had Penny Brady who was also just a wonderful and brilliant partner, James Vinnacore. I mean, I can go on and on. There are just so many people to thank. That's great.

That's really great. Love them all, great lawyers. So moving on to a case that I think happened a little more recently that has really captured the nation, the fascination of the nation, and that's against Harvey Weinstein. So I'd love to talk about that. That was a case that in 2017, dozens of women came forward and reported that he had sexually assaulted them.

And I think in 2018, he was arrested in New York. And Joan was the lead prosecutor on the case. I'm sure she'll talk about her team because she's so humble. She never takes credit for anything. But Joan, you were the lead prosecutor on the case. I'm sure she'll talk about her team because she's so humble. She never takes credit for anything. But, you know, Joan, you were the lead prosecutor in the case and you brought it to a successful, a successful resolution. And just last week, the trial was upheld on appeal. And, you know, there were some really kind of edgy sort of walking a fine line calls made in that case. So I'm sure you breathed a sigh of relief that it was upheld on

on appeal. But why don't you tell us a little bit about that case, about the trial, and what that was like, and what that meant to you? Yes, unfortunately, I didn't have the benefit of your council on that trial. And I don't think we have since really ever spoken about it. I had a wonderful team there too, just incredible people like Harriet Galvin and Megan Has they just won as a brilliant writer.

The other one is just a stick of dynamite in a courtroom. Harvey had great counsel. He had Adana, Ratuno, he had Damon Chironis, he had author Adala and Barry Kammons in the Diana Fobby. He really had a terrific team as well, so he certainly got his day in court. The thing about the trial though is that I could tell you that really just strikes me. Is that I think it's an awakening for people, it's an education for a jury to know that there are really no perfect victims. Who's a perfect victim of a sexual assault? No one. Nobody knows quite what to do. It takes a while for the brain to absorb what's even happened to them. Most people, vast majority people, are raped by an acquaintance, not by a stranger.

There are, of course, those rare instances where you hear that women are attacked on the street and what have you. Those are the exceptions, not the rule. Most women are raped by somebody that they know, sometimes are attacked on the street and what have you. Those are the exceptions, not the rule. Most women are raped by somebody that they know. Sometimes are relative, sometimes they're own partner. Sometimes it ex-partner, and a business associate. Someone in authority, there's a power dynamic that's often there, like a priest or a teacher

or a boss at work. And so women are traumatized by it. And that trauma translates to them thinking to themselves, did this actually just happen to me? What was this? What do I do about it? What if I do sort of shout out what just happened to me? What will the implications in my own life be?

Will I be fired? Will I be dismissed as crazy? Will I be blacklisted? That's what the women here were afraid of. Harvey Weinstein was a powerful person in Hollywood. And so it was important for us to acknowledge the fact that women have a way to be able to relate to a jury and to prove their case without even so much a stitch of physical evidence.

It's important to educate jurors on the impact of Rape trauma. And so we did a few things that were sort of thinking outside the box here. And that was number one, we called an expert in rape trauma, a psychiatrist who had treated many, many victims of rape and rapists themselves in treating them and figuring out like, you know, what makes people tick and what makes people act in this way. So she was able to educate the jury on issues like, you think that a rape victim doesn't then reconnect with her rapist because they do. A lot of women so traumatized are looking to put it in the rearview mirror in any way they can. And they think by just

sort of having some kind of relationship with their rapist that this will be a way for them to be able to normalize the behavior. I don't have to be so traumatized by this. Maybe this wasn't so horrible, but in the end, it pushes it down for a little while and then it constantly is bubbling up, affecting the future of all their other would be healthier relationships.

So that's one thing women do. The other thing is that women don't count many, many times. Like I said, there's so many things that roll into someone's head. Will I be believed? Do I have physical evidence? What is, you know, what this person believed over me? Was anything in my behavior that is now going to be scrutinized. When you're the victim of a rape in an open trial and court, you're being sort of scrutinized.

Your whole life is exposed. It takes a brave person to say, I know my truth and I'm going to speak truth to power. And in doing so, it actually is the most healing thing they can do to take their next step in life and get past it in whatever way they can. So I really applaud the women who came forward. They came forward and they and particularly one who just said, look, I know I'm not a perfect victim. This is the way I dealt with this terrible, terrible trauma in my life. I dealt with the best way I could, but I'm here to tell you this man raised me. And it was just so touching. How many charged victims were in your case? And then how many so tell everybody what Mollano is and how many Malino victims.

So in the end, he was convicted of sexual assault against two women, but we were able to charge him with sexual predatory based upon the rape, the brutal rape of a woman years and years earlier. He was acquitted about, he was acquitted on that charge, but I think, of course, you don't know what's in the jury's mind, right? But I think he was acquitted of that charge because they figured it was just so, so long in the past, but it was nevertheless palpable. And I think that that woman's testimony significantly contributed to, to what happened. So how did she feel, by the way?

Did you talk to her after the verdict that he wasn't found guilty of her? I mean, yes, he found guilty and he's going to go to prison. But did that impact her at all, that he wasn't, that they didn't find him guilty of? I think she was terribly disappointed because she felt, as though it followed her for many, many years.

And she was so completely and utterly innocent because she felt as though it followed her for many, many years. And she was so completely and utterly innocent and terrible thing that happened to her, but she's strong and she's smart and she truly feels good about herself to have given and contributed, to have spoken up so that other women don't have to go through the same thing.

And that was what she contributed. But there are also women. So when you speak about malino, right? Malino is other acts, other bad acts, that somehow we inform what happened in the charge tax, right? So it could be the person's intent. It can be lack of a mistake. It could be modus operandi.

There is no modus operandi in sexual assaults and that the case law is clear there. But here, we were able to do two things. Bring up instances where Mr. Weinstein was sexually offensive and assaultive to the people we charged in other instances. And we're able to, the court allowed us to call three women who were not charged because they were out of the statute of limitations that we couldn't charge at case, but who would

say that they were also sexually assaulted. Not to show that he had a modus operandi But to show instead that he knew he did not have consent None of these sexual assaults was a quid pro quo for getting a head in a film or getting a part or or getting Successful and he knew it. He knew it. He was intimidating and brutal to people and he didn't care about the effect it had on them. So we're able to call those three women in addition to talking about other instances with the women who were charged. So let me, so let me get this straight. So with the women who were charged, there were certain, there were certain There were certain rapes that you were able to charge as separate counts in the indictment like on this date.

He was a bully raped her on that date. He was a bully raped her. But what you're saying is there were other instances of sexual assault that weren't charged either because they weren't in the jurisdiction of Manhattan or because they were beyond the statute of limitations because you can only prosecute the Manhattan A's office can only prosecute things that happened in Manhattan. So you're saying in order to bring out those other prior kind of bad acts that are uncharged, you needed to ask permission of the court in what's called a motion in lemonade, correct? Yes, that is correct. And you did that under a mollano theory. And that's correct. OK, and so mollano.

And also, and also rest gest say, which is basically a fancy way of saying to look at the whole picture, to look at the entire dynamic between two people. Yeah, let me ask you a question. There's a fine line between mollano evidence and this sort of proving intent through these other acts and then kind of crossing over the line of, you're really trying to show there's a propensity for this person to commit a crime, which obviously, you know, that's, we all know,

and anyone who watches even, you know, legal television knows, you can't, that's inadmissible. What is the, how do you thread that needle between overly prejudicial propensity evidence versus probative towards proving intent in a sexual assault case? How did you do that? Right. We certainly don't want the jurors to be confused that we're trying to show. Hey, listen, he raped, he did this on one day to one woman, so he must have done it to our charge victim. So we chose cases and instances where the facts were different. They didn't closely reflect exactly what he had done with the charged cases. So the people were different, the interaction and the location of the interactions were at times different.

But instead we showed something about him, what was in his mind, what was in his mind because let's face it, when two people are engaging in a sexual act, there is an issue of consent. How do we know someone's consenting? Well, there's a whole consent. How do we know someone's consenting? Well, there's a whole bunch of reasons why we know someone's consenting. He knew people were not consenting. He knew. One of the myths, one of the sexual assault myths

that I think mentioned in the decision that I think is really, you know, in the court decision that just came down is that women fight back. I was a sexual assault prosecutor for many, many, many years as well. Of course, they're not going to fight back. In addition to being raped, you're also going to be beaten and choked and punched and hurt in other ways. Of course, you're not going to necessarily.

When you know you're going to be overpowered by this person because they're physically, I mean, this Harvey Weinstein was much larger than his victims. That's what the decision, when I read the decision, that's one of the things they pointed out. He was much larger than them. Of course, they didn't fight back because they're going to lose, and so why add injury to injury? Well, they were certainly petrified. And a lot of people react differently than you would think on paper. You know, a victim would react. Women lose their voice.

They would try to scream and couldn't scream. And a lot of them would freak it. They were petrified because they thought, even if I fight him, how am I getting out of this place? You know is there is there someone else here that's gonna block me and like you said am I now going to Have a further irreparable harm done to myself and my body Then then what is happening now? But they were clear that they didn't want it. He was clear. He was forcing it and

And and so the charges go. What was the trial like? Because I mean there was media attention. I remember just going to work every morning and there'd just be cameras and trucks and lights and people and the media. You couldn't open a newspaper or anything without sort of seeing the intense media attention. Was this the intense media attention. I mean, was this the most media attention you ever had in the case or was Aiton Pates? What was the most case at the most media attention?

Was this it? I don't know. It's hard to say, but certainly the media attention here was great. There were people lined up in the whole way, is lined up to get into the courtroom. And that is generally unusual in our practice for people to be sort of, you know, an all the reporters to be in the hallway and what has to. So how do you deal with that? As a prosecutor.

I ignored it completely. You just tuned it out, right? You just tuned it out, right? Tuned it out. There are so many things going on in the well, which you know is, you know, where all the parties are seated in a jury and the judge and the court and the court officers in that box right in front of the courtroom.

So to me, there were so many things that I need to pay attention to go in the well that I sort of ignored what was going on behind me. Although I know that was very important to the women who testified that people came to support them. And to came to sort of cheer on is the wrong word, but to be there silently supporting them and giving them some confidence in what they had to do, the terrible test that they had to engage in. And I don't blame the defense lawyers at all.

They certainly put us through our places, which is exactly their job to do. So he had a very aggressive defense team which was fine with me and I think that he sat there at time's stone-faced. I don't know what was going on in his head. I don't know if he thought the whole thing was silly. I don't know if he thought that he certainly wasn't going to get convicted. But one day, Karen, was the brutal, raw honesty of these witnesses. And it just came in. It made a testimony. All it just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in.

And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And it's just came in. And I think that for sexual assault victims as difficult as it is to go forward and testify for them, they are then free. To whatever capacity you can be free at a terrible event, they were freed from this after they stood up for themselves. And did these survivors know each other before the trial?

No. And did they get to know each other during the trial? Well, we introduced them on the day of sentencing. We invited them to the DA's office and they were able to meet each other. Wow, that must have been powerful. Oh, really, really great. Really, just, I don't know, life and for me. How long was the jury out for?

That's a very good question. They were out overnight, and I don't remember how much longer, but it was maybe, it was, it was interably long. It was a terrible short either. And correct me. Correct me if I'm wrong. Bill Cosby was prosecuted for sexual assault. And there too, they put a mollano evidence in.

And wasn't that case reversed because of the mollano issue? No, no. No, people think it was reversed because the mollano issue absolutely since one of those people. No, it was reversed because a prior DA sort of insisted that Mr. Cosby testify about some of these events and

promised him immunity from criminal prosecution and so that immunity was said to have been indelible. I know that it is once again on appeal, but it had nothing to do with the melanolitis. And in fact, the same expert testified to the Cosby case that testified for us, Barbara's fabulous expert, articulate, and really reached the jury. That's great.

Well, congratulations on the conviction being upheld. Not I'm sure you know, not that you had any doubt I'm sure, but it's still got to be a little bit of a relief, right? Of course, the appellate division was very thoughtful. They examined carefully every single issue and and really stuck to the facts and the law. And I think in doing so, make people feel, be able to confidence in the law. That's for sure. So you were, the whole time I was there,

you were this great trial lawyer who tried so many amazing homicides and I don't think you ever lost a case, by the way. A lot, you had a lot of great success and great trials, but then you became a supervisor at the end. You became chief of the trial division, which is, I think, the best and hardest job in the office. How do I know? Because I had that job once, but you're you're the head of the unit that has about 350 to 400 lawyers in it that handles every single arrest made by the NYPD. Every for his for his sort of small is stealing a pack of gum to as high as murder or terrorism, sexual assault and everything in between.

What did you think about being a supervisor versus, you know, being the one to do it yourself? Like what was that like for you? I loved it. I loved it. It was another side of the things that I loved about being in the DA's office. I love the investigation. So to be able to listen to a set of facts and suggest 10 avenues of investigation was great. I got to know a lot of colleagues that I don't think I would have ever crossed paths with.

With I got to know aspects of the law that I hadn't dealt with myself and to work with people. I really just loved working with the fabulous lawyers with them in hand, DA's office. So you walked out when Siveance was no longer DA, right? Yes. So not that long ago, less than a year. And what are you doing now? So I am doing a few things. I believe it or not, I have an agent who I'm hoping

is able to get me more jobs and speaking jobs and what have you to further educate the public on what it is to be a prosecutor and what it is that we do. I also am a fellow with the Manhattan Institute, so I do a little writing for them. And lastly, Karen, I am trying to sort of land at a firm that will take me of council, where I could, and this is my greatest wish, where I could bring women in who have been sexually assaulted because it's not too late. They, the, you know, Governor Hocal has signed a bill

to Adult Survivors Act that has given a one-year look back on all sexual assaults. They're respective of whether or not the case was taken. The case couldn't have been taken because they're barred by the sexual limitations. And the state of New York. In the state of New York, it's a one year look back. And I know that prosecutors, former prosecutors,

like you and I are just the right people to be able to listen to what women have to say, examine the facts, examine the evidence, and perhaps give people the justice and the closure that they need to put the terrible event in the rear view mirror. Yeah, no, it's the New York did that with children in 2019, where with the Child Victims Act, where they did a one year look back.

And that was an incredible thing. And I'm so glad that this new governor, Cathy Hocal, who's really terrific, by the way. I really like her, is doing this now for adults. I think it goes into effect six months from the day it was signed, and I think it was just signed a few weeks ago. So I think we all have that. That's correct.

Yeah, so you and I have six months to gear up to figure out how to do these cases, because we'll have a year. I hope you will contact us. Yeah, I hope you will. Hopefully they will. Because I think again, it is a nod to now, You know, I think, again, it is a nod to now

the world is educated more to understand how it is that sexual assault victims do not go forward and do not come forward immediately. And why? They don't come forward immediately. So, in 2019, New York extended the statute of limitations for so the statute of limitations as as everyone knows is the time from the time something happens to the time you bring a case you have a certain amount of time to do that. statute of limitations that was extended for sexual assault, for civil sexual assault cases in 2019, for 20 years. And that's recognizing the fact that a lot of women

aren't willing or able or mentally prepared to come forward right away. So all the things you talked about earlier, about that Dr. Ziv talked about about how people sort of go through all sorts of different reactions after a sexual assault whether they blame themselves, will people believe me? This person's more powerful than me, they could ruin my life, you know, all that. There's a lot of people who just don't have the ability or the strength, you know, I'm

always just, I have so much admiration for people who have the strength and courage to come forward because, frankly, the criminal justice system, especially, is really can be really traumatizing to victims, just the cross-examination and telling their story over and over again and risking the jury not believing them. I mean, I can't really blame certain people who say,

you know what, it's not worth it. I can't go through it. And so this recognize that the 2019 extension of the Statute of Limitations recognized that fact and extended it to 20 years. But that was only for cases from 2019 going forward. So there was all these cases from before 2019 where the Statute of Limitations expired. And some of them are going to be these Catholic church cases. I mean, granted those were mostly children, but there were some, you know, some adults as well. But, you know, teachers that, you know, whatever, you know, people that professors or your boss or, you know, all these complicated relationships of people who are just- A distant relative, you know, they are just so many cases. And since the Me Too movement, I think, you were saying this,

I think the Me Too movement really gave people the courage to come forward, right? That didn't happen before. Yeah, I just think that people sort of woke up and banded together to say this has happened to so many women, so many women who perhaps haven't shared it with their partners or their families or their friends or anybody because they doubted themselves,

they blame themselves being in a situation when none of it was their fault and they were just horribly victimized. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. So John, how can people reach you? How can all these people who want you to represent them? How can they reach you? I know you'll love it.

I can. I'll look at it for them quickly, but in the meantime. Yes. They can reach me through LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn. And I could give you my email address. It's jiorbon or bon at gmail.com. And I'm hoping that they reach out to both of us

because I think that you possess that sort of institutional longstanding knowledge of sexual assault. And I think that we see how a path forward to proving these cases now that we've never seen before. Yeah, no, it's a really incredible opportunity. The MeToo movement, I remember where I was when I saw coming over the internet, the hashtag MeToo, and I just remember how powerful it was and how much it really changed things.

I was a prosecutor, a sexual assault prosecutor before the MeToo movement. And it's just the judgment that Jury's in particular would kind of impose on survivors, well, how commuted and do fill in the blank, was just, it was really hard sometimes and that was re was retraumatizing for people. But I think the Mewtwo movement is done an incredible, an incredible service

to educating the public as well as our legislators, which is why I think these laws are getting passed. And, you know, hopefully, hopefully people will, will finally get the justice that they deserve because it's such a difficult thing to live through. We call them survivors because they really are survivors. I'm just always an awe of these individuals. Well, Joan, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for having me. Legal AF.

It's such a pleasure. As prosecutors, we're not allowed to talk publicly. We're not allowed to talk to the press. We're not allowed to talk to anybody, especially about cases or anything like that. So it's one of the things that is just really great about leaving as we can finally talk about these issues freely and openly and to get to have the opportunity to have someone with a career like yours.

I could we could go on for two more hours to talk about all your cases. Your cases are where the most some of the most fascinating and impressive ones in the whole office. I mean, it's really your career. It was just been amazing. The Manhattan D.A.'s office, as you know, was a very difficult job at times, difficult to do, even more difficult to leave.

And it does. It's such a, it's opening an entire new world to us to be able to openly talk about what in fact is going on when crimes occur and to educate the public more so that everyone feels as though we're all working together. Well thank you John and thank you so much for carrying us. It's great to see you. You're good to see you. See you. Shout out to everyone at LegalAF, the Midas Mighty, and look forward to those weekend with Michael Popok and Ben Myzelez. you