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Douglas Turns Story
Edited by: Pamela EllerTwo men lie to receive reduced sentences and an innocent man goes to prison. His children lose their father and his life is destroyed by the system that is there to protect him.
This letter is to ask for any help you can give me and to show how the Federal Justice system rewards criminals to lie and how innocent people can end up in prison.
I'm a 39 year-old black male. I have 5 kids, ages 3, 5, 16,18 and 22, four girls and one boy. I have owned my own maintenance company for 10 years. For 39 years I had no trouble with the law and no criminal record.
On August 2, 1995 I found out that my sister's boyfriend, Anthony Rogers, had raped my 12 year-old daughter. I went to my sister to inform her of what had happened and she informed me that Anthony was an escaped prisoner. I had seen Anthony Rogers with large sums of money in the past. I figured he was a drug dealer so family members and I called the police to turn Mr. Rogers in. He was never arrested.
As the days passed, other people heard about what Anthony Rogers had done to my daughter. I was going to protect my daughter at all costs.
On August 21, 1995, after gathering all the information I could I called the FBI to let them know I had information on a bank robber. The FBI talked to me for two days, the 21st and 22nd of August. The FBI would show me pictures from bank robberies for me to identify Anthony and his stepbrother, Melvin Warren. After I identified the pair the FBI gave me the date of each robbery in the pictures and asked if I saw them with money around those dates. I let them know the dates that I had seen Anthony with money and they would write down the dates, as well as, anything that I had heard. Anthony Rogers still wasn't arrested.
On August 27, 1995, Anthony Rogers was arrested for beating my sister. They had got into an argument when he told her about his past. He told her that he was an escaped prisoner from North Carolina and had been serving time for bank robbery. When he was arrested my sister told me that Anthony was using my name and had been for the last year and a half. The majority of the things that my sister and Anthony had purchased were in my name. The two of them had taken possession of my wallet back in the summer of 1994. After hearing this information my family members called downtown to let the police know that Anthony Rogers was using my name and who he really was.
On August 28, 1995, I went to Anthony's home and took his chrome plated .380 cal. pistol from his Porsche and took it to the FBI agent who would keep Mr. Rogers in jail a long time. I gave them the pistol at 4:00 p.m. of this day. I wasn't thinking clearly and just wanted to keep this man in jail because he had raped my daughter. I should have let the FBI go there and take the weapon.
On September 1995, or somewhere in that time frame, I received a phone call from Anthony saying that he saw my statement to the FBI and he knew I had turned him in. He also said that it was not over and that I would get mine.
On October 24, 1995, Anthony's stepbrother, Melvin Warren, came to my home very upset. He said that Anthony told him I turned him in to the FBI and he wanted the guns back that my sister had me pawn for her.
On October 25, 1995, my sister came to my home wanting to get the gun back. Rogers told her that it was a machine gun and that Melvin Warren could get more money for it. After I learned the gun was a machine gun, I knew that I was in trouble. My sister didn't tell me that the AR-15 rifle was an automatic weapon. I tried to get the gun back from the pawnshop several weeks later, but I could not. I had misunderstood my sister and thought she wanted it sold and not just a loan on it. I also took other weapons that day to sell. My sister needed to pay her rent. After I couldn't get them back I gave my sister more money because Rogers told her that he could get more money for it than the $325.00 that I had received for it. This amount is the amount that would be given for a semi-automatic weapon. This particular weapon had a street value of $1400.00. The manager of the pawnshop said in court that he did not know that the rifle was an automatic weapon. He also said that he had shipped it to Dayton, Ohio very quickly and didn't have it when I came back for it. I told the manager of the pawnshop that he should call the FBI about the gun and I gave him a business card for the Agent and told him that he wanted to see it.
On December 1,1995, Melvin Warren got arrested for bank robbery and kidnapping. Melvin was put into the same jail as Anthony making it easy for them to get a story together about me, the person who turned them both in. He sent his girlfriend to me to get bond money. I told her, "No." As the months and years passed by I got messages from Anthony Rogers, like these:
Put $10,000.00 on my books and I will leave you alone.
I'm going to kill your sister L. Alexander for turning me in.
You're not going to see your son grow up, because I can't see mine.
On and on this went until we got the phone number changed. On May 14, 1996, the FBI came to me and said that I was a robber and to get a lawyer.
On or about December 15 the Federal Attorney offered me a deal to serve 10 years in prison. They said, "serve 10 years in prison or go to trial and face 100 years in prison." Needless to say, I turned him down. I had not done anything. On January 27, 2000, the government took the case to trial with Anthony Rogers and Melvin Warren as their star witnesses. Both Rogers and Warren had made 5 or 6 statements in the past to the FBI and none of the stories matched, but when they got on the stand you could tell that both of them had been over and over the items with the FBI and the stories still did not match.
I knew from the start that I was in a no win battle. The government made sure that all the odds were against me. Here are just a few unfair items that were against me:
On January 27, 2000 the case went to trial. The government put me on trial with two co-defendants that I did not know and they did not know me.
My co-defendants were guilty as sin and that made me look guilty.
The government made sure there weren't any blacks on the jury and the two that could have got on were dismissed by the government.
The judge wouldn't let my daughter tell what the government state witness, Anthony Rogers, had done to her.
My federal appointed lawyer was on their side from the start of this nightmare.
After two weeks the jury came back with a guilty verdict. Now I'm sitting here in jail waiting to be sentenced. The least I could get is 70 years and the maximum is 90 years. That's a lot of time for an innocent man. There were no other witnesses, no pictures, no DNA, nothing on me. There were only these two men saying I had robbed banks with them. For two weeks I walked into the court to defend myself. I could have run at anytime, but I put my faith in the federal justice system. Little did I know that this same system rewards life long criminals to come into court and tell lies and just say any and everything the government wants to hear to get time off their sentences while putting innocent people in jail. This is all so unreal to me. I have lost my life and my children have lost their father. This is so wrong that the US government can do this to anyone.
Anthony Rogers admitted to robbing 16 banks. He lied about me for the government so that he would only serve 19 years, if that long.
Melvin Warren admitted to robbing 16 banks and one kidnapping. For his lies he will serve 19 years, if that long. These two men bragged about the robberies. Melvin Warren admitted that he told several people about the robberies including me. Both Rogers and Warren testified under plea agreements with the understanding that in exchange for their testimony they would not be prosecuted for up to nine or more armed bank robberies, thereby avoiding what would amount to a life sentence.
The lies that were told to convict me were obvious and I don't know how they could be used to convict me. Here are some examples:
The sheriff took the 380 pistol that was found in Anthony Roger's or Melvin Warren's car in February 1995 and they never gave it back. How could Anthony Rogers rob a bank on July 28, 1995 and August 3, 1995 with a gun that the Sheriff's Dept. had? At one point I was accused as the ringleader picking out all the banks, but at trial Rogers said that he was. Warren made statements to the FBI that said he was the getaway driver. Then the story changed and it became me that was the getaway driver. Warren also said that Rogers had a significant drug problem and most of the money from the bank robberies went to the purchase of Cocaine.
There were two witnesses in two of the robberies that gave their accounts of what they saw to the newspaper and to a private investigator that neither the government nor my lawyer called to the stand. In the September 27, 1994 robbery in Ashley Ohio, witnesses saw a rust colored car used as a getaway car not the white Escort Anthony Rogers said that I used to drive him from the robbery.
I have an alibi for the times of the robberies that I am accused of committing. I was working on those days doing remodel jobs for clients and helping my brother work on cabinets in another town.
I took these criminals off the street and I'm going to jail. These criminals knew how to work the system. I hope that you can give me some kind of help. Any kind of help you can give me would be wonderful. If I were guilty of anything I would not waste your time or mine writing this letter. I hope you can find it in your heart to give me any help of any kind. Please!!
Douglas A. Turns 64470-061 Unit H
United States Penitentiary, Lee County
P.O. BOX 305
Jonesville, VA 24263-0305Ms. Stephanie Lunceford (ex-wife)
1286 Crestwood Ave.
Columbus, OH 43227
© Justice Denied
