Dateline
NBC To Broadcast 2-Hour Documentary About Two Men Claiming Innocence,
on Sunday, August 5th, 7p.m to 9 p.m. (EDT and PDT)
(New
York) – July 26, 2007 – As a controversial retrial looms for David
Lemus, a man who served 15 years in prison before having his murder
conviction overturned in 2005, NBC News' Peacock Productions presents
its first feature length documentary film about his case, "In the
Shadow of Justice." The two-hour broadcast, airing on Sunday, Aug. 5
(7:00 p.m. ET), advances Dateline's groundbreaking 2005 investigative
report on the 1990 murder of Palladium nightclub bouncer, Markus
Peterson, and immerses viewers in a case that made headlines as it
unfolded.
While The Manhattan District Attorney's office insists
Lemus is guilty of the murder, and is retrying him, they declined to
comment on the film. However, the 23-year veteran Assistant District
Attorney Daniel Bibb who argued at a hearing to keep Lemus and Olmedo
Hidalgo (the other man convicted in the murder) in prison is now
speaking out for the first time in the film. He says as he led a
re-investigation of the case, he became convinced the men were
innocent. He has since left the DA's office, saying he was tortured by
the fact that his superiors, in his account, forced him to argue to
keep two innocent men in prison.
Bibb says, "The people making
the decisions (within the DA's office) wanted to go to the hearing."
When pressed specifically about District Attorney Morganthau's
involvement in the decision-making process, Bibb replies, "…He was
aware of what was going on."
NBC's interest in the case began in
2002 when Dateline producers were granted rare access to Bronx homicide
detectives Bobby Addolorato and John Schwartz as they re-investigated
the case. Our cameras were rolling as the detectives discovered
astonishing new evidence suggesting that Lemus and Hidalgo might
actually be innocent. The detectives also believe they uncovered
documents that suggest the DA's office buried evidence that proved
Lemus and Hidalgo were innocent.
After the Dateline report
aired, not only were the two men exonerated and able to go home to live
with their families for the first time in 15 years, but weeks later a
man who many believed to be the real shooter was arrested. The man,
Thomas "Spanky" Morales, had appeared in the broadcast after NBC
producers tracked him down. "Spanky," who spent nearly 18 months in
jail awaiting trial for this murder, is now a free man after a judge
threw out his case saying law enforcement had the obligation to arrest
him years ago based on the ample evidence it possessed pointing to him
as the shooter.
In the end, "In the Shadow of Justice" documents
how the case changed many lives forever. For detectives Addolorato and
Schwartz, it was a journey of conscience and confrontation that they
say ended their careers. The film includes exclusive interviews
with defendants Lemus and Hildago, eyewitnesses to the crime, family
members, attorneys, the foreperson of the jury, Carol Kramer, who voted
to convict the men and then asked for their release, and Thomas
"Spanky" Morales.
David Corvo is the executive producer;
Adam Gorfain is the senior producer; Daniel Slepian is the producer;
Michael Nardi is the field producer; and Robert O. Allen is the editor.