(Image via variety.com)

Volunteer Writer: Aliyah Santana 

Email: asantana5@umassd.edu

“I’ve been fighting for 27 years to tell them my name is Jon-Adrian “JJ” Velazquez.” 

In the 1990s, actor Jon-Adrian “JJ” Velazquez was convicted for the shooting of a retired police officer. He lived out two decades of his sentence in the high-security prison Sing Sing in New York until 2021, when he was acquitted after further evidence proved that he was innocent. 

Sing Sing is a maximum security prison located in Ossining, New York. This prison has been used since 1864 and is one of the oldest institutions in the United States. It is notorious for its harsh conditions.

Velazquez was 22 when he was falsely convicted. He was implicated as being the person who pulled the trigger, ending the life of Albert Ward. Ward was a retired police officer who was running an illegal gambling ring in Harlem. 

Velazquez claimed not even to have been in that city at the time of the death and had an alibi. He had been on a 74-minute phone call with his mother at the time of Ward’s death. Witnesses claimed there were two robbers. They claimed the shooter was black with braids; keep in mind Velazquez is Latino and had short hair. He was picked twice out of a lineup and arrested. 

He was 22 at the time of his conviction and had two children. 

In 2002, “Dateline NBC” investigated the Velasquez case, which lasted over a decade! When finally released in 2012, it gained attention and was a reason for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office to review the case and then let the conviction stand. 

Nearly a decade later, on Monday, August 17th, 2021, Velazquez, now 48, was exonerated. Finally, after years of asking for reconsideration and being denied, the DNA on the betting slip of the shooter and Velazquez’s DNA was examined and found not to be a match. 

It took the judge only four minutes to recant the guilty verdict on Velazquez in 1998. He hugged his family and left the courtroom with his head held high. Sporting a baseball cap that read “end of an error,” Velazquez told reporters, “This isn’t a celebration. It’s an indictment of the system.”  

He was given no apology after 27 years of his life had been wasted for a crime he didn’t commit. 

While incarcerated, Velazquez received two degrees and became a certified paralegal. His goal was to help others who had been wrongly convicted. He wanted to become a mentor and have the option to educate others. Velazquez is now a founding member of Voices from Within, an informational action that strives to educate on the epidemic of crime and incarceration. You can learn more about voices from within here! 

Since being released, he has used his story to become an advocate for the criminal legal system and has starred in a documentary. 

Playing himself in the 2023 drama “Sing Sing,” a real-life story about a falsely imprisoned man, John “Divine G” Whitefield, played by Colman Domingo, finds his purpose through the RTA Sing Sing correctional facility theater group. The documentary is a heartwarming and eye-opening experience. 

Finally, in October of 2022, Velazquez received an apology from Joe Biden on society’s behalf. Although Velazquez accepted this apology and recognized that an apology from the president does have meaning, he responded with, “There is nothing they can do to give me those 24 years back.”