An NBC Dateline producer's cinematic account of two decades navigating a broken criminal justice system to help free six innocent men.
In 2002, Dan Slepian, a veteran producer for NBC's Dateline, received a tip from a Bronx homicide detective that would change his life. Two men were serving twenty-five years to life in prison for a murder in 1990, the cop said, and he knew for a fact that they did not commit that crime.
Haunted by what he had heard, Slepian began an investigation that eventually led to freedom for those two men, and launched him on a two-decade personal and professional journey through a system fiercely resistant to rectifying--or even acknowledging--its mistakes and their consequences.
The Sing Sing Files: One Journalist, Six Innocent Men, and a Twenty-Year Fight for Justice is an investigative journalist's account of how he took on that system and of the years of prison visits, court hearings and powerful Dateline reporting it took to bring justice to those two men and four others imprisoned for crimes they did not commit. It is also the story of the deep and lasting friendships Slepian formed with the men whose cases he pursued, and how one of them--Jon-Adrian "JJ" Velazquez--provided aid and counsel to him from his cell in Sing Sing prison until his own release in 2021 after decades behind bars.
Like Bryan Stevenson's Just Mercy, The Sing Sing Files is a deeply personal account of wrongful imprisonment and the enormous effort required to redress it, and a powerful argument for reckoning and accountability. This extraordinary book, at once painful and full of hope, shines a light on a kind of injustice whose consequences we have only begun to confront.
Industry Reviews
"Dan Slepian has written a book that is as informative as it is enraging. In these gripping case studies of innocent men wrongfully convicted, you learn how and why the truth often does not prevail in the American justice system. You also get a glimpse of the strength of the human spirit and of heroic efforts to right these wrongs. The stories are inspiring and so is the author. He has spent a career 'given the buried voice sound, ' as one incarcerated man put it. This volume is on full blast with this tour-de-force. This is a must-read for anyone who cares about criminal justice, mass incarceration, or humanity."
--Rachel Barkow, author of Prisoners of Politics: Breaking the Cycle of Mass Incarceration and Professor at NYU, School of Law
"This passionate, gripping, and moving chronicle of a skeptical journalist's twenty year journey investigating injustice leads him, remarkably, to six innocent men, close friends, and a nuanced understanding of the humanity, resilience, and limitless potential of those we imprison, guilty or innocent. Dan Slepian's engrossing insider's narrative lays bare the infuriating incapacity and willful blindness of New York prosecutors, police, defense lawyers, and judges to recognize and correct wrongful convictions. The Sing Sing Files is a vitally important book that inspires hope that we can and will do better."
--Barry Scheck, Co-Founder and Special Counsel, the Innocence Project
