The Sing Sing Files: One Journalist, Six Innocent Men, and a Twenty-Year Fight for Justice

When Dateline producer Slepian was approached by a prisoner’s mother, who begged him to investigate her son’s case, he was reluctant. He was already assisting two other individuals at Sing Sing Correctional Facility and wondered what the odds were of encountering another wrongfully convicted person. Little did the journalist know that over the next two decades, he would visit Jon-Adrian “JJ” Velazquez over 200 times and form a lasting friendship. Velazquez not only advocated for his own innocence and retrial but also unselfishly asked Slepian to aid others who were falsely imprisoned. Slepian makes a stunning debut that exhibits his storytelling expertise, gained through his work on The Phil Donahue Show and Dateline. The text is mainly narrated by the author, although Velazquez’s letters are presented in his own voice, full of drive and, at times, desperation. This audio offers a host of enhancements, with dramatic music, sirens, slamming prison doors, recorded police interviews, the haunting wail of a mother as her son is released from prison, and more.