Hey, it's Payne, and I'm here to tell you that we're back with a brand new season of Up and Vanished, called Up and Vanished in the Midnight Sun, available right now on your podcast app. In this newest season of Up and Vanished, I'm investigating an unsolved missing person's case in Nome, Alaska, on the edge of the Arctic Circle. Florence Okpiolik, an Alaska native, was last seen on August 31st, 2020. And I've spent the last year in Alaska trying to find what happened to her, putting myself in the most dangerous positions I've ever been in. You don't want to miss this brand new season of Up and Vanished. It is by far the most intense investigation I've ever been a part of. Here's a trailer.

She was murdered, taken out on the tundra and dumped somewhere.

There's no way they'd say something like that if they didn't know what happened.

Somebody's being hurt or taken advantage of.

You don't just look the other way. Stay on the phone with you, please.

Did you have a license for this vehicle? There's a truck that's following you guys.

We heard gunshots.

Where were the gunshots at?

If you think you're investigating a murder scene, things have to be documented.

We don't know who to trust.

From Tenderfoot TV, Up and Vanished in the Midnight Sun, is available right now. Listen for free on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.

The Raven is released weekly and brought to you absolutely free. But if you want ad-free listening and early access to next week's episode, subscribe to Tenderfoot Plus. For more information, check out tenderfootplus. Com. Enjoy the episode. You're listening to The Raven, a production of Tenderfoot TV, in Association with Odyssey. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the individuals participating in the podcast. This podcast also contains subject matter which may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised.

When you're looking for a tape or a transcript or anything that was presented at trial in this particular case, we're looking for a cassette tape, a recording, we have to contact the DA's office and say, Hey, what did you do with this evidence after the trial? Where is it?

How does one go about finding a cassette tape from a trial that concluded over two decades ago? That's the question I asked former Atlanta Homicide Detective, Vince Velasquez, who explained that obtaining Dwayne Fassett's original statement would be a long, drawn-out process.

So what you would have to do is, one, contact the major case unit and find out who is the custodian of their evidence, their long-term appeal evidence. Once we determine who that person is, send them an email. They're going to ask you to do an open records request, Freedom of Information Act.

I followed Vince's instruction and sent an email regarding case number 21-010-8-2400, incident number 000-310-333, superior Court case number 00CR-0635, and requested the audio and transcript of Dwyane Fassett's interview with Assistant DA Clint Rucker and DA Investigator Willy Price, on February first, 2000. Then, I prayed.

I don't think they're going to be able to pull something up from 20 years ago in the computer, they're probably going to have to go to actual logbooks and pull pages, open them, go through them, look for the year, look for the location, look for the indictment number, the case number. And you got to just think about how much evidence is presented at a trial. In a case of this magnitude that got national attention, we're talking hundreds of items of evidence, and then you have to go through this list and try to find this cassette tape. Now, this is a case that's adjudicated. These defendants were acquitted. Ray took a plea. There's no one else to prosecute. There's no appeals. So who knows what they did with this evidence? It very well may have been destroyed. We don't know.

What do you think our chances are of uncovering this?

To be honest with you, my experience, I think the chances of finding this tape is slim to none.

From Tenderfoot TV, I'm Tim Livingston, and this is The Raven. Episode 5, Some Folks from Akron.

There were a number of lawyers who were called the day he was arrested. Eventually, we met over at the Hilton Hotel. Ray, of course, wasn't there. He was in jail, but his mother and his agent was there.

I'm sitting with Ray Louis' lawyer, Don Samuel, listening to Samuel tell the story of how he got the job.

And they had the different groups of lawyers sitting at different tables in the dining room, and they went to each one and said, How are you going to be able to get him out on bond? The team of lawyers from Florida said, Well, we're going to have to do a lot of research and a lot of background, and we should be ready in three to four weeks. Then the agent and Ray's mother went to the next table and said, How are you going to be able to get him out on bond? Essentially the same story. And then the agent and his mother came over to our table and we said, We're going to file a motion tomorrow morning at 9:00 in the morning, and we'll have a hearing by next week. They said, You're hired.

Don Samuel defended the CFO of Atlanta's Gold Club on RECO charges. He was counsel for Ray Louis' rival, Ben Rothesberger, when the former Pittsburgh quarterback was accused of raping a 20-year-old woman in a Georgia nightclub bathroom. And Samuel defended Jim Williams, the antiques dealer whose story became the best-selling book, and Clint Eastwood directed a movie, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

Do you want to tell me what really happened that night?

Sport. Truth, like art, is in the eye of the beholder. You believe what you choose, and I'll believe what I know.

Samuel and his partner, Ed Garland, control the trial from the beginning. They kept things simple and started by presenting the jury a poster that outlined the crux of their argument.

Ray Lewis is not guilty because the evidence will prove that he did not kill or stab anyone, that he did not use or have a knife, and that he did not cause, aid, or encourage anyone to use a knife.

Samuel and Garland needed to prove that Louis was not involved in the fight. You can't be party to a crime if you're not at the party. And by the eighth day of trial, they were sitting pretty. The conman Chester Anderson was the only witness who claimed that Louis was fighting.

There was only one witness in this case that took the stand, and that was an admitted conman who testified he told the jury he saw Ray Louis kicking someone. That was the only real piece of evidence offered that Ray Louis was an active participant in the assault and in the stabbing.

With the case against Louis nonexistent, Howard approached Samuel with an offer.

Their case against Ray Lewis was just crumbling. The few witnesses they had had not come through. The limo driver never came back with the impeachment evidence they had. There wasn't anything left of their case, but There's always the risk. And it's not like we're talking to the jurors and asking, How are we doing? Which way are you leaning? You just don't know. So at the end, as the state was getting ready to rest, I was preparing to argue the directed verdict motion, which is the motion where you convince the judge there's so little evidence, it can't even go to the jury. When you're running the risk of a life sentence, you have to at least find out what's on the table. Paul called us up and invited us to his office. Even though we thought Judge Bonner would dismiss the case as to us the next day, Paul said, Will you consider taking a plea to a misdemeanor? Non-reporting misdemeanor, probation, go to training camp, case over. All you have to do is testify against Sweden and Oakley.

Staring down the small chance of spending his life in prison, Ray Louis made the decision to take a deal and testify against his friends. Which makes you wonder, if Louis was given the same opportunity at the beginning of the case, the ability to take a slap on the wrist to give investigators everything they needed to piece together the crime, would he have taken that deal?

The DA was essentially offering us the equivalent of less than a DUI. And we had to clear it with the NFL. We talked to the Commissioner. We talked to the head of the Ravens, Art Modell. They both agreed that with that disposition, he wouldn't miss a day of training camp. He could play the next season. And this was the spring, so we were moving towards training camp at the time. And we didn't tell Steve or Bruce about this. Obviously, we couldn't tell him ahead of time.

Bruce and Steve are Bruce Harvey and Steve Sadow, the lawyers who defended Oakley and Sweeding.

So Ray gave a very fulsome statement to the DA in the office. Essentially what he told the DA was, We were attacked. We were assaulted by these guys from Akron. They jumped us, and Ray was in the limo, never got out of the limo. And Sweden and Oakley got out, and one of the victims hit Oakley over the head with a champagne bottle, and Sweden and Oakley killed him.

The murder and assault charges that were against Ray Lewis, sources tell us, will be dropped. The punishment that Ray Lewis will receive, sources tell us, will be probation. He will be permitted to go back to playing football. Now, in no way does this plea bargain involve any admission by Ray Louis that he in any way participated in the assault and the stabbing. This is strictly a plea bargain, a guilty plea to an obstruction count involving what happened after the fact.

What he ended up saying was essentially the two of them killed the victims, but nobody doubted that. So Ray didn't say anything, really, that was inconsistent with the defense. We had to call Bruce and Steve that night when we left, and the deal was inked, and told them, and they just were ballistic.

Shannon, just hours before his surrender, Donald Trump hired a new attorney to represent him in the Georgia election case.

What's the significance of Trump hiring him?

Well, Steve Sadeo is a very well-known criminal defense attorney here in Atlanta. He has a stellar reputation.

Steve Sadeo is one of those attorneys who seems to be at the center of every big case in Atlanta.

He's represented Usher.

He's represented TI.

He was one of the lawyers in the Ray Lewis murder case.

He was the NFL linebacker. When you walk into Steve Sadao's office, there's a signed picture of rapper Rick Ross that reads Steve Sadao, the motherfucking man. Sadao got Ross a Sweetheart plea deal in Ross's 2017 kidnapping case, and is currently defending former President Donald Trump against racketeering charges. In 2000, Sadao defended Joseph in Sweden and felt very good about his client's chances until Louis struck his deal. Here's Sadao recounting his phone call with Louis' attorney, Don Samuel, after Louis agreed to work with the state.

Don and I had a long-standing relationship, and to the extent that trust was involved, I figured I could trust him. And he says, I'm sorry, Steve. Ray met with them today and yesterday. He's been interviewed on videotape, and he's told them information about your client. And I said, Can you give me any idea? He said, It has to do with the knife and actions of Joseph Sweeding afterwards back at the hotel. So I said, Okay, Dawn, thank you very much. We get into court the next day. The plea is announced, and the judge, who happened to have gone to law school with me, looks at me and says, Any motions? And I said, This is a very very recent, surprising development. Can you give me a day to get prepared? And the judge says, Sure, that seems reasonable. We recess, we go sit down, and we watch the videotape. And the videotape is not good.

The video showed Louis demonstrating how Sweeding held the knife and revealed what Sweeding said to Louis after the stabbings.

He had the knife in his hand like this. The blade wasn't out. Or anything like that. But he had the knife like this. And I said, Man, man, what happened? He said, Lulu, every time they hit me, I hit them.

Sado's client now had a knife in his hand, and Ray Louis, the state's new star witness, told the jury that Sweeding delivered at least some of the stabs. Things were looking bleak for Joseph Sweeding, but Sado had a plan.

And the videotape clearly has Ray saying that my client demonstrated to him the motion that he used when he had the knife in his hand when he was arguably stabbing someone. As I'm watching this, I'm trying to figure out how do I deal with this the The whole case is now upside down. The lawyer from Miami says, We're going to have to attack Ray Lewis. Bruce says, We're going to have to attack Ray Louis.

The lawyer from Miami was said, I was understudy on the case. And Bruce, as Harvey, Reginald Oakley's lawyer.

And I'm saying to myself, Here is the most vicious linebacker in professional football who, if attacked, has only one way to respond. He's going to come back and fight with you. He's going to come back like a tiger. How can that possibly help me? And the idea comes to me that I can put together a cross-examination that leads him down the self defense path and allows me to continue to present my defense and actually take what Ray has said and turn it into what would be not evidence in mitigation, but evidence that is in my favor. So I tell the guy from Miami, I'm not going to attack him. I'm going to turn him around as a witness. The lawyer from Miami says, You don't know what the fuck you're doing, and you're going to lose this case. It never speaks to me again.

Great attorneys are great storytellers, and Steve Sadao needed to write a new story, FAST. Louis placed the knife in Sweeting's hand. Sadao needed the jury to believe that Sweeting delivered the stabs in self-defense. He needed to paint the Akron Group as the instigators. Sado spoke to Louis' attorney, Don Samuel, later that afternoon and relayed his plan.

Don calls me later that afternoon and says, I really feel bad about what happened. What do you want me to ask Ray? And I said, I don't want you to ask Ray anything. Just tell him to go with the flow. I'm not going to embarrass him. I'm not going to try to show any weakness on his part. I'm just going to use what he said, but I'm going to turn it around. Don says, Are you sure? And I said, Yeah, I think I've worked it out. So now we go into the next day. Ray gets up and echoes in his direct testimony what he has said on the video. No real changes. But now I've I've been with a man for three weeks, and I've been kidding with him about the women.

Seydal built up a rapport with Louis during the trial by passing him notes. Every time an attractive woman would enter the courtroom, Seydou would hand Louis a piece of paper with three words. Is that yours? Louis would get the note, smile, and write back the same thing every time. Yes.

He's a fighter. He didn't want to cut a deal. Clearly, this was coming from above him. The Ravens wanted him out of this. This was the easy way. His career would be saved. It was the easy way out. But that's not the Ray Louis that I thought I had gotten to know. So I get up to do my cross. Everybody's rustling around in the courtroom. Cameras are getting ready to go back to work. Ray sitting on the stand. I don't know whether he's gotten my message from Don or not. I'm looking at Ray. Ray is looking at me, and Ray winks.

A murder trial of this magnitude, two weeks in, and things have gone so horribly for the prosecution and so well for the defense that Ray Lewis winks before facing questioning that could put two of his friends in jail for life.

So we meet again. Are you the same Ray Louis that was sitting as a defendant in this courtroom a little over three weeks ago when Mr. Paul Howard stood before the ladies and gentlemen of this jury and said that he would show that you were absolutely guilty of the crimes charged in that indictment.

Yes, that's me.

That wasn't true, was it? No. Never been true, is it? No. When you and the others went out partying Super Bowl night, it wasn't your intention, and it wasn't the intention of those around you to get into They had any trouble, were they?

None.

They were out for a good time, right? Yes. You had a good time in the cobalt, right? Yes. I'm just not talking about you. I'm talking about Joseph and Reginal and all the other folks, right? Yes.

No problems in the cobalt?

No.

No agitation, no aggressiveness, no street talking, no trash talking. A good time was had by all, right?

Yes.

When you left the cobalt, I assume it It wasn't your intention, and it did not appear to be the intention of anyone else to get into a fight, right? Right. But there were some folks from Accra who changed that, didn't they?

Yes.

Steve It outstated that nobody in Louis' group was looking for a fight upon leaving the cobalt lounge. Paul Howard did not object. I found that puzzling, considering Louis had just told Howard this.

At the time when I was walking back up, Reginal was the more the aggressor at that time when I was walking up, he was really hostile at the other two guys that were standing there in front of Reginal, Joseph, and Kwame. What was Reginal Reginald Oakley doing as they stood there? Basically, just talking, just blurting out certain things, using hand gestures or whatever, saying whatever he was saying. I can't say exactly what he was saying. So what did you do, if anything, once you saw this taking place? When I saw this taking place, I ran back up there and I grabbed him by the waist. You said grab him with- I grabbed Reginald Oakley around the waist. But when I grabbed him, I turned around immediately and started pushing him towards the limo. And why were Why are you taking him back to the limo? Because I was telling him that, What is he doing? We ain't got time to be fighting. Why are you sitting there arguing with somebody? Let's go.

The question of who started it in the end meant everything. Louis and Jeff Gwen both painted Oakley as the instigator. And while it's not clear whether Jason Baker rushed at Oakley, Oakley rushed at Baker, or they rushed at each other, it's incredible that Howard let Sado ask this series of questions without objecting once.

Now, at the time AJ comes out, Joseph is still just standing there, right? With me, right.

With you. Right.

I mean, he hadn't done anything to provoke the situation, right?

Right.

Howard continued to let Sate out solidify his story of self-defense for Joseph Sweeding and Reginald Oakley, who he refers to as AJ.

And the next thing that happens is AJ gets smashed on the side of the head or over the head with a bottle, right?

Correct.

And then your words, all held, globalist, right?

Absolutely correct.

And the first thing that Mr. Sweeding, Joseph did was he went to AJ's aid, right?

Right.

He went to protect or help some friend of his that just got hit, right?

Exactly.

With a bottle.

Right.

Now, we're not talking about somebody that just got punched. We're talking about somebody got hit over the head with a bottle, right? Correct. Joseph never made it to AJ, did he?

No.

Because he was grabbed by two men, right? Right. And they began dragging him- Around the tree. Around the tree. With your assistance, sir, and with the assistance of my client, I'm going to have him take his jacket off, his tie off. I want you to come out here and drag him like they had dragged him.

In a bizarre scene, Sado instructs Ray Louis to grab Joseph Sweeding by the shoulders and demonstrate how Sweeding was dragged. This was the trial's O. J. Glove moment.

Now stand next to him for a minute, right next to him, side by side, looking at the jury. Were they as big as you?

Could have been.

They certainly were not small like Joseph. Correct.

The visual of Louis dragging sweeting is compelling. Sweeting looks tiny helpless under the grasp of a massive and muscular Louis. Seydou even asked Louis, a 240-pound linebacker in the National Football League, if the Akron group members were as big as him. Paul Howard, again, does not object. Seydou put on a show, told a new story, and by the end, Sweeding and Oakley didn't just look innocent. They looked like heroes.

It was absolutely self-defense. They were assaulted. No doubt, Oakley was hit over the head with a champagne bottle. And if serious bodily injury is being threatened against you, you're allowed to use deadly force to defend yourself. Are there options? Yes, there's always options in self-defense. You could run, but of course, this is a state where there's no obligation to flee. There's no obligation to retreat. Whether you like the law or not, I suppose they could have taken out a gun and just shot them both. The key to self-defense is you can't be the initiator.

Sweeding and Oakley needed to prove self-defense. Ray Louis needed to prove that he wasn't involved in the fight. That leads to my last question for Louis' attorney, Don Samuel. I asked Samuel about limo driver Dwyane Fassett's original statement. I asked him How much it mattered, and I asked him if it might have been enough to sway the jury.

The limo driver was the only one who said he got out of the car. Even though the prosecution had a prior statement of him where he had said it, they didn't confront him with it. Then they had go and get the limo driver back. They couldn't find him. We'd have to know what would be his explanation of why he said that previously, but not now under oath. You're under oath when you're testifying a trial. So I'd have to add to that hypothetical, what would be his explanation for, if you will, changing his story? So that's the one thing we would need to know in order to speculate what impact it would have had on the jury. And if he said, Well, I was just protecting him at trial, and I was telling the truth before, well, that's damaging, obviously, very damaging. And so then the question is, is there something to support his testimony, such as other witnesses? There were many witnesses. There were people up in the apartment building looking down. There were people on the street. This was right after the Super Bowl game. Bucket was packed. So the question is, how many other people saw him going up to the front and holding or touching or having anything to do with the actual assault?

And none. Nobody who's credible anyways. If it had come in, Judge Bonner would have had to have said, This is now a jury question. And so we're going to go through trial. And then you got to wonder, would Ray have testified? If Ray had testified and said, That's just not true. I never got out of the limo. I never got out. Then the jury is deciding who's telling the truth, the limo driver or Ray.

Hey, Hey, Tim. Vince.

What's happening?

We got something. We didn't get the tape, but we got a transcript. Three months after submitting a request with the county, I receive an email back. The county attorney's office couldn't find the tape, but they found the transcript of Rucker's interview with Fassett. I begin reading Rucker and Fassett's back and forth, and it's like I'm in the room with them. The only piece evidence that ever mattered in this story. We got it.

That's some good shit there, man.

If you can't get the tape, if you can get the words that are written down, it's just as good.

What we're going to read is what was spoken out of his mouth.

Those words have never been truer.

The Raven is a production of Tenderfoot TV and Journey Man, in association with Odyssey. Donald Albray and Payne Lindsay, are executive producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV. I'm the executive producer on behalf of Journeyman. Alex Bespistead is our lead producer and editor on behalf of Tenderfoot Labs. Patty Cotter is our producer. Tracey Kaplan is our supervising producer. Paul Cucceri and Sydney Evans, are associate producers. Original Music is by Makeup and Vanity set. Sound design, Mixing and Mastering by Cooper Skinner and Daten Cole. Cover design and illustration by Mr. Soul. Trial archival provided by CORE TV. Special thanks to Oren Rosenbaum and Grace Royer at UTA, Beck Media & Marketing, The Nord Group, Ninning Moran, and The Moran family. Russell Rathner, Alyssa Gonsarca, James Yu, and Todd Baines. If you enjoyed the podcast, please subscribe, rate, and review. For more podcasts like The Raven, search Tenderfoot TV on your favorite podcast app or visit tenderfoot. Tv. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening to this episode. To listen to next week's episode right now, subscribe to Tenderfoot Plus for early access. Tenderfoot Plus is available on Apple Podcasts or tenderfootplus. Com.