All Episodes
Previous Next
Oct. 26, 2023 - Dr. Oz Podcast
41:56
The Dark Side Of Yoga: Addressing Manipulative Behaviors | Dr. Oz | S11 | Ep 127 | Full Episode
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
It was really clear to me that he could do whatever he wanted to.
An empire unravels.
No one was going to do a thing.
Accusations of sexual assault and rape.
I was screaming on the inside.
The dark side of yoga you don't know about.
Plus, wrongly convicted and free after 25 years.
The detective telling me that if I wouldn't comply with what he wanted me to say, that I was going to wind up dead.
Coming up next.
The Dark Side of Yoga Season 11 starts now.
On today's True Crime, with franchise studios around the world, yogi sensation Bikram Chowdhury, also known as the bad boy of yoga, was at the forefront of the yoga movement, teaching was at the forefront of the yoga movement, teaching hot yoga classes to eager American students while wearing nothing more than a Rolex and a Speedo.
Thank you.
Now many of his former students are speaking out on the sexual assault and even rape they claim to have experienced at the hands of Bikram himself.
We're talking to the first two women to come forward who will detail a deviant side to their disgraced celebrity guru.
Take a look at the dark side of yoga.
In the 1970s, a new yoga style took Los Angeles by storm.
Calcutta-born Vikram Chowdhury opened his first Vikram yoga studio in 1973. Teaching his own style of 26 poses with two breathing exercises, practiced in temperatures upwards of 105 degrees for 90 minutes.
His global yoga empire would grow into 720 yoga schools in 220 countries.
Bikram was known to be a brutal and demanding teacher, berating students with profanity and insults.
In 2013, Sarah Bond accused Bikram of sexual harassment.
During a 2008 teacher training program, she claimed Bikram allegedly trapped her in his hotel room and forcibly tried to initiate sex.
Six women would file lawsuits against Bikram and his yoga school including Larissa Anderson who accused Bikram of raping her in his family home while his wife and children slept upstairs.
His former legal advisor, Minakshi Miki Jaffa Boten, filed a suit for breach of contract and wrongful termination.
She claimed she was fired when she refused to help him cover up a rape allegation.
In 2016, Bikram was ordered to pay millions of dollars in damages to Jaffa Boten, but he fled the United States.
He is still facing multiple lawsuits.
His wife filed for divorce, and his company filed for bankruptcy.
Despite the lawsuits and international media coverage, he continues to teach And has held teacher seminars as recently as 2019 in Spain.
Joining me now is Sarah Bond, the first woman to speak out against her yogi guru Bikram Chowdhury.
Thank you for being here.
I know it takes a lot to reach down deep to talk about some of these issues.
What attracted you to Bikram Chowdhury in the beginning?
The yoga was the biggest thing, the only thing really for me.
I developed scoliosis in high school, so the pain that I had in my back and then just kind of the pain that I had in my brain made yoga pretty instantly attractive and healing for me within the first couple of classes.
I finally started feeling better.
So you're in the classes, you're getting some resolution, some healing from your physical and mental pain, and yet Bikram apparently was a great showman, was singing classes, but he was a pretty aggressive teacher.
He'd yell at folks, he'd insult the students, probably yourself included.
How did you deal with that teaching matter?
We were conditioned that that would be a part of it, that he would throw a lot of things at us and they might challenge us in ways that we didn't agree with or that was part of the constant brainwash dialogue, I guess, that they would throw at us.
So by trusting the process, you just kind of accept that that's how it is.
So after five months of Bikram Yoga, Sarah decided to become a yoga teacher.
What did you experience with Bikram during the intensive training process?
You wanted to become a teacher.
Yeah, desperately wanted to become a teacher and I wanted to become a good teacher because as somebody who was very young, I was only 20 years old when I attended the training, so I left home for the first time and traveled down to LA and just trusted that this would be, you know, this greater purpose that I was supposed to serve.
So, you had several uncomfortable situations.
I did, yeah.
During a posture called standing bow pulling pose.
He stopped class and grabbed my body and stretched it apart.
It's basically the splits.
This is the position.
It's a very exposed position.
Yes.
And he pressed himself into me and I could feel him.
On me.
And then in front of everyone started whispering into my ear, we need to make this a relationship.
I love you.
Come be with me.
And he continued doing that through the rest of class.
But at this particular moment, it was sending me a very, very clear message that, look, they're all watching.
They're doing nothing.
They will never do anything.
And I have you.
Exactly where I want you and this is the power that I will hold over you for as long as I want to and I broke down crying.
I fell onto the mat and I couldn't get up and the teacher would not continue the class until I stood up.
So it was really clear to me that He could do whatever he wanted to me, and no one was going to do a thing.
Did he ever lay hands on you?
Yes.
I ended up at Bikram's house.
It was late at night.
All the other guests left.
And he put on a Bollywood movie.
And I felt good because I felt like I was finally learning from my teacher.
He was explaining the movie to me.
And then suddenly he put his hand on my leg and went up my skirt and was on top of me.
And I was laying down on the couch.
And he had kind of pinned me, and I froze.
He started, you know, saying that he needed somebody to be with him.
He was very lonely.
And he then told me that if I didn't have sex with him, that I would never win the yoga competition.
And I had been training very hard, and he knew that it meant a lot to me.
And at that point, it kind of snapped me out of it.
And I moved him off of me, and I stood up, and I said, I will win.
And I won't ever sleep with you.
What gave you the courage to come forward?
I was very vocal about what happened to protect other people, but nothing was being done.
It was all just hushed or covered up.
And I think that it's really important going forward that people that could have maybe done better for me or others just understand that and then do better next time.
Thank you for sharing your story.
And when we come back, we're going to hear from a woman who claims Bikram raped her in his living room while his wife and children slept upstairs.
What's really dangerous is a startled animal.
Caught on tape.
They grabbed his hood and tried to drag him backwards.
When wild animals attack right outside your front door.
Oh, my God, that's a mountain lion.
That's coming up tomorrow.
I look at this in the way that Bikram and Rajeshree both like, we're your family now.
We're community and we're family.
And if you know about families and abuse, You start out loving the father figure.
And this is Bikram.
We're back discussing the dark side of yoga.
Now, you just heard from a former student of Bikram Chowdhury speaking out against him in the new documentary, Bikram, Yogi Guru Predator.
It's available only on Netflix.
75-year-old celebrity Yogi Bikram Chowdhury has fled the country in 2017 amid mounting sexual assault claims made by many of his former female students.
Joining me now is Larissa Anderson, who says Bikram raped her in his living room while his family slept upstairs.
Thank you for coming.
Thank you for having me.
Thank you for sharing the story.
I think we're opening a lot of eyes to the reality of power.
Would you mind taking us back to what happened that evening?
Yeah, prior to the rape, he had actually blacklisted me the year before and basically lured me back into the home under the premise of apology and coming back to the community so I could continue my career as a yoga teacher.
That particular night his wife had gone upstairs to go to sleep and his kids had gone up as well and he turned on a Bollywood movie and I was massaging his feet and his legs and he was asking me to touch further up his leg which I was uncomfortable with and I told him I didn't want to and kept bringing my hands down towards his feet.
He then started to turn the volume up on the movie, so it was very hard for me to hear him.
And I expressed that I wanted to go to sleep because it was already like 2 o'clock in the morning or 3 o'clock in the morning.
He asked me to sit down on the floor in front of the couch so I could hear him explain what was happening in the movie.
And when I turned back to hear what he was saying, he grabbed the back of my head and put his tongue in my mouth.
And I said, I don't want to have this kind of relationship with you.
I don't want this to happen.
And he said, okay, sweetheart.
No problem.
And I thought at that point it was over.
He stood up and grabbed my hand and brought me into the other room which is underneath the master bedroom near the kitchen and proceeded to take down my underwear and rape me while his wife was sleeping right above us.
What was going through your mind while all this was happening?
I was in total shock.
This is my teacher and we had already established a long-term relationship.
I was part of his family, spent time with his kids.
I think a lot of it was the fact that I was so frozen and I was screaming on the inside, but nothing was coming out of my mouth on the outside.
And when he stuck his penis inside of me, I pulled out of my body.
And so I was actually watching what was happening from above.
I was removed physically and emotionally and had no power whatsoever.
The hard part to understand for so many is when these assaults happen, there's so many complex emotions that are going on.
I've heard them from so many victims.
You went back and even after this attack, you still were able to open one of Bikram Studios.
Correct.
How hard was it to move past what had happened to you in order to preserve your livelihood?
It was very hard to move past it, but it was a matter of survival.
I knew he could take away my career, so in order for me to continue and eventually open up a yoga studio, I had to put it underneath the rug and act like everything was okay.
After the rape, I came home and told my roommate, who is also a yoga teacher, And I swore her to secrecy.
Later I told another one of my very good friends, who is also a yoga teacher, and eventually shared it with my parents.
So Larissa, when did you finally end your working relationship with Bikram?
Well, I started opening up my yoga studio with my parents' assistants.
During that time, he assaulted me again.
I found myself alone with him and he pushed me up against the wall and pushed himself up against me.
That was a turning point for me, but because I'd already committed to opening up my studio as a Bikram yoga studio, I had to go through a process of rebranding to change the name to Firehouse Hot Yoga, and so probably a six-month, year-long process.
He has power over people, and that's what he focuses on.
And when I changed my studio name, it was, okay, whatever.
You know, I didn't hear anything about it from him.
Up next, Bikram Chowdhury now has fled the country, but will he ever face justice?
That's next.
And one day, I had taught a class, and I had fully come to terms with the fact that I can't teach it anymore.
I know for a fact he abused a lot more than six women, because I've talked to many other women who he's abused.
We're back discussing the dark side of yoga.
You just heard a former student of Bikram Chowdhury speaking out against him in the new documentary, Bikram, Yogi Guru Predator.
It's available only on Netflix.
It's a wonderful documentary.
Celebrity yogi Bikram Chowdhury, known as the bad boy of yoga, has eluded authorities on various sexual assault claims, and then he fled the U.S. in 2017, escaping U.S. civil court cases.
Now 75 years old, he continues to run his global yoga franchise abroad while recruiting more yoga students.
So he's still in business, folks.
Joining us now is civil rights lawyer, Mary Shea.
We just heard from her clients, Sarah Bond and Larissa Anderson, who say they were sexually assaulted by Bikram.
Mary, I hear this story, and when I was watching the documentary, I was stunned at how it does seem like he got away with it.
How do they discredit your clients?
Well, within sort of globally, within the community, I would say, and I think Sarah and Larissa could probably speak to this better than I would, was just berating them.
You're liars.
You've made this up.
This didn't happen.
And why we felt strong with six women is that some of the clients didn't even know each other, yet they were telling the same story.
Yeah.
Even in your two stories, there are significant similarities.
So Sarah and Larissa made the difficult decision to settle their case out of court after Bikram fled the country.
Larissa, when was the last time you saw Bikram or spoke to him?
It was in 2015. He wanted to meet for lunch and make peace with me.
At first I didn't want to, but my belief system in Christianity and having some forgiveness That led me to want to make peace with him at that point.
But he wanted to...
He basically was using that as an opportunity to ask me to settle outside of court and pay me directly instead of going through litigation.
So what would justice require?
You know, we're still in the ring, and we're still persevering.
By we, I mean the other attorneys and I. The criminal side is still open, and that's why we're still speaking out.
There are many people who we know have been assaulted Who should feel free to talk to somebody, get help, but also talk to your law enforcement.
And I think the more...
I think it does make a difference.
We've certainly seen this with...
But why isn't there already a legal approach or desire to address the criminal issues here?
That's the big question that we've had.
And believe me, we brought this to LAPD. We spent a whole day in the LAPD Hollywood station with complaint after complaint, not just, I mean, numerous women.
And when Sarah's case came forward, because Sarah really put the bright light on it, the calls to our office We had to hire extra attorneys just to take the calls.
As I look at these cases, not just with Bikram, but in other situations at all, it just seems that we as a society can please each other, and by doing that have a huge influence on what's right and the fact that what's right is done.
Sometimes we won't get satisfaction from legal sources, although I'm stunned that there's not more action in Los Angeles than what you've presented today.
But despite that, there should be a movement in this country to either hold them accountable or at least be honest about what did happen.
Support the brand, support the behavior.
And what the studio owners need to understand, because I think some people seem to be very...
You asked how they've been shamed.
They've been sort of blamed for, like, look, you've cost me our business.
They didn't.
They were just speaking out.
And he's...
Betrayed them, too.
He's hurt their business.
We didn't hurt their business.
My clients didn't hurt their business.
He hurt their business.
And I think they need to understand that their good yoga instructors are on their own two feet.
They don't need his name on the door.
They're good on their own two feet.
Yoga is a good thing.
Yoga helps us, but not when it hurts you.
And this has hurt people.
And I think, you know, stop enabling it.
Thank you both for being here and telling your story.
Mary, thank you for coming along as well.
We reached out to Chowdhury's publicist for a statement.
He said, in part, Bikram Chowdhury totally refutes all the allegations of sexual misconduct and harassment presented in the Netflix film, Bikram Yogi Guru Predator.
And he's also deeply upset by the continued character assassination.
We'll be right back.
It's been called the murder that changed New York City.
A 22-year-old tourist stabbed to death in a subway protecting his parents from a gang of attackers.
A false confession allegedly beaten out of an 18-year-old lands him in prison for 25 years for a murder he never committed.
Johnny Incapier is here today revealing the hellish conditions he faced in prison.
On today's True Crime, it has been called the murder that changed New York City.
A 22-year-old tourist in town for the U.S. Open is viciously stabbed to death in a New York subway while protecting his parents from a gang of attackers.
18-year-old John Incapier is convicted in connection to the crime, despite neither the victim's family nor other attackers identifying him as a perpetrator.
How did that happen?
How did Johnny and Capier spend a quarter of a century, 25 years, behind bars for a crime he never committed?
Take a look.
It's a story that shocked the nation.
A family from Utah visiting New York violently attacked on a subway platform.
22-year-old tourist Brian Watkins was stabbed in the chest trying to protect his mother and father from a band of muggers.
He died on the way to the hospital.
The September 2, 1990 killing was the crime that called for action from then-Mayor David Dinkins after a record-breaking year of brutal killings in New York City and sparked an aggressive manhunt to track down the assailants and bring them to justice.
Police quickly raided nearby music venue Roseland and emerged with several suspects.
Within just 24 hours, eight young men were arrested, including 18-year-old Johnny Incappier, who was picked up at around 9 p.m.
the day after the attack.
By midnight, police had his videotaped confession, but Johnny quickly claimed it was coerced, that he was physically and verbally assaulted, and even threatened with being killed if he didn't confess.
Reportedly, neither the victim's family nor the others accused could identify Johnny as one of the perpetrators.
But after a seven-week trial, Johnny was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years to life, along with six other defendants.
After being denied several appeals over the years, the 43-year-old was finally exonerated in 2015. After serving 25 years for a crime he did not commit.
Joining us now is Jason Flom.
He's a major player in the music industry, a criminal justice reform activist, and host of the number one true crime podcast, Wrongful Conviction, with Jason Flom.
So let's start with this heroic 22-year-old who died protecting his parents.
What's his story?
Yeah, it's an awful story.
I mean, I'm a New Yorker, you're a New Yorker, so we both remember it.
And we talked off camera about it.
This was a sensational crime, a horrible crime.
This was a tourist family from Utah, sort of at the height of the crime wave in New York City.
And the only thing bigger than the crime wave was the hype around the crime wave.
And this was a family on the train, right down the block from here, really, getting ready to go out to Forest Hills for the tennis tournament.
A gang of kids came on to rob them, to rob somebody who picked on them.
And this heroic kid, Brian Watkins, 22-year-old kid, came to the rescue of his mother who was being assaulted by them.
And in the process, he was stabbed and he died on the steps of the subway station.
So this was front-page news everywhere, every day for a long time.
Yeah, it fed into a lot of fears that many of us had, especially at the time, but it's even there today.
So Johnny Incappier, where was he when this poor young man was being murdered?
So Johnny was coming to the subway station, but he was not on the platform, and he was not anywhere near the area where the crime was committed.
When he entered the subway station, there was a commotion, and people were running away from the scene, so he left the station with them.
Didn't know what had happened.
The misfortune was that some of the kids who perpetrated this awful crime were people that he knew from school.
And he ended up at Roseland, again, half a mile from here, right?
You know, dancing the night away, as 18-year-old kids will do, and knew nothing about this until the police arrived at his home one fateful day.
So again, he's not even close to this, not present at the attack, and he's implicated because his friends say, hey, Incappier was part of our friend group?
I mean, who said Johnny Incappier was there at the time of the murder?
Nobody.
That's the crazy thing.
Nobody said that, yeah.
No, the fact is that what happened was, and this is really an awful, awful thing to think about, is that one of the kids in the process of being interrogated, Uh, was asked, who, who are some of your friends, right?
Or something, I don't know the exact phrasing that they used.
Innocuous sounding.
Something, yeah, who are some of your friends, who, maybe who you were dancing with that night at Rose, whatever it was, right?
So, one of the names that was mentioned was Johnny.
It so happened that they went to his home, They arrested him.
They told his mother that she would not be allowed to come to the police station.
She wanted to, like any good mother would.
And she is a wonderful mother.
I know her.
I've gotten to know her well, and she's here today.
And so he was isolated.
And you know what happened then.
I mean, we can get into that.
Tell me, what happened during his questioning?
So this was a terrible period of time, right?
You had the super predators, the myth of the super predators, these gangs of kids that were wilding.
And, you know, there was a lot of pressure from the media and other places, from the brass.
This was a very high-profile crime.
You had a group of black and brown kids, a white, very white family from Utah, right?
Tourists.
This has all the markings where The pressure's on the police to solve this, and to get as many people as they can.
So, of the eight kids arrested, Johnny was one.
He was brought to the police station, and importantly, the detective who interrogated him was the same guy who got the false confession, some of the false confessions from the Central Park Five.
And people are familiar, I'm sure a lot of people in the audience are familiar with that case, and seen that wonderful movie, When They See Us, terrifying but wonderful movie.
This is the young girl who was raped and beaten almost to death in Central Park, and African Americans confess, even though that's not what happened.
Right.
The investment banker she was, I think, and she was raped and almost beaten to death in the park.
And none of the kids were guilty, of course.
But they all confessed, and this was part of his M.O. In this case, though, he got very aggressive with Johnny.
He beat him.
He pulled his hair out of his head.
This is a kid, Johnny, 18 years old, a DJ, a dancer, someone who's never had any interaction with the police, was raised, as I think most of us were, most of the audience were, to respect the police, to expect that they are on our side and they're after justice.
So this is, imagine the sensory, everything is thrown out of whack.
He's in this tiny interrogation room.
And this is all designed.
Psychologically, there's a protocol that's designed to really isolate you and cut off any sense of hope.
And then, when they get violent, that's not used as much as it used to be, fortunately.
Now they use more psychological tactics.
But the fact is, we know that around 25% of DNA exonerations Have been false confession cases.
So that's how common this is.
25%.
Isn't that crazy?
So what happened after he confessed?
What was the...
How did that play out?
Well, let's not forget that the officer said, the detective said to him, if you don't confess, I'm going to kill you and dump your body in an alley.
And no one will know the difference.
He said this on my podcast on Wrongful Conviction.
And I had the same look that you did.
The officer said that?
I was like, even for me, yes.
Even for me, Doc.
I was like, what the hell?
Why did the officer admit to you that he said that?
Well, he didn't admit it.
Johnny can tell you, and you'll get a chance to hear from him yourself.
So, from there, things unraveled quickly.
He went to trial.
The prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence.
They broke rules that we would like to think don't get broken in our courtrooms in America, but they do every day, unfortunately.
And they were able to secure a conviction.
It should have been abundantly clear he was innocent because nobody placed him at the scene of the crime.
Not the victims, not the kids who actually did it.
There was one of the kids who kept saying over and over again, he didn't do it, he didn't do it, he didn't do it, and they withheld that from his trial.
They moved that kid to a different courtroom so that he would not be able to...
So they went out of their ways to pervert the truth, according to Johnny and others.
Yeah, that's a fact.
Up next, Johnny is here revealing the violent and terrifying details he says he experienced during the interrogation the day he was brought in by police.
And I'm curious, you are probably too, how did he survive for 25 years behind bars, despite knowing that he was innocent of the charges against him?
In 1990, Johnny and Tapia was one of seven young men convicted in relation to a high profile murder of New York tourist Brian Watkins, who Johnny and Tapia was one of seven young men convicted in relation to a high profile murder of New York tourist Brian Johnny spent 25 years in prison for this crime, a crime he did not commit.
Johnny says his false confession at the age of 18 was beaten out of him at the hands of police.
We're back with Jason Flom, and joining us now is Johnny Incapier.
So right off the bat, how does it feel to be a free man?
25 years is a long time.
It feels wonderful.
After spending two decades, over two decades in prison and going through what I went through, coming home and making it out alive was the most surreal experience I've ever had in my life.
Take me back to the night this all happened.
What happened when you went in for the interrogation?
It was the worst nightmare I've ever had.
I wouldn't wish this on anyone at all.
Being psychologically, verbally, and physically abused by a detective that I had placed my respect and faith in, which I was raised by my parents that way, I never expected such treatment from a person like that onto me.
Were you surprised when they showed up at your house to pick you up that night?
Absolutely.
And I heard earlier your mom wanted to come but wasn't able to accompany you.
Did anyone go with you?
Any legal representation?
Anyone to help you?
No one at all.
My mother attempted to go.
They wouldn't allow her to go.
They asked her if I was 18 years old and she said yes I was and because of that they denied her and they just grabbed me and took me away.
So after that evening and you did confess, is that true?
I falsely confessed.
You falsely confessed but you said I did it or something just to get out of the room.
Listen, after you're in a room in the situation that I was in when your life was in danger the way that I was, I just basically said what he wanted me to say.
So you parrot back what you're told.
You're sent to Rikers Island at age 18, in the early 90s.
I've only heard stories about Riker's Island, but how terrifying was that?
Riker's Island was the worst experience going into jail for the first time.
When I was there, everyone knows who is who in there.
And I met this one guy and he told me, listen, if you want to survive in here, you're going to have to fight.
But at the end of the day, after living inside of Riker's Island, that's exactly what I did.
I fought to defend myself.
So let's go back to this.
So you're brought into the...
You've never had problems with the criminal justice system, right?
Never.
Never been arrested.
Never had any problems whatsoever with the criminal justice system at all.
Let's just unwrap this.
You're brought in for interrogation.
You're physically beaten.
Is that correct?
Yes.
I mean, how specifically did they...
What did he do?
Listen, for me to really take back and go back what happened to me was terrible.
But just put yourself in my situation, right?
Having an 18-year-old kid like myself in there, right?
And the detective not believing anything what I was saying and telling me that if I wouldn't comply with what he wanted me to say, that I was going to wind up dead.
He threatened your life.
He threatened my life completely.
What did he say he was going to do?
No, he said I was going to be found in an alley.
Nobody was going to know.
Nobody was going to believe what was happening.
If you just look at the videotape confession, you could see how my hair was pulled out.
I had ball spots in my hair.
It was so clear what he did to me.
So, again, I don't wish this on anyone.
So you survived that experience and you're thrown into the hotter fire of Rikers Island.
What kinds of defense did you have to use?
Were there truly fights that you had to...
Crawl your way out of?
Because of the notoriety and the publicity that I was associated with in this case.
I had officers attacking me.
I had officers sending other inmates to attack me.
I specifically remember in the housing unit that I was in, right, the officers were playing this game.
That when recreation was over, they would close the door like if this was a horse racetrack and then suddenly open and everybody had to run back to their cells.
And intentionally, the officer would close my cell to make sure I wouldn't make it.
And the people that didn't make it had to stand up against the wall in a frisk position, and he would whack me in my buttocks and in my back with his belly club.
And this happened night after night.
And it got so bad to the point that I couldn't even sit on the toilet when I wanted to use it.
All because of the publicity in my case.
This was the type of treatment that I had to go through when I was in Rikers Island.
I'm so stunned that false confessions even exist until Jason brought it to my attention.
Actually, how did Johnny get freed eventually?
I mean, why doesn't everyone still believe it's false confession?
Well, I'm glad you brought that up, Doc.
And before we get to that, just one quick thought.
You know, we have just released a new podcast, which is number one on the true crime charts.
It's been as high as number three overall.
It's number four right now on the overall charts.
And it's dedicated specifically to the phenomena of false confessions.
It's called False Confessions.
And it's part of the Wrongful Conviction Podcast brand.
So it's really exciting that we're able to get the word out there and to help to prevent these things from happening with the same alarming degree of regularity in the future.
Because it's a phenomenon most people understand.
I'm sure if we asked everyone in the audience today, would you ever confess to a crime you didn't commit?
What do you think they would say, Johnny?
They would say no.
Right.
But we know that everyone has a breaking point.
And Johnny reached that breaking point.
He's a rational guy.
You see, he's not a crazy guy.
But in that situation, we can't imagine what he was going through.
And it happens day in and day out in courtrooms and precincts all over this country.
Johnny, there's a real hero in this case, besides Johnny himself, because Johnny is the hero.
I mean, to survive what he did, to come out the way he did out of prison with a smile, with hope, with grace, I think we should give him a round of applause because he's just remarkable.
Who's the other hero?
The other hero is a guy named Bill Hughes.
And so Johnny was writing letters for years from prison to anyone that he thought could help.
And he found a hero and a journalist named Bill Hughes who took an interest in his case, quickly discovered that he was, in fact, an innocent man in prison.
Did amazing work bringing attention to Johnny's case, which eventually, it still took years and years, but eventually led to his full exoneration, to him being declared actually innocent, and to being able to sit here with us today.
So there's another hero here.
It's Johnny's mother.
And she describes the horrific fear that gripped her the day police seized her 18-year-old son when we come back.
Also how Johnny's continued to fight for criminal justice reform since he's been freed.
So stick around.
We've been talking about the wrongful conviction that landed Johnny and Capier in prison for 25 years for allegedly taking part in the murder of a New York tourist in 1990.
A world-infamous case, but it was a crime he didn't commit.
Joining us now is Johnny's mother, Maria.
So, Maria, I didn't realize until I got into this that your son had had no problems with the law in the past.
You'd raised a good child, did all the right things, gone to communion, you know, like a poster child in many ways, hanging with some kids maybe who weren't ideal, But you're sitting at home the night after this murder, which you've probably heard of, and then the cops come to haul your son away.
What was that like?
An ordeal.
An ordeal.
I don't wish anybody in the whole World War II to go through what I felt in that particular moment.
To see taking your son away from me, knowing my son, that he was...
I didn't even know what happened.
It was unreal.
Yeah.
So as hard as it was for you to be in prison, and I see it's emotional even to think about this, how hard was it to know your mom was suffering because of your false confession?
Well, Dr. Oz, keep one thing in mind.
People often use the term that, you know, a confession was beaten out of you, right?
No confession was ever beaten out of me.
A confession was beaten into me, right?
And to then finally see how my mother that raised me, all right, looking her eyes as I was being dragged out of my own home, and then to see her only on a visit, And what she used to tell me, the humiliation process that she used to go through, just to go into these jails, just to go into these prisons, just to visit me, and I'll never forget it.
After a decade in prison, my mother and my father, they told me, Johnny, we're staying alive because of you.
We're waiting for the day that they prove your innocence.
And I used to wait to go into the first room where I was being humiliated, stripped completely naked, just to cry my tears because I didn't want my parents to see me cry after what they said to me.
Oh my goodness.
How happy was it for you, Marie, when you realized your son had been exonerated that he was coming home?
I think that is the most happy days, the second happy days of my life when I gave him birth and when God gave him back to us.
My two sons, they are the most beautiful gift plus my husband in my life.
Oh my goodness, giving birth and getting him back, the two best days of your life.
Yeah.
It's uncommon to have someone exonerated and be able to articulate what's wrong with the system and how we can do better.
Well, if you look at my Instagram account, you go to itsjohnnyh72, you'll find everything that I've done since I've been home.
I've been a public speaker, an advocate for the Innocence Project.
They basically adopted me as their own child.
I've gone around universities.
I've been on numerous shows speaking about what happened to me and the importance of wanting to gain the attention and support of so many other people to join this cause because if only one person in that police station would have made a difference, In the interrogation room, I would have never spent 25 years of my life in prison.
And that's exactly what I've been trying to do today.
The power of one.
We talk about it a lot in this show.
Just one person sticking up.
Doesn't take a lot.
One person.
Everyone else will follow you, because if you're telling the truth, I'll come to it.
Congratulations on raising a wonderful young man.
Thank you.
You may not have heard that enough.
Thank you.
Johnny, thanks for being here.
Thank you for having me.
For more information on horrific false confessions like Johnny's, please tune into the podcast, Wrongful Conditions, False Confessions, on Apple Podcasts or anywhere you listen.
We'll be right back.
What's really dangerous is a startled animal caught on tape.
They grabbed his hood and tried to drag him backwards.
When wild animals attacked right outside your front door.
Oh my god, that's a mountain lion.
That's coming up tomorrow.
All right, who in this audience is all too familiar with this sound?
Put your hands up.
Let me see some hands.
I know they're out there, all right?
Brand new research says there's that type of body fat that may be causing the snoring.
So let me look at your tongues.
Sing your tongues out.
You have a nice tongue.
Do you snore?
Well, when I was pregnant, my husband said I snored, and he actually videoed me.
Yeah, but husbands, are you a snorer?
I think when I drink.
When you drink.
Yeah.
Do you have anybody in your family who snores?
My boyfriend.
Your boyfriend, what do you do about it?
I cover his mouth.
Cover his mouth?
The best part is, when I said anyone would snore, everyone would start pointing at the person next to them, which itself is a warning sign.
So it turns out that a fat tongue can lead to problems.
Has anyone here heard of a fat tongue?
Aha, you're gonna love this, you're gonna love this, right?
I want everyone right now, look at your tongue, right?
The size of your tongue, because it might affect your sleep.
Grab a mirror, say, ah, like that, right?
Or take a picture, send it to friends, right?
Here's what happens.
When you're lying down at night, right?
And you breathe in and out of your nose, your mouth, it's really important that you have space.
The air, this blue arrow coming through here, has to go behind the tongue and then back out again, right?
Then that tongue swells sometimes, so does the back of your throat, if you're gaining a little weight, And there's not much room for that air to sneak down and then coming back out against that much of a problem.
So it sounds like this.
Right?
Because like a kazoo with the air is wiggling through there, right?
If your tongue is too flabby, it can contribute to this blockage in your throat and you start to make that snoring sound.
Now, there's no way to exercise away that fat, right?
You can't just target the fat in your tongues.
But researchers found that When people are sleeping, that fat's especially important.
And if you lose weight, your tongue, which is this big, let's say, it actually shrinks a little bit, especially in the back.
The smaller the tongue, right, the better the airflow as you're sleeping.
So ultimately, you might get better sleep.
Instead of storing, keeping people awake.
So think about this, right?
Your waistline, if you keep it in check, it doesn't just help you feel better when you're awake.
It also helps you get the sleep that you need.
It's a perfect one-two punch.
So remember, the power change, the eyes and the power are you, and that starts inside your own body.
Yeah, you're one person with one voice, but if you speak the truth, it changes everything.
▲
Export Selection