Exoneree Fernando Bermudez Attends Play Based on His Life, PEDRO CASTILLO IS INNOCENT, at TNC

Back in 1992, Fernando Bermudez, a Washington Heights resident, was convicted of a homicide that occurred in Greenwich Village. Eyewitnesses recanted soon after, but he remained in prison.

Bermudez was exonerated in 2009, after serving nearly 18 years, going on to win the biggest settlement for an exoneree in the history of New York State. Another event in Bermudez's journey occurred just a few days ago.

He stood on the set of a play inspired by his story, picked up books, sat on the bed and then scrawled the words, "Fernando Bermudez is Innocent" on a world map like the one that had been in his cell.

A new play inspired by Bermudez's life, written by a journalist who covered the case, is playing at Theater for the New City just blocks from the site of the crime through Feb. 14.

Theater for the New City Executive Director Crystal Field and the Textile Company are presenting PEDRO CASTILLO IS INNOCENT by Claude Solnik, a playwright who reported on the case.

The production, which opened Feb. 4 and completed its first week, runs Feb. 11-13 at 8 p.m. and Feb. 14 at 3 p.m. at TNC, 155 First Ave. Tickets are $15 at www.theaterforthenewcity.net.

The play tells an emotional story about how an innocent man's incarceration affects not only himself, but his family and others around him.

It includes a great deal of information and statements made by Bermudez, while also looking at how he might have handled a parole hearing, if he had not been exonerated earlier.

Bermudez talked about his survival story" as one about spending "18 years in a six-by-nine-foot prison cell," while calling it one more reason to rally for reform.

Bermudez, who advocates and speaks around the country about the power of persistence and the need for justice reform.

He also called his story "a cautionary tale against this happening to others as a public safety problem that allows true perpetrators to escape punishment while families are ripped apart."

Danielle C.N. Zappa directs the production of the play in which John Torres plays Pedro Castillo, Christine Copley plays his wife Gwen and Samantha Masone plays their daughter Kaela.

Michael J.Shanahan plays a corrections officer; Michael H. Carlin plays fellow inmate Santos, Laura Leigh Carroll plays Angela (an attorney) and Stephanie Sottile plays Liberty.

Bermudez, whose situation prompted this play, was arrested after his photo was picked by witnesses. He was not at the scene of the crime, did not know anyone there, had no history of violence and didn't own or use a gun. The witnesses soon recanted, but he remained in prison for nearly two decades.

He attended the first two performances and spoke to audiences, answering questions about wrongful conviction, his case and what can be done.

Solnik covered the case as a journalist at New York City weeklies The Villager and Downtown Express and then worked to exonerate him. Bermudez was exonerated in 2009 long after witnesses recanted as a judge declared him "innocent," not simply "not guilty."

More than 2 million people are in prison in the United States, by far the largest number of any nation. Even if the system functions well in most cases, that makes some wrongful convictions inevitable.

"If only 1 percent of the U.S. prison population have been wrongfully convicted, thousands of innocent people are in prison," said Mike Gaynor, a former NYPD homicide detective who obtained key evidence used to exonerate Bermudez.

PEDRO CASTILLO IS INNOCENT also looks at the Catch 22 that innocent people encounter, often given severe sentences because of their refusal to admit guilt and show remorse.

Scott Christianson, author of "Innocent" and one of the key advocates who pushed for Bermudez's release, said some problems in the culture of the justice system make wrongful convictions difficult to overturn.

"The root of the problem is that prosecutors refuse to admit their mistakes, even when they know it is wrong," Christianson said. "That is not justice. It is not right. Honesty means admitting you have erred."

While PEDRO CASTILLO IS INNOCENT tells a story relevant anywhere in the nation, the location of the production, so near the actual crime for which Bermudez was incarcerated, gives the play added immediacy.

"Fernando Bermudez had nothing to do with the homicide that occurred just off Union Square," Solnik said. "People are coming together a few blocks away from that to tell the story of how wrongful incarceration affects individuals and families."

Solnik, a journalist and the playwright in residence for the Textile Company, frequently writes plays inspired by true stories, including one about Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for president in the 1860s.

The Textile Co. also presented his "Lady From Limerick" based on the true story of an Irish woman who travels to New York for plastic surgery.

He also wrote a play about Tennessee Williams and his sister Rose that the Textile Co. presented as a staged reading at Studio Theatre Long Island.

"At its heart, this is a human story," Solnik said of PEDRO CASTILLO IS INNOCENT. "It's about family, friends and cases where the conviction itself can be a kind of crime."

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