12/19/2021
When Edgar was fifteen years old, a number of heavily armed masked men dressed in all black broke into Edgar's home under cover of darkness, beat him, terrorized his family, and kidnapped him. That is how Edgar and his family remember that awful day. The date was March 13, 2002, and that is how police stored Edgar's home and wrongfully detained him for a crime he did not commit.
This page was set up by the family and friends of Edgar Ivan Perez and other citizens concerned with Edgar's wrongful incarceration in an effort to cast light onto Edgar's decades-long injustice, gather support to end Edgar's and his loved ones' suffering and bring Edgar home. This is Edgars story.
Edgar was misidentified in a case where a young man was shot in the torso, but thankfully survived on February 21, 2002 in Long Beach, California. Edgar was misidentified due to police using a tainted photo lineup ( a photo lineup is "tainted" when it is suggestive of or prejudicial to an individual and that person stands out due to race, skin color, age or other factors). We know the photo lineup was tainted because even the victim in this case, along with other eyewitness, pointed out to police and in court just how suggestive this photo lineup was in stating they had only selected Edgar out of the lineup because he was the "youngest looking", (Edgar was approximately fourteen years old and had a "peach fuzz" mustache in the photo of him used in the lineup) and was therefore the closest in age to the assailant in this case, who was said to be approximately sixteen years old; while the other photos in the lineup appeared to be of grown men in their 20s and 30s, with receding hairlines, beards, and full facial-hair growth. This was the second-time police had implicated Edgar in a crime he did not commit by using the exact same tainted photo lineup; the evidence against Edgar in that case was the same as in the present case, eyewitnesses singling out Edgar because he was made to stand out in the photo lineup, but the charges were all dismissed in that case.
The identification of Edgar obtained with the tainted photo lineup alone was deemed sufficient to execute the search warrant for this arrest. There was no other physical or forensic evidence linking Edgar to the crime or placing him at the crime scene, no DNA, no fingerprints, no crime weapon or other items found. The prosecution also ignored that there were at least two alibi witnesses placing Edgar at least a mile and a half to two miles away from where the crime occurred at the time of the crime. There was a total of five eye witnesses, NONE of which were able to definitively identify Edgar as the assailant. Three of the eyewitnesses gave clothing and physical descriptions of the assailant that were an exact match to another person who had been detained by police near the crime scene immediately after the crime occurred, but who was mistakenly released by police, (the fact that someone else matching the assailant’s exact clothing and physical description had been detained by police was withheld from Edgar, the judge, and the jury in this case, by the police and the district attorney and would only come to light a decade and half after.) The clothing description of the assailant did not match what Edgar wore that day. The physical description given of the assailant did not math Edgar; in fact, the victim himself gave physical description of his assailant being at least eight inches taller than Edgar and having a distinguishable mole near an eyebrow which the victim was unable to find on Edgar in court when asked to do so. Another eyewitness testified in court that the person she witnessed commit the crime was not in the courtroom, meanwhile Edgar sat shackled in the courtroom. Lastly, the last eyewitness admitted in court that she had in fact not looked at the assailant’s face at any point before, during, or after the crime, therefore she would not have been able to identify the assailant as she was not an actual eyewitness. These testimonies were the linchpin of the case against Edgar.
Based solely on these testimonies, which actually proved Edgar’s innocence, Edgar was erroneously found guilty on all charges. Edgar was sentenced to 9 years for the attempted murder, a whoppingly disproportionate 25 years to life sentence for a firearm enhancement, another life sentence for a gang enhancement (later dropped down to 10 years on direct appeal), and 4 years combined for criminal threats and firearm enhancement s on those treats. Essentially, Edgar was sentenced to death by incarceration for enhancements in a non-homicide that he did not commit after being wrongfully incarcerated at the age of fifteen. Edgar’s case is one of multi-layered injustices: Not only was he incarcerated for a crime which is evident he did not commit, he was sentenced to a lifetime of incarceration for enhancements when the actual crime carried a maximum penalty of 9 years, and having to endure all of this while he was still a child. Edgar’s family couldn’t afford an attorney; and the facts that Edgar was provided a public defender that was overworked and underpaid, that Edgar’s only parent was a non-English speaker, that Edgar didn’t understand the law or his rights being that he was so young (only later would he understand he was never Mirandized before police interrogation after being beaten and arrested at approximately 4 a.m.) and that there was no one with a stake in his welfare to advocate for him, created the perfect storm of circumstances for his wrongful conviction. Edgar stood alone as a sitting duck against a biased system with unlimited resources.
Edgar has maintained his innocence in this crime throughout the entire case, declining "deal" to plead guilty in exchange for a lesser sentence before being wrongfully convicted, and writing countless letters to attorneys, organizations, media personnel, celebrities, and politicians for help post-conviction. In 2010, the California Innocence Project (CIP) finally decided to pay attention to Edgar’s requests for help after nearly a decade of his persisting. In 2012, the CIP tracked down and obtained a confession from the actual culprit in the crime for which Edgar was wrongfully convicted. The now confessed culprit also confessed to committing a second crime with the same firearm, which is corroborated by ballistics. Regrettably, the actual culprit committed su***de shortly thereafter, and would consequently leave Edgar in a legal limbo. By the end of 2013, the CIP informed Edgar they could no longer assist him in pursuing proving his innocence as they had limited resources and had been unable to obtain enough evidence to proceed with a strong legal challenge in court in their opinion. In essence, the CIP dropped the ball in Edgar’s case in not video-recording the actual culprit’s confession and in failing to dig deeper to uncover other exculpatory evidence in the time they assisted Edgar. This, along with other difficulties Edgar was experiencing simultaneously, led to Edgar attempting to end his life in 2014 out of a sense of sheer hopelessness; desire to relieve his family of the seemingly endless emotional and financial burden of his wrongful imprisonment, and in an effort to obtain peace. Fortunately, Edgar was found in time and received the mental health treatment he required. Edgar was subsequently diagnosed with a major depressive disorder, anxiety disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from and exacerbated by his wrongful incarceration and the negative experiences he has endured during this time.
After regrouping, and with the help of a private investigator, Mr. Frank C. Griffin, who provided his investigative services free of charge upon learning of Edgar’s case and circumstances, Edgar was able to make headway in gathering additional evidence to eventually challenge his wrongful conviction in court. Among the things that Mr. Griffin was able to help Edgar with was obtain a declaration from the law student from the CIP (who is now an attorney) to whom the actual culprit confessed to having committed come forward and provide a declaration stating that his cousin had confessed to him having committed the crime for which Edgar was in prison for. That same year, yet another person came forward and provided a declaration relating a conversation with the confessed culprit years prior in which the confessed culprit had confided in him having committed the crime for which Edgar is wrongfully incarcerated.
In early 2017, Edgar hired a legal consultant, Mr. Gary Eccher, being that Edgar’s family couldn't afford to hire an actual attorney, to file a Habeas Corpus petition to challenge Edgar's wrongful conviction in court with all the existing exculpatory evidence. In response to his petition, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office submitted a rebuttal which included a document called a Field Show-Up Admonition, which had never been disclosed to Edgar, the judge, or the jury in this case by the police or the prosecution. The Field Show-Up Admonition recorded the name and physical and clothing descriptions of the person who would later confess to committing this crime to the law student with the California Innocence Project and at least two other people. According to this document, the confessed culprit had been detained by the police near the crime scene immediately after the crime occurred, but was released by police erroneously. That document also shed light as to the police error that led to the actual culprit being released in error after already having been apprehended: The actual culprit was presented for an in-person identification in implication in this shooting to someone police assumed was an eyewitness, but police had in fact shown the actual culprit to the "eyewitness" who would later admit in court she never saw the shooter's face, therefore she would not have been able to positively identify the actual shooter even when he was standing right in front of her. After this so-called eyewitness was unsurprisingly unable to identify the actual culprit, who
would confess to committing this crime to the law student with the CIP ten years later, the police released him without first showing him to other actual eyewitnesses. (The actual culprit in this case, who was released by police due to a lack of due diligence on their part, would continue committing crimes which would have been otherwise been prevented had he been properly identified and remained detained;) Because, the field, Show-Up Admonition actually helps prove Edgar innocence and fills in the blanks as to what went wrong that led to Edgar’s misidentification and wrongful incarceration, it is easy to conclude that this document was inadvertently released to Edgar by the D.A.'s Office, who by this point was a different group of people than the original office who doggedly persecuted and wrongfully prosecuted Edgar.
Unfortunately, Legal Consultant Gary Eccher was untimely in his filing of the response to the D.A.’s Office's rebuttal and Edgar's chances at proving his innocence before a judge were dashed once again due to failures outside of Edgar.
In late 2017, a friend of Edgar’s, Michael Sizer, mailed Edgar a Los Angeles Times newspaper clipping to give Edgar some hope. The article was about a man who had spent 20 years wrongfully incarcerated and sentenced to Life in prison for a crime he did not commit but was exonerated with the help of an attorney, Mr. Ricardo Perez. Edgar immediately wrote to this attorney for help, as he usually did so when coming across such stories on TV, newspapers or other media. We are happy to report that Attorney Perez has been assisting Edgar in proving his innocence since without any upfront charge as he sees what everyone else sees in Edgar’s case: a clear and convincing injustice.
Sadly, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office's Conviction Integrity Unit, who is tasked with ensuring those wrongly convicted or unjustly sentenced do not remain so by newly elected District attorney George Gascon, continues to drag their feet in vacating Edgar’s wrongful conviction and releasing him in spite of the overwhelming evidence proving Edgar's innocence, which was presented to the Conviction Integrity Unit by Attorney Ricardo Perez since October of 2020. It is because of this that the family and friends of Edgar decided to take action to make this injustice public and rally support for Edgar and others suffering similar injustices.
When officials in positions of power over the lives of others make mistakes or purposely violate the law and the rights of those they are supposed to serve causing them irreparable harm or loss, they must be held accountable and they must be swift in rectifying their wrongs to the greatest extent possible. Every year, there are hundreds of people exonerated in the U.S. after being wrongfully convicted of crimes they did not commit. The average length of time they spend wrongfully incarcerated before being exonerated is 20 years. The 20th-year anniversary of Edgar's wrongful incarceration is only months away. It is a dreadful milestone Edgar does not wish to reach, and which he should not have to. Edgar runs the unnecessary risks of irreparable harm and even death, and continues to lose time, opportunities and other things that are irreplaceable, every day that he remains unjustly imprisoned due to the inaction
of those tasked with carrying out justice. Edgar has already been subjected to and forced to endure countless hardships, hazards, and horrors through his wrongful incarceration; and his imprisonment has been an awful cross to bear for his family and friends as well. It has taken an emotional toll on them, especially Edgar’s mother, as Edgar has been kept approximately 400 miles away from loved ones for most of his incarceration.
You may support Edgar in receiving justice and regaining his life and freedom by contacting the L.A. County District Attorney George Gascon and the L.A. County D.A.’s Office’s Conviction Integrity Unit via the contact information provided and demanding justice for Edgar. Edgar's family and friends also plan to hold peaceful marches in front of the aforementioned offices to bring Edgar's injustice to the forefront of their attention and priority list. We will post the dates and times of these marches on this page for everyone who wishes to participate and make a difference in the life of Edgar and thereby contribute to social justice. It is also asked that you share this page and information with others who may be interested in supporting this cause.
Edgar did not wish to include herein the names of the eyewitnesses in this case out of respect for their privacy and sense of security. But if you would like to know more about Edgar’s injustice or any specifics, his case number is NA052658, and his appeal case number is B165450. If you would like to share some uplifting words Edgar, his current housing and mailing address can be found at the conclusion of this social media message in a bottle.
Since his wrongful incarceration while in the 9th grade, Edgar has obtained his GED/High School Equivalency as he wasn't afforded the opportunity to graduate high school and is currently halfway through obtaining his associate's degree. Edgar has also graduated a vocation in computers, published one of the poetry books he wrote while incarcerated (Jaguar: An Anthology of Poetry), attends every self-improvement program available to him, and received Christian baptism. Edgar dreams of one day having the opportunity at a career in writing, otherwise exercising his creativity, marriage and a family of his own, and experiencing a different side of life than what he has known thus far. He also wishes to spend quality time with family and friends, and plans to make social justice his life's mission.
Edgar would like to conclude with a wholehearted thank you to everyone who has supported him from the beginning, his family and friends, to those who have lent him a hand along the way like Private Investigator Frank C. Griffin and Attorney Ricardo Perez, and to every new supporter who lends their time, voice, and presence to helping Edgar rightfully regain his freedom in what is hoped is the last stretch of his wrongful incarceration. Thank you.
Included are some photographs of Edgar. At thirty-five years old, Edgar has now spent more time behind bars than the brief fifteen years he knew free, so there are more photgraphs and memoried of Edgar while imprisoned. But the hope is that Edgar will be able to make wonderful new memories with loved ones to commemorate that will eclipse the last two decades.
Edgar’s Family, Friends & Supporters.
