NYC NOW - May 1, 2023: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: May 1, 2023

Governor Kathy Hochul cuts ties her advisor Adam Sullivan after The New York Times published a story that described multiple instances of troubling and abusive behavior. Also, Lorenzo Charles was born in Guyana and raised in Brooklyn. But in 2003 Charles was deported following what he described as a wrongful conviction for attempted burglary. While serving time, something extraordinary happened. Prosecutors agreed to downgrade Lorenzo’s criminal convictions, and he was allowed back into the country. Now, Lorenzo is back in Brooklyn. WNYC’s Matt Katz recently hung out with him.

Good evening and welcome to NYC Now. I'm Junae Pierre for WNYC. New York Governor Kathy Hockel is cutting ties with her advisor after some troubling behavior was reported detailing contributions to a toxic workplace. Adam Sullivan, a powerful yet low-profile aid to Governor Hulkel, resigned after the New York Times published a story that described multiple instances of troubling and abusive behavior.

In an email to colleagues, Sullivan called the Times piece painful and said it caused him to reflect on his behavior. The article also pointed out that Sullivan is based in Colorado and rarely appeared in New York in person, despite having significant influence over Hockel's administration. The governor said she was disappointed by what was written about Sullivan and the Times story. She said they both agreed he should take a step back. Stick around. There's more after the break. Born in Guyana and raised in Brooklyn, Crown Heights became the only home Lorenzo Charles ever knew. But after serving time for a criminal conviction, he was deported and away from the U.S. for two decades.

Then, finally, something extraordinary happened. Prosecutors agreed to downgrade Lorenzo's criminal convictions, and he was allowed back into the country. WNYC's Matt Katz recently hung out with Lorenzo in Brooklyn, where he lives again, to get a sense of of what it's like to be undeported. Lorenzo Charles is back in Crown Heights, right where he grew up in the 80s and 90s. The cornered bodega has a different owner now, and he says there are former rats

scampering around the city these days. But as we walk around, Lorenzo is transported back in time. My friend Barry, he lived in the first house right there. My friend Darnell lived on the fourth floor right there. We'd be here in the morning, singing in the hallways. Lorenzo arrived from Guyana as an immigrant when he was just six years old. He doesn't remember much about his early years in the South American country,

but his youth in Brooklyn comes in quite clearly. This used to be a pool hall. My dad, I used to have to pick him up at nights. My grandmother sent me to go get your dad. And I'll come out here and I get him. We walk around some more as he remembers going into the Nica backyards for parties, hanging out on St. John's place as a teenager. This is like the popular block.

And like the whole neighborhood, like when the weather gets nice like now, teenagers hang out all over. The four train is right there, the three train, the B-46, the B-45. But then came the arrests. First, as a 16-year-old in 1993 for attempted robbery, and then when he was 20 for attempted second-degree burglary. As a green card holder, the convictions made Lorenzo at risk of deportation. And in 2003, after more than five,

years in prison and in immigration detention, Lorenzo was put on a plane to Guyana. By this point, his whole family was in New York. I didn't know anyone in Guyana. He felt out of place as soon as he got there. When he went to take a shower, he found, instead of a faucet, there were buckets. I was like, yo, what is this? I was like, what is this? Yeah, I thought it was the end of the world.

He says he felt trapped in a place that neither claimed him as its own nor wanted him. Every day he says he woke up in pain, yearning to be somewhere he couldn't. The year he was deported, 50 cents, in the club, top the charts. But Lorenzo missed out on his prime New York clubbing years. During his two decades away, America got three new presidents. He wasn't here for most of the Mike Bloomberg years in the entirety of Bill de Blasio's terms. And while he was gone, he says the Caribbean influence of his old neighborhood faded. The playground across from his apartment building got an upgrade and some buildings disappeared.

It was a church there before, with a community center, we were able to go and play basketball. Throughout his time in Guyana, Lorenzo kept picturing these blocks. I never forgot a moment of it. I loved, I loved it. I loved it. Sometimes in my free time, I'd watch YouTube videos, and I'd see these buildings. It was amazing. The government doesn't keep stats, but immigration attorneys and experts told me it's exceedingly. seemingly rare to be undeported. Yet Lorenzo spent his free time in Guyana trying, as he says, to find a way out. He researched immigration case law, contacted legal experts, scoured government immigration websites.

His family in the U.S. also always believed he'd be back on these streets. On our walk, we run into Lorenzo's nephew, Darren Charles Edwards, who now lives in Lorenzo's old building. This is a feeling that you knew that he was going to get a chance to come back up here. It's just a feeling. You could ask anybody in our family that we knew he was going to come back up here. As he plotted his return, he had to make a living in Guyana. Viewed as an over-privileged American, Lorenzo says he wasn't welcomed. It was hard to get work.

So he hustled, first, burning and renting DVDs. The first job I had, I took $200 U.S. and opened up a DVD club. Within a year, he bought some video game consoles and opened a game arcade, an internet cafe, and then hired a tattoo artist to bring an even more business. He later moved to neighboring Suriname, offloading containers, and then to Trinidad, working security and construction. He self-published six books. Then, via Facebook, Lorenzo reconnected with a woman he had gone to elementary school with back in Brooklyn.

She was living in Trinidad. Karima's like one of the greatest persons. You know, she's super cool, she's warm, she's understanding, she listens. Karima also provided. that cultural understanding as a New Yorker that Lorenzo missed so much. You're conditioned, you're conditioned to this culture.

Yeah. And then you're put in a different culture. You're banned from this culture. The way you're designed to survive, to everything is part of the culture that you're familiar with, right? Lorenzo and Karima fell in love, married, and he became a doting stepfather

to her two children. And since Karima is a U.S. citizen, he had even more of a reason to want to be back in the country. And that was about the time that he finally found attorneys to take up his case. Wow, he really seemed to just have something about his story that was just compelling. Lorenzo's story crossed the desk of Lindsay Nash, co-director of the Immigration Justice Clinic at Cardozo Law School. Her team of lawyers and law students worked on his case for more than two years.

It seems like something really unjust happened here, and maybe we won't be able to fix it, but it's worth a try. The attorneys first found Lorenzo didn't get proper legal representation in the 90s. So they convinced the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office to get his first conviction when he was 16, downgraded to a juvenile crime, which is not a deportable offense. Next, the DA downgraded the second conviction to something more in line with what he took responsibility for, trespassing. And then, miraculously, immigration customs enforcement under President Joe Biden, supported the lawyer's legal motion to wipe away the deportation order.

If things had been a little bit different, if administrations had been a little bit different, Mr. Charles would not be back in the country today, and that would be a pretty serious miscarriage of justice. At the end of our walk, Lorenzo's wife and five-year-old stepdaughter, Leah, come by to pick him up. Spell Leah. L-E-A-8. Give me get a kiss. Oh, my gosh. Lorenzo landed at JFK airport back in the fall as a 45-year-old man, still fit but 20 years older. He met nieces and nephews for the first time, saw his sister he hadn't seen since before he was locked up.

But New York hasn't always lived up to the rosy vision he had of the city when he was in Guyana. He's already witnessed the shooting in his old neighborhood, and he's starting to recall some of the more brutal elements of life here in the 80s and 90s, like the vibrant crack trade and the violence. That part, the violence. It wasn't in the memories. Like, that's not what I've seen and what I was holding on to inside of me of America.

I totally forgot that reality. Lorenzo now goes to college full-time and works as a case manager with gang-affiliated youth offenders through a nonprofit in Bed-Stuy. His goal, become an immigration and criminal lawyer, helping people who've been deported. That's WNYC's MacHats. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC.

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