Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - Larry David Saved Him - The Story of Juan Catalan

Episode Date: February 3, 2025

This is the story of Juan Catalan, and how he was accused of murder before he is ultimately saved by Larry David of Curb Your Enthusiasm

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There's no going back. Our directive is clear. Hang on! Tron Aries, now streaming on Disney Plus, rated PG-13. So one night, this girl is sitting. on the curb outside her house, and she's chatting with a friend. And suddenly, this guy walks up behind her and he's like, are you Martha? And she's like, yeah. And then the guy, he reaches into his hoodie pocket, and he pulls out a pew-pue, and bang, he unalives her. Now the killer, he gets

away, but police, they investigate. And pretty quickly, they feel like they have a suspect. This guy, Juan. Because Juan's brother was involved in a separate murder case and the girl, Mark she testified at that trial. So police think Juan unalived her. And the SWAT team, they go to his house and bam, they arrest him. And when police sit one down and tell him he's charged with murder, Juan's like, what the fuck? That's impossible! I didn't murder anyone!

I was at a Dodgers game that night. And police are like, Pse, prove it. So Juan, he shows them his ticket stubs from the game. But the thing about ticket stubs is, I guess, anyone can just buy tickets. It doesn't mean he went to the game. went to the game. So police, they don't believe him. And they tell Juan that eyewitnesses had seen him shoot Martha that night. And that those witnesses identified him as the shooter through his mugshot.

But of course, that's a lie. There were no witnesses who identified him through his mugshot. Police are just trying to trick him into confessing. But one, he doesn't confess. He sticks to his story. And police, they end up charging him with unaliving the girl, Martha, and they throw him in jail. and so he's there in jail waiting for his trial to start. Here's his mugshot. Now, during this time, Juan's lawyer, this guy, Todd, Todd knows Juan had nothing to do with Martha's murder. But this is going to be a really hard thing to prove.

And to make it worse, they're going up against this really hard ass of a prosecuting attorney who has allegedly never lost a case and who always pushes for the death penalty. So if Juan loses this, he's fucked. Now, Major League Baseball, baseball games are usually televised. So Todd, he starts getting a hold of as much TV footage of the Dodgers game from that night as he can. And he starts scrubbing through it, trying to make out the faces in the crowd, looking for any sign of Juan. But Juan is just nowhere to be found. And so Todd, he goes back to Juan and he pushes him to remember something, anything else from that night,

anything that can help prove he was there at the game. And then Juan finally remembered. something. He remembers seeing this comedian at the game, Bob Einstein, aka Super Dave, aka Marty Funkhouser from the TV show, Curb Your Enthusiasm. He is there. In fact, Juan remembers that not only was Bob Einstein there, but he was actually sitting in the same section as him. And one's pretty sure there were cameramen following him around. And so Todd is like, hey, that might be something. And so he goes and he calls around and he gets the contact info for the camera crew that was there filming Bob Einstein that day. And that camera crew is HBO. And they were there that day filming an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm with this guy, Larry David. And so Larry David and his

producers, they agree to let Todd come down and look through all the unreleased B-roll footage they shot that day to help his client out. And so a few days later, bam, Todd is there at HBO headquarters sitting next to Larry David scrubbing through unreleased footage of curb your enthusiasm and looking for any sign that Juan was at the game. And so they're there combing through this footage and suddenly, boom. Todd spots something on the screen. And it's Juan just sitting there in the stands, hanging out at the game. And Todd knows that this news is pretty, pretty, pretty good.

And he immediately gets screen-grimed. of the footage and he sends it right to the DA's office. And there's some cell phone records that end up helping his case too. But after five months of being in jail for a crime he didn't commit, Capow! One is finally released from jail. And all the charges against him are ultimately dropped. Here he is with Todd holding screenshots from that footage.

And the good news is, is the two guys who were ultimately responsible for unaliving Martha? Well, they were eventually caught and they got the footage. they got life in prison. While won, he ends up filing a lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles for wrongful arrest and wrongful imprisonment. And ultimately, he's awarded a settlement of $320,000. So at the end of it all, I bet police were like...