![The Sing Sing Files by Dan Slepian](http://covers.libro.fm/9781250366535_1120.jpg)
Almost ready!
In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.
Log in Create account![Phone showing make the switch message](http://cdn.libro.fm/assets/website-images/switch-2024.png)
Limited-time offer
Get two free audiobooks!
Nowâs a great time to shop indie. When you start a new one credit per month membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, weâll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.
Sign up today![Libro.fm app with gift bow](http://cdn.libro.fm/assets/website-images/app-gift-2024-q3.png)
Gift audiobook credit bundles
You pick the number of credits, your recipient picks the audiobooks, and your local bookstore is supported by your purchase.
Start giftingThe Sing Sing Files
This audiobook uses AI narration.
Weâre taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn moreThe author's podcast, Letters from Sing Sing, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist.
This program is read by the author and features sound design and original archival sound recordings from Sing Sing maximum-security prison, including letters written to the author. It also includes commentary from formerly incarcerated men.
An NBC Dateline producer's cinematic account of his two-decade journey navigating the broken criminal justice system to help free six innocent men
In 2002, Dan Slepian, a veteran producer for NBCâs Dateline, received a tip from a Bronx homicide detective that two men were serving twenty-five years to life in prison for a 1990 murder they did not commit.
Haunted by what the detective had told him, Slepian began an investigation of the case that eventually resulted in freedom for the two men and launched Slepian on a two-decade personal and professional journey into a deeply flawed justice system fiercely resistant to rectifyingâor even acknowledgingâits mistakes and their consequences.
The Sing Sing Files: One Journalist, Six Innocent Men, and a Twenty-Year Fight for Justice is Slepianâs account of challenging that system. The story follows Slepian on years of prison visits, court hearings, and street reporting that led to a series of powerful Dateline episodes and eventually to freedom for four other men and to an especially deep and lasting friendship with one of them, Jon-Adrian âJJâ Velazquez. From his cell in Sing Sing, JJ aided Slepian in his investigations until his own release in 2021 after decades in prison.
Like Bryan Stevensonâs Just Mercy, The Sing Sing Files is a deeply personal account of wrongful imprisonment and the flaws in our justice system, and a powerful argument for reckoning and accountability. Slepianâs extraordinary book, at once painful and full of hope, shines a light on an injustice whose impact the nation has only begun to confront.
A Macmillan Audio production from Celadon Books.
Dan Slepian is an award-winning journalist at NBC News and a veteran producer of its signature newsmagazine, Dateline. Over more than two decades at NBC, Slepian has spearheaded dozens of documentaries and hidden-camera investigations, and is known for his in-depth reporting about the criminal legal system and, specifically, wrongful convictions. He has received three Edward R. Murrow Awards, more than a dozen Emmys, and has been recognized by multiple justice organizations across the country. Slepian was the host of Letters from Sing Sing, a podcast that was #1 on Apple's true crime charts and a finalist for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in audio reporting.
Dan Slepian is an award-winning journalist at NBC News and a veteran producer of its signature newsmagazine, Dateline. Over more than two decades at NBC, Slepian has spearheaded dozens of documentaries and hidden-camera investigations, and is known for his in-depth reporting about the criminal legal system and, specifically, wrongful convictions. He has received three Edward R. Murrow Awards, more than a dozen Emmys, and has been recognized by multiple justice organizations across the country. Slepian was the host of Letters from Sing Sing, a podcast that was #1 on Apple's true crime charts and a finalist for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in audio reporting.
Reviews
"Dan Slepian has written a book that is as informative as it is enraging. In these gripping case studies of innocent men wrongfully convicted, you learn how and why the truth often does not prevail in the American justice system. You also get a glimpse of the strength of the human spirit and of heroic efforts to right these wrongs. The stories are inspiring and so is the author. He has spent a career 'given the buried voice sound,' as one incarcerated man put it. This volume is on full blast with this tour-de-force. This is a must-read for anyone who cares about criminal justice, mass incarceration, or humanity."
âRachel Barkow, author of Prisoners of Politics: Breaking the Cycle of Mass Incarceration and Professor at NYU, School of Law
"This passionate, gripping, and moving chronicle of a skeptical journalistâs twenty year journey investigating injustice leads him, remarkably, to six innocent men, close friends, and a nuanced understanding of the humanity, resilience, and limitless potential of those we imprison, guilty or innocent. Dan Slepianâs engrossing insiderâs narrative lays bare the infuriating incapacity and willful blindness of New York prosecutors, police, defense lawyers, and judges to recognize and correct wrongful convictions. The Sing Sing Files is a vitally important book that inspires hope that we can and will do better."
âBarry Scheck, Co-Founder and Special Counsel, the Innocence Project
âWhile recounting his heroic efforts to free six wrongfully convicted men,
Dan Slepian uncovers the tremendous obstacles to truth and justice that plague our
criminal legal system. He shows that the problems are both systemic and personal, as
institutions and actors protect their own reputations rather than fix the egregious mistakes and wrongdoings that have ruined the lives of countless people and their
families. The Sing Sing Files should inspire readers to create a new generation of
leaders who will genuinely pursue justice.â
âMarc Howard, director of the Prisons and Justice Initiative at Georgetown
University
âTwenty years, hundreds of visits to prison, thousands of hours investigating
to fight for a few menâs freedom. Dan Slepianâs uncommon determination,
willingness to believe, and refusal to look away leaps from these spellbinding pages.
But is the miracle of Slepianâs obsessiveness required to unmask the brute force of the
criminal justice systemâs machinery, the moral corruption, and the malign negligence
that often lubricates it?
I am grateful to Slepian for bearing witness, but I am also shocked and
enraged by the story he tells. I wouldâas I know he wouldâtrade this Olympian
effort for one in which thousands of others activate to fight not just for the innocent,
but for all the souls who are unnecessarily ground down by what we call the criminal
justice system. For those who yearn to be part of this army, this is required reading.â
âNicholas Turner, president and director of the Vera Institute of Justice
"Dateline producer Slepian debuts with a riveting account of his crusade to free six wrongfully convicted men from New York Stateâs Sing Sing prison... Slepian tells his subjects' stories with rigor and compassion, and persuasively argues that Americaâs justice system is âdesigned to easily imprison the innocentâ in the name of closing cases quickly. This is difficult to shake."
âPublishers Weekly
âA gripping, highly effective true-crime synthesis⌠an excellent addition to the body of work documenting a pervasive societal injustice.â
âKirkus, Starred Review