I had the pleasure of meeting John Giuca while I was incarcerated at Upstate Correctional Facility. I too was a man that was wrongly convicted by a prosecutor's office that had an agenda and after a joke of a trial by an attorney that threw me under the bus. I was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 25-life (mind you I had never had a criminal record prior to this). Since then my conviction was overturned by the Appellate Courts. My experience with John helped me get through the darkest time in my life.

He is compassionate, bright and COMPLETELY INNOCENT. In a place where one would be much better off saying he did, in fact, commit murder, as it would help build credibility, John consistantly proclaimed his innocence. This case was all over the papers and Charles Hynes (the D.A.) had to play super politician and solve the crime no matter what happened and the more he could involve the better.

My heart goes out to the victim's family but it also goes out to the Giuca's. We were hundreds of miles away from loved ones. This is all because he opened his house up to someone he didn't even know, which is in his nature. We must not forget that Charles Hynes was willing to cut a deal with John if he turned on his friend and LIED under oath (which is purjury). John was of higher moral character and declined his offer which resulted in John becoming the center of the case. We saw it with the Duke lacrosse case in North Carolina and now you have seen it here in NYC. This is not justice.
 
— Kevin Murphy
Din # 06A6708

A compassionate, caring person

John Giuca has spent the last five years in prison for a crime he did not commit! I know John his whole life and he is the most compassionate and caring person and that is one of the very reasons why he is behind bars today. He is behind bars for reaching out to a young man who was stranded and had no place to go. John did not want to cooperate with the prosecutors and say what was not the truth! They took offense to this and went after him.

They interview 150 so-called witnesses and had leverage against four who they blackmailed and made deals with to get them to testify against John. They used the media to dirty his goodhearted, decent personally and got a conviction. John is a good man and he is being punished for it."

— David Quinn

Twisted testimony

That is what John's charged and convicted of. The District Attorney's office decided John knowingly and willingly, knew Russo was going to kill Mark. All the testimony at John's trial proved the he was frantically trying to find out what happened to Mark! Was the jury not listening? John had no knowledge of this tragedy until Albert Cleary told John the following day! John did suspect something terrible happened but it was Albert who told John what happened to Mark! John is being held responsible for Russo's actions. John was and still is a mess over this tragedy."

— Annamarie Esposito

A heavy heart

I am writing this letter with a heavy heart as I have known John Giuca for many years. I am presently one of the Headmasters of a private school and an adjunct professor of psychology at several metropolitan colleges and universities. I am also a practicing psychologist in the New York area.

My purpose in this letter is to negate any thought that John was a "bad seed" as it was portrayed. This is the farthest from the truth. If anything, he is the "noticeably good seed." I have known John and his family for the past sixteen years.

Sincerely,
Michael T. Dealy, PhD.

What a shame!

If we had law students from other countries observing this particular trial, they would think our justice system was a joke. 25 years to life for something another boy did! 25 years to life because the prosecutors suspected John may have known something! John knows the pain of loss; he had the tragedy of losing his four-year old baby sister. He respects life and is the most caring person I know. I am honored and privileged to know him. People who do not know him had other motives to put him away. They manipulated reporters like puppets on a string, running wild with accusations. Do they realize or even care about the damage they did?"

— Nadine Testaverde

Character assassination

I am a close and longstanding friend of John's family. I sat in the courtroom almost everyday during John's trial, and I did not hear the evidence the way the jury presumably heard it. It was not brought out during the trial that John Giuca was a hard-working, ambitious student at John Jay College for Criminal Justice. He was well-known in the neighborhood for "taking in strays." He brought people he hardly knew into his circle who didn't have food or other sustenance, and helped them as he could."

— Jaye Nelia

"Ghetto Mafia?"

Ghetto Mafia, Soprano wannabes never existed like the prosecutors blew it up to be! The prosecutors and the media dirty John up to get a conviction. It was an election year! Charles Hynes had a low conviction rate! They made John this big boss of a gang that didn't even exist so the public can already convict him. I will never believe what I read in the New York Post or the Daily News again.

— Scott Powers
A friend of John's for the past 14 years

A media-created monster

Through-out the course of time I have known John I must stress that there is not one negative thing that I can say about him. He is always genuinely nice to me and a very good friend. He has a great sense of humor and a magnetic personality. John always went out of his way to include everyone in our circle of friends , whenever my friends and I were hanging out, he was always outwardly kind and truly cared that everyone was having fun, if someone wasn't, he would make sure to get them involved in the conversation and put a smile on their face.

When I first heard about the Mark Fisher case and that John was a suspect, I was beyond taken aback. Not a single newspaper article spoke of the John Giuca that I have known for five years of my life. The media made a monster out of him; an image nowhere near fitting. I was present for most of his trial and the witnesses I saw conflicted so many times that I was sure that there was no way a jury could make a sound conviction. John is an innocent man put away by false and rehearsed testimony and the deliberate misleading portrayal of the media!"

— Jennifer Baker

A difficult lesson

The lesson to be learned from this travesty: Testify against your friends, say whatever the prosecutors want you to say, or you will be sent away to prison for something you didn't do! "The Truth will Not Set You Free"

— Anonymous