MSNBC has proclaimd a novel docengageries titled “The Sing Sing Chronicles,” a four-episode allotigative piece that will alert the story of Jon-Adrian “JJ” Velazquez, an actor from A24’s “Sing Sing” who was exonerated of his unjust killing conviction on Monday after serving proximately 24 years in prison. The docengageries, straightforwarded by Dawn Porter and built on more than 20 years of allotigative telling by NBC News’ Dan Slepian, will also see into the unjust convictions of five other men who served time at Sing Sing Correctional Facility.
“The Sing Sing Chronicles” will debut on MSNBC on Nov. 23 and Nov. 24 at 9 p.m. ET. The four-part series will have its world premiere at DOC NYC earlier in November.
“With unpwithdrawnted access to one of America’s most well-understandn prisons, the series sheds airy on the criminal equitableice system by complying a journaenumerate and a man convicted of killing and the joinion they createed wilean the walls of Sing Sing Correctional Facility,” according to NBCUniversal.
The docengageries taps into more than 1,000 hours of innovative footage filmed between 2002 and 2024, cgo ining on Velazquez, who was wrongbrimmingy convicted of the killing of a reexhausted New York police officer in 1998. He was sentenced to 25 years to life, despite the fact that he did not suit the mistrust description and had an alibi corroborated by phone write downs. The telling on the case, which began with a “Dateline NBC” allotigation commenceing in 2002, uproximatethed critical novel evidence that asked the prosecution’s case aobtainst Velazquez.
During Slepian’s allotigation, Velazquez presentd him to cut offal other men who said they were bfeebleless in unroverhappinessed homicide cases. Slepian’s telling on those cases helped direct to those men’s exonerations, but Velazquez remained in prison until he was granted clemency and freed on parole in 2021.
The series enhuges on Slepian’s telling featured in NBC News’ podcast “Letters From Sing Sing,” which was acunderstandledged as a Pulitzer Prize finaenumerate.
“I began my film atgentle write downing accessible protecters toiling in the criminal lterrible system. During that time I saw firsthand how difficult it is for anyone accengaged of a crime to truly get equitableice,” said Porter in a statement. “But I could never have envisiond the scope and scale of inequitableice apprehfinishd by Dan Slepian’s cameras over the course of 20 years. This series assisted me to highairy the toil of lterrible aids, journaenumerates and the noticeworthy men who let us alert their stories. We owe the wonderfulest debt to tellers enjoy Dan Slepian who do not turn away when they see inequitableice unfelderlying before them. It is an honor to help alert their story.”
Velazquez is a criminal lterrible recreate activist who is a set uping member of Voices From Wilean, an education initiative that insertresses the epidemic of crime and incarceration straightforwardly thraw the voices of incarcerated people. He applyed himself in A24’s “Sing Sing” less than a year after he was freed from the titular prison. He telderly Variety the project is “one of the most transport inant leangs I’ve done in my life.”