IRONCLAD ALIBI FROM HIT TV SHOW CLEARS CAPITAL MURDER SUSPECT

How ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ cleared an accused murderer: New Netflix documentary reveals how Larry David's hit show provided ironclad alibi for wrongly charged suspect

By Snejana Farberov

Daily Mail
September 1, 2017

Juan Catalan loves baseball and the hit HBO show Curb Your Enthusiasm, which is not surprising considering that both had played a pivotal role in clearing him of a capital murder charge.

A new Netflix documentary Long Shot, available for streaming beginning September 29, tells the unlikely tale of how comedian Larry David helped Catalan regain his freedom by furnishing his lawyer with outtakes from an episode of his show that placed the accused man at the Los Angeles Dodger Stadium on the day of the murder in 2003.

Catalan’s six-month-long nightmare began unfolding in August 2003 when then-24-year-old machinist from Los Angeles was arrested for the drive-by shooting of 16-year-old Martha Puebla, who was a witness in another gang-related murder case, in which Juan's brother was a co-defendant.

From the outset, Catalan maintained that he had an alibi: on the night of the murder, May 12, 2003, he took his six-year-old daughter to the Dodger Stadium to watch a game against the Atlanta Braves.

Catalan produced ticket stubs from the game and offered to undergo a polygraph test on three separate occasions, but prosecutors rejected his alibi, refused to administer a lie detector test and pressed on with building a capital murder case against him, which, had he been convicted, could have potentially landed him on death row.

While awaiting trial in jail, Catalan recalled that there was a film crew shooting something during the Dodgers-Braves game on the fateful night of Puebla’s murder.

'I wasn't supposed to be at that game, and that would replay in my head over and over,' Catalan says in the trailer for the new Netflix documentary.

During an appearance on Good Morning America in 2004, Catalan's defense attorney Todd Melnick recounted that his client remembered that ‘Super Dave Osbourne’ - a character created and played by comedian Bob Einstein - was part of the show that was being filmed at the ballpark, reported ABC News

Armed with that clue, Melnick reached out to the Dodgers, who, in turn, told him to contact the HBO production of Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, which was in its fourth season in 2003.

The attorney convinced David, the celebrated creator of Seinfeld, to help him look through unaired footage from the episode titled ‘The Carpool Lane.’

David explains in the Long Shot trailer that the crux of the episode was that his character picks up a prostitute so he could use the carpool lane to go to Dodger Stadium.

Melnick proceeded to look through tape after tape recorded at the sporting venue, which on the night of the murder was packed with 56,000 fans, one of whom happened to be his client.

'I gotta find the Holy Grail of Juan's defense,' Melnick recalls telling himself. 'I need to place my client at Dodger Stadium on that night.'

After reviewing the footage for some time, with David at his side in the editing bay, Melnick was stunned when he spotted a familiar figure in the corner of the screen, eating a hot dog and watching the game with his daughter.

‘I jumped out of my chair and said, “Roll that tape back!"’ Melnick later told Court TV, as reported by CNN. ‘It was him.’

in January 2004, after spending more than five months behind bars for a murder he did not commit, a judge released Catalan, citing insufficient evidence to take him to trial.

‘This experience was a nightmare,’ he told Court TV. ‘It was the worst time of my life.’

Catalan sued the City of Los Angeles and the LAPD, claiming false imprisonment, misconduct and defamation of character, and in March 2007 he reached a $320,000 settlement in the civil case.

A year later, Jose Ledesma, a member of the notorious Vineland Boyz street gang, was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to a slew of crimes, among them ordering the murder of Martha Puebla, who was shot dead 10 days before she was scheduled to testify against him, reported Mercury News in 2008.

Prior to his arrest, Juan Catalan never watched Curb Your Enthusiasm, but after his release from jail, he said became an avid fan of the series.

As for David, he quipped at the time that he was quitting his show 'to devote the rest of my life to freeing those unjustly incarcerated.'

Curb Your Enthusiasm returns to HBO for Season 9 on September 16.

EDITOR’S NOTE: What bothers me in this case is that the police apparently did not bother to check out Catalan’s alibi. If it weren’t for the diligent work of his attorney, Catalan would probably headed for a long stay on California’s death row.

It was my department’s policy that it was my responsibility as a criminal investigator to work just as hard to prove a suspect innocent as it was to prove him guilty.