Lava Records CEO Jason Flom has helped make Lorde, Katy Perry, and Hootie and the Blowfish into stars, to name just a few. But now he’s trying to make another group famous: the wrongfully convicted languishing in America’s prisons.
Flom hosts a podcast called “Wrongfully Convicted,” where he conducts long interviews with people freed after proving they never should have been behind bars in the first place. He started on this path after reading about a man who was denied parole for a cocaine possession and was going to be sentenced to life in prison.
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“The only criminal defense lawyer I knew, he represented a couple of my artists,” Flom said. “I got him involved, and to make a long story short, I got him to take a case pro bono.”
Flom is also helping to fund a college class at Georgetown University with the goal of making documentaries about people he and his crew think shouldn’t be in prison. VICE News sat down with Flom and attended one of the classes.
This segment originally aired March 19, 2018 on VICE News Tonight on HBO.
