John,

As we close out Latinx Heritage month, the Innocence Project invites you to join Latinx Speakers Bureau members, Anna Vasquez and Alicia Cepeda Maule, for an Instagram Live today at 3:30 p.m. ET. [[link removed]]

In 1995, Anna Vasquez and three of her friends, all of whom are Latinx, were wrongly accused of sexually abusing two young girls in San Antonio, Texas, after one of the women, Elizabeth Ramirez, rejected the advances of the children’s father. All four of the women identify as lesbians, a fact that colored the investigation into the accusations and case against them from the start.

During the hearings, Anna and her friends endured deeply homophobic rhetoric and were eventually convicted. They each ended up spending more than 14 years in prison before being released on bail in 2013, after one of the alleged victims recanted her statement saying that her father had pressured her to lie. Through the work of the Innocence Project of Texas, all four women were exonerated in 2016. Their powerful story was the focus of the 2016 documentary “Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four,” which we highly encourage you to watch. Today, Anna is the director of outreach for the Innocence Project of Texas, a member of the Innocence Network Executive Board, and a member of Innocence Project’s Speakers Bureau.

Later today, we’ll be closing out Latinx Heritage Month with a conversation between Anna and the Innocence Project’s Digital Engagement Director, Alicia Cepeda Maule.

Be sure to join us on Instagram at 3:30 p.m. ET — you won’t want to miss it. [[link removed]]

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Thank you, and see you soon!

— The Innocence Project Team

P.S. To book Anna Vasquez or other exonerees and Innocence Project experts, learn more about our Speakers Bureau. [[link removed]]


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The Innocence Project works to free the innocent, prevent wrongful convictions, and create fair, compassionate, and equitable systems of justice for everyone. Founded in 1992 by Barry C. Scheck and Peter J. Neufeld at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, the organization is now an independent nonprofit. Our work is guided by science and grounded in anti-racism.

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