WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — Motorists with Bikers for Justice were riding freely down North River Street in Wilkes-Barre.
For people like Yeidja, who had her freedom taken away for years after being wrongfully convicted of a murder, she didn't commit.
“Judge frees Bostick; this is from my retrial,” she read from a newspaper.
It took five years for Yeidja to escape the prison walls.
“These are the flyers I would pass out to get people to come to court,” she added.
But she says she still feels like she's locked up.
“I guess being incarcerated, they say you can become comfortable with that, even though you're denied everything,” explained Yeidja Bostick of Philadelphia.
Yeidja was freed in the early 90s and says when she was first out of prison, she was denied jobs, loans, and fitting in with society.
Larry finds himself in a similar situation now.
“I just had to learn how to do everything over again. Like some people don't even know how to even work after they get out of jail, so you're not going to know how to use a cell phone,” said Larry Trent Roberts, Pennsylvania Innocence Project Exonoree.
“And you really don't know how to survive. You don't have any life skills, especially when your life has been taken away from you at such a young age,” added Bostick.
Both are sharing their stories to help others who are wrongfully convicted get help from the state to get their lives back on track.
Something the Pennsylvania Innocence Project is advocating for in Harrisburg.
“It puts a human face to it; they give personal details of how they've been impacted not only by the wrongful imprisonment but by not receiving compensation,” Jeffrey Deskovic, Deskovic Foundation Founder, mentioned.
So that when other exonerees finally step out of the prison gates, they can have a real feeling of freedom.
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