How Larry David saved a man from the death penalty
Comedian and all around good guy Larry David inadvertently saved a man from death row more than a decade ago, and Netflix is telling the story in a forthcoming documentary, Long Shot.
The subject of the true crime doc, Juan Catalan, was wrongfully charged with the murder of 16-year-old Martha Puebla, who was shot to death in front of her Los Angeles home in 2003. Catalan maintained his innocence throughout the legal proceedings, under the alibi that he was cheering on the Dodgers at a baseball game with his daughter at the time of the murder.
Unfortunately for Catalan, neither television footage from the game’s TV broadcast nor footage from security cameras could place him in the stadium’s stands. “I need to place my client at Dodger Stadium on that night,” Catalan’s lawyer, Todd Melnik, says in the trailer. “Juan remembered they may have been filming something there that day.”
Luckily, Larry David had the receipts. HBO happened to be filming scenes at the stadium for episode six of Curb‘s fourth season that same night. Melnik requested the footage and David “hooked him up with everything from the stadium [shoot],” the actor told the New Yorker in 2004.
After five and a half months in jail, Catalan was exonerated through the footage, becoming a lifelong Larry David fan. Watch the trailer for Long Shot below.
LONG SHOT PREMIERES AT THE TELLURIDE FILM FESTIVAL THIS WEEKEND AND DEBUTS ON NETFLIX SEPTEMBER 29.
