The people behind the work.
The people behind UNCUFF have watched the justice system go wrong from the inside. Among them are former law enforcement officers who saw how easily the accused can be abandoned.
We began by standing up for those we believed had been wrongly accused, and our understanding grew from there. The more we looked, the clearer it got: the cases that needed help most were the ones nobody would take. They rested on contested credibility, with no DNA result to settle them and no easy story to tell. Today that is our entire focus: not the cases that settle neatly, but the ones the courts have closed and the public calls hopeless.
Our standard
Our conclusions are earned, not assumed. We retain independent experts to test the evidence, challenge our assumptions, and follow the record wherever it leads. We do not support a case merely because someone claims innocence. But when the evidence convinces us that a person was wrongfully convicted, public hostility will not drive us away.
Jesse Malkin
Jesse Malkin holds a PhD in Policy Analysis from the RAND Graduate School and studied at Oxford University under a Rhodes Scholarship. He worked as a researcher and consultant in health economics and the pharmaceutical industry, published dozens of peer-reviewed journal articles, and helped build two technology start-ups, both later acquired by a publicly traded company. In 2017, Malkin took an interest in Daniel Holtzclaw's case, met him in prison, and has worked to free him ever since.
John Paolucci
A retired NYPD Detective Sergeant who spent his final years in the Forensic Investigations Division, including as a Crime Scene Unit supervisor, and built and led the unit that managed DNA evidence across New York City. He now runs Forensics 4 Real, providing expert crime-scene and DNA analysis, and teaches crime scene investigation and criminalistics. That is the exact expertise the cases UNCUFF takes most often turn on.
Chris Lippard
Chris Lippard brings more than twenty years of financial management from a 23-year military career. As an IMPAC cardholder for U.S. Army Special Operations Command, he oversaw more than $10 million in purchasing across multiple deployments with zero discrepancies. For eight years, he and his wife have advocated for Daniel Holtzclaw, keeping funds on his books and corresponding with him regularly. As treasurer, he maintains financial oversight that lets the rest of the team concentrate on casework.
Marc Gingerich
A retired Minneapolis Police Sergeant who spent the majority of his 22-year career on patrol as both a Patrol Officer and a Patrol Sergeant. Over those years, he also served in Street Crimes, Internal Affairs, Child Abuse Investigations, and on the Violent Criminal Apprehension Team. For Marc, witnessing what he saw as the unjust prosecution of Derek Chauvin and other officers in the aftermath of George Floyd's death made the need for an organization like UNCUFF clear.
The directors listed above are UNCUFF’s current board. Our board has changed since our most recently available IRS Form 990, so the officers named in that filing differ from the people shown here. Our EIN is 82-3208410 and our filings remain publicly searchable.