Dewey Bozella

Tamara Jones

The inspiring story of one man’s fight against his wrongful incarceration and his eventual triumph—both inside and outside the boxing ring.

In the late 1970s, Dewey Bozella was wrongfully convicted of murdering Emma Crapser, a ninety-two-year-old resident of Poughkeepsie, New York. Sentenced to twenty years to life in prison, Bozella fiercely maintained his innocence throughout his ordeal at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, and even refused the prosecutor’s offer of freedom in exchange for an admission of guilt. But in 2009, more than a quarter century later, Dewey Bozella would reclaim his identity and his humanity when his conviction was vacated.

In this raw and uplifting memoir, Bozella takes us through the trials, tribulations, and joys of his life inside prison and, eventually, as a free man. While at Sing Sing, he took up boxing to channel his anger, and eventually became the prison’s light-heavyweight champion. Bozella also met and married the love of his life from behind bars, lost countless parole hearings, and spent agonizing time on a cell block with both his brother’s murderer and, it turned out, the true crim-inal in whose place Bozella served so much time. 

But Bozella never gave up. After he was refused parole and had his sentence extended, the Innocence Project caught word of his case. Thanks to his undying faith, stalwart persistence, and the aid of a young pro bono attorney at the Innocence Project who doggedly worked toward Bozella’s release when all hope seemed lost, he was released from prison in 2009. Shortly thereafter, he won his professional boxing debut against Larry Hopkins, started an afterschool athletics program for at-risk youth, and was awarded the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage.

An incredibly uplifting underdog story, Stand Tall recounts one man’s perseverance in the face of injustice and his difficult road to freedom.

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