Meet Melvin Ortiz
Meet Melvin.
The first thing everyone says they love and miss about Melvin is his smile. No matter what mood you’re in, he’ll always have you laughing one way or another. He’s constantly reading new books and asking questions about the outside world. Melvin spent his years learning new trades, especially around HVAC technology, and learning new ways to better himself. In his free time, he enjoys exercising, playing football, and playing chess. He loves his fiancee, Victoria. He wants to see his aging parents again. He wants to see his nieces and nephews grow up. He wants to find peace. But most of all, he wants to go home.
Melvin was born in Puerto Rico before moving to Reading, Pennsylvania as a child. The youngest of three brothers, Melvin has always been the baby of the family - soft-spoken and polite - but always rough-housing with his older brothers, Alex and Javier. He and his family went to church every Sunday. His favorite thing to eat was his mom’s biscocho. He always dreamt of having a puppy. He spent his childhood watching cartoons, going to the pool, biking, and hiking. Melvin was an active kid. He wanted to be a boxer (to his mom’s dismay) and he wasn’t very good at baseball. He was a normal kid, growing up in a city that “sucks you in.”
As a teenager, Melvin wasn’t perfect, but he did the best he could. At the age of 17, he signed up for a program at Job Corps in Pennsylvania that taught him trades and skills so he could be certified and get a job. He wanted to get his life on track and make his parents proud. His one regret is ever coming home that December in 1997 to spend Christmas with his family. A few weeks later, he would be set up for a crime he never committed. A day after that, he would turn himself in, confident in his innocence and his solid alibi to get everything sorted. After being interrogated without an attorney for hours, Melvin was arrested and has been in prison ever since.
He has served 23 years for something he never did.
