A Lehigh County man is free after serving nine years in prison. His initial verdict was vacated over flawed testimony from an expert witness about the death of his infant daughter.<\/p>\n
Matt Wolfe, who turns 41 next week, walked out of prison Sunday. He had been serving a 20- to 40-year sentence for the 2013 death of his daughter.<\/p>\n
He was convicted by a jury largely due to testimony from Dr. Debra Esernio-Jenssen, who later became the subject of an investigation into her qualifications after many families said she falsely accused them of child abuse.<\/p>\n
The man who led that charge is the one who helped Wolfe get out of prison.<\/p>\n
\u201cNice to meet you. Mark Pinsley,\u201d said Pinsley at the front door of Wolfe.<\/p>\n
It was the first face-to-face meeting between the Lehigh County controller and Wolfe. After nine years, Wolfe is out of prison in large part because of Pinsley.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s surreal. You know, one moment I was facing 20 to 40 years, and the next it was discharge. And I just, I want to say I was prepared, and I thought I could overcome these boundaries a lot faster than what I\u2019ve been, and it\u2019s just becoming slow,\u201d Wolfe said about his first five days free.<\/p>\n
In 2017, Wolfe was convicted for the 2013 death of his infant daughter, Quinn, in Whitehall Township. The conviction was based largely on expert testimony by Esernio-Jenssen, who said the baby died from abusive head trauma.<\/p>\n
Wolfe\u2019s expert witness didn\u2019t show at trial.<\/p>\n
He was set to serve 20 to 40 years before Wolfe\u2019s father, Bob, contacted Pinsley, who in 2023 led an investigation questioning Esernio-Jenssen\u2019s qualifications.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, it was about justice. 100% about justice. I read the transcript, and I\u2019m like, there\u2019s no way they should have found him guilty,\u201d Pinsley said.<\/p>\n
Pinsley had a pathologist review the case, who believed the baby died of a stroke and refuted all of Esernio-Jenssen\u2019s testimony. Wolfe agreed to plead no contest to third-degree murder, with time served, in a deal signed off by the Lehigh County district attorney, who said Esernio-Jenssen\u2019s testimony was flawed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to live. So I did what I had to do to live and see my dad, he\u2019s in not good health. The other part is no contest is not admitting guilt, which I\u2019ve been claiming my innocence,\u201d Wolfe said of signing the deal.<\/p>\n
Wolfe, a welder by trade, now faces a future where \u201cfelon\u201d is marked on job applications and whispers persist about his past.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything that was said in trial about me and what people maybe hearsay just wasn\u2019t true. I love my daughter, I miss her, and to this day, I still can\u2019t understand how those things happened to her,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am certainly more disappointed in it than I have been ever, and I don\u2019t necessarily believe that Matt\u2019s gotten justice. I think real justice would be for him to go through a trial, be exonerated and have that ability to do so,\u201d Pinsley added.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are your goals in life? What do you now want to accomplish that venture out?\u201d 69 News reporter Bo Koltnow asked Wolfe.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had nine years to ponder. What would I do when I do get released? What age will I be? You know, parole for me would have been 52. And right now, I have big question marks all over. I just, I just don\u2019t know \u2014 day by day, day by day, hour by hour, you know, it\u2019s scary. I know I\u2019m going to hear a lot of no\u2019s,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Wolfe is serving two years of parole. He said money was a big reason why he didn\u2019t want a new trial. His dad said legal bills have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and they don\u2019t have money for a new trial.<\/p>\n
He added this was the fastest way to be free but knows he has an uphill climb, having to mark \u201cfelon\u201d for the rest of his life.<\/p>\n
The district attorney said the deal isn\u2019t an exoneration, but it was the right thing to do. Pinsley says he\u2019s still in contact with dozens of families across the country who feel they too were wronged by Esernio-Jenssen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Lehigh County man is free after serving nine years in prison. His initial verdict was vacated over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,21612,21611,20392,21615,17166,624,21614,21609,10998,433,15927,20393,6192,21608,16465,21613,21610,21607,15608,21616,1654],"class_list":["post-34627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-bo-koltnow","tag-bob","tag-central-railroad-of-new-jersey","tag-controller","tag-debra-esernio-jenssen","tag-district-attorney","tag-esernio-jenssen","tag-job-applications","tag-lehigh-co","tag-lehigh-county","tag-lehigh-mountain-hawks-football","tag-lehigh-valley-railroad","tag-mark-pinsley","tag-matt-wolfe","tag-news-reporter","tag-pathologist","tag-quinn","tag-surreal","tag-testimony","tag-welder","tag-whitehall-township"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}