"He's a sweet innocent 19-year-old kid," said Troy Young in an exclusive jailhouse interview with the Bay Area Reporter and KGO-TV news, "and I think that's really sad and that just shows what our media and our police forces have come to.

"The media and the police really had things bent out of shape and had a 19-year-old kid running scared for his life and threw a lot of false accusations at him about killing people and trying to kill other people."

Ezerski was initially suspected of killing two gay men in South Florida last month before coming to San Francisco and attempting to kill a gay man here. Now, police say they don't think he was involved in the murder of one of those men, 76-year-old Irving Sicherer. Ezerski admitted to killing the second man, Anthony Martilotto, 39, in a Fort Lauderdale hotel room, but told police and told the B.A.R. in an exclusive interview last week that he was acting in self-defense.

Young was arrested with Ezerski in a Reno hotel room on Friday night, August 17. He said he met him either on Monday or Tuesday of that week.

"I met him in the Castro," said Young. "I asked him if he wanted to smoke a joint and he said, 'You betcha.' And we smoked a joint and started hanging out, that's all."

Young said he sensed that Ezerski was in trouble but didn't know how much trouble until he was with Ezerski in Ezerski's room at the Vagabond Hotel on Van Ness Avenue when the news came on TV.

"I'm going to draw you a little picture here," said Young. "Adam was facing the TV. I was facing Adam and talking to him and he said 'Motherfucker, that's my picture on TV.' And I'm like, 'Stop it, Adam. Don't tell jokes like that.' He said, 'No, it is. And they are going to come back in just a second and do the whole story.' And the whole time he's looking at this, I'm looking at his face and like I saw he was falling apart from the inside out.

'Willing to help'

"It was devastating to me and I know it was devastating to him. Right then he found a champion. Someone that was willing to help him escape from these motherfuckers, if you pardon my French. It was really horrible," said Young in the interview that was monitored and videotaped by two Washoe County Sheriff's deputies in the Reno jail where he has been held since his arrest on August 17. The interview was conducted in a small cell in the jail on Friday, August 24, one week after he was arrested with Ezerski.

Young, 37, was on parole in San Francisco for a drug conviction when he was arrested in Reno. So far, he's only been charged with violating parole. He said he was told that he will be released by September 1 if San Francisco authorities don't come to pick him up. He said that if he's eventually charged with harboring a fugitive, he still won't regret what he's done because he believes it was the right thing to do. Young said he decided to help Ezerski because he was convinced of his innocence and because he identified with him.

"The kid was crying out for help as far as I'm concerned," said Young. "I've always had this super hero complex. I grew up on Polk Street. I got here when I was 17 years old and I was a hustler on Polk Street. So I kind of felt where he was coming from."

Young said his experience with people taught him that the young man he met was anything but a murderer.

"All I've done all my life is about people," said Young. "Since I've been an adult, I've sold my ass on the street, I've been a drug dealer, I've been a bartender, I've been in prison, in jail, and all those things you learn a lot about people."

Contrary to police and media speculation, both Ezerski and Young said their decision to head to Reno had nothing to do with that city's planned gay pride celebration that weekend.

"We were just tooling around and we decided that Reno was the place," said Young.

Young said they decided to leave the Bay Area shortly after they saw the story about Ezerski on TV that Thursday morning. Young said he was also tipped off later that day by a friend that the FBI was looking for him. At least one person from Young's gay bowling league had alerted authorities that Ezerski was with Young at the league's regular Wednesday night gatherings at Serra Bowl in Daly City.

Young said he tried in vain to get Ezerski to turn himself in but Ezerski was too frightened to surrender.

"He didn't want to turn himself in because he was scared to because of how Florida law is," said Young. "I was trying to get him to turn himself in but he just wasn't ready yet. I think he was getting readier and readier the more things they threw upon him."

Both Ezerski and Young told the B.A.R. that they were in Reno by late on Thursday, August 16. Young said he got his first inkling that the FBI was on to them early in the day on Friday.

"It was kind of weird," said Young. "Little cars kept popping up all over the place. In fact I said hi to one of them. I had an inkling but I wasn't sure until I left the hotel about a half hour before they arrested us and then I was sure."

Arrested at hotel

Young said he was arrested just outside his hotel room door. He said the FBI was already inside the room with Ezerski.

"I'd been trying to get Adam to turn himself in since I figured this out, so it's kind of a relief," said Young.

Young said that although he only knew Ezerski for a short time, he loves him as a friend but he said they were never romantically involved.

"I grew to love him as any older person would come to love a younger person that was in trouble, you know what I mean? Me and Adam have never had sex. That's really not what I'm about," Young added. "He really needed a friend. He met other people who only wanted sex from him or whatever and he only needed a friend."

Young said he doesn't believe that Ezerski tried to kill San Francisco resident, Kevin Begoon. Young said that he believes Ezerski's story that the pair got into a fight after Begoon didn't pay him for sex.

"When I get out, [Begoon] will be shunned," said Young. "Trust me, I have a large following in San Francisco. I have been there a long time. I'm a very popular person. And Kevin, you might as well move, because you are not going to be welcome in San Francisco."

Young said that Begoon threw a plaster sculpture at Ezerski, not the other way around as Begoon told police. Young also said that Begoon still has diving equipment belonging to Ezerski.

Begoon responds

"That's an absolute lie," Begoon told the B.A.R. "But how do I defend myself without looking like I'm trying to make this person look bad?"

Begoon also questioned that if he threw the sculpture at Ezerski, then why did the pieces with his blood on them end up on his bed where he, and not Ezerski, was sleeping. Begoon said he had no property from Ezerski. He said Ezerski told him he had diving equipment but he kept it in the trunk of his car.

"My story has never changed," said Begoon, adding that he didn't want to get into a "pissing match" with Young or Ezerski. Begoon said he reluctantly reported his attack to police out of concern that Ezerski would harm someone else.

Begoon said that he understood Young's disbelief that Ezerski could be a killer because that's exactly how he felt about him before the 19-year-old allegedly attacked him in his sleep. Begoon said that Ezerski first smashed a sculpture over his right eye and then tried to strangle him before he was able to pry off Ezerski's hands and Ezerski ran out of his apartment.

In a follow-up telephone interview with the B.A.R. this week, Young said that Begoon returned a phone call from Ezerski on his cell phone on Thursday, August 16, after Ezerski called Begoon looking for drugs. Young said that's significant because it contradicts Begoon's statements to the police and press.

Begoon said he hasn't talked to Ezerski since the attack. He noted that Ezerski didn't have his phone number. He said he last heard from Ezerski after he was attacked on Tuesday, August 14, when Ezerski left two messages on his answering machine but that he made those calls from the call box at the front door of his building.

Begoon added that although the reaction he's received has been overwhelmingly supportive, he encountered an older man last Saturday in the Polk Street coffee shop he frequents who appeared to side with Young's point of view, angrily blaming him, not Ezerski, for the attack.

In the telephone interview, Young also strongly denounced an America's Most Wanted show that aired last weekend. The program included a reenactment of Ezerski's alleged attack on Begoon. The show referred to Young as a "lowlife." Young said he's considering suing the program over that characterization.

Police investigation

Meanwhile, Fort Lauderdale police said they will work very closely with the state attorney general's office to see if any evidence supports Ezerski's claims that he fought Martilotto to keep from being raped and because he feared for his life.

"What we will do obviously is to look at the statements he has given us and compare it with the forensic evidence we have in the hotel room," said Fort Lauderdale Detective Mike Reed.

Reed added that there was "not really" any sign of a struggle in Martilotto's hotel room, no blood, and no sign of trauma to Martilotto's body. Reed said that when Ezerski was arrested, he made no claims of physical injury that might have supported his claim that he was in a struggle with Martilotto but Reed added that it was possible Ezerski could have been injured and those injuries were healed.

Young said he's seen physical evidence on Ezerski that would indicate that he was hurt in a struggle but he declined to say what those injuries were.

Young said that Ezerski wasn't optimistic about his claims of self-defense being believed in Florida.

"He thinks he's going to get the electric chair," said Young. "That's what he's always thought. And why he thinks that, your guess is as good as mine. Maybe he has a reason to think that, I don't know."

Martilotto, Ezerski's alleged victim from Fort Lauderdale, was strangled. Ezerski drove to San Francisco in Martilotto's rented red Ford Mustang. When asked how he would respond to those who would find it hard to swallow Ezerski's claim that he needed to kill in self-defense, Young said: "So? Some people are going to find it hard to swallow that me, a 37-year old man, would run into Adam and become friends with him in two days and then see on the news with him that he's a murderer. And some people would find it hard to swallow that I would want to help somebody like that. But that's going to be somebody who has no compassion and fuck those people."

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