The Journey of Attorney Joel Schwartz: From Aspiring Actor to Criminal Defense Advocate

Okay Nightmare Success lifters, we are back with a conversation that blew my mind. I talked with Joel Schwartz, the criminal defense attorney who represented Russ Faria in what might be the most maddening wrongful conviction case I’ve ever heard. You’ve probably seen the NBC series about it, but hearing Joel tell the story himself? That’s a whole different level of frustration and fascination.

From Hollywood Dreams to Criminal Defense

Joel’s path to becoming one of the country’s most talked-about defense attorneys started in the most unlikely place: the UCLA Men’s Calendar. Yeah, you read that right.

“I was chosen to be in the UCLA, men of UCLA calendar back in 1980 and they then found out and I had decided I was gonna transfer so I was excised from that calendar,” Joel told me. When he got to UT, he saw an opportunity. “I assembled women from all walks of life throughout the University of Texas and had them put together a panel and pick the guys they wanted to be.”

The calendar sold throughout Texas and even landed on the cover of Newsweek. It helped pay for his schooling, but law school was really just a fallback plan. Joel had bigger dreams.

After graduating law school, he took the Missouri bar exam and immediately left for Los Angeles to chase his acting career. He was waiting tables with a law degree in his back pocket when the 1989 writers’ strike hit. “I started thinking, you know what, I’m no longer a struggling actor. I’m a non-working lawyer waiting on tables.”

A chance encounter during a visit home to St. Louis changed everything. He watched attorney Brad Kessler try a murder case and got hooked. The public defender’s office offered him a job on the spot.

“They offered me the job and I then decided, okay, I don’t know how long the strike will go on. Maybe it’s time to give up this dream and move on with life,” he said. “And I committed to myself that I was going to try for a year. One year. And here I am. 33 years later.”

The Russ Faria Case: When Everything Goes Wrong

In early 2012, Joel got a call from Mary, Russ Faria’s cousin, about a case that would define his career. Russ had been accused of stabbing his wife Betsy 55 times. Based on what Joel had seen in the media, it looked bad.

“To me, what I had seen and what had been reported was a guy killed his wife. It sounded bad. He was a stabber. And I think I had heard rumors that there was blood all over him. And I also think I heard a rumor that he had confessed. So I was coming in for damage control. At least that’s what I thought at the start.”

But as Joel dug into the case, he discovered something incredible: Russ had an airtight alibi. He was with four friends, captured on multiple security cameras at different locations, wearing the same clothes he had on when arrested hours later. The police had investigated thoroughly and confirmed everything.

“They took different square pegs and attempted to fit them in a round hole. And that didn’t, one didn’t fit. So they tried another square peg and another square peg,” Joel explained.

The Trial That Broke All The Rules

What happened next defied belief. The judge refused to let Joel present evidence about Pam Hupp, Betsy’s friend who had been added to a life insurance policy just four days before the murder. Russ had been the beneficiary for over 4,000 days. Pam? Four days.

“As we start the trial, the prosecutor got up and she said, this is about greed. Russ Faria killed his wife to get his insurance proceeds and I went ballistic,” Joel remembered. When he objected, the judge told him he couldn’t get into the insurance proceeds, “I did not rule that the state couldn’t.”

The prosecutor even accused Russ’s four alibi witnesses of being complicit in murder during closing arguments. The jury convicted Russ of first-degree murder and he was sentenced to life plus 30 years.

“Everything I possibly could” was Joel’s immediate response. He appealed to the governor’s chief of staff, filed motions, and worked every angle. Most wrongful conviction cases take about 12 years to overturn. Joel got Russ a new trial in less than two.

The Gamble That Changed Everything

For the retrial, Joel made a controversial decision that had everyone questioning his judgment: he waived the jury and let the judge decide.

“The second guessing that had been going on behind my back was unending,” he said. But Joel knew the facts were on his side, and Judge Steve Omer “knows what a real case is.”

Then came the bombshell. In August, before the November trial, Joel received a CD from the prosecutor’s office containing 132 photographs. These were from a luminol search that police claimed had failed, producing no usable photos. The photos proved the officer had lied under oath.

When the prosecutor started her opening statement with the same story about camera malfunction, Joel realized she didn’t know he had the photos. “I leaned over to Nate Swanson, my co-consul and I said, she doesn’t know.”

Judge Omer acquitted Russ. But the story wasn’t over.

The Real Killer Keeps Killing

After the acquittal, Joel called the US Attorney’s office to investigate. When Pam Hupp learned about the new investigation, something snapped.

“Pam Hupp went hunting,” Joel said. “Lewis Gumpenberg was the fourth individual she tried to get in the car.” She eventually lured him to her house and shot him, trying to frame it as self-defense with a ridiculous story about him being sent by Russ for revenge.

Pam Hupp is now being prosecuted for Betsy’s murder. Her mother also died under suspicious circumstances after threatening to remove Pam from her insurance policy.

Why This Story Won’t Let Go

When I asked Joel why people are so fascinated by this case, his answer was simple: “It’s that car wreck that you can’t take your eyes off of. It’s also, look, this can’t happen to me. But what if it does?”

Russ Faria wasn’t a career criminal. He worked IT for Enterprise, went to church, saw his buddies once a week. He was just a regular guy when the legal system completely failed him.

“It, every stop gap that is in place from the investigators to the prosecutor to the courtroom, meaning the judge as well as the jurors, failed,” Joel explained.

The case reads like fiction because the truth is so outrageous. Joel’s uncle read the manuscript and said he would have put it down if it were fiction because “it can’t be true.” But it’s all true.

Watching Josh Duhamel play him in the NBC series has been surreal for Joel, especially since much of the dialogue uses his actual words. The show only scratches the surface of what really happened, but it’s bringing this story of systemic failure to millions of viewers.

Joel’s still practicing law after 33 years, still plays in his band, and still fights for clients who need someone willing to stack 100 cases on a judge’s bench when the law is being ignored. Sometimes the system works. Sometimes it doesn’t. Joel Schwartz is there for when it doesn’t.