More lawsuits for Guevara, Watts
BY CURTIS BLACK
Two lawsuits were filed last Monday by men whose convictions were overturned based on evidence that they had been framed by Chicago police.
Armando Serrano was released last July after serving 23 years in prison for a murder conviction based on an investigation by now-retired Det. Reynaldo Guevara. He filed suit days after the Guevara-linked murder convictions of two other men, Roberto Almodovar and William Negron, were overturned. Guevara has been accused of manipulating witnesses in dozens of murder convictions.
Serrano’s lawsuit accuses Guevara and others of inducing a heroin addict facing four felony charges to testify falsely in a 1993 murder case in exchange for leniency. Francisco Vicente testified that Serrano and co-defendant Jose Montanez bragged about committing that murder. Vicente also gave statements identifying suspects in two other murder cases investigated by Guevara. He recanted in a 2004 interview with the Medill Innocence Project.
Also named in Serrano’s lawsuit were Guevara’s longtime partner, Ernest Halvorsen, and his former sergeant, Edward Mingey, along with two former Assistant State’s Attorneys, Matthew Coghlan and John Dillon. Coghlan is now a Cook County judge.
“When people wonder why [Chicago] is the wrongful conviction capital, it’s not just the rogue officers,” Bonjean told Buzzfeed. “It’s their partners. It’s the prosecutors who rise to the bench. And then it’s the judges and the judges’ friends.”
In the other lawsuit, Lionel White alleges that Sgt. Ronald Watts and a patrol officer “broke into his girlfriend’s apartment without a warrant, beat him and planted heroin on him,” the Chicago Sun-Times reported. “White spent more than two years in prison before a judge tossed his conviction.”
White’s case is one of hundreds in which attorneys say Watts may have falsely arrested people in order to enforce his extortion racket. Watts pled guilty in 2013 of shaking down an FBI informant.
Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx has said she is reviewing convictions linked to Watts. It’s not clear whether she is doing so for Guevara’s cases.
Also last week, a jury awarded $350,000 in a wrongful death lawsuit which named a former Watts associate. Officer Robert Gonzalez was found unjustified in his 2013 shooting of 17-year-old Christian Green. Gonzalez is also named in White’s lawsuit, which alleges Gonzalez helped Watts set up White for arrest. Gonzalez is currently a tactical officer in the Wentworth District.
“Unlawful contact” arrests
Since Chicago decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana in 2012, arrests for the crime of “unlawful contact” with gang members while on parole have increased by over 13,000 percent, according to a Chicago Sun-Times investigation.
Individuals have been arrested while walking down the street or sitting on a porch, with no other criminal conduct involved. “It’s a way to get them off the street,” one officer told reporters.
Arrests are concentrated on the South and West Sides, and 78 percent of those arrested for “unlawful contact” were African-American. Since 2011, over 3,000 have been convicted of the offense, which is punishable by up to a year in jail. The average sentence was three days.
Two proposed bills would change the law. The first, sponsored by Rep. Kelly Cassidy, would limit the ban to “street gang related activity.” A bill sponsored by Rep. Justin Slaughter would create exceptions for “pro-social activity,” including church attendance, volunteering, and family events.
Meanwhile, the Chicago Reader found that arrests for possession of small amounts of marijuana have fallen precipitously since decriminalization measures were passed by the city in 2012 and the state last July. But stark racial disparities remain, with blacks accounting for 78 percent of those arrested.
In addition, 59 people were arrested for possession of less than ten grams of marijuana in the six months since the state barred such arrests. CPD and the mayor’s office declined to offer an explanation for those arrests.
IG finds “issues” with promotions
The Chicago Inspector General uncovered “procedural and compliance issues” with the Chicago Police Department’s merit promotion process, and CPD agreed to changes in the process, according to the IG’s quarterly report.
A member of then-Supt. Garry McCarthy’s security detail was promoted to sergeant, despite having failed the written exam for the promotion. An unnamed “superior officer” directed a subordinate to nominate the officer, though the subordinate had no knowledge of the officer’s work performance. CPD’s human resources department approved the promotion, though McCarthy failed to complete the required justification memo. The city’s HR department discovered the officer was ineligible after he completed sergeant’s training and the promotion was forwarded for final approval.
CPD agreed to require that nominators have direct knowledge of the work performance of officers they recommend for promotion. In addition, CPD’s HR department will be responsible for verifying eligibility; and nominators, merit board members, and the superintendent will be required to take annual training on the merit promotion policy.
In its recent report on CPD, the Justice Department said issues with the promotional system “have created a narrative among the rank-and-file that CPD does not value good leadership, and that current leaders are unqualified to lead.” DOJ called for changes to increase the fairness of the promotion process, including reviewing promotional exams for discriminatory impact and increasing their frequency.
DOJ said lack of transparency around merit promotions — originally instituted to increase minority promotions — was “one of the major complaints” of both minority and white officers, who view the process as a “reward for cronyism.” (A Chicago Sun-Times investigation found that the largest number of merit promotions over the past decade went to white officers.)
Last year, the mayor’s Police Accountability Task Force found that 98 percent of officers surveyed believe that merit promotions reflect “connections,” and noted that ten years had passed between that last two sergeant exams.
In January, Supt. Eddie Johnson reinstated a policy identifying officers who receive merit promotions and their nominators. In February, he changed the merit promotion policy to allow members of the Merit Board — who approve nominations — to nominate officers, saying he wanted to increase promotions of patrol officers, whose chiefs sit on the board. Inspector General Joe Ferguson complained that the policy change was made by a verbal order, and “CPD should not be operating from nonofficial, nonpublic orders.”
