CHICAGO — It was an astonishing coincidence: a Stateville inmate encountering the Cook County state’s attorney, just a day after prosecutors discussed whether his decades-old murder case should be thrown out.
But last month, Jose Cruz briefly met top prosecutor Kim Foxx as she was preparing to speak at a commencement for recent graduates at the prison. Cruz alleges he was framed by now-infamous retired Chicago police Detective Reynaldo Guevara. Foxx’s office has been reviewing Guevara-related cases.
“He had his lineup photo that he wanted to show me and introduce himself to me,” Foxx told the Tribune this week. “I had shared with Mr. Cruz that I recognized his name. … Literally, his case was part of a series of cases I had talked about less than 24 hours earlier.”
From there, the recollections apparently diverge. Cruz soon afterward emailed his attorney to say Foxx assured him he would be home soon; Foxx maintains she told Cruz to “hold on tight” as their review of Guevara cases was proceeding but did not make any promises. Cruz on Tuesday told the Tribune simply that their discussion was brief since he didn’t have his attorney with him.
But on Monday, Cruz got his final answer, when prosecutors formally withdrew their opposition to Cruz’s efforts. Cook County Judge Tyria Walton threw out his murder conviction, and prosecutors dropped the charges, clearing the way for Cruz’s release from Stateville on Tuesday.
“I’m doing great, enjoying my freedom, you know,” Cruz told the Tribune from his aunt’s restaurant on the Northwest Side — a welcome respite from prison food.
“It felt great” to walk out of Stateville, he said. “I had a lot of support from the guys on the inside, even staff, they came out to congratulate me since I’d been there so long and they all know me, they’ve been supportive of me, they knew my situation.”
“He’s thrilled, he’s emotional,” Cruz’s attorney Gregory Swygert told the Tribune. “... He’s one of the most grateful, positive clients I’ve ever had, having been wrongfully convicted for so long.”
The encounter with Foxx was “was an exciting moment for my client, who has been fighting for so long — to meet the person who would have the ultimate decision in the case,” Swygert said. “Maybe it’s a little bit of ‘Rashomon,’ everybody has a different version of how it played out. But again, he couldn’t be more grateful for her about the decision that was made.”
Cruz was convicted in 1996 for a 1993 murder. At trial, he was identified by a single eyewitness; his attorneys allege Guevara improperly steered that witness to identify Cruz. In addition, two other eyewitnesses had identified the shooter as Black — not Hispanic, like Cruz — but were never called at trial. One of those witnesses has said Guevara pressured him to finger Cruz and was “furious” when he stood by his claim that the shooter was Black, according to court filings.
“If we had to try that case today, we could not meet our burden (of proof),” Foxx told the Tribune.
After a cascade of allegations against Guevara, Foxx’s office launched a review of cases related to the former detective. Cruz and another Guevara accuser, Daniel Rodriguez, had their cases thrown out this year with prosecutors’ agreement. The Cook County state’s attorney’s office has chosen to fight back against the claims of some other Guevara accusers, however.
One of the petitions that prosecutors challenged was David Colon’s. After a series of hearings in October and November about his allegations against Guevara, Judge Sophia Atcherson on Friday threw out his murder conviction. Guevara improperly steered two witnesses to identify Colon as the gunman in a 1991 murder, Atcherson found.
Atcherson ordered a new trial for Colon, who was released from prison in 2017. Prosecutors have not yet announced whether they intend to put him on trial again.
“It is now undisputed that former Detective Guevara, motivated by a desire to close cases regardless of whether he had found the actual perpetrator, engaged in multiple and repeated instances of police misconduct which took various forms,” Atcherson wrote in her order throwing out Colon’s case.
When asked why prosecutors chose to challenge Colon’s claims in evidentiary hearings, Foxx said the office has “been trying to get our arms around a lot of these cases.”
In their review of police misconduct claims, sometimes cases proceeded to hearings “without us sharing as much information as possible” internally, Foxx said.
Guevara’s patterns of behavior “are not necessarily as easily identifiable” as the patterns of some other allegedly corrupt cops, Foxx said, and information needs to flow freely between different parts of the office and between prosecutors and accusers’ attorneys to get a fuller picture.
From a review of cases connected to now-convicted ex-Police Sgt. Ronald Watts, prosecutors concluded that some officers are so questionable that prosecutors could not stand by convictions related to them, even if they believe the person might in fact have committed the crime as alleged, Foxx said.
“Saying ‘Can we stand by the conviction?’ and ‘actual innocence,’ those are two different standards,” Foxx said.
Dozens of people have accused Guevara, now retired, of manipulating witnesses, fabricating evidence and framing suspects over the course of his career. He has repeatedly asserted his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent when questioned about the alleged wrongdoing.
When Guevara did take the stand in Cook County Court under a grant of immunity in 2017, Judge James Obbish found his testimony so untrustworthy that he found Guevara “has now eliminated the possibility of being considered a credible witness in any proceeding.”
Multiple wrongful convictions have been linked to Guevara, and the city has faced lawsuits over his alleged conduct.
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