Even though Cook County’s top prosecutor maintained that two men are guilty of a horrific double-murder despite certificates of innocence, Chicago taxpayers could soon pay them $13.75 million to settle their police misconduct lawsuits after aldermen advanced a pair of deals Monday.
The City Council Finance Committee recommended Gabriel Solache and Arturo DeLeon-Reyes get the deals to resolve their lawsuits alleging ex-Det. Reynaldo Guevara landed them in prison with false confessions extracted with deceit and beatings.
The two men were convicted in 2000 of a brutal double murder and kidnapping, but have since received certificates of innocence, alongside dozens of other Chicagoans investigated by the disgraced Guevara.
Separate juries convicted the men of fatally stabbing Mariano Soto, 43, and his wife, Jacinta, 35, and kidnapping their two children in a plot prosecutors originally said was motivated by a woman’s desire for a baby.
The woman, Adriana Mejia, who allegedly planned the attack in order to steal the couple’s 2-month-old daughter, is serving a life sentence in state prison.
Mejia, who was said to be related to DeLeon-Reyes and a friend of Solache’s, was alleged to have been faking a pregnancy. Mejia initially told police she was there when DeLeon-Reyes stabbed the victims, but denied Solache was involved, Law Department attorney Jessica Felker told aldermen during the meeting. DeLeon-Reyes then implicated Solache, she added.
But the two men’s confessions came amid circumstances that ultimately led to their convictions — life in prison for DeLeon-Reyes and death for Solache – being overturned.
They accused Guevara of crafting statements in English to create false confessions. They said the detective repeatedly struck them in the head and interrogated them for as long as 42 hours.
Altogether, Guevara’s actions and reputation from dozens of other similar cases mean the central evidence against them, their written confessions, cannot stand, Felker said.
“There is no physical evidence linking Solache and DeLeon-Reyes to the crime. Blood on Adriana’s shoes and trousers did match one of the victims,” she said.
Mejia maintains Solache and DeLeon-Reyes helped her commit the crime, but also says Guevara hit her and pulled her hair, Felker said.
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A judge threw out the Solache and DeLeon-Reyes convictions in 2017, accusing Guevara of “bald-faced lies.” Days later, the office of Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx dropped the charges against them. Foxx’s office then dropped its longstanding opposition to certificates of innocence for the men, and DeLeon-Reyes and Solache received the certificates in 2022.
Still, Foxx said in a deposition that she believed the men were guilty, Felker said.
“She also said that she could not do anything because of the findings of Guevara’s inability and incredibility by the courts in this case,” she said.
With the city facing around 40 more Guevara-related cases, aldermen decried the expected massive cost of the settlements and verdicts for taxpayers before approving the two deals in a voice vote. If the settlements are approved by the fully City Council in a vote expected next week, Solache will recieve $6 million and DeLeon-Reyes will receive $7.75 million.
Some aldermen re-upped calls for a so-called “global settlement” aimed at landing most of the cases at once, a move Johnson’s administration has used before on other policing scandals to shrink legal costs.
The committee also advanced a $6 million deal for the family of Michael A. Jordan, a 27-year-old fatally struck by a car whose driver was evading police. The lawsuit accused police of violating car chase rules before the fleeing driver crashed into a CTA bus stop and killed the father of three.
Aldermen also advanced a $225,000 settlement for Lorenzo Williams, who alleged police used excessive force to arrest him after he was spotted on a surveillance camera carrying a gun.
Williams resisted arrest, and an officer struck him in the head three times with a police radio as other police held him down during the struggle, according to city attorneys. Police recovered a fully-loaded firearm from his waistband, and Williams later pled guilty to unlawful possession of a firearm. He was sentenced to three years and is now on parole.
The Finance Committee advanced the deal in a 18-to-13 vote, a rare close vote for such a settlement.