Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #423 Jason Flom with Fabian Santiago

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#423 Jason Flom with Fabian Santiago · Wrongful Conviction

0:03
Speaker 1: Throughout the eighties and nineties, gang violence plagued the Humboldt
0:06
Speaker 1: Park area of Chicago, and on January sixteenth, nineteen ninety three,
0:10
Speaker 1: members of the Spanish Cobras fired upon three members of
0:13
Speaker 1: the Latin Kings, killing one young man and injuring another.
0:17
Speaker 1: A passer by in a vehicle was also struck by
0:19
Speaker 1: a stray bullet. A confidential informants tip naming sixteen year
0:23
Speaker 1: old Fabian Santiago, allegedly made its way through a few
0:27
Speaker 1: detectives before reaching the lead detective on the case, Ernest Halferson.
0:31
Speaker 1: When the police arrested Fabian, they also claimed to have
0:34
Speaker 1: found a gun in Fabian's bedroom. Then two eye witnesses,
0:39
Speaker 1: including one of the surviving victims, identified Fabian from a lineup,
0:44
Speaker 1: even though the witness's initial descriptions varied wildly from Fabian,
0:48
Speaker 1: who was also not a member of the Spanish Cobras.
0:51
Speaker 1: It was going to take a whole lot more to
0:53
Speaker 1: outweigh the state's case. But this is wrongful conviction. Welcome
1:10
Speaker 1: back to wrongful conviction. And we're here today with a
1:13
Speaker 1: story that has so much corruption, and I'll call it what,
1:18
Speaker 1: it's pure evil. The miracle is that the man himself
1:22
Speaker 1: who was victimized by these horrible detectives and others, is
1:27
Speaker 1: that the fact that he's still alive. Fabian Santiago, welcome
1:31
Speaker 1: to wrongful conviction.
1:32
Speaker 2: Thank you very much for having me and with him.
1:35
Speaker 1: Ashley Cohen is a partner at Bungin Law Group, and
1:40
Speaker 1: she and her partner are responsible for justice having been
1:45
Speaker 1: not denied, delayed horribly, but not denied after all these years.
1:49
Speaker 1: So Ashley, thank.
1:50
Speaker 3: You for being here, Thanks for having me Jason, and.
1:53
Speaker 1: Let's get right into it. This crime is a horrible
1:56
Speaker 1: crime with real victims. But this was back in in
2:00
Speaker 1: an era when the Humble Park area of Chicago was
2:03
Speaker 1: riddled with violence. So it was a horrible crime, but
2:07
Speaker 1: also enforcing not a crime that you wouldn't hear about
2:09
Speaker 1: fairly regularly.
2:10
Speaker 2: Well for anyone who's aware of Humble Park. It's a
2:14
Speaker 2: world of difference today than what it previously was. It
2:18
Speaker 2: was the height of the crack epidemic, utterly gang and
2:21
Speaker 2: drug infested. Many murders did not even make the news
2:25
Speaker 2: at that time. It wasn't a place for anyone to live,
2:28
Speaker 2: let alone for a kid to grow up. I remember
2:31
Speaker 2: I would look down and broad daylight to the corner
2:34
Speaker 2: of my block, and I would see dozens of gang
2:37
Speaker 2: members women prostituted themselves in open air drug markets. This
2:41
Speaker 2: is what I grew up to. In fact, early on
2:44
Speaker 2: I couldn't have been more than ten years old. There
2:47
Speaker 2: was a rival gang member who was on a bike
2:50
Speaker 2: driving down my street and the gang members that lived
2:53
Speaker 2: in my neighborhood spotted him and chased him down and
2:56
Speaker 2: blew his brains out.
2:57
Speaker 1: That was Humble Park, terrifying story. And there are countless
3:03
Speaker 1: murders that weren't solved, and then there were countless others
3:06
Speaker 1: that were listed as solved that were actually not solved
3:10
Speaker 1: at all, like the one we're about to talk about.
3:13
Speaker 1: But usually we start by telling what was your life
3:15
Speaker 1: like before this happened. You were really just a child.
3:19
Speaker 2: I was four days and attorney sixteen years old when
3:21
Speaker 2: I was framed for murder.
3:23
Speaker 1: Previously, we've covered cases from this year in Humboldt Park,
3:26
Speaker 1: Marilyn Malaro and Jacques Rivera, and we'll have their stories
3:30
Speaker 1: linked in the bio, both of whom were also victims
3:33
Speaker 1: of the same notorious detectives, Ernest Halverson and Ronaldo Guevera.
3:38
Speaker 2: Make no mistake about it, Detective Halverson Guevara in this
3:43
Speaker 2: group of rogue detectives functioned as nothing less than a
3:47
Speaker 2: criminal organization, not out of a crack house, not out
3:50
Speaker 2: of a gang infested neighborhood, out of the Area five
3:53
Speaker 2: police precinct.
3:54
Speaker 1: And let us not forget that then, in case you
3:57
Speaker 1: think there's any hyperbole here, since the nineteen eighties, over
4:02
Speaker 1: one hundred cases proven in which Chicago police officers fabricated
4:06
Speaker 1: false evidence and or suppressed exculpatory evidence in order to
4:10
Speaker 1: directly cause the convictions of innocent people for serious violent
4:15
Speaker 1: crimes that they didn't commitment. Ye.
4:16
Speaker 2: Yes, and I think it needs to be emphasized the
4:19
Speaker 2: fact that these are just the cases that have come
4:21
Speaker 2: to light. There have been men who have died in
4:24
Speaker 2: prison because of cases like this, irreparably damaged. I have
4:28
Speaker 2: no men who took their lives because of the cold
4:32
Speaker 2: and stark realities that one has to deal with in
4:35
Speaker 2: the prison system.
4:36
Speaker 1: This detective team, Guavara and Halverson, ran a gang unit
4:40
Speaker 1: that often investigated the activity of Puerto Rican gangs like
4:44
Speaker 1: the Latin Kings, the Latin Disciples, the Spanish Cobra is
4:48
Speaker 1: just to day a few. But what is also clear
4:51
Speaker 1: is that there are varying degrees to which the residents
4:53
Speaker 1: of humbold Park were actually even involved in gang activity,
4:56
Speaker 1: if at all. Now, Fabian lived in an area of
4:59
Speaker 1: control by the Latin Disciples.
5:01
Speaker 4: And I'm sure Fabian could speak to this more than
5:03
Speaker 4: I can. But during this time period, if you lived
5:06
Speaker 4: on a certain block, you were associated with a certain gang.
5:10
Speaker 4: It didn't matter if you actually were in a gang,
5:12
Speaker 4: if you ever were initiated. Fabian didn't have a history
5:16
Speaker 4: of violent there was nothing in his record, but the
5:19
Speaker 4: area where he lived and who he hung around with,
5:22
Speaker 4: all of a sudden he is part of the specific gang.
5:24
Speaker 2: There was stipulation that I was associated with the Latin Disciples,
5:28
Speaker 2: and that was not even the organization that had carried
5:32
Speaker 2: out this homicide, which was according to these police reports,
5:36
Speaker 2: the Spanish Cobras.
5:37
Speaker 1: And the incident at the crux of Fabian's wrongful conviction
5:40
Speaker 1: appears to have been a gang hit on the Latin Kings,
5:42
Speaker 1: which happened on January sixteenth, nineteen ninety three.
5:45
Speaker 4: Three individuals, William Stewart, John Meatos and Pedro Muriel were
5:50
Speaker 4: walking home from a liquor store in Humble Park and
5:54
Speaker 4: guns were fired in their direction. One of the offenders
5:57
Speaker 4: yelled King killer and Cobra Love before basically pulling out
6:00
Speaker 4: a handgun and shooting it multiple times in the direction
6:04
Speaker 4: of the victims. William Stewart died as a result of
6:07
Speaker 4: the gunshot wounds, Muriel suffered a gunshot wound that hospitalized
6:11
Speaker 4: him for six weeks, and Marcelia Hernandez, she was driving
6:17
Speaker 4: by in a vehicle, had sustained minor injuries as well.
6:20
Speaker 4: The offenders fled down an alley, and so there's a death,
6:25
Speaker 4: there's another attempt murder, and there's another individual who is injured.
6:29
Speaker 3: And there were a.
6:30
Speaker 4: Ton of witnesses, several of whom could not make identifications,
6:35
Speaker 4: could not give much of any information about the shooters.
6:38
Speaker 3: But there were these.
6:39
Speaker 4: Two individuals, Matos and Rivera, who ultimately were the ones
6:44
Speaker 4: who gave a description and eventually allegedly identified Fabian in
6:51
Speaker 4: lineups and testified a trial.
6:54
Speaker 1: Matos, a Latin King, was one of the targets. Rivera
6:58
Speaker 1: was a gang member as well, so you can easily
7:00
Speaker 1: imagine that they would have been easy for the police
7:02
Speaker 1: to coerce. However, Marcella Hernandez, the driving passer by caught
7:06
Speaker 1: in the gunfire, and her younger sister Lrena were able
7:09
Speaker 1: to give descriptions as well, and while the age description
7:12
Speaker 1: for the primary shooter varied from late teens to mid twenties,
7:16
Speaker 1: all the witnesses agreed that he was white, Hispanic, about
7:19
Speaker 1: five ten, one hundred and eighty pounds, either a mustache
7:22
Speaker 1: or a beard, and the accomplice was described as a
7:25
Speaker 1: mid twenties Hispanic male about six feet tall and two
7:28
Speaker 1: hundred pounds.
7:29
Speaker 2: And at the time I was only approximately five foot
7:32
Speaker 2: three or four one hundred pounds. I was sixteen years old.
7:37
Speaker 2: The shooter who was described as a left handed shooter,
7:39
Speaker 2: I've been right handed all my life, so in no way,
7:41
Speaker 2: shape or form did they resemble my description.
7:45
Speaker 1: Another thing that makes no sense about this case is
7:47
Speaker 1: the fact that the shooter yelled out Cobra loved King Killer,
7:51
Speaker 1: basically proclaiming his affiliation with the Spanish Cobras and the
7:55
Speaker 1: intended victims of Latin kings. Meanwhile, as we mentioned, Fabian
8:00
Speaker 1: lived in Latin Disciple territory. But Fabian was drawn into
8:04
Speaker 1: this mess when Detective Ernest Halverson alleged that he received
8:07
Speaker 1: a tip from another detective, Bill Dorsh.
8:10
Speaker 4: What happens is Halverson says that he was told by
8:14
Speaker 4: Bill Dorsch that Dorsch received a tip from another officer
8:18
Speaker 4: who said an informant told him that he heard Fabian
8:21
Speaker 4: ragging about shooting some kings and that the gun used
8:25
Speaker 4: and the shooting was in Fabian's house.
8:27
Speaker 2: They came pounding at the door and I was taking
8:29
Speaker 2: immediately into custody.
8:31
Speaker 3: And he's sixteen years old.
8:33
Speaker 4: He doesn't have a parent, he doesn't have a lawyer,
8:37
Speaker 4: and he's placed in an interrogation room at Area five.
8:41
Speaker 2: My grandmother at the time is whom I was staying with.
8:44
Speaker 2: She was my legal guardian. She arrived at the police
8:47
Speaker 2: station with an aunt of mine, Alberta Perez, and she
8:50
Speaker 2: demanded to see me. She made it abundantly clear that
8:53
Speaker 2: she wanted an attorney president and to be there as well.
8:57
Speaker 2: My aunt translated for her and informed them that they
9:02
Speaker 2: were prohibited from seeing me at that time because of
9:05
Speaker 2: our lineups being conducted, that he would call them back.
9:08
Speaker 2: They never called them.
9:10
Speaker 1: So they put Fabian in a lineup for the witnesses.
9:12
Speaker 1: Matos Rivera as well as Marcella and Lorena Hernandez, all
9:16
Speaker 1: of whom were between the ages of fourteen and seventeen.
9:20
Speaker 4: And we've developed significant evidence that shows that there was
9:24
Speaker 4: a pattern where these Area five detectives investigating these cases
9:29
Speaker 4: would usually prey on the younger victim and or witnesses
9:35
Speaker 4: officers like Wavara and officers like Halverson, who would tell
9:38
Speaker 4: them who to pick out in a lineup. In fact,
9:41
Speaker 4: Dorshe in another case, testifies that he saw Guavara do
9:45
Speaker 4: this in a lineup where Guavara basically said pick out
9:49
Speaker 4: that guy, that's the one who did it, and Dorsch
9:52
Speaker 4: was like, what are you doing. You're not allowed to
9:54
Speaker 4: tell somebody who to pick out in a lineup.
9:57
Speaker 2: During the lineup, I was the only one that was
9:59
Speaker 2: made to stand up and yell out cober Love King
10:02
Speaker 2: Killer the only one. And no one in that lineup
10:05
Speaker 2: resembled me. Everyone was an adult taller older than me.
10:09
Speaker 2: And even with that, you had the two women that
10:12
Speaker 2: were driving by in the motor vehicle. They told the
10:15
Speaker 2: detectives we did not see him do anything. We do
10:18
Speaker 2: not want to identify someone who was not involved. We
10:22
Speaker 2: don't want someone who's innocent going to prison and the
10:25
Speaker 2: police completely blew up on them, telling her this is
10:28
Speaker 2: the guy who did it. All you need to do
10:30
Speaker 2: is point them out.
10:31
Speaker 4: So this whole concept of these young kids picking out
10:35
Speaker 4: individuals in a lineup. Although it seems, oh, you have
10:39
Speaker 4: two eyewitnesses who are identifying Fabian as the shooter, it's
10:43
Speaker 4: usually bogus.
10:45
Speaker 1: But unfortunately this information did not come to light until
10:49
Speaker 1: Fabian had already spent decades in prison. So after this
10:52
Speaker 1: pretty much directed identification from Matos and Rivera at Area five,
10:57
Speaker 1: Fabian was returned to the interrogation room, where the misconduct continued.
11:01
Speaker 4: Halverson tells Fabian that Fabian needed to sign a consent
11:05
Speaker 4: to search his house so that he can protect his
11:08
Speaker 4: personal property, which may be destroyed once they go back
11:11
Speaker 4: there and search his house.
11:12
Speaker 2: They're yelling and screaming at me, telling me to sign.
11:15
Speaker 2: I had requested the presence of counsel my grandmother. They
11:18
Speaker 2: weren't trying to hear any of that. They were doing
11:20
Speaker 2: everything they could to terrorize and just to get me
11:22
Speaker 2: to relent. They will, look, at least, you're going to
11:25
Speaker 2: be reimbursed if your stuff is destroyed, because we are
11:27
Speaker 2: going to destroy your stuff, and I ultimately ended up
11:30
Speaker 2: signing that form. The thing was later on, I came
11:33
Speaker 2: to understand, according to my aunt, that as soon as
11:36
Speaker 2: I was taken into custody, these detectives were already tearing
11:39
Speaker 2: up my home. So irregardless whether they had obtained a
11:43
Speaker 2: written consent for me or not, they had already been
11:47
Speaker 2: conducting the search, so this was all just simply to
11:51
Speaker 2: cover their asses.
11:53
Speaker 1: Fabian was initially charged with illegal possession of a firearm,
11:57
Speaker 1: so outside the presence of counsel or a guardian, they
11:59
Speaker 1: got mission to find the gun that they originally arrested
12:02
Speaker 1: him for. With this trickery to obtain the consent for
12:06
Speaker 1: a search, one can only surmise that they did not
12:09
Speaker 1: have the probable cause to get a judge to sign
12:11
Speaker 1: off on a search warrant.
12:13
Speaker 2: It was further solidified that they were planting this firearm
12:17
Speaker 2: when William Dorsch came forward and attested I had not
12:21
Speaker 2: produced an informant probable cause, and if I had gathered
12:24
Speaker 2: this evidence, I would have come myself to have arrested you.
12:29
Speaker 2: I would not have involved these detectives because I had
12:32
Speaker 2: known even at that time that they were so.
12:34
Speaker 1: Corrupt again, this is information that didn't come to light
12:38
Speaker 1: until Fabian had already spent almost thirty years in prison.
12:42
Speaker 1: And we'll come back to these revelations from William Dorritsch
12:44
Speaker 1: a bit later. So back to the interrogation room, they
12:47
Speaker 1: had gotten the search consent signed, and then shortly after
12:51
Speaker 1: Detective Halverson returned with this gun and pointed it in
12:54
Speaker 1: Fabian's face, saying, quote, now you know how it feels.
12:59
Speaker 1: This is the gun that you had unquote.
13:02
Speaker 2: And when he pointed it to my head, I insisted
13:05
Speaker 2: that the firearm was at mine, that I wasn't involved
13:08
Speaker 2: he assaulted me.
13:09
Speaker 1: So no surprise that you ultimately relented and just said,
13:13
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what you want to hear. So they
13:15
Speaker 1: now had a false confession.
13:17
Speaker 4: Well, the only thing that came in at trial was
13:20
Speaker 4: that Fabian made alleged oral statements to Halverson. So even
13:28
Speaker 4: though Fabian had a gun pointed at him, was beaten
13:31
Speaker 4: up by Halverson, he still would not give a written
13:37
Speaker 4: statement to the state's attorney.
13:39
Speaker 2: I never signed off on any confession and it was
13:42
Speaker 2: not recorded.
13:56
Speaker 1: To recap. Detective Halverson and his cohorts had an alleged,
13:59
Speaker 1: unrecord ordered oral confession the directed identification from Matos and
14:04
Speaker 1: Rivera and this gun that was almost certainly planted that
14:07
Speaker 1: they claimed magic bullets founded the scene. At this time,
14:10
Speaker 1: Fabian's grandmother sold her home to post his bond and
14:14
Speaker 1: help him out a defense. Yet somehow Fabian had even
14:17
Speaker 1: more dire problems than this case.
14:21
Speaker 2: Back at this time, the gangs ruled these neighborhoods with
14:24
Speaker 2: an iron fist. And because I was implicated in this crime,
14:29
Speaker 2: the laon Kings had placed a contract hit out on me,
14:33
Speaker 2: and they tried to gun me down in a car chase,
14:36
Speaker 2: and they left a note on my grandmother's house saying
14:39
Speaker 2: we know where you live.
14:42
Speaker 4: So he's again wrongly accused, wrongly accused by the gangs,
14:46
Speaker 4: and he's wrongly accused by the officers.
14:48
Speaker 2: There is no rationalizing, there is no talking it out.
14:52
Speaker 2: Not only my own health and safety, but my families
14:55
Speaker 2: was at risk. And I left.
14:57
Speaker 1: So where the hell did you go? Where is a
14:59
Speaker 1: sixteen years kid with no resources, with everybody looking for them,
15:03
Speaker 1: Where the hell do you go and hide?
15:05
Speaker 2: I left the state of all noise. I just bounced around.
15:08
Speaker 2: I wasn't in one single place for too long. Whether
15:12
Speaker 2: it was a friend or finding a hotel room or
15:15
Speaker 2: an apartment, whatever the case may have been. Unfortunately, I
15:19
Speaker 2: had to utilize whatever methods were necessary for me to
15:22
Speaker 2: survive selling drugs or just working a part time gig
15:26
Speaker 2: or whatever have you.
15:28
Speaker 1: Okay, so then finally you get tried in absentia. We've
15:32
Speaker 1: literally never had that happen on the show. Ashley, give
15:35
Speaker 1: us the cliff notes of this ridiculous trial.
15:38
Speaker 4: Okay, So Fabian has a private attorney. He goes to
15:42
Speaker 4: trial before a judge by the name of Judge Tuman,
15:45
Speaker 4: who was notoriously known for being very hard on juveniles.
15:49
Speaker 4: They show up for trial, Judge says, where's mister Santiago
15:53
Speaker 4: and his attorney says, I don't know, can we postpone?
15:56
Speaker 3: And Judge says, well, he was told to be here
15:58
Speaker 3: at ten am.
15:59
Speaker 4: We're going for Basically, the evidence at trial is these
16:03
Speaker 4: two eyewitnesses who identify him in the lineup, which we
16:07
Speaker 4: know were bogus, and Halverson testifies that he recovered a
16:12
Speaker 4: gun in Fabian's home which was tested and the ballistics
16:17
Speaker 4: matched the gun that.
16:19
Speaker 3: Was used in the shooting.
16:21
Speaker 4: And there is a state's attorney who provides testimony of
16:27
Speaker 4: alleged oral inculpatory statements. He testifies that Fabian admitted to
16:34
Speaker 4: participating in the shooting, and that's what he's convicted on, which,
16:39
Speaker 4: if you're looking at it objectively, seems kind of alike
16:42
Speaker 4: a lot of evidence. The problem is all of it
16:44
Speaker 4: was built on a lie and none of it is
16:46
Speaker 4: actually legitimate. I mean, I think the state's attorney, what
16:50
Speaker 4: he did at this time is almost as appalling as
16:53
Speaker 4: what the officers did. I mean, they knew what was
16:55
Speaker 4: going on behind closed doors. There was no court reporter present,
16:59
Speaker 4: there was no handwritten statement, there was nothing memorialized on paper.
17:03
Speaker 4: It was just oral statements that come in through Halverson
17:07
Speaker 4: and through this prosecutor.
17:09
Speaker 3: So that is just absurd in my mind.
17:12
Speaker 1: Other than cross examining Matos and Rivera about the inconsistencies
17:15
Speaker 1: between their descriptions of the assailants and Fabian, not much
17:18
Speaker 1: of a defense was mounted at all. Plus the appearance
17:22
Speaker 1: of going on the lamb probably was not helpful. So
17:25
Speaker 1: the jury reached a predictable conclusion, and on May eighteenth,
17:29
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four, Fabian was convicted of murder, attempted murder,
17:33
Speaker 1: as well as related firearms charges and sentenced to ninety
17:37
Speaker 1: years news that he received while he was still on
17:40
Speaker 1: the run for his very life.
17:42
Speaker 2: It was crushing and as horrific as it was for
17:46
Speaker 2: that type of sentence to have been handed down, my
17:49
Speaker 2: only focus was on staying away from Chicago to stay alive.
17:54
Speaker 2: Over a year and a half later, I was depleted
17:57
Speaker 2: of funds and I came back to Chicago trying to
17:59
Speaker 2: get to assistance, and as I was walking the street,
18:03
Speaker 2: I don't know if they knew who I was or
18:06
Speaker 2: they were just stopping me, and ultimately I was brought
18:09
Speaker 2: back into custody.
18:10
Speaker 1: Now Fabian was not only made to serve this insane sentence,
18:15
Speaker 1: but he was also being tried for jumping bail, so
18:18
Speaker 1: ten more years were added on to this ninety year sentence.
18:22
Speaker 4: Ten years also for a bail jumping is absurd. That
18:25
Speaker 4: was a judge being pissed to sell that he didn't
18:27
Speaker 4: show up the trial.
18:28
Speaker 2: I had a public defender. She didn't ask me why
18:31
Speaker 2: I was unable to attend my trial. She could care less.
18:35
Speaker 2: She simply was yelling and telling me, look, the judge
18:39
Speaker 2: is pissed off. You need to take this plea. I
18:41
Speaker 2: figured that it made little of any difference, and I
18:44
Speaker 2: accepted it for a total of a one hundred year
18:46
Speaker 2: prison sentence. Because of the incredible amount of time that
19:00
Speaker 2: I was incarcerated. I was in every single maximum state
19:04
Speaker 2: penitentiary in Illinois several times over. It was very violent
19:10
Speaker 2: and you had to defend yourself. There was men who
19:13
Speaker 2: were stabbed up, murdered. In fact, I know of one
19:16
Speaker 2: incident where a cellmate got involved in a physical confrontation
19:20
Speaker 2: with his cellmate and he tore his eyeballs out. He's
19:24
Speaker 2: blind and he threw his eyes on the gallery. The
19:28
Speaker 2: carnage was incredible. I knew men who have taken their
19:32
Speaker 2: lives for far less than what I had endured, simply
19:36
Speaker 2: because they didn't want to deal with how cold and
19:38
Speaker 2: stark that reality was. The United States government propagates this
19:42
Speaker 2: belief that China Russia engaged in human rights abuses. People
19:47
Speaker 2: in this country are tortured every day in the prison system.
19:51
Speaker 1: So getting Fabian out of that horrible situation could not
19:54
Speaker 1: have been more urgent. But the appeals process moved very slowly.
19:58
Speaker 2: I went through the core process, ineffective assistance of counsel,
20:02
Speaker 2: unlawful searces and seizures. I got nowhere very quick.
20:06
Speaker 4: And one thing that was crazy is his pellet attorney.
20:09
Speaker 4: She didn't raise the issue of him being tried in abstentia.
20:13
Speaker 4: So when you don't raise the issue on direct appeal,
20:16
Speaker 4: you ultimately waive it because it's not preserved.
20:19
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know how you don't raise that.
20:22
Speaker 2: While I was in prison, I immersed myself in study
20:25
Speaker 2: and litigation. I pursued numerous litigations against the Illinois Department
20:29
Speaker 2: of Corrections, civil litigations. From these lawsuits that I would
20:33
Speaker 2: succeed in, I was able to pay for my own lawyers,
20:36
Speaker 2: and every one of these attorneys did nothing but sell
20:39
Speaker 2: me a pipe dream and take my money, and worst
20:42
Speaker 2: of all, cause even further years, if not decades, of
20:45
Speaker 2: my life being wasted away in prison. Ultimately, I wrote
20:50
Speaker 2: Jennifer bon Jing requesting legal representation, and later on she
20:54
Speaker 2: had seen me on Zoom and she had bear witness
20:58
Speaker 2: personally to my outlage about my innocence.
21:02
Speaker 1: During COVID, a lot of the hearings began to take
21:04
Speaker 1: place on zoom, and when you had the zoom meeting
21:07
Speaker 1: for the judge in front of whom you had the case,
21:09
Speaker 1: he would often end up listening in on the proceedings
21:12
Speaker 1: for four years, you know, while you're waiting for yours
21:14
Speaker 1: to come up. And as a result of that, Ashley's
21:16
Speaker 1: partner Jennifer bon Jean overheard Fabian's arguments.
21:20
Speaker 4: It was around Halloween twenty twenty, and I remember her
21:23
Speaker 4: calling me and she was like, I just watched the
21:26
Speaker 4: craziest thing on zoom in Judge Kenworthy. This guy, he's
21:30
Speaker 4: a Halberson case and he is in on a legal sentence,
21:36
Speaker 4: was advocating for himself.
21:37
Speaker 2: I was arguing, basically before the court, look, I'm actually
21:40
Speaker 2: innocent of these crimes. However, it would make a flying
21:43
Speaker 2: fuck of a difference to me if I were guilty
21:45
Speaker 2: of everything I've done. The prison time of three or
21:48
Speaker 2: four men I knew, men whom had been given twenty
21:51
Speaker 2: years for murders. They did ten years, and they went home.
21:54
Speaker 2: And here I was riding away from the age of
21:57
Speaker 2: a sixteen year old kid, completely innocent of the charges,
22:00
Speaker 2: and I had lost almost thirty years already.
22:02
Speaker 1: By this time, a slew of landmarks gotis rulings had
22:06
Speaker 1: made mandatory juvenile sentencing statutes unconstitutional, so Ashley and Jennifer
22:10
Speaker 1: were able to split Fabian's actual innocence claim from his resentencing,
22:15
Speaker 1: and they tackled that first.
22:17
Speaker 2: With the resentencing, I would have been required to have
22:20
Speaker 2: completed a prison sentence of seventeen years, so I had
22:24
Speaker 2: completed that sentence by over a decade, which required my
22:28
Speaker 2: immediate discharge from custody.
22:31
Speaker 4: The resentencing hearing was January seventh, twenty twenty two. On
22:35
Speaker 4: January twelfth, twenty twenty two, He's released.
22:38
Speaker 2: It was surreal. I had fought so long for that day,
22:41
Speaker 2: and unfortunately I had been gone for such an incredible
22:45
Speaker 2: period of time that all of my immediate family were gone.
22:48
Speaker 2: My mother and my only brother had passed away while
22:51
Speaker 2: I was in prison. I didn't have any home. My grandmother,
22:54
Speaker 2: who made every sacrifice, was suffering from dementia. This woman
22:58
Speaker 2: raised me, She cared for me and provided for me.
23:01
Speaker 2: She went into financial ruin to help me. She lost
23:04
Speaker 2: her house, she lost everything, and now she could not
23:06
Speaker 2: even remember my name. When I got out of prison,
23:09
Speaker 2: I didn't even have anyone to pick me up. Arrangements
23:12
Speaker 2: had to be made for someone to pick me up
23:14
Speaker 2: and to take me to a homeless shelter.
23:16
Speaker 3: Yeah.
23:16
Speaker 4: So Robert Almodovar is another one of our clients, and
23:19
Speaker 4: he does amazing work since he's been out. He was
23:21
Speaker 4: released in twenty seventeen, and all our clients who have
23:25
Speaker 4: been released since, he's just amazing. He drives them and
23:29
Speaker 4: he picks them up, takes them where they needed.
23:31
Speaker 2: He was there for me and I was tremendously grateful
23:34
Speaker 2: for that. And I remember him telling me he was
23:36
Speaker 2: going to get me a cheap phone so I could
23:38
Speaker 2: have a means of communication. And I told him I
23:40
Speaker 2: don't need a phone. I don't have many people in
23:42
Speaker 2: my life. If I need to make a phone call,
23:44
Speaker 2: I can walk down to the corner store and used
23:46
Speaker 2: to pay phone. And he goes, Fabian, you don't understand.
23:49
Speaker 2: You've been gone so long. Payphones don't exist out here anymore.
23:53
Speaker 2: I got to get your phone.
23:54
Speaker 1: It's absolutely devastating to know that Fabian lost so many years.
24:00
Speaker 1: Well all along, the information that would have and could
24:03
Speaker 1: have set him free was readily available but hidden from view,
24:07
Speaker 1: and so in pursuit of his innocence claims, Ashley and
24:09
Speaker 1: Jennifer reached out to William Dorsch.
24:11
Speaker 3: We had worked with Dorish in the past.
24:13
Speaker 4: He was a witness and actually Robert al the Dovar's
24:15
Speaker 4: case and in other cases and pattern and practice cases
24:18
Speaker 4: as it relates to Guevara. And when we got Fabian's
24:22
Speaker 4: homicide file, we saw Dorsh's name was on it, and
24:26
Speaker 4: he read the report and he, in no uncertain terms
24:29
Speaker 4: said this never happened. What Halverson puts in his report
24:32
Speaker 4: is Halverson says Officer Cruise from the twentieth District contacted
24:38
Speaker 4: Bill Dorsch, who was in the same area as Halverson,
24:42
Speaker 4: and told him about this alleged tip Okay said Fabian
24:46
Speaker 4: was running around on his birthday saying, my birthday present
24:50
Speaker 4: was shooting.
24:51
Speaker 3: Up these people.
24:52
Speaker 4: Basically, Bill Dorsch said, if an officer from another district
24:56
Speaker 4: had told me about an informant, I would have memorialized
24:59
Speaker 4: at some where I would have documented all of this.
25:02
Speaker 3: And there was none of that.
25:04
Speaker 4: And there was a signature by him allegedly, but he
25:09
Speaker 4: said it wasn't his signature.
25:10
Speaker 2: It was forged. Yes, William Dortch's testimony was groundbreaking. We
25:14
Speaker 2: wouldn't have been able to prove. Look, they falsified police
25:17
Speaker 2: reports that William Dortch had conducted lineups. He goes, I
25:21
Speaker 2: wasn't even in the police station doing any of this.
25:24
Speaker 2: They signed his name off. Why would you need to
25:26
Speaker 2: do that. You're clearly involved in something of a nefarious nature.
25:31
Speaker 2: You had a cycle of concocted story after story, lying
25:35
Speaker 2: about informants police reports, conducting unlawful searches and seizures, taking
25:40
Speaker 2: people into custody, illegally, beating suspects into confessions, and pointing
25:45
Speaker 2: a gun at them. I mean, when you have that
25:48
Speaker 2: cocktail of criminal misconduct on the part of these detectives,
25:53
Speaker 2: you got to ask what is their motive here? William
25:56
Speaker 2: Dorts came forward basically affirming my colleagues were bunch of
26:00
Speaker 2: corrupt detectives.
26:01
Speaker 1: Pretty courageous on his part.
26:03
Speaker 4: Ultimately he provides us an Affidavid, and we attached his
26:07
Speaker 4: affidavit along with the police reports to the petition and
26:12
Speaker 4: we file the petition.
26:14
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, even more information came to light.
26:17
Speaker 2: Approximately six months ago, I went to a new doctor
26:20
Speaker 2: and her medtech's name was Ellie, and they had mentioned
26:24
Speaker 2: that there were various medical records that were missing, and
26:28
Speaker 2: I had explained to them that I was wrongfully convicted.
26:31
Speaker 2: I gave some account of what I had been subjected to.
26:35
Speaker 2: About two months later, I came back to that same
26:39
Speaker 2: doctor's office and the tech Ellie tells me, Fabian, we
26:43
Speaker 2: live in a very small world. My mother was involved
26:46
Speaker 2: in our Kavara case, and every time we see any
26:49
Speaker 2: cases involving men who were innocent, we always relate back
26:53
Speaker 2: to her experience. And she explained to me that her
26:57
Speaker 2: mother and her mother's sister who were driving by in
26:59
Speaker 2: a car, and that her mother had been struck in
27:02
Speaker 2: the bottox with a bullet, and that when her mother
27:05
Speaker 2: and his sister were requested to identify and pick someone
27:10
Speaker 2: out of the lineup, they refused to do so because
27:13
Speaker 2: they didn't want to send an innocent man in prison.
27:15
Speaker 2: And these officers were yelling and screaming at them, telling
27:19
Speaker 2: them to pick this person out of a lineup, and
27:22
Speaker 2: they were terrorized. They left that police station utterly distraught,
27:25
Speaker 2: feeling that the police officers were going to do something
27:28
Speaker 2: to them, were going to hurt them or try to
27:31
Speaker 2: even arrest them, but they did not relent. And I
27:34
Speaker 2: told her that was me in the lineup that your
27:37
Speaker 2: mother and her sister refused to identify, and she told me,
27:42
Speaker 2: I know it was you. I know you were innocent,
27:45
Speaker 2: and my mother and her sister talk about it all
27:47
Speaker 2: the time. Every time they see the news, every time
27:51
Speaker 2: they see someone that was released, they always talk about you.
27:55
Speaker 2: And I know it was your case. That's why I
27:57
Speaker 2: told you, and I completely broke down.
28:00
Speaker 1: And of course Ellie, the medtech was none other than
28:02
Speaker 1: Marcella Hernandez's daughter. Her aunt Lorena had given an UPI
28:06
Speaker 1: DAVID that included all of this information in April twenty
28:09
Speaker 1: twenty two, and Fabian was exonerated that October without even
28:13
Speaker 1: having to go through an evidentiary hearing. However, the certificate
28:16
Speaker 1: of innocence didn't come as easily, but came nonetheless in
28:20
Speaker 1: July twenty twenty three, making him eligible for state compensation.
28:24
Speaker 1: But the content of the pending civil litigation has been
28:27
Speaker 1: some of the most convincing yet a major Brady violation.
28:31
Speaker 1: The gun allegedly used in the shooting had been obtained
28:33
Speaker 1: by the detective Guevara from a gang member, not from
28:37
Speaker 1: Fabian's bedroom. This detective team, Guevara and Halverson have already
28:42
Speaker 1: cost Chicago upwards of eighty two million dollars. Last time
28:47
Speaker 1: we covered one of their cases, it was fifty one
28:49
Speaker 1: million and that's just from the innocent men and women
28:52
Speaker 1: who were able to jump through all of the hoops
28:54
Speaker 1: and made it to this level of the exoneration journey.
28:57
Speaker 1: We don't know how many others are out there, but
28:59
Speaker 1: hopefully will find them all.
29:01
Speaker 2: You have figures such as this eighty two million dollars
29:05
Speaker 2: plus being thrown out there that have resulted from settlements
29:10
Speaker 2: in these wrongful conviction cases just under Ronaldo Guevara or
29:14
Speaker 2: his crew. That does not entail the tens of millions
29:18
Speaker 2: of dollars that the City of Chicago is also paid
29:20
Speaker 2: in legal expenses to defend against these cases.
29:23
Speaker 4: These cases penned from anywhere from four to seven years.
29:27
Speaker 4: They have one outside firm that represents the City of Chicago.
29:30
Speaker 4: They have one outside firm that represents Guavara. They have
29:33
Speaker 4: another outside firm that represents all the other defendant officers.
29:36
Speaker 4: So no fewer than three firms are on every single
29:40
Speaker 4: one of our civil rights cases that we have that
29:43
Speaker 4: involve Guavara. And when you think about the amount of
29:46
Speaker 4: money that these firms build a city to litigate losing
29:51
Speaker 4: cases for four to seven years, it is absolutely insane.
29:56
Speaker 4: Not only are they paying attorney's fees, all throughout the process.
30:00
Speaker 3: There is a statute that says.
30:02
Speaker 4: If we win, not only are we entitled to the
30:05
Speaker 4: judgment and award whatever that may be. Fabian did thirty years,
30:09
Speaker 4: he gets thirty million dollars, but we can also petition
30:12
Speaker 4: the court for our attorney's fees.
30:14
Speaker 2: In addition to that, the tens of millions of dollars
30:16
Speaker 2: to the City of Chicago is also paid to convene
30:19
Speaker 2: hearings for the city council. You're talking about well into
30:23
Speaker 2: the hundreds of millions of dollars now.
30:25
Speaker 4: Instead of looking at these cases individually from the beginning
30:29
Speaker 4: and saying is this even winnable than saying, hey, he
30:32
Speaker 4: did twenty three years in prison, I'm going to offer
30:34
Speaker 4: him twelve fifteen something of that sort. They would rather
30:38
Speaker 4: spend four to seven years pay outside council. I mean,
30:42
Speaker 4: we just filed five civil rights lawsuits in September Lovy
30:45
Speaker 4: and Lovy just filed another eleven. They have more coming
30:48
Speaker 4: down the pike. Like, that's crazy amounts of money, and
30:51
Speaker 4: it just prolongs the trauma of these guys who have
30:54
Speaker 4: already suffered so much.
30:56
Speaker 2: I got to waste another half decade of my life
30:59
Speaker 2: to find get some resolution to this matter when they
31:02
Speaker 2: know full well what is going on here.
31:05
Speaker 4: We need to make a push to City Council. You
31:08
Speaker 4: need to do a better job at assessing these cases
31:11
Speaker 4: early on.
31:11
Speaker 2: The mayor needs to do something now, not when the
31:14
Speaker 2: stars are politically aligned for him to do something about it,
31:17
Speaker 2: not during the next election cycle. Now.
31:20
Speaker 1: So maybe that should be this week's call to action.
31:23
Speaker 1: We're going to call on the folks in power at
31:25
Speaker 1: Chicago to put an end to this madness. Pay these
31:28
Speaker 1: men and women what they deserve, because, let's face it,
31:32
Speaker 1: no one can give them back the time that was
31:34
Speaker 1: stolen from them. And with that, let's go to closing arguments,
31:38
Speaker 1: where I'm going to thank both of you, Ashley and Fabian.
31:42
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't even have the right words to
31:45
Speaker 1: express how sorry I am for this unbelievable ordeal. And
31:49
Speaker 1: you know how grateful I am to you both for
31:52
Speaker 1: being here. And now I'm just going to kick back
31:54
Speaker 1: in my chair with my headphones on and my eyes
31:57
Speaker 1: closed and listen to any final time you have, starting
32:01
Speaker 1: with Ashley and saving our guest of honor for last.
32:04
Speaker 4: I just want to thank you guys for bringing this
32:07
Speaker 4: to light and for doing the work that you do,
32:09
Speaker 4: because you know, as much as we advocate in the courtroom,
32:12
Speaker 4: it's really important for people outside of the courtroom to
32:14
Speaker 4: really bring to light the travesties of justice that are
32:18
Speaker 4: happening as we speak in not just the city of Chicago,
32:21
Speaker 4: but all over the world. And I think it's really important.
32:23
Speaker 4: So I commend you guys for really focusing on these
32:26
Speaker 4: wrongful conviction cases.
32:28
Speaker 2: I really appreciate you guys inviting me on and having
32:31
Speaker 2: me Whomever is out there listening needs to express outrage
32:35
Speaker 2: about what's going on here. This can't be allowed to
32:38
Speaker 2: function as the norm. There's no way in the world
32:40
Speaker 2: that you can have men and women that are framed
32:43
Speaker 2: by corrupt detectives just languish in prison and rot away
32:47
Speaker 2: for not years, decades, and then if that's not sufficient,
32:51
Speaker 2: to come out of prison and still have to fight
32:54
Speaker 2: the government for years more before these cases are finally resolved.
32:59
Speaker 2: The underlying problem is not simply corrupt detectives. It's systemic corruption.
33:03
Speaker 2: These detectives would never be able to get away with
33:06
Speaker 2: what they're involved in if it wasn't for their supervisors,
33:10
Speaker 2: whether it's a sergeant, a lieutenant, a captain, whether it's
33:14
Speaker 2: a prosecutor, a judge, or the Chicago City Council and
33:18
Speaker 2: its legal department. This is nothing new. These cases go
33:22
Speaker 2: back even before John Burge. But John Burge was a
33:26
Speaker 2: breaking point that should have caused dramatic reform in the system,
33:32
Speaker 2: and that has not been the case. The City of
33:35
Speaker 2: Chicago's it's council members having brought about sweeping reform to
33:40
Speaker 2: root out crooked corrupt cops. In fact, all they've done
33:45
Speaker 2: is take issue with the fact that now they're dealing
33:48
Speaker 2: with numerous multimillion dollar lawsuits. These lawsuits would never have
33:52
Speaker 2: come to pass if it wasn't for them allowing or
33:56
Speaker 2: turning a blind eye to this level of corruption. No
33:59
Speaker 2: one is held accountable. To this very day, not one
34:03
Speaker 2: of these corrupt detectives out of the Ronaldo Gavara crew
34:06
Speaker 2: has so much as been administratively held accountable, let alone
34:11
Speaker 2: criminally prosecuted. And as long as these people are not
34:14
Speaker 2: going to prison the same way poor people go to
34:17
Speaker 2: prison and they're protected by the government, these abuses are
34:21
Speaker 2: going to continue.
34:28
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to wrongful conviction. You can listen
34:31
Speaker 1: to this and all the lava for good podcasts one
34:33
Speaker 1: week early by subscribing to Lava for Good plus on
34:37
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team Connor
34:40
Speaker 1: Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow executive
34:43
Speaker 1: producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cliburn. The music
34:47
Speaker 1: in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
34:49
Speaker 1: composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across all
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Speaker 1: social media platforms at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction.
34:56
Speaker 1: You can also follow me on Instagram at it's Jason Flamm.
35:00
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
35:02
Speaker 1: in association with Signal Company Number one