February 1, 2024 • 35 mins
Several shots were fired from an alley toward a group of friends on the night of January 16, 1993, in Chicago, IL. One person was fatally shot and two others were wounded. Chicago detectives brought 16-year-old Fabian Santiago in for questioning and interrogated him for hours. The detectives claimed that Fabian admitted to the shooting, but there was no written or electronic record of this statement. Despite no physical evidence tying him to the crime, Fabian was sentenced to 90 years in prison for the shooting.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Throughout the eighties and nineties, gang violence plagued the Humboldt
Park area of Chicago, and on January sixteenth, nineteen ninety three,
members of the Spanish Cobras fired upon three members of
the Latin Kings, killing one young man and injuring another.
A passer by in a vehicle was also struck by
a stray bullet. A confidential informants tip naming sixteen year
(00:23):
old Fabian Santiago, allegedly made its way through a few
detectives before reaching the lead detective on the case, Ernest Halferson.
When the police arrested Fabian, they also claimed to have
found a gun in Fabian's bedroom. Then two eye witnesses,
including one of the surviving victims, identified Fabian from a lineup,
(00:44):
even though the witness's initial descriptions varied wildly from Fabian,
who was also not a member of the Spanish Cobras.
It was going to take a whole lot more to
outweigh the state's case. But this is wrongful conviction. Welcome
(01:10):
back to wrongful conviction. And we're here today with a
story that has so much corruption, and I'll call it
it's pure evil. The miracle is that the man himself
who was victimized by these horrible detectives and others. Is
that the fact that he's still alive, Fabian Santiago, welcome
(01:31):
to wrongful conviction.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Thank you very much for having me and with him.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Ashley Cohen is a partner at Bungin Law Group, and
she and her partner are responsible for justice having been
not denied, delayed horribly, but not denied after all these years.
So Ashley, thank.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
You for being here, Thanks for having me Jason, and.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Let's get right into it. This crime is a horrible
crime with real victims. But this was back in in
an era when the Humble Park area of Chicago was
riddled with violence. So it was a horrible crime, but
also enforcing not a crime that you wouldn't hear about
fairly regularly.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Well for anyone who's aware of Humble Park. It's a
world of difference today than what it previously was. It
was the height of the crack epidemic, utterly gang and
drug infested. Many murders did not even make the news
at that time. It wasn't a place for anyone to live,
let alone for a kid to grow up. I remember
(02:31):
I would look down and broad daylight to the corner
of my block, and I would see dozens of gang
members women prostituted themselves in open air drug markets. This
is what I grew up to. In fact, early on
I couldn't have been more than ten years old. There
was a rival gang member who was on a bike
driving down my street and the gang members that lived
(02:53):
in my neighborhood spotted him and chased him down and
blew his brains out.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
That was Humble Park, terrifying story. And there are countless
murders that weren't solved, and then there were countless others
that were listed as solved that were actually not solved
at all, like the one we're about to talk about.
But usually we start by telling what was your life
like before this happened. You were really just a child.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
I was four days and attorney sixteen years old when
I was framed for murder.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Previously, we've covered cases from this year in Humboldt Park,
Marilyn Malaro and Jacques Rivera, and we'll have their stories
linked in the bio, both of whom were also victims
of the same notorious detectives Ernest Halverson and Ronaldo Guevera.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Make no mistake about it, Detective Halverson, Guevara in this
group of rogue detectives functioned as nothing less than a
criminal organization, not out of a crack house, not out
of a gang infested neighborhood, out of the Area five
police precinct.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
And let us not forget that then, in case you
think there's any hyperbole here, since the nineteen eighties, over
one hundred cases proven in which Chicago police officers fabricated
false evidence and or suppressed exculpatory evidence in order to
directly cause the convictions of innocent people for serious violent
(04:15):
crimes that they didn't commitment.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Ye. Yes, and I think it needs to be emphasized
the fact that these are just the cases that have
come to light. There have been men who have died
in prison because of cases like this, irreparably damaged. I
have no men who took their lives because of the
cold and stark realities that one has to deal with
in the prison system.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
This detective team, Guavara and Halverson, ran a gang unit
that often investigated the activity of Puerto Rican gangs like
the Latin Kings, the Latin Disciples, the Spanish Cobra. Is
just to day a few. But what is also clear
is that there are varying degrees to which the residents
of humbold Park were actually even involved in gang activity,
(04:56):
if at all. Now, Fabian lived in an area of
control by the Latin Disciples.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
And I'm sure Fabian could speak to this more than
I can. But during this time period, if you lived
on a certain block, you were associated with a certain gang.
It didn't matter if you actually were in a gang,
if you ever were initiated. Fabian didn't have a history
of violent there was nothing in his record, but the
area where he lived and who he hung around with,
(05:22):
all of a sudden he is part of the specific gang.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
There was stipulation that I was associated with the Latin Disciples,
and that was not even the organization that had carried
out this homicide, which was according to these police reports,
the Spanish Cobras.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
And the incident at the crux of Fabian's wrongful conviction
appears to have been a gang hit on the Latin Kings,
which happened on January sixteenth, nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
Three individuals, William Stewart, John Meatos and Pedro Muriel were
walking home from a liquor store in Humble Park and
guns were fired in their direction. One of the offenders
yelled King killer and Cobra Love before basically pulling out
a handgun and shooting it multiple times in the direction
of the victims. William Stewart died as a result of
(06:07):
the gunshot wounds, Muriel suffered a gunshot wound that hospitalized
him for six weeks, and Marcelia Hernandez, she was driving
by in a vehicle, had sustained minor injuries as well.
The offenders fled down an alley, and so there's a death,
there's another attempt murder, and there's another individual who is injured.
(06:29):
And there were a ton of witnesses, several of whom
could not make identifications, could not give much of any information.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
About the shooters. But there were these two.
Speaker 4 (06:39):
Individuals, Matos and Rivera, who ultimately were the ones who
gave a description and eventually allegedly identified Fabian in lineups
and testified a trial.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Matos, a Latin King, was one of the targets. Rivera
was a gang member as well, so you can easily
imagine that they would have been easy for the police
to coerce. However, Marcella Hernandez, the driving passer by caught
in the gunfire, and her younger sister Lrena were able
to give descriptions as well, and while the age description
for the primary shooter varied from late teens to mid twenties,
(07:16):
all the witnesses agreed that he was white Hispanic, about
five ten, one hundred and eighty pounds, either a mustache
or a beard, and the accomplice was described as a
mid twenties Hispanic male about six feet tall and two
hundred pounds.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
And at the time I was only approximately five foot
three or four one hundred pounds. I was sixteen years old.
The shooter who was described as a left handed shooter,
I've been right handed all my life, so in no way,
shape or form did they resemble my description.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Another thing that makes no sense about this case is
the fact that the shooter yelled out Cobra loved King Killer,
basically proclaiming his affiliation with the Spanish Cobras and the
intended victims of Latin kings. Meanwhile, as we mentioned, Fabian
lived in Latin Disciple territory. But Fabian was drawn into
this mess when Detective Ernest Halverson alleged that he received
(08:07):
a tip from another detective, Bill Dorsh.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
What happens is Halverson says that he was told by
Bill Dorsch that Dorsch received a tip from another officer
who said an informant told him that he heard Fabian
ragging about shooting some kings and that the gun used
and the shooting was in Fabian's house.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
They came pounding at the door and I was taking
immediately into custody.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
And he's sixteen years old.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
He doesn't have a parent, he doesn't have a lawyer,
and he's placed in an interrogation room at Area five.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
My grandmother at the time is whom I was staying with.
She was my legal guardian. She arrived at the police
station with an aunt of mine, Alberta Perez, and she
demanded to see me. She made it abundantly clear that
she wanted an attorney president and to be there as well.
My aunt translated for her and informed them that they
(09:02):
were prohibited from seeing me at that time because of
our lineups being conducted, that he would call them back.
They never called them.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
So they put Fabian in a lineup for the witnesses
Matos Rivera as well as Marcella and Lorena Hernandez, all
of whom were between the ages of fourteen and seventeen.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
And we've developed significant evidence that shows that there was
a pattern where these Area five detectives investigating these cases
would usually prey on the younger victim and or witnesses
officers like Wavara and officers like Halverson, who would tell
them who to pick out in a lineup.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
In fact, Dorshe in another.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
Case, testifies that he saw Guavara do this in a
lineup where Guavara basically said pick out that guy, that's
the one who did it, and Dorsch was like, what
are you doing. You're not allowed to tell somebody who
to pick out in a lineup.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
During the lineup, I was the only one that was
made to stand up and yell out hober Love King Killer,
the only one. And no one in that lineup resembled me.
Everyone was an adult taller older than me. And even
with that, you had the two women that were driving
by in the motor vehicle. They told the detectives we
did not see him do anything. We do not want
(10:18):
to identify someone who was not involved. We don't want
someone who's innocent going to prison and the police completely
blew up on them, telling her this is the guy
who did it. All you need to do is point
them out.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
So this whole concept of these young kids picking out
individuals in a lineup. Although it seems, oh, you have
two eyewitnesses who are identifying Fabian as the shooter, it's
usually bogus.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
But unfortunately this information did not come to light until
Fabian had already spent decades in prison. So after this
pretty much directed identification from Matos and Rivera at Area five,
Fabian was returned to the interrogation room, where the misconduct continued.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
Halverson tells Fabian that Fabian needed to sign a consent
to search his house so that he can protect his
personal property, which may be destroyed once they go back
there and search his house.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
They're yelling and screaming at me, telling me to sign.
I had requested the presence of counsel, my grandmother. They
weren't trying to hear any of that. They were doing
everything they could to terrorize and just to get me
to relent. They will, look, at least you're going to
be reimbursed if your stuff is destroyed, because we are
going to destroy your stuff and I ultimately ended up
signing that form. The thing was later on, I came
(11:33):
to understand, according to my aunt, that as soon as
I was taken into custody, these detectives were already tearing
up my home. So irregardless whether they had obtained a
written consent for me or not, they had already been
conducting the search, so this was all just simply to
cover their asses.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Fabian was initially charged with illegal possession of a firearm,
so outside the presence of counsel or a guardian, they
got mission to find the gun that they originally arrested
him for. With this trickery to obtain the consent for
a search, one can only surmise that they did not
have the probable cause to get a judge to sign
off on a search warrant.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
It was further solidified that they were planting this firearm
when William Dorsch came forward and attested I had not
produced an informant probable cause, and if I had gathered
this evidence, I would have come myself to have arrested you.
I would not have involved these detectives because I had
known even at that time that they were so corrupt.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Again, this is information that didn't come to light until
Fabian had already spent almost thirty years in prison. And
we'll come back to these revelations from William Dorritsch a
bit later. So back to the interrogation room, they had
gotten the search consent signed, and then shortly after Detective
Halverson returned with this gun and pointed it in Fabian's face, saying, quote,
(12:57):
now you know how it feels. This is the gun
that you had unquote.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
And when he pointed it to my head, I insisted
that the firearm was at mine, that I wasn't involved
he assaulted me.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
So no surprise that you ultimately relented and just said,
I'll tell you what you want to hear. So they
now had a false confession.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
Well, the only thing that came in at trial was
that Fabian made alleged oral statements to Halverson. So even
though Fabian had a gun pointed at him, was beaten
up by Halverson, he still would not give a written
statement to the state's attorney.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
I never signed off on any confession and it was
not recorded.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
To recap. Detective Halverson and his cohorts had an alleged,
unrecord ordered oral confession. The directed identification from Matos and
Rivera and this gun that was almost certainly planted that
they claimed magic bullets founded the scene. At this time,
Fabian's grandmother sold her home to post his bond and
help him out a defense. Yet somehow Fabian had even
(14:17):
more dire problems than this case.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Back at this time, the gangs ruled these neighborhoods with
an iron fist. And because I was implicated in this crime,
the laon Kings had placed a contract hit out on
me and they tried to gun me down in a
card chase, and they left a note on my grandmother's
house saying we know where you live.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
So he's again wrongly accused, wrongly accused by the gangs,
and he's wrongly accused by the officers.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
There is no rationalizing, there is no talking it out.
Not only my own health and safety, but my families
was at risk. And I left.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
So where the hell did you go? Where is a
sixteen years kid with no resources with everybody looking for them,
Where the hell do you go and hide?
Speaker 2 (15:05):
I left the state of a noise. I just bounced around.
I wasn't in one single place for too long, whether
it was a friend or finding a hotel room or
an apartment, whatever the case may have been. Unfortunately, I
had to utilize whatever methods were necessary for me to
survive selling drugs or just working a part time gig
(15:26):
or whatever have you.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Okay, so then finally you get tried in absentia. We've
literally never had that happen on the show. Ashley, give
us the cliff notes of this ridiculous trial.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
So Fabian has a private attorney. He goes to trial
before a judge by the name of Judge Tuman, who
was notoriously known for being very hard on juveniles. They
show up for trial, Judge says, where's mister Santiago and
his attorney says, I don't know, can we postpone?
Speaker 3 (15:56):
And Judge says, well, he was told to be here
at ten am. We're going for.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Basically, the evidence at trial is these two eyewitnesses who
identify him in the lineup, which we know were bogus,
and Halverson testifies that he recovered a gun in Fabian's
home which was tested and the ballistics matched the gun that.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Was used in the shooting.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
And there is a state's attorney who provides testimony of
alleged oral inculpatory statements. He testifies that Fabian admitted to
participating in the shooting, and that's what he's convicted on, which,
if you're looking at it objectively, seems kind of alike
(16:42):
a lot of evidence. The problem is all of it
was built on a lie and none of it is
actually legitimate. I mean, I think the state's attorney, what
he did at this time is almost as appalling as
what the officers did. I mean, they knew what was
going on behind closed doors. There was no court reporter present,
there was no handwritten statement, there was nothing memorialized on paper.
(17:03):
It was just oral statements that come in through Halverson
and through this prosecutor.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
So that is just absurd in my mind.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Other than cross examining Matos and Rivera about the inconsistencies
between their descriptions of the assailants and Fabian, not much
of a defense was mounted at all. Plus the appearance
of going on the lamb probably was not helpful. So
the jury reached a predictable conclusion, and on May eighteenth,
nineteen ninety four, Fabian was convicted of murder, attempted murder,
(17:33):
as well as related firearms charges, and sentenced to ninety
years news that he received while he was still on
the run for his very life.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
It was crushing and as horrific as it was for
that type of sentence to have been handed down, my
only focus was on staying away from Chicago to stay alive.
Over a year and a half later, I was depleted
of funds and I came back to Chicago trying to
get to assistance, and as I was walking the street,
(18:03):
I don't know if they knew who I was or
they were just stopping me, and ultimately I was brought
back into custody.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Now Fabian was not only made to serve this insane sentence,
but he was also being tried for jumping bail, so
ten more years were added on to this ninety year sentence.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
Ten years also for a bail jumping is absurd. That
was a judge being pissed to sell that he didn't
show up the trial.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
I had a public defender. She didn't ask me why
I was unable to attend my trial. She could care less.
She simply was yelling and telling me, look, the judge
is pissed off. You need to take this plea. I
figured that it made little of any difference, and I
accepted it for a total of a one hundred year
prison sentence. Because of the incredible amount of time that
(19:00):
I was incarcerated. I was in every single maximum state
penitentiary in Illinois several times over. It was very violent
and you had to defend yourself. There was men who
were stabbed up, murdered. In fact, I know of one
incident where a cellmate got involved in a physical confrontation
with his cellmate and he tore his eyeballs out. He's
(19:24):
blind and he threw his eyes on the gallery. The
carnage was incredible. I knew men who have taken their
lives for far less than what I had endured, simply
because they didn't want to deal with how cold and
stark that reality was. The United States government propagates this
belief that China Russia engaged in human rights abuses. People
(19:47):
in this country are tortured every day in the prison system.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
So getting Fabian out of that horrible situation could not
have been more urgent. But the appeals process moved very slowly.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
I went through the core process, ineffective assistance of counsel,
unlawful searces and seizures. I got nowhere very quick.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
And one thing that was crazy is his pellet attorney.
She didn't raise the issue of him being tried in abstentia.
So when you don't raise the issue on direct appeal,
you ultimately waive it because it's not preserved.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
I mean, I don't know how you don't raise that.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
While I was in prison, I immersed myself in study
and litigation. I pursued numerous litigations against the Illinois Department
of Corrections, civil litigations. From these lawsuits that I would
succeed in, I was able to pay for my own lawyers,
and every one of these attorneys did nothing but sell
me a pipe dream and take my money, and worst
of all, cause even further years, if not decades, of
(20:45):
my life being wasted away in prison. Ultimately, I wrote
Jennifer bon Jin requesting legal representation, and later on she
had seen me on Zoom and she had beare witness
personally to my outage about my innocence.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
During COVID, a lot of the hearings began to take
place on zoom, and when you had the zoom meeting
for the judge in front of whom you had the case,
he would often end up listening in on the proceedings
for four years, you know, while you're waiting for yours
to come up. And as a result of that, Ashley's
partner Jennifer bon Jean overheard Fabian's arguments.
Speaker 4 (21:20):
It was around Halloween twenty twenty, and I remember her
calling me and she was like, I just watched the
craziest thing on zoom in Judge Kenworthy. This guy, he's
a Halberson case and he is in on a legal sentence,
was advocating for himself.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
I was arguing, basically before the court, look, I'm actually
innocent of these crimes. However, it would make a flying
fuck of a difference to me if I were guilty
of everything I've done. The prison time of three or
four men I knew, men whom had been given twenty
years for murders. They did ten years, and they went home.
And here I was riding away from the age of
a sixteen year old kid, completely innocent of the charges,
(22:00):
and I had lost almost thirty years already.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
By this time, a slew of landmarks gotis rulings had
made mandatory juvenile sentencing statutes unconstitutional. So Ashley and Jennifer
were able to split Fabian's actual innocence claim from his resentencing,
and they tackled that first.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
With the resentencing, I would have been required to have
completed a prison sentence of seventeen years, so I had
completed that sentence by over a decade, which required my
immediate discharge from custody.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
The resentencing hearing was January seventh, twenty twenty two. On
January twelfth, twenty twenty two, he's released.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
It was surreal. I had fought so long for that day,
and unfortunately I had been gone for such an incredible
period of time that all of my immediate family were gone.
My mother and my only brother had passed away while
I was in prison. I didn't have any home. My grandmother,
who made every sacrifice, was suffering from dementia. This woman
(22:58):
raised me, She cared for me and provided for me.
She went into financial ruin to help me. She lost
her house, she lost everything, and now she could not
even remember my name. When I got out of prison,
I didn't even have anyone to pick me up. Arrangements
had to be made for someone to pick me up
and to take me to a homeless shelter.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
So Robert Almodovar is another one of our clients, and
he does amazing work since he's been out. He was
released in twenty seventeen, and all our clients who have
been released since, he's just amazing. He drives them and
he picks them up, takes them where they needed.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
He was there for me and I was tremendously grateful
for that. And I remember him telling me he was
going to get me a cheap phone so I could
have a means of communication. And I told him I
don't need a phone. I don't have many people in
my life. If I need to make a phone call,
I can walk down to the corner store and use
the pay phone. And he goes, Fabian, you don't understand.
You've been gone so long. Payphones don't exist out here anymore.
(23:53):
I got to get your phone.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
It's absolutely devastating to know that Fabian lost so many years.
Will all along the information that would have and could
have set him free was readily available but hidden from view,
and so in pursuit of his innocence claims, Ashley and
Jennifer reached out to William Dorsch.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
We had worked with Dorish in the past.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
He was a witness and actually Robert Al the Dovar's
case and in other cases and pattern in practice cases
as it relates to Guevara. And when we got Fabian's
homicide file, we saw Dorsh's name was on it, and
he read the report and he, in no uncertain terms
said this never happened. What Halverson puts in his report
is Halverson says Officer Cruise from the twentieth District contacted
(24:38):
Bill Dorsch, who was in the same area as Halverson,
and told him about this alleged tip Okay said Fabian
was running around on his birthday saying, my birthday present
was shooting.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Up these people.
Speaker 4 (24:52):
Basically, Bill Dorsch said, if an officer from another district
had told me about an informant, I would have memorialized
at some where. I would have documented all of this.
And there was none of that. And there was a
signature by him allegedly, but he said it wasn't his signature.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
It was forged. Yes, William Dortch's testimony was groundbreaking. We
wouldn't have been able to prove. Look, they falsified police
reports that William Dortch had conducted lineups. He goes, I
wasn't even in the police station doing any of this.
They signed his name off. Why would you need to
do that? You're clearly involved in something of a nefarious nature.
(25:31):
You had a cycle of concocted story after story, lying
about informants police reports, conducting unlawful searches and seizures, taking
people into custody, illegally, beating suspects into confessions, and pointing
a gun at them. I mean, when you have that
cocktail of criminal misconduct on the part of these detectives,
(25:53):
you got to ask what is their motive here? William
Dorts came forward basically affirming my colleagues were bunch of
corrupt detectives.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Pretty courageous on his part.
Speaker 4 (26:03):
Ultimately he provides us an Affidavid, and we attached his
affidavit along with the police reports to the petition and
we file the petition.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Meanwhile, even more information came to light.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Approximately six months ago, I went to a new doctor
and her medtech's name was Ellie, and they had mentioned
that there were various medical records that were missing, and
I had explained to them that I was wrongfully convicted.
I gave some account of what I had been subjected to.
About two months later, I came back to that same
(26:39):
doctor's office and the tech Ellie tells me, Fabian, we
live in a very small world. My mother was involved
in our Kavara case, and every time we see any
cases involving men who were innocent, we always relate back
to her experience. And she explained to me that her
mother and her mother's sister who were driving by in
(26:59):
a car, and that her mother had been struck in
the bottox with a bullet, and that when her mother
and his sister were requested to identify and pick someone
out of the lineup, they refused to do so because
they didn't want to send an innocent man in prison.
And these officers were yelling and screaming at them, telling
them to pick this person out of a lineup, and
(27:22):
they were terrorized. They left that police station utterly distraught,
feeling that the police officers were going to do something
to them, were going to hurt them or try to
even arrest them, but they did not relent. And I
told her that was me in the lineup that your
mother and her sister refused to identify, and she told
me I know it was you. I know you were innocent,
(27:45):
and my mother and her sister talk about it all
the time. Every time they see the news, every time
they see someone that was released, they always talk about you.
And I know it was your case. That's why I
told you, and I completely broke down.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
And of course, Ellie, the medtech was none other than
Marcella Hernandez's daughter. Her aunt Lorena had given an UPIDAVID
that included all of this information in April twenty twenty two,
and Fabian was exonerated that October without even having to
go through an evidentiary hearing. However, the certificate of innocence
didn't come as easily, but came nonetheless in July twenty
(28:21):
twenty three, making him eligible for state compensation. But the
content of the pending civil litigation has been some of
the most convincing yet a major Brady violation. The gun
allegedly used in the shooting had been obtained by the
detective Guevara from a gang member, not from Fabian's bedroom.
This detective team, Guevara and Halverson have already cost Chicago
(28:43):
upwards of eighty two million dollars. Last time we covered
one of their cases, it was fifty one million. And
that's just from the innocent men and women who were
able to jump through all of the hoops and made
it to this level of the exoneration journey. We don't
know how many others are out there, but hopefully will
find them all.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
You have figures such as this eighty two million dollars
plus being thrown out there that have resulted from settlements
in these wrongful conviction cases just under Ronaldo Guevara or
his crew. That does not entail the tens of millions
of dollars that the City of Chicago is also paid
in legal expenses to defend against these cases.
Speaker 4 (29:23):
These cases penned from anywhere from four to seven years.
They have one outside firm that represents the City of Chicago.
They have one outside firm that represents Guavara. They have
another outside firm that represents all the other defendant officers.
So no fewer than three firms are on every single
one of our civil rights cases that we have that
involve Guavara. And when you think about the amount of
(29:46):
money that these firms build a city to litigate losing
cases for four to seven years, it is absolutely insane.
Not only are they paying attorney's fees all throughout the process,
there is a statute that says, if we win, not
only are we entitled to the judgment and award whatever
(30:06):
that may be. Fabian did thirty years, he gets thirty
million dollars, but we can also petition the court for
our attorney's fees.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
In addition to that the tens of millions of dollars
that the City of Chicago is also paid to convene
hearings for the city council. You're talking about well into
the hundreds of millions of dollars now.
Speaker 4 (30:25):
Instead of looking at these cases individually from the beginning
and saying is this even winnable than saying, hey, he
did twenty three years in prison, I'm going to offer
him twelve fifteen something of that sort. They would rather
spend four to seven years pay outside council. I mean,
we just filed five civil rights lawsuits in September, Lovy
(30:45):
and Lovy just filed another eleven. They have more coming
down the pike. Like that's crazy amounts of money, and
it just prolongs the trauma of these guys who have
already suffered so much.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
I got to waste another half decade of my life
to find get some resolution to this matter when they
know full well what is going on here.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
We need to make a push to city Council. You
need to do a better job at assessing these cases
early on.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
The mayor needs to do something now, not when the
stars are politically aligned for him to do something about it,
not during the next election cycle. Now.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
So maybe that should be this week's call to action.
We're going to call on the folks in power at
Chicago to put an end to this madness. Pay these
men and women what they deserve, because, let's face it,
no one can give them back the time that was
stolen from them. And with that, let's go to closing arguments,
where I'm going to thank both of you, Ashley and Fabian.
(31:42):
I mean, I don't even have the right words to
express how sorry I am for this unbelievable ordeal. And
you know how grateful i am to you both for
being here. And now I'm just going to kick back
in my chair with my headphones on and my eyes
closed and listen to any final time you have, starting
with Ashley and saving our guest of honor for last.
Speaker 4 (32:04):
I just want to thank you guys for bringing this
to light and for doing the work that you do
because you know as much as we advocate in the courtroom,
it's really important for people outside of the courtroom to
really bring to light the travesties of justice that are
happening as we speak in not just the city of Chicago,
but all over the world. And I think it's really important.
So I commend you guys for really focusing on these
(32:26):
wrongful conviction cases.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
I really appreciate you guys inviting me on and having me.
Whomever is out there listening needs to express outrage about
what's going on here. This can't be allowed to function
as the norm. There's no way in the world that
you can have men and women that are framed by
corrupt detectives just languish in prison and rot away for
not years, decades, and then if that's not sufficient, to
(32:51):
come out of prison and still have to fight the
government for years more before these cases are finally resolved.
The underlying problem is not simply corrupt detectives. It's systemic corruption.
These detectives would never be able to get away with
what they're involved in if it wasn't for their supervisors.
Whether it's a sergeant, a lieutenant, a captain, whether it's
(33:14):
a prosecutor, a judge, or the Chicago City Council and
its legal department. This is nothing new. These cases go
back even before John Burge. But John Burge was a
breaking point that should have caused dramatic reform in the system,
and that has not been the case. The City of
(33:35):
Chicago's it's council members having brought about sweeping reform to
root out crooked corrupt cops. In fact, all they've done
is take issue with the fact that now they're dealing
with numerous multimillion dollar lawsuits. These lawsuits would never have
come to pass if it wasn't for them allowing or
(33:56):
turning a blind eye to this level of corruption. No
one is held accountable to this very day, not one
of these corrupt detectives out of the Ronaldo Gavara crew
has so much as been administratively held accountable, let alone
criminally prosecuted. And as long as these people are not
going to prison the same way poor people go to
(34:17):
prison and they're protected by the government, these abuses are
going to continue.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
week early by subscribing to Lava for Good plus on
Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team Connor
Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow executive
producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cliburn. The music
in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
(34:49):
composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across all
social media platforms at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction.
You can also follow me on Instagram at it's Jason Flamm.
Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
in association with Signal Company Number one
Throughout the eighties and nineties, gang violence plagued the Humboldt
Park area of Chicago, and on January sixteenth, nineteen ninety three,
members of the Spanish Cobras fired upon three members of
the Latin Kings, killing one young man and injuring another.
A passer by in a vehicle was also struck by
a stray bullet. A confidential informants tip naming sixteen year
(00:23):
old Fabian Santiago, allegedly made its way through a few
detectives before reaching the lead detective on the case, Ernest Halferson.
When the police arrested Fabian, they also claimed to have
found a gun in Fabian's bedroom. Then two eye witnesses,
including one of the surviving victims, identified Fabian from a lineup,
(00:44):
even though the witness's initial descriptions varied wildly from Fabian,
who was also not a member of the Spanish Cobras.
It was going to take a whole lot more to
outweigh the state's case. But this is wrongful conviction. Welcome
(01:10):
back to wrongful conviction. And we're here today with a
story that has so much corruption, and I'll call it
it's pure evil. The miracle is that the man himself
who was victimized by these horrible detectives and others. Is
that the fact that he's still alive, Fabian Santiago, welcome
(01:31):
to wrongful conviction.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Thank you very much for having me and with him.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Ashley Cohen is a partner at Bungin Law Group, and
she and her partner are responsible for justice having been
not denied, delayed horribly, but not denied after all these years.
So Ashley, thank.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
You for being here, Thanks for having me Jason, and.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Let's get right into it. This crime is a horrible
crime with real victims. But this was back in in
an era when the Humble Park area of Chicago was
riddled with violence. So it was a horrible crime, but
also enforcing not a crime that you wouldn't hear about
fairly regularly.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Well for anyone who's aware of Humble Park. It's a
world of difference today than what it previously was. It
was the height of the crack epidemic, utterly gang and
drug infested. Many murders did not even make the news
at that time. It wasn't a place for anyone to live,
let alone for a kid to grow up. I remember
(02:31):
I would look down and broad daylight to the corner
of my block, and I would see dozens of gang
members women prostituted themselves in open air drug markets. This
is what I grew up to. In fact, early on
I couldn't have been more than ten years old. There
was a rival gang member who was on a bike
driving down my street and the gang members that lived
(02:53):
in my neighborhood spotted him and chased him down and
blew his brains out.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
That was Humble Park, terrifying story. And there are countless
murders that weren't solved, and then there were countless others
that were listed as solved that were actually not solved
at all, like the one we're about to talk about.
But usually we start by telling what was your life
like before this happened. You were really just a child.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
I was four days and attorney sixteen years old when
I was framed for murder.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Previously, we've covered cases from this year in Humboldt Park,
Marilyn Malaro and Jacques Rivera, and we'll have their stories
linked in the bio, both of whom were also victims
of the same notorious detectives Ernest Halverson and Ronaldo Guevera.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Make no mistake about it, Detective Halverson, Guevara in this
group of rogue detectives functioned as nothing less than a
criminal organization, not out of a crack house, not out
of a gang infested neighborhood, out of the Area five
police precinct.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
And let us not forget that then, in case you
think there's any hyperbole here, since the nineteen eighties, over
one hundred cases proven in which Chicago police officers fabricated
false evidence and or suppressed exculpatory evidence in order to
directly cause the convictions of innocent people for serious violent
(04:15):
crimes that they didn't commitment.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Ye. Yes, and I think it needs to be emphasized
the fact that these are just the cases that have
come to light. There have been men who have died
in prison because of cases like this, irreparably damaged. I
have no men who took their lives because of the
cold and stark realities that one has to deal with
in the prison system.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
This detective team, Guavara and Halverson, ran a gang unit
that often investigated the activity of Puerto Rican gangs like
the Latin Kings, the Latin Disciples, the Spanish Cobra. Is
just to day a few. But what is also clear
is that there are varying degrees to which the residents
of humbold Park were actually even involved in gang activity,
(04:56):
if at all. Now, Fabian lived in an area of
control by the Latin Disciples.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
And I'm sure Fabian could speak to this more than
I can. But during this time period, if you lived
on a certain block, you were associated with a certain gang.
It didn't matter if you actually were in a gang,
if you ever were initiated. Fabian didn't have a history
of violent there was nothing in his record, but the
area where he lived and who he hung around with,
(05:22):
all of a sudden he is part of the specific gang.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
There was stipulation that I was associated with the Latin Disciples,
and that was not even the organization that had carried
out this homicide, which was according to these police reports,
the Spanish Cobras.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
And the incident at the crux of Fabian's wrongful conviction
appears to have been a gang hit on the Latin Kings,
which happened on January sixteenth, nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
Three individuals, William Stewart, John Meatos and Pedro Muriel were
walking home from a liquor store in Humble Park and
guns were fired in their direction. One of the offenders
yelled King killer and Cobra Love before basically pulling out
a handgun and shooting it multiple times in the direction
of the victims. William Stewart died as a result of
(06:07):
the gunshot wounds, Muriel suffered a gunshot wound that hospitalized
him for six weeks, and Marcelia Hernandez, she was driving
by in a vehicle, had sustained minor injuries as well.
The offenders fled down an alley, and so there's a death,
there's another attempt murder, and there's another individual who is injured.
(06:29):
And there were a ton of witnesses, several of whom
could not make identifications, could not give much of any information.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
About the shooters. But there were these two.
Speaker 4 (06:39):
Individuals, Matos and Rivera, who ultimately were the ones who
gave a description and eventually allegedly identified Fabian in lineups
and testified a trial.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Matos, a Latin King, was one of the targets. Rivera
was a gang member as well, so you can easily
imagine that they would have been easy for the police
to coerce. However, Marcella Hernandez, the driving passer by caught
in the gunfire, and her younger sister Lrena were able
to give descriptions as well, and while the age description
for the primary shooter varied from late teens to mid twenties,
(07:16):
all the witnesses agreed that he was white Hispanic, about
five ten, one hundred and eighty pounds, either a mustache
or a beard, and the accomplice was described as a
mid twenties Hispanic male about six feet tall and two
hundred pounds.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
And at the time I was only approximately five foot
three or four one hundred pounds. I was sixteen years old.
The shooter who was described as a left handed shooter,
I've been right handed all my life, so in no way,
shape or form did they resemble my description.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Another thing that makes no sense about this case is
the fact that the shooter yelled out Cobra loved King Killer,
basically proclaiming his affiliation with the Spanish Cobras and the
intended victims of Latin kings. Meanwhile, as we mentioned, Fabian
lived in Latin Disciple territory. But Fabian was drawn into
this mess when Detective Ernest Halverson alleged that he received
(08:07):
a tip from another detective, Bill Dorsh.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
What happens is Halverson says that he was told by
Bill Dorsch that Dorsch received a tip from another officer
who said an informant told him that he heard Fabian
ragging about shooting some kings and that the gun used
and the shooting was in Fabian's house.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
They came pounding at the door and I was taking
immediately into custody.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
And he's sixteen years old.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
He doesn't have a parent, he doesn't have a lawyer,
and he's placed in an interrogation room at Area five.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
My grandmother at the time is whom I was staying with.
She was my legal guardian. She arrived at the police
station with an aunt of mine, Alberta Perez, and she
demanded to see me. She made it abundantly clear that
she wanted an attorney president and to be there as well.
My aunt translated for her and informed them that they
(09:02):
were prohibited from seeing me at that time because of
our lineups being conducted, that he would call them back.
They never called them.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
So they put Fabian in a lineup for the witnesses
Matos Rivera as well as Marcella and Lorena Hernandez, all
of whom were between the ages of fourteen and seventeen.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
And we've developed significant evidence that shows that there was
a pattern where these Area five detectives investigating these cases
would usually prey on the younger victim and or witnesses
officers like Wavara and officers like Halverson, who would tell
them who to pick out in a lineup.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
In fact, Dorshe in another.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
Case, testifies that he saw Guavara do this in a
lineup where Guavara basically said pick out that guy, that's
the one who did it, and Dorsch was like, what
are you doing. You're not allowed to tell somebody who
to pick out in a lineup.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
During the lineup, I was the only one that was
made to stand up and yell out hober Love King Killer,
the only one. And no one in that lineup resembled me.
Everyone was an adult taller older than me. And even
with that, you had the two women that were driving
by in the motor vehicle. They told the detectives we
did not see him do anything. We do not want
(10:18):
to identify someone who was not involved. We don't want
someone who's innocent going to prison and the police completely
blew up on them, telling her this is the guy
who did it. All you need to do is point
them out.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
So this whole concept of these young kids picking out
individuals in a lineup. Although it seems, oh, you have
two eyewitnesses who are identifying Fabian as the shooter, it's
usually bogus.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
But unfortunately this information did not come to light until
Fabian had already spent decades in prison. So after this
pretty much directed identification from Matos and Rivera at Area five,
Fabian was returned to the interrogation room, where the misconduct continued.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
Halverson tells Fabian that Fabian needed to sign a consent
to search his house so that he can protect his
personal property, which may be destroyed once they go back
there and search his house.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
They're yelling and screaming at me, telling me to sign.
I had requested the presence of counsel, my grandmother. They
weren't trying to hear any of that. They were doing
everything they could to terrorize and just to get me
to relent. They will, look, at least you're going to
be reimbursed if your stuff is destroyed, because we are
going to destroy your stuff and I ultimately ended up
signing that form. The thing was later on, I came
(11:33):
to understand, according to my aunt, that as soon as
I was taken into custody, these detectives were already tearing
up my home. So irregardless whether they had obtained a
written consent for me or not, they had already been
conducting the search, so this was all just simply to
cover their asses.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Fabian was initially charged with illegal possession of a firearm,
so outside the presence of counsel or a guardian, they
got mission to find the gun that they originally arrested
him for. With this trickery to obtain the consent for
a search, one can only surmise that they did not
have the probable cause to get a judge to sign
off on a search warrant.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
It was further solidified that they were planting this firearm
when William Dorsch came forward and attested I had not
produced an informant probable cause, and if I had gathered
this evidence, I would have come myself to have arrested you.
I would not have involved these detectives because I had
known even at that time that they were so corrupt.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Again, this is information that didn't come to light until
Fabian had already spent almost thirty years in prison. And
we'll come back to these revelations from William Dorritsch a
bit later. So back to the interrogation room, they had
gotten the search consent signed, and then shortly after Detective
Halverson returned with this gun and pointed it in Fabian's face, saying, quote,
(12:57):
now you know how it feels. This is the gun
that you had unquote.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
And when he pointed it to my head, I insisted
that the firearm was at mine, that I wasn't involved
he assaulted me.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
So no surprise that you ultimately relented and just said,
I'll tell you what you want to hear. So they
now had a false confession.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
Well, the only thing that came in at trial was
that Fabian made alleged oral statements to Halverson. So even
though Fabian had a gun pointed at him, was beaten
up by Halverson, he still would not give a written
statement to the state's attorney.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
I never signed off on any confession and it was
not recorded.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
To recap. Detective Halverson and his cohorts had an alleged,
unrecord ordered oral confession. The directed identification from Matos and
Rivera and this gun that was almost certainly planted that
they claimed magic bullets founded the scene. At this time,
Fabian's grandmother sold her home to post his bond and
help him out a defense. Yet somehow Fabian had even
(14:17):
more dire problems than this case.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Back at this time, the gangs ruled these neighborhoods with
an iron fist. And because I was implicated in this crime,
the laon Kings had placed a contract hit out on
me and they tried to gun me down in a
card chase, and they left a note on my grandmother's
house saying we know where you live.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
So he's again wrongly accused, wrongly accused by the gangs,
and he's wrongly accused by the officers.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
There is no rationalizing, there is no talking it out.
Not only my own health and safety, but my families
was at risk. And I left.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
So where the hell did you go? Where is a
sixteen years kid with no resources with everybody looking for them,
Where the hell do you go and hide?
Speaker 2 (15:05):
I left the state of a noise. I just bounced around.
I wasn't in one single place for too long, whether
it was a friend or finding a hotel room or
an apartment, whatever the case may have been. Unfortunately, I
had to utilize whatever methods were necessary for me to
survive selling drugs or just working a part time gig
(15:26):
or whatever have you.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Okay, so then finally you get tried in absentia. We've
literally never had that happen on the show. Ashley, give
us the cliff notes of this ridiculous trial.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
So Fabian has a private attorney. He goes to trial
before a judge by the name of Judge Tuman, who
was notoriously known for being very hard on juveniles. They
show up for trial, Judge says, where's mister Santiago and
his attorney says, I don't know, can we postpone?
Speaker 3 (15:56):
And Judge says, well, he was told to be here
at ten am. We're going for.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Basically, the evidence at trial is these two eyewitnesses who
identify him in the lineup, which we know were bogus,
and Halverson testifies that he recovered a gun in Fabian's
home which was tested and the ballistics matched the gun that.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Was used in the shooting.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
And there is a state's attorney who provides testimony of
alleged oral inculpatory statements. He testifies that Fabian admitted to
participating in the shooting, and that's what he's convicted on, which,
if you're looking at it objectively, seems kind of alike
(16:42):
a lot of evidence. The problem is all of it
was built on a lie and none of it is
actually legitimate. I mean, I think the state's attorney, what
he did at this time is almost as appalling as
what the officers did. I mean, they knew what was
going on behind closed doors. There was no court reporter present,
there was no handwritten statement, there was nothing memorialized on paper.
(17:03):
It was just oral statements that come in through Halverson
and through this prosecutor.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
So that is just absurd in my mind.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Other than cross examining Matos and Rivera about the inconsistencies
between their descriptions of the assailants and Fabian, not much
of a defense was mounted at all. Plus the appearance
of going on the lamb probably was not helpful. So
the jury reached a predictable conclusion, and on May eighteenth,
nineteen ninety four, Fabian was convicted of murder, attempted murder,
(17:33):
as well as related firearms charges, and sentenced to ninety
years news that he received while he was still on
the run for his very life.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
It was crushing and as horrific as it was for
that type of sentence to have been handed down, my
only focus was on staying away from Chicago to stay alive.
Over a year and a half later, I was depleted
of funds and I came back to Chicago trying to
get to assistance, and as I was walking the street,
(18:03):
I don't know if they knew who I was or
they were just stopping me, and ultimately I was brought
back into custody.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Now Fabian was not only made to serve this insane sentence,
but he was also being tried for jumping bail, so
ten more years were added on to this ninety year sentence.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
Ten years also for a bail jumping is absurd. That
was a judge being pissed to sell that he didn't
show up the trial.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
I had a public defender. She didn't ask me why
I was unable to attend my trial. She could care less.
She simply was yelling and telling me, look, the judge
is pissed off. You need to take this plea. I
figured that it made little of any difference, and I
accepted it for a total of a one hundred year
prison sentence. Because of the incredible amount of time that
(19:00):
I was incarcerated. I was in every single maximum state
penitentiary in Illinois several times over. It was very violent
and you had to defend yourself. There was men who
were stabbed up, murdered. In fact, I know of one
incident where a cellmate got involved in a physical confrontation
with his cellmate and he tore his eyeballs out. He's
(19:24):
blind and he threw his eyes on the gallery. The
carnage was incredible. I knew men who have taken their
lives for far less than what I had endured, simply
because they didn't want to deal with how cold and
stark that reality was. The United States government propagates this
belief that China Russia engaged in human rights abuses. People
(19:47):
in this country are tortured every day in the prison system.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
So getting Fabian out of that horrible situation could not
have been more urgent. But the appeals process moved very slowly.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
I went through the core process, ineffective assistance of counsel,
unlawful searces and seizures. I got nowhere very quick.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
And one thing that was crazy is his pellet attorney.
She didn't raise the issue of him being tried in abstentia.
So when you don't raise the issue on direct appeal,
you ultimately waive it because it's not preserved.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
I mean, I don't know how you don't raise that.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
While I was in prison, I immersed myself in study
and litigation. I pursued numerous litigations against the Illinois Department
of Corrections, civil litigations. From these lawsuits that I would
succeed in, I was able to pay for my own lawyers,
and every one of these attorneys did nothing but sell
me a pipe dream and take my money, and worst
of all, cause even further years, if not decades, of
(20:45):
my life being wasted away in prison. Ultimately, I wrote
Jennifer bon Jin requesting legal representation, and later on she
had seen me on Zoom and she had beare witness
personally to my outage about my innocence.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
During COVID, a lot of the hearings began to take
place on zoom, and when you had the zoom meeting
for the judge in front of whom you had the case,
he would often end up listening in on the proceedings
for four years, you know, while you're waiting for yours
to come up. And as a result of that, Ashley's
partner Jennifer bon Jean overheard Fabian's arguments.
Speaker 4 (21:20):
It was around Halloween twenty twenty, and I remember her
calling me and she was like, I just watched the
craziest thing on zoom in Judge Kenworthy. This guy, he's
a Halberson case and he is in on a legal sentence,
was advocating for himself.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
I was arguing, basically before the court, look, I'm actually
innocent of these crimes. However, it would make a flying
fuck of a difference to me if I were guilty
of everything I've done. The prison time of three or
four men I knew, men whom had been given twenty
years for murders. They did ten years, and they went home.
And here I was riding away from the age of
a sixteen year old kid, completely innocent of the charges,
(22:00):
and I had lost almost thirty years already.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
By this time, a slew of landmarks gotis rulings had
made mandatory juvenile sentencing statutes unconstitutional. So Ashley and Jennifer
were able to split Fabian's actual innocence claim from his resentencing,
and they tackled that first.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
With the resentencing, I would have been required to have
completed a prison sentence of seventeen years, so I had
completed that sentence by over a decade, which required my
immediate discharge from custody.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
The resentencing hearing was January seventh, twenty twenty two. On
January twelfth, twenty twenty two, he's released.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
It was surreal. I had fought so long for that day,
and unfortunately I had been gone for such an incredible
period of time that all of my immediate family were gone.
My mother and my only brother had passed away while
I was in prison. I didn't have any home. My grandmother,
who made every sacrifice, was suffering from dementia. This woman
(22:58):
raised me, She cared for me and provided for me.
She went into financial ruin to help me. She lost
her house, she lost everything, and now she could not
even remember my name. When I got out of prison,
I didn't even have anyone to pick me up. Arrangements
had to be made for someone to pick me up
and to take me to a homeless shelter.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
So Robert Almodovar is another one of our clients, and
he does amazing work since he's been out. He was
released in twenty seventeen, and all our clients who have
been released since, he's just amazing. He drives them and
he picks them up, takes them where they needed.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
He was there for me and I was tremendously grateful
for that. And I remember him telling me he was
going to get me a cheap phone so I could
have a means of communication. And I told him I
don't need a phone. I don't have many people in
my life. If I need to make a phone call,
I can walk down to the corner store and use
the pay phone. And he goes, Fabian, you don't understand.
You've been gone so long. Payphones don't exist out here anymore.
(23:53):
I got to get your phone.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
It's absolutely devastating to know that Fabian lost so many years.
Will all along the information that would have and could
have set him free was readily available but hidden from view,
and so in pursuit of his innocence claims, Ashley and
Jennifer reached out to William Dorsch.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
We had worked with Dorish in the past.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
He was a witness and actually Robert Al the Dovar's
case and in other cases and pattern in practice cases
as it relates to Guevara. And when we got Fabian's
homicide file, we saw Dorsh's name was on it, and
he read the report and he, in no uncertain terms
said this never happened. What Halverson puts in his report
is Halverson says Officer Cruise from the twentieth District contacted
(24:38):
Bill Dorsch, who was in the same area as Halverson,
and told him about this alleged tip Okay said Fabian
was running around on his birthday saying, my birthday present
was shooting.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Up these people.
Speaker 4 (24:52):
Basically, Bill Dorsch said, if an officer from another district
had told me about an informant, I would have memorialized
at some where. I would have documented all of this.
And there was none of that. And there was a
signature by him allegedly, but he said it wasn't his signature.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
It was forged. Yes, William Dortch's testimony was groundbreaking. We
wouldn't have been able to prove. Look, they falsified police
reports that William Dortch had conducted lineups. He goes, I
wasn't even in the police station doing any of this.
They signed his name off. Why would you need to
do that? You're clearly involved in something of a nefarious nature.
(25:31):
You had a cycle of concocted story after story, lying
about informants police reports, conducting unlawful searches and seizures, taking
people into custody, illegally, beating suspects into confessions, and pointing
a gun at them. I mean, when you have that
cocktail of criminal misconduct on the part of these detectives,
(25:53):
you got to ask what is their motive here? William
Dorts came forward basically affirming my colleagues were bunch of
corrupt detectives.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Pretty courageous on his part.
Speaker 4 (26:03):
Ultimately he provides us an Affidavid, and we attached his
affidavit along with the police reports to the petition and
we file the petition.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Meanwhile, even more information came to light.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Approximately six months ago, I went to a new doctor
and her medtech's name was Ellie, and they had mentioned
that there were various medical records that were missing, and
I had explained to them that I was wrongfully convicted.
I gave some account of what I had been subjected to.
About two months later, I came back to that same
(26:39):
doctor's office and the tech Ellie tells me, Fabian, we
live in a very small world. My mother was involved
in our Kavara case, and every time we see any
cases involving men who were innocent, we always relate back
to her experience. And she explained to me that her
mother and her mother's sister who were driving by in
(26:59):
a car, and that her mother had been struck in
the bottox with a bullet, and that when her mother
and his sister were requested to identify and pick someone
out of the lineup, they refused to do so because
they didn't want to send an innocent man in prison.
And these officers were yelling and screaming at them, telling
them to pick this person out of a lineup, and
(27:22):
they were terrorized. They left that police station utterly distraught,
feeling that the police officers were going to do something
to them, were going to hurt them or try to
even arrest them, but they did not relent. And I
told her that was me in the lineup that your
mother and her sister refused to identify, and she told
me I know it was you. I know you were innocent,
(27:45):
and my mother and her sister talk about it all
the time. Every time they see the news, every time
they see someone that was released, they always talk about you.
And I know it was your case. That's why I
told you, and I completely broke down.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
And of course, Ellie, the medtech was none other than
Marcella Hernandez's daughter. Her aunt Lorena had given an UPIDAVID
that included all of this information in April twenty twenty two,
and Fabian was exonerated that October without even having to
go through an evidentiary hearing. However, the certificate of innocence
didn't come as easily, but came nonetheless in July twenty
(28:21):
twenty three, making him eligible for state compensation. But the
content of the pending civil litigation has been some of
the most convincing yet a major Brady violation. The gun
allegedly used in the shooting had been obtained by the
detective Guevara from a gang member, not from Fabian's bedroom.
This detective team, Guevara and Halverson have already cost Chicago
(28:43):
upwards of eighty two million dollars. Last time we covered
one of their cases, it was fifty one million. And
that's just from the innocent men and women who were
able to jump through all of the hoops and made
it to this level of the exoneration journey. We don't
know how many others are out there, but hopefully will
find them all.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
You have figures such as this eighty two million dollars
plus being thrown out there that have resulted from settlements
in these wrongful conviction cases just under Ronaldo Guevara or
his crew. That does not entail the tens of millions
of dollars that the City of Chicago is also paid
in legal expenses to defend against these cases.
Speaker 4 (29:23):
These cases penned from anywhere from four to seven years.
They have one outside firm that represents the City of Chicago.
They have one outside firm that represents Guavara. They have
another outside firm that represents all the other defendant officers.
So no fewer than three firms are on every single
one of our civil rights cases that we have that
involve Guavara. And when you think about the amount of
(29:46):
money that these firms build a city to litigate losing
cases for four to seven years, it is absolutely insane.
Not only are they paying attorney's fees all throughout the process,
there is a statute that says, if we win, not
only are we entitled to the judgment and award whatever
(30:06):
that may be. Fabian did thirty years, he gets thirty
million dollars, but we can also petition the court for
our attorney's fees.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
In addition to that the tens of millions of dollars
that the City of Chicago is also paid to convene
hearings for the city council. You're talking about well into
the hundreds of millions of dollars now.
Speaker 4 (30:25):
Instead of looking at these cases individually from the beginning
and saying is this even winnable than saying, hey, he
did twenty three years in prison, I'm going to offer
him twelve fifteen something of that sort. They would rather
spend four to seven years pay outside council. I mean,
we just filed five civil rights lawsuits in September, Lovy
(30:45):
and Lovy just filed another eleven. They have more coming
down the pike. Like that's crazy amounts of money, and
it just prolongs the trauma of these guys who have
already suffered so much.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
I got to waste another half decade of my life
to find get some resolution to this matter when they
know full well what is going on here.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
We need to make a push to city Council. You
need to do a better job at assessing these cases
early on.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
The mayor needs to do something now, not when the
stars are politically aligned for him to do something about it,
not during the next election cycle. Now.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
So maybe that should be this week's call to action.
We're going to call on the folks in power at
Chicago to put an end to this madness. Pay these
men and women what they deserve, because, let's face it,
no one can give them back the time that was
stolen from them. And with that, let's go to closing arguments,
where I'm going to thank both of you, Ashley and Fabian.
(31:42):
I mean, I don't even have the right words to
express how sorry I am for this unbelievable ordeal. And
you know how grateful i am to you both for
being here. And now I'm just going to kick back
in my chair with my headphones on and my eyes
closed and listen to any final time you have, starting
with Ashley and saving our guest of honor for last.
Speaker 4 (32:04):
I just want to thank you guys for bringing this
to light and for doing the work that you do
because you know as much as we advocate in the courtroom,
it's really important for people outside of the courtroom to
really bring to light the travesties of justice that are
happening as we speak in not just the city of Chicago,
but all over the world. And I think it's really important.
So I commend you guys for really focusing on these
(32:26):
wrongful conviction cases.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
I really appreciate you guys inviting me on and having me.
Whomever is out there listening needs to express outrage about
what's going on here. This can't be allowed to function
as the norm. There's no way in the world that
you can have men and women that are framed by
corrupt detectives just languish in prison and rot away for
not years, decades, and then if that's not sufficient, to
(32:51):
come out of prison and still have to fight the
government for years more before these cases are finally resolved.
The underlying problem is not simply corrupt detectives. It's systemic corruption.
These detectives would never be able to get away with
what they're involved in if it wasn't for their supervisors.
Whether it's a sergeant, a lieutenant, a captain, whether it's
(33:14):
a prosecutor, a judge, or the Chicago City Council and
its legal department. This is nothing new. These cases go
back even before John Burge. But John Burge was a
breaking point that should have caused dramatic reform in the system,
and that has not been the case. The City of
(33:35):
Chicago's it's council members having brought about sweeping reform to
root out crooked corrupt cops. In fact, all they've done
is take issue with the fact that now they're dealing
with numerous multimillion dollar lawsuits. These lawsuits would never have
come to pass if it wasn't for them allowing or
(33:56):
turning a blind eye to this level of corruption. No
one is held accountable to this very day, not one
of these corrupt detectives out of the Ronaldo Gavara crew
has so much as been administratively held accountable, let alone
criminally prosecuted. And as long as these people are not
going to prison the same way poor people go to
(34:17):
prison and they're protected by the government, these abuses are
going to continue.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
week early by subscribing to Lava for Good plus on
Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team Connor
Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow executive
producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cliburn. The music
in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
(34:49):
composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across all
social media platforms at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction.
You can also follow me on Instagram at it's Jason Flamm.
Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
in association with Signal Company Number one
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