Lawyers for a man convicted as a teenager in a 1991 murder say they have unearthed new evidence that notorious Chicago police Detective Reynaldo Guevara buried a lineup report identifying someone else as the shooter and then lied about it at trial.
Joshua Tepfer, the attorney for Demetrius Johnson, said the discovery marks the first documentary proof against the now-retired Guevara, who has been accused by more than four dozen men of manipulating witnesses, fabricating evidence and framing suspects over the course of his career.
“It’s not a credibility contest anymore,” Tepfer, of the University of Chicago’s Exoneration Project, told reporters after a brief hearing at the Leighton Criminal Court Building.
Guevara has repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination when asked under oath about the allegations.
Johnson was just 15 when he was charged in the 1991 killing of Edwin Fred, who was shot in a drive-by attack in the Humboldt Park neighborhood. Convicted the next year, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison but released on parole in 2004, records show.
Though he’s been out of prison for years, Johnson, 44, said Wednesday that the case has haunted every aspect of his life, from the sudden loss of his mother just a month after his arrest to trying to find work since his release.
“I was a cry in the dark for a long time,” said Johnson, who now coaches youth basketball on the West Side. “She died from a broken heart. … I can’t get that back.”
Tepfer filed a wrongful conviction petition in Johnson’s case last week. On Wednesday, prosecutors told Chief Criminal Court Judge Leroy Martin Jr. they needed more time to review the allegations before deciding how to proceed.
“The allegations here are very serious, and we take it seriously,” Assistant State’s Attorney Carol Rogala said. “But we have to do our due diligence.”
Fred’s murder took place about 7:45 p.m. on the night the Chicago Bulls won the first of six NBA championships in June 1991.
According to Tepfer’s petition, shortly after the shooting, police arrested a suspect near the scene who was getting out of a van with a loaded gun.
Guevara, who was assigned as the lead detective, wrote a report on the day of the shooting stating that witnesses failed to identify the suspect as the gunman. Guevara also testified at Johnson’s trial that the initial lineup was “negative.”
Johnson was arrested weeks later after Guevara claimed to have new information that he was the shooter, according to the petition. Three witnesses then allegedly picked Johnson out of a lineup — even though none of the three had given police any descriptions of the shooter at the time of the incident, the petition alleged.
According to the petition, Guevara’s reports and testimony were lies. A police report uncovered last year revealed that a second lineup had been conducted on the night of the shooting in which a witness did, in fact, identify the man they had arrested near the scene. The petition alleged Guevara buried the second report in a secret “street file” that was never turned over to prosecutors or Johnson’s attorneys.
Johnson, who denied involvement in the killing, told police he was with two friends watching the Bulls game at the time. Trial testimony showed Johnson’s assistant public defender tried to raise the issue of an alternate suspect, but without the evidence of the second lineup, Judge Thomas Cawley believed Guevara’s testimony and convicted Johnson of first-degree murder, according to the petition.
Tepfer said Wednesday that the records show in black and white how Guevara manipulated evidence to get the outcome he wanted.
“Needless to say, when the trial is based on fabrications and lies, it is not a fair trial,” he said.
The lineup report identifying an alternate suspect was uncovered in a civil lawsuit filed by Jacques Rivera, who was awarded $17 million last year by a federal jury that found Guevara had framed him for a 1988 murder on Chicago’s West Side.
In addition to finding that the police had violated Rivera’s due process and constitutional rights, the 11-member jury also held the city of Chicago responsible, ruling Rivera was victimized by a practice at the Police Department of withholding police reports and other investigative materials from criminal defense attorneys.
Dozens of other similar suits are pending against Guevara and the city. In addition to wrongdoing by Guevara, the lawsuits have alleged that his corruption was aided at every step by others in the criminal justice system, from fellow cops to friendly prosecutors, judges and even defense attorneys who turned a blind eye to how Guevara went about his police work.
Guevara has also been linked to corrupt former gang crimes Officer Joseph Miedzianowski, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2001 for running a massive Miami-to-Chicago drug distribution ring with several of the street gangs he was supposed to be investigating.
In a lawsuit filed last year, Jose Maysonet alleged Guevara framed him for a double murder after he stopped paying Guevara and Miedzianowski $1,000 a week in exchange for protection from arrest in his drug operations.
According to a 2001 FBI report, one of Miedzianowski’s co-defendants told investigators Guevara was well-known in the neighborhood for arresting gun and drug dealers and then letting them “buy their way out of trouble.”
The FBI report — which was made public as part of a different federal suit against Guevara — also said that Guevara had been paid tens of thousands of dollars in kickbacks to make murder cases go away.
Guevara has repeatedly refused to testify when asked under oath about allegations of wrongdoing. Testifying in the Rivera trial, Guevara invoked his Fifth Amendment right more than 200 times in a little more than an hour, including when asked directly whether he had ever framed anyone.
Tepfer said Guevara was deposed just last month in another suit and invoked the Fifth Amendment when asked about Johnson’s case.
After court Wednesday, Johnson’s eyes welled up as he spoke about the last time he saw his mother. He was in a juvenile detention center when she paid him a visit. There was something about the way she kissed him goodbye.
“I think she knew she might never see me again,” Johnson said. “It’s hard for me to speak about it even now. … I was 15, and my world was rocked.”
