‘No one would believe us’: Alleged victims speak out after newly released report details recommendation to fire sergeant who worked with convicted ex-cop Ronald Watts

Police oversight investigators recommended last year that a Chicago police officer who worked under former Sgt. Ronald Watts — who went to prison for corruption — should be fired for falsifying reports while working for the disgraced ex-sergeant, according to a report released by a civil rights law firm.

The 33-page report was made public by the firm Loevy & Loevy after two of Watts’ alleged victims, including Clarissa Glenn, filed a lawsuit last year against the city to force the Civilian Office of Police Accountability to disclose it.

“I’ve been in torture and in pain for 17 years,” because of Watts and his “corrupt” team, said Glenn, who turns 51 later this month, during a news conference at Loevy & Loevy’s Near West Side offices.

In March 2021, COPA recommended that Alvin Jones should be fired for falsifying reports against Ben Baker and Glenn after arresting them in December 2005.

“Jones enjoyed great official authority and abused it brazenly for his own gain. He violated his oath, public duty, multiple Department Orders, and the trust of other officers and the community he was sworn to protect,” the report said.

Neither Jones nor a lawyer for him could be reached for comment.

Glenn said she is “grateful” the report has finally been released.

Matt Topic, an attorney at Loevy & Loevy, said the city “dragged this process out for a year” while the firm filed five different motions, including two motions for sanctions and a potential contempt motion against the city for violating a court order requiring the city to release the report. He said that is “not how it’s supposed to work.”

“Now the city of Chicago knows that we have been telling the truth for years and years and years,” Glenn said. “It is a shame because of where we are from no one would listen. No one would believe us.”

Glenn’s family was able to get her out on bail the day after she was arrested, and she was given a yearlong probation.

Glenn, a mother of three, was taken to the jail at West 26th Street and South California Avenue, which she described as “terrible.”

”I asked a guard, ‘Can I freshen up?’” she said, trying to maintain her composure as she recalled the memory. “He laughed at me. He said, ‘They do not do that here.’”

Glenn said she has had a career in home health care for over 20 years.

Another alleged Watts victim, Deon Willis, 47, said at the news conference he was arrested twice, once in 2002 and then again in 2007.

“It’s been rough” having to deal with the fallout of his arrests and trying to get back to being “able to survive in this world,” Willis said.

“I’m glad for Clarissa. I thank the lawyers behind me because no one else would listen,” Willis said.

Watts and Jones in 2005 “demanded that Baker pay them to ‘protect’ his business” and when Baker refused they arrested him, the report said. Baker and Glenn gave statements saying the arrests were in retaliation for Baker’s refusal to pay the officers, Baker’s success on a motion to suppress evidence from earlier arrests by Watts’ team and Baker and Glenn’s reporting Watts’ and his team’s misconduct, the report said.

Baker and Glenn told COPA investigators that on the morning of Dec. 11, 2005, after Baker had repeatedly refused to pay the officers, Glenn was giving Baker a ride home when they were pulled over by a marked police car. A black, unmarked police car that Watts and Jones were in followed. The officers searched Glenn’s SUV, finding nothing, the report said.

“Glenn saw Watts pull what appeared to be narcotics from his jacket sleeve. Watts then claimed to have found the narcotics in the SUV, but Baker knew there were no narcotics in the vehicle and that Watts and Jones had already searched the area thoroughly but found nothing,” the report said.

The investigation found that Watts and Jones falsified arrest and case reports and that Jones testified falsely under oath in court hearings.

“When COPA investigators later questioned him about events related to the arrests, he continued to provide false information,” the report said. “When confronted with these fabrications, Jones admitted to certain falsehoods and referred to his underlying conduct as an ‘egregious error.’”

Baker and Glenn were exonerated in 2016 and received a certificate of innocence, and Baker was released from prison. COPA submitted the report to Chicago police Superintendent David Brown in March 2021 but the city refused to release it to the public.

COPA typically doesn’t release the findings of its investigations until they’re reviewed by the Chicago police superintendent, who then decides whether disciplinary charges should be filed. In Jones’ case, neither Brown nor the city’s Law Department ever disclosed whether Jones would face disciplinary charges, so the case sat in limbo and the report was never released.

Jones, meanwhile, was relieved of his police powers at some point due to the case and retired at the rank of sergeant from the department in May.

The Chicago Police Department did not provide further comment on the report as of Friday night.

The city’s Law Department received the report and sent the report back to COPA with questions, “and right now the case remains with COPA,” said Kristen Cabanban, spokesperson for the department.

Watts and his team of tactical officers have been accused of orchestrating a decade of terror at the now-razed Ida B. Wells public housing complex on the South Side, systematically forcing residents and drug dealers alike to pay a “protection” tax and putting bogus cases on those who refused to do so.

Watts was charged in 2012 with shaking down a drug courier who turned out to be an FBI agent. Watts and Officer Kallatt Mohammed both pleaded guilty. Watts received 22 months in prison and Mohammed was sentenced to 18 months behind bars.

Baker testified in a bench trial before Judge Michael Toomin that Watts and his crew had planted the drugs on him. Watts had already tried to pin a drug case on him a year earlier after Baker had refused to pay a $1,000 bribe to the officers in exchange for their protection, he alleged.

After he beat those charges, Baker said, he complained to Jones, one of Watts’ underlings, who told him it was “part of the game.”

“You win some, you lose some,” Baker said Jones told him. “Next time we get you, it will stick.”

Watts, Jones and another member of Watts’ team, Officer Robert Gonzalez, all denied wrongdoing at Baker’s trial and testified that Baker was lying, according to court records. Toomin found Baker guilty on both counts and initially sentenced him to 18 years in prison but later reduced the term to 14 years.

In a December 2015 court filing, a lawyer representing Baker pointed to FBI reports showing that at the time of Baker’s trial, Watts was already the target of an ongoing joint investigation by the FBI and Chicago police internal affairs investigators into allegations of corruption nearly identical to those made by Baker.

One FBI report from September 2004 showed that an informant had told federal agents that Watts and another officer were routinely shaking down drug dealers for thousands of dollars in cash in exchange for police protection at the housing complex.

In 2016, Baker was exonerated in his case and released from prison. Since then, Watts and his crew of officers have been tied to some 250 drug convictions that were overturned, according to Loevy & Loevy, and there are more than 80 lawsuits pending against the city.