Judge wants CPD to turn over full documents in off-duty cop killing before ordering officers’ testimony
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A Cook County judge on Friday declined for now defense attorneys’ request to make current and former Chicago police officers testify regarding allegations the department concealed evidence in the 2011 killing of an off-duty officer.
The would-be witnesses, including former Superintendent Garry McCarthy, were excused, but Judge Erica Reddick hinted strongly that they might have to take the witness stand at a later hearing.
“The specter that there was a whole separate investigation related to these matters that was never tendered ... that is a grave occurrence and it will require the court to address,” she said.
In the meantime, Reddick ordered Chicago police to turn over any materials that might conceivably relate to the 2011 killing of off-duty Officer Clifton Lewis.
“I want you to go to the outer limits of what you have related to this case, and I want this to be a top priority matter,” she told an attorney from the city’s Law Department.
Lewis was working a second job as a security guard at a West Side convenience store when two masked men came in and fatally shot him. Described as a “gentle giant,” Lewis had just gotten engaged a few days before he was killed.
Prosecutors ultimately charged three men in the killing: Tyrone Clay, Alexander Villa and Edgardo Colon. Clay and Villa were accused of shooting Lewis, and Colon was allegedly their getaway driver.
Since then, the cases have been marked with extraordinarily complicated twists and turns.
Most recently, defense attorneys have alleged that police conducted an exhaustive investigation of Spanish Cobras gang members, code named “Operation Snake Doctor,” that was related to Lewis’ slaying but never disclosed to prosecutors or the defense.
“We believe we can show there was intentional misconduct regarding the evidence and exculpatory evidence, and there should be consequences for that,” attorney Paul Vickrey, who represents Colon, said in court Friday.
Attorneys wanted officers to testify related to a “rule to show cause,” or a request for them to show up and explain why they should not be held in contempt of court for not turning over the documents.
The “Operation Snake Doctor” investigation came to light only after one of Villa’s attorneys subpoenaed the Police Department for emails with certain keywords. In a motion filed Monday before a different judge, Villa — who is requesting a new trial after being convicted in 2019 — also claimed that police kept key parts of their investigation separate from the files they turned over to attorneys.
“In an effort to obtain evidence against Villa and the Cobras, the CPD interviewed hundreds of witnesses, had informants wear wires, put tracking devices on potential witnesses’ cars, obtained pen registers to monitor potential witnesses’ locations, created reports documenting their investigative steps, and hid all of this evidence from Villa by not placing any of it in the investigative file,” the motion states.
Nearly 11 years after Lewis was killed, the cases of the three men accused of his killing are in very different stages.
Colon went to trial in 2017 and was found guilty; however, an appellate court threw out the conviction three years later, saying his constitutional rights were violated when police continued questioning him after he indicated he wanted a lawyer. Colon is now out on bond awaiting a second trial, during which prosecutors will not be able to use his statement to police.
Clay, meanwhile, has been in jail for more than a decade without seeing trial. Attorneys spent years wrangling over whether his videotaped statements could be shown to jurors. His attorneys argued that Clay’s “limited intelligence and verbal comprehension” made him unable to competently waive his Miranda rights. Cook County Judge Erica Reddick ultimately agreed and threw out the statements.
Prosecutors appealed that decision; it took the state appellate court a year and a half to render its order saying Reddick was correct and the confession should not go before a jury.
Meanwhile, Villa was convicted in a late-night verdict in 2019. Three years later, he has yet to be sentenced. His request for a new trial is pending.
