Police framed 18-year-old and wrongly sent him to prison for 34 years, lawsuit says
An Illinois man says the Chicago Police Department manufactured evidence to frame him for a double homicide when he was 18 years old, according to a lawsuit.
Francisco Benitez was convicted in the 1989 double fatal shooting of William Sanchez and Prudencio Cruz. He spent the next 34 years in prison.
“The following decades of his life were consumed by the horror of wrongful imprisonment,” a lawsuit filed by Benitez against the city of Chicago, Cook County and several officers said.
On Aug. 29, 2023, the Cook County Circuit Court vacated his conviction “on the grounds of actual innocence,” the lawsuit said. On Dec. 7, Benitez received a certificate of innocence from the State of Illinois.
“I am so thankful to be home for the holidays with my loving family,” Benitez told McClatchy News in a statement. “For 34 years, the holidays were the hardest, knowing all of the family memories that I was missing out on. But not this year.”
McClatchy News was unable to reach anyone from the city of Chicago for comment. Cook County officials also were contacted, but they declined to comment.
1989
On April 28, 1989, Sanchez and Cruz, both 14 years old, were walking to a corner store. That’s when they were shot. Sanchez was shot in the head and died almost immediately, the lawsuit said.
Cruz was shot in the chest and ran home, making it to the steps of his house, where his body was found.
Shortly before the shooting, officers came across a group of members from a local street gang hanging out in the area. The cops told the members to “disperse,” and moments later heard gunshots.
“When police canvassed the scene, they could not find anyone who actually witnessed the shooting,” the lawsuit said.
Two people in a nearby home told police they heard the gunshots and saw someone run past their window, but did not get a good look at the person, the lawsuit said. Two of the street gang members told police, “‘Cookie’ and ‘Fat Johnnie’ might have had something to do with the shooting.”
The photo lineup
In an attempt to find a suspect, a gang crime officer put together a photo lineup. After receiving the tip about the person named Cookie possibly being involved, the officer/ used his photo in the lineup, court documents said.
“In order to create a fair photo array, (the officer) needed ‘fillers,’ i.e., photos of other individuals who were not suspects, but who had features sufficiently similar to the suspect (Cookie) and the witness descriptions in order to create a fair photo array,” the lawsuit said.
The officer used a photo of Benitez as a filler in the lineup, but did not believe he had involvement, according to the lawsuit.
“To the contrary, (the officer) knew (Benitez), and had interacted with him over the years. (The officer) thought (Benitez) was a good kid and did not believe (Benitez) was the type of person who would commit such a crime,” it said.
When the officer showed the photo lineup to the woman who was eating dinner and saw a man run past her window, she picked out Benitez, who was included as a filler, instead of Cookie, the lawsuit said.
“Witnesses often fail to identify a police suspect, and instead identify a filler. In studies of eyewitness memory, filler identifications are understood to be false identifications,” the lawsuit said.
Fabricating evidence
“Rather than pursue promising leads,” detectives framed Benitez, the lawsuit said.
“They wrote a police report falsely claiming that (Benitez) had been a suspect all along,” the court document said.
However, the lawsuit said Benitez wasn’t in the neighborhood at the time of the shooting.
On Aug. 29, detectives arrested Benitez and interrogated him. Benitez told them he wasn’t involved and knew nothing about the shooting.
He said he had an alibi for the time of the shooting. He was at a home of a woman who he referred to as “aunt,” with her and her daughter.
He said a day earlier, he got paid from work and went to a mall with a friend, then went to the woman’s house. He gave detectives receipts and the woman and daughter confirmed his alibi.
Despite his repeated denial of being involved, officials continued to interrogate Benitez overnight, according to court documents.
“(The detectives) brandished a flashlight menacingly during the interrogation, as though (Benitez) was going to be hit if he did not cooperate,” the lawsuit said.
Then, the detectives “falsely promised” Benitez that if he agreed to sign a statement admitting to the shooting, but saying it was in self-defense, they would let him go, according to the lawsuit.
“Early the next morning, after many more hours of interrogation and experiencing the coercive tactics above, (Benitez’s) will was finally broken,” the lawsuit said.
Benitez signed a statement admitting to shooting the victims.
The detectives “walked” Benitez through the story, which the lawsuit said was “bizarre and entirely contrary to the crime scene evidence.”
The state attorney assigned to the case wrote the statement for Benitez to sign and “simply disregarded the evidence,” the lawsuit said.
“(Benitez’s) opportunity to grow older with his family and make a life with them was taken away. (His) relationships with his family were severely harmed. He could not have and raise children. (He) was stripped of his young adulthood and deprived of opportunities to gain an education,” the lawsuit said.
In 1991, Benitez was sentenced to life in prison, according to WLS-TV.
Benitez’s attorney Lauren Carbajal told McClatchy News there was never physical evidence linking Benitez to the crime and his conviction was “based entirely on false evidence manufactured by the Chicago Police officers.”
“He spent 34 years behind bars fighting for his freedom, during one of the longest wrongful imprisonments in Illinois history,” Carbajal told McClatchy News.
The ‘real killers’
Evidence later showed the people responsible for the deaths were two members of the street gang who were seen in the neighborhood around the time of the shooting, the lawsuit said.
Court documents say witnesses later told police they saw the two members shoot Sanchez and Cruz.
“(The witnesses) did not tell police what they had seen. They were both young at the time of the shooting, and afraid that if they ever said anything they would be killed by the (street gang). Their mother even told them not to tell anyone for their own safety,” the lawsuit said.
However, for years, they were unaware that another person was convicted of the crime and was serving a prison sentence.
“When they found out (Benitez) had been in prison for decades for the crime, they came forward with the truth.
“Since coming home, Benitez has taken a security job at Soldier Field. An avid Chicago sports fan, he has cherished the opportunity to work at the stadium of his beloved Chicago Bears. He is living with his brother and his mother, who for 34 years never stopped fighting for her son,” Carbajal said.
Benitez is suing for an undisclosed amount.
“The City of Chicago has an opportunity to settle now and provide swift justice for Mr. Benitez,” Carbajal said.
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