A real life Training Day: A corrupt cop lead to nearly 200 wrongful convictions
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On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: At some point in the early 2000s, Chicago police Sgt. Ronald Watts and a group of cops began charging people in and around a now demolished housing project with crimes they did not commit. Even faking evidence of gun and drug crimes. They did this for about a decade. Since 2016, Chicago area prosecutors have moved to dismiss at least 226 convictions all tied to Watts. That’s the largest series of exonerations in that city’s history. But what's justice and what happens to Watts.
5 Things Sunday host James Brown discusses the scale of the problem with USA TODAY Criminal Justice Reporter Grace Hauck, the history of Chicago's police corruption with The Exoneration Project's Sean Star and the impact of of Watts' actions with the Shantell Nile, the sister the late JaJuan Nile. JaJuan Nile who did time in prison after he was wrongfully convicted of cocaine possession.
A corrupt Chicago cop destroyed hundreds of lives. Now victims want justice.
Learn more about the exoneration project here
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Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
James Brown:
Hello and welcome to 5 Things. I'm James Brown. It's Sunday, March 19th, 2023. Go, Bills. Every week we take an idea or concept and go deep. In this week we're headed to Chicago. We're a group of cops stand accused of crimes rivaling the Denzel Washington movie Training Day. Sometime in the early 2000s, in at least as early as 2004, Chicago Police Sergeant Ronald Watts and a group of cops begin charging people in and around and now demolished housing project with crimes they did not commit, even faking evidence of gun and drug crimes. The evidence points to this lasting at least a decade. As detailed by my colleague Grace Hauck, criminal justice recorder for USA Today, since 2016, Chicago area prosecutors have moved to dismiss at least 226 convictions.
That's the largest series of exonerations in that city's history. As of now, Watts and his team are believed to be responsible for the wrongful prosecutions of 183 people whose sentences altogether were equal to more than 400 years. That number doesn't include their pretrial detention or probation in at least 10 bootcamp sentences. Despite all this, Watts isn't behind bars, we'll hear why in just a few minutes. We'll also hear from Sean Starr, a Chicago based attorney who represented some of the victims. He'll offer some perspective on where this case fits in Chicago history
Sean Starr:
In terms of scale, the number of people that were wrongfully convicted because of Sergeant Watts and his team's misconduct is at the top of the heap.
James Brown:
We'll also speak to Chantel Nile. Her late brother, Jwan Nile, went to prison for a false cocaine possession charge.
Chantel Nile:
From this, I just expect justice. I expect something to be done.
James Brown:
We'll hear more from them in a minute, but first, we'll hear from Grace Hauck on what we know about how all this happened. Grace, welcome back to 5 Things.
Grace Hauck:
Hi James. Thanks for having me.
James Brown:
I was reading your story on this cop and what struck me was the enormity of it, the sheer size of what you described.
Grace Hauck:
Yeah. So nearly 200 people have been cleared of charges tied to former Chicago Police Department, Sergeant Ronald Watts and his team. So this is a lot of people who say that their lives were basically destroyed because of this, because of what it means to have a felony conviction on your record. Many were framed for whatever reason, as the Cook County State's attorney says, sometimes Watts and his team had a vendetta against someone. Sometimes they did it just because they could, just because they had this unchecked power that they were exercising over this public housing project on Chicago's south side. And so many of these people felt just like no one was believing them, and often when they told their public defender that they'd been framed, they were encouraged to take a plea deal, and that's what many people did. They took a plea deal and then they got probation or they were incarcerated for several years.
James Brown:
So help me understand how this came to light.
Grace Hauck:
The FBI was looking into this as early as 2004, but it wasn't until 2012 that Watts and one of the officers on his team were caught stealing money from a federal informant and were actually arrested on federal charges, and they both eventually pleaded guilty to those charges and did time for that. But Watts and that other officer have never faced charges or done at any time for the cases that prosecutors say they fabricated. It was really the victims who brought this to light in particular one, Clarissa Glenn who I spoke with and we profile in the story. She and her partner were framed in 2005 on felony drug charges and they had three little boys at home at the time.
She talked to me about how she was terrified that they wouldn't have anyone to look after them. They wouldn't have anyone at home, so they took a plea deal. She got probation and her partner was incarcerated, and so she just started knocking on doors trying to speak to anyone who would listen about how they had been framed, and she really wanted to clear her name. She wanted to get her partner out of prison. She went to Alderman, she went to the assisted state's attorney. She went to three different private lawyers. Eventually she ended up connecting the FBI with the federal informant who would bring Watts and the other officer down in 2012.
James Brown:
Where is Watts now?
Grace Hauck:
He moved to Las Vegas and is now living in Arizona. He's done a bunch of different odd jobs. He was working at an Amazon warehouse at one point. He and a bunch of the other officers are facing numerous federal civil rights cases now because you have these nearly 200 people who have had their names cleared, they've received certificates of innocence and are now pressing federal charges because the Cook County State's attorney says that statute of limitations prevents her office from charging these officers, and many of these victims are still searching for justice, so they're going the civil litigation route.
James Brown:
It seems incredibly unfair that you could get away with something like that. Are there other avenues of intervention legally?
Grace Hauck:
I'm sure there are other legal routes. I think the question for many of these victims is, what does justice look like? They'll never get these years of their lives back. They were labeled by society as a felon for a very long time, and many of them couldn't get jobs. Many lost housing, many lost relationships with close friends and family who got scared and didn't want to be surrounded by them anymore. Several of the people I spoke to when they were incarcerated, their friends and family got sick and died, they couldn't go to their funerals. Some spoke about how their grandmothers basically died of heartbreak because they had been incarcerated.
James Brown:
Wow. Grace, thanks for joining me.
Grace Hauck:
Thanks, James.
James Brown:
The Exoneration Project worked for years to overturn these convictions. One of their lawyers, Sean Starr, will join me as will the sister of one of the victims in this matter, Chantel Nile. Her brother, Jwan Nile, was one of dozens of people whose lives were damaged by the actions of these cops. In Jwan Nile's case, he went to prison after he was wrongfully convicted of cocaine possession. He died not too long ago after he was released. We'll learned more about him in just a few moments. Sean Starr, welcome to 5 Things.
Sean Starr:
Good afternoon. Thanks for having me.
James Brown:
Tell us a bit about the Exoneration Project. What do you do?
Sean Starr:
It's a nonprofit organization. It's associated with the University of Chicago in [inaudible 00:07:12], and it's dedicated to seeking justice for the wrongfully convicted. We have a real problem in this country with people, for as long as one can remember, but certainly in the last 30 to 40 years, a number of people across the country have been wrongfully convicted for crimes that they were innocent of. Chicago and Illinois is one of the kind of hotbeds for places where wrongful convictions have happened. The Chicago Police Department has a long and storied history of abusing the citizens of Chicago, of treating primarily black and brown people in incredibly complicated relationships, whether it's John Burge, Ronaldo Guevara, or Sergeant Ronald Watts. The list of bad actors in this city goes on and on.
James Brown:
That's dismaying, but it leads me to the question, well, many questions. I guess broadly, why Chicago? Why so many cases?
Sean Starr:
I grew up in the city, so maybe I'm biased, but there's a predominant strain of corruption in this city, whether it's on a political or a commercial or a police end. I think that people, the city of Chicago is still a very segregated city. People live very different lives. The adage of it, it's a tale of two cities, I think is the tale of many different cities and people in certain communities are not aware of the type of situations that arise and the types of policing that happens in especially low income and poverty level neighborhoods. And so people turn a blind eye to it.
James Brown:
Taking into account the history that you've described, where do the many cases of Ronald Watts fit? Is it an outlier? Is it an exception? Is it run-of-the-mill?
Sean Starr:
It's all of those things. It's certainly one of many. I don't need to go into the list of different bad actors, but there's a lot of them in the city of Chicago. But it is also an outlier. I mean, in terms of scale, the number of people that were wrongfully convicted because of Sergeant Watts and his team's misconduct is at the top of the heap.
James Brown:
Sean Starr, thanks for joining me.
Sean Starr:
Thank you for having us.
James Brown:
Chantel Nile joins us now. Chantel, thanks for taking the time, step away from work. Tell us about your brother, what do you recall of him?
Chantel Nile:
Just a loving person, a friendly person, a joking person, my only big brother, a people's person. Everyone loved him. The mill of our family, my mom's only son, a father to three children. I mean, I really miss him and everything about him.
James Brown:
Seems like a mighty large hole that would be left by losing him.
Chantel Nile:
Absolutely.
James Brown:
How did the felony conviction for cocaine possession change his life?
Chantel Nile:
Just being a felon in general, it affects your capability of getting jobs, of doing better things with your life. It stops you from getting a... I mean, it stops you from doing a lot of things in life. It just stops you. I mean, you always walk around and you hold that over your head. You're a felon. You can't do this, you can't have this. You are not required to do this or have this, so it definitely... I mean, I'm not a felon, I don't know, but just seeing from my brother's point of view, in other's point of view, I kind of see what it did to my brother. It kind of stopped him from getting certain things.
And this was even prior to him passing away, applying for different things and even being in the process of being exonerated. My brother was excited because he was going to be able to do a lot of things he wanted to do that he couldn't do because he was considered a felon, and just making... Me and my brother talking and just coming to a conclusion that we're adults now. We have to make better decisions. You have children. I don't have children, but my niece and my nephews are like children to me because those are my brother's children. So just making better decisions and understanding that we have to do better and provide for your children so when we are dead and gone, they'll be okay, physically, financially, they'll be okay.
James Brown:
The article mentions that he was just turning his life around.
Chantel Nile:
Yes.
James Brown:
Can you share some of those details?
Chantel Nile:
Recently I moved to a different part of the city and my brother was helping me move, and we ended up going into one of the moving places to rent a van to help me move. And my brother actually went in and he actually got a job and he was just starting to turn his life around for the better. I saw a better version of him.
James Brown:
I want to veer to Ronald Watts. If you were to see him today, what would you say to him?
Chantel Nile:
I kind of watched the interview of him speaking and he stated that he wasn't aware of who Jwan was, and I'm sure he wasn't aware of many of the victims that were convicted and who were exonerated. But in that moment, I think I would just make him aware that what occurred to my brother really changed who he was as a person and kind of changed the opportunities he had in life, and I'm sure it affected others, and I would...
I'm not mad at him. I just hope that this was a eye-opener for him because he truly believes that he changed the lives of the individuals in that community. And I think that that's a crazy way to look at it, to feel like you're a hero when you destroy so many lives on so many different levels. And it's not just the people that were affected, it's a trickle-down effect. Now it affects my nephews, my niece, my brother children, other people children. I would just tell him as a person moving forward, you can't go back. You can't reverse the things that you've done, but moving forward just to be a better individual, you have to acknowledge what you did.
James Brown:
In the grand scheme of things, what would you, and maybe your family, want from the city of Chicago, from Ronald Watts. How would you like to see this? I guess it's strange to say it's concluded or fixed because it can't be.
Chantel Nile:
Absolutely. Because I mean, it's all said in, like I said, it is done. We can't go back in the past but from this, I just expect justice. I expect something to be done, I expect... Because a lot of things, like I said, I watched the interview, what Watts stated, and he was saying things just past his desk and he would just sign it. This needs to be addressed. As opposed to just signing things that's at your desk, maybe they should investigate a little bit more. At the end of the day, we're fighting for justice. I'm doing this for my mom. My mom doesn't like to speak about my brother. My mom doesn't like to do interviews about my brother, but I'm here, I'm going to do it, because if my brother was here, he would do it, but he's not here, so apparently I have to do it.
James Brown:
And I thank you for taking the time to speak with us today. Any famous last words?
Chantel Nile:
No. Just thank you for having me. It was a pleasure, and thank you for hearing my part of this crazy story.
James Brown:
Chantel Nile, thank you for joining me.
Chantel Nile:
Thank you.
James Brown:
Thanks to Grace Hauck, Sean Starr and Chantel Nile for joining me. You can find more on these cases in Grace's, articles on them at usatoday.com. Thanks to Shannon Ray Green and Alexis Gustin for their production assistance. Tell us about the show. Review us on your podcast app. Send me an email at jabrown@usatoday.com or leave me a voicemail at 585-484-0339. We might have you on the show. For all of us at USA Today, thank you for listening. I'm James Brown, and as always, be well.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: A real life Training Day: A corrupt cop lead to nearly 200 wrongful convictions
