Trial opens for 2 former Cook County state’s attorneys charged in fallout over infamous Jackie Wilson case
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A Cook County assistant state’s attorney concealed a decadeslong friendship that he forged with a British con man from whom he secured testimony against Jackie Wilson, prosecutors said Monday, a man who was later exonerated of killing two Chicago police officers after he said he was tortured by detectives working under notorious ex-Chicago police Cmdr. Jon Burge.
The strange friendship between a prosecutor and his witness — close enough that the prosecutor later became godfather to the witness’s child — was front and center as an unusual trial unfolded at a northwest suburban courthouse Monday.
Two former Cook County assistant state’s attorneys stood trial on allegations of misconduct connected to a 2020 murder trial for Wilson that imploded when special prosecutors handling the case dropped the charges shortly after learning of the extent of the friendship and the contact between the two men.
The former assistant state’s attorneys, Nicholas Trutenko and Andrew Horvat, are so eager to prove their innocence their attorneys have said, that they demanded a speedy trial at arraignment despite nearly 290,000 pages of evidence in discovery.
The pair were charged in connection with the prosecution of Wilson who the courts have said was wrongfully convicted, continuing the 40-year chronicle of the case against him, who was charged along with his brother Andrew with killing Officers William Fahey and Richard O’Brien in 1982.
A court later declared Jackie Wilson innocent after he said he was tortured into a false confession by detectives working under Burge. The brothers’ allegations against Burge’s crew were among the first to be documented, helping expose systematic torture of Black men that took place for decades at Area 2 police headquarters.
Trutenko, 68, who prosecuted Jackie Wilson more than three decades ago, is charged with perjury, official misconduct, obstruction of justice and violating a local records act in relation to his testimony at Wilson’s third trial, in 2020. Horvat, 48, represented Trutenko in that proceeding and is accused of official misconduct.
The trial is being held before Lake County Judge Daniel Shanes, who was appointed after a Cook County judge ruled that local judges should be recused due to conflicts of interest. The defendants opted for Shanes, rather than a jury, to decide the case.
In his opening statement, special prosecutor Lawrence Oliver II alleged that during Wilson’s third trial in 2020, Trutenko hid his 30-year friendship with the con man, William Coleman, who testified against Wilson in his 1989 trial prosecuted by Trutenko. The prosecutor then lied on the stand during that 2020 trial when defense attorneys asked if he discussed Coleman in prep sessions with special prosecutors, Oliver said.
“Most disturbing is when public officials who are sworn to be guardians of people as well as processes ... fail in their obligations and operate above the law,” Oliver said.
The case blew up during that third trial amid allegations that Trutenko committed perjury while being asked about Coleman.
Oliver alleged that Horvat, who represented Trutenko, failed to “take obligatory and rudimentary steps to avert continued concealment of information about Trutenko and Coleman.”
He argued that this concealment meant that attorneys were not able to locate Coleman, which deprived Wilson of his right to access potentially exculpatory evidence because a judge had ruled that trial transcripts with Coleman’s 1989 testimony could be read into the record.
Trutenko’s defense attorneys, though, countered that he was “walking into a snakepit” of a perjury trap conceived of by Wilson’s attorneys.
“There was a perfect storm forming against him,” said Brian Sexton, who represents Trutenko.
Sexton said his client misunderstood the question while on the stand, having to recall details about an old case. Instead of attempting to clear it up, Sexton said, the special prosecutors dropped the case.
“They are throwing the kitchen sink at him,” Sexton said.
Terry Ekl, who represents Horvat, said during his opening statement that the assistant state’s attorney, who was assigned by the state’s attorney’s office to represent Trutenko, was bound by attorney-client privilege.
“He owed his undivided loyalty to his client,” he said.
Late Monday morning, prosecutors called the first witness, Lawrence Rosen, who served as the special prosecutor handling Jackie Wilson’s 2020 trial.
Rosen was on the stand for hours Monday, fielding heated cross examination from Trutenko’s attorneys. A witness for the prosecution, Rosen testified that he sought to call Coleman as a witness, but couldn’t locate him after reaching out to Interpol, calling the U.S. Marshals Service and using a private investigator, among other methods.
Rosen said he spoke to Trutenko before the then-prosecutor testified during the 2020 trial, and noted in that conversation that they planned to introduce transcripts of Coleman’s testimony in 1989 because they couldn’t locate him. Rosen said most of the roughly 40-minute call concerned Coleman.
Rosen testified that Horvat instructed him not to ask about Trutenko’s relationship with Coleman, saying it’s “nothing illegal, it’s nothing unethical, but it’s just weird.”
Later, on the stand, Trutenko said he remained friends with Coleman, and spoke to him recently.
“I was stunned, shocked and absolutely could not believe what I was hearing for the first time on the stand,” Rosen said.
Trutenko’s attorneys, though, questioned the competence of the special prosecution team, asking Rosen how dutifully he pursued Coleman and other witnesses.
“Were you trying to win this case?” Jim McKay, one of Trutenko’s attorneys, asked Rosen, who replied: “Of course.”
Lawyers have debated how much of the Wilson case’s long, tangled history will be allowed during Trutenko and Horvat’s joint trial. Although Oliver said some related evidence is needed for context, defense attorneys have fought against allowing it, seeking to distance Trutenko and Horvat from the decades-old police misconduct allegations.
“Jackie Wilson’s story — saga, whatever you want to call it — is absolutely irrelevant here,” defense attorney McKay said at a recent court hearing. “(Oliver) wants to put on a mini-trial to distract your honor from the charges here.”
The judge has said he plans to hold the trial on intermittent days because of his busy Lake County court schedule and other judicial responsibilities. The trial will be held just two days this week, then likely won’t pick up again until Nov. 6.
Jackie Wilson’s case has taken many twists and turns over its more than 40-year lifespan, beginning with the fatal shootings of Fahey and O’Brien, who were shot by Wilson’s brother Andrew during a traffic stop. The patrol officers had just attended the funeral of a slain Chicago police officer that morning.
Jackie Wilson, then 21, was behind the wheel of the car and was accused of being the getaway driver. He has said he did not know his brother would shoot the officers. In 1989, at Jackie Wilson’s second trial, Coleman, the British con man with a long criminal history testified that Wilson had admitted his role in the crime while they were locked up together in the county jail.
A judge later determined Wilson’s attorneys were not fully informed about a deal given to Coleman in exchange for his testimony. The same judge also ruled that Jackie Wilson’s confession had resulted from torture and vacated his conviction, paving the way for him to be tried a third time.
Wilson, now 63, spent about 36 years in prison. He was issued a certificate of innocence in December 2020 and has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city of Chicago, several law enforcement agencies and related parties, including Trutenko, Horvat and the Cook County state’s attorney’s office.
Dozens of current and former law enforcement officials have rallied behind Trutenko, raising more than $16,000 for his defense in a GoFundMe campaign, since his indictment was made public.
McKay has said Trutenko was a “dedicated and honest public servant” who is being wrongfully accused. Ekl called the indictment “baseless.”
The trial will not have the transparency typically associated with Cook County’s highest-profile cases. Judge Shanes rejected Oliver’s suggestion that it take place in the Leighton Criminal Court Building, where the case was originally assigned and which has typically hosted the most significant Chicago proceedings.
Instead, Shanes is holding the trial at a satellite Cook County courthouse in Rolling Meadows, more than 30 miles from the Leighton Building.
The defense teams did not object to moving the trial out of Chicago, but they did not lobby for it either. The move is unlikely to affect the trial’s outcome, as a jury will not be seated, but it removed the proceeding from the neighborhood in which the alleged crimes took place, making it less accessible to those in Chicago who may have long followed the case.
Shanes also has denied repeated media requests to record audio during the trial, another departure for Cook County cases involving criminal charges against law enforcement officials. He has said he will allow a still camera in the courtroom for the first two days of the trial, though he can rescind that permission at any time.
The grand jury returned indictments against Trutenko and Horvat in December, but they weren’t unsealed and made public until March.
Wilson on Monday attended the trial of Trutenko and Horvat, despite the long drive from Chicago.
“I think it’s only fair,” Wilson said before the trial began. “They came to court for me. I should be there for them.”
Chicago Tribune’s Christy Gutowski contributed.
