Chicago City Wire

Retired Chicago detective, Reynaldo Guevara, fended off accusations of police misconduct by plaintiff Arturo DeLeon-Reyes in an amended wrongful conviction complaint surrounding the 1998 murder of a husband and wife and the kidnapping of their children. The lawsuit filed in federal court in 2018 exemplifies the legal maneuvering behind the frenzy in wrongful conviction cases filed over the past 10 years that name not only Guevara -- he's the defendant in at least a dozen cases -- but other detectives as well. Over the past few years alone, taxpayer payouts to these once convicted killers and their attorneys are in excess of more than $100 million.

The amended complaint filed by Deleon-Reyes' attorneys on Oct. 30 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois lists 12 counts involving the alleged coercion and framing of DeLeon-Reyes by Guevara for the crimes. 

Guevara takes the Fifth in most of the responses to the counts, but in 14 “Affirmative Defenses” he responds to some of the DeLeon-Reyes assertions.

Kim Foxx

“At all times material hereto, Defendant Guevara was a law enforcement officer who performed discretionary functions,” one of the responses states. “A reasonable law enforcement officer objectively viewing the facts and circumstances that confronted Defendant Guevara could have believed his actions to be lawful, in light of clearly established law. Defendant Guevara is therefore entitled to qualified immunity on Plaintiff’s federal claims.”

Another response states: "To the extent Plaintiff is attempting to allege a second 1983 claim for false confession, those claims are barred by the two-year statute of limitations because they were not filed within two years after they accrued.”

Guevara is demanding a jury trial.

In 2000, DeLeon-Reyes was sentenced to life in prison for the stabbing deaths of 43-year-old Mariano Soto and his 35-year-old wife, Jacinta, and the kidnapping of their two children in Bucktown. His alleged partner in the crime, Gabriel Solache (who was likewise exonerated and has filed a wrongful conviction suit) was sentenced to death. Also convicted and sentenced to life in prison was 23-year-old Adriana Mejia who presented the kidnapped two-month-old child as her own. Mejia, who remains imprisoned, maintained for many years that all three were involved in the murders.

In 2017, the charges against Solache and Reyes were vacated over allegations of abuse -- allegations that Guevara has denied.

In the wrongful conviction cases, Solache is being represented by plaintiffs’ attorneys Loevy & Loevy; Reyes by the Peoples Law Office.

Last November, a judge granted the two Certificates of Innocence (COIs) when the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office (CCSAO), in a reversal, did not oppose them. Most cases where plaintiffs are armed with COIs are settled with large cash payouts before they go to trial.

The CCSAO, headed by Kim Foxx, never explained why it reversed itself on the COIs. Her office even went so far in one motion in the cases to admit that the reversal did not mean the office believed the men were innocent of the crime.

Moreover, one former assistant State’s Attorney, Eric Sussman, told CBS Chicago when the charges were dropped against the two: “There is no doubt in my mind, or the mind of anyone who has worked on this case, that Mr. Solache and Mr. Reyes are guilty of these crimes. It is a tragic day for justice in Cook County.”

In addition, Sussman, now in private practice, told Chicago City Wire in an email for an earlier story that he "certainly didn't believe that he [Guevara] coerced confessions in that case."

Since January 2019 taxpayers have shelled out $179 million to resolve these lawsuits, according to an analysis of city data by WTTW News.