Chicago City Wire

Judicial Watch, a Washington, D.C.-based conservative watchdog group, has filed a Freedom of Information Act request (FOIA) with Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s office seeking email records and all documents pertaining to the exoneration of convicted offenders.

In its probe for information, Judicial Watch is zeroing in on Michelle Mbekeani, the newly installed head of Foxx’s Conviction Review Unit (CRU). The FOIA comes in the wake of a series of articles published in Chicago City Wire that reported on Mbekeani’s side business connecting inmates claiming innocence with defense attorneys, and a Cook County judge’s reaction to it. During a post-conviction proceeding where Mbekeani was present, Judge Michael McHale banned her from his courtroom for misrepresenting the business as a school project.

The FOIA request was reported by former Chicago police union spokesman Martin Preib in his Substack blog “Crooked City.”

“The dozens of false exonerations and civil lawsuit payouts are the heart of the corruption in Foxx’s office,” Preib told Chicago City Wire. “The office is supposed to prosecute and jail bad guys, not free them and make them and their lawyers millionaires.”

In October, Chicago City Wire filed two complaints against Foxx’s office for not responding to FOIA requests filed six months that sought details into why the office supported the exonerations of once convicted murderers, and why it reversed itself in opposing Certificates of Innocence (COIs) for two men convicted of the brutal 1998 murder of a husband and wife and the kidnapping of their children in Bucktown.

A separate FOIA requested documents related to the exonerations of brothers Juan and Rosendo Hernandez, convicted of a 1997 murder.

In early February, Foxx’s office turned over some documents with the promise of more. As of this writing, no additional documents have been released.

Chicago City Wire is looking into additional details of the exonerations beyond claims of police abuse by those convicted of the murders. City Wire is also attempting to find out why Foxx’s office reversed its position on COIs for Gabriel Solache and Arturo DeLeon-Reyes, convicted of the 1998 Bucktown murders. Foxx’s office initially opposed the COIs then without explanation dropped its opposition in November 2023 paving the way for a Cook County judge to grant them.

Retired detective Reynaldo Guevara was the investigating detective in the case. He was also the investigating detective in the Hernandez brothers’ case. And he has been named a defendant in at least a dozen other wrongful conviction cases.

City Wire first requested the Guevara records on May 11. On May 23, six days beyond the statutory deadline for a response, the CCSAO’s FOIA officer wrote back in an email that indicated the inclusion of an attached list of documents related to some of the Guevara cases. Nothing was attached. The office never responded to the FOIA request related to the Hernandez case. In addition, the CCSAO never responded to a City Wire attorney’s follow-up request made in August.