Chicago City Wire

An attorney for retired Chicago Detective Reynaldo Guevara, who is named in a wrongful conviction case involving the 1998 double murder of a husband and wife in Bucktown, is asking a federal judge to dismiss claims of fabricated evidence by the two convicted of the murders. A ruling by Judge Steven Seeger of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District in Guevera’s favor would tear a hole in the civil case brought by Gabriel Solache and Arturo DeLeon-Reyes, who were convicted of the murders in 2000 and then exonerated in 2017 by Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx.

Guevara's attorney, Gabrielle Sansonetti, argued in a motion before the court that lawyers for Solache and DeLeon-Reyes were conflating two due process allegations in their complaint: coerced confession and fabrication of evidence.

“Coerced testimony is testimony that a witness is forced by improper means to give; the testimony may be true or false. Fabricated testimony is testimony that is made up; it is invariably false,” Sansonetti wrote citing other court opinions. “Coercive interrogation techniques alone are insufficient to find that one fabricated evidence; and does not violate the wrongly convicted person’s due-process rights. In other words, coerced confessions are not necessarily fabricated evidence.”

She added that “coercively interrogating a witness or a confession may be deplorable, and may contribute to wrongful convictions, but it is not necessarily evidence of fabrication because unlike fabricated or perjured testimony, the confession may be true. For a claim of fabrication to withstand summary judgment, the Plaintiff must show that the officer knew the confession was false.”

But Guevara had every reason to believe that confessions were true.

A third accomplice to the murders, Adriani Mejia, told police officers that she, DeLeon-Reyes, and Solache had all participated in killing Jacinta and Mariano Soto and the abduction of their children. Sansonetti noted in her motion that Mejia, in fact, signed a statement to the same effect, testified to the same under oath before a criminal court, and affirmed the same under oath in her deposition.

“Adriana Mejia’s initial statement implicating Plaintiffs alone (and without her numerous and subsequent confirmations of her confession under oath) would have been sufficient for Guevara to believe Reyes’s and Solache’s confessions,” Sansonetti wrote. “But, in addition, Adriana Mejia was brought before Solache where she confronted him with his involvement in the crime.”

Mejia remains in jail, serving a life sentence.

In November 2022, Foxx’s office, without explanation, dropped its opposition to Certificates of Innocence (COIs) for Solache and DeLeon-Reyes, even though prosecutors in her office remain convinced that the two were guilty.

One former assistant State’s Attorney Eric Sussman told CBS Chicago when the charges were dropped: “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 for an earlier story that he "certainly didn't believe that he [Guevara] coerced confessions in that case."

DeLeon Reyes is represented by Loevy & Loevy and Solache by the People’s Law Office.