Chicago City Wire

Attorneys for two convicted of a 1998 double murder in Bucktown have offered defendants in their wrongful conviction cases a deal to avoid summary judgement and send the case straight to trial.

The move to advance the cases of Gabriel Solache and Arturo DeLeon-Reyes, creeping along under the weight of numerous motions, could pave the way for a settlement. 

The two convicted of stabbing a husband and wife to death and abducting their children would almost become overnight millionaires if a settlement is reached. All the while, former prosecutors believe the two are guilty of the crime.

In a federal court filing, lawyers for Solache and DeLeon-Reyes noted that they “voluntarily dismissed” four defendants from the case: Dennis Stankus, Geri Lynn Yanow, as Special Representative of defendant John Naujokas (deceased), Theresa Karalow, as Special Case: Representative of defendant John Karalow (deceased), and Mark Harvey.

The lawyers went on to write that they “proposed a bargain to Defendants on the remaining claims and parties.”

“Plaintiff would agree to voluntarily dismiss every claim and Defendant for which Defendants had an even remotely arguable basis to file a motion for summary judgment, if Defendants agreed to dispense with summary judgment and proceed to trial,” the lawyers said. “To be clear, Plaintiffs proposed to dismiss meritorious claims against Defendants they can show are liable at trial—claims and Defendants on which there are certainly material disputes of fact that preclude summary judgment—in exchange for the benefit of moving more quickly to trial, which is of great value to Plaintiffs.”

Lawyers for the defendants, who include Detectives Reynaldo Guevara, retired, and Ernest Halvorsen, deceased, have yet to respond.

In their original complaint filed separately in 2018, Solache and DeLeon-Reyes, alleged that Guevara and Halvorsen fabricated evidence, included  “among that evidence was an involuntary and false confession attributed to Plaintiff, which was concocted and coerced by Defendants after 40 hours of abusive and illegal interrogation of a recently arrived Mexican immigrant who could not speak or understand English.”

But in April a lawyer for the defendants shot back that the confessions were not coerced, and that Guevara had every reason to believe that the 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. Attorney Gabrielle 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 2021, Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx, without explanation, dropped her office's 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.