Defense attorneys in one of dozens of controversial wrongful conviction cases delivered a point-by-point takedown of the claims made by the two convicted of the1998 stabbing deaths in Bucktown of a husband and wife, and the abduction of their children.
Lawyers for defendant police officers, many of whom are retired and one deceased, are asking a federal judge presiding over the cases brought by the two convicted of the murders in 2000, Gabriel Solache and Arturo DeLeon-Reyes, for summary judgements (judgement before trial) on some of the claims.
Solache and Reyes spent 17 years in prison for the murders. The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office (CCSAO), under the leadership of Kim Foxx, dropped charges against them in 2017. The two then sued for wrongful conviction in 2018, naming Chicago police officers, including former Detective Reynaldo Guevara – who has been named in over a dozen other cases. In 2021, Foxx, without explanation, dropped the CCSAO’s opposition to Certificates of Innocence for the two men.
One point made by defense attorneys, under claims of “unlawful detention and malicious prosecution,” was that probable cause existed for both prosecutions, including that Solache and Reyes were living with Adriana Mejia, also convicted of the murders, at the time. She remains in jail.
Plaintiff’s lawyers claim that Mejia acted alone.,
But defense lawyers point out: “Adriana was 5'0", 164 lbs., and the two adult victims, Jacinta (5’0”, 175 lbs.) and Mariano (5’3”, 161 lbs.), were stabbed over 50 times; a man’s voice was heard by a neighbor at the time of the murders saying ‘don’t scream, I’m not going to hurt you’; detectives collected bloody shoes and pants from Adriana’s apartment.”
In addition, a witness “overheard Reyes tell Adriana on March 28, ‘you are the only one that knows. I hope you don’t serve me up headfirst’; and Adriana told detectives that Solache stabbed both victims and Adriana, Reyes and Solache all kidnapped the children.”
Defense lawyers also note that plaintiffs’ criminal prosecutions “were not dismissed in a manner indicative of innocence.”
“Specifically, when the State dismissed the charges, First Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney Eric Sussman told [Cook County Judge James] Obbish that, ‘there is not a doubt in my mind or the mind of any prosecutor who has worked on this case that Mr. Solache and Mr. Reyes are guilty of these heinous crimes” and described the day as a ‘tragic day for justice…”
In 2016, Judge Obbish declined to vacate their convictions, but in 2017 Foxx dismissed charges against the two.
Addressing a separate claim by plaintiffs that the police fabricated witness statements, defense lawyers note that “each witness has consistently confirmed, through civil depositions, that the testimony they provided at Plaintiffs’ criminal trials was truthful. And any differences between the witnesses’ current recollections and the police reports of their interviews are inconsequential for purposes of a fabrication claim because the statements reflected in the reports were not introduced at Plaintiffs’ trials.”
DeLeon Reyes is represented by Loevy & Loevy and Solache by the People’s Law Office.
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