Chicago City Wire

Cook County has agreed to settle a wrongful conviction lawsuit brought by Robert Bouto, who spent 23 years in prison for the 1993 murder of a 15-year-old on the Northwest Side. At $3.1 million, the settlement is expected to be only a fraction of a possible impending settlement with the city of Chicago.

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx exonerated Bouto in 2018 three years after he was paroled when eyewitnesses recanted their testimony; his was one of over two dozen cases exonerated by Foxx over charges of misconduct against retired Chicago Detective Reynaldo Guevara. But his case, as with the other Guevara cases, isn’t clear cut.

The exoneration, like many others, stems from an investigation by now disgraced Northwestern journalism professor David Protess and some of his students.

In 2011, Northwestern released a statement after an internal review found what the university termed "numerous examples of Protess knowingly making false and misleading statements to the dean, to university attorneys, and to others.”

"Such actions undermine the integrity of Medill, the university, the Innocence Project, students, alumni, faculty, the press, the public, the state and the court," Northwestern said.

Moreover, In November 1998, the Illinois Appellate Court upheld the Bouto conviction and in 1999, the Illinois Supreme Court declined to review the case.

A joint motion before federal Judge John Kness says that the settlement amount …. “shall be allocated by plaintiff (Bouto) as follows: First, $3,000,000 (three million dollars) shall be allocated toward Plaintiff's injury of pretrial incarceration flowing from his Fourth Amendment malicious prosecution claim (damages suffered as the result of pretrial incarceration from the time of a judicial finding of probable cause to the start of the Plaintiff's criminal trial). Second, $100,000 (one-hundred thousand dollars) shall be allocated to 42 U.S.C. 1988 fees and costs incurred by the Plaintiff and his attorneys, Loevy & Loevy, solely in pursuit of claims against the County Defendants and which did not advance the claims against the City Defendants.”

Guevara was the lead investigator of another controversial exoneration case surrounding the 1998 murder of a Bucktown couple. 

In 2000, Gabriel Solache was sentenced to death and Arturo DeLeon-Reyes 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. 

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, Foxx vacated the convictions of Solache and Reyes were vacated over allegations of abuse by Guevara.In addition, her office did not fight Certificates of Innocence (COI) petitions for the two. The office had earlier opposed the COIs.

When the convictions were vacated, one former assistant State’s Attorney Eric Sussman told CBS Chicago: “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 that he "certainly didn't believe that he [Guevara] coerced confessions in that case."