Chicago City Wire

A deposition has complicated the wrongful conviction lawsuits filed by Gabriel Solache and Arturo DeLeon-Reyes, who were exonerated in 2017 after being wrongfully convicted of a 1998 double homicide.

In the deposition, taken in 2021 and entered into U.S. District Court on Nov. 11, Adriana Mejia identified Solache and DeLeon-Reyes as the murderers of Mariano and Jacinta Soto. 

Mejia testified that she and DeLeon-Reyes were at the Soto’s Bucktown apartment the night of the murders, when Solache allegedly stabbed the couple to death. 

Mejia remains incarcerated for her involvement in the murders and kidnapping. Solache and DeLeon-Reyes were released in late 2017 after Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx exonerated them. They filed their wrongful conviction suits in 2018.

In the deposition, Eileen Rosen, an attorney for the city, asked Mejia if she saw who killed Mr. Soto.

Mejia: “Yes.”

Rosen: “Who killed Mr. Soto?”

Mejia: “Gabriel Solache.”

Rosen: “Did you see who killed Mrs. Soto?”

Mejia: “Yes.”

Rosen: “Who killed Mrs. Soto?”

Mejia: “Gabriel Solache.”

Rosen: “Was Mr. Reyes at the Soto home when the Sotos were killed?”

Mejia: “Yes.”

Mejia also stated that she paid Solache $600 to get her a child.

In their original complaints filed separately in 2018, Solache and DeLeon-Reyes allege that detectives investigating the case, including Reynaldo Guevara and the now-deceased Ernest Halvorsen, fabricated evidence. 

They claim the evidence included an involuntary and false confession, which was allegedly coerced through “40 hours of abusive and illegal interrogation of a recently arrived Mexican immigrant who could not speak or understand English."

However, in an April filing, defense lawyers argued that the confessions were not coerced. They stated that Guevara had reason to believe the confessions were truthful, given Mejia’s initial statement to police.

“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,” defense lawyers wrote. “But, in addition, Adriana Mejia was brought before Solache where she confronted him with his involvement in the crime.”

In November 2021, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx dropped her office’s opposition to Certificates of Innocence (COIs) for Solache and DeLeon-Reyes, though prosecutors in her office continue to believe they were guilty.

Former Assistant State’s Attorney Eric Sussman told CBS Chicago at the time: “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.”

Sussman, now in private practice, also told Chicago City Wire in a previous interview that he “certainly didn’t believe that he [Guevara] coerced confessions in that case.”

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