Chicago City Wire

A federal judge has ordered Kenneth McGraw, a key witness in the 1994 murder investigation of 10-year-old Rodney Collins, to appear in court after failing to show up for two depositions in a wrongful conviction lawsuit involving Reginald Henderson.

U.S. District Judge Georgia N. Alexakis on Monday granted a motion by defendants Steven Klaczynski and Virginia Bigane, both former Assistant State’s Attorneys, requiring McGraw to show cause why he should not be held in contempt. 

The judge also scheduled a hearing for McGraw to appear in person at 10 a.m. July 28 at the U.S. Courthouse on Dearborn Street.

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx | Facebook

The defendants said McGraw is a critical witness for both sides in the case.

“The State’s theory in the underlying prosecutions was that a group of Gangster Disciples gang members, including Plaintiffs, met and agreed to attack members of …a rival gang, and that a 10-year-old boy was killed in a shooting planned during the meeting,” their motion said. “As part of Defendant Klaczynski’s prosecutorial evaluation of the underlying police investigation for potential criminal charges, he memorialized Mr. McGraw’s statement describing the gang planning meeting and implicating Plaintiffs in the murder.”

The lawsuit names Henderson and his brother, Sean Tyler, who were convicted of the murder. They allege misconduct by police officers and prosecutors in their interactions with McGraw.

“For example, Plaintiff Henderson now claims certain police officers planned to arrest and interrogate Mr. McGraw, without any basis, to create probable cause to frame Plaintiffs for the 10-year-old’s murder,” the motion said.

Tyler and Henderson spent 25 years in prison before being exonerated in 2021 by former Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx. 

In April, a Cook County judge granted them Certificates of Innocence. They filed wrongful conviction lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District in 2023.

Their complaints describe a scheme by detectives to frame the brothers in retaliation for Tyler’s testimony in a separate shooting case.

According to a Sun-Times report, Tyler, who was 17 at the time, was taken into custody and beaten “so severely in the chest, face and eyes that he was later taken to the hospital for vomiting blood.”

The report mentions former Detective Kenneth Boudreau and his partner James O’Brien.

However, an investigation by the Torture Inquiry and Relief Commission (TIRC) in 2020, which recommended a new evidentiary hearing for Tyler, noted that the doctor who treated Tyler said he had a history of hematemesis, or vomiting blood caused by a stomach ulcer or gastritis. 

Tyler did not tell medical staff that his injuries were from police torture, and the jail lockup keeper reported no visible injuries or complaints of mistreatment.

Boudreau is a defendant in the lawsuit, although he had minimal association with the case. He and other former detectives have faced multiple wrongful conviction lawsuits linked to former Commander Jon Burge, who was convicted of perjury in 2010 related to allegations of torturing suspects to obtain confessions. Burge died in 2018.

Boudreau called the granting of Certificates of Innocence to Tyler and Henderson “one hundred percent pathetic” in a previous interview.