CHICAGO _ Cook County prosecutors dropped murder charges Thursday against two longtime inmates a little more than a week after a judge threw out their confessions because of "bald-faced lies" by a controversial former Chicago police detective.
First Assistant State's Attorney Eric Sussman said prosecutors had "no choice but to dismiss the case" after Judge James Obbish last week found the testimony by retired Detective Reynaldo Guevara to be untrustworthy.
That clears the way for Gabriel Solache and Arturo Reyes to be released from prison after nearly 20 years in custody.
It marked the second time in a little more than a month that Cook County prosecutors were forced to drop murder charges because former Chicago police detectives would not cooperate in court proceedings.
Five former Chicago cops, including Guevara, said they would decline to testify at a hearing in November for Jose Maysonet, convicted of murder in 1995 on the strength of testimony that his attorney said was fabricated. Without the cooperation of police, prosecutors said they were forced to drop the charges despite their belief in Maysonet's guilt.
Solache and Reyes were convicted by separate juries in 2000 of killing a Bucktown couple and kidnapping their two children in a plot that prosecutors said was motivated by a woman's desire for a baby. Mariana Soto, 43, and his wife, Jacinta, 35, were found stabbed to death in their home in 1998. Solache was sentenced to death and Reyes to life in prison.
The woman, Adriana Mejia, now 41, who allegedly planned the attack in order to steal the couple's 2-month-old daughter, is serving a life sentence in state prison. Mejia, who was said to be related to Reyes and a friend of Solache, was alleged to have been faking a pregnancy.
Solache and Reyes had accused Guevara of beating them into confessing, but prosecutors maintained that the convictions were valid and their confessions were obtained lawfully.
In an effort to prove both had confessed voluntarily, prosecutors called Guevara to the witness stand in October and granted him immunity from prosecution unless he lied.
But the plan backfired when Guevara repeatedly said he did not remember anything about the case and apparently refused to examine documents that were offered to refresh his memory.
Only when pressed for a direct answer did he quietly deny putting hands on either of the men.
Obbish threw out both men's confessions last week after finding that Guevara had lied on the stand.
"He showed what he was made of," Obbish said then.
Given Guevara's grant of immunity, Obbish said, the former detective had no reason to be so evasive.
"He tried to just weasel and wiggle himself out of a situation he wasn't even in," the judge said.
Guevara has been widely accused of coercing confessions and improperly influencing witnesses during his time with the Police Department. When asked about the allegations in recent years, he has consistently invoked his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.
He did so at a previous hearing for Solache and Reyes, leading the judge to draw a "negative inference" that he was declining to testify so as not to admit guilt.
As a result, prosecutors said they had little choice but to force Guevara's testimony, granting him immunity as an incentive.
Multiple others who have been convicted of murder have come forward in recent years with similar accusations of wrongdoing against Guevara. Several of their convictions have been thrown out.
