Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx is again attempting to block lawyers for Chicago cops from questioning her former top deputy under oath, this time in a lawsuit brought by two men who claim they were wrongly convicted in the murders of a Chicago couple in a plot to help a woman kidnap the couple’s two children.
Since mid-June, the Chicago Police officers and lawyers from Foxx’s office have been locked in a duel in Chicago federal court over another deposition for former Cook County First Assistant State’s Attorney Eric Sussman.
The fight comes as the officers and the city of Chicago work to defend themselves in a lawsuit brought by attorneys for Gabriel Solache and Arturo Reyes.
Eric Sussman
| Reed Smith LLP
Solache and Reyes were convicted and sentenced to prison, after they both confessed to assisting in the 1998 murders of Mariano and Jacinta Soto, who were stabbed to death in their home in Chicago. According to prosecutors, the men allegedly helped kill the Sotos to help abduct the couple’s two children on behalf of Adriana Mejia, so Mejia could allegedly fulfill her dream of becoming a mother.
Over the years, Reyes and Solache recanted their confessions, and eventually were exonerated when Foxx declined in 2017 to pursue new trials against either man. That decision came over the objections of police officers who investigated the case, and despite public assertions from Sussman and others of Foxx’s top prosecutors that they believed the evidence showed the two men were guilty of the murders.
Attorneys with the firm of Loevy & Loevy, of Chicago, then filed suit on behalf of Reyes against the city of Chicago and the police officers involved in the case. Solache also filed suit, through lawyers at the People’s Law Office, of Chicago. Both lawsuits accused the Chicago Police officers of abusing the two men to coerce their confessions in the murders.
Mejia remains imprisoned, and had continuously asserted Reyes and Solache had helped her murder the Sotos and take their children. However, she abruptly changed her story at a deposition in 2019, as the officers sought to defend themselves against Reyes’ and Solache’s lawsuits. At that deposition, she refused to testify, citing the Fifth Amendment. A federal judge has since ruled the Fifth Amendment doesn’t apply to her in this case any longer, and ordered her to again testify under oath.
Lawyers for the officers have questioned in court filings whether the sudden alteration in Mejia’s willingness to testify may have been influenced by a fellow inmate, who is also represented by attorneys connected with the Loevy firm in a legal action against Chicago Police detective Reynaldo Guevara, one of the defendants also named in Reyes’ and Solache’s lawsuits.
A judge called such assertions a “confusing conspiracy theory.”
After sparring over subpoenas related to Mejia’s testimony, lawyers for the officers have since set their sights on securing the chance to question Sussman under oath. The questioning would focus on attempting to answer a key question:
If Sussman and other prosecutors still believe Solache and Reyes are guilty of the Soto murders, why did Foxx simply walk away from a new trial for the two men in 2017?
Foxx’s office, however, has pushed backed against such questioning, arguing as recently as June 29 in federal court that any deposition of Sussman should be blocked. Foxx’s office says the officers are attempting to improperly trespass on the State’s Attorney’s Office’s “deliberative process privilege.” Foxx’s office essentially argues the officers have no right to learn how Foxx and her deputies reached the decision to abandon efforts to try again to put Reyes and Solache back in prison, despite Sussman’s statements that prosecutors had “no doubt” the two men … are guilty of these heinous crimes.”
Lawyers for the officers accused in Solache and Reyes’ lawsuits have also sparred with Foxx’s office in other lawsuits brought by the Loevy firm on behalf of others, who allegedly confessed to murders, yet were freed after Foxx opted not to pursue new trials.
For instance, Foxx abandoned the prosecution of Nevest Coleman and Derrell Fulton, who had recanted their confessions to their involvement in the 1994 rape and murder of Antwinica Bridgeman. The two men served 20 years in prison, but said their confessions were improperly coerced by investigating police officers.
Coleman and Fulton were released from prison after Foxx’s office did not challenge motions to vacate the men’s sentences, also in 2017.
Coleman and Fulton then sued a group of Chicago Police officers and the city of Chicago for their alleged wrongful prosecution.
In that case, lawyers for the officers obtained the chance to question Sussman and other Foxx deputies under oath, though with restrictions on the scope of the questioning.
A brief filed by attorneys for the officers and the city in support of their new attempt to compel Sussman to testify under oath remains under a court-ordered seal.
However, in a brief filed June 29, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office says it believes the officers’ lawyers are seeking the deposition to try to widen the scope of their questioning of Sussman.
In the June 29 filing, Foxx’s office says the officers’ lawyers claim Sussman waived any privilege by stating publicly that he believed Reyes and Solache were “no doubt guilty” of the killings. The June 29 brief further indicates that Sussman stated, under oath, in his deposition in the Coleman and Fulton case, that the State’s Attorney’s office “could not retry cases with certain officers, including at least one of the (Chicago Police) Defendants in this case, because they would not be credible with a jury.”
Foxx’s office, however, argued lawyers for the officers can’t attempt to drill down on such statements, because the reasoning behind such statements should be considered privileged. They said Sussman, who left the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office and has worked in private practice since 2018, can not waive that privilege. Such waiver is reserved exclusively for the State’s Attorney’s office, they said.
“It is no mystery as to why the CPD Defendants have only sought this information from Sussman: they want to question him only regarding privileged matters, and to continue to harass him with litigation until they obtain it,” the State’s Attorney’s Office wrote in the filing.
Foxx’s office is represented in the action by Assistant State’s Attorney Patrick D. Morris.
The Chicago officers and the city are represented by attorneys Eileen Rosen, and others with the firm of Rock Fusco & Connelly; Thomas Leinenweber, and others with the firm of Leinenweber Baroni & Daffada; Caroline Golden, and others with the Sotos Law Firm; and Daniel Noland, and others with the firm of Reiter Burns, all of Chicago.