CHICAGO, IL - Prosecutorial incompetence has just resulted in charges being vacated in the case of a 2011 murder of an off-duty Chicago police officer, ABC-7 in Chicago reports.
Alexander Villa was one of three defendants charged in the murder of CPD officer Clifton Lewis and was the only one who remained incarcerated. The case was dropped Wednesday upon the request of the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office. Villa had asked a judge to overturn his life sentence based on allegations of prosecutorial misconduct for failing to reveal exculpatory evidence that would have proven his innocence.
Lewis, then 41, was working a part-time job as a security officer at a West Side convenience store on Dec. 29, 2011, when he was shot and killed while trying to stop an armed robbery. Lewis was working a second job to save up for his wedding.
Less than a week later, Villa and co-defendants Edgardo Colon and Tyrone Clay were arrested. However, from the beginning, their cases were marked with controversy, with defense attorneys accusing police and prosecutors with several irregularities, including coerced confessions, made-up evidence, and ignoring a cellphone map generated by the FBI that proved neither Villa or his co-defendants were anywhere near where the murder occurred.
“This is where the crime happened,” Villa’s attorney, Jennifer Blagg said, pointing to the crime scene location. “The men are mapped everywhere but where the crime happened. They weren’t together the entire day.”
When the conviction was vacated, one side of the courtroom, occupied by Villa’s family, broke out in cheers. On the other side, members of the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police, a union representing Chicago police officers, sat silently as Judge Carol Howard made her decision.
Family members of Lewis, meanwhile, said they feel Clifton Lews died in vain and believe justice will not be served for the brutal killing, the Chicago Tribune said.
Meanwhile, Villa’s sister, Melissa Villa, expressed gratitude for his exoneration but also felt for Lewis’s family.
“It’s a sad moment because there’s two victims,” Melissa Villa said after the hearing. “You have a person who was wrongfully incarcerated…and you have a family that is suffering the loss of their loved ones. No one wins.”
While Villa’s family expressed thanks for the decision and said they never lost hope that Villa would return home, members of the Fraternal Order of Police demanded that whoever wins November’s election for state’s attorney either retry Villa or lose support from the police union.
“The winner of the state’s attorney’s race, who we expect to be Judge O’Neil Burke, absolutely needs to pledge publicly that she is going to re-indict and re-try this case as soon as she is in office. If not, she will not have FOP support,” Chicago FOP President John Catanzara said.
In a statement issued Wednesday, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office said: “After the sentencing of Alexander Villa for the 2011 murder of Officer Clifton Lewis, our office discovered evidence that had not been previously or timely provided to the defense. This information is potentially exculpatory, material, and relevant to a jury’s evaluation of the case, and therefore, we are compelled to agree to vacate this conviction and dismiss the charges.
"We acknowledge the pain and frustration this causes the family of Officer Lewis, who deserves to be remembered for his dedicated service to the Chicago Police Department and the City of Chicago rather than for procedural errors that have marred our pursuit of justice and accountability. While this is heartbreaking, prosecutors have the responsibility to not only find justice for the harmed but also uphold the constitutional rights of the accused.
"In this instance, we fell short. We are actively working to learn from the chain of events that has led us to this point so that we can make necessary improvements to our systems and ensure this does not happen again.”
In addressing Lewis’s relatives, Judge Howard said, “I know you are disappointed, and the family is disappointed, but there is not enough evidence, there is not enough evidence,” adding that the court cannot override charging decisions made by prosecutors.
The original prosecuting attorneys, Andrew Varga and Nancy Adduci, are no longer with the state’s attorney’s office. Ironically, before she was fired last year, she headed a unit that reviews wrongful convictions. She is now suing the office for discrimination. Meanwhile, Varga resigned in recent weeks before he was slated to be fired, according to an insider with knowledge of the situation.
The case began to unravel when prosecutors who took over the case from Adduci and Varga discovered a disc that was boxed up with case materials that showed the FBI cell tower analysis that showed Vega was texting his girlfriend at the time of the shooting, and which was caught on surveillance footage showing none of the shooters was texting at the time.
While Adduci and Varga told a judge they were not aware of that analysis, Varga admitted that the handwriting on the disc was his. The FBI cell tower analysis, a crucial piece of evidence, showed that Villa was texting his girlfriend at the time of the shooting, and which was caught on surveillance footage showing none of the shooters was texting at the time. This exculpatory evidence required to be disclosed to the defense was not and was only obtained via a subpoena to the FBI after Villa’s conviction.
So what we now have is a cop killer is loose, whomever that might be, and there is no justice for Officer Lewis and his family.
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