Illinois’ criminal legal system has numerous flaws that ensure wrongful convictions will continue with regularity. Probably the biggest flaw, however, is the double standard regarding bribing witnesses. Defendants can’t do it, but the State can.
There is no gray area either. If a defense attorney gives a witness cab fare to get to court to testify, they will be suspended from practicing law. The State, however, regularly provides witnesses with money, goods, absolution for their own crimes, and sentence reductions in exchange for testimony favorable to the State.
These benefits must be disclosed to the defendant prior to trial or it is a violation of their right to due process and a fair trial. Despite this obligation, prosecutors often conceal such benefits to increase their odds of obtaining a conviction. Numerous wrongful convictions have been linked to such prosecutorial misconduct because judges and juries have been kept in the dark about witnesses’ motives to testify falsely in exchange for such benefits.
For many decades, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office (CCSAO) has violated these disclosure requirements. The CCSAO runs an extremely secretive Inmate Witness Protection Program Living Unit, where incarcerated witnesses live in lush conditions compared to general population units of Cook County Jail (CCJ). Commonly referred to as “the Q” by CCSAO prosecutors and investigators, these witness quarters are basically bribery suites used to keep incarcerated State witnesses compliant.
Despite the lengths the CCSAO has gone to to deny both the existence of the program and the benefits it provides to “Q” witnesses, details have slowly begun to emerge via litigation over wrongful convictions and public records requests.
For instance, although “Q” witnesses were often physically housed inside the CCJ, they were given an I Bond and remanded to the custody of the CCSASO. The CCSAO oversaw all aspects of the “Q” witness quarters. They had a duty to disclose to defendants prior to trial each and every benefit and privilege provided to “Q” residents who testified in their cases.
In sworn testimony, several former “Q” residents, a CCSAO prosecutor, and a former Sergeant of the CCSAO’s Investigations Bureau (which oversaw the operation of the “Q”), have collectively testified to many features of the “Q”. Residents had a direct phoneline to the CCSAO. They had access to a washer, dryer, microwave, cable TV, clothes iron, and restaurant food. The CCSAO would provide them with free daily phone calls, and $35 worth of free commissary every week, and purchase them consumer goods like Walkman radios, gold chains, Nike tracksuits, and shoes. None of which was provided to general population inmates of Cook County Jail.
“Q” residents also received significantly more privileges like dayroom time, recreation, and visits. Guards additionally turned a blind eye to rule violations and criminal activity like drug possession committed by “Q” residents. Their mail was actually sent to the CCSAO which facilitated circumventing the CCJ’s mail-screening process.
The CCSAO concealed these benefits from potentially hundreds of criminal defendants prior to their trials. None of these witnesses were testifying in minor cases either. They were largely murder cases where defendants’ lives were in the balance.
While such benefits may seem trivial, they aren’t. incentivized witnesses are the leading cause of wrongful convictions. California attorney Robert Berke notes that “[w]hen you dangle extra rewards, furloughs, money, their own clothes, stereos, in front of people in overcrowded jails, then you have an unacceptable temptation to commit perjury”. This is especially true in Cook County Jail where conditions in general population are so bad that people often plead guilty to crimes they didn’t commit just to escape them.
So far, more than a dozen wrongfully convicted men have been freed – often after spending decades in prison – after “Q” witnesses finally admitted to having falsely testified for the State. These include the Dix moor Five – James Harden, Jonathan Barr, Robert Taylor, Shainne Sharp, and Robert Lee Veal – who were wrongfully convicted of brutally raping and murdering 14-year-old Cataresa Matthews in 1991. Even after DNA testing excluded all five defendants, and the semen in the victim was identified as belonging to an extremely violent man with a history of sexual assault, prosecutors refused to vacate their convictions.
When Sharp, the State’s main “witness”, who had been coerced into falsely confessing and implicating the others, admitted that he lied in order to avoid the death penalty or life in prison, he also explained how instrumental the “Q” was in keeping him compliant. Counsel for the other codefendants immediately filed discovery requests related to the “Q” and the
undisclosed benefits. Rather than produce any responsive records, prosecutors, less than a week later, moved to vacate the convictions of Harden, Barr, and Taylor. Sharp and Veal would also be exonerated, and taxpayers would be on the hook for millions of dollars.
As far as wrongful convictions go, Francisco Vicente was probably the most prolific “Q” witness. Facing dozens of years in prison on multiple robbery charges, and going through heroin withdrawal, Vicente was first convinced to falsely implicate Robert Bouto in the 1993 murder of Salvador Ruvacalba.
Notorious Chicago Detective Reynaldo Guevara and the CCSAO convinced Vicente with promises of a short sentence where he would spend the majority of his time housed in the luxurious conditions of the “Q”. Once in the “Q”, however, Guevara and the CCSAO dipped into the Vicente well again and again. When they first told him to falsely implicate more men, Vicente initially refused. He says he was told the alternative would be a transfer to “gen pop”, labeled a snitch, and sentenced to a lengthy prison term.
Vicente acquiesced. He falsely implicated Armando Serrano, Jose Montanez, and Jorge Pacheco in the murder of Rodrigo Vargas, and falsely implicated Geraldo Iglesias in the murder of Monica Roman. None of the defendants were told about the benefits Vicente was receiving in the “Q”. Many years later Vicente would have a crisis of conscience, admit to his lies, and divulge all he knew about the “Q”.
In total, Vicente’s false allegations and testimony would cost several men years of their lives in jail and prison, and cost taxpayers millions of dollars more to settle the resulting civil suits.
In 1995, Billie Bigeck was arrested in connection with the murder of two 13-year-old girls. Bigeck completely confessed to his part in the murders and identified the trigger man to the police. Instead of considering the case solved, authorities told Bigeck he had to give them “more”, or they would be seeking the death penalty. Bigeck then fabricated a story about a gang meeting and falsely implicated Matt Sopron, Nick Morfin, and Wayne Antusas in the murders.
His testimony would secure life without parole sentences for all three men. In exchange, Bigeck was housed in the “Q” throughout the trials, and the CCSAO recommended he be sentenced to 30 years at 50%. Instead, the judge gave Bigeck 50 years. To keep him happy the CCSAO would constantly bring him back from prison over the next decade to vacation in the “Q”. None of the benefits Bigeck received while in the “Q” were disclosed to the other
defendants prior to trial.
Bigeck would finally come clean after all four men had spent more than 20 years in prison. Sopron’s conviction was vacated in 2018, the day after an evidentiary hearing where the CCSAO failed to discredit Bigeck’s testimony about his prior perjured testimony and the benefits he received while in the “Q”. Morfin’s and Antusas’ convictions were vacated in 2021. All three men are currently suing the City of Chicago and Cook County for compensation for the years stolen from them.
Several other cases involving “Q” witnesses are currently working their way through the courts. For instance, Terrell Outlaw was in the “Q”. Facing 35-75 years in prison, he testified against Timothy Brown, claiming Brown was the shooter during a stick-up murder that occurred during a dice game. In exchange, he received an 18-year sentence. Surprisingly Outlaw actually testified to the cushy conditions in the “Q”. Brown was sentenced to 39 years for the murder and an additional 25 years for being the alleged triggerman. The Illinois Appellate Court recently remanded his case after several witnesses came forward indicating that it was actually Outlaw who was the shooter.
From the 1970s until the early 1990s, the “Q” was located in Division 1 of the CCJ. In the mid-90s it was moved to Division 10. By the early 2000s, it was moved to Division 9. According to former CCSAO Investigations Bureau Sergeant Michael Paoletti, sometime around 2012 the “Q” witnesses and program were moved to the Kankakee County Jail’s Jerome Combs facility, and sometime thereafter moved even further away.
Before the move out of CCJ, Sergeant Paoletti personally moved around 50 boxes full of records related to the “Q” and witness Relocation Unit into B1 storage. He testified that there is no filing system for these records or any searchable database for records prior to 2010. When describing “B1”, Paoletti said “I don’t want to say ‘basement”‘. (Possibly due to the fact that hundreds of “street files” were found hidden in the basement of 51st & Wentworth police station.). Instead, Paoletti said he calls “B1” storage “the Raiders of the Lost Ark room”.
Paoletti testified in October of 2022. Nonetheless, both before and since then, numerous men in prison who continue to proclaim their innocence, have requested the files of “Q” witnesses in their cases.* The CCSAO uniformly either ignores these requests or otherwise denies them claiming not to possess any responsive records even though they have not attempted to search “the Raiders of the Lost Ark room” to see whether that is true or not.
Time will tell how many more innocent people are still in prison due to “Q” witnesses
testifying falsely for the State in exchange for comfortable living conditions and a sentence reduction.
Kim Foxx came into office claiming she would ensure transparency in the CCSAO. Instead, the CCSAO remains a habitual violator of Illinois’ Freedom of Information Act and continues to conceal evidence that should have been disclosed to defendants prior to their trials. If Kim Foxx truly cares about justice and transparency, she will conduct a review before she leaves office of all the “Q”-related and Relocation Unit records stored in “B1” storage and elsewhere, and then disclose them to anyone still imprisoned due in part to the testimony of a “Q” witness. Justice demands no less.
*DISCLAIMER: Joseph Dole is one of those men. He has successfully sued the CPD to uncover records suppressed by the State before trial that show the essential “witness” in the case failed a polygraph exam when he was asked if he was the one who kidnapped and murdered the two victims; and Mr. Dole successfully sued the CCSAO to uncover the fact that that same “witness” was housed in the “Q” and received the same numerous undisclosed benefits.
