A Cook County judge denied a request Monday to have a special prosecutor investigate allegations that police and prosecutors hid evidence from lawyers for three men charged with the 2011 murder of a Chicago police officer.
After rejecting the request, Judge James Linn set a hearing for Friday on a motion for a new trial for Alexander Villa, who was convicted in 2019 as one of the gunmen in the slaying of Officer Clifton Lewis.
Charges against Clay and Colon were dropped in June at a hearing where prosecutors Andrew Varga and Nancy Adduci had been set to testify about the allegations. Colon was convicted in 2017 and sentenced to more than 80 years, but his conviction was overturned because police obtained his confession — which he later recanted — after he had repeatedly asked for a lawyer.
Villa’s lawyers filed their motion for special prosecutor with the presiding judge of the Criminal Division, Erica Reddick. She had presided over Clay’s and Colon’s cases and last year issued a sweeping order to turn over CPD records about a massive joint dragnet with federal investigators that targeted the Lewis suspects and the Spanish Cobras street gang.
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