Attorneys for a man charged in the 2011 killing of an off-duty Chicago police officer accused the Chicago Police Department in a recently filed motion of withholding evidence, and they have asked a judge to compel a representative from the department to appear in court and explain why the department should not be held in contempt.
The request marks another accusation of misconduct on behalf of police and prosecutors in connection with the complicated and decadelong case of the 2011 slaying of Officer Clifton Lewis, who was killed while working a second job as a security guard at a West Side convenience store.
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Two masked men fatally shot Lewis while he was working at the M&M Quick Foods in the 1200 block of North Austin Boulevard in December 2011. Described as a “gentle giant,” Lewis had just gotten engaged a few days before he was killed.
Prosecutors ultimately charged three men in the killing, Tyrone Clay, Alexander Villa and Edgardo Colon. Clay and Villa were accused of shooting Lewis with Colon as their getaway driver.
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In the motion filed on behalf of Colon last week, his attorneys argued that Colon and his co-defendant, Clay, have “diligently pursued” evidence that would clear them but that CPD has not made the material available. Attorneys may deliver arguments on the motion as soon as Tuesday, according to Colon’s attorney.
The motion argues police did not turn over all documentation they had in response to a Sept. 19 subpoena from Colon for all documents generated by the department’s Gang Investigation Unit, which investigated Lewis’ slaying.
About a week later, CPD responded with a copy of the investigative file for Lewis’ killing, which was “not actually responsive” to the request for the gang unit documents, the motion argued. Meanwhile, attorneys for Villa had obtained gang unit documents about the investigation that were never made available to Colon, according to the motion.
Among those documents, the motion said, was a directive that mandated that the Area 5 gang unit work exclusively on the Lewis slaying until told otherwise, as well as a formal plan to target the Spanish Cobras street gang in an “all out effort” to generate witnesses and sources of information. The effort, called “Operation Snake Doctor,” resulted in at least 122 arrests and “a lot of informants,” including one who implicated different people, the motion said.
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“The notion that the CPD was unaware of this evidence in responding to the subpoena is not credible. There was a massive devotion of effort to Operation Snake Doctor, not just by the Gang Unit, but also the other Bureau of Organized Crime Members, and the highest echelons of the CPD,” the motion stated.
In that document, the attorneys asked for tip line reports and emails, all gang unit reports and emails and reports and emails generated by CPD’s Crime Prevention and Information Center, which would include information and analysis from POD cameras and license plate readers in the Lewis investigation, among other CPD documents.
The motion also asks for a CPD representative to be called to court to “not only explain the reasons behind the above-identified missing evidence, and to show why they should not be held in contempt of court and be subjected to whatever remedies this Court imposes.”
Colon was previously found guilty in the killing in 2017, but an appellate court threw out the conviction three years later, saying his constitutional rights were violated when police continued questioning him after he indicated he wanted a lawyer. He is out on bond waiting for a new trial.
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Clay has been in jail for more than a decade without going to trial while attorneys have argued over whether his videotaped statements should be shown to a jury. His attorneys have said he couldn’t waive his Miranda rights due to “limited intelligence and verbal comprehension.” A Cook County judge and an appellate court agreed that the statements should be thrown out.
Villa was sentenced in 2019 but he has not been sentenced and has a pending motion for a new trial.
mabuckley@chicagotribune.com
