Marilyn Mulero — who was sentenced to death without a trial at age 23 — filed a federal lawsuit Monday against the city and two disgraced Chicago police detectives after having her murder conviction overturned last year.
A mother of two young children when initially incarcerated as a 21-year-old in 1992, Mulero joins a growing number of exonerated ex-inmates who have sued former detectives Reynaldo Guevara and Ernest Halvorsen. Her lawsuit accuses the Chicago Police Department of fostering an environment in which the detectives, in framing her for murder, were allowed to fabricate evidence, coerce a false confession through psychological torture, manipulate lineups and violate her civil rights in spite of her innocence.
“This evil and injustice cannot be overstated,” the lawsuit alleges.
Mulero and two other women were charged with luring two gang members to a West Side park, where the men were fatally shot in alleged retaliation for an earlier gang killing. Mulero was interrogated by Guevara and Halvorsen for several hours in which she was denied sleep and not allowed to speak to an attorney. After being threatened with the loss of her children, Mulero signed a statement prepared by the detectives confessing to one of the murders, according to court records.
Her court-appointed attorney advised her to plead guilty without a deal in place, and she subsequently received the death penalty, records show. Her punishment was later overturned and a jury sentenced her to life in prison without parole.
She was incarcerated for 28 years before Gov. J.B. Pritzker commuted her sentence in 2020. Two years later, Cook County prosecutors announced they would not stand by her conviction and asked that it be vacated.
In the three years since her release, Mulero has struggled to rebuild her life. She told the Tribune she lived briefly with her son at the height of the pandemic, before she decided to try surviving on her own. She soon found herself experiencing homelessness, living out of a car and sleeping in parking lots for about six months until her brother helped her find a more stable living situation.
“It’s been a roller coaster,” she said in a telephone interview. “You cannot put a pretty pink bow on it. Every day I feel like I’m a broken person.”
More than four dozen people have accused Guevara of framing them for murder, coercing confessions and other serious police misconduct between the 1980s and the early 2000s. Of those, 39 have been exonerated so far.
Halvorsen, who died in 2020, was often his partner on the cases.
Guevara, who is collecting two city pensions, has moved to another state since retiring in 2005. He could not be reached for comment.
Mulero, now 52, had two toddler-age sons when she went into prison. She now has four grandchildren — two boys, two girls — ages 18, 15, 13 and 11. She watched her children and grandchildren grow up mostly through photographs and phone calls.
She told the Tribune she hopes her lawsuit will send a message to those in power not to abuse their positions of trust. She also hopes it will give her two adult sons and grandchildren a better life.
“I wasn’t able to put my children through college, but it will help my grandkids go through college and become productive members of society, and that’s what I want,” she said. “I want something I never had for me and my kids. I want to be able to pass it on to my grandchildren.”
She said her years of incarceration took a toll on her family, especially her children. Her belief she would one day be reunited with them and her deep religious faith helped sustain her.
“My kids have been traumatized emotionally, physically and spiritually by my situation,” she said. “I personally rely on a higher power. … I kept my faith alive in Him, and He has come through for me on a daily basis. He hasn’t forgotten about me. He’s my strength.”
She also finds solace among other people wrongfully convicted because of Guevara. She said they keep in touch by text messages and through monthly get-togethers. They also attend each other’s important court dates and legal milestones, with many of them expected to stand by Mulero when she publicly announces her lawsuit at a news conference Tuesday.
“That support system has become a family,” she said. “We are there in times of need. If someone needs to talk, there’s always someone there to take your call or there’s someone there to go meet you somewhere so you can express what’s going on. We support each other.”
About 30 people have sued the Chicago Police Department over wrongful convictions involving Guevara, whose disgraced career has become an increasingly expensive burden for taxpayers.
A Tribune analysis of Law Department records shows the city has paid more than $26 million since 2010 for outside counsel to handle civil rights lawsuits involving the former detective.
Nearly a third of those bills have been submitted in the past two years, as the cases against Guevara have mounted. In 2022, for example, the city paid more than $4.2 million for outside lawyers to handle 12 separate cases.
Eleven new cases have been filed within the past seven months.
Former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s Law Department faced criticism from plaintiffs’ lawyers for refusing to settle the cases and then slow-walking them through the system to delay the payouts.
“Unfortunately, we know all too well that the city’s modus operandi in defending police misconduct cases or civil rights cases is to stall, to delay, because they know that there is a reckoning at the end for them,” said Mulero’s attorney, Antonio Romanucci of Romanucci & Blandin. “We know that they can’t afford these cases. So what do you do when you can’t afford to pay a bill? Well, you don’t pay it. You stall until you absolutely must and then you just kick the can down the road. So we know what the city’s doing. We’re on to them. … In order for us to succeed on these cases, we must continue to file (lawsuits) until it becomes unsustainable for the city to continue to kick the can down the road.”
The approach has put the city on a path toward a financial reckoning on par— or greater than — claims against former police Cmdr. Jon Burge.
Burge and his detectives are accused of torturing confessions out of more than 100 men, most of them Black, between early 1972 and late 1991. At the time of his death in 2018, the city and Cook County had spent about a combined $100 million in Burge-related settlements and legal fees.
So far, the city has resolved only four lawsuits involving Guevara-related wrongful convictions, each ending with either a settlement or jury award between $10 million and $21 million. With many of his accusers possessing certificates of innocence and Guevara indicating he will refuse to testify — something future juries would likely be told to view in a negative light — many have predicted it will be difficult for the city to beat many of the claims.
“There’s no doubt that they (the city) are going to be found liable in not only the majority of the cases but very likely almost all of them,” Romanucci said.
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Indeed, Lightfoot appeared to be referencing these inherent difficulties with Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx when she accused prosecutors earlier this year of “handing out certificates of innocence like they’re candy.”
“I am sure you are aware that once these cases are resolved in the county, they immediately go to federal court and file 9 and 10 figure lawsuits against us and we know about the cases for the first time when we see the plaintiff’s press release,” Lightfoot wrote in a text message explaining her comment.
Besides Guevara and Halvorsen’s estate, Mulero’s lawsuit also named as defendants Robert Biebel, Stephen Gawrys and Anthony Riccio, who were Chicago police officials involved in Mulero’s arrest, according to the lawsuit.
Mulero is expected to petition for a certificate of innocence in the coming months. She also hopes to start a nonprofit to help others, especially women, who have been wrongfully convicted.
“I have goals and aspirations and dreams that I would like to accomplish,” she said.
