Page 14 - APRIL 2019 FOP MAGAZINE

Field Representative’s Report
Questionable decisions by the state’s attorney’s office
With the media roar over the dismissal of the 16 felony charges against Jussie Smollett by Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, I was afforded the opportunity to go on Fox 32 News for an interview.
While Smollett was the key subject of the inter- view, I was able to raise other suspicious actions taken by prosecutors in Kim Foxx’s administration.
Ricardo “Casper” Rodriguez is currently a leader of the Spanish Cobras street gang, which operates in the Humboldt Park and Logan Square neighbor-
hoods. In 1995, Rodriguez was convicted of murder for shooting and killing a homeless man. At the time of the murder, Rodri- guez had an extensive rap sheet with a host of charges and con- victions, including drug convictions.
But then Rodriguez caught a big break. He claimed, along with a host of other inmates, that he was the victim of a coerced confession by a now-retired detective. The FOP has disputed these claims against the detective, but Rodriguez was neverthe- less able to get out of prison.
That’s where Rodriguez’s previous drug convictions would come into play, if not for the guiding hand of Kim Foxx’s office.
You see, Ricardo Rodriguez was not a U.S. citizen at the time of the murder. Once his murder conviction was overturned, he was taken into Department of Homeland Security (DHS) cus- tody to face deportation. The basis for the deportation was his
prior drug convictions.
Rodriguez very likely would have been deported had Kim
Foxx’s prosecutors not gone into criminal court on behalf of Ro- driguez and vacated the narcotics convictions. Mind you, there was nothing that had arisen that had changed anything in the case to generate a reconsideration of the drug convictions: no new evidence, no new witnesses, no recants of early testimony by a witness. The prosecutors seemed to just feel like allowing the convictions to be vacated.
What was also suspicious about the situation was the fact that this was orchestrated by a lawyer from a firm that had made sizeable donations to Kim Foxx’s election campaign. All the cir- cumstances stemming from Kim Foxx’s office surrounding this case beg for an investigation into what is going on there.
Sadly, with the convictions vacated, the DHS was forced to re- lease a leader of the Spanish Cobras back onto the streets of Chi- cago. Consider that he was a leader of the same gang that was responsible for the 2011 murder of Officer Clifton Lewis while Lewis was working an off-duty job at a convenience store.
We can only hope that the federal investigation that is being promised will look into the actions of Kim Foxx and her office in this case, as well as other questionable decisions by the state’s attorney’s office.
And now, at least, Channel 32 reporters know about the case and will do some more investigating as well.
ROBERT BARTLETT
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14 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ APRIL 2019