After Watts and one of his fellow officers were arrested in 2012 and charged with theft of government funds, attorneys for the men and women were eventually able to get their clients’ convictions vacated by showing that the crime to which Watts pled guilty mirrored the misconduct their clients witnessed during their own arrests. All the defendants were African-American, and many lived in the Wells buildings, which have since been torn down.  Watts and his team patrolled the community constantly, and according to court documents, habitually arrested people on pretext, often for the purpose of testing whether the defendants would barter either money or information for release. When the defendants refused to cooperate, the officers  falsely claimed they were dealing drugs and produce small bags of cocaine or heroin to support the arrest.

Watts and his crew arrested many of these defendants multiple times. Most of the Watts exonerees pled guilty. Because many already had criminal records, their attorneys advised them that their claims of innocence would carry little weight against the testimony of the police. In addition, many defendants were told that they would likely face longer sentences if they went to trial and lost. But six of the defendants took their cases to trial.

Featured Case: Cordero Payne

Cordero Payne was stopped in the lobby of one of the Ida B. Wells buildings by several officers, including Sgt. Ronald Watts, on December 1, 2005. Payne was familiar with Watts and his tactics. Payne was  handcuffed and asked about the location of drugs. He said he didn’t have any and didn’t know where any were. One of the officers punched him several times in the ribs. Watts then said that if Payne had nothing for him, he had something for Payne, who was arrested and brought to the police station. At the station, Payne was charged with possession of narcotics, accused of selling drugs to another man arrested with him. Officers claimed they had seized seven baggies of heroin and 20 baggies of cocaine from Payne. At a preliminary hearing, one of the officers working with Watts testified that he saw the transaction take place. A year later, Payne pled guilty in Cook County Circuit Court to a single count of possession of heroin. He was sentenced to two years in prison. His conviction was vacated in 2019.

Featured Case: Jamar Lewis

Jamar Lewis was arrested on June 28, 2004 and charged with drug distribution, after police said they saw him toss a bag containing 50 baggies of crack cocaine down an incinerator trash chute. Lewis chose to have his case heard by a judge, rather than a jury. At the trial in January 2005, a police officer said he and partner were on a stakeout in a vacant apartment when they watched Lewis conduct three drug transactions. The officer said residents became aware of the police and alerted Lewis, who ran to the trash chute and tossed the drugs. . The officer said the drugs were found at the bottom of the chute resting atop a shoebox. Police arrested Lewis, and the officer said he read Lewis his Miranda warnings. He said he asked Lewis why he ran to the incinerator room, and that Lewis told him that he was trying to throw the drugs away. Lewis testified and denied selling drugs or disposing of any drugs. He said the officer never read him a warning. Lewis’s attorney presented photographs of the hallway, which he said showed that it was not physically possible for the officers to have seen Lewis dispose of the drugs down the trash chute from their stakeout location. But the assistant state’s attorney pushed back. She said: “Your honor, these officers are unimpeached. They have no reason to lie. And they did not lie in this case as opposed to this defendant, who is a convicted felon, who stood before your honor and wants you to believe that he was basically framed — that these officers picked him out of all the people and put drugs on him.” Lewis was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison. His conviction was vacated in 2017.

 

Featured Case: William Carter

William Carter, who was initially charged with possession of heroin, filed a complaint with the Chicago Police Department’s Office of Professional Standards (OPS) in 2004. He said that an officer had slammed him into a wall, kicked him in the back and then planted drugs on him. While the complaint was pending, Carter was arrested again, this time charged with possession of cocaine. Carter filed another complaint, again asserting that he was assaulted and that the officers planted the drugs. In January 2005, the department dismissed both complaints against the officers. In August of that year, Carter pled guilty to the possession charges and was sentenced to probation. On May 19, 2006, members of Sgt. Ronald Watts’s narcotics unit arrested Carter again. He was living with his aunt in her apartment and left to get some food. When he returned, Officer Alvin Jones was in the apartment, searching for drugs, and told him, “You’re just the (obscenity) I’m looking for.” Jones handcuffed Carter and marched him into the hallway where Officer Kallat Mohammed joined them. All three walked down the stairs to the main floor lobby, and the officers placed Carter on the bottom steps. A few minutes later, a female resident of the building was also arrested and charged with possession. Her charges were later dismissed after a preliminary hearing. Carter went to trial. Jones testified that he had seen Carter sell drugs to the woman, but the woman testified that wasn’t the case. She said that Carter was already in handcuffs by the time she got to the lobby of the building. Carter was convicted by a jury in February 2007, and he was sentenced to nine years in prison. He was paroled in 2010, and his conviction was vacated in 2017.

Many defendants, such as George Almond, stayed quiet, fearful of retaliation.  But Watts’s misconduct was a well-known secret. During the period of misconduct, at least eight of these exonerees filed complaints against Watts and the officers who patrolled the housing development. Even as far back as 1997, the Federal Bureau of Investigation heard rumors that he was engaged in illegal activities. In a 2004 report, the FBI wrote, “Watts receives weekly payments from drug dealers. These payments are typically in the amount of $5,000.” But it would be several years before the misconduct would be stopped, and several years after that before the wrongful convictions themselves were vacated.

In March 2005, Watts’s crew arrested Ben Baker and charged him with possession of cocaine and heroin. Baker insisted he had been framed and filed a complaint with Chicago Police Department’s Office of Professional Standards.  Indeed, Watts had warned Baker in 2004 that the police would make the charges stick the next time he was arrested.

Then, in December 2005, Watts’s crew again stopped Baker and his wife, Clarissa Glenn, as they pulled into the parking lot of the public-housing complex. The officers said they found cocaine in the car and arrested both of them on drug charges. Glenn had filed complaints that fall against Watts. 

In May 2006, Baker went to trial before Judge Michael Toomin in Cook County Circuit Court on the charges arising from his March 2005 arrest.  Prior to the trial, Baker’s attorney requested any files relating to allegations of misconduct by the officers in the case.  The state produced several documents for Judge Toomin’s review but argued against disclosure to the defense on the grounds that the police department was conducting an ongoing investigation.

Toomin sided with the prosecution. Among the documents Toomin reviewed were statements from two drug dealers at the housing project who reported giving $7,000 and $10,000 bribes and weapons to Watts in return for being allowed to continue to sell drugs. The prosecution presented testimony by one police officer and a stipulation that the substances submitted to the crime laboratory tested positive for cocaine and heroin. The officer testified that he saw Baker standing in a hallway with a plastic bag containing smaller bags of heroin. The officer reported that he arrested and searched Baker, finding a second bag containing 68 smaller bags of crack cocaine and $819 in cash. According to the officer, Baker confessed to possession of heroin at the police station but denied owning the crack. 

Baker testified in his own defense. He said that he had dealt drugs before but that the police had framed him this time because he refused to pay Watts $1,000.  He testified that after the arrest, an officer said, “I told you we were going to get you.” The prosecution called three officers, including Watts, as rebuttal witnesses. They all denied ever demanding bribes or threatening to frame Baker.

On June 9, 2006, Toomin convicted Baker of the charges on possession with intent to deliver. The judge said that if he had identified any corroboration for Baker’s testimony, the outcome of the trial might have been different. Toomin sentenced Baker to prison for 18 years, later reduced to 14 years.

On September 18, 2006, Baker and Glenn agreed to plead guilty to the charges resulting from the December 2005 arrest on the condition that Glenn would be placed on probation so that she could care for the couple’s children. Baker agreed to a four-year prison term.

Judge Toomin again presided, and said: “Let me say this to both of you. I know through your lawyer what your position has been with regard to these police officers. I’m keenly aware of that. I know how you feel. I know what your defenses were earlier, Mr. Baker. There has not been (a) sufficient showing that these are renegade police officer(s)—that they are bad police, that they are outlaws. “If something should happen in the future—where has happened before as you may have read about in the paper in the last few weeks, police officers do get charged with doing things that are wrong, breaking the law. If that should happen here in this case, I would have no hesitation to vacate all of the guilty findings, judgments, sentences, including the 14 years that you’re doing now…If something should develop, then I think your lawyer has told you my position and I would vacate these findings and I would toss out these convictions.”

In the spring of 2007, a few months after Baker and Glenn entered their pleas, two Chicago Police officers, Shannon Spalding and Danny Echeverria, approached the FBI with evidence that Watts was running a criminal enterprise in the housing projects. Spalding had first-hand knowledge, as she had once ridden with Watts.  The FBI began a more active investigation. In August, Spalding and Echeverria, along with a liaison from the FBI, met with the Chicago Police Department to discuss the case. Separately, Glenn began working with the FBI a year later, after OPS referred her to the bureau. She was determined to show that Watts was corrupt. Glenn worked with Spalding, recruiting informants who might be able to set up Watts in an undercover sting.  Those efforts were unsuccessful. The FBI agent they were working with mishandled some funds, and the potential evidence became tainted.

Then in 2011, Watts and Officer Kallatt Mohammed took $5,200 from a drug courier who was an FBI informant. They were arrested on February 13, 2012 and charged with theft of government funds. Mohammed pled guilty later that year and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Watts pled guilty in 2013. He received a 22-month sentence. No other officers were charged or lost their jobs, although some were reassigned.

After the two officers were arrested, Glenn reached out to Toomin, reminding him of what he had said at the sentencing. Toomin replied that the rules of judicial conduct prevented him from intervening. While Baker had already unsuccessfully appealed his conviction, he filed a new petition for a new trial in January 2014, after the officers pled guilty. He was assigned an attorney through the state appellate defender's office and the case was eventually referred to the Exoneration Project at the University of Chicago Law School↗, which sued the FBI to get the records on Watts. In 2015, Joshua Tepfer, an attorney with the Exoneration Project, contacted Spalding, who with Echeverria had filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the City of Chicago after they were punished by the police department and called “rats” for going to the FBI (It was settled in 2016 for $2 million.). In December 2015, Tepfer filed a new post-conviction motion, based on the evidence of Watts's corruption. In January 2016, Baker’s initial conviction was vacated. Two months later, his second conviction and his wife’s conviction were also vacated. Later that year, another man, Lionel White Sr., was exonerated. He had been sentenced to five years in prison. His son, Lionel White Jr., was one of 17 people whose convictions were vacated in 2017.

Along with Baker, 11 other persons were each exonerated at least twice for separate wrongful convictions. The Conviction Integrity Unit of the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office has assisted the Exoneration Project in these cases. All the men and women who had their convictions vacated have sued the city of Chicago and its police department. In addition, as of December 2023, more than 100 of the defendants have received statutory compensation through the State of Illinois, receiving a total of $7.1 million. Other claims are pending. 

– Ken Otterbourg

Members of this group

 You can read individual accounts of the exonerations of the men and women in this group by clicking here↗.