Marilyn Mulero, the first woman in Illinois exonerated after being sent to death row, calls on the city to stop defending alleged bad cops

A day after filing a federal lawsuit against the city of Chicago and former detectives, Marilyn Mulero, the first and only woman in Illinois exonerated after being sent to death row, called on the city to stop defending and paying the pensions of former police officers whose alleged misconduct has led to scores of wrongful convictions.

As first reported by the Tribune, Mulero filed the complaint on Monday against the city of Chicago and former detectives Guevara and Ernest Halvorsen, accusing 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.

She’s among dozens who have accused Guevara of fabricating evidence to frame them for crimes they did not commit throughout his career with the Chicago Police Department.

During a news conference Tuesday in the Loop, Mulero and her attorneys, flanked by other exonerees, vowed to make it “unsustainable” for the city to protect bad cops.

“The city must reform,” said Antonio Romanucci, one of Mulero’s lawyers. “It must root out bad apples.”

A statement from a spokesperson for the city’s Law Department said the city had not yet been officially served and has no further comment.

Mulero grew tearful as she addressed reporters, describing how she wrote about 3,000 letters during the time she was incarcerated, affirming her innocence and pleading for support.

“I never got a response from nobody,” she said.

Even after her sentence was commuted and she was released from prison, she struggled to remain employed with a murder conviction on her record and went through a period of homelessness.

Mulero was a mother of two when she was arrested at 21, accused in the shooting deaths of Jimmy Cruz and Hector Reyes in Humboldt Park on May 12, 1992. Mulero and two other women were accused of luring the two to the park, where the men were fatally shot in alleged retaliation for an earlier gang killing.

According to court documents, the two men were killed by Jacqueline Montanez, who has confessed and whose sentence in 2016 was reduced from life in prison, a term handed down when she was a juvenile, to 63 years.

Earlier this year, a judge vacated the convictions for Mulero’s co-defendant, Madeline Mendoza, who was 16 when she was arrested.

Mulero accused Guevara and Halvorsen of interrogating her for hours, denying her sleep and not allowing her to speak to an attorney. She signed a statement prepared by the detectives confessing to one of the murders after being threatened with the loss of her children, court records say.

“They kind of use your weakness, and they know that using your children is your weakness,” she said.

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Her attorney advised her to plead guilty without a deal, and she was sentenced to the death penalty, which was later overturned. A jury then sentenced her to life in prison. She was incarcerated for 28 years before Gov. J.B. Pritzker commuted her sentence in 2020, and a judge later vacated her convictions.

Mulero and her attorneys said the city spends millions of dollars defending cases filed in connection with Guevara and other former officers with long histories of allegations of misconduct, such as Jon Burge and Ronald Watts. They also pointed out that Guevara continues to collect an $80,000 pension from the city annually.

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. About 30 people have sued the Chicago Police Department over wrongful convictions involving Guevara as judges continue to grant certificates of innocence in his cases, paving the way for more lawsuits.

“We do need to make it unsustainable for the city to defend the bad core apples who continue to cost taxpayers,” Romanucci said.

Romanucci said Mayor Brandon Johnson seems to have his heart in the right place, and he hopes for change.

“We hope he does the right thing,” he said.

mabuckley@chicagotribune.com