A federal jury balked at ordering a multimillion-dollar payout for an Aurora man who filed a lawsuit after spending more than a decade in prison on a drug case that was built on testimony by corrupt Chicago cop Glenn Lewellen.
Lawyers for Refugio Ruiz-Cortez said their client’s 2001 trial on drug charges was hopelessly tainted by the involvement of Lewellen, who in 2012 was sentenced to 18 years in prison after his conviction in a drug conspiracy with his longtime informant, Saul Rodriguez, a drug dealer whose tips to Lewellen allowed the pair to kidnap, rob or arrest rival dealers.
Ruiz-Cortez was released in 2010, when federal prosecutors dropped the case against him after Lewellen was indicted. The feds would never have taken the case to trial then, had they known Lewellen was involved in trafficking millions of dollars worth of drugs while working as one of the Chicago Police Department’s most prolific narcotics officers, lawyer Christopher Smith told jurors Friday during his closing statement.
“If this had been known to all the people involved in Ruiz-Cortez’s case, there never would have been a trial, period,” Smith said.
Jurors deliberated for a little more than four hours, before apparently agreeing with lawyers for Lewellen, who had cast Ruiz-Cortez as a liar, and pointed out that he didn’t complain that he had been set up by the corrupt cop until after Lewellen was charged. Ruiz-Cortez testified that he had been afraid to speak out because of threats from Lewellen, but defense lawyer Timothy Scahill pointed out that Ruiz-Cortez was not worried when he asked jurors to award him $11 million for his time in prison.
“The only time he was able to overcome that fear was when you walk into a courthouse for money,” lawyer Timothy Scahill noted.
In Lewellen’s case, Rodriguez admitted that he had intimidated Ruiz-Cortez into holding 10 kilograms of cocaine at his apartment in Aurora, then tipped Lewellen about the drugs so he could bust Ruiz-Cortez. But Lewellen sprung the trap too early, and a courier hadn’t completed the handoff when he arrived at Ruiz-Cortez’s apartment in Aurora. Lewellen called for backup after letting the courier go, then told his fellow officers he’d seen Ruiz-Cortez drop a bag holding the drugs before running into his apartment building.
Lewellen testified from prison over video uplink, though he responded to most questions about the case by invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. John Escalante, the former Chicago police superintendent, also took the stand. In 2001, Escalante was a sergeant supervising Lewellen, and was only a few blocks away when Ruiz-Cortez was arrested. Escalante testified that he knew of Rodriquez as a “prolific” source of information for police, but said the department would have investigated him if they’d been aware of the scam he was running with Lewellen.
Ruiz-Cortez was visibly depressed as he left the courtroom with his family, and his lawyers declined to comment on the outcome.