Former Cook County prosecutor should face charges after lying on witness stand during latest Jackie Wilson trial, attorneys say

Attorneys for Jackie Wilson — the man tortured and forced to confess to the murders of two Chicago police officers — said a former Cook Country prosecutor should face charges after he allegedly lied on the witness stand during Wilson’s latest trial this week.

“This person should be in handcuffs,” attorney Elliot Slosar said of Assistant State’s Attorney Nicholas Trutenko, who was most recently involved with felony review for the state’s attorney’s office.

In a shocking admission Friday, special prosecutors appointed to try Wilson for a third time said Trutenko committed perjury when he testified Thursday that he had never discussed a key witness tied to Wilson’s second trial with them.

Trutenko, in fact, had talked with special prosecutors and assistant state’s attorneys about William Coleman.

Special prosecutor Lawrence Rosen told Judge William Hooks that another assistant state’s attorney previously told him not to ask Trutenko about his contacts with Coleman. Rosen said he was told, “It’s nothing illegal, it’s nothing unethical” but that Trutenko’s relationship with Coleman was “weird.”

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

Trutenko admitted on the stand he has had a decades-long relationship with Coleman, a man described by the defense as a dangerous international con man.

Coleman had long been thought to be dead, including by his own ex-wife and children, by prosecutors and defense attorney who had both sought his testimony, according to Slosar.

Special prosecutors Friday said in light of Trutenko’s apparent perjury and relationship with Wilson, they made the decision to drop all charges against Wilson after days of testimony at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse.

“It was an absolute surprise to us,” special prosecutor Myles O’Rourke told Hooks.

Trutenko had prosecuted cases against Coleman years before Wilson’s second trial in 1989. But he had those charges — possession of a kilo of cocaine and escaping from the Cook County Jail — dismissed after Coleman testified against Wilson, leading to his second conviction to the 1982 double murder, said Slosar.

Trutenko Thursday said in court as the years went on he became “extremely close” with Coleman — close enough that he became the godfather to Coleman’s daughter, Slosar said.

Trutenko had talked with Coleman as recently as Monday, Slosar said before Hooks ordered Trutenko to turn over records of any conversations he had with Coleman within 14 days.

Prosecutors with the state’s attorney office said Trutenko was fired Thursday night after he revealed the relationship on the witness stand and that he never told anyone at the office about their contact.

“Yesterday we learned that a prosecutor testified about his personal relationship with a witness, which jeopardized a prosecution,” state’s attorney’s office spokeswoman Tandra Simonton said in a statement. “We took immediate and decisive action in response to this behavior. This individual is no longer an employee of the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office.”

Trutenko declined to comment Friday through his attorney, John Coyne.

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

Trutenko had left court during a break in the hearing Thursday but never returned, Hooks said. The judge was going to hold Trutenko in contempt of court when he didn’t show up in court Friday morning as he was ordered to. But Trutenko came back to Hooks’ courtroom later Friday afternoon.

Wilson’s lawyers Friday praised State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s decision to drop the charges in light of the “corruption” they said pervaded the case since Wilson was first charged with Officer Richard O’ Brien and William Fahey’s murders. But they also lamented that the decision meant that Wilson could never be found innocent of the crimes.

“I guess what I want to say is, in some small way, I still believe that justice can be had,” Wilson said in a brief statement outside the courthouse.

Wilson was freed from prison in 2018 after Hooks threw out his confession, ruling that detectives working under former Area 2 Cmdr. Jon Burge had tortured him to get it.

Simonton said the state’s attorney’s office would refer the matter “to the appropriate agencies to determine whether any charges will be brought forward” against Trutenko.