Charges were dropped Wednesday against two of the three men accused of killing an off-duty Chicago police officer in 2011, the latest twist in a case marred by allegations of misconduct by police and prosecutors.
Tyrone Clay faced nearly 80 felony counts and co-defendant Edgardo Colon was charged with 18 counts in connection with the fatal shooting of veteran Officer Clifton Lewis during a robbery at an Austin convenience store.
Those charges were dismissed ahead of a hearing where detectives and prosecutors were to be questioned under oath about their failure to turn over evidence, including cellphone data indicating the men were nowhere near the scene when Lewis was shot.
As Judge Erica Reddick called the case, Assistant State’s Attorney Kevin DeBoni announced all charges against the pair were dismissed.
“In light of previous rulings suppressing the statements of both defendants, and after a thorough and exhaustive review of the remaining evidence against those defendants ... the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office does not believe it can meet its burden of proof at trial,” DeBoni said.
Edgardo Colon said afterwards that the dismissal was a “weight off my soul.”
Prosecutors said that Colon had confessed to being the getaway driver during a 2017 trial that ended with his conviction and an 84-year prison sentence. He had been free on bond while awaiting a second trial after his conviction was overturned in 2019.
“It’s a lot of sleepless nights, a lot of praying,” said Colon, as he had to “just try fighting for the truth to come out. It’s hard when you have no voice and you’re incarcerated for something you didn’t do.”
Clay, who has been jailed since his arrest 12 years ago as one of two alleged gunmen, walked out of Cook County Jail just after 7:20 p.m. Wednesday, straight into the arms of his jubilant mother, who couldn’t help but let out a joyful shout as she tightly embraced her son.
The rest of his family was right behind her. They all held Clay in a collective hug.
“It feels good after 12 years, real good, after being away from your family for 12 years,” Clay said of the hug his mother gave him. He thanked his mother for being by his side throughout his ordeal. He also thanked the attorneys who helped secure his release.
“They’re good attorneys, they helped me, they knew I was an innocent man,” Clay said. “This don’t even feel real, but it’s real. I have to thank God because if it weren’t for him, I don’t know where I would be.”
When asked about how he felt toward the law enforcement officials who put him in jail for so long, Clay said, “I’m mad at them. I forgive them, but I will never forget what they did to me. Of course I’m mad, they took all these years out of my life for nothing.”
He said he was very sorry for what happened to Officer Lewis and for what Lewis’ family has gone through, “but they had the wrong guy.”
Clay’s mother, Lavetta Maxwell, said it felt great to have her son back.
“This is my only son, and I’m just grateful to have him back,” Maxwell said. “God gave him to me, and I always kept the faith that nobody could take him away from me.”
Clay said he wasn’t sure what his first meal as a free man would be, “but it’s going to be good, better than bologna.”
Maxwell was in the courtroom gallery Wednesday, as she has been for nearly all of her son’s hearings over the last decade-plus.
“I felt myself on this floor in here down on my knees and hollering” over the years, Maxwell told reporters. “Because I know my child, and he looked at me and he said, ‘Mama, I did not do this.’”
A third defendant, Alexander Villa, was found guilty in 2019 and remains in jail, but he has sought to have his conviction overturned based on the same claims of misconduct made by Clay and Colon.
A long list of detectives and prosecutors had been subpoenaed by lawyers for Clay and Colon, who planned to question them about evidence that emerged only two years ago, when Villa’s lawyers were able to gain access to a trove of decade-old CPD emails.
Among those set to testify were Andrew Varga, a longtime prosecutor often assigned to high-profile cases, and Nancy Adduci, a respected assistant state’s attorney who heads the office’s Conviction Integrity Unit.
“I am not really surprised at all by the timing,” said Jennifer Bonjean, who took over as Clay’s attorney last month. “I still would have liked to have had [police officers and prosecutors] on the stand to ask questions about how they justify 12 years of misconduct.”
Lewis was shot the night of Dec. 29, 2011, as he confronted two armed men while moonlighting as a security guard at M&M Quick Foods in Austin. He was saving up for his upcoming wedding to his longtime girlfriend.
Clay and Colon were arrested days later, both having confessed after lengthy interrogations. Villa had been questioned around the same time, but he wasn’t arrested until nearly two years later.
Colon was granted a new trial after the judge ruled police had obtained his confession after he’d repeatedly asked for a lawyer during nearly 50 hours of interrogation.
Clay had yet to go to trial, in part because of prosecutors’ lengthy appeal of Reddick’s ruling that threw out Clay’s confession. The judge found that Clay also had repeatedly asked police for a lawyer before he gave his incriminating statement.
In Villa’s case, lawyers said they also were never given access to crucial evidence during the trial, including reports on hundreds of police interviews of members of the Spanish Cobras street gang in the weeks after the shooting — an investigation targeting Villa and the gang that was dubbed “Operation Snake Doctor.”
Emails exchanged by investigators revealed they were “curating” the files they turned over, according to Villa’s lawyer, Jennifer Blagg.
Villa has a hearing set for next month in front of Judge James Linn, and Blagg said she would argue that Villa’s conviction should be tossed as well, a case she admits might have been stronger had the hearing in Clay’s and Colon’s cases gone forward.
“Part of the reason we didn’t have the hearing today is, we have evidence,” Blagg said. “Of course this is the moment where [prosecutors] are going to drop the charges because you don’t want the truth to come out.”
During the hearings in the Clay and Colon cases, Reddick seemed to grow increasingly impatient with lawyers for the city and the state’s attorney’s office, and in November ordered a sweeping release of thousands of police records in the case.
Colon’s lawyer, Paul Vickrey, had asked the judge months earlier to sanction prosecutors for withholding information, a motion that was rendered moot when the charges were dropped.
“There was a shocking amount of hidden and destroyed evidence in this case,” Vickrey said in a statement. “But while we are gratified for Edgardo, our hearts go out to the family of Clifton Lewis. A rush to charge and convict was the worst way to honor the short life of a dedicated officer.”
