15 Black Men Cleared Of All Charges After Crooked Cop Planted Drugs On Them And Tried To Extort Them For Money

blogged by @baetoven_

In the largest mass exoneration in Chicago history, a Cook County judge tossed out felony drug convictions of 15 black men who all say they were framed for bogus charges after refusing to pay #Chicago police officer Ronald Watts. The men said that after they refused, they were handcuffed and had drugs placed in their pockets. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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“Watts always told me, ‘If you’re not going to pay me, I’m going to get you.’ And every time I ran into him, he put drugs on me. I went to prison and did 24 months for Watts, and I came back home and he put another case on me,” said Leonard Gipson, 36, who had two convictions thrown out. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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According to #TIME, the men’s sentences ranged from probation to close to a decade in prison. Some of the men who pled guilty to their charges said they only did so in an effort to serve a shorter sentence than what the drug charges might have produced. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Despite multiple complaints and statements against Watts, no action was ever taken against him. Finally, in 2013, Watts pleaded guilty to stealing money from an FBI informant. However, his sentence was just 22 months, shorter than the sentences of some of the men he framed. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Before Thursday’s hearing, 13 of the 15 men had already been released, but two others are still incarcerated on unrelated charges.
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Joshua Tepfer, a defense attorney with the University of Chicago’s Exoneration Project, said the organization is examining up to two-dozen more cases, but there are as many as 500 cases that need to be reviewed. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Following their release, the former inmates are likely to sue the city and the police department. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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In a little more than a decade, Chicago has paid over a half billion dollars to settle police misconduct cases.