Foxx: Prosecutors’ ‘silence’ on murder exonerations doesn’t mean ‘innocent’

By Jonathan Bilyk | :era; Newsline
The Center Square

Attorneys for one of two Mexican men who claim they were illegally coerced into confessing to helping murder a Chicago couple to help a woman kidnap their children are asking a court to keep jurors from seeing sworn testimony from former Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx which could be used to show the men’s claims of “innocence” may not hold up.

In that deposition, Foxx appeared to admit she and her office allowed the men and potentially others convicted of “heinous” crimes to secure court orders declaring their “innocence” and tee up lawsuits against the city of Chicago for potential jackpot paydays, even though she and her team of prosecutors may have still believed they were guilty.

A trial is scheduled to begin May 11 in Chicago federal court to determine if the city of Chicago should pay Arturo DeLeon-Reyes over claims he and another man, Gabriel Solache, were coerced by former Chicago Police Detective Reynaldo Guevara into confessing to killing Mariano and Jacinta Soto in 1998.

Solache and Reyes were convicted and sentenced to prison, after they both confessed to assisting in stabbing the Sotos to death in their home in Chicago. Prosecutors said the men allegedly helped kill the Sotos to help abduct their two children on behalf of Adriana Mejia, so Mejia could allegedly fulfill her dream of becoming a mother.

Both men recanted their confessions and accused Chicago police officers of coercing them.

Reyes and Solache were eventually exonerated and freed when Foxx declined in 2017 to pursue new trials against either man. They were later presented with so-called “certificates of innocence” more than five years later by Cook County judges.

The men swiftly filed lawsuits against the city and the police officers involved.

According to court documents, the city and Solache appear to have reached a settlement. The terms of the settlement and the size of the potential payout have not yet been disclosed in court. However, court documents have indicated the settlement will require approval by the Chicago City Council, meaning it is at least more than $100,000, per city policy.

However, the city continues to actively dispute the case brought by DeLeon-Reyes and is expected, at least as of May 6, to continue to defend itself and its former officers at trial. Court documents have indicated U.S. District Judge Steven Seeger is encouraging the parties to also seek a settlement in this case and avoid trial.

However, in the days leading up to the expected trial, attorneys for both sides continue to spar in court over what evidence and testimony jurors should be allowed to see and hear at trial.

Among those potentially key pieces of evidence is a deposition given April 16 by Foxx in a different case.

The deposition transcript includes more than 200 pages of testimony and indicates the under oath question-and-answer session lasted more than four hours.

That deposition was ordered by a federal magistrate judge in the lawsuits filed against Guevara and the city by Madeline Mendoza and Marilyn Mulero. The two women are seeking potentially millions of dollars from the city over their alleged wrongful convictions in the murders of alleged rival gang members Hector Reyes and Jimmy Cruz in Humboldt Park in 1993.

Prosecutors and police claimed Mulero, then 21 years old, and Mendoza, then 16, worked with 15-year-old Jacqueline Montanez to shoot the alleged rival gang members to death, allegedly in retaliation for an earlier gang murder.

Mulero and Mendoza, however, claimed Montanez alone killed the two men. According to published reports and court documents, Montanez allegedly confessed to her lone involvement in the murders.

Mulero and Mendoza eventually pleaded guilty, however, resulting in a 35-year prison sentence for Mendoza and an initial death sentence for Mulero.

Mendoza was released from prison in 2009.

Mulero served 28 years in prison. Her sentence was ultimately commuted by Gov. JB Pritzker in 2020.

Both women filed suit in 2023, represented by attorneys known for suing the city of Chicago and other governments on behalf of convicted criminals who later claimed they were framed or otherwise the victims of wrongful prosecutions.

Mendoza and Mulero were aided in their lawsuits by Cook County judges’ decisions to award them so-called “certificates of innocence.” Those certificates, however, were only granted after Foxx’s office conspicuously chose not to object to the women’s petitions.

Generally, such certificates of innocence can only be obtained when someone who has been convicted of a crime persuades a judge that they are actually innocent — a legal standard upheld by the Illinois Supreme Court as recently as October 2025.

Typically, such process is adversarial, as prosecutors routinely argue against granting such proclamations to people against whom their offices had earlier secured convictions.

In the cases of both Mulero and Mendoza, however, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, then under Kim Foxx, told the judge they would not object to the women’s innocence petitions.

That decision came at the same time Foxx’s office abruptly reversed course on opposing certificate of innocence petitions, particularly from anyone convicted in cases in which Guevara participated.

Guevara has stood at the center of scores of cases accusing him of wrongful convictions, alleging he improperly coerced confessions and framed those later convicted of crimes, including murder.

To date, cases involving misconduct accusations against Guevara have resulted in payments totaling more than $112 million from the city. There are still dozens of lawsuits pending involving misconduct accusations against Guevara, including the cases lodged by Mendoza, Mulero, Solache and DeLeon-Reyes.

In DeLeon-Reyes’ lawsuit, attorneys for DeLeon-Reyes and the city and police officers continue to argue over whether Foxx’s deposition and other evidence can be presented at trial.

Much of the debate has centered around determining precisely how DeLeon-Reyes and Solache obtained their certificates of innocence.

Attorneys for Guevara and the city have warned attorneys for DeLeon-Reyes against attempting to tell jurors that the certificate of innocence somehow proves DeLeon-Reyes was wrongfully prosecuted and imprisoned. Should DeLeon-Reyes’ team introduce such a claim, the city and Guevara’s team say they will assail that claim by entering evidence showing the certificate should never have been granted at all.

And at the center of that dispute could stand Foxx’s deposition testimony.

Why did prosecutors not intervene?

In that deposition, Foxx admitted under oath that she continues to believe Solache and DeLeon-Reyes may be guilty of the murders they were convicted of.

Further, in the deposition, Foxx admits the decision in 2022 and 2023 to not oppose the certificate of innocence petitions from a number of people convicted of murder and other crimes in cases investigated by Guevara and his partners came after high-level meetings with representatives from the Exoneration Project, a Chicago group tied to lawyers who have secured millions of dollars in payouts from the city on behalf of people who claim they were wrongfully convicted.

While officially a non-profit organization associated with the University of Chicago School of Law, the Exoneration Project is led by lawyers from the Chicago firm of Loevy & Loevy, who are regularly and prominently involved in suing the city of Chicago over alleged wrongful convictions.

The Loevy firm is representing DeLeon-Reyes in his lawsuit.

Eight attorneys from the Loevy firm serve as staff members at the Exoneration Project, including Exoneration’s executive director, Josh Tepfer.

In the deposition, Foxx admits to, at least, meeting with Tepfer and another Loevy attorney in 2022 and continuing to talk with Tepfer, at least by email, in 2023. In the deposition, Foxx admits to discussing a “universe” of dozens of cases, tied to Guevara, in which Tepfer and his associates were seeking certificates of innocence.

In the deposition, Foxx admitted to also feeling pressure from unspecified others to essentially drop all opposition to certificate of innocence petitions and other postconviction matters involving people convicted of murder and other crimes in cases involving Guevara.

In the deposition, Foxx asserts she never directed her office to simply step aside in such cases, asserting she believed that to do so would violate ethics rules and potentially the prosecutors’ oath. Rather, she claimed in her testimony that she directed deputies to fully investigate all certificate of innocence cases to determine which to oppose or not.

“I was under the impression that the dedicated prosecutors who had been working on these cases did what they had been instructed to do and have done over the course of their careers when making the recommendation to me that we no longer object to these cases,” Foxx said in the deposition.

In the deposition, attorneys for the city and Guevara, however, noted that testimony contradicts earlier testimony from a deputy prosecutor who had handled the Mulero certificate of innocence petition case. In that testimony, the deputy said she believed she had been instructed by Foxx and other superiors in the office to drop all opposition to certificate of innocence petitions in cases involving Guevara.

And the deputy testified the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office had conducted no investigation of any kind into Mulero’s case before telling a Cook County judge that the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office would not oppose the petition.

Under rules set for the deposition by a judge, attorneys for the city and Guevara did not ask Foxx about the process by which the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office had determined whether to oppose certificate of innocence petitions for DeLeon-Reyes, Solache, or any other people who had been convicted of murder or other crimes.

However, in the deposition, the attorneys for the city and Guevara noted that in an email sent by Tepfer to Foxx, Tepfer directly thanked Foxx for agreeing in 2022 to no longer contest any innocence certificate petitions in cases involving accusations against Guevara, including Mulero’s and potentially including the cases of Mendoza, DeLeon-Reyes and Solache.

According to the deposition, Tepfer was representing Mulero at the time he met with Foxx about her case.

Foxx disputed she had agreed to such a blanket policy and rather asserted she had directed her deputies to take a closer look at some of the cases Tepfer had presented.

However, Foxx confirmed she did not seek to correct Tepfer’s statements or apparent understanding of the results of their meeting and later conversation.

And in the weeks and months following the meetings and conversations with Tepfer and others involved with The Exoneration Project, Foxx’s office dropped its opposition to certificate of innocence petitions and exoneration attempts in cases involving Guevara.

According to court records, Solache was awarded a certificate of innocence in 2022, while DeLeon-Reyes got his in 2023.

However, in her deposition, Foxx stated clearly that her office’s decision on whether or not to oppose an exoneration motion or certificate of innocence petition has no bearing on whether she or her deputy prosecutors believed the evidence showed that person was guilty of a murder or other crime.

“To be clear, just because we were not intervening, sometimes it was what is our — how are we going to meet our burden. How are we going to be able to prove this. Are we going to be able to rebut any presumptions that are a part of that,” Foxx said in her deposition.

“So sometimes it is not about actual — it’s like can we make our case. If we can’t make our case, it doesn’t mean that we are saying this person isn’t actually innocent. You are weighing a number of factors. So a nonintervention does not mean that we are saying that someone is actually innocent.

“… Our silence does not mean actual innocence,” Foxx said.

Judge Seeger has not yet ruled on how the court will handle Foxx’s deposition testimony in the DeLeon-Reyes scheduled trial.

The city, Guevara and other defendants are represented by attorney Timothy P. Scahill and others with the firms of Borkan & Scahill; The Sotos Law Firm; and Rock Fusco & Connelly, all of Chicago.

DeLeon-Reyes is represented by attorneys Steve Art, Jon Loevy, Anand Swaminathan, Sean Starr and Rachel Brady, of the Loevy & Loevy firm, of Chicago.

Foxx’s deposition was first brought to light in a report published by CWBChicago on May 5. The Record obtained its own copy of the transcript from federal court records and reviewed the document for this report.

In 2024, Foxx was replaced as Cook County State’s Attorney by former judge Eileen O’Neill Burke. The new state’s attorney has reversed Foxx’s practices concerning certificates of innocence and returned to opposing them. According to a report published by Injustice Watch, Foxx had formerly opposed only 25% of all certificate of innocence petitions. Under O’Neill Burke, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office has opposed 80% of such petitions.