Updates to our Terms of Use

We are updating our Terms of Use. Please carefully review the updated Terms before proceeding to our website.

Friday, March 29, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Chicago Cops Just Make Stuff Up, 2 Say

CHICAGO (CN) - Chicago police framed innocent people, sending one man to prison for 13 years, two men claim in separate complaints in Cook County Court.

Marlon Pendleton sued Chicago and its police Dets. Jack Stewart and Steven Barnes in Cook County Court, claiming they framed him for sexual assault and armed robbery, for which he was wrongly convicted and served 13 years in prison.

In October 1992, a woman, A.H., was raped and robbed at gunpoint on her way to work. Police thought the crime was committed by a serial rapist.

After viewing a composite sketch based on other victims' descriptions, A.H. "concluded that the composite sketch depicted the same man who had raped her," Pendleton says in his complaint.

Pendleton bore a resemblance to the composite sketch, and the officers brought him to the station to participate in a line-up. But "prior to the lineup, police detectives escorted plaintiff, with his hands cuffed in front of him, past a room in which A.H. was waiting to view the lineup. Plaintiff was clearly visible to A.H., who incorrectly concluded that plaintiff was her attacker and became highly agitated," according to the complaint.

Pendleton claims that "exposing A.H. to plaintiff prior to the lineup completely destroyed the legitimacy of any identification that A.H. might thereafter make after viewing plaintiff in a lineup."

Years after he was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison, DNA testing confirmed that Pendleton did not rape A.H. He was released in November 2006.

Pendleton seeks punitive damages for malicious prosecution, conspiracy and emotional distress.

He is represented by Locke Bowman with the MacArthur Justice Center at Northwestern University School of Law.

In a separate complaint, Dallas Green sued Chicago and its police Officers Cory Junious, Enyinnaya Nwagwu, Steven Archer, and Ryan Winfrey.

In 2010, Green says, as he walked into a Citgo gas station late at night, four Chicago police officers arrived and "unreasonably assume(ed) that narcotic trafficking was occurring."

When he bent down to pick something off the ground, "Nwagwu, suddenly and without warning, pointed his gun and fired one (1) round of gunshots at plaintiff Green, without cause or justification," the complaint states.

Green says he fled, and "defendant Officer Junious fired multiple gunshots at plaintiff Green, in close range, violently striking him three (3) times in the chest and hand."

But when the Chicago Police Investigation Team investigated the scene of the shooting, they claims they found no gun casings, nor did they search the officers for the missing shells, Green says.

Green says he "was unarmed and did not have a weapon on his person when he was shot by Officer Junious," but fabricated evidence linking him to a weapon found nearby.

He says he was wrongly charged and convicted of assaulting an officer with a firearm.

Green seeks damages civil rights violations, conspiracy, malicious prosecution, and assault and battery.

He is represented by Nathaniel Lee with Lee & Fairman, of Indianapolis.

Categories / Uncategorized

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Loading...