CHICAGO (CN) - Exonerated after 19 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit, a man claims in court that Chicago Heights' "infamously corrupt" police bribed witnesses to frame him, to protect their guilty snitch.
Rodell Sanders sued Chicago Heights, its police Officers Jeffrey Bohlen, Sam Mangialardi, Robert Pinnow, Charles Nardoni, Anthony Murphy and Joseph Rubestelli, FBI Agent Maureen Teed, and other employees of Chicago Heights.
In 1993, a group of men found Stacy Armstrong and Phillip Atkins sleeping in a parked car, and took them to an abandoned garage, which was "so dark that the offenders used a lighter to carry out the robbery and shooting that followed.
"Mr. Atkins was killed, while Armstrong was shot multiple times and left for dead," according to the complaint.
Sanders was arrested and charged, though he claims he was "nowhere nearby. Rather, Mr. Sanders was at his friend Vicky Ross's apartment. According to Ms. Ross and many others, Mr. Sanders was playing cards and hanging out with them at all relevant times on the night of December 14, 1993. The alibi witnesses recall that Mr. Sanders stayed at the apartment into the early morning hours of the following day."
The complaint adds: "There was no physical evidence linking Sanders to the crime. Rather, the only purported evidence against Mr. Sanders were two purchased and patently false witness identifications. These wrongful misidentifications were procured through manipulation and bribes by members of the City of Chicago Heights's infamously corrupt police department."
When police interviewed Armstrong, she named Germaine Haslett as the man who ordered the shooting, Sanders says. He says Haslett was working for the police as a "snitch" in another prosecution.
"Because the defendants were focused on protecting Mr. Haslett, the defendants withheld Ms. Armstrong's identification of Mr. Haslett by name," the complaint states. "Accordingly, the defendants never memorialized in any police report or otherwise communicated to Mr. Sanders that Ms. Armstrong initially identified Mr. Haslett by name.
"Thereafter, the defendants sought to minimize Mr. Haslett's complicity in the crime by finding someone else to take his place as Offender Number Three, namely Mr. Sanders.
"At the time of the shooting, Mr. Sanders stood five feet eight inches tall, weighed close to 200 pounds, and was 30 years old. He did not match the description of Offender Number Three (a tall skinny guy) or that of the shooter (a sixteen year-old teenager). Nor did Mr. Sanders have anything whatsoever to do with this crime.
"Because Mr. Sanders did not match Ms. Armstrong's description, the Defendants had to manipulate Ms. Armstrong into changing her identification of Offender Number Three from Mr. Haslett to Mr. Sanders.
"To accomplish the task of having Ms. Armstrong misidentify Mr. Sanders and not Mr. Haslett, the defendants concocted a flawed photographic line-up designed to improperly implicate Mr. Sanders. To begin, although Ms. Armstrong had described Offender Number Three as tall and skinny, the defendants inserted the short and stocky plaintiff into the photo line-up shown to Ms. Armstrong. Furthermore, the defendants inexplicably did not include tall and skinny Germaine Haslett's photograph in the photo line-up, despite Ms. Armstrong having previously identified Haslett."
In fact, Sanders claims, Haslett repeatedly confessed to ordering the murder: "Unlike Mr. Sanders, Mr. Haslett confessed his involvement as Offender Number Three to the defendants. Indeed, since the morning of the shooting, Mr. Haslett has repeatedly confessed to having ordered the shooting of Mr. Atkins and Ms. Armstrong to family and friends.
