Over 100 Have Cases Tied To Disgraced Former CPD Sgt. Ronald Watts Vacated

This is a systemic of police corruption and outright criminal conduct that should be prosecuted with vigor. However, despite years of evidence and complaints that these 15 cops were outright criminals with badges, absolutely nothing was done about it. They continued to fabricate evidence sending hundreds of citizens to prison for crimes they did not commit.
Rather than fix these criminals police chiefs two years ago banded together to declare they have no confidence in state attorney Kim Fox for being soft on crime.
The real reason they hated Ms. Fox and wanted her gone however had nothing to do with her not prosecuting criminals but her not acquiescing to their blatant abuse of the process by criminalizing people with felonies on bogus felony charges for assaulting police officers.
Undeterred, Kim Fox has been working to root out these criminals that the so-called chiefs, all-white, kept in place to terrorize and criminalize poor, innocent people living in housing projects in Chicago.
This has been a veritable cesspool of corruption resulting in hundreds of innocent people being sent to jail for crimes they did not commit.
However, despite the rampant corruption, all we see is one black criminal who desecrated his badge.

Cook County state’s attorney said dozens were involved in 134 cases.

More than 100 peo­ple have had their cas­es tied to dis­graced for­mer Chicago police Sgt. Ronald Watts vacat­ed, as of Tuesday morning.
Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx is usu­al­ly pros­e­cut­ing sus­pects for crimes, but Tuesday, it was the oppo­site. Foxx vacat­ed the con­vic­tions of 19 men and women who were wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed, accord­ing to her office.Last year, 88 peo­ple filed a peti­tion say­ing they were framed by Watts and his tac­ti­cal team. Most of them were res­i­dents of the for­mer Ida B Wells hous­ing com­plex and served time in prison.
“This is a sor­row­ful moment know­ing these indi­vid­u­als will nev­er get that time back in their lives. Their fam­i­lies will nev­er get that time back,” Foxx said.
Watts was con­vict­ed in 2012 and sen­tenced to almost two years in prison. Watts and one mem­ber of that team went to prison for cor­rup­tion, but many of the oth­er team mem­bers remain on the force.

Many of those he framed for drug and weapons crimes served time in the ear­ly 2000s.
“Watts and his crew sav­aged a com­mu­ni­ty. Brown and Black men and women, a whole gen­er­a­tion of them. And the city let it hap­pen,” said Sean Starr with the Exoneration Project. The Exoneration Project has worked with the state’s attor­ney’s office to deter­mine which con­vic­tions to vacate. Most have the sig­na­ture of Watts on the police report. “Sergeant Watts believed the peo­ple who lived there had less­er val­ue and would­n’t be believed,” Foxx said.
Foxx gave an update after the hear­ing, say­ing over 100 peo­ple involved in 134 cas­es had those vacat­ed, and more hear­ings are expect­ed next Tuesday and Feb. 16. Foxx said 30 addi­tion­al cas­es will be heard.
“The peo­ple whose names were read today are vic­tims, vic­tims of a failed sys­tem, and noth­ing will ever be able to give them back their time away from their fam­i­lies or their missed oppor­tu­ni­ties in life, but we have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to act,” Foxx said. “The num­ber of claims against this one Sergeant is an exam­ple of why as pros­e­cu­tors, we approach every case with an eye toward the facts, the evi­dence, and the law for both the cas­es we’re cur­rent­ly work­ing on as well as those from the past. I’m grate­ful for the attor­neys in this office who con­tin­ue to seek jus­tice, restore trust, and address the his­toric inequities of Cook County’s crim­i­nal jus­tice system.”

“Having a con­vic­tion off your record makes a dif­fer­ence in employ­ment, hous­ing, and hav­ing an over­all feel­ing of jus­tice,” said Joel Flaxman, an attor­ney for one of the false­ly con­vict­ed. “It’s extra­or­di­nar­i­ly mean­ing­ful for them,” said Josh Tepfer with the Exoneration Project. On Tuesday, 19 had their cas­es dis­missed, and anoth­er five drug con­vic­tions tied to Watts were vacat­ed at a hear­ing in November.
“I feel like I won the lot­tery,” exoneree Darnell Harris told ABC7 by phone at the time.
The state’s attor­ney’s office plans to vacate the con­vic­tions of 60 more false­ly con­vict­ed next month. In the mean­time, the attor­neys said they’d like to see the offi­cers charged.