Cops knew Robinson was physically incapable of committing the crime, but coerced a witness who later recanted under oath.
CHICAGO – Attorneys for Anthony Robinson, 32, have filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Chicago and more than a dozen officers of the Chicago Police Department, seeking damages and relief for Mr. Robinson’s wrongful arrest and the more than a decade he spent in prison.
On New Year’s Day, 2013, an unknown assailant fired several shots at Kelvin Jemison and another man in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago, killing Jemison. Witnesses testified, and surveillance footage confirmed, that the shooter was a short-haired man who chased the two men down the sidewalk and then sprinted away after the murder.
At the time of the shooting, Anthony Robinson had shoulder-length dreadlocks, and a leg that had been severely fractured in several places from another shooting just three months earlier. Still recovering from multiple surgeries, with pins in his leg, Mr. Robinson was unable even to stand without crutches—let alone sprint. At the time of the murder, he was playing video games with several family members at his aunt’s house.
“I told the police I could not have done this when they arrested me,” Mr. Robinson says. “They could see my leg, see me limping badly, and had to know I didn’t do it.”
Instead, the investigating detectives named as defendants in the lawsuit—who knew all about Mr. Robinson’s injuries—nevertheless set out to fabricate a case against him. They coerced an identification from the surviving witness—a juvenile with an outstanding warrant—despite his insistence that he could not identify the shooter. The suit also alleges that detectives further falsified their reports, and withheld or destroyed exculpatory evidence that would have disproved their attempt to frame Mr. Robinson.
At trial, the victim’s coerced identification was the sole evidence against Mr. Robinson, who was convicted despite his alibi, despite his broken leg, and despite the fact that the victim—testifying under oath—recanted his own identification of Mr. Robinson. Just 20 years old, Mr. Robinson was sentenced to 55 years in prison.
Mr. Robinson never stopped insisting on his innocence and fighting for his freedom. In 2023, his attorneys submitted new evidence to support his longstanding claim of innocence, including detailed proof of the debilitating leg injuries that—according to testimony from medical experts—would have made it “impossible” for him to have committed the crime. The court vacated the conviction, and in April 2024 the State dismissed all charges against Mr. Robinson—more than 11 years after he had been wrongfully incarcerated.
This week, attorneys from civil rights law firm Loevy + Loevy filed a federal lawsuit on Mr. Robinson’s behalf, asking a jury to award damages from multiple violations of Mr. Robinson’s rights by the Chicago P.D., including malicious prosecution, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and conspiracy. In addition to eleven Chicago P.D. employees, the suit names the City of Chicago as a defendant, for policies, practices, and a longstanding pattern of tolerating police misconduct that contributed to Mr. Robinson’s suffering.
Mr. Robinson is represented by attorneys Jon Loevy, Arthur Loevy, and Katie Montenegro of Loevy + Loevy. Just last month, Loevy + Loevy helped secure a record $50 million verdict for a similarly exonerated Chicago man named Marcel Brown.
“This lawsuit is about getting justice for Anthony Robinson,” says attorney Jon Loevy, who represents Mr. Robinson. “But it is also about holding the City of Chicago accountable for a culture where closing cases is more important than the truth, more important than a person’s civil rights, and more important than justice. What happened to Mr. Robinson should never happen to anyone, but somehow it happens far too often here in Chicago.”
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Contact: Michael McDunnah, Director of Communications, 312.371.5871, or mcdunnah@loevy.com.
A copy of the complaint can be found here.
Loevy & Loevy is one of the nation’s largest civil rights law firms, and over the past decade has won more multi-million-dollar jury verdicts than any other civil rights law firm in the country.