“I am mad,” says Mr. Romero, who spent more than 22 years wrongly imprisoned for murder, after he says detectives manipulated an 11-year-old witness into identifying him as the shooter.
CHICAGO — Today, attorneys for Francisco Romero, 43, filed a federal lawsuit on his behalf against the City of Chicago and thirteen officers of the Chicago Police Department, alleging that they knowingly framed Mr. Romero for a crime he had nothing to do with. Mr. Romero spent more twenty-two years in prison before being exonerated in 2024.
“When people get out of prison, they always say they are not mad,” says Mr. Romero. “Well, I am mad. The system needs to change. Filing this suit is how I can hold these detectives accountable.”
Mr. Romero was only 18 when he was arrested for the 2001 shooting death of a 12-year-old boy in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood. Mr. Romero had nothing to do with the shooting, and no physical evidence ever tied him to the crime. He did not match the description given by witnesses, who all agreed the shooter had a teardrop tattoo under his right eye. This was critical information, because it was a clear indication that the shooter was associated with the Latin Souls street gang, which had been in an ongoing, violent dispute with a gang from that area. Mr. Romero was not associated with the Latin Souls, or the other gang from the area, and he did not have a tattoo under his right eye.
Instead, Mr. Romero was associated with the Latin Saints street gang, and his lawsuit alleges that the detectives assigned to the case were under tremendous pressure to arrest someone associated with that gang. For months CPD had been running an operation they called “Operation Stickman,” using an informant inside the Latin Saints. Funding for “Operation Stickman” was reliant on obtaining convictions, but this informant—who had agreed to work with police after being busted on kidnapping and drug charges—had proven notoriously unreliable, and his information had not resulted in a single murder charge. The CPD stood to lose the funding for Operation Stickman if they couldn’t start charging Latin Saints
According to the complaint, the informant falsely named Mr. Romero as the shooter, and police set about to manufacture a case. They fabricated a series of photo arrays and line-ups by manipulating one of the young witnesses, an 11-year-old boy, into falsely identifying Mr. Romero.
Through these and other tactics, the complaint alleges, detectives fabricated evidence for a phony case against Mr. Romero, and he was charged with murder. He was convicted and sentenced to 65 years in prison.
Mr. Romero never stopped fighting to prove his innocence. In 2021, he filed a petition for post-conviction relief, based on new exculpatory evidence his lawyers had unearthed, including evidence related to Operation Stickman. All charges were dismissed on June 26, 2024.
“Francisco lost half his life due to deliberate police misconduct, and nothing can pay him back for that,” says attorney Brian Morris of the civil rights law firm of Loevy + Loevy, who represents Mr. Romero. “But he deserves justice for what was done to him by these detectives, and the people of Chicago deserve answers and accountability from their police force.”
“Francisco endured the horrific injustice of a wrongful conviction as a teenager, compounded by 22 years of deplorable conditions within the IDOC,” says attorney Jennifer Blagg, who also represents Mr. Romero. “Despite this, he continued to fight relentlessly for justice for himself and others.”
Today’s lawsuit charges the CPD and the individual detectives with 13 counts of violating Mr. Romero’s rights under the U.S. constitution and state law, including malicious prosecution, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and conspiracy. It names as defendants Allen Szudarski, John Henry, Thomas Cepeda, Daniel McNally, George Holmes, William Gehrke, Robert Trlak, William Svilar, Steven Konow, Craig Coughlin, Daniel Brannigan, Michael McDermott, and Kenneth Boudreau of the Chicago Police Department, and the City of Chicago.
Mr. Romero is represented by Jon Loevy, Steve Art, Anand Swaminathan, Brian Morris, and Jordan Poole of Loevy + Loevy, as well as Jennifer Blagg and Eric Bisby of Blagg Law. In the past year alone, Loevy + Loevy has secured jury verdicts for four different wrongfully convicted individuals totaling between $30–60 million each.
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For a copy of the complaint in this case, click here.
