15 Chicago men exonerated due to police misconduct

The drug convictions of 15 Chicago area men have been overturned after the men claimed they were framed years earlier by police sergeant Ronald Watts. He has since been sentenced to prison for a related crime.

The dismissal of charges against the men, who had a total of 18 convictions between them, is thought to be the first mass exoneration in Cook County.

“In these cases, we concluded, unfortunately, the police were not being truthful, and we couldn’t have confidence in the integrity of their reports and their testimony, and so, in good conscience, we could not see these convictions stand,” Mark Rotert of the Cook County Conviction Integrity Unit said in a press conference.

Seven other police officers have been put on desk duty while their actions undergo an internal review of even more incidents. Each of the men worked under Ronald Watts.

The framed men have claimed they were set up by Watts and his team when the cops planted drugs on them during arrests ranging between 2003 and 2008. Police reports were falsified as well which led to their convictions.

A Cook County judge has approved the prosecutor’s decision to drop all charges. Unfortunately, the men have already served their sentences for the crimes in question.

Leonard Gipson says that he was framed not once, but twice by Watts.

“If you’re not gonna pay Watts, you were going to jail,” Gipson said. “I went to jail and did 2 years and 24 months for Watts. I came home, and he put another case on me.”

According to Gipson’s lawyer, Joshua Tepfer of the Exoneration Project, the cops took money from and charged dozens of people for crimes they did not commit.

“They were skimming off people, and anyone who would get in their way, they would frame them,” he informed CNN. “And anyone who tried to report them, they would frame them.”

Both Watts and former police officer Kallatt Mohammed pleaded guilty in federal court in 2013 and 2012 respectively. They were convicted of stealing money from a drug suspect who was actually an FBI informant. Watts was sentenced to 22 months in prison and Mohammed 18 months.