Two ex-prosecutors charged for their alleged role in lying in the case of a man who wrongfully ended up spending more than three decades in prison are now on trial.
The former Cook County assistant state attorneys are in hot water after they were accused of misconduct in the case of Jackie Wilson. Nick Trutenko faces charges, including obstruction of justice and perjury, and his co-defendant Andrew Horvat was charged with official misconduct, ABC 7 reported.
Wilson was exonerated in 2020. He endured 36 years behind bars for killing two Chicago cops — a crime he reportedly did not commit, but his now-deceased brother did. Wilson and his brother, Andrew, were arrested in February 1982 concerning the deaths of officers William Fahey and Robert O’Brien. They died from gunshot wounds.
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When Lt. Jon Burge and his team interrogated the duo, they were tortured and ultimately forced into making false confessions after getting brutally beaten, according to a post from the National Registry of Exonerations. They were allegedly punched and kicked and received electric shocks. At one point, Andrew was burned after being tied to a radiator.
According to reports, Wilson’s first conviction was tossed out on an appeal. When he was retried in 1989, he was cleared of Fahey’s death but convicted for O’Brien’s. Wilson’s defense team heavily argued that Burge’s team pressured him to confess, resulting in his conviction being overturned again in 2018, as reported by The Associated Press.
“They beat me over the head with a dictionary, stuck a gun in my mouth. Then they did the electric shock,” Wilson recalled his experience at the time, per the outlet. “That came after this guy played Russian roulette with a gun in my mouth.”
Two years later, during Wilson’s third trial, it was revealed that Trutenko had a close relationship with a significant witness in his second trial.
Trutenko, the head prosecutor during the 1989 trial, admitted to being the godfather to one of the children of witness William Coleman, per Fox 32 Chicago. He is accused of not telling his colleagues about the connection, and special prosecutors decided to dismiss the charges.
Horvat reportedly was charged for his actions while he was representing Trutenko when he took the stand, according to reports.
“Literally, right before he took the stand, Andrew Horvat went to the Special Prosecutor Larry Rosen and said, ‘Do not ask Nick Trutenko about his relationship with William Coleman.’ He said there was nothing illegal or unethical, but it was just weird [and] that’s not true — it was both illegal and unethical,” special prosecutor Lawrence Oliver II told ABC 7 earlier this year.
Trutenko and Horvat’s trial began this week but will be stalled for a few weeks because of scheduling.
