Lawyers for two former Cook County assistant state’s attorneys on Tuesday attacked the credibility of special prosecutors who handled Jackie Wilson’s third trial, launching into contentious exchanges about whether the prosecutors did their due diligence.
The ex-assistant state’s attorneys are standing trial accused of wrongdoing in connection with the 2020 trial for Wilson, whose wrongful conviction case helped expose long-standing practices of torture by notorious ex-Chicago police Cmdr. Jon Burge and detectives working under him.
Nicholas Trutenko, 68, is charged with perjury, official misconduct, obstruction of justice and violating a local records act in relation to his testimony at Wilson’s trial that year. Andrew Horvat, 48, represented Trutenko in that proceeding and is accused of official misconduct.
The trial entered its second day Tuesday at the Rolling Meadows branch court in northwest suburban Cook County, with Wilson’s special prosecutors Lawrence Rosen and Myles O’Rourke taking the stand for hours. Rosen and O’Rourke dropped charges against Wilson after learning about Trutenko’s longtime friendship and recent contact with a witness they had been unable to locate.
Daniel Shanes, a Lake County judge hearing the case due to conflicts with Cook County judges, appeared at times to grow exasperated with the tenor of the proceedings, at one point calling a break during a heated exchange.
“This is a courtroom, not a debate stage, not a press conference, not a barroom,” he said.
The case centers around testimony Trutenko gave as a defense witness in Wilson’s third trial in 2020, where he disclosed he had developed a close friendship with a key witness against Wilson in his second trial in 1989. The witness, William Coleman, was alleged to be an international con man, and had named Trutenko as godfather to his child.
Rosen testified that because his team was unable to locate Coleman and believed him dead, transcripts of his previous testimony against Wilson were read into the record at the trial.
But Rosen told the court that he was stunned to hear Trutenko divulge the friendship, as well as recent contact between the two men. Rosen said he spoke to Trutenko before he testified, and made note of the fact that Coleman’s testimony would be read into the record because he couldn’t be located. Rosen alleged that Trutenko untruthfully testified that Coleman did not come up in prior conversations with Rosen.
O’Rourke testified after Rosen, and described viewing his co-counsel’s reaction to Trutenko’s testimony about his relationship with Coleman.
“He was red. He’s kind of shaking,” O’Rourke said, adding, in response to further questions, “I’d never seen him look like that before.”
Rosen said more than once: “He’s lying,” O’Rourke testified.
During cross examinations of both special prosecutors, though, defense attorneys questioned whether they dropped the ball when searching for Coleman and other witnesses and asked why they did not press for discovery from Wilson’s defense attorneys nor question Trutenko on the stand to correct what attorneys have argued was his misunderstanding of the question.
“Sir, when you found out Mr. Coleman was alive, it exposed your failure to locate him, correct?” asked Jim McKay, who represents Trutenko.
“If there was a failure here, it was your client not telling us he was alive,” Rosen shot back.
McKay also suggested during questioning that Rosen has been inconsistent in his accounts of what happened leading up to and during the 2020 trial. He furnished a report prepared by the special prosecution team handling the case against Trutenko and Horvat that said Rosen traveled to the United Kingdom in an attempt to locate Coleman. Rosen countered that he didn’t claim to have traveled there.
“Perhaps a mistake was made by a lawyer in reporting something,” McKay said.
Before withdrawing the question, McKay asked Rosen: “Do you think the state of Illinois got their money’s worth for the work you and O’Rourke did on this case?”
Brian Sexton, who also represents Trutenko, asked O’Rourke if he asked any follow-up questions “to straighten up the testimony” to which O’Rourke replied he did not.
“Did you ever consider the possibility that Nick may have misunderstood the question?” Sexton said.
The trial began Monday with opening statements from attorneys and several hours of testimony from Rosen. The case will break for several weeks until resuming next month.
Special prosecutors handling the case in lieu of the Cook County state’s attorney’s office alleged that Trutenko hid his 30-year friendship with Coleman and then lied on the stand during Wilson’s 2020 trial when defense attorneys asked if he discussed Coleman in prep sessions with special prosecutors.
They further accused Horvat, who was an assistant state’s attorney with the office’s civil actions bureau and represented Trutenko in those proceedings, of failing to take “obligatory and rudimentary steps to avert continued concealment of information about Trutenko and Coleman.”
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“Most disturbing is when public officials who are sworn to be guardians of people as well as processes … fail in their obligations and operate above the law,” special prosecutor Lawrence Oliver II said during his opening statements on Monday.
Jackie Wilson’s case has taken many twists and turns over its more than 40-year span, beginning with the fatal shootings of William Fahey and Richard O’Brien, who were shot by Wilson’s brother Andrew during a traffic stop. The patrol officers had just attended the funeral of a slain Chicago police officer that morning.
Jackie Wilson, then 21, was behind the wheel of the car and was accused of being the getaway driver. He has said he did not know his brother would shoot the officers. In 1989, at Jackie Wilson’s second trial, Coleman, the British con man with a long criminal history testified that Wilson had admitted his role in the crime while they were locked up together in the county jail.
A judge later determined Wilson’s attorneys were not fully informed about a deal given to Coleman in exchange for his testimony. The same judge also ruled that Jackie Wilson’s confession had resulted from torture and vacated his conviction.
Special prosecutors were attempting to try Wilson for a third time when they dropped charges after hearing Trutenko’s testimony.
mabuckley@chicagotribune.com
cmgutowski@chicagotribune.com
