FBI Documents Reveal “Systemic” Chicago Police Corruption

From: Exoneration Project at the University of Chicago Law School
Sgt. Ronald Watts and his crew were “facilitating the drug trade” and engaging in a “criminal enterprise” for “damn near a decade” – 2014 deposition of current Chicago Police Officer
Ben Baker paid the price, has been wrongly imprisoned for 10 years, after refusing bribe.

CHICAGO, IL – Newly released FBI documents show that the FBI, Chicago Police Internal Affairs and the Cook County States Attorney’s Office had a Chicago police sergeant and his “crew” under investigation for “systemic” corruption while prosecuting Ben Baker for heroin and cocaine delivery based on the testimony of the now-disgraced Sergeant.

The States Attorney’s Office, Police Department and FBI did not release their evidence of the corruption within the unit to Baker or his attorney. Baker remains in prison, where has spent the last decade for a crime he did not commit.

FBI documents said it was “common” for Sgt. Watts “to keep narcotics” with him “as leverage to extort people.” Sergeant Watts was convicted of extortion in 2013 and sentenced to 22 months in prison.

“Based on law enforcement’s own investigative materials and sworn statements, there is now overwhelming evidence that Ben Baker was framed by a corrupt team of Chicago police officers, just as he testified to 10 years ago,” said Joshua Tepfer, Baker’s attorney from The Exoneration Project.

Despite heavy redactions, FBI documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act prove that Baker’s allegations against a corrupt Chicago Police tactical team were corroborated by law enforcement investigative materials available at the time of his trial, but were hidden from his attorneys and the public. The documents make clear that the FBI, the Chicago Internal Affairs Division (IAD), and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office were engaged in an “ongoing joint investigation” into the Watts’ District Two tactical team from as far back as the late 1990s up and through the 2012 indictment of Sergeant Watts and Officer Kallatt Mohammed.

“Stated simply, this is a cover-up of epic proportions,” said Tepfer. “The single federal charge against Sergeant Ronald Watts and one member of his crew was a whitewash. Ben Baker was a victim. There are countless others. Some of them are identified in FBI documents that are included in our filing. This police corruption was allowed to continue for close to 15 years.” 

Caught on a federal informants wiretap, Sergeant Watts and Officer Kallatt Mohammed pled guilty several years ago to a single count of shaking down and bribing a drug courier at the Ida B. Wells housing project. Upon announcement of the charges, former Chicago police superintendent Garry McCarthy publicly stated “there is nobody involved other than the two officers who were arrested.” The court filing, however, paints a different picture.

Quoting sworn statements from whistleblowing Chicago police officers, federal prosecutors, FBI Special Agents, and many citizen victims, Baker alleges that disgraced Sergeant Watts headed a Second District Tactical Team whose “crew” engaged in nothing short of a decade-long criminal conspiracy of extorting drug dealers, stealing narcotics, and planting evidence and falsifying charges against those who wouldn’t cooperate. According to December 2014 sworn deposition testimony cited in the petition, one current Chicago police officer said Watts’ “criminal enterprise” went on for “damn near a decade.”

Baker—a resident of the Wells public housing complex Sergeant Watts and his crew patrolled—testified at his 2006 bench trial that Sergeant Watts and officers under his command planted drugs on him after Baker refused to pay Watts a $1,000 bribe. Noting that “there might have been a different story” if Baker’s claims were corroborated, Circuit Court Judge Michael Toomin found the claim incredible, and convicted Baker and sentenced him to 14 years in prison. Baker remains behind bars.

In a sworn affidavit, retired Chicago Police Officer Pete Koconis, who spent 18 years in IAD, confirmed that the scope of the FBI-led investigation was vast. Officer Koconis specifically identified not only Watts but the other officers who testified against Baker as focuses of the investigation. FBI documents show that citizen victims of the District Two tactical team were shown a photo lineup that consisted only of Chicago police officers in that unit.

Several of the officers working under Watts and alleged to be part of the corruption remain Chicago police officers today. This includes Officer Robert Gonzalez, who, according to a December 9, 2015 report from NBC 5’s Phil Rogers, was on the scene of three different police shootings of young black men over a two-year period—including both the October 2014 shooting of Ronald Johnson by Officer George Hernandez caught on video, as well as the summer 2013 fatal shooting of 17-year-old Christian Green.

Officer Gonzalez personally discharged 11 rounds in the Green shooting, including the fatal one. Paramedics originally reported that Green was shot in the chest, but the medical examiner later confirmed Green was killed by a bullet to his back.

In his 2006 testimony, Baker named and identified Officer Gonzalez as part of Watts’ crew and complicit in framing him. Gonzalez testified at Baker’s trial that he had been working under Watts’ supervision since approximately 2001 but denied any wrongdoing.

A time-line of Ben Baker’s case and the corruption within Watts’ Second District tactical team can be found here. More information about The Exoneration Project can be found here.