Speaker 1: On September eighth, nineteen eighty five, in Humble Park, Chicago,
Speaker 1: sixteen year old Bernaldo Munoz got into a fight outside
Speaker 1: a party round three am, and two of his friends,
Speaker 1: Ivan Mina and Bobby Garcia broke it up. About an
Speaker 1: hour later, Mena and Garcia were being rushed to the
Speaker 1: hospital with gunshot wounds, but only Garcia survived. Unfortunately, he
Speaker 1: could not describe the shooter. However, three weeks later, Disgrace
Speaker 1: Chicago detectives showed Bobby Garcia one photo from which he
Speaker 1: confidently identified someone whom he should have been able to
Speaker 1: describe the night of the shooting. This is wrongful Conviction.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to wrongfol Conviction, where we have another story
Speaker 1: about known corrupt detectives. We're talking about Rinaldo Gavara and
Speaker 1: Ernest Halverson at a time when Halverson had another partner
Speaker 1: and Gavara was still just an officer with the gang
Speaker 1: Crimes Unit. However, their corrupt patterns and practices were already
Speaker 1: present at this time. Today we are with another one
Speaker 1: of their survivors, Rinaldo Munos Ray. Thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 1: You're welcome, and to help tell this story, we have
Speaker 1: a returning champion of these survivors, Jennifer Bonjean, welcome back.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me so, Ray.
Speaker 1: Let's start with your life before all of this happened.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 3: I was born in Chicago. I have two older sisters
Speaker 3: and an older brother. I'm the youngest. My siblings were
Speaker 3: born in Puerto Rico. I was born in Chicago. I
Speaker 3: grew up basically middle My mom and dad worked very hard,
Speaker 3: sometimes two jobs to provide for us. My siblings were
Speaker 3: straight A students. My brother has his own business. My
Speaker 3: older sister she's a GC you know. My younger sister
Speaker 3: has a certified CPA. She runs her tax business. Even myself,
Speaker 3: I just strayed the wrong direction. I grew up in
Speaker 3: a humble park environment. Most of the neighborhoods there was
Speaker 3: gang infestation, and my mom and dad they tried to
Speaker 3: deter from that, so we had to move from neighborhood
Speaker 3: to neighborhood to try to find somewhere better to live.
Speaker 3: But everywhere you go in a humble park there's gangs,
Speaker 3: so you had to deal with it. And sometimes guys
Speaker 3: would pick on you and try to tell you what
Speaker 3: you'd be or this or that, and then if you're
Speaker 3: not on nothing. They didn't want to believe that. Sometimes
Speaker 3: you would get jumped. Sometimes your life was in danger
Speaker 3: because if you lived in one area and you were
Speaker 3: not hooked up, then somebody else that lived in another
Speaker 3: area they was hooked up. There was the opposition would say, oh,
Speaker 3: this guy, he lives in neighborhood, he's a this or that.
Speaker 2: If you lived on this block and it was a
Speaker 2: Latin King block, you were a Latin King.
Speaker 3: Whether you were in it or whether you were not
Speaker 3: in it, they didn't care. So it's like the innocent
Speaker 3: always ended up paying the price. So when we moved
Speaker 3: to where I got hooked up at, I got jumped
Speaker 3: a couple of times over there, I got chased. So
Speaker 3: then I started hanging out with the guys in the neighborhood,
Speaker 3: and then you know, I became hooked up with the
Speaker 3: gang that I was with, you know.
Speaker 1: And that gang was called the Insane Unknowns. Unfortunately, as
Speaker 1: we have seen through our coverage of other cases out
Speaker 1: of Humboldt Park in particular, the Chicago police saw gang
Speaker 1: affiliation very much the same way as the gangs did, so,
Speaker 1: regardless of anyone's actual involvement, if there was any involvement
Speaker 1: at all, anybody and everyone could be lumped into the
Speaker 1: gang that was active in their neighborhood. And at the
Speaker 1: time of the investigation of this crime was penned on Ray,
Speaker 1: there were already a number of incidents that police thought
Speaker 1: were also associated with this gang. The Insane Unknowns.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they threw them in like three lineups. That's part
Speaker 2: of the big problem is that even people who avoided
Speaker 2: gang membership, if the police are already going to assume
Speaker 2: you are in a gang by virtue of what block
Speaker 2: you live on, These young Hispanic kids from Humble Park
Speaker 2: and these outlying areas were fungible. They were interchangeable, and
Speaker 2: that has to be incredibly demoralizing when you're already working
Speaker 2: so hard to take a path that your parents want
Speaker 2: you to in some cases, or that you know is
Speaker 2: good for you, and you're getting it from all ends,
Speaker 2: from the gang members in the community that are, like,
Speaker 2: you know, either harassing you or just sometimes it was
Speaker 2: about wanting to have friends, you know, because there was
Speaker 2: so much gang activity that having friends sometimes meant associating
Speaker 2: with gang members, and the police are going to assume
Speaker 2: you are anyway.
Speaker 1: So this is the context in which this investigation transpired
Speaker 1: in the aftermath of a shooting that occurred around four
Speaker 1: fifteen am on September eighth, nineteen eighty five. But let's
Speaker 1: rewind to a few hours before, on the evening of
Speaker 1: September seventh.
Speaker 3: Well, I was invited to this party. It was in
Speaker 3: the neighborhood. It was the older gentleman. His wife was
Speaker 3: throwing the party for him, and I was invited to
Speaker 3: one of my friend's mother. So it was not again
Speaker 3: related party. It was a family party. And my wife
Speaker 3: today Wanda, she lived in the neighborhood, so she was
Speaker 3: going to be at the party, so I was trying
Speaker 3: to hook up with her. So I get to the party.
Speaker 3: You know, they have live music, drinks and stuff and food.
Speaker 3: I had a couple of beers and then one of
Speaker 3: the guys that was in the band started pass out drinks,
Speaker 3: so he had like a trade and I went to
Speaker 3: grab a beer and the guy started talking crazy and
Speaker 3: I was like, okay, I'll buy my own beer. The
Speaker 3: guy started talking shit, oh, I beat your ass and
Speaker 3: all this and that. I'm like, listen, you're not gonna
Speaker 3: do nothing, go about your business and leave me the
Speaker 3: fuck alone. And I just brusted off. He kept running
Speaker 3: his mouth, so I told my guy, I said, man,
Speaker 3: let's go outside. I don't want to be arguing and
Speaker 3: disrespecting these people's house. So we went to the front.
Speaker 3: I'm sitting down on the hood of a car. I
Speaker 3: need my business talking to my guy, and the guy
Speaker 3: comes around the back of the alley trying to snake me.
Speaker 3: So my guy's like, hey, watch out, so I jump
Speaker 3: off the car. He comes at me. So I hit
Speaker 3: the guy a couple of times and I come on
Speaker 3: the ground. He gets back up. He's very drunk, so
Speaker 3: he comes at me again and tries to wrestle me.
Speaker 3: I hit him a couple of times with an uppercut
Speaker 3: and he falls again. I put my knee on his
Speaker 3: chest and I say, listen, man, you're drunk. I said,
Speaker 3: take it easy, bro.
Speaker 1: And this fight happened around three am, over an hour
Speaker 1: before the shooting. The only reason that this altercation is
Speaker 1: relevant is this the two eventual shooting victims in this case,
Speaker 1: I haven't made it, I Bobby Guria. They helped break
Speaker 1: the fight up.
Speaker 3: So the two victims break me and the guy up,
Speaker 3: so they're like, are you okay? This and that I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm good man, do this not He's the one that's
Speaker 3: all drunk and started talking shit. I didn't even want
Speaker 3: to start no trouble with. They're like, oh whatever. So
Speaker 3: then the guy somebody else gives him a ride, so
Speaker 3: as he's leaving, he's like, I'll be back, motherfucker. So
Speaker 3: then he leaves. So we're there talking and then go
Speaker 3: around the neighborhood trying to find some weed. Nobody was out,
Speaker 3: so then my guy's like, hey, I'm tired, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: go home. I'm like all right. Then I proceeded to
Speaker 3: walk to my house, which maybe about five minutes give
Speaker 3: her take. So when I get to my house and
Speaker 3: I'm like, hey, mom, i'm home, she starts telling me, Oh,
Speaker 3: why you getting home so late? Oh, you smell like liquor.
Speaker 3: I'm like, yeah, I had some beer and stuff, and
Speaker 3: I went to my room and I went to sleep.
Speaker 1: And this is the same account that Rey has maintained
Speaker 1: since nineteen eighty five that he was hold by three
Speaker 1: thirty a up and then around four twenty am on
Speaker 1: West Potomac Avenue, around the corner from the party, Bobby
Speaker 1: Garcia was shot in the leg and Ivan Mana was
Speaker 1: fatally shot.
Speaker 2: The way the evidence came in is that they go
Speaker 2: to the car get some cigarettes and it does seem
Speaker 2: that they were going to come back to the party
Speaker 2: and on their way back, somebody is in the gangway
Speaker 2: and Claire ambush, Ivan Mana is shot, Bobby Garcia is shot.
Speaker 2: Nine one one is called kind of almost immediately, and
Speaker 2: within minutes of the shooting, there's a nine to one
Speaker 2: one call from a woman who talks about seeing these
Speaker 2: guys running to a silver Cadillac that might have been responsible.
Speaker 2: She describes them, she gets like a plate number, and
Speaker 2: the question of whether that is just a coincidence is Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: when detectives don't do good investigations, it's hard to really
Speaker 2: know one way or the other. But that car was
Speaker 2: pulled over, they were detained for a period of time,
Speaker 2: and the reports suggest that they were brought to the
Speaker 2: hospital to be viewed by Bobby Garcia and that he
Speaker 2: didn't identify them. However, we'd opposed one or two of
Speaker 2: the guys that were in that car and they said
Speaker 2: that they were never brought to Bobby Garcia or viewed
Speaker 2: by Bobby Garcia.
Speaker 1: However, the reports that Jennifer just mentioned were not made
Speaker 1: by the initial detectives on scene, Johnson and Jaglowski.
Speaker 2: And one thing I've noticed about these Area five cases
Speaker 2: is that sometimes the detectives that went out to the scene,
Speaker 2: the initial field investigations, they seem to be the guys
Speaker 2: that were not necessarily going to do the dirty work
Speaker 2: that someone like Gavarro would do. So I have always
Speaker 2: found that those initial reports, to the extent they are
Speaker 2: reliable at all, they're the most reliable because those are
Speaker 2: the guys that aren't going to come in and close
Speaker 2: the case just on any kid. In any event, Bobby
Speaker 2: Garcia told the first responding detectives he could not see
Speaker 2: anything and could not provide a description, couldn't even say ethnicity, nothing.
Speaker 2: All the objective evidence that we have about the circumstances
Speaker 2: of the shooting would not lead anyone to think that
Speaker 2: Bobby Garcia, who is going to be focused of course
Speaker 2: on his friend he's getting injured, that being able to
Speaker 2: see the offender would have been very difficult. The offender
Speaker 2: is like in some gangway shooting in the dark.
Speaker 1: The term gangway refers to the narrow walkways between houses
Speaker 1: and the shooter's obscured vantage point is supported by the
Speaker 1: bullets having traveled from right to left, and it appears
Speaker 1: that after questioning folks who had been at the party,
Speaker 1: the police had heard about this fight between the guy
Speaker 1: from the band and Ray, whose nickname was Scoopy. They
Speaker 1: had also heard that Ivan and Bobby had broken this
Speaker 1: fight up.
Speaker 2: Listen, that's a reasonable lead to explore. You know, you
Speaker 2: hear about a fight at the party, maybe that could
Speaker 2: potentially be a motive. Let's go check it out.
Speaker 3: The following day, some police come and pick me up
Speaker 3: and start questioning about the party. So I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I went to the party. I told him I had
Speaker 3: to fight. Yeah, I don't have I didn't have anything
Speaker 3: to hide.
Speaker 2: And Ray's like, yeah, Bobby and Ivan split us up.
Speaker 2: I don't have any beef with Bobby or Ivan. Like
Speaker 2: the fight was with someone totally different. So they bring
Speaker 2: him back home.
Speaker 1: So it seems that Ray's story checked out for Johnson
Speaker 1: and Jawlowski, But then Ernest Halverson and his partner at
Speaker 1: the time, Edwin Dickinson, took over along with at that
Speaker 1: time Gain Crimes Unit officer Rinaldo Gulvara, and what.
Speaker 2: I suspect, in keeping with their pattern is that they
Speaker 2: look at the reports and instead of just sort of
Speaker 2: starting from scratch, they're just like, ah, who seems like
Speaker 2: you know someone we can put this on that's already
Speaker 2: in the reports. And they figure out that there's this
Speaker 2: fight between one of the guys in the band and
Speaker 2: Scooby and Ray. Shortly before he is arrested, he's walking
Speaker 2: down the street and Govera picks him up and doesn't
Speaker 2: realize he is Scooby. He throws him in the back
Speaker 2: seat of his car and says, listen, I'm looking for
Speaker 2: a guy named Snake Scooby. Uh g man. He doesn't
Speaker 2: realize he has Scooby. Gavera knows all the gang members
Speaker 2: right in these neighborhoods. The fact that he doesn't know
Speaker 2: Ray tells you that Ray is not someone who is
Speaker 2: very active. And Ray obviously does not say, oh, hey,
Speaker 2: I'm Scooby.
Speaker 3: So Gavera proceeded to ask me about myself and two
Speaker 3: other guys, and I told him I didn't know those guys.
Speaker 3: I didn't know who you were talking about.
Speaker 2: And Gavara is like, oh really like socks him in
Speaker 2: the face in the back seat of his car.
Speaker 3: He gave me. You know, he slagged me and my mom.
Speaker 3: I see, He's like, you're gonna tell me what I
Speaker 3: want to know or what else?
Speaker 2: They take him to Rival gang Territory.
Speaker 3: He took me out. There was a bunch of Imperial
Speaker 3: gangsters out there. Then he uncuffed one of my hands.
Speaker 3: He had the other cuff and he's like, tell me
Speaker 3: what I want to know. I'm going to feed you
Speaker 3: to the dogs. I said, man, I don't know anything.
Speaker 3: A couple of the guys that were there, they started
Speaker 3: spitting on me and some of them got sucker punches
Speaker 3: behind my head. All I was worried about if he
Speaker 3: did let me go, which way was I going to
Speaker 3: run to try to get away? And they're like, you know,
Speaker 3: you think I'm playing with you. I'm like, man, I
Speaker 3: told you I don't know any of those guys. So
Speaker 3: then I called his bluff. He put the cuff back
Speaker 3: on me, put me back in the car, took me
Speaker 3: back to where he picked me up, and told me
Speaker 3: tell Scooby Snake and gee Man, I'm looking for them.
Speaker 4: You're listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen to this
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Speaker 4: on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1: Somewhere between hanging Ray out of the car on September
Speaker 1: tenth and raise later arrest on September twenty sixth, Gavarro
Speaker 1: found out that he had had Scooby in his car
Speaker 1: and unwittingly let him go. Meanwhile, viable leads were still
Speaker 1: coming in.
Speaker 2: About three weeks after the shooting, There's a nine to
Speaker 2: one to one call that comes in another one and
Speaker 2: someone says, there are these guys hanging out in the neighborhood.
Speaker 2: The guy that did the shooting is hanging out on
Speaker 2: this block. Gives a description, nicknames, and the police show up,
Speaker 2: find the guys, bring them to the twenty fifth district,
Speaker 2: which is that area five. So they called Barby Garcia
Speaker 2: and they say, we want you to come down to
Speaker 2: Area five and look at a lineup. According to Helverson,
Speaker 2: Bobby Garcia says, no, I don't need to come look
Speaker 2: at a lineup. Actually, it's Ray Munos that did this.
Speaker 2: I know I didn't tell you that before, but I
Speaker 2: was scared for some reason which we don't know why.
Speaker 2: Never explains it What's crazy about that is what was
Speaker 2: he just waiting for the police to randomly call him
Speaker 2: one day to tell what he knew that who killed
Speaker 2: his friend? It made it made no sense. But Halverson
Speaker 2: chose a polaroid of Ray Munos and Bobby Garcia says, yeah,
Speaker 2: I know who Scooby is.
Speaker 1: So Ray was arrested for murder and attempted murder at
Speaker 1: the age of sixteen.
Speaker 2: H I think about these parents a lot. They were
Speaker 2: not English speakers. Can you imagine trying to navigate a system.
Speaker 2: They would go down to the police station, They're told
Speaker 2: their son isn't there. They're sent to another police station.
Speaker 2: They're given the run around.
Speaker 1: He is a child, and their child was being moved around.
Speaker 1: After all, he was from the insane Unknown's territory, so
Speaker 1: he was sent over to the gang crimes unit.
Speaker 3: When I was tranferred to Beaumont and Western, Gavera was there.
Speaker 3: He said schoolviyeh. So they're already put this murder. I
Speaker 3: mean when they try for me to Baumont and Western,
Speaker 3: they put me in another lineup for another murder and
Speaker 3: three up tent murders. It was an unknowns that did
Speaker 3: that murders and those three attent murders, so they were
Speaker 3: trying to say, he's all known, let's put this other
Speaker 3: murder on him too, fuck him.
Speaker 1: But he was only identified for the one incident by
Speaker 1: Bobby Garcia. All of which begs the question, how does
Speaker 1: Bobby flip from not being able to describe a shooter
Speaker 1: to yes, it's definitely this sixteen year old Ray Munos,
Speaker 1: who we knew from the neighborhood.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean Bobby Garcia is deceased, so you know, we're
Speaker 2: piecing this together a little bit. But Garcia knew who
Speaker 2: Ray Munos was, a sixteen year old kid. It was
Speaker 2: never credible that Bobby Garcia was afraid to tell anybody.
Speaker 2: It made no sense. It's our belief that, consistent with
Speaker 2: the long pattern and practice of these detectives, that they
Speaker 2: probably told Garcia. Listen, we know who did it. The
Speaker 2: streets are talking. We know it was Scooby. I've been
Speaker 2: doing these cases a really long time, and what I
Speaker 2: have found over and over again that people, when they
Speaker 2: see their friends shot down dead in front of them,
Speaker 2: they want to believe the police. They want to know
Speaker 2: that the perpetrator has been caught. And sometimes they're willing
Speaker 2: to go along with what the police are telling them,
Speaker 2: even though they never saw anything. I would also point
Speaker 2: out that there is some suggestion that Bobby Garcia was
Speaker 2: in a gang, and there's a certain level of coercion
Speaker 2: and fear that you don't go along and help me
Speaker 2: out with closing this case. Your next buddy. He ultimately
Speaker 2: identifies Ray Munos. But Ray made bond. I mean, his
Speaker 2: family pulled together every bit of money they could from
Speaker 2: other family members. Again, this was a family that was
Speaker 2: truly committed, believed in his innocence, and knew he was innocent.
Speaker 1: So Ray was out on bond from late September nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty five until his trial that following November.
Speaker 3: I had two States attorney on my case, and they
Speaker 3: were so keen to get rid of me that they
Speaker 3: did my t on Thanksgiving Day, November twenty fifth of
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty six and found me guilty within two hours.
Speaker 3: Bobby had tried testified against me and said that they
Speaker 3: had went to Ivan's car and as they were coming
Speaker 3: back from retrieving the cigarettes, and as they were going
Speaker 3: back towards the party towards se Keiler on Potomac, he
Speaker 3: said I was crunched down and he pointed me out.
Speaker 3: He says that I came out in front of him
Speaker 3: ten to fifteen feet and I raised my hand and
Speaker 3: I began to shoot. But mind you, the evidence show
Speaker 3: that whoever shot him shot him from the gangway, you know,
Speaker 3: So things don't make sense.
Speaker 1: Bobby and Ivan were shot from right to left, not
Speaker 1: from the front, which was pointed out on cross as
Speaker 1: was his initial statement where he said he could not
Speaker 1: initially describe the shooter. He responded that he feared retaliation
Speaker 1: from the insane unknowns. Then Ivan's mother testified about hearing
Speaker 1: the gunshots around four fifteen am, calling nine to one
Speaker 1: one and finding Ivan fatally shot in the street. But
Speaker 1: then Ray and his parents took the stand to testify
Speaker 1: to his alibi.
Speaker 2: Obviously, when you have your parents backing you up, it's
Speaker 2: not always the strongest alibi because jury's will assume that
Speaker 2: your parents will lie for you. But he's been very
Speaker 2: consistent about what time he got home that night.
Speaker 3: I left the party at three twenty, give her a take,
Speaker 3: and they got shot at four something, so mind you,
Speaker 3: I was already at home sleeping.
Speaker 2: There was a rebuttal witness who testified under very suspicious circumstances.
Speaker 2: She had never said anything about having seen anything, never
Speaker 2: implicated Scooby or Ray.
Speaker 3: Five was that she said she seen me and two
Speaker 3: of my guys coming out of the alley towards where
Speaker 3: the party was.
Speaker 1: But no one else at the party saw Ray after
Speaker 1: three twenty am let alone after the shooting, or with
Speaker 1: two other guys.
Speaker 2: And again not really anything else, really no real corroboration
Speaker 2: to this. But we are talking about the mid eighties.
Speaker 2: Gangs have a strangle on the communities. There's a lot
Speaker 2: of gang fear. You have prosecutors tapping into that gang fear.
Speaker 3: They made me look like a real monster. They told
Speaker 3: the jury that I was a gang member and this
Speaker 3: vicious killer. That I didn't want anybody taking my phone,
Speaker 3: and that the two victims took my fun when they
Speaker 3: separated me from this fight, and that that made me
Speaker 3: angry and stuff like that, so that that was the
Speaker 3: motive for me to shoot these guys, and the jury
Speaker 3: just ate it up and believed it.
Speaker 2: He is convicted. He sentenced to a total of sixty
Speaker 2: years for the murder and the attamp murder.
Speaker 3: It was unbelievable. You know, my parents were screaming my siblings.
Speaker 3: When I got found guilty and I went to the penecentary,
Speaker 3: my wife was three months pregnant. It was it's real
Speaker 3: hectic getting found guilty for something you didn't do. It
Speaker 3: was like the world came down the judge. I had
Speaker 3: a real jack off judge. He gave me a consecutive sentence,
Speaker 3: meaning that he wanted me to do forty years for
Speaker 3: the murder and twenty years for the attempted murder, so
Speaker 3: i'd had to do half of both sentences. So I
Speaker 3: did a total of thirty years. I ended up going
Speaker 3: to Joliet. I stayed there for ten years because you
Speaker 3: had to do ten years behind the wall until you
Speaker 3: got transferred to a medium, which was Danville. And then
Speaker 3: I got tranferred to Ileinois River. It was closer for
Speaker 3: my parents to go visit me and stuff and my
Speaker 3: wife and I did a couple of years there, and
Speaker 3: then I got tranferred to Dixon Correctional and I did
Speaker 3: most of my time in Dixon. The anything that I
Speaker 3: did while I was there, I educated myself, you know,
Speaker 3: and I kept busy. Educate yourself, learn about yourself, stay
Speaker 3: focused and try to get out and survive out of
Speaker 3: that unknown world, because that's a whole different world in there,
Speaker 3: and some of us don't make it out of life.
Speaker 3: It's unfortunate for some of the guys that are innocent
Speaker 3: had to die in there and not proving their innocence.
Speaker 1: Raised direct appeals in the late eighties and throughout the nineties,
Speaker 1: as well as his first post conviction petition in two
Speaker 1: thousand and one. These were all denied, so we focused
Speaker 1: on obtaining some kind of new evidence.
Speaker 3: Throughout my incarceration, I was always trying to find information
Speaker 3: about my case and documents because I knew that there
Speaker 3: was more out there about my case that I didn't
Speaker 3: see other than when my lawyer showed me. I knew
Speaker 3: that I wasn't guilty of this crime, so I said,
Speaker 3: there has to be something else.
Speaker 2: It starts doing for your requests, and eventually, in two
Speaker 2: thousand and five, he starts getting some hadweight with that.
Speaker 2: He's getting four responses. He's getting some police reports, but
Speaker 2: they're heavily redacted. Good chunks of it are blacked out.
Speaker 2: He's trying to make sense of it, and he gets
Speaker 2: a report that he's never seen before, and it's a
Speaker 2: report that is prepared by Halverson after he's been charged,
Speaker 2: and the names are all blacked out, but you can
Speaker 2: piece together that it appears as if a witness has
Speaker 2: come in to say, wait a second, I saw the shooting.
Speaker 2: I know who Scooby is because I work in the neighborhood,
Speaker 2: and it's not him. I know that kid, and I
Speaker 2: know the kid that I did see do the shooting.
Speaker 2: So this report gets made. There's an inventory list when
Speaker 2: police reports go into the investigative file. It never made
Speaker 2: its way into that file. It never made its way
Speaker 2: to the criminal justice system, and it is a report
Speaker 2: prepared by Haliverson. Essentially, he and his partner Dickinson were
Speaker 2: responsible for ensuring that that report made its way to
Speaker 2: the criminal justice system. It is classic Brady material, meaning
Speaker 2: it is exculpatory. It is material, and it should have
Speaker 2: been made available to him to use in his defense,
Speaker 2: and instead it was concealed.
Speaker 1: So now Ray was trying to get a hold of
Speaker 1: the unredacted report.
Speaker 3: But again I had a jag off judge, my trial
Speaker 3: judge to him, and I would submit paperwork requesting these
Speaker 3: documents and he would deny them. So I would try
Speaker 3: to go through the Freedom from Information Act. I would
Speaker 3: write to the police station anywhere that I could try
Speaker 3: to get these documents, and every time I would get denied.
Speaker 3: So then I started thinking about trying to hire an investigator,
Speaker 3: and I spoke to my sister Oilier to see if
Speaker 3: you can get an investigator to try to help me
Speaker 3: get these documents.
Speaker 2: And I think in two thousand and seven, this investigator
Speaker 2: ultimately gets unredacted copies.
Speaker 1: So, in addition to the drop leads from the Silver
Speaker 1: Cadillact that were allegedly ruled out by Bobby Garcia, this
Speaker 1: unredacted police report from Halverson tells the story about a
Speaker 1: potential suspect nicknamed Shorty.
Speaker 2: There was this butcher in the neighborhood walking home on
Speaker 2: the night of the shooting and sees Shorty with a
Speaker 2: weapon right before the shots. And he knows this kid, Shorty,
Speaker 2: because he hangs out in front of this store where
Speaker 2: he's a butcher. And we know that he ultimately told
Speaker 2: Halverson about what he saw, and Halverson shit cans it.
Speaker 1: So he files a post conviction motion with this bombshell
Speaker 1: Brady material and it's denied in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: but in twenty ten it was remanded for a hearing
Speaker 1: on appeal, and he received some pro bono help around
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen. Unfortunately that ended up not being so helpful.
Speaker 2: I've had a couple of clients, Ray is amongst them
Speaker 2: that was represented by someone who was understood to be
Speaker 2: a competent lawyer who cared about wrongful convictions. And what
Speaker 2: I found to be the case, certainly for Ray and
Speaker 2: another client of mine, is that her style of trying
Speaker 2: to get relief was to basically go to the prosecutor
Speaker 2: and say, Hey, I think this guy I might be innocent,
Speaker 2: Go investigate it. And I got about eight other cases
Speaker 2: that I want you to look at and let me
Speaker 2: know which one you want to reverse on. And then,
Speaker 2: because sometimes deals are made like that, the prosecutor's office
Speaker 2: will be like, Okay, we like this one, we'll reverse
Speaker 2: this one, and then everyone else is fucked. So there
Speaker 2: was no real litigation in Race case by his prior lawyer.
Speaker 2: His prior lawyer withdraws. It's never clear on the record why,
Speaker 2: but my guess is it has to do with the
Speaker 2: fact that the conviction integrity units, such as it was,
Speaker 2: was not willing to affirmatively vacate and she wasn't willing
Speaker 2: to litigate.
Speaker 1: And by twenty sixteen, Cook County was touting its conviction
Speaker 1: Integrity Unit as a beacon of hope to those who
Speaker 1: knew all too well how unjust the system there a bit,
Speaker 1: I have.
Speaker 2: No reservations about saying what my experiences and what I saw,
Speaker 2: and the Conviction Integrity Unit at this time was horseshit.
Speaker 2: And when they did decide to reverse convictions, it seemed
Speaker 2: like it had nothing really to do with whether justice
Speaker 2: was served by that decision. Seemed to have a little
Speaker 2: bit more to do with favors and wheeling and dealing.
Speaker 2: And I've confronted the conviction Integrity Unit about this and
Speaker 2: Ray and another client's case. I was like, how are
Speaker 2: you making these decisions? It sure seems like it depends
Speaker 2: on who the lawyer is that these decisions are getting made,
Speaker 2: not based on whether your investigation showed that someone is
Speaker 2: actually innocent. So I was very clear on that, and frankly,
Speaker 2: I still don't want the Conviction Integrity Unit of the
Speaker 2: Cook County States Attorney's Office touching my cases. My experiences,
Speaker 2: they go out there and they try to fuck up
Speaker 2: your case.
Speaker 1: And we've seen that tread in municipalities all around the
Speaker 1: country where a case will be admitted for reinvestigation. Everyone
Speaker 1: shares their files, and despite case upending evidence, nothing is done.
Speaker 1: The case goes back to court where new witnesses can
Speaker 1: be core first interviewees, words can be misconstrued, or years
Speaker 1: can simply be wasted away while the wheels of justice
Speaker 1: or operating at a snail's pace, And we have to
Speaker 1: ask who was this for? What agenda does this serve?
Speaker 2: We going to do a whole podcast on this. They
Speaker 2: take grant money from places to have these conviction integrity units,
Speaker 2: and they really use them as an investigative arm to
Speaker 2: keep the conviction in place. Of all my exonerations, not
Speaker 2: a single one came from the conviction integrity unit doing
Speaker 2: an investigation and saying, yeah, we agree with you, you don't
Speaker 2: need to litigate. I always had to litigate. I've wrecked
Speaker 2: up quite a few exonerations. And the fact that not
Speaker 2: once has the Cook County State's Attorney's office initially agreed
Speaker 2: that one of my cases required that result. I always
Speaker 2: was forced to fight them, says everything.
Speaker 1: So Ray's conviction remained in place through his parole hearing
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen, where it was finally represent by Jennifer
Speaker 1: Bonjean and Ashley Cohen, and Ray refused to bend the
Speaker 1: knee for this parole board.
Speaker 3: I did admit to anything and told him that I
Speaker 3: didn't commit this murder, and I got paroled. We stood
Speaker 3: in Chicago for a few days, so we celebrated my
Speaker 3: release at my niece's house. They did a party for me,
Speaker 3: and then we had a gathering at my sister's house, Noelia,
Speaker 3: who lives downstairs from my mom and dad's house, and
Speaker 3: Jenny and Ashley came over. We had family there, my
Speaker 3: parents and my siblings, my cousins, and my nieces and nephews,
Speaker 3: some of my wife's family.
Speaker 2: He's married to the woman who was his high school
Speaker 2: sweetheart at the time, Wanda, and they had a child together.
Speaker 2: They divorced, they were with other people, she had two
Speaker 2: other kids, and then they reconciled. So they have a
Speaker 2: really nice story. And she's a wonderful person.
Speaker 3: She's my childhood sweetheart. She's the mother of our oldest daughter.
Speaker 3: I couldn't have her just doing time with me and
Speaker 3: not living her life. But she came back and my life.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and eight, while Ray was still in prison,
Speaker 1: they remarried, and then when he was paroled, they were
Speaker 1: finally united along with their daughter, who was in utero
Speaker 1: when Ray was convicted.
Speaker 2: It's your whole life, you know. You have an infant
Speaker 2: going in when you're seventeen and you come out to
Speaker 2: a thirty year old woman.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she's here with us. I have two step kids,
Speaker 3: which I considered on my kids as well. I have
Speaker 3: a twenty five year old girl who lives with us,
Speaker 3: and our twenty year old boy who lives with us.
Speaker 3: Borrowedest daughter she lives with my son Ala and our grandbaby.
Speaker 3: So we have a beautiful granddaughter that's just a spinning
Speaker 3: image of her when she was a baby.
Speaker 1: We gotta imagine Ray, You're pouring all your love into
Speaker 1: this child. Yeah, yeah, I hope it helps with it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it does.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Jenny and Ashley began the legal battle to clear
Speaker 1: Rai's name. This culminated in an evidentiary hearing in the
Speaker 1: summer of twenty twenty one, starting with the Brady violation
Speaker 1: involving the identification of Shorting, which they supported with an
Speaker 1: affidavit from the witness the butcher who still supports the
Speaker 1: statement that he gave Halverson all those years ago. But
Speaker 1: that's not all.
Speaker 2: There was another piece of Brady material that I will
Speaker 2: just quickly point out that there was a shooting of
Speaker 2: a guy named roy Croft. It was the same weapon involved.
Speaker 2: They were able to connect the ballistics, and it was
Speaker 2: in the same area. The shootings occurred a couple weeks apart,
Speaker 2: and when Halverson was investigating that murder, he put Ray
Speaker 2: in a photo array again, just throwing him in there,
Speaker 2: and the witness was like, no, I know, Scooby, he
Speaker 2: wasn't the shooter. So ultimately Ray is not charged for that.
Speaker 2: But they never disclosed to Ray Munos's defense attorney that
Speaker 2: the weapon that was used to kill Ivan Mayna was
Speaker 2: used in another murder. Like that's exculpatory, you can go
Speaker 2: find out, you can investigate. That's a lead that the
Speaker 2: police didn't follow, but you should have at least given
Speaker 2: him the opportunity to have his attorney and investigators follow that.
Speaker 1: In addition to the Brady material, they presented pattern and
Speaker 1: practice evidence of misconduct that had been collected over time
Speaker 1: by Bonjin Law Group and others, where the focus had
Speaker 1: previously been on Govara.
Speaker 2: And Ray's case has become exceedingly important because it's the
Speaker 2: first case where we had a judge saying that this
Speaker 2: pattern in practice wasn't just a Ragavra problem. His partner
Speaker 2: was unquestionably engaging in the same type of misconduct that
Speaker 2: resulted in the wrongful convictions of other people.
Speaker 1: So they put Ray on the stand as well as
Speaker 1: a man who had been beaten by Halverson into a
Speaker 1: false confession, and then a retired detective named Bill Dorsh
Speaker 1: whose signature was forged by Halverson in an entirely different case.
Speaker 1: Our audience might recall dors from our coverage of Fabian Santiago.
Speaker 3: That's my cousin.
Speaker 2: What I know. Isn't that crazy?
Speaker 1: Or maybe not so crazy? Considering that they both fell
Speaker 1: into the crosshairs of Ernest Halverson, who by the time
Speaker 1: of this hearing was deceased and unavailable for testimony. But
Speaker 1: thankfully Jenny had already had Halverson under oath in twenty
Speaker 1: sixty We.
Speaker 2: Were able to present Halverson's testimony at Ray's hearing via
Speaker 2: a prior deposition that I had taken of him in
Speaker 2: Armando Serrano's case, and he was another Gavera frame up case.
Speaker 2: That was my first Goavera case. I put Gavera on
Speaker 2: the stand in his case, me and Russell Ainsworth, who
Speaker 2: represented the co defendant. Together we were the first lawyers
Speaker 2: that were there when Gavara invoked the fitth Amendment and
Speaker 2: he's never come off. So during our Motto Serrano's Civil
Speaker 2: Rights action, we deposed Ernie Halverson, who was still alive
Speaker 2: at the time, and I confronted him with the allegations
Speaker 2: of Ray Munos, including whether or not he fabricated the
Speaker 2: identification testimony of Bobby Garcia, whether he suppressed exculpatory material,
Speaker 2: all of that, and Halverson not just Gavara. Halverson invoked
Speaker 2: his fit the Amendment right to remain silent to every
Speaker 2: single question that was asked of him, and that was
Speaker 2: presented during the post conviction hearing.
Speaker 1: And so on February twenty second, twenty twenty two, Judge
Speaker 1: Sophia Atcherson issued her ruling vacating the conviction and ordering a.
Speaker 2: New trial, and the Circuit Court judge issued a fifty
Speaker 2: four page decision finding that he was actually innocent, that
Speaker 2: Halverson and Gavera engaged in a pattern and practice of
Speaker 2: misconduct that resulted in this wrongful conviction that there had
Speaker 2: been two separate Brady violations and that his constitutional rights
Speaker 2: were violated at every turn. And what was really compelling
Speaker 2: about this decision is that usually judges don't want to
Speaker 2: go out on a limb and make decisions that they
Speaker 2: don't need to make. She could have found that he
Speaker 2: was entire to a new trial on a single claim
Speaker 2: and left everything alone. But she went out of her
Speaker 2: way to find that his constitutional rights were violated on
Speaker 2: every claim we raised.
Speaker 3: It was amazing. It was like the world was lifted
Speaker 3: off my shoulders. Finally, I said, you know, it's like
Speaker 3: I believe, you know, it's in God's time. It's not
Speaker 3: our timing. No matter what happens in life, nobody knows
Speaker 3: what's gonna happen, when, or why or how. But God,
Speaker 3: that's the only one that has purpose. And anything that
Speaker 3: happens in our life, no matter where you come from
Speaker 3: or how you raise, anything could happen to anybody at
Speaker 3: any given moment.
Speaker 1: It's pretty wild to see how all of these moving
Speaker 1: parts finally come together to deliver long overdue justice, Like
Speaker 1: how Jennifer Bongjin had the forethought to ask Halverson about
Speaker 1: Ray's case in an unrelated case before he died, or
Speaker 1: that she had worked for years to be in a
Speaker 1: position to do that, or how the breedy materials were
Speaker 1: finally uncovered despite the state's best efforts, or that this
Speaker 1: was all revealed in front of a circuit judge that
Speaker 1: wasn't going to let the state wiggle free. So now
Speaker 1: they had to decide whether or not they'd go forward
Speaker 1: with another trial or drop the charges.
Speaker 2: They had them coming back and forth from court for
Speaker 2: like nine months, and I was very disappointed with the
Speaker 2: Cook County State's Attorney's office at the time, because despite
Speaker 2: it all, they're like, Okay, well, maybe we'll just try
Speaker 2: to put Bobby Garcia's testimony into evidence through a transcript.
Speaker 2: And I was like, how could you possibly rely on this?
Speaker 2: It was such bad faith. And the circuit court judge
Speaker 2: I think, I'm just reading, you know, into her expressions
Speaker 2: and her statements on the record, But she seemed befuddled
Speaker 2: that after all this, you were just going to try
Speaker 2: to stand on the same bad evidence. I don't know
Speaker 2: what happened there. Eventually they saw the air of their
Speaker 2: ways and dismiss the case. And then he received a
Speaker 2: certificate of innocence without much pushback at that point.
Speaker 1: That was April twenty twenty three. He received state compensation,
Speaker 1: but they're still waiting on the civil suit that they
Speaker 1: have filed that made that's over two years ago. In
Speaker 1: whatever amount of billible hours are footed by Illinois taxpayers.
Speaker 3: All the money they're spending on these attorneys to protect
Speaker 3: the scum, to say the least, they should invest that
Speaker 3: money into finding the real killers behind all these cases
Speaker 3: that were wrongfully convicted so they could bring closure to
Speaker 3: victims families. The state's attorneys and the city don't give
Speaker 3: a reds ask about them, us or anybody, and they
Speaker 3: continue to protect these people and spending, like you said,
Speaker 3: taxpayers money, and it's going to get worse. It's going
Speaker 3: to be in the billions of dollars when it's all
Speaker 3: over that and done.
Speaker 1: And with that, Ray, thank you so much for sharing
Speaker 1: your story and getting it out to the world with us. Today,
Speaker 1: we're going to go to our closing statements here and
Speaker 1: we want to give the last words to you. So
Speaker 1: this is Rinaldo Munos and Jennifer Boonjee.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Ray's case is a very special case to me, obviously,
Speaker 2: we fought really hard. We had a full hearing that
Speaker 2: again resulted in a really nice ruling from a circuit
Speaker 2: court judge who acknowledged the miscarriage of justice. We don't
Speaker 2: always get that, and I think it was important for
Speaker 2: him to hear that. I wish it had happened earlier.
Speaker 2: I think his case exemplifies how the system doesn't work
Speaker 2: in terms of not just the wrongful conviction occurring in
Speaker 2: the first place, but how long it takes to correct it.
Speaker 2: He did his entire sentence, but he learned of the
Speaker 2: exculpatory evidence over ten years before he's ultimately released. It
Speaker 2: shouldn't take that long. It shouldn't take a decade once
Speaker 2: you find out about something so stunningly exculpatory that unquestionably
Speaker 2: would have made a difference at your trial. That it
Speaker 2: still took ten years to get him out. That to
Speaker 2: me is a lesson about his case, one of the
Speaker 2: troubling lessons. But I guess one of the upsides is
Speaker 2: that he's a wonderful human being. He didn't let prison
Speaker 2: ruin him. He has worked, He's been a consistent presence
Speaker 2: in his daughter's life. He's a grandfather, you know, he's
Speaker 2: a really good family man. He's a good husband. They're
Speaker 2: wonderful people, and I'm really proud of him because I
Speaker 2: don't know if I could have come out and survived
Speaker 2: in this world having gone in at sixteen and not
Speaker 2: have been so bitter as to let it eat me up.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if I could have done it,
Speaker 2: but he's really been impressive.
Speaker 3: People need to wake up and stop voting for all
Speaker 3: these crooked politicians and learn about what's going on. Because
Speaker 3: I said this could happen to whoever. It doesn't matter
Speaker 3: where you come from. When there's corruption in the government,
Speaker 3: there's nothing that can be done unless we as a
Speaker 3: people put a stop to it. I'm just wandering for
Speaker 3: people and if they have a family member or an
Speaker 3: individual that's incarcerated. False league, don't give up. You need
Speaker 3: to find the truth. Everything that's done in darkness will
Speaker 3: come to the light no matter what, no matter how
Speaker 3: long it takes, the truth show Prevailed to fight, never
Speaker 3: give up.
Speaker 4: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
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Speaker 4: Good Plus on Apple podcasts. I want to thank our
Speaker 4: production team Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as
Speaker 4: my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Watis, and Jeff Cliber.
Speaker 4: The music in this production was supplied by three time
Speaker 4: OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
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Speaker 4: at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram
Speaker 4: at It's Jason flamm Wrawful Conviction is a production of
Speaker 4: Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One.
Speaker 4: We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported
Speaker 4: in this show are accurate.
Speaker 2: The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in
Speaker 2: this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect
Speaker 2: those of Lava for Good.