Lawyers for man convicted of killing off-duty Chicago police officer allege CPD withheld evidence

Attorneys for Alexander Villa, who was convicted of the 2001 murder of off-duty Officer Clifton Lewis, in 2019, and is still awaiting sentencing claim that CPD withheld potentially exculpatory evidence that could have pointed to another suspect and cleared their client.

The prosecution and CPD are legally bound to hand over all of their evidence during the discovery phase of trials, and Mr. Villa's attorneys allege that this was not done and that CPD 'scrubbed' the evidence in an effort to get their client proven guilty.

The FBI has a report in which the defendants' cell phone was three miles away when the crime was committed as well as prosecutors and defense attorneys did not learn until April of this year, 2022, that police had in fact examined the cellphone of Villa’s sometime girlfriend, Monica Rivera, who according to Villa’s phone records was texting with him around the time of the shooting. And if the FBI's report is correct, this evidence would place the convicted three miles away from the crime scene when it happened.