Head of wrongful conviction unit leaves after demotion

Cook County State’s Attorney’s office

Nancy Adduci, a prosecutor accused of hiding evidence in a case involving three men and a fatal police shooting in Austin, is no longer head of Cook County’s Conviction Review Unit.

One month after Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx demoted Adduci as part of a rebranding effort, her office, in a Sun-Times report, said Adduci is no longer with the agency. Officials declined to say whether Adduci resigned or was terminated.

Since 2019, Adduci had led the Cook County Conviction Integrity Unit before it was rebranded in December as the Cook County Conviction Review Unit.

Michelle Mbekeani, a senior policy adviser to Foxx, now heads the unit that examines wrongful conviction claims in post-conviction cases.

An old case involving Adduci raised questions about her integrity as a prosecutor and ability to lead the nation’s second largest prosecutors’ office. She had been accused of hiding evidence from lawyers representing the three men charged in the fatal shooting of Chicago Police Officer Clifton Lewis on December 29, 2011.

The officer was working off duty as a security guard at M&M Quick Foods in Austin when he was killed during a robbery.

Two men who stormed into the store began firing gunshots. Lewis ran for cover behind a counter. He was fatally shot by a third man who leaped over the counter and shot him three times before making off with Lewis’ gun and $670 from the register.

Lewis was working a second job as a security guard to save for his impending wedding.

Within a week of Lewis’ death, police arrested three men, Alexander Villa, Tyrone Clay and Edgardo Colon. As it turned out, the men were not at the store where Lewis was fatally shot.

Last August, Villa, 35, was sentenced to life in prison. But his new lawyers uncovered numerous records they claim that showed detectives and prosecutors failed to turn over seemingly exonerating evidence. Lawyers for Villa said the emails show police and prosecutors withheld evidence, including cellphone data, that showed Villa and two other suspects were not at the crime scene when Lewis was killed.

Prosecutors who took over the case from Adduci and Vargas reported discovering a computer disk while packing up case files. They also found a handwritten note from Vargas that indicated he had seen the contents of the disk, which included location data and text messages that supported the men’s claims of innocence.

Colon was convicted in 2017 and sentenced to more than 80 years, but an appeals court threw out his conviction because he repeatedly asked for a lawyer before giving a false confession.

Clay spent 12 years in jail following his arrest and was still awaiting trial when the case against him was dropped last June. A court ruling said Clay’s IQ was too low to understand his right to remain silent. He has since retained prominent New York Attorney Jennifer Bonjean.

Last January, Adduci and Vargas were taken off the Lewis case. Last August, Judge James Linn denied Villas’ request for a special prosecutor to investigate allegations of prosecutorial misconduct against Adduci and Vargas.

Linn also quashed subpoenas for Adduci and Vargas, noting that he didn’t need to know the prosecutors’ states of mind or reasons the evidence wasn’t turned over.

Weeks later, Linn retired from the bench.