During a marathon day of testimony, a Cook County assistant state’s attorney on Monday described conversations and meetings with two former colleagues who face criminal charges, recalling the days leading up to an explosive trial that spawned perjury allegations against a former Cook County prosecutor.
After an 11-month delay due to a rare, mid-trial appeal, the trial resumed for two former Cook County assistant state’s attorneys who are accused of wrongdoing in connection with the third trial for Jackie Wilson, whose case was critical to unveiling systemic practices of torture within the Chicago Police Department.
Nicholas Trutenko, 69, who prosecuted Wilson during his second trial following the 1982 slayings of two Chicago police officers, is charged with perjury, official misconduct, obstruction of justice and violating a local records act in relation to his testimony as a witness at Wilson’s third and final trial in 2020. Andrew Horvat, 48, who represented Trutenko in that proceeding when he was an attorney with the office’s Civil Actions Bureau, is accused of official misconduct.
A bizarre friendship between Trutenko and a key witness against Wilson, William Coleman, a British con man with a long criminal history, is at the center of Trutenko’s perjury charge.
In 2020, Wilson’s defense attorneys had alleged that, years earlier, Trutenko helped Coleman secure favorable deals for criminal charges Coleman faced in exchange for his testimony against Wilson during his second trial, and did not turn over that information to his defense attorneys. Larry Rosen, a special prosecutor trying Wilson during his third trial, previously testified that he discussed Coleman with Trutenko and made it known that they were unable to locate him.
With the trial again underway, Paul Fangman, an assistant state’s attorney who is a supervisor in the Civil Actions Bureau, was on the stand for hours Monday at the Rolling Meadows branch court, even as Lake County Judge Daniel Shanes urged the special prosecutors trying the case to move through questions more efficiently. Shanes is hearing in the case in lieu of recused Cook County judges.
Shanes initially barred large portions of Fangman’s testimony, finding that, as an attorney who represents prosecutors in civil matters, Fangman was barred from certain testimony due to attorney-client privilege with Trutenko. But the special prosecutors, appointed to investigate the matter due to a conflict of interest for Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, successfully appealed the ruling, which stopped the trial in its tracks for nearly a year.
Fangman told the court that throughout a number of meetings and calls, Trutenko did not mention a longtime friendship with Coleman.
“Did he reveal he had flown to England to be the godfather to Mr. Coleman’s daughter?” special prosecutor David Hoffman asked Fangman.
“No,” Fangman replied.
When Trutenko took the stand during the 2020 trial, Rosen alleged in prior testimony, he untruthfully testified that Coleman did not come up in previous conversations with Rosen.
Trutenko’s defense attorneys, though, have contended that Trutenko simply misunderstood the question on the stand. Instead of attempting to clear it up, the attorneys said, the special prosecutors dropped the case.
During cross examination Monday, they sought to illustrate this point by asking Fangman about a factual mistake in his testimony earlier in the day.
“I didn’t remember it correctly,” Fangman said in response to questions from Brian Sexton, Trutenko’s attorney, about an inconsistency.
“So not remembering it isn’t the same as lying about it,” Sexton said in response. “You didn’t perjure yourself because you said something in error.”
The case began more than 40 years ago when Jackie Wilson, then 21, was behind the wheel of a car with his brother Andrew Wilson, who shot and killed the two officers.
Jackie Wilson has said he did not know his brother would shoot the officers, but in 1989, at his second trial, Coleman 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 about a friendship with the man and knowledge of his whereabouts.
