A former Cook County assistant state’s attorney whose tenure heading a unit that investigated possible wrongful convictions became embroiled in controversy is suing State’s Attorney Kim Foxx and her office, alleging she was discriminated against when she was demoted and then fired last year.
Nancy Adduci, who began her career at the Cook County state’s attorney’s office in 1996, filed a federal lawsuit last month that accuses Foxx and the office of demoting and firing her due to her age and race. Adduci, who is white, said in the complaint that Foxx’s deputies in October of 2023 demoted her from her position supervising the Conviction Integrity Unit, now called the Conviction Review Unit, telling her they sought someone “more representative of the community” for the role.
A spokeswoman with the state’s attorney’s office declined to comment. An attorney for Adduci did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In the months prior to her demotion, Adduci’s role heading the CIU had come under scrutiny after she was accused by defendants and their attorneys of prosecutorial misconduct in connection with murder charges against three men who were accused in the slaying of a Chicago police officer in 2011.
The state’s attorney’s office pulled Adduci and her co-counsel off the case after the three defendants charged with killing Officer Clifton Lewis alleged she buried evidence that could have pointed to their innocence.
Her work was also criticized in a report prepared by special prosecutors who re-investigated a potential wrongful conviction case after the Conviction Integrity Unit found no merit to the innocence claims. The special prosecutors recommended to Foxx that the office move to vacate convictions against Kevin Jackson, alleging misconduct on the part of the investigating officers and that the CIU under Adduci’s leadership did not investigate the case “with the same vigor” as her predecessor.
The Conviction Review Unit investigates claims of innocence and makes recommendations for remedies to Foxx, whose office has vacated more than 250 convictions.
Adduci’s complaint, though, says that Foxx’s staff told her the demotion was not due to performance reasons.
“Ms. Adduci was shocked that she was not sufficiently ‘representative of the community,’ after serving almost three decades in the CCSAO, living in Cook County, getting married in Cook County, and sending her kids to public school in Cook County,” the complaint said.
Despite the demotion, the complaint alleges, Adduci was asked to continue as “de facto” head of the unit. The complaint said that the office hired “a much younger black ASA who had been serving as Foxx’s policy advisor on matters of criminal justice reform and had no practical criminal experience” to replace Adduci.
The new CIU head, Michelle Mbekeani, had joined the office in 2018 as a legal and policy adviser. She was previously an attorney at the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law.
Mbekeani’s short tenure also had some bumps, drawing scrutiny because of a business venture she launched as a law student.
The enterprise, called Period, offers legal help to people who are incarcerated, according to a description of the project by the University of Chicago Law School. Her involvement elicited criticism from some who believed it to be a conflict of interest with her current position at the state’s attorney’s office.
A Cook County judge in January took the unusual step of banning her from his courtroom over the business venture and her statements about it, according to an order from the court.
Mbekeani stepped down in July, declining to return after a maternity leave as Foxx’s term comes to an end later this year, a period that sometimes leads to staff turnover.
Adduci says in the complaint that she was asked to still continue performing much of her same duties, “in effect, acting as the CIU Director.”
On Dec. 29, 2023, Adduci was summoned to a meeting and terminated, according to the complaint.
In the complaint, Adduci said her work was highly regarded, and that she had years of experience trying cases and working in and supervising a number of divisions in the state’s attorney’s office.