Why Did Kim Foxx Secure ‘Certificates of Innocence’ for Men She Believed Were Guilty?

Former State's Attorney's astonishing admission under oath is the tip of the iceberg. It's time for a federal investigation

Tuesday’s stunning revelations about former Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s abuse of Certificates of Innocence (COIs) may finally force Chicago’s political and media establishment to confront an uncomfortable reality: The city’s wrongful-conviction litigation system has become a lucrative enterprise in which violent criminals, along with their lawyers, are extravagantly enriched at taxpayers’ expense, all in the name of criminal justice.  

During a deposition last month, Foxx admitted she believed Gabriel Solache and Arturo DeLeon-Reyes were guilty of the brutal 1998 Bucktown stabbing murders of Mariano and Jacinta Soto and the kidnapping of the couple’s two young children. This was a head-scratching admission, given that in 2022 her administration agreed to award COIs to both men, after years of opposing them. 

Solache and DeLeon-Reyes sued several Chicago Police officers after Foxx dropped the murder charges against them in 2017. Nearly two decades earlier, both men were convicted alongside a third perpetrator, Adrianna Mejia, for kidnapping the children after savagely murdering their parents so that Mejia, who had feigned pregnancy, could pass the infant child off as her own.

Though Mejia remains imprisoned and has never wavered in her testimony that Solache and Reyes committed the heinous crimes with her, Foxx, nevertheless, dismissed the case against both men. At the time Foxx dismissed charges, then-First Assistant State’s attorney, Eric Sussman, publicly stated:

“There is no doubt in my mind, or the mind of anyone who has worked on this case, that Mr. Solache and Mr. Reyes are guilty of these crimes. It is a tragic day for justice in Cook County.”

‍

The Solache-Reyes case is not an aberration. It is one of many wrongful conviction lawsuits that have been brought by individuals who, despite substantial evidence that they committed murders, received dismissals of their charges, COIs, and lucrative civil settlements. In Chicago, COIs they are not symbolic; they are powerful tools in civil-rights lawsuits that help drive massive taxpayer-funded settlements and verdicts. 

Foxx’s so-called “Conviction Integrity Unit” helped secure the release of hundreds of violent offenders, not because of exculpatory evidence, but because of allegations of police misconduct. Foxx’s administration then agreed to COIs for many of them despite insufficient evidence of innocence. Those certificates later became leverage for enormous civil settlements. In practice, Foxx prioritized the interests of convicted criminals and their attorneys over the victims, taxpayers, and the police. 

Recall Foxx’s defense of Assistant State’s Attorney Michelle Mbekeani, who headed Foxx’s Conviction Review Unit (CRU). Mbekeani operated a state licensed business linking inmates pursuing wrongful conviction claims with private attorneys. This glaring conflict of interest, compounded by lying to a judge about it, led to Mbekeani being barred from representing clients before the court.

Solache reportedly has settled his lawsuit, subject to Chicago City Council approval. Another once-convicted murderer and his lawyer may soon be richly rewarded. On Tuesday, Alderman Ray Lopez publicly criticized the indiscriminate granting of COIs, echoing criticism from former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who once accused Foxx of “handing out certificates of innocence like they’re candy.” Whatever the settlement’s outcome, the circumstances cry out for City Council scrutiny — and a U.S. Justice Department investigation.

For years, Chicago’s wrongful-conviction public debate has largely operated on the misleading and incorrect assumption that vacated convictions necessarily equal actual innocence. That narrative has been aggressively promoted by the self-described criminal justice reformers and police reform advocates. However, the facts surrounding the Reyes and Solache litigation suggest a far more complicated reality.

It’s no coincidence Cook County was America’s overwhelming leader in reversed convictions during Foxx’s tenure, accounting for over half of all conviction reversals nationwide and contributing to over $700 million in taxpayer funded settlements since 2019. Foxx’s successor as State's Attorney, Judge Eileen O’Neill Burke, ended Foxx’s practice of mass reversals and issuing COIs without proof of actual innocence. Even so, pending lawsuits from individuals released under Foxx could ultimately cost taxpayers another $1 billion.

The election of O’Neill Burke, a respected jurist, over Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s endorsed candidate sent shockwaves through the ecosystem of lawyers, professors, and activists who have made fortunes off Preckwinkle’s criminal-friendly government. Make no mistake, that same coalition, which is also behind the lawsuit demand that a special prosecutor probe federal agents involved in Operation Midway Blitz, is not merely seeking justice for migrants, but it is also attempting to discredit O’Neill Burke for putting the brakes on mass exonerations.

The public deserves a full explanation for why Foxx’s administration reversed its position in one of the city’s most notorious murder cases — and whether politics, rather than evidence, drove decisions with enormous financial consequences for Chicago taxpayers. At a minimum, the available data and evidence warrant a full U.S. Department of Justice investigation into what has become an enormously lucrative enterprise for self-described criminal justice reform advocates and lawyers.