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Cook County State's Attorney's Office:
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Anita Alvarez
Cook County State's Attorney
Communications Department
Chicago, IL 60602
(312) 603-3423
saomedia@cookcountygov.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

May 4, 2010

State's Attorney Alvarez Vacates Conviction in 1993 Murder Case

The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office has vacated the murder conviction and sentence against a Chicago man wrongfully convicted in a 1993 gang-related homicide and has arrested a new suspect in connection with the case, State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez announced Monday.

Thaddeus Jimenez, 30, was released from Hill Correctional Center late Friday after serving 16 years in prison. He had been convicted of the Feb. 3, 1993 murder of Eric Morro, 18, in a gang related shooting on Chicago’s North Side. Jimenez was tried and convicted in two jury trials in 1994 and 1997.

The State’s Attorney’s Office also announced that following an extensive criminal re-investigation of the case, that a new suspect has been arrested and is being held on a murder warrant. Juan Carlos Torres, 30, was arrested by State’s Attorney Investigators on Friday. Torres, who was living in Hammond, Indiana, at the time of his arrest, is being held in the Lake County Indiana Jail pending his extradition to Cook County, Alvarez said.

The criminal re-investigation into the Morro murder case began in late 2007, after the State’s Attorney’s Office was informed that key witnesses in the state’s case against Jimenez were recanting the testimony they had given at both trials. The information was brought to the State’s Attorney’s Office by attorneys from Northwestern Law School’s Center on Wrongful Convictions.

“When we were made aware of the potential problems with this case with respect to eyewitnesses recanting their original testimony, we took action and we conducted a comprehensive re-investigation into the murder of Eric Morro,” Alvarez said.

“While this has been a very difficult and unfortunate case on many levels, we will continue to strive to secure justice for everyone involved.”

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