Mar 26, 2008 6:00 pm US/Central
Man Says Cops Tortured Him, Solicited His Wife
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
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Leonard Robinson Jr., is suing Chicago police for allegedly beating him, trying to force a murder confession from him.
CBS
A man says Chicago police beat him and tried to force him to confess to murder. Now Leonard Robinson Jr., is fighting back and suing the Chicago Police Department.
Robinson claims officers wanted him to say he murdered his girlfriend's 3-year-old son, whose death remains a mystery.
CBS 2's Pamela Jones reports Diamonte Williams was found unresponsive in bed with a plastic bag near his body.
In October a judge found Robinson not guilty of first degree murder in the case, but now Robinson is hoping the courts will bring him another level of justice.
"They handcuffed me to a wall, beat me with a TV antenna, kicked me, stomped me, spat on me," Robinson said.
He was arrested for domestic battery against his girlfriend back in September 2004, but says when he arrived at Harrison Area headquarters, police tried to torture a murder confession out of him.
"They questioned me about this case. They wanted me to make a statement. But I didn't know any information I could give them," Robinson said. "So they continued to beat me."
The Cook County Coroner says the 3-year-old died of suffocation, the result of a homicide in April 2001.
"The most important thing is that a judge in the Circuit Court of Cook County found that not only did Leonard not commit this crime but that Leonard was in fact beaten while he was in custody and one of the police officers the officer who claimed Leonard confessed to the murder also was attempting to have sex with Leonard's wife while he was in custody at the Cook County Jail," said Robinson's attorney Andre Grant.
Robinson and his attorney say they presented phone records showing an officer called Robinson's wife some 17 times, "offering her an apartment in his building, asking her her bra size, her panty size and requesting oral sex," Grant said.
Chicago police spokesperson Monique Bond said it's too early for the agency to respond to the lawsuit.
"Without having all the facts it would be difficult for him to come to a conclusion at this point."
Bond says the superintendent is waiting for a judge to rule on the merits of the case.
The state's attorney's office says police would have to release if they're looking for any other suspects in the murder now. There is no word of such a search so far.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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