| On October 11, 2001, 25-year-old Rebecca Hahn was standing near her car on North Summit Avenue in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, when two men approached. One said he had a gun and took her $550 Prada purse and her cell phone.
Police determined that the stolen phone was in use within an hour. The calls were traced to Antwan Townsend, who had a record for armed robbery. Townsend told police he had gotten the phone from someone he knew only as “E.”
Townsend’s description of “E” closely resembled Hahn’s description of the gunman. Police were unable to find “E.”
In November 2001, 41-year-old Eugene Glenn was arrested after snatching a woman’s purse outside a Sentry store in Milwaukee. He was arrested and charged with that crime on November 29, 2001. In December, a lineup was organized that included Glenn. Hahn viewed the lineup and identified him as the gunman.
Glenn was then additionally charged with the armed robbery of Hahn. The prosecution offered Glenn an eight-year sentence if he would plead guilty to both crimes. He agreed to plead guilty to the purse snatching outside the Sentry store, but insisted he was innocent of Hahn’s robbery.
In April 2002, Glenn went to trial on the robbery charge in Milwaukee County Circuit Court.
Hahn testified and identified him as the gunman. “I recognized his face immediately,” Hahn testified.
The defense called Glenn’s girlfriend, Betty Harris, who testified that she and Glenn were watching television and having sex at the time of the crime.
The defense noted that Hahn’s initial description of the gunman was of a man who was much shorter than Glenn and had a lighter complexion.
The jury deliberated for two hours before convicting Glenn of armed robbery.
On May 2, Glenn pled guilty to the Sentry purse snatching and Circuit Court Judge Jean DiMotto sentenced him to 10 years in prison.
Later than month, Judge DiMotto sentenced Glenn to 20 years in prison for the robbery of Hahn.
In the fall of 2002, assistant public defender Richard Martin and investigator Mary Taylor began working on Glenn’s appeal. As part of their investigation, they discovered another possible suspect named Eric Gardner, who had a facial resemblance to Glenn. In February, they took a photograph of the lineup containing Glenn which Hahn had viewed, and showed it to Antwan Townsend, the person who had said he got the stolen cell phone from “E.” Townsend said that “E” was not in the lineup.
When Martin and Taylor showed Townsend a photograph of Gardner, Townsend said that Gardner was “E.”
They informed the prosecution of their findings, and in September 2003, the prosecution presented a photographic lineup to Hahn that included Gardner, but not Glenn. Hahn identified Gardner as the gunman.
On October 4, 2003, police arrested Gardner. During questioning, Gardner confessed to robbing Hahn. He later pled guilty to the crime.
Days later, the prosecution filed a motion to vacate Glenn’s conviction. The motion was granted and the case was dismissed. Glenn’s sentence on the Sentry purse snatching was later reduced from 10 years to four years after Judge DiMotto conceded that the 10-year sentenced she had imposed had been influenced by Glenn’s conviction for robbing Hahn.
– Maurice Possley
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