 From left: attorney Eric Bisby, Francisco Romero, attorney Jennifer Blagg, Michael Samanta, attorneys Jennifer Bonjean and Ashley Cohen
Macias was standing among his friend, 11-year-old Edgar Jimenez, and two admitted members of the Latin Souls Street gang: Jesus Diaz and 17-year-old Jose Cepeda.
Cepeda described the shooter as a Hispanic male, who was 18 to 20 years old, and who wore a dark blue baseball cap and a blue, short-sleeved shirt that had vertical and horizontal white stripes on it. He said that the gunman had a thin mustache, a goatee, and a teardrop tattoo under his right eye. The shooter was between 5 feet 8 inches and 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighed 150 pounds. A composite sketch was created based on the description.
Later that day, a detective interviewed Jimenez, who also said the gunman had a teardrop tattoo under his right eye.
Police recovered fingerprints from the gate in the gangway, a mailbox on the front of the gate and a rear gate near the alley.
Police also spoke to Fabian Gomez, a confidential informant for the police who was a member of the Latin Saints street gang, which was a rival to the Latin Souls. Gomez had been cooperating with the police after he had been arrested in 2000 for an aggravated kidnapping. In return for his cooperation, the charges had been dismissed.
Gomez told police that he had heard on the street that 18-year-old Francisco Romero, who was a member of the Latin Saints, was responsible for the shooting.
On July 30, 2001, Jimenez viewed a photographic lineup that included several males with some sort of mark or tattoo under their right eye. All the photos were slightly blurred, except for Romero’s photo, which was clearly focused. Romero was the only person in the lineup with a clear teardrop tattoo, but it was under his left eye. Even so, Jimenez identified Romero as the gunman.
On August 1, 2001, Jimenez and his sister, Viridiana, were walking to Macias’s wake. Viridiana, who had not witnessed the shooting but was present when Jimenez viewed the photographic lineup, saw Romero across the street and told Jimenez that he “was the guy.” Jimenez agreed and his sister called the police. They were present, but did not identify themselves, as police arrived and arrested Romero. However, when police were unable to locate the witnesses to conduct a lineup, Romero was released.
Gomez later told police that on August 2, 2001, he was driving when he saw Romero crossing the street and pulled up next to him. Gomez said that he had seen the composite sketch on the television news and believed it resembled Romero. Gomez said to Romero that he was famous and, according to Gomez, Romero replied, “Yeah, you seen that shit?” Gomez noted that Romero was clean shaven, and Romero said he had to shave because of the sketch. Romero commented that police had picked him up but let him go.
Gomez said that he told Romero that Macias was not in a gang. Romero disagreed, saying that Macias “was a [Latin] Soul; his name was Little Dog.”
That same day, police interviewed Jimenez again. When Jimenez insisted that the shooter was already in custody and explained what he saw, police realized he was talking about Romero. Romero was arrested that afternoon.
On August 3, 2001, Jimenez viewed a live lineup. Since Romero was the only person with a teardrop tattoo, he and all of the lineup participants were given bandages to place under their left eye. Because the lineup participants remained seated, Jimenez could not see that Romero was several inches taller than the description of the shooter. Jimenez selected Romero from the lineup. Romero was then charged with first-degree murder and aggravated discharge of a firearm.
At some point thereafter, Gomez told police that he had heard from Fernando Guerra that Guerra’s brother, 20-year-old Michael Samanta, was involved in the shooting. On September 25, 2001, police obtained permission from a judge to equip Gomez with an eavesdropping device to record conversations between Gomez and Samanta. The first two times, Samanta said nothing incriminating.
On the third attempt, Gomez said, “You lit him up in broad daylight?” Samanta replied that they “weren’t even planning it, man. We were smoking a [blunt].” Samanta added that “you know how I be having that thing with me,” a reference, according to Gomez, to a gun.
Samanta was arrested on February 21, 2002. Police said that during questioning, Samanta first denied involvement. However, after reading a transcript of the recording of the conversation with Gomez, police said Samanta admitted that he had driven Romero to the scene of the shooting.
According to detectives, Samanta said he and Romero were driving around, smoking marijuana when they saw a group of boys, including someone affiliated with the rival Latin Souls gang in front of 1714 West 48th Street. He said Romero told him to stop the car in a gangway near the building. There, Samanta said he gave Romero a .380-caliber pistol. Samanta said Romero ran down the gangway. Samanta said he heard a gunshot and Romero ran back to the car.
Samanta was then charged with first-degree murder and aggravated discharge of a firearm.
In January 2006, Romero went to trial in Cook County Circuit Court. Jimenez, who was by then 16 years old, said that at the time of the shooting, he was not in a gang, but had since joined the La Raza gang, which was an enemy of the Latin Saints. In particular, he said he hated the gang because “they killed my friend.”
Jimenez testified that the gunman had a teardrop tattoo under his left eye. He admitted that he told police at the time that the gunman had such a tattoo under his right eye. He told the jury he had identified Romero in a photo lineup and a live lineup. He also identified Romero in court. Jimenez said that when he was shown the photo lineup, the police told him to look to see “if somebody in the picture looks familiar like the shooter.”
On cross-examination, Jimenez was asked about his original description of the shooter. Jimenez denied saying that the shooter had a bad complexion – Romero did not. Jimenez admitted saying that the teardrop tattoo was under the shooter’s right eye. Jimenez also initially did not remember, then denied, saying that the gunman was wearing a dark blue shirt. Lastly, Jimenez did not remember saying that he, not Diaz, was sitting on a bike.
Detective Thomas Cepeda (no relation to Jose) testified that he told Jimenez, “to look closely, not to be scared or worried, that they could not see into the room, [to] look at the participants of the lineup and see if he recognized anybody.”
Detective Cepeda also claimed that he put Romero’s photo into the lineup because Romero fit the description and had a prior record. He did not say that Gomez had been the original source.
Gomez testified that he told police about Romero after seeing the composite sketch on television.
A stipulation was presented to the jury that said that Romero was not the source of the fingerprints recovered in the case.
During the closing arguments, the defense highlighted Jimenez’s changing statements, as well as his admission that he was angry with Romero’s gang because that was the gang responsible for Macias’s murder. The defense noted that at least one other witness, Jose Cepeda, who did not testify, had said the gunman had a teardrop tattoo under his right eye. Romero, the defense argued, was not the gunman because he had a teardrop tattoo under his left eye.
The defense attacked Gomez’s testimony as well on a number of fronts, including Gomez’s claim that when he saw Romero right after the shooting, Romero had shaved, supposedly because of the publicizing of the composite sketch. In fact, the defense noted, the photograph taken of Romero on the day of his arrest, after Gomez supposedly saw him, showed Romero was not clean shaven. He had a mustache and sideburns down to his jawline. In addition, Romero was 6 feet tall – at least three inches taller than witnesses had described.
On January 20, 2006, the jury convicted Romero of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to 65 years in prison.
Samanta went to trial in August 2006 in Cook County Circuit Court. A pretrial motion to suppress Samanta’s oral confession as well as the recorded conversations with Gomez had been denied.
The prosecution’s case rested primarily on Samanta’s oral confession and the recorded statements with Gomez. Samanta had refused to sign a handwritten statement. Both Detective Cepeda and the prosecutor who took the statement testified that Samanta had been read his Miranda warnings, but this was not recorded anywhere. Detective Cepeda had no notes of Samanta's interrogation. He did not submit his typed report documenting the statement for nearly a year.
On August 7, 2006, a jury convicted Samanta of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
In 2008, the First District Illinois Appellate Court upheld Romero’s convictions and sentence.
In 2009, Romero filed a post-conviction petition seeking a new trial because at least two jurors had seen him in shackles outside the courtroom and because the prosecution, outside the presence of the defense lawyers, had told the bailiff to instruct the jurors not to take that into account. The petition noted that after the jury had begun to deliberate, it asked for certain trial transcripts. While Romero’s attorney was out of the courtroom, the judge told the bailiff to instruct the jury that the court reporter was sick, that one would have to be found to print the transcripts, and that they should try to come up with a verdict while they were waiting. And in fact, the jury had done just that.
The petition was dismissed without a hearing on September 1, 2009. Romero appealed and in 2012, the Appellate Court remanded the case for a hearing on whether the prosecution had engaged in prohibited communications with the jury. Subsequently, attorneys Jennifer Blagg and Eric Bisby began representing Romero and filed a revised post-conviction petition.
The petition included an affidavit from Juan Macias, who was not related to the victim. Macias said he was leaning on a car at the scene when Francisco Macias was shot. Juan, who said he was a Latin Soul member, said he was talking to Ivan Diaz when he heard the gate shaking. Juan turned toward the gate and saw a man with a big teardrop tattoo on the right side of his face. The shooter was wearing a dark-colored baseball hat, a green-collared shirt with gray on it, and black “Dickies type” shorts. Juan saw the shooter’s gun and explained that he fired one shot, striking Francisco. After the shooting, Juan said he ran away because he had been selling marijuana, and he had a gun. He said that he did not want his home to get raided for being caught with the gun, and he did not want any problems for his family.
Juan said in the affidavit that sometime later, he was in prison in Illinois when he heard Romero talking about trying to locate Jose Cepeda, one of the witnesses in the case, who Romero believed was in the military. Juan knew a man by that name who was in the military, so he began talking to Romero. Once he saw Romero, he knew it was impossible that Romero was the gunman because Romero had a teardrop on the left side of his face. Juan believed that the gunman was a member of the La Raza street gang due to the location of his teardrop tattoo. Juan also noted that Romero was taller than the gunman.
The petition also cited a report from Dr. John Hagedorn, an expert on gangs, who explained the relevance of the location of the teardrop tattoo. Dr. Hagedorn said gang members with tattoos under their right eyes were from the “Folks” branch of gangs, which included La Raza and Latin Souls. Gang members with a teardrop under the left eye are “People,” whose members include the Latin Saints. Dr. Hagedorn also said that Edgar Jimenez, who was not yet a teenager, would have been inclined to follow the direction of his older gang leaders. As such, he would have been influenced to identify or incriminate a rival gang member if so directed.
Dr. Geoffrey Loftus, an expert in memory and perception, also provided an affidavit for the petition. Dr. Loftus said that Jimenez’s identification was not reliable for several reasons, including the short duration of time to see the gunman, the fact that a weapon was involved, and that the initial identification had been obtained through a suggestive lineup. After that, his identification of Romero had been reinforced by his sister’s statement when she saw Romero on the street, and that identification was further confirmed in the live lineup and at trial.
Subsequently, Samanta, represented by attorneys Jennifer Bonjean and Ashley Cohen, also filed a renewed petition for a new trial based on Juan Macias’s affidavit.
In 2017, Samanta's petition was denied. In 2020, however, the Appellate Court reversed the dismissal and ordered a hearing. The Cook County State's Attorney's Office then agreed to a hearing on Romero's petition.
In July 2023, following the hearing, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Carol Howard granted the petitions, vacated the convictions of Romero and Samanta, and ordered a new trial.
“The state’s case at trial ...basically consisted of the testimony of Edgar [Jimenez], who was 11 years old at the time of the shooting,” the judge said. The judge noted that it was uncontested that Jimenez saw the shooter for a brief time – only seconds – and through a metal gate. The judge said that based on the facts of the case and the testimony of Dr. Loftus, she had concluded that Jimenez did not have an “ample opportunity” to view the gunman such that he could not “accurately identify the shooter in the future.”
Judge Howard said that the statement that Gomez elicited from Samanta was “unintelligible and ambiguous at best.” The judge noted that the person who usually transcribed the tapes of conversations could not make out the conversation. So Gomez and the detectives assisted with the transcription. Gomez, the judge said, had “a huge incentive to embellish Mr. Samanta’s statement because he [Gomez] was looking to escape responsibility for his own cases.”
On August 24, Samanta was released on bond. Romero was released to electronic monitoring on December 14, 2023.
In March 2024, Blagg filed a motion seeking to suppress Jimenez’s identification of Romero as the gunman. The motion cited newly discovered evidence that Gomez, while acting as an informant, had previously provided unreliable information. He was under pressure from police to help them solve murders as part of a grant-funded investigation called “Operation Stickman.”
The motion said that as part of the State’s Attorney’s review of the case, Gomez was interviewed, and he detailed how detectives fed him the facts of the various cases in which they hoped he would induce fellow gang members to confess on the wire. Gomez said that after he wore a wire and was unsuccessful in obtaining any admissions, a detective beat him up in anger.
On June 26, 2024, Blagg filed a supplement to the motion to suppress the identification. It said that evidence had been recently discovered that Gomez was also an informant for the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office. In addition, he was involved as an informant in another undercover investigation called “Operation Saints and Sinners.”
The supplement said the police department used a confidential numbering system to keep track of drug buys that Gomez was making as an undercover informant. The official reports disclosed to Blagg by the department did not have the names of any arrestees, the factual basis for the arrests or even the locations of the arrests.
“The lack of this evidence makes it impossible for Romero to assess the reliability of the information Gomez gave to the police to lead to these arrests,” Blagg said in the supplement.
That same day, the prosecution dismissed the charges against Romero and Samanta.
– Maurice Possley
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