| On September 5, 2000, Chicago police officers Broderick Jones and Corey Flagg arrested 17-year-old Desmond McCarty after they said they caught him with heroin and cocaine.
On July 17, 2001, McCarty pled guilty in Cook County Circuit Court to possession of a controlled substance. He was sentenced to probation.
On June 10, 2003, McCarty was charged with violating the terms of his probation. He pled guilty and was sentenced to four years in prison. He was released on September 30, 2004.
In August 2011, McCarty was charged with unlawful use and possession of a weapon by a felon based upon his drug conviction. He was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison.
In 2014, after he was released, McCarty was charged with being an armed habitual criminal after he was arrested for carrying a gun. The charge was based upon his prior convictions for drug possession and weapons possession. In 2016, he was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
While in prison, McCarty learned that Jones and Flagg, as well as fellow police officers Eural Black, Darek Haynes, and Erik Johnson, had been convicted in U.S. District Court in Chicago. The officers had been convicted of stealing from drug dealers and planting drugs on others. Jones had been sentenced to 25 years in prison and Flagg had been sentenced to more than eight years in prison.
In 2017, McCarty asked the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) to investigate his claim that he had been framed on the drug charge and that the subsequent convictions were based on the false drug case. On December 21, 2017, the CIU filed a motion to vacate all three of McCarty’s convictions. The motion was granted and the cases were dismissed.
In February 2023, McCarty filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Jones, Flagg and the city of Chicago seeking compensation. He also filed a petition for a certificate of innocence.
On April 24, 2023, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Erica Reddick granted the petition and awarded McCarty a certificate of innocence.
In February 2024, the Illinois Court of Claims awarded McCarty $119,133 in compensation for his time in prison on the drug case.
McCarty “was a victim of the criminal enterprise run by former Chicago Police Officers Corey Flagg and Broderick Jones in this case,” the Court of Claims said. “The former police officers were involved in a criminal enterprise that included bad cops and drug dealers in Chicago between 1999 to 2005 whereby the drug dealers provided the corrupt cops with information about the location of narcotics and money held by other drug dealers.”
“No amount of money can make up for the lost time, the trauma of being wrongfully imprisoned, and the egregious experience of being wrongfully accused by those entrusted to serve and protect the People. The Court’s remedy is to award Claimant the maximum award of $119,133.”
– Maurice Possley
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