William Hogan Jr., the lead prosecutor on the recently dismissed Broadview 6 case, was found to have engaged in serious misconduct by multiple federal judges more than 30 years ago, court documents show.
Hogan was the lead prosecutor in several trials of members of the notorious El Rukn street gang in 1991, winning numerous convictions, However, those cases fell apart after extensive post-trial inquiries by three federal judges — Marvin Aspen, James Holderman and Suzanne Conlon — found numerous instances of what they termed prosecutorial misconduct.
Hogan has consistently denied engaging in any misconduct in the El Rukn trials.
Entering a court hearing Tuesday morning, Oak Park Trustee Brian Straw and his attorney Chris Parente chose not to comment on Hogan’s history.
Post-trial motions filed by numerous convicted El Rukns in the case Holderman heard asserted, among other things, “that the government had withheld information from the defendants’ counsel which showed that two key government witnesses, Henry Harris and Harry Evans, had tested positive for illegal drugs while incarcerated at the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC).”
The men’s drug use was part of an alleged pattern of favorable treatment the government afforded the cooperating witnesses that, if known by the defense, could have called their credibility into question. Under what’s known as “Giglio disclosure,” the government is required to turn over to defense attorneys any evidence it has that could be used to impeach the credibility of a prosecution witness.
Over several months in 1993, Judges Aspen, Holderman and Conlon threw out convictions against a total of 15 convicted El Rukn gang members and ordered retrials. All 15 were later convicted at re-trial.
All three judges concluded that Hogan and others had deliberately covered up drug use in jail by Harris and Evans. In addition, Holderman wrote in a 137-page ruling, that prosecutors gave the two men clothing and money, allowed them to use government phones and to have sex with visitors in government offices.
The collapse of the sprawling El Rukn prosecution, which targeted more than 60 gang members, was a media sensation, and a huge embarrassment for the Chicago office of the Department of Justice. Hogan was suspended with pay, and after an investigation, was fired.
After a five-year legal fight, in 1998 an administrative law judge re-instated Hogan, finding that the government had not proven that he had engaged in misconduct. At a press conference, Hogan blamed “animosity” toward him by the three judges, jealousy in the FBI for his prosecution of the notorious El Rukns, and a timid DOJ unwilling to have his back. Justice department officials, he said, “took the easy way out, and they dumped me out the door.”
But the Memorandum Opinion and Orders (MOOs) issued by the judges, each very long and detailed, portrayed an overzealous prosecutor willing to overlook exculpatory evidence and ignore rules governing his legal obligations as a prosecutor.
In June 1993, Judge Holderman issued a 95,000 word MOO outlining Hogan’s alleged misconduct.
“Hogan not only knew that Harris and Evans had tested positive for illegal drugs,” Holderman ruled, “but he also possessed information that these witnesses were routinely using drugs during their entire stay at the MCC,” including the time during which they were testifying.
Judge Aspen appointed former U.S. Attorney Thomas P. Sullivan to “aid the court in an impartial and learned marshalling of evidence.”
Between May 24 and July 8, 1993, over 7 full days, 29 witnesses testified. “The evidence adduced during the post-trial hearings before this court and Judges Conlon and Holderman … overwhelmingly indicate that government witnesses Henry Harris and Harry Evans possessed and used illicit narcotics while confined (in the MCC),” Aspen ruled.
In a 60,000 word MOO in September, 1993, Aspen wrote that he was deeply troubled by the conclusions in his own ruling, writing, “This is the most painful decision that this court has ever been obliged to render, making the crafting of this opinion a sad and difficult undertaking.”
“Significant questions of prosecutorial misconduct bring (six defendants) before this court seeking new trials,” Aspen wrote. “It is a tragedy that the convictions of some of the most hardened and anti-social criminals in the history of this community must be overturned.”
Aspen said Hogan was someone who, “in seeking to attain the laudable goal of ridding society of an organization of predatory career criminals, was willing to abandon fundamental notions of due process of law and deviate from acceptable standards of prosecutorial conduct.”
Aspen cast doubt not only on Hogan’s conduct but his credibility, noting a distinct difference between Hogan’s “near-photographic memory in previous stages of this prosecution” and the “countless instances” during post-trial proceedings in which Hogan answered questions with ‘Not that I recall.’”
“In contrast,” Aspen wrote, “Hogan’s conduct in previous stages of this case has left his credibility marred long before he took the witness stand during these post-trial proceedings.”
“Rather than confronting the obstacles inherent in this (1991) prosecution with candor and professionalism,” Aspen wrote, “Hogan sacrificed personal and professional canons of ethics to fulfill his quest for one-sided justice. From the outset, we have had occasion to label Hogan’s conduct as ‘disingenuous.’”