By Frank Main and Natasha Korecki
The Chicago Sun-Times
CHICAGO — A Chicago Police officer was a partner in crime with his informant — a drug dealer who has allegedly killed at least two people and was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by the city for information that led to arrests of his rivals, according to law-enforcement sources and an indictment unsealed Monday.
Glenn Lewellen, who retired in 2002 after about 16 years on the force, participated in a major drug enterprise headed by Saul Rodriguez, prosecutors said.
Rodriguez, accused of murders in 2000 and 2001, was Lewellen’s confidential informant for years, sources said. As a police informant, Rodriguez was paid more than $700,000 by the city in exchange for information that often led to competitors getting locked up, sources said.
Lewellen, 54, committed serious crimes for the 35-year-old Rodriguez’s drug business, prosecutors said. For instance, he was involved in a 2003 kidnapping in which cash and 100 kilograms of cocaine were ripped off, according to the indictment. Lewellen allegedly “held himself out as a police officer when obtaining wholesale quantities of cocaine in the Chicago area,” the indictment said.
Lewellen, of Las Vegas, tipped off Rodriguez’s alleged drug ring about federal investigations, the indictment said.
Lewellen also is accused of giving false testimony in a 1999 narcotics trial of a man who was convicted and sentenced to more than 17 years in prison. In May, authorities learned of the false testimony and obtained a court order to vacate Refugio Ruiz’s conviction, the indictment said. Ruiz has since been freed.
The case stemmed from a drug sting Lewellen and his partner conducted on July 8, 1999. The officers said they caught Ruiz with a bag containing 10 kilograms of cocaine worth $1.25 million in the parking lot of an apartment building in Aurora.
Ruiz’s post-conviction attorney, Daniel Eli Radakovich, said he will consider a lawsuit against the city on his client’s behalf. Ruiz’s marriage fell apart while he was in prison, Radakovich said. Ruiz lives in Aurora with a sister and works in the construction business, his lawyer said.
Lewellen was arrested Friday by U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents and charged with racketeering conspiracy, conspiracy to distribute cocaine and obstruction of justice for concealing the activities of the alleged drug operation.
Sources said it’s hard to believe Lewellen became a cop in the first place. He was in the Air Force before joining the police department in 1986, but records show he was discharged for stating he was homosexual. When police officials asked about his discharge, he said he lied to get out of the Air Force and was not really gay, records show.
Lewellen, described by a source as a hardcore gambler, is among three new defendants in a drug conspiracy case that began last year with charges against Rodriguez and five other defendants. They allegedly distributed wholesale quantities of cocaine and heroin to customers in the Chicago area and elsewhere between 1999 and 2009, officials said.
As part of the conspiracy, Rodriguez and Manuel Uriate, 33, of Watsonville, Calif., allegedly murdered Juan Luevano on June 3, 2000, in Cicero and Michael Garcia on May 31, 2001, in Chicago. The drug operation is linked to six kidnappings involving 13 victims between 2003 and 2007, according to the indictment.
Federal authorities are seeking the forfeiture of $9.4 million in cash, $426,000 in jewelry, six properties, three cars and two handguns from the defendants.
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