By JIM PAUL
Associated Press Writer
URBANA, Ill. - A federal jury ordered two state police supervisors to pay more than $600,000 to a former lieutenant who said he was moved to a desk job because he pursued evidence linking a political contributor to a double murder.
In issuing the verdict, the jury rejected a defense argument that Lt. Michale Callahan lost his investigations post in 2003 to deal with a feud that had developed with his immediate supervisor, defendant Capt. Steven Fermon, who also was transferred.
Callahan, who retired in March after 24 years on the force, said the job switch sent him into a depression.
The transfers came three years after Callahan’s bosses asked him to reinvestigate the 1986 stabbings of Dyke and Karen Rhoads at their home in the east-central Illinois town of Paris.
Two men had been convicted, but Callahan said he determined that the original probe had been botched. He said he was suddenly ordered to stop investigating in 2001 after learning that evidence pointing to a local businessman who had contributed thousands of dollars to then-Gov. George Ryan’s campaign fund had not been fully explored. That man was never charged.
Another of Callahan’s former supervisors testified during the nine-day trial that Lt. Col. Diane Carper, who oversees state police investigations for the region, had said Callahan’s probe “‘was too politically sensitive, and that comes from higher up than me.’”
The jury, which deliberated for about 5 1/2 hours Thursday, ordered a total of $673,000 in compensatory and punitive damages from Carper and Fermon. A third defendant, ISP deputy director Charles Brueggemann, was not ordered to pay any damages.
“As a police agency, we’re not supposed to leave innocent people in prison,” Callahan said after the verdict. “Politics should never, ever control the justice system.”
One of the men originally convicted, Randy Steidl, was released from prison last year after a federal judge ruled that his jury had not heard all the evidence. The other inmate, Herbert Whitlock, has requested a new trial.
Carper and Fermon declined to comment after the verdict.
Illinois State Police Director Larry Trent, who was visibly upset, said key evidence from federal agencies had been suppressed and that the defense attorneys would almost certainly appeal.
“These are two very fine career officers that did nothing wrong,” Trent said.
Brueggemann’s attorney, Iain Johnston, called his client’s victory bittersweet and said he believed the jury was misguided.
“I think they lost sight of the real issue,” Johnston said of the jury. “They looked at the Rhoadses and they felt sympathy for the Rhoadses. We all feel sympathy for the Rhoadses.”