By Robert Mitchum
Tribune reporter
CHICAGO, Ill. — A Chicago police detective who allegedly framed a man in the murder of a 3-year-old boy repeatedly sought sex from the man’s wife after he had been jailed on the murder charge, a lawsuit filed Wednesday charged.
The lawsuit also alleged that the same detective had falsely claimed that Leonard Robinson confessed to the murder.
A Cook County judge later threw out the confession after finding the detective, Vincent Humphrey, had little credibility because of his alleged sexual advances toward Robinson’s wife.
“There’s a conflict of interest there,” Circuit Judge Vincent Gaughan said at a pretrial hearing last October, according to a transcript provided by Robinson’s lawyer. “For the lack of a better word, [Humphrey] is hitting on Mrs. Robinson at the time that he’s the one saying that her husband made an oral confession.”
Prosecutors still pursued the murder case against Robinson, but Gaughan acquitted him in a bench trial later that same month.
Robinson was arrested on a domestic battery charge in September 2004. While in custody, a second detective, identified as Jack Boock, beat Robinson over the course of three days in an attempt to force his confession to the 2001 murder of an ex-girlfriend’s son, Diamonte Williams, 3, the suit contended.
Neither Humphrey nor Boock could be reached for comment Wednesday on the lawsuit, but both had denied wrongdoing in the criminal case against Robinson.
Humphrey remains employed as a detective, a police spokeswoman said, while Boock retired from the force and now works for the city’s Department of Aviation.
At a news conference in his lawyer’s Loop office, Robinson, 26, said he was held in an interrogation room at the Harrison Area police station for three days without food.
“They handcuffed me to a wall and beat me with a TV antenna,” he said. “Kicked me, stomped me, spit on me. Did that for like three days, from Sunday to Tuesday.”
Robinson’s attorney, Andre Grant, said his client never confessed to the murder in writing or orally.
“They questioned me about this case,” Robinson said. “They wanted me to make a statement. But I didn’t know any information I could give them, so they continued to beat me.”
After Robinson was charged with the murder and jailed, Humphrey allegedly told Robinson’s wife he wouldn’t be coming home again and offered her an apartment and a job at his restaurant. He then repeatedly sought sex from Robinson’s wife. Grant said phone records showed Humphrey called Robinson’s wife at least 17 times, sometimes in the middle of the night.
Grant expressed frustration over the fact that the police internal investigation remains unresolved after 3 1/2 years.
Mark Payne, spokesman for the Independent Police Review Authority, said that Robinson’s complaint is still under investigation. .
Police spokeswoman Monique Bond said that the department had not yet seen the lawsuit but that Supt. Jody Weis was committed to rooting out misconduct by any Chicago police officer.
“Once we are able to determine or get confirmation for whatever the judge ruled,” Bond said, “we’ll be able to move quickly on whatever appropriate action that we need to take internally to remove the officers pending the decision or just based on what they get from the ruling.”
Tribune reporter Angela Rozas contributed to this report.
Copyright 2008 Chicago Tribune