ABC 7 Chicago has been investigating Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx ever since her office decided to drop the 16 felony charges against Jussie Smollett last month and, through the course of their investigation, the local news station found that Foxx let a convicted killer off the hook when she first took office.
16-year-old Derrion Albert was killed in a gang fight when he was walking home from school in 2009. Prosecutors charged four teens with Albert’s death, three of whom were convicted of murder and one pled guilty. ABC 7 Chicago reports:
But one teen – known then as “D.J.” – was 14 at the time. Prosecutors say he punched Albert and knocked him down, saying that he signed “his death certificate.”
Prosecutors decided to charge him as a juvenile in a special kind of case called an Extended Jurisdiction Juvenile prosecution or EJJ.
That means although “D.J.” was convicted as a juvenile – he was also sentenced to 30 years as an adult on the underlying offense of murder. However, that sentence would be stayed and not enforced unless he was convicted of a new felony after being released from juvenile custody.
According to Albert’s family, then-Assistant State’s Attorney Kim Foxx made the decision to go with the EJJ prosecution and encouraged them to accept the decision.
“Kim Foxx kept telling us that was the best way to go, that way we have some kind of, the safety net,” Albert’s mother Anjanette said. “That way if he got in trouble he goes back, that’s what it is.”
Six years later and out of juvenile prison, “D.J.” — now 20-year-old Dionte Johnson — was arrested and charged with an aggravated felony.
ABC 7 Chicago reports that prosecutors sought to “revoke stay of his adult sentence,” meaning that Johnson would face the 30 years in prison from the EJJ prosecution in his previous case if convicted.
“Johnson was convicted of the felony on November 8 2016, Election Day,” ABC 7 Chicago added. “The same day that Foxx, who supervised the Albert case convictions, won the State’s Attorney’s race. Soon after, the Albert family says they were called to a meeting at the juvenile court building.”
The family was told that Foxx made the decision to not pursue the 30-year prison sentence from the EJJ that Foxx was responsible for pursuing in the first place.
“Kim Foxx decided not to go any further with this to just, it’s over,” Anjanette said. “She’s going to drop it and he’s going to get out and there was nothing that we could do.”
Anjanette said that she repeatedly reached out to Foxx and that Foxx never bothered to respond to her calls.
“I felt like she sat in our face, she cried with us, she hugged us and then you turn around and let this murderer, I don’t care how old he is, he was convicted of first-degree murder,” Anjanette said. “My son is not here anymore and she gave us all this hope and she promised us that this was going to be OK. And it didn’t turn out like that.”
“I don’t have anything to say to Kim Foxx,” Anjanette continued, “The person that I thought that she was, her heart, her kindness the way that she was with us in court, that’s, I don’t never want to see her again. Never.”
When Foxx ran for office, her campaign “was bankrolled in large part by Illinois Safety & Justice, which was funded with $408,000 from Democratic mega-donor George Soros, part of an effort in at least 20 jurisdictions to elect progressive and minority prosecutors following the 2014 Ferguson shooting,” The Washington Times reported.
Chicago’s police union said in a March 8 Facebook post: “Foxx’s election was part of a national campaign by the radical left to impose their people in key prosecutor spots, a move to fight the system from within.”
At the end of last month, ABC 7 Chicago reported that the FBI was reviewing the circumstances surrounding the dismissal of the charges against Smollett.
After the charges against Smollett were dropped, Democrat Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson slammed Smollett and Foxx’s office for the decision.
“I’m sure we all know what occurred this morning,” Johnson said. “My personal opinion is that you all know where I stand on this. Do I think justice was served? No.”
“I think this city is still owed an apology,” Johnson continued. “When I came on this job, I came on with my honor, my integrity, and my reputation. And if someone accused me of doing anything that would circumvent that, then I would want my day in court. Period. To clear my name.”
“I’ve heard that they wanted their day in court with TV cameras so America could know the truth,” Johnson added. “And now they chose to hide behind secrecy and broker a deal to circumvent the judicial system.”
Emanuel slammed the system even harder than Johnson did, saying, “This is a whitewash of justice.”
“You cannot have, because of a person’s position, one set of rules apply to them and another set of rules apply to everybody else,” Emanuel said. “In another way, you’re seeing this play out in the universities, where people pay extra to get their kids a special position in universities. Now you have a person, because of their position and background, who’s getting treated in a way that nobody else would ever … get close to this type of treatment.”
“The city saw its reputation dragged through the mud,” Emanuel added. “This is without of doubt a whitewash of justice and sends a clear message that if you’re in a position of influence and power, you’ll get treated one way, other people will be treated another way. There is no accountability in the system. It is wrong, full stop.”
“I wanted to say one other thing,” Emanuel said. “Mr. Smollett is still saying that he is innocent, still running down the Chicago Police Department. How dare he! How dare him! After everybody saw — and I want to remind you — this is not the superintendent’s word against his. The grand jury, a sliver of the evidence and they came to a conclusion, as did the state’s attorney’s office. This is not the superintendent and the detectives, department, word against his! And even after this whitewash, still, no sense of ownership of what he’s done.”