IN THE NEWS
Chicago Tribune - December 6, 2001
3 ROSCETTI INMATES WALK FREE
By By Steve Mills, Maurice Possley and Kirn Barker
Tribune staff reporters
Omar Saunders used a cell phone for the first time Wednesday and called his girlfriend. Larry Olllns wanted any kind of food that was "unpenitentiary," as long as it was "a big dish of something good." Calvin Ollins thanked Jesus Christ and African choir Lady smith Black Mambazo, and smiled so wide it seemed like he might break something.
On Wednesday after being, locked up for almost 15 years, the three men walked' out up prison, angry at the criminal justice system that wrongfully convicted them of the 1986 rape and murder of medical student Lori Roscetti, but grateful to be free.
They marveled at things they hadn't seen In years: a Popeye's chicken restaurant, a FedEx truck, a Mercedes Benz. "They wondered aloud about things they had only heard about: Palm Pilots, cellular phones, the Internet. And they dreamed of meeting girlfriends and of reconnecting with family members who stopped visiting long ago.
Larry Ollins and Saunders, wearing matching black corduroy pants, gray sweaters and shiny black shoes provided by their lawyer, emerged first, striding out of the small brick gatehouse at Stateville Correctional Center into the December sunshine just after noon.
Both unfolded sheets of paper bearing speeches prepared during sleepless nights, and seemed almost at a loss for any other words. Ollins wiped away tears. "It is obvious today that a great miscarriage of justice was committed against us, and a greater injustice was committed against the family and friends of Lori Roscetti," Saunders said. After speaking with reporters, they piled into a van rented by their lawyer to drive across the Des Plaines River to the Joliet Correctional Center. Larry Ollins couldn't wait to see his cousin and couldn't believe that the younger man might be bigger than him.
There, Calvin Ollins walked out holding a box with his belongings-an electric table fan, a Bible and a photo album from his childhood. He gave a two-thumbs-up sign and smiled wide as he walked into the arms of Saunders and Larry Ollins.
"Long Journey, man," Calvin Ollins, 29, said.
"What did I tell you? Hold on, right?" Larry Ollins, 31, said in return.
Those scenes followed a five-minute hearing before Criminal Court Judge Dennis Porter, who vacated their convictions and sentences after prosecutors, admitting they no longer had evidence against the men, asked him to dismiss the case and set them free.
Kathleen Zellner, the attorney who represents the men, immediately pledged to file a civil rights lawsuit and take the case to a jury for a full airing of what she has alleged was misconduct by Chicago police and county prosecutors in the 1988 trials.
Recent DNA tests, she said, have established that confessions from Calvin Ollins and a fourth defendant, Marcellius Bradford, 31, "were false and coerced."
Official misconduct alleged
"We're going to set the record straight on this," Zellner said. "I cannot overstate the official misconduct in this case and the abuse of power."
Porter also vacated Bradford's conviction in the Roscetti case Wednesday. Bradford served a reduced sentence of 6 1/2 years in exchange for providing testimony against Larry Ollins, and is in Cook County Jail on an unrelated felony theft charge. Zellner said she anticipates his release by later this week on a plea deal crediting him with time served.
Cook County Assistant State's Atty. Celeste Stack said that prosecutors and police would reexamine the initial investigation that led to the men's convictions. She also said that if any evedince leads back to any of the men, they again would be charged.
The dismissal of the case followed months of DNA testing of evidence that excluded the four men as the source of semen at the scene, and a Tribune investigation published in May revealed that several key witnesses-including Bradford-lied when implicating the defendants.
The DNA from semen contains two unidentified genetic profiles. Authorities have submitted those to state and national databases but have yet to find a match.
Stack acknowledged that investigators have no better idea now of what happened to Roscetti than they did on the morning of Oct. 18, 1986, when they found her body next to her car on a desolate West Side railroad access road. Roscetti, of Springfield, was slain after a night of studying at Rush University medical school where she was a student.
'We are at ground zero'
"We have no preconceived ideas about this case," said Stack, who appealed to the public for help in solving the case. "We are at ground zero."
Chicago police arrested the four men several months after the slaying and said that Calvin Ollins and Bradford confessed to Detective James Mercurio and implicated the others.
According to police, Calvin Ollins and Bradford admitted that the four had ambushed Roscetti as she drove home so they could get bus fare for Calvin Ollins to go home to the Cabrini-Green public housing development.
Patrick O'Brien, the lead prosecutor at the 1988 trials, said Wednesday that he remained convinced that all four men are guilty.
"There is always the possiblity of false confessions," said O'Brien, now in private practice. "But in my mind they confessed because they did it."
Mercurio, the detective who took the confessions and who now is retired, declined to comment.
Mayor Richard M. Daley, who was the state's attorney when the four were wrongly convicted, said he would apologize to the men and their families.
"We never had DNA testing," he said. "We have it today, and that is what it is for."
Roscetti's mother, reached at her Springfield home, declined to comment.
A restless last night
Saudners, 32, and the Ollins men each said their last night in prison was restless, as they were too excited to fall asleep. Calvin Ollins said that in the middle of the night, a gaurd walking past his cell noticed he was still awake. He stopped, touched Calvin's feet, and offered congratulations.
Larry Ollins said that throughout his last night, fellow inmates passed him notes, some congratulatory, some seeking favors, particularly help with their legal cases.
As the men walked out of prison, they were so overwhelmed that they struggled to articulate their emotions. Each said he had forgiven Bradford for implicating them, saying they understood the pressures he was under from police.
And Zellner; who said that she spent close to $200,000 and 800 hours investigating since taking their case in April 2000, said she was feeling "just wonderful."
Bitter feelings remain
Larry Ollins, though, expressed some bitterness over the brutality of prison life and the loss of his 20s.
"Nothing can make up for the unjust deprivation of 15 years, half of all our individual lives in a jungle," he said.
And Calvin Ollins, who was just 14 when police took him into custody, said that in seeking a life sentence for him, prosecutors "tried to kill me. They tried to put me under the rug and just forget me."
Zellner said she would force a civil rights lawsuit all the way to trial "so the citizens of Chicago can know how these investigations are handled."
Asked how much money they would seek, Larry Ollins responded, "Shaquille O'Neal money," a reference to the basketball star's huge salary. In a similar case, Cook County officials in 1989 settled a lawsuit filed by the Ford Heights Four-four men wrongly convicted of a double murder-for $36 million.
After their release Wednesday, the three men traveled to Zellner's Naperville office for a reunion with family members, many of whom had quit visiting them during their 15 years behind bars. Along the way, they sat next to each other for the first time since they were teenagers.
Calvin Ollins, who was arrested before he was old enough to drive, asked to take the wheel of the van, but was refused. He stuck his head out the window, waved his short braids in the wind, and whooped. He said he could not wait to listen to Ladysmith Black Mambazo, which helped him find religion behind bars.
"I tell you, man," he said, to no one in particular. "I have many dreams."
Dreams for future
He said he hoped to become a minister. Sauders said he hoped to become a lawyer. Larry Ollins wanted to go to a dentist. Calvin Ollins wanted to see a doctor. Saudners just wanted to sleep in a real bed.
And they talked about the case that took away those 15 years.
"Hey Calvin, what was you thinking about when you were first in the courtroom?" Saunders asked.
Calvin shook his head.
"I was dumbfounded," he said. Then he said he was too immature at the time to understand what was happening. "I knew we was heading down a bad road."
Saunders nodded. "I felt that too."
Saunders and Calvin Ollins borrowed cell phones, with Saunders calling a woman he had gotten to know through another inmate, and Ollins calling a friend. "I'm on my way to the office, man," Ollins said. "I'm free."
The van pulled up at Zellner's office, where Calvin Ollins mother and his grade-school teacher waited near welcome home banners and presents and pizza. Phyllis Ollins started screaming when she saw her only child, who said he hadn't seen her in seven years. "Oh, my God," Phyllis Ollins said, wailing. "My God, My baby. My baby."
She sat on a couch in the office and held her son's head to her chest and cried and rocked. She yelled for Larry Ollins to come over "Oh my God. Get over here."
She held both . She told Larry Ollins to call his brother.
Phyllis Ollins sobbed and said she knew they were innocent, she knew they would get out.
"You ain't moving from here right now," she told her son.
"Mama, I got to get my blood sugar up," Calvin Ollins told her.
She said she wanted to tend to her son.
"I'm a grown man," he told her.
He said hello to his teacher, Colette Teasley, whom Zellner had invited to welcome him home. She taught him in 4th through 6th grades and testified as a character witness for him at his trial. he still called her, "Miss Teasley."
Zellner gave each man a gift with a balloon tied to it. They opened them, one by one, and all the gifts were the same. A plaque that said "Dec. 5, 2001. The first day of the rest of your life."
