Judge Overturns Convictions of 7 in El Rukn Prosecutions

A judge overturned the convictions of seven men, including a half-brother of Jesse Jackson, in the troubled prosecution of the El Rukn gang Monday because of evidence that prosecutors concealed special treatment of their star witnesses.

U.S. District Judge Marvin Aspen was the third federal judge to order new trials for El Rukns, or associates, on the grounds that prosecutors concealed evidence that government witnesses took drugs, had sex and got other favors while in custody.

“It is a tragedy that the convictions of some of the most hardened and antisocial criminals in the history of this community must be overturned,” Aspen wrote in his opinion.

Among those covered by his order is businessman Noah Robinson, the half-brother of Jackson.

Aspen criticized Assistant U.S. Atty. William Hogan, who led the prosecution.

Hogan, “in seeking to attain the laudable goal of ridding society of an organization of predatory career criminals, was willing to abandon fundamental notions of due process of law and deviate from acceptable standards of prosecutorial conduct,” Aspen wrote.

“The others who followed his lead or failed to supervise him properly, of course, share in his disgrace.”

Federal prosecutors had put together a six-year investigation of the gang that led to 53 convictions or guilty pleas. But in June, two other federal judges ordered new trials for six El Rukns.

On Monday, Aspen ordered new trials for six more El Rukns and Robinson. They were convicted in a racketeering trial of conspiring to import drugs into Chicago and eliminate rival gang members and government witnesses.

Aspen said the seven defendants before him might have been acquitted if defense attorneys had been able to tell the jury of evidence that the government allowed witnesses to have free phone calls, conjugal visits, alcohol, clothing and other gifts.

“While standing alone any one of these benefits may appear trivial. Taken together they evince a pattern of preferential treatment afforded no other government cooperating witnesses,” Aspen wrote.

Aspen let stand two lesser convictions against two of the gang members.