Two Mexican nationals whose life sentences were overturned after their murder charges were dropped now face deportation.
Gabriel Solache, 43, and Arturo Reyes, 45, had been serving life sentences for nearly 20 years stemming from murder convictions in the 1998 stabbings of a couple in Chicago, the Chicago Tribune reports.
Now, the duo has been exonerated after a judge voided their confessions on the advice of their defense teams, who claimed their clients were coerced into confessing by disgraced Detective Reynaldo Guevara.
Gabriel Solache (left) and Arturo Reyes (right) have been placed in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They both had served nearly two decades of life sentences for their alleged role in the 1998 fatal stabbing of a Chicago couple
Their convictions were overturned after it was found that a detective likely coerced them into confessing. Pictured is a stock photo of an ICE agent
The retired officer has been accused of police brutality in multiple cases across the Chicagoland area. He has refused to cooperate in a swath of case re-openings in the face of the allegations against him.
‘Detective Guevara is a liar, he should not be believed and any case that rests upon his testimony should be thrown out,’ an attorney told the Tribune. The state’s attorney’s office declined to comment to the Tribune.
The overturned convictions bring to at least six the number of inmates who spent years behind bars before their own allegations against Guevara helped them win their freedom.
Prosecutors continue to believe the duo is guilty of killing the couple but accept that the case must be dismissed due to the overturned conviction.
Detective Reynaldo Guevara has been found to have coerced multiple people to false convictions, including the two men now in custody
They had been found guilty of killing Mariana Soto, 43, and his wife Jacinta, 35.
The alleged motive was to please Adriana Mejia, believed to be a relative of Reyes and a friend of Solache who had wanted to take the deceased couple’s 2-month-old daughter as her own.
Mejia is currently serving a life prison sentence.
But neither man tasted freedom; instead, they were both immediately transferred into the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
In a statement to Buzzfeed, ICE officials said the men are ‘amenable to removal’ and will ‘remain in ICE custody pending disposition of their immigration cases’.