The Justice Department’s revival of the death penalty under President Donald Trump is complicating an already troubled street-gang prosecution, involving two men convicted in 2022 as a leader and “shooter” for Chicago’s relentlessly violent Wicked Town street gang.
The result is “textbook vindictive prosecution,” a defense attorney told a judge Friday.
A federal jury found Wicked Town leader Donald “Lil’ Don” Lee and Torance “Blackie” Benson guilty of a racketeering conspiracy in November 2022 and held them responsible for multiple murders and attempted murders. The trial spanned more than nine weeks and exposed jurors to evidence of brutal violence.
But sentencing preparations in 2024 led to the discovery of a May 2022 email from then-Assistant U.S. Attorney John Mitchell, records show. In it, Mitchell allegedly relayed his expectation that, “if the sentencing were tomorrow,” the feds would recommend a 30-year sentence for Deshawn Morgan, a Wicked Town associate who pleaded guilty and testified against Lee and Benson.
Morgan was ultimately sentenced to 32 years in prison last August.
Defense attorneys say “the flood gates opened” after that disclosure. They say Mitchell made similar undisclosed comments to others who testified against Lee and Benson. And now, U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin is considering whether the men deserve a new trial. He even set a date: Aug. 25.
Meanwhile, Attorney General Pam Bondi called in a Feb. 5 memo for a review of all pending cases that are eligible for the death penalty and were charged under former President Joe Biden. On Friday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Meghan Morrissey notified Durkin that the 2021 charges against Lee and Benson fall “squarely” within that timeframe.
That could complicate the new trial date, Morrissey told the judge. But Lee attorney Lisa Wood objected. She noted that when the case was originally charged, “essentially everyone agreed” that the death penalty was not appropriate. Now, with alleged government misconduct putting the possibility of a new trial on the table, Wood said, “we’re told that the penalty is going to go up.”
“That is textbook vindictive prosecution,” Wood said, adding that “we strongly believe that the imposition — or even the consideration of — the death penalty in this case would violate Mr. Lee and Mr. Benson’s due process rights.”
Wood acknowledged that the prosecutors based in Chicago weren’t responsible for Bondi’s memo, but Wood told the judge, “The government as a whole is putting you in a difficult position.”
Durkin said he must first rule on the motion for a new trial. If granted, he said, “I anticipate a motion from Ms. Wood similar to the oral argument she just made.”
Lee and Benson were among 13 people charged in an indictment that tied the Wicked Town street gang to 19 murders. Morgan acknowledged at trial that he sent a longtime friend to his death because of Morgan’s mistaken belief that the friend had snitched on him to authorities. Durkin called the gang the “most vicious” ever prosecuted in the Dirksen Federal Courthouse.
Similar issues have prompted Durkin to schedule a new trial in another major street-gang case. Labar Spann, convicted in November 2021 as the leader of the Four Corner Hustlers street gang, could go to trial again Oct. 27. The charges against Spann pre-date the Biden administration, though.
Meanwhile, this is at least the second time this week that Trump’s shake-up of the Justice Department — prompting large-scale disruption in other parts of the country — has threatened to upend a prosecution in Chicago.
Defense attorneys in the unrelated ComEd bribery conspiracy case, involving four people convicted of a scheme to bribe ex-Illinois House Speaker Michael J. Madigan, want their case put on hold. The attorneys pointed to a Trump executive order, and a memo from Bondi, calling for a pause and review of cases involving the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
Four of the nine counts in the ComEd bribery case are tied to that law. A judge has yet to rule on that request.