PRIVILEGED & CONFIDENTIAL
ATTORNEY-CLIENT COMMUNICATION
ATTORNEY WORK PRODUCT
MEMORANDUM

TO:

File: 58413-40020

FROM:

Daniel Greenfield and Jeff Carroll

RE:

City of Chicago Guevara Matter- Interview of Ed Mingey (Montanez/Serrano)

DATE:

July 23, 2014

I.

Introduction

This memorandum summarizes information obtained during a 4/7114 interview of Ed
Mingey, who as Area 5 Sergeant was Detective Rey Guevara's immediate supervisor, by Sidley
attorneys Scott Lassar, Daniel Greenfield, and Jeff Carroll. Of particular relevance, as reported
by Detectives Guevara and Halvorsen, Mingey conducted the initial interview of Timothy
Rankins, a witness in the Montanez/Serrano matter, and then apprised Guevara and Halvorsen, of
the substance ofthat interview.
The purpose of this memorandum is to record factual information necessary to provide
legal advice to the City. This memorandum does not contain a verbatim or substantially verbatim
transcript of our contact with Mingey. Rather, the memorandum contains our interpretation of
statements made during the conversations and summarizes our impression of those statements.
This memorandum reflects our judgment as to the relevance of certain information and the
interpretation of factual disputes. The memorandum incorporates privileged and confidential
information and is protected by the attorney-client privilege and the work-product doctrine.
Mingey was represented by counsel, Caroline Golden of The Sotos Law Firm, during the
interview.

 Instead, Rankins told Mingey that he had been a witness to another murder, which
Mingey "realized ... was the murder of Rodrigo Vargas." Mingey then, according to the report,
contacted Guevara and Halvorsen and "requested that they come into Area Five VC, to take a
statement" from Rankins. After meeting with Guevera and Halvorsen, Rankins gave a statement
implicating Armando Serrano, Jose Montanez, and
in Rodrigo Vargas's murder.
Rankins also testified before the Grand Jury on 6/1
. However, he recanted before trial and,
accordingly, did not provide trial testimony.

III.

Interview
A. Work History

Mingey said he was hired by the Chicago Police Department in 1966, beginning his
career in the 12th District. From there, he joined the Area 4 TaskForce, working at that job from
1967 to 1972. In 1972, he was promoted to youth officer, and a year later, gang crimes. He
became a Sergeant in 1977, and worked in both the 20th and 14th districts before joining the 5th
District's gang crimes unit in 1977. He worked in gang crimes from 1977 to 1989, and then as a
supervisor in the 5th District from 1989 until his retirement in 2003. This was the job he held
during June, 1993, when suspects were arrested in three separate cases, including the Vargas
case, with the assistance of police informant Vicente.
Mingey said that during his time supervising at Area 5, he "wore multiple hats." If
serving as the acting watch commander for a day, he would supervise "whatever jobs came inkidnappings, burglaries, robberies, murders." If someone else was working in that role for a shift,
Mingey would work on cases "in the field" with detectives. Mingey said his job "was to be with
these guys when they made an arrest," and that he was "with them most of the time in arrest
2
situations." As Mingey explained, "I wanted to be with those guys when they made arrests. I
think that's where I should be." He continued: "I was brought to Area 5 for that reason, too.
Interact with detectives and make arrests." The reason for that, he said, "was to keep these guys
out ofharm's way." He continued: "[That way], no one's injured, no one gets hurt, and the bad
guy gets taken into custody."
Now retired from CPD, Mingey currently serves as the Director of Security for the
Illinois Racing Board. In that role, he investigates potential incidents of malfeasance in Illinois
horse racing, including horse doping, race-fixing, and other violations of the sport's rules and
regulations.
B. Timothy Rankins

2

Mingey is not listed as having accompanied Detectives Guevara and Halvorsen on any arrests related to the
Rodrigo Vargas shooting.

2

 Mingey said that he was aware of the Vargas murder ''when it occurred," and may have
3
been at the scene, but is not sure. He also said it was possible that he had participated in the
investigation, though his role would have been "very minor." Said Mingey: "I could have been
with those guys, the detectives one night when they were talking to people." In any event, he
"was aware of'' the reports that Guevara and Halvorsen had been submitting in connection with
the Vargas investigation. Mingey continued: "The lead they were working on was this Vicente
guy ... who was Halvorsen 's snitch on other cases." Moreover, Mingey read "all" the
Supplementary Reports and General Progress Reports filed by Area 5 personnel so that he could
"keep abreast" of ongoing investigations such as that connected to the Vargas murder.
His interest would have been piqued by the Vargas matter in particular, Mingey said,
because he believes that it was an "armed robbery gone wrong," and Mingey's background was
in investigating robberies. Mingey said: "Some guys are coming back from partying at 5 in the
morning and trying to stick up some poor guy. That's what it [read like to me] when I first read
the case. " He said that it was his recollection that Guevara and Halvorsen were not involved on
the first day of the Vargas case, which is consistent with the investigation record, although
inconsistent with Halvorsen's statements to us.
Specifically, however, the " only thing" he could recall about the case was his interaction
with Timothy Rankins, whose name he said he did not recall until he reviewed the investigative
4
file approximately four weeks before the interview with us. He said that he did not recall
whether he had previously met Rankins. "I may have, but I really don't know .... Something
tells me I may have known this guy from some place. If he was arrested previously and it was a
robbery case, I could have been involved in arresting him previously." 5
On 6/11/93, the day after Rankins had been brought in on an armed robbery charge,
Mingey had a "general conversation" with Rankins ''to see if he knew anything about robberies
or murders." 6 He continued: "I just asked him about general crimes, stuff that occurred around
the time I was talking to him. He was a gang-banger in a specific area, and being aware of cases
that occurred in that area, I asked if he could help out with cases I'm familiar with."
Typically, Mingey said, when a person in custody like Rankins indicated he had helpful
information about another case under investigation, he would tell the person that "if you can help
us out, we'll go to the State's Attorney's office and see if we can get them to revisit" that
person's case. Mingey noted that only "rarely" did he lie to a suspect or witness in order to
obtain information under these circumstances.
3

There is no reference in the record to Mingey's presence at the scene of Vargas shooting ..

4

At the request of Golden, on or around 2/27114 we provided to Mingey and Golden for their review all RD-File
material in which Mingey's name appeared.
5

In his 6/1 1/93 statement to Halvorsen and ASA Jon King, Rankins said he specifically requested he speak with
Mingey, who he "kn[ ew] and trust[ ed]."

Mingey

3

 There was no one else present for that initial conversation, Mingey said, during which
Rankins "ID'd three guys in the Vargas murder." Rankins, said Mingey, "was extremely
cooperative and easy to talk to," and their conversation was "not long at all." It was "obvious"
after talking to Rankins, said Mingey, ''that, one, he was the offender or, two, he actually
witnessed it." Rankins was, Mingey said, ''the best witness I ever talked to." 7 Mingey continued:
When I talked to this guy, I never talked to anyone who gave me more info and it turned
out to be totally legit .... I've never talked to a guy who was a better informant. He
spewed out all this information. It seems strange, but that's exactly what happened. 8
Mingey could not recall whether he or Rankins first introduced the topic of the Vargas
murder, but remembered that Rankins "ran the case by me" and then provided him with
nicknames for the three suspects, which Mingey wrote down on paper. Mingey noted that he
usually took notes under circumstances where "it looks like I'm going to get somewhere" with a
suspect. When meeting with Rankins, however, Mingey's notes consisted solely of the three
nicknames of the suspects. Mingey noted also, referring to the suspects identified by nickname,
that he "didn't know who they were." 9
After meeting with Rankins, Mingey called Guevara and Halvorsen and "asked them to
come in early." Upon their arrival, Mingey told Guevara and Halvorsen "what happened" and
"gave them the paper" with the three nicknames written on it. 10 Mingey said that Guevara and
Halvorsen then interviewed Rankins and took him to the scene of the shooting. Mingey did not
accompany Guevara, Halvorsen, and Rankins on that trip, he said: "That's not part of my job.
Assisting detectives in arrests was part of my job."
Mingey said that Guevara and Halvorsen told him that Rankins ''took them to the scene
and walked them through the entire case to that point." When Guevara and Halvorsen came back
to the station, Mingey said, they joked with him, "'You sure you didn't take him there
[beforehand]?' We laughed. This guy was spot-on for the whole case."

7
In two separate interviews with us, Det. Halvorsen stated that Rankins provided detectives with false evidence. He
stated regarding Rankins, "He was just making up stories" and "didn't have any of the facts of the case." Halvorsen
continued: "He had no information. Everything he had was goofy."
8

Rankins, in his signed handwritten statement, said that a person going by the street name "Shorty Folks" also
witnessed the Vargas murder. In the investigation record, "Shorty Folks" is identified as Rankins' s armed robbery
co-defendant, Demond Williams. However, in an interview with us, Williams stated that he neither witnessed nor
had any knowledge of the Vargas murder. He recalled, however, that Rankins had attempted to implicate him in the
armed robbery for which Rankins was arrested. Mingey said that he did not recall a search for "Shorty Folks. He
said: "Not to my knowledge. Whether we did or not, I have no idea.... I recall that name, 'Shorty Folks,' and him
being with [Rankins] at the time [of the Vargas shooting]."
9

In his interview with us, Rankins said that he was shown the photos of the three defendants, and that the nicknames
given to them were based on their appearance in the photos, i.e.
Montanez ("Barrel Belly") was overweight, and Serrano ("Joker was sm
record plausibly corroborate these descriptions.
10

The paper on which Mingey wrote the three suspects' nicknames is not in the investigation record.

4

 Mingey said he could not think of a reason that Rankins would have to lie about what he
had witnessed, which is why he decided that "he was either the best witness I ever talked to or
one of the killers." He did not dismiss the idea that Rankins' involvement ran deeper than he
claimed: "Is he just a witness or is he an unindicted co-conspirator? I don't know. As far as I was
concerned I gave that information to the detectives and they ran with it." He said he did not
know why Rankins was not prosecuted, because "the homicide coordinator would handle all that
stuff."

The aforementioned interview, Mingey said, was the last time he remembers talking to
Rankins. In fact, Mingey said that he largely moved on from the Vargas case after that day: "I
knew these guys had it well in hand. The only concern I have is what happened and who did it. I
had other assignments. It was in good hands and that was it." Mingey recalled that Guevara and
Halvorsen had a ')ail house snitch" supplying them with information on the Vargas case and
others around the time of Rankins's involvement, who he confirmed was Vicente. Mingey also
noted that Guevara and Halvorsen were, by that time, "aware of a lot of parts of this case."
Mingey denied physically abusing Rankins, who said in a 2012 sworn statement to
Jennifer Bonjean, attorney for Serrano, that Mingey participated in a beating along with Guevera
and Halvorsen: "I know he's lying. This is an outright lie. I've never touched that kid. He was
the best witness I ever had." Guevara, Mingey said, "to [his] knowledge," also did not abuse
Rankins. Why Rankins has said he was abused, Mingey said, is unknown to him: "No one could
have treated this guy better. He said exactly what I told you he said. For him to flip like he did,
he would have no reason to dirty me up. Halvorsen and Guevara never touched him, to my
knowledge. Why would he say that? Someone's putting this information in his head." Mingey
also said he did not know why Rankins did not end up testifying in the Montanez/Serrano trial.
C. Francisco Vicente
Mingey said that it was not unusual that an informant like Vicente would be identified
simply as a "Confidential Informant," rather than by name, in an investigation report. 11 Said
Mingey: "A reason could be that they were working on other cases and didn't want to front this
guy off. Once it gets in a report, if he's going to be any good on future cases, he'd be done." He
said that an informant could be in danger, particularly if it was known that he was already
involved in other cases and had performed well for the prosecution: "If he was good in a case
that went to court, he'd be useless. It would probably get him killed, too. These guys are in and
out of custody all the time. To front yourself off on paper as a snitch in a murder case, that's
pretty heavy-duty stuff." Mingey said that keeping the names of confidential informants from
corrupt police officers was also a concern. He said: "That is an issue. As we all know, that is out
there. That certainly could be a possibility. It could be a reason."
D. Halvorsen and Guevara

11

Vicente was identified as a C. I. only in the 6/2/93 Supplementary Report on the Vargas murder. However, by that
time, he had already been identified, by name, in reports filed in connection the Salvador Ruvalcaba murder
investigation, for which Robert Bouto had been charged.

5

 Asked about Halvorsen, Mingey said that he was an "all-around good detective" and 'just
a good, hard-working guy." He said that he was "great on paper," i.e. documenting his work in
investigation reports, and "good on the street."
Of Guevara, he said the detective was a "conscientious, hard-working guy," and also
"one of the best pure gang guys that I've ever met." Mingey described a situation in which every
other investigating detective thought that a victim had been shot by a rival gang member from a
car, but Guevara figured out that the victim had actually been caught in the cross-fire and struck
by a bullet from one of his own gang members. Mingey said: "That's the kind of gang guy he
was. He had the ability to see through some of the b.s. we couldn't." He continued: "He was in
the upper tier of detectives or gang crimes guys who solved these gang cases, especially in Area
5. On gang-related cases, he and Halvorsen were hard to beat. I don't have the facts and figures,
but those guys would always be clearing these cases."
While Det. Halvorsen was an excellent report-writer, Mingey said that Guevara "was an
OK report writer. Considering where he came from, he was fine. " 12 While Halvorsen and
Guevara's other partner, Steve Gawrys, would write more in-depth case and Supplementary
Reports, Guevara could be relied upon to write, for example, less taxing arrest reports, Mingey
said. "These guys could handle it a little bit better than Rey, but Rey did fine, considering where
he came from."
Mingey said that Guevara was always at work on time, and reliably showed up for court
appearances. Guevara, a former youth boxer, Mingey continued, did have a temper. "He was no
slouch in that department. He wouldn't take gufffrom anyone." At the same time, Guevara was
well-liked by his colleagues, according to Mingey. And Mingey said he was unaware of Guevara
ever physically abusing a suspect in custody, though he said it was possible that he had
physically engaged a difficult suspect while making an arrest. Mingey added: "As far as I'm
concerned, excellent guy and an excellent detective. He was good. Nobody better."
Although he declined to give a precise number, Mingey said that he worked with
Guevara on "multiple cases": "It was an awful lot. I'd hate to guess .... Lots of cases." Mingey
said he sees Guevara about once a year, usually at a Christmas party for former Area 5 officers,
which Halvorsen also attends. The last time he saw him, in January of2013, Guevara was "down
on his luck," and Mingey lent him $500. During a more recent conversation, Guevara talked to
him about being deposed in a post-conviction case, the Solache and Reyes case, "and he was
complaining about being beat up by the law firm [Loevy & Loevy]." Mingey noted also that
Guevara called him very recently to inform him that a colleague had died.
Of Guevara, Mingey concluded: "I think he came a long way. He did the best he could
with what God gave him and he did a helluva job."
E. CPD Record Keeping
Mingey said that CPD kept a master file in homicide cases, which he termed the "Office
File." He continued: "In that one file, the Office File, you'd find every piece of paper connected
12

Guevara, a native Spanish speaker, moved to the United States from Puerto Rico as a child.

6

 to that murder." He said it was the only file he ever worked from when he was investigating a
crime. Mingey confirmed that this file was also known as the "Area File." The "RID File," on the
other hand, was comprised of a subset of those documents, typically, including Supplementary
Reports, General Offense Case Reports, and Crime Scene Processing Reports. The RID File,
according to Mingey, typically did not include General Progress Reports. Asked if the Office
File on a case would contain hand-written notes and General Progress Reports that typically were
not contained in the RID File, Mingey replied: "I believe so. That's a fair statement." Mingey
said that the Office File would be kept at homicide headquarters, whereas the "actual subset" of
RID documents ''would [be] sen[t] to records to be part of the RID File." He continued: "To my
knowledge, you'd go to the records division at homicide headquarters, and they'd have
everything. Everything in a homicide case would be in that [Office] File." 13
In an effort to understand why several Supplementary Reports filed by Guevara and
Halvorsen in connection with the Montanez/Serrano, Bouto, and-matters reflect events
that occurred after the report filing date, we asked Mingey to explain reporting procedure.
Mingey informed us that events transpiring after a Supplementary Report filing date are to be
recorded by creating a unique report, rather than by modifying an earlier dated report.
F. Recantations
Asked if recantations by witnesses or suspects were a problem in Area 5 during the
relevant time period, Mingey said: "In light of these cases, I guess." He called gang cases "fertile
ground" for "these schemes and scams." Mingey continued: "The gang mentality is you have
rival gang members, then you have gang members who used to be rivals and are now friends
because they met in the penitentiary.... It doesn't surprise me. The extent does, but not that this
is going on." Mingey blamed the recantations on the Juan Johnson settlement. "From what I
know and read, he was the guy responsible for it [the murder], and yet he 's walking the streets
with millions of dollars ofthe tax payers' money. It's outrageous."
G. Bill Dorsch
Mingey expressed his displeasure with former CPD officer William Dorsch, who testified
at a post-conviction hearing in the Montanez/Serrano case that he had witnessed Guevara
improperly directing two witnesses to select a particular suspect from a photo array. In that case,
Mingey said, the detectives brought a suspect back to Area 5 after Guevera had received a tip.
The detectives, Mingey said, "were a little big squeamish about the charges because the offender
was a real legit looking guy. They said this guy seems too legit to be a gang-banger." But,
Mingey said, Guevara was "adamant, and he wanted to proceed." The suspect, Mingey said, was
then identified by the two witnesses in the photo array. However, the next day, when taken to the
grand jury, they both said they had been wrong about the identification. Mingey said: "How they
flipped, I'm not sure. But my understanding is they weren't sure at this point whether the guy did
the murder." The charges against the suspect were dropped, and he was released from custody.

13

Mingey mentioned that his attorney, Golden, "was trying to locate an old case report" related to the
Montanez/Serrano case, but had been unsuccessful.

7

 At the post-conviction hearing, Dorsch said that he had witnessed Guevara telling the
witnesses which suspect to identify. Mingey said that, if true, Dorsch should have done
something about it at the time. "Either he perjured himself or he didn't take proper action at the
time. If you've got a detective doing that [tampering with suspect identifications], that's
outrageous .... You could have stopped it, run it by the State's Attorneys. The homicide
coordinator was there. All there in place. Just run it by somebody and it wouldn't have gone any
further."
H. Robert Bouto Case
Although his name is in the investigation record as a line-up supervisor, and in particular
as signing off on the line-up photos, Mingey said he was not familiar with the Robert Bouto case.
He continued: "That got a little bit screwed up. They've got my signature down there as signing
off on the pictures they took at the lineup, but that's not my signature." Mingey said he was
"probably working that day as a watch commander," and that it "was not unusual" for detectives
to sign his name so that the film could be developed and processed into evidence quickly. He
said: "Do I have a problem with that? No. It's done all the time." Halvorsen, Mingey stated, was
particularly "anal" about getting evidence filed, and might have signed his name to expedite the
process. Mingey said his signature indicates, however, that he was at least working that day: "If
they put my name down as being there, then I was there."

8