Off Duty: The Last Stand

It's October 2nd, 2024.

“A warm fall morning in Chicago, not a cloud in the sky,”

as Jennifer drives to the courthouse with her radio turned up all the way. I catch her for a brief moment as she walks up the steps to the courthouse. Of all of the hearings, Alex had been through for nearly 11 years. Jennifer knew this could be the one.

The day when the years of work finally pay off.

The disk that she and Eric now had in their possession. The one that contained metadata showing that Alex was texting with his girlfriend at the time of Clifton Lewis's murder. The disk with the FBI cell phone map, suggesting Alex and his supposed accomplices weren't near the crime scene. A map that prosecutors had failed to share. That disk.

The one that also had a sticky note attached to it, indicating that the prosecution had this information all along. That disk, Jennifer thought, is finally going to set this man free.

The new prosecutors in the Cuck County State's attorney's office.

The very same office that helped to put Alex in jail for a decade, were ready to drop the case. They were about to ask the judge to set Alex free. But the police union isn't ready to just stand by and let that happen. From the Guardian, I'm Alyssa Segura, and this is the final episode of Off Duty, The Last Stand.

“Alex appears to one of the most important court dates in his life from prison, by Zoom.”

His family is there, though. His sisters, his brother Stephen, and Alex's girlfriend Amanda. They wear t-shirts with Alex's photo on them, dozens of supporters join them at the courthouse, including some who have been wrongly convicted themselves. Jennifer and Eric had received assurances from prosecutors.

They were going to drop the case, but Eric was still wary. And I'm nervous, you know, we've had what feels like a winning case for five years now,

and it always feels like something gets yanked out from under us, and we're just so close.

I just hope that doesn't happen. Alex's supporters walk through the courtroom's imposing but doors to take their seats below towering windows overlooking the city. Over the last decade, I've been to more court hearings than I can count, most of them for people wrongly convicted. Those hearings are usually full of anticipation, like an eagerness for what will happen.

But this time, this is pure tension. A nervousness about what could happen. On one side of the courtroom is a sea of those t-shirts with Alex's face on them. On the other, a flank of police officers worships in to fill up the seats. They leave room at front for Officer Lewis's sister, Nicole Johnson.

Judge Carroll Howard calls the case to order, before anyone else could speak, and attorney representing the family of Officer Clifton Lewis introduces himself. James McCay, or Mad Dog, as veterans of the courthouse call him. The name alone has been enough to send shivers down the spines of Chicago defense attorneys. For 30 years, McCay prosecuted some of the city's most high-profile cases.

Chicago magazine named him one of the city's 30 tough lawyers, and he isn't wasting any time. "Good morning, Judge. My name is James McCay. I dress in the heat to file our appearance. On behalf of the victim's family, in this case pursuance of the Illinois rights of

crime victims and witnesses act." Jennifer immediately pushes back.

“"You're not, I think the statute is abundantly clear that the victims do not have”

a right to file an appearance in this case." Normally, victims' families or their lawyers don't have a right to appear at the stage

But McCay is saying they even though the prosecutors might be ready to drop the case.

That's not just their decision.

“He's arguing that the family of Clifton Lewis should have a say.”

They might think, "Well, of course they should have a say. They're loved one was the victim." But prosecutors don't bring charges on behalf of victims. They bring charges on behalf of the people. The idea is that a crime isn't just committed against one person.

It's a violation of the entire community. So technically, crime victims or victim's families don't have a say in whether someone is charged or if those charges are dismissed or if a plea deal is struck. Under the law, that's all left to the judgment of prosecutors.

But McCay is trying a bit of a Hail Mary, presenting a novel interpretation of a state

law protecting victims' rights. Jennifer and McCay are arguing back and forth. People in the gallery start grumbling. Alex's family shifts in their seats.

“The judge seems ready to grant McCay's request to postpone the decision yet again.”

And then, Eric, the problem-solving nerd, has an idea. He whispers to Jennifer. "Well, I'm waiting for you. I'll be here at the end of the day." Did you catch that?

It's so subtle that I'll play it for you again. "Well, I'm waiting for you. I'll be here at the end of the day." It's hard to make out the words, but you whispers to Jennifer. Maybe we agree to let them appear.

Because what Eric realizes is that McCay's strategy, this demand to appear, is probably just a stall tactic. If they keep fighting McCay, then the case gets postponed. But if they agree, let him proceed. They're calling his bluff, and the case can move ahead.

Now, so Jennifer takes a deep breath and takes Eric's advice.

“"How about your honor if we agreed to let them appear today?”

If they want to file an appearance, go for it. Let's hear the state's position, and then, if they want to speak, let them speak." She's saying, "Fine, go for it, mad dog. Say your piece. From the look on McCay's face, he seems genuinely thrown by this move.

He tries again to make the case for post-poment." "The victim's family wants to be her. The victim's family will not go away. The victim's family is entitled to justice as well. We would like a chancellor to respond in writing, so your honor can make him a form decision."

Judge Howard cuts him off. "What I hear Council saying now is that the defense is withdrawing their opposition and allowing you to file an appearance today. If that is true, your motion to intervene is not being objected to today." But McCay keeps trying to buy time.

He shifts tactics. Now he wants a meeting. "Your honor, my answer would like to be her, and we demand a meeting with the state's turning facts to have a meaningful conversation about what if any decision the state's turn into office is going to make."

Judge Howard responds, "Okay, granted, but I'm not giving you a couple of weeks. I'm giving you a few hours. Let's get it done today." She sets Alex's case aside and moves on. Over McCay's objections, so that he and the prosecutors can arrange a meeting.

There are dozens of other cases that need to be heard. "Spectate with me, Hans, and you can go talk to the state's turning off if I will be called and made it, I'm very wild." None of Alex's supporters in the courtroom know exactly what's happening, and neither does Alex, hundreds of miles away, watching it all unfold on a computer screen.

But they've been waiting for more than a decade. They can wait some more. In the courtroom, most everyone stays put. In prison, Alex's left waiting on Zoom. "Hours pass."

When Alex is hearing resumes, the first attorney to talk is prosecutor Kevin DeBony.

He's the one who sent Jennifer and Eric the disc with all the evidence on it. The disc that's brought them back to court today. He tells the judge that his office has spoken with Clifton Lewis his family on several prior occasions, and that during the break, the elected state's attorney herself, Kim

Basically, he says, "We did what McCay wanted. Then he gets to the reason he's there." "You're out of here.

“After a sentence he concluded it in this matter, the state's scoffered at disc thinking”

"evidence that is potentially sculled with nori, material, relevant, and a nap and previously tender-driven fence. Based upon that, discovering the people will agree to the relief of the request." To translate the lawyer's speak, that means, we found the disc after Alex was sentenced. It has evidence suggesting Alex is innocent.

In violation of the law, the disc was never given to the defense.

So, now we're dropping the charges. So, I'm a petitioner's two-four-to-one petitioner's granted. Thank you, Your Honor. And that's it. Alex B. has conviction his cost.

The case is over. McCay's co-council, Tim Grace, enters the fray, asking to appeal. But there's nothing to appeal.

“Jennifer Pounces, stepping forward and extending her arms, like an empire calling a runner”

safe at home plate. "There's nothing to appeal." "It's over." "File it."

There's this weird mix of elation on one side of the room, and hostility on the other, like

a fight is about to break out. Cops and Alex is supporters shout at each other. Some of them have taken their fights out to the hall. Judge Howard calls her bailouts to quail the situation before it spins out of control. Inside the courtroom, I can hear the fights continuing.

And the sound of the sheriff's walkie-talkies as they call for backup. The judge addresses McCay. "It's old, and I know that you are disappointed, and the family is disappointed, but it's not enough evidence. There's not enough evidence."

Thank you, Judge.

“Thank you for letting us appear in our view, I would just again, to clarify the record”

this box, the math said it was not enough evidence.

I would ask Mr. Dubone to confirm that. Judge, we pay our motion. Okay, this hearing is over. So I'm going to shut down the Zoom meeting now, Mr. Billo, and you've heard that the charges have been dismissed.

Have a good day. Hey, Alex disappears from the screen. His sister Melissa looks like she's in shock. Balefs locked down the courtroom. To keep the police in Alex's supporter separated, they only allow small groups of people

to leave at a time. During the President of Chicago's police union, John Catanzara, makes it downstairs. He addresses the TV crews and reporters in the courthouse lobby. "He's not innocent, until he proves himself innocent. He killed Cliff.

He needs to go to prison for him, and we're not going to stop until it happens again." Alex's conviction has been tossed, but that's not the same as the court saying he's innocent. He can still be charged again, and Catanzara is saying that the police union won't stop until Alex is back in prison for murder. Jennifer had once been hired by the union, the fraternal order of police, to represent Officer

Jason Van Dyke after the killing of Lekwann McDonald's. Now, Catanzara uses that against her. "She had no problem taking FLP money in the Jason Van Dyke trial sentencing. And representing to get him a lesser sentence when the FLP was paying her paycheck. So say whatever she needs to say to get a paycheck, she's not the scusty human being.

She's a piece of garbage." As McCay and Catanzara address the press in the lobby, Alex's friends and family gather outside on the courthouse steps, taking pictures with Jennifer and Eric. They're members of the FOP, head for the steps where Alex's family is snapping photos. This time, there are no bailiffs around.

They're yelling at Jennifer and Alex's family. Calling them garbage, wait 'til next trial, one of the meals. He's going to jail again. Eric shakes his head as the Officers walk away. "These are police officers that are salaryed by our tax dollars."

That's just unreal, you know? It actually makes me such a tremendous amount of joy. Jennifer's in a Jason Van Dyke, I took FOP money, so I would have liked it to have said to him like, "Yeah, I'm interested in pursuing justice. What I did for Jason was pursuing justice and what happened here was pursuing justice."

"This is what they do, they're upset and who's to say what they're capable." That's Alex's sister Melissa, and here's Marisol. "Is this disgusting how they don't look at themselves and how they failed their own fellow officer, right? How do you do that?

This is an officer that was part of your department, there should be some kind of accountability.

“Honestly, they should not be comfortable at all, same things like that, disrespecting”

an attorney and calling her names and things of that nature like, "This is insane." Jennifer isn't remotely phased. To her, this is all just another example of how the system operates. That wasn't about the victim's rights. That was about the cops.

The cops not being accused of wrongdoing, the cops never being willing to admit wrongdoing.

They were concerned about the victim's rights, they would change the way they do things that the Chicago Police Department, so I don't know, the bullshit abounds, but what I hope this really signifies is that there's going to change, right? That really we can see some momentum in prosecutors being the gang unit differently, really make change, right?

“So this doesn't keep happening to people because in Chicago it keeps happening to people.”

Amanda, Alex's girlfriend, looks back at the courthouse. It should feel like a joyous moment, but without their sentiment, it doesn't. She says it's bitter sweet. He should be here to celebrate this moment, run to his dad as he walks out the prison gates, but he's not.

And that hurts. Again and again, I just prayed in my son like, "Please babe, let us be in the end, which are bad." Like, it's here, it was just six months ago when my son was gone, she's like, "It's bitter sweet because my son will be bad, nice to be like my dad's going home, my son is

not here."

“Amanda is wearing her justice for Alex's shirt, but she has another shirt in her car.”

Police have charged someone with Damian's murder, and there's a hearing tomorrow. She plans to be there, sitting behind the prosecutors, wearing a shirt that says, "Justice for Damian." Alex walks out of prison the next morning. It's a four-hour drive to Chicago.

His first stop is the cemetery where Damian is buried.

One of the first things I wanted to do was go to the cemetery and tell my son that, you know, I was finally free, finally home. His family rented him an Airbnb on the outskirts of the city, the threat of him being within the grasp of the CPD feels too scary. Jennifer shows up to meet her client for the first time outside of prison walls.

They're both giddy. There's an anxiety, though, under the laughter. Yeah, I know everybody's scared for me. The police set it plainly yesterday. They weren't going to stop until he was behind bars again.

And so even the celebration is framed by wearing this, but the doorbell keeps bringing. More family, more friends, filing in to welcome Alex home. Jennifer orders Italian beef, hot dogs, and chocolate cake from portillos, a Chicago institution.

He meets his niece, Janaya for the first time.

Alex was arrested shortly after her birth. As Alex eats his first dinner in a decade as a free man, I can't help but notice his hand. The one prosecutors argued he'd used to vault himself over the counter at the mini-mart. Then shoot Officer Lewis. He still can't use it to hold the utensils properly.

Eight months after Alex's release, Jennifer is vacationing in Michigan.

The lead singer of the Alt Country Band will co.

She's at a restaurant with a friend, waiting for a table. Her friend is talking about how everyone in town is trying to catch a glimpse of the rock star. She said how she and a friend are only Jeff Tweedy all the time. So she was talking about how they were at this market and Jeff Tweedy was there on her friend. She's like, oh my god, Jeff Tweedy's here.

I don't know what to do. I don't want to say hi. I'm freaking out. As she's listening to her friend, Jennifer's expression suddenly changes. Right, I guess my face was just like turned white, white, or very pale.

“And she's like, oh my god, did Jeff Tweedy just walk in?”

That's that old age. At that moment, Jennifer learns that this little town isn't just Jeff Tweedy's summer stomping rounds. It's Judge James Lens, too. The man who had sentenced Alex to prison for life.

I'm like, I cannot fucking believe this. This judge just walked in in this huge case I had. And I haven't seen him since he sentenced my client to life.

My friend's here always says, babe, she's like, babe, oh my god, what are you going to do?

Jennifer has a flashback to decades earlier. When she was at a keeping of the Oprah Winfrey show, a call went out to the audience. Does anyone want to ask Oprah anything? Jennifer immediately thought of a client she was representing, a victim of an atoria Chicago police officer who tortured mostly black men on the city's west side.

And I was too scared to raise my damn hand to talk to her about police abuse in Chicago.

“You know, it's like a snoozey lose moment.”

I sat there and I was like, dear in headlights and somebody else raised their hand and they went on to another topic. And I was like, that will not happen to me again. So as I was sitting there, I thought about Oprah Winfrey. And so I got my ass out of that chair and went up and said hi to him.

He was shocked to see me. At first he didn't. It was like it didn't. He couldn't process who I was. And then he's like, oh, Jennifer.

And I was like, hey, Judge Lens, I was like, I won. And he said, I know. It's like, I was like a monobirt, I was like, I won. I won. Not my best moment.

But then he was very gracious and he introduced me to his wife.

“And he's like, do you remember that last case I had, the last case where I sent it's”

the god alive? And she's like, of course, he's like, well, this is the defense attorney from the case. And I looked at her and I said, I won. And she said, congratulations. But Jennifer had a sense the whole time that there was something else on Lens mind.

And he kept looking at me like he wanted to say something and how somebody like, and

he's like, you would stop, then he'd look at me and then he would stop and never said

what he wanted to say. When Jennifer had defended a police officer, Lynne had made her feel seen. He called her a warrior when he tried Alex. She felt like he almost broke her. And I had never put together the fact that someone who had said something to me that was

so meaningful, who then turned into someone who basically destroyed my face and the justice system. You know, those two things were living in the same place within me. It was good for me to put it all together that he, he alone, means a lot to me, good and bad.

The next judge who hears Alex's case will be in civil court, Jennifer and Eric have been gathering evidence for his lawsuit against the city and county. And to hear her tell it, it's going well. This is so opposite of what we went through with the criminal case where it was horrible and it just felt like I was getting this shit beat out of me.

Every time, you know, and now I feel like I actually were beating the shit out of them. The tables have turned. In court documents, all of the defendants have denied the allegations. We reached out to the detectives and prosecutors in this case, along with their lawyers and have not heard back.

In December 2023, Nancy Aducey was fired. At months later, she filed a lawsuit claiming she was terminated because of race and age discrimination. Aducey is white, and her former boss, former Cook County State's attorney Kim Fox, is black.

That case is ongoing. Two weeks before Alex has released, Andy Varga resigned, according to multiple published reports. He is now in private practice, according to public records. In August 2025, Alex and Amanda welcomed a baby boy.

He's just like the happiest baby in the world. He's always smiling. He's just got this joy in his eye and you know, I'm just enjoying every moment, all the doctors appointments.

He's just got his first shots.

I was holding his hands, so just just enjoying that. Alex has gotten a job in a place to live, but it hasn't been easy. I used to think in present like, "Oh, I'm ready, Ferret, I don't care." What it is is better than here, but now, going through it, you know, there was times where it felt overwhelming, you know, juggling all the stuff.

“You know, you need 2.5- the amount of rent, you need a credit score, you need to show proof”

for income, and some things were really frustrating, you know, you come out, you have none of them. Then, there are times like when Alex was at a stoplight and looked in his rear view mirror to see a police car behind him. They're going to run the plate, see my name, you know, "Oh, look, this guy, my stomach,

my stomach, it falls like you're getting nervous." Kind of like, "I don't know if you know that fear, like, you know, the rollercoaster kind of." Alex tried moving to Florida, like he'd planned with Damian, but after a few weeks away, he missed his family too much.

You move back to Chicago, where he can take his mom a cup of hot coffee most mornings. And downtown, you see the building, and I'm looking at it like, "This is just so beautiful, like I'm taking it in."

“And I think it's like, you know, going through what I went through, I just think I'm”

more grateful than a person who never went through what I went through, because I know what

it feels like to have a freedom taken away. When the day is done, you return to home. Damian used to have a collection of his dad's stuff in his room, Alex told me, "A shrine, Damian called it. Now, Alex has a shrine to his son."

"I just started putting all his stuff in here. These are his big loads. He actually played with his favorite basketball player, Kuala Lennon, his car. I got his rosary with his face. Just a lot of his stuff I put there." "Some old male on a half, and I cherish it because this is kind of the only stuff I have left."

“Alex says he's made it to several court dates in Damian's murder case.”

When he first met with the prosecutor, he says he had one question, "What was the evidence against the man accused of killing his son?" As for the other man whose lives were so damaged by this case, a Garthokalone is living in Chicago. Although not in subsidized housing with his mother, she died while he was in prison.

Tyrone Clay is in Texas, building a life far away from the CPD. He and his partner recently had a son. Like Alex, a Garthokalone have filed federal civil rights lawsuits against the city of Chicago. These cases could cost the already cash strapped city millions of dollars.

Melvin De Young, the diabetic, was never charged with the murder of Officer Lewis, but he was

physically and emotionally shattered by his experience. Meanwhile, the fraternal order of police hasn't abandoned its promise to see Alex behind bars in the murder of Officer Clinton Lewis. Last July, the president of the National fraternal order of police sent a letter to the U.S. Attorney General, Pam Bondi, asking her to bring federal charges against Alex. The GOJ confirmed it received the letter,

but declined to comment further. What happened to Alex via should not have happened? I'm not saying people can't get it wrong. Every institution has just people at the end of the day, but institutions are supposed to have safeguards to ensure that if one piece of the process goes wrong, through corruption or through incompetence or through an honest mistake, the next step of the process will make sure that justice

is done. That's not what happened here. At the very beginning, in the interrogation rooms, police ignored requests for lawyers. They ignored the cell phone map suggesting that their suspects were nowhere near the mini mark on the night of December 29, 2011. They focused their efforts on Alex via. Despite evidence suggesting he couldn't have

forensic labs failed, too. When they took just a surface-level look at Tyrone Clay's PlayStation,

scrolling past the timestamped evidence backing up his alibi. At the next step, prosecutors failed to hand over key evidence. They allegedly edited a police report in a way that strengthened the prosecution's case. They accepted questionable statements from three questionable witnesses. And in court, despite all of that, Alex via was sentenced to life. At every stage, the safeguards failed.

“The reason Alex via got out of prison, I think, is because Jennifer and Eric were willing to”

set their lives on fire in pursuit of justice. They lost sleep and gained weight, and lost money and jeopardized relationships. Because they were relentlessly determined to make the legal system follow the rules and do its job. It shouldn't take that. And these safeguards didn't just fail Alex. They failed Officer Clifton Lewis and his family. Marisol via, Alex's sister, thinks about that. I feel sorry for Officer Lewis's family,

tremendous sorry for his family, because unfortunately, that person who did is still out there. I think pain is pain, right? No matter the loss, it's pain. And unfortunately, they've gone through a lot of that and will continue to go through a lot of that. You know, like, what a huge blow.

“I think a huge disappointment that this Officer served and his own people, his own community.”

You know, if you will, um, couldn't even bring him justice. And it's just I feel terrible for his mom, I feel terrible for all of his family. I think especially his mother, though,

like, with being a mom and like, I would never want to lose a child. Like, she never gets any

closure. And that's sad. That is completely sad. And I feel for her. I really do. Alex's sister Melissa has repeatedly told me that there are no winners in this situation. That became agonizingly clear when I reached Officer Lewis's sister, Nicole Johnson, in March 2025, five months after Alex's release. She's still devastated by the loss of her

“brother and by what she sees as a betrayal by the legal system. When we talked,”

she said Alex's release was like a stab wound to the chest. She told me she's lost all faith in the justice system. She feels like the system turned its back on her brother. And she told

me she'll never stop fighting for him. I don't know who killed Officer Clifton Lewis.

I do know that way back at the beginning and the days after he was killed, tips came in pointing to the four corner hustlers. A gang operating in the neighborhood, whose members had allegedly held up the many marks a few weeks before. In that robbery, the security guard on duty had shot at one of the robbers. One tip suggested that the shooting of Officer Lewis was a case of mistaken identity. That the intended target was the other guy.

In this theory of the case, it wasn't just the investigators who got the wrong man in Alex. It was the robbers who got the wrong man in Lewis too. The murder of Clifton Lewis remains unsolved. The guardian made repeated attempts to speak with the Chicago police department. The department did not have anyone available to answer our questions, a spokesperson wrote in an email.

In court documents, Officer's deny any misconduct in the case. Former prosecutors Nancy Aducee and Andy Varga, along with their lawyers, did not respond to multiple interview requests or a detailed list of questions. In court papers, they deny any wrongdoing. In court filings, the Cook County State's attorney's office argued there is no showing of bad faith by Aducee or Varga and his denied misconduct claims.

No officers or prosecutors have been accused of wrongdoing by officials or charged in

“connection with this case. We did not hear back from the fraternal order of police,”

John Catanzara, or Judge James Lin, the RCFL declined to comment.

The series executive producers are Joshua Kelly and Cat Aaron, with producer Ben Goldberg,

“story editing by Joel Lovell, music editing by Rudy Sigato, mixing and sound design by Pascal Wise.”

The commissioning editors are Nicole Jackson and Michael Hudson,

fact checking by Gabriel Baumgartner, legal review by Zachary Press,

“filled production help from Hannah Edgar and Rema Salay, reporting and presenting by me, Melissa Siguta.”

This is The Guardian.