MISTRIAL CALLED AFTER JURY CAN'T DECIDE FATE OF COPS

A day after a Cook County jury found a former police officer guilty of
breaking into a West Side apartment and extorting $8,000 from residents
while he was on duty, a judge declared a mistrial Thursday against two other
police officers in the case who were tried simultaneously by a separate
jury.

After nearly 12 hours of deliberations, a jury told Cook County Judge
Michael Bolan they were unable to reach a unanimous verdict in the case
against Rodney Carriger, 35, and Ernest Hutchinson, 50, both of the Special
Operations Section of the Police Department.

Carriger and Hutchinson, who are free on bond, declined to comment as they
left the criminal courthouse.

One jury was considering the fate of both officers, partners who maintained
through their lawyers that they were not at the apartment on the night
residents say they were terrorized and extorted by three Chicago police
officers.

A separate jury late Wednesday returned a guilty verdict against John
Labiak, 35, a 9 1/2-year veteran of the police force who also served in the
Special Operations Section. Labiak resigned from the force after his arrest.

He was taken to Cook County Jail after the verdict and is facing a minimum
of 6 years for his conviction on home invasion, armed robbery, bribery,
official misconduct, aggravated unlawful restraint and armed violence.

Carriger and Hutchinson now face a retrial on the same charges. They have
been suspended from the Police Department without pay and are awaiting a
decision by the Police Board on their future employment status, their
lawyers said.

In argument and through the testimony of witnesses, assistant state's
attorneys Thomas Bilyk and Anita Alvarez told members of both juries that
the three officers, all on duty, left their assigned patrol units the night
of July 23, 1998, and forced their way into the home of Cecilio Lugo, in the
1200 block of West Huron Street.

One of the officers drew his gun and handcuffed Lugo's sister, who was
outside the ground-floor apartment heading up to the second-floor apartment
where she lived, according to testimony.

When Lugo's girlfriend, Sonia Guzman, opened the door to find out what was
happening, the officers stormed in and ransacked the apartment, finding two
guns and a bag of marijuana, prosecution witnesses said in testimony during
the five-week trial.

The officers allegedly ordered Guzman to page Lugo and tell him to come
home, or that she and Lugo's sister would be arrested.

When Lugo returned home, the officers told him they would not arrest him if
he could come up with between $8,000 and $10,000 in one hour, according to
testimony. Lugo testified he went to friends and relatives and came up with
$8,000, which he gave the officers.

The officers took the money, guns and marijuana and fled in an unmarked
Chicago police car parked around the corner, according to testimony.

DNA tests on saliva taken from a cigarette butt at the apartment matched
Labiak, according to prosecution testimony.

Labiak took the stand, saying he, Carriger and Hutchinson were all at the
apartment that night, checking out a tip that another police officer was
going to supply Lugo with a kilo of cocaine.

The jury hearing the case against Carriger and Hutchinson did not hear
Labiak's testimony.

Because Labiak testified at his own trial, he could be compelled to testify
against Carriger and Hutchinson during their retrial. A person gives up his
constitutional right against self-incrimination once he takes the stand.

Bilyk, one of the prosecutors in the cases, said he did not know whether he
would seek Labiak's testimony in the second trial.

"It's apparently very difficult to (successfully) prosecute police officers
for misconduct," Bilyk said. "I believe the jury was misled by the defense
attorneys from the very beginning."

Defense attorneys Sam Adam and Lawrence Levin, who represented Hutchinson
and Carriger, raised questions during the trial about the seven witness
identifications, including from two off-duty police officers, that placed
their clients at the apartment.

Members of the deadlocked jury said outside of court that seven jurors had
voted to convict Carriger and Hutchinson and five had voted to acquit.

"We were pretty much split 50-50 during most of the deliberations," said
forewoman Cynthia Marschitz, 27, a social worker who lives in Chicago. The
main disagreement was about whether Hutchinson and Carriger were even there,
she said. She declined to disclose how she voted in the end.

Some of the jurors believed there were enough inconsistencies in the
testimony from prosecution witnesses to shed reasonable doubt on the state's
case against Carriger and Hutchinson, Marschitz said.

However, for juror Frank Luliaz, of Oak Lawn, the fact that seven witnesses
identified Carriger and Hutchinson in a lineup was compelling. He said he
voted to convict.