John Doe has been unmasked. Last month the Reader reported that Doe, a former assistant state’s attorney, had gone to the Illinois Supreme Court in an attempt to derail the release of the special prosecutor’s report on Chicago police torture–or at the very least keep his name out of it. But the court rejected Doe’s emergency motions, and the report was released Wednesday.
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Hyman, a supervisor in the State’s Attorney’s Office, took the Wilsons’ confessions. Andrew later testified that the first time he was brought before Hyman he said, “You want me to make a statement after they been torturing me?” and Hyman responded, “Get the jagoff out of here.”
Though Wilson was bleeding from one eye when he eventually gave his confession, Hyman didn’t ask if he’d been offered medical treatment, something a prosecutor would normally do to safeguard the confession from a subsequent claim of brutality. More significant, he didn’t ask Andrew if he was giving his statement voluntarily.
At that point Hyman became John Doe. Notified that a subpoena was coming, Hyman’s attorney Michael Ficaro said he wouldn’t accept it. (It’s common practice for attorneys to accept subpoenas for their clients.) After that, according to a transcript recently unsealed by the supreme court, the special prosecutor’s office managed to serve the subpoena to Hyman himself only “with some difficulty,” a description Boyle declined to elaborate on.
After a brief recess, however, Egan and Boyle agreed to a stay. The newly released transcript reveals that they changed their minds because it was Friday and if Hyman went to jail he might be stuck there all weekend.
The special prosecutor’s report justifies Hyman’s fears: “In our judgment,” it says, “Hyman did not tell the truth when he denied [in testimony] that he had been told by Andrew Wilson that he had been tortured by detectives under the command of Jon Burge. His false testimony stands as corroboration of Andrew Wilson.”
