(Legal Newsline) — The Chicago City Council could move forward, perhaps as soon as September, to potentially pay millions of dollars to two Mexican men who claim they were coerced into confessing to the “heinous” murder of a Chicago couple to allegedly help a woman steal the couple’s baby, even as Cook County’s controversial former top prosecutor admitted under oath that she and other prosecutors believe the men are guilty of the crime.
On Aug. 11, a federal judge noted in an entry on his court’s docket that attorneys for the city and for Arturo DeLeon-Reyes had finalized a settlement deal.
The terms of that deal have not yet been disclosed, and will not until the deal is presented to the City Council’s Finance Committee. In a separate entry, the parties indicated the deal is contingent on approval from the City Council and that they are aiming to place the settlement on the Finance Committee’s September agenda.
That action comes months after the parties told the court they had also finalized a settlement agreement with Gabriel Solache, which would be advanced to the Council simultaneously with the DeLeon-Reyes deal.
It is expected, however, that the deals will likely be worth millions of dollars for each of the men.
Both DeLeon-Reyes and Solache claim they were coerced by former Chicago Police Detective Reynaldo Guevara and at least one other Chicago Police officer into confessing to killing Mariano and Jacinta Soto in 1998.
Solache and Reyes were convicted and sentenced to prison, after they both confessed to assisting in stabbing the Sotos to death in their home in Chicago. Prosecutors said the men allegedly helped kill the Sotos to help abduct their two children on behalf of Adriana Mejia, so Mejia could allegedly fulfill her dream of becoming a mother.
Both men recanted their confessions and accused Chicago police officers of coercing them.
Reyes and Solache were eventually exonerated and freed when then-Cook County State’s Attorney Foxx declined in 2017 to pursue new trials against either man.
The men swiftly filed lawsuits against the city and the police officers involved.
They were later presented with so-called “certificates of innocence” by Cook County judges in 2022 and 2023, respectively, after Foxx’s office again conspicuously declined to contest their innocence claims.
However, those decisions by Foxx’s office have become a new focus in court.
In a separate case brought by two women who also claim they were coerced into confessing to murder by Guevara and other Chicago Police officers, Foxx has already been questioned under oath about her office’s moves to essentially provide a runway for the lawsuits against the city to take flight.
And in her testimony, Foxx revealed her office decided to not oppose the innocence petitions, even though she and other prosecutors believed both Solache and DeLeon-Reyes were guilty of the crimes for which they had been convicted.
Generally, such certificates of innocence can only be obtained when someone who has been convicted of a crime persuades a judge that they are actually innocent — a legal standard upheld by the Illinois Supreme Court as recently as October 2025.
Typically, that process is adversarial, as prosecutors routinely argue against granting such proclamations to people against whom their offices had earlier secured convictions.
However, court records revealed that Foxx’s office apparently decided to stop opposing certificate of innocence petitions, and particularly from anyone convicted in cases in which Guevara participated.
Guevara has stood at the center of scores of cases accusing him of wrongful convictions, alleging he improperly coerced confessions and framed those later convicted of crimes, including murder.
To date, published reports have indicated the city of Chicago has paid $142 million to settle 14 lawsuits in which Guevara is linked to alleged wrongful prosecutions for murder.
There are still dozens of lawsuits pending involving misconduct accusations against Guevara, including Solache and DeLeon-Reyes, and two women in separate proceedings who were granted certificates of innocence after prosecutors essentially allowed them to walk free, despite their confessions to participating in the murder of rival gang members.
In Foxx’s testimony, she further confirmed hat the decision in 2022 and 2023 to not oppose the certificate of innocence petitions came after high-level meetings with representatives from the Exoneration Project, a Chicago group tied to lawyers who have secured many millions of dollars in payouts from the city on behalf of people who claim they were wrongfully convicted.
While officially a non-profit organization associated with the University of Chicago School of Law, the Exoneration Project is led by lawyers from the Chicago firm of Loevy & Loevy, who are regularly and prominently involved in suing the city of Chicago over alleged wrongful convictions.
The Loevy firm is representing DeLeon-Reyes in his lawsuit.
Foxx’s deposition was a flashpoint in the DeLeon-Reyes and Solache case, as lawyers for the city and defendant officers indicated they intended to use the testimony to combat the men’s “innocence” claims at a trial over DeLeon-Reyes’ claims.
However, the settlements ultimately canceled that trial, which had been scheduled to go to a jury in May 2026.
Next, lawyers for the city and defendant police officers will question Foxx’s former top deputy prosecutor, former Cook County First Assistant State’s Attorney Risa Lanier, as they seek to fill in the blanks left by Foxx’s testimony concerning how and why the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office under Foxx decided to allow the people formerly convicted of murder to secure the certificates of innocence they needed to sue the city for millions, even though prosecutors didn’t actually believe they were innocent.
It is not yet known when Lanier will sit for her deposition.
An agenda for the Chicago Finance Committee’s September meeting has not been posted.
Solache is represented by attorneys with the People’s Law Office firm, of Chicago
DeLeon-Reyes is represented by attorneys Anand Swaminathan, Jon Loevy, Alyssa Martinez, Steve Art and Sean Starr, of the Loevy + Loevy firm, of Chicago.
