Koschman Attorneys Petition Alleges Police Doctored Reports, Alvarez Obstructing Investigation
By Chuck Sudo in News on Mar 22, 2012 8:30PM
Attorneys for Nanci Koschman filed a 46-page petition Wednesday in support of appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the actions of Chicago Police and the Cook County State's Attorney in the handling of the David Koschman case. Koschman died in 2004 from injuries sustained during a drunken confrontation involving Richard "RJ" Vanecko, a nephew of former Mayor Richard M. Daley.
The petition makes the claim that Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez is doing everything in her power to prevent a special prosecutor from being appointed, and even goes out of the way to make the direct connection between Alvarez and Daley, dating back to Daley's days as State's Attorney. The petition includes photos taken from Alvarez's Facebook page to argue she and Daley are still close.
From the petition:
"The Facebook posts show that the State's Attorney's political alliance with Daley is of personal importance to her; Alvarez uses the relationship to demonstrate to her constituents that she remains closely connected to a man who remains perhaps the single most important person in Cook County politics. The State's Attorney's relationship with the suspect's powerful uncle, a connection that spans at least twenty-five years, also raises an appearance of impropriety—viz. that Alvarez might soft-peddle the prosecution of a Daley family member, since to do so otherwise could undermine the State's Attorney's political alliance with the Daley family and could affect her personal political future."
The petition goes on to make the claims that police officers involved in the investigation "deliberately falsified" reports during the investigation to make it appear that Koschman was the instigator, and that Richard Vanecko may have admitted to some level of culpability in Koschman's death to an officer minutes after friends of Koschman were unable to identify Vanecko in a police lineup. Once again, from the petition:
“ ‘We know the guy that did it. He’s in there in the other room, and he’s just bawling his eyes out, he’s a big baby. ... He didn’t mean for one punch to lead to all this,’ ”
Alvarez has long denied having a conflict of interest in the Koschman case, but she hasn't gone out of her way to be cooperative with Nanci Koschman's attorneys.