Ex-Cop Charged In Bizarre Murder-Extortion Plot Placed Back In Solitary Confinement

By Chuck Sudo in News on Aug 15, 2013 4:45PM

Sketch credit: Lothar Speer (via WLS-TV screen grab)

A former police officer charged in a bizarre extortion and murder plot has been placed back in solitary confinement, two months after a judge ordered him placed in the general population ward of the federal jail downtown.

Prosecutors aren’t saying why Steven Mandell was placed back in restrictive custody but Mandell’s attorney filed a motion in court Wednesday seeking answers. Mandel, who also goes by the name Steven Manning, was charged with another former cop, Gary Engel, last November with conspiring to kidnap a local businessman, shake him down for cash, murder him and dismember his body. Mandell and Engel allegedly rented an office they called “Club Med” containing a sink, counter, shower and tools to cut up the man’s body and drain it of blood and other evidence tying Engel and Mandell to the crime.

Mandell has a long history of tangling with federal law enforcement. He was convicted in 1990 in the murder of trucking kingpin Jimmy Pellegrino and sentenced to death, but the conviction was overturned when a judge ruled that evidence, including a prediction by Pellegrino that Mandell would kill him, was improperly shared with a jury. Mandell was also convicted of posing as a DEA agent and extorting, torturing and killing Charles Ford. That conviction was also overturned and Mandell was awarded a $6.5 million wrongful conviction judgment, although the judge who made the ruling said there was “significant evidence” tying Mandell to the crime.

Prosecutors contended Mandell needed to be in the Special Housing Unit of the Metropolitan Correctional Center because he may try to contact the informant in the current case against him. Judge Amy St. Eve ruled there was insufficient evidence Mandell contacted the informant and noted his health problems—he suffers from diabetes and heart disease—worsened while he was in confinement. St. Eve did prohibit Mandell from using the jail's email system or trying to persuade other inmates to send messages on his behalf.

Gary Engel committed suicide shortly after he was placed in custody last November.