A WATCHDOGS INVESTIGATION
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At 3 a.m. on April 25, 2004, Koschman and his pals bumped into three men on Rush Street. Among them was Mayor Daleys nephew. One punch was thrown in self-defense, police say but theyve never said who did it. | BY TIM NOVAK, CHRIS FUSCO AND CAROL MARIN, PAGES 12-15
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A WATCHDOGS INVESTIGATION
FIRST OF TWO PARTS
Sun-Times investigation raises questions about probe of 2004 Rush Street death involving Daley nephew
BY TIM NOVAK, CHRIS FUSCO AND CAROL MARIN
SELF-DEFENSEOR ASUCKERPUNCH?
Staff Reporters
ike a lot of suburban kids, David Koschman wanted to get a taste of Rush Street, Chicagos fabled adult playground. So he and four friends all freshly turned 21 headed downtown for a Saturday night of bar-hopping. Around 3 in the morning, they decided to call it a night. As they were leaving Bar Chicago on Division Street that spring night in 2004, they crossed paths with three men, all about 10 years older, and a woman a group, it turned out, with ties to some of the most powerful people in Chicago. Among the group was then-29-year-old Richard J. R.J. Vanecko, a nephew of Mayor Daley. According to his friends, Koschman bumped one of the men, and the two groups both later described by a detective as drunk and plastered began trading insults and obscenities. The confrontation ended with a punch. Someone the police have never said who hit the slightly built, 5-foot, 5-inch Koschman in the face. Koschman fell backward and hit the back of his head on the street. He died 12 days later from a brain injury. The Cook County medical examiners office called it homicide. No one has ever been charged.
Police and prosecutors say thats because their initial investigation concluded that Koschman was the aggressor and that whoever hit him acted in self-defense. Still, nearly seven years after the April 25, 2004, confrontation that left Koschman mortally injured, the Chicago Police Department has decided to reinvestigate the case. Investigators began reinterviewing witnesses after a Chicago Sun-Times reporter filed a request Jan. 4 seeking copies of all police reports in the case, under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act. The police, citing what they described as a now-ongoing criminal investigation, agreed to make public only a heavily redacted crime-scene report. It provides little information other than Koschmans name and the date and location of the confrontation. But a Sun-Times investigation has turned up problems with the way the police and prosecutors originally handled their investigation into Koschmans violent death. Detectives didnt begin interviewing witnesses until after Koschman died. They didnt conduct lineups to try to identify who threw the punch until almost a month after it happened. And prosecutors say their files on the case have disappeared.
This photo from Koschmans junior year appeared in the 2000 Prospect High School yearbook with the caption: Mr. Joseph Boyle smiles at Dave Koschmans brilliant work, a photographic composition perfectly executed.
[Koschman was] never any trouble . . . a very spirited young boy, a lot of personality. Absolutely not an aggressive boy at all when I knew him in high school.
PAT TEDALDI-MONTI, dean at Prospect High School
Now, in what law-enforcement sources say is an unusual move, the police department has assigned the re-investigation of Koschmans death to a different detective bureau, transferring it from Area 3 to Area 5. The Cook County states attorneys office says it stands by its initial conclusion that no one should be charged. Though its files are missing, officials say the original prosecutor who recommended no charges be filed still works there. They would not identify him. They declined charges, but they cant find the file? said Richard Kling, a criminal-defense attorney who is a law professor at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law. Ive been doing this for 39 years, literally thousands of cases. Ive never seen a felony-review file missing. Ever. Never heard of one. Theres certainly some red flags, said Kling. Like not investigating the case earlier, a missing felony-review file, transferring the case from one area to another and not having lineups until a month later. Among the Sun-Times findings: The police reinterviewed Koschmans four friends on Jan. 17 one day before the department said in a letter to the SunTimes that it could not release any information on crime-scene details, witness and suspect names and statements because of the departments ongoing criminal investigation. Vanecko and one of his three companions ran off after Koschman was hit, according to witnesses and the police. Its unclear where or when the police found them. Vanecko declined to talk with the po-
Eight months after the incident, R.J. Vanecko joined other Daley family members as Mayor Daleys son Patrick was sworn in as a U.S. Army specialist. From left to right: Vanecko; Sean Conroy, the mayors son-in-law; Maggie Conroy held by her mother Nora Conroy, the mayors eldest daughter; the mayor; Patrick Daley; Maggie Daley; Elizabeth Daley, the mayors youngest daughter, and John Daley, another mayoral nephew.
lice, though his friends did. Nearly a month after Koschman was punched, Vanecko appeared in a police lineup at which Koschmans four friends and another witness could not identify him as one of those involved in the confrontation. One of Koschmans friends says a detective recently told him that Vanecko had changed his appearance in that time, shaving his head. Also, the friend says the man who struck Koschman wore a hat, though no one wore a hat in the lineup. Koschmans friends did identify Vaneckos two male companions as having been present that night but said those men didnt punch Koschman. The police department says detectives concluded that Koschman was the aggressor because witnesses told them he charged at Vaneckos group a contention that Koschmans friends dispute, maintaining that Koschman was the victim of a sucker punch. The Cook County states attorneys office, which was headed at the time of the investigation by Richard Devine, a longtime political ally of the Daley family, determined there was no evidence to charge anyone with Koschmans death, so his staff closed the investigation. Given how the case has been handled in the past, Koschmans mother, Nanci, says she has a hard time believing the police actually are re-examining her sons death. She said detectives havent spoken to her since May 2004. Im angry at the people who took his life, Nanci Koschman said in an interview. I want someone to say, Im sorry. Im realistic Im never going to get that. School. I didnt know anybody who didnt like him. He was really, really close to his mom. There were nights when we would go out, and he would go to a movie with his mom. Koschman had no criminal record. He was never any trouble . . . a very spirited young boy, a lot of personality, said Pat Tedaldi-Monti, the high schools dean. Absolutely not an aggressive boy at all when I knew him in high school. Koschman graduated from Prospect High in 2001, along with the four friends he would go drinking with on Rush Street three years later. Two of those friends Scott Allen and James Copeland worked with him at an insurance company in Arlington Heights. Koschman was also taking classes at Harper College, and he planned to transfer to Roosevelt University. The weekend of April 24, 2004, one group of his friends had invited him to join them on a trip out-of-state to see a NASCAR race. It was either that or go with other friends to Rush Street and then, the next day, to a Cubs game. He settled on Rush Street.
SEE WATCHDOGS, PAGE 14
A rite of passage
Nanci and Robert Koschman were married for several years when she learned she was pregnant with identical twin boys. On Feb. 12, 1983, she gave birth to David and a stillborn son. Her doctors told her she wouldnt be able to have any more children. The Koschmans raised their only child in a small, ranch home in Mount Prospect. He played baseball, loved the Cubs and stockcar racing and made friends early in life who he remained close with until his death. On Sept. 24, 1995, Koschmans father died suddenly as the result of a heart problem. The boy was 12 years old. Koschman was very friendly, nice, like a jokester, recalled Lela Bork, who was a classmate at Prospect High
Two-year-old R.J. Vanecko sits on the knee of his grandfather and namesake, the late Mayor Richard J. Daley, after turning on the lights of Chicagos Christmas tree in 1976.
A WATCHDOGS INVESTIGATION
FIRST OF TWO PARTS
Self-defense? How could that be? My friend would have had to have initiated some kind of physical threat and that never happened. Someone was killed that night, and there was no punishment at all for it. If that punch wasnt thrown, we wouldnt be talking about this right now.
JAMES COPELAND, Koschmans friend CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13
His mother didnt have any problem with the five friends going to Rush Street. I loved the city, Nanci Koschman said. He learned about Rush Street through me and all my friends saying thats a rite of passage. I wasnt a mom who says, Dont go to Rush Street, youre going to die there. estate investment company thats made millions of dollars in fees for managing $68 million from five city pension funds, a deal also under federal investigation. Craig Denham, also 29 at the time, who was a LaSalle Bank official and is now a financier in New York City. He later married the sister of the mayors son-in-law, Sean Conroy. Kevin D. McCarthy, then 31, and his wife Bridget, then 26. Her father, Jack Higgins, is a friend of the mayor and a developer who built the citys police headquarters. Bridget McCarthy was encouraging her group to walk away, according to Koschmans friends, who said they were trying to get Koschman to do the same. They were arguing, Hageline said. We were trying to break it up, but it kept going. Dave was a smaller guy. He wasnt really letting it go. He was being kind of mouthy. The guy he was arguing with was bigger than him, and bigger than me. At least 6-1, 6-2. He was definitely the biggest guy in the group. At 6-feet, 3-inches, Vanecko was the tallest in the group, according to Illinois driving records. The next thing I know it was pretty much a cheap shot, really the guy just clocks him, Copeland said. There was nothing physical of any kind until this guy throws a punch. Francis said he saw Koschman get punched: I feel like Dave was kind of walking forward, and he got hit. As far as I remember, his fists werent raised. The next thing I know, Dave got hit and fell backward. Koschman, who appeared to be knocked out, fell backward off the curb and struck his head on the street. The three older men including the one who hit Koschman took off, running south on Dearborn, according to a police report that Nanci Koschman was given in 2004. Allen said he chased down one of three men and tackled him in front of a police officer. That man was McCarthy, who remained on the scene with his wife. A fire department ambulance took Koschman to the closest hospital, Northwestern Memorial. Thats where he died 12 days later of what the medical examiners office determined were craniocerebral injuries due to blunt trauma. The manner of death is classified as homicide.
TOP: Koschman and friends partied at Bar Chicago, 9 W. Division, as it appeared in 2007, in the Rush Street district. ABOVE: Bar Chicago has been replaced by a new nightspot called Detention. | ABOVE PHOTO BY KEITH HALE~SUN-TIMES
COMING TONIGHT ON TV
Watch Carol Marins reports about David Koschmans death at 4:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. on NBC5.
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A MOTHERS PAIN
Nanci Koschman tearfully talks about the investigation of her sons death and life without her only child.
had gone to the same high school, Loyola Academy in Wilmette, and had a couple classes together. Im surprised the police never figured that out, Kohler told a reporter. How did you figure out that we went to Loyola together? Another of Vaneckos group, McCarthy, had graduated from Loyola in 1991, a year before Vanecko and Kohler did. Koschmans friends also viewed lineups on May 20, 2004, and picked out McCarthy and Denham but said neither man had punched Koschman. None identified Vanecko. One of Koschmans friends, Hageline, told the Sun-Times that his friend was hit by a guy wearing a hat but that no one wore a hat in the lineup. Also, Hageline said a detective recently told him that Vanecko had shaved his head between the night Koschman was struck and the time the lineup was held. I didnt even understand why there was a lineup, Hageline said. They knew he [Vanecko] was on the scene. They caught his friend [McCarthy] on the scene.
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