Man Wrongly Imprisoned for 20 Years Thanks to Dirty

Cop, Hopes for Innocence Declaration Wednesday

Robert Bouto was 17 years old
When he was wrongly put behind bars
For more than half of his life

Court hearing at 10:30 am, Wednesday, January 16th

26th & California Courthouse, Courtroom 101

Editor: Royalty-free photos of 17-year-old Mr. Bouto at the time of his arrest, and today, are available
upon request. Please send an email with the subject line “Send Mr. Bouto Photos” to
andy@exonerationproject.org to receive copies.

CHICAGO – Robert Bouto, a man who spent half of his life in prison, wrongfully convicted of
murder thanks to a frame-up by notorious former Chicago Police Detective Reynaldo Guevara,
hopes to win a certificate of innocence at a court hearing on Wednesday.

The hearing will be at 10:30 am in Courtroom 101 at the George N. Leighton Courthouse, 2650
S. California Avenue, before Presiding Judge Martin.

Bouto is among nearly 100 Chicagoans who were wrongly convicted and thrown behind bars by
Guevara, who abused his position as a police detective to manufacture false evidence and lie in court
for decades. Guevara has taken the 5th Amendment many dozens of times to avoid prosecution for
his alleged wrongdoing.

Following numerous cases of suspected wrongdoing by Guevara, the City of Chicago commissioned
its own investigation under the leadership of former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois
Scott Lassar and his firm, Sidley Austin. In 2015 that investigation found that “[W]e find it more likely
than not that Bouto is innocent of the murder of Salvador Ruvalcaba.”

As outlined in Bouto’s petition for a certificate of innocence, two witnesses who said Bouto was
Ruvalcaba’s shooter have subsequently admitted that Guevara intimidated them into fingering Bouto
with threats of arrest and other harassment. The Lassar Report’s analysis of the crime scene found
that there was no way they could have made a positive identification of Bouto anyway. There was no
forensic evidence linking Bouto to the crime and he had two alibi witnesses who to this day insist he
was not the shooter because they were with him at the time of the murder.

Bouto is represented by Russell Ainsworth, Debra Loevy Reyes and Ruth Brown of The Exoneration
Project at the University of Chicago Law School.

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