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Tribune articles on AARON PATTERSON

"Aaron [Patterson] has been subject to a wrongful conviction before,"said Jane Bohman, executive director of the Illinois Coalition Against
the Death Penalty. "The timing of this case is certainly suspect. It did occur in a political context."
"There was certainly no financial motivation to do the things the government alleges he did," said David Protess, a Northwestern University journalism professor who helped free Patterson.
THE AARON PATTERSON CASE

Hero or criminal? It's not open-shut case
The mystery that is the ex-Death Row inmate led one judge to say there
are `2 Aaron Pattersons'

By John Bebow, Jeff Coen and Don Terry. Tribune staff reporter David
Heinzmann contributed to this report
Tribune staff reporters.
Published August 19, 2004

Aaron Patterson, the former Death Row inmate turned boisterous community
activist, was demanding a federal investigation.

It was 9:30 p.m. on May 26 as Patterson pounded on windows at the
Belmont Area police headquarters during a candlelight vigil for a fellow
death-penalty foe who had just died while in custody for a drug arrest.

By then, Patterson already had the full attention of federal agents.

Just three hours before the protest, Patterson allegedly sold two bags
of marijuana for $1,400 to a confidential informant in a quick
transaction behind his mother's South Side house as authorities watched.

There are "two Aaron Pattersons," a federal judge concluded earlier this
month, ordering Patterson to remain jailed as a potential danger to the
community while he awaits trial on new gang-related gun and drug
charges.

There's the tireless celebrity fighter seeking justice for the
wrongfully convicted. And, authorities insist, there's Patterson's other
life as "Ranger," a street-gang leader dealing in guns, heroin and
marijuana when he's not shouting at the Establishment.

"Which is more believable?" Patterson asked the Tribune in a jailhouse
interview Wednesday. "Which have you seen me out there doing more than
anything?"

Patterson doesn't deny a handful of drug deals federal agents captured
in taped conversations and surveillance in recent months. The
self-proclaimed media stuntman said the transactions were simply his
biggest stunt yet: a counter-sting against government agents trying to
entrap him.

"I got all kinds of documentation," he said, charging agents removed
reams of evidence from his mother's house. "I got videotapes, I got an
audiotape. I got license plate numbers of the undercover cars. Serial
numbers for all the money. Everything."

Federal prosecutors declined to respond, saying Patterson's claims will
be answered in court.

Saying his risky amateur gumshoe work was inspired in part by
documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, Patterson called himself
"revolutionary but gangster."

"Call me Captain Kirk," he said. "I'm gonna go where no man has gone
before."

An activist path

Patterson picked up a bullhorn right away.

After years of lobbying anyone who would listen, Patterson hit the
streets in January 2003 after then-Gov. George Ryan freed him from Death
Row, exonerating him of two 1986 murders.

Over and over, Patterson told a story of a false murder confession
obtained by police who tortured him. Wearing new business suits and a
stern stare, he captivated students in dozens of high school and college
classrooms. He filed a $33 million wrongful-conviction lawsuit. He
brainstormed ways to lure gang members off the streets with legitimate
jobs. Bullhorn in hand, he led protests against war and unjust
prosecutions.

In February, for example, he confronted Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley,
U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald and other authorities in his brash and
fearless style, shouting down a news conference to announce a crackdown
on gun trafficking.

Buoyed by Ryan's emptying of Death Row, death penalty foes saw a rising
political star.

"My vision for him was like a Bobby Rush," said Jennifer Bishop-Jenkins,
who brought Patterson to the suburban school where she serves as an
assistant vice principal. "That was my hope."

Patterson launched a political career last December with a campaign
against state Rep. Patricia Bailey, a member of Chicago's Democratic
machine.

Weeks earlier, the seeds for the federal investigation of Patterson were
planted through a seemingly routine drug arrest of an ex-con whose
street name was "Fox."

The Tribune is not naming the informant because he has not been publicly
identified and authorities consider him to be at risk.

After being tipped by another street informant, eight cops burst into
Fox's Humboldt Park apartment at 6:30 a.m. Nov. 14. Inside, they found
$7,900 in cash and $108,000 worth of drugs--37 bricks of marijuana and a
bag of crack cocaine, according to police reports.

Fox, a ranking Latin King gang member who previously had been arrested
13 times, was facing 6 to 30 years in prison if convicted of the new
drug charge.

Then he told authorities he could deliver Aaron Patterson.

After his release from prison, Patterson made no secret of his continued
affiliation with street gangs. Patterson, a ranking Blackstone Ranger
when he was sent to prison in the mid-1980s, used gang members this year
to help in his legislative campaign, and he served as a peacemaker on
the street, associates said.

But Patterson's pardon never sat well at the Cook County state's
attorney's office. For years, prosecutors fought Patterson's efforts to
free himself and are quick to recall he had three previous convictions
for attempted murder.

By last fall, prosecutors said, Patterson's name had surfaced in new
gang investigations. Authorities noted he was making visits to gang
leaders under watch in the Cook County Jail.

Then Fox "dropped in our lap," as one prosecutor put it. Fox told
authorities he had sold drugs to Patterson in 2003 and had heard him
talk about buying an assault rifle, according to the new federal
charges.

Court records show Fox bonded out of jail in mid-February and was poised
to begin his undercover work as Patterson continued jumping from protest
to protest.

On Feb. 23, with bullhorn in hand, Patterson joined a small group from
the "We Demand Justice Committee" in front of the Cook County Criminal
Courts Building. They marched against the prosecution of a man charged
in a fatal 1989 beating outside a Chicago nightclub.

Protest organizer Ruth Pena said she was honored a "star" like Patterson
would make time for such a modest event. "He's inspirational and he's
strong," Pena recalled thinking. "There's actually an innocence about
him."

On March 9, at the direction of government investigators, Fox launched a
series of taped conversations with Patterson. If they could catch
Patterson with guns, the investigators reasoned, a federal conviction
could send him back to prison for a minimum of 15 years.

State records show that while Fox got Patterson on tape, Patterson tried
to help Fox get his kids out of foster care.

Patterson said Wednesday he knew all along that he was being taped. He
said Fox, the government's informant, was in on his plan to investigate
corrupt cops but double-crossed him to solve his own legal woes.

"They did a six-month investigation of me right? Surveillance," he said.
"Where's the money? I'm running around in my mother's car because my van
is down. How come my pockets ain't loaded up? There's no elaborate
jewelry. They're making like I have a criminal enterprise or some
stuff."

Case builds

Yet the taped conversations--as portrayed in the criminal
complaint--appear to bluntly contradict Patterson's made-for-television
image as a man of redemption.

"I need some thumpers," Patterson told Fox in that initial March 9
conversation. Federal officials called that a reference to guns; some of
Patterson's defenders translated it as a call for people to rally,
possibly for the state House campaign.

A week after that much-debated remark, Patterson finished a distant
third in the election.

"People say they were tired of the police harassing them or the drug
dealers dealing from their porch steps," Patterson said at the time.
"But maybe they don't want change."

A week after the loss, prosecutors charged, Patterson quoted Fox a price
of $2,500 per ounce for heroin.

On April 3, Patterson completed the first of several drug deals with
Fox, selling him a half-pound of marijuana for $700, prosecutors
charged. Three days later, Patterson and two dozen others rallied
outside the offices of special prosecutors investigating fired Chicago
police Cmdr. Jon Burge for systematic police brutality. Patterson told
reporters he'd been asked to testify but declined, saying he felt like
he was "being interrogated all over again."

On June 2, while riding with Fox to a funeral, Patterson continued
negotiations that soon led him and a third man, Isaiah Kitchen, to sell
Fox an additional $16,000 worth of heroin and marijuana, prosecutors
charged.

Patterson's many loyal defenders see holes in the government's case.

Why, they asked, should the public or a jury believe Fox, an ex-con and
ranking Latin King gang member whom the government paid some $6,000 for
his taped conversations?

Was it just, they asked, for Fox to go free after getting caught with
$108,000 worth of illegal drugs just to set up a sting in which
Patterson allegedly dealt in less than $25,000 worth of drugs?

And, they asked, why did Patterson's arrest come less than a month
before the scheduled deposition of Burge, one of the main defendants in
Patterson's civil case?

"Aaron [Patterson] has been subject to a wrongful conviction before,"
said Jane Bohman, executive director of the Illinois Coalition Against
the Death Penalty. "The timing of this case is certainly suspect. It did
occur in a political context."

The day agents arrested Patterson and searched his mother's home, a
federal judge ruled in his favor, declining motions by the City of
Chicago and Cook County to dismiss his civil suit. Those close to
Patterson expect him to eventually receive a bountiful settlement.

"There was certainly no financial motivation to do the things the
government alleges he did," said David Protess, a Northwestern
University journalism professor who helped free Patterson.

Family dreams

Patterson spent the weekend before his arrest with his newborn daughter,
Cimmeria, his first child, born June 29.

Starting a family of his own, the bigger the better, was one of the
dreams that sustained him on Death Row. Patterson is expecting another
child with a different woman within weeks.

"He did not want to stop; now he wanted a son," said Nathson Fields, who
served time on Death Row with Patterson. Fields is awaiting a new trial.

Patterson used state funds he received for his wrongful conviction to
pay for a bond last year to free Fields.

Agents arrested Patterson as he drove his mother's black Dodge Neon just
after an associate allegedly received four guns, including a machine
gun, from Fox on Patterson's behalf. When she later recovered the car,
Jo Ann Patterson noted it still contained relics of her son's activist
life.

His trademark bullhorn was on the back-seat floor.

"I just didn't think I'd ever be back in court again or trying to do a
visit to see him in jail," Jo Ann Patterson said. "I can't get over this
sadness."

The school year would have meant a full calendar of speaking engagements
and protests. Instead, Patterson's back in a cell, debating whether he
is more at home in jail than on the streets.

"Subliminally did I actually put myself in this situation like this and
say, `Well, you know what, it's so crazy out here that maybe I actually
do want to go back in jail just to get away from the madness?'" he asked
Wednesday. "I ask myself, `You know what? It might be safer being locked
up somewhere.' Wherever I go, I'm going to be all right. I'm going to
work, like I work on the streets."

Even a new conviction wouldn't diminish Patterson's past work to free
himself and others, his defenders contend.

Rob Warden, head of the Northwestern University Justice Project, said,
"If Aaron Patterson has incurred a new debt to society, it was certainly
paid in advance."

THE AARON PATTERSON CASE: JAIL INTERVIEW

Patterson refers to his arrest as an exposure stunt gone bad

By Jeff Coen and Don Terry
Tribune staff reporters
Published August 19, 2004

The following are excerpts from the Tribune's interview with Aaron
Patterson at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago.

Q--Why are you in federal custody?

A--You want it in big letters or small? (Fired Chicago police Cmdr.) Jon
Burge, Mayor (Richard M.) Daley, (Cook County State's Atty.) Dick Devine
and (U.S. Atty.) Patrick Fitzgerald. I guess I rubbed them the wrong
way.

Q--You claim you were purposefully documenting police corruption. Why?

A--I (thought) there's something that we really need to do to shock the
system, the public and the media into looking into this issue. I just
pulled a stunt. It might be a little bit beyond the usual stunt, but I
just felt like I had exhausted all my remedies in trying to bring
awareness to law enforcement officials about what was going on in our
community. ... I felt like I was spinning my wheels or running in place.

Q--What was the goal?

A--It was to expose. Let's do something real, and get it on tape. We
talked about it, here's the U.S. attorney talking about guns and drugs
in the neighborhood. We knew about (convicted former Chicago police
officer) Joseph Miedzianowski recruiting gang members to sell guns and
drugs in the neighborhood. And (Fitzgerald) didn't do anything about
getting them arrested, those officers who worked for Miedzianowski, or
going back to review those cases of guys who are in prison.

Q--Were you trying to be arrested?

A--The stunt was not to get locked up. The stunt was that I wanted to do
something that would put them on the spot. At first, I felt initially
that these were some rogue cops working with this (informant).

I wasn't sure, but I thought that it might have been Devine and the
Police Department that was behind him doing what he was trying to do.

Q--When do you contend you realized the informant was using you?

A--I didn't realize it. It was always in the back of my mind. He broke
something down to me. One way or the other, they can get you. And he was
saying if I didn't do the drug transaction with him, maybe one day
you'll find drugs in your house or in your car.

Q--You claim your own tapes of the drug transactions were taken by
authorities. Why not have people ready to support your position that you
were engineering this?

A--My thing was I documented everything, and as long as I documented
everything I thought I covered myself. I had all the paperwork, and I
had all the pictures. All the money that was transacted I laid it on the
table. I took serial numbers of all the money that was on the table.

Q--Why play with this kind of activity at all, given what you have been
through?

A--What have I been doing since I got out here? I thought I could
control the situation a little better if I knew who the informant was.

By me documenting everything, I thought I covered myself. At the very
last minute, I reached for an envelope of papers (documenting my
project) to put something else in it, and I didn't have time to move it
to an undisclosed location before it was taken (from his mother's home
by authorities executing a search warrant).

Q--Are you afraid to go back to prison?

A--I'm not in a hurry to go back to prison for 15 years or 1 year. I
don't want to go to the pen. I just got out of the pen. I don't mind
doing the little overnight things, like before (after being picked up at
protests). I don't want it to happen.

I'm afraid I did this thing, and I wasn't successful in doing what I was
trying to achieve. But (people should know) I will push the envelope and
I will use off-the-wall tactics to bring attention to certain issues.

Q--What is your relationship to Chicago's street gangs?

A--I raised half these guys or I grew up with these guys. I still have a
relationship with them. I'm not going to act like I don't know these
individuals. My part in trying to better the community is to work with
these individuals and see where their head is at and try to push them in
a direction that will be beneficial to the community.

Q--You say you were frustrated on the street. What did you mean?

A--We're out here trying to save the world, and I don't think people
appreciate anything we say or do. And we're putting our lives at risk,
and we're just not being successful in pushing these issues out here.

People would tell me, "We see you on the news. We see you in the
newspapers," and this, that and the other. But I don't see enough
successes, you know, with what we've been doing. And it's very
frustrating to me, and that's one of the reasons I did what I did.
 
 

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