Kendall judge dismisses all felony charges against Joliet police whistleblower

Capping a four-year legal saga, a Kendall County judge granted Kendall County State’s Attorney Eric Weis’ motion to drop his official misconduct case against former Joliet Police Sgt. Javier Esqueda.

At the Dec. 16 court hearing, Judge Jody Gleason dismissed the felony charges against Esqueda for accessing a squad car video he later leaked to the media capturing the 2020 fatal drug overdose of Eric Lurry Jr., 37, a Black man from Joliet.

The video led to public protests and a federal wrongful death lawsuit filed by Lurry’s widow. It depicts Joliet Police Sgt. Doug May slapping Lurry in the face and saying, “Wake up, [expletive!],” while pinching Lurry’s nose shut as other officers removed bags of drugs from Lurry’s mouth.

Following the judge’s dismissal, Esqueda read a prepared statement to the courtroom. His full statement can be read at the Lamplighter Project.

“Four years and 56 days ago, my life was altered in a way I could never have imagined. I was falsely accused of committing crimes when I simply exposed truths. This persecution from the Joliet Police Department’s previous administration and follow-through from the State’s Attorney’s office, had a tremendous impact on every facet of my life. These false accusations on an official police document resulted in my arrest where I was hand-cuffed, transported, and incarcerated in the Kendall County Jail,” Esqueda said.

“From that day forward, my name and reputation were slandered by the former [police] administration, by one biased faction of the media, and fellow officers. I was called a pariah. I was stripped of my badge, gun, and police duties where I was forced to sit at a desk with garbage and stare at a wall. I was put on display for other officers and civilians to mock me. I was forced into early retirement. I was kicked out of the Supervisors Union and denied my retirement badge.”

“False narratives were told to fellow officers, and I lost many friendships from the police department immediately. I had two police supervisors, and an officer come to my home in retaliation after they were advised that the State Police had revoked my FOID for being charged with four felony counts of official misconduct. They demanded my firearms, frightened my mother and child, and were unprofessional using explicit language. That incident placed my family in constant fear for my safety as well as theirs,” Esqueda continued.

“The emotional and psychological strain caused by the States Attorney’s office for these last 1,516 days has left a profound mark on myself and my family. A special thanks to the few Joliet police officers and city employees that I cannot name for fear that they will be retaliated against. I could not have endured this travesty of injustice without the support of all of you.”

In an interview after the hearing, Esqueda would not comment whether he was planning on filing any future lawsuits.

Weis’ Dec. 13 motion of dismissal states his office received additional materials causing a reevaluation of the evidence. He also cited an unnamed U.S. Supreme Court case that “impacted the ability to successfully prosecute this case.”

In an interview after the hearing, Weis confirmed the U.S. Supreme Court case was Van Buren v. United States.

“Under the law, the way he could access the video is one of those things that is now subject based on the United States Supreme Court that he could exceed his access for an illegal purpose, and accessing that video would not, in and of itself, be a crime,” Weiss said.

“I don’t necessarily agree with the U.S. Supreme Court when it comes to that ruling, but they are the law of the land. Whether he was right or wrong in what he did is a totally separate question,” Weiss said.

At the heart of the four felony charges against Esqueda were whether he exceeded his lawful authority by accessing the video files while he was off-duty. During pre-trial battles, Weis and Esqueda’s attorney, Jeff Tomczak, argued whether Esqueda should be allowed to call himself a “whistleblower” during the court hearing.

On Sept. 10, Gleason granted a motion from Tomczak to block the prosecutor’s evidence of Esqueda’s alleged motive in accessing and leaking the video. Tomczak premised his motion on the 2021 ruling in Van Buren v. United States, which decided a Georgia police officer did not exceed lawful authority when accessing police computer data for alleged improper purposes.

Gleason said at the Sept. 10 pretrial hearing, “The only thing that’s really relevant is did (Esqueda) access something outside his authority? What he finally did with that is totally irrelevant. All prosecutors have to prove is it was outside his authority.”

Esqueda previously said at a Joliet City Council meeting that he leaked the video because he believed the Joliet Police Department was engaged in a cover-up of what Esqueda alleged was unjustifiable harm akin to murder.

Weis previously said that Esqueda could have contacted the FBI, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, or the Illinois Attorney General’s Office if he was truly concerned, rather than first leaking the video to the press.

One day before Weis’ motion of dismissal, the office of Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul released an investigatory report that found the Joliet Police Department has engaged in a pattern of unreasonable force, engages in disproportionate enforcement actions against Black and Latino people, and fails to hold officers accountable for misconduct.

In an interview with Weis, he said that the timing of the report and his dismissal request was a coincidence.

“I saw the report. It did not influence the decision at all,” Weiss said.

Raoul opened the investigation in 2021 after several Joliet city officials, including former Joliet Mayor Bob O’Dekirk, raised concerns about Lurry’s death.

A criminal investigation by Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow ruled that Lurry died from a drug overdose and did not “result directly from any action or inaction” by any Joliet police officer.

Both Sgt. May and officer Jose Tellez received fewer than eight days of suspension form the Joliet Police Department. Tellez allegedly stopped the recording of the squad car video.