Joliet cop who leaked Eric Lurry overdose video to stand trial this summer

A Joliet police sergeant accused of unlawfully accessing the Eric Lurry overdose video is expected to stand trial in July, according to his attorney.

The trial was set for the week of July 18, said Jeff Tomczak, the attorney for Sgt. Javier Esqueda, who was charged with official misconduct in Kendall County in connection with the leak of the video of Lurry’s arrest during a narcotics investigation conducted by the Joliet police Jan. 28, 2020.

Lurry, 37, died the following day in what the Will County Coroner’s Office ruled was an accident from fatal ingestion of narcotics depicted in the police squad video. The Will County State’s Attorney’s Office cleared the officers at the scene of Lurry’s arrest of any wrongdoing.

Tomczak said Esqueda’s case will have a final trial status date July 13. He said he anticipates the case will go to a jury trial.

Police reports revealed a witness claimed Esqueda indicated he would use the Lurry video “as his ‘Trump Card’ if he was given discipline” over a 2019 confrontation with police and attendees of a prayer vigil.

One witness told investigators that she told Esqueda it was not a “good idea to leak the video to anyone” and asked him “not to be the cause of what could ‘burn the city down’” in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder by police on May 25, 2020.

Tomczak disputed the allegations in the police reports, saying, “This was a biased investigation from the beginning. This is punishment for exposing wrongdoing at the department.”

On Nov. 10, Esqueda was expelled from the Joliet Fraternal Order of Police Supervisors Association in a 35-1 vote.

Former Joliet Police Chief Dawn Malec, the first female chief in the department’s history, was inexplicably fired by Joliet City Manager James Capparelli on Oct. 6.

Malec said she was fired when she scheduled a disciplinary hearing for Esqueda against the wishes of Capparelli, who would not confirm or deny this.

On July 1, 2020, Esqueda appeared in a CBS Chicago TV news story sharing the video of Lurry’s arrest, which led to a summer of protests in Joliet and an ongoing federal lawsuit from Lurry’s widow, Nicole Lurry.

About a week prior, Joliet Mayor Bob O’Dekirk sent a letter signed by three City Council members to Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul asking for investigation into Lurry case.

On Sept. 8, Raoul announced a civil investigation of the Joliet Police Department but not of the Lurry case. He told community members that the Statewide Grand Jury Act limits what kind of cases he can actually prosecute.