Press — @BonjeanLawGroup

National Registry of Exonerations

'I feel free': Chicago teen framed for 1985 murder becomes 3,000th person exonerated in US (March 2022)

“This Court finds that evidence in this case is of such conclusive character that it will probably change the result on retrial,” the judge said. “If even a fraction of the allegations included in this evidence had been presented at trial, Halvorsen’s credibility would have been damaged and Munoz would likely [have] been acquitted.” USA Today

R. Kelly to get help from high-profile N.Y. attorney who helped Bill Cosby (October 2021)

Jennifer Bonjean, a New York-based attorney whose legal career began in Chicago, filed her appearance in Kelly’s case in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, where Kelly was convicted last month of racketeering and sex abuse charges.

Bonjean told the Tribune she will spearhead Kelly’s post-conviction motions and, should U.S. District Judge Anne Donnelly deny Kelly a new trial, work on an appeal before the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Bonjean was the driving force behind Cosby’s appeal of his sex crimes conviction in Pennsylvania and wound up winning the actor’s stunning release from prison. She said she’s “looking forward to getting familiar with the record” in Kelly’s case, which was anchored by Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act charges that she called a “kitchen sink approach.”

“I am becoming increasingly concerned with how the government is abusing the RICO statute in order to plead around the statute of limitations and essentially put people’s entire lives on trial,” Bonjean said. “It’s becoming a formula for the government. You have a right to defend yourself against specific allegations.”

Read the full article here.

Chicago POISED FOR $20.5M SETTLEMENT WITH 2 MEN ALLEGEDLY FRAMED BY FORMER Detective Reynaldo Guevara (SEPTEMBER 2021)

Chicago taxpayers will spend $20.5 million to compensate two men who spent more than two decades in prison for crimes they did not commit after allegedly being framed by Chicago Police Detective Reynaldo Guevara.

As lucrative as the latest settlement is, Serrano’s attorney Jennifer Bonjean said no amount of money could compensate her client for more than two decades spent in prison for crimes he did not commit.

“What would you want for 23 years of your life? It’s kind of that simple,” Bonjean said. “They abused and used another individual who was in custody to frame a number of men, including our clients.”

Click here to read more.

Here's the lawyer who got Bill Cosby's conviction tossed (JUNE 2021)

Lawyer Jennifer Bonjean and Andrew Wyatt, spokesperson for Bill Cosby, speak to the media after Pennsylvania's highest court overturned Cosby's sexual assault conviction and ordered him released from prison immediately, in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, U.S., June 30, 2021.

Bill Cosby Freed from prison, his sex conviction overturned (june 2021)

Pennsylvania’s highest court threw out Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction and released him from prison Wednesday in a stunning reversal of fortune for the comedian once known as “America’s Dad,” ruling that the prosecutor who brought the case was bound by his predecessor’s agreement not to charge Cosby.

Click here for details.

Bill Cosby Case: Judges Review Decision to Allow Multiple Accusers (December 2020)

The decision by the trial judge to include the testimony by other Several Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices hearing Cosby’s appeal of his sexual assault conviction expressed concern that five additional women had been allowed to testify at his 2018 trial.

Mr. Cosby’s case represented one of the most high-profile convictions to unfold in the aftermath of #MeToo. His team has argued that the trial judge was swept up by the fervor of the #MeToo movement, leading him to allow the testimony from the other women, although Ms. Bonjean did not cite that argument when appearing Tuesday.

Read the New York Times story here.

USA Today: Bill Cosby lawyers, prosecutors tussle over his sex-crimes conviction at PA high court (December 2020)

Bonjean argued that allowing five other women to testify to alleged acts by Cosby dating back decades forced Cosby to defend against "five mini trials," while providing no useful "probative" information as required by law.

She said a defendant in an American criminal court "must be tried for what he did and not for who he is," but prosecutors "made no secret" they intended to present Cosby to the jury as a defendant who had a "propensity" for drugging and raping women.

Click here to read more at USA Today.

Pennsylvania Supreme Court Troubled by Bill Cosby Trial Witnesses (december 2020)

“A defendant must be tried for what he did and not who he is,” argued Cosby’s lawyer, Jennifer Bonjean. Once the jurors heard the five women’s accounts, she argued, “He had no shot. The presumption of innocence just didn’t exist for him at that point.”

Click here for more details at Variety.

Cosby Attorney Appears to Score Points in Supreme Court Argument (december 2020)

Attorney Jennifer Bonjean appeared to score multiple points with the seven justices during the appeal hearing, skillfully pointing out that Cosby had agreed to waive his Fifth Amendment rights to sit for a civil deposition that former Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor promised would never be used against the entertainer — an agreement ignored by Castor’s successor, Kevin Steele, who prosecuted Cosby using the deposition.

Watch the video at the link in this article.

Settlement reached in Wildwood beach confrontation caught on police bodycam (December 2020)

Court documents show Emily Weinman of Kensington will receive $325,000 from the October 2019 lawsuit, which claimed the officers "brutally and senselessly assaulted her... as her 18- month-old daughter looked on."

Freedom at last: Roosevelt Myles released after 28 years behind bars (july 2020)

In 2017, New York Attorney Jennifer Bonjean took Myles’ case. Bonjean pushed to get Myles the hearing he never received, but in 2019, Judge Dennis Porter denied his appeal after prosecutors at Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s office argued Myles’ post-conviction case had no merit.

Myles went back to the appeals court, which disagreed with Judge Porter’s ruling. Bonjean filed a motion for a hearing and is now waiting for the next move from Foxx’s office. Prosecutors have until Friday, July 24 to respond before the 70-day deadline expires

Click here to learn more.

Bill Cosby Invokes Systemic Racism As He Fights #Metoo Conviction (july 2020)

Cosby’s celebrity “does not change his status as a Black man,” said appellate lawyer Jennifer Bonjean, the latest of more than a dozen criminal lawyers on the case.

“It would be naïve to assume that his prosecution was not tainted by the same racial bias that pervades the criminal justice process in both explicit and insidious ways,” she said last week.

Click here for the full story.

A Chicago Man Who Claims He Was Framed For Murder Will Finally Get His Day In Court (may 2020)

A Chicago man who claims he was framed for a murder he didn’t commit and who has waited almost three decades to present evidence of his innocence will finally get his day in court, judges from the 5th District of the Illinois Appellate Court ruled last week.

More Than 50 People Say This Cop Framed Them For Murder. Now Prosecutors Are Going To Review His Cases (may 2020)

Civil rights attorney Jennifer Bonjean, who has won exoneration for a handful of Guevara defendant cases and is currently arguing the innocence of three more, said that when the detective’s cases are examined in isolation, the evidence of his alleged misconduct isn’t always obvious. But when considered collectively, she said, shocking patterns are readily apparent.

Read the full story here.

After 31 years in prison, Chicago man awarded $5.2 million in case city bitterly fought (march 2020)

The jury heard Wrice, who is African American, testify that the two had beaten him with flashlights and with a rubber hose while hurling racial slurs and threats against him until he agreed to confess. Both Byrne and Dignan came into the courtroom and invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

The jury award includes $4 million in general damages against the city, and $600,000 each in punitive damages against the two officers. That, said Wrice’s elated attorney Jennifer Bonjean, was a “breathtaking” result, showing the jurors had no doubt that Wrice was a victim of torture.

Click here for the full story.

Chicago Man, Stanley Wrice, Awarded $5.2 Million After Spending 31 Years In Jail Under False Conviction (MARCH 2020)

Stanley Wrice says he spent 31 years in prison after two police officers beat him into falsely confessing his to taking part in the brutal 1982 gang rape and assault of a woman.

Wrice said Chicago police Sgt. John Byrne and Det. Peter Dignan tortured him into giving an incriminating statement tying him to the assault. Wrice finally got closure at Dirksen Federal Courthouse after the civil trial ended in his favor after a week and a half.

Click here to read the full article.

Jury awards more than $5 million to man who contends torture at the hands of Burge detectives led to false confession

After an eight-day trial, the jury deliberated for about seven hours before finding in favor of Stanley Wrice on claims that detectives John Byrne and Peter Dignan violated his constitutional rights when they beat him with a flashlight and length of rubber hose in the basement of the Area 2 police headquarters.

Read the full article at the Chicago Tribune here.

Man who had rape conviction overturned details police beating: ‘I didn’t feel human’ (february 2020)

A man who said he was forced to confess to a brutal 1982 rape testified Thursday how the beating at the hands of two Chicago police officers dehumanized him. “They didn’t care what I was, I didn’t feel human anymore,” Stanley Wrice said.

Court: Investigator who aided high-profile exoneration can proceed with defamation case” (january 2020)

An Illinois Appellate Court panel on Monday reinstated a lawsuit brought by a private investigator who contended he was defamed by a lawyers, a journalist, and a police union official, among others, who have contended that he framed an innocent man of murder.

Click here to read the full story.

WATCH: N.J. COP TELL MEN DURING TRAFFIC STOP: “I’M GONNA KNOCK YOU THE F— OUT’ (MAY 2019)

“It is standard operating procedure for ACPD officers to terrorize young people of color in Atlantic City by stopping them, searching them, harassing them and provoking them to respond in a manner that frequently results in violence and false charges,” attorney Jennifer Bonjean wrote in the lawsuit.

Read the Buzzfeed article here.

PROSECUTORS PROMISED TO REOPEN THE CASE OF A MAN WHO SAID HE WAS FRAMED FOR MURDER. NOW THAT’S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. (DECEMBER 2018)

“Myles’ case, Bonjean says, is “a study in how broken the system is at every level, from the defense side to the judiciary to the prosecution, to law enforcement, and in epic proportions. The process has failed him on every level. It’s just fucking tragic.””

excessive force claims cost n.j. taxpayers millions every year. could tracking force have prevented them? (november 2018)

““There was an incident that could have been handled in an appropriate way if there were officers that were well-trained and did their job,” Bonjean said.”

Click here for everything you need to know about The Force Report

N.J. police officer arrested after brutal k-9 attack that cost city $3m (october 2018)

“In seven years, Wheaten had 23 excessive force complaints against him. None was ever deemed credible nor was he ever disciplined, according to court documents.”

Click here to read more on BLG client Roosevelt Myles.

convicted on a lie (august 2018)

“Last June, Octavius Morris called an attorney in New York and made a shocking confession of a crime that was committed 26 years ago in Chicago. For the attorneys of Roosevelt Myles, 54, it was the call they had waited for: to speak to a woman who had been so elusive and was the key to a case that put their client behind bars for 26 years.”

ATLANTIC CITY MUST PAY $679,000 IN LEGAL FEES IN POLICE EXCESSIVE FORCE CASE (AUGUST 2018)

““People get upset when the city settles, but there is a lot of downside for them if they lose a trial,” Bonjean said. “I don’t charge my client, and getting paid is contingent on winning these cases. So when I win, you better believe I’m going to come after every penny I’m entitled to.”

For more details, click here.

juan rodriguez has served nearly 15 years for a crime he did not commit (june 2018)

Click here to watch the full story on Univision.

In fight for the truth, Northwestern surrenders (june 2018)

"But Ciolino, 62, is not bound by the settlement — he refused to play along and so Simon’s lawyers simply dismissed him from the case — and because he’s represented pro bono by the tenacious Jennifer Bonjean of Brooklyn, he’s unburdened by legal bills."

SETTLEMENT SHROUDS NU WRONGFUL CONVICTION SUIT IN SECRECY (JUNE 2018)

"Ciolino refused to settle, and Simon's lawyers voluntarily dropped their case against him as they agreed unspecified terms with the university and former professor"

Excessive force lawsuit against ac police officer settled before trial (MAY 2018)

"An excessive-force lawsuit involving Atlantic City police officer Franco Sydnor was settled on Friday, attorneys for both parties confirmed Monday."

TWO wrongfully convicted men sue Chicago cops they say framed them in slayings (April 2018)

"Two men whose murder convictions were overturned and walked out of prison after spending more than 20 years behind bars are alleging in lawsuits that the same Chicago police detective helped frame them."

C lick here to watch the full interview.

wrongful conviction attorney discusses her motivation: the underdog (april 2018)

Attorney Bonjean is making a career out of freeing people like Roberto Almodovar Junior, who was wrongfully convicted for a 1995 double murder. But practicing law wasn't always in her plans. She studied music at DePaul, entering a beauty pageant to help with the cost, and then got her masters as an opera singer.

Lawyers call for independent probe into ex-Chicago police Detective Reynaldo Guevara (april 2018)

"At the news conference Monday, Greenberg and Bonjean called for an independent investigation into Guevara’s career to identify others still incarcerated who may have made similar claims."

JURY: Atlantic city police to blame for attack (MARCH 2018)

"A man who sued Atlantic City police after three officers punched and kicked him and allowed a police dog to sink its teeth into his thigh won his case Thursday after a month-long trial in U.S. District Court in Camden. A jury found that Atlantic City bore responsibility for failing to properly train and monitor its officers, but only awarded the plaintiff $300,500 in compensatory damages and nothing in punitive damages."

FORMER POLICE OFFICER, ATLANTIC CITY FOUND LIABLE IN EXCESSIVE FORCE CASE (MARCH 2018)

" A civil jury found former Atlantic City police Officer John Devlin used excessive force in the 2013 arrest of Steven Stadler and found the Atlantic City Police Department had policies in place that allowed violence by its officers to go unchecked."

Lawyer speaks as atlantic city excessive force trial starts (FEBRUARY 2018)

Click here to watch.

Prosecutors drop murder charges after 5 ex-Chicago cops plan to take the 5th (November 2017)

"After almost 27 years in prison for a false conviction of a double-murder, Jose Maysonet walks out of Cook County Jail a free man Nov. 15, 2017. Cook County prosecutors dropped murder charges against him after lawyers for retired Detective Reynaldo Guevara and four former officers said they would take the Fifth Amendment during Maysonet's retrial."

cASTELLANI EXCESSIVE FORCE LAWSUIT SETTLES FOR $3 MILLION (SEPTEMBER 2017)

"A Linwood man seriously injured in an arrest outside the Tropicana Atlantic City in 2013, requiring hundreds of stitches to repair bites by a police dog, has settled an excessive-force lawsuit against Atlantic City for $3 million, his attorney confirmed Sunday"

Inmate freed from jail after judge throws out double murder conviction (april 2017)

Almodovar was released from custody on April 14, 2017 after 23 years in prison for a double murder.

Click here to read more.

ABC NEWS: JOSE MONTANEZ, ARMANDO SERRANO TO BE RELEASED AFTER 1993 MURDER CHARGES DROPPED (JULY 2016)

"Two Chicago men imprisoned for 23 years were released Wednesday after 1993 murder charges were dropped due to misconduct allegations."
Click here for full coverage.

CHICAGO SUN-TIMES: PRIVATE EYE FILES $25 MILLION DEFAMATION SUIT IN PORTER CASE (aPRIL 2016)

"A private investigator who played a central role in freeing Death Row inmate Anthony Porter in 1999 filed a $25 million counter-lawsuit Wednesday saying he has since been defamed."
Click here for full coverage.

CHICAGO SUN-TIMES: THE 'INNOCENCE INDUSTRY' FIGHTS BACK (april 2016)