Antonio McDowell becomes 51st man exonerated in wrongful conviction linked to disgraced ex-CPD detective
Antonio McDowell, 49, has been out of prison since 2020 when Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker granted him clemency.
After 28 years, he is completely free — following a judge's decision Monday morning.
McDowell's lawyers said he was sentenced to 103 years in prison after being framed for murder by the now-retired disgraced Chicago Police Detective Reynaldo Guevara.
The word McDowell used to explain his feelings following the decision.
"I'm so overwhelmed right now," he said.
McDowell was surrounded by family, friends, and attorneys outside the Cook County Courthouse, where, after 28 years and a wrongful conviction, he said he finally walks free.
"I ain't think this moment would come, but I was always hopeful for this moment," McDowell said.
For years, McDowell was represented and supported by attorneys with and the civil rights law firm Loevy and Loevy. Now, McDowell is the 51st person exonerated in a case investigated by Guevara.
While Guevara has never been charged, the CBS News Chicago investigators for years dug into the accusations of Guevara coercing false confessions as far back as the 1980s.
"I just want you to know, if you run into a Guevara, stand your ground," McDowell said. "Justice will prevail."
In this case, McDowell walked into CPD's Grand Central Area Headquarters, at 5555 W. Grand Ave., in July of 1997 after he had been shot. He never left.
While there, McDowell and his attorneys said Guevara tried to get him to falsely identify Guevara's chosen suspect in the shooting. When McDowell refused to falsely identify someone else, they say he went from being a victim of a shooting to being framed as the perpetrator in an unrelated murder.
A man named Mario Castro had been shot and killed seven months earlier in his backyard, and a woman had had her car stolen at gunpoint in a nearby alley half an hour before that. Authorities believed that the crimes were connected, and that the shooter had used the carjacked vehicle as a getaway car, according to The Exoneration Project.
There was no evidence or witness that connected McDowell to this crime, according to The Exoneration Project. But Guevara had a practice of "tainting lineups by manipulating witnesses into false identifications," and within hours, Guevara had pinned that murder and carjacking on McDowell using a purported photo array and lineup identifications, according to The Exoneration Project.
Convicted, McDowell served 23 years before he was granted clemency.
"That was Antonio McDowell's crime! Trying to do the right thing," said attorney Anand Swaminathan. "It's sick."
In 2023, the office of then-Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx gave a sample of McDowell's DNA to test against the murder victim's clothes, according to The Exoneration Project. McDowell was excluded as the source of the DNA, and the state agreed to drop the murder charges against him.
While McDowell's murder conviction was thrown out when he was exonerated, prosecutors maintained a carjacking conviction related to the murder charge remains on his record, meaning he could be retried.
Last month, a judge issued a decision vacating the carjacking conviction, emphasizing McDowell's account of going from victim-to-suspect, and Guevara's undeniable pattern of misconduct. Prosecutors dropped the charge on Monday.
"There's always a way out," said McDowell. "Don't lose hope. Stay connected to your people, to your support team."