STRIP CLUB OWNER TO NUNS: MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS

PAGE 5

COPS VACATION LED TO QUICK HALT OF KOSCHMAN PROBE 18 PAGE

THE WATCHDOGS

2011 PULITZER PRIZE WINNER LOCAL REPORTING

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2012 | Late Sports Final

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75 City/Burbs $2 Elsewhere | 330 300 TRICKY Page 25

I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU

| RICHARD A. CHAPMAN~SUN-TIMES

| AP

Chicagos Jennifer Hudson honors fallen star Whitney Houston with a performance of I Will Always Love You Sunday night at the Grammy Awards. Adele won Album of the Year and 5 more awards while Kanye West won for Rap Album.
GRAMMY COVERAGE, PAGE 26

BILL ZWECKER

Source says Houston may have died by accidental drowning due to falling asleep in bathtub at hotel

THOMAS CONNER

PAGE 2

INSIDE TEAM RAHM

Mayor has several groups of confidants, from politics to business to labor, and taps best minds in country for advice
FRAN SPIELMAN REPORTS ON PAGES 14-16

A shame Houston could not find happiness in the music that provided so much joy for others PAGE 3

18

CHICAGO SUN-TIMES MONDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2012

THE WATCHDOGS
THIS WEEK BY CHRIS FUSCO & TIM NOVAK

Withdetectives off,keywitnesses werentinterviewed for15days

COPS VACATION LED TO QUICK HALT OF KOSCHMAN PROBE

The Koschman request for a special prosecutor cited a series of Sun-Times reports, beginning Feb. 28, 2011, that have questioned how police and prosecutors handled the case. David Koschman and four friends had been out drinking in the Rush Street area when, during the early-morning hours of April 25, 2004, they bumped into Vanecko, then 29, and three of his friends. During an ensuing argument, Koschman was punched in the face. He fell, fracturing his skull on the pavement. Vanecko ran away. He has never spoken with the police about what happened. Still, after giving the case a new review after the Sun-Times sought records in the case, the police said last March 1 that they determined that Vanecko threw the only punch. Seven years earlier, they had said they couldnt say for sure who punched Koschman. But although the blow left Koschman mortally injured, the police decided that Vanecko shouldnt be criminally charged, asserting that, even though the much-smaller Koschman hadnt hit anyone, Vanecko acted in self-defense. Six hours after the deadly confrontation, Koschman had just gotten out of emergency brain surgery at Northwestern Memorial Hospital when OLeary and Clemens began investigating what happened. OLeary called Northwestern Memorial and was told by a nurse that Koschman was unconscious and in critical but stable condition, according to a report she filed three weeks later. She and Clemens then went to the North Side home of Kevin D. McCarthy and his wife, Bridget

acing the possibility of coming under scrutiny by a special prosecutor, the Cook County states attorneys office and the Chicago Police Department are, for the first time, offering an explanation for why, just hours into the case, detectives abruptly dropped the David Koschman investigation and didnt pick it up again for 15 days: The two detectives assigned to the case went on vacation. Hours after detectives Rita OLeary and Robert Clemens had learned that Koschman was in a coma, with a fractured skull and swollen brain, the police stopped talking with witnesses apparently, a top police official now says, in hopes that Koschman would recover and would be able to talk with detectives about his confrontation with a man later identified as Richard J. R.J. Vanecko, a nephew of then-Mayor Richard M. Daley. As a result, detectives interviewed only two of the eight known witnesses in the 11 days before Koschman died. One of them was a Vanecko friend who lied to the police on two separate occasions, concealing Vaneckos involvement. Friends who were with Koschman werent interviewed. Its a sound investigative technique to interview the victim first, if possible, says Dean Andrews, the police departments deputy chief of detectives. The detectives

Anita Alvarez (left) has opposed Nanci Koschmans request for a special prosecutor. | SUN-TIMES LIBRARY PHOTOS
at the time were told Koschman was going to be in a medically induced coma for five days. Its reasonable to believe that the detectives did not think this was going to turn into a fatality. Instead, Koschmans grave condition only worsened while OLeary and Clemens were on vacation, hospital records show. The 21-year-old part-time college student from Mount Prospect underwent surgery four times and never regained consciousness, dying on May 6, 2004. It took four more days for the police to assign the case to a new team of detectives, as OLeary and Clemens remained on vacation. The new team of detectives got the case on May 10, 2004 the day the Cook County medical examiner ruled Koschmans death a homicide. Given how dire Koschmans condition was, criminal justice experts question why the police waited to resume interviewing witnesses including those who would ultimately reveal that Vanecko was involved in the drunken confrontation on Division Street that led to Koschmans death. Did everybody miss the point that [Koschman] was gravely ill? says Eugene ODonnell, a professor of police studies at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. If you think somebodys going to die, you should have a fullcourt press going that night. Koschman died as the result of a single punch. The night of the confrontation, the police classified what happened as a battery and assigned the case to the Area 3 detective division, then overseen by Cmdr. Michael Chasen, who has since retired. OLeary and Clemens still work at Area 3, which is at Belmont and Western. Chasen and OLeary have declined to comment. Clemens hasnt returned messages seeking comment. Questions about the 15-day gap in the investigation first arose last March. But no one provided an explanation until Jan. 31, when States Attorney Anita Alvarez cited the detectives vacation in a court filing. Andrews expanded on that short mention in an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times. The court filing was a 46-page objection that Alvarez filed with Cook County Circuit Judge Michael Toomin to a request Nanci Koschman made in December seeking the appointment of a special prosecutor to re-examine her sons death and the way the investigation was handled by police and prosecutors. The mothers lawyers argue that an outside prosecutor is needed because Alvarezs office has a conflict of interest in investigating conduct including that of current officials in the prosecutors office.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2012 CHICAGO SUN-TIMES

19

WHO KILLED DAVID KOSCHMAN? | A WATCHDOGS INVESTIGATION

Higgins McCarthy, who had been involved in the argument with Koschman. After Koschman fell unconscious, the McCarthys were walking away when the police detained them and handcuffed Kevin McCarthy. Koschmans friends told the police that McCarthy didnt hit their friend but that both he and his wife were with two men who ran away. When OLeary and Clemens came to their home, McCarthy lied, telling the detectives that he and his wife came upon the confrontation and didnt know anyone involved. Weeks later, McCarthys wife told the police that she and her husband actually had been with the two men who ran away, identifying them as Vanecko and Craig Denham. After interviewing Kevin McCarthy, OLeary called Koschmans mother at the hospital. She said her son had a skull fracture and swelling in his brain and would be sedated for at least the next five days. OLeary then called Michael Connolly, one of two bystanders who happened upon the confrontation. He told her he saw Koschman get pushed or shoved from the group and fall to the ground. It was the last interview OLeary and Clemens would do, police records show. Three days later, each went on vacation for three weeks, starting April 28, 2004, according to Alvarezs court filing. Koschman died May 6, 2004. The police investigation resumed on May 10, 2004, when detectives Ronald E. Yawger, Anthony Giralamo Jr., Edward Louis and Anthony Villardita took over the case from OLeary and Clemens, who were still on vacation. Heres what happened in the weeks that followed, according to police reports: May 10, 2004: Phillip Kohler, the other bystander who saw the incident, was interviewed by the police for the first time. May 12, 2004: Koschmans four friends were interviewed by detectives for the first time. May 13, 2004: Bridget Higgins McCarthy whose father Jack Higgins was a friend of then-Mayor Daley and also was the developer who built Chicagos police headquarters and her lawyer met with detectives. This was when she contradicted her husbands earlier story, revealing that she and her husband were with Vanecko and Denham. May 19, 2004: Kevin McCarthy and Denham who later married a sister of Daleys son-in-law met with detectives and backed up what McCarthys wife had told them. May 20, 2004: OLeary, back from vacation, turned in a six-page report detailing what she and Clemens did on the case 25 days earlier. Three hours later, Vanecko, McCarthy and Denham appeared in police lineups. No one could identify Vanecko, whose lawyer had told detectives Vanecko might talk with them that day. Instead, Vanecko left without speaking with the police. Assistant States Attorney Darren OBrien who was felony-review chief for then-States Attorney Richard Devine, a longtime Daley friend interviewed several witnesses and told the police there wasnt enough evidence to charge anyone in Koschmans death.

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