Defense Attorney Sami Azhari Says Jury Was Misled by Prosecution for Richard Wanke Murder Charges

June 3, 2014 - PRLog -- Criminal Defense Attorney, Sami Azhari, has been defending his client, Richard Wanke against murder charges in Rockford, IL.  Azhari says that the prosecution has intentionally misled the grand jury to secure the murder charges brought against Wanke in the death of his previous attorney, Gregory Clark.  Wanke is currently being held at the Winnebago County Jail.

Azhari filed a motion to dismiss the indictment against Wanke.  His motion includes information showing that the prosecution falsely led the grand jury to believe that gun residue had been found on Wanke’s clothing.  The state’s attorney, Joe Bruscato said his office will not comment on pending litigation.

Gregory Clark was Wanke’s attorney from a previous case involving burglary.  Clark had been shoveling snow in front of his house when he was shot in the back on February 6, 2008.  At that time, Wanke had been out of jail and was waiting for his sentencing on the burglary charges.  Wanke has denied being involved with Clark’s death.

On April 16, six years after the shooting took place, a grand jury hearing was held for a true bill of indictment on first-degree murder charges.  It was during this hearing that Azhari found that the prosecution had misled the jury in the testimony from the Rockford Police Sgt. Kurt Whisenand.  Whisenand was the only witness from the state at this hearing.

Included in Azhari’s motion was part of the transcript of the grand jury testimony which shows that Deputy State’s Attorney, Jim Brun asked Sgt. Whisenand if a bag of clothes that had been found during the investigation had been tested for gunshot residue.  Whisenand responded that the clothing had been tested.  Whisenand was then asked if he knew about an Illinois State Police Crime Lab report that, “indicated they did, in fact, detect particles characteristic of background samples on the clothing in that bag.”  Whisenand responded by saying that they had found background particles.

Azhari has pointed out in his motion that background particles are not evidence of gunshot residue being on the clothing, but he believes that Attorney Jim Brun led the jury to believe that they were the same thing.

Azhari said, “He’s insinuating that the background particles are gunshot residue and, in fact, they are not.  Background particles are just natural environment particles.  If they tested my hands or your hands, or my clothes or your clothes right now — and we’ve never fired a gun — we would have background particles.”

When Brun was asked for clarification on this point by a grand jury member, Brun responded, according to the transcript, “There were particles — the way the lab report and the testimony was presented, there were particles consistent with gunshot residue.”

During the six years since the time of the shooting, Azhari said the prosecution has not presented any new evidence.  “There’s been no new evidence that I’m aware of in the 967 pages of discovery that I’ve reviewed that has anything that’s come up since 2008,” he said.