A man who spent nearly 30 years in prison after he was wrongfully convicted of robbery, rape and kidnapping alleges in a new lawsuit that South Gate police, facing pressure to make an arrest, coerced his confession, fabricated evidence and ultimately framed him.
Gerardo Cabanillas, a 48-year-old Downey resident exonerated in 2023 after DNA evidence revealed he was not the assailant who attacked a couple in a parked car, is seeking unspecified damages in the suit filed last month in U.S. District Court.
“Upon thorough reexamination of the evidence and a comprehensive review of the case by my office’s Conviction Integrity Unit, it has become abundantly clear that a serious error was made,” Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón said in a statement after a judge found Cabanillas factually innocent and ordered his release.
“I extend my deepest apologies to Mr. Cabanillas for the miscarriage of justice and the failure of our criminal legal system,” Gascon added.
The California Western Innocence and Justice Clinic in San Diego spearheaded Cabanillas’ fight for freedom.
“Mr. Cabanillas’ case is an illustration of the dangers of coercive police interrogation techniques, which can often result in false confessions, particularly when they are used to interrogate young people like Mr. Cabanillas, who was just 18 at the time of his arrest,” Amy Kimpel, executive director of the clinic, said in an email Thursday. “California Western School of Law is privileged to have played a role in Mr. Cabanillas’ release and in righting these wrongs.”
Cabanillas is suing the cities of South Gate and Huntington Park, its police departments and 14 officers for conspiracy, infliction of emptional distress and other violations. He could not be reached for comment.
“Cabanillas had nothing to do with the crimes,” the suit states. “And not one piece of physical evidence pointed to him as the perpetrator.”
South Gate and Huntington Park police officials did not respond to requests for comment.
2 assaults days apart
Cabanillas’ saga stemmed from a pair of assaults that occurred two days apart in January 1995.
In the first, Raul Flores and a woman identified in the suit as Maria A. were sitting in a parked car near the corner of Independence and Evergreen avenues in South Gate when two men — one holding a gun and one wielding a knife — approached the car about 11 p.m. and knocked on the windows, the suit states.
The man with the knife, who was wearing a hooded shirt with the hood pulled up, stood in the dark on the car’s passenger side.
The assailants allegedly forced Flores and Maria A. into the back seat of the car, demanded their valuables and threatened to shoot them if they didn’t cooperate. The couple complied, handing over a wallet, a watch, car keys and jewelry.
The assailants then dragged Flores out of the car and drove away with Maria A, whom they sexually assaulted inside the vehicle and at an abandoned house in Huntington Park, the lawsuit states. Following the attack, Maria A. escaped from the dwelling.
Two days later after dark, Ricardo Sanchez and Maria Lomeli were sitting in a parked car in South Gate near the spot where Flores and Maria A. were attacked. A man wearing red pants, a black leather jacket, and huarache sandals approached the car on the passenger side and stuck a gun through the partially open window, inches from Lomeli’s face, states the suit.
The gunman told Sanchez to hand over his wallet. When Sanchez said he didn’t carry a wallet, the man ordered him out of the car. The assailant then got into the driver’s seat, telling Sanchez he would take the car instead along with Lomeli who was still inside, according to the suit.
However, the attacker allegedly couldn’t get the car to start, so he grabbed a purse and bracelets from Lomeli and ran away.
Suspect was newlywed, new father
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At the time of the attacks, Cabanillas was a newlywed with an 8-month-old daughter. He spent his mornings looking for work and afternoons and evenings at home with his wife, their baby and his wife’s teenage nephew, who lived with them.
“Cabanillas had nothing to do with the January 1995 crimes against the two couples,” the suit states. “On the night of each attack, Cabanillas was home with his wife and baby.”
South Gate police detectives interviewed Flores and Maria A., who described the man with the gun as around 35 years old, with long black curly hair and a dark complexion, and about 5 feet 8 inches tall and 200 pounds. Cabanillas was about 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighed about 165 pounds, with light skin, black hair and green eyes, according to the suit.
Neither of the couples could identify a suspect from a photo array provided by police. Additionally, fingerprints from the crime scenes and DNA evidence from Maria A did not lead investigators to a suspect, the suit states.
Red pants prompted arrest
Police had no leads in the case until Jan. 20, 1995, when Detective Lee Jack Alirez spotted Cabanillas, who had an outstanding warrant for a traffic violation and was wearing red pants, standing on a street corner in South Gate. He was placed under arrest for the warrant.
“Though defendants had no reason to think plaintiff was involved in the Flores/Maria A. and Sanchez/Lomeli crimes other than the color of his pants, they attached the police reports from those crimes to plaintiff’s arrest report,” states the suit.
Later, at the South Gate police station, Alirez allegedly added Cabanillas’ booking photo to an array with five other photos previously shown to Sanchez and Lomeli.
Sanchez identified Cabanillas as the attacker because his photo was the only one police had not previously shown him, the suit states. Lomeli, standing beside Sanchez at the time, also identified Cabanillas from the array.
“Before Lomeli could express doubt, Alirez told Sanchez and Lomeli they had selected the correct person, and the person whose photo they’d selected was in custody,” the suit says.
After allegedly extracting false identifications from Sanchez and Lomeli, Alirez went to the Los Angeles County jail, where Cabanillas was in a holding cell. It was there that the veteran police officer, who was large, covered in tattoos and physically intimidating, began accusing Cabanillas of attacking the two couples, the suit states.
Although Cabanillas denied being the assailant, Alirez allegedly used various tactics to wear him down psychologically and coerce him into confessing to crimes he did not commit, the suit states.
For five hours, Alirez allegedly questioned Cabanillas in English even though he was more comfortable speaking Spanish, telling him police had fingerprints implicating him in the crimes and promising he would immediately be placed on probation if he confessed.
“After several hours of interrogation, Alirez overpowered plaintiff’s will,” the suit states. “Plaintiff agreed to falsely confess that he was the knife-wielding assailant in the Flores/Maria A. crimes and the lone attacker in the Sanchez/Lomeli crimes.”
The suit contends Alirez supplied Cabanillas with details known only to police and the victims because Cabanillas knew nothing about either crime. The detective then allegedly prompted Cabanillas to repeat the information back to him as though Cabanillas was giving details from his own personal knowledge.
“When plaintiff got a detail wrong, Alirez corrected him and made him try the statement again,” the suit states. “Alirez did not record his initial interrogation of plaintiff. Or if he did, he hid the recording from prosecutors, plaintiff and plaintiff’s criminal defense attorney.”
More attacks
Just weeks after Cabanillas was arrested, a spree of strikingly similar attacks against men and women occurred in and around South Gate, resulting in the arrest of a 22-year-old suspect.
The suspect was apprehended wearing red pants and also had a black leather coat like the perpetrator of the crimes against Sanchez and Lomeli, according to the suit.
South Gate police also recovered stolen watches and jewelry from the suspect’s home. However, neither the suspect’s photo nor the pilfered items were shown to Sanchez or Lomeli, the suit states.
Despite no fingerprints, DNA or other physical evidence, Cabanillas was convicted of several crimes against Sanchez and Lomeli, including attempted carjacking and robbery.
Jurors failed to reach a verdict in the Flores and Maria A case, resulting in a mistrial. Cabanillas was retried in April 1996 and convicted of carjacking, robbery, kidnapping and rape. He was sentenced to a minimum of 87 years in prison.
In 2023, investigators with the District Attorney’s Office interviewed the suspect who had been arrested in the subsequent robberies in South Gate. He confessed to the crimes against Sanchez and Lomeli.
