Off Duty: The Sentence | Ep 6

Summary

Podcast Summary: Off Duty | The Guardian Investigates

Episode: Off Duty: The Sentence
Date: March 18, 2026
Host: Melissa Segura

Overview

This episode of Off Duty delves into the devastating personal consequences for those fighting for justice in the wake of the murder of a Chicago police officer—a case that spans 12 years and leaves a family shattered. Reporter Melissa Segura focuses on Alex, who is serving a life sentence, his relentless legal team, and the tragic murder of Alex’s teenage son, Damian. As the episode unfolds, new evidence emerges that could change the course of Alex’s appeal, highlighting both the human cost and procedural flaws in America’s criminal justice system.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Toll on the Legal Team

• Exhaustion and Sacrifice
  • By August 2023, Jennifer and Eric, Alex’s legal advocates, have been consumed by his case for over three years—at significant personal cost.
  • Jennifer shares how the fight has left her physically and emotionally drained, affecting her health, relationships, and worldview as a lawyer.
    • “For the first time, I really felt myself wanting to give up. Like just being like, why am I doing this? Why am I doing this to myself?” (Jennifer, 01:16)
  • Eric details weight gain and stress, while Jennifer speaks candidly about financial strain and a sense that their own lives became “captives to the case.”
    • “The termites dug in at every level in our lives.” (Eric, 01:41)
    • Jennifer reveals a yearly income of just $25,000 due to the demands of the case. (Jennifer, 02:28)

2. Catastrophe Strikes: The Murder of Damian

• Damian’s Death

  • Amanda, Alex’s girlfriend and Damian’s mother, tries everything to keep teenager Damian safe: Catholic school, home gym equipment, keeping him off the streets.
  • In March 2024, while visiting cousins in Indiana, 14-year-old Damian is killed in a drive-by shooting.
  • The 911 call is played—tense and heartbreaking—as Damian’s cousins plead for help.
    • “He’s trying to breathe. Right here. He can’t breathe.” (911 Operator, 04:12)
  • Amanda receives the news while at work, her disbelief palpable:
    • “I just couldn’t make any sense to it.” (Amanda, 04:28)

• Telling Alex

  • Prison bureaucracy compounds the trauma: Amanda cannot reach Alex immediately and must wait for his next outgoing call to share the news.
  • Amanda’s recounting of breaking the news is raw:
    • “Our son’s gone. He screamed...and dropped the phone...all I was hearing in the background was him fall to the ground screaming, like, nah, not my son.” (Amanda, 06:46)
  • Alex describes his overwhelming grief and inability to process his son’s death while isolated in prison due to lockdown:
    • “I was just pacing back and forth...it was hard for me to contain it. It obviously just overwhelms you.” (Alex, 08:17)

• Denied Closure

  • Alex’s request to attend Damian’s funeral is denied; he is only allowed to watch a disrupted live stream.
    • “Just like every phase of this experience is something being taken from me.” (Alex, 09:36)

3. Alternate Lives Lost

• Both Amanda and Alex reflect on how, had Alex been exonerated earlier, their family would have left Chicago for Florida and Damian would still be alive.
  • “If he would have allowed Alex to come home, we wouldn’t have been here...Never, never, never.” (Amanda, 10:30)

4. The Legal Team’s Push Forward

• Redoubled Efforts
  • Damian’s murder spurs Jennifer and Eric to pour themselves back into the case, undeterred by past setbacks.
    • “You have to have something within you that does not quit in this work.” (Jennifer, 12:41)
• The Limits of Appeal
  • They discuss the narrow grounds for criminal appeals: only evidence presented at trial is eligible. (Eric, 13:34)
    • “Somebody would think, oh, if I learn new evidence, I can present that at the appeal and they’ll let me go. But that’s not the case.” (Eric, 13:34)

5. A Game-Changing Discovery: The Lost Disc

• The Disc’s Revelation

  • In October 2023, new prosecutor Kevin Deboni finds a computer disc in old evidence and dutifully turns it over to the defense.
    • “He’s like, Jennifer, so we found this disc...I just wanted to let you know that we found it.” (Jennifer, quoting Deboni, 14:24)
  • The disc is a bombshell: it contains metadata supporting Alex’s alibi—long text exchanges with his girlfriend the night of the murder—and a previously missing FBI cell phone map contradicting the prosecution’s case.
    • “Oh my God. Oh my God...Are you kidding me?” (Jennifer, 14:43)

• Proof of Suppressed Evidence

  • Most crucially, the disc comes with a sticky note, in original prosecutor Andy Varga’s handwriting, mentioning “rebuttal”—proof the evidence was known but withheld.
    • “The fact his handwriting was on it meant he couldn’t argue, I never got that disc...No, he was prepared to use it at trial.” (Jennifer, 16:41)
  • This constitutes “Brady” evidence, which must be disclosed to the defense. Withholding it is grounds to overturn a conviction.

• Paths Forward

  • Having repeatedly unearthed exculpatory evidence over four years, Jennifer and Eric see the prosecution’s sticky note as a possible breakthrough.
    • “As I see it going forward, I hope it’s only positive outcomes. I think we have enough to win. It’s just a matter of time.” (Jennifer, 18:43)

6. Official Responses and Ongoing Legal Battle

• The Guardian made multiple attempts to reach the prosecutors and their attorneys. They’ve not been formally accused, deny wrongdoing in court, and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office maintains there’s “no showing of bad faith.”
• The judge in the original trial declined comment due to pending litigation.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Jennifer on burnout:
  “What I realized is it was impacting me so much psychologically because it was a total and utter complete failure on every level of the justice system.” (02:40)
• Amanda’s disbelief at Damian’s death:
  “Never. There couldn’t be a million years that someone could make me believe my son was shot...He was such a good kid.” (05:36)
• Alex on watching the funeral from prison:
  “I just feel like it’s another thing that’s taken from me, you know, not only my freedom...Just like every phase of this experience is something being taken from me.” (09:36)
• Jennifer on dogged persistence:
  “You have to have something within you that does not quit in this work.” (12:41)
• Game-changing discovery:
  “The fact his [Varga’s] handwriting was on it meant he couldn’t argue, I never got that disc...He was prepared to use it at trial.” (Jennifer, 16:41)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment Description | |-----------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:04 | Jennifer and Eric describe personal cost of the 12-year case | | 02:22 | Jennifer on returning to therapy, questioning justice system | | 03:04 | Introduction to Damian’s life and preventative measures | | 04:12 | Damian shot; excruciating 911 call played | | 06:07 | Amanda struggles with how to notify Alex and eventually delivers the news | | 08:17 | Alex’s isolation in prison and emotional devastation | | 09:29 | Denied access to funeral; forced to watch unstable livestream | | 12:41 | Jennifer and Eric re-commit to Alex’s case after Damian’s death | | 13:34 | Discussion of restrictions in appeal process | | 14:24 | Prosecutor discovers disc; legal team uncovers critical evidence | | 16:41 | The sticky note—proof of evidence suppression | | 18:43 | Jennifer hopeful about the new path for the case |

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Tone & Language

The episode is deeply personal, raw, and emotionally charged, with speakers often shifting between professional analysis and profound grief. The language remains accessible and urgent, underscoring the stakes not only for Alex’s future but for everyone touched by the criminal justice system’s failures.

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Conclusion

“Off Duty: The Sentence” lays bare the ripple effects of wrongful conviction and institutional failure: a family’s hopes, shattered by violence; a legal team battered but undeterred; and a potential new opening for justice after years of heartbreak and fruitless struggle. The discovery of suppressed evidence offers a glimmer of hope, even as the episode refuses to sugarcoat the toll of the fight.

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Transcript

[Farnoosh Tarabi]

This is the Guardian. Hi, this is Farnoosh Tarabi from Sew Money with Farnoosh Tarabi. And today I want to talk to you about Boost Bubble Quick money tip. Stop paying a carrier tax. If your phone bill feels trapped in a pricey plan, this is your sign to unlock savings. Boost Mobile helps you reset your spending. With the $25 Unlimited Forever plan, you can bring your own phone, pay $25, and get unlimited wireless forever. And that simple switch can unlock up to $600 in savings a year. That's money you could put towards paying down debt, investing or something that actually brings you joy. Those savings are based on average annual single line payment of AT&T Verizon and T Mobile customers compared to 12 months on the Boost Mobile Unlimited plan as of January 2026. For full details, visit boostmobile.com.

[Narrator (Melissa Segura)]

By August 2023, when Judge Lynn denied Alex a new trial, Jennifer and Eric had been obsessively working on his case for more than three years. But it hadn't been enough.

[Jennifer]

In order to be successful in this job, you have to have a tenacity and a will to keep fighting and not give up. And for the first time, I really felt myself wanting to give up. Like just being like, why am I doing this? Why am I doing this to myself?

[Narrator (Melissa Segura)]

Alex was in prison for life. And as they looked around their own lives, they discovered they'd become captives to the case too.

[Eric]

I mean, it really. The termites dug in at every level in our lives.

[Jennifer]

Well, I started having thyroid issues. I think I was in fight or flight all the time. So I started having read books about that. And I have jaw tension now that I used to not have real bad TMJ.

[Eric]

I gained 35 pounds, I think. So I was about 200, 210 pounds by the end of this.

[Jennifer]

So I got depressed and it affected my relationship with my girlfriend because I was working all the time. Even if we were having dinner, I would be on my computer or I would be taking phone calls. I found that I lost my joy for doing things that brought me joy before working.

[Narrator (Melissa Segura)]

Alex's case was breaking them physically, emotionally and financially.

[Jennifer]

And I think last year on my taxes, I made $25,000.

[Narrator (Melissa Segura)]

Jennifer told me that working on the case pushed her back into therapy where she found herself questioning everything she believed in as a lawyer.

[Jennifer]

What I realized is it was impacting me so much psychologically because it was a total and utter complete failure on every level of the justice system.

[Narrator (Melissa Segura)]

It felt like things couldn't get any darker. And then the unimaginable happened.

[Alex]

Lee County 911 Operator 300.

[911 Operator]

What's the location of your emergency?

[Narrator (Melissa Segura)]

From the guardian, this is off duty. I'm Melissa Segura. Episode 6 the sentence. By the spring of 2024. Alex's son Damian is 14 years old. He lives with his mom, Amanda, Alex's girlfriend, and she does her best to keep him safe and out of trouble. Both she and Alex are adamant that Damian have a different kind of upbringing than Alex did, that he steer clear of gangs, get a good education. Amanda sends him to Catholic school. She buys him gym equipment for their home so he could keep himself busy inside the house and not be out on the streets. In late March, Damian goes to visit his cousins, her brother's kids, in Whiting, Indiana, just 20 miles outside Chicago. As Damien and his cousins walk to a neighborhood park, a car pulls up. Ben. Bullets fly. Someone calls 911. The tape I'm about to play for you is excruciating.

[911 Operator]

He's trying to breathe. He's trying to breathe. He's trying to breathe. Right here. He's trying to breathe. Fuck. Oh, my God. He's shut. I think he's shut. He can't breathe. He's trying to breathe. He's trying to breathe.

[Narrator (Melissa Segura)]

Amanda is at work when she gets a phone call.

[Amanda]

I remember when I was told, like, my mom was like, you gotta go. Your son was shot. I'm like, what do you. I was so dumbfounded. I was like, my son was shot. Like, what? What do you mean he was shot? I just couldn't make any sense to it.

[Narrator (Melissa Segura)]

She rushes to the hospital.

[Amanda]

I couldn't get answers from anybody. Like, the hospital. No one would tell me nothing until I get there. And I'm like, where did he get shot? Like, police say it was like his hand, his foot, somewhere. I could be like, you're never leaving my side again.

[Narrator (Melissa Segura)]

When she arrives at the hospital, she's brought into a room to talk to the doctor. He tells her he'd done all he could, but Damien is dead.

[Amanda]

I was. At that moment, I honestly wanted to fight the doctor tell me he did all he could. And I wasn't. It was more like I was more in a point of, how did this even happen? Like, who?

[Narrator (Melissa Segura)]

The best anyone could guess was that Damian wasn't the target. But no explanation would ever make sense to Amanda. Not now and not as she stands in the hospital struggling to take in the reality that Damian has been killed.

[Amanda]

This happened to our son, like. And then to know in the way that it happened is, like, so unbelievable, because never. There couldn't be a million years that someone could make me believe my son was shot. My son did not be around nothing like that. He was such a good kid.

[Narrator (Melissa Segura)]

And then comes the realization she has to tell Alex.

[Amanda]

And I'm like, oh, my God. In my head, I just kept playing over, like, how am I even going to tell him?

[Narrator (Melissa Segura)]

How is she going to hold it together enough to deliver this unbearable news? But also, literally, how is she going to reach him? Prisoners can't receive incoming calls. They can only call out. Amanda tries calling the prison saying it was an emergency and could they convey a message, but they don't. So she just has to wait for Alex to call her, which he does.

[Alex]

The next day, I just made a normal call. Phone answered like, good morning. I just noticed. I noticed Amanda was sounding devastated. I asked what was wrong, and I

[Amanda]

just remember telling him, like, when I tell you, you gotta promise to be good, to be cool. And he just went off like. He was like, fuck do you mean be good? Like, he's like, amanda. He just kept saying, like, amanda, tell me what the hell's wrong. Like, what is wrong? You know? And my only words that came out of my mouth was like, our son left us or something. I said, our son. Our son's gone. Our son left us. He screamed he's like, no. And dropped the phone. And all I was hearing in the background was like, him fall to the ground screaming, like, nah, not my son. And I didn't know what was going on because, like, I didn't get to explain anything.

[Alex]

Felt like I was gonna go in a panic attack kind of. But it's weird because when she told me that, there was, like, a fight breaking out in jail. So through it all, it was all the noise, I couldn't hear nothing. I was just, like, so tunnel vision from what she told me. And I just kept saying, not him. God, not him.

[Narrator (Melissa Segura)]

Making matters worse, the prison was put on lockdown. All the men had to be in their cells. No phone calls, no contact with anyone. Alex has to sit in his cell with only a few scraps of information. Did he hear that right? That Damien had left them?

[Alex]

I went back in the room, and I didn't know how this happened, where it happened. And so, you know, I was just pacing back and forth. In prison, you don't. You don't want to look weak or have your personal business out, but it was hard for me to contain it. It obviously just overwhelms you.

[Narrator (Melissa Segura)]

He spends the next Couple days going over and over the call, trying to remember exactly what Amanda said. When the lockdown ends, he calls her as soon as he's allowed.

[Amanda]

He's like, when I thought I heard you tell me our son left us, I thought maybe I heard something wrong. Like. Like if I just tweaked too quick. And I just thought that wrong. And so I kept saying in my head, like, no, that's not what she said. That's not what she said. Keep myself sane in a cell or whatever.

[Narrator (Melissa Segura)]

Amanda goes through it again, tells him all the details, listens as Alex takes it all in. Alex makes a request to attend his son's funeral, but it's denied.

[Amanda]

Funeral. Like, all that had to do without him. He should have been able to go see him. Like, minus any of us being there, he should have been able to do that.

[Narrator (Melissa Segura)]

Prison officials allow Alex to watch a live stream of Damien's funeral, but the signal keeps cutting out.

[Alex]

I was getting frustrated. I even like, punched the screen and last minute, it worked. Like, literally at the last minute, they had to hold up the funeral for a little while. For me, I was a little grateful to be able to see it on video visit, but I just feel like it's another thing that's taken from me, you know, not only my freedom has been taken from me, I could attend my son's funeral. Just like every, every phase of this experience is something being taken from me.

[Narrator (Melissa Segura)]

Alex and Amanda can't stop imagining an alternate universe. One where Judge Lynn had granted a motion for a new trial or vacated his conviction and finally released him from prison. In that universe, they leave Chicago for Florida and Damian is still alive.

[Amanda]

If he would have allowed Alex to come home, we wouldn't have been here. We would not have been nowhere near Chicago, let alone Indiana. Never, never, never. And then Alex would have been. It would have just been

[Alex]

foreign.

[Farnoosh Tarabi]

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[Narrator (Melissa Segura)]

After the news of Damian's death, Jennifer and Eric throw themselves back into Alex's case at full throttle.

[Jennifer]

You have to be a fucking idiot to do this job and win, right? Like, you've got to have some blind faith that requires some sort of fortitude that the average bearer doesn't have of not quitting. You have to have something within you that does not quit in this work.

[Narrator (Melissa Segura)]

To be successful, their next move is to take Alex's case to an appeals court. Jennifer is a mix of confident and apprehensive or maybe a bit self delusional when it comes to Alex's case.

[Jennifer]

We're gonna win, right? He's going to get out of jail, period. His son was murdered while he was in jail. You know, like, that's the worst. It's the worst. It is the very, very worst. I guess he could be murdered there, right, and we wouldn't have a chance.

[Narrator (Melissa Segura)]

They were searching for every chance they could find. But it's important to know appeals are actually really narrow.

[Eric]

You know, somebody would think, oh, if I learn new evidence, I can present that at the appeal and they'll let me go. But that's not the case.

[Narrator (Melissa Segura)]

Appeals are almost always limited to evidence presented at trial.

[Eric]

So if there's new evidence, court can't

[Narrator (Melissa Segura)]

hear it, which doesn't matter really, because they don't have any new evidence. Then out of the blue, they get a call that changes everything. After the first prosecutors, Nancy Adducey and Andy Varga, were removed from Alex's case. A new prosecutor named Kevin Deboni was assigned to it. In October 2023, he's packing up some boxes of evidence to ship to storage when he finds a computer disk that he's not sure had been shared with the defense. Deboni figures it's his duty to pass it along.

[Jennifer]

He's like, Jennifer, so we found this disc. I don't think there's anything on it. It's not a big deal, but, you know, I just wanted to let you know that we found it. So we're going to be sharing it and just letting you know.

[Amanda]

Okay.

[Narrator (Melissa Segura)]

Jennifer and Eric get the disc and pop it into the computer.

[Jennifer]

We hadn't looked at it long, and Eric is like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. You know? And I don't know if I called the prosecutor back or I texted him and I was like, there's nothing on this. Are you effing kidding me? Are you kidding me?

[Narrator (Melissa Segura)]

It's a bombshell. One thing the disc contains is the metadata from Alex's text messages on the night of Clifton Lewis murder. Remember, he said he was in a fight with his girlfriend that night, arguing back and forth over text.

[Jennifer]

Obviously, Alex's defense attorney argued, who's texting their girlfriend right when they're about to go and do an armed robbery? So the prosecutor countered that argument with, oh, he could have just sent an emoji.

[Narrator (Melissa Segura)]

Now, with this disc, the metadata could show who was right.

[Jennifer]

Eric found an expert who actually could say how many characters the text message was. And it was a very long text message.

[Narrator (Melissa Segura)]

The metadata, she says, backed up what Alex had been telling police since the first time they questioned him. Other files caught their attention, too. Remember that 2012 cell phone map Jennifer got from the FBI? The one the prosecution hadn't shared? The map was there on the disc. This was all great for their case, except they've been here before, finding a piece of evidence that they think should be a slam dunk, like the PlayStation. And yet Alex is still sitting in prison. But here was the kicker. The prosecution could claim, hey, we never saw this evidence, that there were so many moving parts to this case, so many files, the disc just got lost in the shuffle. We didn't even realize we had it. Except in the packet of information Kevin DeBoni turned over, there was a photo of a sticky note attached to the disc with Andy's handwriting on it mentioning rebuttal.

[Jennifer]

The fact his handwriting was on it meant he couldn't argue, I never got that disc. Clearly, he got the disc. And the fact that it said rebuttal meant that he couldn't say, oh, I got it in 2012, 2013, or something like that, and I forgot I had it. No, he was prepared to use it at trial. And there's at one point during the prior proceedings, Nancy Adducey makes a joke about how Andy loves sticky notes. He doesn't anymore.

[Narrator (Melissa Segura)]

So just to be clear, we don't know exactly when the sticky note was written, but we know that he had the disc by the time of Alex's trial in 2019. I told you last episode Prosecutors have to turn over evidence that could be helpful to the defense. A principle so sacred a case can be thrown out if that rule is broken. The sticky note showed that Varga knew about the cell phone map and it was never turned over. Over the four years they'd worked on the case, Jennifer and Eric had found so much evidence casting doubt on Alex's guilt. They'd uncovered that FBI map suggesting that the suspect's phones weren't near the scene of the crime. They'd unearthed phone records showing they hadn't communicated. They'd poked gaping holes in the stories of the three people who said Alex had confessed to the murder. They'd revealed the edited police report altered in a way that downplayed the injury to Alex's hand. The confessions from Tyrone and Edgardo had been tossed, and none of that had been enough. Jennifer and Eric couldn't introduce new evidence for an appeal. But this was different. This was evidence that the prosecution had violated the rules in the original trial. This tiny sticky note, this three by three square of paper, opened a new pathway to bring Alex home.

[Jennifer]

As I see it going forward, I hope it's only positive outcomes. I think we have enough to win. It's just a matter of time.

[Narrator (Melissa Segura)]

The Guardian made repeated attempts to reach Nancy Adduces and Andy Varga and their lawyers. We did not hear back. Neither Doocy nor Varga have been formally accused of wrongdoing in connection with the prosecution of this case. In court papers, they deny any wrongdoing. In court filings, the Cook County State's Attorney's office argued that there is no showing of bad faith by a Ducey or Varga and has denied misconduct claims. It declined to answer questions posed by the Guardian, citing pending litigation. Judge James Lynn did not respond to our requests for. This is the Guardian.

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