Woman Says Cook County Illegally Held Her In Search For Fugitive

CHICAGO (CBS) -- A south suburban woman whose ex-boyfriend was the subject of a nationwide manhunt claims she was illegally held against her will as Cook County Sheriff's officials tried to squeeze information from her about the man's whereabouts, the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting.

Dominique Jenkins, 31, of Richton Park, dated Garrett Glover, who was mistakenly freed on Feb. 24 even though he faces a murder trial in Chicago. The U.S. Marshals Service apprehended him on Friday outside Atlanta and he was returned to the Cook County Jail, which Sheriff Tom Dart operates. The sheriff and state prison officials have pointed fingers at each other over a mix-up that led to Glover's release.

Glover, 29, is awaiting trial in the Sept. 5, 2012, shooting of 25-year-old Larry Porter on the Dan Ryan Expy. In 2014, Jenkins and her family posted $50,000 in bail for his release from jail in a separate criminal case, but she said "we've been broken up for some time."

Jenkins said she never communicated with Glover while he was on the lam. She said she didn't mind answering investigators' questions, but she was upset when they took her away from her home and two kids.

Three times last week, she was brought to sheriff's facilities, where she said her requests to go home were rebuffed.

"They should pay for what they did," Jenkins told the Chicago Sun-Times. "What they did wasn't right."

But Cara Smith, chief of policy for Dart, said investigators did nothing wrong.

"I would steadfastly deny that anything was done other than directly by the book," Smith said. "As we put the timeline and the pieces of the puzzle together, we needed to speak to her repeatedly. She was in an interview room, but she was free to leave."

"She was 100 percent cooperative the entire time" but "her information isn't ultimately what led us to him," Smith added.

Jenkins' attorneys, David S. Lipschultz and Jayne Ingles, allege she was unconstitutionally detained and plan to sue.

"The sheriff's office was desperate so they took desperate measures. Sheriff's officers shredded my client's Fourth Amendment rights for many hours over many days. Not only did she not have 'relevant information,' she had no information," Lipschultz said.

The night of Feb. 27, Jenkins was brought to a facility in south suburban Markham where she was interviewed, and she was released early the next morning, her attorneys said. On Feb. 28, sheriff's officials returned to Jenkins' home. She said she invited them in and they talked again.

Then on March 1, they came back to her home and took her to a sheriff's facility on the South Side. She claims officials threatened to call the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and take away her children, who were being watched by a friend, if she didn't cooperate.

Jenkins said that while she was in a sheriff's police car going to the South Side facility, she asked officials to let her out, but they refused. She said she called 911 and Ingles, a family acquaintance, in a panic.

"I was scared," she said. "The sheriffs kept telling me to hang up my phone."

Jenkins said she was then transferred to the sheriff's facility in west suburban Maywood and held until late in the afternoon of the following day, March 2. She said she doesn't have a criminal record, but she was fingerprinted and kept in a women's lockup.

Ingles said she visited the Maywood sheriff's facility at about 11 a.m. on March 2 to get Jenkins out.

"She was in a blanket, clearly upset," Ingles said. "They said, 'She's not leaving. She's under arrest.' I said, 'Under arrest for what?' They said, 'She's under investigation.' I said, 'For what?' They said, 'Her boyfriend escaped.' "

Jenkins left late that afternoon, Ingles said.

"They did not have one scintilla of information" that Glover was in contact with her during the manhunt, Ingles said. "What they were doing was not sanctioned by the law. There has to be probable cause."

But Smith, the sheriff's policy chief, said, "We had evidence that she had contact with Glover after he'd been released." She said sheriff's officials could have held Jenkins for up to two days before they would have been required to charge her with a crime.

Jenkins said the experience not only cost her time, but money. She said she's in charge of the keys to a South Side clinic, where she has worked for years, and was unable to open the building because she was in the sheriff's custody on March 2. She said she lost a day's pay.

(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2017. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)