Detroit — In a scathing ruling that chastised a Wayne County assistant prosecutor for being "obstinate, argumentative and garrulous," a federal judge last week declared a mistrial in a wrongful conviction lawsuit against a former Detroit homicide detective who is accused of withholding evidence in a murder because he feared a Mexican drug cartel would harm his family.
Alexandre Ansari served nearly five years in prison for the 2012 shooting death of 15-year-old Ilena Cuevas in southwest Detroit before an investigation by the Wayne County Conviction Integrity Unit in 2019 reportedly found problems with how former Detroit police homicide detective Moises Jimenez had handled the case.
Jimenez retired from the Detroit Police Department in 2021.
An assistant Wayne County prosecutor wrote in a Feb. 14, 2019, memo that Jimenez told county investigators that he had withheld evidence linking convicted drug dealer Jose Sandoval to the killings of Cuevas and a man who was gunned down four days after the teen, 28-year-old Tommy Edwards. The memo claimed Jimenez said he'd been reluctant to investigate Sandoval because the detective had family in Texas and Mexico, and feared they'd be harmed by the drug cartel.
Sandoval, who has not been charged in connection with either killing, was convicted in 2013 of cocaine and heroin distribution and is serving a 14-year federal prison sentence.
Ansari was released from prison in March 2019 after a judge granted the prosecutor's motion to vacate...
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