Former suspect in Rolling Meadows murder sues over ‘unlawful prosecution and incarceration’

A Chicago man who supporters say was wrongfully convicted of a fatal 2006 shooting in Rolling Meadows is suing three Northwest suburbs and 11 police officers over allegations they violated his constitutional rights.

Patrick Taylor was freed in 2023, after spending about 16 years behind bars for the killing of aspiring rap artist Marquis Lovings. Cook County prosecutors dismissed charges Oct. 11, 2023, just before Taylor was scheduled to face a second trial on a murder charge.

Taylor’s lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court in Chicago, accuses Rolling Meadows, Palatine, Arlington Heights and police officers from those towns of acting “with malice and willful indifference” in investigating Lovings’ murder.

“The defendants’ misconduct directly resulted in the unlawful prosecution and incarceration of Mr. Taylor, thereby denying his constitutional right to liberty,” the suit alleges.

Taylor’s attorneys claim the evidence implicating their client was “false and fabricated” and that “unreliable misidentifications were manufactured by the defendants through undisclosed coercion and undisclosed suggestive identification procedures.” That enabled the real murderers to go free, the suit alleges.

In a written statement, Rolling Meadows officials noted, “The allegations in this lawsuit are only allegations.”

“The City will defend itself vigorously through the appropriate legal process,” the statement reads. “The City remains committed to serving the residents of Rolling Meadows and to maintaining the trust and confidence of our community.”

Arlington Heights and Palatine officials could not be reached for comment.

The lawsuit states that Taylor’s attorneys uncovered evidence in 2023 that “completely dismantled the state’s case” while implicating two other men as Lovings’ killers.

During Taylor's 2011 trial, prosecutors said drugs and money made Lovings — a 30-year-old Barrington High School graduate who they say supplemented his music career by selling marijuana — a target.

Authorities said Taylor armed himself with a .40-caliber handgun and with another man entered Lovings' condominium, threatened him and several of his friends, and demanded money from a safe. Lovings was shot when he was unable to open the safe, authorities said.

Taylor’s attorney at the time said no physical evidence linked his client to the murder, a composite sketch that a witness provided did not resemble him, and the gun linked to Lovings' murder was later recovered from a man charged with shooting a Chicago police officer.

A state appellate court overturned Taylor’s conviction in 2016 and ordered a new trial. Seven years later, as the retrial approached, prosecutors dismissed the charges against him.

Former Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx cited “missing or lost evidence” in the decision to drop the prosecution and said her office determined it could not prove Taylor guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

The lawsuit claims the defendants fabricated false statements from several witnesses and “conducted unduly suggestive identification procedures with eyewitnesses that resulted in misidentifications.” Those defendants also testified falsely at Taylor’s trial, the lawsuit claims.

Taylor’s attorneys say they received thousands of pages of evidence in 2023 that would have helped his defense but was not turned over to his previous lawyers. Some of that evidence implicated other suspects and suggested motives for false accusations.

The suit does not seek a specific amount of damages, but states Taylor suffered financial damages, physical injury and severe emotional distress and anguish.