Man convicted of dealing cocaine in Fox River Grove seeks new trial, questions police informant’s actions

An attorney for a Cicero man who was convicted in McHenry County of twice meeting an informant in Fox River Grove and selling him cocaine has filed a motion asserting that his client did not receive a fair trial.

Ivan Ruiz, 36, was set to be sentenced Thursday. Instead, that was delayed, and Judge Tiffany Davis granted his attorney, Robert Ritacca Jr., additional time to prepare his argument for a new trial. Ritacca said he was waiting to receive additional trial transcripts.

A jury convicted Ruiz in May on two counts of possessing, manufacturing and delivering 15 to 100 grams of cocaine, Class X felonies. He faces six to 30 years in prison on each count.

Ritacca claims that prosecutors did not provide him with recordings of a conversation that took place among a convicted felon turned confidential informant: Ruiz and co-defendant Jorge Barajas, 44, of Joliet. Ritacca also said the state denied there was a recording from this first arranged drug buy on May 8, 2024.

But Ritacca asserted that, based on pretrial reports, including a statement of probable cause and the police report, the detective in the case went to the McHenry County State’s Attorney’s Office to apply for “an order authorizing the use of an eavesdropping device.”

Ritacca said the state’s attorney’s office “emphatically denied that there was any surveillance used and that there was no application authorizing an eavesdropping device.” But Ritacca added that on cross-examination at Ruiz’s trial, the detective said he had obtained the application for an eavesdropping device and installed it in the informant’s vehicle. He said the device was operable for audio but not video. The informant also testified that there was an eavesdropping device installed in his vehicle.

However, during the trial, the informant also said that when Ruiz and Barajas showed up, they did not get into the informant’s vehicle as planned. Instead, the informant got into the car Ruiz and Barajas were in, which was driven by Barajas.

This is not the first time Ritacca raised this issue of a recording, according to McHenry County court records. In March, prior to trial, the attorney filed a motion to suppress any recordings. The state filed a response on April 30 saying no such recordings exist. On May 7, Davis issued an order denying the defense motion and also indicating no such recordings exist, a court order shows.

Ritacca further asserted that neither the informant nor the detective is credible, “and there were many discrepancies in [their] testimony including where [the informant] sat for the transactions, who handed [the informant] the drugs, and the make and model of vehicle.”

During Ruiz’s trial, prosecutors said the informant arranged drug buys with Ruiz and Barajas in the Jewel-Osco parking lot on May 8 and May 29, 2024. As the interaction was being surveilled by detectives from a distance, both times the informant gave the men $1,100, which was supplied by detectives of the McHenry County Sheriff’s Office Narcotics Task Force. In return, Ruiz gave the informant about 28 grams of cocaine, prosecutors and the informant said during trial.

Davis set Sept. 10 to argue the motion and for Ruiz’s sentencing. Barajas’s case is still pending. He is due in court Aug. 29 and set for trial Nov. 17.