CPD detective convicted of threatening a colleague now accused of harassing witness, also a CPD officer

Three months after being sentenced to probation for threatening to kill a chicago police detectiveCPD Homicide Det. Marco Torres has been accused of harassing a third officer in an attempt to avoid testifying against him.

While facing charges of assaulting a female detective in 2024, prosecutors at an audience on Wednesday said Torres allegedly called another detective and tried to convince her not to testify in the current case, using a “burning” prepaid phone.

Torres was accused of a simple assault and aggression of a third detective, with whom he carried an extramarket issue, during an argument in front of his house in 2023.

Torres last year was declared guilty for the position of assault and sentenced to a year of probation that includes a provision that a weapon is not allowed to carry. As that case was pending in May 2024, prosecutors claim that he called another detective, identified by prosecutors as “KC”, who was classmate of the Police Academy and Mutual Friend of Torres and the officer who assaulted.

“Please, do not testify against me, I have been crying all day,” Torres said supposedly, and also discussed his relationship with another woman he had left. The telephone number that Torres called appeared as “without call identification.”

Torres supposedly later sent a text message to the officer of a burner phone “this is my life, please do not testify that he always covers my tracks”, and threatened that his commander dismissed the other officer. Torres also contacted two other officers the same day as KC of a number linked to a prepaid phone, and the records of the cell tower indicated that the phone was used near Torres House.

Torres, who at that time carried a GPS monitor due to a protection order in the case of assault, was also at home or near his home at the time the calls were made, said the prosecutor of the state of the state Thomas Fryska in the Court on Wednesday.

Torres, 40, was arrested on Tuesday after surrendering at the CPD headquarters. He was prosecuted on Wednesday in front of Judge James Costello. Torres was released in electronic monitoring and prohibited by contact with the detective.

His lawyer, Mark Leonard, said after the hearing that the charges against Torres were “absurd.”

“The case is incredibly weak, according to telephone calls and text messages for more than a year,” Leonard said. “The theory of the state’s case is absurd. He is buying phones with burner e goes to all these lengths to cover their footprints, but he is calling these people and says: ‘Is it me, Marco’?”

Torres was stripped of his police powers last year when an order of protection against him was issued in relation to the assault case. To date, he has not faced the department’s discipline, but an investigation is pending, according to a police spokesman.

The victim in the case of assault has filed a case of civil complain against CPD and Torres, claiming that he reported misconduct and threats of towers repeatedly, but was told to be transferred outside the homicide division. His lawyer, Megan O’Malley, said the charges made it clear that the CPD should have moved to discipline Torres after his client filed his complaints before the Office of Internal Affairs and after he was convicted of threatening his life.

“Even after this guy is convicted of threatening to kill a woman, a policemate, he is still a Chicago police officer,” O’Malley said. “Will your badge and weapon recover when your judicial supervision has ended in a year? I suppose the Chicago Police Department believes that its officers are above the law.”