SOUTH BEND â A South Bend woman was sentenced to nearly 20 years in prison Friday for her role in causing a five-car crash that killed two people and seriously injured two others in June 2020.
Raeaunna White, 30, was sentenced to 19 years in prison after pleading guilty to four felony counts of causing death or serious injury while operating a vehicle while intoxicated.
Court documents say White was was driving around 75 miles per hour east on Lincoln Way West around 3 a.m. on June 28, when her car rear-ended a Saturn Ion that was one of four vehicles stopped at the traffic light at Bendix Drive.
Over the past three years, the Exoneration Project has been working with the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit to reverse those cases.
“Every time we do one of these mass exonerations, there is a pit in my stomach,” Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx said. “There is relief that we are able to right the wrongs of the past, and sorrow that this is the state we find ourselves in…that for so long Sgt. Watts and his crew were able to terrorize and criminalize a community.”
Tepfer told Judge LeRoy Martin, Jr., the cases followed a similar pattern. Watts and his crew would single out men who had had previous contact with law enforcement at the now demolished Ida B. Wells Housing complex. They would shake them down for money or drugs. When the men failed to comply, they would often be beaten and arrested on trumped up charges or planted evidence.