- Sun-Times
- Officer Robert Soto was killed with a friend in 2008. Authorities say a hit was put on Jeffrey Scott for cooperating with authorities investigating the killings.
When authorities arrested Jeffrey Scott in 2010, he decided it was time to cooperate and start talking. About everything—including the murders.
Yet without cooperating, he could face more than 25 years in prison, away from his two young children. And he would have to keep carrying around what he knew about the killing.
Scott, 28, is built like a power forward, and he was raised amid tough gang-controlled drug markets on Chicago’s west side. But the proceedings were briefly halted so he could leave the courtroom to collect himself. Offered the chance to speak, he said he’d grown up without a father or any guidance from mentors. He apologized for not helping the murder investigation sooner.
Jeffrey Scott also gave police contradictory statements in the days after the murder. Initially he said his brother had been with him the night of the slayings. Then he said his brother had indeed seen the shootings, and that Austin himself talked about them the morning after.
“I wish I could take it all back and do something positive, but I can’t,” Jeffrey Scott told Lefkow on Wednesday.
