Samantha Harer Federal Suit Crumbles, Flores Prevails

CHANNAHON, IL — In a stinging defeat for New York civil rights lawyer Jennifer Bonjean, Chicago's U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman dismissed the federal lawsuit against former Crest Hill police officer Phil "Felipe" Flores in the February 2018 gunshot death of Flores' estranged girlfriend Samantha Harer.

The 23-year-old 911 dispatcher for WESCOM in Plainfield died of a gunshot wound to her head, and she was found in the nude in February 2018 at her Channahon apartment. Flores was inside her apartment at the time. He called 911 claiming she shot herself after locking herself inside her bedroom while he was in her living room that Tuesday morning.

Bonjean's federal lawsuit has encountered a number of major setbacks since 2020.

First, a federal court of appeals agreed to dismiss the village of Channahon and three of its top police officials: Police Chief Shane Casey, Deputy Chief Adam Bogart and lead detective Andrew McClellan.

The three Channahon police officials were accused in her lawsuit of engaging in police misconduct by treating Harer's death as a suicide and ignoring evidence that pointed to the greater likelihood that Harer was a homicide victim by a fellow police officer in Will County.

"Casey and McClellan falsely told Plaintiffs that Flores was negative for gunshot residue and that Samantha was positive for gunshot residue. McClellan falsely told an analyst for the Illinois State Police that Flores had rendered aid to Samantha to abolish the significance of blood splatter on his clothing. Casey and Bogart falsely suggested that toxicology reports of Samantha Harer pointed toward suicide," Bonjean argued in her federal lawsuit.

Even though Harer's death was determined by Channahon police to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the Crest Hill Police Department never allowed Flores — who was accused of raping a sleeping woman two years earlier — to return to their active police force.

Flores abruptly resigned from the Crest Hill Police Department in March 2019 after 13 months of paid suspension from the department.

"My best guess is that I'm sure that somebody in the Crest Hill hierarchy finally came to their senses and told him he was going to be forced out" or he could sign a letter that indicated his resignation was his own decision, Paul Ciolino, a prominent Chicago private investigator who had a weekly show on WLS-AM 890 called The PoPo Report, told Joliet Patch in 2019.

On June 12, 2020, Patch broke the news that Channahon's municipal lawyers were successful in convincing the federal court of appeals to dismiss the Harers' lawsuit against the three Channahon Police Department members.

On July 30, 2021, Patch broke the news that the Black Road law firm in Joliet representing Crest Hill was successful in convincing the federal court in Chicago to dismiss Crest Hill as a defendant in the Harer family's lawsuit.

On Aug. 24, Patch reported that two lawyers from the Itasca law firm representing Flores —Michael Bersani and David Mathues of Hervas, Condon and Bersani — asked U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman to dismiss the lawsuit against the former Crest Hill officer.

According to the lawyers defending Flores: "the situation has changed since Flores' motion was denied as moot over 18 months ago. The Channahon Defendants took an interlocutory appeal and prevailed, so the claims against them were dismissed roughly a year ago in light of the appellate ruling. The claims against Crest Hill were dismissed last month, after Crest Hill's motion to reconsider in light of new case law was granted.

"With all federal claims gone, there is no longer subject matter jurisdiction over the remaining state law claims against Flores ... All that is left in this case is a state-law wrongful death claim between citizens of Illinois," Mathues stated in his motion.

In Thursday's ruling, the federal judge who has handled the Harer case since 2018 agreed with the defense.

He dismissed Flores as the lone remaining federal defendant from the Harers' case.