Gary Police and a SWAT team went to a Calumet Township trailer park in August 2021 looking for Orlando Burgos — a suspect in a neighbor’s brutal beating.
The woman, Sheri Richardson, soon died.
While there, in the 6000 block of W. 36th Avenue, officers went to the trailer Burgos rented looking for him. He wasn’t there. Instead, Marquis “Smiley” Falls emerged holding out his 10-month old daughter out facing forward.
Deputy Prosecutors Milana Petersen and Brad Carter alleged he used the child as a “human shield.”
Defense lawyer Bob Varga refuted the accusation, noting there was no bodycam footage of the incident. Gary Police only added the equipment across the department in 2023 after a $1 million federal grant, newspaper archives show.
He also pressed Det. James Nielsen, who testified that Falls shook the baby, when it wasn’t documented previously in a police report or charging affidavit. He also questioned whether the various officers’ memories were consistent.
Falls, now 40, was charged with neglect, a Level 6 felony, and misdemeanor resisting law enforcement.
In December, prosecutors added a Level 2 felony criminal confinement charge, filings show, over the objection of his previous lawyer. The latter charge alone carries 10-30 years in prison.
Falls pleaded not guilty at trial. He rejected a time-served plea deal in the fall.
Jurors convicted him on all counts Wednesday night. His sentencing hearing is June 3.
Varga declined comment after the verdict.
“(Come) to the front door, we are not here for you,” an officer yelled, according to court filings. “Bring the baby to us.”
“This is my house, what (do) you all want,” a man, later identified as Falls, replied.
Court documents state during the encounter, Falls went back inside the trailer, then fled, leaving the baby on a hallway floor near a “ferocious” pit bull. Officers shot the animal to “prevent the dog from attacking” them.
Former Gary Police Det. Olivia Vasquez testified Wednesday that the trailer was “disgusting” with moldy bottles in the kitchen sink.
She recognized Falls, but didn’t know his name at the time. The baby was “flailing” as he held her outside, describing the way he held her like a “Michael Jackson incident” — when the late pop star dangled his baby over a balcony railing in Germany.
The child was “covered in (bug) bites,” flushed and red, she said.
On cross-examination, she told Varga that she hadn’t contributed to a police report.
In a taped October 2021 police interview, Falls told an FBI special agent that he was “scared for me and my daughter.”
The agent testified Falls was a “couch surfing” at the time.
On the stand, Det. Nielsen held a doll, appearing to moderately shake it in front of him to demonstrate what he saw at the scene. The child was crying, he said.
“Get the (expletive) out of here,” Nielsen said Falls yelled repeatedly to police.
The trailer was so “disgusting,” “nasty,” and “horrible” that he later threw his boots out, he said.
On cross-examination, Varga said it was the “first time” he learned police alleged Falls shook the baby. When asked why that was not documented in reports or other case paperwork in nearly a half-decade, Nielsen said it was an “error.”
The child’s mother Harley Ferguson was arrested outside the trailer after she was uncooperative with officers. She was charged with a neglect case. She signed a pre-trial diversion agreement in 2022.
