A lawsuit was filed Wednesday in federal court accusing members of the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department of using coercive tactics to get a false confession from a then 17-year-old with an IQ of 60.

Trevon M. Yates, 18, of East St. Louis was taken into custody on Aug. 28, 2013 for questioning about an Aug. 12 armed robbery near Southwestern Illinois College. A couple was lured to the location, using a craigslist ad, where they expected to meet someone selling an iPhone 5.

Two men robbed the couple of money and a mobile phone. One suspect hit the 18-year-old female victim on the head with his gun before running form the scene.

Nine months and one day after Yates was arrested, he was released. In the interim, the lawsuit charges, Yates was subjected to coercive interrogation, false arrest, civil conspiracy, malicious prosecution, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Charges against Yates were dismissed on June 12, 2014.

Named in the lawsuit are St. Clair County and St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department members Kenneth McHughes, Frank Bennett, Brian Cregger, Maurice McMiller, Jason Robertson, Scott Weymouth and George Mokriakow. As-yet unknown St. Clair County employees are also named in the suit.

According to the lawsuit, McHughes and Weymouth sent text messages to the same number one of the victims had also communicated with via text messages. The officers twice arranged to meet the seller of the iPhone, but did not attend the meetings, the lawsuit states.

After tracing a software application called Pinger, with a username of trayvondrondo@mobile.pinter, to two addresses in Belleville, police questioned two  juveniles. One juvenile implicated “Trayvon” and “Jay” in the robbery, but said he did not know their last names.

Trayvon was described as a 17-year-old African-American Belleville resident with a box cut hairstyle, stripes on his head, two big, square earrings, gold teeth and a sleeve of tattoos. The youth allegedly provided robbery details to police without being prompted. The suit alleges the other juvenile, who claimed no knowledge of Trayvon, “eventually agreed to adopt the information that had been fed to him by the [officers]” and say he did know Trayvon.

Yates was arrested at his East St. Louis home on Aug. 28, 2013. Officers did not have probable cause to arrest him, the suit claims, because Yates did not have a sleeve of tattoos, gold teeth, big earrings, stripes in his haircut, did not live in Belleville and had never met the two juveniles questioned by the Sheriff’s department.

According to a clinical psychologist who interviewed Yates, he has an IQ of 60, which ranks him in the bottom 1 percent of the country. During the interview with police, Yates told officers that he was attending SWIC to get his GED and planned to study to be a doctor. Yates failed a GED exam four times.

The lawsuit alleges that police “employed psychologically coercive interrogation tactics designed for guilty suspects who have adult capabilities.” During the videotaped interview, McHughes and Weymouth allegedly told Yates 42 times that they had evidence proving he had committed the armed robbery. Yates professed his innocence 35 times.

Yates offered to take a lie detector test, but one was never offered. At the request of Yates, officers checked his mobile phone and found it had no role in the robbery, the suit alleges.

In response to the interrogation tactics, Yates sobbed, rock back and forth in his chair, prayed and begged for his mother 35 times. He also threatened to kill himself.

Eventually Yates confessed. Before receiving Yates full confession, Weymouth told Yates he was not going to spoon feed him details during the confession. Weymouth and McHughes repeatedly gave Yates information to form a coherent confession, the suit alleges.

In particular, McHughes and Weymouth are accused of providing to Yates the date and general location of the robbery, that it was arranged using craigslist, who was the other alleged robber, the disguise worn by one of the robbers, that the girl was struck with the butt of the gun as the robbers left and that the only things take were a mobile phone and cash. When not provided the facts, Yates often go them wrong.

Yates was charged with a Class X felony and held on a $500,000 bond. While in custody, one of the juvenile suspects told police that the Trayvon he described to them was not the same Trevon that was being held.

The lawsuit alleges that charges were dropped after members of the St. Clair County State’s Attorney’s office watched a videotape of the interrogation and decided to drop all charges.

State’s Attorney Brendan Kelly said charges were dropped after a clinical psychologist determined that Yates mental illness impaired his ability to knowingly waive his constitutional rights.

“His statement was, therefore, inadmissible and, without that statement, there was no longer sufficient evidence to prosecute,” Kelly said.

The clinical psychologist said Yates had the intellectual abilities of a nine or 10-year-old.

“His limited intellectual abilities would make him much more suggestible and easily led,” the psychologist said in a report dated May 14, 2014.

The suit seeks unspecified monetary damages for physical harm, mental suffering and loss of normal life.

Yates is represented by Locke Bowman and Alexa Van Brunt, attorneys with the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Juvenile Justice Center, and Laura Nirider, an attorney with the Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth (CWCY). The MacArthur Justice Center and the CWCY are public interest law firms and part of Northwestern University School of Law’s Bluhm Legal Clinic in Chicago. Belleville attorney Jim Ellis also represents Yates in the case.