Atty. Gen. Madigan Sues To Block Burge's Pension
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan filed a lawsuit Monday morning to stop former Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge from collecting a pension.
Madigan says because Burge is a convicted felon, he loses his right to his $3,000 per month pension.
The Police Pension Board required five votes to revoke the pension. The board decided that Burge's conviction was not directly related to his work as a police officer, and voted to let him keep it.
Burge was sentenced to 4 1/2 years in prison last month for lying about the torture of suspects under his watch.
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Police Supt. Jody Weis has also been critical of the decision to let Burge keep his pension.
"You had Burge arguing that he should be defended by the city and by the union because his actions took place when he was a police officer," Weis said late last month. "Now the pension board seems to have overlooked that ... and says well this stuff took place after the fact and had nothing to do with his service as a police officer."
According to the state's pension code, benefits must be denied "to any person who is convicted of any felony relating to or arising out of or in connection with his or her service as a police officer."
Burge's pension board supporters contended that the charges, and conviction, in the case came after Burge left the force and should not affect his pension.
Since he was fired from the Chicago Police Department in 1993, Burge's name has become synonymous with police brutality in Chicago.
Dozens of suspects have accused Burge and the detectives under his command of shocking them with a homemade electrical device, suffocating them with typewriter bags, putting guns to their head and playing Russian roulette — all to force them to confess to murders they didn't commit.
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