$33.75 million in settlements proposed in CPD misconduct cases tied to three notorious former officers
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Chicago taxpayers could soon be on the hook for nearly $34 million to settle three wrongful conviction cases tied to three of the Chicago Police Department's most notorious former officers.
The City Council Finance Committee will vote Monday on settlements in three lawsuits tied to former CPD Commander Jon Burge, former Sgt. Ronald Watts, and former Det. Reynaldo Guevara. City attorneys are recommending the city pay out a total of $33.75 million to settle those three cases.
The largest settlement, $17.5 million, would go to Thomas Sierra, who spent more than 22 years in prison for a 1995 murder before he was exonerated in 2018.
Sierra, who had been jailed since he was 19, had accused Guevara of manipulating witnesses into pointin the finger at him for the murder of Noel Andujar.
A judge tossed out his conviction in 2018, after Cook County prosecutors said they could no longer meet the burden of proof to support the case against Sierra. A month earlier, Sierra's lawyers had filed a motion noting another judge's ruling that Guevara lied on the witness stand in a separate case in which two men's convictions were tossed over Guevara's testimony, which the judge had deemed to be "bald-faced lies," adding that Guevara could not be considered a credible witness in any case.
Guevara for years had refused to testify in cases where he was accused of beating suspects into false confessions. In one lawsuit involving Guevara, he asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in response to 200 questions.
Despite being accused of abusing suspects or other misconduct in dozens of cases, Guevara has never been charged with a crime, and was never disciplined by the Chicago Police Department before he retired in 2005, allowing him to continue drawing a city pension.
According to published reports, the settlement in Sierra's case would be the seventh time the city has settled misconduct cases involving Guevara, totaling $78 million.
The second-largest settlement on Monday's Finance Committee agenda is an $8.75 million payment to Mark Maxson, who has accused detectives working under Burge of torturing him into giving a false confession in the 1992 murder of a 6-year-old boy.
Maxson spent 24 years in prison before DNA linked the murder to another man and Maxson was set free.
Burge was fired from the Chicago Police Department in 1993. Despite being accused of torturing scores of suspects into false confessions in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, it wasn't until 2008 that he was indicted for lying under oath about the torture of suspects. He was convicted and served 4 ½ years in prison. He died in 2018.
The final settlement up for a vote is a $7.5 million payment to Ben Baker and Clarissa Glenn, who were arrested by Watts in 2005.
Watts resigned from the force before pleading guilty in 2012 to stealing from a homeless man who posed as a drug dealer as part of an undercover FBI sting. He admitted to regularly extorting money from drug dealers, and was sentenced to 22 months in prison in 2021. He has been accused of frequently planting evidence and fabricating charges.
Dozens of men and women have said Watts and his team terrorized them in or near the former Ida B. Wells housing project in Bronzeville between 2003 and 2008. Watts and his officers have been accused of planting drugs on suspects and falsifying police reports.
Prosecutors have said Watts and the officers under his command time and again planted evidence and fabricated charges in order to further their own gun and drug trade.
Baker spent 10 years in prison on drug charges before his conviction was thrown out in 2016, and has claimed Watts framed him after he refused to pay a $1,000 bribe.
In 2022, a report from the Civilian Office of Police Accountability found that Watts and members of the CPD tactical team he commanded repeatedly approached Baker – an admitted drug dealer – and demanded he pay them protection money in exchange for allowing him to keep selling drugs without police interference in 2004 and 2005.
When Baker refused to pay, Watts and his team arrested him on at least three separate occasions in 2004 and 2005. Glenn, the mother of Baker's three children, also was arrested alongside Baker in December 2005 as she was giving him a ride home.
After Baker and Glenn reported that their arrests were in retaliation for Baker's refusal to pay protection money, COPA's investigation found Watts planted drugs in Glenn's car, and then Watts and falsified police reports in the case.
Baker and Glenn ultimately were exonerated in 2016, and were among the first to publicly accuse Watts of abuse in the wake of his arrest in 2012.
More than 200 convictions involving Watts have been thrown out since his arrest.
