Investigations
Chicago Taxpayers Have Paid $35.7M to Defend Disgraced Detective Reynaldo Guevara, With No End in Sight
In March 2023, 11 wrongfully convicted men filed a lawsuit against former Chicago Police Detective Reynaldo Guevara, the city of Chicago and other officers. (Courtesy of Matt Thibodeau / Loevy and Loevy)
Chicago taxpayers have paid more than $35.7 million to defend disgraced former Chicago Police Detective Reynaldo Guevara in 39 lawsuits alleging he framed people for crimes they did not commit — and there is no end in sight, according to documents obtained by WTTW News.
Since 2008, city officials have paid a premium to hire private attorneys to defend Guevara, despite his well-documented misconduct that sent 41 now-exonerated Chicagoans to prison for decades, including one woman who was sentenced to death before her conviction was overturned.
In addition to the cost of outside attorneys, Chicago taxpayers spent an additional $60.5 million to settle six lawsuits filed by Chicagoans who said they were the victims of Guevara’s misconduct. Another 34 lawsuits are pending, with the latest lawsuit against the city and the former detective filed June 26.
In all, it has already cost Chicago taxpayers more than $98 million to defend the disgraced former detective, investigate his conduct and resolve lawsuits that allege Guevara violated dozens of Chicagoans’ civil rights, according to WTTW News’ analysis.
With 34 lawsuits pending, that toll is sure to grow since city lawyers have little hope of winning any of those cases at trial because Guevara has refused to testify about his conduct as a Chicago detective, and many of the people he helped convict who have sued the city have been exonerated by judges.
A spokesperson for Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry did not directly answer a question from WTTW News about why the city was paying a premium to hire private lawyers to defend Guevara, who has an uncontested record of misconduct, rather than assigning staff attorneys on the city’s payroll to represent him.
“The city is obligated by law and the collective bargaining agreement to indemnify the officers and provide them representation,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “In doing so, the city is meeting its fiduciary duty. The work performed by outside counsel informs this process.”
Guevara, 80, now lives in Texas. WTTW News was unable to reach him, and an emailed request for comment sent to the Chicago-based lawyers listed as his representatives in federal court records received no response.
During a 2018 trial, Guevara invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 200 times, refusing to answer questions about whether he falsified police reports, framed suspects or coerced witnesses into identifying criminals.
Most of the people Guevara is accused of framing in the 1980s and 1990s are Latino and lived in Humboldt Park, which was home to many working-class Chicagoans long before the Northwest Side neighborhood began to gentrify, a process accelerated by the construction of the 606 Trail along a defunct rail line.
Despite his extensive record of misconduct, Guevara has banked more than $1.4 million in pension payments since he retired in 2005, according to records obtained by WTTW News through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Guevara was never disciplined for any of his conduct as a detective, nor did he face criminal charges. That means he will collect his pension for the rest of his life. Illinois law allows the boards overseeing pension funds to strip employees of their pensions only if they are convicted of a felony “relating to or arising out of or in connection with” their job committed while employed by a state or local government agency.
City officials did not probe Guevara’s conduct until 2013, eight years after he retired and began collecting his pension. That report, which was commissioned by former Mayor Rahm Emanuel, cost the city $1.9 million but has never been released by city officials.
WTTW News’ analysis is the first to examine records, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, that document the cost to defend Guevara borne by taxpayers that began in 2008 under former Mayor Richard M. Daley and continued through spring 2024 under Mayor Brandon Johnson.
Those records, which are maintained by the Law Department, are not readily available to the public or the City Council, and are not usually included in the overall tally of how much it costs Chicago taxpayers to resolve lawsuits alleging police misconduct.
The massive amount of taxpayer money spent to defend Guevara belies the narrative advanced by some members of the City Council that the city is too quick to settle lawsuits alleging police misconduct, giving criminals an incentive to sue the city even when their rights have not been violated.
Of the seven major causes of police misconduct lawsuits identified by WTTW News, wrongful convictions have cost Chicago taxpayers approximately three times as much as the next most frequent cause of payouts, excessive force.
In all, Chicago taxpayers spent $197.8 million to resolve 42 lawsuits brought by more than three dozen people wrongfully convicted based on evidence gathered by the Chicago Police Department between Jan. 1, 2019, and April 30, 2024, according to an analysis of city data by WTTW News.
Chicago taxpayers spent more than $6 million to defend Guevara from the allegations contained in a single lawsuit, filed by Jacques Rivera, who was convicted in 1988 of killing a 16-year-old boy, records show.
The only evidence against Rivera was the testimony of a 12-year-old boy who identified Rivera as the murderer. The witness later recanted, saying Guevara and other detectives had pressured him to identify Rivera.
After Guevara invoked his Fifth Amendment right and refused to testify during the civil trial, a jury awarded Rivera $17.18 million in June 2018.
In another case, which has yet to be resolved, taxpayers have already paid private lawyers $5.3 million to defend Guevara in a case filed by Arturo DeLeon-Reyes, whose conviction in a 1998 Bucktown double murder was overturned in 2017.
No physical evidence tied DeLeon-Reyes to the slaying of Mariano and Jacinta Soto and the kidnapping of their children, 2-month-old Maria Guadalupe and 3-year-old Santiago. DeLeon-Reyes said he confessed to the killings and kidnappings after Guevara slapped him in the head five times and threatened him with execution, records show.
During a 2017 hearing, Guevara testified that he did not physically abuse DeLeon-Reyes or his co-defendant, Garbriel Solache, after being given immunity by Cook County prosecutors.
The judge in the case called Guevara’s denials “bald-faced lies,” and tossed out both men’s confessions.
DeLeon-Reyes, who spent 17 years in prison before being declared innocent by a judge, sued the city more than six years ago. Lawyers representing Guevara and the city have fiercely fought the lawsuit, drawing a rebuke from U.S. District Court Judge Steven Seeger.
“So far, the parties have filed 109 pages of briefs, supported by 7,041 pages of exhibits,” Seeger wrote. “This Court has started to calculate whether that number is greater than the number of windows on the Dirksen Federal Building. Before that number goes up, the parties need to put their pencils down.”
Seeger ordered both sides to meet and consider whether “they are moving forward in a sensible direction.”
Solache has also sued the city, and that lawsuit remains pending.
Chicago taxpayers have paid more than $1.5 million to private attorneys in each of eight other cases filed by Chicagoans who claim Guevara violated their civil rights.
In those cases, all of the plaintiffs have been exonerated, and all those cases remain pending, records show.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
