Crime & Law
Pay $7.6M to Man Who Spent 17 Years in Prison After Being Wrongfully Convicted, City Lawyers Recommend
(WTTW News)
Chicago taxpayers should pay $7.6 million to a man who spent 17 years in prison after he was wrongfully convicted of a 2001 murder, city lawyers recommended.
John Velez was convicted of killing 26-year-old Anthony Hueneca in Little Village. Police officers believed the shooting was part of an ongoing conflict between two street gangs, the Satan Disciples and the Latin Kings.
Detective Michael Bacardo began investigating Velez, who was 18 at the time of the killing, when he and a friend reported that Velez had been a victim of an unrelated crime. Bacardo took a picture of Velez, which he later showed to two people who said a man threatened them shortly before Hueneca was shot and killed.
Those two witnesses, as well as one of their friends who told police he saw the shooting, later identified Velez as the shooter in a photographic lineup, after Bacardo showed one of them Velez’s pictures. Bacardo remains an active member of the Chicago Police Department, earning $102,000 annually, according to a city database.
Two days after Hueneca’s murder, Christina Izquierdo, Velez’s girlfriend, was shot and wounded. Izquierdo, who was 5 months pregnant at the time, told police that Velez believed he had been the intended target of the shooting because he shot Hueneca, a Latin King, to avenge the killing of his uncle Gent Velez, who police said was a Satan Disciple along with John Velez, according to Bacardo.
When John Velez went to trial, Izquierdo testified that what she told police was false and said she only signed a statement after police threatened to take away her daughter. That statement was taken by former Assistant State’s Attorney Megan Goldish, who has been a Cook County judge since 2014.
The witness who said he saw Velez shoot Hueneca and run away also later told officials he lied, after police agreed to give him a break in an unrelated drug possession case. That fact was never shared with the jury, records show.
In addition, the jury never heard evidence that Gent Velez was not a member of the Satan Disciples, but belonged to another gang, undercutting the motive presented by prosecutors.
Nor did the jury hear evidence that Velez was actually in Cicero at the time of the shooting, and could not have run from the scene of Hueneca’s murder because he had been shot in the knee several months earlier and was using a cane.
After prosecutors moved to vacate Velez’s convictions and dismiss the charges, Velez sued Cook County and Goldish. That suit was resolved for $2.4 million in January.
The proposed $7.6 million settlement is set to be considered Monday by the City Council’s Finance Committee. A final vote of the City Council could come on Wednesday.
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.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
