Crime & Law
4 Months Into the Year, Chicago Set to Exhaust $82M Annual Budget for Police Misconduct Settlements
The city of Chicago is on track to exhaust the $82 million officials set aside to cover police misconduct settlements and judgments in 2025, just four months into the year, city records show.
With the financial toll of decades of police misconduct likely to grow in the coming months, Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36th Ward) plans to invoke the rarely used Rule 41 at Wednesday’s Chicago City Council meeting to force representatives of Mayor Brandon Johnson to answer questions publicly about their plan to handle the lawsuits that pose the biggest threat to the city’s financial stability — those filed by Chicagoans who spent decades in prison after being wrongfully convicted.
“We need to know what the city’s actual liability is,” Villegas told WTTW News. “What’s the plan? How are we going to pay for this? Which should we fight, and go to trial?”
Through the first three months of 2025, officials have already agreed to pay more than $62 million to resolve nearly two dozen lawsuits alleging a wide range of misconduct.
Those expenses are expected to top $82 million, the city’s entire annual budget for police misconduct settlements, on Wednesday if the City Council, as expected, agrees to pay $32 million to the family of a St. Louis man who was struck by a driver being chased by Chicago police and lost both legs, the latest massive settlement prompted by a police pursuit that violated department policy.
The City Council’s Finance Committee on Friday endorsed that settlement, which calls for taxpayers to pay $20 million and the city’s insurance company to pay $12 million.
“What we see now is what happens when there is no plan,” Villegas said.
By comparison, taxpayers spent a total of $107.5 million in 2024 to resolve police misconduct lawsuits.
Villegas has been asking since December 2023 for a hearing about the cost of settling and defending lawsuits alleging that misconduct by Chicago police officers resulted in innocent men, nearly all of them Black or Latino, spending decades behind bars.
Since then, two federal juries have ordered the city to pay $170 million to three men convicted of murders they did not commit, setting a new standard for verdicts in wrongful conviction cases.
In addition, a Cook County jury ordered the city of Chicago to pay $79.85 million in December to the family of a 10-year-old girl who was killed after a 2020 police chase.
Lawyers for the city are appealing all of those cases.
Those verdicts should prompt Johnson and the Law Department to rethink their strategy, Ald. Matt Martin (47th Ward) said.
“We need a different, more thoughtful approach,” Martin told WTTW News.
A spokesperson for Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson Lowry did not respond to a question from WTTW News about whether she supported Villegas’ call for a hearing on the cost of defending and settling police misconduct lawsuits.
In all, between January 2019 and June 2024, Chicago taxpayers spent a total of $200 million to resolve lawsuits brought by more than three dozen people who were wrongfully convicted based on evidence gathered by the Chicago Police Department, according to an analysis of city data by WTTW News.
Resolving wrongful conviction lawsuits cost Chicago taxpayers approximately three times as much as the next most frequent cause of payouts, excessive force, according to a 2023 analysis by WTTW News.
New Record Set
Twice in the past six months, federal juries have set new records for awards to Chicago men who were wrongfully convicted of murder with evidence gathered by Chicago police officers.
First, in September, a jury awarded $50 million to Marcel Brown, who was wrongfully convicted of a 2008 murder and spent 10 years in prison.
And then, last month, a jury awarded $60 million each to John Fulton and Anthony Mitchell, who were wrongfully convicted of a 2003 murder and spent a combined 32 years in prison.
In that case, Chicago taxpayers paid two law firms a combined $1.39 million for their unsuccessful defense of the city and the officers who helped convict Fulton and Mitchell, according to documents obtained by WTTW News.
Members of the City Council must examine the cost of hiring private attorneys, especially since they are not preventing massive verdicts, in police misconduct cases, Villegas said.
“We need to examine the success rate of these firms and come up with a new strategy,” Villegas said.
Martin said the City Council must exercise more oversight over the bills racked up by private attorneys.
“This can’t be a money-making opportunity for these firms,” Martin said.
Chicago taxpayers are required by law and the contract with the union representing Chicago Police Department members to indemnify the officers and pay for lawyers to defend them.
“When there is an increase in filings in any calendar year, or an increase in court activity, the Department of Law must still represent the city’s interests and defend all actions, which includes utilization of outside counsel when necessary,” said Kristen Cabanban, a spokesperson for Richardson Lowry.
A new legal case management system designed to provide officials with “better data and analysis” launched in July, several months behind schedule.
“The Department of Law continues to build its usage and reporting capabilities with integrations into various City systems for trend analysis and data analytics as it defends and represents the City of Chicago in all legal matters,” Cabanban said.
Cases Naming Burge, Watts, Guevara Loom
City officials will have to decide in the coming months whether to settle more than 200 cases naming former Chicago police officers who have uncontested records of misconduct.
There are at least 39 pending cases against the city that name disgraced former Chicago Police Detective Reynaldo Guevara, who is accused of framing people for crimes they did not commit.
At least another 193 cases are pending against the city that name convicted former Chicago Police Sgt. Ronald Watts, accused of demanding that Chicago Housing Authority residents and drug dealers pay him and the officers who reported to him for protection.
Taxpayers had already spent $11.2 million to defend Watts, despite his criminal conviction, through September, according to documents obtained by WTTW News.
And dozens of cases remain pending against the city that name Jon Burge, a disgraced former Chicago police commander, and the detectives he trained, who city officials admit tortured and beat more than 100 Black men during his career.
A lawsuit filed by James Gibson, who spent more than 29 years in prison on a double murder conviction after he was tortured by Burge and detectives who reported to him will not head to trial as scheduled in April, court records show. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for May 15.
Chicago taxpayers have already spent $2.4 million to defend Burge and the other officers named in that lawsuit, according to documents obtained by WTTW News.
Settlements Politically Unpopular
The massive amount of taxpayer money spent to defend Burge, Watts and 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.
The City Council has grown increasingly willing to reject city lawyers’ recommendations to resolve lawsuits, despite the escalating jury verdicts and the cost of taking police misconduct cases to trial.
This July, a lawsuit filed by John Velez, who spent 17 years in prison after he was wrongfully convicted of a 2001 murder, is set to go to trial.
In July 2024, the City Council’s Finance Committee refused to settle the case for $7.6 million, as recommended by city lawyers.
The Finance Committee on Friday rejected a recommendation to pay $1.25 million to the family of Dexter Reed, who was shot and killed by a Chicago police officer during a 2024 traffic stop after Reed shot and wounded an officer.
Caroline Fronczak, assistant corporation counsel, said it was likely to cost the city $3 million to $5 million to defend the officers and the city at trial, a cost that would be on top of any jury verdict.
The cost to Chicago taxpayers of these lawsuits could “astronomical,” Martin said.
“The context is changing around us,” Martin said. “We have to change, too.”
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
