Politics

Cost to Resolve Lawsuits Tied to Disgraced Ex-CPD Detective Tops $112M, With 44 Lawsuits Pending

The Chicago City Council voted unanimously Friday to pay $17 million to a man who spent 27 years in prison after he was convicted of a double murder he did not commit, bringing the total cost of settling nine lawsuits naming disgraced former Chicago police Detective Reynaldo Guevara to $112 million, records show.

Jose Maysonet Jr. was convicted and sentenced to life in prison after confessing that he killed two brothers in 1990. Maysonet said he was beaten by Guevara and coerced into confessing to the crime, even though no physical evidence or eyewitness testimony linked him to the murders of Kevin Wiley, 26, and his brother, Torrence Wiley, 27, in May 1990 near Humboldt Park.

Chicago taxpayers paid an additional $2.53 million to defend Guevara and the other Chicago police officers named in Maysonet’s lawsuit, which was filed more than seven years ago.

The Cook County Board of Commissioners agreed in October 2024 to settle Maysonet’s lawsuit for $2.4 million.

In his confession, Maysonet implicated three other men in the double murder, including Alfredo Gonzalez, who spent 32 years in prison before being exonerated.

Gonzalez has also sued the city, and his lawsuit is one of 44 pending lawsuits against Guevara and the city.

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.

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.

In all, Chicago taxpayers have paid at least $42.4 million to defend Guevara and the other officers he worked with during his 29-year career, on top of the amount paid to resolve the lawsuits.

Guevara is set to collect a pension of at least $91,000 every year for the rest of his life, and has already banked more than $1.4 million, records show.

Despite Guevara’s well-documented misconduct that sent 41 now-exonerated Chicagoans to prison for decades, his pension cannot be revoked, since he was not charged with criminal wrongdoing, much less convicted, while working as a Chicago police officer. In fact, Guevara was never disciplined for misconduct.

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.

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.

Court records show two other lawsuits against the city that name Guevara have been settled but not yet presented to the City Council for approval.

Trial dates have been set in three lawsuits naming Guevara for May 2026 and January 2027, records show.

Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry said Thursday during the Department of Law’s annual budget hearing before the City Council’s Budget and Government Operations Committee that she was exploring ways to settle all lawsuits alleging misconduct by a single officer in one fell swoop.

Earlier this year, the City Council agreed to spend $90 million in 2026 to resolve 176 lawsuits tied to former Chicago Police Sgt. Ronald Watts and his team. Those lawsuits were filed by 180 people who spent nearly 200 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted based on what they allege was fabricated evidence gathered by Watts, who was convicted in 2013 of taking bribes, and other officers.

The city will have to borrow to cover that expense, costing taxpayers another $20 million in interest, Chief Financial Officer Jill Jaworski said.

Richardson-Lowry told WGN-TV that while fewer people have sued the city alleging misconduct by Guevara than sued the city with claims against Watts, it will be more complicated to reach what she calls a “global settlement” because those convicted based on evidence gathered by Guevara and his testimony spent decades behind bars before being exonerated.

Chicago taxpayers have spent at least $285.3 million to resolve lawsuits alleging Chicago police officers committed a wide range of misconduct — including wrongful convictions and improper pursuits — so far this year, according to an analysis of city data by WTTW News.

Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]

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