Politics
Cost to Defend, Resolve Lawsuits Tied to Disgraced Ex-CPD Detective Tops $159M
The Chicago City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to pay $29.2 million to four men who spent a combined 71 years in prison after they were convicted of separate murders between 1991 and 1997, bringing the total cost of defending and settling 13 lawsuits naming disgraced former Chicago police Detective Reynaldo Guevara to $159 million, records show.
The largest settlement would pay $16.6 million to Demetrius Johnson, who was 15 years old when he was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison in connection with a 1991 murder. Johnson was released from prison in 2004 and awarded a certificate of innocence in 2020.
An additional $6.95 million is set to go to Angel Diaz, who was 21 when he was convicted of a 1995 murder and sentenced to 44 years in prison. Diaz was released from prison in 2010 and awarded a certificate of innocence in 2023.
In addition, taxpayers are set to pay $4.85 million to Ariel Gomez, who was 17 when he was convicted of a 1997 murder and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Gomez was released on parole in 2017, and his conviction for murder overturned in February 2018.
Finally, $800,000 would go to William Negron, who was 17 when he was convicted of a 1994 murder and sentenced to life in prison. Negron’s conviction was overturned in 2017, and he was released in 2018 after serving his sentence after being convicted of a separate murder in 1994.
Thirteen lawsuits naming Guevara have now been resolved by paying Chicagoans who had been wrongfully convicted of murder $141.3 million, records show.
In addition, Chicago taxpayers have paid $47.4 million to attorneys 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.
“While this brings some semblance of justice to survivors of police misconduct and coercion, it is going to take systemic solutions to right the wrongs of the past,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said.
Thirty-eight federal lawsuits naming Guevara remain pending, including one that is currently being tried before a jury.
In that case, Guevara invoked his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination, refusing to answer questions about whether he falsified police reports, framed suspects or coerced witnesses into identifying criminals.
Guevara also asserted his Fifth Amendment rights during a 2018 trial that resulted in a $17.18 million verdict against the city.
Guevara is set to collect a pension of at least $91,000 every year for the rest of his life, and has already banked nearly $1.5 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.
WTTW News coverage of policing and police reform is supported by The Joyce Foundation.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
