Politics
Key City Panel Unanimously Agrees to Pay $260.8M to Resolve 16 Lawsuits Tied to Disgraced Ex-CPD Detective Reynaldo Guevara
(WTTW News)
A key city panel unanimously agreed Monday to pay $260.8 million to resolve 16 federal lawsuits filed by 17 men who spent a combined 383 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted based on evidence gathered by a disgraced former Chicago police detective.
Many members of the Chicago City Council’s Finance Committee said they were relieved that the city had no choice but to resolve the lawsuits, the oldest of which was filed in 2019 and the most recent filed in 2025, allege wrongdoing by CPD detective Reynaldo Guevara, who has been repeatedly accused of falsifying police reports, framing suspects and coercing witnesses.
It has already cost Chicago taxpayers at least $206 million to defend and settle 16 lawsuits naming Guevara, records show. An updated accounting for how much Chicago taxpayers have paid private lawyers to defend Guevara and the officers who worked alongside him requested by WTTW News is pending.
Ald. Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez (33rd Ward) urged her colleagues not to allow the staggering cost of the proposed mass settlement to obscure the human cost of Guevara’s alleged misconduct, which tore apart dozens of families, causing a “ripple effect” of pain and trauma.
“This is a tough pill to swallow for us, and for the taxpayers,” said Ald. Nicholas Sposato (38th Ward).
The proposed mass settlement, negotiated under the authority of U.S. District Court Judge Mary Rowland, now heads to the Chicago City Council for a final vote on Oct. 14.
In all, 41 cases naming Guevara remain pending, including the cases lawyers now say should be resolved without a trial, records show.
Lawyers for the city said settlement agreements have been reached in two other cases, Deputy Corporation Counsel Jessica Felker.
Resolving these 16 cases will save between $300 million to $400 million in legal fees and likely verdicts against the city, officials said.
Settling these lawsuits is in the best interest of the taxpayers, Felker said.
All of the cases set to be resolved were brought by Loevy & Loevy, which specializes in police misconduct litigation and advertises itself by telling potential clients that “no law firm in Chicago has been more successful in litigating police brutality and police misconduct cases.”
The agreement calls for the city to make four equal payments in April and October 2027 and April and October 2028, Felker said. Loevy & Loevy will get 40% of the settlement, as per their agreement with their clients, for a total of $104.3 million, Felker said.
Guevara is now one of the most notorious members of the Chicago Police Department, costing taxpayers more than any other officer, including former Commander Jon Burge, who tortured and beat more than 100 Black men, from the 1970s to the 1990s, city officials have acknowledged.
A judge determined Guevara told “bald-faced lies” while under oath in 2017, a fact that will be presented to any future jury asked to determine whether the city should be held accountable for claims of misconduct.
Guevara has invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination hundreds of times during court proceedings, refusing to answer questions about whether he falsified police reports, framed suspects or coerced witnesses into identifying criminals.
That means Chicago officials have little hope of winning any of those cases at trial. Many of the people he helped convict who have sued the city have been granted certificates of innocence by judges.
Guevara, 80, now lives in Texas, and collects an annual pension of $91,000. Since Guevara retired in 2005, he has been paid approximately $1.5 million from the police pension fund.
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.
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.
Despite Guevara’s well-documented misconduct that sent 41 now-exonerated Chicagoans to prison for decades, any attempt to revoke his pension is sure to fail, since he was not charged with criminal wrongdoing, much less convicted, while a Chicago police officer.
Mayor Brandon Johnson’s budget forecast anticipates setting aside $401 million in the 2027 budget to resolve lawsuits, $226 million more than in 2026, records show.
The bulk of the city’s legal bills go toward resolving lawsuits that allege Chicago police officers committed misconduct.
In all, the city is facing an $882.5 million budget gap in 2027, Johnson said.
Note: Loevy and Loevy has done legal work for WTTW News.
WTTW News coverage of policing and police reform is supported by The Joyce Foundation.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
