Crime & Law
Jury Awards $750K to Man Who Spent 17 Years in Prison After Being Wrongfully Convicted of 1989 Murder
(WTTW News)
A federal jury on Thursday ordered the city of Chicago to pay $750,000 to a man who was wrongfully convicted of a 1989 murder and spent 17 years in prison.
Jaime Rios was 20 years old when he was convicted and sentenced to 36 years in prison after being investigated by Reynaldo Guevara, a former Chicago police detective accused of routinely framing suspects.
After a 12-day trial, the jury found Guevara liable for the misconduct that led to Rios being convicted of killing Luis Morales on June 27, 1989, near Western and Division streets in Humboldt Park. Detective Michael Mason was not responsible for Rios’ conviction, the jury found.
The jury’s verdict was significantly less than the city has paid other wrongfully convicted men who spent dozens of years in prison after being convicted based on evidence gathered by Guevara.
The Chicago City Council agreed 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. The largest of those settlements was for $16.6 million, records show.
Before the civil trial began, Chicago taxpayers paid more than $1 million to defend the CPD officers named in Rios’ lawsuit, which was filed in 2020, according to records obtained by WTTW News through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Fourteen lawsuits naming Guevara have now been resolved by paying Chicagoans who had been wrongfully convicted of murder $142 million, records show.
Taxpayers have paid a total of $24.5 million to defend the conduct of officers named in those lawsuits, records show.
During the just completed trial, 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.
“We are grateful for the jury’s verdict that has affirmed the constitutional violations and malicious prosecution that Reynaldo Guevera inflicted upon him,” Joshua Richards, who represented Rios along with Stephen Richards, said in a statement. “While we respect the jury’s verdict on damages, there were errors of law that were made which we believe may have to be further adjudicated in the appellate courts.”
A spokesperson for the city’s Law Department declined to comment.
Guevara said a tip from an anonymous source identified Rios as the gunman, and said the shooting was part of an ongoing conflict between two gangs, the Spanish Cobras and the Latin Kings.
Despite that, another man told police Morales was killed by someone who was not Rios.
Rios testified that he confessed to the shooting after Mason yanked his hair and slammed his head into a table. Mason denied abusing Rios.
A friend of Morales, who witnessed the shooting, identified Rios as the gunman.
Fingerprints found at the scene did not match Rios, nor was there any evidence that the shots that killed Morales were fired at close range, as Rios said in his statement.
A man who told police Rios gave him a gun to hide after admitting to killing Morales testified during the trial he made that statement after an unidentified officer threatened to jail him and take away his young child. That gun could not have been the murder weapon, according to testimony during Rios’ criminal trial.
Despite the lack of any physical evidence tying him to the murder, Rios was convicted and sentenced to 36 years in prison. He was paroled in 2017.
In 2020, the man who identified Rios as the gunman said Guevara gave him a photograph of Rios and threatened to send him to jail if he did not identify Rios.
Amid the revelations of Guevara’s widespread misconduct, former Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx agreed to dismiss Rios’ conviction in 2022 and Rios was granted a certificate of innocence shortly afterward.
Thirty-seven federal lawsuits naming Guevara are still working their way through the federal court system.
Taxpayers have already paid an additional $25.3 million to defend those lawsuits, records show.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
WTTW News coverage of policing and police reform is supported by The Joyce Foundation.
