Courts
Less than seven months into the year, Chicago taxpayers have spent at least $224.5 million to resolve nearly two and a half dozen lawsuits, exceeding the city’s budget to resolve lawsuits alleging police misconduct by more than $142 million, records show.
The International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, which represents immigration court judges as well as other professionals, said in a news release that 15 judges were fired “without cause” on Friday and another two on Monday.
The former Illinois House speaker is asking that he be allowed to stay out of prison during his appeal in the federal bribery case — an area of criminal law his attorneys say is among the most complex and “rapidly evolving.”
John Hooker, one of the four former Commonwealth Edison officials convicted of conspiring to bribe ex-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison. The sentence is well below the recommendation from federal prosecutors of 56 months. Hooker’s defense team had asked for a sentence of probation.
Michael McClain, 77, a former Illinois representative lobbyist for Commonwealth Edison, was convicted of bribery conspiracy and willfully falsifying the utility giant’s books as part of the “ComEd Four” trial in 2023.
In all, Chicago taxpayers have spent more than $120.3 million since January 2019 to resolve 31 lawsuits filed by Chicagoans injured during police pursuits, according to an analysis of city data by WTTW News.
Judge Joseph LaPlante issued a preliminary injunction blocking Trump’s order and certified a class action lawsuit including all children who will be affected. The order, which followed an hour-long hearing, included a seven-day stay to allow for appeal.
If approved, it would be the eighth lawsuit filed by Chicagoans who said they were the victims of Guevara’s misconduct to be resolved at a cost of more than $95 million to Chicago taxpayers.
City lawyers reached an agreement to settle the lawsuit filed by Gilbert and Hester Mendez midway through a federal civil trial after Peter Mendez, who was 9 at the time of the no-knock raid, told a jury that he was traumatized by Chicago police officers’ decision to point a M4 assault rifle and other guns at him and his 5-year-old brother.
Former Chicago Ald. Carrie Austin is too sick to stand trial on charges that she took bribes in the form of home improvements including new kitchen cabinets and granite countertops from a developer and lied to federal agents, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
Officials with the federal Bureau of Prisons on Tuesday confirmed that Burke, 81, had been transferred from the Federal Correctional Institution in Thomson, Illinois where he’d been serving his sentence to a halfway house run by the bureau’s Chicago Residential Reentry Management office.
Prosecutors this week asked a federal judge to hand Anne Pramaggiore a 70-month prison sentence along with a fine of $1.75 million after she was convicted in the 2023 “ComEd Four” trial on charges including bribery conspiracy and willfully falsifying the company’s books.
Jeffrey Epstein Died by Suicide and There’s No ‘Client List,’ US Justice Department Says in New Memo
After months of touting the impending release of new, blockbuster information on accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, the Justice Department announced in a memo Monday that there is no evidence he kept a “client list” or was murdered.
The statute Wisconsin legislators adopted in 1849, widely interpreted as a near-total ban on abortions, made it a felony for anyone other than the mother or a doctor in a medical emergency to destroy “an unborn child.”
Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s advisers ordered the release of a dataset that includes the private health information of people living in California, Illinois, Washington state, and Washington, D.C., to the Department of Homeland Security, The Associated Press first reported last month.
From Planned Parenthood to Birthright Citizenship, What to Know About Recent Supreme Court Decisions
It’s a wrap on the most recent term for the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices delivered a slew of decisions on cases ranging from birthright citizenship to funding for Planned Parenthood.