Mayor Brandon Johnson is recommending to aldermen another round of costly settlements for alleged police misconduct.
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The mayor’s Law Department is proposing the City Council settle two wrongful conviction lawsuits for a total of $26.5 million. Aldermen have already approved this year over $300 million to settle police-related lawsuits, a historic amount that smashes past records.
Francisco Benitez, who spent over three decades in prison after he was convicted in the killing of two 14-year-old boys in 1989, would receive $18.5 million if aldermen approve the deal city attorneys reached.
Benitez maintained his innocence in the West Side double homicide after his conviction, citing an alibi and witness who identified different suspects. His murder conviction was overturned in August 2023.
At the time, his attorneys presented testimony from a former Chicago gang officer who said in a sworn statement: “This is the one case in my entire Chicago Police Dept. career that has bothered me and think we got the wrong guy.”
His attorneys alleged that the detectives on the case, Jerome Bogucki and partner Raymond Schalk, had a history of misconduct, and were found liable by a federal jury of manipulating eyewitness identifications.
City attorneys recommend another $8 million go to Eric Blackmon, who was freed from prison in 2018 after being convicted for a 2004 murder.
Blackmon spent much of his nearly 16 years behind bars in the Stateville Correctional Center’s library, becoming a paralegal and representing himself when attorneys declined to take up his case. Cook County prosecutors dropped the murder charges against him a year after he left state custody.
He maintained he was at a barbecue at the time of the slaying he was convicted of, citing dozens of potential witnesses to his alibi. An attorney who helped defend Blackmon also argued an eyewitness who testified for the prosecution was steered by police to identify him in a lineup.
The City Council’s Finance Committee is set to vote on the cases Thursday. If approved, aldermen are expected to weigh them in a full council vote next week. They will consider three additional settlements to police-related lawsuits totaling $825,000.
Aldermen approved last month the single largest deal to settle police misconduct in the city’s history: a $90 million package to resolve nearly 200 wrongful conviction lawsuits tied to Sgt. Ronald Watts. That sum is set to be paid out by the city in 2026.