Aldermen advanced a staggering $261 million police misconduct settlement Monday, lamenting the cost as an unavoidable blow to the city’s pocketbook.
The historic mass settlement proposed by Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration would resolve 16 lawsuits alleging disgraced Chicago Police Department Det. Reynaldo Guevara framed men for murder.
It won broad approval in the City Council Finance Committee, where aldermen complained about the price tag, but argued Chicago taxpayers had no other choice.
“I find this good and bad. Revolting, yet necessary,” said Ald. Raymond Lopez, 15th, a frequent critic of the city’s police settlements. “Swallowing this is like bad medicine.”
The deal is likely to face a final full council vote later this month. If approved, it will become by far the largest police misconduct deal in the city’s history.
The 17 men behind the lawsuits spent 384 years in prison after Guevara allegedly framed them, putting the price at $680,000 for each year resulting from the wrongful convictions, Law Department attorney Jessica Felker told aldermen.
Felker said the package is “in the best interest of taxpayers” and warned the city could pay twice as much if it lost the individual suits in court. The deal was hammered out case by case in ten months of negotiations mediated by U.S. District Judge Mary M. Rowland, she said.
“This mass settlement provides certainty in exposure and allows payments to be made over time,” Felker said. “Reaching the settlement here protects the city from those runaway verdicts.”
The city will still face 23 more pending Guevara cases if it approves the deal and two more pending settlements tied to the detective, she said. Nine more men are challenging their convictions, meaning more lawsuits could come, she added.
All 17 plaintiffs in the negotiated group are represented by the law firm Loevy & Loevy, Felker said. She estimated the firm will take a “typical” 40% of the $261 million settlement.
More Top Picks Best Blue Light Glasses For Computer Use
But aldermen resolutely welcomed the chance to chip away at the towering liability of looming lawsuits. The cost is “gigantic, but responsible,” said Finance Committee vice chair Ald. Bill Conway, 34th.
“When you’re wrong you’re wrong, and that’s just the bottom line,” added committee chair Ald. Pat Dowell, 3rd.
The deal, set to be paid out in four installments throughout 2027 and 2028, will dramatically affect Chicago’s already-strained budget if passed.
The city routinely spends far more than it budgets for police-related lawsuits. Last year, Johnson’s administration and aldermen agreed to use debt to pay for a $90 million mass settlement settling almost 200 cases involving yet another allegedly rule-breaking policeman, a move many in the council went on to harshly criticize that creditors said contributed to downgrades.
But in a foreshadowing of the Guevara mass settlement, Johnson’s administration announced last month that it plans to budget $401 million for lawsuits and court verdicts next year, a massive increase that would allow the city to pay for the new deal without debt.
Lopez shared apparent support for Johnson’s move as he warned his colleagues they must do a better job of budgeting for police settlements.
“We don’t track where we’re spending. We don’t know if we’re blowing past amounts. We just keep saying yes,” he said. “We really need to watch where we’re going with this.”
Ald. Nick Sposato, 38th, another frequent settlement critic, urged the council to resolve the remaining Guevara settlements within the next few years as he shared tepid support.
“You hate to dump on the next council or the next group after that,” he said. “I don’t think anyone in this room is jumping for joy about this.”
Pressed on whether the city has changed policing practices to avoid future lawsuits, Felker told aldermen police now record all interrogations. CPD has been reshaped by its ongoing consent decree and faces new oversight bodies, she added.
She told Ald. Jeanette Taylor, 20th, that Guevara still gets a city pension because state law does not allow pensions to be revoked without a criminal conviction. The statute of limitations on Guevara’s alleged wrongdoing has long passed, she added.
“I don’t know what anyone else thinks, but I think it’s the craziest thing in the world,” Taylor said.
The deal would easily make Guevara the costliest single police scandal in Chicago history, outstripping the around $210 million spent so far on cases against former Cmdr. Jon Burge, whose “midnight crew” of detectives was accused of beating and torturing dozens of suspects into murder confessions beginning in the 1970s.
Guevara, who retired a decade ago, has denied wrongdoing. Still, in case after case, dozens of mostly Latino men previously convicted of murder have had their cases reversed and won certificates of innocence while accusing the 82-year-old retired homicide detective of manipulating lineups, threatening witnesses and beating them into murder confessions.
Guevara repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, putting the city on the financial hook for the collective centuries they spent in prison.
Even before any global settlement, Guevara cases have already cost around $160 million in prior verdicts and settlements, including $43 million for six settlements approved by aldermen this year.