Chicago City Wire

The recent acquittal of two police officers charged with unjustifiably shooting an unarmed man is a victory not just for them and their families, but also strengthens the argument that dozens of wrongful conviction cases targeting police are worth fighting in the courts rather than settling in multi-million-dollar payouts.

In the past, City Council has agreed to the payouts in nearly all the wrongful conviction cases brought before them by buying into the argument that it’s cheaper for the city to settle than keep dragging the cases out through the courts. That argument is being made not just by the plaintiffs’ attorneys representing the once convicted felons but also by the Deputy Corporation Counsel Jessica Felker, who has been advising the city to settle the cases.

Former Chicago FOP spokesman, Martin Preib, argues that the cheaper-to-settle rationale will only accomplish the opposite - that is, to encourage more cases and more settlements.

Chicago Police Department

“Felker’s admonishment that the city has recently lost exoneration cases and that there are several other pending cases against the detectives accused in this case is a basis to settle is twisted legal logic, even for an attorney,” Preib wrote in the Chicago Contrarian referring to a recent $25 million payout. “Rather than compelling the city to settle, the fact that there are other cases pending against the detectives should be even more reason to fight each and every one, especially since the detectives were aching for a trial. Felker’s trite excuses, therefore, amount to little more than a green light to attack the police officers, a move that will cost the city millions more in settlements.”

Last week Cook County Judge Lawrence Flood found Officer Ruben Reynoso and Sgt. Christopher Liakopoulos not guilty of two counts of aggravated battery with a firearm and two counts of official misconduct in a July 2022 shooting in Pilsen.

Other officers have recently been cleared of misconduct charges as well.

The rulings are a rebuke to Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx who is behind dozens of exonerations on claims of police abuse, exonerations that have led to the wrongful conviction cases.

One former detective name in some of the lawsuits, Kenneth Boudreau, has repeatedly denied the claims against him and his former partner, Jack Halloran, and has recently announced the launch of full-scale campaign to clear their names, and end the settlements.  

“Today I am announcing that I will be hosting a presentation sometime in January on the fleecing of Chicago out of millions of dollars by claiming wrongful convictions,” Boudreau said in a statement released to Chicago City Wire for an earlier story. “We will examine the evidence, grand jury testimony, pretrial testimony, trial testimony, post-conviction testimony through third stage testimony to the TIRC (Torture Inquiry & Relief Commission) pleadings, correspondence among similarly situated convicted murderers throughout the years and how their narrative changes to fit the strategy of their civil attorneys.”

Other issues raised, he wrote, will be the fact that the police have no say in the settlement process, and “we will discuss the ethics of certain attorneys who encourage and used suborned perjury to make money while trampling on the graves of all concerned.”