Chicago City Wire

On Thursday, Cook County commissioners approved a $17 million payout for convicted cop killer Jackie Wilson stemming from the wrongful conviction lawsuit Wilson filed in federal court in June 2021.

The settlement agreement between Cook County and Wilson’s lawyers came after just two defendants were deposed in the case; it was a rushed settlement, some former assistant state’s attorneys told Chicago City Wire.

In light of the settlement, Cook County defendants, Nicholas Trutenko, Andrew Horvat,  Michael Hartnett, and  Lawrence Hyman were dismissed from the case.

Outstanding is the case against a dozen city of Chicago defendants. Sources say a deal is in the works for Wilson to receive another $17 million from the city.

Wilson, now 63, was first convicted, along with his brother Andrew, in 1983 for the execution style murder of police officers Richard O’Brien and William Fahey on a South Side street. Andrew received the death sentence and Jackie got life. Jackie was tried separately from his brother in 1989, and convicted again of the O’Brien murder but acquitted of murdering Fahey. He was again sentenced to life.

In 2015, the Torture Inquiry & Relief Commission (TIRC) referred Jackie Wilson’s case for a new evidentiary hearing based on Wilson’s claims of torture. In 2018, Cook County Judge Williams Hicks ordered his release.

Besides a confession – which Wilson claims was forced –during a 2010 deposition involving a separate civil case, Jackie admitted his involvement in a break-out plan that led up the Fahey and O’Brien murders.

In the deposition, Jackie discussed how he and Andrew hatched a plan to break out Edgar Hope from Cook County Hospital, where he was in police custody after being treated for gunshot wounds. Hope had been arrested for the February 5, 1982 murder of police rookie James Doyle on a CTA bus. It has been alleged that the brothers were on their way to free Hope when stopped by Fahey and O’Brien. Police responded to the shootings of Fahey and O’Brien on February 10, just hours after Doyle’s funeral.

The following is an excerpt from the January 28, 2010 deposition:

Question: What was your game plan?

Wilson: Should any gunfire happen to erupt in the hospital, we was in the ideal place. We didn’t have to worry about nobody dying. Shot, wheel them to surgery. We ain’t got nothing to worry about.

Question: As a gun – a small matter right?

Wilson: Well, I mean it can go either way. If we get shot, we ain’t got to worry about it. We are in the ideal spot. We are in the hospital, get treated right there. From there go to jail.

Question: Okay, and you were down with that plan, right?

Wilson: Yeah.

Question: In fact, you came from out of town to participate in that plan, right?

Wilson: Suicide mission, but yes.

Question: So a suicide mission, you were willing to die on this mission, right?

Wilson: I was going with my brother. I wasn’t going to let him go alone.

In February 2022, Wilson was arrested for allegedly beating a woman with a flashlight so badly “about her face, body and stomach,” that she required treatment at a hospital, according to a police report.

Wilson was charged with a misdemeanor.