In a landmark settlement that tunes to the amount of $17 million, Cook County is poised to close the chapter on a civil rights lawsuit connected to the notorious police torture scandal helmed by Cmdr. Jon Burge, involving Chicago man Jackie Wilson, who was wrongfully implicated in the 1982 murder of two police officers. Details provided by the Chicago Tribune highlight the expected vote on the deal by county commissioners.
The move to settle represents one of the largest payouts for a single defendant in Cook County's history. Wilson, who spent nearly 37 years in prison before his conviction was overturned in his third trial in 2020 was behind the wheel of the car during the fatal incident. However, he has maintained that he did not know his brother's intention to shoot the officers. He later received his certificate of innocence after being coerced into a confession by officers under Burge's command, a practice for which Chicago taxpayers have shelled over $130 million in settlements and judgments over two decades.
Meanwhile, former Cook County prosecutors Andrew Horvat and Nick Trutenko have found themselves in hot water, indicted for their roles in what is being described by ABC7 Chicago as the first instance where prosecutors have faced misconduct charges in such a case, arising from their participation in Wilson's trials which spanned from 1983 to 2020, amid allegations of tainted judicial processes.
Trutenko, notably accused of forging an inappropriate friendship with a primary witness from Wilson's second trial, became godfather to the con man’s daughter, and Horvat has been charged with misconduct while representing Trutenko during a 2020 hearing. Both men have pleaded not guilty to all the charges including perjury, and obstruction of justice, according to the allegations laid out at the trial which commenced recently.
The proceedings remain under the microscope after a judge limited testimony in a strange twist at the men's criminal trial, prompting a mid-trial appeal leading to the case's ascension to the Illinois 1st District Appellate Court, though, despite this development and the gravitas of the accusations, the civil lawsuit against multiple former Cook County state’s attorneys is expected to be quelled should the settlement be approved by the county board, concluding a chapter in a decades-long saga.
