Francisco Nanez walked away from Chicago City Hall with an $8 million wrongful-conviction settlement, and less than two years later he stood before a judge pleading guilty to traveling to meet a 13-year-old for sex. Now twelve Chicago aldermen say the city's payout system needs an overhaul before it hands out another dollar to someone who could go on to commit a new crime.
The 61-year-old Nanez pleaded guilty on August 3 before Judge Eulalia de la Rosa to traveling to meet a minor. This case began when the Cook County Sheriff's Office Internet Crimes Against Children unit learned a minor was receiving inappropriate messages from Nanez on a social media application, according to CWB Chicago. An undercover investigator posed as the minor, and Nanez allegedly sent sexually explicit messages and requested nude photographs before arranging to meet the child outside a Berwyn convenience store, where investigators arrested him in May 2024. He had originally been charged with attempted predatory criminal sexual assault of a victim younger than 13, solicitation of child pornography, and grooming before pleading guilty to the lesser traveling charge.
A Five-Year Sentence That Amounts to Weeks
Judge de la Rosa sentenced Nanez to five years in prison, but under Illinois truth-in-sentencing law, individuals convicted of traveling to meet a minor must serve only 50 percent of their term, cutting his required custody to about two and a half years. Because Nanez already received credit for 825 days spent in Cook County Jail following his arrest, he had roughly 87 days left to serve, per the same report from the outlet that first broke the story.
Twelve Chicago aldermen sent a letter on August 6 to Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry, copied to Alderman Pat Dowell, who chairs the City Council Committee on Finance that must review major municipal payouts before they reach the full council for a vote. The letter, signed by Anthony Beale, Nicholas Sposato, Marty Quinn, Felix Cardona Jr., Raymond Lopez, Derrick Curtis, Brian Hopkins, Brendan Reilly, Gilbert Villegas, Debra Silverstein, Silvana Tabares, and Anthony Napolitano, cited the CWB Chicago report on Nanez's case and called for changes to how the city structures its legal settlements.
Wrongful Imprisonment That Stretched Back Decades
Nanez was one of three men wrongfully convicted in a September 1, 1986 arson at 2603 W. 24th Place that killed brothers Julio Martinez, 19, and Guadalupe Martinez, 28, and injured a firefighter who fell through the roof, according to WTTW News. Nanez was sentenced to life in prison, while he and co-defendants John Galvan and Arthur Almendarez were arrested nine months after the fire and, according to the lawsuit they later filed, coerced into signing false confessions after physical abuse by Chicago police officers, including lead detective Victor Switski.
The path toward their freedom began in 2007, when Galvan watched a MythBusters episode in prison testing whether a lit cigarette could ignite gasoline, casting doubt on a key aspect of the prosecution's arson theory, which had claimed the men threw a cigarette into a pool of gasoline to start the blaze. That scientific challenge, detailed by the Innocence Project, eventually helped unravel the case. Courts vacated the convictions of Nanez and his two co-defendants in July 2021, and the Cook County State's Attorney's Office declined to retry the men, with prosecutors moving to vacate Nanez's murder conviction.
Millions in Payouts From City and County
The three men sued the city, prosecutors and Chicago police officers, and in May 2025 the Chicago City Council approved a combined $48 million settlement, giving $20 million each to Galvan and Almendarez and $8 million to Nanez, a breakdown the Department of Law had recommended to avoid the risk of a far larger jury verdict. Nanez also received a separate $7.45 million settlement from Cook County in 2025 to resolve a related federal civil rights lawsuit, according to the Cook County Board of Commissioners.
The aldermen argue that settlements should rebuild lives after government mistakes rather than support criminal conduct, writing that such payments should help people recover from wrongful imprisonment rather than continue flowing to someone accused of a new crime. Their letter proposes distributing approved settlements in quarterly installments, suspending payments to anyone arrested for a felony, and voiding a settlement outright if the recipient is ultimately convicted.
A Budget Under Growing Strain
The push for reform comes as Chicago's overall legal exposure from police misconduct has ballooned. In 2025, the city spent $252 million to resolve 136 police misconduct lawsuits, with nearly 60 percent of that money going to people wrongfully imprisoned for decades, according to WTTW News. In just the first six months of 2026, the city spent more than $225 million on such payouts, far exceeding its $82.5 million annual settlement budget and prompting the city to authorize borrowing of up to $283.3 million.
City attorneys have said the pressure to settle before trial stems partly from the risk of catastrophic jury verdicts, pointing to a March 2025 case in which a federal jury awarded $120 million, $60 million each, to exonerated Chicagoans John Fulton and Anthony Mitchell after they spent 16 years in prison before their convictions were overturned in 2019, a record verdict noted by the law firm Loevy & Loevy. That dynamic underscores the tension aldermen now face: settlements compensate for past constitutional violations regardless of a recipient's later conduct, and legal experts are likely to raise questions about whether suspending or voiding payments after a new arrest could survive a legal challenge.
Nanez's case is not the first time a Chicago wrongful-conviction recipient has drawn scrutiny for conduct after release. T.J. Jimenez was rearrested on a felony weapons charge after receiving a $25 million settlement, a case Hoodline covered in May. Whether the aldermen's proposed reforms move forward will depend on the Finance Committee's review before any changes reach the full City Council for a vote.
