Four men who spent a combined 73 years in prison after confessing as teenagers to a 1995 double murder they did not commit are poised to share $50 million with the attorneys who represented them.
The City Council’s Finance Committee advanced the massive settlement on Monday to the defendants who came to be known as the “Marquette Park 4.”
Fingerprint evidence later cleared the men, three of whom said they had been coerced into confessing. The fourth said police fabricated his confession.
They were accused of robbing and murdering Khalid Ibrahim and Yousef Ali, owners of a used car lot at 7006 S. Western Ave.
It was the largest of four settlements for a combined, $59 million on the agenda of Monday’s Finance Committee meeting.
Fortunately for Chicago taxpayers, the city’s catastrophic insurance will cover $29 million of the $50 million settlement. The remaining $21 million will come from city coffers.
It will resolve the federal lawsuit filed in 2018 by LaShawn Ezell, Troshawn McCoy, Charles Johnson and Larod Styles. That suit identified 13 Chicago police officers involved in the interrogation. The defendants ranged from 15 to 19 years old at the time.
The lawsuit was filed months after prosecutors dropped charges against the four men.
Johnson and Styles were sentenced to life in prison in the deaths of Ali and Ibrahim .
Johnson, a Coca-Cola deliveryman, was arrested after returning home from work. He signed a confession saying he planned to steal cars for parts . He later said Chicago police detectives trained by former Area 2 commander Jon Burge pressured him into confessing.
Under a unique Illinois law, Johnson’s post-conviction attorneys were able to test 23 fingerprints connected to the murder scene.
Deputy Corporation Counsel Jessica Felker told the Finance Committee those tests “revealed that some of the prints from a car that was browsed by the perpetrators as well as the adhesive side of a sticker recovered near the stolen cars that had been removed from the windshield of those cars matched another man” who was a convicted felon.
“At that time, his mother lived a block away from where the stolen vehicles were” recovered.
“That man was deposed in this case and denies any involvement. He no longer lives in Illinois. The state’s attorney interviewed him and declined to press charges,” Felker said Monday.
Johnson, Styles and Ezell then asked that their convictions be overturned, which the state’s attorney agreed to do in July 2016, “based on the fingerprint evidence as well as allegations that the state’s attorneys office withheld information that the eyewitness who saw the two offenders flee was given money to relocate and arrested for contempt prior to testifying,” Felker said. “McCoy also asked for and was given the same relief.”
Felker characterized the massive settlement as “fiscally prudent.”
“The plaintiffs spent a total of 73 years in prison. This settlement equates to $685,000-per-year of custody. Typically at a trial, plaintiffs ask for $1 million-to-$2 million-per-year of custody from the jury,” Felker said.
Ald. Bill Conway (34th) a former prosecutor, countered: “I know what they ask for. People file lawsuits and ask for a $1 billion all the time. But what are they gonna get?”
Felker replied: “The last trial we had, they got over $1 million-per-year. I’m not aware of anybody getting $2 million-per-year.”
$5.8 million settlement for Water Department employees
The second-largest settlement — $5.8 million — goes to Water Department employees who said they were subjected to racist comments from managers and shorted on overtime and promotions.
The settlement was reached just a month before the case was to go to trial. U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly had yet to rule on whether former Mayor Rahm Emanuel, now U.S. ambassador to Japan, would have to testify.
“The racism lasted for decades and affected countless Black employees, which raises the question of why the city’s uppermost leaders failed to act,” plaintiffs’ attorney Vic Henderson told the Sun-Times last month. “The sad and most obvious answer is that they did not care. Shame on them.”
The agreement covers a dozen current and former Water Department employees, many of whom worked for the department for decades, despite being passed over for better shifts and promotions, and a workplace where white supervisors were accused of routinely making racist and sexist remarks.
The case was filed in 2017, the year a probe by the city inspector general exposed numerous racist emails exchanged between top supervisors at the Water Department.
That inspector general, Joseph Ferguson, called for firing seven Water Department employees. Emanuel fired Water Management Commissioner Barrett Murphy, managing deputy William Bresnahan and superintendent Paul Hansen, son of former alderman Bernard Hansen.
Among Ferguson’s allegations was Paul Hansen used his city email account to buy or sell firearms and cars and send hate-filled emails describing African Americans as “wild animals.”
In 2022, the city paid out nearly $1 million to a bricklayer in the department who said he was subjected to abuse, taunts and retaliation at the hands of Hansen.
A federal judge overseeing the case last year declined to grant class-action status that would have allowed all minority employees of the department to seek damages.
Lawyers for the 12 plaintiffs hired an expert who found that Black workers got significantly less overtime assignments and were promoted less often while also being disciplined more frequently, according to filings in the case.
“It was plain to anyone who looked that the racism cascaded from the very top of the organization like water travels down a hill,” Henderson said.
Six months later, nearly two dozen current and former Water Management employees complained at a City Council committee hearing that the same hate-filled culture persisted, even after a white commissioner was replaced with Randy Conner, an African American, who is back leading the department under Mayor Brandon Johnson.
The Finance Committee also signed off on a $1.25 million settlement stemming from a rusted out light pole that fell on the car of a passing motorist and a $2 million settlement stemming from allegations of wrongful death and excessive force in a fatal police shooting.