Two months ago, one of the most sordid chapters in the history of the Chicago Police Department came to an end with City Council approval of a $90 million “global settlement” for 180 shakedown victims of corrupt former Sgt. Ronald Watts.
City Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry vowed then to “take what we’ve learned” from the Watts settlement and use it to resolve other massive liability cases.
But that’s not as simple as it seems in the case of retired Chicago Police Detective Reynaldo Guevara, whose actions have led to yet another proposed one-off settlement, this time for $17 million.
The latest in a string of Guevara-related settlements is on Monday’s agenda for the City Council’s Finance Committee. It would go to Jose Maysonet, who spent 27 years in prison after allegedly being beaten by Guevara into confessing to a double murder he did not commit.
Maysonet was 22 and did not speak English at the time of his 1990 arrest for the murder of two brothers in their 20s.
He claimed the confession followed 17 hours of interrogation and torture in which Guevara repeatedly hit Maysonet in the head, body and groin area with a flashlight and a phone book.
The retired detective, who still collects a Chicago police pension, was also accused of denying Maysonet access to an attorney, threatening to arrest Maysonet’s girlfriend and sister, and warning the girlfriend that her two children would be taken away from her if she did not convince Maysonet to confess.
Maysonet confessed to the double murder and was sentenced to life in prison.
In 2016, Maysonet convinced a judge to vacate his murder conviction on grounds that his attorney had a conflict of interest that was not disclosed to Maysonet. While defending Maysonet, the attorney was representing Guevara in a child support case.
A year later, Cook County prosecutors dropped all charges against Maysonet after five former Chicago police officers, including Guevara, told a judge they would invoke their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and refuse to answer questions in court.
Guevara, 81, is accused in lawsuits of framing people for murder. Forty-three people, including three women, have been exonerated after they were sent to prison on murder convictions in cases handled by Guevara in the 1980s and 1990s.
Most of them lived in Humboldt Park. Lawsuits targeting him had already cost the city and Cook County at least $80 million before the new $17 million settlement surfaced. Forty lawsuits against Guevara are pending, including Maysonet’s lawsuit.
Most of the exonerations in the Guevara cases came between 2016 and 2024, while Kim Foxx was Cook County’s state’s attorney. One man, Jacques Rivera, was exonerated in 2011 under Foxx’s predecessor, Anita Alvarez. Guevara, who couldn’t be reached for comment, now lives in Texas. He has never been charged with any crime.
Mayor Brandon Johnson has been under fire for his plan to borrow tens of millions of dollars and repay that money over five years to bankroll the Watts settlement and other large payouts tied to allegations of police misconduct.
The $17 million settlement in the latest Guevara case is certain to turn up the heat on Richardson-Lowry to intensify her efforts to strike a similar global settlement to resolve 39 remaining Guevara cases.
But sources said it’s not that simple. The Watts cases were easier to settle because Watts pleaded guilty while Guevara has taken the Fifth. In addition, the Watts victims served shorter sentences for their shakedown cases and were represented by only two attorneys. Guevara’s alleged torture victims served longer sentences after being framed. Many of the witnesses have since died.
When she appeared before the Finance Committee to talk about the Watts settlement, Richardson-Lowry warned the City Council that more cases were in the pipeline.
“I’d love to say this is the end of the journey. It is not. There will be a next chapter. Sadly, we have other scenarios we have to solve for,” she said.
Questioned more closely during a recent midyear budget hearing, Richardson-Lowry said the number of cases still pending tied to Guevara are “in the 40s,” while only three cases remain from the period of police brutality surrounding Jon Burge and his midnight crew of Area 2 detectives.
“We probably have a hundred cases of note, but no one as prolific, as you probably know intimately, as the Watts cases,” the corporation counsel said.
Johnson has referred to the global settlement as a form of reparations.
“Back in the summer of 2023, I sat with the mayor, talked about some of the challenges that I saw and he supported going forward with taking a new, revised approach for purposes of settlements of this nature,” Richardson-Lowry said.