Chicago to pay $90M settlement for civil rights violations involving former cop
The Chicago City Council has unanimously approved a $90 million settlement for 176 victims who where wrongfully accused of drug crimes by former police Sergeant Ronald Watts. This settlement resolves about 180 lawsuits connected to Watts, who was involved in framing individuals during his time leading a tactical unit at a South Side public housing complex between 2003 and 2008. Watts was accused of planting drugs, falsifying reports, and coercing residents to pay bribes, contributing to one of Chicago’s largest police misconduct scandals. After resigning in 2012 and pleading guilty to theft related to an FBI sting operation, Watts was sentenced to 22 months in prison in 2021. Victims will receive compensations ranging from $150,000 to over $3 million.the settlement is hailed by Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson as a historic resolution, with legal advocates condemning the long-standing mistreatment of Black communities by police. More than 200 drug convictions linked to Watts have been overturned, closing a deeply problematic chapter for many affected residents.
Chicago to pay $90M settlement for civil rights violations involving former cop
The Chicago city council voted unanimously Thursday to pay $90 million for 176 people who were victims of a corrupt former police sergeant.
The settlement puts to rest 180 lawsuits related to people who were framed by disgraced former police Sgt. Ronald Watts for drug crimes they did not commit. The settlement marks the end of one of the largest police misconduct scandals in the city’s history.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson called the settlement a “historic action.”
“Over 200 years collectively of time in prison jail — we were able to settle that case. No other administration in the history of Chicago has been able to accomplish that,” Johnson told reporters after the meeting.
He has been accused of framing nearly 200 people on drug charges between 2003 and 2008 when he ran a tactical unit at a now-demolished public housing complex on the city’s South Side. He had been accused of planting drugs on people, falsifying police reports, and falsely accusing housing project residents and others of drug crimes unless they paid the officers off.
In 2012, Watts resigned from the Chicago Police Department and pleaded guilty to stealing from a federal informant posing as a homeless man and drug dealer as part of an undercover FBI operation. He was sentenced to 22 months in prison in 2021. Watts led his unit for nearly a decade until 2012.
Each victim of Watts’ misconduct will receive between $150,000 to more than $3 million, as in the case of one man who spent a decade in prison on a Watts case.
Attorneys representing some of Watts’ victims also celebrated the settlement.
“For more than a decade, these Chicago police officers treated Black communities as if they could just be robbed and stolen from with impunity,” attorney Theresa Kleinhaus of Loevy & Loevy stated in a press release.
Former Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx threw out more than 200 drug convictions involving Watts. Judges in Cook County vacated at least 234 Watts-related felony convictions since 2016.
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Nearly all 190 who were exonerated sued for damages in federal court. Chicago had already settled with at least nine of them for a total of $11.8 million.
“This closes a nasty and ugly chapter that many young men on the South Side endured,” Chicago Alderman Jason Ervin said ahead of the vote.
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