The Cook County Board on Thursday authorized three massive settlements — a fraction of the greater than $120 million authorized via 2024, based on the county’s finance committee.
The largest on Thursday’s agenda, $3 million, was for Jeremiah Cain, who spent 23 years in jail for supplying a gun within the 1999 homicide of Jose Garcia and the slaying of Julio Lugo, which he stated he did not. As of September 2023, he was one in every of 40 folks exonerated lately after problematic homicide investigations by Chicago Area 5 police detectives, together with Reynaldo Guevara.
The capturing was a part of a gang rivalry involving the Latin Kings and the Albany Orchestra, of which Cain was a member.
Cain filed swimsuit in federal courtroom in September 2023, alleging that police and a Cook County prosecutor “conspired with one another and with others, identified and unknown, to border him” for the homicide. The case additionally alleged that different officers had been conscious that Cain was being bodily and verbally abused in the course of the interrogation.
The presumed trigger Detective Anthony Wojcik “hit (Cain) a number of occasions and punched him” whereas he was chained to a wall, that officers conspired to get Cain and different co-defendants to signal a false confession that he had equipped the gun utilized in a rivalry capturing between gangs, and that in the course of the trial, the policemen hid materials that may have exonerated him. While police discovered the gun at Cain’s residence, witnesses later stated Cain didn’t know the gun was concerned within the capturing.
Cain’s case was amongst a bunch of eight that had been vacated by then-State Attorney Kim Foxx in 2022. The homicide expenses had been dismissed, he was launched from jail and acquired a certificates of innocence in April 2024. The settlement might be break up between Cain and his attorneys at Bonjean Law Group.
The board additionally authorized a $1.5 million settlement to Robert Hill, who sued the county sheriff and the Robbins Police Department for his or her dealing with of an investigation right into a 2005 theft and capturing in a Robbins liquor retailer.
Hill denied ever serving as a driver for the 2 males who dedicated the crime and stated any statements implicating him had been false, based on courtroom paperwork. Hill additionally made an settlement with officers on the time that if he handed a polygraph take a look at, he can be launched. He handed and was launched, however was nonetheless later arrested and prosecuted.
Although he claimed to have an alibi for the time of the theft, his legal professional did not current one, courtroom paperwork say. A choose later discovered the polygraph settlement to be binding and dismissed the cost. Hill was launched in 2017.
The board additionally authorized a $1.15 million medical malpractice settlement with Tondeo Wilkerson.
Wilkerson was transferred to the county’s Stroger Hospital after dislocating his knee in spring 2020. According to his grievance, workers discovered issues along with his important artery. Part of his leg was amputated in a surgical procedure that was carried out solely the night time after he was admitted.
The county and its well being system usually don’t touch upon such agreements, nor do the commissioners. Settlements are mentioned in closed classes of the county’s disputes subcommittee and are authorized as a package deal at month-to-month open monetary conferences. All three had been authorized Thursday with out remark. County information point out greater than $120 million has been spent on settlements this 12 months.
In separate motion, the board authorized modifications to the county’s paid go away ordinance to deal with issues that suburban faculty academics may take a partial PTO day and create a scarcity of substitute academics. After the unique ordinance handed, suburban park districts and faculty boards pushed to be exempt from the county’s paid go away ordinance, to no avail.
They fear that a rise in paid go away can be troublesome to handle and would value extra to rent substitute academics. The ordinance authorized Thursday says colleges “could set a minimal increment to not exceed their regular workday,” which means employees can not select to take two hours off at midday, for instance.
Commissioner Scott Britton had been pursuing a push to exempt colleges and parks for the previous 12 months, and stated throughout a listening to Wednesday that the rule’s unintended penalties had been exhibiting.
Entire municipalities have opted out of the ordinance, exempting faculty and park districts inside them. “This is precisely the consequence of what occurs when you do not management one thing,” Britton stated. “I do not assume that by pushing to incorporate parks and colleges we realized, perhaps I did not understand, that there can be fewer folks coated than there would have been” if these hadn’t been included.
Originally revealed:
