CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- A torture survivor of the late Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge has filed a federal lawsuit.
Jackie Wilson claims he was tortured into making a false confession for the 1982 murder of two Chicago Police officers.
He went to trial three times and spent 36 years in prison before a Cook County Judge granted him a certificate of innocence in 2018.
“To say I’m hurt is an understatement,” said Wilson during a press conference Wednesday morning.
Now, Wilson is suing more than a dozen authorities for torturing him or conspiring to convict him.
“[T]he Cook County justice system itself has been tortured. Jackie Wilson has also been physically tortured by a brutal electrical box torture ritual and has already wrongfully served a sentence that has taken roughly 70 percent of his life. Jackie Wilson will never be able to recoup the value of his life lost to the living hell he experienced at the hands of his government. While Jackie Wilson extraordinarily deserves and has earned this Certificate of Innocence, others deserve to pay for that they have so unjustly caused both directly and indirectly,” Wilson’s attorneys from Loevy & Loevy and the People’s Law Firm wrote.
The lawsuit names former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, notorious police Commander Jon Burge, two former Chicago Police superintendents, and several current and former Cook County prosecutors.
“We hope to see the prosecutors involved in framing him as criminal defendants in the Cook County criminal courts,” said Elliot Slosar with Loevy & Loevy.
For Wilson, it’s about one thing.
“All I'm looking for is justice," he said. "All I have ever been looking for is justice and I have a good legal team that’s going to help me get it.”
The City of Chicago and Cook County government as a whole are also named as defendants in Wilson’s lawsuit.
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