One hundred and eighty people who say they were wrongly sent to prison by the actions of a corrupt Chicago police officer are in line for a settlement that the city's top lawyer says could save the city hundreds of millions of dollars.
All of these cases are largely tied to the actions of one man: convicted former Chicago police sergeant Ronald Watts, who corporation counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry said generated a magnitude of cases "unlike anything we've seen."
Richardson-Lowry said she and her team have negotiated a $90 million settlement covering 176 claims from people who say Watts and his crew of officers at the Ida B. Wells homes in Bronzeville on the South side framed them when they refused to pay protection money.
"Their liability was not at issue," Richardson-Lowry told reporters Thursday morning. "We needed to solve for these cases, and we have."
And she said the solution and its price tag represents a significant potential savings for the city: "$350-500 million is what we would spend if we continued down this path," she said.
The plaintiffs have all signed off. It now must be approved by City Council, but some aldermen have shown increasing resistance to OKing large misconduct settlements. When asked what the city's strategy would be if the Council did not approve the payment, Richardson-Lowry simply said, "I'm going to speak a positive into existence."
The Finance Committee is set to take it up Monday.