Chicago Approves $90M Settlement for 180 Wrongful Convictions

The Chicago City Council unanimously approved a $90 million settlement on Thursday, marking one of the largest payouts for civil rights violations in city history. The deal resolves 176 lawsuits involving 180 people who were wrongfully convicted due to the actions of former police Sgt. Ronald Watts and his team. Those targeted spent nearly 200 years combined behind bars. As attorney Theresa Kleinhaus stated, “Watts and his team of officers terrorized the Black community in the Ida B. Wells housing project for over a decade. This settlement gives our clients some measure of justice for what they went through.”

For years, Watts and his crew planted drugs, falsified reports, and extorted residents, turning public housing into a site of fear. Many survivors began coming forward after Watts’s 2012 guilty plea in an FBI sting. He admitted to stealing from a federal informant posing as a homeless man and served just 22 months in prison, a stark contrast to the decades stolen from those he framed. Ald. Jason Ervin captured the sentiment of many when he said, “This closes a nasty and ugly chapter that many young men on the South Side endured.”

The settlement, though significant, does not erase the immense harm inflicted. Families were separated, livelihoods were destroyed, and entire communities were destabilized. Ahmed Kosoko, Watts’s attorney, tried to downplay his client’s role, claiming his work was “limited to administrative tasks.” Yet the consistent testimony of dozens of residents reveals a pattern of systemic abuse that was ignored for years.

Chicago taxpayers will shoulder the $90 million cost, adding to a long line of payouts for police violence. City attorneys acknowledged that the cases could have cost hundreds of millions more had they gone to trial. The Council’s decision comes as Chicago faces a looming $1 billion budget shortfall that threatens schools and transit systems. Ald. Nicholas Sposato called the settlement “the deal of a century,” highlighting the city’s focus on financial relief rather than the lasting trauma inflicted on Black communities.

Link:  AP