On Oct. 14, Chicago City Council unanimously approved a $260.8 million police misconduct settlement–the largest in U.S. history. The payout covers more than a dozen wrongful conviction lawsuits related to former Chicago Police Officer Reynaldo Guevara, who caused more than 40 wrongful convictions through forced confessions and witness identifications.
“Reynaldo Guevara destroyed the lives of countless young men and women, their families and the entire Chicago community that he terrorized,” civil rights attorney Anand Swaminathan of Loevy & Loevy said.
The firm represented 17 men whose murder convictions were vacated and charges dismissed following allegations of misconduct by Guevara and other officers.
Swaminathan called the settlement a “landmark acknowledgement” by the city of what happened. “No amount of money can correct the harm that Guevara caused or repay these 17 men for the nearly 400 years they spent wrongfully incarcerated,” Swaminathan said.
Have CPD’s Reforms Changed Police Conduct?
A Chicago Police Department press release from Oct. 1 said its reforms and efforts to comply with a federal consent decree have led to updated policies intended to detect and prevent the type of misconduct alleged in the Guevara cases. Interim CPD Superintendent Fred Waller said the department had strengthened supervision, training and policies to improve accountability and build community trust.
Deputy Press Secretary in the Office of the Mayor Griffin Krueger said that since Mayor Brandon Johnson assumed office in May 2023, “CPD has made significant strides achieving compliance with the Consent Decree.” He added that “Progress has accelerated across every measure, with particularly strong gains in secondary compliance over the past year, while full compliance has increased by more than 300 percent,” referring to the federally-enforced court order passed more than seven years ago to address CPD’s regular violations of Black and Latino Chicagoans’ constitutional rights.
CPD was in compliance with 32 percent of the consent decree as of late June, an Oct. 13 report released by the court-appointed independent monitoring team stated.
But Alexandra Block, Director of the Criminal Legal System and Policing Project of the ACLU of Illinois has argued that reform must be measured by changes in officers’ conduct, rather than simply the adoption of new policies and training. The Guevara settlement offers a test of whether those reforms can prevent the kinds of investigative failures that led to wrongful convictions in the first place, she told TCR.
“The process so far has really been focused on paper,” Block said, describing an emphasis on writing policies and training.
A Long History of Misconduct and Accountability Questions
Swaminathan and fellow Loevy & Loevy attorney Steve Art questioned whether substantial change has been made within CPD’s culture. Art said Chicago has a long history of sweeping misconduct under the rug, and that cases like Guevara and other officers named in recent high profile settlements have now cost the city an amount approaching $2 billion.
Art said the misconduct in the system is directly tied to racism.
“Our system remains a system that is designed to convict Black and brown people with very little evidence, as long as there’s a police officer who said that they did it,” Swaminathan said, adding that while reform efforts like videotaping interrogations are meant to reduce abuse, he thinks the effects will be minimal across Chicago’s thousands of cases. “We expect to see this sort of thing continuing,” Swaminathan said.
The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office said Guevara-related cases are reviewed individually through post-conviction litigation or referrals to its Conviction Integrity Unit, which examines claims of actual innocence supported by new evidence. The office also said its Brady-Giglio policy governs the review and disclosure of potentially exculpatory evidence, including information about alleged police misconduct.
In a statement, the State’s Attorney’s Office said “our office remains committed to ensuring fairness, accountability and integrity in the administration of justice. At this time, we do not have information to share regarding any systemic findings or policy changes related to these cases.”
Swaminathan cited exoneree Alexander Villa’s case as an example that the system still enables misconduct and abuse within CPD. Villa was convicted in 2019 for the murder of a police officer, but his conviction was vacated and charges dismissed in 2024 when it was revealed the defense had not received exculpatory evidence. Villa later filed a lawsuit alleging CPD officers framed him and manufactured evidence.
“That sure makes you worried about whether these things have really been fixed,” Swaminathan said. “Because you sure see a lot of the same kind of conduct, the fabrication of evidence, the hiding of evidence of innocence to essentially support an effort to frame one set of individuals for whatever reason.”
For Edwin Ortiz, Compensation Is Not the Same as Justice
Edwin Ortiz was 15 when he was wrongfully convicted of murder in a case involving Guevara. Ortiz said the settlement offers some closure, but cannot deliver full justice. A witness later alleged that Guevara pressured him to identify Ortiz as the shooter and offered him money to do so. Ortiz did not match the original description of the shooter, who was described as 19 to 21 years old, about 5-foot-9 and 160 pounds, with a mustache and goatee. Ortiz was 5-foot-2 at the time and nicknamed “Pee Wee” for his stature.
Ortiz remembered Guevara as the “neighborhood bully,” a police officer known in the neighborhood for arrests, harassment and stop-and-frisks. Ortiz also recalled that, after he was shot on a separate occasion, Guevara pressured him to identify someone. Ortiz refused to make a false identification and believes he was later punished for not complying with what he described as Guevara’s regime.
Ortiz was sentenced to 40 years in prison in 1993. His conviction was vacated and the charges dismissed in July 2024. He later received a certificate of innocence and $293,668 in state compensation in April 2026.
The settlement, Ortiz said, gives him some closure and allows him to move forward and focus on raising his son. But he said compensation is not the same as justice while Guevara remains free and collects a police pension.
“Guevara got away. He’s not in prison. He collects a pension, and he’s living good. He’s 80-some years old,” Ortiz said. “He’s still free. He’s laughing at the system. So I don’t see justice. Compensation, we’ve been compensated.”
The Lasting Effects of Wrongful Convictions
The effects of his wrongful conviction persist, Ortiz said, complicating relationships, employment and housing. Though he is trying to move forward, he said he sometimes falls into depression and struggles with the habits he developed to survive prison.
“I feel institutionalized. I get emotional. It’s hard to get along with people,” Ortiz said. “In prison, you survive. I put up a wall to protect myself–upon being released, you carry the same survival tactic in your mind.”
Ortiz credited former Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx and attorneys with the Innocence Project and Loevy & Loevy for helping overturn his conviction and secure a certificate of innocence. The court order formally recognizes that he was innocent of the crime for which he was imprisoned and can qualify recipients to seek compensation from the state.
“Oh, that was everything. That’s vindication,” Ortiz said. “That’s letting the world know that I’m innocent and I was never the kid they portrayed me to be.”
Wrongful convictions can take decades to uncover, leaving people imprisoned long after the original investigation has ended. Block described this prolonged harm as a form of “slow violence,” emphasizing that misconduct can remain hidden for years before a conviction is overturned. The scale of the Guevara settlement reflects not only the financial consequences for Chicago, but also the long delay between the original convictions and efforts to remedy them.
“This was a very good deal for the city of Chicago. It was a very smart deal for the city of Chicago,” Swaminathan said. “The liability they were going to face if we took these cases to trial was going to be astronomical.”