Jon Burge Found Guilty on All Counts - June 28, 2010 from Chicago News Cooperative on Vimeo.
Showing posts with label Jon Burge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jon Burge. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Jon Burge Found Guilty On All Counts (VIDEO)
For Dateline: Chicago
By KATIE FRETLAND and RACHEL CROMIDAS
June 28, 2010
Jon Burge, the former Chicago Police commander at the center of the city’s decades long police torture scandal, was convicted today on federal charges of obstruction of justice and perjury. He faces up to 45 years in prison
Burge, 62, was expressionless as the verdict was read. He was found guilty of lying under oath in a 2003 civil court case about the torture of African American police suspects in the 1970’s and ’80’s. The jury — seven men and five women, including one African American– began deliberations at 3 p.m. Thursday. Their verdict marks the first criminal conviction of a cop in the police torture scandal. A report of a suspect being tortured by Chicago police first surfaced in 1973.
Juror Gary Dollinger, 31, said the testimonies of a former detective who was granted immunity and a convicted killer who died while in prison were crucial to his vote for conviction.
“I think it was first there was an overwhelming amount of evidence pointing to the fact that he was lying on his statements and there was some torture going on at Area 2 to coerce statements, between Andrew Wilson and Mike McDermott’s testimonies … those were the two biggest things that really pushed me over the top,” Dollinger, the CEO of an IT consultancy, said.
McDermott, Dollinger said, “he gets on the stand he looks a little scared when he’s up there, he’s got a lot on the line, they’re threatening to cut his pension, cut his health benefits lose his job.”
McDermott is a former police detective who testified he saw Burge point his gun in the direction of the area where a suspect was and that he saw Burge hold something to the suspect’s face. McDermott was an unhappy witness, who said he feared being charged with perjury and obstruction of justice if he did not recall details of the 1985 incident as the prosecution wanted him to.
McDermott’s testimony was inconsistent with his grand jury testimony.
“He changed his statement, but he never said no, there was no brutality,” Dollinger said. “[Burge] still pointed a gun and something plastic over his face.”
“All people who care about justice had a major victory today,” said Flint Taylor, an attorney for many of Burge’s accusers.
Burge attorney Bill Gamboney said he was “very disappointed and somewhat surprised” by the verdict.
“We’re starting to muster our resources together for a motion for a new trial and ultimately an appeal if it comes to that,” Gamboney said.
Burge supporter Jim Knightly, a retired Chicago police captain, vented his disappointment with the verdict.
“That they would take the word of convicted felons over a highly-decorated police officer,” Knightly said. “I’m sure Flint Taylor, the liberal attorney who has been hounding him for years, is happy. I hope he can sleep at night.”
“I’m glad it’s over,” said Ald. Ed Smith (28th), who sat through much of the trial. “This has been a great concern for a lot of people. It’s a case that has caused a black eye on the city.”
Smith said that the verdict should open the door for the release of Burge accusers who are currently imprisoned.
More than 100 people have accused Burge and officers under his command of torturing them during the 1970’s and 1980’s. The men said they were electroshocked, suffocated with plastic bags, subjected to mock executions, beaten and burned. The allegations contributed to the decision to place a moratorium on executions in Illinois, and Chicago agreed to a nearly $20 million settlement to four men who were pardoned.
Prosecutors never filed charges of assault or attempted murder and the statute of limitations has since run out.
Mark Clements, 45, cried in front of reporters in courthouse lobby Monday. He said detectives under Burge pulled on his genitals until he confessed to four murders and an arson. He served 28 years.
“I was 16 years old and these people stole my [expletive] life,” he sobbed. “I hate to tell you the truth. I sat in a prison cell, and I prayed for this day. Today is a victory for every poor person. I was 16 years old. This is America. Sixteen years old. What are we gonna do about other people who are sitting in those prisons.”
More than 20 people who claim they were tortured remain incarcerated in Illinois.
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said the jury’s decision was a measure of justice, and that it was sad that it took until 2010 to reach a criminal court of law.
“What’s clear is that the jury necessarily found that torture occurred in Chicago police stations at Area 2 in the 1980’s and it’s a disgrace that in this city in the 1980’s people could be subjected to abuse and torture ranging from guns to the face, guns in mouths. Suffocating, electric shocks, radiator burns and that sort of thing.”
“We need to have it on the record that this happened,” Fitzgerald said. “We need to treat it as a fact that it was proved and recognize that it was an awful thing before we can move forward.”
During the past month’s trial, federal prosecutors called four men to the witness stand to testify they were abused in an effort to prove the perjury and obstruction charges. The jury also heard testimony from Andrew Wilson, who died serving a life sentence for the killings of two police officers.
The defense argued that the police torture claims were fabricated by career criminals for the purpose of getting out of jail, and Burge broke years of silence to testify in his own defense, denying each allegation brought against him during the trial. His lawyers played up his dedication to police work — that he often went out on the street with his officers, looked in on interrogations and spent days working without going home on the case of the killings of two police officers. Burge, ill with cancer, broke down crying on the witness stand talking about that investigation.
Burge joined the police department in 1970 and two years later was assigned as an investigator at Area 2, where many of the alleged victims said they were brutalized by police.
A doctor who saw one man’s injuries in 1982 wrote a letter to then-police superintendent Richard Brzeczek asking for an investigation into a case of possible police brutality. Brzeczek forwarded the letter to Mayor Richard M. Daley, then Cook County State’s Attorney, but charges were never brought against any officers.
Daley’s name was not mentioned during the trial.
The Chicago Police Board fired Burge in 1993, three years after a report by the police department’s Office of Professional Standards sustained Wilson’s accusation that Burge abused him and found evidence of systemic abuse at Area Two.
Taylor said men who worked under Burge could still be prosecuted on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. As of May, a grand jury was hearing matters involving detectives who worked under Burge at Area Two in the 1970’s and 1980’s, according to documents filed in the Burge case.
Fitzgerald declined to comment on that investigation.
Judge Joan Lefkow found that eight people could take the Fifth Amendment and not testify in the Burge case. They are former assistant state’s attorney Larry Hyman and retired police officers Michael Hoke, Thomas McKenna, Ronald Boffo, James Pienta, John Paladino, Dave Dioguardi and Leonard Bajenski.
Clements said he will never get back the time he missed with his daughter.
“My daughter is 29 years old,” he said. “I missed all those years with my daughter sitting in a prison cell for a crime I did not commit. I do not feel sorry for Jon Burge. I do not feel sorry for him.”
By KATIE FRETLAND and RACHEL CROMIDAS
June 28, 2010
Jon Burge, the former Chicago Police commander at the center of the city’s decades long police torture scandal, was convicted today on federal charges of obstruction of justice and perjury. He faces up to 45 years in prison
Burge, 62, was expressionless as the verdict was read. He was found guilty of lying under oath in a 2003 civil court case about the torture of African American police suspects in the 1970’s and ’80’s. The jury — seven men and five women, including one African American– began deliberations at 3 p.m. Thursday. Their verdict marks the first criminal conviction of a cop in the police torture scandal. A report of a suspect being tortured by Chicago police first surfaced in 1973.
Juror Gary Dollinger, 31, said the testimonies of a former detective who was granted immunity and a convicted killer who died while in prison were crucial to his vote for conviction.
“I think it was first there was an overwhelming amount of evidence pointing to the fact that he was lying on his statements and there was some torture going on at Area 2 to coerce statements, between Andrew Wilson and Mike McDermott’s testimonies … those were the two biggest things that really pushed me over the top,” Dollinger, the CEO of an IT consultancy, said.
McDermott, Dollinger said, “he gets on the stand he looks a little scared when he’s up there, he’s got a lot on the line, they’re threatening to cut his pension, cut his health benefits lose his job.”
McDermott is a former police detective who testified he saw Burge point his gun in the direction of the area where a suspect was and that he saw Burge hold something to the suspect’s face. McDermott was an unhappy witness, who said he feared being charged with perjury and obstruction of justice if he did not recall details of the 1985 incident as the prosecution wanted him to.
McDermott’s testimony was inconsistent with his grand jury testimony.
“He changed his statement, but he never said no, there was no brutality,” Dollinger said. “[Burge] still pointed a gun and something plastic over his face.”
“All people who care about justice had a major victory today,” said Flint Taylor, an attorney for many of Burge’s accusers.
Burge attorney Bill Gamboney said he was “very disappointed and somewhat surprised” by the verdict.
“We’re starting to muster our resources together for a motion for a new trial and ultimately an appeal if it comes to that,” Gamboney said.
Burge supporter Jim Knightly, a retired Chicago police captain, vented his disappointment with the verdict.
“That they would take the word of convicted felons over a highly-decorated police officer,” Knightly said. “I’m sure Flint Taylor, the liberal attorney who has been hounding him for years, is happy. I hope he can sleep at night.”
“I’m glad it’s over,” said Ald. Ed Smith (28th), who sat through much of the trial. “This has been a great concern for a lot of people. It’s a case that has caused a black eye on the city.”
Smith said that the verdict should open the door for the release of Burge accusers who are currently imprisoned.
More than 100 people have accused Burge and officers under his command of torturing them during the 1970’s and 1980’s. The men said they were electroshocked, suffocated with plastic bags, subjected to mock executions, beaten and burned. The allegations contributed to the decision to place a moratorium on executions in Illinois, and Chicago agreed to a nearly $20 million settlement to four men who were pardoned.
Prosecutors never filed charges of assault or attempted murder and the statute of limitations has since run out.
Mark Clements, 45, cried in front of reporters in courthouse lobby Monday. He said detectives under Burge pulled on his genitals until he confessed to four murders and an arson. He served 28 years.
“I was 16 years old and these people stole my [expletive] life,” he sobbed. “I hate to tell you the truth. I sat in a prison cell, and I prayed for this day. Today is a victory for every poor person. I was 16 years old. This is America. Sixteen years old. What are we gonna do about other people who are sitting in those prisons.”
More than 20 people who claim they were tortured remain incarcerated in Illinois.
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said the jury’s decision was a measure of justice, and that it was sad that it took until 2010 to reach a criminal court of law.
“What’s clear is that the jury necessarily found that torture occurred in Chicago police stations at Area 2 in the 1980’s and it’s a disgrace that in this city in the 1980’s people could be subjected to abuse and torture ranging from guns to the face, guns in mouths. Suffocating, electric shocks, radiator burns and that sort of thing.”
“We need to have it on the record that this happened,” Fitzgerald said. “We need to treat it as a fact that it was proved and recognize that it was an awful thing before we can move forward.”
During the past month’s trial, federal prosecutors called four men to the witness stand to testify they were abused in an effort to prove the perjury and obstruction charges. The jury also heard testimony from Andrew Wilson, who died serving a life sentence for the killings of two police officers.
The defense argued that the police torture claims were fabricated by career criminals for the purpose of getting out of jail, and Burge broke years of silence to testify in his own defense, denying each allegation brought against him during the trial. His lawyers played up his dedication to police work — that he often went out on the street with his officers, looked in on interrogations and spent days working without going home on the case of the killings of two police officers. Burge, ill with cancer, broke down crying on the witness stand talking about that investigation.
Burge joined the police department in 1970 and two years later was assigned as an investigator at Area 2, where many of the alleged victims said they were brutalized by police.
A doctor who saw one man’s injuries in 1982 wrote a letter to then-police superintendent Richard Brzeczek asking for an investigation into a case of possible police brutality. Brzeczek forwarded the letter to Mayor Richard M. Daley, then Cook County State’s Attorney, but charges were never brought against any officers.
Daley’s name was not mentioned during the trial.
The Chicago Police Board fired Burge in 1993, three years after a report by the police department’s Office of Professional Standards sustained Wilson’s accusation that Burge abused him and found evidence of systemic abuse at Area Two.
Taylor said men who worked under Burge could still be prosecuted on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. As of May, a grand jury was hearing matters involving detectives who worked under Burge at Area Two in the 1970’s and 1980’s, according to documents filed in the Burge case.
Fitzgerald declined to comment on that investigation.
Judge Joan Lefkow found that eight people could take the Fifth Amendment and not testify in the Burge case. They are former assistant state’s attorney Larry Hyman and retired police officers Michael Hoke, Thomas McKenna, Ronald Boffo, James Pienta, John Paladino, Dave Dioguardi and Leonard Bajenski.
Clements said he will never get back the time he missed with his daughter.
“My daughter is 29 years old,” he said. “I missed all those years with my daughter sitting in a prison cell for a crime I did not commit. I do not feel sorry for Jon Burge. I do not feel sorry for him.”
Fitzgerald: Burge Verdict is a 'Measure of Justice' from Chicago News Cooperative on Vimeo.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Friday, June 18, 2010
Jon Burge to Take the Stand
This story came from the Chicago News Cooperative blog, Dateline: Chicago. I spent the day in court filling in for my co-worker, Katie Fretland. Early next week I will try to attend and cover the trial's verdict.
By RACHEL CROMIDAS
June 16, 2010
An attorney investigating allegations of police torture under former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge gave testimony Wednesday that contradicts earlier statements from a Cook County Commissioner. The defense plans to call Burge to the stand Thursday.
Attorney Thomas J. Reed testified that Commissioner Larry Suffredin did not recall any abuse allegations when the two spoke in 2005. Suffredin, who was the public defender for alleged torture victim Anthony Holmes, testified earlier in the trial that Holmes told him he had been tortured.
“Mr. Suffredin told me he could not recall any allegations of abuse,” made by Anthony Holmes, Reed testified. Reed said that Holmes’ other former lawyer, William Murphy, did not recall any allegations of abuse during their interview. Reed did not keep any notes from the interviews.
On May 27, Suffredin testified that Holmes, a former high-ranking member of the Black Gangster Disciples, told him through sobs that he had been shocked with electricity and smothered with a plastic bag by Area 2 police trying to force a murder confession in 1973. Suffredin did not file a motion to suppress Holmes’ confession in the original case.
Reed interviewed Suffredin and Murphy as part of a special prosecutor’s investigation into claims of police torture, abuse and brutality under Burge’s watch from 1971 to 1983 Area 2.
The defense brought in two expert witnesses to address allegations that Andrew Wilson, convicted of killing two Area 2 police officers in February of 1982, was electrocuted and burned by a radiator in an Area 2 office while in custody.
Timothy Powell, an operating engineer for the City of Chicago, said the radiators on the second floor of the Burnside Community Center at 9059 S. Cottage Grove, which was once the Area 2 offices, are 2.5 inches apart. The marks on Wilson’s chest were closer together.
Michael Baden, a New York-based physician, forensic pathologist and medical examiner who was paid close to $27,000 to be an expert witness at the trial, said the marks on Wilson’s chest and face featured in the government’s photographic evidence could not have been caused by the radiator. The chest marks were too close together, too old and already scarring by the time the pictures were taken to have been caused within the previous three days, he said.
However, Baden did agree that the injury on Wilson’s thigh was a 2nd degree burn and could have been caused by contact with a radiator, even through the fabric of Wilson’s pants. Baden also agreed that Wilson’s ears exhibited puncture wounds that may have been caused be an alligator clip, but that it was not likely that the alligator clips had been electrified. “There would be burns on his ears,” he said.
Prosecuter David Weisman then had an alligator clip placed on his ear to demonstrate that such clips could stick to part of an individual ear without additional support after Baden speculated that it could not. Just “don’t hook it up to an electrical current,” Baden joked.
A Cook County State’s Attorney who took a homicide confession from an alleged police torture vicitim testified Wednesday that the man said he was treated well by police.
On October 30, 1983, shortly before 2 a.m., Dean Bastounes, now an attorney in private practice in Chicago, answered a police call to Area 2 to take a confession from Gregory Banks, who had been in custody since Oct. 28. (Police are allowed to hold a suspect in custody without charges for a maximum of 72 hours.) Banks testified earlier in the trial that he was tortured by Area 2 police.
“I asked him how he’d been treated by the police. Have you been treated well? ‘Yeah, I been treated well,’ he said.” Banks also said he was given coffee, according to Bastounes.
Bastounes then called a court reporter, Michael Hartman, to record Banks’ statements. According to the court report, which Bastounes read for the jury, Banks told him and Hartman that before the shooting happened, “We was gonna commit a robbery.” He and an accomplice crouched in bushes before Banks jumped a number of passersby and fired his gun. He then ran to 56 West 95th St. and hid the gun on the roof of the building. According to the report, Banks revealed where the gun was hidden to police officers when he was arrested. He told Hartman and Bastounes that he was not forced, coerced, or bribed by police officers to obtain his confession.
When asked if he trusted what the police officers had told him about the crime, Bastounes said his policy is, “Trust but verify. If the police told me something I couldn’t substantiate,” he said, he would ask for more evidence. Bastounes said he did not ask to see the gun or fingerprints as evidence in Banks’ case.
“I think it was fair to say that we [state’s attorneys in the felony review unit] would trust the police,” he said. Bastounes said he never “felt the need” to speak to Banks privately during the interview, and noticed nothing remarkable about Banks’ demeanor during the interview. Banks’ arms, back and legs were covered by a long sleeve shirt and pants.
“I guess common sense would tell me that if someone had been beaten I would tell them they had the right to remain silent. Maybe someone would blurt out ‘I’ve been beaten!’, maybe they wouldn’t.” Bastounes said no one had ever suggested to him that they had been the subject of police abuse.
The second witness of the day, Kathleen Warnick, who also worked as an Assistant States Attorney in the early 1980s’, testified that she visited Area 2 on Feb. 14, 1982 to assist her supervisors in obtaining a court reports on the shooting of two police officers. Warnick denied witnessing any violent acts or screams of horror while in Area 2. She said didn’t see Andrew Wilson or Jackie Wilson being taken out of the building.
Katie Fretland contributed reporting
By RACHEL CROMIDAS
June 16, 2010
An attorney investigating allegations of police torture under former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge gave testimony Wednesday that contradicts earlier statements from a Cook County Commissioner. The defense plans to call Burge to the stand Thursday.
Attorney Thomas J. Reed testified that Commissioner Larry Suffredin did not recall any abuse allegations when the two spoke in 2005. Suffredin, who was the public defender for alleged torture victim Anthony Holmes, testified earlier in the trial that Holmes told him he had been tortured.
“Mr. Suffredin told me he could not recall any allegations of abuse,” made by Anthony Holmes, Reed testified. Reed said that Holmes’ other former lawyer, William Murphy, did not recall any allegations of abuse during their interview. Reed did not keep any notes from the interviews.
On May 27, Suffredin testified that Holmes, a former high-ranking member of the Black Gangster Disciples, told him through sobs that he had been shocked with electricity and smothered with a plastic bag by Area 2 police trying to force a murder confession in 1973. Suffredin did not file a motion to suppress Holmes’ confession in the original case.
Reed interviewed Suffredin and Murphy as part of a special prosecutor’s investigation into claims of police torture, abuse and brutality under Burge’s watch from 1971 to 1983 Area 2.
The defense brought in two expert witnesses to address allegations that Andrew Wilson, convicted of killing two Area 2 police officers in February of 1982, was electrocuted and burned by a radiator in an Area 2 office while in custody.
Timothy Powell, an operating engineer for the City of Chicago, said the radiators on the second floor of the Burnside Community Center at 9059 S. Cottage Grove, which was once the Area 2 offices, are 2.5 inches apart. The marks on Wilson’s chest were closer together.
Michael Baden, a New York-based physician, forensic pathologist and medical examiner who was paid close to $27,000 to be an expert witness at the trial, said the marks on Wilson’s chest and face featured in the government’s photographic evidence could not have been caused by the radiator. The chest marks were too close together, too old and already scarring by the time the pictures were taken to have been caused within the previous three days, he said.
However, Baden did agree that the injury on Wilson’s thigh was a 2nd degree burn and could have been caused by contact with a radiator, even through the fabric of Wilson’s pants. Baden also agreed that Wilson’s ears exhibited puncture wounds that may have been caused be an alligator clip, but that it was not likely that the alligator clips had been electrified. “There would be burns on his ears,” he said.
Prosecuter David Weisman then had an alligator clip placed on his ear to demonstrate that such clips could stick to part of an individual ear without additional support after Baden speculated that it could not. Just “don’t hook it up to an electrical current,” Baden joked.
A Cook County State’s Attorney who took a homicide confession from an alleged police torture vicitim testified Wednesday that the man said he was treated well by police.
On October 30, 1983, shortly before 2 a.m., Dean Bastounes, now an attorney in private practice in Chicago, answered a police call to Area 2 to take a confession from Gregory Banks, who had been in custody since Oct. 28. (Police are allowed to hold a suspect in custody without charges for a maximum of 72 hours.) Banks testified earlier in the trial that he was tortured by Area 2 police.
“I asked him how he’d been treated by the police. Have you been treated well? ‘Yeah, I been treated well,’ he said.” Banks also said he was given coffee, according to Bastounes.
Bastounes then called a court reporter, Michael Hartman, to record Banks’ statements. According to the court report, which Bastounes read for the jury, Banks told him and Hartman that before the shooting happened, “We was gonna commit a robbery.” He and an accomplice crouched in bushes before Banks jumped a number of passersby and fired his gun. He then ran to 56 West 95th St. and hid the gun on the roof of the building. According to the report, Banks revealed where the gun was hidden to police officers when he was arrested. He told Hartman and Bastounes that he was not forced, coerced, or bribed by police officers to obtain his confession.
When asked if he trusted what the police officers had told him about the crime, Bastounes said his policy is, “Trust but verify. If the police told me something I couldn’t substantiate,” he said, he would ask for more evidence. Bastounes said he did not ask to see the gun or fingerprints as evidence in Banks’ case.
“I think it was fair to say that we [state’s attorneys in the felony review unit] would trust the police,” he said. Bastounes said he never “felt the need” to speak to Banks privately during the interview, and noticed nothing remarkable about Banks’ demeanor during the interview. Banks’ arms, back and legs were covered by a long sleeve shirt and pants.
“I guess common sense would tell me that if someone had been beaten I would tell them they had the right to remain silent. Maybe someone would blurt out ‘I’ve been beaten!’, maybe they wouldn’t.” Bastounes said no one had ever suggested to him that they had been the subject of police abuse.
The second witness of the day, Kathleen Warnick, who also worked as an Assistant States Attorney in the early 1980s’, testified that she visited Area 2 on Feb. 14, 1982 to assist her supervisors in obtaining a court reports on the shooting of two police officers. Warnick denied witnessing any violent acts or screams of horror while in Area 2. She said didn’t see Andrew Wilson or Jackie Wilson being taken out of the building.
Katie Fretland contributed reporting
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