(MintPress) — Tortured for four days by former Chicago Police Chief Jon Burge until he confessed to the rape and murder of 42-year-old Betty Howard in 1986, Michael Tillman, along with David Fauntleroy, have been awarded a combined $7.17 million by Chicago courts for being mistreated by police. Taxpayers in Chicago are responsible for footing the bill, including the litigation fees, which brings the total owed to about $40 million.
Tillman was 20-years-old when Chicago police questioned him regarding Howard’s murder. This came after her body was found in a vacant apartment building where Tillman lived and worked as a maintenance man. Tillman says he confessed to the murder and spent the next 23 years in prison, even though he appealed to judges that his confession was a result of duress, and police found evidence linking another man to Howard’s murder in 1991.
“They put a bag over [Tillman’s] head to suffocate him. They beat him bloody with a telephone book. They took him outside the police station by some railroad tracks, put a gun to his head and threatened to kill him,” said Flint Taylor, Tillman’s attorney. Charges against Tillman were later dropped in 2010.
Similarly, Fauntleroy was charged with double murder in 1983 and spent 25 years in jail before his case was dropped in 2009.
Unfortunately for Chicago, this most recent lawsuit is not the only one involving Burge. The city has already paid more than $33 million on high-profile legal cases linked to Burge’s misdemeanor and abuse of power. Of the $33 million spent so far, $18 million has gone toward settlements.
Burge is currently serving a four-and-a-half year jail sentence at Butner Federal Correctional Complex in North Carolina for obstruction of justice and lying about torturing suspects, but Burge is not serving time for the actual torture he inflicted. When Burge was sent to jail in March 2011, the Huffington Post reported that a special prosecutor concluded in 2006 that nothing could be done to Burge and the other police officers who tortured suspects to get confessions because the statute of limitations had lapsed.
According to a 2007 report from Human Rights at Home (HRH), about 135 African-Americans were arrested and tortured by Burge between 1972 and 1991, some as young as 13-years-old. HRH says Burge used electric shock to the ears and genitalia, mock execution, suffocation and burning tactics to “extract confessions.”
Despite having a reputation synonymous with torture and police brutality, Burge continues to receive his $3,000 monthly pension. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan filed a suit when Burge was sent to prison to end his pension, but the effort failed when the Retirement Board of the Policemen’s Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago voted 4-4 on the issue.
Those on the board who voted in favor of Burge, all police officers, argued he should keep his pension, as the felony conviction involved a testimony Burge gave after he was retired. Illinois state law says pensions can be stripped if there is a direct issue “relating to, arising out of or in connection” with official duties, but because Burge was retired, the officers on the board argued he should keep be allowed to keep it.
In response to Burge’s victory regarding his pension, Madigan said, “Jon Burge forfeited his right to a public pension when he lied about his knowledge of and participation in the torture and physical abuse of suspects. It’s this type of criminal conduct by a public servant that our pension forfeiture laws were designed to discourage. The public should never have to pay for the retirement of a corrupt public official.”
MintPress sent a request for an interview to the Chicago Police Department, but our inquiry was not returned.