Chicago taxpayers might soon have to pay $9.5 million to a man who spent 19 years in prison after he was wrongfully convicted of murder.<\/p>\n
Attorneys for the city’s Law Department have recommended the settlement to the City Council Finance Committee, which is scheduled to vote on the deal on Monday.<\/p>\n
Carl Reed was sentenced to 27 years in prison in 2005 for the killing of 66-year-old Kim Van Vo, who had been stabbed 11 times in his apartment at an assisted living facility.<\/p>\n
Reed suffers from severe cognitive difficulties and learning disabilities, and according to his lawsuit, police obtained his confession after “shackling him to a wall on a bare, metal bench for 55 hours\u2014denying him diabetes medication, physically beating him, and psychologically torturing him until he signed a prewritten confession that he could not even read.”<\/p>\n
“Significantly, Mr. Reed was so vulnerable and unsophisticated that he believed he was signing release papers when he signed the prewritten ‘confession.’ While receiving emergency medical attention at the Cook County Jail for his blood sugar, he expressed that he did not know why he was incarcerated,” the lawsuit states.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit claims the lead detective, Richard Zuley, has “a truly disturbing track record of procuring false confessions.”<\/p>\n
It also noted that no physical evidence tied Reed to Van Vo’s murder, stating Reed had no blood on his clothes and no injuries on his hands, even though Van Vo was stabbed to death with a five-inch blade with no handle.<\/p>\n
After his conviction, forensic testing of evidence at the crime scene \u2013 including the knife blade, a towel covering Van Vo’s face, and hairs in Van Vo’s hands \u2013 could not be linked to Reed.<\/p>\n
In April 2020, Gov. JB Pritzker commuted Reed’s sentence, and three years later, Cook County prosecutors agreed to drop all charges against him.<\/p>\n
If the settlement with Reed is approved by the Finance Committee on Monday, a final vote by the full City Council could come on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
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