On October 14, 2026, the Chicago City Council unanimously approved a $260.8 million settlement in more than a dozen wrongful-conviction lawsuits tied to corrupt Chicago Police Detective Reynaldo Guevara.
The deal, which is the largest police misconduct settlement in U.S. history, brings long awaited restitution to 17 men for the nearly 400 years they spent wrongly imprisoned for murders they did not commit.
Reynaldo Guevara joined the Chicago Police Department in 1973, and was promoted to Detective in 1990. Over two decades, Guevara framed dozens of innocent people, specifically targeting and terrorizing families in the Humboldt Park neighborhood of Chicago. More than 50 innocent people have had their criminal convictions thrown out because of Guevara’s misconduct. Guevara has asserted his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself in response to questions about his investigations in these cases.
Over the past decade, civil lawsuits brought by individuals wrongfully convicted by Guevara have cost the City of Chicago hundreds of millions of dollars in verdicts, settlements, and attorneys’ fees, as the City has fought nearly every case to trial. Today’s settlement represents a change in approach. By settling now, the City of Chicago ensures justice for the victims of Guevara’s misconduct, while making a sound financial decision in the best interests of City taxpayers. The City estimates that today’s settlement will save taxpayers between $300 and 400 million.
“Today is a great day for justice.” — Attorney Steve Art
“Today is a great day for justice,” said Steve Art, a partner at Loevy + Loevy, which represents all 17 plaintiffs. “The City of Chicago has agreed to a historic settlement that provides long overdue closure to the victims of Guevara’s misconduct. In addition, this settlement will save Chicago taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, which otherwise would have been wasted defending Reynaldo Guevara’s indefensible misconduct in court.”
“This settlement is a landmark acknowledgement by the City of Chicago that what happened here should never happen again.” — Attorney Anand Swaminathan
“Reynaldo Guevara destroyed the lives of countless young men and women, their families, and the entire Chicago community that he terrorized,” said Anand Swaminathan, another of the plaintiffs’ attorneys. “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. But this settlement is a landmark acknowledgement by the City of Chicago that what happened here should never happen again.”
For the 17 plaintiffs—whose cases go as far back as 1987, and some of whose lawsuits have been pending for nearly a decade—the settlement represents a chance to move on from a nightmare that defined decades of their lives.
Antonio Spraggs, for example, was just 21 in 1997, when Guevara picked him to take the fall for a murder he had nothing to do with, fabricating a case against him and suppressing exculpatory evidence. Spraggs was sentenced to 59 years, and he served 23 before his conviction was overturned.
“This isn’t about money, it’s about justice.” — Antonio Spraggs
“This isn’t about money, it’s about justice,” said Spraggs, who emphasized that the most important thing to him is showing the world who Guevara really is. “A person with morals, a person with values, wouldn’t do that. It would eat you up to do it.” Spraggs was framed because he refused Guevara’s demand that Spraggs falsely identify an innocent man in another shooting.
Tyrece Williams spent 20 years wrongly imprisoned for the murder of a man he never even laid eyes on.
“I don’t know why they picked me, that’s something I’m still trying to figure out,” said Williams. “Why did you take me from my family? Because it hurts. All those years.” In the two decades he was wrongly imprisoned, Williams lost several family members, and he missed getting to see his four children grow up. “My kids, they kept me strong,” he says. “Because I had something to live for, I couldn’t just give up. You have to keep fighting, so that’s what I did.”
“To make sure this never happens again, we must understand that Guevara was a symptom of a much bigger problem: a culture of impunity within the Chicago Police Department.” — Attorney Russell Ainsworth
Tyrece’s youngest son is now an officer with the Chicago Police Department. Tyrece believes the system can change, and that cases like his can help bring about that change.
“We must understand that this is not just a Guevara problem,” said attorney Russell Ainsworth. “He had long-time partners and Area 5 detectives he worked with every day. He had sergeants and lieutenants who sat right outside the interrogation rooms where he and his partners beat and coerced his victims. No one stopped it. Instead, they worked with him to frame innocent men, because they all knew they could get away with it. To make sure this never happens again, we must understand that Guevara was a symptom of a much bigger problem: a culture of impunity within the Chicago Police Department.”
Guevara retired from the force in 2005, after 32 years, and continues to draw a pension from the City of Chicago. The Chicago Police Department never disciplined Guevara for his investigative misconduct in any of the cases where he framed innocent men and women for murder.
The 17 plaintiffs in this settlement include Eruby Abrego, Robert Bouto, Edwin Davila, Johnny Flores, David Gecht, Juan Hernandez, Rosendo Hernandez, Thomas Kelly, Richard Kwil, David Kruger, David Lugo, John Martinez, Antonio Spraggs, Edwin Ortiz, Gamalier Rivera, Louis Robinson, and Tyrece Williams.