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Chicago approves $90M payout over disgraced ex-sergeant who framed hundreds for drug crimes
The settlement resolves 176 lawsuits involving 180 wrongfully convicted people who spent nearly 200 years in prison, addressing decades of civil rights violations.
The Chicago City Council unanimously approved a $90 million settlement for nearly 200 civil rights violations involving a disgraced former police sergeant who framed people for drug crimes they didn't commit.
The settlement closes out 176 lawsuits involving 180 wrongfully convicted people who spent close to 200 years combined behind bars, marking an end to one of the Chicago Police Department's darkest chapters.
Disgraced former police Sgt. Ronald Watts and the unit he led for nearly a decade until 2012 was accused of planting drugs on suspects, falsifying police reports and falsely accusing housing project residents and others of drug crimes unless they paid the officers off.