Jon Burge

CHICAGO — Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan filed a lawsuit yesterday to stop a former Chicago police official convicted of lying about the torture of suspects from getting his $3,000-a-month pension. Madigan’s suit names Jon Burge and the Policemen’s Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago, saying that the board violated the state’s pension code last month when it voted not to terminate Burge’s benefits. Burge was sentenced last month to 4 1/2 years in prison after being convicted in June of lying in a civil lawsuit when he said he had never participated in or witnessed the...

CHESTER, Ill. — A man who contended that Chicago police tortured him into confessing to killing a Chicago couple and spent more than 25 years in prison walked out a free man yesterday, eight years after his codefendant was pardoned and freed from the state’s death row by a former Illinois governor. Eric Caine’s release from southwestern Illinois’ Menard Correctional Center followed a judge’s dismissal Wednesday of charges that had landed him a life sentence. “Let me breathe the air — I just want to enjoy this moment right now,’’ Caine, 45, said after walking out of...

CHICAGO — A decorated former Chicago police lieutenant accused of suffocating, shocking, and beating confessions out of scores of suspects was convicted yesterday of federal perjury and obstruction of justice charges for lying about the alleged torture of suspects. Jurors deliberated for parts of three days before finding Jon Burge guilty. Burge faces 45 years in prison. Burge’s name has become synonymous with police brutality and abuse of power in the country’s third-largest city.

CHICAGO — Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan filed a lawsuit yesterday to stop a former Chicago police official convicted of lying about the torture of suspects from getting his $3,000-a-month pension. Madigan’s suit names Jon Burge and the Policemen’s Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago, saying that the board violated the state’s pension code last month when it voted not to terminate Burge’s benefits. Burge was sentenced last month to 4 1/2 years in prison after being convicted in June of lying in a civil lawsuit when he said he had never participated in or witnessed the...

CHICAGO — A decorated former Chicago police officer whose name has become synonymous with police brutality in the city was sentenced yesterday to 4 1/2 years in federal prison for lying about the torture of suspects. Dozens of suspects — almost all of them black men — have claimed for decades that Jon Burge and his officers electrically shocked, suffocated, and beat them into confessing to crimes ranging from armed robbery to murder. After the hearing, several victims and their supporters said the sentence wasn’t nearly stiff enough.

CHESTER, Ill. — A man who contended that Chicago police tortured him into confessing to killing a Chicago couple and spent more than 25 years in prison walked out a free man yesterday, eight years after his codefendant was pardoned and freed from the state’s death row by a former Illinois governor. Eric Caine’s release from southwestern Illinois’ Menard Correctional Center followed a judge’s dismissal Wednesday of charges that had landed him a life sentence. “Let me breathe the air — I just want to enjoy this moment right now,’’ Caine,...

CHICAGO -- Chicago police beat, kicked, shocked, or otherwise tortured scores of black suspects in the 1970s and 1980s to try to extract confessions, prosecutors reported yesterday. However, the prosecutors, who had been appointed by a Cook County judge four years ago to look into torture allegations, said that the cases are too old or too weak to prosecute anyone now. Two prosecutors, Robert D. Boyle and Edward Egan, said they found evidence that police had abused at least half the 148 suspects whose cases were reviewed.

CHICAGO — For decades, black men across Chicago described torture at the hands of former police lieutenant Jon Burge and his officers, and for decades no one listened. Suspects landed in jail and even on death row for crimes they say they didn’t commit after Burge and his men coerced confessions using terrifying methods including suffocation, a form of waterboarding, and electric shocks. Finally those complaints from the 1970s and 1980s are being taken seriously. Jury selection begins today in Burge’s trial on federal obstruction of justice and...

CHICAGO - A former high-ranking Chicago police official was arrested yesterday on charges that he lied when he denied that he and detectives under his command tortured murder suspects, federal officials said. A federal indictment unsealed yesterday accuses former police lieutenant Jon Burge of perjury and obstruction of justice for statements he made in 2003 when answering questions in a civil rights lawsuit. The arrest capped a long-running controversy over allegations that beatings, electric shocks, and death threats were used against suspects at Burge's...

CHICAGO - More than a year after he last wore a badge and months after his boss said he wanted him fired, a policeman videotaped beating a female bartender remains the best-known officer in the Chicago Police Department. Footage of the 250-pound officer punching, kicking, and throwing the 115-pound bartender has aired repeatedly since it first surfaced. It would be embarrassing for any police department, but for Chicago, which has already withstood the humiliation once, it means much more - especially now. As brightly as the media spotlight has shone on the...

CHICAGO — A decorated former Chicago police officer whose name has become synonymous with police brutality in the city was sentenced yesterday to 4 1/2 years in federal prison for lying about the torture of suspects. Dozens of suspects — almost all of them black men — have claimed for decades that Jon Burge and his officers electrically shocked, suffocated, and beat them into confessing to crimes ranging from armed robbery to murder. After the hearing, several victims and their supporters said the sentence wasn’t nearly stiff enough.

CHICAGO — A decorated former Chicago police lieutenant accused of suffocating, shocking, and beating confessions out of scores of suspects was convicted yesterday of federal perjury and obstruction of justice charges for lying about the alleged torture of suspects. Jurors deliberated for parts of three days before finding Jon Burge guilty. Burge faces 45 years in prison. Burge’s name has become synonymous with police brutality and abuse of power in the country’s third-largest city.

CHICAGO — For decades, black men across Chicago described torture at the hands of former police lieutenant Jon Burge and his officers, and for decades no one listened. Suspects landed in jail and even on death row for crimes they say they didn’t commit after Burge and his men coerced confessions using terrifying methods including suffocation, a form of waterboarding, and electric shocks. Finally those complaints from the 1970s and 1980s are being taken seriously. Jury selection begins today in Burge’s trial on federal obstruction of justice and perjury charges.

CHICAGO -- Chicago police beat, kicked, shocked, or otherwise tortured scores of black suspects in the 1970s and 1980s to try to extract confessions, prosecutors reported yesterday. However, the prosecutors, who had been appointed by a Cook County judge four years ago to look into torture allegations, said that the cases are too old or too weak to prosecute anyone now. Two prosecutors, Robert D. Boyle and Edward Egan, said they found evidence that police had abused at least half the 148 suspects whose cases were reviewed.