A federal jury has found that disgraced former Chicago police Detective Reynaldo Guevara coerced a confession and manipulated evidence in a 1989 murder case, awarding $750,000 to a former Latin Kings gang member who spent 17 years in prison for the crime.
After a three-week trial that featured Guevara invoking his constitutional rights against self-incrimination, the jury late Thursday found in favor of the plaintiff, Jaime Rios, on six of seven counts against Guevara, including that he fabricated information from confidential informants, coerced Rios’ confession, and withheld evidence from Rios’ criminal trial that he’d beaten a key witness.
The jury rejected, however, the request from plaintiffs’ attorneys for a whopping $40 million in damages, awarding only $750,000 in compensatory damages, which the city must pay, and no money in punitive damages against Guevara himself…