While the much higher-profile corruption trial of Rod Blagojevich grabbed headlines, the perjury case against former Chicago police commander Jon Burge is moving steadily forward, with the prosecution expected to finish its arguments this week.
On Tuesday, jurors heard a re-enactment of testimony from a 1989 civil suit, originally given by Andrew Wilson. In it, Wilson described how Burge electrocuted him and burned him on a radiator. An FBI officer read the testimony as images of Wilson, burned, bandaged and cut, were displayed on screens; Wilson died in 2007.
Burge is believed to have tortured hundreds of suspects during his tenure in Area 2, where he served as the Commander of the Violent Crimes Unit from 1981 to 1986. But the statute of limitations in those torture charges has expired; Burge is instead facing perjury charges for testifying under oath that he did not torture any victims or know about such activity.
Wilson, along with many others over the years, says otherwise. From the Tribune, some of Wilson's jarring testimony:
A short time later, Wilson testified, Detective John Yucaitis entered with a black box that had a crank on one side and attached wires to Wilson's nose and ears.
"It shocks you. It makes your teeth grind," Wilson testified. "I hollered and kneed him, kicked him ... between the legs. He punched me in the mouth, (and) he cranked it again. I hollered, and he stopped."
After Wilson refused to give a statement to an assistant state's attorney, he was taken back to the interrogation room.
"Burge came in and said, 'Fun time,'" Wilson testified. With that, he and another detective shocked him repeatedly and pressed him against a hot radiator. Burge later brought out a second device that looked like a curling iron but had a wire sticking out of it, he said.
"He jabbed that in my back, and you got the full jolt," Wilson testified. "He stopped because I was spitting blood."
Other witnesses have already testified about the abuse they suffered at Burge's hands. Anthony Holmes told jurors two weeks ago that Burge "subjected him to repeated shocks and suffocated him with plastic bags until he passed out from the pain and lack of oxygen."
A former lawyer testified that she spoke to Burge in the 1980s about his use of the so-called "black box."
"Other witnesses have testified they were shocked, suffocated and beaten by Burge and his officers until they confessed to crimes they did not commit," reports WGN-TV.
In a setback for the defense, Judge Joan Lefkow handed down an important ruling in the case last week, allowing seven police officers and a former assistant state's attorney to plead the Fifth. Invoking their Fifth-Amendment protection against self-incrimination, the eight men -- all of whom were on Burge's witness list -- will not testify.
And while the defense has also asked for a mistrial in the case, arguing that the prosecution failed to disclose information about one of its witnesses, there has been no progress reported on that motion so far.
If convicted, the ailing 62-year-old could face up to 45 years in prison.