A federal appellate court unanimously ruled to uphold the 2010 perjury conviction of Jon Burge, maintaining its view that the disgraced former Chicago police commander lied about torturing suspects in his custody.
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals noted the “irony” of Burge's complaint — calling him a “liar” responsible for “decades of abuse that is unquestionably horrific,” the Sun-Times reports.
Monday, the court rejected the 64-year-old Burge's appeal saying no errors were committed by the lower court and that Burge got a fair trial, the Associated Press reports.
According to the Tribune, the 23-page opinion written by the three-judge panel said at the behest of Burge and his detectives, victims were “were suffocated with plastic bags, electrocuted until they lost consciousness, held down against radiators, and had loaded guns pointed at their heads during rounds of Russian roulette.”
Some of the victims who say had been tortured into giving false confessions have since been exonerated — and in many cases, compensated. This year alone the city has already surpassed the $27 million mark in monies it had set aside for settlements in lawsuits against the department.
Many of the payouts stem from victim's harmed under Burge's tenure.
Since his 2010 conviction, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has fought to see Burge stripped of his $3,000 a month police pension, but the motion to rehear the issue was denied in January.
Burge is currently serving a 4 1/2 year sentence and is expected to be released on Valentine's Day of 2015.
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