A former senior Chicago police commander was sentenced to 4.5 years prison for lying about police torture and abuse, the US Justice Department said Friday. Former Chicago Police Department Commander Jon Burge, 63, had long been accused of torturing murder suspects - virtually all African-Americans - to obtain confessions during his long career that ended in 1993.
He is being sent to prison "for lying in a deposition in a civil case about torture and abuse of suspects by Chicago Police Department officers," the Department of Justice said. In June Burge was convicted on two counts of obstruction of justice and one count of perjury for lying in a 2003 civil case.
"In those answers, Burge denied ever using, or being aware of other officers using, any type of improper coercion, physical abuse or torture with suspects who were in custody at Chicago Police Department's Area Two," the statement read. "However, evidence at trial showed that Burge abused multiple victims in Area Two, suffocating them with plastic bags; shocking them with electrical devices; and placing a loaded gun to their heads."
Burge had a 23-year career with the Chicago Police Department, rising to the rank of commander before he was fired over the abuse allegations. Special prosecutors were appointed in 2002 to investigate the abuse, but after four years concluded that the statute of limitations had expired on the claims.
A pending civil suit served as the basis for the current federal charges. "Burge abused his power and betrayed the public trust by abusing suspects in his custody, and then by lying under oath to cover up what he and other officers had done," said Thomas Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division.
Patrick Fitzgerald, the US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois - famous for investigating the Valerie Plame case that led to the conviction of vice president Dick Cheney's chief of staff Scooter Libby for perjury - also worked on the case. The sentence ends "the decades of denials that torture of suspects in police custody occurred," Fitzgerald said.