[permalink]Following a four day trial in federal court, a jury at 7 pm last night [article originally posted August 12] found the Chicago Police Department and Officer Richard Defelice guilty of police brutality in the 1999 beating of 32-year-old Rockford resident Jeremy Kunz. Mr. Kunz was represented by the civil rights law firm of Loevy & Loevy.

Jurors awarded Mr. Kunz a total of $275,000, of which $25,000 was for compensatory damages and $250,000 for punitive damages.

"The jury was outraged by the lies told by the police," said Kunz’s attorney, Jon Loevy. “The police denied everything. Six police eyewitnesses claimed to have been not watching when the beating occurred. The lead police interrogator claimed to never have met Mr. Kunz, and yet he was listed on the Department’s own police report as the arresting officer, and Mr. Kunz picked him out in a line-up. Chicago officers tried to use the ‘code of silence’ to deny justice, and it’s to the credit of this jury that the police didn’t get away with it.”

Read the full article here.