Wrongfully Convicted “Dixmoor 5” Reach $40 Million Settlement With Illinois State Police

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CHICAGO – A $40 million settlement has been reached in a lawsuit filed on behalf of the “Dixmoor 5” – five men wrongly convicted as teenagers and who spent decades in prison for a rape and murder they did not commit.

Attorneys for the five men will hold a news conference at 9 a.m. Wednesday in the lobby of the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse, 219 S. Dearborn St., Chicago.

The settlement was reached with the Illinois State Police, one of the defendants in a suit filed in 2012 and seeking damages for the gross injustices the men suffered. The case continues against the Village of Dixmoor, which has not agreed to settlement terms.

The suit alleged that Illinois State Police and the officers with the south suburban Dixmoor Police Department unconstitutionally coerced false confessions from three of the men—who were all teenage boys at the time—leading to the wrongful conviction of all five in the 1991 rape and murder of 14-year old Cateresa Matthews. DNA evidence ultimately identified the true perpetrator, a convicted sex offender with no connection to any of the wrongfully convicted men, and in 2011 prosecutors finally withdrew charges against the Dixmoor 5.

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