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Feds Charge Ex-Chicago Police Boss In Torture Case

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By JOSH POLTILOVE, The Tampa Tribune

and KRISTA KLAUS, News Channel 8

Published: October 21, 2008

Updated: 10/21/2008 05:03 pm

TAMPA - A former Chicago police commander has been arrested at his Apollo Beach home on federal charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.

Jon Burge lied about whether he and other officers he supervised participated in torture of one or more people in custody, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Burge, 60, was arrested by FBI agents from Tampa and Chicago and charged with two counts of obstruction of justice and one count of perjury.

"The charges allege that Burge lied and impeded court proceedings in November 2003, when he provided false written answers to questions – known as interrogatories – in a civil lawsuit alleging that he and others tortured and abused people in their custody," a Justice Department news release states.

Burge appeared in Tampa federal court today and will be formally arraigned Monday morning in Chicago.

He was released from jail on $250,000 bond. Prosecutors asked a judge today for Burge to be required to wear an electronic monitoring device; the judge said that wasn't necessary. The judge told Burge to turn over his passport and guns.

Dave Couvertier, an FBI spokesman in Tampa, referred questions to federal investigators in Chicago.

Randall Samborn, an assistant U.S. attorney in Chicago, said prosecutors needed to file charges within five years of November 2003 to be within the statute of limitations.

In the release, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, said police stations should not be a place for abuse and that there is no place for perjury in court, either.

"According to these charges, Jon Burge shamed his uniform and shamed his badge," Fitzgerald said this morning in Chicago at a news conference.

Burge hasn't worn a police uniform or badge for 15 years, and people shouldn't assume all officers commit torture, he said.

A Chicago police spokeswoman could not immediately be reached.

The investigation is ongoing.

In 2003, Illinois' governor pardoned four death row inmates he said had been tortured into false confessions in the 1980s. Each of the four had been on death row at least a dozen years. The men said members of a unit Burge ran had tortured them and they confessed to stop the abuse.

The city spent about $20 million settling those cases.

The Center on Wrongful Convictions, based at Northwestern University, represented Leroy Orange, one of the four men freed from death row.

Orange was convicted in May 1985 of killing two women, a man and a child, and he spent 17 years behind bars before being pardoned, said Rob Warden, the organization's director.

When Orange was arrested in January 1984, Burge and other officers beat him, used a typewriter cover to suffocate him and shocked him with a cattle prod, Warden said.

"Nobody emerges from an experience like this whole," Warden said. "I've met several victims of Burge's torture, and they have all been absolutely profoundly affected by this."

Richard T. Sikes Jr. represented Burge in civil cases but isn't representing him on the new charges. He told The Tampa Tribune today that due to attorney-client privilege, he couldn't discuss conversations he had with Burge regarding torture allegations.

Sikes said he was prepared if the civil cases would have gone to trial.

"But the city made the decision to settle," Sikes said. "It was their money, so it was their right."

According to The Associated Press, a 2006 report by prosecutors appointed by a Cook County, Ill., judge to investigate torture allegations said many alleged cases of police abuse were too old or weak to prosecute.

The report went into graphic detail about the alleged torture of Andrew Wilson, a convicted murderer of two Chicago police officers.

Wilson told investigators that officers kicked and beat him, burned his arm with a cigarette and put a plastic bag over his head. Wilson alleged that an officer then pulled out a black box with a crank on it. He said alligator clips were attached to his left ear and left nostril, and he received a shock when an officer cranked the box. Wilson said Burge also cranked the box to shock him and then put a gun in Wilson's mouth and clicked it.

Burge was a Chicago police officer from 1970 to 1993.

He was a sergeant from 1977 to 1980 and a lieutenant and supervisor of detectives for a violent crimes unit from 1981 to 1986.

He became a Bomb and Arson Unit commander and later led another group of detectives.

The department suspended him in 1991 and fired him in 1993, according to the release.

"The indictment alleges that, on one or more occasions … Burge was present for, or participated in, the torture and physical abuse of persons in police custody," the release states.

If convicted on the federal charges, he faces up to 20 years in prison on each obstruction of justice charge and up to five years in prison for perjury.

Doug Tjapkes, president of Humanity for Prisoners, a Michigan-based group focused on helping with prison advocacy, including the wrongly convicted, said he was heartened by Burge's arrest.

"I think the negative side of this is it paints a picture that cops are brutal, and I'd say a great majority of them are absolutely doing a wonderful job in dealing with a segment of society that many times isn't pleasant to deal with," he said. "That gives no right to that small percentage of officers to treat people, regardless of what they've done, this way."

The ACLU of Illinois, among other organizations, has long pushed for Burge's arrest. It took years, ACLU spokesman Ed Yohnka said, but justice finally was served.

"The system of justice sometimes moves incredibly slowly," he said. "What one hopes for is that it moves in the right direction. We certainly think today was a move in the right direction."

Burge bought his Apollo Beach home in 1994.

Asked about Burge today, Sharon Geth of Apollo Beach said he was a good neighbor.

Information from The Associated Press and NBC 5 TV in Chicago were used in this report. Tribune researcher Stephanie Pincus contributed to this report. Reporter Josh Poltilove can be reached at (813) 259-7691

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