Prosecutors: Burge should spend decades in prison

By Andy Grimm, Tribune reporter
Federal prosecutors will seek at least 24 years in prison for disgraced former Chicago police Cmdr. Jon Burge, saying his torture of criminal suspects decades ago shook public confidence in law enforcement and the criminal justice system.
Such a stiff sentence for Burge's conviction on perjury and obstruction of justice is sure to stir debate at his sentencing Jan. 20. The probation office has recommended that Burge face 15 to 21 months in prison under federal sentencing guidelines, while his lawyers have said they would seek probation, noting that when Burge was convicted when he was 62 and had prostate cancer.
In court papers filed last week, prosecutors disputed the probation office's findings, saying Burge deserved a sentence of about 24 to 30 years under the sentencing guidelines. The government cited the "stain" that Burge's torture of suspects left on the department and the more than $30 million the city has spent on lawyers and payouts to Burge's victims as a result of many lawsuits.
"Defendant's criminal acts have tainted and prejudiced the thousands of hard-working dedicated police officers who have followed in Burge's polluted wake," Assistant U.S. Attorneys David Weisman and April Perry wrote in the filing. "These officers also have faced trying circumstances, and have had to confront society's ills. But unlike the defendant, the majority of these officers did not succumb to the principle that the ends justify the means."
A jury convicted Burge in June on all three counts of obstruction of justice and perjury for lying in a 2003 civil lawsuit when he denied he knew of or took part in torture under his command at the Calumet Area headquarters on the city's South Side.
For years it looked as if Burge would escape criminal charges altogether. He was fired from the Police Department in 1993 for torturing a cop killer, but a four-year investigation by special Cook County prosecutors concluded in 2006 that the statute of limitations on the claims of abuse had long passed. It wasn't until 2008 that federal prosecutors figured out a way to indict him — not for the tortures themselves, but for lying about them.
At Burge's trial, five ex-cons alleged torture by Burge's "Midnight Crew" of detectives in the 1970s and 1980s. According to the testimony, Burge smothered one with a bag, played Russian roulette with another and shocked a third on the genitals with an electrical device the detectives used because it inflicted pain but "left no marks" on the suspect, prosecutors said. The abuse tainted dozens of criminal investigations.
Burge's attorney did not return a call Monday seeking comment. At his trial, his attorneys suggested that the decorated veteran officer was heroic, a notion attacked by prosecutors in their latest filing.
"He was no hero. Rather, the men and women who … honorably and honestly serve the community are the heroes," they wrote. "Perhaps these officers were not promoted through the ranks as quickly as the defendant was, and perhaps they were not present at press conferences promoting their own ill-obtained achievements, but they were, and are, heroes because they serve with honor and integrity."