Man who spent 29 years in prison before murder-arson conviction overturned is up for $7.25 million settlement with city of Chicago

A City Council committee advanced a $7.25 million settlement Wednesday for a man who served nearly 30 years in prison for a double murder conviction that was ultimately overturned.

The award was the largest out of almost $10 million in total settlements the Finance Committee sent to the full council, which will vote on them next week. The committee in a unanimous voice vote approved the payout to Arthur Brown, who was exonerated in recent years after initially being found guilty of a 1988 fatal fire on Chicago’s South Side.

If finalized, the $10 million in police settlements will be the first under the new City Council and Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration. Ald. Pat Dowell, Johnson’s handpicked Finance chair, oversaw Wednesday’s votes during her first meeting presiding over the powerful committee that vets all settlements from the city, including tens of millions in Chicago police misconduct and other public safety-related lawsuits every year.

In 2022, the city paid out more than $100 million in Chicago police settlements, according to the Department of Law’s portal.

Now 72, Brown was convicted of the double murder and arson and sentenced to life in prison after a trial in which he testified that Chicago police beat him into a false confession over a suspicious fire in a video store that spread to a neighboring shop and killed two people. Brown, then 37, had installed front and back doors with burglar bars at the video store, and he testified that he went to secure a door of the building and then left, court documents show.

Years later, another man, James Bell, confessed to the arson, leading to Brown being granted a second trial. But a jury found Bell’s testimony unconvincing, while prosecutors alleged that the two colluded to fabricate the story while both were in prison together. Brown was again convicted of the double murder and sentenced to life in prison.

In 2017, a Cook County judge tossed out Brown’s conviction and ordered another retrial on the conclusion that prosecutors made false arguments, to which prosecutors said they would fight until reversing course. After one of Brown’s lawyers appealed directly to State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, her office announced that November prosecutors were dropping charges against Brown. Following 29 years of imprisonment, Brown was released from custody later that day.

All three detectives involved in interrogating Brown are now deceased.

Brown’s legal team indicated he would ask for $60 million in trial. He also has a separate, pending settlement of $7.25 million with Cook County, the city’s corporation counsel said in recommending the city compensation.

Also during Wednesday’s Finance meeting, aldermen advanced a $1 million settlement with the mother of Sharell Brown (no relation), who was fatally shot by a Chicago police officer in 2019 following a foot chase in Lawndale. That settlement had been scheduled for a vote earlier this year under then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot but was delayed as some council members grumbled about the payout given the fact that Brown was armed during the shooting.

Aldermen Nicholas Sposato, Chris Taliaferro, Bill Conway, Marty Quinn and Nicole Lee voted no after a brief discussion in which some committee members, such as Ald. Jeanette Taylor, complained that the city’s corporation counsel was not answering questions for her and the public about the officer’s disciplinary issues or other matters that city attorney Victoria Benson said were “privileged information.”

Though a pistol was recovered, the officer who fatally wounded Brown, Joseph Lisciandrello, failed to comply with the department’s body camera protocol, the Civilian Officer of Police Accountability ruled, and the shooting was not recorded. COPA recommended in 2021 that Lisciandrello be suspended 180 days, of which he served five days in March, a CPD spokesperson confirmed. He remains employed by the Police Department.

Ahead of the vote, Taylor expressed frustration that Benson would not say what Lisciandrello’s explanation was for turning off his body camera.

“What is the purpose of them having that camera if they’re going to cut it off and there’s no explanation for that whatsoever?” Taylor said.

The Finance Committee also approved a $550,000 settlement to Joshua Habasek-Bonelli, who alleged in his lawsuit that Chicago police Officer Marco Simonetti tased him while he was unarmed, leading to his hospitalization. Simonetti was charged with aggravated battery and official misconduct last year in connection to the incident, and he has pleaded not guilty. He resigned from the Police Department in January.

Lastly, aldermen advanced a $400,000 payment to Lana Triplett, who sued the city after being injured in a 2018 car crash with former 45th Ward Streets and Sanitation superintendent Adam Corona.