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Victim Wants Prison Time For Burge

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Jon Burge

Former Chicago Police Lt. Jon Burge (Credit: Charles Rex Arbogast/AP)

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CHICAGO (WBBM/CBS) – Former Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge is hoping a judge will go easy on him in sentencing next week, but a man who claims to have been a Burge torture victim wants to see him go away for a long time.

As WBBM Newsradio 780′s Mike Krauser reports, Burge was found to have tortured confessions out of suspects, but could only be convicted of lying about the torture due to statutes of limitations.

LISTEN: Newsradio 780′s Mike Krauser reports


More than 100 victims have said the torture started in the 1970s and persisted until the 1990s at police stations on the city’s South and West sides.

Gregory Smith was convicted of murder and sent away. But the murder was later proved by DNA to have been committed by the man who pointed at Smith as the suspect.

Smith had the confession scared out of him, he says.

“Put a gun to my head, slapped me, made me confess to something that I didn’t do,” he said.

Smith was in prison for 20 years, from 1981 until 2001.

Burge could be sentenced to 30 years behind bars, having been convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice on June 28, 2010, for lying in a civil suit when he denied committing or witnessing torture

But Burge’s lawyers are asking for months. Smith says that would be unfair.

“All the time that all the people did, he should be serving the same time to see how it feels to be locked up for something they didn’t do,” he said.

Smith worked at McCormick Place before he was sent away. Now he is homeless.

“I’m on the street now. I can’t find a job,” he said. “But I’m, still hanging in there, still staying strong.”

Burge is set to be sentenced on Thursday of next week.

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  • Average Guy

    This is a damn shame. This jerk’s lawyers are fighting to keep him out of jail. Between the garbage that he did to the innocent victims, the corrupt Cook County States Attorneys’ Office, and the corrupt court system, it became a railroad to prison for some of these young men. Because most to all of their victims were African-Americans they were assured that these men would serve time in the state prison system. For his actions, Burge should spend the rest of his life in prison.

  • Gee-reg

    How can a person be found guilty of lieing about a crime that was NEVER proven to have happened ??????

  • Street Cop.

    Com Burge was a good man and kept the violent street monkies off the streets,we can use more Com. Burges in the police dept.

    • Violent street monkey

      Maybe you can follow Com. Burge to prison?

  • STEPTOO

    THAT’S A DARN SHAMEYOU HONKIES KILL THE WHOLE HOUSE EVEN THE DOG, JUDGES HUSBANDS, MOTHER YOU UNDISPICIABLE TRASH WATCH WHO YOU ANIMALS CALL MONKEYS

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