Lawyers want to keep Christina Eilman's family from speaking to media
By David Heinzmann, Chicago Tribune | April 29, 2012
In the wake of a damaging appellate court ruling against the Chicago Police Department, lawyers for Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration have asked a judge to keep the family of a mentally ill California woman from speaking publicly about the case.
The move was prompted by a sharply critical statement Christina Eilman's family issued after the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that their lawsuit could proceed after a two-year delay, a legal opinion that likened police conduct to throwing her in a lion's den.
The family blamed the city's legal maneuvering for dragging out the lawsuit, which seeks as much as $100 million for the devastating injuries Eilman suffered after police released her into one of Chicago's highest-crime neighborhoods. She was sexually assaulted and fell from the seventh-floor window of a public housing building.
City lawyers filed a motion Friday asking U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall to enter a formal gag order in the case after emailing Eilman's lawyer to accuse the family of violating a previous, informal agreement among the parties to not talk to news media.
The family's attorney, Jeffrey Singer, responded that the January 2010 agreement was made in anticipation of a jury trial that was scheduled to start soon in the case, and "all bets were off" once the city filed a last-minute appeal that Kendall warned might simply be a stall tactic, according to a portion of the email exchange that the city attached to its motion Friday.
Although Singer has not himself commented publicly since the agreement, in the interim his clients have made public statements at least twice, including Thursday's written release. However, Singer told city attorney Matthew Hurd in the email that his clients have had no obligation to remain quiet since the city moved to delay the case.
"You guys chose to do this and essentially assured no imminent trial. In my view, all bets were off once the trial date was vacated — over two years ago. That was your decision — not mine," Singer wrote in an email Friday to Hurd.
City officials said they want the judge to clarify whether her informal agreement of should be interpreted as a gag order. "The fact that it was issued orally doesn't make it any less an order," said Roderick Drew, spokesman for the city Law Department.
City lawyers said they planned to appear in court Thursday to argue their motion, but Kendall on Friday scheduled a status hearing in the case for Monday morning.
In the court filing, Hurd noted that the statement by Eilman's parents appeared in a front-page story in Friday's Tribune. The motion also referenced part of a transcript from the hearing in January 2010 when Kendall asked the parties to enter into "a gentleman's and ladies' agreement" to no longer speak to the news media as the parties prepared to pick a jury.
At the time, the city had filed a motion to delay the trial because of publicity. Kendall said she didn't think a delay, or a formal gag order, were necessary but that they would need to question the jury pool "to know whether the jury's read these articles, and the articles are front-page articles with a lot of detail."
The details of the Eilman case shocked many and raised further questions about police oversight at a time when the department was already dealing with multiple misconduct scandals.
Eilman suffered what experts have described as a bipolar breakdown while she was in Chicago in May 2006 and was arrested at Midway Airport. Police took her from the airport to the nearby Chicago Lawn police station. They contacted her parents, who informed officers that her behavior was due to mental illness.
Instead of following department policy requiring a hospital evaluation for mentally ill people in custody, officers booked her and transported her seven miles to a lockup facility in one of the city's highest-crime neighborhoods. The next night, they released her without any direction, and she wandered the neighborhood before being lured into a public housing high-rise.
Eilman's catastrophic injuries included a severe brain injury with permanent damage. Now 27, she lives in California with her parents and is dependent on state aid for her around-the-clock care.
dheinzmann@tribune.com
Copyright © 2012, Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-police-lawsuit-eilman-0430-20120430,0,4971455.story
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TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 2013
City of Chicago settlement $22.5 Million of bipolar woman police released in high crime area | Jan 15, 2013
Nearly seven years after Christina Eilman wandered out of a South Side police station and into a catastrophe, her tragic entanglement with the Chicago Police Department began to come to an end Monday — with a proposed $22.5 million legal settlement that may be the largest the city ever offered to a single victim of police misconduct.
Though the settlement is a staggering sum on its own, Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration has placed a second eight-figure police settlement on Tuesday's City Council Finance Committee agenda. A $10.2 million settlement is proposed for one of the victims of notorious former police Cmdr. Jon Burge, bringing to nearly $33 million the amount aldermen could vote to pay victims of police misconduct in a single day.
The latest Burge settlement would be for Alton Logan, who spent 26 years in prison for a murder he did not commit and who alleged in a federal lawsuit that Burge's team of detectives covered up evidence that would have exonerated him — a departure from previous cases that documented torture used by Burge's team to extract false confessions. The Logan case would bring the tab on Burge cases to nearly $60 million when legal fees are counted. Burge is serving 41/2 years in federal prison for lying about the torture and abuse of suspects.
The settlement in the Eilman case would avert a trial detailing the events of May 2006, when the then-21-year-old California woman was arrested at Midway Airport in the midst of a bipolar breakdown. She was held overnight and then released at sundown the next day without assistance several miles away in one of the city's highest-crime neighborhoods.
Alone and bewildered by her surroundings, the former UCLA student was abducted and sexually assaulted before plummeting from a seventh-floor window. She survived but suffered a severe and permanent brain injury, a shattered pelvis, and numerous other broken bones and injuries.
Her lawyer and family declined to comment Monday. The case, which has dragged in the courts for six years, was set to begin trial next week. Pretrial litigation had produced scathing rebukes from federal judges of the city's behavior toward Eilman — both on the street and in court.
The city's argument that it was not responsible for her injuries because she was assaulted by a gang member was blasted in a ruling from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals this year. a ruling from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals this year. Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook described the Police Department's release of Eilman, who is white, into a high-crime, predominantly African-American neighborhood by saying officers "might as well have released her into the lion's den at the Brookfield Zoo."
While Emanuel's Law Department endured some criticism for delays in the Eilman case since the mayor took office in 2011, he has noted repeatedly that the police misconduct highlighted in these and many other cases are legacies from the Richard M. Daley administration that he — and taxpayers — are stuck with.
The mayor's office referred calls to the city Law Department, but a spokesman there declined to comment.
If approved, the Eilman settlement would surpass the $18 million settlement paid to the family of LaTanya Haggerty, who was mistakenly shot and killed by police in 1999. It is frequently referred to as the city's biggest single-victim settlement.
Ald. Howard Brookins Jr., 21st, said city officials have not taken a hard enough line against police misconduct for years, and now taxpayers are footing the bill.
"We've known this was going to bust our budget, and here we are," Brookins said. "The administration (under Daley) should have made police conduct and behavior a higher priority. They didn't, and now we're seeing these costly settlements over and over, to pay for officers mistreating people."
The Logan case was set to go to trial last month, but on the first day of jury selection, city lawyers decided to settle the case. Logan's attorney Jon Loevy said the settlement includes about $1.5 million in legal fees.
Logan sat in prison for 26 years until a stunning 2008 revelation after another man, convicted murderer Andrew Wilson, died. Wilson had told his attorneys in 1982 that he committed the murder in which Logan was accused, but the lawyers said the attorney-client privilege kept them from going public with the admission until after Wilson's death.
Although relieved the city settled the case instead of battling on, Loevy said his client would gladly give up the $8.7 million to have nearly three decades of his life back.
"I don't know who would take that much money to lose their 20s, 30s and 40s," Loevy said. "From his perspective, no amount of money can make him whole and he'd rather have his life back."
While Logan lost the middle chunk of his life, Eilman dwells in a childlike mental state and feels as though she has lost the rest of her life, her family has told the Tribune.
Hobbled by a brain injury that has permanently impaired her cognitive function, she lives with her parents in suburban Sacramento. She requires constant medical treatment and therapy. Doctors have said she will not get better.
Eilman came to Chicago on May 5, 2006, at a time when her bipolar condition was worsening. When she tried to catch a return flight from Midway to California a couple of days later, she was ranting and screaming and appeared to be out of her mind.
Police officers eventually arrested her and took her to the Chicago Lawn district near Midway. Court records and depositions in the case show that officers were alarmed by Eilman's behavior.
A female sergeant called her father, Rick Paine, who told the officer Eilman had been treated for bipolar disorder the year before. One of the arresting officers testified that the watch commander ordered that Eilman be taken to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation, per department protocols. But the officers never took her because they said they did not have a car, according to court records.
Instead, Eilman was transferred to the Wentworth district lockup several miles east and held overnight. Bewildered by the changing situation, Eilman's mother, Kathy Paine, began nearly hourly calls to the Wentworth district. Over nine telephone calls to the station, Kathy Paine said she was repeatedly told to call back later until an officer told her that Eilman had already been released.
Police escorted Eilman to the back door of station, and she wandered a few blocks east to a takeout restaurant, where men began to gather and talk to the petite blonde, who was dressed in a skimpy jogging suit.
Witnesses said she appeared to be disoriented and behaving erratically. A short time later she walked a few blocks to the last remaining high-rise of the Robert Taylor Homes. Eilman eventually went with a group of people to a vacant apartment on the seventh floor of the public housing project.
One resident said she repeatedly warned Eilman that she was not safe there. Several men asked Eilman to perform oral sex, but she refused, at one point saying she would jump out the window if touched, witnesses said.
Reputed gang member and convicted felon Marvin Powell eventually demanded the others leave the apartment but prevented Eilman from going with them, saying, "I'm gonna show this bitch who the real killa is," according to witnesses.
Powell was eventually convicted of abducting Eilman but not sexually assaulting her or causing her to go out the window. He served part of a 12-year sentence before being paroled last spring, while Eilman and her family were still battling the city in court.
By David Heinzmann ; Chicago Tribune reporter
January 14, 2013
Tribune reporter John Byrne contributed.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-emanuel-seeks-to-settle-2-cop-misconduct-cases-for-nearly-33-million-20130114,0,4742395,full.story
Copyright © 2013 Chicago Tribune Company, LLC
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