CHICAGO (AP) - The city of Chicago has been ordered to pay nearly $5.6 million in legal fees for a former street gang member who alleged police framed him in a 1984 double murder.
Nathson Fields was awarded $22 million in 2016 after he alleged in a lawsuit that police violated his civil rights by withholding evidence from defense attorneys that could have pointed away from him as the killer of two rival gang members.
Fields was convicted in 1986 of murder. The one-time El Rukn member was released in 2003 and acquitted in a 2009 retrial.
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The city could owe tens of thousands of dollars more in legal expenses for Field’s attorneys. But U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly hasn’t finalized those figures.
Chicago Law Department spokesman Bill McCaffrey said Tuesday the city plans to appeal, calling the fees “excessive.”
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