A proposed $25.5 million settlement agreement, resolving a federal civil rights lawsuit that the city of Naperville recently lost its years-long fight against, is due for a vote by the Naperville City Council on Tuesday.
Last month, a federal jury awarded $22.5 million in compensatory damages to the estate of William Amor, a Naperville man who spent 22 years in prison for the 1995 murder of his mother-in-law — a crime he was later found to have not committed.
The judgment was the culmination of more than five years of litigation over a suit that Amor had filed against the city and several of its police officers in 2018 alleging that Naperville police had committed civil rights violations while investigating the death of his mother-in-law decades ago.
The jury decision delivered last month ultimately found that the Naperville officer that had led the investigation of the 1995 death was liable for obtaining an involuntary confession and intentionally inflicting emotional distress.
The settlement agreement on the city council’s agenda Tuesday was negotiated in exchange for the city not appealing the jury’s findings, according to city spokeswoman Linda LaCloche.
With the six-page settlement, plaintiff Jeanne Olson — representing the estate of Amor, who died in 2023 — would agree to accept $25.5 million from the city “to resolve all allegations and claims,” the proposed agreement reads.
To payout the settlement, the city has $18 million in applicable insurance coverage, according to an agenda report for Tuesday’s meeting. The remaining $7.5 million would be accommodated as a one-time payment from the city’s self-insurance fund. The council is also scheduled to vote on a budget amendment Tuesday that would allow for the one-time payment.
If the proposed agreement is approved by council, parties will file a motion with the court to enter a stipulation dismissing the case pursuant to the settlement, LaCloche said. That motion will then set a future date and time for parties to appear before the court to present their dismissal stipulation, LaCloche explained, though once filed, the court may opt to approve the stipulation administratively without requiring parties to appear.
Apart from a monetary payout, if council approves the agreement Tuesday, parties will also ask the federal court to vacate the jury’s judgment entered last month, LaCloche confirmed.
Asked about the decision to settle, Chicago attorney Jon Loevy, who represented Amor and later his estate in the case, said in a call Thursday, “Both sides have been fighting this case for a long time, and now it’s time to stop litigating and move forward. Now it’s reached its end.”
In 1995, Amor was 40 years old and living in a Naperville condominium with his then-18-year-old wife and her mother, Miceli, who was partially disabled. On Sept. 10, shortly after Amor and his wife left to go to a movie, Miceli called 911 to report she was trapped by a fire. She died before firefighters could arrive.
Naperville police questioned Amor several times after the fire and he confessed three weeks later to starting the blaze after dropping a lit cigarette on a vodka-soaked newspaper before leaving, according to reports.
At his original trial, Amor’s attorneys argued that abusive, coercive questioning by Naperville police resulted in a false confession. Despite that claim, a jury in 1997 found Amor guilty of first-degree murder and arson. He was sentenced to 45 years in prison.
Although post-conviction appeals were unsuccessful, the Illinois Innocence Project took his case on in 2014 and its attorneys were able to convince a DuPage County judge that errors in the original fire investigation were significant enough that Amor should receive a new trial.
In 2018, with evidence examined using new scientific procedures not available a decade earlier, Amor was acquitted and subsequently filed suit against Naperville and its officers.
The original suit named six defendants: the city, four police officers and the estate of a deceased officer. By the time the matter went to trial earlier this year, three of the defendants were released and only the city of Naperville and two former officers, Robert Guerreri and Michael Cross, remained.
In the proposed settlement, defendants “deny each and every allegation of wronging” and further “deny liability.” All parties also acknowledge through the agreement that settling “is not an admission of liability, or of unconstitutional or illegal conduct.”
The city would be solely responsible for disbursing settlement funds and no damages may be recovered from Guerreri or the estate of Cross, who died in 2022, the agreement stipulates.
Naperville officials denied any further comment on the case.