Sherry’s lawyers want case against him dropped
CPD took 16 years to seek his firing for alleged misconduct
A Chicago police officer facing firing on accusations that he played a role in one of the biggest scandals in department history should return to active duty because city officials took more than 16 years to bring disciplinary charges, the officer’s lawyers argued in a recent filing to the city’s police disciplinary panel.
Chicago police Superintendent David Brown moved to fire Officer Thomas Sherry late last year for alleged misdeeds he carried out as a member of the disgraced Special Operations Section, a unit that was disbanded when some of its officers committed home invasions and robberies in the 2000s.
But the filing from Sherry’s lawyers, Paul Geiger and Ronald Dahms, highlights a controversial issue for city officials and the process of disciplining Chicago cops. Police accountability advocates have long criticized city officials for lengthy delays in seeking to discipline officers, saying they’re unfair both to victims of police misconduct and to officers who are wrongly accused.
In its 2017 evaluation of Chicago’s policing practices, the U.S. Justice Department concluded lengthy delays can prevent investigators from uncovering the truth because “memories fade, evidence is lost and investigators may not be able to locate those crucial witnesses needed to determine whether misconduct has occurred.”
Brown’s move to dismiss Sherry is being carried out by the city’s Law Department, which filed these disciplinary charges against him to the Chicago Police Board in November: violating a law or city ordinance; bringing discredit to the department; failing to promote the department’s efforts to achieve its goals; disobeying an order; and filing false reports.
The charges stem from allegations that Sherry participated in illegal searches of two Chicago residences in 2004.
“The superintendent of police shamelessly and unlawfully seeks to terminate Thomas Sherry in 2021 for conduct that allegedly took place in 2004 — four presidents and nine superintendents ago — three years before the iPhone even existed,” Geiger and Dahms wrote in their filing. “One might expect that there was some new evidence uncovered. That would be wrong.”
Sherry was assigned to SOS in 2006 when Cook County prosecutors criminally charged him and other officers with armed violence and aggravated kidnapping, alleging that the officers had robbed drug dealers and law-abiding citizens of cash and property. Sherry was suspended without pay.
As the scandal deepened, the department disbanded the SOS unit, some officers resigned and the police superintendent, Phil Cline, retired not long after.
The criminal charges against Sherry and a second officer were dropped in 2009 after evidence emerged that victims had misidentified them. Sherry was then placed on paid desk duty, where he remained for more than a decade until disciplinary charges were filed against him.
The city often seeks to discipline officers in the absence of criminal charges, and Sherry was repeatedly named as a defendant with other officers in lawsuits linked to the SOS scandal. And in 2013, the U.S. attorney’s office turned over evidence from the SOS scandal to the Police Department after prosecuting other officers.
But according to Sherry’s lawyers, the assigned investigator from CPD’s bureau of internal affairs “never interviewed a single alleged victim” about the crimes of which Sherry was accused.
“This blatant dereliction of duty violates not only Sherry’s rights but also (CPD policy) on the conduct of internal investigations,” the lawyers wrote in the filing.
What’s more, Sherry’s lawyers wrote that in a 2018 federal lawsuit filed by the officer alleging his due process rights were violated when he was stripped of his police powers, the sergeant assigned to the internal affairs case admitted in a sworn deposition that the outcome of the investigation was predetermined.
“He was told to find Sherry guilty and submit the matter for termination,” the lawyers wrote. “Indeed, it is readily apparent that the department decided to terminate Sherry in retaliation for filing a suit against the city in August of 2018 for stripping him of his police powers and assigning him (to) the (nonemergency call center) since 2009.”
In March, U.S. District Judge John Z. Lee dismissed the lawsuit on the grounds that Sherry waited too long to file such a suit against city officials. But in the filing to the police board, his lawyers noted that the board has been asked repeatedly to decide on disciplinary cases that were “long-delayed by CPD without explanation.”
The police board could decide as early as next month whether to dismiss charges against Sherry. On Friday, Max Caproni, executive director of the board, and Kristen Cabanban, a spokesperson for the city’s Law Department, declined to comment.
The delay to bring disciplinary charges against Sherry has similarities to the case of Sgt. John Poulos.
He faced firing by the board in 2017 on allegations that spanned more than a decade, including a roughly 17-year-old allegation that he concealed an arrest when applying to be a Chicago cop. In the other allegation, Poulos was accused of violating CPD policy by moonlighting as a part-owner of a Lincoln Park bar 11 to 14 years before the disciplinary charges were filed against him.
In 2018, the police board dropped the charges after the yearslong delay for city officials to file them. Internal affairs had completed its investigation and recommended discipline in 2007. But the case fell through the cracks for several years, a time span in which Poulos fatally shot two people and was promoted to sergeant.
Superintendent Eddie Johnson in 2017 was ordered by the police board — then headed by Lori Lightfoot before being elected mayor — to explain the delay. Johnson said he believed it was the department’s practice at the time not to bring charges against officers on a leave of absence. Poulos, after injuring his hand while on duty in March 2002, didn’t return to work until June 2010.
Even with that caveat, however, it took seven years for the department to bring the charges — a gap that the police board, in its eight-page written decision, said Johnson “candidly conceded” he couldn’t explain.
Sherry’s lawyers’ motion to dismiss was initially filed within the last few months, but was updated Thursday with another reason they want the case dropped.
Attorneys for Sherry discovered there were two separate complaints filed against their client related to the 2004 allegations for which he’s facing dismissal. Those two other complaints contain identical allegations against Sherry as the ones in his disciplinary charges, according to his lawyers. But the allegations from the two other complaints show investigators were not able to confirm any wrongdoing by Sherry, the lawyers say.
Those files show that the alleged victims didn’t want to cooperate with internal affairs, nor would they sign sworn affidavits to move the case forward — a requirement for most police misconduct investigations per state law, according to the amended motion.
“Instead of admitting those facts and reinstating Sherry after he filed his lawsuit, the department retaliated against him and used any means necessary to terminate Sherry,” his lawyers argued.
The disciplinary charges against Sherry stem from illegal searches of two residences on the North and Northwest sides on July 27, 2004, records show.
Sherry was accused of illegally searching a residence without a warrant and “excessively” detaining someone who lived there for six hours in a police vehicle, according to the records. That same day, Sherry was accused of searching another residence without a warrant.
Sherry was also accused of failing to notify the department that other officers involved in the illegal searches committed wrongdoing, records show. Among those officers was Jerome Finnigan, who was eventually sentenced to 12 years in the SOS scandal.