City Council panel backs $9.5 million settlement with man who spent 19 years in prison for wrongful conviction

A key City Council panel on Monday backed a $9.5 million settlement with a man who spent 19 years in prison after he was wrongfully convicted of murder.

The City Council Finance Committee unanimously agreed to the settlement with Carl Reed, who was sentenced to 27 years in prison in 2005 for the killing of 66-year-old Kim Van Vo, who had been stabbed 11 times in his apartment at an assisted living facility.

The full City Council could cast a final vote on the settlement on Wednesday.

Reed suffers from severe cognitive difficulties and learning disabilities, and according to his lawsuit, police obtained his confession after "shackling him to a wall on a bare, metal bench for 55 hours—denying him diabetes medication, physically beating him, and psychologically torturing him until he signed a prewritten confession that he could not even read."

"Significantly, Mr. Reed was so vulnerable and unsophisticated that he believed he was signing release papers when he signed the prewritten 'confession.' While receiving emergency medical attention at the Cook County Jail for his blood sugar, he expressed that he did not know why he was incarcerated," the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit claims the lead detective, Richard Zuley, has "a truly disturbing track record of procuring false confessions."

It also noted that no physical evidence tied Reed to Van Vo's murder, stating Reed had no blood on his clothes and no injuries on his hands, even though Van Vo was stabbed to death with a five-inch blade with no handle.

After his conviction, forensic testing of evidence at the crime scene – including the knife blade, a towel covering Van Vo's face, and hairs in Van Vo's hands – could not be linked to Reed.

In April 2020, Gov. JB Pritzker commuted Reed's sentence, and three years later, Cook County prosecutors agreed to drop all charges against him.