On March 6, 2008, Jerry Gillespie, a union carpenter, was falsely arrested, punched in the face and falsely charged with possession of a controlled substance by Chicago police officers Salvador Prieto and Daniel Gomez. Mr. Gillespie was held in police custody for 20 hours and had to defend himself in a criminal trial. Thankfully, the judge at Gillespie’s criminal trial saw that the police were not being truthful and found Gillespie not guilty.
The Jackowiak Law Offices filed a civil rights lawsuit on behalf of Mr. Gillespie to hold the police accountable for these violations of his civil rights. After a three-day jury trial in June 2010, a federal jury returned a verdict in favor of Mr. Gillespie. The jury found Officers Prieto and Gomez guilty of unreasonable seizure, false arrest, excessive force and malicious prosecution. Throughout the case, the City of Chicago had claimed that Gillespie’s claims had no merit.