HARVEY, Ill., March 1 (UPI) -- The city of Harvey, Ill., has settled a lawsuit with a man who alleged the mayor of the city and a disgraced former police officer conspired to frame him.
Javon Patterson filed a lawsuit against the city in 2010 after he spent 2 1/2 years in prison on what his suit said was a trumped-up gun possession charge, the Chicago Tribune reported.
The lawsuit alleged that in 2006, Patterson acquaintance Willie Lloyd III asked for help in stealing Detective Hollis Dorrough's cocaine. Patterson refused, but Lloyd later showed him the stolen narcotics.
Two months later, Lloyd was found dead in an alley, shot in the neck.
Several weeks after Llyod's death, Patterson was allegedly falsely arrested on a gun charge. While in custody, Dorrough and Mayor Eric Kellogg allegedly questioned him about the missing narcotics.
"Where's my [expletive] cocaine?" the lawsuit alleges Kellogg asked before threatening to pin a murder charge on Patterson if he ever returned to Harvey.
Patterson was convicted on the gun charges and sentenced to three years in prison. He was released in August.
His lawsuit was dismissed Thursday after the parties filed paperwork notifying the court they had settled. The financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
"The city has denied -- and continues to deny -- liability; however, to avoid the continued expense of litigation, the city and its [insurance] carrier made a joint decision to settle the matter," said Clifford Kosoff, one of the defense attorneys.
Patterson also won a certificate of innocence from the state for the gun charges.
