Councilors advance $4 million compensation for family of man who died shortly after being exonerated following a 33-year prison sentence

The family of Lee Harris, who spent more than three decades in prison for killing a Gold Coast woman before being exonerated and released last year, could soon be paid $4 million in Chicago taxpayer money.

House members push forward proposed deal to resolve Harris allegations Monday filed in a lawsuit last September That Chicago police officers framed him for the 1989 murder of Dana Feitler. City attorney Jessica Felker said the settlement could save the city $3 million in legal fees, but evidence points to another suspect in the case.

But the money will never reach Harris if approved by the full City Council in a vote expected Wednesday. He died last Thanksgivingjust eight months after he finally regained his freedom. At that time, his family suggested natural causes. He was 68 years old.

The prison sentence “did not break him,” his son Jermaine Harris, who is now advancing the case, told the Tribune.

“The plan was for him to stay around for a long time,” his son added.

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Harris was convicted of murdering Feitler, 24, who was fatally shot in the back of the head after withdrawing $400 from an ATM near his Gold Coast apartment. Felker said the man had previously served as a confidential informant for two police officers investigating the murder.

Police say Harris admitted to being in the alley where Feitler was shot when detectives brought him to the scene. He also told police that he and another man only wanted to rob the woman, while another man wanted to kill the woman.

But Felker said Harris claimed the same statements were “falsified and relayed to her.”

The lawyer added that in his case, he claimed that the police forced him to give false statements and framed him. The woman, who claimed the state attorney general’s office and police provided her with food, money and shelter, said this was “used to encourage her to make further false statements.”

A jury convicted him in 1992.

Harris continued to oppose the jury’s verdict. Forensic tests linked another man, later identified by an eyewitness, to the crime, Felker said. He added that a man who claimed Harris confessed to him also recanted his statement and said detectives forced him to do so.

Last March, a judge vacated Harris’ conviction and sentence, and prosecutors declined to retry him. Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx said her office “has determined that Harris did not, in fact, do this” and that “he is probably actually innocent.”

Felker advised aldermen on the City Council’s Finance Committee and said the $4 million deal was a “fiscally prudent” move for the city.

The committee approved another $950,000 in three additional agreements.

The family of Joshua Beal, who was shot by police during a racially charged traffic incident in 2016, was awarded a $225,000 settlement. Off-duty Chicago police officer Joseph Treacy shot Beal as Beal was driving in the Mount Greenwood neighborhood after attending a funeral.

Beal’s family alleged that Treacy “shouted racist obscenities at Beal and others attending the funeral before he was shot,” but Treacy denied this accusation. The deadly attack sparked protests from Black Lives Matter demonstrators.

Case involving controversial police shooting in Greenwood Mountain settled just ahead of trial

In another deal, city council members offered a $400,000 settlement to a woman whose car was struck by the Chicago Fire Department’s engine with faulty brakes in a 2019 Woodlawn crash.

Tribune reporter Christy Gutowski contributed to this story.