Alders Approve Borrowing $27M For Wrongful-Conviction Settlements

by Brandon Cortes

The Board of Alders on Monday night approved a plan to borrow up to $27 million to pay the city’s share of settlements with Vernon Horn and Marquis Jackson, two men who spent nearly two decades in prison each for a murder they did not commit.

Alders voted 25-0, with one abstention, to authorize the issuance of those general obligation bonds during their latest meeting in the Aldermanic Chamber at City Hall. No one spoke against the measure.

Including interest, the borrowing is expected to cost the city about $40.5 million over 20 years, according to an estimated amortization schedule included in the city’s initial proposal — roughly $13.5 million in interest on top of the $27 million principal. The city’s Bond Sale Committee must still sign off on the final terms, including the interest rate.

“Committee members agreed that the city had a legal and moral obligation to meet its commitments to these settlement agreements,” Westville Alder Adam Marchand, who chairs the Board of Alders Finance Committee, told colleagues before the vote. “Committee members also agreed with city staff that issuing bonds was the most appropriate method for doing so at this time.”

Monday’s vote took place less than two months after the Elicker administration agreed to pay Horn and Jackson $15.25 million each, $30.5 million in total, to settle federal lawsuits the two men filed in 2018. The cases had been weeks away from trial.

The city’s insurance will cover $5 million of those settlements, leaving the city responsible for $25.5 million. City Controller Michael Gormany wrote in a cover letter that the city requested authority to borrow up to $27 million in case it issues the bonds directly to a bank and needs to cover issuance costs out of the principal.

After the vote, Marchand told the Independent that $40.5 million remains the latest estimate, but that the final cost will depend on the rate the city gets when it issues the bonds.

“Of course, we would love to see something more affordable for the city than that,” Marchand said. “But that was a reasonable estimate given by our city staff.”

He said the Finance Committee had discussed alternatives to borrowing, including a special tax levy, but that option raised its own concerns for residents.

“I would love for somebody else to pay it for us, right?” Marchand said. “Would the state come in and pay for future things for us? We haven’t had that conversation with them, and maybe we will. But at this point, when you negotiate a settlement, you’re on the hook for coming through on your side of the agreement, and so this is what we need to do.”

Horn and Jackson were convicted in connection with a 1999 robbery and murder at a Dixwell deli. Horn spent 17 years in prison and Jackson 19.

Both were freed in 2018 after a reinvestigation uncovered nearly 140 pages of phone records, found in the home of a retired assistant police chief who had worked the case as a detective, that contradicted the state’s evidence and had never been turned over to the men’s lawyers.

The Horn-Jackson payouts are the first wrongful-conviction settlements the Elicker administration has reached since a federal jury awarded Stefon Morant $38 million in May in a case the city took to trial. The city has appealed that verdict.

Alders also approved on Monday a $235,000 increase to the city’s agreement with Howd & Ludorf, the outside law firm that defended the city in the Horn, Jackson, and Morant suits. Marchand told colleagues the city has ended its work with the firm, but that the money was needed to complete its business with it.

The city still faces several other pending wrongful-conviction lawsuits, including those filed by Adam Carmon, George Gould, the family of Ronald Taylor, and Ward 21 Alder Troy Streater. (Streater abstained from voting on the Horn-Jackson settlement item at Monday’s Board of Alders meeting. In a phone call on Tuesday, he declined to comment on his abstention.)

“There’s going to be more of these,” Marchand said. “We don’t know yet the results and what the numbers will be, but we’re going to keep discussing and thinking through how we can meet these obligations and manage the impact on our budget.”