Lawyers representing the family of a man fatally struck in a bar fight claim Chicago police covered up for then-mayor Richard Daley, whose nephew allegedly delivered the death blow.
Daley’s nephew, R.J. Vanecko, may have confessed to killing David Koschman on the night of the 2004 incident. Detectives told Koschman’s friends who witnessed the fight that the police "know the guy that did it. [Vanecko’s] in there in the other room, and he’s just bawling his eyes out, he’s a big baby," according to sworn testimony from one of the witnesses.
That information never made it into police reports, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
There’s no reference to any admission of guilt or of Vanecko being upset in the Chicago Police Department’s reports, which the Koschman lawyers say appear to have been "falsified" to justify Vanecko not being charged. The police reports state that Vanecko showed up with a lawyer for the lineup but left without talking to detectives or a top prosecutor who was present.
"The failure of the police to describe in their reports Vanecko’s crying and apologizing on May 20, 2004, is, to say the least, disturbing," the Koschman family lawyers said in the 41-page motion filed with Cook County Circuit Judge Michael P. Toomin.
Lawyers for the family are calling for a special investigation into the incident. No one has been charged for Koschman’s death.