The mountain of costly settlements tied to disgraced Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge is about to get $15.4 million bigger.

On Thursday, the City Council’s Finance Committee will be asked to award that amount to Robert Smith Jr., who was tortured into confessing to a double murder he didn’t commit by the “midnight crew” trained by Burge.

Smith was released from prison in 2020 after spending 33 years behind bars, and has since been granted a certificate of innocence. The settlement amount being weighed by the Council pales in comparison to the $66 million that he sought in his lawsuit filed in 2021 in federal court in Chicago.

Smith was 39 when he was arrested in September 1987 for the murder of his wife’s mother and her grandmother. According to his lawsuit, officers placed Smith “in a sm

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