CHICAGO (WBBM) -- A total of 37 plaintiffs have now charged that a Chicago police officer singled out gays and lesbians for unjustified drunk driving arrests accompanied by insults about their sexual orientation.
A total of 16 plaintiffs have joined in the federal civil rights lawsuits against officer Michael Fiorito who has been assigned to desk duty.
After weeks of mounting pressure to do so, Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez has said that she will stop using controversial Chicago police officer Richard Fiorito as a witness in traffic court, with her office stating, "There are serious questions about Fiorito's credibility."
Fiorito is currently under a grand jury investigation, led by Alvarez, for making multiple suspect DUI arrests of Boystown motorists.
Two weeks ago Alvarez removed Fiorito from active duty in Boystown, as the Chicago beat cop faced 21 lawsuits filed against his conduct and two videos showing Fiorito making questionable arrests.
Attorney Jon Erikson representing many of the plaintiffs says evidence from Fiorito's own squad car video cam contradicts the statements he made in his arrest sheets and made to judges in the 37 cases.
He introduced Lex Leaks who said Fiorito was among 7 officers who let him go after a field sobriety in boys town this summer. He said Fiorito curbed him less than a minute from the scene, wrote him up for DUI without any kind of sobriety test, then laughed at him as being gay. Leaks said the judge threw out the case when officer Fiorito's testimony proved inconsistent with the facts in the arrest description.
Attorney John Erikson of Erikson and Pantheism says he believes another dozen or so plaintiffs will come forward and says he's urging State's Attorney Anita Alvarez to have officer Fiorito charged in Cook County with perjury for testimony he gave against the arrestees in court.
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