Family of Man Killed by Drunk Off-Duty Detective Settles With Chicago for $10 Million
After trial: This was a civil settlement against the City of Chicago and did not affect Frugoli's separate criminal case; he had already pleaded guilty to aggravated DUI and leaving the scene of a fatal crash and was serving an eight-year sentence, with release scheduled for April 2019. No appeal followed the settlement. The Manzera family's $10,000,000 share of the same $20,000,000 resolution was negotiated separately by Cooney & Conway and is not part of this figure. Sources differ on the blood alcohol reading: the crash and sentencing coverage puts it at about three times the legal limit, while one later settlement report said more than four times; the lower, better-corroborated figure is used here.
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Early on April 10, 2009, off-duty Chicago police detective Joseph Frugoli, driving with a blood alcohol level about three times the legal limit, slammed his SUV into a car stopped on the shoulder of the Dan Ryan Expressway with a flat tire. The car caught fire and both occupants, 23-year-old Andrew Cazares and 21-year-old Fausto Manzera, were killed. The families sued Frugoli and the City of Chicago, arguing a departmental 'code of silence' had let Frugoli drink and drive for years without discipline. The city settled in December 2017 during closing arguments, and the Chicago City Council approved the payout on February 28, 2018: $20 million total, split evenly between the two families. Timothy Cavanagh and Michael Sorich were attorneys of record for the Cazares side, which took $10 million; Kevin Conway of Cooney & Conway represented the Manzera family.
What happened
Just after 3:30 a.m. on April 10, 2009, Andrew Cazares had pulled his red Dodge Intrepid onto the shoulder of the southbound Dan Ryan Expressway near 18th Street on Chicago's South Side. He had a flat tire. Fausto Manzera was in the car with him. Joseph Frugoli, an off-duty Chicago police detective and an 18-year veteran of the department, drove his Lexus SUV into the back of the stopped car. The Intrepid caught fire. Both men, 23 and 21 years old, were killed. Frugoli was found walking away from the wreck. His blood alcohol content measured about three times the legal limit.
Cazares's family sued Frugoli and the City of Chicago. The claim was litigated in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois alongside the Manzera family's, under the caption Manzera v. Frugoli, with Timothy Cavanagh and Michael Sorich among the attorneys of record for the Cazares side and Kevin Conway of Cooney & Conway for the Manzera family. The suit did not treat the crash as a routine drunk-driving case. It argued the Chicago Police Department had operated a 'code of silence' that let Frugoli drink heavily and drive for years with no real consequence. It pointed to a 1992 incident at a Bridgeport tavern, in which Frugoli admitted to drinking and drew only a five-day suspension, and to two crashes in January 2008, 24 hours apart, in which he was suspected of drunk driving and was never disciplined.
The case went to trial in late 2017. Frugoli testified from prison. A national expert on police accountability reviewed department records and testified that the culture the families described existed, and the city did not challenge that conclusion. Days before the case was to go to the jury, the 116-page disciplinary file documenting the 1992 tavern incident surfaced, after having been withheld from the plaintiffs before trial. 'We never got those critical documents before trial,' Cavanagh told the Chicago Sun-Times. 'These documents prove our case.' The city announced the settlement during closing arguments, before the jury could begin deliberating.
The resolution totaled $20 million, split evenly: $10 million for the Cazares family and $10 million for the Manzera family. A City Council committee signed off on February 28, 2018, and the Council approved the payment the same day, over objections from aldermen who argued the city should not be on the hook for what an officer does off duty. Alderman Raymond Lopez of the 15th Ward voted against it, asking where the city's liability for off-duty conduct would stop.
Frugoli's criminal case ran on a separate track. He pleaded guilty in 2012 to aggravated DUI and to leaving the scene of a fatal crash, and was sentenced to eight years in prison, seven for the DUI and one for fleeing, with release scheduled for April 2019. The civil settlement did not alter that sentence. It closed out the Cazares family's claim against the city as one piece of a case that produced a criminal conviction, a public accounting of how the department had handled a repeat drunk driver, and two separate eight-figure payments.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.CourtListener/RECAP federal docket, Manzera v. Frugoli, No. 1:13-cv-05626 (N.D. Ill., filed 2013-08-07, terminated 2017-12-11): lists Timothy John Cavanagh and Michael Jude Sorich of Cavanagh Law Group and Kevin J. Conway of Cooney & Conway as attorneys of record, and Jose Andres Cazares and the Manzera parties as plaintiffs
- 2.CBS Chicago, February 2018: reports the City Council approval of the $20 million settlement over the 2009 fatal DUI crash and names Tim Cavanagh as the Cazares family's attorney
- 3.ABC7 Chicago, February 2018: the $20 million total and $10 million per-family split, Cavanagh for the Cazares family and Conway for the Manzera family, the 1992 five-day suspension and the two January 2008 crashes, the eight-year sentence with April 2019 release, the February 28, 2018 vote and Ald. Raymond Lopez's objection
- 4.ABC7 Chicago, April 2009: the crash date and time (just after 3:30 a.m. on April 10, 2009), the Dan Ryan location near 18th Street, the flat tire and the stopped red Dodge Intrepid, Frugoli's Lexus SUV, a blood alcohol level three times the legal limit, and the original charges
- 5.Chicago Sun-Times, December 9, 2017: the settlement announced during closing arguments, the withheld 116-page disciplinary file from the 1992 Bridgeport tavern incident and the five-day suspension, and Cavanagh's quoted comments on the documents
- 6.Chicago Sun-Times, November 30, 2017: Frugoli testifying from prison at the civil trial, the April 10, 2009 crash date, the stalled Dodge Intrepid that burst into flames, the blood alcohol level at three times the legal limit, and the eight-year sentence with April 2019 release
- 7.NBC Chicago, November 2012: the guilty plea to aggravated DUI and fleeing the scene, and the eight-year sentence broken into seven years plus one year
- 8.Chicago Sun-Times, December 19, 2017: confirms the $20 million total divided evenly between the two families and that Kevin Conway represented the Manzera family
- 9.Insurance Journal (AP), February 28, 2018: a City Council committee backed the $20 million settlement with the full Council expected to approve the same day, amid aldermanic objections to paying for an officer's off-duty conduct
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