One of the most sordid chapters in the history of the Chicago Police Department came to an end on Thursday with City Council approval of a $90 million settlement for 176 shakedown victims — a resolution viewed by Council members as a relative bargain for taxpayers.

The settlement, approved unanimously, put to rest 180 lawsuits tied to one of the city’s most corrupt police officers, former Sgt. Ronald Watts, who was accused of framing hundreds of people on drug charges at the CHA’s Ida B. Wells housing complex. Individual victims will get anywhere from $150,000 to more than $3 million for a man who spent a decade in prison on a Watts case.

The cost of the groundbreaking settlement is a fraction of the $500 million that Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry has said it could have cost

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