DIRKSEN FEDERAL COURTHOUSE — A jury ruled Thursday in favor of two panhandlers who claimed Cook County Sheriff's officers had violated their rights by restricting them from begging for change in Daley Plaza.
The jury awarded Kim Pindak and Sam Phillips $1,500 each after a ruling that their First Amendment rights had been violated and that repeated efforts to keep them from panhandling had inflicted "loss of income, as well as emotional trauma, physical discomfort, anguish, humiliation and insult," as the original lawsuit read.
Pindak, 63, claimed that an officer had handcuffed him and physically removed him from the plaza.
The lawsuit, targeted specifically at Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, contended that the officers had not been properly trained. "We are very pleased" with the verdict, attorney Adele Nicholas said in an email to DNAinfo Chicago.
City code prohibits aggressive panhandling tactics, but Pindak testified that he simply stood holding a cup and asked passersby, "Can you spare some change?"
"I felt I had a right to be out there talking, just like anyone else, as long as I wasn't being aggressive," Pindak told DNAinfo. "I never got in anyone's face or followed anyone, or didn't take no for an answer."
The judge had previously ruled the plaintiffs' rights had been violated, but it was up to the jury to determine the dollar amount. According to the complaint, Pindak calculated he might have lost more than $8,000 over a four-year period due to the sheriff's department's actions.
The number was calculated as "a couple dollars a day" multiplied over the years, Nicholas said.
"It may not be a lot of money for most people, but it's a lot of money for him," Nicholas said.
Pindak had submitted as evidence a recording from 2012 of Deputy Sheriff Dalibor Jevtic telling him he could panhandle on the surrounding streets, but it wouldn't be allowed inside Daley Plaza itself. But the plaza, Pindak said, was a uniquely "lucrative" spot to beg for change.
"There's more people coming through there than anywhere else," Pindak said. "There's judges and lawyers, there's tourists ... there's a social, cultural and business aspect to it. It is a public place, and it attracts people."
Due to a mental illness diagnosed at an early age, Pindak receives disability assistance, which he and his attorneys said barely covers his rent at an assisted care facility. He panhandles, he said, to supplement his income so he can afford to buy food and coffee.
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