Peoria, IL

The Peoria Police Department has $1.2 million in documented police misconduct settlements, anchored by the 2025 settlement in the Cleve Heidelberg wrongful conviction case. Heidelberg spent decades in prison before his conviction was overturned. The city paid $625,000 as its share of a $1.2 million total settlement to the Heidelberg estate.

The settlement was described by city officials as being made to avoid further litigation rather than as an admission of wrongdoing. The case represents the wrongful conviction liability category - a class of claims that generates exposure decades after the underlying incident and is systematically underpriced in standard municipal liability models.

For insurance underwriters, the Peoria dataset is a minimal but documented entry in the wrongful conviction category. The city's relatively small total reflects limited public records availability rather than a clean liability history - Peoria's Police Scorecard data shows 209 sworn officers serving a population of 113,000, with documented civilian complaints that have not yet translated into large public settlements.