The City of Chicago has agreed to pay $4 million to a man who said two city police officers assaulted him with a screwdriver.

The settlement came yesterday.

That was after a federal jury ruled in the man's favor and found the two officers liable.

A warning, the following report contains some details that might upset younger or more sensitive listeners.

Chicago Public Radio's Ben Calhoun reports.

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In a lot of ways, the lawsuit came down to credibility.

Coprez Coffie, and two friends said in August of 2004, they were pulled over by an unmarked police car.

They said the officers searched the van they were in, searched the men, then called for a female officer to search the woman who was with them.

Coffie said no one came, and the officers told the others to leave, put him in handcuffs and into the back of their car.

He said the officers drove him into an alley.

He said in the alley, one of the officers pulled down his pants and sodomized him with a screwdriver.

After he was released from jail, Coffie's mother took him to the hospital, and a doctor found an internal laceration.

Coffie filed a complaint, and investigators discovered three screwdrivers in the glove compartment of the squad car.

Fingerprinting and DNA tests were inconclusive, but the glove compartment tested positive for feces.

The reason this lawsuit came down to credibility, is that the cops told a completely different story.

Officers Scott Korhonen and Gerald Lodwich said they got an anonymous tip at a gas station, that they approached Coffie and he dropped a bag of drugs.

In the officers' story, they took him straight to the station.

No traffic stop, no screwdriver.

Yesterday, after two and a half days of deliberation, a federal jury found the officers liable for violating Coffie's civil rights.

Immediately the city agreed to a settlement of 4-million dollars.

About an hour later, Coffie walked through the lobby of the federal court house.

COFFIE: I feel like justice was served today.

Coffie didn't talk to the media during the trial.

Yesterday he stood between his mother and his attorneys, giving short soft-spoken answers.

COFFIE: It's been.  It's been hard.  It's been worth it, but it's been hard.

Coffie says he hopes that his lawsuit sends a message.

COFFIE: Just showing the community what's going on with the Police Department.  Everyone can see it now.

His mother Annette Coffie looked both relieved and tense.

When asked how she was feeling, she tried several times to express it, but came back to the same words.

ANNETTE COFFIE: I'm hurt about it.  I'm hurt.

Annette Coffie says the most difficult part of the trial was watching her son describe the alleged assault to the jury.

ANNETTE COFFIE: It hurt me to see my son on the stand to talk about what was going on with him.  It hurts me when I talk about it.  I can't say nothing else.

Coffie's attorney, Jon Loevy, says it says something that the city settled instead of letting the jury set damages.

LOEVY: That shows they were afraid of what the jury would do if they got the case.

Loevy, who has argued police misconduct suits in the past, says like his client, he hopes the settlement sends a larger message.

LOEVY: We can only hope that if juries keep finding that the police are violating people rights, that the Police Department's going to be more serious about disciplining and deterring that conduct in the future.

Neither the city, nor the attorneys for the officers would speak on tape.

Yesterday's settlement comes at a bad time for the department.

It follows several high-profile incidents of misconduct-and a revamp of the department's Office of Professional Standards, known as O-P-S-which is responsible for investigating misconduct.

O-P-S did investigate the Coffie incident, but found against him and closed the case.

Officers Lodwich and Korhonen were not disciplined, and a police spokeswoman says they're still on the job.

Aspokeswoman for O-P-S says under its new guidelines, the office plans to reopen the internal investigation into the Coffie matter.

In a written statement, the city's law department says it's disappointed by the verdict, and is looking at grounds for appeal.

I'm Ben Calhoun, Chicago Public Radio