Will County Pays Cop Wrongfully Jailed As Honeybee Killer $126K

The Lynwood cop jailed for five days after he was wrongfully identified as the Honeybee Killer got paid $126,500 by Will County to back off from a lawsuit, according to a settlement document.

Brian Dorian, 42, filed a federal lawsuit in October 2011 alleging conspiracy, false arrest, false imprisonment and malicious prosecution.

Dorian was arrested in October 2010 and charged with a murderous shooting spree on both sides of the Illinois-Indiana border. The gun attacks claimed the life of one man and left another two wounded.

Dorian spent the Columbus Day weekend in jail but was released after appearing in court that Tuesday afternoon. Investigators determined Dorian had been using a computer in his home during the shootings and could not have carried out the attacks.

In a federal lawsuit filed the following year, Dorian claimed conspiracy, false arrest, false imprisonment and malicious prosecution.

The lawsuit alleged “a SWAT team unit for the Will County Sheriff’s Department armed with automatic weapons descended upon the home of Lynwood Police Officer Brian Dorian and took him into custody” and that now retired Sheriff “Paul Kaupas and Will County States Attorney James W. Glasgow held a sensationalized press conference announcing to the world that they had the ‘Honey Bee Killer.’”

The suit says Kaupas, Glasgow and Detective Dean Morelli “fabricated evidence and supplied slanderous and defamatory information to the press in order to justify their actions,” and that Dorian “incurred emotional distress, fear, anxiety and monetary expense” as a result of his holiday weekend ordeal.

Dorian was looking to get $10 million when he filed the suit.

A federal judge dismissed Glasgow from the lawsuit after finding there was no basis to sue the state’s attorney.

About two months after Dorian was arrested, 48-year-old Gary Amaya of the small, central Illinois town of Rankin was shot down while trying to rob an Orland Park tanning salon. He was killed with his own gun during a struggle with bystander Jason McDaniel. The Will County Sheriff’s Department said the gun was the same one used in the Honeybee Killer’s shooting spree.

The case got its name from the gunman asking his three victims about honeybees before firing on them.