Court records show that the Army veteran was set to start a new job with the state, with solid pay and benefits, until Chicago police hauled him out of his house in his boxer shorts.

No judge had signed a warrant for [Frank] Craig's arrest. Instead, police themselves had issued an "investigative alert" ordering Craig's arrest for a robbery that occurred four months earlier.

The alert was based on detective work later judged so shoddy that it led to taxpayers reimbursing the innocent man half a million dollars for a false arrest that caused him to lose his job and the family home to foreclosure.