As anyone who watched the press coverage of the Blagojevich trials observed, attorneys for the defendants tried their best to talk directly to potential jurors through the media.
While McHenry County doesn’t have television for that task, defense attorney Mark Gummerson was allowed to use the front page of the Northwest Herald to convince readers that the indictment of retired Coroner Marlene Lantz for not burying a baby who died in the early 1990’s and signing paperwork that said such a burial had taken place was purely a political move on State’s Attorney Lou Bianchi’s part.
Now I see that the Sunday editorial headline of the NW Herald echoes that theme. Here’s what popped up as a result of my daily searches for “McHenry County”:
What Google produced about Sunday’s Northwest Herald editorial.
Note that the prosecution is not trying the case in the media.
The State’s Attorney’s Office is just filing papers in court, which you can see below:
I thought Gummerson retired.
How many more is he going to represent of the regime?
I think the paper is right on this issue.
This case is fraught with politics.
To suggest otherwise is living in fantasyland.
However, the paper has already lost any whiff of objective credibility.
When the Bianchi sham-indictment was brought forth, the NW Herald called for Bianchi to resign.
Remember that?
I don’t recall any article in the NW Herald that suggested politics were the key component of those false accusations.
The paper ended up recognizing that the cases against Bianchi were a total political witch hunt, but only after the damage was done and the phony “special prosecutors” were successfully sued for legal negligence.
To bad, NW Herald.
You’re not credible – not even when you do speak the truth.
Your bad.
Insiders, have said that falsifying records in the coroners office has been standard practice for decades.
Falsifying records, was an attempt to falsely convict individuals and or falsely remove suspicion from the perpetrators.
Hope not!.
If that is true, we have many Gary Gaugers sitting in prison today.
That also means, many people who are guilty of crimes, have been allowed to go free.
This is a complete mockery of our judicial system.
Marlene, best come clean with the information that she has!
And once again, I ask, why are the taxpayers of this county responsible for the burial of a known Mother and Father’s baby, and why haven’t they in the past 22 years asked for the baby’s body, or why weren’t they wondering why the baby hadn’t been buried while they were present?
I don’t have ALL the connections that Dum Dum claims to have in SO many different cases in this county (Lantz, Zinke, Nygren, the FBI and the DEA), but maybe he/she can answer this without calling everyone a moron, telling them to eat pop corn and go see Gordy or watch Let’s Make a Deal.
STILL sounds like some kind of an open criminal case to me, the uninformed.
Not providing a decent burial for the body of a baby in the care of the Coroner without cause to keep it for evidence is indefensible.
The “intent” part of this entire debacle is what is lacking.
It is highly unlikely the prosecution can adequately establish intent when the current Coroner had no idea the body was in her possession for years.
If the office is so terribly organized, inventoried and cleaned then blaming the former office holder for running a pig sty is possible without criminal charges.
This will come down to whether this rose to the level of “Official Misconduct”.
There is no doubt of the political hatred between individuals in our county.
Are these charges politically motivated?
Trying to discern anyone’s intent on either side is difficult.
This continues to be interesting.
I still think Lantz should be fried on this one but I also have the same questions about the parents that AZsupporter has.
A lot of questions about this case and it will be very interesting as it unravels.
Are these charges politically motivated, naw, how can they be.
When this was brought to the attention of the State’s attorneys office what were they suppose to do, ignore it?
They can’t.
I think these parents where minors and very young at that.
Voter gives a thought I had not considered; but, the minors would have also had parents-
“intent to defraud” whom?
Amazed this did get caught years ago when the office and all the evidence and remains were transferred into the new coroners custody.
Odd how Bianchi’s office seems to have signed an intent to the previous Coroner for allegedly not providing burial for these remains when they were in her custody but is not charging the Current Coroner or assigning intent to a couple years of not noting these remains on any inventory sheets.
butseriouslynow, I think you answered your own question.
You said,” not noting these remains on any inventory sheets”
Did it ever occur to you that maybe the remains where not written on the inventory sheet but where found?
Maybe for some reason Lantz didn’t inventory the remains and were found by the new coroner or her staff.
So the time element has nothing to do with the charge Lantz is sited for.
Gummerson has no defense for Lantz
Voter, so you are saying the new coroner inventoried all evidence and remains in her charge and just missed this box for a few years?
I am trying to figure out how her missing these remains would be judged to have a different intent than her predecessor missing them.
I am just confused how you are coming to one of them having the “intent to defraud” in not accounting for this missing box of remains and the other one just making an innocent mistake missing it for a couple years.
They both missed it even though they were charged with care of all remains and evidence on site…yet the one who has been critical of the States Attorney gets felony charges and the one who hasn’t gets left uncharged?
That just seems political to a layperson like myself.
no, you are saying the new coroner inventoried all evidence when she took over.
it would have been a good idea when you take over to do an inventory right away but there is no law that you have to.
I guess we all will have to wait and see how this pans out.