McHenry County Blog

The following press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office should be filed under “Lawyers Behaving Badly:”

LAKE COUNTY ATTORNEY ARRESTED ON FRAUD AND OBSTRUCTION CHARGES; ALLEGEDLY BRIBED WITNESS IN PROBE OF MISUSING BANKRUPTCY CLIENTS’ CREDIT CARDS

CHICAGO — A Lake County attorney who allegedly made unauthorized cash advances and purchases on his bankruptcy clients’ credit cards for personal use and then discharged the resulting debts in his clients’ bankruptcies was arrested on federal fraud and obstruction of justice charges.

The defendant, BRADLEY F. AUBEL, a lawyer since 1997, allegedly obstructed an investigation of his activities by bribing a witness in the credit card scheme and engaged in separate fraud schemes involving an auto loan and student loans.

He was charged with one count each of mail fraud, wire fraud, and obstruction of justice in a three-count criminal complaint that was filed in U.S. District Court and unsealed following his arrest yesterday.

Aubel, 47, of Vernon Hills, was released on a $10,000 secured bond after he appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Maria Valdez in U.S. District Court. A preliminary hearing was scheduled for Oct. 16.

Gary Shapiro

The arrest and charges were announced today by Gary S. Shapiro, Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and William C. Monroe, Acting Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Unbeknownst to Aubel, a cooperating individual (CI) who worked for him for approximately 10 years began cooperating with the FBI in the summer of 2011 and engaged in text messaging with Aubel that is detailed in the federal complaint affidavit.

A year earlier, the CI was arrested on identity theft charges in Lake County relating to the use of one of Aubel’s bankruptcy client’s credit cards.

According to the CI, Aubel regularly asked the CI to perform illegal activities on Aubel’s behalf.

According to the affidavit, Aubel suggested that the CI plead guilty to the identity theft charges and serve a sentence, during which time, Aubel would continue to pay both the CI’s salary and mortgage so that the CI would not tell law enforcement that Aubel was misusing his clients’ credit cards.

In addition to paying the CI’s mortgage, Aubel allegedly paid the CI’s sister $6,000 to leave the area and go to Mexico so she would be unavailable to talk further to the FBI or testify at any proceeding.

Separately, between June and September 2011, Aubel engaged in a fraudulent financing scheme to obtain a 2011 Honda Fit by submitting a false credit application stating that he earned $6,666 a month, supported by copies of bogus tax returns purporting to show that he earned $75,585 in 2009, and $82,330 in 2010, the charges allege.

At Aubel’s direction, the CI helped create the false tax returns to provide the Honda dealership to qualify for a loan. Aubel told the CI that he had not filed tax returns for the last several years, the complaint states.

At the same time, Aubel allegedly directed the CI to create a different set of bogus tax returns showing that he earned little income to use in asking the U.S. Department of Education to forbear on collecting more than $100,000 he owed on student loans.

Aubel submitted these phony returns — showing that he earned $8,663 in 2008, $7,578 in 2009, and $7,018 in 2010 — to the Education Department, despite the fact that he had not filed actual tax returns for any of those years, the charges allege.

Records showed that Aubel defaulted on his student loans in November 2008 and owed a total of $106,073 in principal and interest.

Mail and wire fraud each carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, and restitution is mandatory. The Court may also impose a fine totaling twice the loss to the victim or twice the gain to the defendant, whichever is greater. Obstruction of justice carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. If convicted, the Court must impose a reasonable sentence under federal statutes and the advisory United States Sentencing Guidelines.

The government is being represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Netols and Christopher Parente.

The public is reminded that a complaint is not evidence of guilt. The defendant is presumed innocent and is entitled to a fair trial at which the government has the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

There is no exciting or even boring contest for McHenry County Stat’s Attorney this year, so let’s dip into the one in Lake County. The following press release is from a candidate who actually attended a fund raising event for future State Representative Barb Wheeler this summer:

BRYAN WINTER SWEEPS GOP ENDORSEMENTS FOR STATE’S ATTORNEY

Libertyville, Wauconda, & Cuba Township Organizations Impressed by Winter’s Vision for Office

WAUKEGAN, IL – Three Lake County Republican Township organizations have all endorsed Republican Candidate, Bryan R. Winter for Lake County State’s Attorney.

The Libertyville Township Republican Organization, one of the largest Republican groups in the County announced its “unanimous” endorsement and support for Bryan Winter’s candidacy on Saturday. Wauconda Township Republican Club and the Cuba Republican Club also endorsed Winter.

Bryan and Diane Winter attended Barbara Wheeler's summer fund raiser in Crystal Lake.

The Libertyville endorsement session included township committeemen listening to presentations from each Republican candidate for the position of State’s Attorney. Organizational bylaws require that a candidate must receive support from at least 60% of the total votes cast by committeemen to receive an endorsement.

The “unanimous” endorsement from the organization in support of Winter was exceptional, since rarely does a candidate receive 100% support in a contested primary.

Libertyville Republican Chairman, Edward P. Kelly stated, “Bryan Winter is a proven leader within the Lake County legal community; he has broad legal experience in addition to his service as the chief legal officer for several governmental entities. He also has leadership skills as the past president of the Lake County Bar Association. His experience and skills are what is needed for the next State’s Attorney.”

The Wauconda Township Republican Club and Cuba Township Republicans also endorsed Bryan Winter for Lake County State’s Attorney. Bruce J. Sauer, Chairman of the Cuba Township Republican organization noted that “Bryan Winter has the strongest qualifications and the vision to increase the cooperation between the county and local police departments.”

”It means a great deal to me to receive group endorsements from the Libertyville, Cuba and Wauconda Township Republican organizations,” said Winter. “I greatly appreciate their support and would bring a fresh and independent approach to the office of the Lake County State’s Attorney by utilizing my experience and leadership skills.”

Bryan Winter, is a former local prosecutor and litigator with over 26 years of experience in legal matters relating to individuals, corporations and municipalities. Winter is the village attorney for Gurnee and Kildeer. He grew up in Waukegan, and currently resides with his wife, Diane, and son in Lake Barrington.

Applicants for appointment as McHenry County Regional Superintendent of Schools.

Here’s the list I received in response to my Freedom of Information request for the names of those who have applied to become the McHenry County Regional Superintendent of Schools.

You may remember when it became clear that Governor Pat Quinn was going to cut state funding substantially for the offices, that newly-elected McHenry County Supt. Joe Williams decided not to take office.

Quinn refused to send the money to pay Asst. Supt. Williams and his retiring boss Gene Goeglein for the twelfth month of the state’s Fiscal Year.

But ten educators find the salary–in the $90,000 range–attractive enough to apply.

And, all are not from McHenry County.

Five come from towns that are all or in part in McHenry County:

• Karen Behrns, Crystal Lake, is principal at the District 300 Cambridge Lake Charter School
• Diane Hartman of Lakemoor, who actually took out a petition to run in last year’s election, but did not file it.
• Kevin Kalous, Algonquin, teachers Physical Education at Cary Jr. High School.
• Brendan Murphy, McHenry, is listed as a Curriculum Specialist at the Waukegan School District’s Abbott Middle School.
• David Shepherd of Island Lake teachers Social Studies at Marlowe Middle School in the Huntley School District.

Four people applied who live elsewhere in Illinois:

• Terence Brown, Rockford
• Reginald McGee of Freeport is an Assistant High School Principal at Auburn in Rockford.
• Randall Otto used to be Superintendent and principal at the Orangeville School District in Stephenson County.
• Roxanne Ferici lives in Chicago and is an Elementary School Principal in Niles Grade School District 71.

The final applicant is Martha Hasselbusch from Parma, Ohio.

Information about the candidates was obtained from TheChampion.org, plus some phone calling.

Without a Regional Superintendent of Education for June, McHenry County officials had to scramble.

County Administrator Peter Austin worked out a deal with the State Board of Education and Lake County Regional Supt. Roycealee Wood to her to sign over 100 GED Certificates.

He has been exploring the possibility of an intergovernmental agreement that would have Wood being able to do whatever is needed for McHenry County teachers and residents.

The McHenry County Board appointed Clifton A. Houghton, a Spring Grove resident as a new member of the Board of (Assessment) Review.

Houghton will replace Robin Brunschon, who was named DeKalb County Supervisor of Assessments.

Houghton has previously served as an alternative Board member in both McHenry and Lake Counties.

JoAnn Osmond at work on the House floor.

When Illinois Democrats sliced up McHenry County, giving Crystal Lake parts of three state representative and senate districts, State Rep. Mike Tryon’s home was put in the 66th District.

Osmond served as head of Lake County Republican Central Committee, so she has contacts through the new 61st District.

Antioch State Rep. JoAnn Osmond’s home was assigned to the 64th District. She was the only resident incumbent.

The district is comprised of about 51% Lake County voters and 49% McHenry County.

Osmond had to decide where to run.

Today I received the following answer to my question of where:

I have and I will be running in the 61st which means that I will have to move, but that will be two years off and only subject to my winning again.

She is going to try to retrain the district which she now represents, the 61st.  If she wins, the state constitution says she will have to move into the new district in order to run in 2014.

The 61st District is seen below.  Click to enlarge.

The 61st Illinois state rep. dist. Map prepared by Elgin-based political consultant Drew Veeneman.

That leaves the 64th district without an incumbent.  You see the boundaries below:

The 64 state rep. district. Click to enlarge. Prepared by Elgin-based political consultant Drew Veeneman.

52nd District State Representative Map from 2002 through 2010 election. Click to enlarge. Map by Elgin-based political consultant Drew Veeneman.

If you live in the current 52nd state representative seat in which Mark Beaubien served and are interested in serving out the remainder of his term, applications will be taken by the three men who will make the choice.

Mark Beaubien

They are

• Lake County Republican Central Committee Chairman Bob Cook
• McHenry County publican Central Committee Chairman Mike Tryon
• Barrington Township Republican Committeeman Gene Dawson

On at least the Lake County and McHenry County GOP web sites a place will be found to make such an application.

The three will try to reach a consensus, according to Tryon, but in the event they cannot, the voting strength is such that Dawson will be the tie-breaker if Tryon and Cook disagree.

McHenry County has 45% of the fall ballots, which is what is used to apportion appointment power.  Lake County has 48%, while Barrington Township has the remaining 7%.

So, what are the Republican leaders looking for?

The law requires the person selected be in the current 52nd state rep. district.

If the person selected does not live in the new district, he or she must be willing to move there should they win the GOP primary next spring.

52nd District map prepared by Elgin-based political consultant Drew Veeneman. Click to enlarge.

The ideal candidate will have a commitment to the Republican Party and “Republican movement,” Tryon told me.

The person must be able to raise money and fund campaigns.

The person must currently hold elective office, have done so in the past or “held community service positions equivalent to having held elective office,” again quoting the McHenry County Republican Chairman.

The person selected must successfully complete a background check.

Demonstration of an adequate knowledge of issues facing Illinois is required, as is the ability to communicate them.

Finally, the leaders seek an ability to work with legislators, community leaders and party officials.

Tryon noted that the new 52nd District in comprised of 60% McHenry County votes, 30% Lake County and the rest in Cook and Kane Counties.  He expects most of the growth in the next ten years to come from outside of McHenry County.

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Tomorrow I’ll reveal name of those who have already made contact, plus one that might. If you would like to make sure you’re name is on the list, email McHenry County Blog.

Illinois Senate Democrats have released their draft of districts for the next ten years. Below you see want they want to happened in McHenry, Lake, northern Kane and Cook Counties.

The proposed lines for this decade's state senate districts in northeastern Illinois, compliments of Senate Democrats.

Although McHenry County has enough people to continue justifying a whole State Senate District, State Senator Pam Althoff would lose Algonquin Township and pick up northwestern Lake County.

State Senator Dan Duffy would lose his part of Nunda and McHenry Townships to be replaced with most of Algonquin Township and a chunk of north central Dundee Township.  He would also have Barrington Township in Cook County, plus Cuba, Ela, most of Wauconda and Libertyville Townships.

Most of Grafton Township and the western part of Algonquin Township would comprise the northern part of a western Kane District now represented by Chris Lauzen.

I had thought the Dems would pit Althoff against Duffy, but that appears not to be the case.

Below is a view of the map that includes the boundaries of the state senate districts to the south of McHenry County which would claim local residents under the Senate Democratic map.

On this map you can see the three state senate districts into which Democrats would carve McHenry County residents.

It appears that part of Algonquin will be included in Democratic Party State Senator Michael Noland’s district. He is from Elgin.

Yesterday I wrote about how Winnebago County’s board had decided they, as part-time employees didn’t deserve to have pensions.

Front page of the Chicago Tribune April 10, 2010.

Today, the Sunday Chicago Tribune has a front page article by Christy Gutowski, Joe Mahr and Joseph Ryan entitled,

Quite a deal

Former DuPage County official Bill Maio was able to

secure a $100,000 a-year pension

after working mostly part-time

I wrote yesterday of how it used to be and to some extent still is the number of years one have of government pension credits, plus the final salary that counted, that a McHenry County Board member could take the credits from the relatively lowly paid County Board post, get elected to a countywide office which now, astoundingly, pay $100,000 a year and, then, retire after 40 years total annual pension participation at 75% of final pay under the well-funded Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund (IMRF).

(I also pointed out my generous legislative pension in yesterday’s article.)

The Tribune article reminds me of a gambit that elected county officials convinced legislators to pass when I was in office to turn county officials into state legislators, as far as pension benefits went.

It’s called the “Elected County Officials” option.

Notice that to be eligible one has to be a politician.

Among retired DuPage County Officials who benefited from the special pension plan was former State's Attorney Joe Birkett. After resigning his post, he was apppointed to the 2nd Appellate Court. Click to enlarge

The request of legislators was to allow elected county officials to retire after 20 years at 80% of final salary.

That’s pretty close to the benefits legislators themselves had.

But, legislators are nervous folk.

If you can keep your county officials happy, maybe they won’t run against you.

Congressmen figured this out when they allowed state legislators to keep any expense money paid for being at state capitols tax free…whether or not it was spent on room and board.

Since some lobbying group or another is holding a reception with decent food virtually every session night, it’s not hard to spend the entire per diem payment. Former State Senator Jack Schaffer used to suggest that such money should not be paid unless it was spent.

But, back to the “Elected County Officials” pension plan.

The Tribune’s research says the bill passed overwhelmingly.

The Senate voted for it 55-2 n May 16, 1997.  Senator Dick Klemm of McHenry County supported the measure.  One of two senators who did not was Chris Lauzen from just south of the McHenry County border.

The Senate's May 16, 1997, vote on the county officials pension improvement bill.

The House, 105-10. (I voted against the bill, as you can see from the roll call below.  Ann Hughes, the other representative from McHenry County favored the bill.)

The May 23, 1997, House roll call on the county officials pension sweetener bill.

Governor Jim Edgar signed the bill.

As the arrangement went down, county officials would have ther pension payment increased from 4.5% of salary to 7.5%.

Local property taxpayers would pick up the rest.

The Tribune reports that more than half of Illinois county boards signed up for the benefit.

McHenry, Kane and Lake were not among them, but DuPage and Will Counties were.

So, think back to who was serving you on the McHenry County Board in the mid-1990′s and thank them for their good judgment, even though some countywide officials wanted the board to approve the plan so their pensions would increase a lot.

McHenry County popped up as number one in front page stories in the Chicago Sun-Times Sunday and the Chicago Tribune Monday.

News about food stamp use increasing was the page one story in the Sun-Times.

Foreclosures on homes was the topic of the Chicago Tribune story.

The Chicago Sun-Times shows food stamp use up30.3% in McHenry County.

McHenry County had the highest percentage increase in food stamp use from last year for Chicago metropolitan area counties–up 30.3%.

Foreclosures in McHenry County increased 29.1%.

McHenry County had the highest percentage increase in home foreclosures from last year for Chicago metropolitan counties.

It’s shift change so the inmates are in their cells at the McHenry County Jail.

Update of June 15, 2012.

There is now a way to find people in the McHenry County Jail.  Look here for the link.

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A friend of McHenry County Blog was trying to find out if someone was incarcerated in the McHenry County Jail.

There was nothing on the internet, as there is for the Illinois Department of Corrections.

If someone is in state prison, you look for the “inmate locator” portion of the web site, type in a last name and everyone behind bars with that name pops up.

It must be a pretty popular question, because it’s the top Google item for IDOC and there’s even a separate listing.

But, there’s nothing like that for McHenry County.

I looked at other big counties and here’s what I found.

Lake County has a “prisoner locator” place.

Kane County has one.

DuPage County makes it easy to local those in jail.

Same with Cook County.

Winnebago County even has one and it’s smaller than McHenry County.

Populations of largest Illinois counties.

But not McHenry County, even though we are the sixth largest county in Illinois.  No county outside of the Chicago metropolitan area is larger.

I decided to look south of I-80.

The first county I checked was Sangamon, where Springfield sits. It has no easy way to find out who is in jail. The last census showed it smaller than McHenry.

Next I tried Madison County, near St. Louis. Nothing there, but Madison has about 50,000 fewer people now than McHenry. It used to be larger, but McHenry County has really grown.

Onto its neighbor, St. Clair County. Couldn’t find anything there either.  St. Clair has about as many people as Madison.

Couldn’t find any way to find an inmate in the Peoria County Jail, but that county is now much smaller than McHenry.

So, it looks as if bigger counties have prison locator functions that can be accessed through the internet, but smaller ones don’t.

I thought McHenry County was considered one of the bigger counties now, so I filed this Freedom of Information request:

“Most of the large counties in Illinois have an Inmate Search function.  Under the Freedom of Information Act, I request any documents that exist concerning McHenry County’s developing such a service to the public.”

Here is the reply I received from the Sheriff’s Department:

“The McHenry County Sheriff’s Corrections Division does not have any documents concerning the development of this service.”