McHenry County Blog

Daily Herald reporter Chuck Keeshan wrote a story on Sheriff Keith Nygren’s jail having making it more expensive to give money to inmates and ICE detainees.

McHenry County Blog broke the story last Wednesday.

Keeshan’s article about the complaint of Crystal Lake resident David Warren, who is a member of the Secular Franciscan Order of the Catholic Church has one paragraph that caught my attention:

“Deputy Corrections Chief Patrick Firman said the change was necessary for the jail to abide by state regulations governing how it handles inmates’ money.“

It is true that the Illinois Department of Corrections regulates local county jails. In my experience, this regulator has cost local taxpayers to spend money they would not otherwise have spent.

But, according to DOC Public Information Officer Januari Smith, this is not one of them.

I called her up and asked if this change by the McHenry County Jail had been required by state officials.

“We don’t oversee how they take in money,” she told me.

“We don’t oversee this particular part of a county jail.”

Maybe Firman was referring to a different state regulator.

No story from the Northwest Herald on the subject yet.

An October 26th memo from Sheriff Keith Nygren’s Chief of Corrections Daniel Sedlock announces the imposition of new, higher cost requirements for those wanting to help inmates and detainees financially.

Crystal Laker Dave Warren has been a 10-year, regular visitor and helper of those behind bars. His jail ministry has regularly written checks so the Sheriff’s Department can buy such personal items as soap, shampoo, lotion, and snacks that fit their cultural diet.

“Under the contract, Sheriff Nygren receives a (portion of the purchase price-original word redacted) from the vendor for all (the approximately $15,000 of) commissary purchases…a source of income for our County Jail,” he wrote one one Crystal Lake donor.

“That revenue stream will disappear if we can’t present a lump check.”

The memo that you can see below(click to enlarge) will require such humanitarian people to pay the cost of a money order or a $5 transaction fee for each prisoner or detainee.  The typical amount given each person behind bars is $10.

“It effectively removes the humanitarian aid portion of our ministry leaving only pastoral care,” Warren wrote John Morrison, Assistant Secretary of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“It is impractical for us to buy postal money orders for each destitute refugee/detainee, then address an envelope, and pay 44 cents to mail to each of them. That would be about 1500 money orders, stamps and envelopes annually!”

“For the last 10 or 11 years, we simply list(ed) each detainee’s number and name on lined paper. After each visit, we give the lobby officer this list and our Jail Ministry check made out to McHenry County Jail, i.e., $10 for each person listed,” he wrote a donor.

“For some time now, as a courtesy, we have allowed program volunteers to being in single checks to be distributed to multiple inmate/detainees housed at the McHenry County Jail.

“Unfortunately, because of an ever increasing population as well as a growing number of organizations requesting to place funds on a detainee’s account, this practice has become administratively burdensome for our staff.

“In addition, we continue to be faced with accreditation standards and regulations requiring a strict accounting of these funds and how they are distributed.”

Sedlock announces that the new, more expensive procedures will start on November 1st, five days after the issuance of the memo.

“We surely appreciate the services and support you provide to the inmate/detainees in our custody. We apologize for the inconvenience we know that this will cause some of your, but trust that you will understand our need to make these changes,” Sedlock concludes.

The memo disturbed Crystal Laker Dave Warren, a member of a Catholic religious lay order about which you can read more here and active in the Jail Ministry of McHenry County.

Besides his letter to the Assistant Secretary of ICE, the Crystal Lake resident has written others involved in the ministry, including a Cary  pastor thaking him for “your tithe of $528.27.”

He notes, “There are no administrative costs in this ministry. Even our Home State Bank checking account is free. Be assured that your entire donation to goes directly to recently arrived, destitute detainees held in McHenry County Jail.”

It notes that McHenry County gets $90 per night to house the prisoners.

The “all of your contribution goes to the mission” part of the thank you letter seems destined to be re-written.

In the closing part of his letter, Warren points out that House Bill 4613 “was passed to secure more access time in jails that warehouse ICE detainees. As a result, access for our ministry visits to McHenry County Jail has been expanded from three people to at least five, our available visiting time has almost doubled from one shift to two shifts, and the days have been doubled from bi-monthly to bi-weekly, i.e., from two to four visits each month. We are still restricted from going into the cell blocks as we were allowed to do for many years previously.”

No local official likes being forced by the General Assembly to do something he doesn’t want to. That’s for sure.

Sunday’s Chicago Tribune had a front page story that seems to have been inspired by two Catholic nuns not being able to talked to illegal aliens detained there.

It seems Sheriff Keith Nygren thought that the services of his award-winning chaplain, Michael Love, were sufficient, but Sisters Pat Murphy and JoAnn Persch didn’t.

Rebuffed, the two champions of immigrant rights went to Springfield and got state law changed so they could provide conversation and counseling to those detained.

The story, by Margaret Ramirez, relates how Sister Pat Murphy buttonholed former Senate President Emil Jones (D-Chicago) and laid a guilt trip on him.

The bill passed both houses of the Illinois General Assembly without a negative vote.

Interspersed in the story are the type of separation stories that played out in my legislative office during the 1990’s, especially after INS raided the Crystal Lake Holiday Inn. Fortunately, I had Pete Castillo as my legislative assistant to handle such cases. The one I remember best is a man’s coming in with a young child and a baby after his wife had been shipped to some regional detention center before the McHenry County Jail started accepting detainees.

In one of the two photos in the story, you can clearly see “McHenry County Jail” is written on the back of the orange jump suits.

= = = = =
I thought that I and the young Chinese politicians I took to the McHenry County Jail two years ago as part of an exchange trip arranged by the American Council of Young Political Leaders were being show the immigration detention floor until I read the comments under this story.

Now I’m not sure.

The Northwest Herald did a front page story on fathers in McHenry County Jail. I scanned it at the time, but that was before I lost my images in a hard drive crash.

It was a good article, to which I would link if the NW Herald’s search engine was adequate.

I was reminded of the underlying story I wanted to write by this May 26th Chicago Tribune story, entitled,

No job,
but child
support
still due

I tried to find that article by typing in all but the last two words in the title and nothing popped up. Didn’t matter, because the Tribune hides its articles after 30 days.

And it doesn’t matter for the purpose of this story.

Before my friend Mark Enghstrom was diagnosed with a fast spreading cancer, he was in one of the McHenry County divorce wars. Having endured one myself, we discussed the details too often.

He wanted as much time with his kids, Luke and Tabatha, as he could get. I remember one time he took them on a vacation in the almost broken-down panel truck he used for his carpentry and painting jobs. They always went camping. He could never afford a motel room.

I think they went to Iowa the time I am remembering his having told me about.

In any event, they were in farm country and he saw a farmer on a tractor. Mark offered him $15 to let Luke drive it. The farmer accepted it. Luke learned to drive a tractor in junior high school, just as farm kids do.

During the hearing on child support, he was so proud that he had just gotten a job selling insurance for some “Christian” insurance agent.

The $35,000 he testified to was not from commissions he had earned; it was a starting stipend.

And, guess what?

It disappeared when Mark called the boss on some unethical behavior.

But, did the child support decrease?

Oh, no.

It just kept mounting up as his carpentry and painting work did not bring in anything close to $35,000 a year.

(And that, a friend reminded me, is an understatement to Mark’s abilities. He was a craftsman. Look at the cove molding in our kitchen and you’ll agree. Ask my wife about the discussion of color for our bedroom and downstairs bathroom, where you can still seen a shoe mark as he distressed the striped faux French design he created. He used to call me “a handyman’s delight.”)

In any event, Mark’s ex-wife’s attorney seemed to think she could wring money out of Mark’s rock. She kept taking him to court again and again and, of course, Mark could never pay what he owed in child support, let alone the lawyer’s fees for taking to court repeatedly.

Eventually, the lawyer asked that Mark be tossed in jail for not paying the child support.

Right along with the violent criminals.

The irony is that Mark had just started a job that would pay decent money. Naturally, he lost it because he was in jail.

At the time I wondered about the logic of Judge Marty Zopp’s expecting a father to pay back child support while incarcerated.

I think Mark was in jail at least a month. (He was put in jail twice, for this offense, once earlier for not very long.)

At one of the status hearings, I interjected myself into the proceedings, saying I had a job for him.

The judge admonished me for speaking out of turn, but let Mark out that day.

We went to the McHenry County Fair and had lunch. How pale his skin was from all those days without sunlight.

Anyway, that’s what the two stories about Dad’s not being able to pay their child support when they lost their jobs brought forth from my memory bank.

Mark died in 2005 after having left an indelible mark on our family. My son sometimes says he “hates God,” because of Mr. Mark’s and South School Librarian Mrs. Pearl’s deaths. I see his handiwork in the kitchen, bedroom, living room and both bathrooms. The last thing he was able to do was put up the towel rack in the downstairs bathroom after painting it. It pretty amazing how often his craftsmanship leads my brain to think of him.

The irony is that the attorney who ran up all the bills trying to collect child support that did not exist did not get paid.

= = = = =
In the photos with people, you see Luke and Tabatha with their father Mark Engstrom.

A major article stuffed with information about McHenry County law enforcement officials’ treatment of Latinos stopped for traffic offenses appears on The Chicago Reporter’s web site.

Written by Fernando Diaz, the article starts with the Crystal Lake arrest of 2003 Honduran immigrant Osman Maldonado by a McHenry County Sheriff’s deputy.

The cigarette run resulted in the deputy’s finding a fake green card after examining Diaz’ wallet.

That led to a felony arrest for possession of fraudulent documents for 25-year old employed father of two.

After thirty days in jail Diaz plead guilty to a misdemeanor. On that same day the sheriff’s department took him to immigration court. With an electronic ankle device, he now faces deportation.

The next mention of McHenry County is way down in the article and the Zane Seipler suite against Sheriff Keith Nygren is the focus. See

“Driving While Black” or “Profiling Caucasians?”

What Ex-Deputy Sheriff Zane Seipler Says the Department is Doing Wrong

Discrimination Suit against McHenry County Sheriff’s Department Makes Fox TV

According to the article, in his suit, Seipler, whose wife is Mexican, Seipler

“alleged that the office is targeting Latinos—proxy for undocumented immigrants, he said—for traffic stops.

“Seipler said things changed soon after the county began cooperating with the immigration agency in 2006 and started providing space for immigrant detainees at the McHenry County Jail—for $85 per detainee a day. Seipler said he began noticing the pattern that more Latinos drivers were being arrested. ‘The goal was to keep the immigration wing packed,’ he said.”

Seipler asked for an investigation and was eventually fired, the article says, for “violating rules and regulations.”

Seipler sued last November.

Nygren told the reporter that Seipler’s allegations, which were investigated multiple times, are completely false and offered these direct quotes:

“I’ve been sued a lot [during] 42 years, [but] this is the worst that I have ever seen leveled at anybody with no basis in fact.

“I’m not going to tell you we don’t have people with prejudices and bias, but if we had someone enforcing the law based upon their bias, we would take action. We would not tolerate it.”

What do the statistics show?

The Chicago Reporter dug out this information:

“Since 1996, law enforcement agencies in McHenry County have filed charges against about 3,000 individuals for driving without a license and, since 1999, filed more than 500 charges for those who were in possession of fraudulent documents, according to the Reporter’s analysis.

“But many of these charges have come from only a handful of communities. Five communities, including Harvard, Woodstock and Crystal Lake, racked up 70 percent of all charges.”

How big is the problem?

State Rep. Edward Acevedo estimated that there are 250,000 “undocumented” driving without licenses or insurance.

The article also tells of suburban communities seeking 287(g) authority to enforce immigration law.

McHenry County Blog wrote extensively of how Ohio’s Allen County Sheriff Daniel Beck enforces immigration laws with 287(g) authority. The articles can be found below:

Fighting Republican Courthouse Corruption,

Motivation for Getting Involved with the Fight Against Illegal Aliens

The Rule of Law

Enforcement Techniques, specifically, how 287(g) training is not necessary to get started,

Idendtity Theft Enforcement,

Other Crimes by Illegal Aliens,

Terrorism and Bondage, and

The Critics

What Daniel Beck Told the Minutemen at MCC – Part 9 – What Wouldn’t Fit Elsewhere, Including Retirement Plans

Other articles about the Minuteman meeting include

“Minutemen Are Back with Sheriff Dan Beck Seminar”

“Minuteman Meeting at MCC Peaceful; Protestors Missing in Action”

“Dissatisfaction Expressed with Sheriff Keith Nygren at MCC Minuteman Meeting”

“The Goals of Mexico”

“So Many Illegals, I Could Not Get a Job”

= = = = =
The top sheriff is McHenry County Sheriff Keith Nygren.

The picture next to the Sheriff Dan Beck articles is of Beck. The section of the McHenry County Jail shown is the floor rented by the U.S. Immigration Service.

A couple of teenage boys were arrested late last week for robbing the Castle Bank in Huntley on March 10th.

Seems a bit strange that they would be from Hinkley, which is straight down Route 47 and west on Route 30 in DeKalb County south of the City of DeKalb.

It’s a long way to go to rob a bank.

About 30 miles.

Matthew Reno is identified as 18 and Justin Fasel as 17 by Daily Herald reporter Lee Filas.

They are being held in McHenry County Jail unable to raise the $40,000 apiece it would take to meet the $400,000 bail that has been set.

The same two are charged with trying to rob the First Midwest Bank in Union on March 23rd.

“The big break came, (Huntley Police Chief John Perkins) said, when FBI agents in Chicago received a tip and forwarded it to Huntley officers.”

The article adds, “

He would not disclose what the tip was that led to the arrests.”

I don’t know if these two would fit any of the categories listed below by Stop Prisoner Rape, but if they do and are convicted, they are in for a world of hurt in the Illinois Department of Corrections…when preventing rape in prison is not a high priority…if one at all:

“inmates who are

• small,
• young,
• non-violent,
• mentally ill,
• gay or
• transgender,
• in prison for the first time, and/or
• lacking a gang affiliation

are particularly vulnerable to being abused while incarcerated. Detainees who have been sexually assaulted in the past are also identified as likely victims of further abuse.”

That’s pretty much what I concluded when I served on the Illinois House Prison Reform Committee.

A couple of teenage boys were arrested late last week for robbing the Castle Bank in Huntley on March 10th.

Seems a bit strange that they would be from Hinkley, which is straight down Route 47 and west on Route 30 in DeKalb County south of the City of DeKalb.

It’s a long way to go to rob a bank.

About 30 miles.

Matthew Reno is identified as 18 and Justin Fasel as 17 by Daily Herald reporter Lee Filas.

They are being held in McHenry County Jail unable to raise the $40,000 apiece it would take to meet the $400,000 bail that has been set.

The same two are charged with trying to rob the First Midwest Bank in Union on March 23rd.

“The big break came, (Huntley Police Chief John Perkins) said, when FBI agents in Chicago received a tip and forwarded it to Huntley officers.”

The article adds, “

He would not disclose what the tip was that led to the arrests.”

I don’t know if these two would fit any of the categories listed below by Stop Prisoner Rape, but if they do and are convicted, they are in for a world of hurt in the Illinois Department of Corrections…when preventing rape in prison is not a high priority…if one at all:

“inmates who are

• small,
• young,
• non-violent,
• mentally ill,
• gay or
• transgender,
• in prison for the first time, and/or
• lacking a gang affiliation

are particularly vulnerable to being abused while incarcerated. Detainees who have been sexually assaulted in the past are also identified as likely victims of further abuse.”

That’s pretty much what I concluded when I served on the Illinois House Prison Reform Committee.

Take a look at this picture of the McHenry County Jail real carefully.

I took it from the Administrative Building parking lot across the street.

I guess some of my eyesight is still OK.

Look carefully.

What is out of place?

Look at the aerial.

Could it be?

A man climbing up.

I put on the long lens.

I drove across the road.

You can see what a saw.

Or, at least what my camera lens saw.

A sheriff’s deputy and I shook our heads at each other.

The pictures can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Take a look at this picture of the McHenry County Jail real carefully.

I took it from the Administrative Building parking lot across the street.

I guess some of my eyesight is still OK.

Look carefully.

What is out of place?

Look at the aerial.

Could it be?

A man climbing up.

I put on the long lens.

I drove across the road.

You can see what a saw.

Or, at least what my camera lens saw.

A sheriff’s deputy and I shook our heads at each other.

The pictures can be enlarged by clicking on them.

So, how many times do you wake up and see McHenry County’s Jail featured on the front page, plus pages 2 and 3 of the Chicago Sun-Times?

Probably not many, because you don’t subscribe to the paper.

Nevertheless, I was surprised to see an article entitled,

The quote is from Corina Turcinovic, who came from France to tend to her fiancé Maro, a Croatian bandleader from who was rendered a quadriplegic after being hit by a car. When it became clear he would not recover, she married him, moving to Chicago for medical treatment. (It’s more complicated than that. Read the story for details.)

She got a visa, which ran out.

And now, 17 years later, she is in the ICE detention center in Woodstock, hoping for a miracle to avoid deportation.