Special Prosecutor Henry Tonigan’s Bill at $312,259.62 with Three Months’ Outstanding

Some wonder, "How much more money is in the taxpayers' honey pot?"

Special Prosecutor Henry Tonigan’s bill for his multi-year investigation of McHenry County State’s Attorney Lou Bianchi’s alleged misuse of office resources for political purposes took another step Monday when he filed a bill for August through November of last year.

It was for almost $90,800.

That brings the total almost to $312,300.

Besides the original scope of the investigation, he and Thomas McQueen, the man billing for the most legal time for the four months, have expanded their probe with the approval of Circuit Court Judge Gordon Graham to include official acts of alleged favoritism by State’s Attorney Lou Bianchi and a “nephew” of his Investigator Ron Salgado who was attending Prairie Ridge High School in Crystal Lake.

In addition, Bianchi is charged with “agree(ing) to recognizance bond in a felony theft case for…John Doe #3 who Bianchi said was his ‘nephew’ and that the Assistant State’s Attorney should continue the case until a first offender program was in place in McHenry County so John Doe #3 could have the benefit of that program.”

Bianchi has denied that he had a nephew who got into trouble.

Similar allegations have been lodged against State’s Attorney Investigator Ron Salgado for some shirttail nephew resulting from a long-ago divorce of a relative.

A second investigator has been charged with using his car for personal purposes.


Comments

Special Prosecutor Henry Tonigan’s Bill at $312,259.62 with Three Months’ Outstanding — 10 Comments

  1. Lou Bianchi is costing the taxpayers a lot of money! Bianchi’s antics are going to bust the county’s budget. Millions of our tax dollars spent on outside attorneys by Louis Bianchi. Hundreds of thousands of our tax dollars spent on special prosecutors because Lou couldn’t let go and move on. What a waste.

  2. Ghost – why don’t you find out what Nygren is costing us. And, it is not over yet.

  3. Kinda like how Linda Moore’s antics are going to cause the township to go broke at the cost of the taxpayers.

  4. indivis. Why is Lou paying James Sotos millions of dollars in legal fees to defend the County? Why not live up to his campaign promise and bring in-house to save money. Or at least find a less expensive attorney.

    Funny how Bianchi supporters blame the Sheriff for these legal expenses in 2011. In 2004, Bianchi blamed the Sheriff’s outside legal fees on Gary Pack, not Sheriff Nygren. But now, Lou doesn’t want to accept responsibility for retaining and paying outside counsel since it is on his shoulders, not Gary Pack.

    In 2004, we had Gary Pack’s guy James Harrison, now we have Lou Bianchi’s guy Jame Sotos (close friend and associate of Lou’s personal attorney Terry Ekl). Nothing really changes.

  5. It has always struck me as odd that Bianchi supporters brag that he has done away with using outside contractors for legal work and then complain that Bianchi sends so much of the work involving the Sheriff’s department to external sources. I would had expected him to honor is promise and bring that portion internal also.

    As far as the fees in question in the article I suspect they are just getting started. It is the price we pay for choosing to have a sitting States Attorney under multiple indictments.

  6. (They were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.

  7. All considered, it seems to me that 300K (which will soon be half a million) is a steep price to pay for prosecution of this matter. This investigation should have been better supervised. This case may be why democracy fails: it is just too darned inefficient, and leaves too many opportunities for some to enrich themselves.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *