Cost of Pavlin Case against the Sheriff’s Office to Taxpayers So Far

The warrantless search of Dr. Jerome Pavlin's home in unincorporated Crystal Lake criticized by Federal Judge Federick Kapala was conducted upstairs as well as downstairs, according to this Sheriff's Department photo.

Having published

  • an article about the case of the Dr. Jerome Pavlin, his wife and son against the McHenry County Sheriff’s Department, plus
  • a decision concerning summary judgment requests by Federal Judge Federick Kapala. (Through Saturday an amazing 109 people had read the decision.)

I thought you might like to know what it’s cost us taxpayers so far.

The named Sheriff’s Deputies in the suit were Jeremy Bruketa, Kyle Mandernack, Trevor Vogel, Christopher Jones, Ryan Lambert, Greg Pyle and David Shepherd.

TheĀ  suit charged

  • False Arrest,
  • Excessive Force,
  • Failure to Intervene,
  • Illegal Search of Home,
  • Civil Conspiracy and
  • Malicious Prosecution

You can see the allegations that didn’t meet the Court’s muster, plus those that merit a jury trial, plus the one count that the Judge already decided here and here.

The law firm of O’Halloran, Kosoff, Geitner & Cook was assigned to defend McHenry County and Sheriff Keith Nygren.

Just as in the case that former Deputy Sheriff Zane Siepler brought against the Sheriff and other members of his department for wrongful termination, the county has a “stop loss” clause in its insurance coverage.

In the cases of lawsuits handed off to a private attorney, county taxpayers are only on the hook for the first $100,000 of legal fees.

As in the Seipler case, where lawyer James Sotos has billed over $600,000. attorneys in the Pavlin case have racked up over $100.000 in legal fees.

McHenry County has racked up over $100,000 in legal fees on the case so, from one point of view, the case could be litigated to the U.S. Supreme Court without further cost to the taxpayers of McHenry County, except for time spent by deputies on the case during which they could be working elsewhere.

Take a look at the monthly billings that have submitted in the Pavlin case:


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