The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office says it has no role in a lawsuit brought by politically vulnerable Will County Democratic State Sen. Michael Hastings, who has sued his hometown in south suburban Frankfort, accusing someone in the Frankfort Police Department of conspiring to leak a police report concerning alleged domestic abuse against his estranged wife.
Last month, Hastings filed suit in Will County Circuit Court against the Frankfort Police Department, seeking a court order allowing Hastings’ lawyers to open an investigation into the possible identities of those he believed improperly released a police report with the intent of politically damaging Hastings.
Hastings’ petition was filed by his attorney, identified as Paul Castiglione. In the court docket, Castiglione is identified as an assistant state’s attorney with the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, with an office address at the Daley Center courthouse in downtown Chicago.
Castiglione had served in the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office for years.
However, according to a spokesperson for Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, Castiglione has not worked for office for more than a year.
“We can confirm that Mr. Castiglione retired from the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office on June 30, 2021 and is not a current employee of this office,” Foxx’s spokesperson said in a prepared statement.
“We have reached out to Mr. Castiglione and have requested that he correct the error on the docket.”
The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office declined further comment on Hastings’ case, saying it “does not involve the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office and involves litigation pending outside of our jurisdiction.”
Hastings and his wife are engaged in divorce proceedings.
In his July Will County petition, Hastings has asked the court to allow him to demand information from the Frankfort Police Department concerning which officers or Frankfort village employees may have accessed police reports concerning him and his family, and who may have released copies of the reports to news media or other members of the public.
In the petition, Hastings has leveled accusations of defamation and false light invasion of privacy related to the department’s alleged handling of a police report filed in late June 2021.
Citizen journalism organization, the Edgar County Watchdogs, first reported on Hastings’ petition.
According to the Watchdogs, Frankfort Police reported Hastings’ wife told police the senator had verbally abused her and battered her. Hastings has denied all accusations.
The Watchdogs indicated the report included accusations that Hastings had placed his wife “in a choke hold/neck restraint, and slammed her body into a door multiple times,” during an alleged eight month period in which Hastings allegedly “treated his wife poorly … being emotionally and verbally abusive.”
According to the Watchdogs report, police indicated Hastings’ wife “did not call the police at the time because she feared for her safety” and “didn’t want it all over the media since Hastings is a State Senator.”
Following the Watchdogs’ report and other coverage of Hastings’ Will County petition, the state senator posted a statement on Facebook, to a page for his reelection campaign.
In the statement, Hastings accused his estranged wife of “a long-term, eight-month secret affair” with another man, which he claimed led him to file for divorce. According to the statement, Hastings learned of the alleged relationship when he “discovered excessive amounts of text messages and late-night phone calls, some of which lasted more than two hours after midnight, in addition to geolocation information pinning his estranged wife at her paramour’s residence.”
In the statement, Hastings further accuses his wife of conspiring with “two of (Hastings’) known political adversaries’ and conspired with them to smear and defame him to gain a litigation advantage during the divorce proceedings through an underhanded pressure campaign.”
Hastings’ asserts “someone within the Frankfort Police Department, working with (his) wife, produced a police report … in which my wife makes false allegations of domestic violence that never occurred.”
“That information was then intentionally leaked to the news media in a sinister attempt to influence the elections, hurt me politically by tarnishing my reputation, and turning the divorce around to blame the divorce on me by using these false domestic violence accusations,” Hastings said.
Hastings said he plans more lawsuits “to defend my reputation in the court of law.”
Hastings has served in the Illinois State Senate since 2013, representing the 19th Senate District. He is a lawyer and U.S. Army veteran, who served in U.S. military operations in Iraq.
He recently ran unopposed for the Democratic nomination for the Senate district.
He is opposed by Republican Patrick Sheehan, a 14-year veteran of the Plainfield Police Department in southwest suburban Plainfield. According to his campaign biography, he resides in Lockport.
The 19th Senate District includes portions of southwest suburban Cook County, including Tinley Park, Orland Hills and Country Club Hills, and north central Will County, including Frankfort, Mokena, New Lenox and Homer Glen.