The director of the Illinois State Police Merit Board has asked a state appeals court to override the so-far-successful attempt by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul to kill off a potentially politically troublesome lawsuit against a former Merit Board employee, who is accused of enlisting the help of Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, his wife and his administration to further her alleged schemes to pilfer more than $500,000 in public money.
On Oct. 25, ISP Merit Board Executive Director Emily Fox filed a brief with the Illinois Fourth District Appellate Court in Springfield.
The brief asks the appeals court to overturn the decision of Sangamon County Judge Adam Giganti.
Kwame Raoul
| illinoisattorneygeneral.gov
In that decision, Judge Giganti had granted Raoul’s request to dismiss the lawsuit Fox had brought on behalf of the state under the state’s False Claims Act, to recover the money allegedly stolen through various means by former ISP Merit Board employee Jenny Thornley.
In her brief, Fox asserts Raoul gave no real reasons to seek to dismiss Fox’s lawsuit, other than he simply didn’t wish to pursue the case.
“The wheels of justice were broken in this case and no State official had any interest in ferreting out fraud that extended directly to the Governor’s office and to his General Counsel,” attorneys for Fox wrote in their brief.
“But this is precisely the sort of case for which the (Illinois False Claims Act) is designed. It was a sad day in the State of Illinois when the Attorney General filed his motion to dismiss in this case.
“It is a tragedy that the reaction of the State’s highest-ranking law enforcement official to the pattern of fraud alleged in Fox’s complaint was to bury the case rather than pursue it.”
Pritzkers intervene?
The allegations in the case date back to 2019, when Fox allegedly first uncovered evidence that Thornley, who then worked as the chief fiscal officer and director of personnel, was allegedly falsifying her timesheets to get paid for overtime she allegedly never worked.
According to court documents in Fox’s case and others, Thornley allegedly forged the signature of former Merit Board Director Jack Garcia and his predecessor to secure the alleged illicit overtime boosts.
Further investigation would uncover that Thornley allegedly also lied about her college education, which allowed her to get the job and receive higher pay, and also allegedly submitted fraudulent expense reports for trips from Springfield to Chicago she allegedly never took or traveled for personal reasons.
After Fox took that information to Garcia, he investigated further and was about to take then information to police. However, according to court documents, Thornley then accused Garcia of sexual assault and appealed for help to Gov. JB Pritzker and his wife, M.K. Pritzker.
Thornley had worked on Pritzker’s 2018 campaign for governor. In her appellate brief, Fox identifies Thornley as a friend of M.K. Pritzker.
Garcia was then abruptly removed from his post.
But an outside investigation conducted by law firm McGuireWoods for the Merit Board determined the accusations against Garcia were without merit, while substantiating the fraud, theft and forgery accusations against Thornley.
Thornley was then terminated and Garcia restored to his position.
Garcia, however, would later be again removed, this time permanently, under a law Pritzker signed forbidding anyone who had previously worked in the State Police from also serving as Merit Board director.
Critics called that legislation a political hit job, directly targeting Garcia.
Garcia has sued Thornley for defamation for the sexual assault claims.
Thornley was later criminally charged with forgery, theft and fraud. Charges against her remain pending.
But, in the meantime, Thornley filed a worker’s compensation claim, seeking monthly payments for the injuries she allegedly incurred, based on her unsubstantiated sexual assault allegations against Garcia.
Her allegedly bogus claim was pushed through by a high ranking official within the Pritzker administration, identified in Fox’s complaint and appellate brief as Anne Spillane, general counsel for the governor’s office.
According to Fox’s appellate brief, Merit Board officials were informed of the worker’s comp payments two months later by officials at the state’s Central Management Services office. Fox said the CMS officials told the Merit Board the claim was moved forward by Spillane.
According to Fox’s court filings and other published reports, Thornley allegedly pocketed another $70,000 in worker’s comp pay.
In all, Fox estimates Thornley pocketed more than $500,000 from taxpayers, allegedly under the protection of the governor’s office.
Fox said she presented evidence of Thornley’s alleged fraud and the involvement of the Pritzker administration in the alleged scheme to both the Office of the Illinois Executive Inspector General and the Attorney General’s office.
However, neither office wished to move forward with an action against Thornley to recover the money and uncover the truth of the allegations.
Raoul 'suppresses'?
Fox then filed a so-called qui tam action against Thornley. In a qui tam action, an individual files suit on behalf of a government agency, typically to recover money taken from the government through false claims for payment or other forms of fraud.
When individuals – known as “relators” - file suit on the state’s behalf under the Illinois False Claims Act, the Attorney General, acting as the legal representative of the state, has the authority to decide whether to take up the case itself, or to decline, and allow the relator to move forward with the case on their own.
In some instances, however, the law allows the Attorney General to seek to dismiss the case, but only after they notify the relator of their intent and appear before a judge in a hearing.
After Fox filed her qui tam action in Sangamon County Circuit Court, Raoul did just that.
However, Fox asserts Judge Giganti allowed Raoul to shirk his duty to, at a minimum, explain why he did not even wish to allow Fox to proceed with this case, which could prove scandalous for Raoul’s Democratic political ally, Gov. JB Pritzker.
“It is no surprise that, in light of the evidence of the Governor and Ms. Spillane’s involvement, both the OEIG and Attorney General refused to act,” Fox’s attorneys wrote. “What was surprising was that, after Ms. Fox filed her case, the Attorney General sought to suppress it by seeking the case’s dismissal.”
In siding with Raoul, Judge Giganti said he did not believe it was the role of the court to tell the Attorney General which cases he must decide to prosecute and which to ignore. The judge further said he did not believe Fox had done enough to prove Raoul was allowing political considerations to hold sway in the case against Thornley, or to prove that Raoul was being pressured by the governor’s office to dismiss the case.
In her appellate brief, Fox said Raoul has misrepresented the law, and the judge let him do it.
Fox said Raoul argues he has “unfettered discretion” in such fraud cases, essentially claiming neither the law nor the Constitution limit his ability to decline to pursue a fraud case, no matter the facts or reasons.
Fox says the hearing before Judge Giganti was supposed to represent an opportunity for her to force the Attorney General to defend his decision to dismiss the case. Instead, she said, the Attorney General argued – and the judge agreed – that the hearing was merely a formality, at which she was supposed to somehow persuade the Attorney General to reconsider his decision.
Fox asserts the legal reasoning flies in the face of precedent, other than an “outlier” decision relied upon heavily by the Attorney General and Judge Giganti.
Further, Fox said, the “unusual evidence” of involvement by officials at the highest levels of Illinois state government should also weigh in favor of allowing the case to proceed.
The judge, Fox said , “ignored these allegations, though (he) was obliged to accept them.”
“Instead, (the judge) focused on whether the Governor’s office knew about this case and whether there was ‘glaring evidence’ the Governor’s office pressured the Attorney General.
“That is unknowable at this stage in the litigation. What is knowable is that the Attorney General filed his motion to dismiss without reason, rationale or evidence. It is also known that the Attorney General knew of the facts in this case that implicated his colleagues, including the Governor and Spillane…”
Further, Fox said the court should ignore Raoul’s contentions that the other pending actions against Thornley somehow should shut down Fox’s attempt to force Thornley to repay the public money she allegedly obtained through fraud.
Fox is represented in the case by attorneys Robert M. Andalman and Diana Gurler, of the firm of A&G Law, of Chicago.
Raoul is seeking reelection this fall. The Democrat is opposed by Republican nominee, attorney Tom DeVore.