Oy, part 162,410
Wednesday, Aug 2, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller
The Sun-Times broke this story and today the editorial page follows up.
When a fired suburban deputy police chief can turn up as the No. 2 official in the State Toll Highway Authority inspector general’s office and no one seems to know how it happened, it’s time to ask a basic question: If not clout, then what?
When that same man is allowed to quietly resign from the toll job after breaking the law by allegedly posing as a State Police commander to intervene in a friend’s domestic violence situation, it’s appropriate to suspect there’s more going on here than a lucky break.
The fact is that the apparently illegal conduct by Anthony M. Martin Sr. was handled like a common-place personnel problem. Posing as a cop is a felony, yet Martin miraculously escaped prosecution. Worse yet, he allegedly pulled this hoax six weeks after the governor signed legislation toughening penalties for people who impersonate cops and firefighters. Had these details not come to light in a Sun-Times article, there’s a chance Martin could have popped up on another taxpayer-funded payroll. After all, he has connections. His wife is Zelda Whittler, the Cook County undersheriff, and his brother is a now-retired deputy State Police director.
Voters could be forgiven for thinking this sounds like a case of the exercise of clout to try to put someone above the law.
Also, the governor has repeatedly claimed that his inspectors general are referring all cases of alleged criminal behavior to law enforcement, but that doesn’t seem to have happened here.
- Check the numbers - Wednesday, Aug 2, 06 @ 7:36 am:
Doesn’t matter.
- Think About It - Wednesday, Aug 2, 06 @ 7:40 am:
If all findings of wrongdoing by the IG were being turned over to law enforcement, then why do you think that Z. Scott quit…and Susan Lichtenstein…and most of the Governor’s other legal staff at the time…just saying.
Get more detergent, because when this all comes out in the wash, there will be a lot of insiders looking pretty dirty.
- schroedk - Wednesday, Aug 2, 06 @ 7:40 am:
Again, who honestly believes anything the governor or his staff say anymore. And yes, it does matter.
- Cassandra - Wednesday, Aug 2, 06 @ 7:41 am:
Tacky, tacky, tacky….but is it worth using up expensive law enforcement resources to punish him. Not likely. Wasn’t this a domestic dispute he was he was trying to influence. And aren’t there are lot of our many, many underqualified
state employees going around puffing up their importance in various ways. I doubt this is an isolated incident.
The real issue here is, how could somebody this dumb and with this little judgment be considered qualified for any state job, a state job with lush pay and benefits which we, the taxpayers, I remind you, are funding. No doubt Mr. Martin retains some nice pension benefits.
- Check the numbers - Wednesday, Aug 2, 06 @ 7:47 am:
When I say it doesn’t matter, that’s simply resignation on my part that voters don’t care. It should matter, but polls don’t bear that out.
- Gilbert Sullivan - Wednesday, Aug 2, 06 @ 7:53 am:
I am the very model of a state inspector general,
I listen to complaints of crimes both of the state and federal,
But if you think I’ll do a thing
about the crimes of which you b*tch,
you’d bettter think again
because I work for Rod Blagojevich.
- Mr . Ethics - Wednesday, Aug 2, 06 @ 8:54 am:
Do tollway employees have to take the ethics test?
- Anonymous - Wednesday, Aug 2, 06 @ 11:33 am:
Ethics test, schmethics test. We’re talking about Illinois politics here. Who cares?
The last two weeks of October all you will see from Rod are campaign commercials saying:
I didn’t raise your taxes.
I didn’t raise your taxes.
I didn’t raise your taxes.
I didn’t raise your taxes.
And that will be absolutely all the majority of voters will care about.
- Little Egypt - Wednesday, Aug 2, 06 @ 2:02 pm:
Anon 11:33 - and shame on the press if they let this guy get by with saying “I didn’t raise your taxes.” He has raised countless fees, which means more money from my pocket, which means a TAX. They can call the lottery the lottery but it is a tax if you play it. The perss needs to nail GoverNOT Hairdo and start doing it soon.
- Buck Flagojevich - Wednesday, Aug 2, 06 @ 3:40 pm:
Anonymous - @ 11:33 am:
You sure popped that pimple right on he head. I couldn’t agree more with you. The morons voting, “because its their duty”, should be required to take and pass an intelligence test in order to vote. Blagojevich can do whatever he wants but as long as voters hear “I didn’t raise your taxes” he gets their vote. Its enough to make one scream.
- Anon. - Wednesday, Aug 2, 06 @ 5:24 pm:
Inspector General’s Office is nothing but a cover up for the Gooberner. All of them are “at will” employees and can be fired just because their hair doesn’t look right.
- Silas - Opus Dei Monk - Wednesday, Aug 2, 06 @ 6:19 pm:
Blago is going to win. The general public does not care about the scandals and that is unfortunate. JBT does not offer a strong alternative. Its picking the lesser of 2 evils.
- A Proportionate Response - Wednesday, Aug 2, 06 @ 8:38 pm:
Pepperdine Law must have a remedial course for C students entitled “Plausible Deniability 101: Feigning Ignorance & Casting Blame”. This was the one course that Blahvich got an A in. It raised his GPA from a D- to that much touted C.
Unfortunately, he only got the Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations version of such legal tenets as “Ignorance of the law is not a defense”, and “Ownership is nine-tenths of the law”. You’ve been in office for nearly 4 years. You own any mistakes that your Administration has made Mr. Governor. And when you’ve got as many hours billed with W&S as you do, someone should’ve been able to interpret State statutes for you. Maybe you’re just paying the “yes men & women”.
Buh-bye. If not in November, then upon indictment and conviction.
- C.L.I.C.K. for Justice and Equality - Friday, Aug 4, 06 @ 5:32 pm:
As long as the Office of Executive Inspector General for the Agencies (OEIG) of the Illinois Governor can hide behind the Illinois Statutes created by the Governor, we will have issues like this arising. Illinois State law 5 ILCS 430/20-70 and 5 ILCS 430/20-95(d)prohibits anyone from disclosing any communication relative to an OEIG case with anyone other than their lawyer, and the person disclosing to their lawyer will be held responsible for disclosures made by your their lawyer. There are also administrative consequences attached to violations if there are any disclosures or republications in a weblog of any correspondence, or of any communication to or with the OEIG, because it would violate the State statute, and also the Governor’s Administrative Order 6, issued December 11, 2003. With this in place, there will always be issues such as described with this Deputy Chief of Police. How do we get around the law? People like this can always skirt around the media because of statutes such as described.
- C.L.I.C.K. for Justice and Equality - Friday, Aug 4, 06 @ 7:11 pm:
I checked 5 ILCS 430/20-70 and 5 ILCS 430/20-95 and it does not prohibit anyone from disclosing any communication relative to an OEIG case…. It prohibits the employees and state officials. Why would Mr. Jimenez, Deputy Inspector General, make an ordinary citizen of Illinois think they can violate these statutes. HMMMMMM.
- on target - Monday, Aug 14, 06 @ 9:58 am:
If a violation or cover-up was committed something should be done. I am sure if you look at many positions we (the citizens) are paying salaries for people that are not qualified for their positions from the tollway to sheriff.