* A few weeks ago, an Arlington Heights man received worldwide attention for being a Good Samaritan…

A 54-year-old Chicago-area man who found and returned more than $17,000 in cash credits his deceased parents for teaching him right from wrong.

Robert Adams of Arlington Heights says he was waiting to use an ATM in Rolling Meadows when he noticed a clear plastic bag containing mostly $20 and $100 bills.

Adams tried to return the bag with “Chase” written on it to a nearby bank branch, but employees said it didn’t belong to them. Police determined it was under the care of Loomis, an armored truck company.

Alas…

A man who told Rolling Meadows police he found $17,000 cash outside a bank ATM was arrested Wednesday for allegedly lying about where he found the loot.

Authorities say Robert J. Adams found the bag of cash near an ATM in a Walgreens store in Midlothian.

On June 6, police responded to 2641 Kirchoff Road in Rolling Meadows, where Adams told them he found about $17,000 outside the Chase Bank ATM, Rolling Meadows police said.

Oops…

The truth — ferreted out after an investigation that took hours of police work (“Too many,” Chief Scanlan says) and a security camera recording from the Midlothian Walgreens — is that Adams took that bag of money in Midlothian.

“I see it. I picked it up. I walk out in the parking lot,” Adams says. “It’s pretty obvious I’m on security cameras. … Of course, 20-20 hindsight, I should have gone back into Walgreens and turned it in.”

Instead, “I started thinking like the 54-year-old man I am,” Adams says, explaining how, even though he is single, he didn’t want to explain that he had taken half a day off work in a failed hope to visit a much younger woman in Midlothian. “As to why I didn’t just go back in and turn it in, I don’t have the answer for that.”

He blames the heat, the traffic, his poor judgment and “the one side of my brain” that’s “a little Blagojevich-like.”

He may have a Blagojevich-like brain, but at least he wasn’t charged with multiple felony counts. He wound up paying a $500 fine, which is half what a former Gov. Pat Quinn employee was hit with…

A state ethics panel slapped a former top aide to Gov. Pat Quinn with a $1,000 fine for doing campaign work for the governor while on state time.

The Executive Ethics Commission posted its sanction this week against Carolyn Brown Hodge, a former deputy chief of staff in Quinn’s office who resigned after the Chicago Sun-Times brought her potential ethics violations to light in 2009.

Between January and June 2009, Hodge “on multiple occasions … used her state-issued computer to send a series of emails of a political nature, either from her state email account or from her private email account,” the ethics panel noted.

Hodge’s correspondences occurred during the state work day and were sent to a top operative in the Quinn campaign and to an official in the Illinois Democratic County Chairmen’s Association.

* Speaking of discipline…

Illinois Treasurer Dan Rutherford said today that he is reviewing possible disciplinary action against an employee who sent an email to fellow workers giving early notice about a contribution-matching program for the Bright Start college savings program.

Rutherford said it was “inappropriate” and “wrong” for the employee to tell colleagues about the promotion before there was time for the general public to receive notice about the program, which quickly ran out of funds.

“It was a mistake. I’ve taken responsibility for it,” Rutherford said following an appearance before the City Club of Chicago. “We are going through the disciplinary actions and hopefully we can have this thing rectified the way it should be.” […]

Rutherford said he has not yet met with the employee who sent the email, but said he believes the intention was not to give insiders an unfair advantage but rather spread the word about the promotion. Rutherford would not discuss specifics about potential disciplinary action, saying he is reviewing options with attorneys and the agency’s ethics officer.

* Back to Blagojevich for a moment. Patrick Collins is now counting on the public to clean things up…

“I don’t think you can indict your way to reform,” said Patrick M. Collins, a former federal prosecutor who was appointed by the current governor to lead an Illinois Reform Commission soon after Mr. Blagojevich’s career began to unravel. “There still is a structural ethics deficit in Illinois that won’t be cured by indictment or legislation. Ultimately, the long-term solution for Illinois is a more engaged public who steps up and demands better government before the next scandal develops.”

* And this is rich…

A Rod Blagojevich spokesman says a Florida-based airline’s new ad that pokes fun at the impeached Illinois governor’s convictions is “in poor taste.” Low-budget carrier Spirit Airlines’ website ad touts “F-ing golden” low fares.

Poor taste? Rod Blagojevich’s PR guy actually claims that something is in poor taste? I have no words for this.

* Related…

* Illinois likely to see fierce battle over gun control

* Registry of freed killers proposed for Illinois - Legislation to list murderers for 10 years after their release goes to Quinn

* Editorial: Make DCFS follow the law: Is the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services going to be allowed to brazenly disregard the law? In 2007 state legislators passed a bill that required DCFS to make public its files if a child under its care died. So when 3-year-old Joseph Schoolfield died in 2009, DCFS should have released his entire case file except for some exempt items such as medical reports. Instead it recently released a report that condensed hundreds of pages of records into an 11-page summary.

* Dana-Thomas House targeted by copper thief

* UIS spends $31,000 to fight SJ-R lawsuit

* City gives rationale for not disclosing Cahnman report