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IDOC statement debunked

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Illinois

* From last Wednesday…

A Peoria murder trial was delayed this week after the Illinois Department of Corrections said it was short of gas money.

* IDOC’s response…

While the Department acknowledges it is in desperate need of additional appropriation authority from the General Assembly, I want to make it clear that no offenders have missed scheduled court appearances because of a fuel shortage. The IDOC has no record of the offender who was named in the article being required to attend court on May 8. The Department will transport him, and all other offenders who have court appearances, on the dates they are scheduled.

* Chris Kaergard takes a closer look at the department’s statement and says IDOC is being “too cute by half”…

* Nobody missed a scheduled court appearance? That’s because IDOC asked for an extension. The trial didn’t go forward. So technically we suppose nobody has missed anything. Then again, we didn’t report that they did — just that the trial was delayed.

* There’s no record of Lacy being required to attend court May 8? On that date, that’s true. The email filed by the state said he was expected to testify on May 10 or May 11. That communique, incidentally, exists as part of the court file now — a piece of the public record. It shows that someone at IDOC — at the prison where Lacy is lodged — does indeed have a record that he was due to come to court.

What is undeniably true is that IDOC has asked for an extra $420 million in its budget in the current year to deal with additional costs, because it spent some cash to keep the plates spinning back when the state didn’t have a budget.

But at a hearing last month, a bipartisan group of state senators gave top corrections leaders there a tongue-lashing for downplaying the urgency of that need for that cash.

posted by Rich Miller
Monday, May 14, 18 @ 10:12 am

Comments

From the original story:

–This week, an official at Western Illinois Correctional Center in Mount Sterling sent an email to the Peoria County State’s Attorney’s Office saying it couldn’t bring an inmate, who was slated to be a witness in a murder trial, because it was “having difficulties with making fuel purchases at the current time.”

The official then asked the state’s attorney’s office to push the trial back later in May “when the probability is more likely that we will be able to obtain fuel while on the road if needed.”–

The IDOC spin doctors need to get together on their stories.

Who’s in charge of the executive branch these days, anyway?

Comment by wordslinger Monday, May 14, 18 @ 10:18 am
So it was debunked… but then undebunked?

Comment by Shemp Monday, May 14, 18 @ 10:19 am
Like their leader the Gov.. IDOC has an issue with the truth..

Comment by Not Rich Monday, May 14, 18 @ 10:24 am
Shouldn’t we raise taxes to get them 420 million?

What is failed Governor doing about breaking up the unions at the prisons?

Comment by Mike Cirrincione Monday, May 14, 18 @ 11:18 am
This is the same crap we hear in Southern Illinois from IDOC. They had a coop agreement with IDOT to pick up trash on the highways. Their claim for the last several years is no money to buy fuel for the vans. They closed Hardin County Work Camp because there was no money to repair the kitchen that was damaged in a fire. Most of the small towns were able to use inmate labor to mow and do other jobs.

Comment by Nieva Monday, May 14, 18 @ 12:54 pm
Is DOC collecting the cost of incarceration for ex-Lake in the Hills deputy police chief Alan Bokowski, who is incarcerated for criminal sexual assault of a child and who is drawing about an $80,000 pension from LITH?

Comment by Anonymous Monday, May 14, 18 @ 3:49 pm