East Chicago’s name is at odds with its location. If you travel east of the city, you wind up in Lake Michigan. But if you go south of the city and then slightly east, you’ll find yourself in East Chicago.The modest city of about 30,000 is home to a pair...
Felonies
Chicago-area Boy Scouts official arrested on white collar charges
The Boy Scouts’ motto is “be prepared.” It is not clear if a former top Scouts official with the Northeast Illinois Council was prepared to be indicted on white collar charges. He faces allegations of wire fraud and forgery, law enforcement officials said. According...
Task force aims to cut Illinois female prison population in half
They are mothers, sisters, daughters, wives and girlfriends. Many of them are from Chicago, but all of them are locked up in Illinois prisons. They spend time in the state’s correctional system on a wide variety of charges that include drug trafficking and...
Chicago police: $160,000 worth of diamonds stolen in plain view
There is an old saying that the hand is quicker than the eye. That’s not true, of course, but what is true that our eyes fix on one object at a time. We are therefore susceptible to sleight of hand; practiced hand movements that lead the eyes away from where...
Would you plead guilty to a felony you didn’t commit?
Imagine you were wrongly accused of murder. The case seemed to be rigged from the start. The eyewitness description of the assailant was a 5’7” Hispanic man, and you’re a 6’2” black man. You go to trial, assuming the justice system will...
Understanding the consequences of prescription forgery
Earlier this year, you fell off a ladder at work and seriously injured your back. You went to the doctor, who prescribed you an opiate to help you tolerate the pain. The drug worked well, but now you experience extreme pain anytime you don’t take it. Last...
Why it’s increasingly difficult to prosecute public corruption
You often hear about politicians facing public corruption charges in the news. Public corruption refers to any time of instance in which a government official abuses their position of power or public trust for personal gain. Bribery, fraud, misuse of government funds...
New hate crime law in effect in Illinois
In 2016, there were more hate crimes in Chicago than there had been in the previous five years. Instances of anti-Semitic offenses also jumped 85 percent between 2016 and 2017. At the start of this year, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced a revision to...
White-collar crime: A family affair
Jason Galanis is the son of John Galanis, a father who provided him with a life of luxury. On his 16th birthday, Jason received a $100,000 Ferrari from his father while celebrating in his family’s $50 million mansion.The elder Galanis is also known as one of the...
Bill targeting repeat gun offenders delayed by procedural maneuver
While most people were out enjoying the Memorial Day weekend, state lawmakers were hard at work in Springfield attempting to reach agreements on a host of issues from the budget and enhanced protections for immigrants to automatic voter registration and criminal law...