Knox County - In the spotlight for all the wrong reasons
In a story that has been developing for almost a week now, the Knox County State’s Attorney’s office has been mired in controversy. In a story first broke in the Peoria Journal Star last weekend, State’s Attorney John Pepmeyer has spent the last week both defending his office and decisions, and trying to explain possible motives behind the entire issue.
It first started with anonymous allegations that Pepmeyer would be accused of sexual harassment. According to the initial article, the State Police were being brought in to investigate the matter.
In Saturday's edition of the Peoria Journal Star, unnamed sources said Pepmeyer is accused of sexual harassment and the Illinois State Police - as well as the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31 - are investigating the accusations.
By Sunday, Pepmeyer had already issued a denial. Pepmeyer attributes much of the problem to political revenge sought against him. Pepmeyer was apparently investigating employee-prisoner fraternization in the sheriff’s office. The alleged employee was later hired into the state’s attorney’s office.
Pepmeyer said he was investigating allegations that a county employee had engaged in sexual improprieties with a federal prisoner about two years ago.
As the story made it to Monday, things looked better for Pepmeyer as he was able to gain support from the Knox County Board. Though the tide was starting to run in a different area as the AFSCME union started to hold their tongue about the issue. Initially, they had denied any grievances against Pepmeyer, but by Monday were much more tight lipped.
Spokespeople for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31 Randy Lynch and Judy Johnson, which represent county union members, also said Saturday that no grievance had been filed against Pepmeyer and no investigation was going on.
But this morning Lynch refused to comment on whether a complaint had been filed against Pepmeyer.
"What the union does internally is confidential," Lynch said. "It is confidential to the people involved on our side."
On Wednesday, things started to get very interesting. There were indeed grievances filed, and it was also noted that 3 assistant State’s Attorney’s had not been into work all week. According to reports, there were initially 2 grievances filed and Pepmeyer has 10 days to respond to them. It has not yet been made known exactly what was filed as both sides have been quiet.
According to Tuesday's release, the matter will be handled internally between the union and the state's attorney due to the "sensitivity of the issues."
"If I had (gotten a grievance) I couldn't comment on it. I'm prohibited from commenting on any such topic, if there is such a thing," Pepmeyer said. "It's right in the grievance procedure that there is to be nothing but confidentiality attached to any grievance."
Additionally the 3 assistants were reported to have not been in all week.
Mike Kraycinovich, Dean Stone and Tracy Jones are absent this week. State's Attorney John Pepmeyer declined to disclose the reasons for their absences.
On Thursday the story morphed even more. Not only were the 3 assistants fired, but 2 more grievances were filed. According to reports, the assistants were fired for:
“acts of insubordination, failure to follow direct orders and failure to follow directives,”
Pepmeyer released this information in a press release that went out to local media outlets. In reports from AFSCME, they confirmed that the additional grievances were sent. Pepmeyer has 10 days to respond to these claims.
In a late developments last night, local media reports stated that Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has been called in to help sort things out. This was a result of two of the fired assistants requesting action from the state. Pepmeyer himself has requested that a special investigator be appointed to the office, but that request was overruled in favor of Madigan’s involvement.
During a special hearing Thursday afternoon, Judge Edward Danner of the 9th Circuit Court in Knox County appointed the office of Illinois' Attorney General Lisa Madigan to join the Illinois State Police in investigating Knox County State's Attorney John Pepmeyer.
It will be interesting to follow this story a it develops. I hate to get ahead of myself, but it looks like some issues that have long been looked over because of people and politics are rearing their ugly heads. Everyone has their skeletons; it seems a few have fallen out of the proverbial closet.
To follow any minor updates or to comment on speculation, please visit thepoliticalwasteland.com. Additionally, I have a live chat page set up for discussion.
8 comments:
It's that time of year when those who wish to replace a state's attorney start dropping bombs.
Any hint of that here?
And, is the incumbent Republican or Democrat?
We have an odd situation.
Our elected SA, democrat Paul Mangieri, was named judge in December. Statute required that the replacement be of the same party. There was a democratic caucus that selected another candidate to replace him. However, because of more caucus fighting, the chair of the county board is republican even though the majority is democrat. So, the republican chair nominated someone else for replacing Mangieri. He managed to squeak his guy, Pepmeyer, into the job by getting a democrat to vote with him. Conventional wisdom was that the republicans went with Pepmeyer because he was more beatable in the next election.
So there could be motives there from people in both parties.
Though I have also heard through the grapevine that Mangieri didn't run the tightest ship, so I could see it going down as Pepmeyer cleaning house and the coup attempt to stop him.
There are interesting motives going in all directions. I don't think Hollywood could write it much better.
The other more probable motive here Pepmeyer was selected as the person most trusted to keep the sleeping dogs in the SA's office sleeping. When the allegations of sexual harassment came out (mind you, anyone who knows Pepmeyer knows that he is very capable of such behavior), he tried to create this situation where the allegations were an effort to stifle some alleged investigation on his part into the office. The truth is that Pepmeyer is doing what ever he can to save his skin and if that means an "investigation" into the problems of the office he already knew of, so be it.. He also has no understanding that his conduct is wrong.
Anon - interesting theory. Not one I would argue with either. The motives behind this whole situation are endless. Will be interesting to see how it all plays out.
I saw a story on a Peoria TV station (I believe it was WHOI, but they don't have the story on their web) that this is a revenge case dating back two years when a current employee of the SA's office was working in the jail. Apparently, she had sex with a federal inmate being held there. Instead of prosecuting, they moved her out of the jail and into the SA office. Now, Pepmeyer is looking into that case. In the story, an AFSCME spokesperson acknowledged that one of the people who filed a grievance was that person....a county board member was also on camera saying the sexual harrasment charge was brought by this eomployee.
My opinion is this is all a ploy to save Mangieri's ass. He's got people still loyal to him in that office (the three fired Asst. SA's as well as office staff) and they are making sure Pepmeyer doesn't take him down.
You got it right on the dot there. They will do anything to keep him from exposing their skeletons... and believe me, the skeletons are endless.
To add to that, almost all of the employees that Pepmeyer is/was stuck with are all completely loyal to Mangieri in one way or another...(the Sherriff's wife, a sister in law, his children's god father, or a long-time friend/new neighbor)...you can see the major conspiracy going on here if you take a deeper look. It has been evolving for the past two months, since the past State's Attorney team realized "their" man Dean Stone (one of the assitants) couldn't get enough votes to be appointed in order to keep their secrets under wraps. They hoped John would cover up their secrets or at least never come across them....but it didn't happen that way. SO, now they must try to sabotage his office, abuse his name, and intimidate him before others discover how bad they really are.
There's so much more to this story that will hopefully be brought to light soon. Mangieri, his corrupt assitants, and the Sherriff are powerful people who think they can get away with anything. No one is above the law. I guess we'll see if an honest man prevails over evil corrupt politician types. I pray for Mr.Pepmeyer and his family.
Mr. Pepmeyer has got investigators on site now, and boy have they uncovered things. To bad the state police and attorney general's office aren't following court orders and looking into the office like they were ordered to. Could this have something to do with daddy endorsing the former SA in his bid for treasure.
Grew up with him and he was into yunger boys when I knew him. Sometimes one thing leads to another.
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