Winnebago Sheriff's Race Dirty as Hell

This is a weird one. Here are the candidates:

Sheriff Richard (Dick) Meyers, Democrat, incumbent. Navy veteran. Became deputy sheriff in 1968, appointed to sheriff's post by the county board in 1997, won election to the post in 1998 and re-elected in 2002 and 2006.

Sgt. Aaron Booker, Republican, challenger. Ex-marine. Began law enforcement career in Loves Park in 1983, joined sheriff's department in 1993. Promoted to sergeant in 2006. Now running against his boss. Assigned to supervise a shift at the county's consolidated 911 call center in 2006 - a pet project of Meyers.

Booker and Meyers have pledged to run a gentleman's campaign, and as far as their ads are concerned, they have held to their agreement. Booker is running on the platform that the department "needs improvement" and has suggested nepotism and mismanagement. Not hard to believe when the sitting sheriff has been sitting in the top chair for more than 12 years.

Meyers' campaign has focused on his experience. (Unfortunately, his commercial doesn't seem to be available on the web, but he has some background videos on YouTube.) Neither is screaming to the streets how rotten and crooked the other is. Sounds nice, huh? Almost refreshing considering the current political environment.

Well, not really. When Booker announced in November 2009, running in the GOP primary against Randy Sturm, a well-known local guy and former Winnebago County Board member, political observers already recognized that things could get interesting. Rockford Register Star senior editor Chuck Sweeney opined on November 30:

Should Booker win, I’ll be interested to see what happens to the informal organization I call “the Courthouse Party.” Both Republicans and Democrats inhabit this party, and these officeholders tend to look out for one another to maintain their incumbency. Will the GOP members of the Courthouse Party stand by their man, Meyers, or go with the winner of the GOP primary? Stay tuned.

Heh. He got more than he bargained for.

Booker won the primary on February 2, 2010, and Sturm endorsed him soon after. Then things, at least on the surface, became quiet. Very quiet. But behind the scenes, the wheels were turning in the Sheriff's office.

In early January, a group of 911 operators filed a complaint with the Sheriff regarding Booker's conduct, alleging that Booker was quick to anger and had created a hostile work environment, that he would sleep on the job and (gasp!) would bring a puppy to work, and other stuff that most of us who have worked in an office, especially a busy, stressful and overworked one, would consider pretty minor. At least, I would. Normally, such issues would be filed through a union grievance process, but in this situation, the Sheriff decided that an internal investigation was required. In an unprecedented move, the department hired an outside investigator to look into the accusations. The investigator, former sheriff's Lt. Steve Pirages, had extensive experience in criminal investigation but none in internal investigation, and Booker remained unapprised of his situation until the query was well underway.

The investigation was complete by late February or early March. But nothing happened. On April 10, Booker received his annual performance appraisal which contained an overall rating of above average - somewhat down from his previous appraisals of near-perfect to perfect, but hardly cause for concern, given the circumstances.

In August, Sheriff Meyers let the other shoe drop. He empaneled a Merit Commission, comprised of citizens hand-picked by the sheriff, and filed charges of intimidation, harassment, threatening behavior and sexual discrimination against Booker and seeking his demotion from sergeant to deputy. It struck many locals as odd that there was a five-month lag between the conclusion of the investigation and the actual pursuit of disciplinary action, but we've been assured by the department's Chief Deputy Kurt Ditzler (the number two guy) that this is all routine and is, of course, not politically motivated. And of course, we believe him (wink, wink).

The Merit Commission, realizing the urgency of the matter and the need for the challenging candidate to either clear his name or take his lumps before the November 2 election, set a hearing for August 26, but then canceled it, eventually rescheduling it for October 5. Booker pointed out that had the charges been serious, he would have been placed on paid administrative leave. Of course, we believe him (no winks - the charges, if true, would expose the sheriff's department to a whopper of a lawsuit, and that wouldn't be very good management. But then again, a paid administrative leave would give Booker an awful lot of time to campaign, and that wouldn't be very good politics, but I digress.)

Meanwhile, the local papers were doing hardly any coverage on the candidates at all. Nothing, except printing a few letters to the editor here and there. Then on October 5, all hell broke loose, and the Merit Commission, as well as the good people of Winnebago county, have been subjected to a true dog and pony show. Minus the ponies, but the dogs were there, with State's Attorney Joe Bruscato making much of allegations that Booker brought a puppy to work. Also in the center ring were weeping women and pontificating police officials, and the poor commissioners had to sit through this for three days, all looking very serious and pensive (and some looking as if they'd merely been glued to their chairs, or replaced by works of art by Tussaud). The media went into a frenzy, witnessing the most exciting, if not the cheesiest political tussle in memory. Three days of "death by a thousand paper cuts," without Booker having a chance to present his defense, and the Merit Commission closed the proceedings until OCTOBER 27 - mere DAYS before the election. If there was any doubt in anyone's mind that this circus was politically motivated, they were immediately dispelled.

Meanwhile, the manure-slinging marathon was picked up by the masses. On October 18, an anonymous Samaritan probably from within the department released a package of pornographic emails that had circulated around the department, including the addresses of the forwarders and creating a paper trail leading all the way up to the Sheriff's office, creating a huge flap in local media. Several deputies have claimed they were discharged illegally for absenteeism due to their activities in military reserves, but have had difficulty finding a local attorney to represent them (surprise, surprise). A former sheriff's Lieutenant, Steve Kudsma, admitted being told to alter the results of the sergeant's exam scores of Meyers' own son. An ex-911 operator, recently retired, wrote a guest column exposing chaos at the county's emergency response center and accusing Meyers of misappropriation of funds. The Rockford Register Star in an unabashedly gutless move, said it would "choose" a sheriff's candidate, adding that it would not be an "endorsement." (Funny that they ran a poll on that announcement. Booker wins hands down with 60%, Meyers trails with 23%, 15% being so fed up as to commit to "leave it blank.")

Meanwhile, Booker finally had a chance to defend himself on Wednesday at the continuation of the Merit Commission hearings. He remained a gentleman, even though it was largely a "he said, she said" course of events. He declined to call his accusers "liars," preferring to characterize their charges and accounts of incidents as "inaccurate." But the worst act in this sideshow was the cross-examination by the State's Attorney of a true hero, Paul DiVenti, who took the stand to defend Booker, his long-time friend and former partner.

In an attempt to establish a pattern of disobedience to orders and procedures, the State's Attorney dragged out a number of disciplinary actions which had been placed in Booker's file over the past few years, most of which I assume were minor as the sergeant was not asked to read the nature of the infractions. One, however, from 2006, involved an incident with a deputy on his shift.

Booker had recently been promoted to sergeant, and one of his duties was to review daily reports from deputies on his shift. One day the sergeant reviewed a report of DiVenti's. The two of them, according to Booker's testimony, were friends and regularly ribbed each other. Booker returned it to the deputy in a folder and placed on it a Post-It note saying, "Who the f--- trained you?" The deputy left it on his desk, where it was seen by Deputy Sheriff Ditzler, who brought disciplinary action in the form of a letter of reprimand against Booker. Booker said that DiVenti was subsequently interviewed, and having taken no offense to what he considered a joke between friends, the disciplinary action was to have been removed from Booker's file. Booker was surprised to find upon examining his file this year, after the current charges were brought, that the letter was still in his file.

Since then, DiVenti was involved in a very serious accident in the line of duty which rendered him disabled. DiVenti took the stand on Wednesday, in good spirits despite the situation. He spoke slowly, but thoughtfully and deliberately, and he confirmed the details Booker had offered earlier. Then the State's Attorney's Civil Division Chief David Kurlinkus was assigned to cross-examine. Kurlinkus is a rather jovial-looking fellow, vaguely resembling Gabe Kaplan in Welcome Back, Kotter. Before the cross, he was amiably chatting with hearing observers and seemed to be quite the nice guy. But then he had his shot at DiVenti. He started out asking about the events and the nature of his relationship with Booker. Fair enough. He then began questioning DiVenti about his accident, bringing up his serious injuries. Booker's attorney objected on the grounds of relevance. Kurlinkus responded that he was trying to establish that the witness "wasn't fit to express an opinion" due to the result of his injuries. The commission allowed Kurlinkus to continue his questioning. He concluded with asking if DiVenti was taking pain medication, which was confirmed. Damage done.

In my opinion, it was the most despicable attack on a witness that I have ever seen in a courtroom, and I've seen a lot. DiVenti was crestfallen, and if I'm any judge of body language, the commission was not impressed. I was angry, and spent the better part of the rest of the hearing glaring at Kurklinkus, hoping to communicate how utterly repulsed I was by the allegation that this HERO was unqualified to recall who his friends were. Win at all costs.

Then Ditzler took the stand and testified that the disciplinary action was indeed the result of a complaint by DiVenti, despite the officer's own testimony. Again, despicable. Then the commission closed the day's proceedings and went into deliberations yesterday (Thursday).

Last night, both candidates appeared at a debate in Rockton organized by the Northern Illinois Tea Party. Their restraint was commendable, and when asked to comment on his superior, Booker declined to criticize Meyers on his agreement not to engage in negative campaigning. Afterward, the two even shook hands and exchanged greetings. Neither disparaged the other during almost two hours of questioning - it was a marvel. But the dirty bits are still playing out, even while the candidates avoid full frontal attacks in the public forum.

I was just informed that the commission will reconvene at 2:30 today, the Friday before the election. They'll go into private session, then will be expected to announce their decision. I'll post here as soon as I get back.

Update:
The verdict is in. Read about it here.

For a complete history of this race, click this link for a search of the Rockford Register Star. Results are in reverse chronological order.