A former Cook County judge accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from a member of the famed Tuskegee Airmen now faces a looming criminal case after a lawsuit laid bare the alleged scheme.
Patricia Martin, a former presiding judge in Cook County, was ordered last month to pay $1.2 million in damages, fees and court costs after she failed to turn over records or answer questions about her handling of Oscar Lawton Wilkerson’s money.
Martin had been tapped to handle the decorated veteran’s finances when his health declined. He has since died.
During a virtual hearing Monday, Judge Anna Demacopoulos opened the door for Wilkerson’s attorneys to initiate criminal contempt proceedings against Martin for allegedly moving some of the money to a cryptocurrency exchange despite a court order prohibiting her.
Wilkerson’s lawyers have obtained records showing the transfer to the exchange accounts, according to court filings.
“If the allegations are true … that Ms. Martin violated the court’s order and did in fact access her cryptocurrency account within hours of the court issuing the order, and then eight times subsequent to that, that is an indirect criminal contempt,” Demacopoulos said.
The judge said Wilkerson’s attorneys can now file a petition to initiate such a contempt case.
The Cook County state’s attorney’s office would be given the first shot at prosecuting the matter because “the possible sanctions are criminal in nature,” Demacopoulos said, noting that Martin could be jailed, fined or both.
Should the state’s attorney’s office decline to prosecute, Demacopoulos said she could appoint a special prosecutor.
Eric Mail, one of Wilkerson’s attorneys, said he plans to file the petition for criminal contempt by the end of the week. The next court date is June 29.
Martin was reserved during the hearing, speaking briefly when questioned and announcing she will be representing herself.
She’s no stranger to a Cook County courtroom, having served as a presiding judge for more than two decades before retiring in 2020 as the head of the juvenile court’s child protection division.
Wilkerson was a member of the trailblazing Tuskegee Airmen, the country’s first Black aviation combat unit whose service in World War II helped pave the way for desegregation in the military.
After the war, he settled back in the Chicago area, worked in radio and continued flying.
Martin is the niece of Wilkerson’s former wife. She was given control of his finances in November 2020, a month before he moved to a senior residence in Orland Park, according to the lawsuit.
A red flag went up in July 2022 when Wilkerson got a notice saying he owed more than $41,000 to the facility and that payments hadn’t been made in months.
He learned that his checking and investment accounts had been “emptied,” the suit said, noting it was also unclear where his Social Security and pension payments were being deposited.
Wilkerson sued Martin last September, alleging she took advantage of him and seeking to get back his money, plus damages. His attorneys allege that nearly $385,000 had been swiped from his retirement and savings accounts.
Martin had “placed the vast majority of it into cryptocurrency before transferring it away to as-yet unknown locations,” according to his lawyers’ motion for a default judgment, which asked for more than $1.2 million, based on Martin’s lack of cooperation.
Demacopoulos granted the motion on May 24, agreeing to the seven-figure sum.
A week later, the administrator of the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission filed a complaint against Martin. The state legal disciplinary accused her of taking at least $246,000 from Wilkerson, putting $110,000 of it into cryptocurrency and making false statements to him and a close friend handling his affairs.
As Martin faces the prospect of criminal contempt charges, it’s still unknown whether a broader probe has been launched.
As Martin dodged questions and requests for information about the money, Wilkerson’s lawyers wrote in a filing last October that they were taking their concerns to the Cook County state’s attorney’s office, the Illinois attorney general’s office and the Illinois Department of Aging.
A spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office referred a Sun-Times’ inquiry to the state’s attorney’s office, saying that local prosecutors have “primary jurisdiction.”
Tandra Simonton, a spokeswoman for the state’s attorney’s office, said prosecutors were contacted in February and told an unnamed attorney “to contact law enforcement.”
