Cook County’s chief judge announced more than a year ago that he’d hired a Los Angeles law firm to investigate staffers who’d gotten federal Paycheck Protection Program COVID-19 relief loans to make sure they were legitimate.
Chief Judge Timothy Evans sent a letter to Cook County’s 2,700 court support employees, saying the investigation would take about two months. That was in late 2022. A spokeswoman for Evans says the investigation remains “ongoing” and won’t discuss what the firm has found or the cost of the effort.
But county payroll records and other public documents show nine of Evans’ highest-paid staff members have left his office this year between April and October, and their names match those of recipients of government-backed, forgivable PPP loans from a program that federal officials have acknowledged was rife with fraud.
The nine employees of the Cook County judicial operation got a total of $220,000 in PPP money, and several of their loans have red flags for potential fraud, according to a Chicago Sun-Times review that found:
- Some got loans by saying they operated businesses that, in Illinois, required a state license — such as barber or beautician — but the state has no record of licenses issued under their names.
- None had incorporated or registered the businesses before the coronavirus pandemic began.
- And many got the maximum loans possible, which means that, for them to have qualified, their businesses would have had to have yearly revenue topping $100,000 for what would have been a second job.
Three of those who left Evans’ office were supervisors paid $92,000 to $106,000 for work in the juvenile justice department, adult probation department and social work department. Another is married to a Cook County sheriff’s deputy who got a PPP loan that’s under investigation.
None of Evans’ employees appears to have been charged with any crime in connection with the loans.
Declining an interview request with Evans, his spokeswoman Mary Wisniewski says she won’t answer any questions about the employees or the PPP investigation, citing an “ongoing investigation.”
Congress established PPP loans to help businesses survive the economic downturn during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. There also were Economic Injury Disaster emergency grants for up to $10,000, which similarly didn’t have to be repaid if the recipients said they’d fulfilled the terms of the loans, such as having used the money to keep workers on the payroll and cover other expenses to stay in business.
Both programs were found to have ended up being rife with fraud. Earlier this year, a federal government watchdog estimated that 17% of the $1.2 trillion doled out from those two programs was obtained fraudulently.
Though Evans won’t talk about the findings of the PPP investigation of his office, other government agencies in Chicago have divulged how many of their employees were fired or disciplined after being found to have obtained PPP loans that appeared to be fraudulent:
- In January, a spokesman for Iris Martinez, clerk of the Cook County circuit court, told the Sun-Times more than 50 of her employees were suspected of defrauding the program.
- In September, Chicago Public Schools officials said 14 employees were out on the CPS inspector general’s recommendation, including one the Sun-Times identified as chief operating officer of the school system.
- Over the past year, Cook County’s inspector general has issued reports saying dozens of county workers were suspected of PPP fraud and many have been fired or resigned.
- In October, City Hall Inspector General Deborah Witzburg said more than 1,000 PPP loans went to city employees and that many appeared to be fraudulent.
As part of the state judiciary, the chief judge’s office is exempt from the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, which requires many public records to be released on request. So Evans doesn’t have to report, for instance, how much he’s paying for the outside investigation of his employees.
But records obtained from the Cook County comptroller — which is subject to the FOIA law and disburses all county payments, including those from Evans’ office, and also keeps his payroll records — show Evans agreed to pay the Zuber Lawler law firm as much as $120,000 to ferret out any impropriety by his employees in connection with PPP loans.
Payroll records show some names of people who worked in the chief judge’s office in 2022 and left in 2023 matched those on a federal list of PPP recipients. The Sun-Times confirmed that they’re the same people from records including deeds and bankruptcy filings. They include:
- A juvenile justice worker who got a $16,622 PPP loan for management consulting services in the west suburbs. Using the same address, the worker’s wife got a PPP loan for $16,525 for a taxi service. She’s a Cook County sheriff’s deputy assigned to the courthouse in Markham and is required to disclose any outside employment to her boss — but hasn’t filed any such disclosures since 2019, when she said she moonlighted for the City Colleges of Chicago, sheriff’s spokesman Matthew Walberg says. He says he can’t say anything more “on the status or existence of any investigations that may be ongoing.”
- Two supervisors with salaries of more than $106,000. Each got a loan for about $20,000 — which means they had to have reported having revenue of at least $100,000 from the prior year, 2019. One of those women, though, claimed to have 2019 revenue from a business that she didn’t incorporate until 2020. Neither returned calls seeking comment.
- A supervisor with a salary of $92,000 a year. She got two loans from two lenders a month apart in 2021 totaling $41,666 — the maximum allowed for a sole proprietor — for a beauty salon in Chicago. Illinois has no record of a cosmetology license in her name. She didn’t return calls.
- A probation officer with a yearly salary of more than $96,000. She got two loans totaling $41,666, issued three weeks apart, for what she described as a “sole proprietorship” security guard business in Chicago. A federal website listing PPP loans notes that most security guard businesses have more than one employee.
- A probation officer who got a $20,833 loan for a catering business at a south suburban address which someone else also listed to get a loan for the same amount, also for a catering business. Asked about her loan, the probation officer says: “I’m not at liberty to talk to you. I’m sorry.”
- A probation officer who got a $20,833 loan for a “travel accommodation” business in Chicago. The man filed incorporation papers for a real estate business in 2015. The company’s website shows nothing related to travel. Asked about his loan, he confirms that he no longer works for Evans and says, “I don’t think I want to answer any more questions right now.”
Databases posted by the federal Small Business Administration, which ran the PPP loan program, show nearly all of the loans obtained by people whose names and addresses matched those of Evans’ employees were forgiven. That means they didn’t have to be repaid.
The law firm the chief judge brought in has been hired by the county on labor matters since at least 2019. In July 2022, Evans hired Zuber Lawler to look into “applications for and receipt of loans, pursuant to the Paycheck Protection Program established by the CARES Act...by employees of departments under the administrative authority of the Chief Judge,” records show.
“Your investigation would include a confidential, attorney-client privileged comprehensive report of your findings and recommendations to the Chief Judge,” a letter from the judge’s office to the law firm spelling out the terms of the work said. “It is expected that status reports will be provided on request, and at least every 14 days for the duration of the investigation.”
Laura Kelly, Evans’ chief of human resources, authorized paying Zuber Lawler as much as $120,000, at discounted rates of $200 an hour for attorneys and $75 for paralegals. County-maintained billing records show Zuber Lawler has been paid about $80,000 through this summer for the PPP investigation involving the office of the chief judge.
