By: Mark Glennon*
Strong, credible evidence remains uncontested of workers’ compensation fraud in which Gov. JB Pritzker’s office, his wife and perhaps he, personally, participated. No exculpatory evidence has been produced. Pritzker’s promise of “accountability” remains unfulfilled. Attorney General Kwame Raoul quashed a whistleblower complaint and gave false excuses for doing nothing. Regular Illinois media ignore the story.
Now, however, the plaintiffs in two pending lawsuits on the Jenny Thornley scandal are cranking up their fight to be heard.
First, the director of the Illinois State Police Merit Board filed her brief on Tuesday asking an appellate court to override Raoul’s earlier success quashing her whistleblower complaint by having a lower court reject it. The brief is scorching and includes the background facts for those who haven’t followed the story:
This case concerns whether the Attorney General can arbitrarily or – even worse – based on political conflicts of interest, require a court to dismiss a case under the Illinois False Claims Act notwithstanding undisputed allegations and facts demonstrating that the people of the State have been defrauded.
[Whistleblower Emily Fox] provided both the Office of the Executive Inspector General (the “OEIG”) and the Attorney General evidence documenting how Thornley, a former political operative of Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and a personal friend of the Governor’s wife, M.K. Pritzker, committed her scheme. This included evidence that high-ranking members of the Governor’s administration participated to facilitate the fraud, including Ann Spillane, the Governor’s General Counsel. Thornley texted with M.K. Pritzker seeking the Governor’s help. Thornley, who never worked in the Governor’s office, listed the Governor as her personal supervisor and provided his personal phone number in support of her fraudulent worker’s compensation claim. And Spillane became personally involved, accepting the facially false and fraudulent claim directly and then assuring through intervention with Central Management Services (“CMS”) that the claim was paid….
What was surprising was that, after Ms. Fox filed her case, the Attorney General sought to suppress it by seeking the case’s dismissal. In his motion to dismiss, the Attorney General did not dispute the facts of the fraud. And he offered no rationale for seeking dismissal. Instead, he argued that he has unfettered discretion to require dismissal of an IFCA case – with or without reason.
The consequence of Thornley’s fraudulent worker’s compensation claim was payment to her of more than $70,000 from the State. After this case was filed, Thornley finally stopped receiving benefits. However, the State never filed a claim to claw back any of the more than $70,000 in benefits that Spillane had secured for Thornley based on Thornley’s facially fraudulent claim….
“Frankly, the brief says, “the Attorney General decision fails even a test requiring a shock to the conscience….”
The second lawsuit pending in the saga is a defamation claim in federal court brought by Jack Garcia, the former director of the state police merit board, who is particularly credible.
He’s fed up with delays in having his case heard so he filed a motion on October 20 asking the court to get it moving.
Garcia’s court filings corroborate allegations that Pritzker’s office participated in the fraudulent worker’s comp claim. They appear in his counterclaims starting on page 39 of his filing here. He was accused of sexual harassment by Thornley, and it’s that harassment that gave rise to her supposed disability underpinning her workers’ comp claim. But Garcia was exonerated by an independent, investigative report that cost taxpayers over $500,000.
More to the point, that investigation emphasized his reputation for integrity, professionalism and credibility, which is expressly described in the 100-page investigative report exonerating him of the harassment claim.
In other words, the report produced at the state’s own direction shows the credibility of the allegations made about Pritzker’s office and the fraudulent claim.
Yet Raoul has done his best to avoid holding anybody accountable or even looking into the matter. Aside from quashing the whistleblower complaint, he answered falsely on one of the few times he was asked about the case.
He and Pritzker literally laughed off the question and Raoul claimed that he had referred prosecution of the matter out to the Illinois Office of the Appellate Prosecutor to handle. But, as we reported earlier, that office said they had heard nothing about it.
The regular Illinois media has never followed up on that false answer they got.
Is this matter too small to warrant an attorney general’s attention?
Just last week Raoul issued a press release boasting that he brought charges against a low level Jasper County Health Department employee for allegedly billing the state of Illinois a mere $10,000 of work she had not done.
“Public servants are entrusted by the communities they serve to perform their duties with integrity,” Raoul said. “I am committed to continuing to partner with law enforcement agencies across the state to hold individuals accountable who break that trust.”
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The new appellate brief by the whistleblower says this: “It is no surprise that, in light of the evidence of the Governor and Ms. Spillane’s involvement, both the OEIG and Attorney General refused to act.” While the brief details how Raoul refused to act, it does not go into why that’s no surprise.
Why do you think Raoul would refuse to act?
Hmm. Let’s think.
Surely it has nothing to do with Pritzker’s campaign giving Raoul’s reelection effort $1 million this year and $3 million to his initial election in 2018, right? Not in Illinois.
*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints.
Earlier related columns:
- Pritzker said there should be accountability for worker’s comp fraud. Where is that for Jenny Thornley and Pritzker’s staff?
- Pritzker’s response to the Jenny Thornley matter is either dishonest, derelict or both
- Deeper into the hole he dug goes Attorney General Kwame Raoul on the Jenny Thornley matter
- Questions Mount Over Pritzker Administration’s Involvement In Thornley’s Alleged Fraud
- Answers needed as Illinois’ Jenny Thornley affair continues
Audio and summary 
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The Thornley fiasco is getting the Paul Pelosi treatment. Obfuscate, deny, mendacity. Democratic shitheelery.
I’d be smiling too if I was on the IL/Chicago political “gravy train”.
Obviously, Governor Flintstone had an affair with her, or worse.
Is that why she looks “squished out?”
Typical DemocRAT cover up. Watch who you vote for.
When you look at all the other races, federal and state, common sense, no more spending, law and order candidates are winning. Meanwhile in IL, over 15 Democrat office holders have been indicted or convicted in the last two years. Yet, Pritzker, Kwame, Duckworth and so on will be re-elected by large margins. IL voters are brain dead compared to other states. Don’t they see what’s happening in other states? Even NY may elect a Republican governor. Amendment 1 will pass because the unions are mobilized. Good bye, IL.
The wall of shame. Please get out and vote
Crime from Illinois’s politically motivated used to be worse than criminal activities in general. Now politicians want criminal activity to catch up to political crime!!
Illinois residents, enjoy the extreme corruption. This is your tax dollars at work.
Hmm, I’ll bet Kwame and Kim are good friends too!
Of course. Raoul endorsed Kim Foxx and has never criticized her once.
The usual for IL politicians—zero focus on substantive political corruption reform. IL politicians rated like #1-3 of all 50 states in political corruption. Sleazy corrupt IL politicians—a continuing decades long embarrasment, ,as well as a continuing economic threat to our well-being.
Great writing Mark. The only big mystery is why so called “regular press” has ignored this story?? Or maybe no mystery, just a given especially during an election??… has any major news outlet endorsed a single (non-machine) Republican??
We don’t have a “regular press,” anymore. It’s state-controlled propaganda now. Joseph Goebbels would be very proud of this Communist state and the people who still vote for these pigs.