A former Joliet councilman has filed a defamation lawsuit alleging the city’s mayor and inspector general falsely accused him of participating in a criminal conspiracy against the mayor.
The lawsuit was filed Thursday by Jim McFarland’s attorney John Schrock against Mayor Bob O’Dekirk, Joliet Inspector General Sean Connolly and the City of Joliet. The lawsuit will mark O’Dekirk’s third since 2019.
Connolly issued a report dated March 1 that alleged McFarland, retired Joliet Police Chief Al Roechner and several others were part of a “cabal” that pressured former councilman Don “Duck” Dickinson into filing a false police report against O’Dekirk.
McFarland’s lawsuit asserted that Connolly began a “partisan, unfair, biased investigation that was outside the standards generally recognized by inspector generals to apply to their investigations to target [McFarland].”
“The investigation by Sean Connolly of [McFarland] was outside of Sean Connolly’s enumerated powers as [McFarland] who was a private person and was not a resident, official, officer, agent, subcontractor, contractor of the City of Joliet or involved in any function or program of the City of Joliet,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit alleged O’Dekirk and Connolly made false statements that McFarland committed the criminal offense of conspiracy
McFarland’s lawsuit asserted he never attended any meeting at Roechner’s residence and never conspired with others to charge O’Dekirk with a crime.
The lawsuit also alleged...
Blow the whistle, get paid. A Justice Department bounty program that incentivizes employees to blow the whistle on their employers could lead to more whistleblowing as the Trump administration inte...