Top County Prosecutor & Executive Assistant Indicted in Political Corruption Case
An indictment in a political corruption case was unsealed Friday against the top prosecutor in a suburban Chicago county.
McHenry County State’s Attorney Louis Bianchi, 67, was accused, along with his executive assistant, Joyce Synek, 62, of conspiring together to misuse government staff and equipment for his campaign work between 2005 and 2010, according to the Associated Press and the Northwest Herald.
The special grand jury’s indictment of Bianchi and Synek follows an almost yearlong investigation overseen by a retired Lake County judge, Henry Tonigan, who was appointed as a special prosecutor.
Bianchi faces 19 counts of official misconduct and one count of unlawful communication with a grand jury witness—his former first assistant, Thomas Carroll, who is chief of the civil division in Bianchi’s office. Allegedly Bianchi sought to persuade Carroll not to turn over political documents to the special grand jury.
Synek faces four counts of perjury and one count of obstructing justice. She is accused of telling the grand jury, falsely, that she didn’t do political work for Bianchi on her office computer.
She and her lawyer could not be reached by the AP or the Northwest Herald for comment, but both Bianchi and his lawyer, Terry Ekl, expressed outrage.
“I am stunned by this indictment because I have done nothing wrong,” said Bianchi said in a written statement. “In private practice before and in public life now, I have always acted lawfully and with integrity. This episode represents the first time in my 42-year career that my integrity has been questioned.”
The investigation, Bianchi contends, was politically motivated:
“My political opponents have been relentless, used legal and illegal methods again and again to destroy me,” he says in the statement. “They need to remove me from office so that they can regain their power and control.”
