By Cynthia Dizikes and Todd Lighty
Chicago Tribune
CHICAGO — As an investigation into the Cook County Adult Probation Department ordered by the county’s chief judge begins, a focus will be the department’s little-known and controversial partnerships with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies.
Joseph Gagliardo, whose Laner Muchin Ltd. law firm will conduct the investigation, said his team will look into allegations that the probation department has improperly partnered with those agencies and others on searches of homes.
“We are going to look at what’s going on in terms of these other law enforcement agencies,” Gagliardo said. “I don’t know if these instances are isolated or are they common practice.”
Chief Judge Timothy Evans, who oversees the court’s probation department, hired the law firm in May after a Tribune investigation found that probation officers for years have brought the FBI and others into probationers’ homes without warrants, looking for guns, drugs and information on gangs and crime, and leading to questionable and illegal searches.
In some cases, their actions led to accusations that drugs were planted, money was stolen and probationers were threatened with jail if they refused to become informants for Chicago police and the FBI.
Both the FBI and Chicago police defended their relationships with probation officers, saying they followed the law and their agencies’ policies.
Supporters of the collaboration said it has led to seizures of guns and drugs, and to information on gangs that solved violent crimes.
But Barry Spector, a defense lawyer who has represented probationers, said the public should care about potentially illegal searches, even though law enforcement is getting guns and drugs off the streets.
“This isn’t a technicality. This is the Constitution,” Spector said. “To call it a technicality demeans everything this country is based upon. There are rules and regulations about what is reasonable and how law enforcement should act.”
Gagliardo, Laner Muchin’s managing partner, said that if his team uncovers any evidence of criminal wrongdoing, the information will be turned over to the appropriate authority.
A former deputy corporation counsel under two Chicago mayors, Gagliardo more recently has been known as the lawyer Metra hired to handle the controversial 2013 separation of Alex Clifford as the agency’s CEO.
Gagliardo said he is billing at $200 an hour for the probation investigation, which he said is a significantly reduced rate for government clients. As part of the investigation, he also plans to review department polices and noncriminal conduct of probation officers, including any indications of unprofessional or unethical behavior.
The Tribune found that many of the concerns about searches stemmed from the activities of the department’s weapons units, supervised by Deputy Chief Philippe Loizon.
Evans, whose office the Tribune reported had been repeatedly warned since at least 2005 about potential problems on probation searches, has placed Loizon on desk duty. Loizon, 50, is restricted to office work and is not permitted to go into probationers’ homes.
The investigation is not likely to examine what Evans might have been told about questionable searches.
“I don’t think his knowledge is important to us at this point,” said Gagliardo, stressing that his team will focus on what happened in the field and how to make improvements moving forward. “We’re going to be looking at what went on and who was involved in it.”
Lavone Haywood, whom Evans appointed chief probation officer in March, had for years been Loizon’s boss. Haywood last week met with officers and supervisors from the weapons units to let them know the investigation was beginning, sources said. Haywood told them that at least one more person has come forward with a complaint against the department.
In an interview, Haywood said the department has turned over documents to the law firm but declined to provide details. He would not comment on any complaints the department may have received. “The investigation is going to be moving forward,” he said.
Joan Hyde, spokeswoman for the FBI’s Chicago office, said “our enforcement actions” follow the law and bureau policy.
“We work day in and day out with our law enforcement partners at all levels to address crime across all our programs, to include our efforts to combat violent crime in Chicago,” Hyde said.
The FBI-adult probation relationship has been beneficial to the FBI. According to bureau records, that partnership in 2011 and 2012 led to the seizure of 55 firearms; 30 arrests based on probationer intelligence; investigative help on 29 shootings/homicides; and 46 new individuals informing them about gangs.
Adam Collins, a city police spokesman, said officers have long partnered with probation to conduct periodic compliance searches, which he called “completely legal.”
“While probation officers have the authority to make an arrest, they do not have the ability to process an arrestee or to recover evidence, so they routinely rely on law enforcement partners like CPD for support,” Collins said.
But Spector, the defense lawyer, questioned why police and the FBI would team up with armed probation officers to make sure probationers were following their 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfews.
“I see no reason why the CPD or the FBI would go on a curfew check,” Spector said. “The only reason that I can imagine for why they would piggyback a probation check is that they don’t have enough evidence to get a warrant to enter on their own. It’s a pretext to search a house or to question someone.
“Do you really think the FBI or CPD allocate resources to see if a probationer is tucked in at night?”