By Frank Main
Chicago Sun Times
CHICAGO — Two Cook County state’s attorney’s investigators have been fired -- and several reforms have been launched -- after a prisoner escaped from their custody in September and allegedly went on a crime spree, authorities said Thursday.
Nicholas Argentine, 57, and Joseph D. Fallon, 69, were terminated Thursday in connection with the escape of bank robber Robert Maday on Sept. 17. Argentine earned $81,000 a year and Fallon $78,000, county records show.
The escape has prompted State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez to order additional training for her investigators and their bosses in how to transport prisoners.
Alvarez also is moving forward with fitness standards for investigators, said her spokeswoman, Sally Daly. The proposed standards are subject to collective bargaining with the Fraternal Order of Police, which represents the investigators, Daly said.
Alvarez said she fired Fallon and Argentine because Maday’s escape “was an extremely serious breach of security that put the health and welfare of an untold number of Cook County residents at great risk.” She said her investigation showed they displayed “an inexcusable and unacceptable inattention to duty.”
The investigators have five days to appeal the firing, Daly said.
Argentine’s attorney, Joseph Roddy, said he expects the firing will end up in arbitration through the Fraternal Order of Police.
“It’s an overreaction,” Roddy said. “It’s not malfeasance of office. . . . This does not consider [Argentine’s] entire career.”
Fallon could not be reached for comment.
On Sept. 17, the investigators were transferring Maday from the Kankakee County Jail to the Rolling Meadows courthouse where Maday was scheduled for a hearing. Maday was in the back seat of a Ford Crown Victoria with the investigators in the front. He leaned between their bucket seats, disarmed the driver, Fallon, then the passenger, Argentine, authorities said.
Maday allegedly went on to rob a bank in Bloomingdale, the same bank he robbed last year, authorities said. Maday, who also allegedly carjacked two women while he was on the lam, was captured the next day.
Alvarez said the investigators ignored a supervisor’s order to transfer Maday in a more secure “cage car.” Because they didn’t use a cage car, Alvarez said, one of the investigators should have been sitting in the back seat with Maday, whose restraints were not used properly.
As a result of the escape, the state’s attorney’s office brought in the U.S. Marshals Service to train supervisors and command staff in transporting prisoners. Alvarez’s investigators also have received additional training.
The office has expanded the number of its cage cars from one to four, Alvarez said.
Alvarez, meanwhile, is considering imposing a mandatory retirement age for investigators, but it would apply only to new hires, Daly said.
The average age of the 163 investigators in the state’s attorney’s office is 56, records show. Many investigators, including Fallon, are retired Chicago Police officers and detectives. Fallon was a driver for former State’s Attorney Dick Devine.
Charges are pending in Maday’s alleged Sept. 17 robbery of the First American Bank in west suburban Bloomingdale, which he also robbed Nov. 6 of last year.
Last month, he pleaded guilty in federal court to the Nov. 6 robbery, five other holdups and a robbery attempt -- all in the west and northwest suburbs in 2008. He faces up to 60 years in prison on those charges. Maday, an admitted cocaine abuser, has a long criminal record that includes convictions for robbery and escape in Dade County, Fla., in 1987.
Copyright 2009 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.