By Cynthia Dizikes and Todd Lighty
Chicago Tribune
COOK COUNTY, Ill. — Cook County probation officers conspired with the FBI and Chicago police to conduct illegal and warrantless searches in an unchecked hunt for drugs and guns, according to accusations in a federal civil rights lawsuit.
Orangelo Payne alleges that while he was on probation for a drug offense in 2013, an FBI agent and probation officers found an antique shotgun during an illegal search of his home, which led to his being falsely arrested by Chicago police and imprisoned.
Payne, 35, was held in jail for 16 months before state prosecutors last summer dropped the gun charges against him.
“I did 16 months, and no matter the time you did, you never get that time back. Your freedom is gone,” Payne said Tuesday at his father’s South Side shoe shine shop.
Payne alleges in his lawsuit that the probation department encouraged misconduct by not investigating or disciplining probation officers who were improperly partnering with law enforcement agencies.
“The actions, omissions, and conduct of the Adult Probation Department Defendants ... were extreme and outrageous,” the lawsuit alleges. “These actions were rooted in an abuse of power and authority.”
Payne is suing the FBI, Chicago police, the probation department, an FBI agent, and individual police and probation officers. The agencies declined to comment about Payne’s allegations.
Payne’s suit comes nearly a year after the Chicago Tribune revealed an allegedly rogue unit operating inside the Cook County Circuit Court’s probation department.
The Tribune found that for years probation officers improperly worked hand-in-glove with the FBI and others to conduct warrantless and questionable searches, triggering allegations that drugs were planted, money was stolen and probationers were threatened with jail if they did not become informants.
That investigation focused on the probation department’s gang unit supervised by Deputy Chief Philippe Loizon.
Loizon, who was placed on desk duty after the Tribune’s investigation, is one of 17 individuals Payne is suing. Loizon declined to comment for this story but in the past he has said he did nothing wrong. His supporters have said the probation department’s alliances with the FBI and others solved crimes and took illegal guns and drugs off the streets.
Probation officers — unlike police and federal authorities — have the power under the law to conduct surprise searches of probationers’ homes without warrants if they have “reasonable suspicion.” But the Tribune found that the FBI and police assisted probation officers during searches, gaining access to homes where they might otherwise need a court-ordered warrant.
Eileen O’Connor, Payne’s lawyer, said that once probation officers confirmed Payne was home and not in violation of his court-ordered curfew, they should have left.
“There was absolutely no basis to search his home,” O’Connor said. “The antique shotgun was the fruit of a warrantless, unlawful search and seizure.”
Payne was sentenced to two years of intensive probation in January 2013 after pleading guilty to felony possession of marijuana. Late one night in April, he was in his Bronzeville apartment when probation officers and an FBI agent showed up at his door.
Payne previously told the Tribune that the FBI agent used probation as an excuse to have his apartment searched and to squeeze him for information about the killing of an FBI informant, allegedly by a man who would occasionally stop by the Payne family’s business, Mr. P&G Shoe Shine Repair & Apparel.
After officers found a 12-gauge shotgun and shells in a bedroom closet, they charged Payne with illegally possessing a gun and violating terms of his court-ordered probation. As a felon on probation, Payne was not allowed to have weapons or ammunition. He faced the possibility of decades behind bars.
After more than a year, the state prosecutor’s office declined to pursue the most serious charges and Payne pleaded guilty to violating his probation — a lesser charge that led to his release within days.