ILLINOIS BETRAYED: The 10 Most Corrupt Municipalities Beyond Chicago
A True-Crime Investigation Into Small-Town Power, Greed, and the Ultimate Betrayals of Public Trust
When we think of Illinois corruption, our minds immediately turn to Chicago—the city of mob bosses and crooked aldermen. But venture beyond the city limits into Illinois’ quiet suburbs and small towns, and you’ll find something even more disturbing: a pattern of betrayal so brazen, so deeply rooted, that it makes Chicago look almost quaint by comparison.
Here are the top ten corrupt municipalities in Illinois in no particular order:
1. CRESTWOOD: The Red-Light Camera Kingpin
The envelope changed hands in March 2018, passed across a table in what looked like just another small-town meeting. Inside: $5,000 in cash. The recipient: Mayor Louis Presta, a 69-year-old public servant who’d built his reputation on the slogan “Lou Can Do.”
What Lou could do, as it turned out, was sell out his town.
Presta’s downfall began when he was caught on camera — ironically, not a red-light camera — accepting that bribe from Omar Maani, a representative of SafeSpeed LLC, the politically connected red-light camera company that showered campaign donations across Illinois. In return, Presta promised that ticket numbers would “creep up higher” in Crestwood. “You got a new sheriff in town,” he boasted on a recorded call, celebrating an increase in violations the week before.
When FBI agents confronted him in September 2019 and showed him the video of himself pocketing the cash, Presta didn’t fold. He lied. “There was no money in the envelope,” he insisted.
The feds didn’t buy it. In August 2020, a federal grand jury indicted him on seven counts, including bribery, tax fraud, and making false statements. Incredibly, Presta ran for re-election while under indictment — and won. He finally resigned the night before pleading guilty in November 2021.
On April 25, 2022, U.S. District Judge Thomas M. Durkin sentenced him to one year and one day in federal prison, calling Illinois corruption “death by a thousand cuts.” “Public officials are held to a higher standard,” the judge said. “You are given the power to affect people’s lives.”
Presta, then 72 and in declining health, served less than a year before being released to home confinement — one more small cut in the long wound of Illinois corruption.
2. NORTH CHICAGO: When Police Become the Criminals
In North Chicago, corruption didn’t just steal money — it cost lives.
Under Mayor Leon Rockingham Jr. the city became a textbook case of how power without oversight corrodes a police force from within.
A Chief Who Robbed His Own Department
Between 2007 and 2012, Chief Michael Newsome embezzled roughly $276,000 from the city’s drug-forfeiture fund — money meant for anti-crime efforts. Investigators discovered he used the funds for car payments, his children’s education, and home remodeling.
When charged, he faced no prison time, paid no restitution, and was allowed to retire with full pension benefits. The man who stole from forfeited drug accounts retired comfortably on taxpayer money.
The Death of Darrin “Dagwood” Hanna
On November 6, 2011, seven officers responded to a domestic call involving Darrin “Dagwood” Hanna, age 45. A week later, he was dead. The Lake County Coroner ruled the death a homicide. The city paid his family $3 million in 2015. None of the officers were criminally charged.
Violence in the Streets
In another case, Officer Ray Hartmann caught up to a fleeing suspect during a chase, then slammed the man’s head into the pavement—fracturing his orbital socket and causing permanent brain injury and vision loss. The city paid nearly $1 million to settle the case. Court filings detail the attack and list both Rockingham and Newsome among the defendants.
Evidence Gone Missing
Internal whistleblowers reported missing evidence, altered reports, and retaliation under Newsome’s leadership. A 2011 appellate case affirmed protections for officers who reported suspected criminal conduct by the chief to the mayor.
The Death No One Explained
In October 2022, Dearsenio Sloan, age 34, was found dead in a North Chicago holding cell. The Lake County Coroner determined he bled to death from a dialysis port while in custody. The Major Crimes Task Force opened an investigation, but no public charges followed.
Under Rockingham, North Chicago’s justice system became a feedback loop of brutality and impunity — where those sworn to uphold the law broke it, and walked away paid for life.
3. WESTCHESTER: The $1,139 Bathtub That Exposed an $8 Million Scandal
Sometimes the smallest crimes reveal the biggest rot.
In April 2025, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul announced that Scott Russell, 60, Westchester’s former Public Works Director, had pleaded guilty to theft of governmental property after using a village credit card to buy a $1,139.42 bathtub for a supervisor’s private home.
A thousand-dollar bathtub might sound trivial—but it became the crack that split open a much larger mess. A Chicago Sun-Times investigation (July 2025) found that the village-hall relocation and renovation, originally budgeted at $2 million, had swollen to $8 million. The Illinois State Police launched a wider probe into bidding irregularities and payments tied to the 2021 relocation of Village Hall, the Police Department, and the Building Department.
Sources familiar with the project questioned how cost estimates could be “so majorly off base.” The bathtub, they said, was “just one tile in a cracked mosaic.”
Russell received two years of second-chance probation and 30 hours of public service after repaying the money—but investigators have hinted the full story of Westchester’s runaway renovations has yet to be told.
4. McCOOK: The Jekyll and Hyde Mayor
When U.S. District Judge Virginia M. Kendall sentenced Jeff Tobolski to four years in federal prison in August 2025, she called him what he was: “a Jekyll and Hyde human being.”
Tobolski’s transformation elixir was power.
The longtime mayor of McCook and Cook County Commissioner took over after his father’s death in 2007 and built what prosecutors described as “a vast web of corruption”—extortion, bribes, and kickbacks flowing through bars, event venues, and red-light camera deals.
The FBI raids of September 26 2019 blew the doors off McCook’s government. Agents seized $51,000 in cash from a safe in Tobolski’s home and searched McCook Village Hall as well as neighboring Lyons and Summit.
A year later, Tobolski pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit extortion and filing a false tax return, admitting he pocketed over $250,000 through multiple schemes. One involved McCook Police Chief Mario DePasquale: the pair demanded $1,500 per event from a restaurant owner who wanted to host alcohol-serving gatherings—$29,700 in total.
Another plot targeted Omar Maani of SafeSpeed LLC. Tobolski demanded a 10 percent kickback after the company secured a project in McCook, delaying municipal approvals until the cash came through.
Behind closed doors, he joked, “You know I don’t take any money in McCook — ever. I’m as legitimate as they come.”
His family saw otherwise. In letters to the court, his daughter confessed she had come to “loathe” him during his years in office; his wife wrote that he had been “lost to politics” the way others lose a spouse to an affair.
Tobolski’s cooperation was extensive—19 meetings with prosecutors, seven secret recordings, and a 61-page statement to a grand jury that helped convict others, including DePasquale (2 years) and his chief of staff Patrick Doherty (5 years +).
5. SUMMIT: The Police Chief, the Drug Dealer, and the Club
On May 25, 2022, the Chicago Sun-Times broke a story that read like a crime novel:
Summit Police Chief John Kosmowski and Building Inspector William Mundy were charged in a federal bribery scheme tied to liquor licenses at a bar owned by a politically connected heroin dealer.
According to federal prosecutors, the men accepted more than $5,000 in bribes to steer approvals for the club’s licenses and permits. The owner of the club — already convicted in a federal drug case — used his connections with village officials to keep his operation open.
Summit had already been in the FBI’s crosshairs. A March 2020 Sun-Times investigation revealed that renovations of Legion Park in 2018 had become “a nexus point” in a larger corruption probe. Contractors were questioned, search warrants were served, and federal agents uncovered irregularities in building permits, zoning approvals, and contracting practices.
By 2019, FBI and IRS agents raided Summit Village Hall, seizing records as part of a broader federal investigation that also targeted McCook, Lyons, and Stone Park.
The pattern was clear: in Illinois’s tiny inner-ring suburbs, corruption isn’t always about money stolen — it’s about entire systems where law enforcement, licensing, and local government bend to serve criminal enterprises.
6. CICERO: Machine Politics and the Ghost of Al Capone
Some towns are born under a bad sign. Cicero, Illinois, has spent a century proving it can’t outrun its own ghosts.
During Prohibition, Cicero was Al Capone’s headquarters — a town where police officers were on the mob’s payroll and City Hall existed to protect bootleggers and brothels. Capone’s men literally occupied the town’s government offices in the 1920s, turning Cicero into the beating heart of Chicago’s organized crime empire.
Nearly a hundred years later, the names have changed, but the playbook hasn’t.
Cicero’s modern era of machine politics began under Town President Betty Loren-Maltese, elected in 1993 and later convicted of stealing more than $12 million from taxpayers through an insurance scam. Federal prosecutors said she and her associates funneled public-employee insurance premiums into a fake company that financed lavish lifestyles and campaign operations. She was sentenced to eight years in federal prison in 2003.
“This was the betrayal of the public trust at the highest levels of local government,” U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said at the time.
After Loren-Maltese’s fall, power shifted to Larry Dominick, who has served as town president since 2005 — an unbroken two-decade rule that even insiders call “Capone-style government in khakis.” Under Dominick, Cicero has faced:
Discrimination lawsuits from employees claiming wrongful termination for political reasons, resulting in multi-million-dollar settlements.
Police misconduct payouts, including excessive-force cases and racial discrimination judgments.
Federal civil-rights suits alleging systematic political retaliation and abuse of town resources for Dominick’s campaigns.
Persistent nepotism and no-show jobs, including multiple relatives on the payroll.
A University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) report calls Cicero “a classic example of entrenched suburban corruption,” where the blurred lines between personal loyalty, public office, and patronage spending have effectively eliminated checks and balances.
A 2019 Chicago Sun-Times investigation listed Cicero among Chicago’s “crooked suburbs” alongside McCook, Lyons, and Summit — small municipalities that function like company towns run for insiders’ benefit.
In Cicero, history isn’t just repeating itself — it’s being reenacted. Capone’s ghost never left town; it just traded its fedora for a municipal ID badge.
7. HARVEY: The Strip Club Extortion Ring
For nearly two decades, a strip club in Harvey paid monthly protection money to keep operating despite prostitution and drug activity inside.
According to a December 12, 2023 U.S. Department of Justice press release, Rommell Kellogg was convicted of obtaining money by threat from the club — payments that began around 2003 at $3,000 per month and rose to $6,000 per month after 2007.
But the Chicago Sun-Times revealed the scheme went much deeper, implicating members of Mayor Eric Kellogg’s family in what prosecutors called a “family-run extortion racket.”
The FBI’s 2019 sweep of Harvey led to multiple arrests — six people in total, including the mayor’s cousins and several police officers — for bribery, falsifying police reports, and towing-lot extortion schemes.
The corruption wasn’t sophisticated — it was raw, coercive, and personal. A small-town government functioning as a shakedown machine, where the price of doing business was literal cash envelopes to the people sworn to enforce the law.
8. STONE PARK: Always in the Shadow of the Feds
You can drive through Stone Park in less than two minutes — a one-square-mile village with barely 2,000 residents. But for decades, it has punched far above its weight in corruption headlines.
This tiny Cook County suburb sits wedged between Melrose Park and Northlake — part of what federal investigators call the “red-light triangle” of western suburbs where pay-to-play politics, liquor licensing, and police protection rackets have long overlapped.
Stone Park’s political troubles date back decades. In the 1990s, Mayor Robert Natale was accused of steering village contracts to cronies and faced multiple investigations. By the 2000s, Stone Park’s reputation as a “crooked cousin” to Cicero and McCook was so entrenched that federal agents openly joked that “a raid there was a matter of time.”
In 2012, the village drew national attention when it granted zoning approval for a strip club near a convent, triggering lawsuits and public outrage. Attorneys later revealed that the club’s developers had deep ties to village officials, and allegations surfaced that zoning changes were quietly pushed through without proper notice — a familiar symptom of “shadow governance.”
By 2019, Stone Park was again on the federal radar. The Chicago Sun-Times listed it among Chicago’s “crooked suburbs,” alongside McCook, Lyons, and Summit — all of which were targeted in coordinated FBI raids that year. The Illinois Policy Institute later confirmed Stone Park’s inclusion in a broader federal probe examining contracting and insurance networks tied to politically connected vendors.
Locals say corruption there isn’t episodic — it’s ambient. Village police and zoning officers have been accused in civil-rights suits of extortion, harassment, and selective enforcement — often in cases involving liquor-licensed businesses. One long-running lawsuit alleged Stone Park officers “routinely demanded cash or favors in exchange for looking the other way” at code violations.
No single scandal defines Stone Park. Instead, it’s death by attrition — the steady, low-level corrosion of public trust in a town that’s been under a cloud so long it no longer notices the rain.
9. DIXON: The Queen of Horses and the $53 Million Heist
Rita Crundwell was the person everyone trusted. As comptroller and treasurer of Dixon—Ronald Reagan’s hometown—she was the answer to every financial question. “Ask Rita,” city officials would say. One commissioner even praised her for looking “after every tax dollar as if it were her own.”
He had no idea how literally she took that advice.
For more than two decades, from December 1990 to April 2012, Crundwell executed what federal investigators call the largest municipal embezzlement in American history. She stole $53.7 million from a town of just 16,000 people—roughly $3,300 for every man, woman, and child.
Her method was breathtakingly simple. In 1990, she opened a secret bank account titled “RSCDA” (Reserve Sewer Development Construction Account) with only her name on it. The account never appeared on the city’s general ledger. She created 159 fictitious invoices from the Illinois Department of Transportation, made out to “Treasurer”—her title—and proceeded to transfer millions from city accounts into her personal slush fund.
Where did the money go? Into building one of the premier quarter-horse breeding operations in the country. Crundwell’s ranch produced 52 world champions. Her horses had names that, in retrospect, drip with irony: “I’m Money Too,” “I Found a Penny,” “Good I Will Be.”
She lived a life of luxury: a $2.1 million motor coach, over $300,000 in jewelry, multiple properties, and travel to competitions nationwide. Meanwhile, Dixon struggled. The city froze salaries, cut budgets, couldn’t resurface streets or replace vehicles. Crundwell blamed it all on the economy and late state payments.
Her scheme came crashing down in 2011 when she went on an extended vacation for horse shows. City clerk Kathe Swanson, filling in for Rita, requested bank statements and discovered the RSCDA account. She didn’t recognize it as legitimate and alerted Mayor James Burke, who contacted the FBI.
For six months, Burke and Swanson remained silent while the FBI built their case. On April 17, 2012, Crundwell arrived at work to find federal agents waiting. She was arrested within hours.
Crundwell pleaded guilty on November 14, 2012. On February 14, 2013, U.S. District Judge Philip G. Reinhard sentenced her to 19 years and 7 months in federal prison—nearly the 20-year maximum.
“This has been a massive stealing of public money,” the judge said. “Monies entrusted to you as a public guardian.”
In December 2024, President Biden commuted her sentence, sparking outrage in Dixon. She had served only eight years before being transferred to home confinement during COVID. The city’s official statement called it “a complete travesty of justice and a slap in the face for our entire community.”
10. FOX LAKE: The Town Built on Lies
Fox Lake’s corruption stretches from Prohibition-era vice dens to modern municipal scandals, making it one of Illinois’s most chronically compromised towns.
The Officer Who Faked His Murder
On September 1, 2015, Lt. Joseph “G.I. Joe” Gliniewicz radioed that he was chasing three suspects. Minutes later, he was found dead with a gunshot wound.
The village, state, and nation mourned. More than 6,500 people attended his funeral, and the manhunt cost over $300,000.
Two months later, investigators revealed the truth: Gliniewicz had staged his own suicide to conceal seven years of embezzlement from the Police Explorer youth program. He had stolen thousands for vacations, gym memberships, and adult websites — and text messages showed he’d even plotted to have the Village Administrator killed after she began auditing the program. Police later found unmarked cocaine in his desk.
His widow, Melodie Gliniewicz, was charged for her role and in 2022 pleaded guilty to deceptive practices. In April 2025, Fox Lake settled her pension lawsuit, paying the convicted felon about $1 million in survivor benefits.
The Water-Fund Scandal
Fox Lake was sued because diverted $1.2 million from its Northwest Regional Water Reclamation Fund into the general fund.
The Indicted Plant Director
In April 2025, a Lake County grand jury indicted Ryan C. Kelly, Fox Lake’s Director of Water and Sewer Operations, on four counts:
Class 1 Theft
Class 2 Burglary
Class 4 Eavesdropping
Possession of a Firearm Without a FOID Card
The case, People v. Ryan C. Kelly (General No. 23 CF 539), was filed April 23 2025 in the Circuit Court of Lake County.
A Legacy of Vice
Fox Lake sits along the Chain O’ Lakes, which during Prohibition became a magnet for Chicago gangsters seeking refuge from city raids. The Mineola Hotel, now a crumbling landmark, was reportedly used by Al Capone’s associates for bootlegging and gambling operations. Nearly a century later, the same tolerance for corruption remains — only the crimes have changed.
Two Fox Lake mayors have drawn significant scrutiny over the years. Richard “Butch” Hamm, who served in the early 1980s, was indicted in federal court for accepting bribes connected to village contracts and a cable-television franchise deal. He ultimately pleaded guilty, marking one of the earliest high-profile corruption cases in the small Lake County village. Decades later, Donny Schmit, mayor, faced public outrage following the 2015 scandal involving police lieutenant Joe Gliniewicz and misappropriation of NW water plant monies.
Fox Lake’s scandals aren’t isolated. They’re inherited — a civic DNA of deception, passed down from the speakeasy to the council chamber.
CONCLUSION: The Suburbs of Shame
These ten municipalities tell a story that goes beyond individual crimes. They reveal a systemic rot in small-town Illinois governance: machine politics, family-run extortion rings, police chiefs who embezzle, public officials who shake down businesses, and a pay-to-play culture so entrenched that corruption becomes the norm rather than the exception.
While Chicago grabs the headlines with its federal trials and Illinois with its imprisoned governors, these suburban scandals hit harder because they’re more personal. In a city of millions, corruption is faceless. In towns of 10,000 or 15,000, everyone knows the mayor, the police chief, the public works director. The betrayal isn’t just against “taxpayers”—it’s against neighbors, friends, the people you see at the grocery store.
Why Dolton Was Not Included
Dolton, Illinois, nearly made this list—but it missed one key threshold: proven convictions.
Mayor Tiffany Henyard and the village have faced multiple controversies, including alleged misuse of municipal credit cards, federal subpoenas, and disputes over withheld FOIA records. Media outlets such as WGN-TV, FOX News, and Illinois Review have covered federal probes and lawsuits, even more so than other municipalities with indictments.
However, as of publication, there have been no criminal convictions or finalized indictments for bribery, embezzlement, or extortion involving Dolton officials. The investigations are ongoing, and while the town’s record is deeply concerning, this report restricts inclusion to cases with confirmed court outcomes—where corruption has been proved in a courtroom, not just alleged in headlines.
🔗 Sources
Former Crestwood mayor sentenced to 1 year in red-light camera bribery scheme
(Fox 32 Chicago)
Crestwood Mayor Lou Presta’s sentencing shows how towns cannot afford corrupt public officials (Chicago Tribune)
Former Dixon comptroller convicted of stealing $54M has sentence commuted by Biden (ABC7 Chicago)
President Biden commutes sentence for former Dixon, Ill. comptroller Rita Crundwell (CBS News)
Dixon Officials Decry Commutation of Former Comptroller Rita Crundwell Who Stole Nearly $54M (WTTW News)
Biden commutes sentence of official who stole $53M from small Illinois town, sparking outrage (Fox Business)
Rita Crundwell - Wikipedia (Wikipedia)
Former Westchester Public Works Director Pleads Guilty to Misusing Village Funds (Hoodline)
Office of the Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul: Guilty Plea Against Former Suburban Public Works Director (Illinois Attorney General)
Officer Joe Gliniewicz’s Dark Double Life Leaves a Village in Shock (NBC)
Federal judge gives ex-McCook mayor 4 years (Southwest Regional Publishing)
Former McCook Mayor, County Commissioner Jeff Tobolski sentenced to four years in prison (Capitol Fax)
Melodie Gliniewicz, widow of cop who staged suicide, to get $1M survivor’s pension from Fox Lake (Shaw Media)
Illinois nuns take legal action against bordering strip club (Catholic News Agency)
Sisters of St. Charles Borromeo Win Again vs. Stone Park Strip Club (Thomas More Society)
Stone Park red light camera tickets spark class action lawsuit (ABC7 Chicago)
North Chicago settles police beating death for $3 million (Chicago Tribune)
North Chicago jail death under investigation after man dies in custody (ABC7 Chicago)
“G.I. Joe’s” Widow Receives Settlement: Melodie Gliniewicz and Pension Board Come to Agreement
Smith v. City of North Chicago et al, Case No. 1:2012cv09915 (N.D. Ill.)
County and Fox Lake enter agreement, avoid civil suit (Chronicle Media)
BrownWatch (July 13, 2012): https://www.brown-watch.com/police-brutality-watch/2012/7/13/officer-fired-in-wake-of-hanna-case-unarmed-black-man-murder.html
World Socialist Web Site (December 20, 2011): https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2011/12/noch-d20.html