Thomas J. McDonough, 58, a former Cook County assistant state’s attorney who prosecuted Chicago aldermen accused of official misconduct and business executives accused of financial crimes, died Thursday, Oct. 12, of a heart attack in Century Village Nursing Home in Bridgeview. Mr. McDonough had Alzheimer’s disease, his family said. During his 26-year law career, Mr. McDonough, a lifelong Chicagoan, also worked as a defense attorney representing members of El Rukn and Gangster Disciple street gangs, said his daughter Megan Wenaas. “You never knew who would be knocking on the door,” she said. “He believed that everybody deserved their day in court.” He withdrew his law license five years ago when the disease began to affect the memory of a man who was known to spend long hours poring over detailed financial records in his job with the financial crimes section of the Cook County state’s attorney’s office, said his daughter. As a young lawyer right out of law school in 1968, Mr. McDonough would set up makeshift legal aid clinics in churches in poor neighborhoods, said his former wife, Rita. “He first thought he would become a priest,” she said. “Next to being a priest, he thought of being a lawyer,” which he always considered a valuable profession for helping others, said his former wife, who knew Mr. McDonough since 1st grade when they attended St. Sabina Elementary School on the South Side of Chicago. Mr. McDonough’s love of legal work rubbed off on his daughter, she said. “He used to take me to (Criminal Court at) 26th and California on days when I was off school and sit me in the gallery to watch him try cases,” said Wenaas, who is planning to take the bar exam in February. Mr. McDonough attended Leo High School and graduated from John Carroll University in Ohio and Notre Dame Law School. He was a past president of the Southwest Bar Association and a member of the Chicago and state bar groups. In his Beverly neighborhood, he also worked as a precinct captain in the 19th Ward. He taught criminal justice at St. Xavier University in Chicago. He is also survived by his sons, Thomas and Michael; one brother, Edward; and one granddaughter. Services have been held.
