A Cook County Jail guard was suspended with pay and faces possible criminal charges for allegedly punching and breaking a cheekbone of one of the suspects charged in the Brown’s Chicken & Pasta slayings, officials said Monday.
The corrections officer, who turned in his badge and gun early Monday, apparently provoked the altercation with James Degorski on Saturday in a maximum-security unit, sheriff’s spokesman Sally Daly said.
“Regardless of the high profile of this case and the type of crime [Degorski] is alleged to have committed, this kind of conduct by this officer is absolutely unconscionable,” Daly said. “This type of behavior is inexcusable and unprofessional, and it will not be tolerated.”
The 37-year-old guard has been a corrections officer for 4 1/2 years and has no history of similar problems, Daly said.
“This appears to be a severe momentary lapse in judgment,” she said.
The incident began about 6 p.m. Saturday, about five hours after a Cook County Circuit Court judge ordered Degorski and Juan Luna, the other suspect, jailed without bond. Luna and Degorski have been charged with seven counts of first-degree murder in the Jan. 8, 1993, shootings of five employees and the two owners of the Palatine restaurant.
Degorski signed into the jail at 1:20 p.m. and was taken to the maximum-security tier in Division 9 about 3:30 p.m., Daly said. Standing alone in his cell, Degorski broke down and was “behaving erratically,” Daly said. “He was distraught, crying, making statements that his life was over.”
A corrections officer went to Degorski’s cell and called him out into a hallway, out of sight of other inmates, to collect himself, Daly said.
The guard sat him down in a chair in the hallway, then turned his back to tend to other duties, she said. At that moment the guard under investigation, who was assigned to an adjacent tier, walked up to Degorski, Daly said.
“The guard was aware of who this is and says something to him,” Daly said.
Degorski said something back to the guard, Daly said. The guard told investigators that Degorski lunged at him, Daly said.
Philip Mullane, a supervisor in the Cook County public defender’s office, disputed that claim.
“The guard attacked him unprovoked,” he said. “He was attacked by the sheriff’s employee for no reason whatsoever.”
Mullane said Degorski “did not defend himself because the attacker was in uniform.”
The first guard, who was standing a few feet away, grabbed Degorski and escorted him back to his cell, where he remained overnight.
“When the officer returned him to his cell, he indicated he was OK,” Daly said. He was also checked overnight and said he was fine, said Daly, adding that the supervisor on duty at the time of the incident was apparently not made aware of what happened.
Early Sunday, a new supervisor took over and reviewed reports and took note incident, Daly said. The supervisor interviewed Degorski about what happened, then called for paramedics to check him out.
He was taken to Cook County Hospital, where X-rays showed a fracture in his left cheekbone. He was taken back to his cell late Sunday afternoon.
Also on Monday, the grand jury appearance of the husband of a key witness was called off because he has come under heavy media attention, sources said.
Sources said the man, who is in the process of divorcing witness Eileen Bakalla, was to testify that he had been told the basics of the case in 1998, shortly before he was married, but did not come forward because he wanted to protect his wife.
According to police sources, Bakalla picked up Degorski and Luna after the slayingsand provided Luna with an alibi.
Hero or not?
The husband is one of at least seven people who knew details of the case but did not come forward until recently. Authorities say the secret was kept longest by Bakalla and the other chief witness, Anne Lockett, Degorski’s girlfriend at the time of the killings, who said she was afraid to come forward.
Authorities have been careful not to cast the witnesses as anything but helpful, even calling Lockett a hero for her eventual cooperation.
But the victims’ families disagree and have raised questions about who should receive more than $80,000 in reward money.
“`Hero’ is a bad choice of words,” said Diane Clayton, the mother of slain restaurant employee Marcus Nellsen.
Dana Sampson, daughter of slain restaurant owners Richard and Lynn Ehlenfeldt, and other relatives of the victims said the money should be donated to charity in the name of the victims.
Frank Portillo, president of Brown’s Chicken & Pasta, said he will refuse to make good his pledge of $25,000 to the reward fund if the intention is to give it to people who didn’t come forward for nearly a decade.
Palatine Village Council member Jack Wagner, other village officials and some investigators and relatives say the reward should go to another woman, who overheard Lockett talking about the case and phoned police in March to tip off investigators to what Lockett knew, authorities said.
Police miscommunication
Also Monday, Luna’s wife and police in Carpentersville, where the Lunas live, said Palatine police were so tight-lipped about their arrest of Luna last week that his family and local police feared he might have been abducted.
Palatine police did not notify their Carpentersville counterparts that they planned to arrest Luna, according to Carpentersville police. So police there spent hours Thursday investigating Luna’s whereabouts, checking for witnesses and calling other departments to make sure Luna had not been arrested, Carpentersville Lt. Anthony De Pippo said.
One of the phone calls went to Palatine police, who said they did not have Luna in custody. The department later called back to say Luna had been arrested, De Pippo said.
De Pippo said police agencies normally try to cooperate with each other, but that he understood the pressure Palatine police were under. “This was not a typical case,” he said.
