Charles R. Amrich, mayor of northwest suburban Island Lake for 20 years until he left office in 2005, was charged Thursday with five felony counts of allegedly pocketing thousands of dollars by ordering all village-owned vehicles to be serviced and fueled at a gas station he owned, authorities said.
Former Village Clerk Christine Becker was charged separately for allegedly deleting financial records from a village-owned computer shortly after she lost her re-election bid in April 2005.
She faces two felony counts — one of official misconduct and one of computer tampering, authorities said.
Amrich, 59, was arrested by Lake County sheriff’s deputies at his home in the 800 block of River Oaks Court about 9 a.m. Thursday.
He was ordered freed on a $100,000 personal recognizance bond after a brief hearing in Waukegan before Associate Judge Theodore Potkonjak.
The judge rejected Amrich’s request for a public defender and set a July 13 court date for Amrich to appear in court with a private attorney.
Becker, who surrendered to authorities after learning of the criminal charges filed against her, was ordered freed on a $50,000 personal recognizance bond. She also was ordered to return to court July 13.
Christen Bishop, chief of the special investigations unit of the Lake County state’s attorney’s office, said the official misconduct charges against Amrich stem from his ownership of Amrich’s Island Lake Auto Service Inc. on State Road during the time he served as mayor from 1985 to 2005.
He did not seek re-election in 2005.
From at least January 1996 through April 2005, Amrich allegedly directed that village-owned vehicles, including police squad cars, be serviced and fueled at his gasoline station, financially benefiting the mayor, according to a criminal information complaint issued by the state’s attorney’s office.
“The bottom line is … you can’t use your personal business as a public official to receive a benefit,” Bishop said.
Amrich also allegedly failed to list his financial interest in the service station on economic disclosure statements as Illinois law requires, authorities said.
“The residents didn’t realize he was getting this money,” Bishop said.
Bishop said the investigation at Village Hall began after the town’s current clerk, Christine Kaczmarek, was unable to retrieve financial information from a village-owned computer that previously had been used by Becker, who worked as a full-time staffer at Village Hall for 10 years before winning election as clerk.
A forensic examination of the computer subsequently determined that two days after she lost her bid for re-election, Becker allegedly erased “numerous” files that contained information about village business, Bishop said.
Kaczmarek realized the files had been deleted when she took over the clerk’s job in May 2005, Bishop said.
Approached at home by investigators in June 2006, Becker allegedly admitted that she had deleted certain files, but refused to divulge additional information, Bishop said.
As of Thursday, Amrich and Becker have been charged separately in unrelated cases, but the investigation is continuing, Bishop said.
Amrich began leasing his service station to a local businessman in November 2000. The station no longer sells gasoline but does service vehicles, including Island Lake police cars, village officials said.
The village has contracts with two of the three gas stations in the town of 9,000 to buy fuel for its fleet of about 25 vehicles for its police, public works and water departments, according to village Finance Director John Little.
The village budgeted about $110,000 this year to cover those costs, he said.
Tom Hyde, who succeeded Amrich as mayor, declined to comment on the investigation except to say, “We’re very saddened by the charges. I’m sure that Mayor Amrich and Christine Becker will work through the charges and what is will be fixed.”
Hyde, a former trustee, had run for mayor on a promise to strictly enforce the state-mandated ethics policy at Village Hall, which he frequently complained had been a hotbed of nepotism and cronyism.
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