For years Sandra Alvarado was a top aide, spokeswoman and girlfriend to one of the area’s most controversial mayors. Then last month she abruptly quit and said Harvey officials ran a “dangerous organization” that routinely ignored illegal acts.
In an about-face for someone who spent a decade defending the suburb in scandal after scandal, Alvarado sent a scathing email to Mayor Eric Kellogg and other top aides in which she implied that she was now speaking with outside investigators.
“Where can individuals that are elected, appointed or hired to service the public, behave lawlessly? … In the City of Harvey, that’s where,” Alvarado wrote in the email last month, adding that city officials “are aware of illegal and immoral acts and do absolutely nothing about it.”
Alvarado quit as federal, state and county authorities have increased scrutiny of a suburb that a Tribune investigation in February found was arguably the most lawless place in the region. Sammie Young, who oversees community service officers in Harvey, recently told the Tribune that some officials had been “running around scared” amid fears Alvarado was talking with the FBI.
State and Cook County officials have started combing through the town’s financial records as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigates borrowing tied to a botched hotel deal that cost taxpayers at least $10 million.
Earlier this year, the Tribune documented how state and federal officials for years failed to use their full authority to force reforms in a town that’s paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars to insiders as it nears insolvency while employing officers with checkered pasts on a police force swimming in unsolved violent crimes.
The questionable actions by outside agencies included an undercover FBI agent, posing as a strip club manager, who records show stuffed a campaign committee with $140,000 that helped re-elect Kellogg in 2007. The FBI has declined to say why.
Kellogg has declined to specifically address his former spokeswoman’s allegations or release any documents related to her resignation, including the email. That’s despite the Tribune’s requesting the records four weeks ago. Under state law, agencies have two weeks to release records. The Tribune obtained the resignation email elsewhere.
As a member of Kellogg’s inner circle, Alvarado has been at the forefront of city dealings since she rose from a Police Department secretary to become the mayor’s public relations director and the police chief’s top assistant in 2003. Through her attorney, she also acknowledged having a romantic relationship with Kellogg for nine years, through early 2012.
Over the years, Alvarado defended Harvey to the media when questions arose about Kellogg hiring officers with sketchy backgrounds, lawsuits accused the suburb of condoning corruption or brutality, and county officials raided the Police Department to find long-ignored evidence that let killers and rapists roam free.
But April 18, she wrote an email to the mayor and other city officials in which she said, “I must walk away from a dangerous organization. … I have had enough.”
The email offers a critique of the administration in which she said she “endured a relentless assault of slander, pressure and adversity and death threats” while doing her job.
She said Denard Eaves — who has carried the title of acting police chief for six years — is “regularly threatened and belittled by leaders of the organization.”
She said the mayor has phone conferences to “threaten and insult” employees.
Eaves referred questions to the man who took over Alvarado’s duties, Sean Howard.
Howard, speaking on behalf of the mayor, issued a statement that said the city takes all allegations seriously, does not condone wrongdoing and wishes Alvarado “the best in her future endeavors.”
In her email, Alvarado said Young, who has advised the mayor on public safety issues, has been allowed to “openly and brazenly” threaten people.
Young told the Tribune he’s never threatened anyone and welcomed an outside investigation in Harvey. He said that in recent years he was often at odds with Alvarado, including an argument the week she quit over whether she or Young would get to move into a certain office. Young said she quit after the mayor sided with him.
Alvarado declined to comment except through her attorney, Patrick Walsh. He did not elaborate on her allegations except to say she is considering filing a lawsuit and sent the email “because she was concerned for her well-being and physical safety.” He said Alvarado did not want the email to become public, but he would not say if she’s spoken with county, state or federal law enforcement.
In the final paragraph of her email, however, she wrote without elaboration: “Someone has listened.”
In the next sentence, she cited unidentified attachments and said her city-owned car could be picked up 10 miles away at an address in Orland Park.
The address: a building that houses the south suburban field office for the FBI.
Tribune reporter Joe Mahr contributed.
