When Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx ran for reelection in 2020, her opponents portrayed her record on pursuing corruption over the previous four years as lackluster.
Of the more than 60 people charged in “corruption-related cases” during Foxx’s first term, many involved low-level government workers accused of relatively small offenses, public employees accused of off-duty misdeeds and people accused of trying to bribe police officers, records show.
There also were more than a dozen Chicago-area cops charged with misconduct and several elected officials, among them a state lawmaker charged with a misdemeanor over a gun discovered during a traffic stop.
None of Foxx’s prosecutions involved heavy-hitters of the sort pursued by her counterparts in the U.S. attorney’s office — such as former Ald. Edward Burke, who once hosted a campaign fundraiser for Foxx at his Southwest Side home and recently was sentenced to two years in prison as part of a federal corruption case.
Foxx's record on pursuing corruption in her second and final term in office — she’s not seeking reelection — is similar, records show.
Asked to provide records on corruption cases initiated between 2020 and 2024, Foxx’s office provided a list of nearly 50 people who had been charged as of late April.
About half of them were police and jail guards charged with misconduct, including Chicago cops accused of beating suspects and wrongfully shooting at people, a south suburban cop accused of rigging a photo lineup and Cook County correctional officers accused of roughing up detainees.
Some of those law enforcement figures were convicted. The charges against others were later reduced, some were acquitted, and some are still facing prosecution — including a now-fired University of Chicago police sergeant accused of groping and harassing a colleague in 2021 and an Oak Lawn officer accused of punching a teenage suspect during a 2022 arrest.
Other corruption cases Foxx’s office says it handled over the last four years included those involving:
Foxx declined to comment.
Aides to the state's attorney say the information that office provided on corruption cases wasn't an “exhaustive list” because corruption can be defined in different ways and the office doesn’t track corruption investigations.
For example, the list didn't include the prosecution of a Harvey schools employee for stealing more than $1 million in chicken wings and other food from the south suburban district nor and a case against an administrator at a Near West Side school accused of of embezzling thousands of dollars.
“We’ve also been charging individuals forging documents for court orders,” says David Williams, a supervisor in the state’s attorney’s unit that handles corruption.
Foxx has said in the past that, for the state's attorney's office, "Violent crime is our No. 1 priority,” and federal authorities are often better suited to tackle larger-scale corruption because of tougher federal laws and greater resources. Foxx's aides say the agency works behind the scenes with federal authorities.
The Republican candidate running in the November election to replace Foxx, former Ald. Bob Fioretti, ran unsuccessfully for state’s attorney in 2020 as a Democrat. As was the case in 2020, one of Fioretti's current objectives is to increase the focus on prosecuting corruption. His campaign website says the office “has ignored its duty to eliminate corruption” and he has questioned whether Foxx has gone easy on political players because her mentor is Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, who runs the Cook County Democratic Party.
Williams says that, “As these cases come in, they’re aggressively pursued” no matter who’s involved and “wherever it goes.”
In November, Democrat Eileen O'Neill Burke, a former Illinois Appellate Court Judge, will also be on the ballot. Asked about her views on prosecuting corruption, a spokeswoman for the candidate says: “Along with aggressively addressing violent crime and building upon restorative justice efforts, Justice Eileen O’Neill Burke will make public corruption a top priority in the state’s attorney’s office. Any elected official or public employee who breaks the law and abuses the public trust will be vigorously prosecuted.”
