Lawyers for a Joliet businessman once awarded more than $600,000 for a small strip of land were told Wednesday by the chief judge of Will County to produce an appraisal for that property.
Judge Herman Haase ordered an attorney for I.L. “Lou” Strojin to show up in court on June 7 with a document to prove that the 3,093-square-foot parcel taken by the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) for a road-widening project was indeed worth $600,000.
Joliet attorney Michael Martin, who represents IDOT in the legal battle, contended that one of Strojin’s lawyers, Robert Mankivsky, was on the record as insisting such an appraisal existed.
“I want that appraisal,” Martin told Haase.
But West Chicago attorney Sam Filippo, who aided Mankivsky on one other occasion during the lengthy legal process, and who received permission from Haase to withdraw from the case, said Wednesday that he knew nothing about such a document.
Strojin was originally awarded $52,500 for the property, but two years ago, Haase signed an order awarding $662,670 for the land based on Mankivsky’s pleadings and failure of a lawyer for IDOT to appear.