The top deputy in the Lake County prosecutor’s office is taking a temporary position as senior counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee.
The new assignment for Jeffrey Pavletic, second in command to Lake County State’s Attorney Michael Waller, comes as House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde assembles a task force that may examine independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s evidence against President Clinton.
Hyde (R-Ill.) and House Speaker Newt Gingrich have discussed the possibility of examining Starr’s evidence if the independent counsel advises the House of “substantial, credible evidence tending toward impeachment,” Hyde said last week.
Pavletic is expected to be on leave from Waller’s office for at least six months.
“It’s a very interesting time to be involved with the House Judiciary Committee,” Waller said. “I’m going to miss Jeff, and I think we’re all going to miss him, but it’s a good opportunity for him.”
Efforts to reach Pavletic for comment on Wednesday were unsuccessful.
George Strickland, chief of the felony division and perhaps Waller’s most prolific prosecutor, will assume Pavletic’s position. Strickland, with the office since 1984, previously was head of special investigations.
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Mike Mermel, who heads Waller’s drug prosecution unit, will fill in for Strickland. He has been with the office since 1990, and before that worked in the Cook County state’s attorney’s office for 14 years.
Pavletic has been in the state’s attorney’s office since 1983. He had been involved in the retrial of Juan Rivera, convicted of killing 11-year-old Holly Staker in 1993.
Rivera’s conviction was overturned by the Illinois Appellate Court in 1996 and a new trial is scheduled to start April 20.
Matthew Chancey, a former assistant state’s attorney with nearly two decades of prosecutorial experience, has been appointed a special prosecutor to handle the retrial of Rivera, of Waukegan. Chancey, who resigned shortly after Pavletic was named chief deputy in 1995, prosecuted Rivera in the first trial.
Waller announced the personnel changes in the criminal division in a departmental correspondence earlier this week.
He added that it is “good that there are people going to Washington from outside the Beltway that are going to be involved in the decision-making process in pretty important issues.”
“It speaks well of the office that Jeff would be selected for this position,” Waller said.