Town Hall District police Officer Pierre Zonis has been reinstated to the department, ending a nearly two-year Police Board case.
In a 5-3 decision, the board ruled that Zonis had broken department rules by failing to mention on his job application that he had been arrested but not convicted of gambling in the past. But the board said Zonis had been punished enough by being suspended without pay during the 23-month hearing, and ordered him returned to the force.
“Much of the department’s case was based on innuendo,” the majority wrote in the 16-page decision released Wednesday. The three board members who dissented recommended that Zonis be fired.
“I’m happy to go back to work. I want to be a police officer until I retire,” Zonis said in an interview at the Rogers Park auto repair shop he runs in addition to his police duties. “I always felt justice would be served, and it was.”
City Law Department spokeswoman Jennifer Hoyle said the city was “disappointed with the decision and considering an appeal.”
Meanwhile, Mayor Richard Daley on Wednesday celebrated a federal magistrate’s recommendation to toss out allegations of police corruption made by retired Chicago police official Raymond Risley, now police chief of Country Club Hills.
Speaking after a Wednesday City Council meeting, Daley told reporters to take U.S. Magistrate Judge Edward A. Bobrick’s recommendation and “read it and underline it.”
“I know I will get some great articles in the newspapers,” Daley added sarcastically.
Risley had charged in court pleadings that his efforts to root out organized crime influence in the department were stalled by colleagues who spied on him in retaliation for his probes. He had attached his allegations to a still-active 1974 “Red Squad” police spying case. But in a March 9 report and recommendation, Bobrick wrote that Risley’s court filing was “replete with flaws that dictate its dismissal.”
Bobrick’s recommendation will be taken up by U.S. District Judge Joan B. Gottschall after objections have been filed by Risley’s attorney, Kenneth Dobbs, later this month.
Zonis, 48, came under investigation soon after he entered the police academy as a recruit in 1994. Acting on tips that Zonis had met with gambling figures, police investigators put him under surveillance, sorted through his garbage and examined records for evidence of a criminal background. They also asked Evanston detectives to question him to see if he would report the interview to Chicago officials, and he did not.
The internal police probe ended in September 1995, when Risley, who was then commander of internal affairs, decided there wasn’t enough proof to file charges against Zonis.
The case was reopened in 1997 after the Chicago Crime Commission alleged Zonis had associated with organized crime figures–a charge Zonis denied. After a second investigation, police lawyers suspended Zonis in April 1998. Department lawyers charged he failed to mention on his job application that he had been arrested for misdemeanor gambling in 1985, and also failed to say that he had been questioned in three murder investigations.
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Zonis argued that he did not need to mention the 1985 misdemeanor gambling charge because it had been dismissed and expunged, and he said he did not mention the murder probes because detectives never told him he was considered a suspect or a witness.
The board’s decision means Zonis can start work Thursday.