From the federal prison camp where he is serving a 9-year sentence for mob-linked corruption schemes, Cicero’s former police chief has waged a 2-year court battle to force the town to pay him retirement benefits.
This summer, things seem to be breaking Emil Schullo’s way.
In an unusual move, the Cicero Police Pension Board last month decided to reopen Schullo’s case and consider whether to restore the retirement benefits revoked after his conviction.
If a rehearing does go forward–whatever its outcome–it would mark a victory for the once-powerful public safety director who was imprisoned for bribery and racketeering schemes that cost the town more than $6 million.
Municipal pension boards such as the one that oversees Cicero police retirement benefits typically do not reopen cases unless ordered to do so by a court, and so the Cicero board’s decision to reconsider Schullo’s 2003 benefits is “very unusual,” said town Pension Board attorney Mathias Delort, a municipal law specialist.
Board members would not comment on why they are now willing to reconsider Schullo’s benefits. But the decision may reflect changes since 2003 in the makeup of the town’s five-person panel, with new members coming on who are seen as sympathetic to the former chief.
“This is a new board,” Delort said.
Among the trustees joining since 2003 is Cicero police Sgt. Lori Lelis, who once wrote a letter to the court expressing “disagreement in the outcome of benefits being taken away from Emil Schullo.” Lelis did not return calls seeking comment.
Recently elected Cicero Town President Larry Dominick, a longtime friend of Schullo’s, appointed two other board members. As first deputy superintendent of police in 2003, Dominick also wrote a court letter on Schullo’s behalf, saying, “the Pension Board did not present any evidence as to why Mr. Schullo should lose his pension.”
Dominick had been a Pension Board member when the Schullo case was originally decided in 2003. He abstained from voting on the matter then because of his friendship with the former chief.
But town spokesman Dan Proft said Dominick was not behind the new move to reconsider Schullo’s benefits.
“Larry didn’t know anything about any of this. He was unaware that the Schullo pension issue had been revisited,” Proft said. “The Pension Board operates independently, so there is no influence being exerted by the town president’s office. We’ll stand behind whatever the Pension Board decides.”
Unsuccessfully opposing Schullo’s rehearing was Pension Board trustee Robert Pollack, who since 1981 has been elected as a representative of retired police officers.
“You don’t like to take [a pension] away from anyone, but you have to sever friendships,” Pollack said in an interview. “There were too many little things” wrong with Schullo’s petition, Pollack said. “I see a one-sided thing here.”
To be freed in 2011
Housed in a Duluth, Minn., federal prison camp, the 58-year-old Schullo is slated for release in January 2011, according to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons Web site. His lawyers did not respond to requests for comment.
Schullo’s police retirement benefits were terminated in 2003 after he was convicted of taking kickbacks for steering a town contract to a private investigation firm secretly owned by reputed Cicero mob boss Michael Spano Sr.
The dollar amount of Schullo’s police retirement benefits was not spelled out in records examined by the Tribune, but four current and former board members and attorneys said Schullo stands to gain an estimated $5,000 to $6,000 a month.
The Cicero board’s decision to rehear Schullo’s petition was unexpected because the Town Board seemed to be prevailing against him in court: In March 2005, the 1st District Appellate Court affirmed the board’s 2003 decision to revoke Schullo’s retirement benefits.
Schullo later filed a petition for leave to appeal with the Illinois Supreme Court. But the Supreme Court, which accepts only about 5 percent of such petitions, has not decided whether to hear his case.
With his Supreme Court petition pending, Schullo’s representatives opened a separate dialogue with members of the Pension Board. In July, Schullo submitted a two-page “motion for rehearing” to the board, recapping arguments he had made in court and asserting that he didn’t get a fair hearing in 2003.
On July 14, Cicero’s Police Pension Board authorized Delort to craft a settlement with Schullo. Under the settlement, Delort said, Schullo will withdraw his petition for a state Supreme Court hearing, and the board will file a supporting motion with the court. If the Supreme Court agrees to dismiss Schullo’s petition, Cicero’s five-person board will then rehear his case, Delort said.
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The legal debate over Schullo’s benefits hangs on a seemingly simple question: Was he acting as a police official when he engaged in felonies? State law prohibits paying out retirement benefits to police officials who acted in the line of duty when committing crimes.
Under Cicero’s form of government, Schullo’s title was director of public safety, which put him in charge of the Police, Fire and Health Departments. Schullo asserts that he was fulfilling non-police duties when he helped Spano’s firm investigate whether certain Cicero police officers were complying with town residency rules.
A Circuit Court judge sided with Schullo, but the Appellate Court overruled him, saying Schullo’s offenses were committed while he was director of public safety–a job that expressly put him in charge of the Police Department. The Appellate Court cited the testimony of Assistant U.S. Atty. Mitchell Mars, who testified at a 2003 Cicero pension hearing that trial evidence showed Schullo used his police position to carry out crimes.
Federal wiretaps
Schullo met with a liaison from Spano’s investigative firm in the office he used as chief of police, Mars testified. A police radio could be heard crackling on federal wiretaps, and Schullo responded to a couple of radio calls during the meetings, Mars said. Schullo provided the investigator with confidential information from police personnel files–files he could access only because of his police position.
The Appellate Court also noted that Schullo filed a 2001 civil lawsuit to have the Town of Cicero pay his attorneys’ fees in the criminal case. In that lawsuit, Schullo asserted that he was doing his duty as director of public safety when he took part in the police residency investigation.
In a final wrinkle to this unorthodox case, it is not clear whether Schullo’s pension benefits would ultimately flow to him and his family, as he desires, or be seized by the federal government.
As part of the sentences imposed after two corruption trials, federal judges ordered Schullo to pay the Town of Cicero restitution totaling more than $6 million.
U.S. attorney’s office spokesman Randall Samborn declined to comment on what steps the government might take if Schullo’s benefits were restored, “because of the pending nature of the matter.”
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