Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s administration presented a confusing picture Wednesday of what his office knew about a woman who received a criminal pardon from the governor in 2007, even as her school received a $1 million state grant to reopen after being burned out of the Pilgrim Baptist Church.
Blagojevich ducked out of a news conference Wednesday morning without answering questions about why he granted the pardon to Chandra N. Gill, who at the time was working with state officials to obtain the grant for the Loop Lab School. The school had rented space at the church until it was gutted in a 2006 fire.
William Quinlan, general counsel to the governor, told reporters that the January 2007 pardon for Gill “had absolutely nothing to do” with the school’s request for grant money and that the governor’s office learned of the link between Gill and the school only “recently.”
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On Wednesday, the Tribune reported that the connection to the school was at the heart of her 2006 request for the pardon.
Quinlan later said he forwarded the recommendation of the Illinois Prisoner Review Board to the governor to pardon her without reading Gill’s full petition, in which she stated her connection to the school and made reference to the then-pending $1 million grant.
“I didn’t mean to mislead anyone,” Quinlan said.
The governor’s office later issued a statement saying Blagojevich did not know about Gill’s connection to the school when he approved her pardon and the expungement of her aggravated battery conviction for a 2002 fight with an Urbana police officer. Abby Ottenhoff, spokeswoman for the governor, said Blagojevich was swayed by her “good works,” including obtaining a PhD from the University of Illinois.
“She clearly showed that she was improving her life and doing good things with her life,” Ottenhoff said.
In her August 2006 petition for clemency, Gill said she was a volunteer at Loop Lab School but could not assume a full-time administrative position held open for her at the school unless her felony record was expunged.
“I perform administrative duties [at Loop Lab School] and am currently responsible for securing the necessary funds to help rebuild the school,” Gill wrote, after pointing out that Loop Lab School was the school forced out by the recent fire in Pilgrim Baptist Church. After the fire, Blagojevich publicly had declared his intent to help the church recover by steering state grants in its direction.
In her request, Gill mentions her conversations with the state Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity over the grant. Exhibit 1 of her petition is a June 7, 2006, memorandum from DCEO that refers to the $1 million grant. Though there are several other letters written on her behalf enclosed in the petition, including one from Rev. Jesse Jackson, the DCEO reference is the only one she notes specifically as she outlines her reasons for seeking the pardon.
In separate documentation from DCEO in November, 2006 — a month after Gill’s pardon and expungement hearing — the $1 million grant is signed off to Loop Lab School at its new 318 W. Adams St. address in Chicago. Chandra Gill is listed as the school’s administrator to receive the funds. She received her pardon Jan. 23, 2007, in between the first and second disbursements of the grant.
The school had already been on the state’s radar.
In July 2006, the Illinois Department of Human Rights issued a decision saying the school and its personnel director should pay $40,000 to a kindergarten teacher who alleged she was sexually harassed and degraded by the personnel director, a relative of Gill.
The teacher, who was paid $16.50 an hour and hired in 2000, claimed that personnel director Tyrone Johnson shoved a candy bar between her legs, touched her pants zipper and buttocks and twice tried to put his hand inside her shirt.
The teacher said that when she complained to school director Elmira Mayes — whom Gill identified as an aunt in her pardon request — Mayes “suggested that perhaps the school needed only one kindergarten teacher.” The kindergarten teacher resigned.
Blagojevich on Wednesday once again defended the grant while calling it a bureaucratic mistake.
“If we find out — and we’re hopeful — that this school that is in question is providing good services to kids, then we’re happy that they get an extra million dollars to educate kids,” Blagojevich said.
The governor has said he will seek to send a second $1 million grant for the church to rebuild its administration center, which is used for children’s, senior citizen and other social programs.
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