Former Lake County Coroner Thomas Rudd faces trial July 10 after a Lake County judge on Tuesday denied a motion to dismiss election-related perjury charges against him.
Rudd was charged with perjury based on allegations that he signed several election petition pages for the 2016 primary without having collected the signatures himself. The motion, filed by defense attorney Jed Stone, sought to dismiss the charges on statutory grounds.
In a brief hearing and ruling Tuesday afternoon, Circuit Court Judge Victoria Rossetti denied Stone’s petitions and his assertions that the charges violated Illinois statutes with regard to perjury.
“We’re disappointed with the ruling today, and I’m convinced there are trial issues in this area,” Stone said after the hearing. He then repeated his assertion that the charges were motivated by resentment among law enforcement and prosecutors about positions Rudd has taken in the past regarding high-profile criminal cases in Lake County.
“I don’t believe Dr. Rudd is a perjurer,” Stone said. “I’m convinced the only reason he was charged is he spoke truth to power, and power responded by slapping him.”
Rudd has declined to comment on the case on Stone’s advice.
“I’m pleased with the ruling of the court,” said Brian Towne with the Illinois Appellate Prosecutor’s Office, who is prosecuting the case against Rudd. “I think the judge is well-versed in the law.”
Towne was appointed to avoid conflict because Rudd was coroner at the time of the alleged crime. The Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office represents elected countywide officials while in office.
Stone had argued in his motion and in court that prosecutors should have been barred from charging Rudd because he withdrew from the election after his petitions were challenged in late 2015. He said under Illinois law, someone involved in a trial will not be charged with perjury if they change their testimony to reflect accuracy because the courts want truthful testimony.
Stone said he viewed the period from petition filing through the election as a continuous “trial action.”
Towne said the actions of Rudd in preparation for filing election petitions were not part of a trial action in his view, and that he withdrew from the election the night before a hearing on challenges to his petitions after he was “caught with his hands in the proverbial cookie jar.”
Rossetti said statutes are clear that the filing of election petitions is a separate action from the election itself, and denied the motion after briefly explaining that.
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Rossetti scheduled June 27 for the hearing of any further pretrial motions, and Rudd’s trial remains scheduled for July 10.
A group of supporters have rallied behind Rudd and Stone’s assertions of retaliation, and several were present in court Tuesday as they have been at all of Rudd’s hearings to date.
During his term in office, Rudd had run-ins with law enforcement officials, particularly in regard to high-profile cases such as that of Melissa Calusinski, the day care worker whose conviction of the murder of a boy in her care has drawn controversy, and the self-inflicted shooting death of Fox Lake police Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz.
Rudd was the first county official to publicly suggest that Gliniewicz killed himself while investigators were still calling the case a homicide investigation. In the case against Caluskinski, he has maintained that medical records demonstrate she was not at fault.
Rudd, 70, has pleaded not guilty to five counts of perjury stemming from allegations that he committed perjury by signing election petitions that were collected by others, not himself.
Election law requires that the person who circulates a nominating petition must sign each page to attest that the signatures were witnessed and are valid.
Rudd withdrew his Democratic candidacy after the allegations surfaced, but well before he was indicted on the charges. He ran unsuccessfully in the general election as a write-in candidate.
Prosecutors and Lake County Sheriff’s Office officials have strongly denied that there was anything political about the grand jury indictments against Rudd.
Rudd, free on bond, faces a potential sentencing ranging from probation to five years in prison if he is convicted.