Gov. JB Pritzker on Friday named the chief of staff of the Illinois Prisoner Review Board as its next executive director, a position created two years ago after the board faced a firestorm of criticism.
Melissa Brandenburg, of Sangamon County, will succeed Jim Montgomery, pending Senate confirmation, according to the governor’s office. Montgomery left the post after Pritzker appointed him last month to lead the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.
Brandenburg previously was a supervising investigator in the state’s executive inspector general’s office. Before that, she was a probation officer in Christian and Vermilion counties, according to the governor’s office.
In 2024, Pritzker created the position of executive director and appointed Montgomery to the post with a mandate to expand domestic violence training for board members.
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The appointment followed the board’s controversial decision allowing Crosetti Brand to be released from state custody just a day before he stabbed Laterria Smith, a pregnant woman with whom he had recently rekindled a relationship, and killed her 11-year-old son, Jayden Perkins, in Chicago. Brand was convicted and sentenced to life in prison last year.
Criticism of the Prisoner Review Board has not reached that same fever pitch since 2024. But the controversies that preceded Montgomery’s appointment were still fresh in some state senators’ minds this spring as they considered appointing new board members.
In addition to expanding domestic violence training for board members, Montgomery at the time was tasked with organizing the board’s “equity-based” training, overseeing its administrative functions and reducing the board chair’s workload. The executive director is not a board member.
The board will determine Brandenburg’s salary, according to the governor’s office. Montgomery made $169,400 in the position in 2025, according to the state comptroller’s office. Brandenburg’s term has no expiration date.
Neither Brandenburg nor a board spokesperson immediately provided responses to a request for comment Friday afternoon.